Lawrence Lessig writes about concerns he has with Hillary Clinton’s lobbyist support - and her lack of support for the free culture movement. He points out that some of the worst changes in copyright law came under her husband (like the Sonny Bono Act, DMCA, and NET Act). Recently, she’s defended the fact that much of her funding comes from lobbyists, though she is keen to point out that won’t influence her in any way. He says:
I don’t doubt that at one level, Senator Clinton believes — like every politician who takes money in a campaign, or every law professor who takes money to testify for some policy or another — that her judgments are not being influenced by that money. But I also can’t believe that she doesn’t also understand that at some level, this simply can’t be true. A good politician develops a 6th sense about how her actions will play. Some of these reactions we want her to be sensitive to — that’s why this is a democracy. But it impossible to believe that politicians spending 40% to 70% of their time raising funds to get elected don’t begin to factor into their decisions a sense about how their decisions will burden their opportunities to raise money. Not that it always trumps. But like water in a basement, it obviously eventually corrodes.
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