Hard-Nosed Advice From Veteran Lobbyist: ‘Win Ugly or Lose Pretty’ by Eric Lipton.
By way of explanation, Richard Berman was secretly recorded making a pitch to energy companies, which is described as follows in the story:
Mr. Berman repeatedly boasted about how he could take checks from the oil and gas industry executives — he said he had already collected six-figure contributions from some of the executives in the room — and then hide their role in funding his campaigns.
“People always ask me one question all the time: ‘How do I know that I won’t be found out as a supporter of what you’re doing?’ ” Mr. Berman told the crowd. “We run all of this stuff through nonprofit organizations that are insulated from having to disclose donors. There is total anonymity. People don’t know who supports us.”
Given all the data leaks from the NSA and others, I doubt Berman’s claim of “…total anonymity….” It would take more than searching the WWW, but unravel one campaign or donor and the seeds of doubt would be placed for all the others.
If you need incentive, Berman has been described as “…a despicable human being.”
It would make a nice demonstration of topic maps as a tool for breaking “…total anonymity….”