April 10, 2012

Subject: Comment on File Number 4-637

The Citizens United decision has made it more important than ever for the SEC to issue a rule requiring publicly traded corporations to publicly disclose all their political spending. Ordinary citizens can't compete with the amount of money/speech these corporations have at their command so the least you can do for us is to make sure we can know exactly who is behind all that free "speech".

Please remember there is no absolute right to anonymous free speech. We all have to sign letters to the editor, include contact information when we sign petitions and many of us participate in caucus systems that require a public vote. Don't let them use the argument that requiring disclosure violates corporate persons' rights or the rights of the living breathing persons behind those corporations. It doesn't.

Our existence as self ruling citizens of a republic in which the people rule through representatives chosen via the democratic process is already in mortal danger because of the despicable, 5/4 conservative majority Citizens United decision. Until sanity prevails and it is overturned, we the people desperately need what little protection can be obtained from a guarantee of absolute transparency, no exceptions, no loopholes. Please don't leave us entirely defenseless.

Thank you,
Felice Sage
Littleton CO