Political Action Committees

A political action committee (PAC) is a privately organized group assembled for the purpose of raising and distributing funding for political campaigns in the United States. For the purpose of this entry, attention will be focused on the PACs that have a vested interest in swaying public support and congressional votes with regard to surveillance and security. This entry first details the spending limits and other restrictions applied to PACs and their spin-offs, then describes the involvement of PACs specifically related to defense contracting and telecommunications, and concludes with a review of how privacy and other issues can be affected by the influence and spending of PACs.

Various limits on campaign finance have been implemented since the post–Watergate era when the U.S. Congress established the role ...