While he likes to say that they spent a lot of time abiding by regulations, I would beg to differ. Cambridge Analytica did not even have a data protection officer until 2018, right before they shut down. I begged for one for many years. I begged for more time with our lawyers and was told I was creating too many invoices. And for a long time, because I had multiple law degrees, I was asked to write contracts. And so were other — I am not a leaver or a remoaner. I was living abroad from 1994 to 2018, in a far-flung outpost, many thousands of miles from the EU. (in a galaxy far, far away – holed up within an evil Empire and I played no part in the rebellion). I often thought of Star Wars as a conflict brewing much closer to home. The Russian and Chinese ‘dirty money’ being thrown like confetti onto the streets around Whitehall and Westminster is the real and future threat to our democracy and any investigative journalist within the hubbub of London life would know that. And those two powers are not right-wing activists/extremists from foreign shores; they are authoritarian regimes (the dark forces) and Putin is who? The Dark Vader?

CHRISTOPHER WYLIE: It’s incorrect to call Cambridge Analytica a purely sort of data science company or an algorithm company. You know, it is a full-service propaganda machine. Many forms of Government have been tried and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.’ Winston S Churchill, 11 November 1947 Democracy is in crisis, and unaccountable and untraceable flows of money are helping to destroy it. We found answers, but rarely those we had expected. The DUP’s advertising blitz was bankrolled by the biggest donation in Northern Irish history, routed through a secretive Scottish group linked to a former head of Saudi Arabian intelligence. The Vote Leave campaign – led by its ruthless chief strategist Dominic Cummings – broke electoral laws on overspending when it bought highly targeted Facebook adverts with a Canadian digital company that almost nobody had heard of. Arron Banks, an insurance broker with interests in gold mines and a sprawling business empire registered in tax havens around the world, had become the biggest campaign donor in British electoral history. Banks was eventually investigated – and exonerated – by the National Crime Agency, amid concerns about the sources of his record Brexit contributions.Do you want to know why Boris Johnson and Donald Trump won their elections or why Brexit was pushed through, well it wasn’t just down to you deciding where to put your cross in a box on a ballot paper.

British politics is comparatively low-spending, especially when set
against the United States, but there is plenty of evidence that the American model of hidden finance and clandestine influence has traversed the pond. Britain, as the London-based American political analyst Anne Applebaum notes, ‘has become a place where untransparent money, from unknown sources, is widely accepted with a complacent shrug’. The relatively small sums involved can make it even easier to get access to the top table of British politics. He highlights media bias from Fox News and other "right-wing" news outlets, but fails to mention the corrupt and bias of CNN, RTE, BBC or other far-left, Democrat-aligned media outlets (pps. 237-252). In fact, according to Geoghegan, the mighty BBC is a victim of Farage and Johnson who "cowed the BBC" (p.252). STEPHEN BANNON: All Cambridge Analytica is the data scientists and the applied applications here in the United States. It has nothing to do with the international stuff. The Guardian actually tells you that, and The Observer tell you that, when you get down to the 10th paragraph, OK? When you get down to the 10th paragraph. And what Nix does overseas is what Nix does overseas. Right? It was a data — it was a data company. Regulators err on the side of institutions, not the public they are supposed to protect. "In all the windows of government, the curtains have been closed".The Soros-funded Remoaner represents all that is wrong with the Fake News MSM. The book is astoundingly partisan and very badly referenced. The author quotes news media outlets as "sources" even when he highlights that the accused "right" (because it's only the "right" he condemns! EVERYONE is far-right!!) called this same source "Fake news". His approach is 'X says this is fake "fake news" but [Fake News source] said this ...' I'm not sure how quoting the fake news as the source is meant to prove the fake news is the truth. Geoghegan doesn't seem to understand primary and secondary sources (rookie mistake!) This book highlights that he is part of the problem of disinformation. To cite Bojo as a compulsive liar is hilarious. Let’s talk about Tony. Let’s chat about Dave. Let’s forget to mention the husbands of well-known liberal-minded journalists that gad about the big city. Many say, it’s what all politicians do: lie, lie and lie some more. I can’t believe there is any right-minded person in Britain that does not think that. The report emphasizes that "the bigger companies get, the more powerful they become. A large majority of Americans distrust concentrated economic power, and criticism of the world's largest companies is a regular part of discourse within America's political parties and around the world. Research has borne out the power of money in politics." AMY GOODMAN: I mean, it looks like Cambridge Analytica was heading to a billion-dollar corporation. This is the story of how money, vested interests and digital skulduggery are eroding trust in democracy. Antiquated electoral laws are broken with impunity, secretive lobbying is bending our politics out of shape and Silicon Valley tech giants collude in selling out democracy. Politicians lie gleefully, making wild claims that can be shared instantly with millions on social media.

British politics has a revolving door between government and the lobbying industry. A fifth of newly elected Tory MPs were lobbyists, and many prominent politicians have gone on to highly paid lobbyist positions. And by the way, Cruz’s campaign and the Trump campaign say, “Hey, they were a pretty good data company.” But this whole thing on psychographics was optionality in the deal. If it ever worked, it worked. But it hasn’t worked, and it doesn’t look like it’s going to work. So, it was never even applied. And the thing that’s terrifying is that while Cambridge has been disbanded, the same actors are out there. And there’s nothing has been — nothing has changed to allow us to start putting in place legislation to say there is something called information crimes. In this era of information warfare, in this era of information economies, what is an information crime? What does it look like? Who determines it? And yet, without that, we are still living in this unfiltered, unregulated space, where places like Facebook are continuing to choose profit over the protection of the republic. And I think that’s what’s so outrageous. Among the lessons Farage gleaned from Five Star was the electoral benefit of being seen as coming from outside traditional politics altogether.I am not sure if Democracy for sale is the correct title for this book. After reading it I feel as if Democracy has already been sold! BRITTANY KAISER: Yeah, Leave.EU, that panel that I was on, which has now become quite an infamous video, was their launch event to launch the campaign. And Cambridge Analytica was in deep negotiations, through introduction of Steve Bannon, with both of the Brexit campaigns. I was told, actually, originally we pitched remain, and the remain side said that they did not need to spend money on expensive political consultants, because they were going to win anyway. And that’s actually what I also truly believed, and so did they. As politics becomes increasingly voracious of time and occupies more and more space on digital media, the scope for hidden influence through spending outside