Campaign donations and credit-card ‘vulnerability’

The conservative Government Accountability Institute has found that President Obama is accepting foreign campaign donations:

[T]he non-partisan group, Government Accountability Institute (GAI) released its 109 page report, the first ever analysis of election campaign donations issues called, “America the Vulnerable: Are Foreign and Fraudulent Online Campaign Contributions Influencing U.S. Elections?” raises indications the Obama campaign has potentially violated federal election law by failing to prevent the use of fraudulent or foreign credit card transactions on the official Obama for America [OFA] donation webpage. The use of the CVV number for donation transactions is non-existent by the Obama campaign among other suspicious activity.

This shouldn’t surprise anyone. It was reported widely in 2008, even by The New York Times, that the Obama campaign was using lax credit-card fraud rules to allow anonymous foreign donations.

The GAI’s report shows, by the way, that Romney’s campaign is using strict anti-fraud rules that prevent foreign donations. It also found that 47 percent of all members of Congress are using lax anti-fraud rules that make it possible for illegal donations to be made. The accounts of these members of Congress are termed “vulnerable” if susceptible to fraud (and illegal donations) and “protected” if not.

Here’s how North Carolina’s two senators and 10 incumbents running for re-election fared in the report:

UPDATE: Observers point out that Obama doesn’t require the Card Verification Value (those three numbers on the back) for political donations but he does for merchandise sold through his campaign website. Hmmmm.