Recent media coverage of musical performing artist Rozonda “Chilli” Thomas of the 90s trio TLC has treated a minor set of personal political contributions as a matter of public controversy.

According to reports, Chilli donated a little over $1,000 total to political committees backing Republicans or supporting Donald Trump. That figure, spread across 17 transactions over the course of a year, is a modest sum. Yet it has been enough to trigger headlines, social media backlash, and demands for explanation.

In response to the pressure, Thomas posted on her Instagram that she “made a mistake” and thought she was supporting veterans. Whether one accepts her explanation or writes it off as a convenient excuse to deflect scrutiny misses the crucial point: why are such low-level political donations public in the first place?

Under current law, contributions to a candidate exceeding $200 in an election cycle puts your name, address, employer and occupation in a public online database forever. A contribution over $200 to a PAC during a calendar year will likewise permanently log your private information until the end of time. And when you give via WinRed or ActBlue, there’s a zero-dollar threshold for publicizing your personal identifying details due to a conduit reporting requirement that we think is unconstitutional.

The United States Supreme Court has traditionally recognized three government interests in upholding disclosure laws: enforcement, anti-corruption, and informational.

Public disclosure is not necessary for the government to enforce campaign contribution limits because the Federal Election Commission can examine that information privately. Similarly, no one in their right mind thinks a little over a grand to three different entities has a corrupting influence on policymakers or even plausibly has the appearance of corruption. We are then left with the alleged “informational interest” rationale, which, as it turns out, is a heaping pile of garbage.

Institute for Free Speech Academic Advisor and University of Rochester professor David Primo has extensively studied the “informational interest” in disclosure. His research demonstrates that contribution data has few marginal benefits for voters, who rarely use or benefit from such reporting.

Anti-privacy groups generally argue these requirements help voters understand patterns. But knowing about a handful of low-level contributions from a citizen—especially one who is not a major donor or a lobbyist—is not useful to voters.

Instead, activists abuse the data to imagine patterns where they don’t exist and sacrifice Americans’ privacy and associational freedom to manufacture harebrained and dubious connections.

But it’s entirely possible that there’s a secret conspiracy of other 90s stars giving low level amounts to the same political groups and it’s imperative we uncover this pattern. Should we check on Jonathan Taylor Thomas and the Olsen twins? Maybe they’re all in cahoots with Jaleel White aka Urkel. If we’re being honest, the cabal probably extends to 80s sitcom stars, too. I have a hunch Emmanuel Lewis could be coordinating with the group. While sneaky little Webster was known to hide in small spaces, his political contributions cannot! The people have a right to know.

In practice, though, voters do not comb through contribution databases to identify nuanced donor trends among small contributors. Often, those digging into disclosure are not voters at all, but opposition researchers or media outlets. When that happens, the goal is sadly to weaponize the data against a perceived enemy. Just look at how Chilli’s contributions, made in 2024 and not in this election cycle, came to light. Journalists at The Independent ran the story after Chilli reshared a negative video of Michelle Obama. Reporter Tom Murray was sure to highlight details like Chilli once saying “all lives matter” in a 2017 interview. This is serious journalism, people.

And while I may be personally interested in Chilli’s romantic relationship with former child star Matthew Lawrence, that information has as much value to voters as her meager political contributions: precisely zero.

Skewering the strong American history and tradition of anonymous speech to broadcast the trivial political giving of a fading former music star in an effort to cancel her is surely what our founding fathers had in mind, no?

Even when bad actors don’t intentionally weaponize disclosure, the information gleaned from disclosure often fuels false narratives that—contrary to disclosure’s alleged intended purpose—misinform the public.

And too often, disclosure results in particular views being unfairly assumed about the giver. Remember when a video game developer was targeted and harassed into early retirement for his political contributions, which were twisted to unfairly infer that he had anti-LGBTQ views? Or when Congressman Tom Suozzi had the bright idea to use the FEC database to create an enemies list of New Yorkers who gave to candidates opposing his pet issue, singling out donors for views they did not even necessarily hold? (How many people really donated to candidates based on their position on the SALT cap?)

Understandably, Chilli feared that the public would make assumptions about her policy positions because of her exposed political giving. In her Instagram apology, she pointed out that she is “not MAGA” and that her contributions reflected her commitment to the narrow causes of supporting veterans and opposing human trafficking. Sadly, she shouldn’t have to explain, but the entertainment industry is notoriously left-leaning, and she will inevitably face real-world professional and perhaps personal consequences without such an explanation (and probably even with it).

That’s because exposure is not a neutral act. It carries consequences: people think twice before giving because they fear reputational harm, professional repercussions, and social retaliation. When your name, address, and employer are published in a public government database, it’s permanent. It can be archived, screenshotted, and shared on social media in perpetuity. As TLC might say about the data, there are “No Scrubs” (forgive me). Groups on the other side of this issue, who relentlessly call for “accountability” and “transparency,” too often ignore or minimize this heavy burden on individual speakers.

This time, it’s Chilli on the chopping block. But next time it’s a restaurant owner, a school teacher, or a nurse in the hot seat. And with donor privacy increasingly in the crosshairs, people can be targeted not only for giving to candidates, but alarmingly, also to political causes.

At a recent Federalist Society event celebrating the 50th anniversary of Buckley v. Valeo (the Supreme Court ruling responsible for the “informational interest” rationale), former FEC Chairman Allen J. Dickerson criticized the low disclosure threshold, noting that “the constant frustration in these debates publicly is that the conversation is always about the big corporate contribution or the millionaire or the billionaire,” but the actual disclosure threshold is set at $200, “and it hasn’t been adjusted for inflation and no serious person thinks that makes any sense at all.”

But there’s reason to be hopeful. At the same event, even Campaign Legal Center Executive Director Adav Noti, who regularly champions more “transparency”, agreed that the disclosure thresholds should be raised.

That’s no small concession. It reflects a growing recognition that the current disclosure regime sweeps far too broadly, capturing activity that bears no meaningful relationship to any legitimate government interest.

We can’t keep treating ordinary political participation as something that must be publicly exposed. If disclosure is to have any defensible purpose, it cannot target modest contributions that tell voters nothing and expose individuals to everything. When it comes to disclosure, focus on the big fish in the main current—don’t go chasing waterfalls.