It may seem like invasion of privacy, but it's democracy.

A Web site that went online this month, fundrace.org, will tell you at a few clicks of a mouse which of your neighbors have contributed money to Democratic or Republican presidential campaigns. You can search for contributions by ZIP code, and the program serves up names, addresses and amounts contributed to which candidate.

Some worried North County residents have expressed concern about creeping Big Brotherism. But such information has been available for years through the Federal Elections Commission. What's new is that anyone with a computer can call up the information in their living room. That's the service that the nonprofit corporation Eyebeam Research and Development is providing for free now through the Web site.

There's no reason for fear. The whole point of the admittedly feeble efforts our government has made toward campaign finance reform is to make the funding process transparent. Fundrace.org helps do that.

We want to know how much money corporations such as Enron at throwing at politicians and political parties. The same rules apply to citizens. Citizens, after all, can influence government too. That's the point of a democracy. So we don't worry about fundrace.org. After all, contributing money to a political campaign is nothing to be ashamed of.