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This is supposedly an excerpt of a letter sent "from the general public" to the DMA. Yeah, right.

"In this time of economic uncertainty, can we afford to put at risk the jobs of 6 million Americans? Telemarketing provides 6 million jobs throughout the U.S., and contributes $700 billion to our economy. The Federal Trade Commission is planning to impose harsh new rules on the teleservices industry that will put a halt to this economically vital employer."

Booo Hooo! Sniffle Sniffle! I haven't laughed this much since the Microsoft "switch" campaign!

So far i'm aware of one american site that appears to be similar in concept to yours. It's called Capitol Advantage.However I do not think they are as pre-occupied about ethical issues as your organization is, as they appear to make it easy for organizations such as "The Direct Marketer's Association" to set-up accounts with their site and offer users a form letter (capwiz is a service of Capitol Advantage) which they can submit "as-is" or choose to amend. If of course elected to do the latter, and ended-up writing an entirely different letter which offered consistent counterpoints to the original DMA arguments.

So far i'm aware of one american site that appears to be similar in concept to yours. It's called Capitol Advantage.However I do not think they are as pre-occupied about ethical issues as your organization is, as they appear to make it easy for organizations such as "The Direct Marketer's Association" to set-up accounts with their site and offer users a form letter (capwiz is a service of Capitol Advantage) which they can submit "as-is" or choose to amend. If of course elected to do the latter, and ended-up writing an entirely different letter which offered consistent counterpoints to the original DMA arguments.

I'd cast the 'real problem' in terms of the planning horizon for government solutions. That planning horizon is not much more than the next election.
To minimize fraud, most money has a lifespan of the next fiscal year. Prominent exceptions are things like procurements of nuclear aircraft carriers, where Newport News shipbuilding shant order the first part unless they know that the money will be there to finish it.
Too, there has been a shift from discretionary (pork barrel) spending towards entitlements (Socialist Security [who better to run a Ponzi scheme than your Uncle Sam, eh?], Medicare, etc).
Good news, bad news, who can say?
An unfortunate side effect of our representative democracy is that the dependant majority can legally pick the pockets of the minority through socialist-flavored approaches.
Reform is unlikely when you've got lobbies like the AARP on the scene. The rich, of course, need not pool their cash to purchase political decisions.
Waaah, waaah, waaah. I'd argue that our system is muddling along as designed, faithful to its two design requirements: be stable, and preclude tyrrany.
Are we in greater danger now than in any historical period? Probably not.

Do this:
Go to this URL and set a bookmark to your elected folks and keep their inboxes stuffed with your /. wisdom.

Be sure to use your own zip code in the above url, so your letter gets sent to the appropriate recipients.

Instead of using the text that comes up by default, i took time to write the above. A good chunk of my letter offers counterpoints to DMA's arguments.

-------

January 7, 2003

[recipient address was inserted here]

Dear [recipient name was inserted here],

I am entirely in favor of a national do-not-call list.

I find it obnoxiously intrusive to constantly receive solicitation from telemarketers in my own home, which too often take too much of the precious time i wish to spend with loved ones, while recovering from my rigorous working hours.

Furthermore, while telemarketers are supposed to be trained to respect people's right to say "no", it has been my personal experience to find it often challenging to exercise that right, faced with somewhat resilient telemarketers who just would not take "NO" for an answer.

Current laws already give me the right to request from the caller that they no-longer call me. When getting 3 to 5 different telemarketing calls in a same evening, this already represents more time than i am willing to spend to protect a peaceful existence.

The Direct Marketing Association does have an opt-out list. No business is *required* to become part of the DMA. While they provide strict rules for their members to abide by, enforcing those rules and punishing offenders strictly relies on *potential* complaints from residents, which requires a significant amount of work from the resident to determine whether or not the telemarketer belongs to the DMA, and for the DMA to follow-up on those issues. While the system appears to be beneficial on the surface, I truly believe it provides no *significant* protection to victims of telemarketer calls.

While i understand the DMA's concerns that an opt-out list would significantly reduce the number of potential residents telemarketing businesses may call, thereby potentially reducing the telemarketing work force, I would like to point out such list should dramatically increase the quality of the telemarketing business by reducing frustration among the telemarketing staff and the prospective customers, leading to more productive and successful business transactions. The multi-billion-dollar figures touted in parallel to purportedly dramatic potential losses by the DMA, should, in my opinion, be mitigated by the many beneficial aspects of a national "do-not-call" list.

In my view, it is the Federal Government's responsibility to protect the privacy of citizens who make the conscious decision to not ever be sollicited by telemarketers while at home. I believe a federally-regulated do-not-call list with provisions for strong sanctions against offenders is the single, true, effective answer to a problem that has been plaguing our society for far too many decades.

Sincerely,

[MUH LAME ASS] ---------

I cut the suggested text, replaced it with "As a harassed citizen, I strongly support the proposed national do-not-call database. The DMA can go to hell", signed it and submitted it.

Phil

Click here to send a letter to your Senators and congressional Representative about this issue.

I always like to point out that you can actually help do something about this. Contact your Senator and Member of Congress. IT WORKS. The more they hear from people onm an issue the more seriously they take it. Go here: http://capwiz.com/nyt/dbq/officials/. Type in your zip code to see who to contact. It makes a difference. Try it.

This link will let you find and e-mail your senators and representatives, in case you want to send a similar letter...

http://capwiz.com/norml2/home/

[...] only very narrow classes of information are protected at all by law (medical records [...]

These types of information are all protected because there was a perceived need to protect them. So, what makes you think that the powers that be are going to finance a giant system to allow everyone to access video archives of John Q.'s every move? Do you really believe that this could happen, that it is politically possible?

Already being done. It's called HIPAA. Gov't system to tie all your medical information together via a central ID. Fight it.

Now, you're right, if everyone could access my most drunken indiscretions, I would be embarrassed as hell. Probably not in jail, just embarrassed.

Until your next potential employer happens to see that tape, and gets the impression that you'd be a bad employee. Even though what you do on your personal (private) time is not any of his business. As soon as personal time is no longer private, it will have ramifications. I'm very surprised that there are people like you that really can't see that.

What, you mean like this?

http://www.stopthedrugwar.org/walters/

Or this?

http://capwiz.com/norml2/home/

These auto-writers were how I got started. The first one takes litterally ten seconds to send a letter with. Then as I got more comfortable with what should be said in such a letter, I found myself willing to invest a couple of minutes writing an email of my own. These days I usually take the time to call. I have my representatives' office phone numbers on hand and I can call and give my opinion in about four minutes. On occasion I take the time to write a paper letter (which gives me a chance to test out the latest version of KWord while I'm at it) and drop it in the mail.

As a side note, once you get to know the system a bit, looking through the congressional record, etc. can be quite interesting. For quick access to roll call votes on some of the more well-known bills, Project Vote Smart and the C-Span Vote Library can be useful.

No help with archives that far back, but if you want to see what your elected representation is up to, I suggest rollcall.com's key votes record". The site in general has a great deal of useful information.