White House Obfuscates Email

markgo2k writes "Do you want to email the president? This John Markoff, New York Times story (reprinted here in the non-subscription Seattle PI) details how the White House no longer promises to read anything you send to president@whitehouse.gov. Instead, you must navigate a multi-page website AND confirm your submission via email. Oh, and they only want to talk about subjects that are of interest to them." The web-form system appears to be a bit overloaded at the moment.

Comments

Waste of the President's time.

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't imagine why anyone would think the president of the United States would bother to read unsolicited email.

Re:Waste of the President's time.

[gilroy]

Blockquoth the poster:

I can't imagine why anyone would think the president of the United States would bother to read unsolicited email.

OK, so I assume you disregard as "unsolicited" any email that comes from your bosses, too...

Because...

[Scalli0n]

This is probably because emailing is 1000x easier than:

a) Mailing
b) Phoneing (being on hold for hours then talking to a nobody)
c) It gives you a warm happy feeling.

So why shouldn't they filter out their most popular form of communication given that most of it is crap anyway?

That, and my second point:

You shouldn't be emailing your most important concerns to the president - do your congressman, your senator, and your local government, they can probably help you more specifically.

convenient

[salzbrot]

It is really convenient to have the political opinions of your citizens stored in a database together with name, (e-mail-)address and the like!

Deluges of mail

[AndyBusch]

I can appriciate the need for them to implement a "confirmation" action (Did you send this?), to stop spoofing, spamming, etc. However, the "pre-email questionaire" seems a little extreme. I suppose the goal is to ask "are you an insightful commentator or a raving lunatic?", but it takes a "are you a patriot or a terrorist?" tone about it.

Of course, it's now harder to complain to them about it, as well.

Re:I'd rather not have to deal with the DOJ...

[Flamed to a Crisp]

If you were really serious about getting a message through to the "president" I would check "supporting comment," then say something nice about him (if you can think of anything) and then offer some "supportive criticism." This method actually works for me on a regular basis. (Although I haven't tried it in the scenario) It saves me lots of stress and the other person is more likely to listen.

However, if you just want to send flaming messages, that's a different story.

Re: we've come a long way baby

[TheCarp]

Other than that its right.

Frankly ive always felt that unless the cause for war is good enough for the commander in chief to pick up a gun and lead the troops off to battle in the name of truth and honor and whatever else he might be fighting for, then its not a good enough reason to send a single lowly infantryman.

But maybe I hold warmongers to too high of a standard? Ya know, thinking the onus should be on them to justify their actions, inisting they be truthfull in their assertions and even to back them up. You know, silly things like that.

I don't think leading the troops is too much to ask. Afterall, How can you give an order that would cause people to die if your not willing and ready to be counted among the dead?

Guess you could say I just think hes a yellow bellied coward more than anything. War is easy. Diplomacy I guess is pretty hard.

-Steve