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Congress Loves Spam -- If It's From Congress
Makarand writes "According to this NY Times article (registration required), while Congressional members were busy
passing the U.S. anti-spam law that will go into effect on January 1, they were also busy
sending unsolicited e-mail to their constituents. This activity was aimed at growing the subscriber base receiving their political messages because these email lists are not subject to the normal 90-day blackout period before an election where members are forbidden to use taxpayer-supported Congressional mass communications. Consumer advocacy groups say that this policy may be unfair to the challengers because this loophole could be used by elected officials to communicate with voters right up to Election Day."
Yeah, and who thought they were stupid enought to put themselves equally under the law? They are politician's, for god's sake.
A blog like any other.
Spammers operate on the principle that even though 99% (or thereabouts) of recipients recognize and hate spam, the remaining 1% of fools are enough to make their business model viable. However, would this work for political spam? I mean, if more than 50% of recipients react negatively to it, its bad for the sender, isn't it? (IANAA, so correct me if I'm missing something :-)
Oh yeah, I remember: "Do unto others as you would have them do to you"...
Reminds me indirectly of the Euro-MP who complained that people were contacting her with their views. They ought to have just sat back and been told what they wanted....
Disgusted. Is it any wonder we regard politicians as full of (sh)it ?
Simon.
Physicists get Hadrons!
There is the old story about the guy who takes a stack of bumper stickers for the opposing canidate and puts one on every cars bumper... With political spam it becomes SO much easier and fun. With to a bit of tech savy and good writting a great many fake messages could be sent out. I dare any politican to use this hardcore, because the backlash that could be unleashed against them would be frightfull once people learn that you really CAN get eail from your congresman!
..since when geeks (please no offence, myself included) look to the government to legislate our way out of spam?! whats wrong with you people? shame on you, M$ is proving to be geekier than you!..
Spam is generally defined as being `unsolicited commercial email`. How spam from the political wing of the armed forces can be described as commercial is anyone's guess.
I think it's a calculating move by politicians. With the SPAM bill they reduce the noise surrounding their own spam. I know that my grandparents didn't mind SPAM when they first got on the internet, when it was only ~1-5 per day. They stopped reading SPAM when it exploded to 100's per day.
If the SPAM bill helps cut that down to, say, 20 per day, politicians' own included, I think elderly people like my grandparents will start reading SPAM again. With the growing importance of the elderly voting population, I think SPAM can be quite important for these politicians.
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*beware the cute-bunny virus
You mean that we might see more than 98% of incumbents re-elected?
A 5-1 funding advantage is what does that. Spamming voters can't exactly make it worse.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Please respect copyright by not posting the full text of articles. /. readers can register or not read the Times. It should be up to the Times to decide. /. readers that have chosen not to register have chosen not to read.
If you support GPL, then you need to support the copyright it is based on.
If they want to keep us informed... PUT UP A WEBSITE. That way, if I want to go there, I can.
There is nothing in the Constitution that says that we, the people, are obligated to listen to ANYONE in our government. The reverse, however is true though.
Corporatism != Free Market
If you support the GPL, you should support the ideals behind it, which are that the concept of copyright is FLAWED, and should be removed.
Stop thinking of information as property. It isn't.
The
Funny, I work for an elected official - and filtering the email is part of my job.
Your switcheroo-vote trick, I can assure you, won't work unless you do it en-masse. If you are not a realt threat to a politician's job, then expect to be ignored with extreme prejudice (barring some sort of dire need, press related significance, or obvious wrong that needs righting).
Regarding your idea to sign your elected official up on mailing list, etc.: it's been done. Oh god has it been done. The boss's public email address has been posted online for years, and we get everything - EVERYTHING - that you could imagine. THe funny thing is, none of it affects anyone else in the office except me. No one sees any of that spam, and it doesn't hurt our office in any real way. However, all that spam DOES hurt our constituency.
You see, knucklehead, when we get three or four legitimate constituent emails a day for help, with legislative ideas, or honest & valid complaints about some branch of our sprawling gov't - we can't get to them! It takes me an hour every day of sitting in front of a computer screen deleting spam - and the result is that is an hour that constituents DON'T GET SERVED.
All that spam does is take away from other constituents! You are screwing your neighbors out of the service they are entitled to. You subvert the ability an elected official has to serve the people he or she represents. In the long run, the little things that the OFfice of So-and-So does for people in a community don't make a huge political impact. But when you need a new medi-Care card, or the DMV is hassling you, or a city is using an ordinance improperly, or a million other things - think about what it takes for you to get help from people sworn to do so. Don't piss in the well you might be drinking from someday.
fact that they can spam those on their subscriber mailing list
You seem to have forgotten step where they grab Equifax's 75 million address SPAM LIST, trim it down to target their own state, then send a massive flood of UNSOLICITED BULK E-MAIL asking people to sign up for the mailing list. That is SPAM.
Congress isn't really placing themselves above the law
I guess that's true in that they put the law so far down that every spammer can be above the law. The law they passed actually legalized much formerly illegal spam. The Direct Marketing Association conciders the CAN-SPAM law to be a victory! Just check C-NET's story: It's not called 'Can' Spam for nothing.
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.