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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.
WASHINGTON, Dec. 27 -- Even as Congress was unanimously approving a law aimed at reducing the flow of junk e-mail, members were sending out hundreds of thousands of unsolicited messages to constituents.
The spasm of activity is aimed at attracting voluntary subscribers to the lawmakers' e-mail lists, which would not be subject to House rules that normally impose a 90-day blackout before an election for taxpayer-supported Congressional mass communications.
In September, the House Administration Committee voted, 5 to 3, along party lines to allow e-mail messages to the subscribers to be sent in the blackout period, but maintained the ban on free postal mail from House members to voters. The policy change affected only House rules and was not part of the junk e-mail legislation.
At least 40 House members have bought or agreed to buy e-mail address lists from at least four vendors. The lists, which each have tens of thousands of addresses, are generally created by a process called e-mail appending, taking voter registration files from a member's district. The next step is to cross match them with large databases of names and e-mail addresses assembled by consumer data companies like Equifax, which has a database of more than 75 million e-mail addresses. E-mail addresses can usually be found for 10 percent to 20 percent of the voter file.
Many members of Congress praise the new policy for allowing cheaper and more effective communications with constituents. But consumer advocacy groups say the policy may unfairly give an advantage to incumbents over challengers because it allows elected officials to use government resources to communicate with voters right up to Election Day. In addition, the consumer advocates say, sending bulk e-mail messages to constituents who have not agreed to receive it is essentially electronic junk mail, or spam.
The ability to communicate with constituents at taxpayer expense, the franking privilege, is one of the most cherished and controversial perks of office. For 30 years, advocacy groups have lobbied and sued Congress to try to close loopholes and stop abuses of the privilege.
Critics say the policy has created a significant new loophole.
"The core value is that you don't want to leverage technology to increase incumbent advantage," said Celia Viggo Wexler, research director at Common Cause, a group that has sued to limit franking. "What is troubling is that essentially the House is saying, `O.K., you can communicate with the constituency up to an election, and we're not really going to check what you are saying with them.' The point is without that kind of oversight, it's ripe for abuse."
Before the change, e-mail was subject to the same treatment as regular postal mail. Correspondence sent to more than 500 constituents had to obtain approval from the franking commission and was subject to a 90-day blackout before an election. But individual responses to citizens were not subject to the restrictions.
Congressional officials said the old policy was too cumbersome.
"Anything over 500 e-mails you had to submit that to the franking commission," said Brian Walsh, the Republican spokesman for the House Administration Committee. "There was going to be a delay of a couple of days to get approved. We didn't feel that was consistent with the technology that existed."
The new policy says that lawmakers can freely send messages to voters who have agreed to subscribe to their e-mail lists. To build such lists, House members are sending huge amounts of bulk e-mail messages to their districts in the hope that some voters will subscribe.
The unsolicited messages go out from Congressional offices as often as twice a month. The unsolicited messages, which have to stop 90 days before an election or a primary, are still subject to approval from the franking commission.
"They are regulating commercial spam, and at the same time they are using the franking privilege to send unsolicited bulk communications which a
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 :-)
SPAM is irritating but how effective is it really? Aside from the occasional well publicised ripoff who reads or responds to it? The US Congress must know something I don't.
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!
This shouldn't really come as to big of a suprise. Political acts have been exempted from major laws before. From the DoNotCall.gov FAQs:
The National Do Not Call Registry does not limit calls by political organizations, charities or telephone surveyors.
Political spam isn't to much different from unsolicited political phone calls. And both would surely be of intrest to the politicians, as they seem to have exempted them from the laws. I find political phone calls equally, if not more annoying, then people asking me if I want to save $.13 a year on my long distance bills.
Request: ECM unit, 1000 km fullerene cable, 1 tactical nuclear weapon. Reason: Birthday party for foreign dignitary.
I guess when the first email arrives from my representative or senator I will start using their email address when signing up for free offers and sweepstakes. That should give them lots of input from their constituents.
Following their example: it's ok as long as nobody says it's not.
I think spammers are going to start a bunch of lil grassroots political parties. They will band together and form the penis party, and sell penis creams, pills, and lord knows what else to "support" the party.
The only real solution is to have terrorists start using spam to fund their operations... only with that boogieman out of the closet will congress do anything about spam.
Political spam can be dealt with in a similar manner. "Promise" a vote and then on the day of the election write "Sucka. Did you really think I'd vote for a spammer?"
At the same time, sign these politicians up on mailing lists etc. that guarantee lots and lots of spam. And forward their addresses to those kind Nigerians who have more than enough money to help finance political campaigns.
People say I'm crazy, I got diamonds on the soles of my shoes...
There is the old story about the guy who takes a stack of bumper stickers for the opposing canidate and puts one on every cars bumper... With political spam it becomes SO much easier and fun. With to a bit of tech savy and good writting a great many fake messages could be sent out. I dare any politican to use this hardcore, because the backlash that could be unleashed against them would be frightfull once people learn that you really CAN get eail from your congresman!
..since when geeks (please no offence, myself included) look to the government to legislate our way out of spam?! whats wrong with you people? shame on you, M$ is proving to be geekier than you!..
Are politicians required to send this email from specific email addresses e.g. your_faithful_candidate@congress.wankers.gov? It seems like they should be (i.e. in order to prove their spam is actually "from a political organization", it should at least come from a traceable *and documented* source), in which case a few simple email filters could make the problem essentially disappear.
Thankfully I'm not a US citizen, so my exposure to this sort of rubbish is, oh, probably 2-3 years away...
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.
It's the Congressional Members duty to keep their constituents informed. In a representative government, our elected officials must promote two way communication.
The Congress Online Project Nine Benefits of a good web site, number 3: "Targeted communication with key audiences. Web sites can help build ongoing relationships with key audiences by providing targeted features and information. Timely, informative sections of a Web site devoted to a single issue, for example, can attract people who care about the issue and keep them coming back for more. And issue-based e-mail updates provide the opportunity to regularly communicate with people who subscribe."
In order to fulfill the requirements of the Congressional "Franking" priviledge, Members would have to clearly identify emails sent to their constituents, with proper headers, From address, etc.
Also, in order to provide documentation that they are reaching their constituents, they would most likely be required to maintain an email mailing list.
I highly doubt that the Members would use the shotgun email tactic of spammers.
Pete Carr Owner Chatmag.com
Any politician that spams me will most definitely *not* get my vote. I'll vote for Fidel Castro for President before I'll vote for a scumbag spammer.
I want a new quote. One that won't spill. One that don't cost too much. Or come in a pill.
And why should any of us be surprised by this? The politicians want to regulate it as long as it doesn't apply to them. I think that would cover quite a few things, not just spam.
...we are from the government - we are here to help...
These guys need to go... ALL of them. This country really needs to take back control of itself. Watch some Cspan folks, watch these guys debate in the house, watch the senate, watch all of the other covered events... watch these guys like a hawk. They're all slick, they all play each other for fools. Enough cnn, fox news, msnbc(does anyone watch it anyways?) and hell even the bbc is looking more like cnn these days. They have this game called politics down to a science called bullshit. You linux users know this as FUD :)
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.
If the email is sent using government, rtaher than private or party equipment, doe sthe list become a record that can be obtained using FOIA (Freedom of Information Act?) If so, Congress could very well help spammers harvest email addresses for at lost less than buying an email database that has been matched to records.
If you can get the list, how long before someone spoofs a Congressman's addresse and sends his or her constiuents an email that upsets them and forces the rep to deal with the backlash?
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
So...
- politicians are targetting their constituents only.
- the unsolicited messages are still subject to the 90-day rule, and only contain an invitation to subscribe to a mailing list.
- politicians are free to send whatever they please to people on the mailing list.
That all sounds fine to me... Congress isn't really placing themselves above the law, and the fact that they can spam those on their subscriber mailing list at the taxpayer's expense, doesn't bother me that much. In truth, they should just get rid of the entire 'franking privilege', not just this minor part of it.
But when all's said and done... if you spam me, I don't vote for you. It is that simple
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
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
As a SysAdmin I've been studying the DNS-based blocking lists in general and SPEWS in particular. Seeing how they say they operate, how long do you think it will take for the US Government to "win" an escalated listing in the SPEWS database?
"I'm sorry, Congressman, but the reason all your mail is being bounced is that our server IP address is listed in SPEWS. What is SPEWS? 'Spam Prevention Early Warning System.' Because we have been unable to answer complaints to abuse@house.net to their satisfaction, they have put together a 'crimes file' showing that The House of Representatives is a spam-lovin enterprise, have listed our entire netblock, and we've run out contractors to superserve our mail servers -- every time we hire one, it ends up listed in SPEWS, too."
Will the blocking lists work as they are supposed to, or are they going to take the smart path and NOT piss off the one organization who makes the "Laws of the Land?"? I can see it now: it becomes illegal for any operator of a mail server with more than 100 commercial clients to use any DNS- or domain-based blocking list.
Not exactly the death of the Internet, but possibly a case of felony if you do, damned if you don't.
First of all they shouldn't be able commit abuses through e-mail that they are forbidden from commiting through normal mail. Elected officials are not permitted to abuse their office to run a private polical campaign, they are not permitted to stick the tax-payers with the bill for running that campaign.
Secondly, because it is still SPAM.
They are each sending millions of unsolicited junk E-mails with the costs almost entirely dumped on the receiving end. The actual dollar costs are split 50/50 between the sender and receiver, but the dollor costs are negligable. The real cost is human. Lets assume that only takes one second on average to spot and delete each spam. Each batch of 1,000,000 spams costs 1,000,000 people one second. The total cost is still 1,000,000 seconds. That is cost is SEVEN WEEKS of full-time work for one person.
Then multiply that by the fact that they are each sending several million spams in each batch. Multiply that by the number of state and federal elected positions. Multiply that by the number of candidates. Multiply that by the number special intrest groups. Multiply that by every year, assuming that they are nice enough to only spam us once per year.
The E-mail system is flawed in that anyone can set up an automated system generating spam and for merely a few dollars they can burn up more than an entire human life-span dealing with the output. A human waking life is around 1.5 billion seconds. Every 1.5 billion spams generated costs one human lifetime. The dollar cost to generate those 1.5 billion spams is far too low a price to pay to burn up a lifetime from other people.
The problem with spam is that the lionshare of the real cost is dumped on the people receiving it. Unsolicited bulk e-mail is still unsolicited bulk e-mail when it is sent by a politician or political activist. It is still spam.
P.S.
Don't think the new "CAN-SPAM" law is going to fix the spam problem. The Direct Marketing Association considers the law a victory for the spam business. Check this C-NET sory "
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.
After reviewing and crafting a new AUP document for my boss at a Web hosting company, I'm beginning to appreciate how the CAN-SPAM law will get a handle on spam. Let me explain.
There is a lot more to the CAN-SPAM law than just spam. The thing that caught my eye when I read the actual Act of Congress and the law referenced by the Act is that the issue of unauthorized access to computers "used in interstate commerce" (and Web hosting falls into that class) has been clarified, and the penalties for unauthorized access have been strengthened. That means when some twerp uses one of my customer's Web sites to commit FormMail spam, it becomes a Federal matter. Falsified credentials isn't just a civil matter any more -- the Feds have criminalized the offense.
One of the biggest problems that the anti-spam crowd has had is with forgery. I have a domain, fluent (dash) access (dot) com, which has been used as a forged return address in someone's spew for a long time -- I found out when I turned the entire domain into a spam-trap and started getting bounces from all kinds of networks. (Some of those networks are now blocked because of that, but that's life on the Internet these days. Maybe I'll implement a sunset script for my automated access blocking...or maybe I won't.) With the new law, a forged From: line is criminalized. While the law is silent on the matter, forged Received From: lines may also be roped into the "deceit" intent of the law -- but that will have to be tested in a Court.
As a commercial operator of Internet services, it lets me write things into my AUP that now stand a chance of being enforced, and not necessarily on my nickel. Before CAN-SPAM, it just didn't pay to go after a guy who is probing my network looking for broken formmail.pl and formmail.cgi scripts. What CAN-SPAM really does is put the black hats on alert that their activities may attract more attention than they would be comfortable getting.
It also unshackles the programmer in me to write scripts to enforce some of these things using technological means instead of investigative means. For example, if I enforce the From: line restriction, the script person can't complain because it's an enforcement of an AUP requirement -- I'm just making sure that my customers toe the legal line.
For the DMA, it is a win, because it makes more people play by the rules. Consider that CAN-SPAM is also a win for the block-lists like SpamCop and SPEWS, because it reduces the detective work required to recognize the spew just starting from yet another IP address, and it also limits the methods available to the abusers to avoid being caught and blocked.
Government officials will be following the rules. You're not going to be getting e-mails with "v0t3 f0r 930r93 6u5h"
If you don't want policitical spam, as soon as one arrives, look for the tell and block it. They're not going to be faking domains and it's going to be professionally written. A preemptive expression block of "vote for" would probably knock out close to 100% of political spam.
The problem with spam isn't spam itself. It's that it's designed to be difficult to filter out.
As long as spammers of any sort follow the rules, I don't have a problem with them. I can filter them out without any trouble if I choose.
Howard Dean is praised for exploiting the internet to build his campaign. Now you're whining that they would dare use e-mail. It's a public medium. Anyone can use it. Calling it "spam" doesn't make it any less e-mail. Politicials will be sending out a few million (if that) not billions. How many voters gave out e-mail addresses? Those are the only people who will be getting e-mails. I wouldn't call it spamming when you volunteer your e-mail address. That's "opt-in."
If they abuse it, don't vote for them. If they use it intelligently, encourage others to do the same. That's what the internet is for.
The only issue is the black out period. And no one has done anything yet. I'd be more impressed if a politician didn't take advantage of a legal situation than if they were forced not to.
Ben
Work Safe Porn