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."

Comments

Nothing New

[Bloodmoon1]

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.

I can see,The penis party, the Nigerian Party...

[enronman]

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.

bah, easy to deal with...

[tuxette]

You just tell them "well, I was going to vote for your candidate, but since you called to pestered me, I'll vote for the opponent instead." *click*

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.

Re:bah, easy to deal with...

[ubrayj02]

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.

Re:Effectiveness of SPAM?

[Slowping]

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.