Spammer in Chief. The White House resorts to email harassment to sell health-care postalization
Ubiquitous
seems to have bothered to teach basic netiquette to Barack Obama and his White
House staff. As they have grown more desperate in their attempts to remake
America's medical system in the image of the post office, they have resorted
to increasingly obnoxious email tactics.
First was fl...@whitehouse.gov, the address for reporting "fishy" speech. After
being pilloried endlessly for what critics thought was an effort to compile an
enemies list, the White House deactivated the address--and blamed its critics.
The following post, by special assistant to the president Robert M. "Macon"
Phillips III, appeared on the White House blog last night:
Since the White House's Reality Check site launched, we've
seen incredible response from individuals eager to get the
facts about health insurance reform and pass them along to
family and friends.
An ironic development is that the launch of an online program
meant to provide facts about health insurance reform has itself
become the target of fear-mongering and online rumors that are
the tactics of choice for the defenders of the status quo...
The Reality Check website exists to inform public debate about
health insurance reform--not stifle it. As the President said,
"We are bound to disagree, but let's disagree over issues that
are real." To that end, we've seen incredible response from
website visitors who are using the tools provided on the site
to share videos and other content with friends and family.
To better understand what new misinformation is bubbling up
online or in other venues, we want your suggestions about
topics to address through the Reality Check site. To consolidate
the process, the email address set up last week for this same
purpose is now closed and all feedback should be sent through:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/realitycheck/contact
The White House takes online privacy very seriously. As our
published privacy policy makes clear, we will not share personal
information submitted through the site with anyone. We also ask
that you always refrain from submitting others' information
without permission.
The contact form repeats the request to "refrain from submitting any
individual's personal information, including their [sic] email address,
without their permission." But Phillips's original blog post, the one
soliciting "fishy" information, contained no such caution. We are far from
convinced that the White House takes online privacy very seriously, although
we will concede that the White House takes the perception that the White House
doesn't seem to take online privacy very seriously, seriously.
Obama's men have been violating email etiquette going as well as coming. Macon
also acknowledges that people have been receiving unsolicited emails from the
White House--though again, he seeks to shift the blame:
It has come to our attention that some people may have been
subscribed to our email lists without their knowledge--likely
as a result of efforts by outside groups of all political
stripes--and we regret any inconvenience caused by receiving
an unexpected message. We're certainly not interested in anyone
receiving emails from the White House who don't want them. That's
one reason why we have never--and will never--add names from a
commercial or political list to the White House list.
But several readers forwarded us a White House email attributed to David
Axelrod, a senior adviser to the president, that ASKS readers to send it to
others unsolicited:
Unfortunately, some of the old tactics we know so well are
back--even the viral emails that fly unchecked and under
the radar, spreading all sorts of lies and distortions...
So let's start a chain email of our own. At the end of my
email, you'll find a lot of information about health insurance
reform, distilled into 8 ways reform provides security and
stability to those with or without coverage, 8 common myths
about reform and 8 reasons we need health insurance reform
now.
Right now, someone you know probably has a question about reform
that could be answered by what's below. So what are you waiting
for? Forward this email.
In case you didn't get the point, the subject line reads "something worth
forwarding."
Our spam filter has also caught a series of emails with the subject line "Why
purchase from Canadian Healthcare?" In fairness, we should note that these do
NOT appear to come from the White House. But why is the White House sending
any spam at all? Is the plan to annoy Americans so much that they'll be
willing to do anything--even surrender grandma to a death panel--to make it
stop?
--
It's now time for healing, and for fixing the damage the Democrats did
to America.
Kent Allard
More lies.
Ubiquitous
of its campaign to annoy America into accepting ObamaCare. Blogress Janine
Popick, CEO of the marketing firm VerticalResponse, argues that the email in
question runs afoul of one of the requirements of the notoriously weak
Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act, known
by the catchy acronym Can-Spam:
Why the Deceptive Subject Line?
According to CAN-SPAM, the subject line should relate to
the content of the email. The subject line "Something Worth
Forwarding" crosses the line and does not really describe
the email content.
But David Axelrod needn't worry that the spam police will frog-march him out
of the White House. As Popick explains, there's a loophole:
Since CAN-SPAM regulates "commercial email," politicians kind
of have a free pass when it comes to email marketing. Under the
CAN-SPAM law they can pretty much send to the lists of people
that sign up as well as lists of people that don't. Should they?
In my opinion, no. They should be sending email to those who
want it. It's better for their "brand."
We should point that Can-Spam was enacted in 2003, so it's OK to blame the
Republicans for its shortcomings.
Wayne
"Ubiquitous" <web...@polaris.net> wrote in message
news:oZudnVT5MKHCUhPX...@giganews.com...
take the time to submit 2 questions:
1. After leaving office, would Obama be willing to put his family on the
proposed public option.
2. Obama promised to not raise taxes to pay for healthcare, but to get $30
billion from the existing system by eliminating waste. I'm wondering how
that $30 billion reduction is coming along.
D. Stussy
news:h6nblj$526$1...@news.eternal-september.org...
> "Ubiquitous" <web...@polaris.net> wrote in message
> news:oZudnVT5MKHCUhPX...@giganews.com...
> > Yesterday we noted that the White House has employed unsolicited email
as
> > part
> > of its campaign to annoy America into accepting ObamaCare. Blogress
Janine
> > Popick, CEO of the marketing firm VerticalResponse, argues that the
> > in
> > question runs afoul of one of the requirements of the notoriously weak
> > Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act,
> > known by the catchy acronym Can-Spam:
> >
> > Why the Deceptive Subject Line?
> >
> > According to CAN-SPAM, the subject line should relate to
You still don't get it. "Can spam" doesn't mean to contain it. It means
that they're ALLOWED to.
It has always meant that.