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United States Your Rights Online

Validity of Web-Forms-Based Advocacy Questioned 45

Posted by michael from the digital-democracy-not-all-it's-cracked-up-to-be dept.
RobotRunAmok writes "We've all heard that, to better gain a legislator's attention, one should write a letter or send a fax, rather than click off an e-mail. Made sense, no? Well, PC World is reporting that the US Forestry Service is considering taking that truism to it's logical, or perhaps extreme, extension. The Tree People seek a regulation that would allow them to "ignore any public comments on the rule-making process sent to it through Web-based forms." The knickers of the EFF are in the predictable twist. The Issue: Sure, we all know Web-based petitions and advocacy campaigns are bogus, but they made us feel good, almost like we were participating in The Process, so is it really polite to rub our noses in our own ineffectuality this way?"
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Validity of Web-Forms-Based Advocacy Questioned More

Validity of Web-Forms-Based Advocacy Questioned

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  • Politeness (Score:2, Funny)

    by IdiotBoy ( 5883 )
    so is it really polite to rub our noses in our own ineffectuality this way?

    Would you really rather be politely ignored than impolitely engaged?

  • Irony (Score:5, Interesting)

    by GigsVT ( 208848 ) on Friday April 18, 2003 @05:10PM (#5762012) Journal
    That the forestry service, who's mission is conservation, advocates wasting tons of paper each year mailing letters that could have been sent electronically.

    • Re:Irony (Score:3, Informative)

      by Rick the Red ( 307103 )
      No, you haven't been paying attention. Visit the U.S. Forest Service's web page [fs.fed.us]. Even their About Us [fs.fed.us] page doesn't state their Mission Statement, if they have one. Under this Administration, their goal -- as is the goal of every Federal Department -- is to maximize profits for contributors to the Republican Party. The Forest Service cares not about saving [nwsource.com] trees [rapidcityjournal.com], but cutting them [nwsource.com].

      Flamebait? Maybe, but it's true.

      • Looks like the US Forestry service is rubbing its own nose into its clear conflict of interests... maybe this proposed legislation is a cry for help? Or a prank...

        Daniel
      • http://www.fs.fed.us/fsjobs/mission.html

        The Forest Service mission is captured by the phrase "Caring for the Land and Serving People." Our mission, as set forth by law, is to achieve quality land management under the sustainable multiple- use management concept to meet the diverse needs of people. For Forest Service employees this means participating in the follow activities:

        Advocating a conservation ethic in promoting the health, productivity, diversity, and beauty of forests and associated lands.
        Listeni
        • You speak as if you speak for the Forest Service ("Our mission"), so I'll say "you" when I really mean them, not you personally, OK?

          1) Your mission statement should be on your home page, or at least linked there, not buried under your "jobs" page.

          2) If you really mean that "Listening to people" line, then why this proposed change? And why attempt to "put a torch to citizens' rights to challenge federal agencies' land-use decisions" [nwsource.com]?

          3) If you really mean those "Protecting" and "practice good stewardship" lin

          • Dude, I don't speak for them, I just pasted that from the web page I linked verbatim.

            I agree that "Listening to people" part does seem hypocritical in light of this story.
      • I agree. Changed Republican to Party in Power and it's perfect.
    • Umm...the Forestry Service does require that some land be conserved, but it also manages logging and other natural resources...you name it. It's not just a big clump of tree huggers.

      And if someone doesn't care enough to go to the work of writing a letter...

    • RTFA (Score:2)

      by solman ( 121604 )
      They are not going to ignore all electronic comments, they are going to ignore reject mass-produced comments in which everybody sends an identical message. THIS INCLUDES PRE-PRINTED POSTCARDS.

      They are not discriminating between paper and bits at all.
      • Dude, I did RTFA, look at my other post in this thread where I said the same thing you said when someone asked if they are also going to reject paper form letters like postcards or fax-ins.

        People will write more letters as a result of this though. Why risk your electronic message being grouped in with electronic form letters and ignored when you can write a paper letter that they can easily tell at a glance is not a form letter?

        They said in the article that they have a hard time telling the bulk electron
  • Doesn't using electronic forms of communication "save trees" by using less paper?

  • Easy to Understand Reasoning But Bad Result (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Babbster ( 107076 ) <aaronbabb&gmail,com> on Friday April 18, 2003 @05:22PM (#5762078) Homepage
    I can understand the desire to simply ignore thousands of comments from one source (i.e. a single public-action website). After all, such a mass could easily be flooding by one group. Considering the number of automated spam messages I can get from one source in one day (and of course ignore), I understand it that much more.

    However, the fact is that these people shouldn't be entrusted with the power to simply block opinions that they've heard before. The most relevant passage to me was the following:

    "A bunch of e-mails that say the same thing with no specific comments don't tell us anything," Walsh says. "We'll take e-mails by the millions" if the correspondence becomes more specific, he adds.

    "If you're going to take the time to respond and you care, then put some effort into it," Walsh advises correspondents.

    Why should an individual have to formulate their own personal argument when their position is clearly stated in a form letter? Are we all supposed to quit our jobs and become full-time environmental researchers and activists? It seems to me that this would lock out petitions as well - after all, the petition is going to have one statement but will be signed as being the position of many people. Should each of those people have ignored the petition and instead written an individual letter?

    The best course, in my opinion, is for the USDA to require a verified (automatically verified via a "go to this page" e-mail as message boards do) e-mail address on each web-based form letter they receive. This would allow them to weed out e-mail flooding by groups that are pretending to have thousands of people involved where it might in fact be just their staff filling in forms.

    Alternatively, they could provide polls on their own website (provided to environmental action groups for linking) asking for opinions on each policy decision requiring public comments. Again, they could have an e-mail verification sent out that would have to be received and read (with a click verification) in an attempt to ensure that each vote is from a specific person.

    Even simpler would be a "you've already given your vote/opinion" cookie, though this would be even easier to get around than a click-verify e-mail.

    All of these would take a bit more work and there are still possibilities for abuse, but the solution they're proposing seems to be the most lazy and intellectually dishonest way possible - something too many bureaucrats love.

    • The CEOs all send individual letters, not form letters. Members of environmental groups generally send form letters, because they're busy with other things (like a job, family, etc.). If the Forest Service only counts each letter once (paper or otherwise) -- no matter how many people send a copy -- then guess which side has sent "more" comments?

      The only thing about this that surprises me is that it hasn't happened sooner, and that all Federal departments aren't doing it -- but I'll bet they soon will!

    • It ain't too hard to come up with a bazillion different email addresses that all route back to the same person. Just buy up a couple of hundred, or thousand, or even ten thousand non-descript, ISP sound-alike domains and then point their MX records all to the same server. So, you can't really prevent a professional astro-turf job by requiring discreet, verifiable email addresses.

      But, I think a distinction between petitions and rubber-stamp form-mail is important. Sending the form-mail is potentially mis
  • Web based petitions etc. are simply the electronic equivalent to all the paper postcard astroturf campaigns run by all sides of the political spectrum (I've seen 20/20 Vision, a liberal group, doing this, and I've seen anti-abortion and otherwise very right leaning groups do this as well). If they're going to ignore all the web form letters, they better start ignoring the paper form letters too.

  • Foolishness (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Tropaios ( 244000 )
    It seems really foolish to me they would discount electronic communication as a legitimate conduit for the voice of the people.

    There are many advanages as well as a couple of disadvantages I can see.

    Pluses:
    1. The ease of use for most people is considerable. Just type and click. Many people, myself included, are too lazy or busy to sit down and write a letter, put it in an envelope with a stamp, then put it in the mail.

    2. It's easily manageable. They can filter it electronically. They can make back-up

    • Re:Foolishness (Score:1, Flamebait)

      by Rick the Red ( 307103 )
      Why on Earth do you think this Administration cares about "the voice of the people"? The voice of the people called for Al Gore (admittedly by a small margin). It's only the voice of the powerful that matters to Dubya, and the powerful don't send form letters.
      • I agree with you to a certain extent. This administration likely does not care about "the voice of the people", however I think mentioning Al Gore shows a hint of bias. I would extend your statement to say Government in general has little regard for "the voice of the people".

        This is not a new thing. The framers of the Constition created the electoral college to ensure against the layperson having the same weight of voice as the more worldly and educated of their day.

        Personally I think this is a better

        • My point is this sets a dangerous precedent. If the government can choose to ignore a group of people based on their method of communicating, how far can they take it?

          Too late, they're already doing it. The US court system has defined rules for how to submit papers; if you don't meet their standards they'll throw them out. For example, why do you think 8 1/2" x 14" is known as legal sized? Right, that was the size the courts wanted. (Although I think common sense has sunk in and most jurisdictions will

      • The voice of the people called for Al Gore


        Neither Bush nor Gore received a majority of the votes (and less than 50% of eligible voters actually voted), so that's far from clear.


        It's only the voice of the powerful that matters to Dubya


        Yeah, good thing Democrats were in power for most of the last decade. Otherwise we might have gotten stuff like the CDA, DMCA, infinite copyright extentions, and Carnivore. Oh wait.

    • The ease of use for most people is considerable. Just type and click. Many people, myself included, are too lazy or busy to sit down and write a letter, put it in an envelope with a stamp, then put it in the mail.

      That's the whole point: if it really matters to you, you'll find the time. But if you don't care all that much, or you have nothing original to say, then you will likely decide it's not worth it. Thus the signal-to-noise ratio is increased.

  • faxyourmp.com (Score:3, Interesting)

    by SmileyBen ( 56580 ) on Friday April 18, 2003 @06:07PM (#5762354) Homepage
    Obligatory reference to FaxYourMP.com [faxyourmp.com]. I wonder why nobody in the US has managed to replicate this incredibly useful service. Web form -> paper fax. I've got three replies from two faxes sent! A 150% success rate aint bad...

    • Re:faxyourmp.com (Score:3, Interesting)

      by wcbarksdale ( 621327 )
      The ACLU does this (on a more limited basis). See for instance this one about Carnivore [aclu.org].
    • FayYourMP's hands-off approach relies on the general politeness and civility of the people using it -- since it doesn't read the contents of the fax, it could easily be abused into oblivion, and it counts on the users' general fitness to live in a civil society.

      Such politeness, civility, and general fitness to live is more notably a property of brits than of Americans. Within days of such a general service being set up, every congresscritter would be deluged by millions of "FCK the FCKING [insert law here
  • I'm willing to take a drubbing to say something I consider important.

    It's sad that at the time I'm writing this, there are a total of 21 comments about a REAL issue that could significantly impact the political influence of every Internet user on important governmental issues, while there are 702 comments split between two topics concerned about a convicted felon's ability to get a job (Kevin Mitnick and other data criminals). I consider it to be indicative of a sad state of affairs in the world o'the Sl

    • This article has fewer comments because it didn't make the main page. If you think it should've, then you have an issue with michael, not the comment-posting masses.

      Furthermore, this doesn't strike me as all that important an issue. If you truly care about an issue, then you can find the time to write a letter and say something original about it. Granted, the move is a bit extreme, but when we've been hearing doom and gloom about evil laws like DMCA, UCITA, PATRIOT act, etc., it seems all but totally insign

      • "Something original"? Let's say, for example, that I think designating a particular patch of forest for logging is a mistake because it includes the habitat of a rare animal species. Now, if a hundred (a thousand, a million, whatever) people feel the same way that I do, what "original" thing are they going to offer in their letters? Different sentence and paragraph construction? I don't think the point is that they should have to read each and every form letter and respond to each individually, or even

  • Damn liberals (Score:4, Insightful)

    by bill_mcgonigle ( 4333 ) on Friday April 18, 2003 @08:38PM (#5762969) Homepage Journal
    What's the issue here?
    • "Email makes it too easy to share opinions with our agency"
      let's give them some credit and assume they're not trying to silence the citizens who wish to share their opinions.

    • "We can't hand the amount of e-mail."
      Sophistry, they could get a contractor for a few bucks to write an e-mail pattern matching system to automatically detect, record, and count form-letter messages.

    • "We prefer communication channels which contribute to forestry activites"
      OK, they're not as relevant if paper is devalued but this is a bit too simplistic.

    • "The people who have access to Internet mail and tend to organize online are overwhelmingly tree-hugging hippies who are opposed to many of our policies. Internet sites make it easier for our constituancy to share opinions with us, so if people on our side of major issues tend to use paper-based communication and those opposed to our policies are well-organized electronically, we would be forced to show that the public, as represented by received communications, is usually in overwhelming opposition to our policies."
      Now we're getting somewhere.
  • One might criticize the Forest Service, but look at it this way. Every time someone sends an e-mail, this uses valuable electrons which have to be generated by coal-fueled electrical generating plants. Coal is made out of wood. The less electricity that people use, the less coal you have to burn; this in turn lessens the demand for trees. Thus, by sending e-mail petitions, you are actually killing trees. Shame on you.
  • A website like EFF.org should send its members passwords for their petition pages through snail-mail, thereby establishing their physical address. Then when a petition is launched, the signers can be verified as being genuine opinions by real people.
  • From the OMB Watch website [ombwatch.org]:

    While the APA [Administrative Procedure Act] does not require all agencies to follow one single model for rulemaking, it does impose minimum procedural conditions that all agencies are expected to follow. This is to ensure that the public has the opportunity to participate in the formulation and revision of government regulations, and that there be minimum standards for judicial review. The requirements are quite minimal, yet as basic rules they provide the foundation for the

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