Here is an interesting overview of the network effects of email on Capital Hill. It looks like a denial of service of paid gun email firms over the voices of Grandma. I don't believe it for a second but someone ought to forward this message around on all the conservative listserves you can think of.
Four-fifths of the aides believe that the Internet has made it easier for citizens to get involved in public policy; 55 percent think the Web has increased public understanding of Washington; and 48 percent are convinced that it's made lawmakers more responsive to their voters.Unfortunately, a lot of the e-mails are barely worth reading -- or at least that's what the people who handle them believe. Interest groups generate most of the incoming e-mails and a numbing percentage of those are form letters. Half of the aides surveyed are convinced that constituents aren't even aware that they've sent such identical-form communications, and another 25 percent of staffers question whether those communications are legitimate at all.
Almost all of the congressional aides surveyed said that they'd like to find a way to differentiate between interest-group e-mails and the rare, more prized missives that individuals actually write themselves.
As one frustrated legislative director told the foundation: "[There is] too much mail, not enough staff. Not enough time to do it, particularly when in session. [We're] really losing sight of the important letters that come in -- like the three-page letter from Grandma as opposed to those floods of mail where all they're doing is clicking a button. It's insane."
"Stop sending form letters/faxes/e-mails that the constituent doesn't even know he/she is sending," a House staffer added. "It's a waste of time and resources and does not influence the members' stance on the issue in any way."
Such complaints are heartfelt but they won't deter the burgeoning e-mail-on-demand industry. Organized interests are so eager to penetrate Congress, which has become fortress-like in its security barriers, that they are hiring Internet experts at a dizzying clip.
Your voice doesn't matter? We are involved in an arms race we can not win. We need to find new ways to use technology to engage the public that don't mimic a spam machine.
