Letter Rip

Billmon's got a great idea going over at the Whiskey bar. It concerns using the Bush 2004 campaign's letter writing tool to mail letters to the editors of newspapers around the country:

But what I actually wanted to point out is that Bush 2004
has a really nifty letter-writing tool, which allows you to e-mail a
letter to the newspapers in your area. You just enter your zip code and the site automatically generates a menu of regional newspapers
-- helpfully ranked both by proximity and circulation.
You pick the papers you want, type in your letter -- or cut and paste
the paragraphs of boilerplate Bush propaganda helpfully provided --
then click, and voila! your letter to the editor is on its way to every
newspaper on your list.
I'm told, although I haven't checked myself, that this is a much more
sophisticated feature than anything you'll find on the DNC or the Kerry
campaign's web sites -- and even more technologically impressive than
Bush 2004's fully robotized campaign blog. I'm also told by someone
who's tested the letter-to-the-editor tool that the e-mails it
generates do not identify the letter sender as a Bush supporter (which,
in light of what I have in mind, is actually more the pity.)
Now it occurred to a Whiskey Bar reader that anybody -- including
Democrats, progressives, gays, brights and other second-class citizens
-- could use this GOP-funded tool to write and send our own letters to the editors, courtesy of the Bush campaign.

Obviously, the topic du jour is Bush's Discrimination Amendment. If
you'd like to address that, feel free to base a note on form letters
from the Lambda Defense Fund or the Human Rights Campaign.

Of course, there's no reason to limit ourselves to letters about Gay Marriage. God knows there are plenty of topics to choose from. Pick one and get creatively subversive on Bush's candy ass.

Ready, set, GO!

UPDATE: It bears mentioning that the automated letter generator
leaves a cookie on your computer that could potentially be used to
collect personal data. For what it's worth, I'm of the opinion that
privacy is an ancient 20th century myth, so I'm not all that concerned
about it. I'm sure I'm on hundreds of lists by now, so one more isn't
exactly going to keep me up at night.
However, if you'd like to submit a letter without fear of Big Brother's
prying eyes you can always delete your cookies by going to Tools ->
Internet Options and clicking on "Delete Cookies". Assuming you're
using IE, of course.

Posted by flow Frazao on February 24, 2004 at 11:56 PM | Permalink