Although I applaud the efforts here, as a former staffer and intern for a congressman, I hate to be the bearer of bad news...<p>The truth is my job as an intern, as was the job of all other interns that I met while in DC, was to take constituent calls and also open constituent mail. However, no information was ever actually relayed to the congressmen. We had a formatted response to each and every issue that the House could possibly vote on. Everything from internet poker, to any issue you could imagine. We would print out (and alter if necessary) the response to tailor it to the individual that called, emailed, or wrote a physical letter. The congressman's signature was stamped at the bottom of the letter and sent back to the constituent, giving the allusion of due diligence on the congressman's part.<p>I was extremely surprised and disappointed at the same time at how commonplace this was. Pretty much every intern I asked about it went through the same drill. It's just another thing about our government and "representative democracy" that really irked me. So whenever I see ads urging people to call or write their congressman, I think back to this and realize further how powerless we really are.<p>The best way to exert influence over your congressman is to donate lots of money and become a memorable name that can get in contact with the actual representative him/herself. Hell, that's how I got the internship. This is one of the reasons I sympathize with the OWS movement.
I was briefly skeptical, but on reflection, I like this for three reasons:<p>First, email just doesn't work for contacting Congress. They get entirely too much, and it's entirely too easy to get lost in the pile. It's the preferred means of communication for most of us on HN, but it's just not effective outside our industry. Phone is better, but there's nothing quite like flooding someone's office with paper to convey the will of the electorate.<p>Second, SendWrite is one of the companies that would be hurt by the bill - being able to generate volume like this shows the reach and effectiveness of their lobbying efforts. Sacks of cash are the backup currency of Congress - Votes are still the coin of the realm.<p>Finally, you guys are putting your cash on the line for this - that's a powerful statement, and I applaud you for doing so.
I'd love to send people to this site, but I worry people who have never heard of the bill won't know what is going on. Can you embed the explanation video or point to or something?<p>Edit: I see you just did. Thx! I just linked to it on DuckDuckGo as well as donated and sent my letter. Thanks again.
Here's the problem: after the 2001 anthrax scare, all mail sent to Congress has become incredibly delayed (on the order of weeks) while it gets tested and radiated. What some lobbying campaigns have done to get around this is send mass faxes to congressional offices overnight. It's like having access to someone else's office printer and that person has 1/538th of control over the federal government.<p>The takeaway is, unless these letters are hand delivered, I doubt theyll reach their intended recipients in time.
This is a great idea. I'm sending in mail through this. Not everyone has the luxury of literally stopping by in person, but this is a fantastic alternative.<p>I love this, though I've held back on commenting on SOPA until now. One of the frequent comments on SOPA I see is that the original founders behind the internet believed it should be free and unregulated. While I agree, once you introduce capitalism to the internet, as most companies have, you cannot let it be entirely unregulated. What is happening in the internet now is the same process that occurred directly after the industrial revolution - first there were completely unregulated, grievous abuses in the industry. The entertainment industry is attempting to regulate the flow of information and "capital" in the same way the government had to go "trust buster" on the industrial sectors in the last two centuries.<p>However, while this is all good and well, as the side video explains, they already have protocols for doing this. They don't <i>need</i> any more methods of stopping piracy and the like. They should shift their attention to different ways of raising capital and earning revenue. The system they have isn't working, but erring on the side of regulation instead of erring on the side of libertarianism is <i>still</i> erring. There needs to be a comfortable balance, and SOPA does not make such a balance - it tips the scales in favor of the entertainment industry, and that is the last sector of the United States the internet should be supervised and moderated by.
I know this doesn't have a snowball's chance in hell of happening, but I wager if Google, Facebook, etc. were to shut down their websites for an entire day--or even part of a day--that congress would get the picture. Give the entire Internet a blank page stating simply and concisely what is at stake. Just imagine the deluge of calls.
This is great action on the part of SendWrite.<p>One suggestion: since you ask for the sender's home address anyway, why not use that to scrape the contactcongress website to automatically fill in their representatives?
Just a bit of advice from back when I was sending letters over the DMCA.<p>If your congressman is supporting the bill, don't bother. My Senator at the time was Fritz Hollings; came from a poor district, so he was dependent on a lot of outside contributions. I recall Disney being one of his largest contributors. I received a response 3 months after it passed that more or less told me I was a enemy of commerce. I won't lie, I was a little shocked to get back such a pointed letter when I was as courteous and respectful as possible.<p>I learned my lesson from that one. You can send a letter to anyone and generally it is a great idea, but if they get a dime from your position's opposition, it is just pissing in the wind. It's just business.
Really nice of you to have made this free. I would have paid! I wouldn't have sent this if not for sendwrite, just because the cost for me to type, print, stamp, and mail an envelope is too high.
Does any advocacy group (EFF, etc) have info on who the key swing/undecided/"marginal" votes are?<p>Knowing that we could try and focus dissemination of this to people in those districts.
Upvote this on Reddit for more volume: <a href="http://www.reddit.com/submit?url=https%3A%2F%2Fsendwrite.com%2Fsopa%2F" rel="nofollow">http://www.reddit.com/submit?url=https%3A%2F%2Fsendwrite.com...</a>
hi all,
as a chinese, let me explain what's the situation in China. maybe you already know we have a similar censorship system called GFW(the Great FireWall of China).<p>when the government don't want we to see the truth of something, or something may be a threat to them，they will ban it incruely, sometimes they even do it in the name of "for the children" or "for the harmony society" or give their version of totally-bullshit “truth”.<p>besides the baning of website, they also have some people take salaries from government and speak for the government in every forum when scandals of government officials burn out.and when scandals burns out government also send orders to every website, every press to stop talk and publishing on the scandals, the reason they give is "for the harmony of society" or "don't be mislead by the media in US and Euro" :D<p>what's more almost every big website/application in china has employees either hired by government or hired by website/software-company to censor the users' activities, including QQ(biggest IM in china, just like MSN), Youku & Tudou(biggest two video site, like youtube), renren(biggest SNS in china, like facebook), baidu(biggest search engine in china, like google).if you said something bad to the government, your words must be deleted, what was worse, there used to be 2 men chatting using QQ, and the owner of QQ--Tencent Compang--give their chats record to the police ACTIVELY, and the result is the 2 men was sent to prison.<p>so if you allow your congress to pass SOPA, you know what would happen to you all.
I absolutely love the idea. I cant remember where I read it or heard it, but physical letters do get much more attention. Nothing against SendWrite, but I think even more attention can be gained via distinctive-looking enveloped letters that need to be cut open and unfolded. A stack of similar-looking postcards will have an impact in terms of volume, but will likely be sorted into a bin and never read. If you have the time and have extra company logo-ed envelopes, please consider sending one by hand as well.
Sent.<p>From my letter:<p>H.R.3261, the 'Stop Online Piracy Act', is going to be the Volstead Act of the 21st Century. Like Prohibition, creating draconian laws like these to stop online piracy is going to do two things: 1) destroy respectable businesses that thrive on user-generated content and 2) drastically increase the number of pirates online by expanding its definition, and in doing so, massively expand online piracy. SOPA will literally create a generation of internet bootleggers.
Thanks for a great tool.<p>A suggestion: I'd like to be able to send a letter to all of my representatives and senators at once, instead of having to fill out the form multiple times.
This is great. What's the cashflow situation here - how many donations will you/do you need (I'm aware this is obviously demand dependent, but I'm just intrigued about the general situation)
Thanks for this. I wrote my letter and probably wouldn't have done so without the help of this website. This is one of the first times that a bill has come up that I feel so strongly against. If this thing becomes law, we'll all refer to the internet "before" and "after" this moment. I certainly hope it never comes to be.
Have always wondered if an online service for political mailings like this couldn't introduce some randomness to the opening, key statements and closing (Sincerely, Regards, etc) and varying the layout and style so they don't look too much like they were cranked out with the push of a button.
Looks great, but I can't set an international return address without a state. I'm a registered voter in the US, but haven't been a resident for a long time.<p>Guess I'll just email my rep.
Perhaps someone can change the facebook link at the top to a share or a recommend link. Those show up in feeds whereas likes only show up on your wall.
My Congressman and Senator here in Massachusettsmust understand the ramifications of this bill and protect the individual's citizen from corporate and government control of the internet. They must be educated and read up on this abrogation of civil rights and government protected and constitutionally guaranteed free speech and discourse.
Dan Osterman, Boston
I just submitted my letters to my representatives (and donated, thanks Cole!)<p>To hit up your reps with different communication channels, <a href="http://www.contactingthecongress.org" rel="nofollow">http://www.contactingthecongress.org</a> has voice, fax, and web forms.
Not that I don't want to support you guys for doing something awesome like this, but I wish the "Like" button showed appropriate meta-content on my facebook wall, instead of just a generic description of SendWrite. Also, donated. :)
I'm impressed. SendWrite is doing good while promoting themselves and it makes an awesome first impression. I never thought of using them before. I never even visited the site, just heard of them and generally got the idea of what they do. I think I may use them now! I'm actually looking for an excuse!
If you are really serious about taking a stand on this bill, then the most impact will achieved by going to the source of it, not Congress... unless you have more to offer Congress' incumbents and the nation's economy than the industry source does.<p>They are a very important constituent.<p>If a large number of consumers stopped purchasing a certain entertainment company's products for one day, would it have a noticeable impact on their revenues? How about a week? A month?<p>The industry claims it's losing business to pirates. While it's probably true to some extent, it is speculative and nearly impossible to measure accurately. How many of the consumers of pirated content were never consumers of paid content to begin with?<p>The products this industry sells are not life necessities.<p>In summary, a branded entertainment "hunger strike" by actual existing, paid customers. This would cause real loss.
And, if it's a noticeable loss, it would send a very strong message.<p>Good luck.
Filled out one for each of my representatives and senators, and also made a small donation. I may not be able to do much, but I'll be damned if I don't do anything.