
Tell congress to stop SOPA with a physical letter - colevscode
https://sendwrite.com/sopa/
======
wallawe
Although I applaud the efforts here, as a former staffer and intern for a
congressman, I hate to be the bearer of bad news...

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.

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.

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.

~~~
zeratul
Wallawe: Do you think this on-line petition system is useful? Instead of going
through a congressman, one could go through the White House?

[https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions#!/how-why/terms-
partic...](https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions#!/how-why/terms-
participation)

~~~
cWallace
This wasn't addressed to me but I thought I'd comment.

The We The People petitions, I believe, are there to make the people believe
they are making an impact in policy by signing one. Most, if not every,
response from the White House has been a generic, basically meaningless
response from an unknown staffer.

Case in point: [https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions#!/petition/we-
demand-v...](https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions#!/petition/we-demand-vapid-
condescending-meaningless-politically-safe-response-petition/gCZfn86x)

Notice how this petition has been signed by more people than most of the
others...

------
danielsoneg
I was briefly skeptical, but on reflection, I like this for three reasons:

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.

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.

Finally, you guys are putting your cash on the line for this - that's a
powerful statement, and I applaud you for doing so.

~~~
OstiaAntica
Email works better, actually. All of Congress uses web forms that categorize
and route the messages directly to their CRM systems. So it is easy for them
to tally and respond. Mail, on the other hand, has to get irradiated for
bioterror and takes 4-6 weeks to arrive. The letters are made brittle and
staff dislike handling them, and they have to be typed or scanned into the
office CRM.

~~~
chimeracoder
Congress uses multipliers to figure out how predictive each piece of
communication is (ie, how likely it is that a certain piece of communication
will result in a change in voting behavior).

I don't remember the exact numbers, but the hierarchy goes (in descending
order): in-person visit to DC office, in-person visit to local office,
physical handwritten letter, physical typed letter, phone call, email. The
multiplier attached to email is close to zero.

(The exact method varies by congressman/senator, but the relative rankings are
the same throughout).

~~~
gcb
If this is real, it's a great example of why this kind of government is way
overdue.

millions of people affected by some law, _0.01

one retired guy pissed of by something minor, but that happens to live close
by, _700

~~~
chimeracoder
Not exactly. The person would have to be a constituent, so he would live no
further than any other people in the district.

You could make a statement about wealth and lobbying, but to be honest, those
are considered in a different category anyway.

It's actually rather accurate. If someone takes the time to write a
handwritten letter and mail it, it means a lot more than just clicking a
DemandProgress button that has all of your personal information pre-populated.
The Internet lowers the cost (effort) of communication, but on the other hand,
the non-material cost is a way of showing that the issue is important to you.

~~~
gcb
"in-person visit to DC office" at the top of the list

~~~
chimeracoder
Yes, but only constituents' opinions are relevant, and all constituents must
live within the district.

------
epi0Bauqu
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?

Edit: I see you just did. Thx! I just linked to it on DuckDuckGo as well as
donated and sent my letter. Thanks again.

~~~
mikesabat
How insane is it that you have 12k karma, have no problem commenting on js,
ruby, jquery, mongo or even css... but you're worried about people not
understanding this bill.

NOT a comment about you, epi08, but just commentary about what matters.

If you haven't called your congressperson about this, then you don't care.

period.

~~~
ericd
Putting a notice on a site trafficked by 10's of thousands per day like DDG is
a lot more powerful than calling...

Everyone with a site, please do this. I've put it on PadMapper.

------
riordan
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.

The takeaway is, unless these letters are hand delivered, I doubt theyll reach
their intended recipients in time.

~~~
draebek
This is the second or third time I've read the problem of postal mail to
congresspeople in these comments. I really like what SendWrite is doing here,
but what riordan and others have said here rings true to me. Are they going to
get my mail weeks after it mattered?

------
dylangs1030
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.

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.

However, while this is all good and well, as the side video explains, they
already have protocols for doing this. They don't _need_ 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 _still_ 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.

------
possibilistic
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.

------
ubasu
This is great action on the part of SendWrite.

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?

~~~
colevscode
Would love to do that. We wanted to get this out the door quickly. If it is
popular we'll see about improving the UI. Thanks!

~~~
danielsoneg
Sunlight Labs has an API that'll do it by zip code:
<http://services.sunlightlabs.com/docs/Sunlight_Congress_API/>

They've got libraries for Ruby, Python, and even PHP, and the interface is
drop-dead simple. Definitely worth a look - I'm baking them into one of my
projects right now.

~~~
colevscode
This could have saved us a lot of time. Thanks!

~~~
chimeracoder
This is amazing. Some years ago, I wanted to build a site that did essentially
the same thing (but for a different issue), and this API either didn't exist
or wasn't complete/accurate enough. It's remarkable how much power the web has
to effect political change - seems like we're only seeing the beginning of it.

...that is, unless SOPA passes, in which case this may be as good as it
gets....

------
steauengeglase
Just a bit of advice from back when I was sending letters over the DMCA.

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.

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.

------
chrischen
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.

~~~
frossie
_I would have paid!_

For those who have yet to do it, I should point out that there is a PayPal
donate button to support this effort that you are shown after submission of
your entry. Send cards to all your representatives, then send those nice folk
a couple of bucks to cover the postage at least.

~~~
xymostech
I actually signed up for SendWrite before, but didn't really want to spend
money on sending letters from the internet.

However, I've now donated $5 because of the selfless thing they are doing.
Thanks to everyone at SendWrite for doing this, hopefully it will help!

------
daguar
Does any advocacy group (EFF, etc) have info on who the key
swing/undecided/"marginal" votes are?

Knowing that we could try and focus dissemination of this to people in those
districts.

~~~
lr
You do mention "focus dissemination of this to people in those districts", and
that is key, because unless a Representative/Senator is the head of a
committee, an email/letter/etc., from outside of their district is completely
discarded.

Also, if you are not registered to vote, your comment goes in the waste bin,
too. Trust me, I know plenty of people who work or have worked in various
legislative bodies, and the _first_ thing they do when they get contacted by a
"constituent" is check to see if they are registered to vote in their
district. If not, then the message falls on deaf ears.

------
curiousepic
Upvote this on Reddit for more volume:
[http://www.reddit.com/submit?url=https%3A%2F%2Fsendwrite.com...](http://www.reddit.com/submit?url=https%3A%2F%2Fsendwrite.com%2Fsopa%2F)

------
pizza_lover
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).

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”.

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

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.

so if you allow your congress to pass SOPA, you know what would happen to you
all.

------
bpowah
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.

~~~
colevscode
Thanks! Just to clarify, SendWrite letters are mailed in an envelope, so each
one will need to be opened. Also we deliberately didn't use a pre-written
letter as a template. The result is that the letters we have received are very
unique.

~~~
dhimes
Damnit! Great idea, but I HATE it when on-screen text is not user-selectable.
I want to take your on-screen address and put it on my own envelope.
GRRRRRRR!!

Great idea, though. Thank you.

------
padobson
Sent.

From my letter:

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.

------
kschults
Thanks for a great tool.

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.

~~~
mmmmax
that might get expensive for SendWrite...

~~~
thyrsus
Sendwrite's normal charge for 20 cards is $39.80. I sent three cards (two
Senators, 1 representative), and donated to cover at least that.

------
alexholehouse
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)

------
sev
Great idea! I hope everyone uses this service as soon as possible.

------
mschwar99
Its really great of you guys to offer this service on your own dime - thank
you. Its also very shrewd marketing, and I hope it pays off for you.

------
jneal
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.

------
prawn
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.

------
gourneau
Thanks guys! I donated a small amount, hopefully it will pay for my letters.

------
jjacobson
Donated, tweeted, emailed, sent the letter, etc. Cole is a baller.

------
lflux
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.

Guess I'll just email my rep.

------
yoshyosh
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.

------
dan_illustrate
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

------
gus_massa
The names in the DropDownList Control are invisible in IE8:
<http://imgur.com/7UIbT>

------
alecbenzer
> Don't know who is your local representative?

I believe that should read "Don't know who your local representative is?", no?

------
dschobel
Nice work guys. Thank you for doing this.

------
mceachen
I just submitted my letters to my representatives (and donated, thanks Cole!)

To hit up your reps with different communication channels,
<http://www.contactingthecongress.org> has voice, fax, and web forms.

------
traldan
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. :)

------
jeremyarussell
I sent mine off a bit ago, thanks a ton for doing this. Here's to making a
difference.

------
yeison
This is awesome, but the bill will be on the House floor tomorrow.

------
coreyrecvlohe
Great idea, just sent letters to both of my Senators.

------
nomdeplume
Is this when they slip in another bill that does something even worse? While
we are inundated with the news of this bill?

------
lukejduncan
Is this a one off website or based on some framework? This seems like a very
powerfully general purpose advocacy tool.

------
switz
Very great for sendwrite to do this. Not only will it protect their business,
but it's a great marketing tool.

------
dev1n
Thank you for making this a free letter.

------
MBlume
Thanks for this =)

------
flexterra
Thanks!

------
sehugg
There's also Apple's new Cards app. I'm going through my cat pictures now.

------
billpatrianakos
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!

------
101000101
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.

They are a very important constituent.

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?

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?

The products this industry sells are not life necessities.

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.

Good luck.

------
sscheper
Just completed/sent a letter via your link and donated afterwords (and I
rarely donate). Nice work.

------
shmeeps
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.

