Dear Scott,
The purpose of the petition sent to me is serious and important. Even so,
Internet petitions do no good. The reasons are explained below, along with
a note on how to achieve the same goals in a more effective way.
To have any hope of success, a petition must be sent to an appropriate
agency. To make petitions meaningful requires an understanding of petition
protocol.
The issue is not the validity of the idea, but the validity of the
petition. To show that thousands of people or millions of people support a
petition, it is necessary to document their participation. Since there is
no way to document or to assure the validity of Internet signatures at this
time, Internet petitions are not valid.
Further, since Internet petitions spread through different lists and move
through different chains, the same names appear dozens or even hundreds of
times. There is no way to establish whether a final petition has the
signatures of many different individuals or far fewer individuals whose
names occur repeatedly. If a petition arrives with 12,863,436 signatures,
there is no way to know whether this is 12,863,436 separate individuals or
189,932 individuals whose signatures have crossed and multiplied through
different chains. To find out which is the case requires expensive staff
time that no agency can afford, and there is still no valid documentation
of the signatures.
A legally valid petition in most cases requires 1) a signature, 2) a
printed name, 3) an address or location. While some public opinion
petitions neglect the third, all three are required for a petition have the
kind of legal standing required to place a political party on the rolls or
to invoke a plebiscite. One may argue that this is merely fastidious
rhetoric. It is not. This principle goes to the core of democratic
participation in government decisions. Governments must know that citizens
are actually speaking before acting on civic will spoken through the
collective voice of a petition. International petitions must reasonably
represent a large, global constituency to be impressive, and this means a
record of valid signatures.
The format of the Internet petition offers merely a list of names. There is
no assurance that any named individual actually signed it. Paper petitions
are routinely refused or invalidated for lack of valid documentation.
Some believe that that the purpose of Internet petitions is simply to draw
attention to issues. This is only partly true. Internet petitions draw
attention to issues, but they are not a particularly useful way to do so.
Debate and informed conversation draws attention to issues. Invalid
petitions merely waste time.
Rather than circulate Internet petitions, it is far more effective to ask
those who would sign such a petition to write a proper letter and email it
directly with their own signature bock including a return address. While
validation is still an issue, the fact of a properly signed letter with
name and return address in the signature block can be checked. To make it
easy to write such a letter, those who propose the petition can write a
sample letter than can be pasted into the body of a new email document and
signed.
I understand why people are concerned about the issues expressed in this
petition. I share those concerns. Those who are truly concerned should get
the name of their congressional representative and senators and write them
direct. Senators and members of congress do pay attention to direct,
personal email contact, and a personal email post with signature block is
as credible as a letter on paper. Rather than ask people to circulate a
petition that will be ignored, ask them to contact their representatives
and senators - and show them how.
A cause that deserves support requires that you take the time to write a
letter and send it personally.
Best regards,
Ken
--
Ken Friedman, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Leadership and Strategic Design
Department of Knowledge Management
Norwegian School of Management
+47 22.98.51.07 Direct line
+47 22.98.51.11 Telefax
Home office:
+46 (46) 53.245 Telephone
+46 (46) 53.345 Telefax
email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
