As a professional marketer, I can tell you that if your name and address is on a list, it is very easy for a political campaign to purchase into a marketing tool (commonly referred to as "append") to match one type of database with another. There are entire marketing companies out there that do nothing but get name and address information of a 'target' person and find e-mail and phone numbers for them.
Generally speaking, these companies follow the letter of the law when it comes to privacy laws. If you provided your information to company A that you had a business transaction with and they are affiliated with an append type vendor/supplier AND they have a contract that is disclosed in some style of purchase agreement (or terms of use - think of just about anything you signed up for on the internet with an "I accept" check-box and an underlined link to excruciatingly long-terms and conditions, which somewhere in them, has a provision to release this consumer data)...then a campaign or other business can name match to this source and it is perfectly legal. Sadly, these loopholes are exactly the types of things that pull us all away from dinner with family to answer that darned phone and be annoyed by people we really don't want to talk with. Until politicians don't need to rely on money or contacting voters, we are all stuck with the consequences of a very broken privacy law system. I would doubt that anything was done illegally. (Un-ethically, well that is a whole other ball of wax...) Paul R. Skrbec Inver Grove Heights, MN [EMAIL PROTECTED] -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Tim Bonham Sent: Monday, March 21, 2005 8:48 PM To: mpls-issues Subject: Re: [Mpls] Campaign law questions >Third, I have an unlisted phone number. I simply never give it out. >I am a DFL delegate but never gave my phone number to the DFL. Now I >did call the Mayor's Office to ask about Rybak's mailing that he did >back in January. That is the only place I can think his campaign >could have gotten my phone number. Is it legal for the Mayor to >"harvest" phone numbers from people who call him for legitimate city >purposes and use them for campaign purposes? >. . . >Corinne Becker Phone numbers are easily available online. Published numbers are very easy, unlisted are a bit harder to find, and often are not free. But still available. Searching on your name, the second site I visited told me there was an unpublished one for Corrine Becker at <your address>, which was available if I would pay for it. So it's not hard to find. Political campaigns, like commercial businesses, often hire someone to clean their address list, including verifying/updating phone numbers. It's a pretty standard process; I'd expect the Rybak campaign did this. Harvesting them one-by-one from calls to City Hall would take way too much manual effort to be cost effective. And saving the numbers of people who called to complain about the Mayor's action, as you did, would be especially conter-effective. So it's quite likely that the Rybak campaign just had a mailing firm do a standard cleanup & update on their list, and got your phone number that way. Tim Bonham, Ward 12, Standish-Ericsson REMINDERS: 1. Be civil! Please read the NEW RULES at http://www.e-democracy.org/rules. If you think a member is in violation, contact the list manager at [EMAIL PROTECTED] before continuing it on the list. 2. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait. For state and national discussions see: http://e-democracy.org/discuss.html For external forums, see: http://e-democracy.org/mninteract ________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A Civil City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[email protected] Subscribe, Un-subscribe, etc. at: http://e-democracy.org/mpls REMINDERS: 1. Be civil! Please read the NEW RULES at http://www.e-democracy.org/rules. If you think a member is in violation, contact the list manager at [EMAIL PROTECTED] before continuing it on the list. 2. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait. For state and national discussions see: http://e-democracy.org/discuss.html For external forums, see: http://e-democracy.org/mninteract ________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A Civil City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[email protected] Subscribe, Un-subscribe, etc. at: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
