JMO - When the truth is lost

I'm reading all too frequently now individuals, groups, organizations, political action committees, lobbyists, and even the staff of politicians have been sending letters, from a few to selected members of Congress or the White House, to mass mailings to every member of Congress, government leaders and even us citizens, which were fake. Either the group identified in the letter as sending it was forged or different to represent someone other than the sender or the content was meant to represent a view from the sender which contradicted the opposition.

This has been done to disguise the real sender, but mostly it's been done to overwhelm the receipents with bogus letters in favor or opposition of a political view or on a particular issue. This is because the real sender had exhausted it's limit of lobbying, so they resort to illegal ways to add to the message to Representatives and Senators in Congress. It's done through paper mail and through e-mail.

And it's now a commonplace practice. Kinda' like when one person breaks the law, then it's ok for everyone to break it, and the law itself along with the reason for the law becomes lost. After all what's wrong with speeding a little? But this is our political process that's been corrupted by everyone, including organizations associated with or working for elected officials, what they dismiss when caught as "outside" groups affiliated with them, except those actions were approved and funded by the organizations.

It's the new norm. If you want to get a message across, fake an organization and inundate political officials with fake letters of support or opposition. Or worse, create a fake organization with a good sounding name of the opposition and send either misleading letters to make them look bad or letters stating erroneous views on issues. In other words make it appear they sent it rather than you.

I've seen this before, but I didn't really see it in action personally until last year when I read the comments to a bill supporting allowing carrying guns in National Parks and Wildlife Refuges. Almost all the e-mail in support of the bill on the bill's Website for Congress had the identical messages, a very carefully crafted legal statement supporting the bill. It was obvious that someone posted it on a Website to send view a script with the individual's e-mail address.

These weren't letters written by individuals, but letters using a canned content. And we don't really know even if the e-mail address and people's name and address were real, and even if real, were really from that person. There's no confirmation in the process to ensure it's a real person and it's their real letter. It was a mass mailing simply to overwhelm the opposition's comments.

When I found the Website for the source of the e-mails, it was proven that in this day of technology and the Internet, mail may not always be what it's supposed to be. On the Website they had the content you can cut and paste into your e-mail program with the list of Congressional representatives for each state and district, or you can simply add your e-mail address and using your zip code it looked up your elected representatives in Congress you could send the e-mail from there.

And now it's seem every week some revelations comes out to show some organization faked letters. The problem is that there is no law against this practice, and once sent, the damage is done. The truth, later revealed, can't and won't overcome the impact of the original letter, no matter being wrong and bogus.

And yes, I realize this isn't new by any stretch of my imagination. It's an old politicial tactic. It's just the technology and information has changed you can't tell what's real, and you can't even control if your e-mail wasn't used for some mass mailing you wouldn't agree with. Your own e-mail and identity is now the property of polticial hacks.

I don't have any answers about this, and not really surprised anymore with new revelations about this or that organization sending fake or bogus letters or e-mail. In the day of spam, it's just another flavor it. Except it's our elected politicians and their staff who may not know the difference.