E-Mail Appeals in Age of Anthrax

WASHINGTON -- Capitol Hill is becoming more tech-savvy as it turns to e-mail and tries to steer away from anthrax-ridden letters.

The volume of e-mail to Congress has more than doubled since anthrax was discovered in a letter meant for Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-South Dakota) says Nu Wexler, a spokesperson for Senator Ernest Hollings (D-South Carolina).

"They don't want to touch snail mail with a barge pole," says Lee Tien, a staff attorney at Electronic Frontier Foundation, an Internet civil liberties group.

The beneficiaries of this trend may well be a new breed of political activists who like to use the Web as a tool for activism. Activism has come a long way in the Internet age, moving from action on the streets to turning to a keyboard and clicking.

Taking (Virtual) Action

When Joan Blades felt enraged by the move to impeach former President Clinton, she turned to her PC to make her voice heard. Blades sent e-mail to her friends and asked them to contact members of Congress, and also raised money online. Soon she was heading Move On, one of the largest most influential activist groups based on the Internet. Having enlisted more than 400,000 members, and raised millions of dollars, Move On has run successful campaigns on campaign finance reform and Enron.

"I think we are just discovering how to have two-way communication with our politicians on the Net," Blades says. She says she could start Move On only because it took less time and money to do it online than as a bricks-and-mortar organization. "It is bringing more people into the political process," she says.

In fact, as these measures gain steam, a small industry seems to be growing around it. For example, Statedemocracy.com is a new Web site with a chat room where activists can chat with legislators. It also compiles e-mail to help lawmakers judge public opinion. Political advisors at Mindshare Consulting specialize in helping develop Internet strategies in public policy.

Making an Impact?

The only hitch is that the strategists believe politicians still don't take Internet and e-mail campaigns as seriously as conventional ones--even if e-mail is more appealing after the anthrax scare.

"E-mail is not the most effective way of contacting your members of Congress because it doesn't pile up the way letters do," says Jonah Seiger, co-founder of Mindshare.

Others, like the Electronic Frontier Foundation's Tien, say e-mail campaigns are not taken as seriously because "they are too simple to send." Organizations like Move On often counter this by printing out the e-mail campaigns and sending them by standard mail.

From the other side, lawmakers also wonder whether their correspondents are taking the issues seriously. While many press offices say they take e-mail at least as seriously as any other form of communication, Congressional staffers also fear that someone browsing casually may find themselves simply clicking to "take action."

"Sometimes e-mail could be media-driven. As people read news on the Web, they may fall for e-mail campaigns without really feeling as strongly. E-mail gets people to be part of a campaign that may not affect their daily lives," says Stephen Piepgrass, press secretary to Representative Mike Pence (R-Indiana).

Often being part of a e-mail campaign may involve just forwarding mail so the senator's office gets a pile of the same e-mail.

Quick Response

But legislators are warming up to e-mail because they can respond to it more quickly, and often find it an easier way to contact constituents as well.

"There are strict rules for when we can send mail to our constituents, but we can send e-newsletters whenever we want because, the receiver has signed up for it," Piepgrass says.

Others warn that relying too much on e-mail will exclude some people.

"Often the issues we get on e-mail are from young people, on more tech-savvy issues," says Wexler. Constituents without access to e-mail must sometimes rely on slower means of communications, and may focus on other topics.

Still, both ends of the correspondence agree that e-mail has made it easier for people to translate their convictions in to action--even if it is just a virtual action.