Anti-tax campaign shut down

A California grass-roots advocacy group with a “no more taxes” campaign claims the state hindered the right of citizens to express their views by triggering a chain of events that led to the shutdown of the nonprofit organization’s website and destruction of thousands of e-mails meant for lawmakers.

The state’s Legislative Data Center in Sacramento, which manages e-mail for the legislature, insists that the problem is a technical matter. But Campaign for California Families, or CCF, filed a cease and desist complaint in court yesterday afternoon, charging that the state interfered with the First Amendment rights of citizens.

“The state of California has acted unreasonably and with brute power to shut down the voice of the people, who are using civilized and legal means to petition their government,” CCF director Randy Thomasson told WND.

The complaint – which names Gov. Gray Davis, the state legislature and a data center employee – says the defendants “intentionally, knowingly and maliciously destroyed or interfered with the transmission of over 20,000 individual communications between Californians and the governmental officials that represent them.”

Budget battle

On Monday, the lobby group urged concerned citizens to come to its website to type out an individual message that would be forwarded by e-mail to 118 state legislators and Gov. Davis. The e-mails had the sender’s return address.

The campaign comes ahead of a legislative battle over how to solve California’s massive budget crisis.

After receiving about 30,000 of the messages on Tuesday, Diana Waldo, a state employee of the Legislative Data Center in Sacramento blocked further e-mails from coming in via CCF and contacted the group’s Web server provider, Vortech Inc., in Orlando, Fla., according to a copy of e-mail correspondence obtained by WND.

On Wednesday, CCF was notified that its website had been shut down by Vortech. The Florida company sent the message through its “reseller” in California, Go56.com, the firm that set up CCF’s website.

Waldo, who is named in the legal complaint, maintained in an interview with WND that her intent certainly was not to cut off the anti-tax messages.

She said that some of the e-mails were being sent to lawmakers who no longer were in office, and she was concerned about the massive volume, wondering if the source could schedule another, less busy time to send the messages. She said that, on average, the center gets about 60,000 e-mails a day.

Waldo said that by looking at the message headers – a string of addresses contained in the e-mails that show the Internet path from sender to receiver – she found Vortech’s name. She said she knew nothing about CCF, though she noted that the messages had a common theme.

Bringing grievances

CCF’s attorney, Richard Ackerman of the United States Justice Foundation, believes the state should be able to handle that kind of volume in order to hear what its citizens think.

“The number of messages is as important as the message itself,” said Ackerman. “They have a First Amendment right to bring grievances against the government.”

Ackerman also argued that a 2002 California law considers electronic communication part of the public record.

“When the e-mail landed at the government office, they destroyed the record,” he said.

Jim Gilles, director of the Legislative Data Center, maintained that the content of the messages had nothing to do with the problem.

“We don’t censor e-mails that come to the members,” he told WND. “When we get 10,000 bad addresses an hour, that clogs up the server and grinds it to a halt. It isn’t unique to us.”

Thomasson conceded that about 10 of the 119 recipients were no longer valid, but contends that Gilles’ figure is way too high. He argues that about 1 out of 12 invalid addresses is a small percentage, comparable to the proportion of missent mail the state is accustomed to receiving.

Vortech owner Brad Pugh, noting that his company has a “zero spam policy,” claimed that because of CCF’s e-mails, his 5,000 customers experienced a slowdown, delaying mail for up to 24 hours.

[Editor’s note: After this story was posted, Vortech determined that CCF’s e-mail campaign should not be considered spam. The company emphasizes that its concern was not the content of the messages but the consequent delay in its mail system, which affected customers.]

Thomasson insists that the messages are not “spam,” the widespread distribution of unsolicited advertising.

“This communication was totally different,” he said. “The e-mails sent by people to their legislators constitutes free speech and has nothing to do with buying anything, but rather with protecting people’s wallets.”

State Sen. Tom McClintock, a Republican from Thousand Oaks, northwest of Los Angeles, noted that the messages are individually composed.

“We get hundreds of forms of spam that are identically worded from liberal groups seeking tax hikes and expanded spending,” he told WND.

“I would be very interested to know what liberal groups have had their e-mail blocked from the Capitol,” he said.

“Personally, I resent it because it means I may have constituents who sent me a message who expect a reply and won’t get one, because the Legislative Data Center has decided for me that I don’t want to see my messages,” said McClintock.

New site

Ken Anderson, the owner of Go56.com, said he designed CCF’s website to handle a lot of e-mail and believes the amount sent out is relatively small.

“There are political action groups all over the U.S. that do this kind of volume of e-mail,” he said.

After examining a 16-hour period, he found 338 people had initiated messages that went to 110 addresses per individual, which amounts to about 37,000 e-mails.

He said that until Wednesday afternoon, he had no indication there was a problem.

“This really started happening when California began blocking its e-mail,” he contended.

Thomasson said that Vortech has permanently banned his group from having its website hosted by the Florida company. He hopes, however, to have www.savecalifornia.com running again today via another host.

“We’re going to fight this and redouble our ‘no more taxes’ efforts,” said Thomasson. “The Democrats bad policy is going to backfire and people are going to take back their government.”

CCF says in its mission statement that it “believes the institutions of marriage and family, religious freedom, parental rights, and taxpayer rights must be respected, esteemed, and protected by law.”

In 1999, the group purchased two dozen full-page newspaper ads to help defeat a bill it says would have promoted
the homosexual lifestyle in public schools, colleges and universities.