\ sē,'spam-miŋ \ v. the practice used by advocacy organizations in which they ask their membership to email members of Congress or state legislators in an attempt to influence legislation and policy votes. Largely used by political organizations such as MoveOn and the National Rifle
Association (NRA).
This action is mostly useless, as legislators are principally concerned with re-election and therefore only care about their own constituents' opinions, and as the emails are usually canned forms generated through websites and petition forms, it's difficult or
impossible to determine which of the thousands or tens of or hundreds of thousands of received emails are actually from their own constituents.
Call or mail an old-fashioned snail mail letter if you want an opinion counted.
Legislators, on the other hand, love the
opportunity to harvest the email addresses so that they may later spam the senders with with their own propaganda in a practice known as "constituent
communication," which is better known as conning. The material sent is known as canned spam.
NRA Reichsmarschall Wayne LaPierre told his aids to mobilize his sheep in a c-spamming campaign, asking his mindless
followers to email all members of Congress to defeat the gun safety
legislation targeted at protecting
elementary school children from massacre by assault rifles.
