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Five politicians who can save the internet

June 18, 2012All, BlogLeave a comment

You already know the bad guys: Lamar Smith wanted to censor the internet, and he did it after Chris Dodd spent thousands of dollars lobbying on behalf of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA). In the interest of fighting piracy, ending pornography, and expanding an increasingly obsolete business model, the United States government and some of its closest allies have recently made it a point to test just how far citizens’ rights apply while online.

But there are a few of our leaders who see through the guise of protecting key grips and children, and know the irresponsible, internet-harming legislation for what it really is. The five politicians below are listed based on their reactions to SOPA, CISPA, PCIPA (HR1981), ACTA, and other famous legislation opposed by organizations like the EFF and Fight for the Future.

Opinions expressed (and the terrible page formatting) are my own and do not represent Test PAC or its membership.

Amash's Hotlinked Wikipedia Image

Justin Amash

Party: Republican
District & State: Michigan’s 3^rd Congressional District
Chance of re-election in 2012: Strong

Frequently referred to by some as “the next Ron Paul,” Justin Amash is a libertarian Republican who opposed SOPA and CISPA. What makes Amash truly unique is that he is the only Congressman who explains every one of his votes to his constituents, and he does it via his Facebook page. Earlier this year, Amash posted his 1000^th Vote on the site, giving new meaning to the phrase “government transparency.”

Not only is Amash a forward-thinker and hero of the internet, he also says he admires the next politician on our list, Jared Polis.

Polis before visiting /r/malefashionadvice

Jared Polis

Party: Democratic

District & State: Colorado’s 2^nd Congressional District
Chance of re-election in 2012: Strong

Jared Polis is one of the few members of Congress who made his money not from working in politics, but from being a nerd. Polis started a website you’ve probably heard of: ProFlowers.com, which was not even his first major startup (he used to own an ISP and e-greetingcard site bluemountainarts.com).
With such a background in web startups, it’s no surprise that Polis was one of SOPA’s most vocal opponents, saying it would not only hurt new business, but “destroy the internet as we know it.”

Most impressively, he is even a self-described “nerd” and “gamer.” When SOPA and PIPA were making a big deal, the Congressman actually posted on the official League of Legends message board (now offline, so far as I can tell), calling for safer alternative legislation.

Eshoo on the set of her upcoming "Judge Judy" fan remake. (Not really)

Anna Eshoo

Party: Democratic
District & State: California’s 14^th Congressional District (moving to the 18^th)
Chance of re-election in 2012: Strong

Anna Eshoo represents much of Silicon Valley and is co-chair of the Congressional Internet Caucus, which serves to makes sure Congress brings in the nerds when deciding on the rights of internet denizens.

Eshoo’s most famous accomplishment for net freedom was in 2009, when she introduced the Internet Freedom Preservation Act of 2009, which, if it had passed, would have made net neutrality a legal requirement for ISPs.

Her best quality, though, was her reversing her stance on CISPA after the internet spoke out against it. CISPA had broad opposition from individual internet users, but gigantic corporations happened to love the bill. In fact, they love it to the tune of $318,000, which is the amount of money CISPA supporters donated to Eshoo. With a practical slap in the face, Eshoo took money from CISPA supporters like Google and Facebook, then withdrew her co-sponsorship of the bill and voted against it. She was one of only six members of Congress to end support for the bill after internet campaigns were launched against it.

Issa, Reddit's posterboy for net-freedom.

Darrell Issa

Party: Republican
District & State: California’s 49^th Congressional District
Chance of re-election in 2012: Strong

He voted for CISPA, so why the attention? Issa (pronounced kind of like “eye sore” with a silent R) is a techy with an attitude. The former CEO of Directed Electronics declared himself as a defender of the internet on Reddit and quickly rose to fame on the site after doing a highly-successful IAMA, a “town hall” style of interview.

Since then, Issa has voiced his opinion, via Reddit or other online media, about the tech issues that matter most to him. Most recently, he joined Ron Wyden in the attempt to push for an online bill of rights, with the goal of creating a protection against legislation like SOPA and CISPA. The kicker? It was an idea actually proposed by the Reddit community, known to them as the “Free Internet Act,” or /r/fia. Today, anyone can log on to http://keepthewebopen.com/ and suggest changes to the bill.

Should we hold CISPA against him? Yes. But he can still do some good for us as we move forward.

Schweikert between Battlefield 3 matches

David Schweikert

Party: Republican
District & State: Arizona’s 5^th Congressional District (moving to the 6th)
Chance of re-election in 2012: Iffy

Although Congressman David Schweikert’s internet presence barely stretches past tweets about his dog, he has actively been representing the nerd community in Congress since he was elected in 2010. In an interview, Schweikert’s campaign manager told me that the Congressman is considered to be the biggest nerd on The Hill. For example, he showed me, the server which hosts the Congressman’s campaign website is a double-sized tower that the Congressman built himself from spare parts. During the interview, the discussion turned to Battlefield 3 twice (sorry, CoD players), and the Congressman even considered doing an AMA (or “ask me anything”) on Reddit. (He unfortunately seems to have turned down the opportunity.)

Besides being a vocal opponent of both SOPA and CISPA, Schweikert is facing a tough primary battle against Ben Quayle, who co-sponsored both bills and introduced the famous “last minute amendment” to CISPA that increased the number of ways the government could use your private information. With so few things separating the two freshman Congressmen, expect Schweikert to make net-freedom a priority issue to help squash a possible 2014 primary challenge from Quayle. The election is this August, let’s keep our fingers crossed.

Who you wanted to make the list but didn’t:

Candace Duval
Party: Democratic
District & State: Texas’ 21^st Congressional District
Chance of election in 2012: Not a Chance

Why she didn’t make the list: If selected for the list, Candace Duval would be the only politician on this list who is not a sitting member of Congress. There is one notable thing about her, though: she is challenging SOPA posterboy Lamar Smith in the November general election. Just as you would expect, one of the top issues on her campaign website is net freedom: “She strongly opposes legislation authored and supported by Rep. Lamar Smith such as SOPA, CISPA, and HB 1981 which seek to infringe on the civil liberties of law abiding Americans.”

That being said, her opposition to Smith is pretty much the only thing going for her. The former realtor is also a bit on the kooky side: according to her LinkedIn profile, she had the following to say about her personal psychic healer: “[she] has helped me overcome and complete my karmic endeavors here in this life and past lives. She has assisted me in clearing negative energies that has interfered with my integrity.” It should also be noted that the hopeful Congresswoman spelled psychic, “physic.”

Whatever the negative energy was that damaged her integrity, it’s definitely not as bad as that quote could be. I would say that the quote is so damning that it qualifies her to be her own biggest opponent, but her actual biggest opponent is neither herself nor Lamar Smith: it’s her sister, who started a blog dedicated to explaining why Candace is a “fraud.” The internet is going to collectively wince at the thwomping she is going to receive this November when she goes up against her pro-censorship opponent. If only we could find a decent candidate to face Smith in 2014…

Comments, disagreements, or suggestions for inclusion? Sound off in our sub-reddit!

-Andy Posterick

Recap, Reorganization and Moving Forward

June 5, 2012BlogLeave a comment

Well, we didn’t win.

Lamar Smith won re-election. I’m not happy about it and I’m not going to rehash the results – they are publicly available on the web and this is about moving forward, not staying stuck on one election.

Some of you have suggested that we keep working on unseating Lamar in the general election this fall. TestPAC is unlikely to do so. Why is that, might you ask? First off, the district is hugely conservative. The likelihood of a Democrat winning, especially against a very entrenched incumbent such as Mr. Smith, is highly unlikely. We had our best shot in the primary, but Mr. Smith won.

Secondly, Candace Duval isn’t a candidate we would care to endorse. More information is available on this thread. I’d also like to take the opportunity to remind everyone that Andy Posterick is our Treasurer and named on our documentation. We need to operate within the law or Andy and others will be liable. Further, this means that we need to be careful of who to associate with. I and many others of the membership do not believe that associating with a candidate who has alienated her family and regularly uses a psychic healer is the direction we want to go in at this point in time.

With that out of the way, what did we learn from facing off against Lamar Smith and what have we accomplished? To both questions I would say – a lot.

As detailed in this blog post, TestPAC has successfully put out a TV ad, a billboard, raised thousands of dollars and more. We’ve continued to garner media attention and now we need to figure out the best way to move forward and ascertain our future goals.

One thing that is necessary for us to move forward is to learn from the campaign we just took part in. There are several issues we had with the campaign which I believe are key and need to be addressed; they include our organization, the lack of speed in decision makings, communication between membership, officers and volunteers, understanding of on the ground circumstances and feasibility issues. On the bright side, we have raised awareness of internet issues, showed the possibilities of a new model of fundraising and began to successfully put together an organization. TestPAC sprang virtually out of nowhere and

In that light, here are several things for us to work on in order to improve going forward and to push our capacity for influence and action:

First off, before we move forward on another campaign we need to stop and think about what our mission is going to be. Our core is this- we are a PAC which is ran by our members. Members decide where we focus our energies. However, not only is membership not very strictly defined, we don’t have a core goal in mind. Personally, and let me stress that this is my opinion and mine alone, I think we should focus on internet defense and internet issues.

Sure, if something absolutely crazy happens elsewhere we can switch gears however our focus should be technology and internet issues/net freedom. We have branding there already, it is the core issue that brought the PAC together and it is something that we all care about. Agree or disagree? Great, please give us your thoughts on the subreddit.

Next, we need to better define our structure to allow for greater flexibility and faster decision makings. We need a way of getting membership feedback faster- a great way to do that is to enhance our committees. We put out a call for volunteers and got some responses, however during the midst of the campaign this project fell by the wayside to some extent.

Not so now, we need to reorganize. We are working on an organizational structure to propose to the members for alterations, comments and critiques. However it isn’t quite ready – we’ll try to have it out to the membership as soon as possible, stay tuned. In the meantime – throw out your own ideas and help move the process along or put your name down now to volunteer for a committee. We want to ensure each committee has creative idea oriented thinkers and also people with expertise in the necessary topics. We’ve been blessed with some great production people and minds so far and we don’t want to dilute that.

Additionally, there also needs to be a better way to define membership. Is it everyone who donates? Signing up for the website? What is membership and how do we retain committed people – we’re working on that and are looking for fun and interesting ways to keep people involved. Please don’t hesitate to add your own input!

In summary, the biggest things we are focusing on are:

- well defined mission

- organizational structure

- addressing membership

In order to do this we’ve got some ancillary tasks that need to get done. We also addressed a couple of ideas. Some people have mentioned a name change – not happening right now, the IRS paperwork required to make the change from TestPAC Please Ignore to just TestPAC has taken enough time and energy. Plus, re-branding everything would be detrimental. However on that note – the website will be moved over to the testpac.org domain name soon. Jeromie is working on that, please stay patient as he is swamped with work.

In addition to this we are looking to do an overhaul on some of the site and keep the standards and quality up. Message an officer or post in the subreddit to get involved with this effort. Further, we’re looking to better define our goals and put together a growth plan to ensure we stay on track.

If there was anything you learned from the campaign, if you have ideas of what to do next or you want to get more involved please post to the subreddit and keep discussion going.

The officers will continue to move forward with our current ideas and try to get drafts of them out to the members for perusal soon, however at its heart, TestPAC is about crowd sourcing. We welcome new ideas – many of them may be better than the ones we brainstormed. Lets continue to work together in order to create a better future.

Thank you-

Conor Bronsdon

TestPAC Officer

Tl;dr- Organizing and focusing in – learning from the campaign and from what we accomplished

Election Day is Here: Vote now to Unseat Lamar Smith

May 29, 2012All, Blog, Press, Press Releases1 Comment

Before you read any more – GO VOTE!

Click here to go find your polling place. Remember, we only need to stop Smith from getting 50% of the vote in order to force a runoff election! Election results should be found here.

For information about Richard Mack you can go to his website or read his Reddit AMA.

For information about Richard Morgan check his website or his Reddit AMA.

I want to take this opportunity to once again say thank you to everybody who has worked on the campaign, donated, supported, or otherwise been involved in TestPAC. The support we have received has been spectacular and the excitement and buzz around this campaign has allowed us to achieve things I never thought was possible.

Over a few short months TestPAC has grown from a nonexistent organization to a genuine player in a congressional primary campaign.

A quick list of some of our accomplishments over the course of the primary:

In conjunction with other Reddit-based groups, raised over $35,000 dollars for the primary campaign
Ran an anti-Lamar Smith billboard
Sent out a direct mailer to 8,000 Texas voters
Pulled off a hugely successful moneybomb with your help!
Partnered with a variety of other PACs to help #unseatlamar
Handed out fliers and spoke to voters on the ground
Created and ran a spectacular TV Ad throughout Lamar’s District
Attained repeated media exposure on a variety of platforms

Our first campaign has raised awareness of internet issues, may unseat a sitting congressman in a supposedly safe district, and has helped to awaken the sleeping giant of online political activism. Even so, there is a long ways to go in order to become a stable political force, however the gains from this election have been spectacular. You can look for further organization and a new set of objectives for the membership to vote on following this election.

I should also note that Richard Morgan will be doing a follow up AMA on Reddit per our request. Look for him to do it tomorrow or in a couple of days depending on how things fall out. If the time ends up changing I’ll update it here.

Finally, if you have any ideas on what you would like to see us focus on next, please go put up ideas in the subreddit!

Thank you, and don’t forget to vote!

Conor Bronsdon

Test PAC Launches TV, Direct Mail Campaigns

May 22, 2012All, Blog, Press, Press ReleasesLeave a comment

This is a big week for us.

Over the course of the past month, Test PAC officers, volunteers and members have come together to achieve an incredible amount of work in unprecedented ways. Through the generous donations of average Americans from across the country, Test PAC was successfully able to generate enough funding for a comprehensive campaign against Lamar Smith in Texas’ 21st district.

First, we launched a billboard on San Antonio’s I-10, showing Smith that while he may dismiss those who favor a free and open Internet as the “vocal minority”, our voice would be heard loud and clear. As the month has progressed, we have been in contact with a number of other organizations looking to oust Smith and put an end to his reckless political agenda.

Today, we are proud to announce two new campaigns rolling out this week.

First, Test PAC has confirmed that our direct mailer will be hitting the mailboxes of 8,000 Republican voters on Thursday, May 24th. The mailers were produced using crowd-sourced ideas. Constructive discussion and debate helped hone our message and make sure our point was concise. The direct mailer, which we were able to fund after exceeding our fundraising goal of $5,000 , ended up costing just under $4,000.

In addition to the direct mailer, Test PAC has also purchased a round of television ads which are set to air on three different stations in Texas’ 21st. The breakdown of the airing times is listed below:

KSAT:
Jimmy Kimmel – M-F 1 time per show May 21-25
Indianapolis 500 – Sun May 27th twice
Good Morning S.A. (4:30am-5am) – M-F 3 times total

WOAI:
Leno – Thur 5/24 once, Fri. 5/25 twice (Colin Powell is guest on Friday)
Fallon – Tues. 5/22 once, Thur 5/24 once (Anderson Cooper is guest on Tuesday)
Meet the Press – Sunday 5/27 twice

KENS5:
Letterman – Wed 5/23 twice, Thur 5/24 twice (Bill O’Reilly is guest on Wednesday)
Face the Nation – Sun May 27th once

Prior to funding the television spots, Test PAC members came together to painstakingly produce an advertisement targeting Lamar Smith. As a result, Test PAC was able to create a professional quality commercial with zero production costs(special thanks to Michael Warren, Eddie Belaval, Ian Munsel, and Richard Green). The broadcasting of the spots came in at just over $10,000.

I’ve included the cost of each campaign to emphasize the fact that Test PAC is dedicated to ensuring that every dollar you donate is a dollar you can trust to make a difference. It is with this in mind that Test PAC is run on an entirely volunteer basis, meaning that Test PAC has a 0% overhead. It inspires us to see individual donations of $5, $10, and $20, and as a result we make it our point to utilize each donation in the most efficient manner possible.

As we head into the last lap of the Republican primaries, we encourage each and every one of you to do your part. Voters in Texas’ 2st: end the reign of Lamar Smith by voting in the Republican primary elections. Americans across the country: write your congressmen and women, educate yourselves on legislation threatening our freedoms in the digital age, donate to the cause, and help raise awareness of our current political state of affairs.

The power and innovation of our technological community has proven thus far to be a powerful adversary to the legislative ignorance in Washington. Let’s make sure our concerns further translate into positive action.

Let’s unseat Lamar.

Jeromie Whalen
Test PAC Chairman

Follow Test PAC on Twitter

Like Test PAC on Facebook

A Quick Update: Fundraising, Direct Mail and Tv Ads

May 21, 2012BlogLeave a comment

Jeromie is going to be writing up a more comprehensive draft of TestPAC’s most recent going ons, however as he has been swamped by work of late I’m typing out a short update for all of you news-hungry people.

First of all, 5k On 5 May was amazing. We raised more than double our goal and it is because of all of you that this was possible. Thank you for voicing your political opinion and working with TestPAC to #unseatlamar.

Secondly, with all the extra money we’ve put together a direct mailer and after having several versions critiqued and improved on reddit the final product is now here and arriving in homes all across Texas’ 21st Congressional District. Here is that mailer.

Third, the ad buy is here! Look for TestPAC’s Ad to be playing in Texas in the run up to the election as we’ve been able to do a significant ad buy thanks to the great fundraising work our constituency has put in.

Finally, I just want to say a quick thank you to everyone who has worked so hard to help push forward with the campaign to take down Lamar Smith! The final stages are here and as we count down towards election day keep on spreading the word, making sure your friends and family vote and vote yourself! Thank you to everyone who has helped TestPAC get to this point.

Conor Bronsdon

TestPAC Committee Member

testPAC’s SOPA Canvassing Update

May 10, 2012BlogLeave a comment

Having just arrived back to testPAC headquarters in Phoenix, I am proud to say that I think our field campaign is off to a great start. While our membership has been debating the pros and cons of constructing a mailer for voters in Texas’ 21st Congressional District, our canvassing teams have organized and our about to start our first official canvass this Saturday. Here’s what they’ve accomplished so far:

Friday, May 4th

Scouted turf in Fredericksburg and determined the population was not dense enough for a canvass. Driving door-to-door would be an expensive drain on gasoline.
Met and recruited Steve, our UT-Austin campus coordinator until he leaves for summer break on May 16th. He will hand over the reigns of his work to Sara, who will work on canvassing until the election on May 29.

Saturday, May 5th

Attended a Sheriff Mack rally hosted by Liberty for All Super PAC and talked to a few dozen Mack supporters about the upcoming election. Also met and recruited Matt, our new San Antonio director, who was speaking at the rally shortly after Mack finished.
Canvassed roughly 200 UT-Austin students with an impromptu flier (the one on the left) on Guadalupe Rd. and inside student housing within the district.

Sunday, May 6th

Attended a Ron Paul & Tea Party rally and canvassed 700 people with a flier (the one on the right) at the Texas State Capitol building in Austin. Met Richard Morgan and determined he is a polite and well-spoken individual.
Met with 14 or so Ron Paul supporters at a bar and canvassed them about Smith’s upcoming primary challenge.
Met with Occupy Austin and asked them for their help promoting testPAC. They agreed to make a sign a with a QR code linking to our campaign site, unseatlamar.com. It was here that I met the second person on our trip that had already heard of testPAC.

Monday, May 7th

Scouted turf in New Braunfels. It was decent turf! Will consider canvassing here for two days closer to the election if we can find the volunteer-power.
Went to Lamar Smith’s office and delivered a special flier/letter written just for him and his staff. We took video but I’m not sure whether it turned out very well – we’ll put it on the sub-reddit if it proves to be interesting!
Scouted and canvassed one neighborhood in San Antonio with the help of two volunteers. Looks like primo, A+ turf in north San Antonio!

During the rest of this week, one of our volunteers is developing the canvassing grid that we will use for our first official door canvass on Saturday, meeting on Skype tonight to discuss plans (if you’d like to join in, add me: andy.posterick), and reaching out to volunteers. I will be making a post in the sub-reddit on Friday to discuss what we come up with.

Stay involved, internet!

5K on 5May

May 5, 2012All, Blog, Press ReleasesLeave a comment

As some of you are aware, for the last 3 months, TestPAC has been working tirelessly to put together a comprehensive campaign to increase awareness about Lamar Smith’s legislative irresponsibility with the ultimate goal of defeating him in the May 29th primary. SOPA may be “dead”, but Lamar Smith is still trying to push through PCIP, another bill which would threaten the privacy of any web user. Think CISPA..but worse.

It’s amazing to see what we have accomplished in the last 3 months. We went from a handful of Redditors passionate in their opposition of SOPA to a membership base of over 1,100 subscribers, we have over 500 followers on Facebook, and almost 600 on Twitter. We have funded a billboard in Lamar’s backyard, produced a professionally done advertisement, and have been featured in some major media outlets like Mashable , BoingBoing and TheNextWeb.

In addition to all of this, today we are proud to announce the launch of our field campaign.

Boots are on the ground, led by Andy Posterick, TestPAC’s Treasurer who drove 12 hours from Phoenix, AZ to Kerrville, TX to lead a group of 10 volunteers to assist with handing out fliers, putting up signs and interacting with the voters in Lamar’s district. We are stepping out from behind our keyboards and monitors and getting out into the streets. We are making it happen, and we are here in TX-21 every weekend for the next 3 weeks.

Signing petitions and emailing your representative is a crucial first step when bills like SOPA, PCIP and CISPA are being discussed in Congress. However, it doesn’t end there. That isn’t enough. It is our responsibility as supporters of net neutrality, freedom and privacy on the internet to follow through and start holding politicians accountable for their bad legislation. TestPAC was formed as a mechanism to allow average citizens like us to do that.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, Fight for the Future, Center For Democracy and Technology and similar 501 non-profits are groups are worthy of our support and are crucial in leading the fight for our internet rights. However, these groups cannot do anything to make our politicians truly scared…they cannot be involved in elections. TestPAC can, and that’s what makes us different.

Most politicians only pay attention to corporations and special interests, and if that’s how things are done what are we to do?

Test PAC was founded on the premise that if politicians listen to special interest groups and PACs, there was nothing stopping us from starting our own to represent what we all believe.

Lamar Smith knows TestPAC is knocking. Several reporters who wrote about us have contacted him and his staff for comment. They know we are out there working to send him home from Washington. Now it’s time that he sees us in his district, connecting with voters and working to send him packing.

Help us run a successful ground campaign by donating for fliers and signs to distribute in Lamar’s backyard. Help us get our commercial on TV by ensuring we raise enough money to make an impact. We have 3 weeks until the primary- this is our last chance.

This is our last chance to do something about Lamar Smith. We will never have an opportunity like we do now again.

We need you.

www.unseatlamar.com

- jeromiewhalen, ajpos, masstermind, mike450, bethampetamine, conorbr, Fight_the_Fight

AT&T Vice President: We Can Solve Cybersecurity Ourselves

April 20, 2012All, Blog, PressLeave a comment

As congress draws closer to weighing in on the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) later this month, it is becoming increasingly apparent that the fight for sensible internet privacy legislation is not a corporate interest.

Officially backed by twenty-eight companies including Facebook, AT&T, and Microsoft, CISPA aims to fundamentally change the relationship between the private and public sector by encouraging companies to share your personal information with government agencies without penalty.

With the broad support of corporations – the largest of which opposed the Stop Online Piracy Act – it would seem that there would be conclusive incentives for companies welcoming the surrendering of private user information for cyber security means. After all, as Tim McKone, AT&T’s Executive Vice President of Federal Relations stated in his letter of support for CISPA:

The sharing of cyber threat and attack information is an essential component of an effective cyber-defense strategy, and the legislation helps to provide greater clarity for private sector entities. We commend the bill’s sponsors for their leadership on this critical issue.

While McKone paints a pleasant picture of the interaction between the public and the private sector, AT&T’s testimony before the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Communications and Technology shows a company confused and reluctant of government regulation.

When asked by Virgin Islands delegate Donna Christensen about the role of the FCC in combating cyber crime, for instance, AT&T’s Senior Vice President and Chief Security Officer Edward Amoroso did not hesitate to outline the inability of the government to have any meaningful solutions:

“I don’t think there’s an agency right now that’s in a good position to come in and solve a problem that we can’t solve ourselves…if there was an obvious set of things that should be done right now, I’m kind of thinking the groups that are here would be doing it. We are incented to do that.”

Amoroso’s testimony demonstrates that complexity of dealing with cyber security while also admitting that overreaching security laws would do little to resolve the problems at hand. “The problem is,” Amoroso explains, “that we don’t know what it is that you should be telling us we should be doing.”

Additionally, it is important to note that there are already laws in place which allow law enforcement and private companies to share information through subpeonas and other legal means. (Click here for an example of Facebook’s compliance with disclosure of information.) CISPA ultimately attempts to take the liability away from companies who currently have the discretion of disclosing your information and places the decision solely in the hands of the government; all at the expense of the user.

CISPA would effectively take the door off the hinge of every household in America, but lacks the tools necessary to distinguish whether there is a criminal hiding in the attic. Why surrender the core of our privacy for the sake of corporate and governmental convenience?

Unemployment Tips for Lamar Smith

April 17, 2012All, Blog, PressLeave a comment

Lamar Smith's website, which shows a background image by DJ Shulte used by Lamar Smith without permission.

As “Cybersecurity Week” gets underway, Test PAC is kicking things off with a great example of average Americans using technology as a mean of protest.

On Tuesday, April 10, Texas congressman and sponsor of the Stop Online Piracy Act Lamar Smith hosted a jobs fair at the University of Texas at Austin. While Smith made his rounds, law student and Test PAC member Stephen Saltarelli saw an opportunity to give the representative a couple of “resume tips” in anticipation of his defeat in the May 29th republican primaries.

Saltarelli also alludes to Smith’s incident with copyright infringement on his website, showing the congressman’s hypocrisy and difficulty in dealing with the personal application of his own legislation.

Saltarelli’s tongue-and-cheek protest highlights the growing concern those in Texas’ 21st district have with Lamar Smith. Smith’s failed attempts at initializing a big government takeover of the internet has brought the fight over internet freedoms into the national spotlight. While Smith continues to employ a “head in the sand” tactic when it comes to discussing sensible internet legislation, individuals like Saltarelli are forced to bring the conversation to Smith’s doorstep.

So hold on to those resume tips Lamar Smith: come May 29th, you’ll be thankful you have them.

To find out more about Test PAC’s campaign against Lamar Smith, visit unseatlamar.com

Test PAC Billboard Choice Explained

April 3, 2012All, Blog, PressLeave a comment

As anyone who has been following Test PAC’s campaign to oust Texas Congressman Lamar Smith will tell you, trudging through the swamp of American politics is no easy task. Since our conception earlier this year, Test PAC has been dedicated to operating on behalf of its members and taking every precaution to inform our body, discuss possible strategies, and implement a plan based on the common sentiments of the group.

Last week, Test PAC held a vote to choose a billboard design concept to run in San Antonio. The winning concept (shown below) was then modified slightly and sent off to the advertising company. With the proper paperwork filled out, contracts signed, and payments made, Test PAC would officially have our very own billboard up by days end. Easy, right?

Original billbord concept.

Upon receiving the initial billboard design, the general manager of the advertisement company rejected it due to their “policy against negative advertising. We also can’t verify if it’s true or not.” This unfortunate bit of news prompted Test PAC’s executive officers to sit down and discuss a new plan of attack. How could we run a “defeat Lamar Smith” advertisement, a campaign that is inherently deemed as “negative”, in a positive way?

Visual approximation of advertisement company manager.

We began thinking about the other candidates running in the congressional primaries, Sheriff Richard Mack and Richard Morgan. Due to the fact that our membership did not want to explicitly endorse either candidate, Test PAC made it clear throughout its campaign that it would not become a political arm for either Morgan or Mack. With no candidate to officially back and no means of negatively attacking Lamar, we needed to think of a clever way to get our point across in a supportive manner while still staying true to our original goal.

Then it hit us: “Richard M.”

Playing off of the fact that both candidates are named “Richard” with surnames beginning with the letter “M”, we brainstormed various ways to incorporate both candidates while simultaneously focusing attention on Lamar Smith’s horrible legislative track record. Our final product captures all of this.

Amended and approved billboard concept.

The billboard is representative of many things. Firstly, it plays directly to the idea of censorship while still allowing for the ambiguity of the opposing candidate in which we refer to.

Secondly, the covering of the surname creates a bit of intrigue for someone viewing it. Why would the candidate hide his own name? I must investigate further..

Lastly, the displaying of unseatlamar.com allows for the viewer to discover more information about what exactly is going on, which then directs them to more information about the corrosive nature of Lamar Smith’s sponsored legislation.

How I feel after writing that analysis.

I am confident that our new design, while a compromise of our original concept, will have a resonating effect both locally and nationally. Our goal is not the exclusive education of Texas voters on Lamar Smith’s negligent history of legislation effecting digital rights. Rather, the billboard serves as a microcosm for the growing frustration felt by the average American towards the federal government and its attempts to hinder freedom and expression in the digital age.

- Jeromie Whalen, Test PAC Chairman

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