Aaron Russo's campaign junk email nothing new?

[I also got hit by the Russo spam, including being subscribed to an 
address that I've never used and that only spammers exploit. --Declan]


-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Russo spam nothing new
Date: Thu, 27 May 2004 04:14:38 -0500 (CDT)
From: John Schultz <jschultz@coin.org>
Reply-To: John Schultz <jschultz@coin.org>
To: Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com>

Declan, I'm a bit behind in my Politech email, but recently saw the
article referencing Aaron Russo's campaign sending out spam.  A few months
ago when Russo started campaigning for the LP Presidential nomination, I
received a couple emails, complete with random text at the end of the
message body, allegedly from his campaign.  When I contacted his campaign
via their website, I received no response as to if these messages were
legitimate, why I was receiving them, or where they had acquired my email
address from.  I am active in my state Libertarian Party and a member of
the national LP, so I assume that's how the campaign knew to email me (I'm
not accusing either the state or national party of giving out my email
address though).

About a month later, I found myself a member of an announcement email list
from the Russo campaign.  The list includes an optout link, which I have
not exercised as I am still following Russo's campaign run, albeit as a
supporter of one of his opponents, Gary Nolan.  I still find it amazing
that political campaigns don't think (or care, I'm not sure which is the
accurate sentiment) about the negative impacts of sending spam out.  It
also especially troubles me that this occurred with a member of "my"
party.

John Schultz
jschultz@coin.org
Posted by Declan McCullagh on May 28, 2004