Number of "Stop SOPA" letters sent by state | Hacker News Reader

Number of "Stop SOPA" letters sent by state

colevscode.posterous.com

70 pointscolevscode19 comments

It would be more interesting to see letters per capita.

That's exactly what I was thinking.

My thought exactly. The reason being is this map shows exactly what you'd expect to see: states with the largest population stand out. This isn't really that informative. Had it been adjusted we can only assume a different picture might have emerged.

I'd really like to thank sendwrite and cole for such a generous promotion.

It would probably be cheaper for sendwrite to put all the envelopes in a priority mail box and ship them all together.

The white house mail room will anyway do the final sorting to individual congressman, and this way you don't have to pay postage on each letter.

But still individual envelopes though (inside the box).

why would the white house mail room have anything to do with delivering mail to congress? Or is the mail room in the house of representatives named after some dude named "White"?

Um, no reason? Just a mixup on my part :( Obviously I meant the Senate and House mail rooms.

I never would have thought that in the States your would have to pay to write to Congress. Anyone know if that's the case in most countries (in Canada it's free http://www.parl.gc.ca/SenatorsMembers.aspx?Language=e)?

See here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franking In the US, mail from the Congressman is free, but not to.

In the wikipedia article Canada and New Zealand are listed as having free mail to an official. Although it doesn't seem to be a comprehensive list, I don't think it's very common.

That's not really the way that the Congressional mail system works.

Also, it's much more impressive to have a barrage of letters to each congressman, rather than a bulk folder that contains all the letters to that congressman.

No, I meant a barrage. Mix all the letters to each congressmen together in the box, and have the mailroom sort it out - so it's still individual letters.

But maybe they don't have a centralized mail room? I didn't actually check.

That defeats the point. You want to get the attention of the people working at the desk of the congressman, not the people working in Cannon/Longworth/Rayburn/etc.

The people working in the congressman's office are the ones who actually have the working relationships with the elected officials (to the point where they can sometimes pressure them if they think that constituents are feeling a certain way, based on calls/letters).

This opens up a great use of the SendWrite API too, esp for the upcoming political season.

Awesome job, great thanks to yourself and the many donations for pulling this off without a hitch.

Whoa, I can mail physical things from my computer?

Definitely checking this out.

Edit: Ah, looks like it is only for cards. I hope they add regular snail mail capabilities.

All those anti-SOPA letters and writings are useless and even hypocritical until people who write them stop supporting SOPA with their money. If you are not going to endure the inconvenience of boycotting SOPA supporters (Apple, Microsoft, MPAA, RIAA and others) to protect your freedom, you probably do not deserve the free Internet. Freedom has its price.

Ridiculous. I should completely shut off my life if I wish to complain that an immoral law be stopped?

It's a pity that your life is so dependent on some computer vendors and media companies. Still, if you pay them you do actually support SOPA and Internet censorship no matter what you say. They really do not care what you say as long as you pay.

There is no way to protect your freedom without sacrificing anything. It may be inconvenient to be principled but without principles you only make the world worse.

Err, half of Alaska is Hawaii?

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