GOP Astroturf Email--Angry Crank, or Violent Threat?
This week, as HJM9--the Iraq withdrawal bill--passed out of committee on a 6-1 vote, the Oregon GOP placed it among its "bills to watch," providing an email link for visitors to use in order to contact their legislators. Presumably the idea is to put pressure on the Leg to not back the bill, although ORGOP declined to file it under "Turkeys"--or the tax bill section for that matter, a category for which there is apparently no such thing as a good bill.
A staff source in the House says they get these things now and again, and they're painfully obvious astroturf jobs. Most offices take an original, earnest email from a constituent seriously--but clumps of extremely similar mails addressed to the entire Leg, with "scleave@orgop.org" as the first recipient on the list get quick clicks to the recycle bin. Who is "scleave," you may ask? He's the Communications Director for the party, and likes to keep track of the chaff his unseen minion produces.
That background set, meet Robert Hauser:
Meanwhile, I gave Cleave a call: did he know someone was using ORGOP.org to send messages being interpreted as violent threats? Although automatically cc'ed, Cleave had to plead ignorance in this case due to a damaged email server for the account. (That well-oiled Oregon Republican machine at work! ) He did however say the right things, suggesting that email behavior of that kind was "totally inappropriate," and pledged to remove the sender from any distribution lists for party material. I let him know that the case had been forwarded to Sgt. Lorimor at OSP, and to get back to me if he heard from the sargeant.
He did, which was helpful, because despite my own call for information, Cleave said in his conversation with Lorimor that the officer "didn't think it was part of his job to talk to you." Nice. I sublimated my bruised journalistic ego while Cleave explained that as far as OSP was concerned, the note was not "perceived as a threat." The way they read it dovetailed with Cleave's initial interpretation when I read it to him over the phone: a crank, not a threat. The phrase "a terriost puts the bomb in your pocket" was thought to be a reference to a generic terrorist, rather than identifying him as the agent of chance.
Who is Robert Hauser? There are a couple by that name in the state voter rolls, but Cleave's guess is for a 70-yr-old man from Portland who has been active in state elections since 1996. I toyed with the idea of calling him myself and seeing whether he'd cop to the threat, but cranks are usually best left unfed. So this is all the publicity you're going to get, Mr. Hauser: you're a nutbag who needs to be a lot more careful the way you address government employees. But at least you've found the proper ideological home for your rantings, so you've got that going for you...!
A staff source in the House says they get these things now and again, and they're painfully obvious astroturf jobs. Most offices take an original, earnest email from a constituent seriously--but clumps of extremely similar mails addressed to the entire Leg, with "scleave@orgop.org" as the first recipient on the list get quick clicks to the recycle bin. Who is "scleave," you may ask? He's the Communications Director for the party, and likes to keep track of the chaff his unseen minion produces.
That background set, meet Robert Hauser:
From: Robert Hauser [mailto:spirit@hevanet.com]Now I ask you--who can argue with such articulate, well-thought out reasonings? Absurd? Yes. Disjointed? Definitely. As well thought out as an inflatable dart board? You bet. But to one office, it also looked like something akin to a threat. Is the writer saying he plans to put "a bomb in the pocket" of legislators who vote yes, or is he just a paranoid delusional who sees terrorists at the Walgreen's and the Dutch Bros? After Ted Kaczynski and Tim McVeigh, it's not at all unreasonable to fear domestic terror from Americans with a specifically political axe to grudge. So the email was passed to the Capitol branch of the state police for investigation.
Sent: Tuesday, March 06, 2007 4:35 PM
To: scleave@orgop.org; REP Barker; REP Barnhart; REP Berger; REP Beyer; REP Bonamici; REP Boone; REP Boquist; REP Bruun; REP Buckley; REP Burley; REP Butler; REP Cameron; REP Cannon; REP Clem; REP Cowan; REP Dallum; REP Dingfelder; REP Edwards C; REP Edwards D; REP Esquivel; REP Flores; REP Galizio; REP Garrard; REP Gelser; REP Gilliam; REP Gilman; REP Girod; REP Greenlick; REP Hanna; REP Holvey; REP Hunt; REP Jenson; REP Komp; REP Kotek; REP Krieger; REP Krummel; REP Lim; REP Macpherson; REP Maurer; REP Merkley; REP Minnis; REP Morgan; REP Nathanson; REP Nelson; REP Nolan; REP Olson; REP Read; REP Richardson; REP Riley; REP Roblan; REP Rosenbaum; REP Schaufler; REP Scott; REP Shields; REP Smith G; REP Smith P; REP Thatcher; REP Tomei; REP Whisnant; REP Witt
Subject: HJM 9
be careful you who vote for this you maybe the one a terriost puts the bomb in your pocket because of the thoughtless analagy oof the total situation,then how could we expect intelligent thought from most of you
Meanwhile, I gave Cleave a call: did he know someone was using ORGOP.org to send messages being interpreted as violent threats? Although automatically cc'ed, Cleave had to plead ignorance in this case due to a damaged email server for the account. (That well-oiled Oregon Republican machine at work! ) He did however say the right things, suggesting that email behavior of that kind was "totally inappropriate," and pledged to remove the sender from any distribution lists for party material. I let him know that the case had been forwarded to Sgt. Lorimor at OSP, and to get back to me if he heard from the sargeant.
He did, which was helpful, because despite my own call for information, Cleave said in his conversation with Lorimor that the officer "didn't think it was part of his job to talk to you." Nice. I sublimated my bruised journalistic ego while Cleave explained that as far as OSP was concerned, the note was not "perceived as a threat." The way they read it dovetailed with Cleave's initial interpretation when I read it to him over the phone: a crank, not a threat. The phrase "a terriost puts the bomb in your pocket" was thought to be a reference to a generic terrorist, rather than identifying him as the agent of chance.
Who is Robert Hauser? There are a couple by that name in the state voter rolls, but Cleave's guess is for a 70-yr-old man from Portland who has been active in state elections since 1996. I toyed with the idea of calling him myself and seeing whether he'd cop to the threat, but cranks are usually best left unfed. So this is all the publicity you're going to get, Mr. Hauser: you're a nutbag who needs to be a lot more careful the way you address government employees. But at least you've found the proper ideological home for your rantings, so you've got that going for you...!
posted by carla at 11:00 AM
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