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I know these guys would do anything to win an election...
But misappropriating the National Shooting Sports Foundation emailing list, to send out pro-Obama emailings? Snowflakes in Hell has the story. And here's the NSSF release on it, with links to their cease and desist letter.
UPDATE: I don't know about the Electronic Espionage Act, and don't do intellectual property law, but it sounds like common law trade secrets or copyright fits nicely. (1) They got the list from somewhere. (2) It wasn't from NSSF. This leaves possibilities that either they had someone else buy it for them -- chuckle, a straw man sale -- or someone had bought it earlier and they got it from him. (3) NSSF says that they only rent the list on the condition that the recipient gets a one-time use and only by himself, and cannot assign rights to anyone else.
Comments
I'm guessing that's one more thing the MSM won't be reporting.
On and off for two weeks I've tried via news.google to find any MSM reports on the Obama camp's threatening lawyer letters about the NRA ads. I have yet to see an MSM result.
(Used the search terms "obama fcc nra".)
(Haven't yet tried Lexis.)
Posted by: BlackX at October 8, 2008 03:42 PM
It doesn't sound like they or you have enough information to call it misappropriation let alone quote the Economic Espionage Act. But, in good Conservative fashion, if you repeat it enough it'll become true.
Posted by: Mikeb302000 at October 9, 2008 04:58 AM
Are you going to post that at every blog that reports this information, MikeB302000?
It certainly sounds like "misappropriation" to me. I'm not familiar with the Economic Espionage Act, but a plain reading of the NSSF press release indicates:
1. It was a proprietary list that was the property of the NSSF, a list that is tightly controlled by its owner.
2. Obama's campaign was not authorized to possess or use it.
3. Obama's campaign converted the list for its own use.
Seems pretty cut-and-dried to me.
Posted by: Assman at October 9, 2008 06:55 AM
Sounds like the NSSF should be doing what most other associations do when they rent their mailing lists: put in at least one different "trap" contact in each list.
For example, when you rent list A to group A, you include "John Tracker" at a PO Box you rent. For group B, the contact's name becomes "Jane Tracker" at the same address.
Not only do you get to review what folks are sending to your rented lists, but you can also see when someone else has hijacked your list (and from whom it was hijacked).
Posted by: James Beatty at October 9, 2008 01:29 PM
He left the same comment on my blog. I wonder if Obama's campaign is scripting trolls now.
Posted by: Sebastian at October 9, 2008 02:20 PM