SPECIAL OF THE DAY: The "Spam" Waffle

Crist-Crossin’ Charlie’s House of Waffles

Crist Wanted State's First Anti-Spam Legislation. AG Charlie Crist wanted legislation that would crack down on unsolicited commercial e-mail, specifically giving his office the authority to bring civil lawsuits and seek penalties against spammers under the state's Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act. According to the article, "The law would prohibit software that allows companies to send deceptive e-mails, prohibit the use of Internet domain names without permission and prohibit misleading information in a spam e-mail's subject line, Crist said. Penalties are still being considered, but Crist suggested each violation could carry a fine of $5 since spam is usually sent in bulk by the thousands." [Florida Times-Union, 02/20/04]

Yet Crist Campaign Sent Out Same Spam Emails He Fought Against As AG. Charlie Crist as Attorney general slammed unwanted e-mail, saying, ''Spam is an annoying, intrusive form of e-mail that almost all of us receive but few of us want. Much of it is just clutter, but some it can be downright offensive." However, he was using the same unsolicited e-mails to seek votes and contributions in his campaign for the Republican gubernatorial nomination. Moreover, Crist's campaign filed public records requests to obtain lists of people who had asked to be sent e-mails from the governor's and attorney general's offices, to use for their campaign email lists - including email accounts of state employees. According to the article, campaign staffers said they tried to scrub state employees from the e-mail lists but apparently missed some. [Miami Herald, 12/23/05]

Crist Fought Spam, Sent Spam. According to an editorial in Network World, Attorney General Charlie Crist, once an ardent opponent of spam with such laws that mandate a $500 fine per e-mail a violator sends, was criticized for sending his own spam on behalf of his gubernatorial campaign. According to the article, in December 2005, Crist's campaign emailed "tens of thousands of state residents to promote his candidacy and solicit donations for his campaign. Recipients who tried to unsubscribe found they couldn't do it." In an earlier Reuters story, the article points out, Crist's campaign spokeswoman Vivian Myrtetus said, "This is not spam. This is truthful, it's straightforward. We're honest. To be spam it has to be, under Florida law, defined as being deceptive. The attorney general does not consider this spam and is, as you know, at the forefront of protecting citizens against that." [Editorial, Network World, 01/16/06] 

Recent Email Endorsement By Lawyers Another Example Of Crist's Political Spam. An email solicitation endorsing Charlie Crist was sent by the Republican Party of Florida. "Six former Florida Bar presidents have written to 45,000 lawyers across the state, endorsing Republican Charlie Crist for governor as a ‘friend of lawyers' and a ‘staunch defender of the independence of the judiciary.' The message came in an e-mail, paid for by the Republican Party of Florida. Some lawyers aren't happy about it....Some lawyers didn't like the contents. Others wondered how their e-mail address reached a political party or questioned use of taxpayer-funded e-mail accounts for partisan politics." Martha Barnett, a former president of the American Bar Association and Crist supporter who signed it:  "There's e-mail pollution out there, I understand that. It's like an unwanted telephone call. But that's part of the society we live in."  [St. Petersburg Times, 11/01/06]