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Every time I've voted on a whitehouse.gov petition, I've gotten an email 6 months later saying why the petition will be completely ignored, answering none of th

• dpeck 15y ago
  Seems quite effective to me if it keeps the signers from taking any additional action for 6 months. Its likely doing exactly what those setting it intended.
  • orthecreedence 15y ago
    Lack of communication and inaction are two very different things though. In the case of SOPA, they would pass the bill next week, then email petition singers 6 months after the fact on how anti-American the petition is. The petition in this hypothetical situation didn't delay anything, but prompted a communication at a later date.
• rst 15y ago
  You could imagine that one of these petitions might bring an issue that they weren't aware of to some staffer's attention. But this administration clearly already has a very strong view in favor of intellectual property protection by any means available, regardless of the consequences. It's one they've made manifest by pushing ACTA (among other things), and it's really hard to imagine a petition like this changing it.
  • rhizome 15y ago
    Yes, think of the future! "If all the time and effort I spent results in just one petition-scanning staffer becoming aware of my pet issue, it will have been worth it." You might as well pin your hopes of affecting the political process on sowing copies of your journal pages around Congress, hoping that just one profound sentence reaches one of their eyes. It doesn't sound like a lot, but man, if they read one of those sentences, right? It could change everything.