The Communication with the People Bill

[Miestrâ Schivâ, UrN]

WHEREAS the Government recently set up a survey aimed to go out to all Talossans;

and WHEREAS there currently exists no database of emails intended to reach all Talossans for reasons of State, only one set up to send out political advertisements at election time;

and WHEREAS the Seneschál had to have recourse to her database of emails as held as Party leader, which only covers about 1/3 of Talossans;

and WHEREAS the Secretary of State was doubtful whether this was legal or whether it would be legal for him to send out survey emails on his segment of the "electioneering" database;

and WHEREAS there has to be a means for the Government to communicate with all citizens (who haven't opted out) on official business; or at least that this is a higher priority than the ability of Party leaders to "spam" voters at election time;

there BE IT ENACTED by the King, Cosâ and Senäts in Ziu assembled that the following section C.1.2.2.5 be added to El Lexhátx:

1.2.2.5 The Seneschál may request on behalf of the Government that a given communication shall be sent out by the Chancery to the email address of every citizen who has not "opted out" as provided in section 1.2.2.5.4 below. The Chancery shall grant this request if, in the opinion of the Secretary of State, the following provisions are met:

1.2.2.5.1 Such communication shall pertain wholly to official Government business.
1.2.2.5.2 Such communication may not include publicity for, or any other business pertaining to, any political party or candidate for election.
1.2.2.5.3 Such communications are not sufficiently frequent or repetitive enough to qualify as "spam".
1.2.2.5.4 Citizens may "opt out" of receiving such communications by making a request to the Chancery.

[Ian Plätschisch]

This looks good to me.

[Glüc da Dhi]

I mostly agree with the general direction of this bill, but I do have some comments.

First of all the last whereas mentions the possibility of opting out of receiving government communications, but no provision is then included to allow this. I do think it should be possible (this might require a change to the database, but if that is not possible maybe I could just manually ask for it when sending email) to opt out from government communications and still get election ballots. Alternatively, maybe those who opt out from party communications could also be presumed to be opting out from government communication.

Secondly, I like the provision about frequency/repetition, but I also understand that the governments intention is to use it at least monthly for a newsletter (I hope I will be able to do this manually every month, cause it does take more time than you'd think). What does the government expect would be considered too frequent use of this option?

[King John]

If the citizen could reasonably easily opt out of getting these emails, while still getting ballots, we wouldn't need to define spam or forbid it; people could just decide not to get it. And a Government that seeks the good will of the voters won't do this very often. So spam is probably not a problem.

— John R

[Miestrâ Schivâ, UrN]

Jul 27, 2019 9:42:52 GMT -6 Glüc da Dhi said:

First of all the last whereas mentions the possibility of opting out of receiving government communications, but no provision is then included to allow this. I do think it should be possible (this might require a change to the database, but if that is not possible maybe I could just manually ask for it when sending email) to opt out from government communications and still get election ballots.

Fine, fine, see amendment.

Secondly, I like the provision about frequency/repetition, but I also understand that the governments intention is to use it at least monthly for a newsletter (I hope I will be able to do this manually every month, cause it does take more time than you'd think). What does the government expect would be considered too frequent use of this option?

I trust the SoS's judgement. If you were to tell me to stop spamming the citizenry, that would be fair enough, and if I disagreed I could ask the Cort to intervene.

[King John]

Might I suggest a very small change before Clarking this? (Or is it too late?) Add the capitalized words here: "The Chancery shall grant this request if IN THE OPINION OF THE SECRETARY OF STATE the following provisions are met." That spells out exactly who can decide the question of spammity and so on.

— John R