If this is true, astroturfers, such as Gay for Romney, should have a lot better information than they seem to be working with on Slog.

Is this actually happening to anyone?
Have you received any calls from people you worked with in the past who are trying to get you to vote for (or against) X?
It seems VERY creepy to me.

No, and I could only find one story about a Congressional hearing in July. I wouldn't be surprised if 90% of it is voluntarily provided, as @2 wrote.

Isn’t it a good thing for candidates to know their constituents?

I think if they really KNEW more about how their constituents really live (instead of what their party line says about how their constituents live) they might be forced by reality (instead of their perceptions) to moderate their positions. Fact is, there are very few pure liberals or pure conservatives. Most people negotiate those extreme positions on a daily basis in their daily life.

For example: Porn. The true believers that write the Liberal platform might be surprised to learn how many of their constituents (men and women) enjoy a little misogynist objectification on a regular basis while true believers that write the Conservative platform might be surprised to learn how many of their constituents (men and women) enjoy a little deviant behavior on a regular basis.

@6, why should the government be in people's bedrooms? In the upteenth example of hypocrisy, a story over the weekend is that RNC/Tea Party "family values" Congressman had sex with his patient (he was a doctor), and then insisted (on a call he recorded) she have an abortion, although he was too busy to attend and now runs on an anti-abortion (for everyone else) platform.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/15…

@1,

Is astroturfing really about changing people's minds though? I've always taken it as an attempt to undermine the morale of the other side, to try to make us feel like our candidate can't win so we might as well give up.

so, do you think political campaigns should be run absent of information? also, this is overstatement by consultants trying to drum up business. beer preference has no bearing on vote choice.

"In the future, the presidential couple will be hot as fuck and will release a sex tape as part of their campaign."

-Andy Warhol

Hm, Glenn Greenwald is on a panel discussing civil liberties today at UW. No mention of this on Slog?

Thank god we get to mail in our ballots early so they'll stop harassing us.

Oh, btw, someone should tell the GOP that I'm not a Conservative Gay Hispanic millionaire.

Accurate my ...

A couple of weeks ago an Obama campaign canvasser came to my door.

For a moment I thought I might tell her the reasons I won't be voting Obama again (failure to take on the institutions and practices that created the economic crisis, further erosion of civil liberties, movement toward neoliberalism, etc.), and will instead vote for Rocky Anderson or Jill Stein. But she was an older woman, and was volunteering her time and energy to something she believed in, so I decided not to give her a hard time and instead to just shine her on as she told me about Obama and Inslee.

But then she asked "Are you [and said my real name]?" I was taken aback. Why is this stranger coming to my door and asking my identity? I asked why she wanted know. She said she wanted to check my name off a list she had, to note that she had spoken to me. I saw that she had several pages of printed names and addresses. I asked where she had gotten this information. She said it was from publicly available voter records, and that she was visiting people "who have indicated a likelihood of voting for Obama".

I was immediately very uncomfortable. Is this information really publicly available? Is it legal to use these names, addresses, and votes for the purpose of political persuasion? Just think of the potential for harassment and intimidation this creates.

I declined to identify myself to this woman and told her how uncomfortable I was with the question. This is just one more reason I won't be casting another vote for Obama.

More coverage of this issue:

Stalk the Vote
Mother Jones
By Tim Murphy, September/October 2012 Issue
How Obama for America gets to know Jane Q. Voter.

Inside the Obama Campaign's Hard Drive
Mother Jones
By Tim Murphy, September/October 2012 Issue
Obama's tech guru and his microtargeting whiz kids are building a new kind of Chicago machine. Can they help the president hold on to the Oval Office?

Vote Stalkers: Obama, Romney Campaigns Mine Trove of Voters’ Online Data to Win 2012 Election
video segment on Democracy Now! 10-15-2012

Campaigns Mine Personal Lives to Get Out Vote
New York Times
By Charles Duhigg, 10-13-2012

According to most of the people commenting on the Reddit Troll thread, everything everyone ever does online - especially the legal stuff (LOL!) - should be readily available to anyone who disagrees with you or has been offended, in order to facilitate public shaming, job loss, and other consequences for "wrong" behavior online.

So political campaigns having access to that same information shouldn't be creepy or a problem at all - right?

David Brin wrote a great book about all of these interlocking issues, the inevitable outcomes and likely consequences about 14 years ago called "The Transparent Society".