GETTING THE WORD OUT WITH EMAIL AND WEBSITES

Email is one of the simplest, yet one of the more powerful, tools that activists use. The moment someone proposes a particularly interesting (or disturbing) bill, activists send out a flood of email, informing their members about the latest news and telling them what they can do to support or stop it.

Besides spreading news to members, activists also bombard the various news media with press releases by email. Since the press is always hungry for a story, a particularly interesting press release can spur them into giving a particular topic additional coverage, providing the activist group with greater exposure that could attract even more people to their cause.

Americans who want to find an email address for their particular representatives can visit e.thepeople.com (http://www.ethepeople.com). Besides listing American government representatives' email addresses, this website also lists various petitions you can support, or you can even start your own and post it on the site.

Another site, Progressive Secretary (http://www.progressivesecretary.org), allows anyone to start or join a letter-writing campaign to various American government officials, petitioning them on topics ranging from the environment and arms proliferation to the death penalty and the Cuban embargo. By combining forces with thousands of individuals, you can make your voice heard much faster than if you tried to write a single letter yourself.

Of course, email is simply a faster version of the mass mailings and faxing that activists relied on before the growth of the Internet. What gives activists greater visibility are websites that promote particular groups, their goals, and their philosophies to a worldwide audience. For greater influence, many activists have formed alliances with similar organizations. To learn more about networking over the Internet with other activist groups, visit the following sites:

Coalition for Networked	http://www.cni.org
Information Global Internet Liberty	http://www.gilc.org
Campaign Peoples' [sic] Global Action	http://www.nadir.org/nadir/initiativ/agp
Internet Free Expression	http://www.ifea.net
Alliance Internet Democracy Project	http://www.internetdemocracyproject.org

To find a particular activist group to join or form an alliance with, visit these sites:

Action Without Borders	http://www.idealist.org
GuideStar	http://www.guidestar.org
Activism.net	http://www.activism.net

Activism.net also provides more technical information about using a computer to promote your cause, including discussions of anonymous remailers and cryptography.

Of course, even activists need help once in a while, so visit Cause Communications (http://www.causecommunications.com) or Grassroots Enterprise (http://www.grassroots.com) to learn more about two consulting services that help activists achieve their goals. If you need facts to support your cause, visit Political Research Associates (http://www.publiceye.org), which offers its research on various antidemocratic, authoritarian, and oppressive movements, institutions, and trends.

In case you have information that your government doesn't want anyone to see, contact Cryptome (http://cryptome.org), which will post any secretive or banned information on their website for everyone to see.