Crazy GOP Fundraiser Watch

A few weeks ago I reported two senators, John Rockefeller and Olympia Snowe, had introduced the Cybersecurity Act of 2009, a bill that would give the president and commerce secretary power to halt internet traffic on "critical" networks in the name of "national security."

And today, David Corn sent me a hysterical email he received from a conservative PAC, the Republican Majority Campaign, urging the reader to contact his representative in order to stop "Barack Hussein Obama and his cronies" from their "power grab"—Rockefeller and Snowe's bill.

Politicians and lobbyists want to take away our Constitutional rights -- we need to make sure they FAIL. And we've got a GREAT way to do that!

We've set up a website where you can send "blast faxes"to EVERY SINGLE MEMBER OF CONGRESS, telling them to say NO to this attempt to take over the entire internet! For less that what it would cost you to gather every fax number and send all those faxes yourself, you can send HUNDREDS of faxes, ALL AT ONCE to Capitol Hill -- to make SURE they hear your voice!

Of course, I clicked the link to the "blast fax" page. And of course, it wants me to pay them: Just $119 to fax all 535 members of Congress!—"about what it would cost you in time and telephone charges."

If this seems shady, it should. In what world does it cost $119 to send 535 pages via fax? Secondly, as they've obviously discovered email, why aren't they using an email blast? Third, why don't they just list the names of the members of the Senate Commerce Committee so I can call them myself?

In March of last year, TPM Muckraker linked the Republican Majority Campaign to Republican PACs that shut down after the Washington Post reported its founders were running them like their own piggy banks, taking in loads of money but only spending a tiny fraction of it on political action. At the time, TPM called the Republican Majority Campaign a "murky group," but this fundraising scheme parading as an action letter just seems brazen to me.

UPDATE: Joe the Plumber is also getting in on the shady GOP fundraising party.

• Should Obama Control the Internet?

  A new bill would give the President emergency authority to halt web traffic and access private data.