Online activism: fight The Man from your laptop

By Ayon Nandi

KUSHAL DAVE/YH

"If your car is swallowed up by a pothole the size of Poughkeepsie, E-ThePeople can help you find the person you need to tell about it."

Just like the E-ThePeople.com website advertises, this new venue for activism is an online tool for every American citizen who wants to tell city, county, state, or even national officials a thing or two about the pothole-infested infrastructure. A nonprofit venture started by Alex Sheshunoff, JE '96, E-ThePeople is a resource for people who want to let their town officials know about local problems, but don't necessarily have the time to start a massive letter-writing campaign. If your car was destroyed by the Poughkeepsie-sized pothole, you can go to E-ThePeople and write a letter to your local officials or start a petition to improve the local roads.

Getting rid of dredge

'For a local city council member to recieve 10 or 15 letters on subject, that has meaning and is a scale we can achieve.'
—Alex Sheshunoff, JE '96

Though E-ThePeople did not have a posted petition about potholes in Poughkeepsie, the site does have 350 petitions with 25,000 signatures, according to Sheshunoff. The petitions range from one calling for the criminal investigation of special prosecutor Ken Starr to a bill for the legalization of homegrown hemp plant to a petition to "Prosecute Microsoft to the Gills." The last item had 102 signatures and will be sent to Vice President Al Gore and Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott. There are also very specific local petitions, such as one sent in by a Brooklyn, NY inhabitant, demanding that the Borough President approve a new filtering system for the "dredge" that comes out from the Gowanus Canal.

Though a number of petitions are on national issues, Sheshunoff conceived the site as a place where people can go to begin petitions in their own cities or send letters to town officials, and thus has tailored the site more towards the citizen wishing to change local policies. "E-ThePeople is really about local people fixing local problems," Sheshunoff said. "The President receives about a half million e-mails a month, he doesn't need more correspondence. But for a local city council member to receive 10 or 15 letters on a subject, that has meaning and is a scale we can achieve."

Local activism: as easy as one, two, three

The grassroots background of the site is evident in its layout and features. E-ThePeople provides a search engine to look for the proper officials and then generates an email or a petition—and all of this takes only a few minutes. E-ThePeople's search engine looks through a database of about 140,000 officials, according to the website. Once the search engine has found the appropriate officials, the site immediately gives the user a form to send an e-mail and a second form to add a signature to the letter. The user-friendly nature of the site is its main asset, Sheshunoff said. The main goal is to foster more democratic participation from local citizens. "I think any time you make something easier more people are going to do it and when it comes to political participation that can only be a good thing."

The site, he claims, is targeted toward people who don't have the time or the resources to mount the local campaign often necessary to push through political actions. "If you are a busy parent, you have a choice between waiting three hours to speak for three minutes at a city council and taking care of your children, it's pretty obvious what you are going to decide," he said.

E-ThePeople, however, provides an easier choice for that busy parent. "We want to use technology to make it easier for busy but concerned people to get involved," Sheshunoff added.

The petition-mobile

Sheshunoff's online haven for local activism also has a real-world counterpart: The Grassroots Express. The Express is a van, outfitted to look like a mailbox on the outside, which Sheshunoff uses to tour the country and spread the gospel of E-ThePeople. On the tour, Sheshunoff has recieved a lot of positive feedback from townspeople and congressmen alike. "We met with everyone from Pinky Porcher at the Lubbock, Texas PTA to Barbara Boxer of the U.S. Senate—and all said that E-ThePeople was a great application of new technology." Overall, the bus so far has traveled 24,000 miles through 80 cities in 42 states. The message everywhere was the same: people who had busy lives were happy to find a service that allowed political participation with a minimal amount of wasted time.

'We want to use technology to make it easier for busy but concerned people to get involved."
—Alex Sheshunoff, JE '96

E-ThePeople isn't the first Internet service Sheshunoff has attempted to start. "During my senior year at Yale I started an online city guide for New York City," he said. "The day after graduation, we went live with the site and opened an office in New York with 13 people—all volunteers." He spent about three days a week in Manhattan, and still "managed to graduate." However, he said that he didn't do anything like E-ThePeople at Yale. "I majored in history because I planned to go into journalism, so I did not receive much formal training for what I ended up doing, but nor would I have wanted to," he said. "I also studied Swahili, which doesn't come in handy very often."

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