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Samantha McDonald

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    Congress

    How Congress turns citizens’ voices into data points

    Samantha McDonald
    September 20, 2019
    How Congress turns citizens’ voices into data points

    "No matter why or how people contact their elected officials, they all want one basic thing: They want someone to listen. But what actually happens is something different," writes Samantha McDonald.

    Zach Gibson/Getty Images

    McDonald is a Ph.D. candidate in the practice of information processing and information system engineering at the University of California, Irvine.

    Big technology companies like Amazon, Facebook and Google aren't the only ones facing huge political concerns about using citizen data: So is Congress. Reports by congressional researchers over the last decade describe an outdated communication system that is struggling to address an overwhelming rise in citizen contact.

    Every day, thousands of people contact their senators and representatives. Their intentions – protesting or supporting a politician or legislative proposal, seeking assistance with the federal bureaucracy or expressing their opinions about current affairs – vary as widely as their means of communication, which include phones, written letters, emails, in-person meetings, town halls, faxes and social media messages.

    The Congressional Management Foundation suggests that most congressional offices saw constituent contact double – or even increase eight-fold – from 2002 to 2010. Current staffers say the numbers have climbed even higher since then. Congressional staffers spend hours listening, reading, collecting and organizing all this information. All of it ends up going into databases in their offices.

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