From the Houston Chronicle:

It started a couple of months ago with a laptop that inexplicably crashed.

Then, someone altered the password on Kate Hanni's desktop computer and when she finally got into it, the files were corrupted.

Microsoft's tech support said she'd been hacked. A few weeks later, all her e-mail disappeared, and AOL told her the same thing.

According to the Airline Biz blog at the Dallas Morning News, this September 29th statement by Frederick J. Foreman, a former employee of Metron forms the core of Hanni's claims:

"On Friday, September 25, 2009 at approximately 10:00 AM, I was escorted by two (2) Metron Aviation, Inc. employees into the office of Mr. James Gaughan, Senior Vice-President and General Manager.

Mr. Gaughan asked me to go over the chronology of my interaction with the media. I told him my interaction with the media as I remembered it. He told me that what I told him was not consistent with information that he had. I responded by asking what are you talking about? He immediately said that I had contact with Ms. Kate Hanni on Thursday, September 24, 2009. I said yes I did but Kate Hanni is not the media so that my statements about the chronology of events are correct.

Mr. Gaughan proceeded to show me on his computer monitor what appeared to be hacked and stolen email communications within the last six (6) months or more between Kate Hanni and me, me and Gary Stoller of USA Today, me and Susan Stellin, a freelance reporter, and Kate Hanni and a number of people concerning the Passenger Bill of Rights, excessive surface delays, and other private communications.

It was clear that they had email transactions from both of my private email accounts: Hotmail (eckmaster12 [at] msn.com) and Yahoo (eckmaster [at] mmi-gov.com). It was also clear that these emails were from Kate Hanni's private and personal email account (katcrew4 [at] aol.com), as well as from Gary Stoller's (gstoller [at] usatoday.com) private USA Today account, and Susan Stellin's (stellin [at] earthlink.net) private and personal email account.

There were no emails communications from Metron Aviation's email system only communications from information that I gave her as fuel for getting the Passenger Bill of Rights passed in Congress.

He said that Delta Airlines sent this information to them. I took this to mean that Delta Airlines and Metron Aviation both had a copy of these hacked and stolen email communications. Mr. Gaughan said that Delta was mad and upset that one of Metron Aviation's employees had provided Kate Hanni with this kind of information. He said that I had put Metron Aviation in a precarious situation with Delta Airlines and that at a minimum I had not been a good employee by doing this. I tried to explain to him that what I sent to Kate Hanni on 9-25-2009 could be obtained by anyone by simply analyzing the public information that is available online and provided by the Department of Transportation, Bureau of Transportation and Statistics, but to no avail.

Based on these hacked and stolen email communications, James Gaughan of Metron Aviation, Inc. decided to terminate my employment. The two (2) Metron Aviation escorts took me to my desk where I got my personal belongings and then they escorted me out of the building at approximately 12:15 PM."

Delta says the accusation is "clearly without merit," and Metron says the accusation is "completely baseless and without merit." Hanni is seeking $11 million in damages from Delta.

"Has Delta been hacking?" [Houston Chronicle]
"Consumer activist Kate Hanni accuses Delta of hacking her email, computer" [Airline Biz]
(Photo: Hong Kong dear Edward)

It's long been noted that movies tend to go over-the-top by including cigarette smoking scenes, which many industry observers believe are evidence of a wink-and-nod agreement between big studios and tobacco companies, despite the fact that all suspected parties deny there's a connection. Philip Morris USA even has a policy that forbids studios from using their logos and products in films.

The anti-smoking in movies coalition is attempting to call studios out, Finke writes:

Mobile billboards will drive around Los Angeles, and stop by the major studios, today and tomorrow showing a young girl asking, "Which movie studios will cause me to smoke this summer?" Using Facebook and Twitter, a scorecard will regularly tally the number of tobacco impressions in this summer's youth-rated blockbusters. A letter-writing and petition drive across the country will commence during the blockbuster season. And, at the end of September, billboard will be strategically placed near the studio with the worst summer record for encouraging smoking in its summer films.

"The blockbuster season's first example of smoking in a youth-rated film is 20th Century Fox's X-Men Origins: Wolverine. It has numerous scenes of the main star, actor Hugh Jackman, with a cigar. Another PG-13 blockbuster, Angels & Demons by Sony Pictures, includes tobacco imagery," the campaign said (Wednesday).

At least Angels & Demons does promote a positive social message — having Tom Hanks do away with that mullet he had in The Da Vinci Code.

Which Movie Studio Will Cause The Most Youth To Smoke This Summer? Yours? [Deadline Hollywood Daily]
(Photo:nixter)

You can read the letter in its entirety here.

So here's our question: if you have a home garden, do you use pesticides? If so, why, and if not why not? And are there "natural" (by which we also mean "cheaper") pest control alternatives for a home garden? Surely there's room for organic personal gardening approaches as well as Big Ag commercial solutions.

"Organic White House Garden Puts Some Conventional Panties in a Twist" [La Vida Locavore via NotInMyFood.org]
(Photo: Sbocaj)

Why Personal Letters Beat Form Letters
Don't get suckered in by the quick and easy "Write to Congress!" form letters littering the internet. Form letters are not an expression of values; they are a show of organizational strength. If the NRA convinces five million people to send letters opposing gun control, it shows that the NRA can muster five million people to action, not that five million people necessarily care about gun laws. Congressional offices know this and generally disregard form letters.

So what happens when you send a letter?

Every office has its own procedures for tabulating constituent correspondence, but most will produce a report at the end of week breaking down how many letters were received by issue area, separating out form letters from letters sent by individual constituents.

Members treat each type of letter differently, but most look for individual letters as a barometer of their district's concerns. These are the letters that have the most influence, the ones we will show you how to write.

What Should Your Letter Say?
We adhere to the three paragraph rule: introduce yourself, introduce your issue, request action. Congressional offices have staffers whose days are spent solely on the mail, so make their lives easier by keeping letter succinct and to the point.

• Introduce Yourself: There is a two-prong test for determining your worth: 1) Are you a constituent? 2) Are you an important constituent? Feel free to puff up your chest. Are you a lifelong member of the district? Are you associated with community groups? Say so! Convince the reader that yours is a voice of experience and wisdom.
• Be specific: Don't just ask a Member to oppose mandatory binding arbitration agreements. Ask them to rush to the floor to support S.1782, The Arbitration Fairness Act of 2007.
• Marshall Facts: Your argument—and you are making an argument—must be supported by facts. Feel free to use facts gleaned from us or other sources, but don't copy and paste paragraphs of pre-written text from form letters. Personal experiences are particularly effective, and often moving. Share them!
• Be Exceedingly Polite, Please: Congress attracts haughty personalities. Staffers don't appreciate being spoken down to or insulted. You are trying to rally them to your cause, so be nice.
• Clearly State Your Request: Plainly tell your representative that you want them to support or oppose a certain bill. If you want a response, explicitly (but politely) ask for one.

Send Your Letter To The Right Place
Only write to your representatives. You have three: one Representative in the House, and two Senators. Do not send more than three letters. Some citizens try to get their voice heard by writing to all 435 members of the House. Congressional courtesy compels the 434 Members who do not represent the zealot to forward his letter to the one lucky Member who does. This angers the Member's staff greatly at the expense of any point you are trying to make.

The addresses for your Representatives and Senators are available online, but don't waste your time with an email. Letters carry significantly more weight. Send your letter to the Capitol, where the legislative staff is based, though it will take a while to arrive since all incoming Congressional mail is irradiated thanks to those still-unidentified Anthrax mailers.

For an even greater impact, send your letter care of the staffer covering the issue. These staffers - called Legislative Assistants - are the Member's eyes and ears on their assigned issue areas. Finding the staffer destined to read your letter is easy: call the Capitol switchboard (open 24 hours a day!) at (202) 224-3121, ask for your Member's office, and ask the person who answers for the name of the staffer handling the issue area or bill number. Once you get that name, address your letter like this:

Member Of Congress
c/o Staffer
Office Building/Number
Washington, DC 20515

What Should You Expect In Return?
It depends. There are 535 Congressional offices and each handles constituent correspondence differently. The vast majority respond to letters with either a form letter pre-written by a Legislative Assistant, or with a more personal response written by a Legislative Correspondent. Controversial issues that attract many letters normally receive a form letter response, while smaller issues or specific questions often receive the attention of a personalized response.

Conclusion
Members of Congress work for you. Without your votes, they won't stay in office. They go to great lengths to cultivate a positive relationship with you, their boss. Very few people take the time to write to a Member of Congress, so the few that do carry a disproportionate influence.

Fifteen minutes is well worth the time to influence a $2 trillion enterprise.

(Photo: indi.ca)

From MailMovesAmerica.org:

To many consumers and policymakers, Do Not Mail bills may sound like an idea whose time has come. However, learning even a little about advertising mail and direct marketing quickly reveals the many problems that Do Not Mail registries would create.

Advertising mail is a large and diverse economic engine creating $686 billion of economic activity annually that would be adversely affected by even just one bill becoming law. Thousands of jobs are dependent on advertising mail and direct marketing – from copywriters in ad agencies to rural letter carriers in remote corners of a sparsely populated state.

Get on over there and tell them how much you totally freaking love junk mail!

MailMovesAmerica.org

One analyst is quoted as saying that just as consumers are getting fed up with false promises of "quality" service, companies are tightening return policies and policing fraud more stringently: "You'd have to go back a long way to see the kind of acrimony that you're seeing now."

The Internet is doing a lot to empower consumers who were formerly isolated, notes the article. They mention Dan Ortiz, who couldn't get anything resolved with Comcast last fall:

Then the 26-year-old bike messenger logged on to The Consumerist, a blog with more than 2 million unique visitors a month that's part of Gawker Media's digital empire of snark. [<— That's why we made the snarky comment above about the masks. -Consumerist] There he found a consumer vigilante's gold mine: a list of e-mail addresses for more than 75 Comcast executives and employees, along with instructions for launching what the blog calls its "executive e-mail carpet bomb."

Ortiz got lucky. After firing off a note copying all those names the day before Thanksgiving, he quickly had an inbox full of out-of-office replies, complete with contact information containing direct numbers. He called a Chicago manager at home, who put his lead technician on the case. Ortiz says a swarm of eight trucks showed up on his block. "Once you get ahold of [executives], they bend over backward for you," he says. He adds that Comcast sent him a tin of gourmet popcorn for Christmas and more than $700 in credits. Even better, he now has the mobile numbers for the lead technician in his area. "I'm not calling customer service ever again," he says.

"Consumer Vigilantes" [BusinessWeek]
(Photo: BusinessWeek)

One is that not only should we not be giving corporations the special rights that humans are given, but we also shouldn't expect them to behave morally.

It's kind of an anthropomorphic fallacy, and it's very dangerous. Corporate social responsibility is a nice idea, but corporations will not be socially responsible, if by socially responsible we are suggesting that they sacrifice consumer deals and investor returns. They won't.

"Consumer-Driven Culture Is Killing Our Democracy" [AlterNet]

RELATED
"Do We Need "Separation Of Store And State"?"
"Has "Super-Capitalism" Outmoded Democracy?"

AOL will publicize the program by displaying millions of public service banner ads across its own sites and others on which it advertises. The company says it's their attempt to deal with consumers in a more transparent manner regarding online advertising.

"AOL to let users block targeted Web ads" [Reuters]
(Photo: Getty)

Computer users should be notified when their Web surfing is tracked by online advertisers and Web publishers, argue the Consumer Federation of America, the World Privacy Forum and the Center for Democracy and Technology, among other groups in a coalition promoting the idea.

Rather than burying privacy policies in fine print, companies should also disclose them more fully and provide easier ways to opt out, the groups said.

On the other hand, argue the privacy advocates, such vast collections of personal data make for attractive targets to hackers and identity thieves, not to mention the government, and could lead to unsavory practices like price discrimination—"for example, lower-income Web surfers might receive higher interest-rate mortgage or other loan offers than what higher-income consumers receive."

We think there's a fundamental difference between intrusive practices—like telemarketing and physical junk mail—and invisible practices like collecting usage data in the background. However, what's more important is that the usage data has a clear value, and too often we give it away largely for free to businesses like DoubleClick. We'd like to see more stringent privacy policies that would give consumers the ability to derive higher value from their personal data.

"Privacy Groups Target Online Advertising" [Associated Press]
(Photo: Getty)

Aside from taking your issue to the executive level or turning to your local infrastructure, you can consider taking your story to the general public, via consumer advocacy sites like—oh, look! They mention Consumerist! Would you look at that! (We'd also suggest trying to contact local newspapers and TV news stations, like this man in Chicago did.) Rounding out the five strategies: file a credit card dispute or take the business to small-claims court, which is cheaper and easier than you might suspect.

"Extreme Measures for Customer Service Complaints" [SmartMoney]

RELATED
"The Ultimate Consumerist Guide To Fighting Back (Revised Edition)"
(Photo: Getty)

Wal-Mart could afford to give its employees better pay and benefits, but would it remain competitive if it did? In 2005 its profit margin on sales was around 3.5 percent. This came to about $6,000 per employee. So at least in theory, Wal-Mart has some maneuverability. If it boosted wages and benefits of all full-time employees by $3.50 an hour, the extra cost would still total less than 3 percent of Wal-Mart's sales in the United States. It could absorb that cost by raising its prices a bit or settling for somewhat lower profits. But few of us as Wal-Mart consumers would be happy to pay the higher prices. We might go elsewhere in search of better bargains. Certainly, few of us as Wal-Mart investors would be pleased with lower profits. We might move our money to where it could earn a higher return.

As power has shifted to us as consumers and investors, these issues have been eclipsed. We've entered into a Faustian bargain. Today's economy can give us great deals largely because it punishes us in other ways. We can blame big corporations, but we've mostly made this bargain with ourselves.

"The Conflicted Consumer" [AlterNet]

If you're new to the issue, here's a simple and quick primer on what it's all about, told in our favorite format: moving images with sound!

via The Bivings Report.

On February 4, George Georgettis, an apparently mild-mannered performance arts theater manager, purchased a new SUV from a Miami Ford dealership. When he arrived home and checked the paperwork, he discovered the price was vastly higher than he agreed to on the lot. Feeling scammed, he took action. But rather than quietly seethe, blog about it or even complain to the Better Business Bureau, he crashed his new Ford Escape through the dealership's window, doused the SUV in gasoline and lit a match.

Witness Denise Cruz was standing near Georgettis when he started his arson. The next thing you heard was BOOM, and you saw flames all over the place, she said, as reported by CBS-4.

Eleven cars were destroyed in the conflagration, including an extra-special 'limited-edition' Ford GT worth $150,000.

This otherwise darkly comic tale of vigilante consumer activism turned tragic last night when the suspect allegedly committed suicide, hanging himself in the restroom of a flight from Washington to LA.

Note to Ford: live consumers make for better return customers.

Customer Torches Dealership [ CBS-4 ]