i, robo-caller

Meet a king of the political robo-call.

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


Push polling is one of the dirtier, yet mostly legal, tricks in a political operative’s bag of last-minute campaign tools; robo-calling software makes it dirt cheap to place millions of calls to a single swing district. And the game is changing: Reports after November’s election suggested that some races were tipped to Republicans after voters endured a slew of “false-flag” calls, which take the art of voter suppression to a new level. With the 2008 race approaching, things are only going to get nastier. Meet one of the kings of the political robo-call.

Name: Gabriel Joseph III, president of FreeEats.

Odds that you might hear from him: FreeEats can make up to 3.5 million phone calls a day. “We generally talk to more people than watch television, listen to the radio, or read the newspaper combined,” says Joseph.

Who’s calling: FreeEats is also known as Advantage Research, ccAdvertising, Data Research, Election Research, fec Research, fecads, Political Research, and Public Research. It has been accused of disguising or “spoofing” its caller IDs; Joseph has reportedly said his company has “thousands” of aliases.

Who’s really calling: Joseph’s clients have included Tom DeLay, the National Rifle Association, Americans for Tax Reform, the Minutemen, the Family Research Council, and the Economic Freedom Fund, a new group bankrolled by Bob Perry, the Texas builder who funded Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.

The m.o.: When you pick up the phone, a recorded voice announces it is conducting a short “political survey” before asking a series of loaded questions. For example, “Congressman Baron Hill voted to allow the sale of a broad range of violent and sexually explicit materials to minors. Does knowing this make you less likely to vote for Baron Hill?”

Block the vote: In a 2003 email to a GOP honcho, Joseph explained how recordings can “deliver a voter suppression message.” In one such technique (not linked to FreeEats), the false-flag call, a robo-call begins, “I’m calling with information about candidate X.” Those who hang up quickly will think the call came from X’s campaign, since the real source (often the National Republican Congressional Committee) isn’t revealed until the end, which is a violation of federal regulations. The robo-caller then redials several times, leaving recipients annoyed at candidate X.

Called out: FreeEats has been fined for breaking anti-robo-calling laws in North Dakota, and a federal judge banned it from phoning Indiana voters under similar statutes.

Parting shot: Joseph warns Mother Jones: “If someone writes something that I don’t like, I can make their life…I can make them understand a few things if I choose.”

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with The Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with The Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate