What was the DA up to?
Yesterday, 18 May 2011, was the Local Government Elections. Something really interesting happened in the Western Cape, or particularly in Cape Town. Although it might have happened elsewhere, but I am not sure of it.
Early in the morning I received an sms from the Democratic Alliance. It said that I should vote, which was quite honourable, but it said that I should vote for the DA to win the city of Cape Town.
I have never supported the DA, and have never given them my cellphone number to them. I have also never voted for the DA and will not, I have my reasons, which I might write about in a later post. However the burning questions are: where and how did the DA get my cellphone number? I spoke to a few of my friends and work colleagues, and found that they had also received smses from the DA during the day yesterday. So this leads to a further question, how much did the DA pay to get this information, in addition to the questions above.
It seems as if the DA has decided to embark on a campaign which replicates the one used by Obama in his Presidential campaign. However, I am not really sure how ethically sound this sort of campaign really is.
Now the conspiracy theorist in my arises and it seems as if the DA got the cellphone numbers from the various cellphone network suppliers – Vodacom, MTN and Cell C, or had an arrangement with them to “broadcast” its message to cellphones within the Cape Town and even Western Cape area. There is also an alternative to this, which is linked to RICA, which I have written about earlier. This campaign in my mind illustrates the danger of RICA being misused or even abused, because clearly the DA has either paid for this broadcast, or paid for the cellphone numbers to make this broadcast. Therefore the information that is held by the cellphone network companies, is up for sale. Or the DA called in a few favours – read corruption- in getting the cellphone numbers of many inhabitants in the city of Cape Town.
I think that this is unethical anyway, since this tactic is a blanket tactic and does not really give me a choice in whether I want to receive – let alone read – the sms or not. Therefore I for one feel that my privacy and the freedom that I have to choose a party has been removed from me by this bullying tactic.
I might have considered voting for the DA, however after receiving the sms early yesterday morning, I decided against it and voted for another party. After receiving another sms just after 17:00 on election day, I was glad that I had not voted for the DA.
Richard Records
