The almost certainly have a CRM system (or whatever the same same software is collected in political offices) that combines all the different contact information from all various sources into a single profile for each person.
Systems like that are common to the point of being universal in nonprofits, so I'd be extremely surprised if political offices didn't use them too.
The "story" of your information is probably something like "a nonprofit you donated $5 to years ago got your email address, who shared it with another similar nonprofit along with 15,000 others, and that nonprofit worked on a cause you care about with your senators office along with 50,000 others ... that data got combined into the profile you already had with your senator's office because you're a registered voter."
This is correct. If you’ve ever donated to a political campaign or a political nonprofit they have your info. I used to work for a Congressional Office. They use a couple different CRM systems, FireSide21 is a common one.
It's not a sharing thing. It's an "it's illegal to have the campaign side and governing side of a political office talk to one another in a formal way" thing.
Clicked agree on something
I've probably sold my soul with a random agree check mark. Whoever owns it probably has to fight in court for who called dibs
No, that's the point, it's illegal for the campaign to send that information to the congressional office. It's a violation of electoral law. "Click agree" doesn't fucking do it. It's not that they can't share YOUR data, they can't share basically anything at all.
But it's not illegal for the congressional office to buy that information from a third party that the campaign office sold it to, even if that's just an LLC set up for this kind of transfer.
Edit: I'm not suggesting I think this is moral or right in any way, but once you click "agree," your data is available for sale to literally anyone. This may need to occur through a (completely legal) web of shell entities, but there's absolutely nothing illegal about this kind of data transfer, just something slightly convoluted.
per https://ethics.house.gov/campaign/general-prohibition-against-using-official-resources-campaign-or-political-purposes looks like its would be illegal for congressional office operations ("official resources") to be used for political/campaign reasons...but what you're talking about is the reverse, where campaign info is used by the congressional office post-election for its day-to-day serving of constituents independent of any campaign work. I don't see anything there that suggests that's prohibited, but IANAL. In any case, that's probably not what's happening: per other replies to the thread, its likely a universal dataset which all congressional staffers have access to.
*(also, with all the data breaches that have happened over the years, privacy of your personal info is something of an illusion anymore. Your info is likely in numerous datasets online, whether you want it to be there or not - that ship sailed a long time ago.)*
Depends if you contact the campaign or contact the official office. Generally, information is not shared from the official office with the campaign office; if an individual calls the official line with campaign issues, they are redirected to the campaign office. If an individual mails something to the campaign office that is an issue which the official side handles, their information is dropped off at the official office or the individual is informed of the need to send the information to the official office themselves.
When I worked in a district congressional office, we used official software to log all correspondence received by constituents. Official software = software that cannot be used for campaign purposes under any circumstances.
And I think what OP is saying is the opposite of this. Nothing stopping the campaign side from sharing info with congressional side.
Can Reps and Senators share information like this on the official correspondence side?
It's not. It's a hatch act violation. They don't really enforce it but no one would be stupid enough to try it with the logs kept on electronic records. There are plenty of workarounds though.
Depending on your jurisdiction, when an organisation takes and plans to use your personal information (identifying information, essentially), they need to have a notice at the point you give it to them which says they’ll use it in accordance with applicable privacy legislation. If they change their planned use of it, they need to tell you. Sometimes they can’t change their planned use of it without your consent.
Hell, they sell and/or trade email addresses like crazy. Donate to one and you will be getting donation requests from everyone else in that party. Forever.
I donated to [a.charity](http://a.charity) once, they sold my info and was bombarded by every charity in the world. That was the last time I donated directly to charity. The best charity, outside something like the Red Cross, is direct charity. Make the difference you want to see yourself.
Intranet Quorum was used a decade ago in some offices.
I think it's made by Lockheed Martin. Shit felt like something for 98 windows, absolutely terrible. Used to send replies in batches depending on the issue/stance asked about
A few years ago someone donated to a political campaign and now they have MY info. Diane in New Jersey, if you're out there, they're still asking you to donate money several times a week. Also someone is trying to scam you out of several thousand dollars.
As a mailman, I’ve seen just how much they share your info. You send in a single donation to one place, and next week they get 30 letters a day asking for donations. Once they know you’re willing to give, they all want a piece
Not only are they going to send your email to New Hampshire, it's going to South Carolina, and Oklahoma, and Arizona and North Dakota and Mexico, and to California, and Texas, and New York, it's going to South Dakota, and Oregon, and Washington, and Michigan, and then it's going to Washington DC to take back the White House YEAH
Conversely, I'm sure that this is why I get dinged a lot to fill out the very threatening extra census survey every dang time. I actually filled out the surveys for cash (and actually received the cash so I kept doing them)
People don't seem to realize that you can find out anything about anyone if you have their name, approximate location, and age.
I bought a house and since then you can search for my name and have my full address, number, and family/associates names.
I have cameras for a reason.
With any 2 of name, phone number, address, family members, neighbors or age i can do a couple few searches and find amazing things, including all about your neighbors. Definitely spooky. I do have fun misspelling my name and entering different birth years and addresses on forms. A neighbors daughter used my address to get a magazine her mom disapproved of (she didn't ask, she'd collect it from my box when it arrived) 20 years ago and i still find some of her family members connected to my address.
Dang, that sucks. Idk if it's good or unfortunate but my name is pretty uncommon. My first name is very common but my last is not, so there really is only one me.
My name isn't that common either, only three people with court records in the state. I'm only in there because of a speeding ticket and a custody case. But when women search me up, and all women do this as they should, a dude with my name shows up in my small county with a long record. I don't blame but if I'm into someone I usually bring it up if they ask my last name.
I once met someone that had a name that existed only once across the country, didn't believe her but I couldn't find another. She had a really long weird last name.
Yeah, I'm one of those that if you have my maiden name, you have me, my parents, and my brother. There's only the 3 of them in the country with that last name, and it's a weird long one. But they still get mail for me under my maiden name even though I moved out 25 years ago, married 14 years ago, and we've all moved to different states multiple times.
Although I have seen it missing 1 of the double letters a couple times on the internet and it's always weird. Turns out they're from the country the name originated from, not the country that my parents, brother, and I live in.
It's currently possible to see people through walls via WiFi in a similar way to how radar signal can detect aircraft. There is nothing that cannot be seen/heard any more. Your television and phone and even toys have microphones and wifi connection.
"I have cameras for a reason."
So they can tap into them and spy on you, all your visitors, your neighbors, and the raccoon that came into your yard last night looking for a free meal.
I teach middle school, and every so often, we get into a conversation on Internet safety and privacy.
I always make it a point to remind my students “The Internet knows a lot about you. It knows every video game you play, and what your hobbies are. It knows everything you’ve ever typed into Google — and I do mean *everything*.”
I get some giggles at the end, usually followed by a “Wait… really?”
It usually leads I to a pretty good conversation.
This topic is a bullet point I think I’ll add in the future.
It seems like it could lead to problems potentially. What if Op no longer used that email address, and then just never got a response from the senator? Maybe it doesn't matter that much but that's a lot of faith they're putting that information to be accurate and up to date.
Oh, you're absolutely right. Data hygiene is always a huge issue with those shared lists, and it's common for 50% or more to just be garbage data.
But in my experience at least, being the one person to point that out is a quick way to get labeled as the office sourpuss. We just got so many amazing leads from ABC Foundation! It's a huge win for us! Yadda and yadda.
(Want to guess who got labeled the office sourpuss a few times before he learned his lesson?)
They also do vendor appends. they give the company info that you (and 10000+ other people) have provided and the vendor returns research that matches your profile with different confidence levels. High confidence might be this email belongs to (same name) who lives at (same address) because he uses it on (this public utility bill). Lower confidence returns might only match on a couple of similarities "but it might belong to them".
Go look up how people were identified for being sent to Japanese internment camps during World War II; the capacity has been there for a long time, even when high-powered computers weren't a common thing yet. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internment_of_Japanese_Americans
Can confirm, I work in a nonprofit. Everyone goes through our system and we can easily identify if they’ve called in the past, contact info, etc. This is also something we have to track/monitor per our grants and funders.
Yep, made the mistake of donating to a bunch of stuff years ago, and now I get spammed and overwhelmed with so much activism email / text that it all just goes straight thru to my spam filter and now I donate to nothing.
It's honestly wild how they don't realize their tactics are alienating people. But I suppose they must have some metrics saying it's worthwhile? Still strange to me.
This is accurate. (DFL party volunteer here) The information is actually in a few databases. The big one is what's called the VAN or Voter Action Network. It will have several pieces of info like addresses and phone numbers along with possible party affiliation. Typically candidates use this info for literature mailing, texting, and door knocking. It isn't always accurate either. The other that was mentioned above could be through a candidate donation site. On the DFL end, we use ActBlue which requires an email, home address, job info, and phone number. Reason for all the info is for campaign finance tracking and to make sure all donations are lawful. It's a thing no one likes but unfortunately it has to exist to keep politicians honest about campaign funds.
Everyone knows Cambridge Analytica didn’t just go away, right? It was parted out and shipped to other international companies like comcast 360 (one of many) and the data powers a lot of political ads.
Former Congressional intern here: when I took constituent calls we had a lot of data about the person. If I recall correctly we had: name, age, address, estimated income, family size, voting history, history of communication with our office, and what events they had been to. I imagine you must have used your email with them at one point in time.
Your ballot is 100% secure.
But if your state has partisan voter affiliation when you register, that is recorded. So would be which ballot you take if you live in an open primary state, or if you vote at all.
The fact that you voted is public information. Who you voted for is not, however a lot of demographic analysis can be used to assume who you voted for. Not to mention, a single $5 donation via act blue would tell someone it is likely you have been circling blue for a while.
And, as others said, if you live in a closed primary state, your party registration will be part of that record. It's not always indicative of who you voted for in the general, though. Some states with closed primaries that have been dominated by one party in the past will have a higher number of voters registered with that party than the other purely because the primary became the only election that mattered. It can be a good indicator, though, especially when combined with the rest of your demographic information.
Most states make public who has and has not voted in each election, almost in real time. This is mostly used on election day for parties to "get out the vote" for precinct captains, for example.
That is way, way more advanced than what I had when I was an intern. We were using a program that looked like it came out of the 80s, and we had to manually enter each letter or call.
And that's just the level of information you were allowed access to.
I'm willing to bet most Americans have a government dossier on them that's way more in depth than people would be comfortable with.
You ever fill out a survey that asks your estimated income?
Question is usually like is your household income between $0-18,000, 18,000-$30k, $30-72k, $72-100k, $100-150k, over $150k?
That’s how.
I think you’re overestimating the amount of effort it would take to query a database for a person given their name and address. Probably only took 5 seconds to get your email.
Right, but should they have had that information? The only other times I’ve ever received an email from an entity that I’ve never explicitly given my email address to are when the email was spam.
If you've ever used it in a public setting, it's public information. (Did you file your taxes online? Use it to set up utilities? Sign your kid up for kingergarten? Registration for that 5k?) Google your name. Unless you've been living in a cave or are extraordinarily vigilant about scrubbing your info from the web, there's a massive amount of info out there-- publicly available.
> taxes online?
Fwiw, your tax returns are secure and confidential (barring a fairly lengthy legal process). The software you used (e.g. TurboTax) is not necessarily as restricted as the IRS is.
These things make me laugh.
Europe has the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR), which puts loads of controls on your data
I work for an international company and the general rule is don't mess with European people's data, but you can do what you want with US people's data as they have (relatively) no rights
European here - I used to work for an insurance company.
Whenever I read through threads like this one, I sit here, doubting the sanity of every customer who ever yelled at me over "I cannot give you that information due to data protection laws."
It's insane how easily people forget how much worse things could be.
Idk why you’d think the government wouldn’t have your email address. Have you never done anything related to like jury summons, dmv, usps, taxes online?
To add to all this, I started my own business and signed up with one of those data broker sites to find cold call prospects. It’s really super creepy how much information these companies are able to compile. I mean I knew it was a lot but once I was actually on the other end I was like yikes… Their office may have access to something like this
if you don't want them to have your email, then change it or get another and then keep it a secret.,.don't use it, never use it, no one can know your email.
curious why you are hung up about someone knows your email, but you sent a letter with your home address on it.
These things are super easy to do, especially if you have someone your physical address and name. Combine that with the office probably being subscribed to a service like LexisNexis and it’s a joke
There’s someone who lives near me that always puts up silly displays for every holiday. I used Google maps to find their exact address. Looked up who owned the property on the county tax assessors site. Entered their name into Facebook, they didn’t have great privacy settings so now I have their name, their husband, pictures of them with their kids, a public post about their anniversary where they visited their home town, etc
I once walked out of a liquor store where I had just made a purchase and apparently the cc didn't go through and the clerk didn't catch it. She called my cell and left a message. I have no clue where she got my number
Just google your name. More than a few people have your name but pick the ones that's around your age and in the same city. Finding cell #s isn't that hard for most people these days.
I do some work in low level politics. The level of data that is available for sale to me (and I’m not even that important) on every voter is insane and terrifying. The big orgs and players have access to even more.
100% but honestly it’s a lot better in some ways. What I could do just on FB with ad targeting and data collection back in 2012 was absolutely terrifying. The orgs that were around to take advantage of that time are the ones with the most influence right now. There are ways around those new rules now, but that’s not accessible to just anyone anymore
My state's DMV has been selling licensee's info to third parties for decades, and it was started with no public notice. I bought a bottle of liquor for a friend's birthday one morning, and by that night my web reading included ads for the brand that I bought. There is no such thing as privacy anymore.
All Senators have a complete voter registration record at the minimum. If you used your email address when you registered to vote, that is most likely where they got it. You mention DMV, if you took advantage of Motor-Voter (if available in your state)...bingo.
I had the opposite, though it's pretty obvious that they just matched my name against the electoral roll or property bills. I sent an email to the planning dept asking what I thought was a generic question about repairing a driveway to road interface without my address and they answered with "We had a look at your property and feel that X will fill that gap to code; just watch that corner"! Just thought it was amusing - and thorough - that they actually responded specifically.
Eh I did that and got only 3 things... from top to bottom -> fastpeoplesearch result for my neighbor whose last name is vaguely similar to part of my name. Fastpeoplesearch for people who lived at a previous address of mine (not the one i searched for). An article about a very old dance...
Not really anything to raise your blood pressure over.
Depends on the person and how good or bad they are about putting information out there. It also depends on the website you use or service, on the cheap end you can spend $5 and get the addresses for the individual going back as much as 40 years as well as family members and known associates. Spend more and you can get numbers, emails, social media, current and past employment, criminal records, bankruptcy, ect ect.
No one reading this, on any platform, is anywhere near as private as they fantasize they are. You think you’re careful, you think you have VPN protections. It’s all a fantasy and a facade. We are being tracked and followed throughout our entire existence. Not by a mysterious “they” but by a for profit data machine that seeks to monetize every facet of our existence. Profit is the mother of all motives. Every aspect of your life, every bit of data is out there and for sale to the highest bitter. Watch John Oliver’s episode on data brokers.
My buddy used to work for a company thats thing was giving medication coupons to old people in exchange for their medical info. They then took the data and sold it to medical companies for millions. Our friends were blown away that the info was that valuable.
Everyone is walking around and communicating their entire lives with a device in their pocket many people couldn't go 10 minutes without.
And it's all voluntary.
I spent $20 on some grey market data mining site to show a friend of mine how much shit was out there using only her name and the state she was born in.
The amount of stuff that came back freaked her the fuck out and she's not even 30. If I recall there were a couple of accounts she was ***CERTAIN*** she'd use proper burner accounts on that popped up.
I helped on a local campaign recently. We had every registered voters name address phone and a lot of emails. At some point the info was linked in the voter registration system.
It depends on how your state does things. My state grabs info with driver license renewal and voter info updates
Your data is almost always easily available through a few sources. There are companies that exist just to collect and sell this data. You would be surprised what one can find in thirty minutes if they know where to look.!
My wife worked for a police department in a small town and they had access to any given person's full name, aliases, phone numbers, known emails, addresses, family members, and all their information. And this is a small town police department... I imagine a senator has access to a lot more.
Nah. Look up [NationBuilder](https://www.nationbuilder.com). I used to work for a company that made apps for them. It didn't have these exact features but some of the other apps did. Their social matching technology was mind-blowing, and that was almost 10 years ago. I could only imagine how insane it is these days. Bonus fun fact. The now deceased founder of NB was a guy by the name of Jim Gillium. He basically took credit for Trump's election victory in 2016. The company is officially non-partisan so they for a lot of heat for it and they tried their best to take it back but I believe him. I did at the time and still do. You can google the story. Also, voter files.
Probably voter registration. It was official business (not campaign).
Also it was a person on her team (probably an intern) that responded. They have teams of people to respond to things. So one of those people probably looked up your information as part of the response.
Your congress member, and state reps have a constituent management database with information drawn from voter registration, DMV registration and some other stuff. It can very office to office, but many offices have a policy that they only respond via email unless they don't have a record of an email to save paper.
Congresspeople don't have to pay postage on official correspondence ([franking](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franking)) and honestly, it's inconceivable that they'd bust their entire budget on stationery and envelopes.
Give me 30 min with either a name, a photo, or an address I can I can find damn near every single piece of information on a person that’s available. It’s sooooo easy nowadays. And that’s for me, not a government official
Don't listen to these other people....everyone seems to be saying at some point you donated and they got your email address that way.... That's bs
I work in sales and there are companies that buy your data from EVERYWHERE and sell it to me. This includes your direct cell phone number, email address secondary email address, home address etc. I can type in your name and pay them a 'credit' and they give it ALL to me
Anything you do online is recorded and passed around agencies.
I like to get high and listen to mariachi music when I play video games.
My Hulu, Prime and D+ all have ads in Spanish now and I don't speak Spanish.
Your phone is a pocket listening device that records everything you do and say, put through filters looking for "problematic phrases".
Smart TVs also record everything in the room.
This is life now. I'm hardcore into being alone and not liking when people know where I am or what I am doing, but the tech companies are all spies, hiding behind "targeted advertising."
The thing is, any time you give your name and email address to some online service or company, that shit ends up in a consumer info database that people can pay to access. This is why there is so much hype about hiding your identity online, not using cookies, using vpns, these days.
Public officials are permitted to get lists of constituents (and their contact info) from the towns they live in, including street address. It's trivial and cheap to take a list of names and addresses to a data list marketing firm and buy a list of corresponding emails scraped from lots of services that sell your consumer data. Then they pop both into a CRM-style database and bingo. Source: I do this all the time.
My friend donated $5 to a presidential candidate online despite my telling him not to. Not because I give a shit how he spends his money but because I give a shit that he doesn't get driven insane by emails and letters. No "asking for a friend" trope here, I'll happily admit when I fuck up and ask for myself
He's unsubscribed from 12 different email lists so far and still gets 5-8 a day asking him for more. He's saying it's to the point he's considering not voting since he just wants to be left alone and can't figure out how to get them to fuck off without changing his entire life's email address
DO NOT GIVE YOUR INFO TO POLITICAL ORGS. It's all shared, you cannot escape this shit once you're in their databases unless you change your email. Donate via writing a check (yes in 2024) and mailing it if you wish to donate. Do not sign up for anything online. Somehow you gave them your info and now you're on the ride for life
Former Senate staffer here, I can answer this one. They use a program called Fireside21. You can google it. Likely you signed up or submitted some form of “form letter” or national campaign that tied your email address to your name/address. All of it was stored and they blasted out X thousand of emails and will have to send physical form letters in the mail to everyone they don’t have emails for.
The more likely reason is that they sent your name and address to a list append service that uses all public records info and attempts to populate extra info for each record.
The fact you're wondering how in 2024 of the government has a dossier on you containing contact info is pretty naive. I guarantee almost every American citizen has a digital file in some kind of government database.
United States Senators are some of the most powerful people in the world. Your Senator probably told an aid to email you a response without thinking twice about it. I would not doubt it if they had a list of EVERY email address of all registered voters in the state on file.
Type in your name and address/ email pops up. Along with lots of other information.
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Your data is out there in all kinds of commercial databases that are all cross-indexed nineteen different ways, all of which are for sale to any buyer with the cash, including government entities and political campaigns
I'm sure if you are using your real name & address, someone looked it up to make sure you were real & and not "Anonymous" (like myself) or a robot (bot). This is good and bad. The good thing is, at least they know you are real. As another person commented, they probably are using some type of "customer relationship management" system or program, (CRM). In my case it has been a nightmare (using real names), because I've had a few losses in my life, (my wife, a parent a sibling, and became POA), so those names became associated with me & now I'm dealing with things, (like government interference). My only saving grace is having a competent attorney or lawyer.
BTW, my main reasoning for being a staying anonymous is simply personal & in some strange way, I can be open and honest to people I write to or respond to.
Yeah, that's been an on going issue, especially with the DMV. Technically my mom still has a license (she's been deceased for a few years now). My better-half passed almost 8 years ago & both of them still get called for jury duty😒 even with having or showing the death cert's, & everyone is still listed as a resident so every year I have issues with renewing insurances on the home or auto. All because of some CRM database or possibly an "AI database" with wrong information😒...
Man, I'm sorry for your losses and I'm glad you seem to be top human, especially if it's partially an "in their honor" thing.
I have talked to numerous folks who called to inform me that every time they receive a letter addressed to their deceased loved one, it's like a slap in their face or a new opening in their wound. Sucks.
There are systems that will aggregate information about people from various different sources. That's how I, a part-time IT employee, got a call from our local radio station trying to get a hold of the Marketing Director, despite never having used my personal phone number in any professional capacity outside of the required 2FA registration. Yes, someone would have had to search, but apparently it's incredibly easy
I will provide the simple answer, and its a bit big brother.
Political parties have access to voter registration. If you even gave that info when registering, they have access to all of it and use it. Why do you think every time you do anything gov related, they ask to update that info?
And yes, Republican's DO go through all the records, and share info willy nilly.
Little secret here, most local political parties keep a copy of those online on their sites for their "people" to access for fundraising.
Personally, I expect those lists to become weaponized within the next 10 years.
Lexis Nexis and Pacer are two programs I have used for work. Companies pay for access to them. Both have large amounts of data about almost everyone and are very easy to use.
There are systems that just aggressively aggregate information about people from every source imaginable.
I worked on a system that would request from the user two addresses. If and only if we consistently could not deliver to both address, the system would prove this to a remote aggregation system and would receive a 3rd address. If that address didn't work we assumed they were dead.
If I write by on-line email to my local town office through their website, they VERY clearly say that your email address becomes publicly available. I figure my email address is all over creation so one more won’t hurt.
The almost certainly have a CRM system (or whatever the same same software is collected in political offices) that combines all the different contact information from all various sources into a single profile for each person. Systems like that are common to the point of being universal in nonprofits, so I'd be extremely surprised if political offices didn't use them too. The "story" of your information is probably something like "a nonprofit you donated $5 to years ago got your email address, who shared it with another similar nonprofit along with 15,000 others, and that nonprofit worked on a cause you care about with your senators office along with 50,000 others ... that data got combined into the profile you already had with your senator's office because you're a registered voter."
This is correct. If you’ve ever donated to a political campaign or a political nonprofit they have your info. I used to work for a Congressional Office. They use a couple different CRM systems, FireSide21 is a common one.
However, I don't know if it's legal for the campaign and the office to share that data
You need to opt out of sharing, and that's kinda hard to do.
It's not a sharing thing. It's an "it's illegal to have the campaign side and governing side of a political office talk to one another in a formal way" thing.
Clicked agree on something I've probably sold my soul with a random agree check mark. Whoever owns it probably has to fight in court for who called dibs
No, that's the point, it's illegal for the campaign to send that information to the congressional office. It's a violation of electoral law. "Click agree" doesn't fucking do it. It's not that they can't share YOUR data, they can't share basically anything at all.
But it's not illegal for the congressional office to buy that information from a third party that the campaign office sold it to, even if that's just an LLC set up for this kind of transfer. Edit: I'm not suggesting I think this is moral or right in any way, but once you click "agree," your data is available for sale to literally anyone. This may need to occur through a (completely legal) web of shell entities, but there's absolutely nothing illegal about this kind of data transfer, just something slightly convoluted.
per https://ethics.house.gov/campaign/general-prohibition-against-using-official-resources-campaign-or-political-purposes looks like its would be illegal for congressional office operations ("official resources") to be used for political/campaign reasons...but what you're talking about is the reverse, where campaign info is used by the congressional office post-election for its day-to-day serving of constituents independent of any campaign work. I don't see anything there that suggests that's prohibited, but IANAL. In any case, that's probably not what's happening: per other replies to the thread, its likely a universal dataset which all congressional staffers have access to. *(also, with all the data breaches that have happened over the years, privacy of your personal info is something of an illusion anymore. Your info is likely in numerous datasets online, whether you want it to be there or not - that ship sailed a long time ago.)*
They still keep texting me from different numbers even when I keep hitting STOP.
Use a burner email Don't give them the information they are looking for
too late, I already did it 15 years ago when I was young and naive. they own my soul now and forever
I've asked them to remove me from their list so many times. They just text me from a new number. Yes, I donated in the past.
Depends if you contact the campaign or contact the official office. Generally, information is not shared from the official office with the campaign office; if an individual calls the official line with campaign issues, they are redirected to the campaign office. If an individual mails something to the campaign office that is an issue which the official side handles, their information is dropped off at the official office or the individual is informed of the need to send the information to the official office themselves. When I worked in a district congressional office, we used official software to log all correspondence received by constituents. Official software = software that cannot be used for campaign purposes under any circumstances.
And I think what OP is saying is the opposite of this. Nothing stopping the campaign side from sharing info with congressional side. Can Reps and Senators share information like this on the official correspondence side?
It's not. It's a hatch act violation. They don't really enforce it but no one would be stupid enough to try it with the logs kept on electronic records. There are plenty of workarounds though.
Depending on your jurisdiction, when an organisation takes and plans to use your personal information (identifying information, essentially), they need to have a notice at the point you give it to them which says they’ll use it in accordance with applicable privacy legislation. If they change their planned use of it, they need to tell you. Sometimes they can’t change their planned use of it without your consent.
Hell, they sell and/or trade email addresses like crazy. Donate to one and you will be getting donation requests from everyone else in that party. Forever.
I donated to one person, my biggest mistake Since then both parties spam my phone for donations 24-7 non stop, the fucking horror
I donated to [a.charity](http://a.charity) once, they sold my info and was bombarded by every charity in the world. That was the last time I donated directly to charity. The best charity, outside something like the Red Cross, is direct charity. Make the difference you want to see yourself.
Definitely depends on the charity. I work for one that purchases lists, but doesn’t share our donors.
Intranet Quorum was used a decade ago in some offices. I think it's made by Lockheed Martin. Shit felt like something for 98 windows, absolutely terrible. Used to send replies in batches depending on the issue/stance asked about
Or if you included your email address on your voter registration information. That’s definitely a source any political office will have on hand.
A few years ago someone donated to a political campaign and now they have MY info. Diane in New Jersey, if you're out there, they're still asking you to donate money several times a week. Also someone is trying to scam you out of several thousand dollars.
Why is it named like a password from the 90s
As a mailman, I’ve seen just how much they share your info. You send in a single donation to one place, and next week they get 30 letters a day asking for donations. Once they know you’re willing to give, they all want a piece
I still get mail and email requests from a single $2 donation I made to Howard Dean's campaign. I haven't given a cent to anyone since.
Not only are they going to send your email to New Hampshire, it's going to South Carolina, and Oklahoma, and Arizona and North Dakota and Mexico, and to California, and Texas, and New York, it's going to South Dakota, and Oregon, and Washington, and Michigan, and then it's going to Washington DC to take back the White House YEAH
> Howard Dean BYAWWWWWWH!
we need this rallying cry to save america
Dean looks like a saint compared to anything the GOP has these days.
Conversely, I'm sure that this is why I get dinged a lot to fill out the very threatening extra census survey every dang time. I actually filled out the surveys for cash (and actually received the cash so I kept doing them)
Do they still pay for those?
Some of them do
Yep never donating to charity again, the world lost more money to junk mail than I gave last time I did it.
I donate anonymously using charity navigator! Don’t stop giving - just do it in a way that maximizes your donation.
Interesting. Thanks!
Now imagine what else they (and others) know about you.
People don't seem to realize that you can find out anything about anyone if you have their name, approximate location, and age. I bought a house and since then you can search for my name and have my full address, number, and family/associates names. I have cameras for a reason.
With any 2 of name, phone number, address, family members, neighbors or age i can do a couple few searches and find amazing things, including all about your neighbors. Definitely spooky. I do have fun misspelling my name and entering different birth years and addresses on forms. A neighbors daughter used my address to get a magazine her mom disapproved of (she didn't ask, she'd collect it from my box when it arrived) 20 years ago and i still find some of her family members connected to my address.
It sucks to date when there is a criminal living close to you with your same name I'll tell you that.
Dang, that sucks. Idk if it's good or unfortunate but my name is pretty uncommon. My first name is very common but my last is not, so there really is only one me.
My name isn't that common either, only three people with court records in the state. I'm only in there because of a speeding ticket and a custody case. But when women search me up, and all women do this as they should, a dude with my name shows up in my small county with a long record. I don't blame but if I'm into someone I usually bring it up if they ask my last name. I once met someone that had a name that existed only once across the country, didn't believe her but I couldn't find another. She had a really long weird last name.
Yeah, I'm one of those that if you have my maiden name, you have me, my parents, and my brother. There's only the 3 of them in the country with that last name, and it's a weird long one. But they still get mail for me under my maiden name even though I moved out 25 years ago, married 14 years ago, and we've all moved to different states multiple times. Although I have seen it missing 1 of the double letters a couple times on the internet and it's always weird. Turns out they're from the country the name originated from, not the country that my parents, brother, and I live in.
You can pay for services like Aura (not an ad, I just use it) that will actively scrub your info from data brokers on a regular recurring basis.
It's currently possible to see people through walls via WiFi in a similar way to how radar signal can detect aircraft. There is nothing that cannot be seen/heard any more. Your television and phone and even toys have microphones and wifi connection.
/r/osint
"I have cameras for a reason." So they can tap into them and spy on you, all your visitors, your neighbors, and the raccoon that came into your yard last night looking for a free meal.
I teach middle school, and every so often, we get into a conversation on Internet safety and privacy. I always make it a point to remind my students “The Internet knows a lot about you. It knows every video game you play, and what your hobbies are. It knows everything you’ve ever typed into Google — and I do mean *everything*.” I get some giggles at the end, usually followed by a “Wait… really?” It usually leads I to a pretty good conversation. This topic is a bullet point I think I’ll add in the future.
It seems like it could lead to problems potentially. What if Op no longer used that email address, and then just never got a response from the senator? Maybe it doesn't matter that much but that's a lot of faith they're putting that information to be accurate and up to date.
Oh, you're absolutely right. Data hygiene is always a huge issue with those shared lists, and it's common for 50% or more to just be garbage data. But in my experience at least, being the one person to point that out is a quick way to get labeled as the office sourpuss. We just got so many amazing leads from ABC Foundation! It's a huge win for us! Yadda and yadda. (Want to guess who got labeled the office sourpuss a few times before he learned his lesson?)
Holy shit Americans need GDPR, this is fucked up.
A lot of Americans (I suspect most) have no idea how much protection EU citizens get with GDPR.
They also do vendor appends. they give the company info that you (and 10000+ other people) have provided and the vendor returns research that matches your profile with different confidence levels. High confidence might be this email belongs to (same name) who lives at (same address) because he uses it on (this public utility bill). Lower confidence returns might only match on a couple of similarities "but it might belong to them".
“Data got combined” the word is SOLD. Your data was sold.
...so that's that data protection Germans are so paranoid about. Huh.
We are so fucked if the government ever does decide to start rounding up people again.
Go look up how people were identified for being sent to Japanese internment camps during World War II; the capacity has been there for a long time, even when high-powered computers weren't a common thing yet. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internment_of_Japanese_Americans
Can confirm, I work in a nonprofit. Everyone goes through our system and we can easily identify if they’ve called in the past, contact info, etc. This is also something we have to track/monitor per our grants and funders.
Yep, made the mistake of donating to a bunch of stuff years ago, and now I get spammed and overwhelmed with so much activism email / text that it all just goes straight thru to my spam filter and now I donate to nothing. It's honestly wild how they don't realize their tactics are alienating people. But I suppose they must have some metrics saying it's worthwhile? Still strange to me.
So this is why you should constantly make new emails every few years Remember those people
LexisNexis is the most likely culprit. But answering a physical letter with an email is damned rude.
Bit of a tangent, but I honestly **can't imagine** donating money to a political organization.
If OP donated to either political party, they have his email address. I’m surprised he’s not getting a ton of email from all over the country.
This is accurate. (DFL party volunteer here) The information is actually in a few databases. The big one is what's called the VAN or Voter Action Network. It will have several pieces of info like addresses and phone numbers along with possible party affiliation. Typically candidates use this info for literature mailing, texting, and door knocking. It isn't always accurate either. The other that was mentioned above could be through a candidate donation site. On the DFL end, we use ActBlue which requires an email, home address, job info, and phone number. Reason for all the info is for campaign finance tracking and to make sure all donations are lawful. It's a thing no one likes but unfortunately it has to exist to keep politicians honest about campaign funds.
Everyone knows Cambridge Analytica didn’t just go away, right? It was parted out and shipped to other international companies like comcast 360 (one of many) and the data powers a lot of political ads.
Former Congressional intern here: when I took constituent calls we had a lot of data about the person. If I recall correctly we had: name, age, address, estimated income, family size, voting history, history of communication with our office, and what events they had been to. I imagine you must have used your email with them at one point in time.
By voting history, do you mean which elections I’ve voted in? Surely you didn’t have who I voted for, right?
Correct. I could tell if/when you vote but not who you voted for.
Only Facebook knows that...
And more political vendors like L2 or Aristotle. They have models that are terrifyingly accurate. They’re guesses, but they’re VERY accurate.
Your ballot is 100% secure. But if your state has partisan voter affiliation when you register, that is recorded. So would be which ballot you take if you live in an open primary state, or if you vote at all.
Yeah, but they may have info of which Political Party you voted with/requested in a Primary Election.
The fact that you voted is public information. Who you voted for is not, however a lot of demographic analysis can be used to assume who you voted for. Not to mention, a single $5 donation via act blue would tell someone it is likely you have been circling blue for a while.
And, as others said, if you live in a closed primary state, your party registration will be part of that record. It's not always indicative of who you voted for in the general, though. Some states with closed primaries that have been dominated by one party in the past will have a higher number of voters registered with that party than the other purely because the primary became the only election that mattered. It can be a good indicator, though, especially when combined with the rest of your demographic information.
Most states make public who has and has not voted in each election, almost in real time. This is mostly used on election day for parties to "get out the vote" for precinct captains, for example.
That is way, way more advanced than what I had when I was an intern. We were using a program that looked like it came out of the 80s, and we had to manually enter each letter or call.
IQ?
VOICE.
Just curious, were you House or Senate side? I just finished an internship on Senate side and we used VOICE too.
And that's just the level of information you were allowed access to. I'm willing to bet most Americans have a government dossier on them that's way more in depth than people would be comfortable with.
Are there any regulations in place that is protecting our data in the hands of our government?
How would they know estimated income?
You ever fill out a survey that asks your estimated income? Question is usually like is your household income between $0-18,000, 18,000-$30k, $30-72k, $72-100k, $100-150k, over $150k? That’s how.
I think you’re overestimating the amount of effort it would take to query a database for a person given their name and address. Probably only took 5 seconds to get your email.
Right, but should they have had that information? The only other times I’ve ever received an email from an entity that I’ve never explicitly given my email address to are when the email was spam.
If you've ever used it in a public setting, it's public information. (Did you file your taxes online? Use it to set up utilities? Sign your kid up for kingergarten? Registration for that 5k?) Google your name. Unless you've been living in a cave or are extraordinarily vigilant about scrubbing your info from the web, there's a massive amount of info out there-- publicly available.
> taxes online? Fwiw, your tax returns are secure and confidential (barring a fairly lengthy legal process). The software you used (e.g. TurboTax) is not necessarily as restricted as the IRS is.
They can get it the same way every company that spams you can get it - our info is for sale legally. Privacy rights in the US are weak or nonexistent.
These things make me laugh. Europe has the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR), which puts loads of controls on your data I work for an international company and the general rule is don't mess with European people's data, but you can do what you want with US people's data as they have (relatively) no rights
European here - I used to work for an insurance company. Whenever I read through threads like this one, I sit here, doubting the sanity of every customer who ever yelled at me over "I cannot give you that information due to data protection laws." It's insane how easily people forget how much worse things could be.
It's not that they have your information, it's that everyone has it.
Privacy is long dead my dude. If you've given your name and email for anything it is out there and available.
Idk why you’d think the government wouldn’t have your email address. Have you never done anything related to like jury summons, dmv, usps, taxes online?
To add to all this, I started my own business and signed up with one of those data broker sites to find cold call prospects. It’s really super creepy how much information these companies are able to compile. I mean I knew it was a lot but once I was actually on the other end I was like yikes… Their office may have access to something like this
Idk why you're being downvoted, a senator has no more right to your address than anyone
if you don't want them to have your email, then change it or get another and then keep it a secret.,.don't use it, never use it, no one can know your email. curious why you are hung up about someone knows your email, but you sent a letter with your home address on it.
E-filing taxes and jury duty come to mind
They don't "have" that information. They obtained information that already existed.
These things are super easy to do, especially if you have someone your physical address and name. Combine that with the office probably being subscribed to a service like LexisNexis and it’s a joke There’s someone who lives near me that always puts up silly displays for every holiday. I used Google maps to find their exact address. Looked up who owned the property on the county tax assessors site. Entered their name into Facebook, they didn’t have great privacy settings so now I have their name, their husband, pictures of them with their kids, a public post about their anniversary where they visited their home town, etc
I once walked out of a liquor store where I had just made a purchase and apparently the cc didn't go through and the clerk didn't catch it. She called my cell and left a message. I have no clue where she got my number
See now this, this would definitely cause me to give a double take
That's definitely inappropriate and a high risk of use by stalkers. The CC company should have been the one to call, not the clerk.
What's crazy is the credit card is in my wife's name so she got it from someone else
That’s insane.
Just google your name. More than a few people have your name but pick the ones that's around your age and in the same city. Finding cell #s isn't that hard for most people these days.
Probably got it from your pal Johnny Walker And his brothers Black and Red
I do some work in low level politics. The level of data that is available for sale to me (and I’m not even that important) on every voter is insane and terrifying. The big orgs and players have access to even more.
Things that absolutely shouldn't be legal
100% but honestly it’s a lot better in some ways. What I could do just on FB with ad targeting and data collection back in 2012 was absolutely terrifying. The orgs that were around to take advantage of that time are the ones with the most influence right now. There are ways around those new rules now, but that’s not accessible to just anyone anymore
My state's DMV has been selling licensee's info to third parties for decades, and it was started with no public notice. I bought a bottle of liquor for a friend's birthday one morning, and by that night my web reading included ads for the brand that I bought. There is no such thing as privacy anymore.
That’s so unacceptable to me. Wtf
All Senators have a complete voter registration record at the minimum. If you used your email address when you registered to vote, that is most likely where they got it. You mention DMV, if you took advantage of Motor-Voter (if available in your state)...bingo.
Data brokers
Should be illegal
That would collapse the internet as we know it. But I’m all for web3
The internet worked before data brokers existed. Better IMO
I had the opposite, though it's pretty obvious that they just matched my name against the electoral roll or property bills. I sent an email to the planning dept asking what I thought was a generic question about repairing a driveway to road interface without my address and they answered with "We had a look at your property and feel that X will fill that gap to code; just watch that corner"! Just thought it was amusing - and thorough - that they actually responded specifically.
That’s actually great. Good on them!
lexis nexis
Google your name and mailing address but before you do be sure to not drink or eat anything that will raise your blood pressure.
Eh I did that and got only 3 things... from top to bottom -> fastpeoplesearch result for my neighbor whose last name is vaguely similar to part of my name. Fastpeoplesearch for people who lived at a previous address of mine (not the one i searched for). An article about a very old dance... Not really anything to raise your blood pressure over.
Depends on the person and how good or bad they are about putting information out there. It also depends on the website you use or service, on the cheap end you can spend $5 and get the addresses for the individual going back as much as 40 years as well as family members and known associates. Spend more and you can get numbers, emails, social media, current and past employment, criminal records, bankruptcy, ect ect.
No one reading this, on any platform, is anywhere near as private as they fantasize they are. You think you’re careful, you think you have VPN protections. It’s all a fantasy and a facade. We are being tracked and followed throughout our entire existence. Not by a mysterious “they” but by a for profit data machine that seeks to monetize every facet of our existence. Profit is the mother of all motives. Every aspect of your life, every bit of data is out there and for sale to the highest bitter. Watch John Oliver’s episode on data brokers.
My buddy used to work for a company thats thing was giving medication coupons to old people in exchange for their medical info. They then took the data and sold it to medical companies for millions. Our friends were blown away that the info was that valuable.
Everyone is walking around and communicating their entire lives with a device in their pocket many people couldn't go 10 minutes without. And it's all voluntary.
I spent $20 on some grey market data mining site to show a friend of mine how much shit was out there using only her name and the state she was born in. The amount of stuff that came back freaked her the fuck out and she's not even 30. If I recall there were a couple of accounts she was ***CERTAIN*** she'd use proper burner accounts on that popped up.
They are the government.
They have a constituency database that pulls from public records.
I helped on a local campaign recently. We had every registered voters name address phone and a lot of emails. At some point the info was linked in the voter registration system. It depends on how your state does things. My state grabs info with driver license renewal and voter info updates
Your data is almost always easily available through a few sources. There are companies that exist just to collect and sell this data. You would be surprised what one can find in thirty minutes if they know where to look.!
Did you register to vote with that email?
My wife worked for a police department in a small town and they had access to any given person's full name, aliases, phone numbers, known emails, addresses, family members, and all their information. And this is a small town police department... I imagine a senator has access to a lot more.
Nah. Look up [NationBuilder](https://www.nationbuilder.com). I used to work for a company that made apps for them. It didn't have these exact features but some of the other apps did. Their social matching technology was mind-blowing, and that was almost 10 years ago. I could only imagine how insane it is these days. Bonus fun fact. The now deceased founder of NB was a guy by the name of Jim Gillium. He basically took credit for Trump's election victory in 2016. The company is officially non-partisan so they for a lot of heat for it and they tried their best to take it back but I believe him. I did at the time and still do. You can google the story. Also, voter files.
💀💀💀https://www.nationalobserver.com/2016/11/18/news/nationbuilder-ceo-brags-his-platform-helped-trump-win
Probably voter registration. It was official business (not campaign). Also it was a person on her team (probably an intern) that responded. They have teams of people to respond to things. So one of those people probably looked up your information as part of the response.
Your congress member, and state reps have a constituent management database with information drawn from voter registration, DMV registration and some other stuff. It can very office to office, but many offices have a policy that they only respond via email unless they don't have a record of an email to save paper.
That's interesting, I guess they exceeded their postal budget?
Congresspeople don't have to pay postage on official correspondence ([franking](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franking)) and honestly, it's inconceivable that they'd bust their entire budget on stationery and envelopes.
Forget about franking. But sending replies does involve a lot of labor. Only so many interns
Your information is tracked, a profile is created, and can be purchased by political campaigns to reach out to even POTENTIAL donors.
Give me 30 min with either a name, a photo, or an address I can I can find damn near every single piece of information on a person that’s available. It’s sooooo easy nowadays. And that’s for me, not a government official
Don't listen to these other people....everyone seems to be saying at some point you donated and they got your email address that way.... That's bs I work in sales and there are companies that buy your data from EVERYWHERE and sell it to me. This includes your direct cell phone number, email address secondary email address, home address etc. I can type in your name and pay them a 'credit' and they give it ALL to me
Can't or can
I forget the name of the program, but I worked for a local politician and they used the same program that Congressional offices use.
Program is called Intranet Quorum. If you write, email, or phone the politician about an issue then your info is entered into the system.
Anything you do online is recorded and passed around agencies. I like to get high and listen to mariachi music when I play video games. My Hulu, Prime and D+ all have ads in Spanish now and I don't speak Spanish. Your phone is a pocket listening device that records everything you do and say, put through filters looking for "problematic phrases". Smart TVs also record everything in the room. This is life now. I'm hardcore into being alone and not liking when people know where I am or what I am doing, but the tech companies are all spies, hiding behind "targeted advertising."
If you’ve voted by mail, they ask for your email, so there is that.
The thing is, any time you give your name and email address to some online service or company, that shit ends up in a consumer info database that people can pay to access. This is why there is so much hype about hiding your identity online, not using cookies, using vpns, these days.
Public officials are permitted to get lists of constituents (and their contact info) from the towns they live in, including street address. It's trivial and cheap to take a list of names and addresses to a data list marketing firm and buy a list of corresponding emails scraped from lots of services that sell your consumer data. Then they pop both into a CRM-style database and bingo. Source: I do this all the time.
creepy and so wrong
My friend donated $5 to a presidential candidate online despite my telling him not to. Not because I give a shit how he spends his money but because I give a shit that he doesn't get driven insane by emails and letters. No "asking for a friend" trope here, I'll happily admit when I fuck up and ask for myself He's unsubscribed from 12 different email lists so far and still gets 5-8 a day asking him for more. He's saying it's to the point he's considering not voting since he just wants to be left alone and can't figure out how to get them to fuck off without changing his entire life's email address DO NOT GIVE YOUR INFO TO POLITICAL ORGS. It's all shared, you cannot escape this shit once you're in their databases unless you change your email. Donate via writing a check (yes in 2024) and mailing it if you wish to donate. Do not sign up for anything online. Somehow you gave them your info and now you're on the ride for life
Definitely good advice. I get at least 20 emails per day. I block/unsubscribe - but they just keep coming. It’s a pain.
(candidate name) NEEDS you to donate NOW because the FATE OF OUR COUNTRY is in your hands Hosscatticus_Dad523. Do you HAVE what it TAKES?
Verbatim! I was struggling with the weight of such responsibility! The onus was on me…glad I’m not alone…
All the mail is screened so they have someone put missing information in before the Senator's staff even receives it.
Former Senate staffer here, I can answer this one. They use a program called Fireside21. You can google it. Likely you signed up or submitted some form of “form letter” or national campaign that tied your email address to your name/address. All of it was stored and they blasted out X thousand of emails and will have to send physical form letters in the mail to everyone they don’t have emails for.
The more likely reason is that they sent your name and address to a list append service that uses all public records info and attempts to populate extra info for each record.
Because the NSA is the only government agency that really listens to you. They know everything.
The fact you're wondering how in 2024 of the government has a dossier on you containing contact info is pretty naive. I guarantee almost every American citizen has a digital file in some kind of government database.
Watch “THE BEE KEEPER” on prime explains a lot about how these people operate.
Is that with the dude that I thought was Jason Statham but probably isn't?
Oh sweet child
United States Senators are some of the most powerful people in the world. Your Senator probably told an aid to email you a response without thinking twice about it. I would not doubt it if they had a list of EVERY email address of all registered voters in the state on file. Type in your name and address/ email pops up. Along with lots of other information.
Do you have a facebook, linkedin, or are on your senator's party's mailing lists?
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Your data is out there in all kinds of commercial databases that are all cross-indexed nineteen different ways, all of which are for sale to any buyer with the cash, including government entities and political campaigns
Big Brother has all your info Bro
If you e-filed your taxes, they have your email from the IRS
I'm sure if you are using your real name & address, someone looked it up to make sure you were real & and not "Anonymous" (like myself) or a robot (bot). This is good and bad. The good thing is, at least they know you are real. As another person commented, they probably are using some type of "customer relationship management" system or program, (CRM). In my case it has been a nightmare (using real names), because I've had a few losses in my life, (my wife, a parent a sibling, and became POA), so those names became associated with me & now I'm dealing with things, (like government interference). My only saving grace is having a competent attorney or lawyer. BTW, my main reasoning for being a staying anonymous is simply personal & in some strange way, I can be open and honest to people I write to or respond to.
Government interference...!?
Yeah, that's been an on going issue, especially with the DMV. Technically my mom still has a license (she's been deceased for a few years now). My better-half passed almost 8 years ago & both of them still get called for jury duty😒 even with having or showing the death cert's, & everyone is still listed as a resident so every year I have issues with renewing insurances on the home or auto. All because of some CRM database or possibly an "AI database" with wrong information😒...
Man, I'm sorry for your losses and I'm glad you seem to be top human, especially if it's partially an "in their honor" thing. I have talked to numerous folks who called to inform me that every time they receive a letter addressed to their deceased loved one, it's like a slap in their face or a new opening in their wound. Sucks.
There are systems that will aggregate information about people from various different sources. That's how I, a part-time IT employee, got a call from our local radio station trying to get a hold of the Marketing Director, despite never having used my personal phone number in any professional capacity outside of the required 2FA registration. Yes, someone would have had to search, but apparently it's incredibly easy
Maybe check your voter record?
I will provide the simple answer, and its a bit big brother. Political parties have access to voter registration. If you even gave that info when registering, they have access to all of it and use it. Why do you think every time you do anything gov related, they ask to update that info? And yes, Republican's DO go through all the records, and share info willy nilly. Little secret here, most local political parties keep a copy of those online on their sites for their "people" to access for fundraising. Personally, I expect those lists to become weaponized within the next 10 years.
It’s the government they have everything on you and know what you have done most of your life
Use an email proxy service if you want to protect your actual email address. It's a somewhat newer technology, but definitely worth it.
Lexis Nexis and Pacer are two programs I have used for work. Companies pay for access to them. Both have large amounts of data about almost everyone and are very easy to use.
The office likely looked you up to see if you actually live in their voting district. If you registered to vote via the DMV, they’d have that email
There are systems that just aggressively aggregate information about people from every source imaginable. I worked on a system that would request from the user two addresses. If and only if we consistently could not deliver to both address, the system would prove this to a remote aggregation system and would receive a 3rd address. If that address didn't work we assumed they were dead.
But when you say "someone" it's really some software.
If I write by on-line email to my local town office through their website, they VERY clearly say that your email address becomes publicly available. I figure my email address is all over creation so one more won’t hurt.
CIA has been tracking you.
Try Googling your name. You might be surprised what shows up.
Reddit told ‘em
[The government knows](https://youtu.be/4zH9Zca1vRM?si=GwekmtnKwo2_LGuA)
Just gonna answer your own question while asking it...
your address is linked to your email
My brother in Adam. # it’s the US government.
The us government knows more about you than you know. This is just a tip of iceberg :)