We know the Republican Party has lax standards for national security. The Plame and Dubai scandals prove that. We also know they have VERY high standards for snooping into people’s private lives, as we have seen from the illegal and extra-constitutional NSA wiretap program, which was originally set up to operate under the FISA court law, and was bastardized after 9/11 (we think) to snoop on Americans communicating with other Americans.

I say “we think” because those of us still able to distinguish reality from fantasy have carefully watched the Bu$hCo maladministration for the last five years and we are fully confident that Mr Bush has been paranoically snooping on dissident Americans for the last 5 years. The “dissidents” would be Democratic Party members, as well as some journalists, and most likely every Progressive and Liberal blogger they can identify.

Think Progress has an article about a program on Minnesota Public Radio that shows some bright sparks in the Inner Party have found a way to combine both of these UnAmerican concepts into one package:

A story by Minnesota Public Radio reveals a disturbing new way that a political party is secretly grabbing sensitive personal information about voters. This week the Minnesota Republican Party is distributing a new CD about a proposed state marriage amendment. Along with flashy graphics, the CD asks people their views on controversial issues such as abortion, gun control, illegal immigration, and so on. The problem – the CD sends your answers back to headquarters, filed by name, address, and political views. No mention of that in the terms of use. No privacy policy at all. The story concludes: “So if you run the CD in your personal computer, by the end of it, the Minnesota GOP will not only know what you think on particular issues, but also who you are.”

I’m surprised it took them this long to come up with the idea. The ultimate in Fascist Party sneakware. But then, I suppose, anyone who puts something from those criminals into their computers deserves it.

These practices fall way below the standard for today’s polling firms and web sites. The norm for polling firms is to anonymize the data and report only statistical totals. The norm for commercial web sites is to have a privacy policy, with Federal Trade Commission enforcement if the web site breaks its privacy promise. Without a privacy policy, the state party can tell your views to anyone at all. If you give the “wrong” answers on abortion or other issues, they can tell your boss, members of your church, or anyone else. In fact, these answers could get distributed to campaigns in your town during get-out-the-vote efforts – precisely the place where “wrong” answers can be most damaging. The right answer here is simple. If you are collecting data and keeping it in identified form, then you should tell people. If you are selling your lists or sending them to other groups, you should tell that as well. That goes for all political parties.

I respect Think Progress. A fine organization, with high motives. But I am a bit disappointed in their apparent surprise about this. The thought that a criminal organization would ever respect someone’s privacy, or actually commit honesty is astounding.

The second part of a Minnesota Public radio report by Bob Collins is here, and has links to the first day’s report:

I really enjoyed the production work on the CD for the marriage amendment. It was first-rate stuff and as a Flash novice, made me a little bit envious. The copy that Tom Scheck gave me required an access code. Do all the CDs being mailed out come with an access code? If so, I'm curious as to why that is and wondering if the "votes" I'm asked to take during the presentation are reported back to the MN GOP? And, if so, are they matched to the access code and do you keep a record of what code is mailed to what person?

Mark Drake, the Minnesota Party spokesman, replied:

Thank you for the kind words regarding the high tech merits of the cd. Like any political survey done by the Party, it is our hope the cd will help us recruit more volunteers, provide valuable voter ID information and hopefully allow us to raise money so we can continue to send the cd out to more Minnesotans.
On Friday, the cd will be released to the public. The cd's packaging will make clear that the cd is interactive in nature.

Interactive?

So if you run the CD in your personal computer, by the end of it, the Minnesota GOP will not only know what you think on particular issues, but also who you are. I'm not sure how polling firms do this. Do they keep track of the individual answers by identity? Maybe so. Maybe not.

There’s more, including screenshots of the opening, and interactive questions.