The campaign machine

Curious about what a party database looks like? My colleague Tonda MacCharles has written a very useful primer about the Conservatives' system. 

If you click on this link here  Download CIMS you can see a PowerPoint presentation someone sent me a while back. I'm told it's an antique version of CIMS -- that the current system is far snazzier. But it'll give you an idea of how it works. 

And by the way, the Liberals and the NDP have impressive, similar machinery too, though I hear they lack the scope and data  of what the Conservatives have accumulated.  Happy to post more information on their systems too, if anyone has it in web-postable state. 

Comments

[TheLaughingMan]

Stephen Harper, Rob Nicholson, John Baird, Jim Flaherty, Diane Finley, Peter MacKay, Tom Lukiwski and Vic Toews, along with the rest of the Conservatives are liars, cheats and thieves! Bill-C10 threatens to throw many in jail longer and needlessly! Bill C-11 would strip Canadians of even more rights to what we already own and censor our flow of information! Bill-30 will strip us of our privacy! Now lets not forget the G20 fiasco, Vic Toews immortal speech about Canadians being pedophiles, the planned pension cuts, they place gag orders on those they appoint to various studies so that if the studies turn up data contradicting their ideals, they can suppress the data, or their election fraud, and now they can't even get our budget out on time!

The fascist Conservatives would turn our country into an Orwellian nightmare! How can they even call themselves a legitimate government?! How dare they act like they have our best interests in mind! Who do they think they are telling us what we need and how to live our lives?! They're the middle management and we're the ones who hired them! We should be telling them what we want and how we want it!

Canada needs to rise up march on Ottawa and occupy the parliament! We need to take back our country, remove the Conservatives from power! Our government, as a whole needs to be dismantled and rebuilt (that goes for those other parties as well. I'm looking at you Liberals and NDP. Fat load of good they've ever done for the country)! All our political parties have ever really done to us has been to divide Canadians. This only serves to make us easy prey for predators in the night! I say no more! Canadians need to stand up as one, divided by zero! Those that would appose the will of the people need to be taught a lesson, followed by some good old fashion tarring and feathering, finish with banishing traitors from Canada! Finally Canadians need some laws that allow us to force referendums on the government and punish corrupt politicians who think they can screw with their people, their employers, you and me! Fellow Canadians I implore you raise up and shout out your discontent for the horrible state of our country and the world for that matter. Shout from every mountain top (email, letters, phone calls, blogs, forums, twitter, youtube, ect…), "WE WILL NOT STAND FOR CORRUPTION WITHIN OUR GOVERNMENT! WE WILL NOT GO QUIETLY INTO THE NIGHT AS OUR FREEDOMS ARE SLOWLY ERODED! WE'RE COMING FOR YOU HARPER REGIEM! EXPECT US!" Let the voice of the masses resinate as one, thundering and deafening our oppressors. Keep screaming and screaming, every day, all day, don't stop screaming until this country is ours again!

'Things have got to change. But first, you've gotta get mad!… You've got to say, "I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!" Then we'll figure out what to do about the depression and the inflation and the oil crisis. But first get up out of your chairs, open the windows, stick your head out, and yell, and say it: "I'M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!"

'People shouldn't fear the government, the government should fear the people!'

For more information, check out www.cananon.info

[adaline]

OTTAWA -- The Conservative party required newly elected MPs to sign on to a partisan database that some privacy experts believe breaches constituent privacy, if not the law.
http://www.freedominion.ca/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?nomobile=1&f=11&t=89203

: Tue Nov 13, 2007 4:53 pm Post subject:

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This is absolutely a scandal.

Based on published media reports citing Garth Turner, it would appear that the Conservative master database - CIMS - has been installed on constituency office and parliament hill computers.

Government computers.

Operated by government employees.

Collecting private data on Canadians for the Conservative Party of Canada.

Without their permission.

"We aren't making this up"

If this situation is widespread, as I have every reason to believe it is, the Government of Canada has become an official data collection organ of the Conservative Party. Funded by the taxpayer. Government staff, computers, communications costs, etc.

Put properly - Canadians will not react well to this, and its a clear breach of ethics and privacy legislation at the federal level and provincial levels.

A side note: Does that mean that the data is now public property and will be shared with all parties ?

CIMS can track everything about interactions with individuals, their political leaning, their hot button issues - everything.

mw, a former CIMS user, who was also briefed on the system in my former role as National Technology Chair, Progressive Conservative Party of Canada.
http://enmasse.ca/forums/viewtopic.php?t=9733&sid=72a4caf51ffb4a1a3dd5462ae707c834

[adaline]

“RMG was so successful with an initial prospecting experiment that the party very quickly gave all our voter-contact work to that company,” Flanagan wrote.

“CIMS provided a receptacle for the hundreds of thousands of records generated by RMG’s large-scale calling programs.”
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:AinG8u_0L1YJ:thestar.blogs.com/files/cims.ppt+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=ca

RMG merged in 2010 with Calgary-based Xentel DM Inc., and has since changed the company’s name to iMarketing Solutions Group. It is publicly traded on the TSX Venture Exchange.
http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/03/02/tories-review-tapes-at-thunder-bay-call-centre-as-questions-grow-over-companys-checkered-legal-history/