To ensure incoming Congressmen attend it’s event. TPP sent out a mass e-mail to its activists, directing them to call the Freshman and urge them to attend it’s conference. In the email, it included the personal cell phone numbers and email for each new member. This information is now out there, on the internet, forever. Remember, not an office number, but the individual members’ personal information.

This is a terrible violation of trust with these new members, most of whom are supportive of the tea party movement. It is also a breach of their privacy.

One of the biggest challenges in recruiting individuals to run for office is their fear that they will have to surrender their entire private lives to serve. (Trust me, I’ve had to recruit people to run for office.) It is always fashionable to criticize lawmakers, but it is also important to remember from time to time that we do ask quite a lot of them. I’m not shedding a tear for them, just recognizing this fact. It is our biggest obstacle to recruiting small businessmen and regular, average citizens to run for office. It is a big reason we are usually left only with a pool of lawyers who have been dreaming about political power since they were toddlers.

And TPP has just made this problem much worse.