Citizens in Charge

A shady group calling itself “Californians Against Identity Theft,” or CAIT, is spending big money trying to scare voters into giving up their petition rights.  Radio ads broadcasting in the Sacramento area tell voters that signing an initiative or referendum petition could result in identity theft and claim that petition information is sent overseas.

You can listen to the ad here (link to open/download MP3 from group website).

As soon as the ad went up the Sacramento Bee pointed out that the group has no ties to any organization or effort aimed at stopping identity theft, and legitimate identity watchdogs were quick to denounce the ad as falsehood. According to  Pedro Morillas, legislative director for the California Public Interest Research Group, “There is as much risk of identity theft involved in signing a petition as there is in being listed in the phone book.”

The idea was apparently dreamt up by the head of the State Building & Construction Trades Council of California. His organization is fighting efforts to qualify several petitions that they disagree with about the state ballot, and council president Bob Balganorth apparently thought their effort would be easier with a little bit of lying and fearmongering. In addition to no instances of identity theft being cited, the claim that petition information is sent overseas is not only false, but sending petitions overseas has been illegal for many years.

CAIT has ties to big-labor opponents of Californians’ right to petition, including the California Professional Firefighters and Service Employees Industrial Union, two backers of Senate Bill 168, a widely denounced attempt to make it harder to put measures on the state’s ballot.

Citizens in Charge President Paul Jacob tells the truth about the ads and their backers in his weekly column at Townhall.com:

Californians Against Identity Theft is a scam organization, whose name has nothing to with it’s anti-democratic mission. The group’s radio advertisement is a dirty trick intended to scuttle citizen control of government. Their chosen tactic is similar to parking a police cruiser with lights flashing at a polling place in hopes of dissuading folks from voting. Despicable.