Who is spamming? Could it be....

Democracy for Utah wrote about this morning's Deseret News story regarding spam e-mails that appeared to come from Utahns for Public Schools, the folks working against Utah's universal private school voucher program.

It's an interesting story, with apparently more "dirty tricks" from the pro-voucher folks, although this time Parents for Choice in Education claims they don't have a clue as to the identity of the spammer.

The Deseret News story also went on:

"Lisa Johnson, spokeswoman for Utahns for Public Schools, said in addition to Wilson, the coalition received a number of calls and e-mails from others who got the "deceptive" e-mail and requested clarification."

"It was clearly intended to look like it came from us," Johnson said. "The one thing we can say for certain that it didn't come from our campaign and it's a concern for coalition members because someone purports to be speaking for us."

"Johnson said her group is trying to find out who is behind the Web site and the mass e-mailing while looking into options of what sort of complaints can be filed against that person."

Certainly spam constitutes a "dirty trick". Especially when it is specifically designed to look like it is from a group that it's NOT from. A clever use of words made the difference. The e-mail was from Utahns for Public School (singular) while the public education coalition's name is Utahns for Public Schools (plural).

Now, hmmm. Anyone know anyone in Utah who is a spammer? Ever been accused of spam?

Well, there is a clue in the Deseret News, when it reported this about the deceptive e-mail:

"It asked recipients to provide a personal e-mail address, name and contact number and then visit another Web site..."

A friend of mine far more sopisticated at the technology end of the Internet found that Utahns for Public School (singular) - host of the offensive, deceptive e-mail -redirects to a site called www.thespyglass.us/.

Now, who else do we know who might be using or have used spyglass.us for other purposes?

Well, it seems Mark Towner used that site to send spam! And, he got caught, as these folks report.

And isn't Towner's blog called something like "The Political SPYGLASS"??

As Bob Aagard noted this morning, seems the pro-voucher folks will take anyone they can get -- dirty tricks and all.