Summary: CAGW (of "letters from dead people" infamy) comes to Microsoft's defence again

LAST YEAR we looked at Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW), which is one among several similar groups that had been pushing Microsoft's political agenda. For those who do not remember, the seriousness of CAGW's despicable behaviour is explained in Wikipedia:

Microsoft's Antitrust Case (Litigation)

The Los Angeles Times reported that at least two dead people sent a form letter by CAGW opposing the antitrust case against Microsoft to Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff. According to the Times, family members crossed out the names on the form letters and signed for them. This brought about the "Microsoft Supported by Dead People" controversy[7] from Microsoft's and CAGW's opponents and the CAGW's response that they were not tied to Microsoft or to ATL[8].

There are many more details in last year's post, but today's action relates to an incident mentioned just days ago because it directly affects Novell and Microsoft. It is about the City of Los Angeles, which is preparing to dump GroupWise and Microsoft products in order to embrace Google. CAGW magically appears at the scene, but there is no sign of letters from dead people this time around. Here is the gist:

Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) President Tom Schatz sent a letter to Los Angeles City Council members Tony Cardenas, Bernard Parks, and Herb Wesson, all members of the City Council's Information Technology and General Services Committee, which is meeting today to discuss using Google Apps as a replacement for the Novell GroupWise e-mail and Microsoft Office applications that the city is currently using.

From the letter they sent we can extract some obvious lies. For example, claims CAGW:

"On behalf of the 193,000 members and supporters of Citizens Against Government Waste in the state of California I would like to express our concerns with this proposed contract.

“ Last year, for example, Microsoft utilised political AstroTurf to derail Google's deal with Yahoo!”Wait a second. 193,000 members and supporters? This is just like Jonathan Zuck and his ludicrous claim that ACT enjoys a representation of many small businesses when in fact it's a lobby for a monopolist. They never ask those so-called 'supporters' for endorsement; the support is just arrogantly assumed.

Moreover, utters CAGW:

"We urge you to conduct more research on cost, security and risk, starting with learning more about the D.C. experience and why so few are using Google Apps."

"So few are using Google," eh? This sounds like the very same FUD which is coming from former Microsoft employees and Seattle 'reporters', both of whom shamelessly twist the facts.

This may be part of a long-going pattern where Microsoft uses lobbying fronts against Google. Last year, for example, Microsoft utilised political AstroTurf to derail Google's deal with Yahoo! It was all ready for signing and it would have helped Yahoo!, which Microsoft is killing right now [1, 2]. ⬆