A Better Way of Contacting Congress by Phone

Committee Caller will automatically dial the phone numbers of each member of a House or Senate Committee or subcommittee for you.

An NYU student has launched CommitteeCaller.com, a Web site that makes it easier for taxpayers to get in touch with their elected representatives. What a great use of technology in the furtherance of Democracy.

This site works like this:

CommitteeCaller.com is a site that allows one person to target an entire congressional committee over the phone. The web application utilizes the open source Asterisk PBX system to connect you to every senator or house member on a particular committee. No more digging around the 'net entering zip-codes to retrieve phone numbers of representatives—CommitteeCaller.com automates the tedium of repetitively dialing your favorite politicians.

Select a committee, enter in your phone number and click "Put me in touch with democracy!" and you'll be called by our system and sequentially patched through to the front office of each member on that committee. You can even rate how each call went—information that will enable us to rank representatives on how accountable and responsive they are to their constituents.

Here's the backstory on the site from its creator:

Committee Caller was born out of frustration at trying to partake in the American political process. After spending hours dialing every member on the Education and Labor committee, I realized that contacting particular committee members individually should not have to be so laborious. Indeed, the act of repetitively dialing phone numbers into my phone seemed one that I ought to be able to automate.