A Letter To AT&T

To Whom It May Concern:

My wife and I are longtime AT&T customers, having a wireless account with two iPhones plus Uverse television and broadband internet. We also have AT&T local phone service at our home. We have been generally pleased with these products and the service we've received both online and at our local AT&T stores. I travel the world for a living, and my iPhone has become an indispensable tool for me.

However, I was mortified to learn today that AT&T ranks as the number one corporate donor to the political campaigns of the nascent "Tea Party" candidates. I find this news distressing and frankly unacceptable.

I understand that corporate monetary influence of political campaigns is a fact of our political landscape (though an unfortunate one, I think). And while I understand that political conservatism in this country tends to be friendlier to business concerns in matters of taxation and regulation, the Tea Party represents an extremity of political thought that makes corporate contributions surely inappropriate. At the least, the Tea Party is inarguably distasteful to a large segment of AT&T's millions of customers. Good corporate citizenship surely means something more than the ruthless pursuit of policies to maximize profits to the exclusion of any other considerations.

Surely what is appropriate here--and what I request of you--is for the company to support candidates who represent a broad range of political thought reflective of AT&T's customer base.

My horror of the Tea Party and my sense of integrity and social responsibility compel me to distance myself from any organization giving substantial support to the movement, and to make every effort to ensure that no dollars of mine could possibly benefit a movement which I feel is damaging my country.

To this end, I'm inclined to immediately cancel all my AT&T accounts. However, your affiliation with Apple and its iPhone represents a roadblock to my intentions. Because no other domestic wireless provider carries the iPhone, and no manufacturer has yet produced a device to match the iPhone's capabilities, the necessity of giving up the iPhone in order to divest myself from AT&T is a step I am at present unwilling to make. But barring a change in AT&T's policies, I will switch cell phone carriers the moment another company can support the iPhone, and in the meantime I will look at finding a different provider of internet and television services.

I would appreciate a reply and, if my information is incorrect, an explanation of how this is so.

Sincerely,

etc., etc.