cos

I assume the person you are talking to is not your congressman or senator, but a staffer. Does the give and take with the staffer actually accomplish anything? I guess if you actually persuade the staffer of your point of view, you can hope that they then try to influence your legislator. But that seems like a long shot. I've always assumed that the end result of your phone call was an aggregated report to your legislator of "83 people called in opposition to PIPA; 17 in favor". Which seems at best the same as a letter, and possibly worse (since the legislator might choose to read some of the letters).