Illegally Posted

I saw a sign last night that had been defaced much like this one. It was raining, so my pictures of that one didn't come out too well. Then tonight I notice a similar sign on a different corner of the same intersection, and this time I got a good enough shot that I can share it with you. It struck me as odd that the sign had been defaced in such a way as to obscure the phone number, yet it hadn't been removed. I thought it might be some sort of marketing gimmick, or maybe the city was trying to make a point about all those tacky little signs like this that litter roadsides and telephone poles everywhere. But why would a government worker put up a sticker and not remove the sign? And why would a marketer obscure the only means of contact on the sign? Well, a few minutes of searching on the internet led me to the answer. It's an informal group calling themselves CAUSS, Citizens Against Ugly Street Spam. They deface the annoying signs, leaving them in place to deter others, but making them useless for their intended advertising purpose by obscuring the contact information. Fairly clever, eh?