The White House has asked that this blog, as well as thousands of others, be reported to flag@whitehouse.gov. Senator John Cornyn sent a letter to Obama asking him to explain what was going on with Americans turning in Americans and what the White House was going to do with the information obtained thru this ‘tip’ line.
“about a new White House program to monitor American citizens’ speech opposing your health care policies, and to seek your assurances that this program is being carried out in a manner consistent with the First Amendment and America’s tradition of free speech and public discourse.”
According to a blog at ABC, -
Asked about Cornyn’s letter on Thursday afternoon, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said, “nobody is collecting names.”
The blog and tips email was because, Gibbs said, “we have seen, and as I’ve discussed from this podium, a lot of misinformation around health care reform. Some of it I think spread purposely. We have used on many occasions the Web site to debunk things that are simply not true. We ask people if they have questions about health care reform and about what they’re hearing about its affects on them, to let us know and we’d provide them information to show that that wasn’t true.“
Continued Gibbs: “but nobody is collecting names.”
Linda Douglass, communications director for the White Houses Health Reform Office, responded, “We are not compiling lists or sources of information. We may post fact checks from time to time to be sure Americans know the truth about health insurance reform.”
Cornyn had asked the White House “to cease this program immediately” or at the very least “detail to Congress and the public the protocols that your White House is following to purge the names, email addresses, IP addresses, and identities of citizens who are reported to have engaged in ‘fishy’ speech.”
When asked, Gibbs acknowledged that the White House is required by law to save all correspondence it receives.
“Obviously, the National Archives documents correspondence with the White House,” he said.
Update – Video from the press conference.
Video Of The Press Conference.
Nowhere on the original White House Blog post does it mention anything about the White House posting FACTS to correct the believably false blog and video posts submitted to the FLAG email address.
Since the National Archives keeps copies of ALL letters and emails sent to/from the White House, who, if anyone is doing anything to remove peoples names, address and other personally identifiable information (like IP address) from the archive?
Looks like a good snitch system to me… and its maintained by the US Government for posterity…
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Robert Gibbs Feigns Ignorance About White House Snitch Program…
To paraphrase,”I wouldn’t know anything about that”, Robert Gibbs says. He has been trained well in the “Chicago” way. He avoided the question about how the data received through the new snitch program will be handled. Gibbs tried to side step the issue by ” pretending” not to “know”. As a matter of fact, he delivered his line so well, like that of a Mob street informant (a rat) that I was ready to slide Mr. Gibbs a 20 dollar bill in order to get the skinny on the story. So much for this “new era” of transparency. The reporters questions were valid and should be answered. How will the data be stored, for how long, who will have access to the data, how will info be used and will the party reported by the snitch be informed so the snitching can be challenged? Like if something odd shows up on your credit report.