In a comment this morning online, I mentioned that the White House seems unconcerned about asking us to "flag" anyone they find with dissenting information on the Obama administration's health care reform. Robert Gibbs, the White House Press Secretary tags us as liars and then lies about what will be done about the names that are flagged. See video below.
The Presidential Records Act requires that all correspondence with the White House be kept - forever. In the video below, Gibbs refuses to acknowledge that truth, or he acknowledges it and then denies it. Gibbs also has the gaul to say that the videos of some years ago of Obama saying he was a proponent of "single payer health care" was "spliced together." From the White House press room, Gibbs calls us liars.
While many of us have had a good time "flagging ourselves," and explaining to the President exactly why we are concerned about health care, we must wonder what is next?
Will flagging morph into dissent over taxes, dissent over government motors, dissent over the Mexico City Policy. Just what will conservatives be flagged for? Think about the possibilities the White House might see, with our names flooding into the office of Rahm Emanuel.
Byron York points out that the Freedom of Information Act does not extend to the White House - which means the information gathered is not required to be released, if requested through the FOIA
In addition, the lawyers say the collected emails likely will be covered by the Presidential Records Act, which requires the White House to preserve and maintain its records for permanent storage in a government database. Phillips' request suggests that whatever information the White House receives on health-care reform "disinformation" will be used to further the goal of passing a national health-care makeover, which is, of course, one of the president's main policy initiatives. Such material, and whatever the White House does with it, would qualify as presidential records. Only after more than a decade would such records be publicly available.
"So the White House, whether by design or accident, has requested information from the public that will become 'records' under the Presidential Records Act, yet would be impermissible for any government to otherwise collect under the Privacy Act," writes one Judiciary Committee source. "Where were the lawyers in all of this? What is their legal basis for authorizing the collection of these records?"Where are all the Democrats who scream about privacy?
It is not much of a stretch that names have already been forwarded on all manner of dissent. You know how Liberals are. While we had some fun with this, it may not be a laughing matter. Both Jake Tapper and Major Garrett ask important questions in this video. A White House dissident database is not what America is about.
3 comments:
Better yet, where's the ACLU on the privacy and civil rights issue on this? They are showing that they're not the American Civil Liberties Union, but the Anti Christian Liberation Union.
Even better: WHERE is the Republican party?
Here's another little act that brings "Unintended Consequences" into play:
The Privacy Act of 1974.
You remember, the one enacted after Nixon's little bout with trying to investigate people who were investigating him? The one that DOES NOT ALLOW the White House to compile a list of people who disagree with the White House?
Yeah, that act.
So, create a bigger and bigger problem for them - keep on Flagging Yourself. They can't keep a list, and they can't get rid of the correspondence.
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