White House pulls e-mail for 'fishy' reports
On August 4, White House aide Macon Phillips announced the launch of flag@whitehouse.gov, which encouraged Americans to report "fishy" information related to the Obama health care proposal. Phillips' announcement was titled "Facts Are Stubborn Things."
Well, so is public opinion, as the White House acknowledged on Monday by quietly pulling the plug on the flag@whitehouse.gov e-mail address.
Messages sent there are now bounced back with this response:
<flag@whitehouse.gov>: host mailhub-wh2.whitehouse.gov[63.161.169.140] said: 550 5.2.1 <flag@whitehouse.gov>... The email address you just sent a message to is no longer in service.We are now accepting your feedback about health insurance reform via:http://www.whitehouse.gov/realitycheck (in reply to RCPT TO command
The "Reality Check" Web page on WhiteHouse.gov doesn't encourage reporting misinformation to Washington, D.C.; instead, it features some videos about President Obama's proposal. There is an option to submit comments, but the Web form stresses "Please refrain from submitting any individual's personal information, including their e-mail address, without their permission."
That's almost the opposite of the original flag@whitehouse.gov program, which had no obvious privacy safeguards--and which became the focus of spirited criticism over the last two weeks.
Sen. John Cornyn, a Texas Republican, wrote in a letter to the president that: "I am not aware of any precedent for a president asking American citizens to report their fellow citizens to the White House for pure political speech that is deemed 'fishy' or otherwise inimical to the White House's political interests."
Cornyn wasn't alone. On his radio program, Glenn Beck dubbed flag@whitehouse.gov an "enemies list," and talk show host Rush Limbaugh characterized it as "Obama's own exclusive private domestic spying program." A t-shirt saying "REPORT ME" has appeared, and some conservatives mocked it by reporting themselves to the White House on grounds they were spreading "disinformation" by criticizing the Democratic health care legislation.
This hasn't been a very good month for the White House and its attempts to use e-mail communications. Earlier on Monday, the White House changed its e-mail sign-up procedures so make sure that people won't get spammed.
Declan McCullagh is a contributor to CNET News and a correspondent for CBSNews.com who has covered the intersection of politics and technology for over a decade. Declan writes a regular feature called Taking Liberties, focused on individual and economic rights; you can bookmark his CBS News Taking Liberties site, or subscribe to the RSS feed. You can e-mail Declan at declan@cbsnews.com. 
Then we got to observe how truly disfunctional government can be, when you really work at it, for the next 8 years.
Apparently, they feel that we what we want, or deserve, is 4 more years of the same tired game.
We get the next 4 and a half years of this nonsense and ineptitude... and you're complaining about past administrations? Can we please have some rational thought?
But not one word when their party implements it. Big Brotha's Chicago outfit is not to be questioned.
More often than not, broadcast journalism from radio, print and television, are more apt to repeat the words of what people are saying, rather than directly asking where, how and why, let alone challenge any assertions that they rebroadcast ad nauseum. That Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly and friends have free will to lie and to have those lies repeated on the air by their followers (as if they were factual assertions) should be cause for concern.
Did the Obama Administration need to create this program? No.
We have Factcheck.org among others to review the assertions, and MSNBC to counter the din. The problem of course, is that mainstream news continues to fail Americans by NOT using Factcheck.org and other non-political groups that review the facts, within their broadcasts to examine the issues deeper. Left alone, the news standards have sunken into an abysmal pit of giving the loudest mouths an ever-larger podium to shout their lies from.
You know, that little "project" run by Bill Ayers that saw $100 million disappear to friends and associates with no change to Chicago's 50% graduation rate? The one where Barry served as chairman?
Yes, between those "fact checkers", the nice folks at MSNBC / CBS / CNN / NPR, and of course the White House itself, I ought to have a nice objective view of how best to agree with each new expansion of government power.
I understand that Obama's Propaganda Czar will expand the "Reality Check" website to make it easier to report our neighbors to the government -- maybe a bulk upload of names and addresses? -- as well as get incomplete, biased information about Obama's community organizing initiatives.
It's EXACTLY about reporting dissent, and snitching on anyone who disagrees with the henious 0bama Deathcare bill to the 0bama White House. It's not only against the law, it's unconstitutional.
0bama makes Hugo Chazev look like the Boys Scouts. This is America, not the former Soviet Union.
It seems to me 0bama spent so many years of his adult life, soaking in communist ideology, and dicatorial policies and opression from his close pal and mentor, the unrepentant terrorist William Ayers, that he seems to have forgotten that in this country, anyone can strongly disagree with what the worst president this country has ever had, Barack 0bama, is doing.
At least we didnt end up with 4 years of blind war with her playing Vice president.. Shes almost as effective as Jim Bakkers Late X wife.. just no running Mascara in her cammo makup bag..
Misinformation is a tactic both sides of Washington have used before and will use again. I recommend you read the bill yourself. I have and I believe it would be a horrible mistake if it were passed.
Do a search on h3200ih.pdf and you should be able to find a copy of it online.
Personally, I'm for smaller government, lower taxes, stronger privacy laws and more personal freedom/responsibility. Something neither party seems to be interested in.
Hey, Rush Limbaugh is not president, 0bama is.
Riush Limbaugh didn't QUADRUPLE the budget decifit. 0bama did.
Rush Limbaugh didn't rack up a massive $1.3 Trillion budget deficit in just 7 months. 0bama did.
Rush Limbaigh and Sarah Palan didn't sign a massive $787 Billion PORKULUS bill, chock full of pork of every kind imaginable, for 0bama supporting criminal outfits like ACCORN. 0bama did.
Within just 7 months, 0bama has set new records in profligacy, squandering of tax payer money, and sheer recklesnes with other people's money, that is simply unrivalled in American history.
Oh and make sure to smile while we take half--lots more people to make dependent with vote-buying handouts.
0bama has been in the white House for just 7 months, and already he's setting records of the worst kind ever.
#1. Biggest budget decicit ever in the histotry of this country($1.3 trillion in just 7 months and still counting)
# 2. More foreign junkets than any other president in history at the 7 minths stage, at great cost to tax payers at a time when we have huge budgest defcits.
#3. More private concerts in the White House with peopel like Stevie Wonder etc etc, than any president has ever had at the end of 7 months.
# 4. More corruption and sleaze by far than any president at this stage in their presidence , including
a. The sacking of the Federal Inpsector General for investigating a sleazy, corrupt 0bama pal in California.
b. The dropping of chargres aginst 2 Black Panther vermin who used violenec and intimidation to prevent white people from voting in the November 2008 elections.
c. Setting up a flag@whitehouse.gov email adress so Americans can snitch on each other, for anyone who dares to disagree with "The One"'s nasty healthcare bill
d. Sending out SPAM email to innocent Americans, who have NOT signed up to receive anything from the White House, as a desperate 0bama tries to push his nasty "healthcare" bill.
And this is just for starters.
Hey 0bama, if the Health Care reform is so great, why does it exempt YOU, Michelle 0bama, Congress, Senators and their famillies?
Page 114, Line 22
The White House broke the law by setting this snitch line up in the first place.
The Privacy Act of 1974, clearly prohibits any federal agency from maintaining records on individuals exercising their right to free speech. 0bama's KGB White House, clearly violated this statute.
Meanwhile, if the White House deletes any of the snitching emails that the left wing loons in our soceity sent to the White House, they wil be violating another statute again, which requires the White House to retain all communications that it receives. 0bama can't try to rewrite history by pretending it didn't receive anything.
I am sad to see the news outlets amplify dis-information. If someone makes a controversial statement, they show it again and again and people actually start believing it.
Hey, here is an idea, why don't you move to Hugo Chavez's vVnezuela, or move to North Korea. They have a goverment position in the brutal North Korean Ministry of State Security (their own KGB equivalent) for you.
This is America. Free speech is sacrosanct, and it's enshrined in the constitution. I can say what I like. If you don't like it, move to a country where they shoot people for expressing their opinions about nasty govermet bills like 0bamacare. North Korea or the stone age mullahs in Iran will fit you perfectly.
I understand your frustration. You guys had 8 years and you screwed it big time. Now let someone who is not a retard run this country
Like I said before spreading dis-information should be outlawed. Saying your opinion is perfectly legal. but then I guess you didn't read the whole post.
You mean like how 0bama has manged to QUADRUPLE the federal budget deficit in just 7 months, and racked more federall debt in his first 7 months by far than any President in the history of this country?
Or how 0bama signed a massive $787 PORKULUS bill full of free handouts for the vote stealing criminals of ACCORN?
Or how 0bama has manged to send unemployment to a 26-year high?
Or how 0bama's poll numbers are currently tunning not only below that of George Bush after 7 months in his first trem, 0bama's poll numbers are running even below that of Jummy Carter after 7 months, and Jummy Carter is the worst president this country ever had.
You don't have a clue what you are talking about do you?
Merely another mindless 0bamabot zombie. No surprise here
I suggest you read the 1st amendent to the constitution.
Anyone can say what they like, whather cluless some idiot like you considers it to be "dis-information" or not.
BTW, Go report me to the disinformation CZAR while you are at it. I notice that CZARs are exempt from the controls put on Secratarys, but with more power sometimes. That alone strikes me as Draconian. I wonder when I am going to dissappear???
Why is Obama bringing transparency to this White House. Doesn't he realize that people are not mature enough to handle this?
Nice try, but no cigar.
Now why don't you give us even ONE example, of the Bush administration asking Americans to snitch to the White House about people who disagreed with a Bush bill that was before the congress?
@ cary1:"Why is Obama bringing transparency to this White House. Doesn't he realize that people are not mature enough to handle this?"
Transperancy huh?
By for the first time ever in the history of this country, asking Americans who disagreed with a bill that was before congress, to be reported by their neighbours to the White House?
If you call that transperancy than I sure as heck don't want any of what you are smoking.
Hey, BTW, why is 0bama refusing to tell us exactly what he did with all the snitching emails he got?
And why did the 0bama White House send out unsolicited pro-0bamacare email(aka SPAM), to innocent Americans who had never signed on to receive any email from the White House? And where did 0bama get those email addresses from?
We demand to know.
I would give you examples, but all that information is confidential as per Cheney's instructions.. .Sorry!
I didn't get the email your are talking about. Would you mind forwarding it to me?
Naaah.
I am gonna forward to to YO MOMMA, as per instructions from 0bama's pal, the foul mouthed Prof Gates., who rightfully got arrested for his insane , erratic conduct.
conservatives have lost big time and it's going to stay that way for a long time. You can be LOUD, make false claims, use foul language, be racist, pull out a gun, or pull your hair out - nothing is going to change that. Democracy rules!
- by ElMelford September 18, 2009 12:44 PM PDT
- Well, well, well...
- Like this Reply to this comment
-
(40 Comments)McCarthy all over again, only this time, its being accused of *not* being a communist. That should make people in Hollywood feel good about the hell they went through at one time... Of course, very few of them are bold enough to step outside the Politically Correct Stance of "Pro Everything Obummer" I mean "Obama" , sorry...
Yeah, Right...
;'{P~~~~