White House Seeks to Capture and Archive Citizens’ Comments on its Facebook, YouTube, MySpace Sites

CNSNEWS.com ^ | September 01, 2009 | Fred Lucas

[KAMorin]

(CNSNews.com) – Anyone who posts comments on the White House’s Facebook, MySpace, YouTube and Twitter pages will have their statements captured and permanently archived by the federal government, according to a plan that the White House is now seeking a contractor to carry out.

The Executive Office of the President is looking for a private contractor to capture and archive comments and information posted on social networking and new media sites where the White House has established a presence. While the Presidential Records Act (PRA) generally requires that the administration preserve information generated by the president and his staff, the White House says that in seeking to collect and preserve comments made by common citizens on social networking sites it is acting “out of an abundance of caution” to comply with the law.

[clintonh8r]

It’ll be part of your “permanent record.”

[Extremely Extreme Extremist]

Crickets chirping from the ACLU and other lefttards who cried about Bush trampling the Constitution.

[jessduntno]

Sorry to go all Tinfoil Hat-like, but does this mean that if Rahm is signed up with FReep account, say, DeadFishBoy, or we have AholeRod in our midst, does that mean the WH has “established a presence” here? Just wondering...

[Evil Slayer]

Glenn Beck just had a whole hour show today on Fox News about this.

[max americana]

> The document says that White House—which it refers to as the Executive Office of the President (EOP)—“currently maintains” seven sites. These are, www.facebook.com/whitehouse, www.twitter.com/whitehouse, www.myspace.com/whitehouse, www.flickr.com/whitehouse, www.youtube.com/whitehouse, www.vimeo.com/whitehouse, www.slideshare.com/whitehouse.

So shall we all report these sites as “fishy”?

[KAMorin]

This is what I’m wondering. It is reasonable for them to keep comments on THEIR OWN sites but absolutely not on any other sites.

They have a presence on facebook does that mean ALL of facebook is open for their ‘archving’? This is B.S.

[cripplecreek]

It just never ends with the little Hitler and his minions.

[jessduntno]

It just never ends with the little Hitler and his minions.

[April Lexington]

Well, with only a 42% approval rating, Obama’s going to need one HUGE hard drive to store all the nasty comments. Think of his presidential library.... virtually every comment is a rip on his Failed Obama Administration©! What a joke...

[cripplecreek]

LOL

[444Flyer]

The part about the National Endowment for the Arts working behind the scenes in conjunction with the White House to create and disperse pro-Obama Health Care propaganda was the most alarming part of his show today.

[cranked]

I no accounts on any them. Archive away....

[Jeffrey_D.]

Well....duh, that’s the point!

[Sparko]

“It’ll be part of your “permanent record.””

We must become part of the Borg.

Not only that, you won’t even know it’s going on your permanent record until it’s too late.

You also get put on a macabre version of Dean Vernon Wormer’s double secret probation.

By then, it’s all too late.

BTW, doesn’t Google already sorta do this, ditto Wayback Machine etc. You know, capture stuff using little bitty ‘bots?

The Obamadroids are running paranoid while desperately finding a way to get a handle on gasp, shudder, “independent thought”.

[Salamander]

“Sieg Heil!” ping

[JohnQ1]

“Seniors, the new shovel ready project under socialized medicine.”

Yours is a really catchy tag line. I suppose the managers of our new health care system might want to salvage my guns. They’ll be welcome to them, just as soon as I finish giving away the ammo, one shot at a time.

[Jet Jaguar]

BTTT

[BenLurkin]

You mean they aren’t doing it already?

[eeevil conservative]

this WH is obsessed with monitoring the American People...

This WH has no clue what our Revolutionary War was all about...

[BenLurkin]

[pray4liberty]

This WH has no clue what our Revolutionary War was all about...

The last one was fought over a whole lot less! Seems like our forebearers were a whole lot more 'intolerant' than even the VRWC.

[Old Professer]

As Obama is my witness, that wasn’t me...

[The Truth Will Make You Free]

This is normal. If you go on a tour of the National Archives you’ll learn that every letter sent to the White House is kept. I don’t recall if they are made publicly available, but this has been going for at least 40 years. Electronic correspondence is just a different medium. It all seems like a wasteful use of resources, but that’s what governments do.

[camp_steveo]

I would gladly post my discontent.

[SunkenCiv]

Meanwhile, a poll FReep:

Freep this Facebook Poll before libs spam it!
Facebook | 09/01/09 | self
Posted on 09/01/2009 1:05:13 PM PDT by Jabrown
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/2329699/posts

[thecraw]

Wow! I’m shocked! (uh huh!) You Obots out there that complained about your privacy being trampled by Bush, let me tell you something — you ain’t seen nothing yet!

[NotSoModerate]

This is normal

U should read the proposal. Archiving is one thing, but they are telling the vendor to put it in a user friendly format that is "searchable". The want the tag names of posters "clearly" visible, and the language calls for archiving any site they tell the vendor to archive: the site doesn't have to be run by the White House.

The language says that any website that posts a "component" of the Presidential Records is a possible target for archiving in a fashion that user friendly and searchable. So if Free Republic posts a quote from the President the WH can now archive any comments from FR where the quote appears.

This is not "normal".

[NotSoModerate]

does this mean that if Rahm is signed up with FReep account, say, DeadFishBoy, or we have AholeRod in our midst, does that mean the WH has “established a presence” here? Just wondering...

BINGO!!!

[gibsosa]

bump

[bustinchops]

“...out of an abundance of caution...”

This is truly sick.

[pabianice]

[shibumi]

"While the Presidential Records Act (PRA) generally requires that the administration preserve information generated by the president and his staff, the White House says that in seeking to collect and preserve comments made by common citizens on social networking sites it is acting “out of an abundance of caution” to comply with the law."


It's a shame they don't exercise the same "abundance of caution" in complying with the limits placed on them by the Constitution and the plethora of laws they've already broken.

And by what stretch of the imagination do "common citizens" (notice how close they come to referring to us as "commoners"?) fall into the same category as presidential staff?

[shibumi]

By the way, welcome to FR.

(Brent? Is that you???)

[upchuck]

Attention Jim Robinson:

Please make sure the White House never has a “presence” on Free Republic.

[madison10]

I asked him about that once.

[lowbridge]

Hey, White House. Archive this:

‹^› ‹(•¿•)› ‹^›

[gura]

[upchuck]

And what did he say?