Posted on 09/03/2009 4:17:31 PM PDT by VC42
Obama White House Has Secret Plan To Harvest Personal Data From Social Networking Websites Submitted by Ken Boehm on Mon, 08/31/2009 - 19:07 Email to friendPrinter-friendlyNLPC has uncovered a plan by the White House New Media operation to hire a technology vendor to conduct a massive, secret effort to harvest personal information on millions of Americans from social networking websites.
The information to be captured includes comments, tag lines, emails, audio, and video. The targeted sites include Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, YouTube, Flickr and others – any space where the White House “maintains a presence.”
In the course of investigating procurement by the White House New Media office, NLPC discovered a 51-page solicitation of bids that was filed on Friday, August 21, 2009. Filed as Solicitation # WHO-S-09-0003, it is posted at FedBizzOps.com. Click here to download a 51-page pdf of the solicitation.
While the solicitation specifies a 12-month contract, it allows for seven one-year extensions. It specifies no dollar cap. Other troubling issues include:
extremely broad secrecy terms preventing the vendor from disclosing to the public or the media what information is being captured and archived (page 7, “Restriction Against Disclosure”)
wholesale capturing of comments by non-White House staff on publicly accessible sites
capturing of content of any type (text, graphics, audio, or video)
capturing of comments by both Obama critics and supporters, with no restriction as to how the White House would use the information.
This is the third controversy involving the White House internet operations in less than a month. First, Obama’s New Media operation asked supporters to send information about critics of the White House health care effort to a White House email. This provoked a storm of criticism and the White House retreated. Then large number of people complained of getting email spam from the White House supporting the President’s health care position. Again the White House was forced to back down.
Now the same people at the White House are at it again with an ambitious plan to harvest huge amounts of information from the web and specifically social networking sites.
Given the White House’s recent abuse of its New Media operations, this huge, new secretive program is yet another sign that this Administration is at best indifferent to privacy rights and at worst prepared to violate civil liberties for political purposes.
Perhaps anticipating negative reaction to the invasiveness of the plan, a justification is provided in a Q&A. section of the solicitation. Question #9 reads:
The Presidential Records Act does not require the storage or archiving of non-EOP content, as such is there a specific reason as to why the content provided on EOP related websites in the form of comments is included in these archiving procedures?
Answer: The PRA includes in its definition of presidential records content ―received by PRA components and personnel. Out of an abundance of caution, we are treating comments made by non-PRA personnel on sites on which a PRA component has a presence as presidential records, requiring them to be captured or sampled.
Of course, this interpretation of the Presidential Records Act is so expansive that virtually any communication mentioning the president or the Administration could become subject to collection and archiving under the Act. This is not out of an “abundance of caution,” but out of an over-abundance of power. President Obama should make sure that this plan goes no further.
See also CNN 'Expert' Lamely Claims to 'Debunk' NLPC on White House Data Harvesting From Social Networks.
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They’ll just discover that no amount of targeted counter propaganda gets them accepted.
This moron president knows he is getting his ass handed to him by real Americans.
Notice how many Obama propaganda moves are going on, all to distract you from the focus. Big game next week, stay sharp.
This would never be used as an enemies list, toward reducing your forced healthcare would it? Or maybe the natural born sneak, cheat and liar along with his fellow travelers will reduce your care to spread the wealth to others….ya think! Naw…./S
bookmark
Could we get one of these with Zero’s “Progressive Party Symbol”, on the arm sleeve and flag; would be more appropriate.
Much as I dislike and distrust Obama... I have a hard time believing they’d actually do this. First, it just doesn’t make much sense. What’s the point in having such a colossal, yet useless, database? There’s just too much junk data out there on the internet to end up with anything at the end but an enormous pile of nothing.
Bookmarking
Thanks
how else would they have to know who to target for their version of kristallnacht? How would they know who to target for their re-education camps? They need this info to transform the US into a marxist utopia.
I don’t put anything past this administration. When they
have control down pat, they are going to know who is for
then and who is against. Records available to ACORN, SEIU,
or any number of agencys for enforcement of O’s policy.
No disent allowed, no unflattering pictures, and not one
bad word ever.
Data mining, to extract the most likely revolutionaries.
Maybe?
The serious and chronic problem though is going to be data quality. There’s just no way to sift out all the crap data.
Seems pretty hopeless to me.
There’s nothing to believe or disbelieve, they are doing it. The story includes a link to the bid request from the White House.
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