Posted on 09/05/2009 2:16:06 PM PDT by Still Thinking
NLPC 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.
For an alleged Liberal 0bozo sure has a poor understanding of internet freedom and privacy. I wonder if the young people will care that the internet would be subverted and perverted by these Fascists.
So where is the Fing ACLU ????
Too busy giving Obozo a hummer.
I have read this claim (which I do not doubt) on at least a dozen different news sites, so how can it be a secret?
But listening in on terrorists calling overseas is an invasion of privacy.
Of course. Why spy on a group whose aim is the same as the current occupant of the White House?
So, feed he ‘’social’’ networks phoney info.
Try just the one finger. Sometimes less is more.
What next???
Gas chambers.
Chilling enemies-list compilation ping.
I just hope the sumbitches spell my name right.
Which will mean either:
1). Social Networking will come to a screeching halt!
or
2.) Liberals will sign-up by the dozens as they get their FREE Computer too!
I’ve heard it before too. Part and parcel of controlling the Internet.
Wonder if we’ll have to but “air time” like I’ve read about during WWII.
Is this overblown? A friend of mine wrote:
“Looks like the White House is trying to comply with the Presidential Records Act by archiving the White House’s social networking content, not everyone else’s private info...”
“The purpose is to ensure that content published by the Executive Office of the President (EOP) on publicly-accessible web sites is archived in accordance with the ... Read MorePresidential Records Act (PRA) and that all archived information is securely stored and provided to the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) for historical preservation, in accordance with the PRA.”
Any good response to this?
The plan is no longer secret!
So is “the” your full middle name or short for something?
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