I can see why people would be suspicious about any government collecting information like this. However, like William, unless I find out that they are collecting names and email address, I can't be too upset about it.
I can say with certainty names and emails are being saved, because there are surely laws that require all emails that enter the White House to be archived. ISTR there was a Clinton scandal about "lost" or deleted emails.
Whether they're being "collected" and sorted through to say "this person is spreading that disinformation" well I don't know but I wouldn't be surprised. Just the fact that everything is saved makes it as easy to do it any time in the future (even by a different administration) as now.
I do think that spreading disinformation over the internet can be far reaching, and I can see why they would want to know what kind of crap was floating around.
Requesting others to send them crap isn't doing their job. As I say below, emails that tend to get copied and forwarded more than a few times invariably end up on blog and websites.
They're being lazy (if this is the only thing they're doing as far as "gathering disinformation," and I doubt that). They should be going to read political blogs themselves to see what "the opposition" is saying. Yeah, there are thousands if not a hundred thousand blogs where at least one post is political, but it's THEIR (White House workers) job to sort through it and find the "fishy" stuff, not the general public.
I'm tempted do a little Googling and send a link to every blog I see that mentions "health care" or "health insurance" and let THEM sort it all out.
BTW, are they reading THIS thread? It's publicly available, there's no reason (outside of the vastness of discussion on the Internet and this being one of thousands if not millions of discussions on the White House Disinformation Collectopn Project) they can't.
I'm not particularly worried or scared that anyone is in danger of getting their hand slapped by Obama, but I understand why this is being questioned.
It looks suspicious b/c people are encouraged to forward their e-mails (which would include personal info) and such to the white house.
If the intent is to have access to the "mis-information" why do they need citizens to forward their e-mails? This "mis-information" is readily available to any 20 yr old white house intern with an internet connection.
Yes, exactly.
Information doesn't don't really "belong" to anyone. If you send an email blast, you shouldn't be bothered if someone passes it on to someone else. Most of them were forwarded from other people.
Sometimes, but not always. Remember, there is a difference between a Service Provider keeping your content "confidential" and you actually "owning" it.
Emails are copyright the writer (who is often the original sender). But many of these things are anonymous "Look what they're about to do! Send this to everyone you know!" chaon-mail type things.
Also, once a few dozen email copies get send around, copies get posted to blogs indexed by Google and anyone can find and red them.
