**RED ALERT** Obama White House Has Secret Plan to Harvest Personal Data
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
Original article link here:
http://nlpc.org/stories/2009/08/31/obama-white-house-has-secret-plan-harvest-personal-data-social-networking-website
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.
Submitted by Ken Boehm on Mon, 08/31/2009 - 19:07
Original article link here:
http://nlpc.org/stories/2009/08/31/obama-white-house-has-secret-plan-harvest-personal-data-social-networking-website
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.
Comment
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Comment by Cathari on September 3, 2009 at 6:26pm - Sharon, you are inspiring. Thank you and others for trying to provide some sense of direction, some "leadership". I'm not seeing any real, solid leadership coming from our ELECTED officials. We must give credit to media people who have had the courage and position to speak out, as Glenn Beck, Ruch Limbaugh, and John Hannity have to the extent possible for each. We need to hear daily the voices coming out of our Senate and House--on air for more than a few moments "stolen" for an interview on FoxNews. We see no "presence" from those we might possibly look to for solid, secure "direction"--and so whatever comes "of The People" must then be upheld and respected when the time comes.
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Comment by Sharon Rondeau on September 2, 2009 at 1:20pm -
I think someone in Washington better act on Walter Fitzpatrick III's criminal complaint of Obama pretty quickly, because the American people are getting sick of being tyrannized. Obama bought the election by taking illegal donations from overseas plus all the money that George Soros was willing to give him. The only problem with that is that he isn't eligible to serve, and therefore this whole criminal enterprise he is trying to build, including indoctrinating schoolchildren with government propaganda on September 8, is illegitimate.
The future does not look pretty, but it has to be faced. Presidents have had to resign before. Fortunately, September 8 is also the day of the hearing in California about the Kenyan birth documentation that has surfaced recently.
What has happened is nothing less than a criminal takeover of all three branches of our government. While no one in Washington seems willing to do anything about it, we the people are.
Give me liberty, or give me death.
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Comment by Harold Ray Smith on September 2, 2009 at 12:36pm
- I believe that we are in a war to survive as we are in need of common sense of our United states and we as citizens need to rise to help in getting these people out and replace the whole bunch with new people that realize that our country was based upon our forefathers teachings so America arise and lets take our country back, STAND UP AND BE COUNTED.
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Comment by R. P. on September 2, 2009 at 10:26am - Where do we draw the line?
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