Texas Sen. John Cornyn, accusing the White House of compiling an "enemies list," has asked President Barack Obama to stop an effort to collect "fishy" information Americans see about a health care overhaul.
Cornyn, who leads the Republicans' Senate campaign effort, said Wednesday in a letter to Obama that he's concerned that citizen engagement on the issue could be "chilled." He also expressed alarm that the White House could end up collecting electronic information on its critics.
"I can only imagine the level of justifiable outrage had your predecessor asked Americans to forward e-mails critical of his policies to the White House," Cornyn wrote.
Cornyn was responding to a post on the White House's blog Wednesday in which users are asked to help stop the spread of disinformation about legislation to overhaul health insurance. The post offers an e-mail address, flag@whitehouse.gov, for users to forward anything "on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy."
The White House said the post was merely designed to fight "intentionally misleading" information in the health care debate.
Regardless of the intentions, what President Obama is doing is chillingly close to what was done in Soviet Russia and other totalitarian government, by using people thinking they are doing their country a favor to collect oppo information.
It is not appropriate and we urge all Democrats to ask the White House to put a hold on the free speech violations and start fighting against policy disagreements by pushing their own policies and not collecting others and calling them lies.
Source: http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/politics/state/stories/DN-cornynflag_06nat.ART.State.Edition1.4bb4d44.html
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I will counter that it is only free speach if they shut down the sites that speak out.
ReplyDeleteI mean, I doubt it is anything like a blacklist of people to take out (honestly, is healthcare requiring black ops?) and to compare it to the Soviet Union and other totalitarian regimes is going too far, especially in light of how the last five or so years we have been detaining individuals without charges or wiretaps without court orders (with the intent of finding enemies of the state, no less). It seems kinda like calling the kettle black, at the very least.
But I do agree that collecting them seems weird. I mean, yes we live in an age where everything electronic that we do seems to be monitored, but to actually outright ask is a step further. Now, as long as all they are doing is listing counter arguments (like if a website claims that Obamacare means that they can kill you in your sleep if you are over 65 and the plan says nothing about that) I think the Administration has the right to list the claim and their response. But if all of a sudden, like I said before, those sites shut down or if the sites listed legitimate complaints are being attacked/closed, well then.... Can someone say First Amendment Violation?