LIFE WITH BIG BROTHER
On Facebook, MySpace? Obama's got your e-mail

White House spammer-in-chief wants contractor to track critics

The White House is hiring a contractor to harvest information about Americans from its pages on social networking websites such as Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, YouTube and Flickr.

The National Legal and Policy Center, or NLPC, revealed the White House New Media team is seeking to hire a technology vendor to collect data such as comments, tag lines, e-mail, audio and video from any place where the White House "maintains a presence" – for a period of up to eight years.

"The contractor shall provide the necessary services to capture, store, extract to approved formats, and transfer content published by EOP (Executive Office of the President) on publicly-accessible web sites, along with information posted by non-EOP persons on publicly-accessible web sites where the EOP offices under PRA (Presidential Records Act) maintains a presence," the posting states.

According to the 51-page solicitation of bids posted Aug. 21, the purpose of the mining and archiving project is to "comply with the Presidential Records Act," though the listing does not specify how the information will be used. It states that the governmenty is currently collecting data from social networks both programmatically and by use of daily screenshots.

The program is expected to be fully operational within 30 days after the contract is awarded to a vendor.

NLPC warns, "[V]irtually 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."

'Compelling need' for cookies

The Obama administration has announced plans to lift a government ban on tracking visitors to government websites, and potentially, collect their personal data through the use of "cookies" – an effort some suspect may already be in place on White House sites.

A ban on such tracking by the federal government on Internet users has been in place since 2000, however, the White House Office of Management and Budget now wants to lift the ban citing a "compelling need."

In public comments submitted to the Office of Management and Budget, EPIC notes it has obtained documents that show federal agencies have negotiated these contracts with the private sector in violation of "existing statutory privacy rights." Those agencies include: Department of Defense, Department of the Treasury, and the National Security Agency.

There are suspicions the White House is already involved.

According to Obama "technology czar" Vivek Kundra, the "compelling need" driving this major policy reversal is the administration's desire to create "more open" government and to "enhance citizen participation in government."

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Getting closer and closer to ultimate control... where's the outrage from the left for "spying" on the American people?