The American Spectator : The Spectacle Blog : White House Has Secret Plan To Harvest Personal Data From Social Networking Websites

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The Spectacle Blog

White House Has Secret Plan To Harvest Personal Data From Social Networking Websites

By Matthew Vadum on 9.1.09 @ 7:46PM

It never ends. Every day a new outrage about the Obama administration comes to light. Each new outrage sounds like fiction. Who could dream up this stuff?

Now today we learn that the National Legal and Policy Center 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 Obama administration plans to capture comments, tag lines, emails, audio, and video on websites including Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, YouTube, Flickr and others.

View all comments (22) | Leave a comment

benintn| 9.1.09 @ 8:30PM

Psst - it's the internet. It's public domain. Read the terms of service sometime.

Angel| 9.1.09 @ 8:52PM

benintn, public domain--okay; but what's Obama's SNEAKY effort to collect personal data all about?

Not very curious, are you? Well, your government sure is!

Liberal Reader| 9.1.09 @ 9:46PM

Of course the White House is harvesting personal data.

They need to give it to the Bureaucrats who are deciding to which camps you will be rendered. In addition, the Death Panels require such information to schedule your termination once your Work Potential will have been fully exploited.

Don't you watch Glenn Beck?

Alan Brooks| 9.1.09 @ 9:48PM

don't cry wolf, you said the same things about Clinton.

run Palin in '12, and I'll vote for her (but this is a man's world).
no Doles, Dubyas or McCains

Alan Brooks| 9.1.09 @ 9:52PM

Glenn Beck is no more paranoid of Omama than Liberal Reader is of AS.

btw, you think you waste our time, LR?-- no, you waste yours. Justice; for the mills grind slowly, but they grind nonetheless.

ithitsthefan| 9.1.09 @ 11:31PM

This is very troubling. When added to the "web bugs" the Administration is launching from all government sites it certainly seems as if BIG BROTHER has arrived.

Angel| 9.2.09 @ 12:01AM

Alan, you're on! Will you work for Sarah? I am.

Yes, it's a man's world, but you guys can move over just a tiny bit for us, too. Right? I promise we won't disappoint!

SpeakEasy| 9.2.09 @ 12:09AM

benintn, I think you missed the point- the government should not be that interested in individuals and what they are doing. Just do your job, limited by the constitution, and leave the people alone. None of their business.

DaveinPhoenix| 9.2.09 @ 1:03AM

This is a freaking outrage. But there's ways to fight this (latest) communist takeover. Everybody use the word "Obama" every day (as often as possible) somewhere on their social networking site. That should keep 'em busy....hehehehehe

Jesse Taylor| 9.2.09 @ 7:05AM

OH NOES!

The White House is going to archive the information it puts up on social networking sites, as well as any direct constituent responses to that information! And they're doing it to comply with government transparency laws!

If you were any dumber you'd need to wear diapers. Jesus.

martin j smith| 9.2.09 @ 8:13AM

Boy do lefties have short memories. How many times have I seen references to fascism on t-shirts or buttons under Bush ? Now that the shoe is on the other foot--boy is that ever so--there is a whole pile of stuff from the snitch website to the emergency control of the internet to union thugs.

In all of this I say: where is our representatives in congress ? The loyal opposition needs to be heard and loudly NOW!!!!

Thingumbob| 9.2.09 @ 8:47AM

Upon learning of Obama's new Internet Mining Policy

Obama is cool.
Obama is the real deal.
Obama is the man.
Obama is for change.
Obama is our hero.
Obama is the best president ever.
Obama is the yes we can man.
Obama is a man for all seasons.
Obama is a never ending story of hope.
Obama is an American hero.
Obama is a jazzy dude.
Obama is the biggest thing ever!

bluecollarbytes| 9.2.09 @ 8:53AM

If Bush was the one planning on 'mining social networks data', the howls of Leftist outrage would know no end. The difference is that Bush is the opposition, "known" for acting in the selfish interests of the halliburtoncheneybigoilbighealthcarejuggernaut, while the messiah is pure and selfless in motive (although he can't defend any details...which is why he refuses to acknowledge them).

On a practical level, how can Obama be expected to control our lives, our aspirations, our freedoms, our initiative, our 'Americanism' if he doesn't gather intelligence on the enemy? Obama promised Change. Little did moderates realize, the messiah meant to Change citizen allegiance, from one paid to America, to one paid to him and Democratics.

His upcoming speech to the kiddies in public schools is all about that. In addition to the foisting of Socialist doctrine in-practice on a stressed but sleepy public, is his lower-key long term indoctrination at all possible levels. Obama's Czars are political officers, there to insure that Obama's re education of the public goes on regardless of temporary setbacks.

Mainstream America is just now waking up to the idea that Obama's main enemy is them. Obama's proposed ObamaCare is but 1 skirmish in a war for the soul and future of this citizen-nation.

Marie Anne| 9.2.09 @ 9:12AM

I'll probably end up on Obama's sh*t list then, from recent writings of mine.

My Facebook wall is full of comments about the recent Kennedy allegations of treason, grumblings about the VA's SNAFUs, as well as reports of the IRS doing just what you're referring to here re: social networking sites.

I don't care whose list I'm on. Anything I write on the internet is free to look at for the asking.
I took it further and wrote articles about all three, and they're right on the link attached to my name here. Should I be shaking in my boots?

Marie Anne| 9.2.09 @ 9:13AM

Ok, attached to my name here, then.

K Ashford| 9.2.09 @ 9:23AM

This is no different than what businesses have been doing for years. You don't think the Internet ads you get on certain sites are catered to you, based on your Internet habits?

Tim| 9.2.09 @ 10:05AM

I wonder how many copies they've got of that chimp drinking his own pee? Future generations will need that to better understand us.

Tim| 9.2.09 @ 10:06AM

A video that really sums up socialism, come to think of it.

Robert| 9.2.09 @ 1:36PM

If everyone in masse posted detracting statements on their social network profiles then this operation would be useless...Funny tho, Obama wants to gauge how much crap is flying around about him and if he doesnt like it, well thanks to Rockefeller he can pull the plug on any network.

Nobama| 9.2.09 @ 2:05PM

Ashford, business DOES NOT HAVE THE POWER OF COERCION like government does. Business is NOT a threat to our liberties.

When will you moronic democrats understand this?

dotnetninja| 9.2.09 @ 4:07PM

o this contract would actually break FB TOS (terms of service)..."You will not collect users' content or information, or otherwise access Facebook, using automated means (such as harvesting bots, robots, spiders, or scrapers) without our permission." So unless FB gave .gov permission they would be breaking the law.
Even if it were perfectly legal to crawl a social network site to collect data for research purposes, there may be ethical considerations that make it inappropriate. One issue that may have both ethical and legal ramification is information privacy. There may be information privacy laws that regulate the use of personal information. A user who accesses personal information protected by a privacy policy is not limited in the use of such information, except as specified by the ToS (see above). However, depending on what you consider ethical behavior, you may have different views about the gravity of breaching a ToS agreement, and the gravity of violating a third party's right to privacy. I would typically consider a violation of privacy unethical even it is not illegal.