Obama Plans to Spy on Social-Networking Sites

The news about the Obama plan to spy on social networking sites has conservatives in a dither. But is it true? Just to give insight into this issue, here's more information about it.

Hot Air is an optional site just like the Drudge Report, but it’s possible there just might be more than one opinion, or fact in this case, about the Obama plan to spy on social networking sites. Is it true or not? Hot Air asks. What the report says is absolutely not -- the facts were twisted in order to effectively undermine the administration or just make news. Here’s what Hot Air says on the subject of Obama and social networking, like Facebook and Twitter.

“The Presidential Records Act (PRA) essentially requires each administration to keep every pixel and keystroke ever published for later review by Congress or investigators, in case illegal activity takes place. We have seen this invoked ex post facto to the Clinton and Bush administrations, in the latter over e-mails sent and received outside the White House mail system. At that time, legal experts and investigators insisted that everything produced by an administration for anything remotely concerning official business had to be archived within the EOP.

A more careful reading of this RFP shows that to be the project. The contract directs the contractor to archive the “information posted on publicly-accessible web sites where the EOP maintains a presence.”

In other words, Hot Air points out the contract requirement has nothing to do with ordinary American’s material on social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, but a careful reporting and scrutiny, called government oversight, where it usually is on activities that take place regarding official business. In the business of reporting, getting the facts straight is part of the process, so there are references that allow for investigating reports to check both sides. These are available at journalism reference sites. In this case, the Drudge Report has been used to elicit outrage from consumers who read material reprinted by this website. The Drudge Report on matters like these and others is here. The detailed report and story came from the website at the National Legal and Policy Center which headlines “Obama has Secret Plan to Harvest Personal Data on Social Networking Website.” Hot Air carefully examines and quotes verbatim from NLPC website to conclude “If the PRA really requires all of the effort this RFP details, maybe it’s time to revisit it. But this is nothing more than a big, pointless archiving project, one which may stimulate the economy of a handful of people, but otherwise inconsequential. There are a lot of good reasons to be worried about the Obama administration, but this doesn’t appear to be one of them.” For those who haven’t been involved in government contracts, an RFP is a request for proposal. Hot Air points out what is commonly found in such contracts, the need to monitor communication among the entities involved to insure compliance.