BHO's Dangerous-Dissent Database

From this essay by Byron York in the Washington Examiner:

Obama's dissident database could be secret -- and permanent

The White House request that members of the public report anyone who is spreading "disinformation" about the proposed national health care makeover could lead to a White House database of political opponents that will be both secret and permanent, according to Republican lawyers on the Senate Judiciary Committee who are examining the plan's possible implementation.

[...]

Senate Judiciary Committee lawyers studying the proposal say that although there is no absolutely settled law on the matter, the White House plan is likely not covered by the Privacy Act, which prohibits government agencies from keeping any records "describing how any individual exercises rights guaranteed by the First Amendment unless expressly authorized by statute or by the individual about whom the record is maintained." Therefore, it appears the White House can legally keep records of the emails and other communications it receives in response to Phillips' request. [Macon Phillips is the White House director of new media]

Those lawyers also point out that the White House is not covered by the Freedom of Information Act, which means it would not have to release any information on the plan to members of the public who make a request.

In addition, the lawyers say the collected emails likely will be covered by the Presidential Records Act, which requires the White House to preserve and maintain its records for permanent storage in a government database. Phillips' request suggests that whatever information the White House receives on health-care reform "disinformation" will be used to further the goal of passing a national health-care makeover, which is, of course, one of the president's main policy initiatives. Such material, and whatever the White House does with it, would qualify as presidential records. Only after more than a decade would such records be publicly available....

Read the rest HERE. Please read it all!

Something very, very slimy is going on with the BHO administration.

In less than seven months, January 20, 2009 being the point at which BHO and this Democratic Party Congress took office, gone is the leftists' cry of "Dissent is patriotic."

And, if you have not already done so, please read yesterday's post here at my blog site: "America, Welcome to the Gulag!" The screen shot of the White House web site's promotion of silencing voices is in that posting. After all, one never knows when the White House web site will be scrubbed.