Earlier this week, the White House asked people to forward “fishy” emails they receive that may be spreading misinformation about health-care reform to [email protected].
In response, Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.) wrote in a letter to President Obama that it’s “inevitable that the names, email addresses, IP addresses, and private speech of U.S. citizens will be reported to the White House. You should not be surprised that these actions taken by your White House staff raise the specter of a data collection program.”
“Nobody is collecting names,” Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said at today’s the White House press briefing. “Nobody is collecting information.”
Asked later by THE WEEKLY STANDARD if the White House is required by law to save all correspondence it receives, Gibbs acknowledged, “Obviously, the National Archives documents correspondence with the White House.” Gibbs also said he didn’t know how many emails the White House has yet received yet.
So remember: “Nobody is collecting information,” except the federal government at the U.S. National Archives.
