The White House is accumulating information against American citizens and the enjoyment of their constitutional liberties.
Excerpt from the August 13 White House Press Briefing with White House press secretary Robert Gibbs:
BQ: The briefings the past 2 days have been unbelievable. Gibbs is out of control, paranoid and defensive; a growing number of press corps are clearly suspicious of the White House admin’s antics.
One of the more interesting exchanges happened between FoxNews.com’s Major Garrett and Gibbs. This is most of the dialogue, with Gibbs cutting Garrett off at the end, never answering his question:
Major Garrett: Do you in any way seek databases or information about people who might be interested in health care?
GIBBS: I will certainly check. I will certainly check. I am not under that impression. But again –
Major Garrett: I mean, folks have emailed me — I just want to know — would like to know how they get an e-mail from the White House when they have never asked for one.
GIBBS: I’d be interested to see who you got that e-mail from and whether or not they’re on the list. I don’t –
Q May I follow up politely on one of Major Garrett’s –
GIBBS: Well, let me — let me finish needling Major.
Q — this row, please.
GIBBS: Again, I just want to be — but I just want to be very –
Major Garrett: So what you’re telling me is I need to give you these people’s e-mails so you can check them on a list? I’m just asking.
GIBBS: Well, you’re asking me if they’re on a list.
Major Garrett: No, they’re telling me –
MR. GIBBS: If you can figure out a different way of checking without asking me to double-check the name, I’m happy to –
Major Garrett: Perhaps I’m not phrasing this correctly. They’re telling me they’re not — they can’t be on a list because they never asked for an e-mail from the White House.
GIBBS: Right, but what I’m saying is I don’t — I’d have to look and see –
Major Garrett: So there’s no — you don’t have an explanation for how someone who never signed up and never asked for anything from the White House would get an e-mail from David Axelrod?
GIBBS: Well, I hesitate to give you an answer, because you might impugn the motives of the answer.
Major Garrett: Why would you say that?
GIBBS: Because of the way you phrased your follow-up. I’d have to look at what you got, Major. I don’t — I appreciate the fact that I have omnipotent clarity as to what you’ve received in your e-mail box today.
Major Garrett: You don’t have to have omnipotent clarity. You don’t have to impugn anything. I’m telling you what I got — e-mails from people who said they never asked anything from the White House –
MR. GIBBS: And I’m simply saying –
Major Garrett: — and yet they received something.
GIBBS: We can — let me go to someplace else that might be constructive.
UPDATE:
BQ: Major Garrett “keeps pushing” in this excerpt from today’s Laura Ingraham radio show.
Major Garrett: Let me update your listeners to what’s happened since.
I hesitated in the briefing to offer up emails because I didn’t have permission from the few people who contacted me.
Laura Ingram: Right, you actually are respecting people’s privacy
Garrett: And since then – it will come to no surprise to you and your listeners – many have emailed me and said, “Here, give these to the White House. I want an explanation.”
I’ve since gone back to Robert [Gibbs] a number of times and said, ok, I have what you requested, let’s have a substantive conversation about this. I’ve gotten no response.
Ingraham: And so how are we gonna get the answer here then?
Garrett: Well, we’re gonna keep pushing. We’re gonna keep pushing.
And there’s a whole additional issue that’s going on right now that’s in the whole other office management budgets out of the White House, y’know O&B recently put out a new change in federal law, a regulation, taking away a 9-year ban on using persistent internet cookies on federal websites. They want to put those in there so if you come to a federal website more than once or twice the federal government can capture your email address. That’s a change in policy that’s being worked out at the federal regulatory process right now but it’s raised concerns among internet privacy advocates that this is something the government hasn’t done; maybe it ought not to.
Now persistent cookies are used by commercial internet sites all the time but –
Ingraham: gmail
Garrett: Yeah, but are we comfortable with the government using that, I don’t know. It’s being worked out. It’s a separate issue but it’s a part of this larger question of the government having an email address and what it may or may not do with it. I’m not suggesting there’s anything nefarious, I just wanna know!
How did someone who never sent anything to the White House get on a list that would make them able to receive directly – not forwarded, I get that, I’m not dense, I don’t misunderstand the concept of forwarding emails. These are not forwarded, they are directly from the White House. How did it happen?
Posts
