If you think the government’s proposed health care reform plan is scary – get ready for the fright of your life.
The government has just set up an e-mail operation to collect “misinformation” on the health care plan. The government is asking people to report anything “fishy” they see online, in an e-mail, or even in “casual conversation” – yes you read that correctly “casual conversation” – and send it in via e-mail to flag@whitehouse.gov…
They go on to give some clarification about what they mean by “fishy”:
Apparently no one is allowed to say that the plan will affect the private health insurance industry. Why? – because the president says it won’t. (Just like the president said he wouldn’t raise taxes on the middle class).
Two points here:
1. The president hasn’t even read the bill, so for all he knows the entire thousand plus pages could be an anthology of detailed strategies to subvert private industry. Or it could be a thousand page-long gourmet cookbook.
2. Even if he has read the bill and could recite it verbatim, this still does not denote misinformation. Even if congress has added market protecting provisions to their hearts content, there is no real certainty that the new proposal wouldn’t hurt the private market anyway. It wouldn’t be the first time a law brought about an unintended consequence.
So this leads me to the major point here: The White House e-mail operation is a direct and forefront attack on free speech. The fact that the American people can no longer question the merits of a law or government program even in casual conversation is unbelievable.
Where is the e-mail service collecting “misinformation” from government sources? This type of government action should be illegal – in fact, it probably is.
I believe this is covered by the Privacy Act of 1974, which explicitly forbids government agencies from tracking people’s lawful free speech. This was done in response to Nixon’s domestic surveillance of poltical enemies and the creation of the Nixon enemies list – Obama should not emulate Nixon, particularly as the law making it illegal was done in response to Nixon.