News You Can Believe

The following is NOT from me but from Examiner.com Kansas City:

AAPS and CURE sue the White House for unconstitutional ‘fishy’ email program. Where is the ACLU?

The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons and the Coalition for Urban Renewal and Education filed a lawsuit on August 27 suing the White House to:

“…enforce the First Amendment right to free speech and the Privacy Act’s right to privacy against efforts by defendants Executive Office of the President (“EOP”), White House Office of Health Care Reform (“WHOHR”), Nancy-Ann DeParle in her official capacity as WHOHR’s Director, Macon Phillips in his official capacity as White House Director of New Media, and others acting in concert (collectively, hereinafter “Defendants”) unlawfully to collect information on political and other noncommercial speech..”

The two  groups have formed together to stand up to the outrageous ‘fishy’ email program that Obama installed at the White House to ‘turn in your neighbor’ with emails that you felt were giving false information about the healthcare plan in the House (H.R. 3200).  From the AAPS website:

“The lawsuit was prompted by the White House solicitation for the public to report any “fishy” comments to ‘flag@whitehouse.gov.’ Although the White House slightly revised its data collection procedure last week, the email address still exists, the illegal activity continues, and is part of an “unlawful pattern and practice to collect and maintain information” on the exercise of free speech, which “continues in violation of the Privacy Act and First Amendment even if the Defendants terminate a particular information-collection component due to negative publicity.”

“The lawsuit outlines how the White House has employed a form of “bait-and-switch” tactic of accusing the Plaintiffs and other opponents of spreading misinformation about the Administration’s goals for health care reform, and thereby refusing to ‘come clean’ about its real agenda.”

The first amendment clearly states that Americans have the right to free speech:

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

Isn’t it ironic that the ACLU is nowhere to be seen or heard on this issue other than a very brief statement made by them:

“The ACLU said in a statement to FOXNews.com that the White House blog is a “bad idea that could send a troublesome message.

But the organization added, “While it is unclear at this point what the government is doing with the information it is collecting, critics of the administration’s health care proposal should not fear that their names will end up in some government database that could be used to chill their right to free speech.”

A ‘troublesome message’?  Are they serious?  The highest office in the country is telling people to turn in their neighbors over what THEY feel is misinformation about the House’s healthcare plan and that is what they call it?  The  ACLU has an entire page on their website devoted to free speech battles that they have won, yet all they do in regards to the clear violation of free speech made by the Obama Administration is make the above statement?  This same statement isn’t even found on their site.   What message is the ACLU – which is supposed to fight for ALL American’s civil liberties – sending to the American people?  They hammered at Bush for 8 years and are still hammering at Bush over CIA interrogations, yet they do absolutely nothing in regards to Obama violating the 1st Amendment?

Let me be clear – people have no idea exactly what the Obama Administration is going to do with emails they receive regarding misinformation.  The message that Obama is sending to Americans is that you shouldn’t send any emails regarding healthcare because someone may disagree and ‘turn you in’ to the White House.  This represses free speech as people will be afraid that their email address could indeed find their way into some White House database.  We already saw what happened when the Obama Administration hired a third party organization to send unwarranted emails to people.  People were outraged that the White House even got a hold of their personal and private email addresses.  Kudos to the AAPS and CURE for standing up for Americans’ rights when the one organization that should be outraged, the ACLU,  is completely ignoring the reason they even exist.