>LIFE WITH BIG BROTHER
>Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, today demanded that President Obama either halt a program already widely known in the blogosphere as the "snitch" program or define how he will protect the privacy of those to send or are the subject of e-mails to the flag@whitehouse.gov e-mail address.
>The White House only announced the program a day earlier, pleading with people around the nation to forward to the White House e-mail address anything they might see "about health insurance reform that seems fishy."
>"I am not aware of any precedent for a president asking American citizens to report their fellow citizens to the White house for pure political speech that is deemed 'fishy' or otherwise inimical to the White House's political interests," the Texas senator wrote in a letter today to Obama.
>"By requesting that citizens send 'fishy' e-mails to the White House, it is inevitable that the names, e-mail addresses, IP addresses, and private speech of U.S. citizens will be reported… You should not be surprised that these actions taken by your White House staff raise the specter of a data collection system."
>"Scary chain e-mails and videos are starting to percolate on the Internet, breathlessly claiming, for example, to 'uncover' the truth about the president's health insurance reform positions," the website says.
>"There is a lot of disinformation about health insurance reform out there, spanning from control of personal finances to end of life care. These rumors often travel just below the surface via chain e-mails or through casual conversation. Since we can't keep track of all of them here at the White House, we're asking for your help. If you get an e-mail or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov," the White House instructed.
>Obama's comments about a national security force came during a speech in Colorado in which he called for expanding the nation's foreign service.
>"We cannot continue to rely only on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives that we've set," Obama said in July. "We've got to have a civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded."
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