I don't either, but no matter how it's sliced, it's not a privacy issue.
As for gathering evidence of public sentiment (e.g., commissioning polls, soliciting and accepting communications) and adjusting the message based on that self-gathered "feedback," that's a common taxpayer-funded practice.
That the WH knows I disagree with its policy preferences doesn't stifle my speech at all. Same with my sentiment toward Congress as an institution - IMO, Washington DC is infested with cockroaches who have vastly overstepped the boundaries set by the Constitution. As institutions, they are mostly (not entirely) illegitimate. Powerful, but without a proper foundation in "consent of the governed."
Check out the WH New media team. That’s who is running this contract. They are not archivists. They are political operatives with deep ties to Soros/Moveon.
It’s one thing to tailor a message based on public sentiment. It’s another thing to use tax payer dollars to accumulate data that is passed on to political operatives in order to silence the opposition.
And that is what I think is going on here. Let me give you some details not reported:
This program will be done off site (not using government databases etc.) and the WH is asking for AT LEAST 10 login accounts to be able to simultaneously add web sites to the crawler program. The WH new media team will then take the off site data, comb through it and pick out what will go into NARA. No mention of what will be done with the other data not being placed in NARA.
Since this is offsite, there is potential for anyone to get access to this information without it being documented. If this information was onsite then anyone accessing the information would be legally documented as doing so. This is a recipe for disaster.
Using tax money this way is unacceptable.
Are they taking info from people who specifically chose to allow only friends or family to see their postings? Or are they taking info from people who allow the public to see their postings?
Because if they are taking info from people who have blocked the public from seeing their postings, what’s the next step? Reading their e-mail?