The flag program was a way of creating an explanation for David Axelrod’s emails going out to persons who never contacted the White House—for months, the White House has been collecting data on opponents of health care from members of Congress—meaning TWO branches of government colluded against the citizenry to do this!!! The flag program was an almost silly contrivance, clearly, so that people would think their names had been “reported” — when the White House HAD ACTIVELY COLLECTED THEIR EMAIL ADDRESSES FROM CONGRESSCRITTERS. Be afraid. Be very afraid.
I’ll buy that theory. No tinfoil hat needed.
The issue regarding Personal Data Privacy is that you can only use the information for the purpose it was gathered. In the case of the White House website, they say that they are gathering the information to respond to queries about issues. That would make it legitimate to send issue emails to the people who agreed to have their emails recorded.This would also apply to emails from Congress being used by the White House. They are separate bodies established for different purposes. People who contact Congress are engaging their own representatives in the legislative process. The Executive Branch has nothing to do with that engagement with the people. If the White House is using a Congressional database of emails for Executive branch purposes, that would be a violation of personal data privacy.That said, it would be ILLEGAL to take a campaign database of emails and use it for White House government purposes, because those email addresses were captured for an entirely different purpose, and people presumably did not give their permission for the emails to be used for issue solicitation after the election. It would also be illegal to take a DNC database of emails and use it for White House purposes. It would also be illegal to take a union database of emails and use it for White House purposes.
-PJ