Posted on 08/16/2009 4:05:58 AM PDT by Man50D
WASHINGTON – The Barack Obama administration has announced plans to lift a government ban on tracking visitors to government websites, and potentially, collect their personal data through the use of "cookies" – an effort some suspect may already be in place on White House sites.
A ban on such tracking by the federal government on Internet users has been in place since 2000, however, the White House Office of Management and Budget now wants to lift the ban citing a "compelling need."
In fact, according to the Electronic Privacy and Information Center, federal agencies have already negotiated agreements and contracts with social networking sites like Google, YouTube, SlideShare, Facebook, AddThis, Blist, Flickr and VIMEO to collect information on visitors for federal web sites. All of these private companies are known to have agreements with federal agencies, but the public has never seen them.
In public comments submitted to the Office of Management and Budget, EPIC notes it has obtained documents that show federal agencies have negotiated these contracts with the private sector in violation of "existing statutory privacy rights." Those agencies include: Department of Defense, Department of the Treasury, and the National Security Agency.
There are suspicions the White House is already involved.
When White House press secretary Robert Gibbs was recently asked by Fox News reporter Major Garrett why Americans who had not signed up to receive any e-mails from the White House, were now receiving e-mails from White House adviser David Axelrod promoting President Obama's health care plan, Gibbs refused to answer the question.
(Excerpt) Read more at wnd.com ...
When White House press secretary Robert Gibbs was recently asked by Fox News reporter Major Garrett why Americans who had not signed up to receive any e-mails from the White House, were now receiving e-mails from White House adviser David Axelrod promoting President Obama's health care plan, Gibbs refused to answer the question.
A simple cookie has nothing to do with that.
Dear Leader seems to have a taste for totalitarianism. How remarkable.
Hey, he’s got all these unemployed death panel people who need something to do, so assembling the Obama Enemies List looks like a good substitute.
Looks like all the “kooks” are right. They are taking us to a world government Police State.
Easy enough to clear your cookies.
I wonder, however, if the WhiteHouse computer geeks are smart enough to figure out how to collect IP addresses.
Easy enough to do, even using free stat. services.
But those 0bama people are so stupid, such a solution may escape them.
As one closely familiar with the IT folks in the federal government, I would say that they are definately smart enough. And they are probably already doing it.
What the IT folks at dot-gov are not able to do is provide timely training and software documentation to the end user.
>>>> why Americans who had not signed up to receive any e-mails from the White House, were now receiving e-mails from White House <<<<<
Yep. Setting a cookie has nothing to do with email addresses.
More likely the flag@whitehouse.gov is being used as a Venus Flytrap for email addresses, much the same way the Iranian government used twitter as a trap to find out who was involved in anti-government activities.
We should not underestimate the evil these people are capable of. They understand better than conservatives the power of groupthink in the Internet environment, and how to use technology to leverage it.
Like termites eating a subfloor, it is what they are doing that we don’t hear about that will be the most damaging to our liberty.
And they will do it all in the name of what the liberals deem to be “good”, and their intentions will be pure, which will guarantee the worst possible outcome.
>>> if the WhiteHouse computer geeks are smart enough to figure out how to collect IP addresses. <<<<<
Smart enough, sure. It’s easy to collect the IP addresses from Web visitors. In fact simple.
Here’s one (of many) sites that show what your browser exposes to web server software for collection:
http://ipinfo.info/html/privacy-check.php
But who cares? Take just one (1) of (for example) 2 million visitors to a web site. For “the government” to track that one single IP to an actual person will require many hours of analysis, and paperwork for lawyers, judges, warrants, and general overhead with the service provider.
Let’s be VERY generous and say it take 4 hours to accomplish everything LEGALLY needed to trace an IP address back to an actual person.
So with a site that might have 2,000,000 unique IPs per month you are talking about 8 MILLION man hours of effort.
Gee, that’s 400,000 MAN-YEARS of effort. 10 percent of the entire federal workforce, including military.
And you’ve just gotten started.
So one has to ask. What is the point?
>>> They understand better than conservatives the power of groupthink in the Internet environment, and how to use technology to leverage it. <<<<<
Err....
No they don’t.
The idea that the staffers at the White House have some special insider knowledge of the Internet or its social dynamics or that they have some kind of extraordinary knowledge about email addresses and IP addresses is just plain silly.
To chill a system, one need only capture a few participants and make examples of them.
Whoops. Still on the first cup of coffee.
"Gee, that’s 400,000 4,000 MAN-YEARS of effort. 10 percent of the entire federal workforce, including military."
I would disagree. In the last election cycle, they leveraged the Internet to a far greater degree and more successfully than conservatives. That is indisputable. They did it in legal ways to reach certain segments of people, and in illegal ways to raise money on the Internet.
As for groupthink, they are the experts on that, and we SHOULDN’T (and hopefully WON’T) emulate them.
I agree that they do not have “special insider knowledge” or “extraordinary knowledge about email addresses and IP addresses” that is not available to you and I.
What they do have is the will and the money to leverage it in ways that conservatives have not.
Govt Employment for thousands of SEIU and ACORN members?
But is dangerous to deny the truth.
Conservatives in and out of power see the Internet as an expression of freedom and individuality, Liberals see it as a tool to exploit collective thinking and advance their agenda.
This is what obama meant by all the ‘new jobs’ he’s gonna create...
It’ll take a LOT of people a LOT of time tracking us all down.
This is something we need to stop NOW.
This is NAZI-like spying.
If President GW Bush had done this, and had named 20 or more CZARS to replace the need for congress to vet (investigate) those chosen to have POWER over all of us, and if GW had even SMOKED, why the PRESS WOULD BE APOPLECTIC and everyone knows this. The press would be mocking his health care plan from here to high heaven if GW smoked and was pressing for reform and talking about costs!
The press would be screaming from the rafters IF GW had done any of these things......saying things like the following:
GW has a SNITCH PROGRAM.....IMPEACH HIM!
GW has hired CZARS and we have to abide by their rules and PAY their salaries and their staff salaries and SOME OF THEM ARE AVOWED COMMUNISTS (see green czar history!-IMPEACH HIM NOW!.
GW flew a plane for a photo op that cost the taxpayer over 300,000 thousand dollars!-IMPEACH HIM!p>GW took Laura to NY for a date.....this is HOW MUCH IT COST YOU! (And they would site every single detail of the cost of this selfish trek to NY)-They would be shouting, GW SHOULD BE IMPEACHED FOR RECKLESS AND SELFISH USE OF HARD EARNED TAXPAYER DOLLARS!
And on and on and on and on and on.
IS our press corp by any chance a bunch of communists in their heart? Is this possible?
“The idea that the staffers at the White House have some special insider knowledge of the Internet or its social dynamics or that they have some kind of extraordinary knowledge about email addresses and IP addresses is just plain silly”
agree, but the RATs have lots of fellow colonists like Google to assist in their evil
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