Free Republic

This past week, Macon Phillips, President Obama’s director of new media announced (under a heading “Facts are Stubborn Things”) that there was a lot of “disinformation” being circulated about the proposed health care plan and asked anyone who received an email critical of it or who “see[s] something on the web about health insurance reform that seems ‘fishy’” to report it to flag@whitehouse.gov. Several commenters, noting the chilling effect a database of opponents of the White House might have, suggested that a suit might be brought for violation of the Privacy Act of 1974, a post-Nixon statute that prohibits federal...