http://missbethsvictorydance.blogspot.com/2009/08/ill-snitch-myself-out-letter-to.html

–let them come and get me.

“This is the time for the ACLU to stand up for the Rights of the American People. The Obama Administration has set up a program to track citizens engaged in civil protest. It happens that this is in the context of protests againt the health care plans of the President.

Imagine if this had happened under President Bush:
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 emails 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 email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov. (http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/Facts-Are-Stubborn-Things/)

Would the ACLU have responded to this. I imagine you would still be talking about it, and rightly so? I am personally astonished that the White House would actually launch a program to track the “e-mails and casual conversation” of American citizens by asking other Americans to report it directly to the White House. This sounds more like Richard Nixon than Barrack Obama. Will the ACLU now stand up for free political discourse, protect Free Speech and protest this gross interference and violation of our 1st Amendment Rights or will you accept an unprecedented extension of federal Executive power into the casual conversations of our citizenry, including you btw. I hope you consider the longer term implications of this program and act to save the right to privacy and free political discourse. I can well imagine how you would have responded had this program occurred in the context of the Patriot Act. I await a display of your ethical and legal integrity.”

To use the OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT ELECT as a campaign arm, to use DOT GOV like a DOT ORG ought to offend every single American to the core.

To ask people to turn others in TO THE GOVERNMENT for merely examining, questioning, debating, discussing and drawing conclusions about a PROPOSAL in its formative stages, an that has not been formalized – in effect to criminalize talking about an idea – should concern every American, and the ACLU most of all.

That we have heard not a peep is a reminder of why your site exists, and why it is so popular. A must read on many people’s list.

May the ACLU see the light and act as it was meant to act.