Is Obama Creating an Enemies List?

This disturbing directive comes from the official White House blog:

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.

This didn’t come from a political activist group or a fact checking organization.  The White House, the President, the people with the ability to use the full force of the IRS and the FBI want to know what “disinformation” is being spread about a policy they support and, I can only assume, who is doing the spreading of that “disinformation.”  What President Obama’s administration plans to do with this is unclear from the blog post.  Maybe they just want to be able to answer people’s concerns and shoot down wild, untrue rumors.  Or maybe they intend to punish the originators of the rumors. 

The scariest part about this request is the Big Brother aspect of it.  Now if you forward an email that someone on your list thinks might be full of rumor and speculation, that email as well as your email address, the email addresses of who else it was sent to as well as the email addresses of who sent it all go into a database.  And who sent them that information?  Your neighbor or co-worker or activist aunt.  If you thought domestic spying was bad when the government engaged in it, wait until the spies are literally everywhere.

-Jay