GOP Senator: White House Encroaching on First Amendment

Most of the disinformation seems to be coming directly from the White House itself. How do I flag Obama? ("ummm...i didn't know that that was in the bill, but, ummm, i promise, ummm, you can be ummmm sure that ummm, i'll never ummm signe a bill, ummmm....."). He swears that the bill is "okay", but he has absolutely no idea of what is in it. How's THAT for disinformation??? I guess he'll have to find another scumbag tax evader to assign as the "Flag Csar"..

I believe it was Ari Fleischer who said it would be wise for Americans who opposed his boss to "watch what they say" and be "careful" when criticizing the Bush administration...

Who is having their 1st admendment rights violated? Nobody is stopping folks from sending e-mails, but the Republicans are trying to stop me from forwarding spam to whoever I want.

I don't think the senator understands the first amendment very well. Obama's critics have a right to argue their case via email (or any way they want) -- but by the same token, the first amendment protects my right to free speech too.

If my conservative friends forward me an email criticizing Obama's health plan, the first amendment protects MY right to tell whoever I want about that email -- including the president.

Mark from Atlanta

Your exercise of free speech is not at issue. What is at issue is the government asking you to "flag" others speech and report it to the government. Do you not understand the distinction?

So in other words, Cornyn would like Republicans to be able to continue spreading lies without them being refuted by the White House. Gawd, Republican politicians never cease to amaze me how they can twist every word and every situation to mean whatever evil thing they can think up.

So LIZ,

You would have been OK with others flagging e-mails regarding protesting the war in Iraq and sending them to the Bush White House to determine if they were accurate and/or to refute them? At least be honest about it.

Kelly - I understand the distinction, and I am sure Cornyn does too. He is just trying to score political points. How does my forwarding spam inhibit folks from sending it? They are within their constitutional rights to send it and I am within my rights to forward it to whoever I want. Cornyn. if you will pardon the pun, is throwing up a red herring about the fishy spam issue.

Why must Republicans always result to the absurd? It is not a violation of first amendment rights to call a liar a liar and to hold them accountable for their lying if it causes damages to another individual. I see nothing wrong here...only Cronyn's absurd assertion..

Flag this free speech and send it in to Obama's administration for what? This is unprecedented behavior by any administration. So the President has ordered his minions to intimidate ordinary citizens who do not aggree with his policies and want to make thier voices heard. Unbelievable. This is Audacity all right but not the change I voted for. This is radical overbearing change that is frightening and I cant believe that any ordinary Democrats would support it. This is crazy.

Why not! This administration has already attacked the 2nd and 14th Amendment to the Constitution, and Congress totally ignores the Constitution of the US. Add one more. And no wonder we are in the mess we are in right now. It has nothing to do with party lines. But I have sworn to uphold and protect the Constitution of the US. I thought they did also.

Looks like the Libs just can't take someone telling them the truth. I defy any one of you to define ONE "lie" that this so-called spam has stated. You can try, but you just can't do it. Because you do not know what is in the bill that is being proposed. THAT is what we horrible conservates are concerned about: the fact that you are willing to give carte-blanche powers to the Obama administration to push through who knows what. What happened to the promise of TRANSPARENCY? What happened to open government? You know very well that the only reason that Obama and his cronies are pushing so hard to get this bill passed is because the longer it is exposed to daylight, the more and more opposition will become even more vocal. Stop your blind loyalism!

Obama requests that people to let them know when questionable, or inaccurate, information is being circulated regarding health care reform. This is a request and is NOT a LAW and does not threaten the First Ammendment--- as suggested by Cornyn.

There is a BIG difference and there is BIG MONEY at stake here. I wonder how many contributions Cornyn receives from the Big Money interests (Insurance Companies, etc) for his support.

Mark from Atlanta-
Think for a moment. Of course you can send e-mail to whomever you choose. The point is the GOVERNMENT should not be asking citizens to report other citizens speech to the GOVERNMENT. Again, put the shoe on the other foot and imagine this request was sent to conservatives to turn in e-mails written by liberals. Got it?

****......"So LIZ,
You would have been OK with others flagging e-mails regarding protesting the war in Iraq and sending them to the Bush White House to determine if they were accurate and/or to refute them? At least be honest about it.
Posted by: Kelly | Aug 5, 2009 2:54:52 PM"...........**_____________________Bush did not request (at least publically). He did it behind our backs. In fact we do (yet) not know what information was collected on private citizens and is now stored in the Bush-Cheney "security" database.

If anyone needs to chill out its Cornyn and his minions (haters) who simply will never, under any circumstances, approve of anything Obama does or attempts to do because he doesn't belong to the same political party, and isn't the same color they are. That's it, bottom line!

"Stop your blind loyalism!" - I am not a Democrat and I dont like the administration's education proposals, but I do support health reform, particularly the option to buy insurance through the government. No "blind loyalty" here, but a willingness to look at each proposal based on its merits, without an automatic "No!" just because the idea comes from the White House. Some people just seem to be driven by ideology or an intense hatred of Democrats. We need to rise above that for the good of our country.

ThinkLongTerm

So you agree regardless of it is done publicly or covertly, the White House should not be doing this.

Mark from Atlanta

This is not a referendum on the President's health care reform program, but on the White House's desire to have material contrary to their agenda sent to the GOVERNMENT for review. So do you approve of that tactic or not?

The Privacy Act of 1974 provides that agencies will maintain no record describing how any individual exercises rights guaranteed by the First Amendment unless:

Expressly authorized by statute

Expressly authorized by the individual about whom the record is maintained or

Pertinent to and within the scope of an authorized law enforcement activity

I wonder how many people here who support Obama's dissenters database supported Nixon's enemies list. The Privacy Act was passed precisely over concerns of abuse of power with the government spying on people for poltiical reasons. There's nothing wrong if this was being done from the DNC or some other non-government organization, but it's a whole other story when it is the government tracking those who differ politically from the person currently in the White House. No administration should do this.