Cornyn outraged over email request. Yee haw.

(take my senator. please.)

I love living in Texas. It's warm. It's sunny. And the politicians give me plenty of blog material. In fact, I could just quote them and not even have to add my own witty commentary. Though I would probably get protest emails from my loyal fans. Which I would then forward to the government.

As you may know, the Obama administration recently asked us all to send them any misleading or "fishy" emails regarding all the crazy health care rumors going around.

Texas Senator John Cornyn is all up in arms about it. So I'm going to let him do the talking.

August 5, 2009 - portions of a letter from Sen. Cornyn (R) to President Obama
(click here for the entire letter)

Dear President Obama,

I write to express my concern about a new White House program to monitor American citizens' speech opposing your health care policies, and to seek your assurances that this program is being carried out in a manner consistent with the First Amendment and America's tradition of free speech and public discourse ...

I am not aware of any precedent for a President asking American citizens to report their fellow citizens to the White House for pure political speech that is deemed "fishy" or otherwise inimical to the White House's political interests.

By requesting that citizens send "fishy" emails to the White House, it is inevitable that the names, email addresses, IP addresses, and private speech of U.S. citizens will be reported to the White House. You should not be surprised that these actions taken by your White House staff raise the specter of a data collection program. As Congress debates health care reform and other critical policy matters, citizen engagement must not be chilled by fear of government monitoring the exercise of free speech rights ...

bla bla bla yadda yadda yadda ...

And now, let us hearken back to December 20, 2005, when our beloved Senator Cornyn, who is so outraged (outraged I tell you!) about the government learning our email addresses (gasp!) responded to critics of the Bush domestic spying program with these words:

"None of your civil liberties matter much after you're dead."

Hm. You're right. There is no precedent for a president asking for citizens to forward emails. That's not how it is done. Silly democrats. You tap into the lines directly. Then you destroy any hope of health care reform for the little people. And sure enough, they all end up dead.

Job well done. Yee haw.

~~~