White House accused of compiling "enemies list"

Dallas Morning News
Aug. 07, 2009

Texas Sen. John Cornyn, accusing the White House of compiling an “enemies list,” has asked President Barack Obama to stop an effort to collect “fishy” information Americans see about a health care overhaul.

Cornyn, who leads the Republicans’ Senate campaign effort, said Wednesday in a letter to Obama that he’s concerned that citizen engagement on the issue could be “chilled.” He also expressed alarm that the White House could end up collecting electronic information on its critics.

“I can only imagine the level of justifiable outrage had your predecessor asked Americans to forward e-mails critical of his policies to the White House,” Cornyn wrote.

Cornyn was responding to a post on the White House’s blog Wednesday in which users are asked to help stop the spread of disinformation about legislation to overhaul health insurance. The post offers an e-mail address, [email protected], for users to forward anything “on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy.”

The White House said the post was merely designed to fight “intentionally misleading” information in the health care debate.