White House Urging Americans To Donate To Haiti Relief Effort -- Via E-mail: Do You Trust It?

My Fellow Americans,

I want to share with you something today that a reader brought to my attention.  Apparently, the Obama White House feels it's necessary to send American citizens emails to encourage them to donate to the Haiti Relief effort. 

That's fine.  I fully support helping those in need.  It's having and using email addresses of citizens I do not like. 

To me, there's something wrong with the White House sending emails out like the one I received from a reader.  While the gentleman who sent this to me pointed out he felt it was rather "self-serving" of the President, I also believe it builds on what we saw with the "Cash for Clunkers" program last summer (more on that later).

Let me show you the text of the email the reader received:

From: President Barack Obama [mailto:info@barackobama.com]

Sent: Thursday, January 14, 2010 3:04 PM

Subject: Help for Haiti

[Reader's Name Omitted] --

On Tuesday, a catastrophic earthquake struck near Port-au-Prince, Haiti. The full extent of the damage is still being assessed, but the death toll -- already in the thousands -- is climbing fast.

This is the worst earthquake to hit the area in more than 200 years. Entire communities have been ripped apart and as many as 3 million people have been directly affected, including tens of thousands of American citizens who are in Haiti.

Our neighbors in Haiti are racing to confront the enormous devastation -- and the OFA community can help.

Click here for more information about essential relief efforts and ways you can help today.

Footage is pouring in of homes collapsing, Haitians carrying injured family members, and hospitals being overrun in what was already the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere.

I have directed my administration to respond with a swift, coordinated, and aggressive effort to save lives. Personnel from the United States and our partners in the international community are on the ground in damaged areas right now, working side by side with the Haitian people. They're providing much-needed food, water, and sanitation supplies, saving lives and helping local communities start to rebuild.

Despite the fact that we are experiencing tough times here at home, I encourage those who can to reach out and help. It's in times like these that we must show the kind of compassion and humanity that has defined the best of our national character for generations.

Click here to find out what you can do:

http://my.barackobama.com/Haiti

As this story continues to unfold, I hope you will continue to keep the people of Haiti in your thoughts and prayers, as well as the many Haitian-Americans who have done so much to enrich our country and who are worried about friends and loved ones in this time of need.

Thank you,

President Barack Obama

--END TRANSCRIPT--

The links in the email take you directly to the WhiteHouse.gov website.  Also, let me point out what appeared at the very bottom of the e-mail in a text box: "Paid for by Organizing for America, a project of the Democratic National Committee -- 430 South Capitol Street SE, Washington, D.C. 20003. This communication is not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee."

That's very interesting.  This is the group Obama's campaign arm became after he was elected.  Obama for America became Organizing for America (get it, he was a community organizer).  I just think it's great that now we're community organizing -- on a global scale, don't you?

Getting back to what I was saying about "Cash for Clunkers" and how it relates to this email campaign by the website, I want to point out something that came out over the summer.  If you recall, Glenn Beck revealed on his show what a warning box on the "Cash for Clunkers" program's website read: "This application provides to the DoT CARS system. When logged on to the CARS system, your computer is considered a federal computer system and it is property of the United States government. Any and all uses of this system and all files on this system may be intercepted, monitored, recorded, copied, audited, inspected, and disclosed to authorized CARS, DoT and law enforcement personnel, as well as authorized officials of other agencies, both domestic and foreign" (source: BusinessandMedia.org).  I don't know about you, but to me, that's pretty scary stuff. 

As you can imagine, I would think someone who got that email from the White House asking for donations would be a tad bit skeptical.  What's to stop the government from tracking you...from tracking what you donate?  What's to stop the government from using some of the money to pay for health care?  What's to stop them from tapping into your personal information?

On top of that, you have Rush Limbaugh getting slammed for his comments about the Haiti relief effort.  Like always, his comments were completely taken out of context by the Democrats and liberal media.  If you read the comments posted on this site, one rational person came to the conclusion that Limbaugh meant he didn't trust donating to the WhiteHouse.gov site.  He wasn't saying we shouldn't donate. 

And another thing, the money that is being donated by the U.S. government -- is a majority of it not TAXPAYER money?  I would think so.  Where else would they be getting the money?  So, technically, yeah, Americans have already donated in a sense -- even before the earthquake occurred.  Get off Rush's back!

I bring this up because I think people need to be told the truth.  Sometimes watching and listening to certain news outlets -- we often don't get the whole picture.  I do believe the American people are generous.  I believe there are those in our government that care.  I believe that even the President himself cares. 

But, as White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel once said, "Never let a serious crisis go to waste."

And don't think for a second that the Obama administration, even in the most minute way, would not use the crisis in Haiti to their advantage.