Posted by Eugene Volokh:
Government's Asking People for Pointers To Possibly Incorrect Claims:
http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2009_08_02-2009_08_08.shtml#1249411860
Is there really something wrong with that? [1]JammieWaringFool (thanks
to [2]InstaPundit for the pointer), thinks there is:
White House Blog Seeking Snitches
The Obama administration is starting to look more like Castro's
Cuba by the day. Here they claim they're not concerned about
protests against ObamaCare, but still, just in case, feel free to
snitch on your neighbors.
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 [email protected].
So if you find someone who disagrees with Dear Leader, rat them
out.
Now I've long been bothered by the excessive use of the terms
"snitch," "rat," and so on (see, for instance, [3]here and [4]here).
Some reporting of bad conduct to the government is bad. Some may be
socially good, but might still reflect badly on the person doing it
(for instance, someone who turns state's evidence simply to get a
lower sentence may be doing a public service, but shouldn't get much
praise for it). Much may be socially good and not reflect at all badly
on the reporter -- consider people's reporting serious criminal
conduct (especially conduct that we agree should probably be
considered criminal). Likewise, while some government attempts to
gather information about bad conduct are bad, others are perfectly
proper.
In this instance, it strikes me that the terms "snitch" and "rat" are
entirely misplaced (even allowing for some facetiousness on the
poster's part), as is the criticism of the government. The
Administration is trying to promote a particular political agenda.
They are naturally and reasonably interested in hearing what the
arguments against it are, and doubtless sincerely believe that many of
the arguments may be unsound or even factually false. They want to
rebut such arguments, but they can't do so promptly unless they hear
about it promptly.
There's nothing totalitarian about asking supporters to gather this
information. And there's nothing morally contemptible (as the terms
"snitch" and "rat" suggest) in passing along this information, if you
genuinely think that the information is misleading.
Now of course if you think that the Administration would prosecute
your friend for e-mailing you supposed "disinformation about health
insurance reform," then indeed you shouldn't help the Administration
do it. But, seriously, is that really likely? JammieWearingFool and
the Administration's other critics seem not to worry that their
criticisms of the Administration will get them thrown in prison, or
even will lead to any harassment from the FBI or the like. (To be
sure, some criticisms, for instance ones that contain threats against
the President, might yield that, but I assume that this isn't what the
information reported to [email protected] is likely to contain.) I
take it that they think, as do I, that blog posts or e-mails to
friends about health insurance reform are pretty safe from legal
punishment and governmental harassment. And that makes it pretty
likely that alerting people on your political side of the aisle in the
Administration will simply lead to public rebuttal. It's hardly
"look[ing] more like Castro's Cuba" for that to happen, nor is it
"snitch[ing]" or "rat[ing people] out" when someone facilitates it.
Finally, I recognize that it's possible that some "disinformation
about health insurance reform" might indeed lead to prosecution or
administrative action. For instance if the information appears in
messages that urge the support or defeat of a candidate, and those
messages are put out by 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organizations, the
organization could potentially lose its tax exemption for the
electioneering communication. Likewise, there are restrictions (which
I agree are quite substantively troubling) on corporations' conveying
similar messages related to candidates near election time; violation
of those restrictions could lead to legal punishment. But such
organizational communications seem already likely to be pretty
high-profile, and likely to come to the government's attention in any
event. I don't think that someone who gets a possibly
tax-law-violating or election-law-violating mass mailing from (say)
the Sierra Club and alerts the government to the possible violation
can be reasonably said to be "snitch[ing]" on the Sierra Club. The
force of the "snitch" / "rat ... out" / "Castro's Cuba" argument, I
take it, comes from the suggestion that there's something improper in
passing along communications from friends or neighbors -- rather than
public press release or fundraising letters from organizations -- to
the Administration, which is trying to rebut such communications. And
that strikes me as quite mistaken, for the reasons I gave above.
References
1.
http://jammiewearingfool.blogspot.com/2009/08/white-house-blog-seeking-snitches.html
2. http://pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/82990/
3. http://volokh.com/2002_07_28_volokh_archive.html#85306700
4. http://www.volokh.com/posts/1133293946.shtml
_______________________________________________
Volokh mailing list
[email protected]
http://lists.powerblogs.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/volokh
