These days, it’s easy to get riled up by the latest controversial intrusion into our daily lives courtesy of some misguided federal policy or program – at least by those on the right for whom, as President Ronal Reagan said, government IS the problem.
But after a year and a half of restrictions, conflicting advice, and government imposed shutdowns of private and commercial gatherings and events, it’s even easier to get riled up.
This week, right-leaning – we might suggest right-thinking – folks seemingly had cause to worry that a new Democratic-backed plan to surveil and possible censor SMS text message was very real.
The controversy was started when Politico published an article Monday that included a line that the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and other groups allied with President Biden and his administration were taking the already burdensome “fact-checking” mode to another level.
The article was titled ‘Potentially a death sentence’: White House goes off on vaccine fearmongers, and including a sub-head as follows ‘The administration has shifted to a head-on strategy to dispel fear-mongering over its door-to-door efforts.’
The line said Biden-allied groups were “planning to engage fact-checkers more aggressively and work with SMS carriers to dispel misinformation about vaccines that is sent over social media and text messages.”
“The goal is to ensure that people who may have difficulty getting a vaccination because of issues like transportation see those barriers lessened or removed entirely,” the article read.
Really? On top of concerns that the government was se people door-to-door to gain a larger percentage of vaccinated citizens? Where does freedom begin and end?
Speculation that President Joe Biden and the Democratic National Committee are petitioning cellphone carriers to monitor and edit private text messages is false, DNC and White House officials tell the Washington Examiner (hardly a Biden ally.)
The Examiner did note, however, that “political operatives from both parties have made a practice of monitoring mass text blasts from the other side in recent years as SMS marketing has exploded as a tool for political campaigns, fundraising groups, and even private sector businesses.”
A DNC official told the Washington Examiner that the Democratic Party has been training its grassroots volunteers to sign up for various mass email lists from Republican-affiliated groups since 2019 and to flag noteworthy messages for the communications team.
Similarly, a Republican digital campaigns expert also confirmed that GOP operatives and volunteers frequently sign up to receive text messages from Democratic campaigns and affiliated groups in order to stay one step ahead of the competition.
The good news: Referencing Politico’s report, the DNC official conceded that they have added another internal step to their SMS process as a means of combating vaccine misinformation but emphatically stated that the DNC has not and will not lobby SMS carriers, such as AT&T, T-Mobile, or Verizon, to monitor any text messages distributed at both the bulk list or peer-to-peer level.
Sources on both sides noted that federal law prohibits SMS carriers from monitoring P2P messaging without a warrant, although carriers may deploy machine learning technology to block some bulk messages that violate fair use practices from being delivered.
White House officials also told the Washington Examiner that though some administration officials, such as White House press secretary Jen Psaki and Dr. Anthony Fauci, have ramped up efforts to publicly dispute vaccine misinformation, the administration itself has nothing to do with the DNC initiative.
Now, the question is: Texts or no texts, can the government be taken at its word?
For now, at least, we’ll reserve judgment. But we’ll be watching.
That is the message. This is The Messenger.
