This story from the National Legal and Policy Center has got people wondering whether the Obama administration plans to data-mine and collect information on its critics from social-networking sites like Facebook and MySpace. Ed Morrissey has taken a closer look at what the administration actually has in mind, and the effort appears to be limited to:

  1. Content published by executive-branch officials on publicly-accessible web sites like Facebook and MySpace;
  2. Comments posted on these pages;
  3. Messages sent to executive-branch officials’ accounts on those web sites.

I can see how the NLPC might have jumped to the conclusion that they did — the language in the contract is a little vague. The clause creating confusion appears to be: “information posted by non-EOP persons on publicly-accessible web sites where the EOP offices under PRA maintains a presence.” That makes it sound like if the White House creates a profile on a social-networking site, all information on the site is fair game. But based on the context of the sentence, I’m pretty sure the scope is limited to information posted on those pages and accounts controlled by the White House. As Morrissey points out, any effort beyond that would run into big logistical problems — “best of luck just keeping up with the archiving.”

In other words, I think it’s safe to go ahead and take the “Which ’80s Movie Character Are You?” quiz. Obama doesn’t care.