At the risk of alarming folks, I learned today the current administration (the White House) has put out a request for bids (RFP) for contractors to collect/capture/harvest and create a permanent record of comments made on social networking sites. While the network host of iKnifeCollector is not specifically named, many others are: FaceBook, MySpace, Twitter and YouTube, in addition to others.

As reported by CNSNEWS.com, the request for bids outlines the harvesting of comments made in areas of those sites where the White House has established a presence- the bottom line is trigger words, I'm sure, will end up being flagged very probably throughout the sites though the news report only addresses the White House areas.

"The RFP for bids states the contractor is to 'capture, store, (and) extract' information that will be transferred to the National Archives & Records Admin for permanent storage." Additionally, "This would include 'both comments posted and messages sent' on those websites," according to CNSNEWS.com.

What concerns me the most about this effort by the Administration is the potential of seeking out any comments/emails it considers to be militant, a threat to the Prez and/or the public in general. We all already know we "knife guys" are viewed as potentially dangerous by many folks' eyes in the Administration by virtue of the fact we own knives.

CNSNEWS.com also adds, "While the Presidential Records Act (PRA) generally requires that the administration preserve information generated by the president and his staff, the White House says that in seeking to collect and preserve comments made by common citizens on social networking sites it is acting 'out of an abundance of caution' to comply with the law."

So this is the pretense of why the information is being collected and archived. Yeah, right!