Press Secretary Robert Gibbs and Fox News's Major Garrett had a heated exchange last week over whether the White House was spamming people with emails to support Obamacare. Garrett reported that several people had contacted him saying that they received a mass email from David Axelrod to support the health-care legislation, and Gibbs was unable to explain how those emails might have gotten to unfriendly recipients.
White House spokesman Nick Shapiro said in a statement to Fox News yesterday: "The White House email list is made up of email addresses obtained solely through the White House website. The White House doesn't purchase, upload or merge from any other list, again, all emails come from the White House website as we have no interest in emailing anyone who does not want to receive an email. [...] We are implementing measures to make subscribing to emails clearer, including preventing advocacy organizations from signing people up to our lists without their permission when they deliver petition signatures and other messages on individual's behalf."
During the campaign, Patrick Ruffini observed that "The Obama campaign has turned its security settings for accepting online contributions down to the bare minimum -- possibly to juice the numbers, and turning a blind eye towards the potential for fraud not just against the FEC, but against unsuspecting victims of credit card fraud."
