White House did not send Unsolicited Emails say Officals.

The White House wants you to know that they are not in the spam business. Instead they are blaming as yet to be identified political groups for unsolicited e mails that the administration had previously suggested no one was receiving.

Until Monday evening. White House had insisted that reports of people not signed up to their mailing lists receiving communications from them were false. They have now admitted that such e mails do indeed seem to have been sent but not by them.

In a blog posted on Monday evening White House online director Macon Phillips wrote" “We’re certainly not interested in anyone receiving e-mails from the White House who don’t want them." He said that groups outside the White House had signed up members from their own mailing lists to receive the updates about President Barack Obama's daily activities and policies. Macon added that taking names and e mail addresses from commercially available mailing lists was certainly not a part of White House policy. "We regret any inconvenience caused by receiving an unexpected message.” he wrote.

A few weeks ago White House officials began encouraging the general public to begin sending them critic's e mails so that the administration could respond to any false allegations or misconceptions that were floating around in cyberspace about the President's proposed health care reforms. Just like any other correspondence by law each of these e mails must be saved, as any official White House correspondence must be, for eventual inclusion in the Public Archives.

One recent e mail was sent by a top Obama advisor, David Axelrod encouraging support for his bosses health care reforms. That message brought a question on Monday from Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., and the ranking member on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

“I am concerned about the possibility that political e-mail address lists are being used for official purposes,” Mr Issa wrote to Greg Craig, who is White House counsel “This, again, raises questions about this administration blurring the lines between political and official business.”

Issa went out to ask exactly how the White House was using the separate e mail account that was set up to investigate and respond to the so called "fishy health care claims" although that e mail account has now been disabled.

“The fear has been expressed that the White House was asking neighbors to inform on neighbors in a government-led data collection effort,” Issa wrote.

As has become common practice a reply came via the official White House blog, although it did not mention Rep. Issa by name.

“An ironic development is that the launch of an online program meant to provide facts about health insurance reform has itself become the target of fear-mongering and online rumors that are the tactics of choice for the defenders of the status quo”.