Cody Taylor

An anonymous reader writes “The new White House website privacy policy promises that the site will not use long-term tracking cookies, complying with a decade old rule prohibiting such user tracking by federal agencies. However, Obama’s legal team has quietly exempted YouTube from this rule. Visitors to the official White House blog will receive long-term tracking cookies whenever they surf to a web-page with an embedded YouTube video — even those users that do not click the “play” button. As CNET reports, no other company has been singled out and rewarded with such a waiver.”

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Most people think the flub while saying the Oath of Office was John Robberts’ fault, but not Chris Wallace. Birthers, move out of the way, the Oathers are coming!!!!

U.S. President Barack Obama will sign an executive order Thursday to shut down the infamous U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay within a year.A draft of the order was obtained Wednesday by the Associated Press. While the draft was not dated, a senior Obama aide said the president intends to sign the order on Thursday.

As Obama’s team revises TARP, it faces dissatisfaction with the program’s implementation so far. Some politicians, including Barney Frank, have used leverage to try to direct millions to their home-state banks.

Ian Lamont writes “The Electronic Frontier Foundation and the National Security Archive are praising President Obama’s executive orders to make the federal government more open. Yesterday, Obama issued two memos and one executive order instructing government agencies to err on the side of making information public and not to look for reasons to legally withhold it. The moves are expected to make it easier for people to file Freedom of Information Act requests, and should also boost the amount of information that agencies place on their websites. The general counsel for the National Security Archive (an NGO that publishes declassified documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act) even predicts that agencies will use blogs to share information. Obama’s directives reverse a 2001 memo from former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft instructing federal agencies to generally withhold information from citizens filing FOIA requests.”

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Stephen is sorry he’s not angry about Barack Obama. He wishes he could be, but his heart is full of rainbows.

InternetVoting writes “After all the controversy surrounding Obama’s Blackberry, word has come that he will get to keep it. Few details are available and neither the National Security Agency nor the White House are talking. The current rumor is that the Blackberry will be used exclusively for personal use and a Sectera Edge will be used for official communications.”

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House Republican leaders have asked for a meeting with President Obama on Thursday to offer major changes to the 5 billion economic recovery package urged by the president and proposed by House Democrats last week.