Obama campaign gives database of millions of supporters to new advocacy group

By Michael Isikoff, National Investigative Correspondent, NBC News

latimes.com

President Barack Obama’s presidential campaign has turned over its most valuable asset — a massive computer database containing personal data on millions of American voters — to a new advocacy group created to advance the White House agenda on issues ranging from gun control to immigration reform. 

Organizing For Action (OFA), the advocacy group set up in recent weeks by the president’s top political aides, has already acquired access to the database under a leasing agreement with the Obama campaign, Katie Hogan, a former Obama campaign aide who is now serving as spokeswoman for the lobbying group, told NBC News. The information will be used to unleash an “army of the door knockers” to back the president’s legislative agenda as well as raise money for “issue ads” – particularly in crucial congressional districts, she said.  

As an opening salvo, the group on Friday urged the president’s supporters to call members of Congress in support of Obama’s gun control proposals, even offering a sample script of what they should say.

The creation of OFA, which is being chaired by former Obama campaign manager Jim Messina, is stirring controversy – both among public interest groups over the group’s plans to accept unlimited corporate donations, and among privacy advocates over the transfer of the database.

“It’s extremely worrisome,” said Lillie Coney, associate director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, noting that Obama campaign supporters likely have no idea that personal data they voluntarily shared with the campaign has now been transferred and is being used for purposes beyond the election.

Dubbed the “nuclear codes” by campaign aides, the Obama campaign database is widely described as one of the most powerful tools ever developed in American politics. According to published reports, it contains the names of at least 4 million Obama donors – as well as millions of others (the campaign has consistently refused to say how many) compiled from voter registration rolls and other public databases. In addition, the campaign used sophisticated computer programs — with code names like “Narwhal” — to collect information through social media: Anybody who contacted the campaign through Facebook had their friends and “likes” downloaded. If they contacted  the campaign website through mobile apps, cellphone numbers and address books were downloaded. Computer “cookies” captured Web browsing and online spending habits.

“I can’t think of anything that rivals this data,” said Coney, noting that much of the data was voluntarily supplied by voters, something that consumers are often reluctant to do when dealing with commercial companies. “The private sector would love to be able to do what the (Obama) campaign was able to do.”  

OFA spokeswoman Hogan said that Obama supporters have the option in emails they receive of opting out — or unsubscribing — from the list, as required by federal law. But critics say that is not necessarily an option for information collected about voters through other means (such as public databases) and note that many on the list likely don’t notice the “unsubscribe” fine print on the emails.

At the same time, OFA’s plans for corporate-backed lobbying of Congress have spurred sharp criticism from campaign reformers — a cause the president once championed. Fred Wertheimer, president of Democracy 21, a leading reform group, called OFA “dangerous and unprecedented,” noting that it has been set up under the same section of the tax code used by controversial GOP advocacy groups, such as Karl Rove’s Crossroads GPS (as a 501(c)(4) “social welfare” nonprofit organization). This will allow the group to accept unlimited donations from wealthy individuals and corporations.

“With his decision to allow corporations to fund the new organizations that will operate as an arm of his presidency, President Obama has ‘given a green light to a new stampede of special interest money,’” said Wertheimer in a statement that quoted Obama’s own words two years ago to denounce the Citizens United Supreme Court decision striking down  many campaign finance limits. “This would take President Obama about as far away as he could possibly get from the goal he set in 2008 to change the way business is done in Washington.”

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