Google Changes Our Nation's Internet Policies from Within The People's White House; Uses Obama's Planted Cell to Do It

"White House, Google violate lobbying pledge"
The Washington Examiner
Friday,
June 25, 2010

Maybe a $150 billion company with 21,000 employees and 20 percent profit margins doesn't count as big business or a special interest if it talks about "changing the world from the bottom up, not from the top down," as President Obama put it.

Maybe a millionaire who spends his days leaning on policymakers to benefit his company isn't a lobbyist if he calls himself an "Internet evangelist."

Or maybe Google's cozy relationship with the White House -- exposed more clearly by e-mails recently made public through the Freedom of Information Act -- is just one more instance of the administration's actions contradicting Obama's reformer rhetoric about battling the special interests and freeing Washington from lobbyist influence.

Consumer Watchdog, a liberal nonprofit, used FOIA to obtain e-mails between White House Deputy Chief Technology Officer Andrew McLaughlin and his former colleagues at Google. McLaughlin was Google's head of global public policy and government affairs, up until he joined the White House.

Despite the job title, McLaughlin wasn't a registered lobbyist. Still, ethics rules created by an Obama executive order prohibit McLaughlin from "participat[ing] in any particular matter involving specific parties that is directly and substantially related to" Google. But the e-mails show McLaughlin has been involved with formulating policy that directly affects Google, regularly trading e-mails with Google's "evangelist," and lobbyist.

Read more by clicking the link to The Washington Examiner, June 25, article: