BEING as how this blog is entitled "Democracy in America", one might expect it to be largely concerned with ignorance, paranoia, apathy, demagogy, and corporate lobbying. But in fact we only spend about half our time on that stuff. Today, however, we have a nice little example of all five wrapped up into one: Megan Kelly's attempt on FOX News to get Bill Burton, the president's deputy press secretary, to admit that a new White House website set up to counter disinformation about health-care reform is really a scheme to collect the personal data of Barack Obama's political enemies. And once Mr Obama has this personal data, he will... send them all personally-signed photos? Round them up and have them shaved and branded? Sell their email addresses to cut-rate Viagra retailers? Ms Kelly never makes it quite clear, but she is mighty worried that the whole thing will have a chilling effect on the right to email asinine conspiracy theories to millions of people you don't know.

There are, of course, countries that really do use the internet to exert a chilling effect on free speech. For example, Xu Zhiyong, a Chinese human-rights lawyer who was mounting a class-action suit on behalf of victims of melamine-laced milk, was arrested a week ago in Beijing and has not been heard from since. And over the past few days, someone (but who?) has eliminated Mr Xu's presence from the internet. His blog has vanished. Entering his name in Chinese search engines, like Baidu and Chinese Google, returns a message that the search has been disallowed because it may be connected to illegal activities. One might think that a bastion of freedom of speech like FOX News would be interested in such a story. But, funny thing, another search engine that doesn't return any news about Xu Zhiyong's arrest is the one on FOXNews.com. The site did carry a few AP stories about Mr Xu's melamine suit, but since his arrest, not a word.

Another way to come up with nothing is to go to the site's video section and search for "China dissident". Or "Murdoch China". "Murdoch" returns lots of video of Rupert Murdoch speaking his piece on various issues, and, what with his Chinese wife, his house in Beijing, and his immense investments in the Chinese market over the past 15 years, you'd think he would be interested in saying something about China. But no, not a word. Bill Dover, a former NewsCorp executive, would say Mr Murdoch pulls his punches on China because he's currying favour with the government. But who are we to judge?

Perhaps we should should suggest to the folks at FOX News that they do a story on Chinese dissidents. We could leave a comment on their website! But, oh dear, to leave a comment you have to register. Gosh, look at all the information you have to give them. Name, email, zip code, profession, income—all required fields. (Funny, if your last name contains a three-letter word meaning "tuchus", you're not allowed to enter it. Who'd they buy this software from, the Chinese government?) And then you have to check this box that says you've read their privacy policy. Shall we read it? Do let's! It says they can provide all your Personal Identifying Information to any other NewsCorp company or sell it to a third party, but they have to "obtain your permission" first. Well, that's what they're doing now, isn't it? And (also with your "permission") they can monitor your click behaviour in, say, online polls, and combine it with your identifying information. Could they sell that information to a third party interested in knowing your name, email, political views, how much you earn, and where you live? Gosh, it seems to suggest they could, but it's not terribly clear.

Wait—I know! Instead of laboriously harvesting health-care reform opponents' personal information from forwarded emails, the Obama administration can save lots of trouble and buy that information from FOX News! They seem to have it all on file already.