Sort of… on the White House blog Macon Philips wrote:
It has come to our attention that some people may have been subscribed to our email lists without their knowledge –- likely as a result of efforts by outside groups of all political stripes -– and we regret any inconvenience caused by receiving an unexpected message. We’re certainly not interested in anyone receiving emails from the White House who don’t want them. That’s one reason why we have never — and will never — add names from a commercial or political list to the White House list.
At the bottom of every message is a link to unsubscribe from emails that anyone can use to avoid this in the future. We have also implemented measures on WhiteHouse.gov to boost the security of the mailing list and we will carefully evaluate signups already received to work toward preventing this problem in the future.
Sure, blame the organizations that support you! The fact that even happened shows a real lapse in their online outreach. I’m glad they are taking steps to increase their security (like perhaps an email confirmation sent when somebody subscribes?), however this still doesn’t quite explain the spam email I received to an email address that I do not publish (with the exception of my last blog post on this topic). I have never signed up for information to be sent to me via email from any organization that would be likely to do this.
I also think they need to list the organizations that did this, talk about an abuse of their email lists.