I have been watching and listening with both amusement and horror about the tussle over President-Elect Obama’s Blackberry. Why is this an issue? None of the reasons I’ve heard or read about why he should give up his Blackberry trump the fact that his Blackberry is an integral part of who he is and how he works most effectively.
Honestly, this is like taking parchment and quill away from President Washington. If you take Obama’s Blackberry away, you start insulating him from his constituents. The insulation process seems to be what drives Presidents into an ivory tower where they may start to make stupid decisions. Grounded Presidents become ungrounded, and stupid, out-of-touch Presidents get worse (G.W. Bush anyone? Though not having a Blackberry wasn’t his excuse).
We live in the 21st century in a highly technologically based world. If there are problems about how to follow the laws about preserving a President’s records, solve them to work with the new technology. Do not ban the new technology because it is inconvenient for those who have to keep the records. What did they do in the early 20th century when the telephone came along? The White House and the President seem to have plenty of telephones around. They were completely integrated whether it was slow and painful or fast and seamless.
Mr. President-Elect, you are the commander-in-chief and have at your disposal the National Security Agency, the CIA, the FBI, and the entire military technology structure. If someone at those agencies can’t figure out how you can keep your Blackberry and make it seamless for you, FIRE THEM! I know several 15-year-olds who could solve this issue for you and have time to spare to play on their XBOX, Wii, or Playstation.
If the device itself is the problem, they need to provide you with another device that is more secure but functions the same way. Perhaps an iPhone would be more secure? Apple is hacked far less often than Windows-based machines.
What about encryption and authentication software to be sure your device isn’t hacked?
What about a larger hard drive in the device to store your records with sufficient encryption?
If it’s some other issue, we-the-taxpayers pay these people to solve problems, so make them solve it.
This is a ridiculous thing to even have to discuss. President-Elect Obama, you have enough on your plate. Don’t be convinced to give up your productivity devices when you need to get more done in less time than any President in America’s history. Whatever the problems are, dispatch those who work for you to solve them and quit saying the only solution is to not use the device. This is not the movie “War Games”. You can play and win here.
Photos from Flickr.
Barack Obama, Blackberry, iPhone, national security
January 11th, 2009 at 6:13 am
you are absolutely right about this! and i got a grin out of “like taking parchment and quill away from President Washington”.
the fact is, as you said, this is a problem easily solved by technology. i work in the IT field, and i happen to know that all messages transmitted to a blackberry on a private (i.e., not verizon’s BB network, for example) must pass through the corporate “BES” server first. where, if the sysadmins are doing their jobs, all the messages WILL be backed up, and can be stored on tape or whatever for all of eternity. just because the white house IT department is behind the times is no reason to try and confiscate our new president’s primary worktool. that’s insane!
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December 19th, 2009 at 3:35 am
exactly all the data must pass through BES server…
so data integrity is a first part… i guess president shud do sumthing