That does it. I don’t want to be President when I grow up any more.
Sorry, Mr. President. Please surrender your BlackBerry.
Those are seven words President-elect Barack Obama is dreading but expecting to hear, friends and advisers say, when he takes office in 65 days.
For years, like legions of other on-the-move professionals, Obama has been all but addicted to his BlackBerry.
But before he arrives at the White House, he will probably be forced to sign off. In addition to concerns about keeping e-mail secure, he faces the Presidential Records Act, which puts his correspondence in the official record and ultimately up for public review, and the threat of subpoenas. A final decision has not been made on whether he could go against precedent to become the first e-mailing president, but aides said that seemed doubtful.
Boy, do I feel his pain. There are solutions for encrypting email on a BlackBerry, over and above the normal encryption of BlackBerry-transmitted emails, but I suppose a higher level of paranoia than even that would be called for here. As for the public records stuff, it’s not the BlackBerry per se that’s the issue here, it’s the personal email correspondence, which falls into a grey area and is subject to abuse by the unscrupulous, that’s in question. Better to be above suspicion and do things the prescribed way, even if that means unhooking from the grid. Being President may be a great gig, but that’s a high price to pay if you ask me.
The use of personal e-mails for public business isn’t all that gray an area. At least in Texas it isn’t. See, Public Information Act Handbook, p. 17 (2008), available at http://www.oag.state.tx.us/open/publications_og.shtml.
Obama is in charge here and can decide to keep it if he chooses. Any of his aides who don’t like it are free to leave.