Interesting front page story in the NYT this Sunday morning about President-elect Obama likely having to surrender his Blackberry and email privileges for the duration of his term due to security concerns and public information laws. At first I was reading the piece, saying “Boneheads. Email good. Luddites in government, bad.” Then the security concerns were cited and I suddenly thought it is maybe not such a good idea to have the Commander In Chief on the RIM network sending emoticons to the National Security Advisor: “Dude. Chechnya! WTF? Call me! (Go Sox)”
Still, for an administration that is releasing weekly “fireside chats” on YouTube, that is seeking a National CTO, and which delivered on the promise of technology first opened up by Joe Trippi and the Howard Dean campaign, it seems utterly ass-hatted to take away email. But, unless a secure alternative can be developed, the president-to-be may be in the same boat the president-that-was found himself eight years ago when he sadly signed off of his AOL mail account and told his friends it was nice knowing them electronically.
Have you read about the Chinese hacking into the Whitehouse email?
I would think there would be similar problems using cell phones. There must already be some heavy-duty encryption scheme for voice over air. I would think one could modify this to use email/data. No?
FWIW, George Bush really never was into email, AOl or other. During the 2000 campaign, while I was at TechTV, we interviewed him.. I specifically asked him about email. He said that an aide carried a Dell computer around and did his email for him. His brother Jed was an avid emailer, and used to email Bush.. but Bush would only respond via a proxy.
Forget email, though. What does this mean for twitter?
They’ll have a staffer in the white house communications office updating Twitter no doubt. The big question – what type of message.
Will it be – “Idaho peeps, pls. call your senators in support of the foobar bill” or will it be “The prez just ate a cheese sandwich…”
Sorry, you can’t play “Hail to the Chief” to a person who uses a service with the word “twit” in it.
Remember the old Whitehouse email system, the one that did in Ol’ Ollie North? Can’t get more “professional” than a system called PROFS.
Ah … PROFS. A system designed to inflict torture upon corporate drones. My first email experience. Then onto Lotus Notes. I must have done something wrong is some other technological life to have those inflicted on me long term.
Hi Chuck,
The Obama fireside chats are a perfect way to fuse technology with a technique of the past that worked so well for FDR. It’s a great example of how technology can assit us rather than bog us down. Fireside Chats 2.0.