If he carries this, he will be wearing a combination transceiver/microphone. All the time. You and I really don’t have much to worry about in regards to a foreign power hacking our phones and turning them into bugs. He does. RIM isn’t even an American company — they are Canadian. (You know, the same company that he is going to “re-negotiate” NAFTA with? Which he will presumably discuss with his staff wearing a device programmed out of Canada.) He will also be wearing a device that allows radio triangulation. I have to question whether or not he is going to go for convenience over the advice of his Intel/Military advisers on more significant issues (and this one is pretty damned significant.)

His #1 job is Commander-in-Chief. He is already, with this decision, slacking on that commitment. He would rather be governor-in-chief, and that isn’t good enough. I can think of another president who chose convenience and appearance over security. He got shot in the head in Dallas, and I don’t want to see that repeated by another adolescent thinking president.

Well, Christ, why didn’t somebody just SAY that?!

There have been so many unspoken assumptions by so many people here, such as …

… “using his Blackberry” equals “using his private e-mail address”

… communication with Obama will now be possible by people who otherwise would have been unable to communicate with him

… this communication will keep him connected “outside the bubble” in some groundbreaking way

… the writer of the linked AFP piece specifically asked Obama how he would address record-keeping concerns, and Obama specifically refused to provide that information

… because “record-keeping” is mentioned in an AFP piece, Obama has plans to comply with record-keeping requirements, unlike Bush

Like I say, kind of weird.

Once again, I’m not sure why anybody is interpreting ANYTHING about Obama’s perspective or plans regarding record-keeping, based on this story. The story doesn’t say, “Obama said he would not divulge.” It doesn’t even say, “Obama would not divulge.” The story simply notes that “Obama did not divulge,” and nothing more.

The piece doesn’t indicate if the record-keeping aspect was even broached with Obama. All we know from the piece is that the WRITER has thought about it. He’s simply informing readers that there is a record-keeping law. He doesn’t say “Obama dodged questions about it” or “Obama refused to divulge.” He’s simply saying “I don’t know what Obama’s plans are. That information has not been communicated to me.”

This entire thread has been oddly fascinating to me. Not sure exactly why. The topic isn’t even that important. There are just so many thing askew, in terms of people’s basic interpretations, assumptions and conclusions. It’s just kind of weird.

I don’t know for sure, but my guess was that it’s not the device, but the network. If Obama gets his email directly via his preexisting email account, then he’ll bypass whatever auditing and archiving is done for president@whitehouse.gov.

I’m just continually bemused by people’s response to this sort of thing. When someone you don’t like breaks rules, they think they are above it all. When it’s someone you like, they are cutting through red tape and escaping the fish bowl. When it’s someone you don’t like, the Constitution is a holy relic that all decent people believe in. When it’s someone you do like, it’s just a bunch of formalities, and they need to be reinterpreted with the changing times.

As for Geitner, I’m not particularly fond of him, but mostly because he supports the bailout. I haven’t read enough about the tax story to have an opinion, but as a libertarian, I’m not particularly eager to disqualify someone for public office because they neglected to pay some taxes. That’s damn-near a plus in my book.

That would be fine if Geitner didn’t want anybody else to pay taxes, either. But his job will now entail sending Americans to jail for doing what he did. So no, I’m not a fan.

(Geitner “forgot” to play $40,000 or so in taxes. He “remembered” to pay some of them the day Obama picked him. He also remembered to cash the reimbursement checks that the IMF was cutting him to cover the taxes he never paid.)

This is incredibly troubling:

Obama did not divulge just how he will overcome legal constraints, given the requirement of the post-Watergate Presidential Records Act of 1978 to keep a record of every White House communication.

Radley says “Nowhere in the article does it say that Obama won’t be saving copies of his Blackberry correspondence.”

Um, it also never says that he will. “Overcoming legal constraints” doesn’t sound a whole lot like “Fully complying with both the letter and the spirit of open records requirements.”

To me, and to our host when he’s talking about politicians other than Obama, that sounds an awful lot like “we found a loophole.”

What makes reading digital messages on a Blackberry different from reading digital messages on a desktop computer, or from a laptop, or from a printout provided by an aide? How is the Blackberry any more accessible to “outside people”? How is the data received by it immune to record-keeping?

Mostly, what I don’t understand is the fundamental argument in this thread: that a Blackberry is a conduit to “outside the bubble.” How? Are Blackberry addresses public? Are they more widely known than the White House’s snail-mail address, e-mail addy or public phone line?

I guess I just don’t grasp how a Blackberry is anything but a tool for the same communication one would already have been conducting by some other means.

I remember you criticizing Palin for using a private yahoo account.

Double standard?

Also, I am curious to know who these “outside people” are who will be contacting the President. With 300 million people in the country, he certainly won’t be hearing from the people at large without some significant filtering.

The Honorables

Catch Inaugural Fever

http://www.izerc.com/?p=284

Even if one accepts that Obama will save all correspondence in 100% compliance with all statutory and regulatory requirements, I’m not quite clear why his use of a Blackberry will magically cause him to receive input from anyone he would not do so otherwise. Exactly where is the upside in his use of the Blackberry.

The only conceivable upsides I could see would be if:
The people who operate the Blackberry network are more honest and loyal to Constitutional government than those who handle the White House network. If true, that would be scary–using a Blackberry would hardly be the proper remedy.
Obama wishes to correspond with people whom he would be unable to do so via the White House network, for either regulatory or technical reasons. I can’t think of any reason Obama would be unable to use the White House network to correspond with people he should be corresponding with.

Yes, I know it might be a nuisance to have to adapt to new communications gear while serving as President, but the presidency is a job with enormous responsibility which will pose many larger inconveniences; a refusal to accept even the smaller inconveniences would to me imply an unsuitability for office.

Do you have a cite for this or did you just make it up out of thin air in order to dis a president you hate?

I am genuinely curious because, first, it sounds like typical BDS bullshit to me, and second, I did an internet search – including Snopes and “The Smoking Gun” – and I could find nothing even close.

But, I’ll be happy to be proven wrong.

I have to admit I’m a bit perplexed, on several fronts.

Why is this a big deal, exactly? OK, so he’ll read his messages on a device called a “Blackberry” rather than on a device called a “personal computer.” How does this make someone any more or less accessible to the outside world?

Additionally: Why would copies of the correspondence be some tricky issue? They’re e-mails. E-mails don’t just vanish after they’re received. How is this some issue that has to be “overcome,” as the article puts it?

Speaking of which: At least three of you are congratulating Obama for something the article doesn’t attribute to him. To wit…

Bernard: “his awareness that there are legal obligations on record keeping is a giant improvement”

Travis: “First off, it means that he recognizes that all his communication is on record, unlike Bush”

Balko: “It says they were trying to figure out how to let him keep the Blackberry while still complying with federal record-keeping requirements.”

While Obama may indeed have “awareness,” “recognize” and be “trying to figure out,” we don’t know that from this article. All we know from the article is that its author is aware of record-keeping requirements. It doesn’t say anything about Obama knowing anything.

Finally: Aspasia wrote, “Some people will swallow any swill (pun completely intended)…” What’s the pun?