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[acroyear]

Obama's personal win: keeping the BlackBerry - Yahoo! News:

The first family settled into their new lives in the White House on Thursday as President Barack Obama won an important personal victory: He gets to keep his BlackBerry.

Obama will be the first sitting president to use e-mail, and he has been reluctant to part with his ever-present handheld device. Its use will be limited to keeping in touch with senior staff and personal friends, said White House spokesman Robert Gibbs.

"I've won the fight, but I don't think it's up and running," Obama said as he walked through the White House briefing room Thursday evening to meet reporters.

Comments

[kowari.livejournal.com]

Hang on... your president ISN'T ALLOWED EMAIL?

Ok, that explains a lot.

[acroyear70.livejournal.com]

two things.

1) no president has ever asked before.

2) security, security, security. email on a blackberry must, by its very nature, go through open (*extremely* open) channels. it is passing on the internet and it is passing through multiple phone and cable companies, and it is passing over the open airwaves.

yes, encryption can help to a degree, but at some point it won't be encrypted, depending on the secure layer.

The White House has always been nervous about email: they are the #1 cracker target in the world, getting more hits in "wrong places" than even the Pentagon.

[kowari.livejournal.com]

It isn't just that. It is more the "keeping up with the real world" aspect I was more thinking of. How can someone be informed in making decisions in a world that is extremely reliant on a service that they have no access to?

That is what I was exclaiming about.

[acroyear70.livejournal.com]

the kind of detail involved is simply too much for any one man. It is not the point of the President to know everything, just as it is not the point of a general to know everything or command everything.

I used "general" for a very specific reason: the entire example of our executive administration comes from the example of one man: George Washington. Article 2 says nothing specific about a cabinet: Washington invented the whole thing and modeled it from how he, as a General, maintained his command during the Revolutionary War. The President doesn't necessarily have to inform Congress or get their approval when he wants to change it (like the Homeland Security consolidation), but there are purse strings attached to some allocations and it is usually better that way.

I don't know if you've ever seen The West Wing, but it really is damn close to reality: the staff are the ones to "know everything", they consider the consequences, the alternatives, and present the choices to the President, who trusts them not to leave anything relevant out. Exactly as a General would expect of the Colonels and Majors and One-Stars below him.

They work out a course of action (or several) and the President chooses one (or a best of breed) and then ALL of the staff are from that point on committed to carrying out the selected choice, even if it wasn't theirs.

Just as with everything else about world politics and national news, the staff is more responsible for being "internet-savvy" than the President himself.

[kowari.livejournal.com]

The staff run the joint, I know that much. Government wouldn't work if it LITERALLY changed every time a new set of people were voted into the office. It would take the entire term just to learn the ropes, and that is inefficient.

So, I am not talking about that. I am talking about a leader not keeping up with the important times. Computers and more especially the internet has been around for long enough now that measures should have been put in place for the top people to have access to them. It is simply too important a thing going on in the world to be ignored.

I am mostly thinking of "old dog" syndrome here. I simply can't conscience a leader not wanting to be able to experience as much as he can about the place he is supposed to be in charge of.

I nearly had a cow when I heard Gee Dubbuyuh had not a valid passport and had not done much (if any) world travelling, and yet was to jump straight into international relations. *shudder* I consider that and this to be the same philosophically.

All I can say is GO OBAMA! Missiles into Pakistan... not so great, need to read more about why there, but all the rest of it is awesome.

[acroyear70.livejournal.com]

Uh, for the staff I'm talking about, ALL of them change. Every single one of them. The only one kept on at this level has been Gates at DoD, and that's only because the war(s) will be the longest transition of knowledge. One has to go about 4 levels down to get to the departments themselves that don't change hands every election.

Yes, it is inefficient, but it also keeps the unfriendly opposition from sabotaging the new mandates.

--

What does a computer on the 'net get you? Two things:
1) an extremely UNfiltered view of the news in a way that is simply too much to handle
2) a huge collection of sites that are all EXTREMELY filtered where it is impossible to tell the distortions and biases involved

THAT is why a President with a laptop is of little use - they, like many, will continue to filter to their biases and thus may (or will) not have "all the information".

A staff member with a laptop can collect from the department a report and hand that report to the President to read, with all the biases either filtered out or clearly explained (with alternatives from the perspective of the opposing bias).

Again, watch The West Wing, and watch what the President is doing throughout his day.

I had a boss that was at his laptop checking email through every single meeting he was in, such that whomever was in the meeting (particularly a conference) almost always felt secondary.

The Oval Office is like that with its meetings: for the duration of the meeting, the rest of the world has to just keep the hell out. That idea of a laptop on the desk is just too strong a temptation, too much a reminder that there's always something else, and that is a distraction to a meeting where one shouldn't be.

I admire the idea, in principle, of a 'net-savvy President. I just don't think it will ever work.

What happens when, just like executive office emails, the Presidents web-surfing logs get subpoenaed? What happens when it gets leaked out that the President visited penthouse.com in a fit of boredom?

A computer today contributes to the global information much as it takes. The computer, just by its very operation, logs information that SOMEONE will want to know strictly for the purpose of politically destroying that President. You simply can't keep it a secret, so better to just not have it.

[kowari.livejournal.com]

EVERYONE changes? Even the normal staff? That's insane!
--
Why should you keep it a secret? If someone is prioritising their work properly they wont have time for surfing, but keeping abreast the idea of it it is important.

If it is an issue for meetings, turn it off. These things have an off button, so many people are afraid to turn their mobiles off it really is quite incredible. A manager who spends his time writing emails when he should be paying attention to someone in front of them really has their priorities wrong. But then, I think that anyone who answers there PHONE while talking to someone in person is incredibly rude (unless the phone call is incredibly urgent based on the CLID, or expected).

Net savvy does not mean crazy internets.

But we have gone way past the point I was incredulous about - that the white house/president is stuck way back in the 70s (perhaps 80s) in terms of technology. And that this would directly impact the way they view and run a technologically savvy country where news and information is being spread in a way they have no access to understanding first hand. I think that is a mistake.

Or even, just simply, email as a tool being incredibly useful for disseminating information to a team of people within a physically secure network.

[acroyear70.livejournal.com]

EVERYONE about 3 levels deep, sometimes 4. Now, some of them may be kept on during the transition depending on the respect one side has for the other. Below that, the people are hired, not appointed, and can't be fired without cause.

This became a big "after the fact" issue regarding pre-9/11 intelligence. Some in Clinton's White House claim that the incoming Bush administration went out of anyone's normal way to exclude the outgoing Clintonites from all attempts to actually transfer knowledge completely. They [some Republicans, mostly connected with Cheney's office] even invented the idea that the Clinton people had damaged or destroyed much of the west wing's equipment in order to discredit them in any attempt to transfer knowledge. The Bush team had their agenda and nothing else mattered. General Clarke twice informed Mrs. Rice about Al Quaeda and threats they knew about, and they not only fell on deaf ears, she would later lie to Congress about even having those meetings. Yes, this was all collectively absolutely insane, and many have paid the price for this close-minded foolishness.

This current administration is being far more open.

----

"Why should you keep it a secret?"

Because 1) everyone his human, and 2) the Republican Party has decided that any Democratic President is inherently a violation of rule 1 and can never ever be forgiven for any transgression that they can in any way invent or distort.

In American politics, the rules are different. You can not give one hint that there might even be the slightest issue that might even hint of the great letter 's': SCANDAL, or the opposing party will simply use that as an excuse to halt EVERYTHING.

We don't have "no confidence" votes. Outside of impeachment, we're stuck with what we have until the next election finally changes things. The Republican party through the 1990s used every single excuse they could possibly come up with in order to maintain the impasse between the Legislation and Executive.

----

Yes, email is a tool, but it is not absolutely necessary that the President have it when the President has people right next to them that can alert him if his attention is needed.

"keeping abreast of the idea" is still something that can be done better by a staff member who specializes in it.

This is, to me, just like how someone can't be President without being able to write a speech, but a President rarely will ever write his own speeches.

[acroyear70.livejournal.com]

also, check out my recent post...

[blueeowyn.livejournal.com]

The President is allowed email, however, all email is public record. I read somewhere that GW Bush sent an email out right before his 1st inauguration saying that he wouldn't be sending any while President.