This story is pretty much being reported everywhere, but, in case you haven’t heard, Preseident Elect Barack Obama may have to give up his BlackBerry once sworn in.
The president’s e-mail can be subpoenaed by Congress and courts and may be subject to public records laws, so if a president doesn’t want his e-mail public, he shouldn’t e-mail, experts said. And there may be security issues about carrying around trackable cellphones.
Having email subpoenaed is not such a big deal for me. Everyone who works anywhere and has email is probably subject to this in some form or fashion. I am guessing, however, that the secret service isn’t to big on the idea of the president walking around with a big low jack on his hip.
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I sort of thought this was ridiculous until you said ‘lowjack’ – that makes tons of sense.
It is actually a really interesting story, he seems like the kind of guy that likes to be ‘in the loop’ all the time, so I can’t see himself cutting off the flow of info., it just isn’t practical. There has to be a solution to this.
I think it’s complete bullshit.
He’s going to have to get rid of his BlackBerry so he can talk to some Secret Service agent, who in turn talks to some other security guy, who passes this information to some dumb fucker who then e-mails it to someone in the White House on his BlackBerry.
When the dumb shit down the line gets nabbed, it’s all over. Talk about homeland security. 🙂
I tend to agree with Robb; I think the issue is more of having a wireless device that is even theoretically trackable on the POTUS.
As an aside, isn’t it nice that we’re going to have a President who actually knows how to use technology… who actually is intelligent as well as intellectually curious…
He should totally have to give it up. Unless they put him on his own sat link network, he is not safe from cloning or tracking. Not to mention him losing it??? Tell him to stick to Gmail web
Has a Blackberry ever been hacked? not the device, the transmission. I am pretty sure it is the most secure form of transmitting isn’t it?
Darn! That’s completely insane. He should be the first man on earth that needs mobile phone and Andrew is right, its not the cellphone but the network/transmission that has to be secured.