I’m seeing a lot of news stories suggesting that President-elect Barack Obama may not be able to use his trusted blackberry once he is officially sworn in, because of presidential transparency laws. Somehow, the current IT infrastructure of the Whitehouse doesn’t support Blackberry Enterprise Server and Exchange Server technology, and they seem to not have anyone competent enough to recognize that there is a way, somewhere, to make any email sent and received on the blackberry public.
This raises an interesting question as to why the Whitehouse is so far behind the rest of the world, with regard to technology, and the uses is can provide. I’m sure there are companies that have this same issue, where they require the email communications of the CEO to be public, backed up somewhere, and secure. Furthermore, I know there is technology available to securely wipe a smartphone, should the device itself get lost. In a country that is becoming increasingly dependent on technology, should the highest office in our national government be left to use a pen, paper, and a land-line telephone?
I would argue absolutely not. Barack Obama reportedly uses his blackberry for everything, including keeping in contact with his family on the road, as well as staying connected with various campaign staffers. This trend of using technology to it’s fullest tends to show a level of involvedness and caring that just simply can not be done without the speed and ease that technology provides.
Why does the desk in the oval office of not have a computer on it? Why does the President not carry a cellphone, properly secured of course, that would allow him contact wherever he is, without needing to have multiple land lines in every possible place the president will be?
You know what this means right? It means that there are 14 year olds that are more connected than our president is currently. Perhaps 14 is stretching it a bit, but I’m writing this on my iPod Touch. Granted, transparency and homeland security laws don’t apply to me, yet (although, if the PATRIOT act is any indication, they will soon), but the technology to account for these things is in place and being used by other organizations, there is no reason the Whitehouse can’t be also.
Should president-elect Obama be forced to give up his blackberry, all it will show is that Washington is not ready or willing to give up their traditional views as to how things to should be done. This issue could very well be indicative of how well Obama’s campaign of “Hope and Change” will be able to succeed, or not. Small things that Washington won’t be able to budge on may show a bigger resistance to change that Obama previously missed. Only time will tell
Tags: mobile, politics, progressive, tech
[...] Technology in the Whitehouse Somehow, the current IT infrastructure of the Whitehouse doesn’t support Blackberry Enterprise Server and Exchange Server technology, and they seem to not have anyone competent enough to reconizw that there is a way, somewhere, … [...]
Yeah – that whole no-e-mail thing seems pretty messed up. You’d think that the full resources of the U.S. government ought to be able to do better than sending the poor fellow into the IT stone age. It would be really wonderful if this could be an opportunity to improve the security of everyone’s IT infrastructure (e.g., we could all start using digital signatures and, when appropriate, encryption on e-mail) instead of just pushing Obama backwards.
Oh, and the 14 year old thing? Spot on. Our son is at the very end of 14 and has a cell phone, uses e-mail, Facebook, IM, etc., constantly. He will be far better connected than Obama will if these restrictions take force. I think that if anything 14 was too high; 10 years old was probably entirely reasonable.
[...] team was used to during the campaign/transition period is just unavailable. I hashed this out in an earlier post, but it still astounds me that our leaders are so far behind our [...]