Obama May Have To Quit Blackberry Habit

Since A President's E-Mail Can Be Subpoenaed, Many Suggest He Will Give It Up

(AP)  Before he ran for president Barack Obama quit smoking. Now that he's won the job, he may have to break another addiction: Checking his BlackBerry for e-mail.

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 cell phones.

Obama transition officials haven't made a decision on what the new president will or will not carry, but those who have been there say it's unlikely he'll carry his BlackBerry and he may be in for some withdrawal pains.

"Definitely he's going to feel an electronic detoxing," said Reed Dickens, former assistant press secretary to President Bush. Dickens jokes that he personally is so addicted to his BlackBerry that he checks his device before opening his right eye.

President-elect Obama has often been seen avidly checking his e-mail on his handheld equipment. This past summer, news cameras recorded him checking his BlackBerry while watching his daughter's soccer game, only to have Michelle Obama slap at his hands, prompting him to return the device to its holster.

Actress Scarlett Johansson said she has had frequent e-mail exchanges with him during his campaign travels, something the Obama campaign downplayed.

"This is a decision President-elect Obama will have to face," said former Bush press secretary Scott McClellan, who added that Mr. Obama's legal advisers will probably recommend against an e-mailing president.

"While he has pledged an open and transparent government, I doubt the president-elect is interested in subjecting his own personal communications to that standard," McClellan wrote in an e-mail interview. He added, "He will have to think very hard about whether he wants to make his own words that subject to open records by having his own e-mail and his own BlackBerry."

There is presidential precedent for an e-mail blackout. Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton didn't e-mail while in office.

"It's all discoverable; it creates a trail that might end up in congressional investigators' hands," said Clinton press secretary Mike McCurry. If you want to delete White House e-mail, you get a stern warning about archiving presidential records, he said.

A few days before Mr. Bush took office in 2001, he sent an e-mail to a few dozen close friends saying he would no longer use e-mail: "Since I do not want my private conversations looked at by those out to embarrass, the only course of action is not to correspond in cyberspace. This saddens me."

Mr. Bush was unhappy about losing his e-mail and mostly used the phone to talk to friends, McClellan wrote, adding, "I am sure the president looks forward to being able to communicate with them via e-mail again come January 20, 2009."

The Bush White House has been battling courts about lapses in e-mail archives at the White House.

Before 2001, Mr. Bush was an active e-mailer, but that was before the now ubiquitous BlackBerry with e-mail and text message functions was released in 2002. Users who constantly check their devices often call themselves crackberry addicts. A Canadian government agency asked its workers to live by a "BlackBerry blackout" on nights and weekends "in order to achieve work/life quality here."

"I think Obama is the first president who is addicted to the BlackBerry like the rest of us, and there's a lot of presidential records and archive rules on what gets stored and what doesn't," said former Clinton press secretary Joe Lockhart.

Quitting BlackBerry use is not something some political types - such as McClellan - or tech-geeks like thinking about.

Benjamin Nugent, author of the book "American Nerd," said the president-elect is a techie and has nerd qualities. So cutting off the BlackBerry could be painful: "It'll be interesting if we could see the torment on his face. For me it would be hell."

But it actually could be good for the president-elect, said psychology professor Lawrence Welkowitz of Keene State University in New Hampshire.

"It might be a completely freeing thing for him, so that he can free himself to think and act," said Welkowitz, who doesn't carry a BlackBerry.

But even if Mr. Obama isn't packing a BlackBerry or cell phone, he'll have plenty of aides within arm's reach who do, experts said. Often a president uses the equipment of personal assistants.

And there is the chance that Mr. Obama may buck the past and keep his BlackBerry tethered to his belt.

"He's the president," McCurry said. "If he wants to carry the BlackBerry, he's entitled."

[abbe91]

barrack got tons of undesirable habits, blackberry should be the least of his concern....
Posted by USA-No1 at 11:22 PM : Nov 17, 2008

I guess they are concerned by the fact that WH e-mails might "disappear" ... LOL.

[JamesB621]

Is someone sore about the election results (deathofamerica, I''m looking in your direction). Why can''t you just get over it and try to work with the hand that we''ve been dealt instead of trying to buck a system that incidentally was for the most part created by you neocon types. If you''re looking for someone with which to commiserate call in to Fox News, or Rush Limburger, or perhaps G. Gordon Liddy?

[mtminds]

deathofUSA - We sure wouldn''t want to loose any of the transparency of government that the Bush administration is so famous for........

[susanhelit]

Sad to say, with some of the idiots around here, his conversations, however innocent, would be taken out of context, warped around, and waste everyone''s time. It does seem odd though, that written and verbal communications are treated so differently - if blackberry is recorded, why not phone calls? They''re the same thing, just a different medium.

[antoniof123]

"It''s all discoverable; it creates a trail that might end up in congressional investigators'' hands," said Clinton press secretary Mike McCurry. If you want to delete White House e-mail, you get a stern warning about archiving presidential records, he said.

Yes, and we can thank the GOP for this garbage they just had to look into the bedroom. Oh wait now it is the Democrats turn and with all those new powers you neo cons gave this administration. Getting a little nervous yet.

[deathofusa]

"While he has pledged an open and transparent government,...."


Yeah, its more like he wants everyone else to be transparent. Not him. He''s untouchable, unquestionable. Heaven forbid you even ask him a question about his plans for redistribution. Sheesh. That kind of question can now get you killed.

[erasmus81]

I think he''s going to have to lose the BlackBerry.
Too many people like "deathofUSA" who will jump at the chance to MISCONSTRUE everything he says.

[deathofusa]

"While he has pledged an open and transparent government,...."


Ha ha ha. Lol. Yeah, right.