The Blackberry Presidency?

Today, James Joyner takes a look at how Barack Obama may soon have to give up his Blackberry, a difficult task for an avowed technophile. The chief problem here is the Presidential Records Act.

In addition to concerns about e-mail security, he faces the Presidential Records Act, which puts his correspondence in the official record and ultimately up for public review, and the threat of subpoenas. A decision has not been made on whether he could become the first e-mailing president, but aides said that seemed doubtful.

For all the perquisites and power afforded the president, the chief executive of the United States is essentially deprived by law and by culture of some of the very tools that other chief executives depend on to survive and to thrive.

Joyner believes it’s time for some more Hope and Change, at least in terms of that legislation.

It’s likely time to modify the law. Even presidents ought to be able to have privacy on what are truly private matters. Surely, presidential emails can be shielded from public scrutiny for some period of time — as are their papers — and we could establish some sort of process whereby they could designate private correspondence exempt from release and a neutral party could verify.

These are serious questions, but there’s also an element of snark to the story which is too juicy to ignore. First of all, if you’re going to allow the President to use an e-mail account but you have to keep track of his correspondence, then we’ll have to track and record all of the e-mail he receives, won’t we? Will future presidential historians decry Obama’s administration because of all of the suspicious contacts he had with mysterious Nigerian princes who were trying to smuggle vast amounts of currency into the United States to Obama’s great profit? Was our first Commander in Chief worried about the size of his, errr, manliness? If not, why was he in contact with so many people offering “enlargement” techniques? And why were so many people negotiating with President Obama for subscriptions to online pornographic services? Was he some sort of closet pervert?

On a more serious note, the easy, flexible and all too tenuous nature of electronic communications seem to be both a blessing and a curse in terms of White House communications. We rightly demand a level of accountability, traceability and historical recording from our presidents which no other citizen in their right mind would tolerate. Particularly given the secrecy surrounding the current administration (most notably in the Vice President’s office) Obama would do well to make sure that he’s an open book for the nation. But, as Joyner notes, taking away the very tools that allow people to be effective communicators in the modern era seems to needlessly cripple him.

Will we ever be able to trace, track, store and verify e-mail, text messages and downloads with the level of confidence we have in dead tree letters penned by past leaders? How much privacy should the president be allowed in communicating with family or friends, and what assurance do we have that such protected channels won’t be abused by our leaders for shady purposes? New technology brings new opportunities, but also new challenges. It will be interesting to see how these needs are balanced and if Obama actually has the first Blackberry presidency.