Obama refuses to surrender Blackberry

[RobJohnson]

Despite legal and security hurdles, president-elect Barack Obama says he has a plan to retain his beloved Blackberry once he moves into the White House next week.
Interviewed by CNN Friday, Obama said the smartphone was among the tools that he would use to stay in touch with real Americans and avoid becoming trapped inside the presidential "bubble."

"I think we're going to be able to hang on to one of these. My working assumption, and this is not new, is that anything I write on an email could end up being on CNN," he said.

"So I make sure to think before I press 'send'," he said of his Blackberry, which was an ever-present fixture on his belt or in his hand on the campaign trail.

Obama did not divulge just how he will overcome legal constraints, given the requirement of the post-Watergate Presidential Records Act of 1978 to keep a record of every White House communication.

Nor did he say how he would persuade his Secret Service protectors that the Blackberry does not pose a security risk, for instance if it is hacked over the air.

But Obama, who succeeds the unpopular George W. Bush on Tuesday, said the phone was a valuable part of a wider strategy to escape the White House fishbowl.

"It's just one tool among a number of tools that I'm trying to use, to break out of the bubble, to make sure that people can still reach me," he said.

"If I'm doing something stupid, somebody in Chicago can send me an email and say, 'What are you doing?'

Blackberry to break the rules?

[formerlurker]

Uh..... what?

[NHSparky]

C'mon, FL--haven't you heard?  Rules don't apply to "Teh Wun."

[docstew]

"If I'm doing something stupid, somebody in Chicago can send me an email and say, 'What are you doing?'

Like who, Bill Ayers?  Jeremiah Wright?  Just another example of The Rookie needing all the help he can get, and showing it...

Seriously, wouldn't it be great to get that email and flood his phone everytime he did do something stupid?  The phone wouldn't last a week before it just quit from the overload.  Then again, wouldn't it be easy for a hacker to send a virus that would send out all communication through that thing, including, I'm sure, classified info.  I have no doubt that The Rookie would not respect the classification rules, and I fear troops will die as a result...

[Chris_]

He really doesn't understand....he probably won't touch a keyboard for the next 4 years.   

[Eupher]

If this little piece of information doesn't clearly show the extent and breadth of Obama's utter selfishness and total inability to understand the office to which he fought so long and hard for ( ), then nothing does.

He's going to make his own rules as he goes along and he'll spend more of the taxpayer's time playing with that damned thing then he will making weighty decisions. 

Gawdalmighty -

"If I'm doing something stupid, somebody in Chicago can send me an email and say, 'What are you doing?'

As if somebody in Dubuque, IA, won't know that he's done something stupid?

Asshat.

[bijou]

"If I'm doing something stupid, somebody in Chicago can send me an email and say, 'What are you doing?'

Hey O, what are you playing at with your policy on housing. I paid good money for ... oh... nvm, yours Tony R. 

[DixieBelle]

Two things here:

1. When Sara Palin's yahoo account was hacked, the libtards came UNGLUED over the mere thought that she may have conducted official govt business via a private email account. Nevermind the illegal hacking part.

2. Please do this Obama! You're just begging to be hacked and/or forced to hand over records.

[Wineslob]

Should be interesting.
BarakObamas are incredibly easy to hack.

fixed!!!

[thundley4]

Should be interesting.
Blackberries are incredibly easy to hack.

OTOH, that is why The One wants to keep his. When sensitive items are "leaked", he can claim his Blackberry was hacked.  Hey Obama, hitting send isn't the same as getting hacked.

[Chris_]

Remember what I was saying about The One being a street thug at heart, and completely unfamiliar with the "tools of state" as we've traditionally known them?  Remember when I said that all it would take is Congress opposing him once, and there would be a quiet phone call made to some "Community Organizer" friends of his in the districts of the the Congress-shits leading the opposition, and those community organizers would, umm, "organize the community" to protest these congress critters and their evil opposition to The One?

What you're looking at here ladies and gents is a comm line that The One can shield the records of from Congressional supoena indefinitely, and doesn't leave any incriminating paper trails through the White House switchboard.  You're looking at the whip that will build The One's thousand year Reich.

[jinxmchue]

Obama said the smartphone was among the tools that he would use to stay in touch with real Americans and avoid becoming trapped inside the presidential "bubble."

*cough*bullshit*cough*

[Jim]

1.  cel phones make nice tracking beacons to light a target
2.  his whereabouts are certainly cel scrambled for this reason

sure, keep it.  but it won't work.

grow up Junior...




he's just going to have to get his handlers a secure set in Chicago where every word will be recorded "for the record".

ruh roh.....

[TheSarge]

If The Rookie wants his CrackBerry he'll get one of these.  It's standard DoD issue through the White House Communications Agency and powered by Verizon..  It has every security protocol known to man on it...no camera....3G wireless and I feel sure that if he wanted to...he could give out his WH e-mail addy to a few selected people with approval of the Secret Service and WACA.


Otherwise...unless he just wants to publicly and rudely thumb his nose at the rules...he's gonna have to hand over the civilian CrackBerry to the Secret Service...who will had it back to him on the way out the door four years from now.

[Chris_]

He just wants to sit at the in the Oval Office with his big, stinky feet on the desk and play Solitaire.    

[Tess]

He just wants to sit at the in the Oval Office with his big, stinky feet on the desk and play Solitaire.    

[Redstatecka]

Obama said the smartphone was among the tools that he would use to stay in touch with real Americans and avoid becoming trapped inside the presidential "bubble." . . .

"It's just one tool among a number of tools that I'm trying to use, to break out of the bubble, to make sure that people can still reach me," he said.Blackberry to break the rules?

With which "real Americans" will he communicate? Will he have time? Shouldn't he speak with his cabinet and advisers and, without any precconditions, tyrants and terrorists?

This guy is so transparently full of you-know-what, it's really embarrassing to see him make such a horse's patoot out of himself.

But, then, when you a megalomaniac and POTUS combined, I guess it really doesn't matter. Right?

Rules, laws, policies? "We don't need no stinking  . . .," said Obama.

You wonder if the wunderkind ever stopped to think about how his BlackBerry might be used against him, his family, the U.S.?

I know: Too much to ask for. Above his pay grade, too.

[Airwolf]

Two words. Echelon and Carnivore. They can be used to make sure that Barry Big Ears isn't talking out of school.  He may be President but he must have forgot that even Nixon couldn't keep all of his secrets safe.