Change He Can Believe: No More BlackBerry

High sensitivity makes presidential e-mailing unlikely
By Matt Cantor,  Newser Staff
Posted Nov 16, 2008 9:25 AM CST
Change He Can Believe: No More BlackBerry
Obama used his BlackBerry to keep up on the White Sox during the campaign.   (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

As president, Barack Obama will likely have to make the ultimate sacrifice: giving up his beloved BlackBerry. Obama and the device were literally attached at the hip during the campaign, and email was his main link to everything from political memos to White Sox updates, the New York Times reports. But security concerns and the fact that all presidential communications must be on the record may force him to surrender the BlackBerry.

The president-elect is pushing for the first laptop in the Oval Office, but as his team makes a final decision on the matter, the chances of Obama becoming “the first emailing president” look slim, the Times notes. “They could come up with some bulletproof way of protecting his email, but anything can be hacked,”says one expert.
(More President Obama stories.)

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