why does Obama have to give up his Blackberry?

[shireen]

I don't understand why the Secret Service is making him give it up. Is there a technical reason for it?

I can't live without my iPhone and laptop. If I don't have a connection to the internet, I feel lost.

[DJ13]

1. Cellphones can be traced even when off

[HCE SuiGeneris]

2. He gets one of these...

[nadinbrzezinski]

3. partly security, partly the presidential records

not that this stopped bush and company from destroying emails and all that you know

[margotb822]

4. The president's emails are part of the record

Remember how all of those Valerie Plame emails "disappeared?" Part of the question is how to keep his BB emails as part of the record.

[redstate_democrat]

5. Even private emails to family, etc?

That's a huge invasion of privacy. I wouldn't want anyone 50 years from now reading my emails to my family members.

[Posteritatis]

7. Mail's a sieve

Every electron going from that thing to, well, anywhere would probably get intercepted by somebody for one reason or another.

The guy's going to be in the spotlight enough as is without Fox News surrounding all his relatives' houses with packet sniffers looking for something to misinterpret.

[shireen]

8. wouldn't encryption protect personal emails? nt

[Posteritatis]

9. Even encryption's fallible

Couple that with the fact that everyone he emails would have to have the key to decrypt it (and know how to do that!) and access to it would probably become an open secret to an obsessed-enough reporter soon enough.

You'd also have the potential issue in that case of the president sending encrypted messages out of the White House, which would open up all sorts of cans.

[nadinbrzezinski]

10. Yes, his private life stopped the moment he won the election

it is part of the package

Not that email survives the way I don't know, diaries do

[whistler162]

11. The best recent example of why everything has to go through

and be retained by the White House and government is Gov. Sarah Palin and her multiple email accounts that may or mayn't have emails that may or mayn't be Alaskan government related.

More simply put. Send everything to government archives so the Republicans can't whine and kwetch!

[dysfunctional press]

13. i don't think that private/family emails would be part of the record.

nt

[MrModerate]

6. Being President really *is* different . . . n/t

[bridgit]

12. no more time to fiddle with it plus someone else will be performing those chores...

is my guess

[ConsAreLiars]

14. Both the US and Israel have the tech needed to use cellphone signals for targetted murders.

And do so as a matter of routine. The SS probably thinks that having a bulls eye target painted on Obama will make their job a bit harder.

[Blarch]

15. He doesn't need to get rid of it.

Bush doesn't believe in the Presidential records act...and neither does Obama, he will prove this when he doesn't prosecute Bush for violation such laws.