Barack's BlackBerry bunfight
01 Dec 2008
Being one of the most powerful and important people on the planet has to have its downsides. The loss of personal privacy, the pressure of a 24/7 job and the weight of expectation on your shoulders are, however, nothing compared to Barack Obama’s first issue in power – what to do about his BlackBerry.
Obama has long been an advocate of mobile email (he was even caught on YouTube checking emails while on a family outing), and was rarely parted from his beloved device during the election campaign. That, however, is all due to change.
One of the reason cited for the BlackBerry purge is that Mr Obama’s security could be compromised by hackers accessing his files and documents on his phone. However, this isn’t the only reason. BlackBerrys do have a very sophisticated security system, meaning that the risk is rather more hypothetical than compelling. The real reason lies in a presidential law that was introduced in the 1970s.
Essentially every communication from the President while in office is public property. This means that discussing sensitive issues over email is just not a possibility. Presidents Clinton and Bush both logged off from the internet when they took power, and it seems that Mr Obama may well be forced to follow. But in this day and age, is this wise?
Barack Obama is the first president to really harness the power of mobile media. Asking him to do away with something so important is crazy. We asked in the office to see if someone would volunteer to go a week without a BlackBerry, but could find no one willing to undertake the challenge. “It’d take me twice as long to do my work,” one respondent in the sales team told me, “I’d probably end up losing a deal.”
And while Mr Obama isn’t sweating on his commission, it’s raises an interesting question. Has remote working, and remote access, now become an absolute essential for business? That this story has made the headlines of papers of record across the globe suggests that this is the case. It also means that ensuring your workforce uses the technology to its utmost is absolutely vital. After all, it did work for Barack Obama . . .
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