Failure To Communicate

The NYT's Jeff Zeleny reports that President-elect Obama will likely be required to give up his well-worn Blackberry and email account when he takes office in January -- ending an era of frequent thumb-typed correspondence that was reportedly "generally crisp, properly spelled and free of symbols or emoticons." Zeleny explains:

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.

There is some debate over giving Obama "read-only" access to a Berry, though that may not be tenable either. But the President-elect does apparently plan to usher the Oval Office into the late-20th century by keeping a laptop on his desk there.

-- Evie Stone

12:14 PM ET | 11-17-2008 | permalink

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