Special Thx
The President and his Crackberry
BBC NEWS | Americas | US Elections 2008 | Obama allowed to keep BlackBerry
President of the United States and he is worried about being “connected” to people who can text/email/whatever when he does something stupid? Really?
“If I’m doing something stupid, somebody in Chicago can send me an e-mail and say, ‘What are you doing?’”
Because Chicago is the authority these days…Do we really need the President of the United States addicted to his crackberry?
Under the post-Watergate Presidential Records Act, most correspondence from the White House apart from that classed as “strictly personal” is recorded in the national archives.
So what is stopping President Obama from conducting non “strictly personal” correspondence with his crackberry? Not that he would stoop to such communication, but what is stopping it? What about the GPS feature? Isn’t that a security risk as well?
Curious of the safeguards in place, I looked for more information on this issue. UK news, NZ news and gizmodo are the only places I can easily find mention, but I soon stumbled across a story on MSNBC: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28780205/. They are THE news source for all things Obama and it was actually a thorough write-up that explains some of the safety measures in place, but it still seems like a security risk. The GPS chip will have to be removed, but what about triangulating the cell signal? Wasn’t his cell service compromised pre-election? It was not clear about the Presidential Records Act requirements.
I can’t imagine giving up my phone, laptop, and email…but it seems that national security should/would take precedent over my gadget addiction. Here’s hoping for good encryption, unbreakable code, and safe cell surfing.
Media information
Periodically I spend a small amount of time on the influence of media on historical events, and media controversy through time. We compare Civil War media controversy to that of others wars and look at the impact of freedom of information and the expansion of media into war zones. (I guess I spend more time on it than I thought.) I am interested in the impact of journalistic freedom on history and in the future. (I already know I am a little geeky so no need to mention it in the comments. However, I read your blogs and you people aren’t geek free.)
Catalyst for this post? I checked my flock feeds before turning in and this headline caught my eye:
NYPD Eyes Disrupting Cell Phones in Event of Terrorist Attack
The New York Police Department is training for new threats in the wake of the Mumbai terror attacks, Commissioner Raymond Kelly is set to tell a Senate committee Thursday.
The New York Police Department is looking for ways to disrupt cell phone calls and other forms of electronic communication among terrorists in the event of another terror attack in New York, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly says.
The need to disrupt communications is one of several conclusions that the NYPD has drawn from studying the November attack in Mumbai, India, a three-day rampage by machine gun and grenade-wielding Islamic militants in which at least 165 people were killed and 304 were wounded.
Really? Why don’t we just ask the terrorist about the best way to hinder their next attack? Why do we report on things that we are looking at for keeping our nation safe? This is rather minor maybe, but it just does not make sense to me. Journalistic freedom is one thing, but are we going to get to a point where journalists can report EVERYTHING? Are we already there?
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