What the hell has email got to do with IM?

IM != Email.

Someone’s a dumbass.

http://yourobamaupdate.blogspot.com/

Your ignorant, incoherent posts are insufferably stupid. You are a complete moron who NEVER makes sense even with your pathetic lies. You are a punk and the God of the Universe wants you to stop associating YOUR stupidity with his name. Please stop dropping your stinking piles here. Go back to the little kids table where morons like you belong.

fascism comes from The Right
that is the lie of The Left
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Can’t the president overrule his attorneys? Why yes, he can. They’re just being typical chickenshit government attorneys who say “no” to everything. Because, you know, Something Bad Might Happen.

Better than Bush’s Office of Legal Counsel doing the exact opposite.

Or maybe they want people to quit playing with their phones and get some work done.

The bulk of their job is communicating with each other.

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Wayne A. Schneider Says:

If the people who serve in any presidential administration would remember that they are there to serve the public, not themselves, and not the President, then they should not have to worry about what they say in their e-mails and other electronic communication.

I’m of two minds about this. On the one hand, given the kinds of activities that Presidents often try to hide, I think that having everything available to potential subpeona, FOIA request or historical disclosure is pretty important. On the other hand, we could use that logic to say that the White House should record all phone calls and have recorded video in every room. At what point do we draw the line between archivable document and just a conversation?

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tigger Says:

There is no technological reason IMs can’t be recorded for posterity. It’s ridiculous to think the technology can’t handle the legal requirements.

True, but they’d have to implement an archival system that’s up to public standards. The reason the White House is often so behind the technological curve is that for whatever it does, the underlying nuts and bolts of any system have to be deliberated and approved as well as the usage.

But given what we’ve come to know about Obama’s tech usage, I think he’s likely to make that a priority. He might need a bit of help from Congress (appropriations) to do it up right, but I think it’s long overdue.

January 18th, 2009 at 3:26 pm
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No, but it’s much easier to transfer files or collaborate on text of a document several people in different buildings are working on over IM than over a phone conversation. Sure, you can do the same thing via email or fax or carrier pigeon, but for convenience nothing beats instant messaging.

I can understand the concerns about using a COTS IM system such as Trillian or AIM in the White House – it’s a nightmare from a system security standpoint, since these tools go out looking for ports where they can reach the Internet.

The ideal solution would be to create a secured, .gov-only IM system that would allow staff to communicate within and between government offices, but not with the outside world.

Judging from the knowledge the attorneys seem to have, Obama should communicate in SMS / IM speak. The attorneys would need to hire translators.

Use cans with strings.

Carrier pigeons.

It’s the manipulation of communication that’s the problem.

This is likely a risk management decision, i.e. which communications might be the most unfavorable to the Obama team, should they get out.

Obama’s high standards should keep that to a minimum.

Nope. The Presidential Records Act exists for a reason. If anything it needs to be tightened to adjust to Shrub’s rampant abuses.

The Bush experience has made me far more cynical than I have been since Nixon.