Obama: Weekly Address

Weekly Address from the President-Elect - November 22, 2008

I love that President-Elect Obama speaks to us through this new-fangled Intertubes and not that Marconi device.

He's so dreamy. And techno-hip.

Although he doesn't have to give up his Blackberry. What's that you say?

MSNBC and The New York Times/AP say President-Elect Obama is concerned he will not be able to use his Blackberry once he is President, due to the Presidential Records Act.

This isn't an issue.

I have over a quarter-century experience in Enterprise IT Messaging. (It's not as much fun as being a paramedic was, so I don't talk about it as much. *smiles*) Once President-Elect Obama is President, he can use a Blackberry to:

• Send and receive phone calls integrated with the White House PBX, with regulatory data captured for archiving purposes,
• Send and receive secure emails which are captured back in the White House data center and archived as required,
• Send and receive from his personal email address (if for example it's Gmail as mine is), personal emails which are NOT archived.

I'm one of the technical experts which Mother Jones magazine used to vet their series of stories about the Bush Administration email problems. I read ALL the depositions on the current White House messaging system setup for the Executive Office of the President.

Bottom line: The President-Elect does NOT have to give up his Blackberry. Anyone who tells him otherwise is incompetent. Any competent senior-level IT team could handle this routinely.

Obama has said he's going to appoint a CTO.

Who should the CTO be and what should be her priorities?

And what about today's Weekly Address, hmmm?

I'm off to breakfast. So feel free to talk about food and the weekend also.

Ah hell, just call this the SATURDAY OPEN THREAD.