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Nov 18, 2008 10:49 pm US/Central
Good Question: Why Can't The President Use E-Mail?
(WCCO)
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President-elect Barack Obama holds his BlackBerry device in this July 7, 2008, photo.
Alex Brandon/AP/Getty Images
In a digital age, it's hard to imagine a chief executive of a large corporation being asked to never use e-mail. It's even harder to imagine the President of the United States without an e-mail account. But no President has ever used e-mail while in office. Why not?
The answer is part politics, part federal law, said Eric Ostermeier, a political scientist at the University of Minnesota's Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs, and author of the
Smart Politics Blog. "These are the White House servers, if he's using the computer provided for him. Therefore, they're the people's servers," explained Ostermeier. "These could eventually be made public."
As President, Barack "Obama is not precluded from using e-mail, he's not precluded from having his own personal e-mail. Although this would have to be done not on White House property, and it just gets a little convoluted," said Ostermeier.
Of course, any president knows that written communications and notes are subject to subpoena. However, e-mail is often a more casual form of communication and previous presidents have been afraid that contents of personal e-mails could be embarrassing.
Some have also raised concerns about the possibility of the presidential e-mail servers being hacked into.
"Is this a matter of security or is he shielding himself from investigations by Congress?" wondered Ostermeier.
The relevant federal law dates to the post-Watergate Jimmy Carter administration. Congress passed The Presidential Records Act of 1978.
"It essentially changed the legal ownership of presidential documents from private to public," said Ostermeier. "That doesn't mean necessarily you're going to get it."
There's still a process of determining which documents are matters of national security, but it does open up the e-mail to the possibility of public examination.
According to the New York Times, President George W. Bush had an AOL e-mail account prior to his inauguration. He sent a final e-mail to nearly 50 relatives and friends, writing, "Since I do not want my private conversations looked at by those out to embarrass, the only course of action is not to correspond in cyberspace. This saddens me. I have enjoyed conversing with each of you."
Ostermeier said that the rather old-school methods of presidential communication are at odds with the very modern methods utilized by then Sen. Obama's campaign.
"This is the first sobering news for those Obama-maniacs ... who are expecting a great deal of change with this president. This was their, during the campaign, their e-mail buddy, their texting buddy," he said.
"We do want to know who is visiting the president. And by that extension, we would probably want to know who is visiting him virtually, over e-mail," Ostermeier added.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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