President Obama May Be Able To Keep His Blackberry

Barack Obama Blackberry Obama told reporters more than a year ago that it was his favorite gadget..Do you think he should be able to keep it? Take our poll.

by CBS News

Published: Thu, January 22, 2009 - 1:50 pm CST Last Updated: Thu, January 22, 2009 - 2:22 pm CST

(CBS)
Forget the important task of opening up government. Never mind a recession that seems to be trying hard to be promoted to a full-scale depression. In geekish circles, the question of the week has been: Will President Obama manage to hang on to his BlackBerry?

Obama told us more than a year ago that it was his favorite gadget, and he was rarely without it during the 2008 campaign. In 2001, George Bush famously gave up e-mail, and there was plenty of speculation that Obama would too, either for privacy or open-government reasons. Last week, we suggested the Sectera Edge as a secure PDA-phone--it's rated for SECRET data and TOP SECRET voice--that might do the trick.

Now we're hearing from a report by CBS News chief political consultant Marc Ambinder on The Atlantic's Web site that Obama will be able to keep his BlackBerry after all. Apparently it's been outfitted with encrypted software secure enough for routine personal messages--meaning, if this report is true, there will be no Microsoft Windows Mobile in the president's immediate future.

We're still waiting, by the way, to hear back from the National Security Agency. They said they'd be happy to entertain questions from us, and it's been over a week. We're not holding our breath.

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DEW26M Says:

Thu, Jan 22, 2009 at 2:08 pm

HAHAHA, if he ever wants to be able to actually USE his phone, he’d better stay away from Windows Mobile! I have the HTC Touch PRO, and a HTC P4000, both of them have freezing issues. They kinda work when they want to. Sometimes i have to reboot the phone, and wait 3 mins for it to be able to be used.GOTTA LOVE WINDOWS !!!~!!!