Blackberry 1, A "record" Player

font color="#000000">Here's< Michael Shear's article from today's Washington Post:

"Presidential press secretary Robert Gibbs said yesterday that only "a limited group of senior staffers and some personal friends" will be allowed to send e-mail to what might soon be known as BlackBerry 1."

"What kind of messages will Obama be getting from this exclusive group? Gibbs said it's likely to be a mix of personal and professional".

"I've gotten e-mails from him -- not recently, or not in a few days, I should say -- that go from anywhere from something that's very strictly business to 'Why did my football team perform so miserably?' on either any given Saturday or any given Sunday."

Surely, therefore, the Obama team should agree that Blackberry is now subject to the Presidential Records Act. Surely they haven't turned off the default in the White House email system that used to pop up "Record" (forcing both users in an email exchange to change to "Non-Record" every time if they are emailing about something other than business)? Or are they now permitting staffers to sign in with personal email accounts at WH computers? Otherwise, Presidential records might be lost, right?

Has White House Counsel Greg Craig issued a memorandum to White House Staff about the Presidential Records Act, as then-White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales did in 2001? If so, will the Obama team release it to the press in the name of transparency?

And whatever happened to the Democrats’ one-time insistence that government email be used only for public purposes?

On Wednesday, the talk was of transparency, removing the ability of Presidents to compel the National Archives to keep certain records of former Presidents and Vice Presidents private beyond a 12-year statutory limit and to take a slap at Dick Cheney because of the ongoing dispute about the disposition of his records. (A Federal judge broadly ruled in Cheney's favor on Monday.) In fact, however, there was less "there" there than it seemed at first -- can one really imagine the Archivist of the United States, the White House Counsel, and the Attorney General denying a former President's request to keep records sealed if the former President requests? And today, we start to see the loopholes -- big enough to throw a Blackberry through.

Otherwise, President Obama might someday ask, "Why did my legal team perform so miserably?"