Obama winning battle to keep his BlackBerry

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After months of fighting to hang on to his coveted BlackBerry, it appears that President Obama will get to keep the e-mail device even though his use of it raises a host of concerns, many of them about his security.
With Obama texting away, the worry is that a determined hacker could use the device to pinpoint his location. A busy man, he will also have to cope with a problem that bedevils not just presidents but Everyman -- the ungodly amount of spam he can expect to receive should his e-mail address be widely disclosed.
"I think we're going to be able to beat this back," Obama said when asked during a recent CNN interview whether he'll be able to keep the device as president. "I think we're going to be able to hang onto one of these."
But Obama's fondness for BlackBerrys is not without security and legal risks. The president's model is believed to be the 8830 World Edition, which comes equipped with bells and whistles, including GPS and a media player. But the device also supports a technology that allows emergency responders to pinpoint the device. In theory, a hacker could do the same.
"While it is true that the Secret Service is likely more than capable of fending off these types of security breaches, it's easy to see that the organization charged with preserving the commander-in-chief's security at all costs would rather not have to deal with this exposure at all," said Carmi Levy, an analyst with AR Communications Inc. "Up until now, they've been able to disconnect the president as a means of limiting exposure, but it looks like that era is drawing -- fitfully -- to a close."
But perhaps the biggest concerns for those advising and protecting the president are the legal implications of Obama's BlackBerry obsession. By law, a record must be kept of all the president's e-mails, which may then become public. As a result, previous commanders-in-chief often have been selective Luddites.
In his eight years in office, Bill Clinton sent only two e-mails: One was to congratulate astronaut John Glenn, who was in orbit around the Earth at the time, the other was a test message. George W. Bush reluctantly gave up e-mailing, which he said he had used to keep in touch with his daughters and other family members.
Besides the possibility they may one day be made public, Obama's e-mails also leave the White House's control once they hit the virtual superhighway. While BlackBerry maker Research In Motion boasts about its end-to-end message encryption, no technology is hack-proof, and there's always a chance someone could intercept a sensitive e-mail. For all the positive advertising windfall RIM has experienced from the president-elect's tacit endorsement, an intercepted Obama e-mail could result in just the opposite.
A RIM spokeswoman did not respond to questions for this article.
In addition to major security and legal issues, Obama will also have to deal with intensified versions of everyone's e-mail annoyances. Even if he does use it only for personal messages, the president can expect a deluge of unsolicited messages should his e-mail address ever become public. It is unclear whether Obama will have staffers sift through incoming messages for him, or if he'll take the task on alone.
When Obama visits Canada shortly after his inauguration, however, he'll find little sympathy from his counterpart on the topic of thumb fatigue. The Prime Minister's Office confirmed yesterday that Stephen Harper -- for security reasons -- doesn't carry a BlackBerry.

(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
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