Presidents & Technology

Historically, Presidents have always embraced the technology of the day, during their terms in office.

The fireside chats were a series of thirty evening radio speeches given by United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt between 1933 and 1944. Using the radio as a means of communication was cutting edge technology, back in the day.

The Great Debates had a significant impact beyond the election of 1960, as well. The first televised debates, changed presidential primaries forever. They served as precedent around the world: Soon after the debates, Germany, Sweden, Finland, Italy, and Japan established debates between contenders to national office. Moreover, the Great Debates created a precedent in American presidential politics. Federal laws requiring that all candidates receive equal air-time stymied debates for the next three elections, as did Nixon’s refusal to debate in 1968 and 1972. Yet by 1976, the law and the candidates had both changed, and ever since, presidential debates, in one form or another, have been a fixture of U.S. presidential politics.~ Museum of Broadcast communications.

The reel to reel tape recording technology was a part of the demise of the Nixon administration, when the phone conversations taped about the Watergate scandal produced the damning evidence that cause Nixon to resign, rather than be impeached.
Although Nixon publicly announced “I am not a crook”, the tapes told another story.

The Presidency and government offices have adopted technology too. The White House has it’s own web site, and each Government official has e mail addresses. Prior to that it was fax machines that were cutting edge technology.

Which takes us to the 21st Century….

President Barack Obama is fully immersed in available technology. He sent out a text message with the announcement of the Vice President. His campaign sent e mails with updates, and launched the first ever internet set up for donations, and revolutionalized campaign funding, refusing large donations from lobbiests, instead taking many small donations for individuals. As a father of two young children, and busy community organizer, Obama’s Blackberry is a lifeline.

The NY Times reports:

But before he arrives at the White House, he will probably be forced to sign off. In addition to concerns about e-mail security, he faces the Presidential Records Act, which puts his correspondence in the official record and ultimately up for public review, and the threat of subpoenas. A decision has not been made on whether he could become the first e-mailing president.

The chief executive of the United States is essentially deprived by law and by culture of some of the very tools that other chief executives depend on to survive and to thrive. Mr. Obama, however, seems intent on pulling the office at least partly into the 21st century on that score; aides said he hopes to have a laptop computer on his desk in the Oval Office, making him the first American president to do so.

Mr. Obama has not sent a farewell dispatch from the personal e-mail account he uses — he has not changed his address in years — but friends say the frequency of correspondence has diminished. In recent days, though, he has been seen typing his thoughts on transition matters and other items on his BlackBerry, bypassing, at least temporarily, the bureaucracy that is quickly encircling him.

“His BlackBerry was constantly crackling with e-mails,” said David Axelrod, the campaign’s chief strategist. “People were generous with their advice — much of it conflicting.”

Mr. Obama is the second president to grapple with the idea of this self-imposed isolation. Three days before his first inauguration, George W. Bush sent a message to 42 friends and relatives that explained his predicament.

George Bush sent an e mail to his friends before taking office, saying he could no longer use his private e mail address, because it could become public record.

But in the interceding eight years, as BlackBerrys have become ubiquitous — and often less intrusive than a telephone, the volume of e-mail has multiplied and the role of technology has matured. Mr. Obama used e-mail to stay in constant touch with friends from the lonely confines of the road, often sending messages like “Sox!” when the Chicago White Sox won a game. He also relied on e-mail to keep abreast of the rapid whirl of events on a given campaign day.

Mr. Obama’s memorandums and briefing books were seldom printed out and delivered to his house or hotel room, aides said. They were simply sent to his BlackBerry for his review. If a document was too long, he would read and respond from his laptop computer, often putting his editing changes in red type.

His messages to advisers and friends, they say, are generally crisp, properly spelled and free of symbols or emoticons. The time stamps provided a window into how much he was sleeping on a given night, with messages often being sent to staff members at 1 a.m. or as late as 3 a.m. if he was working on an important speech.

He received a scaled-down list of news clippings, with his advisers wanting to keep him from reading blogs and news updates all day long, yet aides said he still seemed to hear about nearly everything in real time. A network of friends — some from college, others from Chicago and various chapters in his life — promised to keep him plugged in.

Not having such a ready line to that network, staff members who spent countless hours with him say, is likely to be a challenge.

“Given how important it is for him to get unfiltered information from as many sources as possible, I can imagine he will miss that freedom,” said Linda Douglass, a senior adviser who traveled with the campaign.

In the closing stages of the campaign, as exhaustion set in and the workload increased, aides said Mr. Obama spent more time reading than responding to messages. As his team prepares a final judgment on whether he can keep using e-mail, perhaps even in a read-only fashion, several authorities in presidential communication said they believed it was highly unlikely that he would be able to do so.

Diana Owen, who leads the American Studies program at Georgetown University, said presidents were not advised to use e-mail because of security risks and fear that messages could be intercepted.

“They could come up with some bulletproof way of protecting his e-mail and digital correspondence, but anything can be hacked,” said Ms. Owen, who has studied how presidents communicate in the Internet era. “The nature of the president’s job is that others can use e-mail for him.”

Should Mr. Obama want to break ground and become the first president to fire off e-mail messages from the West Wing and wherever he travels, he could turn to Al Gore as a model. In the later years of his vice presidency, Democrats said, Mr. Gore used a government e-mail address and a campaign address in his race against Mr. Bush.

The president, though, faces far greater public scrutiny. And even if he does not wear a BlackBerry on his belt or carry a cellphone in his pocket, he almost certainly will not lack from a variety of new communication.

On Saturday, as Mr. Obama broadcast the weekly Democratic radio address, it came with a twist. For the first time, it was also videotaped and will be archived on YouTube.”

So Fireside Chats have morphed into You Tube broadcasts on the internet, and I do think the President should be allowed to utilize current technology. Rapid response and filtered communications are a lifesaver, especially for a President with so many things to fix and manage, as well as being a parent with 2 young children.

Figure out a way to allow the technology to be used as a tool, while still allowing public transparency, as well as not holding back a president from using the latest greatest technology. It does not just stop there~ Obama wants to share the technology love.

President Elect Obama unveiled his technology plan at a visit to Google’s headquarters in Mountain View, California. In his plan, he lists several new proposals that are both ambitious and promising.

• Make high speed Internet available to “all of America,” regardless of income or geographic location, with emphasis on public schools. This part of Obama’s plan will require major upgrades to the nation’s infrastructure.

• Universal Heath Care, with a focus on electronic medical records would reduce medical mistakes and thereby greatly reduce medical costs.

• Keeping the Internet free and open (”net neutrality”). Barack Obama was very clear when he said “…because once providers start to privilege some applications or websites over others then the smaller voices get squeezed out and we all lose. The Internet is perhaps the most open network in history and we have to keep it that way.” This commitment to protecting the openness of the Internet can also be found on Barack Obama’s web site.

• A promise to place certain government information online. The crowd applauded when Obama said “We will put government data online in universally accessible formats. I’ll let citizens track federal grants, contracts, earmarks and lobbying contracts. I’ll let you participate in government forums, ask questions, in realtime, offer suggestions that will be reviewed before decisions are made and let you comment on legislation before it is signed.”

• Of historical significance, a Chief Technology Officer (CTO) will be appointed (the first in history). Obama envisions this position as one that will “ensure that our government and all its agencies have the right infrastructure, policies and services for the 21st century.” This position should not be confused with the cybersecurity czar that the Bush administration put in place.

• To bring a higher level of technical literacy to the classroom. Obama said “If we make technological literacy a fundamental part of education, then we can give our children the skills they need to compete and ensure the next generation of scientists and engineers as being educated right here in America.”

The president & our country should be accessing & utilizing technology as the newest pathway for knowledge & communication.

Yes, we should!

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