2 posts and columns on Presidential Records Act

News Byte

Obama's BlackBerry: Tiny Contact List, Dull Mail, No Fun

in News on July 29, 2010 at 1:42 pm PT

When President Obama first took office, he pressed hard to keep his beloved BlackBerry and ultimately won permission to carry a model with beefed-up security features. Turns out he didn’t really win much. Appearing on ABC’s “The View,” Obama said only 10 people have his number, and their email conversations are really boring. “I’ve got to admit, it’s no fun because they think that it’s probably going to be subject to the Presidential Records Act, so nobody wants to send me the real juicy stuff,” he said. Other tech notes from the interview: Obama said that the contents of the presidential iPod runs from Jay-Z to Maria Callas, and that “I don’t tweet on a regular basis….I think there’s an official president’s tweet, but some 20-year-old is doing a lot of the tweeting.”

You Know, That Domestic Wiretapping Operation Might Come in Handy Here

in News on April 30, 2008 at 9:49 am PT

So that “technical issue” that caused 5 million to 10 million White House emails to disappear from its archives? A botched migration from Lotus Notes to Microsoft Exchange. Seems even the blame for the current administration’s failure to obey the Presidential Records Act can be laid on Microsoft (MSFT). In written testimony to the House [...]