caption: A Secret Service agent moves to retrieve the president-elect's BlackBerry at Reagan National Airport on January 16, 2009.
(Credit: AFP PHOTO/Mandel NGAN)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 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 well, there will 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.
This article was first published as a blog post on CNET News.com.
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