Bush Won't Be "The Online President"

satch89450 writes: "The Electronic Telegraph says here that President Bush has retired his electronic mail habit, citing FOIA access. As a point in fact, The New York Times reportedly obtained a copy of the farewell e-letter to 42 of Bush's friends. Just how bad can it get? Here is an old news report from The Associated Press via amarillonet of an auction of the 1992 e-mail to John Glenn. Privacy advocates should be scared ..." And an Anonymous Coward who points to the same article asks: "Whatever happened to the right of the people to be secure in their ... papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures?" Good question -- what did happen to that?

Comments

Re:The President is a government official

[StenD]

For the same reason that the government can tell its employees not to browse porn on government computers, Prince George cannot expect to send private email through government network.

It's not just email sent (or processed) on government computers, and it's not just the President. Ever since Sen. Tower had his personal diaries made public, government officials at all levels have been increasingly reluctant to put their private thoughts into writing, because of the danger that they might become public. As a result you can expect that few, if any, of the memoirs from the Clinton Administration to be based upon contemporaneous diaries kept by the persons involved. Instead, most of them will be based upon the recollections of the parties involved five, ten, twenty years after the fact, and, regardless of your opinion as to the character of the persons involved, I would hope that we can agree that this will not lead to accurate memoirs.

It's not just government, either. If you spend any amount of time in a corporate environment you learn what to say, and what not to say, in email or voice mail. This isn't just a matter of external legal action, but internal personnel actions. I'll admit to being both being called on the carpet about unprofessional voice mail, and complaining about unprofessional email. In the former case, I accepted the blame, and in the latter I share part of the responsibility for the tone of the conversation, but the fact in both cases is that once your words are recorded, it becomes difficult to explain the context they were made in when they are being held against you.

right to protection against search and seizure

[q[alex]]

see:

http://www.clas.ufl.edu/docs/Conlon_on_Computing /c o1294.html

an exerpt:

"Your email must be treated just as you treat your paper mail. You discard messages of a transient nature and retain the official documents (if any) that are connected with the business of the University. Some of us receive (and therefore file) more business related documents than others. Committee chairs, department chairs, deans and administrators will, naturally, receive and file more paper and email official documents."

The same rules (more stringent) apply to government officials. Simply put, public records, whether they are official court documents or an email from the pres, are public records, and citizens have the legal right to request to see them (within reason). Because som e email from Bush might be public record, annoying lawyers could request all email "pertaining to Colin Powell" as public record, and the email between Prez Bush and his brother Jeb about how Colin Powell is a lousy golfer would have to be turned over and aired publicly.

At least, that's how I understand it all.

Obviously

[Anonymous Coward]

It's hard to type "www.(whatever).com" when there aren't any W's on your keyboard.

The President is a government official

[metis]

For the same reason that the government can tell its employees not to browse porn on government computers, Prince George cannot expect to send private email through government network.

His correspondence is public record unless classified, and it cannot be classified unless it is a matter of national security.

So his recent email to the CEO of Alcoa:

Hi buddy, California is yours, if the regulators annoy you, all you have to do is whistle.

will one day be in the national archive.

Bush already encrypts his e-mail!

[Seinfeld]

Dear friendilees
It is most saddifying to enstop electrical males toward personas and others to who I have been sending to. Many regretabilities,
Predisent Bush
-----------

Encryption is not the issue

[btempleton]

The point is that the written correspondence of the President is a matter of public record if it's not classified. While we want to use encryption in our private lives, we have decided that the actions of our public officials should be public. As such, we don't let them use encryption unless public trusts like national security would be threatened.

Do you want your public officials using encryption to encrypt up their records of kickbacks and graft? Their secret deals with other officials?

Now all this really means is that people learn to do the stuff they want secret, including the illegal stuff, in ephemeral forms rather than writing. Though Nixon learned that you had better not have tape recorders on.

All these present interesting public issues. How much privacy do public officials get when in their offices? Should we grant special privacy to certain records to avoid people refusing to document them at all?

I'm presuming that if Bush has a computer in his private residence, and uses it to E-mail his friends strictly about non-governmental matters, he can encrypt them. And if they are not about government, people can't FOIA them. They can still subponea them, and even demand he hand over encryption keys, if they are relevant to a case.

This is one of the big issues of E-mail. E-mail ends up being halfway between written records, which are subject to subponea, and spoken ones which are normally not recorded and in many states can't legally be recorded. We haven't figured out a good way to treat it in the law.

Encryption? Oh, yeahhhhh....

[PCM2]

Hey, that's great:

Something like 14 responses asking "Gee whiz, doesn't the President use encryption?"

But not one pointing out the fact that, if someone of the dubious mental faculties of George W. Bush can't figure out how to use encryption, then half of America probably can't either.

Am I the only one thinking that SOMEBODY -- be it the PGP people, the Free Software Foundation, or Microsoft for that matter -- should figure out a TRULY easy, TRULY fast, TRULY seamless means for the common email user to encrypt a message?

Cuz I've got PGP installed on my Macintosh, and I'm telling you guys -- PGP ain't it.

--

Re:George Dubya use encryption? I don't think so

[rm -vrf]

Er..this isn't about encryption. That would just prevent any middleman from intercepting and reading his emails while they are being sent. It's the fact that the emails he sends thru Government networks become public record, and so people can request them thru the Freedom of Information Act. He'd be required by law to give up his encryption keys.