Obama Gets to Keep BlackBerry

Obama and BlackBerry stay together.

When Obama was voted into office, the new President-elect was told he’d have to give up his BlackBerry 8830 for something a little less data-capable. Besides the obvious security concerns should he lose his phone or otherwise have his data compromised, the Presidential Records Act of 1978 requires all Presidential correspondence be in the public record and so, a smartphone was something the President was not allowed to have.

Obama was not exactly pleased at the prospect of having his phone taken away and on many occasions hinted that he was doing his best to talk the secret service into letting him keep the device.

MobileCrunch today reports that President Obama has won the battle. Well, sort of. He still can’t use the BlackBerry for Presidential business but Obama is allowed to keep the device for “personal use” provided he uses Sectera Edge for work.

The Sectera is basically a monster that has been deemed secure enough to transmit “secret” data. Seriously, I for one cannot wait to hear how this beast is working out for the President. Lets hope he shares his experiences on using the device once he gets his hands on it.

During the campaign Obama also supposedly used his BlackBerry to check up on the things outside of his work, such as the progress of the Chicago White Sox so at least he can still do that on his preferred device.