BlackBerry One

Last Thursday, following months of negotiations with his own security advisers, President Barack Obama announced his BlackBerry is here to stay.

Since being elected to office in November, Obama had made clear his reservations about surrendering the device. “I’m still clinging to my BlackBerry,” he told reporters earlier this month. “They’re going to pry it out of my hands.”

Obama knew from the beginning he had a fight. For one thing, he faces the Presidential Records Act, which will place all personal correspondences on official record and expose them to the threat of subpoena. Secondly, a presidential BlackBerry, as experts have noted, could present a significant security risk.

Although government officials and about 21,000 FBI agents and employees already use BlackBerrys to share information, the device is not impermeable to hackers and cyber-terrorists. In fact, the Department of Homeland Security reported at least 16 gaps in the BlackBerry security shield since 2004.

Nevertheless, Obama will continue pecking away on what has become a technological necessity for professionals in America. Unlike most models, however, Obama’s will come equipped with $3,000 in specially encrypted, U.S.-intelligence-approved software. Needless to say, iPhone users will be hard-pressed to find that application online.

Now, in addition to supplying professional America – and hundreds of IU sorority girls – with the addictive machines (also known as “CrackBerrys”), BlackBerry has just secured what might go down as the hugest endorsement in marketing history.
But Fran Kelly, chief executive of the advertising agency Arnold Worldwide, intimated a more profound subtext underlying Obama’s love affair with the BlackBerry.

“The BlackBerry anecdotes are a huge part of Obama’s brand reputation,” he said. “It positions him as one of us: He’s got friends and family and people to communicate with us, just like all of us. And it positions him as a next-generation politician.”

Kelly might be on to something. Think back to early September, when things were really starting to get rough between Obama and McCain.

You might recall a nasty little potshot advertisement the Obama camp launched titled “Still,” in which Senator McCain was portrayed as a technologically illiterate, behind-the-times fogey.

This strategy – to paint one’s adversary as some vestige of the past by capitalizing on his lack of technological expertise – is one which could only have emerged in the 21st century. President Obama is likely in the midst of setting a new precedent for technology’s role – or visibility – in politics.

In reality, of course, Obama’s BlackBerry obsession is quite silly. Far from serving as the invaluable tool of the presidency, as Obama has half-jokingly insisted, his BlackBerry reflects a populace transformed by streaming news, instant messaging, e-mail and incessant stimulation. And it is not unreasonable to suppose that Obama, like millions of Americans, would feel detached, disarmed and naked without the small device in his hands.

Impractical and unnecessary as the president’s personal device may be, perhaps this was inevitable. Ours is a generation of technology, and how disconcerting it might be to see our own commander in chief bereft of that emblem of American technology – the BlackBerry!