Obama Gets Geeky
The man who built a high-tech campaign out of the concept of "change" is already bringing Internet technology into his administration. President-elect Barack Obama has announced plans for a presidential YouTube channel, along with plans for thorough social network and blog screenings as part of potential staffers' background checks. If you've so much as left a questionable comment on a blog somewhere, you might be disqualified. Think you could pass?
High-Tech Addresses
First up, the YouTube channel. The Obama administration revealed plans Friday to broadcast the weekly presidential addresses to YouTube -- the first time such addresses have been delivered in a video format. (President Bush put audio of his speeches on the White House Web site, but video was never included.) The Webcasts will begin this weekend with the Saturday Democratic address and will continue once Obama takes over the presidency. The videos will also be posted on Obama's transition Web site, Change.gov. Question-and-answer sessions and interviews are expected to eventually be offered as well.
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I heard mention that the Chrome OS will have some sort of encryption available a la bitlocker. If it's possible to encrypt personal data using another password or key, then it may have potential for very secure data.... And Ubuntu has an 'encrypt home directory' option, perhaps google should follow suit.
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It's really very simple.
Anyone who aspires to high office should assume that there is no such thing as private electronic communication. Period. If it's not on somebody's backup, the NSA is reading it.As for drunken party pics -- I don't want my public officials to be the kinds of people who GET drunk at parties, so I figure if there are any drunken party pics of you on the Web, you deserve the consequences.
Privacy?
I don't really see this as a big scary thing. It's called "vetting" and it's supposed to be done before hiring someone to do a government job. Also known as "due diligence."This last administration has done a lot of surveillance on ordinary people. If Obama keeps *that* going, I'm going to be less than happy. But we could use a more honorable set of public servants.
And yes, BTW, I think (I hope?) it's not too difficult to find people who haven't left a trail of nasty remarks behind them when they thought they were anonymous. *That's* called character.
But sometimes we forget that
But sometimes we forget that our politicians are human. The idea that our politicians must prepare for office essentially from birth is relatively new. There are good people with unusual pasts, families, and friends who are now unable to run for office because of the stringent tests that the American people put politicians through. Perhaps these things have less influence on a person in office than the American media and public like to think.