Reading an article about who had the President’s Blackberry email address, I began thinking about the evolution of access to the President. Access runs in both directions — both in access to POTUS, and his own access to others.
George Bush (the elder) and Bill Clinton (the one and only) both had fax machines installed for themselves. The amount of mail they received is unimaginable, so they had a private line installed for themselves and gave the phone number out to only a select few. By allowing their closest allies the ability to fax them, they were able to puncture the cone of silence that senior management will typically try to enforce around their boss. While a chief of staff can determine which memos reach POTUS, it’s harder to limit the faxes that come through.
I’m glad that BO fought to keep his blackberry. Presidential access to email is a major step forward in electronic communications limited to just faxes. Faxes are a one way form of communication (when is the last time you replied to a fax with another fax?), while email encourages two way communication (or wider distribution through list serves).
With this fight Barack has signaled his determination to ensure that his information sources are not limited. I predict we can expect more actions that will allow him to remain better connected to the public.
One possibility would be to allow the public to vote on the news stories and blogs which they believe President Obama should read that day. If the President promised to read the most highly rated stories, it would offer citizens a viable way to organize together to bring issues to the President’s attention. There are many paradigms for these kinds of systems, such as those used by Digg, Memeorandum, and Buzz Monitor. With forethought, this could become a useful tool for both the President and for advocacy groups. This sort of program, as well as the kinds developed by MySociety, promise a entirely new way of conceiving of representative government.
The President has appointed a highly talented Googler (Katie Jacobs Stanton) as his Director of Citizen Participation, so I’m sure we’ll be seeing some very interesting experiments in public engagement coming down the pipeline over the next 4 years.