John McCain and Barack Obama are often seen sending emails between campaign rallies as they barnstorm the country. But whichever man is elected president will face a predicament: unholster his Blackberry or risk political suicide. As George W. Bush told a small group of friends just days before being sworn in, “Since I do not want my private conversations looked at by those out to embarrass, the only course of action is not to correspond in cyberspace.” In the last eight years, President Bush has not sent a single message. And future presidents are all but certain to follow in his footsteps.
Although liberal critics often claim that Bush prefers living in a bubble, the president seemed to regret giving up email. He used it as governor of Texas, and he told reporters last week that he eagerly looked forward to signing on again once his second term comes to a close. Recalling the good old days when he had a computer, he remarked, “I stayed in touch with all kinds of people around the country, firing off emails at all times of the day to stay in touch with my pals. . . . [T]here’s no better way to communicate.”
The potential benefits of using email in executing the duties of commander in chief are as self-evident as the risks. Because the number of people who have physical access to the president is inevitably quite small, email would empower him to seek counsel from a greater number of people both inside the White House and outside Washington.
Yet if the president did use email, there would be no guarantee his minute-to-minute communiqués would remain confidential. And it would be foolish to assume there is no cause for concern so long as the president obeys the law. Just consider the ridicule were the media to get wind of a late-night email to the White House Mess requesting a bag of Cheetos.
There is not a long track record, but President Bush is not the first president to give up email altogether in light of the possibility politically sensitive and embarrassing discussions could be disclosed. Aside from the occasional photo-op, Bill Clinton did not use email. Vice President Cheney used email briefly, but gave it up soon after. And Vice President Gore’s use of email was a source of controversy when the House of Representatives subpoenaed his correspondence in investigating campaign finance abuses, and the Office of the Vice President claimed more than a year of his messages had disappeared.
The nub of the problem is this: If the president uses email, it will be subject to the Presidential Records Act, as is all executive-branch email. This law requires electronic records to be copied and saved to a central database. Anyone from the public can access these records 12 years after a president leaves office, and Congress has put forward a variety of legal pretexts for receiving such information much sooner.
Executive branch email is not under lock and key. Emails about secret office romances–and, dare I speculate, evidence of an extramarital affair or two–are just waiting to be uncovered among the gazillions of messages people in the White House exchange on a daily basis. Nobody has much to worry about unless nominated for a more significant position in a future administration, at which time a brigade of opposition researchers and journalists will descend on the applicable presidential library and dig up every last embarrassment, however trivial.
Poorly worded emails sent in the spur of a moment have already derailed careers. Consider the controversy surrounding the firing of several U.S. attorneys. The resignations of Kyle Sampson and Monica Goodling, both top-ranking Department of Justice officials, were prompted by the disclosure of their emails under threat of congressional subpoena. In Goodling’s case, the focus of criticism was not even her comments about the U.S. attorneys. Rather, the occasional reference to God and a tagline quoting the president (“[W]e know that when the work is hard, the proper response is not retreat; it is courage”) were used to brand her a political hack.
Although former FEMA chief Michael Brown is unworthy of much sympathy, he provides still another interesting case study. Apparently conditions at the Superdome in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina were not alone sufficient to demonstrate his incompetence. Reporters and congressmen also harped on the fact that Brownie emailed his press secretary in advance of a television-appearance to ask, “Tie or not for tonight? Button-down blue shirt?” in the midst of the storm. Yet one can only imagine what a survey of congressional email in the hours before a Meet the Press appearance would uncover. No, Senator, I really don’t think you can pull off a plaid tie with a plaid shirt and madras blazer.
Scrutinizing just about anyone’s minute-to-minute correspondence can be used to make that person look like an idiot. That is why the most devastating emails are often the least relevant, like Brown wanting to know whether he should roll up his sleeves or an Enron executive discussing how to upholster the company’s latest jet. These simply do not bear on whether Brown could effectively manage an emergency or whether Enron was committing fraud.
Perhaps because of this apprehension, the exacting standards Congress imposed on the White House only apply on one end of Pennsylvania Avenue. No effort is made to archive congressional email for investigators or historians. Members of Congress have made plain that they favor their own ability to communicate quickly, freely, and privately. When it comes to the White House, the opposite holds true. So while broadcasts of the State of the Union capture many ill-mannered congressmen thumbing through emails on their Blackberries, President Bush and Vice President Cheney have been effectively denied this staple of modern political communications.
Another way congressional and presidential emails differ is that the White House computer network forces aides to use their official government email addresses by blocking all outside email accounts. That’s why Representative Henry A. Waxman has made much of the revelation that a couple of dozen White House staffers, including Karl Rove, regularly used laptops issued by the Republican National Committee to access alternative email addresses. Waxman has gone so far as to remark that such an arrangement may “raise serious questions about violations of the Presidential Records Act.” At the same time, he neglects to note that Congress’s computer system makes no effort whatsoever to prevent staffers from using nongovernment email accounts.
To be sure, there is a greater potential for abuse by those who execute the laws in a government, and therefore greater oversight of executive activity is constitutionally appropriate. Yet it seems equally clear that Congress has gone overboard on the scrutiny of executive branch communication while treading lightly when it comes to supervising its own ranks. A complete search of Representative William Jefferson’s email might reveal much about the $90,000 found in his freezer a couple of years back. And given that disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff’s Hill contacts were even more extensive than his connections to the Bush administration, one is left to wonder what evidence a stringent document retention policy might have preserved.
Likewise any system that denies the president of the United States access to a communications technology now used freely by billions of people around the world fails to strike the right balance. There is value in all of our representatives’ being able to communicate readily both with their staff and with the public they serve.
Jaime Sneider, a contributor to THE WEEKLY STANDARD blog, served as deputy associate director of the White House Communications Office.
