George Bush doesn't care about single-link op-eds, according to his recent MeTa post.

October 8, 2007 10:36 AM

Does the US President have a "Personal Computer" in the same sense that I, and most of you do? What would/does he use it for? What kind of insane security must it have? The answer is probably "He is much too busy to own a computer," but any information whatsoever would help sate my curiosity.
posted by nervestaple to law & government (21 comments total)

He has an iPod, so he must have a computer, right?
posted by The World Famous at 10:42 AM on October 8, 2007

If I recall correctly, one of his staff members filled up the iPod for him. And he, rather famously, has said that he doesn't use email, because he's afraid of whistleblowers and FOIA requests and whatnot.
posted by box at 10:46 AM on October 8, 2007

The current one? Almost certainly not.

He does have lots of secretaries and access to a computer, I'm sure. He has "tried that Google thing" and "it was pretty cool I could zoom in on stuff and see my house." (I'm paraphrasing real quotes from him here, seriously.)

But the President has so much information and communication incoming that he has a few people disseminating through it for him and triaging. I'd doubt that he'd even have much use for an email account; the signal to noise ratio would be so out of whack, even if he limited it to just his top 100 "most important" friends.

Plus, man, what an inbox. "Re: WMD oops" "Check out my MySpace—Karl Rove" "Rummy rummy rummy."

As for security, consider that everyone else in the White House Executive branch must have one. All emails are required to be logged due to a congressional order, and the current administration sidestepped that by using Republican Party email addresses instead. Other security? Some strong hardware based firewalls on the front side to prevent dDOSes and filters on the backend to keep people out of porn and such. Nothing too "insane." Consider most of it isn't DoD or anything, and anything that is isn't going to be "emailed." I'd hope.

All speculative.
posted by disillusioned at 10:46 AM on October 8, 2007 [1 favorite has favorites]

He doesn't do e-mail, but he does do The Google.
posted by desjardins at 10:48 AM on October 8, 2007

So George Bush doesn't. But I'd be amazed if Al Gore didn't during his term as VP, for example.
posted by Tomorrowful at 10:56 AM on October 8, 2007

I remember hearing reports just before the 2001 inauguration of a circular sent out by Bush to the contacts in his address book saying that it would be his last. He confirmed that he'd stopped sending email in April 2001. (I also remember reading that he had a PowerBook.)

Anyway, FOIA and the Presidential Records Act convinced him to stick to The Google.
posted by holgate at 11:01 AM on October 8, 2007

I'm more curious whether he's got a Blackberry. I can only guess that everyone else in the Administration does.
posted by mkultra at 11:02 AM on October 8, 2007

[A few comments removed. Answer the question, please; this is not the place to audition your new LOL BUSH material.]
posted by cortex at 11:10 AM on October 8, 2007

Al Gore definately does...
posted by chrispy108 at 11:17 AM on October 8, 2007

Clinton wrote exactly two emails during his entire time in office. (test messages)

I imagine there's a great deal of reluctance in letting Presidents use e-mail since they'll all get uncovered someday, and e-mail lends itself to those frank, informal exchanges that can get people in trouble.
posted by Brian James at 11:17 AM on October 8, 2007

Al Gore's Multi-Monitor Setup
posted by chrispy108 at 11:18 AM on October 8, 2007 [3 favorites has favorites]

Damn! is that for real? Al gore is really getting his hands dirty. This is a good question. I was thinking in what way information was presented to him and how he comes to a conclusion. My question is :If there weren't the associated hazards of using the computer would he really be more productive? I doubt it.
posted by Student of Man at 11:37 AM on October 8, 2007

I can't directly address whether or not Bush uses a computer like a 9-5 office worker, but I have read a little about capitol hill information security and its pretty lax. Its more or less treated like a typical corporate lan. Typical MS Office, Exchange, etc. The idea is that email is a communications tool not a security tool. Confidential information isnt usually passed around via email.

I imagine someone in the high executive roles would never be trusted to use, say, a one-time pad machine, publickey crytography, or whatever the spooks use. He would have a trained expert that would use these devices for him, suggest following security protocols, etc. I believe the Secret Service handles the president's information security, at least on the first level.

I imagine this would be true for Clinton or Gore too.
posted by damn dirty ape at 11:49 AM on October 8, 2007

I imagine that my question will become more interesting with future presidents, once the technophobe generation has passed.
posted by nervestaple at 11:50 AM on October 8, 2007

Maybe, but like I wrote about its bad practive to give an executive control over a security device. I think 150 years ago people wondered what kind of gun the president carried. Even then, just like today, it would be a pretty bad idea to let him have one. A compromised information device in that scenario can be much more deadly than a mere pistol.
posted by damn dirty ape at 11:54 AM on October 8, 2007 [1 favorite has favorites]

...does anyone know what kind of chair he's sitting in there?

It looks like a Eurotech Ergohuman mesh chair -- or one similar to it.
posted by ericb at 12:20 PM on October 8, 2007

Actually, the neck support in the Gore photo looks a bit different from that of the Eurotech one.
posted by ericb at 12:27 PM on October 8, 2007

When Bush first took office, I seem to remember reading a story that he used instant messaging a lot when he was governor of Texas, and that he was unhappy that he had to give it up when he became the President.

Can't seem to find reference to this story -- anyone remember this?
posted by jca at 12:50 PM on October 8, 2007

Al Gore had email -- there was a controversy related to it. "the Washington Post has described Gore as an 'e-mail addict.'"
posted by garlic at 2:23 PM on October 8, 2007

According to the never-wrong Wikipedia, George Bush is a Mac user.
posted by designbot at 2:42 PM on October 8, 2007

...does anyone know what kind of chair he's sitting in there?

It looks like a Eurotech Ergohuman mesh chair -- or one similar to it.

I think it's a Humanscale Freedom chair (which is probably the most comfortable office chair I've ever had).
posted by techrep at 2:49 PM on October 8, 2007