Obama won’t give up his BlackBerry

Though US president-elect Barack Obama has been advised to give up his beloved BlackBerry device, Obama says he will continue to keep it close.

In an interview with CNN, Obama says he will continue to use his BlackBerry despite the Presidential Records Act of 1978, which mandates a record of every White House communication. But Obama says this will merely make him think twice before he hits “send”.

“My working assumption, and this is not new, is that anything I write on an email could end up being on CNN,” he said. “It’s just one tool among a number of tools that I’m trying to use, to break out of the bubble, to make sure that people can still reach me.

“If I’m doing something stupid, somebody in Chicago can send me an email and say, ‘What are you doing?’. I want to be able to have voices, other than the people who are immediately working for me, be able to reach out and send me a message about what’s happening in America.”