As President Barack Obama prepares to
leave office, he has ordered his
team to upgrade the White House's aging technology for his successor.
New computers were purchased and faster internet was installed, but his
successor, Trump, believes a courier service is a better option.
But that delivery method of a bygone era may be in
for a comeback under Donald Trump. Despite his voracious use of Twitter,
the president-elect appears to be leaning toward old tech to ensure the
security of sensitive messages.
"It's very important, if you have something really
important, write it out and have it delivered by courier, the
old-fashioned way because I'll tell you what, no computer is safe,"
Trump told reporters Saturday in response to questions about Russia's
alleged hacking of Democrats during the presidential election.
Trump,
who doesn't email or surf the internet, said days earlier that computers
"have complicated lives very greatly."
Trump's skepticism of some technology marks a sharp
contrast from the president he'll replace on Jan. 20.
Obama, who was a
youthful 47 years old when he took office, carries a specially outfitted
Blackberry, emails with a small number of friends and aides, and has
received some of his daily security briefings on an iPad. He celebrated
technological innovations at an annual science fair, created the job of
chief technology officer in the White House and viewed technology as key
to making the sprawling federal government more efficient and
responsive to the public.
A much less frequent Twitter user than Trump, Obama
let loose Sunday with a volley of tweets highlighting some of his
accomplishments as president: boosting clean energy, bringing troops
home, delivering "the longest streak of job growth in our history,"
passing a law to make health care affordable, reducing dependence on
foreign oil and working "to reaffirm that all are created equal."
But technology has also been a burden for Obama.
Online sign-ups for his health care law were crippled by massive
technical issues, resulting in one of the most embarrassing episodes of
his presidency. National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden stole
classified information that he leaked to journalists, revealing the
Obama administration's bulk collection of millions of Americans' phone
records, as well as U.S. spying on some friendly foreign leaders.
Trump, 70, rarely uses a computer and sifts through
stacks of newspapers, magazines and printed articles to read the news.
He panned candidates' reliance on data and technology in presidential
campaigns, preferring to make decisions in part based on the reaction
from audiences at his rallies. While Trump's tweetstorms are already
legendary, he utters some of his messages out loud and leaves the actual
typing to aides.
Incoming White House press secretary Sean
Spicer said he expects Trump to continue using Twitter and other social
media sites as president, casting it as an effective way to communicate
with Americans.
"Absolutely, you're going to see Twitter,"
Spicer said Sunday on ABC's "This Week." ''I think it freaks the
mainstream media out — that he has this following of 45-plus million
people that follow him on social media" and he "can have a direct
conversation" with them.
As Trump heads into the White House, some of
the biggest questions surrounding his relationship with technology will
involve security. U.S. intelligence agencies say Russia hacked the
Democratic National Committee and a top aide to Democratic nominee
Hillary Clinton during the election, exposing the vulnerabilities of
systems in Washington. Revelations that Clinton used a personal email
and private internet server during her four years as Obama's secretary
of state highlighted the lax practices that exist in government.
As a candidate, Trump called for an immediate
review of U.S. cyber defenses and vulnerabilities, though he has not
detailed specific steps he plans to take to bolster cybersecurity and
has not publicly accepted the intelligence community's conclusion that
Russia was behind the election year hacking. Nor has Trump outlined any
changes in the way he expects the White House to use technology for
day-to-day work.
Bruce Schneier, a technology security expert,
said Trump was right to question the safeguards that exist for
protecting his own communications as president.
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