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2009-01-23 06:12:56
Barack Obama is to keep his BlackBerry, becoming the first US president to have
access to e-mail in the White House.
Spokesman Robert Gibbs said a "compromise" would allow the president to stay in
touch with senior staff and personal friends.
There had been security concerns about who might be able to see the president's
e-mails.
But Mr Obama had repeatedly said he would have been reluctant to part with the
device on becoming president.
"The president has a BlackBerry through a compromise that allows him to stay in
touch with senior staff and a small group of personal friends in a way that use
will be limited," said Mr Gibbs.
"The security is enhanced to ensure his ability to communicate, to do so
effectively and to do so in a way that is protected."
Presidential 'bubble'
It is good news for President Obama, who was often seen thumbing the jog wheel
on his BlackBerry to check his e-mail during the campaign, the BBC's Rajini
Vaidyanathan reports from Washington.
After winning the election he said that if officials wanted him to give it up
they would have to "pry it out of my hands".
"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," he told CNN.
"If I'm doing something stupid, somebody in Chicago can send me an e-mail and
say, 'What are you doing?'"
Under the post-Watergate Presidential Records Act, most correspondence from the
White House apart from that classed as "strictly personal" is recorded in the
national archives.
Neither George W Bush nor Bill Clinton used e-mail during their presidencies.