The Daily Background

Is somebody in the Bush Administration trying to stop certain high level administration officials from using email and the internet? Check out this odd exchange from July:

REPORTER: So do you not take your blackberry when you go to China?

SECRETARY RICE: The truth of the matter is I don’t have one. But I used to, but I don’t now.

REPORTER: Is that because of security reasons?

SECRETARY RICE: Well, they don’t let me play with almost anything technological now, Maria. Funny, but it seems they all want to do it for me. And it’s too bad because, you know, I love the internet, I love e-mail and –

Citizens for Ethics and Responsibility in Washington (CREW) has some suspicions:

Who are “they”? What is the policy? And, why and when did the policy change? Given the major scandals surrounding the Bush administration involving e-mails, CREW wants to know. Last week, CREW filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request “seeking documents stating the Department of State’s policies governing the Secretary of State’s methods of communicating via e-mail with audiences both internal and external to the U.S. government.”

Emails may have already gotten Rove in trouble, and we always assumed that Donald Rumsfeld and Gonzales et al never used email because they didn’t want to bother with new technology. But could it have been to avoid a paper trail? And is somebody in Rice’s office trying to stop her from using email (and the internet?) to try and avoid making the same mistakes Rove did?

Coincidentally but humorously, the form to email Secretary Rice on the State Department’s website is returning a 404 right now.

Filed under: Z-TDB Blog