Elections

Bill Clinton sent only two e-mail messages as president and has yet to pick up the habit. George W. Bush ceased using e-mail in January 2001 but has said he's looking forward to e-mailing "my buddies" after leaving Washington, D.C.

Barack Obama, though, is a serious e-mail addict. "I'm still clinging to my BlackBerry," he said in a recent interview with CNBC. "They're going to pry it out of my hands."

One reason to curb presidential BlackBerrying is the possibility of eavesdropping by hackers and other digital snoops. While Research … Read more

As a presidential candidate, Barack Obama won applause from legal adversaries of the recording industry. Stanford law professor Larry Lessig, the doyen of the "free culture" movement, endorsed the Illinois senator, as did Google CEO Eric Schmidt and even the Pirate Party.

That was then. As president-elect, one of Obama's first tech-related decisions has been to select the Recording Industry Association of America's favorite lawyer to be the third in command at the Justice Department. And Obama's pick as deputy attorney general, the second most senior position, is the lawyer who oversaw the defense of … Read more

As supporters of President-elect Barack Obama in Washington try to downplay near-term expectations for his administration's chief technology officer, an Obama aide on Tuesday said reports of an imminent announcement are incorrect.

With nearly of all Obama's cabinet named, recent speculation has swirled around whether news about the CTO post would be next, with one report saying to expect an announcement on Wednesday. The member of Obama's transition team, who asked not to be named, said that would not happen.

Still unclear are key details: who will fill the role, and what, exactly, the CTO will be … Read more

Meg Whitman has been talked about as long ago as March 2008 as a candidate for governor of California. Now there's more evidence the former eBay CEO will actually run.

The latest news that's fueling speculation is that Whitman, 52, resigned from the boards of eBay, Procter & Gamble, and Dreamworks SKG. Her spokesman said Monday that the resignation was for personal reasons, and carefully did not confirm--or deny--any gubernatorial ambitions.

Whitman had become an adviser to Republican Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign, and enthusiastically endorsed him during the party's convention in St. Paul, Minn., last … Read more

Crowd control at President-elect Barack Obama's January 20 inauguration ceremony will present quite a challenge: On top of the 240,000 ticketed guests who will descend upon the National Mall that day, millions more are expected to join. Ten thousand charter buses will converge on the Washington area. Metro riders have been warned to be prepared "to stand in close proximity to several thousand people."

To manage all of those people, inauguration organizers are turning to text messaging and Twitter.

In an advisory released Monday, the Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies warned that making calls from … Read more

TechCrunch suggests that Facebook's chief privacy officer, Chris Kelly, will shortly announce his candidacy to become California's attorney general in 2010. Given how poorly Facebook has handled privacy, it's difficult to see why California voters should assume Kelly would do better in the higher matters of public office.

Specifically, California's attorney general is charged with the following responsibilities:

The attorney general represents the people of California in civil and criminal matters before trial, appellate and the supreme courts of California and the United States. The attorney general also serves as legal counsel to state officers and, … Read more

President-elect Barack Obama has named four scientists who will lead his science and technology team, choosing experts in climate change, cancer, and genetic research to chair the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST).

"Whether it's the science to slow global warming; the technology to protect our troops and confront bioterror and weapons of mass destruction; the research to find life-saving cures; or the innovations to remake our industries and create 21st century jobs, today, more than ever before, science holds the key to our survival as a planet and our security and prosperity as … Read more

President-elect Barack Obama's inauguration this January could be quite a chaotic scene, with as many as 4 million people possibly heading to the National Mall to watch, but a new application available on Apple's App Store could help spectators navigate the crowds a bit more smoothly.

The free 2009 Presidential Inauguration Guide landing screen features an inauguration countdown, as well as the distance the user is from the steps of the Capitol building, where the event takes place.

The application also provides information about metro service and parking garage locations, a Zagat guide of local restaurants, a list … Read more

President-elect Barack Obama's transition team on Wednesday launched a tool on its transition site Change.gov that utilizes the collaborative nature of Web 2.0 tools to bring to attention issues that matter to voters.

Its "Open for Questions" tool allows visitors to submit a question for the transition team and, much like Digg, allows users to vote for other people's questions they find important or vote against questions they don't like. The most popular questions will be regularly answered by the Obama team.

As of Wednesday evening, 159,890 had voted on 1,986 … Read more