President-elect Obama told CNN this week that he would “hang onto” his BlackBerry, once again stirring up debate about whether the President should use mobile devices, or even use email at all.

There are natural security concerns over the President using a BlackBerry. But in fact, we are in the age of information, and the President needs to be able to have immediate access to information and communication. Obama’s BlackBerry is the logical way for him to have just that. The suits in the back office do have a point about security though, and there must be protocols put in place and followed rigorously. Of course, President Bush’s missing emails aside, email sent and received by government officials are official government documents, and should be treated as such. Archiving is essential, rigorous security and encryption must be layered on top of the BlackBerry, and following the lessons learned from Ms. Palin, he should only use official government email accounts for anything even remotely related to government business.

The first thing that must be done is for a team of government security specialists to create a policy for secure usage, which Obama must follow. But in general, I think it’s safe to say that Obama is smart enough to know better than to send state secrets about battle plans in the Middle East over a mobile device. Of course, he should be allowed to keep the BlackBerry. The President needs to be the most informed person in America, and mobile devices will help contribute to that status. His comments to CNN though didn’t quite hit home, when he said he wanted to be open to the public. He said to CNN, “If I’m doing something stupid, somebody in Chicago can send me an e-mail and say, ‘What are you doing?’” His comments about having voices throughout America sending him emails about “what’s happening in America” may have been politically savvy, but impractical, though. In reality, when Joe Autoworker in Detroit decides to shoot off an email to the President, it’s not going to go directly to his BlackBerry. It just doesn’t work that way, because there are just too many people registering opinions. It goes to an office somewhere, where the opinion is recorded and calculated, and the President will get a summary report of what has come in. He doesn’t need the BlackBerry for that. What he does need it for is for things like news feeds and updates, and for the ability to shoot off a message immediately when the need arises without having to route it through a dozen assistants. the Internet and mobile communications are fine tools with tremendous benefits, and although there are some risks and some serious precautions that need to be taken, the benefits ultimately will outweigh those risks.

Will he get to keep an ordinary, run-of-the-mill BlackBerry? Probably not. There is a version of the BlackBerry using AES-256 encryption, which has been approved by the Defense Department for secure communications, and other mobile devices that are designed from the ground up to be secure. Ultimately though, when Barack Obama takes office, he will be able to do his job better if he has the right technology available to him–and that means keeping the BlackBerry.