We can't have cellphones, TV, radio or the Internet. If the president died, we'd have no idea. There's no normalcy. It's just like prison, with cameras.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
In exchange for power, influence, command and a place in history, a president gives up the bulk of his privacy.
Ever since we've had electronic communications, and particularly during a time of war, presidents have authorized the electronic surveillance of the enemy.
Being president is like running a cemetery: you've got a lot of people under you and nobody's listening.
There are people who went to prison, died, gave their life so Obama could be president of the United States.
Surveillance changes history. We know this through examples of corrupt presidents like Nixon.
There are only two occasions when Americans respect privacy, especially in Presidents. Those are prayer and fishing.
Phones rang constantly, as if the White House was conducting some kind of pardon telethon.
It's hard to say conversation has become a minimal thing, because look at the rise of mobile communications in the last 10 years. It used to be only the president had a mobile phone. Now everyone on earth, even if they have nothing else, they have a cell phone.
I think it's time we had a president who carried the same life experiences into the White House as most ordinary Americans.
In a world of cell phones and satellite feeds - a world in which the president can sit in the White House situation room and watch a military action unfold on the other side of the world - it is not realistic to expect TV news to be anything but what it has become: a ceaseless flow of words and images that may or may not be accurate.