The White House is considering banning employees from using personal mobile phones while at work, Bloomberg reported Monday, prompting concerns from staffers that they'll be cut off from family and friends.
Working in any presidential administration is an incredibly difficult job that requires long hours even when your boss isn't stirring up minor PR disasters from his phone every few hours. The White House issues phones, but those phone can't send texts, "creating a hardship for staff who say texting is often the easiest way for their families to reach them in the middle of a busy day of meetings," Bloomberg noted. The psychological effects of not being able to text your loved ones when your cartoonishly racist and all-powerful boss does something stupid are still unclear.
Moreover, websites like Gmail are already blocked on the White House network, so if the ban is instituted, staffers would have further difficulty contacting their families during the work day, and if they do, those messages would be available to the public due to record-keeping rules. God forbid there be anything in the public record about the misery that is working for Donald Trump. Oh wait, it's too late.
While Trump has repeatedly complained about his staffers leaking information to the press, the ban is reportedly being considered for cybersecurity reasons. One official told Bloomberg that there are too many phones connected to White House WiFi, and personal phones lack the same security as those issued by the federal government. This was made clear last month, when reports emerged that White House Chief of Staff John Kelly had been using a phone that had been hacked.
Life isn't easy for aides in the White House at the moment. With the Russia scandal looming, some aides have had to hire lawyers. Other staffers are looking for other work after a series of high-profile resignations and firings this summer. One of the few pleasures they have left, surely, is venting to their spouses, parents, and maybe a Washington Post reporter or two. Banning phones while they're at work will take away the only thing they have left.
The upside is that if the phone ban applies to everyone, it will stop or at least slow the president's volatile Twitter ranting, which is both a national security threat and, on a personal level, very stressful. It remains unclear whether the potential ban will apply to Trump himself. I predict it won't, but a girl can dream.
Follow Eve Peyser on Twitter.
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