We recommend that the Hatch Act guidelines be officially amended to state that all email from senior White House personnel be subject to management through secure government systems. It should be clear that whether a staffer is lower level or more senior is not nearly as relevant as access to information. Anyone for whom any communication could possibly cause a risk should be required to use secure government systems.

Further, this should encompass all email communication by such staffers, including personal communication. Whether its a note about going on a date or a note about picking up milk, those emails should be managed by secure government oversight.

We fully understand that such a requirement may seem draconian, but this is not a game. A simple "The President is away, so I don't have to work late" message could provide all sorts of insights into scheduling that we might not want our enemies to get.

Recommendation: establish an Electronic Communication Protection Detail
Imagine if each president had to hire "some guy" to protect him while out in public. That was the case for all presidents before Teddy Roosevelt. In fact, Secret Service protection for presidents came about because of the McKinley assassination in 1901, which put T.R. into the White House.

Now, however, the exceptionally professional Presidential Protective Detail protects the President of the United States and his family. The Secret Service uses sets of very carefully established procedures to ensure the protection of the president and is run by career professionals who have years of expertise and experience in Secret Service operations.

The current Director of the United States Secret Service, Mark J. Sullivan, began his career as a special agent with the Detroit Field Office back in 1983, giving him 24 years of experience in the job. The previous director was W. Ralph Basham, who had 28 years with the Secret Service. Going back further, Basham's predecessor was Brian L. Stafford, who had served for more than 30 years in the Secret Service.

These are people with towering expertise fulfilling the various missions of the Secret Service. Although their operations have to be flexible with regard to presidential desires, they've long understood their primary mission is first to the protection of the president and, only in absence of a risk, to the personal and political desires and needs of the president (which must make for some interesting days for those agents).

It should also be noted here that the Hatch Act vanishes when it comes to presidential protection. Whether the president is out and about making a policy speech or an unabashed political fund-raising speech, the Presidential Protective Detail is active and doing its job.

Sadly, nothing with the professionalism of the Presidential Protective Detail exists for managing White House email. Internal email management is left to the whims of the IT staff currently employed by the sitting administration.