We recommend the establishment of a career Electronic Communication Protection Detail, managed under the auspices of the Secret Service, with the same level of mission-centric attention to detail and professionalism as the Presidential Protective Detail.

And professionalism and domain expertise are important here. Note that the Secret Service has been led by professionals with years of towering experience. This is in stark difference to FEMA during Hurricane Katrina. The then director of FEMA, Mike Brown, had previously spent 11 years managing horse trial judges and stewards at the Arabian Horse Association -- not exactly towering expertise for the nation's top emergency manager. Interesting, isn't it, that the guy appointed to protect the president had a heck of a lot more experience protecting the president than the guy appointed to protect the rest of the country had with protecting anything?

If established, the Electronic Communication Protection Detail must also be led by someone with towering expertise in hands-on IT problem solving and security. I'd rather see a Kevin Mitnick in charge than a Mike Brown. For those of you not familiar with Kevin, he was convicted in the 1990s for hacking into government and private industry computer systems. At one time, he was considered such a threat that he spent time in solitary confinement. The authorities were convinced that if he had access to anything electronic, he might somehow launch nuclear weapons (true story). Today, having served his time, Kevin advises companies on computer security.

The point here is that the Electronic Communication Protection Detail we've proposed must be populated with exceptional IT and security people, not "I know a guy in Tennessee". Like with the Presidential Protective Detail, protection of email security must come before the preferences of the protectees. Too much is at stake to blur the line between convenience and protection.

We believe the Secret Service is uniquely qualified to establish this detail because of its dual missions of presidential protection and computer-based criminal investigation. The Secret Service operates a network of Electronic Crimes Task Forces and Working Groups, so much of the technical expertise to establish an Electronic Communication Protection Detail is already in place.

The mission of the Electronic Communication Protection Detail needs to include the safeguarding of White House email security, the safeguarding and reliable archiving of all messages, and the overall management of email, cell phone, and BlackBerry communications within the White House staff.

By having one entity providing oversight and operational management across administrations, and by having that entity being one with an excellent track record protecting the president and the White House, we believe that White House email will be far more secure.

It's worthy of note that we've specifically include management of cell phones and BlackBerry-style handheld PDAs within the mission of the proposed Electronic Communication Protection Detail. Given that these devices are more powerful than many full-sized computers were during the Reagan Administration, there's a huge potential downside risk if these devices are mismanaged.