Date: Mon, 16 Apr 2001 12:00:24 -0500 To: politech@politechbot.com From: Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com> Subject: Bush should pick chief privacy officer straightaway, groups say

[If these worthy groups and academics were interested only in encouraging the Feds to think more seriously about how agencies should approach privacy, there would be nothing to criticize and everything to applaud. But there is the potential for Bush to pick someone who is more interested in upping regulations of the private sector, something that is not as clearly a good thing. --Declan]

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From: ari@cdt.org Subject: Public Interest Groups and Academics Call on Bush Administration to Fill Privacy Position Message-Id: <20010416131813.2BEDD4A5B7@mail1.panix.com> Date: Mon, 16 Apr 2001 09:18:13 -0400 (EDT)

Public Interest Groups and Academics Call on Bush Administration to Fill Privacy Position

In a letter sent today, a diverse group of advocacy organizations and academics called on the Director of the Office and Management and budget to hire a new Chief Privacy Counselor.

The signers expressed concern that privacy would lose the momentum that it had gained at the end of last year. "We are concerned that without these central staff resources dedicated solely to privacy, we will return to a time when privacy was an afterthought in government and commercial data processing; education of the different agencies took years rather than months; and OMB staff knew little about the larger privacy issues effecting the country," the letter read.

The signers want the new counselor to oversee the implementation of existing privacy law as it applies to the federal government and advise the President on privacy policy in the public and private sectors.

"Despite all that we have heard about the importance of privacy recently in both the public and private sectors from Congress and in the polls," said Center for Democracy and Technology Senior Policy Analyst Ari Schwartz, "we are still waiting for the Administration to appoint leadership on the issue."

The organizational signers included The Center for Democracy and Technology, Consumer Action, the Free Congress Foundation, OMB Watch, Private Citizen, and Privacy Foundation along with seven important academic experts Mary J. Culnan, Bentley College; Rod Dixon, Rutgers University Law School; Jerry Kang, UCLA School of Law; Deirdre K. Mulligan, Boalt Law School, University of California, Berkeley ; Joel R. Reidenberg, Fordham University School of Law; Paul Schwartz, Brooklyn Law School; and David E. Sorkin, The John Marshall Law School, Chicago.

The full letter is available online at: http://www.cdt.org/privacy/010412omb.shtml

Contact: Ari Schwartz Center for Democracy and Technology 202-637-9800 ari@cdt.org

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----------------------------------- Ari Schwartz Policy Analyst Center for Democracy and Technology 1634 Eye Street NW, Suite 1100 Washington, DC 20006 202 637 9800 fax 202 637 0968 ari@cdt.org http://www.cdt.org -----------------------------------