Bush should pick chief privacy officer straightaway, groups say

[Declan McCullagh]

>Date: Mon, 16 Apr 2001 12:00:24 -0500
>To: politech at politechbot.com
>From: Declan McCullagh <declan at 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]
>
>***********
>
>From: ari at cdt.org
>Subject: Public Interest Groups and Academics Call on Bush Administration 
>to Fill Privacy Position
>Message-Id: <20010416131813.2BEDD4A5B7 at 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 at 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 at cdt.org
>http://www.cdt.org
>-----------------------------------