Privacy Czar: Past Haunts Present By Steve Kettmann
Story location: http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,55900,00.html
02:00 AM Oct. 19, 2002 PDT
A former Clinton administration official in charge of privacy issues warned Friday that the Bush administration risked setting the country back decades on privacy policy if it did not heed the lessons of the past.
Peter Swire, a law professor at Ohio State University, evoked the witch-hunt atmosphere of "anti-Communist excesses" to offer a sobering reminder of the dangers of repealing personal liberties in the name of the war on terrorism.
"By the mid-1970s, there was clearly substantiated evidence of widespread lawlessness and surveillance by the FBI, CIA and other federal agencies," he said at a lunchtime address to the International Association of Privacy Officers in Chicago.
"Don't let the anti-terrorism measures of today turn into the anti-communist excesses of decades past," Swire said. "We've seen what abuses in the name of liberty look like -- lack of accountability and institutionalized lawlessness. We must assure that does not happen again."
Swire, chief counsel for privacy in the Clinton administration, kept a generally low profile during his time in public office.
But now he worries that the recent rush of events has distracted the current administration, which he said started out sending strong signals of engagement on privacy issues.
"At the beginning of the administration, President Bush made pro-privacy statements," Swire said. "I think the administration was on track to name a chief privacy officer if things hadn't changed. But Sept. 11 changed everything in this administration.
"We should be cautious about the USA Patriot Act and repealing laws we created in response to this previous era of lawlessness. We should remember the history, or we risk repeating it."
Ari Schwartz, associate director of the Washington-based Center for Democracy and Technology, said he thought Swire made a point of being fair about how the Bush administration handled privacy issues early on.
Schwartz also said that Nuala O'Connor Kelly, chief counsel for the Commerce Department's Technology Administration, spoke on a panel with Swire and emphasized several privacy-related accomplishments the Bush administration has made -- in particular in the area of identity theft and medical privacy.
O'Connor Kelly was traveling, and unavailable for further comment.
Schwartz, who supports having a privacy officer in every administration, said the area is too important to leave to other officials. With no one in Swire's old job to encourage brainstorming and action, it's less likely that even promising initiatives will move forward, he said.
"There really is not that much leadership on privacy coming from the White House right now," he said. "There's less accountability on privacy. At the same time, the administration has less oversight of law enforcement. We don't have leadership looking into individual rights, but we have leadership that might be taking away individual rights."
Swire said relying on constitutional protections might not be enough.
"There is a seductive trap in the (Bush) administration's rhetoric," Swire said. "They are saying that they will protect privacy as provided by the Constitution. That sounds good, but unfortunately most of the effective privacy protections today come from statutes and not from the Constitution itself. That approach is a recipe for repealing all of the laws that we wrote in the 1970s to prevent this lawlessness and abuse of power."
Story location: http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,55900,00.html
02:00 AM Oct. 19, 2002 PDT
A former Clinton administration official in charge of privacy issues warned Friday that the Bush administration risked setting the country back decades on privacy policy if it did not heed the lessons of the past.
Peter Swire, a law professor at Ohio State University, evoked the witch-hunt atmosphere of "anti-Communist excesses" to offer a sobering reminder of the dangers of repealing personal liberties in the name of the war on terrorism.
"By the mid-1970s, there was clearly substantiated evidence of widespread lawlessness and surveillance by the FBI, CIA and other federal agencies," he said at a lunchtime address to the International Association of Privacy Officers in Chicago.
"Don't let the anti-terrorism measures of today turn into the anti-communist excesses of decades past," Swire said. "We've seen what abuses in the name of liberty look like -- lack of accountability and institutionalized lawlessness. We must assure that does not happen again."
Swire, chief counsel for privacy in the Clinton administration, kept a generally low profile during his time in public office.
But now he worries that the recent rush of events has distracted the current administration, which he said started out sending strong signals of engagement on privacy issues.
"At the beginning of the administration, President Bush made pro-privacy statements," Swire said. "I think the administration was on track to name a chief privacy officer if things hadn't changed. But Sept. 11 changed everything in this administration.
"We should be cautious about the USA Patriot Act and repealing laws we created in response to this previous era of lawlessness. We should remember the history, or we risk repeating it."
Ari Schwartz, associate director of the Washington-based Center for Democracy and Technology, said he thought Swire made a point of being fair about how the Bush administration handled privacy issues early on.
Schwartz also said that Nuala O'Connor Kelly, chief counsel for the Commerce Department's Technology Administration, spoke on a panel with Swire and emphasized several privacy-related accomplishments the Bush administration has made -- in particular in the area of identity theft and medical privacy.
O'Connor Kelly was traveling, and unavailable for further comment.
Schwartz, who supports having a privacy officer in every administration, said the area is too important to leave to other officials. With no one in Swire's old job to encourage brainstorming and action, it's less likely that even promising initiatives will move forward, he said.
"There really is not that much leadership on privacy coming from the White House right now," he said. "There's less accountability on privacy. At the same time, the administration has less oversight of law enforcement. We don't have leadership looking into individual rights, but we have leadership that might be taking away individual rights."
Swire said relying on constitutional protections might not be enough.
"There is a seductive trap in the (Bush) administration's rhetoric," Swire said. "They are saying that they will protect privacy as provided by the Constitution. That sounds good, but unfortunately most of the effective privacy protections today come from statutes and not from the Constitution itself. That approach is a recipe for repealing all of the laws that we wrote in the 1970s to prevent this lawlessness and abuse of power."