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Former DoubleClick Exec Named Privacy Czar
tsu doh nimh writes "A former executive for banner ad giant DoubleClick has been selected to be the first ever privacy czar for the Department of Homeland Security, says this Washingtonpost.com story." Just leaves you speechless ....
In a related move Osama Bin Laden has been appointed as the
first ever Terror Czar. Bin Laden was not immediately available
for comment.
From the article it sounds like this post will be more of a
public relations position than anything. Rather than appointing
someone who worked for a company notorious for trampling
people's privacy rights, IMO they should have appointed someone
who has a record of protecting an upholding our right to
privacy. Had they appointed someone with that type of track
record maybe the cabinet could have had an honest dialogue about
privacy rights in general, rather than simply a discussion about
how to phrase the wording of a news release so it doesn't freak
out the privacy rights groups.
Doug Tolton
"The destruction of a value which is, will not bring value to that which isn't." -John Galt
Before the huge storm of criticism starts, let's ask ourselves:
How would this be different from hiring Kevin Mitnick to handle security issues?
The we like Kevin Mitnick more than we like ad agencies is not sufficient grounds for an objection. What I want to know is, why shouldn't we hire knowledgable people away from doing what we don't want, and into doing what we do want?
Philip Sandifer's academic website
From the article:
"She joined DoubleClick in February 2000 after the Federal Trade Commission launched an investigation into complaints that the company was improperly storing and sharing private user data. DoubleClick also was embroiled in similar investigations by 12 state attorneys general and several class-action lawsuits.
DoubleClick settled most of those lawsuits, and created a division specializing in privacy compliance, which O'Connor Kelly ran. "
Sounds to me like some changes were make by O'Connor Kelly and privacy was improved. I'd say it takes a pretty strong person to go into a company as deep in it as Double Click and improve it.
----- "Blame the guy who doesn't speak English." -- Homer J. Simpson
Of course they didn't.
But hey, it's the /. editor's professional duty to not pay attention to any positive side of the story.
The story later mentions the infamous Total Awareness Office, and notes that "Congress said it will suspend funding for the Defense Department project unless the administration can demonstrate that it will not violate constitutional privacy rights." Naturally, that runs counter to the /. rule that "every privacy-related story must be in alarmist mode" so the editors always reject my submissions regarding Congress' threat to put TIA on hold.
You cannot apply a technological solution to a sociological problem. (Edwards' Law)
Thanks for answers!
So close and yet so far from the world's perfect ID number
Even the title of Privacy Czar for the Homeland Security department seems oxymoronic. Isn't the direction the USA is taking with Homeland Security towards giving up your privacy rights, with all these new laws passed?
There's 10 types of people in this world, those who understand binary and those who don't.
In the article in the Post, a guy from the CDT gives her a pretty positive review. I don't think this is worthy of a Chicken Little-style panic attack.
Once again, we have another /. double standard. How many times have I watched people here applaud when a former cracker gets appointed to a top position in security?
But God Forbid someone who knows the ins and outs of privacy abuses, a person who would know BEST how to protect against them, gets the chance to do so. They're evil and will always be evil!
Yeah lots of better resumes out there but those people may not have donated to the Republican party.
Visit www.seriouslythough.com
Your point is well taken, and she may well have been effective at improving Doubleclick's behaviour. However that doesn't change the fact that she comes from an industry that uses private information for their own profit. No matter how personally beyond reproach she may be, she's still a wolf amoung sheep.
"Consensus" is what got us into the current privacy mess! The current "compromise" on most personal financial data is that data holders have to tell you what their sharing policy is (in dense legalese text which usually has "we will share with basically anybody who will pay us for it" buried in it) and give you the chance to "opt out".
If the regulations had been made with consumers in mind at all, the default would have been to not share data and to only allow sharing when people opt-in. This would make private data a liability rather than an asset.
To a Lisp hacker, XML is S-expressions in drag.
And further...anyone who would expect the government, or anyone really, to hire someone to a position like this who would not simultaneously consider personal privacy issues and and public safety, is crazy. She is called a consensus builder by the personal security crowd. Hopefully she will build consensus that can help protect us from our enemies (and I use that term with no small amount of confusion as to who they are) while still protecting us from our own government.
bad sig...no donut.
At least "the Hedgehog" wouldn't tell poor people with 10 kids in countries with 40% HIV infection that using condoms is a sin.
Freedom: "I won't!"
All industries use private information for their own profit. Who would you suggest they use?
To know is to have knowledge....to understand is to be enlightened.
True, but if this is to be a watchdog post then someone representing consumer or citizen interest is a more appropriate choice to head it. This doesn't mean that industry people shouldn't be represented, just not in the watchdog role.
Yup, totally right. Mod the parent up and empty the article poster's karma for bad posting!
From the article, O'Connor only joined DoubleClick after they had become the privacy big bad wolf, and actually helped sort all that shit out. Notice you haven't heard that many DoubleClick horror stories recently...
Daniel
Carpe Diem
I just finished reading the article, and I had simmilar feelings, but perhaps not to the extent of yours. The article doesn't say she neccesarily "cleaned up" DoubleClick, or that she was hired by DoubleClick to do anything other than whitewash the company in the face of federal scrutiny. Perhaps she has been chosen to do the same for the government now? I don't really know one way or the other, all I have to rely on right now is the history of both DoubleClick and the Bush administration, neither of which are remotely good in the face of privacy. REMOTELY. All I know is, if the Bush administration is looking for a privacy advocate, there's plenty of places they can go other than DoubleClick that would make MUCH MUCH more sense. Like, say, the people who raised the suit against DoubleClick in the first place.
"Question with boldness even the existence of a god." - Thomas Jefferson
If you look at the article, it's pretty obvious that her job is all about defusing criticism due to privacy concerns without actually doing anything to stop the march towards an Orwellian society. For that, she's perfect... she successfully defused public criticism about DoubleClick without significantly hampering their effort to collect every little bit of information about you.
I will automatically assume that she does not (or soon will not) have the public's best interests at heart, and it has nothing to do with DoubleClick.
It has to do with the current Administration. I know, flame away, but the cronyism I've seen on display is... staggering. Absolutely staggering.
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
Yes, its still possibly (and IMHO, probably) a problem.
She ran cleanup, meaning she got DoubleClick out of the FTC doghouse. Her job was to save DoubleClick because they did things they shouldn't have, not to save the privacy rights of consumers.
I sincerely doubt her position is there to protect the privacy rights of US citizens, but rather just to tell the Homeland Security Department how far they can go according to the law. If someone is trying to push through new legislation that encroaches on privacy rights, don't expect this person (in this position, not this woman in particular) to lobby to stop or even challenge it.
To directly address the most common analogy I've seen in the comments: This is less like calling in Kevin Mitnick to help beef up security, and more like a hacker/cracker calling in Mitnick's lawyer to advise him on ways to stay out of trouble even though his goal is still to try to get away with hacking into systems.
I assume you mean a computer or electronics security post? I would most certainly consider him an excellent candidate for the job. He simultaneously understands how bad security is, the potentially disastrous consequences that has, and more than most anyone else, the need to keep tech-law legislation and enforcement grounded on _this_ side of reality.
Dyolf Knip
Also, while numerous geeks here will tell you that a former black hat makes the best white hat... Apparently that can't translate well elsewhere. Or probably just when it doesn't fit their narrow-minded agendas.
It's a good choice. She knows the tactics that are used, and is going to be well prepared to combat it.
How would this be different from hiring Kevin Mitnick to handle security issues?
Very different. Hacking and security is all about an *expertise*, which ultimately defines the quality of the work at the end of the day. In the privacy domain though the foundation is different - it's all about a *position*, the position of unconditional respect for individual privacy.
I seriously doubt one can suddenly develop such a respect if she was knowingly affiliated with doubleclick in the past. Too bad.
3.243F6A8885A308D313
You raise valid points.
Considering the number of convicted criminals appointed to important offices lately, it's difficult to believe anything that the administration does is in the public's best interest. I hope your suspicions are incorrect in this case, but I fear they're probably not. Time will tell...
__
Choose mnemonic identifiers. If you can't remember what mnemonic means, you've got a problem. - Larry Wall
All industries use private information for their own profit. Who would you suggest they use?
Someone anti-industry, like Ralph Nader
I read the exact same paragraph and it *confirmed* my concerns.
Look at this in perspective: DoubleClick is a huge organization that is having serious problems with lawsuits because it's trampling all over people's privacy. They bring in O'Connor Kelly, who does a good job settling *most* of the lawsuits (note: settling != defeating) and starts a new division to help keep DoubleClick safe from future lawsuits. DoubleClick continues to do as much data-mining and collection as it possibly can (because that's STILL the core of its business) but now it avoids most of the unpleasant and costly public lawsuits.
Now substitute "the US Govt" for "DoubleClick". Fits pretty well, doesn't it? It doesn't sound *too* bad... until you consider that they're still planning on doing as much privacy invasion as they can possibly get away with... she'll just help them walk that wavy line.
Think about the difference if the new privacy advisor were, say, one of the "12 state attorneys general" who were prosecuting DoubleClick, or someone involved in the "several class-action lawsuits" from the other side. Or ANYONE who had privacy advocacy experience from the victims' side.
There are only 10 types of people: those who understand decimal, those who don't, and, uh, 8 other types I forget.
Maybe there should be an Update: on the first page, but I wouldn't go so far as to say that chrisd isn't valid. The point remains that the chosen leader of the privacy division is not a privacy advocate, but rather someone who is good at cleaning up mistakes and doing what is necessary to comply.
Instead of choosing someone who is viewed as a consensus builder it would be better if the agency chose someone who zealously defends the privacy rights of citizens.Microsoft please hi
In case you missed your history classes, the US "Founding Fathers" didn't trust government. In fact, they felt that government was not trustworthy.
That is why there was the attempt to put all the checks and balances in place.
:q!
Why spend so much time coming up with absurd possibilities when the UN provides better examples. Libya 'right for human rights job' and Iraq to chair U.N. disarmament conference. Face it, the Dead Milkmen were right, we're all veterans of a f@#%ed up world.
How is this any different from AT&T hiring someone who hacks their network to be in charge of their security?
It seems that hiring someone who is good at compromising the system that is protecting you to make that system better is one of the things that the "geek" community recommends. How does this differ? The company she ran was good at compromising peoples privacy so who would better know how to protect that privacy?
Any argument you use against her can equally be applied to someone who compromises the network security of a business and is then hired by them.
Kintanon
Check out JoshJitsu.info for Brazilian Ji
You are inherantly getting the wrong idea of the quote...
"One of the things we liked (about her job) at DoubleClick was that she worked hard to build relationships with the privacy community and to vet their new policies with these groups,"
The point of her job was to sell new (slightly less) invasive policy to privacy advocates. She did nothing to improve privacy within the company. She did damage control for predetermined policy decided upon by other people. Policy was forced upon the company by the courts. This has NOTHING TO DO with fighting for your privacy, and EVERYTHING TO DO with selling invasive and barely legal policy to the public.
According to the article, this is EXACTLY what she was hired to do for the government. In fact, near the end of the article, they explicitly state that she will likely be trying to sell potentially illegal government programs to congress for the bush administration.
She is effectively a lobbiest, hired by Bush appointed people, to sell illegal government programs like TIA and CAPPS II.
If you don't see anything wrong with this, I'd like to ask you wtf planet are you from? Now your tax dollars are going to a lobbiest that is trying to defend privacy policy that is illegal.
Two infinite things: your stupidity and mine. But I'm not sure about the latter. If my sig offends you, I'm sorry.
Exactly. As you say - if her mandate is to protect citizens' privacy, industry concerns should come second.
(Regardless of who's in power, there'll never be a shortage of pro-business, anti-privacy lobbyists to counterbalance any excesses on the part of even the most radical Privacy Czar :)
Quote: "What will they do next week? Put Pol Pot in charge of the Human Rights Commission?"
No. It was not the US, but the UN, that put Libya in charge of Human Rights, and put Iraq in charge of Disarmerment!
Karma: Low - Moderation bullies keep stealing my lunch money.
Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced. - Geek's corollary to Clarke's law
Surely they could find someone with a better resume than that? Surely?
Of course they could have found someone better. They just wanted to tweak the public's nose... conciously adding to the general, fear, dispair, and resignation which they love and feed on. The sooner you learn that what motivates them is different than what they CLAIM motivates them, the better off you'll be.
Oh, and stop calling me Surely.
You know, this CAN be interpreted in at least two different ways...
That's only because DoubleClicks market collapsed out from under them.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
This isn't a "accounting" issue like whitewater, or a "technical purgury" issue like monica. Most of those things for most people with any money would go away with a phone call or two--those were specifically political. Poindexter on the other hand, was specifically banned [by a law just for him!] from helping contras [I believe]. He not only performed the acts, but covered up for the president and vice who ordered it insite of Congress! Again, we're still paying the price for that whole arms-for-hostages thing because at the time much of that money went to people like Saddam! If his testimony was subject to the scrutiny of Clinton's he'd still be rotting in prison!
Several high-level appointees have specifically broken the law for the white house in the past. These are people that have broken the law and thrown it in the face of congress, specifically after being told what to do! This isn't missed taxes, or an epa fine, it's willful and deliberate. For starts, congress has no place confirming them at all, but these may not be confirmed seats--funny how that works.