Talk about about the wolf guarding the henhouse! Imagine an executive with one of the biggest companies that ever made money selling information about your internet browsing habits now becoming the "privacy czar" in the Bush Homeland Security team!! It's just another example of Bush double-speak in 2003!

Check out this great report from Dan Gilmor's blog:
http://weblog.siliconvalley.com/column/dangillmor/

April 17, 2003
Can We Trust This Federal 'Privacy' Officer?

Washington Post: Homeland Security Dept. Fills Privacy Post. The former privacy officer of Internet advertising giant DoubleClick will be the Department of Homeland Security's first privacy czar, Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge announced today.

If you read this story, you'll see a not-terrible assessment of the privacy official in question, who developed a reputation for at least listening to people's concerns when she worked at DoubleClick.

But her former company was notorious for corporate tone-deafness on the topic. It put in place serious pro-privacy measures (and not enough of those) under legal duress.

Do you believe the Bush White House cares a whit for your privacy? Do you believe the agency charged wtih "Homeland Security" (am I the only one who thinks the name is faintly Stalinist?) will hesitate to violate privacy on a routine basis? The answer is plainly "no" in each case.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A39211-2003Apr16.html

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