Top Privacy Posts Left Vacant by Bush Admin

By Ryan Singel

Feb, 02, 2006

President Bush has kept top civil liberty and privacy posts unfilled, even as the controversy over White House-ordered eavesdropping on Americans enters its second month.The powerful Office of the Director of National Intelligence, created by the Intelligence Reform Act, must have a civil liberties protection officer who is charged with ensuring that the "use of technologies sustain, and do not erode, privacy protections," according to the law. But the White House has yet to nominate anyone for the job.

The current DNI is former U.S. ambassador to Iraq John Negroponte. His deputy is ex-National Security Agency chief Gen. Michael Hayden, who, for the last month, has been vigorously defending the NSA eavesdropping program that circumvented federal wiretapping laws. Bush mentioned the spy plan in his State of the Union address Tuesday, calling it a "terrorist surveillance program to aggressively pursue the international communications of suspected al-Qaida operatives and affiliates to and from America."

But the White House has failed to nominate a replacement chief privacy officer for the Department of Homeland Security, a post that's been vacant since September when Nuala O'Connor Kelly left the administration to become General Electric's privacy officer. The office is currently being run by O'Connor Kelly's former deputy, Maureen Cooney.

Wired News: Bush Keeps Privacy Posts Vacant