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Government Techies Change Gears
by Sarah Lai Stirland
Dan Caprio is leaving one government agency to try his hand at another. Caprio leaves the Federal Trade Commission and heads to the Commerce Department's Technology Administration to become the deputy assistant secretary for technology policy on June 1.
Caprio currently is FTC Commissioner Orson Swindle's chief of staff, where he focused much of his efforts on cyber-security issues. He recently served as co-chair of the National Cyber Security Partnership's Awareness and Outreach Task Force. In that role, his efforts focused on boosting consumer awareness of cyber security. The partnership is led by a number of industry trade groups that include the Business Software Alliance, the Information Technology Association of America and TechNet. FTC attorney Laura DeMartino will take over Caprio's role at the FTC following his departure.
Caprio's addition to the TA is the latest move in a department that is going through a number of changes. Earlier this year, the White House nominated Benjamin Wu to become assistant secretary of technology policy. Wu currently is deputy undersecretary of Commerce for technology. If confirmed, Wu will succeed Bruce Mehlman, who left the Commerce Department last year to lead the Computer Systems Policy Project, a trade association of technology industry chief executives.
Privacy Issues Push Ahead
Oftentimes, the flip side of security is privacy, and on that front, the Homeland Security Department recently created the new position of director of privacy technology. Peter Sand, 35, assumed that position three weeks ago. He will coordinate privacy compliance efforts of the various departments within Homeland Security as they create and deploy new technologies, he said Friday at a privacy conference. Sand was formerly the chief information officer for the attorney general for Pennsylvania.
A source and a privacy expert who knows Sand said: "He's a good guy, and his heart is in the right place." But like Bruce Schneier, chief technology officer of Counterpane, an Internet security company, the source wondered how effective the privacy office of Homeland Security could be given its position within the agency. The department faces a multitude of privacy issues as it deploys a massive new infrastructure to track the movement of people and goods in and out of the country.
In the privacy arena, it looks as if privacy issues may receive a boost in the public eye.
Former Georgia congressman Bob Barr has joined CNN as a regular contributor. He has been tapped to offer analysis on politics, law and international affairs, but Barr also is a prominent advocacy for privacy. And given the various data mining efforts underway in the federal government and related ongoing public interest-driven lawsuits, privacy will be a regular news item. Barr is the 21st Century Liberties Chairman for Freedom and Privacy at the American Conservative Union, and serves as a consultant to the American Civil Liberties Union on privacy issues.
Also on the privacy front, the George Washington Law School has hired a new expert in privacy law. Daniel Solove, an associate professor of law at the Seton Hall University School of Law, has joined GW as an associate professor of law. This fall, NYU Press will publish his book: The DigitalPerson:Technology and Privacy in the Information Age . The book addresses the deficiencies in current privacy law as both the private and government sectors increase their uses and reliance on privacy-invasive technologies, among other things.
FBI's New CIO Takes Questions on Trilogy
Zalmai Azmi, the FBI's new chief information officer, is reaching out to the public and making himself available for questions from the press. The FBI has been under fire for the past couple of years for not being able to overhaul its information systems on time and on budget.
One of the latest salvos on the FBI's technology competence recently came from House Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., when earlier this month he asked the General Accounting Office to investigate whether the FBI had competently managed the vendor responsible for delivering the Virtual Case File portion of the FBI's new Trilogy information system. The case-file system was scheduled to be implemented and finished a couple of years ago, but still is not operational.
In answer to the question on competent management in an interview Monday, Azmi said: "I think yes. It's the nature of the contract that did not work for the bureau."
The contract was a "'labor hour' kind of thing and did not have specific milestones," he explained. That approach has been revised and all projects now have specific people checking up on their progress on a weekly and even daily basis, said Azmi.
"On a daily basis, we review their performance -- every single day at seven o'clock in the morning, I will receive a report on where they are," said Azmi of the agency's new approach to managing its vendors.
Part of the new approach means getting the feedback of actual users themselves. Thus, as the FBI embarks on building a blueprint for its technology infrastructure, known as its enterprise architecture, 14 representatives from the FBI's various departments have been tapped to participate in a board to shape the direction of the plan. Bearing Point, the contractor responsible for developing the plan, is scheduled to deliver the final product at the end of the year.
Telecom Lobbyist Changes Course
On the telecommunications front, Robert Koppel, a long-time telecom lobbyist at MCI, has joined Texas Instruments as director of government relations for telecommunications policy.
Koppel said he expects to work on both licensed and unlicensed spectrum policy issues, and he will be "doing everything to push broadband." Texas Instruments is one of the world's largest makers of chipsets of all things telecommunications, from Wi-Fi products to cell phones to cable broadband modems. Koppel joins a team of seven lobbyists for Texas Instruments in Washington. John Boidock heads the group.
New GW Cyber Campaign Fellows Announced
On the Internet campaign front, the George Washington University's Institute for Politics, Democracy & the Internet has announced three new visiting senior research fellows. The fellows will join the institute in the fall, and they are: Grant Reeher, an associate professor of political science at Syracuse University and co-author of Click on Democracy; Christine Williams, professor of government at Bentley College, who researched the role of "meetups" -- informal grassroots gatherings organized via the Internet -- in the presidential campaign; and Costas Panagopoulos, executive director of New York University's Political Campaign Management program.
The fellows will collaborate on research and publish information on the effect of the Internet on the presidential campaign.
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