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Harper Starts A New Chapter At Cato
by Sarah Lai Stirland
Jim Harper's name has become synonymous with the unusual name of Privacilla, the name of his Web page. Privacilla serves as a resource on technology policy and privacy issues from a free-market perspective.
The page looks like many other organization's Web pages, with links to press releases on privacy issues on the home page, and logos adorning the top and sides of the front page.
The difference is Privacilla is a one-man operation. Harper calls his site a "Web-based think tank." The site offers summaries and explanations of many aspects of privacy law and is free to the public.
Harper's passion for policy analysis and educating and influencing the public has landed him a full-time position as director of information policy studies at the Cato Institute - a Washington think tank that reaped $13 million in revenues in 2000 and employs a staff of 90, as well as 60 adjunct scholars and 16 fellows, according to its Web site.
Harper will begin his new job Sept. 15, and already has published a 15-page policy primer on the basics of privacy and how the government remains the biggest existing threat to individual privacy. He will continue to maintain Privacilla as a Web resource, he said. In the meantime, he is enjoying the summer by traveling around the country and has planned at the end of the month to attend the techno-libertarian event of the year - the Burning Man festival in Nevada's Black Rock Desert.
In addition to maintaining Privacilla, Harper also was a lobbyist for four years. He represented technology, telecommunications and e-commerce clients such as Paypal, VeriSign and OpenTV.
Intellectual Property Group Aims To Go Global
Former special adviser to the Commerce DepartmentBrad Huther started working as president and CEO of the International Intellectual Property Institute mid-July, and he has started to implement some changes there. He plans to expand the organization's board of advisers and to make announcements about two new members around the middle of next month. The goal of the expansion is to make the organization live up to its name as currently IIPI's three board advisers are Americans. The IIPI earlier this month announced it chose James Rogan, a Republican and former Southern California lawmaker and currently a director of the Patent and Trademark Office, to chair its advisory board. Rogan currently is a partner at Venable. Between 2002 and 2003 Huther was a senior adviser to Rogan.
Electronic Frontier Foundation Adds Staff
The Electronic Frontier Foundation's ranks continue to grow. Kurt Opsahl and Matt Zimmerman join the legal team as staff attorneys, and Matt Peterson joins as a systems administrator. Kyle Pedersen joins as a coordinator and will work on EFF membership development. The addition of the two new attorneys mean that the cyber-liberties organization has a staff of nine lawyers - the largest number it has had to date.
Opsahl is a former associate at Perkins Coie, where he represented technology clients on intellectual property, privacy, defamation and other online liability matters. He will work on privacy, surveillance and other constitutional issues at the California-based EFF.
The EFF hired Zimmerman to work on electronic voting issues. He is a former privacy fellow at public interest law firm the First Amendment Project, where he specialized in privacy and open government issues. He previously worked at Morrison & Foerster, focusing on commercial litigation matters, including patent and technology licensing disputes.
Peterson's previous employer was Surf and Sip, a wireless networking company. He is one of the founders of the Bay Area Wireless User Group. He spent many years working with nonprofit organizations in Asia to set up wireless networks for regions with little or no Internet access.
Pedersen joins the EFF from the Urban Justice Center in New York, where he was an activist on mental health issues.
In other news, Carrie Sloan is the new press secretary at the House Armed Services Committee. Sloan formerly handled media relations for Sen. Craig Thomas, R-Wyo., and Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska.
Telecom Group Goes For The Gold
Heather Burnett Gold has been named senior vice president of government relations at XO Communications. Gold will report to XO CEO Carl Grivner. Gold will oversee XO's regulatory and legislative advocacy. Gold has more than 20 years of experience and is a seasoned telecommunications lobbyist. She joins XO from the KDW Group, a lobbying shop where she was a co-founder and principal. XO is a provider of facilities-based telecommunications services for businesses. The company said in a release that Gold's addition is a sign of the times. He said that recent court decisions have mandated a rewrite of the FCC's rules on local telephone competition, which could increase prices for access to the Bell telecom firms' facilities in a way that could harm competition.
A Bounty Crop For Entertainment Groups
The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and the National Association of Theater Owners (NATO) late last week named the first two recipients of their $500 bounties on movie theater camcorder pirates. The two bounty recipients of $500 each are Tony Bahena and Scott Bergin who are theater projectionists for Pacific Theatres in Los Angeles. They received the money after the theater goers whom they reported to police were successfully convicted under a California anti-piracy law that took effect in January. The law outlaws the operation of video-recording devices in theaters. Seventeen states and the District of Columbia have outlawed the use of recording devices in theaters. The MPAA and NATO in June launched a program to give $500 rewards to theater employees who report movie pirates with camcorders in theaters to police.
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