Future of Privacy Forum Applauds Appointment of Senior Fellow Peter Swire to President Obama’s Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies

Future of Privacy Forum Applauds Appointment of Senior Fellow Peter Swire to President Obama’s Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies

Date: August 28, 2013

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Future of Privacy Forum (FPF) today applauded FPF Senior Fellow, Professor Peter Swire, on his appointment as as a member of President Barack Obama’s Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies.

“Peter brings to this task a deep passion for individual privacy rights” said Jules Polonetsky, Executive Director and Co-Chair of FPF. “The public will be well served by his commitment to ensure our intelligence activities are conducted in a manner that respects civil liberties.”

“Americans can sleep better knowing that Peter Swire will bring his great intellect and great common sense to the task of weighing privacy and national security needs,” commented Christopher Wolf, Founder and Co-Chair of the Future of Privacy Forum.

Swire brings unique government experience and substantive expertise to the newly created position. Under former President Bill Clinton, Swire served as Chief Counselor for Privacy, in the U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and was the sole principal to date to have government-wide responsibility for privacy policy, including chairing a White House Working Group on how to update wiretap laws for the Internet age. In 2009-2010, Swire served as Special Assistant to the President for Economic Policy, in the National Economic Council under Lawrence Summers.

Swire has written extensively on international intelligence and communications technology issues, including articles on “The System of Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Law” and “Privacy and Information Sharing in the War Against Terrorism.” He has testified before Congress on multiple occasions about these and related issues.

Swire also is recognized as an expert on encryption policy, which is a key issue for global Internet communications. He chaired the White House Working Group on encryption in 1999, when the U.S. government shifted policies in favor of greater exports of effective encryption. As part of a project on government access to information for FPF, he has written articles including “Encryption and Globalization” and “From Real-Time Intercepts to Stored Records: Why Encryption Drives the Government to Seek Access to the Cloud.” His essay on “Going Dark vs. a Golden Age of Surveillance” was recognized by FPF as one of its leading 2012 Privacy Papers for Policy Makers.

Professor Swire is the lead author of two 2012 books used by the International Association of Privacy Professionals (IAPP) as official texts for the Certified Information Privacy Professionals examinations.

In November, 2012, Professor Swire was named co-chair of the global “Do Not Track” process of the World Web Consortium. With his new responsibilities on the Review Group, Swire is stepping down from his role as co-chair.