Mitch Daniels - OMB Director
Office of Management and Budget
Executive Office of the President
Washington, DC 20503

Dear OMB Director Daniels,

The undersigned public interest organizations and academics urge you to fill the position of Chief Privacy Counselor within the Office of Management and Budget as soon as possible.

Privacy is an important American value.  Recent polls have shown that privacy is the biggest concern of American’s for this new century.  The Chief Privacy Counselor would serve an essential role as overseer of the implementation of existing privacy law as it applies to the federal government and advise the President on privacy policy in the
public and private sectors.

While we agree that a Chief Privacy Counselor is not a suitable end solution to address all of the privacy issues facing the United States, the position has been effective in proactively addressing privacy issues within the federal government and serving as a liaison to the privacy, consumer and business communities.  We are concerned that without these central staff resources dedicated solely to privacy, we will return to a time when privacy was an afterthought in government and commercial data processing; education of the different agencies took years rather than months; and OMB staff knew little about the larger privacy issues effecting the country.

We hope that you will take these concerns under consideration and will act quickly to fill this position.

Sincerely,
 

Center for Democracy and Tech.       Consumer Action
Private Citizen , Inc                OMB Watch
Free Congress Foundation             Privacy Foundation
Mary J. Culnan, Bentley College      Rod Dixon, Rutgers Univ. Law School
Jerry Kang, UCLA School of Law       Deirdre Mulligan, Boalt Law School
Paul Schwartz, Brooklyn Law School   David Sorkin, John Marshall Law School
Joel R. Reidenberg, Fordham University School of Law

CC: Chairman Fred Thompson, Senate Government Affairs Committee
Senator Joseph Lieberman, Senate Government Affairs Committee
Chairman Dan Burton, House Government Reform Committee
The Honorable Henry Waxman, House Government Reform Committee
Chairman Steven Horn, Subcommittee on Government Efficiency, Financial
Management and Intergovernmental Relations
The Honorable Janice Schakowsky, Subcommittee on Government Efficiency,
Financial Management and Intergovernmental Relations