April 05, 2006 | More On Justice and Privacy

The Justice Department's new chief privacy officer, Jane Horvath, has perhaps the most interesting job in D.C. Whether she will get to do it is another question altogether.

I'm fairly certain that Horvath has no power to subpoena documents (Homeland Security's chief privacy officer doesn't) so any investigation she starts will rely on voluntary cooperation and whatever institutional leverage she has. If AG Gonzales isn't on her side, then she won't get anywhere in investigations.

Of course, there's a great irony of being a privacy cop without subpoena power when your job is to oversee cops with the power and the inclination to write their own subpoenas (say a National Security Letter demanding an airline turn over its passenger database) and use that data however they wish, including using it to build out a massive data-ming operation.

Horvath might get a feel for the job and not alienate too many people internally by starting with a close look at the DOJ's use of private data aggregators (think privatized intelligence gathering operation) such as Axciom, Choicepoint and LexisNexis. The GAO just released a study (.pdf) which found that these information gatherers don't really follow Fair Information Practices and that federal agencies, including the DOJ, don't always follow them either.

For example, the principles that the collection and use of personal information should be limited and its intended use specified are largely at odds with the nature of the information reseller business, which presupposes that personal information can be made available to multiple customers and for multiple purposes.[...]

Resellers generally limit the extent to which individuals can gain access to personal information held about themselves, as well as the extent to which inaccurate information contained in their databases can be corrected or deleted.

For more see, Robert O'Harrow, Jr.'s Washington Post story and the GAO's testimony (.pdf). to Congress yesterday.

Posted by Ryan Singel at April 5, 2006 10:09 AM

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