After NSA revelations, a privacy czar is needed

[Commentary] The United States has lots of good privacy laws, robust government enforcement and extensive litigation by private lawyers, but the federal government has no uber-guru in charge of US privacy policy.

The lack of centralized leadership on this nonpartisan, hot-button issue explains why our country appears to be floundering around the National Security Agency (NSA) leaks and unready to deal with the ubiquitous deployment of technologies such as unmanned aerial drones and facial recognition. Heightened concerns over government surveillance have complicated efforts to harmonize international privacy rules. The post-Edward Snowden jumbling together of “national security” privacy and “consumer” privacy, along with the siloed nature of US regulation, has made it more difficult for Europeans, and Americans, to understand how the US system works. The absence of a high-level point person also undermines our country’s ability to engage European trading partners who invoke “privacy shortfalls” to deny business opportunities to US Internet companies. Only a White House appointee could prevent the looming digital trade war and data protection train wreck given the disparate interests and agencies involved on the US side. A privacy and data protection coordinator would primarily be a privacy architect and spokesperson. Answering to the president would ensure continued progress and meaningful accountability on the privacy concerns that are increasingly central at home and abroad.

[Raul is a lawyer in Washington who previously served as vice chairman of the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board]