Earlier this week, CDT co-hosted an appearance by the nation’s new Chief Technology Officer, Aneesh Chopra. Speaking at the Computer History Museum in Silicon Valley, Chopra outlined how he wants to use technology to address the critical issues facing the nation and how he thinks the federal government can best support innovation. The video of Chopra’s remarks is up courtesy of our co-host, the Churchill Club.

Tim O’Reilly explained at length earlier this year why Chopra was such a good choice to shape technology policy in Washington, and it was impossible not to agree after hearing Chopra speak this week. Chopra is an opportunist in the best sense of the word. He has a grand vision of how technology can contribute to issues ranging from health care to education to the environment, but he also understands the value of incremental steps and short-term results. His talk was peppered with examples from his tenure as Virginia’s Secretary of Technology and his first months in the White House, where he is already in charge of an overhaul of the case status system for the US Citizenship and Immigration Services, among other projects promising immediate pay-out.

CDT is working on many of the issues Chopra mentioned, including health IT, cyber-security, broadband deployment, and, of course, government transparency. At times, we will be pushing the Administration to go further that it might otherwise be inclined to go in terms of openness and privacy, and we will criticize the Administration when it falls short, but we couldn’t want a smarter, more receptive official to engage with than Aneesh Chopra.

If I had one criticism of Chopra’s remarks, it would be his repeated emphasis on accomplishing things without changing the underlying laws. On the one hand, working within existing frameworks is consistent with his attractive opportunism. However, it is clear that some laws need to be updated to ensure deep, government-wide change. One example is the Privacy Act, which applies to federal databases; CDT has a major project underway to bring this 1974 law into the 21st century. Getting legislation passed will require White House leadership, and we hope that Chopra, while developing practical tools to make government more transparent and participatory, will also lend his credibility to improving the legislative framework for privacy in government systems.

Update: Here are the slides Aneesh Chopra used in his August 4, 2009 presentation in Silicon Valley. [pdf]

Aneesh Chopra was appointed by President Barack Obama as the nations first Chief Technology Officer in April 2009, with the mandate to promote technological innovation to help the country meet its most urgent priorities – from creating jobs and reducing health care costs to keeping our nation secure.
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Last week I had the pleasure of attending the 75th meeting of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), one of the leading international technical standards bodies for the Internet. For many years, CDT has sought to engage in technical standards work as a means to foster communication between the technology and public policy communities, while also ensuring that the public interest is well represented in standards development. As I’ve become increasingly engaged in IETF activities over the past year (see my first post from a year ago, the breadth of topics that intersect with CDT’s policy work has continued to expand. Although it may not be immediately obvious to an outside observer, the work of the IETF has a crucial impact on whether the Internet will remain open, innovative and free.

Here’s a recap of a few highlights from the week-long meeting held in Stockholm, Sweden:

• The meeting included a plenary session about net neutrality (slides are available on the IETF web site under Thursday Plenary). The goal of the plenary was to help inform the Internet Architecture Board (IAB) about what the IETF might do in the net neutrality space and how the IETF is affected by net neutrality debates. The IAB has architectural oversight over IETF activities.

Barbara van Schewick from the Stanford Center for Internet & Society was invited in to introduce the topic. She was followed by Mark Handley, a long-time IETF participant who suggested that by focusing on developing protocols that reduce congestion, the IETF could helpfully contribute to easing some of the strains that can cause network operators to contemplate discriminatory treatment of network traffic in the first place. During the open microphone portion, several participants echoed Mark’s suggestions, while others articulated the desire for the IETF to take a stronger stance against discriminatory ISP behavior. All in all, it was a fruitful discussion, and I’m anxious to see what the IAB might do with the feedback it received.
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Less than a year ago, CDT released the Browser Privacy Features report that compared the privacy tools in Firefox, Internet Explorer, Chrome, and Safari. The browser vendors have been busy since then, with this year seeing the release of Firefox 3.5, Safari 4, and Internet Explorer 8 (now out of beta). With the release of these new browser versions have come advances on privacy controls–for example, Firefox 3.5 has incorporated a Private Browsing mode. CDT is pleased to release the Browser Privacy Features report, version 2.0 in light of the changing landscape.

In order to keep things interesting, we added another popular browser to the comparisons–Opera 10. Opera offers similar features to the other browsers when it comes to Cookie and Object Controls, however it has a different approach with respect to Privacy Mode. A Privacy Mode’s purpose is to allow users to browse without leaving data trails on their computers and is implemented by Firefox, Internet Explorer, Chrome, and Safari. When the Privacy Mode is active, it cleans up data trails as the user browses. Opera does not have a explicit Privacy Mode, but provides granular control over nearly all elements that the other browsers address in their privacy modes. These controls are provided through menu options that can be used to clear private data. The other four browsers also provide similar functionality.

As evidenced by the new features introduced in just the short time since our last report, the browser vendors are truly competing on the strength of their privacy controls. This is nothing but good news for consumers, who have more choices than ever when it comes to browsers and the privacy features that they offer.

Last Wednesday, the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee agreed on several amendments to the PASS ID bill [S. 1261] and sent the legislation on to the Senate.

Let’s take a look at some of the changes:

• Exceptions to the anti-skimming provision:

A key privacy protection we support in PASS ID restricts the collection and use of information scanned from the machine-readable zone on your driver’s license or ID card. However, in response to the concerns of retailers and other third party users of driver’s license information, the committee introduced an amendment that directs the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to issue regulations establishing exceptions to this anti-skimming provision.
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