[infowar.de] Stewart Baker, ehem. NSA-Chefjurist, wird assistant secretary for policy im DHS

[Ralf Bendrath <bendrath -! - zedat - fu-berlin - de>]

http://news.com.com/2100-7348_3-5787520.html

Bush picks tech lawyer for security post

By Declan McCullagh

Story last modified Wed Jul 13 18:00:00 PDT 2005

President Bush has chosen Stewart Baker, one of Washington's most 
influential technology lawyers, to be assistant secretary for policy in 
the Homeland Security Department.

Baker's new job, which requires Senate confirmation, would place him in 
the prominent position of shaping policy on topics from data mining to the 
department's planning for "what if" scenarios far off in the future. It 
also could include evaluating existing department functions for efficiency 
and creating a national strategy to prevent terrorists from entering the 
United States.

The nomination, announced Wednesday, is part of a sweeping reorganization 
of the department that Secretary Michael Chertoff announced Wednesday. 
"Creation of a DHS policy shop has been suggested by members of Congress, 
(former Secretary Tom Ridge), and numerous outside experts," Chertoff 
said. "Now is the time to make this a reality."

Baker is currently a partner at the Steptoe and Johnson law firm--which 
counts many technology companies as clients--and has been an important but 
polarizing fixture in many privacy debates during the last 15 years.

Baker served as the general counsel of the National Security Agency--the 
bane of many civil libertarians--during the early 1990s. At the time, the 
NSA was busy defending the Clipper Chip, intrusive export controls on 
encryption products, and "key escrow" rules that would encourage 
encryption backdoors for police convenience.

In a famous article published in the June 1994 issue of Wired Magazine, 
Baker warned against the ready availability of strong, secure encryption 
products without backdoors. "One of the earliest users of (Pretty Good 
Privacy) was a high-tech pedophile in Santa Clara, California," Baker 
wrote. "He used PGP to encrypt files that, police suspect, include a diary 
of his contacts with susceptible young boys using computer bulletin boards 
all over the country."

After the Senate approved what would become the Patriot Act in September 
2001, Baker said privacy advocates were overreacting: "We may be missing 
some opportunities to improve privacy law, but it's hard to say that the 
privacy sky is falling."

Those kind of statements have not endeared Baker to privacy advocates, who 
reacted with dismay when hearing news of the announcement Wednesday.

"For the civil liberties community, this could be a troubling 
appointment," said Marc Rotenberg, director of the Electronic Privacy 
Information Center. "Stu Baker often stood on the other side of important 
national debates on protecting privacy and preserving open government."

The simultaneous announcements Wednesday by Bush and Chertoff appear to be 
inspired by a December 2004 report from the conservative Heritage 
Foundation that urged a shakeup at the Department of Homeland Security. It 
recommended the creation of a "unified policy planning staff headed by an 
undersecretary for policy."

But because the creation of a policy undersecretary post would require 
Congress to rewrite the law--which could take months at best--Baker was 
picked for the newly created post of assistant secretary for policy. That 
post requires Senate confirmation but not a change to the law.

Baker recently served as general counsel for the Commission on the 
Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass 
Destruction, and represents Internet service providers as general counsel 
of a trade association. He received his law degree from UCLA and clerked 
for U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens.


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