The Honorable William M. Daley
Office of the Secretary
Rm. 5854
U.S. Department Of Commerce
14th & Constitution Ave. NW
Washington, DC 20230


Dear Secretary Daley,

We are writing to you to emphasize the growing need for the Administration to take decisive action to protect individual privacy online and in electronic commerce. As privacy and consumer advocates, we have appreciated your frank public comments on the state of industry self-regulation to protect privacy. We share your skepticism and believe that the current state of affairs places the privacy of Americans at risk.

Over the past few days, statements have appeared in the press indicating that the Administration does not view the July 1, 1998 deadline, set by the Framework for Electronic Commerce paper, as a cut-off for assessing the success of self-regulatory activities to protect privacy. While we share your view that self-regulation is a necessary component of the electronic marketplace, it has proven on its own to be insufficient. We believe that the paucity of activities over the past year and the Federal Trade Commission's assessment of self-regulation, in the Online Privacy Report to Congress, clearly indicate that self-regulation is incapable, on its own, of providing effective privacy protection. We welcome the recent efforts of TrustE, the Better Business Bureau Online, the Certified Public Accountants and The Alliance for Online Privacy, but we believe they fall short of the goal of providing pervasive privacy protections. As advocacy organizations it is clear to us that a more comprehensive and vigorous approach is required.

It is our belief that the conference this week should serve as the jumping-off point for the Administration's effort to develop a coherent national policy on privacy. We have appreciated the opportunity to participate in the series of meetings held by the Department of Commerce over the past month and a half to discuss specific privacy concerns. However, we believe that the Administration must continue this process after the conference. It is critical that the Administration work with the privacy and consumer advocates and members of the business community committed to providing privacy protections for their customers to craft a framework for privacy protection.

We urge the Administration to continue its work on privacy. Specifically, we urge the White House to work with advocates, the Congress, and relevant stake-holders to develop a bi-partisan national privacy policy. As part of this process the Administration should continue to explore and develop administrative initiatives and specific legislative proposals to protect individual privacy including children's privacy, explore the role of technology in protecting privacy and methods by which the government can promote the development of privacy-enhancing technologies, and craft the blueprint for a privacy infrastructure including a federal entity to develop privacy policy for both the public and private sectors.

It is time to develop the proposals and the strategy to move a national privacy policy forward. Such a policy must provide for the adoption and implementation of substantive policies that protect privacy throughout the private sector, the creation of legally enforceable privacy rights for individuals, the establishment of a national infrastructure to develop and oversee privacy policy, and support for privacy-enhancing technologies.

We look forward to working with you to craft meaningful privacy protections for Americans.

Sincerely,

ACLU of Wisconsin's Data Privacy Project
Center for Democracy and Technology
Center for Media Education
Consumer Federation of America
Privacy Journal
Privacy Rights Clearinghouse
Privacy Times
U.S. Public Interest Research Group



cc: Federal Trade Commission Chairman Robert Pitofsky
Representative Tom Bliley, Jr.
Senator Conrad Burns
Representative John Dingell
Senator Ernest Hollings
Representative Edward Markey
Senator John McCain
Representative W.J. Tauzin