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The 39-year-old Stanford-educated lawyer, Georgetown University privacy law instructor, and former counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee is the Internet's Ralph Nader. Business Week's Technology Strategies Editor Marcia Stepanek recently interviewed Rotenberg in his Washington office about EPIC and Rotenberg's path to becoming Washington's top privacy advocate. Q: How did you become interested in information technology and social policy? At the time you were in college at Harvard in the mid-1980s, way before the Internet boom, wasn't it unusual for someone to be interested in both computer science and its impact on society and social policy? A: My major in college was political science and political philosophy, and at the time I was taking computer-science classes on the side and having a really good time. It was a strange combination at the time, but I was actually doing pretty well at computers, so they asked me to be a teaching fellow, and by my senior year at college, I was the head teaching fellow for the Introduction to Computer Science course. Q: You founded EPIC in 1994. But weren't you involved in activism before then? A: EPIC is the third or fourth organization I've started. When I started the Public Interest Computer Assn. in a Capitol Hill basement in the early 1980s... we sat around evenings teaching people how to do word processing -- environmental groups, civil-rights groups, the ACLU.... I joke sometimes that I'm probably the only person who's been doing this for 20 years now who hasn't really made any money. And believe me, you really have to work at it to be able to say that. But it's true. Technology has always been exciting to me. One of the neat things for me in being an advocate is that there's always a tendency in the press and in industry to say that advocates are simply naysayers and don't understand the technology and don't like change. That's not me, though. I've been doing this technology probably longer than a lot of people who are in the industry today selling it and hyping it. Q: But where did the activism come from? A: Both of my parents were activists, politically. When I was seven years old, I was wearing sandwich boards protesting the Vietnam War on the Boston Common, and supporting Eugene McCarthy for President, if you can do that at the age of seven. After college at Harvard, I came to Washington for two years. I knew I'd go to law school, but I wanted to do something in between college and law school, and so I came here to Washington to start a group. We helped 100 nonprofits in Washington. I'd teach people in the evenings and set up databases. One interesting project I did was with the ACLU Immigration Rights Project. They were trying to win asylum for people facing persecution in El Salvador. Using a Kaypro computer, which I still have, Word Star and dBaseII programs, I set up one of the first human-rights databases that was being used to track people who were being persecuted, and that data was being used in a legal proceeding, in a case brought in the 9th Circuit Court, which eventually succeeded. And the data we'd acquired and automated made possible part of that litigation. Stanford just put me on its advisory board for their law, science, and technology program, which is kind of a hoot because the other people on that board are, like, the general counsel of Yahoo! and the general counsel of eBay -- and all the general counsels of all of the very successful Silicon Valley startups that have some kind of Stanford connections. I guess they had a troublemaker category, so put me on the board, too.... I'm thrilled to see law schools and students interested in privacy and technology. Last week, I gave a talk at Berkeley Law School, and I'll be giving talks at Chicago, Purdue, Yale, and some other schools...telling people what I do and urging them to pass up their $140,000 a year law-firm job for social activism [and make] maybe $35,000 maximum. Q: How would you characterize the voice that you and EPIC have in Washington? A: There's one view of Washington that says you have to give some to get some, find common ground, reach consensus, and make everyone happy. I think some of that is necessary, but I honestly believe that if you have a good idea and if you're genuine about your purpose and you work hard and follow through, I think people respect that. And over time, if you work hard enough, they'll start to agree with you. Nowadays, for example, everyone is saying that devices that filter certain types of content from view on the Internet are a bad idea, that they're a form of censorship. When I first said that, people said I was crazy. Today, it's conventional wisdom. I can speak with some authority about keeping government off the Internet.... The only area where we have really called for some type of government involvement on technology is the issue of privacy. And more accurately, what we want is legal rights for Internet users for privacy protection. We think users are entitled as a matter of fundamental human rights, to have their privacy protected in law.... Now, of course, the industry will sort of twist that and say that what we want is regulation and government bureaucracy, and that the government shouldn't regulate the Internet and blah, blah blah. And apart from privacy, I guess my biggest interest is to elevate the public voice in policymaking. Q: How is EPIC funded? A: Most of our money comes from private foundations, such as the Ford Foundation, the Fund for Constitutional Government, from the Open Society Institute, and individual donations. We receive some private-sector support. Q: What does the future scope of EPIC hold? You mentioned expanding internationally. A: I think the privacy issue, in a global context, is huge. And that's the reason there's been so much focus on the recent European Union-U.S. negotiations over online privacy rules.... Globalization is ratcheting up the need and call for privacy protections. Q: Is the battle against EPIC initiatives by industry and government increasing? A: At one point, there was an effort to discredit me and us as lunatics who don't understand technology. We've heard criticisms that we're simply trying to shut down industry. But in fact, we work very hard, we talk to experts, we don't want to make mistakes. We have credibility. We're not taking a tough line just for the sake of taking a tough line. But we will take a tough line when we need to take one. We're not afraid to hold our ground, and I think that surprises people. I think most people sort of expect that they can work out a deal here that they can contribute to our cause and work out a deal. I'm always being asked if I'll be on some advisory board. A lot of dot-coms say that they're going to have a privacy advisory board, and they invite me to be on it. But I say I'm sorry, that I can't do it. It's just not appropriate. On the recent DoubleClick issues, [CEO] Kevin Ryan was in our office.... to explain why...they're collecting all this information on people and combining online and offline databases and he was sort of apologizing for it. I said that there was nothing personal about our stance on DoubleClick, but I explained that we were just trying to protect people and their privacy. This privacy battle is an ongoing process. You can't kid yourself. DoubleClick backs off, but five other companies will try to fill that space. The big problem in the U.S. today is that we really don't have legislation to protect privacy. Q: But what do you make of the notion that, as Sun CEO Scott McNealy put it, "you have no privacy, get over it?" A: I was giving a talk somewhere the other day and I said there are three opponents of privacy -- Scott McNealy, who says you have no privacy, get over it; [author] David Brin, who says you'll have no privacy and you'll enjoy it; and [sociologist] Amitai Etzioni, who tells us it's bad to have too much privacy because it's bad for the community. And then there's this self-interested industry view which says that by giving up your privacy, we can give you all sorts of benefits. They feel that privacy is a barter that's exchanged. What we say, what EPIC says, is basically that people should not be required to give up their privacy for the benefits of information technology. Q: Is the fight for online privacy just starting? A: I'm an optimist in the long term. The problems are real and I don't kid myself about what needs to be done now. I think companies can be successful and at the same time be privacy-sensitive. Q: How would you characterize the climate in Washington now with regard to online privacy issues? A: There's no question that we've put privacy on the map. But now, it's clear that privacy is defining the map. Members of Congress are aware that this is an issue they need to address.... Policymakers are hearing from constituents that they want something done on financial privacy, Internet privacy, and medical privacy.... But they're hearing from all the high-tech lobbyists in Washington that we shouldn't regulate industry, that industry will solve these problems and that anything that government does will be a mistake. I will say, that in fairness, the high-tech economy is generating jobs, and is expanding the tax base. You don't want to kill the goose that lays the golden egg. The high-tech economy is a good thing and is very exciting. The question is, can it be done right? Can it be created in a way that generates the jobs and economic opportunity and spurs innovation and still protect basic and fundamental human rights? That's the bottom line of what I believe in and what EPIC is trying to accomplish. Q: How much of the privacy debate is over control, as in the control of information? A: There's that famous line from Thomas Edison that what man creates with his hands he should control with his head. That's absolutely right.... Some people believe you control [technology] through the marketplace. Just let markets sort this out.... But to believe that you can address all of these issues through market forces is to argue against government at some levels. I think government structures are in place now that can protect people's interests on the Internet, and should. |
