NSA Privacy Chief: Civil Liberties a Top Concern

Speaking yesterday at a privacy conference NSA
Civil Liberty and Privacy Officer Rebecca Richards said, without a
hint of irony or sarcasm, that the intelligence agency considers
civil liberties a top concern.

From
The Hill:

Civil liberties are a top concern at the National Security
Agency (NSA), the agency’s new privacy chief said Thursday.

“In their blood is [the] protection of your privacy,” Rebecca
Richards said Thursday, speaking at a privacy conference hosted by
the International Association of Privacy Professionals.

Richards has been the NSA’s privacy and civil liberties officer
for a little over a month. The creation of the position was
announced last year, as the Obama administration responded to a
series of controversial revelations about sweeping U.S. government
surveillance.

Given that Richards’ job was only created last year as part of
the Obama administration’s response to reporting on the information
leaked by NSA whistle-blower Edward Snowden it is hard to take
seriously Richards’ claim that NSA employees have privacy
protection “in their blood.”

Before starting her current job at the NSA Richards worked as

Senior Director of Privacy Compliance at the Department of
Homeland Security, which oversees the
notoriously
privacy conscious TSA.

As Reason’s J.D. Tuccille wrote about President Obama’s
weak and vague NSA reforms last January.

More from Reason.com on the NSA here.