my name is sam pfeifle I'm our
publications director at the IPP thank
you all for being here our next panel
something that we're very excited about
Rebecca Richards
at NSA organization may be heard about
this a little bit lately and she's been
a long long time member and supporter of
the IEP and we're really thrilled that
she chose to come and her first speaking
parents with us here at the Senate and
hey guys all for coming to see that I
wanna thank Dan moistener he is the most
recent leadership has worked in a White
House is now at MIT and really one of
the first people that to set this
conversation up so being here let them
take a come here and you said welcome
back
so this is a great opportunity for me
because that case a really old friend we
realized that we met in two thousand on
the platform for privacy preferences
working group that he just informed me
that she wrote health policy for trustee
she she went on to be one of the first
hires at the new DHS privacy office she
had an extraordinary run there she's
really well known to all of you she's
part of the leadership of the I it he'd
be helping with the government cipd
certification development I you know she
got tremendous accolades when when she
was announced for this position that
he's been just such a expert and a
serious focus worker I'm very excited
that she's now in a leadership position
a principle as we would say in the
government and Adam I'm very lucky to be
here because I haven't actually had a
chance to talk with Becky about what new
jobs like and what it's bad so that's
what we're going to do here
a few of our friends so what are you
doing so some of you may know back in
August the president announced that it
was time to create a new leadership
position at NSA the Civil of recent
privacy on the server decision and after
quite a bit of thought I threw my hat in
and was honored to be chosen and i
started this is week five so it's been
drinking from a fire
and a lot of people have had a lot of
thoughts of what is it you're doing and
why are you that's a crazy job for you
to take but it's actually really excited
it's a real opportunity NSA is in a
place where it's time to think about
what we can do to make some shifts and
what they're doing but also to help them
learn to speak and tell their own story
this is an agency that's known as no
such agency they haven't had to speak
their your intelligence folks you don't
want them to talk and so this is them
learning you know how to talk about all
the things that they do as it relates to
compliance in a way that people
understand outside of that building so
so you've been a privacy officer in
government practically since the
beginning of that being a think that
anyone can do I just curious question
what do you think is going to be special
especially interesting especially
challenging different about being an
intelligence agency of course you had
Intelligence functions in DHS but as you
say you're now really in developing
these what do you think is going to be
different
well so transparency is definitely going
to be different you don't want your
adversaries to know what you're doing
and that intelligence when you're doing
national security work there are real
threats people have talked about those
real threats so we need to protect what
we're doing but we also need to be more
transparent so I think a lot of my job
will be translating from NSA speak to
public speak and beginning to explain in
a little bit clearer way what are the
protections are in place what are we
doing why are we doing that and you know
it's been interesting I've got a lot of
power point presentations so far and
I've gotten a lot of legal court orders
there's not a lot of planning some of us
have some of their presentations
actually have you got what you need to
actually be able to talk about things so
one of the things we really did at DHS
was what I have turned the grandmother
test can you write a privacy impact
assessment that your grandmother
understands I'm not sure our pjs always
meant that standard but it was
definitely the gold and people began to
understand like what is it you're doing
and I think that's a lot of what we want
to think about for NSA and they're all
learning to speak and you know they have
spent their entire career not going home
not talking to people about what they do
not know but also really internalizing I
was really surprised I've never
surprised but all of their literature
free media leaks still talks about
privacy these people have in their vain
they are protecting privacy that they
are protecting us persons but they have
never had to talk about it and so that's
a relief so I'm curious you've been
there obviously not such a long time but
you've probably talked to a lot of
people what could you tell us about what
the move is since the Snowden
revelations or people are they pissed
off are they depressed do they feel
misunderstood do they feel angry we're
weird if you could I don't expect you to
generalize but really interesting to
have some sense of a large number of
people they've got obviously a strong
mission-driven ethos we're we're are
they now now that the spotlight is on
them fairly or otherwise probably all of
those emotions in some way shape or form
but what I have been struck by is this
is an organization that is very
compliant so they have a set of rules
and they have a very strong culture of
compliance and so they look at what is
it said these are the rules that were
set forward by the court by the AG and
we have followed those and so to have
people come in and say this is you know
what you're doing is horrible I think
it's hard for them to hear because they
don't need people you know they're doing
this every day day in and day out and in
their blood is protection of your
privacy they talk about it every single
person from you know the people down you
know all up and down the scale talk
about them protecting privacy my goal is
is to help translate that so that the
public can understand that but then also
to look at
understand the technology has changed so
let's think about technology in the 80s
we were probably on a closed network
looking at what the Russians are doing
and listening to what the Russians are
doing and there's not a lot of us person
if Eddie it's a closed Network you're
directing it today Osama bin Laden's
emails were passing at the same one that
you my mother all of our email is going
through so those are changes and
technology that mean that the privacy
and civil liberties concerns are
different so I'm curious on that Fred
you know one of the other ways that
Becky and I have worked together is when
when I was helping to put together the
consumer privacy Bill of Rights updated
his principles the frankly the best
source of expertise that I had to draw
and was that with the sheet privacy
officers in the privacy of in the
government and and including very
significantly Becky it do you think that
the is is the NSA staff going to get
into the act do you think God or what do
you think you're going to learn from the
essay staff about about how to address
these questions I think there's a lot
that I have to learn about what NSA does
and there's a lot for NSA to learn about
what it means to build privacy and civil
liberties into the
and so what I want to think what I'm
working with and a lot of what I'm doing
right now is listening internally and
learning what they do and then
understanding how we can put assessments
in how we can do a better job
demonstrating that we have thought about
privacy and begin to have some of those
conversations externally I am starting
to reach out to advocates people in this
room I want to hear what some of your
concerns are about what NSA is doing
help understand whether there is a
disagreement on the facts of what we're
doing or if it's a misunderstanding and
begin to build some of that bridge so
I'm reaching I've started reaching out
to the advocacy community to do a
listening tour I was up in Congress this
week and last week and again sort of
understanding where is the disconnect is
the disconnect on substance where's the
disconnect on you know the way we've
described or not described because
transparency is not what NSA has done as
well here too so now you you manage the
fire hose and your first couple weeks
what's the wedding because you're kind
of media trip like the next couple of
months what are you going to come back
and tell it or whatever to me diep has
there's kind of duties so what we're
doing is going through and understanding
what NSA does and we're taking a couple
of different approaches to identify sort
of what are the existing protections we
have employees so NSA as I have come to
learn has a number of different
authorities by which we collect and I've
because of the privacy and civil
liberties oversight board and just start
walking right in I'm beginning to learn
what those are and so what we started to
do is serve what I
a baseline activity report that says
here are all the protections we have in
place if we've collect you under FISA
here's the protection we have if we did
it under you know 215 which is the
business records program or here's the
others a number of different numbers are
under 12 executive order 12 triple cream
so we're going to look at it that way
but then at a separate ways to look at
it and understand how do we do
collections so here 24 it's been a lot
of how do I look at I'm a u.s. person i
am in us when kinetis i collect on you i
am a person in germany who is a german
when connect lectin begin to look at it
from the individuals perspective to
understand where and how we're doing
some of those collections and and it's a
portrait of taking a look at it a couple
of different approaches and then using
the fair information practice principles
to begin to analyze and identify what
the best way is and what about the long
run what are you what are you when will
you decide you accomplish
everybody will think we have the best
privacy program in the world I think the
long term is to really build privacy
into the cold build the concept of the
assessments into the core of what NSA
does and understand that when a new
technology comes along that there is a
conversation that's head that says I can
do with a or I can do it be well a is
very privacy and space of B is not I
still get the mission we should go with
B and have that be part of that
conversation I think that we've done a
pretty good job with that at Homeland
Security over time so that people have
that assessment in place and that would
be that it becomes just part of what
they do so what would be tempted to ask
based on you know the headlines
announcing your arrival NSA gets privacy
civil liberties officer it's as if there
was no one or nothing or no
consideration about this set of issues
before you got there is that did you
arrive and find a wasteland what did you
find I now see no no actually I was
really impressed they had they actually
did pias and so though there is privacy
program that is happening down in the
poly shoe shop and then ogc actually
kind of still delivery shop and they
were doing a really quite impressive
data mining report that nobody would
ever see cuz it's classified but no they
did have both of those functions and
they were happening they when you think
about NSA privacy there for them was
privacy about their employees about
contractors about the average person
walking down the street it was not as
concentrated
this is the big collection that we're
getting through these needs and so what
this job does is it brings it up I'm a
direct report to the director of NSA and
I and it just as a focal point to bring
all of those and I walked in the
building and people were already asking
questions so they were sort of waiting
for me and we're like here can you
respond to this and what do you think of
this and you know week to the clog
showed up so there's been no lack of
work and and and i know i actually had
the chance over the last six months to
get to know your colleague John DeLong
who's the director of compliance he's
actually been part of the NSA outreach
effort as far as I can see it has been
up at a couple of workshops that we've
held it in my team great detectives
perspective like the first time you came
actually I think the second time it came
I asked my said well I'm really glad
you're coming can i list you on the
agenda he said yeah i said can i list
your agents indiana and this was a
little surprising to be so so you see
you some groundwork has been laid if you
get the parents the initiative so how
are you going to relate to the
compliance organization so John and I
are in each other's office every day we
r co equals both of us report directly
to the director he is d4 and I md5 but
really when we think about this I think
of module is being on the front end so
we have it legal asking can you do this
and I think that the privacy and civil
liberties job will be to ask should we
do
and if we should how should we do it to
reduce the amount of privacy and civil
liberties impact John and his team's
role is them to say okay we have these
rules in place let's make sure that
we're compliant with those rules and
he's done an absolutely fantastic job so
there's no question they're complying
with those rules part of my job is to
help influence what those rules are and
identify places that we can reduce the
risks privacy and civil liberties and
identify different ways to mitigate
those so what should I have asked you
that I
I got it all you've got it all all right
hi thank you so much okay goodbye
congratulations but what's forward to
having you back thank you all