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The White House Tech Policy Machine
by Brittany R. Ballenstedt, for Technology Daily
The Bush administration has long championed work toward a new generation of American innovation and an atmosphere where innovation thrives. That focus has resulted in policies designed to assure better delivery of health care, improve mathematics and science education, and expand access to high-speed Internet access.
The government is dually tasked with promoting technological advances while also ensuring cyber security and safeguarding privacy and intellectual property. Here are the key players who contribute to the administration's agenda while working toward those goals:
White House
John Marburger directs the Office of Science and Technology Policy for President Bush and is co-chairman of the President's Council of Advisors for Science and Technology. He has been coordinating the science and high-tech response to boosting homeland security and focusing on research and development funding.
Marburger has been a major player in pushing the president's American competitiveness initiative, which encompasses several different bills in Congress. The initiative calls for funding basic research, along with mathematics and science education. It also advocates more visas for high-skilled workers and continuation of the R&D tax credit.
Floyd Kvamme is the other co-chairman of PCAST, a position he has held since 2001, after Bush signed an executive order to form PCAST. The organization was originally established in 1990 by Bush's father, former President George H.W. Bush, so the president could receive advice from the private sector and academic community on technology, scientific research priorities, and math and science education.
Kvamme is a partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, a high-tech venture capital firm. As co-chairman of PCAST, Kvamme is responsible for assessing large, multi-agency programs on vital science and technology issues and for providing advice relevant to the administration management of such programs.
Also in the White House, Karen Evans serves as e-government administrator at the Office of Management and Budget. She oversees chief information officers across government in their efforts to develop tech frameworks, and oversees usage of the e-government fund, which seeks to expand government's ability to conduct activities electronically.
Evans advises OMB Director Clay Johnson on the performance of technology investments. The office is behind the traffic-light scorecard for grading government management. It covers e-government, human capital, competitive sourcing, financial performance, and integrated budget and performance. Red means failure, yellow indicates improvement and green signifies adequate implementation. Bush created the system when he took office.
Homeland Security Department
Greg Garcia official title is assistant secretary for cyber security and telecommunications, but he is known as the department's "cyber czar." The technology industry had urged the creation of such a high-ranking position for years; Garcia became the first to fill it in late 2006.
He formerly served as vice president at the Information Technology Association of America and also worked for other trade associations and on Capitol Hill. Garcia is charged with overseeing the department's implementation of its cyber-security plan, which is designed to establish a disaster-recovery and response plan should a massive cyber attack or other malfunction occur.
Garcia has argued that technology improvements will create greater security challenges as much of the world's communications move through a single, integrated Internet protocol over the next 10 years. Additionally, globalization of the IT industry means more opportunities to exploit vulnerabilities along the supply chain, he said.
Garcia has announced plans to merge the U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team, which handles reports of cyber threats, and the National Coordination Center, which monitors disruptions in the telecom network. He said the merge will strengthen information-sharing and in turn help Homeland Security respond to multiple cyber attacks across critical infrastructure.
Jay Cohen was confirmed in 2006 to head the Homeland Security's science and technology directorate, which develops systems to prevent terrorist attacks and sets standards for emergency-response technologies. Lawmakers have criticized the directorate for having a lack of transparency in strategic planning, inadequate explanations for budgetary increases, accounting inconsistencies and failure to rapidly develop technologies. But Cohen, a retired Navy rear admiral, has vowed to improve fiscal responsibility at the directorate. His focus also has been on leveraging research and development efforts across the federal government to benefit emergency responders.
Hugo Teufel was confirmed as the department's chief privacy officer in August 2006. While Congress created the privacy officer's position in 2002 to make it a watchdog over new technologies and federal security activities, the position has limited independence because the officer reports to Homeland Security and not Congress. Teufel has pushed Congress for more investigators to assess government information networks and handle Freedom of Information Act requests. He also has outlined hopes to embed privacy in Homeland Security systems and policies for programs in hopes of heading off problems before they start.
And Daniel Sutherland is the officer for civil rights and civil liberties at Homeland Security. Sutherland has established two initiatives aimed at incorporating more citizens into the war on terrorism. To accommodate the needs of veterans, Homeland Security partnered with the Defense Department for assistive technology, such as screen readers for the blind and different computer controls for people with motor disabilities. Sutherland's office also is developing a school to provide civil-liberties courses through the department's Web site.
Commerce Department
Robert Cresanti is the undersecretary for technology, Cresanti was appointed in March 2006 after serving as vice president of public policy at the Business Software Alliance. In July 2006, Commerce placed Cresanti into an additional role, as its chief privacy officer responsible for implementing new privacy and data-security laws.
Cresanti heads the Technology Administration, which is the only federal office whose sole job is to advocate for American competitiveness through reports and lobbying for innovation-friendly policies. The Bush administration has slashed its funding requests for TA in recent years, from $7 million down to $1.5 million in fiscal 2008.
Legislation to de-fund the agency was introduced in the 109th Congress. While Cresanti has not commented on the legislation, a group of former Commerce technology undersecretaries and assistant secretaries have vigorously lobbied Congress to save the agency.
John Kneuer is the assistant secretary for communication and information and as such heads the department's National Telecommunications and Information Administration. NTIA seeks to promote market-based policies with lower prices to consumers and encourage innovation. It also manages the federal use of spectrum, performs telecommunications research and engineering and administers infrastructure and public telecommunications facilities grants.
Commerce also includes Patent and Trademark Office, which is headed by Jonathan Dudas. He replaced James Rogan as director in 2004. Before joining the administration, Dudas served six years as counsel to the House Judiciary Courts, the Internet and Intellectual Property Subcommittee and as staff director for the full panel, where he guided enactment of major patent, trademark and copyright policy, including the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. (For more on the PTO, see our backgrounder on intellectual property.)
Independent Agencies
Bush also has chosen the leaders of various independent agencies involved in tech-related issues, including the FCC and FTC.
Deborah Majoras is director of the FTC. She has been a leader in the movement to ensure data security and protect consumers from fraud, identity theft, secretly installed computer spyware and unsolicited commercial e-mail. In 2006, she was appointed by President Bush to co-chair his Identity Theft Task Force. She also has worked to ensure transparency in the merger-review process and implement sound antitrust policy for intellectual property.
The FCC's chairman is Kevin Martin, and Robert McDowell and Deborah Taylor Tate are the other Republican appointees on the five-member commission. The body is charged with regulating communications by radio, television, wire, satellite and cable. Since becoming chairman in 2005, Martin has pushed for greater curbs on sex and violence in the media, attempted to force cable systems to carry the digital channels of local TV stations, and proposed per-channel subscriptions to cable television.
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