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DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE NAMES NEW PRIVACY OFFICER

WASHINGTON, D.C. Attorney General John Ashcroft today announced that Associate Deputy Attorney General Daniel P. Collins will serve as Chief Privacy Officer of the Department of Justice. Working in close consultation with Department divisions and components, he will provide advice to senior Department officials on privacy-related legal and policy issues.

"Dan Collins' responsibilities are of utmost importance," Ashcroft said. "As new technologies and scientific developments emerge, we are faced with new challenges to citizens' privacy rights. I trust him to make certain we are taking precautions to protect the right to privacy that every American deserves."

In his capacity as Chief Privacy Officer, Collins will be responsible for providing advice on issues including privacy implications of technologies used by law enforcement agencies in the investigation of crime; the Department's obligation to comply with laws protecting the privacy of the information it acquires in the course of its operations; the Department's responsibility to enforce existing laws protecting personal privacy from unlawful invasion, whether in the public or private sector; and consideration of new proposed legislation or regulations to address important privacy issues.

In accordance with these responsibilities, the Attorney General has directed Collins to conduct a review of DCS1000, a system designed to capture specified electronic information authorized by court order, and to make specific recommendations concerning the need for further modifications to the system.

Previously, Collins worked as a partner at the Los Angeles firm of Munger, Tolles & Olson, where he concentrated in complex business and appellate litigation. From 1997 to 1998, was also an adjunct professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles. From 1992 to 1996 he served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Office of the United States Attorney in Los Angeles, California, where he prosecuted more than 60 federal cases, including eight jury trials, and argued 19 cases in the federal appellate courts. He worked at the Department's Office of Legal Counsel from 1989 to 1991, researching and drafting opinions on a wide variety of topics.

Collins graduated summa cum laude from Harvard University in 1985 and received his law degree, with Distinction, from Stanford Law School in 1988. He served as the Note Editor of the Stanford Law Review and was recognized with an award for outstanding editorial contributions. Following law school, he clerked for Judge Dorothy W. Nelson of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and for Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.

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