The head of the Senate Governmental Affairs committee, is developing legislation to create a special commission to investigate the federal government’s privacy practices.
Sen. Fred Thompson (R-TN), who plans to introduce the measure within the next 10 days, signaled his intention earlier this week after reviewing preliminary reports indicating that some federal agencies are using cookies to improperly collect personal information about visitors to their Internet sites in violation of a policy against it.
The policy was ordered last June by then President Clinton.
A year-old federal law requires the inspectors general of all federal agencies to file reports with Congress in how their agencies collect, review, and use personal information obtained from Web site visitors.
Thompson said the inspector general reports from 16 federal agencies with 64 different Web sites, found that the departments of Education, Energy, Interior, Transportation and Treasury in addition to the National Aeronautics and Space Agency and the General Services Administration routinely used cookies to obtain the names, addresses, telephone numbers of their Web site visitors in addition to tracking the sites they visit and the purchases they make over the Internet.
Officials of those agencies would not comment on the reports of their inspectors general.
Last October, the General Accounting Office reported that a preliminary review of all government agencies found that at least 13 federal agencies found to be improperly obtaining personal information about their Web site visitors denied the claim.
Thompson, declining to go into detail about the contents of his planned legislation, would only say that the federal government “should be setting the standard for privacy protection” as he called on President Bush to “address the previous administration’s failure to comply” with its privacy policy.
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