3 Week Getaway in Washington, D.C.
posted by:Natalie Bellefeuille // 10:01 AM // February 02, 2006 // Walking On the Identity Trail
For the month of January, three graduate law students involved in the Anonymity Project, including myself, had the privilege of participating in an internship at the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) located in Washington, D.C.
Upon our arrival, we were welcomed by spring-like weather, an amazing city waiting to be explored, and the young group of devoted individuals that makes up the EPIC team.
During our time there, we were each assigned one major project. The main project on which I worked consisted of preparing comments to a proposed rule according to which airlines and shiplines would be obligated to collect a greater amount of personal information from passengers, to store it in an electronic database, and to communicate this information to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention either upon request or when an ill passenger is identified.
But our time at EPIC was not exclusively spent working on our various projects. From following the Alito Supreme Court nomination hearings to attending a speech by Al Gore and a discussion panel at George Washington University on NSA Eavesdropping, there was no shortage of activities in which we were invited to take part. On the last day of our internship, we attended the Privacy Coalition Meeting, an annual event where representatives of various NGOs discuss the privacy issues faced by their organization. The Privacy Commissioner of Canada was a guest speaker at the Meeting.
This internship was a truly rewarding experience, and I thank everyone on the Anonymity Project who was involved in making it happen.
