Jerry Berman on Ron Plesser

November 19, 2004 -- Today is a very sad day for IEF. Our friend Ron Plesser passed away suddenly yesterday. Ron a member of the board.

Ron Plesser will be sorely missed as a friend and as a colleague. He will be remembered as someone who worked over the last 25 years to promote privacy and civil liberties values in the age of computer data bases and the revolutionary development of new communications technologies and the Internet.

Going back to his work with the Privacy Protection Study Commission in the mid 1970's, Ron Plesser educated all of us about threats to privacy in the computer age but also the social value of new technologies in our life. He thus saw the need to find policy solutions that both recognized the value of computer technology in government and commerce but also established privacy and civil liberties protections for citizens and consumers .

It is almost impossible to think of landmark privacy statutes over the last 25 years that could have been enacted without Ron Plesser's efforts to find workable solutions that balanced competing interests to make legislation possible.

Statutes establishing privacy for cable subscriber information, (1984), email and cell phones (1986), and video records all have his stamp.

Plesser's legacy is not limited to privacy. He helped to craft the modern Freedom of Information Act and then to update it to give citizens access to electronic public information.

Plesser was the expert at the table. He knew the law, the technology, the players, the threads that had to be weaved together to build consensus and make privacy and technology policy happen. We, who worked with him on technology policy and legislation respected him, loved him dearly, and will miss him beyond words.

Jerry Berman
President
Internet Education Foundation