All around cool guy, and former provost of the University of Chicago, Geoffrey Stone (the Edward H. Levi Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago Law School), posted earlier this week proposed that "The next president should create a brand new position, which should become a permanent part of the Executive Branch in the future: a Civil Liberties Advisor".

Given past posts here, regular Emergent Chaos readers will hardly be surprised that I am a supporter of this proposal. While I encourage everyone to read the entire post, it's the closing paragraph that really sums why I think this is so important:

Of course, Civil Liberties Advisors may often lose the debate, or even be shunted aside. But sometimes they will win, and sometimes they will raise consciousness and help frame the discussion. Moreover, an administration without such a voice is much more likely to short-change civil liberties than one with such an advocate. The stakes for our nation are simply too high for us to continue to muddle along without someone in this critical position. Indeed, this idea this might well give rise to a whole new meaning to the notion of Homeland Security.

And actually if you replace administration with corporation and civil liberties with customer privacy, you pretty much have the argument for why companies need (and have) privacy evangelists....

[Image is 'Real' Homeland Security by richdrogpa.]