Obama’s Appointments
Washington lawyer Thomas Perrelli has been nominated by President-elect Obama for the position of associate attorney general, third in command at the Justice Department. Perrelli has much experience with copyright and media law, primarily as legal counsel for the RIAA in a number of their lawsuits against individual file-sharers. While that does not necessarily tell us about his personal policy views, it does tell us he’s well-versed on the recording industry’s views of the very difficult issues surrounding digital media.
As deputy attorney general, the second in command at Justice, Obama has named David Ogden, who has similarly been involved in some high-profile copyright and media cases.
Both men are attorneys at large corporate law firms, and, as such, are almost de facto going to have experience representing “big business.” That’s what large law firms do. And since plaintiff’s side law firms are generally much smaller and lower profile, there are far fewer high profile attorneys who represent small companies or individuals likely to come to the attention of Washington at nomination time. That is, unfortunately, how things work. But I still think it is great that two of the top jobs at justice will likely be filled by men with more than a passing knowledge of intellectual property and digital rights, since those issues will be bubbling around Congress for years to come.
If you haven’t seen the President-elect’s website yet, check it out. So far, it has contained updates on appointments and policy positions in a near real-time manner, making it the go-to site for information. We still need the journalists and analysts to tell us “the rest of the story,” but it’s far more imformative than most government websites have been up to now.
May 25th, 2009 at 2:50 am
That’s a so engaging story!