Do you think the FTC needs criminal enforcement powers?

It’s a controversial thing because the Justice Department is considered our criminal law enforcement. That’s a very hot political potato. I don’t want to get into that. I’ve often been known to say we need criminal authority over at the FTC. What we did as a compromise, perhaps not often enough, was we let some of our attorneys who worked on cases be deputized, in a sense, for the Justice Department.

The FTC recently announced its largest civil penalty to date—a $15 million fine against data broker ChoicePoint. [Disclosure: Hunton & Williams, the law firm where Swindle works, has represented ChoicePoint.] Are you surprised that the largest civil penalty in the FTC’s history now involves privacy and information security?

No. This is serious business. And I think that Chairman [Deborah Platt] Majoras is doing a terrific job of getting that message across. The DSW and BJ’s settlements said similar things, but as I recall there were no dollar figures associated with those settlements. With the ChoicePoint case, there were a number of different violations, including the Fair Credit Reporting Act, thus the penalty criteria is quite different from the "unfairness" nature of BJ’s and DSW. The case involving ChoicePoint is pretty well laid out, and the violation was grievous. The FTC held firm, which I’m proud of.

The position of assistant secretary for cybersecurity at the Department of Homeland Security has been open for months. Why do you think it hasn’t been filled?

I will refrain from answering. I’ll tell you this: This administration, and every administration to follow, had better make a very concerted effort to put technology on the table and adequately stamp it so that we as a country and as a nation can maintain our supremacy in technology development and use. Sometimes I get the impression that we’re not paying enough attention to technology. Every administration needs to pay a lot of attention to it. Information flows and the technology that makes it possible is the lifeblood of our economy—it’s the way we do everything. We have to get this right. Otherwise we’re just setting ourselves up for a lot of misfortune. We have become incredibly lucrative targets of opportunity.