The Senate Judiciary Committee has scheduled a Feb. 5 confirmation hearing on Travis LeBlanc for a five-year hitch on the Privacy and Civil Liberties Board, for which he was nominated by President Donald Trump.
LeBlanc, who recently joined Cooley as a partner in its international cyber/data/privacy, telecommunications and litigation practices, is the former head of the FCC's Enforcement Bureau under then FCC chairman Tom Wheeler.
The Civil Liberties Oversight Board is a five-member board (currently it is down to three members) within the Executive Branch that was created by the 9/11 Commission to make sure that government efforts to combat terrorism are balanced with the protection of privacy and civil liberties. That includes advising the President on those issues.
LeBlanc's resume also includes special assistant attorney General of California and a senior advisor to then-Attorney General (now Senator) Kamala Harris. In that role he oversaw privacy and cybersecurity policy among many other things.
LeBlanc has been making a mark in the privacy sphere. He was tapped last September to help oversee compliance with the E.U.-U.S. Privacy Shield Framework. That is the agreement between the European Union and the U.S. over protecting the privacy of cross-border information flows.
