Donald Kerr Donald MacLean Kerr , Jr . ( born April 8 , 1939 ) served as the Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence from 2007 to 2009 . He was confirmed by the U . S . Senate on Thursday , October 4 , 2007 . He most recently was the Director of the National Reconnaissance Office . He was sworn into that position July 2005 by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte . Prior to his position at the NRO , he was Deputy Director of Science and Technology at the Central Intelligence Agency from 2001 to 2005 . He was also Director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory . Kerr was nominated to be Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence by President George W . Bush on Wednesday , July 11 , 2007 . According to Congressional Quarterly , the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on Tuesday , September 18 , 2007 by a vote of 12 - 3 , reported out the nomination of Kerr to serve as Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence . Dr . Kerr was educated at Cornell University , receiving his BSEE in 1963 , MS in Microwave Electronics in 1964 , and Ph . D in plasma physics in 1966 for " Electronic Properties of the Penning Discharge Plasma " . On October 23 , 2007 , Kerr gave a memorable speech at the annual " GEOINT " conference on Geospatial Intelligence ( to an audience including many people from his prior NRO job ) . He said , " [ W ] e really need to realize what a loaded word security really is . When I ’ m at work , and throughout my day , security is safety , as a barrier against physical or emotional harm . When I go home at night , security is privacy , as an expectation of freedom from unnecessary burdens . In the intelligence community , we have an obligation to protect both safety and privacy , and over the course of GEOINT 2007 , as we talk about the hows of new technologies and tradecraft , I ’ d like to take a step back right now and talk about the whys . " Safety and privacy – it ' s common thinking that , in order to have more safety , you get less privacy . I don ’ t agree with that . I work from the assumption that you need to have both . When we try to make it an either / or proposition , we ’ re bound to fail . " Later in the speech , he said , " Too often , privacy has been equated with anonymity ; and it ' s an idea that is deeply rooted in American culture . The Lone Ranger wore a mask but Tonto didn ’ t seem to need one even though he did the dirty work for free . You ’ d think he would probably need one even more . But in our interconnected and wireless world , anonymity – or the appearance of anonymity – is quickly becoming a thing of the past . " Anonymity results from a lack of identifying features . Nowadays , when so much correlated data is collected and available – and I ’ m just talking about profiles on MySpace , Facebook , YouTube here – the set of identifiable features has grown beyond where most of us can comprehend . We need to move beyond the construct that equates anonymity with privacy and focus more on how we can protect essential privacy in this interconnected environment . " Protecting anonymity isn ’ t a fight that can be won . Not with me in my current job . Anyone that ' s typed in their name on Google understands that . Instead , privacy , I would offer , is a system of laws , rules , and customs with an infrastructure of Inspectors General , oversight committees , and privacy boards on which our intelligence community commitment is based and measured . And it is that framework that we need to grow and nourish and adjust as our cultures change . " I think people here , at least people close to my age , recognize that those two generations younger than we are have a very different idea of what is essential privacy , what they would wish to protect about their lives and affairs . And so , it ' s not for us to inflict one size fits all . It ' s a need to have it be adjustable to the needs of local societies as they evolve in our country . Eventually , we can only hope that people ' s perceptions – in Hollywood and elsewhere – will catch up . " These remarks produced major news coverage that said he ' d said that " privacy no longer can mean anonymity . . . Instead , it should mean that government and businesses properly safeguards [ sic ] people ' s private communications and financial information . "