During an event at the Council of Foreign Relations, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napoliano addressed Matt Drudge’s nickname for her — “Big Sis” — saying, “I knew I’d actually made it when I had my own name in the Drudge Report. You know, that’s the standard.”
Moderator Terry Moran asked Napolitano during the Friday discussion, “So what do you say as you reach these agreements, push our borders and the United States’ way of doing things out into countries which have different traditions and values, perhaps? Is big sister watching?”
“I think ‘big sis’ is my moniker in the Drudge Report,” she said to laughter from the crowd.
She continued, “The PNR [passenger name record] agreement is a good example of this. PNR agreement is actually — will be — with the EU, and it’s the post-Lisbon Treaty EU, which means we’ve had to negotiate with the commission. We’ve now finished an agreement, and initialed it with the commission. We anticipate it to be improved by the council next week on the 13th, and then we will have to go and have it ratified by the European Parliament. We have been the lead negotiator for the U.S. on this agreement. And one of the key sticking points has been data privacy protection, which is one of the fundamental rights in the Charter of Rights in the EU.”
The Drudge Report is one of the most visited news websites in the world. According to an Outbrain study in August, a link from the Drudge Report drives more traffic to a web site than either Facebook or Twitter.