Richard Schwartz (politician)

Richard Schwartz (born c. 1959) is an American politician who has worked with former New York City Mayors Rudy Giuliani, Ed Koch and David Dinkins as well as Henry Stern during his tenure as New York City Parks Commissioner and while he was a member of the New York City Council.[1][2] During the 1980s, he contributed to the New York City Parks restoration. Schwartz authored the Work Experience Program, a welfare reform program. Schwartz founded Opportunity America, a job matching service for welfare recipients, one day after leaving public service in 1997.

Richard Schwartz
NationalityAmerican
EducationColumbia University
New York University
Years active1980s-present
Known forClearview AI
Political partyRepublican

Later career

In 2000, Schwartz cofounded clicksafe.com, a porn filter that was approved by the Archdiocese of New York.[3][4] The app blocked sites belonging to law scholar and Child Online Protection Act (COPA) testifier Lawrence Lessig's, various pages on the COPA website, the Center for Democracy and Technology, ACLU, Electronic Frontier Foundation, and the American Family Association.[5] It was apparently out of business by 2005.[5]

Despite no journalistic experience, Schwartz became the Editorial Editor at the New York Daily News in the 2000s.[6]

Clearview AI's Hoan Ton-That and Schwartz met at the Manhattan Institute.[7][8][9] Schwartz joined Clearview AI after that.

References
  1. Krinsky, John; Simonet, Maud (24 March 2017). Who Cleans the Park?. ISBN 9780226435589. Retrieved 2020-01-25.
  2. "Big Apple Polisher - Nymag". New York Magazine. Retrieved 10 February 2020. According to many in the Giuliani administration, Schwartz was a major fan of the mayor's – though some of his former colleagues wouldn't put it so nicely. "In the world of ass kissers, Richard wins the Academy Award, the Tony, the Nobel Prize, the Pulitzer," recalled former deputy mayor Fran Reiter (who in 1996 beat him out for a deputy mayor's job), in a 1999 interview. "They were all sycophants around Rudy," says a top city-union leader, "but Schwartz was the worst. It was like, Yes, Mister Mayor. Of course, Mister Mayor." ... Reiter and two other senior aides recall watching in amusement as Schwartz switched his position to agree with the mayor's in the course of a single 8 a.m. staff meeting.
  3. "WELFARE BOSS TURNS PRUDE.COM". City Limits. 28 February 2000. Retrieved 10 February 2020.
  4. "ARCHDIOCESE'S SCHOOLS LOG ONTO WEB FILTER". New York Post. 23 February 2000. Retrieved 10 February 2020. ClickSafe.com, a new porn-blocking software from a company founded by Manhattanite Richard Schwartz, was approved by the Archdiocese after being tested in several schools.
  5. Christina Cho; Marjorie Heins; Ariel Feldman (2001). Internet Filters: A Public Policy Report - Revised and Updated. Marjorie Heins. pp. 19–. GGKEY:9DRTJDUXY09.
  6. "How Welfare King Richard Schwartz Landed at the Daily News". Observer. 12 March 2001. Retrieved 10 February 2020.
  7. "A Maximus Postscript | The Village Voice". villagevoice.com. 17 June 2003. Retrieved 23 January 2020. In addition to obtaining special access to Turner, Hevesi charged, Maximus had an added edge because of its alliance with Schwartz, Giuliani's former senior adviser and the man who had shaped the administration's welfare policies. After leaving City Hall in 1997, Schwartz had started a new for-profit firm, Opportunity America, to help place welfare recipients in jobs. Schwartz won work with government and private businesses and later also enlisted to work with Maximus on its HRA contracts. His share of the contracts was expected to be worth about $30 million, records showed.
  8. Hill, Kashmir (2020-01-18). "The Secretive Company That Might End Privacy as We Know It". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2020-01-18.
  9. "The Welfare Estate". City Limits. 1 June 1999. Retrieved 23 January 2020. Then, on February 11, 1997, at age 38, Richard Schwartz announced he was leaving city government. The next day, he founded Opportunity America. His specialty would be corporate matchmaker, the missing link to help private-sector companies hire welfare recipients. But he promised in The New York Times that he wouldn't take advantage of his government experience to win consulting contracts with New York City.


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