WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama is making it official today: Wall Street critic Elizabeth Warren will be a special adviser overseeing the creation of a new consumer protection bureau with powers to enforce rules covering mortgages, credit cards and other financial products.

Warren, a 61-year-old Harvard University professor who describes herself as "not a Washington person," will be given the job of starting up the consumer bureau that was established in the financial regulatory bill Obama signed into law earlier this year. The new bureau will consolidate consumer protection duties now spread across various regulatory agencies.

She will report to both the president and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner. In a post on the White House blog, Warren said the bureau is based on a simple idea: that people should be able to read their mortgage contracts and "know the deal."