Get the latest information about how the law is racing to catch up with technological change from staffers at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the nation’s premiere digital civil liberties group fighting for freedom and privacy in the computer age. This session will include updates on current EFF issues such as surveillance online and fighting efforts to use intellectual property claims to shut down free speech and halt innovation, discussion of our technology project to protect privacy and speech online, updates on cases and legislation affecting security research, and much more. Half the session will be given over to question-and-answer, so it's your chance to ask EFF questions about the law and technology issues that are important to you.
Kurt Opsahl is a Senior Staff Attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation focusing on civil liberties, free speech and privacy law. Opsahl has counseled numerous computer security researchers on their rights to conduct and discuss research. Before joining EFF, Opsahl worked at Perkins Coie, where he represented technology clients with respect to intellectual property, privacy, defamation, and other online liability matters, including working on Kelly v. Arribasoft, MGM v. Grokster and CoStar v. LoopNet. Prior to Perkins, Opsahl was a research fellow to Professor Pamela Samuelson at the U.C. Berkeley School of Information Management & Systems. Opsahl received his law degree from Boalt Hall, and undergraduate degree from U.C. Santa Cruz. Opsahl co-authored "Electronic Media and Privacy Law Handbook.” In 2007, Opsahl was named as one of the “Attorneys of the Year” by California Lawyer magazine for his work on the O'Grady v. Superior Court appeal, which established the reporter’s privilege for online journalists. Twitter: @kurtopsahl, @eff Facebook: eff https://www.eff/org
Marcia Hoffman is a senior staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, where she works on a broad range of digital civil liberties issues including computer security, electronic privacy, and free expression. She currently focuses on computer crime and EFF's Coders' Rights Project, which promotes innovation and protects the rights of curious tinkerers and researchers in their cutting-edge exploration of technology. Prior to joining EFF, Marcia was staff counsel and director of the Open Government Project at the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC). Twitter: @marciahoffman https://www.eff.org/about/staff/marcia-hofmann
Hanni Fakhouri is a Staff Attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation focusing on the intersection of technology and criminal law within the Coders Rights Project. Prior to joining EFF, Hanni worked as a federal public defender in San Diego. In less than four years, he tried fourteen felony jury and bench trials and argued before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals four times, winning three reversals, including a published reversal in U.S. v. Sandoval-Gonzalez. He also served as a copy editor for the 2010 edition of Defending a Federal Criminal Case. While in law school, Hanni worked at the federal public defender's office in Sacramento, where he obtained acquittals in one jury trial and two bench trials. Hanni is a graduate of UC Berkeley, where he received two degrees, including a honors degree in history, and Pacific McGeorge School of Law, where he was elected to the Order of Barristers for his excellence in written and oral advocacy. Hanni is a member of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.
Peter Eckersley is Technology Projects Director for the Electronic Frontier Foundation. He keeps his eyes peeled for technologies that, by accident or design, pose a risk to computer users' freedoms—and then looks for ways to fix them. He explains gadgets to lawyers, and lawyers to gadgets. Peter's work at EFF has included privacy and security projects such as Panopticlick, HTTPS Everywhere, SSDI, and the SSL Observatory; and running the first controlled tests to confirm that Comcast was using forged reset packets to interfere with P2P protocols.
Eva Galperin is EFF's International Freedom of Expression Coordinator, and has been instrumental in highlighting government malware designed to spy upon activists around the world. A lifelong geek, Eva misspent her youth working as a Systems Administrator all over Silicon Valley. Since then, she has seen the error of her ways and earned degrees in Political Science and International Relations from SFSU. She comes to EFF from the US-China Policy Institute, where she researched Chinese energy policy, helped to organize conferences, and attempted to make use of her rudimentary Mandarin skills.
Trevor Timm is an activist at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. He specializes in free speech issues and government transparency. Before joining the EFF, Trevor helped the longtime General Counsel of The New York Times, James Goodale, write a book on the First Amendment. He has also worked for the former President of the ACLU and at The New Yorker. He graduated from Northeastern University and has a J.D. from New York Law School.