Relax and enjoy a Fireside Hax chat while you 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 Fireside Hax discussion will include updates on current EFF issues such as the government's effort to undermine encryption (and add backdoors), the fight for network neutrality, discussion of our technology projects to spread encryption across the Web and emails, 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 the Deputy Executive Director and General Counsel of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. In addition to representing clients on civil liberties, free speech and privacy law, Opsahl counsels on EFF projects and initiatives. Opsahl is the lead attorney on the Coders' Rights Project. 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. For his work responding to government subpoenas, Opsahl is proud to have been called a "rabid dog" by the Department of Justice. 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. In 2014, Opsahl was elected to the USENIX Board of Directors. @kurtopsahl
Nate Cardozo is a Senior Staff Attorney on the Electronic Frontier Foundation's digital civil liberties team. In addition to his focus on free speech and privacy litigation, Nate works on EFF's Who Has Your Back? report and Coders' Rights Project. Nate has projects involving cryptography and the law, automotive privacy, government transparency, hardware hacking rights, anonymous speech, electronic privacy law reform, Freedom of Information Act litigation, and resisting the expansion of the surveillance state. A 2009-2010 EFF Open Government Legal Fellow, Nate spent two years in private practice before returning to his senses and to EFF in 2012. Nate has a B.A. in Anthropology and Politics from U.C. Santa Cruz and a J.D. from U.C. Hastings where he has taught first-year legal writing and moot court. He brews his own beer, has been to India four times, and watches too much Bollywood.
Jamie Williams is a staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, where she is part of EFF's civil liberties team. Jamie focuses on the First and Fourth Amendment implications of new technologies, and is part of EFF's Coder's Rights Project, which protects programmers and developers engaged in cutting-edge exploration of technology. Jamie joined EFF in 2014. Prior to joining EFF, Jamie clerked for Judge Saundra Brown Armstrong in the Northern District of California, and practiced at Paul Hastings LLP, as an associate in the firms' litigation department. Jamie was also a law clerk at the Alameda County Public Defender. Jamie has a J.D. from the University of California, Berkeley School of Law (Boalt Hall) and a B.A. in journalism from the University of Wisconsin, Madison.
Andrés Arrieta is the Technology Projects Manager for the Electronic Frontier Foundation. A Telecom and Electronics Engineer, he previously worked for Mobile Operators managing and developing projects from the Radio and Core networks to IT systems like Spotify Premium for Movistar. Seeing the state of privacy in the digital world from previous experiences, he joins the EFF to help develop tools that address these issues.
Katitza Rodriguez is EFF's international rights director. She concentrates on comparative policy of international privacy issues, with special emphasis on law enforcement, government surveillance, and cross border data flows. Her work in EFF's International Program also focuses on cybersecurity at the intersection of human rights. Katitza also manages EFF's growing Latin American programs. She was an advisor to the UN Internet Governance Forum (2009-2010). Before joining EFF, Katitza was director of the international privacy program at the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington D.C., where amongst other things, she worked on The Privacy and Human Rights Report,an international survey of privacy law and developments. Katitza is well known to many in global civil society and in international policy venues for her work at the U.N. Internet Governance Forum and her pivotal role in the creation and ongoing success of the Civil Society Information Society Advisory Council at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, for which she served as the civil society liaison while at EPIC from 2008 to March 2010. Katitza holds a Bachelor of Law degree from the University of Lima, Peru. Katitza's twitter handle is @txitua.
Nathan 'nash' Sheard is EFF's Grassroots Advocacy Organizer. nash works directly with community members and organizations to take advantage of the full range of tools provided by access to tech, while engaging in empowering action toward the maintenance of digital privacy and information security.