Ask the EFF: The Year in Digital Civil Liberties

Presented at HOPE 2020 Virtual Rescheduled, Aug. 1, 2020, noon (120 minutes)

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:

Congress' EARN-IT legislation (designed to mandate backdoors in encryption);

Van Buren v. U.S., the upcoming Supreme Court case on the CFAA (federal anti-hacking law)

Law and policy for COVID-19 tracking/quarantine/immunity passport apps;

The growing trends to limit government use of facial recognition technology;

as well as updates on EFF's technology projects, 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.


Presenters:

  • Alexis Hancock
    **Alexis Hancock** is a staff technologist who helps to secure the web by working on HTTPS Everywhere. She has previously been a web developer and system administrator for seven years, and a statistician in the education realm. She has earned degrees from the Rochester Institute of Technology in media arts and technology and The New School in organizational change management. She is very passionate about encryption and tech equity for all, and has been assisting activists and educators with their tech needs for almost ten years.<br>
  • India McKinney
    **India McKinney** is the director of federal affairs at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Prior to joining EFF, India spent over ten years in Washington, DC as a legislative staffer to three members of Congress from California. Her work there primarily focused on the appropriations process, specifically analyzing and funding programs in the Departments of Veterans Affairs, Homeland Security, and Justice. Her biggest legislative accomplishment was authorizing, funding, and then naming a new outpatient VA/DoD clinic that will serve over 80,000 people. India's passion has always been for good public policy, and she's excited to be using skills developed during legislative battles to fight for consumer privacy and for robust surveillance oversight.<br>
  • Rory Mir
    **Rory Mir** is a grassroots advocacy organizer, primarily working on the Electronic Frontier Alliance. They are also a doctoral student of psychology at the City University of New York Graduate Center studying activist pedagogy. Before coming to the EFF, they were active in several New York City groups, including the Cypurr Collective, a member of the EFA engaging in community education on matters of cybersecurity. A longtime advocate for open education and open science, they want to break down any barriers folks face to free expression, creativity, or knowledge.<br>
  • Naomi Gilens
    **Naomi Gilens,** EFF's Frank Stanton fellow, is an attorney specializing in free speech litigation. Prior to joining EFF, she worked on issues of free speech, privacy, and government transparency at the ACLU. Naomi graduated from Harvard Law School and Princeton University, and served as a law clerk to the Honorable David J. Barron of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, and the Honorable Indira Talwani of the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts.<br>
  • Kurt Opsahl
    **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, he counsels on EFF projects and initiatives. Kurt is the lead attorney on the Coders' Rights Project. Before joining EFF, he worked at Perkins Coie, where he represented technology clients with respect to intellectual property, privacy, defamation, and other online liability matters. He received his law degree from Boalt Hall, and undergraduate degree from U.C. Santa Cruz. Kurt is the co-authored of *Electronic Media and Privacy Law Handbook*. In 2007, he 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, he was elected to the USENIX board of directors.<br>

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