Senior Director, Liberty & National Security Program, Brennan Center for Justice at New York University Law School
Elizabeth (Liza) Goitein is senior director of the Brennan Center for Justice’s Liberty & National Security Program.
Goitein is a nationally-recognized expert on presidential emergency powers, government surveillance, and government secrecy. Her writing has been featured in major newspapers and magazines including the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Los Angeles Times, The Atlantic Magazine, and The New Republic, and she has appeared frequently on MSNBC, CNN, and NPR. She has testified on several occasions before the Senate and House Judiciary Committees.
Before coming to the Brennan Center, Goitein served as counsel to Senator Russ Feingold, chairman of the Constitution Subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and as a trial attorney in the Federal Programs Branch of the Civil Division of the Department of Justice. Goitein graduated from Yale Law School and clerked for the Honorable Michael Daly Hawkins on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. In 2021–22, she was a member of the inaugural class of Senior Practitioner Fellows at the University of Chicago’s Center for Effective Government.
Senior Adviser, International Security Program, CSIS
Glenn S. Gerstell served as the general counsel of the National Security Agency (NSA) from 2015 to 2020. A frequent guest commentator on CNN, MSNBC, and NPR, he has written and spoken widely about the intersections of technology and national security, with articles appearing in the New York Times, Washington Post, New Yorker, The Hill, Barron’s, and POLITICO. Prior to joining the NSA, Mr. Gerstell practiced law for almost 40 years at the international law firm of Milbank, LLP, where he focused on the global telecommunications industry and was the managing partner of the firm's Washington, D.C., Singapore, and Hong Kong offices. Mr. Gerstell served on the President's National Infrastructure Advisory Council, the Future of Encryption Committee for the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, and the District of Columbia Homeland Security Commission. A graduate of New York University and the Columbia University School of Law, Mr. Gerstell is an elected member of the American Academy of Diplomacy and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Earlier in his career, he was an adjunct law professor at the Georgetown University Law Center and New York Law School. He is a recipient of the National Intelligence Distinguished Service Medal, the Secretary of Defense Medal for Exceptional Civilian Service, and the NSA Distinguished Civilian Service Medal.
President and General Counsel, New Civil Liberties Alliance
NCLA’s President and General Counsel, Mark Chenoweth, has observed the administrative state up close and personal from perches in all four branches of the federal government. Mark served as the first chief of staff to Congressman Mike Pompeo, as legal counsel to Commissioner Anne Northup at the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, as an attorney advisor in the Office of Legal Policy at the U.S. Department of Justice, and as a law clerk to the Hon. Danny J. Boggs on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.
Mark has worked in several different roles in the private sector as well. He began his legal career in D.C. as a regulatory associate at Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering. He then returned to his home state of Kansas to serve as in-house counsel for Koch Industries. Most recently he spent over four years as general counsel of the Washington Legal Foundation.
Mark is a graduate of Yale College and the University of Chicago Law School, where he co-founded the Institute for Justice Clinic on Entrepreneurship and became a Tony Patiño Fellow. Mark has been widely quoted and/or published in newspapers and websites including the New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, New Hampshire Union Leader, and Metropolitan Corporate Counsel. He has also had recurring op-eds in the Los Angeles Daily Journal, and at Forbes.com.
William R. Orthwein Distinguished Professor of Law, Washington University in St. Louis School of Law
Professor Ronald M. Levin is a nationally known scholar who specializes in administrative law and related public law issues. He is the co-author of a casebook on state and federal administrative law, now in its third edition, as well as a nutshell on administrative law and process, now in its fifth edition. Formerly the law school's associate dean, he has published numerous articles and book chapters on administrative law topics, including judicial review, rulemaking, and legislative reform of the regulatory process. He also has written about the law of legislation, lobbying, and legislative ethics. Among his professional affiliations, Professor Levin has chaired the ABA Section of Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice and served as the ABA's advisor to the drafting committee to revise the Model State Administrative Procedure Act. He also has chaired the Section on Administrative Law and the Section on Legislation of the Association of American Law Schools (AALS). Currently a public member of the Administrative Conference of the United States (ACUS), he previously served as a consultant to ACUS and to the Supreme Court of Indonesia. Before joining the law faculty, Professor Levin clerked for the Hon. John C. Godbold, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, and practiced for three years in Washington, D.C., with the firm of Sutherland, Asbill & Brennan.
Reforming Section 702: Should the FBI require a warrant to search its database for the communications of US persons?
Elizabeth Goitein, Glenn Gerstell
Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) allows the government to collect non-content metadata from communications service providers. Advocates for renewal, including members of the US intelligence community, argue that it is a critical tool for national security and failure to renew it will leave the nation vulnerable. Critics claim Section 702 creates a loophole that allows for the collection of personal information without a warrant. In this Briefcase, two experts, Glenn Gerstell and Liza Goitein, debate a key issue of reform, whether the FBI should require a warrant to search its database for the communications of US persons.
Should The Chevron Doctrine Stand?
Mark Chenoweth, Ronald M. Levin
Chevron v. NRDC (1984) and subsequent precedents held that courts should defer to agency interpretations of ambiguous statutes. This judicial deference to administrative agencies, often called Chevron Deference has been a topic of great debate. Two experts, Mark Chenoweth and Ronald Levin, took on this debate via a variety of mediums -blogs, videos, etc. while additional experts chimed in with Amicus Briefs, culminating in an audience vote on which side convinced them.