Senior Strategic and Global Intelligence Advisor, Lexpat Global Services
Darrell M. Blocker is the Senior Strategic and Global Intelligence Advisor at Lexpat Global Services. Among other things, Darrell is a globally-recognized subject matter expert on North Korea, the Islamic Republic of Iran, and counterterrorism, and serves as a strategic advisor to high net worth individuals and businesses operating in the defense, national security and international affairs sectors. He is active in the entertainment and nonprofit industries and as a creative consultant, keynote speaker, and ABC News contributor. He is also the founder of DMB Consulting Services, a strategic crisis management and executive advisory firm.
In his 32-year career in public service, Darrell served across six consecutive Presidential Administrations (from Reagan to Trump), including four years in the U.S. Air Force, followed by 28 years as a Central Intelligence Agency operative within their Clandestine Service. His traditional overseas assignments include the Republic of Korea (with the USAF), and Niger, Senegal, Morocco, Nigeria, Uganda, and Switzerland (with the CIA). His war zone assignments were to Panama (USAF), and then Somalia in the aftermath of Blackhawk Down, Burundi after the Hutu-Tutsi massacres, and Pakistan after 9/11 (CIA).
During his storied career, Darrell rose to the civilian rank equivalent to a 3-Star general (Lieutenant General/Vice Admiral). Along the way, his contributions to national security earned him several awards, including the Distinguished Career Intelligence Medal, the George H.W. Bush Award for Excellence in Counterterrorism, the Iraqi Campaign Citation for contributions to Operation Iraqi Freedom, the USAF Commendation Medal for Korea and the Expeditionary Campaign Medal for Panama. It has been widely reported that he later was on President Biden’s shortlist to become the Director of the CIA.
Darrell is a prolific speaker and contributor to public discourse on international security and effective operations. His speaking engagements include the Jewish Federation of Toronto, the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles, the International Spy Museum in Washington DC., the CIA’s CulperCon 2022, and numerous international conferences on intelligence and security matters. His TEDx talk delivered in April 2022 entitled “LISTEN MORE, SPEAK LESS: LESSONS IN KINDNESS FROM A CIA OPERATIVE can be found here. Stories about Darrell have been featured in press and news articles by ABC News, the Wall Street Journal, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Fox News, CNN, the New York Times, the Daily Beast, and the DailyMail.
Darrell volunteers with and serves on the board of Peace4Kids.org, a non-profit advocacy group for youth in foster care, and cofounded SME/Creatives, a creative and collaborative storytelling consulting firm operating in the entertainment space. He is also the Vice Chairman of the GreenMet Board of Directors, a nonresident fellow at the University of Georgia’s School of Public and International Affairs Center for International Trade and Security and a 2024 Council of Advisors Leadership Council member for Black Professionals in International Affairs.
Darrell is an avid crossword puzzle enthusiast and music was his first true love. He sang in the UGA’s Men’s Glee Club for four years and in bands in Senegal and Uganda. He spent his formative years in Okinawa, Japan, but his dream of becoming a ninja never materialized. Even so, being an intelligence officer brought all his passions into a singular and meaningful career that took him to 27 addresses and homes in eleven foreign countries over the past 60 years.
Former Chief Counsel to the DCI Counterterrorist Center, Central Intelligence Agency
Jonathan Fredman is a Non-Resident Fellow at the School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University. He held numerous leadership positions at the Central Intelligence Agency during a 36-year career, including Chief Counsel, Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) Counterterrorist Center; Chief Counsel, DCI Counterintelligence Center; Counsel for Operations, CIA Directorate of Science and Technology; and Chief Counsel for several additional CIA divisions and mission centers. He also served as Assistant Deputy Director of National Intelligence for Special Programs at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and as Special Assistant to the Director of Central Intelligence, and taught national security and foreign intelligence at the University of Pennsylvania Law School.
Adjunct Professor of History and Strategic Intelligence, Patrick Henry College
Mary Habeck is a strategic planner and an expert on military matters, Russia, Great Power
Competition, and extremism. She teaches on these issues at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced
International Studies (SAIS), Georgetown, American University, and Patrick Henry College, and
is a consultant for various parts of the federal government. From 2005-2013 she was an
Associate Professor in Strategic Studies at SAIS, teaching courses on extremism, military history,
and strategic thought. Before moving to SAIS, Dr. Habeck taught American and European
military history in Yale’s history department, 1994-2005. She received her PhD in history from
Yale in 1996, an MA in international relations from Yale in 1989, and a BA in international
studies, Russian, and Spanish from Ohio State in 1987.
Dr Habeck was appointed by President Bush to the Council on the Humanities at the National
Endowment for the Humanities (2006-2013), and in 2008-2009 she was the Special Advisor for
Strategic Planning on the National Security Council staff, where she worked on extremism.
Founder and CEO, Lexpat Global Services
Adam Pearlman is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Lexpat Global Services. He is a National Security Law expert and a proven senior leader with experience across the U.S. Departments of Justice, Defense, and State, in the White House, and with the U.S. Federal Judiciary.
Before founding Lexpat, Mr. Pearlman served as the Senior Advisor for Legal Policy in the State Department’s Bureau of Counterterrorism. There, he counseled senior officials on matters covering the entire spectrum of programs and operations to counter terrorism and violent extremism. While participating in sensitive diplomatic engagements and helping to coordinate military operations, he also advised in the development of sanctions policy and initiatives to build legal and operational capacity in partner nations. Mr. Pearlman also managed the Bureau’s participation in federal litigation and led U.S. delegations in multilateral forums concerning criminal justice and rule of law. Separately, Mr. Pearlman supported the State Department’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL) as the contracted Senior Justice and Rule of Law Advisor in Cabo Verde, Africa. There he was the chief implementer of a Foreign Assistance program that grew eight-fold during his tenure, building host nation capacity across the law enforcement, justice sector, rule of law, anti-money laundering, and corrections disciplines.
A former Associate Deputy General Counsel of the Department of Defense, Mr. Pearlman was agency counsel for complex civil and criminal national security matters in federal and military courts. He also led the Supreme Court and appellate unit of the team dedicated to litigating classified counterterrorism cases. His earlier service in the Department of Justice spanned four litigating divisions and the Office of the Deputy Attorney General. His diverse experience included reviewing complex international transactions and mergers, and advising on immigration removal proceedings, human rights abuses, and terrorist financing investigations. Mr. Pearlman also served with distinction in Iraq as an early advisor to the Iraqi High Tribunal’s prosecution of Saddam Hussein. He was a law clerk for The Honorable Royce C. Lamberth of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, and during law school interned in the White House Counsel’s Office.
Mr. Pearlman is a Senior Fellow at the National Security Institute at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School, a member of the American Bar Association’s Advisory Committee on Law and National Security, and the Editor-in-Chief of the U.S. Intelligence Community Law Sourcebook. Previously, he has been a Term Member of the Council on Foreign Relations, National Security Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, member of the ABA’s Africa Law Initiative Council and of the Center for Strategic & International Studies’ (CSIS) Project on Nuclear Issues, vice chairman of the ABA Section of International Law’s committees on national security, and aerospace and defense, and a liaison to the Board of Directors of the ABA’s Rule of Law Initiative. He has published articles in the Harvard National Security Journal, Stanford Law & Policy Review, Intelligence & National Security, The Foreign Service Journal, Lawfare, and many other outlets.
Mr. Pearlman earned his B.A., with honors, from UCLA, and his J.D., with honors, from The George Washington University Law School, where he was a member of the International Law Review. He also earned a Master of Science of Strategic Intelligence degree from the National Intelligence University, where he was the inaugural recipient of the Kornblum Award for national security law and ethics. Mr. Pearlman is a Certified Financial Crime Specialist and holds certificates in international human rights law from the University of Oxford and in anti-corruption law from American University’s Washington College of Law. He is admitted to the State Bars of California and Virginia, as well as to the Bar of the United States Supreme Court. He speaks and reads Portuguese at the intermediate level.
Senior Fellow, Macdonald-Laurier Institute
Fellow, National Security Institute, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University
Vince Vitkowsky chaired the Executive Committee of the Federalist Society’s International and National Security Law and Policy Practice Group for over a decade. He is also a Fellow at the National Security Institute of George Mason University Law School. Vince spent 45 years in private practice, primarily in AmLaw 100/200 firms and their spin-offs. His practice included domestic and international commercial arbitration and litigation, as well as cyber risks and liabilities. Vince's current focus is on national security policy, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, and counterterrorism. He has often written and spoken on national security and other public policy issues. Among other affiliations, Vince has been an Adjunct Fellow at the Center for Law and Counterterrorism of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, a member of the Executive Committee of the American Branch of the International Law Association, and Co-Chair of the Committee on Interventions and Trial Observations of the International Bar Association’s Human Rights Institute. He received his B.A. from Northwestern University and his J.D. from Cornell Law School.
Emanuel S. Heller Professor of Law, University of California at Berkeley; Thomas Smith Senior Research Fellow, Civitas Institute, University of Texas at Austin
John Yoo is the Emanuel Heller Professor of Law at the University of California at Berkeley. He is also the Thomas Smith Senior Research Fellow, Civitas Institute, at the University of Texas at Austin. He is also a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
His most recent book, The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Supreme Court, co-authored with Robert Delahunty, was published in 2023. Professor Yoo’s other books include Defender-in-Chief: Trump’s Fight for Presidential Power; Striking Power: How Cyber, Robots, and Space Weapons Change the Rules for War; Point of Attack: Preventive War, International Law, and Global Welfare; and Crisis and Command: A History of Executive Power from George Washington to George Bush.
He is a co-author of volumes 1 and 2 of R. Rossum, G. Tarr, V. Munoz & J. Yoo American Constitution Law (Routledge, 2026), and a co-editor of the eight-volume series on the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution, We Hold These Truths, with Yuval Levin and Adam White of the American Enterprise Institute.
Professor Yoo has published more than 100 articles in academic journals on subjects including national security, constitutional law, international law, and the Supreme Court. He also regularly contributes to the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and National Review, among others.
Professor Yoo has served in all three branches of government. He was an official in the U.S. Department of Justice, where he worked on national security and terrorism issues after the 9/11 attacks. He served as general counsel of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee. He has been a law clerk for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and federal appeals Judge Laurence Silberman. He has been a visiting professor at the University of Texas at Austin’s School of Civic Leadership, Seoul National University, the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya, Keio University, Trento University, the University of Chicago, and the Free University of Amsterdam.
Professor Yoo supervises the Public Law and Policy Program and the California Constitution Center. He also serves on the boards of Founding Forward, the Washington Legal Foundation, the Pacific Legal Foundation, the Ulysses Grant Institute, the Federalist Society’s Separation of Powers and Federalism Division, the Universidad Cientifica del Sur Law School, and the Asia-Pacific Law Institute at Seoul National University. He is a winner of the Federalist Society’s Paul Bator award and the Heritage Foundation’s Edwin Meese III Originalism Lectureship.
Professor Yoo graduated from Yale Law School and summa cum laude from Harvard College.
Commissioner, Federal Trade Commission
Andrew N. Ferguson was sworn in April 2, 2024 as a Commissioner of the Federal Trade Commission. President Joe Biden named Ferguson to a term that expires on September 25, 2030.
Ferguson most recently served as solicitor general of the Commonwealth of Virginia. Prior to that position, he served as chief counsel to U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, and as a Republican counsel on the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee. He also practiced law at several Washington, D.C. law firms. He earned his undergraduate degree and law degree from the University of Virginia. After law school, Ferguson clerked for Judge Karen L. Henderson on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.
Partner, Torridon Law PLLC
Mike Fragoso is an experienced legal and policy strategist who represents clients before all three branches of the federal government. Most recently he served as chief counsel to the Senate Republican Leader, Mitch McConnell (R-KY). He has negotiated consequential legislation, managed successful congressional oversight, and prepared individuals for the most contentious Senate hearings.
As chief counsel to Leader McConnell, Mike was the Leader’s primary legal advisor and managed the “last mile” of any legislation touching on the Senate Judiciary Committee. He ran the 2024 reauthorization of FISA Section 702 and was involved at the highest levels of the appropriations and budget-reconciliation processes. Mike also repeatedly represented Leader McConnell as counsel of record at the Supreme Court. Leader McConnell said of Mike that he’s “equally at home in the high-minded philosophical discourse of the legal community and the urgent pragmatism of congressional dealmaking,” and that he “maintains a firm grasp on the realm of the possible” but “knows which screws to twist.” He observed that Mike “is so exceptionally competent that he often produces from his desk the work that would normally require, literally, teams of outside counsel.”
President and CEO, The Federalist Society
Sheldon Gilbert is the President and CEO of The Federalist Society. Gilbert has been involved in the conservative and libertarian legal movement since law school, and has served in prominent roles at both nonprofit organizations as well as corporate America.
A longtime constitutional litigator, Gilbert has represented clients through amicus and party briefs in nearly a hundred cases at the U.S. Supreme Court, at both the certiorari and merits stages. Most recently, Gilbert served as Senior Lead Counsel for Strategic Initiatives at Walmart, the world’s largest company, where he led teams providing legal advice related to government enforcement, internal investigations, government relations, public relations, and special projects at the center of law and policy.
Before joining Walmart, Gilbert served as Vice President for Content and Development and Senior Fellow for Constitutional Studies at the National Constitution Center, a congressionally chartered non-partisan center for constitutional education and debate, where he led both fundraising and programming efforts. While at the NCC, Gilbert helped ensure that the Center’s programming and exhibits incorporated constitutional perspectives from experts on both the right and the left, including the launch of the Center’s landmark permanent exhibit on the Civil War and the Reconstruction Amendments.
Prior to the National Constitution Center, Gilbert served as the director of the Institute for Justice’s Center for Judicial Engagement (CJE), where he educated the public about the role of the courts and the Constitution, where he frequently hosted discussions and debates on constitutional issues, and often spoke at Federalist Society lawyer and student chapters across the country.
He was also a litigator with the U.S. Chamber Litigation Center, the litigation arm of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, where he represented the U.S. Chamber in over 400 cases in federal and state courts addressing a wide range of legal issues, from free speech to property rights.
Gilbert is a graduate of the George Washington University Law School where he helped found a first-of-its-kind National Religious Freedom Moot Court, which hosted law students from across the country to debate important, emerging religious liberty issues. After graduating from GWU, he also taught as a professorial lecturer at the school.
A graduate of the University of Utah, Gilbert is a child of the Mountain West, where he was born in a coal mining town in Utah and raised in Idaho near the Grand Tetons. Before going to law school, Gilbert’s diverse interests led him to work in a wide range of roles, from software development project management for a nonprofit, to working in his University’s radiobiology research lab, to volunteer service in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil for his church.
Gilbert is married with four children.
Shareholder, D.C. Office Managing Shareholder
Lee is a former Chief Counsel and Staff Director of the Senate Judiciary Committee for then-Chairman Lindsey Graham, Deputy Counsel to Vice President J.D. Vance, and federal prosecutor who serves as Managing Shareholder of Maynard Nexsen’s Washington, D.C. office. He has deep experience in all three branches of the federal government, stand-up courtroom experience, and extensive knowledge of Washington, D.C.
While serving on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Lee played a central role in some of the most consequential legislative, nominations, and oversight efforts in recent years. He led Supreme Court and Attorney General confirmation hearings, guided politically charged negotiations on the First Step Act, police reform, the CARES Act, and the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act, and oversaw the Committee’s work on the Crossfire Hurricane Investigation. Lee also helped advance the CLOUD Act and major intellectual property legislation, including the Defend Trade Secrets Act, the Music Modernization Act, and the CASE Act. Over his seven-year Senate career, he handled the Committee’s authorization of subpoenas, participated in transcribed interviews, managed public communications campaigns, and prepared witnesses and nominees for high-profile hearings—culminating in his service as a key advisor to Republican Senators during both impeachments of President Donald Trump.
As a federal prosecutor with the U.S. Department of Justice, Lee managed a diverse criminal and civil litigation docket, including first chair of a felony trial, briefing appeals, and arguing in the Fourth Circuit. Lee defended the United States in civil suits under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) and the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA), and also served as the Computer Hacking and Intellectual Property (CHIP) prosecutor for the South Carolina U.S. Attorney's Office. Before joining Maynard Nexsen, Lee served in the White House, where he provided strategic and legal advice to the Office of the Vice President.
Lee earned his law degree at the Vanderbilt University Law School and a Bachelor of Arts in Economics and International Affairs from Florida State University. He clerked for the Honorable Joseph F. Anderson, Jr. on the United States District Court for the District of South Carolina and briefly on the Fourth Circuit when Judge Anderson sat on that court by designation.
Senior Director, Microsoft, Former Staff Director and Chief Counsel, U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit
Judge Julius “Jay” Richardson serves on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. Jay grew up in Barnwell, South Carolina. After graduating from Vanderbilt University, Jay moved to Hawaii and worked at a pool-side bar-and-grill. Jay later earned his law degree from the University of Chicago Law School, where he served as Articles Editor for the Law Review and right fielder for the law school’s championship softball team. Following law school, Jay clerked for Judge Richard A. Posner and for Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist. He then practiced with Kellogg Hansen in Washington, DC before returning to South Carolina as an Assistant United States Attorney. Along with prosecuting violent crime, gangs, terrorism, public corruption, civil rights, and narcotics trafficking, he led the prosecution of Dylann Roof, who was convicted and sentenced to death for his racist massacre of nine Black worshippers during a Bible study at Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston. He and his wife Macon are blessed with four daughters.
Managing Director, BGR Group
Sean Cooksey, a former senior official in the Trump administration and on Capitol Hill, works as a Managing Director with BGR Group’s Commerce and Infrastructure Practice. He brings a wealth of executive branch, legislative, and private sector experience to his work with clients on issues ranging from congressional oversight and investigations, competition and antitrust matters, intellectual property and technology policy, and litigation support.
Prior to joining the BGR team, Sean was Counsel to Vice President JD Vance. In this role, he served as the Vice President’s chief legal adviser and a senior policy staffer within the White House. As part of the Trump-Vance administration, he regularly advised the Vice President and senior White House staff on constitutional law, domestic policy, ethics, and executive and judicial nominations.
Previously, Sean was a member of the Federal Election Commission, after being nominated by President Trump in 2020. Sean served on the FEC for four years and was elected Chairman for the 2024 presidential election year, overseeing an agency of 300 staff to administer federal campaign-finance law.
Sean began his political career in the United States Senate, where he served as General Counsel for Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) and Deputy Chief Counsel for Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX). During his tenure in both offices, Sean worked on the Senate’s Committee on the Judiciary on some of the Senate’s most high-stakes matters, including major legislation and two Supreme Court confirmations.
Prior to his Senate service, Sean worked at an international law firm in Washington, D.C., where his practice focused on appeals and constitutional law. He also served as a law clerk for Judge Jerry E. Smith of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in Houston, Texas.
Sean has appeared on television, on radio, and in print in outlets such as The Ingraham Angle, Varney & Co., Morning Edition, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Axios, and Politico. He speaks regularly at major conferences, including the Republican National Lawyers Association and the National Association of Business PACs.
Founder and Executive Director, National Security Institute; Assistant Professor of Law, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University
Jamil N. Jaffer is the Founder and Executive Director of the National Security Institute at the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University where he also serves as an Assistant Professor of Law, Director of the National Security Law and Policy Program, and Director of the Cyber, Intelligence, and National Security LLM Program. Jamil also teaches classes on counterterrorism, intelligence, surveillance, cybersecurity, and other national security matters, as well as a summer course held abroad with U.S. Supreme Court Justice Neil M. Gorsuch. Jamil is also affiliated with Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation and previously served as a Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution from 2016 to 2019.
Jamil is also a Venture Partner with Paladin Capital Group, where he assists the firm with investments across the full range of its themes and theses, including a focus on dual-use national security technologies. Jamil also serves on the board of directors of RangeForce, a cybersecurity training and readiness platform startup and Tozny, a digital identity startup, and on the advisory boards of U.S. Strategic Metals, North America’s largest primary producer of cobalt, a critical mineral used in EV batteries, aerospace, and other national security applications; and Constella Intelligence, a deep and dark web intelligence startup. Jamil also serves as an advisor to Beacon Global Strategies, a strategic advisory firm and Duco, a technology platform startup that connects corporations with geopolitical and international business experts. Jamil is also the managing director of Trigraph Caveat Capital, a private investment vehicle.
Among other things, Jamil currently serves on the Board of Directors for the Greater Washington Board of Trade, the Board of Advisors for the Global Cyber Alliance, and the Advisory Board of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies’ Center on Cyber and Tech Innovation, the Executive Committee of the Reagan Institute Strategy Group. Jamil is also a Fellow at the Academy for Judaic, Christian, and Islamic Studies, an advisor to the Concordia Summit, and is a member of the Board of Directors for the Center for Intelligence Policy, the Board of Directors of Speech First, and the Executive Committee of the International Law and National Security Practice Group of the Federalist Society.
Immediately prior to his current positions, from 2015-2021, Jamil served as a senior business leader at IronNet Cybersecurity, helping take the company from a bootstrapped first-year technology products startup through two rounds of venture capital fundraising, growing from 40 employees to over 300, and through its listing on New York Stock Exchange. In his role as IronNet's Senior Vice President for Strategy, Partnerships & Corporate Development, Jamil worked directly for the co-CEOs of the company, Gen (ret.) Keith B. Alexander, the former Director of the National Security Agency and Founding Commander of U.S. Cyber Command, and Bill Welch, the former COO of Zscaler and Duo; in that role, Jamil led all of the company’s strategic and technology partnership efforts, including developing go-to-market and technology integration plans with some of the largest cloud platforms and cybersecurity companies in the market, evaluating potential acquisition targets, and developing overall corporate strategy and thought leadership around collective security and collaborative defense in the cyber arena.
Prior to his time at IronNet, Jamil served on the leadership team of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee as Chief Counsel and Senior Advisor under Chairman Bob Corker (R-TN), where he worked on key national security and foreign policy issues, including leading the drafting of the proposed Authorization for the Use of Military Force against ISIS in 2014 and 2015, the AUMF against Syria in 2013, and revisions to the 9/11 AUMF against al Qaeda. Jamil was also the lead architect of the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act and two sanctions laws against Russia for its first intervention in Ukraine.
Prior to joining SFRC, Jamil served as Senior Counsel to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence under Chairman Mike Rogers (R-MI) where he led the committee’s oversight of NSA surveillance, NRO intelligence issues, and NGA analytic and collection matters, as well as intelligence community-wide counterterrorism issues. Jamil was also the lead architect of the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, the nation’s first cyber threat intelligence sharing legislation that was signed into law in 2015.
In the Bush Administration, Jamil served in the White House as an Associate Counsel to the President, handling Defense Department, State Department, and intelligence community matters, and serving as one of the White House Counsel’s primary representatives to the National Security Council Deputies Committee.
Prior to the White House, Jamil served on the leadership team of the Justice Department’s National Security Division as Counsel to the Assistant Attorney General for National Security, where he focused on counterterrorism and intelligence matters. At NSD, Jamil helped lead the division’s work on In re: Directives, the first ever two-party litigated matter in the FISA Court and the second case before the FISA Court of Review in its 30-year history. Jamil also led NSD’s efforts on the President’s Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative (CNCI), including the drafting of NSPD-54/HSPD-23, and related classified matters, and advised the National Security Agency (NSA) and U.S. Cyber Command’s predecessor organization, the Joint Function Component Command for Network Warfare (JFCC-NW), on matters related to cyber intelligence collection and offensive cyber activities. For his work on these matters, Jamil was awarded the Assistant Attorney General’s Award for Special Initiative and was among the group of lawyers awarded the Director of National Intelligence’s 2008 Legal Award (Team of the Year – Cyber Legal).
Jamil also served in other positions in the Justice Department, including in the Office of Legal Policy, where he worked on the confirmations of Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr. and Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr. to the United States Supreme Court.
Jamil also served as a lawyer in private practice at Kellogg Huber, a Washington, DC-based litigation boutique, as a policy advisor to Congressman Bob Goodlatte (R-VA), and as a staff member or senior advisor on a number of political campaigns, including two presidential campaigns and a presidential transition team. While in law school, Jamil was a member of the University of Chicago Law Review, managing editor of the Chicago Journal of International Law, and National Symposium Editor of the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy. Following law school, Jamil served as a law clerk to Judge Edith H. Jones of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and, later in his career, as a law clerk to then-Judge Neil M. Gorsuch when he first joined the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit as well as a law clerk to Justice Neil Gorsuch when he joined the U.S. Supreme Court.
Jamil has published multiple op-eds and academic articles on national security, foreign policy, cybersecurity, counterterrorism, encryption, and intelligence matters, and is the co-author of a book chapter with former NSA Director Gen. (Ret.) Keith B. Alexander on national security and the press in National Security, Leaks, and the Freedom of the Press: The Pentagon Papers Fifty Years On (2021) and a book chapter with former CIA Director Gen. (ret.) Mike Hayden on ISIS, al Qaeda, and other international terrorist groups in Choosing to Lead: American Foreign Policy for a Disordered World (2015). Jamil has also written book chapters on cybersecurity and surveillance, as well as op-eds and policy papers with former Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey, former National Counterterrorism Center Director Matt Olsen, and Congressman Mike Waltz (R-FL), among others.
Jamil has previously taught graduate-level courses in intelligence law and policy at George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs and the National Intelligence University, served an outside advisor to the Cyberspace Solarium Commission, and has recently testified before committees of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives on China, cybersecurity, counterterrorism, and other national security matters. Jamil has also recently appeared on a range of national television and radio outlets including CNN, Fox News, Fox Business, MSNBC, Bloomberg, PBS, Voice of America, and National Public Radio, and in various print and online publications, including the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and the Washington Post on a range of national security matters including cybersecurity, counterterrorism, surveillance, encryption, privacy, and foreign policy issues.
Jamil holds degrees from UCLA (BA, cum laude), the University of Chicago Law School (JD, with honors), and the United States Naval War College (MA, with distinction).
Professor of Cyber Security and Policy, Tufts University
Susan Landau is Professor of Cyber Security and Policy in the Department of Computer Science, Tufts University. Earlier, as Bridge Professor of Cyber Security and Policy at the Fletcher School and School of Engineering, she founded Tufts's innovative MS degree in Cybersecurity and Public Policy. Prior to Tufts, Landau was Senior Staff Privacy Analyst at Google, Distinguished Engineer at Sun Microsystems, and faculty member at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and Wesleyan University.
An interdisciplinary scholar, Landau works at the intersection of privacy, surveillance, cybersecurity, and the law. She has testified before Congress and briefed US and European policymakers on encryption, Landau and Whitfield Diffie won the McGannon Book Award for Social and Ethical Relevance in Communication Policy Research for Privacy on the Line: The Politics of Wiretapping and Encryption. She received the Surveillance Studies Book Prize for Surveillance or Security? The Risks Posed by New Wiretapping Technologies, the USENIX Lifetime Achievement Award, shared with Steven Bellovin and Matt Blaze, and the American Mathematical Society's Bertrand Russell Prize. Landau has served on committees of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, on the National Science Foundation Computer and Information Science Engineering Advisory Board, the National Institute of Standards and Technology Information Security and Privacy Advisory Board, and on mathematics and computer science journal editorial boards. Landau received her BA from Princeton, MS from Cornell, and PhD from MIT.
Strategic Council, Silverado Policy Accelerator; former Republican Deputy Staff Director, U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence
Tara Caroselli McFeely is a senior national security executive with expertise spanning defense, intelligence, and technology policy, political, and budgetary domains. She serves on the Strategic Council at Silverado Policy Accelerator, advising on innovative, data-driven national security policy initiatives, and is an Adjunct Professor in the Master of Science in Foreign Service program at Georgetown University’s Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service.
In government, she most recently served as the Republican Deputy Staff Director on the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) driving the national security and intelligence policy and Executive Branch oversight strategic direction. She also co-led the professional staff oversight functions of the policies and programs of the U.S. intelligence enterprise spanning six Departments: Defense, Energy, Homeland Security, Justice, Treasury, State; and two independent agencies: the Central Intelligence Agency and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. Prior to this role she served as the SSCI Budget Director, leading the staff oversight of the Intelligence Community (IC) and Defense Intelligence Enterprise annual $100.0+ billion budget and programs. Formerly, she was the SSCI Chairman’s Senior Advisor for Counterterrorism and the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s intelligence programs.
In the research domain, Ms. McFeely was the Deputy Director of the Intelligence Analyses Division at the Institute for Defense Analyses. In this role she led a large team of senior social sciences and STEM researchers on complex multidisciplinary research and analysis projects.
At Booz Allen Hamilton, she was a senior advisor for multiple IC and Department of Defense clients. She also led numerous multifaceted contracts across the U.S. Government landscape globally, including multilateral counter-Biological Weapons (BW) program initiatives.
Ms. McFeely began her career serving globally in the U.S. Navy, initially as a Surface Warfare Officer conducting U.S. 2nd Fleet and NATO operations across the Atlantic, and subsequently as a Naval Intelligence Officer supporting operations in the Balkans and the Global War on Terror.
Ms. McFeely has a Bachelor of Science in Political Science from the U.S. Naval Academy where she was a letterwoman on the Women’s Varsity Basketball Team. She also has a Master of Arts in Law and Diplomacy (MALD) from The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University.
Counsel, Debevoise & Plimpton
Carter Burwell is a litigation counsel based in the Washington, D.C. office of Debevoise & Plimpton and a member of the firm’s White Collar & Regulatory Defense practice. His practice focuses on white collar criminal defense, government investigations and internal investigations, and national security matters.
Mr. Burwell joins Debevoise with more than 15 years of experience in senior roles across the federal government. Most recently, Mr. Burwell served as Counselor to the Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Finance Intelligence, where he advised on matters involving financial sanctions and illicit finance, international corruption and human rights abuses and digital assets. At Treasury, Mr. Burwell worked directly with the National Security Council, other senior executive branch officials, foreign leaders and the private sector to develop and implement policies to protect domestic and international financial systems from national security threats. He also participated in the CFIUS review process and advanced anti-money laundering reforms under the Bank Secrecy Act.
Prior to his role at the Treasury Department, Mr. Burwell served as one of the top lawyers on the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, including as Chief Counsel to former Assistant Majority Leader and U.S. Senator John Cornyn and as Counsel to former Chairman and U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley. In the Senate, Mr. Burwell worked on bipartisan efforts to modernize national security and technology laws, reform the criminal justice system and conduct rigorous oversight of government officials and the private sector on matters of national consequence. Mr. Burwell also served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Violent Crime and Terrorism Unit in the U.S. Attorney's Office in the Eastern District of New York (EDNY) and in the National Security and International Crimes Unit in the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Eastern District of Virginia (EDVA). As a federal prosecutor at EDNY and EDVA, Mr. Burwell supervised and participated in a wide variety of investigations and prosecutions involving international and domestic terrorist groups, international cartels and racketeering organizations, as well as financial and cyber crimes. He successfully tried numerous cases to verdict and briefed and argued appeals in the U.S. Court of Appeals.
Earlier on in his career, Mr. Burwell served as a law clerk to U.S. District Court Judge Gleeson, now a Debevoise litigation partner, before going on to clerk on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit for the Hon. Judge Karen Henderson. Mr. Burwell was also a litigation associate at another international law firm.
He received his J.D. from the University Virginia School of Law in 2002, an M.Phil from the University of Cambridge in 1998, and his B.A. from Columbia College in 1996.
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