International Consumer Counsel, Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC)
Sunny Seon Kang is International Consumer Counsel at the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC). Her work at EPIC focuses on U.S. privacy regulations and EU data protection laws. She advocates for the global implementation of the GDPR to raise online privacy standards. In London, Ms. Kang was a Legal Researcher for the Western Balkans Rule of Law Project and authored judicial guidelines on the right to privacy and freedom of expression under the European Convention on Human Rights. She was a Summer Associate at Allen & Overy UK in the intellectual property litigation department, and worked in Seoul as a Research Fellow at the Innovation, Competition & Regulation (ICR) Law Center. In San Francisco, Ms. Kang was a Legal Extern at the California Department of Justice, Attorney General Kamala Harris' Office, where she produced legislative analyses and policy recommendations on state privacy laws. Prior to joining EPIC, Ms. Kang was a Legal Fellow and Yelp Public Policy Affiliate at TechFreedom on FTC regulatory affairs and consumer privacy. Ms. Kang holds a law degree (LL.B.) from University College London and a Master of Laws (LL.M.) in Intellectual Property and Technology from the UC Berkeley School of Law. She is certified to the New York bar.
Senior Vice President, Strand Consult
Roslyn Layton, PhD is a leading international expert on technology policy. She is Senior Vice President of Strand Consult, an independent consultancy serving the global mobile telecom industry. She is also a Visiting Researcher at Aalborg University Copenhagen where she earned a doctoral thesis on network neutrality by measuring the outcome of the policy across 53 countries over 5 years. She served on the Presidential Transition Team for the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), and her work was critical to the FCC’s defense for the Restoring Internet Freedom Order. She has testified to the United States Senate and House on multiple topics including spectrum, broadband, mobile mergers, competition, and privacy. She founded the think tank China Tech Threat to study the problems of technology produced by the People’s Republic of China. She serves as the Program Chair for the Telecom Policy Research Conference, the leading interdisciplinary academic gathering. Her recent paper on rural broadband describes the empirical case for policy reform to recover network infrastructure costs from streaming video entertainment providers. She is a Senior Contributor to Forbes.
Senior Fellow, R Street Institute
Prior to R Street, Adam spent 12 years as a senior fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. Before the Mercatus Center, he served as the president of the Progress and Freedom Foundation. Adam has also worked for the Adam Smith Institute, the Heritage Foundation and the Cato Institute.
Adam has published 10 books on a wide range of topics, including online child safety, internet governance, intellectual property, telecommunications policy, media regulation and federalism.
In 2008, Adam received the Family Online Safety Institute’s “Award for Outstanding Achievement.”
Clinical Professor and Senior Scholar and Senior Fellow for Copyright Research and Policy of C-IP2, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University
Sandra Aistars is Senior Fellow for Copyright Research and Policy and a Senior Scholar at the Center for Intellectual Property x Innovation Policy (C-IP2). She also leads the law school’s Arts & Entertainment Advocacy Program. Professor Aistars has over twenty years of advocacy experience on behalf of copyright and other intellectual property owners. She has served on trade missions and been an industry advisor to the Department of Commerce on intellectual property implications for international trade negotiations; worked on legislative and regulatory matters worldwide; frequently testified before Congress and federal agencies regarding intellectual property matters; chaired cross-industry coalitions and technology standards efforts; and is regularly tapped by government agencies to lecture in U.S. government-sponsored study tours for visiting legislators, judges, prosecutors, and regulators.
Immediately prior to joining Scalia Law, Professor Aistars was the Chief Executive Officer of the Copyright Alliance – a nonprofit, public interest organization that represents the interests of artists and creators across the creative spectrum. While at Scalia Law, she continues to collaborate with the Copyright Alliance as a member of its Academic Advisory Board. Professor Aistars currently serves on the boards of the Washington Area Lawyers for the Arts (WALA) and the Howard Intellectual Property Program (HIPP), and she has previously served as trustee of the Copyright Society of the USA (CSUSA). Professor Aistars has also previously served as Vice President and Associate General Counsel at Time Warner Inc. She began her legal career in private practice at Weil, Gotshal and Manges LLP.
Partner, Steptoe & Johnson LLP
Stewart Baker is a partner in the law firm of Steptoe & Johnson in Washington, D.C. From 2005 to 2009, he was the first Assistant Secretary for Policy at the Department of Homeland Security. His law practice covers cybersecurity, data protection, homeland security, and travel and foreign investment regulation; he has been awarded one patent.
Mr. Baker has been General Counsel of the National Security Agency and General Counsel of the commission that investigated WMD intelligence failures prior to the Iraq war. He is the author of Skating on Stilts, a book on terrorism, cybersecurity, and other technology issues; he also hosts the weekly Cyberlaw Podcast.
Senior Counsel, Electronic Privacy Information Center
Alan Butler is Senior Counsel at the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) in Washington, DC. In that capacity, Mr. Butler manages EPIC's litigation, including the Amicus Program, and files briefs in emerging privacy and civil liberties cases before the U.S. Supreme Court and other appellate courts. Mr. Butler has argued on behalf of EPIC in privacy and open government cases in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, the Third Circuit, and the Supreme Courts of New Mexico and New Jersey. Mr. Butler has authored briefs on behalf of EPIC in significant privacy cases, including an amicus brief in Riley v. California that was cited in the Supreme Court's unanimous opinion upholding Fourth Amendment protections for cell phones. He has also authored briefs on national security, open government, workplace privacy, and consumer privacy issues. Mr. Butler is also Chair of the Privacy and Information Protection Committee of the ABA Section on Civil Rights and Social Justice. He is co-author of the most recent edition of Communications Law and Policy: Cases and Materials and has also published several articles on emerging privacy issues, including: Products Liability and the Internet of (Insecure) Things: Should Manufacturers Be Liable for Damage Caused by Hacked Devices?, Get a Warrant: The Supreme Court's New Course for Digital Privacy Rights after Riley v. California, Standing Up to Clapper: How to Increase Transparency and Oversight of FISA Surveillance, and When Cyberweapons End Up on Private Networks: Third Amendment Implications for Cybersecurity Policy. Mr. Butler is a graduate of UCLA School of Law and Washington University in St. Louis, where he earned a B.A. in Economics. He is a frequent speaker and commentator on cybersecurity, consumer privacy, and surveillance law issues.
Senior Fellow and Academic Director, Penn Carey Law School
Gus Hurwitz is a Senior Fellow and the Academic Director of the Center for Technology, Innovation & Competition and the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School where he is working to develop academic and scholarly programs at the intersecution of law, technology, and policy.
He is also Director of Law & Economics Programs at the International Center for Law & Economics (ICLE), a think tank based in Portland, Oregon, where he directs its law and economics-focused research program and helps to translate academic research into applied policy issues.
Hurwitz's research focuses on the regulation of technology, including administrative and regulatory law, antitrust law, torts and products liability, and media law - alongside cognate fields. Inrecent years he has worked on an AI standardization initiative with Seoul National University, a UNICEF-organized study of broadband deployment to public schools in Rwanda, and a book on conglomerate and ecosystems theories of antitrust.
He has published over 30 articles and book chapters, two books (one on cybersecurity law & policy, one on media regulation in the digital era) and have two more in process, over 100 shorter writings (op-eds, shorter analyses, blog posts, &c), hosted over 100 podcast episodes, and regularly appear or am quoted in popular media (including the NY Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and Associated Press). His work has been cited by legislators, federal courts of appeals, and federal regulatory agencies.
He was previously a full professor and founding director of the Governance & Technology Center at the University of Nebraska, prior to which he was the inaugural research fellow at the Center for Technology, Innovation & Competition (CTIC). From 2007 to 2010, he was a trial attorney with the U.S. Department of Justice Antitrust Division in the Telecommunications and Media Enforcement Section.
He also is, or has been, affiliated with the Classical Liberal Institute at New York University School of Law, the National Security Institute at George Mason University, and the American Enterprise Institute (AEI).
Before attending law school, Hurwitz worked at Los Alamos National Lab and interned at the Naval Research Lab. During this time his work was recognized by the Federal Laboratory Consortium, Los Alamos National Lab, IEEE & ACM, Corporation for Education Network Initiatives in California, R&D Magazine, and even the Guinness Book of World Records.
A current list of Hurwitz’s publications is available on his website: GusHurwitz.net.
Senior Counsel and Director of Strategy, Future of Privacy Forum
Brenda Leong, CIPP/US, is Senior Counsel and Director of Strategy at the Future of Privacy Forum. She oversees strategic planning of organizational goals, as well as managing the FPF portfolio on biometrics, particularly facial recognition, along with the ethics and privacy issues associated with artificial intelligence. She works on industry standards and collaboration on privacy concerns, by partnering with stakeholders and advocates to reach practical solutions to the privacy challenges for consumer and commercial data uses. Prior to working at FPF, Brenda served in the U.S. Air Force, including policy and legislative affairs work from the Pentagon and the U.S. Department of State. She is a 2014 graduate of George Mason University School of Law.
Chair, Global Antitrust Law Practice Group, Morrison Foerster
Alex Okuliar is Co-Chair of Morrison Foerster’s Global Antitrust Law Practice Group. He is the former Deputy Assistant Attorney General for Civil Antitrust Enforcement at the U.S. Department of Justice and a former advisor at the Federal Trade Commission.
Alex’s practice spans merger review, civil litigation, and criminal investigations. Over his twenty-five-year career, Alex has worked on nearly one thousand deals. He has deep experience guiding clients through the complex global merger clearance process and has litigated agency merger challenges through trial. He has also helped clients succeed in a wide range of federal and state cases, including class actions and private party disputes alleging price fixing, monopolization, group boycotts, market allocation, and tying. His understanding of the agency processes from the inside allows him to offer expert, timely, and practical advice to clients navigating merger and conduct investigations by the U.S. Department of Justice, the Federal Trade Commission, state Attorneys General, and foreign agencies. Alex’s work has been recognized by leading industry publications such as Chambers, The Legal 500 U.S., and Global Competition Review.
Outside of client work, Alex is a prolific thought leader and was recognized as a 2024 Top Author for Antitrust & Trade Regulation by JD Supra’s Readers’ Choice Awards. He currently serves as the co-chair of the ABA Antitrust Law Section’s Joint Conduct Committee and is the former chair of the Section’s Intellectual Property Committee and co-chair of the 2023 Antitrust Fall Forum on Artificial Intelligence. He is also a member of the Corporations, Securities & Antitrust Executive Committee of The Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies.
Before law school, Alex co-founded and sold an online technology company. Alex received his B.S. in economics and B.A. with distinction in history from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and his J.D. from Vanderbilt University Law School.
Partner, Wilkinson Barker Knauer LLP
Rosemary C. Harold joined the firm as a partner in 2011, specializing in media, broadband, and First Amendment issues. She advises a wide range of clients – including commercial and noncommercial broadcasters, cable operators, video programmers, wireless providers, and satellite operators – on legal, regulatory, and policy matters. Her work includes representation of clients in major rulemakings, transactions both large and small, and regulatory compliance counseling. Ms. Harold also regularly provides investors and others in the financial community with insights into developments at the FCC and on Capitol Hill, including the interplay between the agency and lawmakers, as well as inter-agency dealings among the FCC, the Department of Justice, and the Federal Trade Commission on competition issues.
From 2005 to 2011, Ms. Harold served at the Federal Communications Commission, most recently as Legal Advisor to FCC Commissioner Robert M. McDowell for media and broadband issues, with a particular focus on First Amendment concerns. She earlier served as Deputy Chief of the FCC’s Media Bureau, where she led the staff teams working on major rulemakings such as video franchising reform and media ownership, as well as on major transactional reviews such as the Sirius/XM merger.
Before her government service, Ms. Harold’s work in private practice included FCC regulatory proceedings in the media, satellite, and wireless areas, diversity and EEO matters at the FCC and EEOC, and First Amendment commercial speech matters before the FTC, FDA and federal appellate courts. She began her career as a journalist, including work as a reporter and bureau chief for the Miami Herald, an editor at C-SPAN and, during law school, a columnist for the ABA Student Lawyer magazine.
Ms. Harold frequently speaks at industry conferences and events on media and broadband issues. She currently serves as the co-chair of the Women in Communications Law subcommittee of the American Bar Association’s Forum Committee on Communications Law, an adjunct professor in the Communications Law Institute at Catholic University’s Columbus School of Law, and member of Board of Advisors for the Thomas Jefferson Public Policy Program at the College of William and Mary. An active member of the Federal Communications Bar Association, Ms. Harold has served on the FCBA’s Executive Committee and co-chaired the FCBA’s Mass Media Committee, Video Programming & Distribution Committee, and Professional Responsibility Committee.
J.D., Georgetown University Law Center, 1991, magna cum laude
M.A., University of Missouri, 1985
B.A., College of William and Mary, 1980
Patrick Hotung Professor of Constitutional Law, Georgetown University Law Center
Randy Barnett is the Patrick Hotung Professor of Constitutional Law at Georgetown University Law Center. He has argued before the United States Supreme Court, tried murder cases to juries as a prosecutor in Chicago, and appeared as a prosecutor in the feature film Inalienable. He is the author of numerous books, including Restoring the Lost Constitution, The Structure of Liberty, Our Republican Constitution, and The Original Meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment. He has published two memoirs, A Life for Liberty: The Making of an American Originalist, and Felony Review: Tales of True Crime and Corruption in Chicago. He is currently working on a new book, Freedom and Flourishing: Libertarianism for the Real World.
Nonresident Senior Fellow, American Enterprise Institute
Jim Harper is a nonresident senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), where he focuses on privacy issues, and select legal and constitutional law issues.
A lawyer by training, Mr. Harper has served as counsel for the Subcommittee on Commercial, and Administrative Law of the US House Committee on the Judiciary and as counsel for the Senate Committee on Government Affairs. More recently, he worked at the Competitive Enterprise Institute and the Cato Institute, where he wrote on the intersection of business, technology, and public policy, including privacy, surveillance, data security, telecommunications, and cryptocurrencies. He also served as global policy counsel for the Bitcoin Foundation. Mr. Harper was a founding member of the Department of Homeland Security’s Data Privacy and Integrity Advisory Committee. Early in his post-Hill career, he represented companies such as PayPal and Verisign before Congress.
Mr. Harper is the co-editor of “Terrorizing Ourselves: Why U.S. Counterterrorism Policy Is Failing and How to Fix It” (Cato Institute, 2010) and the author of “Identity Crisis: How Identification Is Overused and Misunderstood” (Cato Institute, 2006). He has written several amicus briefs in Fourth Amendment cases before the U.S. Supreme Court and has published scholarly articles in a variety of law journals. In the popular press, Mr. Harper has been published in The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, among many other publications.
Mr. Harper has a law degree from the U.C. Hastings College of the Law, where he was editor-in-chief of the Hastings Constitutional Law Quarterly, and a BA from the University of California, Santa Barbara.
Professor of Law, Stanford Law School
Orin S. Kerr is a Professor of Law at Stanford Law School, where he teaches and writes in the areas of criminal procedure and computer crime law. Kerr earned mechanical engineering degrees from Princeton University and Stanford University before graduating with a J.D. from Harvard Law School. He is a former law clerk to Justice Anthony M. Kennedy at the United States Supreme Court and Judge Leonard I. Garth of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.
President and Executive Director, Electronic Privacy Information Center
Marc Rotenberg is President and Executive Director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) in Washington, DC. He teaches information privacy law at Georgetown University Law Center and frequently testifies before Congress on emerging privacy and civil liberties issues. He testified before the 9-11 Commission on "Security and Liberty: Protecting Privacy, Preventing Terrorism." He has served on several national and international advisory panels, including the expert panels on Cryptography Policy and Computer Security for the OECD, the Legal Experts on Cyberspace Law for UNESCO, and the Countering Spam program of the ITU. He chairs the ABA Committee on Privacy and Information Protection. He is a founding board member and former Chair of the Public Interest Registry, which manages the .ORG domain. He is editor of "The Privacy Law Sourcebook," and co-editor of "Information Privacy Law" (Aspen Publishing 2006) and "Litigation Under the Federal Open Government Laws" (EPIC 2010). He is a graduate of Harvard College and Stanford Law School. He served as Counsel to Senator Patrick J. Leahy on the Senate Judiciary Committee after graduation from law school. He is the recipient of several awards, including the World Technology Award in Law, the American Lawyer Award for Top Lawyers Under 45, the Norbert Weiner Award for Social and Professional Responsibility, and the Vicennial medal from Georgetown University.
Senior Vice President, Chief Legal Officer and General Counsel, Ryan LLC
John Smith is the Senior Vice President, Chief Legal Officer and General Counsel at Ryan, LLC. Based at Ryan’s global headquarters in Dallas, Texas, John Smith brings more than 20 years of experience as a proven leader in the legal, business, and national security communities, including all three branches of the United States Government.
Prior to joining Ryan, Mr. Smith spent 12 years in Texas and Virginia at Raytheon Technologies, an American multinational aerospace and defense corporation. He pioneered roles as the company’s first cybersecurity lawyer and first privacy lawyer. During the last seven years, as a divisional Vice President and General Counsel, Mr. Smith led the legal departments of the two Raytheon divisions focused primarily on services.
Before Raytheon, Mr. Smith served as Associate Counsel to U.S. President George W. Bush. He was the lead lawyer for the White House Homeland Security Council staff. He began his legal career by clerking for Judge Samuel Alito, a few years before Alito’s elevation to the U.S. Supreme Court, and then by practicing at the international law firm of Covington & Burling.
Mr. Smith served a decade as a U.S. Army reservist and two years as a missionary in Ukraine and Russia, a few years after the collapse of the Soviet Union. He graduated with high honors from both Princeton University and Brigham Young University Law School.
Partner, Steptoe & Johnson LLP
Michael A. Vatis is a partner in the New York office of Steptoe & Johnson LLP. His practice focuses on Internet, e-commerce, and technology matters, providing legal advice and strategic counsel on matters involving privacy, security, encryption, intelligence, law enforcement, Internet gambling, and international regulation of Internet content. He also is an experienced appellate litigator, representing clients before the US Supreme Court and federal courts of appeals.
Mr. Vatis has spent most of his career addressing cutting edge issues at the intersection of law, policy, and technology. He was the founding director of the National Infrastructure Protection Center at the FBI, the first government organization responsible for detecting, warning of, and responding to cyber attacks, including computer crimes, cyber terrorism, cyber espionage, and information warfare. Before that, Mr. Vatis served as Associate Deputy Attorney General and Deputy Director of the Executive Office for National Security in the Department of Justice, where he advised the Attorney General and Deputy Attorney General and coordinated the Department’s activities involving counterterrorism, intelligence, encryption, and cyber crime. In that capacity, he also helped lead the development of the nation’s first policies regarding critical infrastructure protection. Mr. Vatis served as Special Counsel at the Department of Defense, where he handled sensitive legal and policy issues for the Secretary and Deputy Secretary of Defense and the General Counsel, receiving the Secretary of Defense Award for Excellence.
After leaving the government in 2001, Mr. Vatis served as the first Director of the Institute for Security Technology Studies at Dartmouth, a federally funded counterterrorism and cyber security research institute. He was simultaneously the founding Chairman of the Institute for Information Infrastructure Protection (I3P). I3P, a consortium of leading cyber security research organizations, worked with industry, government, and academia to develop a comprehensive research and development agenda to improve the security of the nation’s computer and communications networks. Mr. Vatis also served as the Executive Director of the Markle Task Force on National Security in the Information Age, a highly influential group of technology company executives, former government officials, and civil libertarians that recommended ways the government could more effectively use information and technology to combat terrorism while preserving civil liberties. Mr. Vatis was the principal author of the group’s second report, whose recommendations were adopted by the 9/11 Commission and included in the 2004 Intelligence Reform Act.
Mr. Vatis has been a Senior Fellow at New York University Law School’s Center on Law and Security and a member of numerous expert working groups on counterterrorism, intelligence, and technology issues. He is currently a member of the National Academy of Science/National Research Council Committee on the Policy Consequences and Legal/Ethical Implications of Offensive Information Warfare and served on the Commission on Cyber Security for the 44th Presidency, an independent group of cyber security experts who examined existing and potential cyber security threats and developed recommendations for the US government and private businesses. Mr. Vatis has also regularly testified before congressional committees on counterterrorism, intelligence, and cyber security issues. He is also interviewed frequently on television, radio, and in print media, and has been a guest lecturer at many prestigious law schools and universities and a speaker at industry conferences worldwide.
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.
Professor of Law, Stanford Law School
Orin S. Kerr is a Professor of Law at Stanford Law School, where he teaches and writes in the areas of criminal procedure and computer crime law. Kerr earned mechanical engineering degrees from Princeton University and Stanford University before graduating with a J.D. from Harvard Law School. He is a former law clerk to Justice Anthony M. Kennedy at the United States Supreme Court and Judge Leonard I. Garth of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.
President and Executive Director, Electronic Privacy Information Center
Marc Rotenberg is President and Executive Director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) in Washington, DC. He teaches information privacy law at Georgetown University Law Center and frequently testifies before Congress on emerging privacy and civil liberties issues. He testified before the 9-11 Commission on "Security and Liberty: Protecting Privacy, Preventing Terrorism." He has served on several national and international advisory panels, including the expert panels on Cryptography Policy and Computer Security for the OECD, the Legal Experts on Cyberspace Law for UNESCO, and the Countering Spam program of the ITU. He chairs the ABA Committee on Privacy and Information Protection. He is a founding board member and former Chair of the Public Interest Registry, which manages the .ORG domain. He is editor of "The Privacy Law Sourcebook," and co-editor of "Information Privacy Law" (Aspen Publishing 2006) and "Litigation Under the Federal Open Government Laws" (EPIC 2010). He is a graduate of Harvard College and Stanford Law School. He served as Counsel to Senator Patrick J. Leahy on the Senate Judiciary Committee after graduation from law school. He is the recipient of several awards, including the World Technology Award in Law, the American Lawyer Award for Top Lawyers Under 45, the Norbert Weiner Award for Social and Professional Responsibility, and the Vicennial medal from Georgetown University.
Senior Vice President, Chief Legal Officer and General Counsel, Ryan LLC
John Smith is the Senior Vice President, Chief Legal Officer and General Counsel at Ryan, LLC. Based at Ryan’s global headquarters in Dallas, Texas, John Smith brings more than 20 years of experience as a proven leader in the legal, business, and national security communities, including all three branches of the United States Government.
Prior to joining Ryan, Mr. Smith spent 12 years in Texas and Virginia at Raytheon Technologies, an American multinational aerospace and defense corporation. He pioneered roles as the company’s first cybersecurity lawyer and first privacy lawyer. During the last seven years, as a divisional Vice President and General Counsel, Mr. Smith led the legal departments of the two Raytheon divisions focused primarily on services.
Before Raytheon, Mr. Smith served as Associate Counsel to U.S. President George W. Bush. He was the lead lawyer for the White House Homeland Security Council staff. He began his legal career by clerking for Judge Samuel Alito, a few years before Alito’s elevation to the U.S. Supreme Court, and then by practicing at the international law firm of Covington & Burling.
Mr. Smith served a decade as a U.S. Army reservist and two years as a missionary in Ukraine and Russia, a few years after the collapse of the Soviet Union. He graduated with high honors from both Princeton University and Brigham Young University Law School.
Partner, Steptoe & Johnson LLP
Michael A. Vatis is a partner in the New York office of Steptoe & Johnson LLP. His practice focuses on Internet, e-commerce, and technology matters, providing legal advice and strategic counsel on matters involving privacy, security, encryption, intelligence, law enforcement, Internet gambling, and international regulation of Internet content. He also is an experienced appellate litigator, representing clients before the US Supreme Court and federal courts of appeals.
Mr. Vatis has spent most of his career addressing cutting edge issues at the intersection of law, policy, and technology. He was the founding director of the National Infrastructure Protection Center at the FBI, the first government organization responsible for detecting, warning of, and responding to cyber attacks, including computer crimes, cyber terrorism, cyber espionage, and information warfare. Before that, Mr. Vatis served as Associate Deputy Attorney General and Deputy Director of the Executive Office for National Security in the Department of Justice, where he advised the Attorney General and Deputy Attorney General and coordinated the Department’s activities involving counterterrorism, intelligence, encryption, and cyber crime. In that capacity, he also helped lead the development of the nation’s first policies regarding critical infrastructure protection. Mr. Vatis served as Special Counsel at the Department of Defense, where he handled sensitive legal and policy issues for the Secretary and Deputy Secretary of Defense and the General Counsel, receiving the Secretary of Defense Award for Excellence.
After leaving the government in 2001, Mr. Vatis served as the first Director of the Institute for Security Technology Studies at Dartmouth, a federally funded counterterrorism and cyber security research institute. He was simultaneously the founding Chairman of the Institute for Information Infrastructure Protection (I3P). I3P, a consortium of leading cyber security research organizations, worked with industry, government, and academia to develop a comprehensive research and development agenda to improve the security of the nation’s computer and communications networks. Mr. Vatis also served as the Executive Director of the Markle Task Force on National Security in the Information Age, a highly influential group of technology company executives, former government officials, and civil libertarians that recommended ways the government could more effectively use information and technology to combat terrorism while preserving civil liberties. Mr. Vatis was the principal author of the group’s second report, whose recommendations were adopted by the 9/11 Commission and included in the 2004 Intelligence Reform Act.
Mr. Vatis has been a Senior Fellow at New York University Law School’s Center on Law and Security and a member of numerous expert working groups on counterterrorism, intelligence, and technology issues. He is currently a member of the National Academy of Science/National Research Council Committee on the Policy Consequences and Legal/Ethical Implications of Offensive Information Warfare and served on the Commission on Cyber Security for the 44th Presidency, an independent group of cyber security experts who examined existing and potential cyber security threats and developed recommendations for the US government and private businesses. Mr. Vatis has also regularly testified before congressional committees on counterterrorism, intelligence, and cyber security issues. He is also interviewed frequently on television, radio, and in print media, and has been a guest lecturer at many prestigious law schools and universities and a speaker at industry conferences worldwide.
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.
International Consumer Counsel, Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC)
Sunny Seon Kang is International Consumer Counsel at the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC). Her work at EPIC focuses on U.S. privacy regulations and EU data protection laws. She advocates for the global implementation of the GDPR to raise online privacy standards. In London, Ms. Kang was a Legal Researcher for the Western Balkans Rule of Law Project and authored judicial guidelines on the right to privacy and freedom of expression under the European Convention on Human Rights. She was a Summer Associate at Allen & Overy UK in the intellectual property litigation department, and worked in Seoul as a Research Fellow at the Innovation, Competition & Regulation (ICR) Law Center. In San Francisco, Ms. Kang was a Legal Extern at the California Department of Justice, Attorney General Kamala Harris' Office, where she produced legislative analyses and policy recommendations on state privacy laws. Prior to joining EPIC, Ms. Kang was a Legal Fellow and Yelp Public Policy Affiliate at TechFreedom on FTC regulatory affairs and consumer privacy. Ms. Kang holds a law degree (LL.B.) from University College London and a Master of Laws (LL.M.) in Intellectual Property and Technology from the UC Berkeley School of Law. She is certified to the New York bar.
Senior Vice President, Strand Consult
Roslyn Layton, PhD is a leading international expert on technology policy. She is Senior Vice President of Strand Consult, an independent consultancy serving the global mobile telecom industry. She is also a Visiting Researcher at Aalborg University Copenhagen where she earned a doctoral thesis on network neutrality by measuring the outcome of the policy across 53 countries over 5 years. She served on the Presidential Transition Team for the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), and her work was critical to the FCC’s defense for the Restoring Internet Freedom Order. She has testified to the United States Senate and House on multiple topics including spectrum, broadband, mobile mergers, competition, and privacy. She founded the think tank China Tech Threat to study the problems of technology produced by the People’s Republic of China. She serves as the Program Chair for the Telecom Policy Research Conference, the leading interdisciplinary academic gathering. Her recent paper on rural broadband describes the empirical case for policy reform to recover network infrastructure costs from streaming video entertainment providers. She is a Senior Contributor to Forbes.
Senior Fellow, R Street Institute
Prior to R Street, Adam spent 12 years as a senior fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. Before the Mercatus Center, he served as the president of the Progress and Freedom Foundation. Adam has also worked for the Adam Smith Institute, the Heritage Foundation and the Cato Institute.
Adam has published 10 books on a wide range of topics, including online child safety, internet governance, intellectual property, telecommunications policy, media regulation and federalism.
In 2008, Adam received the Family Online Safety Institute’s “Award for Outstanding Achievement.”
Clinical Professor and Senior Scholar and Senior Fellow for Copyright Research and Policy of C-IP2, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University
Sandra Aistars is Senior Fellow for Copyright Research and Policy and a Senior Scholar at the Center for Intellectual Property x Innovation Policy (C-IP2). She also leads the law school’s Arts & Entertainment Advocacy Program. Professor Aistars has over twenty years of advocacy experience on behalf of copyright and other intellectual property owners. She has served on trade missions and been an industry advisor to the Department of Commerce on intellectual property implications for international trade negotiations; worked on legislative and regulatory matters worldwide; frequently testified before Congress and federal agencies regarding intellectual property matters; chaired cross-industry coalitions and technology standards efforts; and is regularly tapped by government agencies to lecture in U.S. government-sponsored study tours for visiting legislators, judges, prosecutors, and regulators.
Immediately prior to joining Scalia Law, Professor Aistars was the Chief Executive Officer of the Copyright Alliance – a nonprofit, public interest organization that represents the interests of artists and creators across the creative spectrum. While at Scalia Law, she continues to collaborate with the Copyright Alliance as a member of its Academic Advisory Board. Professor Aistars currently serves on the boards of the Washington Area Lawyers for the Arts (WALA) and the Howard Intellectual Property Program (HIPP), and she has previously served as trustee of the Copyright Society of the USA (CSUSA). Professor Aistars has also previously served as Vice President and Associate General Counsel at Time Warner Inc. She began her legal career in private practice at Weil, Gotshal and Manges LLP.
Partner, Steptoe & Johnson LLP
Stewart Baker is a partner in the law firm of Steptoe & Johnson in Washington, D.C. From 2005 to 2009, he was the first Assistant Secretary for Policy at the Department of Homeland Security. His law practice covers cybersecurity, data protection, homeland security, and travel and foreign investment regulation; he has been awarded one patent.
Mr. Baker has been General Counsel of the National Security Agency and General Counsel of the commission that investigated WMD intelligence failures prior to the Iraq war. He is the author of Skating on Stilts, a book on terrorism, cybersecurity, and other technology issues; he also hosts the weekly Cyberlaw Podcast.
Senior Counsel, Electronic Privacy Information Center
Alan Butler is Senior Counsel at the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) in Washington, DC. In that capacity, Mr. Butler manages EPIC's litigation, including the Amicus Program, and files briefs in emerging privacy and civil liberties cases before the U.S. Supreme Court and other appellate courts. Mr. Butler has argued on behalf of EPIC in privacy and open government cases in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, the Third Circuit, and the Supreme Courts of New Mexico and New Jersey. Mr. Butler has authored briefs on behalf of EPIC in significant privacy cases, including an amicus brief in Riley v. California that was cited in the Supreme Court's unanimous opinion upholding Fourth Amendment protections for cell phones. He has also authored briefs on national security, open government, workplace privacy, and consumer privacy issues. Mr. Butler is also Chair of the Privacy and Information Protection Committee of the ABA Section on Civil Rights and Social Justice. He is co-author of the most recent edition of Communications Law and Policy: Cases and Materials and has also published several articles on emerging privacy issues, including: Products Liability and the Internet of (Insecure) Things: Should Manufacturers Be Liable for Damage Caused by Hacked Devices?, Get a Warrant: The Supreme Court's New Course for Digital Privacy Rights after Riley v. California, Standing Up to Clapper: How to Increase Transparency and Oversight of FISA Surveillance, and When Cyberweapons End Up on Private Networks: Third Amendment Implications for Cybersecurity Policy. Mr. Butler is a graduate of UCLA School of Law and Washington University in St. Louis, where he earned a B.A. in Economics. He is a frequent speaker and commentator on cybersecurity, consumer privacy, and surveillance law issues.
Senior Fellow and Academic Director, Penn Carey Law School
Gus Hurwitz is a Senior Fellow and the Academic Director of the Center for Technology, Innovation & Competition and the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School where he is working to develop academic and scholarly programs at the intersecution of law, technology, and policy.
He is also Director of Law & Economics Programs at the International Center for Law & Economics (ICLE), a think tank based in Portland, Oregon, where he directs its law and economics-focused research program and helps to translate academic research into applied policy issues.
Hurwitz's research focuses on the regulation of technology, including administrative and regulatory law, antitrust law, torts and products liability, and media law - alongside cognate fields. Inrecent years he has worked on an AI standardization initiative with Seoul National University, a UNICEF-organized study of broadband deployment to public schools in Rwanda, and a book on conglomerate and ecosystems theories of antitrust.
He has published over 30 articles and book chapters, two books (one on cybersecurity law & policy, one on media regulation in the digital era) and have two more in process, over 100 shorter writings (op-eds, shorter analyses, blog posts, &c), hosted over 100 podcast episodes, and regularly appear or am quoted in popular media (including the NY Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and Associated Press). His work has been cited by legislators, federal courts of appeals, and federal regulatory agencies.
He was previously a full professor and founding director of the Governance & Technology Center at the University of Nebraska, prior to which he was the inaugural research fellow at the Center for Technology, Innovation & Competition (CTIC). From 2007 to 2010, he was a trial attorney with the U.S. Department of Justice Antitrust Division in the Telecommunications and Media Enforcement Section.
He also is, or has been, affiliated with the Classical Liberal Institute at New York University School of Law, the National Security Institute at George Mason University, and the American Enterprise Institute (AEI).
Before attending law school, Hurwitz worked at Los Alamos National Lab and interned at the Naval Research Lab. During this time his work was recognized by the Federal Laboratory Consortium, Los Alamos National Lab, IEEE & ACM, Corporation for Education Network Initiatives in California, R&D Magazine, and even the Guinness Book of World Records.
A current list of Hurwitz’s publications is available on his website: GusHurwitz.net.
Senior Counsel and Director of Strategy, Future of Privacy Forum
Brenda Leong, CIPP/US, is Senior Counsel and Director of Strategy at the Future of Privacy Forum. She oversees strategic planning of organizational goals, as well as managing the FPF portfolio on biometrics, particularly facial recognition, along with the ethics and privacy issues associated with artificial intelligence. She works on industry standards and collaboration on privacy concerns, by partnering with stakeholders and advocates to reach practical solutions to the privacy challenges for consumer and commercial data uses. Prior to working at FPF, Brenda served in the U.S. Air Force, including policy and legislative affairs work from the Pentagon and the U.S. Department of State. She is a 2014 graduate of George Mason University School of Law.
Professor of Law, Stanford Law School
Orin S. Kerr is a Professor of Law at Stanford Law School, where he teaches and writes in the areas of criminal procedure and computer crime law. Kerr earned mechanical engineering degrees from Princeton University and Stanford University before graduating with a J.D. from Harvard Law School. He is a former law clerk to Justice Anthony M. Kennedy at the United States Supreme Court and Judge Leonard I. Garth of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.
President and Executive Director, Electronic Privacy Information Center
Marc Rotenberg is President and Executive Director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) in Washington, DC. He teaches information privacy law at Georgetown University Law Center and frequently testifies before Congress on emerging privacy and civil liberties issues. He testified before the 9-11 Commission on "Security and Liberty: Protecting Privacy, Preventing Terrorism." He has served on several national and international advisory panels, including the expert panels on Cryptography Policy and Computer Security for the OECD, the Legal Experts on Cyberspace Law for UNESCO, and the Countering Spam program of the ITU. He chairs the ABA Committee on Privacy and Information Protection. He is a founding board member and former Chair of the Public Interest Registry, which manages the .ORG domain. He is editor of "The Privacy Law Sourcebook," and co-editor of "Information Privacy Law" (Aspen Publishing 2006) and "Litigation Under the Federal Open Government Laws" (EPIC 2010). He is a graduate of Harvard College and Stanford Law School. He served as Counsel to Senator Patrick J. Leahy on the Senate Judiciary Committee after graduation from law school. He is the recipient of several awards, including the World Technology Award in Law, the American Lawyer Award for Top Lawyers Under 45, the Norbert Weiner Award for Social and Professional Responsibility, and the Vicennial medal from Georgetown University.
Senior Vice President, Chief Legal Officer and General Counsel, Ryan LLC
John Smith is the Senior Vice President, Chief Legal Officer and General Counsel at Ryan, LLC. Based at Ryan’s global headquarters in Dallas, Texas, John Smith brings more than 20 years of experience as a proven leader in the legal, business, and national security communities, including all three branches of the United States Government.
Prior to joining Ryan, Mr. Smith spent 12 years in Texas and Virginia at Raytheon Technologies, an American multinational aerospace and defense corporation. He pioneered roles as the company’s first cybersecurity lawyer and first privacy lawyer. During the last seven years, as a divisional Vice President and General Counsel, Mr. Smith led the legal departments of the two Raytheon divisions focused primarily on services.
Before Raytheon, Mr. Smith served as Associate Counsel to U.S. President George W. Bush. He was the lead lawyer for the White House Homeland Security Council staff. He began his legal career by clerking for Judge Samuel Alito, a few years before Alito’s elevation to the U.S. Supreme Court, and then by practicing at the international law firm of Covington & Burling.
Mr. Smith served a decade as a U.S. Army reservist and two years as a missionary in Ukraine and Russia, a few years after the collapse of the Soviet Union. He graduated with high honors from both Princeton University and Brigham Young University Law School.
Partner, Steptoe & Johnson LLP
Michael A. Vatis is a partner in the New York office of Steptoe & Johnson LLP. His practice focuses on Internet, e-commerce, and technology matters, providing legal advice and strategic counsel on matters involving privacy, security, encryption, intelligence, law enforcement, Internet gambling, and international regulation of Internet content. He also is an experienced appellate litigator, representing clients before the US Supreme Court and federal courts of appeals.
Mr. Vatis has spent most of his career addressing cutting edge issues at the intersection of law, policy, and technology. He was the founding director of the National Infrastructure Protection Center at the FBI, the first government organization responsible for detecting, warning of, and responding to cyber attacks, including computer crimes, cyber terrorism, cyber espionage, and information warfare. Before that, Mr. Vatis served as Associate Deputy Attorney General and Deputy Director of the Executive Office for National Security in the Department of Justice, where he advised the Attorney General and Deputy Attorney General and coordinated the Department’s activities involving counterterrorism, intelligence, encryption, and cyber crime. In that capacity, he also helped lead the development of the nation’s first policies regarding critical infrastructure protection. Mr. Vatis served as Special Counsel at the Department of Defense, where he handled sensitive legal and policy issues for the Secretary and Deputy Secretary of Defense and the General Counsel, receiving the Secretary of Defense Award for Excellence.
After leaving the government in 2001, Mr. Vatis served as the first Director of the Institute for Security Technology Studies at Dartmouth, a federally funded counterterrorism and cyber security research institute. He was simultaneously the founding Chairman of the Institute for Information Infrastructure Protection (I3P). I3P, a consortium of leading cyber security research organizations, worked with industry, government, and academia to develop a comprehensive research and development agenda to improve the security of the nation’s computer and communications networks. Mr. Vatis also served as the Executive Director of the Markle Task Force on National Security in the Information Age, a highly influential group of technology company executives, former government officials, and civil libertarians that recommended ways the government could more effectively use information and technology to combat terrorism while preserving civil liberties. Mr. Vatis was the principal author of the group’s second report, whose recommendations were adopted by the 9/11 Commission and included in the 2004 Intelligence Reform Act.
Mr. Vatis has been a Senior Fellow at New York University Law School’s Center on Law and Security and a member of numerous expert working groups on counterterrorism, intelligence, and technology issues. He is currently a member of the National Academy of Science/National Research Council Committee on the Policy Consequences and Legal/Ethical Implications of Offensive Information Warfare and served on the Commission on Cyber Security for the 44th Presidency, an independent group of cyber security experts who examined existing and potential cyber security threats and developed recommendations for the US government and private businesses. Mr. Vatis has also regularly testified before congressional committees on counterterrorism, intelligence, and cyber security issues. He is also interviewed frequently on television, radio, and in print media, and has been a guest lecturer at many prestigious law schools and universities and a speaker at industry conferences worldwide.
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.
The GDPR and the Future of Internet Privacy
Sunny Seon Kang, Roslyn Layton, Adam Thierer
Within 7 hours of the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) coming into effect, Austrian...
The GDPR and the Future of Internet Privacy
Telecommunications & Electronic Media Practice Group and Regulatory Transparency Project Teleforum
Teleforum21st Century Business Models Meet 20th Century Regulation
Sandra Aistars, Stewart A. Baker, Alan Butler, Justin (Gus) Hurwitz, Brenda Leong
This symposium was co-sponsored by the Regulatory Transparency Project and took place at the Antonin...
21st Century Business Models Meet 20th Century Regulation
14th Annual Symposium of the Journal of Law, Economics & Policy
Arlington, VAThe FCC: Death to the Set-Top Box! Long Live the Set-Top Box...or is it Apps?
Alexander P. Okuliar
Note from the Editor: This article discusses and critiques the FCC’s proposed set-top box rule....
The FCC Forgot Something in Piecing Together Its Complex Proposal for Broadband Privacy Regulation: Consumers
Rosemary C. Harold
Note from the Editor: This article discusses the FCC’s proposed rules for broadband privacy, and...
Why NSA’s Bulk Data Seizures Are Illegal and Unconstitutional
Randy E. Barnett, Jim Harper
Why NSA’s Bulk Data Seizures Are Illegal and Unconstitutional Randy E. Barnett* & Jim Harper**...
Panel Two: Economic Security
Orin S. Kerr, Marc Rotenberg, John Smith, Michael Vatis, Vincent Vitkowsky
Both President Bush and President Obama directed comprehensive reviews of America's cyber security strategy. The...
Panel Two: Economic Security
Orin S. Kerr, Marc Rotenberg, John Smith, Michael Vatis, Vincent Vitkowsky
Both President Bush and President Obama directed comprehensive reviews of America's cyber security strategy. The...
Panel Two: Economic Security
Cyber Security, National Security and Economic Security
Washington, DC