EFF's Staff

Kevin Bankston

Senior Staff Attorney

+1 415 436 9333 x126
bankston@eff.org [PGP key]

Photo of staff member Kevin Bankston, a senior staff attorney specializing in free speech and privacy law, was the Electronic Frontier Foundation's Equal Justice Works/Bruce J. Ennis Fellow for 2003-05. His fellowship project focused on the impact of post-9/11 anti-terrorism laws and surveillance initiatives on online privacy and free expression. Before joining EFF, Kevin was the Justice William J. Brennan First Amendment Fellow for the American Civil Liberties Union in New York City. At the ACLU, Kevin litigated Internet-related free speech cases, including First Amendment challenges to both the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (Edelman v. N2H2, Inc.) and a federal statute regulating Internet speech in public libraries (American Library Association v. U.S.). Kevin received his J.D. in 2001 from the University of Southern California Law Center, and received his undergraduate degree from the University of Texas in Austin.

Katina Bishop

Associate Director of Development

+1 415 436 9333 x129
katina@eff.org

Photo of staff member Katina Bishop is one of EFF's "oldest" current employees; she joined the organization in January 2000. As EFF's Associate Director of Development, Katina cultivates donations to the organization and works with major donors, manages the organization's grant cycle, produces educational and fund-raising campaigns, and creates outreach events that bring EFF issues to the local community. She also produces/writes animated film shorts to accompany EFF campaigns. She has scripted a boxing match between Barney the purple dinosaur and Wil Wheaton, written and recorded a parody of the Mickey Mouse song, and coordinated musicians, jugglers and unicyclists while producing EFF's annual music festival, all in the name of online freedom and democracy. Previously, she worked as a staff writer and educator for Girltech, a company supporting girls' involvement in the world of technology. Katina is also a musician, writer and educator. She received her BA in Literature from Scripps College, and her MFA in English and Creative Non-Fiction from Mills College. Should you ever call the EFF office, you will hear her singing when you are put on hold.

Andrea Chiang

Office Manager & Bookkeeper

+1 415 436 9333 x109
andrea@eff.org

Photo of staff member Andrea Chiang is the Bookkeeper and Office Manager for Electronic Frontier Foundation. She came to EFF with years of experience in accounting. Before joining EFF, she was an Airline Accounts Specialist for MSAS Cargo International for 8 years. Before that, she was a Bookkeeper for Spectrel Int'l Corp. Andrea has an A.S. in Finance from City College of San Francisco and an undergraduate degree in Accounting from San Francisco State University.

Cindy Cohn

Legal Director

+1 415 436 9333 x108
cindy@eff.org [PGP key]

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Cindy Cohn is the Legal Director for the Electronic Frontier Foundation as well as its General Counsel. She is responsible for overseeing the EFF's overall legal strategy and supervising EFF's 9 staff attorneys. Ms. Cohn first became involved with the EFF in 1995, when the EFF asked her to serve as the lead attorney in Bernstein v. Dept. of Justice, the successful First Amendment challenge to the U.S. export restrictions on cryptography. Outside the Courts, Ms. Cohn has testified before Congress, been featured in the New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle and elsewhere for her work on cyberspace issue. The National Law Journal named Ms. Cohn one of 100 most influential lawyers in America in 2006 for "rushing to the barricades wherever freedom and civil liberties are at stake online." In 2007 the Journal named her one of the 50 most influential women lawyers in America.

View extended bio...

Chris Contolini

Webmaster

+1 415 436 9333 x105
chris@eff.org [PGP key]

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Chris Contolini is EFF's Webmaster. In past incarnations he managed the e-commerce efforts of the San Francisco Symphony and had a brief stint with Ziff Davis Media. Originally from the Pacific Northwest, he spent four years studying media and philosophy at the University of San Francisco. When not pretending to understand the directory structures of EFF's servers, he can be found refueling the tiny trucks that drive EFF's crime-fighting internets to a computer near you.

Hugh D'Andrade

Designer/Activist

+1 415 436 9333 x104
hugh@eff.org

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Hugh D'Andrade is a weird hybrid: Designer/Activist. When he isn't designing brochures, web graphics and stickers for the EFF, he is busy promoting digital rights on the EFF website. If Hugh's name sounds familiar, that's because his artwork has been around in the public sphere for many years -- Hugh is infamous for his rock posters, Burning Man ticket designs, and Critical Mass flyers. You can see more of Hugh's work on his personal website: http://www.hughillustration.com.

Peter Eckersley

Staff Technologist

+1 415 436 9333 x131
pde@eff.org [PGP key]

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Peter Eckersley is a Staff Technologist for the Electronic Frontier Foundation. He keeps his eyes peeled for technologies that, by accident or design, pose a risk to computer users' freedoms—and then looks for ways to fix them. He explains gadgets to lawyers, and lawyers to gadgets. Peter is currently putting the finishing touches to a PhD on digital copyright policy with the Intellectual Property Research Institute of Australia and the computer science department at the University of Melbourne. His doctoral research focused on the practicality and desirability of using "virtual market" public funding systems to legalize P2P file sharing and similar distribution tools while still paying authors and artists for their work.

Richard Esguerra

Activist

+1 415 436 9333 x128
richard@eff.org [PGP key]

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Richard Esguerra is EFF's Activist, informing the public about developments on the digital rights frontier. Along with writing for EFF publications, Richard helps our members make their voices heard by legislators, regulators, and companies through EFF's Action Center. After geeking out for a semester in Cory Doctorow's "PWNED" at the University of Southern California, Richard became dead-set on ushering change and doing his part to defend the rights of technology users. When not redesigning his blog or working on teachingcopyright.org, Richard is browsing RSS feeds for the latest buzz in tech law and policy...or simply chuckling at updates to his favorite webcomics.

Eva Galperin

Referral Coordinator

+1 415 436 9333 x111
eva@eff.org

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A lifelong geek, Eva misspent her youth working as a Systems Administrator all over Silicon Valley. Since then, she has seen the error of her ways and earned degrees in Political Science and International Relations from SFSU. She comes to EFF from the US-China Policy Institute, where she researched Chinese energy policy, helped to organize conferences, and attempted to make use of her rudimentary Mandarin skills. Her interests include aerials, rock climbing, opera, and not being paged at 3 o'clock in the morning because the mail server is down.

Jennifer Granick

Civil Liberties Director

+1 415 436 9333 x134
jennifer@eff.org

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Jennifer Granick is the Civil Liberties Director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Before EFF, Granick was a Lecturer in Law and Executive Director of the Center for Internet and Society at Stanford Law School where she taught Cyberlaw and Computer Crime Law. She practices in the full spectrum of Internet law issues including computer crime and security, national security, constitutional rights, and electronic surveillance, areas in which her expertise is recognized nationally. Before teaching at Stanford, Jennifer spent almost a decade practicing criminal defense law in California. She was selected by Information Security magazine in 2003 as one of 20 "Women of Vision" in the computer security field. She earned her law degree from University of California, Hastings College of the Law and her undergraduate degree from the New College of the University of South Florida.

Gwen Hinze

International Policy Director

+1 415 436 9333 x110
gwen@eff.org [PGP key]

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Gwen Hinze is EFF's International Policy Director. Gwen is an attorney specializing in international intellectual property policy issues. She works on policy development and legal analysis for EFF's international program, which focuses on educating global policy-makers about the need for balanced intellectual property regimes that protect creators, preserve access to knowledge, foster technological innovation, and empower digital consumers. Before joining EFF, she practiced in M&A, capital markets, and infrastructure law at the international Australian law firm, Allens Arthur Robinson, and worked for the Australian government in public policy and litigation. Gwen holds a Bachelor of Laws with Honors and a Bachelor of Arts with Honors from Australia's Monash University.

Marcia Hofmann

Staff Attorney

+1 415 436 9333 x116
marcia@eff.org [PGP key]

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Marcia Hofmann is an EFF staff attorney working on government transparency, civil liberties, and intellectual property issues. Along with her colleague David Sobel, she established EFF's FOIA Litigation for Accountable Government (FLAG) Project. Prior to joining EFF, Marcia was Director of the Open Government Project at the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), where she spearheaded EPIC's efforts to learn about emerging policies in the post-9/11 era and was lead counsel in several Freedom of Information Act lawsuits. Documents made public though her work have been reported by the New York Times, Washington Post, National Public Radio, Fox News, and CNN, among others. She is a graduate of the University of Dayton School of Law and Mount Holyoke College.

Rebecca Jeschke

Media Coordinator

+1 415 436 9333 x125
rebecca@eff.org

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Rebecca Jeschke is EFF's Media Relations Coordinator. Before joining EFF, she worked in television and Internet news for more than ten years, including stints as an Internet producer for CBS 5 in San Francisco and as a senior supervising producer for TechTV. She has also been a travel guide editor, an English teacher in the Dominican Republic, and a worker on a "slime line" gutting fish in Alaska. Rebecca has a Bachelor of Arts in English and American Literature and Language from Harvard University.

Tim Jones

Activism & Technology Manager


tim@eff.org [PGP key]

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A lifelong technologist and activist, Tim Jones joined the EFF full-time in November 2007. He works as the Activism and Technology Manager, coordinating online advocacy strategy, software development and tech infrastructure.

In 2003, he was part of the Dean For America internet team, managing web communications for the campaign's New Hampshire wing. In 2004, he co-founded the political consulting firm EchoDitto. There, he lead technology on projects for groups including the DCCC and SEIU. Later, as a freelancer, he lead projects for groups including Ashoka: Innovators for the Public, The U.N. World Food Programme, XLR8R Magazine, and, of course, EFF.

Eddan Katz

International Affairs Director

+1 415 728 5800
eddan@eff.org

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Eddan Katz joined EFF as International Affairs Director in 2008, returning from his summer internship in 2000. He is responsible for managing EFF's international activities, specializing in Access to Knowledge (A2K) and digital rights. Before EFF, Eddan was the first Executive Director of the Yale Information Society Project and was Lecturer-in-Law at Yale Law School. He taught and writes in the areas of cyberlaw, intellectual property, telecommunications, and bioethics. Eddan received his bachelors degree in philosophy from Yale; and his law degree from UC, Berkeley's Boalt Hall, where he was awarded the Sax Prize for his work with the Samuelson Law, Technology, & Public Policy Clinic. After law school, Eddan worked for Prof. Pam Samuelson as a Visiting Scholar at the School of Information at Berkeley.

Michael Kwun

Senior Staff Attorney

+1 415 436 9333 x136
michael@eff.org

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Michael Kwun is a Senior Staff Attorney at EFF, focusing on all manner of intellectual property issues. Michael comes to EFF from Google, where, as Managing Counsel, Litigation, he was responsible for defending Google in a wide variety of cases, including copyright cases about YouTube, Google Book Search, and Google Image Search; trademark cases about Google AdWords; and patent cases aimed at numerous Google products. Before joining Google, Michael was an associate at the law firm Keker & Van Nest, where he worked on one of the early cases challenging Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) subpoenas issued by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). Michael is also a long-time geek; his first publication was a short computer program that appeared in a Commodore computer enthusiast magazine in 1985. In addition to his work at EFF, Michael sits on the board of directors of the East Bay Community Law Center, which provides legal services to the low-income community and hands-on clinical education for law students; the advisory board of the Korea Policy Institute, which provides timely analysis of United States policies toward Korea and developments on the Korean peninsula; and the advisory board for the Green Bag Reader, an annual collection of exemplary legal writing. Michael received his law degree from the Boalt Hall School of Law and his undergraduate degree from the University of Michigan.

Corynne McSherry

Staff Attorney

+1 415 436 9333 x122
corynne@eff.org

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Corynne McSherry is Staff Attorney at EFF, specializing in intellectual property and contract issues. Prior to joining EFF, Corynne was a civil litigator at the law firm of Bingham McCutchen, LLP. Corynne has a B.A. from the University of California at Santa Cruz, a Ph.D from the University of California at San Diego, and a J.D. from Stanford Law School. While in law school, Corynne published Who Owns Academic Work?: Battling for Control of Intellectual Property (Harvard University Press, 2001).

Nicole Nguyen

Membership Director

+1 415 436 9333 x120
nicole@eff.org [PGP key]

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Nicole Nguyen is EFF's Membership Director. Before joining us she worked as Program Representative for University of California, Berkeley's Haas School of Business, and as Senior International Assignment Consultant for Cendant Mobility. She has a Bachelor of Arts in Economics and a minor in Political Science (with emphasis in International Relations) from University of California, Irvine. Nicole loves to travel, especially to places where she can find asian food. Lots of asian food.

Danny O'Brien

International Outreach Coordinator

+1 415 436 9333 x121
danny@eff.org [PGP key]

Photo of staff member Danny O'Brien is the International Outreach Coordinator for the EFF. He works to help us collaborate with organizations and individuals fighting for liberties across the world. Danny has documented and fought for digital rights in the UK for over a decade, where he also assisted in building tools of open democracy like Fax Your MP. He founded the award-winning NTK newsletter, has written and presented science and travel shows for the BBC, performed a solo show about the Net in the London's West End, and once successfully lobbied a cockney London pub to join Richard M. Stallman in a spontaneous demonstration of Bulgarian folk dance.

Kurt Opsahl

Senior Staff Attorney

+1 415 436 9333 x106
kurt@eff.org [PGP key]

Photo of staff member Kurt Opsahl is a Senior Staff Attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation focusing on civil liberties, free speech and privacy law. Before joining EFF, Opsahl worked at Perkins Coie, where he represented technology clients with respect to intellectual property, privacy, defamation, and other online liability matters, including working on Kelly v. Arribasoft, MGM v. Grokster and CoStar v. LoopNet. For his work responding to government subpoenas, Opsahl is proud to have been called a "rabid dog" by the Department of Justice. Prior to bPerkins, Opsahl was a research fellow to Professor Pamela Samuelson at the U.C. Berkeley School of Information Management & Systems. Opsahl received his law degree from Boalt Hall, and undergraduate degree from U.C. Santa Cruz. Opsahl co-authored "Electronic Media and Privacy Law Handbook. In 2007, Opsahl was named as one of the "Attorneys of the Year" by California Lawyer magazine for his work on the O'Grady v. Superior Court appeal.

Leticia Perez

Legal Secretary

+1 415 436 9333 x117
lety@eff.org

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Leticia is EFF's Legal Secretary. Originally from Sonoma County, she moved to the Bay Area in '99 to attend UC Berkeley. Leticia graduated from Berkeley with a degree in Sociology and Chicano Studies. She's been working with attorneys since graduation, working with other law firms before settling at EFF. Prior to her time at EFF, she spent four months bumming around Mexico. Other than organizing the prolific output of EFF's legal department, she loves going to Spanish rock concerts and traveling, hopefully to South America next.

Alyssa Ralston

Development Assistant

+1 415 436 9333 x113
alyssa@eff.org [PGP key]

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Alyssa Ralston is EFF's Development Assistant, assisting, strangely enough, with development efforts. She earned a BA in English from UC Davis in 2002, and then spent two years in technical theatre at Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts followed by two years teaching English and baseball through Peace Corps Romania. She enjoys cooking, bar trivia, being generally awesome, and bouncing around Golden Gate Park.

Seth Schoen

Staff Technologist

+1 415 436 9333 x107
seth@eff.org [PGP key]

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Seth Schoen created the position of EFF Staff Technologist, helping other technologists understand the civil liberties implications of their work, EFF staff better understand the underlying technology related to EFF's legal work, and the public understand what the technology products they use really do. Schoen coms to EFF from Linuxcare, where he worked for two years as a senior consultant. While at Linuxcare, Schoen helped create the Linuxcare Bootable Business Card CD-ROM. Prior to Linuxcare, Schoen worked at AtreNet, the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and Toronto Dominion Bank. Schoen attended the University of California at Berkeley with a Chancellor's Scholarship.

David Sobel

Senior Counsel

+1 202 797 9009
sobel@eff.org [PGP key]

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David Sobel is Senior Counsel at EFF's Washington, DC office, where he directs the FOIA Litigation for Accountable Government (FLAG) Project. David has handled numerous cases seeking the disclosure of government documents on privacy policy, including electronic surveillance, encryption controls and airline passenger screening initiatives. He served as co-counsel in the challenge to government secrecy concerning post-September 11 detentions and participated in the submission of a civil liberties amicus brief in the first-ever proceeding of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review. David is co-editor of the 2002 and 2004 editions of Litigation Under the Federal Open Government Laws. He is a recipient of EFF's Pioneer Award (2003) and the American Library Association's James Madison Award (2004), and has been inducted into the First Amendment Center's National FOIA Hall of Fame (2006). David was formerly counsel to the non-profit National Security Archive, and, in 1994, co-founded the Electronic Privacy Information Center, where he directed FOIA litigation and focused on government surveillance and collection of personal information. David is a graduate of the University of Michigan and the University of Florida College of Law.

Shari Steele

Executive Director

+1 415 436 9333 x103
ssteele@eff.org

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Prior to becoming EFF's Executive Director in 2000, Shari served as EFF's Legal Director for eight years. She is also co-founder of Bridges.org, a nonprofit working to ensure sound technology policy in developing nations. She has spoken widely on civil liberties law in newly emerging technologies, including on the CBS Evening News, C-SPAN's Washington Journal, The Today Show, CNN, the BBC, and National Public Radio. As EFF's Legal Director, she advised the NTIA on hate crimes in telecommunications, the U.S. Sentencing Commission on sentencing guidelines for the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and the No Electronic Theft Act, and the National Research Council on U.S. encryption policy. She has spoken about Internet law as part of the Smithsonian Institution's lecture series on the Internet, the ABA's TechWorld Conference, the National Law Journal's annual Computer Law Conference, and the National Forum for Women Corporate Counsel. A graduate of Widener University School of Law, Shari later served as a teaching fellow at Georgetown University Law Center, where she earned an LL.M. degree in Advocacy. Ms. Steele also holds a Master of Science degree in Instructional Media from West Chester University.

Gregory Sutter

Senior Systems Administrator

+1 415 436 9333 x114
gsutter@eff.org [PGP key]

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While not solar sailing, communing with dolphins or scaling Olympus Mons, Greg graces the EFF office with his nearly boundless obsolete computer knowledge.

Lee Tien

Senior Staff Attorney

+1 415 436 9333 x102
lee@eff.org

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Lee Tien is a Senior Staff Attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, specializing in free speech law, including intersections with intellectual property law and privacy law. Before joining EFF, Lee was a sole practitioner specializing in Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) litigation. Mr. Tien has published articles on children's sexuality and information technology, anonymity, surveillance, and the First Amendment status of publishing computer software. Lee received his undergraduate degree in psychology from Stanford University, where he was very active in journalism at the Stanford Daily. After working as a news reporter at the Tacoma News Tribune for a year, Lee went to law school at Boalt Hall, University of California at Berkeley. Lee also did graduate work in the Program in Jurisprudence and Social Policy at UC-Berkeley.

Fred von Lohmann

Senior Staff Attorney

+1 415 436 9333 x123
fred@eff.org [PGP key]

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Fred von Lohmann is a senior staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, specializing in intellectual property matters. In that role, he has represented programmers, technology innovators, and individuals in a variety of copyright and trademark litigation, including MGM v. Grokster, decided by the Supreme Court in 2005. He is also involved in EFF's efforts to educate policy-makers regarding the proper balance between intellectual property protection and the public interest in fair use, free expression, and innovation. Before joining EFF, Fred was a visiting researcher with the Berkeley Center for Law and Technology and an associate with the international law firm of Morrison & Foerster LLP. He has appeared on CNN, CNBC, ABC's Good Morning America, and Fox News O'Reilly Factor and has been widely quoted in a variety of national publications. Fred has an A.B. from Stanford University and a J.D. from Stanford Law School.

View extended bio...

Matt Zimmerman

Senior Staff Attorney

+1 415 436 9333 x127
mattz@eff.org [PGP key]

Photo of staff member Matt Zimmerman is a Senior Staff Attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, focusing on civil liberties, free speech, and privacy law. His practice further includes ongoing work in intellectual property law as well as government transparency issues. For the 2004 and 2006 elections, he coordinated a team of nationwide legal volunteers who responded to election-day problems with e-voting technology for the non-partisan Election Protection Coalition. He currently heads EFF's efforts to coordinate nationwide e-voting litigation and amicus support and evaluate emerging voting technology. Prior to joining EFF, Matt was a Privacy Fellow at the public interest law firm The First Amendment Project where he specialized in privacy and open government issues. Previously, Matt worked at the international law firm Morrison & Foerster LLP, where he focused on technology and commercial litigation matters, and the nonprofit advocacy organization The First Amendment Project, where he specialized in privacy and free speech issues. He earned his law degree from Columbia University and his undergraduate degree from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

Kodi

Canine Outreach Coordinator

+1 415 436 9333 xWUF
kodi@eff.org

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Kodi is EFF's resident Newfoundland, specializing in drooling, shedding, sleeping and barking at inappropriate times. On the internet, no one knows he's a dog. AIM handle: MegaBioAibo.

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