WASHINGTON – Kevin Bankston, a Senior Staff Attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, will join CDT early next year as Senior Counsel and Director of CDT’s Free Expression Project.
Bankston is a respected privacy and free expression lawyer. During his tenure at EFF, he litigated a number of high profile cases, including serving as a lead attorney in challenges to the NSA’s warrantless wiretapping program and working to ensure that the government must obtain search warrants before seizing private emails or tracking the location of cell phones. He has also testified before Congress on digital privacy, government surveillance and transparency issues. Bankston originally joined EFF in 2003 as the first Bruce Ennis First Amendment Fellow, after previously serving as the Justice William J. Brennan First Amendment Fellow at the ACLU. He received his J.D. from the University of Southern California and his undergraduate degree from the University of Texas.
“I am very pleased to bring Kevin on board to head up our free expression work,” said CDT President Leslie Harris. “Kevin is a skilled lawyer, a forceful advocate and a strategic thinker who will make terrific contributions to further our goal of an open, innovative and free Internet.”
“For the past decade, I’ve had the privilege of defending digital civil liberties in the courts as a part of the exceptional litigation teams at the EFF and the ACLU, often in collaboration with CDT. I’m eager now to apply that expertise in technology law and policy beyond the courtroom, both inside the Beltway and on a global stage, working directly with CDT’s expert team of lawyers, policy analysts and technologists,” said Bankston. “When it comes to the intersection of technology, policy, and civil liberties, there are few voices as respected as CDT’s, and I’m honored to join them in the continuing fight to defend free expression online.”