Jameel Jaffer: Speech and the Border

Date
-
Event Sponsor
The Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies, the Levin Center for Public Service and Public Interest Law, the WSD Handa Center for Human Rights and International Justice, the Markaz: Resource Center
Location
Stanford Law School, Room 290 (559 Nathan Abbott Way)

The U.S. government has historically enjoyed special investigative and enforcement powers at its borders. In recent years, these powers have been invoked to justify, among many other things, sweeping surveillance of international communications, suspicionless searches of travelers' laptops and cellphones, inspection of travelers' social media accounts, and "extreme vetting" of travelers' political and religious views.  Jameel Jaffer, Founding Director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, will discuss the effect of border policy on the First Amendment freedoms, and the role that we should expect the First Amendment to play in limiting government power in this context.

Jameel Jaffer is the founding director of the Columbia University's Knight First Amendment Institute which works to protect and expand the freedoms of speech and the press through strategic litigation, research, and public education. Until recently, Jaffer was deputy legal director at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and director of the ACLU’s Center for Democracy, where he oversaw the ACLU’s work relating to free speech, privacy, technology, national security, and international human rights.  Jaffer has litigated some of the most significant post-9/11 cases relating to national security and civil liberties, including cases concerning detention, interrogation, surveillance, targeted killing, and government secrecy. He co-led the litigation that resulted in the publication of the Bush administration’s “torture memos”—a lawsuit the New York Times described as “among the most successful in the history of public disclosure.” More recently, Jaffer led the ACLU’s litigation that resulted in the publication of the Obama administration’s “drone memos.” Jaffer is a graduate of Williams College, Cambridge University, and Harvard Law School.