#igfusa_rights
#igfusa
As citizens in the world’s leading Internet economy, Americans benefit from strong respect for the protection of digital rights. We define digital rights as the ability to access, use, create, and publish digital technologies. The UN Human Rights Council says that the rights to human beings that apply offline must also apply online; these include the rights to privacy, property, freedom of speech, freedom of association, and access to information and knowledge. But many human rights groups that assess these rights around the world point to growing evidence that US digital rights are deteriorating. This panel will examine the state of digital rights in the USA.
Organizer and Moderator
Robert Guerra (@netfreedom) is a civil society expert specializing in issues of Internet governance, cyber security, social networking, multi-stakeholder participation, Internet freedom and human rights. Robert is the founder of Privaterra, a Canadian based company that works with private industry and nongovernmental organizations to assist them with issues of data privacy and information security. Robert serves as a member of ICANN’s Security and Stability Advisory Committee (SSAC), the Nominating Committee (NomCom), the Multi-stakeholder Ethos award panel and the Cross-Community Working Group to Develop an IANA Stewardship Transition Proposal on Naming Related Functions. Additionally he has participated as a member of the official Canadian delegation at two UN World Summits on the Information Society (WSIS). Robert has given numerous media interviews and often is invited to share his views on the challenges being faced by social justice organizations in regards to surveillance, censorship and privacy. He advises numerous non-profits, foundations, governments and international organizations, including The Citizen Lab, Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility (CPSR), Taking IT Global, Diplo Foundation’s Internet Governance and Policy Capacity Building Program (IGPCBP), and The Open Net Initiative.
Panelists
Kevin Bankston (@KevinBankston) is the Director of New America’s Open Technology Institute, where he works to promote policy and regulatory reforms to strengthen communities by supporting open communications networks, platforms, and technologies. He previously served as OTI’s Policy Director. Prior to leading OTI’s policy team, Kevin was a Senior Counsel and the Director of the Free Expression Project at the Center for Democracy & Technology, a Washington, DC-based non-profit organization dedicated to promoting democratic values and constitutional liberties in the digital age. From that position, he spent two years advocating on a wide range of Internet and technology policy issues both international and domestic, most recently organizing a broad coalition of companies and civil society organizations to demand greater transparency around the US government’s surveillance practices. He also has served since 2005 on the board of the First Amendment Coalition and previously was a nonresidential fellow at the Stanford Law School’s Center for Internet & Society. Prior to joining CDT, he worked for nearly a decade at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, specializing in free speech and privacy law with a focus on government surveillance, Internet privacy, and location privacy. Before joining EFF, he litigated Internet-related free speech cases at the national office of the American Civil Liberties Union in New York City as a Justice William Brennan First Amendment Fellow. He received his JD at the University of Southern California Law School after receiving his BA at the University of Texas at Austin.
Christian Dawson (@mrcjdawson) is President of web hosting provider ServInt. He was a founder of the Safe Hosting initiative, designed to galvanize webhosting providers in matters of public policy, and is currently Chairman and co-founder of the Internet Infrastructure Coalition (i2Coalition). He is a staunch advocate for Internet freedom as a tool for social and economic growth by fostering the growth and expansion of the Internet infrastructure industry.
Jumana Musa is a human rights attorney and activist. She is currently the Sr. Privacy and National Security Counsel for the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. Prior to joining NACDL, Ms. Musa served as a policy consultant for the Southern Border Communities Coalition, a coalition of over 60 groups across the southwest that address militarization and brutality by U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents in border communities. Previously, she served as Deputy Director for the Rights Working Group, a national coalition of civil rights, civil liberties, human rights, and immigrant rights advocates where she coordinated the “Face the Truth” campaign against racial profiling. She was also the Advocacy Director for Domestic Human Rights and International Justice at Amnesty International USA, where she addressed the domestic and international impact of U.S. counterterrorism efforts on human rights. Ms. Musa has also worked as a policy attorney for the National Network to End Domestic Violence and handled international relations and immigration issues as a fellow in the office of Congressman Jesse L. Jackson, Jr. As an adjunct professor at Georgetown University’s Center for Contemporary Arab Studies, she taught the course “Human Rights in the Middle East and North Africa.” Ms. Musa holds a BA in International Relations from Brown University and a JD from Georgetown University Law Center.
Harvey Rishikof (@HRishikof) is senior counsel at Crowell and Moring, and formerly professor of cybersecurity at Drexel University School of Law and College of Computer Informatics and dean of the National War College. He is co-chair of the ABA national task force on Cyber and the Law for the ABA, and chair of the advisory board for the ABA Standing Committee on Law and National Security, outside director of the Chicago Bridge and Iron, board of visitors NIU, former senior policy advisor to the director of National Counterintelligence Executive, and previous chair of the American Bar Association Standing Committee on Law and National Security. He is a lifetime member of the American Law Institute and the Council on Foreign Relations. Rishikof was a federal law clerk in the Third Circuit for the Honorable Leonard I. Garth, a social studies tutor at Harvard University, attorney at Hale and Dorr, administrative assistant to the Chief Justice of the United States, legal counsel for the deputy director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and dean of the Roger Williams School of Law in Rhode Island.