Stanford CIS
Jennifer Granick

Jennifer Granick

Non-Residential Fellow

Jennifer Granick fights for civil liberties in an age of massive surveillance and powerful digital technology. As the surveillance and cybersecurity counsel with the ACLU's Speech, Privacy and Technology Project, she litigates, speaks, and writes about privacy, security, technology, and constitutional rights. Granick is the author of the book American Spies: Modern Surveillance, Why You Should Care, and What To Do About It, published by Cambridge Press and winner of the 2016 Palmer Civil Liberties Prize.

Granick spent much of her career helping create Stanford Law School’s Center for Internet and Society. From 2001 to 2007, she was Executive Director of CIS and founded the Cyberlaw Clinic, where she supervised students in working on some of the most important cyberlaw cases that took place during her tenure. For example, she was the primary crafter of a 2006 exception to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act which allows mobile telephone owners to legally circumvent the firmware locking their device to a single carrier.

From 2012 to 2017, Granick was Civil Liberties Director specializing in and teaching surveillance law, cybersecurity, encryption policy, and the Fourth Amendment. In that capacity, she has published widely on U.S. government surveillance practices, and helped educate judges and congressional staffers on these issues. Granick also served as the Civil Liberties Director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation from 2007-2010. Earlier in her career, Granick spent almost a decade practicing criminal defense law in California. Granick’s work is well-known in privacy and security circles.

Her keynote, "Lifecycle of a Revolution" for the 2015 Black Hat USA security conference electrified and depressed the audience in equal measure. In March of 2016, she received Duo Security’s Women in Security Academic Award for her expertise in the field as well as her direction and guidance for young women in the security industry. Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore) has called Granick an "NBA all-star of surveillance law.”

High Res Photo of Jennifer Granick

Photo credit: Michael Sugrue

Recent articles

Blog

Patently Bad Move Gags Critics

Last week, RFID access device company HID Global got IOActive researcher Chris Paget to pull his talk from Black Hat DC because they claimed that demonstrating…

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CIS is hiring: Summer Intern

The Center for Internet and Society (CIS) at Stanford Law School is hiring a Summer Intern to work public interest issues involving technology and the Internet.…

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Employees and the Fourth Amendment

Today, a three judge panel from the Ninth Circuit withdrew its opinion in United States v. Zeigler and issued a new opinion. As you may remember, the original…

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Victory in Poulsen FOIA case

In April of 2006, Wired News editor Kevin Poulsen sued the United States Customs and Border Patrol under the Freedom of Information Act. Poulsen won the case, a…

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Data Mining for Killers

One of the most challenging problems for national security is predicting and stopping terrorist attacks before they happen. The government proposes that data mi…

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Victory in Anti-Circumvention Proceedings

Today, the Copyright Office issued new rules allowing people to circumvent technological protection measures on their cell phones in order to be able to switch…

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(Untitled)

I was surprised reading the SF Chronicle today to learn that AB2987 is going to be voted on this week. There's a great series of video clips/interviews bot…

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Jennifer Granick on wsj.com

Jennifer Granick is participating today in a vibrant forum discussion at the Wall Street Journal about security, vulnerability reporting, and responsibility for…