Jameel Jaffer

Jameel Jaffer is the Executive Editor at Just Security. He is also the inaugural director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University. He previously served as Deputy Legal Director at the American Civil Liberties Union and Director of the ACLU’s Center for Democracy, which houses the ACLU’s work on human rights, national security, speech, privacy, and technology. Since joining the staff of the ACLU in 2002, he litigated many cases relating to security and human rights, including challenges to the CIA’s targeted killing program and the National Security Agency’s warrantless wiretapping program. He also represented the ACLU and other human rights organizations in ACLU v. Department of Defense, litigation under the Freedom of Information Act that resulted in the release of thousands of records about the Bush administration’s torture policies, including the “torture memos” written by the Office of Legal Counsel. He is a graduate of Williams College, Cambridge University, and Harvard Law School.