American University Washington College of Law Announces New Program on Technology, Law, and Security

Oct. 3, 2019

Left to right: Colonel Gary Corn, program director; Professor Jen Daskal, faculty director and TSL founder; Ya’ara Barnoon, assistant director; and Alex Joel, Scholar-in-Residence.
Left to right: Colonel Gary Corn, program director; Professor Jen Daskal, faculty director and TSL founder; Ya’ara Barnoon, assistant director; and Alex Joel, Scholar-in-Residence.

American University Washington College of Law (AUWCL) is proud to announce its Tech, Law, Security Program (TLS), a new initiative that seeks to tackle challenges that emerge at the intersection of law and technology.

The Program – founded by AUWCL Professor Jennifer Daskal, world-renown tech policy and national security expert – will focus on building public-private partnerships and developing policy-relevant and practical solutions that are designed to protect and promote individual rights, security, and the functioning of democratic institutions.

“Our new Tech, Law, Security Program will put Washington College of Law at the forefront of some of the most critically important legal and policy issues of our times,” said Dean Camille Nelson. “The Program, led by some of the most highly respected leaders in the field, will – together with our longstanding and high-impact focus on intellectual property – help shape technology law and policy for the future.”

“TLS is comprised of leading experts in each of the Program’s key areas, ensuring that our research and other output is timely, calibrated, and positioned to directly influence policy and practice,” Daskal said. “We will serve as an influential source of information for public and private sector leaders alike, while at the same time training the leaders of tomorrow.”

Jen Daskal, Faculty Director and TSL Founder
Professor Jennifer Daskal is a globally recognized expert in cyber policy and national security who is actively involved in discussions around law enforcement access to data and regulation of speech across borders, helping to shape the domestic and international debate. From 2009-2011, Daskal was counsel to the Assistant Attorney General for National Security at the Department of Justice. Prior to joining DOJ, Daskal was senior counterterrorism counsel at Human Rights Watch. Her work has been published in the top law journals, including Yale Law Journal, Stanford Law Review Online, and Harvard Journal of National Security and the Law.  She is an Executive Editor of Just Security and a Scholar-in-Residence at New America.

Colonel Gary Corn, Program Director
Colonel Gary Corn has been serving as the general counsel to U.S. Cyber Command for the past five years and is widely recognized as one of the nation’s top international law experts.  Colonel Corn is a frequent and highly-sought out speaker at international and national conferences and has published numerous articles and blog posts, including in the American Journal of International Law, Texas International Law Journal, and on Just Security. Previously, Colonel Corn served as deputy legal counsel to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, operational law branch chief in the Office of the Judge Advocate General of the Army, a special assistant United States attorney in the District of Columbia, and on deployment as the chief of international law for Combined Forces Command in Afghanistan.

Alex Joel, Scholar-in-Residence
Alex Joel is on leave from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), where he served as the chief of the Office of Civil Liberties, Privacy and Transparency (CLPT).. As chief of CLPT, Joel was the ODNI’s Civil Liberties Protection Officer, a position established by the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Protection Act of 2004. Since 2015, he also served as ODNI’s Chief Transparency Officer, appointed to the position by Director of National Intelligence James Clapper. Previously, Joel worked as an attorney at the Central Intelligence Agency's Office of General Counsel, as a technology attorney at the law firm of Shaw, Pittman, Potts & Trowbridge (now Pillsbury Winthrop), and as the privacy, technology, and e-commerce attorney for Marriott International, Inc. 

Ya’ara Barnoon, Assistant Director
For the past 15 years, Ya’ara Barnoon has worked on issues at the intersection of national security and human rights. Most recently, she worked in the Anti-Corruption and Internal Investigations Group at Hughes, Hubbard & Reed, where she managed complex international anti-corruption and national security investigations and compliance processes. Barnoon has volunteered with a number of political campaigns, including on voter protection and cybersecurity policy matters. She previously held positions at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy and Belfer Center at Harvard Kennedy School, the Institute for National Security Studies in Israel, and UNHCR in Turkey. She is a Truman National Security Project Fellow.

The Tech, Law, Security Program will initially focus on four main projects:

To learn more about the new Tech, Law, Security Program at AUWCL, click here.