News & Commentary written by Brett Max Kaufman

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Brett Max Kaufman

Senior Staff Attorney

ÌÒ×ÓÊÓÆµCenter for Democracy

Bio

Brett Max Kaufman is a senior staff attorney in the ACLU’s Center for Democracy working on a variety of issues related to national security, technology, surveillance, privacy, and First Amendment rights. He has litigated cases including ÌÒ×ÓÊÓÆµv. Clapper, a challenge the NSA’s mass call-tracking program, Doe v. Mattis, a habeas challenge to the government’s military detention of a U.S. citizen in Iraq, and Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle v. Baltimore Police Department, a challenge to Baltimore’s mass aerial surveillance program. He joined the ÌÒ×ÓÊÓÆµas a legal fellow from 2012 to 2014, then spent one year as a teaching fellow in the Technology Law & Policy Clinic at New York University School of Law, where he continued to serve as an adjunct professor of law from 2015 to 2022. He returned to the ÌÒ×ÓÊÓÆµas a staff attorney in 2015. He is also an adjunct lecturer in law at UCLA School of Law.

Brett is a graduate of Stanford University and the University of Texas School of Law, where he was book review editor of the Texas Law Review and a human rights scholar at the Rapoport Center for Human Rights and Justice. After law school, he spent a year in Israel, serving as a foreign law clerk to Supreme Court Justice Asher Dan Grunis and as a volunteer attorney at Gisha Legal Center for Freedom of Movement. He then clerked for the Hon. Robert D. Sack of the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, and for Judge Richard J. Holwell and (after Judge Holwell’s resignation) Judge Lewis A. Kaplan of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.


Featured work

Jul 1, 2016

FBI Cameras in Seattle Need to Be Regulated by the Public — Not Secretly Imposed on the Public

FBI Cameras in Seattle Need to Be Regulated by the Public — Not Secretly Imposed on the Public

Apr 4, 2016

Bye-Bye Birdie: Reddit’s Warrant Canary Disappears

Bye-Bye Birdie: Reddit’s Warrant Canary Disappears

Mar 15, 2016

More Transparent Than Thou

More Transparent Than Thou

Mar 8, 2016

The Next President’s Drone War

The Next President’s Drone War

Feb 26, 2016

Court Considers Releasing Key Documents Governing Secretive Targeted Killing Program

Court Considers Releasing Key Documents Governing Secretive Targeted Killing Program

Nov 24, 2015

Federal Court Preserves Secrecy Over Targeted Killing Memos

Federal Court Preserves Secrecy Over Targeted Killing Memos

Oct 15, 2015

The Intercept’s Drone Papers Shed New Light on Targeted Killing

The Intercept’s Drone Papers Shed New Light on Targeted Killing

Oct 2, 2015

‘We Hope This Information Has Been Helpful’

‘We Hope This Information Has Been Helpful’

Jun 20, 2015

The CIA Can’t Keep Its Drone Propaganda Straight

The CIA Can’t Keep Its Drone Propaganda Straight

Jul 11, 2014

New Court Orders Signal More Drone Documents Are on the Way

New Court Orders Signal More Drone Documents Are on the Way