Alex Abdo

Alex Abdo (@AlexanderAbdo) is the inaugural Litigation Director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University. At the Institute, he has been involved in the litigation of cases challenging, among other things, the government’s system of “prepublication review,” which requires millions of former employees of the intelligence agencies to submit their manuscripts to government censors prior to publication; the constitutionality of President Trump’s blocking of critics from his @realDonaldTrump Twitter account; and the pervasive secrecy of the Office of Legal Counsel’s formal written opinions, which establish the law for the executive branch. Prior to joining the Institute, he worked at the ACLU on cases concerning NSA surveillance, encryption, anonymous speech online, government transparency, and the post-9/11 abuse of detainees in U.S. custody.