Jennifer Daskal

Founding Editor

Jennifer Daskal (@jendaskal) is a Professor and Faculty Director of the Tech, Law, Security Program at American University Washington College of Law, where she teaches and writes in the fields of criminal, national security, and constitutional law.  From 2009-2011, Jen was counsel to the Assistant Attorney General for National Security at the Department of Justice and served on the Department of Defense and Justice-led Detention Policy Task Force.   Prior to joining DOJ, she was senior counterterrorism counsel at Human Rights Watch, worked as a staff attorney for the Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia, and clerked for the Honorable Jed S. Rakoff.  

Jen is a graduate of Brown University, Harvard Law School, and Cambridge University (where she was a Marshall Scholar). Her articles have covered a range of tech and national security-related topics, including surveillance, data privacy, speech regulation onlines, military detention, and use of force, and have appeared in the Yale Law Journal, University of Pennsylvania Law Review, Journal of National Security Law and Policy, Harvard National Security Law Journal, and Stanford Law Review Online, among other outlets. She has published op-eds in The New York Times, Washington Post, Atlantic, and International Herald Tribune, and has appeared on BBC, C-Span, CNN, MSNBC, and NPR.  She is currently a Scholar-in-Residence at New America. Jen is also on LinkedIn. 

Areas of Expertise: National Security Law, Constitutional Law

Selected Media Appearances
Television
“Guantanamo” – MSNBC (All In)
“The No Fly List” – MSNBC (Up with Chris Hayes)
“The Drone Program” – MSNBC (Up with Chris Hayes)
9/11 Defendants in Court – CNN

Radio
FISA Court Appears to be Rubberstamp for Government Requests – NPR (Morning Edition)
Obama Speech Expected to Touch on Drones, Guantanamo – NPR (Morning Edition)
Human Rights Activist Looks at Case of American Held in Ethiopia – NPR

Online
Don’t Close Guantánamo – The New York Times
Guantanamo Case Raises New Question – NPR