EFF is proud to welcome prolific First Amendment lawyer David Greene to our legal team. As a senior staff attorney, David’s work will include free speech and privacy litigation and he has already hit the ground sprinting as one of the experts involved in EFF’s freedom-of-association lawsuit against the NSA.

David joins EFF from Bryan Cave LLP where he was senior counsel in the firm’s Media and First Amendment team. Prior to joining the firm, David served for more than a decade as executive director and lead staff counsel for the First Amendment Project, in which he worked with EFF on numerous matters including arguing the DVD-CCA v. Bunner case before the California Supreme Court and Court of Appeal. Together with EFF Executive Director Shari Steele and Senior Counsel David Sobel, David was a founding member of the Internet Free Expression Alliance, which fights to protect open and diverse speech in the digital world. David earned a 2013 California Lawyer Attorney of the Year award for his work representing journalist Seth Rosenfeld in his decades-long Freedom of Information Act lawsuits against the FBI and, in 2007, the Society of Professional Journalists, Northern California awarded David its James Madison Freedom of Information Award for Legal Counsel.

David is also an accomplished author, acting as editor and principal contributor on the National Campaign for Freedom of Expression’s “Handbook to Understanding, Preparing for and Responding to Challenges to your Freedom of Artistic Expression” and as a writer for the International Encyclopedia on Censorship and several law review articles on First Amendment issues. An alumnus of the Duke University School of Law, David is an adjunct professor at the University of San Francisco School of Law, which awarded him the Hon. Ira A. Brown Adjunct Faculty Award in 2012, and an instructor in San Francisco State University’s journalism department.

The addition of David, and his wealth of knowledge and experience, couldn’t come at a better time: a string of high-profile leaks from former NSA contractor Edward Snowden are revealing the alarming extent to which the government is illegally spying on the public. These programs raise novel free speech and freedom of association issues. As we are seeing a sharp increase in closed court proceedings and secret government operations, David’s expertise in government transparency and access to courts will be invaluable.  Welcome David!