Join Women in Security and Privacy (WISP) and EFF for a conversation featuring American University Senior Professorial Lecturer Chelsea Horne and EFF Executive Director Cindy Cohn in discussion about Cindy's book: Privacy's Defender: My Thirty-Year Fight Against Digital Surveillance.
Cindy has tangled with the feds, fought for your data security, and argued before judges to protect our access to science and knowledge on the internet. But can we still have private conversations if we live our lives online?
This is a FREE event!
Want your own copy of Privacy's Defender?
Order online, books will NOT be available onsite
WHEN:
Tuesday, April 14th, 2026
6:00 pm to 8:00 pm
WHERE:
True Reformer Building - Lankford Auditorium
1200 U St NW
Washington, DC 20009
6:00 pm Doors Open
6:30 pm Program Begins
About the book
Throughout her career, Cindy Cohn has been driven by a fundamental question: Can we still have private conversations if we live our lives online? Privacy’s Defender chronicles her thirty-year battle to protect our right to digital privacy and shows just how central this right is to all our other rights, including our ability to organize and make change in the world.
Shattering the hypermasculine myth that our digital reality was solely the work of a handful of charismatic tech founders, the author weaves her own personal story with the history of Crypto Wars, FBI gag orders, and the post-9/11 surveillance state. She describes how she became a seasoned leader in the early digital rights movement, as well as how this work serendipitously helped her discover her birth parents and find her life partner. Along the way, she also details the development of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which she grew from a ragtag group of lawyers and hackers into one of the most powerful digital rights organizations in the world.
Part memoir and part legal history for the general reader, the book is a compelling testament to just how hard-won the privacy rights we now enjoy as tech users are, but also how crucial these rights are in our efforts to combat authoritarianism, grow democracy, and strengthen other human rights. Learn about the Privacy's Defender book tour.
Accessibility
The main event space is wheelchair accessible. Speakers will be using a microphone, so louder volumes are expected. EFF is committed to improving accessibility for our events. If you will be attending in-person and need accommodation, or have accessibility questions prior to the event, please contact events@eff.org.
Questions?
Email us at events@eff.org.
About the Speakers
Cindy Cohn
Cindy Cohn is the Executive Director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. From 2000-2015 she served as EFF’s Legal Director as well as its General Counsel. Ms. Cohn first became involved with EFF in 1993, when EFF asked her to serve as the outside lead attorney in Bernstein v. Dept. of Justice, the successful First Amendment challenge to the U.S. export restrictions on cryptography.
Ms. Cohn has been named to TheNonProfitTimes 2020 Power & Influence TOP 50 list, honoring 2020's movers and shakers. In 2018, Forbes included Ms. Cohn as one of America's Top 50 Women in Tech. The National Law Journal named Ms. Cohn one of 100 most influential lawyers in America in 2013, noting: "[I]f Big Brother is watching, he better look out for Cindy Cohn." She was also named in 2006 for "rushing to the barricades wherever freedom and civil liberties are at stake online." In 2007 the National Law Journal named her one of the 50 most influential women lawyers in America. In 2010 the Intellectual Property Section of the State Bar of California awarded her its Intellectual Property Vanguard Award and in 2012 the Northern California Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists awarded her the James Madison Freedom of Information Award.
Ms. Cohn is the author of the professional memoir, called Privacy's Defender to be published by MIT Press in March, 2026. She is also the co-host of EFF's award-winning podcast, How to Fix the Internet.
Chelsea Horne
Senior Professorial Lecturer, American University
Dr. Chelsea L. Horne's areas of research encompass communication, AI policy, algorithmic bias, digital ethics, information integrity, privacy, internet governance, and performance studies. Recent work has appeared in Telecommunications Policy, Routledge Studies in Shakespeare, and in Writing Spaces. Her current book project examines privacy at the intersection of media, design, policy, and platform governance to consider how often-overlooked privacy settings are in fact technologically significant.
Horne has taught workshops and master classes in four continents. She is Affiliate Faculty at the Khan Cyber and Economic Security Institute and a Faculty Fellow at the Internet Governance Lab. She is also Co-Convenor (Vice-President) of the Chapter Council of the Internet Society-DC (ISOC-DC).
Horne also writes fiction, poetry, and essays. Her stories have twice won the Andrew Bergman award in Creative Writing and her work has appeared in The Atlantic, The Rumpus, LitHub, The Paterson Literary Review, The Buffalo News, Washington Independent Review of Books, Café Americain and elsewhere. Horne has received multiple DC Commission of the Arts and Humanities grant as an Artist Fellow.
