Adam Schwartz

Privacy Litigation Director

Adam joined EFF in 2015. He advocates before courts and legislatures against surveillance, censorship, and discrimination.

He has represented travelers subjected to warrantless smartphone searches by border officers, protesters against police violence subjected to camera network surveillance, immigrant advocates opposed to their local sheriff sending license plate location data to ICE, electricity customers subjected to dragnet police smart meter surveillance, dissidents censored in government social media, and customers of phone companies that unlawfully sold location data. He has filed amicus briefs addressing the right to record on-duty police, face surveillance by corporations of consumers, internet banishment and perpetual location-tracking of court-involved people, anonymous online speech, overbroad "cyber-stalking" laws, and expungement of FBI records. He has enforced public records requests for prison data on parolee race (which EFF’s clients used to develop an AI tool to identify improper parole denials), and the Hemisphere phone surveillance program. He advocates for privacy legislation to limit data surveillance by government and by corporations.

Previously, Adam worked at the ACLU of Illinois for 19 years, and clerked for Judge Betty B. Fletcher of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.  He earned a J.D. from Howard University and a B.A. from Cornell University, and attended Deep Springs College.

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Phone: 
415-436-9333 x176