Cindy Cohn, Author of Privacy’s Defender: My Thirty-Year Fight Against Digital Surveillance, in Conversation with Gigi Sohn
Date and Time
Apr 13, 2026 6:30 pm
Location
14th & V
2021 14th St NW, Washington, District of Columbia, 20009
Apr 13, 2026 6:30 pm
14th & V
Join American Association of Public Broadband (AAPB) Executive Director Gigi Sohn in conversation with EFF Executive Director Cindy Cohn, to discuss 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?
Cindy Cohn, Executive Director of Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), has devoted her life to the fight for digital rights. She’s tangled with federal officials to keep our online conversations secure from the government's prying eyes, fought to ensure that you are told when your information has been turned over to the government, and argued before judges to protect our right to speak and to share science and knowledge on the internet.
In Privacy’s Defender: My Thirty-Year Fight Against Digital Surveillance (MIT Press), Cindy weaves her own personal story with her role as a leading legal voice representing the rights and interests of technology users, innovators, whistleblowers, and researchers during the Crypto Wars of the 1990s, battles over NSA’s dragnet internet spying revealed in the 2000s, and the fight against FBI gag orders.
"Privacy’s Defender is a compelling account of a life well lived and an inspiring call to action for the next generation of civil liberties champions."
~Edward Snowden, whistleblower; author of Permanent Record
Cindy Cohn is joining us on the Busboys and Poets stage in conversation with EFF Board Chair Gigi Sohn.
Copies of the book will be available for purchase during and after the event, and Cohn will be signing following the program.
This event is free and open to all. Our program begins at 6:30 pm, and will be followed by an audience Q&A. Copies of Privacy’s Defender: My Thirty-Year Fight Against Digital Surveillance will be available for purchase.
We ask that guests register at https://www.eff.org/event/privacys-defender-busboys-poets#main-content
Cindy Cohn is Executive Director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. From 2000 to 2015, she served as EFF’s Legal Director as well as its General Counsel. Today, she spearheads a team of more than 120 lawyers, activists, and technologists who are dedicated to ensuring that technology supports speech, privacy, and innovation for all the people of the world. She is also the co-host of EFF's award-winning podcast, How to Fix the Internet. 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.
Gigi Sohn is the Executive Director of the American Association of Public Broadband (AAPB), a Benton Institute Senior Fellow and Public Advocate and a Distinguished Fellow at the Georgetown Law Institute for Technology Law & Policy. She is one of the nation’s leading public advocates for open, affordable and democratic communications networks. In recognition of her expertise and dedication to the public interest in communications, President Biden nominated her to serve on the Federal Communications Commission in October 2021.
Book Details:
Privacy’s Defender: My Thirty-Year Fight Against Digital Surveillance
By Cindy Cohn
March 10, 2026 | Hardcover, 248 pages, $29.95
