"I'm not saying anything negative about him but he just, he likes to use his First Amendment right quite a bit."
-- U.S. Department of Justice.
"If I gather up enough Bitcoin I will use a service from the DarkNet and eliminate him. An asshole of this caliber doesnt deserve to continue to consume oxygen."
--
Daniele Milan, Operations Manager at HackingTeam.
Dubbed the "Ralph Nader of the Internet" by
Wired and one of
Politico's top "thinkers, doers and visionaries transforming American politics," Christopher Soghoian is "the most prominent of a new breed of activist technology researchers" (
The Economist), "who have risen to prominence by showing how tedious technical flaws can affect ordinary people."
Soghoian is the Senior Technologist and Senior Advisor for Privacy & Cybersecurity in the office of
Senator Ron Wyden. He was previously a
TechCongress Innovation Fellow. Between 2012 and 2016, Soghoian was the Principal Technologist with the Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project at the American Civil Liberties Union. Before that, he was a technologist in the U.S. Federal Trade Commission's Division on Privacy and Identity Protection. He is a
TED Senior Fellow.
Through his research and advocacy, Soghoian has exposed the US government's use of
StingRay cell phone surveillance technology, the FBI's
impersonation of journalists, and the FBI's
use of malware. Soghoian has testified before the European Parliament, the German Parliament, and state legislatures in Texas, Washington and Michigan. Soghoian's research has been cited by several Federal and state courts, including by the
D.C.,
7th,
9th, and
10th
Circuit Courts of Appeal, the
Maryland Court of Special Appeals, and the State Supreme Courts of
New Jersey and
Massachusetts.
Soghoian completed
his Ph.D. at Indiana University in 2012, which focused on the role that Internet and telephone companies play in enabling government surveillance of their customers.
- The Spy Merchants
[watch video]
Al Jazeera Investigates
March 27, 2017
- Full Frontal with Samantha Bee
[watch video]
TBS
December 12, 2016
- The Stingray
[watch video]
Truth and Power
February 5, 2016
- When Your Conspiracy Theory Is True
[listen to podcast]
Note to Self
June 19, 2015
- Stopping law enforcement hacking
[watch video]
Chaos Communication Congress
Hamburg, Germany, December 2016.
- Your smartphone is a civil rights issue
[watch video]
TEDSummit
Banff, Canada, June 2016.
- Debate: Christopher Soghoian vs. Gen. (R) Michael Hayden
[watch video]
West Point Army Cyber Institute
West Point, New York, April 2015.
- How to avoid surveillance ... with the phone in your pocket
[watch video]
TED2015
Vancouver, Canada, March 2015.
- Sharing Blame for NSA's Dragnet Surveillance
[watch video]
Symposium on Usable Privacy and Security (SOUPS)
Palo Alto, California, July, 2014.
- Government surveillance - this is just the beginning
[watch video]
TED Fellows Retreat 2013
Whistler, Canada, August 2013.
- Backdoors, Government Hacking and The Next Crypto Wars
[watch video]
DEFCON 21
Las Vegas, August 2013.
- Your Secret Stingray's No Secret Anymore: The Vanishing Government Monopoly Over Cell Phone Surveillance and Its Impact on National Security and Consumer Privacy
[pdf]
Stephanie K. Pell and Christopher Soghoian
Harvard Journal of Law and Technology, Volume 28, Number 1 Fall 2014.
-
A Lot More Than A Pen Register, And Less Than A Wiretap: What The StingRay Teaches Us About How Congress Should Approach The Reform Of Law Enforcement Surveillance Authorities
[pdf]
Stephanie K. Pell and Christopher Soghoian
Yale Journal of Law & Technology, Vol. 16, 2013.
- The Spies We Trust:
Third Party Service Providers and Law Enforcement Surveillance
[pdf]
Christopher Soghoian
Ph.D. Dissertation, August 2012.
- Can You See Me Now: Toward Reasonable Standards for Law Enforcement Access to
Location Data that Congress Could Enact
[pdf]
Stephanie K. Pell and Christopher Soghoian
Berkeley Technology Law Journal, Vol. 27, 2012.
- The Law Enforcement Surveillance Reporting Gap
[pdf]
Christopher Soghoian
Unpublished Draft
- An End to Privacy Theater:
Exposing and Discouraging Corporate Disclosure of User Data to the Government
[pdf]
Christopher Soghoian
Minnesota Journal of Law, Science & Technology
Vol. 12, No. 1, 2011.
- Certified Lies: Detecting and Defeating Government Interception Attacks Against SSL
[pdf]
Christopher Soghoian and
Sid Stamm
Financial Cryptography and Data Security '11
March 2011.
- Caught in the Cloud: Privacy, Encryption, and Government Back Doors in the Web 2.0 Era
[pdf]
Christopher Soghoian
Journal on Telecommunications and High Technology Law,
Vol. 8, No. 2, 2010.