Jim Dempsey, Vice President for Public Policy, has been with CDT since 1997. He served as Executive Director from 2003 through 2005. In 2005, he moved to San Francisco and launched CDT West. Jim's areas of expertise include privacy, electronic surveillance issues and national security issues. He heads CDT's international project, the Global Internet Policy Initiative (GIPI).
Prior to joining CDT, Mr. Dempsey was Deputy Director of the Center for National Security Studies. From 1995 to 1996, Mr. Dempsey also served as special counsel to the National Security Archive, a non-governmental organization that uses the Freedom of Information Act to gain the declassification of documents on the U.S. foreign policy.
From 1985 to 1994, Mr. Dempsey was assistant counsel to the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Civil and Constitutional Rights. His primary areas of responsibility for the Subcommittee were oversight of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, privacy and civil liberties. He worked on issues at the intersection of national security and constitutional rights, including terrorism, counterintelligence, and electronic surveillance as well as crime issues, including the federal death penalty, remedies for racial bias in death sentencing, information privacy, and police brutality. Mr. Dempsey has traveled extensively outside the U.S. to speak on civil liberties issues and consult with government officials and human rights organizations.
From 1980 to 1984, Mr. Dempsey was an associate with the Washington, D.C. law firm of Arnold & Porter, where he practiced in areas of government and commercial contracts, energy law, and anti-trust. He also maintained an extensive pro bono representation of death row inmates in federal habeas proceedings. He clerked for the Hon. Robert Braucher of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court.
Mr. Dempsey is author of several articles on Internet policy, including Communications Privacy In The Digital Age: Revitalizing The Federal Wiretap Laws To Enhance Privacy, and co-author of the book Terrorism & the Constitution: Sacrificing Civil Liberties in the Name of National Security (2006) (with Prof. David Cole of Georgetown law school).