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John Morris
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General Counsel; Director, Internet Standards, Technology and Policy Project
jmorris@cdt.org

John Morris

John B. Morris, Jr. is CDT's General Counsel, and the Director of its "Internet Standards, Technology and Policy Project." Prior to joining CDT in 2001, Mr. Morris was a partner in the law firm of Jenner & Block, where he litigated groundbreaking cases in Internet and First Amendment law. He was a lead counsel in the ACLU v. Reno/American Library Association v. U.S. Dep't of Justice case, in which the Supreme Court unanimously overturned the Communications Decency Act of 1996 and extended to speech on the Internet the highest level of constitutional protection. In that case, Mr. Morris was responsible for the development of the factual presentation concerning how the Internet works, a presentation that served as the foundation for the Supreme Court's landmark decision.

From May 1999 through April 2000, Mr. Morris served as director of CDT's Broadband Access Project (while on leave from his firm). The Project undertook a comprehensive assessment of the legal, policy, and factual issues surrounding the emergence of broadband Internet access technologies.

Prior to becoming a lawyer, Mr. Morris had extensive experience with computers and politics. In the mid-1970's, as a staff member on Capitol Hill, he helped to promote the use of computer software to manage and improve constituent communications. In 1981, Mr. Morris joined a D.C.-area computer company, where he was one of the lead system designers of a constituent management software system for Members of Congress. In 1985, he co-founded Intelligent Solutions, Inc., which developed the leading constituent services product used on Capitol Hill today.

Mr. Morris received his B.A. magna cum laude with distinction from Yale University and his J.D. from Yale Law School, where he was the Managing Editor of the Yale Law Journal. Following law school, he clerked for Judge Thomas A. Clark of the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals, worked for three years as a staff attorney at the Southern Center for Human Rights in Atlanta, Georgia, and then joined Jenner & Block in Washington in 1990.

In addition to his work with CDT, Mr. Morris is an Adjunct Professor of Law at Cardozo Law School in New York City.

Publications and Testimony

2008

2007

  • RFC 4745, “Common Policy: A Document Format for Expressing Privacy Preferences” (with H. Schulzrinne, H. Tschofenig, J. Cuellar, J. Polk, J. Rosenberg) (Internet Engineering Task Force 2007)
  • John Morris and Jon Peterson, Who's Watching You Now?, IEEE Security and Privacy Magazine, Vol. 5, Issue 1 (January/February 2007)

2006

2005

2004

  • John Morris, Look at the Bare Naked Facts [pdf] Legal Times March 2004
  • "Free Speech on the Internet," in Internet Law and Practice (West Publishing Company 2002, updated 2004) (with Julie M. Carpenter and Jodie L. Kelley)
  • RFC 3694, “Threat Analysis of the Geopriv Protocol” (with M. Danley, D. Mulligan, J. Peterson) (Internet Engineering Task Force 2004)
  • RFC 3693, “Geopriv Requirements” (with J. Cuellar, D. Mulligan, J. Peterson, J. Polk) (Internet Engineering Task Force 2004)
  • "Internet Technical Standards Setting Bodies: The Public Policy Venues of the Twenty-First Century," in The Standards Edge: Dynamic Tension, S. Bolin, editor (2004)

2003

2002

2000

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