For a word that appears nowhere in the U.S. Constitution, privacy holds outsized and underappreciated significance to constitutional rights. Why does privacy matter, and how does its erosion undermine not only constitutional rights but also democracy in America writ large? Beyond exploring and applying constitutional theory to topics from mass surveillance to police militarization, we will also discuss how concerned Americans are already taking action every day to reclaim freedom of expression in an era of arbitrary surveillance.

Shahid leads EFF's grassroots and student outreach efforts. He's a constitutional lawyer focused on the intersection of community organizing and policy reform as a lever to shift legal norms, with roots in communities across the country resisting mass surveillance. From 2009 to 2015, he led the Bill of Rights Defense Committee as Executive Director. In 2018, Shahid ran for Congress, seeking to represent California's 12th congressional district in the U.S. House of Representatives. After graduating from Stanford Law School in 2003, where he grew immersed in the movement to stop the war in Iraq, Shahid worked for a decade in Washington, D.C. He first worked in private practice for a California-based law firm, with public interest litigation projects advancing campaign finance reform and marriage equality for same-sex couples (as early as 2004, when LGBT rights remained politically marginal). From 2005 to 2008, he helped build a national progressive legal network and managed the communications team at the American Constitution Society for Law & Policy, before founding the program to combat racial & religious profiling at Muslim Advocates in 2008. Outside of his work at EFF, Shahid also DJs and produces electronic music, writes poetry & prose, kicks rhymes, organizes guerilla poetry insurgencies, plays capoeira, speaks truth to power on Truthout, occasionally elucidates legal scholarship, and documents counter-cultural activism for the Burning Man Journal. He also serves on the Boards of Directors of Defending Rights and Dissent, the Center for Media Justice, and the Fund for Constitutional Government.

@sheeyahshee, @EFF

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