Microsoft General Counsel Brad Smith to Talk Online Privacy, Surveillance with Harvard Law’s Jonathan Zittrain at the Berkman Center

| MSNE Staff

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The Berkman Center and the Harvard Journal of Law and Technology (JOLT) are hosting Microsoft’s General Counsel, Brad Smith, in conversation with Harvard Law Professor Jonathan Zittrain this Tuesday, November 4th. The afternoon luncheon discussion may fall right after Halloween weekend, but it tackles a scary notion to many: that governments are watching us online, and the threat of overreaching government surveillance. From the other side, governments want to have a certain level of access to our online info to enforce their laws.

This discussion will explore the role of law in protecting our rights in the physical world online, as well as the complementary roles that law and technology play to protect us, and the need for governments to come together so that companies (and customers) don’t face conflicting legal obligations—another scary thought.

Brad Smith is Microsoft’s general counsel and executive vice president, Legal and Corporate Affairs. He leads the company’s Legal and Corporate Affairs Group, which has approximately 1,100 employees located in 55 countries, and is responsible for the company’s legal work, its intellectual property portfolio and patent licensing business, and its government affairs, public policy and corporate citizenship and philanthropic work. Read more about Brad Smith here.

Jonathan Zittrain is the George Bemis Professor of Law at Harvard Law School and the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, Professor of Computer Science at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Vice Dean for Library and Information Resources at the Harvard Law School Library, and co-founder of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society.  His research interests include battles for control of digital property and content, cryptography, electronic privacy, the roles of intermediaries within Internet architecture, human computing, and the useful and unobtrusive deployment of technology in education. Read more about Jonathan Zittrain here.

RSVP is required for those attending the event in person. You can RSVP here. There will also be a livestream of the discussion for anyone interested, beginning at 12:00pm ET on Tuesday, November 4th on this page.

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