Snowden’s Attorney Critiques U.S. Government on Privacy Rights

Jesselyn Radack, attorney to whistleblower Edward J. Snowden, called on the U.S. government to prioritize privacy over security during the Harvard Human Rights Journal’s symposium on Thursday at the Law School.

The Journal, an online publication that features scholarly works in the field of human rights, organizes an annual symposium that brings together experts with a range of perspectives on a contemporary issue.

Attorney Jesselyn A. Radack speaks with an audience at Harvard Law School with her experience representing a whistleblower. "I guess people who want to follow the law are the outsiders in the federal government,” she joked amid criticism of the CIA, the DOJ and other agencies. By Tim C. Devine

This year’s symposium, titled “Whose Security: Must the Security of Some Depend on the Insecurity of Others?”, sought to address the recent revelations of covert surveillance by the U.S. government.

During her keynote address, Radack, a former ethics advisor to the U.S. Department of Justice who calls herself a “whistleblower,” discussed her persistent efforts and struggles to expose human rights violations of the U.S. government.

“The United States is a democracy in decline,” Radack said. “In a democracy, the people are supposed to control the government, not the other way around.”

Radack rose to prominence after her exposure of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s interrogation of John Walker Lindh, a U.S. citizen who fought with the Taliban, without counsel in 2001.

During Thursday’s discussion, which was moderated by Law School professor and former Democratic presidential candidate Lawrence Lessig, Radack recounted the opposition she faced inside and outside the Department of Justice as she sought to reveal its ethical breaches.

After resigning from her position as a result, Radack said she has since become a voice for notable whistleblowers, including Snowden and Thomas Drake.

The symposium sought to reframe the debate on the relative importance of human rights versus national security, according to Law School student Roi Bachmutsky, who co-chaired the symposium.

“We wanted to take the next step and ask, ‘Whose security are we really protecting, by what means, and whose security pays the price by protecting this first group’s security?’” Bachmutsky said.

The symposium featured two panels that brought together experts in different fields of human rights law. The first panel, titled “Police Violence against Ethnic/Racial Minorities,” sought to address over-policed areas, featuring panelists who specialize in litigation in various countries. The second panel, “Critical Issues on Material Support in Refugee Law,” explored the legality of national security justifications for limiting refugee entrance into a country.

“People don’t feel empowered to use the human rights system to make their demands, said panelist Meena Jagannath, a co-founder of the Community Justice Project, Inc. “They feel confined to the U.S. legal process.”