Ahmed Ghappour

Ahmed Ghappour (born May 5, 1980) is a Visiting Assistant Professor of Law at UC Hastings, where his research focuses on the interplay between emerging technologies and national security—particularly in the context of the modern surveillance state, information security and the evolution of cyberspace as a theater of war.^[1]

Ghappour also directs the Liberty, Security and Technology Clinic, where his casework addresses constitutional issues that arise in espionage, counterterrorism, and computer hacking cases. Formerly, he was a Clinical Instructor with the National Security Clinic at the University of Texas Law School, where he directed the National Security Defense Project (the “NSDP”), an access to justice initiative that addresses constitutional issues in cyber-security and national security prosecutions, particularly those related to electronic surveillance and foreign intelligence gathering.^[1][2]

Before entering legal academia, Ghappour worked with Lt. Cmd. Charles Swift (Hamdan v. Rumsfeld), taking numerous national security cases to trial. Prior to that, Ahmed was a Staff Attorney at Reprieve UK, where he represented Guantanamo detainees in their habeas corpus proceedings and challenged the US Extraordinary Rendition Program. He was a senior legal advisor at a Cairo-based human rights organization, where he worked on security sector reform, and international accountability litigation. He is a National Security Committee member of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.

Formerly, Ahmed was a diagnostics engineer focused on distributed systems and high performance computing. ^[3]

Early life and education

From 1997-2001, Ghappour attended Rutgers the State University of New Jersey New Brunswick Campus, where he majored in Computer Engineering. ^[3] While in college, he worked as a Design Automation Engineer for Anadigics, a worldwide provider of semiconductor solutions to the broadband wireless and wireline communications markets.

Upon graduation, he became a Diagnostic Engineer at Silicon Graphics,^[3] an American manufacturer of high-performance computing solutions, including computer hardware and software. At SGI, he worked on the Altix 3000, the world's most scalable Linux-based supercomputer at the time of its release.^[4]

From 2004-2007, Ghappour attended New York University School of Law as a Dean's Merit Scholar.^[3] He started his law career as patent litigation attorney at the international law firm Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe.^[5]

Select Cases

United States v. Brown (N.D. Tx.) – Ghappour was lead counsel for Barrett Brown on an assortment of 17 charges filed in three indictments that include sharing an http link to information publicly released during the 2012 Stratfor email leak, and several counts of conspiring to publicize restricted information about an FBI agent.^[6][7][8] Ghappour filed several motions to dismiss the government's charges.^[9][10] The government responded by dismissing 11 charges on March 5, 2014.^[11][12][13]

United States v. Moalin, et al. (S.D. Ca.) – Ghappour was lead trial counsel for Issa Doreh, a Somali American charged with conspiracy to provide material support to terrorism for sending approximately $8,500 to al-Shabaab.^[5] The case attracted notoriety as the first criminal case to challenge bulk metadata collection (under Section 215 of the PATRIOT ACT),^[5] after Global surveillance disclosures by Edward Snowden.^[14]

Guantánamo detainees

In 2008 Ghappour joined Reprieve, a British non-profit, as staff attorney. Ghappour volunteered his services to detainees held as enemy combatants at Guantanamo Bay; he has assisted in filing habeas corpus petitions and lawsuits on behalf of detainees. His clients have included Binyam Mohammed, Mohammed el Gharani,^[15] Adel al-Gazzar and Hisham Sliti. In 2009, Ghappour along with Reprieve founder Clive Stafford Smith faced the possibility of being found in contempt of court because of a letter they sent to President Barack Obama explaining allegations of torture by US agents of their mutual client Binyam Mohamed.^[16]

References