Timothy Edgar
timothy_edgar@brown.edu
+1 401 863 9768
280 Brook Street, Room 218
Senior Fellow in International and Public Affairs
Timothy H. Edgar is a former national security and intelligence official, cybersecurity expert, privacy lawyer and civil liberties activist. Edgar joined the American Civil Liberties Union shortly before the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. He left the ACLU to try to make a difference by going inside America’s growing surveillance state – a story he tells in Beyond Snowden: Privacy, Mass Surveillance and the Struggle to Reform the NSA, winner of the 2018 Chicago-Kent College of Law/Roy C. Palmer Civil Liberties Prize.
In 2006, Edgar became the intelligence community’s first deputy for civil liberties, advising the director of national intelligence during the George W. Bush administration. In 2009, after President Barack Obama announced the creation of a new National Security Council position “specifically dedicated to safeguarding the privacy and civil liberties of the American people,” Edgar moved to the White House, where he advised Obama on privacy issues in cybersecurity policy.
In 2013, Edgar left government for Brown University to help launch its professional cybersecurity degree program and he is now a senior fellow at Brown’s Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs. Edgar also works to help companies navigate cybersecurity problems and is on the advisory board of Virtru, which offers simple encryption software for businesses and individuals.
Edgar is a contributing editor to “Lawfare: Hard National Security Choices,” published in partnership with the Brookings Institution. Edgar has been profiled by CNN’s Christiane Amanpour and his work has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, the Guardian, Foreign Affairs, and Wired. Edgar was a law clerk to Judge Sandra Lynch, United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, and is a graduate of Harvard Law School and Dartmouth College.
March 5, 2019 Dan Yorke State of Mind
Senior Fellow Timothy Edgar joined WPRI's Dan Yorke State of Mind to discuss President Trump's summit in Hanoi with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.
February 26, 2019 Dan Yorke State of Mind
Senior Fellow Timothy Edgar joined WPRI's Dan Yorke State of Mind to discuss the national emergency declaration the Mueller investigation.
January 7, 2019 Dan Yorke State of Mind
Senior Fellow Timothy Edgar joins Dan Yorke on WPRI's State of Mind to discuss the impacts of the government shutdown and the border wall.
December 3, 2018 Chicago-Kent College of Law
Senior Fellow Timothy Edgar received the 2018 Chicago-Kent College of Law/Roy C. Palmer Civil Liberties Prize for his book, Beyond Snowden: Privacy, Mass Surveillance, and the Struggle to Reform the NSA. The Prize "honors exemplary works of scholarship exploring the tension between civil liberties and national security in contemporary American society."
November 16, 2018 Dan Yorke State of Mind
Senior Fellow Timothy Edgar offered commentary on the midterm election results on WPRI's Dan Yorke State of Mind.
September 24, 2018 Pacific Standard
Senior Fellow Timothy Edgar provided commentary on the future of satellites and surveillance. "You study what cars are parked in the parking lot; that can reveal an enormous amount of information. It's used to plan military attacks. It could be used for corporate espionage."
September 10, 2018 Lawfare Blog
Senior Fellow Timothy Edgar in Lawfare Blog, "While the digital age is well underway, the justices have only begun to grapple with its implications—for privacy, freedom of speech, and new forms of digital control. Kavanaugh’s vote will be for an internet based not on openness and freedom, but on surveillance and control."
6 p.m. – 7:30 p.m. Smith-Buonanno 106, 95 Cushing Street