Jameel Jaffer
Surveillance and Race

Issues of surveillance and issues of race are intertwined in a way that is not often recognized. In the US, surveillance during the 1960s and 70s was directed in large part against civil rights activists, including Martin Luther King. Now, surveillance is directed in large part at Arab Americans and South Asian Americans.

Even when surveillance is not directed in particular at racial and religious minorities, it has a disproportionate effect on those communities, as affidavits filed in recent lawsuits make clear. That surveillance and race are intertwined is recognized neither in public discourse about surveillance nor (at least in the US) in legal doctrine relating to surveillance.

Jameel Jaffer is a litigator for the American Civil Liberties Union and Director of the ACLU’s National Security Project. Currently, his docket includes Doe v. Gonzales, a challenge to the FBI’s “national security letter” authority; ACLU v. NSA, a challenge to the constitutionality of warrantless surveillance conducted by the National Security Agency; and American Academy of Religion v. Chertoff, a challenge to the government’s refusal to grant a visa to Swiss scholar Tariq Ramadan. He is also counsel to the plaintiffs in ACLU v. Department of Defense, litigation under the Freedom of Information Act that has resulted in the release of more than 100,000 government documents concerning the treatment and detention of prisoners held by the U.S. in Afghanistan, Iraq, and at Guantanamo Bay; his book about the documents, co-written with ACLU attorney Amrit Singh, will be published by Columbia University Press in the fall.

Mr. Jaffer is a graduate of Williams College, Cambridge University, and Harvard Law School. Prior to joining the staff of the ACLU, Mr. Jaffer served as law clerk to Hon. Amalya L. Kearse, United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, and then to Rt. Hon. Beverley McLachlin, Chief Justice of Canada.