Civil liberties advocates decamp to tech industry

The tight-knit civil liberties advocacy community has helped shepherd through the most significant reforms to government surveillance over the past decade. But a growing number of experienced civil liberties and privacy activists have taken jobs at major tech companies in recent years, even as the data collection and practices of tech companies and the government come under increasing scrutiny. At least nine high-level advocates focused on government surveillance, data ethics and privacy have left civil society to work at major tech companies since 2019, according to an analysis of recent departures by Politico. Hugh Handeyside, a former American Civil Liberties Union staff attorney at its national security project, left for Microsoft; senior ACLU legislative and advocacy counsel Manar Waheed and Georgetown Center on Privacy and Technology senior associate Harrison Rudolph both went to Facebook’s parent company Meta; and Michelle Richardson, the former director of the data and privacy project at the Center for Democracy and Technology, moved to Apple. These experts bring with them their deep knowledge of data ethics and privacy. Depending on who you ask, that’s either a win for privacy advocates, who want like-minded people in the rooms where big decisions are made, or a serious loss of expertise for an already small civil liberties community.