Douglas Letter is an American attorney. He is general counsel to the

United States House of Representatives The United States House of Representatives, often referred to as the House of Representatives, the U.S. House, or simply the House, is the Lower house, lower chamber of the United States Congress, with the United States Senate, Senate being ...

, a position he has held since 2018. From 1978 to 2018, he was an attorney in the

United States Department of Justice The United States Department of Justice (DOJ), also known as the Justice Department, is a federal executive department of the United States government tasked with the enforcement of federal law and administration of justice in the United State ...

, ultimately serving as director of the appellate staff for the Civil Division. During a 2014 hearing before a federal court in which Letter was representing the United States Government in a lawsuit brought by the

Electronic Frontier Foundation The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is an international non-profit digital rights group based in San Francisco, California. The foundation was formed on 10 July 1990 by John Gilmore, John Perry Barlow and Mitch Kapor to promote Internet ci ...

, he made headlines after providing erroneous information to judges regarding the legality of

National Security Letter A national security letter (NSL) is an administrative subpoena issued by the United States government to gather information for national security purposes. NSLs do not require prior approval from a judge. The Stored Communications Act, Fair Cred ...

s. The Justice Department later issued a written apology to the court for Letter's statement. Letter received his undergraduate degree from

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

in 1975 and his J.D. from

UC Berkeley School of Law The University of California, Berkeley, School of Law (commonly known as Berkeley Law or UC Berkeley School of Law) is the law school of the University of California, Berkeley, a public research university in Berkeley, California. It is one of 1 ...

in 1978.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Letter, Douglas Living people United States Department of Justice lawyers Year of birth missing (living people) United States House of Representatives lawyers Columbia College (New York) alumni UC Berkeley School of Law alumni

See also

References