Shari Steele is a technologist, lawyer, and activist for digital freedom. She worked for 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 ...

as the legal director and then executive director, as well as at

The Tor Project The Tor Project, Inc. is a Seattle-based 501(c)(3) research-education nonprofit organization founded by computer scientists Roger Dingledine, Nick Mathewson and five others. The Tor Project is primarily responsible for maintaining software for ...

as the executive director.

Career

Steele joined the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) as a staff attorney in 1992. She later became the legal director, a position she held for eight years before she became the EFF's executive director in 2000. Steele helped to grow the EFF from a small team of lawyers to a much larger organization known for its involvement in legal disputes involving digital rights, including challenges to broad digital surveillance practices by the

National Security Agency The National Security Agency (NSA) is a national-level intelligence agency of the United States Department of Defense, under the authority of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI). The NSA is responsible for global monitoring, collecti ...

(NSA) and to the United States government's use of

National Security Letters 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 Credi ...

. Although she had intended to retire when she left the EFF, she instead decided to take a position as the executive director of the Tor Project in 2015, which she held until the end of 2019. She is known for her work at The Tor Project to make the organization more inclusive, as well as for guiding the organization through a major scandal involving accusations of sexual assault against

Jacob Appelbaum Jacob Appelbaum (born 1 April 1983) is an American independent journalist, computer security researcher, artist, and hacker. He studied at the Eindhoven University of Technology and was a core member of the Tor project, a free software network des ...

, a Tor employee and activist.

Life and education

Steele earned her law degree from

Widener University School of Law Widener University Delaware Law School (Delaware Law School and formerly Widener University School of Law) is a private law school in Wilmington, Delaware. It is one of two separate ABA-accredited law schools of Widener University. Widener Univ ...

. She later earned an LL.M. degree from

Georgetown University Law Center The Georgetown University Law Center (Georgetown Law) is the law school of Georgetown University, a private research university in Washington, D.C. It was established in 1870 and is the largest law school in the United States by enrollment and ...

, where she also worked as a teaching fellow. Steele also has a master's degree in Instructional Media, which she earned from

West Chester University West Chester University (also known as West Chester, WCU, or WCUPA, and officially as West Chester University of Pennsylvania) is a public research university in and around West Chester, Pennsylvania. The university is accredited by the Middle ...

. Steele is married to Bill Vass, the vice president of engineering at

Amazon Web Services Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS) is a subsidiary of Amazon.com, Amazon that provides Software as a service, on-demand cloud computing computing platform, platforms and Application programming interface, APIs to individuals, companies, and gover ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Steele, Shari American civil rights lawyers Computer law activists Electronic Frontier Foundation people Georgetown University Law Center alumni Georgetown University Law Center faculty Tor (anonymity network) West Chester University alumni Widener University School of Law alumni American women lawyers Year of birth missing (living people) Living people 21st-century American women