CITY LIGHTS LIVE! Cindy Cohn in conversation with Cory Doctorow

Описание: City Lights, EFF, and The MIT Press celebrate the publication of
Privacy’s Defender: My Thirty-Year Fight Against Digital Surveillance
By Cindy Cohn
Published by The MIT Press

A personal chronicle of three key legal privacy battles that have defined the digital age and shaped the internet as we know it.

From a seasoned leader in the field of digital privacy rights.

Throughout her career, Cindy Cohn has been driven by a fundamental question: Can we still have private conversations if we live our lives online? Privacy’s Defender chronicles her thirty-year battle to protect our right to digital privacy and shows just how central this right is to all our other rights, including our ability to organize and make change in the world.

Shattering the hypermasculine myth that our digital reality was solely the work of a handful of charismatic tech founders, the author weaves her own personal story with the history of Crypto Wars, FBI gag orders, and the post-9/11 surveillance state. She describes how she became a seasoned leader in the early digital rights movement, as well as how this work serendipitously helped her discover her birth parents and find her life partner. Along the way, she also details the development of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which she grew from a ragtag group of lawyers and hackers into one of the most powerful digital rights organizations in the world.

Part memoir and part legal history for the general reader, the book is a compelling testament to just how hard-won the privacy rights we now enjoy as tech users are, but also how crucial these rights are in our efforts to combat authoritarianism, grow democracy, and strengthen other human rights.

Cindy Cohn is Executive Director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. From 2000 to 2015, she served as EFF’s Legal Director as well as its General Counsel. Today, she spearheads a team of more than 120 lawyers, activists, and technologists who are dedicated to ensuring that technology supports speech, privacy, and innovation for all the people of the world.

Cory Doctorow (craphound.com) is a science fiction author, activist and journalist. He is the author of dozens of books, most recently ENSHITTIFICATION: WHY EVERYTHING SUDDENLY GOT WORSE AND WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT (nonfiction); and the novel PICKS AND SHOVELS. His next book is THE REVERSE CENTAUR’S GUIDE TO LIFE AFTER AI (June 2026). Born in Toronto, Canada, he lives in Los Angeles and London.

Originally broadcast on Tuesday, March 10, 2026.

This event made possible by support from the City Lights Foundation.