From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Technologist, lawyer, and digital rights activist
Shari Steele
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![Portrait of Shari Steele](//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/5a/Shari_Steele.png/220px-Shari_Steele.png) |
Education
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Employers
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Known for
| Digital rights activism
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Spouse
| Bill Vass
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Shari Steele
is a technologist, lawyer, and activist for
digital freedom
. She worked for the
Electronic Frontier Foundation
as the legal director and then executive director, as well as at
The Tor Project
as the executive director.
[1]
Career
[
edit
]
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.
[2]
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
(NSA) and to the United States government's use of
National Security Letters
.
[3]
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.
[4]
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
, a Tor employee and activist.
[5]
Life and education
[
edit
]
Steele earned her law degree from
Widener University School of Law
. She later earned an
LL.M.
degree from
Georgetown University Law Center
, 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
.
[6]
Steele is married to Bill Vass, the vice president of engineering at
Amazon Web Services
.
[7]
References
[
edit
]
- ^
Scoles, Sarah (January 22, 2019).
"Before She Tackled How to Keep People Safe on the Web, Shari Steele Had to Tackle Harassment at Tor"
.
Pacific Standard
. Retrieved
March 31,
2020
.
- ^
"Shari Steele: A Legacy of Digital Rights"
.
Electronic Frontier Foundation
. April 2, 2015
. Retrieved
March 31,
2020
.
- ^
Zetter, Kim (December 11, 2015).
"Tor Hires a New Leader to Help It Combat the War on Privacy"
.
Wired
.
ISSN
1059-1028
. Retrieved
March 31,
2020
.
- ^
O'Neill, Patrick Howell (February 22, 2018).
"Shari Steele, Tor executive director, to step down at end of year"
.
CyberScoop
. Retrieved
March 31,
2020
.
- ^
Brandom, Russell (February 2, 2018).
"Tor director Shari Steele will step down at the end of the year"
.
The Verge
. Retrieved
March 31,
2020
.
- ^
"Shari Steele"
.
Electronic Frontier Foundation
. October 7, 2011
. Retrieved
April 5,
2020
.
- ^
Turton, William (February 16, 2016).
"How Shari Steele aims to take the Tor Project mainstream"
.
The Daily Dot
. Retrieved
April 5,
2020
.