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Andrew McLaughlin's Blog

Andrew McLaughlin is entrepreneur-in-residence at betaworks, based in New York City.  He is chairman of the board of Access, and a member of the board of directors at Code for America, the Sunlight Foundation, and Public Knowledge.

From 2009-2011, Andrew McLaughlin was a member of President Obama's senior White House staff, serving as Deputy Chief Technology Officer of the United States.  In that role, Andrew was responsible for advising the President on Internet, technology, and innovation policy, including open government, cybersecurity, online privacy and free speech, spectrum policy, federal R&D priorities, entrepreneurship, and the creation of open technology standards and platforms for health care, energy efficiency, and education.  In 2008-2009, he served on the Obama/Biden presidential transition team, as a member of the Technology, Innovation and Government Reform cluster.  

From 2011-2012, Andrew was Vice President of Tumblr, responsible for the international, community, outreach, editorial, marketing, and support teams.  In 2011, Andrew served as the start-up executive director of Civic Commons, a new Code for America initiative that helps governments build, share, and implement open-source technologies.  From 2011-12, Andrew was also a Lecturer in Law at Stanford Law School, teaching a course on "Freedom of Speech in a Digitally Interconnected World," and a non-resident fellow at Stanford Law's Center for Internet & Society and at Princeton's Center for Information Technology Policy.  Since 2011, Andrew has been a member of the Commission on Innovation of the U.S. Broadcasting Board of Governors

From 2004-2009, Andrew was Director of Global Public Policy at Google, leading the company's work on issues like freedom of expression and censorship, surveillance and law enforcement, privacy, copyrights and trademarks, regulation of Internet and telecommunications networks, wireless radio spectrum, national security, trade policy, patent reform, and online child protection. Andrew built and managed a 50-person worldwide team based in Brussels, London, Paris, Madrid, Milan, Berlin, Amsterdam, Stockholm, Dublin, Brasilia, Buenos Aires, Tokyo, Seoul, Beijing, Sydney, Ottawa, Washington, and San Francisco. Andrew was a co-lead on Google's Africa strategy and operations. 

From 1999-2003, Andrew helped launch and manage ICANN, the Internet's technical coordinating organization, serving as Vice President, Chief Policy Officer, and Chief Financial Officer. From 1998-2005, Andrew was a Senior Fellow at Harvard Law School's Berkman Center for Internet and Society. In 2002-2003, Andrew taught a course on digital democracy at Harvard Law School while working on Internet and telecom law reform projects in a number of developing countries, including Ghana, Mongolia, Kenya, Afghanistan, and South Africa. He was a co-founder of CIPESA, a technology policy think-tank and advocacy center based at Makerere University in Uganda. Andrew served as a member of the Board of Directors of Bridges.org, an international technology policy not-for-profit based in Cape Town.

Andrew holds a B.A. in history from Yale University, and a J.D. from Harvard Law School.

After clerking on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, Andrew started his career as a lawyer at Jenner & Block in Washington, D.C., where he focused on appellate and constitutional litigation. He was a member of the legal team that challenged the U.S. government's first Internet censorship law, resulting in the Supreme Court's landmark 1997 Internet free speech ruling in Reno vs. ACLU. From 1997-98, Andrew served as legal counsel in the U.S. House of Representatives.

In 2000, Time Magazine named Andrew one of its Digital Dozen. In 2001, he was named a Global Leader for Tomorrow by the World Economic Forum. He is a fellow of the Young Leaders Forum of the National Committee on US-China Relations.


Projects & Tools

Past

Berkman Online Lecture and Discussion (BOLD) Series

We offer computer-mediated seminars through our interactive Berkman Online Lecture and Discussion (BOLD) series. Topics have included intellectual property and privacy on the…

Past

Open Economies

Open Economies is a policy center created to support developing nations as they embrace digital technology and digitally enabled entrepreneurship as a means to economic and social…


Publications

Dec 1, 2003

Analysis and Critique of Mongolia’s Draft Law on Information Technology

Mongolia’s Ministry of Infrastructure has proposed a Draft Law on Information Technology that is now being considered by Mongolia’s State Great Khural, the country’s parliament.


News

News
Jun 18, 2020

Technology and contact tracing

Panel offers open questions, calls for collaboration

Experts from tech and public health sectors share open questions for stakeholders engaging in tech and contact tracing

Mar 5, 2015

Intelligence² Debate: Should the US Adopt "The Right to be Forgotten?"

featuring Berkman Co-founder Jonathan Zittrain

Berkman Co-founder Jonathan Zittrain and former Berkman fellow Andrew McLaughlin join public radio's Intelligence Squared US for a debate on the European Union's "Right to be…

Mar 17, 2011

Radio Berkman 175: Lessig and Zittrain Take On...the Kill Switch

This week on Radio Berkman: Professors Lessig and Zittrain discuss turning off the Internet, the "Cybersecurity and Internet Freedom Act of 2011," and more, with Andrew McLaughlin…


Courses

Digital Democracy - Fall 2003

Over the past 15 years, digital information and communication networks have spread rapidly across the globe, bringing with them hopes for, and claims of, fundamental change in the…

The Law of Cyberspace - Spring 1999

This course will explore a series of leading Internet issues via a number of traditional and not-so-traditional methods. The course themes will include: whether the internet will…


Events

Jun 17, 2020 @ 11:00 AM

Contact Tracing and Technology: A Deep Dive

BKC co-hosts conversation on digital data and public health

BKC co-hosts conversation on digital data and public health

Oct 27, 2017 @ 11:00 AM

National Security, Privacy, and the Rule of Law

Through a concrete hypothetical--ripped from tomorrow's headlines, if not today's--we explore the difficult decisions to be made around these issues, including actors from…