Congressman Gus M. Bilirakis is a Republican representing Florida's 12th Congressional District, which includes all of Citrus and Hernando counties and most of Pasco County. Gus serves as a Senior Member of the Energy and Commerce Committee. He is the Chairman of the Innovation, Data and Commerce Subcommittee. He is also a Senior Member of the Health Subcommittee and the Communications and Technology Subcommittee. Working in a bipartisan manner, his main priorities include controlling government spending, creating jobs for middle class Americans, finding ways for government to operate smaller and smarter, and lowering taxes.
Adam Conner is the vice president for technology policy at American Progress, where he focuses on building a progressive technology policy platform and agenda. Conner has spent the past 15 years working at the intersection of technology, politics, policy and elections as the first Washington D.C. employee for several Silicon Valley companies, including Slack Technologies and Brigade. In 2007, Conner founded Facebook’s Washington office and spent several years on the public policy team.
Eli Noam has been a professor of economics and finance at the Columbia Business School since 1976, and the director of the Columbia Institute for Tele-Information. He served as New York State's Public Service Commissioner regulating the telecom and energy industries, on the White House Presidential Board on information technology, and on private sector, governmental, and NGO boards and commissions. His 37 books and textbooks, and over 350 articles, cover domestic and international telecom, internet, film, TV, e-finance, e-commerce and IT.
John Samples is a vice president at the Cato Institute. He founded and directs Cato’s Center for Representative Government, which studies the First Amendment, government institutional failure and public opinion. Samples serves on Facebook’s independent Oversight Board, which provides final and binding decisions on whether specific content should be allowed or removed from Facebook and Instagram.
Drew Clark is CEO of Breakfast Media LLC. He has led the Broadband Breakfast community since 2008. An early proponent of better broadband, better lives, he initially founded the Broadband Census crowdsourcing campaign for broadband data. As Editor and Publisher, Clark presides over the leading media company advocating for higher-capacity internet everywhere through topical, timely and intelligent coverage. Clark also served as head of the Partnership for a Connected Illinois, a state broadband initiative.
Steve DelBianco is the president and CEO of NetChoice. Steve is a well-known expert on internet governance, online consumer protection and internet taxation. He has provided expert testimony in 25 congressional hearings and many more state legislative sessions. Prior to NetChoice, DelBianco was the founder and president of Financial Dynamics, an IT consulting firm that he led through the evolution of industry trends. DelBianco holds degrees in Engineering and in Economics from the University of Pennsylvania, plus an MBA from the Wharton School.
Willmary Escoto is a U.S. Policy Analyst for Access Now where she works on issues around content governance, privacy, artificial intelligence, and data protection. She previously served as the Director of Policy and Government Affairs for the National Hispanic Media Coalition and was hosted by Public Knowledge as a Google Policy Fellow in 2016. Willmary received her J.D. from Howard University and is licensed to practice law in Washington D.C.
Amy Peikoff is the chief policy officer of Parler. After completing her Ph.D., she taught at several universities and law schools, publishing frequently cited academic articles on privacy law, as well as op-eds in leading newspapers across the country on a range of issues. Just prior to joining Parler, she founded and was President of the Center for the Legalization of Privacy, which submitted an amicus brief in United States v. Facebook in 2019.
Dane started his communications career 20 years ago as the first Chief of the Consumer & Governmental Affairs Bureau at the Federal Communications Commission, where he focused on disability access, telemarking rules, consumer complaints and consumer policy. Joining CTIA–The Wireless Association as its first Vice President of External & State Affairs, Dane created and directed the association’s 50-state policy program and external affairs efforts. Recognized for his leadership, Dane was tapped to be the first Chief Operating Officer of the NCTA–The Internet & Television Association, and later entered the tech industry as president and CEO of the Internet Association, focused on privacy and content moderation.
Frustrated that people were making the law without asking for her opinion, Cathy Gellis gave up a career in web development to become a lawyer to help them not make it badly, especially regarding technology. A former aspiring journalist and longtime fan of civil liberties, her legal work includes defending the rights of Internet users and advocating for policy that protects speech and innovation. When not advising clients on platform liability, copyright, trademark, privacy or cybersecurity, she frequently writes about these subjects and more for a variety of outlets.
Matthew Bergman is an attorney, law professor, philanthropist and community activist. He is the founder of the Social Media Victims Law Center and Bergman Draper Oslund Udo, a professor at Lewis & Clark Law school, and on the boards of directors of nonprofit institutions in higher education, national security, civil rights, worker protection and the arts. Matthew is nationally known for his work in product liability litigation and has recovered over $1 billion on behalf of his clients.
Ashley Johnson is a senior policy analyst at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation. She researches and writes about internet policy issues such as privacy, security, and platform regulation. She was previously at Software.org: the BSA Foundation and holds a master’s degree in security policy from The George Washington University and a bachelor’s degree in sociology from Brigham Young University.
Emma Llansó is the director of the Free Expression Project at the Center for Democracy and Technology, where she has worked since 2009 to promote law and policy that supports internet users’ free expression rights. Emma leads CDT’s legislative advocacy and litigation work pertaining to intermediary liability law and constitutional protections for online speech and speakers. She also represents CDT on a variety of intergovernmental and industry advisory councils.
As counsel for NetChoice, Chris Marchese analyzes technology-related legislative and regulatory issues at both the federal and state level. His portfolio includes monitoring and analyzing proposals to amend Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, antitrust enforcement, and potential barriers to free speech and free enterprise on the internet. Before joining NetChoice in 2019, Chris worked as a law clerk at the U.S. Chamber Litigation Center.
Ron Yokubaitis was a high-technology visionary before most of us knew what that meant. A native Texan, Ron has held a lifelong passion for electronics and communications — first fueled by obtaining a ham radio license more than 40 years ago. Yokubaitis has co-founded multiple internet-related businesses, including Texas.net, Inc., Giganews, Inc., Data Foundry, Inc. and Golden Frog, Inc. Prior to Texas.net, Ron practiced law in Houston and Austin.
John Verdi is senior vice president of policy at the Future of Privacy Forum, a global think tank based in Washington D.C. John supervises FPF’s policy portfolio, which includes data protection issues ranging from ad tech and AI to legislative analysis and youth privacy. John was previously director of privacy initiatives at the National Telecommunications and Information Administration and general counsel at the Electronic Privacy Information Center.
Alan Butler is Executive Director and President of the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington, D.C. Alan has argued privacy and open government cases in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, the Third Circuit, and the Supreme Courts of New Mexico and New Jersey and has authored briefs on a wide range national security, open government, and data privacy issues. Mr. Butler is also Chair of the Privacy and Information Protection Committee of the ABA Section on Civil Rights and Social Justice.
Sara Collins is a Senior Policy Counsel at Public Knowledge, specializing in data protection and consumer privacy. She also provides government affairs support on a range of issues like regulating algorithms, protecting local journalism and copyright. She currently serves as an advisory board member for the Future of Privacy Forum and a governing board member for the D.C. Abortion Fund.
India McKinney is director of federal affairs at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, where she fights for consumer privacy and robust surveillance oversight. Prior to joining EFF, she spent over 10 years in Washington D.C. as a legislative staffer. Her work there primarily focused on the appropriations process, specifically analyzing and funding programs in the Departments of Veterans Affairs, Homeland Security and Justice.
Carl Szabo is vice president and general counsel for NetChoice, where he analyzes, advocates and testifies on tech-related legislative and regulatory initiatives relevant to online companies. Szabo is also an adjunct professor of privacy and internet law at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School. Before joining NetChoice, Szabo was an intellectual property attorney at the lawfirm of Wildman, Harrold, Allen & Dixon where he advised clients on privacy, Internet, e-commerce, and contractual matters.
Shane Tews is a nonresident senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, where she focuses on cybersecurity issues, including privacy and data protection, the Internet of Things, international internet governance, digital economic policy, information and communications technology, artificial intelligence and the metaverse, emerging technologies and more. She is also president of Logan Circle Strategies, a strategic advisory firm.
Sara Morrison is a senior reporter at Vox's Recode, where she covers data privacy, antitrust, and Big Tech’s power over us all. Also, TikTok. She previously wrote about technology’s impact on the world for Vocativ, and her work has also appeared in the Atlantic, Jezebel, Nieman Reports, and Columbia Journalism Review, among others.
Christine Bannan is the U.S. public policy manager for Proton, a privacy-focused company that provides easy-to-use encrypted email, calendar, file storage, and VPN built on the principle of your data, your rules. Proton Mail is the world's largest end-to-end encrypted email service. She was previously policy counsel at the Open Technology Institute and consumer protection counsel at the Electronic Privacy Information Center.
Sacha Haworth is the executive director of the Tech Oversight Project, a nonprofit that advocates for comprehensive antitrust legislation. She is a veteran of political campaigns all over the country and has worked at the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, House Majority PAC and on Capitol Hill. During the 2020 presidential election, Sacha ran the paid media program for American Bridge 21st Century, which used targeted television, radio, digital and mail to persuade former Trump voters in rural areas.
Cheyenne Hunt-Majer is a progressive advocate and attorney specializing in the issues at the intersection of democratic erosion, technology policy, and human rights. She currently serves as a Big Tech Accountability Advocate with Public Citizen. She has drafted legislation and led campaigns to hold tech giants accountable for their role in undermining democratic norms, promoting misinformation, inciting violence, and exploiting user privacy.
Adam Kovacevich is the founder and CEO of Chamber of Progress, a new center-left tech industry policy coalition promoting technology’s progressive future. Adam is a veteran Democratic tech industry leader and expert in helping lead technology companies through today's challenging political environment. He was named a “Tech Titan” by Washingtonian magazine and an “Antitrust Super Influencer” by Baron Public Affairs.
Berin Szóka serves as president of TechFreedom. Previously, he was a senior fellow and the director of the Center for Internet Freedom at The Progress & Freedom Foundation. Before joining PFF, he was an Associate in the Communications Practice Group at Latham & Watkins LLP, where he advised clients on regulations affecting the Internet and telecommunications industries.
