IP: EFF appoints Barry Steinhardt as new President and CEO

[Dave Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>]

For Immediate Release


EFF Announces Appointment of Barry Steinhardt as President and CEO,
and Election of Lori Fena as Chairman


SAN FRANCISCO, January 12, 1998 -- The Electronic Frontier Foundation
(EFF) today announced that its Board of Directors has appointed Barry
Steinhardt to President and Chief Executive Officer. Steinhardt is
currently the Associate Director of the American Civil Liberties Union.
The appointment was made at an EFF Board meeting held today in San
Francisco.


He replaces Lori Fena, who has been elected Chairman of the Board of EFF.
Resigning Chairman Esther Dyson remains an active, enthusiastic member of
the Board.


"We are very pleased to appoint Barry Steinhardt as our new President,"
said Esther Dyson, former Chairman of the EFF Board of Directors.
"Steinhardt has a wealth of experience with both our issues and the
operation of non-profit organizations."


"Barry's background is exactly what we were looking for," Dyson continued.
"We expect him to be able to help us continue to build EFF as a premier
organization that can take on the daunting challenge of defending and
defining civil liberties and structures to protect them in the electronic
world."


As Associate Director of the ACLU, Steinhardt formed and chaired its
Cyber-liberties Task Force, which coordinates the ACLU's extensive program
on information technology issues. He was a co-founder of the Global
Internet Liberty Campaign (GILC), the world's first international
coalition of on-line rights groups and one of the originators of the
Internet Free Expression Alliance (IFEA), which was recently formed to
monitor issues related to Internet content rating and filtering.
Steinhardt has spoken and written widely on cyber-liberties issues.


Most recently he was the co-author of  "Fahrenheit 451.2 - Is Cyberspace
Burning?", the ACLU White paper on Internet content rating and blocking.
He is currently at work on the ACLU handbook on "The Rights of Persons
On-line."


In addition to his cyber-liberties work, Steinhardt has coordinated the
ACLU policy development process and efforts to strengthen structure and
management of the ACLU's 53 state affiliates. He has been with the ACLU
for 17 years and previously served as Executive Director of its
Pennsylvania and Vermont affiliates.


"This is a tremendous opportunity for Barry, who has shown talent and
imagination in the cyber-liberties arena," said ACLU Executive Director
Ira Glasser.  "It is also an opportunity for the ACLU to work even more
closely than we have with EFF on many issues where we share common goals
and values."


Steinhardt succeeds outgoing EFF Executive Director Lori Fena, who will
become Chairman of EFF's Board of Directors, and will resume her career in
private industry as a venture investment advisor and consultant.




"Lori Fena has done a superb job of building EFF over the past two years,"
Dyson said. "She demonstrated great vision in her stewardship of TRUSTe
and a host of other projects and is an excellent choice as incoming
Chairman.  The Board of Directors is very grateful for her leadership and
looks forward to working with Lori in her new capacity," Dyson concluded.




- more -


page 2
EFF appointment


Fena noted that EFF and ACLU have a long history of cooperative action
that has ranged from the successful challenge to the Communications
Decency Act in the 1997 Supreme Court decision in Reno v. ACLU, to ongoing
efforts to promote the privacy of communications through the use of strong
encryption.


Most recently, the two organizations joined together to support
legislation to remove the restrictions on the use of encryption.  They
also have cooperated in Bernstein v. Department of State, in which EFF is
challenging the constitutionality of the US Government's restrictions on
the export of encryption technology. Fena further noted that EFF and ACLU
have been regular coalition partners, including common membership in the
GILC and IFEA coalitions.


"Hiring Barry is a natural step for EFF," Fena said. "It will strengthen
the bond between two dedicated civil liberties organizations. We expect
the two groups to work together even more closely to leverage our
respective strengths to protect free speech and privacy in the information
age."


Steinhardt said he is "grateful for the opportunity to play a leadership
role in the next phase of EFF's development."


"EFF was the pioneer defender of the rights of on-line users," he
continued. "With the explosive growth of the Internet and other
information technologies, the need for a strong and vibrant EFF is greater
than ever."


Steinhardt said that he expected to concentrate his efforts on expanding
EFF's membership and financial resources, maximizing EFF's already strong
public presence, organizing grassroots support for cyber rights, enlarging
EFF's role in the global movement for on-line rights and providing support
for EFF's pioneering work to adapt traditional concepts of civil liberties
for new mediums.


Steinhardt will formally assume his new role on February 2.


The Electronic Frontier Foundation (http://www.eff.org/) is a non-profit
civil liberties organization working in the public interest to promote
privacy, free expression, and social responsibility in new media.


For further information please contact:


Barry Steinhardt
barrys () aclu org
(212)549-2508


Lori Fena
lori () eff org
(415)436-9333


Esther Dyson
edyson () edventure com
(212)924-8800


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