Professor Laura Donohue Wins 2016 Palmer Civil Liberties Prize

Georgetown Law Professor Laura K. Donohue has won the Chicago-Kent College of Law’s Roy C. Palmer Civil Liberties Prize for her book The Future of Foreign Intelligence: Privacy and Surveillance in the Digital Age (Oxford University Press, 2016). The Palmer Prize honors exemplary works of scholarship exploring the tension between civil liberties and national security in contemporary American society.

Professor Laura Donohue

“We are pleased that the legal community is honoring Laura’s work with this important award,” said Georgetown Law Dean William M. Treanor. “Through her teaching innovations, such as Georgetown Law’s National Security Crisis Law Invitational simulation course, and through her pathbreaking scholarship, such as The Future of Foreign Intelligence, she is helping students, attorneys, distinguished scholars and government leaders alike grapple with the question of how to protect national security in the digital age, while at the same time guarding the rights and freedoms guaranteed to all Americans.”

Donohue, a director of the Center on National Security and the Law at Georgetown Law as well as a director of the school’s Center on Privacy and Technology, focuses her scholarship on constitutional law, legal history, emerging technologies, and national security law. Her winning book chronicles how the Fourth Amendment right to privacy has been weakened by mass government surveillance programs following the 9/11 attacks and offers solutions to rein in the reach of the national security state.

Donohue obtained her A.B. in Philosophy (with Honors) from Dartmouth College; her M.A. in Peace Studies (with Distinction) from the University of Ulster, Northern Ireland; her J.D. (with Distinction) from Stanford Law School; and her Ph.D. in History from the University of Cambridge, England.

She shares the 2016 Palmer Prize with Jennifer Stisa Granick of Stanford Law School, author of American Spies: Modern Surveillance, Why You Should Care, and What to Do About It (Cambridge University Press, forthcoming 2017). Both winners will present their books at Chicago-Kent.

For more information on the Palmer Prize, view the announcement here.