Cybersecurity & Tech

Lawfare Daily: David Kris on Data Proxies for Clients of Cloud Service Providers

Alan Z. Rozenshtein, David Kris, Jen Patja
Tuesday, October 29, 2024, 8:00 AM
What benefit could a "data proxy" provide to an organization?

Published by The Lawfare Institute
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Alan Rozenshtein, Associate Professor at the University of Minnesota Law School and Senior Editor at Lawfare, sits down with David Kris, founder of Culper Partners and the former Assistant Attorney General for National Security in the Obama administration, to talk about a new paper that David has published as part of Lawfare's ongoing Digital Social Contract series, entitled "A Data Proxy for Clients of Cloud Service Providers.”

Kris argues that cloud storage offers significant benefits for security and efficiency, but many organizations may be hesitant to adopt it due to the risk of secret disclosure: the practice by which law enforcement can compel cloud service providers to turn over customer data while legally prohibiting them from notifying the customer. To address this concern, Kris proposes the appointment of a "data proxy," a highly trusted individual (like a retired federal judge) who would be contractually authorized to represent the organization's interests when it cannot represent itself due to a nondisclosure order.

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Alan Z. Rozenshtein is an Associate Professor of Law at the University of Minnesota Law School, Research Director and Senior Editor at Lawfare, a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, and a Term Member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Previously, he served as an Attorney Advisor with the Office of Law and Policy in the National Security Division of the U.S. Department of Justice and a Special Assistant United States Attorney in the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Maryland.
David Kris is a founder of Culper Partners, with more than 30 years of experience in the private sector, government, and academia. He has been a corporate director, general counsel, deputy general counsel, and chief compliance officer; assistant attorney general for national security, associate deputy attorney general, and a trial attorney at the Justice Department. He serves on advisory boards for several government agencies and as a FISA Court amicus curiae. He is the author or co-author of several works on national security and teaches national security law. He is a member of the board of directors of Lawfare.
Jen Patja is the editor and producer of the Lawfare Podcast and Rational Security. She currently serves as the Co-Executive Director of Virginia Civics, a nonprofit organization that empowers the next generation of leaders in Virginia by promoting constitutional literacy, critical thinking, and civic engagement. She is the former Deputy Director of the Robert H. Smith Center for the Constitution at James Madison's Montpelier and has been a freelance editor for over 20 years.

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