Jamil N. Jaffer is currently Vice President for Strategy & Business Development at IronNet Cybersecurity, a startup technology firm founded by former National Security Agency (NSA) Director Gen. Keith Alexander (ret.) and former National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) Director Matt Olsen. Jamil also currently serves as an Adjunct Professor of Law and Director of the Homeland and National Security Law Program at the George Mason University School of Law where he teaches classes on counterterrorism, intelligence, surveillance, cybersecurity, and other national security matters. Jamil is also affiliated with Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC).
Jamil most recently served as the Chief Counsel and Senior Advisor for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (SFRC), where he worked on key national security and foreign policy issues, including leading the drafting of the proposed Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) against ISIS in 2014 and 2015, the AUMF against Syria in 2013, and revisions to the 9/11 AUMF against al Qaeda. Jamil was also the lead architect of the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act (INARA) and two sanctions laws against Russia for its intervention in Ukraine.
Prior to joining SFRC, Jamil served as Senior Counsel to the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence of the U.S. House of Representatives (HPSCI) where he led the committee’s oversight of NSA surveillance and intelligence community-wide counterterrorism matters. Jamil was also the lead architect of the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA), the initial version of the cybersecurity information sharing legislation recently signed into law.
In the Bush Administration, Jamil served in the White House as an Associate Counsel to the President, handling Defense Department, State Department, and Intelligence Community matters, and at the Justice Department as Counsel to the Assistant Attorney General for National Security, where he focused on counterterrorism and intelligence matters. Jamil also served in other positions in the Justice Department, including in the Office of Legal Policy where we worked on the confirmations of Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr. and Justice Samuel A. Alito to the United States Supreme Court. At the National Security Division, Jamil was one of the primary brief writers on In re: Directives, the first ever two-party litigated matter in the FISA Court and only the second case before the FISA Court of Review in its 30-year history. Jamil also led the National Security Division’s efforts on the President’s Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative (CNCI).
Jamil has also served as a lawyer in private practice at Kellogg Huber, a Washington, DC-based litigation boutique, as a law clerk to Judges Edith H. Jones and Neil M. Gorsuch of the United States Courts of Appeals for the Fifth and Tenth Circuits, respectively, as a policy advisor to Congressman Bob Goodlatte (R-VA), and as a staff member or senior advisor on a number of political campaigns. While in law school, Jamil was a member of the University of Chicago Law Review, managing editor of the Chicago Journal of International Law, and National Symposium Editor of the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy.
Jamil has published multiple op-eds and academic articles on foreign policy, counterterrorism, cybersecurity, encryption, and intelligence matters and is the co-author of a recent book chapter with former CIA Director Gen. Mike Hayden on ISIS, al Qaeda, and other international terrorist groups in CHOOSING TO LEAD: AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY FOR A DISORDERED WORLD (2015), a book chapter on surveillance in the ABA’s LAW OF COUNTERTERRORISM (2011), and a recent op-ed in the Wall Street Journal on counterterrorism surveillance with former Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey (Nov. 23, 2015). Jamil has previously taught at the George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs and at the National Intelligence University. Jamil has also testified before committees of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives on counterterrorism and national security matters and has recently appeared on national television, National Public Radio, and in various print and online publications on a range of national security matters including counterterrorism, surveillance, encryption, cybersecurity, and foreign policy matters.
Jamil holds degrees from UCLA (B.A., cum laude), the University of Chicago Law School (J.D., with honors), and the United States Naval War College (M.A., with distinction).
