Ahmed Ghappour
Ahmed Ghappour (born May 5), an expert in criminal law and computer security, joined the full-time faculty of Boston University School of Law in 2017. His research uses computer science and the law to address challenges fromby new technologies in the administration of criminal justice and national security. Ghappour's research and teaching interests stem from his experience litigating complex computer crime and national security cases. He was previously a Visiting Assistant Professor at U.C. Hastings College of the Law where he taught Criminal Procedure and a seminar on Electronic Surveillance. At Hastings, he founded the school 's Liberty, Security & Technology Clinic, which provided legal services to criminal defendants in espionage and computer crime cases. Prior to Hastings, he taught the National Security Clinic at the University of Texas School of Law, represented Guantanamo detainees in their "habeas corpus" proceedings at Reprieve UK, and worked as a patent litigator at Orrick Herrington and Sutcliffe LLP. Formerly, Ghappour was a computer engineer focused on automation, diagnostics, distributed systems architecture and high performance computing. Early life and education. From 1997 to 2001, Ghappour attended Rutgers the State University of New Jersey New Brunswick Campus, where he majored in Computer  Engineering. While in college, he worked as a design automation engineer for Anadigics, a provider of semiconductor products to the broadband wireless and wireline communications markets. Upon graduation, he became a diagnostic engineer at Silicon Graphics, an American manufacturer of high-performance computing hardware and software. At SGI, he worked on the Altix 3000, the world's most scalable Linux-based supercomputer at the time of its release. From 2004 to 2007, Ghappour attended New York University School of Law as a Dean's Merit Scholar. He started his law career as patent litigation attorney at the international law firm  Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe. Select Cases. United States v. Brown (N.D. Tx.) – Ghappour was lead counsel for Barrett Brown on an assortment of 17 charges filed in three indictments that include sharing an http link to information publicly released during the 2012 Stratfor email leak, and several counts of conspiring to publicize restricted information about an FBI agent. Ghappour filed several motions to dismiss the government's charges. The government responded by dismissing 11 charges on March 5, 2014. United States v. Moalin, et al. (S.D. Ca.) – Ghappour was lead trial counsel for Issa Doreh, a Somali American charged with conspiracy  to provide material support to terrorism for sending approximately $8,500 to al-Shabaab. The case attracted notoriety as the first criminal case to challenge bulk metadata collection (under Section 215 of the PATRIOT ACT), after Global surveillance disclosures by Edward Snowden. Guantánamo detainees. In 2008 Ghappour joined the British non-profit Reprieve, as staff attorney. He volunteered his services to detainees held as enemy combatants at Guantanamo Bay; he has assisted in filing "habeas corpus" petitions and lawsuits on behalf of detainees. His clients have included Binyam Mohammed, Mohammed el Gharani, Adel al-Gazzar and Hisham Sliti. In 2009 , Ghappour along with Reprieve founder Clive Stafford Smith faced the possibility of being found in contempt of court because of a letter they sent to President Barack Obama explaining allegations of torture by US agents of their mutual client Binyam Mohamed.