PRESS RELEASE: EPIC Celebrates 30th Anniversary, Announces Recipients of its 2024 Champions of Freedom Awards

WASHINGTON, DC – Today the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) announced the awardees it will be honoring at its annual Champions of Freedom Awards ceremony, to be held on September 25th in Washington, DC.

EPIC established the Champions of Freedom Awards in 2004 to honor individuals and organizations that have worked to safeguard the right to privacy, open government, and democratic values with courage and integrity.

The theme of this year’s event is “EPIC 30/50: Looking Back and Looking Forward.” EPIC has championed privacy, opposed mass surveillance, and fought to protect democratic values for decades. As we reflect on 30 years of EPIC’s work, and the 50th Anniversary of the Privacy Act of 1974, we want to both consider what brought us all to this current moment and to chart the course for the decades ahead.

Our Champions of Freedom Awards is EPIC’s opportunity to bring public attention to the important work of public officials and leading experts leading the charge against surveillance capitalism and data abuses. We are thrilled this year to honor three Champions of Freedom, one Privacy Champion, and one Lifetime Achievement Awardee:

Champions of Freedom: Senator Sara Love of Maryland, Representative Maggie O’Neil of Maine, and Representative Monique Priestley of Vermont, three state lawmakers who have shown tremendous leadership in moving forward robust privacy legislation in their respective home states.  

Privacy Champion: Damon Hewitt on behalf of Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law who, under their Digital Justice Initiative, has shown that strong privacy and AI oversight laws are critical in the fight for a fair and just society.  

Lifetime Achievement Awardee (in memoriam): Ross Anderson who was a leading voice in the field of security engineering, a steadfast defender of individual privacy and security, and a beloved member of EPIC’s Advisory Board for over a decade. 

The ceremony will be on Wednesday, September 25th at 8PM EDT at the EPIC Champions of Freedom gala. The awards presentation will also be live-streamed to registrants who cannot attend in person.

We will take this opportunity to reflect on the successful campaigns EPIC has led and the challenges we have faced in our fight against surveillance by governments and big tech platforms alike. We will consider the challenges ahead as we work towards a surveillance free future and an information ecosystem that supports and defends human rights.

More information and registration for the event is available at epic.org/sept25.

If you have any questions about the event, please reach out to [email protected].

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About EPIC  

EPIC was established in 1994 to protect privacy, freedom of expression, and democratic values in the information age. Our mission is to secure the fundamental right to privacy in the digital age for all people through advocacy, research, and litigation. EPIC pursues a wide range of program activities, including litigating cases on emerging privacy issues, obtaining and publishing records to lift the veil on government data collection, providing expert advice to policymakers and lawmakers, and facilitating dialogue between advocates, experts, and decisionmakers. Visit epic.org for more information.