Berin Szoka serves as President of TechFreedom. Previously, he was a Senior Fellow and the Director of the Center for Internet Freedom at The Progress & Freedom Foundation. Before joining PFF, he was an Associate in the Communications Practice Group at Latham & Watkins LLP, where he advised clients on regulations affecting the Internet and telecommunications industries. Before joining Latham’s Communications Practice Group, Szoka practiced at Lawler Metzger Milkman & Keeney, LLC, a boutique telecommunications law firm in Washington, and clerked for the Hon. H. Dale Cook, Senior U.S. District Judge for the Northern District of Oklahoma. Szoka received his Bachelor’s degree in economics from Duke University and his juris doctor from the University of Virginia School of Law, where he served as Submissions Editor of the Virginia Journal of Law and Technology. He is admitted to practice law in the District of Columbia and California (inactive).
Recent Work
Letter
Section 230 and the American Innovation and Choice Online Act
We write to address Rep. Cicilline’s June 15, 2022, response to your letter of June 14, in whichyou expressed well-founded concerns that the American Innovation and Choice Online Act(AICOA)—specifically Section 3(a)(3)—would be used to subvert or attack contentmoderation. While none of Rep. Cicilline’s[...]
Ari Cohn and Berin Szóka
September 23, 2022
Letter
National Emergencies Act reform in the Fiscal Year 2023 National Defense Authorization Act
Recent revelations make clear that advisors to former President Trump fixated on emergency powers in their quest to overturn the results of the 2020 election. As specious as many of those arguments were, they highlight the dangerous overbreadth of the laws in the United States governing national emergencies.[...]
Berin Szóka
June 15, 2022
Opinion Piece
Florida and Texas’ ‘Free Speech’ Social Media Laws Would Require Sites to Host Mass Shooting Videos
Texas has joined Florida among states with the largest school shootings in American history. Both states are governed by conservatives who insist that the Second Amendment is sacrosanct. But if either state took the First Amendment half as seriously, they wouldn't be attacking[...]
Berin Szóka
May 26, 2022
Letter
Has Congress really thought through its latest antitrust proposals?
Americans should be able to trust that their members of Congress will consider all the implications of the bills they write. On February 2, we wrote the Senate Judiciary Committee two letters warning them that the Open App Markets Act would have serious effects on users’ online[...]