News & Commentary written by Esha Bhandari

Esha Bhandari is deputy director of the ACLU Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project, where she works on litigation and advocacy to protect freedom of expression and privacy rights in the digital age. She also focuses on the impact of big data and artificial intelligence on civil liberties. She has litigated cases including Sandvig v. Barr, a First Amendment challenge to the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act on behalf of researchers who test for housing and employment discrimination online, Alasaad v. Wolf, a constitutional challenge to suspicionless electronic device searches at the U.S. border, and Guan v. Mayorkas, a First Amendment case on behalf of journalists questioned about their work by border officers. She argued United States v. Hansen, a First Amendment case, before the Supreme Court.

Esha was previously an Equal Justice Works fellow with the ACLU Immigrants’ Rights Project, where she litigated cases concerning a right to counsel in immigration proceedings and immigration detainer policies. Esha is a graduate of McGill University, where she was a Loran Scholar and received the Allen Oliver Gold Medal in Political Science, the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, and Columbia Law School, where she received the Robert Noxon Toppan Prize in Constitutional Law and the Archie O. Dawson Prize for Advocacy. She served as a law clerk to the Hon. Amalya L. Kearse of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Esha is also an Adjunct Professor of Clinical Law at New York University School of Law, where she co-teaches the Technology, Law, and Policy Clinic.