Maureen Webb

Author of Coding Democracy: How Hackers Are Disrupting Power, Surveillance and Authoritarianism. Published in 2020 by MIT Press, the book made Wired magazine’s “Must Read” list that year, and it continues to draw interest internationally

Maureen Webb is the author of Coding Democracy: How Hackers Are Disrupting Power, Surveillance and Authoritarianism. Published in 2020 by MIT Press, the book made Wired magazine’s “Must Read” list that year, and it continues to draw interest internationally.

She has been invited to speak at Chatham House, Virtual Futures, the Oxford Literary Festival, the London Front Line Club, UBC’s Blockchain centre, the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, the World Affairs Council of California, Gray Area in San Francisco, Theater Neumarkt in Switzerland, the Toronto International Festival of Authors, and for a podcast affiliated with the Tokyo Institute of Technology, among many venues. Also author of Illusions of Security: Global Surveillance and Democracy in the Post 9-11 World published by City Lights, her work has been praised by voices as diverse as Arnoldo Garcia, Craig Newmark, Randi Weingarten, Mark Danner, David Cole, Jeremy Waldron, and Cory Doctorow. A practising labour and constitutional lawyer in Canada for many years, Maureen has litigated important Charter of Rights cases, served on the boards of civil liberties organizations, and testified before Parliamentary committees. An article she wrote on the Canadian Anti-terrorism Act was cited extensively in the trial judgment in R. v. Khawaja, striking down parts of the Act.