Washington, DC (Sept. 13, 2022) – NACDL’s Fourth Amendment Center welcomes two new additions to the team: Senior Litigator Sidney Thaxter and Training and Resource Counsel Clare Garvie. They bring their expertise to the Center, which offers direct assistance to defense lawyers handling cases involving new technologies and tactics that infringe on privacy rights. The expert staff focuses on constantly evolving Fourth Amendment concerns including: electronic location tracking, government hacking, and law enforcement technology, such as predictive policing and facial recognition.
Sidney Thaxter serves as a Senior Litigator for the Fourth Amendment Center at NACDL, where his work centers on new and emerging electronic surveillance including location tracking, communication interception, device searches, government hacking, biometric identification, and data collection. Previously, Sidney was the head of the Digital Forensic Practice at the Bronx Defenders where he advised attorneys on social media, device extraction and analysis, GPS evidence, cell site analysis, phone and IP records, electronic search warrants, and eavesdropping warrants, among other things. He also served as a Staff Attorney, handling all levels of cases from misdemeanors to homicides, the Attorney Supervisor of the Investigation Practice, and a member of the Homicide Practice Group and the Forensic Practice Group. Sidney holds a J.D. from CUNY School of Law. While at CUNY Law, Sidney was the recipient of the Charles H. Revson Public Interest Fellowship and a member of the Suspension Representation Project and the National Lawyer’s Guild police misconduct project. As a student attorney with the CUNY Adult Defender Clinic, Sidney represented clients charged with misdemeanor offenses in Queens. Sidney was an intern with the Bronx Defenders, the Legal Aid Society, and Fisher Byrialsen & Kreizer, a private criminal law and civil rights firm. Prior to law school, Sidney was an investigator for the Legal Aid Society in Manhattan.
Training and Resource Counsel Clare Garvie is a privacy attorney whose work focuses on the intersection between new technologies and civil and due process rights. Prior to joining NACDL, Clare was a Senior Associate with the Center on Privacy & Technology, a think tank at Georgetown Law. She was the lead researcher and author on several of the Center’s reports on police use of face recognition, including: The Perpetual Line-Up: Unregulated Police Face Recognition in Americain 2016; Garbage In, Garbage Out: Face Recognition on Flawed Dataand America Under Watch: Face Surveillance in the United Statesin 2019, and A Forensic Without the Science: Face Recognition in U.S. Criminal Investigations in 2022. She has testified before the House Oversight Committee and state legislatures and worked with legislators on both sides of the aisle on privacy legislation. Her commentary has appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal. She holds a J.D. from Georgetown Law and a B.A from Barnard College in Political Science, Human Rights, and Psychology.
The Center is available to provide consultations and litigation resources as well as direct assistance in support of a defendant’s Fourth Amendment claims. Specifically, the Center may assist in motion practice, preparation for suppression hearings, appellate strategy, brief writing, and oral argument. The Center also provides group training for defense lawyers around the country. To request assistance or additional information, contact 4AC@nacdl.org.
A high-resolution picture of Sidney Thaxter is available for download here.
A high-resolution picture of Clare Garvie is available for download here.
