Lizzie O’Shea

Lizzie O’Shea is a founder and the chair of Digital Rights Watch, which advocates for human rights online. O’Shea also sits on the board of Blueprint for Free Speech and the Alliance for Gambling Reform. At the National Justice Project, she worked with lawyers, journalists and activists to establish a Copwatch program, for which she was a recipient of the Davis Projects for Peace Prize. In June 2019,  O’Shea was named a Human Rights Hero by Access Now.

As a lawyer, O’Shea spent many years working in public interest litigation, on cases brought on behalf of refugees and activists, among others. She was proud to represent the Fertility Control Clinic in their battle to stop harassment of their staff and patients, as well as the Traditional Aboriginal Owners of Muckaty Station, in their successful attempt to stop a nuclear waste dump being built on their land.

O’Shea’s book, Future Histories (Verso, 2019), looks at radical social movements and theorists from history and applies them to debates we have about digital technology today. It was shortlisted for the Premier’s Literary Award.