BU Law Welcomes Associate Professor Ahmed Ghappour to Full-Time Faculty
An expert in criminal law and computer security, Ghappour teaches Criminal Law, Cybersecurity Law, and a seminar on Security and Technology Law.
Ahmed Ghappour, an expert in criminal law and computer security, joined the full-time faculty of Boston University School of Law as an associate professor of law on July 1. He teaches Criminal Law, Cybersecurity Law, and a seminar on Security and Technology Law. Ghappour joins the school after serving as visiting assistant professor at UC Hastings College of the Law where he taught Criminal Procedure and a seminar on Electronic Surveillance.
Professor Ghappour’s research bridges computer science and the law to address contemporary challenges wrought by new technologies in the administration of criminal justice and national security. His recent article, Searching Places Unknown: Law Enforcement Jurisdiction on the Dark Web, examines the foreign relations and national security implications of government hacking operations that use malware to pursue criminal suspects that use sophisticated cryptographic tools to anonymize their communications on the “dark web.” The article was competitively selected for presentation at the New Voices in National Security Law session of the 2017 American Association of Law Schools Annual Meeting, and the New Voices in International Law session of the 2017 American Society of International Law Annual Meeting.
Ghappour’s research and teaching interests stem from his experience litigating complex computer crime and national security cases. At UC Hastings, he founded the school’s Liberty, Security & Technology Clinic, which provided legal services to criminal defendants in espionage and computer crime cases. Prior to UC Hastings, he taught the National Security Clinic at the University of Texas School of Law, represented Guantanamo detainees in their habeas corpus proceedings at Reprieve UK, and worked as a patent litigator at Orrick Herrington and Sutcliffe LLP. Formerly, Ghappour was a computer engineer focused on automation, diagnostics, distributed systems architecture and high performance computing.