TechFreedom is pleased to announce that James E. Dunstan has joined TechFreedom as its first General Counsel. Jim has served as a Senior Adjunct Fellow at TechFreedom since its inception, and has more than 35 years of private practice experience in a technology-focused practice, including telecommunications, media, computer game, and outer space law.

“We’re proud to have Jim joining us,” said TechFreedom President Berin Szóka. “I’ve known Jim for over a dozen years and we have collaborated on numerous projects. I think he’s a perfect fit for TechFreedom. His deep experience on legal issues related to disruptive technologies, combined with his experience in law firm management, puts us in an even better position to be ‘Lawyers for the Future.’”

“Having watched TechFreedom grow over the past eight years, I’m thrilled to take on the role of General Counsel,” said Dunstan. “As a legal practitioner, I’ve had the opportunity to craft technology policy indirectly, but now I get to focus on shaping the future of tech policy much more directly. I can’t imagine a more exciting work professional opportunity — at least, here on Earth.”

Jim’s career has revolved around disruptive technologies and federal regulators. For example:

  • He was on the team that won the first cellular telephone license in 1984 for MCI.
  • He wrote the end user license agreement (EULA) for MCIMail, the first commercial electronic mail system.
  • In 1989 he contributed to and edited the proceedings of one of the first industry-wide workshops to address how the commercial Internet would develop and be governed.
  • Just prior to the first Gulf War, he assisted his client in obtaining experimental licenses for jamming equipment that was instrumental in keeping Saddam Hussein’s front line forces from relaying back to Baghdad the advance of Gen. Schwarzkopf’s tanks into Iraqi territory.
  • Jim has assisted a number of massively multiplayer online role playing game (MMORPG) developers create EULAs and Terms of Service, helping create entirely new online legal ecosystems, while assisting game producers in interpreting complex legal regimes such as Section 230 and the FTC’s Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA).
  • Jim successfully litigated the first “virtual property” case for a computer game client.
  • Jim has always been active in media and privacy issues. He was part of the team that challenged the FCC’s Fairness Doctrine in the Syracuse Peace Council litigation in the late 1980s.
  • He has helped both broadcasters and program producers navigate the complex Children’s Television Rules.
  • A well-known international space lawyer, Jim wrote and negotiated the commercial lease for the Mir space station, the first time the rights to operate a manned space station were transferred.
  • He co-headed the policy team in 2016 under an Air Force contract to scope out the regulatory changes needed to catalyze Ultra Low Cost Access to Space (ULCATS).
  • Last year, in his capacity as a TechFreedom Senior Adjunct Fellow, he testified before the Senate Space Subcommittee on the impact of Article VI of the Outer Space Treaty on innovative commercial space activities such as on-orbit satellite servicing and asteroid mining.

Jim was the 1978 Harry S. Truman Scholar from Arizona, is a graduate of Claremont McKenna College (1980), and the Georgetown University Law Center (1983). He will split time between TechFreedom and his own practice at Mobius Legal Group, PLLC.

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We can be reached for comment at media@techfreedom.org. See Dunstan’s prior work with TechFreedom, including:

  • Part one, part two, and part three of his space law series on the Tech Policy Podcast
  • His work on Congress’s efforts to update and reform laws governing innovative activities in space
  • His op-ed, co-authored with Szóka, “How the US Can Lead the Way to Extraterrestrial Land Deals”
  • His op-ed, co-authored with Szóka, “Space Law: Is Asteroid Mining Legal?”

 

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