Name: Timothy Sparapani
Firm: Facebook
Age: 36
It’s tough to think of a smarter move for Facebook than hiring Sparapani, a master of privacy law who joined the social-networking giant from the American Civil Liberties Union in 2009. Sparapani has devoted his career to protecting personal privacy, which gives him considerable credibility when he tells lawmakers that Facebook is committed to safeguarding its users’ information.
As senior legislative counsel at the ACLU, Sparapani fought against warrantless wiretapping, national ID cards, and racial profiling at airports, among other key privacy issues. He says he learned that he cares about two expressly American values: maximizing freedom of speech and maximizing personal privacy. The ACLU allowed him to advocate for those values for all Americans, but he was attracted to Facebook—which has users all over the world—because it allows him to advocate for people across the globe.
This article appears in the June 2011 issue of The Washingtonian.
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Marisa M. Kashino joined Washingtonian in 2009 and was a senior editor until 2022.
