National Security Fellow
Ms. Kephart recently returned from a Special Counsel position with the Senate Judiciary Committee, where she advised and supported Senator Jeff Sessions' (R-AL) work during the committee's consideration of immigration legislation.
Ms. Kephart is an internationally recognized border and ID security expert, who served as counsel to the 9/11 Commission and was a key author of the Staff Monograph, 9/11 and Terrorist Travel as well as the immigration-related facts and recommendations in the 9/11 Commission Report.
Prior to 9/11, she was responsible for conducting factual investigations into counter-terrorism issues and conducting oversight of the Immigration and Naturalization Service (before the creation of the Department of Homeland Security) as a counsel to the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Technology and Terrorism, including drafting and passage of the federal identity theft statute used by US attorneys to prosecute identity thieves and support victims. She also put together the only Congressional hearing and record focusing on the foreign terrorist threat on our homeland prior to 9/11. More recently, she took a leave of absence to serve as a Special Counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee for the purpose of working on the Gang of Eight immigration bill.
Her focus as a CIS Fellow is on assuring implementation of 9/11 Commission border recommendations, as her extensive work on the REAL ID Act demonstrates. Ms. Kephart speaks regularly at conferences, to international media, publishes articles and opeds around the world, and has testified before Congress 15 times on issues of border and ID security. She attended Duke University and Villanova Law School. Ms. Kephart has been featured by Duke University as one of the most influential alums of the 1980s.
Ms. Kephart is the host of "The Homeland Security Show with Janice Kephart" on VIPInternetRadio.com at 7pm EST on Mondays. The show is archived every week for convenient listening.
