Meet Bruce Fein, the lawyer representing Edward Snowden's dad
Constitutional lawyer Bruce Fein is an originalist who opposed the Patriot Act and supports the right to be left alone. He is also the pro bono lawyer for Lon Snowden, the father of Edward Snowden.
The Washington Post profiles Fein, 66, in an article that notes his “fashion-resistant” glasses, his “choirboy face” and his “impassioned, fusty and often overwrought prose” that has appeared in a multitude of publications. He served in the Reagan administration’s Justice Department and as general counsel of the Federal Communications Commission at a time of deregulation. According to the story, he is “a classic Washington type—a bit nerdy, self-involved, self-important and very, very smart.”
The Post says Fein has an “obsession with individual rights and due process.” He apparently lives for work. He doesn’t go to parties, doesn’t drink or smoke, and doesn’t own a car. He is “a lone wolf, with an occasional partner and a client base over the years as eclectic as the publications for which he has written.” His clients have ranged from the government of Sudan to a 58-year old grandmother says she was unfairly targeted by a Minnesota city because of her yard signs supporting the Occupy movement.
“Fein remains an outsider,” the Post says, “a legal monk, really, whose monastery, if it existed, would be the Order of the Founding Fathers.”
