Matthew L. Conaty

Matthew L. Conaty is a legal historian of science, technology, and the administrative state. Currently a Ph.D. candidate (ABD) at The Annenberg School for Communication, Conaty researches crisis and disaster communications technology, such as the Emergency Alert System (“EAS”), and emerging legal threats posed by data brokers like Palantir.

His dissertation project, “‘All Normal Broadcasting Has Been Discontinued’: The Past, Present, and Future of Emergency Alerting in the United States,” draws on archival research, semi-structured interviews, and a close reading of key federal and state statutes, regulations, and policy documents in considering EAS’s resiliency in an age of climate crisis, nuclear tension, and infrastructural failure. Across his work, Conaty seeks to draw a throughline between the continuity-of-government planning, wartime executive authority, and the risks undergirding the privatization of disaster-focused sociotechnical systems, with an eye towards the precarity and preciousness of human life. 

As a former civil servant, Conaty is broadly concerned with expression by the United States administrative state in times of crisis and democratic backsliding. He previously worked at Cahill Gordon & Reindel LLP, where he counseled broadcast, cable, and telecommunications clients on transactional, litigation, and regulatory compliance matters, including advocacy before the Federal Communication Commission, the Federal Trade Commission, and state public utility commissions. He proudly served as Chief Counsel to Voice of America (VOA), a once 1,000-employee global media network reaching 235 million people worldwide, and Head of Litigation for the 3,500-employee United States Agency for Global Media; as part of this work, he led comprehensive agency-wide internal investigations on issues of bribery, misuse of social media, broadcast standards violations, and malfeasance. He also provided daily counsel to VOA editorial staff and journalists on defamation claims, disinformation campaigns, intellectual property, content syndication, journalistic ethics, pre-broadcast review, and visa/non-citizen employment issues. Before VOA, Conaty served as Chief of the Spectrum Enforcement Division at the Federal Communications Commission and an Assistant United States Attorney for the District of Arizona.

Affiliated with the Center for Media at Risk, Conaty regularly provides pro-bono legal counsel for academics encountering research-related challenges with the First Amendment and the U.S. Freedom of Information Act. His work has been supported by the Aspen Institute, the Oxford Media Policy Summer Institute, the Pacific Telecommunications Council, and the American Academy of Political and Social Science, among others. His words and writings have been published by the Rutgers Law Review, and The Federal Communication Law Journal as well as more public-facing outlets, such as The Atlantic and All Things Considered.