Location Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States Regions Greater Philadelphia Area, Great Lakes, Northeastern US Gender Male Also Known As George W. Croner
Website www.georgecroner.com/ LinkedIn View on LinkedIn X (Twitter) View on X
George W. Croner is a leading national security lawyer and foreign intelligence commentator with more than four decades of experience in government service and private practice.
From 1988 until his retirement from active legal practice in 2016, Mr. Croner was a shareholder and director in the Kohn firm. He remains ‘Of Counsel’ to the Kohn firm.
In 2018, Mr. Croner was named a Senior Fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI), where he produces research and original writing on matters related to FISA (the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act), signals intelligence, and U.S. intelligence collection abroad. He is a member of FPRI’s National Security Program, which provides timely, nonpartisan analysis around national security and foreign policy questions facing U.S. policymakers, officials, and foreign service members.
George Croner is a frequent contributor to the Lawfare blog, Just Security, the blog of the Center for Ethics and the Rule of Law (CERL) at the University of Pennsylvania, and FPRI’s in-house publications. Since 2016, he has covered:
- Legislative efforts to reauthorize and update Section 702, an often controversial provision, but extremely important, collection program included in FISA - The U.S. Department of Justice’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 elections - Congressional investigations into FISA warrants issued during DOJ’s Russian interference probe - DOJ’s internal investigations into the FISA warrant process - Alleged politicization of DOJ during the Trump administration - Issues around press freedom (and specifically the collection and seizure of journalistic materials) in the age of electronic surveillance - The extent of the government’s use of the surveillance authorities included in FISA - The government’s use of the state secrets privilege to protect against the disclosure of sensitive intelligence and national security matters
Mr. Croner is well-qualified to write on matters of national security law and intelligence collection. He served in the Operations Division of the Office of General Counsel at the National Security Agency (NSA) from 1984 to 1988, where he assisted in the oversight of NSA’s signals intelligence (SIGINT) operations and compliance with FISA while serving as NSA’s principal litigation counsel. He remains a member of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers.
During his time at NSA, Mr. Croner held the U.S. government’s highest security clearance (TS/SCI). As NSA’s principal litigation representative, he represented the agency’s interests in several high-profile espionage prosecutions and a defamation lawsuit (Westmoreland v. CBS) related to press reporting on U.S. intelligence products gathered during the Vietnam War.
Mr. Croner also served as NSA’s designated representative to the White House interagency group tasked with reviewing and declassifying intelligence related to the Iran-Contra investigation. He assisted multiple congressional intelligence committees, the Tower Commission, and the office of Independent Counsel in their parallel investigations into the affair. For this work, he earned a Defense Meritorious Service Medal (DMSM) — his second — and a personal letter of appreciation from President Ronald Reagan.
Though retired from active practice, Mr. Croner remains a member of the bars of the U.S. Supreme Court, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, and the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania. He has an “AV”® rating in the Martindale-Hubbell legal rating system, its highest honor.
George Croner graduated with distinction from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1975. He received his J.D., cum laude, from the University of Pennsylvania Law School in 1980, and subsequently attended the Naval Justice School in Newport, Rhode Island. He served in the Judge Advocate General's Corps of the U.S. Navy from 1981 to 1988, overlapping with his tenure at NSA.
