He has testified before numerous congressional committees and speaks frequently before professional, industry, and government groups.
He is a senior policy advisor to Red Barn Strategy and chair of the Ethics, Legal, and Social Issues board of Wellcome Leap.
Cate chaired the National Academy of Sciences Committee on Law Enforcement and Intelligence Access to Plaintext Information in an Era of Widespread Strong Encryption and served as a member of the Committee on Technical and Privacy Dimensions of Information for Terrorism Prevention.
He served as counsel to the Department of Defense Technology and Privacy Advisory Committee, reporter for the third report of the Markle Task Force on National Security in the Information Age, and a member of the Federal Trade Commission's Advisory Committee on Online Access and Security.
[7][8][9] In October 2017, the Oxford University Press published "Bulk Collection: Systematic Government Access to Private-Sector Data,[10]" which was edited and compiled by Cate and Jim Dempsey, executive director of the Berkeley Center for Law & Technology at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law.