In this role, she frequently contributed to BBC Radio 4 and various newspapers, and was described in The Times as "probably the most effective public affairs lobbyist of the past 20 years".

As director, she campaigned against what the pressure group saw as the "excessive" anti-terrorist measures that followed the September 11 attacks in the United States, such as the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001 (ATCSA).

[9] Chakrabarti is a frequent contributor to BBC Radio and TV and various newspapers on the topic of human rights and civil liberties.

The Times reported her as saying that she believed the action of Scotland Yard's anti-terror squad "raises very serious questions about just how politicised, even McCarthyite, this operation was.

Johnny Mercer MP, a retired Army captain, chided Chakrabarti for her "almost child-like understanding of military operations" and for "trying to retrospectively apply European Human Rights Law to the battlefield".

Richard Kemp, a retired Army colonel and commander of the first Task Force Helmand in Afghanistan in 2003, accused Chakrabarti of being "one of [Shiner's] greatest supporters".

She went on to state that she did not think "the decision in question resulted from anything other than a naive assessment, made in good faith, of the democratic reforming ambitions of the dictator's son.

[29] Chakrabarti admitted to feeling "bucketfuls" of embarrassment and shame about the affair and in April 2013 her spokesman confirmed that she had severed all ties with the LSE.

Chakrabarti described her invitation onto the Inquiry as "a daunting privilege" and said it reflected Liberty's "belief in an appropriate balance between personal privacy and media freedom and above all in the Rule of law".

[34] Chakrabarti criticised the Conservative Party for not conducting their own inquiry into Islamophobia, following allegations from Sayeeda Warsi in London's 2016 mayoral election against Sadiq Khan.

[35] The Chakrabarti Inquiry report was published in June 2016 and concluded that Labour was "not overrun by anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, or other forms of racism," but that there was an "occasionally toxic atmosphere".

However, some (including Labour MPs Tom Watson and Wes Streeting) saw this as creating the potential for bias in what should have been an independent inquiry.

[10][43][44] Her son was a former pupil of Dulwich College, a fee-paying private school, leading some to attack her views on education as hypocritical.

[55] She was assessed as one of the 100 most powerful women in the United Kingdom in 2013 by Woman's Hour on BBC Radio 4,[56] and in 2014 she was included in The Sunday Times's "100 Makers of the 21st Century" list.

[97] In November 2015, a settlement was announced of a High Court libel case brought by Martin Hemming, formerly the Legal Adviser to the Ministry of Defence, concerning false allegations made by Chakrabarti.

The publishers apologised for the "hurt and distress caused" by the allegations, confirmed they were "without foundation", and agreed to pay Hemming damages and legal costs.