The Munk School’s Ron Deibert and Ron Pruessen were part of a four-person panel at a January 20, 2015 public forum hosted by the London School of Economics. The event, co-sponsored by the Munk School, was designed to explore varying perspectives on the controversies prompted by Edward Snowden’s dramatic release of formerly secret U.S. National Security Agency files. Even while Snowden continues to withhold a significant number of additional documents, those already made public have been sufficient to spark outrage and intensive debate about the scale of U.S., United Kingdom, Canadian and other government surveillance programs. (Consider the reactions of Apple and Google, for example, or the angry responses in Germany and Brazil about the NSA’s capturing of Angela Merkel’s and Dilma Roussef’s cell phone conversations.)
Other panelists on January 20 included:
Sir David Ormand: former director of the United Kingdom’s Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) from 1996 to 1997, he went on to serve as Permanent Secretary at the Home Office and the first Permanent Secretary and Security and Intelligence Co-ordinator in the Cabinet Office.
Gus Hosein: Executive Director of London-based Privacy International. Privacy International investigates government surveillance programs as well as the companies enabling them. It litigates to ensure that surveillance is consistent with the rule of law while simultaneously advocating for strong national, regional, and international laws that protect privacy.
The podcast of the public forum can be accessed here.
Ron Deibert’s opening remarks were drawn from a recent Current History article, The Geopolitics of Cyberspace after Snowden
Ron Pruessen’s opening remarks can be read here.
