"And This Is It?" - What Went Wrong with Surveillance Reform After Snowden

Presented at The Circle Of HOPE (2018), July 21, 2018, 8 p.m. (60 minutes)

After the passage of the USA Freedom Act, former NSA director Michael Hayden was flabbergasted at the lack of restrictions placed on the NSA. "And this is it after two years? Cool!" What happened? The panel will discuss the failures of the post-Snowden surveillance reform movement and examine the divergences and conflicts between think tanks and grassroots organizations on strategy, tactics, and goals that allowed the surveillance reform sphere to fail to capitalize on the massive public interest in domestic and global spying.


Presenters:

  • Marcy Wheeler
    **Marcy Wheeler** covers national security and civil liberties at emptywheel.net. She is on the advisory committee for the Fourth Amendment caucus, is a senior fellow at GWU’s Center for Cyber and Homeland Security, and was recently recognized as an Internet human rights hero by AccessNow.
  • Sue Udry
    **Sue Udry**’s career in public service spans four decades and includes advocating for peace, civil rights, and economic justice. As executive director of Defending Rights and Dissent, Sue leads the organization’s advocacy and public education efforts to protect and strengthen civil society and challenge political repression.
  • Alex Marthews
    **Alex Marthews** is national chair of Restore The Fourth. A dual U.S.-U.K. citizen, Alex studied public policy and ran education and housing nonprofits for ten years before devoting himself full-time in 2012 to the impossible, fascinating, cross-partisan challenge of undermining the surveillance state. His writings have appeared in Slate and The Cambridge Handbook of Surveillance Law.
  • Jeff Landale
    **Jeff Landale** (@jefflandale) is an independent anti-surveillance organizer and technology policy researcher. He has worked at X-Lab at Penn State University, the New America Foundation, Access Now, Demand Progress, and a variety of unaffiliated projects.
  • Sean Vitka
    **Sean Vitka** lobbies Congress on surveillance and Internet freedom issues for Demand Progress. He is a lawyer and has also worked as a freelance journalist, as federal policy manager for the Sunlight Foundation, and has represented CREDO Action and Fight for the Future on the Hill.

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