Everything You Wanted to Know about the Snowden Leaks, but (because of NSA Surveillance) Were Afraid to Ask
April 15 at the College of Law: 4:00 p.m., Room 113
April 24: Happy Hollow Club, Omaha: 4:00 p.m.
May 14: Dusters Restaurant (2804 13th Street), Columbus: 11:30 a.m.
May 14: Time Square Event Center (1909 Vicki Lane), Norfolk: 4:00 p.m.
Summary: Edward Snowden’s disclosures about the National Security Agency’s pervasive surveillance raise a host of complicated and intertwined legal issues about secrecy, transparency, free speech, privacy, separation of powers, and national security. Although commentators hotly debate the legality of the NSA program, as important are broader questions about the law’s regulation of secrecy. When should the government be able to keep secrets (like the existence of the surveillance program) from the public? When should it be transparent? The government’s surveillance raises similar questions about an individual’s secrets: when should individuals be able to keep secrets from the government (like the numbers they call from their cell phone) and when should the needs of national security trump privacy concerns? To resolve these questions, one must balance fundamental societal norms of transparency, accountability, privacy, and security.
In addition to thinking about how the law balances these competing norms, Snowden’s actions involve important questions about who should oversee this balancing to make sure secrecy only trumps government transparency and individual privacy when absolutely necessary for national security. Secrecy demands oversight, but every option presents problems. Congressional oversight of secret programs might lead to significant separation of powers concerns. Court oversight raises institutional competency concerns. Individual oversight, in the form of public disclosures by people like Snowden, raises democratic and effectiveness concerns. We want insiders to publicly disclose when our government acts illegally, but we may not be confident that individuals understand complicated national security issues sufficiently to act on the public’s behalf.