In an age of terrorism, where should a democratic society draw the line on government surveillance? Edward Snowden’s explosive disclosures about the National Security Agency’s intelligence-collection operations have ignited an intense debate about the appropriate balance between security and liberty in America. In a special series this year, nationally prominent experts will explore the critical issues raised by the NSA’s activities, including their impact on our security, privacy, and civil liberties. This timely series will address one of the most challenging questions the nation faces today as it tries to strike the right balance between safety and liberty. The Security Conundrum will look behind and beyond the headlines, examining the history and implementation of the NSA operations, the legal questions generated by them, the media’s role in revealing them, and the responsibility of Congress to oversee them. It will also address the NSA’s uneasy and evolving relationship with Silicon Valley. Each session in the series is designed to explore these issues from a different vantage point. The guest speakers, in conversation with Stanford scholars, will probe the problems, explain the political, legal, and technological contours of the NSA actions, and outline ways to preserve the nation’s security without sacrificing our freedoms. 

Inside the Newsroom: The Media and Edward Snowden: An Evening with Barton Gellman 

When Edward Snowden decided in 2013 that the time had come to reveal the deepest secrets of the National Security Agency, one of the first journalists he approached was Barton Gellman of The Washington Post. Snowden gave Gellman a code name: BRASSBANNER. The name he chose for himself was VERAX, “truth teller” in Latin. So began one of the most dramatic chapters in the history of modern American journalism. In the ensuing months, Gellman received dozens of top-secret documents from Snowden, traveled to Moscow to meet him, and wrestled with tough questions about what, and what not, to publish. The Washington Post shared the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service, the nation’s highest journalism honor, for Gellman’s reporting about the Snowden materials and the NSA. 

In a conversation with Philip Taubman, Gellman will recount his dealings with Snowden and describe how he and his editors weighed how to handle the Snowden materials. Few questions are more difficult for American journalists than determining how far a free press can venture in disclosing national security secrets without imperiling the nation’s security. 

Barton Gellman
Journalist
Barton Gellman is a three-time Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist. In 2002, he was a member of the Washington Post team that received the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting for its coverage of the 9/11 attacks. Gellman is a senior fellow at The Century Foundation and a visiting professional specialist and author-in-residence at Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. He is the author of Angler: The Cheney Vice Presidency.

Philip Taubman
Consulting Professor, Center for International Security and Cooperation, Stanford; Former Moscow and Washington Bureau Chief, The New York Times
Philip Taubman served as a reporter and editor at The New York Times for nearly thirty years, specializing in national security coverage. He is author of Secret Empire: Eisenhower, the CIA, and the Hidden Story of America’s Space Espionage, and The Partnership: Five Cold Warriors and Their Quest to Ban the Bomb. 

The Security Conundrum is co-sponsored by Stanford’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, the Hoover Institution, Stanford Continuing Studies, Stanford in Government, and the Stanford Law School.

In an age of terrorism, where should a democratic society draw the line on government surveillance? Edward Snowden’s explosive disclosures about the National Security Agency’s intelligence-collection operations have ignited an intense debate about the appropriate balance between security and liberty in America. In a special series this year, nationally prominent experts will explore the critical issues raised by the NSA’s activities, including their impact on our security, privacy, and civil liberties. This timely series will address one of the most challenging questions the nation faces today as it tries to strike the right balance between safety and liberty.

The Security Conundrum will look behind and beyond the headlines, examining the history and implementation of the NSA operations, the legal questions generated by them, the media’s role in revealing them, and the responsibility of Congress to oversee them. It will also address the NSA’s uneasy and evolving relationship with Silicon Valley. Each session in the series is designed to explore these issues from a different vantage point. The guest speakers, in conversation with Stanford scholars, will probe the problems, explain the political, legal, and technological contours of the NSA actions, and outline ways to preserve the nation’s security without sacrificing our freedoms. 

Inside the NSA: An Evening with General Michael Hayden 

General Michael Hayden was director of the National Security Agency on September 11, 2001. After the attacks, at the request of the White House, he intensified and expanded NSA wiretapping operations of various communications between Americans and terrorist suspects abroad in hopes of detecting and preventing another terrorist attack. These initial efforts were executed without a court order and after being revealed by The New York Times, were subsequently placed under judicial review. Over time, the NSA’s efforts grew into the multidimensional programs exposed by Edward Snowden, including the collection and storage of phone and email metadata covering billions of calls and messages between American citizens. 

In conversation with Amy Zegart, General Hayden will provide an insider’s account about the origins and development of the NSA programs. He will also discuss the directives and mechanisms to control them, and the disagreements within the Bush administration about the extent of the wiretapping. He will offer his views on the justification, legal status, scale, and effectiveness of the NSA monitoring.

Michael V. Hayden
Former Director of the CIA and the NSA
Michael V. Hayden served as Director of the CIA (2006–2009), First Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence (2005–2006), and Director of the National Security Agency (1999–2005). He is a retired United States Air Force four-star general and is now a principal of The Chertoff Group.

Amy Zegart
Davies Family Senior Fellow and Associate Director, Hoover Institution; Professor, by courtesy, of Political Science; Co-Director, Stanford Center for International Security and Cooperation
Amy Zegart’s publications include Spying Blind: The CIA, the FBI, and the Origins of 9/11 and Eyes on Spies: Congress and the United States Intelligence Community. She has served on the National Research Council’s panel on improving intelligence analysis.

The Security Conundrum is co-sponsored by Stanford’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, the Center for International Security and Cooperation, the Hoover Institution, Stanford Continuing Studies, Stanford in Government, and the Stanford Law School.

This lecture is part of a seminar series (open to the public) organized by the US-Asia Technology Management Center.

Co-Sponsored by the Stanford Silicon Valley-New Japan Project, Japan Program

The US-ATMC Autumn 2014 seminar series theme is New Trends in Start-up Company Acceleration: Toward the Rise of the Global Start-up. The series features new incubator and accelerator programs in Silicon Valley and select Asia economies that promote early development of international business operation by start-up companies. How can start-up companies cope with the challenges of business globalization? What are the implications these new models of incubation for the future of Asia economies and for Silicon Valley?

Thursdays, Oct. 2 – Dec. 4, 2014
4:15 – 5:30 pm
HP Auditorium (B01), Gates Computer Science Building

Public Welcome • Light Refreshments

US-Asia Technology Management Center Lecture Series

Instructor: Richard Dasher <rdasher [at] stanford [dot] edu>
Course Assistant: Mianmian Wen <mianmian [at] stanford [dot] edu>

EE402A Course Syllabus

Follow @AsiaTechSU and #EE402A on Twitter for a live feed of our discussions.

E-mail Siejen Yin-Stevenson, Assistant Director, at <siejeny@stanford.edu> with questions about the seminar series.

Lecture by Gen Isayama on 10/2/2014    VIDEO