Brennan Center for Justice

The Brennan Center for Justice, the New York Institute for the Humanities,
and the Institute for Public Knowledge present

The State of Surveillance
Legal, Cultural, and Technological Perspectives

Wednesday, October 23, 2013
6:30 p.m.

NYU Global Center for Academic and Spiritual Life
238 Thompson Street
C-95 Lecture Hall (concourse level)

Perhaps few news stories in recent months have been as unsettling as the revelations that the National Security Administration (NSA) and other government agencies maintain routine mass surveillance of the lives of ordinary American citizens. Is such information-gathering vital for reasons of national security, and if so, what are the legal parameters of such activity? Are we destined to exist in a world without privacy, where our movements and communications, web surfing and purchasing habits are subject to scrutiny by both government and corporations? What are the implications for investigative journalism and a free press?

The varied response to whistle-blowers like Edward Snowden, and the controversy as to how to label him, tell us about the conflicted feelings Americans harbor towards individual dissenters like him, and towards the information being disclosed. Ultimately, the question becomes--in what kind of society do we want to live?

Join the Brennan Center for Justice's Faiza Patel, former Department of Justice attorney Carrie Cordero, author-journalists Peter Maass and Eyal Press, and one of the leading thinkers on the social, cultural, and economic effects of internet and mobile technologies, Clay Shirky, for a discussion about what boundaries, if any, we might seek to establish in this state of surveillance.

This event is free and open to the public. Click here for more information.

Co-sponsored with the New York Institute for the Humanities
and the Institute for Public Knowledge.