December 17 – A Conservative Federal Judge Slaps Down the NSA; Tech Giants Complain to the President About NSA Blowback Hurting their Businesses; Growing Momentum Against NSA Domestic Spying

Full Program

Part 1

We will begin with the Federal Judge Richard Leon’s ruling against the NSA’s collection of phone company metadata on Americans and speak with Laura Moy who is a staff attorney at Public Knowledge, a Washington D.C.-based public interest group working to defend citizen’s rights in the emerging digital culture. We discuss the likely impact of the ruling that does not stop the NSA’s collection but is expected to further expose their activities in open court.

Part 2

Then we assess the likely outcome of the meeting in the White House with 15 CEO’s who head the country’s leading Tech giants. They recently published a full-page open letter to the president urging that the NSA be reined in, and followed up Tuesday by lobbying the president in person to reform the NSA because its activities are hurting their businesses. Christopher Sprigman, a Professor of Law at New York University and Co-director of the Engleberg Center on Innovation Law ad Policy joins us to discuss his recent article in The Atlantic with Jennifer Granick, “U.S. Government Surveillance: Bad for Silicon Valley, Bad for Democracy Around the World”, as well as the international blowback against NSA spying that is hurting these Tech giant’s bottom line.

Part 3

Then finally we speak with Michelle Richardson, the legislative counsel with the American Civil Liberties Union Washington Legislative Office who focuses on national security issues. We discuss growing public outrage against government intrusion on our privacy that is beginning to force the Congress to act, and the gathering momentum on the legal front buoyed by Judge Leon’s ruling, as well as the role of the Press who so far appear to have largely sided with national security concerns over civil liberties.