Watson Institute to host conference on NSA

PROVIDENCE – Brown University’s Watson Institute for International Studies will host a forum on Wednesday, Dec. 4, that will examine the fallout of former NSA contractor Edward Snowden’s leaking of classified information about the agency’s practices.
The forum, “Big Transparency for the NSA: Perspectives on Spying and Privacy,” will be free and open to the public, held at the Watson Institute for International Studies at 111 Thayer St. It will be hosted by Watson Institute visiting scholar Timothy Edgar, a civil liberties lawyer who has worked both for the American Civil Liberties Union and the Bush and Obama administrations.
According to a news release about the event, the conference will examine the “continuing explosive revelations” about the American intelligence community and the trend of increased transparency surrounding the intelligence community’s global operations.
The first panel discussion, “Privacy and Transparency, Inside and Out,” will begin at 12:30 p.m. on Dec. 4 and feature John DeLong, chief compliance officer at NSA; Jameel Jaffer, deputy legal director of the ACLU; Alexander W. Joel, civil liberties protection officer for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence; and Steven Aftergood of the Federation of Atomic Scientists.
For the second panel, New York Times reporter Charlie Savage, Washington Post reporter Ellen Nakashima and Wall Street Journal reporter Siobhan Gorman will discuss the topic “Transparency – What Good Is It?” The second panel discussion will begin at 2:15 p.m. on Dec. 4.
For more information about the conference, or for a link to a live webcast of the conference, visit watson.brown.edu. Space for the conference is limited, so attendees are encouraged to register in advance by e-mailing watsonevents@brown.edu.

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