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| Beyond Snowden
ISBN: 9780815730644
Platform/Publisher: Project MUSE / Brookings Institution Press
Digital rights: Users: Unlimited; Printing: Chapters; Download: Chapters
Subjects: Privacy Right of; Electronic surveillance;
Edgar, a former ACLU lawyer who left that group in 2006 to advise the director of national intelligence on safeguarding civil liberties and privacy, has the appropriate background to provide this deep dive into the recent history of the American intelligence community's adoption of mass-surveillance techniques and the ensuing efforts to balance security and freedom. While the general public is familiar with the contours of the issues and the revelations that Edward Snowden provided, Edgar provides an insider's perspective on the government's internal debates. For example, after Snowden revealed the existence of the NSA's collection of Internet communications, there were serious discussions about changing how the FISA court functions to include a privacy advocate as a check on government overreach. But Edgar, who left the Obama administration in 2013, concedes that the election of Donald Trump has left the future of such discussions in limbo, with even government officials who had pushed for "stronger surveillance powers" concerned about the potential for their abuse. Despite the seriousness of the issues raised, Edgar is forced to concede that his ultimate conclusion-that "there is or at least ought to be common call" among "both intelligence officials and civil libertarians" for a "future that reconciles the need for surveillance programs with respect for internet freedom, privacy and human rights"-is precatory, rather than descriptive. (Aug.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Timothy H. Edgar defended privacy after 9/11 as a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union before going inside America's growing surveillance state as the deputy for civil liberties in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence--a story he tells in Beyond Snowden: Privacy, Mass Surveillance and the Struggle to Reform the NSA . Edgar then moved to the White House to advise the National Security Council on cybersecurity policy, in a job that President Barack Obama announced in 2009 that was "specifically dedicated to safeguarding the privacy and civil liberties of the American people."In 2013, Edgar left government for Brown University, where he is a Senior Fellow at the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs. Edgar helped put together Brown's Executive Master in Cybersecurity and is on the advisory board of Virtru, an encryption software company. Edgar is a contributing editor to Lawfare and his work has appeared in the Wall Street Journal , the Los Angeles Times , the Guardian , Foreign Affairs , and Wired . Edgar is a graduate of Harvard Law School and Dartmouth College. |
