Howard & Jan Oringer Seminar

This is the golden age of surveillance.  Today's information technologies create, transmit, store, and analyze more information about us than ever before, and governments have not been shy about exploiting this.  This talk will summarize what is known about the surveillance activities of the US NSA and allied services, and what the implications are for public policy and for computer science.  Whether we want to rein in the surveillance state, or whether we want instead to continue or expand robust intelligence-gathering consistent with civil liberties, we face difficult technical and policy issues in balancing national security against personal security and privacy, preventing abuse, and maintaining transparency and accountability.   The new surveillance environment will change how technology products are designed, and will open new research directions in computing.