Does State Spying Make Us Safer?: The Munk Debate on Mass Surveillance (Munk Debates)

Transcript of a debate between Michael Hayden and Alan Dershowitz arguing PRO and Glenn Greenwald and Alexis Ohanian arguing AGAINST state spying - remarkably civilized debate, at least it appeared to be in the transcript. The moderator, Rudyard Kipling kept tight control of timing and sequence. The taped remarks by Edward Snowden were shown without offering Hayden/Dershowitz the opportunity to rebut them - although they mentioned them later. Also, material in the summary essay highlights the vast reaching power of the Communications Security Establishment Canada that operates largely without any oversight and remains unmentioned - probably unknown by all those attendees in Toronto eager to defend their privacy. Both sides brought good arguments to the table, although the repeated insistence by Ohanian and Greenwald that the wide open internet offers complete freedom to explore in total privacy was just too starry eyed. I missed the revelation of the post-debate tally - did any side really convince anybody? Did either side gain or 'win"? A fascinating debate.

This book, and many other Munk Dabates in print form, is a fascinating look at key players in the battle of ideas for and against the bulk collection by government of a lot everything you and I do online everyday. Great debate on an extremely delicate and pressing issue since the Snowden revelations of government systematic collection and storage of personal information about each one of us without any suspicion of wrong doing.I will be reading many more of these for sure.

This transcript of a debate on the balance between security and privacy in the digital age pits the establishment against advocates for privacy. An interesting combination of teams makes this a very worthy read for anyone researching in the space or interested in seeing how opaque and mysterious the silent battles on the internet are