Surveillance or Self Determination: Can Democracy and Diversity Co-Exist in the Age of Google, Comcast, and the NSA?

Heidi Boghosian is the executive director of the A.J. Muste Memorial Institute, and the past executive director of the National Lawyers Guild. She has written and spoken extensively on First Amendment rights, her passionate interest. She also co-hosts a weekly, independent radio program, Law and Disorder, whose goal is to provide “access to rare legal perspectives” with a focus on civili liberties and privacy.

About this Lecture

The Snowden revelations have focused attention on the unprecedented intrusion of surveillance technologies into the lives of citizens. When the state and corporations collude to conceal intrusive surveillance from citizens and to concentrate control over information, the inherent rights of the people in a democracy— freedom of expression, privacy, access to education, and the vote—become subjugated to the technological power of the state and corporations. The same digital platforms that promised such a bright future in mobilizing people against tyranny based on race, culture, gender, sexuality, disability, and economic status can be turned on their heads to continue practices of silencing diverse dissent.

Featured Book

Helpful Links

Spying and Civil Liberties

An interview with Bill Moyers about her book Spying on Decmocracy

21 February 2014

Vermont Town Hall

Boghosian speaks with Senator Bernie Sanders on dragnet spying

01 February 2014

On Surveillance

Boghosian speaks at UC Santa Barbara

10 February 2014

FBI’s Use of Drones for US Surveillance

Democracy Now! interviews Heidi Boghosian

21 June 2013

Spying on Democracy

An excerpt from her book