LIVE from NYPL: LISTENING IN: EAVESDROPPING AND THE NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY Patrick Radden Keefe, James Risen, Adm. Bob Inman and Jeffrey Rosen, moderator

Event Details

Recent revelations about a warrantless surveillance program administered by the National Security Agency raise troubling questions about the legality and efficacy of eavesdropping inside the United States, and the politics of secrecy and disclosure in an age of terrorism. Join James Risen, who just received a Pulitzer Prize for his New York Times scoop on secret domestic eavesdropping, and wrote State of War: The Secret History of the C.I.A. and the Bush Administration; Admiral Bob Inman, former Director of the NSA; and Patrick Radden Keefe, author of Chatter: Dispatches from the Secret World of Global Eavesdropping, for a candid, in-depth discussion of the high-tech side of American espionage, and the challenge of balancing an aggressive pursuit of terrorist cells inside America's borders with statutory and constitutional protections of privacy and civil liberties. The conversation will be moderated by Jeffrey Rosen, the legal affairs editor of The New Republic, a frequent contributor to NPR, and author of The Unwanted Gaze: The Destruction of Privacy in America and his just published The Most Democratic Branch: How the Courts Serve America

About Patrick Radden Keefe

Patrick Radden Keefe is a fellow at The Century Foundation and the author of CHATTER: Dispatches from the Secret World of Global Eavesdropping, which will be out in paperback this July. He is a former Fellow of the Cullman Center (2003-2004), the recipient of a 2006 Guggenheim Fellowship, and he writes about intelligence and national security issues for The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, The New York Review of Books, Slate, and other publications.

About James Risen

James Risen covers national security for The New York Times. He was a member of the team that won the Pulitzer Prize for explanatory reporting in 2002 for coverage of September 11 and terrorism, and he is the coauthor of Wrath of Angels and The Main Enemy: The Inside Story of the CIA's Final Showdown with the KGB. Mr. Risen is the author of the book State of War: The Secret History of the C.I.A. and the Bush Administration, which claims among other things that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) ignored intelligence reports that Iraq had abandoned its nuclear arsenal plans 10 years ago. The publication of the book was expedited following the December 16, 2005 NSA leak story. Mr. Risen says this book is based on information from a variety of anonymous sources. The Department of Justice (DOJ) has begun an investigation of the sources of the national security leak involving NSA.

About Bob Inman

Admiral Bob Inman served as Director of Naval Intelligence, Vice Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency and Director of the National Security Agency. His last major position was as the Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, a post he held from 1981 to 1982. He has served on the Board of Directors of the prestigious Council on Foreign Relations. He was President Bill Clinton's first choice to succeed Les Aspin as Secretary of Defense in 1993; he withdrew from consideration. In 1987 Inman became an adjunct professor at the University of Texas at Austin and was appointed as a tenured professor holding the Lyndon B. Johnson Centennial Chair in National Policy in August 2001.

About Jeffrey Rosen

Jeffrey Rosen teaches constitutional law, criminal procedure, and the law of privacy at George Washington University Law School. He is also the legal affairs editor of The New Republic. His book, The Unwanted Gaze: The Destruction of Privacy in America was called by the New York Times ?the definitive text on privacy perils in the digital age.? Harvard Law Review called The Naked Crowd: Reclaiming Security and Freedom in an Anxious Age a ?thoughtful and engaging read ... [that] provides much-needed depth to the debate over balancing privacy and security in an age of terrorism.? His essays and book reviews have appeared in many publications, including the New York Times Magazine, the Atlantic Monthly, and the New Yorker, where he has been a staff writer. He is a frequent contributor to National Public Radio. His new book is The Most Democratic Branch: How the Courts Serve America.