Government Surveillance: Security v. Liberty?
Regulatory Transparency Project's Fourth Branch Video
Regulatory Transparency Project's Fourth Branch Video
Modern surveillance activities by the United States government have taken place since World War I and continue to this day, especially in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks.
Proponents of such efforts argue that lawful surveillance is necessary to protect national security and that the FISA court system is designed to prevent abuses. Opponents argue that such surveillance rarely produces actionable intelligence and can be wielded by unaccountable bureaucrats at the expense of targeted individuals and groups.
In this Fourth Branch video, Matthew Heiman and Julian Sanchez debate this important policy issue and Faisal Gill, a former Department of Homeland Security official who was surveilled by the federal government beginning in 2006, tells his story.
A Fourth Branch video in association with Motivo Media.
Visit the Regulatory Transparency Project's website – https://RegProject.org – to learn more, view all of its content, and connect with it on social media.
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As always, the Federalist Society takes no position on particular legal or public policy issues; all expressions of opinion are those of the speakers.
Chief Legal + Administrative Officer, Waystar Health
Matthew R. A. Heiman leads all legal and corporate governance matters for Waystar. Over the last two decades, he has worked in corporate and government sectors, gaining deep experience in the areas of corporate governance, litigation, risk management, security, and compliance.
Most recently, Matthew was Vice President, Corporate Secretary & Associate General Counsel at Johnson Controls where he helped establish a new corporate secretary department and led the integration of legal departments following the company’s merger with Tyco International. Prior to its merger with Johnson Controls, Matthew held a number of positions with Tyco International including Vice President, Chief Compliance & Audit Officer. Before Tyco, Matthew was a lawyer with the National Security Division at the U.S Department of Justice. He was a legal advisor to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad, Iraq and practiced as a trial lawyer with the law firm of McGuireWoods.
Matthew holds a BA and JD from Indiana University and is a member of the International Institute for Strategic Studies. He is a Senior Fellow at George Mason University’s National Security Institute.
Senior Fellow, Cato Institute
Julian Sanchez is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and studies issues at the busy intersection of technology, privacy, and civil liberties, with a particular focus on national security and intelligence surveillance. Before joining Cato, Sanchez served as the Washington editor for the technology news site Ars Technica, where he covered surveillance, intellectual property, and telecom policy. He has also worked as a writer for The Economist’s blog Democracy in America and as an editor for Reason magazine, where he remains a contributing editor.
Sanchez has written on privacy and technology for a wide array of national publications, ranging from the National Review to The Nation, and is a founding editor of the policy blog Just Security. He studied philosophy and political science at New York University.
Attorney & former Senior Policy Advisor, Department of Homeland Security
Faisal is a lawyer living in Vermont with his children. Faisal is a former Republican who served in the George W Bush Administration Senior Policy Advisor to the Under at the Department of Homeland Security. Prior to that, Faisal worked at the White House Office of Homeland Security and then later the Homeland Security Council as associate counsel. Prior to his appointment at the White House, Faisal served as the Deputy General Counsel for Policy at the Office of Personnel Management. Faisal Gill also served in the United States Navy Judge Advocate General’s Corps.
He has a BA and JD from American University in Washington, DC.
It was reported that Faisal was one of the prominent Muslim Americans that NSA was spying on.