“SECRETS AND LEAKS: WHISTLEBLOWERS, PRESS FREEDOM, AND THE PUBLIC’S RIGHT TO KNOW”

Friday, April 7, 2023
1 pm – 2:30 pm

This lecture will consider a fundamental conundrum in any democracy: who decides what information must be shared with the public and what information can be legitimately withheld? How can the government’s prerogative to safeguard sensitive information be reconciled with the public’s right and need to know what the government is doing in its name? What is the proper response of a free press to government demands to protect vital secrets?

Ben Wizner, a longtime ACLU lawyer, has spent his career grappling with these questions and will share his experiences as an advocate for the rights of whistleblowers and journalists.

Speaker Bio

Ben Wizner is the director of the ACLU’s Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project. For nearly 15 years, he has worked at the intersection of civil liberties and national security, litigating numerous cases involving airport security policies, government watch lists, surveillance practices, targeted killing, and torture.

He appears regularly in the global media, has testified before Congress, and is an adjunct professor at New York University School of Law. Since July of 2013, he has been the principal legal advisor to NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. Ben is a graduate of Harvard College and New York University School of Law and was a law clerk to the Hon. Stephen Reinhardt of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

Speaker Bio