Transatlantic Solutions to Government Surveillance

Last year, revelations about the National Security Agency’s digital surveillance created a breach of trust between the United States and close international allies. European citizens, in Germany in particular, remain concerned about the state and scope of both NSA activity as well as the online spying activity of their own governments.  
 
An individual’s right to privacy is now outside the power of a single nation state to protect. As the globalization of communications continues, increased international coordination between governments is needed in order for trust to be restored and individuals to feel secure online. What is the path forward?
 
This event was co-sponsored by New America’s Open Technology Institute and the Heinrich Boell Foundation, a German think tank, seeking to start the discussion, “how do we modernize international privacy policy to account for the power of digital surveillance?”
 
The event featured European elected officials and political leaders who are working to improve privacy laws, both in Germany and the E.U.  They provided updates on their work as well as share thoughts on how transatlantic dialogue could be structured and what international solutions to the problem of government surveillance could look like.
Join the conversation online by following @OTI and @boell_us.

Participants
Konstantin von Notz
Member of German Parliament
@KonstantinNotz
 
Jan Philipp Albrecht
Member of European Parliament
@JanAlbrecht
 
Malte Spitz
Member of the Federal Party Council of the German Green Party
@malteSpitz
 
Moderator
Kevin Bankston
Policy Director, New America’s Open Technology Institute
@KevinBankston