Here are some bios of the panelists from the LA Times.
Barry Glassner. The author of seven books on contemporary social issues, is president of Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Ore. His book, "The Culture of Fear: Why Americans Are Afraid of the Wrong Things," was a national bestseller and was named a best book of the year by Knight-Ridder newspapers and by the Los Angeles Times Book Review.
Karen Paget. Is a political scientist with more than 45 years of experience in academia, government, philanthropy, and public policy. She is a contributing editor to the American Prospect magazine and coauthor of "Running as a Woman: Gender and Power in American Politics." In 1998, the Open Society Institute awarded her a fellowship to write "Patriotic Betrayal."
Robert Scheer. Is editor in chief of the online magazine Truthdig, professor at USC's Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, and co-host of "Left, Right and Center," a weekly syndicated radio show broadcast from KCRW. He has worked as a national correspondent and columnist for the Los Angeles Times ad is the author of nine books, including his latest, "They Know Everything About You."
Kim Zetter. Is an award-winning journalist who covers cybercrime, civil liberties, prvacy and security for Wired. She was among the first jouralists to cover Stuxnet after its discovery and has authored many of the most comprehensive articles about it. She has also broken numerous stories over the years about WikiLeaks and Bradley Manning, NSA surveillance and the hacker underground. She is the author of "Countdown to Zero Day."
Here are my notes (which might contain errors):
Karen Paget: Her husband was part of the National Student Association, which was a national college organization. Everyone in NSA had a CIA case officer. She was told by the CIA that her husband was doing important work against communism. After 9/11, there are suggestions we returned to similar covert activities, parallel structures that get instructions from the US government. The NSA/CIA tried to make a statement at an Algeria Youth meeting. They wanted to get an old USSR oil tanker and sink it off Algeria. Why? It would indicate that the USSR's economy wasn't good, because they couldn't afford new tankers. It would also indicate that the USSR didn't care about the environment. The problem of covert activities is the lack of accountability.
Robert Scheer. CIA attempted to discredit institutions. There was once an attempt to set him up via drugs. Many now view the government as benign. Assumption is self censorship. Our founders believed they needed to be checked. Why did they give us these freedoms? Freedom is a necessity in the worst of times. The Internet creates targeted ads, which disrupt privacy. Major Internet corporations were forced to give over this information. Corporations are the ones wanting privacy to matter. CIA is setting up companies that gives them access to your data. Apple and Google has a right to encryption. Government says Apple and Google will protect pedophiles. In some ways, the Tea Party is more concerned about privacy versus liberals.
Kim Zetter. In 2002, Iranian dissidents disclosed that Iran was building a bomb. Negotiations with Iran went on until 2005. Iran withdrew from the negotiations. In 2007, they installed centrifuges. In 2009, it was noticed that Iran was removing centrifuges at a rapid pace. Then computers were crashing. A 0 Day exploit was found. Research showed that this 0 Day was helping destroy centrifuges. This is a digital warfare. Successful attack can help prevent war. Problem: Don't know how far this can go. This 0 Day weapon was well designed, but that may not always be the case.
Barry Glassner. After 9/11, we heard it could happen again. The use of fear is counter productive. Politicians run on fear of crime. After 9/.11 fear of crime is external.
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