Interview: Internet surveillance

Ian Brown, Professor at the OII, discusses the significance of the Snowden revelations regarding the global surveillance programs of intelligence agencies. The fact that agencies were not only requesting data, but collecting it and actively undertaking offensive cyber operations were the main surprises for Brown. He states that while democratic debates regarding this issue are useful, it is unclear to what extent they will be useful if eventually enacted in legal form — for example, the EU does not have competency in national security areas.