1984 Today!
1984 Today!
Episode 148: Dr Leslie Gruis on Privacy and Surveillance
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Episode 148: Dr Leslie Gruis on Privacy and Surveillance

The former NSA intelligence officer discusses threats to privacy in the United States, the competing interests seeking control of your data, and how she got into the intelligence community

In her book The Privacy Pirates: How Your Privacy Is Being Stolen and What You Can Do About It, Dr Leslie Gruis describes the current situation in stark terms:

“If privacy were a patient, it would be in the intensive care unit. It’s not dead, but it is life-threateningly ill.”

Dr Gruis worked at the National Security Agency for thirty years, and her last two assignments were at US Cyber Command and the National Intelligence Council. She was the first president of the NSA’s Women in Mathematics Society, and is a prominent advocate of STEM education for girls.

She joins me in this episode for a conversation about how she started working in intelligence, why she is so concerned about the state of privacy in the United States, the fascinating history of privacy and transparency in American law, and the ongoing tug of war between private technology companies and government.

You can visit her website to find out more about her work, and for links to her books.


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