A weekly show about libertarianism and the ideas that influence it. Hosted by Trevor Burrus and Matthew Feeney, and produced by Evan Banks.
Julian Sanchez joins Trevor Burrus and Matthew Feeney for a discussion on the surveillance state. If the government's been spying on us for decades, what's new now? Why is bulk data collection so particularly nefarious? What is metadata anyway, and what does the government do with it? Does the government actually catch terrorists through mass surveillance? Why do people treat terrorism differently from other violent crimes? The defenders of surveillance always say "if you haven't done anything wrong, you have nothing to be afraid of" —does this justification hold water?
Julian Sanchez is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, where he studies issues at the busy intersection of technology, privacy, and civil liberties, with a particular focus on national security and intelligence surveillance.