WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 24th, 2010

6:00 pm - 7:15 pm
Session I:   Keynote Address
Seymour M. Hersh, United States Pulitzer Prize winning investigative journalist; Author

Abstract TBD

Moderator: Bob Kerrey, President, The New School

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 25th, 2010

10:30 am - 1:15 pm
Session II:  Recurrence of Limits on Knowledge

The Secrecy System, Democracy and Wise Policy
Daniel Ellsberg, former U.S. military analyst, RAND Corporation; released the Pentagon Papers to The New York Times

Abstract TBD

Recent increases in limits on knowledge
Eric Lichtblau, Washington bureau reporter, The New York Times

Abstract TBD

Infrastructure Restraints
Christopher Capozzola, Associate Professor of History, Lister Brothers Career Development Associate Professorship, MIT

Abstract TBD

The Role of the Media
Glenn Greenwald, reporter, Salon; author; former constitutional law and civil rights litigator

Abstract TBD

Moderator: Oz Frankel, Historical Studies Department Chair, Associate Professor of History, The New School for Social Research

The session will be ended with discussion between the speakers, then discussion with the audience

1:15 pm - 2:15 pm      BREAK

2:15 pm - 5:00 pm
Session III:  Arguments For and Against Limits on Knowledge in a Democracy

Risks of No Limits
Philip Kitcher, John Dewey Professor of Philosophy, James R. Barker Professor of Contemporary Civilization, Director, Undergraduate Studies for Columbia College, Columbia University

Abstract TBD

Benefits of No Limits
Jameel Jaffer, Director, National Security Program, ACLU

Abstract TBD

The Inverse Relationship between Secrecy and Privacy
Julie E. Cohen, Professor of Law, Georgetown University Law Center

In civil libertarian discourse, the inverse relationship between government secrecy and privacy is well recognized and widely acknowledgebsd - so widely, in fact, that it can come to seem as though we might regain sufficient privacy simply by cabining official secrecy. But regimes of secrecy that insulate private-sector data processing practices also contribute materially to the decline of privacy, and indeed play a vital role in facilitating government efforts to make citizens' lives transparent. In addition, there is an inverse relationship between openness and privacy that we are inclined to resist discussing. When, for example, a government agency posts on its website documents containing private information about individual citizens, or when a social networking service establishes default rules for transmitting information from member pages to commercial partners, openness contributes materially to the exposure that people experience. Our public discourse about information policy reinforces the devaluation of privacy in two opposite but mutually-reinforcing ways, by valorizing political economies organized around secrecy and by elevating openness as an ultimate good. The shelter that privacy affords for self-development is essential to a healthy democracy. It is therefore important to interrogate both our regimes of secrecy and our discourses about openness.

Moderator: David Z. Albert, Frederick E. Woodbridge Professor of Philosophy, Director of M.A. Program in The Philosophical Foundations of Physics, Columbia University

The session will be ended with discussion between the speakers, then discussion with the audience

6:00 pm - 8:00 pm
Film Screening: SECRECY, A film by Peter Galison and Robb Moss
Followed by Q&A with Peter Galison

In a single recent year the U.S. classified about five times the number of pages added to the Library of Congress. We live in a world where the production of secret knowledge dwarfs the production of open knowledge. Depending on whom you ask, government secrecy is either the key to victory in our struggle against terrorism, or our Achilles heel. But is so much secrecy a bad thing?

Secrecy saves: counter-terrorist intelligence officers recall with fury how a newspaper article describing National Security Agency abilities directly led to the loss of information that could have avoided the terrorist killing of 241 soldiers in Beirut late in October 1983. Secrecy guards against wanton nuclear proliferation, against the spread of biological and chemical weapons. Secrecy is central to our ability to wage an effective war against terrorism.

Secrecy corrupts. From extraordinary rendition to warrant-less wiretaps and Abu Ghraib, we have learned that, under the veil of classification, even our leaders can give in to dangerous impulses. Secrecy increasingly hides national policy, impedes coordination among agencies, bloats budgets and obscures foreign accords; secrecy throws into the dark our system of justice and derails the balance of power between the executive branch and the rest of government.

This film is about the vast, invisible world of government secrecy. By focusing on classified secrets, the government's ability to put information out of sight if it would harm national security, Secrecy explores the tensions between our safety as a nation, and our ability to function as a democracy.

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 26th, 2010

10:00 am - 12:45 pm
Session IV:  Mechanisms of Limiting Knowledge

Theories of Secrecy
Peter L. Galison, Joseph Pellegrino University Professor, Director, Collection of Historical Scientific Instruments, Department of the History of Science, Harvard University

Abstract TBD

The Impact of New Technologies on Increasing Limits and Transparency
Jonathan Zittrain, Professor, Harvard Law School; Co-Founder and Faculty Co-Director, Berkman Center for Internet & Society

The Internet has been rightly seen as a vehicle for freedom: each day there is more information available to more people than the day before. What are the factors that could slow, halt, or even turn the tide of access and contribution to knowledge?

National Security Secrecy: How the Limits Change
Steven Aftergood, Senior Research Analyst and Director, FAS Project on Government Secrecy, Federation of American Scientists

The contours of the national security secrecy system have remained unaltered for more than half a century, but the substance of what is kept secret is constantly subject to change. Secrecy is often rescinded for reasons that include internal administrative imperatives (e.g., to improve efficiency or to advance preferred policy objectives) as well as various types of external challenges (e.g., oversight requirements, Freedom of Information Act litigation, unauthorized disclosures, and others). The equilibrium between secrecy and disclosure can be shifted by stressing or relaxing these internal imperatives and external challenges.

Cultural, Political, and Practical Limits: What We Seek to Know, What We Choose Not to Know, What We Don't Bother Knowing
Daniel Sarewitz, Professor of Science and Society, Director of the Consortium for Science, Policy and Outcomes, School of Life Sciences, Arizona State University

Science offers a valuable case study for assessing limits on knowledge production, because scientific freedom-inquiry without limits-is often portrayed as a sine qua non for effective pursuit of new knowledge. Yet society continually places limits-explicit and tacit; de facto and de jure-on scientific inquiry. Norms and values of scientific practice, regulation of research ethics, limits on resources, and the tyranny of peer review all act strongly to bound science in ways that are both calculated and arbitrary. Greater awareness of these limits would help counter the claims of privilege commonly made by scientists, claims that are themselves problematic for democracy.

Moderator: Trebor Scholz, Assistant Professor, Culture and Media Study, Eugene Lang College The New School for Liberal Arts

The session will be ended with discussion between the speakers, then discussion with the audience

12:45 pm - 1:45 pm      BREAK

1:45 pm - 4:30 pm
Session V:  Limits on Knowledge: The Nexus of Power, Policy and Research

Geo-engineering and the Self-Imposed Limitation of Knowledge Within the Scientific Community
Michael Oppenheimer, Albert G. Milbank Professor of Geosciences and International Affairs, Woodrow Wilson School and Department of Geosciences, Princeton University

Geo-engineering, or climate engineering, aims to limit the effect of the global-warming greenhouse gases by artificially counteracting their effect on the climate, or removing them after emission to the atmosphere. The former type of climate engineering can arguably offset global warming entirely but not all its regional consequences. Thus, proposals to modify an already-modified climate are particularly controversial because our ability to predict the effects of such offsetting of global climate change is extremely limited, and includes potential consequences which could, in certain regions, create more serious difficulties than global warming itself. In combination with a range of ethical and practical considerations, such complexity has led some climate scientists to suggest a ban on various kinds of climate engineering research, or such research altogether. In this talk, I lay out the various arguments, attitudes, and responses to climate engineering research in the climate science community.

Public Health Surveillance and Privacy
Ronald Bayer, Professor, Center for the History and Ethics of Public Health, Department of Sociomedical Sciences, Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health

Public health surveillance of necessity involves a limit on the concept of medical confidentiality. Privacy requirements impose very strict limits on how such crucially important data can be used.Those limits may in turn restrict the capacity of journalists and others to call upon such evidence when investigating threats to the public health.

Media Censorship (Explicit and Implicit) and Media Distortion
Nicholas Lemann, Dean and Henry R. Luce Professor, The Journalism School, Columbia University

Abstract TBD

Economic Sanctions and Secrecy
David D. Aufhauser, Senior Advisor, Center for Strategic and International Studies; former general counsel U.S. Department of Treasury

Abstract TBD

Moderator: Eric Lichtblau, Washington bureau reporter, The New York Times

The session will be ended with discussion between the speakers, then discussion with the audience

4:30 pm - 5:00 pm      BREAK

5:00 pm - 7:00 pm
Session VI: Panel: What we have learned about Limiting Knowledge in a Democracy

Daniel Ellsberg, former Defense and State Department official; Rand Analyst; released the Pentagon Papers to The New York Times
Julie E. Cohen, Professor of Law, Georgetown University Law Center
Peter L. Galison, Joseph Pellegrino University Professor, Director, Collection of Historical Scientific Instruments, Department of the History of Science, Harvard University
Glenn Greenwald, reporter, Salon; author; former constitutional law and civil rights litigator
Jonathan Zittrain, Professor, Harvard Law School; Co-Founder and Faculty Co-Director, Berkman Center for Internet & Society

Session Moderator: Kenneth Prewitt, Carnegie Professor of Public Affairs, Department of Political Science, Columbia University; former US Census Bureau director

No abstracts are available for the final session, which is designed to be a panel discussion of questions and solutions that arise over the days of the confernece.

The session will be ended with discussion between the speakers, then discussion with the audience