A symposium has been arranged around Robbert van Eijk’s thesis defence ceremony and American university professor Peter Swire is one of the speakers.
Mare spoke to Swire on Skype before the symposium: “In Leiden, I want to talk about the bodycams worn by the police”. The cameras are great for justifying police actions, especially within the context of police violence, for instance, and Black Lives Matter.
Coincidentally, it was announced this week that the officers of Leiden’s special investigation and arrest units are to be equipped with bodycams. “All those images raise some tough issues. What do we do with the footage? How do we make sure that’s processed and stored safely? The police are not exactly the best experts when it comes to cybersecurity. And what are they allowed to do with all that footage anyway?”
After Edward Snowden’s disclosures, Swire was commissioned to investigate the National Security Agency (NSA). “We were granted highest priority clearance and spoke to lots and lots of staff. The impression, particularly in Europe, was that the service was like a trigger-happy cowboy who broke all the rules.
That’s not the case. In fact, we discovered that the NSA had set up an extensive programme back in 2008, in which they had laid down the impact of legislation on the service. The service kept a close eye on its staff too, to make sure they actually abided by the law.
“We came across some odd stuff, though. There were some cases of LOVEINT: love-intelligence, staff who used the options offered by the NSA to investigate their loved ones, or people they had a crush on. There were nine of those cases, and those persons had been punished too, and even fired in some cases.”