US government surveillance, global data flows and the Russia investigation: A chat with April Doss
U.S. government surveillance bubbled back up in headlines in recent weeks. Portugal's data protection authority halted transfers of data to the U.S. after complaints that census data were being sent back to the U.S. The same week, a U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court decision was published, in which it renewed a U.S. surveillance program even though it found some Federal Bureau of Investigation employees illegally accessed email data. This comes as the U.S. and EU try to hammer out a renewed data transfer agreement in the wake of the "Schrems II" decision that invalidated Privacy Shield. April Falcon Doss worked at the U.S. National Security Agency for 13 years. In 2017, Doss joined the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence for the Russia investigation. She also wrote a book, "Cyber Privacy: Who Has Your Data and Why You Should Care," and took a new job at Georgetown University Law Center. Host Jedidiah Bracy recently caught up with Doss to discuss the state of play of U.S. surveillance law, her new book, what she found out while investigating the 2016 presidential election, and what’s on the horizon with her new gig at Georgetown.