Thoughts:
- Alexis is way out of his league on this issue. He keeps repeating the same thing throughout the debate: "these techniques are actually making us less safe". He doesn't respond to points that were just made by the other side [I got the impression it was because he didn't have a response ready]. I felt so embarrassed for him when the moderator would ask him to give a technologist's opinion on various aspects of the NSA's tech that I had to pause the video multiple times [because it seems to me that tech is a big-enough field that asking Alexis about the NSA's tech is like asking a dentist's opinion on a neurologist's methods].
- Glenn comes out the best, probably because he's spent the most time thinking about this issue
- Hayden comes off pretty well IMO, better than I would have guessed. He is appropriately informal, eg joking that the opposition is imagining NSA employees as Mr. Burns, sitting in their chairs going "Exxxcccceellent...."
- Dershowitz doesn't come off as well as I would have guessed given the persuasiveness of his prose, but he still comes off pretty well.
- Dershowitz and Hayden repeatedly make technical points which are hard to follow.
On the opening remarks (6 mins each):
- I was expecting Dershowitz to kill it but IMO he wasn't concise enough. His remarks veered towards being intellectual and I found myself losing focus on what he was saying, so he may have lost a lot of the audience. I think he could have benefited from zoning in on 1-3 key issues and just hammering those home, like choosing a specific place to fight a battle and holding fast to make sure the enemy is forced to engage you there.
1:25:30 - Dershowitz brings out the great analogy of video cameras on the street corners. He gives a great 2-3 minute speech.
1:39:20 - Glenn really sticks a knife into Hayden's "your data is safe" argument by reminding everyone that Snowden had been able to download everything without the NSA realizing it, and that the NSA--by it's own admission--doesn't know what Snowden took.
1:45 - Closing Statements
1:45:10 - Glenn - 1) He points out that a major point at issue is what "state surveillance" actually is, and that the two sides don't agree on a definition.
1:46:20 - Glenn seems to concede that he wouldn't object to Dershowitz's version of state surveillance
1:46:30 - 2) He points out that hawks in the '70s and '80s were characterizing the Soviet Union as a huge threat and yet they didn't go to the same measures that they're going to now. And then he points out that more Americans die from being struck by lightning and getting involved in traffic accidents abroad than terrorism, and we don't "dismantle our fundamental freedoms" to go after those problems.
1:48:XX - Dershowitz starts
- He argues that we need a middle-ground where we can collect data on people w/o probably cause. He concedes that the current system is too much with too little oversight.
1:51:30 - Alexis starts
- Man...it's painful to watch. He repeats "actually makes us less secure" for the millionth time. He doesn't say much of substance. He just heavily harps on the idea that the beauty of the Internet is that people trust the privacy of their online behavior.
1:54:40 - Hayden starts
- He points out that Glenn / Alexis used scare-tactics way more in the debate than he did or Dershowitz did.
- He points out in an off-hand way that Google is collecting data in the exact way that Edward Snowden described [the idea being to point out that people aren't freaking out about Google in the same way]
- He brings up the Boston bombings and says that the reason they didn't know those guys were visiting Jihadist websites is that they're not allowed to monitor web activity on the mainland US. This is a good point if you trust that he's telling the truth. The problem is that it could also be that they wouldn't have been able to predict the attack even if they were monitoring the two guys' web activity.
- He points out that only 1 of 37 court decisions have been against the NSA program (or something like that), as a way of weakening Glenn's repeated appeal to that judge for support.
- He points out that the 3 senators that Glenn appealed to were consistently outvoted 12-3. The detail of this point and the previous one make me think he was getting talking points via his smart phone from staffers (which is a really smart idea).
- He tries to counter the "collect it all" scare-tactic that Glenn used but IMO flops the delivery. I think this was an easily-attacked point by Glenn.
- He stumbles at the end by starting his last sentence with the words "Trust me, ..." which gets the audience laughing [because the NSA's secrecy and false statements have been the big cause for a public feeling of mistrust].