President's Dream Colloquium on Engaging Big Data

Watch the Recorded Web Stream

Recorded on April 5, 2016

About the Lecture

Edward Snowden will join Metro Vancouverites for a conversation live via web-link about the power, promise and peril of big data.

Snowden will provide a keynote presentation, followed by a moderated discussion led by CBC’s Senior Correspondent and Host, Laura Lynch and featuring expert panelists Micheal Vonn (BC Civil Liberties Association), Peter Chow-White (SFU), and Fred Popowich (SFU). Audience members will have the opportunity to submit questions via Twitter using the hashtags #snowden and #bigdata during the discussion.

Edward Snowden is an American intelligence contractor who in 2013 revealed the existence of secret wide-ranging information-gathering programs conducted by the National Security Agency (NSA).

On May 20, 2013, Snowden flew to Hong Kong after leaving his job at an NSA facility in Hawaii and in early June he revealed thousands of classified NSA documents to journalists Glenn Greenwald, Laura Poitras and Ewen MacAskill. Snowden came to international attention after stories based on the material appeared in The Guardian and The Washington Post. Further disclosures were made by other newspapers including Der Spiegel and The New York Times.

A subject of controversy, Snowden has been variously called a hero, a whistleblower, a dissident, a patriot, and a traitor. His disclosures have fueled debates over mass surveillance, government secrecy, and the balance between national security and information privacy.