The heated debate over the line between liberty and national security took center stage as Gen. Michael Hayden, former director of the National Security Agency and CIA, defended government surveillance programs at Stanford’s launch this week of “The Security Conundrum” speaker series.

If such surveillance methods were further restricted, “that smaller box, in my professional judgment, would make the job of the NSA harder and would probably make you less safe,” Hayden told a packed audience at the event co-sponsored in part by the university’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) and the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC).

Hayden admitted to being “prickly” as he discussed privacy concerns over NSA’s collection and storage of phone and email metadata covering billions of calls and messages by American citizens. The surveillance programs, which were exposed last year by leaks from NSA contractor Edward Snowden, were only used after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, given “the totality of the circumstances,” Hayden explained.

Hayden was director of the NSA from 1999 to 2005. He then led the CIA from 2006 to 2009.

The metadata collection “is something we would have never done on Sept. 9 or Sept. 10. But it seemed reasonable after Sept. 11,” he said. “No one is doing this out of prurient interests. No, it was a logical response to the needs of the moment.”

Amy Zegart, CISAC’s co-director and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, led the conversation with the four-star general. She pointed out that a majority of Americans distrusts the NSA and believes the agency is lying.

Hayden stressed that the phone records were similar to billing statements – detailing who made the calls and when. “There is no content. It is not electronic surveillance. Not at all.”

CISAC Co-Director Amy Zegart leaders a talk with former NSA and CIA Director Michael Hayden at the inaugural "Security Conundrum" speakers series on Oct. 8, 2014.

Though he understands why the operation is “theoretically frightening,” in reality, it’s designed to aid in the capture of terrorists within the United States, Hayden said.

“To listen to the content of the calls would violate the laws of the United States. It would violate the laws of physics,” he said. He challenged if anyone could offer “concrete evidence” of harm stemming from the phone data collection.

In defining the right to privacy, Hayden cited his philosophy behind the balancing act between security and liberty.

“Privacy is the line we continually negotiate for ourselves as unique creatures of God and as social animals,” he said. “There are some things that the community has the right to know – and there are other things that they clearly do not have the right to know.”

The debate is over where that line is drawn, between “what is mine” and “what is owed the collective,” he said.

Hayden noted that the phone and email metadata collection programs are only a small part of the larger issues the nation faces as it deals with increasingly adept enemies and the surveillance abilities of other nations.

“I’m just simply saying – who knows more about you? One of the least of your worries is the government,” he said, half-jokingly. He noted that Google knows more about Americans than does the U.S. government, and the Silicon Valley company uses that data for commercial purposes.

Addressing how tech companies are becoming more reluctant to cooperate with government requests for email communication data, Hayden said he didn’t have an answer about how to address the relationship.

There is a call for transparency of what the government is doing, but Hayden said “translucency” might be the better option, so as to not reveal all that the U.S. does for foreign intelligence.

“This is an enterprise that’s based on absolute secrecy,” he said of the NSA.

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But to achieve that, “it’s not transparency,” he said. “We actually have to be translucent … where you have the glass … and you get the broad patterns of movemen

The danger of not being able to target emails, Hayden said, would be that emails become a safe haven for enemies. “If we don’t’ do it, if you’re not going to let us do this stuff … over the long term, it puts your liberty at risk because bad stuff will happen.”

“The Security Conundrum” speaker series looks behind and beyond the headlines, examining the history and implementation of the NSA operations, the legal questions generated by them, the media’s role in revealing them, and the responsibility of Congress to oversee them.

Each guest speaker, in conversation with Stanford scholars, will probe the problems from different vantage points to explain the political, legal and technological contours of the NSA actions, as well as outline ways to preserve the nation’s security without sacrificing our freedoms.

On Nov. 17, journalist Barton Gellman will be the featured speaker. He is known for his Pulitzer Prize-winning reports on the 9/11 attacks and has led the Washington Post's coverage of the NSA. On April 10, Reggie Walton, the former presiding judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, will take the stage as the speaker on April 10.

Along with FSI and CISAC, the series is also co-sponsored by the Hoover Institution, Stanford Continuing Studies, Stanford in Government, and the Stanford Law School.

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Former Deputy Secretary of Defense Ash Carter will join Stanford this academic year as a lecturer at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) and a distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution.

Carter, who has a PhD in theoretical physics, served in the Clinton and Obama administrations and is well known in academic and technology circles. 

"I am honored to join the remarkable team at Stanford, one of the country's top universities and a key center for technological and business innovation,” Carter said. “The regional context of Silicon Valley was also an important attraction for me: the creative – even unorthodox – approaches to solving challenges are a model for both the private and public sectors. All that combined with a motivated faculty and a dynamic student population made Stanford a great opportunity. And as a scientist, I was always encouraged as a student to use my knowledge for the public good, and I hope to inspire the same thinking in students here.”

At FSI, Carter will be the Payne Distinguished Visitor and will be responsible for delivering several lectures. He will also deliver the annual Drell Lecture, which is sponsored by FSI’s Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC).

"Ash will bring to Stanford incomparable experience handling some of the most complex security issues facing the United States and the world,” said FSI Director Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar. “We are fortunate to have him at FSI, and know that he will make great contributions to the Institute's research and teaching missions."

"It is a true honor to have Secretary Carter join the Hoover Institution as a distinguished visiting fellow,” said Hoover Director John Raisian. “An expert on a broad range of foreign policy and defense matters, Ash brings a unique and worldly perspective, one that is in keeping with our mission statement of promoting ideas that define a free society. My colleagues and I look forward to having him join the fellowship."

Carter stepped down from his post at the Pentagon late last year after serving two years as the Deputy Secretary of Defense. As the agency’s second-ranking civilian, he oversaw a $600 billion budget and 2.4 million uniformed and civilian personnel. From 2009 to 2011 Carter was the Undersecretary for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics.

“Ash Carter is an extraordinary scholar statesman who thinks deeply, probes broadly, and transforms the organizations he leads,” said Amy Zegart, CISAC’s co-director. “We are thrilled to have him join the CISAC community.”

Carter joined the Defense Department from Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government, where he was a professor and chair of the International Relations, Science, and Security faculty.

Carter’s connection with the technology business dates to his previous position as a senior partner at Global Technology Partners, where he advised major investment firms on technology and defense. He is currently working with several companies in Silicon Valley.

Carter earned his bachelor’s degrees in physics and in medieval history from Yale in 1976, summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa. He was a Rhodes Scholar and received his doctorate in theoretical physics from Oxford in 1979.

He was a physics instructor at Oxford, a postdoctoral fellow at Rockefeller University and M.I.T., and an experimental research associate at Brookhaven and Fermilab National Laboratories. From 1993 to 1996, Carter served as Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Policy, responsible for policy regarding the former Soviet states, strategic affairs, and nuclear weapons policy.

Carter recently joined the Markle Foundation to help lead the "Economic Future Initiative" to develop groundbreaking ideas for empowering Americans in today’s networked economic landscape.

FSI's Francis Fukuyama and former U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan Karl Eikenberry, a William J. Perry Fellow in International Security at CISAC, write in the Financial Times that President Barack Obama's stance on ISIS is "overpromising" and that the United States should follow lessons from British history and pursue a more sustainable strategy known as "offshore balancing."

FSI's Francis Fukuyama and former U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan Karl Eikenberry,  a William J. Perry Fellow in International Security at CISAC, write in the Financial Times that President Barack Obama's stance on ISIS is "overpromising" and that the United States should follow lessons from British history and pursue a more sustainable strategy known as "offshore balancing."

While there is no one-size-fits-all approach to the war on terror, the United States needs to reconsider its strategy in dealing with these threats, a Stanford scholar says.

"For the United States, a counterterrorism strategy cannot be considered in isolation from other policies," said Martha Crenshaw, a terrorism expert and senior fellow at Stanford's Center for International Security and Cooperation, in an interview.

"This means that our actions should be justifiable and transparent." 

In a chapter of a new book, Crenshaw advocates vigilance against terrorism, while not overreacting. It is not prudent to be complacent about the impact of terrorism on international security, though it is by no means an "existential threat" for developed countries, she wrote.

Crenshaw founded the Mapping Militant Organizations project to identify militant organizations globally and trace how they arise, their root causes and their connections.

In an interview, she said, "We are all fond of saying that there is no military solution to a political problem and that the states that are directly threatened by terrorism, such as Pakistan, Afghanistan or Iraq, should muster the resolve and resources to combat it. But we haven't figured out how to implement these rather abstract prescriptions and admonitions."

She suggested that there is a role for military force and outside powers, but it should be limited and precise in intent. 

America's actions against terrorism should not violate democratic norms, Crenshaw said. "And we should not veer erratically between complacency and alarm, but take a middle ground."

She said context is all-important. "It's frustrating, but there is no one-size-fits-all strategy. Similar countries have reacted differently to terrorism yet produced the same overall outcome."

Negotiation and compromise?

One challenge for countries like the United States is to find alternatives in confronting terrorism. For example, governments may need to decide whether to recognize or negotiate with groups they deem as terrorist entities.

"Is compromise possible?" she wrote, citing failures in Sri Lanka and Colombia but success in Northern Ireland on this front. There is no consistent answer, she said.

An approach of realism and expectations of mixed results may define the best way forward, she said.

"Perhaps the most important lesson for the international community is that the process of ending terrorism is likely to be slow and arduous, requiring gradualism, endurance and commitment despite setback," Crenshaw wrote.

She added, "States may not be able to prevent or eradicate terrorism, but they can manage their reactions to it."

She advocates "capacity building," or giving local governments the capacity to deal with terrorism by building more effective security institutions in the broadest sense.

"What happens at the local level is important to overall international security," Crenshaw said. "Terrorism threatens the stability of already weak and fragile states, thus contributing to state collapse, ungoverned spaces, social dislocation, repression and economic decline."

Drone debate

Crenshaw said that the United States increasingly prefers the use of drones rather than large-scale military options in the fighting of terrorism.

"Drones are a highly efficient means of implementing a policy of targeted killings of leaders of militant groups," she wrote.

Drone usage began under the Bush administration, she noted, and peaked in 2010 under the Obama administration. "Future U.S. counterterrorism strategy will rely on the covert use of limited force, utilizing drones and special operations forces," she wrote.

What are the implications of drone warfare? Crenshaw said that questions remain unanswered about how international law applies to drones, as well as issues of accountability and transparency.

"Despite their precision," she said, "drones kill civilians."

Political violence

It is difficult to predict when and where terrorism may strike, she said. Terrorists are innovative and they experiment, especially when faced with adjusting to new obstacles.

"For example, just when hijackings were thought to be a relic of the past, Al Qaeda combined them with suicide missions to achieve the devastating 9/11 surprise," Crenshaw wrote, referring to the Sept. 11, 2001 attack on the Pentagon and New York's World Trade Center.

She said that Muslims bear the brunt of terrorism, suffering between 82 percent and 97 percent of all deaths. In terms of trends, suicide missions are increasingly used as a lethal tactic.

From 1991 to 2001, there were 170 suicide attacks causing 2,077 deaths, while since 9/11, there have been 2,130 such attacks resulting in 26,866 deaths. Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan are the most common places where terror incidents occur.

Why have terrorists been so unsuccessful in wielding radiological, chemical or biological weapons? So far, the Japanese subway sarin attacks in 1995 remain the only instance of chemical weapons being used by a terrorist group. "Are the acquisition and use of such weapons too difficult? The answers are still elusive," Crenshaw said.

Meanwhile, "cyberterrorism" has largely been conducted by sophisticated state actors – like the Stuxnet virus that damaged the Iranian centrifuges – and not terrorists. It remains to be seen whether terrorists have such capabilities, Crenshaw wrote.

Crenshaw's chapter, "Dealing with Terrorism," will be published by the United States Institute of Peace in the forthcoming new book, Managing Conflict in a World Adrift.

She noted, "Terrorism has been a common strategy for challenging the status quo for quite a long period of time – at least since the European revolutionary and anarchist movements of the late 19th century. There is no reason to think it will disappear."

CISAC Consulting Professor Thomas Hegghammer writes in this Lawfare Foreign Policy Essay: Calculated Caliphate that the move by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) to declare itself an Islamic State with a caliphate as its leader is a "bold and unprecedented" move.

Hegghammer, director of terrorism research at the Norwegian Defence Research Establishment and a leading scholar of the jihadist movement, explores the motivations, both strategic and ideological, behind the recent ISIS revelations in Iraq.