BBC Panel Discussion: “Spying and Surveillance: The Snowden Files” … requiring 48 minutes of patient listening to a wide-ranging discussion which also provides insights on the manner in which the media today reports on distant conflicts in churnalism style. 
PARTICIPANTS
Anne McElvoy: a British journalist for The Economist and Evening Standard, and a broadcaster
Luke Harding: a foreign correspondent working for The Guardian
Annette Dittert: ARD German TV’s foreign correspondent in the UK.
Alain de Botton: a Swiss/British writer, philosopher, television presenter and entrepreneur, resident in the United Kingdom
Sir David Omand: previously a serving officer in GCHQ – the British intelligence agency responsible for providing signals intelligence (SIGINT)
McElvoy 
Lukr Harding
Dittert
Botton
Ormand
Last year The Guardian ran a series of scoops about the extent of mass surveillance by the security services here and in the USA. Anne McElvoy talks to the journalist Luke Harding about the inside story on the whistle-blower Edward Snowden and what motivated him to commit one of the biggest intelligence leaks in history. The former director of GCHQ, Sir David Omand, fears the leaks have done untold damage and endangered state security. Claims that America hacked the phone of the German Chancellor Angela Merkel caused uproar in Germany, and the journalist Annette Dittert argues that the memory of the Stasi’s spying machine is still raw. There has been little outcry among the British public and the philosopher Alain de Botton explores the nature of news and the ‘noise’ it generates. Producer: Katy Hickman
