Cyber and National Security: Making Oversight Work
| Thursday, March 6, 2025 3:00 P.M. Seaborg Room, UC Berkeley Faculty Club |
Registration Now Closed |  |
Cyber represents one of biggest challenges to national security and to the protection of fundamental rights. Intelligence agencies are tasked with protecting critical infrastructure, protecting government and business secrets, and with identifying and addressing misinformation. As nations have developed bulk intercept capabilities and offensive and defensive cyber practices, oversight must evolve to address these powerful tools. Traditional legislation is ill-fitted for low predictability and quickly changing dynamics inherently connected to cyber activities. Maintaining a proper balance between the interests of national security and the protection of fundamental rights is essential. An improved system of checks and balances requires a more normative approach where greater operational flexibility is counterbalanced by real-time and binding oversight. Drawing upon years of oversight of two of the most capable continental intelligence agencies, Nico van Eijk explains the effort to find such an improved system.
Nico van Eijk recently served as Chair of the Review Committee on the Intelligence and Security Services (CTIVD), where he oversaw both the general and military intelligence services of The Netherlands. Previously van Eijk was Professor of Information Law and Director of the Institute for Information Law (IViR) at the University of Amsterdam.