LOS ALAMITOS, Calif., 7 April, 2009 -- IEEE Security & Privacy, the information security field's leading magazine, will hold a panel discussion at the RSA Conference featuring experts arguing for and against the use of surveillance.

"Surveillance: Security, Privacy, and Risk" will take place on Tuesday, 21 April from 1:30-2:40 p.m. at San Francisco's Moscone Center. This IEEE Security & Privacy panel will discuss the three largest policy objectives in conflict, using the FISA Amendments Act (which replaced the Protect America Act) as an example of the kinds of legislation currently enacted, the benefits such legislation brings, and the risks to system integrity brought by technical implementations.

Arguing the counterterrorism/anti-cybercrime side of the debate are Rebecca Bace and Alexander Joel. Bace is president/CEO of Infidel, Inc. and a venture consultant for Trident Capital; previously, she held posts at the National Security Agency and Los Alamos. Joel is the Civil Liberties Protection Officer for the Director of National Intelligence. His duties include ensuring that intelligence agencies' policies protect privacy.

Matt Blaze and Deirdre K. Mulligan will argue that individual privacy rights and system integrity concerns are paramount. Blaze teaches computer science at the University of Pennsylvania, where he also studies cryptography, trust management, human-scale security, and networking and distributed computing. Mulligan is an assistant professor at the School of Information at UC Berkeley. She has served as staff counsel at the Center for Democracy & Technology.

IEEE Security & Privacy columnist and Silver Bullet Security Podcast host Dr. Gary McGraw will serve as moderator. McGraw is the CTO of software security firm Cigital. He's a world authority on software security and the author of several best-selling books, including Java Security, Software Security, and Exploiting Online Games.

Panel attendees and press are invited to mingle with the panelists to ask follow-up questions or get their opinions on various security-related topics at the reception immediately following the debate (East Mezzanine/Green Room 232, 1:30-4:30 p.m.).

In Booth 811, the IEEE Computer Society will feature IEEE Security & Privacy magazine and several subscription options. The annual RSA Conference draws about 17,000 attendees and features 350 exhibitors and more than 220 sessions in 19 class tracks.

IEEE Security & Privacy, published by the IEEE Computer Society, addresses a broad range of topics related to securing information and computing resources. Its primary goal is to bridge the gap between theory and practice. The magazine provides a combination of research articles, case studies, tutorials, and regular departments and columns for the information security industry. To subscribe to IEEE Security & Privacy, visit http://www.computer.org/rsa09/sp.