Whether on college campuses or in football stadiums, our first amendment rights are being challenged. However, the debate extends far beyond these venues.  At a time when we face competing ideologies at home and increasing threats from abroad, balancing the fundamental rights of free speech and freedom of the press—especially as pertains sensitive intelligence information—with our national security interests is harder than ever.

How far can we go in protecting America’s interests while still preserving our constitutional rights? At this upcoming dinner, join Judy Miller, a Pulitzer prize winning investigative journalist who spent 85 days in jail to defend her right to protect confidential sources, and Geoffrey Stone, former appointee to Obama’s Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies, to discuss how we can best balance national security with the first amendment. 

About the Speakers

Geoffrey R. Stone is the Edward H. Levi Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago. Mr. Stone joined the faculty in 1973, after serving as a law clerk to Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan, Jr. He later served as Dean of the Law School (1987-1994) and Provost of the University of Chicago (1994-2002).

Stone was appointed by President Obama to serve on the President’s Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies, which evaluated the government’s foreign intelligence surveillance programs in the wake of Edward Snowden’s leaks. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a member of the America Law Institute, the National Advisory Council of the American Civil Liberties Union, a member of the American Philosophical Society, and a member of the Board of Advisors of the Council for Democracy and Technology. He has served as Chair of the Board of the American Constitution Society and Chair of the Board of the Chicago Children’s Choir. Geoffrey R. Stone is the Edward H. Levi Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago. Mr. Stone joined the faculty in 1973, after serving as a law clerk to Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan, Jr. He later served as Dean of the Law School (1987-1994) and Provost of the University of Chicago (1994-2002).Stone is the author of many books on constitutional law, including Sex and the Constitution: Sex, Religion and Law from America’s Origins to the Twenty-First Century (2017); Speaking Out: Reflections of Law, Liberty and Justice (2010 & 2016); Top Secret: When Our Government Keeps Us in the Dark (2007), War and Liberty: An American Dilemma (2007), Perilous Times: Free Speech in Wartime (2004), and Eternally Vigilant: Free Speech in the Modern Era (Chicago 2002). He is also an editor of two leading casebooks, Constitutional Law (7th ed. 2013) and The First Amendment (5th ed. 2016). Stone is an editor of The Supreme Court Review and chief editor of a twenty-volume series, Inalienable Rights, which is being published by the Oxford University Press.Stone was appointed by President Obama to serve on the President’s Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies, which evaluated the government’s foreign intelligence surveillance programs in the wake of Edward Snowden’s leaks. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a member of the America Law Institute, the National Advisory Council of the American Civil Liberties Union, a member of the American Philosophical Society, and a member of the Board of Advisors of the Council for Democracy and Technology. He has served as Chair of the Board of the American Constitution Society and Chair of the Board of the Chicago Children’s Choir.

Judith Miller is an adjunct fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a City Journal contributing editor, a best-selling author, and a Pulitzer Prize–winning investigative reporter formerly with The New York Times. In 2002, Miller was part of a small team that won a Pulitzer Prize for explanatory journalism for her January 2001 series on Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda. That same year, she won an Emmy for her work on a Nova/New York Times documentary based on articles for her book Germs. Miller was part of the Times team that won the DuPont Award for a series of programs on terrorism for PBS’s Frontline. Before leaving the Times in 2005, she spent 85 days in jail to defend a reporter’s right to protect confidential sources. That year, Miller received the Society of Professional Journalists First Amendment Award for her defense of an independent press.

Since 2008, Miller has been a commentator for Fox News, speaking on terrorism and other national security issues, the Middle East, U.S. foreign policy, and the need for a delicate balance between protecting national security and civil liberties in a post-9/11 world. She is the author of One, by One, by One (1990), a highly praised account of how people in six nations have distorted the memory of the Holocaust; Saddam Hussein and the Crisis in the Gulf (1990), a New York Times bestseller during the 1991 Gulf War; God Has Ninety-Nine Names (1996), which explores the spread of Islamic extremism in ten Middle Eastern countries; and her memoir, The Story: A Reporter’s Journey (2015). Miller is coauthor of Germs: Biological Weapons and America’s Secret War (2001), which topped the bestseller list in the wake of 9/11 and the anthrax-letter terrorist attacks.