On the Key Role Intelligence Agencies can play to Restore our Democratic Institutions

On 26th of October 2012, at the closed workshop on ``Online Security & Civil Rights: a Fine Ethical Balance,'' Hertfordshire, UK, the author put forward the idea that intelligence agencies should work for the People and not for the government. That means that the intelligence agencies should spy on these working in the government and these working for lobbyists.  The recipient of this information should be the public at large. The foundation of this idea comes from the Magna Carta and the US Civil Rights Bill that regard ``We the People'' as the trust worthy party and the government as potentially corrupt.
After the Snowden leaks, it has become evident that a discussion is needed on how to reorganize the huge intelligence agencies so that they fit a Western thinking and to avoid they are evolving into a clone of what the KGB and the Stasi used to be.
An upodated version of this this lecture was presented at the Security Protocols Workshop, Cambridge on March 20, 2014 and further updates are based on comments received meanwhile.
 

Yvo Desmedt is the Jonsson Distinguished Professor at the University of Texas at Dallas, and is the chair of Information Communication Technology at the University College London, a Fellow of the International Association of Cryptologic Research (IACR) and a Foreign Member of the Belgium Academy of Science and Arts. He received his Ph.D. (1984, Summa cum Laude) from the University of Leuven, Belgium. He held positions at: Universite de Montreal, University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee (founding director of the Center for Cryptography, Computer and Network Security), and Florida State University (Director of the Laboratory of Security and Assurance in Information Technology, one of the first 14 NSA Centers of Excellence). He has held numerous visiting appointments. He is the Editor-in-Chief of IET Information Security and Chair of the Steering Committees of CANS and ICITS.  He was Program Chair of e.g., Crypto 1994, the ACM Workshop on Scientific Aspects of Cyber Terrorism 2002, and ISC 2013. He has authored over 200 refereed papers, primarily on cryptography, computer security, and network security. He has made important predictions, such as his 1983 technical description how cyber could be used to attack control systems (realized by Stuxnet), and his 1996 prediction hackers will target Certifying Authorities (DigiNotar was targeted in 2011).