A year ago, Rebecca Richards joined the NSA as its director of privacy and civil liberties. As yet, she hasn't testified before Congress because, in her words, "nobody has asked." But she does appear on The Cyberlaw Podcast this week, where she is interviewed by Stewart Baker, a former general counsel of the NSA and privacy skeptic.

One noteworthy exchange concerned the public outrage at Edward Snowden's revelations and how the NSA can retain public support for its activities in a democracy.

"We've spent since the 1970s at least assuming that if we obey the law, whatever was left we could just do it—and we could be creative and enthusiastic and aggressive and use little smiley faces when we succeeded," Baker said. "That turned out to be really devastating for the institution, because as far as I can tell there was very little illegality, if any, established, except for a few things that the institution itself had punished. So it turned out that staying on the right side of the law didn't actually protect the agency from disaster. The question is, what lesson do you learn now that you know being legal is necessary but not sufficient?"