Just months after September 11, the Bush Administration, without court-approved documents, secretly authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on Americans and others inside the US to search for terrorist activity. Lichtblau's eye-opening reports have helped the public to make sense of this post-9/11 story that questions the reach of presidential powers, and how the government balances homeland security against the civil rights of Americans.

For his work on the domestic spying scandal, Lichtblau is the recipient of a Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting and is also this year's recipient, with Times reporter James Risen, of the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting. The Pulitzer jury applauded them "for their carefully sourced stories on secret domestic eavesdropping that stirred a national debate on the boundary line between fighting terrorism and protecting civil liberty."

Lichtblau has recently uncovered more government monitoring activities. The Swift story, in which counter-terrorism officials accessed the banking transactions of thousands of Americans from an international database, has alarmed many. The government's departure from typical practice in how they acquire large amounts of sensitive financial data has stirred concerns about legal and privacy issues.

Eric Lichtblau covers federal law enforcement and national security issues for the Washington bureau of The New York Times. Before coming to the Times, he worked for the The Los Angeles Times for 15 years in both California and Washington, focusing on investigative reporting, legal affairs and law enforcement. He is currently working on a book on the remaking of federal law enforcement since 9/11.

Lichtblau is also a guest commentator on television, appearing frequently on CNN, CNBC's Hardball, PBS's NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, and C-SPAN's Washington Journal. He also appears regularly on NPR's All Things Considered. Lichtblau has given speeches for Cornell University, Syracuse University, Mensa, judicial and academic conferences, and other forums.

Eric Lichtblau's talks focus on the delicate balance between national security and the public's right-to-know in the post-9-11 age. A free press and open government are central pillars of American democracy. But in an environment where terrorism is an undeniable threat, how much information does the public really need? What should remain secret, and who decides? Providing an instructive context to our current political climate, Lichtblau shows us how the NSA scandal and Swift case are merely a reflection of the deeper crackdown on public information in the four years since September 11th. According to Lichtblau, it is the type of material now considered too-sensitive-for-public-consumption that really tells the story.

A librarian at Syracuse University is told by the federal government to destroy a CD-ROM at the library that contains information on national reservoirs and dams—information that, ironically, is available in any number of publicly available almanacs and magazines at that very library. Other previously available, and seemingly innocuous, government information is now censored, denying taxpayers what was once basic public information. People are barred from airplanes without being told why, because the process itself is considered secret. These are just a few of the examples Lichtblau uses to paint a broader picture of our times as he tells us of the key social and political developments that led us to this point in the country's history.