Joel Brenner Session Overview

Senior Research Fellow, Center for International Studies, MIT

JOEL BRENNER is a senior research fellow at MIT’s Center for International Studies, where his work concerns the future of intelligence, international conflict in the gray zone between war and peace and the protection of the electronic networks that control critical infrastruc­ture. Brenner was Senior Counsel at the National Security Agency (2009-2010), advising Agency leadership on the public-private effort to create better Internet security; the head of US counterintelligence under the Director of National Intelligence (2006-2010); and NSA’s Inspector General (2002-2006), responsible for that agency’s top-secret internal audits and investigations. He is an advisor to the American Bar Association’s Standing Committee on Law and National Secu­rity and is the author of America The Vulnerable: Inside the New Threat Matrix of Digital Espionage, Crime and Warfare, in paperback as Glass Houses: Privacy, Secrecy, and Cyber Insecurity in a Transparent World.

25th Anniversary Video

Hear past and present organizers reflect on over 25 years of the Seminar XXI Program and its impact on the national security policy community.

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2026–2027 SESSION DATES

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Find out who attended and the national security topics discussed.

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