Cambridge Analytica whistleblower Christopher Wylie testifies before Senate committee — Transcript

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1. 0:07the man who blew the whistle on
2. 0:09Cambridge analytic --is misuse of
3. 0:11facebook users personal data says social
4. 0:14media platforms are no longer safe
5. 0:17Christopher Wiley made those comments to
6. 0:19the Senate Judiciary Committee Wednesday
7. 0:21Wiley is the former director of research
8. 0:24for the london-based data firm he was
9. 0:26among the first to go public with
10. 0:28reports of how Cambridge analytic
11. 0:30misused the personal data of more than
12. 0:3287 million Facebook users here is some
13. 0:36of what he told senators Cambridge
14. 0:38analytics is the canary in the coal mine
15. 0:40we must address the Digital echo
16. 0:43chambers that are being exploited to
17. 0:45algorithmically segregate American
18. 0:47society online communities should unite
19. 0:50us and not divide us
20. 0:51the Cambridge analytic scandal has
21. 0:53exposed that social platforms are no
22. 0:55longer safe for users these platforms
23. 0:57are critical part of American cyber
24. 0:59space and are in desperate need a
25. 1:01protection and oversight there is a new
26. 1:03game being played and that the rights to
27. 1:06life liberty and the pursuit of
28. 1:07happiness need to be defended from those
29. 1:10who might undermine them using new
30. 1:12technologies whether they are
31. 1:13corporations whether they are Nations or
32. 1:16whether they're non-state actors joining
33. 1:19me now is Dan Patterson he is a senior
34. 1:21writer at Tech Republic Dan thanks so
35. 1:24much for being with us
36. 1:25Christopher Wylie said that data
37. 1:27security should be considered a national
38. 1:30security issue what are some of the
39. 1:32dangers he outlined well some of the
40. 1:35dangers of data security or data
41. 1:37insecurity is the weaponization of data
42. 1:40and we're seeing this right now as the
43. 1:42New York Times reported this morning we
44. 1:45see in Sri Lanka or we look at the raw
45. 1:47hanga crisis data can be weaponized and
46. 1:50in fact the Facebook platform was used
47. 1:52to weaponize data that led to the loss
48. 1:54of life mass loss of life in those
49. 1:58regions absolutely now Wylie also
50. 2:00pointed out that it's important for
51. 2:01people to recognize the amount of power
52. 2:03these tech companies have over people's
53. 2:06personal data what does he say he
54. 2:11recommends should be done to secure
55. 2:13people
56. 2:13personal information well there are a
57. 2:16number of things that we can do to lock
58. 2:18down our personal information but
59. 2:20honestly
60. 2:21according to Wylie and others we now
61. 2:23live in a hegemony we are giving our
62. 2:26information in an asymmetric form to a
63. 2:30few big data companies he also said that
64. 2:33we've same thing that we've said here
65. 2:35many times before data is like oil it is
66. 2:39the machinery it is the power that
67. 2:41drives the new economy absolutely now
68. 2:45Wiley also said that when he was working
69. 2:46at Cambridge analytic the relationship
70. 2:49that he noted between Cambridge analytic
71. 2:52and certain Russian entities gave him
72. 2:55pause and was really one of the reasons
73. 2:57that he left what did he say about that
74. 3:00relationship what did we learn well
75. 3:01there is no doubt that foreign actors
76. 3:05particularly the Russians are involved
77. 3:08in cognitive hacking that is the
78. 3:10exploitation of data to segment
79. 3:12populations one thing wiley said really
80. 3:15stuck out to me and that is if you
81. 3:17create segments of populations and those
82. 3:20populations then stop receiving news
83. 3:22from the mainstream media they are
84. 3:24effectively dropped out of the
85. 3:26electorate if they choose to vote or not
86. 3:29participate in a system he said
87. 3:31something that was really fascinating
88. 3:33and that was that it's so much easier to
89. 3:36demobilize people than it is to mobilize
90. 3:38people so if you remember all of the
91. 3:40rallies that we saw in previous
92. 3:42elections with big excited crowds it's
93. 3:45way easier to keep people from going to
94. 3:48the polls than it is to excite them to
95. 3:50get them to vote that is interesting and
96. 3:52so scary for a democracy of course now
97. 3:55what else did Wiley say about Steve ban
98. 3:57and of course former Trump adviser and
99. 3:59former vice-president of Cambridge
100. 4:01analytic ah what was the role he played
101. 4:04there well he said that Steve Benin who
102. 4:06we know that Bannon is a very thoughtful
103. 4:09person we know that he's a student of
104. 4:11history and we know that Steve Benin
105. 4:12reads
106. 4:13Wiley said that Bannon wanted to
107. 4:15weaponize data in forms that would allow
108. 4:18him to perform cultural warfare those
109. 4:22are really hard words to hear and really
110. 4:25hard words to say but we can look at
111. 4:27the language that the president used in
112. 4:29his campaign rallies we can look at the
113. 4:31same language the same keywords Wiley
114. 4:34said were identified in Cambridge
115. 4:36analytic a survey of data now what can
116. 4:40we infer from the news that CBS CBS News
117. 4:44has confirmed that the White House has
118. 4:46eliminated the role of cybersecurity
119. 4:49coordinator why eliminate a role that
120. 4:52seems to be more important now than ever
121. 4:54well we can only speculate as to why the
122. 4:58White House chose to do this but what
123. 4:59this will do in effect is remove the
124. 5:02direct line of communication from the
125. 5:05intelligence community to the executive
126. 5:07branch and this is important because
127. 5:09there is so much information in cyber
128. 5:12war that has to be communicated in a
129. 5:15very fast fashion from the intelligence
130. 5:18community up to the executive and
131. 5:20decisions have to be made very quickly
132. 5:22let me give you an example if we see a
133. 5:25cyber attack that targets say Atlanta
134. 5:27with ransomware you don't need to hack
135. 5:30an election booth in order to keep the
136. 5:34polls down all you have to do is target
137. 5:37critical infrastructure like
138. 5:39transportation water get to the polls
139. 5:42you can't vote that's exactly right so
140. 5:44in order to respond to that we need to
141. 5:47have threat coordinators that are
142. 5:49talking openly with the National
143. 5:51Security Council as well as the NSA and
144. 5:53the CIA
145. 5:54so can we assume then that this position
146. 5:56will be replaced by something comparable
147. 5:59I don't know that that's a fair
148. 6:00assumption right now it's something that
149. 6:02could be considered in the future but
150. 6:04right now this role is gone and this is
151. 6:07in keeping with John Bolton's history in
152. 6:11siloing the executive very interesting
153. 6:14Dan Patterson thank you so much for
154. 6:16coming to see what it see us today great
155. 6:18to be here