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Glenn Greenwald: "Edward Snowden and the Secrets of the National Security State" — Transcript

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0:04Okay, so uh why don't we get started?
0:07Um my name is Matt Potolsky. I'm a
0:09professor in the English department and
0:11the uh organizer of Secrecy Week. Um so,
0:15welcome.
0:16I want to uh
0:17mention first let's see first please
0:19everybody turn off your cell phones or
0:21at least turn off the ringers. Um
0:24uh and I want to um thank our sponsors.
0:27Uh first and foremost the uh Office of
0:29Undergraduate Studies which um awarded
0:32me the uh
0:33uh university professorship which in
0:35turn came with a budget um that allowed
0:37me to uh to bring uh Glenn Greenwald.
0:40So, I really appreciate that and I thank
0:41them.
0:42Um the College of Humanities
0:45Marriott Library
0:46uh ASUU contributed uh from their
0:49speakers fund.
0:50Um the BYU Humanities Center Xmission
0:54uh the Tanner Humanities Center uh and
0:57the Department of English. Um so, I
0:59really thank sponsors. They've uh
1:01they've gone out of their way to uh to
1:03make this possible and I deeply
1:04appreciate that. I also want to thank
1:06Heidi Camp and Christina Bailey in the
1:08uh Humanities Dean's Office College of
1:11Humanities Dean's Office who uh uh saved
1:13me from all sorts of potential pitfalls
1:16in organizing this. I've never done
1:18anything quite this big before.
1:21Um there will be a Q&A session after a
1:24brief Q&A session.
1:25Um so, uh the microphones will be going
1:28around. This is being live streamed. So,
1:30please um remember and I'll remind
1:32everybody again. Um don't start asking
1:35your question until you have the
1:36microphone. There'll be people on either
1:38side of the aisle um who will identify
1:40you or you know, if you identify
1:42yourself uh they'll get you a
1:43microphone. So, if you don't speak into
1:46the microphone the live stream won't
1:47pick it up. Okay?
1:48Um but I will remind remind everybody as
1:51well.
1:52I'm very pleased to introduce our
1:54speaker tonight uh Glenn Greenwald who's
1:57the uh keynote for uh the events of
2:00Secrecy Week.
2:01A former a journalist former
2:03constitutional lawyer and the author of
2:05the best-selling books with liberty and
2:06justice for some how would a patriot act
2:10Great American hypocrites and a tragic
2:12legacy Greenwald is best known now for
2:14his groundbreaking reporting for the
2:16Guardian on Edward Snowden's leaking of
2:18classified information about the
2:20surveillance and mass data collection
2:22activities of the National Security
2:24Agency. A topic that is fortuitously
2:26returned to public discussion with John
2:28Oliver's interview with uh Edward
2:29Snowden this past Sunday on on his show
2:32Last Week Tonight.
2:35Greenwald's most recent book No Place to
2:37Hide builds upon his reporting for the
2:39Guardian offering a gripping narrative
2:41that would fit very well in a spy novel.
2:44Greenwald tells of his initial contacts
2:45with Snowden their clandestine meetings
2:48um along with the filmmaker Laura
2:50Poitras and reporter Ewen MacAskill in
2:53Hong Kong uh in May of 2013.
2:56The book also provides the clearest
2:58account I've read of the web of NSA
3:00programs uh Snowden's information
3:02revealed as well as a bracing and
3:04unapologetic critique of the idea that
3:06mass surveillance has ever made us safe
3:08from terrorism.
3:10Greenwald's meeting with Snowden uh
3:12meetings with Snowden are depicted in
3:13Poitras's recent film Citizenfour which
3:16won the 2015 Academy Award for
3:18documentary feature.
3:19Um and I understand that there's a
3:21feature film based on these events uh
3:23and directed by Oliver Stone now in
3:25production.
3:28Uh Greenwald has been the recipient of
3:29numerous honors including the top
3:31investigative journalism award from the
3:34Online News Association the SO Award for
3:37Excellence in Reporting which is the uh
3:39I believe the Brazilian equivalent to
3:40the Pulitzer
3:42uh a 2013 Pioneer Award from the
3:44Electronic Frontier Foundation uh and
3:47the 2013 George Polk Award for National
3:49Security Reporting.
3:51Foreign Policy Magazine has named him
3:53one of the 100 top global thinkers.
3:56The Washington Post and Guardian jointly
3:58won the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for public
4:01service on the strength of the reporting
4:03by Greenwald Poitras and MacAskill.
4:06In addition to his books and work for
4:08the Guardian Greenwald has written for
4:10many newspapers and political magazines
4:12including Salon The New York Times The
4:14Los Angeles Times and The American
4:16Conservative.
4:17Uh in 2014 he co-founded a new media
4:20outlet The Intercept uh by means of
4:22which he has continued his essential
4:24reporting on national security issues as
4:26well as other topics.
4:28Uh his talk tonight is entitled Edward
4:29Snowden and the secrets of the national
4:31security state. Please welcome Glenn
4:33Greenwald.
4:43Thank you.
4:46Thank you very much.
4:53Thank you and good evening everybody and
4:54and thanks so much for coming out
4:56tonight and and thanks as well to the
4:58University
4:59of Utah for inviting me here to speak. I
5:01was really delighted when I got the
5:03invitation and happy I was able to come
5:05for a couple of reasons.
5:07Um for one thing it's been the perfect
5:10complement to what has been
5:12an excitingly unusual week for me. Um
5:15I've been traveling for I think 6 days
5:17now
5:18um and it's a week that began in Dallas
5:21last Friday
5:23uh when I found myself doing the Glenn
5:25Beck show. Um
5:28and then that was followed by my giving
5:31the keynote address to an organization
5:34headed by former
5:36uh Tea Party Congressman Allen West um
5:40and in a few days I'm going to be back
5:41in Texas where I'm going to be doing a
5:43panel discussion with former Republican
5:45Congressman
5:46Ron Paul
5:48and um
5:50and and now here I am in Utah.
5:54Um
5:55I just just a few miles from the shiny
5:58sprawling new NSA facility in in
6:00Bluffdale to talk about NSA and
6:02surveillance.
6:03Um so, it's not exactly the roster of
6:06places that a lot of people would expect
6:08to find me. Um but I'm actually really
6:11glad that that I'm able to go and speak
6:14to a really wide diverse uh group of of
6:18places and on audiences and I actually
6:20think it reveals a really important
6:21point about the reporting that we've
6:23been able to do over the last 20 months
6:25and the debate that we've been able to
6:26provoke. We are often told that in the
6:30United States every single significant
6:32political controversy is definable by
6:36whether you're on the left or whether
6:37you're on the right or whether you're a
6:38conservative or a liberal or whether
6:40you're a Republican or a Democrat and
6:41that where you are in those categories
6:44determines the position that you hold
6:46and that you all essentially never have
6:49any common views with people who are in
6:51the other group. And that actually is
6:54true for a good number of issues but
6:56definitely not all of them.
6:58And it for certain hasn't been true for
7:01the debate over surveillance and secrecy
7:03and privacy that we've been able to
7:07provoke over the last 20 months. In
7:09fact, it's been completely untrue.
7:12There is a lot of support for the
7:14reporting I've been able to do and the
7:16disclosures that Edward Snowden made on
7:18the left but there's also a huge amount
7:20of support um among people on the right.
7:23The very first prominent national
7:26politician who contacted me after we
7:28began doing the disclosures um was the
7:32two-term very conservative senator from
7:35New Hampshire Gordon Humphrey. He wrote
7:37to me and said, "Please tell Edward
7:39Snowden on my behalf that I consider
7:41what he did patriotic and heroic."
7:45And when it came time in the United
7:48States Congress for the first time to
7:50debate whether or not we should allow
7:51the NSA to collect enormous amounts of
7:54data not about the terrorists among us
7:57or the criminals among us but all of us
8:01the very first bill that was pa- that
8:02was presented that was introduced was a
8:05bill to completely defund
8:07the NSA program that collects the
8:10records of every person with whom you
8:13communicate by telephone and there were
8:15two primary sponsors of that bill in the
8:17house. One was the first uh term Tea
8:22Party uh Republican who's 32 years old
8:25from Michigan named Justin Amash on the
8:27one hand and his uh primary co-sponsor
8:31was the 35th year um very liberal
8:36African-American Democratic member of
8:38the house from Detroit John Conyers.
8:41And these two extraordinarily unlikely
8:45partners
8:46um joined together and attracted an
8:48amazingly diverse uh coalition uh drawn
8:52equally from both parties across the
8:54political spectrum even including the
8:57original author of the Patriot Act back
8:59in 2001 Jim Sensenbrenner the Republican
9:02from Wisconsin who said "Even those
9:05among us who are the most aggressive
9:07about enacting post-9/11 legislation
9:10never dreamed that the Patriot Act would
9:13be used to indiscriminately collect
9:15survey uh information and data about all
9:18Americans." And they joined together in
9:20a coalition to try and defund
9:23this program. And if you look at polling
9:25data in terms of how Americans have
9:27reacted to the surveillance debate and
9:29the revelations of Snowden one of the
9:31least reliable indicators of how
9:33somebody will react is partisan identity
9:37or where someone falls on the
9:38ideological spectrum. It almost tells
9:40you nothing about what somebody thinks
9:42about surveillance if you know that
9:43somebody's a Republican or a Democrat or
9:47a liberal or a conservative.
9:51That's a nice background noise for some
9:53of the things I'm going to talk about.
9:54It's like a little musical score.
9:56Um
9:57so, you know, that the the most reliable
10:00demographic attribute for determining
10:02how people have reacted to this question
10:05has actually been age. People who are in
10:08the younger age brackets have been
10:10overwhelmingly supportive of what Edward
10:12Snowden did and the reporting that we've
10:13done and overwhelmingly concerned by
10:15what the NSA and its allies agencies are
10:18doing to the internet in part because of
10:20the way that younger people tend to
10:22think much differently than older people
10:25about the internet. For older people,
10:26people 45, 50 and older, um who didn't
10:29grow up with the internet, um the
10:32internet is this sort of discrete
10:34instrument that can be used to achieve
10:37certain functions. You can buy a book on
10:39Amazon, you can make a reservation on on
10:42an airline, you can receive pictures of
10:44family members, you can do very discrete
10:47tasks, and it's a helpful and useful
10:49instrument for people in those
10:51demographic age groups, very generally
10:53speaking. But for younger people who
10:55actually grew up with the internet as a
10:57central part of what they do, the
10:59internet is much more than that. It's
11:00actually a central part of the world.
11:03It's the place where you explore the
11:05world and make friends and maintain
11:09human connections and experiment with
11:11your identity and the way in which you
11:14essentially understand the world.
11:18And so to stand by and watch that
11:21instrument, that human innovation, the
11:22internet be turned into the most extreme
11:26and comprehensive form of human
11:28surveillance has been something really
11:30menacing in the eyes of lots of
11:33Americans regardless of
11:36ideological or partisan identity. And I
11:39think that's been one of the most
11:40inspiring and I think maybe one of the
11:42most enduring parts of this debate.
11:46Now, there's another reason why I'm
11:47really glad to be here as part of this
11:48event, which is usually when I when I go
11:50places um and talk about Snowden and the
11:53NSA and the revelations, it's cast as a
11:55talk about privacy or a talk about
11:58surveillance. And of course, privacy and
11:59surveillance are really important parts
12:02of the reporting that we've been able to
12:03do and the documents we've been able to
12:05reveal.
12:06But the debate that has been triggered,
12:08not just in the United States, but
12:09around the world as a result of these
12:11revelations, is about so much more than
12:13that.
12:14It has been about the proper role of
12:17journalism in democracy.
12:19It has been about the role that the
12:21United States plays in the world and the
12:23political identity of President Obama
12:26and the vast gap between the statements
12:27he makes about himself and the reality
12:29of what he does, but it's also been, at
12:32least as much, if not more than all
12:34those other things, a debate about the
12:36dangers of secrecy, of government
12:39secrecy. And so I'm really thrilled to
12:41be part of an event devoted to talking
12:44about the reasons why we ought to care
12:46so much when our government essentially
12:48builds a wall of secrecy behind which it
12:51operates.
12:53I get asked all the time when I do
12:55interviews or come to events like this,
12:56I get This is one of the most frequently
12:58asked questions I get over the last 20
13:00months, which is, "Well, you've you've
13:01done dozens and dozens and dozens of
13:03stories from the Snowden archive, you've
13:05read many thousands of of secret
13:08documents from the US government. What
13:10has been the most shocking revelation,
13:13the single most surprising or
13:15significant revelation that you've
13:17discovered?" And that's actually not a
13:19hard question for me to answer. The
13:20answer is really clear for me. It's not
13:23even close. The most shocking revelation
13:25for me
13:27has been that the goal of the NSA, the
13:30stated, explicit, overt goal of the NSA
13:35and its surveillance partners
13:37is captured by their motto. You know,
13:40like the way football teams or
13:41universities have mottos or like states
13:43have mottos, the NSA has a motto that
13:45describes its institutional function,
13:48its objective. And it's a motto that
13:50appears over and over and over and over
13:53in many thousands of their documents.
13:56And that motto is collect it all.
14:01It's not like collect a lot of it
14:05or even like collect all of the
14:08terrorist communications, it is collect
14:11it all. It is really the institutional
14:14mandate of the NSA, what they wake up
14:17every single day and devote themselves
14:18to doing, to figure out how to access
14:22and collect and store
14:25all communications that take place
14:27electronically by and between other
14:30human beings.
14:32Which is another way of saying, without
14:34any hyperbole or drama or inference or
14:38reading things into documents, it's just
14:41a literal description of saying that the
14:43goal of the NSA is to eliminate privacy
14:47in the digital age
14:49by being able to access all human
14:51communications that take place
14:53electronically, meaning on the internet
14:54or by the telephone.
14:57And the reason I found that so stunning,
15:00the reason I consider that to be the
15:02most surprising revelation when I get
15:04asked to
15:05apply that label to something, is not
15:07because of the way in which that system
15:10subverts privacy, although it obviously
15:12does that.
15:14The much more significant aspect to that
15:16revelation is the way in which it
15:18subverts democracy.
15:21And the reason I say that is because
15:24just think about it.
15:25The internet is unquestionably
15:28one of the most significant, if not the
15:31most significant, human innovations of
15:34the last several centuries. It has the
15:37promise to democratize and to liberalize
15:40and to radically reform and empower
15:44individuals in all sorts of ways,
15:46previously inconceivable ways.
15:49To take that and to turn it into a tool
15:53of unprecedented monitoring and coercion
15:57and surveillance, whatever else you
15:58think about the decision to do that,
16:02that decision is an extraordinarily
16:04consequential thing for a government to
16:07decide to do.
16:09And yet it was done in utter and
16:11complete secrecy. There wasn't a whiff
16:15of disclosure about the fact that we
16:17have government agencies working to turn
16:19the internet into a realm of mass
16:21surveillance. There was no discussion of
16:23it in our presidential elections, there
16:25were no press conferences about it,
16:26there were no open congressional
16:28hearings, there was zero information
16:30disseminated to the American public so
16:32that it could decide whether it wanted
16:36its government to be doing that.
16:39Now, you can call something a democracy
16:43and you can even let the people who live
16:45in the country called a democracy every
16:474 years go and hide behind a curtain and
16:49punch a box next to the name of one of
16:52two political parties and decide which
16:53of it will occupy
16:55certain offices.
16:57But if you have people doing that in
16:59utter ignorance of the most
17:01consequential decisions being made, that
17:05really is just a hollow ritual. It's the
17:08symbol of democracy without any
17:11substance behind it.
17:13There was
17:20There was um this this really
17:22fascinating document. It was actually
17:24kind of amusing. There aren't very many
17:25amusing documents on the Snowden
17:28archive. Um being amused is is not the
17:30most common reaction when you read
17:32through them, but there was one category
17:34of documents that actually did find
17:35amusing. It was sort of like this um
17:37internal NSA newsletter, almost like a
17:40magazine, actually. It was like they
17:42have their own magazine. Um just like
17:44any other magazine that you can go and
17:46buy in the store, except at the top it
17:47says top secret, which means it's a
17:48crime for you to read it. Um but other
17:50than that, it's a lot like just the
17:52standard magazines. And one of the
17:54interesting things about this magazine
17:56is that
17:57you know, like every other magazine, it
17:58has like features and then it has
18:00interviews, where they'll interview
18:02various security officials, people in
18:04the Pentagon or in the NSA or other
18:07government agencies. And the really
18:08interesting thing is bec- it is that
18:10because they thought that what they were
18:12saying would never be seen by the
18:14public, they actually are honest and
18:17like candid in the things that they say,
18:19which is really weird to read government
18:21officials speaking candidly and
18:22honestly. It's a very strange experience
18:25that I'm sure very few of you have had.
18:26I never had it before I I read the
18:28Snowden archive, but that's one of the
18:29things that reading through this
18:31newsletter affords. And there was this
18:33one interview in particular that I found
18:36incredibly significant. And we actually
18:37reported on it and it got, I think, far
18:39less attention than it deserved. It was
18:42an interview with the official at the
18:43NSA who was in charge of the NSA's
18:47partnerships with foreign intelligence
18:49agencies. So, the NSA has a partnership
18:52agreement with the intelligence agency
18:53in France or Spain or India or Argentina
18:57or Korea, and this official is the one
18:59who oversees all of those partnerships
19:02with intelligence agencies in foreign
19:04countries. And the interviewer asked a
19:06lot of really probing questions. And one
19:08of the questions that he asked is he
19:09said, "You know, here's one thing I
19:11never have understood." And this was an
19:13NSA person doing the interview. He said,
19:15"One thing I've never understood is in
19:17all these other countries with whom we
19:18partner, they have elections and they
19:21have wild swings in the outcome of
19:23elections, just like we do. They have
19:25Sometimes they'll have a really far to
19:28the left party that wins and that then
19:30runs the government. Another times they
19:32have a really far to the right party
19:34that wins and sometimes they have a
19:35centrist party. And yet the one thing
19:37I've never understood, said the
19:38interviewer, is no matter what the
19:40outcome of those elections is,
19:43our relationship with those foreign
19:45intelligence agencies never changes. It
19:47never weakens, it never gets threatened,
19:49it just continues exactly as it was. Why
19:52is that? Why don't these election
19:53outcomes, as wildly varying as they are,
19:56affect the NSA's relationship with these
19:58other agencies? And what the official
20:01said was, he said the reason that the
20:04relationships don't change is because
20:07almost nobody outside of the military
20:09structure and the intelligence structure
20:11in those countries even knows that these
20:14partnerships exist. Meaning, the people
20:18that the citizens of those democracies
20:20go and elect have no idea that they have
20:23an intelligence agency partnering with
20:25the NSA in order to engage in mass
20:27surveillance, and therefore they can't
20:29change the policies of which they are
20:31unaware.
20:33And I actually I was I I did a
20:36an event right before this event with
20:39some reporters from here in Utah, and
20:42and one of them asked me, you know,
20:43"Have you been contacted by members of
20:45of the US Congress?" And and what have
20:47they said? Have they been supportive?
20:48Have they Have they been critical? What
20:50have they said? And I said, "You know,
20:51actually, yes. Over the last 2 years, I
20:53probably have spoken with
20:55I don't know how many, but a lot, you
20:56know, probably three dozen, maybe more,
20:59uh members of Congress, pretty evenly
21:01distributed from both political parties.
21:02And the thing that almost all of them
21:04have said to me, overwhelmingly, is
21:07even though that a lot of them won't say
21:08it in public, but some of them have, but
21:10most of them won't, but what they have
21:12told me privately is
21:14"We are so happy with the reporting that
21:17you've been able to do because, as
21:19members of Congress, we knew almost
21:22nothing about what the NSA was doing. We
21:25didn't know anything about these
21:26surveillance programs until we read
21:28about them in your articles in The
21:29Guardian or the articles that The
21:31Washington Post was publishing. And this
21:33includes members of the committees that
21:35are supposed to be engaging in oversight
21:38of these intelligence committees."
21:40And it isn't just in the United States.
21:42I've gone to I don't know how many
21:44countries, probably 20,
21:46um in the last 2 years where I've done
21:48reporting on intelligence programs and
21:50surveillance programs, and I've spoken
21:52to a lot of members of those countries'
21:54parliaments as well, and I heard the
21:55same thing in Great Britain and in New
21:57Zealand and in Sweden, where I just was,
22:00and in Germany, where I just was, and in
22:02multiple countries throughout Europe,
22:03which is "We knew nothing about these
22:06programs until we read about them
22:08in your articles." Um in fact, there was
22:11a member of the National Security
22:13Advisory Committee in Parliament
22:15advising the Prime Minister in the
22:17United Kingdom who wrote an op-ed in The
22:19Guardian, which you can go and read in
22:21October of 2013, who said that "My job
22:24as a member of Parliament was to make
22:25sure that our country's surveillance
22:27agency was doing its job and complying
22:30with the law and how it was spying on
22:31people, and yet I was kept completely in
22:34the dark about almost all of these
22:35programs." It's something I heard over
22:37and over and over again.
22:40Now, think about what that means, that
22:42kind of secrecy.
22:43What you actually have is a government
22:46inside of a government. What it really
22:49is is you have an undemocratic apparatus
22:52making all of the decisions within a
22:55shell of a democracy. Something that
22:58looks like a democracy that is called a
23:00democracy, but that has almost none of
23:03the properties that we are told to
23:05believe a democracy
23:07is defined by. Because you have
23:08decisions being made by a small group of
23:11often unelected people
23:13where those decisions are being kept
23:15completely from the people that were
23:17going to the polls and pointlessly
23:19elected to office. Um and I think this
23:22is really something that is almost worth
23:25thinking about more than the privacy and
23:27surveillance questions is, what are the
23:28implications for democracy
23:31when we allow this kind of pervasive
23:34secrecy to take hold?
23:36And that's why one of the things I
23:37emphasize in terms of finding common
23:39ground and speaking to diverse groups of
23:41people is, there are a lot of Americans
23:43who have really different views on the
23:46surveillance question and the privacy
23:48question. I bet if you sort of gave
23:50everyone here a platform, you would hear
23:52really disparate opinions on the
23:54question of the extent to which we want
23:57our government to be spying on us and
23:58the balance between security and
24:01individual liberty. People are should be
24:03debating that, and they have are
24:05entitled to debate that, and they're
24:06going to have different opinions, and
24:08it's a hard question how to calibrate
24:09that balance.
24:11But regardless of your views on those
24:14questions, on surveillance and privacy,
24:17I think that we should all be able to
24:19agree that we are so much better off
24:23being able to have that debate and
24:25knowing about the programs, which is
24:27another way of saying I would really be
24:30interested in hearing, and I say this
24:31all the time to journalists who have
24:32been critical of Edward Snowden, I would
24:34be really interested in hearing anybody,
24:37especially a journalist, but any citizen
24:39stand up and say
24:41"You know what? I actually think we
24:42would be better off if we were still
24:45ignorant about all of the things that
24:47our government was doing." I mean, to to
24:50describe that viewpoint is to mock it.
24:53And I think the reason for that is that
24:57you cannot have a functioning democracy
25:00if you allow the government to be making
25:03the most significant decisions without
25:05us even knowing what it is they're
25:07doing. And I think that more than
25:09anything is what drove Edward Snowden to
25:11come forward with this information, and
25:12it's definitely what has driven
25:14our journalism.
25:16Now, I just want to talk a little bit
25:17about about secrecy and and and kind of
25:20the magnitude of it beyond the Snowden
25:23um story and and beyond surveillance and
25:26and the reasons that we should care a
25:28great deal about it.
25:30Um most of you probably remember the
25:332010 series of releases that were done
25:36by WikiLeaks, where they posted to the
25:38internet many hundreds of thousands of
25:40pages detailing what the United States
25:43government did in the wars in Iraq and
25:46Afghanistan.
25:48And I remember at the time that the US
25:51media was was very critical of those
25:53releases, and in order to be critical of
25:55them, they were saying two two different
25:56things at the same time. They were
25:58saying, on the one hand,
25:59that WikiLeaks and the person who leaked
26:03this information, who was unknown at the
26:04time, were treasonous, that they had
26:08endangered American national security
26:10and put all kinds of people in danger.
26:13And on the other hand, they were saying,
26:15"You know what? There's actually nothing
26:17new or interesting in any of these
26:19documents. I mean, it doesn't actually
26:21tell us anything we didn't already
26:22know." Which I always found to be quite
26:25contradictory, right? I mean, how, if
26:28the documents were so banal and
26:29uninformative, did they simultaneously
26:31harm national security? But the reality
26:33is is if you go through and actually
26:35look at those hundreds of thousands of
26:36documents that were released to the
26:38internet, it actually is true that while
26:40there are some very significant
26:41revelations in there, the vast majority
26:43of them are really uninteresting.
26:46They're just routine. They're They don't
26:48actually say anything at all warranting
26:51secrecy. They're just the common sort of
26:54things that governments do.
26:56And yet at the top of every one of those
26:58documents is stamped classified or
27:01secret or top secret.
27:04And the same exact thing happens if you
27:06go and and and spend your time
27:09um reading through tens of thousands of
27:11documents from the NSA, which as you
27:13might have heard is what I've been doing
27:14with my life for the past 20 months. Um
27:17it isn't that every single page has
27:19these blockbuster, jaw-dropping
27:21revelations. Some do,
27:23but most of them are really banal.
27:26They're just uninteresting and
27:28unrevealing. They're really boring
27:30meetings between people in government
27:32over scheduling issues or vacation pay
27:35or or just the sorts of things that
27:37happen in my job and your job every day
27:39that aren't even interesting to us
27:41because they're happening to us, let
27:42alone things that would be
27:45uh dangerous to release.
27:47And what this reflects What this
27:48reflects, the fact that there are
27:51millions and millions and millions and
27:53millions and millions and millions of
27:55pages of government documents that are
27:57completely uninteresting and unrevealing
27:59and nonetheless marked top secret, which
28:01means it's a crime for you to reveal
28:03them,
28:04is that everything our government does
28:07is reflexively declared secret.
28:11The presumption with everything they do
28:14is that it should be stamped classified
28:16and secret and made a crime
28:19to release it. Which is another way of
28:21saying that virtually nothing of what
28:24the government does is visible or
28:26transparent to us as citizens. Some of
28:29it is. Usually the stuff they want us to
28:32know that they themselves leak to
28:34reporters is stuff that we find out
28:36because it makes some of them look good
28:38or make some of them look bad, the ones
28:40that they want to make look bad. But by
28:42and large, most of what they do is just
28:45kept presumptively
28:47concealed.
28:49Now, that should be a massive scandal in
28:52and of itself.
28:54The fact that most of what a government
28:56is doing in a democracy is by the force
28:59of law kept secret. Nobody disputes that
29:03there's some things that the government
29:04does that are legitimately kept secret.
29:06In rare circumstances, things are
29:08supposed to be kept secret. But to
29:10essentially adopt a policy that says
29:12virtually everything that we do will
29:14automatically and presumptively be kept
29:15secret is as great a subversion of
29:17democracy as I think can be imagined
29:20without hyperbole or exaggeration.
29:23And I think the reason that it hasn't
29:25caused as much of a scandal as it
29:27should, or really perhaps much of a
29:28scandal at all,
29:31is because we've instead adopted this
29:34idea that secrecy, excessive, abusive
29:38secrecy in and of itself, is actually
29:40not bothersome or dangerous.
29:43What's dangerous is when there is
29:46somebody in power
29:49that we dislike
29:51or distrust. And only then is it
29:54bothersome. So, if there's a Democrat in
29:57office and we're a Democrat, we're not
29:59worried because there's a really good
30:01person exercising power and we don't
30:03have to worry if what he's doing is kept
30:04secret because we trust that person to
30:07do good things. But if
30:09we're a Democrat and there's a
30:10Republican in office, that's when
30:13there's true political danger.
30:15And it happens the reverse way as well.
30:18And I know this kind of from personal
30:20experience. I I began writing about
30:21politics in late 2005.
30:25And I was a lawyer at the time, a
30:26constitutional lawyer, and my principal
30:28concern was about what I perceived to be
30:30lots of abuses of political power,
30:32abuses of secrecy power, abuses of
30:34executive power, putting people in
30:36prison without charges or due process,
30:39eavesdropping on people without the
30:41warrants required by the Constitution.
30:43And so, when I began writing about
30:44politics, most of what I was writing was
30:46highly critical of the Bush
30:48administration.
30:50And as a result, liberals and and
30:52progressives and Democrats were really
30:55enthusiastic fans of the work I was
30:57doing. They thought it was fantastic.
30:59In fact, they're who built the political
31:01platform that I ended up having by
31:03cheering for the work I was doing and
31:05and and supporting it. And at the same
31:07time,
31:08most of my most vociferous critics were
31:10Republicans and and conservatives who
31:12thought that the criticisms I were
31:14voicing were were terrible and harmful
31:16and destructive.
31:18And starting around January 20th, 2009,
31:24my whole world reversed.
31:27And all of the liberals and progressives
31:31and Democrats who were my really good
31:32friends, well, not all of them, but a
31:33lot of them,
31:35decided that well, actually, he's not
31:37really that good of a person at all.
31:40And at the same time, I had all these
31:42new Republican and conservative friends.
31:45And the reason was that despite the
31:49campaign planks on which he he ran to
31:52reverse most of these policies, there
31:54was a great deal of continuity
31:56that President Obama embraced on
31:58policies of executive power and secrecy
32:00and obviously surveillance. And so, I
32:02was criticizing the same policies, but
32:04doing so under a Democratic president
32:05rather than a Republican one. And
32:07therefore, people who liked what I was
32:08doing changed dramatically.
32:11And I think it's so important. I mean,
32:13if there's if there's someone said to
32:14me, you know, I'm a genie and I'm going
32:17to grant you one political wish. You can
32:18make everyone in the United States
32:20realize one thing that you want them to
32:22realize, what is it that you wish people
32:24would realize?
32:26What I would say is that the reason that
32:30transparency
32:31and checks and balances and limitations
32:35on what people who wield power can do,
32:38the reason that's so important
32:40is not because sometimes we're going to
32:43have bad men and women
32:45in these offices wielding this power.
32:48And when in those cases we have bad men
32:50and women who can't be trusted, we need
32:53protections.
32:54Instead, it's exactly the opposite. It's
32:57that what it means to be human, just the
33:01properties of human nature, is such that
33:04it is inevitable,
33:06not likely or probable, but inevitable,
33:10that people who wield political power
33:12and are permitted to do so in the dark
33:14and without lots of checks and
33:16accountability and transparency
33:19will abuse that power and abuse it
33:22severely.
33:24We're all familiar with the phrase that
33:26power corrupts and absolute power
33:27corrupts absolutely. We usually invoke
33:30it when we're talking about those bad
33:32tyrants in those other countries.
33:34Um but it actually is grounded in a
33:36recognition of what human nature is.
33:39And if you look at what the American
33:41founders talked more about than anything
33:44else, we love to talk about the American
33:46founders like they're a monolith, like
33:47they all agreed on everything. They
33:49actually were at each other's throats at
33:51least as much as we are with one another
33:53in in contemporary society. They
33:54disagreed about a huge range of things.
33:56They fought over all kinds of political
33:58disputes. But there were several core
34:01principles on which they all agreed.
34:04And their principal preoccupation, the
34:07thing that kept them up at night more
34:09than anything else, was this question.
34:12We just fought this incredibly
34:14dangerous, draining, bloody war against
34:17the world's most powerful empire to
34:19liberate ourselves from this oppressive,
34:21tyrannical monarch.
34:23And now we're about to create this new
34:26centralized federal government and vest
34:29it with all kinds of power. How can we
34:32possibly be sure that we're not just
34:35replicating the same abuses that we just
34:36fought a war to liberate ourselves from?
34:38How can we prevent
34:40the same kind of abuses of power as was
34:43so as was so prevalent with the king?
34:45And the answer they devised was that we
34:49should assume that no human being,
34:53not just the bad ones from the other
34:55party, no human being can be trusted to
34:58wield power without immense amounts of
35:01sunshine and limitations. And I just
35:04want to share with you a couple
35:06representative quotes so you can get a
35:07sense for how absolute and and in
35:10agreement they were about this. Um
35:11here's what Thomas Jefferson said. In
35:14questions of power, let no more be heard
35:18of confidence in man. Instead, bind him
35:22from mischief with the chains of the
35:24Constitution. Just don't even try and
35:27talk about how certain people can be
35:28trusted with power. None of them can be.
35:30The only thing that will bind them down
35:32are legal limitations on what they're
35:33permitted to do. And John Adams was just
35:37as equivocal if not more so. He said,
35:39there is danger from all men, not from
35:42all men in the Republican party, from
35:44all men, period. And then he said, the
35:47only maximum of a free government ought
35:49to be to trust no man with power to
35:52endanger public liberty. I mean, this is
35:55supposed to be embedded in our DNA that
35:58we do not trust anyone
36:00to wield power without all of these
36:02safeguards. And yet we have permitted
36:04ourselves, through a combination of
36:06genuine threats, but also deliberate
36:09exploitation and ex exaggeration of
36:12those threats, to be put in a position
36:13of fear where we acquiesce to the very
36:17things that the founders of this country
36:19when creating the Constitution most
36:22eagerly wanted to avoid. And I really
36:24think that, for me at least, is is what
36:27the Snowden story has been about more
36:30than anything else.
36:31I just want to talk about a couple more
36:33issues related to that.
36:35Um
36:37one is, you know, I think it's worth
36:38thinking about
36:40what happens in a free society when it
36:43comes to secrecy and privacy and what
36:45happens in a tyrannical society. We love
36:48to talk about countries that we have
36:51tension with as being tyrannical,
36:52whether it's Russia or Iran or China
36:55and North Korea, and we love to talk
36:56about ourselves as a free society. But
36:58the United States is not guaranteed to
37:00be free forever. We can succumb to
37:02tyranny and all sorts of other erosions
37:04of freedom just like every other country
37:06in the world can. Um in fact, Benjamin
37:09Franklin made that point when he came
37:10out of the Constitutional Convention and
37:11was famously asked, what is it that you
37:13created in there? And he said, a
37:16republic, if you can keep it. Meaning,
37:18just because we guaranteed this on a
37:20piece of paper isn't going to be very
37:23significant if you, the citizenry, don't
37:26stay vigilant and fight for it.
37:29And so, I think it's worth thinking
37:30about what that means, what it means to
37:31be a free republic, what it means to
37:33live in a tyranny. And one of the things
37:34I would say is this, that
37:36in a free republic,
37:40you have public officials, people who
37:43wield public power, political power.
37:46And public officials are supposed to
37:50have huge amounts of transparency.
37:53They're supposed to do things in public,
37:56hence the name public officials, public
37:58agencies, the public sector.
38:01With very few exceptions, when they can
38:02hide things legitimately. But by and
38:04large, they're supposed to have
38:05transparency.
38:06Meanwhile, private citizens are supposed
38:09to have almost no transparency.
38:12We're supposed to be able to do things
38:14without other people watching and
38:16monitoring and storing what we do, with
38:18very few exceptions, namely when the
38:20government has reason to believe that
38:21we're engaged in some kind of criminal
38:23conduct. That's the definition of a free
38:25society. We know about what people who
38:27wield political power are doing, they
38:29have transparency, they don't keep track
38:31of, monitor, and store information or
38:33keep dossiers about us.
38:36In a tyrannical society, the exact
38:38opposite is true. And it's pretty much
38:40true of every tyrannical society you
38:42want to think of. It's exactly the
38:44opposite dynamic. Those who wield
38:46political power know everything about
38:49the citizenry. They monitor them, they
38:52store information about them, they keep
38:53dossiers on them. But the citizenry
38:55knows almost nothing about what those
38:58who wield political power are doing
38:59because they hide behind walls of
39:01secrecy. I would submit, and I don't
39:03think it's actually that controversial,
39:05that we are far closer, at least in this
39:07regard, to the tyrannical model than to
39:09the free model.
39:10Where the government is storing
39:12literally billions
39:15of communication data every single day.
39:19I talked earlier about collect it all.
39:21This is not some kind of like
39:23fictitious, futuristic aspiration on the
39:26part of the NSA. They're very close to
39:28achieving that. They literally collect
39:30billions of telephone records and email
39:32events every single day, not only about
39:37foreigners, but about the American
39:38population indiscriminately. In fact,
39:41think about the reason that that
39:43facility in Bluffdale exists. The reason
39:46that exists is because if you look at
39:49NSA documents from 2009 and 2010,
39:52the biggest problem that they have is
39:55that they are storing, collecting
39:57rather, so much information about
40:00Americans and the world that they don't
40:03have any ability to store it, just
40:06physical space to store the data they're
40:08collecting.
40:09And the reason that's so shocking is
40:11because you can now store gargantuan
40:15amounts of digital data on tiny little
40:18thumb drives.
40:20So, if the problem that you have is that
40:22you don't have enough physical space to
40:23store the electronic data that you're
40:26collecting, it means that you are
40:28collecting a mind-bending amount of
40:30information about the world. And that's
40:33why that facility was built. It's
40:34basically just a storage closet for the
40:37NSA. And the bigger their capacity
40:39becomes, the more they can collect and
40:42the longer they can keep it, which means
40:44the more they can search it and troll
40:45through it and use it.
40:48That's the dynamic in which we're living
40:51is they want to know everything about us
40:52while we know essentially nothing about
40:55them. I'm sure most of you heard of the
40:57recent controversy involving Hillary
40:59Clinton and her email server.
41:01And there's lots of reasons why people
41:03found that fascinating, almost none of
41:05which interested me at all um in terms
41:08of what it says about her character or
41:09anything else like that. Matter, the
41:102016 election about which I can um
41:12almost not care less at the moment, but
41:14the thing that did really fascinate me
41:16about this is that when the Snowden
41:18reporting first began, one of the most
41:20vigorous defenders of what the NSA was
41:23doing and one of the most vocal critics
41:26of Edward Snowden was Hillary Clinton.
41:28She was totally fine with the idea that
41:31the NSA is collecting enormous amounts
41:34of data about the people with whom you
41:36are communicating and what it is that
41:38you're doing and saying.
41:40And yet at the very same time, she was
41:43certainly extremely eager to make sure
41:46that nobody knew with whom she was
41:49communicating. She built her own server
41:52in her house to make sure that it didn't
41:54happen and then deleted and cleaned it
41:57down to its core.
41:59And I think this is something that you
42:00see over and over and over again. I
42:02remember early on when we first revealed
42:05the metadata program, the fact that the
42:07government was collecting the list of
42:08all the people with whom you're
42:09communicating, two senators, the the the
42:12two senior senators on the Senate
42:14Intelligence Committee, one Republican
42:15one Democrat, Saxby Chambliss and Dianne
42:17Feinstein, came out and said, "You know
42:20what? This program that is collecting
42:23all of your quote metadata, the list of
42:26all the people with whom you're
42:27communicating,
42:28I don't even think this is
42:29surveillance," they said, "because it's
42:32not actually reading the content of your
42:33email. It's just keeping track of all
42:35the people with whom you're
42:36communicating. That's all."
42:38So, like if you call a drug or alcohol
42:42addiction center or a suicide hotline or
42:45a physician who specializes in
42:47particular diseases or you speak with
42:50somebody who isn't your spouse late at
42:52night for whatever perfectly legitimate
42:54reasons, this is something that the
42:56government is going to track and know
42:59about, but according to Dianne Feinstein
43:01and Saxby Chambliss, this isn't really
43:02spying cuz they're not actually
43:03listening to the content of what you're
43:04saying.
43:06And I remember there was this campaign
43:07that instantly arose that said, "Okay,
43:10Saxby Chambliss and Dianne Feinstein, if
43:13metadata isn't actually spying, what we
43:15would like you to do is every single day
43:18just have one of your staffers go online
43:20and post the identities of all the
43:23people with whom you've spoken on the
43:24telephone and all the people with whom
43:27you've exchanged emails and all the
43:28people with whom you physically met and
43:30where you were when you did it and the
43:32duration of the conversations. Don't
43:34worry, we're not going to know the
43:35content of what you said, we're just
43:37going to know that." And of course, it's
43:39inconceivable that they would do that
43:41because of how invasive it is. I think
43:43it reveals this really prevailing and
43:45dangerous mentality that they should
43:49know everything about us while we're
43:51entitled to know nothing about them.
43:54Now, to end, I just want to talk a
43:56little bit about privacy um
43:59and why privacy matters um because I
44:02think this is a hard conversation to
44:04have um and I think it's been a really
44:06central part of the debate and I think
44:08that it's a difficult question to really
44:10wrap your head around. Like, why should
44:13I care if the government is keeping
44:15track of this information about me? I'm
44:17not a terrorist, I'm not plotting to
44:22blow innocent people up, and I'm not
44:24even a criminal. Like, I'm not a drug
44:27trafficker and I'm not a pedophile um
44:30and I haven't killed anybody, so I don't
44:33really mind if the government monitors
44:35everything that I'm saying and doing
44:37because I'm actually not doing anything
44:38wrong and therefore I have nothing to
44:40hide. This is a very common
44:44um
44:44mentality that I hear all of the time as
44:47a reason why people might care on an on
44:49an abstract level about surveillance,
44:51but don't ultimately really mind if the
44:53government is monitoring them.
44:56And I just want to say a few things
44:57about that way of thinking.
45:00First of all, and I hope you'll test
45:03this, whether you have friends who think
45:05that or you yourself think that, um by
45:08recognizing the following fact. The
45:11people who say that they don't care
45:13about privacy and they have nothing to
45:14hide, they don't actually mean it. I can
45:17promise you that. Here's how I know
45:19this.
45:20The people who say that they don't care
45:22about privacy and have nothing to hide
45:24are people who put locks and use locks
45:28on their bedroom and their bathroom
45:29doors. They put password protection on
45:32their email accounts and their social
45:34media accounts. They take all kinds of
45:37steps to make sure that things that they
45:40do and say and think are unknown to
45:43other people.
45:44In fact, every single time for the last
45:472 years that somebody has said to me,
45:50"You know what? I don't have anything to
45:51hide because I'm not doing anything
45:53wrong, so I don't mind if I'm being
45:55monitored and watched. People are free
45:56to watch me all I want. I'm not
45:58worried." I say the same thing. I get
45:59out a pen like this one and I write down
46:01on a piece of paper my email address and
46:03I say, "Okay, here's my email address.
46:05What I want you to do when you get home
46:07is I want you to email me all of the
46:09passwords to your email and your social
46:11media accounts. Like, not just the
46:13respectable work ones on your name, but
46:15all of them. Like, all the ones that you
46:17use."
46:18And
46:20I want to be able to just troll through
46:21them at my leisure and then just publish
46:24whatever it is that I find interesting
46:26about you online. Why would you not do
46:28that? Like, you are not a bad person.
46:29You're doing nothing wrong. You have
46:31nothing to hide. To this day, not one
46:35single person has taken me up on this
46:37offer. It's a I check that email account
46:40all the time. It's a very lonely and
46:42desolate place. No one ever emails me
46:44there.
46:46And there's a really good reason for
46:48that, why people don't do that. It's
46:50because they instinctively understand
46:53what the value of privacy is. Every
46:55single one of you in this room and every
46:58single person that you know have things
47:01to hide. There are things that you tell
47:04your spouse or your best friend or your
47:06psychiatrist or your physician or your
47:09lawyer
47:10that you don't want other people to know
47:12about. Not because you're terrorists or
47:15because you're criminals, but because as
47:18complicated adults who are free and
47:20interesting, we do and say things that
47:22we simply don't want others to know
47:24about because it would make us
47:25vulnerable. We all have things to hide.
47:28We all understand that privacy is a
47:30critical part of what it means to be a
47:32free adult, a place to go where people
47:35can not judge us or monitor us or keep
47:39track of what it is that we're doing and
47:40thinking and saying, which is another
47:43way of saying that having a private
47:45realm, a place that you can go where
47:47nobody watches you, is critical because
47:49it's the place in which human creativity
47:52and individuality and dissent and the
47:55opportunity to explore exclusively
47:58reside.
48:01There are all kinds of really
48:02fascinating social science studies,
48:04though I bet you don't need them because
48:06you know this already just from personal
48:08experience. These studies prove that
48:10when somebody not just is being watched,
48:13but thinks that they might be watched,
48:15they make much different behavioral
48:17choices. The range of available options
48:20to you for what you choose to do as a
48:22free human being is significantly
48:24reduced when you think that you're being
48:26watched. When you think you're being
48:28watched, the choices that you make are
48:30the byproduct not of your own autonomy
48:32and agency and individuality, but the
48:34byproduct of what you think societal
48:36expectations are of you or what
48:38orthodoxy demands of you.
48:40And that's the reason that a surveilled
48:42society, a watched society, is
48:45incredibly compliant and submissive and
48:48obedient and meek. It's the reason that
48:51every tyrant from the most overt and
48:54violent to the pettiest and most subtle
48:56craves surveillance because it keeps
48:58people in line. And so, even if you
49:02think that you're not someone who has
49:04things to hide, just the fact that you
49:06live in a world in which everything that
49:09you do is susceptible to being watched
49:11and monitored and recorded radically
49:14changes the freedom available to you and
49:17what it means to be a free individual.
49:20And that's something that whether we
49:21recognize it or not is a huge damage
49:25that is inflicted upon us from
49:27surveillance.
49:29Now, I just want to end with one last um
49:32kind of observation
49:34um about the work that I did with Edward
49:36Snowden and
49:39um
49:39a lesson that I learned from from doing
49:41that work. And I especially like to talk
49:43about this when I talk on college
49:45campuses cuz I think it's so relevant to
49:47the college experience, but I actually
49:49talk about it in lots of other places as
49:51well because it's a lesson that really
49:53profoundly influenced how I think about
49:55the world and will I'm sure influence me
49:57for the rest of my life. And it's this.
49:59Um when I
50:01flew to Hong Kong to meet Edward
50:02Snowden,
50:04I knew essentially nothing about him. I
50:06mean, I knew that he was somebody who
50:08claimed to have amazingly interesting
50:11top secret documents that revealed mass
50:14surveillance programs. Um I knew that he
50:16had some documents cuz I made him send
50:17me a few before I got on the plane to
50:19Hong Kong, but I didn't know how much he
50:20had. I didn't know his name. I didn't
50:22know where he worked. I didn't know his
50:24gender. And I definitely didn't know his
50:26age. And when I got to Hong Kong, the
50:27thing and then met him, the thing that
50:29shocked me the most about him um was how
50:32young he was. He was 29 years old at the
50:34time. Um but he looked much younger. He
50:36looked, you know, probably 22 or 23. Um
50:39just like a very ordinary kind of
50:42vaguely nerdish kid that you see every
50:44day in the shopping mall. Um
50:47and it was actually alarming um because
50:50I I was
50:51um thinking, you know,
50:53is it possible this person really has
50:55access to the things that he claims?
50:57Um and it made us do a lot more
50:59investigating. Um but ultimately, once
51:02we were able to determine his bona
51:03fides, the authenticity of what he was
51:05saying, that he was who he said he was
51:07and and was doing what he said for the
51:09reasons that he said, um
51:11it really struck me in in a profound way
51:14because not only was was he so young, um
51:18but he was also, as I said, I mean, just
51:20a very ordinary um he grew up in a lower
51:23middle-class um home at at best. I mean,
51:26his father was in the Coast Guard for 30
51:28years. He was somebody who had no power
51:30or position or prestige of any kind. He
51:32was working for a massive corporation,
51:35Booz Allen, um and had worked prior to
51:37that for Dell and the CIA and the NSA.
51:39Just in huge institutions. Kind of a
51:42very obscure anonymous person.
51:45And yet through this incredible act of
51:48courage and act of conscience,
51:52and whatever else you think of him, it
51:53was those things by definition. He He
51:55took action that he thought would send
51:57him to prison for the rest of his life
51:58in defense of political values that he
52:01believed in. Through an act of
52:02conscience and an act of courage,
52:05he literally changed the world. I mean,
52:07he did. He changed the world. He He dra-
52:09radically changed how hundreds of
52:12millions of people, not just in the
52:13United States, but around the world
52:14think about a huge array of issues. It
52:15spawned legislative reform in multiple
52:18countries. It It has caused very
52:20fundamental changes in how the
52:22individuals behave in on the internet
52:24and think of the internet and think of
52:25their own privacy rights and the the
52:27threat of government secrecy. The
52:29effects of it are are things that we
52:31won't know in full for many years, if if
52:33not decades.
52:35And the reason I find that so profoundly
52:37important and so striking is that ever
52:38since I began writing about political
52:41issues, I've sensed this really intense
52:43defeatism on the part of almost
52:45everybody. It's a really powerful
52:47temptation. It's It's a sense that tells
52:49you that no matter what injustices you
52:52think you've
52:53confronted, that you really can't do
52:56much about them because you're just kind
52:57of powerless. And these institutions are
53:00are really formidable. And there's no
53:02way for you to do much about them. It's
53:04almost a relief to tell yourself that
53:05because it means that you don't have to
53:06do anything about them, right? Well, I
53:09can't change it, so I'm going to go
53:10ahead and just, you know, put my feet up
53:12and and um and relax um and tell myself
53:15that I can't. And there's all kinds of
53:18examples throughout human history. I
53:19would say probably most of the most
53:21significant societal changes that have
53:24come exactly from that, from really
53:25ordinary powerless people changing the
53:27world through acts of conscience,
53:29whether it's, you know, Rosa Parks,
53:31totally obscure and powerless, just
53:33taking a stand and spawning and fueling
53:36a civil rights movement not just in the
53:37US but around the world, or a Tunisian
53:39street vendor who set himself on fire
53:41and sparks this incredible democratic
53:44revolution that brings down some of the
53:46world's most entrenched tyrannies. I
53:48mean, that to me is the lesson of Edward
53:49Snowden that we should all always keep
53:51at the forefront of our minds, which is
53:54that every single institution built by
53:58human beings, no matter how formidable
54:00or powerful it seems, can always be
54:04undermined and altered and even torn
54:07down and replaced by other human beings,
54:11just by individuals who are acting with
54:15a sufficient amount of political
54:17conviction and courage and conscience.
54:20And I think that to me is the most
54:22important lesson of the last 20 months.
54:24So, with that, I thank you very much for
54:27listening um and I look forward to the
54:28Q&A session that we'll have now. Thanks
54:30very much.
54:35Thank you.
54:39Thank you.
54:44Thanks so much.
54:47Thank you. We appreciate that.
54:52Thank you.
54:55Okay. Uh Mr. Greenwald has agreed to uh
54:58take some questions. So, um I just a
55:00reminder, since we're live streaming
55:02this, please make sure before you ask um
55:05that you have a microphone in your hand
55:06and you speak into the microphone.
55:21Mr. Greenwald, thanks for coming. I'm a
55:23Utah uh University of Utah alumni. I
55:25have two questions. One, before Edward
55:27Snowden, you mentioned that you were
55:28writing a book about Noam Chomsky and
55:30his exclusion by the US media. So, I was
55:32wondering if you're finishing that book.
55:34But secondly, I wanted to push back a
55:35little bit on what you said uh at the
55:37end of your talk. And the reason I I say
55:39this is that if you look at Benjamin
55:41Page's study from Princeton, that he
55:43looked at the last 30 years, 40 years of
55:45policy, public policy. And then he
55:47looked at public opinion. And what he
55:49found was that if you're in the bottom
55:5070% of the income scale, you have
55:52statistically zero influence on policy.
55:55If you're in the 1%, you have policy
55:57made esse- essentially. So, I'm
55:59wondering how optimistic are you that
56:01change can happen? And why haven't we
56:02seen something like the Church Committee
56:04in the 1970s? I haven't seen very much
56:07movement, especially from I would say
56:09the elite in this country towards
56:10something like that. And I don't I
56:12wonder if without that, how much change
56:15can we really have for people who are
56:17not in the most powerful or that highest
56:191%? Thank Yeah, that's a great question.
56:22Um as far as the the book, um that was
56:25my plan. And I I've noticed this
56:28interesting phenomenon that when you're
56:30working on things and then somebody
56:32suddenly appears in your life and hands
56:33you many times of thousands of documents
56:36um
56:37from the most secret of agency of the
56:38world's most powerful government, it
56:39does disrupt your plans. And
56:41and um you do tend to work on that to
56:44the exclusion of other things. So, I'm
56:45starting now to think about what I might
56:47do next. Um and and that's a
56:49possibility. Um as far as the question
56:51that you asked about sort of the
56:52powerlessness of of people,
56:54um
56:56you know, it's something I actually been
56:57thinking about the last 24 hours because
56:59um
57:00um I think you mentioned the the John
57:02Oliver
57:03segment, right? Um I don't know how many
57:05of you saw that, but um
57:07it was a really interesting 30-minute
57:09discussion
57:10about surveillance and and democratic
57:13debate by John Oliver, which included a
57:15a kind of interview that he did with
57:17with Edward Snowden 2 weeks ago in
57:18Moscow. And it was interesting and good,
57:20but one of the parts about it that I
57:22actually didn't like was um that a lot
57:24of people took away from it was they
57:26they sent cameras to Times Square and
57:29they just randomly asked people, "Hey,
57:31what do you think of Edward Snowden?"
57:32And a large number of them said, "Edward
57:35who?" Like they didn't know who Edward
57:37Snowden was. Um or they if they knew it,
57:39they said, "Oh yeah, that's that guy who
57:41like sold documents to WikiLeaks." It
57:43was, you know, like stuff like that. And
57:45John Oliver tried to make this point,
57:47"Well, look, you know, you kind of
57:48unraveled your life for this political
57:50cause and obviously the whole thing
57:51failed because huge numbers of people
57:53don't even know who you are." Um I
57:56thought it was a really misleading point
57:57because if you look at the American
58:00public broadly, there is
58:03an enormous amount of widespread, almost
58:07full-scale political disengagement. Um
58:10in our presidential elections alone,
58:12like the peak of political involvement,
58:1440 to 50% of Americans of the voting age
58:16population simply don't vote even in
58:19presidential elections. Like they just
58:20choose not to participate. In midterm
58:23elections, just once every 2 years, we
58:25elect who's going to run the Congress,
58:262/3 of Americans are I don't think it's
58:29worth going and even voting. Um if you
58:32look at what they know and don't know,
58:34it's even more shocking. If you ask
58:35Americans, "Who is the current vice
58:38president?" Not like who was the ninth
58:40vice president. Like right now, like
58:42who's the vice president?
58:4442% of Americans will not know. Which
58:48means like if you go to Times Square and
58:50do that same thing that John Oliver did,
58:51but instead of saying, "Who's Edward
58:53Snowden?" you say, "Hey, by the way,
58:54what do you think of Joe Biden?" People
58:56are going to be like, "Joe Joe who?"
58:58And you know, it goes gets even worse. I
59:00think 15% of Americans are capable of
59:03naming the Chief Justice of the Supreme
59:04Court. And it's easy to kind of scoff at
59:07that and be like, "Oh, that shows
59:08Americans are lazy or or not very
59:10smart." I don't think that's the lesson
59:12at all. I actually think the lesson is
59:14is that huge number of Americans have
59:16chosen to turn away from the political
59:18process
59:19um because they perceive that
59:22they have no role in it, that they can't
59:23influence it, and that its outcomes
59:25don't really make much of a difference
59:27in their lives. And there's good reason
59:29for it. I mean, if you have a Hillary
59:30Clinton versus Jeb Bush
59:32um
59:34monarchical contest, I mean presidential
59:36election,
59:37um
59:38you're going to have exactly the same
59:39people, literally exactly the same
59:41people providing most of the funding.
59:43People on Wall Street will provide most
59:44of the funding equally to both of those
59:45candidates because they know that
59:47they'll have their interest served with
59:49each. Um and so, yeah, I agree. I think
59:52both studies are clear that like if
59:54you're in the bottom 70%
59:55socioeconomically or politically, you
59:57don't have any influence. So, I wasn't
59:58When I say I'm optimistic about people's
1:00:01ability to change things, I don't mean
1:00:02by going to the polls and choosing
1:00:03between one of the two political
1:00:04parties, um I mean by stepping out of
1:00:06that process. Um and you know, as I said
1:00:10at the end, I mean there is no such
1:00:12thing as a political system created by
1:00:14human beings invulnerable to very
1:00:17radical fundamental change. That could
1:00:19be revolution, it could be something
1:00:20much short of it, but when the
1:00:22population gets discontented enough,
1:00:24they find ways um to refuse to continue
1:00:27to assent to the assertion of unjust
1:00:30power. Um and however that happens, um I
1:00:33think it's clearly always possible.
1:00:38Quick two and a half questions. The
1:00:40first
1:00:41uh is do you think that Ed
1:00:47Quick two and a half questions. The
1:00:48first is do you think that uh Edward
1:00:50Snowden, given rumors that he's possibly
1:00:53considering
1:00:55coming back to America, would have would
1:00:57have perhaps been better off moving to
1:01:00the People's Republic of Portland,
1:01:01Oregon and saying arrest me, but give me
1:01:03a big microphone?
1:01:05Uh secondly, uh regarding presidential
1:01:08leadership, what would you have
1:01:10President Obama say publicly and maybe
1:01:13do privately that would be different? I
1:01:16get the sense you think he's devolved on
1:01:17the issue rather than evolved.
1:01:19You mean about surveillance or secrecy,
1:01:21surveillance, NSA, all these issues kind
1:01:23of intertwined. And then the half
1:01:25question is do you or Mr. Snowden maybe
1:01:29have any regrets about how things
1:01:31happened? Is there anything you would
1:01:32have done differently? Okay.
1:01:34Uh so, those are I would think three
1:01:36fully formed questions rather than two
1:01:38and a half, and
1:01:39I might need some help actually
1:01:41remembering them all. Um
1:01:44So, yeah, actually the first one was
1:01:45about Snowden returning to the US. So,
1:01:48um
1:01:50that's a complicated question, but
1:01:51there's a great op-ed by Daniel Ellsberg
1:01:55in June of 2013 in the Washington Post,
1:01:59which I would encourage you to read on
1:02:00this topic, um because I remember early
1:02:03on when we first unveiled Snowden,
1:02:04people said
1:02:05um well, he's not like that heroic
1:02:07Daniel Ellsberg. Daniel Ellsberg stayed
1:02:09and faced the music.
1:02:11And Edward Snowden fled.
1:02:13Um and if he had stayed in the US, I
1:02:15would be supportive, but it bothers me
1:02:16that he's in China.
1:02:18Um
1:02:19He was in Hong Kong at the time. And And
1:02:21Daniel Ellsberg wrote an op-ed and said,
1:02:22"Actually, Edward Snowden is totally
1:02:25right to have fled." And the reason is
1:02:26is that we live in a completely
1:02:27different country than the one
1:02:30we lived in in 1971 when I, Daniel
1:02:32Ellsberg, stood up and said, "Yes, I did
1:02:35leak the Pentagon Papers, and let's go
1:02:36to court where I can argue that I did
1:02:38the right thing, and I can spend the
1:02:40weeks and months leading up to the trial
1:02:41holding press conferences and engaging
1:02:43the public about why I did it."
1:02:45We now have such a overwhelming national
1:02:48security ethos in the United States that
1:02:49somebody who is accused of violating
1:02:52espionage laws and national secure and
1:02:53harming national security is instantly
1:02:56detained and put incommunicado in prison
1:02:59so they can't engage the public. Even
1:03:01worse, they're charged under this very
1:03:04um extreme law that was never intended
1:03:06for this purpose. I mean, Edward Snowden
1:03:08is charged under a World War I statute
1:03:10that criminalized espionage. Now,
1:03:13whatever you think of Edward Snowden and
1:03:14what he did, what he did was not
1:03:16espionage. He didn't spy for other
1:03:18countries. He took material and came to
1:03:20journalists. Um he didn't pass any to
1:03:22foreign governments, he didn't sell any
1:03:24classified documents or things we
1:03:25traditionally think of as espionage. And
1:03:27under this statute, um if you're charged
1:03:30with violation of the Espionage Act and
1:03:32you go to court, um what people in
1:03:34Washington all the time say is, "Edward
1:03:36Snowden should face the music. He should
1:03:37come home, and if he thinks he did the
1:03:39right thing, go to court and argue he
1:03:40did the right thing by disclosing this
1:03:42information." What I assume they know is
1:03:45that that is completely deceitful
1:03:47because under the law, if you're charged
1:03:49with violation of the Espionage Act, you
1:03:51are barred, barred from raising that as
1:03:54a defense. You are not allowed to go
1:03:55into court and to say,
1:03:57"Um yes, I disclosed classified
1:03:59information, and the reason I did it is
1:04:01because this information should never
1:04:03have been kept secret in the first
1:04:04place, and I was justified in leaking
1:04:07it." If you leak classified information
1:04:09as a government employee, you are guilty
1:04:11of espionage, period, and justification
1:04:13is not a defense. So, he feels like he
1:04:15wouldn't get a fair trial. He believes,
1:04:17I think with great justification, um
1:04:19that he would be immediately detained
1:04:21and put into prison, allowed no contact
1:04:23with the outside world, um and there
1:04:25would be no benefit to it, and there'd
1:04:26be no fair trial, and he would spend the
1:04:28next 40 years in a cage. Um and it I
1:04:31think is easy to say, "Okay, well, he
1:04:34probably would spend the next 40 years
1:04:35in a cage, but I think he should do it
1:04:37anyway because there's political value
1:04:39or it's the right thing to do." It's
1:04:40really easy um
1:04:42to call for people to to submit to a
1:04:44penal state. I much rather have Edward
1:04:46Snowden free to participate in the
1:04:49political debate that he helped to
1:04:50start, um writing op-eds, giving
1:04:52interviews, um defending what it is that
1:04:55he did. Um as far as President Obama,
1:04:58you know, I think that he should just do
1:04:59what he said he was going to do. Um I
1:05:01think he should have the most
1:05:02transparent administration ever. I think
1:05:04he should rein in the surveillance
1:05:05state. Um and you know, he himself has
1:05:07said that the debate that has been
1:05:10started is a really healthy debate to
1:05:13have.
1:05:14And most people will say that, as I said
1:05:16earlier, no one will say I think it's
1:05:17we're better off if we had remained
1:05:18ignorant. I think it's such a weird
1:05:20thing to go around saying,
1:05:22"This is a really great debate that
1:05:24we're having. It's really healthy and
1:05:25valuable, and I want to take the person
1:05:27who started that debate and throw them
1:05:29into jail." Like
1:05:31that to me just really doesn't follow.
1:05:34Um and then the final question,
1:05:37um you know, about whether we regret
1:05:39things, yeah, I mean, um
1:05:41if you are making hugely consequential
1:05:44choices as a journalist about
1:05:46information that should be public or
1:05:47shouldn't be, if you're making really
1:05:49difficult choices about how to engage
1:05:50the public, about the things you're
1:05:52arguing, about how you're arguing them,
1:05:54of course you're going to make a ton of
1:05:55mistakes. And I mean, I could easily
1:05:56reel off the top of my head, you know,
1:05:58five or six things that I wish I had um
1:06:00have done differently. Um you know, and
1:06:03I think Edward Snowden has talked about
1:06:04mistakes he made, too. Um like the time
1:06:06that he agreed to ask Vladimir Putin a
1:06:08question thinking he could stand up to
1:06:10Putin and challenge him aggressively,
1:06:11and instead it got turned into this
1:06:12propaganda coup. Um yeah, we're human
1:06:15beings and we're imperfect. Um and we
1:06:16made a lot of mistakes, but if you look
1:06:18back at what we thought we were going to
1:06:20what was going to happen in Hong Kong
1:06:21and what the range of likely outcomes
1:06:23was, um
1:06:25the debate that we were able to provoke
1:06:27around the world, which continues to
1:06:29rage to this day, 20 months later, is
1:06:31unbelievably gratifying and I think way
1:06:33better than anything we in our wildest
1:06:35dreams thought we could achieve.
1:06:36It needed to start.
1:06:38Thank
1:06:43Thanks for being here, Glenn. I was one
1:06:44of your four or five Republican
1:06:46supporters during the Bush
1:06:47administration.
1:06:48then.
1:06:50Um I wanted to actually dovetail on your
1:06:51last response to that half of a question
1:06:54about having to make those tough
1:06:55decisions between what to disclose and
1:06:57what not to disclose. I understand that
1:06:59as a condition of being given the
1:07:00Snowden archive, you made assurances or
1:07:03promises to Ed to Snowden that you would
1:07:06not disclose certain things or that you
1:07:08would take some care to do that. On the
1:07:09same hand, you said that to describe the
1:07:12situation is to mock it, that being
1:07:13that, you know, we're better off for the
1:07:16debate that we've had, and we, you know,
1:07:17much prefer to be ignorant, that type of
1:07:18thing. Would you see it as a net
1:07:21benefit, a net harm, or a net help if
1:07:23somebody of WikiLeaks or somebody else
1:07:26were to obtain access to that archive
1:07:28and just publish the entire thing? Do we
1:07:29need journalists to filter it and only
1:07:31selectively disclose, or should we would
1:07:34we be benefited as a society more
1:07:35broadly to be informed about the entire
1:07:37cache?
1:07:38So, I have
1:07:39pretty radical views of transparency, I
1:07:42think, compared to say the standard
1:07:44population. Like I definitely fall on
1:07:45the far end of
1:07:47the pro-disclosure, pro-transparency,
1:07:50anti-secrecy
1:07:52spectrum. That said, there are things in
1:07:55that archive that I have zero doubt
1:07:58should not be disclosed. For example,
1:08:01um
1:08:03I'm not going to disclose it, I'm just
1:08:04going to describe it.
1:08:06I'm sorry to get you all excited. Oh,
1:08:08he's going to break a huge story that he
1:08:10just said shouldn't be broken. Um
1:08:12there there are mate- there there are
1:08:14materials in the archive um that are
1:08:17essentially emails that the NSA has
1:08:21collected and gathered from people they
1:08:24were interested in, or transcripts of
1:08:26their telephone calls, or their chats.
1:08:28If I were to take that material and just
1:08:31indiscriminately publish it, that would
1:08:33be an extraordinary violation of those
1:08:36people's privacy. Why would I possibly
1:08:38publish private communication between
1:08:40people that the NSA has collected? Um
1:08:43Or there are internal discussions that
1:08:46the NSA has about various people that
1:08:48they think are bad in some way or
1:08:50another. Um I think that person's a
1:08:52terrorist, I think that person's an
1:08:53extremist, I think he's plotting to do
1:08:55bad things, I think she's done this.
1:08:57Um
1:08:58Why would I take information and destroy
1:09:01people's reputation by publishing
1:09:03unvetted accusations that the US
1:09:04government internally has made about
1:09:06huge numbers of people? Um
1:09:08There is information about what the NSA
1:09:11has done in Afghanistan and Iraq and to
1:09:14a large extent is still doing um to find
1:09:17roadside bombs that when they blow up
1:09:18kill not just US service members, but
1:09:21also innocent people. Um why would I
1:09:25want to ruin programs that are finding
1:09:26roadside bombs in Yemen and Somalia
1:09:29and Afghanistan and Iraq.
1:09:31Um so, you know, yeah, I and then
1:09:34there's the identity of lots of
1:09:36individuals um where if you publish the
1:09:38information, you could expose them in
1:09:39all kinds of ways. And then there's
1:09:41information that in there that's very
1:09:42difficult to understand even for
1:09:43technical experts because you only have
1:09:46part of the information, but you don't
1:09:47have all of it. So, publishing it, it's
1:09:49almost impossible to predict what the
1:09:50consequences is because you don't
1:09:51actually know what you're publishing. Um
1:09:54so, you know, it is interesting to have
1:09:56been put in the position where in some
1:09:58sense I'm actually keeping some of the
1:10:00same secrets that the NSA has been
1:10:02keeping. Um and we've been criticized by
1:10:04WikiLeaks and other people who I guess
1:10:06are even further on that spectrum than I
1:10:08am
1:10:09um you know, saying that look, what
1:10:10you're doing is wrong. Um you should be
1:10:12just taking all that stuff and throwing
1:10:14it up on the internet.
1:10:15Um
1:10:16you know, but for one thing, we had a
1:10:18source who if he wanted all that
1:10:20information thrown up on the internet,
1:10:22he could have just thrown it all on the
1:10:23internet himself. He didn't need me or
1:10:25the Washington Post or the Guardian um
1:10:28to do it. He could have just done that.
1:10:29That's not what he wanted. He wanted us
1:10:31to very carefully vet the material, only
1:10:34publish the stuff that was needed for
1:10:36the public to have a meaningful debate,
1:10:38and not publish things that could
1:10:39legitimately endanger people or
1:10:40otherwise destroy their reputations. Um
1:10:43and let me just add on one one anecdote
1:10:45about that. Um
1:10:47about 9 months ago, uh we did a story on
1:10:51uh identifying Muslim American leaders
1:10:53in the United States who had been
1:10:55targeted with a really invasive
1:10:56surveillance. A member um of the
1:10:58Homeland Security Department who ran for
1:11:00Congress and who was a lawyer, um a
1:11:02leader of the largest Muslim civil
1:11:04rights organization in the country,
1:11:05CAIR, um and several other prominent
1:11:08Muslims.
1:11:09When we were going to do the reporting,
1:11:10we had 25 people who we wanted to
1:11:13identify as just abusive, inappropriate
1:11:16surveillance targets. People who were
1:11:18targeted for their ethnicity or their
1:11:19political activism, not because they
1:11:21conceivably pose any threat. And before
1:11:24we did the reporting and identified
1:11:26them, we went to them and we said um
1:11:29kind of have some bad news. Um
1:11:32your name appears continuously in NSA
1:11:35documents, and they've been reading all
1:11:36your emails and listening to your calls.
1:11:38Um and we don't think it was the right
1:11:40thing for to do, and so we want to
1:11:41report this. We want to name you as a
1:11:43person that they've targeted. Um
1:11:46and the vast majority of people that we
1:11:48went to, who are overwhelmingly Muslim
1:11:51Americans, said
1:11:52please do not do that because if you do
1:11:55that, um it will forever be attached to
1:11:58my name that the US government was
1:12:00suspicious of me and thought I was doing
1:12:02something wrong, and it will stigmatize
1:12:04me in front of my neighbors and my
1:12:06colleagues and my future job um
1:12:09my future job uh and and professional
1:12:11opportunities
1:12:12um and it will destroy my reputation,
1:12:14and I desperately want you not to do it.
1:12:17Should we have just ignored their wishes
1:12:19and just thrown that stuff up on the
1:12:20internet and named them anyway? I I I
1:12:22would never do that. Um and so it has
1:12:25been a really difficult balancing act
1:12:27all the time because we also as
1:12:28journalists have a duty to the public
1:12:30not to let things that shouldn't be kept
1:12:31secret be kept secret, but it's been a
1:12:34really difficult choice, and that's why
1:12:35I said, I'm sure we've made lots of
1:12:37mistakes in trying to balance that. Um
1:12:40but that's the job that you undertake
1:12:42when you accept this.
1:12:46Hi, my name's Kevin. I'm in the
1:12:47Communication Department. Uh thanks for
1:12:49the inspiring talk and the eloquent
1:12:51defense of privacy. It helps kind of
1:12:53recharge the depleted batteries of
1:12:55optimism, so I appreciate that. Um and
1:12:58in terms of changes you've made, my
1:12:59partner and I did a social network
1:13:00analysis about conversations, networks
1:13:02about surveillance before and after this
1:13:04note in revelations, and it's a market
1:13:06change that happens. Two uh super quick
1:13:09questions, one's a yes or no. The first
1:13:10question is, watching the movie in
1:13:12Citizenfour, you all are careful,
1:13:14worried about being surveilled, all that
1:13:16kind of stuff, even the red mantle
1:13:18power, but then you do all the
1:13:19revelations and Snowden reveals himself
1:13:22while staying in the same Hong Kong
1:13:23hotel.
1:13:25What what was up with that? Did anyone
1:13:26think about him like going to where he
1:13:27wanted to go before doing that? I'm just
1:13:29purely curious. And the other question
1:13:31was, you know, environmental issues are
1:13:33so important nowadays globally, and they
1:13:36have military ramifications, they have
1:13:38corporate ramifications. I was just
1:13:39wondering if the NSA documents reveal
1:13:41anything about environmental issues or
1:13:43environmental activism and surveillance.
1:13:45Thanks. Yeah, um so just on the second
1:13:47question, I mean, it's interesting that
1:13:48even people who pay close attention,
1:13:50there have been so many revelations that
1:13:52you can actually overlook some or or
1:13:53forget some. Actually, when I when I
1:13:55went to do my book,
1:13:56and my editor said, you know, you're
1:13:58going to do all these new revelations,
1:13:59but you've got to kind of describe what
1:14:01has been revealed so far. Um and I went
1:14:03back and looked at all the articles that
1:14:05had been written. I actually forgot
1:14:06about a lot of big stories, including
1:14:08ones that I had reported. So, um you
1:14:10know, it's been a really complicated
1:14:11thing, but yeah, there there's been um
1:14:14stories about that we've done about NSA
1:14:17spying on environmental conferences, on
1:14:20uh climate treaties, um trying to
1:14:22manipulate the process to gain advantage
1:14:23for American industry at the expense of
1:14:25other um emission standards.
1:14:28Um so yeah, there's there there's
1:14:29definitely um environmental objectives
1:14:31as part of the surveillance um scheme.
1:14:34Uh
1:14:35as far as the first question, which was
1:14:37Um when you were in the hotel
1:14:39Yeah, yeah. Okay, I got it. I just I
1:14:41momentarily lost my mind, which happens
1:14:42with multi-part questions. Um
1:14:44so,
1:14:47one of the things that
1:14:49that I think people don't quite fully
1:14:51get about Snowden,
1:14:53um
1:14:54is how genuinely selfless his decision
1:14:56was. Um
1:14:58because
1:15:00the reason that he chose Hong Kong to go
1:15:02to is because his only goal, and if you
1:15:06think about it, it's totally
1:15:07understandable, was to make sure that if
1:15:09he was going to take this enormous risk
1:15:11and leave a trail that he took all these
1:15:13documents and leave his job and his
1:15:15family and everything else, he wanted to
1:15:16make sure that the reporting actually
1:15:19happened, that he got the documents into
1:15:21our hands, and that we were then able to
1:15:23get the reporting done. Um and that
1:15:25nothing could interfere with that. And
1:15:26so he wanted to make sure to go to a
1:15:27place where the United States government
1:15:29would have a really difficult time, even
1:15:31if they discovered what he was doing,
1:15:34a difficult time disrupting it, which is
1:15:35why he chose Hong Kong. So, every choice
1:15:37that he made was always about how do I
1:15:40make sure this reporting happens? That's
1:15:42what he was obsessed with. Um
1:15:44and he thought very very little about
1:15:46what would happen to him once he got
1:15:48revealed. And I remember on a couple of
1:15:50occasions, um both Laura and I said to
1:15:52him, well, you know, like, what's your
1:15:55exit plan? Like, you know, once we start
1:15:58doing these stories and then we identify
1:16:00you,
1:16:01where you're where where are you going?
1:16:03And like, what is your plan? Are you you
1:16:05going to just
1:16:06turn yourself in? Uh do you have a
1:16:08hiding spot? Um do you plan to go
1:16:09somewhere?
1:16:11And he said to us, I want you not to
1:16:13know about any of those plans for two
1:16:15reasons. Number one is he said, um
1:16:19I don't want anybody be able to say that
1:16:21you've helped me flee because I'm
1:16:24worried that you can be arrested and
1:16:26that will prevent you from doing the
1:16:27reporting.
1:16:28Um and secondly, um you know, he said,
1:16:31it's just better if you don't know. Um
1:16:33it'll just help you in your
1:16:35um work, and I want you to focus on your
1:16:37work. So, he really did keep us out of
1:16:40that part of the plan, and and once, you
1:16:42know, I don't I genuinely don't think I
1:16:43think he thought about it a little bit.
1:16:45Um but, you know, obviously, if he were
1:16:48really worried about what was going to
1:16:49happen to him, he wouldn't have done
1:16:51what he did in the first place. Um his
1:16:54overriding preoccupation was getting
1:16:57this material out to the public. Um and
1:17:00everything else he he meticulously
1:17:02planned that. What everything else after
1:17:04that, as you saw in the film, it was
1:17:05just sort of by the seat of his pants.
1:17:17Wow, it's it's such an honor, sir. Thank
1:17:19you. Um
1:17:21my name's John Faust. I came from Idaho.
1:17:24Uh I have a podcast, and it Anyway, it
1:17:27doesn't matter. Um
1:17:30so I I wrote it down because I didn't
1:17:32want to I didn't want to screw it up. Um
1:17:36I started my podcast because I was
1:17:39inspired by Edward Snowden. Well,
1:17:41partially, mostly. Um
1:17:43and we actually
1:17:45Anyway,
1:17:46um
1:17:48my
1:17:49I don't know what I can do. I don't know
1:17:52how I mean, you said how I I'm certainly
1:17:54not the 1%. I can't
1:17:57um but I have an idea.
1:18:00I want to start a crowdsourcing uh
1:18:02crowdfunded campaign to deliver a pizza
1:18:06to uh Edward Snowden.
1:18:09I'm not even getting.
1:18:10Um cuz I know he loves pizza.
1:18:13Um
1:18:15I
1:18:16I want to know if I started this crowd
1:18:19campaign,
1:18:20would you help me get it to him?
1:18:24The pizza? Yes.
1:18:27Even if it has to be some like weird
1:18:29like drop-off like we have the, you
1:18:31know, Russian uh Domino's guy like bring
1:18:34it to him to a mailbox and like put it
1:18:36underneath and like he has to go get it
1:18:38cuz I will do it if you'll help me get
1:18:40it to him.
1:18:41Well, I I think you you found lots of
1:18:43supporters um probably just in this
1:18:45room. I think you could gather the
1:18:46necessary funds to
1:18:49to
1:18:49Oh no, there'll be breadsticks. There'll
1:18:50be Oh, oh, breadsticks. All right, well,
1:18:52then we'll probably have to go outside
1:18:53the room. Um yeah, I mean, yes, I you
1:18:56know, I think it's a nice thought. Um
1:18:58and you know, one of the interesting
1:19:00things is that when you're in the middle
1:19:01of the story of story like this,
1:19:03um
1:19:04people who are not all that happy with
1:19:06what you've done tend to make themselves
1:19:08really vocal. Um
1:19:10and and people who are supportive tend
1:19:12not to express themselves as much. And
1:19:14and I often remind him when I talk to
1:19:15him um that there are a huge number of
1:19:18people around the world, everywhere I go
1:19:20in fact, when his name is mentioned,
1:19:21who, you know, explode with applause and
1:19:24are are really supportive. So, I think
1:19:25expressions of support like that are are
1:19:27great. And if you're serious about it,
1:19:28just send me an email. Um, you can find
1:19:30my email address online and I'll be
1:19:32happy to talk about that. Nice. Okay.
1:19:33Thank you.
1:19:38Oh man, I don't know how to follow that
1:19:39question/request.
1:19:42Um
1:19:43So, a moment ago you mentioned all these
1:19:46harsh laws that are totally outdated
1:19:48that penalize whistleblowers. So, I just
1:19:51was curious what you see in the future
1:19:53um for future whistleblowers. Do you
1:19:55think people will come out um
1:19:57if after they've seen what's happened to
1:19:59Snowden and other people like
1:20:01um who's been penalized so so badly from
1:20:04exposing this information?
1:20:06Yeah, it's a I mean, it's a great
1:20:08question and it's actually a really
1:20:09important issue because
1:20:12you know, we talked earlier about the
1:20:14unprecedented punishment of
1:20:17whistleblowers um under the Obama
1:20:19administration.
1:20:20And you know, it's not just vindictive.
1:20:22Like, they didn't just wake up one day
1:20:23and say, "We want to go on this
1:20:25rampage." There's actually a rationale
1:20:26to it.
1:20:27Um,
1:20:28and the rationale is this.
1:20:29It is really hard in the digital age to
1:20:32safeguard huge amounts of information
1:20:34from disclosure. In fact, it's almost
1:20:36impossible. I'll tell you what I mean.
1:20:38Um, my childhood hero growing up my
1:20:40childhood hero growing up was Daniel
1:20:42Ellsberg. And one of the great honors of
1:20:45writing about politics and stuff is that
1:20:46I've gotten to become friends with
1:20:47Daniel Ellsberg. And if you talk to
1:20:48Daniel Ellsberg about leaking the
1:20:51Pentagon Papers
1:20:52and um the challenges that he faced,
1:20:56what he says is the greatest challenge
1:20:58that he had was he was inside the RAND
1:21:01Corporation working with the Pentagon
1:21:03and saw this
1:21:04multi-volume top secret document filled
1:21:07with I think it's 16,000 pages
1:21:10that proved that the American government
1:21:12had been systematically lying to the
1:21:14American people about the Vietnam War.
1:21:16Telling Americans we're on the verge of
1:21:18winning, but these documents show at the
1:21:20very same time they were claiming that
1:21:21internally they were saying the war was
1:21:23unwinnable. All these really significant
1:21:26revelations and his greatest challenge
1:21:28was, "How do I get 16,000 pages to the
1:21:33New York Times? Do I like do I go to a
1:21:34drugstore with a bag of quarters and
1:21:36like Xerox them? You know, like top
1:21:39secret documents just at a mimeographing
1:21:41machine?" That was his greatest
1:21:43challenge. It was There was a logistical
1:21:44problem. They could just keep two or
1:21:45three copies in a locked filing cabinet
1:21:48and it was really hard just physically
1:21:50to leak them.
1:21:51Now, all of this material is stored
1:21:54digitally on tiny little thumb drives.
1:21:55When Chelsea Manning
1:21:57um formerly Bradley Manning leaked all
1:21:59of that material to WikiLeaks, it was
1:22:00many many hundreds of thousands of pages
1:22:03which um
1:22:04were downloaded I think in about an hour
1:22:07and a half. Um,
1:22:08you know, and shipped off to WikiLeaks
1:22:11um without any detection. It's
1:22:12impossible for the government to prevent
1:22:15these kinds of disclosures, physically
1:22:17prevent it. And so, what are they left
1:22:19to do? And what they're left to do is to
1:22:22create a climate of fear where they say,
1:22:25"If you are somebody who's contemplating
1:22:27doing this,
1:22:29we want you to look at what we've done
1:22:31to the people who have done it in the
1:22:32past. We have prosecuted them
1:22:35aggressively under felony charges that
1:22:37could send them to prison for the rest
1:22:39of their lives. We put them in solitary
1:22:41confinement. We forced them into exile
1:22:43in Russia where they can't leave the
1:22:44country. Um, we will destroy you if if
1:22:48you do it." It's a way of just deterring
1:22:50people by making them fear the
1:22:52consequences of what people in
1:22:54Washington have been doing for many many
1:22:55decades and on which our act democracy
1:22:57actually depends, which is leaking
1:22:59classified information to journalists or
1:23:00the public that is necessary to inform
1:23:03the the public of what's taking place.
1:23:05What's really interesting about it
1:23:06though is as aggressive as they've been
1:23:09and as, you know, sort of destructive as
1:23:12they've been to people's lives who have
1:23:13done it, um
1:23:15more and more people keep doing it.
1:23:17And I don't know how many of you have
1:23:19seen Citizenfour, but the last scene of
1:23:21that film
1:23:22is about a very very significant source
1:23:26inside the US government who has come to
1:23:28us inspired by Edward Snowden and
1:23:31provided us with
1:23:33I can't say anything much about it, but
1:23:35very sensitive material um that is going
1:23:38to enable us to do some really
1:23:39significant reporting
1:23:41um
1:23:42inspired by Snowden, not intimidated by
1:23:44the government. And I think the reason
1:23:47for that is is that the it's almost this
1:23:49kind of interesting counterproductive
1:23:52dynamic where the more abusive and
1:23:55aggressive the government gets,
1:23:58the more people inside government start
1:24:00thinking, "Wow,
1:24:02this is a government that really needs
1:24:03transparency. I don't actually trust
1:24:05them any longer
1:24:07um to do these things in secret." And
1:24:08the more people come forward in reaction
1:24:11to it. Um, so I think the tactic that
1:24:13they're using
1:24:14um
1:24:15probably deters some people, but is
1:24:18producing a lot more future Daniel
1:24:21Ellsbergs um or Edward Snowdens. Um, and
1:24:23it's a really counterproductive cycle
1:24:25for them that I actually hope continues.
1:24:28Last question.
1:24:33Thank you for coming to the university
1:24:35and articulating what I I think can only
1:24:37be described as a crisis in legitimacy
1:24:39here in our government. Um
1:24:42Um, it's certainly my experience I would
1:24:45putting my life experience to these
1:24:47facts that you've presented. It seems to
1:24:48me that one can only say that the
1:24:50existence of this data collection
1:24:53uh
1:24:54says that it will be abused. The very
1:24:56fact that it exists uh
1:24:58says that that this data collection will
1:25:00be abused, I believe. You made a uh
1:25:03very interesting uh point uh that I
1:25:06hadn't really thought about today and
1:25:07that is that the fact that the
1:25:08population knows it's being surveilled
1:25:11uh in itself uh has its own effect uh
1:25:15and and sort of um
1:25:18um bringing the herd into into
1:25:20compliance. Uh
1:25:22Uh do you think you are an unwitting
1:25:24accomplice in that just in the fact that
1:25:26you're uh letting everybody know what's
1:25:28gone on and maybe uh maybe there are
1:25:30powers that be that like the fact that
1:25:32you're doing this and this is sort of
1:25:34part of uh
1:25:36a quieter objective?
1:25:38And that if so, yeah.
1:25:40You know, I I
1:25:41It isn't the case that before the
1:25:44Snowden reporting began that people were
1:25:48entirely unaware that electronic
1:25:49surveillance existed. Um, or even that
1:25:52there had been pretty significant cases
1:25:54of surveillance abuses in the past. Um,
1:25:57in 2005, the New York Times won a
1:25:59Pulitzer Prize for revealing that the
1:26:02NSA was eavesdropping on the telephone
1:26:04conversations of Americans without first
1:26:05going to the FISA court and obtaining a
1:26:07warrant for it. Um, in 2006, USA Today
1:26:11revealed um that there was a phone
1:26:13metadata program where millions of
1:26:15Americans were having data stored about
1:26:17them.
1:26:17Um, and in 2010, the Washington Post ran
1:26:20three-part series called Top Secret
1:26:21America by Dana Priest um and Bill Arkin
1:26:25um that said among other things that the
1:26:26NSA was collecting 1.8 billion
1:26:29communication events um about people
1:26:32every single day. So, the existence of a
1:26:35a surveillance state had been known um
1:26:38but the glimpses into it were very
1:26:39isolated um
1:26:41and uh not nearly as comprehensive as
1:26:44they needed to be to spur a meaningful
1:26:46debate. Um, so I don't think that what
1:26:48the Snowden reporting did was switch
1:26:51people from completely unaware to the
1:26:52fact that they might be being watched um
1:26:55to aware for the first time about it.
1:26:57Um, I think we've all been aware that
1:27:00things like the internet um and our
1:27:02telephone calls are susceptible to being
1:27:04monitored. I mean, we're a country that
1:27:05lived through 50 or 60 years of J. Edgar
1:27:08Hoover's FBI um and all the infiltration
1:27:11of anti-war groups um and
1:27:13anti-government groups and the civil
1:27:15rights movement. So, none of this is as
1:27:17a concept entirely new. So, no, I don't
1:27:19think um that it's only because of
1:27:22Edward Snowden that for the first time
1:27:23Americans realized that they they might
1:27:25be watched. Um, but I I I mean, it it
1:27:28may be a side effect. Um, it might be
1:27:30sort of a cost of of doing it um that it
1:27:33can almost spread a sort of paranoia.
1:27:34Um, but, you know, as a journalist um or
1:27:37somebody who's inside of the US
1:27:39government as Edward Snowden was, I
1:27:40mean, I think that the primary
1:27:42consideration you have to ask is what is
1:27:43it that my fellow citizens ought to know
1:27:45in a democracy um so that they can do
1:27:47something about it. And, you know,
1:27:49between having everybody be subjected to
1:27:51a surveillance state that they don't
1:27:53know about and therefore can't do
1:27:55anything about and having them subjected
1:27:57to a surveillance state that they know
1:27:59about and therefore can do something
1:28:01about, I think the latter outcome is
1:28:03infinitely preferable.
1:28:05So, thank you again everybody very much
1:28:07for coming.
1:28:09Thank you so much.

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