NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden: 'I don't want to live in a society that does these sort of things' — Transcript

Full transcript

1. 0:10uh my name is Ed Snowden I'm uh 29 years
2. 0:12old I work for Booze Allen Hamilton as
3. 0:16an infrastructure analyst for NSA uh in
4. 0:21Hawaii what are some of the positions
5. 0:23that you held previously within the
6. 0:25intelligence Community uh I've been a
7. 0:27systems engineer systems administrator
8. 0:29uh uh senior advisor uh for the uh
9. 0:34Central Intelligence Agency Solutions
10. 0:36consultant and a telecommunications
11. 0:39Information Systems officer one of the
12. 0:42things people are going to be most
13. 0:44interested in in in in trying to
14. 0:46understand what who you are and what
15. 0:48you're thinking is there came some point
16. 0:51in time when you cross this line of
17. 0:54thinking about being a
18. 0:55whistleblower um to making the choice to
19. 0:58actually become a whistleblower walk
20. 1:01people through that decisionmaking
21. 1:05process uh when you're in positions of
22. 1:07of privileged access like a a systems
23. 1:10administrator for these sort of
24. 1:11intelligence Community agencies you're
25. 1:14exposed to a lot more information on a
26. 1:16broader scale than the average employee
27. 1:19and because of that you see things that
28. 1:22uh may be disturbing but uh over the
29. 1:24course of a normal person's career you'd
30. 1:26only see one or two of these instances
31. 1:29uh when you see everything you see them
32. 1:31on a more frequent basis and you
33. 1:33recognize that some of these things are
34. 1:35actually abuses and when you talk to
35. 1:37people about them uh in a place like
36. 1:39this where this is the the normal state
37. 1:42of business people tend not to take them
38. 1:45very seriously and you know move on from
39. 1:47them but over time that awareness of
40. 1:50wrongdoing sort of builds up and you
41. 1:52feel compelled to talk about it and the
42. 1:54more you talk about it the more you're
43. 1:55ignored the more you're told it's not a
44. 1:57problem until eventually you realize
45. 2:00that uh these things need to be
46. 2:02determined by the public not by somebody
47. 2:04who was simply hired by the government
48. 2:06talk a little bit about how the American
49. 2:08surveillance State actually functions
50. 2:10are does it Target the actions of
51. 2:12Americans uh NSA and the intelligence
52. 2:16community in general uh is focused on
53. 2:19getting intelligence wherever it can by
54. 2:21any means possible that it believes on
55. 2:24the grounds of sort of a
56. 2:25self-certification that they serve the
57. 2:26national interest uh originally we saw
58. 2:30that uh Focus very narrowly tailored as
59. 2:33foreign intelligence gathered overseas
60. 2:36now increasingly we see that it's
61. 2:38happening domestically and to do that
62. 2:41they uh dnsa specifically targets the
63. 2:45communications of everyone it ingests
64. 2:47them by default it collects them in its
65. 2:50system and it filters them and it
66. 2:51analyzes them and it measures them and
67. 2:53it stores them for periods of time
68. 2:56simply because that's the easiest most
69. 2:58efficient and most valuable way to
70. 3:01achieve these ends so while they may uh
71. 3:05be intending to uh Target someone
72. 3:08associated with a foreign government or
73. 3:09someone that they suspect of terrorism
74. 3:12they're collecting your Communications
75. 3:13to do so any analyst that anytime can
76. 3:16Target anyone uh any selector anywhere
77. 3:19where those uh Communications will be
78. 3:22picked up depends on the range of the
79. 3:23sensor networks and the authorities that
80. 3:25that analyst is empowered with not all
81. 3:28analysts have the ability to Target
82. 3:30everything but I sitting my desk uh
83. 3:32certainly had the authorities to to
84. 3:34wiretap anyone from you or your
85. 3:37accountant to a federal judge to even
86. 3:39the president if I had a personal email
87. 3:41one of the extraordinary Parts about
88. 3:43this episode is that usually
89. 3:46whistleblowers do what they do
90. 3:47anonymously and take steps to remain
91. 3:49anonymous for as long as they can which
92. 3:52they hope often is forever you on the
93. 3:55other hand have decided to do the
94. 3:56opposite which is to declare yourself
95. 3:58openly as the person Behind These
96. 4:00disclosures why did you choose to do
97. 4:02that I I think that the public has owed
98. 4:05an explanation of the motivations behind
99. 4:07the people who make these disclosures
100. 4:09that are outside of the democratic model
101. 4:12when you are subverting the power of
102. 4:14government that that's a fundamentally
103. 4:16dangerous thing to democracy and if you
104. 4:19do that in secret consistently you know
105. 4:22as the government does uh when it wants
106. 4:24to benefit from a secret action that it
107. 4:26took uh it'll kind of give it its
108. 4:29official a mandate to go hey you know
109. 4:31tell the Press about this thing and that
110. 4:32thing so the public is on our side but
111. 4:35they rarely if ever do that when an
112. 4:36abuse occurs that falls to uh individual
113. 4:40citizens but they're typically maligned
114. 4:43you know it becomes a thing of these
115. 4:44people are against the country they're
116. 4:46against the government but I'm not I'm
117. 4:49I'm no different from anybody else I
118. 4:51don't have special skills uh I'm just
119. 4:54another guy who sits there dayto day in
120. 4:57the office watches what happening what's
121. 4:59happening and goes this is something
122. 5:01that's not our place to decide the
123. 5:03public needs to decide whether these
124. 5:05programs and policies are right or wrong
125. 5:08and I'm willing to go on the record to
126. 5:10defend the authenticity of them and say
127. 5:12I didn't change these I didn't modify
128. 5:14the story this is the truth this is
129. 5:17what's happening you should decide
130. 5:18whether we need to be doing this have
131. 5:20you given thought to what it is that the
132. 5:23US government's response to your conduct
133. 5:26is in terms of what they might say about
134. 5:29you how they might try to depict you
135. 5:30what they might try to do to you uh yeah
136. 5:34I I could be you know rendered by the
137. 5:36CIA I could have uh people come after me
138. 5:38or any of their their third-party
139. 5:40Partners uh you know they they work
140. 5:42closely with a number of other nations
141. 5:44uh or you know they could pay off the
142. 5:45Triads or you know any any of their
143. 5:47agents or assets uh We've we've got a
144. 5:50CIA station just up the road in the
145. 5:52consulate here in Hong Kong and I'm sure
146. 5:54they're going to be uh very busy for the
147. 5:56next week um and that's that's a fear
148. 6:00I'll live under for the rest of my life
149. 6:02however long that happens to be you you
150. 6:04can't come forward against the world's
151. 6:06most powerful intelligence agencies and
152. 6:09uh be completely free from risk because
153. 6:11they're such powerful adversaries that
154. 6:14that no one can meaningfully oppose them
155. 6:16um if they want to get you they'll get
156. 6:18you in time but at the same time you
157. 6:22have to make a determination about what
158. 6:24it is that's important to you and if
159. 6:26living uh living UNF freely but
160. 6:30comfortably is something you're willing
161. 6:31to accept and I think many of us are
162. 6:33it's it's the human
163. 6:34nature uh you can get up every day you
164. 6:37can go to work you can collect your your
165. 6:40large paycheck for relatively little
166. 6:42work uh against the public interest and
167. 6:45go to sleep at night after watching uh
168. 6:47your shows but if you realize that
169. 6:51that's the world that you helped create
170. 6:53and it's going to get worse with the
171. 6:54Next Generation and the Next Generation
172. 6:56who extend the capabilities of this sort
173. 6:58of architecture of depression uh you
174. 7:01realize that you might be willing to
175. 7:02accept any risk and it doesn't matter
176. 7:04what the outcome is so long as the
177. 7:06public gets to make their own decisions
178. 7:08about how that's applied why should
179. 7:10people care about surveillance because
180. 7:12even if you're not doing anything wrong
181. 7:14you're being watched and recorded and
182. 7:16the the storage capability of these
183. 7:18systems increases every year
184. 7:21consistently by orders of
185. 7:23magnitude uh to where it's getting to
186. 7:25the point you don't have to have done
187. 7:27anything wrong you simply have to
188. 7:29eventually fall under suspicion from
189. 7:31somebody even by a wrong call and then
190. 7:34they can use the system to go back in
191. 7:36time and scrutinize every decision
192. 7:38you've ever made every friend you've
193. 7:40ever discussed something with and attack
194. 7:43you on that basis to sort of derive
195. 7:46suspicion from an innocent life and
196. 7:49paint anyone in the context of a
197. 7:52wrongdoer we are currently sitting in a
198. 7:55room in in Hong Kong which is where we
199. 7:58are because you travel here talk a
200. 8:00little bit about why it is that you came
201. 8:03here and specifically there going to be
202. 8:06people who will speculate um that what
203. 8:09you really intend to do is to defect to
204. 8:11the country that many see as the number
205. 8:13one rival of the United States which is
206. 8:16China and that what you're really doing
207. 8:18is essentially seeking to Aid an enemy
208. 8:21of the United States with which you
209. 8:23intend to um seek Asylum can you talk a
210. 8:26little bit about that sure so there
211. 8:28there's a couple assertions in in those
212. 8:31arguments um that are that are sort of
213. 8:33embedded in the the questioning of the
214. 8:35choice of Hong Kong uh the first is that
215. 8:40China is an enemy of the United States
216. 8:42it's not I mean there there are
217. 8:43conflicts between the United States
218. 8:45government and the Chinese uh PRC
219. 8:48government but the the peoples
220. 8:50inherently you know we we don't care we
221. 8:52trade with each other freely you know
222. 8:54we're not at War we're not uh in armed
223. 8:56conflict and we're not trying to be
224. 8:57we're we're the largest trading part
225. 8:59Partners out there for each other um
226. 9:02additionally Hong Kong has a strong
227. 9:05tradition of free speech uh people think
228. 9:07oh China Great firewall mainland China
229. 9:10does have significant restrictions on
230. 9:12Free Speech but uh the Hong Kong the
231. 9:16people of Hong Kong uh have a long
232. 9:18tradition of protesting in the streets
233. 9:20of making their views known the internet
234. 9:21is not filtered here um no more so than
235. 9:25any other Western Government and I
236. 9:27believe that the the uh Hong Kong
237. 9:30government is actually independent uh in
238. 9:33relation to a lot of other leading
239. 9:35Western
240. 9:36governments if your motive had been to
241. 9:39harm the United States and help its
242. 9:40enemies or if your motive had been
243. 9:42personal material gain were there things
244. 9:44that you could have done with these
245. 9:46documents um to advance those goals that
246. 9:48you didn't end up doing oh absolutely I
247. 9:50mean anybody in the positions of access
248. 9:53with the te technical uh capabilities
249. 9:55that I had could you know suck out
250. 9:58Secrets pass on the open market to
251. 10:00Russia you know they always have an open
252. 10:01door as we do
253. 10:04um I had access to you know the the full
254. 10:07rosters of everyone working at the NSA
255. 10:09the entire intelligence Community uh and
256. 10:11undercover assets all around the world
257. 10:13uh the locations of every station we
258. 10:16have what their missions are and so
259. 10:17forth uh if I had just wanted to harm
260. 10:20the US you know
261. 10:22that you could shut down the the
262. 10:25surveillance system in an
263. 10:26afternoon um but that's not my attention
264. 10:29and I I think for anyone um making that
265. 10:32argument they need to think if they were
266. 10:34in my position uh and you know you live
267. 10:36a privileged life you you're living in
268. 10:38Hawaii in paradise and making a ton of
269. 10:40money what would it take to make you
270. 10:43leave everything
271. 10:46behind the the greatest fear that I have
272. 10:49regarding um the
273. 10:51outcome uh for America of these
274. 10:55disclosures is that nothing will change
275. 10:57um people will see in the media uh all
276. 11:01of these disclosures they'll know the
277. 11:02length that the the government is going
278. 11:05to Grant themselves Powers
279. 11:09unilaterally um to create greater
280. 11:12control over American society and Global
281. 11:15Society but they they won't be willing
282. 11:19to take the risks necessarily to stand
283. 11:22up and fight to change things to force
284. 11:26their representatives to actually take a
285. 11:29stand in their
286. 11:31interests uh and the months ahead the
287. 11:34the years ahead it's only going to get
288. 11:36worse until eventually there will be a
289. 11:39time where uh policies will change
290. 11:42because the only thing that restricts
291. 11:44the activities of the surveillance state
292. 11:46are policy uh even our agreements with
293. 11:49with other Sovereign governments we
294. 11:51consider that to be uh a stipulation of
295. 11:54policy rather than a stipulation of Law
296. 11:57and because of that a new leader will be
297. 11:59elected they'll flip the switch uh say
298. 12:02that
299. 12:04um because of the crisis because of the
300. 12:08dangers that we face in the world you
301. 12:10know some some new and unpredicted
302. 12:12threat we need more Authority we need
303. 12:14more power and there will be nothing the
304. 12:16people can do at that point to oppose it
305. 12:18uh and it'll be TurnKey
306. 12:27tyranny