1
00:00:10,174 --> 00:00:43,600
Applause
2
00:00:43,600 --> 00:00:47,566
Frank Rieger: So, that was your applause, Glenn.
3
00:00:47,566 --> 00:00:52,470
Welcome for the keynote for the 30th Communication Congress in Hamburg.
4
00:00:52,470 --> 00:00:54,830
The floor is yours.
5
00:00:54,830 --> 00:00:56,982
Glenn Greenwald: Thank you,
thank you very much.
6
00:00:56,982 --> 00:01:02,693
And thank you to everybody for that warm welcome and thank you as well to the congress organizers
7
00:01:02,693 --> 00:01:05,541
for inviting me to speak.
8
00:01:05,541 --> 00:01:09,848
My reaction when I learned that I had been asked to deliver the keynote to this conference
9
00:01:09,848 --> 00:01:13,732
was probably similar to the one that some of you had, which was:
10
00:01:13,732 --> 00:01:19,382
"Wait, what?" laughter from audience And, you know
11
00:01:19,382 --> 00:01:27,648
the reason is that my cryptographic and hacker skills are not exactly world renowned.
12
00:01:27,648 --> 00:01:33,215
The story has been told many times,
how I almost lost
13
00:01:33,215 --> 00:01:38,326
the biggest national security story
in the last decade, at least
14
00:01:38,326 --> 00:01:47,198
because I found the installation of PGP to be insurmountably annoying and difficult. -
15
00:01:47,198 --> 00:01:55,878
applause, Greenwald laughs
16
00:01:55,878 --> 00:01:59,782
And there is another story that's very similar
that illustrates the same point
17
00:01:59,782 --> 00:02:02,414
that I actually don't think has been told before,
which is:
18
00:02:02,414 --> 00:02:08,110
Prior to my going to Hong Kong I spent many hours with both Laura Poitras and Edward Snowden
19
00:02:08,110 --> 00:02:15,310
trying to get up to speed on the basics of security technology that I would need in order to report on this story,
20
00:02:15,310 --> 00:02:21,118
and they tried to tutor me in all sorts of programs and finally concluded that the only one
21
00:02:21,118 --> 00:02:25,186
at least at that time, for that moment, that I could handle was TrueCrypt.
22
00:02:25,186 --> 00:02:30,647
And they taught me the basics of TrueCrypt and I went to Hong Kong and
23
00:02:30,647 --> 00:02:34,119
before I would go to sleep at night, I would play around with TrueCrypt
24
00:02:34,119 --> 00:02:42,380
and I kind of taught myself a couple of functions that they hadn't even taught me and really had all this sort of confidence
25
00:02:42,380 --> 00:02:45,789
and on the third or fourth day I went over to meet both of them and
26
00:02:45,789 --> 00:02:51,719
I was beaming with pride and I showed them all the new things that I had taught myself how to do on TrueCrypt
27
00:02:51,719 --> 00:02:56,854
and I pronounced myself this "cryptographic master" that I was really becoming advanced,
28
00:02:56,854 --> 00:03:03,718
and I looked at both of them and I didn't see any return pride coming my way.
29
00:03:03,718 --> 00:03:10,790
Actually what I saw was them trying very hard to avoid rolling their eyes out of their head at me to one another.
30
00:03:10,790 --> 00:03:16,943
And I said: "Why are you reacting that way? Why isn't that a great accomplishment?"
31
00:03:16,943 --> 00:03:23,421
And they sort of let some moments go by and no-one wanted to break it to me and finally Snowden piped in and said:
32
00:03:23,421 --> 00:03:29,884
"TrueCrypt is really meant for your little kid brother to be able to master, it's not all that impressive."
33
00:03:29,884 --> 00:03:36,174
And chuckles I remember being very deflated and kind of going back to the drawing board.
34
00:03:36,174 --> 00:03:38,854
Well... You know, that was six months ago.
35
00:03:38,854 --> 00:03:47,414
And in the interim, the importance of security technology and privacy technology has become
36
00:03:47,414 --> 00:03:51,654
really central to everything it is that I do.
I really have learned
37
00:03:51,654 --> 00:03:55,413
an enormous amount about both its importance
and how it functions.
38
00:03:55,413 --> 00:04:00,990
And I'm far from the only one. I think one of the most significant outcomes of the last six months,
39
00:04:00,990 --> 00:04:07,852
but one of the most underdiscussed, is how many people now appreciate
40
00:04:07,852 --> 00:04:13,774
the importance of protecting the security of their communications.
41
00:04:13,774 --> 00:04:17,390
If you go and look at my inbox from July,
42
00:04:17,390 --> 00:04:23,630
probably three to five percent of the emails I received were composed of PGP code.
43
00:04:23,630 --> 00:04:29,790
That percentage is definitely above 50 percent today
and probably well above 50 percent.
44
00:04:29,790 --> 00:04:35,780
When we talked about forming our new media company, we barely spent any time on the question,
45
00:04:35,780 --> 00:04:40,808
it was simply assumed that we were all going to use the most sophisticated encryption that was available
46
00:04:40,808 --> 00:04:46,239
to communicate with one another, and I think most encouragingly, whenever I'm contacted
47
00:04:46,239 --> 00:04:51,790
by anyone in journalism or activism
or any related fields,
48
00:04:51,790 --> 00:04:59,286
they either use encryption or are embarrassed and ashamed that they don't, and apologize to me for the fact that they don't
49
00:04:59,286 --> 00:05:05,160
and vow that they're soon going to. And it's really a remarkable sea-change even from the middle
of last year
50
00:05:05,160 --> 00:05:08,870
when I would talk to some of the leading national security journalists in the world
51
00:05:08,870 --> 00:05:11,111
who were working on some of the most sensitive information
52
00:05:11,111 --> 00:05:15,380
and virtually none of them even knew what PGP or OTR, or any other
53
00:05:15,380 --> 00:05:20,878
of the leading privacy technologies were, let alone how to use them.
54
00:05:20,878 --> 00:05:27,910
And it's really encouraging to see this technology spreading so pervasively. And I think that this
55
00:05:27,910 --> 00:05:34,263
underscores an extremely important point and one that gives me great cause for optimism.
56
00:05:34,263 --> 00:05:41,620
I'm often asked whether I think that the stories that we've been learning over the last six months, and the reporting
57
00:05:41,620 --> 00:05:44,726
and the debates that have arisen will actually change anything and impose any real limits
58
00:05:44,726 --> 00:05:48,222
on the US surveillance state.
59
00:05:48,222 --> 00:05:52,936
And typically when people think the answer to that question is "yes", the thing that they cite most commonly
60
00:05:52,936 --> 00:05:56,534
is probably the least significant, which is that there's going to be some kind of debate
61
00:05:56,534 --> 00:06:01,383
and our representatives and democratic government are going to respond to our debate
62
00:06:01,383 --> 00:06:04,753
and they're going to impose limits with legislative reform,
63
00:06:04,753 --> 00:06:07,342
none of that is likely to happen. The US government and its allies
64
00:06:07,342 --> 00:06:11,102
are not going to voluntarily restrict their own surveillance powers
65
00:06:11,102 --> 00:06:14,422
in any meaningful way. In fact the tactic of the US government
66
00:06:14,422 --> 00:06:19,310
that we see over and over, that we've seen historically, is to do the very opposite, which is
67
00:06:19,310 --> 00:06:25,359
when they get caught doing something that brings them disrepute and causes scandal and concern,
68
00:06:25,359 --> 00:06:32,478
they're very adept at pretending to reform themselves through symbolic gestures,
69
00:06:32,478 --> 00:06:38,278
while at the same time doing very little other than placating citizen anger and often increasing
70
00:06:38,278 --> 00:06:41,926
their own powers that created the scandal
in the first place.
71
00:06:41,926 --> 00:06:46,358
We saw that in the mid-1970s when there was serious concern and alarm
72
00:06:46,358 --> 00:06:48,958
in the United States - at least as much there is now if not more so -
73
00:06:48,958 --> 00:06:53,934
over the US government surveillance
capabilities and abuse.
74
00:06:53,934 --> 00:06:55,854
And what the US government did in response
is they said:
75
00:06:55,854 --> 00:07:02,655
‘Well we're going to engage in all these reforms that will safeguard these powers.
76
00:07:02,655 --> 00:07:08,622
We're gonna create a special court that the government needs to go to get permission before they can target people with surveillance."
77
00:07:08,622 --> 00:07:12,814
And that sounded great, but then they created the court in the most warped way possible.
78
00:07:12,814 --> 00:07:18,621
It's a secret court where only the government gets to show up, where only the most pro-national security judges are appointed,
79
00:07:18,621 --> 00:07:24,950
and so this court gave the appearance of oversight when in reality it's the most grotesque rubber-stamp
80
00:07:24,950 --> 00:07:29,271
that is known to the western world. They almost never disapprove of anything.
81
00:07:29,271 --> 00:07:32,280
It simply created the appearance that there is judicial oversight.
82
00:07:32,280 --> 00:07:36,701
They also said we are gonna create congressional committees, the intelligence committees
83
00:07:36,701 --> 00:07:42,549
that are gonna have as their main function overseeing the intelligence committees and making certain that they no longer
84
00:07:42,549 --> 00:07:48,662
abuse their power, and what they did instead was immediately install the most servile loyalists
85
00:07:48,662 --> 00:07:53,134
of the intelligence committees as head of this "oversight committee" and
86
00:07:53,134 --> 00:07:57,998
that's been going on for decades, and today we have two of the most slavish
87
00:07:57,998 --> 00:08:05,758
pro NSA members of congress as the head of these committees, who are really there to bolster and justify
88
00:08:05,758 --> 00:08:12,462
everything and anything the NSA does, rather than engage in real oversight. So again it's designed to prettify the process while
89
00:08:12,462 --> 00:08:17,150
bringing about no real reform. And this process is now repeating itself.
90
00:08:17,150 --> 00:08:24,275
You see the president appoint a handful of his closest loyalists to this independent
White House panel
91
00:08:24,275 --> 00:08:29,270
that pretended to issue a report that was very balanced and critical of the surveillance state,
92
00:08:29,270 --> 00:08:34,753
but in reality introduced a variety of programs
that at the very best
93
00:08:34,753 --> 00:08:40,645
would simply make these programs slightly more palatable from a public perspective and in many cases
94
00:08:40,645 --> 00:08:46,494
intensify the powers of the surveillance state rather than reigning them in any meaningful way.
95
00:08:46,494 --> 00:08:49,718
So the answer to whether or not we gonna have meaningful reform
96
00:08:49,718 --> 00:08:56,510
definitely does not lie in the typical processes of democratic accountability that we are all
taught to respect, but they
97
00:08:56,510 --> 00:09:01,959
do lie elsewhere. It is possible that there will be courts that will
98
00:09:01,959 --> 00:09:09,926
impose some meaningful restrictions by finding that the programs are unconstitutional. It's, I think,
99
00:09:09,926 --> 00:09:18,373
much more possible that other countries around the world who are truly indignant about the breaches of their privacy security
100
00:09:18,373 --> 00:09:24,302
will band together and create alternatives either in terms of infrastructure or legal regimes
101
00:09:24,302 --> 00:09:30,534
that will prevent the United States from exercising hegemony over the internet or make the cost of doing so far too high.
102
00:09:30,534 --> 00:09:38,293
I think even more promising is the fact that large private corporations, internet companies and others
103
00:09:38,293 --> 00:09:44,398
will start finally paying the price for their collaboration with this spying regime.
104
00:09:44,398 --> 00:09:48,611
And we've seen that already, when they've been dragged into the light and finally now are forced to
105
00:09:48,611 --> 00:09:54,742
account for what it is that they are doing and to realize that their economic interests are imperiled by the spying system,
106
00:09:54,742 --> 00:10:00,702
exercising their unparalleled power to demand that it be reigned in. And I think all of those things
are very possible
107
00:10:00,702 --> 00:10:04,220
as serious constraints on the surveillance state.
108
00:10:04,220 --> 00:10:09,422
But I ultimately think that where the greatest hope lies is
109
00:10:09,422 --> 00:10:16,752
with the people in this room, and the skills that all of you possess.
110
00:10:16,752 --> 00:10:24,295
The privacy technologies that have already been developed, the Tor Browser, PGP, OTR
111
00:10:24,295 --> 00:10:32,358
and a variety of other products are making real inroads and preventing the US government and its allies from invading
112
00:10:32,358 --> 00:10:37,317
the sanctity of our communications. None of them is perfect, none of them is invulnerable,
113
00:10:37,317 --> 00:10:44,620
but they all pose a serious obstacle to the US government's ability to continue to destroy our privacy,
114
00:10:44,620 --> 00:10:50,542
and ultimately the battle over internet freedom, the question of whether or not the internet will really be this tool
115
00:10:50,542 --> 00:10:56,166
of liberation and democratization or whether it will become the worst tool of human oppression in all of
116
00:10:56,166 --> 00:11:01,598
human history will be fought out, I think, primarily on the technological battlefield.
117
00:11:01,598 --> 00:11:05,660
The NSA and the US government certainly knows that.
118
00:11:05,660 --> 00:11:14,573
That's why Keith Alexander gets dressed up in his little costumes, his dag jeans and his edgy black shirt and goes to hacker conferences.
119
00:11:14,573 --> 00:11:24,250
And it's why - applause
120
00:11:24,250 --> 00:11:29,558
It's why corporations in Silicon Valley like Palantir Technologies spend so much effort
121
00:11:29,558 --> 00:11:36,700
depicting themselves as these kind of rebellious pro civil libertarian factions as they
122
00:11:36,700 --> 00:11:42,416
spend most of their time in secret working hand in hand with the intelligence community and the CIA to increase their capabilities, because
123
00:11:42,416 --> 00:11:47,975
they want to recruit particularly younger brain power onto their side,
124
00:11:47,975 --> 00:11:53,770
the side of destroying privacy and putting the internet to use for the world's most powerful factions.
125
00:11:53,770 --> 00:11:58,239
And what the outcome of this conflict is, what the internet ultimately becomes, really
126
00:11:58,239 --> 00:12:04,639
is not answerable in any definitive way now. It depends so much on what it is that we as human beings do.
127
00:12:04,639 --> 00:12:13,208
And one of the most pressing questions is whether people like the ones who are in this room and the people who have the skills that you have,
128
00:12:13,208 --> 00:12:18,718
now and in the future, will succumb to those temptations and go to work for the very
129
00:12:18,718 --> 00:12:26,471
entities that are attempting to destroy privacy around the world or whether you will put your talents and skills and resources
130
00:12:26,471 --> 00:12:31,383
to defending human beings from those invasions and continuing to create effective technologies
131
00:12:31,383 --> 00:12:37,527
to protect our privacy. And I'm very optimistic, because that power does lie in your hands.
132
00:12:37,527 --> 00:12:48,751
applause
133
00:12:48,751 --> 00:12:55,326
So, I want to talk about another cause of optimism that I have, which is that the pro-privacy alliance
134
00:12:55,326 --> 00:13:01,383
is a lot healthier and more vibrant, it's a lot bigger and stronger
135
00:13:01,383 --> 00:13:06,263
than I think a lot of us - even who are in it - often appreciate and realize.
136
00:13:06,263 --> 00:13:12,791
And even more so, it is rapidly growing. And I think inexorably growing.
137
00:13:12,791 --> 00:13:19,255
I know for me personally, every single thing that I have done over the last six months on this story,
138
00:13:19,255 --> 00:13:26,687
and all of the platforms I've been given like this speech and the honors that I've received, and the accolades that I have been given,
139
00:13:26,687 --> 00:13:38,231
are ones that I share completely with two people who have been critically important to everything that I have done.
140
00:13:38,231 --> 00:13:48,371
One of them is my unbelievably brave and incomparably brilliant collaborator, Laura Poitras.
141
00:13:48,371 --> 00:14:00,950
applause
142
00:14:00,950 --> 00:14:09,519
Laura doesn't get a huge amount of attention, which is how she likes it, laughter but she really does
143
00:14:09,519 --> 00:14:15,517
deserve every last recognition and honor and award because although it sounds cliché
144
00:14:15,517 --> 00:14:19,157
it really is the case that without her, none of this would have happened.
145
00:14:19,157 --> 00:14:24,813
We have talked every single day actually over the last six months. We have made almost every decision,
146
00:14:24,813 --> 00:14:29,210
certainly every significant one, in complete partnership and collaboration
147
00:14:29,210 --> 00:14:35,600
and being able to work with somebody who has that high level of understanding about internet security,
148
00:14:35,600 --> 00:14:45,837
about strategies for protecting privacy, has been completely indispensible to the success of what we've been able to achieve.
149
00:14:45,837 --> 00:14:54,920
And then the second person who has been utterly indispensible and deserves every last accolade
to share
150
00:14:54,920 --> 00:14:59,614
and every last reward is my unintelligible source Edward Snowden.
151
00:14:59,614 --> 00:15:20,460
applause
152
00:15:20,460 --> 00:15:31,109
It is really hard to put into words what a profound effect his choice has had on me, and on Laura,
153
00:15:31,109 --> 00:15:38,325
and on the people with whom we have worked directly, and on people with whom we indirectly worked,
154
00:15:38,325 --> 00:15:46,567
and then millions and millions of people around the world. The courage and the principle act of conscience
155
00:15:46,567 --> 00:15:53,533
that he displayed will shape and inspire me for the rest of my life and will inspire, I'm convinced,
156
00:15:53,533 --> 00:15:58,573
millions and millions of people to take all sorts of acts that they might not have taken
157
00:15:58,573 --> 00:16:05,950
because they have seen what good for the world can be done by even a single individual.
158
00:16:05,950 --> 00:16:16,221
applause
159
00:16:16,221 --> 00:16:22,965
But I think it's so important to realize, and this to me is the critical point, is that none of us,
the three of us,
160
00:16:22,965 --> 00:16:30,749
did what we did in a vacuum. We were all inspired by people who have done similar things in the past.
161
00:16:30,749 --> 00:16:35,726
I'm absolutely certain that Edward Snowden was inspired in all sorts of ways
162
00:16:35,726 --> 00:16:41,869
by the heroism and self-sacrifice of Chelsea Manning.
163
00:16:41,869 --> 00:16:56,861
applause
164
00:16:56,861 --> 00:17:01,606
And I'm quite certain that in one way or the another she, Chelsea Manning, was inspired
165
00:17:01,606 --> 00:17:07,462
by the whole litany of whistleblowers and other people of conscience who
166
00:17:07,462 --> 00:17:13,726
came before her to blow the whistle on extreme levels of corruption, wrongdoing and illegality
167
00:17:13,726 --> 00:17:18,738
among the worlds most powerful factions. And they, in turn, where inspired, I'm certain,
168
00:17:18,738 --> 00:17:24,949
by the person who is one of my greatest political heroes, Daniel Ellsberg, who did this 40 years ago.
169
00:17:24,949 --> 00:17:33,253
applause
170
00:17:33,253 --> 00:17:39,917
And even beyond that, I think it is really important to realize
171
00:17:39,917 --> 00:17:45,349
that everything that has been allowed to happen over the last six months, and I think
172
00:17:45,349 --> 00:17:54,446
any kind of significant leak and whistleblowing of classified Information in the digital age both past and current and future
173
00:17:54,446 --> 00:18:04,742
owes a huge debt of gratitude to the organization which really pioneered the template, and that's Wikileaks.
174
00:18:04,742 --> 00:18:14,445
applause
175
00:18:14,445 --> 00:18:18,370
We didn't completely copy to the letter the model of Wikileaks,
176
00:18:18,370 --> 00:18:21,758
we modified it a little bit just like Wikileaks modified what it has
177
00:18:21,758 --> 00:18:26,957
decided were its best tactics and strategies as it went along. And I'm sure people who come after us will modify
178
00:18:26,957 --> 00:18:33,469
what we have done to improve on what we have done and to avoid some of our mistakes and some of the attacks that have actually
179
00:18:33,469 --> 00:18:40,542
been successful. But I think the point that is really underscored here, and it was underscored for me probably most powerfully
180
00:18:40,542 --> 00:18:46,501
when Edward Snowden was rescued from Hong Kong from probable
181
00:18:46,501 --> 00:18:50,837
arrest and imprisonment for the next 30 years by the United States, not only by Wikileaks
182
00:18:50,837 --> 00:18:56,502
but by an extraordinarily courageous and heroic woman, Sarah Harrison.
183
00:18:56,502 --> 00:19:06,160
applause
184
00:19:06,160 --> 00:19:11,314
There is a huge network of human beings around the world
185
00:19:11,314 --> 00:19:17,333
who believe in this cause, and not only believe in it but are increasingly willing to devote
186
00:19:17,333 --> 00:19:23,581
their energies and their resources and their time and to sacrifice for it.
187
00:19:23,581 --> 00:19:31,112
And, there's a reason that's remarkable and it kind of occurred to me in a telephone call that I had with Laura,
188
00:19:31,112 --> 00:19:34,646
probably two months or so ago, although we've communicated every day, we've almost never communicated
189
00:19:34,646 --> 00:19:40,558
by telephone and one of the few exceptions was: we were going to speak to an event
190
00:19:40,558 --> 00:19:43,909
at the Electronic Frontier Foundation and we got on the phone
191
00:19:43,909 --> 00:19:49,455
the night before to sort of talk about what ground she would cover and what ground I would cover.
192
00:19:49,455 --> 00:19:54,639
And what she said to me is, you know, it's amazing if you think about it and she went through the list of people who have
193
00:19:54,639 --> 00:19:59,277
devoted themselves to transparency and the price that they paid. And she said: "Edward Snowden is
194
00:19:59,277 --> 00:20:07,830
stuck in Russia, facing 30 years in prison, Chelsea Manning is in prison, Aaron Swartz committed suicide,
195
00:20:07,830 --> 00:20:16,277
people like Jeremy Hammond and Barret Brown are the subject of grotesquely overzealous prosecutions by virtue of
196
00:20:16,277 --> 00:20:21,813
the action of transparency they've engaged in, even people like Jim Risen, who
197
00:20:21,813 --> 00:20:25,410
is with an organization like the New York Times, faces the possibility of
198
00:20:25,410 --> 00:20:30,949
prison for stories that he has published." Laura and I have been advised by countless lawyers
199
00:20:30,949 --> 00:20:34,253
that it's not safe for us to even travel to our own country. And she said:
200
00:20:34,253 --> 00:20:38,592
"It's really a sign of how sick the political theater has become
201
00:20:38,592 --> 00:20:43,883
that the price for bringing transparency to the government and for doing the job of the media and the congress
202
00:20:43,883 --> 00:20:49,390
that they are not doing is these extreme forms of punishment."
203
00:20:49,390 --> 00:20:57,678
She was right and she had a good point and I had a hard time disagreeing with her, and I don't think anybody would.
204
00:20:57,678 --> 00:21:02,633
But I said, you know, there actually is another interesting point that that list revealed:
205
00:21:02,633 --> 00:21:11,358
The thing that is so interesting to me about that list, is that it's actually as long as it is and it keeps growing.
206
00:21:11,358 --> 00:21:16,710
And the reason why that's so amazing to me is because the reason that people on that list
207
00:21:16,710 --> 00:21:20,846
and others like them pay a price is because the United States knows
208
00:21:20,846 --> 00:21:29,616
that its only hope for continuing to maintain its regiment of secrecy behind which it engages in radical and corrupt acts,
209
00:21:29,616 --> 00:21:35,621
is to intimidate and deter and threaten people who are would-be whistleblowers and transparency activists
210
00:21:35,621 --> 00:21:39,917
from coming forward and doing what it is they do by showing them that they can be subjected
211
00:21:39,917 --> 00:21:44,957
to even the most extreme punishments and there is nothing anybody can do about it. And
212
00:21:44,957 --> 00:21:54,558
it's an effective tactic. applause
213
00:21:54,558 --> 00:22:01,454
It is an effective tactic. It works for some people. Not because those people are cowardly but because they're rational.
214
00:22:01,454 --> 00:22:06,941
It really is the case that the United States and the British government not only are willing but able
215
00:22:06,941 --> 00:22:13,637
to essentially engage in any conduct, no matter how grotesque, no matter how extreme, no matter how lawless with very little
216
00:22:13,637 --> 00:22:21,257
opposition that they perceive is enough to make them not want to do it. And so there are activists who rationally conclude
217
00:22:21,257 --> 00:22:29,397
that it's not worth the price for me to pay in order to engage in that behavior. That's why they continue to do it.
218
00:22:29,397 --> 00:22:36,397
But the paradox is that there are a lot of other people. I think even more people
219
00:22:36,397 --> 00:22:43,925
who react in exactly the opposite way. When they see the US and the UK government showing their true face,
220
00:22:43,925 --> 00:22:47,600
showing the extent to which they are willing to abuse their power,
221
00:22:47,600 --> 00:22:52,750
they don't become scared or deterred, they become even more emboldened.
222
00:22:52,750 --> 00:23:00,827
And the reason for that is that when you see that these governments are really capable of that level of abuse of power
223
00:23:00,827 --> 00:23:07,886
you realize that you can no longer in good conscience stand by and do nothing. It becomes an even greater imperative view
224
00:23:07,886 --> 00:23:09,981
to come forward and shine a light on what they're doing
225
00:23:09,981 --> 00:23:13,887
and if you listen to any of those whistleblowers or activists they'll all say the same thing:
226
00:23:13,887 --> 00:23:19,389
it was a slow process to realize that the actions in which they were engaging were justified
227
00:23:19,389 --> 00:23:25,181
but they were finally convinced of it by the actions of these governments themselves and it's a really sweet irony.
228
00:23:25,181 --> 00:23:31,916
And I think it caused serious optimism that it is the United States and its closest allies
229
00:23:31,916 --> 00:23:39,855
who are sowing the seeds of dissent, who are fueling the fire of this activism with their own abusive behavior.
230
00:23:39,855 --> 00:23:51,236
applause
231
00:23:51,236 --> 00:23:56,846
Now, speaking of the attempt to intimidate and deter and the like, I just want to spend a few minutes
232
00:23:56,846 --> 00:24:03,620
talking about the current posture of the United States government with regard to Edward Snowden.
233
00:24:03,620 --> 00:24:08,341
It's become extremely clear at this point that the US government at the highest levels on down
234
00:24:08,341 --> 00:24:14,588
is completely committed to pursuing only one outcome.
235
00:24:14,588 --> 00:24:21,371
And that outcome is one where Edward Snowden ends up spending several decades - if not the rest of his life -
236
00:24:21,371 --> 00:24:26,726
in a small cage, probably cut off in terms of communication from the rest of the world.
237
00:24:26,726 --> 00:24:32,248
And the reason why they are so intent on doing that is not hard to see. It's not because they're worried
238
00:24:32,248 --> 00:24:38,453
that society needs to be protected from Edward Snowden and from him repeating these actions.
239
00:24:38,453 --> 00:24:44,997
I think it's probably a pretty safe bet that Edward Snowden's security clearance is more or less permanently revoked.
240
00:24:44,997 --> 00:24:49,211
laughter
241
00:24:49,211 --> 00:24:53,967
The reason they're so intent on it is because they cannot allow
242
00:24:53,967 --> 00:24:58,437
Edward Snowden to live any sort of a decent and free life because they're petrified
243
00:24:58,437 --> 00:25:02,174
that that will inspire other people to follow his example,
244
00:25:02,174 --> 00:25:09,980
and to be unwilling to maintain this bond of secrecy, when maintaining that bond does nothing, but hides
245
00:25:09,980 --> 00:25:16,989
illegal and damaging conduct from the people who are most affected by it.
246
00:25:16,989 --> 00:25:21,610
What I find most amazing about that is not that the United States government is doing that.
247
00:25:21,610 --> 00:25:24,530
That's what they do. It's who they are.
248
00:25:24,530 --> 00:25:28,528
What I find amazing about it is that there are so many governments around the world,
249
00:25:28,528 --> 00:25:33,517
including ones that are capable of protecting his human rights,
250
00:25:33,517 --> 00:25:38,494
and who have been the biggest beneficiaries of his heroic revelations,
251
00:25:38,494 --> 00:25:43,334
who are willing to stand by and watch his human rights being crushed and be imprisoned
252
00:25:43,334 --> 00:25:47,567
for the crime of showing the world what's being done to their privacy.
253
00:25:47,567 --> 00:26:01,368
applause
254
00:26:01,368 --> 00:26:08,726
It has really been startling to watch governments, including some of the largest in Europe,
255
00:26:08,726 --> 00:26:15,455
and their leaders go out in public and express intense indignation over the fact
256
00:26:15,455 --> 00:26:21,808
that the privacy of their citizens is being systematically breached, and genuine indignation
257
00:26:21,808 --> 00:26:25,558
when they learn that their privacy has also been targeted.
258
00:26:25,558 --> 00:26:37,679
laughter, applause
259
00:26:37,679 --> 00:26:47,654
And yet, at the same time the person who sacrificed in order to defend their basic human rights, their rights of privacy,
260
00:26:47,654 --> 00:26:53,190
is now having his own human rights targeted and threatened in recrimination.
261
00:26:53,190 --> 00:27:01,430
I realize that for any country like Germany or France or Brazil or any other country around the world
262
00:27:01,430 --> 00:27:07,614
to defy the dictates of the United States, that there is a cost to doing that,
263
00:27:07,614 --> 00:27:17,158
but there was an even greater cost to Edward Snowden to come forward and do what he did in defense of your rights and yet he did it anyway.
264
00:27:17,158 --> 00:27:28,390
applause
265
00:27:28,390 --> 00:27:34,710
I think that what's really important to realize is that countries have
266
00:27:34,710 --> 00:27:38,942
the legal and the international obligation by virtues of treaties that they've signed
267
00:27:38,942 --> 00:27:45,375
to defend Edward Snowden from political prosecution and prevent him from being in cage for the rest of his life
268
00:27:45,375 --> 00:27:52,783
for having shone a light on systematic abuses of privacy and other forms of abuses of secrecy.
269
00:27:52,783 --> 00:27:57,850
But they also have the ethical and moral obligation as the beneficiaries of his actions,
270
00:27:57,850 --> 00:28:02,671
to do what he did for them which is to protect his rights in return.
271
00:28:02,671 --> 00:28:12,416
applause
272
00:28:12,416 --> 00:28:19,816
I want to spend a little bit of time talking about one of my favorite topics, which is journalism.
273
00:28:19,816 --> 00:28:28,304
When I was in Hong Kong with Laura and Ed Snowden, I’ve been reflecting on this a lot in the course of writing the book
274
00:28:28,304 --> 00:28:31,559
that I've been writing over the past couple of months about everything that's happened:
275
00:28:31,559 --> 00:28:35,845
One of the things I realized in looking back on that moment and also in talking to Laura
276
00:28:35,845 --> 00:28:40,342
about what took place there was that we spent at least as much time
277
00:28:40,342 --> 00:28:49,350
talking about issues relating to journalism and a free press as we did talking about surveillance policy.
278
00:28:49,350 --> 00:28:55,710
And the reason is that we knew that what we were about to do would trigger
279
00:28:55,710 --> 00:29:01,838
as many debates over the proper role of journalism vis-à-vis the state and other power factions as it would
280
00:29:01,838 --> 00:29:08,711
the importance of internet freedom and privacy and the threat of the surveillance state. And we knew in particular
281
00:29:08,711 --> 00:29:14,768
that one of our most formidable adversaries was not simply going to be the intelligence agencies
282
00:29:14,768 --> 00:29:18,222
on which we were reporting and who we were trying to expose,
283
00:29:18,222 --> 00:29:25,843
but also their most loyal, devoted servants which calls itself the United States and British media.
284
00:29:25,843 --> 00:29:36,655
applause
285
00:29:36,655 --> 00:29:39,825
And so we spent a great deal of time strategizing about it and we resolved
286
00:29:39,825 --> 00:29:43,983
that we're going to have to be very disruptive about the status quo, not only
287
00:29:43,983 --> 00:29:48,795
the surveillance and political status quo but also the journalistic status quo.
288
00:29:48,795 --> 00:29:53,255
And I think one of the ways that you can see what it is that we were targeting
289
00:29:53,255 --> 00:29:57,574
is in the behavior of the media over the past six months since these revelations have emerged
290
00:29:57,574 --> 00:30:01,582
almost entirely without them and despite them.
291
00:30:01,582 --> 00:30:06,772
One of the more remarkable things that has happened to me is I gave an interview
292
00:30:06,772 --> 00:30:14,638
three weeks or so, or a month ago, on BBC and it was on this program called "HARDtalk" and I, at one point, had made
293
00:30:14,638 --> 00:30:19,502
what I thought was the very unremarkable and uncontroversial observation that
294
00:30:19,502 --> 00:30:23,198
the reason why we have a free press is because national security officials
295
00:30:23,198 --> 00:30:28,567
routinely lie to the population in order to shield their power and to get their agenda advanced,
296
00:30:28,567 --> 00:30:34,919
and that the goal and duty of a journalist is to be adversarial to those people in power and that the pronouncement
297
00:30:34,919 --> 00:30:39,639
that this interviewer was citing about how these government programs are critical to stopping terrorists
298
00:30:39,639 --> 00:30:47,231
should not be believed unless there's actual evidence shown that they're actually true. And he
299
00:30:47,231 --> 00:30:54,639
interrupted me - applause
300
00:30:54,639 --> 00:30:56,150
When I said that, he interrupted me and he said "Look, I" -
301
00:30:56,150 --> 00:31:01,225
I am sorry, I don't do pompous British accents well, so you'll just have to transpose it in your own imagination.
302
00:31:01,225 --> 00:31:09,333
But he said: "You know, I just need to stop you, you have said something so remarkable."
303
00:31:09,333 --> 00:31:16,462
He was like a Victorian priest scandalized by seeing a woman pull up her skirt a little bit over her ankles. He said:
304
00:31:16,462 --> 00:31:27,480
"I just cannot believe that you would suggest that senior officials, generals in the United States and
305
00:31:27,480 --> 00:31:33,279
the British government are actually making false claims to the public. How can you possibly say something unintelligible..."
306
00:31:33,279 --> 00:31:45,398
laughter, applause
307
00:31:45,398 --> 00:31:54,688
That is not aberrational! It really is the central view of certain American and British media stars
308
00:31:54,688 --> 00:31:59,918
that when especially people with medals on their chest who are called generals,
309
00:31:59,918 --> 00:32:07,175
but also high officials in the government make claims that those claims are presumptively treated as true
310
00:32:07,175 --> 00:32:12,886
without evidence and that it’s almost immoral to call them into question or to question their veracity.
311
00:32:12,886 --> 00:32:19,383
And obviously we went through the Iraq war in which those very two same governments,
312
00:32:19,383 --> 00:32:23,882
specifically and deliberately lied repeatedly [to] the government to their people
313
00:32:23,882 --> 00:32:28,772
over the course of two years to justify an aggressive war that destroyed a country of 26 million people.
314
00:32:28,772 --> 00:32:33,550
But we've seen it continuously over the last six months as well:
315
00:32:33,550 --> 00:32:40,877
The very first document that Edward Snowden ever showed me was one that he explained would reveal
316
00:32:40,877 --> 00:32:46,749
unquestionable lying by the senior national intelligence official of President Obama,
317
00:32:46,749 --> 00:32:50,893
the Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper. That was the document that revealed
318
00:32:50,893 --> 00:32:55,932
that the Obama administration had succeeded in convincing a court, its secret court,
319
00:32:55,932 --> 00:33:01,326
to compel phone companies to turn over to the NSA every single phone record
320
00:33:01,326 --> 00:33:07,420
of every single telephone call, local and international, of every single American.
321
00:33:07,420 --> 00:33:13,126
Even though that National Security official, James Clapper, before the Senate, just months earlier was asked:
322
00:33:13,126 --> 00:33:19,622
"Does the NSA collect phone data about the communications of Americans?", and he answered
323
00:33:19,622 --> 00:33:25,261
"No, Sir." What we all now know is a complete lie.
324
00:33:25,261 --> 00:33:31,726
There are other lies that the NSA and its top officials, US government top officials have told.
325
00:33:31,726 --> 00:33:36,608
And by lie I mean advisedly, things they know to be false that they're saying anyway to convince people
326
00:33:36,608 --> 00:33:41,206
of what they want them to believe. Keith Alexander repeatedly said, the head of the NSA,
327
00:33:41,206 --> 00:33:47,989
that they are incapable of accounting for the exact number of calls and emails that they intercept
from the
328
00:33:47,989 --> 00:33:53,661
American telecommunication system even though the program that we ended up exposing, "Boundless Informant",
329
00:33:53,661 --> 00:34:00,509
counts with exact mathematical precision. Exactly the data that he said he is incapable of providing.
330
00:34:00,509 --> 00:34:05,575
Both the NSA and the GCHQ have repeatedly said that the purpose of these programs
331
00:34:05,575 --> 00:34:11,248
is to protect people from terrorism and to safeguard national security, and that they would never,
332
00:34:11,248 --> 00:34:18,699
unlike these evil [thieves?], engage in spying for economic demands and yet report after report that we revealed,
333
00:34:18,699 --> 00:34:24,940
from spying on the Brazilian oil giant Petrobras, from spying on the Organization of American states at economic summits
334
00:34:24,940 --> 00:34:30,988
where economic accords were negotiated, to energy companies around the world, in Europe, in Asia, in Latin America,
335
00:34:30,988 --> 00:34:37,931
would just completely negate these claims and prove that they are lies.
336
00:34:37,931 --> 00:34:42,188
And then we have President Obama who repeatedly says things like
337
00:34:42,188 --> 00:34:47,575
"We can not, and do not, spy on or even eavesdrop on the communications of Americans without warrants
338
00:34:47,575 --> 00:34:53,556
even though the 2008 law that was enacted by the Congress of which he was a part and unintelligible
339
00:34:53,556 --> 00:34:59,921
unintelligible to empower the US government to eavesdrop on Americans' communication without warrants.
340
00:34:59,921 --> 00:35:07,476
And what you see here is serial lying and yet at the same time the, same media that seized it
341
00:35:07,476 --> 00:35:13,845
acts scandalized if you suggest that their claims should not be taken at face value without evidence
342
00:35:13,845 --> 00:35:19,307
because their role is not to be adversaries. Their role is to be loyal spokespeople
343
00:35:19,307 --> 00:35:23,743
to those powerful factions [that] pretend to exercise oversight.
344
00:35:23,743 --> 00:35:34,388
applause
345
00:35:34,388 --> 00:35:40,996
Just one more point on that, which is to understand just how the American and British media function.
346
00:35:40,996 --> 00:35:50,408
You can pretty much turn on the TV at any moment or open a new internet website and see very brave American journalists
347
00:35:50,408 --> 00:35:57,715
calling Edward Snowden criminal and demanding that he be extradited to the United States and prosecuted and imprisoned.
348
00:35:57,715 --> 00:36:04,812
They're very, very brave when it comes to declaring people who are scorned in Washington and who have no power and have become marginalized,
349
00:36:04,812 --> 00:36:09,576
they're very brave in condemning them and standing up to them and demanding that the rule of law
350
00:36:09,576 --> 00:36:14,388
be applied to them faithfully. He broke the law, he must pay the consequences.
351
00:36:14,388 --> 00:36:21,748
And yet, the top national security official of the United States government went to the Senate and lied to their face as everybody now knows,
352
00:36:21,748 --> 00:36:26,816
which is at least as much of a serious crime as anything Edward Snowden is accused of.
353
00:36:26,816 --> 00:36:32,108
And you will be hard-pressed to find a single one of those brave journalists.
354
00:36:32,108 --> 00:36:43,369
applause
355
00:36:43,369 --> 00:36:49,956
You will be very hard-pressed to find even a single one of those brave intrepid journalists
356
00:36:49,956 --> 00:36:57,929
ever even think about, let alone express the idea that Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, ought to be
357
00:36:57,929 --> 00:37:02,672
subject to the rule of law and be prosecuted in prison for the crimes that he committed,
358
00:37:02,672 --> 00:37:10,908
because the role of the US media and their British counterparts is to be voices for those with the greatest power
359
00:37:10,908 --> 00:37:15,828
and to protect their interests and serve them. And everything that we've done over the last six months and
360
00:37:15,828 --> 00:37:19,838
everything we've decided in the last month about forming a new media organization
361
00:37:19,838 --> 00:37:26,506
is all about trying to subvert that process and reanimate and reinstill the process of journalism
362
00:37:26,506 --> 00:37:32,607
for what it was intended to be, which is as a true adversarial force, a check against
363
00:37:32,607 --> 00:37:35,621
those with the greatest power.
364
00:37:35,621 --> 00:37:48,549
applause
365
00:37:48,549 --> 00:37:55,177
So, I just wanna close with one last point, which is
366
00:37:55,177 --> 00:38:00,492
the nature of the surveillance state that we've reported over the last six months.
367
00:38:00,492 --> 00:38:04,984
Every time I do an interview, people ask similar questions such as
368
00:38:04,984 --> 00:38:09,781
"What is the most significant story that you have revealed?" or
369
00:38:09,781 --> 00:38:13,916
"What is it that we have learned about the last story that you just published?", and
370
00:38:13,916 --> 00:38:18,768
what I really begun saying is that there really is only one overarching point
371
00:38:18,768 --> 00:38:22,988
that all of these stories have revealed, and that is
372
00:38:22,988 --> 00:38:28,433
- and I say this without the slightest bit hyperbole or melodrama, it's not metaphorical
373
00:38:28,433 --> 00:38:31,100
and it's not figurative, it is literally true -
374
00:38:31,100 --> 00:38:35,590
that the goal of the NSA and its "five eyes"-partners in the English-speaking world
375
00:38:35,590 --> 00:38:38,955
Canada, New Zealand, Australia and especially the UK,
376
00:38:38,955 --> 00:38:45,795
is to eliminate privacy globally, to ensure that there be no human communications
377
00:38:45,795 --> 00:38:50,869
that occur electronically that evades their surveillance net. They wanna make sure
378
00:38:50,869 --> 00:38:56,291
that all forms of human communication by telephone or by internet and all online activities
379
00:38:56,291 --> 00:39:03,332
are collected, monitored, stored and analyzed by that agency and by their allies.
380
00:39:03,332 --> 00:39:10,292
That is [despite] that is to [describe] a ubiquitous surveillance state. You don't need hyperbole to make that point,
381
00:39:10,292 --> 00:39:15,291
and you don't need to believe me when I say that's their goal, document after document within the archive
382
00:39:15,291 --> 00:39:18,476
that Edward Snowden provided us declare that to be their goal.
383
00:39:18,476 --> 00:39:23,646
They are obsessed with searching out any small, little crevice on the planet,
384
00:39:23,646 --> 00:39:29,995
where some forms of communication might take place without their being able to invade it.
385
00:39:29,995 --> 00:39:33,786
One of the stories that we are working on right now, I used to get in trouble when I was at the Guardian for previewing my stories,
386
00:39:33,786 --> 00:39:37,981
I'm not at the Guardian anymore, so I'm just gonna do it anyway, is -
387
00:39:37,981 --> 00:39:44,700
applause
388
00:39:44,700 --> 00:39:53,998
The NSA and the GCHQ are being driven crazy by the idea that you can go on an airplane
389
00:39:53,998 --> 00:39:58,796
and use certain cell phone devices or internet services
390
00:39:58,796 --> 00:40:06,616
and be away from their prying eyes for a few hours at a time. They are obsessed with finding ways
391
00:40:06,616 --> 00:40:13,732
to invade the systems of online onboard internet service and mobile phone service because
392
00:40:13,732 --> 00:40:18,550
the very idea that human beings can communicate even for a few moments
393
00:40:18,550 --> 00:40:22,457
without them being able to collect and store and analyze and monitor what it is they were saying
394
00:40:22,457 --> 00:40:25,946
is simply intolerable. That is their institutional mandate.
395
00:40:25,946 --> 00:40:29,260
And when I get asked questions when I do interviews in different countries:
396
00:40:29,260 --> 00:40:35,276
"Well, why would they want to spy on this official?" or "Why would they want to spy on Sweden?"
397
00:40:35,276 --> 00:40:39,293
or "Why would they want to target this company here?"
398
00:40:39,293 --> 00:40:43,652
The premise of that question is really flawed. The premise of the question is
399
00:40:43,652 --> 00:40:49,630
that the NSA and the CGHQ need a specific reason to target somebody for surveillance. That is not how they think.
400
00:40:49,630 --> 00:40:55,293
They target every form of communication that they can possibly get their hands on.
401
00:40:55,293 --> 00:41:01,280
And if you think about what individual privacy does for us as human beings,
402
00:41:01,280 --> 00:41:05,956
let alone what it does for us on a political level, that it really is the thing that lets us
403
00:41:05,956 --> 00:41:14,751
explore boundaries and engage in creativity and use the mechanisms of dissent without fear.
404
00:41:14,751 --> 00:41:18,647
When you think about a world in which privacy is allowed to be eliminated
405
00:41:18,647 --> 00:41:23,341
– I’m literally talking about eliminating everything that makes it valuable to be a free individual.
406
00:41:23,341 --> 00:41:29,266
The surveillance state by its necessity, by its very existence, breeds conformity
407
00:41:29,266 --> 00:41:35,172
because when human beings know they are always susceptible to being watched, even if they are not always being watched,
408
00:41:35,172 --> 00:41:41,668
the choices that they make are far more constrained, are far more limited, cling far more closely to orthodoxy
409
00:41:41,668 --> 00:41:46,732
than when they can act in the private realm and that's precisely why the NSA and the GCHQ
410
00:41:46,732 --> 00:41:52,613
and the worlds most powerful [dignitaries] throughout history and now always as their first goal have
411
00:41:52,613 --> 00:41:57,188
the elimination of privacy at the top of their list because it's what ensures
412
00:41:57,188 --> 00:42:02,163
that human beings can no longer resist the decrees that they're issuing.
413
00:42:02,163 --> 00:42:07,380
Thank you once again very much. applauseunintelligible
414
00:42:07,380 --> 00:42:23,396
continued applause
415
00:42:24,750 --> 00:42:33,425
Rieger: Thanks, Glenn! We have a little bit of time for questions. I start with one:
416
00:42:33,425 --> 00:42:43,378
What do you think is the motivation behind this "We want to be able to spy on really everyone?"
417
00:42:43,378 --> 00:42:47,121
So the motivation behind the motivation.
418
00:42:47,121 --> 00:42:52,326
Greenwald: There are some obvious discrete motivations: Whether it be the ability to learn what
419
00:42:52,326 --> 00:42:58,885
economic competitors are doing, the ability to learn about technological advances in other countries in order to replicate them,
420
00:42:58,885 --> 00:43:03,475
the ability to learn what's happening politically and diplomatically in different countries
421
00:43:03,475 --> 00:43:07,426
to get better contract negotiations or to be able to better manipulate the world.
422
00:43:07,426 --> 00:43:12,835
But ultimately there really is only one goal and that goal is power.
423
00:43:12,835 --> 00:43:18,785
If you think about what it means to be able to know everything about
424
00:43:18,785 --> 00:43:23,935
everybody else in the rest of the world, and this is the key for me, while at the same time
425
00:43:23,935 --> 00:43:27,875
those power factions that know everything about what the rest of the world is doing
426
00:43:27,875 --> 00:43:33,435
are building an ever higher and more impenetrable wall of secrecy behind which they operate,
427
00:43:33,435 --> 00:43:38,194
the power imbalance is as extreme as it gets. In a healthy society,
428
00:43:38,194 --> 00:43:44,695
private individuals, have privacy - hence the name privacy, except in the rarest of cases.
429
00:43:44,695 --> 00:43:52,689
It's supposed to be public servants, public figures, public agencies that have extreme transparency except in the most
430
00:43:52,689 --> 00:43:58,700
extreme cases - hence the name public sector. And yet we completely reversed that, so that
431
00:43:58,700 --> 00:44:04,410
we as private individuals have almost no privacy, and they as public figures, public servants, public officials
432
00:44:04,410 --> 00:44:09,498
have almost no transparency and that ultimately is what this surveillance system is about,
433
00:44:09,498 --> 00:44:11,610
is accumulating more and more power
434
00:44:11,610 --> 00:44:14,778
by being able to know everything about those over whom they're ruling,
435
00:44:14,778 --> 00:44:18,693
while those over whom they're ruling know virtually nothing about them.
436
00:44:18,693 --> 00:44:28,304
applause
437
00:44:29,104 --> 00:44:33,929
Rieger: We have approximately ten more minutes for questions from the audience.
438
00:44:33,929 --> 00:44:42,734
Herald Angel: So: please the audience line up at microphone 1, 2, 3 and 4 if you want to ask a question.
439
00:44:42,734 --> 00:44:48,631
There are also questions from the internet. On the other hand, I exploit my position here
440
00:44:48,631 --> 00:44:58,929
and want to ask one thing: Are you fearing for your own well-being to be harmed?
441
00:44:58,929 --> 00:45:05,184
Greenwald: You know, I think there is obvious risk to what Laura Poitras and I have both done together.
442
00:45:05,184 --> 00:45:10,559
Like I said before, we've been advised by lawyers that we really shouldn't travel. Obviously
443
00:45:10,559 --> 00:45:17,860
my partner not only was detained under a terrorism law by the British government. But we're now all being threatened
444
00:45:17,860 --> 00:45:21,164
with prosecution under terrorism and espionage statutes. When you
445
00:45:21,164 --> 00:45:25,775
have tens of thousands of top secret documents there is obvious risk to that as well.
446
00:45:25,775 --> 00:45:30,619
But journalists around the world and activists around the world, not only in the past
447
00:45:30,619 --> 00:45:36,880
but currently are unintelligible facing far greater dangers and had paid far greater prices than anything we have.
448
00:45:36,880 --> 00:45:41,519
And so I don't spend very much time thinking about that at all it's a very easy choice,
449
00:45:41,519 --> 00:45:45,503
when I see the people like Edward Snowden and the other ones on the list making the choices they've made
450
00:45:45,503 --> 00:45:53,423
to do my part, which is often a subset of what they're doing, in pursuit of these values that I really believe in.
451
00:45:53,423 --> 00:46:02,447
applause
452
00:46:02,447 --> 00:46:06,264
Angel: So, the next question is from the internet.
453
00:46:06,264 --> 00:46:11,903
Signal Angel: Do you hear me? Okay. How do you decide which detail you share with the world and
454
00:46:11,903 --> 00:46:19,544
which you are not allowed or which you don't know if we are allowed to see everything you have.
455
00:46:19,544 --> 00:46:25,735
What is your decision process there? Do you decide that on your own or in a committee?
456
00:46:25,735 --> 00:46:31,409
And what are the criteria for the information that you release right now?
457
00:46:31,409 --> 00:46:37,900
Greenwald: That's a great question. That has probably been by far the hardest choices that we've had to make.
458
00:46:37,900 --> 00:46:41,530
And I know there's a lot of debate surrounding it, and I've watched that debate because
459
00:46:41,530 --> 00:46:45,273
it's been really valuable to I think all of us who have had to make these choices.
460
00:46:45,273 --> 00:46:53,295
The first factor that we use is the agreement that we entered into with Edward Snowden when he came to us and
461
00:46:53,295 --> 00:47:00,269
expressed very clear ideas about what he wanted to achieve and how he thought that could be achieved.
462
00:47:00,269 --> 00:47:04,663
And we spent a lot of time talking to him about the methods that we would use,
463
00:47:04,663 --> 00:47:08,785
about what we would publish, about what we wouldn't publish.
464
00:47:08,785 --> 00:47:15,105
And regardless of the debates that have taken place we feel duty-bound to adhere to the agreement
465
00:47:15,105 --> 00:47:20,888
that we entered into with him, because he is not an object to be sacrificed for a cause,
466
00:47:20,888 --> 00:47:29,703
he is a human being whose agency and autonomy has to be regarded and honored. And everything that we have done…
467
00:47:29,703 --> 00:47:37,600
applause
468
00:47:37,600 --> 00:47:42,310
Everything that we have done has been guided by the formula that we created together with him.
469
00:47:42,310 --> 00:47:50,961
I have been one of the most vocal supporters of Wikileaks and of Chelsea Manning
470
00:47:50,961 --> 00:47:56,232
and I will be that for as long as I live. I believe in radical transparency.
471
00:47:56,232 --> 00:48:03,679
I think the methods that they used to disclose the war logs and the diplomatic cables were exactly the right ones to use.
472
00:48:03,679 --> 00:48:11,971
And I think that there are different tactics and strategies that are optimal for different situations.
473
00:48:11,971 --> 00:48:17,575
And one of the choices that we made was, that there were certain kind of information we didn't want to disclose.
474
00:48:17,575 --> 00:48:21,944
We didn't want to disclose information that would help other states
475
00:48:21,944 --> 00:48:26,613
augment their surveillance capabilities to which they would subject their own citizens.
476
00:48:26,613 --> 00:48:34,638
We didn't want to publish any of the information that the NSA has gathered about people.
477
00:48:34,638 --> 00:48:40,391
Whether it be their raw communications or the things the NSA has said about them as a result of what they gather,
478
00:48:40,391 --> 00:48:45,129
because to do that would destroy people's privacy and do the NSA's dirty work for them.
479
00:48:45,129 --> 00:48:51,408
And we didn't want to publish anything that would endanger the lives of innocent human beings
480
00:48:51,408 --> 00:48:53,710
who might be named by those documents.
481
00:48:53,710 --> 00:49:00,391
Everything else beyond that, what we have done is thought to publish in a way that will create
482
00:49:00,391 --> 00:49:06,106
the most powerful debate and the greatest level of recognition
483
00:49:06,106 --> 00:49:13,171
and to sustain the interest that people have in the debate that we felt like was so urgently needed.
484
00:49:13,171 --> 00:49:18,103
I can tell you, that we are only 6 months into doing this. It took Wikileaks,
485
00:49:18,103 --> 00:49:23,671
I believe nine months from the time they got the diplomatic cables until the time they began publishing them.
486
00:49:23,671 --> 00:49:27,744
These documents are complicated, people are waiting for us to make mistakes. It's important
487
00:49:27,744 --> 00:49:31,711
that we understand what it is that we are publishing so that what we say about them is accurate.
488
00:49:31,711 --> 00:49:38,368
There is a lot more stories to come, a lot more documents that will be published.
489
00:49:38,368 --> 00:49:55,245
applause
490
00:49:55,245 --> 00:50:02,111
And the only other thing I can say is that Laura and I and other people who have been working on these documents including Edward Snowden
491
00:50:02,111 --> 00:50:07,537
share exactly the same believes that you have and exactly the same values about transparency.
492
00:50:07,537 --> 00:50:13,899
And the last thing that any of us would ever do is sit on or conceal a story
493
00:50:13,899 --> 00:50:18,704
that the world ought to know about because it's newsworthy and shines a light on what these factions are doing
494
00:50:18,704 --> 00:50:25,158
and that would never ever happen. Every last newsworthy document will be published.
495
00:50:25,158 --> 00:50:34,925
applause
496
00:50:35,756 --> 00:50:37,860
Angel: So microphone 1, please.
497
00:50:37,860 --> 00:50:46,933
Audience member: I know about the attacks that the GCHQ, the British police have done to you
498
00:50:46,933 --> 00:50:51,636
- they tried to trash your hardware. And I'd like to know if there were more than that,
499
00:50:51,636 --> 00:51:00,428
like attacks to you personally. Because you talked about the attacks they used.
500
00:51:00,428 --> 00:51:09,765
Greenwald: I think the GCHQ has done us and the world a huge favor by showing their true face to the world.
501
00:51:09,765 --> 00:51:13,974
I mean, will the British government ever be able to stand up in public again
502
00:51:13,974 --> 00:51:19,990
and condemn some other country for attacks on press freedom without triggering a global laughing fit?
503
00:51:19,990 --> 00:51:29,128
applause
504
00:51:30,328 --> 00:51:36,371
I think that the most important thing that you can do as a journalist when you're being threatened
505
00:51:36,371 --> 00:51:41,743
- and the threats have gone far beyond what you just asked about. They are, as I said,
506
00:51:41,743 --> 00:51:45,187
continuously threatening in all sorts of formal and informal ways,
507
00:51:45,187 --> 00:51:48,979
to criminally charge some or all of us who have been involved in this reporting.
508
00:51:48,979 --> 00:51:52,276
The only thing that you can do is to stand up to the playground bully
509
00:51:52,276 --> 00:51:56,894
and continue to publish in defiance of their threats and that's what we're gonna continue to do.
510
00:51:56,894 --> 00:52:05,479
applause
511
00:52:05,479 --> 00:52:07,512
Angel: Microphone 4, please.
512
00:52:07,512 --> 00:52:10,971
Audience member: Do you have the impression that the governments, especially the German government,
513
00:52:10,971 --> 00:52:15,769
are actually doing something? Or do you have the impression that they are just putting up a show for the citizens
514
00:52:15,769 --> 00:52:20,801
while they actually prefer to cooperate with the NSA and support them?
515
00:52:20,801 --> 00:52:25,801
And if it's the latter, what can we do about it?
516
00:52:25,801 --> 00:52:28,287
Greenwald: It's definitely the latter.
517
00:52:28,287 --> 00:52:37,154
laughter, applause
518
00:52:37,878 --> 00:52:43,432
Ultimately, governments will do two things:
519
00:52:43,432 --> 00:52:48,680
They will in the first instance do everything that they can to advance their own interests.
520
00:52:48,680 --> 00:52:53,700
And governments around the world, especially in the west, don't perceive it to be in their own interest,
521
00:52:53,700 --> 00:52:57,412
at least some of them, to disobey the United Stated.
522
00:52:57,412 --> 00:53:00,453
And they also don't perceive it to be in their own interest
523
00:53:00,453 --> 00:53:06,460
to take meaningful action against surveillance policies where today themselves believe in and engage in.
524
00:53:06,460 --> 00:53:12,492
And so the question then becomes: How do you get them to do something beyond that framework?
525
00:53:12,492 --> 00:53:19,948
And the only real answer becomes: to increase the cost to doing it. As I said earlier, I think that
526
00:53:19,948 --> 00:53:26,943
the cost to the internet sector in the United States has become quite real. The cost of Boeing
527
00:53:26,943 --> 00:53:31,917
which just lost a 4 billion dollar contract for fighter jets because Brazil didn't want to buy
528
00:53:31,917 --> 00:53:37,419
from a country that has been systematically spying on them is very real.
529
00:53:37,419 --> 00:53:44,414
applause
530
00:53:45,906 --> 00:53:51,228
I think it's up to all of us to devise ways, to not persuade them,
531
00:53:51,228 --> 00:53:56,762
because I don't think that power centers get persuaded in that way, by nice lofty arguments.
532
00:53:56,762 --> 00:54:01,573
I think it's important to devise ways to raise the costs severely,
533
00:54:01,573 --> 00:54:06,990
for either their active participation in or their acquiescence to
534
00:54:06,990 --> 00:54:11,301
the systematic erosion of our privacy rights. And when we find a way to put them in the position
535
00:54:11,301 --> 00:54:18,116
where it's not we who are in fear of them but they who are in fear of us, that's when these policies will change.
536
00:54:18,116 --> 00:54:26,847
applause
537
00:54:27,232 --> 00:54:30,244
Rieger: I think it was a perfect closing of your keynote.
538
00:54:30,244 --> 00:54:34,639
Thanks a lot for taking the time, and interrupted
539
00:54:34,639 --> 00:54:38,542
very loud applause
standing ovations
540
00:54:38,588 --> 00:54:44,319
Greenwald: Thank you, everybody. Appreciated!
541
00:54:44,319 --> 00:54:49,412
standing ovation
542
00:54:52,659 --> 00:54:58,494
Thank you very much.
543
00:55:00,789 --> 00:55:26,114
continued applause
544
00:55:28,273 --> 00:55:31,180
Thank you very much.
545
00:55:31,180 --> 00:55:36,266
Rieger: And please continue your work!
546
00:55:36,266 --> 00:55:40,706
Greenwald: Thank you.
547
00:55:40,706 --> 00:55:51,932
subtitles created by c3subtitles.de