0:00:10.174,0:00:43.600
Applause
0:00:43.600,0:00:47.566
Frank Rieger: So, that was your applause, Glenn.
0:00:47.566,0:00:52.470
Welcome for the keynote for the 30th Communication Congress in Hamburg.
0:00:52.470,0:00:54.830
The floor is yours.
0:00:54.830,0:00:56.982
Glenn Greenwald: Thank you,[br]thank you very much.
0:00:56.982,0:01:02.693
And thank you to everybody for that warm welcome and thank you as well to the congress organizers
0:01:02.693,0:01:05.541
for inviting me to speak.
0:01:05.541,0:01:09.848
My reaction when I learned that I had been asked to deliver the keynote to this conference
0:01:09.848,0:01:13.732
was probably similar to the one that some of you had, which was:
0:01:13.732,0:01:19.382
"Wait, what?" laughter from audience And, you know
0:01:19.382,0:01:27.648
the reason is that my cryptographic and hacker skills are not exactly world renowned.
0:01:27.648,0:01:33.215
The story has been told many times,[br]how I almost lost
0:01:33.215,0:01:38.326
the biggest national security story[br]in the last decade, at least
0:01:38.326,0:01:47.198
because I found the installation of PGP to be insurmountably annoying and difficult. -
0:01:47.198,0:01:55.878
applause, Greenwald laughs
0:01:55.878,0:01:59.782
And there is another story that's very similar[br]that illustrates the same point
0:01:59.782,0:02:02.414
that I actually don't think has been told before,[br]which is:
0:02:02.414,0:02:08.110
Prior to my going to Hong Kong I spent many hours with both Laura Poitras and Edward Snowden
0:02:08.110,0:02:15.310
trying to get up to speed on the basics of security technology that I would need in order to report on this story,
0:02:15.310,0:02:21.118
and they tried to tutor me in all sorts of programs and finally concluded that the only one
0:02:21.118,0:02:25.186
at least at that time, for that moment, that I could handle was TrueCrypt.
0:02:25.186,0:02:30.647
And they taught me the basics of TrueCrypt and I went to Hong Kong and
0:02:30.647,0:02:34.119
before I would go to sleep at night, I would play around with TrueCrypt
0:02:34.119,0:02:42.380
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
0:02:42.380,0:02:45.789
and on the third or fourth day I went over to meet both of them and
0:02:45.789,0:02:51.719
I was beaming with pride and I showed them all the new things that I had taught myself how to do on TrueCrypt
0:02:51.719,0:02:56.854
and I pronounced myself this "cryptographic master" that I was really becoming advanced,
0:02:56.854,0:03:03.718
and I looked at both of them and I didn't see any return pride coming my way.
0:03:03.718,0:03:10.790
Actually what I saw was them trying very hard to avoid rolling their eyes out of their head at me to one another.
0:03:10.790,0:03:16.943
And I said: "Why are you reacting that way? Why isn't that a great accomplishment?"
0:03:16.943,0:03:23.421
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:
0:03:23.421,0:03:29.884
"TrueCrypt is really meant for your little kid brother to be able to master, it's not all that impressive."
0:03:29.884,0:03:36.174
And chuckles I remember being very deflated and kind of going back to the drawing board.
0:03:36.174,0:03:38.854
Well... You know, that was six months ago.
0:03:38.854,0:03:47.414
And in the interim, the importance of security technology and privacy technology has become
0:03:47.414,0:03:51.654
really central to everything it is that I do.[br]I really have learned
0:03:51.654,0:03:55.413
an enormous amount about both its importance[br]and how it functions.
0:03:55.413,0:04:00.990
And I'm far from the only one. I think one of the most significant outcomes of the last six months,
0:04:00.990,0:04:07.852
but one of the most underdiscussed, is how many people now appreciate
0:04:07.852,0:04:13.774
the importance of protecting the security of their communications.
0:04:13.774,0:04:17.390
If you go and look at my inbox from July,
0:04:17.390,0:04:23.630
probably three to five percent of the emails I received were composed of PGP code.
0:04:23.630,0:04:29.790
That percentage is definitely above 50 percent today[br]and probably well above 50 percent.
0:04:29.790,0:04:35.780
When we talked about forming our new media company, we barely spent any time on the question,
0:04:35.780,0:04:40.808
it was simply assumed that we were all going to use the most sophisticated encryption that was available
0:04:40.808,0:04:46.239
to communicate with one another, and I think most encouragingly, whenever I'm contacted
0:04:46.239,0:04:51.790
by anyone in journalism or activism[br]or any related fields,
0:04:51.790,0:04:59.286
they either use encryption or are embarrassed and ashamed that they don't, and apologize to me for the fact that they don't
0:04:59.286,0:05:05.160
and vow that they're soon going to. And it's really a remarkable sea-change even from the middle[br]of last year
0:05:05.160,0:05:08.870
when I would talk to some of the leading national security journalists in the world
0:05:08.870,0:05:11.111
who were working on some of the most sensitive information
0:05:11.111,0:05:15.380
and virtually none of them even knew what PGP or OTR, or any other
0:05:15.380,0:05:20.878
of the leading privacy technologies were, let alone how to use them.
0:05:20.878,0:05:27.910
And it's really encouraging to see this technology spreading so pervasively. And I think that this
0:05:27.910,0:05:34.263
underscores an extremely important point and one that gives me great cause for optimism.
0:05:34.263,0:05:41.620
I'm often asked whether I think that the stories that we've been learning over the last six months, and the reporting
0:05:41.620,0:05:44.726
and the debates that have arisen will actually change anything and impose any real limits
0:05:44.726,0:05:48.222
on the US surveillance state.
0:05:48.222,0:05:52.936
And typically when people think the answer to that question is "yes", the thing that they cite most commonly
0:05:52.936,0:05:56.534
is probably the least significant, which is that there's going to be some kind of debate
0:05:56.534,0:06:01.383
and our representatives and democratic government are going to respond to our debate
0:06:01.383,0:06:04.753
and they're going to impose limits with legislative reform,
0:06:04.753,0:06:07.342
none of that is likely to happen. The US government and its allies
0:06:07.342,0:06:11.102
are not going to voluntarily restrict their own surveillance powers
0:06:11.102,0:06:14.422
in any meaningful way. In fact the tactic of the US government
0:06:14.422,0:06:19.310
that we see over and over, that we've seen historically, is to do the very opposite, which is
0:06:19.310,0:06:25.359
when they get caught doing something that brings them disrepute and causes scandal and concern,
0:06:25.359,0:06:32.478
they're very adept at pretending to reform themselves through symbolic gestures,
0:06:32.478,0:06:38.278
while at the same time doing very little other than placating citizen anger and often increasing
0:06:38.278,0:06:41.926
their own powers that created the scandal[br]in the first place.
0:06:41.926,0:06:46.358
We saw that in the mid-1970s when there was serious concern and alarm
0:06:46.358,0:06:48.958
in the United States - at least as much there is now if not more so -
0:06:48.958,0:06:53.934
over the US government surveillance[br]capabilities and abuse.
0:06:53.934,0:06:55.854
And what the US government did in response[br]is they said:
0:06:55.854,0:07:02.655
‘Well we're going to engage in all these reforms that will safeguard these powers.
0:07:02.655,0:07:08.622
We're gonna create a special court that the government needs to go to get permission before they can target people with surveillance."
0:07:08.622,0:07:12.814
And that sounded great, but then they created the court in the most warped way possible.
0:07:12.814,0:07:18.621
It's a secret court where only the government gets to show up, where only the most pro-national security judges are appointed,
0:07:18.621,0:07:24.950
and so this court gave the appearance of oversight when in reality it's the most grotesque rubber-stamp
0:07:24.950,0:07:29.271
that is known to the western world. They almost never disapprove of anything.
0:07:29.271,0:07:32.280
It simply created the appearance that there is judicial oversight.
0:07:32.280,0:07:36.701
They also said we are gonna create congressional committees, the intelligence committees
0:07:36.701,0:07:42.549
that are gonna have as their main function overseeing the intelligence committees and making certain that they no longer
0:07:42.549,0:07:48.662
abuse their power, and what they did instead was immediately install the most servile loyalists
0:07:48.662,0:07:53.134
of the intelligence committees as head of this "oversight committee" and
0:07:53.134,0:07:57.998
that's been going on for decades, and today we have two of the most slavish
0:07:57.998,0:08:05.758
pro NSA members of congress as the head of these committees, who are really there to bolster and justify
0:08:05.758,0:08:12.462
everything and anything the NSA does, rather than engage in real oversight. So again it's designed to prettify the process while
0:08:12.462,0:08:17.150
bringing about no real reform. And this process is now repeating itself.
0:08:17.150,0:08:24.275
You see the president appoint a handful of his closest loyalists to this independent[br]White House panel
0:08:24.275,0:08:29.270
that pretended to issue a report that was very balanced and critical of the surveillance state,
0:08:29.270,0:08:34.753
but in reality introduced a variety of programs[br]that at the very best
0:08:34.753,0:08:40.645
would simply make these programs slightly more palatable from a public perspective and in many cases
0:08:40.645,0:08:46.494
intensify the powers of the surveillance state rather than reigning them in any meaningful way.
0:08:46.494,0:08:49.718
So the answer to whether or not we gonna have meaningful reform
0:08:49.718,0:08:56.510
definitely does not lie in the typical processes of democratic accountability that we are all[br]taught to respect, but they
0:08:56.510,0:09:01.959
do lie elsewhere. It is possible that there will be courts that will
0:09:01.959,0:09:09.926
impose some meaningful restrictions by finding that the programs are unconstitutional. It's, I think,
0:09:09.926,0:09:18.373
much more possible that other countries around the world who are truly indignant about the breaches of their privacy security
0:09:18.373,0:09:24.302
will band together and create alternatives either in terms of infrastructure or legal regimes
0:09:24.302,0:09:30.534
that will prevent the United States from exercising hegemony over the internet or make the cost of doing so far too high.
0:09:30.534,0:09:38.293
I think even more promising is the fact that large private corporations, internet companies and others
0:09:38.293,0:09:44.398
will start finally paying the price for their collaboration with this spying regime.
0:09:44.398,0:09:48.611
And we've seen that already, when they've been dragged into the light and finally now are forced to
0:09:48.611,0:09:54.742
account for what it is that they are doing and to realize that their economic interests are imperiled by the spying system,
0:09:54.742,0:10:00.702
exercising their unparalleled power to demand that it be reigned in. And I think all of those things[br]are very possible
0:10:00.702,0:10:04.220
as serious constraints on the surveillance state.
0:10:04.220,0:10:09.422
But I ultimately think that where the greatest hope lies is
0:10:09.422,0:10:16.752
with the people in this room, and the skills that all of you possess.
0:10:16.752,0:10:24.295
The privacy technologies that have already been developed, the Tor Browser, PGP, OTR
0:10:24.295,0:10:32.358
and a variety of other products are making real inroads and preventing the US government and its allies from invading
0:10:32.358,0:10:37.317
the sanctity of our communications. None of them is perfect, none of them is invulnerable,
0:10:37.317,0:10:44.620
but they all pose a serious obstacle to the US government's ability to continue to destroy our privacy,
0:10:44.620,0:10:50.542
and ultimately the battle over internet freedom, the question of whether or not the internet will really be this tool
0:10:50.542,0:10:56.166
of liberation and democratization or whether it will become the worst tool of human oppression in all of
0:10:56.166,0:11:01.598
human history will be fought out, I think, primarily on the technological battlefield.
0:11:01.598,0:11:05.660
The NSA and the US government certainly knows that.
0:11:05.660,0:11:14.573
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.
0:11:14.573,0:11:24.250
And it's why - applause
0:11:24.250,0:11:29.558
It's why corporations in Silicon Valley like Palantir Technologies spend so much effort
0:11:29.558,0:11:36.700
depicting themselves as these kind of rebellious pro civil libertarian factions as they
0:11:36.700,0:11:42.416
spend most of their time in secret working hand in hand with the intelligence community and the CIA to increase their capabilities, because
0:11:42.416,0:11:47.975
they want to recruit particularly younger brain power onto their side,
0:11:47.975,0:11:53.770
the side of destroying privacy and putting the internet to use for the world's most powerful factions.
0:11:53.770,0:11:58.239
And what the outcome of this conflict is, what the internet ultimately becomes, really
0:11:58.239,0:12:04.639
is not answerable in any definitive way now. It depends so much on what it is that we as human beings do.
0:12:04.639,0:12:13.208
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,
0:12:13.208,0:12:18.718
now and in the future, will succumb to those temptations and go to work for the very
0:12:18.718,0:12:26.471
entities that are attempting to destroy privacy around the world or whether you will put your talents and skills and resources
0:12:26.471,0:12:31.383
to defending human beings from those invasions and continuing to create effective technologies
0:12:31.383,0:12:37.527
to protect our privacy. And I'm very optimistic, because that power does lie in your hands.
0:12:37.527,0:12:48.751
applause
0:12:48.751,0:12:55.326
So, I want to talk about another cause of optimism that I have, which is that the pro-privacy alliance
0:12:55.326,0:13:01.383
is a lot healthier and more vibrant, it's a lot bigger and stronger
0:13:01.383,0:13:06.263
than I think a lot of us - even who are in it - often appreciate and realize.
0:13:06.263,0:13:12.791
And even more so, it is rapidly growing. And I think inexorably growing.
0:13:12.791,0:13:19.255
I know for me personally, every single thing that I have done over the last six months on this story,
0:13:19.255,0:13:26.687
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,
0:13:26.687,0:13:38.231
are ones that I share completely with two people who have been critically important to everything that I have done.
0:13:38.231,0:13:48.371
One of them is my unbelievably brave and incomparably brilliant collaborator, Laura Poitras.
0:13:48.371,0:14:00.950
applause
0:14:00.950,0:14:09.519
Laura doesn't get a huge amount of attention, which is how she likes it, laughter but she really does
0:14:09.519,0:14:15.517
deserve every last recognition and honor and award because although it sounds cliché
0:14:15.517,0:14:19.157
it really is the case that without her, none of this would have happened.
0:14:19.157,0:14:24.813
We have talked every single day actually over the last six months. We have made almost every decision,
0:14:24.813,0:14:29.210
certainly every significant one, in complete partnership and collaboration
0:14:29.210,0:14:35.600
and being able to work with somebody who has that high level of understanding about internet security,
0:14:35.600,0:14:45.837
about strategies for protecting privacy, has been completely indispensible to the success of what we've been able to achieve.
0:14:45.837,0:14:54.920
And then the second person who has been utterly indispensible and deserves every last accolade[br]to share
0:14:54.920,0:14:59.614
and every last reward is my unintelligible source Edward Snowden.
0:14:59.614,0:15:20.460
applause
0:15:20.460,0:15:31.109
It is really hard to put into words what a profound effect his choice has had on me, and on Laura,
0:15:31.109,0:15:38.325
and on the people with whom we have worked directly, and on people with whom we indirectly worked,
0:15:38.325,0:15:46.567
and then millions and millions of people around the world. The courage and the principle act of conscience
0:15:46.567,0:15:53.533
that he displayed will shape and inspire me for the rest of my life and will inspire, I'm convinced,
0:15:53.533,0:15:58.573
millions and millions of people to take all sorts of acts that they might not have taken
0:15:58.573,0:16:05.950
because they have seen what good for the world can be done by even a single individual.
0:16:05.950,0:16:16.221
applause
0:16:16.221,0:16:22.965
But I think it's so important to realize, and this to me is the critical point, is that none of us,[br]the three of us,
0:16:22.965,0:16:30.749
did what we did in a vacuum. We were all inspired by people who have done similar things in the past.
0:16:30.749,0:16:35.726
I'm absolutely certain that Edward Snowden was inspired in all sorts of ways
0:16:35.726,0:16:41.869
by the heroism and self-sacrifice of Chelsea Manning.
0:16:41.869,0:16:56.861
applause
0:16:56.861,0:17:01.606
And I'm quite certain that in one way or the another she, Chelsea Manning, was inspired
0:17:01.606,0:17:07.462
by the whole litany of whistleblowers and other people of conscience who
0:17:07.462,0:17:13.726
came before her to blow the whistle on extreme levels of corruption, wrongdoing and illegality
0:17:13.726,0:17:18.738
among the worlds most powerful factions. And they, in turn, where inspired, I'm certain,
0:17:18.738,0:17:24.949
by the person who is one of my greatest political heroes, Daniel Ellsberg, who did this 40 years ago.
0:17:24.949,0:17:33.253
applause
0:17:33.253,0:17:39.917
And even beyond that, I think it is really important to realize
0:17:39.917,0:17:45.349
that everything that has been allowed to happen over the last six months, and I think
0:17:45.349,0:17:54.446
any kind of significant leak and whistleblowing of classified Information in the digital age both past and current and future
0:17:54.446,0:18:04.742
owes a huge debt of gratitude to the organization which really pioneered the template, and that's Wikileaks.
0:18:04.742,0:18:14.445
applause
0:18:14.445,0:18:18.370
We didn't completely copy to the letter the model of Wikileaks,
0:18:18.370,0:18:21.758
we modified it a little bit just like Wikileaks modified what it has
0:18:21.758,0:18:26.957
decided were its best tactics and strategies as it went along. And I'm sure people who come after us will modify
0:18:26.957,0:18:33.469
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
0:18:33.469,0:18:40.542
been successful. But I think the point that is really underscored here, and it was underscored for me probably most powerfully
0:18:40.542,0:18:46.501
when Edward Snowden was rescued from Hong Kong from probable
0:18:46.501,0:18:50.837
arrest and imprisonment for the next 30 years by the United States, not only by Wikileaks
0:18:50.837,0:18:56.502
but by an extraordinarily courageous and heroic woman, Sarah Harrison.
0:18:56.502,0:19:06.160
applause
0:19:06.160,0:19:11.314
There is a huge network of human beings around the world
0:19:11.314,0:19:17.333
who believe in this cause, and not only believe in it but are increasingly willing to devote
0:19:17.333,0:19:23.581
their energies and their resources and their time and to sacrifice for it.
0:19:23.581,0:19:31.112
And, there's a reason that's remarkable and it kind of occurred to me in a telephone call that I had with Laura,
0:19:31.112,0:19:34.646
probably two months or so ago, although we've communicated every day, we've almost never communicated
0:19:34.646,0:19:40.558
by telephone and one of the few exceptions was: we were going to speak to an event
0:19:40.558,0:19:43.909
at the Electronic Frontier Foundation and we got on the phone
0:19:43.909,0:19:49.455
the night before to sort of talk about what ground she would cover and what ground I would cover.
0:19:49.455,0:19:54.639
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
0:19:54.639,0:19:59.277
devoted themselves to transparency and the price that they paid. And she said: "Edward Snowden is
0:19:59.277,0:20:07.830
stuck in Russia, facing 30 years in prison, Chelsea Manning is in prison, Aaron Swartz committed suicide,
0:20:07.830,0:20:16.277
people like Jeremy Hammond and Barret Brown are the subject of grotesquely overzealous prosecutions by virtue of
0:20:16.277,0:20:21.813
the action of transparency they've engaged in, even people like Jim Risen, who
0:20:21.813,0:20:25.410
is with an organization like the New York Times, faces the possibility of
0:20:25.410,0:20:30.949
prison for stories that he has published." Laura and I have been advised by countless lawyers
0:20:30.949,0:20:34.253
that it's not safe for us to even travel to our own country. And she said:
0:20:34.253,0:20:38.592
"It's really a sign of how sick the political theater has become
0:20:38.592,0:20:43.883
that the price for bringing transparency to the government and for doing the job of the media and the congress
0:20:43.883,0:20:49.390
that they are not doing is these extreme forms of punishment."
0:20:49.390,0:20:57.678
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.
0:20:57.678,0:21:02.633
But I said, you know, there actually is another interesting point that that list revealed:
0:21:02.633,0:21:11.358
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.
0:21:11.358,0:21:16.710
And the reason why that's so amazing to me is because the reason that people on that list
0:21:16.710,0:21:20.846
and others like them pay a price is because the United States knows
0:21:20.846,0:21:29.616
that its only hope for continuing to maintain its regiment of secrecy behind which it engages in radical and corrupt acts,
0:21:29.616,0:21:35.621
is to intimidate and deter and threaten people who are would-be whistleblowers and transparency activists
0:21:35.621,0:21:39.917
from coming forward and doing what it is they do by showing them that they can be subjected
0:21:39.917,0:21:44.957
to even the most extreme punishments and there is nothing anybody can do about it. And
0:21:44.957,0:21:54.558
it's an effective tactic. applause
0:21:54.558,0:22:01.454
It is an effective tactic. It works for some people. Not because those people are cowardly but because they're rational.
0:22:01.454,0:22:06.941
It really is the case that the United States and the British government not only are willing but able
0:22:06.941,0:22:13.637
to essentially engage in any conduct, no matter how grotesque, no matter how extreme, no matter how lawless with very little
0:22:13.637,0:22:21.257
opposition that they perceive is enough to make them not want to do it. And so there are activists who rationally conclude
0:22:21.257,0:22:29.397
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.
0:22:29.397,0:22:36.397
But the paradox is that there are a lot of other people. I think even more people
0:22:36.397,0:22:43.925
who react in exactly the opposite way. When they see the US and the UK government showing their true face,
0:22:43.925,0:22:47.600
showing the extent to which they are willing to abuse their power,
0:22:47.600,0:22:52.750
they don't become scared or deterred, they become even more emboldened.
0:22:52.750,0:23:00.827
And the reason for that is that when you see that these governments are really capable of that level of abuse of power
0:23:00.827,0:23:07.886
you realize that you can no longer in good conscience stand by and do nothing. It becomes an even greater imperative view
0:23:07.886,0:23:09.981
to come forward and shine a light on what they're doing
0:23:09.981,0:23:13.887
and if you listen to any of those whistleblowers or activists they'll all say the same thing:
0:23:13.887,0:23:19.389
it was a slow process to realize that the actions in which they were engaging were justified
0:23:19.389,0:23:25.181
but they were finally convinced of it by the actions of these governments themselves and it's a really sweet irony.
0:23:25.181,0:23:31.916
And I think it caused serious optimism that it is the United States and its closest allies
0:23:31.916,0:23:39.855
who are sowing the seeds of dissent, who are fueling the fire of this activism with their own abusive behavior.
0:23:39.855,0:23:51.236
applause
0:23:51.236,0:23:56.846
Now, speaking of the attempt to intimidate and deter and the like, I just want to spend a few minutes
0:23:56.846,0:24:03.620
talking about the current posture of the United States government with regard to Edward Snowden.
0:24:03.620,0:24:08.341
It's become extremely clear at this point that the US government at the highest levels on down
0:24:08.341,0:24:14.588
is completely committed to pursuing only one outcome.
0:24:14.588,0:24:21.371
And that outcome is one where Edward Snowden ends up spending several decades - if not the rest of his life -
0:24:21.371,0:24:26.726
in a small cage, probably cut off in terms of communication from the rest of the world.
0:24:26.726,0:24:32.248
And the reason why they are so intent on doing that is not hard to see. It's not because they're worried
0:24:32.248,0:24:38.453
that society needs to be protected from Edward Snowden and from him repeating these actions.
0:24:38.453,0:24:44.997
I think it's probably a pretty safe bet that Edward Snowden's security clearance is more or less permanently revoked.
0:24:44.997,0:24:49.211
laughter
0:24:49.211,0:24:53.967
The reason they're so intent on it is because they cannot allow
0:24:53.967,0:24:58.437
Edward Snowden to live any sort of a decent and free life because they're petrified
0:24:58.437,0:25:02.174
that that will inspire other people to follow his example,
0:25:02.174,0:25:09.980
and to be unwilling to maintain this bond of secrecy, when maintaining that bond does nothing, but hides
0:25:09.980,0:25:16.989
illegal and damaging conduct from the people who are most affected by it.
0:25:16.989,0:25:21.610
What I find most amazing about that is not that the United States government is doing that.
0:25:21.610,0:25:24.530
That's what they do. It's who they are.
0:25:24.530,0:25:28.528
What I find amazing about it is that there are so many governments around the world,
0:25:28.528,0:25:33.517
including ones that are capable of protecting his human rights,
0:25:33.517,0:25:38.494
and who have been the biggest beneficiaries of his heroic revelations,
0:25:38.494,0:25:43.334
who are willing to stand by and watch his human rights being crushed and be imprisoned
0:25:43.334,0:25:47.567
for the crime of showing the world what's being done to their privacy.
0:25:47.567,0:26:01.368
applause
0:26:01.368,0:26:08.726
It has really been startling to watch governments, including some of the largest in Europe,
0:26:08.726,0:26:15.455
and their leaders go out in public and express intense indignation over the fact
0:26:15.455,0:26:21.808
that the privacy of their citizens is being systematically breached, and genuine indignation
0:26:21.808,0:26:25.558
when they learn that their privacy has also been targeted.
0:26:25.558,0:26:37.679
laughter, applause
0:26:37.679,0:26:47.654
And yet, at the same time the person who sacrificed in order to defend their basic human rights, their rights of privacy,
0:26:47.654,0:26:53.190
is now having his own human rights targeted and threatened in recrimination.
0:26:53.190,0:27:01.430
I realize that for any country like Germany or France or Brazil or any other country around the world
0:27:01.430,0:27:07.614
to defy the dictates of the United States, that there is a cost to doing that,
0:27:07.614,0:27:17.158
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.
0:27:17.158,0:27:28.390
applause
0:27:28.390,0:27:34.710
I think that what's really important to realize is that countries have
0:27:34.710,0:27:38.942
the legal and the international obligation by virtues of treaties that they've signed
0:27:38.942,0:27:45.375
to defend Edward Snowden from political prosecution and prevent him from being in cage for the rest of his life
0:27:45.375,0:27:52.783
for having shone a light on systematic abuses of privacy and other forms of abuses of secrecy.
0:27:52.783,0:27:57.850
But they also have the ethical and moral obligation as the beneficiaries of his actions,
0:27:57.850,0:28:02.671
to do what he did for them which is to protect his rights in return.
0:28:02.671,0:28:12.416
applause
0:28:12.416,0:28:19.816
I want to spend a little bit of time talking about one of my favorite topics, which is journalism.
0:28:19.816,0:28:28.304
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
0:28:28.304,0:28:31.559
that I've been writing over the past couple of months about everything that's happened:
0:28:31.559,0:28:35.845
One of the things I realized in looking back on that moment and also in talking to Laura
0:28:35.845,0:28:40.342
about what took place there was that we spent at least as much time
0:28:40.342,0:28:49.350
talking about issues relating to journalism and a free press as we did talking about surveillance policy.
0:28:49.350,0:28:55.710
And the reason is that we knew that what we were about to do would trigger
0:28:55.710,0:29:01.838
as many debates over the proper role of journalism vis-à-vis the state and other power factions as it would
0:29:01.838,0:29:08.711
the importance of internet freedom and privacy and the threat of the surveillance state. And we knew in particular
0:29:08.711,0:29:14.768
that one of our most formidable adversaries was not simply going to be the intelligence agencies
0:29:14.768,0:29:18.222
on which we were reporting and who we were trying to expose,
0:29:18.222,0:29:25.843
but also their most loyal, devoted servants which calls itself the United States and British media.
0:29:25.843,0:29:36.655
applause
0:29:36.655,0:29:39.825
And so we spent a great deal of time strategizing about it and we resolved
0:29:39.825,0:29:43.983
that we're going to have to be very disruptive about the status quo, not only
0:29:43.983,0:29:48.795
the surveillance and political status quo but also the journalistic status quo.
0:29:48.795,0:29:53.255
And I think one of the ways that you can see what it is that we were targeting
0:29:53.255,0:29:57.574
is in the behavior of the media over the past six months since these revelations have emerged
0:29:57.574,0:30:01.582
almost entirely without them and despite them.
0:30:01.582,0:30:06.772
One of the more remarkable things that has happened to me is I gave an interview
0:30:06.772,0:30:14.638
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
0:30:14.638,0:30:19.502
what I thought was the very unremarkable and uncontroversial observation that
0:30:19.502,0:30:23.198
the reason why we have a free press is because national security officials
0:30:23.198,0:30:28.567
routinely lie to the population in order to shield their power and to get their agenda advanced,
0:30:28.567,0:30:34.919
and that the goal and duty of a journalist is to be adversarial to those people in power and that the pronouncement
0:30:34.919,0:30:39.639
that this interviewer was citing about how these government programs are critical to stopping terrorists
0:30:39.639,0:30:47.231
should not be believed unless there's actual evidence shown that they're actually true. And he
0:30:47.231,0:30:54.639
interrupted me - applause
0:30:54.639,0:30:56.150
When I said that, he interrupted me and he said "Look, I" -
0:30:56.150,0:31:01.225
I am sorry, I don't do pompous British accents well, so you'll just have to transpose it in your own imagination.
0:31:01.225,0:31:09.333
But he said: "You know, I just need to stop you, you have said something so remarkable."
0:31:09.333,0:31:16.462
He was like a Victorian priest scandalized by seeing a woman pull up her skirt a little bit over her ankles. He said:
0:31:16.462,0:31:27.480
"I just cannot believe that you would suggest that senior officials, generals in the United States and
0:31:27.480,0:31:33.279
the British government are actually making false claims to the public. How can you possibly say something unintelligible..."
0:31:33.279,0:31:45.398
laughter, applause
0:31:45.398,0:31:54.688
That is not aberrational! It really is the central view of certain American and British media stars
0:31:54.688,0:31:59.918
that when especially people with medals on their chest who are called generals,
0:31:59.918,0:32:07.175
but also high officials in the government make claims that those claims are presumptively treated as true
0:32:07.175,0:32:12.886
without evidence and that it’s almost immoral to call them into question or to question their veracity.
0:32:12.886,0:32:19.383
And obviously we went through the Iraq war in which those very two same governments,
0:32:19.383,0:32:23.882
specifically and deliberately lied repeatedly [to] the government to their people
0:32:23.882,0:32:28.772
over the course of two years to justify an aggressive war that destroyed a country of 26 million people.
0:32:28.772,0:32:33.550
But we've seen it continuously over the last six months as well:
0:32:33.550,0:32:40.877
The very first document that Edward Snowden ever showed me was one that he explained would reveal
0:32:40.877,0:32:46.749
unquestionable lying by the senior national intelligence official of President Obama,
0:32:46.749,0:32:50.893
the Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper. That was the document that revealed
0:32:50.893,0:32:55.932
that the Obama administration had succeeded in convincing a court, its secret court,
0:32:55.932,0:33:01.326
to compel phone companies to turn over to the NSA every single phone record
0:33:01.326,0:33:07.420
of every single telephone call, local and international, of every single American.
0:33:07.420,0:33:13.126
Even though that National Security official, James Clapper, before the Senate, just months earlier was asked:
0:33:13.126,0:33:19.622
"Does the NSA collect phone data about the communications of Americans?", and he answered
0:33:19.622,0:33:25.261
"No, Sir." What we all now know is a complete lie.
0:33:25.261,0:33:31.726
There are other lies that the NSA and its top officials, US government top officials have told.
0:33:31.726,0:33:36.608
And by lie I mean advisedly, things they know to be false that they're saying anyway to convince people
0:33:36.608,0:33:41.206
of what they want them to believe. Keith Alexander repeatedly said, the head of the NSA,
0:33:41.206,0:33:47.989
that they are incapable of accounting for the exact number of calls and emails that they intercept[br]from the
0:33:47.989,0:33:53.661
American telecommunication system even though the program that we ended up exposing, "Boundless Informant",
0:33:53.661,0:34:00.509
counts with exact mathematical precision. Exactly the data that he said he is incapable of providing.
0:34:00.509,0:34:05.575
Both the NSA and the GCHQ have repeatedly said that the purpose of these programs
0:34:05.575,0:34:11.248
is to protect people from terrorism and to safeguard national security, and that they would never,
0:34:11.248,0:34:18.699
unlike these evil [thieves?], engage in spying for economic demands and yet report after report that we revealed,
0:34:18.699,0:34:24.940
from spying on the Brazilian oil giant Petrobras, from spying on the Organization of American states at economic summits
0:34:24.940,0:34:30.988
where economic accords were negotiated, to energy companies around the world, in Europe, in Asia, in Latin America,
0:34:30.988,0:34:37.931
would just completely negate these claims and prove that they are lies.
0:34:37.931,0:34:42.188
And then we have President Obama who repeatedly says things like
0:34:42.188,0:34:47.575
"We can not, and do not, spy on or even eavesdrop on the communications of Americans without warrants
0:34:47.575,0:34:53.556
even though the 2008 law that was enacted by the Congress of which he was a part and unintelligible
0:34:53.556,0:34:59.921
unintelligible to empower the US government to eavesdrop on Americans' communication without warrants.
0:34:59.921,0:35:07.476
And what you see here is serial lying and yet at the same time the, same media that seized it
0:35:07.476,0:35:13.845
acts scandalized if you suggest that their claims should not be taken at face value without evidence
0:35:13.845,0:35:19.307
because their role is not to be adversaries. Their role is to be loyal spokespeople
0:35:19.307,0:35:23.743
to those powerful factions [that] pretend to exercise oversight.
0:35:23.743,0:35:34.388
applause
0:35:34.388,0:35:40.996
Just one more point on that, which is to understand just how the American and British media function.
0:35:40.996,0:35:50.408
You can pretty much turn on the TV at any moment or open a new internet website and see very brave American journalists
0:35:50.408,0:35:57.715
calling Edward Snowden criminal and demanding that he be extradited to the United States and prosecuted and imprisoned.
0:35:57.715,0:36:04.812
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,
0:36:04.812,0:36:09.576
they're very brave in condemning them and standing up to them and demanding that the rule of law
0:36:09.576,0:36:14.388
be applied to them faithfully. He broke the law, he must pay the consequences.
0:36:14.388,0:36:21.748
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,
0:36:21.748,0:36:26.816
which is at least as much of a serious crime as anything Edward Snowden is accused of.
0:36:26.816,0:36:32.108
And you will be hard-pressed to find a single one of those brave journalists.
0:36:32.108,0:36:43.369
applause
0:36:43.369,0:36:49.956
You will be very hard-pressed to find even a single one of those brave intrepid journalists
0:36:49.956,0:36:57.929
ever even think about, let alone express the idea that Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, ought to be
0:36:57.929,0:37:02.672
subject to the rule of law and be prosecuted in prison for the crimes that he committed,
0:37:02.672,0:37:10.908
because the role of the US media and their British counterparts is to be voices for those with the greatest power
0:37:10.908,0:37:15.828
and to protect their interests and serve them. And everything that we've done over the last six months and
0:37:15.828,0:37:19.838
everything we've decided in the last month about forming a new media organization
0:37:19.838,0:37:26.506
is all about trying to subvert that process and reanimate and reinstill the process of journalism
0:37:26.506,0:37:32.607
for what it was intended to be, which is as a true adversarial force, a check against
0:37:32.607,0:37:35.621
those with the greatest power.
0:37:35.621,0:37:48.549
applause
0:37:48.549,0:37:55.177
So, I just wanna close with one last point, which is
0:37:55.177,0:38:00.492
the nature of the surveillance state that we've reported over the last six months.
0:38:00.492,0:38:04.984
Every time I do an interview, people ask similar questions such as
0:38:04.984,0:38:09.781
"What is the most significant story that you have revealed?" or
0:38:09.781,0:38:13.916
"What is it that we have learned about the last story that you just published?", and
0:38:13.916,0:38:18.768
what I really begun saying is that there really is only one overarching point
0:38:18.768,0:38:22.988
that all of these stories have revealed, and that is
0:38:22.988,0:38:28.433
- and I say this without the slightest bit hyperbole or melodrama, it's not metaphorical
0:38:28.433,0:38:31.100
and it's not figurative, it is literally true -
0:38:31.100,0:38:35.590
that the goal of the NSA and its "five eyes"-partners in the English-speaking world
0:38:35.590,0:38:38.955
Canada, New Zealand, Australia and especially the UK,
0:38:38.955,0:38:45.795
is to eliminate privacy globally, to ensure that there be no human communications
0:38:45.795,0:38:50.869
that occur electronically that evades their surveillance net. They wanna make sure
0:38:50.869,0:38:56.291
that all forms of human communication by telephone or by internet and all online activities
0:38:56.291,0:39:03.332
are collected, monitored, stored and analyzed by that agency and by their allies.
0:39:03.332,0:39:10.292
That is [despite] that is to [describe] a ubiquitous surveillance state. You don't need hyperbole to make that point,
0:39:10.292,0:39:15.291
and you don't need to believe me when I say that's their goal, document after document within the archive
0:39:15.291,0:39:18.476
that Edward Snowden provided us declare that to be their goal.
0:39:18.476,0:39:23.646
They are obsessed with searching out any small, little crevice on the planet,
0:39:23.646,0:39:29.995
where some forms of communication might take place without their being able to invade it.
0:39:29.995,0:39:33.786
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,
0:39:33.786,0:39:37.981
I'm not at the Guardian anymore, so I'm just gonna do it anyway, is -
0:39:37.981,0:39:44.700
applause
0:39:44.700,0:39:53.998
The NSA and the GCHQ are being driven crazy by the idea that you can go on an airplane
0:39:53.998,0:39:58.796
and use certain cell phone devices or internet services
0:39:58.796,0:40:06.616
and be away from their prying eyes for a few hours at a time. They are obsessed with finding ways
0:40:06.616,0:40:13.732
to invade the systems of online onboard internet service and mobile phone service because
0:40:13.732,0:40:18.550
the very idea that human beings can communicate even for a few moments
0:40:18.550,0:40:22.457
without them being able to collect and store and analyze and monitor what it is they were saying
0:40:22.457,0:40:25.946
is simply intolerable. That is their institutional mandate.
0:40:25.946,0:40:29.260
And when I get asked questions when I do interviews in different countries:
0:40:29.260,0:40:35.276
"Well, why would they want to spy on this official?" or "Why would they want to spy on Sweden?"
0:40:35.276,0:40:39.293
or "Why would they want to target this company here?"
0:40:39.293,0:40:43.652
The premise of that question is really flawed. The premise of the question is
0:40:43.652,0:40:49.630
that the NSA and the CGHQ need a specific reason to target somebody for surveillance. That is not how they think.
0:40:49.630,0:40:55.293
They target every form of communication that they can possibly get their hands on.
0:40:55.293,0:41:01.280
And if you think about what individual privacy does for us as human beings,
0:41:01.280,0:41:05.956
let alone what it does for us on a political level, that it really is the thing that lets us
0:41:05.956,0:41:14.751
explore boundaries and engage in creativity and use the mechanisms of dissent without fear.
0:41:14.751,0:41:18.647
When you think about a world in which privacy is allowed to be eliminated
0:41:18.647,0:41:23.341
– I’m literally talking about eliminating everything that makes it valuable to be a free individual.
0:41:23.341,0:41:29.266
The surveillance state by its necessity, by its very existence, breeds conformity
0:41:29.266,0:41:35.172
because when human beings know they are always susceptible to being watched, even if they are not always being watched,
0:41:35.172,0:41:41.668
the choices that they make are far more constrained, are far more limited, cling far more closely to orthodoxy
0:41:41.668,0:41:46.732
than when they can act in the private realm and that's precisely why the NSA and the GCHQ
0:41:46.732,0:41:52.613
and the worlds most powerful [dignitaries] throughout history and now always as their first goal have
0:41:52.613,0:41:57.188
the elimination of privacy at the top of their list because it's what ensures
0:41:57.188,0:42:02.163
that human beings can no longer resist the decrees that they're issuing.
0:42:02.163,0:42:07.380
Thank you once again very much. applauseunintelligible
0:42:07.380,0:42:23.396
continued applause
0:42:24.750,0:42:33.425
Rieger: Thanks, Glenn! We have a little bit of time for questions. I start with one:
0:42:33.425,0:42:43.378
What do you think is the motivation behind this "We want to be able to spy on really everyone?"
0:42:43.378,0:42:47.121
So the motivation behind the motivation.
0:42:47.121,0:42:52.326
Greenwald: There are some obvious discrete motivations: Whether it be the ability to learn what
0:42:52.326,0:42:58.885
economic competitors are doing, the ability to learn about technological advances in other countries in order to replicate them,
0:42:58.885,0:43:03.475
the ability to learn what's happening politically and diplomatically in different countries
0:43:03.475,0:43:07.426
to get better contract negotiations or to be able to better manipulate the world.
0:43:07.426,0:43:12.835
But ultimately there really is only one goal and that goal is power.
0:43:12.835,0:43:18.785
If you think about what it means to be able to know everything about
0:43:18.785,0:43:23.935
everybody else in the rest of the world, and this is the key for me, while at the same time
0:43:23.935,0:43:27.875
those power factions that know everything about what the rest of the world is doing
0:43:27.875,0:43:33.435
are building an ever higher and more impenetrable wall of secrecy behind which they operate,
0:43:33.435,0:43:38.194
the power imbalance is as extreme as it gets. In a healthy society,
0:43:38.194,0:43:44.695
private individuals, have privacy - hence the name privacy, except in the rarest of cases.
0:43:44.695,0:43:52.689
It's supposed to be public servants, public figures, public agencies that have extreme transparency except in the most
0:43:52.689,0:43:58.700
extreme cases - hence the name public sector. And yet we completely reversed that, so that
0:43:58.700,0:44:04.410
we as private individuals have almost no privacy, and they as public figures, public servants, public officials
0:44:04.410,0:44:09.498
have almost no transparency and that ultimately is what this surveillance system is about,
0:44:09.498,0:44:11.610
is accumulating more and more power
0:44:11.610,0:44:14.778
by being able to know everything about those over whom they're ruling,
0:44:14.778,0:44:18.693
while those over whom they're ruling know virtually nothing about them.
0:44:18.693,0:44:28.304
applause
0:44:29.104,0:44:33.929
Rieger: We have approximately ten more minutes for questions from the audience.
0:44:33.929,0:44:42.734
Herald Angel: So: please the audience line up at microphone 1, 2, 3 and 4 if you want to ask a question.
0:44:42.734,0:44:48.631
There are also questions from the internet. On the other hand, I exploit my position here
0:44:48.631,0:44:58.929
and want to ask one thing: Are you fearing for your own well-being to be harmed?
0:44:58.929,0:45:05.184
Greenwald: You know, I think there is obvious risk to what Laura Poitras and I have both done together.
0:45:05.184,0:45:10.559
Like I said before, we've been advised by lawyers that we really shouldn't travel. Obviously
0:45:10.559,0:45:17.860
my partner not only was detained under a terrorism law by the British government. But we're now all being threatened
0:45:17.860,0:45:21.164
with prosecution under terrorism and espionage statutes. When you
0:45:21.164,0:45:25.775
have tens of thousands of top secret documents there is obvious risk to that as well.
0:45:25.775,0:45:30.619
But journalists around the world and activists around the world, not only in the past
0:45:30.619,0:45:36.880
but currently are unintelligible facing far greater dangers and had paid far greater prices than anything we have.
0:45:36.880,0:45:41.519
And so I don't spend very much time thinking about that at all it's a very easy choice,
0:45:41.519,0:45:45.503
when I see the people like Edward Snowden and the other ones on the list making the choices they've made
0:45:45.503,0:45:53.423
to do my part, which is often a subset of what they're doing, in pursuit of these values that I really believe in.
0:45:53.423,0:46:02.447
applause
0:46:02.447,0:46:06.264
Angel: So, the next question is from the internet.
0:46:06.264,0:46:11.903
Signal Angel: Do you hear me? Okay. How do you decide which detail you share with the world and
0:46:11.903,0:46:19.544
which you are not allowed or which you don't know if we are allowed to see everything you have.
0:46:19.544,0:46:25.735
What is your decision process there? Do you decide that on your own or in a committee?
0:46:25.735,0:46:31.409
And what are the criteria for the information that you release right now?
0:46:31.409,0:46:37.900
Greenwald: That's a great question. That has probably been by far the hardest choices that we've had to make.
0:46:37.900,0:46:41.530
And I know there's a lot of debate surrounding it, and I've watched that debate because
0:46:41.530,0:46:45.273
it's been really valuable to I think all of us who have had to make these choices.
0:46:45.273,0:46:53.295
The first factor that we use is the agreement that we entered into with Edward Snowden when he came to us and
0:46:53.295,0:47:00.269
expressed very clear ideas about what he wanted to achieve and how he thought that could be achieved.
0:47:00.269,0:47:04.663
And we spent a lot of time talking to him about the methods that we would use,
0:47:04.663,0:47:08.785
about what we would publish, about what we wouldn't publish.
0:47:08.785,0:47:15.105
And regardless of the debates that have taken place we feel duty-bound to adhere to the agreement
0:47:15.105,0:47:20.888
that we entered into with him, because he is not an object to be sacrificed for a cause,
0:47:20.888,0:47:29.703
he is a human being whose agency and autonomy has to be regarded and honored. And everything that we have done…
0:47:29.703,0:47:37.600
applause
0:47:37.600,0:47:42.310
Everything that we have done has been guided by the formula that we created together with him.
0:47:42.310,0:47:50.961
I have been one of the most vocal supporters of Wikileaks and of Chelsea Manning
0:47:50.961,0:47:56.232
and I will be that for as long as I live. I believe in radical transparency.
0:47:56.232,0:48:03.679
I think the methods that they used to disclose the war logs and the diplomatic cables were exactly the right ones to use.
0:48:03.679,0:48:11.971
And I think that there are different tactics and strategies that are optimal for different situations.
0:48:11.971,0:48:17.575
And one of the choices that we made was, that there were certain kind of information we didn't want to disclose.
0:48:17.575,0:48:21.944
We didn't want to disclose information that would help other states
0:48:21.944,0:48:26.613
augment their surveillance capabilities to which they would subject their own citizens.
0:48:26.613,0:48:34.638
We didn't want to publish any of the information that the NSA has gathered about people.
0:48:34.638,0:48:40.391
Whether it be their raw communications or the things the NSA has said about them as a result of what they gather,
0:48:40.391,0:48:45.129
because to do that would destroy people's privacy and do the NSA's dirty work for them.
0:48:45.129,0:48:51.408
And we didn't want to publish anything that would endanger the lives of innocent human beings
0:48:51.408,0:48:53.710
who might be named by those documents.
0:48:53.710,0:49:00.391
Everything else beyond that, what we have done is thought to publish in a way that will create
0:49:00.391,0:49:06.106
the most powerful debate and the greatest level of recognition
0:49:06.106,0:49:13.171
and to sustain the interest that people have in the debate that we felt like was so urgently needed.
0:49:13.171,0:49:18.103
I can tell you, that we are only 6 months into doing this. It took Wikileaks,
0:49:18.103,0:49:23.671
I believe nine months from the time they got the diplomatic cables until the time they began publishing them.
0:49:23.671,0:49:27.744
These documents are complicated, people are waiting for us to make mistakes. It's important
0:49:27.744,0:49:31.711
that we understand what it is that we are publishing so that what we say about them is accurate.
0:49:31.711,0:49:38.368
There is a lot more stories to come, a lot more documents that will be published.
0:49:38.368,0:49:55.245
applause
0:49:55.245,0:50:02.111
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
0:50:02.111,0:50:07.537
share exactly the same believes that you have and exactly the same values about transparency.
0:50:07.537,0:50:13.899
And the last thing that any of us would ever do is sit on or conceal a story
0:50:13.899,0:50:18.704
that the world ought to know about because it's newsworthy and shines a light on what these factions are doing
0:50:18.704,0:50:25.158
and that would never ever happen. Every last newsworthy document will be published.
0:50:25.158,0:50:34.925
applause
0:50:35.756,0:50:37.860
Angel: So microphone 1, please.
0:50:37.860,0:50:46.933
Audience member: I know about the attacks that the GCHQ, the British police have done to you
0:50:46.933,0:50:51.636
- they tried to trash your hardware. And I'd like to know if there were more than that,
0:50:51.636,0:51:00.428
like attacks to you personally. Because you talked about the attacks they used.
0:51:00.428,0:51:09.765
Greenwald: I think the GCHQ has done us and the world a huge favor by showing their true face to the world.
0:51:09.765,0:51:13.974
I mean, will the British government ever be able to stand up in public again
0:51:13.974,0:51:19.990
and condemn some other country for attacks on press freedom without triggering a global laughing fit?
0:51:19.990,0:51:29.128
applause
0:51:30.328,0:51:36.371
I think that the most important thing that you can do as a journalist when you're being threatened
0:51:36.371,0:51:41.743
- and the threats have gone far beyond what you just asked about. They are, as I said,
0:51:41.743,0:51:45.187
continuously threatening in all sorts of formal and informal ways,
0:51:45.187,0:51:48.979
to criminally charge some or all of us who have been involved in this reporting.
0:51:48.979,0:51:52.276
The only thing that you can do is to stand up to the playground bully
0:51:52.276,0:51:56.894
and continue to publish in defiance of their threats and that's what we're gonna continue to do.
0:51:56.894,0:52:05.479
applause
0:52:05.479,0:52:07.512
Angel: Microphone 4, please.
0:52:07.512,0:52:10.971
Audience member: Do you have the impression that the governments, especially the German government,
0:52:10.971,0:52:15.769
are actually doing something? Or do you have the impression that they are just putting up a show for the citizens
0:52:15.769,0:52:20.801
while they actually prefer to cooperate with the NSA and support them?
0:52:20.801,0:52:25.801
And if it's the latter, what can we do about it?
0:52:25.801,0:52:28.287
Greenwald: It's definitely the latter.
0:52:28.287,0:52:37.154
laughter, applause
0:52:37.878,0:52:43.432
Ultimately, governments will do two things:
0:52:43.432,0:52:48.680
They will in the first instance do everything that they can to advance their own interests.
0:52:48.680,0:52:53.700
And governments around the world, especially in the west, don't perceive it to be in their own interest,
0:52:53.700,0:52:57.412
at least some of them, to disobey the United Stated.
0:52:57.412,0:53:00.453
And they also don't perceive it to be in their own interest
0:53:00.453,0:53:06.460
to take meaningful action against surveillance policies where today themselves believe in and engage in.
0:53:06.460,0:53:12.492
And so the question then becomes: How do you get them to do something beyond that framework?
0:53:12.492,0:53:19.948
And the only real answer becomes: to increase the cost to doing it. As I said earlier, I think that
0:53:19.948,0:53:26.943
the cost to the internet sector in the United States has become quite real. The cost of Boeing
0:53:26.943,0:53:31.917
which just lost a 4 billion dollar contract for fighter jets because Brazil didn't want to buy
0:53:31.917,0:53:37.419
from a country that has been systematically spying on them is very real.
0:53:37.419,0:53:44.414
applause
0:53:45.906,0:53:51.228
I think it's up to all of us to devise ways, to not persuade them,
0:53:51.228,0:53:56.762
because I don't think that power centers get persuaded in that way, by nice lofty arguments.
0:53:56.762,0:54:01.573
I think it's important to devise ways to raise the costs severely,
0:54:01.573,0:54:06.990
for either their active participation in or their acquiescence to
0:54:06.990,0:54:11.301
the systematic erosion of our privacy rights. And when we find a way to put them in the position
0:54:11.301,0:54:18.116
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.
0:54:18.116,0:54:26.847
applause
0:54:27.232,0:54:30.244
Rieger: I think it was a perfect closing of your keynote.
0:54:30.244,0:54:34.639
Thanks a lot for taking the time, and interrupted
0:54:34.639,0:54:38.542
very loud applause[br]standing ovations
0:54:38.588,0:54:44.319
Greenwald: Thank you, everybody. Appreciated!
0:54:44.319,0:54:49.412
standing ovation
0:54:52.659,0:54:58.494
Thank you very much.
0:55:00.789,0:55:26.114
continued applause
0:55:28.273,0:55:31.180
Thank you very much.
0:55:31.180,0:55:36.266
Rieger: And please continue your work!
0:55:36.266,0:55:40.706
Greenwald: Thank you.
0:55:40.706,0:55:51.932
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