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Title:
Inside the massive (and unregulated) world of surveillance tech
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Description:
What is a weapon in the Information Age? From microscopic "smart dust" tracking devices to DNA-tracing tech and advanced facial recognition software, journalist Sharon Weinberger leads a hair-raising tour through the global, unregulated bazaar of privatized mass surveillance. To rein in this growing, multibillion-dollar marketplace that often caters to customers with nefarious intents, Weinberger believes the first step is for governments to classify surveillance tools as dangerous and powerful weapons.
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Speaker:
Sharon Weinberger
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A few years ago,
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an American defense consultant I know
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told me about a trip
he took to Uzbekistan.
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His role there was to help sell technology
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that the Uzbek government could use
to spy on its own citizens.
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He eventually shared with me
the marketing material
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he'd presented to the Uzbek government.
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One glossy brochure featured technology
that could not just intercept phone calls,
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but identify the caller,
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regardless of what phone number
they were using,
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based on their unique voiceprint,
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and then identify their exact
geographic location.
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This is a guy who had been involved
with the arms trade for years.
¶
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He wasn't some Hollywood-type gunrunner
doing backroom deals.
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He was just a guy that worked
with legitimate Western companies
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to help sell their weapons abroad.
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But he wasn't bothered
by marketing this sort of technology.
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For him, it was just the next step
in the arms trade.
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And it was even easier than, say,
selling weapons to Iraq,
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because it didn't require
an export license
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from the US State Department,
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the way most arms sales would.
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It turns out that these
tools of surveillance
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are almost completely unregulated,
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because as of today,
they're not defined as weapons.
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But they should be, and we need
to regulate them that way.
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I'm a journalist
who has spent the last two decades
¶
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looking at how the military
and intelligence world
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spurs the development
of new science and technology.
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I've tracked the emergence of new weapons
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and looked to see what happens
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when companies start to market
these weapons abroad.
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But what is a weapon
in the information age?
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We know that armed drones are weapons,
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missiles and bombs are weapons,
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but the State Department
actually classifies
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broad categories
of technologies as weapons.
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So for example, a scientist going abroad
on an oceanographic research vessel,
¶
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they want to take
the latest night-vision goggles?
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That, according to the State Department,
is potentially a weapon.
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Why?
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Well, because though night-vision goggles
are used today by scientists
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and hunters around the world,
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it was a capability
first developed for the military.
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And yet, tools of surveillance
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that an authoritarian regime could use
to spy on its own citizens,
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on dissidents, on journalists,
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that, according to the US government
today, is not a weapon.
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And yet, these tools of surveillance
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are part of a growing secretive
multi-billion-dollar industry.
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The genesis of this spy bazaar
goes back some 18 years,
¶
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to a Hilton hotel in northern Virginia,
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just a few miles away
from the US Central Intelligence Agency.
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A few dozen people,
mostly dark-suited men,
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gathered there in the spring of 2002
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for a conference with
the unassuming name of ISS World.
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You know, at first glance, this conference
probably looked like dozens of events
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that used to take place
around the Washington, DC area.
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But this event was unique.
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ISS stands for Intelligence
Support Systems,
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and the people who were there
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were from companies
that built technologies to spy
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on private communications.
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In other words, these were
sort of wire-tappers for hire.
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And the reason they were there
was that less than a year earlier,
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the 9/11 terrorist attacks
on New York and Washington
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had spurred the Congress
to press through legislation
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known as the Patriot Act.
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This gave the government
broad new authorities
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to monitor communications.
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Emails, internet activity, phone calls,
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even financial transactions.
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This created an instant demand for data.
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And in the true American
entrepreneurial spirit,
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an industry rose up
to help collect this data.
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this was still a pretty modest affair.
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Only about 10 percent
of the world's population
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was even online using the internet.
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So most of what was being collected
were simple emails and phone calls
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over landlines and cell phones.
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But over the next few years,
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the way that we communicate
began to change rapidly.
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There was the introduction
of Skype, Facebook
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and then, crucially, the iPhone,
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and within a few years,
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billions of us were walking around
with little computers in our pockets
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that do everything
from monitor our exercise habits
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to help us find romantic partners.
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And suddenly, you didn't necessarily need
the advanced capability
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of the National Security Agency
or big telecoms
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to monitor everyone's communication.
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In some cases,
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all you needed was access
to that device in their pockets.
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And that gave birth to an entirely
new type of industry.
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You know, not many companies
can build missiles or aircraft,
¶
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but it doesn't take a lot of capital
to create software
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that can hack into someone's smartphone.
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Computer hackers
have been around for years,
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but now their skills could be used
to build technologies
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that were in high demand
by law enforcement
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and intelligence agencies.
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And soon, dozens
and even hundreds of companies
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were getting into this
wire-tappers' market.
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And that little conference in Virginia,
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it grew and soon became known
as the Wiretappers' Ball.
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Well, not much was known
about the Wiretappers' Ball
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in those early years,
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because the conferences
were closed to everyone
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except the companies
and their government customers.
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But journalists did begin to see
and hear reports
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of companies getting
into this private spy market.
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Spooky entrepreneurs
going around the world,
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doing deals,
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often with authoritarian regimes.
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And it was, from the start,
a really loosely regulated market.
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Some countries do require permission
to sell these technologies abroad,
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but rarely with the type of scrutiny
that is given to traditional arms.
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So for example, the Italian-based
company Hacking Team
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reportedly sold its technology
to authoritarian regimes
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in Egypt and Kazakhstan.
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The Israeli-based company NSO Group
has reportedly sold its technology
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to the regime in Saudi Arabia,
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which has been accused of harassing,
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and even, in one case,
killing one of its political opponents.
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And we do think of weapons
as things that kill people.
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But in the information age,
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some of the most powerful weapons
are things that can track and identify us.
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This is something that the Pentagon
and CIA have recognized for years,
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and they've tried to build technologies
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that can track people,
suspected terrorists, around the globe.
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The Pentagon has invested
in something called smart dust,
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little microsensors
the size of specs of dust
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that you could scatter on people
without them knowing it,
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and then use it to track their location.
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The Pentagon, through
its venture capital firm,
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has invested in a beauty products company
once featured in "Oprah Magazine"
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to build a device that could
surreptitiously collect DNA
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just by swiping across the skin.
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But something remarkable has happened
over the past decade.
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In many cases, what the private
marketplace has been able to do
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has far outstripped what the Pentagon
or CIA even thought was possible.
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Back in 2008,
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the Pentagon had a secretive database
of DNA from terrorists.
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It had about 80,000 samples.
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Well, the private company AncestryDNA
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today has samples
from over 15 million people.
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23andMe, the second-largest
genealogical database,
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has samples from over 10 million people.
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So now, maybe you don't need
these James Bond-worthy techniques
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of collecting DNA
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if we're willingly handing it over
to private companies
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and even paying for the honor of doing it.
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Well, what could you do
with a sample of someone's DNA?
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In the United States and China,
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researchers are working
on using DNA samples
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to build images of people's faces.
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So if you pair DNA
with facial recognition technology,
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you have the basis of a really
powerful surveillance system
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that could be used to track individuals
or entire ethnic groups.
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And if you think that sounds
a little bit paranoid,
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keep in mind that the Pentagon
last year sent out a memo
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to all of its service members,
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warning them precisely not to use
those commercial DNA kits
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over concerns that information
could be used to track them
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or their family members.
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And yet, even with the Pentagon
raising concerns about this technology,
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almost nothing has been done
to reign in this market.
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One American company, Clearview AI,
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has been collecting billions
of images of people's faces
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from across the internet,
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like those pictures you post on Instagram
of you and your friends and family,
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and then selling its facial
recognition services
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to US government
and law-enforcement agencies.
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And even if you think
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that's a perfectly acceptable
application of this technology,
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there's nothing to stop them
from selling to private individuals,
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corporations or even foreign governments.
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And that's exactly
what some companies are doing.
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That Wiretappers' Ball
that started in northern Virginia?
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Today, it's held in multiple cities
around the globe.
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Thousands of people now attend
the ISS trainings and conferences.
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And more of the companies showing up
are coming from the Middle East and China.
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The spy bazaar has gone global.
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And at arms shows now around the world,
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you'll see companies displaying
facial recognition technology
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and phone hacking software,
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displaying right next
to traditional arms manufacturers
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with tanks and missiles.
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And walking around these arms shows,
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it's pretty easy to go down
dystopian rabbit holes,
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thinking about future
surveillance technology
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that will track our every move.
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And I remember one
Pentagon adviser telling me
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that what the military really needed
were space-based satellites
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that could track people anywhere on earth
based just on their DNA.
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It's enough to make you invest
in tinfoil hats.
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we don't know what sort
of technology the future will bring.
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But we know that today,
in the absence of regulation,
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this marketplace is already exploding.
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And in fact, one of those companies
accused of selling surveillance technology
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to authoritarian regimes,
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today, it's offering to help track
those infected with COVID-19.
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And of course, technology does offer
the tantalizing promise
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of helping control a pandemic
through contact tracing.
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But it also opens up another door,
to privatized mass surveillance.
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So what do we do
about this private spy bazaar?
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We can hide, go offline,
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get off social media,
ditch our smartphones,
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go live in a cave,
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but the truth is, we're not trained
to be professional spies,
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we can't live under false identities
or with no identities.
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And even real spies are having a hard time
staying below the radar, these days.
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It doesn't matter how many
passports Jason Bourne has
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if his face or DNA
is in someone's database.
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But if even governments have lost control
of the tools of spying,
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is there anything we can do about it?
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One argument I've heard
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is that even if the US
were to restrict companies
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from selling this sort
of technology abroad,
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companies based in China
might simply step in.
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But we regulate the arms trade today,
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even if we do it imperfectly.
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And in fact, there was a multilateral
proposal several years ago
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to do just that,
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to require export licenses
for surveillance software.
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The United States
was among those countries
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that agreed to these
voluntary regulations,
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but back in Washington,
this proposal has simply languished.
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We have an administration
that would rather sell more weapons abroad
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with fewer restrictions,
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including to some of those countries
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accused of abusing
surveillance technology.
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I think to move forward,
we would need to revive that proposal,
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but even go one step further.
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We need to fundamentally change
how we think of surveillance technology
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and define these tools as weapons.
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This would allow government
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to regulate and control
their sale and export
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the way that they control
traditional arms,
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advanced aircraft and missiles.
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But that means recognizing
that technology that tracks who we are,
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what we do, what we say,
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and even in some cases, what we think,
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is a form of advanced weaponry.
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And these weapons
are growing too powerful,
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available to the highest bidder,
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and according to the whims
of the spy bazaar.
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Thank you.