Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Government Surveillance (HBO)

Our main story tonight

is government surveillance.

And I realize most people

would rather have a conversation

about literally any other topic.

Including: 'Is my smartphone

giving me cancer?'

To which the answer is: Probably.

Or: 'Do goldfish suffer from depression?'

To which the answer is:

Yes, but very briefly.

But the fact is:

It is vital

that we have a discussion about this now.

Because an important date

is just around the corner.

One big day to circle on the calendar

when it comes to

a very controversial subject.

The re-authorization of the Patriot Act

and all of the

controversial provisions therein.

June 1 they've got to come to an agreement

to re-authorize

or curtail those programs.

Yes. Some controversial provisions

within the Patriot Act

are set to expire on June 1.

So circle that date

on your calendars, everyone.

And while you're at it:

Circle June 2 as well.

Because that's Justin Long's birthday.

You all forgot last year...

...and he f*cking noticed.

Now, over the last couple of years

you've probably heard a lot about

strange-sounding programs. Such as:

X-Keyscore, Muscular, Prism, and Mystic.

Which are -coincidentally- also the names

of some of Florida's

least popular stripclubs.

"Welcome to X-Keyscore!"

"Our dancers are fully un-redacted

and Tuesday is wing-night!"

But if you don't mind, I would like

to refresh your memory over some of this.

And let's start our focussing on the most

controversial portion of the Patriot Act

that is up for renewal:

Section 215.

Which, I'm aware, sounds like the name

of an Eastern European boy-band.

"We are Section 215."

"Prepare to have your hearts...

throbbed."

There's the cute one, the bad-boy,

the one who strangled a potato-farmer,

and the one without an iron-deficiency.

They're incredible.

But the content of the real Section 215

is actually even more sinister.

It's called Section 215.

Nicknamed: the library records provision.

Which allows the government to require

businesses to hand over records of any

quote, 'any tangible things'

including: books, records, papers,

documents, and other items.

If that sounds broad, it's because

it was very much written that way.

Section 215 says the government can ask

for 'any tangible things' so long as it's

'for an investigation to protect

against international terrorism'.

Which is basically a blank cheque.

It's letting a teenager borrow the car

under the strict condition that they

only use it for 'car-related activities'.

"Okay, mom and dad, I'm gonna use this

for a hand-job in a Wendy's parking lot

but that is car-related,

so I think I'm covered."

Section 215 is overseen

by a secret intelligence-court

known as the FISA-court.

And they've interpreted it to mean

the government could basically collect and

store phone-records for every American.

The vast majority of whom, of course

have no connection to terrorism.

Unless, Aunt Cheryl has been gravely

mis-characterizing the activities

of her needle-point club.

"It's a sleeper-cell,

isn't is, Aunt Cheryl?"

"You will hang for this, Aunt Cheryl."

"You're a traitor and a terrible aunt."

"Not in that order."

Now, the government will point out

that under 215, they hold phone-records

and not the calls themselves.

What the intelligence-community is doing

is looking at phone-numbers

and durations of calls

they are not looking at people's names

and they are not looking at content.

Yes, but that's not entirely reassuring.

Because you can extrapolate a lot

from that information.

If they knew that you'd called your ex

12 times last night, between 1 and 4 AM

for a duration of 15 minutes each time

they can be fairly sure that you left

some pretty pathetic voice-mails.

"I don't care whose monitoring

this call, Vicky."

"We should be together!"

Pick up the phone, dammit!

I'm a human being, not an animal!"

Now, the Patriot-act was written

just after 9-11.

And for years it was extended

and re-authorized

with barely a passing thought.

In fact, it became so routine

that when it was extended in 2011

one newscast just tacked it

onto the end of a report

about a Presidential trip abroad.

Chip Reid. CBS-news.

Travelling with the President

in Deauville, France.

Also in France, by the way

President Obama signed in a law

4-year extension

of the terrorism fighting Patriot-Act.

Also in France, by the way?

By the way?

He threw that in

like a mother telling her grown daughter

that her childhood pet just died.

"Oh, nice talking to you, sweety.

Also, by the way, Mr. Peppers is dead.

See you at Christmas." BANG

But all of that was before the public

was made aware of what the government's

capabilities actually were.

'Cause that all ended in June of 2013.

Edward Snowden has just taken

responsibility for one of the

biggest government leaks in US history.

We learned that the government has

the capacity to track

virtually every American phone-call

and to scoop up impossibly vast

quantities of data across the internet.

Revelations that the NSA eavesdropped

on world leaders.

If you've ever been to the Bahamas

the NSA could've recorded your phone-calls

and stored them for up to a month.

All that information was exposed

by Edward Snowden.

And it is still kind of incredible

that a 29-year-old contractor

was able to steal top-secret documents

from an organization

that LITERALLY has the word 'security'

in it's name.

Clearly, that was not great for them.

The only place where it should be THAT

easy for employees in their 20ies to steal

is a Lid store.

"Dude, you sure I should take this?"

"Relax, dude, it's a Miami Marlins-cap,

we're not exactly selling

Fabergé eggs here."

It is still unclear

exactly how many documents

Edward Snowden stole.

Although he's consistently tried

to re-assure people

that he put them in good hands.

Honestly, I don't want to be the person

making the decisions on what should

be public and what shouldn't.

Which is why

rather than publishing these on my own

or putting them out openly

I'm running them through journalists.

Well, that sounds great.

But of course it's not a fail-safe plan.

As was proven when the New York Times

published this slide

but did such a sloppy job

of blocking out redacted information

that some people were able to read

the information behind that black bar

which concerned how the US was monitoring

Al Qaida in Mosul.

A group now known as ISIS.

So essentially a national security secret

was leaked because no-one at the Times

knows how to use Microsoft Paint.

And look, you can think

that Snowden did the wrong thing.

Or did it in the wrong way.

But the fact is:

we have this information now

and we no longer get the luxury

of pleading ignorance.

It's like you can't go to Sea World

and pretend that Shamu's happy, anymore.

When we now know

at least half the water in her tank

is whale-tears.

We know that now.

You can't un-know that information.

So you have to bear that in mind.

But here's the thing:

It's now 2 years later

and it seems like we've kind of forgotten

to have a debate

over the content of what Snowden leaked.

A recent Pew-report found that nearly

half of Americans say that they're

'not very concerned'

or 'not at all concerned'

about government surveillance.

Which is fine.

If that's an informed opinion.

But I'm not sure that it is.

Because we actually sent a camera-crew to

Times Square to ask some random passers by

who Edward Snowden was and what he did.

And there are the responses that we got.

I have no idea who Edward Snowden is.

Have no idea who Edward Snowden is.

I've heard the name, I just can't picture

think... right now exactly what it is.

Edward Snowden...

No. I do not.

Just for the record:

that wasn't cherry picking.

That was entirely reflective

of everyone we spoke to.

Although, to be fair:

some people did remember his name

they just couldn't remember why.

He sold some information to people.

He revealed some information

that shouldn't have been revealed.

I think from what I remember is

the information that he shared was

detrimental to our military secrets?

And keeping our soldiers and our country

safe?

He leaked documents what the US Army's

operations in Iraq.

Edward Snowden revealed a bunch of

of secrets, I guess, or information

into Wiki... Wikileaks?

Edward Snowden leaked...

Ah, he's in charge of Wikileaks?

Edward Snowden revealed a lot of

documents through Wikileaks...?

Okay, so here's the thing:

Edward Snowden is NOT the Wikileaks guy.

The Wikileaks guy is Julian Assange.

And you do not want

to be confused with him.

Partly because he was far less careful

than Snowden in what he released and how.

And partly because he resembles

a sandwich-bag full of biscuit-dough

wearing a Stevie Nicks-wig.

And that is, that is ciritical.

Julian Assange is not a like-able man.

Even Benedict Cumberbatch could not

make him like-able.

He's un-Cumberbatch-able.

That was supposed to be

physically impossible.

But I don't blame people

for being confused.

We've been looking at this story

for the last 2 weeks

and it is hard to get your head around.

Not just because there are so many

complicated programs to keep track of

but also because

there are no easy answers here.

We all naturally want perfect privacy

and perfect safety.

But those 2 things cannot coexist.

It's like how you can't have

a badass pet falcon...

and an adorable pet vole named Herbert.

Either you have to lose one of them

-which obviously you don't want to do-

or you have to accept some

reasonable restrictions on both of them.

Now to be fair, the NSA will argue

that just because they CAN do something

doesn't mean they DO do it.

And, that there are restrictions

on their operations

such as the FISA-court

which must approve requests

for foreign surveillance.

But.

In 34 years, that court has approved

over 35000 applications

and only rejected 12.

Yes. Much like Robert Durst's second wife.

The FISA-court is alarmingly accepting.

"Listen, Robert, I'm not

gonna ask you too many questions."

I'm just gonna give you the benefit of

a doubt that you clearly don't deserve."

At least tell him to blink and burp less.

The burping might be the most troubling

thing about that show.

So maybe it's time for us to talk.

About where the limits should be.

And the best place to start would be

Section 215.

Not just because it's the easiest

to understand

but there is wide-spread agreement

it needs to be reformed.

From the President, to Ted Cruz,

to both the ACLU and the NRA,

to even the guy

who wrote the thing in the first place.

I was the principal author

of the Patriot Act.

I can say, that without qualification

Congress never did intend to allow

bulk-collections

when it passed Section 215.

And no fair reading of the text

would allow for this program.

Think about that.

He was the author.

That's the legislative equivalent

of Lewis Carroll

seeing the tea-cups ride at Disney Land

and saying:

"This has got to be reined in."

"No fair reading of my text

would allow for this ride."

"You've turned my perfectly nice tale

of psychedelic paedofilia

into a garish vomitorium."

"This is not what I wanted!"

And even the NSA has said

that the number of terror-plots in the US

that the Section 215

telephone-records program has disrupted...

...is 1.

And it's worth noting:

that one particular plot

involved a cabdriver in San Diego

who gave $8500 to a terror-group.

And that is the shittiest terrorist-plot

I've ever seen.

Other than the plot of

A Good Day To Die Hard.

But here's the big problem here:

If we let Section 215 get renewed

in it's current form

without serious public debate

we're in trouble.

Because Section 215

is the canary in the coal-mine.

If we cannot fix that

we're not gonna fix any of them.

And the public debate so far

has been absolutely pathetic.

A year ago

a former congresswoman was

discussing the 215 program on the news.

Watch wat happened.

This vast collection of data

is not that useful

and infringes substantially

on personal privacy.

I think at this point we should

seriously consider not continuing...

Congress woman Harman, let me interrupt..

Let me interrupt you just for a moment.

We've got some breaking news out of Miami.

Stand by if you will.

Right now in Miami

Justin Bieber

has been arrested on a number of charges.

The judge is reading the charges

including resisting arrest

and driving under the influence.

He's appearing now before the judge for

his bond-hearing. Let's watch.

Actually, you know what?

Bad news, we're gonna have to interrupt

your interruption of the Bieber news

for a new interruption.

This time featuring a YouTube video of

a tortoise having sex with a plastic clog.

Let's watch.

HEEH

HEEH

HEH

That. Is essentially the current tone

of this vitally important debate.

HEEEH

And again:

I'm not saying

this is an easy conversation.

But we have to have it.

I know this is confusing.

And unfortunately the most

obvious person to talk to

about this is Edward Snowden.

But he currently lives in Russia. Meaning:

If you wanted to ask him about any

of these issues, you'd have to fly

all the way there to do it.

And it is not a pleasant flight.

And the reason I know that...

...is that last week, I went to Russia

to speak to Edward Snowden.

And this is what happened.

Yes, last week I spent 48 paranoid hours

in Moscow.

Arguably the last place on earth

where you can find

an overweight Josef Stalin impersonator

arguing with an unconvincing fake Lenin.

And after experiencing

Russia's famously warm hospitality

I went to meet Edward Snowden.

Who is supposed to show up in this room

at noon.

However, after 5 minutes after

the interview was scheduled to begin

I had a troubling thought.

I don't know.

Do you think he's coming?

Yeah, he's coming.

'Cause my argument is:

Why would he?

When you think about it.

I got 2000 roebels

that says he doesn't make it.

Without understanding how much that is.

All I'm saying is...

...a 10-hour flight for an empty chair?

I'm gonna lose my shit.

It turns out it may be a bit of a problem

because our Russian producer

booked us in a room directly overlooking

the old KGB-building.

And the home

of the current Federal Security Bureau.

And we've just been told...

...they know we're here.

So uhm...

So that happened.

Uhm, just if the Russian...

...Russian KGB is listening:

We'll ring the fire-alarm

if he's not coming.

Oh shit.

Oh God.

So sorry for the delay.

It's fine, don't worry about it.

HOLY SHIT.

He actually came.

Edward f*cking Snowden.

The most famous hero and/or traitor

in recent American history!

And I've started with a question

designed to test his loyalties.

How much do you miss America?

You know, my country is something

that travels with me, you know.

It's not just a geogra...

That's a way too complicated answer.

The answer is: I miss it a lot.

it's the greatest country in the world.

I do miss my country.

I do miss my home.

I do miss my family.

Do you miss hot pockets?

Yes.

I miss hot pockets. Very much.

Okay. The entire state of Florida?

Let's just let that silence

hang in the air.

Truck Nuts?

Do you miss Truck Nuts?

I don't know what they are.

Lucky for you, Edward...

Not just Truck Nuts.

Stars and stripes Truck Nuts.

That is 2 balls of liberty

in a freedom sack.

You really thought ahead.

Well, at least one of us did.

You know, 'cause of the... uhm...

the quandary... the...

...Kafka-esque nightmare that you're in.

Okay. Let's dive in.

Why did you do this?

The NSA has

the greatest surveillance capabilities

that we've ever seen in history.

Now, what they will argue

is that they don't use this

for nefarious purposes

against American citizens.

In some ways that's true.

But the real problem is that

they're using these capabilities

to make us vulnerable to them

and then saying:

"While I have a gun pointed at your head

I'm not gonna pull the trigger."

"Trust me."

So, what does the NSA you want look like?

Because you applied for a job at the NSA.

So you clearly see an inherent value

in that shadowy organization.

I worked with mass-surveillance systems

against Chinese hackers.

I saw that, you know

these things do have some purpose.

And you want your spies

to be good at spying.

To be fair.

Right.

What you don't want is

you don't want them spying inside

their own country.

Spies are great when they're on our side.

But we can never forget

that they're incredibly powerful

and incredibly dangerous.

And if they're off the leash...

...they can end up coming after us.

Well just to be clear we're talking about

2 different things here

Domestic surveillance

and foreign surveillance.

'Cause domestic surveillance

Americans give some of a shit about.

Foreign surveillance...

...they don't give any remote shit about.

Well the second question is:

When we talk about foreign surveillance

are we applying it in ways that are

beneficial...

No-one cares.

In terms...

They don't give a shit.

We spied on UNICEF, the children's fund.

Sure.

We spied on lawyers negotiating...

What was UNICEF doing?

I mean:

That's the question there, isn't it?

The question is:

Are these projects valuable?

Are we going to be safer when we're spying

on UNICEF and lawyers who are talking about

the price of shrimp and clove cigarettes.

I don't think people say that's good.

I think they'll say:

I definitely don't care.

Americans do not give a shit.

I think you're right.

About foreign surveillance.

What some people do care about

is whether Snowden considered

the adverse consequences of leaking

so much information at once.

How many of those documents

have you actually read?

I've evaluated all the documents

that are in the archive.

You've read every single one?

I do understand what I've turned over.

But there's a difference between

understanding what's in the documents

and reading what's in the documents.

I recognized the concern.

'Cause when you're handing over

thousands of NSA documents the last

thing you want to do is read them.

I think it's fair to be concerned about

'did this person do enough?'

'were they careful enough?'

Especially when you're handling material

like we know you are handling.

Well, in my defense:

I'm not handling anything anymore.

That's been passed to the journalists

and they're using extraordinary

security measures to make sure that this

is reported in the most responsible way.

But, those are journalists

with a lower technical skill-set than you.

That's true. But they DO understand

-just like you and I do-

just HOW important it is

to get this right.

So the New York Times took a slide

didn't redact it properly...

...and

In the end it was possible

for people to see that something

was being used in Mosul.

On Al Qaida.

That is a problem.

Well, that's a f*ck-up.

It is a f*ck-up.

And these things do happen in reporting.

In journalism we have to accept

that some mistakes will be made.

This is a fundamental concept of liberty.

Right.

But you have to own that then.

You're giving documents with information

you know could be harmful

which could get out there.

Yes.

If people act in bad faith.

Not even bad faith, but incompetence.

We are.

But you will never be

completely free from risk, if you're free.

The only time you can be

free from risk is when you're in prison.

While the risks were significant

Snowden himself has made it clear

he feels the rewards have been worth it.

You've said in you letters to Brasil:

"I was motivated by a believe that

citizens deserve to understand

the system in which they live."

"My greatest fear was that

no-one would listen to my warning."

"Never have I been so glad

to have been so wrong."

How did that feel?

I was initially terrified that this

was going to be a 3-day story.

Everybody was going to forget about it.

But when I saw that

everybody around the world said:

"Wow, this is a problem."

"We have to do something about this."

It felt like vindication.

Even in America?

Even in America.

And I think we're seeing something amazing

which is if you ask... the American people

to make tough decisions

to confront tough issues

to think about hard problems...

...they'll actually surprise you.

Okay.

Here's the problem:

I did ask some Americans.

And, boy did it surprise me.

I have no idea who Edward Snowden is.

You've never heard of Edward Snowden?

No.

I have no idea who Edward Snowden is.

I've heard the name

I just can't picture... think right now

exactly what it is.

Well, he's... uhm...

He sold some information to people.

He revealed some information

that shouldn't have been revealed.

Edward Snowden revealed a lot of documents

through Wikileaks.

Edward Snowden revealed a bunch of

secrets, I guess...

or information into Wikileaks.

Edward Snowden leaked... uhm...

he's in charge of Wikileaks.

I'm in charge of Wikileaks.

Not ideal.

I guess, on the plus side:

You might be able to go home.

'Cause it seems like no-one knows

who the f*ck you are or what you did

We can't expect everybody to be uniformly

informed.

So, did you do this to solve a problem?

I did this to give the American people

a chance to decide for themselves

the kind of government they want to have.

That is a conversation that I think that

the American people deserve to decide.

There is no doubt that it is

a critical conversation.

But is it a conversation that we have

the capacity to have?

Because it's so complicated.

We don't fundamentally understand it.

It is a challenging conversation.

It's difficult for most people

to even conceptualize.

The problem is

the internet is massively complex

and so much of it is invisible.

Service providers, technicians, engineers,

the phonenumber....

Let me stop you right there, Edward.

'Cause this is the whole problem.

Right.

This is the whole problem.

I glaze over.

It's like the IT-guy comes to your office

and you go: "Oooh shit".

In fairness...

"Ooh shit, don't teach me anything."

"I don't want to learn."

"You smell like canned soup."

It's a real challenge to figure out

how do we communicate

things that require sort of years and years

of technical understanding.

And compress that into seconds of speech.

So, I'm sympathetic to the problem there.

But the thing is

everything you did only matters

if we have this conversation properly.

So let me help you out there.

You mentioned in an interview

that the NSA was passing around

naked photo's of people.

Yeah. This is something where it's...

it's not actually seen as a big deal.

In the culture of NSA.

Because you see naked pictures

all of the time.

That.

Terrifies people.

'Cause when we asked people about THAT...

...this is the response you get.

The government should not be able

to look at dick-pictures.

If the government was looking at

a picture of Gordon's penis

I definitely feel it would be an invasion

of my privacy.

Ah, yeah, if the government was looking at

pictures of my penis, that would upset me.

They should never, ever

the US government have a picture

of my dick.

If my husband sent me

a picture of his penis

and the government could access it

I would want that program to be shut down.

I would want the Dick-pic Program changed.

I would also want the Dick-pic program

changed.

It would be terrific if the program

could change.

I would want it to be tweeked

I would want it to have clear and

transparent laws that we knew about.

And that were communicated to us.

To understand what they're being used for.

Or why the were being kept.

Do you think that program exists?

I don't think that program exists at all.

No.

If I had knowledge that the US government

had a picture of my dick...

...I would be very pissed off.

Well...

The good news is that there's no

program named 'the Dick-pic Program'.

The bad news is that they are still

collecting everybody's information.

Including your dick-pics.

What's the over/under on that last guy

having sent a dick-pic recently?

You don't need to guess, I'll show you.

I did.

I did take a picture of my... dick.

And I sent it to a girl. Recently.

This is the most visible

line in the sand for people.

"Can they see my dick?"

So, with that in mind...

look inside that folder.

That.

Is a picture of my dick.

So let's go through each NSA program

and explain to me it's capabilities

in regards to that photograph...

...of my penis.

702 Surveillance: can they see my dick?

Yes.

The FISA-amendment act of 2008

which Section 702 falls under

allows the bulk-collection

of internet communications that are

one-end foreign.

Bulk-collection:

Now we're talking about my dick.

You get it.

It's not what...

You get it though, right?

I do.

Because it's... it's... yeah, anyway.

So, if you have you're email somewhere

like G-mail, hosted on a server overseas

or transferred over seas

or it any time crosses outside the borders

of the United States...

...you're junk ends up in the database.

So it doesn't have to be

sending your dick to a German?

No.

Even if you sent it to somebody

within the United States

your wholly domestic communication

between you and your wife

can go from New York...

to London and back.

And get caught up in the database.

Executive Order 12-333: Dick or no dick?

Yes.

EO 12-333 is what the NSA uses when the

other authorities aren't aggressive enough

or not catching as much as they'd like.

For example:

How are they gonna see my dick?

I'm only concerned about my penis.

When you send your junk

through G-mail, for example.

That's stored on Google's servers.

Google moves data.

from datacenter to datacenter.

Invisibly to you.

Without your knowledge...

your data could be moved outside

the borders of the United States.

Oh no.

Temporarily.

When your junk was passed by G-mail

the NSA caught a copy of that.

Prism.

Prism is how they pull your junk

out of Google, with Google's involvement.

All of the different Prism partners

people like Yahoo, Facebook, Google.

The government deputizes them, to be...

sort of their little surveillance sheriff.

They're a dick-sheriff.

Correct.

Uhm, Upstream?

Upstream is how they snatch your junk

as it transits the internet.

Okay. Mystic.

If you're describing your junk

on the phone?

Yes.

But do they have the content

of that junk-call

or just the duration of it?

They have the content as well

but only for a few countries.

If you are on vacation in the Bahamas?

Yes.

Finally. And you need to remind yourself...

No, I'm just not sure...

what to do with this.

Just hold on to it.

It's a lot of responsibility.

Yeah. It is a lot of responsibility.

That's the whole point.

Should I...?

No, you should absolutely not.

And it's unbelievable

that you would do that.

Actually, it's entirely believable.

215 Meta-data?

No.

Good.

But...

Come on, Ed.

They can probably tell who you're sharing

your junk pictures with.

Because they're seeing

who you're texting with

who you're calling.

If you call

the penis enlargement centre at 3 AM

and that call lasted 90 minutes?

They would have a record

of YOUR phone-number

calling THAT phone-number.

(Which is a penis enlargement center).

They would say they don't know

it's penis enlargement center

but of course they can look it up.

Edward, if the American people

understood this...

...they would be absolutely horrified.

I guess I never thought about putting it

in the...

...in the context of your junk.

Would a good take-away from this be:

'Until such time as we've sorted

all of this out...

...don't take pictures of your dick'.

Just don't do it anymore.

No. If we do that.

Wait, hold on, you're saying 'no'?

Yeah.

You should keep

taking pictures of your dick?

Yes. You shouldn't change your behavior

because of a government agency somehwere

is doing the wrong thing.

If we sacrifice our values

because we're afraid, we don't care

about those values very much.

That is a pretty inspiring answer

to the question:

"Hey, why did you just send me

a picture of your dick?"

"Because I love America, that's why."

So there you have it, America.

All of us should now be equipped

to have this vital debate.

Because by June 1

it is imperative we have a rational

adult conversation

about whether our safety is worth

living in a country of barely regulated

government-sanctioned dick-sheriffs.

And with my work here done

there was just time to take care of

one more thing.

Finally, congratulations on Citizenfour

winning the Oscar.

I know you couldn't be at the ceremony

for obvious reasons, so...

I thought we'd celebrate ourselves.

Cheers.

Wow, that's...

...that's really, really something.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

What's the over/under on me

getting home safely?

Well, if you weren't on the list before

you are now.

Is that like, uhm...

Is that like a f... is that like a...

...joke? Or is that actually possible?

No, it's... it's a real thing.

You're associated now.

Okay.

Just to be clear, NSA:

I never met this guy

so take me off you're f*cking list.

I DO NOT want to get stuck in Russia.

I want to go home I want to go home

Now, just for the record.

Just so you know.

We got in touch with the NSA,

the National Security Council,

and the White House.

And we asked them to comment

on the dick-pick capabilities

of each of the programs Edward Snowden

just discussed.

Which -incidentally- were some very fun

emails to write to government agencies.

They didn't wish to comment on the record.

And I can see why

for every possible reason.