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Guten Morgen meine Damen und Herren,

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ich freue mich sehr, dass ich hier bin,

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aber Deutsch ist nicht meine Muttersprache,

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daher werde ich weiter auf englisch sprechen.

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Es ist eine Ehre, hier zu sein.

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So the Chaos Computer Club to me is like family,

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and it is such an honor to be able to speak to everyone here,

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and it ridiculous that they asked me to give the keynote.

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I hope that I am not wasting 3000 collective hours

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of the smartest people of this planet with what I have to say

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in the next 60 minutes.

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I want to start by thanking everyone

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that is in the audience for being here

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and for some specific people,

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I want to call out Laura Poitress, who is this

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woman here, next to the woman with the camera,

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because she produced and edited the videos that we're going to see

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I have been working with her quite a lot

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and she is a very inspirational wonderful artist

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who I love deeply.

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And I'd like to start by playing a video,

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which is part of an art project we're working on,

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where many people are working on,

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and if we could play that first video,

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I think that would be a good way to start this off.

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Fantastic. So, <i>now</i> we have an Idea

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about what my talk will be about, right?

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Just in case that there is any question

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that I was going to change many horses midstream

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this is a location, it's called Bluffdale, Utah.

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And this is one of the largest datacenters

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that we know of the NSA is currently constructing.

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And there is the question of course about what it is they are trying to build,

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why they're building it,

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what exactly they plan to do with the space and

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how they will use the space

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and I am going to talk a bit about this - nice -

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and what I am hoping also to point out is, that this is everyones department.

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So in this case, what we see, is the construction of the actual bluffdale Utah Site.

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So this is the slow process. But there is not anything particular one might object to.

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In this process, it is just construction of a very large building.

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And I am gonna read some adresses now that were passed out

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when Winni, Laura and I did a show at the Withney(sp?):

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2651 Olive Street, St. Louis, Missouri, 63103 United States.

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420 South Grand Los Angeles, California, 90071 United States

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6/11 Folsam Street, San Francisco, California, 94107 United States

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51 Peachtree North-East Atlanta Georgia, 3030 United states

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10 South Cannala Chicago Illinois 60606 United States

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30 East Street South West Washington DC, 20024 United States

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811 10th Ave New York, New York, 10019 United States

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12967 Hollenberg Drive, Richtown

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These addresses are potentially domestic Interception points

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for the NSA in the United States.

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One of them is confirmed accoding to Marc Kline,

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who blew the whistle and discussed the fact

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that the NSA is doing domestic surveillance.

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I and many of the people believe that the purpose of this datacenter is to build

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something to store and process massive interception

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where some of the calculations by bill binnie,

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who was an analyst for the NSA for almost 40 years

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he thinks, that this center will be used to store the information

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for probably somewhere around 100 years.

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And so in theory we might say

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that that's not big deal and we have nothing to worry about.

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I very much want to make sure that we cover in this talk that's going to happen right now

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that this right here is in the back of everyones mind.

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A Datacenter, designed to store things for a 100 years.

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That seems like a reasonable theory for this.

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and if you read the information that is present about it,

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you will in fact see that that seems like it is problably an understatement

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and probably, since there is more than a single facility like this,

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that there is a possibility that the 100 years is just a short version.

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and that's an extremely scary proposition.

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So, part of the reason I want to show you that is

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that I want to lead with that, but I will tell you a quote, which is:

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"nothing strengthens the judgement and quickens the conscience like individual responsibility"

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which is a quote by a feminist known as Elisabeth Stanton.

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This I think is a useful thing when talking about things not being our department.

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Because, what do we have to do with the NSA?

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What do we have to do with this giant datacenter which is being built in bluffdale?

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well, in essence, part of the thing that is so scary,

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that with the internet and with communication systems as they exist today,

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they really isn't a geographical border,

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that really changes what we can and can not care about in the ways that we used to.

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The fact of the matter is that the NSAs interception,

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those interception points, they will carry not only americans data,

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they will carry everyone's data for the internet.

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So, caring about this datacenter is in fact a very serious thing that we need to consider,

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because in fact it does impact everyone.

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But even if we didn't use the internet,

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it impacts the people that we care about in a transitive way.

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So I'm hoping that in the course of the next 15 minutes

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I am able to convice you that these things are your department.

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And I of want to start to talk about what Robin Frankin talked about the last few years.

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Have any one of you seen these talks that they've given

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such like "We Lost the War"-Talk or "How society might collapse"? See a show of hands for that?

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Okay, About half of you.

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I want to say that they talked about this and they said we've know we lost the war,

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the surveillance state war.

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You know, basically, so many people have decided to

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go to the dark side, as it has been called.

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That is working on deep packet inspection, censorship equipment,

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Surveillance equipment, Targeting Information etcetera.

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This is in fact what has happened.

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If you look at the job that pays very well, that people aware of,

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they usually are systems of control types of jobs.

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There are research positions obviously that exists in the world,

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but it pays better to work for Lockheed martin that for a university.

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So people will choose I think for sometimes good reasons

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or for understandable reasons to do these types of tasks

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and sometimes will even moral arguments saying things like

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"because of stuxnet we were able to avoid violence or bombing of a factory".

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Of course the reality is that these things are not used alone,

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they're used together and in concert with bombings of factories.

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So, it's certainly worth mentioning, that these guys,

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Frankin Robb as well as many other people who did not stand up and tell

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the congress about their ideas

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that these people were really on to something.

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And unfortunately, now we actually live in the world

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that they were describing that was coming. And it's an incredibly scary world.

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And in the last few years, I had the misfortune of being targeted

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by a large section of this world. And I can tell you that it's been

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a quite uncomfortable series of days. Just one day after the other

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is the way to take it, or the way to deal with it,

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and this is not a comfortable or easy way to live.

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When Frankin Robb talked about this, they still had some kind of hope in their voice,

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and I think that that was important.

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So I wanted to do was to try to take that hope and to focus on it

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and to try to take it say that and despite the fact that there are these opressive systems

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of control. And despite the fact that we do now live in a surveillance state

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that it may still - I think reasonably so - be possible to resist the surveillance state

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and to turn things around if we wish.

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And I think that there may come a time in which that is not true.

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I don't believe that this time has yet arrived.

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So, Frank wanted me to very much stress this notion that

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we can make this choice about what whe do about our time

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that is this notion of the dark and the light side.

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I personally don't think that this sort of black-and-white, white-hat, black-hat, ethics make any sense

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because I don't define my ethical or moral framework by making comparison black and white 1950 cowboys movies

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and I'd like to say that there's some nuance there.

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But there are some simple things that you can do to decide

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if you are working on something which is oppressive,

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and one of them is to ask yourself if you are working on a system

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that helps to control others or

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if you're working on a system that helps to enable others,

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to have control over their own lives.

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And this is a really simple test.

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If you're working on DPI, that will be deployed on people who do not get a say in it,

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you are probably working for the oppressor.

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It's not guaranteed, because there are many of layers of indirection.

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Bluecoat probably doesn't think of themselves as being a tool in a military dictatorship's toolbox

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but the reality is that when the Assad Gouvernment

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or the Burmis military dictatorship or their eleged free market companies in Bhurma use bluecoat

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which they both do, they have for some time and they will continue to,

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bluecoat is in fact, part of that system of control.

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Now, are they responsible?

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That's a good question. I don't have an answer to that.

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But I do have an answer to wether or not I think they play a role in it.

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And that is that they do.

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What role, that remains to be seen.

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And what I am hopeful about is that some people,

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especially people in this room, have actually made the choice

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that is the opposite of that. They've decided to work

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on systems wthat help enable people to be free.

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When for example we see that Mich Altmann from Noisebridge

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has dedicated his life to teaching people about electronics,

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and to open hardware and free software,

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and we see that he is enabeling people in a positive way.

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and this is something that we as a community I think should really step up

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commending people who do this. Bhanny Hueng (TODO sp?) who builds open hardware,

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he is a hero, when - you can applaud that if you wish -

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[applause]

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the thing is, that I probably can't do it,

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but I wrote list of names of people that inspired me over breakfast one day,

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and it's pretty long, so I'm not gonna read all of it.

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But the same is true for Lady Ada, Christine Corbit(TODO: sp?) and amazing people everywhere

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People who dont have names, who are basically anonymous and

0:11:14.426,0:11:19.898
in their community, but we should look to them, and we should look to them with pride

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and we should look to them with support and mutual aid and solitaridy.

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Because it's not just negative stuff.

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Not everybody in here works for FinFisher.

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And in fact, more people in here work against FinFisher, thanks for that!

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And so, to that end, we can make a choice about what we'd like to do.

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And it is possible to make a living making free software for freedom,

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instead of closed source proprietary malware for cops.

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[applause]

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But there is a cost to that

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so I want to point out something in this next video,

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where I am going to be be silent while it plays unlike the last, and it is a minute long.

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Speaker: Does the NSA routinely intercept american citizen's emails?

0:12:11.937,0:12:12.769
No

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Does the NSA intercept american's cell phone conversations?

0:12:22.830,0:12:24.277
No

0:12:24.531,0:12:25.631
Google Searches?

0:12:25.631,0:12:26.538
No

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Text Messages?

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No

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Amazon.com orders?

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no

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Bank records?

0:12:33.350,0:12:34.246
No

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What judicial consent is required for the NSA to intercept communications and information involving american citizens?

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Within the United States, that would be FBI lead,

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that was a foreign act within the united states, the FBI would still have the lead

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and could work with NSA or other intelligence agencies has authorized.

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But to conduct that kind of collection within the United States you would have to go through a court order,

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and the court would have to authorize it.

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We're not authorized to do it nor do we do it.

0:13:09.506,0:13:13.046
(JA) Well, I think you can all understand the subtext here, which is

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that I am protected and you are not.

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I bet that makes you feel really great.

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So that datacenter we were looking at,

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what he just testified in front of congress about,

0:13:24.090,0:13:26.599
that was General Alexander, he is the most powerful person in the world,

0:13:26.599,0:13:30.408
probably even more powerful than the president of the United States,

0:13:30.408,0:13:32.515
or any leader of any other country.

0:13:32.515,0:13:38.515
He controls the intelligence structure for the entire NSA and he has ties to the rest of the intelligence community as well.

0:13:38.515,0:13:44.557
So what he is basically saying is, that, if there is an american - hypothetically in america - they'd probably be fine.

0:13:44.557,0:13:47.046
Which does't really make me feel good, because

0:13:47.046,0:13:48.948
there are seven billion people on this planet.

0:13:48.948,0:13:53.939
Just a few of them are americans, why should the be treated specially in this regard?

0:13:53.939,0:13:58.409
So that giant datacenter that we see, it's for all of you

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and it's also for me, because despite the fact that I am an american,

0:14:01.757,0:14:08.458
being associated with Wikileaks is like, well, it's not a good time in America.

0:14:08.458,0:14:12.382
So, there is a thing to be said here, which is, that,

0:14:12.382,0:14:14.455
that guy is a fuckin' liar, first of all.

0:14:14.455,0:14:15.939
Because we know for a fact...

0:14:15.939,0:14:22.506
[applause]

0:14:22.506,0:14:24.179
from Marc Kline,

0:14:24.179,0:14:27.882
that the NSA was in fact doing dragnet-surveillance of all of those things.

0:14:27.882,0:14:29.746
So straight up, this guy is a liar.

0:14:29.746,0:14:33.257
But then on top of being a liar, which is bad engough in this context,

0:14:33.257,0:14:39.695
he doesn't even bother to pretend that you have any value at all.

0:14:39.695,0:14:41.362
And that you have rights.

0:14:41.362,0:14:44.723
And that your privacy is important and your human dignity matters,

0:14:44.723,0:14:48.015
becuase of where you happened to be born and

0:14:48.015,0:14:51.017
which flag he images you flying.

0:14:51.017,0:14:52.602
that to me is very depressing and I feel

0:14:52.602,0:14:55.664
like it actually gives the rest of humanity that lives in america a very bad name.

0:14:55.664,0:14:57.458
Anbd so I am very sorry for that.

0:14:57.458,0:15:01.694
But I want to talk about some other things, that tie together with that.

0:15:01.694,0:15:04.391
because when we just think about massive surveillance and isolation,

0:15:04.391,0:15:09.705
we will have quite a problem, quite a series of problems in fact,

0:15:09.705,0:15:13.610
so let's talk about some things that all have commonality with the surveillance state.

0:15:13.610,0:15:20.780
First of all: data retention and retro-active policing which is clearly a human rights violation in Europe.

0:15:20.780,0:15:26.259
It's clearly the case that this type of activity taking place creates suspects out of everyone.

0:15:26.259,0:15:30.950
and being a suspect is to already not be free in my experience.

0:15:30.950,0:15:34.155
And in fact in the 1800s there was a british author who wrote

0:15:34.155,0:15:42.027
"to be free from suspicion is the one of the first freedoms that is important for being free in the rest of your life".

0:15:42.027,0:15:47.437
when you're followed around, when you're being investigated, because of the whim of someone,

0:15:47.437,0:15:50.996
this is the beginning of the end of your freedom.

0:15:50.996,0:16:00.153
So, it seems that data retention is the beginning of the end of many of our freedoms in bulk, and that is a very scary thing. (TODO: TIMING)

0:16:00.153,0:16:00.153
And when people do retro-active policing, when they apply that lack of freedom in a very specific way,

0:16:06.180,0:16:08.216
and when they take these actions,

0:16:08.216,0:16:16.310
<i>they</i> depends, of course, on which state you happen to be in, which fiber optic cables happend to be in use when your bits were crossing it,

0:16:16.310,0:16:20.810
but how does this actually play out?

0:16:20.810,0:16:22.492
It depends, right?

0:16:22.492,0:16:24.294
And it depends in a very specific sense.

0:16:24.294,0:16:28.440
So for example, drone killings, and I am not just talking about Ironware Lockies(TODO sp?) innocent 16-yearold Son in Jemen,

0:16:28.440,0:16:36.426
but drones killings of thousands of people. The targeting information is fed

0:16:36.426,0:16:42.184
to the CIA and to other groups from surveillance listening points

0:16:42.184,0:16:45.898
from intelligence factories. So there is a direct relationship

0:16:45.898,0:16:49.545
between surveillance and support of straight-up murder.

0:16:49.545,0:16:55.629
That is something which sounds scary, what makes it even scarier is the way those

0:16:55.629,0:16:59.928
drone killings are carried out is that the central comittee, who gets to decide who lives and dies

0:16:59.928,0:17:06.452
or obamas assasination star chamber, that central committee which sounds a lot to me

0:17:06.837,0:17:06.837
a lot like some of the soviet redaract I remember from my childhood

0:17:08.617,0:17:14.827
that central comittee decides non-democratically who gets to be assasinated.

0:17:14.827,0:17:17.823
and it is just a hop or two away from surveillance.

0:17:17.823,0:17:21.637
So when you assist a surveillance state you are literally helping to kill fucking children.

0:17:21.637,0:17:26.416
That is something that doesn't help me sleep at night.

0:17:26.416,0:17:29.935
and you can choose not to be part of that; almost every person here has made that choice.

0:17:29.935,0:17:33.105
but if you're on the fence I guess you can guess what I suggest you go.

0:17:34.182,0:17:35.831
But there are some more ties.

0:17:35.831,0:17:39.159
Because let's say drone killing just seem a little bit too far off.

0:17:39.159,0:17:43.929
Right? Well, in Uganda, there has been a proposal for some time now,

0:17:43.929,0:17:48.703
which seems to be almost pushed back, but not quite,

0:17:48.703,0:17:53.270
where they wish to make a death sentence for being a homosexual,

0:17:53.270,0:17:58.001
where aggrevated homosexuality is a crime. I think that is where you continue to flip your wrist.

0:17:58.001,0:18:00.930
I am not quite sure what aggrevated homosexuality means.

0:18:00.930,0:18:07.134
But this basic notion that someone would be forced to report on you or they would also go to prison,

0:18:07.134,0:18:11.852
this is something which surveillance will impact greatly and it will make a huge difference.

0:18:11.852,0:18:16.438
Of course, we can talk about wider things, such as the chinese suppression of the tibetan people,

0:18:16.438,0:18:20.845
we can talk about police backdoors and so-called lawful interception malware

0:18:20.845,0:18:24.742
we can talk about wars on agression in irak and afghanistan,

0:18:24.742,0:18:27.381
the surveillance state touches everything,

0:18:27.381,0:18:29.594
and it is more than that.

0:18:29.594,0:18:33.665
It is the fact that the surveillance state is part of the system of control

0:18:33.665,0:18:39.102
that causes much suffering. It may also bring some good things

0:18:39.272,0:18:40.767
into this world, but with the secrecy,

0:18:40.767,0:18:44.744
the surveillance state becomes totally unaccountable.

0:18:44.744,0:18:48.271
So, we can look in some other things that are quite concerning.

0:18:48.271,0:18:50.650
We can see that there are ties that are not as obvious.

0:18:50.650,0:18:53.605
The military trials of political prisoners in Egypt,

0:18:53.605,0:18:55.937
the genocide of the syrian people right now,

0:18:55.937,0:19:00.144
the british and swedish justice regarding Julian Assange,

0:19:00.144,0:19:03.715
the right-wing nazi-sympathisers here in germany,

0:19:03.715,0:19:06.277
that gave murdering nazis passports and help

0:19:06.277,0:19:09.627
and are still not held to account,

0:19:09.627,0:19:15.273
the oppresioning crackdown on wikileaks related or WL-tainted people,

0:19:15.273,0:19:18.776
companies that sell equipment to brutal dictatorships and authoritarian regimes,

0:19:18.776,0:19:23.974
for both surveillance or censorships, sometimes both

0:19:23.974,0:19:28.159
the reality is that secret police and spying agencies

0:19:28.159,0:19:31.599
actually change our ability to govern ourselves freely.

0:19:31.599,0:19:35.105
And they do it in such a way that it is not obvious,

0:19:35.105,0:19:37.652
and it is seemingly impossible to resist.

0:19:37.652,0:19:41.512
Because these things itself are secret, it becomes extremely difficult for us to know

0:19:41.512,0:19:43.169
where to begin resisting.

0:19:43.169,0:19:47.108
Add it's core, in the United States, where this has gone,

0:19:47.108,0:19:52.403
is that there are secret laws, with secret interpretations, and a total lack of accountability.

0:19:52.403,0:19:57.644
And fundamentally, what these things are, is that they are oppressive, vanguard approaches,

0:19:57.644,0:20:05.493
to authoritanianism, they are insultingly paternalistic and allegedly above the law.

0:20:05.493,0:20:11.158
If you ever had the opportunity to meet the people that work in these intelligence agencies that are still there,

0:20:11.158,0:20:15.877
some of them are quite good, they're fundamentally awesome people.

0:20:15.877,0:20:19.790
But then, when it comes to their job, they're in a pretty terrible place.

0:20:19.790,0:20:22.991
That is if they wish to keep their job they are not really free to dissent.

0:20:22.991,0:20:27.538
If we look at people, for example like Bill Binnie or Thomas Drake, what we see is

0:20:27.538,0:20:30.127
that when you dissent, you'll get crushed.

0:20:30.127,0:20:33.257
Your Family Life will be ruined,

0:20:33.257,0:20:35.906
there are huge costs to telling the truth.

0:20:35.906,0:20:40.021
And there are huge costs to asking for a more just system.

0:20:40.021,0:20:43.030
Bill Binnie actually really blew my mind in a peticular way.

0:20:43.030,0:20:47.018
I thought surely a way working for the NSA for 40 years, we wouldn't have a lot in comon.

0:20:47.018,0:20:54.632
But it turns out, that he said to me that he thought that the spying was actually an immoral things,

0:20:54.632,0:20:58.043
but that maybe during the cold war it was a neccessary evil.

0:20:58.043,0:21:02.107
That is, he thought that maybe they could prevent total atomic warfare.

0:21:02.107,0:21:06.370
And at the same time he recognised that it was not the right thing to spy on people.

0:21:06.370,0:21:08.598
that this should not be the end in itself.

0:21:08.598,0:21:10.891
I was really touched by that, because

0:21:10.891,0:21:13.116
usually it is the case that someone would say

0:21:13.116,0:21:16.836
"except for americans. you can spy on everyone but not on americans."

0:21:16.836,0:21:21.757
And for him the turning point, as i understand it, was that he decided that it was wrong to spy on everybody.

0:21:21.788,0:21:23.882
And when they decided to spy on americans, it was clear

0:21:23.882,0:21:28.413
that they couldn't be trusted to spy even on any single person

0:21:28.413,0:21:32.751
and to do it in a way which would be producing justice.

0:21:32.751,0:21:37.895
That was very surprising for me. It actually made me change my mind about the people who might work for the NSA.

0:21:37.895,0:21:42.833
but then it turns out that he suffered a great deal as a result of having that opinion.

0:21:42.833,0:21:47.203
So maybe it doesn't change my mind that much about the people who are still there.

0:21:47.434,0:21:55.037
But, fundamentally, human rights, in theory, should be something that we can work for collectively as a human race.

0:21:55.037,0:21:56.642
As a group of people.

0:21:56.642,0:21:59.006
And yet it doesn't really seem that is, what is happening.

0:21:59.006,0:22:00.840
There is a lot of rhetoric about it.

0:22:00.840,0:22:03.130
But when you kill hundreds of thousands of people it is very difficult

0:22:03.130,0:22:08.507
to talk about the benefits of technologies in a way that doesn't seem like grouping.

0:22:08.507,0:22:17.159
So, it happens that we develop these psychological defenses to it, so

0:22:17.159,0:22:20.507
half of the people I that i have met and discussed this with,

0:22:20.507,0:22:23.528
when this is the first time they considered the surveillance state,

0:22:23.528,0:22:29.238
they talk about it in terms of their initial reaction where they've put it in five minuts of thought, and they say

0:22:29.238,0:22:30.830
"well, it doesn't concern me".

0:22:30.830,0:22:35.217
Or "it won't impact me. In fact the only people who are getting it,

0:22:35.217,0:22:36.592
are people who deserve it."

0:22:36.592,0:22:38.711
you know they are under a legitimate investigation."

0:22:39.742,0:22:42.479
not actually sure, what a legitimate investigation is,

0:22:42.479,0:22:46.882
when you can't hold people to account when there are secret laws, the rule

0:22:46.882,0:22:53.113
by-law and the rule of-law is not the same thing. Rule-by-drecree doesn't mean it is just, simply because it is written down,

0:22:53.113,0:22:56.172
especially if the interpretation is secret.

0:22:56.172,0:23:00.944
So, After people recognise - maybe - that it may impact them,

0:23:00.944,0:23:03.571
there is a fantastic set of things that takes place,

0:23:03.571,0:23:07.101
and one of them is that people will try to minimize their role in it,

0:23:07.101,0:23:12.502
saying lines like "well, it won't be possible to sort me out or find me in this massive data set"

0:23:12.502,0:23:15.125
or "even if I do stand down, nothing will happen to me".

0:23:15.125,0:23:19.066
And then, eventually, if they happen to be as unlucky as I have been in the last few years,

0:23:19.066,0:23:25.149
they'll say something along the lines of "well, the system works and no injustice will occur, because this state is benign."

0:23:25.442,0:23:30.803
There are not many people who I met who have gotten to that stage who actually continue to think that for that long.

0:23:30.803,0:23:34.757
it might be worth considering that perhaps we have to get to that point,

0:23:34.757,0:23:41.688
to recognize that there is great foldey in that set of thougts and plan to thinking that.

0:23:41.688,0:23:44.788
It might be the case that the surveillance state that exists

0:23:44.788,0:23:50.006
in fact is negative even if we do not yet understand fully its negative effects.

0:23:50.006,0:23:54.232
So, you see this also as social defense in groups,

0:23:54.232,0:23:58.625
as a reaction, I think probably the split between wikileaks and openleaks is the greatest

0:23:58.625,0:24:04.783
example of the fact that groups, even effective groups, will split and then have bad blood

0:24:04.783,0:24:11.030
and then in fact they will deliver utter failure, and it is very sad, tragic even,

0:24:11.030,0:24:14.225
and this kind of stuff is something which, even trying to resist,

0:24:14.225,0:24:17.364
that we aren't quite aware how these types of things happen.

0:24:17.364,0:24:21.085
History shows us certain ways how these kinds of splits might occur.

0:24:21.085,0:24:25.324
But it isn't the case that we fully groked this historical lessons

0:24:25.324,0:24:31.803
so it is quite sad that we focus so much of our energy on degrading things,

0:24:31.803,0:24:35.522
like something does a great thing and someone sais "Ah yes, but this one thing"

0:24:35.522,0:24:38.625
and the discussion becomes about this one thing.

0:24:38.625,0:24:41.523
I think in fact it might make sense to focus on the good things

0:24:41.523,0:24:46.788
as well, it is true that sometimes people produce free hardware but it has one binary BLOB

0:24:46.788,0:24:49.564
that does not mean that we should not thank this person and give him credit,

0:24:50.084,0:24:56.283
in fact to really praise them for putting so much effort to make everything as open as possible

0:24:56.283,0:25:02.376
and it's too bad one thing is not open, but maybe we could put in some effort to open up and free that one thing.

0:25:02.376,0:25:10.495
It is basically the same statement, but the way it is stated allows us to think of it in being in it together.

0:25:10.495,0:25:16.026
And it helps to keep people together, and it helps to keep people motivated to work together in fact.

0:25:16.026,0:25:20.749
I think, it is a useful idea, to try to take this tact.

0:25:20.749,0:25:27.285
We also have these psyhcological defenses about the physical world, which I personally have experienced quite a lot.

0:25:27.285,0:25:31.659
For example, that notion that warrants are required to enter your house.

0:25:31.659,0:25:36.522
Your physical location is somehow protected is a very quite notion I certainly don't believe that anymore.

0:25:36.522,0:25:39.449
it is a little sad, but it doesn't seem to be the case.

0:25:39.449,0:25:42.295
In the United States, there is a thing called the Patriot Act,

0:25:42.295,0:25:45.867
and section 2.15 of the Patriot act essentially sais

0:25:45.867,0:25:49.545
"Something" and it's interpreted completely differently.

0:25:49.545,0:25:53.590
that is there is a secret interpretation of section 2.15 of the Patriot Act,

0:25:53.590,0:25:58.572
and if you ask Bill Binnie about this, what he would say is that everything is fair game.

0:25:58.572,0:26:03.215
That is to say, regardless what you thought, the constitution said

0:26:03.215,0:26:07.012
(regardless what you think the united nations declaration of human right sais)

0:26:07.012,0:26:09.321
that's not what is really going on.

0:26:09.321,0:26:13.125
And so, this defense that the people have, they're journalist, they're protected,

0:26:13.125,0:26:16.357
no one will do anything to them, it's nonsense.

0:26:16.357,0:26:21.065
every journalist in the United States that is subject to the warrantless wiretapping's tentacles,

0:26:21.065,0:26:24.350
is being surveilled, regardless of the journalistic protections.

0:26:24.350,0:26:29.538
Every member of congress, everybody in this room, probably especially everyone in this room.

0:26:31.123,0:26:34.820
And of course people will say "You know, don't cross the border with anything".

0:26:34.820,0:26:38.976
That's so stupid, so for example, when I cross the border with a telephone,

0:26:38.976,0:26:43.464
I am actually not allowed to tell you what happened to my telephones. And obviously,

0:26:43.464,0:26:45.720
it was a mistake to cross the border with a telephone,

0:26:45.720,0:26:50.461
it wasn't so much of a mistake, because the telephone connects to the telephone system,

0:26:50.461,0:26:54.692
and every phone number in that phone had been used to make or receive calls,

0:26:54.692,0:26:58.481
so it's not like the data wasn't already in the hands of the oppressor.

0:26:58.481,0:27:01.559
It was in fact the case that it was just slightly better indexed.

0:27:03.036,0:27:05.312
But it also had some extra numbers in there, just for fun.

0:27:07.004,0:27:09.470
I mean, if you're going to have a surveillance state,

0:27:09.470,0:27:12.209
that is going to get people for guilt for association,

0:27:12.209,0:27:15.615
you might want to make sure that there are a few jerks in your phonebook, right?

0:27:22.121,0:27:26.474
But the reality is, well, I can cross the border without anything of consequence

0:27:26.536,0:27:31.537
that is, me deciding to become subdued, and it is me, deciding to except the oppression.

0:27:31.571,0:27:34.015
And everyone here can make that choice,

0:27:34.015,0:27:36.384
But I say "Fuck that! That is not a choice we should make!"

0:27:36.384,0:27:40.483
That's in fact a coping mechanism, and these kinds of coping mechanisms

0:27:40.483,0:27:45.665
are a responsive a lack of agency, a response of total helplessness.

0:27:45.665,0:27:49.746
For example, people run throigh their mind, "How will I eat, How will I feed my children"

0:27:49.746,0:27:53.301
"How will I educate them if I don't play along, if I don't comply?"

0:27:53.301,0:27:55.032
They'll make my life hell".

0:27:55.032,0:27:58.232
Part of the problem here, and it is funny to say it here in Europe,

0:27:58.232,0:27:59.875
becuase it has a much different context,

0:27:59.875,0:28:01.985
part of the problem here is the state.

0:28:01.985,0:28:06.213
When the state has the power make you make those kinds of thoughts appear in your head,

0:28:06.213,0:28:10.981
and it allows you to create that, and make those choices, we become less free.

0:28:12.735,0:28:17.632
So, maybe, recognizing those coping mechanisms and trying to progress to the next one,

0:28:17.632,0:28:20.724
trying to progress to the next thought could be helpful.

0:28:20.724,0:28:21.967
I think that it is helpful.

0:28:21.967,0:28:26.550
For me, and what I have tried to do is that I have tried to recognize that

0:28:26.550,0:28:29.721
I am trying to cope with a situation that is impossible to cope with at times.

0:28:29.721,0:28:36.154
there is really nothing quite going your night like feeling an entire State is stepping on your throat.

0:28:36.893,0:28:39.801
It is not even great at talking about on parties.

0:28:39.801,0:28:42.642
I mean, there is not really much that is good about it.

0:28:42.642,0:28:48.401
But, there is some good that can come of it. And that is to show other people that it is not total.

0:28:48.401,0:28:52.679
That it does not nearly end in tears. I mean, It might, but it doiesn't every single day.

0:28:52.679,0:28:55.097
You have to choose how this goes.

0:28:55.097,0:28:58.115
I had the oppoertunity to meet the Dalai Lama in India,

0:28:58.115,0:29:01.868
about two weeks ago, and to me, the tibetan people who had escaped from tibet

0:29:01.868,0:29:06.241
under the opperssive chinese rule, people who had been shot, their stomachs ripped out,

0:29:06.241,0:29:12.059
there skull cracked open, their teeth knocked out, their families jailed, you name it, they experienced it.

0:29:12.059,0:29:17.391
And I realized, I had no problems. By comparison especially, but I recognized something:

0:29:17.391,0:29:23.092
these are the friendlies, niciest people you can imagine. I mean, it is really quite a touching thing,

0:29:23.092,0:29:28.405
despite the fact, that about a hundred years ago they were a brutal theocracy, they certainly have learned since then.

0:29:28.405,0:29:33.331
And it is the case, that we can decide how it is we cope with these things.

0:29:33.331,0:29:39.323
We can become increasingly cold and atomized, we can become destroyed, we can undermine our communities,

0:29:39.323,0:29:45.139
we can work against our own interests in the long run or we can try to find joy in the life we have,

0:29:45.139,0:29:51.421
and we can try to have a better world than the one we have just come from, that we have experienced.

0:29:51.421,0:29:57.830
When I look at Bill Binny and Thomas Drake and Justelin Radcliife and john Quircue(sp?),

0:29:57.830,9:59:59.000
who are some amazing whislteblowers in the United States

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and three of them are in fact in the audience here and have a talk later that you should attend.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
That is the best, I think, at the congress.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
And I'm including this talk.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
These guys and Jessalyn are amazing, and I recommend that you hear their story.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Because they will be able to tell you about what it is like

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
to stand up for the right things.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
And to do it in the most straightforward way possible, exactly by the book:

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
they basically took a decade working through the system itself,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
only to find out that the system itself isn't working to take care

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
of the problems it is supposed to take care of.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
So this is a guy who, in my opinion, went through every possible hoop that I wouldn't even have bothered to jump through.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
But he proved to me that I wouldn't bother for a good reason.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
I mean, it does not work out well.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
And there is something to be said about this, but their story,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
I can't do justice by talking about it.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Just the same way that I can't do justice for the story of Bradley Manning.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
I can't do justice to the story of Julian and what he is facing right now.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
But what I can say about these things is if you compare and contrast them with Robert Bales,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
the alleged Kandahar massacre-er, I guess you could say, is that when you things in service of the state,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
even if it is killing, allegedly, twenty Afghanis, they will whisk you away, give you time for your family to move and

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
instead of in the case of Binny having a gun to his head while he's taking a shower.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
They just make sure to take him to the general population of Leavenworth right away.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Compare that with Manning, for example, who instead spent, you know, months in being tortured in Quantico

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
before moving to the general population of Leavenworth.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
So there's something to be said about these kinds of examples that have come before.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
And I think what it is, is that there are people who will have a very hard path when they choose this path.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
It is worth choosing that harder path.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Bill and Thomas and Jessalyn have worked very hard on trying to show the world that in fact

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
it is not completely worth giving up on.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
But it is not an easy task to go through.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
I was talking with Thomas about what the impact has been on his family. It is clear to me that the state intended for that hardship as one of their tactics.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
But the return is that it used to be that people would think that me or someone up here talking about the surveillance state, talking about the Utah Data Center that we were completely fucking crazy.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
But now that's not the point, no one thinks that anymore. Now we understand that the NSA's warrantless wiretapping program is real.

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We understand that the data center is there to spy on all of us.

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We are no longer wheeling from that fact, we are no longer denying it. That is the reality.

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It is because of the things that they have done that that is the case.

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It's because of the bravery that they have had in their hearts and the sufferance they have endured.

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And the point is not to make it a pitty-party for them and the point is not to say that anonymity is not important.

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It is simply that anonymity in itself is not enough. It takes more than that.

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Anonymity will buy you time but it will not buy everyone else justice.

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It certainly won't even buy them justice and it wouldn't have helped them anyway because in the long run

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it's easy with a total surveillance state to try to deanonymize people.

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In fact I think it would be quite easy to deanonymize almost anyone in a total surveillance state.

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Because our behavioural patterns would give us up, our writing will give us up.

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In theory the things that I've said are not probably new to anyone here.

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And you often hear that as a tactic for dismissal:

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well, it's nothing new, it's nothing special there.

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And I hear that and I'd like to raise you a please stop [missing] talking.

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Because it is true that some of these things are not new.

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But the reality is that we need to actually do something about it, regardless of how long we've known that it is wrong.

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So there are things that we can in fact do. And it is worth mentioning that this is not just happening to people that are whistleblowers or associated with the most dangerous people on the internet or anonymity or something like that.

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This happens to regular people.

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And I will tell you briefly for about two minutes an example of this.

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It's a very personal example which I sort of have debating about whether or not I was going to mention.

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And I think I'll mention it, just because I think that it is important.

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In the United States, probably not surprising to the most people here, I have a mother. And my mother... I know, I know.

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But my mother and I are not particularly close and unfortunately for her, she's quite mentally ill.

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And it's a very sad story and her life is quite tragic. More tragic than any person that I've mentioned so far.

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But what is most tragic about her is that in the last two years, about the time that my harrassment from the United States government started but probably not related, she was arrested and jailed.

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And the state broke basically every law that you can imagine in arresting her, including breaking into her house without a warrant for arrest or for search.

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Despite the fact that she was arrested under totally bogus circumstances and despite the fact that her life has been utterly destroyed, where her house has been taken and her property has been taken from her.

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And she has literally nothing left.

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She was forcibly committed to a mental institution.

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And as a result they decided that they can hold her for three years without a trial.

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Now being mentally ill is not in itself a crime but because she was arrested for something else that is allegedly a crime, this means that they can keep her until she's competent(?).

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Thus, effectively criminalizing insanity. Which is too bad, she is legitimately mentally ill and could use help.

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But the way that they decided to help her was by destroying her life such that when she gets off on the charges that she faces, she'll have nothing to return to.

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So these are the effects of a totalitarian society that goes after Bill Binny, Thomas Drake, Jessalyn Radcliffe, Bradley Manning, Julian Assange and myself.

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And she told me and though she is quite insane it's difficult to know if it is true that she was interrogated twice about me and WikiLeaks.

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Once before she was being treated and then once after she had been forcibly injected with anti-psychotic medicines.

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Now, that's a pretty upsetting thing to say the least.

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But the most upsetting part is I don't know if it's her crazy ramblings because she is quite crazy or if it's true.

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But the important part is that if we just take it as it seems, which that this is a person which has fallen on hard times.

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What we can take from this is that this is everybody's problem.

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I mean it's also technically my problem but the important part here is to recognize that she is what is happening to everyday regular people in American society.

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And that's a really upsetting reality, to have that happen.

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So, what can we do about these things?

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Right? I mean, if you're still not convinced that this is what happens to regular people and that you will skate(?) by just fine, I don't know what I could say really to convince you.

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But I suppose I could say to look to the children who have been killed by drones who were also innocent, and see what kind of justice that they have.

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But it seems to me that rather we have to fight against things.

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But we have to do more than just fighting against them.

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Because merely fighting against things becomes corrosive.

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And my mother's situation, fighting against her unjust imprisonment, the same for Bradley Manning, the same for Assange, the same for all the people that have been unjustly harrassed or worse,

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that burns you out and it destroys your life.

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And it destroys your ability to feel hope, to have fun, to be able to relax.

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I can't even remember the last time that I did not go to sleep wondering if I would wake up with a gun in my mouth when living in the United States.

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Because that's the kind of world that we live in now.

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And maybe you're lucky and you don't live in that world.

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But the reality is that lots of people do live in that world.

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And whether or not they deserve it, there's something to be said about people who are not arrested who have to worry about that kind of stuff.

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Maybe that's not the world we want to live in.

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So, what if instead we tried to not just fight against things but to build alternatives.

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And specifically to try to build sustainable alternatives.

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And to come to terms with the fact that we are losing our democracies around the world.

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And that we are losing our agency.

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We are increasingly depressed about the kind of democratic oversight that we have.

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And feeling like we don't have representation in our respective parliaments and congresses.