WEBVTT

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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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But back in 2002,

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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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But the truth is,

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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.