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 curttail those programs.

Yes. Some controversial provisions within

the Patriot Act are 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 eye-deficiency.

They're incredible.

But the contentst 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

"any tangible things"

including: books, records, documents,

and other items.

If that sounds broad, that'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 the 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 Pfizer-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 greatly

mis-characterized the activities

of her needle-point club.

"It's a sleeper-cell!

Isn't is, Aunt Cheryl?"

"You are hanged for this, Aungt Cheryl.

You're a traiter 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 peoples 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've 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 newscaster just tacked it

onto the end of a report

about a Presidential trip abroad.

Chip Reemes. CBS-news is travelling

with the President in Dovell, France.

Also in France, by the way,

President Obama signed in

the 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 young 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.

Have you've ever been to the Bahamas,

the NSA could've recorded your phone-calls

and stored them 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.

Because the only place where it should

be that easy for employees in their 20-ies

to steal, is a Lids store.

"Dude, you sure we 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 is consistently trying

to re-assure people that he put them

in good hands.

Honestly, I don't want to be the person

making the decisions about what should

be public and what shouldn't.

Which is why I, rather than publishing

these on my own or putting them openly,

I'm putting 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 it,

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 Sha-Mu's happy anymore.

When we now know,

at least have 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 they're

'not very concerned', of '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 picutre

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 that the information that he shared

was detrimental to our military secrets?

And keeping our soldiers

and our country safe?

He leaked documents what the Army's

operations in Iraq.

Edward Snowden revealed a bunch

of secrets, I guess, or information

into Wiki, Wikileaks?

Edward Snowden leaked...

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 by him.

Partly because he was far less careful

than Snowden with what he released,

and how.

And partly because he resembles

a sandwich-bag full of biscuits while

wearing a Stevie Knicks-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.

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 Pfizer-court,

which, must approve requests for

foreign surveillance.

But.

In 34 years, that court has approved

some 35000 applications,

and only rejected 12.

Yes. Much like Robert Durst's second wife.

The Pfizer-court is alarmingly accepting.

"Listen, Robert, I'm not gonna

ask you too many questions.

I'm just gonna give you the benefit of the

doubts 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, so maybe there'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 one

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 Carrol 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

tail 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

phone-records program has disrupted is 1.

And it's worth noting that that 1 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 coalmine.

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, let me interrupt you.

Let me interrupt you just for one moment.

We've got some breaking news out of Miami.

Stand by if you will.

Right now in Miami, Justin Beiber

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 Beiber news,

for a new interruption.

This time featuring a YouTube video of a

tortoise having sex with a plastic clog.

Let's watch.

That. Is essentially the current tone

of this vitally important debate.

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 unconvinsing

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.

You think 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.

Okay, it turns out that there may be

a bit of a problem.

'Cause our Russian producer...

booked us in a room

directly overlooking...

the old KGB-building.

And the home of the current

Federal Security Bureau.

And I'm just been told that 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.

HOLY SHIT.

He actually came.

Edward f*cking Snowden.

The most famous here 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 geogro...

Well that's already

a way too complicated answer.

The right 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?

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've got a gun pointed at your head,

I'm not going to pull the trigger.

Trust me.

So, what does the NSA you want look like?

'Cause 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 when they're off the leash...

they can end up coming after us.

But just be clear,

there are 2 different things here.

Domestic surveillance,

and foreign surveillance.