All language subtitles for Killswirch2014Eng

[Music]

we explore and you call us criminals

we seek after knowledge and you call us

criminals we exist without skin color

without nationality without religious

bias and you call us criminals you build

atomic bombs you wage wars you murder

the cheap lie to us and try to make us

believe it's fair own good

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get where the criminals yes I'm a

criminal my crime is that of curiosity

my crime is that of judging people by

what they say and think not by what they

look like my crime is that about

smarting you something that you'll never

forgive before

I'm a hacker and this is my manifesto

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they may stop this individual but you

can't stop us all that is a powerful

piece of writing because it is so

fundamentally revolutionary and I really

like the part in there where he says my

real crime is that about smarting you

and that's what they really hate me

that's why they really hate Aaron

Schwartz right because he's too fucking

smart

Edie Snowden another great example too

fucking smart

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information is the new gold it's the new

oil

it's like diamonds it's worth trillions

of dollars if you control that trail

wealthy control power you don't even

have to be an info tech company you

could be an oil company for example you

want to control information about

climate change and induce the belief in

people that climate change science is a

fraud because if you can control that

information you could save yourselves

you know billions and trillions of

dollars in regulation let's say this

we've been here before

every new media goes through a similar

cycle where at the beginning it's

decentralized it's open he's very

culturally dynamic all kinds of things

are going on well chaotic unpredictable

invariably this is true in film through

the telephone industry radio industry

begins to consolidate and centralize and

in some ways that feels like a very good

development at the time but then only

later do we realize what we've lost

the Internet has a chance to be a

platform that enables an extraordinary

amount of innovation and creativity and

democratic organization in a way that

we've not seen for more than a hundred

years increasingly we want to have our

own blog we want to tweet about the

candidates and engage in arguments about

the positions and go out and organize

our own meetups around political action

and that's because the technology has

encouraged us once again to become

owners in the political process

we need to recognize that freedom here

is embedded in the technology and we

have to protect the technology if we

want to be protecting this freedom it

all starts with my mother buying us

computer and we're like nine years old

and we were like this thing is cool we

like it we can do what we want with it

we controlled lessor by pointing to

these images on the screen with this

unique item called a mouse fast-forward

I work in Silicon Valley at first bubble

and I saw the way things were going and

it kind of made me nervous so I got into

it I wrote a paper I don't know I had no

idea what would happen I didn't really

think it would become a movement to try

to save the there's sort of been a

movement of sort of trying to save the

Internet I didn't self-consciously think

about being part of that

I just thought something should be done

so I spent the last four years looking

at the history of the American

Information industries and what you see

is a powerful tendency for information

industries to give birth to powerful

monopolies and you have to be very

careful to see that Verizon AT&T Comcast

don't end up being essentially the

gatekeepers of the Internet that's

extremely important there is a abundant

opportunity when you run a company that

controls information to control the

minds of people in the nation I kind of

thought the Internet is this incredible

experiment in building a network that

anyone could be on and it seemed pretty

clear to me even at that point first

comp boom that there were a lot of

forces that were interested in reversing

the nature of the network kind of

turning it upside down and making it

essentially a commercial project

channels of speech being open and some

basic Commons for speaking are essential

to democracy and when that becomes

merely a function of money the Republic

is threatened it is the thing that the

revolutionaries realized immediately

it's one of the reason they had the

was of the danger of too much influence

on money in politics and we still

haven't solved the problem

I got my start in virtual worlds so I

had a virtual newspaper that covered

events inside of the Sims online and

some of the stories like just made me

really unpopular with the game company

so I had like one story about these

teenage boys that were role-playing as

cyber prostitutes and they ran a cyber

brothel and they were cyber incurring C

which they then sold on eBay and the day

after that story came out I got kicked

out of kicked out of The Sims Online and

and then that went viral of course cuz

how could it not so they knew it from

from a blog that was run by academics

that study virtual worlds to salon.com

to the New York Times front page and

then eventually of course The Daily Show

my name is lawrence lessig and i'm a

professor of law at Harvard University

and I direct the Edmond J Safra Center

for Ethics Harvard University the work

of the Center has been focused on what

we call institutional corruption which

is you can think of it as legal

corruption rather than illegal

corruption so influences that undermine

the effectiveness of an institution so

think about the way Congress funds its

elections private funds fund public

elections there's nothing illegal about

that indeed it's constitutionally

protected but it leads most people to

believe money buys results in Congress

and thereby weaken public trust of

Congress and also many people believe it

blocks the ability of Congress to

address fundamental important issues in

a way that the people would actually

want it was opposed to a tiny slice of

the populace that directs and controls

elections I think as a nation Americans

are slightly insensitive to the problem

of the influence of money on speech and

so I do therefore think it is the job of

government or of the public either can

be fine to reserve at least some speech

areas where it's not all about money

the internet was invented to be that

place in some ways it still is but the

question is whether it can stay that

place it's critical that the network

continue to empower people to act free

of government and corporate control to

organize for whatever political end they

want to organize to that's the internet

that's its architecture its end end

peer-to-peer architecture is that design

so the only chance we have in overcoming

what I think of as this core corruption

of our government is through the

internet it's the only way now that's

not to say that we're likely to win you

know I'm not sure what the odds are and

I'm I'm not confident the odds are good

but whatever the odds are the odds are

zero if we lose the basic structure of

an ad so the internet is a battleground

in this

right so it's not like the Internet's

gonna liberate us or it's not like the

Internet's going to imprison us we're

fighting over the Internet

so there's not a time for Republicans

and Democrats though to be sniping at

each other to me we can all be unified

in our politics in this particular point

we need to find out what the fuck is

going on because it's going on sort of

behind the curtain you got to pull that

curtain aside and understand what's

going on because we can all agree on

this thing the game is rigged let's find

out exactly how its rigged and to get to

the bottom of it

a hacker to me is somebody that takes

traditional technologies and then mixes

them up it gives them a new purpose and

an activist is of course someone who's

like a political activist so a

hacktivist is someone who takes

technology repurposes it and uses it for

some social or political cause what we

saw in the air of a spring were of

people taking these technologies like

Twitter and using them in ways that

nobody expected them maybe use I mean no

one thought oh my god Twitter what a

great idea for a revolution people just

said this is this is a tool I can use so

they they took it and ran with it but

you said you can't stop people from

using it for political activism or

something oh yes you can the Computer

Fraud and Abuse Act was written in 1985

shortly after the movie wargames came

right and people thought wow someone

could start World War 3 by dialing in a

300 baud modem from their Apple 2 or

whatever he had

first of all let's talk about the

Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and how

easy it is to violate it it says you

can't use a computer for purposes that

were unintended and the holder Justice

Department has interpreted that to mean

if you violate the Terms of Service

Agreement for a computer program you're

in violation of the Computer Fraud and

Abuse Act I'm talking about the little

thing where you have to check the box

before you can use the software right it

says check this box to say that you

agree to the Terms of Service which you

never read none of us do but you check

the box because you want to use the

software well in the fine print are

thousands and thousands of things that

sort of could put you in violation of

the Terms of Service example Seventeen

magazine if you were to use Seventeen

magazine and you agree to the Terms of

Service you are agreeing that you are at

least 18 years old so if you're 17 years

old and you are reading Seventeen

magazine online you are a felon OkCupid

match.com you have to click one of these

things before you use their service and

on there it says that you agree that

you're not gonna lie about anything you

say so if you lie about like your size

or whatever on match.com or OkCupid you

are a felon so the question is if

everyone's a felon then who do we

prosecute and that's why this is

dangerous because it means a prosecutor

can pick and choose so they know they

can get you they know you're in

violation of the CFAA

so all they have to do is decide who's a

threat to the system and that's the

person they go after age 14 he was

blowing people away in Silicon Valley

with what he could go books are such

important artifacts there that kind of

repositories of knowledge in our culture

because for everything there's someone

who cares a great deal about it and

that's what television that's what radio

doesn't provide but the internet does I

first met him at conferences his parents

which chaperoned him as a 12 or 13 year

old to attend these computer conferences

I invited him to be the core architect

of created Commons I got to watch him

grow up

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it was the first experience of being a

father at the age of 14 he helped

co.design the RSS protocol 15 he was the

core architect for the technical

infrastructure for creative commons 19

he began infogami which eventually

merged with reddit and from the age of

20 he worked in a series of incredible

projects what we try and do is we try

and organize people like this the

internet really provides this chance to

realize that you can accomplish

something so Aaron was a hacker what

this hacking is is the use of technical

knowledge to advance a public good we

need to celebrate the activity of

hacking

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whether you're going after the

government whether you're releasing

documents that they have tried to keep

secret whether you're telling a reporter

about you know malfeasance that's gone

on the government can't stop any of that

in 2008 he helped liberate a database

called pacer which is where all the US

Court filings are Aaron arranged to put

1.5 million dollars worth of american

court filings into recap which everybody

thought was awesome except for the FBI

who opened a file on him they they

staked him out they brought him in for

questioning without his lawyer the next

thing he did that made headlines was

getting involved with a thing called

JSTOR every time someone has written

down a scientific paper it's been

scanned and digitized and put in these

collections that is a legacy that has

been brought to us by the history of

people doing interesting work the

history of scientists it's a legacy that

should belong to us as a Commons as a

people once I realized that there were

real serious problems fundamental

problems that I could do something to

address there was really no going back

by virtue of being students at a major

u.s. University you have access to a

wide variety of scholarly journals

pretty much every major university in

the United States pays these sort of

licensing fees to organizations like

JSTOR and Thomson and ISI to get access

to scholarly journals and these

licensing fees are substantial and

they're so substantial that people who

are studying in India they're locked out

from our entire scientific legacy

but you have a key to those gates and

with a little bit of shell script magic

you can get those journal articles once

you have a copy theoretically you could

make it available to everyone in the

same way that people did civil

disobedience broke the rules for the

civil rights movement it's actually a

serious problem that the vast majority

of the planet doesn't have access to our

accumulated scientific knowledge and I

think it might be worth breaking a

couple rules to solve that problem

the Federal Communications Commission

has adopted new rules on network

neutrality the new guidelines are

designed to limit the control that

corporations such as Google and Verizon

wield over the content that consumers

see on the web

joining me now is the inventor of the

term net neutrality Tim Wu he is a

professor at Columbia University pleased

to have him here at this table for the

first time the net neutrality vote means

what what that means is it's illegal for

a carrier company let's say Verizon to

block let's say Hulu or or being a site

it doesn't like yeah the carriers have

to carry all the websites that's the

basic idea of net neutrality and was

there a real threat that they would do

that what history shows is over time

eventually what was once the young

exciting new media becomes increasingly

consolidated increasingly closed

dominated by a monopolist or an

oligopoly there's a important lesson in

the history of communications which is

that in fact government likes monopolies

because they can be used to serve

political ends now Western Union came

perilously close to that example you had

a monopolist over the instant moving of

information that is the only way to get

information from A to B instantly is one

company and that one company happens to

think the Republican parties should be

in government forever so it gives an

enormous advantage to all the Republican

candidates those situations are some of

the most dangerous to the democratic

system

and it's no coincidence there's other

reasons too but the fact is you had

Republican administrations from Lincoln

onwards all the way to Woodrow Wilson in

part on the back of the telegraph system

that may seem like a 19th century

problem I think you see some of the same

problems today it was clear that the

Bush administration liked the increasing

concentration of AT&T for national

security reasons it is in our national

interest and it's legal it's in our

national interest as we want to know

who's calling who from overseas into

America we need to know in order to

protect the people in fact it's often

been the case that the national security

parts of the government want there to be

a single company in charge of

information either so they can defend

against a threat or more dangerously so

they can spy on citizens so say that

again the government's tend to like

information monopolies because if they

can have some control or some influence

over that information monopoly it

increases their power that is the danger

it's not simply a danger of higher

prices or pad service it is a much more

fundamental danger to the nature of

republican government itself because if

you have an information monopolist who

is essentially complicit with government

acting hand-in-hand it comes very close

to a fascist system of government

[Music]

you once claimed that you have an

ability to face unpleasant facts is that

what you've demonstrated in 1984 by

drawing an accurate portrait of the

future this is the direction the world

is going in at the present time the

moral to be drawn from this dangerous

nightmare situation is a simple one

don't let it happen I grew up with the

understanding that the world I lived in

was one where people enjoy a sort of

freedom to communicate with them on each

other in privacy without a being monitor

without it being measured or analyzed or

or sort of judged by these these shadowy

figures your system

[Music]

I I joined the intelligence community

when I was very young

sort of the the government as a whole I

enlisted in the army shortly after the

invasion of Iraq and I believed in the

goodness of what we were doing I

believed in the nobility of our

intentions to free oppressed people

overseas

there'll be smoke on the water on the

land and the sea when our army and navy

overtakes the energy

there'll be smoke on the mountains where

the ether god state and the Sun that is

rising will go down

[Music]

but over time I increasingly was exposed

to true information that had not been

propagandized in the media

we were actually involved in misleading

the public DNS a specifically targets

the communications of everyone it

ingests some by default companies like

Google Facebook Apple Microsoft they all

provide the NSA direct access to all of

the systems you use to communicate to

store data to put things in the cloud I

I think that's a dangerous capability

for anybody to have people say if I if I

have nothing to hide what's the worry

I'd rather have security so I'd rather

have the NSA spying on everyone first of

all it's clear that the NSA by doing the

spying program is not providing any

extra security in fact it might be

undermining security because if you

gather too much information you don't

know what information is valuable and

what isn't

so I would rather have the NSA out there

spying on terrorists instead of you and

me because if our information is there

it's just cluttering up their desk and

prohibiting them from getting the

information that they need now you might

say oh well big data their computer

programs solve all that that's bullshit

and I'm in a position to know unless you

prepare your data correctly which is a

very meticulous process data mining is

not effective so the NSA can talk about

making us safe but it's not doing that

and we need to sit and think about the

very real possibility that it's making

us less safe control that gets erected

for one reason and maybe a good reason

gets deployed and exercised for a

different reason and not necessarily a

good reason so you know you build the

machine to deal with the terrorists you

then have a machine in place to deal

with the copyright infringers

and not just he quote pirates but now

the people who remix without permission

and so you begin to build the

infrastructure of control into the core

of the internet and it begins to be

dialed towards every new problem that

you describe now again I'm not an

anarchist I think the law needs to

regulate certain kinds of behavior but

we need to be sensitive to the way in

which we build an infrastructure for

control that gives the government wildly

too much power to regulate in context

where Liberty or innovation is

threatened

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we begin tonight with new developments

in the case of Aaron Swartz in a recent

closed-door hearing regarding the

computer fraud prosecution of the

internet activist it was revealed by a

Justice Department representative that

Swartz was indeed targeted because of

his politics

back in 2008 Swartz and others laid out

their views in a piece called the

guerilla open access manifesto the

manifesto according to the Justice

Department demonstrated his intent and

downloading content on a large scale he

became a target a political target okay

and that's why all these things happen

to him there is no reasonable cause

behind going after a young genius like

that in the fashion they did it's

political

[Music]

you

I was at an event and I was talking and

I got introduced to a US senator and I

asked him why despite being such a

progressive despite giving a speech in

favor of civil liberties why he was

supporting a bill that would censor the

Internet and you know that typical

politician smile he had suddenly faded

from his face and his eyes started

burning this fiery red and he started

shouting at me said those people on the

Internet

they think they can get away with

anything they think they can just put

anything up there and there's nothing we

can do to stop them they put up

everything well we're gonna show them

there's got to be laws on the internet

it's got to be under control everyone

says they want to shut down these

foreign criminals who are stealing

American jobs these two bills are

designed to do that they've been worked

out for months

it was Chris Dodds first chance to

demonstrate how powerful a lobbyist he

was going to be Chris Dodd Democratic

senator from Connecticut when he retired

promised his citizens from Connecticut

he would not become a lobbyist and then

turned around and became the head of the

Motion Picture Association of America

the most powerful lobbying arm for the

content industry in Washington and he

could command a very high price as the

chief of the MPAA because people

believed he had the ability to deliver

on the goods and the goods here meant

being able to get laws passed through

Congress so he succeeded before the

fight blew up on the internet and

getting the commitment of all the key

senators necessary to get this through

the Senate and the same kind of support

in the house and it was going to be his

victory lap why content donors wanted it

was a simple efficient way for them to

get sites taken down now look there are

plenty of pirate sites out there and I

don't support piracy I'm not in favor of

people taking other people's content and

sharing it illegally but you know you

can agree with the objective to deal

with quote piracy and still not agree

that we ought to give to the content

owners basically an automatic right to

go to a court and get the government to

order her a website off of the internet

which is basically what this was it was

the ability to get some domain name

removed from the DNS or an IP address

blocked and forcing people to comply

with these blocking orders in a

procedure that didn't give any basic due

process to the people who are being

challenged I think SOPA is the best

evidence that they just have not learned

yet and they're still waging this ever

more vicious war on the idea that

somehow they're gonna bomb our kids into

compliance all they're gonna do like

every war of prohibition is to bomb our

kids into radicalism and and they can't

afford the radicalism of the next

generation

[Applause]

you sit down and you take some of these

music and you mix it with your video you

share with your friends that's the sort

of activity we should be celebrating not

regulating everything is this process of

pulling things together and recombining

them what's worrying about these sort of

copyright police is that they want to

prevent recombination they want to have

the law come in and say recombination

isn't legal Congress was going to break

the internet and I just didn't care and

to those who say that that a bill to

stop online theft will break the

Internet I like to point out that that

it's not likely to happen

hey there's anyone on these committees

charged with regulating the Internet

understand how any of this internet

stuff works I'm not a nerd I am NOT a

nerd I'm just not enough of a nerd maybe

we ought to ask some nerds what this

thing really does let's have a hearing

bring in the Nerds

really

nerds you know I think actually the word

you're looking for is experts there was

just something about watching those

clueless members of Congress debate the

bill watching them insist they could

regulate the internet and a bunch of

nerds couldn't possibly stop them The

Pirate Bay is a notorious pirates site

why don't you refuse to D index the site

in your search results those hearings

scared a lot of people they saw this

wasn't the attitude of a thoughtful

government trying to resolve trade-offs

in order to best represent its citizens

more like the attitude of a tyrant and

said the citizens fought back this is a

movement that started organically on the

internet by American citizens the main

thing I think is interesting about

something was the strength of the

reaction and it wasn't simply the people

in DC who care about these issues but it

was tech people engineer people young

people all kinds of people said you know

I kind of like the Internet the way it

is and I just don't think Hollywood's

plan is gonna make things better

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everyone was thinking of ways they could

help often really clever ingenious ways

then these pirates come and they steal

all our internets

I mean infographics they started packs

they design ads they bought billboards

they wrote news stories that held

meetings everybody saw it is their

responsibility to help they threw

themselves into it they didn't stop to

ask anyone for permission

at least 7,000 websites are going dark

tonight at midnight including one of the

most heavily trafficked sites on earth

Wikipedia and what looks to be the

biggest online protest ever conducted

and of course when the fights on the

internet exploded and people started

being outraged and start organizing so

effectively across businesses and

non-commercial sector and I think here

Wikipedia was the most important

contributor because their motives could

not be questioned they're not playing a

game to get bigger profits they're just

protecting their opportunity to provide

important free information on the

Internet and when push came to shove you

know millions of people summoned by

Wikipedia turn out to be more powerful

than Chris Dodd and he was furious top

lobbyist for Hollywood exclusively told

Fox his industry is threatening to cut

off money to the president don't make

the false assumption this year that

because we did it nears past we're gonna

do it this year this industry is

watching very carefully who's gonna

stand up for them when their job is at

stake then it was like this blatant

display of quid pro quo kind of threat

okay fine you're not gonna support our

SOPA PIPA don't come to us for a

campaign money now on the one hand

everybody in Washington knows that's the

way things work but on the other hand to

be so blatant about it was really quite

outrageous and and stupid because after

he said that what Senator could afford

to change his vote if you do it's

obviously you're doing it in response to

the threat from the MPAA which

demonstrates the power of the MPAA to

force you to do something you are those

who wouldn't do it

it's a moment where the industry wakes

up to recognize that they actually don't

control the field that that you know

when the giant was sleeping they could

get all sorts of things through but the

giant has woken up and every time we can

frame these issues in a way that plugs

into these this interest of the Internet

which is this interesting libertarian

and liberal alliance the Internet is

going to wake up Senate support has

fallen apart now Majority Leader Harry

Reid has scrapped Tuesday's vote in the

house similar bills same political

problems and the speaker is urging

committee leaders to just war

this out the people rose up and they

caused a sea change in Washington not

the press which refused to cover the

story just coincidentally their parent

companies all happen to be lobbying for

the bill it was really stopped by the

people they killed the bill dead said

dead that it's kind of hard to believe

this story hard to remember how close it

all came to actually passing but it

wasn't a dream or a nightmare it was all

very real and it will happen again sure

it will have yet another name and maybe

a different excuse but make no mistake

the enemies of the freedom to connect

have not disappeared the fire in those

politicians eyes hasn't been put out

they had an agenda that is about more

control over the internet and they made

a strategic decision to say who are we

going to take out to send a strong

message and I was the one

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mr. Kham has been shown of the warmth of

the proper knowledge the mega case

against megaupload is still at a

standstill prosecution says it cannot

gather enough evidence against

megaupload founder Kim calm in a time in

the matter because there's simply too

much on the servers this comes after a

local court ruled that the confiscation

of his fortune was illegal now new

zealand won't extradite kim until the

evidence against him is fully accounted

for so what's gonna happen to the 50

million user accounts data that was shut

down with a takedown of megaupload and

what does this mean for copyright battle

and internet freedoms at large aaron

swartz founder and executive director of

demand progress joins me now do you

think that this is just the content

industry having the government do their

bidding for them I mean this did happen

days after SOPA was knocked down yeah I

mean there's no question of the content

industry is behind all of this and it's

ridiculous that the government is doing

debate it's all a game to them really

and we are all the little puppets that

they think they can kick around so we

need to organize their needs meet who

needs to be a movement that identifies

these things and fights that not with

shutting down websites but with real

protest going out on the streets writing

to politicians and especially most

importantly don't vote for the guys that

are against Internet freedom I'm not

Aaron Schwarz and Schwartz's my hero he

was selfless he is completely the

opposite of me but I mean he stopped

SOPA Aaron was able to mobilize the

internet through reddit and other places

and he shut it down now

we say wow what a hero Aaron that's

tremendous but you think now how many

billions of dollars were lost by

multinational corporations because of

that okay and how many more billions of

dollars are gonna be lost when the next

one comes along you know when TPP comes

along you need to shut this kid up and

you need to shut he

down right and you need to do whatever

it takes to do that

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I was in Mexico I was giving a I just

finished giving a talk and I got a call

from his friend that's when I learned I

went onto the internet to see if anybody

had noticed and had this thought well

what if nobody notices and then finally

fell asleep at about 2:00 in the morning

and I had to get up to catch a plane at

5:00 when I got up I looked on the net

and and it just began to explode and I

furiously typed a blog post and then

race to the airport then a flight from

Mexico to someplace where I landed some

prison in Texas I think I had written

another very angry long blog post about

and prosecutor his bully was the title

which I posted but I landed and um you

know I think was that thing I've written

it was been read by the most people ever

I mean it was just became the kind of

defining frame for what had happened

yeah our government

our kids

there's a profound sense of loss tonight

in Highland Park Aaron Swartz

as loved ones say goodbye to one of the

Internet's brightest lights he hadn't

told me what was going on when we first

started eating oh I knew that was that

there was something bad happening in his

life and that I was a good distraction

from it yeah Aaron was depressed he was

rationally depressed you know he was

losing everything the whole thing was so

hard and so stressful

he carried so much of the weight of it

on his own he didn't want to involve any

of his friends I don't have patience for

people who want to say oh this was just

a crazy person just was justice to

person with a psychological problem this

was somebody who was pushed to the edge

by what I think of as a kind of bullying

by our government all of us think there

are thousand things we could have done a

thousand things we could have done and

we have to do because Aaron Swartz is

now an icon an ideal he's what we will

be fighting for all of us for the rest

of our lives

when we turn armed agents of the law on

citizens trying to increase access to

knowledge we've broken the rule of law

we've desecrated the temple of Justice

Aaron Swartz was not a criminal when the

US attorney told Aaron he had to plead

guilty to 13 felonies for attempting to

propagate knowledge before she'd even

consider a deal that was an abuse of

power a misuse of the criminal justice

system that was a crime against justice

[Applause]

that doesn't change it never changes yes

it's always there so you know he came to

me and it was December 2006 he was in

Berlin for the Chaos Computer Conference

and I was in Berlin for the year so he

came to visit of me we talked for the

afternoon and evening and we talked

about the issues I was working on

copyright issues and the internet issues

network neutrality was one of the issues

and he he just you know he said to me

why do you expect that your Africa to

win on these issues so long as there is

this corrupt system of government and I

said to him my well you know it's not my

expertise it's not my field and he said

I get that as a professor but as a

citizen how are you gonna win and you

know it is that Aaron type question

because it's implicitly suggesting you

have a role it's your job you know it's

not a debate about that it's just now

that we know it's your job then what are

you going to take to to carry through on

your work and that was very powerful

with me

[Music]

breaking news US intelligence agencies

have been secretly operating a broad

data mining program that collected email

photos and just about everything else

from private communications from most

Americans as according to the Washington

Post and The Guardian The Post says a

Microsoft Yahoo Google Facebook AOL

Skype YouTube and Apple were all

involved well joining me now is reported

Glenn Greenwald tell me briefly what the

latest developments what this program

enables the National Security Agency to

do is to reach directly into the servers

of the largest Internet companies in the

world things that virtually every human

being in the in in the Western world now

uses to communicate with one another and

take whatever it is that they want

without any checks of any kind there's

no courts looking over their shoulder to

see what they're taking and they don't

even have the check that they have to go

to the Internet companies have asked for

it any longer they've been given or have

taken direct access into the pipes where

all of these conversations take place

and can suck up whatever it is that they

want at any given moment

I don't want to live in a world where

everything that I say everything I do

everyone I talk to every expression of

creativity or love or friendship is

recorded that's not something I'm

willing to support it's not something

I'm willing to build and it's not

something I'm willing to live under it

well I'm deeply suspicious obviously

because he went to China

that's not a place where you ordinarily

want to go if you're interested in

freedom it's sad Brian we've made

treason cool I mean we need to get very

very serious about treason you bring

back the death penalty any analyst at

any time to target anyone any selector

anywhere I sitting my desk certainly had

the authorities to to wiretap anyone

from you or your accountant to a federal

judge to even the president if I had a

personal email prism is about content

it's a program through which the

government could compel corporate

America it could sort of deputized

corporate America to do its dirty work

for the NSA the NSA's own slides refer

to it as direct access but the bottom

line is when we talk about how this

information is is given it's coming from

the companies themselves

you imagine a partnership with Facebook

in the federal government the Facebook

could do a lot that would be like

intelligence work they know a lot about

us and so this is the problem of overly

concentrated private power is it becomes

an instrument of government action you

don't have to have done anything wrong

you simply have to eventually fall under

suspicion from somebody even by a wrong

call and then they can use the system to

go back in time and scrutinize every

decision you've ever made I think he's a

traitor

every friend you've ever discussed

something with he's a traitor

and paint anyone in the context of a

wrongdoer no I don't think mr. Snowden

was a patriot I think what we have in

Edward Snowden is just a narcissistic

young man he is not a patriot he is not

a hero

it is literally not figuratively

literally gut-wrenching to see this

happen because of the huge grave damage

that does to our intelligence

capabilities if I had just wanted to

harm the US you know that you could shut

down the the surveillance system in an

afternoon you do not dispute that Edward

Snowden has broken the law do you know I

think he's very clear about the fact

that he did it because his conscience

compelled him to do so just like Daniel

Ellsberg did 50 years ago when he

released the Pentagon Papers and also

admits that he broke the law I think the

question though is how can he be charged

with espionage he didn't work for a

foreign government he could have sold

this information for millions of dollars

and enriched himself he didn't do any of

that either he stepped forward and as we

want people to do in a democracy as a

government official learned of

wrongdoing and exposed it so we could

have a democratic debate about the

spying system do we really want to put

people like that in prison for life when

all they're doing is telling us as

citizens what our political officials

are doing in the dark

Edward Snowden the man who told the

world about the federal government

sweeping top-secret domestic spying

program is on the move as we speak this

morning if they want to get you they'll

get you in time but at the same time you

have to make a determination about what

it is that's important to you

officials in Hong Kong say Snowden who's

been charged with espionage by the US

government boarded a plane overnight he

will soon land in Russia and this

morning the group WikiLeaks claims to be

helping Snowden get away it's been a

stunning turn of events yesterday and

was still a man wanted on charges of

espionage suddenly out of the country

managing to board flight from Hong Kong

so - we believe Russia there was no way

to arrest him according to the Hong Kong

authorities and quote no legal basis to

restrict mr. Snowden from leaving Hong

Kong so is there any pressure the United

States can bring to bear on the Russians

with whom we already have an icy

relationship to stop him from carrying

out this itinerary we're running this

down right now but apparently though

there's nothing the United States can do

as long as Snowden remains in that

Airport if he lands in Moscow in transit

to Cuba apparently he's booked on a 2:00

p.m. flight tomorrow to Cuba and some

reports he would then go on as you said

to Venezuela

people are wondering how was this man

able to outmaneuver the u.s. the top spy

agency in the world not once but now

twice if we can't even look at it it's

the big question he was accessing all of

this information from Booz Allen in

Hawaii and the alarm bells didn't go off

in a way that he could be stopped before

he slipped out of the country into Hong

Kong and now on his way to Moscow

mr. Snowden has indeed arrived in Moscow

it was completely unexpected I have not

called President Putin personally and

the reason is because I shouldn't have

to know I'm not gonna be scrambling jets

to get a twenty nine-year-old we cannot

get a correct education Evo Morales

Bolivia's leader was forced to spend the

night in Vienna after his plane was

rerouted Bolivian officials say it all

stemmed from a rumor that Snowden had

hitched a ride from Russia on the

president's Jed Edward Snowden we are

told has now walked free and actually

crossed the immigration zone and entered

Russia officially he saw that if he just

continued to let things happen as they

were happening this policy would go on

and checked and he was gonna have to go

against his supervisors he was gonna

have to break organizational protocol

and he did it because he could not

participate in a system that was doing

something evil when I really came to

struggle with these issues I thought to

myself how can I do this in the most

responsible way that maximizes the

public benefit while minimizing the

risks

out of going to Congress when there was

no laws there were no legal protections

for a private employee a contractor

intelligence-led myself there was there

was a risk that I would be buried along

with the information and the public

would never find out but the First

Amendment of the United States

Constitution guarantees us free press

for a ruse and that's to enable an

adversarial press to challenge the

government to have a dialogue and debate

about how we can inform the public about

matters of vital importance without

putting our national security of this

the whole way to think about security in

the big data world is different you know

we used to have government surveillance

that was episodic first physical

invasions episodically you know the

police would break into your house and

would search for something and then

virtual invasions that were episodic

they would tap your phone but because of

his episodic the legal system was pretty

good at handling it because every time

you wanted to intervene the question was

did you have enough evidence to justify

that breach of somebody's privacy but

the architecture of information now is

persistent surveillance

there's always surveillance constant

data gathered in every single point and

in that world the issue isn't so much

whether there's surveillance the issue

is what are the restrictions on how you

use the data you have collected and how

do we have confidence in those

restrictions or confidence that those

restrictions are being respected and

that's gonna require a different way of

thinking about protection and it's not

it's completely obvious that we're

nowhere close to working that that part

out

to see officials testifying under oath

that there have been no abuses that

there have been no violations of the

NSA's rules when we knew this story was

coming does the NSA collect any type of

data at all on millions or hundreds of

millions of Americans no sir it does not

not wittingly the NSA lied about the

existence of this tool so I responded in

what I thought was the most truthful or

least untruthful manner by saying no mr.

clapper lied in Congress in defiance of

the law in the name of security mr.

Snowden told the truth in the name of

privacy mr. Snowden hasn't lied to

anyone he did break his oath of office

but part of his oath of office is to the

Constitution after all of this are you

were as amazed as I am that with all of

this dragnet somehow the Boston Marathon

bomber got through that Tamerlan

tsarnaev who had plenty of indicators

that he may be up to no good on the

internet and elsewhere got through this

dragnet the more information they

collect about innocent Americans the

less able they are to actually prevent

terrorist attacks because at some point

it becomes counterproductive they have

so much information that they don't even

know what they have anymore and they

can't put it together remember that the

9/11 Commission made clear that the

United States government had in its

possession enough evidence to have

alerted it to the existence of the 9/11

attack and simply never in its words

connected the dots the problem was never

that they weren't collecting enough

information the problem is that they

just don't know what they have and the

more they become obsessed with sweeping

up billions of conversational data

points every day and expanding that

hundred net surveillance net the less

able they're going to be to achieve what

the extensible purpose of this program

is which is to stop things like the

Boston Marathon killing which they

utterly fail to do

people always ask me is Ed Snowden a

hero or a traitor the real question is

it's what he did right or wrong forget

about what I use a hero it shouldn't

even be considered heroic it should be

considered his duty he has a duty to

uphold the Constitution of the United

States he has a duty to fellow citizens

to see that they're not enslaved and

they're not become part of like a 1984

dystopia I don't consider him a hero

I just consider him as a guy who on that

day did what he was supposed to do good

for him for that you know for the same

reason I'm not gonna call Aaron Schwartz

a hero I'm gonna say he did what he

ought to do they're different forces in

these two fields you know Aaron was in

the minefield of copyright and pressure

to be extreme in the minefield of

copyright comes in my view from the

extraordinary influence that these

industries have especially on the

Democratic Party so you know as much as

Obama tried to set himself up as the

Internet presidents is the person who

understood the free culture movements

got the openness and the necessity for

information to flow freely from the very

beginning his administration was totally

aligned with the most extreme copyright

positions

so they were not going to show any mercy

in a case which implicated copyright but

in the Edward Snowden context it's a

different kind of monster that's driving

it it's this in our national security

fight of a war on terror like monster

and Obama has a very strong desire to

appear as tough as he possibly can

especially to the military and so here

too we are not we will not show any

mercy

we'll be as tough as we possibly can

it's very easy to scare the public as

particularly when it's something like

the Internet cyber security some kind of

danger that people don't really

understand very well and I think a

responsible approach does not secure the

public of it to be honest about the

threat most of what the internet

connects to is not what we would call

critical infrastructure let's say my

webpage or something terrorist wants to

take over my webpage they're welcome to

it I mean not really but I'm just saying

that you know it's not going to cause a

danger

the Internet's decentralized nature has

been an incredible buttress against

cyber threats and it's one of the reason

you haven't seen all kinds of terrible

things happen

there are many many truth threats to us

in this world from fracking

environmental damage thousands of people

dying from pollutants and thousands

millions you have over 50,000 people a

year dying from work-related illness

right if you add in the number of people

that die and workplace accidents that's

what I'm fifty-four thousand people a

year dying because of workplace

accidents or illness now

if you break that down to like how many

per day or how many per hour basically

what you're getting is is the equivalent

of a Boston Marathon bombing every half

hour of every day of every week of every

year

so here's the optic you've got this

situation in the Boston Marathon bombing

where a number of people died in the

explosion and it was a terrible thing

and you know we went in and we like

seized houses and we caught these people

etc but then meanwhile two days later a

fertilizer plant blows up in Texas

killing more people and in the beginning

we're like oh my god what if it's

terrorism and then we find out well it's

probably an accident then no one cares

well no one cares but it doesn't it

doesn't matter if it's like terrorists

did it or corporate malfeasance did it

people are still just as dead or take

West Virginia there's this huge leak of

toxic chemicals and 300,000 people are

left without water okay poison the water

of 300,000 people now what if terrorists

had done that we would be freaking out

but because it was a corporation that

did it through its malfeasance and an

aptitude no one cares so what's going on

the problem is that we're fearing the

wrong things we're not fearing the

things that we ought to or forget about

fear we're just obsessed with the wrong

things you've seen incredible rise of

crony capitalists in the United States

government which is corrupting the

government and corrupting capitalism

it's again the sense of business and

government needs to be in bed together

and and benefit each other business

benefits government not in the old

criminal way they don't bribe people but

by providing the necessary thing that

congressmen need to survive money and in

that relationship we once again are

having this stagnated economic

development because economies that are

in bed with governments or economies

that are about protecting themselves not

about competition so we need a similar

progressive movement in fact I believe

there's such a thing as successful

social movements to save something that

people care about I'll give you a couple

examples downtown New York

there was a plan in the 50s to make all

of downtown New York freeways they were

like West Village Soho

you know old buildings who needs them

well what we need to do is just you know

the new freeways I mean these the plans

are crazy Robert Moses plans but they

say if you had a plan now to try and

plow over the West Village or Soho it

would not happen similarly I think with

the national parks we've had a

successful movement there was a time in

this country where people didn't think

about this is worth saving when they

thought about nature they thought well

how do we make money and if we don't

make money who cares this conception

that the environment was something you

would save just if you'd said that they

people wouldn't know what you're talking

about it doesn't make any sense it

really took a change in consciousness to

have an awareness of the importance of

the environment and it's the same way

people felt when you talk about net

neutrality for the first time just like

well what do you mean the structure of

the network I don't get it you know it's

just wires and so forth and so I think

today we're going through a same kind of

consciousness shift with respect to how

information is controlled in society

that we underwent with the environmental

movement in the 20th century

[Music]

through the 60s there were all these

really great shifts in consciousness we

had a shift in consciousness about race

we had a shift in consciousness about

women's rights

I mean dramatic very dramatic we had a

shift in consciousness about the

environment these things come in waves

of about every 50 years or so the last

one we had was in the 60s

sort of peaking around 67 68 well

basically the whole world kind of had a

raising of consciousness as it were and

you get these and stir like 1917 if you

go back it's about a cycle of every 50

years you know 1848 1776 and I suspect

that were just in the beginning stages

of this this is my friend Aaron Swartz

Aaron came to me with a question and he

said so how are you ever gonna solve the

problems you're talking about copyright

policy internet policy how are you going

to ever address those problems so long

as there is this fundamental corruption

in the way our government works he was

saying to me you've got to get a clue

because there is a flaw at the core of

the operating system of this democracy I

loved I loved that boy like I love my

son but we failed him

and I love my country and I'm not gonna

fail that I'm not gonna fail that that

sense of hope we're gonna hold and we're

gonna fight for however impossible this

battle looks so maybe ideals of one boy

unites one nation behind one critical

idea that we are one people we are the

people who were promised a government a

government that was promised to be

dependent upon the people alone the

people may you join this movement not

because this is your field but because

if you are you are a citizen Aaron asked

me that now I've asked you

we all want to help one another human

beings are like that we want to live by

each other's happiness not by each

other's misery

this world is room for everyone and the

good earth is rich and can provide for

everyone

the way of life can be free and

beautiful but we have lost the way greed

has poisoned men's souls has barricaded

the world with hate has goose-stepped us

into misery and bloodshed

we have developed speed but we have shut

ourselves in machinery that gives

abundance has left us in want our

knowledge has made us cynical our

cleverness hard and unkind we think too

much and feel too little more than

machinery we need humanity more than

cleverness we need kindness and

gentleness without these qualities life

will be violent

nor will be lost the aeroplane and the

radio have brought us closer together

the very nature of these inventions

cries out for the goodness in men cries

out for universal brotherhood for the

unity of us all even now my voice is

reaching millions throughout the world

millions of despairing men women and

children victims of a system that makes

men torture and imprison innocent people

if those who can hear me I say do not

despair the misery that is now upon us

is but the passing of greed the

bitterness of men who fear the way of

human progress the hate of men will pass

and dictators die and the power they

took from the people will return to the

people and so long as men die Liberty

will never perish soldiers don't give

yourselves to brutes men who despise you

enslave you who regiment your lives tell

you what to do what to think of what to

feel who drill you diet you treat you

like cattle use you as cannon fodder

don't give yourselves to these unnatural

men machine men with machine minds and

machine hearts you are not machines you

are not cattle you are men you have the

love of humanity in your hearts

you don't hate only the unloved hate

the unloved and the unnatural soldiers

don't fight for slavery fight for

liberty in the seventeenth chapter of

st. Luke it is written the kingdom of

God is within man not one man nor a

group of men but in all men in you you

the people have the power the power to

create machines the power to create

happiness you the people have the power

to make this life free and beautiful

then in the name of democracy let us use

that power let us fight for a new world

a decent world that will give men a

chance to work that will give you the

future and old age security by the

promise of these things brutes have

risen to power but they lie they do not

fulfill their promise they never will

now let us fight to fulfill that promise

let us fight to free the world to do

away with national barriers to do away

with greed with hate and intolerance let

us fight for a world of reason a world

where science and progress will lead to

all men's happiness

soldiers in the name of democracy let us

all unite

America is a fundamentally good country

we have good people with good values who

want to do the right thing what the

structures of power that exist are

working to their own ends the greatest

fear that I have regarding the outcome

for America of these disclosures is that

nothing will change they they won't be

willing to take the risks necessary to

stand up and fight to change things and

not a fatalist I think that the future

is actually in our hands

you know the people of the United States

can say we like information to be a

little more disaggregated a little more

random a little more possible to get

anything you want as opposed to what's

being fed to you and if we like that

system we can defend it the fight has to

be to protect the architecture of the

internet to embed and secure the values

that we care about well we have a lot of

strategies for doing that I write little

articles in the New York Times you make

documentaries other people make

documentaries we talk to our friends

we're gonna go to a bar and talk about

it later we're gonna call our parents so

we're going to tell them about it

right and we're gonna need leaders we're

gonna need another Aaron Schwartz we're

gonna need lots of Aaron Schwartz's to

get this to work right but then here's

the final point if it's really true that

you're not doing anything to scare the

power structure it is really true that

you're not doing anything to make the

power structure nervous and so why

should you care why the fuck aren't you

doing something why are you living like

a slave letting these people control the

wealth consolidate wealth

poison your water poison your air treat

you like shit treat your parents like

shit why are you letting that happen

so if you tell me you have nothing to

worry about then I want to say shame on

you because you should have something to

worry about you should be out there

doing something to change this system

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you