1 00:00:10,174 --> 00:00:43,600 *Applause* 2 00:00:43,600 --> 00:00:47,566 Frank Rieger: So, that was your applause, Glenn. 3 00:00:47,566 --> 00:00:52,470 Welcome for the keynote for the 30th Communication Congress in Hamburg. 4 00:00:52,470 --> 00:00:54,830 The floor is yours. 5 00:00:54,830 --> 00:00:56,982 Glenn Greenwald: Thank you, thank you very much. 6 00:00:56,982 --> 00:01:02,693 And thank you to everybody for that warm welcome and thank you as well to the congress organizers 7 00:01:02,693 --> 00:01:05,541 for inviting me to speak. 8 00:01:05,541 --> 00:01:09,848 My reaction when I learned that I had been asked to deliver the keynote to this conference 9 00:01:09,848 --> 00:01:13,732 was probably similar to the one that some of you had, which was: 10 00:01:13,732 --> 00:01:19,382 "Wait, what?" *laughter from audience* And, you know 11 00:01:19,382 --> 00:01:27,648 the reason is that my cryptographic and hacker skills are not exactly world renowned. 12 00:01:27,648 --> 00:01:33,215 The story has been told many times, how I almost lost 13 00:01:33,215 --> 00:01:38,326 the biggest national security story in the last decade, at least 14 00:01:38,326 --> 00:01:47,198 because I found the installation of PGP to be insurmountably annoying and difficult. - 15 00:01:47,198 --> 00:01:55,878 *applause, Greenwald laughs* 16 00:01:55,878 --> 00:01:59,782 And there is another story that's very similar that illustrates the same point 17 00:01:59,782 --> 00:02:02,414 that I actually don't think has been told before, which is: 18 00:02:02,414 --> 00:02:08,110 Prior to my going to Hong Kong I spent many hours with both Laura Poitras and Edward Snowden 19 00:02:08,110 --> 00:02:15,310 trying to get up to speed on the basics of security technology that I would need in order to report on this story, 20 00:02:15,310 --> 00:02:21,118 and they tried to tutor me in all sorts of programs and finally concluded that the only one 21 00:02:21,118 --> 00:02:25,186 at least at that time, for that moment, that I could handle was TrueCrypt. 22 00:02:25,186 --> 00:02:30,647 And they taught me the basics of TrueCrypt and I went to Hong Kong and 23 00:02:30,647 --> 00:02:34,119 before I would go to sleep at night, I would play around with TrueCrypt 24 00:02:34,119 --> 00:02:42,380 and I kind of taught myself a couple of functions that they hadn't even taught me and really had all this sort of confidence 25 00:02:42,380 --> 00:02:45,789 and on the third or fourth day I went over to meet both of them and 26 00:02:45,789 --> 00:02:51,719 I was beaming with pride and I showed them all the new things that I had taught myself how to do on TrueCrypt 27 00:02:51,719 --> 00:02:56,854 and I pronounced myself this "cryptographic master" that I was really becoming advanced, 28 00:02:56,854 --> 00:03:03,718 and I looked at both of them and I didn't see any return pride coming my way. 29 00:03:03,718 --> 00:03:10,790 Actually what I saw was them trying very hard to avoid rolling their eyes out of their head at me to one another. 30 00:03:10,790 --> 00:03:16,943 And I said: "Why are you reacting that way? Why isn't that a great accomplishment?" 31 00:03:16,943 --> 00:03:23,421 And they sort of let some moments go by and no-one wanted to break it to me and finally Snowden piped in and said: 32 00:03:23,421 --> 00:03:29,884 "TrueCrypt is really meant for your little kid brother to be able to master, it's not all that impressive." 33 00:03:29,884 --> 00:03:36,174 And *chuckles* I remember being very deflated and kind of going back to the drawing board. 34 00:03:36,174 --> 00:03:38,854 Well... You know, that was six months ago. 35 00:03:38,854 --> 00:03:47,414 And in the interim, the importance of security technology and privacy technology has become 36 00:03:47,414 --> 00:03:51,654 really central to everything it is that I do. I really have learned 37 00:03:51,654 --> 00:03:55,413 an enormous amount about both its importance and how it functions. 38 00:03:55,413 --> 00:04:00,990 And I'm far from the only one. I think one of the most significant outcomes of the last six months, 39 00:04:00,990 --> 00:04:07,852 but one of the most underdiscussed, is how many people now appreciate 40 00:04:07,852 --> 00:04:13,774 the importance of protecting the security of their communications. 41 00:04:13,774 --> 00:04:17,390 If you go and look at my inbox from July, 42 00:04:17,390 --> 00:04:23,630 probably three to five percent of the emails I received were composed of PGP code. 43 00:04:23,630 --> 00:04:29,790 That percentage is definitely above 50 percent today and probably well above 50 percent. 44 00:04:29,790 --> 00:04:35,780 When we talked about forming our new media company, we barely spent any time on the question, 45 00:04:35,780 --> 00:04:40,808 it was simply assumed that we were all going to use the most sophisticated encryption that was available 46 00:04:40,808 --> 00:04:46,239 to communicate with one another, and I think most encouragingly, whenever I'm contacted 47 00:04:46,239 --> 00:04:51,790 by anyone in journalism or activism or any related fields, 48 00:04:51,790 --> 00:04:59,286 they either use encryption or are embarrassed and ashamed that they don't, and apologize to me for the fact that they don't 49 00:04:59,286 --> 00:05:05,160 and vow that they're soon going to. And it's really a remarkable sea-change even from the middle of last year 50 00:05:05,160 --> 00:05:08,870 when I would talk to some of the leading national security journalists in the world 51 00:05:08,870 --> 00:05:11,111 who were working on some of the most sensitive information 52 00:05:11,111 --> 00:05:15,380 and virtually none of them even knew what PGP or OTR, or any other 53 00:05:15,380 --> 00:05:20,878 of the leading privacy technologies were, let alone how to use them. 54 00:05:20,878 --> 00:05:27,910 And it's really encouraging to see this technology spreading so pervasively. And I think that this 55 00:05:27,910 --> 00:05:34,263 underscores an extremely important point and one that gives me great cause for optimism. 56 00:05:34,263 --> 00:05:41,620 I'm often asked whether I think that the stories that we've been learning over the last six months, and the reporting 57 00:05:41,620 --> 00:05:44,726 and the debates that have arisen will actually change anything and impose any real limits 58 00:05:44,726 --> 00:05:48,222 on the US surveillance state. 59 00:05:48,222 --> 00:05:52,936 And typically when people think the answer to that question is "yes", the thing that they cite most commonly 60 00:05:52,936 --> 00:05:56,534 is probably the least significant, which is that there's going to be some kind of debate 61 00:05:56,534 --> 00:06:01,383 and our representatives and democratic government are going to respond to our debate 62 00:06:01,383 --> 00:06:04,753 and they're going to impose limits with legislative reform, 63 00:06:04,753 --> 00:06:07,342 none of that is likely to happen. The US government and its allies 64 00:06:07,342 --> 00:06:11,102 are not going to voluntarily restrict their own surveillance powers 65 00:06:11,102 --> 00:06:14,422 in any meaningful way. In fact the tactic of the US government 66 00:06:14,422 --> 00:06:19,310 that we see over and over, that we've seen historically, is to do the very opposite, which is 67 00:06:19,310 --> 00:06:25,359 when they get caught doing something that brings them disrepute and causes scandal and concern, 68 00:06:25,359 --> 00:06:32,478 they're very adept at pretending to reform themselves through symbolic gestures, 69 00:06:32,478 --> 00:06:38,278 while at the same time doing very little other than placating citizen anger and often increasing 70 00:06:38,278 --> 00:06:41,926 their own powers that created the scandal in the first place. 71 00:06:41,926 --> 00:06:46,358 We saw that in the mid-1970s when there was serious concern and alarm 72 00:06:46,358 --> 00:06:48,958 in the United States - at least as much there is now if not more so - 73 00:06:48,958 --> 00:06:53,934 over the US government surveillance capabilities and abuse. 74 00:06:53,934 --> 00:06:55,854 And what the US government did in response is they said: 75 00:06:55,854 --> 00:07:02,655 ‘Well we're going to engage in all these reforms that will safeguard these powers. 76 00:07:02,655 --> 00:07:08,622 We're gonna create a special court that the government needs to go to get permission before they can target people with surveillance." 77 00:07:08,622 --> 00:07:12,814 And that sounded great, but then they created the court in the most warped way possible. 78 00:07:12,814 --> 00:07:18,621 It's a secret court where only the government gets to show up, where only the most pro-national security judges are appointed, 79 00:07:18,621 --> 00:07:24,950 and so this court gave the appearance of oversight when in reality it's the most grotesque rubber-stamp 80 00:07:24,950 --> 00:07:29,271 that is known to the western world. They almost never disapprove of anything. 81 00:07:29,271 --> 00:07:32,280 It simply created the appearance that there is judicial oversight. 82 00:07:32,280 --> 00:07:36,701 They also said we are gonna create congressional committees, the intelligence committees 83 00:07:36,701 --> 00:07:42,549 that are gonna have as their main function overseeing the intelligence committees and making certain that they no longer 84 00:07:42,549 --> 00:07:48,662 abuse their power, and what they did instead was immediately install the most servile loyalists 85 00:07:48,662 --> 00:07:53,134 of the intelligence committees as head of this "oversight committee" and 86 00:07:53,134 --> 00:07:57,998 that's been going on for decades, and today we have two of the most slavish 87 00:07:57,998 --> 00:08:05,758 pro NSA members of congress as the head of these committees, who are really there to bolster and justify 88 00:08:05,758 --> 00:08:12,462 everything and anything the NSA does, rather than engage in real oversight. So again it's designed to prettify the process while 89 00:08:12,462 --> 00:08:17,150 bringing about no real reform. And this process is now repeating itself. 90 00:08:17,150 --> 00:08:24,275 You see the president appoint a handful of his closest loyalists to this independent White House panel 91 00:08:24,275 --> 00:08:29,270 that pretended to issue a report that was very balanced and critical of the surveillance state, 92 00:08:29,270 --> 00:08:34,753 but in reality introduced a variety of programs that at the very best 93 00:08:34,753 --> 00:08:40,645 would simply make these programs slightly more palatable from a public perspective and in many cases 94 00:08:40,645 --> 00:08:46,494 intensify the powers of the surveillance state rather than reigning them in any meaningful way. 95 00:08:46,494 --> 00:08:49,718 So the answer to whether or not we gonna have meaningful reform 96 00:08:49,718 --> 00:08:56,510 definitely does not lie in the typical processes of democratic accountability that we are all taught to respect, but they 97 00:08:56,510 --> 00:09:01,959 do lie elsewhere. It is possible that there will be courts that will 98 00:09:01,959 --> 00:09:09,926 impose some meaningful restrictions by finding that the programs are unconstitutional. It's, I think, 99 00:09:09,926 --> 00:09:18,373 much more possible that other countries around the world who are truly indignant about the breaches of their privacy security 100 00:09:18,373 --> 00:09:24,302 will band together and create alternatives either in terms of infrastructure or legal regimes 101 00:09:24,302 --> 00:09:30,534 that will prevent the United States from exercising hegemony over the internet or make the cost of doing so far too high. 102 00:09:30,534 --> 00:09:38,293 I think even more promising is the fact that large private corporations, internet companies and others 103 00:09:38,293 --> 00:09:44,398 will start finally paying the price for their collaboration with this spying regime. 104 00:09:44,398 --> 00:09:48,611 And we've seen that already, when they've been dragged into the light and finally now are forced to 105 00:09:48,611 --> 00:09:54,742 account for what it is that they are doing and to realize that their economic interests are imperiled by the spying system, 106 00:09:54,742 --> 00:10:00,702 exercising their unparalleled power to demand that it be reigned in. And I think all of those things are very possible 107 00:10:00,702 --> 00:10:04,220 as serious constraints on the surveillance state. 108 00:10:04,220 --> 00:10:09,422 But I ultimately think that where the greatest hope lies is 109 00:10:09,422 --> 00:10:16,752 with the people in this room, and the skills that all of you possess. 110 00:10:16,752 --> 00:10:24,295 The privacy technologies that have already been developed, the Tor Browser, PGP, OTR 111 00:10:24,295 --> 00:10:32,358 and a variety of other products are making real inroads and preventing the US government and its allies from invading 112 00:10:32,358 --> 00:10:37,317 the sanctity of our communications. None of them is perfect, none of them is invulnerable, 113 00:10:37,317 --> 00:10:44,620 but they all pose a serious obstacle to the US government's ability to continue to destroy our privacy, 114 00:10:44,620 --> 00:10:50,542 and ultimately the battle over internet freedom, the question of whether or not the internet will really be this tool 115 00:10:50,542 --> 00:10:56,166 of liberation and democratization or whether it will become the worst tool of human oppression in all of 116 00:10:56,166 --> 00:11:01,598 human history will be fought out, I think, primarily on the technological battlefield. 117 00:11:01,598 --> 00:11:05,660 The NSA and the US government certainly knows that. 118 00:11:05,660 --> 00:11:14,573 That's why Keith Alexander gets dressed up in his little costumes, his dag jeans and his edgy black shirt and goes to hacker conferences. 119 00:11:14,573 --> 00:11:24,250 And it's why - *applause* 120 00:11:24,250 --> 00:11:29,558 It's why corporations in Silicon Valley like Palantir Technologies spend so much effort 121 00:11:29,558 --> 00:11:36,700 depicting themselves as these kind of rebellious pro civil libertarian factions as they 122 00:11:36,700 --> 00:11:42,416 spend most of their time in secret working hand in hand with the intelligence community and the CIA to increase their capabilities, because 123 00:11:42,416 --> 00:11:47,975 they want to recruit particularly younger brain power onto their side, 124 00:11:47,975 --> 00:11:53,770 the side of destroying privacy and putting the internet to use for the world's most powerful factions. 125 00:11:53,770 --> 00:11:58,239 And what the outcome of this conflict is, what the internet ultimately becomes, really 126 00:11:58,239 --> 00:12:04,639 is not answerable in any definitive way now. It depends so much on what it is that we as human beings do. 127 00:12:04,639 --> 00:12:13,208 And one of the most pressing questions is whether people like the ones who are in this room and the people who have the skills that you have, 128 00:12:13,208 --> 00:12:18,718 now and in the future, will succumb to those temptations and go to work for the very 129 00:12:18,718 --> 00:12:26,471 entities that are attempting to destroy privacy around the world or whether you will put your talents and skills and resources 130 00:12:26,471 --> 00:12:31,383 to defending human beings from those invasions and continuing to create effective technologies 131 00:12:31,383 --> 00:12:37,527 to protect our privacy. And I'm very optimistic, because that power does lie in your hands. 132 00:12:37,527 --> 00:12:48,751 *applause* 133 00:12:48,751 --> 00:12:55,326 So, I want to talk about another cause of optimism that I have, which is that the pro-privacy alliance 134 00:12:55,326 --> 00:13:01,383 is a lot healthier and more vibrant, it's a lot bigger and stronger 135 00:13:01,383 --> 00:13:06,263 than I think a lot of us - even who are in it - often appreciate and realize. 136 00:13:06,263 --> 00:13:12,791 And even more so, it is rapidly growing. And I think inexorably growing. 137 00:13:12,791 --> 00:13:19,255 I know for me personally, every single thing that I have done over the last six months on this story, 138 00:13:19,255 --> 00:13:26,687 and all of the platforms I've been given like this speech and the honors that I've received, and the accolades that I have been given, 139 00:13:26,687 --> 00:13:38,231 are ones that I share completely with two people who have been critically important to everything that I have done. 140 00:13:38,231 --> 00:13:48,371 One of them is my unbelievably brave and incomparably brilliant collaborator, Laura Poitras. 141 00:13:48,371 --> 00:14:00,950 *applause* 142 00:14:00,950 --> 00:14:09,519 Laura doesn't get a huge amount of attention, which is how she likes it, *laughter* but she really does 143 00:14:09,519 --> 00:14:15,517 deserve every last recognition and honor and award because although it sounds cliché 144 00:14:15,517 --> 00:14:19,157 it really is the case that without her, none of this would have happened. 145 00:14:19,157 --> 00:14:24,813 We have talked every single day actually over the last six months. We have made almost every decision, 146 00:14:24,813 --> 00:14:29,210 certainly every significant one, in complete partnership and collaboration 147 00:14:29,210 --> 00:14:35,600 and being able to work with somebody who has that high level of understanding about internet security, 148 00:14:35,600 --> 00:14:45,837 about strategies for protecting privacy, has been completely indispensible to the success of what we've been able to achieve. 149 00:14:45,837 --> 00:14:54,920 And then the second person who has been utterly indispensible and deserves every last accolade to share 150 00:14:54,920 --> 00:14:59,614 and every last reward is my *unintelligible* source Edward Snowden. 151 00:14:59,614 --> 00:15:20,460 *applause* 152 00:15:20,460 --> 00:15:31,109 It is really hard to put into words what a profound effect his choice has had on me, and on Laura, 153 00:15:31,109 --> 00:15:38,325 and on the people with whom we have worked directly, and on people with whom we indirectly worked, 154 00:15:38,325 --> 00:15:46,567 and then millions and millions of people around the world. The courage and the principle act of conscience 155 00:15:46,567 --> 00:15:53,533 that he displayed will shape and inspire me for the rest of my life and will inspire, I'm convinced, 156 00:15:53,533 --> 00:15:58,573 millions and millions of people to take all sorts of acts that they might not have taken 157 00:15:58,573 --> 00:16:05,950 because they have seen what good for the world can be done by even a single individual. 158 00:16:05,950 --> 00:16:16,221 *applause* 159 00:16:16,221 --> 00:16:22,965 But I think it's so important to realize, and this to me is the critical point, is that none of us, the three of us, 160 00:16:22,965 --> 00:16:30,749 did what we did in a vacuum. We were all inspired by people who have done similar things in the past. 161 00:16:30,749 --> 00:16:35,726 I'm absolutely certain that Edward Snowden was inspired in all sorts of ways 162 00:16:35,726 --> 00:16:41,869 by the heroism and self-sacrifice of Chelsea Manning. 163 00:16:41,869 --> 00:16:56,861 *applause* 164 00:16:56,861 --> 00:17:01,606 And I'm quite certain that in one way or the another she, Chelsea Manning, was inspired 165 00:17:01,606 --> 00:17:07,462 by the whole litany of whistleblowers and other people of conscience who 166 00:17:07,462 --> 00:17:13,726 came before her to blow the whistle on extreme levels of corruption, wrongdoing and illegality 167 00:17:13,726 --> 00:17:18,738 among the worlds most powerful factions. And they, in turn, where inspired, I'm certain, 168 00:17:18,738 --> 00:17:24,949 by the person who is one of my greatest political heroes, Daniel Ellsberg, who did this 40 years ago. 169 00:17:24,949 --> 00:17:33,253 *applause* 170 00:17:33,253 --> 00:17:39,917 And even beyond that, I think it is really important to realize 171 00:17:39,917 --> 00:17:45,349 that everything that has been allowed to happen over the last six months, and I think 172 00:17:45,349 --> 00:17:54,446 any kind of significant leak and whistleblowing of classified Information in the digital age both past and current and future 173 00:17:54,446 --> 00:18:04,742 owes a huge debt of gratitude to the organization which really pioneered the template, and that's Wikileaks. 174 00:18:04,742 --> 00:18:14,445 *applause* 175 00:18:14,445 --> 00:18:18,370 We didn't completely copy to the letter the model of Wikileaks, 176 00:18:18,370 --> 00:18:21,758 we modified it a little bit just like Wikileaks modified what it has 177 00:18:21,758 --> 00:18:26,957 decided were its best tactics and strategies as it went along. And I'm sure people who come after us will modify 178 00:18:26,957 --> 00:18:33,469 what we have done to improve on what we have done and to avoid some of our mistakes and some of the attacks that have actually 179 00:18:33,469 --> 00:18:40,542 been successful. But I think the point that is really underscored here, and it was underscored for me probably most powerfully 180 00:18:40,542 --> 00:18:46,501 when Edward Snowden was rescued from Hong Kong from probable 181 00:18:46,501 --> 00:18:50,837 arrest and imprisonment for the next 30 years by the United States, not only by Wikileaks 182 00:18:50,837 --> 00:18:56,502 but by an extraordinarily courageous and heroic woman, Sarah Harrison. 183 00:18:56,502 --> 00:19:06,160 *applause* 184 00:19:06,160 --> 00:19:11,314 There is a huge network of human beings around the world 185 00:19:11,314 --> 00:19:17,333 who believe in this cause, and not only believe in it but are increasingly willing to devote 186 00:19:17,333 --> 00:19:23,581 their energies and their resources and their time and to sacrifice for it. 187 00:19:23,581 --> 00:19:31,112 And, there's a reason that's remarkable and it kind of occurred to me in a telephone call that I had with Laura, 188 00:19:31,112 --> 00:19:34,646 probably two months or so ago, although we've communicated every day, we've almost never communicated 189 00:19:34,646 --> 00:19:40,558 by telephone and one of the few exceptions was: we were going to speak to an event 190 00:19:40,558 --> 00:19:43,909 at the Electronic Frontier Foundation and we got on the phone 191 00:19:43,909 --> 00:19:49,455 the night before to sort of talk about what ground she would cover and what ground I would cover. 192 00:19:49,455 --> 00:19:54,639 And what she said to me is, you know, it's amazing if you think about it and she went through the list of people who have 193 00:19:54,639 --> 00:19:59,277 devoted themselves to transparency and the price that they paid. And she said: "Edward Snowden is 194 00:19:59,277 --> 00:20:07,830 stuck in Russia, facing 30 years in prison, Chelsea Manning is in prison, Aaron Swartz committed suicide, 195 00:20:07,830 --> 00:20:16,277 people like Jeremy Hammond and Barret Brown are the subject of grotesquely overzealous prosecutions by virtue of 196 00:20:16,277 --> 00:20:21,813 the action of transparency they've engaged in, even people like Jim Risen, who 197 00:20:21,813 --> 00:20:25,410 is with an organization like the New York Times, faces the possibility of 198 00:20:25,410 --> 00:20:30,949 prison for stories that he has published." Laura and I have been advised by countless lawyers 199 00:20:30,949 --> 00:20:34,253 that it's not safe for us to even travel to our own country. And she said: 200 00:20:34,253 --> 00:20:38,592 "It's really a sign of how sick the political theater has become 201 00:20:38,592 --> 00:20:43,883 that the price for bringing transparency to the government and for doing the job of the media and the congress 202 00:20:43,883 --> 00:20:49,390 that they are not doing is these extreme forms of punishment." 203 00:20:49,390 --> 00:20:57,678 She was right and she had a good point and I had a hard time disagreeing with her, and I don't think anybody would. 204 00:20:57,678 --> 00:21:02,633 But I said, you know, there actually is another interesting point that that list revealed: 205 00:21:02,633 --> 00:21:11,358 The thing that is so interesting to me about that list, is that it's actually as long as it is and it keeps growing. 206 00:21:11,358 --> 00:21:16,710 And the reason why that's so amazing to me is because the reason that people on that list 207 00:21:16,710 --> 00:21:20,846 and others like them pay a price is because the United States knows 208 00:21:20,846 --> 00:21:29,616 that its only hope for continuing to maintain its regiment of secrecy behind which it engages in radical and corrupt acts, 209 00:21:29,616 --> 00:21:35,621 is to intimidate and deter and threaten people who are would-be whistleblowers and transparency activists 210 00:21:35,621 --> 00:21:39,917 from coming forward and doing what it is they do by showing them that they can be subjected 211 00:21:39,917 --> 00:21:44,957 to even the most extreme punishments and there is nothing anybody can do about it. And 212 00:21:44,957 --> 00:21:54,558 it's an effective tactic. *applause* 213 00:21:54,558 --> 00:22:01,454 It is an effective tactic. It works for some people. Not because those people are cowardly but because they're rational. 214 00:22:01,454 --> 00:22:06,941 It really is the case that the United States and the British government not only are willing but able 215 00:22:06,941 --> 00:22:13,637 to essentially engage in any conduct, no matter how grotesque, no matter how extreme, no matter how lawless with very little 216 00:22:13,637 --> 00:22:21,257 opposition that they perceive is enough to make them not want to do it. And so there are activists who rationally conclude 217 00:22:21,257 --> 00:22:29,397 that it's not worth the price for me to pay in order to engage in that behavior. That's why they continue to do it. 218 00:22:29,397 --> 00:22:36,397 But the paradox is that there are a lot of other people. I think even more people 219 00:22:36,397 --> 00:22:43,925 who react in exactly the opposite way. When they see the US and the UK government showing their true face, 220 00:22:43,925 --> 00:22:47,600 showing the extent to which they are willing to abuse their power, 221 00:22:47,600 --> 00:22:52,750 they don't become scared or deterred, they become even more emboldened. 222 00:22:52,750 --> 00:23:00,827 And the reason for that is that when you see that these governments are really capable of that level of abuse of power 223 00:23:00,827 --> 00:23:07,886 you realize that you can no longer in good conscience stand by and do nothing. It becomes an even greater imperative view 224 00:23:07,886 --> 00:23:09,981 to come forward and shine a light on what they're doing 225 00:23:09,981 --> 00:23:13,887 and if you listen to any of those whistleblowers or activists they'll all say the same thing: 226 00:23:13,887 --> 00:23:19,389 it was a slow process to realize that the actions in which they were engaging were justified 227 00:23:19,389 --> 00:23:25,181 but they were finally convinced of it by the actions of these governments themselves and it's a really sweet irony. 228 00:23:25,181 --> 00:23:31,916 And I think it caused serious optimism that it is the United States and its closest allies 229 00:23:31,916 --> 00:23:39,855 who are sowing the seeds of dissent, who are fueling the fire of this activism with their own abusive behavior. 230 00:23:39,855 --> 00:23:51,236 *applause* 231 00:23:51,236 --> 00:23:56,846 Now, speaking of the attempt to intimidate and deter and the like, I just want to spend a few minutes 232 00:23:56,846 --> 00:24:03,620 talking about the current posture of the United States government with regard to Edward Snowden. 233 00:24:03,620 --> 00:24:08,341 It's become extremely clear at this point that the US government at the highest levels on down 234 00:24:08,341 --> 00:24:14,588 is completely committed to pursuing only one outcome. 235 00:24:14,588 --> 00:24:21,371 And that outcome is one where Edward Snowden ends up spending several decades - if not the rest of his life - 236 00:24:21,371 --> 00:24:26,726 in a small cage, probably cut off in terms of communication from the rest of the world. 237 00:24:26,726 --> 00:24:32,248 And the reason why they are so intent on doing that is not hard to see. It's not because they're worried 238 00:24:32,248 --> 00:24:38,453 that society needs to be protected from Edward Snowden and from him repeating these actions. 239 00:24:38,453 --> 00:24:44,997 I think it's probably a pretty safe bet that Edward Snowden's security clearance is more or less permanently revoked. 240 00:24:44,997 --> 00:24:49,211 *laughter* 241 00:24:49,211 --> 00:24:53,967 The reason they're so intent on it is because they cannot allow 242 00:24:53,967 --> 00:24:58,437 Edward Snowden to live any sort of a decent and free life because they're petrified 243 00:24:58,437 --> 00:25:02,174 that that will inspire other people to follow his example, 244 00:25:02,174 --> 00:25:09,980 and to be unwilling to maintain this bond of secrecy, when maintaining that bond does nothing, but hides 245 00:25:09,980 --> 00:25:16,989 illegal and damaging conduct from the people who are most affected by it. 246 00:25:16,989 --> 00:25:21,610 What I find most amazing about that is not that the United States government is doing that. 247 00:25:21,610 --> 00:25:24,530 That's what they do. It's who they are. 248 00:25:24,530 --> 00:25:28,528 What I find amazing about it is that there are so many governments around the world, 249 00:25:28,528 --> 00:25:33,517 including ones that are capable of protecting his human rights, 250 00:25:33,517 --> 00:25:38,494 and who have been the biggest beneficiaries of his heroic revelations, 251 00:25:38,494 --> 00:25:43,334 who are willing to stand by and watch his human rights being crushed and be imprisoned 252 00:25:43,334 --> 00:25:47,567 for the crime of showing the world what's being done to their privacy. 253 00:25:47,567 --> 00:26:01,368 *applause* 254 00:26:01,368 --> 00:26:08,726 It has really been startling to watch governments, including some of the largest in Europe, 255 00:26:08,726 --> 00:26:15,455 and their leaders go out in public and express intense indignation over the fact 256 00:26:15,455 --> 00:26:21,808 that the privacy of their citizens is being systematically breached, and genuine indignation 257 00:26:21,808 --> 00:26:25,558 when they learn that their privacy has also been targeted. 258 00:26:25,558 --> 00:26:37,679 *laughter, applause* 259 00:26:37,679 --> 00:26:47,654 And yet, at the same time the person who sacrificed in order to defend their basic human rights, their rights of privacy, 260 00:26:47,654 --> 00:26:53,190 is now having his own human rights targeted and threatened in recrimination. 261 00:26:53,190 --> 00:27:01,430 I realize that for any country like Germany or France or Brazil or any other country around the world 262 00:27:01,430 --> 00:27:07,614 to defy the dictates of the United States, that there is a cost to doing that, 263 00:27:07,614 --> 00:27:17,158 but there was an even greater cost to Edward Snowden to come forward and do what he did in defense of your rights and yet he did it anyway. 264 00:27:17,158 --> 00:27:28,390 *applause* 265 00:27:28,390 --> 00:27:34,710 I think that what's really important to realize is that countries have 266 00:27:34,710 --> 00:27:38,942 the legal and the international obligation by virtues of treaties that they've signed 267 00:27:38,942 --> 00:27:45,375 to defend Edward Snowden from political prosecution and prevent him from being in cage for the rest of his life 268 00:27:45,375 --> 00:27:52,783 for having shone a light on systematic abuses of privacy and other forms of abuses of secrecy. 269 00:27:52,783 --> 00:27:57,850 But they also have the ethical and moral obligation as the beneficiaries of his actions, 270 00:27:57,850 --> 00:28:02,671 to do what he did for them which is to protect his rights in return. 271 00:28:02,671 --> 00:28:12,416 *applause* 272 00:28:12,416 --> 00:28:19,816 I want to spend a little bit of time talking about one of my favorite topics, which is journalism. 273 00:28:19,816 --> 00:28:28,304 When I was in Hong Kong with Laura and Ed Snowden, I’ve been reflecting on this a lot in the course of writing the book 274 00:28:28,304 --> 00:28:31,559 that I've been writing over the past couple of months about everything that's happened: 275 00:28:31,559 --> 00:28:35,845 One of the things I realized in looking back on that moment and also in talking to Laura 276 00:28:35,845 --> 00:28:40,342 about what took place there was that we spent at least as much time 277 00:28:40,342 --> 00:28:49,350 talking about issues relating to journalism and a free press as we did talking about surveillance policy. 278 00:28:49,350 --> 00:28:55,710 And the reason is that we knew that what we were about to do would trigger 279 00:28:55,710 --> 00:29:01,838 as many debates over the proper role of journalism vis-à-vis the state and other power factions as it would 280 00:29:01,838 --> 00:29:08,711 the importance of internet freedom and privacy and the threat of the surveillance state. And we knew in particular 281 00:29:08,711 --> 00:29:14,768 that one of our most formidable adversaries was not simply going to be the intelligence agencies 282 00:29:14,768 --> 00:29:18,222 on which we were reporting and who we were trying to expose, 283 00:29:18,222 --> 00:29:25,843 but also their most loyal, devoted servants which calls itself the United States and British media. 284 00:29:25,843 --> 00:29:36,655 *applause* 285 00:29:36,655 --> 00:29:39,825 And so we spent a great deal of time strategizing about it and we resolved 286 00:29:39,825 --> 00:29:43,983 that we're going to have to be very disruptive about the status quo, not only 287 00:29:43,983 --> 00:29:48,795 the surveillance and political status quo but also the journalistic status quo. 288 00:29:48,795 --> 00:29:53,255 And I think one of the ways that you can see what it is that we were targeting 289 00:29:53,255 --> 00:29:57,574 is in the behavior of the media over the past six months since these revelations have emerged 290 00:29:57,574 --> 00:30:01,582 almost entirely without them and despite them. 291 00:30:01,582 --> 00:30:06,772 One of the more remarkable things that has happened to me is I gave an interview 292 00:30:06,772 --> 00:30:14,638 three weeks or so, or a month ago, on BBC and it was on this program called "HARDtalk" and I, at one point, had made 293 00:30:14,638 --> 00:30:19,502 what I thought was the very unremarkable and uncontroversial observation that 294 00:30:19,502 --> 00:30:23,198 the reason why we have a free press is because national security officials 295 00:30:23,198 --> 00:30:28,567 routinely lie to the population in order to shield their power and to get their agenda advanced, 296 00:30:28,567 --> 00:30:34,919 and that the goal and duty of a journalist is to be adversarial to those people in power and that the pronouncement 297 00:30:34,919 --> 00:30:39,639 that this interviewer was citing about how these government programs are critical to stopping terrorists 298 00:30:39,639 --> 00:30:47,231 should not be believed unless there's actual evidence shown that they're actually true. And he 299 00:30:47,231 --> 00:30:54,639 interrupted me - *applause* 300 00:30:54,639 --> 00:30:56,150 When I said that, he interrupted me and he said "Look, I" - 301 00:30:56,150 --> 00:31:01,225 I am sorry, I don't do pompous British accents well, so you'll just have to transpose it in your own imagination. 302 00:31:01,225 --> 00:31:09,333 But he said: "You know, I just need to stop you, you have said something so remarkable." 303 00:31:09,333 --> 00:31:16,462 He was like a Victorian priest scandalized by seeing a woman pull up her skirt a little bit over her ankles. He said: 304 00:31:16,462 --> 00:31:27,480 "I just cannot believe that you would suggest that senior officials, generals in the United States and 305 00:31:27,480 --> 00:31:33,279 the British government are actually making false claims to the public. How can you possibly say something *unintelligible*..." 306 00:31:33,279 --> 00:31:45,398 *laughter, applause* 307 00:31:45,398 --> 00:31:54,688 That is not aberrational! It really is the central view of certain American and British media stars 308 00:31:54,688 --> 00:31:59,918 that when especially people with medals on their chest who are called generals, 309 00:31:59,918 --> 00:32:07,175 but also high officials in the government make claims that those claims are presumptively treated as true 310 00:32:07,175 --> 00:32:12,886 without evidence and that it’s almost immoral to call them into question or to question their veracity. 311 00:32:12,886 --> 00:32:19,383 And obviously we went through the Iraq war in which those very two same governments, 312 00:32:19,383 --> 00:32:23,882 specifically and deliberately lied repeatedly [to] the government to their people 313 00:32:23,882 --> 00:32:28,772 over the course of two years to justify an aggressive war that destroyed a country of 26 million people. 314 00:32:28,772 --> 00:32:33,550 But we've seen it continuously over the last six months as well: 315 00:32:33,550 --> 00:32:40,877 The very first document that Edward Snowden ever showed me was one that he explained would reveal 316 00:32:40,877 --> 00:32:46,749 unquestionable lying by the senior national intelligence official of President Obama, 317 00:32:46,749 --> 00:32:50,893 the Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper. That was the document that revealed 318 00:32:50,893 --> 00:32:55,932 that the Obama administration had succeeded in convincing a court, its secret court, 319 00:32:55,932 --> 00:33:01,326 to compel phone companies to turn over to the NSA every single phone record 320 00:33:01,326 --> 00:33:07,420 of every single telephone call, local and international, of every single American. 321 00:33:07,420 --> 00:33:13,126 Even though that National Security official, James Clapper, before the Senate, just months earlier was asked: 322 00:33:13,126 --> 00:33:19,622 "Does the NSA collect phone data about the communications of Americans?", and he answered 323 00:33:19,622 --> 00:33:25,261 "No, Sir." What we all now know is a complete lie. 324 00:33:25,261 --> 00:33:31,726 There are other lies that the NSA and its top officials, US government top officials have told. 325 00:33:31,726 --> 00:33:36,608 And by lie I mean advisedly, things they know to be false that they're saying anyway to convince people 326 00:33:36,608 --> 00:33:41,206 of what they want them to believe. Keith Alexander repeatedly said, the head of the NSA, 327 00:33:41,206 --> 00:33:47,989 that they are incapable of accounting for the exact number of calls and emails that they intercept from the 328 00:33:47,989 --> 00:33:53,661 American telecommunication system even though the program that we ended up exposing, "Boundless Informant", 329 00:33:53,661 --> 00:34:00,509 counts with exact mathematical precision. Exactly the data that he said he is incapable of providing. 330 00:34:00,509 --> 00:34:05,575 Both the NSA and the GCHQ have repeatedly said that the purpose of these programs 331 00:34:05,575 --> 00:34:11,248 is to protect people from terrorism and to safeguard national security, and that they would never, 332 00:34:11,248 --> 00:34:18,699 unlike these evil [thieves?], engage in spying for economic demands and yet report after report that we revealed, 333 00:34:18,699 --> 00:34:24,940 from spying on the Brazilian oil giant Petrobras, from spying on the Organization of American states at economic summits 334 00:34:24,940 --> 00:34:30,988 where economic accords were negotiated, to energy companies around the world, in Europe, in Asia, in Latin America, 335 00:34:30,988 --> 00:34:37,931 would just completely negate these claims and prove that they are lies. 336 00:34:37,931 --> 00:34:42,188 And then we have President Obama who repeatedly says things like 337 00:34:42,188 --> 00:34:47,575 "We can not, and do not, spy on or even eavesdrop on the communications of Americans without warrants 338 00:34:47,575 --> 00:34:53,556 even though the 2008 law that was enacted by the Congress of which he was a part and *unintelligible* 339 00:34:53,556 --> 00:34:59,921 *unintelligible* to empower the US government to eavesdrop on Americans' communication without warrants. 340 00:34:59,921 --> 00:35:07,476 And what you see here is serial lying and yet at the same time the, same media that seized it 341 00:35:07,476 --> 00:35:13,845 acts scandalized if you suggest that their claims should not be taken at face value without evidence 342 00:35:13,845 --> 00:35:19,307 because their role is not to be adversaries. Their role is to be loyal spokespeople 343 00:35:19,307 --> 00:35:23,743 to those powerful factions [that] pretend to exercise oversight. 344 00:35:23,743 --> 00:35:34,388 *applause* 345 00:35:34,388 --> 00:35:40,996 Just one more point on that, which is to understand just how the American and British media function. 346 00:35:40,996 --> 00:35:50,408 You can pretty much turn on the TV at any moment or open a new internet website and see very brave American journalists 347 00:35:50,408 --> 00:35:57,715 calling Edward Snowden criminal and demanding that he be extradited to the United States and prosecuted and imprisoned. 348 00:35:57,715 --> 00:36:04,812 They're very, very brave when it comes to declaring people who are scorned in Washington and who have no power and have become marginalized, 349 00:36:04,812 --> 00:36:09,576 they're very brave in condemning them and standing up to them and demanding that the rule of law 350 00:36:09,576 --> 00:36:14,388 be applied to them faithfully. He broke the law, he must pay the consequences. 351 00:36:14,388 --> 00:36:21,748 And yet, the top national security official of the United States government went to the Senate and lied to their face as everybody now knows, 352 00:36:21,748 --> 00:36:26,816 which is at least as much of a serious crime as anything Edward Snowden is accused of. 353 00:36:26,816 --> 00:36:32,108 And you will be hard-pressed to find a single one of those brave journalists. 354 00:36:32,108 --> 00:36:43,369 *applause* 355 00:36:43,369 --> 00:36:49,956 You will be very hard-pressed to find even a single one of those brave intrepid journalists 356 00:36:49,956 --> 00:36:57,929 ever even think about, let alone express the idea that Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, ought to be 357 00:36:57,929 --> 00:37:02,672 subject to the rule of law and be prosecuted in prison for the crimes that he committed, 358 00:37:02,672 --> 00:37:10,908 because the role of the US media and their British counterparts is to be voices for those with the greatest power 359 00:37:10,908 --> 00:37:15,828 and to protect their interests and serve them. And everything that we've done over the last six months and 360 00:37:15,828 --> 00:37:19,838 everything we've decided in the last month about forming a new media organization 361 00:37:19,838 --> 00:37:26,506 is all about trying to subvert that process and reanimate and reinstill the process of journalism 362 00:37:26,506 --> 00:37:32,607 for what it was intended to be, which is as a true adversarial force, a check against 363 00:37:32,607 --> 00:37:35,621 those with the greatest power. 364 00:37:35,621 --> 00:37:48,549 *applause* 365 00:37:48,549 --> 00:37:55,177 So, I just wanna close with one last point, which is 366 00:37:55,177 --> 00:38:00,492 the nature of the surveillance state that we've reported over the last six months. 367 00:38:00,492 --> 00:38:04,984 Every time I do an interview, people ask similar questions such as 368 00:38:04,984 --> 00:38:09,781 "What is the most significant story that you have revealed?" or 369 00:38:09,781 --> 00:38:13,916 "What is it that we have learned about the last story that you just published?", and 370 00:38:13,916 --> 00:38:18,768 what I really begun saying is that there really is only one overarching point 371 00:38:18,768 --> 00:38:22,988 that all of these stories have revealed, and that is 372 00:38:22,988 --> 00:38:28,433 - and I say this without the slightest bit hyperbole or melodrama, it's not metaphorical 373 00:38:28,433 --> 00:38:31,100 and it's not figurative, it is literally true - 374 00:38:31,100 --> 00:38:35,590 that the goal of the NSA and its "five eyes"-partners in the English-speaking world 375 00:38:35,590 --> 00:38:38,955 Canada, New Zealand, Australia and especially the UK, 376 00:38:38,955 --> 00:38:45,795 is to eliminate privacy globally, to ensure that there be no human communications 377 00:38:45,795 --> 00:38:50,869 that occur electronically that evades their surveillance net. They wanna make sure 378 00:38:50,869 --> 00:38:56,291 that all forms of human communication by telephone or by internet and all online activities 379 00:38:56,291 --> 00:39:03,332 are collected, monitored, stored and analyzed by that agency and by their allies. 380 00:39:03,332 --> 00:39:10,292 That is [despite] that is to [describe] a ubiquitous surveillance state. You don't need hyperbole to make that point, 381 00:39:10,292 --> 00:39:15,291 and you don't need to believe me when I say that's their goal, document after document within the archive 382 00:39:15,291 --> 00:39:18,476 that Edward Snowden provided us declare that to be their goal. 383 00:39:18,476 --> 00:39:23,646 They are obsessed with searching out any small, little crevice on the planet, 384 00:39:23,646 --> 00:39:29,995 where some forms of communication might take place without their being able to invade it. 385 00:39:29,995 --> 00:39:33,786 One of the stories that we are working on right now, I used to get in trouble when I was at the Guardian for previewing my stories, 386 00:39:33,786 --> 00:39:37,981 I'm not at the Guardian anymore, so I'm just gonna do it anyway, is - 387 00:39:37,981 --> 00:39:44,700 *applause* 388 00:39:44,700 --> 00:39:53,998 The NSA and the GCHQ are being driven crazy by the idea that you can go on an airplane 389 00:39:53,998 --> 00:39:58,796 and use certain cell phone devices or internet services 390 00:39:58,796 --> 00:40:06,616 and be away from their prying eyes for a few hours at a time. They are obsessed with finding ways 391 00:40:06,616 --> 00:40:13,732 to invade the systems of online onboard internet service and mobile phone service because 392 00:40:13,732 --> 00:40:18,550 the very idea that human beings can communicate even for a few moments 393 00:40:18,550 --> 00:40:22,457 without them being able to collect and store and analyze and monitor what it is they were saying 394 00:40:22,457 --> 00:40:25,946 is simply intolerable. That is their institutional mandate. 395 00:40:25,946 --> 00:40:29,260 And when I get asked questions when I do interviews in different countries: 396 00:40:29,260 --> 00:40:35,276 "Well, why would they want to spy on this official?" or "Why would they want to spy on Sweden?" 397 00:40:35,276 --> 00:40:39,293 or "Why would they want to target this company here?" 398 00:40:39,293 --> 00:40:43,652 The premise of that question is really flawed. The premise of the question is 399 00:40:43,652 --> 00:40:49,630 that the NSA and the CGHQ need a specific reason to target somebody for surveillance. That is not how they think. 400 00:40:49,630 --> 00:40:55,293 They target every form of communication that they can possibly get their hands on. 401 00:40:55,293 --> 00:41:01,280 And if you think about what individual privacy does for us as human beings, 402 00:41:01,280 --> 00:41:05,956 let alone what it does for us on a political level, that it really is the thing that lets us 403 00:41:05,956 --> 00:41:14,751 explore boundaries and engage in creativity and use the mechanisms of dissent without fear. 404 00:41:14,751 --> 00:41:18,647 When you think about a world in which privacy is allowed to be eliminated 405 00:41:18,647 --> 00:41:23,341 – I’m literally talking about eliminating everything that makes it valuable to be a free individual. 406 00:41:23,341 --> 00:41:29,266 The surveillance state by its necessity, by its very existence, breeds conformity 407 00:41:29,266 --> 00:41:35,172 because when human beings know they are always susceptible to being watched, even if they are not always being watched, 408 00:41:35,172 --> 00:41:41,668 the choices that they make are far more constrained, are far more limited, cling far more closely to orthodoxy 409 00:41:41,668 --> 00:41:46,732 than when they can act in the private realm and that's precisely why the NSA and the GCHQ 410 00:41:46,732 --> 00:41:52,613 and the worlds most powerful [dignitaries] throughout history and now always as their first goal have 411 00:41:52,613 --> 00:41:57,188 the elimination of privacy at the top of their list because it's what ensures 412 00:41:57,188 --> 00:42:02,163 that human beings can no longer resist the decrees that they're issuing. 413 00:42:02,163 --> 00:42:07,380 Thank you once again very much. *applause**unintelligible* 414 00:42:07,380 --> 00:42:23,396 *continued applause* 415 00:42:24,750 --> 00:42:33,425 Rieger: Thanks, Glenn! We have a little bit of time for questions. I start with one: 416 00:42:33,425 --> 00:42:43,378 What do you think is the motivation behind this "We want to be able to spy on really everyone?" 417 00:42:43,378 --> 00:42:47,121 So the motivation behind the motivation. 418 00:42:47,121 --> 00:42:52,326 Greenwald: There are some obvious discrete motivations: Whether it be the ability to learn what 419 00:42:52,326 --> 00:42:58,885 economic competitors are doing, the ability to learn about technological advances in other countries in order to replicate them, 420 00:42:58,885 --> 00:43:03,475 the ability to learn what's happening politically and diplomatically in different countries 421 00:43:03,475 --> 00:43:07,426 to get better contract negotiations or to be able to better manipulate the world. 422 00:43:07,426 --> 00:43:12,835 But ultimately there really is only one goal and that goal is power. 423 00:43:12,835 --> 00:43:18,785 If you think about what it means to be able to know everything about 424 00:43:18,785 --> 00:43:23,935 everybody else in the rest of the world, and this is the key for me, while at the same time 425 00:43:23,935 --> 00:43:27,875 those power factions that know everything about what the rest of the world is doing 426 00:43:27,875 --> 00:43:33,435 are building an ever higher and more impenetrable wall of secrecy behind which they operate, 427 00:43:33,435 --> 00:43:38,194 the power imbalance is as extreme as it gets. In a healthy society, 428 00:43:38,194 --> 00:43:44,695 private individuals, have privacy - hence the name privacy, except in the rarest of cases. 429 00:43:44,695 --> 00:43:52,689 It's supposed to be public servants, public figures, public agencies that have extreme transparency except in the most 430 00:43:52,689 --> 00:43:58,700 extreme cases - hence the name public sector. And yet we completely reversed that, so that 431 00:43:58,700 --> 00:44:04,410 we as private individuals have almost no privacy, and they as public figures, public servants, public officials 432 00:44:04,410 --> 00:44:09,498 have almost no transparency and that ultimately is what this surveillance system is about, 433 00:44:09,498 --> 00:44:11,610 is accumulating more and more power 434 00:44:11,610 --> 00:44:14,778 by being able to know everything about those over whom they're ruling, 435 00:44:14,778 --> 00:44:18,693 while those over whom they're ruling know virtually nothing about them. 436 00:44:18,693 --> 00:44:28,304 *applause* 437 00:44:29,104 --> 00:44:33,929 Rieger: We have approximately ten more minutes for questions from the audience. 438 00:44:33,929 --> 00:44:42,734 Herald Angel: So: please the audience line up at microphone 1, 2, 3 and 4 if you want to ask a question. 439 00:44:42,734 --> 00:44:48,631 There are also questions from the internet. On the other hand, I exploit my position here 440 00:44:48,631 --> 00:44:58,929 and want to ask one thing: Are you fearing for your own well-being to be harmed? 441 00:44:58,929 --> 00:45:05,184 Greenwald: You know, I think there is obvious risk to what Laura Poitras and I have both done together. 442 00:45:05,184 --> 00:45:10,559 Like I said before, we've been advised by lawyers that we really shouldn't travel. Obviously 443 00:45:10,559 --> 00:45:17,860 my partner not only was detained under a terrorism law by the British government. But we're now all being threatened 444 00:45:17,860 --> 00:45:21,164 with prosecution under terrorism and espionage statutes. When you 445 00:45:21,164 --> 00:45:25,775 have tens of thousands of top secret documents there is obvious risk to that as well. 446 00:45:25,775 --> 00:45:30,619 But journalists around the world and activists around the world, not only in the past 447 00:45:30,619 --> 00:45:36,880 but currently are *unintelligible* facing far greater dangers and had paid far greater prices than anything we have. 448 00:45:36,880 --> 00:45:41,519 And so I don't spend very much time thinking about that at all it's a very easy choice, 449 00:45:41,519 --> 00:45:45,503 when I see the people like Edward Snowden and the other ones on the list making the choices they've made 450 00:45:45,503 --> 00:45:53,423 to do my part, which is often a subset of what they're doing, in pursuit of these values that I really believe in. 451 00:45:53,423 --> 00:46:02,447 *applause* 452 00:46:02,447 --> 00:46:06,264 Angel: So, the next question is from the internet. 453 00:46:06,264 --> 00:46:11,903 Signal Angel: Do you hear me? Okay. How do you decide which detail you share with the world and 454 00:46:11,903 --> 00:46:19,544 which you are not allowed or which you don't know if we are allowed to see everything you have. 455 00:46:19,544 --> 00:46:25,735 What is your decision process there? Do you decide that on your own or in a committee? 456 00:46:25,735 --> 00:46:31,409 And what are the criteria for the information that you release right now? 457 00:46:31,409 --> 00:46:37,900 Greenwald: That's a great question. That has probably been by far the hardest choices that we've had to make. 458 00:46:37,900 --> 00:46:41,530 And I know there's a lot of debate surrounding it, and I've watched that debate because 459 00:46:41,530 --> 00:46:45,273 it's been really valuable to I think all of us who have had to make these choices. 460 00:46:45,273 --> 00:46:53,295 The first factor that we use is the agreement that we entered into with Edward Snowden when he came to us and 461 00:46:53,295 --> 00:47:00,269 expressed very clear ideas about what he wanted to achieve and how he thought that could be achieved. 462 00:47:00,269 --> 00:47:04,663 And we spent a lot of time talking to him about the methods that we would use, 463 00:47:04,663 --> 00:47:08,785 about what we would publish, about what we wouldn't publish. 464 00:47:08,785 --> 00:47:15,105 And regardless of the debates that have taken place we feel duty-bound to adhere to the agreement 465 00:47:15,105 --> 00:47:20,888 that we entered into with him, because he is not an object to be sacrificed for a cause, 466 00:47:20,888 --> 00:47:29,703 he is a human being whose agency and autonomy has to be regarded and honored. And everything that we have done… 467 00:47:29,703 --> 00:47:37,600 *applause* 468 00:47:37,600 --> 00:47:42,310 Everything that we have done has been guided by the formula that we created together with him. 469 00:47:42,310 --> 00:47:50,961 I have been one of the most vocal supporters of Wikileaks and of Chelsea Manning 470 00:47:50,961 --> 00:47:56,232 and I will be that for as long as I live. I believe in radical transparency. 471 00:47:56,232 --> 00:48:03,679 I think the methods that they used to disclose the war logs and the diplomatic cables were exactly the right ones to use. 472 00:48:03,679 --> 00:48:11,971 And I think that there are different tactics and strategies that are optimal for different situations. 473 00:48:11,971 --> 00:48:17,575 And one of the choices that we made was, that there were certain kind of information we didn't want to disclose. 474 00:48:17,575 --> 00:48:21,944 We didn't want to disclose information that would help other states 475 00:48:21,944 --> 00:48:26,613 augment their surveillance capabilities to which they would subject their own citizens. 476 00:48:26,613 --> 00:48:34,638 We didn't want to publish any of the information that the NSA has gathered about people. 477 00:48:34,638 --> 00:48:40,391 Whether it be their raw communications or the things the NSA has said about them as a result of what they gather, 478 00:48:40,391 --> 00:48:45,129 because to do that would destroy people's privacy and do the NSA's dirty work for them. 479 00:48:45,129 --> 00:48:51,408 And we didn't want to publish anything that would endanger the lives of innocent human beings 480 00:48:51,408 --> 00:48:53,710 who might be named by those documents. 481 00:48:53,710 --> 00:49:00,391 Everything else beyond that, what we have done is thought to publish in a way that will create 482 00:49:00,391 --> 00:49:06,106 the most powerful debate and the greatest level of recognition 483 00:49:06,106 --> 00:49:13,171 and to sustain the interest that people have in the debate that we felt like was so urgently needed. 484 00:49:13,171 --> 00:49:18,103 I can tell you, that we are only 6 months into doing this. It took Wikileaks, 485 00:49:18,103 --> 00:49:23,671 I believe nine months from the time they got the diplomatic cables until the time they began publishing them. 486 00:49:23,671 --> 00:49:27,744 These documents are complicated, people are waiting for us to make mistakes. It's important 487 00:49:27,744 --> 00:49:31,711 that we understand what it is that we are publishing so that what we say about them is accurate. 488 00:49:31,711 --> 00:49:38,368 There is a lot more stories to come, a lot more documents that will be published. 489 00:49:38,368 --> 00:49:55,245 *applause* 490 00:49:55,245 --> 00:50:02,111 And the only other thing I can say is that Laura and I and other people who have been working on these documents including Edward Snowden 491 00:50:02,111 --> 00:50:07,537 share exactly the same believes that you have and exactly the same values about transparency. 492 00:50:07,537 --> 00:50:13,899 And the last thing that any of us would ever do is sit on or conceal a story 493 00:50:13,899 --> 00:50:18,704 that the world ought to know about because it's newsworthy and shines a light on what these factions are doing 494 00:50:18,704 --> 00:50:25,158 and that would never ever happen. Every last newsworthy document will be published. 495 00:50:25,158 --> 00:50:34,925 *applause* 496 00:50:35,756 --> 00:50:37,860 Angel: So microphone 1, please. 497 00:50:37,860 --> 00:50:46,933 Audience member: I know about the attacks that the GCHQ, the British police have done to you 498 00:50:46,933 --> 00:50:51,636 - they tried to trash your hardware. And I'd like to know if there were more than that, 499 00:50:51,636 --> 00:51:00,428 like attacks to you personally. Because you talked about the attacks they used. 500 00:51:00,428 --> 00:51:09,765 Greenwald: I think the GCHQ has done us and the world a huge favor by showing their true face to the world. 501 00:51:09,765 --> 00:51:13,974 I mean, will the British government ever be able to stand up in public again 502 00:51:13,974 --> 00:51:19,990 and condemn some other country for attacks on press freedom without triggering a global laughing fit? 503 00:51:19,990 --> 00:51:29,128 *applause* 504 00:51:30,328 --> 00:51:36,371 I think that the most important thing that you can do as a journalist when you're being threatened 505 00:51:36,371 --> 00:51:41,743 - and the threats have gone far beyond what you just asked about. They are, as I said, 506 00:51:41,743 --> 00:51:45,187 continuously threatening in all sorts of formal and informal ways, 507 00:51:45,187 --> 00:51:48,979 to criminally charge some or all of us who have been involved in this reporting. 508 00:51:48,979 --> 00:51:52,276 The only thing that you can do is to stand up to the playground bully 509 00:51:52,276 --> 00:51:56,894 and continue to publish in defiance of their threats and that's what we're gonna continue to do. 510 00:51:56,894 --> 00:52:05,479 *applause* 511 00:52:05,479 --> 00:52:07,512 Angel: Microphone 4, please. 512 00:52:07,512 --> 00:52:10,971 Audience member: Do you have the impression that the governments, especially the German government, 513 00:52:10,971 --> 00:52:15,769 are actually doing something? Or do you have the impression that they are just putting up a show for the citizens 514 00:52:15,769 --> 00:52:20,801 while they actually prefer to cooperate with the NSA and support them? 515 00:52:20,801 --> 00:52:25,801 And if it's the latter, what can we do about it? 516 00:52:25,801 --> 00:52:28,287 Greenwald: It's definitely the latter. 517 00:52:28,287 --> 00:52:37,154 *laughter, applause* 518 00:52:37,878 --> 00:52:43,432 Ultimately, governments will do two things: 519 00:52:43,432 --> 00:52:48,680 They will in the first instance do everything that they can to advance their own interests. 520 00:52:48,680 --> 00:52:53,700 And governments around the world, especially in the west, don't perceive it to be in their own interest, 521 00:52:53,700 --> 00:52:57,412 at least some of them, to disobey the United Stated. 522 00:52:57,412 --> 00:53:00,453 And they also don't perceive it to be in their own interest 523 00:53:00,453 --> 00:53:06,460 to take meaningful action against surveillance policies where today themselves believe in and engage in. 524 00:53:06,460 --> 00:53:12,492 And so the question then becomes: How do you get them to do something beyond that framework? 525 00:53:12,492 --> 00:53:19,948 And the only real answer becomes: to increase the cost to doing it. As I said earlier, I think that 526 00:53:19,948 --> 00:53:26,943 the cost to the internet sector in the United States has become quite real. The cost of Boeing 527 00:53:26,943 --> 00:53:31,917 which just lost a 4 billion dollar contract for fighter jets because Brazil didn't want to buy 528 00:53:31,917 --> 00:53:37,419 from a country that has been systematically spying on them is very real. 529 00:53:37,419 --> 00:53:44,414 *applause* 530 00:53:45,906 --> 00:53:51,228 I think it's up to all of us to devise ways, to not persuade them, 531 00:53:51,228 --> 00:53:56,762 because I don't think that power centers get persuaded in that way, by nice lofty arguments. 532 00:53:56,762 --> 00:54:01,573 I think it's important to devise ways to raise the costs severely, 533 00:54:01,573 --> 00:54:06,990 for either their active participation in or their acquiescence to 534 00:54:06,990 --> 00:54:11,301 the systematic erosion of our privacy rights. And when we find a way to put them in the position 535 00:54:11,301 --> 00:54:18,116 where it's not we who are in fear of them but they who are in fear of us, that's when these policies will change. 536 00:54:18,116 --> 00:54:26,847 *applause* 537 00:54:27,232 --> 00:54:30,244 Rieger: I think it was a perfect closing of your keynote. 538 00:54:30,244 --> 00:54:34,639 Thanks a lot for taking the time, and *interrupted* 539 00:54:34,639 --> 00:54:38,542 *very loud applause* *standing ovations* 540 00:54:38,588 --> 00:54:44,319 Greenwald: Thank you, everybody. Appreciated! 541 00:54:44,319 --> 00:54:49,412 *standing ovation* 542 00:54:52,659 --> 00:54:58,494 Thank you very much. 543 00:55:00,789 --> 00:55:26,114 *continued applause* 544 00:55:28,273 --> 00:55:31,180 Thank you very much. 545 00:55:31,180 --> 00:55:36,266 Rieger: And please continue your work! 546 00:55:36,266 --> 00:55:40,706 Greenwald: Thank you. 547 00:55:40,706 --> 00:55:51,932 subtitles created by c3subtitles.de