Speaker 1: Get in touch with technology with text Stuff from how
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com. Hey there, and welcome to text Stuff.
Speaker 1: My name is redacted. No, I'm Jonathan Strickling. I learned
Speaker 1: today we're gonna talk a little bit more about the
Speaker 1: n s A and the data collection that it's been
Speaker 1: participating in. And uh, and exactly what is that? How
Speaker 1: does that apply to you, whether you're an American citizen
Speaker 1: or someone living abroad. What exactly is going on? And
Speaker 1: and specifically what all this prism how about is about?
Speaker 1: Should we be concerned? Spoiler? Yes, um concerned? At least
Speaker 1: it's always good to educate yourself as much as you
Speaker 1: possibly can when you're talking about classified information that is
Speaker 1: being withheld from people. But let's let's start with talking
Speaker 1: about a personality, someone who has been identified as being
Speaker 1: the very center of this controversy, the man who leaked
Speaker 1: the information to the press that let us know about
Speaker 1: about prison period. Yes, Edward Snowdon. Edward Snowdon formerly a
Speaker 1: technical contractor for the n s A. I am assuming
Speaker 1: they have terminated that employment. Well he was, okay, so
Speaker 1: so he is thirty years old right now as of
Speaker 1: this podcast. He was twenty nine when he leaked this information,
Speaker 1: which which seems terrifically young for being a whistleblower on
Speaker 1: one of the largest intelligence gathering entities in the world.
Speaker 1: Some might even go so far as to suggest that
Speaker 1: he has he has effectively, at least as far as
Speaker 1: the United States is concerned, thrown the rest of his
Speaker 1: life away, which I mean, in other words, there were
Speaker 1: some major consequences to his actions, and so that says
Speaker 1: something right, well, you know, and there's there's a lot
Speaker 1: of different points of view on on on him and
Speaker 1: what he's done. Um, but uh, who is this guy?
Speaker 1: I wanted to say a little bit about him since
Speaker 1: all of this stuff that's been swirling around and um. So,
Speaker 1: so he got his g D and listed the army.
Speaker 1: In two thousand three, um was was discharged after breaking
Speaker 1: his legs in a Special Forces training exercise. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: trained for special Forces. UM then worked at the n
Speaker 1: s A as a security guard and then I t
Speaker 1: security in the c i A. Yeah, so he crossed
Speaker 1: the cross departments. He's crossed streams. In two thousand seven,
Speaker 1: the CIA sent him on assignment to Geneva, Switzerland, UM
Speaker 1: and then later he signed with defense contractor UM Uh
Speaker 1: booz Allen Hamilton's UM as a assist amin I see
Speaker 1: right right right, So it turned out that he had
Speaker 1: had an ability with computers. So it was because when
Speaker 1: you think about like he started off like a security
Speaker 1: guard and now he's overseeing actual information system right right,
Speaker 1: like like six figure salary, Like pretty pretty important dude
Speaker 1: for this contractor um uh he was. He was working
Speaker 1: on an ns A contract out in Hawaii under under
Speaker 1: bus Allen Hamilton's UM when he copied certain classified documents
Speaker 1: and removed them entirely from his office before telling his bosses, hey,
Speaker 1: I need some vacation. He specifically told them that he
Speaker 1: needed to leave in order to undergo epilepsy treatments. Wow,
Speaker 1: and then flew to Hong Kong and contacted the press
Speaker 1: with all the stuff that we're gonna be talking about
Speaker 1: in the right. And there's still quite a bit of
Speaker 1: controversy about him. There are people who consider him to
Speaker 1: be a whistleblower and uh and someone who has the
Speaker 1: interests of the American public at heart. There are others
Speaker 1: who go so far as to say that he's a
Speaker 1: trader um. And there are people who say that maybe
Speaker 1: traders the wrong word, but he certainly has put a
Speaker 1: lot of people at risk by revealing information that was
Speaker 1: supposed to be secret. So there's a there's a lot
Speaker 1: of different views on this, and we're not gonna really try.
Speaker 1: We're trying not to lay down on one side or
Speaker 1: the other, but we we you'll probably get a little
Speaker 1: hint of our own personal but least, but we don't
Speaker 1: we don't mean to push them on anyone. Absolutely, Now,
Speaker 1: this is this is you know, it's it's as as
Speaker 1: people who talk. We do have opinions. But um, in fact,
Speaker 1: we're not even sure the crazy thing is exactly what
Speaker 1: he has leaked to the press. Um. We we know
Speaker 1: that there was a forty one slide power point presentation
Speaker 1: UM about a program called Prism, about a program called Prism. UM,
Speaker 1: and there was basically what we know, And there was
Speaker 1: some some information about phone program as well, because Prism
Speaker 1: Prism really was mainly about uh, internet communication, but there's
Speaker 1: also this element about phone records. Uh, there was about
Speaker 1: the the n s A has access to information. I
Speaker 1: think it's something like seven years worth of information of
Speaker 1: Verizon customers phone information. Um, that's a lot of info. Oh, absolutely, Well,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm just saying that we're not exactly sure
Speaker 1: what documents exist and where this information has come from overall,
Speaker 1: aside from this one power point presentation, which are the
Speaker 1: host of works article about this pointed out that UM,
Speaker 1: that this proves that, yes, international security is just as
Speaker 1: boring as your job, superspies power point. I've also seen
Speaker 1: quite a few people who took the power point presentation
Speaker 1: and then uh distilled it down to something like twelve
Speaker 1: slides and said that, you know, they obviously need some
Speaker 1: some some classes on power point uh design. And in
Speaker 1: my thought is like, well, I'm glad you're able to
Speaker 1: to take a step back and critic makes a little
Speaker 1: bit of a joke as opposed to freaking out, but
Speaker 1: so okay to to catch us up on the climate
Speaker 1: and overall politics of of what has led to all
Speaker 1: of this mess two thousand one and to say came
Speaker 1: under direct fire for failing to catch the plot of
Speaker 1: the World Trade Center attack UM. And subsequently, the USA
Speaker 1: Patriot Act was signed by George W. Bush with bipartisan
Speaker 1: congressional support. This was the act that gave the government
Speaker 1: much broader capabilities when it came to surveillance and detecting
Speaker 1: potential terrorists acts um, and some would argue, in fact,
Speaker 1: many have argued that it ended up violating at least
Speaker 1: some freedoms of American citizens in the process. Sure, um
Speaker 1: in two thousand two, and we didn't actually find out
Speaker 1: about this. The the American public or the public at large,
Speaker 1: did not find out about this until two thousand five.
Speaker 1: H George W. Signed an executive order that specifically authorized
Speaker 1: the n s A to UM to monitor international emails
Speaker 1: and phone calls from people inside the US. Yeah, that
Speaker 1: was skipping the part where the Special Court outlined in
Speaker 1: VISA is supposed to review each case. Right, And we'll
Speaker 1: talk more about VISA in a bit, But yeah, so
Speaker 1: this is essentially giving even more broad powers to when
Speaker 1: when when The New York Times leaked this information, and
Speaker 1: the officials maintained that they were still requiring the n
Speaker 1: s A to obtain arrants for entirely domestic communications, right, Um,
Speaker 1: This is where it gets complicated because again we talked
Speaker 1: about in our last podcast about how a foreign agent
Speaker 1: can be someone who is not an American citizen, who's
Speaker 1: not in the United States, and then a lot of
Speaker 1: these protections that we're talking about don't apply because the
Speaker 1: protections that we mostly talk about American citizens, that's what
Speaker 1: the Constitution is covering. You know, we can't really cover
Speaker 1: the freedoms of people in other nations because that's not
Speaker 1: the role of one government to say for another. Uh.
Speaker 1: You know that that kind of falls more on the
Speaker 1: other governments as well as the United Nations and some
Speaker 1: other organizations. So uh, but when it comes to American citizens,
Speaker 1: they're supposed to be certain rules that we follow. This
Speaker 1: was an example of expanding those rules. All right. So
Speaker 1: two thousand five that's when The New York Times ends
Speaker 1: up publishing this information. Right. Also in two thousand five,
Speaker 1: that was when the n s ARE created US Cyber Command,
Speaker 1: which is that network warfare unit designed to specifically protect
Speaker 1: against terrorist data and network threats. Two thousand six an
Speaker 1: interesting note, um we it was revealed by a former
Speaker 1: a T and T technician that um that the company
Speaker 1: had allowed the n s A to install a computer
Speaker 1: at San Francisco Switching Center, which happens to be a
Speaker 1: key hub for fiber optic cables. Yeah, this was where
Speaker 1: we learned about the secret rooms. Right. So this is
Speaker 1: where and we'll we'll probably mention this again later on.
Speaker 1: But this is where the we we learned about the
Speaker 1: n s A creating special rooms and various carriers, whether
Speaker 1: their phone carriers or beyond telecommunications all the way through
Speaker 1: Internet carriers, that they were putting in these special secret
Speaker 1: rooms that would allow them access. Anyone who had the
Speaker 1: n s A clearance could gain access to it, but
Speaker 1: otherwise you could not go in there. So, in other words,
Speaker 1: an A T and T employee, if that A T
Speaker 1: n T employee did not have special access granted by
Speaker 1: the n s A, they could not go into this
Speaker 1: room even though it was within a T and T.
Speaker 1: This was what was allowing the n s A to
Speaker 1: two intercept information without having to actually go to A
Speaker 1: T and T and say, hey, hey, I want this thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah there, here's a list. Here's a list of the
Speaker 1: stuff that we have been authorized to ask for. Give
Speaker 1: it to us. Now, they don't have to go for
Speaker 1: the authorization because they just have this special room. All
Speaker 1: they have to do is show up and go into
Speaker 1: the special room and then they run. And I'll talk
Speaker 1: more about how they collect their data and the kind
Speaker 1: of queries they are running, and also the sort of
Speaker 1: mental gymnastics you need to do in order to understand
Speaker 1: how they look at this as not being not falling
Speaker 1: under that Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable search and seizure.
Speaker 1: If you remember from our last podcast we taught that's
Speaker 1: central to a lot of the arguments against what is
Speaker 1: going on with the n s A is the idea
Speaker 1: that under the Constitution, we have this Fourth Amendment right
Speaker 1: that protects us from unreasonable search and seizure, and the
Speaker 1: government is supposed to have at least uh, they're supposed
Speaker 1: to be have authorization and evidence before they can go
Speaker 1: and search you as an American citizen. Again, the supplies
Speaker 1: to American citizens. And it gets complicated again when we
Speaker 1: talk about foreign agents who could be American citizens that
Speaker 1: or or an American citizen who's talking to a foreign agent.
Speaker 1: Right that also American communication lines. Yeah really, Oh, it's
Speaker 1: so sticky, um and and and and again. All of
Speaker 1: this is stuff that we already knew about. None of
Speaker 1: this is new. None of this was leaked by every Yeah,
Speaker 1: this was stuff that had been revealed over the years
Speaker 1: through various means. Sometimes there were things that were just
Speaker 1: met part of law. So if you just read the law,
Speaker 1: you would understand it. Some of this was stuff that
Speaker 1: wasn't laid out in the law but was later uncovered
Speaker 1: by various news papers, things of the New York Times,
Speaker 1: Washington Post, etcetera. Yeah. Um, the next big one was
Speaker 1: in two thousand seven. That was the Protect America Act,
Speaker 1: signed into law by George W. Bush. Um. This this
Speaker 1: was this basically allowed um the Attorney General and the
Speaker 1: Director of National Intelligence who we we We talked about
Speaker 1: that role in the first podcast. UM two explain in
Speaker 1: a classified document how the US would be collecting intelligence
Speaker 1: on foreigners overseas over the course of the next year. Right.
Speaker 1: And it it's also known as Title seven. So that's
Speaker 1: the other name for this. If you've ever heard Title seven,
Speaker 1: that's referring to the Protect America Act of two thousand seven, Right, Um.
Speaker 1: And the important part about this is that, UM, it
Speaker 1: does not require them to name specific targets or places.
Speaker 1: They don't you don't even Yeah, you don't have to
Speaker 1: do that, which means you don't need a warrant. Obviously,
Speaker 1: if you if you don't have to name the specific
Speaker 1: targets or places, then clearly the warrant is not right.
Speaker 1: How would you get a warrant if you just said
Speaker 1: someone somewhere is doing something. Let me look in not
Speaker 1: that that's so. So essentially this is the warrantless wire
Speaker 1: tapping portion of law. If you've ever heard about that,
Speaker 1: about warrantless wire taps, that's where this comes from. And
Speaker 1: it was supposed to just focus on, like you said,
Speaker 1: foreign intelligence, right, it's uh, and only if the targets
Speaker 1: were reasonably believed to be outside the US. Now what
Speaker 1: counts for reasonable believability? I don't know, because they're not
Speaker 1: telling me so. I mean, a lot of these terms
Speaker 1: are vaguely defined, and many of them are vaguely defined
Speaker 1: for a reason. It's to give as much flexibility as possible.
Speaker 1: If you're being less charitable, it's to to to be
Speaker 1: as draconian as possible. I wouldn't go that far. I'm
Speaker 1: I'm thinking of the sense that I want the flexibility. Uh.
Speaker 1: And if there ever were a point where we defined it,
Speaker 1: it would likely be in a court case, like you
Speaker 1: would bring something to court and the court would decide
Speaker 1: whether or not it met some criteria for reasonable belief
Speaker 1: of it. But that also will get into a little
Speaker 1: bit more of a discussion. When we talk about the
Speaker 1: n s A and uh, and and what their threshold
Speaker 1: is for believing someone to not be an American citizen
Speaker 1: before they start collecting all the data on them. So, anyway,
Speaker 1: two thousand seven was the Protect America Act. What what
Speaker 1: happens two thousand eight? Well? Okay, um, So the Protect
Speaker 1: America Act technically expired early in two thousand eight, um,
Speaker 1: and was subsumed by if I didn't just make that
Speaker 1: word up, by the by the two PHISA amendments, Right,
Speaker 1: that's the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which was originally enacted
Speaker 1: into law in nineteen seventy eight. Now, these amendments changed
Speaker 1: that act, right, I mean that they obviously they amended it. Now,
Speaker 1: the original FISA Act was there to try and put
Speaker 1: down specific rules when it comes to foreign surveillance, and
Speaker 1: it's set down a lot of different restrictions that the
Speaker 1: government had to obey in order to do this in
Speaker 1: a way that was seen as responsible and accountable. The
Speaker 1: amendments started to loosen some of those restrictions to give
Speaker 1: the intelligence communities more freedom to pursue surveillance in an
Speaker 1: effort to counteract any sort of uh, any sort of
Speaker 1: anything that would endanger national security. Right. Specifically, this included,
Speaker 1: uh one that you might and an amendment that you
Speaker 1: might have heard of um in the news, which is
Speaker 1: five A section seven oh two, which basically uh okay.
Speaker 1: So so according to the Director of National Intelligence, it
Speaker 1: facilitates the targeted acquisition of foreign intelligence information concerning foreign
Speaker 1: targets located outside the United States under court oversight. Sounds pretty,
Speaker 1: sounds pretty on the up and up court oversight. It's
Speaker 1: only targeting foreign targets, only foreign targets that are outside
Speaker 1: the United States as and sound like it's too too
Speaker 1: bad as far as encroaching upon American citizens rights, well,
Speaker 1: the problem is that according to the washing To Post anyway,
Speaker 1: according to two documents that they have since uncovered, um,
Speaker 1: the their analysts only have to have a certainty rates
Speaker 1: what someone is foreign, that someone is not of an
Speaker 1: American citizen right or not in America even Yeah, there's
Speaker 1: a fifty one certainty that they have to meet. So,
Speaker 1: in other words, coin flip plus one and if you watch,
Speaker 1: don't be dumb, it might just be a coin flip
Speaker 1: depending upon the coin, you know, the one I'm talking about. Yeah, Like,
Speaker 1: because the way certain coins are made, they do actually
Speaker 1: flip on one side. A little more than the other.
Speaker 1: This is a that's that's all they have to do.
Speaker 1: They have to feel a little bit better than a
Speaker 1: coin flip situation that a person is in fact of
Speaker 1: foreign nationality not an American citizen for them to move forward,
Speaker 1: which seems pretty low to me. Also, again, according to
Speaker 1: the Washington Post, they have training materials that advise new
Speaker 1: analysts that quote, it's nothing to worry about out end
Speaker 1: quote if they accidentally collect us content, right, don't worry.
Speaker 1: We we know what we're doing. We won't do anything here.
Speaker 1: We promise we won't look at it. There's gonna be
Speaker 1: editorializing at the end of this episode, by the way, folks.
Speaker 1: Uh And and I'm just warning you now because I
Speaker 1: do have something to say about just just the dangers
Speaker 1: of pursuing this kind of line of thought without without
Speaker 1: questioning it. I'm not saying that everything that's been done
Speaker 1: is bad, but I am saying that you've got to
Speaker 1: question things a collective. Some may or may not so anyway. Alright,
Speaker 1: So so let's pick up with FISA here now that
Speaker 1: this is still stuff that we knew about before Snowdon's
Speaker 1: information lead. So FISA created Uh there's the FISA Court. Now,
Speaker 1: the FISA Court oversees these requests that are are sent
Speaker 1: in to U to pursue surveillance over foreign targets. Keeping
Speaker 1: in mind this is still not for American citizens, it's
Speaker 1: for foreign targets. The is a court is a secret court.
Speaker 1: If you listen to our last podcast, you heard us
Speaker 1: talk about it a little bit. It's hearings are in secret,
Speaker 1: it's findings are in secret. There are eleven court members.
Speaker 1: Those eleven court members are appointed by the Supreme Court
Speaker 1: Chief Justice, and there is no um, there's no process
Speaker 1: there to approve of those appointments. That's the Supreme Court
Speaker 1: Chief Justice. Just as finals say, which some have argued
Speaker 1: means that it creates a court that doesn't have diversity
Speaker 1: in it because you only have one person and that
Speaker 1: person may end up uh completely filling that court with
Speaker 1: people that that that follow that same person's philosophy, the
Speaker 1: Supreme Court Chief Justice's philosophy. Uh So there's that argument
Speaker 1: as well. Um. Also, whenever they do serve out any
Speaker 1: kind of warrant or order, if you've listened to our
Speaker 1: last episode, you know there's a gag order involved with that,
Speaker 1: which means that the recipient cannot acknowledge the fact that
Speaker 1: they received this. They can't talk about it, they can't
Speaker 1: reveal it, which may explain why some of the companies
Speaker 1: that were revealed within that presentation that Lauren alluded to
Speaker 1: at the top of the show, when they were approached
Speaker 1: about this, they said, we don't know, we don't know
Speaker 1: anything about this. Well, there are to two possibilities. One
Speaker 1: is that they actually don't know about it, and that
Speaker 1: the way that the n s A is gathering information
Speaker 1: actually circumvents their internal workings. That's either they were they
Speaker 1: were completely unaware of it, as they said, or they
Speaker 1: are under a gag order and cannot say yeah. So
Speaker 1: either way, we we can't know for sure unless someone
Speaker 1: from those companies comes out and leaks that information. But
Speaker 1: either way they disowned any knowledge of this. UH. Going
Speaker 1: on to the what the what fights it can do?
Speaker 1: They define foreign powers as any foreign government or component
Speaker 1: of a foreign government, whether or not officially recognized by
Speaker 1: the United States. In other words, there could be governments
Speaker 1: out there that government is claiming that they oversee a
Speaker 1: sovereign nation, but the United States has not officially recognized
Speaker 1: that as a sovereign nation under FISA, that doesn't matter.
Speaker 1: They're still classified as a foreign government. Uh. They also
Speaker 1: defined as any faction of a foreign nation or nations,
Speaker 1: or any foreign based political organization that isn't substantially composed
Speaker 1: of United States persons. Uh. Faction and substantially not defined.
Speaker 1: So don't really know what would meet that criteria. Maybe
Speaker 1: it's don't know. Any entity, like a political organization or
Speaker 1: a business as directed or controlled by a foreign government
Speaker 1: also is considered a foreign power, and any group engaged
Speaker 1: in or preparing to engage in international terrorism. That's broadly
Speaker 1: defined as activities that involve violent acts or acts dangerous
Speaker 1: to human life, that are a violation of US criminal
Speaker 1: laws or would be a violation if committed in the US,
Speaker 1: or that appear to be intended to intimidate or coerce
Speaker 1: a civilian population, to influence the policy of government by
Speaker 1: intimidation or coercion, or to affect the conduct of a
Speaker 1: government by assassination or kidnapping, and occur totally outside the
Speaker 1: United States or transcend national boundaries in terms of how
Speaker 1: they are accomplished. UH So that's the definition of foreign
Speaker 1: power as far as foreign agent is concerned because remember
Speaker 1: this is really involving the communications between foreign powers and
Speaker 1: foreign agents. Foreign agent is defined under FISA as anyone
Speaker 1: that is not a US person who is an officer
Speaker 1: or employee of a foreign power, anyone that is not
Speaker 1: a U S person who engages in quote unquote clandestine
Speaker 1: intelligence activities also known as spying in the United States
Speaker 1: on behalf of a foreign power, or any US person
Speaker 1: that does the same and maybe violating the law. That's
Speaker 1: an important distinction their US person who is also not
Speaker 1: only acting as a foreign agent but also violating the law.
Speaker 1: So if you're not a U S person, you don't
Speaker 1: have to be suspected of a crime. You just have
Speaker 1: to be foreign That's that's all you have to be.
Speaker 1: If you are a U S person, then you have
Speaker 1: to h be suspected of a crime on top of
Speaker 1: being a foreign agent. And anyone, whether a U S
Speaker 1: person or not, who engages in or prepares for acts
Speaker 1: of international terrorism or sabotage is also defined as an
Speaker 1: agent of foreign power under FISA. So that's what is
Speaker 1: really the concern here. That's the n s A says
Speaker 1: that they are only interested in these communications between foreign
Speaker 1: powers and foreign agents. Any other information that they gather
Speaker 1: that happens to be about American citizens is completely coincidental,
Speaker 1: has nothing to do with what they are interested in,
Speaker 1: and you should just stop worrying. And so that is
Speaker 1: the the body of the law as as we have
Speaker 1: known it. UM. Unfortunately, there are a little bit of
Speaker 1: extra bits here and there that only came to light
Speaker 1: when when Snowden leaked some information. But we will talk
Speaker 1: about that in the second half of the show. And
Speaker 1: right now we should take a quick break to thank
Speaker 1: our sponsors. Sounds good to me. Let's take that break, alright.
Speaker 1: So were back. So when we left off, it was
Speaker 1: just before we started learning about the additional information that
Speaker 1: was leaked by Snowdon and UM, you had something about
Speaker 1: you know, we mentioned in that last that last half
Speaker 1: that you know, if any American citizen information is collected,
Speaker 1: that's okay, yeah, well okay. So so part part of
Speaker 1: what we found out thanks to Snowden is that on
Speaker 1: July nine, UM guidelines were proved by the Secret fives
Speaker 1: A Court and also Attorney General Eric Holder UM that
Speaker 1: that although the n s A is required to UM
Speaker 1: minimize the collection of data from U. S citizens, UM
Speaker 1: any inadvertently acquired domestic communications can be kept under certain
Speaker 1: circumstances with no warrant for up to five years. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's um that's a big question mark there, right, I
Speaker 1: mean that definitely sounds like without a warrant. So already
Speaker 1: that seems to violate the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution.
Speaker 1: I'm sure there are other arguments against that, but it's
Speaker 1: it's under certain circumstances. WHI again unless that's unless we
Speaker 1: get the full definition of what those circumstances are, then
Speaker 1: it's hard to say. So so far, it seems to
Speaker 1: be that that um, if the communications are encrypted and
Speaker 1: or reasonably believed to contain evidence of a crime that
Speaker 1: has been, is being or is about to be committed. Um.
Speaker 1: Or if the communications are reasonably believed to contain um
Speaker 1: uh technical information about cybersecurity. See, and this is another
Speaker 1: one of those things where the reasonable belief is the blaw. Yeah,
Speaker 1: how do we define that? And again, a lot of
Speaker 1: these these more or less vague words like reasonable um,
Speaker 1: A lot of these things are things that only get
Speaker 1: defined when we challenge stuff in court. In the United States,
Speaker 1: That's how we end up getting focus on a lot
Speaker 1: of our laws is that you know, the laws will
Speaker 1: be written in such a way, sometimes on purpose and
Speaker 1: sometimes not on purpose, but written in such a way
Speaker 1: as to be a little vague. And then in court
Speaker 1: cases that's when the judges have to decide, how how
Speaker 1: does this law actually apply? What is the practical application
Speaker 1: of it? And that might be the case with these
Speaker 1: UM In the meanwhile leading leading up to this league
Speaker 1: between s A hired employees UM mostly in UH comp science, engineering,
Speaker 1: and intelligence analysis, which makes sense. I mean that they're
Speaker 1: their focus is on intercepting and decrypting electronic communications communications
Speaker 1: in general, but electronic in particular, and especially since it's
Speaker 1: you know, yes, becoming more and more electronic, it makes
Speaker 1: it makes sense. But it's also like that's that's a
Speaker 1: lot of employees during a time of economic downturn. I
Speaker 1: do foresee a time where, because of the dangers associated
Speaker 1: now of elector ronic communication being intercepted and eventually decrypted,
Speaker 1: that we will move to a more raven based communication
Speaker 1: system all our game of Thrones winter is coming. I'm
Speaker 1: glad that you're just working that and everywhere you can. UM.
Speaker 1: In December of Obama and Congress extended the Amendments Act
Speaker 1: for another five years. That was that was on the
Speaker 1: up and up. That was, that was things what people
Speaker 1: knew about. Yeah. Yeah, so this wasn't like some sort
Speaker 1: of secret court meeting or whatever. But again, unless you
Speaker 1: had actually been paying attention to what the FISA Amendments Act,
Speaker 1: what what that entailed, then you might not you know,
Speaker 1: you might not have been aware of it. And I
Speaker 1: don't think I was aware of it, and I certainly wasn't.
Speaker 1: But then I'm not a very politically aware of person
Speaker 1: in general. Yeah. Um. In April, another one of those
Speaker 1: things that we found out from snowdon Um, the FISA
Speaker 1: Court ordered Verizon to provide a whole bunch of information
Speaker 1: about a whole bunch of stuff, um, millions of calls
Speaker 1: from millions of customers, both within and without the United States.
Speaker 1: Right now, this was all meta data, which I'll talk
Speaker 1: more about later, but meta data, justin in general, is
Speaker 1: information about information. So in this case, the the order
Speaker 1: for Verizon was to give all this information about calls,
Speaker 1: like the duration of the call, the time it was made,
Speaker 1: what kind of hardware was being used. The content of
Speaker 1: the call was not in question, right, so you could
Speaker 1: not This wasn't for a verizon to hand over records
Speaker 1: of actual like what was actually being said in the
Speaker 1: phone call. It was just everything else. However, that being said,
Speaker 1: there are a lot of examples that people have shown
Speaker 1: about how just getting the meta data gives you a
Speaker 1: lot of information about what was going on just based
Speaker 1: upon the time the location. Although I should also say
Speaker 1: that geospatial information in general has been left out according
Speaker 1: to what the n s A has said that they
Speaker 1: did not collect collect GPS information or anything like that,
Speaker 1: at least that's what they've said. But but just knowing
Speaker 1: when someone called, how long the conversation was, who they
Speaker 1: were calling, they can give you a lot of information
Speaker 1: about people, oh sure, about about movement and write what's
Speaker 1: going on? Um okay. And so so this next point
Speaker 1: in the timeline is is where everything kind of dovetails,
Speaker 1: because on June six, the Guardian and the Washington Post
Speaker 1: published reports based on Snowdon's leaked slides. We didn't know
Speaker 1: that it was Edward Snowe yet. Actually, um that was
Speaker 1: not for another couple of days. But you know, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's when we got that that forty one slide power
Speaker 1: point presentation and um or or or we we didn't
Speaker 1: see all of it at that point, but a bunch
Speaker 1: of information about it. There was a bunch of misinformation
Speaker 1: about it. Actually. According to those initial reports, um uh,
Speaker 1: it said that PRISM allowed the government to directly access
Speaker 1: the servers of places like Google and Microsoft and Apple,
Speaker 1: um and and that has been revealed to be not
Speaker 1: the case. Yeah, this was this was the company's Again,
Speaker 1: the companies were allowed to at least deny certain things
Speaker 1: if they are part of this program. Like we've said before,
Speaker 1: they're under a gag order, which means they cannot acknowledge
Speaker 1: it in any way. And in fact, several of the
Speaker 1: companies have have petitioned the government to allow them to
Speaker 1: talk more about what's going on, saying that more transparency
Speaker 1: would mean more trust because they're they're in a terrible
Speaker 1: position right if they are being legally bound to participate
Speaker 1: in this program. And there's some question as to whether
Speaker 1: or not the participation or the levels of participation meet
Speaker 1: or exceed requirements, because there are some companies that have
Speaker 1: been said they're not only participating, they seem to be
Speaker 1: eagerly participated. But besides that, I mean, if they're bound
Speaker 1: to participate, they have to buy law, but they also,
Speaker 1: by law, can't talk about it. Then they're putting this
Speaker 1: position where trust is starting to recede, and so right
Speaker 1: the consumers are all thinking, well, I don't want to
Speaker 1: use your product because you're part of this program according
Speaker 1: to this forty one slide presentation. And you know, they're
Speaker 1: big companies that were named in this. Microsoft was the
Speaker 1: first one to officially join that program, I think something
Speaker 1: along the lines of like two thousand seven according to
Speaker 1: the presentation. But then you had Google, Apple, Facebook, YouTube,
Speaker 1: I mean, big companies that handle millions of people's information
Speaker 1: on a daily basis, and they were all named in
Speaker 1: this presentation. So if they were compelled to be part
Speaker 1: of this because it's it's by law, they have to,
Speaker 1: but they can't talk about it puts them in a
Speaker 1: terrible position. And if it actually ends up being that
Speaker 1: their participation is not nearly as bad as what our
Speaker 1: imaginations have created, they want to be able to address
Speaker 1: that and say, just let us tell people that, yes,
Speaker 1: we're part of this program, but this is exactly what
Speaker 1: is going on and it's within these parameters and nothing
Speaker 1: outside of this is happening. So you are you can
Speaker 1: you can rest assured that your privacy is still safe.
Speaker 1: That's the message they want to send out, but they
Speaker 1: can't talk about it, right not yeah, yeah. All we've
Speaker 1: got to go on is these leaked reports UM, which
Speaker 1: which it now seems like upon closer observation, that UM
Speaker 1: that actually the companies were setting up UM secure servers
Speaker 1: or or drop boxes to facilitate transfers between themselves in
Speaker 1: the n s A. Not that again they have admitted
Speaker 1: to being part of it yet because they can't UM.
Speaker 1: June seventh, The very next day, The Guardian reported that
Speaker 1: the UKH, the the United Kingdoms UM Government Communications Headquarters
Speaker 1: UM which which is which is their kind of an
Speaker 1: essay equivalent, was also involved in prison and has been
Speaker 1: able to view private Internet user data since UH. June
Speaker 1: nine was when Snowdon came out and said that he
Speaker 1: was the guy who leaked the stuff UM, upon which
Speaker 1: lots lots of of bad news has been rained down
Speaker 1: upon him from the government because clearly they were not happy.
Speaker 1: On June eleventh, a a bill from I Partison I
Speaker 1: believe Members of Congress was submitted to UM to declassify
Speaker 1: secret court opinions UM that that drive prison surveillance This
Speaker 1: is actually a revision of a bill from December twelve,
Speaker 1: so this has been kicking around for a while. But
Speaker 1: but people are I mean, people in Congress are listening
Speaker 1: to the to to what we are saying that they're
Speaker 1: listening to our concerns and they they want to do
Speaker 1: something about it. And you should keep in mind that
Speaker 1: the politicians involved, even the ones who who object to this,
Speaker 1: we're also bound by the same restrictions that other people were.
Speaker 1: They could not talk about it because it was secret,
Speaker 1: it was classified. So you know, it's a frustrating situation
Speaker 1: all around when you have this secret court. In fact,
Speaker 1: there are a lot of people who have argued that
Speaker 1: the whole concept of a secret court is a bad
Speaker 1: idea because it breeds distrust. So even if everyone is
Speaker 1: behaving perfectly on the up and up, everyone is following
Speaker 1: all the rules and respecting as much of the you know,
Speaker 1: as much as they can. Uh, because it's secret, it
Speaker 1: just engenders this the sense of mistrust, and that alone
Speaker 1: is enough to need us too. We need to address it. Uh.
Speaker 1: And like you said, you know, we talked about the
Speaker 1: FISA court and how many how many requests were denied?
Speaker 1: Eleven out of thousands of requests about so if you
Speaker 1: find out so so eleven or thirty four thousand requests
Speaker 1: were denied, which makes makes you wonder what's going on?
Speaker 1: Is is it just that the requests are all that
Speaker 1: that water tight, they are just that amazing, or is
Speaker 1: it that the standards are really low? What was it
Speaker 1: about those eleven that they don't made them be denied? So? Uh,
Speaker 1: and that's the That's the thing is that it brings
Speaker 1: up these kind of conversations and no one can talk
Speaker 1: about them because they're classified. So it is a really
Speaker 1: sticky situation. UM. As of June, Snowdon under under attack
Speaker 1: from the United States. UM. You know, people, I think
Speaker 1: there were there were like warrants for treason out for
Speaker 1: his arrest. There were. Treason is one of those tough things.
Speaker 1: But there were some people who who were saying that
Speaker 1: maybe this can't count as treason because it's a very
Speaker 1: specific charge, but that he certainly broke US law that
Speaker 1: was beyond question. At any rate. He fled Hong Kong
Speaker 1: from Moscow, UM which is where he has been held
Speaker 1: hold up since UM in in like the airport and
Speaker 1: surrounding hotels, which is the airport is the the area
Speaker 1: that he's in the international zone is technically not Russian soil.
Speaker 1: It's kind of like when you go to an embassy
Speaker 1: and you're in a foreign country, but you go to
Speaker 1: the United States embassy, for example somewhere, and then you
Speaker 1: are technically on US soil while you're on the embassy grounds,
Speaker 1: but you leave U s simbassy grounds, you're back in
Speaker 1: the foreign nation. Yeah, okay. So, so he's been hanging
Speaker 1: out there and petitioning various countries for asylum, um, none
Speaker 1: of which have really granted him asylum to his um satisfaction.
Speaker 1: Ecuador was going to and then backed off. Some say
Speaker 1: that the president of Ecuador was kind of just trying
Speaker 1: to grandstand a little bit and and kind of tweak
Speaker 1: the nose of the United States. Actually, that's a great,
Speaker 1: kind of funny little story in a way. So I'm
Speaker 1: paraphrasing here because again I didn't put this in my notes,
Speaker 1: but this is kind of the story. So the president
Speaker 1: of says that, you know, they're going to grant asylum
Speaker 1: to Snowdon, and Snowdon had actually petitioned Ecuador for asylum.
Speaker 1: And then there were people who were saying that if
Speaker 1: they were to do this, that the United States would
Speaker 1: revoke certain beneficial trade agreements with Ecuador. And so what
Speaker 1: the President said was that he had he negated those agreements.
Speaker 1: He said, all right, those agreements are gone. In fact,
Speaker 1: only are those agreements are gone. I'm going to replace
Speaker 1: them with twenty three million dollars that Ecuador is going
Speaker 1: to give the United States so that the US can
Speaker 1: research human rights issues. Yeah, which was you know, essentially yeah,
Speaker 1: it was essentially international burn. But but since then he
Speaker 1: has back to weigh and Ecuador has has kind of
Speaker 1: revoked its its offer of asylum, and in the meantime,
Speaker 1: Snowdon himself has had his international passport revoked, so he
Speaker 1: cannot travel and he's not you know, so now he's
Speaker 1: seeking asylum in Russia. But that's currently being held up
Speaker 1: in in a lot of bureaucratic processes which anyone who
Speaker 1: has studied Russian politics will not be surprised by. Um,
Speaker 1: the Russians and the United States big fans of bureaucracy,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm not I'm not saying Russia's alone in that.
Speaker 1: The US certainly has more than its share, uh as
Speaker 1: as do a lot of nations. And and that that
Speaker 1: kind of sort of brings us up to up to today,
Speaker 1: ish UM. You know, right now there are a whole
Speaker 1: bunch of different people suing the US government UM on
Speaker 1: on grounds of illegal and unconstitutional programs that tread upon
Speaker 1: the Fourth Amendment rights of its people. Right. And again,
Speaker 1: this all has to be decided in court. It's not
Speaker 1: like there's just an automax switch or anything. This actually
Speaker 1: has to go through a process before it's decided an
Speaker 1: official capacity whether or not it is in fact unconstitutional
Speaker 1: of course UM. As of July and an alliance of
Speaker 1: thirty six companies, investors, charities, and trade organizations, including Google, Apple, Microsoft, Facebook,
Speaker 1: wrote a letter to President Obama UM asking for permission
Speaker 1: to take the number of government requests for information about
Speaker 1: their users public right, to essentially say like, this is
Speaker 1: why you don't need to worry, because the numbers that
Speaker 1: are in your head are totally different from the numbers
Speaker 1: that exist in reality, right, and might not really matter
Speaker 1: as we get further into this podcast, but it's an
Speaker 1: interesting thing to say, Well, you know, it's a lot
Speaker 1: of these companies do report. UM already report government requests
Speaker 1: for for ferncuation and they're there are companies like Twitter
Speaker 1: that said we are not playing ball with this. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, there's a lot of people have praised Twitter
Speaker 1: because they have a very firm stance on this, saying,
Speaker 1: unless you follow the specific rules that were laid out,
Speaker 1: uh and and to our satisfaction, we're not going to
Speaker 1: just hand over data. So that's kind of interesting, you know. Again,
Speaker 1: it all depends upon the individual organization. Also, late breaking
Speaker 1: news as of the recording of this podcast, so in
Speaker 1: full disclosure, we're recording this podcast July two, thirteen, UH
Speaker 1: and today the New York Times reported that the U. S.
Speaker 1: House of Representatives defeated legislation that would have blocked the
Speaker 1: n s A from collecting phone records. We'll talk more
Speaker 1: about the phone record program and a little bit. Uh.
Speaker 1: That was defeated at a vote of two seventeen to
Speaker 1: two hundred five, So it was incredibly close, and it
Speaker 1: had weird coalitions on both sides that were bipartisan. So
Speaker 1: you had, you know, libertarians, Democrats, and Republicans on one side,
Speaker 1: and then essentially Democrats and Republands on the other side
Speaker 1: because all the libertarians I think sided against sided for
Speaker 1: the legislation, but it was eventually it was voted down. Um. Now,
Speaker 1: there still could be debate within the Senate, so we
Speaker 1: could still see movement on this in the United States
Speaker 1: government in the that branch of uh of government, but
Speaker 1: the House of Representatives have already kind of shot that down.
Speaker 1: And also there have been several politicians who have said
Speaker 1: that the sections and the Patriot Act that essentially allow
Speaker 1: for this to happen, they come up for renewal again
Speaker 1: in and that they feel that those sections will not
Speaker 1: be renewed based upon the reaction that this this information
Speaker 1: has created, and that it would be very politically difficult
Speaker 1: to renew that now. They say that, but it's now
Speaker 1: is a couple of years away. You never know what
Speaker 1: can happen between now and then that could change people's minds.
Speaker 1: But as of right now, they're saying that those those
Speaker 1: sections that have actually allowed for this to kind of happen,
Speaker 1: they have given the legal foundation for this, may not
Speaker 1: be renewed in a couple of years. UM. So that
Speaker 1: kind of brings us a little bit up to the
Speaker 1: discussion of what these programs actually are. So let's start
Speaker 1: going back a little bit again. There was a program
Speaker 1: started under George W. Bush called Stellar Wind, and Stellar
Speaker 1: Wind was really more of an umbrella term for surveillance programs,
Speaker 1: specifically the surveillance programs main Way, Marina, Nucleon and PRISM. Uh.
Speaker 1: Now these are paired up. Main Way and Nucleon are
Speaker 1: both programs that involve telecommunications and phone records and uh
Speaker 1: and phone content as it turns out, and Marina and
Speaker 1: Prism our internet communications. No, no, no, technically Stellar Wind Um,
Speaker 1: its cover was blown by William Binney a couple of
Speaker 1: years back. And uh, it only continued until two seven
Speaker 1: it was shut down, and then the actual programs underneath
Speaker 1: it still kept going. So so while while the parent
Speaker 1: program was dismantled, the actual activities continued U. So, for example,
Speaker 1: the programs the main Way in Nucleon programs the phone
Speaker 1: communication ones. Um, we're well, well, first of all, Main
Speaker 1: Way was all about metadata. And again we've talked about
Speaker 1: this metadata is that information about information, So all the
Speaker 1: information about the phone call, apart from the actual content
Speaker 1: of the call, that was the the the main focus there.
Speaker 1: And it can, like we said, give a lot of
Speaker 1: information about the people involved in any communication, even if
Speaker 1: you don't have the content. Now, the justification for gathering
Speaker 1: this is that the U S court systems have said
Speaker 1: repeatedly the metadata falls outside the information that the average
Speaker 1: US citizen can expect a reasonable have a reasonable expectation
Speaker 1: of privacy about so reasonable expectation of privacy involves everything
Speaker 1: like the actual communication that you would have with someone,
Speaker 1: but the fact that you talked to someone that you
Speaker 1: do not have a reasonable expectation of privacy. According to
Speaker 1: several different court cases, UM and the n s A
Speaker 1: said it only gathered metadat in the course of an investigation.
Speaker 1: But these rules are so vaguely defined. And there's that
Speaker 1: three hop approach that we've talked about before, the three
Speaker 1: hop approaches that actually maybe we haven't mentioned this yet.
Speaker 1: The three hop approaches this idea that you can target
Speaker 1: a person and then go one person out from your target,
Speaker 1: then go another person out, and then go another person
Speaker 1: out when you when you are actually investigating the target.
Speaker 1: So if you have identified a target as a foreign agent,
Speaker 1: you can then investigate everyone that foreign agent talked to
Speaker 1: and then go move outward from there. So it's a
Speaker 1: ripple effect. Now, let's assume just for a second that
Speaker 1: every single person has forty unique contacts, So forty forty
Speaker 1: contacts that are that are not shared with the other
Speaker 1: people that they have contacted with. Uh. You know, we
Speaker 1: have closer to like two hundred total, but a lot
Speaker 1: of those are going to be duplicates, right, So if
Speaker 1: I have forty unique contacts and each of them have
Speaker 1: forty unique contacts, three hop analysis would end up looking
Speaker 1: at two point five million people because as you look
Speaker 1: at those forty contacts and they have forty contexts. So
Speaker 1: that has raised people to say, well, how can you
Speaker 1: suggest that you are having a targeted investigation if this
Speaker 1: rule allows you to look at two and a half
Speaker 1: million people, some of whom are undoubtedly American citizens in
Speaker 1: some of these cases. And then I say, is um,
Speaker 1: Actually they have their own reasons behind it. They say
Speaker 1: that they're being very responsible with this, but it does
Speaker 1: raise those questions. Now again, this is meant to target
Speaker 1: those foreign agents with a certainty that they are in
Speaker 1: fact non American citizens. Uh. And it looks like what
Speaker 1: the NSA is doing is gathering all this meta data
Speaker 1: and storing it. Now they're the meta data on both
Speaker 1: of these programs on both Main Way Marina are Uh,
Speaker 1: you know both the phone and the internet stuff. It's
Speaker 1: all being stored and it's being collected from everyone. That's
Speaker 1: what it looks like like. It's not just the four
Speaker 1: and it's not like they're targeting foreign targets and saying,
Speaker 1: let's collect all their informations, pick this one thread out
Speaker 1: and collect the only that it's everything, and then they
Speaker 1: pick the threads out of the everything. Yeah, what what
Speaker 1: they have? The way, the way it's supposed to work,
Speaker 1: according to what I've read, is that they collect absolutely everything,
Speaker 1: all this meta data of both phone and internet communication,
Speaker 1: and then when they've identified a foreign target, they then
Speaker 1: provide do a search query on that target within all
Speaker 1: the information they've collected. So, in other words, they're they're
Speaker 1: doing searches on everything, but they don't they don't look
Speaker 1: at everything. They just have it. Now, some people have
Speaker 1: said just by having it, just by collecting all this
Speaker 1: information about people, whether their American citizens or not, means
Speaker 1: you're violating Americans and Fourth Amendment rights, that that is
Speaker 1: unreasonable search and seizure. It's at least seizure, if not search.
Speaker 1: And they're arguing, well, it's not search and seizure because
Speaker 1: all we're doing is making sure we have access to it.
Speaker 1: It's not seizure because it is it is free to
Speaker 1: us to collect. So they're saying that, yes, we have
Speaker 1: this information, but we're not doing anything with it until
Speaker 1: we have the actual authorization and the probable cause to
Speaker 1: go after. Just because we are technically diverting this stream
Speaker 1: into a giant hard drive and hanging onto that hard
Speaker 1: drive doesn't mean that we are quote unquote seizing anything
Speaker 1: because we have not because we haven't looked at it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's kind of the the wide boils down to. So
Speaker 1: then you have to go with does that argument hold
Speaker 1: water or not? Does that make sense? Uh? And some
Speaker 1: people have said that that's the wrong way to go
Speaker 1: about it. They should be getting the authorization and then
Speaker 1: going after all that data that's related to that authorization,
Speaker 1: but leave everything else alone. Uh, that might not be practical,
Speaker 1: and in fact, that might very well technically that that
Speaker 1: would be a ridiculous undertaking, honestly. And and it's not
Speaker 1: like data is color coded as it's running through the
Speaker 1: Internet tubes to to to let you know these things.
Speaker 1: So most of these collection systems they have in place
Speaker 1: are creating databases based on keywords like anything that's anything
Speaker 1: that's automatically detecting a keyword, and this includes actual phone conversations.
Speaker 1: When you get to Nucleon and PRISM, that no longer
Speaker 1: is dealing just with metadata, that's actually dealing with content itself,
Speaker 1: the actual stuff that's going on in these communications. So
Speaker 1: you get these keyword databases that are created and then
Speaker 1: you can search those uh. And again the n s
Speaker 1: A says, yes, we have them, but we're not searching them,
Speaker 1: you know, without reason. We only search them after we've
Speaker 1: we've established this this uh probable cause, the authorization et
Speaker 1: cetera under the secret court that you can't know about. Um.
Speaker 1: And so that's that's kind of where we are now.
Speaker 1: So Nucleon is the one with the phones. And again
Speaker 1: they're actually able to sort out phone conversations based on
Speaker 1: keywords that are detected within those conversations and then store them.
Speaker 1: And they're they've built a data center in Utah that
Speaker 1: is about a one and a half million square feet
Speaker 1: in size, which for those of you who have been
Speaker 1: to the Las Vegas Convention Center, that's about half the
Speaker 1: size of the Las Vegas Convention Center. If you add
Speaker 1: up all the convention center space. UM and that's that's huge.
Speaker 1: It's just filled with computers that are storing information, and
Speaker 1: of course we're generating more and more information every single day.
Speaker 1: Um and Uh. And in some cases they have access
Speaker 1: to special lockdown rooms like we've mentioned before, where they
Speaker 1: don't necessarily have to ask a provider for anything. They
Speaker 1: can just go into the lockdown room and then run
Speaker 1: the query. Again, they have to have the authorization to
Speaker 1: do this legally. Now that that includes both Nucleon and PRISM,
Speaker 1: which cover those content. Uh, let's talk about a little bit,
Speaker 1: just really briefly, kind of wrap this up and talk
Speaker 1: about some of the responses we've seen. I've got two
Speaker 1: specific ones I wanted to mention, uh, responses to this
Speaker 1: information coming to light. Keeping in mind that a lot
Speaker 1: of the politicians knew at least some of this already
Speaker 1: because they were on the committees that formed this stuff,
Speaker 1: but we're not able to really talk about it. Representative F.
Speaker 1: James Simpson Brenner Jr. Who is a representative from Wisconsin.
Speaker 1: He's a Republican. He's also one of the architects of
Speaker 1: the Patriot Act, said that Congress intended the patriotch to
Speaker 1: allow the intelligence communities to access targeted information for specific investigations.
Speaker 1: And he says, how can every call that every American
Speaker 1: makes or receives be relevant to a specific investigation? So
Speaker 1: again he's asking that same question, how can you justify
Speaker 1: collecting everything? Um And then I say says, well, we
Speaker 1: don't consider the collecting part to be seizure, Like we don't.
Speaker 1: It's on a server, but we're not doing anything with it,
Speaker 1: we're not searching it. But there are other arguments that
Speaker 1: are being made. They're saying this is kind of a
Speaker 1: slippery slop technicality. Yeah, shut up right, Like like what
Speaker 1: if you wanted to search it? You totally could write,
Speaker 1: you know whatever. The legal the legal definition of shut
Speaker 1: up is is what a lot of people are saying
Speaker 1: right now. Yeah. So there and there are people who
Speaker 1: are pointing out that, yes, if you have someone who
Speaker 1: has that access, then they can take advantage of it.
Speaker 1: Even if the n s A is doing everything on
Speaker 1: the up and up, if there's just one person who
Speaker 1: has that access, they could have you know. And uh,
Speaker 1: and so there's like and if your response is well,
Speaker 1: how could that happen? You point to Edward Snowdon and
Speaker 1: you say it has happened. Snowden did it. Snowdon did
Speaker 1: it in a way that alerted us to this, which
Speaker 1: for a lot of people means that he's a whistleblower,
Speaker 1: but that that's an example saying here's someone who did
Speaker 1: an unauthorized access of that information. And Snowdon had even
Speaker 1: said that it would be possible for him to listen
Speaker 1: in on any phone call at all if he wanted to. UH,
Speaker 1: and the n s A has said that it's not
Speaker 1: entirely true. You have to get the approval process. But
Speaker 1: there are others who say, well, what is that approval process?
Speaker 1: How how extensive is it? Does it just require you
Speaker 1: to go to someone and say, hey, can I listen
Speaker 1: to this call? There's sure that you can do it?
Speaker 1: Or is it really formal? And we don't really know,
Speaker 1: We don't know. Yeah, UM, I I like your last
Speaker 1: one to close this out with. I do have one
Speaker 1: from Obama um UH. President Obama has has said about
Speaker 1: the issue. UM I came in with a healthy skepticism
Speaker 1: about these programs. My team evaluated them, We scrubbed them thoroughly.
Speaker 1: We actually expanded some of the oversight and increased some
Speaker 1: of the safeguards you can't have one percent security and
Speaker 1: also then have one percent privacy and zero inconvenience. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there are some Founding fathers who had something to say
Speaker 1: about security and liberty, but I don't want to go
Speaker 1: into that. So, but they're the last one. And yes,
Speaker 1: that's that's so, that's was the president's approach. And again,
Speaker 1: it may very well be that all of that is
Speaker 1: completely sincere and honest, but we just don't know because
Speaker 1: it's classified, right, and it kind of and I was
Speaker 1: probably reading that more snarkily than than than the president
Speaker 1: that it sticks in my crawl a little bit because
Speaker 1: one of the things I specifically remember the Obama administration
Speaker 1: championing when they when when they first came into political power,
Speaker 1: was that they were going to really focus on transparency
Speaker 1: in the government. Now, you can argue that when it
Speaker 1: comes to intelligence transparency is it's counterproductive, it is dangerous,
Speaker 1: But when you look at this information that's been revealed
Speaker 1: and you see the reaction, you can understand why transparency
Speaker 1: is also something that you have to at least consider,
Speaker 1: at least talk about, here's here's the legal procedure that
Speaker 1: we do, and here's how we do it. That doesn't
Speaker 1: necessarily tell you anything about who's being targeted, although we've
Speaker 1: got plenty of nations out there who are now up
Speaker 1: in arms about this, and then we wanted to end this. Uh.
Speaker 1: The former president Jimmy Carter said about Snowdon, he said,
Speaker 1: he's obviously violated the laws of America for which he's responsible,
Speaker 1: but I think the invasion of human rights and American
Speaker 1: privacy has gone too far. I think that the secrecy
Speaker 1: that has been surrounding this invasion of privacy has been excessive.
Speaker 1: So I think that the bringing of it to the
Speaker 1: public notice has probably been in the long term beneficial.
Speaker 1: So in other words, he says, Snowdon is still responsible
Speaker 1: for his actions and maybe he should be held accountable.
Speaker 1: That's not what he's arguing here. What he's arguing is
Speaker 1: that this is stuff that we kind of needed to know.
Speaker 1: And keep in mind, this is the same president who
Speaker 1: signed FAISA into law in place, so that's an interesting
Speaker 1: thing to end on. Now. Again, we have our own
Speaker 1: opinions about this, and obviously, I mean, you you can
Speaker 1: tell what they are. It's not like we've been terribly
Speaker 1: subtle or but that's not you know, we're not trying
Speaker 1: to We've not been nearly as secretive as the n
Speaker 1: s A and sorry, and and and again it may
Speaker 1: turn out like I'm trying to keep as open in
Speaker 1: mind about this as possible. But it's just that a
Speaker 1: lot of warning flags have been raised because of this,
Speaker 1: and national securities is certainly extraordinarily important all the time. YEA.
Speaker 1: So it's not that it's not that we are going
Speaker 1: to say that we know better than anybody else. Obviously
Speaker 1: that's not the case. Mostly what we want is just
Speaker 1: more information, because Uh, it is very easy to come
Speaker 1: to the wrong conclusion when you don't have enough, and
Speaker 1: I am fully aware of that. But it does raise
Speaker 1: some concerns, and I'm glad that there are people who
Speaker 1: are looking into it and and really examining this and
Speaker 1: making sure that this that the n Essays approach is
Speaker 1: in fact the best one to do, as opposed to
Speaker 1: some alternative And uh. And so you know, whether you
Speaker 1: think Snowdon is a hero or a villain, personally, I
Speaker 1: kind of just I don't really think of him as either.
Speaker 1: I think of him as a human being who acted
Speaker 1: on his own principles which were not in alignment with
Speaker 1: the principles of his contractual employe er. Um, that sometimes happens.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's why we have uh that's why things
Speaker 1: like weight leaks even exist because if there weren't people
Speaker 1: like that, then there'd be no leaked information. I I
Speaker 1: agree with with former President Carter. Yeah, I agree. So
Speaker 1: we're wrapping this up, guys. If you have suggestions for
Speaker 1: future topics, we do plan on eventually covering topics like
Speaker 1: the actual technical approaches to things like wire tapping and
Speaker 1: this prism approach. How might uh N s A gathered
Speaker 1: data without even approaching a major company. There are some
Speaker 1: kind of tricky things they might do. Um, but we'll
Speaker 1: talk about that in another episode and we'll break it up.
Speaker 1: We're gonna do something fun next time. So robot puppies.
Speaker 1: Robot puppies. Yeah, more togogy. So we're wrapping this up.
Speaker 1: If you have any suggestions for future episodes, please get
Speaker 1: into contact with us. We can be contacted at email address,
Speaker 1: tech stuff at Discovery dot com, or drop us a
Speaker 1: line on Facebook or Twitter. You can find us their
Speaker 1: tech stuff hs W and Lauren and I will talk
Speaker 1: to you again. Really ru Rue for more on this
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