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the fact that society works proves that
security works what that means on the
internet remains to be seen
I am near-term pessimistic but I am
long-term optimistic I think we as
society will figure this out that
privacy and liberty are so important to
us as a people that we will reestablish
it when the Guardian newspaper needed
help analyzing the technical details of
the giant trove of NSA files leaked by
Edward Snowden they went to one man
Bruce Schneier is a renowned expert in
cryptography and security issues today
he's a fellow at the Berkman Center at
Harvard where he's researching the
intersection of power and the Internet
what's cryptography me cryptography is
basically mathematical security its
encryption it's it's protecting my data
as I send it to you or my data on my
hard drive
it's basically keeping all these
security properties intact as we move
from the real world to the digital world
security is how society functions and
this is true whether you're living in
small family groups in these day African
highlands or 1000 BC or 2013 New York
City you're dealing with a large group
of people all of whom will cooperate
with each other will compete with each
other will deceive each other will be
truthful and security is how that group
stays together
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after 9/11 we got scared and when people
are scared they'll do anything to make
themselves feel better and politicians
were scared they were scared something
else would happen and they would get
blamed we wish to get that something
else would happen and the terrorists
would kill our children and those two
fears meant the politicians said we must
do anything to stop it
and the people said we'll let you do
anything to stop it even if those things
aren't effective even if those things
don't actually do any good we want them
done and I believe the president called
the NSA and said alright you're it go
right forget about the law forget about
balance forget about budget forget about
everything eavesdrop as much as you can
to stop the next one Matt and here we
are what you know a dozen years later
and you know now we know that 9/11 was
an anomaly I mean back then we thought
it would happen once a year so we do
need to dial the balance back it is much
more important for this country that we
defend this nation and take the beatings
than it is to give up a program that
would result in this nation being
attacked we would rather be here in
front of you today telling you why we
defended these these programs than
having given them up and have our nation
or our allies be an attack be attacked
and people killed I think anyone saying
if the NSA shouldn't do spying no we we
understand I think as a society that we
need to let the government invade our
privacy that we do that for important
reasons we take the police and we give
the police enormous leeway and power to
invade our privacy because that helps
them solve crimes and we do that
willingly but this transparency and
oversight to protect us and we don't
have that with National Intelligence
it actually amazes me the general Keith
Alexander still has a job and this is
the greatest intelligence failure in the
history of ever and he is still in
charge of the NSA right that the
Director of National Intelligence
clapper can outright lie to Congress and
he still has a job and that speaks to an
enormous amount of power here and that's
where is it if you could give me a yes
or no answer to the question does the
NSA collect any type of data at all on
millions or hundreds of millions of
American no sir it does not not
wittingly there are cases where they
could inadvertently perhaps collect but
not not wittingly did you always assume
that the government had this sort of
power more poignant Lee and what changed
after the Snowden revelations for you
nothing in the Snowden documents
technically is really a surprise and
this analogy I've been using and it's
it's a tough one but I think it's
actually accurate and that's thinking
about death it's not a surprise
everybody dies is the way the story ends
yet when it happens it's always a
surprise and that's because we just
don't think about it you know we decide
not to think about it it's almost a
conscious decision I think this NSA
surveillance was sort of like that and
now it's what Snowden's doing is he's
forcing us to think about it very
explicitly what among the revelations to
you is most of a concern now to me them
the worst thing the NSA has been doing
this deliberately weakening cryptography
because they're they're actually hurting
people and they're they're abdicating
one of their missions the NSA has two
missions and basically it's listening to
their communications and protect our
communications and those missions made
sense together during the Cold War where
you eavesdrop on the Soviet stuff and
you protect the the NATO stuff
and since 9/11 at least they've chosen
pretty much exclusively to weaken the
internet to listen on the bad guys and
that really feels like the wrong
decision let me ask you about anonymity
is that is that the the thing that we
that we are trying to sort of protect
most or to cherish most on the Internet
this this right to privacy essentially
you know what we're trying to protect
most on the Internet is is our as
control you walk into a party and there
are strangers and their friends and you
are immediately able to control your
data what you tell people what you don't
what you go into a private room to have
a conversation what you say in the open
we're we're strangers and over here we
know how to do this we have evolved to
be able to do that we're just not good
on the internet so when you get an email
from someone that says you know hi I
heard you're pregnant here's some
advertising you look at it and say how
did they know that it's not about
secrecy because you probably told your
doctor you probably told your spouse you
might have told your parents but you
didn't tell us advertising company so
it's not about anonymity it's not about
secrecy it's about control what are some
of your concerns about just how deeply
the surveillance state goes I'm most
worried about how robust it all is yeah
and we all know this person right there
an Apple person they have an Apple
computer and Apple phone they use iCloud
effectively they give all of their data
to Apple in exchange for security and
it's great security right you lose an
iPhone you get a new one you push a
button your data magically appears on it
other people trust Google in that same
way I mean the NSA didn't just wake up
and said we're gonna eavesdrop on the
planet they woke up and said hey wait a
second the phone companies the Internet
these people are already producing a
system lets us eavesdrop let's just
piggyback off it the NSA couldn't do
their jobs if it wasn't for all these
companies producing the data for them
now we're living in a world where
corporate power can buy government power
in some instances and yet there are
nothing nearly the
legal controls and it's very much a
feudal relationship the feudal lords
will protect these users to the extent
they do in exchange for allegiance now
it is very one-way relationship right
these feudal lords can abuse you they
can buy you they can sell you you're
tied to your land it's actually very
hard to leave some of these systems we
need something akin to a Magna Carter
for corporations that says yes you have
all of these rights but you also have
all these responsibilities and
everybody's got one of these things and
we're sharing data all the time giving
data up fairly freely to me bear a
certain amount of responsibility for
this particular power grab that you're
describing I mean the public yes we we
give our data willingly to to Apple on
our iPhone to to Facebook but we don't
really do it consciously now we're doing
it incidentally we're on Facebook we're
going to talk to our friends we don't go
on a Facebook and say let's tell
advertisers all about us today right we
don't pick up our phone and say I'm
gonna let Apple surveil me all day we
want to get phone calls so it's
happening in the background and for most
people it's not salient so I don't like
blaming the people that really feels
really unfair we really have to blame
the systems that we've built that enable
all of this surveillance and the
public's role is is advocate I mean the
solutions here are going to be political
they're going to be laws that protect
our data protect our privacy that limit
what governments and corporations do
with our data and that kind of political
change I think it's going to be slow in
coming but eventually that's we're going
to get our security right now we still
have two US senators that brag about
never using email and those people
cannot figure out a sensible privacy
policy for the Internet
it has to be digital natives people who
have been born into the internet will
understand what it means in someone's
life to establish those boundaries I
have a Linux box I you know I do quite a
lot of different things and you also
have a bill going to wait for the
helicopter the black helicopters are
coming here's a blackout
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