Chris Anderson: The rights of citizens,
the future of the Internet.
So I would like to welcome to the TED stage
the man behind those revelations,
Ed Snowden.
(Applause)
Ed is in a remote location somewhere in Russia
controlling this bot from his laptop,
so he can see what the bot can see.
Ed, welcome to the TED stage.
What can you see, as a matter of fact?
Edward Snowden: Ha, I can see everyone.
This is amazing.
(Laughter)
CA: Ed, some questions for you.
You've been called many things
in the last few months.
You've been called a whistleblower, a traitor,
a hero.
What words would you describe yourself with?
ES: You know, everybody who is involved
with this debate
has been struggling over me and my personality
and how to describe me.
But when I think about it,
this isn't the question that we should be struggling with.
Who I am really doesn't matter at all.
If I'm the worst person in the world,
you can hate me and move on.
What really matters here are the issues.
What really matters here is the kind of government we want,
the kind of Internet we want,
the kind of relationship between people
and societies.
And that's what I'm hoping the debate will move towards,
and we've seen that increasing over time.
If I had to describe myself,
I wouldn't use words like "hero."
I wouldn't use "patriot," and I wouldn't use "traitor."
I'd say I'm an American and I'm a citizen,
just like everyone else.
CA: So just to give some context
for those who don't know the whole story --
(Applause) —
this time a year ago, you were stationed in Hawaii
working as a consultant to the NSA.
As a sysadmin, you had access
to their systems,
and you began revealing certain classified documents
to some handpicked journalists
leading the way to June's revelations.
Now, what propelled you to do this?
ES: You know,
when I was sitting in Hawaii,
and the years before, when I was working in the intelligence community,
I saw a lot of things that had disturbed me.
We do a lot of good things in the intelligence community,
things that need to be done,
and things that help everyone.
But there are also things that go too far.
There are things that shouldn't be done,
and decisions that were being made in secret
without the public's awareness,
without the public's consent,
and without even our representatives in government
having knowledge of these programs.
When I really came to struggle with these issues,
I thought to myself,
how can I do this in the most responsible way,
that maximizes the public benefit
while minimizing the risks?
And out of all the solutions that I could come up with,
out of going to Congress,
when there were no laws,
there were no legal protections
for a private employee,
a contractor in intelligence like myself,
there was a risk that I would be buried along with the information
and the public would never find out.
But the First Amendment of the United States Constitution
guarantees us a free press for a reason,
and that's to enable an adversarial press,
to challenge the government,
but also to work together with the government,
to have a dialogue and debate about how we can
inform the public about matters of vital importance
without putting our national security at risk.
And by working with journalists,
by giving all of my information
back to the American people,
rather than trusting myself to make
the decisions about publication,
we've had a robust debate
with a deep investment by the government
that I think has resulted in a benefit for everyone.
And the risks that have been threatened,
the risks that have been played up
by the government
have never materialized.
We've never seen any evidence
of even a single instance of specific harm,
and because of that,
I'm comfortable with the decisions that I made.
CA: So let me show the audience
a couple of examples of what you revealed.
If we could have a slide up, and Ed,
I don't know whether you can see,
the slides are here.
This is a slide of the PRISM program,
and maybe you could tell the audience
what that was that was revealed.
ES: The best way to understand PRISM,
because there's been a little bit of controversy,
is to first talk about what PRISM isn't.
Much of the debate in the U.S. has been about metadata.
They've said it's just metadata, it's just metadata,
and they're talking about a specific legal authority
called Section 215 of the Patriot Act.
That allows sort of a warrantless wiretapping,
mass surveillance of the entire country's
phone records, things like that --
who you're talking to,
when you're talking to them,
where you traveled.
These are all metadata events.
PRISM is about content.
It's a program through which the government could
compel corporate America,
it could deputize corporate America
to do its dirty work for the NSA.
And even though some of these companies did resist,
even though some of them --
I believe Yahoo was one of them —
challenged them in court, they all lost,
because it was never tried by an open court.
They were only tried by a secret court.
And something that we've seen,
something about the PRISM program that's very concerning to me is,
there's been a talking point in the U.S. government
where they've said 15 federal judges
have reviewed these programs and found them to be lawful,
but what they don't tell you
is those are secret judges
in a secret court
based on secret interpretations of law
that's considered 34,000 warrant requests
over 33 years,
and in 33 years only rejected
11 government requests.
These aren't the people that we want deciding
what the role of corporate America
in a free and open Internet should be.
CA: Now, this slide that we're showing here
shows the dates in which
different technology companies, Internet companies,
are alleged to have joined the program,
and where data collection began from them.
Now, they have denied collaborating with the NSA.
How was that data collected by the NSA?
ES: Right. So the NSA's own slides
refer to it as direct access.
What that means to an actual NSA analyst,
someone like me who was working as an intelligence analyst
targeting, Chinese cyber-hackers,
things like that, in Hawaii,
is the provenance of that data
is directly from their servers.
It doesn't mean
that there's a group of company representatives
sitting in a smoky room with the NSA
palling around and making back-room deals
about how they're going to give this stuff away.
Now each company handles it different ways.
Some are responsible.
Some are somewhat less responsible.
But the bottom line is, when we talk about
how this information is given,
it's coming from the companies themselves.
It's not stolen from the lines.
But there's an important thing to remember here:
even though companies pushed back,
even though companies demanded,
hey, let's do this through a warrant process,
let's do this
where we actually have some sort of legal review,
some sort of basis for handing over
these users' data,
we saw stories in the Washington Post last year
that weren't as well reported as the PRISM story
that said the NSA broke in
to the data center communications
between Google to itself
and Yahoo to itself.
So even these companies that are cooperating
in at least a compelled but hopefully lawful manner
with the NSA,
the NSA isn't satisfied with that,
and because of that, we need our companies
to work very hard
to guarantee that they're going to represent
the interests of the user, and also advocate
for the rights of the users.
And I think over the last year,
we've seen the companies that are named
on the PRISM slides
take great strides to do that,
and I encourage them to continue.
CA: What more should they do?
ES: The biggest thing that an Internet company
in America can do today, right now,
without consulting with lawyers,
to protect the rights of users worldwide,
is to enable SSL web encryption
on every page you visit.
The reason this matters is today,
if you go to look at a copy of "1984" on Amazon.com,
the NSA can see a record of that,
the Russian intelligence service can see a record of that,
the Chinese service can see a record of that,
the French service, the German service,
the services of Andorra.
They can all see it because it's unencrypted.
The world's library is Amazon.com,
but not only do they not support encryption by default,
you cannot choose to use encryption
when browsing through books.
This is something that we need to change,
not just for Amazon, I don't mean to single them out,
but they're a great example.
All companies need to move
to an encrypted browsing habit by default
for all users who haven't taken any action
or picked any special methods on their own.
That'll increase the privacy and the rights
that people enjoy worldwide.
CA: Ed, come with me to this part of the stage.
I want to show you the next slide here. (Applause)
This is a program called Boundless Informant.
What is that?
ES: So, I've got to give credit to the NSA
for using appropriate names on this.
This is one of my favorite NSA cryptonyms.
Boundless Informant
is a program that the NSA hid from Congress.
The NSA was previously asked by Congress,
was there any ability that they had
to even give a rough ballpark estimate
of the amount of American communications
that were being intercepted.
They said no. They said, we don't track those stats,
and we can't track those stats.
We can't tell you how many communications
we're intercepting around the world,
because to tell you that would be
to invade your privacy.
Now, I really appreciate that sentiment from them,
but the reality, when you look at this slide is,
not only do they have the capability,
the capability already exists.
It's already in place.
The NSA has its own internal data format
that tracks both ends of a communication,
and if it says,
this communication came from America,
they can tell Congress how many of those communications
they have today, right now.
And what Boundless Informant tells us
is more communications are being intercepted
in America about Americans
than there are in Russia about Russians.
I'm not sure that's what an intelligence agency
should be aiming for.
CA: Ed, there was a story broken in the Washington Post,
again from your data.
The headline says,
"NSA broke privacy rules
thousands of times per year."
Tell us about that.
ES: We also heard in Congressional testimony last year,
it was an amazing thing for someone like me
who came from the NSA
and who's seen the actual internal documents,
knows what's in them,
to see officials testifying under oath
that there had been no abuses,
that there had been no violations of the NSA's rules,
when we knew this story was coming.
But what's especially interesting about this,
about the fact that the NSA has violated
their own rules, their own laws
thousands of times in a single year,
including one event by itself,
one event out of those 2,776,
that affected more than 3,000 people.
In another event, they intercepted
all the calls in Washington, D.C., by accident.
What's amazing about this,
this report, that didn't get that much attention,
is the fact that not only were there 2,776 abuses,
the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee,
Dianne Feinstein, had not seen this report
until the Washington Post contacted her
asking for comment on the report.
And she then requested a copy from the NSA
and received it,
but had never seen this before that.
What does that say about the state of oversight
in American intelligence
when the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee
has no idea that the rules are being broken
thousands of times every year?
CA: Ed, one response to this whole debate is this:
Why should we care about
all this surveillance, honestly?
I mean, look, if you've done nothing wrong,
you've got nothing to worry about.
What's wrong with that point of view?
ES: Well, so the first thing is,
you're giving up your rights.
You're saying hey, you know,
I don't think I'm going to need them,
so I'm just going to trust that, you know,
let's get rid of them, it doesn't really matter,
these guys are going to do the right thing.
Your rights matter
because you never know when you're going to need them.
Beyond that, it's a part of our cultural identity,
not just in America,
but in Western societies
and in democratic societies around the world.
People should be able to pick up the phone
and to call their family,
people should be able to send a text message
to their loved ones,
people should be able to buy a book online,
they should be able to travel by train,
they should be able to buy an airline ticket
without wondering about how these events
are going to look to an agent of the government,
possibly not even your government
years in the future,
how they're going to be misinterpreted
and what they're going to think your intentions were.
We have a right to privacy.
We require warrants to be based on probable cause
or some kind of individualized suspicion
because we recognize that trusting anybody,
any government authority,
with the entirety of human communications
in secret and without oversight
is simply too great a temptation to be ignored.
CA: Some people are furious at what you've done.
I heard a quote recently from Dick Cheney
who said that Julian Assange was a flea bite,
Edward Snowden is the lion that bit the head off the dog.
He thinks you've committed
one of the worst acts of betrayal
in American history.
What would you say to people who think that?
ES: Dick Cheney's really something else.
(Laughter) (Applause)
Thank you. (Laughter)
I think it's amazing, because at the time
Julian Assange was doing some of his greatest work,
Dick Cheney was saying
he was going to end governments worldwide,
the skies were going to ignite
and the seas were going to boil off,
and now he's saying it's a flea bite.
So we should be suspicious about the same sort of
overblown claims of damage to national security
from these kind of officials.
But let's assume that these people really believe this.
I would argue that they have kind of
a narrow conception of national security.
The prerogatives of people like Dick Cheney
do not keep the nation safe.
The public interest is not always the same
as the national interest.
Going to war with people who are not our enemy
in places that are not a threat
doesn't make us safe,
and that applies whether it's in Iraq
or on the Internet.
The Internet is not the enemy.
Our economy is not the enemy.
American businesses, Chinese businesses,
and any other company out there
is a part of our society.
It's a part of our interconnected world.
There are ties of fraternity that bond us together,
and if we destroy these bonds
by undermining the standards, the security,
the manner of behavior,
that nations and citizens all around the world
expect us to abide by.
CA: But it's alleged that you've stolen
1.7 million documents.
It seems only a few hundred of them
have been shared with journalists so far.
Are there more revelations to come?
ES: There are absolutely more revelations to come.
I don't think there's any question
that some of the most important reporting
to be done is yet to come.
CA: Come here, because I want to ask you
about this particular revelation.
Come and take a look at this.
I mean, this is a story which I think for a lot of the techies in this room
is the single most shocking thing
that they have heard in the last few months.
It's about a program called "Bullrun."
Can you explain what that is?
ES: So Bullrun, and this is again
where we've got to thank the NSA for their candor,
this is a program named after a Civil War battle.
The British counterpart is called Edgehill,
which is a U.K. civil war battle.
And the reason that I believe they're named this way
is because they target our own infrastructure.
They're programs through which the NSA
intentionally misleads corporate partners.
They tell corporate partners that these
are safe standards.
They say hey, we need to work with you
to secure your systems,
but in reality, they're giving bad advice
to these companies that makes them
degrade the security of their services.
They're building in backdoors that not only
the NSA can exploit,
but anyone else who has time and money
to research and find it
can then use to let themselves in
to the world's communications.
And this is really dangerous,
because if we lose a single standard,
if we lose the trust of something like SSL,
which was specifically targeted
by the Bullrun program,
we will live a less safe world overall.
We won't be able to access our banks
and we won't be able to access commerce
without worrying about people monitoring those communications
or subverting them for their own ends.
CA: And do those same decisions also potentially
open America up to cyberattacks
from other sources?
ES: Absolutely.
One of the problems,
one of the dangerous legacies
that we've seen in the post-9/11 era,
is that the NSA has traditionally worn two hats.
They've been in charge of offensive operations,
that is hacking,
but they've also been in charge of defensive operations,
and traditionally they've always prioritized
defense over offense
based on the principle
that American secrets are simply worth more.
If we hack a Chinese business
and steal their secrets,
if we hack a government office in Berlin
and steal their secrets,
that has less value to the American people
than making sure that the Chinese
can't get access to our secrets.
So by reducing the security of our communications,
they're not only putting the world at risk,
they're putting America at risk in a fundamental way,
because intellectual property is the basis,
the foundation of our economy,
and if we put that at risk through weak security,
we're going to be paying for it for years.
CA: But they've made a calculation
that it was worth doing this
as part of America's defense against terrorism.
Surely that makes it a price worth paying.
ES: Well, when you look at the results
of these programs in stopping terrorism,
you will see that that's unfounded,
and you don't have to take my word for it,
because we've had the first open court,
the first federal court that's reviewed this,
outside the secrecy arrangement,
called these programs Orwellian
and likely unconstitutional.
Congress, who has access
to be briefed on these things,
and now has the desire to be,
has produced bills to reform it,
and two independent White House panels
who reviewed all of the classified evidence
said these programs have never stopped
a single terrorist attack
that was imminent in the United States.
So is it really terrorism that we're stopping?
Do these programs have any value at all?
I say no, and all three branches
of the American government say no as well.
CA: I mean, do you think there's a deeper motivation
for them than the war against terrorism?
ES: I'm sorry, I couldn't hear you, say again?
CA: Sorry. Do you think there's a deeper motivation
for them other than the war against terrorism?
ES: Yeah. The bottom line is that terrorism
has always been what we in the intelligence world
would call a cover for action.
Terrorism is something that provokes
an emotional response that allows people
to rationalize authorizing powers and programs
that they wouldn't give otherwise.
The Bullrun and Edgehill-type programs,
the NSA asked for these authorities
back in the 1990s.
They asked the FBI to go to Congress and make the case.
The FBI went to Congress and did make the case.
But Congress and the American people said no.
They said, it's not worth the risk to our economy.
They said it's worth too much damage
to our society to justify the gains.
But what we saw is, in the post-9/11 era,
they used secrecy and they used the justification of terrorism
to start these programs in secret
without asking Congress,
without asking the American people,
and it's that kind of government behind closed doors
that we need to guard ourselves against,
because it makes us less safe,
and it offers no value.
CA: Okay, come with me here for a sec,
because I've got a more personal question for you.
Speaking of terror,
most people would find the situation you're in right now
in Russia pretty terrifying.
You obviously heard what happened,
what the treatment that Bradley Manning got,
Chelsea Manning as now is,
and there was a story in Buzzfeed saying that
there are people in the intelligence community
who want you dead.
How are you coping with this?
How are you coping with the fear?
ES: It's no mystery
that there are governments out there that want to see me dead.
I've made clear again and again and again
that I go to sleep every morning
thinking about what I can do for the American people.
I don't want to harm my government.
I want to help my government,
but the fact that they are willing to
completely ignore due process,
they're willing to declare guilt
without ever seeing a trial,
these are things that we need to work against
as a society, and say hey, this is not appropriate.
We shouldn't be threatening dissidents.
We shouldn't be criminalizing journalism.
And whatever part I can do to see that end,
I'm happy to do despite the risks.
CA: So I'd actually like to get some feedback
from the audience here,
because I know there's widely differing reactions
to Edward Snowden.
Suppose you had the following two choices, right?
You could view what he did
as fundamentally a reckless act
that has endangered America
or you could view it as fundamentally a heroic act
that will work towards America and the world's
long-term good?
Those are the two choices I'll give you.
I'm curious to see who's willing to vote with
the first of those,
that this was a reckless act?
There are some hands going up.
Some hands going up.
It's hard to put your hand up
when the man is standing right here,
but I see them.
ES: I can see you. (Laughter)
CA: And who goes with the second choice,
the fundamentally heroic act?
(Applause) (Cheers)
And I think it's true to say that there are a lot of people
who didn't show a hand and I think
are still thinking this through,
because it seems to me that the debate around you
doesn't split along traditional political lines.
It's not left or right, it's not really about
pro-government, libertarian, or not just that.
Part of it is almost a generational issue.
You're part of a generation that grew up
with the Internet, and it seems as if
you become offended at almost a visceral level
when you see something done
that you think will harm the Internet.
Is there some truth to that?
ES: It is. I think it's very true.
This is not a left or right issue.
Our basic freedoms, and when I say our,
I don't just mean Americans,
I mean people around the world,
it's not a partisan issue.
These are things that all people believe,
and it's up to all of us to protect them,
and to people who have seen and enjoyed
a free and open Internet,
it's up to us to preserve that liberty
for the next generation to enjoy,
and if we don't change things,
if we don't stand up to make the changes
we need to do to keep the Internet safe,
not just for us but for everyone,
we're going to lose that,
and that would be a tremendous loss,
not just for us, but for the world.
CA: Well, I have heard similar language recently
from the founder of the world wide web,
who I actually think is with us, Sir Tim Berners-Lee.
Tim, actually, would you like to come up and say,
do we have a microphone for Tim?
(Applause)
Tim, good to see you. Come up there.
Which camp are you in, by the way,
traitor, hero? I have a theory on this, but --
Tim Berners-Lee: I've given much longer
answers to that question, but hero,
if I have to make the choice between the two.
CA: And Ed, I think you've read
the proposal that Sir Tim has talked about
about a new Magna Carta to take back the Internet.
Is that something that makes sense?
ES: Absolutely. I mean, my generation, I grew up
not just thinking about the Internet,
but I grew up in the Internet,
and although I never expected to have the chance
to defend it in such a direct and practical manner
and to embody it in this unusual,
almost avatar manner,
I think there's something poetic about the fact that
one of the sons of the Internet
has actually become close to the Internet
as a result of their political expression.
And I believe that a Magna Carta for the Internet
is exactly what we need.
We need to encode our values
not just in writing but in the structure of the Internet,
and it's something that I hope,
I invite everyone in the audience,
not just here in Vancouver but around the world,
to join and participate in.
CA: Do you have a question for Ed?
TBL: Well, two questions,
a general question —
CA: Ed, can you still hear us?
ES: Yes, I can hear you. CA: Oh, he's back.
TBL: The wiretap on your line
got a little interfered with for a moment.
(Laughter)
ES: It's a little bit of an NSA problem.
TBL: So, from the 25 years,
stepping back and thinking,
what would you think would be
the best that we could achieve
from all the discussions that we have
about the web we want?
ES: When we think about
in terms of how far we can go,
I think that's a question that's really only limited
by what we're willing to put into it.
I think the Internet that we've enjoyed in the past
has been exactly what we as not just a nation
but as a people around the world need,
and by cooperating, by engaging not just
the technical parts of society,
but as you said, the users,
the people around the world who contribute
through the Internet, through social media,
who just check the weather,
who rely on it every day as a part of their life,
to champion that.
We'll get not just the Internet we've had,
but a better Internet, a better now,
something that we can use to build a future
that'll be better not just than what we hoped for
but anything that we could have imagined.
CA: It's 30 years ago that TED was founded, 1984.
A lot of the conversation since then has been
along the lines that
actually George Orwell got it wrong.
It's not Big Brother watching us.
We, through the power of the web,
and transparency, are now watching Big Brother.
Your revelations kind of drove a stake
through the heart of that rather optimistic view,
but you still believe there's a way of doing something
about that.
And you do too.
ES: Right, so there is an argument to be made
that the powers of Big Brother have increased enormously.
There was a recent legal article at Yale
that established something called the Bankston-Soltani Principle,
which is that our expectation of privacy is violated
when the capabilities of government surveillance
have become cheaper by an order of magnitude,
and each time that occurs, we need to revisit
and rebalance our privacy rights.
Now, that hasn't happened since
the government's surveillance powers
have increased by several orders of magnitude,
and that's why we're in the problem that we're in today,
but there is still hope,
because the power of individuals
have also been increased by technology.
I am living proof
that an individual can go head to head
against the most powerful adversaries
and the most powerful intelligence agencies
around the world and win,
and I think that's something
that we need to take hope from,
and we need to build on
to make it accessible not just to technical experts
but to ordinary citizens around the world.
Journalism is not a crime,
communication is not a crime,
and we should not be monitored in our everyday activities.
CA: I'm not quite sure how you shake the hand of a bot,
but I imagine it's, this is the hand right here. TBL: That'll come very soon.
ES: Nice to meet you,
and I hope my beam looks as nice
as my view of you guys does.
CA: Thank you, Tim.
(Applause)
I mean, The New York Times recently called for an amnesty for you.
Would you welcome the chance to come back to America?
ES: Absolutely. There's really no question,
the principles that have been the foundation
of this project
have been the public interest
and the principles that underly
the journalistic establishment in the United States
and around the world,
and I think if the press is now saying,
we support this,
this is something that needed to happen,
that's a powerful argument, but it's not the final argument,
and I think that's something that public should decide.
But at the same time,
the government has hinted that they want
some kind of deal,
that they want me to compromise
the journalists with which I've been working,
to come back,
and I want to make it very clear
that I did not do this to be safe.
I did this to do what was right,
and I'm not going to stop my work
in the public interest
just to benefit myself.
(Applause)
CA: In the meantime,
courtesy of the Internet and this technology,
you're here, back in North America,
not quite the U.S., Canada, in this form.
I'm curious, how does that feel?
ES: Canada is different than what I expected.
It's a lot warmer.
(Laughter)
CA: At TED, the mission is "ideas worth spreading."
If you could encapsulate it in a single idea,
what is your idea worth spreading
right now at this moment?
ES: I would say the last year has been a reminder
that democracy may die behind closed doors,
but we as individuals are born
behind those same closed doors,
and we don't have to give up
our privacy to have good government.
We don't have to give up our liberty
to have security.
And I think by working together
we can have both open government
and private lives,
and I look forward to working with everyone
around the world to see that happen.
Thank you very much.
CA: Ed, thank you.
(Applause)