-
There is an entire genre of YouTube videos
-
devoted to an experience which
-
I am certain that everyone in this room has had.
-
It entails an individual who,
-
thinking they're alone,
-
engages in some expressive behavior
-
— wild singing, gyrating dancing,
-
some mild sexual activity —
-
only to discover that, in fact, they are not alone,
-
that there is a person watching and lurking,
-
the discovery of which causes them
-
to immediately cease what they were doing
-
in horror.
-
The sense of shame and humiliation
-
in their face is palpable.
-
It's the sense of,
-
"This is something I'm willing to do
-
only if no one else is watching."
-
This is the crux of the work
-
on which I have been singularly focused
-
for the last 16 months,
-
the question of why privacy matters,
-
a question that has arisen
-
in the context of a global debate,
-
enabled by the revelations of Edward Snowden
-
that the United States and its partners,
-
unbeknownst to the entire world,
-
has converted the Internet,
-
once heralded as an unprecedented tool
-
of liberation and democratization,
-
into an unprecedented zone
-
of mass, indiscriminate surveillance.
-
There is a very common sentiment
-
that arises in this debate,
-
even among people who are uncomfortable
-
with mass surveillance, which says
-
that there is no real harm
-
that comes from this large-scale invasion
-
because only people who are engaged in bad acts
-
have a reason to want to hide
-
and to care about their privacy.
-
This worldview is implicitly grounded
-
in the proposition that there are
two kinds of people in the world,
-
good people and bad people.
-
Bad people are those who plot terrorist attacks
-
or who engage in violent criminality
-
and therefore have reasons to
want to hide what they're doing,
-
have reasons to care about their privacy.
-
But by contrast, good people
-
are people who go to work,
-
come home, raise their children, watch television.
-
They use the Internet not to plot bombing attacks
-
but to read the news or exchange recipes
-
or to plan their kid's Little League games,
-
and those people are doing nothing wrong
-
and therefore have nothing to hide
-
and no reason to fear
-
the government monitoring them.
-
The people who are actually saying that
-
are engaged in a very extreme act
-
of self-deprecation.
-
What they're really saying is,
-
"I have agreed to make myself
-
such a harmless and unthreatening
-
and uninteresting person that I actually don't fear
-
having the government know what it is that I'm doing."
-
This mindset has found what I think
-
is its purest expression
-
in a 2009 interview with
-
the long-time CEO of Google Eric Schmidt, who,
-
when asked about all the different ways his company
-
is causing invasions of privacy
-
for hundreds of millions of people around the world,
-
said this. He said,
-
"If you're doing something that you don't want
-
other people to know,
-
maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place."
-
Now, there's all kinds of things to say about
-
that mentality,
-
the first of which is that the people who say that,
-
who say that privacy isn't really important,
-
they don't actually believe it,
-
and the way you know that
they don't actually believe it
-
is that while they say with their
words that privacy doesn't matter,
-
with their actions, they take all kinds of steps
-
to safeguard their privacy.
-
They put passwords on their email
-
and their social media accounts,
-
they put locks on their bedroom
-
and bathroom doors,
-
all steps designed to prevent other people
-
from entering what they consider their private realm
-
and knowing what it is that they
don't want other people to know.
-
The very same Eric Schmidt, the CEO of Google,
-
ordered his employees at Google
-
to cease speaking with the online
-
Internet magazine CNET
-
after CNET published an article
-
full of personal, private information
-
about Eric Schmidt
-
which it obtained exclusively
through Google searches
-
and using other Google products. (Laughter)
-
This same division could be seen
-
with the CEO of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg,
-
who in an infamous interview in 2010
-
pronounced that privacy is no longer
-
a "social norm."
-
Last year, Mark Zuckerberg and his new wife
-
purchased not only their own house
-
but also all four adjacent houses in Palo Alto
-
for a total of 30 million dollars
-
in order to ensure that they enjoyed a zone of privacy
-
that prevented other people from monitoring
-
what they do in their personal lives.
-
Over the last 16 months, as I've
debated this issue around the world,
-
every single time somebody has said to me,
-
"I don't really worry about invasions of privacy
-
because I don't have anything to hide."
-
I always say the same thing to them.
-
I get out a pen, I write down my email address.
-
I say, "Here's my email address.
-
What I want you to do when you get home
-
is email me the passwords
-
to all of your email accounts,
-
not just the nice, respectable work one in your name,
-
but all of them,
-
because I want to be able to just troll through
-
what it is you're doing online,
-
read what I want to read and
publish whatever I find interesting.
-
After all, if you're not a bad person,
-
if you're doing nothing wrong,
-
you should have nothing to hide."
-
Not a single person has taken me up on that offer.
-
I check and — (Applause)
-
I check that email account religiously all the time.
-
It's a very desolate place.
-
And there's a reason for that,
-
which is that we as human beings,
-
even those of us who in words
-
disclaim the importance of our own privacy,
-
instinctively understand
-
the profound importance of it.
-
It is true that as human beings, we're social animals,
-
which means we have a need for other people
-
to know what we're doing and saying and thinking,
-
which is why we voluntarily publish
information about ourselves online.
-
But equally essential to what it means
-
to be a free and fulfilled human being
-
is to have a place that we can go
-
and be free of the judgmental eyes of other people.
-
There's a reason why we seek that out,
-
and our reason is that all of us,
-
not just terrorists and criminals, all of us
-
have things to hide.
-
There are all sorts of things that we do and think
-
that we're willing to tell our physician
-
or our lawyer or our psychologist or our spouse
-
or our best friend that we would be mortified
-
for the rest of the world to learn.
-
We make judgments every single day
-
about the kinds of things that we say and think and do
-
that we're willing to have other people know,
-
and the kinds of things that we say and thing and do
-
that we don't want anyone else to know about.
-
People can very easily in words claim
-
that they don't value their privacy,
-
but their actions negate the authenticity of that belief.
-
Now, there's a reason why privacy is so craved
-
universally and instinctively.
-
It isn't just a reflexive movement
-
like breathing air or drinking water.
-
The reason is is that when we're in a state
-
where we can be monitored,
where we can be watched,
-
our behavior changes dramatically.
-
The range of behavioral options that we consider
-
when we think we're being watched
-
severely reduce.
-
This is just a fact of human nature
-
that has been recognized in social science
-
and in literature and in religion
-
and in virtually every field of discipline.
-
There are dozens of psychological studies
-
that prove that when somebody knows
-
that they might be watched,
-
the behavior they engage in
-
is vastly more conformist and compliant.
-
Human shame is a very powerful motivator,
-
as is the desire to avoid it,
-
and that's the reason why people,
-
when they're in a state of
being watched, make decisions
-
not that are the byproduct of their own agency
-
but that are about the expectations
-
that others have of them
-
or the mandates of societal orthodoxy.
-
This realization was exploited most powerfully
-
for pragmatic ends by the 18th
century philosopher Jeremy Bentham,
-
who set out to resolve an important problem
-
ushered in by the Industrial Age,
-
where, for the first time, institutions had become
-
so large and centralized
-
that they were no longer able to monitor
-
and therefore control each one
of their individual members,
-
and the solution that he devised
-
was an architectural design
-
originally intended to be implemented in prisons
-
that he called the Panopticon,
-
the primary attribute of which was the construction
-
of an enormous tower in the center of the institution
-
where whoever controlled the institution
-
could at any moment watch any of the inmates,
-
although they couldn't watch all of them at all times.
-
And crucial to this design
-
was that the inmates could not actually
-
see into the Panopticon, into the tower,
-
and so they never knew
-
if they were being watched or even when.
-
And what made him so excited about this discovery
-
was that that would mean that the prisoners
-
would have to assume that they were being watched
-
at any given moment,
-
which would be the ultimate enforcer
-
for obedience and compliance.
-
The 20th century French philosopher Michel Foucault
-
realized that that model could be used
-
not just for prisons but for every institution
-
that seeks to control human behavior:
-
schools, hospitals, factories, workplaces.
-
And what he said was that this mindset,
-
this framework discovered by Bentham,
-
was the key means of societal control
-
for modern, Western societies,
-
which no longer need
-
the overt weapons of tyranny
-
— punishing or imprisoning or killing dissidents,
-
or legally compelling loyalty to a particular party —
-
because mass surveillance creates
-
a prison in the mind
-
that is a much more subtle
-
though much more effective means
-
of fostering compliance with social norms
-
or with social orthodoxy,
-
much more effective
-
than brute force could ever be.
-
The most iconic work of literature about surveillance
-
and privacy is the George Orwell novel "1984,"
-
which we all learn in school, and
therefore it's almost become a cliche.
-
In fact, whenever you bring it up
in a debate about surveillance,
-
people instantaneously dismiss it
-
as inapplicable, and what they say is,
-
"Oh, well in '1984,' there were
monitors in people's homes,
-
they were being watched at every given moment,
-
and that has nothing to do with
the surveillance state that we face."
-
That is an actual fundamental misapprehension
-
of the warnings that Orwell issued in "1984."
-
The warning that he was issuing
-
was about a surveillance state
-
not that monitored everybody at all times,
-
but where people were aware that they could
-
be monitored at any given moment.
-
Here is how Orwell's narrator, Winston Smith,
-
described the surveillance system
-
that they faced:
-
"There was, of course, no way of knowing
-
whether you were being watched
at any given moment."
-
He went on to say,
-
"At any rate, they could plug in your wire
-
whenever they wanted to.
-
You had to live, did live,
-
from habit that became instinct,
-
in the assumption that every sound you made
-
was overheard and except in darkness
-
every movement scrutinized."
-
The Abrahamic religions similarly posit
-
that there's an invisible, all-knowing authority
-
who, because of its omniscience,
-
always watches whatever you're doing,
-
which means you never have a private moment,
-
the ultimate enforcer
-
for obedience to its dictates.
-
What all of these seemingly disparate works
-
recognize, the conclusion that they all reach,
-
is that a society in which people
-
can be monitored at all times
-
is a society that breeds conformity
-
and obedience and submission,
-
which is why every tyrant,
-
the most overt to the most subtle,
-
craves that system.
-
Conversely, even more importantly,
-
it is a realm of privacy,
-
the ability to go somewhere where we can think
-
and reason and interact and speak
-
without the judgmental eyes
of others being cast upon us,
-
in which creativity and exploration
-
and dissent exclusively reside,
-
and that is the reason why,
-
when we allow a society to exist
-
in which we're subject to constant monitoring,
-
we allow the essence of human freedom
-
to be severely crippled.
-
The last point I want to observe about this mindset,
-
the idea that only people who are doing wrong
-
have things to hide and therefore
reasons to care about privacy,
-
is that it entrenches two very destructive messages,
-
two destructive lessons,
-
the first of which is that
-
the only people who care about privacy,
-
the only people who will seek out privacy,
-
are by definition bad people.
-
This is a conclusion that we should have
-
all kinds of reasons for avoiding,
-
the most important of which is that when you say
-
"somebody who is doing bad things,"
-
you probably mean things
like plotting a terrorist attack
-
or engaging in violent criminality
-
in much narrower conception
-
of what people who wield power mean
-
when they say "doing bad things."
-
For them, "doing bad things" typically means
-
doing something that poses meaningful challenges
-
to the exercise of our own power.
-
The other really destructive
-
and, I think, even more insidious lesson
-
that comes from accepting this mindset
-
is there's an implicit bargain
-
that people who accept this mindset have accepted,
-
and that bargain is this:
-
if you're willing to render yourself
-
sufficiently harmless,
-
sufficiently unthreatening
-
to those who wield political power,
-
then and only then can you be free
-
of the dangers of surveillance.
-
It's only those who are dissidents,
-
who challenge power,
-
who have something to worry about.
-
There are all kinds of reasons why we
should want to avoid that lesson as well.
-
You may be a person who, right now,
-
doesn't want to engage in that behavior,
-
but at some point in the future you might.
-
Even if you're somebody who decides
-
that you never want to,
-
the fact that there are other people
-
who are willing to and able to resist
-
and be adversarial to those in power
-
— dissidents and journalists
-
and activists and a whole range of others —
-
is something that brings us all collective good
-
that we should want to preserve.
-
Equally critical is that the measure
-
of how free a society is
-
is not how it treats its good,
-
obedient, compliant citizens,
-
but how it treats its dissidents
-
and those who resist orthodoxy.
-
But the most important reason
-
is that a system of mass surveillance
-
suppresses our own freedom in all sorts of ways.
-
It renders off limits
-
all kinds of behavioral choices
-
without our even knowing that it's happened.
-
The renowned socialist activist Rosa Luxemburg
-
once said, "He who does not move
-
does not notice his chains."
-
We can try and render the chains
-
of mass surveillance invisible or undetectable,
-
but the constraints that it imposes on us
-
do not become any less potent.
-
Thank you very much.
-
(Applause)
-
Thank you.
-
(Applause)
-
Thank you.
-
(Applause)
-
Moderator: Glenn, thank you.
-
The case is rather convincing, I have to say,
-
but I want to bring you back
-
to the last six months and to Edward Snowden
-
for a few questions, if you don't mind.
-
And the first one is personal to you, is,
-
we have all read about the arrest of your partner,
-
David Miranda in London, and other difficulties,
-
but I assume that
-
in terms of personal engagement and risk,
-
that the pressure on you is not that easy
-
to take on the biggest sovereign
-
organizations in the world.
-
Tell us a little bit about that.
-
Glenn Greenwald: You know, I think
one of the things that happens
-
is that people's courage in this regard
-
gets contagious,
-
and so although I and the other
journalists with whom I was working
-
were certainly aware of the risk
-
— the United States continues to be
the most powerful country in the world
-
and doesn't appreciate it when you
-
disclose thousands of their secrets
-
on the Internet at will —
-
seeing somebody who is a 29-year old
-
ordinary person who grew up in
-
a very ordinary environment
-
exercise the degree of principled
courage that Edward Snowden did,
-
knowing that he was going to go
to prison for the rest of his life
-
or that his life would unravel,
-
inspired me and inspired other journalists
-
and inspired, I think, people around the world,
-
including future whistleblowers,
-
to realize that they can engage
in that kind of behavior as well.
-
Moderator: I'm curious about your
relationship with Ed Snowden,
-
because you have spoken with him a lot,
-
and you certainly continue doing so,
-
but in your book, you never call him Edward,
-
nor Ed, you say "Snowden." How come?
-
GG: You know, I'm sure that's something
-
for a team of psychologists to examine.
-
I don't really know. The reason I think that,
-
one of the important objectives that he actually had,
-
one of his I think most important tactics,
-
was that he knew that one of the ways
-
to distract attention from the
substance of the revelations
-
would be to try and personalize the focus on him,
-
and for that reason, he stayed out of the media.
-
He tried not to ever has his personal life
-
subject to examination,
-
and so I think calling him Snowden
-
is a way of just identifying him
as this important historical actor
-
rather than trying to personalize him in a way
-
that might distract attention from the substance.
-
Moderator: So his revelations, your analysis,
-
the work of other journalists,
-
have really developed the debate,
-
and many governments, for example, have reacted
-
including in Brazil with projects and programs
-
to reshape a little bit the design of the Internet, etc.
-
There are a lot of things going on in that sense.
-
But I'm wondering, for you personally,
-
what is the endgame?
-
At what point will you think,
-
well, actually, we've succeeded in moving the dial?
-
GG: Well, I mean, the endgame for me as a journalist
-
is very simple, which is to make sure
-
that every single document that's newsworthy
-
and that ought to be disclosed
-
ends up being disclosed,
-
and that secrets that should never
have been kept in the first place
-
end up uncovered.
-
To me, that's the essence of journalism
-
and that's what I'm committed to doing.
-
As somebody who finds mass surveillance odious
-
for all the reasons I just talked about and a lot more,
-
I mean, I look at this as work that will never end
-
until governments around the world
-
are no longer able to subject entire populations
-
to monitoring and surveillance
-
unless they convince some court or some entity
-
that the person they've targeted
-
has actually done something wrong.
-
To me, that's the way that
privacy can be rejuvenated.
-
Moderator: So Snowden is very,
as we've seen at TED,
-
is very articulate in presenting and portraying himself
-
as a defender of democratic values
-
and democratic principles.
-
But then, many people find it difficult to believe
-
that those are his only motivations.
-
They find it difficult to believe
-
that there was no money involved,
-
that he didn't sell some of those secrets,
-
even to China and to Russia,
-
which are clearly not the best friends
-
of the United States right now.
-
And I'm sure many people in the room
-
are wondering the same question.
-
Do you consider it possible there is
-
that part of Snowden we've not seen yet?
-
GG: No, I consider that absurd and idiotic.
-
If you wanted to,
-
and I know you're just playing devil's advocate,
-
but if you wanted to sell
-
secrets to another country,
-
which he could have done and become
-
extremely rich doing so,
-
the last thing you would do is take those secrets
-
and give them to journalists and
ask journalists to publish them,
-
because it makes those secrets worthless.
-
People who want to enrich themselves
-
do it secretly by selling secrets to the government,
-
but I think there's one important point worth making,
-
which is, that accusation comes from
-
people in the U.S. government,
-
from people in the media who are loyalists
-
to these various governments,
-
and I think a lot of times when people make accusations like that about other people
-
— "Oh, he can't really be doing this
-
for principled reasons,
-
he must have some corrupt, nefarious reason" —
-
they're saying a lot more about themselves
-
than they are the target of their accusations,
-
because — (Applause) —
-
those people, the ones who make that accusation,
-
they themselves never act
-
for any reason other than corrupt reasons,
-
so they assume
-
that everybody else is plagued by the same disease
-
of soullessness as they are,
-
and so that's the assumption.
-
(Applause)
-
Moderator: Glenn, thank you very much.
GG: Thank you very much.
-
Moderator: Glenn Greenwald.
-
(Applause)
Arzhang Shaygan Sham'asbi
Between 15:47 and 15:50: "to take on the biggest sovereign organizations in the world."
The word "sovereign" is not correct. The moderator is speaking about biggest "surveillance" organizations not "sovereign" organizations.