1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:07,250 Thank you all so much for coming to spend 45 minutes with the ACLU. 2 00:00:07,250 --> 00:00:08,542 We appreciate it a lot. 3 00:00:08,876 --> 00:00:12,083 This year there are not Q&A rooms. 4 00:00:12,083 --> 00:00:13,918 So, we hope that those of you that want to continue 5 00:00:13,918 --> 00:00:17,999 the conversation will come to our table in the vendor room. 6 00:00:17,999 --> 00:00:21,125 Where you can become members or renew your membership, 7 00:00:21,125 --> 00:00:27,042 get our new DEFcon special edition ACLU 4th Amendment T-shirts. 8 00:00:27,083 --> 00:00:30,375 We would love to see you there. 9 00:00:30,999 --> 00:00:32,334 My name is Ben Wisner. 10 00:00:32,334 --> 00:00:36,083 I direct our national project on speech privacy and technology. 11 00:00:36,334 --> 00:00:39,834 The women and men at the table with me work on surveillance, 12 00:00:39,834 --> 00:00:44,375 national security, technology, privacy, both in our national office and 13 00:00:44,375 --> 00:00:48,709 in some of our affiliate sites around the country. 14 00:00:49,125 --> 00:00:52,209 When we heard that the NSA had been disinvited 15 00:00:52,209 --> 00:00:57,417 from Defcon this year, we kind of scratche dour heads a little. 16 00:00:58,083 --> 00:01:01,292 Because since when has the NSA needed to be invited. 17 00:01:04,667 --> 00:01:07,250 We had planned to do a review that we were going 18 00:01:07,250 --> 00:01:11,417 to call "Year in Surveillance" and talk to you about the breadth and scope 19 00:01:11,417 --> 00:01:15,209 of the work that we do on privacy and surveillance. 20 00:01:15,999 --> 00:01:19,667 Then, Ed Snowden got on a plane to Hong Kong 21 00:01:19,667 --> 00:01:23,083 and really changed everything. 22 00:01:23,501 --> 00:01:36,083 So, maybe we should give him a hand. 23 00:01:36,083 --> 00:01:37,918 (Applause) What he revealed is something that many 24 00:01:37,918 --> 00:01:42,459 of us were anxious about,, knew about, had worried about for years. 25 00:01:42,792 --> 00:01:46,999 Which is, that the NSA's strategy has been 26 00:01:46,999 --> 00:01:53,417 to collect everything and worry about the law later. 27 00:01:53,667 --> 00:01:58,083 That as technology has developed; as the cost off collection 28 00:01:58,083 --> 00:02:02,459 and storage has gone down, the NSA has begun to construct 29 00:02:02,459 --> 00:02:08,083 the most comprehensive surveillance time machine ever created. 30 00:02:08,459 --> 00:02:12,292 then that hope that the law could be twisted in order 31 00:02:12,292 --> 00:02:15,999 to justify what it was already doing. 32 00:02:17,250 --> 00:02:21,999 I feel it's a cliche that the law has not kept pace 33 00:02:21,999 --> 00:02:24,459 with technology. 34 00:02:24,584 --> 00:02:28,542 We believe that Americans' privacy should be protected 35 00:02:28,542 --> 00:02:32,667 by constitutional law, not by Moore's law. 36 00:02:35,417 --> 00:02:36,834 (Applause). 37 00:02:39,584 --> 00:02:42,999 So my colleagues here are going to talk briefly. 38 00:02:42,999 --> 00:02:44,918 There's five of them, we only have 45 minutes 39 00:02:44,918 --> 00:02:47,999 and we do hope to have time for a couple questions 40 00:02:47,999 --> 00:02:52,542 to give you a taste of the kind of work that we are doing with regard 41 00:02:52,542 --> 00:02:58,375 to NSA surveillance and we hope that many of you will join us at our table. 42 00:02:58,375 --> 00:03:00,834 We also have one of the parties tonight 43 00:03:00,834 --> 00:03:06,209 on the public crawl, Party Like It's 1986, that is ACLU humor, so we hope 44 00:03:06,209 --> 00:03:09,125 to see you all more later. 45 00:03:09,459 --> 00:03:10,959 And to kick us off, this is Alex Abdo 46 00:03:10,959 --> 00:03:13,709 from our national security project. 47 00:03:13,709 --> 00:03:18,459 ALEX ABDO: Hi, everyone, and thanks so much for coming. 48 00:03:18,459 --> 00:03:20,250 So I want to talk just for a few minutes 49 00:03:20,250 --> 00:03:23,999 about the prison program which was revealed a couple months ago 50 00:03:23,999 --> 00:03:27,375 by Ed Snowden, but before I get to the PRISM program I want 51 00:03:27,375 --> 00:03:30,459 to talk about what there was before the PRISM program 52 00:03:30,459 --> 00:03:33,083 and what we were doing beforehand because it's 53 00:03:33,083 --> 00:03:37,751 a really fascinating change of events in the last two months. 54 00:03:37,999 --> 00:03:41,626 In 2008 Congress passed the most sweeping surveillance statute 55 00:03:41,626 --> 00:03:46,999 that Congress has ever passed, called FISA Amendments Act of 2008. 56 00:03:46,999 --> 00:03:50,334 And it begins the NSA and the government's unfettered access 57 00:03:50,334 --> 00:03:54,125 to America's international communications. 58 00:03:54,167 --> 00:03:57,167 We challenged the law at the time because we didn't think that 59 00:03:57,167 --> 00:04:00,083 the fact that someone is communicating internationally means 60 00:04:00,083 --> 00:04:03,167 they should sacrifice the right to privacy. 61 00:04:03,626 --> 00:04:06,542 That in today's interconnected world you can't often control 62 00:04:06,542 --> 00:04:10,292 the way your packets are scurried around the world, and your right 63 00:04:10,292 --> 00:04:13,459 to privacy shouldn't depend on the paths they take and 64 00:04:13,459 --> 00:04:16,834 the frames you choose to associate with. 65 00:04:16,834 --> 00:04:20,999 We brought that challenge in 2008, and for the next five years we didn't 66 00:04:20,999 --> 00:04:23,999 litigate the merits of whether the government could 67 00:04:23,999 --> 00:04:27,334 collect our international communications. 68 00:04:27,334 --> 00:04:29,417 We spent five years debating with the government 69 00:04:29,417 --> 00:04:32,626 whether our clients were allowed to sue. 70 00:04:32,834 --> 00:04:36,999 And our clients were lawyers who represented Guantanamo detainees 71 00:04:36,999 --> 00:04:42,250 and people who worked in areas of the world where there was significant 72 00:04:42,250 --> 00:04:47,417 violence and terrorism interests on the part of the U.S. 73 00:04:47,417 --> 00:04:50,083 Government and journalists who reported on those areas, 74 00:04:50,083 --> 00:04:53,501 the very source of people who would find themselves 75 00:04:53,501 --> 00:04:57,125 trapped in the international NSA dragnet. 76 00:04:57,375 --> 00:05:00,292 And for that reason, these individuals we claimed 77 00:05:00,292 --> 00:05:05,292 as our clients took significant measures to protect the confidentiality 78 00:05:05,292 --> 00:05:07,999 of their communications. 79 00:05:07,999 --> 00:05:09,667 Some of those ethical obligations to do so, 80 00:05:09,667 --> 00:05:13,876 others just thought it was good professional responsibility. 81 00:05:13,999 --> 00:05:16,459 Despite that fact, the government argued that we couldn't 82 00:05:16,459 --> 00:05:21,459 sue unless our clients could prove that their communications were surveilled. 83 00:05:21,792 --> 00:05:23,083 And if you know anything about the NSA, 84 00:05:23,083 --> 00:05:25,834 you know that's a vicious Catch 22. 85 00:05:26,501 --> 00:05:29,459 Nonetheless, the government prevailed in front 86 00:05:29,459 --> 00:05:33,417 of the Supreme Court in February in a decision, 5 4 decision, 87 00:05:33,417 --> 00:05:36,167 holding that the government's most sweeping 88 00:05:36,167 --> 00:05:39,876 surveillance statute ever enacted is essentially immune 89 00:05:39,876 --> 00:05:43,999 from judicial review unless the NSA, in its benevolence, chooses 90 00:05:43,999 --> 00:05:46,999 to show who they're surveilling. 91 00:05:47,459 --> 00:05:49,501 I don't recommend you hold your breath. 92 00:05:50,959 --> 00:05:56,083 That all changed two months ago when Ed Snowden revealed the existence 93 00:05:56,083 --> 00:05:58,792 of the prison program. 94 00:05:58,792 --> 00:06:04,876 And the prison program is one verse of the implementation of the FISA Act. 95 00:06:05,125 --> 00:06:08,918 It's one way the government conducts international 96 00:06:08,918 --> 00:06:13,751 surveillance, but he was governed by the statute in state, and some 97 00:06:13,751 --> 00:06:17,999 of the most important disclosures, what the government uses 98 00:06:17,999 --> 00:06:22,125 to select its targets and to protect the privacy in theory 99 00:06:22,125 --> 00:06:28,375 of Americans who find themselves ensnared in the international dragnet. 100 00:06:28,375 --> 00:06:30,334 And having seen those procedures now, we know that 101 00:06:30,334 --> 00:06:32,667 they never should have been secret in the first instance, 102 00:06:32,667 --> 00:06:34,999 but they reveal a number of really critically important things 103 00:06:34,999 --> 00:06:36,542 about the way the government conducts 104 00:06:36,542 --> 00:06:38,125 its surveillance. 105 00:06:38,375 --> 00:06:40,999 The government's main defense, as you can read in the news 106 00:06:40,999 --> 00:06:43,751 about the prison program, is that it's a program directed 107 00:06:43,751 --> 00:06:45,999 at foreigners, not Americans. 108 00:06:45,999 --> 00:06:47,876 And I think that's an extraordinarily misleading 109 00:06:47,876 --> 00:06:49,709 defensive program. 110 00:06:49,999 --> 00:06:53,542 When the government was pushing for the passage of this Act, actually 111 00:06:53,542 --> 00:06:56,751 to a predecessor of the statute, it learned that some 112 00:06:56,751 --> 00:06:59,999 of the communications of most interest to the NSA were 113 00:06:59,999 --> 00:07:03,999 the ones that had one terminus in the United States. 114 00:07:03,999 --> 00:07:06,375 And you could imagine for obvious reasons why that would be 115 00:07:06,375 --> 00:07:09,584 the case, but the government used the fact that Americans were 116 00:07:09,584 --> 00:07:11,709 communicating internationally essentially 117 00:07:11,709 --> 00:07:14,876 to bootstrap away their rights to privacy. 118 00:07:14,999 --> 00:07:18,667 So even though foreigners have to be the target, 119 00:07:18,667 --> 00:07:23,375 Americans' intelligence is swept into that. 120 00:07:24,542 --> 00:07:26,792 Because the government calls the collection 121 00:07:26,792 --> 00:07:29,751 of Americans' communications insignificant, you might think 122 00:07:29,751 --> 00:07:33,125 they would treat them incidental and delete them. 123 00:07:36,626 --> 00:07:39,999 America is allowed to keep communications 124 00:07:39,999 --> 00:07:45,250 for five years in any event and indefinitely if any of a number 125 00:07:45,250 --> 00:07:48,792 of sweeping exceptions apply. 126 00:07:48,999 --> 00:07:52,542 One of the exceptions, by the way, is if the information is encrypted. 127 00:07:53,834 --> 00:07:56,501 So ironically, as we are now seeing a push 128 00:07:56,501 --> 00:08:00,083 in the industry for a greater use of HTTPS and encrypted 129 00:08:00,083 --> 00:08:04,125 communications, we are actually handing the NSA more authority 130 00:08:04,125 --> 00:08:08,125 to retain those communications indefinitely until a time that 131 00:08:08,125 --> 00:08:11,999 they can decrypt them if they can't already. 132 00:08:12,375 --> 00:08:14,375 The second big problem with the government's targeting 133 00:08:14,375 --> 00:08:16,751 of foreigners is that it presumes its targets are 134 00:08:16,751 --> 00:08:19,375 foreign unless it has a reason to believe otherwise, which 135 00:08:19,375 --> 00:08:23,250 is a really bizarre way of going about it, if you can imagine. 136 00:08:23,250 --> 00:08:25,709 So if the government has any doubt as to where you are and 137 00:08:25,709 --> 00:08:29,999 they don't have any positive indication you're an American, they'll treat you 138 00:08:29,999 --> 00:08:33,999 as a foreigner and targetable, and they'll retain your communications 139 00:08:33,999 --> 00:08:37,751 even if they later discover that they were wrong. 140 00:08:38,334 --> 00:08:40,918 So they think you're a foreigner, it turns out you're not, 141 00:08:40,918 --> 00:08:43,584 but they keep your communications anyway. 142 00:08:43,584 --> 00:08:46,459 And you can imagine the types of services available digitally now that 143 00:08:46,459 --> 00:08:48,709 would give the government the doubt they need 144 00:08:48,709 --> 00:08:52,999 about your foreignness that allow them to keep their communications. 145 00:08:52,999 --> 00:08:56,209 You can think of TOR and MTM communications. 146 00:08:59,999 --> 00:09:03,167 The government's defense of the prison program says 147 00:09:03,167 --> 00:09:07,667 the program is supposedly limited to foreign intelligence information 148 00:09:07,667 --> 00:09:12,709 which is this phrase they bandy about which has little meaning. 149 00:09:12,959 --> 00:09:14,999 It includes things as broad as the foreign affairs 150 00:09:14,999 --> 00:09:17,959 of the United States, which essentially makes a target 151 00:09:17,959 --> 00:09:20,751 out of everyone who is a foreigner. 152 00:09:20,876 --> 00:09:23,876 And we know that in part because the procedures that were 153 00:09:23,876 --> 00:09:27,834 released by Ed Snowden confirmed that two of the broadest factors 154 00:09:27,834 --> 00:09:31,083 the government relies on in determining whether someone 155 00:09:31,083 --> 00:09:34,584 is exchanging foreign intelligence information, are one, 156 00:09:34,584 --> 00:09:37,667 if you're communicating with a foreigner; and two, 157 00:09:37,667 --> 00:09:43,292 if your phone number or e mail address appears in a foreigner's contact book. 158 00:09:43,751 --> 00:09:46,250 And the end result of these two rules and 159 00:09:46,250 --> 00:09:48,918 the presumption that you are a foreigner 160 00:09:48,918 --> 00:09:52,999 is that virtually every international communication is susceptible 161 00:09:52,999 --> 00:09:55,209 to NSA surveillance. 162 00:09:55,209 --> 00:09:56,167 And they can keep those communications 163 00:09:56,167 --> 00:09:59,459 even if they later discover that you're an American. 164 00:10:00,667 --> 00:10:03,834 Just two quick additional points and then I'll hand it over. 165 00:10:03,999 --> 00:10:06,417 First, the government is not actually limited 166 00:10:06,417 --> 00:10:09,999 to directing its surveillance at targets. 167 00:10:09,999 --> 00:10:11,959 It can direct its surveillance at third parties 168 00:10:11,959 --> 00:10:14,999 to collect information about its targets. 169 00:10:14,999 --> 00:10:19,375 And it can do so using ID filtering and country code filtering. 170 00:10:19,584 --> 00:10:22,209 And the example I think that's been thrown out is that 171 00:10:22,209 --> 00:10:26,125 they might decide that Osama Bin Laden is a target and then decide 172 00:10:26,125 --> 00:10:29,834 to ID filter Internet traffic going into and out of Pakistan 173 00:10:29,834 --> 00:10:32,999 as their filter and collect everything. 174 00:10:33,042 --> 00:10:35,792 So the prison program allows the government 175 00:10:35,792 --> 00:10:40,999 to do broad geographic surveillance in a way that ensures countless rights 176 00:10:40,999 --> 00:10:44,083 to privacy are intruded upon. 177 00:10:44,501 --> 00:10:48,375 And secondly, the government considers that any 178 00:10:48,375 --> 00:10:53,167 extensive use of a IP range or cryptographic service 179 00:10:53,167 --> 00:11:00,709 by foreigners allows the NSA to start that IP range or cryptographic. 180 00:11:01,999 --> 00:11:04,626 If there's something used extensively by foreigners, 181 00:11:04,626 --> 00:11:06,999 who knows what that means. 182 00:11:06,999 --> 00:11:11,083 In terms of terrorists, there's not so many terrorists, we hope, 183 00:11:11,083 --> 00:11:13,999 if they are using TOR. 184 00:11:14,292 --> 00:11:17,834 The government might collect everything going over TOR 185 00:11:17,834 --> 00:11:21,876 to allow traffic analysis and later encryption. 186 00:11:22,999 --> 00:11:27,167 The irony is that those who seek to protect the sensitivity 187 00:11:27,167 --> 00:11:30,375 of their communications the most are engaging 188 00:11:30,375 --> 00:11:34,417 in communications that are born targetable whether or not 189 00:11:34,417 --> 00:11:38,250 the government has any specific reason to collect those 190 00:11:38,250 --> 00:11:41,250 individuals' communications. 191 00:11:41,417 --> 00:11:43,375 I think there's an easy fix to this problem, 192 00:11:43,375 --> 00:11:47,083 but maybe we can discuss that later, and I'll hand it over for now 193 00:11:47,083 --> 00:11:48,999 with that teaser. 194 00:11:54,250 --> 00:11:57,083 CATHERINE CRUMP: I'm Kathleen Crump. 195 00:11:58,999 --> 00:12:01,999 I've been at the ACLU about eight years and I've been 196 00:12:01,999 --> 00:12:05,667 primarily litigating challenges to government surveillance programs 197 00:12:05,667 --> 00:12:08,250 and that length of time has given me perspective 198 00:12:08,250 --> 00:12:09,792 on this. 199 00:12:09,999 --> 00:12:14,083 The government has been saying if American people knew actually what 200 00:12:14,083 --> 00:12:17,626 was going on with some of the NSA related spying programs 201 00:12:17,626 --> 00:12:20,834 they would be outraged, but there was no way to have 202 00:12:20,834 --> 00:12:23,626 an honest conversation about what was happening 203 00:12:23,626 --> 00:12:28,334 until just recently when Edward Snowden showed these programs. 204 00:12:28,918 --> 00:12:32,709 There's information about the programs that it can be often 205 00:12:32,709 --> 00:12:36,083 difficult to figure out what the specific programs are 206 00:12:36,083 --> 00:12:38,709 and what they're doing. 207 00:12:38,709 --> 00:12:40,751 So Alex talked about the prison program, 208 00:12:40,751 --> 00:12:43,918 and now I want to spend a few minutes talking 209 00:12:43,918 --> 00:12:48,626 about the NSA's domestic collection of all metadata, why the we need 210 00:12:48,626 --> 00:12:51,250 to rein in surveillance. 211 00:12:56,751 --> 00:13:03,999 We know now by reporting by Edward Snowden, that the U.S. 212 00:13:03,999 --> 00:13:07,375 is collecting all telephony metadata. 213 00:13:08,542 --> 00:13:12,626 It's going to the secret court in Washington, D.C. 214 00:13:12,626 --> 00:13:17,083 and it seems every three months it gets an order authorizing it 215 00:13:17,083 --> 00:13:21,918 to collect telephony data from all major U.S. 216 00:13:21,999 --> 00:13:23,626 data companies. 217 00:13:23,876 --> 00:13:27,999 Every day every telephone call you make, every telephone call you receive 218 00:13:27,999 --> 00:13:33,375 and how long those telephone calls last get handed over to the government. 219 00:13:33,792 --> 00:13:36,083 This is true for domestic communications, this 220 00:13:36,083 --> 00:13:38,292 is not about international communications, 221 00:13:38,292 --> 00:13:41,918 and I think sometimes in some of the government's counter messaging 222 00:13:41,918 --> 00:13:44,083 that fact is being lost. 223 00:13:44,459 --> 00:13:47,542 The government has also tried to argue that metadata isn't sensitive 224 00:13:47,542 --> 00:13:50,999 and that made the point, for example, we're just getting telephone numbers, 225 00:13:50,999 --> 00:13:53,417 we're not getting anyone's name, but I think the people 226 00:13:53,417 --> 00:13:55,834 in this room certainly see the flaw in that argument 227 00:13:55,834 --> 00:13:58,459 without anyone having to point it out. 228 00:13:58,751 --> 00:14:01,542 It's not just the government is getting this information, 229 00:14:01,542 --> 00:14:05,334 it's that they're also storing the metadata going back five years, 230 00:14:05,334 --> 00:14:08,334 so that's really a truly vast amount of information 231 00:14:08,334 --> 00:14:12,334 about all of the communications all of us engage in. 232 00:14:12,459 --> 00:14:15,209 So what is the government doing with this information? 233 00:14:15,334 --> 00:14:17,999 Whenever the government says whenever it has 234 00:14:17,999 --> 00:14:22,250 a reasonable articulable suspicion, there's a telephone number, 235 00:14:22,250 --> 00:14:26,959 for example, associated with terrorism, it can query this database 236 00:14:26,959 --> 00:14:30,125 to that number and track communication that hops 237 00:14:30,125 --> 00:14:33,083 out three, the telephone number that calls 238 00:14:33,083 --> 00:14:37,876 the telephone number that calls the telephone number. 239 00:14:38,959 --> 00:14:41,250 It's sweeping data. 240 00:14:41,250 --> 00:14:44,876 If a person has, for example, 40 telephone numbers in that phone, 241 00:14:44,876 --> 00:14:49,250 that can sweep in as many as 2.5 million phone numbers. 242 00:14:49,542 --> 00:14:54,667 This, by the way, is being approved on an individual basis by a court. 243 00:14:54,667 --> 00:14:57,999 The FISA court has approved that general problematic approach, 244 00:14:57,999 --> 00:15:01,125 but there's no supervision of individual pieces 245 00:15:01,125 --> 00:15:04,125 of surveillance along the way. 246 00:15:04,667 --> 00:15:06,542 I want to step back for a second and talk about what 247 00:15:06,542 --> 00:15:08,999 a major paradigm shift this is. 248 00:15:09,834 --> 00:15:13,959 As Alex said, this is about collecting it all. 249 00:15:13,959 --> 00:15:16,083 We haven't lived in a world where everything we say 250 00:15:16,083 --> 00:15:20,501 or do is capable of being recorded, but now that's the world we live in, 251 00:15:20,501 --> 00:15:25,125 and that's exactly what's happening when it comes to metadata. 252 00:15:25,209 --> 00:15:28,083 The government's argument is that it essentially doesn't implicate 253 00:15:28,083 --> 00:15:32,375 a privacy interest for the government to merely collect the data. 254 00:15:32,375 --> 00:15:34,334 That only happens when you look at it. 255 00:15:34,334 --> 00:15:36,999 But I think having a record of essentially everyone you call can 256 00:15:36,999 --> 00:15:39,751 have a real chilling effect on who people are willing 257 00:15:39,751 --> 00:15:41,792 to communicate with. 258 00:15:42,334 --> 00:15:45,459 The standard under which the government says what 259 00:15:45,459 --> 00:15:48,999 is the government's legal argument here? 260 00:15:48,999 --> 00:15:50,999 The government is relying on a section called 215 261 00:15:50,999 --> 00:15:53,667 of the Patriot Act which says it is authorized 262 00:15:53,667 --> 00:15:57,918 to collect information that is relevant to certain types of investigations, 263 00:15:57,918 --> 00:16:02,083 generally foreign intelligence or terrorism investigations. 264 00:16:02,083 --> 00:16:05,083 And on that relevance definition, the government has argued that every 265 00:16:05,083 --> 00:16:07,250 single phone call all Americans make are 266 00:16:07,250 --> 00:16:09,999 under that definition relevant. 267 00:16:10,083 --> 00:16:13,959 Now, that's a pretty broad and sweeping definition of relevance, 268 00:16:13,959 --> 00:16:17,501 one we haven't really seen before, and I think it poses 269 00:16:17,501 --> 00:16:21,999 an interesting conundrum too in the area of big data. 270 00:16:22,417 --> 00:16:25,584 Does the fact if it is true to understand the one piece 271 00:16:25,584 --> 00:16:28,459 of data you need to understand the entire universe, 272 00:16:28,459 --> 00:16:31,834 does that make a piece of data relevant? 273 00:16:32,834 --> 00:16:34,999 The UCLA doesn't object to the problem, 274 00:16:34,999 --> 00:16:37,751 I think it raises real problems. 275 00:16:37,751 --> 00:16:40,584 One of the first orders disclosed about the court giving 276 00:16:40,584 --> 00:16:43,375 the government access to this information dealt 277 00:16:43,375 --> 00:16:47,751 with Verizon Business Network Services, which is pretty startling to us, 278 00:16:47,751 --> 00:16:50,250 because do you know who provides the ACLU's 279 00:16:50,250 --> 00:16:52,876 telephone communications? 280 00:16:53,083 --> 00:16:55,125 Verizon Business Network Services. 281 00:16:55,167 --> 00:16:56,417 And we sat in our office and talked 282 00:16:56,417 --> 00:16:59,459 about all the people who called us, right? 283 00:16:59,459 --> 00:17:03,667 All the whistle blowers who call us, seeking legal help or protection. 284 00:17:03,667 --> 00:17:06,417 Everyone who calls our offices for help for reproductive services 285 00:17:06,417 --> 00:17:10,083 or reporting any number of abuses, and you can see some real problems 286 00:17:10,083 --> 00:17:12,292 with the idea that all of this information 287 00:17:12,292 --> 00:17:14,999 is being monitored and logged by the government and 288 00:17:14,999 --> 00:17:18,667 because we think that poses a real theft to the long standing right 289 00:17:18,667 --> 00:17:21,542 of Americans to be able to associate with one another, 290 00:17:21,542 --> 00:17:24,083 and also our Fourth Amendment freedom to be free 291 00:17:24,083 --> 00:17:27,167 from unreasonable searches and seizures. 292 00:17:27,167 --> 00:17:30,667 We filed a suit in the court, and we asked the court to enjoin 293 00:17:30,667 --> 00:17:34,709 the government from engaging in this mass collection program 294 00:17:34,709 --> 00:17:38,375 and also to delete all of the data from the ACLU in this 295 00:17:38,375 --> 00:17:41,667 because we know that it's sitting in a database, 296 00:17:41,667 --> 00:17:46,083 every phone call we've made for the last five years. 297 00:17:46,334 --> 00:17:48,083 The court has scheduled a briefing schedule 298 00:17:48,083 --> 00:17:50,751 for the going through the fall. 299 00:17:50,751 --> 00:17:53,125 There's an argument in November, and so hopefully by the time we're 300 00:17:53,125 --> 00:17:57,375 all back here next year we'll be able to report a little more. 301 00:18:00,792 --> 00:18:02,083 (Applause). 302 00:18:05,417 --> 00:18:07,999 I don't know if any of you had the privilege 303 00:18:07,999 --> 00:18:12,250 to hear Chris Soghoian this morning in the Penn and Teller room. 304 00:18:12,999 --> 00:18:14,334 (Applause). 305 00:18:15,083 --> 00:18:18,417 I made the mistake of getting there 5 to 12, and you 306 00:18:18,417 --> 00:18:20,999 all had the seats already. 307 00:18:20,999 --> 00:18:22,417 So next up, Chris Soghoian. 308 00:18:22,417 --> 00:18:24,542 CHRISTOPHER SOGHOIAN: Hi, everyone. 309 00:18:24,542 --> 00:18:26,751 I'm the principal technologist with our technology project 310 00:18:26,751 --> 00:18:28,667 and technology team. 311 00:18:28,667 --> 00:18:29,999 I joined last fall. 312 00:18:29,999 --> 00:18:32,250 For those of you who caught my talk earlier, 313 00:18:32,250 --> 00:18:36,250 the FBI is now in the hacking business. 314 00:18:36,334 --> 00:18:38,709 If you didn't catch the talk, hopefully the video will be available 315 00:18:38,709 --> 00:18:40,209 at some point. 316 00:18:41,209 --> 00:18:44,834 I want to talk for the few minutes I have, I want to talk about how 317 00:18:44,834 --> 00:18:46,918 the government spies. 318 00:18:48,584 --> 00:18:53,334 There are not enough FBI agents to follow every person. 319 00:18:53,375 --> 00:18:57,417 There are not enough NSA employees to read everyone's e mail or to go 320 00:18:57,417 --> 00:19:01,542 and directly acquire everyone's communications. 321 00:19:01,626 --> 00:19:03,709 The government doesn't have the resources 322 00:19:03,709 --> 00:19:08,667 to directly monitor every American or let alone every foreigner. 323 00:19:09,083 --> 00:19:10,667 But they want to read the communications 324 00:19:10,667 --> 00:19:13,999 of every foreigner and they wants to be able to collect information 325 00:19:13,999 --> 00:19:16,083 about every American. 326 00:19:16,083 --> 00:19:19,125 And so they have this problem, particularly for dragnet style searches, 327 00:19:19,125 --> 00:19:21,999 where you want to do a key word search or you want 328 00:19:21,999 --> 00:19:26,959 to do social network analysis, you need everyone's communications. 329 00:19:26,959 --> 00:19:29,292 What do you do when you don't have the manpower 330 00:19:29,292 --> 00:19:32,959 to collect everyone's communications? 331 00:19:33,083 --> 00:19:36,375 You deputized telephone and Internet companies, 332 00:19:36,375 --> 00:19:39,834 in some cases with their willing assistance, and 333 00:19:39,834 --> 00:19:44,209 in other cases against their will, but you force these companies 334 00:19:44,209 --> 00:19:46,083 to help out. 335 00:19:46,292 --> 00:19:50,999 Sometimes paying helps to get them to agree. 336 00:19:51,876 --> 00:19:54,542 One of the documents Edward Snowden 337 00:19:54,542 --> 00:19:57,999 released was a 2009 Inspector General Report 338 00:19:57,999 --> 00:20:03,167 of the NSA showing payments were made to telecommunication companies 339 00:20:03,167 --> 00:20:09,626 to get them to participate in some of the domestic metadata programs. 340 00:20:09,709 --> 00:20:11,918 $100 million goes a long way when you're buying 341 00:20:11,918 --> 00:20:13,999 the goodwill of companies who are going 342 00:20:13,999 --> 00:20:18,292 out of their way to help the government with its mission. 343 00:20:18,292 --> 00:20:22,000 So I want to talk about the role these companies play. 344 00:20:22,542 --> 00:20:25,292 Every Internet company, every telephone company has a team 345 00:20:25,292 --> 00:20:29,999 of people who do nothing but respond to surveillance requests. 346 00:20:29,999 --> 00:20:31,459 And I'm not going to talk about how many requests 347 00:20:31,459 --> 00:20:33,209 they get because my colleague Nicky 348 00:20:33,209 --> 00:20:37,125 will be talking about that, but I want to emphasize these companies provide 349 00:20:37,125 --> 00:20:42,375 assistance that enable surveillance that wouldn't be possible without their help. 350 00:20:42,375 --> 00:20:44,918 There would not be a 215 metadata program 351 00:20:44,918 --> 00:20:48,999 without the willing assistance of AT&T and Verizon 352 00:20:48,999 --> 00:20:51,709 and reportedly Sprint. 353 00:20:51,999 --> 00:20:54,000 It simply wouldn't be possible. 354 00:20:54,000 --> 00:20:56,834 There wouldn't be a program of monitoring the communications 355 00:20:56,834 --> 00:21:00,250 of foreigners talking to Americans if the NSA couldn't get 356 00:21:00,250 --> 00:21:03,083 the undersea cable operators to provide access 357 00:21:03,083 --> 00:21:08,083 to the communications that are flowing through fiber optic cables. 358 00:21:08,250 --> 00:21:11,876 One with a foreigner, and one end with an American, 359 00:21:11,876 --> 00:21:16,709 or both foreigners and passing through the United States. 360 00:21:16,709 --> 00:21:18,999 The NSA program depends upon American 361 00:21:18,999 --> 00:21:22,209 communications companies. 362 00:21:22,751 --> 00:21:25,417 What's good is communications have shifted 363 00:21:25,417 --> 00:21:28,417 in the last few years from telephone companies 364 00:21:28,417 --> 00:21:30,959 to Internet companies. 365 00:21:30,959 --> 00:21:33,083 We're starting to see companies that aren't 366 00:21:33,083 --> 00:21:36,334 as happy about being deputized. 367 00:21:36,334 --> 00:21:39,125 We're starting to see companies that are deploying 368 00:21:39,125 --> 00:21:43,167 crypto, whether it's HTPS, to protect data over the wire, or 369 00:21:43,167 --> 00:21:46,751 in some cases end to end crypto, and what it's doing 370 00:21:46,751 --> 00:21:49,626 is making dragnet available. 371 00:21:50,167 --> 00:21:53,999 I don't think we'll be able to put the government out of surveillance. 372 00:21:54,626 --> 00:21:57,999 I would like to personally, but I don't think we'll get there, 373 00:21:57,999 --> 00:22:02,083 but I think we could make dragnet surveillance impossible. 374 00:22:02,459 --> 00:22:05,876 We just have to raise the cost. 375 00:22:05,876 --> 00:22:08,751 We have to make it difficult enough to target one person that 376 00:22:08,751 --> 00:22:14,417 they simply don't have the resources to collect everyone's communications. 377 00:22:14,417 --> 00:22:16,751 Crypto can help us get there. 378 00:22:16,999 --> 00:22:19,999 Moving from companies that say yes to dragnet requests 379 00:22:19,999 --> 00:22:25,083 to companies that only say yes to targeted requests can help too. 380 00:22:25,083 --> 00:22:27,751 But I really think we need to be thinking not 381 00:22:27,751 --> 00:22:30,834 about making it impossible for the government 382 00:22:30,834 --> 00:22:33,375 but making it expensive. 383 00:22:33,999 --> 00:22:36,542 Chris Rock has this joke in which he says 384 00:22:36,542 --> 00:22:41,918 he believes guns should be legal and bullets a million dollars apiece. 385 00:22:42,083 --> 00:22:45,709 And I think surveillance should be expensive, too, but right now 386 00:22:45,709 --> 00:22:49,167 the cost of surveillance is too damn low. 387 00:22:49,667 --> 00:22:50,918 Thank you very much. 388 00:22:53,876 --> 00:22:55,083 (Applause). 389 00:22:58,083 --> 00:23:01,751 NICOLE OZER: Hi, everyone, I'm Nicole Ozer, I'm 390 00:23:01,751 --> 00:23:06,417 the policy director for the ACLU of California, so nice to be back 391 00:23:06,417 --> 00:23:08,542 with you today. 392 00:23:08,709 --> 00:23:11,167 I want to take a bigger picture for a moment 393 00:23:11,167 --> 00:23:15,209 to understand just how Edward Snowden's impact has rippled 394 00:23:15,209 --> 00:23:19,417 out much farther than NSA spying, much farther than the docs 395 00:23:19,417 --> 00:23:23,999 he released or the revelations, or just to give everyone a sense 396 00:23:23,999 --> 00:23:28,999 of just how important these revelations have been to getting out the truth 397 00:23:28,999 --> 00:23:33,250 about what's really happening and ongoing efforts by the ACLU 398 00:23:33,250 --> 00:23:37,667 and other organizations to really reestablish some desperately 399 00:23:37,667 --> 00:23:41,999 needed and long overdue balance between government surveillance 400 00:23:41,999 --> 00:23:44,999 and all our personal privacy. 401 00:23:44,999 --> 00:23:49,667 So Edward Snowden's actions, in terms of giving us a sense 402 00:23:49,667 --> 00:23:53,834 of what the NSA has been doing, has finally given us 403 00:23:53,834 --> 00:23:57,459 all a real first information on just how often, 404 00:23:57,459 --> 00:24:01,083 as Chris was talking about, that the government 405 00:24:01,083 --> 00:24:05,999 from the lowest levels of police on the street to all the way 406 00:24:05,999 --> 00:24:11,083 up to the highest echelon of the U.S.A., how often the government 407 00:24:11,083 --> 00:24:14,542 is taking advantage of laws from the 1980s, 408 00:24:14,542 --> 00:24:20,250 outdated privacy laws that haven't been updated since the 1980s from when 409 00:24:20,250 --> 00:24:23,999 the web existed, from when our cellphones were 410 00:24:23,999 --> 00:24:27,292 the size of bricks and no one would imagine 411 00:24:27,292 --> 00:24:32,501 people would store e mail for longer than six months. 412 00:24:32,792 --> 00:24:38,209 And they've been taking advantage of these outdated laws and things that 413 00:24:38,209 --> 00:24:43,083 really haven't been properly reconsidered for decades to engage 414 00:24:43,083 --> 00:24:46,375 in what we have known for a long time to be 415 00:24:46,375 --> 00:24:50,999 a largely unsupervised shopping spree in the treasure trove 416 00:24:50,999 --> 00:24:56,167 of data that online companies are collecting every day about who each 417 00:24:56,167 --> 00:25:01,999 of us are, where we go on a daily basis, who we know, what our concerns are, 418 00:25:01,999 --> 00:25:05,542 our habits, our hobbies, and are keeping that 419 00:25:05,542 --> 00:25:09,167 for extremely long periods of time. 420 00:25:09,334 --> 00:25:13,626 The ACLU first really started to sound the alarm about the sort 421 00:25:13,626 --> 00:25:19,209 of surveillance industrial complex that had been growing and growing largely 422 00:25:19,209 --> 00:25:23,375 in the dark way back a decade ago in 2003. 423 00:25:23,626 --> 00:25:26,876 We knew for a long time that this was happening, that 424 00:25:26,876 --> 00:25:31,083 the government was really reaching into these treasure troves 425 00:25:31,083 --> 00:25:34,709 and largely getting at this data without a warrant, 426 00:25:34,709 --> 00:25:39,709 without a judge's permission, but we never had the facts. 427 00:25:39,999 --> 00:25:43,876 The government doesn't need to tell the American people how often they're 428 00:25:43,876 --> 00:25:49,167 demanding electronic communications, they're being held by these companies. 429 00:25:49,167 --> 00:25:52,417 Unlike the fact they have to report how many wiretaps they issue, 430 00:25:52,417 --> 00:25:58,083 they're not required by law to do that, so they weren't doing it, no surprise. 431 00:25:58,501 --> 00:26:00,334 And the companies weren't very interested 432 00:26:00,334 --> 00:26:03,999 in telling us either how many times the government was knocking 433 00:26:03,999 --> 00:26:08,501 on their door asking for really personal data about people. 434 00:26:08,501 --> 00:26:11,083 They didn't really want to give us pause and wonder and worry, 435 00:26:11,083 --> 00:26:14,792 are we really having sort of a three way conversation every time 436 00:26:14,792 --> 00:26:17,999 we e mail a friend or pick up the phone? 437 00:26:18,250 --> 00:26:21,999 So we knew it was happening, but the facts just weren't there. 438 00:26:21,999 --> 00:26:23,751 The companies largely didn't want to come forward and 439 00:26:23,751 --> 00:26:25,709 the government didn't want to didn't want 440 00:26:25,709 --> 00:26:28,626 to give us this information voluntarily. 441 00:26:28,709 --> 00:26:32,083 But post PRISM, a lot of what we had known 442 00:26:32,083 --> 00:26:35,999 for a long time was confirmed. 443 00:26:35,999 --> 00:26:39,209 The companies, in an attempt to actually defend themselves 444 00:26:39,209 --> 00:26:43,375 against being surveilled said they had been given a back door 445 00:26:43,375 --> 00:26:47,459 to the government; and to actually try and assuage the fears 446 00:26:47,459 --> 00:26:51,999 of the public, many of them for the first time released transparency 447 00:26:51,999 --> 00:26:56,125 reports that gave some contours of just how many demands were 448 00:26:56,125 --> 00:27:01,083 coming from local law enforcement all the way up the pike. 449 00:27:01,083 --> 00:27:03,209 We had some companies, like Google and Twitter, 450 00:27:03,209 --> 00:27:07,083 come forward with these reports before, but post PRISM, was 451 00:27:07,083 --> 00:27:11,999 the first time that folks like Yahoo and Apple and Facebook actually came 452 00:27:11,999 --> 00:27:15,167 out with this information as well. 453 00:27:15,209 --> 00:27:19,834 And it really confirms what we had long known, that tens of thousands 454 00:27:19,834 --> 00:27:23,999 of requests are coming into these companies, you know, just 455 00:27:23,999 --> 00:27:30,375 in a six month basis that is affecting 80, 90, 100,000 different accounts. 456 00:27:30,375 --> 00:27:32,918 And if you think about all the information that Google 457 00:27:32,918 --> 00:27:36,999 might have in a particular account, it may be tons and tons of e mails 458 00:27:36,999 --> 00:27:40,584 and photos, sort of the whole range of data. 459 00:27:40,999 --> 00:27:44,375 So we know from some of the reports, Google and Twitter are actually doing 460 00:27:44,375 --> 00:27:47,751 a break down of how many of these demands are actually coming 461 00:27:47,751 --> 00:27:50,999 with a warrant and how many of these demands are actually just 462 00:27:50,999 --> 00:27:55,083 coming with a subpoena which a judge has often never seen. 463 00:27:55,584 --> 00:27:59,375 And as we expected, subpoenas are sort of much take 464 00:27:59,375 --> 00:28:02,542 the bulk of these things. 465 00:28:02,999 --> 00:28:07,334 You know, Twitter recently reported just a couple of days ago that 56% 466 00:28:07,334 --> 00:28:11,417 of the demands for the government are subpoenas. 467 00:28:11,417 --> 00:28:15,501 Only 23% are warrants with probable cause. 468 00:28:15,501 --> 00:28:19,542 And Google has gotten over 5,000 demands that are subpoena 469 00:28:19,542 --> 00:28:23,292 demands just in the past six months that accounts 470 00:28:23,292 --> 00:28:27,459 for over 10,000 plus accounts of people. 471 00:28:27,459 --> 00:28:30,167 So we're finally starting to see a glimpse into how often 472 00:28:30,167 --> 00:28:32,999 the government is demanding this information, 473 00:28:32,999 --> 00:28:36,667 which finally gives us some of the facts to talk to Congress 474 00:28:36,667 --> 00:28:40,667 about how important it truly is to update these laws and make sure 475 00:28:40,667 --> 00:28:43,959 that they do keep pace with the technology that we're 476 00:28:43,959 --> 00:28:46,999 all living in, the fact that we are living our lives 477 00:28:46,999 --> 00:28:49,792 online, and the government shouldn't be able 478 00:28:49,792 --> 00:28:52,709 to reach in and spy on that personal information 479 00:28:52,709 --> 00:28:58,083 without having a very good reason and going to a judge and explaining it. 480 00:28:58,083 --> 00:29:06,999 Thank you. 481 00:29:06,999 --> 00:29:07,999 (Applause). 482 00:29:07,999 --> 00:29:09,584 So we have one more speaker, we have 15 minutes, we probably 483 00:29:09,584 --> 00:29:12,959 will have time for a couple of questions. 484 00:29:12,959 --> 00:29:15,959 So maybe while my colleague Kade Crockford is speaking, if someone 485 00:29:15,959 --> 00:29:18,667 of you want to gather at the microphones, we'll try 486 00:29:18,667 --> 00:29:20,999 to take a bunch of questions at once and use 487 00:29:20,999 --> 00:29:24,417 the last couple minutes to answer questions. 488 00:29:24,417 --> 00:29:26,999 KADE CROCKFORD: I'm Kade Crockford, I work as the director 489 00:29:26,999 --> 00:29:29,292 of technology in Massachusetts. 490 00:29:34,959 --> 00:29:39,542 To explain what I'm going to talk about, over the past years we've seen a shift 491 00:29:39,542 --> 00:29:42,083 in the relationship between the governed and 492 00:29:42,083 --> 00:29:46,167 the government, and that is marked by two really problematic features, 493 00:29:46,167 --> 00:29:48,999 one of them is that now we're basically guilty 494 00:29:48,999 --> 00:29:52,125 until proven innocent as these bulk records collections 495 00:29:52,125 --> 00:29:55,417 programs demonstrate, and the second is that, you know, 496 00:29:55,417 --> 00:29:58,918 the way a democracy works is the government is transparent 497 00:29:58,918 --> 00:30:02,417 and people have privacy from the government. 498 00:30:02,417 --> 00:30:05,334 Unfortunately, that situation has been radically flipped, so now 499 00:30:05,334 --> 00:30:08,375 the government is incredibly secretive, as we know, 500 00:30:08,375 --> 00:30:12,125 about these surveillance policies, as well as even about the law 501 00:30:12,125 --> 00:30:14,999 in some cases, and the government, if it wants 502 00:30:14,999 --> 00:30:19,083 to know nearly everything about us, even if it doesn't have articulable 503 00:30:19,083 --> 00:30:22,209 situation, probable cause, show evidence to a judge, 504 00:30:22,209 --> 00:30:27,250 all of the sort of, you know, traditional American norms of justice. 505 00:30:27,417 --> 00:30:30,501 Having to frame the conversation in that way, I just want 506 00:30:30,501 --> 00:30:33,999 to talk very briefly about how some little brothers have 507 00:30:33,999 --> 00:30:37,000 sprung up over the past 12 years. 508 00:30:37,000 --> 00:30:41,083 We've heard a lot about Big Brother and the surveillance by corporations, 509 00:30:41,083 --> 00:30:44,999 but also the Department of Homeland Security and Department 510 00:30:44,999 --> 00:30:48,584 of Justice have over the past 12 years given billions 511 00:30:48,584 --> 00:30:52,417 and billions of dollars to state and local law enforcement 512 00:30:52,417 --> 00:30:56,709 to build up a robust police militarized presence. 513 00:30:59,792 --> 00:31:03,709 They have done this by funding the procurement of things 514 00:31:03,709 --> 00:31:08,918 like electronic fingerprint readers at state and local police departments 515 00:31:08,918 --> 00:31:11,542 nationwide, face technologies, as well 516 00:31:11,542 --> 00:31:14,999 as automatic license plates readers. 517 00:31:14,999 --> 00:31:17,999 Can I get a show of hands how many people know what 518 00:31:17,999 --> 00:31:19,626 that is? 519 00:31:19,626 --> 00:31:20,876 Great, you're awesome. 520 00:31:21,083 --> 00:31:24,792 We put out a huge report on this, actually, you can see it 521 00:31:24,792 --> 00:31:26,999 at ACLU.org/plates. 522 00:31:26,999 --> 00:31:29,959 Basically, what we found is the state and local police 523 00:31:29,959 --> 00:31:33,417 departments as well as private corporations are operating 524 00:31:33,417 --> 00:31:37,334 under the same methodology as NSA, they want it all, they want 525 00:31:37,334 --> 00:31:40,292 to collect records of what everyone has driven, 526 00:31:40,292 --> 00:31:43,292 going back even months or years. 527 00:31:43,834 --> 00:31:47,125 We found regulations are all over the map. 528 00:31:47,709 --> 00:31:50,375 There are only five states that have laws on the books 529 00:31:50,375 --> 00:31:52,751 about this technology. 530 00:31:52,751 --> 00:31:54,999 Every other state it's up to the local police departments 531 00:31:54,999 --> 00:31:57,999 to decide how long they want to keep records where everyone 532 00:31:57,999 --> 00:31:59,501 has driven. 533 00:31:59,626 --> 00:32:03,501 Right now, as I'm sure you know, these cameras are not as ubiquitous 534 00:32:03,501 --> 00:32:08,501 as surveillance cameras, but they will become that ubiquitous. 535 00:32:08,501 --> 00:32:09,999 I'm sure in the next 20 years these cameras 536 00:32:09,999 --> 00:32:13,626 will be on every police cruiser in urban sections. 537 00:32:15,083 --> 00:32:18,083 It's a situation where the government will be able 538 00:32:18,083 --> 00:32:21,709 to track our driving habits retroactively for however long 539 00:32:21,709 --> 00:32:24,209 they keep this information. 540 00:32:24,709 --> 00:32:30,209 So I also just want to tell you very quickly about okay. 541 00:32:30,292 --> 00:32:32,209 On the license plate reader tip, private companies, 542 00:32:32,209 --> 00:32:34,501 there are these private companies, one of which 543 00:32:34,501 --> 00:32:36,999 is called Vigilance Solutions. 544 00:32:36,999 --> 00:32:40,792 It maintains a database of the national driver's license service. 545 00:32:41,918 --> 00:32:45,834 It has one billion discrete license plates, actually more than that, 546 00:32:45,834 --> 00:32:49,999 those are slightly dated figures I'm working off of, and that information 547 00:32:49,999 --> 00:32:53,250 is accessible not only to state and local law enforcement 548 00:32:53,250 --> 00:32:58,083 as well as FBI, immigration, customs enforcement, likely the U.S. 549 00:32:58,083 --> 00:33:02,999 military, but other private companies, insurance companies, repo men, 550 00:33:02,999 --> 00:33:05,542 tow truck drivers. 551 00:33:05,542 --> 00:33:09,083 So, you know, the corollary between the NSA's surveillance 552 00:33:09,083 --> 00:33:13,375 and collusion with Google and state and local cops colluding 553 00:33:13,375 --> 00:33:16,083 with companies like Vigilant Solutions 554 00:33:16,083 --> 00:33:20,876 is a very serious problem, like again, as my colleagues have said, 555 00:33:20,876 --> 00:33:24,999 in the vast majority of cases state legislatures have not 556 00:33:24,999 --> 00:33:28,999 really stepped up to the plate to deal with. 557 00:33:28,999 --> 00:33:30,751 And so that's some of the work that we're trying to do 558 00:33:30,751 --> 00:33:33,167 in the states, is to pass discrete legislation that 559 00:33:33,167 --> 00:33:37,999 would, for example, ban the police from retaining this data for a long time. 560 00:33:38,125 --> 00:33:40,999 You know, the ACLU, Chris maybe is the one exception to this, 561 00:33:40,999 --> 00:33:43,918 but the ACLU as an organization does not oppose law 562 00:33:43,918 --> 00:33:46,999 enforcement surveillance if they go to the judge and get 563 00:33:46,999 --> 00:33:49,709 a probable cause warrant, right? 564 00:33:49,876 --> 00:33:52,501 There are murderers in the world, there are rapists. 565 00:33:52,501 --> 00:33:54,083 People do bad things. 566 00:33:54,083 --> 00:33:55,542 If there's evidence to show somebody is involved 567 00:33:55,542 --> 00:33:58,125 in criminal activity then, you know, the judge should give 568 00:33:58,125 --> 00:34:01,501 the cops a warrant to invade that person's privacy. 569 00:34:01,501 --> 00:34:03,334 I personally don't like it either but I think it's 570 00:34:03,334 --> 00:34:05,999 a reasonable it's a reasonable balance to strike 571 00:34:05,999 --> 00:34:08,542 between privacy and security. 572 00:34:08,584 --> 00:34:11,417 But we're seeing a really what we have now 573 00:34:11,417 --> 00:34:17,959 is that that probable cause warrant practice barely exists anymore. 574 00:34:17,959 --> 00:34:19,918 The DOJ has said to Congress that it doesn't think it 575 00:34:19,918 --> 00:34:22,876 needs a warrant to read our e mails. 576 00:34:22,876 --> 00:34:26,250 The DOJ has also said to Congress and to courts that we have no privacy 577 00:34:26,250 --> 00:34:29,918 interest in information showing where we go 24 hours a day that 578 00:34:29,918 --> 00:34:32,334 is communicated through cell site information 579 00:34:32,334 --> 00:34:34,709 through our cellphones. 580 00:34:34,709 --> 00:34:36,375 And I just want to give you really quickly 581 00:34:36,375 --> 00:34:39,959 a very brief example of how not only the collect it all sort 582 00:34:39,959 --> 00:34:43,083 of theme has trickled down to the state and local level, 583 00:34:43,083 --> 00:34:46,209 but also the state's secrecy itself has really trickled 584 00:34:46,209 --> 00:34:48,999 down in a really dangerous way. 585 00:34:48,999 --> 00:34:50,792 And that is a case we had a couple years ago 586 00:34:50,792 --> 00:34:52,999 during Occupy Boston. 587 00:34:52,999 --> 00:34:56,083 Somebody decided to pick a fight with the cops and put together 588 00:34:56,083 --> 00:35:00,250 a paste bin with information about Boston police officers which was 589 00:35:00,250 --> 00:35:02,751 all publicly available. 590 00:35:02,751 --> 00:35:05,999 This person didn't do anything illegal, they put it together in a database 591 00:35:05,999 --> 00:35:08,125 and put it on Paceman. 592 00:35:08,709 --> 00:35:11,626 Suffolk County didn't like that. 593 00:35:12,999 --> 00:35:17,083 They sent an administrative subpoena to Twitter. 594 00:35:17,083 --> 00:35:19,626 This is not a warrant, it's no judge ever sees this piece 595 00:35:19,626 --> 00:35:23,083 of paper, subpoenas are just pieces of paper that prosecutors fill 596 00:35:23,083 --> 00:35:27,918 out and give to companies like Google, Microsoft, Twitter, Facebook. 597 00:35:27,918 --> 00:35:29,999 So Twitter is one of very few companies that actually 598 00:35:29,999 --> 00:35:32,209 stands up for its users on a routine basis when 599 00:35:32,209 --> 00:35:34,999 they get these subpoenas, and they do that by informing 600 00:35:34,999 --> 00:35:36,626 the person who is targeted that 601 00:35:36,626 --> 00:35:39,334 a subpoena has been filed, that prosecutors are seeking 602 00:35:39,334 --> 00:35:41,542 information about them. 603 00:35:41,542 --> 00:35:43,459 So what happened was this person came to us at the ACLU 604 00:35:43,459 --> 00:35:46,999 of Massachusetts and said, "The DA in Suffolk County wants my information 605 00:35:46,999 --> 00:35:50,751 and I'd like to remain anonymous," so we took the case. 606 00:35:50,751 --> 00:35:53,417 It was incredible what happened after that. 607 00:35:53,417 --> 00:35:55,709 You know, this is a legal issue. 608 00:35:55,834 --> 00:35:59,334 This is not something Al Qaeda, national security issue, but we had a, 609 00:35:59,334 --> 00:36:01,999 you know, pipsqueak, I'm going to say that, 610 00:36:01,999 --> 00:36:05,999 this pipsqueak Assistant DA, right, in Suffolk County telling a judge, 611 00:36:05,999 --> 00:36:09,584 you know, holding ex parte hearings, which essentially means 612 00:36:09,584 --> 00:36:12,417 the government is giving information to the judge 613 00:36:12,417 --> 00:36:16,209 in secret that not even our attorneys could see. 614 00:36:16,459 --> 00:36:18,501 So secret proceedings. 615 00:36:18,501 --> 00:36:22,334 And to this day two years later, those records are secret. 616 00:36:22,334 --> 00:36:23,334 They were sealed. 617 00:36:23,334 --> 00:36:25,999 The prosecutor asked that these records be sealed. 618 00:36:25,999 --> 00:36:27,292 So I mean, it's just incredible abuse of power going 619 00:36:27,292 --> 00:36:30,083 on at all levels of government. 620 00:36:30,459 --> 00:36:31,959 And I think that's it. 621 00:36:31,959 --> 00:36:34,667 There are people who probably have a lot of questions. 622 00:36:34,667 --> 00:36:34,959 I would just say please support the ACLU if you have a concern 623 00:36:34,959 --> 00:36:35,999 about these issues. 624 00:36:37,083 --> 00:36:39,999 We are working on a range of issues, from choice 625 00:36:39,999 --> 00:36:43,083 to privacy and everything in between. 626 00:36:43,083 --> 00:36:44,083 Thanks for coming. 627 00:36:44,083 --> 00:36:45,083 I appreciate it. 628 00:36:45,083 --> 00:36:46,083 (Applause). 629 00:36:46,083 --> 00:36:56,417 So so I see six people standing. 630 00:36:56,417 --> 00:36:57,918 We have nine minutes. 631 00:36:57,918 --> 00:36:58,999 Maybe seven. 632 00:36:58,999 --> 00:37:01,999 The only way we're going to make this work is if people speak 633 00:37:01,999 --> 00:37:05,167 for 30 seconds and ask a question. 634 00:37:05,167 --> 00:37:08,709 If you have statements for us, we'll be at the table this afternoon. 635 00:37:08,709 --> 00:37:10,792 You will not believe my ability to violate your right to free speech 636 00:37:10,792 --> 00:37:12,999 if you go 30 seconds (laughter). 637 00:37:13,999 --> 00:37:17,542 I'm really good at it. 638 00:37:17,542 --> 00:37:20,918 So we'll start here, but really, we don't want to hear your story. 639 00:37:20,918 --> 00:37:21,918 Is the mic on? 640 00:37:21,918 --> 00:37:22,584 I'm Mike Daughtry from Atlanta, I was going to ask you 641 00:37:22,584 --> 00:37:26,083 about the judicial decision, I'm under (Unintelligible). 642 00:37:33,292 --> 00:37:37,250 It is amazing, the judicial system I find incredibly 643 00:37:37,250 --> 00:37:40,542 behind and judges don't deal. 644 00:37:40,709 --> 00:37:42,999 So how do you deal with the judges who don't deal 645 00:37:42,999 --> 00:37:47,542 in a judicial system that's so far behind looking the other way? 646 00:37:47,584 --> 00:37:48,999 Let's hear the next one. 647 00:37:48,999 --> 00:37:51,999 We're going to take them all and then we're going to answer. 648 00:37:51,999 --> 00:37:54,999 My name is Dana, I'm from San Antonio, Texas. 649 00:37:55,250 --> 00:37:57,999 These issues come up, I'm concerned, so I write my Congressman 650 00:37:57,999 --> 00:38:02,584 and my representative like, you know, I'm supposed to or I'm told to do. 651 00:38:02,584 --> 00:38:03,584 Yeah. 652 00:38:03,584 --> 00:38:05,626 I make phone calls, I leave messages. 653 00:38:05,626 --> 00:38:07,125 All I get is the excuse me? 654 00:38:07,125 --> 00:38:09,876 (speaker off microphone.) Okay. 655 00:38:09,876 --> 00:38:10,999 The question is? 656 00:38:10,999 --> 00:38:12,542 What can I do? 657 00:38:12,542 --> 00:38:13,501 How can I get a better response than thank you 658 00:38:13,501 --> 00:38:16,667 for being a concerned citizen, we'll get back to you? 659 00:38:16,709 --> 00:38:18,501 I don't ever get a response? 660 00:38:18,501 --> 00:38:22,125 Citizen empowerment. 661 00:38:22,125 --> 00:38:23,334 Next, quickly. 662 00:38:23,751 --> 00:38:25,999 So what about me? 663 00:38:25,999 --> 00:38:28,918 I'm not American, I'm a foreigner, obviously I use American services 664 00:38:28,918 --> 00:38:30,542 all the time. 665 00:38:31,459 --> 00:38:35,083 Am I suspicious just because I'm a foreigner? 666 00:38:35,083 --> 00:38:36,083 That's my question. 667 00:38:36,083 --> 00:38:37,083 Good question. 668 00:38:37,083 --> 00:38:38,083 Go ahead. 669 00:38:38,083 --> 00:38:39,999 Thank you. 670 00:38:40,083 --> 00:38:42,375 We're going to go over here. 671 00:38:42,375 --> 00:38:45,542 Any thoughts or remarks on Sandra Riden's speech 672 00:38:45,542 --> 00:38:48,792 and his delusions to his theoretical geo 673 00:38:48,792 --> 00:38:50,999 tracking program? 674 00:38:53,999 --> 00:38:56,834 Quickly, next. 675 00:38:56,834 --> 00:39:01,375 2006, 2007, I assisted most of the telecommunications companies 676 00:39:01,375 --> 00:39:05,918 in the country installing probes for law enforcement, 677 00:39:05,918 --> 00:39:08,542 also known as Kalia. 678 00:39:08,918 --> 00:39:11,375 That was all done on their dime, and I believe one 679 00:39:11,375 --> 00:39:15,334 of the speakers mentioned that they were being subsidized. 680 00:39:15,334 --> 00:39:16,709 I'm curious to know how we know that's being 681 00:39:16,709 --> 00:39:19,083 subsidized by the government. 682 00:39:19,083 --> 00:39:22,584 Come to at a us at our table, please. 683 00:39:22,584 --> 00:39:24,626 Go ahead. 684 00:39:24,626 --> 00:39:28,999 How can people get access to this stuff through for civil matters, 685 00:39:28,999 --> 00:39:30,999 civil lawsuits? 686 00:39:32,751 --> 00:39:34,250 Okay. 687 00:39:34,250 --> 00:39:35,999 And again, most of these answers are going 688 00:39:35,999 --> 00:39:38,876 to be provided at our makeshift A part of the Q 689 00:39:38,876 --> 00:39:42,999 and A at our table in the vendor area, but go ahead. 690 00:39:42,999 --> 00:39:46,999 I didn't hear anything on LexisNexis or Fusion Centers. 691 00:39:47,375 --> 00:39:49,209 Come talk to me. 692 00:39:49,292 --> 00:39:50,584 Yeah. 693 00:39:50,584 --> 00:39:51,584 Okay. 694 00:39:51,584 --> 00:39:56,083 So fellow panelists, there are a range of things you can weigh in on. 695 00:39:56,083 --> 00:39:57,334 I hope someone will at least say something 696 00:39:57,334 --> 00:40:00,125 about the feeling of helplessness that citizens have who 697 00:40:00,125 --> 00:40:02,792 write to their legislators, because it seems we're 698 00:40:02,792 --> 00:40:06,209 in a pretty unique moment where we're being heard. 699 00:40:06,999 --> 00:40:08,042 Go ahead. 700 00:40:08,042 --> 00:40:09,999 I will respond to two of the things. 701 00:40:10,876 --> 00:40:15,918 If Senator Widener has been warning about the surveillance 702 00:40:15,918 --> 00:40:21,999 for a couple years, he's been hitting the issue of location. 703 00:40:21,999 --> 00:40:25,834 He gave a speech last year in which he said the word "location" five times. 704 00:40:26,042 --> 00:40:30,042 If he could signal any more clearly, I don't know what it would look like. 705 00:40:30,042 --> 00:40:32,792 Right now he's basically standing on a stool waving his hands jumping 706 00:40:32,792 --> 00:40:34,334 up and down. 707 00:40:34,334 --> 00:40:36,167 So I think there's something locationally that he's trying 708 00:40:36,167 --> 00:40:39,999 to tell us about, and I hope we will find out what it is. 709 00:40:40,083 --> 00:40:42,876 The question about the foreigners, it's not that you're suspicious, 710 00:40:42,876 --> 00:40:44,999 it's just you're fair game. 711 00:40:45,501 --> 00:40:49,417 Foreigners don't vote in Kansas, and it doesn't protect 712 00:40:49,417 --> 00:40:53,250 the communications of non Americans. 713 00:40:53,375 --> 00:40:54,999 That's really unfortunate. 714 00:40:54,999 --> 00:40:57,709 I think if we if we were going to see change there, it's not going 715 00:40:57,709 --> 00:41:01,167 to be because individuals were writing to their members, it's going 716 00:41:01,167 --> 00:41:03,209 to be because companies are complaining 717 00:41:03,209 --> 00:41:06,999 they're losing out on contracts in Europe and Asia. 718 00:41:07,083 --> 00:41:10,417 If the Klout computing companies want to salvage their foreign business, 719 00:41:10,417 --> 00:41:13,792 we need to see a big change in the law or they're going to have 720 00:41:13,792 --> 00:41:18,709 to start using anti and Encrypto where you don't care about access to data. 721 00:41:18,709 --> 00:41:19,709 Alex? 722 00:41:20,584 --> 00:41:24,834 ALEX ABDO: Just quickly on what you can do. 723 00:41:24,834 --> 00:41:26,542 A week and a half, two weeks ago there was 724 00:41:26,542 --> 00:41:28,834 an incredibly important vote in the house 725 00:41:28,834 --> 00:41:32,584 about whether the government was going to rein in the bulk collection 726 00:41:32,584 --> 00:41:34,751 of our phone records. 727 00:41:35,501 --> 00:41:39,751 Unsurprisingly the vote lost; but surprisingly, it was close, 217 728 00:41:39,751 --> 00:41:41,584 to 205 votes. 729 00:41:41,584 --> 00:41:43,501 And a big part of the reason why the vote was so close 730 00:41:43,501 --> 00:41:46,999 is because literally thousands of people called their representatives 731 00:41:46,999 --> 00:41:50,209 and urged them to vote in support of the bill that would have reined 732 00:41:50,209 --> 00:41:51,876 in the NSA. 733 00:41:51,876 --> 00:41:52,999 That support matters more than you know, 734 00:41:52,999 --> 00:41:55,999 more than I knew up until a few weeks ago. 735 00:41:55,999 --> 00:41:57,999 If you have any questions about it, you should really talk 736 00:41:57,999 --> 00:42:00,667 to Kevin Bacon who has been doing some incredible work 737 00:42:00,667 --> 00:42:02,626 on this and can speak to how effective it 738 00:42:02,626 --> 00:42:05,542 is for to you call your representatives. 739 00:42:05,667 --> 00:42:08,999 I would like to say for those of us here in California, 740 00:42:08,999 --> 00:42:12,125 we know how difficult Feinstein has been on these issues, 741 00:42:12,125 --> 00:42:15,999 she's been a huge supporter for the NSA, and it's been intractable 742 00:42:15,999 --> 00:42:18,083 for years and years. 743 00:42:18,083 --> 00:42:21,083 Couple days ago Feinstein actually said, hmmm, maybe there needs 744 00:42:21,083 --> 00:42:23,167 to be some changes. 745 00:42:23,751 --> 00:42:25,999 And we also saw President Obama meeting 746 00:42:25,999 --> 00:42:29,626 with top legislators just a couple of days ago saying he's open 747 00:42:29,626 --> 00:42:31,459 to suggestions. 748 00:42:31,459 --> 00:42:34,167 So, you know, we have finally sort of started to turn the tide 749 00:42:34,167 --> 00:42:36,375 in Washington, D.C. 750 00:42:36,375 --> 00:42:39,999 based on the facts that members of the public have picked up the phone, 751 00:42:39,999 --> 00:42:43,999 have responded to those e mails from the ACLU and have started 752 00:42:43,999 --> 00:42:48,083 to meet actually with their members of Congress. 753 00:42:48,083 --> 00:42:50,083 So it is making a huge difference. 754 00:42:50,083 --> 00:42:52,167 We've talked a lot about sort of how we got to this point and 755 00:42:52,167 --> 00:42:55,751 the problems that we're seeing, but we're at a really crucial point 756 00:42:55,751 --> 00:42:58,999 to turn the tide on these issues, and I really hope that anyone 757 00:42:58,999 --> 00:43:02,709 in the audience who has not picked up the phone and called their members 758 00:43:02,709 --> 00:43:04,999 of Congress or stopped by our booth and filled 759 00:43:04,999 --> 00:43:08,250 out the action alert, please do it, because we can change this, 760 00:43:08,250 --> 00:43:09,999 we really can. 761 00:43:09,999 --> 00:43:14,125 This is predictable and self serving note to end on, but it matters a lot 762 00:43:14,125 --> 00:43:17,834 for you to become members of the ACLU. 763 00:43:17,876 --> 00:43:20,834 And I mean it, I mean it. 764 00:43:20,834 --> 00:43:23,709 You know, we have between 6 and 700,000 ACLU 765 00:43:23,709 --> 00:43:26,292 members nationwide. 766 00:43:26,292 --> 00:43:28,709 The NRA has over 4 million members. 767 00:43:28,709 --> 00:43:32,417 If all of you who had an affinity for the ACLU were members 768 00:43:32,417 --> 00:43:35,584 of the ACLU we would have a lot more voice, 769 00:43:35,584 --> 00:43:38,999 a much louder voice in Washington. 770 00:43:38,999 --> 00:43:40,626 I'm not saying that to denigrate the NRA for those 771 00:43:40,626 --> 00:43:43,999 of you who are supporters, they're a very effective organization 772 00:43:43,999 --> 00:43:46,209 in support of what they do. 773 00:43:46,209 --> 00:43:48,959 We can be even more Help us about that effective. 774 00:43:48,959 --> 00:43:50,999 No, no, seriously, it matters a lot to have 775 00:43:50,999 --> 00:43:53,792 a large civil society counterweight to the kinds 776 00:43:53,792 --> 00:43:57,375 of developments we've been talking about today. 777 00:43:57,375 --> 00:44:01,999 So please come by, get our special edition DEF CON 4 Alert. 778 00:44:03,459 --> 00:44:05,834 Thank you so much for joining us today.