Government Surveillance: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)

our main story tonight is government

surveillance and I realize most people

would rather have a conversation about

literally any other topic including is

my smartphone giving me cancer to which

the answer is probably or do goldfish

suffer from depression to which the

answer is yes but very briefly but but

the fact is it is vital that we have a

discussion about this now because an

important date is just around the corner

one big data circle on the calendar when

it comes to a very controversial subject

the reauthorization of the Patriot Act

and all of the controversial provisions

there in June first they've got to come

to an agreement to reauthorize or

curtail this program yes some

controversial provisions within the

Patriot a Patriot Act are set to expire

on June the 1st so circle that date on

your calendars everyone and while you're

at it

Circle June 2nd as well because that's

Justin Long's birthday you all forgot

last year anything noticed now over the

last couple of years you've probably

heard a lot about strange sounding

programs such as xkeyscore muscular

prism and mystic which are

coincidentally also the names of summer

florida's least popular strip clubs

welcome to explore our dances are fully

unredacted and Tuesday is wing night but

but if you don't mind I would like to

refresh your memory over some of this

and let's start by focusing on the most

controversial portion of the Patriot Act

that is up for renewal section 215 which

I'm aware sounds like the name of an

Eastern European boy band

we are section 215 prepare to have your

hearts throb there's the cute one the

bad boy who want to strangle the potato

farmer and the one without an iron

deficiency they're incredible but the

contents of the real section 215 is

actually even more sinister

it's got section 215 nicknamed the

library records provision which allows

the government to require businesses to

hand over records of any quote

any tangible things including books

records papers documents and other items

if that sounds broad it's because it was

very much written that way section 215

so if the government can ask for any

tangible things so long so long as it's

for an investigation to protect against

international terrorism which is

basically a blank check it's not letting

a teenager borrow the car on the strict

condition that they only use it for car

related activities okay mom and dad I'm

going to use this for a in the

Wendy's parking lot but that is

correlated so I think um covers section

215 is overseen by a secret intelligence

court known as the FISA Court and

they've interpreted it to mean the

government could basically collect and

store phone records for every American

the vast majority of whom of course have

no connection to terrorism

unless aren't cheryl has been greatly

mischaracterizing the activities of her

needlepoint club it's a sleeper cell

isn't it aren't Sheryl you will hang for

this aren't Sheryl you're a traitor and

a terrible art not in that order

now the government will point out that

under 215 they hold phone records and

not the calls themselves what the

intelligence community is doing is

looking at phone numbers and durations

of calls they are not looking at

people's names and they're not looking

at content yes but that's not entirely

reassuring because you can extrapolate a

lot from that information if they knew

that you called your ex 12 times last

night between 1:00 and 4:00 a.m. for a

duration of 15 minutes each time that

can be fairly sure that you left some

pretty pathetic voicemails I don't care

who's monitoring this call Viki we

should be together pick up the phone

damn it I'm a human being not an animal

now the Patriot Act was written just

after 9/11 and for years it was extended

and reauthorized with barely a passing

thought in fact it became so routine

that when he was extended in 2011 one

newscast just tacked it onto the end of

a report about a presidential trip

abroad chip Reid CBS News traveling with

the president in Deauville France also

in France by the way President Obama

signed into law four-year extension of

the terrorism fighting Patriot Act also

in France by the way by the way he threw

that in like a mother telling her grown

daughter that her childhood pet just

died oh nice talking to you sweetie

also by the way mr. peppers is dead see

you at Christmas bang but all of that

was before the public was made aware of

what the government's capabilities

actually were because that all ended in

June of 2013 Edward Snowden is just

taken responsibility for one of the

biggest government leaks in US history

we learned that the government has the

capacity to track virtually every

American phone call and to scoop up

impossibly vast quantities of data

across the internet revelations that the

NSA eavesdropped on world leaders if

you've ever been to the Bahamas the NSA

could have recorded your phone calls and

stored them for up to a month yet all

that information was exposed by Edward

Snowden and it is still kind of

incredible that a 29 year old contractor

was able to steal top-secret documents

from an organization that literally has

the word security in its name clearly

that was not great for them because the

only place where it should be that easy

for employees in their 20s to steal is a

lid store dude you sure should take this

relax dude it's a Miami Marlins cap

we're not exactly selling Faberge eggs

here

it is still unclear exactly how many

documents Edward Snowden stole although

he has consistently tried to reassure

people that he put them in good hands

honestly I don't want to be the person

making decisions on what should be

public and what shouldn't

which is why rather than publishing

these on my own or putting now openly

I'm running through journalists now that

sounds great but of course it's not a

fail-safe plan as was proven when the

New York Times published this slide but

did such a sloppy job of blocking out

redacted information that some people

are able to read the information behind

that black bar which concerned how the

US was monitoring al-qaeda in Mosul a

group now known as Isis so essentially a

national security secret was leaked

because no one at the Times knows how to

use Microsoft Paint and look you can

think that Snowden did the wrong thing

or did it in the wrong way but the fact

is we have this information now and we

no longer get the luxury of pleading

ignorance it's like you can't go to Sea

World and pretend that Shamu is happy

anymore

when we now know at least half the water

in her tank is whale tears we know that

now you can't unknow that information so

you have to bear that in mind but here's

the thing it's now two years later and

it seems like we've kind of forgotten to

have a debate over the content of what

Snowden leaked a recent Pew report found

that nearly half of Americans say

they're not very concerned or not at all

concerned about government surveillance

which is fine if that's an informed

opinion but I'm not sure that it is

because we actually sent a camera crew

to Times Square to ask some random

passers-by who Edward Snowden was and

what he did and these are the responses

that we got I have no idea who Edward

Snowden is I have no idea I was loading

this I've heard the name I just can't

picture think right now exactly what it

is

Edward Snowden no I do not

just for the record that wasn't

cherry-picking that was entirely

reflective of everyone we spoke to

although to be fair some people did

remember his name they just couldn't

remember why he sold some information to

people he revealed some information that

shouldn't have been revealed I think

from what I remember is the information

that he shared was detrimental to our

military secrets and keeping our

soldiers in our country safe they can

leak documents but the US Army's

operations in Iraq Edward Snowden

revealed a bunch of Secrets I guess or

information into wiki wiki leaks that

were Snowden leaked he's in charge of

WikiLeaks Edward Snowden revealed a lot

of documents through WikiLeaks

Edward Snowden is not the WikiLeaks guy

the WikiLeaks guy is Julian Assange and

you do not want to be confused with him

partly because he was far less careful

than Snowden in what he released and how

and partly because he resembles a

sandwich bag full of biscuit dough

wearing a Stevie Nicks wig and that is

that is critical Julian Assange is not a

likable man even Benedict Cumberbatch

could not make him likable he's

uncomfortable that was supposed to be

physically impossible but but I don't

blame people for being confused we've

been looking at this story for the last

two weeks and it is hard to get your

head around not just because there are

so many complicated programs to keep

track of but also because there are no

easy answers here we all naturally want

perfect privacy and perfect safety but

those two things cannot coexist it's

like how you can't have a badass pet

Falcon and an adorable pet vole named

Herbert either you have to lose one of

them which obviously you don't want to

do or you have to accept some reasonable

restrictions on both of them now to be

fair the NSA will argue that just

because they can do something doesn't

mean they do do it and that there are

restrictions on their operations such as

the FISA Court which must approves

requests for foreign surveillance but in

34 years that Court has approved

over 35,000 applications and only

rejected 12 yes much like Robert Durst's

second wife the FISA Court is alarmingly

accepting listen Robert I'm not going to

ask you too many questions I'm just

going to give you the benefit of a doubt

that you clearly don't deserve at least

tell him to blink and burp less the

burping might be the most troubling

thing about that job so so maybe this

time for us to talk about where the

limits should be and the best place to

start would be section 215 not just

because it's the easiest to understand

but because there is widespread

agreement it needs to be reformed from

the President to Ted Cruz to both the

ACLU and the NRA to even the guy who

wrote the thing in the first place I was

the principal author of the Patriot Act

I can say that without qualification

Pyrus never did intend to allow ball

collections when it passed section 215

and no fair reading of the text would

allow for this program think about that

he was the author that's the legislative

equivalent of Lewis Carroll seeing the

teacups ride at Disneyland and saying

this has to be reined in no fair reading

of my text would allow for this right

you've turned my perfectly nice tail of

psychedelic pedophilia into a garish

vomitorium

this is not what I wanted and even the

NSA has said that the number of terror

plots in the u.s. that the section 215

telephone records programs has disrupted

is one and and it's worth noting that

one particular plot involved a cabdriver

in San Diego who gave eighty five

hundred dollars to a terror group and

that is the shittiest terrorist plot

I've ever seen other than the plot of a

good day to die hard but here's the big

problem here

if we let section 215 get renewed in its

current form without serious public

debate we're in trouble

because section 215 is the canary in the

coal mine if we cannot fix that we're

not going to fix any of them and the

public defect debate so far has been

absolutely pathetic a year ago a former

Congresswoman was discussing the 215

program on the news watch what happened

this vast collection of data is not that

useful and infringes substantially on

personal privacy I think at this point

we should seriously consider not gr not

continue congressman let me interrupt

you just for a moment we've got some

breaking news out of Miami

stand by if you will right now in Miami

Justin Bieber has been arrested

charges the judges reading the charges

including resisting arrest and driving

under the influence he's appearing now

before the judge for his bond hearing

let's watch actually you know what bad

news we're gonna have to interrupt your

interruption of the beeper news for a

new interruption this time featuring a

YouTube video of a tortoise having sex

with a plastic clog let's watch

that is essentially the current tone of

this vitally important debate and again

I'm not saying this is an easy

conversation but we have to have it I

know this is confusing and unfortunately

the most obvious person to talk to about

this is Edward Snowden but he currently

lives in Russia

meaning if you wanted to ask him about

any of these issues he'd have to fly all

the way there to do it and it is not a

pleasant flight and the reason I know

that is that last week I went to Russia

to speak to Edward Snowden and this is

what happened 48 paranoid hours in

Moscow arguably the last place on earth

where you can find an overweight Joseph

Stalin impersonator arguing with an

unconvincing fake Lenin and after

experiencing Russia's famously warm

hospitality I went to meet Edward

Snowden who was supposed to show up in

this room at noon however at five

minutes after the interview was

scheduled to begin

I had a troubling thought I don't know

these coming because my argument is why

would II when you think about it I got

2,000 rubles that says he doesn't make

it without understanding how much that

is all I'm saying is a 10-hour flight

for an empty chair I'm gonna lose my

okay turns out there might be a bit of a

problem because a whole Russian producer

booked us in a room directly overlooking

the old KGB building and the home of the

current Federal Security Bureau and

we've just been told they know we're

here

so um so that happened just if if the

Russian Russian KGB is listening ring

the fire alarm if he's not coming

the most famous hero and/or traitor in

recent American history and I've started

with a question designed to test his

loyalties how much do you miss America

you know my country is something that

travels with me you know it's not just a

geography already a way too complicated

answer the answer is I misses a loss the

greatest country in the world I do

that's my country I do miss my home I do

miss my family

do you miss Hot Pockets yes I miss

highpockets very much okay um the entire

state of Florida let's just let that

silence hang in the air

shut nuts do you miss Prague nuts I

don't know what they are lucky for you

it would

not just truck nuts stars-and-stripes

truck nuts that is two balls of Liberty

in a freedom sack

you really thought ahead well at least

one of us did no because of the UM the

quandary the CAF guess nightmare that

you you're in okay

let's dive in why did you do this the

NSA has the greatest surveillance

capabilities that we've ever seen in

history now what they will argue is that

they don't use this for nefarious

purposes against American citizens in

some ways that's true but the real

problem is that they're using these

capabilities to make us vulnerable to

them and then saying wow I have a gun

pointed at your head I'm not gonna pull

the trigger

trust me so what's the NSA you want look

like because you applied for a job at

the NSA where you clearly see an

inherent value in that shadowy

organization I worked with mass

surveillance systems against Chinese

hackers I saw that you know these things

do have some purpose and you want your

spies to be good at spying to be fair

right what you don't want is you don't

want them spying inside their own

country

spies are great when they're on our side

but we can never forget that they're

incredibly powerful and incredibly

dangerous and if they're off the leash

they can end up coming after us

but just because we want two different

things here domestic surveillance and

fallen surveillance because domestic

surveillance Americans give some of a

about phone surveillance they don't

give any remote about well the

second question is when we talk about

foreign surveillance are we applying it

in ways that are beneficial no one cares

in terms of no because I don't give a

we spied on UNICEF The Children's

Fund sure we spied on lawyers

negotiating I was UNICEF doing

I mean that's the question there isn't

it the question is are these programs

valuable are we going to be safer when

we're spying on UNICEF and lawyers who

are talking about the price of shrimp

and clove cigarettes I don't think

people say that's good I think they'll

say I definitely don't care

Americans do not give a I think

you're right about foreign survivors

what some people do care about is

whether Snowden considered the adverse

consequences of leaking so much

information at once how many of those

documents have you actually read I've

evaluated all the documents during the

archive you've read every single one

well I do understand what I turned over

but there's a difference between

understanding what's in the documents

and reading what's in the documents I

recognize the concern what giving you

because when when you're handing over

thousands of NSA documents the last

thing you want to do is read them I

think it's fair to be concerned about

did this person do enough were they

careful enough were they handling

material like we know you're handling

well in my defense I'm not handling

anything anymore that's been passed in

the journalists and they're using

extraordinary security measures to make

sure that this is reported in the most

responsible way but those are

journalists with a lower technical skill

set than you that's true but they do

understand just like you and I do just

how important it is to get this right so

so the New York Times took a slide

didn't redact it properly and in the end

it was possible for people to see that

something was being used in Mosul on al

Qaeda that is a problem well that's a

cop it is a cup and these things do

happen in reporting in journalism we

have to accept that some mistakes will

be made

this is an a fundamental concept of

Liberty right but you have to own that

then you're giving documents with

information you know could be harmful

which could get out there yes

if people act in bad faith he's not even

talking about bad fight it's gonna

incompetence we are but you will never

be completely free from risk if you're

free the only time you can be free from

risk is when you're in prison while the

risks were significant Snowden himself

has made it clear he feels the rewards

have been worth it you said in your

letters of Brazil I was motivated by a

belief that the citizens of the world

deserve to understand the system in

which they live my greatest fear was

that no one would listen to my warning

never have I been so glad to have been

so wrong how did that feel I was

initially terrified that this was gonna

be a 3-day story everybody was gonna

forget about it but when I saw that

everybody around the world said whoa

this is a problem we have to do

something about this it felt like

vindication even in America even in

America and I think we're seeing

something amazing which is if you ask

the American people that make tough

decisions to confront tough issues to

think about hard problems if they'll

actually surprise you okay here's the

problem I did ask him Americans and boy

did it surprise me I have no idea who

Edward Snowden is no I have no idea who

I was loading this I've heard the name I

just can't picture think right now

exactly what it is well

he sold some information to people he

revealed some information that shouldn't

have been revealed Edward Snowden

revealed a lot of documents through

WikiLeaks Edward Snowden revealed a

bunch of secrets I guess or information

into wiki wiki leaks I worse know been

leaked he's in charge of WikiLeaks I'm

in charge of WikiLeaks know I deal I

guess on the plus side he might be able

to go home cuz it seems like no one

knows who the you are everybody family

informed so did you do this to solve a

problem I did this to give the American

people a chance to decide for themselves

the kind of government they want to have

that is a conversation that I think the

American people deserve to decide oh

there's no doubt it is a critical

conversation but is it a conversation

that we have the capacity to have

because it's so complicated

we don't fundamentally understand it it

is a challenging conversation I mean

it's difficult for most people to even

conceptualize the problem is the

Internet is massively complex and so

much of it is invisible service

providers technicians engineers the

phone okay let me stop you right there

because this is the whole problem right

this is the whole problem I just I

glazed over because it's like the IT guy

comes into your office and you go oh

don't teach me anything I don't want to

learn you smell like canned soup it's

another challenge to figure out how do

we communicate things that require sort

of years and years of technical

understanding and compress that into

seconds of speech so I'm sympathetic to

the problem there but the thing is

everything you did only matters if we

have this conversation properly so let

me help you out there you mentioned in

an interview that the NSA was passing

around naked photos of people yeah this

is something where it's it's

actually seen as a big deal in the

culture of NSA because you see naked

pictures all of the time

that's terrifies people because when we

ask people about that this is the

response you get the government should

not be able to look at dick pictures if

the government was looking at a picture

of Gordon's penis I definitely feel it

would be an invasion of my privacy yes

the government was looking at pictures

of my penis that would upset me they

should never ever the US government have

a picture of my dick it's my husband

sent me a picture of his penis and the

government could access it I would want

that program to be shut down i would

want the dick-pic program change

I would also want the dick-pic program I

think will be terrific if the program

could change I would want it to be

tweaked I would want it to have have

clear and transparent laws that we knew

about and that were communicated to us

to understand what they were being used

for or why they were being kept do you

think that program exists I don't I

don't think that program exists at all

no no no no if I had knowledge that the

US government had a picture of my dick I

would be very pissed off well the good

news is there's no program named the

dick-pic program the bad news is they're

still collecting everybody's information

including your dick pics what's the

over-under on that last guy having sent

a dick pic recently you don't need to

guess I'll show you I did take a picture

of my

and that's it little girl recently but

this is the most visible line in the

sand for people can't they see my dick

so with that in mind look inside that

fault that is a picture of my dick so

let's go through each NSA program and

explain to me its capabilities in

regards to that photograph of my penis

so 702 surveillance can they see my dick

yes the FISA Amendments Act of 2008

which section 72 falls under allows the

bulk collection of Internet

communications that are one end foreign

bulk collection now we're talking about

my dick so if you have your email

somewhere like Gmail hosted on server

overseas or transferred overseas err at

any time

crosses outside the borders of the

United States your junk ends up in the

database so it doesn't it doesn't have

to be sending your dick to a gentleman

ah no even if you sent it somebody

within the United States

you're wholly domestic communication

between you and your wife can go from

New York to London and back and get

caught up in the database executive

order twelve triple three dick oh no

dick yes

yo twelve triple three is what the NSA

uses when the other authorities aren't

aggressive enough or they're not

catching as much as they'd like for

example because how are they gonna see

my dick I'm only concerned about my

penis when you send your junk through

Gmail for example yeah

that's stored on Google's servers Google

moves data from data center to data

center invisibly to you without your

knowledge your data could be moved

outside the borders of the United States

when your junk was passed by Gmail the

NSA caught a copy of that prism prism is

how they pulled your junk out of Google

with Google's involvement all of the

different prism partners people like

Yahoo Facebook Google the government

deputizes them to be sort of their

little surveillance Sheriff there are

dick Sheriff correct upstream upstream

is how they snatch your junk as it

transits the Internet

okay mystic if you're describing your

junk on the phone yes but do they have

the content of that junk call or just

the duration of it they have the content

as well but only for a few countries if

you are on vacation in the Bahamas yes

finally and you need to remind yourself

I'm just not sure what to do with this

it's just a lotta just hold onto it it's

a lot of responsibility yeah it is a lot

responsibility that's the whole point

should I know you should absolutely not

and it's unbelievable that you would do

that actually it's entirely believable

to fifteen metadata know what come on

and they can probably tell who you're

sharing your junk pictures with because

they're seeing who you're texting with

who you're calling if you called a penis

enlargement center 3:00 in the morning

and that Cole lasted 90 minutes

they would have a record of your phone

number calling that phone number which

is a penis enlargement center they would

say they don't know it's a penis

enlargement center but of course they

can look it up I would if the American

people understood this they would be

absolutely horrified I guess I never

thought about putting it in the

at the context of your junk food a good

takeaway from this be until such time as

we've sorted all of this out just don't

take pictures of your dick just don't do

it anymore no if we do that if we wait

hold on what you're saying no you should

keep taking busy to be big yes you

shouldn't change your behavior because a

government agency somewhere is doing the

wrong thing if we sacrifice our values

because we were afraid we don't care

about those values very much that is a

pretty inspiring answer to the question

hey why do you just send me a picture of

your dick because I love America that's

why so there you have it America all of

us should now be equipped to have this

vital debate because by June 1st it is

imperative we have a rational adult

conversation about whether our safety is

worth living in a country of barely

regulated government sanctioned dick

Sheriff's

and with my work here done there was

just time to take care of one more thing

finally congratulations on citizen for

winning the Oscar I know you couldn't be

at the ceremony for obvious reasons so

huh Wow I thought we celebrate ourselves

Cheers wow that's really do this up and

thank you Oh welcome what's the

over-under on me getting back home

safely well if you weren't on the list

before you are now like um is that like

a lazy eye look at Joe College is that

actually possible no it's it's it's a

real thing you're associated now okay

just to be clear NSA I never met this

guy so take me off your king list

because I do not want to get stuck in

Russia

you know

we we got in touch with the NSA the

National Security Council and the White

House and we asked them to comment on

the dick-pic capabilities of each of the

program's Edward Snowden just discussed

which incidentally were some very fun

emails to write to government agencies

they did not wish to comment on the

record and I can see why for every

possible reason

you