Interviu Snowden - Ianuarie 2014

8/12/2019 Interviu Snowden - Ianuarie 2014

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Snowden-Interview: Transcript

Postul naional german de radio i televiziune NDR.de (Norddeutscher Rundfunk), 2.!".2!"#

Mr. Snowden did you sleep well the last couple of

nights because I was reading that you asked for a kind

of police protection. Are there any threats?

There are significant threats but I sleep very well. Therewas an article that came out in an online outlet calledBuzz Feed where they interviewed officials from thePentagon, from the National ecurity !gency and theygave them anonymity to be able to say what they wantand what they told the reporter was that they wanted tomurder me. These individuals " and these are actinggovernment officials. They said they would be happy,

they would love to put a bullet in my head, to poison me as I was returning from the grocerystore and have me die in the shower

ut fortunately you are still alive with us.#ight but I$m still alive and I don$t lose sleep because I%ve done what I feel I needed to do. Itwas the right thing to do and I%m not going to be afraid.

nowden"Interview in &nglish" '(.)*.')*+ '-) /hr " !utor0in- 1ubert eipel2histleblower &dward nowden lea3ed the documents about / mass surveillance. 1e spo3eabout his disclosures and his life to N4# 5ournalist eipel in 6oscow. 78ermany only9!The greatest fear I have!" and I #uote you" !regarding the disclosures is nothing will

change.! That was one of your greatest concerns at the ti$e but in the $eanti$e there is a

vivid discussion about the situation with the %SA& not only in A$erica but also in

'er$any and in ra(il and )resident *ba$a was forced to go public and to +ustify what

the %SA was doing on legal grounds.2hat we saw initially in response to the revelations was sort of a circling of the wagons ofgovernment around the National ecurity !gency. Instead of circling around the public and

protecting their rights the political class circled around the security state and protected theirrights. 2hat%s interesting is though that was the initially response, since then we%ve seen a


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softening. 2e%ve seen the President ac3nowledge that when he first said :we%ve drawn the rightbalance, there are no abuses:, we%ve seen him and his officials admit that there have beenabuses. There have been thousands of violations of the National ecurity !gency and otheragencies and authorities every single year.Is the speech of *ba$a the beginning of a serious regulation?

It was clear from the President%s speech that he wanted to ma3e minor changes to preserveauthorities that we don%t need. The President created a review board from officials that were

personal friends, from national security insiders, former 4eputy of the ;I!, people who hadevery incentive to be soft on these programs and to see them in the best possible light. But whatthey found was that these programs have no value, they%ve never stopped a terrorist attac3 inthe /nited tates and they have marginal utility at best for other things. The only thing that theection '* phone metadata program, actually it%s a broader metadata programme of bul3collection < bul3 collection means mass surveillance < program was in stopping or detecting =>.)) wire transfer from a cab driver in ;alifornia and it%s this 3ind of review where insiders gowe don%t need these programs, these programs don%t ma3e us safe. They ta3e a tremendousamount of resources to run and they offer us no value. They go :we can modify these:. The

National ecurity agency operates under the President%s e?ecutive authority alone. 1e can end

of modify or direct a change of their policies at any time.

,or the first ti$e )resident *ba$a did

concede that the %SA collects and stores

trillions of data.

&very time you pic3 up the phone, dial anumber, write an email, ma3e a purchase,travel on the bus carrying a cell phone,swipe a card somewhere, you leave a trace

and the government has decided that it%s agood idea to collect it all, everything, evenif you%ve never been suspected of any

crime. Traditionally the government would identify a suspect, they would go to a 5udge, theywould say we suspect he%s committed this crime, they would get a warrant and then they would

be able to use the totality of their powers in pursuit of the investigation. Nowadays what we seeis they want to apply the totality of their powers in advance " prior to an investigation.ou started this debate" dward Snowden is in the $eanti$e a household na$e for the

whistleblower in the age of the internet. ou were working until last su$$er for the %SA

and during this ti$e you secretly collected thousands of confidential docu$ents. /hatwas the decisive $o$ent or was there a long period of ti$e or so$ething happening" why

did you do this?

I would say sort of the brea3ing point is seeing the 4irector of National Intelligence, @ames;lapper, directly lie under oath to ;ongress. There%s no saving an intelligence community that

believes it can lie to the public and the legislators who need to be able to trust it and regulate itsactions. eeing that really meant for me there was no going bac3. Beyond that, it was thecreeping realisation that no one else was going to do this. The public had a right to 3now aboutthese programs. The public had a right to 3now that which the government is doing in its name,and that which the government is doing against the public, but neither of these things we wereallowed to discuss, we were allowed no, even the wider body of our elected representativeswere prohibited from 3nowing or discussing these programmes and that%s a dangerous thing.The only review we had was from a secret court, the FI! ;ourt, which is a sort of rubberstamp authority


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2hen you are on the inside and you go into wor3 everyday and you sit down at the des3 andyou realise the power you have " you can wire tap the President of the /nited tates, you canwire tap a Federal @udge and if you do it carefully no one will ever 3now because the only waythe N! discovers abuses are from self reporting./e0re not talking only of the %SA as far as this is concerned" there is a $ultilateral

agree$ent for co-operation a$ong the services and this alliance of intelligence operations

is known as the ,ive yes. /hat agencies and countries belong to this alliance and what is

its purpose?

The Five &yes alliance is sort of an artifact of the post 2orld 2ar II era where the !nglophonecountries are the ma5or powers banded together to sort of co"operate and share the costs ofintelligence gathering infrastructure.o we have the /A%s 8;1, we have the / N!, we have ;anada%s ;"ec, we have the!ustralian ignals Intelligence 4irectorate and we have New Cealand%s 44. 2hat the resultof this was over decades and decades what sort of a supra"national intelligence organisation thatdoesn%t answer to the laws of its own countries.

In $any countries" as in A$erica too the agencies like the %SA are not allowed to spy

within their own borders on their own people. So the rits for e1a$ple they can spy oneverybody but the rits but the %SA can conduct surveillance in ngland so in the very

end they could e1change their data and they would be strictly following the law.

If you as3 the governments about this directly they would deny it and point to policyagreements between the members of the Five &yes saying that they won%t spy on each other%scitizens but there are a couple of 3ey points there. Dne is that the way they define spying is notthe collection of data. The 8;1 is collecting an incredible amount of data on British ;itizens

5ust as the National ecurity !gency is gathering enormous amounts of data on / citizens.2hat they are saying is that they will not then target people within that data. They won%t loo3

for /A citizens or British citizens. In addition the policy agreements between them that sayBritish won%t target / citizens, / won%t target British citizens are not legally binding. Theactual memorandums of agreement state specifically on that that they are not intended to putlegal restriction on any government. They are policy agreements that can be deviated from or

bro3en at any time. o if they want to on a British citizen they can spy on a British citizen andthen they can even share that data with the British government that is itself forbidden fromspying on /A citizens. o there is a sort of a trading dynamic there but it%s not, it%s not open,it%s more of a nudge and win3 and beyond that the 3ey is to remember the surveillance and theabuse doesn%t occur when people loo3 at the data it occurs when people gather the data in the

first place.2ow narrow is the co-operation of the 'er$an SecretService %3 with the %SA and with the ,ive yes?

I would describe it as intimate. !s a matter of fact the firstway I described it in our written interview was that the8erman ervices and the / ervices are in bed together.They not only share information, the reporting of results fromintelligence, but they actually share the tools and theinfrastructure they wor3 together against 5oint targets inservices and there%s a lot of danger in this. Dne of the ma5or programmes that faces abuse in the

National ecurity !gency is what%s called :EAeyscore:. It%s a front end search engine thatallows them to loo3 through all of the records they collect worldwide every day./hat could you do if you would sit so to speak in their place with this kind of instru$ent?

ou could read anyone%s email in the world. !nybody you%ve got email address for, any


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website you can watch traffic to and from it, any computer that an individual sits at you canwatch it, any laptop that you%re trac3ing you can follow it as it moves from place to placethroughout the world. It%s a one stop shop for access to the N!%s information. !nd what%smore you can tag individuals using :EAeyscore:. Get%s say I saw you once and I thought whatyou were doing was interesting or you 5ust have access that%s interesting to me, let%s say youwor3 at a ma5or 8erman corporation and I want access to that networ3, I can trac3 yourusername on a website on a form somewhere, I can trac3 your real name, I can trac3associations with your friends and I can build what%s called a fingerprint which is networ3activity uniHue to you which means anywhere you go in the world anywhere you try to sort ofhide your online presence hide your identity, the N! can find you and anyone who%s allowedto use this or who the N! shares their software with can do the same thing. 8ermany is one ofthe countries that have access to :E3eyscore:.

This sounds rather frightening. The #uestion is: does the %3 deliver data of 'er$ans to

the %SA?

2hether the BN4 does it directly or 3nowingly the N! gets 8erman data. 2hether it%sprovided I can%t spea3 to until it%s been reported because it would be classified and I prefer that

5ournalists ma3e the distinctions and the decisions about what is public interest and what shouldbe published. 1owever, it%s no secret that every country in the world has the data of theircitizens in the N!. 6illions and millions and millions of data connections from 8ermansgoing about their daily lives, tal3ing on their cell phones, sending 6 messages, visitingwebsites, buying things online, all of this ends up at the N! and it%s reasonable to suspect thatthe BN4 may be aware of it in some capacity. Now whether or not they actively provide theinformation I should not say.The %3 basically argues if we do this" we do this accidentally actually and our filter

didn0t work.

#ight so the 3ind of things that they%re discussing there are two things. They%re tal3ing aboutfiltering of ingest which means when the N! puts a secret server in a 8ermantelecommunications provider or they hac3 a 8erman router and they divert the traffic in amanner that let%s them search through things they%re saying :if I see what I thin3 is a 8ermantal3ing to another 8erman I%ll drop it: but how do you 3now. ou could say :well, these peopleare spea3ing the 8erman language:, :this IP address seems to be from a 8erman company toanother 8erman company:, but that%s not accurate and they wouldn%t dump all of that traffic

because they%ll get people who are targetes of interest, who are actively in 8ermany using8erman communications. o realistically what%s happening is when they say there%s no spying

on 8ermans, they don%t mean that 8erman data isn%t being gathered, they don%t mean thatrecords aren%t being ta3en or stolen, what they mean is that they%re not intentionally searchingfor 8erman citizens. !nd that%s sort of a fingers crossed behind the bac3 promise, it%s notreliable./hat about other uropean countries like %orway and Sweden for e1a$ple because we

have a lot of I think under water cables going through the altic Sea.

o this is sort of an e?pansion of the same idea. If the N! isn%t collecting information on8erman citizens in 8ermany are they as soon as it leaves 8erman borders !nd the answer is:yes:. !ny single communication that transits the internet, the N! may intercept at multiple

points, they might see it in 8ermany, they might see it in weden, they might see it in Norwayor Finland, they might see it in Britain and they might see it in the /nited tates. !ny singleone of these places that a 8erman communication crosses it%ll be ingested and added to thedatabase.So let0s co$e to our southern uropean neighbours then. /hat about Italy" what about


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,rance" what about Spain?

It%s the same deal worldwide.3oes the %SA spy on Sie$ens" on Mercedes" on other successful 'er$an co$panies for

e1a$ple" to prevail" to have the advantage of knowing what is going on in a scientific and

econo$ic world.

I don%t want to pre"empt the editorial decisions of 5ournalists but what I will say is there%s noHuestion that the / is engaged in economic spying.If there%s information at iemens that they thin3 would be beneficial to the national interests,not the national security of the /nited tates, they%ll go after that information and they%ll ta3eit.

There is this old saying !you do whatever you can do! so the %SA is doing whatever is

technically possible.

This is something that the President touched on last year where he said that 5ust because we cando something, and this was in relation to tapping !ngela 6er3el%s phone, 5ust because we cando something doesn%t mean that we should, and that%s e?actly what%s happened. Thetechnological capabilities that have been provided because of sort of wea3 security standards in

internet protocols and cellular communications networ3s have meant that intelligence servicescan create systems that see everything.%othing annoyed the 'er$an govern$ent $ore than the fact that the %SA tapped the

private phone of the 'er$an 4hancellor Merkel over the last 56 years obviously"

suddenly this invisible surveillance was connected with a known face and was not

connected with a kind of watery shady terrorist background: *ba$a now pro$ised to

stop snooping on Merkel which raises the #uestion: did the %SA tape already previous

govern$ents including the previous chancellors and when did they do that and how long

did they do this for?

This is a particularly difficult Huestion for me to answer because there%s information that I verystrongly believe is in the public interest. 1owever, as I%ve said before I prefer for 5ournalists toma3e those decisions in advance, review the material themselves and decide whether or not the

public value of this information outweighs the sort of reputational cost to the officials thatordered the surveillance. 2hat I can say is we 3now !ngela 6er3el was monitored by the

National ecurity !gency. The Huestion is how reasonable is it to assume that she is the only8erman official that was monitored, how reasonable is it to believe that she%s the only

prominent 8erman face who the National ecurity !gency was watching. I would suggest itseems unreasonable that if anyone was concerned about the intentions of 8erman leadership

that they would only watch 6er3el and not her aides, not other prominent officials, not heads ofministries or even local government officials.2ow does a young $an fro$ li(abeth 4ity in %orth 4arolina" 76 years old" get in such a

position in such a sensitive area?

That%s a very difficult Huestion to answer. In general, I would say it highlights the dangers ofprivatising government functions. I wor3ed previously as an actual staff officer, a governmentemployee for the ;entral Intelligence !gency but I%ve also served much more freHuently as acontractor in a private capacity. 2hat that means is you have private for profit companies doinginherently governmental wor3 li3e targeted espionage, surveillance, compromising foreignsystems and anyone who has the s3ills who can convince a private company that they have theHualifications to do so will be empowered by the government to do that and there%s very littleoversight, there%s very little review.2ave you been one of these classical co$puter kids sitting red eyed during the nights in

the age of 58" 59 and your father was knocking on your door and saying !switch off the


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light" it0s getting late now!? 3id you get your co$puter skills fro$ that side or when did

you get your first co$puter?

#ight I definitely have had a J shall we say a deep informal education in computers andelectronic technology. They%ve always been fascinating and interesting to me. Thecharacterisation of having your parents telling you to go to bed I would say is fair.

If one looks to the little public data of your life one discovers that you obviously wanted to

+oin in May 866 the Special ,orces to fight in Ira#" what did $otivate you at the ti$e?

ou know" Special ,orces" looking at you in the very $o$ent" $eans gri$ fighting and it

$eans probably killing and did you ever get to Ira#?

No I didn%t get to IraH J one of the interesting things about the pecial Forces are that they%renot actually intended for direct combat, they%re what%s referred to as a force multiplier. They%reinserted behind enemy lines, it%s a sHuad that has a number of different specialties in it and theyteach and enable the local population to resist or to support / forces in a way that allows thelocal population a chance to help determine their own destiny and I felt that was an inherentlynoble thing at the time. In hindsight some of the reasons that we went into IraH were not wellfounded and I thin3 did a disservice to everyone involved.

/hat happened to your adventure then? 3id you stay long with the$ or what happenedto you?

No I bro3e my legs when I was in training and was discharged.So it was a short adventure in other words?

It%s a short adventure.In 866; the 4IA stationed you with a diplo$atic cover in 'eneva in Swit(erland. /hy did

you +oin the 4IA by the way?

I don%t thin3 I can actually answer that one on the record.*< if it0s what you have been doing there forget it but why did you +oin the 4IA?

In many ways I thin3 it%s a continuation of trying to do everything I could to prosecute thepublic good in the most effective way and it%s in line with the rest of my government servicewhere I tried to use my technical s3ills in the most difficult positions I could find in the worldand the ;I! offered that.If we go back Special ,orces" 4IA" %SA" it0s not actually in the description of a hu$an

rights activist or so$ebody who beco$es a whistleblower after this. /hat happens to

you?

I thin3 it tells a story and that%s no matter how deeply an individual is embedded in thegovernment, no matter how faithful to the government they are, no matter how strongly they

believe in the causes of their government as I did during the IraH war, people can learn, peoplecan discover the line between appropriate government behaviour and actual wrongdoing and Ithin3 it became clear to me that that line had been crossed.ou worked for the %SA through a private contractor with the na$e oo(e Allen

2a$ilton" one of the big ones in the business. /hat is the advantage for the =S

'overn$ent or the 4IA to work through a private contractor to outsource a central

govern$ent function?

The contracting culture of the national security community in the /nited tates is a comple?topic. It%s driven by a number of interests between primarily limiting the number of directgovernment employees at the same time as 3eeping lobbying groups in ;ongress typically fromvery well funded businesses such as Booze !llen 1amilton. The problem there is you end up ina situation where government policies are being influenced by private corporations who haveinterests that are completely divorced from the public good in mind. The result of that is whatwe saw at Booze !llen 1amilton where you have private individuals who have access to what


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the government alleges were millions and millions of records that they could wal3 out the doorwith at any time with no accountability, no oversight, no auditing, the government didn%t even3now they were gone.

At the very end you ended up in >ussia. Many of the intelligence co$$unities suspect you

$ade a deal" classified $aterial for Asylu$ here in >ussia.

The ;hief of the Tas3 Force investigating me as recently as 4ecember said that theirinvestigation had turned up no evidence or indications at all that I had any outside help orcontact or had made a deal of any 3ind to accomplish my mission. I wor3ed alone. I didn%t needanybody%s help, I don%t have any ties to foreign governments, I%m not a spy for #ussia or ;hinaor any other country for that matter. If I am a traitor who did I betray I gave all of myinformation to the !merican public, to !merican 5ournalists who are reporting on !mericanissues. If they see that as treason I thin3 people really need to consider who do they thin3they%re wor3ing for. The public is supposed to be their boss not their enemy. Beyond that as faras my personal safety, I%ll never be fully safe until these systems have changed.After your revelations none of the uropean countries really offered you asylu$. /here

did you apply in urope for asylu$?

I can%t remember the list of countries with any specificity because there were many of them butFrance, 8ermany were definitely in there as was the /A. ! number of &uropean countries, allof whom unfortunately felt that doing the right thing was less important than supporting /

political concerns.*ne reaction to the %SA snooping is in the very $o$ent that countries like 'er$any are

thinking to create national internets an atte$pt to force internet co$panies to keep their

data in their own country. 3oes this work?

It%s not gonna stop the N!. Get%s put it that way. The N! goes where the data is. If the N!can pull te?t messages out of telecommunication networ3s in ;hina, they can probably manage

to get faceboo3 messages out of 8ermany. /ltimately the solution to that is not to try to stic3everything in a walled garden. !lthough that does raise the level of sophistication andcomple?ity of ta3ing the information. It%s also much better simply to secure the informationinternationally against everyone rather than playing :let%s move the data:. 6oving the data isn%tfi?ing the problem. ecuring the data is the problem.)resident *ba$a in the very $o$ent obviously doesn0t care too $uch about the $essage

of the leak. And together with the %SA they do care very $uch $ore about catching the

$essenger in that conte1t. *ba$a asked the >ussian president several ti$es to e1tradite

you. ut )utin did not. It looks that you will stay to the rest of your life probably in

>ussia. 2ow do you feel about >ussia in that conte1t and is there a solution to thisproble$.

I thin3 it%s becoming increasingly clear that these lea3s didn%t cause harm in fact they servedthe public good. Because of that I thin3 it will be very difficult to maintain sort of an ongoingcampaign of persecution against someone who the public agrees serve the public interest.The %ew ork Ti$es wrote a very long co$$ent and de$anded cle$ency for you. The

headline !dward Snowden /histleblower! and I #uote fro$ that: !The public learned

in great detail how the agency has e1tended its $andate and abused its authority.! And

the %ew ork Ti$es closes: !)resident *ba$a should tell his aides to begin finding a way

to end Mr Snowden0s vilification and give hi$ an incentive to return ho$e.! 3id you get a

call in between fro$ the /hite 2ouse?

I%ve never received a call from the 2hite 1ouse and I am not waiting by the phone. But Iwould welcome the opportunity to tal3 about how we can bring this to a conclusion that servesthe interest of all parties. I thin3 it%s clear that there are times where what is lawful is distinct


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from what is rightful. There are times throughout history and it doesn%t ta3e long for either an!merican or a 8erman to thin3 about times in the history of their country where the law

provided the government to do things which were not right.)resident *ba$a obviously is in the very $o$ent not #uite convinced of that because he

said to you are charged with three felonies and I #uote: !If you dward Snowden believe

in what you did you should go back to A$erica appear before the court with a lawyer and

$ake your case.! Is this the solution?

It%s interesting because he mentions three felonies. 2hat he doesn%t say is that the crimes thathe has charged me with are crimes that don%t allow me to ma3e my case. They don%t allow meto defend myself in an open court to the public and convince a 5ury that what I did was to their

benefit. The espionage act was never intended, it%s from *K*>, it was never intended toprosecute 5ournalistic sources, people who are informing the newspapers about informationthat%s of public interest. It was intended for people who are selling documents in secret toforeign governments who are bombing bridges who are sabotaging communications not peoplewho are serving the public good. o it%s I would say illustrative that the president would chooseto say someone should face the music when he 3nows the music is a show trial.ursa- http-00www.ndr.de0ratgeber0netzwelt0snowden'LL.html
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Interviu Snowden - Ianuarie 2014

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Transcript of Interviu Snowden - Ianuarie 2014