Gadgetory

hey everybody welcome to the verge alive I'm the allowed to tell i'm joined by Russell Brandon adi robertson you're watching us right after president obama gave a speech on NSA reform that I would categorize is a very very strange yeah riot at the dawn of a republic ya know it's weird he was like you know basically America was built on surveillance what's the nature of our country is that we're always watching yeah that's what it's always been we've been spying on since this whole thing if you don't like the NSA what do you think about Paul Revere yeah Paul Revere is the original bulb like amazing I expected them to name-check you know obviously 911 but I was not really expecting Paul Revere I was expecting like Martin communism and you learn my plane this is what I say when I'm drunk and I'm yelling at people about why the NSA's I'm like look you know our greatest Americans were surveilled as state enemies and like now the president's saying that as he's talking about well we're not gonna change everything I know you're mad but remember that like you know some of the most important people of the of my life time were you know the state was trying to destroy them through these very tools and so just can make the tools a little bit weaker way yeah but add more of that yeah exactly like or energy light so if you were strong to spy on states like the Soviet bloc so that they will not spy on their citizens yeah let's start at the top here so yeah this speech has been it's been over a week or so that you know yeah it's been leaked that he's going to be giving a speech there was a presidential directive about it what the intelligence community can I can't do with signals intelligence that came out earlier today and we were expecting a number of things to happen but we weren't expecting we were excited well a number of things could have happened you know everything should have there were a number of things could have happened we were expecting maybe none of them to happen that's true i mean like yeah I uh and so about he came out and he he just started he he started with this history lesson he would have in total law professor mode she referred to the people of the United States as a US persons a number of times which just thinking of candidate Obama just walking the campaign trail be I love meeting us person let me kiss this us person baby that is strange days full legal professor mode talk about the justifications for for spying for surveillance for intelligence all which I think are known I don't think anybody really disputes the need for like the police and for intelligence in the world yeah the problem is the significant overreach that that intelligence community just over each like he actually did make a really good point that the problem is now everything we do is surveilling right well you may have had at the very end but he in a much a strange a full devil in here mention the internet he's like and the Internet has provided us with so many ways to communicate a way for people to reach to other people across the globe and for the police to watch that interaction it was like we are completing a lot of things that isn't it isn't that the policies of change although they have it's that everything else around them has changed yeah so they fall under the policies like somebody made a really good sort of comparison to copyright on Twitter that we're just dealing with complete know that too late we were like now we have to deal with it like things don't mean the same thing anymore they're not the same anymore right and so he started with this and he did start with Martin Luther King was surveilled caught you know during the with a long Twilight at the Cold War we learned it's like yeah you mean when McCarthy rounded up America no chance like yes we learned a lot of bad lessons like why are we learning than the game and then he began sort of his kind of he got into the meat the heart of matter which was there have been lots of leaks he sounded very angry about the leaks Lily he was like we were you know we were looking at it yeah but then unfortunately now everyone's mad cuz the leaks so I do it now I was like I was on it trust me like was fine any what she's been saying since the beginning well he also was saying like we're just now undoing the damage that was done you're all so graciously dealing with his men he said very directly I'm not going to dwell on mr. Snowden or his motivations yes like his motivations were you giving the speech yeah that's what you decide it over and over again like we need to start talking about surveillance that's why I'm leaking documents and I was like I don't know what motivated him I just given this speech who knows so he got into it he made a lot of recommendations on some which I think we anticipated so much we didn't so you guys kind of just give the high-level overview of yeah should I um I mean so the super high level yeah yeah well so the main thing was the bulk telephony metadata recall records the basically who you're calling stuff that's on your phone bill how long the call why I will say to the fact that the President had state said metadata a major policy dress today is like one of those melon starts like work we took over the world it's amazing people we do know what meta to everybody knows it that's incredible anyway so good but yeah so I mean that was the main thing he says look the 215 program that is was the very first thing that came out is not going to exist in its current form maybe they're gonna move all that huge quantity of data to some third party if there's some third party that they trust or they're gonna do more judicial oversight when the data so weary there's like something's what happens now what happens later he has two stages yes we have to transition away from this program no one likes it but we need the capabilities it gives us right like we need to be able to search metadata for patterns quickly quickly so well the emergency yeah the whole justification is that we have to be able to do it quickly because this will produce a terrible delay and if you have a bomb then you can't call up verizon right so he said we're gonna keep the existing database but we're gonna make it so that you need a judicial finding to go use it weezer like again the president's day said query a database if you don't believe that like the internet that like technology is like take completely taken over the world like this is what we're talking about when the government query date a date a metadata database like that's great wait and see but that was also I mean not that he's like in a go for walk in like the speech but it was a little envious because in some ways that's what was already happening right like the the official legal justification for the system before was it's not surveillance when we take it and put it into the database because you know we're not getting a word for that because we don't look at it we just there and then once we once you know us sort of crossing the Rubicon is when we query the database which is why we get a warrant for the query that we're doing from the FISA Court don't think they actually I'm not actually sure there was a process my understanding what they were like whether it was just you just had to have a higher bar of a higher standard a suspicion like well no I mean there was sort of a challo clearly if someone you would say to the judge you know clearly if someone saying kill the president in or I mean if they're okay we know this number is a terrorist if someone's calling that terrorist we have a reasonable suspicion to and so that was and they've also reduced the number of so if a terrorist calls you then you call somebody and they call somebody now they call you instead they've reduced it so they're get their tightening up the way they can use this program i think the essential part there was that they were always saying metadata wasn't really surveilling firm ation right it was just records use this record situationally is still not right but they were saying its business records being generated by Verizon ATT so they can just collect them they don't need any warrants and then to go and then look track you specifically yeah that's when they needed to stop and now they're saying they're going to tighten that process and then phase two is we're going to stop collecting and stuff entirely and either we'll figure out how to get the providers to like harmonizer system so we can query them or we'll have somebody else do it and i would say rightfully he said there are challenges with both approaches like you don't want I mean I don't trust verizon I say Scott and I certainly don't trust like Blackwater right Andy who are they gonna hire like yeah you gotta hire the healthcare.gov guys to build you a day to the Federation phone records like that's awesome there is a terrorist attack like well I can't get through so yeah whatever have a good time uh so that that's 215 and that's kind of a big one right yeah and that's the one I came out first that's the one where I think most the most well prison tits know that specific thing I think that there's a lot of stuff that sort of high-level we are going to reform everything and generate reports on everything I mean I also think it's the one that Obama is focusing on like I think he said in the speech you know this is the bulk phone records is the the program that has generated the most controversy I don't think that's true I think lots of other stuff that wasn't really touched on but that's the centerpiece of his NSA reform whether it's the centerpiece of the stuff that we should be reforming is kind of a question that same thing it's not just it has generated the most controversy just not among you know people who are talking and is the thing that Congress has been debating it's the thing that hearings are on it's also the program that we actually can do something about the metadata right we actually kind of know what it is like if we're talking about something like prism or the giant email database we don't even know what's in that right we don't know like how it's collected let's quickly go through the rest of the reforms and we have some clips for the speech um so National Security Letters it seems like they're getting the gag orders that people were really mad about and briefly okay national security letters are things that mostly the FBI uses if you need a specific piece of information generally from an Internet company you don't have to get a court order you just send the subpoena and say you have to give us this data and you can't tell the person you can't tell anybody you can't say that you received right and this is you know Apple and Google and Microsoft Facebook and Twitter have been non stop complaining about this right that they want to release transparency reports they want to tell customers what they're doing and they can and now it sounds like they're getting the transparent they're gonna get a little bit they're getting the panel was proposing these reforms that were saying you have to Taylor the tailor the scope of it make sure you can't just repeat you know section 215 you have to create some kind of judicial oversight for actually granting them they didn't say any of that Obama pretty much clearly said he's not going to do it you know he'll work with Congress but you have some kind of situation where you will have to at some point prove that the thing needs to be secret and after he's going to talk to the Attorney General and after some point it's going to expire automatically and less a court renews it the panel recommended 180 days it's not necessarily clear that's what it's going to be and then they're also going to give them quote more information than ever before that they can publish Google got was it's good low bar it is because no currently googled up permission I think it might be the only company maybe there are more now they can publish in ranges of one through 1000 yeah but the transparency reports that you see there had being like move we'd seen transparency reports with big black bars over the net power National Security Letters and it seems like that at least they'll have something to put in that column on and then the other stuff is there's the FISA Court Razak chua Lee you know the institution that's granting the warrants to say you know go to verizon get all their information that court is gonna see some work so we're gonna see um a new public interest advocate that is going to be the one specifically uh sort of pleading the public's case and saying you really need this information is this really important arm we're gonna see that and we're also going to see annual declassification reviews on all of these programs so which has already been promised more or less yeah so the first thing so I want to go to a clip here we have it yeah so what's really interesting is he proposed these reforms but after what I would describe as a pretty full-throated defense of the NSA right so this is there's outrage or we NSA spying there's outrage over overreach looking at American citizens stuff and Obama began like we are saying with this stirring defense of surveillance now so we have a little bit here if we can't we just go to that to the contrary in an extraordinarily difficult job one in which actions our second guest success is unreported and failure can be catastrophic the men and women of the intelligence community including the NSA consistently follow protocols designed to protect the privacy of ordinary people they're not abusing authorities in order to listen to your private phone calls or read your emails when mistakes are made which is inevitable in any large and complicated human enterprise he's do they correct those mistakes so here's the thing about that quote mmm there's been all kinds of revelations that NSA people are like spying on their girlfriends is that we haven't actually had we and revelations that have been a lot of people intentionally abusing it and that love it it was the thing that they released was for about 10 years and there were maybe 20 violations which is bad in like objective terms and subjective terms that is very few people the problem is that they seem that we have all of these weird unintentional breaches and that they probably aren't telling us about lots of other stuff rice's you can't point to anything so our ability to understand what the NSA is doing this is the balance I think this is the this is the problem that I think we face is we try to figure out what the balance and Obama very directly called the downstream security and Liberty which it is right yeah we do need the NSA to like look at things like we do need the CIA to look at things and like try to maintain our security there needs to be a limit on that and there's no ability for us to have a conversation about that limit because every time we examine everything they do they immediately claimed that there we're hampering their ability to keep us secure it's not just that it's that fundamentally the fact that they have proven that they cannot be trusted with this means that we can't have a debate because they can't ever release everything like we wouldn't want them to but that that means that we're always going to have to take them on faith right and now they've proven that they are totally incapable of like accepting the trust although i mean the the way i read that part of the speech was partially that you imagine you're an NSA employee and you're watching this beach I mean really like it you know he's managing this group of people right who have just gotten their ass kicked like every week for the last six months everyone hates them and like it's just morale and you see this occasionally like I will come forward just like it's rough out there working for the NSA right now they're just going to work in like a shitty office building every day it's terrible I anything looked at jobs at the NSA when I was a college student and I feel I think there was a time I think when like working for these large govern it yeah government police institutions was cool like James Bond James yeah stuff yet languages you could be the guys in the van in enemy of state like I said but until I think part of that was okay he's gonna do these reforms but he also you no a lot he's my manager I mean that's like real right a lot of the audience for this was public employees who want to make you know who want to feel like they're reassured and he's not mad at them personally and he's they're not about to like it's not just that I don't be burned with my fam anybody who doesn't agree with him this is his classic move that he's like I understand your point of view Republicans not purely Republicans right there in the back like they're holding like like nice it's not smile everything he says you know we under section is like petting a blowback yes yes say my words like you know it's like chuck schumer petting a cat it's not even like it's not even big changes this point it's sort of everyone right it's that I think over and over and over again especially at the end he kept he came back to the theme that we're being held to a higher standard no and you get the sense that you know he's in the west wing with like the leadership or he's in the Situation Room he's meeting with the Joint Chiefs and he's like and everyone's like dude like why do we have to justify what we're doing like Ireland they just do whatever the hell they want yeah like and he's like yes and so we have it I don't we have it quite yet um the Russia China directly hold out China and Russia we have um I wrote it down at one point well I think we're gonna have it in just a moment say part of it is also that it's weird because I think we see this as basically a policy thing then you know if he if he wants to sort of if you wants to make some change at the EPA you can just sign a thing and then it's change whereas you know the NSA is to a large extent not just this abstract entity it's this group of people and whoever they choose to run the NSA he's gonna have to come from a fairly small group of people and part of what you want is to change the culture of that group of people and just constantly kicking their ass suspecting of a limited value you have to sort of say well yes we like you it's okay we want to motivate you we want to raise morale but we also want to change it in this slow way that's gonna gradually change the culture of so it we have yeah we have a text i'll just read this off ready it may seem sometimes in America is being held to a different standard and that the readiness of some to assume that the worst Meadows why our government can be frustrating now this hat who is that frustrating right if you just read that sense he's talking to government employees like that is designed to reassure like I know you're frustrated NSA goods no one expects China to have an open debate about their surveillance programs or Russia to take the privacy concerns of citizens into account we're better than China we can go on the verge cast and say proudly that America is more open and democratic than Jen China monium to 10 yeah this is such a strange burn it's like he right before this he was talking about how we need to work better with our partners reassure them he's like I won't just spy in the Queen I'll pick up the phone and call her and ask her what she thinks instead of reactor email and then he's like but China we're better than you and it's just it's such a strange the audience for the speech I can't tell if it was citizens I can't tell if it was government employees I can't tell if it was like other spies well I mean into a large at one point he said we're not going to apologize because our systems are better than everybody else that was the best call us a good job actually the problem another thing that was interesting that we the I I was surprised by and I'm surprised by in a positive way was to a large extent there's a big section speech where he the audience seemed to be people in foreign countries like the citizens of other countries that are not otherwise you know are we going to just spy on everyone in Norway and how do the citizens of Norway feel about the American surveillance program and those that that has not been a big part of the conversation up until now at least in American touch targets yeah it's been a thing that especially because all their justification has been this only happens to foreign people yeah well any exactly so of so much of it has been shifting the oh my god are we surveilling American citizens when were surveilling some random dude who runs a coffee shop in Norway but I mean actually he did and I thought it was a very positive thing that he said look we want buying from the citizens of other countries they're like we and part of it was america world police stuff that but he really wanted to make a moral case for America as the surveillance entity of the entire world that the entire world should feel good about right which one is that the job read the day after was it called dish fire dish fire which is what incredible you know you you take like two hundred million cell phone text attacks yeah oh yes text and you take out the American stuff and then you store everything else and then you let the GCHQ Britain's Intelligence Agency look for patterns on ya their citizens data yeah I mean what what struck me about this whole speech is that its premise thanh the notion that's like some amount of spying must occur right and you can buy that notion you cannot buy that notion I I accept like fine some amount of spying must occur why I accepted both pragmatically and that it probably does have to occur no IIIi think that's interesting but important but i think is actually interesting is that there was a lot of reference to 911 we're gonna we're going to highlight that soon there was a lot of reference 911 he opened with you know after nine eleven we had to change the way we did things and it was like or are you sure because President Bush was definitely handed a piece of paper called bin Laden determined to strike in in US and he was like yeah whatever they're not gonna do anything right the entire premise of section 215 collection is that you have to identify patterns that you have to have all this data and then he references a specific number and a specific case that they already knew about right and could have just queried right in a you know a lot of the a lot a lot of what his justifications for these programs existing came back I think tonight eleven over and over and over again which is crazy because I think he also said we went too far and we begin walking it back he said the previous administration began walking back and to think of George Bush and Dick Cheney actually ever walking back there Patriot Act proposals and their surveillance proposals that mean like if he truly believes that they being walking back and he's carrot cared for that process then we are nowhere near close yeah I was thinking about this that we have come pretty much full circle on the Bush administration which we would like they did this and we were totally outraged and felt awful about it and Obama and everyone ran on the premise that this will never ever happen again our here you know yeah some years later so via that was the other interesting element of it because ostensibly the NSA is not a counterterrorism organization right like supposedly and these things are constantly shifting like the border of who's in charge of what but like a sensibly they investigate they get signals intelligence when they find something useful they give it to the FBI department homeland security or the CIA or sort of any any and part of the post on reforms is that there wasn't up primarily a counterterrorism organization but the idea that the NSA is primarily concerned with counterterrorism is this is the first time we've heard yeah president make that case and that it's wildly like a huge expansion of powers if it's true um and then there were all of these primarily domestic things that he was saying look people are trying to bring down our stock exchange with malware we don't want hackers in your bag well yeah but I mean okay these people if someone robs a bank is that the NSA's problem I thought we had a whole domestic law enforcement framework for this I mean it's very kind of cyber command which they're not splitting off yes I mean let's just never use that phrase again I mean like I like you know let us down no language that we use to describe these years what I'm saying like cyber package it's in to destroy Wall Street yeah I mean these are cockers in your bank accounts like I'm the head of sight it's like you know what it's time for us to just just open up and admit that the Internet is part of our real lives it's not like some other place where other weird behaviors exist and you can't be like well the Internet's different so we have to give it to the NSA because they understand how information travels a lot that's what's so strange we just heard a speech where he was basically saying look someone needs to keep the internet safe that's why we need an NSA yeah which is insane that was never ever its signals intelligence they're listening and trying to figure i need it what would securing the internet even me and also by the way to the extent that the NSA is in charge of defending anything in cyber terms it's just government infrastructure right there's no and I mean we can say that various things are like infrastructure that is important to national security so the power grid or something but the idea that they're going to keep Chinese hackers off of my laptop because I'm that they've suddenly decided that as a virg reporter I'm a target of interest the NSA is not going to do anything for me and we saw this with the new york times we see this any time a third parties is attacked like the NSA does not keep the internet safe that's just insane ok also they've argued this Lee the cyber packet Wall Street thing is a keith alexander i believe interview in which he essentially compared it to a missile saying that it doesn't matter where the missile lands it is the job of the department of defense to stop it right yeah but i mean what if it's like a hosting sir like Facebook's like icelandic hosting server i don't know it's just odd like I think they have the capability we kind of a cisco fight you know last year and that's what this was all about this is what this is is sista like that's the meeting between these two okay so we actually had it's only a little bit we actually had a supercut of all design 11 references though Ghana 10 seconds long with but I mean it wasn't actually mentioned in as much as I expected him to uh I didn't expect me to mention it at all because i think i will say you know i was I you know I was in college I just have a distinct memory of where I was a 911 it is a meaningful memory to me but it is so disconnected from the NSA reading my email that I i'm disconnected enough for it to be the opening line of the decision that struck down in that yeah that's where we're at you know I anyway so let's let's take a look at this dairy September 11th after nine eleven in the immediate aftermath of 911 after 911 911 911 911 911 911 yeah it mean it's ridiculous it's a eight references and like over an hour or just under an hour it to me that is I'm not ready to to just I went through that right like I voted against george bush and like I didn't want there to be a war in Iraq and I I remember very clearly what my politics were because I knew that saying 911 would let people get away with bad things over and over and over again and it it's to me that's like it I've landed it every time our government says 911 we have to do something crazy because of 911 it's like well the terrorists won and that's that's like the legacy of 911 to me so to ignore to ignore what I think are really really clear civil liberties issues and really really clear like the NSA was never designed to police the entire internet issues yeah because something bad happened you know a decade ago is crazy I think part of it is just I mean it was a very historical speech right used from the power of your stuff on and I think you know for better or worse this this defined our our public policy for this whole decade and I mean all it's impossible to talk about the changing nature of like our national security infrastructure without saying you know we were kind of just doing whatever we want it for a while there and like all of the you know when these days we're all put in place because of it yeah and and now we have to we can't just time machine back we have to somehow you know it's going to be a revision of the Patriot Act it's going to be a revision of the thighs but act it's it has to you just have to keep going and this stuff is permanently written in history now maybe as it should be but to justify its existence or to justified not walking back to where yeah it should be or could be because something bad happened because there's this looming specter of terror is all I mean for me anyway for a decade has been the mistake yeah that we yeah they're bad guys out there we should stop them you know but yeah obama killed bin Laden like good job there well I think that's very relevant to this whole thing I mean I think because we saw when he came in I mean he was and it's this was a while ago that everyone was disillusioned by this but I mean he was much more hawkish on all of this stuff than anyone expected and I think a lot of it has to do with he just really wanted to kill bin Laden was clearly like gonna be a political win and something but also if you have a national security one like yeah great you know that's that's all there but this continued reference particularly in this speech where it's we're worried that you're you know you're sweeping up American citizens emails and text message yeah and you do have loved it we're NSA guy yeah like what's my girlfriend doing and like pushing a button they can just get it without any oversight without any anyone looking over their shoulder and being like that's illegal that's like you don't need that to stop bin Laden again you just don't yeah we have to stop pretending that that's the necessary evil of keeping us safe um so we have we have some slides I believe of the four particular he ended with I'm making various you know oh yeah he's got specific specific changes let him be clear so I mean what precisely two specific changes during that well that's nice she said four so it's we got slides of the first this is crazy first this is first the same technological advances that allow us intelligence agencies to pinpoint al-qaeda cell in Yemen an email which into terrorists in it Sahel also mean that many routine communications around the world are within our reach at a time and more and more of our lives are digital that prospect is disquieting for all of us so when he said that there is he was changing how we collect the information hmm right so you guys I gave you the task of creating his initiatives yeah where's that one fall honey I think that was yesterday that's the presidential directive for signals intelligence the email stuff we had a big section on on email collection and there wasn't really a lot like you can see it on this site right now I mean we have locked down the NSA email database and we have 2 b's and addy and there's blazer because honestly because a lot of what we were grading is how does this match up to the proposals like not to even our ideal version of this because that would be ridiculous and they would all be asked oh yeah um but that they didn't they basically just said reassure them that we're using this for good mm-hmm I mean that's which is kind of I think reassure I mean so we have the presidential directive if you're watching this on our site right now there's a big link to it right about yeah live stream you can go look at it i would say tremendously boring but you can go against a lot alike prasad in the first one is like I'm issuing an order that signals intelligence must be conducted in accordance with the Constitution it's like yeah what was happening before like do you have to occasionally remind the NSA that the Constitution applies to them so that was one do we have the second slide start driving rain so the second one when we'll get this one is we're going to reform the programs for more transparency increase safeguards for us persons which was my favorite phrase so this is all preamble here but the the actual one was we need more transparency this is where Apple Facebook Google Microsoft can all tell people about what's happening to them it is going to be very interesting to see what they're allowed to say yeah basically all of their transparency reports thus far have been like and there are a number of things we cannot say well Apple did an interesting Deadman switch in which I said we have not received any to 15 orders but the problem with all of these is that they've consistently denied that any of the huge amount of stuff that they that is supposedly in databases is from them so it may well be mood because we're also hearing about you know the NSA tapping into data links so it doesn't matter how many orders they've received yes they're also just getting everything from links well and the other thing I mean one of the interesting elements of it is how we were talking in the beginning with a focus on phone records right and I think part of it is you don't really see anything in this speech that addresses stuff like breaking into the yahoo and google networks yeah prism a lot of that stuff is just it's focusing on the phones and so my pet little paranoid theory is if you have to give something up you give up the least useful drain and he seems along each other and they have many times said that section of 702 is infinitely more useful they didn't say infinite but much more then section 215 which they I think can only pin point like one case that it helped and it was terrorist funding case yeah and they've said that most of the things that they said initially the 54 plots were stopped by 702 well I mean if you remember when the prison first broke the yeah controversy was not about metadata or phone collection it was what direct access to networks right direct access to Google Yahoo Apple it was about whether there checking into the backbone connection and getting it that way where the companies are helping them as far as you can tell none of that was addressed during this yeah no I don't that all it is the thing that makes me wonder how much we actually feasibly can do because this is basically how much should the NSA try to break everything which is their explicit arrests lately less slightly less breaking I mean I think part of the weird thing to me it's interesting like as a media story that like people are broadly speaking calling each other on the phone less and texting sending email right so now if we need to roll back this massive surveillance apparatus we're gonna do the sort of thing that's tailing off we're gonna say okay less phone records less phone calls yeah we'll just keep a huge we're going to keep our surveillance tools on email testing I maybe falls into the metadata it's sort of unclear but I mean I think digital communications of the kind if the most like shocking revelation to you was that the NSA can read your email which for me it was then this doesn't really do a lot I mean it's funny because when you describe it like that it's like this is exactly how the phone companies are treating you yeah right like well we're just gonna cap you an unlimited voice because you're not using anymore so you definitely to pay 10 bucks a month for that because you're not using anymore and we'll just meter you for all the other stuff and it's it's the same thing it's we're not using the phone's we're not making look if you're if you're a bad guy like what you've learned today is like don't make a phone call which they already knew right it's like this is you're something else um we also already known use tor because they have not cracked that yet right um okay so we have one last clip we should wrap up I think you guys have I want to see the last clip here and then I want you guys have been grading it so when I get some overall grades from you so let's run this last clip here this is Obama talking about the internet and how it's both wonderful and a reason for the government to watch every move that you when you come through the noise what's really at stake is how we remain true to who we are in a world that is remaking itself at dizzying speed whether it's the ability of individuals to communicate ideas to access information that would have once filled every Great Library in every country of world or to forge bonds with people on the other side of the globe technology is remaking what is possible for individuals and for institutions and for the International order so all the reforms that I've announced will point us in a new direction I am mindful that more work will be needed in the future one thing I'm certain of this debate will make us stronger and I also know that in this time of change the United States of America will have to lead it may seem sometimes that America is being held to a different standard and I'll admit the readiness of some to assume the worst motives by our government can be frustrated no one expects China to have a open debate about their surveillance programs or Russia to take privacy concerns of citizens and other places into account but let's remember we are held to a different standard precisely because we have been at the forefront of defending personal privacy and human dignity as the nation that developed the Internet the world expects us to ensure that the digital revolution works as a tool for individual empowerment not government control having faced down the dangers of totalitarianism and fascism and communism the world expects us to stand up for the principle that every person has the right to think and write and form relationships freely because individual freedom is the wellspring of human progress when you cut through the noise so that line individual freedom is the wellspring of human progress I think that is to me it's the key he said every person has the every person has the the right to think and write and form relationships and that's great and you know in real life the government can't really watch you do that right i mean they they're not here with us right now i mean presumably some of the NSA is watching this well yes very also hijack your laptop and then activate those Mike right but it ain't like bachelor what's interesting is that when you start doing that stuff online the government can immediately in real-time monitor every single thing that you do and they have the ability to do that and that's that's what all of the Snowden leaks have been pointing at is that we're only constrained by where we say with our words in like our laws you have to stop there and what we haven't done a good job of saying is what are you doing like what is it that you're doing and where should you stop and this is like I think a first step it's please stop looking at our phones which is great it is not the first step towards please stop you know scouring our email please stop you know jacking directly in the backbone to look at encrypted I message or whatever the hell you're trying to do yeah because we don't know and I think until we actually know the full extent of what they're doing and why they're doing it then all these justifications for we have to do it because of terrorists and these are actually good people at the NSA who are doing a good job and they're Patriots too and we're frustrated left on this laptop is already said I mean the NSA has been so deep in this laptop all right getting worried about it um and that's me that's that's the whole issue is we don't I still don't know enough about what the government is doing I still don't know enough about where they think the real limits should be and I haven't heard enough of that debate and I think you know I've got my issues with with with Greenwald and was snowed in and I think they made it a lot about themselves and said a lot about what's happening and that's fine but he's a hero now I think that's great he's a symbol um but he's accomplished only half of what he set out to do he got the President to make a speech about one thing we haven't yet had a real conversation about the whole totality of what's out there and you were saying right before I started there are undoubtedly more leagues to come oh yeah and I that how we react to the next set of weeks you know if greenwalt smart I think he's smart I think he's very he's savvy he's holding on to something big just to respond to a speech like this and so I'm very curious to see what that next step is like but so let's end real quick you guys were grading the speech in terms proposed reforms real reforms what yeah let's do some overalls where do you think about landed um I'm gonna go see I didn't get sassy and he started talking about it that's like a good strong point I think the phone stuff is a good first step you know but I I haven't heard enough so that's a seat for me yeah I think um it's weird so the big story this to me was we're putting a lot more power in the judiciary like there's a lot more court based oversight there's not a lot of congressional oversight there's not a lot of other parts of the executive oversight um which is potentially interesting but also there was already judicial oversight and so in many ways there's a lot of stuff that hasn't we're using a lot of tools that have already not really worked yeah so I think c-minus yeah I'm a little bit lower okay Abby to some extent it feels a little bit pointless to grade this because what we are doing is grading rhetoric and that so much of the rhetoric is essentially we will create more oversight it is we will reaffirm our principles it's things that they should be doing anyways and that they have been promising since I suppose it's almost going on eight months now maybe more maybe less but the problem is that every time we do this we talk about okay this is the thing that we've changed and we did a report card which is useful and I would maybe also go with CC minus but it's that he is this going to actually lead to anything meaningful and we'll never know if it does right well unless you work for the NSA yes some of you that job yeah there's still I i would i would ask sure they will hire i would ask all of our readers to immediately beam applying for jobs the NSA and then leaking that information to us which i believe is treason and i will be talking to agent of the government soon and that was the verge live everybody thank you for tuning in we're gonna have lots more i'll say is we have lots more NSA coverage coming up these two are maniacs you should hear them argue and the cameras are off it's terrifying to be honest to you so we'll have lost wearing the essay in coming up probably later today there's some news just from the speech we needed to shorten alice's of and obviously as the stories ongoing a lot more so thanks Cian that was a virtual I've you