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

Channel: LastWeekTonight

Views: 28,812,484

Rating: 4.8847613 out of 5

Keywords: hbo, John Oliver (TV Writer), Last Week Tonight With John Oliver (TV Program), NSA Warrantless Surveillance (Event), edward snowden

Id: XEVlyP4_11M

Length: 33min 14sec (1994 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 05 2015

Reddit Comments

[u/[deleted]]

Best quote towards the end of the video:

"You shouldn't change your behavior because a government agency somewhere is doing the wrong thing. If we sacrifice our values because we're afraid, we don't care about those values very much."

[u/Sarcophilus]

That Episode was insane. The Snowden interview came out of nowhere. This is a comedy show with more journalistic guts and integrety than many of the major news networks. I really hope this will get the discussion going. #dicpicprogram

[u/Kheten]

That Bieber cutaway. I'm fucking dying. God help us all.

[u/zombiejh]

A 30 minute John Oliver video? Dis gon be good.

[u/Duck_Feet]

Man, it hurt to see Snowden that sad when he was watching the laptop. :(

What a great interview though.

[u/[deleted]]

[removed]

[u/Mikelovesmovies]

It's nice to see Oliver forcing Snowden to discuss the issue in terms that might interest a larger population of people. It's interesting to think that Snowden leaked the information two years ago, it really doesn't seem like that long ago.

[u/[deleted]]

The look on that poor bastard's face as Oliver shows him the videos of Americans. It just reads like, "I gave up my entire fucking life for these idiots... these complete and utter idiots."

[u/galactus_one]

What do we do if we want the government to see our dick?