people in the hacker community many people in america. edward snowden welcome. thank you. more than forty years after daniel ellsberg n.s.a. employee edward snowden emerges as a whistleblower the usa now has a new public enemy number one. thanks to manning and now do you i'm getting more favorable publicity. in forty years. because suddenly people who were all for putting me in prison for life before now realize that i was really a very good guy i was the. i was the good whistleblower and so i'm i'm totally of course rejected this from the beginning that i didn't want to be a foil for. showing a badly to people that i totally admire there was a moment of hope x. the hope x. conference in july in new york city. ellsberg. i was

having a live conversation with snowden we have a front as a mayor and as members of the global community and know the broad outlines of the hard policies that have a significant impact on our lives and i think that's something that tom grant showed me how to do the right way. there was a moment where he said. very clearly very distinctly that i showed him the right way. i had always hope that it's now become a law. thomas drake served during the cold war in europe in the one nine hundred eighty s. with the u.s. air force which included work as a signals analyst on spy planes hoovering the soviet union so my day job is a reconnaissance orbiter country. and then by by the way it was

computers. this is it was a vast a world that you're now you you bowl is particularly your very quickly you know the old or this. is you know chaos pewter. version of that or. in the one nine hundred ninety s. drake worked as a software developer for the cia in september two thousand and one he was hired as a senior analyst by the n.s.a. . my first ever job as nine eleven we were working on you know sixteen eighteen hour days i mean it was that those four months after nine eleven are a blur because as there was just. you're net we recognized that this was a significant event in history. whatever you got in a fight whatever you got the labs we need it whatever tools you can use to

prosecute those behind. nine eleven do it. i was selected as the designated senior executive and say the lead up that effort to find anything we had to fight and so i did and that's where i brought to the attention of others tools techniques programs things are in the lab things are pilots things that are being dissed testbed the mantra that went out from n.s.a. by general hayden he kept going around saying we just need to make americans feel safe again feel safe even at banners and i discovered during those first couple three weeks after nine eleven all this information that we as you imagine was pouring in after nine eleven literally being use to monitor and survey oil and intercept u.s. domestic communications on an extraordinarily broad scale. i was finding this out

within days of nine eleven and others were coming to me saying what are we doing. among the snowden documents were figures for the u.s. secret service budget. since september eleventh they supposedly doubled by twenty five billion to fifty two billion u.s. dollars in two thousand and thirteen. the surveillance programs continue to metastasize they continue expand in ways that still have not been fully revealed. and this became sort of the collect all mindset mentality what does that lead to well yes you. see korea zation you have these other interesting arrangements with certain internet providers and telecommunication concerns temptations are enormous and it's like a you know give us access or back in or open it up and that's what happened

and now you're seeing a lot of this unfold. the national security agency n.s.a. for short the largest foreign intelligence agency in the usa has been responsible for the worldwide monitoring of electronic communications since one thousand nine hundred fifty two. some of the thirty five thousand employees weren't comfortable with the massive expansion of surveillance in september eleventh. all of the colleagues that i knew which was just a handful bill binnie ed loomis kirk we chose to retire from the n.s.a. in late october two thousand and one they realize what was happening they could not stand by and see the subversion of the constitution and all the work that they had done being used for mass surveillance they left the agency i begged them to stay i chose to remain. and fight from with it as long as i could

i got mad at them you know so i my my objective was that counter attack i don't believe in defense you know just sitting back and being defensive i mean you have to get out there and attack so that's what i started doing that was my point it's time to attack so basically was a declaration of war. against my government. william binney mathematician and programmer initially worked for the n.s.a. as an analyst then later as the technical director of the secret service. as the boss of a six thousand strong team he developed a wiretap program that anonymously filtered and processed large volumes of data. i tried to do the the right thing right after nine eleven trying to make a contribution that would make a difference they refused to accept it so it was basically blocked that there was

nothing i could do they would accept nothing from me the n.s.a. directors decided against the program from vinny's team and opted for another they collected much more data. the problem is i helped in designing the system that's in use. because i knew what was possible once they started using those programs and opening it up to massive data input on everybody in the planet so it was pretty clear that it was obvious to me how they were using it and what they're doing with it so i mean because i understood the design of the systems. and so after that when they started spying on us citizens violating the constitution i had to leave i couldn't be a part of all the criminal activity that was going on and that's fundamentally i call that treason against the country. so i got out of at the end of october

day two thousand and one. one year later binney submitted a complaint to the u.s. defense department for wasting state funds the complaint was examined but had no effect the patriot bill binney became a combative whistleblower a role model for many today. the senate has since his friend came here intelligence possesses integrity you know for two thousand and fifty two really. believe represents the path you think side of that you will between two money clip that cerise like tom drake and use to tell his integrity is pretty powerful thanks as your associates are told and so worse of you. so think you know.

i knew every major leader in the city general hayden personally and say and i met. with through the taker the character since i left sid. opted out of the system his colleague thomas drake fought against the violation of civil rights from within the n.s.a. . my new for the moment i stood up to my own supervisor and i went to her and said what are we doing violating the prime directive to cannot spy on americans our war you don't understand what i confronted my boss i go to the oed the officer general counsel i confront him and then he says don't ask any more questions. now you're faced with a dilemma i didn't give the order i'm not the one that was implementing the survey of the master valence program the digital dragnet what do you do i chose to blow

the whistle. but how do you do that knowing there's a master valence program and knowing the n.s.a. was targeting targeting journalists. i made arrangements an encrypted form to communicate. honestly with this reporter. then i made a decision that i would meet the reporter. that was in february of two thousand and seven. the journalist subsequently published a number of articles about the waste and mismanagement of the n.s.a. the repercussions were enormous but the n.s.a.

let the attacks come to nothing as drake did not prove the central part of his criticism with documents. this tactic suddenly stopped working in two thousand and thirteen. edward snowden's material that stuff he took made it absolutely impossible for them to deny what they were doing because it simply laid out in their terms on their slides what they were doing and it was impossible for them to deny it. i don't think mr snowden was a patriot. the way in which these disclosures happen. have been damaging to be united states and damaging to our intelligence capabilities people ask as i see it is the patriot or traitor you know that's the headline in all these things edward snowden patriot or that drives me nuts the very thought you know that people could regard it was a traitor we will likely. face is the cost in human lives on

tomorrow's battlefield or in in some in some some place where where we will put our military forces you know when we ask them to go into harm's way and i think that's that's the greatest cost that we face with the disclosures that have that have been presented so far. no who was the one person to say who did what he absolutely should have done how many people should have done what you did what. is revealing is a global trip to the tension for tomorrow she any. being a patriot doesn't rule. obedience to authority. putting aside your obligations to your people to your country for the benefit of your government is the office and it isn't.

until the revelations by edward snowden the warnings of intelligence agency critics were always shrugged off as speculation only after he had published all the original n.s.a. documents was there proof and concrete evidence provided for the first time. documents all the difference it is more risky to do that it also makes all the difference in terms of political trick. manning and i gave the documents less than one percent of the starting documents have been published that's terrible terrible thing those documents do not belong to a journal they do not belong to or. to the national security agency they belong to history. something that has gone through every single one of us have

been has been a victim of the national security agency spying all human beings is the internet. the victims of it and the victims deserve to know what has happened to them. so i think the opportunity is in producing a very broad global outrage about what has happened in every country and informing all the victims of that surveillance about what is actually happening to them and releasing enough documents so that all the technical industries. hackers and computer programmers can go over and over governments can work out how to protect themselves. julian a son hacker and journalist was interested in computer programming from an early

age as a teenager he'd already happening to foreign data systems and military networks later he studied physics and mathematics in melbourne in two thousand and six he founded the whistle blowing website wiki leaks which publishes secret documents of governments intelligence agencies and corporations i know ellsberg was an insider. was an insider. would say that i was never inside but i was. inside. you know titans of big companies. as a computer hacker and later the knowledge and almost analyzing their material. so i had exotic came sense for what they were about that i never had the fear that one should work for these organizations for people who were in the u.s. national security system it was like there are drug. drug that made them powerful

because there were groups that had a lot of power and. that system has a way of talking about how the world works and how the united states empire is a good thing you can take a long time towards that drug out of the system don't knows but it is nearly entirely worked that out of his system but the more recent whistle blows they still have perhaps some way to go. the only difference i hear from the charges i think the only difference is i think that he probably believes more in the value of total truth or near total transparency that night is. the two thousand mile trip across europe seems impossible. as the boat comes route

begins to close for refugees it has become a race against time for one syrian family. it's a perilous journey from greece to germany but there's no turning bank to the ravages of war left at home. sky and ground a witness documentary on al-jazeera. wasik one of our biggest strengths is that we talk to normal everyday people we get them to tell their stories and doing that really reveals the truth people are still gathered outside these gates waiting for any information most of them don't know whether their loved ones are alive or dead or miami really is a place where the world's me we can get to washington d.c. in two hours we can get it on jurists in the rest of central america at about the same time but more importantly as well those two cultures north and south america beats us to teach it like it's a very important place for al-jazeera to be a story a revolution defines and murdered i'm told. by

a major figure in the war against the french occupation june french from one person brave even impressed it and him and to inspire others in the fight for independence after death is that a good deed to get anything i allow to be ben mcgeady the algerian revolutionary on al-jazeera. hello i'm don jordan in doha with a quick reminder of the top stories here on al-jazeera u.s. president donald trump has declared a national emergency to access funds for a border war with mexico the president made the announcement after approving a spending bill to avert another government shutdown we're going to be signing

today and registering a national emergency and it's a great thing to do because we have an invasion of drugs invasion of gangs invasion of people and it's not acceptable venezuela's president has accused the u.s. of trying to destabilize his country in an interview with al-jazeera nicolas maduro also criticized european nations accusing them of supporting u.s. military intervention. i think that some europeans made a mistake when they supported the american war in iraq can you ask any of the coalition countries was it necessary to intervene militarily in iraq and divide it and kill millions of its people i think they also made a mistake when they bombed libya and killed more than one hundred thousand civilians can these areas be corrected i think they made mistakes in their destructive policy approach in syria and are making more mistakes with venezuela.

your special counsel robert muller says donald trump's former campaign manager deserves up to twenty four years in prison while mamma ford was convicted in the oldest on eight counts of bank on tax fraud he's been investigators part of the probe into russian meddling in the twenty sixteen presidential election prosecutors are also urging a federal judge to find money for more than twenty million dollars. at least sixty six people have been killed in northern nigeria presidential elections are due to be held on saturday and he's discovered the bodies and eight villages in kaduna state twenty two were children the state government says the arrests have been made in those caught in the public to avoid revenge attacks by people have been killed in a shooting in the u.s. city of chicago police say the gunman who was an employee at a manufacturing site in the area has been killed india's government is promising a strong response against pakistan which it blames for the worst attack in indian administered kashmir in decades at least forty four indian soldiers were killed by

a car bomb on thursday well those were the headlines the news continues here on al-jazeera up to digital dissidents that's what i think.

and wiki leaks highly explosive documents can still be published anonymously that otherwise would be withheld through nondisclosure or censorship. according to wiki leaks all documents were checked for authenticity one major aim is to force corporations and intelligence agencies to abide to more transparency and social responsibility to shed light on their well kept secrets which cover up illegal and immoral behavior. does. on.

in afghanistan also afghanistan there's just as rhetorical counterattack which is like something out of. it is to say no no no you do that. and. unfortunately. the us press is sort of. so. that preprinted this nonsense so when she reads reveals very concretely the string accurate documentation of the us is our own records shows that it was involved in one way or another in the deaths of more than one hundred twenty thousand people in iraq and afghanistan between two thousand and four and two thousand and ten. and the u.s. government's response is maybe hypothetically as a result of this release of this material some afghan family or u.s. soldier. could face risks that's the standard accusation or like what tom drake did

threaten military lives exposing corruption fraud waste and abuse doesn't threaten military lives continuing then threatens military lives now the end result is that the force admit last year on the earth that a single person had been harmed as a result of publications. sons demand the protection of individual privacy on the one hand and on the other radical transparency of governments and corporations but one of the motives of whistleblowers why do intelligence insiders step forward into the light risking their careers their lives to expose the wrongdoings of those in power. is there

a common name a collective mission of this broad alliance and wild mix of patriotic excede good service agents and arctic hackers cyberpunks and intellectual publicists the common theme with among all of us is that we support human rights and that we support the public's right to know information and especially when it threatens the public or threatens the democracy or freedom of individuals i mean that's the kind of common theme that goes through all of it i think but it's a lonely act that you commit as one person but i was convicted by the truth of what i knew so i made a conscious choice to yes violate a nondisclosure agreement and we also took the oath to protect and defend the constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic so that means even our government if it's violating the constitution so we have we have the responsibility

to stand up against that it's the moral agency you're confronted by activity that demands a response. and you're in a pious where you have access to information you have access your eye witness such an eyewitness or you or you were brought into awareness. especially when you've got someone have a specific going to see it. when he's been off their mind i'm just mundus contest is coniston funds initial event association with events on this. then. tons of my phone baskets in and out of tons of. buses i'm done on site this does. have an advantage. so all of sudden bosses would need someone to fuck. off and mention the fed it isn't me me this isn't this is going for. the.

high profile leaks we fun fun fun mending friends no odin. but it does fun but this kind now. is absolute no definition and i know steve music will have always just i mean. to call these people superheroes is not so good because it. will they get it i admire that but they're not me i'm not a superhero who thinks of themselves as a superhero or me nuts you know we're sixteen year old. dreamer. who gets you excuse for not doing it it doesn't take a ship or here these people none of these people were going to turn the ship or here with michael in the fog it was no wouldn't it is the name go on to a. few months to a month on clothes and most of whom this is. often installed the.

sign in if it becomes act you know who become to be annoying because of us and we could put in who become to be in the on the inside thing was going with this all the. to push it's own somebody khana is presumed to do is of interest because that's all in all though. it's because in the in the chilis it was snowden intended on the at least seem to even. seem to even want to seem to. him this is. what i see when was it puts its name to somebody and seen him on the snowden what is this the monthly julian that is posted to be interesting in the many coming to tony's top of the top officer vowed not to let this be a nation. that is no tradition to have to the consequence of events. then he still had no if someone does it. up this with the best of

a dozen slips there are many identity for. us testify to the picking but some of them that's most in the pledge tension that doesn't mean we have a new mindset to most this tool. each democracy punch. each country whether it's going to be democratic or not knowing every she is going to private lives of all of their citizens to religious leaders through journalists their judges and their ordinary people could be turned into informants. with those people knowing almost nothing about the good of the

good will be or create it should go to and the people being transparent you guys this is the most ridiculous i've ever seen you know you fire everybody in the country and everybody in a war or you're not an invalid. and so your secret. if you don't have previously in your communications you can't guarantee they can hold a telephone conversation or rational email or view stuff from the internet or read books once that is known to the authorities and it can even begin to self censor what you say and what you read. and. is a former agent of the british national intelligence agency m i five. even going to withdraw a little bit feel normal life because you're told you can't mention you're being recruited by five and that means that people tend to focus much more on their life within m i five see begin to socialize a lot more with other people there because you can talk that stuff. and also you

end up mainly in the relationships with your fellow intelligence officer this is how i met my former partner and colleague david shayler. when schiller made the illegal practices of the intelligence service public and supported him in becoming a whistleblower. in one nine hundred ninety seven shortly before the publication of the secret documents the couple flew to france. they went underground for a year and subsequently lived in paris for to use in two thousand they returned to london or went to prison. was spared since then she fights for government accountability and campaigns for the rights of whistleblowers when david shayler and i ended up going on the run after the whistle on a series of crimes when i thought. we were very conscious of exactly how they could be targeting us and that it is so where every week. thought well the telephone might be compromised the computer might become pleased there might be microphones

in where we were living there might be video cameras recording what we did and also people might be turned to report against us so they're all these different techniques that they can use and this is way back in the ninety's we are so even at that point when we are on the run from ever cross europe we use the only sure fire way that we need to communicate to each other securely which was to put a piece of glass or ceramic on a surface and put one sheet of paper on it and then you cover it so that nothing can read what you write in the paper you don't say anything you just write what you want a piece of paper and then he will allow the other person to eat that message so there is no order they can be no video and there could be no imprint under that one piece of paper then of course you have to get rid of that piece of paper so you have to burn it up pulverized the ashes and the cost it the winds all to do because we know that our computers our telephones all of that can be compromised the video

can be switched on the audit committee switched on mentally they can log what we write on the keyboard they can even and this comes from the snowden disclosures they can even use my queries apparently to being more into the screen and read what you're typing. we live in a digital world where little remains unseen turning privacy into another luxury good. bleak science fiction visions of a powerful surveillance apparatus with seemingly endless technical possibilities now only seems a question of time.