work of undercover investigators. in north carolina, investigators exposed workers beating turkeys with metal pipes. abuse so horrendous that it actually led to felony prosecution. on top of that, a coordination between the top ag officials and butterball, who try to tip off organizations of this would be happening. investigators also found outinvt about this. she resigned in a massive lyrical scandal, criminal prosecution, and really began to rewrite the national dialogue about how agriculture operates, how we get our food. it is headlines like this. it is not about the everest

terminal behavior. the rhetoric of industry and this is the rhetoric of government and all corporations is that we don't need policing, to donate oversight. most people i think would be shocked to learn that the agriculture industry actually , not one that protects farm animals are in their lives

the animal welfare act does not apply to animals that are raised for food. it only applies to animals at the time of their death, and that law exempts poultry, which are 90% of the animals that are killed on factory farms. on top of that, 25 states carve out specific exemptions for customary practices, and those premises are defined by industry itself as whenever they see as business as usual. in other words, between 8-9 billion animals are killed every single year for food in this country alone. i say all this because it puts investigators in a different light. they are the only way that we can know what is going on behind closed doors. the response to these investigations has not been to change animal welfare standards, or to change the abusive practices, but to get the people who are exposing them. they were 10 bills introduced last year that criminalize undercover investigations of factory farms and slaughterhouses.

they include language i will talk about in a minute about banning photography, videos, and enhance criminal penalties for that. this has passed in several states. they are green on the map. in 2013, 12 bills have been introduced. they had been defeated in every state. in tennessee, it got to the governor's desk. that's how toxic it became. i will talk about how there is one bill pending, by far the worst that has been introduced. these bills have really evolved into three different types. you should know about them. the bread and butter, the standard criminalizing photography. it includes language like this.

anyone who records an image or a sound from a factory farm and also include anyone who uploads, downloads, transfers or otherwise since recorded images of or sound from the agricultural operations over the internet. the second type of bill is what i will call mandatory reporting requirements. the industry is trying to say, we are not trying to outlaw these investigations. we care how animals are treated. if workers see this, you have to report it in 24 hours. if you're not familiar with these issues, it sounds reasonable. if you see workers beating turkeys with pipes, you should tell somebody about it. you know, see something, say something, right? those are the catchphrases that are used. but it's important to remember that on some of the most

marginalized, disenfranchised populations, people who don't speak english, who don't have easy access to attorneys, the thought of blowing the whistle on these abuses, they could lose their job and not be able to provide for their family. it's an unfair burden on them. that's what this is about. the third type of bill focuses on misrepresentation. that is an attempt to go after people who are applying for work lawfully and the industry gets punked on this. they didn't realize who was applying for the job, didn't do their research, and they try to go after them in hindsight as having fraudulent intention in applying for a job. the important thing to remember is it's one thing to pad your resume applying for a job.

applying for a job here at the university i'm sure there are some professors who have done that to enhance their c.v. a bit and that's totally appropriate to ask questions about. it's not something that's appropriate to go to jail for five years. theve all heard of alec? american legislative exchange council. alec in 2003, they gave $10,000 to the organization and in exchange they get a seat at the table in drafting legislations. those bills are taken and introduced where the colleagues have no idea that the legislation was written by smith-klein, monsanto, the others.

this animal and terrorism act was written by these industries. the model includes things like undercover investigations and really dangerous language about materially or financially supporting people who are doing things like this in order to prepare, plan, carry out or promote these activities. this is not just about undercover investigators, about arsonists or the animal liberation front. it's about people like us. make absolutely no mistake about the intent of this language. it's about people who are sharing the information on line, writing about it, and people like me who are speaking out in defense of political prisoners.

this all has to be viewed in the post-9/11 context. this is from the freedom of information act documented, obtained from the fbi that shows the bureau was actually considering terrorism prosecutions against undercover investigators as far as as 1993. 2003. back as this isn't about property destruction or arson. this is about people taking photographs. this is another foia request. these are presentations given by the fbi to new fbi agents. this is one page on animal rights and eco-activists. notice them being engaged in a public relations war, how media is vital to every part of their campaigns. god forbid, sometimes media is even slanted in their favor and sometimes they use celebrities.

this rhetoric, in addition to being a top fbi priority of a terrorism threat is also embraced by corporations and of course politicians. when that meat recall happened in california and soon after, another investigation shut down the slaughterhouse, the industry put pressure on law makers, members of congress, who in turn sent a letter to the usda and said undercover investigations were an act of terrorism. these were things that protected public safety and exposed illegal activity. now the industry has just gone off the deep end with how they talk about these things. they're comparing them to hate crimes. they're saying it's no different than carving out special legislation to go after people who were are burning crosses and attacking people at mosques.

there's kind of a difference! difference being that one is about exposing information in order to benefit the public and empower us as consumers and individuals in a democracy, the other is about instilling fear using violence against disenfranchised groups. now all this being said, if there is something to leave you all with through this presentation, and i think it's a positive one, i say that because these ag-gag bills have overwhelmingly backfired across the country. this is a really good example. the chronicle had an editorial talking about how this was the worst p.r. gaffe since new coke. i would have tweaked have a little and said crystal pepsi. that's how bad this was for industry. but that's what happens, every time one of these ag-gag bills comes up, the clips run.

the youtube videos are embedded. and as they're speaking saying we care so much about animals, all this, the animal abuse footage is rolling behind them. i mean it's unbelievable how much this has backfired. not only people like carrie underwood, but it's a very main stream demographic that's not left, not activist, that's not animal rights, that's outraged by this. i think a fantastic example of this, of how toxic sunshine is to these bills, is the first prosecution that happened in utah. a woman named amy meyer was charged for filming a slaughter house from the public easement. she went to this place because she knew abuse was happening. she heard that cows were being

pushed around by bulldozers, much like that situation that led to the largest meat recall in u.s. history, and she had an interest in seeing what was happening. i have a video i'll be putting up on my website. but it shows heavy equipment moving these sick animals and she was charged. i wrote an electoral article about it on my own web site and in 24 hours it was getting hundreds of thousands of views. went up on reddit and it brought the site down. i know that word viral doesn't mean a lot any more, but i think this legitimately went viral pretty fast. the prosecutor was like, ok, we're going to drop all the charges. think about what this reflects. this is criminal activity until the point people know what's going on and get pissed off about it and then it's oh, no, no, no, we didn't mean to do

that, amy is not going to be prosecuted. this north carolina bill that's still pending is not about agriculture. it's not about factory farming or slaughter houses. it is so broad it includes every industry and i'm not being hyperbolic there. it is called the commerce protection act. it includes tim perks mining, processing, workers rights violation at an automobile plant to someone exposing food safety issues at a cream cheese processor. i don't know why i pick these examples -- it could be anything. it could be monsanto because everyone is talking about monday about it right now. they're wrapped up in this legislation as well. it's really a reflection of how all this is expanding radically and expanding overseas.

all of these tactics and arrests are showing up in spain, austria, finland, france, the u.k. so to wrap this up and to leave a bit of time for question and answer i think we need to dispel this rhetoric of the terrorism apparatus only being used against criminals. what we're seeing is if you are effective enough, organized and bold and ambitious enough and are actually threatening corporate profits, criminal activity is redefined. that really is a theme throughout all the presentations you just heard. to me, though, that's incredibly inspiring. i focus on some pretty dark,

depressing, horrible stuff as my, i guess, chosen area of work and it's not the most uplifting work but this gives me a whole lot of work because you have a group of people that have a couple hundred dollars worth of course video and audio equipment that are rattling the industry to their core. we all have this. some of the biggest industries on the planet are terrified of this, of using this to take photo and video documentation. they are also terrified not only about using that but about sharing it easily and cheaply online. if sinclair had a youtube account the dialogue would have changed that much faster. so in that spirit, thank you all for having me. [applause]

>> all right. well, thanks, everyone. i want to ask a couple questions of the panel, and then we're going to open it up. we have about 40 minutes left so we're good on time. i wanted to ask specifically to grainne, but i'd be curious to hear the cfa seems to be a law that's taken over and usurped any other laws in terms of this type of activism for hackers. they don't need ag-gag when they have the csa, right? could you tell us just how the u.s. is going after hackers and these types as opposed to other countries? >> sure. so one of the really interesting things that happened as part of the lulsac case is that it was

an international group of anons that turned out to be involved and there were two on the indictment from ireland and two from england and jeremy hammond from the u.s. and what happened was that in ireland, the two people were spoken with by the police there and then were sort of let go. i'm sure there is a trial in ireland, but -- no one ever talked about it. i guess i'm misinformed about this. but in england there was just the two people who were arrested and eventually pled guilty and were sentenced to between no time, probation, and 30 months. and in england, 30 months means 15 months and kind of just as a

practicing attorney in the u.s. i just kind of couldn't believe it. but your time in prison is counted if you are on house arrest. they were all on house arrest during the time, so basically all of their time is already served. and i think that the u.s. is probably not going to extradite them here, but if they were to come here they would be facing 40 years in prison. what we're seeing with jeremy is the time he's been incarcerated without bail, the judge denied him any bail. rapists are routinely granted bail. other hackers are granted bail. he is not allowed out at all under any circumstances. so he has already served the same amount of time in prison that his co-defendants could have served. it's a totally out of whack regime in the united states from an international perspective.

it's just completely different. in the u.k., the news also was saying how they received these really, really harsh sentences that amounted to make 30 days in prison and they were such extreme sentences. i was watching it with robby and he was ok, my god, this is going to be really high! >> the judge kept saying this is a grievous crime, it's terrible what you all did. and it's like 30 months. in the u.s. that is like you let him off easy. >> yeah, the same is true throughout the u.s. criminal justice system, too. we would be remiss to not point out that the drug wars have been happening and young black and brown men have been going to prison on bogus conspiracy charges for decades. and right now we have an opportunity to draw a new group of people's attention to that. the u.s. prison-industrial complex is out

of control in many ways. we're seeing that with the cfa and seeing that with the targeting of political people but it's happening throughout the country. ireland? you want to talk about it in? >> i mean it looks like those two guys are going to trial in july. >> for what? >> the expectation is that the sentencing will be minimal to nothing. >> and i want to ask the group one more question. you address how the terrorism moniker has been used against animal rights and activists.

we're starting to see more and more -- it's obvious to me at least that they want to do that with the anons, with the hackers. the cyber crimes unit, and they're saying in much the same way that 10 or so years ago they said that environmental, ecological terrorists are the number one domestic threat, and now they're talking cyber terrorism. that is the new word they are getting amped on. i would like to hear people's perspective on how is that creeping in and how do you see that affecting the future of the activists online world? >> and i think that is the future of where this all is heading. part of the reason we focus so much on this in my work is the potential for these tactics being easily applied to a wide range of other social movements. government repression is certainly nothing new to any radical movement but the specific tools and how they're being used in my opinion were really pioneered against animal

rights activists because they were seen as so marginalized, easy to break off into targets. moving forward, some of the other movements, things to look out for are not only how this rhetoric is being used in the press, because that's how the foundation is really laid, but how is begins to creep into legal proceedings, whether or not people are actually charged under a terrorism enhansment. it's ways of injecting that language as much as possible. then a dramatic shift happens which i would anticipate in the next couple years with groups like anonymous, specifically targeting people because of their politics and activism. like the animal terrorism act, grainne talked about how legislation is already being used and misused as a way to go after internet activists.

there is no doubt going to be new legislation coming down the pike targeting that brand of organization. when you have that line of foundation, people are being smeared outside in the press, pushing the limits of existing laws in the courtroom and when new laws are being drafted, that's when really the full weight of these apparatus are coming down on these movements. we're seeing a lot of the elements escalate very quickly with all thief heard about. >> yeah, it's interesting with anonymous. do you remember the photo of the polish parliamentarians do donning that mask? a few weeks later there was a wall street journal with a headline claiming that anonymous is going to have the capability to take down the power grid in a couple years. i was not surprised about the timing of it because when the

polish parliamentarians were using the mask, it's clear the mask became a symbol for popular discontent and unrest, not terrorism, right? and it just felt like propaganda of some sort. and the story didn't stick. you know, everyone, subsequent news reports discounted it. they were like come on, why would anonymous want to take down the very thing that allows them to organize? [laughter] it's like, so ridiculous, right? and their m.o. is not about endangering lives at all. it just points to the fact that again, they're often misunderstood. there's a handful of news reports that call them terrorists but in some ways they kind of have won the media relations battle. that's one of the reasons why the legal part has to be very effective as a way to scare the heck out of them against moving

forward. i still think the hammer would be strong. the history of the computer fraud and abuse act is one in which it's just become stronger and stronger with each passing year because they've amended the bill many, many times. but it does point to the fact, and that's what i really liked about will's presentation, is that people are outraged. they see the benefits of these different movements, and people are seeing the benefits of them and the media is not delegitimizing them in the ways that they often do. that's going to really freak out government officials and corporations and we have to really watch out because they're going to be really crafty in their response, given the fact that these movements are accessible to some degree. >> i think one of the other

things we saw, after aaron schwarz died there were calls all throughout the internet to reform the cfa. and they were talking about reducing the charges. what had been proposed right up to his death was to sort of double all the charges. so if you did the same thing you would get twice as long. right now there's a $500 -- you have to be accused of $500 worth of damage. they wanted to lower that to $200. so there were all these like reform maneuvers in the works that were going to make it an even worse law. so when he died and there were all these calls for reform, everyone was saying reform it, make it a better law, and what came out of that was making it actually a worse law. i think it was kind of disheartening to watch and also sort of predictable that that's what lawmakers were going to return with. i think will is right and will's knowledge of sort of prior

movements and precursors to this really will be illustrative to people watching the cfa. >> we're going to open up to questions. because we don't have audio in here, you have to wait until it's your turn and speak into the microphone. >> i'm part of a group that supports all these activists and i want to encourage people to go to the websites of these activists and contribute to their restitution funds and legal funds. jeremy's twin brother has a -- he's asking the judge to basically ask to say time served instead of giving him 10 years. write to her, ask people to let these people go. this is really not ok. these are people who are doing this for you. write to them.

they're really -- jeremy has over like 80 days of confinement. no family visitation for a year. months and months of no phone calls. he was sick. brown was going through withdrawal of heroine and not given anything. the one who is actually appealing the cfa, he's not a hacker but a notorious patrol on line so no one likes him. >> ok. >> there's a lot of cases going on. >> i want to say just support activists. >> thank you. thank you. >> jeremy's website is freejeremy.net. >> thanks to prism we know that the fbi, etc., had access to

everything about manning. as his attorney, do you have a right to ask how much, what data, not just that they used, but all of the data that they perused to pick exactly what they wanted? as his attorney, shouldn't you have that right? >> you definitely should. the discovery rules in the southern district are not what you would wish they were, so as an attorney you try to get more information and that's part of your job is to litigate for that. and so hopefully, is all i'll say to that. >> a really interesting example from my work on this topic real fast is that in 2005 there ways group of environmentalists facing multiple life sentences for property destruction and like this case the government was really turning the screws and threatening them and they

were refusing to take any plea agreement, a handful of the activists were -- and the defense filed a motion for any surveillance used in this and the judge agreed. wow, that was amazing. if this happened it could throw out entire prosecutions. what happened is the prosecution had an amazing change of heart and they agreed to them take the plea agreements without snitching on their friends in order to quash that going forward. i have a very strong suspicion that surveillance is working its way into a lot of court cases and there is a lot of pressure on the government to make sure the extent of that isn't released.

>> i had a question about prosecutions of folks convicted of cyber terrorism in the future. you talk about like, anonymous taking out the power grid, which was a silly idea. but then you have israel and the u.s. government working on this together and information technology is notoriously insecure. what do you think about the possibilities. of finding the space to defend against the sort of cracking down on the cases we want while there's real cases that are probably not going to be fun that start to happen in the future? >> i mean i think it's important, you know, one of the messages as activists to get across is yeah, we need good security for these infrastructures.

you know what i mean? and try to shift the message to that as opposed to look at these hackers causing this damage. no. if corporations aren't held accountable for their infrastructure or the public works projects, right, then there's going to be real damage at some level. and it does seem like the conversation does acknowledge that as well and there has been a more robust discussion and thanks in part to anonymous, that 50-day hacking spree, a lot of hackers in the infosec community who tend to work for corporations and governments to create secure systems were thrilled at losec because oftentimes corporations aren't putting in the money needed to create secure systems, which is important for public safety and consumers. so the more we could make that the conversation as opposed to, you know, the hackers doing crazy things, i think you know, it's better for the public. >> one of the really interesting things about the cfaa is that --

so if you have counseled -- found to have violated the c.f.a.a., the damage requirement is $500. how that can be calculated can is by incorporating the amount of money it took the company to -- to secureystems. its systems. so they leave a door wide open, someone gets information, and then they're hiring of an i.t. guy to fix it goes into your damages and you are responsible for paying for that i.t. guy to -- when the i.t. guy should have been hired by the company if they're going to put their stuff on line. the internet is new and everyone is using it for everything and people are not investing in -- it's not like bridge building where there's engineering practices in the same ways. it's a lot more kind of like -- it's a lot more loose and standards are not tight and they're not followed.

industry-wide standards. it's just kind of where we are right now is that a lot of systems are really insecure. drawing atwention -- attention to that, as people who are give giving our credit cards to these companies, that's the problem, we're trusting them with this and they're not really trustworthy with our data. >> to answer your question, we have these laws that are fully capable of going after the real bad guys, but what we're doing is discouraging actual people who are not the real bad guys from even -- the wii case is a perfect example. it was a completely negligently built system by at&t that any person could enter any number and get real data back. instead of course creating a new one, they say no, we're going to go after the guy that exposed it. that's the dynamic we see over and over again and that's a

political question because the prosecutor literally, professor kerr said that any internet user could be targeted for a c.f.a.a. violation if the prosecutors chose to. so that's a political decision. >> hi, i was just wondering if you could plain just what kind of legal jargon is being used in the steubenville -- the anon that exposed the steubenville rapist. i'm confused as to how -- these kids were tweeting about it the entire time, but the an nonwas bringing more attention to what the kids were already doing and i'm confused how the state can say what anon did was illegal when they were already documenting the activity themselves.

>> no, that's a really good question. the most effective part of the anonymous campaign was locating videos and tweets that had been erased. but since they are are -- had been catched -- carbed they were found and circulated. people felt there wasn't going to be a fair trial because there was such support for the football team. there was one hack that happened with the football team mailing list and email accounts. so that is where the c.f.a. really enters the picture. there was a kind of hack that was involved. and i don't know actually if this hack led to accessing the videos and tweeds -- tweets. i actually don't think it was. a lot of the stuff was gotten from facebook and private accounts. but there was a hack in that case. >> one of the things i found really interesting is like in --

at the same time this rhetoric about oh, no, the cyber, cyber, cyber threat is, there's also been this -- cyber cyber! there's also been appropriation and embracing of hacker culture by big government and what i consider like the worst aspect of start-up culture. and i'm curious like how that can be both -- like if you could talk a little bit about how that could be made more helpful? what i worry about is it sort of becomes a smoke screen. >> you're talking about the national dave hacking and stuff like that? >> yeah. it's totally iron. wasn't it the weekend of national civic hacking day? >> yeah, i can speak to that. so on the one hand there's two different issues you can talk about. one is the white house

government has embraced hacking as a moniker for some move to open up data in the government and apparently from what i've heard, getting that term, hacking, approved was laborious and difficult, as you can imagine. on the one hand i think it's actually like a positive move, right? just because hacking is just so seen as so nefarious. you say "hacker" and people think about that hooded guy who's at a keyboard and why someone would have a full sky mask while on a key poord, i don't know because you're indoors, there's probably heat. but it's a perfect moment to call the government out and go, look, on the one hand, great, you're opening up data. but the best hacking has to offer is both civil disobedience as well as fully legal stuff as well so it's a good opportunity to intervene in that moment.

the other side of that is that some companies also hold, like, hackathons where they are opening it up to the public and basically exploiting free labor and it's a kind of gentrification going on. in that case it's also really good to kind of expose what's going on as well. recently there was a great web site that did it. >> it was national day of hacking .info. in new orleans they had a hack the murder rate campaign which, you know, as someone that's lived in new orleans it's a little bit offensive that software he will -- development could really affect the enormous social structures that are leading to a high murder rate, lack of a good education system and health care and mental health care and things like that, but a bunch of people with laptops were going to come in and solve those problems was very offensive.

so someone made a satirical site about this. >> and as someone who studies hackers, on the one hand, i think they're a really valuable contribution to politics. on the other hand there say trend in silicon valley, who one man calls the technological solution, we're not going to turn to the government for services, technology will solve the problem. sometimes some of these hackathons feed into that and it is very problem at lick and good to call it out. >> sort of like a charity complex. >> i think something all social movements face when they start coming into their owns. look at the civil rights move metropolitan. monies and millions spent on this monument by mcdonald's and burger king. or these undercover investigations with corporations saying everything is humane and cage-free, these words don't mean anything.

as these movements grow there is this effort to sanitize them and make them something that can be looked at by startups or monsanto or cargill as being humane. >> this is a question more for will but i'm sure anybody else would have good feedback on it. there was a really great panel here about environmental genocide and there was a dr. walter hsu who was talking about physicians having to sign these nondisclosure agreements if their patients were being slowly killed by things that were, you know, because of fracking and it was gag laws very similar to what were -- you were talking about.

i just wanted to ask as far as the types of people making these slegses, as far as the laws and i know that they may seem very different on the surface, as far as different industries like food, agriculture, public health and medicine, do you find a lot of overlap with the types of legislation and the types of people make the legislation? is it sort of cut from the same cloth as far as these gag laws? >> absolutely. and we're seeing some direct overlap right now. the focus on ag-gag has really been a focus by necessity by the industry because they're under such attack but we're seeing similar rhetoric and legal battles showing up with animal experimentation. universities across the country are trying to show that they're exempt from the freedom of information act using the same rhetoric. but more importantly, a lot of the politicians who are also beholden to the pharmaceutical industry.

this is how our political structure works, right? but there are handfuls of people who are sort of vanguard in corporate interests. that's where a lot of this starts. then it gets bipartisan support and branches out as well. >> thank you. so the short version of my very is how much of this is the media's fault? the long version is, i'm someone who has done advocacy projects and i am a member of the media. i am still struggle with the legal jargon and unpacking the sub texts for people to differentiate what we did versus property destruction. i'm wondering if there is any sort of road map for people who want to do this right and also as a journalist to better protect the people who are brave and do speak out to me.

>> no, those are great questions. it is extremely daunting. the kind of technical jargon and details and complexities, they really do matter. they matter for the legal cases, they matter for reporting, and it's certainly the case groups like ward and slate who have dedicated tech reporters usually get it all right, you know, because that's what they're working on. but obviously even in extremely well-respected newspapers, journalists move from topic to topic, an it's very difficult to, you know, get all the information. i would just say reaching, you know, one really good source and this has been very interesting, is that there's been actually an explosion of staff technologists at organizations like the eff and aclu and you can contact them and they can kind of give you information.

and they are happy, they do talk to reporters. i know the staff technologists at one nonprofit, i won't name his name, has educated so many reporters at the wall street journal and "new york times. that's one really important he that's one really important element. i will say just on the media's role, i mean it's a complicated topic when you're looking at all these different issues from manning to anonymous to the ag- gag rules, but i to think that they were so complicit with the bradley manning case where bradley manning was kind of portrayed as not really politically grown. you know what i mean? someone who is immature and confused about his sexuality. and it was really damageing to his case. it wasn't until it kinds of -- kind of relates to the animal liberation stuff, you know, when we finally heard his voice at some level, the media

dramatically shifted. like oh, wow, he's really intelligent. he's really doing this for political reasons. right? and i don't know how to hole the media accountable but they definitely have a huge role in framing the issues. >> one of the things that comes to mind is that this is the same problem that lawyers face. a lot of lawyers who are great defense attorneys really has no idea about any of this technology. so there is a learning curve for everyone. it's important to recognize that and we're operating in a new regime here. the other is i just wanted to bring up. i think yes, it's partly the media's fault. yesterday in the new york "times" we had all this n.s.a. expose stuff and the article on the front page was that the obama administration says that one time this nsa spying was really helpful. i mean,hat's the arm.--

that's the article. it's unbelievable. so i think that, yeah, a lot of the corporate media, he showed his graph where the media is now owned by five companies. maybe it's two now. and i think they're responsible for a lot of this mischaracterization. things that come up in these cases, that people are stealing data and stealing, you know, legally has an intent to deprive. when you are copying information, there is no intent to deprive the owner of it. these are gray areas, nuances, they're subtle and complicated but that's where we are now. you know, is this the same as taking your laptop and not letting you have it? no. i think the subtlety is important and i think the media is generally missing it, and missing it in favor of kind of corporations and the government. >> or they only report on it for two weeks and you know, then, an opportunity is lost.

that's what i'm afraid is going to happen on the surveillance stuff. it needs to be reported for at least like two months. and they say strong box, i think that's what it's called. something aaron schwarz was working on prior to his death and it's a tool for sources to >> sort of like wikileaks. where you are secure in giving your information? >> right. i would still do research on it. i don't want to say it's fullly secure. that's one of the problems with encryption. it's still in early stages. >> i think it's really important though that they -- we not cede any ground to this idea that the main stream press or journalism across the board being that sunken ship. there are systemic changes in journalism. entire magazines and newspapers are being shut down.

30 years ago you had multiple newspapers in one town. now you have wire services fade fiding cookie cutter. -- feeding cookie cutter. but as the lone journalist on the panel, we're not all bad. you go into this because you want to be, like, you want to stir things up, to educate and expose. people are stuck in this structure and trying to navigate it just as we're trying to naivegate it on the outside looking in. i think it's extremely frustrating but there's also a lot of potential. the ag-gag case was a good example of that, that we can't understatement the willingness or power of main stream press to get on board with this. in some cases it's due to ignorance. in other cases they may just need a little prodding or assistance. >> no, definitely. there's a good lesson for anonymous.

they should think about their media strategy. anonymous doesn't think approximate it and this works but that's because they're so good at imagery and have an internally built system for mystery. it helps. but think about your strategy as one in which you can appeal to the best and worst of the media structurally while that still matters. >> it's called a dead drop, by the way. not a strong box. >> it's a variance. >> it's another one. >> to what extent would it be useful to make sure that all state and as well local legislatures have all of their legislation as it's introduced become available instantly or whatever digitally including when it's been changed through the process so you could find out.

there are enough people on the interest in, -- internet, you know, oh, here is alec, something like that. what is the possibility of something like that? >> i think just as a working reporter i would really appreciate that. it would make my job a lot easier in some senses. but we need to remember there is an inherent eliteism to that. maybe that's the wrong word. i don't know. but there's a very small amount of people that are willing to do that type of reading. but they exist and are very important. so i would kind of counter -- those people are going to be willing to search out that information and we should make it easier and we have a right to public information but the real challenge is taking that a couple steps forward and making people care. is it did it strikes me with all the prison stuff the last couple days, i have heard so many seem and seen so many people on line say great, i'm not surprised by this. well, then you shouldn't care or fight about it.

people know with this ag-gag stuff and labeling activists as terrorists, i've never once met anyone who was shocked by it, never at any speaking event, which is telling me how little faith people have in the political system right now. the question is how to tap into that and mobilize that. >> a few more questions? >> is there some bill or law that you all support that would help you that we could get behind? >> i don't have any. >> yeah, i think it's -- how do i phrase this tactfully? i would put much more my faith in horizontal methods of organizing outside the political structures. if those systems are powerful enough the political structure will reflect that out of necessity rather than looking to people in power to help us. >> will we fight back?

>> hire me. >> right. >> ok. i just wanted to -- can you hear me? i just wanted to make -- go off what you were saying about elitism. i know this is probably obvious but i haven't heard it discussed in this room. there aren't many -- that many people willing to sit down and do the cross referencing. there are also people that don't have access to the internet and don't think about this as a tool for disseminating it. i have been thinking about my mexican parents who are wonderful, crit -- critical intelligent people who have zero access to any of the tools we are talking about, so i wanted to point that out in terms of how we think did -- about disseminating information and how we ensure that we don't

just talk to each other part -- particularly because this is my just, like, racial analysis and i'm sure you have probably heard it before but the only reason people are able to go after like ecological terrorists and information hackers is because they've been separated from an aggregate of humanity. they are something different, something exceptional. the same ways in which they're being separated, targeted, prosecuted and rendered invisible through prisons are the exact same ways you mentioned earlier, in that folks who look like me are being silenced and being threatened and put into prisons. we need to think about how to transfer those sort of like highly technological tools to different cultural contacts and ways that can be used throughout the broader movement the

>> i think that's a great reminder of when you are in vimpletse like this, away from facebook, away from discussion forums. how about everyone before you leave today, just introduce yourself to one or two other people in the room in i grew up in the catholic church and that's one thing i remember. father beaumont always made us introduce ourselves to the people around us. helps to remind us to engage people in real ways. >> it allows you to not bedehumanized by other people if you are constantly making connections with other people. >> and i see the beginning of natural coalitions starting here. when you look at the terrorism framework,we all know terrorism means muslims, right?

so it's like shocking that it's these nice white people and they're terrorists. that is an entree into a whole new dialogue of what does it mean to be a terrorist and the actual political motivations and the underpinnings of that as -- as a term and the tactics. and the war on drugs, we all know that's a war on black people, on brown people, right? but the tactics are now being brought to other political enemies. so it's a natural way to expand the coalition and expand the issues through these kind of cutting incidental activists movements to bring in the broader solutions. >> it's interesting as an trillion popp -- anthropologist that there's this big tension that people are made by culture and different experiences and this idea that universality has its limits, yet on the other hand there's clearly all sorts of ways in which people have

common experiences, life, death, sickness, or ways a society treats its prisoners. so i think we often have to leverage what particular groups can provide in such a way that then is always, always, always mindful of coalitions be translations, and connections at the same time. the final thing i will say though is that i do think, you know, technology, programming, technical knowledge will pacific particularly important for political interventions and it's so skewed along gender lines that it's astounding. then when you look further at mine -- minorities as well, it becomes even more skewed. it has to be addressed at the kind of primary and secondary school in order to remedy it.

and there are really good initiatives doing this but if that doesn't happen both the economic and political landscape is going to be heavily, heavyly skewed toward males. >> i think we're out of time here but -- [applause] >> buy will's book. >> and hers. >> hey, how you doing? >> good work, guys. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2013] [captioning performed by national captioning institute]

"washington journal" is next, live with your phone calls. later, religious leaders call for a religious liberty exception to the contraception coverage mandate in the new dr. lau. -- new healthcare law.

in discussing the recent story about congressional pay and we will discuss the federal resources they go into fighting wildfires. host: good morning, it is saturday, july 6, 2013. we are going to start our three- our program this morning by asking you about the job numbers from yesterday, in particular whether those improving job numbers have you confident, more or less confident, about the economy. , couple of ways to participate as always, by phone.