as far as what Snowden has revealed, I think when Ron Wyden suggests that what has been revealed is merely the tip of the iceberg, that suggests something extremely terrifying, and that suggests that what Snowden has revealed is in fact just the tip of the iceberg. And what he’s revealed so far is planetary-wide surveillance without warrants, without due process, without just cause, where most of the legislation is either secret or secretly interpreted. And in a few cases where there may be something that resembles judicial oversight, it’s a kangaroo court with no opposition. And the people that are supposed to do oversight in the United States are either corrupted by the process, or they simply do not understand it and are unqualified to be involved in that oversight.
So, for me, when I think of these things, what I see right now is the birth of a generation of, unfortunately, dissidence. When Alan Rusbridger suggests that his journalists must work abroad, that is a terrifying and chilling thought. I mean, there’s a reason that the American government was started, and there’s a reason that the American Revolution shot the British. But let’s be clear. The United Kingdom is a modern, reasonable democracy, in many ways. And the idea that you would, as a journalist, need to work abroad is appalling. But this is also true for other journalists working abroad on this, in the sense that Glenn is in Brazil and Laura is in Germany, I am in Germany. Many people who care about telling these stories are honestly afraid of illegal action, or supposedly legal action, that could result in devastating and horrible outcomes, merely by the fact that the people starting them have a lot to lose and they’re willing to take any action, especially classist action, where you would have to spend your life’s savings, for example, on legal support. So this, to me, is the scariest thing, because what Snowden has revealed is in the public interest, and that, to me, suggests that when the public is in fact interested and the press is suppressed, that is terrifying to imagine it as the tip of the iceberg.
But many people around me, including my partner, have experienced some different kinds of extrajudicial harassment. In her case, it’s the case that she woke up with two men prowling outside of her house wearing night vision goggles, watching her sleep at 3:00 in the morning for about half an hour. We believe that someone was trying to plant a bug inside of her house. And I think this was intimidation. And I feel like either they are the worst, most bungling FBI or other intelligence agents in Seattle, or perhaps they didn’t realize the intimidation would backfire. But this is a kind of state terrorism. And when she attempted to file a police report in Seattle, in fact, the Seattle police laughed her off until we were able to involve the ACLU. And it was only when the ACLU was involved would they even take a police report. That was the third time she tried. And, of course, attempts to FOIA information about this do not return information. We’re being stonewalled even for processing notes about our FOIAs, so the so-called meta-FOIA. And, yeah, I mean, it’s clear that it’s political harassment.
And when I’ve gone through borders, similar to what David has experienced, you know, I’ve actually been, literally, for a time, disappeared by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. For example, when we were returning from Serbia, where I was giving a lecture and she was doing an art performance, the U.S. government literally told her that I did not exist, after they had taken me, and they would not—yeah, it was horrible for her. They would not let her even see me. They wouldn’t acknowledge that they had taken me. They told her she was mistaken, maybe even that she was crazy. And that’s a targeted, specific thing, where they are allowed to lie to you, where they suggest that you do not have a right to a lawyer, where they will withhold a bathroom, where they will threaten you with suggestions of rape in prison. And then your loved ones will also be targeted by this in various ways, especially if they’re traveling with you. They will experience some serious terror.
at its core, what is at stake is the ability for a human being to have dignity and for journalists to have integrity with their sources. And from that, I believe that it threatens the whole concept of a free democracy. This is, I think, in a sense, being shown in the last 48 hours to the extreme. And I don’t mean that as hyperbole. But if everything is under surveillance, how is it that you can have a democracy? How is it that you can organize a political function or have confidentiality with a constituent or with a source, or with a friend or with a lover? That’s fundamentally an erasure of fundamental things that we have had for quite some time.
And planetary surveillance has very serious concerns, not the least of which is economic espionage, and not the least of which, I think, for me, personally, is about journalistic source protection. I mean, how is it that we will be able to protect our sources if there’s no way to securely meet, no way to communicate about having a meeting, no way to actually communicate about basic facts? There’s no such thing as on or off the record, when in fact you don’t control the record. And it’s not merely a matter of whether or not we have something to hide, because it is not us that will decide whether we have something to hide. It is an analyst somewhere. It is a machine learning algorithm somewhere.
And this is the thing that is perhaps the most terrifying: Because people are flagged, then other people are dispatched. Each person plays their role, and more and more a machine plays that role, a machine that does not understand constitutional protections, does not understand the Magna Carta or the Bill of Rights, does not understand humanity. It’s a machine. And the humans, they behave like machines, too, which is a great fear, that humans will start to behave like machines. And so, what is at stake is in fact democracy, where we still have it, and the free press.
– source democracynow.org
Jacob Appelbaum, a computer security researcher. He is a developer and advocate for the Tor Project, a system enabling its users to communicate anonymously on the Internet. Last month the German newspaper Der Spiegel published an interview he conducted with Edward Snowden.