Killswitch (2014) - full transcript

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[Peter Ludlow] "We explore,
and you call us criminals.

We seek after knowledge,
and you call us criminals.

We exist without skin color,
without nationality,

without religious bias,

and you call us criminals.

You build atomic bombs,
you wage wars, you murder,

cheat, and lie to us,

and try to make us believe
it's for our own good."

...My fellow Americans.

"Yet we're the criminals.



Yes, I'm a criminal.

My crime is that of curiosity.

My crime is that
of judging people

by what they say and think,
not by what they look like.

My crime is that
of outsmarting you,

something that you'll never
forgive me for.

I'm a hacker,
and this is my manifesto.

You may stop this individual,
but you can't stop us all."

That is a powerful
piece of writing, because

it is so fundamentally
revolutionary.

And I really like that part
in there where he says,

"My real crime is that
of outsmarting you."

And that's what
they really hate.

I mean, that's why they really
hate Aaron Swartz, right?



'Cause he's too fucking smart.

Ed Snowden, another great
example, too fucking smart.

[drums beating]

[Peter Ludlow] Information
is the new gold.

It's the new oil.

It's like diamonds.

It's worth trillions
of dollars,

and if you control that,
you control wealth,

you control power.

You don't even have
to be an info tech company.

You could be an oil company
for example.

You want to control information
about climate change

and induce the belief in people

that climate change science
is a fraud.

Because if you can
control that information,

you could save yourselves,
you know,

billions and trillions
of dollars in regulation.

I'll just say this,
we've been here before.

[Tim Wu] Every new media
goes through a similar cycle.

Where at the beginning
it's decentralized, it's open,

it's very culturally dynamic,

all kinds of things
are going on,

a little chaotic,
unpredictable.

Invariably, this is true
in film,

true of the telephone industry,
radio industry,

it begins to consolidate
and centralize.

And in some ways that

feels like a very good
development at the time,

but then only later
do we realize what we've lost.

[Lawrence Lessig] The Internet
has the chance to be a platform

that enables
an extraordinary amount

of innovation and creativity,

and democratic organization
in a way that we've not seen

for more than 100 years.

Increasingly, we want
to have our own blog,

we want to tweet
about the candidate

and engage in arguments
about the positions

and go out and organize
our own meet ups

around political action.

And that's because
the technology
has encouraged us,

once again, to become owners
in the political process.

We need to recognize
that the freedom here

is embedded in the technology,

and we have to protect
the technology

if we wanna be protecting
this freedom.

[Tim Wu] It all starts
with my mother buying
us a computer

when we were, like,
nine years old.

And we were like,
"This thing is cool.

We like it. We can do
what we want with it."

We control Lisa by pointing
to these images on the screen

with this unique item
called a mouse.

[Tim Wu] Fast forward.

I worked in Silicon Valley,
first bubble.

And I saw the way
things were going,

and it kinda made me nervous.

So I got into it,
I wrote a paper.

I don't know, I had no idea
what would happen.

I didn't really think
it would become a movement

to try to save the...
there's sort of been a movement

to sort of try and save
the Internet.

I didn't self-consciously
think about being part of that.

I just thought something
should be done.

Like I said, I spent the last
4 years looking at the history

of the American
information industries,

And what you see
is a powerful tendency

for information industries

to give birth
to powerful monopolies.

And we have to be
very careful

to see that Verizon,
AT&T, Comcast

don't end up being essentially

the gatekeepers
of the Internet.

That's extremely important.

There is a abundant
opportunity

when you run a company
that control information

to control the minds
of people in the nation.

[Tim Wu]
I kinda thought the Internet
was this incredible experiment

in building a network
that anyone could be on.

And it seemed pretty clear
to me, even at that point,

first dot-com boom,

that there were a lot of forces
that were interested

in reversing the nature
of the network,

Kinda turning it upside down,

and making it essentially
a commercial project.

Channels of speech being open

and some basic commons
for speaking

are essential to democracy,

and when that becomes
merely a function of money,

the republic is threatened.

It is the thing
that the revolutionaries

realized immediately.

It's one of the reasons
they had the revolution

was of the danger
of too much influence

on money and politics,

and we still
haven't solved the problem.

[Peter Ludlow] I got my start
in virtual worlds.

So, I had a virtual newspaper

that covered events
inside of the Sims Online,

and some of the stories, like,

just made me really unpopular
with the game company.

So, I had, like, one story
about these teenage boys

that were role-playing
as cyber prostitutes,

and they ran a cyber brothel,

and they were cybering people
for game currency,

which they
then sold on eBay.

And the day after
that story came out,

I got kicked out of...
kicked out of the Sims Online.

And then that went viral,
of course,

because how could it not?

So then it went from a blog

that was run by academics
that study virtual worlds,

to "The New York Times"
front page,

and then eventually, of course,
"The Daily Show."

[piano music playing]

[Lawrence Lessig]
My name's Lawrence Lessig,

and I'm a professor of law
at Harvard University,

and I direct
the Edmond J. Safra
Center for Ethics

at Harvard University.

The work of the center
has been focused

on what we call
institutional corruption,

which is--you can think of it
as legal corruption

rather than illegal corruption,

so influences that undermine

the effectiveness
of an institution.

So, think about the way
congress funds its elections.

Private funds
fund public elections.

There's nothing illegal
about that.

Indeed, it's constitutionally
protected,

but it leads
most people to believe

money buys results
in congress,

and thereby weaken
public trust of congress,

and also many people believe it
blocks the ability of congress

to address fundamental,
important issues

in a way that the people
would actually want,

as opposed to a tiny slice
of the populace

that directs
and controls elections.

[Tim Wu]
I think as a nation,

Americans are slightly
insensitive to the problem

of the influence
of money on speech,

and so I do therefore think
it is the job of government,

or of the public,
either can be fine

to reserve at least some
speech areas

where it's not all about money.

The Internet was invented
to be that place,

in some ways it still is,

but the question is whether
it can stay that place.

It's critical that the network
continue to empower people

to act free of government
and corporate control,

to organize for whatever
political end

they wanna organize to.

That's the Internet.
That's it's architecture.

Its end-to-end, peer-to-peer
architecture is that design.

So, the only chance we have
in overcoming

what I think of as this core
corruption of our government

is through the Internet.
It's the only way.

Now, that's not to say
that we're likely to win.

You know, I'm not sure
what the odds are,

and I'm not confident
the odds are good.

But whatever the odds are,

the odds are zero if we lose
the basic structure of the net.

So, the Internet
is a battleground

in this sense, right?

So, it's not like
the Internet's gonna
liberate us

or it's not like the Internet's
gonna imprison us.

We're fighting
over the Internet.

So this is not a time
for Republicans and Democrats

to be sniping at each other.

To me, we can all be
unified in our politics

in this particular point.

We need to find out
what the fuck is going on,

because it's going on
sort of behind the curtain.

You gotta pull
that curtain aside

and understand what's going on,

'cause we can all agree
on this thing.

The game is rigged.

Let's find out
exactly how it's rigged

and then get to
the bottom of it.

[electronic music playing]

[Peter Ludlow]
A hacker, to me,

is somebody that takes
traditional technologies

and then mixes them up
and gives them a new purpose.

And an activist is, of course,

someone who's like
a political activist.

So a hacktivist is someone

who takes technology,
re purposes it,

and uses it for some social
or political cause.

What we saw in the Arab Spring

were people taking these
technologies like Twitter

and using them in ways

that nobody expected them
to be used.

I mean, no one thought,
"Oh my God, Twitter,

what a great idea
for a revolution."

And people just said,
"This is a tool I can use,"

and so they took it
and ran with it.

But you say you can't stop
people from using it

for political activism
or something.

Oh, yes, you can.

The Computer Fraud and Abuse
Act was written in 1985,

shortly after the movie
"War Games" came out, right?

People thought, "Wow, someone
could start World War III

by dialing in on a 300-baud
modem from their Apple II,"

or whatever he had.

First of all, let's talk about
the Computer Fraud
and Abuse Act

and how it easy it is
to violate it.

It says you can't
use a computer

for purposes
that were unintended.

And the Holder
Justice Department

has interpreted that to mean

if you violate the terms
of service agreement

for a computer program,

you're in violation of the
Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.

I'm talking about
the little thing

where you have to check the box

before you can use
the software, right?

It says, "Check this
box to say that you agree

to the terms of service," which
you never read, none of us do,

but you check the box 'cause
you wanna use the software.

Well, in the fine print

are thousands and thousands
of things that sort of

could put you in violation
of the terms of service.

Example, "Seventeen Magazine."

If you were to use
"Seventeen Magazine"

and you agree to
the terms of service,

you are agreeing that you
are at least 18 years old.

So, if you're 17 years old

and you are reading
"Seventeen Magazine" online,

you are a felon.

before you use their service.

And on there
it says that you agree

that you're not gonna lie
about anything you say.

So, if you lie about,
like, your size or whatever

So, the question is...
if everyone's a felon,

then who do we prosecute?

And that's why
this is dangerous

because it means a prosecutor
can pick and choose.

So, they know
they can get you.

They know you're in violation
of the CFAA, right?

So all they have
to do is decide

who's a threat to the system,

and that's the person
they go after.

[audience applauding]

Thanks.

Now that you've seen the theory
behind Creative Commons,

it's time to show you
some of the practice.

So, when you come to your--
come to our website, here.

[male newscaster]
At age 14, he was blowing
people away in Silicon Valley

with what he could do.

Books are such
important artifacts.

They're the kind
of repositories of knowledge
in our culture.

Because for everything,

there's someone who cares
a great deal about it,

and that's what television,
that's what radio

doesn't provide,
but the Internet does.

[Lawrence Lessig]
I first met him
at conferences.

His parents would chaperone him
as a 12- or 13-year-old

to attend these
computer conferences.

I invited him to be the core
architect of Creative Commons.

I got to watch him grow up.

[piano music playing]

It was the first experience
of being a father.

At the age of 14, he helped
co-design the RSS protocol.

Fifteen, he was
the core architect

for the technical
infrastructure for Creative
Commons.

Nineteen, he began Infogami

which eventually
merged with Reddit.

And from the age of 20,

he worked in a series
of incredible projects.

[Aaron Swartz]
What we try and do
is we try and organize people

because the Internet
really provides this chance

to realize that you
can accomplish something.

[Lawrence Lessig]
So Aaron was a hacker.

What this hacking is, is
the use of technical knowledge

to advance a public good.

We need to celebrate
the activity of hacking.

[gripping instrumental
music playing]

[Aaron Swartz]
Whether you're going
after the government,

whether you're
releasing documents

that they have tried
to keep secret,

whether you're telling
a reporter about, you know,

malfeasance that's gone on.

The government
can't stop any of that.

[Cory Doctorow]
In 2008, he helped liberate
a database called PACER,

which is where all
the U.S. Court filings are.

Aaron arranged to put
$1.5 million worth

of American court
filings into recap,

which everybody thought
was awesome except for the FBI,

who opened a file on him,
they staked him out,

they brought him in for
questioning without his lawyer.

The next thing he did
that made headlines

was getting involved
with a thing called JSTOR.

[Aaron Swartz] Every time
someone has written down
a scientific paper,

it's been scanned,
and digitized,

and put in these collections.

That is a legacy that
has been brought to us

by the history of people
doing interesting work,

the history of scientists.

It's a legacy that
should belong

to us as a commons,
as a people.

Once I realized that there
were real, serious problems,

fundamental problems,
that I could do something
to address,

there was really no going back.

By virtue of being students
at a major U.S. university,

you have access to a wide
variety of scholarly journals.

Pretty much every major
university in the United States

pays these sort of licensing
fees to organizations

like JSTOR and Thomson ISI

to get access
to scholarly journals.

And these licensing fees
are substantial,

and they're so substantial that

people who
are studying in India,

they're locked out from
our entire scientific legacy.

But you have
a key to those gates,

and with a little bit
of shell script magic,

you can get
those journal articles.

Once you have a copy,
theoretically,

you could make it
available to everyone.

In the same way that people
did civil disobedience,

broke the rules
for the civil rights movement,

it's actually
a serious problem

that the vast majority
of the planet doesn't
have access

to our accumulated
scientific knowledge,

and I think it might be worth
breaking a couple rules

to solve that problem.

The Federal
Communications Commission

has adopted new rules
on network neutrality.

The new guidelines are designed

to limit the control
that corporations

such as Google and Verizon
wield over the content

that consumers see on the web.

Joining me now is the inventor
of the term"net neutrality,"
Tim Wu.

He is a professor
at Columbia University.

Pleased to have him here at
this table for the first time.

Welcome.

Pleasure to be here.
Thank you for having me.

The net neutrality vote
means what?

What that means is it's illegal
for a carrier company,

let's say Verizon, to block,
let's say, Hulu, or Bing,

a site it doesn't like.

The carriers have to carry
all the websites.

That's the basic idea
of net neutrality.

[Charlie Rose]
And was there a real threat
that they would do that?

[Tim Wu]
What history shows
is, over time,

eventually what was once
the young, exciting new media

becomes increasingly
consolidated,

increasingly closed,

dominated by a monopolist
or an oligopoly.

There's an important lesson in
the history of communications,

which is that, in fact,
government likes monopolies

because they can be used
to serve political ends.

Now, Western Union
became perilously close
to that example.

You had a monopolist over the
instant moving of information.

That is the only way
to get information

from A to B instantly,
is one company,

and that one company happens
to think the Republican party

should be in government
forever.

So, it gives
an enormous advantage

to all the Republican
candidates.

Those situations are
some of the most dangerous

to the democratic system.

And it's no coincidence...
there's other reasons too,

but the fact is you had
Republican administrations

from Lincoln onwards,
all the way to Woodrow Wilson,

in part on the back
of the telegraph system.

That may seem like
a 19th-century problem.

I think you see some
of the same problems today.

It was clear that
the Bush Administration

liked the increasing
concentration of AT&T

for national security reasons.

[George Bush]
It is in our national interest,
and it's legal.

It's in our national interest
'cause we wanna know

who's calling who,
from overseas into America.

We need to know,
in order to protect the people.

[Tim Wu]
In fact, it's often been
the case

that the national security
parts of the government

want there to be
a single company

in charge of information,

either so they can
defend against a threat

or, more dangerously,
so they can spy on citizens.

So, I'll say that again.

The governments tend to
like information monopolies

because if they can have
some control or influence

over that information monopoly,
it increases their power.

That is the danger.

It's not simply a danger

of higher prices
or bad service.

It is a much more
fundamental danger

to the nature of republican
government itself,

because if you have
an information monopolist

who's essentially complicit
with government,

acting hand in hand,

it comes very close
to a Fascist system
of government.

You once claimed
that you have an ability

to face unpleasant facts.

Is that what you've
demonstrated in "1984,"

by drawing an accurate
portrait of the future?

This is the direction the world

is going in at
the present time.

The moral to be drawn from this
dangerous nightmare situation

is a simple one...

don't let it happen.

[funky music playing]

[Edward Snowden] I grew up
with the understanding

that the world I lived in

was one where people
enjoyed a sort of freedom

to communicate with
each other in privacy,

without it being monitored,
without it being measured

or analyzed
or sort of judged

by these shadowy figures
or systems.

d When the powers of dictators
shall be taken all away

d There'll be smoke
on the water d

[Edward Snowden] I joined
the intelligence community
when I was very young,

sort of the government
as a whole.

I enlisted in the army shortly
after the invasion of Iraq,

and I believed in the goodness
of what we were doing.

I believed in the nobility
of our intentions

to free oppressed people
overseas.

d There'll be smoke
on the water

d On the land,
and the sea

d When our army and navy
overtakes the enemy

d There'll be smoke
on the mountains

d Where the heathen gods stay

d And the sun that is rising
will go down on that day d

[explosion]

But over time, I increasingly
was exposed to true information

that had not been
propagandized in the media.

[radio chatter]

We were actually involved
in misleading the public.

The NSA specifically targets
the communications of everyone.

It ingests them by default.

Companies like Google,
Facebook, Apple, Microsoft,

they all provide
the NSA direct access

to all of the systems you use
to communicate, to store data,

to put things in the cloud.

I think that's a dangerous
capability for anybody to have.

[Peter Ludlow] People say,
"If I have nothing to hide,

"what's the worry?
I'd rather have security,

so I'd rather have
the NSA spying on everyone."

First of all, it's clear
that the NSA,

by doing the spying program,

is not providing
any extra security.

In fact, it might be
undermining security

because if you gather
too much information,

you don't know what information
is valuable and what isn't.

So, I would rather have the NSA
out there spying on terrorists

instead of you and me,

because if our information
is there,

it's just cluttering up
their desk and prohibiting them

from getting the information
that they need.

Now you might say,
"Oh, well, big data,

their computer programs
solve all that."

That's bullshit, and I'm
in a position to know.

Unless you prepare
your data correctly,

which is a very
meticulous process,

data mining is not effective.

So, the NSA can
talk about making us safe,

but it's not doing that,

and we need to sit
and think about

the very real possibility
that it's making us less safe.

Control that gets
erected for one reason,

and maybe a good reason,

gets deployed and exercised
for a different reason,

and not necessarily
a good reason.

So, you know,
you build the machine

to deal with the terrorists.

You then have
a machine in place

to deal with
the copyright infringers,

and not just
the, quote, "pirates,"

but now the people who
remix without permission.

And so you begin to build
the infrastructure of control

into the core of the Internet,

and it begins
to be dialed

towards every new problem
that you describe.

Now again,
I'm not an anarchist.

I think the law
needs to regulate

certain kinds of behavior,

but we need to be sensitive

to the way in which we build
an infrastructure for control

that gives the government
wildly too much power

to regulate in a context

where liberty or innovation
is threatened.

[female newscaster]
We begin tonight
with new developments

in the case of Aaron Swartz.

In a recent and closed
door hearing

regarding the computer
fraud prosecution

of the Internet activist,
it was revealed

by a Justice Department
representative

that Swartz was indeed targeted
because of his politics.

Back in 2008, Swartz
and others laid out their views

in a piece called the "Guerilla
Open Access Manifesto."

The manifesto, according to
the Justice Department,

demonstrated his intent

in downloading content
on a large scale.

He became a target,
a political target, okay,

and that's why all these things
happened to him.

There is no reasonable cause

behind going after
a young genius like that

in the fashion they did.

It's political.

[dainty instrumental
music playing]

[Aaron Swartz]
I was at an event,
and I was talking,

and I got introduced
to a U.S. Senator.

And I asked him why, despite
being such a progressive,

despite giving a speech
in favor of civil liberties,

why he was supporting a bill
that would censor the Internet.

And you know, that typical
politician smile he had

suddenly faded from his face,

and his eyes started
burning this fiery red.

And he started shouting at me.

He said, "Those people
on the Internet,

they think they can
get away with anything.

They think they can
just put anything up there

and there's nothing
we can do to stop them.

They put up everything.

Well, we're gonna show them.

There's gotta be laws
on the Internet.

It's gotta be under control.

[Christopher Dodd]
Everyone says
they wanna shut down

these foreign criminals
who are stealing American jobs.

These two bills
are designed to do that.

They've been worked out
for months.

[Lawrence Lessig]
It was Chris Dodd's
first chance

to demonstrate how powerful
a lobbyist he was gonna be.

Chris Dodd, Democratic
Senator from Connecticut,

when he retired, promised
his citizens from Connecticut

he would not become a lobbyist,

and then turned around
and became the head

of the Motion Picture
Association of America,

the most powerful lobbying arm

for the content industry
in Washington.

And he could command
a very high price

as the chief of the MPAA

because people believed
he had the ability

to deliver on the goods,

and the goods here meant

being able to get laws passed
through Congress.

So, he succeeded before

the fight blew up
on the Internet.

In getting the commitment
of all the key senators

to get this through the Senate

and the same kind of support
in the House,

and it was gonna be
his victory lap.

What content owners wanted
was a simple, efficient way

for them to get sites
taken down.

Now look, there are plenty
of pirate sites out there,

and I don't support piracy.

I'm not in favor of people
taking other people's content

and sharing it illegally.

But you know, you can
agree with the objective

to deal with, quote, "piracy,"
and still not agree

that we ought to give
to the content owners

basically an automatic right
to go to a court

and get the government to order
a website off of the Internet,

which is basically
what this was.

It was the ability
to get some domain name

removed from the DNS,
or an IP address blocked,

and forcing people to comply
with these blocking orders

in a procedure that didn't
give any basic due process

to the people who
were being challenged.

I think SOPA
is the best evidence

that they just
have not learned yet,

and they're still waging
this evermore vicious war

on the idea that somehow

they're gonna bomb our kids
into compliance.

All they're gonna do,
like every war of prohibition,

is to bomb our kids
into radicalism,

and they can't afford
the radicalism

of the next generation.

[ominous music playing]

[Lawrence Lessig]
When you sit down,
and you take somebody's music,

and you mix it with your video,

and you share
it with your friends,

that's the sort of activity
we should be celebrating,

not regulating.

[Aaron Swartz]
Everything has this process
of pulling things together

and recombining them.

What's worrying about
these sort of copyright police

is that they wanna
prevent recombination.

They wanna have
the law come in

and say
recombination isn't legal.

Congress was going
to break the Internet,

and it just didn't care.

[John Conyers Jr.]
And to those who say that
a bill to stop online theft

will break the Internet,

I'd like to point out

that it's not likely to happen.

[Jon Stewart]
Hey, does anyone
on these committees

charged with regulating
the Internet

understand how any of this
Internet stuff works?

I'm not a nerd.

I am not a nerd.

I'm just not enough
of a nerd.

Maybe we oughta ask some nerds
what this thing really does.

Let's have a hearing,
bring in the nerds.

Really?

Nerds?

You know, I think actually
the word you're looking for

is experts.

There was just something
about watching

those clueless members
of Congress debate the bill,

watching them insist they
could regulate the Internet

and a bunch of nerds
couldn't possibly stop them.

The Pirate Bay
is a notorious pirate site.

Why don't you refuse
to de-index this site

in your search results?

[Aaron Swartz]
Those hearings
scared a lot of people.

They saw this
wasn't the attitude

of a thoughtful government
trying to resolve trade-offs

in order to best
represent its citizens.

This was more like
the attitude of a tyrant,

and so the citizens
fought back.

[protester]
This is what democracy
looks like!

This is what hypocrisy
looks like!

[Alexis Ohanian]
This is a movement that started
organically, on the Internet,

by American citizens.

[Tim Wu]
The main thing I think
is interesting about SOPA

was the strength
of the reaction,

and it wasn't simply
the people in D.C.

who care about
these issues,

but it was tech people,
engineer people, young people.

All kinds of people said,

"You know, I kinda like
the Internet the way it is,

"And I just don't think
Hollywood's plan

is gonna make things better."

[electronic music playing]

The war for the Internet
has begun.

Hollywood is in control
of politics.

The government
is killing innovation.

Don't let them
get away with that.

Everyone was thinking
of ways they could help.

Often, really clever,
ingenious ways.

(Jack Black)
Then these pirates come, and
they steal all our Internets.

[Aaron Swartz]
They made infographics,
they started PACs,

they designed ads,
they bought billboards,

they wrote news stories,
they held meetings.

Everybody saw it as
their responsibility to help.

They threw themselves into it.

They didn't stop to
ask anyone for permission.

d Let's get together

d Let's all unite

d Or they will
do whatever they like d

[female newscaster]
At least 7,000 websites are
going dark tonight at midnight,

including one of the most

heavily trafficked sites
on earth, Wikipedia,

in what looks to be the biggest
online protest ever conducted.

[Lawrence Lessig]
And of course, when the
fight on the Internet exploded

and people started
being outraged

and started organizing
so effectively

across businesses
and non-commercial sector.

And I think here, Wikipedia was
the most important contributor,

because their motives
could not be questioned.

They're not playing a game
to get bigger profits.

They're just protecting
their opportunity

to provide important free
information on the Internet.

And when push came to shove,
you know,

millions of people
summoned by Wikipedia

turned out to be more
powerful than Chris Dodd,

and he was furious.

[male newscaster]
Top lobbyist for Hollywood
exclusively told Fox

his industry is threatening

to cut off money
to the president.

Don't make the false assumption
this year

that because we did it
in years past,

we're gonna do it this year.

This industry is watching
very carefully

who's gonna stand up for them
when their job is at stake.

[Lawrence Lessig]
Then it was like
this blatant display

of quid pro quo
kind of threat.

"Okay fine, you're not gonna
support our SOPA/PIPA,

don't come to us
for campaign money."

Now, on the one hand,
everybody in Washington knows

that's the way things work,

but on the other hand,
to be so blatant about it

was really quite
outrageous and stupid

because after he said that,

what Senator could afford
to change his vote?

If you do, it's obviously
you're doing it in response

to the threat from the MPAA,

which demonstrates
the power of the MPAA

to force you to do something
you otherwise wouldn't do.

It was a moment where
the industry wakes up

to recognize that they actually
don't control the field,

that you know,
when the giant was sleeping,

they could get
all sorts of things through,

but the giant has woken up.

And every time
we can frame these issues

in a way that
plugs in to these,

this interest of the Internet,

which is this
interesting libertarian

and liberal alliance,
the Internet's gonna wake up.

[male newscaster]
Senate support
has fallen apart.

Now majority leader Harry Reid
has scrapped Tuesday's vote.

In the House, similar bill,
same political problems,

and the Speaker is urging
committee leaders

to just work this out.

[Aaron Swartz]
The people rose up

and they caused
a sea change in Washington.

Not the press, which
refused to cover the story.

Just coincidentally,
their parent companies

all happened to be
lobbying for the bill.

It was really
stopped by the people.

They killed the bill dead.

So dead that it's kind
of hard to believe this story,

hard to remember how close

it all came
to actually passing.

But it wasn't
a dream or a nightmare.

It was all very real,
and it will happen again.

Sure, it will have
yet another name,

and maybe a different excuse,
but make no mistake.

The enemies of the freedom
to connect

have not disappeared.

The fire in those politicians
eyes hasn't been put out.

[Kim Dotcom]
They had an agenda
that is about

more control over the Internet,

and they made
a strategic decision to say,

"Who are we going to take out
to send a strong message?"

And I was the one.

[triumphant instrumental
music playing]

[Special Tactics Officer]
Mr. Dotcom has been shown

the warrant to search
the property.
He acknowledges it.

[female newscaster] The Mega
case against Megaupload
is still at a standstill.

Prosecution says it cannot
gather enough evidence

against Megaupload founder
Kim Dotcom in a timely matter

because there's simply
too much on the servers.

This comes after
a local court rule

that the confiscation
of his fortune was illegal.

Now, New Zealand
won't extradite Kim

until the evidence against him
is fully accounted for.

So, what's gonna happen to the
50 million user accounts' data

that was shut down with
the take down of Megaupload,

and what does this mean
for copyright battle

and Internet freedoms
at large?

Aaron Swartz, founder
and executive director

of Demand Progress
joins me now.

Do you think that this
is just the content industry

having the government
do their bidding for them?

I mean, this did happen days
after SOPA was knocked down.

Yeah, I mean,
there's no question

that the content industry
is behind all of this,

and it's ridiculous
that the government
is doing their bidding.

[Kim Dotcom]
It's all a game
to them, really,

and we are all
the little puppets

that they think
they can kick around.

So we need to organize.

There needs to be a movement
that identifies these things

and fights that, not with
shutting down websites,

but with real protests.

Going out on the streets,
writing to politicians,

and especially,
most importantly,

don't vote for the guys
that are against Internet
freedom.

I'm not Aaron Swartz.

Aaron Swartz is my hero.
He was selfless.

He is completely
the opposite of me,

but I mean,
he stopped SOPA.

[Peter Ludlow]
Aaron was able to mobilize
the Internet through Reddit

and other places,
and he shut it down.

Now, we say, "Wow, what a hero!
Aaron, that's tremendous."

But you think now, how many
billions of dollars were lost

by multinational corporations
because of that?

Okay, and how many
more billions of dollars
are gonna be lost

when the next one comes along,
you know, when TPP comes along?

You need to shut this kid up

and you need to
shut him down.

Right? And you need to do
whatever it takes to do that.

I was in Mexico.

I was giving a...
I just finished giving a talk,

and I got a call
from his friend.

That's when I learned.

I went onto the Internet
to see if anybody had noticed,

and had this thought,
"Well, what if nobody notices?"

And then finally fell asleep
at about 2 in the morning,

and I had to get up
to catch a plane at 5.

When I got up,
I looked on the net and
it had just begun to explode.

And I furiously
typed a blog post

and then raced to the airport.

And then on the flight
from Mexico to someplace,

I don't know where it landed,
someplace in Texas I think.

I had written another very
angry, long blog post about,

"Improsecutor as bully"
was the title,

which I posted when I landed.

And you know, I think it was
the thing I've written

that's been read
by the most people ever.

I mean, it just became
the kind of defining frame

for what had happened.

Yeah, that's our government,
our kids.

[male newscaster]
There's a profound sense of
loss tonight in Highland Park,

Aaron Swartz's hometown,
as loved ones say good bye

to one of the Internet's
brightest lights.

He hadn't told me
what was going on
when we first started dating.

All I knew was that
there was something bad

happening in his life,

and that I was
a good distraction from it.

[Lawrence Lessig]
Yeah, Aaron was depressed.

He was rationally depressed.

You know, he was
losing everything.

[Taren Stinebrickner-Kauffman]
The whole thing was so hard
and so stressful.

He carried so much
of the weight of it on his own.

He didn't wanna involve
any of his friends.

[Lawrence Lessig]
I don't have patience
for people who wanna say,

"Oh, this was
just a crazy person.

This was just a person
with a psychological problem."

This was somebody
who was pushed to the edge

by what I think of as a kind
of bullying by our government.

All of us think there
are a thousand things
we could have done,

a thousand things
we could have done,

and we have to do,

because Aaron Swartz
is now an icon and ideal.

He is what we will
be fighting for, all of us,

for the rest of our lives.

When we turn
armed agents of the law

on citizens trying to increase
access to knowledge,

we've broken the rule of law,

we've desecrated
the temple of justice.

Aaron Swartz
was not a criminal.

When the U.S. Attorney told
Aaron he had to plead guilty

to 13 felonies for attempting
to propagate knowledge

before she'd even
consider a deal,

that was an abuse of power,

a misuse of the criminal
justice system.

That was a crime
against justice.

It doesn't change.

No, it never changes.

Yeah, it's always there.

So... you know, he came to me,
and it was December 2006.

He was in Berlin for the Chaos
Computer Conference,

and I was in Berlin
for the year,
so he came to visit.

And we talked for
the afternoon and evening,

and we talked about
the issues I was working on,

copyright issues
and the Internet issues,

network neutrality
was one of the issues.

And he just--
you know, he said to me,

"Why do you expect that you're
ever gonna win on these issues

so long as there's this corrupt
system of our government?"

And I said to him, "Well,
you know, it's not expertise.

It's not my field."

And he said, "I get that as
a professor, but as a citizen,

how are you gonna win?"

And it... you know, it is
that Aaron-type question

because it's implicitly
suggesting,

"You have a role.
It's your job."

You know, there's not
a debate about that.

It's just now
that we know it's your job,

then what are you gonna do
to carry through on your work?

And that was
very powerful with me.

[Piers Morgan]
Breaking news.

U.S. intelligence agencies
have been secretly operating

a broad data mining program
that collected e-mail, photos,

and just about everything else
from private communications

from most Americans.

That's according
to the Washington Post
and the Guardian.

The Post says that Microsoft,
Yahoo, Google, Facebook, AOL,

Skype, YouTube,
and Apple are all involved.

Well, joining me now
is reporter Glenn Greenwald.

Tell me briefly what
the latest development is.

What this program enables the
National Security Agency to do

is to reach directly
into the servers

of the largest Internet
companies in the world,

things that virtually
every human being

in the Western world now uses

to communicate
with one another,

and take whatever it is
that they want without
any checks of any kind.

There's no courts
looking over their shoulder

to see what they're taking,

and they don't
even have the check

that they have to go
to the Internet companies

and ask for it any longer.

They've been given
or have taken

direct access into the pipes

where all of these
conversations take place

and can suck up whatever
it is that they want
at any given moment.

[ominous music playing]

[Edward Snowden]
I don't wanna live in a world
where everything that I say,

everything I do,
everyone I talk to,

every expression
of creativity or love

or friendship is recorded.

That's not something
I'm willing to support,

it's not something
I'm willing to build,

and it's not something
I'm willing to live under.

[Dick Cheney]
Well, I'm deeply
suspicious, obviously,

because he went to China.

That's not a place where
you'd ordinarily wanna go

if you're interested
in freedom.

[male]
It's sad, right?

We've made treason cool.

I mean, we need to get very,
very serious about treason.

You bring back
the death penalty.

[Edward Snowden]
Any analyst at any time
can target anyone,

any selector, anywhere.

I, sitting at my desk,
certainly had the authorities

to wiretap anyone from you
or your accountant

to a federal judge,
to even the president

if I had a personal e-mail.

Prism is about content.

It's a program through which

the government could
compel corporate America.

It could sort of deputize
corporate America

to do its dirty work
for the NSA.

The NSA's own slides
refer to it as direct access.

But the bottom line is

when we talk about
how this information is given,

it's coming from
the companies themselves.

[Tim Wu]
You imagine a partnership
with Facebook

and the federal government.

Facebook could do a lot that
would be like
intelligence work.

They know a lot about us,
and so this is the problem

of overly-concentrated
private power

is it becomes an instrument
of government action.

You don't have to have done
anything wrong.

You simply have to eventually

fall under suspicion from
somebody, even by a wrong call,

and then they can use
the system to go back in time

and scrutinize every decision
you've ever made.

I think he's a traitor.

[Edward Snowden]
Every friend you've ever
discussed something with.

He's a traitor.

And paint anyone
in the context of a wrongdoer.

No, I don't think Mr. Snowden
was a patriot.

I think what we have
in Edward Snowden

is just a narcissistic
young man.

He is not a patriot.
He is not a hero.

It is literally,
not figuratively,

literally gut-wrenching
to see this happen

because of the huge,
grave damage

it does to our
intelligence capabilities.

If I had just wanted
to harm the U.S., you know,

you could shut down
the surveillance system
in an afternoon.

[interviewer]
You do not dispute
that Edward Snowden

has broken the law, do you?

No, I think he's very clear
about the fact that he did it

because his conscience
compelled him to do so,

just like Daniel Ellsberg did
50 years ago.

When he released
the Pentagon Papers,

and also admits
that he broke the law.

I think the question,
though is

how can he be
charged with espionage?

He didn't work for
a foreign government.

He could have
sold this information

for millions of dollars
and enriched himself.

He didn't do any of that other.

He stepped forward,

and as we want people to do
in a democracy,

as a government official,
learned of wrong doing

and exposed it so we could
have a democratic debate

about the spying system.

Do we really wanna put people
like that in prison for life

When all they're doing
is telling us as citizens

what our political officials
are doing in the dark?

[female newscaster]
Edward Snowden,
the man who told the world

about the federal government's
sweeping top secret

domestic spying program

is on the move
as we speak this morning.

[Edward Snowden]
If they wanna get you,
they'll get you in time.

But at the same time,

you have to make
a determination about
what it is

that's important to you.

[male newscaster]
Officials in Hong Kong
say Snowden,

who's been charged
with espionage

by the U.S. Government,
boarded a plane overnight.

He will soon land in Russia,

and this morning,
the group WikiLeaks

claims to be helping
Snowden get away.

It's been a stunning
turn of events here today.

Edward Snowden, the man
wanted on charges of espionage,

suddenly out of the country,
managing to board a flight

from Hong Kong to,
we believe, Russia.

[male 2] There was
no way to arrest him,

according to the Hong Kong
authorities,

and, quote, "No legal basis
to restrict Mr. Snowden

from leaving Hong Kong."

So, is there any pressure
the United States can bring

to bear on the Russians,
with whom we already have

an icy relationship,

to stop him from
carrying out this itinerary?

[George] We're running
this down right now,

but apparently though, there's
nothing The United States
can do

as long as Snowden
remains in that airport,

if he lands in Moscow
in transit to Cuba.

Apparently he's booked on a
2 pm. flight tomorrow to Cuba,

and some reports
that he would then go on,

as you said to Venezuela.

[female newscaster]
People are wondering
how was this man

able to outmaneuver
the U.S.,

the top spy agency
in the world, not once
but now twice,

if we can't even locate him.

That is the big question.
He was accessing
all of this information

from Booz Allen in Hawaii,

and the alarm bells
didn't go off in a way

that he could be stopped before
he slipped out of the country,

into Hong Kong,
and now on his way to Moscow.

[male newscaster]
Mr. Snowden has indeed
arrived in Moscow.

It was completely unexpected.

I have not called
President Putin personally,

and the reason is because
I shouldn't have to.

No, I'm not gonna be
scrambling jets

to get a 29-year-old... hacker

[air traffic controller]
Bravo 001, do you need
any assistance upon landing?

[pilot] No, we need to land
because we are not...

we cannot get
a correct indication.

Evo Morales,
Bolivia's leader,

was forced to spend
the night in Vienna

after his plane was rerouted.

Bolivian officials say
it all stemmed from a rumor

that Snowden had
hitched a ride from Russia

on the president's jet.

[male newscaster]
Edward Snowden, we are told,
has now walked free,

and actually crossed
the immigration zone

and entered Russia officially.

[Peter Ludlow]
He saw that if he just
continued to let things happen

as they were happening,

this policy would
go on unchecked,

And he was gonna have to
go against his supervisors,

he was gonna have to break
organizational protocol,

and he did it because
he could not participate

in a system that was
doing something evil.

[Edward Snowden]
When I really came to
struggle with these issues,

I thought to myself,

"How can I do this
in the most responsible way

that maximizes
the public benefit,

while minimizing the risks?"

Out of going to Congress
when there was no laws,

there were no legal protections
for a private employee,

a contractor in intelligence
like myself,

there was a risk
that I would be buried

along with the information,

and the public
would never find out.

But the First Amendment
of the United States
Constitution

guarantees us
a free press for a reason,

and that's to enable
an adversarial press

to challenge the government
to have a dialogue and debate

about how we can
inform the public

about matters
of vital importance

without putting our
national security at risk.

[Lawrence Lessig]
The whole way
to think about security

in the big data world
is different.

You know, we use to have
government surveillance

that was episodic.

First, physical invasions
episodically.

You know, the police
would break into your house

and search for something.

And then virtual invasions
that were episodic.

They would tap your phone.

But because it was episodic,

the legal system was pretty
good at handling it

because every time
you wanted to intervene,

the question was
did you have enough evidence

to justify that breach
of somebody's privacy?

But the architecture
of information now

is persistent surveillance.

There's always surveillance,

constant data gathered
in every single point.

And in that world,

the issue isn't so much
whether there's surveillance

the issue is
what are the restrictions

on how you use the data
you have collected,

and how do we have confidence
in those restrictions

or confidence that those
restrictions are being
respected?

And that's gonna require
a different way of thinking

about protection,

and it's not...

it's completely obvious
that we're nowhere close

to working that part out.

[Edward Snowden]
To see officials
testifying under oath

that there have been no abuses,

that there have been no
violations of the NSA's rules,

when we knew
this story was coming.

Does the NSA collect
any type of data at all

on millions or hundreds
of millions of Americans?

No sir.

It does not?

Not wittingly.

The NSA lied about
the existence of this tool.

So, I responded in what
I thought was
the most truthful,

or least untruthful manner,
by saying no.

[Rand Paul]
Mr. Clapper lied in Congress,
in defiance of the law,

in the name of security.

Mr. Snowden told the truth
in the name of privacy.

Mr. Snowden
hasn't lied to anyone.

He did break his oath
of office,

but part of his oath of office
is to the Constitution.

[female newscaster]
After all of this,
are you as amazed as I am

that with all of this dragnet,

somehow the Boston Marathon
bomber got through,

that Tamerlan Tsarnaev,
who had plenty of indicators

that he may be up to no good
on the Internet and elsewhere,

got through this dragnet?

The more information
they collect

about innocent Americans,
the less able they are

to actually prevent
terrorist attacks,

because at some point,
it becomes counter-productive.

They have so much information,

that they don't even
know what they have anymore

and they can't put it together.

Remember that the 9/11
commission made clear

that The United States
government

had in its possession enough
evidence to have alerted it

to the existence
of the 9/11 attack

and simply never, in its words,
connected the dots.

The problem was never
that they weren't

collecting enough information.

The problem is that they just
don't know what they have,

and the more they become
obsessed with sweeping up

billions of conversational
data point every day

and expanding
that surveillance net,

the less able they're gonna be
to achieve

what the ostensible
purpose of this program is,

which is to stop things like
the Boston Marathon killing,

which they utterly
failed to do.

[Peter Ludlow]
People always ask me,

"Is Ed Snowden
a hero or a traitor?"

The real question is,
is what he did right or wrong?

Forget about whether
he's a hero.

It shouldn't even be
considered heroic.

It should be considered
his duty.

He has a duty to uphold
the Constitution
of the United States.

He has a duty
to fellow citizens

to see that they're
not enslaved

and they're not become part
of like a 1984 dystopia.

I don't consider him a hero.

I just consider him
as a guy who, on that day,

did what he
was supposed to do.

Good for him for that.
You know, for the same reason,

I'm not gonna call
Aaron Swartz a hero.

I'm gonna say he did
what he ought to do.

They're different forces
in these two fields, you know?

Aaron was in the minefield
of copyright,

and the pressure to be extreme
in the minefield of copyright

comes, in my view, from
the extraordinary influence

that these industries have,

especially on
the Democratic Party.

So, you know, as much as
Obama tried to set himself up

as the Internet President,

as the person who understood
the free culture movement,

got the openness and the
necessity for information
to flow freely,

From the very beginning,
his administration was

totally aligned with the most
extreme copyright positions.

So, they were not gonna
show any mercy

in a case which
implicated copyright.

But in the Edward Snowden
context, it's a different kind

monster that's driving it.

It's this, you know,
national security fight

of a "War on Terror"-like
monster.

And Obama has
a very strong desire

to appear as tough
as he possibly can,

especially to the military,

and so here too,
we will not show any mercy.

We will be as tough
as we possibly can.

[Tim Wu] It's very easy
to scare the public,

particularly when it's
something like the Internet,

cyber security,
some kind of danger

that people don't really
understand very well.

And I think a responsible
approach

is not to scare the public,

but to be honest
about the threat.

Most of what the Internet
connects to

is not what we would call
critical infrastructure.

Let's say my web page
or something.

If a terrorist wants
to take over my web page,
they're welcome to it.

I mean, not really, but
I'm just saying that, you know,

it's not gonna
cause a danger.

The Internet's
decentralized nature

has been an incredible
buttress against cyber threats,

and it's one of the reasons
you haven't seen

all kinds of terrible
things happen.

[Peter Ludlow]
There are many, many true
threats to us in this world,

from fracking,
environmental damage,

thousands of people dying from

pollutants, thousands,
millions,

You have over
50,000 people a year

dying from work
related illness.

All right, if you add in
the number of people

that die in workplace
accidents,

that's what, over 54,000
people a year dying

because of workplace
accidents or illness.

Now, if you break that down
to, like, how many per day

or how many per hour,

basically what you're
getting is the equivalent

of a Boston Marathon bombing
every half hour of every day

of every week
of every year.

So here's the optic.

You've got this situation
in the Boston Marathon bombing

where a number of people
died in the explosion,

and it was a terrible thing.

And you know, we went in,
and we, like, seized houses,

and we caught
these people, et cetera.

But then meanwhile,
2 days later,

a fertilizer plant blows up in
Texas,

killing more people.

And in the beginning,
we're like, "Oh my God,
what if it's terrorism?"

And then we find out,
"Well, it's probably
an accident,"

and then no one cares.

Well, no one cares, but it
doesn't matter if it's, like,

terrorist did it or corporate
malfeasance did it.

People are still just as dead.

Or take West Virginia.

There's this huge leak
of toxic chemicals

and 300,000 people
are left without water.

Poisoned the water
of 300,000 people.

Now, what if terrorists
had done that?

We would be freaking out,

but because it was
a corporation that did it

through its malfeasance
and ineptitude, no one cares.

So, what's going on?

The problem is that
we're fearing the wrong things.

We're not fearing the things
that we ought to.

Or, forget about fear.

We're just obsessed
with the wrong things.

[Lawrence Lessig]
We've seen an incredible
rise of crony capitalism

in The United States
government,

which is corrupting
the government
and corrupting capitalism.

It's again this sense
that business and government

needs to be in bed together
and benefit each other.

Business benefits government,
not in the old criminal way,

they don't bribe people,

but by providing
the necessary thing

that congressmen need
to survive, money.

And in that relationship,
we once again are having this

stagnated economic development

because economies that
are in bed with governments

are economies that are about
protecting themselves,

not about competition.

So, we need a similar
progressive movement.

In fact, I believe
there's such a thing

as successful social movements

to save something
that people care about.

I'll give you
a couple examples.

Downtown New York.

There was a plan in the '50's

to make all of Downtown
New York freeways.

They were like,
"West Village, SoHo,

"you know, old buildings,
who needs 'em?

What we need to do
is just get new freeways."

I mean, these plans are
crazy, Robert Moses's plans.

But they say if you had
a plan now to try to plow over

the West Village or SoHo,
it would not happen.

Similarly, I think
with the National Parks,

we've had a successful
movement.

There was a time
in this country

where people just didn't think
about this is worth saving.

When they thought
about nature, they thought,
"Well, how do we make money?

And if we don't make
money, who cares?"

This conception
that the environment

was something
you would save, just...

If you'd said that,

people wouldn't know
what you're talking about.

It didn't make any sense.

It really took
a change in consciousness

to have an awareness
of the importance
of the environment.

That's the same way
people felt when you

talked about net neutrality
for the first time.

It's just like,
"Well, what do you mean
the structure of the network?

I don't get it."
You know, it's just
wires and so forth."

And so I think today,
we're going through a same
kind of consciousness shift

with respect to how information
is controlled in society

that we underwent with
the environmental movement

in the 20th century.

Through the '60's

there were all these really
great shifts in consciousness.

We had a shift
in consciousness about race.

We had a shift in consciousness
about women's rights.

I mean, dramatic,
very dramatic.

We had a shift in consciousness
about the environment.

These things come in waves
of about every 50 years or so.

The last one we had
was in the '60s,

sort of peaking around
'67, '68,

where basically the whole world

kind of had a raising
of consciousness as it were.

And you get these,
in sort of like 1917.

If you go back, it about
a cycle of every 50 years.

So, 1848, 1776.

And I suspect that we're just

in the beginning stages
of this.

[applauding]

This is my friend,
Aaron Swartz.

Aaron came to me
with a question.

Then he said,
"So, how are you ever...

gonna solve the problems
you're talking about?"

"Copyright policy,
Internet policy.

"How are you gonna ever
address those problems

"So long as there's
this fundamental corruption

in the way
our government works?"

He was saying to me,
"You have got to get a clue,

"because there is a flaw

at the core
of the operating system
of this democracy."

I loved that boy
like I love my son,

but we failed him.

And I love my country,
and I'm not gonna fail that.

I'm not gonna fail that.

That sense of hope,

we're gonna hold
and we're gonna fight for,

however impossible
this battle looks.

So...

may the ideals of one boy

unite one nation
behind one critical idea

that we are one people,

we are the people
who were promised a government,

a government that was promised
to be dependent

upon the people alone.

The people.

May you join this movement,
not because this is your field,

but because if you are,
you are a citizen.

Aaron asked me that.

Now I've asked you.

[Charlie Chaplin]
We all want to help
one another.

Human beings are like that.

We want to live
by each other's happiness,
not by each other's misery.

In this world,
there is room for everyone

and the good earth is rich
and can provide for everyone.

The way of life
can be free and beautiful,

but we have lost the way.

Greed has poisoned men's souls,

has barricaded
the world with hate,

has goose-stepped us
into misery and bloodshed.

We have developed speed,
but we have shut ourselves in.

Machinery that gives
abundance has left us in want.

Our knowledge
has made us cynical.

Our cleverness,
hard and unkind.

We think too much
and feel too little.

More than machinery,
we need humanity.

More than cleverness, we
need kindness and gentleness.

Without these qualities,

life will be violent
and all will be lost.

The airplane and the radio

have brought
us closer together.

The very nature
of these inventions

cries out for
the goodness in men,

cries out
for universal brotherhood,

for the unity of us all.

Even now my voice is reaching
millions throughout the world,

millions of despairing men,
women, and children,

victims of a system
that makes men torture

and imprison innocent people.

To those who can hear me,
I say, do not despair.

The misery that is now upon us
is but the passing of greed,

the bitterness of men who fear
the way of human progress.

The hate of men will pass,
and dictators die,

and the power
they took from the people

will return to the people.

And so long as men die,
liberty will never perish.

Soldiers, don't give yourselves
to brutes, men who despise you,

enslave you,
who regiment your lives,

tell you what to do,
what to think, or what to feel,

who drill you, diet you,
treat you like cattle,

use you as cannon fodder.

Don't give yourselves
to these unnatural men,

machine men with machine minds
and machine hearts.

You are not machines.
You are not cattle.

You are men!

You have the love of humanity
in your hearts.

You don't hate.

Only the unloved hate,
the unloved and the unnatural.

Soldiers, don't fight
for slavery,

fight for liberty.

In the 17th chapter
of St. Luke it is written,

"The Kingdom of God
is within man,"

not one man
nor a group of men,

but in all men, in you.

You, the people have the power,
the power to create machines,

the power to create happiness.

You, the people, have the power

to make this life free
and beautiful.

Then, in the name of democracy,
let us use that power.

Let us fight for a new world,
a decent world

that will give men
a chance to work,

that will give youth
the future,
and old age a security.

By the promise of these things,
brutes have risen to power,

but they lie.

They do not
fulfill their promise.

They never will.

Now, let us fight
to fulfill that promise.

Let us fight
to free the world,

to do away with
national barriers,

to do away with greed,
with hate and intolerance.

Let us fight
for a world of reason,

A world where
science and progress

will lead to all men's
happiness.

Soldiers, in the name
of democracy, let us all unite!

[Edward Snowden]
America is a fundamentally
good country.

We have good people
with good values

who want to do the right thing.

But the structures
of power that exist

are working to their own ends.

The greatest fear
that I have

regarding the outcome

for America
of these disclosures

is that nothing will change.

They won't be willing
to take the risks necessary

to stand up
and fight to change things.

[Tim Wu]
I'm not a fatalist.

I think that the future's
actually in our hands.

You know, the people of
The United States can say,

"We like information to be
a little more disaggregated,

a little more random,

a little more possible
to get anything you want,"

as opposed to
what's being fed to you.

And if we like that system,
we can defend it.

[Lawrence Lessig]
The fight has to be to protect

the architecture
of the Internet,

to embed and secure
the values that we care about.

[Peter Ludlow]
Well, we have a lot of
strategies for doing that.

I write little articles
in the "New York Times."

You make documentaries.

Other people
make documentaries.

We talk to our friends.

We're gonna go to a bar
and talk about it later.

We're gonna call our parents,

we're gonna
tell them about it, right?

And we're gonna need leaders.

We're gonna need
another Aaron Swartz.

We're gonna need
lots of Aaron Swartz's

to get this to work, right?

But then here's
the final point,

if it's really true that
you're not doing anything

to scare the power structure,

if it's really true
that you're not doing anything

to make the
power structure nervous,

and so why should you care,

why the fuck
aren't you doing something?

Why are you living
like a slave,

letting these people
control the wealth,

consolidate wealth,
poison your water,

poison your air,
treat you like shit,

treat your parents like shit?

Why are you letting
that happen?

So if you tell me you have
nothing to worry about,

then I wanna say shame on you,

'cause you should
have something to worry about.

You should be out there doing

something to change
this system.

[Heroic instrumental
music playing]

[heroic instrumental continues]