You can see technology has made this possible...
...but also that it's used without any limits just because it's possible...
...without anyone saying: Wait a second, this goes beyond all limits...
...the limits of fundamental rights.
Fundamental human rights were being stretched...
...and all the security nets had holes in them.
Nothing protected us, we were basically naked.
Whether it's the Russians, the Chinese or the Iranians.
That happens to be the focus of my research.
So for me, when we saw some of those programs come out in America...
...I wasn't shocked and didn't have a profound existential crisis. No.
I have mixed feelings about it.
Something rational: I recognised things that I already knew...
...but that I lived through again emotionally.
And that really was a big shock...
...because I thought I would never have to feel that again.
We all knew we lived in two environments.
One environment where you could speak freely: at home, with family and friends.
And a public environment: school, strangers...
...where you had to watch what you said, where words could become dangerous.
In first grade, at age six, I already knew words could be dangerous.
Like other East German citizens, I practised self-censorship...
...and limited my own freedom of speech. Just in case.
That's a terrible feeling. But now it feels even more horrible.
Back then I could go out onto the street or visit friends.
Me and two friends could sit at a table and if there was no Stasi agent present...
...you knew nobody was spying on you. Now we don't have that certainty.
There are CCTV cameras everywhere.
They can record where I'm going, with whom and what I'm doing.
Surveillance now is more comprehensive, more total.
I'm always conscious of whether I'm communicating securely.
Sometimes during a conversation we might touch on a certain topic...
...and then I tell my interlocutor: Stop, you have a mobile phone. So do I.
Let's talk about this another time...
...or let's put our mobile phones somewhere else.
I do that. I also have a sticker on the camera of my laptop.
To prevent someone from filming my house...
...so that they can see my house. I do that too.
I encrypt my online communication...
...also when I just want to say that I'll be home half an hour later.
I believe we should build a very big haystack.
At the very least we have to make it hard for intelligence agencies...
...by protecting the needles that need protecting even better.
When Google buys such a company...
...Google doesn't just want to know what I'm searching and who I'm emailing.
A company like Google really wants to be everywhere.
They want to capture every single data stream that you generate.
The photos I take. Picasa is owned by Google.
The movies I watch and make. YouTube is also owned by Google.
They're capturing what's happening in your car...
...they're capturing what's happening in your bedroom with the thermostat...
...and in your pockets through your phone.
Now they want to know when I use my washing machine and how often...
...how much energy my stove uses and when it's on.
That way they can see when I'm home.
Eventually they're going to buy a company that manufactures smart beds...
...and capture what's happening in your bed.
Ultimately they would want to know what you're dreaming about.
When you combine that with all the other information...
...you can build a complete profile of someone and their social networks.
That's the wet dream of a Stasi agent.
I have a dumb phone in my pocket. I just don't collect data about myself.
My decision is very rigidly absolute.
I just don't have the temptation of selling it. There is nothing to sell.
The fact that all the data that Google and Facebook are collecting...
...will eventually be put to uses other than advertising.
It might be used to price risk.
What's the risk that you'll get into an accident if you're driving?
What's the risk your house will catch fire?
If that's what they can do, then they can also be in the insurance business...
...they can be in the banking business and many other businesses.
They are actually probably standing to disrupt...
...the banking industry and the insurance industry in the next five to ten years.
We also see changes in the logic of many of these commercial players.
Instead of assuming you don't want to track yourself...
...because you care about your privacy or just because you're too lazy...
...they'll start assuming that you don't do that because you have something to hide.
That's how people who don't have a smartphone...
...or people who leave no data trail are already perceived.
And I just don't know why we actually want to move to a society...
...where people who are guilty of nothing...
...have to take pro-active steps to prove that they're not guilty.
That's a kind of Kafkaesque situation...
...which I think we would rather avoid, but I think that will be the consequence.
That will be the consequence, not because it's driven by...
...the surveillance state or national security state...
You can even forget about those two.
You'll end up in this situation solely because of the market consequences.
Because again, reputation will become the key to all of this.
And as long as it's the key to all of this...
...you'll be pro-actively forced to do something to shape it.
The elephant in the room is that most consumers, who are not geeks...
...who don't go to Computer Chaos Congress in Berlin...
...those people don't really have such concerns...
...and actually have economic incentives...
...to record everything that happens to them...
...and to figure out how to make money out of it.
If that's the environment in which we're in...
...then we have to be doing very different kinds of interventions.
And I haven't seen them so far.
You sound very disappointed.
Well, I am.
Again in part because the debate has been extremely boring.
For me surveillance is one of the many problems.
It might not even be the most important problem...
...that stems from the circulation of data.
For me, the greatest problem comes from the proliferation of data.
To me, that's the danger. Armed with more and more data...
...our bureaucratic institutions will be able to do things...
...which are good for us as consumers...
...but not necessarily good for us as citizens.
So instead of going after the root causes of issues...
...they just go about the symptoms.
Look at, for example, the use of data...
...that may be coming out of a country like Yemen.
So you can monitor what every single kid in Yemen is doing on Facebook.
You can monitor what they're doing with their cell phones...
...and rank kids in Yemen based on how likely they are to blow up an airplane.
Then you have the top ten kids in Yemen...
...and you just say: We're not going to let those people board a plane to America.
Problem of terrorism solved.
To me a somewhat more ambitious, more democratic...
...and more politically conscious way to go about that problem...
...would be to stop for a little bit, put the data aside and ask a simple question...
...as to why those kids actually want to blow up American airplanes.
If you do that you might discover...
...that the reason they do that might have something to do...
...with the use of drone warfare against their fathers.
Or you want to fight a problem like obesity. Smartphones, for example.
It allows you to do two things: It allows you to record data...
...so you actually know what people are eating, how much they're exercising.
You can capture everything about their activity, right?
And then figure out where on that curve they are, how unhealthy they are.
How unproductive they are. And the fact that you have a screen...
...you have the ability to intervene, allows you to generate the perfect nudge...
...and to get them to do what the policymaker wants them to do.
We're entering a new mode of politics...
...where we're no longer talking about what matters.
We're not talking about why things happen.
The reason why we're obese is because we're stupid or don't exercise enough.
Or we just basically don't have the strong will.
It's not because there's no income for us to buy healthy food...
...or we don't have a car to drive to the farmer's market...
...or because there's no infrastructure where we can exercise.
Or it's because perhaps food companies...
...have so much power in Washington that they can advertise to kids in any way.
Or they don't want food labelling. There are all sorts of bigger structural issues...
...that are not at all reflective of who we are and what we do...
...and of failings that are responsible for a problem like obesity.
But in order to grasp all those potentialities...
...and to prevent them from happening...
...and then to also figure out why we shouldn't treat data as property.
Because the more we treat it as property, the more data people will sell to Google.
To figure that all out you need a much more complex picture of economics...
...and structural changes in economy.
What's happening in terms of finance, financialisation, all of those things...
...which are currently not on the table...
...at most of the gatherings of computer people.
Again, if you look at the gatherings of the Chaos Computer Club.
Those are very good people, all of them have very noble goals.
But just for the reason that they're mostly technologists...
...they would rather talk about cryptography than financialisation.
We need to figure out how geeks can start talking about politics and economics.
Because I don't really expect people...
...who are concerned with the economy or politics to learn cryptography.
So you expect something from geeks, but you don't see it happening.
Well, maybe I'm blind, but no, do you?
No, I don't see that happening.
I'm trying to make that happen. You can't blame me.
I write an essay every week. But yes, I don't see that happening.
Why is it not happening?
Because this is hard stuff. You need to sit at home and read Weber and Habermas.
It's not playing World of Warcraft.
It's not like you're going to wake up tomorrow...
...and suddenly understand how the modern system of bureaucracy...
...has come into existence in the last two centuries.
It's not the kind of thing you can read up on Wikipedia in two hours.
I'm not blaming them for not immediately grasping everything they ought to grasp...
...about how the modern state functions. It'd be naïve to expect them to do that.
But there needs to be a reorientation of this debate.
Look, in five years whenever you walk down the street...
...you'll get a popup on your phone telling you: Would you want to trade...
...all your data from today for 50 euros?
Most people, I'm sure, would be saying yes.
That's what I've been trying to do: Trying to show that...
Great, let's continue doing work on cryptography, on laws...
...but if we just do those two things...
...in five years we're going to be hit with a more profound realisation...
...that neither tools nor laws are actually wanted by citizens.
Or most citizens anyway...
...because dissidents will still want the cryptography and the laws.
But people who have very little to hide...
...are going to profit from these new market incentives...
...thus perhaps making it impossible for dissidents to exist as a group, structurally.
So you never met a politician who you thought...
Look, I've met quite a few politicians, many of them in Europe...
...who are willing to listen and with whom I talk every now and then.
The problem is that...
They're not going to turn it...
...into the major political and social movement that it ought to be.
Unless they can discursively liberate themselves...
...from this bullshit empire built by Silicon Valley.
I see very few positive developments from politicians...
...who again just prefer to bash the NSA.
Look at European politicians. What do they want? They want to bash America.
Let's bash the NSA, let's bash Google.
And let's empower, I don't know, Deutsche Telekom.
Because great, we'll empower Deutsche Telekom...
...and then the German surveillance services...
...are doing exactly the kind of surveillance the NSA is doing.
So instead of surveillance that is made in the USA...
...you now have surveillance made in Germany.
Who uses the internet every day?
Almost everybody? What do you do online? What do you do?
Games.
YouTube, of course. And you?
Typing course? Good.
But do we know what it is? How it works? And who's the boss?
Have a look to see what you can find about yourself.
My name is Swan Stikker so I only find stickers of swans.
That's my father.
Let's see if he has any secrets.
Sure, let's do something in Iceland, but...
Don't get me wrong. Those apps need to be built...
...for people who are doing important work in social movements, dissidents.
People who actually need secure tools...
...to continue the very dangerous work they're doing.
But it's not going to be of much use to the general population...
...until the general population figures out...
...that they cannot continue consuming data and entertainment...
...and paying for it with their personal information.
That's the change that needs to happen, intellectually.
Without that change those tools are going to be used by 1% of the population.
But who is the enemy? - That's a complicated question.
I think it's too easy to say: the American secret service.
Likewise you also can't say: all secret services.
We are our own enemy if we practise self-censorship...
...and do nothing against it, and keep silent out of cowardice.
When we're too lazy and slow to go out onto the street...
...and don't speak out for fear of the consequences...
...then we are our own worst enemies.
Only then do we enable that power to be abused.
We legitimise that power. We vote for these politicians.
We don't vote them out, don't storm their offices, let them do their thing...
...while we do our shopping and watch TV like everything's normal.
An apathetic populace is democracy's biggest enemy...
...because it makes the abuse of power possible.
Hello, Berlin.
I wish there were 100 times more people here.
25 years ago the Berlin Wall came down.
On November 11, I stood on the wall behind that gate with my mother...
...with 10 times as many people as are here now.
People are walking with arms linked, they're climbing over fences...
...walking towards West-Berlin.
I just want to have a look. I'm not going to the other side.
There are many people on the wall. I can't see how many.
Police, to my right, are moving towards the wall.
More police, on the right.
At least 300 police officers are at the wall.
Armed, so I've heard.
But people here say they can't shoot...
...because they're being watched, basically.
We're behind the Brandenburg Gate. Don't get too close.
It's full of people shouting with joy, clapping, yelling.
Good luck.
We must realise that the mass, the people, possess power.
Back then people shouted 'we are the people'. A powerful slogan.
We could feel we were a large crowd and how much power we had...
...because there were so many of us in the streets.
And that feeling, that memory people must feel again.
Alice Walker once said:
'The main reason why people don't have power...
...is because they think they don't have any power.'
We're seeing that again today.
So few people go out to demonstrate, because they think it's useless anyway.
Are you happy?
I can't say.
You are happy, I can see it.
He is happy.
The space for civil disobedience, dissent, for taking an active stance...
...as to whether you want to do something or not, that counts as well.
There is this very interesting phenomenon happening right now.
We are being deprived of an opportunity...
...to decide not to do something.
But I think that will result in us not having that space...
...in which our subjectivity can actually emerge...
...and get formed in an environment where we still have space...
...to make decisions that are of our own will...
...and are driven by some political, ethical and moral idea...
...of what's good and what's not good.
The fact that we will all be getting very complacent and boring...
...and extremely safe individuals, that's the danger.
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