BILL MOYERS:
Take a look at this perfect headline for the
age of surveillance: "No Morsel Too Minuscule
for All-Consuming NSA." There it sat, above
a chilling account by "New York Times" reporter
Scott Shane of how spying by the national
security agency has spread like a contagious
virus. And there's more, another "Times" article
reports that the CIA has been paying AT&T
more than $10 million dollars a year for access
to its telephone records. Gives new meaning
to the phone company's old slogan: "Reach
out and touch someone."
True, it's a dangerous world out there and
someone has to keep an eye on it. But if you
think that the only targets of illicit snooping
are suspected terrorists, foreign dignitaries,
and journalists too close to the truth, guess
again. Every one of us is under the omniscient
magnifying glass of government and corporate
spies. Yes, remember the corporations. Their
data banks cover every sector of American
society, aimed, as the foreword to a new book
notes, "at school-children and mothers of
school children, at church congregations,
credit card members, and Facebook friends,
at everybody and anybody at work or at play,
with the tracking device otherwise known as
a cell phone."
How do we respond to this smog of surveillance?
Well, start by reading this book: "Spying
on Democracy: Government Surveillance, Corporate
Power, and Public Resistance," by Heidi Boghosian.
She's executive director of the National Lawyers
Guild, that's a progressive legal organization
started almost 80 years ago as an alternative
to the more establishment American Bar Association.
She's collected story after story of how innocent
lives are turned upside down. Even her own
group has been subjected to surveillance and
eaves dropping.
Heidi Boghosian, welcome.
HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
It's an honor to be here.
BILL MOYERS:
How do you deal personally with the possibility
that you might be tracked, tapped, or monitored?
HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
When you write an email, when you're on the
telephone certain privileged information,
especially between clients and attorneys,
or about a client with a reporter for example,
one must assume that is being monitored now.
And we knew that years ago under the Bush
administration with the warrantless wiretapping
program, when many organizations actually
filed lawsuits saying that they suspected
their communications were being monitored.
And that really changes the relationship and
makes an organization, have to travel long
distances to have private communications in
person with clients. You can't do as much
on email or on the phone.
BILL MOYERS:
So it's not a matter of your saying, as so
many people are, "What if I'm not doing anything
wrong, why should I care if anybody's watching?"
You've heard that, haven't you?
HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
Of course. I think that's a very simplistic
answer because when one is under constant
surveillance, be it from a surveillance camera
on the city block and we have so many here
in New York, to the possibility that internet
communications are being monitored, it necessarily
alters how you communicate. It makes us tamp
down things that we might say.
And I think-- attempt to conform more to the
greater corporate surveillance state. Whether
or not we realize that, we may not engage
in the kind of robust dialogue with our friends
or our colleagues. We may not meet at public
assemblies, because it's become really under
the watchful eye and wanting to maintain the
status quo of big business.
BILL MOYERS:
You say in your book that we've become a surveillance
state, a "government-corporate partnership
that makes a mockery of civil liberties."
Talk about that partnership.
HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
There is a revolving door really between the
Pentagon and private business. For example,
I think it's 70 percent of retired three and
four-star generals then take jobs in the private
sector as consultants advising the government
through work with companies such as Raytheon
and others, about policy.
And I think that's a conflict of interest.
But more importantly, CEOs from many of the
big businesses like Boeing, Raytheon, advise
the president on matters of technology and
national security. And they're conflicted
out, because their profit motive really is
the duty that they have, whereas the government
officials have a duty to uphold the Constitution.
I don't think that having 70 percent of our
national intelligence conducted by private
business is a way to ensure that our civil
liberties are really protected.
BILL MOYERS:
You write in here that from the moment you
wake up, your everyday activities are routinely
subjected to surveillance. Do you think that
everyday Americans know that?
HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
They didn't a few months ago. I think that
with the Snowden revelations and "The Guardian"
coming forth-- we have a greater sense of
the extent to which our communications are
monitored. In fact, it seems not to be the
exception, but rather the rule.
BILL MOYERS:
That's what--
HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
Literally everything is gathered.
BILL MOYERS:
That's what you call a staggeringly comprehensive
network, tracks where we go, how long we stay,
and what we browse, read, buy, and say. That's
pretty exhaustive.
HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
It's exhaustive. And I think when the government
says, for example, that metadata-- that doesn't
collect the contents of our communications--
is an acceptable thing to collect, you have
to realize that associations can be very easily
garnered and tracked.
BILL MOYERS:
What's metadata?
HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
Metadata shows, for example, that I called
you on a Friday night. It doesn't say what
we discuss, but it says that we talked. So
that if I called a physician, say, at a cancer
clinic several times the government might
surmise that I have cancer. Or if I engage
in a certain political activity over a period
of time, it allows them to develop a profile,
even though they don't know exactly what we
discussed.
BILL MOYERS:
Well, what would they want that for?
HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
Well, retailers want that information because
they want to develop profiles about our purchasing
and spending habits. We have groups such as
Acxiom, which is a data aggregator, that really
has quite complete profiles on many of us
in this country.
BILL MOYERS:
That's a market research firm, right?
HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
It's a market research firm. And they very
cleverly recently came out with a website
called "About the Data," that allows you to
go on and check what information they have
about you and to correct it, therefore giving
them actually more accurate information, if
you were to do that.
BILL MOYERS:
Where do they get that data?
HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
They get the information from a number of
public sources but they also go to retailers
and they purchase it from, say J C Penney,
who has tracked what you've purchased from
them over the last year. And then they sell
it to third-party companies, including the
US government. The problem being, of course,
that they need to simplify profiles of us.
They may categorize us as sort of an up-and-coming
20 year old interested in-- maybe starting
a family. Or you're about to retire. But they
also put in information about your political
activities, your personal interests, health
interests, things that we may not want shared.
BILL MOYERS:
This is the company I think Natasha Singer
wrote about in "The New York Times" and she
said that Acxiom "peers deeper into American
life than the FBI or the IRS." Quote, "If
you are an American adult, the odds are that
it knows things like your age, race, sex,
weight, height, marital status, education
level, politics, buying habits, household
health worries, vacation dreams, and so on."
Why does our government contract with a market
researcher?
HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
Well, the government is constricted by the
Fourth Amendment's provision that it may not
engage in unreasonable searches and seizures.
But businesses don't have those same constraints.
So they can collect information about us that
the government lawfully is not allowed to
do.
BILL MOYERS:
So you have said in here that data mining
is the gold standard for spying on democracy
now. Explain that.
HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
Well, as we've become an increasingly consumerized
nation and reliant on the internet. You'll
know that when you do a search, for example,
for a pair of shoes, you're going to be bombarded
on the internet with other shoes from different
companies. And I think that it's become hugely
profitable for these organizations, such as
Acxiom and others, because they really keep
this information for years on end, we don't
know exactly what they do with it. But we
do know that they profit handsomely from it.
And that really, information in this country,
personal information, is the new commodity.
BILL MOYERS:
Do you think that Americans are largely in
the dark about what we're talking about? Or
do you think they now take it for granted
and are complacent about it because what they're
doing fits their convenience?
HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
Certainly, generations that had been brought
up on the internet and taught to type on a
keyboard at the same time that they learned
to read have a different notion of privacy
and are willing even as children who may not
know it, to give over personal information,
for example, when they sign onto a Walt Disney
site, or even a Coca-Cola site.
They are bombarded again with friendly images,
animal type characters, that ask you for your
date of birth, where you live, what your preferences
are, we're becoming from a very early age
accustomed to being groomed to be consumers
for life. And along with that comes a kind
of trust, I think. Corporations are so much
a part of our daily lives, I would argue for
the worse, but they market themselves as our
friends.
And then the close partnership they enjoy
with the government, blurs traditional lines
of what government functions have been, and
notions of privacy. So I think that most people
who grew up on the internet may not be aware
of traditional notions of privacy and are
willing, as you say, for the convenience that
it offers us and the, I think, appearance
of ease of friendship and communication. But
I think that we do need to take a step back
and realize that protections haven't been
put in place along with the fast pace that
technology has really sped ahead.
BILL MOYERS:
Some people will say, "Well, I hear what Heidi
Boghosian is saying, and I'm as concerned
as she is about the government use of data.
But I'm not really concerned when she talks
about the business, the corporate consequences
of this, just because it's a-- I'm complicit
I'm buying these things knowingly, I probably
assume that somebody's going to be using this
data to profile me and aren't-- and track
me and, we think there should be a distinction
between our fear or concern about government
surveillance and corporate or business surveillance."
Now, respond to that challenge.
HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
People need to know that for all intents and
purposes, the distinction right now between
government and the corporate world is virtually
nil. They are hand-in-hand working to gather
information about Americans as well as people
across the globe, to really be in a race to
collect more information than any other country
can, because I think in their eyes, having
this information, storing it, and being able
to access it for years on end is a symbol
of power and control. So that you can't really
make that distinction anymore between big
business and government.
BILL MOYERS:
But government is looking, is it not, for
that needle in the haystack, that potential
terrorist that people want to stop before
the terrorist strikes this country. And with
the corporations and the business, aren't
they looking for the person to whom they can
market something? Or it helps me make my way
through a busy life to be able to buy online.
And if I have to give up a little information
about myself, that's okay.
HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
And that's what they're telling us. And of
course, that is part of it. But they're also
looking to quiet those individuals who may
be critical of corporate policies. And remembering
how much corporations really factor into our
daily lives, that should be of concern.
Many corporations have their own intelligence
sections, for example, so that they may have
a unit that spies on activists, animal rights
and environmental activists are one of the
prime targets, because the F.B.I. has labeled
them a top domestic terrorism threat. So that
if you go to a protest and you're an animal
rights activist, you can expect that you're
being tracked in one way or another.
The National Lawyers Guild gets calls all
the time about people whose families and friends
have been visited by the FBI in advance of
a certain, say, Republican National Convention,
or another demonstration, wanting to know
information about certain activists. They
definitely have files, they circulate photographs.
They now identify what they call the anarchist
threat. And that's basically anyone who I
think may be continuously critical of government
and corporate policies, who speaks out, and
who isn't intimidated by corporations. So
they spend vast amounts of money to track
these individuals.
BILL MOYERS:
So this is why you write that corporations
no longer spy merely to protect or steal trade
secrets.
HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
In 2004, the Department of Homeland Security
created what are called Fusion Centers, allegedly
to better streamline the coordination between
local law enforcement, federal law enforcement,
and businesses. So that these some 75 centers
across the country work hand-in-hand with
businesses, gathering information about local
threat assessments including anarchist and
so-called activist threat assessments. We
saw that with the Occupy Movement, where the
Department of Homeland Security worked with
financial businesses and banks to let them
know that there would be protests in their
municipalities all around the country, well
before the protests started.
BILL MOYERS:
But you say this has a fallout on dissent
and truth-telling.
HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
When you are afraid to go, for example, to
a mass assembly because you know that law
enforcement will be there in riot gear with
so-called less lethal munitions, when you
know that corporations have done their research,
gathered dossiers on you, may have their own
private security guards, as they do now at
most protests it makes people who maybe have
never gone to a protest before, who want to
express a view on something, afraid of that.
I think that's very damaging to the notion
of democracy because the streets, the public
parks, which are now increasingly corporatized
in many urban areas don't belong to us as
a people anymore. They belong to corporations.
And if we're afraid to go there and congregate
it's a sad testament to where we are.
BILL MOYERS:
One of the surveillance cameras down at the
site of Occupy Wall Street is still there.
HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
Right.
BILL MOYERS:
A couple of years later. So what do you think's
happening to us as a free and democratic people?
HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
I think that we've been understandably enticed
by all the exciting forms of technology, and
I think that of course there are many wonderful
uses of technology that we should harness
for the appropriate reasons. I just think
that our laws and our social conscious has
not kept a step with those developments.
We need to take a breath and say, "Where are
we? What do we value? What do we want to recapture
in terms of our rights as Americans and our
constitutional protections? And how can we
balance the positive gains of technology with
privacy and the laws of the land?"
BILL MOYERS:
You say, "We need more troublemakers to bring
us to our senses." Troublemakers?
HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
That was a quote from a judge in New York
over an Occupy Wall Street case, and the judge
said that Occupy, in effect, had shone a light
on these so-called troublemakers. The police
department called them troublemakers. And
he said that they really provide an invaluable
service in terms of reminding us what's important
in our country.
BILL MOYERS:
You would consider Edward Snowden a troublemaker,
right?
HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
A troublemaker, and a true hero and patriot.
BILL MOYERS:
Why?
HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
Working as he did for a private corporation,
handling sensitive information, and being
told basically that there was no problem,
there was nothing he could do, he then took
matters into his own hands, knowing that he
would probably face imprisonment for the rest
of his life. And I think that doing that,
because he saw something wrong, contrary to
the values and contrary really to, I think,
why he went into his work make him the ultimate
hero because he sacrificed his life to uphold
the nation's values, democracy.
BILL MOYERS:
Could you have done that?
HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
I would like to think I'd be brave enough
to do that. I'm cautious in some ways because
I am a lawyer and I know I have taken an oath
to uphold the law. I would like to think that
I could've done that. I'm not sure.
BILL MOYERS:
I really like your last chapter, which is
called "Custodians of Democracy." Who are
the custodians of democracy?
HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
The custodians of democracy are the ordinary
people that make up this country and make
us so special. They believe that we can be
a thriving democracy and that we do not have
to cede our lives and our autonomy to multinational
corporations who I think have really robbed
us of some of the privileges that we've been
so fortunate to have over the history of this
nation.
And they're not afraid to stand up to leaders.
I was inspired by the school child who did
not want to wear a tag, an ID tag at school
that had a radio-frequency-identifying chip
in it, RFID chip. And she fought, brought
a lawsuit, she had to transfer to another
school, but it raised attention. And I think
especially when a child says, "I don't want
this," knowing that she can then be tracked
for a number of other reasons, I applaud that
courage.
And there's a community in California, for
example, that went to their city council meeting
and said, "You've just approved having a surveillance
drone in this area and we don't like that."
And they put pressure on their elected officials
and there's not going to be a surveillance
drone there.
And the custodians of democracy, they're not
afraid to take action that may get them in
trouble, get them expelled from a school,
for example, or even arrested. They take to
the streets, they speak out, and they lead
by example, by doing something that unfortunately
has required a great deal of bravery in what
should really be the ordinary way we conduct
our lives.
BILL MOYERS:
Well, one way to become a custodian of democracy
is to read "Spying on Democracy: Government
Surveillance, Corporate Power and Public Resistance."
Heidi Boghosian, thank you very much for being
with me.
HEIDI BOGHOSIAN:
Thank you so much.
