Paul Saffo: 'The NSA Has to Be a Mole for Al-Qaeda' Video Lecture | Shaping the Future: The New Western World - Personal Skills

is the Edward Snowden phenomenon what's
your what's your sense how do you parse
that as in any way that you have my top
level I trunk or the tail or the year
you know my first of all what was the
government thinking you know we you know
we learned in the age of photocopiers
that there's no such thing as a
permanent secret right so what did they
what were they possibly thinking this
wouldn't get out beyond that my initial
reaction was a little bit like Henry
Kissinger's quip in the first few days
in the arab-israeli seven day war
someone said dr. Kissinger who would you
like to see when and he paws and he said
it would be nice at both sides lost and
pity they both came comes but you know
it's at moments you look at the NSA and
you think you know the NSA has to be a
mole for al-qaeda that's the only
explanation here because the economic
damage that their mass collection of
information cause you know a lawyer
would say this is strict liability you
caught you collected a dangerous thing
that escaped this is no different than
putting a dam on your property and
impounding water and the damned fails
and it floods out your neighbor down the
rear and say why it's just water it's
like no no you're strictly liable right
that's very I never heard that metaphor
that's really interested the mistake was
collecting the information to begin with
and you know national security cost of
that the economic damage to the United
States you know the very real loss of
value of American technology companies
who can't get customers abroad and now
the pressure to create separate
intranets and the like I mean is it I
mean one thing I'm fascinated by about
five things that you said one thing that
occurs to me is because this technology
is less
proprietary and sort of easier to
understand why wouldn't every desperate
and tyrant and a dictatorial regime want
to have their own phone record
collection operation but well as a
venture capitalist you of all people
understand this and that is there's a
shortage of geeks I'm not do you really
think that's true i mean it seems to me
that there is a geek culture all over
the planet there are bold avian
programmers oh yeah it's growing August
on and and the technology is relatively
easy to to clone I mean once you've been
shown it it's not like oh I need a
centrifuge where would I get one of
those this site you know it's all sort
of algorithm science it's not equipment
driven science I agree and then all you
need to do is add in the wrong if you
could / c or listen in to every facebook
conversation in Egypt how could tire
square ever have taken place I mean this
is the the dictators best friend the
ability and I don't know I was funny you
mention it I grew up in the Ellsberg and
pentagon papers and vietnam war era and
so my ability to believe everything that
government tells me with a sincere face
is relatively reduced as to what it
might have been are in my father's era
and so when people look me in the eyes I
don't worry we're only collecting
metadata I mean I just start giggling
because in the newsroom we could take
any phone number and find out whose
phone number it was in about two seconds
and the government but yeah we could do
that yeah we could do that but we're not
doing that without a quarter I'm
thinking like oh yeah got a court order
yeah I forgot about that well how's that
coming yeah and I just find the whole
thing to be preposterous that they're
not building a kind of war Willian
system that with modest effort can
follow us from moment to moment you know
the other thing about the NSA it's
evocative of a long time ago David
Brower once said of the Bureau of
Reclamation and
but the RV this is going to be Goods the
Army Corps of Engineers they said the
army corps of engineers are like beavers
they cannot stay on the site of running
water well the NSA are the cyber
equivalent of that they just can't stand
the idea of any data getting away and
they just like beavers are going to
collect it up even though it's useless
to them and dangerous in the country