Edward Snowden's Alternative Christmas Message (with Commentary)

A Christmas Message From Edward Snowden from Gendo on Vimeo.

On December 25th 2013 Edward Snowden delivered an alternative Christmas message on the UK's channel 4 TV station. Before the broadcast a short version of the speech was leaked and immediatly uploaded to youtube. That upload was immediatly blocked but many re-uploads made the clip available everywhere. This is one of those places.

 If you want to thank Edward Snowden for giving up his relationship, familiy, job and any chance of a normal life to inform us all go here (http://freesnowden.is/donate/index.html) and donate.

I don't, and he hasn't, and what has he informed us of that we didn't already know? He has said absolutely nothing, and continues to.
 Or spread his message.

I don't know what his message is.

And do something with it. 

I am. I'm critiquing it.

Because if something is done all of Edward's sacrifices have meaning.

Which is what, exactly?

And which sacrifices are these? I don't see any.

Hi, and Merry Christmas.

I'm honored to have the chance to speak with you and your family this year. 

You're not. You're and television, and they're not here.

Recently, we learned that our governments, working in concert, have created a system of worldwide mass surveillance, watching everything we do.

No, they didn't. They did that in the mid-1990s, and completed a process of the growth of military intelligence in domestic surveillance that began in the Philippines in the 1900s following the Spanish-American War.

Great Britain's George Orwell warned us of the danger of this kind of information. 

No he didn't. 

He was not warning about the danger of surveillance. 

Surveillance is the symptom, not the disease.

He was warning about the ultimate bankruptcy of ideology in the service of The Myth of the Nation, and the necessity for Permanant War to offset the excess in production  produced by a rising standard of living and technology by constantly destroying the productive capacity and output of Mankind to engage further social, technological and spiritual development.

The types of collection in the book -- microphones and video cameras, TVs that watch us -- are nothing compared to what we have available today. 

Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) was, and is, always, the most secondary and second most reliable and useful form of intelligence; Human Intelligence (HUMINT), was, and is always the primary focus of intelligence gathering, the most reliable, versitile and strategically useful, and it is for this reason that the creation of the Central Intelligence Agency (HUMINT) and it's analysts preceded the creation of the National Security Agency (SIGINT) by over five years, and has a budget far in excess of anything required by NSA.

Microphones don't spy on people - people spy on people. 

And people have reasons.

Blaming the technology is a classic Straw Man fallacy which serves to distract from the reasons, and reasoning for surveillance, data gathering and intelligence collection - which is exactly why Snowden raises the point here.

The point of the surveillance in the Oceania of 1984 was not intelligence gathering, nor was it all-pervasive or even consistent.

The point of the constant and overt surveillance of the Outer Party in Air Strip one was the same as it was in the Soviet Union for visitors, and the same for anyone under FBI surveillance - John Lennon complained of this specifically - it was to let people KNOW that they were being constantly watched and followed.

The process of intelligence gathering and open surveillance collection was a means of social control and mitigating people's behaviour via a normative process - the actual intelligence gathered was of little or no concern and was rarely put to any use.

During morning exercises and stretching, the telescreens occasionally talked back to people and told them to stretch further or try harder - but there is no indication that they people they were calling on actually existed, or if this was merely a psy-op tactic to remind people that they MIGHT be called on at any time.

And only the Middle Class were surveilled at all - there were no telescreens or spies amongst the Proles, and little enforcement of the laws amongst the masses of the people, since they were not politically active or aware. They posed no threat to the State or to the System and thus spying on them was a complete waste of time.

Intention X Capability = Threat.

Likewise, the ideologues of the Inner Party and their trusted staff, such as O'Brien and his manservant had telescreens they could switch off, since they believed totally in the system and were enriched by it. Since their power, position and largesse was wholly tied to The State, there was no point in spying on them either.

Intention X Capability = Threat.

We have sensors in our pockets that track us everywhere we go.

Only if you're stupid. 

I don't take my phone with me when I don't want people to to know where I am.

And I often take my battery and SIM out of my phone and leave it somewhere where I want people to think I am.

This is basic personal security.

Think about what this means for the privacy of the average person.

Not enough, because they're not thinking about this.

A child born today will grow up with no conception of privacy at all. 

I don't know what it means now.

There is no such thing as privacy.

They'll never know what it means to have a private moment to themselves -- an unrecorded, unanalyzed thought. 

Unless Snowden thinks most people talk to themselves while alone, this is NOT what PRISM was and has nothing to do with any aspect of his so-called revelations.

What he is talking about is Psychotronics, and it has been a major area of US Defence Department Reseach since the early 1990s.

Remotely reading a person's thoughts in the same way that a Polygraph reads their biofeedback responses to situations and stimuli, using high-gain electromagnetic resonance and neural mapping IS possible with current levels of technology, and can be done, and the output does require interpretation in the same way a Polygraph output does; but that's not what Snowden is talking about, and that's not what he's disclosed; moreover, it's conspicuous by its absence in everything he has said, and failed to say so far. 

Individual Mind Contol, and Mass Mind Control via Psychotronics, EM Radiatiom and other forms of broadcast are a genuine cause concern and need to be brought to mass awareness and consciousness - but Snowden is not talking about that.

He's talking about voyuerism and illicit phone sex.

Not Mass Mind Control.

And that's a problem, because privacy matters. 

Why?

Privacy is what allows us to determine who we are and who we want to be.

Almost certainly not.

Most would argue that it is the nature and extent of our interaction with others, and with the world around us that does that.

The exact opposite is true - privacy limits us to be less than what we are by limiting interactions and sensory stimuli and opportunities to develop new neural stimuli, spiritual and physical growth and development.

The conversation occurring today will determine the amount of trust we can place both in the technology that surrounds us and the government that regulates it. 

Government doesn't regulate it, that's the job of the Courts, and there is no Gold Standard available to allow them to do that because the parameters of what is to be achieved are not offered.

What is the point of all of this...?

What is the harm, and what are the benefits, and what is the reality..?

Together, we can find a better balance. 

With what?

You have not presented any evidence that things are out of balance, or what this level of information gathering is (in your estimation) being balanced against.

What he presumably means is "security". But he hasn't said that.

He said "technology".

Technology is not a threatening force. It's a neutral force.

Technology does not spy on people - people spy on people.

So if you're not measuring the level of surveillance against a quantiable threat, like international terrorism, or the IRA, or the Mythical al-Qaeda Beast - how can you possibly judge whether or not there is too much of it, or not enough...?

End mass surveillance. 

How? And why?

For what reason.

I have reasons of my own, but I am not hearing any from you.

And remind the government that if it really wants to know how we feel, 

Government doesn't care how you feel.

It cares if you are able to destroy it or do it harm.

If you are not able to cause it harm, or if you have the desire, but not the capacity to do so, then you are irrelevant.

Intention X Capability = Threat.

asking is always cheaper than spying.

Yes it is. 

That's why when the Bush Administration wanted to data-mine all of Verizon's customer's communications and emails, they went to Verizon and asked them "Can we data-mine all of your customer's communications and emails, please?" in 2004, Verizon said "Yes."

Because that's not illegal, and they asked nicely.

Again, Snowden has you hating the oppressed and loving the people doing the oppression.

It's the job of the National Security Agency to suck up and analyse the largest data set possible.

It's the job of Verizon to make as much money as possible for their stockholders.

It's not the job of NSA to respect rights you don't actually have, and it's not the job or Verizon to protect the data of people who do not practice basic data security, such as encryption or secure VPNs.

For everyone out there listening, thank you, and Merry Christmas.

I thought you said listening was bad...