
Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Government Surveillance [ft. Edward Snowden] - XioNoX
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEVlyP4_11M
======
slaxman
Communication: this is where john oliver is amazing. Rather than talk about
all the complexities of the secret NSA programs. He simplified the entire
scandal into "NSA can see your dick pics. Stop them now".

This episode is a big lesson in communication for startups.

~~~
makeitsuckless
The number of people that praise John Oliver for dumbing down the issue amazes
me.

Dumbing down complex social and political issues is a communication strategy
that will always see populists and extremists as winners.

This is how we got here in the first place. The words "War on Terror" are the
ultimate dumbing down of international politics.

This is so easy to counter ("NSA can prevent another 9/11", "Government can
trace pedophiles" etcetera) by the other side it's laughable. This is just
playing into their hands.

~~~
drivingmenuts
> Dumbing down complex social and political issues is a communication strategy
> that will always see populists and extremists as winners.

And this is how you get ordinary people to begin to understand why this is an
issue and why they should be concerned. Sure, you could let them drink from
the firehose, but the decisions they reach would be even more uniformed or as
it is now, ignored.

You give simplified information and let the curious among the previously
uninformed do their own research to reach some version of The Truth.

Is it a perfect solution? Not even close. But that's not the world we live in
or are surrounded by.

John Oliver is not wrong when he says "We don't fundamentally understand it."
Maybe you do. Maybe someone else does. I know firsthand that I vaguely
understand parts of it.

The problem that Snowden revealed is going to take years, maybe decades, to
fully digest and society is going to be everchanging during that time. Prepare
to be eternally frustrated if you ever thought there was going to be quick and
decisive action on our problems with internal spying.

("Internal spying" doesn't even begin to cover what he revealed. It is the
simplest term I can come up with at the moment. That, in and of itself,
reveals the hidden depths of this issue. What the hell do you even call it.)

~~~
makeitsuckless
The way to get "ordinary people" (and I think we're using a very low value of
"ordinary" here) to understand anything is education.

Education is the primary battlefield. Fuck, education is the _only_ relevant
battlefield. And yes, it's a long drawn out battle which is fought over
generations, not via soundbites on a comedy show.

The other side understands this, so they have put decades worth of effort into
undermining the education of ordinary people.

We used to understand this, as education for the people used to be a primary
goal of progressive politics. (And yes, this is about progressive versus
conservative, it always has been, no matter how warped these things have
become.)

What Oliver does is entertainment, nothing more. It doesn't change anything,
not in the long run. And while we're rejoicing in the fact the Oliver scored a
very, very minor victory, the other side is already working on the next step
in keeping the people as uninformed and uneducated as possible.

(Also, the only reason shows like that of Oliver are such a big deal these
days because they've pretty much managed to kill off any form of critical
mainstream journalism that could inform and educate the people. The "success"
of John Oliver is a symptom of our defeat.)

~~~
trendroid
Who is the 'other side' and 'they'?

Edit: completely agree with your bigger point but wanted to know who you had
in mind as the other side

~~~
jraedisch
I hope that there is no other side. At least none that is premeditating
actions like "keeping ordinary people stupid".

------
n8m
I have to say, I was fairly suprised of the way the interview was conducted.
It was somewhat refreshing to see not the same questions being asked all over
and over again. I think Mr. Oliver & his team picked very well what the
average Joe does care about. Very well done!

~~~
sneak
I really wish the idea pushed that bulk collection allows the military
intelligence orgs to blackmail every single member of the executive and
judicial branch: every federal judge's extramarital affair, every
congressperson' drug habit or undisclosed political ties, every bribe- none of
the counter forces of checks and balances apply anymore.

It's not about _your_ dick pics. It's about the district court's inbox's
underage titty pics.

The only people who can stop it are also subject to its destructive impact.

~~~
Lawtonfogle
It isn't even about that. It is that the completely clean guy who is standing
for integrity who gets told 'either you do as we say or we will convince the
world you are a child molester, and trust us, we can plant all the evidence we
want where ever we need to'.

~~~
XorNot
Which has nothing to do with surveillance.

If you're going to flat out lie and make stuff up then you quite literally do
not need to do any surveillance.

John Kerry's war record being tarnished was done openly, publicly, and without
any involvement of the NSA (which would have been useless to the cause
anyway).

------
nothrabannosir
Oh God the part at 7:55 where people describe Edward Snowden as selling
information, "that shouldn't have been revealed," I had to stop watching for a
second.

Poor guy. It's one thing for people to disapprove of what he did for the right
reasons. But for people to think of him as a traitor for the wrong ones,
that's another entirely.

That was hard to watch.

EDIT: Oh no he's showing it to him.. John's facial expression at 23.08 says it
all. I almost can't watch this.

~~~
vanderZwan
But look at the smile when he sees them caring about dick pics!

~~~
sanderjd
I loved how quickly he caught on to Oliver's point. I imagine a follow-on
effect of the interview may be a renewed appraisal of how he presents his
arguments on Snowden's part. Not dick-pics per se, but connecting better with
why the average person should care.

------
pdkl95
I find it very interesting that Snowden explicitly confirmed that when the NSA
says they only capture "foreign" data, they are considering the endpoints of
the wires that transport any given packet, not the humans that
generate/receive that packets.

The NSA has a lot of people focused on "metadata" of the endpoints only, and
not the entire path the data actually follows that is generally _not_
something the leaves of the network can control. Snowden mentioned moving data
to different locations (probably remote mirrors/backups) as one of the places
data is captured. The NSA can probably capture any data they want by simply
poisoning a few BGP[1] routes so the data they want is routed internationally.

[1] pick your favorite method of rerouting traffic; BGP is just one obvious
example

~~~
LLWM
I don't think anyone is surprised at this point that they interpret their
mission as broadly as they can possibly justify. The NSA are singlehandedly
tearing down the stereotypes of lazy government workers.

------
olivierlacan
I transcribed the important part of the interview and put it up here with
links to relevant info about each of the Patriot Act sections and NSA programs
mentioned: [http://cantheyseemydick.com](http://cantheyseemydick.com)

~~~
TeMPOraL
Awesome! I'm sharing this in my social circles.

One thing though: could you make it more clear those paragraphs are Snowden's
words?

------
higherpurpose
John Oliver shows why we can't rely on surveys to show whether people support
mass surveillance or not. Most don't even seem to know who Snowden is, let
alone understand what the government _is actually doing_. At best most of
their minds are made up by what they see on TV (where the networks hardly did
Snowden and his revelations any justice).

Also, relevant:

[https://www.emptywheel.net/2015/04/04/section-215s-multiple-...](https://www.emptywheel.net/2015/04/04/section-215s-multiple-
programs-and-where-they-might-hide-after-june-1/)

It's _very likely_ that even if the government "backs down" on some
surveillance programs from the Patriot Act, they will try to replicate them in
other bills, such as CISA or other future ones. They've done that before, too.
So we need to be very vigilant about it.

------
Inufu
If you are outside of the USA:
[https://vid.me/search?q=last%20week%20tonight%20government](https://vid.me/search?q=last%20week%20tonight%20government)

~~~
q7
Also, if you are outside of the USA, you're pretty much fucked as the NSA sees
everything you do, including the dicks and vaginas of all 7 billion non-US
citizens. And there is also no chance of that ever changing, since no foreign
surveillance program hasn't even entered any debate.

So from here, the non-united states to you, dear US reader: here's 7 billion
people pointing their fingers at you, you peeping toms, you creeps.

------
jfoster
I think this is most interesting not so much as a Snowden interview or John
Oliver clip, but a highlighting of the delta between the mainstream and people
who have a particular interest in this topic. It's easy to forget just how big
that delta is.

~~~
touristtam
I think it is pretty much down to what sort of media is reaching these
population. The perfect example is the one John Oliver is giving earlier on in
the show where a serious interview is being cut off by a live news report on
Bieber's misconduct in public.

------
adamnemecek
I feel like John Oliver is the first journalist who gave a somewhat balanced
view of Snowden. That being said I don't really read the news all that much.

~~~
Zombieball
Agreed. And sadly I do believe more Americans (or people in general) would
know who Snowden is if his revelations were conveyed in terms of dick pics.

~~~
Zezima
Unfortunately, the majority of the population is uninformed through their own
doing. It's much easier to tune out boring technical debates when your beliefs
are being challenged.

The majority of the people in the Time Square interviews believed that the
information was "not supposed to be leaked", or it was in some way the morally
wrong thing to do, without knowing any further information.

While the morality of Snowden's leaks is a flexible topic, it just goes to
show that the American people do not actively care about this topic.

I did love the rephrasing in terms of nudes which Oliver and his team did, but
it's one step too short of actually producing meaningful change. This type of
conversation, again, can be tuned out, it lacks the conviction required to
affect more people.

Nonetheless, it was hilarious, I just wanted more from it.

~~~
XorNot
The idea that people are uninformed is a toxic attitude to this whole issue.
Threads like these are full of 'sheeple' statements. Counter points or
arguments are aggressively down voted and anyone who doesn't share the exact
point of view of a poster is tacitley insulted as being uninformed.

A conversation requires both parties to be willing to listen, and it also
requires some perception that ideas and concepts are actually up for debate.

That's not going to happen so long as people who claim to think this is
important refuse to try and understand any of the broader dynamics of it.

~~~
maxerickson
The people in the Times Square interviews (from the linked video) are
literally uninformed. It's not an attitude to say so.

Much of the segment is spent illustrating that people do care about the
dynamics of the issue, but that they don't understand the details.

~~~
RodericDay
They're clearly more misinformed than uninformed. They were making accusations
and holding a low opinion of Snowden, not abstaining completely.

This idea that it's not even worth fighting back is extremely toxic.

~~~
touristtam
That is funny, in a way, because that is exactly the behaviour described by
Susan Cain in a society that over estimate the value of bold assertion from
extrovert character trait. So those misinformed are making statement on their
own mental the assumption that conceding their ignorance will make them look
weak. At least that is my reading.

------
personlurking
I'm not sure why Snowden feels vindicated due to the story not going in and
out of the news cycle quickly. The average person does not care, something
evident from the complete lack of constant mass protests nationwide (to give
an example). On the flip side, Oliver is correct, we can't have the necessary
conversations if no one really understands what happened, and the scope of it.

~~~
zachalexander
> average person does not care, something evident from the complete lack of
> constant mass protests

That's a pretty high bar for "care".

~~~
personlurking
Touché, though I would say it is the most effective way to show disagreement.

------
atmosx
I am a huge fan of John Oliver. I would love to see him deal with EU issues as
well, but I know that's not possible since his audience is US based.

~~~
coldpie
Are you familiar with his podcast The Bugle? It's a (mostly) weekly, 30-minute
satirical news podcast that he does with another English comedian, Andy
Zaltzman. They cover European issues in most episodes.

[http://soundcloud.com/the-bugle](http://soundcloud.com/the-bugle)

Archive of older episodes:
[http://gamesplusone.com/thebugle](http://gamesplusone.com/thebugle)

~~~
atmosx
Nope! Thanks!!! You gave something other than tech and philosophy to listen
while running! Thanks!

------
cookiecaper
What the disinterest comes down to is "show, don't tell". Snowden told
everyone that the government is spying on them. Oliver is trying to make that
more tangible by telling everyone "You know they've seen your dick, right?"
The interesting thing here is that Snowden could've affected _real_ change if
he actually leaked a section of the corpus of data the NSA had collected.

Last year's celebrity nude scandal was characterized as "sexual abuse" against
the people whose photos got published. What kind of impact would've been made
if an equivalent dump of "normal" people occurred? People hate revenge porn
sites and anything that seems to indicate that nudes may be published without
the consent of the depicted persons.

It's a very interesting question to ask: would the indiscriminate
embarrassment and exposure caused by a leak of say, one day's worth of the
NSA's collected data, be worth the awareness that leak would cause, and the
changes it may or may not provoke? Would that not be the most fair way to
judge whether the NSA's collection of that data is really warranted? Snowden
says he's all about letting the people judge for themselves, but as Oliver
notes, he made a series of disclosures that require a significant technical
background to fully grasp (perhaps part of his partnership with Greenwald et
al was based around the hope that they could further personalize the story).
Wouldn't his purpose have ultimately been better served by taking and
publishing a raw chunk of the sampled data?

------
unfunco
For those in the United Kingdom (where this video is blocked) you can see the
interview part here:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykfGWcmUbbk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykfGWcmUbbk)

~~~
wattson12
his videos are only blocked until they air on HBO in the US, so in a day or so
they should be available in the UK

------
joelrunyon
Snowden interview starts at 15:55 -
[https://youtu.be/XEVlyP4_11M?t=15m55s](https://youtu.be/XEVlyP4_11M?t=15m55s)

------
ASlave2Gravity
With this section 215 and myriad others like PRISM, Upstream - my question is
why? Surely the overheads for looking at every single thing are so costly it
borders on inefficient? I understand the 'deputising' of Facebook, Google ect.
But why do governments want all this data? Is it as Snowden puts, '[to have] a
gun over our head.'? That idea makes sense to me, if someone falls out of line
the people in power have sensitive information on them and can steer the
wayward back to the core ideology?

~~~
Zezima
The government wants this data in order to maintain control over a population
of millions of people whose democracy prohibits the authoritarian spying and
oppression which can be found in Russia or China.

It allows the United States government to exploit weaknesses in individuals or
the entire population when they have so much information.

The only question which is critical to consider is why a person should care if
you they "nothing to hide". Glenn Greenwald, the journalist who was first
contacted by Snowden, gave a TED Talk on the topic
[http://www.ted.com/talks/glenn_greenwald_why_privacy_matters...](http://www.ted.com/talks/glenn_greenwald_why_privacy_matters?language=en)

It answers your question better than I just did.

~~~
maxerickson
I don't think there is a conspiracy of control. I think the people involved in
creating these programs are true believers who think they are making the world
a better place.

The idea that it is being done to maintain control creates a nexus of evil, a
boogeyman that is responsible for it all. The idea I propose, that the only
thing behind it is basic human nature, is much scarier.

~~~
the_ancient
I think you are both wrong, and right.

The people in charge of these programs believe in the United States
Government, not the nation, not the people not the constitution, but the
government

They believe that Anyone that disagrees with the government at any level is
the enemy and they must protect their government from that enemy even if those
people are the citizens of that very nation they are suppose to serve.

------
knweiss
Watching this video feels like attending a funeral together with a clown.

------
butwhy
This interview was very cringeworthy. Snowden kept getting cut off and the
entire thing was just totally disrespectful.

~~~
mhomde
That was the point, they didn't want to idolize Snowden and even made some
pretty hard accusations about him being responsible for inadvertent
repercussions

That made the rest of the interview more believable and trustworthy. Fair,
balanced and humorous

I agree that it's a fine line between simplifying a topic for "the general
masses" and dumbing it down to something out of the movie Idiocracy. However,
I think that Oliver has done a fair job of making it easier to relate to
topics people otherwise wouldn't.

(He could use a touch less cursing to add some gravitas where needed, but
that's a matter of personal taste I guess)

~~~
butwhy
Here is Snowden... having dedicated and risked his life to help his fellow
citizen, to have Oliver claim that Americans "don't give a shit" and that he
is incompetent for passing on information to journalists that will publish un-
redacted material. So Oliver is trying to be funny whilst fundamentally
insulting his work and the freedom he has given up.

~~~
tinco
No, Oliver was not trying to be funny. Oliver was pointing out the truth as he
observed it, and at the closing part of his interview offers a solution.

So yes, there was some very harsh criticism during the interview and it was
difficult the watch, but it made the interview that much stronger and the
solution offered that much more appealing.

It proves that Oliver is not your average 'funny-man' and dares to make part
of his show uncomfortable just to establish a solid foundation of his
interpretation and proposed solution.

~~~
butwhy
Well he was actually trying to be funny. He is a comedian. This interview is
for a "satire" show.

------
sbose78
I think John Oliver's producers are heroic.

------
DyslexicAtheist
anyone having problems with the video not available in their country should
consider using [https://proxtube.com/](https://proxtube.com/) browser
extension (especially in Germany you can't live without, due to GEMA)

------
laex
Video not available for Australia.

~~~
zer0rest
try downloading it with youtube-dl, or use tor :)

~~~
mrmondo
samm-mbp ~/Desktop % youtube-dl
[https://www.youtube.com/watch\?v\=XEVlyP4_11M](https://www.youtube.com/watch\\?v\\=XEVlyP4_11M)
[youtube] XEVlyP4_11M: Downloading webpage [youtube] XEVlyP4_11M: Downloading
video info webpage ERROR: XEVlyP4_11M: YouTube said: The uploader has not made
this video available in your country.

------
MasoudKnows
Absolutely amazing,

Edward Snowden thought he was smart and by giving the 200,000K copies of
important documents to so called "intelligent journalist". Doesn't solve
anything...it kind of allows the NSA to plead for more money for security.
Which we don't want!

------
tripzilch
Question for the Americans on this forum: What has the media coverage of
Snowden actually been _like_ in the US, then?

From the comments all over the web (not particularly HN), as well as John
Oliver's "we didn't cherry-pick these" remark about those street "interviews",
I got the idea that the Netherlands, the EU, or the rest of the world has seen
a wholly different news-coverage of Edward Snowden than the USA.

For instance, this comment on Imgur really puzzled me: _" Watched the whole
interview after seeing the last image of it that was uploaded today. Dude
seems nice. A little naive, but nice"_. That sounds as if the person who wrote
this truly hadn't seen Snowden speak and/or explain his motives before today??

This guy's face has been all over the news for the past _two years_ , and
there have been numerous, in-depth interviews with Snowden, and live video
appearances, that were in fact full of great soundbites suited perfectly for
news coverage. And IMO, assuming one is remotely interested in a serious
answer, some were in fact easier to understand than the few words Snowden got
in between with John Oliver. Mainly because he got to finish his sentences and
they asked sane questions (by which I don't mean the "Can they see our dicks?"
question, that one may be crass, but it _is_ actually an effective summary, in
some sense).

Somehow it seems like this appearance on a comedy show, talking about dick
pics, is _actually_ the first time for a great many people to hear Snowden
explain himself and the issues at hand (that have been at hand for the past
two years).

I am very on the fence about this. Taken at face value, this interview was
absolutely totally cringeworthy and awful. This guy gave up his life to bring
the truth to light, he is a hero[0], I'm fairly sure that John Oliver sees and
agrees with this, yet he shows him a pair of rubber testicles with stars-n-
stripes pattern.

On the OTHER hand, maybe the question "But can they see our dicks?" really is
the last question that can make Americans actually care about this subject
matter, in which case John Oliver did a great thing, if it actually works,
that is wonderful. And I cringe for your country.

Another nice mindtwister to think about: That folder, purportedly containing a
"dickpic" of John Oliver. Two possibilities, which one is worse: Edward
Snowden, man of Truth, exiled for life, in Russia, having to play along with a
semi-scripted silly comedy sketch (you can see his discomfort) pretending
there is a picture of John Oliver's penis in that folder. OR the alternative:
John Oliver actually handing Edward "f-cking" Snowden a folder with an actual
photograph of his naked penis.

(I'd probably have more respect for the latter, also fits better with these
ridiculously Strange Times we live in. But I guess Snowden's facial expression
would have been somewhat different)

[0] About the "traitor" part. A certain number of (corrupt) people in the USA
might "honestly" feel betrayed by him, in an informed manner. But what he did
is so much bigger than that, the rest of the world knows him as a hero.

------
lurkinggrue
Just curious: If you had been at time square would you have avoided his
cameras?

------
Yuioup
This is one of the best things I have ever seen.

------
bayesianhorse
It was hilarious to watch.

------
entelechy0
This was excellent. Thank you for sharing.

------
zer0rest
Stop looking at my dick nsa.

------
skaplun
John is brilliant.. but i wasnt very impressed with snowden, his mannerisms
dont feel genuine.

~~~
the_ancient
You were not impressed by Snowden because frankly I believe Snowden was not
prepared for John Oliver's style of sarcastic comedic interviewing.

John is correct on the fact that the average person does not take this
seriously or is completely ignorant on the subject. Edward Snowden believes
the topic of mass surveillance is a very serious one, as he should. John is
acting like the normal person namely an immature moron that does not take this
topic seriously at all...

Both are brilliant and John's commentary is a sad wakeup call to the
intelligence of the average person in this country.

The fact that "Dick Pics" is the best way to get the public to understand the
massive problem that is mass surveillance is both true and very very sad.

