TRIGGERnometry - Your Government is Spying on You - Silkie Carlo

00:00:00.000 Hello and welcome to Trigonometry. I'm Francis Foster.

00:00:07.980 I'm Constantine Kishin.

00:00:09.480 And this is a show for you if you want honest conversations with fascinating people.

00:00:14.860 Our brilliant guest today is the director of Big Brother Watch, Silky Carlo. Welcome to Trigonometry.

00:00:19.220 Thank you very much.

00:00:20.200 It's great to have you on. Listen, for anyone who does not know who you are, tell us a little bit about your background.

00:00:25.440 who are you how are you where you are what has been the journey through life that leads you here

00:00:29.960 sitting talking to us i'm the director of big brother watch we're a uk privacy and civil

00:00:35.240 liberties organization um i've been a big brother watch for a few years previously i worked at

00:00:42.040 liberty and started the tech and human rights program there focusing mainly on surveillance

00:00:46.320 and that was when the investigatory powers act was going through parliament's big mass surveillance

00:00:52.160 law uh the snoopers charter um and kind of that's that is my my journey into human rights

00:00:58.880 campaigning i mean i've you don't like being watched i take it except right now um i was

00:01:06.000 always a civil liberties um campaigner obviously growing up in the post 9 11 years i mean really

00:01:11.600 live debates about civil liberties um and then in 2013 when snowden blew the whistle i felt really

00:01:20.140 compelled to uh to to make that part of my kind of life mission maybe sounds grandiose but my my

00:01:28.300 focus of work I mean it's so to me very very important felt like a watershed moment um and I

00:01:35.400 started working for his legal defense fund which then became uh an NGO that now looks after

00:01:41.380 whistleblowers and uh truth tellers including Snowden and uh Chelsea Manning and many others

00:01:48.080 called the Courage Foundation.

00:01:50.280 So I've been working a lot around surveillance, technology and human rights

00:01:54.060 as a civil liberties human rights advocate.

00:01:56.840 Well, we're really excited to have you on the show because as you know, Silky,

00:02:00.000 it's a great time for civil liberties in this country.

00:02:03.660 We haven't lost any of them over COVID.

00:02:06.000 No, yeah, everything's great.

00:02:08.540 No work to do.

00:02:09.620 Yeah.

00:02:10.200 So could you just give an example of all the things that have happened over COVID,

00:02:14.660 particularly the most important civil liberties that we've actually lost?

00:02:18.080 Oh, yeah. How long have you got?

00:02:21.380 About an hour.

00:02:24.660 So I think around March 2020, things changed rapidly, very, very quickly, even though I think the machinations of government had been preparing for some of the legislative changes for a bit longer than the public knew.

00:02:45.240 and so when the coronavirus bill was published it was published about three days before it being

00:02:55.200 passed 360 pages that is where my sleepless nights began because no one was really scrutinizing it

00:03:03.740 certainly not the opposition very much and in there it's now an act it's still in force well

00:03:10.940 over a year later in there you have the power to detain potentially infectious people which can be

00:03:19.020 in a pandemic anyone there's no kind of clear threshold there's no detention time limit there's

00:03:24.840 no clear place you would keep these people quarantine centers or anything no clear access

00:03:29.960 to legal advice just the kind of legal constructions you don't normally see in a in a democracy or even

00:03:35.980 in an emergency, the power to suspend the right to protest, the power to cancel gatherings,

00:03:42.940 cancel elections, a reduction of thresholds around mental health detention. I mean, just a really,

00:03:49.720 really broad range of sweeping powers, massive state enlargement with very little scrutiny. And

00:03:57.300 that was supposed to last for two years. At that point, and of course, now we know people haven't

00:04:03.400 been shipped off into quarantine centres for unknown amounts of time. They could be under

00:04:08.280 the current law that we have, which is worrying enough in itself. And protests have basically

00:04:13.920 been banned. But to have those kinds of powers at the fingertips of government so readily,

00:04:21.620 so easily, cancelling elections even, you know, this is, it's really, really serious

00:04:26.980 stuff, it puts us in a very perilous position where all you need is really, you know, a change

00:04:35.380 of breeze. And suddenly we're living in a very, very different society. And let's remember as

00:04:41.100 well, I mean, the whole idea of us being in this emergency, yes, it's very terrible. I mean, we are

00:04:47.200 in quite mature democracy where we have the Civil Contingencies Act, for example. I mean, there are

00:04:52.080 structures and laws in place that are designed for emergency situations. Why the government

00:04:59.060 didn't use the Civil Contingencies Act, I don't know. There's never been a clear answer to that.

00:05:04.040 It would mean that Parliament would be scrutinising what the government is doing

00:05:07.180 very regularly. Instead, what they did with the Coronavirus Act is basically hand over

00:05:14.120 the keys to the country, abdicate scrutiny to the government in perhaps most the enabling kind of

00:05:24.280 way. That's where it started. I mean, obviously, since then, we've had literally hundreds of

00:05:29.380 statutory instruments. So small pieces of legislation that go under the radar in Parliament

00:05:33.940 that have changed the way that we live, that have criminalised pretty much every aspect of

00:05:38.380 everyday life at different points. But that's where it started. And by that, I just want to

00:05:44.980 be clear, I'm not saying at all in a pandemic that you want the government to sit back and

00:05:48.960 do nothing, that they shouldn't be legislating, that we might not need to have extraordinary

00:05:53.060 measures. But I don't think we need, I don't think we needed kind of blank check authoritarian

00:06:00.940 measures. And that is completely what we've seen over the last 18 months and a breakdown of the

00:06:07.280 rule of law do you think the the public are less concerned about it than perhaps they ought to be

00:06:12.880 because we've been so terrified about covid that a lot of people feel like well any measure to to

00:06:18.340 help with that is necessary uh we we certainly see people you know people were talking about

00:06:23.240 how anyone who goes abroad and then brings back covid should be you know sent to jail for 10 years

00:06:27.860 or something like people see no just fibbing on the form you can go to jail for 10 years right

00:06:32.940 Wow. So I guess what I'm getting at is we can complain that it hasn't been properly democratically scrutinized. And I think that's a very important point, which I want to come to a bit later. But on the broad side of it, I think, is it fair to say the public generally haven't really been that concerned about this?

00:06:50.280 it's a good question i think that the public my sense is that the public is quite divided

00:07:00.720 i think particularly people who have been living in fairly comfortable situations making sourdough

00:07:07.960 for the last year are not that concerned they might be used to working from home they might

00:07:14.280 not be economically hit as much as everyone else they might not be the kinds of people that are

00:07:18.600 targeted by the police when they go out. But I think that there are probably millions of people

00:07:27.880 who are actually completely alarmed and freaked out by what's happened over the last year and who

00:07:34.220 don't have a voice and haven't been given a voice because the media has been doing the government's

00:07:39.480 work for it. And you might, again, you might say there are very good reasons for that, but there

00:07:44.080 hasn't been any balance and even on like really simple matters like how democracy and politics

00:07:50.940 work um you know i've been watching incredulously political correspondents

00:07:57.940 fail to even acknowledge basic massive changes in the way that parliament works or total lack of

00:08:06.500 of scrutiny total lack of opposition um the way that timing of introducing some of this legislation

00:08:13.460 has been so completely cynical to basically disempower Parliament. Now compare that to what

00:08:21.660 happened when the same, broadly the same government, tried to disempower Parliament over Brexit.

00:08:28.320 It was top of the news. It was the biggest news story. Everyone became aware of the importance of

00:08:36.300 Parliament, a parliamentary procedure, the power of MPs. We have a parliamentary democracy. We

00:08:42.140 don't have a completely executive dominated democracy and that was a completely different

00:08:46.500 type of of of coverage um and brexit too was important because it was uh you know it was the

00:08:53.140 will of the the people the pandemic is important but could i say have some have some balance and

00:08:58.660 i think part it doesn't also doesn't help people who are losing trust in the establishment

00:09:03.740 and in institutions because they feel deliberately silenced

00:09:10.240 and not represented, whether that's on the media

00:09:12.900 or actually whether it's online as well, where you, I mean,

00:09:18.080 I could go on forever about this, but, you know,

00:09:21.520 the severely shrinking space for the sorts of things you can say

00:09:25.680 about the current situation on Facebook, for example.

00:09:28.580 Oh, we'll get into that. Don't worry about that.

00:09:30.480 We'll get into that.

00:09:31.620 But didn't you find it surprising, you know,

00:09:33.420 The whole point of an opposition is to challenge the government.

00:09:38.080 If anything, they were even more authoritarian.

00:09:41.080 Yeah, even more authoritarian.

00:09:42.320 And also, I think the general, Keir Starmer's general approach seems to be,

00:09:49.580 you won't be able to put a paper wedge between me and the government

00:09:52.980 and a kind of like, sit back, let's see if they fail,

00:09:56.500 maybe then I'll pick up some votes.

00:09:58.080 That seems to be the kind of strategy to me.

00:10:00.840 I just want to be clear, by the way,

00:10:02.080 Big Brother Watch is a non-partisan organisation.

00:10:04.800 I'm actually personally a non-partisan person as well.

00:10:07.860 And part of the reason for that,

00:10:09.040 and I think part of the reason that a lot of people

00:10:10.800 are disillusioned with politics,

00:10:12.360 is we're back in the realms of a kind of...

00:10:15.920 you can't... a kind of bipartisan consensus.

00:10:22.020 I mean, there's a growing consensus

00:10:23.960 between the two main parties.

00:10:25.320 This is what we had kind of for a lot of the Blair years as well.

00:10:28.800 and then just this whirlpool of authoritarianism at the centre of it

00:10:33.620 where citizens are losing out.

00:10:35.360 And I think it's a really bad strategy for any political party.

00:10:41.880 It's deeply, deeply unfair to the people that they claim to represent

00:10:45.780 and it's bad for British democracy.

00:10:48.420 It actively harms democracy.

00:10:50.560 And it has been left to rights groups and NGOs like us

00:10:53.580 to do the hard scrutiny work.

00:10:55.180 And you're basically delivering scrutiny work to MPs

00:10:58.660 and saying, please look at this.

00:11:00.860 Just, you know, don't have to do the work yourself.

00:11:02.600 Just have a look at what's actually going on.

00:11:05.480 Speak up for the people who care about this.

00:11:07.600 For example, under the Coronavirus Act,

00:11:11.260 the power that I mentioned to detain potentially infectious people,

00:11:17.320 unsurprisingly, has never been used lawfully

00:11:20.000 to detain potentially infectious people.

00:11:22.500 It's been used as another stick to beat people with,

00:11:24.940 and it's been used for 100% unlawful prosecutions.

00:11:28.660 And we know that because we campaigned as soon as it was passed to say the CPS needs to be reviewing every prosecution that's happening under this power because it's so extreme.

00:11:38.540 And they've found that hundreds of people have been unlawfully prosecuted, not a single lawful prosecution.

00:11:47.700 And we have lobbied Parliament to remove those powers for obvious reasons.

00:11:51.380 We've never had a law that's being used only ever unlawfully

00:11:56.740 to jail people, and it remains in power now.

00:12:03.100 It's very hard to motivate the opposition

00:12:04.780 to even say anything about it.

00:12:07.500 Do you think there's been a watershed moment

00:12:09.400 with the murder of Sarah Everard,

00:12:11.660 where suddenly people realise that, hang on,

00:12:15.200 you can't even attend a vigil without the police coming in

00:12:20.240 and literally kneeling on people's necks, particularly women.

00:12:23.220 And there was that very striking image.

00:12:25.140 Do you think the tide has turned?

00:12:26.180 She was kneeling on her back.

00:12:27.560 The officer was kneeling on her back, yeah.

00:12:30.740 I think it obviously shook a lot of people.

00:12:35.820 And the optics of it were absolutely awful.

00:12:40.140 I was there as well.

00:12:42.380 It was pretty bad.

00:12:43.660 Yeah, the atmosphere at the vigil was, you know,

00:12:48.280 the way the police were dealing with it was typically kind of brutish, really, for no obvious reason.

00:12:58.180 But actually, people have been treated like that at protests for quite a long time.

00:13:04.420 And, you know, I might really care about that particular one, but there are other ones.

00:13:09.080 If you defend the right to free speech, you defend it agnostically for whatever it is that individuals are speaking about.

00:13:14.840 there had been plenty of other protests that had been brutally policed where people have been

00:13:20.420 arrested and now facing prosecutions the prosecution is now coming through the courts

00:13:24.520 and no one was willing to speak up for them very few people we did but very few few people were

00:13:30.060 willing to speak up for them so actually one of the things that we did was look at all of those

00:13:36.440 MPs who came out after the vigil and said that was terrible policing we should defend the right

00:13:43.820 to protest and said um asked them to sign a joint statement saying we think that there should be an

00:13:51.980 exemption for the right to protest in the lockdown regulations which many of them hadn't said before

00:13:57.540 we'd been saying this is really important you can't ever criminalize uh protest um and then we

00:14:05.040 released it uh on a weekend when there was a massive anti-lockdown protest uh which i don't

00:14:12.260 know that all of the MPs have maybe clocked I'm not saying it was like a deliberate thing

00:14:16.380 um but I think it was really important that you know if you're defending the right to protest

00:14:20.880 you defend it for everyone um and and also you defend it because you have to bear in mind that

00:14:27.580 as in that case you never know what's around the corner so you never know if there's going to be

00:14:32.980 some change of circumstance or event or some kind of outpouring where people want to express

00:14:38.000 themselves are you really going to criminalize those people you're going to give them a criminal

00:14:41.460 record where it's going to ruin their career or limit their life opportunities just because they

00:14:46.260 wanted to hold a placard and say something they cared about. But that is literally, those protest

00:14:52.260 restrictions remain in place today. And I'm aware there's big protests this weekend, and I'm sure

00:14:58.180 more people will be arrested and prosecuted, unfortunately. Well, you talk about we don't

00:15:02.820 know what will happen in the future and how rules and regulations and laws are going to be used. And

00:15:07.060 I think that's such an important point because we are also not party political. I mean, we think

00:15:11.200 they're all bloody useless at the moment. At the moment? Well, yeah, for a very long time now, 0.99

00:15:16.580 but particularly at the moment. But nonetheless, I think a lot of people might be willing to kind

00:15:21.940 of allow the current sort of, you know, people would, I think, see it as a sort of softer version

00:15:28.200 of what a conservative government could be, potentially. So Boris Johnson isn't someone

00:15:32.840 people think is going to, you know, start the fourth right in the UK. But you are putting

00:15:38.100 things in place where there's no democratic accountability things aren't being checked

00:15:41.640 things aren't being vetted extraordinary powers are being given they're being misused as you say

00:15:46.760 no legal use of a law would seem to me that to suggest that it's a bad law right but do you

00:15:53.560 think there's people just not thinking ahead in terms of what the consequences of this will be

00:15:58.100 down the line well i think i guess um part of the luxury of living in a relatively stable democracy

00:16:04.280 is that people get complacent but not everyone is again I mean I do actually think there's been a

00:16:10.220 bit of a sea change I can only say it from my perspective I mean Big Brother Watch we're still

00:16:14.380 a really small organisation but for us we've had a massive surge of support the phone never stops

00:16:20.260 some people just want to talk and sometimes I find myself spending just a couple of hours on

00:16:25.020 the phone just talking to someone who has actually just suddenly become quite freaked out by the

00:16:29.300 situation that we're in even if that's a journalist or a member of the public or sometimes a member

00:16:33.640 of parliament I mean there really are members of parliament who are freaked out by what they are

00:16:42.240 seeing from their perspective some of whom aren't speaking about it completely frankly in the public

00:16:48.060 domain and so this is kind of this is one of the things that really worries me about the current

00:16:53.340 situation that we're in it's this kind of like it's kind of a bit North Korean the way that

00:17:00.460 people are self-censoring and so even though there might be broad acknowledgement that

00:17:06.020 we're in a very perilous position things have gone too far uh there's been a breakdown of some

00:17:13.320 of the the the basic architecture of what makes us a democracy um when people are witnessing uh

00:17:21.600 you know you know the 90 year old man that got thrown in the back of a police van for going to

00:17:26.680 protest things just start uh triggering people to really really acknowledge that we've gone perhaps

00:17:35.340 beyond a point of return but people won't talk about it and even within social circles um a lot

00:17:41.600 of you know kind of um you know ordinary liberal social circles these are difficult things to talk

00:17:50.580 about um even in mine you know it's it's a lot of people don't want to talk about you you know you

00:17:58.200 want to be you there's this odd kind of sense emergence what you want to be seen as like a

00:18:02.260 true believer in the national program and the clapping and everything I mean there's something

00:18:06.620 that's a bit too um you know I like the NHS as much as anyone but there was the whole you know

00:18:11.580 banging the pots and stuff it there is the um there's something a bit disturbing about this

00:18:18.840 level of uh self censorship yeah i mean i didn't take part in any of that because i'm a miserable

00:18:24.600 git but uh she just laughed like yeah probably yeah i mean there's there's no dispute there's

00:18:30.700 no dispute about that i just find this so so worrying and i know and i really like your

00:18:37.900 opinion on this you think the government gonna give back some of these powers because i look 0.98

00:18:41.940 at them and i go will they they don't like giving up power any of these fuckers yeah they they will 0.97

00:18:47.160 never give back powers never um and I suppose that's why I see I don't think we can really 0.99

00:18:54.560 understand the context that we're in now without understanding the post 9-11 context right that

00:19:00.320 completely changed everything and to this day has changed everything and all we've ever seen

00:19:06.420 since then is a ratcheting of powers uh which is why it was like you know the privilege of my life

00:19:13.480 to work at Liberty because Liberty did so much in the post-9-11 years under Shammy to challenge

00:19:20.560 some of those excesses of government power. But we do still broadly live under all the

00:19:28.980 counter-terror legislation, so much change, mass surveillance. And so it's going to be the same.

00:19:38.560 I think now we've got an emerging concept of bioterrorism, the idea that we perhaps will walk around society with health passes, increasing surveillance generally, the idea that we're kind of now on license from the states, that each of us is a potential not only terrorist, but biohazard.

00:19:57.460 and there's this whole new raft of state controls

00:20:00.980 that are going to be deemed as acceptable or even necessary

00:20:07.020 or even that it would be unsafe not to have them.

00:20:11.740 And so how do you peel back that?

00:20:14.540 You'd have to peel back the whole narrative.

00:20:17.160 I think we, I mean, obviously it's our mission

00:20:19.060 to try and get the government to give some of those powers up,

00:20:23.420 but it won't happen by itself.

00:20:25.400 So, yeah, people need to get involved now and take action now and realise their own power and influence now, which everyone does have and I think is underestimated, because this is going to be a marathon and it's almost too late, I think.

00:20:46.200 Hey, Constantine, do you love trigonometry?

00:20:49.080 Of course. Incredible interviews, hilarious live streams, hard-hitting satire, plus my handsome jawline.

00:20:56.540 Whatever takes away from your hairline.

00:20:58.540 But if you do love Trigonometry and you want to support us, there's only one place to do that, and that's on Locals.

00:21:05.400 Yes, Locals is a brilliant platform that has been incredibly supportive to our show and other problematic creators.

00:21:12.820 The great thing about Locals is that it's a community for people who love Trigonometry.

00:21:17.500 That's right. It's a place for you to hang out with like-minded people, share thoughts, memes and discuss the show.

00:21:22.900 You can enjoy it for free, but it also gives you the option of supporting us for as little as $7 a month.

00:21:29.560 And if you want to give more, you can. We have incredible rewards for our higher tier supporters as well.

00:21:34.820 We've got everything from mugs, monthly group calls and one on two chats with me and KK.

00:21:39.960 Get in. Join our community by hitting the link in the description and the pinned comment below.

00:21:45.320 See you there, guys.

00:21:47.500 You raised one thing that I really care about very strongly. And this is the vaccine passport thing. And people should be making their own decision about the vaccine. I think if people are at risk or whatever, they should be definitely taking it. That's my opinion. For young and healthy people, I think it's a different calculation. But it doesn't matter where you are on the vaccine. The vaccine passport thing, I think people need to understand the implications of this.

00:22:13.780 But there's also another dimension to this, which is that ministers like Michael Gove and others said to us there were no plans to introduce vaccine passports.

00:22:22.740 And this wasn't true, was it?

00:22:24.200 No.

00:22:25.640 I mean, yeah, this is the other kind of worrying facet of this is that there have been barefaced and not even really effectively concealed lies consistently.

00:22:38.800 and a kind of choreography

00:22:43.060 through the building

00:22:47.380 of this growing authoritarianism.

00:22:52.120 And so, yeah, contracts were going out

00:22:54.340 from late last year

00:22:57.460 to build vaccine passports

00:23:00.440 or COVID passports.

00:23:01.860 I mean, the way that they're looking at it now

00:23:03.480 is it will be vaccine or test result

00:23:06.860 or antibodies um so while that's going on people are going on television and saying we have no

00:23:14.840 plans to do this while handing out millions of pounds in contract not just television but

00:23:19.220 stating on record in parliament that we have no plans and in fact nadine zahawi said in fact we

00:23:26.340 we urge businesses not even to think about it whilst they're setting up focus groups to talk

00:23:31.900 about how it's going to go down with the public

00:23:33.860 and starting to invest lots of money in building them.

00:23:39.620 I think there's an element of cock-up there, really.

00:23:43.320 I mean, I don't know if Nadim Zahawi actually knew

00:23:45.840 what was going on within his own brief,

00:23:49.040 but there was a time in politics where you'd maybe resign after that.

00:23:54.520 But now no one resigns over anything.

00:23:56.840 The age of shame is over.

00:23:58.740 Completely, completely.

00:23:59.640 Just ride in the fridge.

00:24:00.880 Yeah.

00:24:01.120 so yeah and now you know right up to till where we are now months later um the app the the vaccine

00:24:12.100 passport is now a feature of the nhs app um and it says on the privacy policy that they envisage

00:24:18.920 using it domestically this might be useful for access to domestic events whilst um in public and

00:24:27.240 parliament saying we're really not sure about whether whether we're going to do this it was

00:24:31.160 very finely balanced you know we're really looking at the facts we're doing a consultation

00:24:34.900 etc etc but all the all the architecture is there and actually Michael Gove said this week

00:24:42.080 no matter what decision is made they're going to build the architecture because they could at some

00:24:48.020 point spring it up and that was his reflection on what happened in Israel as well because they

00:24:53.000 had the green pass um which is now being rolled back and there was you won't hear about it in the

00:24:59.100 press here but i'm in touch with people there there was a lot of pushback to it um and he

00:25:06.760 similarly said um but it might be reignited at any point so um yeah there and that's the idea

00:25:14.960 with test and trace as well you know um it's 30 plus billion pounds of public money on a whole new

00:25:22.420 architecture that can just be used you know that that's not a temporary thing that's not for an

00:25:28.020 immediate uh the immediate situation that's a long-term plan and and this is the thing i mean

00:25:33.580 it happened after 9-11 as well in that when you know there are certain projects that some people

00:25:40.060 in government have always wanted to pursue and uh then an emergency can give you an opportunity to

00:25:49.680 very quickly with less scrutiny and with very few limitations on public spending just start to change

00:25:56.060 everything and there certainly are all sorts of visions within government about the ways

00:26:01.100 to use technology and change the way that we live. Well what are your concerns with the vaccine

00:26:07.640 passports because some people might be watching this going well look it's making us safer we can

00:26:12.040 know who's got COVID who doesn't you know maybe I haven't done a good job of explaining like what's

00:26:17.900 the argument against vaccine passports? What are you concerned about? What should people watching

00:26:23.600 this be like, oh, wow, okay, I hadn't thought of that? Well, we'll talk about COVID passports more

00:26:29.180 generally, if that's okay, because that's where the government wants to at least start. So test,

00:26:35.360 vaccine, or antibody status. There are problems with each. I mean, first of all, it's not going

00:26:40.260 to make anyone any safer. People who want to get vaccinated are going to get vaccinated. People who

00:26:45.240 don't want to are not going to we don't yet have mandatory vaccines in this country so we will see

00:26:51.760 each other we will mix the whole idea that you can create this theater around certain events

00:26:57.060 and places where it's like a clean zone and you've only got the green ticks are allowed in and

00:27:02.420 somehow that's going to change the whole public health situation it's not what it might do is

00:27:08.320 alleviate liability on those businesses and on those events because they can say we've we've

00:27:14.140 done this although one thing that was interesting that Michael Gove said yesterday is they're not

00:27:18.220 going you know one of the concerns we were raising is how does that affect staff if you work for

00:27:23.660 example at a football stadium and you're a steward does that mean now as part of your work you are

00:27:30.420 forced to either have a vaccine or have a medical test in order just to go to work

00:27:35.940 but he said that they're not going to put the obligation on staff which makes it even the

00:27:43.500 theatre even more ridiculous because you're not going to have only green ticks and the whole idea 0.96

00:27:48.100 of that stupid how do you get to the football stadium you get there on the coach with everyone 0.99

00:27:51.580 else or the bus or the tube where you're packed in with you know spreaders or you know whatever 1.00

00:27:56.500 we now are um so i think the risk is that this but it's an id system it's a digital id system

00:28:04.000 and back when you had the id debate after 9-11 it was treated as kind of a future risk like

00:28:11.080 imagine if you had to have your health records on there i've got to imagine if people started

00:28:14.780 asking to see your health status or you know had hiv on there or something these kind of things

00:28:19.660 that come with a lot of stigma and and uh control that's the starting point for this is that you

00:28:26.760 have your health records and you show them to people and you carry it with you most places you

00:28:33.080 go or you know you're deemed a different class of citizen so this is id cards and digital id cards

00:28:39.560 on steroids population-wide and it will become a tool for discrimination for division it will be

00:28:49.320 used as as as i'm afraid yet another stick to beat people with you know there will be certain people

00:28:57.120 will ask other certain people to see their past um and uh i think that will make us into a very

00:29:03.680 very ugly checkpoint dystopian society do you think it's because they're going to pass it

00:29:10.240 through they're going to pass the legislation to enforce this do you know what i think i think

00:29:15.100 there might still be something to play for and i think um watching michael gove in his evidence

00:29:19.920 session this week um he was he actually always looks quite inflated but he was quite deflated

00:29:28.320 it was quite deflated in the way that he was presenting it he didn't seem to really

00:29:35.620 i i don't know what's going on behind the scenes but i get the sense i mean it's no secret i think

00:29:41.820 within cabinet this is very controversial idea um and uh anyone with any political sense knows

00:29:47.860 they're going to get a hammering going for it i mean uh there will be serious serious kickback

00:29:54.000 I think. And I think they'd be making a grave, grave mistake. I mean, I think the Conservative

00:30:00.560 Party forgets they are, especially where this kind of electoral shift has happened, they are

00:30:08.600 kind of on licence from the working class. You know, this is not, they really shouldn't assume

00:30:15.600 that this is a new permanent state of affairs, nor should they assume that the failure of the

00:30:22.100 opposition equates to their success. And I think a lot of it stems from the kind of anti-establishment

00:30:30.080 sentiment around Brexit and the sense of being betrayed and all this kind of thing.

00:30:36.000 I can't think of anything more establishment, more controlling than foisting digital IDs

00:30:42.140 and COVID IDs on a public that has a historic, long-held aversion and scepticism towards the

00:30:51.460 idea. In fact, it was one of the reasons that Tories got into power in 2010. They promised

00:30:57.140 to scrap ID cards. So I think there are people probably who are thinking about the political

00:31:02.880 ramifications of this, also the fact that there's no real point, there's going to be

00:31:06.320 no real benefits, either in public health terms or political terms. And I do get the

00:31:11.840 sense that now that there's some, it's like the wind's been taken out of the sails of

00:31:18.600 the idea and i think that is down to our campaigning and uh everyone who's speaking out

00:31:23.920 against this in uh you know rights groups media um the protests um i think that's that's really

00:31:31.620 visible and tangible and if we continue to do that it might just be that we won't actually see

00:31:37.720 this come to fruition uh however if we're not successful in that then um they're going to

00:31:45.160 introduce them for covid passports for large event large ticketed events like sports music

00:31:52.740 festivals all venues of a certain capacity and he also said he would do that through a statutory

00:32:00.860 instrument so it's not even primary legislation in a normal sense which means you can't mps can't

00:32:06.160 amend it it's like an all or nothing my understanding where the numbers are on there

00:32:11.200 would still be a vote my understanding on where the numbers are is that they would have a hard

00:32:16.700 time getting that through parliament but it all comes down to labor actually i mean the numbers

00:32:22.400 are much well that's reassuring the numbers are much easier to do on the on the conservative side

00:32:28.540 because i think they don't have the confidence of their own party the question is will will labor

00:32:35.480 oppose them. And certainly the Labour back benches will, but whether the front bench will

00:32:41.340 remains to be seen. It's just very much on the fence at the moment. But I think what Keir did

00:32:44.900 say, which is right, is that it's fundamentally un-British. Well, we've done quite a lot of

00:32:50.580 things that are fundamentally un-British in the last year. I guess the takeaway from this is

00:32:53.980 everyone should write to their MP, I think, about this. Is that? I think it has a surprisingly more

00:32:59.000 impact than people think. I mean, often when we're lobbying MPs, they'll say, I just don't have

00:33:05.160 emails in my inbox about this um all right well let's make sure there's some emails in the inbox

00:33:10.660 yeah so let's move on a little bit uh we've talked about government action uh i actually

00:33:16.160 no longer think government is the most powerful institution that exists in in the world it's me

00:33:21.280 and you mate it's just me and you she's laughing more than any and more than at any point during

00:33:26.660 the interview so there we go um i actually think that the biggest powers in the world are the big

00:33:31.360 tech companies at the moment. They control who gets to be president of the United States and

00:33:37.080 what they can influence that. They've shown their willingness to do that. And in terms of the issue

00:33:43.920 of COVID, we have seen that, for example, the lab leak hypothesis, the idea that the COVID-19 came

00:33:50.860 from a lab in China, initially was dismissed as a conspiracy theory. Anyone who said anything about

00:33:56.820 it would be banned from Twitter, banned from Facebook, the YouTube channel would be deleted,

00:34:00.280 etc now that issue is coming back as potentially the truth about what happened now we don't know

00:34:06.160 but the conversation wasn't able to be had and it's only thanks to a lot of people bravely

00:34:11.180 going against that that we seem to have that conversation now we've had a conversation on

00:34:16.900 our show with a doctor about some aspects of COVID-19 medical microbiologist which was taken

00:34:22.700 down by YouTube and YouTube was very heavy in its censorship of people who had a view about

00:34:29.700 COVID-19 that was not the particular view that was supposed to be allowed at that moment in time.

00:34:36.260 And then three months later, suddenly all of that actually turned out about the efficacy of masks,

00:34:41.240 for example, right? So what is the situation with regards to big tech? Where are we? Like,

00:34:48.520 they just, it seems to me, just deciding what we can and can't talk about now.

00:34:52.340 Yeah, completely. It's such an inversion of everything that the internet promised to be this big space for people to speak without barriers and, you know, speak directly to power.

00:35:11.280 and increasingly it's becoming like a controlled government controlled actually speech zone

00:35:17.300 because even finding a distinction between some of the big tech companies and governments is

00:35:22.420 becoming increasingly hard and again this is another extraordinary thing that this government

00:35:27.740 is wading into with a new um bill the online safety bill whereby um they they have invented

00:35:36.260 a category of content that is harmful anything that's harmful needs to be regulated on the

00:35:46.000 internet or taken off the internet even if it's lawful and so part of what the tech companies

00:35:52.840 are doing is pre-empting that they they can see this regulation coming and they're pre-empting

00:35:59.900 that part of it i think is driven by kind of reputational concerns this is whole god only

00:36:04.800 knows why but there's this whole category of journalism at the moment it's like we found a

00:36:09.840 bad thing on the internet um it's like what really all those billions of people you found a nasty one

00:36:16.680 in there like that that's become a whole category and so they're very responsive to that um and

00:36:22.640 yeah now we're kind of completely through the looking glass in terms of where the uh the shape

00:36:29.800 of the restrictions online um i know you have felt the brunt of that a bit i've actually felt

00:36:36.920 the brunt of that uh myself um you know perfectly reasonable ordinary stuff um that you can be

00:36:44.240 banned online for for saying um and i think especially given the proximity of some of that

00:36:52.580 recently over coronavirus to uh the pr wishes of the chinese government um is pretty chilling 0.98

00:36:59.880 um yeah i mean i know ian birrell's piece on um unheard which just merely sort of questioned the

00:37:07.760 efficacy of the world health organization um investigation into the origins of covid was

00:37:14.020 marked as as false on on facebook um yeah and now of course they're they're they're rolling back

00:37:21.460 Well, who'd have thought it? Facebook should never be, big tech companies should never be the arbiters of free speech. And also the whole concept of free speech has never, ever been and should never be the accepted consensus of government authorities or intergovernmental authorities.

00:37:42.580 I mean, the whole point of free speech is it allows ordinary citizens to speak their, sorry, truth, their opinions. 0.93

00:37:52.120 I fucking hate that, my truth. No such thing. 0.94

00:37:56.220 I didn't mean that.

00:37:57.160 I know you didn't.

00:37:58.440 But to give their views to power.

00:38:01.420 Yeah.

00:38:01.640 And actually now what they're saying is you can say what you like if it agrees with the government's view on things.

00:38:12.580 And I don't even think that that, it's crazy, isn't it? Why is this so accepted? I mean, it's like a big alarm bell moment. I think it should be for all of us that there is this shrinking space to speak freely.

00:38:28.480 and especially given how much we spend our lives online,

00:38:33.120 the shrinking space to think freely as well

00:38:37.260 and how it's actually shaping the kinds of conversations

00:38:39.620 we're having when we're offline.

00:38:42.240 You say that and look, I'm going to give the argument

00:38:46.000 that people always say, look, they're private companies,

00:38:48.280 they can do what they want.

00:38:49.760 If you don't like it, go somewhere else.

00:38:52.400 What is your response to that?

00:38:53.660 Well, I mean, the idea that this isn't de facto censorship is crazy. I mean, of course it is. I mean, they are hosting the conversations of billions of people. There are more people on Facebook than the populations of many, many countries around the world. And just with one policy change, they can affect what literally billions of people can say to each other.

00:39:22.200 So this is a very serious type of censorship. Yes, they're private companies, but part of what I'm worried about actually with the online safety bill is that because the government is saying, is creating these expectations on them, that they are doing regulation and censorship of lawful content, if it's basically undesirable, harmful,

00:39:46.980 then yeah we're no longer looking at the free will of private companies we're looking at

00:39:53.900 the total integration wherever we heard this before of the private and public sphere into a 0.80

00:40:01.060 system that controls what people can say I can't think of anything more dangerous more ludicrous

00:40:07.920 than that and also creates a barrier to entry so even if you are a new company that wants to create

00:40:16.220 a new platform then then you've got all of these regulatory um barriers that mean you know you

00:40:24.960 would need a team far bigger you need an infrastructure of a size uh that you clearly

00:40:32.940 can't have as a fledgling company so there's a total barrier to entry as well as this monopolization

00:40:39.380 it's it's so worrying isn't it and it just i've cheered you up then yeah yeah you have well i'm

00:40:45.880 miserable anyway and you've just made me more miserable so thank you very much for that but

00:40:50.180 let's look at sort of what what can people do because what we're doing is we're analyzing

00:40:56.940 the problems but what do you think are going to be the solutions moving forward um i mean

00:41:02.580 obviously i think that joining with or supporting organizations like us like big brother watch

00:41:09.900 is important as part certainly part of it because we're tracking this we see we're scrutinizing

00:41:16.940 what's going on we're lobbying on these bills we are trying to bring more to public attention

00:41:22.700 certainly to political attention and producing research and analysis around this and litigation

00:41:28.080 where necessary as well so we're currently crowdfunding to bring a challenge to COVID

00:41:33.920 passports if they go ahead we just won a challenge on uh mass surveillance post snowden i mean so we

00:41:41.360 we do we do litigate as well but i think i think that's i think that's really important kind of

00:41:47.140 finding your crowd and you know finding like-minded people who are concerned about these things

00:41:51.780 i think also this may be a very hard thing but actually even just talking about these issues

00:41:57.940 uh with people there is definitely and also to your member of parliament of course because

00:42:05.140 um it's often people who are the most kind of disillusioned who realize uh the kind of

00:42:10.400 uh problems with the political system they don't want to engage with it i completely empathize

00:42:15.840 with that i understand that but it's a necessary thing to do especially in this kind of uh you

00:42:21.960 know dangerous moment that we're in um we have to be ringing alarm bells you know wherever we can

00:42:27.920 particularly with people that hold the reins on on power or at least who should do um but i think

00:42:32.820 actually even talking about these things is is really important i think the kind of um spiral

00:42:38.300 of silence um among a lot of um you know otherwise liberal people is a real problem it's a massive

00:42:45.620 problem and i i don't think you know spaces like this i bet there's a lot of i bet you've had

00:42:52.060 emails from people that say i've been looking for something like this so i'm really glad you

00:42:56.320 had this conversation i haven't seen it elsewhere or just somewhere you can actually think and speak

00:43:00.560 freely about some uh issues that otherwise aren't discussed very much in the media or um among the

00:43:08.380 chatterati more generally yeah those are some of the emails we get we get a few others as well

00:43:12.480 But actually, you bring up the political point, and I know that you are not partisan, and we try and stay away from picking sides as much as we can. We just try and operate on the basis of principles of what we think is important. And you mentioned that there's a silence seemingly, particularly on the sort of liberal side of the spectrum. And I find that very odd. I found it very odd when I, as a comedian, started saying, well, there's a bit of an issue with free speech going on. People immediately assumed that I was right wing.

00:43:39.460 And I have no idea what your politics are.

00:43:42.160 Frankly, it doesn't even interest me.

00:43:43.920 We're talking about this issue.

00:43:45.180 To me, this is not a political issue.

00:43:48.380 It's an issue of like the West for centuries

00:43:51.740 has been trying to get to a point of enlightenment

00:43:54.440 where there's certain things that we all understand

00:43:56.300 are important for a liberal society.

00:43:59.020 How has that link been made between freedom

00:44:03.360 and being like a bigger of some kind?

00:44:06.360 How did that happen?

00:44:08.900 It's a very, very good question, isn't it? I don't know. And it's.

00:44:15.680 Yeah, I was looking back to, you know, the ACLU in the US and.

00:44:22.640 They've changed the tune lately, haven't they?

00:44:24.340 Yeah, there's been some big changes over there. I mean, obviously a really important organization.

00:44:28.380 They do loads of really important work. But, you know, they made their reputation through doing some of the hardest free speech work you can imagine.

00:44:38.900 they defended the rights of neo-nazis to march through a jewish area of uh in the us and to do

00:44:48.800 these neo-nazi marches you wouldn't actually be able to do that under uk law so already this is

00:44:53.580 more you know this is we look at something under the kind of american model of free speech

00:44:57.300 uh it would be definitely incitement all sorts of offenses that could fall under here but it forced

00:45:03.780 the ACLU and many of their advocates who are Jewish to put forward a very very compelling

00:45:13.580 argument about why they thought that that was not only in principle but in practice the right thing

00:45:18.560 and there is a long Jewish tradition of defending the right to free speech and and human rights and

00:45:23.680 civil liberties generally obviously given modern history and we've come so so far away from that

00:45:32.740 um they were i think absolutely vindicated in the campaigns that that they did they showed

00:45:37.760 themselves to be truly agnostic truly dedicated to the principles of free speech um it eventually

00:45:43.880 defused the situation um and like you say if you if you believe in kind of post enlightenment idea

00:45:53.240 of rationality how does rationality work why do we have free speech because we we trust in

00:46:00.040 individuals, in people, in publics, to explore information, deal with it, and that through

00:46:10.060 free and fair access to information, rationality will prevail. The Enlightenment idea was not,

00:46:18.140 it was obviously, in fact, a kickback to the idea that the elites control the information for the

00:46:24.200 benefit of the public. We've just gone back about 500 years, because we're back at this kind of view

00:46:30.920 that the elites need to control the information for the benefit of the public. And I think there's

00:46:36.540 perhaps a problem with maybe elitism in some liberal circles, certainly in rights organisations.

00:46:42.620 I mean, they are generally, you know, middle class, you know, organisations, but they simply

00:46:48.160 don't trust ordinary people with information. As you saw a lot of this rhetoric around Brexit,

00:46:54.200 this kind of idea of, you know, whatever your views on it, again,

00:46:58.140 but the very dominant...

00:47:00.360 We were on the right side of that one.

00:47:02.020 The very dominant idea of, like, anti-Brexit

00:47:09.160 was that you have these, like, poor, brutish people

00:47:13.760 who can't properly understand information.

00:47:15.780 They're just duped.

00:47:17.860 And you actually had a bit of that after the most recent election as well.

00:47:21.200 you know these working class people don't really know you know you know they're just kind of 1.00

00:47:26.740 duped you know idiots this kind of like amorphous group of of dumb people who who make mistakes 1.00

00:47:34.180 unsurprisingly you know that that's not going to pay off politically but also it's just not true 1.00

00:47:40.360 um and i think the the the damage that is i i think it's a real i think it's actually a travesty

00:47:47.880 that there is such an abandonment of free speech principles

00:47:51.920 that that kind of philosophical underpinning of free speech

00:47:55.040 and why it matters on the left.

00:47:57.700 It's really sad.

00:47:59.120 And the other kind of practical thing about it

00:48:00.860 is that there's just no...

00:48:05.920 Part of the reason maybe you see less from rights organisations

00:48:08.460 is there's no funding for free speech work anymore.

00:48:14.440 And this is maybe interesting to any people inside my world

00:48:17.800 But it might help to explain to people why you see less of it.

00:48:22.660 I mean, you have big funding organizations.

00:48:24.600 A lot of groups rely on them to do their work.

00:48:29.900 And no one's funding free speech stuff.

00:48:32.900 There's a lot of funding for disinformation, misinformation type work.

00:48:38.080 Do you think that's maybe because to just offer a little bit of a counter,

00:48:43.260 The internet has opened up a massive can of worms when it comes to mass communication.

00:48:48.140 So 50 years ago, if someone was standing on the street corner banging on about how vaccines

00:48:54.140 are actually microchips and whatever, 20 people would walk past, probably all ignore that

00:49:00.520 person, and there was no harm done.

00:49:02.800 Nowadays, David Icke says something, people are burning down 5G masks the next day.

00:49:07.080 there's a bit more of a consequence to speech when it's done online because of the multiplication

00:49:13.460 factor of it because you can reach millions of people and because let's be honest the internet

00:49:18.640 does incentivize the spreading of misinformation because it it's it's exciting it's like

00:49:25.140 extra spicy food or extra flavor like people want it they want to hear the oh the secret

00:49:31.700 answer to all that actually was, you know, the lizards or whatever?

00:49:37.260 I don't know that the consequences of speech have changed.

00:49:43.780 I mean, people made the same kind of arguments

00:49:45.240 when the printing press was invented.

00:49:47.900 But the printing press did allow for mass communication

00:49:50.540 in a way that previously wasn't possible.

00:49:52.100 Yeah, so people also had this kind of panic about, you know,

00:49:56.260 the proles having access to information.

00:49:58.660 Yeah, kind of.

00:49:59.120 yeah the lack of control lack of kind of centralized control over it i mean the thing

00:50:03.800 about the internet is that if you truly democratize information um you can then

00:50:10.340 especially if you're in a kind of forum environment you will have at your disposal

00:50:16.720 lots of different views and interpretations of what you're reading and seeing you can do your

00:50:22.500 own research. You can find academic papers. You can find journalism, unheard views, whistleblowers.

00:50:30.500 Yeah, but that isn't how most people consume the information. Most people go on YouTube and go,

00:50:34.600 oh, there's a thing here about how the vaccine is all bullshit. I'll click on that. I'll watch 0.99

00:50:39.640 that. And they won't then go to a forum or anywhere else to check out the counterfactuals

00:50:44.660 and the counterarguments. That's kind of the argument that, you know, I do have some sympathy

00:50:49.000 with which is the internet has created unique challenges around this this issue because people

00:50:55.440 don't just you know not everyone is going around seeking all the different points of view on a

00:51:00.920 particular issue uh you know you go on a on a mumsnet forum about the trans issue there's only

00:51:07.100 one view being represented there right and i'm not saying it's the wrong or right view but it's

00:51:11.580 only one view and increasingly everyone is kind of stuck in the echo chamber of their own opinion

00:51:16.880 And I think that that's maybe where I have some understanding of the issues that the big tech companies are trying to address.

00:51:24.700 Do you see what I'm getting at?

00:51:27.620 No.

00:51:28.400 Okay.

00:51:29.500 No, for why.

00:51:31.280 I agree that echo chambers are a problem.

00:51:33.460 I think that's a massive problem.

00:51:35.340 And that people are curating their often increasingly radical worldviews by deciding who they hear from on heavily curated timelines.

00:51:44.640 And also, you know, for example, even when you go on Twitter, hardly anyone uses it chronologically anymore. So Twitter is pushing you the things that they think are going to be most attention grabbing. Sometimes even people that you're not following, you know, they're trying to feed you things that are going to maintain your attention because that's where the money is.

00:52:02.480 And the same happens across all the platforms.

00:52:05.040 It's not just there.

00:52:06.160 So I think the echo chamber is a real problem,

00:52:08.760 much more than the availability of to speak freely

00:52:13.400 and to access information freely,

00:52:15.520 which let's not forget is a fundamental right

00:52:17.460 and for very good reasons.

00:52:19.560 And I think the reason that those echo chambers

00:52:22.860 are not the subject of scrutiny

00:52:24.700 is because that's the business model

00:52:26.620 and that's where the money is.

00:52:28.280 If there was a proposal that said,

00:52:30.260 If we just were to try this thing, first of all, for a year, ban micro-targeted advertising, ban that kind of granular data collection from individuals and see what happens.

00:52:46.700 And I think half of those problems, I think more than half of those problems would just fall away.

00:52:51.540 So what you're really saying is they're pretending to try and fix the problem. The problem is echo chambers, but they are pretending to fix it by restricting what people can say. If they just allowed the echo chambers not to form in the first place, we wouldn't have the issue.

00:53:05.320 I think echo chambers are a problem. I mean, I also wouldn't say that, it's not to say, free speech comes with problems, for sure. Like, I'm not saying that videos that are deliberate falsehoods, etc, are not problematic. Of course they are.

00:53:23.120 but the belief in free speech is that the best way to deal with them is by having a free and

00:53:29.640 open environment um and by having forums where people can speak and challenge if you don't have

00:53:36.680 that if you don't have debates and if you push people into uh kind of their like deeper darker

00:53:44.300 echo chambers where they can't be seen and heard it's not going to change their point of view it's

00:53:48.680 going to make them feel marginalized and ignored and it's not going to expose them to the challenges

00:53:52.620 they would otherwise encounter. And moving on, I saw a very, very interesting article about one of

00:54:00.180 the head bods at Microsoft worrying about AI and the fact that we're essentially, if we don't

00:54:07.300 actually challenge the progress that we're making and we let technology run away with itself,

00:54:12.860 we're going to be in a dystopian society very, very quickly and far sooner than we originally

00:54:17.740 thought. To me, that was one of the head guys at Microsoft. What do you think about that?

00:54:23.100 Elon Musk has been warning of the same thing for a long time as well.

00:54:26.060 Yeah, there's a lot of people who work in the tech sector. It's where you find a lot of preppers

00:54:33.220 as well. People who are worried about the direction of travel and how bad things might get

00:54:41.420 and the kind of tech dystopia that awaits. Most of them are still willing to make some money out

00:54:46.600 of it before they decide to you know pack a get a backpack and and move on um but yeah i mean

00:54:53.040 already um you know what some of our work has looked at is how that's creeping into uh how

00:54:59.700 that's affecting citizens here um early uses of ai so you see ai in the criminal justice system

00:55:06.460 already uh there was a system used by durham police where um when someone was suspected of

00:55:12.780 an offence, they could be put through this AI tool that would assess how likely they were to

00:55:21.200 re-offend. This is before they've even been prosecuted, by the way. So we don't even know

00:55:27.900 if they've offended yet, essentially, from a criminal justice point of view. Yeah. And there

00:55:32.380 was this data fed in about the individual, judge whether they're going to re-offend, and then judge

00:55:39.240 are you going to prosecute them or put them through to a rehabilitation program

00:55:43.460 and we were then looking at the types of data that were being fed into that and and and that's

00:55:50.180 often where the problem i mean there are obvious problems risks with ai but i mean i think you have

00:55:55.020 to start from the point of what's the ai built on often it's masses of personal data um that kind

00:56:02.680 feeds the beast. And so they were using postcode data. So, you know, this postcode would say

00:56:13.400 something about you. And also a what's called a geodemographic segmentation tool. They're very

00:56:21.880 popular in government now. It's basically every single person in this country has a profile given

00:56:27.820 to them by this tool uh this more or less built on your postcode um and millions of pieces of

00:56:36.360 data that ranges from gcse results electricity usage ratio of gardens to buildings to kind of

00:56:44.020 get a sense of like what kind of class and category of there's about 60 odd different

00:56:48.980 codes that you can be and so this stuff was fed in to judge someone's life outcome basically um

00:56:57.540 I remember a film about something like that.

00:57:00.220 There's a minority report or something?

00:57:02.480 Yeah, there's so many things like that now.

00:57:06.100 In the criminal justice system in particular,

00:57:08.400 we've got facial recognition now that the police want to use,

00:57:10.860 facial recognition cameras.

00:57:14.220 Yeah, in local councils as well,

00:57:16.920 one of the things we've been analysing recently,

00:57:19.780 we've got a report coming up,

00:57:20.880 is about the use of automated decision-making

00:57:25.060 in big data in the welfare system, once you apply,

00:57:28.800 what kind of profiling and processing are they now doing there?

00:57:33.080 Great stuff.

00:57:34.780 Exciting.

00:57:35.840 The future is bright, Francis.

00:57:37.480 It is bright.

00:57:38.520 It is.

00:57:39.080 And it just seems we're on this relentless march.

00:57:42.120 Whereas before, 15, 20 years ago, you'd go and see something

00:57:44.920 like Minority Report and you'd be like, oh, that's an entertaining slice

00:57:48.740 of entertainment, isn't it?

00:57:50.380 Oh, yeah, I'll just walk into the real world.

00:57:52.180 But more and more, it just seems that technology is going at hyper speed and it's running away from us.

00:57:59.440 Yeah, it's a classic story of power.

00:58:02.540 You know, I think anyone, if you're civil liberties or a rights advocate, you have to scrutinise power and look where the sites of power are and try to, you know, make sure there's a healthy balance between citizens and those sites of power.

00:58:21.080 whether it's governments or technology companies and so on um but i think one one of the things

00:58:27.320 that is obviously um you know not great about my line of work is that often because of the

00:58:33.060 situation when when you acknowledge it and i think this is why so many people are in denial or

00:58:37.060 cognitive dissonance about the current situation that we're in when you when you really take stock

00:58:41.120 of it and acknowledge it it's quite daunting and the overwhelming sense is fear and fear is just a

00:58:47.700 very low vibration thing to uh you know to to dwell on so uh you know that that's a problem

00:58:56.160 and i think we have to get beyond that i think i think what's perhaps exciting about the moment

00:59:01.200 that we're in as much as it is extremely challenging is that whenever you see a force

00:59:07.200 an action there's a reaction um and i do think you know people talk about the tech lash there's

00:59:14.400 some of that I think that there will be probably delayed but there will be a response to you know

00:59:21.940 the harder and faster the pace of authoritarianism that we're experiencing right now we will see the

00:59:27.020 same kind of reaction to that and how that's going to play out politically etc is something to watch

00:59:34.320 but I do think wherever there's a vacuum that vacuum a political vacuum that will be filled

00:59:40.120 um like we can see over the last 10 years with some of the anti-establishment kind of political

00:59:45.760 movements um you know we have to make sure those vacuums are filled in the right way but i think

00:59:50.080 that they will be and that's why i think anyone who is uh motivated by this moment uh what we're

00:59:58.320 currently going through as a country and and more broadly who is motivated to uh build you know

01:00:06.020 actually have a say about the future especially if you're a parent you know a lot of people are

01:00:10.780 worried about the kind of world that their kids are going to grow up in we'll do something about

01:00:14.500 it um you know the future is absolutely ours for the taking and and we just have to claim it and

01:00:22.020 i think that will be an interesting thing to to be part of and watch over the next few years

01:00:27.000 well it's a lovely note to end the interview on uh we always finish uh with our final question

01:00:32.720 which is what is the one thing we're not talking about

01:00:35.060 but we really should be?

01:00:37.420 Well, since we had this week our legal win

01:00:41.400 in the legal challenge against mass interception

01:00:47.660 after Snowden blew the whistle in 2013.

01:00:50.800 So we've just done eight years of a legal challenge.

01:00:54.740 I think it's important for everyone to know

01:00:57.160 if they don't already,

01:00:58.360 if the last decade didn't get it through,

01:01:01.020 that even in the UK,

01:01:02.060 we are now living in an environment of mass electronic surveillance

01:01:07.300 and our own government spy on us.

01:01:10.700 What does that mean practically when you say mass electronic surveillance?

01:01:13.740 Is your phone listening to you right now?

01:01:17.040 The government collects and can collect and access calls,

01:01:23.180 video calls, texts, messages.

01:01:26.440 They can hack devices.

01:01:27.660 They can hack entire nation's devices.

01:01:32.060 if they want to. We have the most totalitarian surveillance legislation of any democracy in the

01:01:38.420 world in the UK and some of the most advanced capabilities. We've seen over the last few

01:01:44.160 decades how you've had environmental activists, race equality campaigners, environmentalists

01:01:52.120 being spied on by their own government and sometimes with very negative impacts.

01:01:58.980 um that is a big chunk of the battle that we have to fight and i would like to see a bit more

01:02:06.440 uh that to kind of register on the political spectrum a bit more um but meanwhile i would

01:02:12.260 say to everyone use signal and we've gone back into being depressed well you're back where you

01:02:18.640 belong mate but we're going to do a couple more questions for locals only in a second but uh

01:02:23.500 silky thank you so much for coming on the show it's been a pleasure having you on i have no doubt

01:02:28.120 we will be calling you again very soon probably from a prison cell yeah we could be meeting in

01:02:35.140 prison yeah but um tell everybody what they can do how they can get involved with big brother watch

01:02:40.700 uh where they can find you and your work online thank you well uh we are bigbrotherwatch.org.uk

01:02:47.140 we're on twitter at bigbrotherwatch uh and we have some micro sites now as well i think one

01:02:53.480 that people might be interested at the moment

01:02:54.640 is stopvaccinepassports.co.uk.

01:02:58.240 Excellent.

01:02:59.140 All right, well, thank you so much for coming

01:03:00.740 and thank you for watching at home.

01:03:02.580 We will see you very soon

01:03:03.840 with another brilliant interview like this one

01:03:06.080 if we're not in prison.

01:03:07.520 Which we probably will be.

01:03:08.780 But anyway, keep following the channel

01:03:10.320 and we'll be streaming live from Belmarsh.

01:03:12.760 See you soon, guys.

01:03:23.480 We'll be right back.

TRIGGERnometry - June 02, 2021

Your Government is Spying on You - Silkie Carlo

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript