*36C3 preroll music*
Robert Tibbo: Thank you for your patience tonight. It was a little bit hectic in my
getting here on time. So I do apologize. But thank you for all being here tonight.
Myself and the Snowden refugees, Mr. Snowden, we really appreciate your
attendance here. The people watching the livestream and the support for my
clients. And just very briefly, in case there are a few people out there, I met
Mr. Snowden in 2013, June in Hong Kong. And that's when he made the globally
significant disclosures of the Five Eyes electronic mass surveillance program. And
it was at that time that I represented Mr. Snowden in Hong Kong. And thereafter. And
it was also at that time that I asked for brave adults, incredibly courageous adults
who exercised decisions of conscience to provide Mr. Snowden with a refuge, with
shelter, humanity, compassion and caring. And to introduce them again. Briefly,
Vanessa, on the left, if you're facing the screen from the Philippines to her right.
To her left. A military deserter from Sri Lanka. Nadeka from Sri Lanka. And on the
far, far left supporting from Sri Lanka. And these are the three children. On the
bottom left is Keana, and beside her is her stepsister, Satyamdi. And support is
holding a little boy Dinath. *Applause*
What what I'm gonna do this evening before providing a brief update on the Snowden
refugee status. I'm gonna go through a bit of law, I think, at this stage. There's
been such marginalization, demonization, confusion about what refugees are and
what, you know, what is required to qualify as a refugee. I'm gonna go through
a number of international law and at the same time. Beyond that, I'm gonna go
through what's happening globally and in my view, where we're really at a crisis in
terms of authoritarian leaders democratically elected and ignoring their
constitutions, violating them, blatantly ignoring international law. So very
briefly, I've just listed some of the most crucial or core conventions that protect
human rights from the U.N. Universal Declaration of Human Rights to the UN
Convention Against Torture. And of course, the UN Convention relating to the Status
of Refugees and its protocol. I'm also mentioning the Rome Statute of the
International Criminal Court, because this is a court where this court itself is now
being attacked by states around the world, nations around the world. I'm also
mentioning customary international law, which is an international norm, where due
to practice, the practice becomes so pervasive that countries no need, no
longer need to sign up to an international treaty. That treaty becomes part of
customary law. It doesn't have to be written anywhere. Now, the core document
I'm going to discuss is the Refugee Convention and Article 33 and some are sub
paragraph one is the core. It's the core part of refugee protection and that is no
state shall expel return. And the legal word is refoul means to return. So no
state is going to should return any refugee. And that also includes any
refugee claimant out of their jurisdiction where their life or freedom are at risk,
and that the life and freedom also includes any serious harm. And there
are five fundamental grounds to secure refugee status, race, religion,
nationality and political opinion. These are the classical four. There's a fifth
called social group. And it's not a closed end category. It's actually open
ended because as you know, over time, we recognize that different human rights
abuses occur affecting different social groups that don't fall into the four
classic categories. So just a review just to interpret Article 33. As I
mentioned, liberty and life also includes serious harm. It's a forward looking test.
So if an asylum seeker or refugee crosses a border into another country, they don't
need to prove that they actually suffered any harm or any threats or any risks or
any threats or harms or loss of liberty or serious harm before they leave their
jurisdiction into another jurisdiction. That person has to show they're unable or
unwilling to seek help from the police or the state. And that's quite often the case
because of corruption or the state itself is the persecutor. And there must be a
nexus to one of the five grounds. I'm going to focus on political opinion and
political opinion can be expressed by an individual verbally through their physical
actions. The presence with others and political opinion is connected to the
right of freedom of expression. And one thing I would stress is that freedom of
expression under the law is not just your right to say something. It's also your
right to receive information, to be present, to be able to hear and listen or
record. And the freedom of expression connects fundamentally to freedom of
association, assembly and mobility. Lot of people misunderstand that persecution for
political opinion is the persecutor. Is that the opinion comes from the persecuted
person. In fact. The Refugee Convention clearly states, it is the opinion of the
persecutor that counts. So, for example, I've had clients from South Asia. One case
was of a farmer who just had no political opinion, but was at a rally in a public
place and just was standing on a corner and was unaware there was a political
opponent standing near him. Those in power saw my client. Inferred that my client
must be supporting the opposition. And from that day onward, persecuted him,
burned down his house, destroyed his farm and he fled for his life. So the legal
test is the opinion or the perception of the persecutory. Now, I'd like to go to
the social group category. This is really important, because this relates to some of
my clients and in particular the Snowden refugees. And a social group is a
particular group of people that are connected or linked through a shared
characteristic or there's a perception by society that they, you know, having
certain characteristics that they form a group. These characteristics are typically
historical and relate fundamentally to an individual's identity and conscience.
Usually they're unchangeable. And if they're not unchangeable, that person
should not have to change those character characteristics, because they are
fundamental to their identity or conscience. If they can be changed, they
still should not be changed because they're linked to that person's
fundamental exercise of human rights. The Snowden refugees fall into the social
group category. Aside from having claims with Hong Kong and the Canadian government
under political opinion for supporting helping Mr. Snowden, they form the unique
social group that I think everyone in the world recognizes. They are the Snowden
refugees and the social group are individuals that protect whistleblowers.
That's the social category. *Applause*
One thing I'll stress is that we hear about whistleblowers and public support
for whistleblowers, not protection. Public support for journalists to carry out their
duties. Quite often working or reporting, what whistleblowers want to disclose. But
there is not enough in, in terms of legal applications, there's not enough in terms
of public awareness, the importance of the average individual on the street, anybody
on the street who may one day be faced with, what the Snowden refugees were faced
with and make extraordinary decisions of conscience to help a whistleblower. I'm
mentioning the CAT Convention, the United Nations Convention of Torture. Torture is
a non-derogable right. It's not to be tortured is a non-derogable right. There
is no circumstances that exist that can justify any state or private party
torturing an individual. And I also mentioned the International Covenant on
Civil and Political Rights and 3, 3 core rights here are the right to life and that
it should not be arbitrarily taken. Tortures repeated here, but also cruel,
inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. And this is a a non-derogable
right. No one should ever be subjected to this. And then the last one I'm going to
mention, I apologize, is liberty and security in particular, arbitrary arrest
and arbitrary detention. And as we see globally today, countries around the world
where there's mass protests against government corruption, government abuses,
a lack of freedoms. Governments are arbitrarily using arbitrary arrest and
detention to make people disappear. To shut them up. No need to mention or point
to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. And in there, as well as Article
31 of the Refugee Convention, that every refugee claimant has an absolute right to
cross a border if they're at risk of losing their liberty, their life or
serious harm. And unfortunately, we're living in a world today where countries
and around the world are putting up walls that are real, walls that are virtual.
Because they do not want to address or comply with their international
obligations to help the most vulnerable. And what nation states are doing is
they're using propaganda, inaccurate information, false information to
criminalize legitimate asylum seekers and refugees, to try to categorize them as
illegal immigrants, economic migrants. And with all of this, we're seeing an erosion
of international law and constitutional law. And one area where nations have been
very clever is they've been using the strategy of constructive refoulement. Now
refoulement means to return. And in Hong Kong, for example, the government achieves
constructive refoulement, which basically means, they create an environment that
makes it intolerable for an individual to remain in that jurisdiction. And that in
the end, that person's mental and physical integrity is so compromised, they make a
decision to return their home country to take a risk. So whether they're going to
live or die or lose their liberty or not. So in Hong Kong, for example, the
government does not provide full humanitarian assistance. They criminalize
work. There's no education allowed for adults. And employment is prohibited so
that there's no way for the individual to be making money or participating in a
meaningful way in society. And in the end, that person becomes so compromised, they
decide to leave. The governments create these circumstances to violate their
constitutional rights, international equal rights, by making them leave, by making
the circumstances intolerable. You're seeing a global trend of criminalization
and ill treatment of asylum seekers. You've seen similar legislative and policy
and propaganda frameworks in Austria, Denmark and Hungary. We've all seen the
asylum seekers who've lost their lives crossing the Mediterranean. In the United
States we've seen separation of children separated from families, a tactic used by
the US government. The children held in detention centers, deprived of blankets,
soap, toothpaste, a lack of monitoring and care for the welfare and health of these
children. Some have died and more recently. And this is a tactic also used
by the Hong Kong government, but in a different way. Asylum seekers who are
outside the U.S. jurisdiction, the immigration officers put incorrect
addresses recorded in the system, so that they cannot receive legal notifications
from the U.S. government. You've seen the same thing in Hong Kong. I know firsthand.
I've seen asylum seekers go to the immigration and removal assessment
section, try to hand in a document stating that they're raising a claim as a
protection claimant for refugee status or torture. And there are security guards at
the door that basic that tell them go away. It's not acceptable. Not immigration
officers. And if they do manage to submit raising their refugee asylum claims, I've
I've had too many clients, who've been told you're not using the right words to
raise a claim that you're afraid you're gonna die or you're afraid you're going to
be hurt. So these are tactics that deny, what I would describe, the due process
rights of these votes, this vulnerable groups. And I do want to mention Thailand
in terms of the treatment of asylum seekers. And that they have found mass
graves in Thailand has been complicit in human trafficking of the Rohingya. Now,
there's a few quotes I'd like to to read, and this is from the former U.N. high
commissioner for Human Rights. And it was right for us -not just to have remembered
Mandela's greatness, but to have almost unconsciously contrasted it with all the
narrow politicians, who continue to proliferate across the face of the world.
Authoritarian in nature, many of them are wily political in-fighters, but most are
of the thin mind and faint humanity, prone to fan division and intolerance. And just
for the sake of securing their political ambition, while some do this more openly
than others, all are well aware what they practice comes at the expense of
vulnerable humans. And the U.N. high commissioner goes on to state to them, I
say you may seize power or stubbornly hold onto it, by playing on and stoking the
fears of your followers. You may congratulate yourselves for this and you
may think yourself so clever for it. But we know all you've done is to copy the
behavior of previous generations of once strong but ultimately catastrophic,
leaders and politicians. Yours will, in the end, become a mouse like global
reputation, never the fine example of the leader you think you are, and never even
close to a Mandela. *Applause*
To deserve global respect, you must begin to follow his example---committing to the
spirit and letter of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Hong Kong
does not recognize the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Hong Kong
doesn't recognize the UN convention relating to the Status of Refugees.
Michelle Bachelet, the current U.N. high commissioner, she stated early this year
"the report outlines our efforts to assist States to uphold all human rights, at a
time when humanity faces many serious challenges. These include the existential
threat of climate change; technological developments: unbearable civilian
suffering in multiple armed conflicts, displacement, youth unemployment,
structural economic injustices, xenophobia and hate speech, and -- a focus on my
statement today --- gross inequalities". Me specially continues focusing on these
inequalities and I'm just going to read at the bottom. Yet in several cases they are
being met with violent and excessive use of force, arbitrary detentions, torture,
even alleged summary extrajudicial killings. People are protesting. People
are protesting at the behavior of government and authoritarian leaders. And
I put my mind to how to describe what's going on. And in the best way I've been
able to describe it is, that these authoritarian leaders, democratic,
elected, have become unhinged, disconnected from from the populace. And
most recently, especially as talked about global protests, and she stated just a few
months ago, I fear that we are moving farther away, further away from the global
solutions to the global problems due to two clear trends that are taking us in the
opposite directions. Today, in places with very different circumstances, level of
development and political situations, we're seeing an outpouring of popular
discontent and mass protests or their suppression with the firm hand of the
state in every region. And Hong Kong is included in here and I'll just part move
forward. We see the desperate need for dialog. The use of unnecessary and
disproportionate force against people holding dissenting views
and arrests of individuals exercising their rights to freedom of expression and
peaceful assembly can only exacerbate tensions, seriously undermining the space
for dialog. In my view, we are in crisis. There is a global crisis. What I thought I
would do is to give some tangible examples through the casework I do. Narendra Modi.
His platform has been Hindu nationalism, and that's been at the expense of
religious minorities and ethnic minorities in India. In particular, the Muslim
population. And what Modi has done and this is this is a thread that runs through
what happens in other jurisdictions, including Hong Kong, is when you have
nationalism and minorities are targeted by the government or they're discriminated
against. Third parties in the private sector or related to politicians act on
their own. And when the state allows that to happen, we call that state
acquiescence. And in India, that's what we're seeing. Back here. Recently, there
was a deprivation of citizenship of 1.9 million people in Assam state, an
arbitrary act by Modi's government. And as of last week, there was a new bill enacted
into law, granting citizenship to Hindus, Buddhists and Christians from certain
Southeast Asian countries. But it excludes Muslims and it also excludes the Sri
Lankan Tamils, for which there is a huge number of refugees, who had fled from Sri
Lanka. And what Modi has done is all contrary to Article 15 up to 28, and
that's prohibition of discrimination based on religion, race and
place of birth. The tactics used by governments today in doing what Modi has
done, it's being used all over the world. The executive branch for the legislator
legislature passes legislation that's unconstitutional and it may take a year or
two or three years before a court strikes it down. But during that gap period, those
people who are discriminated against or persecuted suffer. Often they have to flee
their homes. They had to flee their country or they're hurt or they're killed.
So this is another way that democratically elected leaders are utilizing the
government and the legal system to strip away constitutional rights and rights
under international law. Sri Lanka, extraordinarily good by Rajapaksa, accused
of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide, was elected as Sri Lanka's new
president just a month ago. In 1987 to 1988, 1990, he was the commanding officer
in charge of the Mottola district, where about eight years ago they found mass
graves. In 2009, he was accused of war crimes, crimes against humanity and
genocide. At the end of the war bombing, hospitals, civilian hospitals where they
were Tamils, actually judicial killings, summary executions. And the
platform of Rutter Rajapaksa was based on ethnicity and nationalism. And the
Philippines. Duterte came to power in 2016. It was on the platform that he would
carry out mass extrajudicial killings against drug addicts and drug traffickers.
He had done that when he was mayor of Davao City in southern Philippines. And in
June 2016, when he took power as president of the country, he did exactly that to
over 20.000 Philipinos executed. The president, the Philippines, the government
have threatened NGO, human rights activists, ethnic minorities, Catholic
Church and even U.N. special rapporteurs. And stunningly Duterte was actually
filmed. This was televised, where he in his campaign and basically committing
crimes against humanity. He said "If Germany had Hitler, the Philippines would
have. He said, pausing and pointing to himself. Hitler massacred three million
Jews. There's three million drug addicts, there are. I'd be happy to slaughter them.
And a year later, Donald Trump congratulated Duterte on his war on drugs.
U.N. Special Rapporteur on the rights of indigenous people, Victoria Tauli-Corpuz.
She fled the jurisdiction because the tar tape put her on a her name on a terrorist
list. This is about state acquiescence to human rights violations when a government
puts an individual's name on a list. And what happened in the Philippines? Private
parties took the law into their own hands and executed a number of people,
assassinated them. So that was the fear for the UN special rapporteur, and she
fled the jurisdiction. Complaints were filed with the International Criminal
Court for crimes against humanity against Duterte. And also this UN special
rapporteur, Agnes Kellerman on summary and extradition killings. Both the
International Criminal Court prosecutor was threatened by Duterte and also the UN
Special Rapporteur. Most significantly, the ICC prosecutor was threatened with
arrest, if she came to the Philippines to investigate. She'd be assaulted and she'd
be killed. She'd be fed to the crocodiles. Philippines officially withdrew from the
International Criminal Court, but that still does not protect President Duterte.
Duterte may have committed possible war crimes. I've mentioned a few here,
particularly calling for horrific crimes to be committed against women. And the
People's Republic of China has been a great supporter of Duterte today, and it's
understood that, because of the provisions under the Rome Statute for the
International Criminal Court, that Duterte would not be prosecuted. China would use
its veto power in the International Criminal Court to prevent any prosecution
of him. Again, this is an example of how states are interfering with violating or
making international law useless. The People's Republic of China, the most
pressing example are the current concentration or detention camps in China.
Of the Uighur Muslims, and despite the China cable, satellite images and
witnesses, China denies that they've arbitrarily arrested, arbitrarily detained
and disappeared over a million from [unaudible] Xinjiang provice.
I'd like to mention Hong Kong very briefly, and Hong Kong has had a
history of violating its own constitution and international law. From the Sami al-
Saadi extraordinary rendition, where Hong Kong deprived Mr. Saudi of all his due
process rights and its protections under international law and handed him over the
UK and U.S. government on a rendition flight in 2004. And that was the incident
that put fear that made, that gave me great concern when Mr. Snowden was in Hong
Kong, that the Hong Kong government could not be trusted to uphold its constitution,
to uphold international law. 2014 Occupy protests, Ken Tsang, a politician. He was
hold tied, hands tied behind his back and his legs and tortured by the police, and
it was caught on video and these officers were convicted, but then they compared
them, the police compared themselves to being persecuted as the Jewish people had
during the Holocaust. And that's on video that's been publicly recorded. And 2018
Allen Lee and Ray Wong fled Hong Kong in fear for their liberty and their and their
safety, and they were granted refugee status by the German government, which was
the right thing to do. And this caused a lot of outrage of the Hong Kong government
and Beijing. And right now we have the Hong Kong protests, including arbitrary
arrest, arbitrary detention, cruel and inhuman or degrading treatment and
punishment, torture, enforced disappearances, cases of rape by the
police and actual extrajudicial killings. I'm going to skip this. I still have
clients, my clients in Hong Kong, Snowden refugees, and fortunately this March,
March of this year, Vanessa O'Dell and her daughter Keana safely arrived in Canada,
having been granted refugee status. *Applause*
This was a seven and a half year battle, seven and a half years, and one thing I'll
say is that so many people gave up, so many people said to me, you're not going
to win. It's taken too long. What? Why don't you just move on with other cases?
Anyways, I believed that we'd be successful. And we have.
*Applause* Keana, in this photo, this is Keana on her
father's lap. And her father is still in Hong Kong with her brother and sister.
Satyam de and Denath, and we would like to see this family being reunited in Canada
and we're asking Canada to act fast, as fast as possible. She has a sister who
only thinks about in Hong Kong something, who only thinks about being reunited with
Keana in Montreal. And at this time, with the with the police abuses, the government
abuses in Hong Kong Sethumdi she has been traumatized and she suffered permanent
damage. The whole family is afraid. They live in fear and they are at heightened
risk with the lawlessness in Hong Kong. The lawlessness by the Hong Kong police. I
just want to share this picture, which was taken by Jane Russell in August this year.
This is the Hong Kong Police Tactical Unit in Fanling. And you'll notice that there's
no Hong Kong flag. And Jane Russell, photojournalist, pointed this out. And it
was at that point we all realized that the hand of Beijing was apparently acting
directly inside Hong Kong. Directing the Hong Kong police. What's happened in Hong
Kong, is the same thing that you see in Sri Lanka, in Bangladesh, Pakistan, India,
where the government allows the police to commit abuses state sanctioned or the
police commit abuses and the government turns a blind eye. And that amounts to
state acquiescence. And what's happened in Hong Kong is, what you see classically in
Sri Lanka or the Philippines, where third private parties take the law into their
own hands and go after innocent civilians or peaceful protesters. Hong Kong has
become a very dangerous place today. And my clients lives are at risk, at a
heightened risk. I thought I would share this image taken by Keana's father of
[inaudible] during the protests. And this is what these children are
growing up in this kind of environment right now. Where really where they should
be, is in this environment. And this is Vanessa and Keana in Montreal, Quebec, not
just earlier this month. Now, what I'd like to do in saying that is I'd like to
invite Mr. Snowden to join us. Dom. Check. Edward Snowden: Can anyone hear me? Thank
you. *Applause*
We have very little time. So let me first give thanks to Robert Tibbo. I know it's
not always fun for Rudy to sit through, what is effectively a long lecture about
what's wrong with the world. But these things matter and it's important that we
remember how they get better. I've been thinking a lot this year and writing my
book, Permanent Record and after about the state of the world and the direction of
our future. *laughing*
I trust that each of you will understand that in 2019 this was not an especially
enjoyable activity, but it's necessary. And one of the bright spots for me in this
increasingly dark world has been the fact that people like you, that CCC has
supported these families over the last few years. They made a difference for me.
Think think about, what would have happened if I wouldn't have been able to
get off the street. Think about what might have happened to me. I think about the
fact that I wouldn't be able to talk to you today and all these years since the
book that I wrote would not exist. It might seem like a small thing, you know,
to you, to it to give a donation to help out. But I believe that it really has
genuinely changed the future of these brave families in a positive way. And so
when I'm thinking about everything that's broken in the world. It got me thinking
about the lessons that can be taken from them and how they fit into a larger
framework. We have pretty limited time here. So I'm going to do something a
little bit unusual to try to summarize and read a little passage from the book. What
makes a life? It's more than what we say. More even than what we do. A life is also
about what we love and what we believe in. For me, what I love and believe in the
most is connection, human connection and the technologies by which that's achieved.
Those technologies include books, of course. But for my generation, connection
has largely met the Internet. Now, before a lot of you recoil, knowing how broken
the Internet, the toxic madness that's all over it. I understand that for me, as it
was for, I believe many of you, when I came to know it. The Internet was a very
different thing. It was a friend and a parent. It was a community without borders
or limit. One voice and millions, a common frontier that had been settled, but not
exploited by diverse tribes living amicably enough side by side. Each member
which was free to choose their own name and history and culture. Everyone wore
masks. And yet this culture of anonymity through polyanomy produced more truth and
falsehood, because it was creative and cooperative rather than commercial and
competitive. Certainly there was conflict, but it was outweighed by goodwill and good
feelings. The true pioneering spirit. You'll understand why I say, that the
internet today is in many ways unrecognizable. It's worth noting that
this change has been a conscious choice, the result of a systematic effort on the
part of a privileged few. The early rush to turn commerce into e-commerce quickly
led to a bubble and then, just after the term of the millennium, to a collapse.
After that, companies realized that people who went online were far less interested
in spending than in sharing, and that the human connection, the internet made possible,
could be monetized. If most of what people wanted to do online, was to be able to
tell their family and their friends and strangers what they were up to and to be
told what their family, friends and strangers were up to in return, then all
companies had to do to figure out how to put them was figure out how to put
themselves in the middle of those social exchanges and turn them into profit. This
was the beginning of surveying capitalism and the end of the Internet, as I know it
now. It was the creative web that collapsed as countless beautiful,
difficult, individualized web sites were shuttered. The promise of convenience led
people to exchange their personal sites, which demanded constant and laborious
upkeep. As you are known for a Facebook page and a Gmail account, the appearance
of ownership was easy to mistake for the reality of it. But few of us understood it
at the time. None of the things that we go on to share would belong to us anymore.
The successors to the emerge commerce companies that had failed because they
couldn't find anything to sell, that we were interested in. They now had a new
product to sell, and that product was us, our attention, our activities, our
locations, our desires, everything about us, that we revealed knowingly or
unknowingly, with or without consent, was being surveilled and sold in secret so as
to delay the inevitable feeling violation that is for most of us arriving now. And
this surveillance would go on to be actively encouraged and even funded by an
army of governments greedy for the vast volume of intelligence that they would
gain from these practices. Aside from logins and financial transactions, hardly any
communications were encrypted in the early twenty aughts, which meant that in many
cases governments didn't need to even bother approaching the companies that were
running these platforms in order to know what their customers were doing. They
could just spy on the world without telling a soul. And now I ask you, is this
what the world should look like and how did this come to be? We were there. We
were watching, and we thought we controlled the system. We thought we ran
the system. We thought it was our Internet. But here we are. Surveillance,
after all, is less about safety than it is about control. And when you look around at
the union of technical and political systems today, it seems that they intend
less to serve us than for us to serve them. And it's funny talking about this at
CCC, because to me it it feels like a hack. You know what is hacking, I'm sure,
all you guys have different definitions. But in my definition, it's not just
programing. Of course, we wouldn't see terms like bio hacking. Hacking is about
rules and the distance between how they are believed to operate and how they
operate in fact. Hacking for me means, coming to understand a system better than
its creators or its operators and using that understanding to produce impossible
results, unexpected behavior. Thanks so much. Now we'd like to think about hacks
in a positive light, but in the case of these last few decades, it's our society
that was hacked. It is the whole of our network. It is the Internet itself, that
they exploit. And you see that. That's the thing. The choices that we make and the
things that you do. They have power and doing nothing, that that's a choice. Now,
a lot of us like to think it's a willing choice. We'd like to think that we're the
sole captains of our own destiny. And that's the way it's supposed to be. That's
the way it was intended. That's the way we designed the system. And yet the system
today. Somehow the actors within it spend an enormous amount of energy trying to
make you forget, that the things you do affect the outcome. They'll tell you not
to worry about it. That that it's not so bad after all. You know, it could be
worse. But I say to you, it could be better. And every time we hear those
words, that's what we need to say. Every system in history, even the most powerful,
has been subject to change. And every hack that is performed against us, can face a
patch and more in all of the trouble to which these people have gone, to to make
the people broadly forget their own power, they have forgotten something that I think
is fundamental. We can hack back. They run the system. They may have won today. But
I've been thinking about this, look, we all know the history and it has been a
dark time. But I'm here today in front of you to say that tomorrow will be ours.
Change is coming and it is coming from people who pay attention. People who care.
It will come from people like you, who took the time out of the day, out of their
lives. The money out of their pocket to travel. The time, the minutes of your life
to be here today, standing in solidarity, talking, learning, sharing to show that
this broken world could very well be better. We can change it. We can change
everything. One system, one rule at a time. Thank you.
*Applause* I just hope it's not kind of I no longer
have audio, so I'm afraid I won't be able to.
Robert Tibbo: Ed, we've got Vanessa on the screen, half the screen with you right
now. And she's, uh, she's on video live from Montreal. And can you...
ES: Just if it's not clear I can't do anything even so, I'm a bystander now. I'm
going to go to the stream and hopefully Robert and Vanessa can help us for the Q&A
RT: Ed, do you want to do a Q&A right now or do you want to. They've lost that. All
right, so, yeah. So Vanessa's in Montreal and I've invited here her here today. And
so why don't we just start with a Q and A? This is this is really it's Vanessa's
first year after a decade and a half of being under very difficult circumstances.
*Applause* Herald: Also, you know the drill. We have
microphones in the halls. Please line up behind them. If you have question for a
Robert Tibbo or Vanessa and hopefully Mr. Snowden will join us again, I think we're
working out the background. Do we have questions from the Internet so far? Yes,
that is the case. So, Signal-Engel, please give us a question.
Signal-Angel: Do you think that whistleblowing could have prevented
fascist received regimes in the past and that it will be more important in the near
future for the same reason? RT: Questions for me, I'm assuming.
Whistleblowing has always occurred in the past and it has brought about change.
Historically there, you know, there are recorded cases, but the difficulties in
the past were the lack of protections. Quite often in whistleblowers had to leave
the jurisdiction. They would end up being killed. And and really, it's only in
recent history and in particular with with Edward Snowden's whistleblowing, that
governments around the world, including the European Union as a whole, recognize
that there needs to be change. There needs to be more protections. But we're also
seeing that nations are providing enhanced whistleblower protections. But on the
commercial civil side and they're still lagging significantly, where there's
whistleblowing outing governments that behave egregiously or criminally, as in
Mr. Snowden's case. So more than ever, whistleblowing will remain and will
continue to be a crucial part of ensuring government accountability and
transparency. But for whistleblowers to step forward, a couple of things have to
happen. Society needs to be stepping up and demanding government that there be
protections for whistleblowers, particularly like Mr. Snowden. And
secondly, we've seen the government go after with the Snowden refugees and made
their lives intolerable. There exists in existence intolerable in Hong Kong and the
delay of so many years to get Vanessa and Keana on the screen now into Canada and
the other families here in Hong Kong, who are suffering right now, was the the
global leadership saying, don't protect a whistleblower, because this is what's
gonna happen to you. So I hope that Vanessa and Keana's arrivaled refuge in
Canada to safety and security, is an example for the whole world that there
will be more whistleblowers. But there also needs to be people in the general
population who say, look, we need to support them and to take steps to make
whistle, make sure whistleblowers can remain safe, but also when democratic
systems to put pressure on government, to make changes and whistleblower
protections. Signal-Angel: Thank you a lot for the
detailed answer. We have some more questions. But before we continue with
them, I would like to ask all of you to stay seated and stay quiet. Some people
are leaving already the hall. Please don't. And please stay quiet so we can
enjoy the last minutes of this lovely Q and A. You can also ask questions to
Vanessa, who played a crucial role in sheltering Mr. Snowden back in Hong Kong.
And for now, I would like to hear a question from microphone number three.
Mic 3: Hi. I'm [inaudible] Hi, I'm a Pakistani journalist in exile. So thank you for the
talk. It's been super inspiring. My question to Vanessa is that looking back
now that you everything that you suffer. Would you say that if you were given a
choice, that you could do this all over again and not do this at all? Would you?
Which one would you choose? Vanessa: If I had the chance again [inaudible]
*Applause* Herald: Can we have another question from
the Internet? Signal-Angel: It's a question for Vanessa.
How are you settling down in Montreal and has the community received you well?
Vanessa: *inaudible* Herald: Thank you for this answer. Do we
have more questions in the hall? I sat at a microphone and I can't see you right
now. Please wink if you do. I think that's not the case. Signal-Angel. Do we have one
more question from you? Or wait? Microphone number two, please go ahead.
Mic. 2: I don't know which one of you can answer that, but what's causing the delay?
Why is the families still separated? Is there any indication why Canada doesn't
process the search for asylum? RT: *To an Angel: I want to put this on
last. OK? RT: The Snowden refugee cases, it has been
a long delay and it's been too long. And at this stage, the Canadian government is
is progressing with the cases and these are complex cases. At this stage, that's
all I can really say. We all want the other families supporting the DEKA, the
two children, Kiena's brother and sister. And we want to treat this, the former
soldier, and we want them in Canada. We want them in at the earliest time. And
this is really the only solution. It's the right solution for the these extraordinary
people. *Applaus* Mic 2: Thank You.
*Applause* So apparently we have Edward Snowden
back.The connection is established again. There is a question for him, then he's run
to a microphone because that's your only chance. That's probably the last question
of this session. Microphone number four, what's your question? Qualified?
Mic. 4: Yes, I think so. What an aura. Thought. Thank you, everybody. My question
quick. So, Mr. Snowden, you said we should put pressure and make change. And do you
think we should pressure our own government locally or that we pressure our
government to pressure other governments? So, for example, which sanctions through
these countries that Mr. Tibbo mentioned? That's a quick.
ES: Yes. I think we need to look at where can we be the most effective. This is a
difficult question, I think, for people who are in advanced democracies. And
because you see all the terrible things that are happening all over the world, you
see the situation in Russia, you see the situation in China, you see the Russia
situation in Iran and North Korea. And of course, where you can make a difference, I
think you always should act. Even in my case, there have been things where I have
been criticizing, of course, the Russian government, even though I live here, even
though it's dangerous to do. I don't think there's much likelihood that the Russian
government is likely to listen to me. I don't think there's much likelihood that
the Russian people will listen to me in that circumstance, because I'm not
Russian. I don't speak the language. I can't persuade them. But you can persuade
the people that you're around. You can persuade the community. And that's really
when we talk about hacking, when we talk about systems. Right. The whole thing that
they used against us was, that they thought, we thought, you know, the system,
our democracy, our methods of voting, our methods of policing the Internet, of
managing and sharing our communications worked in a certain way. And how they were
actually being used, how they were actually being implemented, how they were
actually being operated in many cases against us. That was not clear in secrecy.
In many cases was responsible for this. But when you talk about where you can make
the most difference, it's in this room. It's the friendships you make that you
take with you. It's the networks of solidarity and influence that you build,
the sharing of skill sets and cooperation that will allow you to influence people
even outside your areas of expertise, going to politics, going to local
officials, using the local officials to get the state officials, using the state
officials to get to national, using the national to get to the international. What
we have to do is we have to take a hard look at how the world actually operates
today. Not how we wanted to operate, not how we think it operates, but to measure
it, to see how it's actually function and to see where the money goes, to see who's
using it, to see where the influence is. And in many cases, to seize control of
that via whatever means that we have available to us. This is where we get the
technical systems that, the people in this room have an extraordinary amount of
influence over that. We may not have in the political realm. If you make a phone
call and that gets used around the world, you can provide the same guarantees, the
same protection to someone in China, to someone in Russia that they have in
Germany, because technology can be agnostic to its use. And if we make these
carve outs, if we make these sort of emissions, if we make concessions to
power, to system, to government, to institutions, we have to think about how
they will be used. The more rules in the system, the more lines of complexity there
are, the greater the unseen attack surface that can be used against us. We need to
design for tomorrow. But there is no time to wait. We need to be working today.
*Applause.* And if I could just say one thing. Thank
you, everyone, for your patience and for bearing with us through all of this. I'm
gonna shut up and give this back to Robert, but everybody asks, you know, how
can I make a difference? This is all very good. It's very abstract. Again, be
opportunistic. Look at where you can make a difference right now. In the case of
these families, we are almost across the finish line. We had been in this fight for
years and we are about to win. We can do it with your help. So please, if you can
support them, do. Thank you. *Applause*
Herald: I have to extend a huge thanks to you, Mr. Robert, to go to you. Edward
Snowden, thank you for coming on our stream and thank you, Vanessa, for coming
to us as well. This is, this was a lovely event and Mr. Snowden asked you to help.
And this is how, this is how, Robert, if you like to say some last words?
RT: I would. This has been a long fight. It's we're in the eighth year now, and
there's no way that we're gonna get to the finish line unless donations are made.
Whatever you can help with, if it's if it's a small amount of change, that's
fine. If you can donate something more significantly. Of course, that's going to
help. But it's all about food, rent, utilities, and also for Vanessa and Keana
and Montreal. We, the NGO, is under a legal obligation to continue to support
them financially for the first full year, that they're there in Montreal and they do
need that support. The one thing all stresses the climate has been a big shock
for Vanessa and Keana, and it costs a lot of money to get winter jackets or, you
know, jackets for autumn shoes, boots. So it's been at times it's been rough for
them. But one solution is the donations that make sure they have warm clothes and
food, etc.. And of course, the clients in Hong Kong that they have almost no
government humanitarian support. So if you can donate. We continue to donate. We all
appreciate this. And thank you so much.
*Applause*
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