So this is James Risen. You may know him as the Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for The New York Times. Long before anybody knew Edward Snowden's name, Risen wrote a book in which he famously exposed that the NSA was illegally wiretapping the phone calls of Americans. But it's another chapter in that book that may have an even more lasting impact. In it, he describes a catastrophic US intelligence operation in which the CIA quite literally handed over blueprints of a nuclear bomb to Iran. If that sounds crazy, go read it. It's an incredible story.
Ovo je James Risen. Možda ga znate kao novinara, dobitnika Pulitzerove nagrade iz The New York Timesa. Mnogo prije nego što je itko čuo za Edward Snowden, Risen je napisao knjigu u kojoj je razotkrio da je NSA nezakonito prisluškivala telefonske pozive Amerikanaca. No, jedno drugo poglavlje te knjige možda ima još trajniji utjecaj. U njemu on opisuje katastrofalnu operaciju američkih obavještajaca, u kojoj je CIA skoro doslovno predala nacrte nuklearne bombe Iranu. Ako vam to zvuči blesavo, pročitajte. To je nevjerojatna priča.
But you know who didn't like that chapter? The US government. For nearly a decade afterwards, Risen was the subject of a US government investigation in which prosecutors demanded that he testify against one of his alleged sources. And along the way, he became the face for the US government's recent pattern of prosecuting whistleblowers and spying on journalists.
Znate li kome se nije svidjelo to poglavlje? Američkoj vladi. Gotovo desetljeće kasnije, Risen je bio predmet istrage američke vlade, u kojoj su tužitelji zahtijevali da on svjedoči protiv jednog od njegovih navodnih izvora. S vremenom, postao je primjer obrasca američke vlade za progon "zviždača" i špijuniranje novinara.
You see, under the First Amendment, the press has the right to publish secret information in the public interest. But it's impossible to exercise that right if the media can't also gather that news and protect the identities of the brave men and women who get it to them. So when the government came knocking, Risen did what many brave reporters have done before him: he refused and said he'd rather go to jail. So from 2007 to 2015, Risen lived under the specter of going to federal prison.
Vidite, pod Prvim amandmanom, tisak ima pravo objavljivanja tajnih informacije od javnog značaja. No, nemoguće je koristiti to pravo ako mediji ne mogu i prikupiti te vijesti te zaštititi identitete tih hrabrih muškaraca i žena koji im ih dostavljaju. I kada mu je Vlada zakucala na vrata, Risen je učinio isto što i mnogi hrabri novinari prije njega: odbio je i rekao da će radije ići u zatvor. I tako je od 2007. do 2015. godine Risen živio sa sablašću odlaska u federalni zatvor.
That is, until just days before the trial, when a curious thing happened. Suddenly, after years of claiming it was vital to their case, the government dropped their demands to Risen altogether. It turns out, in the age of electronic surveillance, there are very few places reporters and sources can hide. And instead of trying and failing to have Risen testify, they could have his digital trail testify against him instead. So completely in secret and without his consent, prosecutors got Risen's phone records. They got his email records, his financial and banking information, his credit reports, even travel records with a list of flights he had taken. And it was among this information that they used to convict Jeffrey Sterling, Risen's alleged source and CIA whistleblower.
Odnosno, sve do samo nekoliko dana pred suđenje, kad se nešto zanimljivo dogodilo. Iznenada, nakon godina tvrdnje da je to ključno za njihov slučaj, vlada je odbacila sve zahtjeve za Risena. Ispostavilo se da je u doba elektronskog nadzora, vrlo malo mjesta na koja se novinari i izvori mogu sakriti. I umjesto truda i neuspjeha oko Risenovog svjedočenja, mogli su uzeti njegov digitalni trag da svjedoči protiv njega. Stoga su u potpunoj tajnosti i bez njegovog pristanka, tužitelji dobili Risenov popis telefonskih poziva. Dobili su spisak e-mailova, njegove financijske i bankovne informacije, kreditna izvješća, čak i izvještaje o putovanjima s popisom letova. I ove informacije su iskoristili da osude Jeffreya Sterlinga, Risenov navodni izvor i CIA-inog "zviždača".
Sadly, this is only one case of many. President Obama ran on a promise to protect whistleblowers, and instead, his Justice Department has prosecuted more than all other administrations combined. Now, you can see how this could be a problem, especially because the government considers so much of what it does secret. Since 9/11, virtually every important story about national security has been the result of a whistleblower coming to a journalist. So we risk seeing the press unable to do their job that the First Amendment is supposed to protect because of the government's expanded ability to spy on everyone.
Nažalost, ovo je samo jedan slučaj od mnogih. Predsjednik Obama je u kampanji obećao da će štititi "zviždače", a umjesto toga, njegovo Ministarstvo pravosuđa progonilo je više novinara od svih prethodnih administracija zajedno. Vidite kako bi to mogao biti problem, naročito zato jer vlada većinu svojih poslova smatra tajnim. Od 11. rujna, skoro svaka važna priča o nacionalnoj sigurnosti bila je rezultat prilaska "zviždača" novinarima. Tako ćemo možda vidjeti medije koji ne mogu raditi svoj posao, a koje bi Prvi amandman trebao štititi, zbog vladine sve izraženije sposobnosti da špijunira svakoga.
But just as technology has allowed the government to circumvent reporters' rights, the press can also use technology to protect their sources even better than before. And they can start from the moment they begin speaking with them, rather than on the witness stand after the fact. Communications software now exists that wasn't available when Risen was writing his book, and is much more surveillance-resistant than regular emails or phone calls. For example, one such tool is SecureDrop, an open-source whistleblower submission system that was originally created by the late Internet luminary Aaron Swartz, and is now developed at the non-profit where I work, Freedom of the Press Foundation. Instead of sending an email, you go to a news organization's website, like this one here on The Washington Post. From there, you can upload a document or send information much like you would on any other contact form. It'll then be encrypted and stored on a server that only the news organization has access to. So the government can no longer secretly demand the information, and much of the information they would demand wouldn't be available in the first place.
No, baš kao što je tehnologija omogućila vladi da izigra prava novinara, novinari također mogu koristiti tehnologiju za zaštitu svojih izvora, čak bolje nego prije. Mogu početi od trenutka kada su krenuli razgovarati s njima, umjesto na klupi za svjedoke nakon počinjenog djela. Danas postoji komunikacijski softver koji nije bio dostupan dok je Risen pisao knjigu, i mnogo je otporniji na nadzor od običnih e-mailova i telefonskih poziva. Na primjer, jedno takvo oruđe je SecureDrop, open-source sustav za podnošenje dokaza "zviždača", kojeg je prvobitno kreirao prosvjetitelj interneta, Aaron Swartz, a trenutno ga razvijaju u mojoj neprofitnoj organizaciji, zakladi Freedom of the Press. Umesto slanja e-maila, odete na stranicu organizacije, poput ove The Washington Posta. Otuda možete poslati dokument ili informaciju, kao što biste u bilo kojem obrascu za kontakte. Zatim to prolazi enkripciju i pohranjuje se na server kojem ima pristup samo ta organizacija. Tako vlada više ne može u tajnosti zahtijevati informacije, a većina informacija koje bi zahtijevali ionako ne bi bilo dostupno.
SecureDrop, though, is really only a small part of the puzzle for protecting press freedom in the 21st century. Unfortunately, governments all over the world are constantly developing new spying techniques that put us all at risk. And it's up to us going forward to make sure that it's not just the tech-savvy whistleblowers, like Edward Snowden, who have an avenue for exposing wrongdoing. It's just as vital that we protect the next veteran's health care whistleblower alerting us to overcrowded hospitals, or the next environmental worker sounding the alarm about Flint's dirty water, or a Wall Street insider warning us of the next financial crisis. After all, these tools weren't just built to help the brave men and women who expose crimes, but are meant to protect all of our rights under the Constitution.
SecureDrop je, ipak, zaista samo djelić slagalice u zaštiti slobode tiska u 21. stoljeću. Nažalost, vlade širom svijeta stalno razvijaju nove tehnike špijuniranja koje su rizične za sve nas. A na nama je da se nadalje pobrinemo da to nisu samo tehnološki potkovani "zviždači" poput Edwarda Snowdena, koji imaju puteve razotkrivanja nepravde. Jednako je važno da zaštitimo sljedećeg "zviždača" o zdravstvenoj njezi veterana, koji nas upozorava na prenatrpane bolnice, ili sljedećeg ekologa, koji glasno upozorava o Flintovim zagađenim vodama, ili insajdera s Wall Streeta, koji nas upozorava na novu financijsku krizu. Na kraju, ova oruđa nisu samo napravljena da zaštite hrabre muškarce i žene koji razotkrivaju zločine, već su i sredstva zaštite svih naših ustavnih prava.
Thank you.
Hvala vam.
(Applause)
(Pljesak)