So Ryan is going to come up here and talk a little bit about how we turn that around, right? So
every time, I'm looking forward to this because every time I get a request from the government to
give somebody else documents, it makes me happy to know that somebody else is going to be
fucking with the government the other way around. So, Ryan is up at MIT right now. He is not only
a first time speaker but this is his first time at DEF CON. So ‑‑ [Applause] Let's give a big
party track welcome to Ryan Shapiro who is going to talk about hacking the FBI. [
Applause ] Good luck. >> Thank you all so much this is first time at DEF CON that means
someone might fuck with me so bring it on. My name is Ryan Shapiro, a little about myself.
I'm a long time animal right activist, social justice activist, transparency activist
now also a PhD candidate at MIT. Where I am historian of the political functioning of
national security. This is a talk about information and democracy, about oppression and
resistance and about the tools that make resistance possible. But first we're going to start
with a little bit of stroll down memory lane. That is and so I've always liked animals even as a
little kid, nothing political about it, here as I am as a little kid with the goats.
Around the time I was 12 I got in to radical politics, especially through punk rock.
There I am in 8th grade this is like '88 or something. Around that same time I started
thinking about animals in more political terms, and decided to go vegetarian really for me it
was about justice, I have a healthy self‑esteem but the idea that another living being should
lose his or her life merely to satisfy 20 or 30 minutes of my life, seemed unjust I stopped
eating animals, I didn't know anything about it. I just stopped. Few years later I moved
to New York to go to NYU around that same time I also started learning much more about
animals ‑‑ excuse me ‑‑ animals are actually treated on factory farms routinely confined in
cages so small they can't stand up, turn around, spread their limbs. Nine billion animals
every year in the U.S., 63 billion globally. And around that same time I went vegan
based on what I was learning and I also started deciding that I could no longer simply not
participate in the process, it wasn't enough to simply not pay people to kill and torture
animals but I needed to do something about it. I cofounded activists campaigns very
aggressive campaigns, got arrested. Really constantly all the time. This is my first
arrest I'm in the red Vans. We have welded, still rebar to steel pipes where we are
blocking the entrance to the circus so the elephants can't get in shutting down Ringling
Circus, it worked. They were able to get the elephants to the top of the ramp held them to
until they urinated so we marinated in elephant piss for a few hours. (laughter) We were
very popular in jail. Nonetheless did I a lot of this sort of work. Taking over the
president of NYU's office to shut down a laboratory where they were forcing chimpanzees to
smoke crack. There I am after having locked my neck to a fur store door. Basically the same
thing, but inside a mall. I think the camo pants and tie is very distinguished look by the
way. Then when New York police got too good at cutting through the steel pipes that we had
locked our arms in they got very good at it. We took oil drums put the steel pipes in the oil
drums then filled those oil drums with concrete now the cops would have to jack hammer
through the concrete then cut through, when they got too good at that we put tar on the
concrete, fire doors, got all that going on here. I got far better at the science of
concrete than I ever expected to. You can see it's extremely disruptive. These were at least
technically very successful techniques. I moved to Hawaii and shut down a captive dolphin
facility in a shopping mall along with a you Foo other activists, got it banned in Maui
county, which is several islands. Did a bunch of whale hunting sabotaging which I was
riding the jet skis in between the whales in order to prevent the whalers from killing the
whales. That's me on the boat. Then so this is 2000. I moved back from Hawaii to the east
coast started getting a master's degree in modern American history and began cocoordinating
the year long undercover investigation of Foie Gras factory farms, so these are duck
farms. The conditions there are the same as factor as far as farms go for any other animals,
they can't sit up, turn around, spread their limbs. And this investigation was tremendously
successful. And we also openly rescued a number of animals or liberated or stole, what have
you, from these farms. The investigation was very successful we made documentary
about it, it sparked national and international campaigns, got the sale of production of Foie
Gras banned in the state of California, one of the only two states that produce Foie Gras in
the United States. And we weren't the first people , the people who did this with me. We
weren't the first people to do this set of work not the first time that we had done this work
but it was the first time that someone was prosecuted for doing it. And so this activist on the
cover here and I, we were prosecuted, we faced, we were charged with felony burglary in
the state of New York. Seven‑year maximum we didn't expect to get seven years but we
had lengthy rap sheets in New York and, if we were lucky six months if we were unlucky
two years. But it seemed like a fair trade for us, obviously that would suck going to prison,
right? But it seemed like a fair trade for the sort of work that we were doing, we were
happy with the campaign. I just wanted to get my master's done because it's hard to finish a
master's from prison, I've helped friends, it's rough. We beat the charges against us, got
40 hours of community service for a group of our choice, we chose an animal rights group, so
we just got credit for doing what we had already done. (Laughter) But this left me in
a difficult situation. So this was 2004 right about the same time we beat these charges
there's a tremendous legislative legal and prosecutorial shift in the United States. In 2004 the
FBI designated animal rights and environmental movements, leading domestic terror threat in the
United States, leading domestic terror threats, and this isn't just rhetoric this is about
resource allocation. Keep in mind that neither the animal rights nor environmental have
ever once physically injured a single person in this country ever and yet designated the
leading domestic terror threats in the United States. Shortly thereafter there was passage of
the animal enterprise terrorism act or AETA which is a pernicious piece of post 9/11
legislation that targets animal rights and environmental activists as terrorists. What's
that? That is exactly right animal liberation front has never injured a single person
here. Or any other country for that matter. But let's hold questions until the end, yes,
that's absolutely right. Neither animal rights or environmental movement have ever physically
entered single person in this country ever, you can find industry groups making arguments
to the contrary but they are simply wrong. They're just simply wrong. Nonetheless, then
animal enterprise terrorism act which targets animal rights and environmental activists as
terrorist threats. People have been prosecuted, the very first prosecution under the AETA was a
prosecution of animal rights activists in California who wrote anti‑slogans on the
sidewalk in chalk. There are prosecuted as terrorists, felony terrorism charges under federal
law, mercifully the judge threw out the charges, the FBI investigated, the DOJ brought
it. And around the same time many of my closest friends and colleagues including many of the
people you see in these pictures began going to jail, prison, federal prison under this law
and predecessor protection act. These people who are among my closest friends are known as the
SHAC 7, they were sentenced from between one to seven years in federal prison for violation of
the animal enterprise protection act for running a website. Anti‑animal experimentation
website. Exactly what happened. And so, I didn't know what to do next. All of this is what
journalists Will Potter turned the green scare, disproportional use of rhetoric and apparatus of
national security to target animal rights and environmental activists. Green scare like red
scare. And if you're interested in more on this I'd encourage to you check out the book, "Green
is the New Red," or his blog, also reports a lot on my work. I really didn't know what to do
next, right? I finished my master's degree so I wasn't going to do that, then entire
model of activism that I pursued for the previous decade was relative impunity was all of the
sudden completely untenable. It's one thing to go to prison for six months or even year for
rescuing many animals starting international campaigns but to go to prison as ‑‑ federal
prison as terrorist on felony charges for writing on sidewalk in chalk that's just not a
reasonable exchange. I didn't know what to do next and like lots ever people who don't know
what to do next I stayed in grad school. I started PhD at MIT as I said political function with
national security I'm finishing up that PhD now. My PhD is looking at the long history of
these sorts of trends, the long history of the use of the rhetoric and apparatus and
national security to marginalize animal protectionists as threats to the state and there is a long
history, just very little about that now. For example, in World War I when American
anti-experimentation people who close animals experimentation this street one of the
newsletters from World War I opposed war time animal experimentation the research
defendants community led by this guy what is a famous neurosurgeon, hi. >> We have a
tradition DEF CON for first time speakers. It is way for us to welcome them in to the community
I hope you guys are all thoroughly enjoying his talk so far. We don't follow those
rules. >> All right. [ Cheers and applause ] Party track! Carry on. >> Thank you very
much. That's the best hazing I've ever had. This guy who is famous neurosurgeon, either way
he wrote an article in prestigious science magazine which he argued, quote, that
anyone attempting the stop the rescue from assisting in humanitarian and humane desire
to prevent American soldiers from being diseased is in reality giving aid and comfort
to the enemy. Went so far as to call charges to be brought under the espionage act. Charges
weren't brought these these allegations taking orders were devastating to the animal
protection movement at that time moving forward to World War II. The descendants of the previous
gentleman whose name was Keane, that guy's name was Ivy. He was a rock star animal experimenter
and vice president at the university of Chicago. By the way Ivy was the expert witness
on medical ethics at the prosecution of Nazi doctors in Nuremberg. Also the same time
lead of the American pro‑animal experimentation community, a group called The National
Science and Medical Research, when he came back from Nuremberg and the press wanted to hear
what he had to say about the trial. You know what I learned over there? The Nazis banned
animal experimentation in 1933. And this was why they had to experiment on human beings in
the concentration camps-- completely false. Absolutely false. Just finished writing a
hundred pages on it. I can speak at length on it but I'm not going to right now. He was lying
but the press ate it up only reason Americans opposed animal experimentation because they
wanted to open concentration camps in the United States. Then within couple of years, with
World War III more on American minds than World War II. They upped their game and they argued
that because some animal experiments involved radiation, that American opposition to
animal experimentation was a plot in order to undermine American security to give way
for Soviet atomic aggression and overthrow of the United States government. As NSMR argued to
the press, these are really famous people. These aren't random lobby groups these are
tremendously prestigious academics, "Time" Magazine called IVY the conscience of
American science. The fanatics who opposed animal experimentation for sentimental
reasons are being joined and sometimes led by communists and communist sympathizers
interested in sabotaging national defense. The National Defense Project aims at
minimizing death from possible attacks of atomic bombs are being crippled, and quote,
foreign agents rejoice in every victory scored by them. Even the "Los Angeles Times" concurred
declaring, it was quote, beyond dispute that animal experimentation is necessary to
the national defense and opposition to be placed directly into the hands of the Russian
communist and schemes to overthrow the United States. This is the sort of press they
routinely got. And these campaigns were tremendously successful, pharmaceuticals
sponsored this ad which went further if good comes from the atomic bomb we need to thank
animals more importantly animal experimentation. Again, these campaigns were devastating, this
use of rhetoric and apparatus of national security to marginalize animal protection threats to the
state, absolutely devastating. And there were by the way real radiation experiments but they
didn't look like this. They looked like this. This is a live pig in an atomic blast
experiment. But we're going to move forward back from the actual red scare period to the
green scare. For the work that I've just gone through it was archival, but it's not like the
FBI is going to hand over their documents very kindly to archives around the country so
that researchers can look and see what's up. And I want to know what's up. I want to be
able to answer the questions not just from before the 1970s but I want to understand ...I want to
understand how the animal rights movement first came to the attention of the FBI. How the
FBI understanding of animal rights movement evolved over time, how the movement is whole,
and components parts. How they develop infiltrators and most importantly how they can
designate the movement of leading domestic terror threat in the country without injuring
a single person ever. Since there was no archival source base only thing that I could
think of in order to do this dissertation work which is the Freedom of Information Act. I
knew very little about FOIA at that time. I know it existed I submitted the requests just to
see what would happen. I submitted a request on myself to the FBI and I got this letter
back which said they didn't have anything. And in addition to being a little surprised I admit
to being a little hurt really. All right, that's fine, a little humility, that's fine. I
submitted request on (inaudible) you saw also been prosecuted with me and as opposed to me
when he I had been arrested that last time for the duck liberation which was just cops
when they came to arrest her there was an FBI agent involved. I was very confident that they
wouldn't have documents on her. Again, sent back letter they had nothing. Wow, that's really
strange. So I submitted another request this time, all right, I got this now. I submitted
request for a friend of mine I knew they would have documents on her, the FBI raided their
house they must have some information on this person. Again, letter came back,
nothing. So I was like, oh, I get it, I'm being lied to, right? Keep in mind, I've been
involved as I said radical politics since I was 12, the idea that the FBI is fucked up
is not something new to me I guess I naively assumed that the FBI's division might be less
mission driven than all its investigative wing. And I realize very quickly, though,
that I was wrong. But then it raised some question, the question was how? How is the FBI
systematically avoiding compliance with the Freedom of Information Act. How is the
leading federal law enforcement agency in the country succeeding in consistently and flagrantly
violating federal law, the Freedom of Information Act. So I became obsessed with mapping out
not only nature and evolution of the campaign against animal rights movement but also mapping
out the precise mechanisms of the FBI's non‑compliance with the Freedom of Information Act.
We all have traits that at any given time may prove to be advantageous or detrimental. In
this case my OCD and need for conflict proved to be pretty beneficial I became absolutely
obsessed. I began submitting hundreds of FOIA requests, with each request designed, not only
request of records by FBI and animal rights matters, but also to determine the precise
mechanisms of FBI FOIA non‑compliance. I submit request comes out in the end, what
happens in that black box how do they get away with it? Part of the problem is historical. In
1947 when congress amended the Freedom of Information Act to actually target the intelligence
agencies. No small part because of Watergate, all the revelations that were coming out
at that moment. The intelligence agency freaked out, tried to destroy FOIA and tried to
statutorily exempt themselves from it. Some of the agencies had better luck with that than
others. And the FBI only had maybe mediocre luck, so they had to come up with who knows how
many dirty tricks in order to avoid compliance with FOIA. And I was seeking to figure out what
those tricks were, but it was very difficult to do that because the information was
secret and the primary tool we would have to do it was to choose FOIA. It was something
of a challenge, I began submitting hundreds ever requests, I analyzed and
compared hundreds of their responses. I thought it of a process to map out bottom of the
ocean as a submarine using sonar pings so even if I got nothing back document‑wise the manner in
which they denied the requests was very useful. Over a period of years, just obsessing over
this data, picture began to coalesce. I also started submitting FOIA requests about
the processing of my FOIA request, FOIA requests about how they actually failed to comply
with the previous request. That's very successful strategy, now as a result they have a
policy where they refuse to comply with FOIA requests about FOIA requests, so have a lawsuit
against the FBI right now challenging the policy about not complying with FOIA requests
about FOIA requests. (Laughter) I also scoured the case law for information about FBI FOIA
operations, I scoured FBI litigation declaration on information on FBI FOIA
operations, just as I said, it was obsessive amounts of work over a period of years. And in
the process two things became very apparent. One, the FBI does nearly everything in its power
to avoid compliance with the Freedom of Information Act. Indeed if FOIA worked with some
agencies as akin to customer service from a giant Telecom over a holiday weekend it's
going to suck, take a long time, going to be frustrated. Might get something it will be
alright. FOIA work with the FBI is a street fight they will do everything they can to avoid
compliance. Difficult to over state the bad faith which the FBI is operating when it comes
to matters of the Freedom of Information Act. Two, essential to making the Freedom of
Information Act work with the FBI was developing an intimate familiarity with the bureau's
FOIA specific information storage and retrieval systems and using the above techniques
and others I did just that. All of which allowed me to pursue an iterative approach to FOIA
requests where I would figure out the various road blocks that they were using to prevent the
records that I wanted. I would finally get something, any record then once I got that, one
could comb those records to find specifics to get around other road blocks and this iterative
approach was just tremendously useful. It was also helpful that I got signed privacy waivers
from roughly 300 leading animal rights and environmental activists from the 1970s to the
present allowing me to request their records doesn't mean the FBI would give them to me but I
have a lot more flexibility in what I do on my end. And this really began to pay off, combine
these and other experimental FOIA methodologies that I developed proved stunningly
successful and I received over 40,000 pages from the FBI on their campaigns against the
animal rights and environmental movements. Among the most notable of these documents was a
document I obtained which demonstrated FBI considerations of animal enterprise terrorism
act charges against undercover investigators who exposed factory farming cruelty. This
document here. And despite nonetheless extremely telling. The FBI is arguing not even
arguing what we see here that the FBI is doing is trying to bring federal terrorism charges
against people who take pictures of animals trapped in cages. Terrorism charges against those
individuals who take those pictures and I'll note I was especially displeased to see my
name on this document. This document is currently being used as evidence in a federal lawsuit
challenging the constitutionality of the animal enterprise terrorism act. This
is on one of the five plaintiffs in this lawsuit we're represented by the New York City
base center for constitutional rights. And we actually just asked the Supreme Court to
review the case just this very week. So, right, it's working. I figure out all the ways FBI was
avoiding compliance, I beat those ways, and the FBI said "Oh, you're very clever, look
what you can do, watch what we can do." They sat on their fucking hands and did nothing
because they can. FOIA is entirely toothless and it's one of the giant problems with the
Freedom of Information Act. Though the Freedom of Information Act only allows an
agency 20 working days to comply with the request, there are no penalties for non‑compliance.
The FBI just sat on my requests, not 20 days, not months, years some of them. And so I sued the
FBI for failure to comply with the Freedom of Information Act. There's no penalties for
non‑compliance but you can sue if they're in violation of the law. And so I did, I sued them
and is my first lawsuit against the FBI, covers about 80 of my animal rights related Freedom of
Information Act requests. And what was supposed to happen here is that the judge did,
essentially she said, obviously you're in violation of the law, it's way past 20 days, it's
years in some cases. When are you going to get to this? Not when you give him the documents,
but when will you'd decide to do the work? Or the reasons why you're not going to give them to
him. Instead the FBI responded by invoking what is consider the nuclear option in a FOIA case
which is called open America stay. Which is kind of just extreme delay which is
essentially a total exemption from FOIA for specified period of time. And in my case, the FBI
is asking for almost unheard of seven‑year open America stay. So they want seven years to do
nothing, to think about what to do about my FOIA requests. And what's particularly outrageous
about this, and uh honestly I think that's particularly outrageous, is that the core
element of the FBI's motion for open America stay is a radically updated version of a Cold War
era FOIA secrecy doctrine known as Mosaic Theory. Mosaic theory is somewhat plausible on its
face, any individual bit of information by itself may be innocuous but once you combine
it with other information who knows what the Soviets will be able to do with it. And so a
sort of, umm, like a classic example would be someone submits a FOIA request to the FBI for
all unpaid parking tickets from FBI agents and the FBI says, well, we can't give those to you
because once you have those, who knows what the Soviets could learn from our unpaid parking
tickets, right? Again, it's sort of plausible on its face but not really, no information
is understood is in a vacuum, all information is understood Mosaically. But nonetheless...
and Mosaic Theory had been in disuse by the time that my case came around. But not only did
the FBI bring it back, is bringing it back but they are doing so in a radically updated
version. Old Mosaic Theory is specific to the document, it's at the document level. We cannot
give you this document because we don't know what you're going to combine it with. In this case
the FBI is arguing not of the document level but at universe of knowledge level. We can't
decide whether or not to give you these records that you requested which is about 350,000
pages in this lawsuit. We can't decide to give you these pages because of the universe of
knowledge that exists outside of them. We need to think about each of these pages in relation
to every other document that exist in the public record about FBI that the FBI has about
animal rights movement that someone else might request about the animal rights movement so
it's not we can't give you document X because mosaic, it's we can't process these requests
because we have to think about the entire universe of knowledge before we do. And by the way
that universe of knowledge is always updating so it's going to take us awhile. I mean, it's
just like it is flatly outrageous move. And worse at the core of all of this, is a
supposed national security risk. The FBI is arguing order to make this preposterous claim, FBI
arguing that my dissertation, FOIA research methodologies, constitute a threat to national
security. And which by the way, thank you, that's going to look great on the back of the book.
Keep in mind that the FBI is not arguing that the release of documents, about 350,000 pages
in this case, would be a threat to national security, but rather the FBI is arguing that deciding
whether or not to release the documents before seven years would be a threat to national
security. Further, the purported risk to national security posed by my
dissertation research, according to the FBI, is ostensively so grave that the FBI can't even
tell us what that risk is. The FBI's primary support for its argument submitted that these
like double-ly preposterous contentions is submitted to the court in order of exparte in
camera declaration, which is essentially a secret letter from the terrorism division of the
FBI to the judge about why they can't tell us why they can't tell us why my dissertation FOIA
research about animal rights movement is such a threat to national security. It's
important to note here that though the FBI of course doesn't want damning information coming
out about their campaign against the animal rights movement it will be embarrassing for them
that's not really what this is about at all. Their core motivation here is preserving
their functional immunity from the Freedom of Information Act. The FBI has viewed political
decent as a security threat since its earliest days since J. Edgar Hoover coordinated the
Palmer raids right after World War 1. J. Edgar Hoover and FBI viewed political decent as a
security threat and ever since the freedom of information act was amended in 1974 to target
the FBI, the FBI understood the Freedom of Information Act in the very same light. And that's
what we have here, an attempted broad scale end run around FOIA by the FBI. Indeed the FBI
strategy here is so radical if the judge accept its it can shut down anyone's FOIA request and
that's why a host of open government groups, the national lawyers guild, constitutional
rights, national security archive have joined in opposing the FBI's efforts to shut down
my dissertation FOIA research. But the FBI is not alone. And what they were really trying to
do here is not only, of course trying to do end run around FOIA makes sure that essentially FOIA
has never really worked with the FBI for broad scale research. Every once in awhile someone
submits a request maybe get something they are thrilled that they got something think it's a
victory but it's not. For broad scale research if you know what you want you're trying to get a
lot of documents you want to get it and the law says you should be able to get it, FOIA has not
worked with the FBI on this level. Other agencies, yes, not the FBI. And so the FBI is
trying to preserve its functional immunity from the Freedom of Information Act from
everyone and from me but... this issue remains on the judge's desk, and it has been on her
desk for two years now. The Freedom of Information Act whether they get this stay on
mosaic issue. On mosaic theory grounds we're waiting for a ruling from her now. Rather
than shutting down my work I've just dramatically expanded it, I can't do much work on the animal
rights movement right now because it's all tied up in this lawsuit. And so I now have a
series of non‑animal rights related FOIA projects against the FBI and other agencies. I
now have over 800 FOIA requests in motion with the FBI which likely makes me the person with
the most ever. I now have seven lawsuits against the FBI and other agencies for failure to
comply with the Freedom of Information Act covering hundreds of my requests. And
again, the FBI is not alone here. In their absolute allergy to transparency. The United
States intelligence apparatus more broadly shares this same allergy and I am targeting this
in a series of my other projects. So, for example, I have a FOIA project dealing with
Nelson Mandela. I have FOIA request to the FBI, the CIA, the DIA, and the NSA, on records on
Nelson Mandela I want to know what control the CIA had in Mandela's 1962 arrest leading to
his decades of incarceration for struggle for racial justice and democracy in South Africa. It's
very likely that the CIA was intimately involved in that process. Also want to know why
Nelson remained on the watch list until 2008. Long after he received the Nobel prize, prize
from the president, prize from congress. And yet on the U.S. terror watch list until 2008.
All four of these agencies denied my FOIA request, the FBI, CIA, DIA,and NSA. The most
notable denial was from the NSA. And the NSA refuses to even confirm or deny existence of
records on Mandela. The mere fact according to the NSA, is the existence or nonexistence of
record is itself classified in the interest of national security. Further the NSA also
invoked again the Espionage Act of 1917 to justify their denial of my request. I am making quite
good head way in court I'm suing all of these agencies for these violations of the FOIA. And
represented by excellent FOIA attorney, specialist Jeffrey Light, based out of DC. I am
making excellent progress right now on the FBI in court, and I've already received good
number of documents from the FBI. On Nelson Mandela these documents like this one,
revealed that while the FBI was supposed to be protecting Mandela in 1990, after he got
out of prison after 30 years because the CIA put him there. The FBI instead of protecting
him in addition to protecting him was cultivating confidential informants within Mandela's
inner circle in order to spy on Mandela and provide political information on Mandela to the
FBI. Further documents have received from the FBI in my lawsuit against them higher
demonstrate that the FBI understood anti‑apartheid movement, not just Mandela, but
the anti-apartheid, on the whole. Essentially as a Soviet inspired communist threat to
American national security just as they understood Martin Luther King to be. The FBI kept this
understanding of Nelson Mandela and anti‑apartheid movement as threats to American security
even after the fall of the Berlin wall. Even as the Cold War crumbled in to obsolescence
the FBI remained obsessed with Nelson Mandela and the anti‑Apartheid movement being a
Soviet threat to the United States. Also have a FOIA request, or request and lawsuit
against the FBI for their failure to comply with knows records on sniper plot against
occupy Houston. Turns out that probably some militia group was planning to assassinate occupy
leaders in Houston and FBI was interested in monitoring the activities of the occupiers
rather than terrorist who actually plot to murder the occupiers in court arguing
they shouldn't have to give me these records because occupy was a bunch of terrorists and
national security threat. The judge had very good ruling here and said that the FBI
can't simply evoke these words talesmontically, national security, or terrorism, they
actually have to back it up. I think they failed to do that entirely and were waiting on the
judge to decide what she thinks right now. Also have ongoing lawsuit against the FBI for
they're failure to comply with the Freedom of Information Act on Aaron Schwartz. Also have
ongoing FOIA request and lawsuit against FBI as I mentioned earlier for failure to comply
with the FOIA request about my FOIA request. (Laughter) Then there's a bunch more coming in
the pipeline, too. But all of this brings us back to the Freedom of Information Act is
one of the most under appreciated elements of the entire American experiment.
Notion that the records of government are the property of the people and all we need to do
to is to ask for them is radically democratic but FOIA is broken. And this is just one
element of the ongoing crisis of secrecy we now face. Harvard Historian of Science, Peter
Galeson has demonstrated that the universe of classified knowledge now exponentially
exceeds the universe of published unclassified knowledge. And that this
disparity grows by the day. There is literally exponentially more classified information in
the world right now than there is unpublished classified information. Classification just
one part of the problem. It's far from the whole ever it. Most of the records that I'm seeking
from the FBI such as 350,000 pages at issue in my open America animal rights lawsuit
with the FBI, aren't classify, the FBI just refuses to give them up. In fact the FBI and DOJ
on the whole invokes classification only about 5% of the time when denying FOIA
requests. The other 95% they're just saying fuck you, no. Using one of the other exemptions but
not classification, these aren't classified documents they're just saying no. The secrecy is a
cancer on the body of democracy. It is a cancer on the body of democracy and despite entering
office promising to be the most transparent administration ever, the Obama administration has out
done even Bush on this front. Obama administration has brought more FBI prosecutions of
whistleblowers than all previous administrations combined. And as we associated press recently
reported, the Obama administration as invoked national security to deny FOIA
requests more than ever before. The records of the government are property of the people. As
we have seen these records are consistently withheld from us on the basis undefined national
security concerns. Yet what do we mean by national security. We need to start asking who we are
as a nation and what it means for us to be secure. In the United States since 9/11
depending on how you define the term, roughly a few dozen people have been killed by terrorism.
And not including 9/11, since 1970, the number of people killed by terrorism in the
United States is about 500. There's a question for you according to the centers for
disease control about how many Americans die every year falling out of bed? Any guesses? Not
thousands but a lot. It's 400 up, up there, right. Which is still pretty remarkable. Most
importantly that means almost as many people die every year in the United States falling out of
bed than have died from terrorism in the United States excluding 9/11 since 1970. And
yet we don't install surveillance cameras in people's bedrooms. We don't monitor those
going in and out of mattress stores. We don't put heavy sleepers on watch lists. So why
are we so willing to sacrifice our most cherished liberties over a vastly smaller threat.
Again, what do we mean by national security. As wrote the judge Murray Gerfine judge and
his ruling against Nixon administration infamous attempt to prevent the "New York Times"
from publishing the leaked Pentagon papers, quote, the security of the nation is not at
the ramparts alone, security also lies in the values ever our free institutions. Building upon
this ruling, we as a nation need to foster a broader understanding of national
security. We need to embrace understanding in which the security of our nation is best
maintained not by secrecy and surveillance and drone strikes but rather by the free exchange
of ideas among informed citizenry. Such a citizenry is impossible, however, without
broad public access to information, about the operations of government. In the
interest of promoting such a citizenry, all available tools need to be used. I've used FOIA
to hack the FBI but FOIA is broken. And even at its best FOIA can only go so far. Other
forms of information access are now necessary. This can in part be done in the form of heroic
whistleblowers and leakers like Snowden, and Manning, Elsburg. However when FOIA is broken, and
when there are sadly not enough whistleblowers to be found, another form of hacking is
required to return the records of government to their rightful owners. Breaking in and taking
those records. And there's a historical precedent here, in 1971 a group calling it the
citizens commission to investigate the FBI. Broke in to an FBI office in Media,
Pennsylvania, and liberated the records that informed the world of the FBI's notorious counter
intelligence program, this is how we learned of the FBI's illegal and unconstitutional
surveillance, suppression, likely at times murder of anti‑war activists, civil rights
activists, free speech activists, this is how we learned of J. Edgar Hoover's
obsession with Martin Luther King Jr., including the request to have King kill himself
because Hoover believed king to be a communist threat and it's because brave individuals broke
in to this FBI office stole those records that we knew about this. People then began
submitting FOIA requests, congress began investigating, none of it could happen without
initial information on which to go. But for better or worse, this sort of break‑in is no
longer especially viable. Indeed there is now a need for heroes to straight hack the FBI. And
other intelligence agencies to liberate the records of government. And I want to be
clear, there are very serious consequences, the most serious consequences I'm calling for
violation of the espionage act. Anyone who is even moderately interested in what I'm saying,
please take the time to think about what we're talking about here. What I'm talking about
here today. Because again, these are deeply serious issues that we're discussing, any
administration will be deeply antagonistic and present administration is among the most
radical in that regard. But in the absence of inadequately working FOIA or whistleblowers,
I argue that such hacking of the FBI and other agencies is essential to the viability of
American democracy. And I don't know how to do this sort of hacking. I don't know at all.
I'm an historian not a technologist. Fortunately, however, this is perhaps among
the best rooms on the planet to be having this discussion. Not including the FBI agents here to
spy on us and the NSA agents here to recruit you to spy for them, those in this room possess
the incredibly rare combination of Ninja technical skills and radical liberation politics to
make such an endeavor possible. It's not surprising those in power wish to keep their acts in
secret. What is surprising how readily we tolerate it. I'll say it again. The records of
government are the property of the people. Reclaim them. Hack the FBI. Thank you. [Applause]
>> Can you provide any specific details about how you expanded your search methodology to fill
in or map the gaps, do anything more refined? >> Are you asking about how I figured out the gaps
or what the gaps themselves actually are? >> Like how you chose your search terms
basically to figure out what the gaps were. >> Sure. Absolutely. There are an unknowably large
number of things that the FBI does to avoid compliance this is only going to speak to some of
them. And the FBI is changing it all the time once people figure out what is going on. But, sure,
what I'm talking about now again is about how to understand FBI non‑compliance with the Freedom
of Information Act and how I went about figuring out what that was. So well, for example,
let's start with this. When one gets a letter from the FBI, like that letter that I showed you
earlier that said we don't have any records on you. I should mention that I already have some
hundreds of pages on me now, they have been trying to get me on some sort of terrorism
charges. They won't give a few thousand more of my pages because of national security.
Now, when they send you letter saying they don't have anything, and most people read it say they
don't have anything that's not what it says. What it says we conducted a search of our
central record system were unable to identify named file records responsive to your
request. And what that actually saying is, we conducted a search of one database using one search
methodology for one file type and didn't find anything, Oops by the way we're not going to
mention that absolutely not the search methodology not primarily the file type that is likely to
produce the request of records and only one of many databases. So a lot of what I was doing was
simply trying to figure out... it's not a question of using the right terms. They're not um, the
problem isn't that you're not using the right terms. The FBI will try and say that at
sometimes, but it's just completely untrue. The FBI essentially has two information
storage and retrieval systems, one for FOIA, one for us and one for them. And they're very
capable of finding the things that they want to find. It's not an issue of them not using the
right terms. But because of the way that the FBI has designed their FOIA specific information
storage and retrieval systems, and by the way that design is ...it is designed to fail.
Failure by design. How one crafts a search is very important, at least in theory,
though I would recommend submitting FOIA requests, let's say there's a particular
individual whom you want records and that individual is related to an activist group and that
activist group has a newsletter and that activist group has been involved in particular actions
and those actions are against particular targets. Submit requests in all those things,
all of the things, request all the things. And certainly one needs to... the problem is, most
people's FOIA requests are a page in length. Mine are usually 30 pages long to the FBI, search
this database like this, search this database like use this search methodology, search for
this file type like this. However, again the problem isn't that you're not doing it right.
One really should be able to submit one‑page FOIA request. And get what you're looking for.
The problem is that the FBI is operating in straight forward bad faith. And so you can word
your request however you want, you can request however you want occasionally you might get a
hit. But the bottom line that FOIA requests for the FBI shouldn't be written for the
FBI. This isn't the case of all agencies, with the FBI and successful FOIA work almost
invariably requires litigation, the FBI simply is not going to do their job, they're not going
to comply to the law, there is no teeth to the law, and they don't want to comply. so why
should they. The worst case scenario that you sue in which case, you know, they don't lose
anything other than what they would have given you you know, what they would have given you
without the suit. Unfortunately successful FOIA work with the FBI frequently requires
litigation. FOIA requests to the FBI ultimately should be written for the judge. Lots of ways to
craft a request such that you have more to work with when you're before a judge. The FBI
should have done this, this and this because they had this information. But unfortunately
that there are no penalties nor non‑compliance means the FBI can thumb their nose at requesters
until one sues. Other questions? >> Hey. Ryan, loved your work for a long time, thanks for the
talk. I've been looking for ward to it for a long time. If you haven't been to Ronald's they
have awesome vegan doughnuts that's all I had to say. >> Awesome man, thank you, I look
forward to that, appreciate it. >> Ryan, Hey. So you're a pretty smart guy. I understand the
issue about Pandora's box about the warning... my question is, in regards to hacking and
reverse engineering lot of smart people in regards to this issue who have been made aware of, to
clarify that even the information that you're requesting you don't even know
if it's the right information that you're going to receive thus the ability for them to
alter or change or modify the information that you request. How do you go through that
process of knowing that what you're receiving or hope to get not even the information that
you know whether or not it's correct. >> That's a great question. As you're pointing out
they hold most of the cards, they hold all the documents, people who search for documents.
Ideally if you get it before the court you can get the documents before the judge but the FBI has
to bring the documents before the judge. I'm working with the tools that I have, how do I deal
with it. I don't know best that I can. I sue them left and right. I stay on it. I submit
hundreds and hundreds ever requests, try to... there's not a good answer other than the one
that I'm advocating here. Hack the FBI. Let's find out. Then we had question from over here.
What changes would I make to the Freedom of Information Act is that essentially the question?
Sure. EFF is doing great here, the national security archive doing great work, number of
of ‑‑ there's number of excellent groups. And right now revisions that are being
proposed dealing with exemption if that's a key one. Clarifying the fee waiver language. This is
critical. There are innumerable fixes that could be made. Number one most important fix from my
perspective is penalties for non‑compliance. Some incentive for an agency to not completely
flout federal law because they feel like it. Any last questions? >> By your
description the Freedom of Information Act request you're making are pretty specific do
you make those available in archives so that people basically can use your work? >>
Do I make the results or the requests themselves? >> The requests including the language
of the requests. >> I don't have that available in archive, it is constantly changing based on the
FBI's changes and what I learn. But it's something that I am happy to discuss with someone,
with people on an individual level. Yeah. >> Thanks. And I think that's all the time that
we have. Thank you so much for coming. [Applause] "This text is being provided in a rough draft
format. Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) is provided in order to facilitate
communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings."