The last few months have put Data Protection back in the spotlight joining a crisis do we have to choose between safety and privacy while i talk about this with Richard Stallman of privacy activists and the founder of the Free Software movement. Richard stallman Digital Privacy activist a sounder and later all the Free Software movement its such a pleasure to have you on our program once again while richard time so really changed and still last time we spoke and i have so many questions. Especially now that were in the middle of one of the biggest crisis our generations have faced in the past 100 years or so is the coronavirus epidemic has shown that. Giant Tech Companies can use stand resources to help out in a crisis situation and thats undeniable i havent seen that well i mean i havent seen them help. Them remain saying that theyre doing right now is helping people spread insane lunatic rumors that are starting from the president of the us who is basically us the saboteur in chief acting just like a lot of rebellious chieftains that told their followers my magic will make you invulnerable to bullets well trump is telling his followers. Youre invulnerable to coronavirus and they expose themselves and some get sick and they die and he says it didnt happen no us point where can i just give us examples of what i meant when i sat that they helped for instance when people were in lock downs and still like a lot of countries are getting 2nd waves right now and people feel more comfortable staying home if they can work on distance so you have amazon for instance delivering goods food. Utilities things that you need. Of all because they track you you know. If i were concerned only with my physical safety i might use those services too but i do find safety in a broader way it includes my health it also includes my freedom and my privacy and therefore i never use those disservices that require people to identify themselves and they do it to get food delivered that way you have to give you have to identify yourself in order to pay you cant pay cash and then you have to give your address to and thats more information than i then i want the supermarket to have about me so i go to a supermarket wearing a mask of course and keeping my distance from people and i pay care and then i carry my groceries back and this way i am not having data about me put in a database because the only data the only personal data. That isnt just about you that isnt a threat to you is the data that hasnt been collected is a distraction to talk about protection of data in the databases because the real way to protect your privacy is make sure that data isnt collected about what you do or where you go or who you talk with or what you say to them. So were going to be talking all the problem around whether people should be choosing between safety and privacy but let me just. Not a choice privacy is part of safety remember one of the biggest dangers these days is political safety safety for instance from governments that are repressive or authoritarian and cruel and if the more they know about what people are doing the more dangerous they are collecting data is part of their technique for repression and then there are the movements anti Truth Movement such as you could find many governments supporting and they benefit from Digital Systems to targeting a adds to people is dangerous and its based on knowing a lot of things about people well facebook doesnt know very much about me because ive never been a sucker. Ok you know i see your point about facebook but i still want to hear your opinion for instance about Something Like zoom or face time a lot of people around the globe where able to keep their jobs by communicating and doing meetings and brainstorming and just working once the all those. That they didnt use Free Software you know there is Free Software freedom respecting software is what that means i dont mean its gratis thats not the issue that society issue. But it. Is not a freedom respecting program it does what the company decides and the users can take it or leave it but unfortunately in especially since march many users have been put in a position where the option of leaving it means giving up their jobs why would you know i never used zoom i dont use non Free Software i dont the loud onto my computer if someone says to me id like you id like to speak with you but it has to be with zoom i say that is out of the question i suggest the following other program we could use a freedom respecting program thats controlled by the users not by some one powerful entity and if theyll accept that then i can talk with them but those that dont accept that i cant talk with and i declined because im protecting my freedom and my freedom is part of my safety. Was what the record is turning the United States into i dont think people here will be very safe. Ok heres another question that concerns the Bigger Picture coming out of pandemic so the partnership between corporations and the governments has grown and closer as a result of the common effort to keep things functional in a normal times so when governments develop an Even Closer Partnership with lets say google right and well use googles resources for Public Services will you stop using Public Services as well because i mean theyd be contaminating the data. No although it does cause me concern you know there are some reasons why governments need to know some things about people the government needs to know my income and your income in order to tax us properly now the Us Government doesnt try to operate fair taxation it taxes most people too much in rich people far too little but even if that were fixed government would still need to know how much money each 1. 00 is making and how much money each company is making if it is those arent where to try to taxis companies properly it would need to know data so its not always wrong that the government gets data about people but each saying that it gets has to be justified in fact governments especially for their repression agencies are collecting a lot more data about people over and over weve seen the United States government and i presume the russian government collect data systematically on dissidents protestors and so on and its this is been happening for decades so the most Sensitive Data about you are where you go who you meet and what you and the other people say to each other these are the saying that must not be spied on and any systematic attempts to spy on them must be stopped so consider for instance clearview ai which has a Face Matching Service is collected photos of hundreds of millions of americans i think and then it will match photos you take a photo on the street. Itll match it another next 2nd you take another photo suppose its a video camera. Its taking photos all the time and you could match every photo that shows up and the government could be doing this im sure some agencies are agencies that dont hold our freedom in very high esteem so this should be absolutely illegal people must be allowed of course to take photos from time to time you know suppose you watch agents of the state arresting somebody and cracking sticks over his head a well you should be able to make a video of that but to do this systematically. In lots of places all the time that has to be illegal because it will lead to is a society where no one can meet anybody else in private and we see what thats like we see it in. With the waiters are being oppressed in this complete fashion so fundamental freedoms are at stake when we limit the collection of data by Digital Systems and so no i dont think that those systems are helping people. And a non free Program Since the users dont control what it does youve got to assume its designed to do nears things and in so many cases we have evidence specific evidence that no one free program is designed to do specific nancy things if you want to see hundreds of cases look at good new dot org slayers malware richard when i take a short break right now when were back well continue talking with Richard Stallman Digital Privacy activism the founder of the Free Software movement talking about whether we should be choosing between safety and privacy statement. Seemed wrong. Just dont call. Me that you get to see how this day becomes agitated and in games from an equal to trail. When so many find themselves worlds apart we choose to look for common ground. And were back with Richard Stallman Digital Privacy activist and the founder of the Free Software movement talking about the fact what i wish should be choosing between privacy and safety so richard there are calls for trust busting in washington aimed against a big stack in the most radical scenario do you think the tech giants should be broken up i mean how can this be done and one it damaged the Digital Ecosystem will ready got in place. I dont see anything you know most of the Digital Ecosystem is unjust and id like to get rid of it and i dont use it so i have i dont think its doing any good i wont use it because the impositions are unacceptable the terms of service are often unjust controlling and i say no to them i never agree to such a thing without reading it you know and often it requires you to run a non free program and i wont ever run a non free program on my computer so there are websites i cant talk to and. We need to do more than just break up those companies im not convinced that you know breaking up to the Largest Companies would reduce their power to that extent it would be a good saying and we need to do that in all fields in the past 20 years or so we have seen enormous consolidation of businesses in the us often there are just 2 main businesses in a field and those are your choices and. I think we should. Amp up antitrust to the point where weve got 20 or 30 substantial businesses in each field if thats if there are not that many it starting to be in. Thats too much domination by business if we Want Companies like amazon and so on to stop collecting data about what people were doing. Just breaking them up is not enough you know if we had 100. 00 Smaller Companies in place of google and each one collected data at each one contributed to the misuse of that date by several competing ed Tech Companies it would still be unjust and it would and the government could still collect all that data silently at any time with National Security letters so we wouldnt be safe either from targeted ads or from government tracking of dissidents so what we need is to prohibit designing systems so that they identify people and record what people do. In the new project the operating system project i started in 1983. We have developed a program for anonymous payments called good new tollar now the payer is anonymous but the store that youre paying thats identified so taler cant be used for tax evasion that was one of its goals but you can pay for something and the store youre paying cant tell who you were so as long as the rest of the system also doesnt identify you and we need laws and new protocols to make sure it cant youll be able to buy something digitally anonymously and if you buy Something Else tomorrow it will be impossible to tell that you were the one who bought both but heres the funniest thing. It really seems like its only now during the corona time step people have become seriously aware and concerned about their Digital Privacy i mean its been there forever right you could have thought of officer and there are people who thought it was not in masses and i wonder why havent we traded our personal data for a conference a long time ago and and more imply. Presence has increased times fold because of the damage isnt it too late to worry. What you mean we white woman i want. People privacy for conveniences. I have been rebuking people for this terribly foolish practice for decades. But i couldnt get people to listen to me. I went around saying this is an abomination you must stop and people mostly ignored me and some people understood my arguments you know im not testing people to take this on face you can check points and recognize the validity of what im saying but the companies have engineered situations where the inconvenience of saying no for one person is so high that most people say no and its the fact that others are not saying no that keeps almost everybody in line you have to be willing to go against that pressure as i do and then you can say no so when they claim theyre not actually forcing you well literally speaking thats true youre not being forced to have a facebook account youre not being forced to have a google account youre not being forced to have a microsoft account all over you want to buy a new windows machine and log on it youre almost forced to have to make a microsoft account but you can say no to all of these things. But we need to make it easy for people to say no thats the reason why i developed the good new operating system because it was you know to say no to non Free Software in 1983 you had to have no computer well in 1983 most people had no computer but of course Computers Became more and more common and normal own and but by then we had the good new plus Linux Operating System which made it not too to run a computer and say no to all that non Free Software thats the point making it easier to say no less of an inconvenience to say no so more people will say no but since 2000 since 2000 or so mobile computing has developed and its unjust from the very roots you cant install any free operating system on and on monster or on most Android Devices is just impossible the hardware is designed so that you cant so once you accept those devices there are a few Android Devices that are possible to liberate i should point out. But then you cant run the non free apps that people use to do most things with them so. Its going to be hard to reclaim freedom and were going to have to work at it but as people recognize from examples like shinji on. What repression Digital Systems lead to. I hope people will start fighting. And saying we wont tolerate systems in our streets in our homes that cant possibly track what were doing who we talk with who we go see. We have to have laws against those systems heres another question of course when i start to think about my personal data being collected yes i dont like the fact. I understand that it can be used to manipulate my behavior and influence my opinions i know that and so it can be used yes absolutely and some thinkers that i spoke to during this uneasy times told me that they may be ok with their data being collected as long as they know for what do you think transparency could work here i mean wouldnt you be ok with giving your personal data if you knew exactly how it is going to be used. Well how could i know such a thing i could hear what somebody tells me its going to be used for how do i know that it wont in fact be used for other things thats a much harder problem in many cases i would accept the collection of certain data for certain purposes but i would always ask the question why should we trust you there are not very many governments i would trust to know things about me and trust them to use that data only for the good purposes that theyve stated because i know that so many governments are tracking people and trying to pretend theyre not and repressing some people. You know theres this comic from demick is actually only spitting up what we already have and that is that utilization of everything and in many for us as gas stations you cant even seal up a tank without a credit card anymore its hard to be in touch with people if youre not on ses and whats worse is you dont have an email so heres the question are we having into a reality where using Digital Technology would be sort of mandatory not by law but by a spirit of time. There is a danger of that of course i think its an exaggeration to call that digitalisation of quote everything unquote but certainly many things and enough to make it dangerous and i call for the laws against that i dont think it should be lawful for a gas station not to accept cash i dont think it should be lawful for a food store or restaurant not to accept cash so you know you know what youre talking about basically is the reversal of the trends. Absolutely if the trend is dangerous we must reverse it but how can it be done practice now that everyone sort of done that and its going and we know how to stop it you know its so easy to look at how hard this task is and give up. But i succeeded it supposedly impossible tasks before when i started developing the new operating system some of my friends said oh yes this is what we need but its hopeless its too late the jobs too big i give up they didnt even try to help because they gave up fortunately some of my other friends and some strangers said yeah i want to help and we got it done thousands of us and it is possible therefore to reverse dangerous trends that there are a lot of dangerous trends in the world one of them is. Greenhouse gas emission you know if we dont reverse that trend and pretty damn fast then civilization may collapse under all the fires droughts crop failures floods diseases civil wars you know globalized manufacturing may not work anymore because a 6 a civil war over there and one place you dont normally think about prevents the production of food widgets and theres no way to make any any more for 2 years but and meanwhile during that time 5 other things cant be made and suppose no computers can be made and nobody knows how to live without computers so it could all crash but even bigger than that theres an even bigger trend that we also must defeat and that is pew takhar see the tendency for the rich to control governments such that democracy is a sham now this is the situation in the United States a study determined that since the late nineties Public Opinion no longer correlates with the federal Government Policies they seem to be determined entirely by 2 things what rich people want and what the special interests in any particular issue want well thats not democracy and thats why weve been unable to get sayings like a National Medical system a green new deal. And various other things that people almost all want but the politicians keep opposing and one other at one aspect of to talk or see is of course the influence of money in politics the ease of destroying a candidate with false rumors distraction campaigns. Theyre all tools of plutocracy you know. Some people worry that russia will manipulate the us election through facebook and twitter one sure its trying to but im even more scared of the rich americans who are doing even more of that so. You know we have these horrible trends and we have to reverse them somehow and the paradox is the only reason its hard is because each of us thinks im alone what could i possibly do or even i in my 10 friends what could we possibly do. But if you try sometimes your effort grows and grows so you must try. Richard on that optimistic note i want to thank you for this wonderful chat that we had means you gay male up to ponder about and i hope that our viewers will also. Have something to think about and decisions to make up for this from you in this talk of our spank you so much and good luck with everything. Thank you very much. Finding it the valuation you get a. Stock price times current the number of shares outstanding and if you have knowledge on how to buy back your own stock and pump up those stock prices and executive Stock Options then you have a higher market cap but you actually didnt create anything for the economy you didnt engage in any capital expense expenditures a cap ex to expand your company in any way then whatll happen is will happen to i. B. M. You know they went through the whole stock buyback routine in benchley it played out in the companies a shambles or General Electric General Electric is almost absolutely out of business by trying to push. This instead of products. Welcome to everyone to this special. Friend. Troubles here for the burial of steve diamonds body. We same say only time that we may trip as a community is interfering. Is just happens all the time and we always sigh we must stop meeting like this both. Of them. Take the position you raise taxes repeat after me i swear by almighty fault i swear by almighty god that the evidence i should