High everybody i am david and neck schist, columnist for the washington post. Welcome to the National Book festival in this difficult time of the pandemic, one thing we can do i know you are loving it as i am is to read good books. I wrote a book that was published this summer which was about a cia officer who is struggling with one of the central problems of our times which is knowing what is true and what isnt. And it is my great pleasure to have with me today to people who wrote two of those very best books of this summer, about issues related to our new technologically sophisticated world and the dangers. First i want to introduce bart gelman, my colleague at the washington post, wrote an extraordinary memoir that led to the revelation about nsa, technology and surveillance. And the subtitle of barts book says the american surveillance state. I also into introduce another outstanding author, thomas ridden who teaches at john hopkins. Whose book active measures is a history of what we have come to call misinformation. The ways in which our election systems, our politics are very political fabric can be manipulated by foreign governments. Any history of that kind of operation going back many decades. These are two extraordinary books. I am delighted to have bart and thomas with me this morning. I want to ask each of you if you would begin with a brief one minute summary of what you would most like readers, at this National Book festival to know about your books. Then we will go into a broader discussion, bart lead us off. Dark beer is an attempt to relate to combine three books. Its a story of Edward Snowden how you did what he did why he did what he did. And it takes you behind the scenes of our interaction. It is a story of the surveillance state and the content of the relations that snowden made about the nsa. And the change of boundaries that it secretly put into effect after 911. So that there were lines that were crossed after 911 that the American People did not know about. And the third is a more personal memoir which i did not expect to write. It is the story of the investigative reporting that went into this. Brings you into the newsroom, into moscow hotel rooms, and to all of the places. I was doing my own reporting and the dilemmas and risks and in some cases dangers that i face. I should say in closing that opening the discussion of dark mirrors, you will find in barts book modern highly technical version of the sorts of dilemmas and dramas that we associate, the stakes are high and bart takes us inside the newsroom of the 21st century. And i think that is one of the strongest parts of the book. Thomas, your book is one i had a chance to talk about with the public early in this publication. I think it is an extraordinary book as i said in my review to the washington post. And i ask you to just describe a little bit of what you are trying to do in this broad look at the history of active members of disinformation over time. Guest it was 2016 when the election interference here in the general election was Getting Started in mid june that year. The public side of it. I was investigating a russian hacking company, an older one. As closely paying attention to russian Computer Network operations at the time. And very quickly became clear we were looking disinformation operation. Literally within one day it was quite clear. And while i was able to understand most of the technical forensic evidence it was became clear i was not equipped understand the history. I was not equipped to understand the dynamics of what it means when large intelligence organizations develop focus on dis informing, on shaping narratives that interfering in public sometimes private conversations. Either at a broadway arena very targeted way. So that history is ultimately what allowed me to it put into context what happened in 2016. And yes i spent that four years writing that history. Thomas i think everyone in this with 100 days before the 2028 u. S. Would want to ask you, this effort to manipulate politics in particular by russia in your introduction. It appears to be continuing. But look at the 2020 election from the perspective of a russian military. Indeed another russian intelligence. Any russian intelligent actor weatherby government or private sector. They actually have a real problem. The expectation that those people have is that they will be aggressive. That they will be effective. But they will never try to play this game of warfare that the cia called it in the 1950s. Delivering against extraordinary expectations for 2016 in many ways was the perfect storm for them. Highly polarized situation. But nobody expected election interference in 2016. Not everybody, but a lot of people are expecting it today, which to a degree but only to a degree, creates a certain amount of immunity. Or at least the census are up today. So yes they are trying but its probably harder for them to succeed again. Bart i want to turn this question to you. And ask you to assess foreign threats to iraq citizens by a computer technology. Versus what you focused on in your book, the american surveillance states. Is there a way for you to assess the relative danger external from the type that thomas is focus on from moscow and internal and the continued efforts by nsa to collect information around the world that may target americans. Theyre very different kinds of threats. The external Threat Landscape is broad. A lot of it has to straight up espionage. Whether it is commercial or traditional americanstyle many actors, some with criminal motivation, some with commercial and some with security who are penetrating american Computing Devices with phishing attacks and other more sophisticated methods. So theyre breaking into defense contractors, research, their breaking into commercial processes, they are breaking into covid research. In order to gain some sort of advantage. And of course there is a large number of hackers who are looking to steal personal information for identity theft, for financial theft. There are blackmailers who are coming after american who they think can pay. They are using a ransom ware to lock up computers and to threaten to destroy information if a ransom is not paid. The threat from the nsa more of a shifting of boundaries from the government and its own people in a democracy. It is the fact that in the course of its surveillance of foreigners, they have moved into the large digital comments. It is surveilling large swaths of itself. And in doing poles and huge volumes u. S. Citizen traffic. And so we are being asked to tolerates a level of surveillance over americans that we never had before. Address a question you discussed some in your book. To put it in the most direct way, do you worry that the revelation of all of the things that the nsa could do, all of the capabilities may have weakened the United States ability to defend itself against very aggressive and sophisticated adversaries struck at think theres no doubt some of the revelations have reduced collection not least because of the opportunity causes the time and personnel and money that was expended on mitigating against those risks. If you have hundreds and hundreds of people in the Intelligence Community that are occupied fulltime and mitigating those and finding alternate paths to the same information, those people are not doing Something Else they would normally be doing. There are other ways in which the revelations could be argued to have led to collection lawsuits. That i dont know that you could count that is damage under the way our system operates. Thats to say if the revelations lead consumers to greater privacy because they did not like having their own data intercepted. And so Companies Like google encrypted its connection from google servers to your own servers. That can be said to interfere with nsa objections. Thats the marketplace working the way it supposed to. If citizens did not like what they were learning after legislative changes are brought legal challenges to court that assist system working the way it is supposed to work. A lot of things on the Intelligence Community about snowdens leaks is actually the system are responding appropriately according to our own four principles of how we govern ourselves. If i could quickly jump in here. I also had the privilege to review bartons book and the washington post. Its truly an impressive book and tried to change my opinion and views on what Edward Snowden did. So in some ways that is the highest compliment you can get as an author. If you put his book next to mine, theres really a question that leaps out from the comparative read so to speak. And the question is, how can it be that the nsa the capabilities barks it is talking about. Yet, failed in reference to the entire u. S. Intelligence community really significantly if not spectacularly in 2016 and understanding it ongoing election interference before it happened and even in real time. Because lets remember that the people are tracking early on or private sector companies, secure works and outside experts. People in the Intelligence Community that did not mention any of their early findings publicly or even in hindsight i am not convinced they had their eyes on the ball. So what happened there . That is a good question. To some aspects i relates to you dont find in the or not looking for. With the nsa and the community are governed by prioritized lift agenda list of questions and topics that are meant to be looking at. So its a pool of a ration of Nuclear Weapons, what exactly is happening with iran, any of the following subject areas and so on down the list. Were they tasked . And did they think to look outside interference in u. S. Elections . There could be some doubt about that. I think this might be a useful time to ask you to share with our viewers your sense of what Edward Snowden is like. This is an elusive personality for most of us. But as someone who has really shaped you had the unusual opportunity to talk with him im guess as much as any other person except his wife. Youve seen him in moscow. Describe for our festival you viewers what is it like as a person . What troubles you . What admired you . What you take away was . He isnt autodidact. He is someone follows their own rules. If youre not interested in something as a student you dont pay any attention to it and gets terrible grades. He is tired of high school. So after spending most of the year away because of illness, he never returns and takes the ged instead. Which he aces with flying color colors. He teaches himself computer techniques because he enjoys the computer. And he signed up to take Certification Courses for a bunch of advanced certification including certified ethical hacker thats one of my favorites. In many cases were not even taken the course. Just takes the exam. And hes got ability to understand with the examiners looking for. And to answer the question. Microsoft certifications start applying for jobs. In a community that does not care very much but Educational Attainment and what you can do. He is someone who has a very strong and unbending sense of what is right and wrong. He is in that sense a zealots, as my experience, many whistleblowers are. They see the same things that other people see. They judge them and they say if nobody else is going to do something about this, then i am. Hes capable of he can be funny. He will every now and again relax and shoot the brees. And talk about offtopic things but he is unusually focused and quite stubborn. But when he will and wont say on the subject. So he had a fraught relationship from a lot of tension at the margins. About what he wouldnt tell me. There is one significant moment which i believe he had misled me that led to another confrontation. See what if bartley had a Different Administration come next year with the attorney general, would you like to see snowden allowed to come back faced trial here in america . Think people would demand that the National Security community. And what you think the terms of that trial should be . Should he be allowed to make an argument that he really helped more than he hurt . How do you see that going . Dont think its going to happen. And definitely not on his own part. You cannot sort of make up how you would like a trial to go. It would fit his own sense of justice. I think i agree with him here. If he was able to mount a public defense. If you try to persuade a jury that he done more for his intense ive been to advance the interests of the United States in its own citizens. But the the laws written right now, the elements of the crime are that he had lawful access to classified material and he gave it to someone who did not have lawful access. Thats it thats the whole crime. So he cannot say what turns out that i exposed legally doubtful operations for even if every Single Program he exposed have been found unconstitutional but the supreme court, he would still be able with espionage under the terms of the law. So we are not going to get the kind of trial which shes allowed to offer evidence of his intention or sexual effects on security. Sue and i turned to thomas and ask about the riddle that i found most daunting in your book, active measures. You go through a detailed and powerful description of all of the things that russia over decades has done to try to manipulate other countries. But as you talk about recent events, the way america was turned upside down during the 2016 election and since, you talk about the way in which individual american citizens have been carriers of this information. We have been the mules if you think have a drug cartel works. We carry the poisonous material back and forth. If it was not for us, for our amplifying spreading disseminating with russian tidbits, i would not have had much effect. Accurately describe where you ended up in the book, and elaborate on that theme . The underlying politics is crucial and how this information works. This information is almost like a parasite, lives off in existing house. What i mean by that is for example, active members would exacerbate existing tensions, existing frictions, contradictions and the old communist language that was merged in 1920s. david Nuclear Weapons and those against him. And the soviets and east germany for example started very much trying to help the Peace Movement because of ultimately concerns them. And so that creates intellectually problem. How do you react, im going to suggest something unusual. This problem from the point of view of the operator running an operation. Syndicate to be in the cold war. If youre an existing phenomenon, that happy tell really whether you are the cause of certain developmental whether something was already happening. Without you. I think what we are looking at today is a situation that trying to especially now in 2020, the russian counters continues to try to take advantage of existing debates and corrections in the United States. But if we fall into the trap of describing to their action, too much power. For example if you think or claim that the Russian Election interference was responsible for getting donald trump elected. That is simply not enough evidence to support that claim. We cannot say it for a fact that they had National Impact on the 2016 election. But if you make that call. If you say, i believe the russians are at least in part responsible for donald trump winning that election. In your ultimately helping them to achieve that goal. In a nut shell, the risk is that the narrative of this information becomes part of it. We really are in a constructive part here. Let me ask each of you to think with all of us about what we can do about the strength and you described so well in your book. Dark mayor and active measures. Because the title, big brothers watching. Thats how i will phrases. What can we do to help the modernday winston smith. It was a hero of that book. Resistant fight back and survived amidst all of these technological threats. On them some of the people who might help and then you can tell me up they will want. Technology companies conceivably could help protect us. Though we are not sure if thats a good idea or that one. Conceivably government can help us. Protect the citizens but again, problems in that regard. What way do you see that to get the citizen to put the United States seconded first, better security better protection. How is it going to happen. Barton will the parliament to see it as the u. S. Government and u. S. Intelligence community having a breached line previously. And with respect into surveillance of its own citizens. Then, you have a number of possible actors here. The Technology Companies have already and quite deliberately done a substantial amount to restrict that. Because just about every place you go to now is a secure website. It says ht tps of the lock icon in your browser bar. That was not the case earlier. The whole internet has made that change. Led by a few Companies Like google. His motives were explicitly a desire to spend tens of millions of dollars possibly and possibly more in and that in order to work but the collection by its own government. Which is a remarkable thing. Hasnt happened before. Tech companies have largely been cooperators and to some extent still are. You look at it cynically and say a google facebook, microsoft, the core attitudes towards this is no one gets to spy on our users but us. Because theres a whole different set of problems having to do with the nation and the economy the surveillance economy. In the private sector. You have other players. There are political processes here with ngos and groups. And political coalitions. The demanding more privacy. And theyre achieving it to some extent in legislative form. There are litigators. Bart challenging some of the lawful basis for some of these operations. But fundamentally, if citizens and consumers in the marketplace are asking for more privacy. There is some chance they can get it. I w