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."