00:00:00
Are buried, lead now buried.
00:00:01
That is what we call stories
00:00:02
we think deserved much more attention
00:00:03
than they're getting.
00:00:04
It's the one object most of us
00:00:06
probably would not want to leave home
00:00:08
without our smartphones,
00:00:09
but a new documentary reveals
00:00:11
how your phone could
00:00:13
actually be spying on you,
00:00:14
not just tracking your every move,
00:00:17
but handing over your access
00:00:18
to all your personal photos
00:00:20
and your texts
00:00:21
and your emails,
00:00:21
even turning on your phone's
00:00:22
microphone and camera,
00:00:24
recording you without
00:00:25
you even knowing it.
00:00:26
It's a terrifying scenario,
00:00:28
and it's no longer
00:00:28
the stuff of sci fi thrillers.
00:00:30
You can learn about it in the new HBO
00:00:32
documentary surveilled,
00:00:34
which comes to HBO on Wednesday.
00:00:36
Take a look.
00:00:38
So you're hacking these phones.
00:00:40
What kinds of reactions did you get?
00:00:41
It's George Bush.
00:00:43
It's burning for the first time.
00:00:45
Just what was the pitch
00:00:46
that you were offering these governments?
00:00:49
Usually we have like one iPhone one
00:00:51
and two hours
00:00:53
used to demonstrate
00:00:54
how you can read the data
00:00:56
from these devices effectively.
00:00:58
Take snapshots of the screen and pictures
00:01:00
from camera.
00:01:01
It took me about 4.5%.
00:01:04
What should the average citizen
00:01:06
in any country in the world
00:01:07
know about this company
00:01:08
and this technology?
00:01:10
It's very easy.
00:01:11
It's very interesting.
00:01:12
Should people be concerned?
00:01:14
Yeah, yeah.
00:01:17
You're now Pulitzer Prize
00:01:18
winning journalist and producer
00:01:19
of HBO
00:01:19
documentary surveilled,
00:01:20
which I should note, like
00:01:22
CNN is owned by Warner Brothers.
00:01:23
Discovery here with us, Ronan Farrow.
00:01:25
Ronan, good to see you.
00:01:27
Congratulations
00:01:28
on the new docs of spyware.
00:01:29
Companies say
00:01:30
that their programs can help
00:01:31
authorities prevent terrorism,
00:01:33
fight criminals.
00:01:34
But critics
00:01:35
also warn
00:01:36
that spyware can violate civil liberties.
00:01:39
And you have firsthand experience
00:01:40
because you've been
00:01:41
a target of spyware
00:01:43
because of your reporting
00:01:44
on Harvey Weinstein.
00:01:45
Explain all of this.
00:01:48
I have been targeted by both old school
00:01:50
surveillance and also tech driven
00:01:53
surveillance room,
00:01:54
have had my phone location
00:01:55
tracked, for instance,
00:01:57
and it opened up a world to me of
00:01:59
just how commonplace this is
00:02:00
and what we've seen in recent
00:02:02
years, Jake,
00:02:02
is that the world already knows that
00:02:06
under repressive regimes,
00:02:08
this happens all the time.
00:02:10
We saw
00:02:10
the prominent
00:02:10
example of Jamal
00:02:11
Khashoggi, the Washington Post journalist
00:02:14
who was murdered,
00:02:15
and there was an allegation
00:02:17
that on the phones of people around him,
00:02:19
this very powerful spyware,
00:02:20
Pegasus, was found.
00:02:21
Pegasus can turn your phone
00:02:23
into a listening device.
00:02:24
It can without you ever knowing,
00:02:26
crack into your photos,
00:02:28
your most personal data.
00:02:29
and we've seen a string of those examples
00:02:31
around the world,
00:02:32
but now we've seen it
00:02:34
happen in Western democracies
00:02:35
over and over again.
00:02:36
And part of this film is set in Spain,
00:02:38
where we document
00:02:39
one of the largest clusters
00:02:40
of political dissidents opposition
00:02:42
politicians, activists,
00:02:44
civil society members, all being hacked.
00:02:46
And we've seen similar scandals
00:02:48
in Poland, in Greece.
00:02:50
So part of the message of this
00:02:51
film is it could happen here.
00:02:54
And that we've seen
00:02:54
the beginnings of that,
00:02:56
that under the first Trump
00:02:57
administration,
00:02:58
there was the purchase of this same
00:02:59
technology, Pegasus,
00:03:01
the FBI said, only to test.
00:03:03
But the New York Times later reported
00:03:04
they came very close
00:03:06
to operationalizing it.
00:03:07
And in recent months,
00:03:08
we've seen ice, for instance, purchase
00:03:11
a similar powerful
00:03:13
Israeli spyware technology
00:03:15
from a company called Paragon.
00:03:16
So you now have Donald Trump
00:03:18
coming in
00:03:19
with campaign promises,
00:03:20
including mass deportation
00:03:22
and technology
00:03:23
that could really transform
00:03:24
the way that those promises are executed
00:03:27
in a way
00:03:27
that civil liberties
00:03:28
experts and privacy law experts
00:03:30
tell me everyone should be afraid of.
00:03:32
Whether you're in a vulnerable category
00:03:34
like a journalist or an activist
00:03:36
or someone awaiting an immigration
00:03:38
hearing or not.
00:03:39
Because once you start
00:03:40
using this without guardrails,
00:03:42
what we've seen in
00:03:42
all of these cases around
00:03:43
the world is democracy falls away,
00:03:46
and suddenly people
00:03:47
who don't expect to be on
00:03:48
lists are being targeted.
00:03:50
And it's a basis for them
00:03:51
being intimidated.
00:03:51
So there is a fascinating scene
00:03:53
in your documentary
00:03:54
where now former
00:03:55
member of the European Parliament
00:03:57
from Spain,
00:03:58
who was in favor of independence
00:04:00
for Catalonia,
00:04:01
has his phone tested to see
00:04:02
if it had been infected with spyware
00:04:04
and it was determined that it had
00:04:06
been at least twice?
00:04:09
what is it like to find
00:04:10
out that
00:04:11
there has been surveillance going
00:04:13
on, electronic surveillance
00:04:14
going on in for you
00:04:15
since you went through that, too?
00:04:16
And what can I do?
00:04:18
What can our viewers do
00:04:20
to try to make sure
00:04:21
that this doesn't happen to them,
00:04:22
other than not clicking on
00:04:24
unfamiliar emails and texts and all that?
00:04:27
Well, that little vignette
00:04:29
is a great example of the stakes,
00:04:31
because that's a politician
00:04:33
who is peacefully pushing
00:04:34
for a specific agenda.
00:04:35
In this case, there's a
00:04:36
an autonomous region in Spain's
00:04:38
semi-autonomous Catalonia
00:04:40
that you mentioned,
00:04:41
and there's a lot of activists there,
00:04:42
and there's politicians
00:04:43
representing the people there.
00:04:44
We think it should be independent.
00:04:46
You can agree with that or not.
00:04:47
But what you saw
00:04:48
is that his discussions
00:04:49
of that policy effort in private
00:04:52
and in the European Parliament
00:04:54
were potentially all
00:04:55
being disgorged to his political enemies,
00:04:57
who at the same time were cracking down.
00:04:59
The regime in Madrid, was behind
00:05:02
a bunch of violent,
00:05:04
arrests and crackdowns in that region.
00:05:06
so you see a shrinking space
00:05:08
for just forms of free expression,
00:05:11
and that means, you know,
00:05:12
less freedom of press, less
00:05:13
freedom of political opposition.
00:05:14
Everyone should be worried about that.
00:05:16
And the other part of your question
00:05:17
on a personal level, it's devastating.
00:05:19
We also have the stories in this film
00:05:21
of just innocent bystanders, completely
00:05:24
apolitical family
00:05:25
members of people who were targeted,
00:05:27
who also got infected.
00:05:28
We have another scene where,
00:05:29
you know, the sibling of an activist,
00:05:31
it gets tested and they find in real time
00:05:33
she's been infected.
00:05:34
We have, you know, doctors
00:05:36
whose patients information is compromised
00:05:38
and you don't know where
00:05:39
that information is going
00:05:40
or how it's going to be held over.
00:05:41
You used against
00:05:42
you used as a basis
00:05:43
for some illicit arrest.
00:05:45
Now, these are things
00:05:45
we don't expect in a democracy,
00:05:47
but it is happening in democracies.
00:05:49
And we have the tools here
00:05:50
in this government to do it increasingly.
00:05:52
So what the Trump administration does on
00:05:54
this is going to be pivotal.
00:05:56
Well, what what should Congress do?
00:06:00
What should journalists do?
00:06:02
What should the public do?
00:06:05
A couple of simple things.
00:06:07
I mean, one is
00:06:07
if you care about this issue
00:06:08
and you see these stories
00:06:09
and you're moved by it,
00:06:10
and you see how invasive this is
00:06:12
and how it shrinks
00:06:12
the space for you
00:06:13
to operate freely in our society,
00:06:16
you should write to your representative
00:06:17
and say, hey,
00:06:18
I care about regulation and legislation
00:06:20
that is going to prevent this
00:06:21
from being a free
00:06:22
for all
00:06:22
like we've seen in
00:06:23
some of these other Western
00:06:24
democracies, too,
00:06:25
on a personal basis,
00:06:27
shut off your phone every day, rebooted.
00:06:29
That doesn't foil every form of spyware,
00:06:31
but it foils a lot of them. Jake.
