The internet activist Jacob Appelbaum is one of the few confidants of NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden . In this interview he describes how he followed in Berlin by the intelligence services - and how their power might be broken .
Jacob Appelbaum is one of the few people who have access to the documents of the former NSA employee Edward Snowden . He is a close associate of the filmmaker Laura Poitras , to which Snowden applied first. In this interview he talks about his exile in Berlin, the power of the secret services and the struggle for freedom in the Internet age .
Mr. Appelbaum , now since a few months you live in Berlin. What brought you here?
The random . I was actually on the way to a human rights conference in Oslo. Just at that moment the first documents of Edward Snowden were published. As Laura Poitras was involved in the publications , it did not make sense to return to the United States.
The filmmaker is a friend of yours . You have been working with her on a documentary about the NSA and whistleblowers.
Yes.
And now you're afraid to get in trouble with your entry into the U.S. ? They got already Wikileaks because of your activities to the attention of the U.S. intelligence community .
So far, the entry expired so that I was locked for hours without access to a lawyer and without justification in an interrogation room . I have taken away my papers and other personal belongings and was told , people like me were for the 11 September responsibility . Added to this is still the long-term surveillance, such as the FBI. Return to the Snowden revelations in the U.S., would have meant that the extent of this harassment would have increased even more .
About the person
Jacob Appelbaum is an American Internet activist and specialist in computer security. The 30 -year-old grew up in Northern California, but since the beginning of the revelations Snowden lives in Berlin and has applied for a residence permit in Germany . Filmmaker Laura Poitras , to which Snowden applied first, Appelbaum contacted for evaluation of the documents. The two previously worked on a documentary for monitoring.
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And now, you first want to stay in Berlin ?
I have long-standing connections to Berlin. I am working here in the Chaos Computer Club , know a lot of developers that deal with encryption and free software , and have stayed here many real friends - so no Facebook friends . In this regard, I feel comfortable here .
It sounds as if everything here perfectly .
The hype around Berlin I find rather daunting , I am not a " City - is " and no nationalist. Germany has, however, because of its recent history with two dictatorships a certain sensitivity , which citizens and civil liberties concerns .
But the U.S. intelligence agencies have their agents in Berlin. Stay for here unmolested ?
I can not say exactly . However, there happen many strange things . ( Appelbaum gets a red , A4 size notebook from his pocket and opens it . )
What's this?
In the notebook I write down what happens in unusual events in my home or around them. On 10 October , for example, two women trying to get into my apartment. They pretended the property management have given them for visiting a key because they wanted to rent the apartment. I called the property management - there you knew nothing about and had no key issued .
Jacob Appelbaum at the demonstration Freedom not fear for more privacy and anti-surveillance in Berlin ( 07.09.2013 ) .
Jacob Appelbaum at the demonstration "Freedom not Fear " for more privacy and anti-surveillance in Berlin ( 07.09.2013 ) .
Photo: Imago
And this could not have been simply a misunderstanding ?
Yes, but ten days later went back someone on the lock of the door to create , namely three clock in the morning. Six days later the same thing. On 11 November a visitor remarked that persons listed in front of the house, who here and goes out. Sometimes people walk on the roof around, but I 've been told that this is not unusual in Berlin ( laughs).
That's right, roof parties have here a certain tradition . What do you have listed ?
When I flew to an appointment , I installed previously four alarms in my apartment. When I came back , had been shut down three of them. The fourth had registered but that someone was in my apartment - even though only I have a key to her. In fact, were objects whose position I had noticed exactly been crazy. My computer was turned on and off .
This all seems strange.
Yes. Each of the incidents could be considered by itself , be a coincidence . But when one begins to keep a register , then drops one to the growing frequency . I think I have to do it with a form of monitoring that should look like random. That runs out on a tactic for which there is the German word " decomposition " and which is also known by the State Security of the GDR ago . They want to make me feel uncomfortable , let me know that one of me " care " while leaving no evidence as possible - as done it all just in my imagination when I was crazy or paranoid.
Are your family and friends affected by the monitoring ?
My mother was declared incompetent due to a mental illness and yet interrogated twice : They wanted to know about her , what role I would play at the unveiling of Wikileaks - which I have never talked to her. In Boston, the FBI interrogated a friend because the agents were convinced because of my motion data that I had given him the Wikileaks material. It was just a visit to a friend. In the U.S., I have no phone , most anyway no longer dare to call me . The monitoring pressure has ultimately destroyed my relationship with my girlfriend.
Your former partner was observed in her apartment with night vision devices.
Yes. Perhaps agents were just about to bug the house and wanted to see if she wakes up. Maybe they wanted it even intimidated. My girlfriend has this type of monitoring in any case traumatized sustainable. Such experiences do you bring to life. Jacobo Timerman , in his book "Prisoner Without a Name " by government intimidation methods that are far worse than the one that I experience . But I know what it means when he says : The pressure of the monitoring can be out the tenderness between people die.
You have studied long before the Snowden revelations with the surveillance state and built the Tor network on with , with which we can move forward without monitoring the Internet. How did it happen ?
I was repeatedly confronted with surveillance . A friend who stood up for animal rights , has been spied on by the FBI. And there were probably listened to all our phone calls even since 2002. Regardless of whether I worked for Greenpeace and the Rainforest Action Network, I was always under some form of surveillance. And I understood more and more what significance it may have , to oppose the monitoring. When I worked at Greenpeace , I then realized that we needed something like Tor . That was the starting point for me to participate in the development of anonymization software.
We now know the importance of the Tor network and other anonymizing and encryption techniques.
Yes. We would not be sitting here and talking about the surveillance mania of the NSA , if there were no gate, if it were not possible to encrypt e- mails with programs such as OpenPGP , and if you are not sure send with Off- the-Record Messaging News could . Without this free software Wikileaks would not have been possible and would have Edward Snowden had no chance . I want to stress, however, that it is in all these efforts not only for the freedom of the Internet. This is often misunderstood , as if we had net activists concerned only with the digital world.
What is your opinion?
It's about the freedom as such. And that's why it 's not about Internet censorship , but about the universal right to freedom of expression. It's about protecting our core values against a totalitarian surveillance state - whether in analog or in the digital world . Lost we have when monitoring has become normality , as it were second nature to us .
What would that mean ?
I think it would be the end of all freedom. It would mean a whole new form of foreign control over our lives . Ten years ago we did not know to what extent we are monitored. One could say that our freedom at that time was an illusion , since we were already monitored at this time. But is much more frightening is that we start today in the knowledge of the monitoring for us to behave as in anticipatory obedience and always take into account in our actions , which could make us suspicious. And that leads me among other things, to the question of whether we will have a working public, a free press . Unfortunately, we can see the consequences of the total monitoring in journalism today.
But newspapers like the Guardian and the Washington Post report yet on the Snowden documents. You even evaluate it for the mirror.
Yes. But if you are the current pen Report looks at the United Nations , one will discover that approximately a quarter of U.S. journalists censored themselves or will not speak to their sources - and for fear of surveillance.
Look for signs that the Snowden revelations in the U.S. have an effect ?
General Keith Alexander . Photo: REUTERS
Check out some photos of NSA Director Keith Alexander to . He acts as if he did not get much sleep since the Snowden - revelations. I think the intelligence agencies are extremely concerned that the culture of impunity could end . An example : the director of national intelligence, Jamer Clapper said in May this year in a survey by Congressman , the NSA would not unlawful collect the telephone data of U.S. citizens. This statement turned out a little later than lie out - and this is precisely where I found the reaction of James Sensenbrenner interesting ...
Sensenbrenner was one of the initiators of the Patriot Act and thus designed the foundation for many monitoring programs.
Yes. If Sensenbrenner now publicly announced Clapper should be fired or even prosecuted , because he lied to the Congress , which is a very important signal. The political caste in the U.S. will have to sacrifice someone - and the secret service are terrified that they could meet and they go to jail before they get Edward Snowden in the fingers . We need to end the culture of impunity that intelligence may not operate longer in a legal vacuum .
How could the power of the intelligence agencies are effectively restricted because ?
Currently our communications infrastructure is applied to the fact that authorities may at any time engage for monitoring. The problem is that this always has the NSA access to the data. For example, in Germany , when the grand coalition introduces the retention, in which all Internet connections are stored , this means : More data for the NSA , it can also store unlimited in stock. The opposite way would be to cut the budgets of intelligence agencies and to better control , also encrypt the communication would be to lay down the law and establish an appropriate infrastructure . Techniques that work without encryption could be heavily taxed . Developers of free software that develop encryption technology , on the other hand should be able to benefit from tax relief . You do something for the community.
It seems unrealistic that such an encryption of the communication could be politically enforced. Experience shows that the latest when an administration has invoked the danger of terrorism , civil rights come under the wheels.
You are right, the word " terrorism " is ultimately the justification of monitoring. However, this monitoring has not led to greater success against terror and represents a disproportionate investment dar. Viewed objectively , we see that the opposite is true : The monitoring is based on terror .
Why do you think that the monitoring is used to terror?
The idea of terror based on the fact that it is violence outside the law . Take the Iraq war , in which more than one hundred thousand civilians died : He was held outside the law . I was in Iraq in 2005 and have seen that this war for ordinary Iraqis meant the naked terror. They said goodbye in the morning from their wives to go to work, and did not know if they would come back in the evening. The monitoring technology has allowed this terror only . It provided , inter alia, information for military strikes by drones.
Commonly distinguished between an army and terrorist groups .
The idea that war is not a terrorist , just because it takes place than terrorism on a much grander scale, not for me to understand . Remember once the drones the U.S. war in Afghanistan and Pakistan, in which not only many civilians die. I think that one has to ask itself whether this drone war is not also a form of terror. The monitoring terrorized people and supports the much more powerful terror drone wars. We need to change these things , while we still have to the democratic possibilities .
That sounds very pessimistic.
Oh no . We should never give up our hope. Hope to have is a question of dignity. I grew up in the 80s . For me there were still a time in which I have lived without total surveillance. About ten years ago changed that now there are people who have lived only in total surveillance - and never know anything else, if we do not curbing such trends . I could say , I belong to the last generation born in freedom . But I am convinced that every generation - our and all after us - has the ability to roll back the surveillance state to regain freedom. We must never be persuaded , we would have no means to act . We decide every day anew . This Start - Can is the basis for our freedom.
The interview was conducted by Jonas rest and Christian Schlüter.
Der Internetaktivist Jacob Appelbaum gehört zu den wenigen Vertrauten von NSA-Whistleblower Edward Snowden. Im Gespräch schildert er, wie er in Berlin von den Geheimdiensten verfolgt wird –
![===13-08-23 Hello Berlin!===
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Alexander Platz from Orianienburger Strasse
I was surprised how at home I felt as soon as I got here. A lot of new construction since last time I was here (2010). Takes a few hours, and I start speaking German, and begin to recall the S and U Bahn stations...](https://fbcdn-photos-b-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/p110x80/1234012_10201843050579326_726036459_a.jpg)
