The journalist took out several papers, shuffled them and said:
“I will quote Kold: ‘The agreement of citizens with the actions of the authorities can’t be considered an agreement if citizens are not informed properly what these actions are.’ I think, we must accept that many citizens are appalled by the content of these leaks, since the impression is given that you enter each house by violence, you listen to telephone conversations, you read private e-mails, private SMS, without notifying citizens that you are doing it. And you call all this the ‘War on Terror’. I want to ask, can you wage war on terror and at the same time preserve private life, my private life?”
“I think that the President was right when he declared that a responsible government faces a choice,” Wyden said gravely. “You can’t ensure absolute personal privacy and absolute safety – a balance has to be reached between them. And this balance, frankly speaking, depends on circumstances. What is the nature of the threat? How real is this threat? How effective are the tools available for us for the detection of this threat? I think the President is right. It is necessary to aim to achieve balance. But I would like to emphasize that much of what we, in your opinion, do, and what Americans speak about, is actually ‘the fruit of misunderstanding.’
Unfortunately, when stories of this sort go public in the USA, they are at once surrounded with a depressing aura. So it is very important that American citizens understand what we are actually doing. If you go back to the quote from Kold about the agreement of citizens with the actions of the authorities, then remember we’re not living in ancient Athens. We don’t have direct democracy where all the population collectively makes decisions on all questions. We have a representative democracy. And national representatives knew about these programs, and voted for them. They were approved by two presidents. They were approved by the American judicial system. In the American system, the separation of the authorities into the executive, legislature and judiciary guarantees the legitimate interests of citizens to the maximum degree.”
“We have a saying: ‘spinning like a grass-snake in a frying pan’,” the Lawyer commented.
“Again the Russians?” Kold was interested. “And do people eat snakes in Russia?”
“In your country people eat the tails of beavers and syrup from a maple tree,” the Lawyer shrugged. “And the French eat frogs and snails. National cuisines are a subtle thing. For me, no less subtle than intelligence.”
The press conference meanwhile was about to finish. Wyden, vigorous and young-looking at first, now seemed slightly emaciated. Spots had appeared on his face. There were beads of sweat on his brow – and there was nobody to dry it. In the end, age had told. But, despite everything, he was clearly determined to stand up.
The journalist meanwhile vigorously referred to a piece of paper:
“What does the fact that your own citizens notify the world of its danger say about certain malfunctions in your system? This is not the first case.”
“No, not the first,” Wyden nodded firmly. “But I already said that, in my opinion, Mr. Kold is not a hero; he committed a crime. But he also has problems with his mentality, if you’ll allow me to express it delicately. What arrogance must you possess to believe that your own moral estimates outweigh the estimates of two presidents, two chambers of Congress, the American courts and about 30,000 of your colleagues. I am ready to accept that in American society, and in Russian society, there is a new generation of young people whose ideas of transparency go much further than those of my generation and even generations of my children.
Our intelligence agencies, like the Russian intelligence agencies and intelligence agencies worldwide, today employ people whose ideas of privacy and of openness differ a little from ideas of those in intelligence agencies before. And so here we see Mister Kold, and we see Corporal Benning show almost romantic love to a dehiscence of secrets. But in both these cases their commitment to absolute transparency caused significant damage to the safety of people worldwide.
“That’s not true!” suddenly Kold cried out, seizing the table edge. “A lie! They were the ones who threatened the safety of people!”
“Calm down,” the Lawyer moved a glass to Kold. “Drink some water. He can’t hear you.”
“Yes, yes, you’re right. Sorry…”
Wyden meanwhile answered the last questions:
“I wouldn’t like to comment on current operations of the American intelligence services, but I would like to emphasize that all countries of the world have legitimate foreign intelligence interests, in addition to the war on terror. It is not only about the fight against terrorism, but also about foreign intelligence activities. I am repeating: all countries perform foreign intelligence. I can predict that these two programs, taking into account that the program of collection of metadata and the BRISM program only to a minimal degree affect the private life of Americans, will, I think, be continued. They won broad support from both sides. They will be continued. But what we discussed today, what my country and the whole world discussed in the last two weeks – all this, I believe, will generate a global discussion concerning what is meant by private life in the internet era, what reasonable rules are, what legitimate hopes for private life can there be in an extremely interconnected world. I headed the consulting department under the CIA and I set complex problems for them. One of the most difficult problems I set was a search for the balance between safety and transparency. I formulated the question as follows: ‘Will the USA be able to perform intelligence activities in the future within the broader political culture which every day requires more transparency and more public reporting in all areas of national life?’ They studied this problem, and came back to me with this answer. It was as follows: ‘We are not sure’.”
“Not sure…” Kold repeated. “Well, I am sure.”
File 002.wav
“I won’t tell you any more about my childhood. I’ve left this time forever, and you know I am glad of that. I didn’t like being a child, and not only for the reasons which I have already spoken about. The fact is that ever since I recognized I wanted to be an adult, I have had a desire to grow.
What for? It’s quite simple – to have those opportunities and rights which an adult has. No, it’s not about sex, alcohol, drugs or gambling institutions (especially since all of us get acquainted with these things at a pretty early age.)
An adult has access to what I call the ‘real deal’. You don’t understand? Well, it’s like in economics, there are parasitic sectors, such as the sphere of entertainment, while there are some things the economy can’t exist without: heavy industry, high technologies, the primary sphere, food, army, police, medicine.
Childhood is kind of a parasitic sector, with all its toys, pictures, training sets, puzzles, Batman and Spiderman suits, bicycles and kites. To me, it was always uninteresting, and all around slobbering affection and ah that kid Joshua, ah, he’ll start off a new helicopter now!
I read that the fashion for hypertrophied childhood and for subsequent infantility – now twenty-year-old men and women are called teenagers – began rather recently.