Frustrated that people dont understand the fabulousness in his strategy, dont you get it, he was defensive, he was not he was not someone who could explain to you. Theres a great absence when it comes to obama and isis and it is an absence of how he thinks about isis, not just what to do about it, what your strategy supposedly is but how should we think about it, how should we view it, what kind of threat is it, how should we be prepare to go meet that threat, what are the possibilities, he doesnt speak about any of those things, which makes you wonder, my god, is he not speak because he doesnt want to actually share his thoughts which makes everybody uneasy. And now theres, you know, theres this and now theres a president who is acting less like a presence and an absence. It does no good. It was very bad leadership the past week. We are going to have to leave it at at. The name of the book the time of our lives. Peggy noonan, thank you. Is there a Nonfiction Author or book that you would like see featured on book tv. Send us an email or posta comment on our wall, facebook. Com booktv. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, columnist is an award winner, his political cartoons appears in about 100 newspapers in the United States and from 20082009 he was president of the association of editorial cartoonist. He ahas won a script award and best book year award. Joining him on stage tonight is chris hedges. Chris has spent nearly two decades as correspondent, he has reported for more than 50 countries and has worked for the science monitor, the Dallas Morning News and the new york times. Hedges was part of the team of reporters awarded a prize, he is also the author of several bestselling books, including wars of force that give us meaning and his new book wages of rebellion. We are here to celebrate the release of teds new book, snowden. Welcome ted and hedges. [applause] hi, so, thanks for coming everyone, im ted, thats chris. Im going to talk a little bit about my book and then chris will talk a little bit about whatever hes going to talk about and then we will have a little discussion and then well throw it out for the audience for q a, so you if you have any questions, comments, insults, please keep them and we will feel them and like the government, we will ignore your insults. So can everyone here in the back . Okay, i will talk a little bit about the book. We dont have the ability to do a slide show. You should just grab a copy of the book before you buy numerous copies of it. But i will go through the thinking here. Closer. These mics are cleaned after every appearance, right . [laughter] so anyway, this book was really not my idea, like all of my best ideas, my publisher suggested that yes. Sorry. Said that suggested that i might want to do a graphic novel biography of Edward Snowden. I was intrigued by the idea and into it but i was concerned that someone else would do a biography in some format in pros or otherwise. One of the things that i wanted to do was to make the book discreet and its own thing that would be different from say a snowden autobiography but like all books, the hardest thing is format. How do you get into this topic, we know Edward Snowden is a controversial figure, has invoked a lot of opinions on the spectrum. To me, what is the book. We know that the snowden book, but what is it. When i was asking people, well, whats your next project, as they always do, im working on a graphic biography of edward snow den and i was shocked by how many people told me they didnt know who he was. Including people that were verywell read. How is it that we can live in a world in 2013, two years ago, what to me is an important story of my lifetime, more important than 9 11 how is it that that story has faded into obscurity. Among people who knew who he was, they were vague on the petit larceny, isnt he the russian spy, or isnt he the guy who said something, i mean, thats a quote that i heard literally. Nsa, cia, they were doing something wrong. What he had revealed had to be stated and layed out in some very clear and concise way that could be digested by anybody. And to lay them out, and so the only program that has been discussed in congress or by president obama in anyway has been the telephone meta data program which is spying with verizon, at t and sprint. What time you made a call, how long you talked to them, what your phone number was and thats it. You can get a lot of information from that if theyre calling an oncologist or someone close to you might have cancer. If youre calling mother jones magazine if youre calling about subscription, so you can tell a lot about people from telephone meta data and theres been a lot of articles about that but there hasnttheres been a lot of misdirection press largely controlled by allied with the government. They keep saying, you dont have to worry about it because that program doesnt actually intercept the voice content of your call, and thats true. They have another program that does that. And then the people who defend that program say, well, you dont have to worry about that program because it doesnt store the calls, it only intercepts the calls, thats true because they have not program that stores the calls for five years or longer, its in a data farm in utah. You know the technology has only improved since 2012, 11 and 10. The searchabilities are better, no doubt. And so the so i knew lastly the third part of the of the book besides telling this story, explaining what the programs do, the third thing had to be able the dilemma faced by the man about one and a million, really 2 and 1. 4 million. There are 1. 4 million american who is had access to some or some of the classified documents that Edward Snowden took to nsa and cia. Out of those 1. 4 Million People who saw violations in the Fourth Amendment here. Lets be clear on this, no one on the political spectrum says that these programs are legal. They are not legal. They say that they are necessary, they are not legal and they are not authorized under the patriot act. Theyre massive violations of the Fourth Amendment under unseasonal search and seizure. The issue is for me i wondered in the kind of society that we lived in. Over a Million People could see this lawbreaking and only snowden and the guy name tod, these two guys were the only ones who have stepped forward in the last 14 years since 9 11 at all to talk about the programs. Bear in mind there had been previous whistleblowers. Bear in mind that nsa charter is only foreign signals intelligence. Nsa is under u. S. Law to spy on foreigners. They can span on foreigners on americans when they are talking to foreigners or not when emailing an american or whatever. They are doing it on a mass scale with a program in the 1980s. Thats why they did not reported on. In that program, essentially made the effort to intercept every transmission, bank wire transfer, all these communications at the time, and at the time general who was the head of the nsa bragged that the u. S. Did cubbing successfully intercept back in the 80s. It goes back a long way. Its just much more efficient now. I open the book with passage where people are followed by cameras as they move through the streets. Telephone, drones track their movements. Most is the telescreen, the tv on your wall in your house and you can never turn it off and you it watches you. The government can see what you do and they have it in a position that you have no privacy in your room. The nsa, this was the part that may be opened with 1984, the nsa really recreated this with smart tvs. Nsa can watch you through the camera on your computer or the camera on your smart tv. If you have a smart tv, they can watch you. And so its kind of insane, they can track you through the movement, through the streets just like they could in 1984, thats how the Boston Police and the authorities track the brothers after the Boston Marathon bombing and were able to sit in the control and watch it. Now theres a question about efficacy, the city was on lockdown and the guy for a smoke went out to his backyard and found in the back hiding out in his boat full of bullet holes. So we really need to encourage smoking if we are really going to capture terrorists, and probably save trillions of dollars on the nsa. Theres no evidence whatsoever that the nsa had ever successful intercepted a realtor risk plot against the United States of america. No evidence whatsoever. Maybe its happened but nobody knows, nobody on the senate and Intelligence Committee can say it. So anyway, we have this world and we have this society that had been somehow corrupted. I think the moral issue is here. If i cant go through the system and as snowden said, is you have to report wrongdoing to the people that are most responsible for it. If youre not willing to take that to make that sacrifice as whistleblowers like daniel and many others but not nearly enough have done, then theres literally no ability whatsoever for this system, which is so off the rails in terms of militarism and being behold into corporate interest and so and a broken electoral system. Just like in 1984. The world that he portrayed seemed like a possible future but now its our absolute present. In fact, thats our past. It would not be as what we are living today. And, i think, i want to leave time for chris to talk so if we can get to the discussions, so thats a little bit about it. [applause] thank you, ted. This book wages a rebellion, begins from that point, from the distopia that ted described, what our philosopher calls inverted totalitarism. A classical totalitarian regime you have a communist party that overthrows and replaces it. An inverted totalitariasm. And yet internally have seized all the levels of power. As ted explained, its over. In the book that i wrote is really how does one resist, how does one rebel against this dystopia. We just saw this project that came out today that exxon mobile were aware of Climate Change decades ago and, yet, like the tobacco denied the industry in the name of corporate profit. Not only a criminal offense but offense that at this point given the extent of catastrophe mean the extinction of the human species itself. So in this book i talk about the moral of imperative which snow den simplified. Couple with militarized Police Forces coupled with civil liberties, finally we have to rise up not so much for what we can achieve but for who it allows us to become that we cant use the word hope if we dont resist and that means physical resistance, it means civil disobedience and it means jail time. This is a passage from the book on snowden, i thought it was apt to go tonight and talk about teds book. I have been to war, i have seen physical courage, but this courage is not moral courage. Very few of each the braviest warriors have moral courage. The moral courage seems to defy a crowd, to stand up as a solid individual, to be disobedient to Authority Even at the risk of your life for a higher principle. With moral courage comes per persecution. He landed his Health Helicopter and tenter ten terrified, and for this act of moral courage thompson like snowden was hounded and reviled. Moral courage always looks like this, it is always defined by the state as treason, the army attempted to cover up the massacre and marshall thompson. It is the courage to act and to speak the truth, thompson had it, Daniel Elsburg had it, Martin Luther king had it and what those in authority once said about them, they say today about snowden. My country right or wrong is the moral equivalent of my mother drunk or sobber. So let me speak to you about those drunk with power, to sweep up all your email correspondence, tweets, seb searches, your phone records, your file transfers, your live chats, financial data, medical data, your criminal and Civil Court Records and your movements, those were a washing billions of billions of taxpayer dollars. Those who have banks of sophisticated Computer Systems along with biosenseers, scanners, recognition technologies and miniature drones, those who have privacy, and yes, theres no Free Press Without the ability of the reporters to report the confidentiality of those who have the moral courage to make public the abuse of power. Those few individuals inside government who dare to speak out about the system of mass surveillance has been charged as spies or hounded into exile. And omni present covered the east german state and creates climate fear. It makes democratic decent impossible. Any state that has the ability to inflict full spectrum dominance on its citizens is not a free state. It does not matter if it does not use this capacity today. It will use it. History has shown should it feel threatened or seek greater control. The goal of wholesale surveillance is not in the end of discover crimes but to be on hand when the government decides to arrest a certain category of the population. The relationship between those who are constantly watched and tracked and those who watch and track them is the relationship between masters and slaves and those who wheel this unchecked power become delusional, general keith alexander, the former director of National Security agency, hired a hollywood set designer to turn his Commander Center at fort meade into a replica of the star wars enterprise. James clapper, the director of National Intelligence had the odd odacity to lie under oath to congress. This was a rare glimpse into the theater that now characterizes american political life. A Congressional Oversight Committee holds public hearings. It is lied to. It knows it is being lied to and the person who lies knows the Committee Members know he is lying. And the committee to protect say and do nothing. These listen to everyone and everything. They have bugged the conclave that elected the new pope, they bugged angela merkel, un secretary ahead of a meeting with president obama. Now what Security Threat was posed by conclave of catholic cardinals and the chancellor and secretary general. They bombed businesses like brazilian and american deals for shimp shrimp. They bugged their exlovers, wife, girlfriends and the nsa are data. I was a plaintiff before the Supreme Court in a case that challenged the wiretapping, a case dismissed because the court believes the governments assertion. We had the court said no standing, no right to bring the case and we had no way to challenge this assertion which we now know to be a lie until snowden, in the United States the mouth amendment limits the states ability to search and seize to a specific time and event approved by a magistrate. And its impossible to square the bluntless of the amendment of all our personal communications. Former Vice President al gore said correctly is that snowden disclosed evidence of crimes against the United States constitution. We have have been fighting against mass surveillance, made no headway by appealing to the Traditional Centers of power. It was only after snowden leaked documents that disclosed crimes committed by the state, again geunine debate began, appointed a panel to review intelligence, three judges since the snowden revelations have ruled on mass surveillance with two saying spying was on constitutional. He could have been made public the entire Intelligence Community and undercover assets worldwide. He could have exposed the locations of station and mission. He could have shut down the intelligent system as he had said in an afternoon. But this was never his intention. He wanted only to hope the wholesale surveillance which until he documented it was being carried out without our consent or our knowledge. Politicians including the democratic candidate Hillary Clinton argue that snowden put a turn in internal mechanisms to have his grieve answers grievances that this argument made during the Mad Tea Party in alice and wonderland. I dont see any wine, she remarked, there isnt, said the chair. [applause] okay. So how should we do this . Should we throw it out to the audience and gibber jabber . I will let you lead. Its your book. Its going to be all about us. Your discussion of moral heros and distinction between whats legal and moral, im thinking about examples, the main moral hero. Im a great admirer of the philosopher who writes quit a bit about the dilemma one faces when they are confronted what e manual cahn calls radical evil. She writes that she had to unlearn everything that she was taught in order to understand. Until shes picked up almost killed, expelled from the country. Stripped of her german citizen and become stateless. I think that the the system of what she shelton calls is one that we as citizens have lost not only our voice but our ability to make, you know, our most basic rights, respected. We have example after example of how what it is that we as citizens expect or desire is irrelevant. Against the bailouts in congress and yet it passed anyway. Nobody wants wholesale surveillance. I sued the president and federal court of the authorization act, which overturns over 150 years of domestic law and permits u. S. Military to carry acts of extraordinary rendition against u. S. Citizens in american citizens. We won in the Southern Administration of new york and the Obama Administration appealed. Theyre stripped of due process and held indefinitely. And during that twoyear battle after we won and the appeal in the Second Circuit, an opinion poll went out and that section 1021 of the nda at a 97 had disapproval rating. What we have seen the courts have an essence of ended are mo