Phantom Parrot (2023) Movie Script
[chilling, pensive music]
[Instructor]
So, on your computers today,
go up to the case dashboard.
I'm going to go to process,
end of process, it says,
add new evidence to the case.
I'm going to choose that one.
Is everybody okay?
You still may see locate source
but that's because the evidence
will be located on the phone.
Lawmakers don't understand
technology.
That's what we do.
We help them
understand technology
to be able to use in our cases.
Because my job, and I wear
this bracelet, not as a joke,
"Bring The Truth To Light."
I don't care, good guy,
bad guys,
I think we're all
good guys in the field.
Yeah, there's some different
tactics used by both sides.
But I'm telling you
I'm on the side of,
if they didn't do it,
they didn't do it,
if they did it,
they did it.
[music continues]
The National Institute
for Standards
of Technology Guidelines
that say that we have
to be minimally invasive,
it doesn't say
you can't be invasive.
It says, you need
to be minimally invasive.
We need to be minimally
invasive to someone's rights.
We shouldn't have
to overlook data
that's proven
to be known good data,
because of how we go
to collect it.
There's evidence of a crime
that exists sitting right there,
right there,
and I can't use it yet.
I'm telling you,
it's that time.
It's that time that we help
everybody understand
what this information means,
and what it could mean
to us as law enforcement
solving crime.
[chilling bassy music]
[Secretary Strong]
Terrorism Bill,
Secondary Hearing.
The question will be now read
a second time.
Thank you, Mr. Secretary Strong.
- Hear, hear.
- Madam Speaker,
despite the hope in 1974,
that the need for
counterterrorist legislation
would be short lived,
2,000 people have died
in the United Kingdom
as a result of Irish
and international terrorism,
and thousands more
have been injured.
We will have handed
the terrorists the victory
which they seek,
if we descend to their level
and undermine the essential
freedoms and rule of law,
which are the bedrock
of our democracy.
The Terrorism Bill
is therefore about protecting,
not threatening
fundamental rights.
[music continues]
This bill provides the police
special powers
to enable them
to prevent and investigate
a special category of crime.
These powers include
enhanced power to arrest
and detain suspects,
to stop and search vehicles
and pedestrians,
and to examine people
passing through the ports.
[subway car rattles]
[indistinct subway
speaker announcements]
[pensive music]
[music continues]
[interrogator]
The exam is now being recorded.
I just need to read
a few things to you.
You've been detained
under Paragraph 6, Schedule 7
of the Terrorism Act,
so I can question you
to determine whether
you appear to be a person
who is or has been concerned
in the commission,
preparation, or instigation
of acts of terrorism.
Whilst you are detained
for this purpose,
the questions are put to you
and your response
will be recorded on this device
to safeguard all parties
present during the examination,
and ensure complies
with the requirements
of the Code of Practice.
Do you have any objection
to this interview
being tape recorded?
[Rabbani] No objections at all.
[Man] Now, we have the first
of a series of urgent,
short, direct addresses.
[indistinct chatter]
We're delighted to have
Muhammad Rabbani,
Director of CAGE,
who's going to talk about
the insidious development
of Schedule 7 powers
to stop and search
and hold people at airports,
train stations,
and the UK's
border surveillance.
Muhammad?
[audience applauding]
[Muhammad]
Good morning, everyone.
Imagine you're stopped
at the borders
by the police who are there.
Your devices
can be taken off you.
If you're asked
for your password,
and you're also threatened
that if you do not hand
over your password,
you could end up
in prison for three months,
would you give your passwords?
I hope the answer would be no.
That was exactly what
I decided at that point.
I landed from Doha,
Heathrow Airport,
and the police,
after questioning me,
took my devices.
And they asked me,
"Give us your passwords."
Under Schedule 7
to the Terrorism Act 2000,
the government passed laws
that are very broad.
They impact on anyone
who has a concern
for protecting
confidential data.
You have no right
to remain silent.
You have no right
to say "no comment,"
or defer an answer.
You must answer every question
that is posed to you.
I had been stopped previously
coming back into the UK,
the police have taken
my devices in the past,
they've asked for my password,
and I actually refused.
On those occasions,
it didn't lead to an arrest.
On this occasion,
I was arrested.
[dark, brooding music]
[subway rattles]
[woman] Do you want to start
by introducing yourself?
My name is Ryan Gallagher,
I'm an investigative reporter.
I focus on technology,
government, national security,
and different techniques
hackers and governments
are using to collect data.
- You published a story
about Muhammad Rabbani.
How did you kind of
come to that story?
- Well, I've looked before
at the Schedule 7 Power
and the Terrorism Act,
and, I had known reporters
who had been detained
under this power,
people in the human rights
community who had also
been detained under it.
It wasn't just being used to go
after like suspected terrorists.
They were using it
to go after people
who were just involved in work
that the authorities
didn't approve of.
Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act
is a power
that police or security
services can use at airports,
or any other entry
into the country.
They can do a strip search,
they can take biometric data,
they can take fingerprints,
confiscate your belongings,
interrogate you for a period
of up to about six hours.
In a normal situation,
they would need a warrant
to get that information.
But under this power,
at the border,
they don't need any of that.
And they just decide,
you know, this person,
I'm gonna stop this person.
One of my former colleagues,
Glenn Greenwald,
his partner, David Miranda,
was stopped
at Heathrow Airport,
and detained under Schedule 7.
[pensive music]
This was really a show of force
by the British government
to try and sort of
intimidate reporters
who were revealing
controversial information
about the British government's,
and the American government's
massive surveillance programs
that the general public had
no idea were even operating.
So, of course,
when Rabbani contacted me,
I was automatically just
interested to learn more
about what had happened,
given his work
in the field of activism,
and how they would use
the power to target him.
[cars humming]
[indistinct chatter]
[indistinct chatter]
[Rabbani] CAGE was formed
in 2003
in response to the torture
that was taking place
in Guantanamo Bay.
Its message was really simple;
charge these men
or release them.
But don't torture them.
It's going to take
about five minutes
to even connect, watch.
I'm going to call him,
he's going to call me back...
Actually, let me just...
Salaam Aleikum.
May the peace and blessings
of Allah be with you too.
Wow, we connected
first time, Sheikh.
First time, I didn't do once--
I have with me, Brother Anwar.
He says when he was in Doha,
he met you.
I believe we did,
he came to the camp.
[Anwar] Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[laughs]
- I was in the car
with your lawyer.
For clarity, camp here
means the tent.
Yes, the tent, our Bedouin tent.
[all laughing]
- Yeah, we don't wanna do...
Misconstrue...
Tell me this
- is my understanding correct?
If I was in a no-fly zone or
no-fly list or not welcome to
the country,
they would not
have given me the ticket
or the visa.
- So the visa was approved
by the French?
Yes.
- Inshallah, it's a good sign.
You know my flight, right, so
-Yes, we do.
I should let you know that
I have arrived, right?
- Yes, please.
- And then we'll go from there.
If I'm not out
within a reasonable time
then you can...
- Yeah, we'll make
inquiries after that. Yeah.
I'll just update you on where we
are with the interview schedule,
and also the publication date
and time.
So, Thursday is the day
when we publish the documents,
and the names
of the perpetrators.
Inshallah, nothing
will go wrong.
Yes, yes, God
willing, God willing.
We plan for the worst and
hope for the good.
- Yeah, excellent. Okay, sheikh.
[pensive music]
[man] You cannot
be a good investigator
if you do not understand
and use technology.
I have seen
how we have changed.
When I started,
I started with cloned pagers
and tapping pay phones.
Now, everything that we do
involves this.
This is the fabric of our life.
You cannot investigate anyone
or anything without this.
Suspects, predators,
what have you,
are going to do
whatever they can
to escape detection and evade.
How do we investigate it?
How do we access that data
to protect the innocent?
We'd need a specific
forensic tool
to break that encryption
for us to get that information
out of that phone.
[ominous music]
[interrogator] Obviously,
you've provided us
your mobile phone,
which is fantastic.
But you've expressed that
you don't desire to give us
your PIN code for it.
Do you understand that you must
give the examining officer
any information
in your possession
which the officer requests?
[Rabbani] Yes.
[Interrogator] And if you don't,
you may be committing
an offence
under Schedule 7
of the Terrorism Act.
[Rabbani] I understand that.
[plane whooshes]
[Rabbani] I landed
at Heathrow Airport
around 6:00 a.m.
Up until the desk
everything was fine.
The immigration officer asked
me some basic questions.
There's two officers
behind him who were
sort of plainclothes officers,
they're counter-terrorism
officials.
And I knew that I would
then be handed over
to them for interrogation.
[chilling, tense music]
[Rabbani] At the time
of my stop,
I was returning from
an investigation trip.
On behalf of CAGE,
we were investigating
allegations made
by a Qatari national,
Ali Al-Marri,
who had been
imprisoned in the US
for 12 or 13 years.
He was classed
as an enemy combatant.
Normally, when people hear
the word enemy combatant,
they associate it with prisoners
in Guantanamo Bay Prison.
Ali Al-Marri,
the unique thing
about his case is number one,
he was held on US soil,
which means he does fall
within US jurisdiction.
Number two, he was held
by US prison authorities,
and there are some duties
and rights afforded
to all prisoners,
and there's scrutiny,
accountability.
And number three,
whereas the men
in Guantanamo Bay were detained,
interrogated, tortured
at the behest of the CIA,
in Ali's case,
it was primarily the FBI.
Again, which is
a domestic agency.
He had alleged that
he was being tortured
by specific individuals.
He had names and details
of those individuals.
So, CAGE got involved
in order to try to pursue them
through the courts.
[inaudible chatter]
So our main guy, Ali Al-Marri,
he's booked his tickets,
he's flying on Wednesday,
as agreed.
So, that means in two days time,
he will be in Amsterdam.
And we want to begin
the interviews from Thursday.
The first thing to discuss
is the interview schedule.
So, CNN were suggesting that
they go live at 7:00 p.m.
and ITV would do
their news at 10:00.
And then The Guardian
can publish,
and then we can have Zeit
and everybody else.
Would that work
as a suggestion?
- No, we still have the same
problem for The Guardian
if we're not publishing
at the same time.
- Okay, how do we square that?
What's the way
to get around that?
- Tell CNN to get stuffed...
I'm joking.
- [laughs]
There were some
questions around legal,
like authority for disclosing
the material.
And I think, Andy Savage
has been in touch,
or colleagues here
have been in touch with him
and he's confirmed now,
that actually he had permission
from the prosecutors
or whoever the authorities were
that possessed the documents,
he had permission
to obtain them
and to publish them.
[ominous music]
[music continues]
[Andy Savage] I am a partner
at the law firm of Savage
and Savage,
attorneys for the plaintiff,
Ali Salah Al-Marri.
Mr. Al-Marri has been
confined in isolation
in the Special Housing Unit
at the Naval Consolidated Brig
in Charleston, South Carolina,
since he was declared
an enemy combatant
on June 23, of 2003.
Mr. Al-Marri remains
completely isolated,
and is deprived of virtually
all human contact.
Mr. Al-Marri became
increasingly paranoid
that the brig staff
were intentionally
manipulating his surroundings.
He said that he did not know
how much longer he could take
his current situation,
and feared something bad
was going to happen to him
at any time.
By early 2005,
Mr. Al-Marri told me he thought
he was losing his mind.
He says he tries to live
day to day but cannot block
the terrifying thought
that he may spend years,
even decades alone.
"I hereby certify that
the following statements
"were made by me
and that they are true."
[somber music]
[Rabbani] I've been stopped
a number of occasions.
This time it did feel
different.
I was convinced that
the police knew who I was,
and that they were actually
waiting for me to arrive.
CAGE is involved
in a very serious
investigation.
Were the police now
intruding on that?
[Rabbani] Very early on
in the questioning,
without actually going
through any substantial
interview process,
the police officers
were asking about my devices.
It was as though
they had a purpose,
and that purpose was
to confiscate the devices.
[pensive music]
[traffic sounds]
So...
So, let's talk
about the human story.
How do we best get across
your experience
and what happened?
- Then, let me ask you this.
As an audience, you,
what do you want to hear?
- Firstly, I want to know
who you are.
That's the first thing.
I want to get to know you.
Who are you?
What is your story?
What are you about?
- So, what, meaning...
I live in Qatar,
or graduating high school--
[Asim] I think all of that,
you know,
just to make you relatable
to your audience,
the fact that you had
a very kind of like,
normal, growing up,
you did very normal things.
You're not just
some kind of like,
because the thing is that
for a lot of people,
still, even now to this day,
seeing a guy with
a big beard, and whatever,
it still evokes a certain
message of fear,
and whatever else, right?
And so, you first want to be
able to relate to everybody.
And then you want to show them
how you survived something
that's very, very,
very difficult,
being an enemy combatant.
There's only three of you
in the world that this
has ever happened to
on US territory, right?
Like, it's such a unique story,
because there are only other
three people this happened to.
[Anwar] At some point as well,
we have to prepare the Sheikh
for some of the hard questions.
- For sure.
Yeah,for sure.
We'll ask some
of the devil's advocate
questions.
- It's okay.
Believe me, I've been asked.
[all laughing]
- [Asim] He's been
interrogated.
- [Anwar] We'll allow Rabbani
to be the devil's advocate.
[Ali] That's specifically
what I'd do.
[Ali] Also, I want to talk about
the effects of,
me losing the time
with my kids.
[Rabanni] That's very,
very important.
And then the sock incident
has to come out.
[Asim] Could we still say
at the first stage,
that there were FBI
and DoD interrogators?
We don't have to mention
who the FBI--
- Yes, that's the way to do it.
You tell the whole story,
everything.
But in the way you say it,
you say...
- The agent.
- "The agent."
- FBI agent.
- Now, a separate question
is going to be asked,
who did this?
Now, that one,
you will say, he is the one.
So we still got like
two other areas,
but we'll come back in.
We'll come back.
[boy] Why do we
have to do so much meetings?
[Ali] So what? So much what?
[Rabbani] Meetings.
What would you like to do?
- I want to go and play.
I want to go to the playground.
[boy] You don't know
what's happening around you.
- Very nice handwriting.
- Thank you.
[Journalist] Were you expecting
to be tortured?
[Ali] Of course.
Because I know
I was incommunicado.
They can do whatever
they want with me.
This is America.
Believe me, even though
they don't wear the hats,
they're still cowboys.
I was shackled
like iron to the floor.
They have put socks
in my mouth and taped it,
this way...
And this way.
That's coming close
to death, I guess.
[Journalist] Do you think
this was an improvised
measure on their part
to give you the
waterboarding-like sensation?
- I am assuming this
is not their first time
they have done that.
[Rabbani] Can I interject?
If you go through
the observation logs,
they note down
very specifically,
"after today's interrogation,
this is the impact
on the detainee."
"After this particular
interrogation,
this is the impact."
And then the supervising
officer saying, okay,
approve this one,
don't do this one.
Do that, don't do that.
It is very systematic.
It's being done,
monitored, observed.
And then adjustments
to the regime are made
in order to induce compliance.
[Journalist 2]
So are you certain,
sorry for me asking,
but you're certain
that they inserted
something in your mouth?
- Socks. White socks.
[Journalist 2]
You are very certain?
- Very. 100%.
White socks.
If I may, you know,
there is a tape.
[Journalist 2] Mm-hmm.
Do you have it?
[Asim] So we believe that
they have a copy
of the dryboarding incident
because they had
to show the judge
a summary of what
happened in that incident.
[Journalist 2] Is that,
I'm asking, is that abuse?
Is that torture?
Is that just unpleasant?
From your point of view,
not from somebody else's.
- It doesn't matter
what I believe,
doesn't matter what you believe.
See, the law is the one
that define what is torture,
what is not.
So, when I talk about torture
to the American government,
I'm holding them
to their standards,
not my standard.
In American law,
threatening my life,
that is torture.
Threatening my wife
to be brought in front
of me and raped,
that's torture.
When they threatened
to fake my "escape",
and then send me
to a military lab
where I can be their lab rat,
that's torture.
My lawyer was asking me, Andy.
He said, "Do you want us to
transfer you to Qatar or Saudi?"
I said, "Yes, of course."
I will be tortured for a day,
two, a week or two
and then finished, I am done.
But you, American,
you're cooking me
in a slow burner.
For seven years now,
I have no idea.
My family doesn't know
if I'm alive or not.
I don't know if my dad
and mom are alive or not.
I don't know where my kids are,
I don't know what I know.
This is slow burning.
[chilling music]
[Andy] Nobody appreciates
that the GTMO standards
of confinement
took place in America,
in South Carolina,
12 miles from where I'm sitting
today in downtown Charleston.
My role was to talk about
his conditions of confinement
over the past many years.
And I want to know what
the government did to Ali,
what they're responsible for,
in terms of conditions.
So, repeatedly,
month after month,
I made these pleas
to the government
to provide these documents,
and to give me access
to the videos.
I want to say,
two weeks at the most,
before the sentencing hearing,
I was given access.
[music continues]
So, we go out to the brig
and I look in the corner,
and there's a stack of books.
Old-timey government books.
The handwritten notes
of what the DIA and FBI,
when they were there,
who was there,
how long they were there,
and the conditions
that they left behind
for the military members
to carry out.
Take away his glasses,
take away his bedding.
Take away this,
take away that,
do this, do that.
All were directives
of the DIA and the FBI.
[music continues]
Unbelievable.
I mean, just unbelievable.
[chuckles] A treasure trove.
I said, "You sure that
it's okay for me to have that?"
He said, "Ms. Boltus
said you could have
anything in this room."
I said, "Well, thank you."
They helped me Xerox it.
The members of the brig staff
Xeroxed it for me.
[tense music]
I'm absolutely convinced
they had no clue
because of sheer laziness
and arrogance
on the part of the Department
of Justice what I had.
[music continues]
[Andy] The rules of professional
responsibility are,
my file is not mine.
It's my client's.
After he was released,
I sent them to him.
[Rabbani] When the police
officers were threatening
me with arrest,
I had just spent several days
with Ali Al-Marri in Doha,
taking testimony
and building his case.
I would imagine that
it was a very deliberate stop.
It was targeted.
They wanted access
to the devices.
[eerie music]
[interrogator] Sergeant 166422
entering the room.
Mr. Rabbani?
[Rabbani] Yes, sir.
The time of this review
is 8:17.
Your stay here will be
no longer than six hours.
So, at 12:30, you will be done.
But the examining officers
have said to me
that you're not giving out
your PIN number.
All I'm asking you,
I'm not telling you
to do anything.
All I'm asking is you give
that further thought.
[Rabbani] Was it that they
were acting at the behest
of the American government?
The information that I was
in possession of
would implicate serving
and former FBI agents
in torture.
US prison documents that placed
particular FBI agents
at the prison during the times
that he was interrogated.
And if this information came out
in the public domain,
then it would cause
serious reputational damage
to one of Britain's allies.
And that's why they were
not really interested in me.
They were just interested
in my devices.
[pensive music]
[indistinct crowd chatter]
[man] Alright, so,
I'm going to show you
how to do a collection
using my own data.
I'm not going to collect
my Google activity,
just because I don't want you
to see my Google activity.
I don't need you to know
that I'm a gun nut
that goes to the range
every weekend,
and buys more ammunition than
my wife would possibly allow me.
I'm not going to collect
passwords, but they're there.
Even if I delete them
from my device,
even if they're no longer
on my device,
even if I take that device
and throw it in the ocean,
the saltwater destroys it,
it's still here, okay?
I'm a big fan of collecting
as many passwords
from the people that are
my target as possible,
because let's just be honest,
if I can get a couple
of three or four
passwords for you,
generally speaking,
I'll be able to guess
your password
or at least be able to limit my
brute forcing of your password
down to even shorter, right?
Okay.
Google Timeline locations.
Google Timeline.
This is where it starts
getting a little spooky.
Because I've never actually
used Google to check in anywhere
in my entire life,
because I don't
use it like that.
I don't want people to track me.
I don't need people tracking me.
I'm a retired law
enforcement officer.
I don't want people
coming to find me, right?
I went to a meeting
at this place.
Notice that the map just
turned sideways like 3D, right?
It didn't just put me
at the location,
it basically put me
in the room at the location.
That's how good
the satellite was there.
I wasn't in this room.
I was in this room.
But my goodness,
is that close.
On the right floor even.
[cars humming]
[woman] You were involved
in probably the biggest story
in the government
surveillance field.
[Ryan] Yeah, for people
who don't know,
Edward Snowden was,
he worked with the National
Security Agency in the US,
and before that the CIA.
And he basically leaked
a massive trove of top secret
documents that revealed,
really for the first
time in history,
the full scope of what
this agency was capable
of doing.
And not just the NSA,
but also, the NSA's
closest allies,
like the UK, Canada,
New Zealand and Australia.
[dark, brooding music]
A portion of the leaked
Snowden documents
were secret British
government documents
showing what British
intelligence agencies
were doing.
What we found was,
a whole secret system
where they would be stopping
thousands of people
under the Schedule 7
Terrorism Law
and downloading everything
that was on their phone.
And they called this system,
Phantom Parrot.
[music continues]
[Ryan]
This Phantom Parrot document
was fascinating because
it actually explicitly said,
people who were having
their data downloaded,
wouldn't be notified of that.
[music continues]
They do what they call tasked
and untasked stops of people
under this power.
Untasked is like basically
an arbitrary random one.
Tasked means they've
got some intelligence
on this person in advance,
and they know they're coming
into the airport at this time,
on this flight, and they want
to do an examination.
[music continues]
[Rabbani]
Your rights are violated,
and your liberties taken away
whilst you're not
under suspicion.
Once you stop 50,000 people
on average each year,
over a period of 10, 20 years,
that's a huge amount
of information.
[Ryan] I knew that when
they were taking
people's phones or computers,
that they would be obviously
maintaining a copy
of that somewhere,
that they'd be sending
it somewhere.
But what I discovered was
that the copies were actually
being processed,
you know, at the airport,
or wherever the data
was taken at the time.
And then they would ship it off
every month or so to GCHQ,
the British surveillance
agency.
[tense music]
GCHQ would then store all
of this on a central database,
which is like this massive
repository of data
taken from the top secret
programs
that they were operating
to monitor communications.
The documents that we've seen
said that their system
had more than a billion
records,
copies of text messages,
phone records,
so like logs showing who
you called and at what time,
and also it said
financial records as well.
And what they would do
with that information
is basically just use it.
Probably the easiest way
to describe it is like
a secret Google search engine
where they can put in
a phone number, maybe a name,
and then get all
the connections
associated with that.
Say, a thousand other numbers
that that person has been
in contact with,
and they can do like
link analysis between like,
who's this person
in touch with,
and at what time?
And maybe they can even see
the content of a text message.
So, this is an extremely
detailed portrait you can get
of an individual
through this massive system.
[music continues]
[phone chimes]
[music continues]
[mouse button clicks]
[man] Alright, so,
everything in this class
that I tell you
is what you can do.
Not what you have permission
to do.
Any way you can get it,
now whether or not you can
use it is a different story.
That's the legal, let them
fight it out in the court,
that's what they do.
But you not collecting it,
once it's gone, it's gone.
Some people can't get
their legal teams up to par,
where they understand
how the legalities or the laws
have updated.
And some of the laws
just haven't updated.
Who changes the laws?
We do.
You also vote,
you have influence
on others who vote.
Even if you don't have
the legal ability to collect
from a warrant,
you do have the ability,
nobody can stop you
through consent.
We have a very
liberal state, Texas.
We have the ability
to pull a lot of data,
we have warrants that allow us
to go out and grab it.
Consents are not even a problem.
You could write consent
on a paper napkin in Texas,
and it's usually
pretty good, right?
We do a lot of verbal
interviews too
where we get them
to consent on tape.
So, I would say to you,
start thinking outside the box
if you're not already.
[water rushing]
[Ryan] At the time
the Terrorism Act was created,
you didn't carry a lot
of information with you
because the devices
you had were so limited.
The potential for them to take
such an intimate copy
of your life from you,
that was not really envisaged.
There were some people
who were scrutinizing the law,
who did sort of try
and look into the future
and say, well, what if,
and raised these
type of questions,
but it wasn't really addressed.
[somber music]
Now, these are powers that
are capable of being misused,
and most powers that
are capable of being misused,
will be misused.
Extending the rights
to stop and search,
to enter premises,
for arrests without warrants,
for the seizure of documents.
There are parts of this bill
which make it quite clear
that it will be the arrested
person's obligation
to prove their innocence.
And that is a complete reversal
of one of the central tenets
of the judicial system
within the United Kingdom.
Those are measures that will
actually severely restrict
the role of investigative
journalists,
and it could actually
have quite a serious impact
on the freedom of the press.
So, what it could achieve
is instead of making our society
more secure,
it will actually make it
more secretive.
[music continues]
[inaudible]
Wa-Alaikum-Salaam.
So to start, I just wanted
to confirm with you
that Rabbani is going
to try and get a quote
from Andy Savage in the report,
and the report is just getting
the last minute changes
done to it.
- What Ali Al-Marri maintains
is that he was abused
by federal agents,
he names them.
And there are documents
that back up his story;
who was there, what happened
to him, how he was treated.
Download our report that details
and makes available
over 35,000 documents
that list and log and confirm
many of the allegations
that Ali has made.
[inaudible]
[woman 2] Guardian's published.
- What?
That's a nice picture
of Ali Al-Marri.
[woman 2] It's a nice picture,
it's not a nice headline.
"Terrorist held
for over a decade...
"calls for FBI to be
held accountable."
I mean, really?
The headlines are quite bad.
[man 2] It's not that bad
actually.
When you get further
down into the story.
[woman 2] Yeah,
if anyone bothers.
[man 2] What's wrong
with the headline?
[woman 2] "What's wrong
with the headline?"
- "He's a convicted
sleeper terrorist,"
in the first paragraph
- That's a fact, isn't it?
"Sleeper" is in quotes
[woman 2] Now backed by UK
advocacy group, CAGE.
Oh, no...
[pensive music]
[Andy] Against my advice,
he entered a guilty plea.
I was so incensed
by the way he was treated,
I wanted to challenge them
in the courtroom,
not only for Ali,
and perhaps I should
have confined my interest
strictly to Ali
but I thought this was
so offensive conduct
by the American government,
let's put it on the record
with legitimate evidence
what this antiterrorism
movement in the United States
was all about.
But from Ali's perspective,
an admission of wrongdoing
gave him an assurance
of the end of this chapter
of his life.
And I respect that.
I don't like it.
You know, I was in the military
from 1968 to 1996,
I'm not some kind of wacko
on the edge of, I hate America.
I love America.
But America to me
is not abusing the power
that you're given.
[somber music]
[interrogator]
Recording device
is switched back on.
Can you confirm that whilst
the device was switched off,
that no further questions
took place?
[Rabbani] Yeah, I can confirm
no further questions
took place.
[interrogator] Now, I gave
you a public information sheet
at the beginning
of the examination outside,
and the bit I want
to draw your attention to is,
"And you can be required
to provide the login
information."
That means the PIN numbers
and the passwords.
[Rabbani] Yeah.
[interrogator] Can you explain
why you have not cooperated,
and do you understand
that you've committed
an offense
and are liable to arrest?
[Rabbani] I understand that.
[interrogator] So basically,
you've committed an offense,
so you are now under arrest
for the offense.
[tense music]
[interrogator] Okay, I'm going
to switch the tape off.
[tape clicks]
[Detective] Okay.
This interview is
being tape recorded.
My name is
Detective Constable [redacted]
and I'm from
the Counter Terrorism Command at
Metropolitan Police.
My colleague here is...
- I'm [redacted] and I'm also
a detective with
Counter Terrorism Police.
- And we're in an interview room
at Heathrow Police Station.
Can you state
your name for me please?
- My name is Muhammad Rabbani.
- And also present is...
- Gareth Peirce, solicitor.
- Mr. Rabbani, I have
a bit of a thick accent,
and I speak quite
quickly as well sometimes
so if there's anything you
don't understand, just stop me,
slow me down, or ask again.
I can make it a bit clearer
for you.
- It's completely fine.
- Good, good.
I understand that you haven't
been arrested before,
is that right?
- Yep.
- This is different from this
morning's process, because
you've now been arrested.
So, you now have the
legal right to say nothing.
And your arrest led out of
a Schedule 7 port examination
and questions were put
to you in that examination
which you didn't give answers to
and the offense
is complete when
you don't answer questions
that are given to you.
Are you clear that under
Schedule 7 of
the Terrorism Act 2000
you are required to give answers
to those questions about
electronic passwords?
- I have no comment.
- Did you understand that
requirement of you this morning?
- I have no comment.
- Do you have
any problem with...
Do you require a translator?
You speak English very well
from
what I understand,
is that correct?
So you were aware...
You weren't unaware of what was
being said to you this morning?
- No comment.
- Thank you.
The officer this morning is
trained in extracting electronic
data from devices
and you had with you an Apple
iPhone 6S Plus, is that correct?
- I have no comment.
- He says that you placed
that Apple iPhone on the table
during the examination.
Do you remember
doing that, Mr. Rabbani?
- I have no comment.
- He said that you then said
that you didn't want to
volunteer the PIN.
Do you remember that?
- I have no comment.
- Why did you not
want to volunteer the PIN?
- I have no comment.
- I understand your solicitor
has a prepared statement.
- So, this is what Mr. Rabbani
would wish to say.
It's a summary of the position.
"I've been
repeatedly stopped at airports
under the provisions of
Schedule 7, Terrorism Act.
The process is intrusive
and I have taken up the issue
with police and intelligence
services
as well as my
Member of Parliament.
On a number of these occasions,
my telephone and laptop have
been referred to in questioning
and I have been
asked for passwords.
My reply has on all occasions
been to reiterate
that I believe the repetition of
the process to be a breach of
my rights
under Article 8 of the European
Convention of Human Rights,
and on each occasion police did
not press further for
the passwords.
On this occasion, however,
I was arrested when I declined.
There is nothing unlawful
on either device.
I've been happy to comply
with the procedure generally
but I know
that the contents of my devices
affect the privacy
and confidentiality of others
including the fact that my work
is in large part to do with
vulnerable people
who've placed their trust
in me and my colleagues.
I ask that the contents of
the devices be neither stored
nor disseminated further
after inspection and
confirmation that they contain
nothing to justify retention."
- Thank you.
- I will copy that outside the
interview room and give you...
- If we could get a copy,
we'd be grateful, thank you.
- I just want to ask you a few
questions around this,
Mr. Rabbani,
and I respect the right
that you've decided to choose
no comment.
Can you tell me about how many
times you've been stopped at
ports and airports?
- I don't have any further
comment, everything's in
the statement for now.
- Thank you.
[tense music]
[music continues]
[music continues]
[music continues]
[Corbyn] My worry is that
the legislation that I suspect
the House is going
to pass tonight,
shifts the balance away
from the prosecution
to prove the guilt
of an individual,
and it shifts the burden
onto the individual
to prove their innocence,
which is obviously
something that's extremely
difficult to do.
I have seen the effect
of miscarriages of justice
by crudely formed legislation
to deal with terrorism.
I'm not in any way
in favor of violence,
any way in favor of terrorism,
but you don't defeat
those problems
by imprisoning the innocent.
And, I do suggest
that this legislation
is not going to do us any good,
and we're going to be back here
discussing it again
in the very near future.
I will join my friend,
the member for Hayes
in opposing this bill.
[speaker] Charles Clarke.
[Clarke] While it is our duty
to maintain the rights
of those individuals
under the rule of law,
it is also our duty
to maintain the rights
to the very existence of life
from the threat which
international terrorism poses.
That is why this bill
is here tonight.
That is why I hope
my honorable friends
will support it,
that is why I'm grateful
for the support
of the official opposition,
and I commend the whole
of this bill to the whole house.
[MPs] Hear, hear!
- Division, clear the lobby.
[tense music]
[speaker] Order, would honorable
gentlemen please take their...
take their seats?
Order! Order!
- Ayes to the right, 210.
Nos to the left, 1.
[laughter]
- Order.
The ayes to the right, 210.
The nos to the left, 1.
The ayes have it, unlocked.
[tense music]
[presenter] Our next speaker
is Gareth Peirce.
Gareth is a leading human
rights lawyer who has been
fighting against unjust laws,
and the criminalization
of communities
that started with
the Irish community,
and continues with the targeting
of the Muslim communities.
Gareth.
- Thank you very much.
Ironically,
in this 21st century
we still have the concept
of the nation state,
that the state protects us,
therefore, we owe
the state our loyalty.
We haven't achieved between us
in the world nation states
that police each other.
Instead, with rare exceptions,
they're complicit.
And the law has been
largely useless
in the face
of state criminality.
Rendition, torture,
were not topics that
we ever thought we would be
familiar with debating.
How could this be?
This is not what is done.
This was outlawed
centuries ago.
And yet we were doing it,
and we're still doing it.
This slippage
in ability to react,
not just to injustice,
but to state criminality
sustained and perpetuated.
In a way, we get numbed,
we get calloused,
and our ability
to be shocked diminishes.
So, this message
is a bleak one,
but to say the capacity
to be shocked is important.
[dark, brooding music]
This is an enormously
restrictive, coercive power,
a form of arbitrary detention.
It affects hundreds
of thousands of people
each year.
It is affecting entirely
disproportionately
the sense of safety
and wellbeing
of Muslims who travel,
absolutely no doubt about it,
expecting journeys
to be interrupted, or worse.
You know, this case
has brought to our attention,
the fact that some people
it's clear aren't traveling
because of their concerns.
I know that you said at least
one person had come to CAGE
who had been traveling
with a laptop,
to do with work, to do
with a significant corporation
and gave up
their firm's secrets.
[Rabbani] Because the police
made it clear that if you
refuse to,
you could be arrested.
And they say, you know,
that could land you
with a conviction
so it's all done
in a very intimidating way.
- They say you've got to,
and if you don't...
- Yeah, there'll be penalties.
- I think a lot of people
think,
but you should have said
it was someone you'd seen
in Qatar who'd been tortured,
and you know, if you explain
that to the officers,
what would they have done?
We know from experience
that the next logical thing
they'll do
is ask about that man.
And they'll ask
everything about him,
everything about your work.
And each time
you refuse to answer,
you run the risk
of committing an offense.
Hence, my thing was
just close it all down,
without saying I'm not going
to answer, I was answering
but I'm not opening up
any avenue of
what I've been entrusted with,
just as I had landed.
- The rightness of the action
is absolutely clear as crystal.
Clear as crystal.
[somber music]
[Rabbani] The human impact
of being told
you're a criminal.
And not only that,
one of the worst
accusations you can face
in modern times
is the accusation of terrorism.
You will suffer huge
reputational damage.
Whenever you apply for a job,
it will always be there.
There'll be repercussions
for your banking.
Every time your name
is mentioned,
it'll be mentioned
in association with this label.
[music continues]
And what if I do go to prison?
What's going to happen
to my family, my kids?
My son goes to school,
someone asks him
about his father,
and he says he's in prison.
Then he has to explain,
why is your father in prison?
Next week, I, Muhammad Rabbani
may be sent to prison
for my belief in the right
to privacy
and source protection,
for refusing to hand over
passwords to my electrical
devices at the airport.
I have not been suspected
of a crime,
nor have I been accused of any.
Yet, I'm being threatened
with three months in prison.
The border power
that I was held under
is an example
of how the balance
between national security
and commitment to human rights
is totally misaligned.
Such an unwieldy
and draconian piece
of legislation
is actually only one example
of an underlying logic,
which is characterized
by precrime, inconsistency
with the rule of law,
discriminatory application,
disproportionate force,
and counterproductive outcomes.
The role of states intruding
on the private life of citizens
has always been contentious.
States will always want
to consolidate more
and more power,
thus eroding power
from their citizens.
The state has a responsibility
to keep its citizens
safe and secure.
However, there must be
security and privacy,
security and digital rights,
security and freedoms.
I urge all member states
and policymakers
to think about where
we have reached as a society
when an innocent man
can be sent to prison
for a password.
My case goes
to the heart of that debate
between security and liberty.
Can and should the law
allow police officers
to gain access to all
of our personal records
and their professional records,
confidential information,
location data, going back,
you know, maybe years,
even though there's
no suspicion of any wrongdoing,
even though there's
no accusation of any crime.
I felt that there is
a moral duty upon me
to assert my innocence.
It's something
any conscientious person
would do, should do.
Especially someone like myself,
who's leading an organization
that's supporting
vulnerable people,
to stand up for the fact
that the law
is absolutely wrong on this.
How is that point
going to be made
if I don't actually assert
that case in court?
[imam] Allahu Akbar.
Allahu Akbar.
[Rabbani] In her final
concluding statement,
the judge attested that
she believes that I'm a person
of good character,
and I was in possession
of confidential information.
But their hands were tied,
and she had to find me guilty.
It wasn't a prison sentence.
It was a conditional discharge.
But I now find myself
in this strange situation
where I'm actually guilty
of committing
a terrorism offence.
There was always the possibility
of a negative outcome,
but the judge's and
prosecution's acceptance
that at no point was
I under suspicion
highlights
the absurdity of Schedule 7 law.
There are important implications
for our collective privacy,
as Schedule 7 acts as
a digital strip search.
We will be
appealing this decision
and we have won
the moral argument.
Thank you.
[crowd cheering, applauding]
I believe that I took
the right position,
protecting the rights
of a torture survivor.
And probably, in the future
when the political climate
has changed,
people will look back
and think actually,
that was the right thing to do.
In court, the police officers
who arrested me
tried to say that
it was a random stop.
But the judge managed
to get it on record
and they admitted that this
was a deliberate targeted
intelligence-led stop.
They were determined
to try and get the data.
[somber music]
[presenter 2] A lot of people
are worried
about the government.
Some individuals believe
that the government shouldn't
have access to anything,
it's we the people.
But I'm telling you this,
we are looking for specific
information involving a crime.
If it's a fraud let's say
or a financial case,
I might be looking
at your financial apps,
I might be looking
at your Bank of America app,
your cash app, Venmo,
I might be looking
at your cryptocurrency wallet.
I am not looking
at your personal photos.
Quite frankly,
if it's not evidence,
we really don't care about it.
It's funny is that,
we talk about privacy,
and we talk about well,
we don't want law enforcement
to have access to information,
we want to be privacy,
yet Amazon can tell you
the last two minutes
of what your last conversation
that you had in your kitchen
on Amazon Alexa, right?
Now, we have
the Internet of Things.
So, you can go
from your Nest camera
to your Ring doorbell camera.
By the way, where's all
that information going?
[music continues]
We worry about law enforcement,
but we're being tracked
no matter what we do.
Whether it be Amazon,
whether it be Facebook, Google.
All those are tracking
everything that we do.
The amount of data
and the amount of information,
who has that information?
What is that information
used for?
[rustling wind]
[indistinct chatter]
[speaking in German]
On the back is where the
microcontroller goes on it
and then in the front here go...
three resistors, a capacitor and
two Zener diodes and that's it.
That's all it needs.
- Today, I'm going to talk about
Behavioral Biometrics
and how it relates to and
clashes with our privacy.
Behavioral Biometrics reveals
much more about us than mere
identity
especially with eye movements
for example, someone could
discern your sexuality
similar to where you 'like'
things on Facebook, but without
even clicking a button
because you do
it more subconsciously
and it's very difficult to hide
what you wanted to look at.
Another important body movement
is gait recognition.
In fact, this has a few
advantages over facial
recognition
because it's
much harder to hide.
From speech, you can understand
which country someone is from,
their socioeconomic background,
and whether they are educated or
uneducated
or what emotion they're feeling
in that moment.
Of course, that is very
interesting from Mark's
point of view
because he might be
able to sell us something.
Facebook has announced they are
going to build the Metaverse
to create virtual
characters and avatars.
For this, you will need a lot of
data, and new types of data
that we don't have yet.
The way this technology is
developing, more and more data
will be captured in the future,
and because these AR/VR
devices are worn permanently on
the body,
they are constantly recording
data from the wearer and
their environment.
Now, I would like to look
a little bit into the future.
That could be
odor identification.
For now,
I think the technology is
still not quite good enough
but it's one to keep an eye on.
But there are
initial studies showing
that it is possible to predict
people's intentions,
what they'll do next
and how they might behave.
[heavy thunderstorm]
[crowd murmur]
[Policewoman]
This is the SIM card.
Vodafone.
So, there are two SIM cards.
[Rabbani] Don't even remember
any of these things.
- There's a SIM card.
USB Drive.
- I remember these.
- Yeah?
Phone, and of course,
the laptop.
It wasn't with a charger
or anything, no?
- I don't think it was.
- All right.
So if you just sign
underneath there.
That's it.
So, I'll make a copy of that.
- Okay, great.
- You can put all those
together.
- Thank you very much.
- And finally,
after all this time.
It was a big deal
when this came in.
- See, I don't remember
half these...
This I think is my tails...USB.
I remember that.
I forgot about that sticker.
Representing Tor.
I've been told
I shouldn't open it.
As soon as you open it,
you power it up.
So we don't want to do that.
We're just gonna leave it.
And my colleagues
from the information security
company,
those guys will open it,
and they'll be able
to figure out what's gone on.
Thanks a lot,
I really appreciate that.
[pensive music]
[Rabanni] So, here I am
speaking to you,
proudly, as a convicted
terrorist.
If it's a crime to protect
the privacy of others,
if it's a crime to protect
the confidentiality
of vulnerable people,
then Alhamdulillah,
I'm proud to be
a convicted terrorist,
I'll do it again.
The judge knew
I was not a terrorist,
you know I'm not a terrorist,
I know I'm not a terrorist.
But the problem is the law
made me into a terrorist.
Everybody possesses a heart
and your heart has a feeling
called compassion.
You need to act because
you care for other people,
not because you have
some ideology,
or some agenda
or some political interest.
Forget all that.
There are people
and they need help.
Many people came before us
who've gone through oppression
and difficulties and all that.
They endured, they survived,
they came out the other end.
Yes, there are many challenges,
but every challenge
has a solution,
every challenge
can be overcome.
So take it easy,
don't become too emotional,
don't let it get to you, okay?
There will always be a way out.
Inshallah.
I'll leave it at that.
[audience clapping]
[music continues]
[music continues]
It is one of the darkest
periods
in America's post-9/11
national security policy,
government-approved
enhanced interrogation,
aka, torture.
Few detainees have told
their stories publicly
but one, Ali Al-Marri,
is now coming forward
and alleging torture
by other arms
of the American government...
[music continues]
[music continues]
[somber music]
[Instructor]
So, on your computers today,
go up to the case dashboard.
I'm going to go to process,
end of process, it says,
add new evidence to the case.
I'm going to choose that one.
Is everybody okay?
You still may see locate source
but that's because the evidence
will be located on the phone.
Lawmakers don't understand
technology.
That's what we do.
We help them
understand technology
to be able to use in our cases.
Because my job, and I wear
this bracelet, not as a joke,
"Bring The Truth To Light."
I don't care, good guy,
bad guys,
I think we're all
good guys in the field.
Yeah, there's some different
tactics used by both sides.
But I'm telling you
I'm on the side of,
if they didn't do it,
they didn't do it,
if they did it,
they did it.
[music continues]
The National Institute
for Standards
of Technology Guidelines
that say that we have
to be minimally invasive,
it doesn't say
you can't be invasive.
It says, you need
to be minimally invasive.
We need to be minimally
invasive to someone's rights.
We shouldn't have
to overlook data
that's proven
to be known good data,
because of how we go
to collect it.
There's evidence of a crime
that exists sitting right there,
right there,
and I can't use it yet.
I'm telling you,
it's that time.
It's that time that we help
everybody understand
what this information means,
and what it could mean
to us as law enforcement
solving crime.
[chilling bassy music]
[Secretary Strong]
Terrorism Bill,
Secondary Hearing.
The question will be now read
a second time.
Thank you, Mr. Secretary Strong.
- Hear, hear.
- Madam Speaker,
despite the hope in 1974,
that the need for
counterterrorist legislation
would be short lived,
2,000 people have died
in the United Kingdom
as a result of Irish
and international terrorism,
and thousands more
have been injured.
We will have handed
the terrorists the victory
which they seek,
if we descend to their level
and undermine the essential
freedoms and rule of law,
which are the bedrock
of our democracy.
The Terrorism Bill
is therefore about protecting,
not threatening
fundamental rights.
[music continues]
This bill provides the police
special powers
to enable them
to prevent and investigate
a special category of crime.
These powers include
enhanced power to arrest
and detain suspects,
to stop and search vehicles
and pedestrians,
and to examine people
passing through the ports.
[subway car rattles]
[indistinct subway
speaker announcements]
[pensive music]
[music continues]
[interrogator]
The exam is now being recorded.
I just need to read
a few things to you.
You've been detained
under Paragraph 6, Schedule 7
of the Terrorism Act,
so I can question you
to determine whether
you appear to be a person
who is or has been concerned
in the commission,
preparation, or instigation
of acts of terrorism.
Whilst you are detained
for this purpose,
the questions are put to you
and your response
will be recorded on this device
to safeguard all parties
present during the examination,
and ensure complies
with the requirements
of the Code of Practice.
Do you have any objection
to this interview
being tape recorded?
[Rabbani] No objections at all.
[Man] Now, we have the first
of a series of urgent,
short, direct addresses.
[indistinct chatter]
We're delighted to have
Muhammad Rabbani,
Director of CAGE,
who's going to talk about
the insidious development
of Schedule 7 powers
to stop and search
and hold people at airports,
train stations,
and the UK's
border surveillance.
Muhammad?
[audience applauding]
[Muhammad]
Good morning, everyone.
Imagine you're stopped
at the borders
by the police who are there.
Your devices
can be taken off you.
If you're asked
for your password,
and you're also threatened
that if you do not hand
over your password,
you could end up
in prison for three months,
would you give your passwords?
I hope the answer would be no.
That was exactly what
I decided at that point.
I landed from Doha,
Heathrow Airport,
and the police,
after questioning me,
took my devices.
And they asked me,
"Give us your passwords."
Under Schedule 7
to the Terrorism Act 2000,
the government passed laws
that are very broad.
They impact on anyone
who has a concern
for protecting
confidential data.
You have no right
to remain silent.
You have no right
to say "no comment,"
or defer an answer.
You must answer every question
that is posed to you.
I had been stopped previously
coming back into the UK,
the police have taken
my devices in the past,
they've asked for my password,
and I actually refused.
On those occasions,
it didn't lead to an arrest.
On this occasion,
I was arrested.
[dark, brooding music]
[subway rattles]
[woman] Do you want to start
by introducing yourself?
My name is Ryan Gallagher,
I'm an investigative reporter.
I focus on technology,
government, national security,
and different techniques
hackers and governments
are using to collect data.
- You published a story
about Muhammad Rabbani.
How did you kind of
come to that story?
- Well, I've looked before
at the Schedule 7 Power
and the Terrorism Act,
and, I had known reporters
who had been detained
under this power,
people in the human rights
community who had also
been detained under it.
It wasn't just being used to go
after like suspected terrorists.
They were using it
to go after people
who were just involved in work
that the authorities
didn't approve of.
Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act
is a power
that police or security
services can use at airports,
or any other entry
into the country.
They can do a strip search,
they can take biometric data,
they can take fingerprints,
confiscate your belongings,
interrogate you for a period
of up to about six hours.
In a normal situation,
they would need a warrant
to get that information.
But under this power,
at the border,
they don't need any of that.
And they just decide,
you know, this person,
I'm gonna stop this person.
One of my former colleagues,
Glenn Greenwald,
his partner, David Miranda,
was stopped
at Heathrow Airport,
and detained under Schedule 7.
[pensive music]
This was really a show of force
by the British government
to try and sort of
intimidate reporters
who were revealing
controversial information
about the British government's,
and the American government's
massive surveillance programs
that the general public had
no idea were even operating.
So, of course,
when Rabbani contacted me,
I was automatically just
interested to learn more
about what had happened,
given his work
in the field of activism,
and how they would use
the power to target him.
[cars humming]
[indistinct chatter]
[indistinct chatter]
[Rabbani] CAGE was formed
in 2003
in response to the torture
that was taking place
in Guantanamo Bay.
Its message was really simple;
charge these men
or release them.
But don't torture them.
It's going to take
about five minutes
to even connect, watch.
I'm going to call him,
he's going to call me back...
Actually, let me just...
Salaam Aleikum.
May the peace and blessings
of Allah be with you too.
Wow, we connected
first time, Sheikh.
First time, I didn't do once--
I have with me, Brother Anwar.
He says when he was in Doha,
he met you.
I believe we did,
he came to the camp.
[Anwar] Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[laughs]
- I was in the car
with your lawyer.
For clarity, camp here
means the tent.
Yes, the tent, our Bedouin tent.
[all laughing]
- Yeah, we don't wanna do...
Misconstrue...
Tell me this
- is my understanding correct?
If I was in a no-fly zone or
no-fly list or not welcome to
the country,
they would not
have given me the ticket
or the visa.
- So the visa was approved
by the French?
Yes.
- Inshallah, it's a good sign.
You know my flight, right, so
-Yes, we do.
I should let you know that
I have arrived, right?
- Yes, please.
- And then we'll go from there.
If I'm not out
within a reasonable time
then you can...
- Yeah, we'll make
inquiries after that. Yeah.
I'll just update you on where we
are with the interview schedule,
and also the publication date
and time.
So, Thursday is the day
when we publish the documents,
and the names
of the perpetrators.
Inshallah, nothing
will go wrong.
Yes, yes, God
willing, God willing.
We plan for the worst and
hope for the good.
- Yeah, excellent. Okay, sheikh.
[pensive music]
[man] You cannot
be a good investigator
if you do not understand
and use technology.
I have seen
how we have changed.
When I started,
I started with cloned pagers
and tapping pay phones.
Now, everything that we do
involves this.
This is the fabric of our life.
You cannot investigate anyone
or anything without this.
Suspects, predators,
what have you,
are going to do
whatever they can
to escape detection and evade.
How do we investigate it?
How do we access that data
to protect the innocent?
We'd need a specific
forensic tool
to break that encryption
for us to get that information
out of that phone.
[ominous music]
[interrogator] Obviously,
you've provided us
your mobile phone,
which is fantastic.
But you've expressed that
you don't desire to give us
your PIN code for it.
Do you understand that you must
give the examining officer
any information
in your possession
which the officer requests?
[Rabbani] Yes.
[Interrogator] And if you don't,
you may be committing
an offence
under Schedule 7
of the Terrorism Act.
[Rabbani] I understand that.
[plane whooshes]
[Rabbani] I landed
at Heathrow Airport
around 6:00 a.m.
Up until the desk
everything was fine.
The immigration officer asked
me some basic questions.
There's two officers
behind him who were
sort of plainclothes officers,
they're counter-terrorism
officials.
And I knew that I would
then be handed over
to them for interrogation.
[chilling, tense music]
[Rabbani] At the time
of my stop,
I was returning from
an investigation trip.
On behalf of CAGE,
we were investigating
allegations made
by a Qatari national,
Ali Al-Marri,
who had been
imprisoned in the US
for 12 or 13 years.
He was classed
as an enemy combatant.
Normally, when people hear
the word enemy combatant,
they associate it with prisoners
in Guantanamo Bay Prison.
Ali Al-Marri,
the unique thing
about his case is number one,
he was held on US soil,
which means he does fall
within US jurisdiction.
Number two, he was held
by US prison authorities,
and there are some duties
and rights afforded
to all prisoners,
and there's scrutiny,
accountability.
And number three,
whereas the men
in Guantanamo Bay were detained,
interrogated, tortured
at the behest of the CIA,
in Ali's case,
it was primarily the FBI.
Again, which is
a domestic agency.
He had alleged that
he was being tortured
by specific individuals.
He had names and details
of those individuals.
So, CAGE got involved
in order to try to pursue them
through the courts.
[inaudible chatter]
So our main guy, Ali Al-Marri,
he's booked his tickets,
he's flying on Wednesday,
as agreed.
So, that means in two days time,
he will be in Amsterdam.
And we want to begin
the interviews from Thursday.
The first thing to discuss
is the interview schedule.
So, CNN were suggesting that
they go live at 7:00 p.m.
and ITV would do
their news at 10:00.
And then The Guardian
can publish,
and then we can have Zeit
and everybody else.
Would that work
as a suggestion?
- No, we still have the same
problem for The Guardian
if we're not publishing
at the same time.
- Okay, how do we square that?
What's the way
to get around that?
- Tell CNN to get stuffed...
I'm joking.
- [laughs]
There were some
questions around legal,
like authority for disclosing
the material.
And I think, Andy Savage
has been in touch,
or colleagues here
have been in touch with him
and he's confirmed now,
that actually he had permission
from the prosecutors
or whoever the authorities were
that possessed the documents,
he had permission
to obtain them
and to publish them.
[ominous music]
[music continues]
[Andy Savage] I am a partner
at the law firm of Savage
and Savage,
attorneys for the plaintiff,
Ali Salah Al-Marri.
Mr. Al-Marri has been
confined in isolation
in the Special Housing Unit
at the Naval Consolidated Brig
in Charleston, South Carolina,
since he was declared
an enemy combatant
on June 23, of 2003.
Mr. Al-Marri remains
completely isolated,
and is deprived of virtually
all human contact.
Mr. Al-Marri became
increasingly paranoid
that the brig staff
were intentionally
manipulating his surroundings.
He said that he did not know
how much longer he could take
his current situation,
and feared something bad
was going to happen to him
at any time.
By early 2005,
Mr. Al-Marri told me he thought
he was losing his mind.
He says he tries to live
day to day but cannot block
the terrifying thought
that he may spend years,
even decades alone.
"I hereby certify that
the following statements
"were made by me
and that they are true."
[somber music]
[Rabbani] I've been stopped
a number of occasions.
This time it did feel
different.
I was convinced that
the police knew who I was,
and that they were actually
waiting for me to arrive.
CAGE is involved
in a very serious
investigation.
Were the police now
intruding on that?
[Rabbani] Very early on
in the questioning,
without actually going
through any substantial
interview process,
the police officers
were asking about my devices.
It was as though
they had a purpose,
and that purpose was
to confiscate the devices.
[pensive music]
[traffic sounds]
So...
So, let's talk
about the human story.
How do we best get across
your experience
and what happened?
- Then, let me ask you this.
As an audience, you,
what do you want to hear?
- Firstly, I want to know
who you are.
That's the first thing.
I want to get to know you.
Who are you?
What is your story?
What are you about?
- So, what, meaning...
I live in Qatar,
or graduating high school--
[Asim] I think all of that,
you know,
just to make you relatable
to your audience,
the fact that you had
a very kind of like,
normal, growing up,
you did very normal things.
You're not just
some kind of like,
because the thing is that
for a lot of people,
still, even now to this day,
seeing a guy with
a big beard, and whatever,
it still evokes a certain
message of fear,
and whatever else, right?
And so, you first want to be
able to relate to everybody.
And then you want to show them
how you survived something
that's very, very,
very difficult,
being an enemy combatant.
There's only three of you
in the world that this
has ever happened to
on US territory, right?
Like, it's such a unique story,
because there are only other
three people this happened to.
[Anwar] At some point as well,
we have to prepare the Sheikh
for some of the hard questions.
- For sure.
Yeah,for sure.
We'll ask some
of the devil's advocate
questions.
- It's okay.
Believe me, I've been asked.
[all laughing]
- [Asim] He's been
interrogated.
- [Anwar] We'll allow Rabbani
to be the devil's advocate.
[Ali] That's specifically
what I'd do.
[Ali] Also, I want to talk about
the effects of,
me losing the time
with my kids.
[Rabanni] That's very,
very important.
And then the sock incident
has to come out.
[Asim] Could we still say
at the first stage,
that there were FBI
and DoD interrogators?
We don't have to mention
who the FBI--
- Yes, that's the way to do it.
You tell the whole story,
everything.
But in the way you say it,
you say...
- The agent.
- "The agent."
- FBI agent.
- Now, a separate question
is going to be asked,
who did this?
Now, that one,
you will say, he is the one.
So we still got like
two other areas,
but we'll come back in.
We'll come back.
[boy] Why do we
have to do so much meetings?
[Ali] So what? So much what?
[Rabbani] Meetings.
What would you like to do?
- I want to go and play.
I want to go to the playground.
[boy] You don't know
what's happening around you.
- Very nice handwriting.
- Thank you.
[Journalist] Were you expecting
to be tortured?
[Ali] Of course.
Because I know
I was incommunicado.
They can do whatever
they want with me.
This is America.
Believe me, even though
they don't wear the hats,
they're still cowboys.
I was shackled
like iron to the floor.
They have put socks
in my mouth and taped it,
this way...
And this way.
That's coming close
to death, I guess.
[Journalist] Do you think
this was an improvised
measure on their part
to give you the
waterboarding-like sensation?
- I am assuming this
is not their first time
they have done that.
[Rabbani] Can I interject?
If you go through
the observation logs,
they note down
very specifically,
"after today's interrogation,
this is the impact
on the detainee."
"After this particular
interrogation,
this is the impact."
And then the supervising
officer saying, okay,
approve this one,
don't do this one.
Do that, don't do that.
It is very systematic.
It's being done,
monitored, observed.
And then adjustments
to the regime are made
in order to induce compliance.
[Journalist 2]
So are you certain,
sorry for me asking,
but you're certain
that they inserted
something in your mouth?
- Socks. White socks.
[Journalist 2]
You are very certain?
- Very. 100%.
White socks.
If I may, you know,
there is a tape.
[Journalist 2] Mm-hmm.
Do you have it?
[Asim] So we believe that
they have a copy
of the dryboarding incident
because they had
to show the judge
a summary of what
happened in that incident.
[Journalist 2] Is that,
I'm asking, is that abuse?
Is that torture?
Is that just unpleasant?
From your point of view,
not from somebody else's.
- It doesn't matter
what I believe,
doesn't matter what you believe.
See, the law is the one
that define what is torture,
what is not.
So, when I talk about torture
to the American government,
I'm holding them
to their standards,
not my standard.
In American law,
threatening my life,
that is torture.
Threatening my wife
to be brought in front
of me and raped,
that's torture.
When they threatened
to fake my "escape",
and then send me
to a military lab
where I can be their lab rat,
that's torture.
My lawyer was asking me, Andy.
He said, "Do you want us to
transfer you to Qatar or Saudi?"
I said, "Yes, of course."
I will be tortured for a day,
two, a week or two
and then finished, I am done.
But you, American,
you're cooking me
in a slow burner.
For seven years now,
I have no idea.
My family doesn't know
if I'm alive or not.
I don't know if my dad
and mom are alive or not.
I don't know where my kids are,
I don't know what I know.
This is slow burning.
[chilling music]
[Andy] Nobody appreciates
that the GTMO standards
of confinement
took place in America,
in South Carolina,
12 miles from where I'm sitting
today in downtown Charleston.
My role was to talk about
his conditions of confinement
over the past many years.
And I want to know what
the government did to Ali,
what they're responsible for,
in terms of conditions.
So, repeatedly,
month after month,
I made these pleas
to the government
to provide these documents,
and to give me access
to the videos.
I want to say,
two weeks at the most,
before the sentencing hearing,
I was given access.
[music continues]
So, we go out to the brig
and I look in the corner,
and there's a stack of books.
Old-timey government books.
The handwritten notes
of what the DIA and FBI,
when they were there,
who was there,
how long they were there,
and the conditions
that they left behind
for the military members
to carry out.
Take away his glasses,
take away his bedding.
Take away this,
take away that,
do this, do that.
All were directives
of the DIA and the FBI.
[music continues]
Unbelievable.
I mean, just unbelievable.
[chuckles] A treasure trove.
I said, "You sure that
it's okay for me to have that?"
He said, "Ms. Boltus
said you could have
anything in this room."
I said, "Well, thank you."
They helped me Xerox it.
The members of the brig staff
Xeroxed it for me.
[tense music]
I'm absolutely convinced
they had no clue
because of sheer laziness
and arrogance
on the part of the Department
of Justice what I had.
[music continues]
[Andy] The rules of professional
responsibility are,
my file is not mine.
It's my client's.
After he was released,
I sent them to him.
[Rabbani] When the police
officers were threatening
me with arrest,
I had just spent several days
with Ali Al-Marri in Doha,
taking testimony
and building his case.
I would imagine that
it was a very deliberate stop.
It was targeted.
They wanted access
to the devices.
[eerie music]
[interrogator] Sergeant 166422
entering the room.
Mr. Rabbani?
[Rabbani] Yes, sir.
The time of this review
is 8:17.
Your stay here will be
no longer than six hours.
So, at 12:30, you will be done.
But the examining officers
have said to me
that you're not giving out
your PIN number.
All I'm asking you,
I'm not telling you
to do anything.
All I'm asking is you give
that further thought.
[Rabbani] Was it that they
were acting at the behest
of the American government?
The information that I was
in possession of
would implicate serving
and former FBI agents
in torture.
US prison documents that placed
particular FBI agents
at the prison during the times
that he was interrogated.
And if this information came out
in the public domain,
then it would cause
serious reputational damage
to one of Britain's allies.
And that's why they were
not really interested in me.
They were just interested
in my devices.
[pensive music]
[indistinct crowd chatter]
[man] Alright, so,
I'm going to show you
how to do a collection
using my own data.
I'm not going to collect
my Google activity,
just because I don't want you
to see my Google activity.
I don't need you to know
that I'm a gun nut
that goes to the range
every weekend,
and buys more ammunition than
my wife would possibly allow me.
I'm not going to collect
passwords, but they're there.
Even if I delete them
from my device,
even if they're no longer
on my device,
even if I take that device
and throw it in the ocean,
the saltwater destroys it,
it's still here, okay?
I'm a big fan of collecting
as many passwords
from the people that are
my target as possible,
because let's just be honest,
if I can get a couple
of three or four
passwords for you,
generally speaking,
I'll be able to guess
your password
or at least be able to limit my
brute forcing of your password
down to even shorter, right?
Okay.
Google Timeline locations.
Google Timeline.
This is where it starts
getting a little spooky.
Because I've never actually
used Google to check in anywhere
in my entire life,
because I don't
use it like that.
I don't want people to track me.
I don't need people tracking me.
I'm a retired law
enforcement officer.
I don't want people
coming to find me, right?
I went to a meeting
at this place.
Notice that the map just
turned sideways like 3D, right?
It didn't just put me
at the location,
it basically put me
in the room at the location.
That's how good
the satellite was there.
I wasn't in this room.
I was in this room.
But my goodness,
is that close.
On the right floor even.
[cars humming]
[woman] You were involved
in probably the biggest story
in the government
surveillance field.
[Ryan] Yeah, for people
who don't know,
Edward Snowden was,
he worked with the National
Security Agency in the US,
and before that the CIA.
And he basically leaked
a massive trove of top secret
documents that revealed,
really for the first
time in history,
the full scope of what
this agency was capable
of doing.
And not just the NSA,
but also, the NSA's
closest allies,
like the UK, Canada,
New Zealand and Australia.
[dark, brooding music]
A portion of the leaked
Snowden documents
were secret British
government documents
showing what British
intelligence agencies
were doing.
What we found was,
a whole secret system
where they would be stopping
thousands of people
under the Schedule 7
Terrorism Law
and downloading everything
that was on their phone.
And they called this system,
Phantom Parrot.
[music continues]
[Ryan]
This Phantom Parrot document
was fascinating because
it actually explicitly said,
people who were having
their data downloaded,
wouldn't be notified of that.
[music continues]
They do what they call tasked
and untasked stops of people
under this power.
Untasked is like basically
an arbitrary random one.
Tasked means they've
got some intelligence
on this person in advance,
and they know they're coming
into the airport at this time,
on this flight, and they want
to do an examination.
[music continues]
[Rabbani]
Your rights are violated,
and your liberties taken away
whilst you're not
under suspicion.
Once you stop 50,000 people
on average each year,
over a period of 10, 20 years,
that's a huge amount
of information.
[Ryan] I knew that when
they were taking
people's phones or computers,
that they would be obviously
maintaining a copy
of that somewhere,
that they'd be sending
it somewhere.
But what I discovered was
that the copies were actually
being processed,
you know, at the airport,
or wherever the data
was taken at the time.
And then they would ship it off
every month or so to GCHQ,
the British surveillance
agency.
[tense music]
GCHQ would then store all
of this on a central database,
which is like this massive
repository of data
taken from the top secret
programs
that they were operating
to monitor communications.
The documents that we've seen
said that their system
had more than a billion
records,
copies of text messages,
phone records,
so like logs showing who
you called and at what time,
and also it said
financial records as well.
And what they would do
with that information
is basically just use it.
Probably the easiest way
to describe it is like
a secret Google search engine
where they can put in
a phone number, maybe a name,
and then get all
the connections
associated with that.
Say, a thousand other numbers
that that person has been
in contact with,
and they can do like
link analysis between like,
who's this person
in touch with,
and at what time?
And maybe they can even see
the content of a text message.
So, this is an extremely
detailed portrait you can get
of an individual
through this massive system.
[music continues]
[phone chimes]
[music continues]
[mouse button clicks]
[man] Alright, so,
everything in this class
that I tell you
is what you can do.
Not what you have permission
to do.
Any way you can get it,
now whether or not you can
use it is a different story.
That's the legal, let them
fight it out in the court,
that's what they do.
But you not collecting it,
once it's gone, it's gone.
Some people can't get
their legal teams up to par,
where they understand
how the legalities or the laws
have updated.
And some of the laws
just haven't updated.
Who changes the laws?
We do.
You also vote,
you have influence
on others who vote.
Even if you don't have
the legal ability to collect
from a warrant,
you do have the ability,
nobody can stop you
through consent.
We have a very
liberal state, Texas.
We have the ability
to pull a lot of data,
we have warrants that allow us
to go out and grab it.
Consents are not even a problem.
You could write consent
on a paper napkin in Texas,
and it's usually
pretty good, right?
We do a lot of verbal
interviews too
where we get them
to consent on tape.
So, I would say to you,
start thinking outside the box
if you're not already.
[water rushing]
[Ryan] At the time
the Terrorism Act was created,
you didn't carry a lot
of information with you
because the devices
you had were so limited.
The potential for them to take
such an intimate copy
of your life from you,
that was not really envisaged.
There were some people
who were scrutinizing the law,
who did sort of try
and look into the future
and say, well, what if,
and raised these
type of questions,
but it wasn't really addressed.
[somber music]
Now, these are powers that
are capable of being misused,
and most powers that
are capable of being misused,
will be misused.
Extending the rights
to stop and search,
to enter premises,
for arrests without warrants,
for the seizure of documents.
There are parts of this bill
which make it quite clear
that it will be the arrested
person's obligation
to prove their innocence.
And that is a complete reversal
of one of the central tenets
of the judicial system
within the United Kingdom.
Those are measures that will
actually severely restrict
the role of investigative
journalists,
and it could actually
have quite a serious impact
on the freedom of the press.
So, what it could achieve
is instead of making our society
more secure,
it will actually make it
more secretive.
[music continues]
[inaudible]
Wa-Alaikum-Salaam.
So to start, I just wanted
to confirm with you
that Rabbani is going
to try and get a quote
from Andy Savage in the report,
and the report is just getting
the last minute changes
done to it.
- What Ali Al-Marri maintains
is that he was abused
by federal agents,
he names them.
And there are documents
that back up his story;
who was there, what happened
to him, how he was treated.
Download our report that details
and makes available
over 35,000 documents
that list and log and confirm
many of the allegations
that Ali has made.
[inaudible]
[woman 2] Guardian's published.
- What?
That's a nice picture
of Ali Al-Marri.
[woman 2] It's a nice picture,
it's not a nice headline.
"Terrorist held
for over a decade...
"calls for FBI to be
held accountable."
I mean, really?
The headlines are quite bad.
[man 2] It's not that bad
actually.
When you get further
down into the story.
[woman 2] Yeah,
if anyone bothers.
[man 2] What's wrong
with the headline?
[woman 2] "What's wrong
with the headline?"
- "He's a convicted
sleeper terrorist,"
in the first paragraph
- That's a fact, isn't it?
"Sleeper" is in quotes
[woman 2] Now backed by UK
advocacy group, CAGE.
Oh, no...
[pensive music]
[Andy] Against my advice,
he entered a guilty plea.
I was so incensed
by the way he was treated,
I wanted to challenge them
in the courtroom,
not only for Ali,
and perhaps I should
have confined my interest
strictly to Ali
but I thought this was
so offensive conduct
by the American government,
let's put it on the record
with legitimate evidence
what this antiterrorism
movement in the United States
was all about.
But from Ali's perspective,
an admission of wrongdoing
gave him an assurance
of the end of this chapter
of his life.
And I respect that.
I don't like it.
You know, I was in the military
from 1968 to 1996,
I'm not some kind of wacko
on the edge of, I hate America.
I love America.
But America to me
is not abusing the power
that you're given.
[somber music]
[interrogator]
Recording device
is switched back on.
Can you confirm that whilst
the device was switched off,
that no further questions
took place?
[Rabbani] Yeah, I can confirm
no further questions
took place.
[interrogator] Now, I gave
you a public information sheet
at the beginning
of the examination outside,
and the bit I want
to draw your attention to is,
"And you can be required
to provide the login
information."
That means the PIN numbers
and the passwords.
[Rabbani] Yeah.
[interrogator] Can you explain
why you have not cooperated,
and do you understand
that you've committed
an offense
and are liable to arrest?
[Rabbani] I understand that.
[interrogator] So basically,
you've committed an offense,
so you are now under arrest
for the offense.
[tense music]
[interrogator] Okay, I'm going
to switch the tape off.
[tape clicks]
[Detective] Okay.
This interview is
being tape recorded.
My name is
Detective Constable [redacted]
and I'm from
the Counter Terrorism Command at
Metropolitan Police.
My colleague here is...
- I'm [redacted] and I'm also
a detective with
Counter Terrorism Police.
- And we're in an interview room
at Heathrow Police Station.
Can you state
your name for me please?
- My name is Muhammad Rabbani.
- And also present is...
- Gareth Peirce, solicitor.
- Mr. Rabbani, I have
a bit of a thick accent,
and I speak quite
quickly as well sometimes
so if there's anything you
don't understand, just stop me,
slow me down, or ask again.
I can make it a bit clearer
for you.
- It's completely fine.
- Good, good.
I understand that you haven't
been arrested before,
is that right?
- Yep.
- This is different from this
morning's process, because
you've now been arrested.
So, you now have the
legal right to say nothing.
And your arrest led out of
a Schedule 7 port examination
and questions were put
to you in that examination
which you didn't give answers to
and the offense
is complete when
you don't answer questions
that are given to you.
Are you clear that under
Schedule 7 of
the Terrorism Act 2000
you are required to give answers
to those questions about
electronic passwords?
- I have no comment.
- Did you understand that
requirement of you this morning?
- I have no comment.
- Do you have
any problem with...
Do you require a translator?
You speak English very well
from
what I understand,
is that correct?
So you were aware...
You weren't unaware of what was
being said to you this morning?
- No comment.
- Thank you.
The officer this morning is
trained in extracting electronic
data from devices
and you had with you an Apple
iPhone 6S Plus, is that correct?
- I have no comment.
- He says that you placed
that Apple iPhone on the table
during the examination.
Do you remember
doing that, Mr. Rabbani?
- I have no comment.
- He said that you then said
that you didn't want to
volunteer the PIN.
Do you remember that?
- I have no comment.
- Why did you not
want to volunteer the PIN?
- I have no comment.
- I understand your solicitor
has a prepared statement.
- So, this is what Mr. Rabbani
would wish to say.
It's a summary of the position.
"I've been
repeatedly stopped at airports
under the provisions of
Schedule 7, Terrorism Act.
The process is intrusive
and I have taken up the issue
with police and intelligence
services
as well as my
Member of Parliament.
On a number of these occasions,
my telephone and laptop have
been referred to in questioning
and I have been
asked for passwords.
My reply has on all occasions
been to reiterate
that I believe the repetition of
the process to be a breach of
my rights
under Article 8 of the European
Convention of Human Rights,
and on each occasion police did
not press further for
the passwords.
On this occasion, however,
I was arrested when I declined.
There is nothing unlawful
on either device.
I've been happy to comply
with the procedure generally
but I know
that the contents of my devices
affect the privacy
and confidentiality of others
including the fact that my work
is in large part to do with
vulnerable people
who've placed their trust
in me and my colleagues.
I ask that the contents of
the devices be neither stored
nor disseminated further
after inspection and
confirmation that they contain
nothing to justify retention."
- Thank you.
- I will copy that outside the
interview room and give you...
- If we could get a copy,
we'd be grateful, thank you.
- I just want to ask you a few
questions around this,
Mr. Rabbani,
and I respect the right
that you've decided to choose
no comment.
Can you tell me about how many
times you've been stopped at
ports and airports?
- I don't have any further
comment, everything's in
the statement for now.
- Thank you.
[tense music]
[music continues]
[music continues]
[music continues]
[Corbyn] My worry is that
the legislation that I suspect
the House is going
to pass tonight,
shifts the balance away
from the prosecution
to prove the guilt
of an individual,
and it shifts the burden
onto the individual
to prove their innocence,
which is obviously
something that's extremely
difficult to do.
I have seen the effect
of miscarriages of justice
by crudely formed legislation
to deal with terrorism.
I'm not in any way
in favor of violence,
any way in favor of terrorism,
but you don't defeat
those problems
by imprisoning the innocent.
And, I do suggest
that this legislation
is not going to do us any good,
and we're going to be back here
discussing it again
in the very near future.
I will join my friend,
the member for Hayes
in opposing this bill.
[speaker] Charles Clarke.
[Clarke] While it is our duty
to maintain the rights
of those individuals
under the rule of law,
it is also our duty
to maintain the rights
to the very existence of life
from the threat which
international terrorism poses.
That is why this bill
is here tonight.
That is why I hope
my honorable friends
will support it,
that is why I'm grateful
for the support
of the official opposition,
and I commend the whole
of this bill to the whole house.
[MPs] Hear, hear!
- Division, clear the lobby.
[tense music]
[speaker] Order, would honorable
gentlemen please take their...
take their seats?
Order! Order!
- Ayes to the right, 210.
Nos to the left, 1.
[laughter]
- Order.
The ayes to the right, 210.
The nos to the left, 1.
The ayes have it, unlocked.
[tense music]
[presenter] Our next speaker
is Gareth Peirce.
Gareth is a leading human
rights lawyer who has been
fighting against unjust laws,
and the criminalization
of communities
that started with
the Irish community,
and continues with the targeting
of the Muslim communities.
Gareth.
- Thank you very much.
Ironically,
in this 21st century
we still have the concept
of the nation state,
that the state protects us,
therefore, we owe
the state our loyalty.
We haven't achieved between us
in the world nation states
that police each other.
Instead, with rare exceptions,
they're complicit.
And the law has been
largely useless
in the face
of state criminality.
Rendition, torture,
were not topics that
we ever thought we would be
familiar with debating.
How could this be?
This is not what is done.
This was outlawed
centuries ago.
And yet we were doing it,
and we're still doing it.
This slippage
in ability to react,
not just to injustice,
but to state criminality
sustained and perpetuated.
In a way, we get numbed,
we get calloused,
and our ability
to be shocked diminishes.
So, this message
is a bleak one,
but to say the capacity
to be shocked is important.
[dark, brooding music]
This is an enormously
restrictive, coercive power,
a form of arbitrary detention.
It affects hundreds
of thousands of people
each year.
It is affecting entirely
disproportionately
the sense of safety
and wellbeing
of Muslims who travel,
absolutely no doubt about it,
expecting journeys
to be interrupted, or worse.
You know, this case
has brought to our attention,
the fact that some people
it's clear aren't traveling
because of their concerns.
I know that you said at least
one person had come to CAGE
who had been traveling
with a laptop,
to do with work, to do
with a significant corporation
and gave up
their firm's secrets.
[Rabbani] Because the police
made it clear that if you
refuse to,
you could be arrested.
And they say, you know,
that could land you
with a conviction
so it's all done
in a very intimidating way.
- They say you've got to,
and if you don't...
- Yeah, there'll be penalties.
- I think a lot of people
think,
but you should have said
it was someone you'd seen
in Qatar who'd been tortured,
and you know, if you explain
that to the officers,
what would they have done?
We know from experience
that the next logical thing
they'll do
is ask about that man.
And they'll ask
everything about him,
everything about your work.
And each time
you refuse to answer,
you run the risk
of committing an offense.
Hence, my thing was
just close it all down,
without saying I'm not going
to answer, I was answering
but I'm not opening up
any avenue of
what I've been entrusted with,
just as I had landed.
- The rightness of the action
is absolutely clear as crystal.
Clear as crystal.
[somber music]
[Rabbani] The human impact
of being told
you're a criminal.
And not only that,
one of the worst
accusations you can face
in modern times
is the accusation of terrorism.
You will suffer huge
reputational damage.
Whenever you apply for a job,
it will always be there.
There'll be repercussions
for your banking.
Every time your name
is mentioned,
it'll be mentioned
in association with this label.
[music continues]
And what if I do go to prison?
What's going to happen
to my family, my kids?
My son goes to school,
someone asks him
about his father,
and he says he's in prison.
Then he has to explain,
why is your father in prison?
Next week, I, Muhammad Rabbani
may be sent to prison
for my belief in the right
to privacy
and source protection,
for refusing to hand over
passwords to my electrical
devices at the airport.
I have not been suspected
of a crime,
nor have I been accused of any.
Yet, I'm being threatened
with three months in prison.
The border power
that I was held under
is an example
of how the balance
between national security
and commitment to human rights
is totally misaligned.
Such an unwieldy
and draconian piece
of legislation
is actually only one example
of an underlying logic,
which is characterized
by precrime, inconsistency
with the rule of law,
discriminatory application,
disproportionate force,
and counterproductive outcomes.
The role of states intruding
on the private life of citizens
has always been contentious.
States will always want
to consolidate more
and more power,
thus eroding power
from their citizens.
The state has a responsibility
to keep its citizens
safe and secure.
However, there must be
security and privacy,
security and digital rights,
security and freedoms.
I urge all member states
and policymakers
to think about where
we have reached as a society
when an innocent man
can be sent to prison
for a password.
My case goes
to the heart of that debate
between security and liberty.
Can and should the law
allow police officers
to gain access to all
of our personal records
and their professional records,
confidential information,
location data, going back,
you know, maybe years,
even though there's
no suspicion of any wrongdoing,
even though there's
no accusation of any crime.
I felt that there is
a moral duty upon me
to assert my innocence.
It's something
any conscientious person
would do, should do.
Especially someone like myself,
who's leading an organization
that's supporting
vulnerable people,
to stand up for the fact
that the law
is absolutely wrong on this.
How is that point
going to be made
if I don't actually assert
that case in court?
[imam] Allahu Akbar.
Allahu Akbar.
[Rabbani] In her final
concluding statement,
the judge attested that
she believes that I'm a person
of good character,
and I was in possession
of confidential information.
But their hands were tied,
and she had to find me guilty.
It wasn't a prison sentence.
It was a conditional discharge.
But I now find myself
in this strange situation
where I'm actually guilty
of committing
a terrorism offence.
There was always the possibility
of a negative outcome,
but the judge's and
prosecution's acceptance
that at no point was
I under suspicion
highlights
the absurdity of Schedule 7 law.
There are important implications
for our collective privacy,
as Schedule 7 acts as
a digital strip search.
We will be
appealing this decision
and we have won
the moral argument.
Thank you.
[crowd cheering, applauding]
I believe that I took
the right position,
protecting the rights
of a torture survivor.
And probably, in the future
when the political climate
has changed,
people will look back
and think actually,
that was the right thing to do.
In court, the police officers
who arrested me
tried to say that
it was a random stop.
But the judge managed
to get it on record
and they admitted that this
was a deliberate targeted
intelligence-led stop.
They were determined
to try and get the data.
[somber music]
[presenter 2] A lot of people
are worried
about the government.
Some individuals believe
that the government shouldn't
have access to anything,
it's we the people.
But I'm telling you this,
we are looking for specific
information involving a crime.
If it's a fraud let's say
or a financial case,
I might be looking
at your financial apps,
I might be looking
at your Bank of America app,
your cash app, Venmo,
I might be looking
at your cryptocurrency wallet.
I am not looking
at your personal photos.
Quite frankly,
if it's not evidence,
we really don't care about it.
It's funny is that,
we talk about privacy,
and we talk about well,
we don't want law enforcement
to have access to information,
we want to be privacy,
yet Amazon can tell you
the last two minutes
of what your last conversation
that you had in your kitchen
on Amazon Alexa, right?
Now, we have
the Internet of Things.
So, you can go
from your Nest camera
to your Ring doorbell camera.
By the way, where's all
that information going?
[music continues]
We worry about law enforcement,
but we're being tracked
no matter what we do.
Whether it be Amazon,
whether it be Facebook, Google.
All those are tracking
everything that we do.
The amount of data
and the amount of information,
who has that information?
What is that information
used for?
[rustling wind]
[indistinct chatter]
[speaking in German]
On the back is where the
microcontroller goes on it
and then in the front here go...
three resistors, a capacitor and
two Zener diodes and that's it.
That's all it needs.
- Today, I'm going to talk about
Behavioral Biometrics
and how it relates to and
clashes with our privacy.
Behavioral Biometrics reveals
much more about us than mere
identity
especially with eye movements
for example, someone could
discern your sexuality
similar to where you 'like'
things on Facebook, but without
even clicking a button
because you do
it more subconsciously
and it's very difficult to hide
what you wanted to look at.
Another important body movement
is gait recognition.
In fact, this has a few
advantages over facial
recognition
because it's
much harder to hide.
From speech, you can understand
which country someone is from,
their socioeconomic background,
and whether they are educated or
uneducated
or what emotion they're feeling
in that moment.
Of course, that is very
interesting from Mark's
point of view
because he might be
able to sell us something.
Facebook has announced they are
going to build the Metaverse
to create virtual
characters and avatars.
For this, you will need a lot of
data, and new types of data
that we don't have yet.
The way this technology is
developing, more and more data
will be captured in the future,
and because these AR/VR
devices are worn permanently on
the body,
they are constantly recording
data from the wearer and
their environment.
Now, I would like to look
a little bit into the future.
That could be
odor identification.
For now,
I think the technology is
still not quite good enough
but it's one to keep an eye on.
But there are
initial studies showing
that it is possible to predict
people's intentions,
what they'll do next
and how they might behave.
[heavy thunderstorm]
[crowd murmur]
[Policewoman]
This is the SIM card.
Vodafone.
So, there are two SIM cards.
[Rabbani] Don't even remember
any of these things.
- There's a SIM card.
USB Drive.
- I remember these.
- Yeah?
Phone, and of course,
the laptop.
It wasn't with a charger
or anything, no?
- I don't think it was.
- All right.
So if you just sign
underneath there.
That's it.
So, I'll make a copy of that.
- Okay, great.
- You can put all those
together.
- Thank you very much.
- And finally,
after all this time.
It was a big deal
when this came in.
- See, I don't remember
half these...
This I think is my tails...USB.
I remember that.
I forgot about that sticker.
Representing Tor.
I've been told
I shouldn't open it.
As soon as you open it,
you power it up.
So we don't want to do that.
We're just gonna leave it.
And my colleagues
from the information security
company,
those guys will open it,
and they'll be able
to figure out what's gone on.
Thanks a lot,
I really appreciate that.
[pensive music]
[Rabanni] So, here I am
speaking to you,
proudly, as a convicted
terrorist.
If it's a crime to protect
the privacy of others,
if it's a crime to protect
the confidentiality
of vulnerable people,
then Alhamdulillah,
I'm proud to be
a convicted terrorist,
I'll do it again.
The judge knew
I was not a terrorist,
you know I'm not a terrorist,
I know I'm not a terrorist.
But the problem is the law
made me into a terrorist.
Everybody possesses a heart
and your heart has a feeling
called compassion.
You need to act because
you care for other people,
not because you have
some ideology,
or some agenda
or some political interest.
Forget all that.
There are people
and they need help.
Many people came before us
who've gone through oppression
and difficulties and all that.
They endured, they survived,
they came out the other end.
Yes, there are many challenges,
but every challenge
has a solution,
every challenge
can be overcome.
So take it easy,
don't become too emotional,
don't let it get to you, okay?
There will always be a way out.
Inshallah.
I'll leave it at that.
[audience clapping]
[music continues]
[music continues]
It is one of the darkest
periods
in America's post-9/11
national security policy,
government-approved
enhanced interrogation,
aka, torture.
Few detainees have told
their stories publicly
but one, Ali Al-Marri,
is now coming forward
and alleging torture
by other arms
of the American government...
[music continues]
[music continues]
[somber music]