"We need more transparency to know how to …

By Juan Francisco Ruocco

In 2016, Andrew Fishman left the production of the morning broadcast of the US National Public Radio, gathering 30 million people a week, to join the Intercept information website (https: // theintercept.com/
Glenn Greenwald, head of the media, released Edward Snowden's case and all leaked documents from the National Security Agency (NSA). The interception is characterized by a rough, unreserved, frontal and aggressive editorial line, and during this mission, Fishman will intervene during the next MediaParty, a meeting whose motto is "Restarting journalism" (https://mediaparty.info/ is /
) will bring together programmers, communicators, researchers, designers, badysts and developers in the cultural city of Konex from August 29th to August 31st.

Fishman was responsible for unearthing a series of audios and documents that showed the world the darkest face of Lava Jato. Far from its original mission and powers, the Court in charge of disarming the biggest corruption case in Brazil's history has evolved into an agency with its own agenda. He thus became a political actor who made decisions that marked the direction of the life of the neighboring country: the political trial of Dilma Rousseff, the rise of Michel Temer to the presidency, the prison of Lula Da Silva and the rise from Jair Bolsonaro. President

The adventure culminated with Sergio Moro, main figure of the Lava Jato Assembly, as Brazil's Minister of Justice and with a promising political career. Until Fishman appears. The revelations of The Intercept revealed that Lava Jato had violated their powers, violated the principle of separation of powers and favored their allies by omitting important clues in the investigation. Attitudes that have not condensed with the image of the technocratic and neutral body that Moro created with the help of Brazil's most important media.

"Something that has not attracted much attention and that needs to be better understood is the sum of a millionaire spent in illegal and clandestine false information campaigns via WhatsApp in favor of Bolsonaro, as revealed the San Pablo forum. We know that they were funded by companies, leaders and millionaires, but the news is dead, "Fishman recalls during a dialogue with Page 12. "It's a huge scandal and it has had a huge influence, but we do not know the full impact. You see people on the street repeating these stories created with lies scattered on social networks and marginal sites. And it's not just Brazil, we know it happened in Spain, where they also used WhatsApp; In India, it was very important, in Myanmar … And we can be sure that the rest of Latin America has learned the lesson well, which leads to the reuse of these methods. "

–Is democracy possible without privacy?

– I feel that our societies, our institutions and our lives are becoming more precarious every day. I think of all those who are immersed in the new gigantic economy of platforms like Uber, Rappi, which costs only a few cents and whose life is completely monitored. I think how inhuman and terrible it is and I do not want that anymore. These systems make our lives more difficult, more precarious because people earn less, life is less stable, and governments like Macri's or Bolsonaro's try to pbad legislation that will make matters worse by giving these companies more power. .

– What do you notice in response from citizens?

There is an understanding that things are not going well, that they are not telling us the truth. Lava Jato was born as an anticorruption force. Fighting corruption is a matter of transparency towards the powerful, which involves bringing people who abuse power or institutions in the light of the public. However, we have made Lava Jato's work transparent and this has caused them problems. We show that corruption must be attacked in a broad sense, even in the Brazilian judicial system. Until now, the political institutions and the judiciary itself are turning a blind eye, they have taken no action regarding what we report.

–All this issue also highlights the collusion between political actors, data companies and media.

– Clearly, we need more transparency about how corporations and government are managed. Because when you see how they work, you can find out what they really do, things you do not agree with at all. The Snowden case was revealing. Then you realize that the institutions are broken, that they do not work for you, that they do not protect you. When you realize it, you are more aware that you must protect yourself. If Facebook sells my data to people trying to manipulate elections in my country or gives access to my data to people who want to influence the public opinion, we should have Facebook more out of the way, require more transparency. Or not even an account on this platform. You must create the right moment to advance this program.

– Have you had any problems with the center of this survey?

– When you disturb people with power and you are in the front line, you have to learn several things. In principle on digital security: encrypt your communications, separate the information to limit external access and avoid the risk of hacking. And in Brazil too, you need physical security because it's one of the worst places to do journalism of this type. I would love not to have to worry about these things, but when you do journalism on the offensive, you have to keep this in mind, mainly because The Intercept was born with Snowden files and we learned it by force.

– How do you see the future in the United States, Brazil and our region?

– I am American and Trump is the president there. I have been living in Brazil for ten years and Bolsonaro is president here. I am not very optimistic for the future, although I believe that young people have a more positive vision of all this and are generally more open than adults. But we do not have much time: an environmental disaster is about to hit us, technology is moving faster than we can adapt, we are exposed to all kinds of psychological warfare operations that affect the elections. And even, in a short time, for the whole question of fake falsified, we can not rely on our eyes to know if a video is false or not. And it seems that most people are rendered exhausted by politics.

– Could the government use our private information to allow a new type of authoritarianism?

– Our privacy is constantly under attack and I think it will increase, and by the way things are happening, the future may be darker and authoritarian than it was recently. And there is a new global recession, a depression, the fall of stocks. We do not know how this can be exploited either. Journalism is the only way I've managed to deal with anxiety by trying to educate people and make society more aware of citizenship, stay active, and wait for people to get informed and get started. current of these questions.

– Are there psychological warfare operations or is it a myth?

– He is mistaken himself if he does not believe that there are psychological operations funded by the government or by private companies that affect elections or public opinion. They do not want to believe it, but it's true. We have evidence One of my first articles in the Snowden archives goes back to 2015: the GCHQ group, the UK's NSA-affiliated monitoring agency, has a special division for psychological operations. And one of the first cases I covered was that they were conducting operations in Argentina on the Falkland Islands, with the goal of increasing British support for the people of Argentina. It was a smaller test. But not only them, the NSA has a budget of $ 40 billion, it is naïve to believe that all this money that goes to opaque organizations without supervision does not end with activities of this type. The Cambridge Analytica scandal has clarified everything: the main objective is public opinion. There is also China, Russia … well, Israel, which is a leader in this area.

Beyond collections when accepting terms and conditions and using digital tools, how can individuals protect themselves from these advances?

– The important thing is that once people understand that this is happening, it is the effect of a vaccine. These operations are effective because people do not know, however, when society begins to understand, discern the truth from the wrong and be a little more cautious and suspicious, it loses its effect. It's not an easy place to live, but any young journalist who wants to have a real impact on society needs to focus on that, because the implications are as yet unimaginable.