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Without the opportunity

for the public to really see

Who was in opposition,

So people like google

and facebook

Were in strong opposition.

Facebook in particular.

What did facebook have to lose?

You know, I really do not

understand their logic,

And you'd have to

ask them about that,

But when I analyze

an issue like this--

I'd love to ask them about that.

They won't talk to me.

[laughs] I'm not surprised.

I don't think-- I don't think

the rules of law and regulation

Necessarily apply when it comes

to interacting with a company

That wants to sell you

something.

Yeah. We should be worried.

[narrator] but worried

about what?

Sure, the data collection

allowed by privacy policies

Had fueled commerce. But was

there something more serious

we were agreeing to?

[narrator]

total information awareness.

A program initiated by the

government in January of 2002.

Its mission? To collect every

digital transmission imaginable.

And yes,

this was their real symbol,

They eye of the pyramid,

scanning the earth with

a laser beam.

It actually looks oddly

similar to what's inside

mark zuckerberg's hoodie.

Making the world more

open and connected.

Oh my god!

It's like a secret cult!

Total information awareness

was a program designed

to connect the dots,

To link banking activities

to flight searches

to online activities.

[reporter] but the pentagon

is clearly moving to create

The largest electronic eye ever,

To look at any

and all americans.

You're looking for trends

and transactions

That are associated with

some potential terrorist act.

They believe that

with enough data,

That they can predict who would

be engaging in nefarious crimes.

[narrator]

the public was outraged.

Congress was outraged.

The program was shut down.

The lesson that

the government learned

After the failure of total

information awareness

Was that if you're going

to create a gigantic

spying program,

Don't give it a creepy name.

There's nothing to prevent

them from developing

the same capabilities,

Just in smarter ways,

from their standpoint.

[bush] a wiretap requires

a court order.

Nothing has changed,

by the way.

[narrator] but in reality,

lots had changed.

How we were told

one day in late 2002

That an nsa representative

was coming to the office.

Mark klein came to us at the

electronic frontier foundation

With data and documents

that showed that

At&t was engaged

in a wiretapping program.

The nsa is much

different from the cia.

First of all, it's about

three times the size,

It costs far more,

It's tremendously more

secret than the cia,

And what it does

is very different.

It's focused on eavesdropping,

On tapping into major

communications links.

They actually had a secret

room in their facilities,

And they were creating

a copy of internet traffic

and sending it to the nsa.

So in a sense, they are

vacuuming up, scooping up

every--

They are blindly vacuuming up

everything going across those

links.

And you're certain of that.

I'm certain of that.

[narrator] so president bush

owned up to it.

I authorized the national

security agency

To intercept the

international communications

Of people with known leaks--

links to al-qaeda

And related terrorist

organizations.

It's taken less than 24 hours

after the bush presidency ended

For a former analyst

at the national security agency

To come forward to reveal

new allegations

About how this nation was spied

on by its own government.

The national security

agency had access

To all americans'

communications,

Faxes, phone calls, and

their computer communications.

Is there a recording somewhere

of every conversation I had

With my little nephew

in upstate new york?

Is it like that?

It would be everything, yes.

Um-- it would be everything.

[narrator] but then a beacon of

hope arrived in the white house.

Hi, senator obama,

I appreciate your giving us

The opportunity

to ask you questions.

I'm an attorney who

represents federal

whistleblowers,

And I was very

disappointed when

I learned

That you

supported the bill

That lets phone companies

off the hook

When they've helped

the federal government,

Without warrant,

wiretap phones.

I recognize that

some people feel like,

Yeah, well, the phone

companies still were

complicit in this;

They should be held

accountable still.

I understand that argument.

But the problem was that

the surveillance program

Is actually one that

I believe is necessary

for our national security.

So they were immune, but that

means that the programs were

still shut down, right?

The-- the programs

were shut down?

Yeah, e wiretapping

programs.

I have no reason to believe

That the wiretapping programs

have been shut down.

No, if the wiretapping programs

had been shut down

Then I don't believe

that the government

Anat&t would still

be fighting in court

For the lelity of it.

So barack obama has't

changed anything?

No, barack obama did not

shut those progrs down

After he took office,

Even though he had threatened

to before he became president.

[zuckerberg]

when we got started just

in my dorm room at harvard,

Um, the question that

a lot of people asked was,

Why would I want

to put any information

on the internet at all?

Like, why would I want

to have a website?

And people have really

gotten comfortable

Not only sharing more

information and different kinds,

But more openly

and with more people.

And that social norm

is just something that's

evolved over time.

You may have seen the "onion"

take on facebook, which was,

The cia has just announced

its most recent handy

invention-- facebook!

According to department of

homeland security reports,

Facebook has replaced

almost every other

Cia information-gathering

program since it was

launched in 2004.

After years of secretly

monitoring the public,

We were astounded so many people

would willingly publicize

Where they lived, their

religious and political views,

And alphabetized lists

of all their friends,

Personal email addresses,

phone numbers, hundreds

of photos of themselves,

And even status updates about

what they were doing moment

to moment.

It is truly a dream

come true for the cia.

You know, the fbis

and the nsas of the world

Are appreciative of the fact

that google and facebook,

You know, have built business

models around collecting user

data,

Because it makes

their jobs much easier.

That article in time started

with this anecdote:

They're sitting in their

transparent cubicle

In their open space,

in facebook.

Robert mueller was the one man

in the room with a tie on,

And he was older, in a suit.

And he comes in and he says,

I was just in the building

And I wanted to say hello

to mark zuckerberg.

So he says hello

to mark zuckerberg,

A little chitchat

and then he leaves.

And everybody's saying,

what the hell was that?

Now, nobody asks

the question,

Why was mueller

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