Mark Colvin reported this story on Tuesday, December 9, 2014 18:26:00

MARK COLVIN: It's a year and a half since the whistleblower Edward Snowden flew to Hong Kong and began spilling the beans on the vast extent to which America and its allies had been spying on their own people.



Over time it's become clear that it was a document dump even bigger and more significant than Wikileaks - and it's done huge damage not only to governments but also to the tech companies through which in many cases they spied.



Some of those Silicon Valley companies have privately and publicly expressed their anger - all are believed to have pumped huge sums into making themselves more hack proof - even against the gigantic resources of the NSA.



The editor of the Guardian was one of those who took the decision to publish the Snowden documents. He's in Australia and I spoke to him this afternoon.



ALAN RUSBRIDGER: Well the tech companies have certainly changed their behaviour in the last six months, year to six months, and they are obviously massively changing the way they do encryption. I think that was because they felt a fear, a terrible consumer backlash around the world and also because I think they realised that encryption was going to be a necessary part of life in future.



So they certainly changed their behaviour and of course that has knock-on effects for the intelligence agencies, and for governments. So I think this is a debate that is unavoidable.



MARK COLVIN: To the extent that they - the tech companies - had done deals with the NSA, or with the security establishments in different countries. Did they end up regretting them?



ALAN RUSBRIDGER: I think some did, some were embarrassed, some, the nature of some of the deals has still not become completely clear and that was some of these court actions in various parts of the world will force that into the open.



As I say I just think this is something which is going to be part of the 21st century landscape. It's going to be a debate that we can't avoid.



MARK COLVIN: Well if you are a Google or a Facebook or a Twitter or whatever, and you're worried about the intelligence agencies getting in the backend of your system, you can throw lots and lots of resources at it. But if you're just a citizen and you're not a cryptographer and you're not a coder and any of those things, you may feel completely powerless.



When is there going to be a shift in that balance of power?



ALAN RUSBRIDGER: It is possible to do pretty good encryption and I think that's something that journalists and lawyers, and maybe even doctors, are going to have to learn how to do.



But I think if you're an ordinary user of say, Gmail or if you've bought the latest technology of phones, you are buying stuff that is harder to crack. And I think by and large that's a good thing, because there is no distinction in much of this technology, if you make it easier for governments to get in, you're also making it easier for Chinese hackers to get in.



MARK COLVIN: Apart from just buying the latest iPhone or Samsung or whatever - what else do you?



ALAN RUSBRIDGER: Well I think the truth is if you're on the government target list, they will generally find ways of targeting you. I mean it's very difficult to lead a life without digital computers and toys and gadgets and phones and unless you are going to be constantly on your lookout, that means they can follow you and monitor you and monitor your friends and all that.



For the ordinary person who just doesn't, who finds that all a bit creepy, I think you're right to feel a bit paranoid. This is one of the aspects of 21st century life that is new and very unsettling.



MARK COLVIN: There is a group of six journalists, or five journalists and a comedian shall we say, who is suing the UK government for hacking them and breaking into their access to sources, probably blowing their whistleblowers if you life. What's the background to that? Under what laws were journalists being hacked in Britain and are they still being hacked in Britain?



ALAN RUSBRIDGER: Well there's a law called the, called RIPA - the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, which was passed in 2000. So it's really an analogue act for a different age and under that, that's one of these things where increasingly you don't have to go to a judge or ask permission, the police were awarding themselves the powers to just go, in this case, and find out who journalists have been talking to.



And that is one of the things why I think all journalists should be paying attention to this story, because if we're living in a world in which one police officer can authorise another police officer to find out who the source of a journalistís story is then we're in a very unpleasant kind of society.



MARK COLVIN: As I say these are just six people, is this really a test case? Do you think that there has been a lot of snooping on journalists in Britain?



ALAN RUSBRIDGER: Well all this stuff is secret and we'll know better when these cases go through. My suspicion is that this was widespread. I think this was a widespread technique finding out who journalist sources are and in one of the most recent elections in the UK, we've found that had spread to lawyers too, the GCHQ (Government Communications Headquarters), the eavesdropping centre in Cheltenham in the UK, decided that it was ok to disregard lawyer-client privilege and monitored those communications as well.



MARK COLVIN: In Australia the Government has said that there has to be a change in the balance between liberty and security and has brought in laws that are not dissimilar to the RIPA laws that you're talking about in Britain - what are the dangers?



ALAN RUSBRIDGER: Well I find, I mean the danger of any situation in which the state grants itself access to an enormous haystack of information, it's too obvious, needs spelling out. I mean we know what societies look like.



MARK COLVIN: But there will be people who say that it isn't too obvious to need spelling out, because they'll be saying well, the government ought to be able to spy on people who are going to go and fight for ISIS or other terrorist groups in the Middle East.



ALAN RUSBRIDGER: Well the dangers are too obvious to be spelt out, because the bad uses of these technologies, anyone who's read their George Orwell knows where that can lead. So the questions are about oversight and legality and who is regulating this, what laws are they acting under, what constraints, what framework. And the problem is that all that is very secret and opaque too.



So we're taking an awful lot on trust every time we pass these laws that make it easier for the state to amass information on us.



MARK COLVIN: Alan Rusbridger, the editor of The Guardian, who's giving a lecture in Sydney tonight.