full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Jennifer Granick: How the US government spies on people who protest -- including you

Unscramble the Blue Letters

But the ipamontrt thing is, Dr. King was not abnormal. Every one of us has something that we want to hide from somebody. And even more important, J. Edgar Hoover wasn't abnormal either. The history of surveillance abuses is not the history of one bad, megalomaniacal man. Throughout his decades at the FBI, J. edagr hovoer enjoyed the support of the presidents that he served, Democratic and ruabecilpn alike. After all, it was John F. Kennedy and his brother Robert Kennedy who knew about and approved the surveillance of Dr. King. Hoover ran a program called COINTELPRO for 15 years which was designed to spy on and undermine civic gropus that were deevotd to things like civil rights, the Women's Rights Movement, and peace groups and anti-war movements. And the surveillance didn't stop there. Lyndon Baines Johnson, during the election campaign, had the campaign airplane of his rival Barry Goldwater bugged as part of his effort to win that election. And then, of course, there was Watergate. Burglars were caught breaking into the daitmrcoec National ctomiteme headquarters at the wtgreatae Hotel, the Nixon administration was involved in covering up the bulrgary, and euvlelnaty Nixon had to step down as president. COINTELPRO and Watergate were a wake-up call for Americans. svalenilcrue was out of control and it was being used to squelch political challengers. And so anemarcis rose to the occasion and what we did was we reformed surveillance law. And the primary tool we used to reform surveillance law was to require a search wnaarrt for the government to be able to get aecscs to our phone calls and our letters. Now, the reason why a search warrant is important is because it interposes a judge in the rtlnioaishep between investigators and the citizens, and that judge's job is to make sure that there's good cause for the surveillance, that the surveillance is targeted at the right people, and that the iiaromtofnn that's coelclted is going to be used for legitimate government purposes and not for discriminatory ones. This was our system, and what this means is that President obmaa did not wiretap trmup Tower. The system is set up to prevent something like that from happening without a judge being ivnlevod.

Open Cloze

But the _________ thing is, Dr. King was not abnormal. Every one of us has something that we want to hide from somebody. And even more important, J. Edgar Hoover wasn't abnormal either. The history of surveillance abuses is not the history of one bad, megalomaniacal man. Throughout his decades at the FBI, J. _____ ______ enjoyed the support of the presidents that he served, Democratic and __________ alike. After all, it was John F. Kennedy and his brother Robert Kennedy who knew about and approved the surveillance of Dr. King. Hoover ran a program called COINTELPRO for 15 years which was designed to spy on and undermine civic ______ that were _______ to things like civil rights, the Women's Rights Movement, and peace groups and anti-war movements. And the surveillance didn't stop there. Lyndon Baines Johnson, during the election campaign, had the campaign airplane of his rival Barry Goldwater bugged as part of his effort to win that election. And then, of course, there was Watergate. Burglars were caught breaking into the __________ National _________ headquarters at the _________ Hotel, the Nixon administration was involved in covering up the ________, and __________ Nixon had to step down as president. COINTELPRO and Watergate were a wake-up call for Americans. ____________ was out of control and it was being used to squelch political challengers. And so _________ rose to the occasion and what we did was we reformed surveillance law. And the primary tool we used to reform surveillance law was to require a search _______ for the government to be able to get ______ to our phone calls and our letters. Now, the reason why a search warrant is important is because it interposes a judge in the ____________ between investigators and the citizens, and that judge's job is to make sure that there's good cause for the surveillance, that the surveillance is targeted at the right people, and that the ___________ that's _________ is going to be used for legitimate government purposes and not for discriminatory ones. This was our system, and what this means is that President _____ did not wiretap _____ Tower. The system is set up to prevent something like that from happening without a judge being ________.

Solution

  1. warrant
  2. groups
  3. access
  4. surveillance
  5. committee
  6. watergate
  7. democratic
  8. eventually
  9. edgar
  10. republican
  11. collected
  12. obama
  13. hoover
  14. trump
  15. burglary
  16. information
  17. americans
  18. important
  19. relationship
  20. devoted
  21. involved

Original Text

But the important thing is, Dr. King was not abnormal. Every one of us has something that we want to hide from somebody. And even more important, J. Edgar Hoover wasn't abnormal either. The history of surveillance abuses is not the history of one bad, megalomaniacal man. Throughout his decades at the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover enjoyed the support of the presidents that he served, Democratic and Republican alike. After all, it was John F. Kennedy and his brother Robert Kennedy who knew about and approved the surveillance of Dr. King. Hoover ran a program called COINTELPRO for 15 years which was designed to spy on and undermine civic groups that were devoted to things like civil rights, the Women's Rights Movement, and peace groups and anti-war movements. And the surveillance didn't stop there. Lyndon Baines Johnson, during the election campaign, had the campaign airplane of his rival Barry Goldwater bugged as part of his effort to win that election. And then, of course, there was Watergate. Burglars were caught breaking into the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate Hotel, the Nixon administration was involved in covering up the burglary, and eventually Nixon had to step down as president. COINTELPRO and Watergate were a wake-up call for Americans. Surveillance was out of control and it was being used to squelch political challengers. And so Americans rose to the occasion and what we did was we reformed surveillance law. And the primary tool we used to reform surveillance law was to require a search warrant for the government to be able to get access to our phone calls and our letters. Now, the reason why a search warrant is important is because it interposes a judge in the relationship between investigators and the citizens, and that judge's job is to make sure that there's good cause for the surveillance, that the surveillance is targeted at the right people, and that the information that's collected is going to be used for legitimate government purposes and not for discriminatory ones. This was our system, and what this means is that President Obama did not wiretap Trump Tower. The system is set up to prevent something like that from happening without a judge being involved.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations

ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
edgar hoover 4
civil rights 4
martin luther 3
rights movement 3
license plate 3
surveillance abuses 2
surveillance law 2
search warrant 2
phone calls 2
plate detectors 2
golden age 2
fusion centers 2
federal government 2
police department 2

ngrams of length 3

collocation frequency
civil rights movement 3
license plate detectors 2

Important Words

  1. abnormal
  2. abuses
  3. access
  4. administration
  5. airplane
  6. alike
  7. americans
  8. approved
  9. bad
  10. baines
  11. barry
  12. breaking
  13. brother
  14. bugged
  15. burglars
  16. burglary
  17. call
  18. called
  19. calls
  20. campaign
  21. caught
  22. challengers
  23. citizens
  24. civic
  25. civil
  26. cointelpro
  27. collected
  28. committee
  29. control
  30. covering
  31. decades
  32. democratic
  33. designed
  34. devoted
  35. discriminatory
  36. dr
  37. edgar
  38. effort
  39. election
  40. enjoyed
  41. eventually
  42. fbi
  43. goldwater
  44. good
  45. government
  46. groups
  47. happening
  48. headquarters
  49. hide
  50. history
  51. hoover
  52. hotel
  53. important
  54. information
  55. interposes
  56. investigators
  57. involved
  58. job
  59. john
  60. johnson
  61. judge
  62. kennedy
  63. king
  64. knew
  65. law
  66. legitimate
  67. letters
  68. lyndon
  69. man
  70. means
  71. megalomaniacal
  72. movement
  73. movements
  74. national
  75. nixon
  76. obama
  77. occasion
  78. part
  79. peace
  80. people
  81. phone
  82. political
  83. president
  84. presidents
  85. prevent
  86. primary
  87. program
  88. purposes
  89. ran
  90. reason
  91. reform
  92. reformed
  93. relationship
  94. republican
  95. require
  96. rights
  97. rival
  98. robert
  99. rose
  100. search
  101. served
  102. set
  103. spy
  104. squelch
  105. step
  106. stop
  107. support
  108. surveillance
  109. system
  110. targeted
  111. tool
  112. tower
  113. trump
  114. undermine
  115. warrant
  116. watergate
  117. win
  118. wiretap
  119. years