Of Lowest Common Denominators, Government Surveillance and the Uncumberbatchable Task of Fighting Apathy

Merciless epithets are just one reason to watch last night’s episode of HBO’s Last Week Tonight with John Oliver — the primary being his face-to-face interview with Edward Snowden. “Uncumberbatchable” was the six syllable term Oliver coined in his warm-up act to describe the uncharming Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, who is apparently so bereft of likeability that not even the gifted character actor Benedict Cumberbatch can (by Oliver’s review) imbue his character with any grace. But the searing candescence of Oliver’s satire—and his Assange put-down is certainly putting the Twittersphere in stitches—is just an invitation to treat. The main, more sober, less popular course for discussion is government surveillance programs. Or more pointedly, how Americans can be made to give a damn.

The episode coincides with the countdown to the June 2015 expiry of section 215 of the Patriot Act that allows carte blanche access to phone records and operates according to the US government’s own “secret interpretation” of its terms, something apparently far more permissive than its drafters ever envisioned. Section 215 is the prop for the most invasive surveillance programs, and has been the subject of Electronic Frontier Foundation campaigns. It’s a law that activists, civil liberties advocates and concerned citizen types plead about endlessly and earnestly—and to whose pleas the yawns of mass apathy mostly echo back.

Oliver starts the episode, therefore, with a stab at mass apathy prior to the Snowden revelations in June 2013. Oliver lambasts one newscaster’s “also by the way” reference to the law’s four year extension in 2011 comparing it to a mother telling her grown daughter over the phone, “Oh, nice talking to you sweetie, also by the way Peppers is dead, see you at Christmas *Bang [hangs up]”.

And he teases the public for its apathy even after what Snowden exposed when still 46% of Americans remain unconcerned by government surveillance programs: “You can’t go to SeaWorld and pretend that Shamu is happy anymore, when we now know at least half the water in her tank is whale tears… you can’t unknow that information, so you have to bear that in mind.”

Oliver’s street interviews with pedestrians in Times Square cement the conclusion that average people are out of touch on this topic. Those interviewed either had no idea who Edward Snowden was, or had him mixed up with Julian Assange, who Oliver points out both “resembles a sandwich bag full of cookie dough, wearing a Stevie Nix wig” and was far less careful than Snowden upon revealing secrets, since Snowden leaked to a select few news organizations only.

By the time the segment turns to Oliver’s trip to Russia and the interview with Snowden rolls, he has laid the groundwork—with laughs more than painful lamentations—and established America’s pitiful relationship with privacy, and the public indolence around programs like PRISM, MUSCULAR, and X-Keyscore (which Oliver parenthetically adds are likely names for lesser-known strip clubs of California). But it is during the interview proper that Oliver’s intelligence fully comes to bear. He warms Snowden up with some superficially goofball questions, but as Snowden accelerates into his now-famous, distinctively cautious and intelligent interviewee style, Oliver starts throwing down speed bumps. The interview is well worth a watch not only because Oliver challenges some of Snowden’s disclosures and the risks he took, but because he tests Snowden’s perceptions about difference any of it has made in the register of public awareness.

He confronts Snowden with the street interviews and the statistics that show how little the surveillance debate has found purchase in the average American’s mind. Oliver then shows that reframing the issue can make all the difference. Missing segments from the same street interviews are shown on a laptop to Snowden which shows how the same pedestrians who were unconcerned to the point of being defensive of the government’s surveillance programs, change tunes completely when confronted with the question of whether the state should be able to lay eyes on their nude selfies. The implication is clear. High grid topics and abstract discussions about law and privacy are not fertile in the minds of the public. Visually powerful metaphors — a domestic government spy agency monitoring citizens’ “dick pics” — are.

While Oliver’s punch lines may feel like mischief, there is a tested genius behind this approach that anyone who has a serious issue to campaign for must take notes on. Great people, intense people, people with immense gravitas and unimpeachable expertise, be they human rights activists, renegade émigré spies or tenured judges within the nation’s highest court, will not hold mass influence the way modern jesters do unless they understand the enemy that is apathy. Comedian journalists like Oliver, similar to Stephen Colbert, possess a prowess for asymmetrical warfare when it comes to combating common complacency and apathy. If the pen is mightier than the sword, consider also the whoopee cushion. What tyranny fear most is not criticism, but mockery. That’s because mockery (wielded intelligently) has the power to trick the apathetic, and turn the obtuse into the curious. It is a remarkable weapon for awareness.

When I started writing this post earlier this morning there were 230,000 or so hits on last night’s episode of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver. As of a refresh just this moment, that number has grown to over 530,000. By contrast, the most popular Snowden-related clip on The Guardian’s YouTube channel has gathered just over 150,000 views over a whole year. The Guardian may be the more venerable, trusted and authoritative news source. It certainly had the drop on the Snowden story from the outset, and had earliest access to the whistleblower. But when it comes to reach and impact, can it be denied that amassing half a million views in less than 24 hours is a superior result? If the objective is per capita awareness, rather than meditative debate among a small coterie of right-minded thinkers, is it wrong to use mockery as well?

The first post I wrote for SLAW was called “Of Baked Beans and the Rule of Law”, and it was about how we, the legal profession, should be telling the story of access to justice in a way that alters awareness and behaviour on a grander scale. I’d suggested this could be better done through story telling. After seeing last night’s episode—and seeing how apathy about justice is similar in nature to surveillance apathy—I’m in no small part wondering how the fight for Canadian justice issues could be waged better, and with a bit more humour.