07/06/2013 Newsnight

Tonight, what's bugging you? Or rather who? A top secret US spy

programme has been gathering information from some of the

biggest internet companies, and it is alleged, sharing it with the

British Security Services. can't have 100% security and also

then have 100% privacy and zero inconvenience. Also tonight, how do

you live with cancer? In a few years half of us will get the

disease at some point during our lifetimes. We hear the

extraordinary story of a mother and daughter who have survived ovarian

cancer. The man called the punk poet, John

Cooper Clarke tells us why the Education Secretary is right about

children reciting poetry by heart and gives us a few lines of his own.

I knew a fella called frank, his wife was a bit of a skank, he wrote

down her pin before doing her in and laughed all the way to the bank.

Good evening, in the aftermath of the murder of Drummer Lee Rigby in

Woolich. Some politicians have tried to push forward with what was

formerly known as the communications data Bill. As a

nation, like the United States, we are sensitive of anything that

smacks of Big Brother spying on our private communications. Gentlemen

do not open each other's male is how one former US Secretary of

State once put it. But today it was revealed that gentlemen and

gentlewomen at GCHQ may be taking advantage of a US secret spying

programme called Prism to obtain information from internet companies.

We have been examining the special relationship between Britain's GCHQ

and its American counterpart, the National Security Agency.

Over the past 36 hours there have been mushrooming allegations about

the extent to which intelligence agencies in the US and the UK are

covertly collecting information on their citizens. The National

Security Agency, or NSA is a vast US wiretaping agency, whose job is

to gather information. The agency has now been found out to be

gathering information on the on- line activities of potentially the

entire population. No surprise there, you might say, though others

are shocked at the implication for individual privacy. It is startling

news because we thought we had some idea of what President Bush was

doing in the warrantless programmes in terms of obtaining domestic data,

we knew a lot of continued under Obama. It turpbt out there is this

six-year-old programme that grew up without anyone knowing it. It

involves tapping in, fairly directly to the databases of the

world's largest internet and communications companies. So what's

being alleged? First came revelations in the Guardian of a

secret order directing phone company Verizo to pass records to

the NSA on millions of its customers. Though not the content

of course themselves. Then last night the Washington Post claimed

the Government's data mining operation goes far further. Through

a programme called Prism. The existence of which US authorities

have now confirmed. Four slides from what's in reality a very dull

looking power point presentation have been released by the

Washington Post. They give us some information on Prism, naming the

Internet brands it says have joined and when. With Microsoft first in

2007, then Yahoo, Google, Facebook, Paltalk, YouTube, Skype, AOL and

Apple the most recent last year. Facebook say they don't know

anything about a Prism programme, others say the same. Some deny they

have given the Government direct access to their servers. It is

important to them symbolically and for perhaps some other reasons to

say you don't have your hooks straight into our server, there is

another black box inbetween that we have knowledge of. The effect is

the same, if you are sitting in Fort Mead the head of the security

agency, you have push button access to the material that is in their

server that fits the lawful search criteria. Some people following the

issue closely suspected this kind of thing was going on. Having said

that in the face of a lot of denials from the US Government and

their allies that they were doing this kind of thing to see the

smoking gun, if you like, the actual court order, the actual

details of this Prism programme, it is quite surprising even for those

people. The power point goes on to boast of the kinds of electronic

communications it can spy on. Listing e-mail, chat, video voice,

videos, photos, stored data VoIP, file transfers, video conferencing,

notifications of target activity, social networking and cryptically,

special requests. The big thing that has changed in the last two or

three years, that means you need the co-operation of the technology

companies to get access to some of this data is the fact that they

have switched on encryption by default for their services. When

you as a G mail or hotmail user connects to Microsoft servers now,

by default the communication will be encrypted. It is no longer the

case that intelligence agencies can listen in between you and the

server. They have to go to the server to get the data. The UK take

on this story emerged this afternoon, with further claims by

the Guardian Newspaper that Britain's own electronic listening

post, GCHQ, has also been gathering data through The Prisoner programme.

GCHQ itself says it operates within a strict legal and policy framework,

with rigorous oversight. The claims are already prompting opposition

questions about the precise nature of the UK's relationship with Prism.

Our generation was the generation that got on-line. We have seen this

massive internet grow up and it is bringing us all so much more

connectivity and all the benefits we have seen. Now we are starting

to realise that we have sort of built a monster. This very same net

if work can be used to monitor us better than George Orwell could

ever have imagined. That is a sad thing to think about. But we now

have a Big Brother. It actually isn't even a domestic Big Brother

it is a foreign Big Brother. moral high ground matters to

technology companies, because they need their customers to trust them.

If, as some here are now suggesting, Prism is a snooper's charter by the

back door, that trust is at risk. We have the author of Trading

Secrets about the Intelligence Services, and Julian Huppert is a

Lib Dem MP campaigning against the Communications Data Bill. GCHQ is

really clear on this, very strong on this, they say they are take

their obligations within the law very certificate why isly, in

accordance with a strict -- seriously, in accordance with a

strict policy framework and they don't break the law? That is what

they are saying, I hope so. GCHQ do essential work, they do make us

safe. There is always a question about the balances about what they

should and shouldn't be allowed to do. The Communications Data Bill

went far too far. We need it make sure there hasn't been any activity

that is essentially trying to bypass the law. But looking for

loopholes, like with tax issues. Bypass the law, if it was within

the law, if it was within the law, however distasteful you may find it,

is it perfectly OK for GCHQ to be involved with something called

Prism? I think this is like the example of some of the tax

avoidance people have happened. But they are not strictly legal but not

moral, we wouldn't expect people to do it. It is a sticky subject,

morally when it comes to terrorism, there are different questions there.

But the questions of efficacy, does it work and stop another 9/11, or a

"severn"? That is absolutely the right d -- Or a 7/7?That is

absolutely the question. The other issue is the US having the ability

to look at what UK citizens are doing, any UK business that uses

Gmail or hotmail are using these systems is available to the US

Government, what are the safeguards and what can happen with that data.

We heard President Obama reassuring people saying it is only American,

sorry American citizens are protected from this, what about the

rest of us. That is the him hypocrisy of the Communications

Data Bill, then it would be under British rules and regulations, it

is happening everywhere and the Americans are doing it? It is a

shock the Americans are doing it. I don't think the fact that the

Americans are doing something that we all find surprising and goes too

far, it means we in Britain should try to do something further as well.

I don't think it is an excuse to say the British Government should

keep logs of every website you go to and some of these companies

providing more data. What do you think they are looking for here.

There is so much information out there, what's the needle in the

haystack? I think that it's the case that the ability to data mine,

to trawl through millions and millions of different pieces of

communication has to some extent become a sort of law unto itself.

The fact that it can be done is one of the reasons why it is being done.

Sorry to interrupt, in a sense that chap in the film was saying Big

Brother is already here, we have created this monster forks all the

great things the Internet does, he -- monster, for all the great

things the Internet does this is here? For all individuals to be

able to communicate globally for any time of their choosing the

Internet was greated now that freedom is being infringed in

certain ways by being used against people who are ready to be free.

One sends an e-mail thinking it is between you and the recipient,

clearly it is not. How far though, people sitting at home thinking I

have nothing to hide, what I put on Facebook, it might be embarrassing,

pictures of people on the beach, but I have nothing to hide, what

really is the problem here? I think most people would be concerned

about all of this stuff coming out F we take the web logging, if

somebody goes to an abortion counselling website, something

about divorce or depression, that is quite sensitive information they

wouldn't want everybody to know. The NSA is not likely to be

interested in that stuff? Once you collect the data, proposed in the

UK, once you collect that data there is a risk it can leak out and

people get access to it. It is a question of trust isn't it, that is

the real issue. We just don't want Big Brother to be looking at our

mail in any sense? It is trust in two things, it is trust in the

companies that are our providers. It is also trust in Government.

Clearly the NSA is the world's leading signals intelligence agency.

It is a key part of the American intelligence apparatus. It is going

to take a lot for the White House to be able to convince Americans

that as President Obama said we're not listening to your phone calls.

He said it clearly, whether people believe him will be another thing.

I wonder how surprised you were about this, the one thing that

struck me that is surprising is this has come in some way from the

NSA itself. You don't get leaked documents talking about that. No

such agency is what people used to say NSA stood for? The NSA is a

tight low- guarded institution. It was undoubted -- tight low- guarded

institution, it was undoubtedly the most garden of the the American

agencies. Listening to the Washington Post earlier today, the

source expects to be exposed. He is prepared to be exposed. Given what

happened to Bradley Manning that could be a harsh thing. Do you

think this will change how we use the Internet. People will think is

somebody going to read the stuff? hope people will be more conscious

of what happens. Some of the messages aren't as proift as they

are. We have so much more we -- private as they are. We have so

much more to understand, we have to understand what GCHSQ is on about,

and about cyber security, what should we say to British

individuals and companies about how to use these services. Should they

be far, far more careful. It is really important we don't break the

safety we have here, that our bank systems continue to be safe. I hope

we will have a parliamentary inquiry, I have already spoken to

the chair of the Home Affairs Select Committee to see if we can

have a look at it on cyber security, this can be absolutely critical, if

the US can do it there may be other countries as well. In a few years

time the National Health Service faces a herculean challenge

according to Macmillan cancer support, almost half of us can

expect to get cancer during our lifetimes. Advances in treatments

means many of us will survive. Here is the catch, the better the

treatments, the longer many of us will live with either the disease

or its consequences. It is the news that none of us wants to hear, but

half of us will. Macmillan Cancer Support estimates nearly half of

the UK population in 2020 will self-cancer at some point in their

lives. That is up from under a third of people in 1992. The growth

seems connected to the better life expectancy, as the population ages,

the incidence of cancer rises. It is not all bad news. In 1992, 21%

of those who had cancer did not die from the disease. This increased to

35% in 2010 and it was predicted to rise to 38% in 2020. Greater focus

on early diagnosis and advances in treatments and care are responsible

for the improvements. But many of the physical and mental

consequences of cancer continue long after remission. As more of us

get and beat cancer, the NHS will be put under increasing pressure

not only to prevent and treat the disease, but to support survivors

too. With me now are Noel lean Young who was working as a

Macmillan clinical nurse when in August 2000 she was told her 19-

year-old daughter Hannah had ovarian cancer. Months after her

daughter's treatment began Noel lean herself was diagnosed with the

disease. You were 19 and a student and suddenly you were told you have

this terrible disease and also a very, very severe form of it. I'm

wondering, it must have been a terrible shock? It was a complete

shock. Cancer is one of those things you never really think will

happen to you. You may be expecting it to happen to somebody you know,

I don't think you ever really think it is going to happen to you

particularly aged 19 when you are a student and you are just out to

enjoy life and learn and all that. You were as Macmillan nurse were

with cancer patients every day, it must have been a shock for it to

strike home? Particularly as I was a gynaecological specialist nurse,

I treated people with ovarian cancer. It was a really strange

twist of fate almost. And Hannah it was very advanced, it was 3C which

is technically pretty much almost the end of the road actually. The

treatment was what pretty horrible? It was pretty tough. I had fairly

major surgery and the cancer had spread to part of my bowel and

bladder and other parts of my abdomen. I followed up with

chemotherapy. It had a very good outcome, fortunately I'm a survivor

now. It has been many years in remission. So it is looking very

positive. You actually knew the team that was involved and were

consulted in the middle of the operation, is that right? They

started the surgery, because they thought it was a large cyst and

then they realised it was cancer so they came and asked me for

permission to do some more surgery. Then Hannah had consented for

because it was vital that they cleared as much disease as possible.

Right in the middle of the operation. With your daughter on

the operating table? Yeah.And then, once you were clear there was going

to be a family holiday and you were all going to go away and then?

then just two weeks before the family holiday I realised I wasn't

feeling too well, I went along to the doctor and I said I'm not

feeling too well. She said she would send me straight for a scan

and said there was a cyst on one of my ovaries. And I saw the

consultant I worked with and he said oh we will need to have you in

for surgery straight away. And I said no we're going on holiday. So

I did. I reasoned with myself that if I was going to have to have

surgery and chemotherapy that holiday would be delayed and that I

would rather have that holiday and then face whatever. You are both

survivors, I wondered how, the effect of this must have changed

you though? It is difficult to know what the path would have been if

you haven't had this, it must have changed you? I think so. Especially

immediately, because you feel euphoric and quite excited that you

are still here, that you are still alive, that you have got through it.

I think as time goes on life becomes more and more normal. But

then late effects and some of the health effects of treatment there

is almost a constant reminder. But you do, I think, really feel quite

vibrant about life for a long time. I don't think that really ever goes

away again. Presumably if half of us are going to have cancer and the

other half of us are going to know somebody who has cancer, we will

either go through what you went through or have to support somebody.

I wondered in terms of being a survivor, what are the things that

have changed. Is that something that the National Health Service is

going to look at? It is not just the treatment, it is not just the

medical stuff it is dealing with people like you afterwards?

Absolutely, I think actually support as a survivor is really

important. At the point at which I was treated, it is a few years ago.

When I had finished my treatment you very much feel you have been

sent out into the world alone. It can feel quite frightening, because

you finish your treatment you get used to going to hospital every

week and being very supported and cocooned and when you set off it is

quite an unnerve feeling. No longer have that medical support all the

time. There is a lot of stuff now about survivorship, and you are

involved in that. What sort of things are needed by people who

have gone through this and to their delight have survived, but then

face other problems afterwards? have identified people feel

abandoned and they can often feel helpless and hopeless after their

treatment ends, so we have been working on looking at what we can

put in place to help them recover, so how do we help them rehabilitate.

That may be issues looking at work and finance, but it may also be

issues looking at their lifestyle. Because we have identified that

physical activity can be very important in helping people to

recover. Do people also think differently about their bodies,

because there has been this bit of it which has turned against and

become the enemy. That's a very difficult thing to deal with in

your head? Emotionally we both found the emotional impact a couple

of years after diagnosis. For Hannah it meant a change of career

and likewise for me. I sort of realised that I couldn't be a

clinical nurse specialist any more and deal with this on a daily basis.

So I looked at using the knowledge of having had cancer and my

clinical knowledge in a way to help other people to survive and survive

better. Just the final thought, talking and sharing your stories

with other people, does that help you as well as them? Gosh I don't

know! OK, I will leave you to puzzle that, thank you for sharing

your stories with us tonight. He was one of the big names of the

punk scene and now he's become a presidentant about schoolchildren

learning by rote, we are not talking about Michael Gove but the

called punk-poet John Cooper Clarke. He agrees with the Education

Secretary about learning lines by heart. He has lived long enough to

see his verses included in the national curriculum. Among his

admirers are Alex Turner from The Artist, and Plan B. As he prepares

for his -- the Artic Monkeys. And he prepares for his tour. This

contains bad language. "things are going to get worse nurse, things

are going to get rotten, make it reverse, I'm trying to remember

everything I forgotten. I was a menace in the box and good in the

air, now I can't get up from an easy chair. The doctor told me, oh

yeah, things will get worse ". the match stick man from LS Lowri

country, he started out reciting poetry with the punks, and now

topping the bill at the London Palladium the sway Sammy Davies

junior and Sinatra used to. # Good authors who used to know

better words # Now only use four-letter words

# Writing prose # Anything goes

It is the apex of my career I guess. Sunday night at the London

Palladium. All them people from the past, where are you going to read

this poetry then? Sunday night at the London Palladium? Yes. Is it

daunting to follow them or bring it on? I wouldn't like to go on

straight after them! I'm glad there has been a couple of decades

inbetween. # Driver borrowed care

# Yellow socks and a pink caf VAT # Nothing la-de-da. John Cooper

Clarke has had top 40 singles and albums. He was never a perfect fit

with the punk mill your. -- milure.

Presumably it took some surviving on stage, because there was all

that spitting and what not going on? Yeah that was terrible, because

I was wearing suits so I didn't have the kind of money that would

run to getting a new suit every week. That's when I started wearing

a leather jacket, you know. Wipe clean? Wipe with a damp cloth!

"I will have you in for disturbing the police. Your feet won't touch

the floor. Don't be giving me what for. I'll give you what for. Do I

look like a...don't answer that, we are the Pleb Squad, we are looking

for a thwart!". The rat-at-tat delivery is changeless, but the

Palladium crowd might see Clarke with book in hand for some of the

night. I have to read it now because it is all new stuff really

until such time as I have learned it Michael Gove-style, off by heart,

I have to read it off the sheet. And what do you think of Mr Gove's

attitude to poetry, he seems to favour route learning? I'm right

behind him on this. It didn't do me any harm. It is the only way to

learn it. They are more interested now that pupils understand what it

is about. Really that is not what poetry is about, it is not

something to be solved. Do you know what I mean. You are better off

really learning it off by heart and then 30 years later you might get

some inkling what it's about. That stuff was written by 35-year-old

men, you know, how is a ten-year- old going to understand that.

# Now heaven knows # Anything goes

If you have green ink, prepare to spill it now. Johnny Clarke is even

on the national curriculum. "let me be your vacuum cleaner

breathing in your dust. Let me by your Morris Marina I will never

dust. If you like your coffee pot, let me be your coffee pot. You call

the shots, I want to be yours." The amount of people who said it

was read at their wedding. It is to modern weddings what Always Look On

The Bright Side of Life is to humanist funerals. An honour?I

couldn't be happier about the fact that my work is being rammed down

the reluctant throats of schoolchildren on a daily basis.

That's success. I like to think there is more to my stuff than just

a string of obskenties, you are rhyming obscenities, I like to

think it has something else to offer than that. Through it all,

through the spitle-flecked punk venues, through his commercial work

when the threat of a passive nut allergy was never far away.

Stick them on your thumb, stick them on your ear holes and your

boots. The Clarke sensibility has remained intact, that and the look.

Your look is very distinctive. Thanks. Much imitated.That Ron

Wood I have to have a word with him about this. He has nicked it,

hasn't he? Hook line and sinker. And Keith Richards! I think Johnny

Depp. He owes me one for Edward Scissorhands.

"Don't make me bloody look". John Cooper Clarke may never make Poet

Laureate, on the other hand John Bethchimen never got on the

sopranos. Does Clarke have a philosophy of poetry. I do write

some introverted stuff. I read it and think what's the point of this

stuff! Do you know what I mean. I think as soon as you start charging

admission fees then the burden of proof is on you. Like I say you

have to send people out of there with a smile on their face.

"I knew a fella called Frank, his wife was a bit of a skank. He wrote

down her pin before doing her in, and laughed all the way to the

bank"! So to the Palladium. One in the eye for Clarke's doubters. He's

making his last-minute preparations. Have you decided how you are going

to make your entrance, trap door? They have got one of them haven't

he this. You could pop up through there? They have got one of them,

thanks for pointing it out. I have narrow shoulders, I can't see

anything going wrong, the puff of smoke!

"euthanasia that sounds good, a neutral alpine neighbourhood then

back to Britain all dressed in wood. Things were going to worse

apparently." John Cooper Clarke looking on the bright side of life.

Apology for the loss of subtitles for 68 seconds

That's all tonight, Jeremy is back The emphasis is on dry and sunny

weather. Sunshine almost everywhere on Saturday. Cloud off the North

Sea eventually on a fairly brisk north-eastly wind. Northern Ireland

a beautiful day, the odd patch of fog lapping around the coast maybe.

North-east Scotland cool and cloudy as well. The odd mountain shower

here and there. For much of Scotland it is a dry day with sunny

spells. Temperatures up to the low 20s in many places. From the

Yorkshire coast into East Anglia we could see things turning grey and

cool through the afternoon in that brisk wind off the North Sea. As we

head further west we are back into the warm sunshine once again.

Fantastic for the beaches of south- west England and for Wales too. We

actually saw the highest temperature on Friday across North

West Wales up to 24. I think there will be somewhere across this part

of the world that could see similar temperatures during Saturday as

well. Further afield similar temperatures in Paris, but an

increasing risk in thundery showers. Spoiling proceedings they French

Open tennis. The today shower for Rome and Athens. Lisbon wet for a