Should we start? Yeah, cancellation of instruments has always been a topic which also touches the common man as well as the lawyers need this to say. There's a lot of march of in this particular aspects. Today, in fact, one of my friend had shared the latest judgment or even as to whether for the purposes of cancellation of an instrument, whether you can proceed under the civil court arbitration act that judgment can be shared later on. But today we are obliged that Mr. Shinghar Murali has acceded to our request to share his knowledge. And we all know that Shinghar Murali and Adilakshmi ma'am have been always a good resource persons. Without taking much time since there was some glitch with the YouTube, I request Mr. Shinghar, a dear friend of mine to take over the session. Thank you, sir. Good evening to all. The topic is cancellation of instruments. Often there is a confusion among the lawyers. When we want to file a suit to satisfy the document or any instrument, whether your suit for setting a certain instrument is sufficient or we can file a suit for declaration to declare that the document is illegal and unlawful. The reason is very obvious. If you want to file a suit to set aside the instrument, necessarily you have to pay court fees on the amount mentioned in the document, which is hard to be cancelled. But if you want to file a suit for declaration, you can value the subject matter tentatively and you can pay the court fees. Court fees will be lesser in your suit for declaration. When your suit for declaration will lie, when your suit to set aside an instrument will lie, this is often confusing questions. Now, let us see the nuances and the intricacies of section 31 of the specifically packed, which deals with when cancellation may be ordered. This section is based on the maxing, that is for fear that the instrument agreements, securities, deeds may be vexaciously or injuriously used against the person who wants to avoid it. Three conditions have to be satisfied before invoking section 31 of the specifically packed. Number one, that the instrument must be in the instrument is Y or Y double. Y or Y double. Then the plaintiff must show that he has reasonable apprehension, that the instrument if left outstanding, it may cause severe injury to him. And the court may exercise its discretionary power to set aside or deliver up or cancel the instrument. So, unless these conditions are satisfied, we cannot invoke section 31 of the specifically packed. Then who can file a suit to set aside an instrument? The word employed in section 31, any person, whether the term any person is an inclusive definition or not. But in strict sense of section 31 are specifically packed. The word any person does not include a third party. A third party to an instrument cannot maintain an action to set aside the instrument. It is restricted to a party to the return instrument or any other person who can bind such party or any persons claiming right, derived title from the party. It includes a person seeking derived to title from his vendor or seller. Suppose I have not at all executed a document, but it affects my right or title about the property. What is the remedy available to me? Because I am not a party to the return instrument, so I cannot maintain an action under section 31, but I am not remedy less my remedy. That is the non-executant of the instrument used to file a suit to suit for declaration under section 34 of the specifically packed. So, this is held by our Honorable Supreme Court, 2021, 4 SEC, page 786, Deccan Paper Mills Company versus Regency Mahavir Properties, 2021, 4 SEC, Supreme Court cases, page 786. Then, whether an action institute under section 34 of the specifically packed is an action in room or action in person, you are aware that a right in room is a right exercisable against the world at large, whereas right in person is an interest protected solely against specific individuals and determining the rights and interests of the party themselves in the subject matter of the case. Therefore, an action institute under section 31 of the specifically packed is an action in persona, is an action in persona. Asian Avenue Private Limited versus Syed Chaukat Wazain, 2023, SEC, online Supreme Court, page 514, 2023, Supreme Court cases, online Supreme Court, page 514. Then, next question, what is the court piece favorable in your suit to set aside the instrument? That is a very big issue. Suppose, I think we are in Tamil Nadu and Andhra, we are having a separate statue known as Tamil Nadu Court piece and suit valuation act. But I know that in Punjab and Haryana, you are following the Central Act, Court piece valuation act, and when you want to file a suit for party and when you are out of possession, you have to pay Court piece on the market value of the subject matter, market value of the subject matter. If you want to file, market value of the subject matter. But to set aside the sale, to set aside any instrument or deed, in section 40 of the Tamil Nadu Court piece and suit valuation act under section 37 of the Andhar Pradesh Court piece and suit valuation act, the word employed is value of the property, it does not deal about the market value of the property. So, market value of the property, there are specific sections wherein you have to pay Court piece on the market value of the property, market value of the property. Whereas, in a suit to set aside the instrument, the proper Court piece is on the amount mentioned in this document which is sought to be cancelled. You need not worry about the market value of the property. Document may be executed 2 years prior to that, prepared to the filing of the suit. At the time of filing of the suit, its market value will be increased, but we need not worry about it. We have to value the subject matter of the suit on the amount mentioned in this document or instrument which is sought to be cancelled or set aside. So, the proper Court piece is on the amount mentioned in the instrument sought to be set aside. This has been held in 2014. Then, next point. What is a period of limitation to file a suit to set aside instrument or set aside the instrument? When the facts entitling the plaintiff to have the instrument set aside, first became known to him. When he came to know about that, this document is left outstanding would cause serious injury. For example, we entered into a sale agreement with your purchase. The purchase did not turn up during the currency of the sale agreement. So, there is a delay. If it is a registered instrument, you cannot sell the property in favor of others because your entry shows that there is a registered sale agreement. Then you have to file a suit to set aside the registered sale agreement. Then you have to file a suit to set aside the registered sale agreement on the ground. Your purchaser failed to perform his part of obligation within the stipulated time. If the sale agreement is allowed to be left outstanding, it would cause severe injury because you may not be in a position to sell the property. So, under those circumstances, you can invoke section 31. But here the period of limitation is the date of from the date when you came to know that the defendant that is that is your purchaser failed to perform his part of obligation from the date within a period of three years. Three years. Now, in one case, father executed a registered gift deed favor of his son. And another son wanted to impeach the said gift deed and he has filed his objection before the revenue officials not to mutate the name of the donor in the revenue records. But he has filed the suit after the expiry of three years from the date of mutation order. Then the court has held that the suit is barred by limitation, hopelessly barred by efflux of time. Abdul Ragim versus HK Abdul Jabbar 2009, 6 SCC paid 160. Then in the case of involvement of minors interest in the property. Suppose minors property is sold what is the remedy available to the minor? Minor has two options. One, he can file a suit within a period of 12 years to recover the property under article 65. Or he can file a suit within a period of three years of attaining majority under section 60 of the limitation act to set aside the sale. To set aside the sale which affects his interest over the property. This is 2006 by SCC page 353. 2006 by SCC page 353. Now another question that is often asked the question in case of registered instrument, can it be set aside? Then what is the presumption? Section 60 of the registration act under section 60 of the registration act, there is a presumption that the registered document is duly executed under registered. Of course it is a reputable presumption. You want to attack the registered written instrument then it is on view to lead evidence that to repute the presumption. Repute the presumption under section 60 of the registration act. Braem Singh and others versus Birbal and others 2006 by SCC page 353. Then section 31 deals with void or voidable document. Another important question is when a document which is void and the pace of the record, can it be adjudicated as a void document? Suppose you are the owner of the property some third party by forging a signature executed a sale deed in favor of third party. You are not a party to the document. There is some fabrication or impersonation. Whether such sale deed affects your title to the property or you are not a party to the document. So far as you are concerned the document is void on the pace of the record. You can just discard it. You need not file a suit to satisfy the document because the document itself is void on the pace of the record. You can just discard it. If you want to cancel it, you can file a suit for cancellation and not to file a suit to satisfy the sale deed because since you are not a party party to the instrument you can very well file a suit for declaration by tentatively value the subject matter of the suit. If you want to file a suit to satisfy the sale deed, you have to pay the court piece on the amount mentioned in the documents are to be impeached. Why property conveyed by a person who had no title then such a document would be void? This is because of the maxim, no one can have a higher right over the property than he does. No more that but not have it. Such void document need not be declared by the court that the document is void because document itself is void. There is a question of declaring it again. It has void documents. It will not bind the parties. But instruments obtained by misrepresentation, fraud or undue influence, then these documents or instruments are voidable documents. You can only refer section 18, 19a and 19 of the Indian contract act. For example, you availed loan. You wanted to execute a mortgage deed in favor of your mortgagee. But mortgagee instead of registering the mortgage deed, registered a sale deed.   You are challenging the nomenclature of the documents. Then it is a void document. You can file a suit to declare that the sale deed is illegal and null and void because I intend to execute only the documents. But it was registered as a sale deed. So the Badana proof is on you to prove that fraud was played on you or misrepresentation was made. Undue influence was exercised.  You want to impeach a document executed by you. Then the Badana proof is on the person who obtained the document. The Badana proof is not on you. This is a peculiar character. This is peculiar. It is applicable only to the person who are illiterate or not possessed with the sufficient worldly affairs. The Badana proof is not on the plaintiff who instituted the suit to set aside the instrument under section 31. Badana proof is on the, on his aggression. So void document person who had no title in the document on the face of the record is void. It will not confer any title. So you can just discard it. You need not file a suit to set aside the void document. Whereas in the case of voidable documents, you may be the party to the document and you are challenging the recitals in the document. Then it is a voidable document necessarily it has to be set aside by taking recourse to section 31 of the specific visit fact. Because fraudulent misrepresentation in respect of character of a document is void. fraudulent misrepresentation in respect of character of the instrument is void. But when it is in respect of contents of the document, it is void. It is void. If it is voidable necessarily you have to seek the relief to set aside the same. If it is void, you may or may not file a suit for declaration. This is the very same judgment 2006. 5 SCC page 5 3 5 3. Suppose if any instrument is affected, it affects what right over the property or title over the property. That instrument was executed by the person competent to execute. Then what is the remedy? Your remedy used to set aside the instrument. Suppose you are one of the co-operation. Your father executed a sale deed not for any legal necessity. You can impeach the sale because the katha is competent to execute sale deed. But it affects your right because the sale is not for any legal necessity. You can impeach it. But your remedy is to file a suit to set aside the sale deed and you cannot file a suit for declaration that the sale deed is illegal and not binding on you. Because the person executed the document is a competent to execute it. But at the same time your right is affected, then your remedy is to take recourse under section 31 and not under section 34 of the specific required. This is Chaco versus Mahadevan 2007. 2007 SCC page 363. Then assuming for a moment there are co-sharers. Co-sharers in joint association. But one of the co-sharers executed a sale deed including the off share of the other co-sharer. Now it came to know that one of the co-sharers who has not executed a sale deed came to know that his share was also conveyed by the other co-sharer. Then what is the remedy available to him? Whether he can file a suit for declaration to declare the sale deed executed by the other co-sharer. Conveying his property is illegal. Or he can file a suit to satisfy the sale deed on the ground that his share was also conveyed he has no better title to convey your property. Then what is the remedy? You can just ignore the sale you can just file a suit for declaration, suit for partition. That is enough because the document on the face of the record is void. The person who has executed the sale deed is competent only to execute his share is concerned not in respect of your share. So to that extent the document is void so far as you are concerned. You can just ignore it and you can very well file a suit for partition of your off share in the property. This is 2022 1 law weekly page 241 Supreme Court Cable Christian versus Rajesh Kumar and others 2022 1 law weekly page 241 then another important aspect so far as section 31 of the specifically practice concern whether unilateral cancellation of sale deed is permissible. In Satyapal case our Honourable Supreme Court said unilateral cancellation of the sale deed is permissible then it shocked the entire legal fraternity. How it could be? Sale deed is you know that it is a bilateral document without the knowledge of the vendi purchaser how the vendor is bold enough to cancel the document even after receiving the sale but in that case Satyapal case the facts is entirely the facts are entirely different a property or a conveyance deed a sale deed was executed by the cooperative society register or secretary in favour of the Allati. There is a condition in that Allatman that the Allati has to put up construction within a period of 2 years from the data of Allatman. If no construction is made by the Allati within the stipulated period then the society has got power to cancel it unilaterally. So based on this specific governance our Supreme Court is held that there is a covenant parties to the agreement not bind by the terms and conditions of the agreement so the unilateral cancellation of the sale deed by the society by the cooperative society secretary of the cooperative society is correct and the suit is bind by the Allati to cancel the unilateral cancellation of sale deed was discussed but that is on NETL and different footing but once a sale deed is executed register it can only be impeached by filing a suit to set aside the sale deed there cannot be any unilateral cancellation of sale because it is a bilateral document previously under the registration act any document is presented by registration the registering authority will receive it and just he has to verify whether the proper stamp is paid or not if it is okay then he will register the same unmindfully but after this Satyabal judgment and Tamil Nadu amendment was made in the registration act that a sale deed which was newly executed register can only be cancelled by both the vendor and vending there cannot be any unilateral cancellation amendment now is made so unilateral cancellation of sale deed is impermissible Tota Ganga Lakshmi Tota Ganga Lakshmi versus Government of Andhra Pradesh 2010-15 SCC page 207 because the full bench of the honourable Andhra Pradesh has held that unilateral cancellation of sale deed is permissible because there is no provision under the registration act debarring the registering authority from registering the cancellation of sale deed submitted by the vendor seller so after this judgment amendment was made but our honourable Supreme Court is held once a document is bilateral it cannot be unilaterally cancelled as I said earlier sale deed executed by Kartha not for legal necessity you can file a suit to you can file a suit for declaration to declare that the sale is illegal not binding on this this is 2020 2014 SCC page 436 then another important point we are all well aware a person in settled possession even if he is a trespasser or an encroacher can only be evicted in a manner not to law he can only be evicted by taking recourse to the due process of law or recourse to law this is well known principles of law person in settled possession even if he is a trespasser cannot be his possession cannot be disturbed without taking recourse to the due process of law but what is the meaning of the word due process of law suppose suit for declaration has been filed and for the consequential relief of injunction the court comes to know that the plaintiff has no title to the property and he believed the title of the defendant after overall assessment of both the oral and the document evidences the court came to the conclusion that the plaintiff has miserably failed to establish title to the property and the title of the defendant is proved then automatically declarator relief can be dismissed but if it is found that the plaintiff is in possession and enjoyment of the suit property whether the court is entitled to dismiss the declarator relief and grant a consequential relief for permanent injunction this is the point for consideration because the court finds that the plaintiff is in possession so his possession cannot be disturbed even by the true one of course believe the true owner has to file a suit for recovery of possession that is the law but our supreme court recently held once the rights of the parties are adjudicated in a case plaintiff's title is not proved so he is not entitled to get a degree for declaration but even if he is in possession of the property he is not entitled to get an order of injunction this is because when the substantive relief is declined the consequential relief cannot be granted the consequential relief cannot be granted even if the plaintiff is in possession and enjoyment of the suit property once the court adjudicated his title over the same property the granting a degree in respect of injunction has to be set aside so that was done by our Honourable Supreme Court in the case reported in 2022 12 HCC page 128 2022 12 HCC page 128 this is very important judgment I have come across 30 years of practice I have seen so many cases even if title is not proved if the plaintiff is found to be in possession of the property invariably the court has granted a degree for permanent injunction even though it dismissed the declared relief but that is not the correct proposition of law our Supreme Court said once adjudication is by the court with respect to the title of the property title of the property then even if he is in possession he is not entitled to get an order of injunction 2022 12 HCC page 128 then whether an unregistered document can be cancelled section 31 does not say that the registered instrument alone can be cancelled so even an unregistered document if you feel that if it is allowed to be left outstanding could cause severe injury and irreparable loss to you you can verify a suit to set aside the instrument which is not a registered instrument then what is the procedure after the cancellation of the instrument so yet after the degree is passed setting aside or canceling the instrument then section 2 of subclass 2 of section 31 the court has to send its degree copy to the consent subregister to make an entry in book 1 that the document is cancelled because unless the entry is made that the document is cancelled by the competent court of law then there is a chance of encumbering the property then the right third party is right innocent bona fide purchasers right will be prejudiced so cautiously our legislature has drafted section 31 subclass 2 says once an instrument or degree is set aside and if it is registered then the court must send the copy of its degree to the consent subregister to make an entry in book 1 in the relevant book maintained right whether an instrument can be partially cancelled or partially allowed to be enforced yes it can be suppose the document contains two separate description of properties so for one item of property if you want to avoid it you can file a suit to set aside the instrument only in respect of those property which affects title or right over the property so partial cancellation of the instrument is also permissible under section 31 of the specific category then section 33 deals with the payment of property or compensation suppose the document has set aside for setting aside the document it takes it consumes certain time limit 5 years or 10 years but the person in possession has derived profit it is resembling like section 2 subclass 12 of the CPC which contemplates the payment of mean profits mean profit means a profit earned by the person in wrongful possession so after setting aside the instrument if the party enjoyed any benefit then he has to pay such a profit to the party affected when it is not possible to ascertain the mean profit then the court may award compensation for the loss sustained by the person who has filed a suit to set aside the instrument and obtain the degree to set aside the instrument so section 31 is very small subject but it involves lot of legal nuances so document which is void it need not be declared as void by the competent court but if it is left outstanding then you can file a suit to set aside the instrument which is void if it is voidable obtained by fraud, misrepresentation and due influence then it can be challenged by via filing suit to set aside the instrument so limitation period is 3 years and the court B is on the amount mentioned in the document not on the market value of the property so after setting aside the instrument the court has to send its degree copy to the consent of register to make an entry and the court is also entitled to award compensation or order to pay profit and by the person in whose name the instrument was executed and which was subsequently cancelled by taking the degree course to section 31 of the specific relief act because they for a small subject it will be very useful to all the participants they say that though it is a small section but it has layers within layers to understand this thing so the document which we said at the first instance I will follow the copy you can post it the document which we said that in respect to section 31 and if there is an arbitration clause I have also seen the latest judgment the right the power to set aside any instrument sale D is well within the domain of the competent civil court the arbitrator has no right to set aside the registered instrument that is the judgment because the power to cancel the power to set aside instrument can only be made by the court by the competent civil court and not by any arbitrator or even tribunal has no power to set aside the instrument which was registered it can only be cancelled or set aside by the court on the specified grounds by taking recourse to section 31 of the specific legal act that is the latest judgment of the supreme so thank you Mr. Shinghar and thank you Doha Dilakshmi has not joined for helping us to connect to such a good resourceful person and the team of legal legal elites so do stay connected with beyond law CLC team on the whatsapp thank you


enjoying shots and so far. That sounds a little bit tame for the first day. Come on, how are you enjoying shots? That's better, that's better. So we've just had a very interesting talk by Bill Binney, talking about how the NSA affects people. We have another talk by an ex-NSA employee and whistleblower. This is Kirk Wiebe and he's going to talk about corruption and management of the NSA and how that has affected people. Thank you, give it up for Kirk. I don't think I have to define the word corruption for anyone in this audience. But corruption is a real problem because it's driving people to do things that are denying all the rest of us, privacy rights, civil rights, whether it be the illegal things governments do that Bill talked about, the United States legal system. So we have a big problem. Corruption matters, it kills, and I will be talking about that a little bit because my thesis is corruption is why the events of 9-11 happened. Lots of money wasted in excess of $200 billion a year are lost because of corruption. It kills the human spirit and it really undermines the relationships amongst humanity. It destroys trust at all levels at the home and around the world. So you've heard a lot of reasons, a lot of theories about why 9-11 happened. Some people will even tell you it was a U.S. conspiracy that the president made it happen, not true. Wasn't that sophisticated? And it certainly was not because 19 very sharp people knew how to fool the United States defenses. No, the real answer is corruption. By a lot of different people all the way from the White House, all the way down to the security people that belong to the airlines at airports who should have been tipped off and who should have been watching for Atah, Muhammad Atah, when he went through the gate at Boston and so forth. There was a whole trail of legal incidents that some of these guys were involved in. Atah seemed to really ignore the law. He had a speeding ticket a couple of weeks before 9-11. The police let him go, lack of follow-up, lack of interest, you name it. So decisions have consequences, they always do. And you and I usually don't get a vote in most of them. But suddenly we have 3,000 innocent people simply going about their daily jobs and two airliners crashing to the Twin Towers and within the next couple hours they're dead. You heard some of the phone calls in desperation calling home to families as these people face that ultimate tragedy. Lots of money and the bad guys psychologically it was a huge win. They used the success of 9-11 as a recruiting tool to show their power against the mightiest enemy of the Western world, the United States. How does that happen? We had a very honorable president, what, 47 years ago? His name was Dwight David Eisenhower. He had just been Supreme Allied Commander in the European theater fighting the Nazis. He came out of the World War II highly respected by the American people and we made him our president. When he left office on the evening of January 17th, 1961, he participated in the very first presidential goodbye to the American people broadcast nationally on American television. I want you, I'm going to stop speaking and please just take a moment to read these words because they apply to what you're seeing today. What Eisenhower was trying to say? There's a tremendous relationship between industry and a government who needs technology to wage war. The technology of war-waging mushroomed after World War II with nuclear power, the ability or the need, perceived need to be able to launch nuclear weapons from sophisticated submarines and other kinds of platforms. So even Eisenhower realized that you can't start up nuclear submarine technology and shut it off because you're not having any wars. These kinds of technology, especially allowing submarines to be very stealthy and quiet and undetectable in the depths of the world's oceans is very hard to do and you just can't stop it. So the logic was, and he understood, there's going to be this relationship between industry and defense. But he also warned the disastrous rise of misplaced power exist and will persist. If Eisenhower were with us tonight on this stage, I think he'd be heartbroken, I think he'd be totally dismayed and frustrated because that military industrial complex has grown, not just military but intelligence. So we have now the power of weaponry, we have the power of cyber warfare, we're getting ready to turn everyone's lights off, imagine what happens when you take the lights out of Europe. What happens to humanity in the countries?  Fast forward 40 years, you've seen this picture, National Security Agency, a once respectable place to work. Bill and I remember a time, Bill Binney and I, remember a time when you could work here and feel pretty proud about most of the work that was going on. We're not gonna tell you we know it all because even we didn't know everything the government was doing. No one lets you know that. But we at least worked on honorable projects and didn't get pushback. The NSA's way of obtaining capabilities to spy are regulated by something called the United States Federal Acquisition Regulation. Now, this is important for you to know, this strategy of acquiring capabilities, think of IT capabilities, generally speaking, allows for strategic thinking and strategic development over time. Kind of a long-term transition. And I would say our long-term transition for NSA was going from analog switched communication networks to packet switched and the development of the internet. That was the challenge. Bill Binney saw that challenge. And he said, I need to get together with a team because I think we can do something here. We just need to get the right talent in a small group and see what we can do. So Bill was suggesting, we don't need a long drawn out project. We can do a rapid spiral kind of development that says, let's go out and see what we can do quickly. What kind of a capability can we prototype and see if we can make it work?  We tried and failed. Tried and failed. Tried and failed. And then guess what? Bingo. We learned something technically and how to do it. And then we found out that relational databases fail under large volumes of input. So we had to find another way to database data to feed it to a system that's rapid input, rapid output. How do you keep up with the volumes? General Hayden comes in in 1999. Hayden is a history major. He has a couple of connections with the Bush family, especially President Bush 1941, or Bush 41. Bush says to his son, George, hire Hayden, good man. Hayden comes in, doesn't know what he's doing. He completely relies on business to tell him what to do. He brings in Oracle. He brings in other people. Every major Beltway bandit you can think of in the United States, every large company, some of them with presence right here in the Netherlands and around Europe. And he says, you guys are gonna help me do this. So he says, I gotta modernize NSA. We gotta get to this digital world and dominate it, control it, manage it, whatever. It's industry-driven, but they make a fatal mistake. Nobody talks to Bill Benny. Nobody talks to Kirk Wiebe. The guys who have been trying to forge this new understanding of how you go from nothing to something effective, usable, with privacy. In fact, I will tell you Hayden's deputy, the deputy director of NSA, who sponsored Bill for promotion, knew him, came down to see this prototype we built. It was called Thin Thread. You probably have heard of that. And he said, my God, you have made huge technological breakthroughs. Why are you being so shy? Why aren't you tooting your horn and demanding? And we said, Bill, we're trying. NSA is a big place. It has a development organization of thousands who want to stop us because we threaten careers, we threaten all kinds of cultural issues in the workforce. So Bill goes off excited about what he saw, and we never hear from him again. What do you think happened? Michael Hayden, general, director of NSA, told him to shut up and keep his mouth shut. Why? Because Hayden had been downtown in Congress saying, I'm your man, I'm your hero, I'm gonna carry NSA forward in time, and we're gonna modernize, we're going to invigorate, we're gonna make NSA agile, so it's not this clunky, slow machine that can just about address any kind of a cyber threat, exploitation, new protocols showing up on the internet, we're gonna do it all. So he ignores the analysis business process. That's an aspect of what we call knowledge management. If any developer wants to improve your organization and doesn't find the smartest, most capable people in the workforce that have been storing the knowledge of the place, you're gonna miss all that and probably end up delivering something that really sucks. Anybody ever seen this? Raise your hand. A poor implementation happens all the time. People getting rich off that stuff, by the way. It should never happen. So they skip the business process, that allows vendors to just dream it up and write use cases that are not grounded in reality, but sure wins contracts. Sounds good and it sounds good to Congress. So Congress is throwing billions of dollars at Hayden, especially after 9-11 happens. Just throw money at it, get industry in here from Silicon Valley, they'll fix it. We saw this happening, Bill and I, and we said, look, do what you're gonna do. We have a prototype. No, it's not everything, but it's something. It's a start and it works and it protects privacy. Why not use it for what we would call a risk mitigation strategy, a fallback? Because the director's dream was something called trailblazer and it was PowerPoints. That's all that existed. Bunch of vendors with PowerPoints. Nope, isn't gonna happen. Why? Because we threatened. We threatened the director's budget. Our solution was cheap. We couldn't spend $1.2 billion. It wasn't expensive enough. Hayden wanted the charisma, the reputation of a three-star general with a big budget, making Congress happy as he spends money on businesses in their congressional districts. As a result of this experiment to save it one last time where we find the evidence that they already knew about 9-11 didn't know that was in the databases. Now, this isn't a whole story. This is the most shocking part. There was a small element of people at NSA that knew about 9-11. In other words, NSA's existing infrastructure already captured the data about the attack, but they were ordered not to tell anyone. Now, you're only gonna hear that here. That's not well-reported or understood by anyone. And it was Thomas Drake, another NSA whistleblower who was in charge of that look at the database. And he said, Kirk, you cannot imagine when I saw what was in the database that Synthread was able to find, but nothing else did. But it's an embarrassment, right? That embarrasses the director so he kills it, wipes it off the face of the earth. Fast forward to 2005. I don't know what else to call this. I don't like using those words in the States. I'd get in trouble for calling it that. But I want you to know, it was the most tragic situation in the history of probably the United States since before the Civil War. All those people that died. All the billions of dollars lost. Even Congress saw that it was such a farce what Hayden did with Trailblazer, they revoked Hayden's authority to fund any more large programs. That's how bad it was. That has to be really bad when that happens. Largest intelligence failure in the history of probably the United States, and I would suggest NSA has never recovered. When you lose five years of capability and the world's changing and you lose continuity, where do you start? You have to start over again. Huge loss. But Hayden's happy. See the smile? He's still smiling because he gets promoted. Congress said, what happened to Trailblazer? He said, we bit off more than we could chew. And that was the only question he was ever asked about the fiasco at NSA. So he goes on to become deputy director, director of central intelligence. This is how you succeed.  Get paid, get promoted, get rewarded. Anybody ever run into this kind of stuff over here? I hope you never do. So how do you explain it? People are willing to cheat. People are willing to forget honesty. Here's some statistics. You read them. I don't have to read it for you. We're now harvesting the cheaters in positions of responsibility at your company, in your government, in mine, across the board. So we have this E word. We had a interview with a young guy that wanted to work with us. And he said, I'm an ethical hacker. Do you know how my ears picked up when I heard ethical? I said, wow, this month, and I asked Ariane Comfus. I said, is ethical hacker, is that a new thing? Did he do that? Or do the hackers generally think of themselves as ethical or not? Now you tell me, how many people in here consider themselves an ethical hacker? Can I see the hands? How about just ethical people interested in honesty? I applaud you.  Keep it up, because we're all in one community striving for something better than what we're seeing today. How do we make it better? There are some people, including yourselves, especially in academia. I suggest you take a look at their website. It's nothing fancy, but this is more of your community. This one happens to be a professor, Dr. Michael Van Houten. That's his address. Feel free to email him. We had a talk with his colleague, Professor Wempe of Amsterdam University, and he asked us if we would mind coming to his university and working with some of his students, talking to them, be part of a panel to forward the whole issue of ethics and what can we do? How can we action it? So some interesting ideas. I suggest you please do the same. Finally, there's a conference coming up in Copenhagen in 2018. If you can make it, please do. This gives you plenty of time to prepare. This organization goes back also in the 1980s. I think it's 1983. And they're struggling with corruption as well. And I suggest you join them. Thank you for listening. Any questions? Thank you, Kirk. You finished very, you finished some time early, which is great. So we have a lot of time for questions. I should also inform you that we, after his talk and after the discussion here, we can continue the discussion together also with Bill Binney in the tent next door, the big TP tent called Explody. And they'll be available there for discussions. But for now, please use one of the microphones to ask your questions to Kirk. Any questions? Maybe it's too simple, but what kept you from designing a whole circus of very costly window dressing around your project? A potemking project. With fantastic fronts and bells and whistles. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's... Yeah, yeah. Why didn't you? Yeah, I will tell you that. Interestingly, while Bill and I were developing this technology, a friend called me, who actually had worked for me at NSA and now was in a position to have a voice in Congress through the chief of staff of the Intelligence Committee. And she called me one night and said, Kirk, a new person from Congress is taking over the NSA budget, monitoring it, checks and balances. And she was very good, but she said, she doesn't know where to begin. Would you mind meeting with her? And I said, Linda, I would love to. So we had to be very quiet about this and a little bit secret because I was down in the NSA organization. I wasn't at the top and NSA doesn't like people down here. Talking to people who oversee the top. So, but she knew I would be honest, brutally honest. So I met with her in the back of a diner. And you won't believe this, but when I saw her enter, I knew her by her maiden name. When I heard from Linda, I was gonna talk to this lady. The name had changed because she had gotten married. So we already had known each other from a previous business relationship with NSA. So the trust factor was there right away. And I said, Diane, there's some really neat stuff going on in an organization hidden down in the basement of NSA with Bill Benny and Ed Loomis and a handful of other people. She said, great. Next time I schedule a visit, I'm gonna ask to see it. And nobody has to know where I found out about it. And so she did. She came out. She told the director's legislative staff. She wanted to see it. We met with her. She loved it. She said, you're the only place in NSA that's really doing anything positive in this whole arena. And she wanted to keep track of, well, long story short, Diane actually got money for what we were doing. It was a small amount, but we were thankful to get any kind of money because the internal NSA process wasn't giving us anything. So she gave us $9 million and said, do you have a strategy, this is before 9-11, do you have a strategy for monitoring flare ups and hotspots in the world like the Middle East? Bill did. He said, I know exactly where to put our prototype and we'll go from there. She says, great, do it. NSA refused to do it. NSA said to Congress, we're not gonna do it. And nobody confronted NSA. They let them get away with it. In other words, we don't have honesty and integrity in oversight in Congress needed to oversee the executive branch of the US government, which NSA belongs to, because it's subordinate to the United States Department of Defense. That's why we never got any funding. And the director did the rest by destroying thin thread after Drake demonstrated the facts it discovered in the NSA database about 9-11. But that's really the answer. Yes, sir. That's right. I got three questions. My first question is, can I ask two questions? Okay. My second question is, yeah, I saw for engineer. Yeah, that's okay. Is it corruption or incompetence that causes this? I could entertain the idea of incompetence if this had been a small organization. But we know that NSA had lots of smart achievers, technical people. The problem was they tended to act like sheep. Don't, in other words, go along to get along. Right. Don't make waves. Right, they're working at the wrong level. They're the mathematicians, the engineers. Yes, absolutely. So it's management incompetence or bad people, like corrupt people. Now the director doesn't make a unilateral decision. He has a board. And most of those board members were techies years ago that came up through the management chain and got corrupted. And the director said, anybody got a better plan than I do? Trailblazer? They said, of course not. They weren't going to embarrass themselves and weaken their position as supporters. You always want the chief to hear yes. So no one opposed him. He had agreement with Congress to throw money at the problem. Everything looked great. He enjoyed those metrics, getting a big budget, the opportunity, and he made a failed mistake. He brought industry in and he counted 100% on them solving the problem. Five years later, he's told by industry out of Silicon Valley, I'm sorry, Mikey Hayden. We don't have applications that big to deal with this kind of thing you're trying to do. We just don't have a clue. Now we became persona non grata because by now we're going out in public saying NSA really screwed up and they sold out American security, indeed the world's security for money by throwing the whole thing over to industry and then when they had a workable prototype going all along until they killed it. Right, because that's some fun times on Wikipedia just now, reading that the FBI raided your house. Yes, that was fun. Must be a super scary experience. My third question is, shouldn't I, as a non U.S. citizen, but U.S. resident in my case, shouldn't I be happy that it's such a mess at the NSA? Shouldn't I feel safer that they can get useful data out of their data? No, no, no. I mean, you can get some semblance of ease out of that. Yes, and even Bill and I have shared those sentiments. He's saying no, basically. But here's the problem, here's the problem. We're a nation of what, 300 million people in the United States. Let's say NSA can only make 20,000 surveilled and make their lives miserable and destroy their privacy. Do the rest of us look and say that's okay, it's not me, it's somebody else. Well, you know the story. When does that problem come home to roost on all of us? And that's the problem with that. So yes, there are capabilities they don't have, we believe, that could make their job even easier and more probing, but do not take comfort in the fact that they're framing people by using NSA data in court and not telling the attorney for the defense so people's rights are being stripped in the courtroom and don't forget that they can make life. And now we're hearing the Obama administration people actually responding on the Trump campaign. Now once you use a tool of government to undermine democracy, that's the very thing that we warned about long ago. So the takeaway is that I should start a company in machine learning. I work for Google, we do some stuff in machine learning and talk to them and sell them some better systems. I'd like to thank you for that idea. That is worth thinking about. Thank you. Anyone else have a question before we break up? All right, I suggest you get something cool. Oh, please, one more. The idea that military intelligence is a conflicting concept, is that true? Military intelligence, yeah. Military and intelligence is, in one word is conflict? No, I don't think so. Again, it's all about authority. The enemy for the United States military has always been some foreign entity with threatening weapons and so forth. But what changed with an NSA is fully legal chartered to spy on foreigners. That's okay. But it was never chartered to spy on Americans unless there was evidence of crime, terrorism, some wrongdoing, then they could do it. But now it's grab everyone's data because you don't know when you might want to use it against them, put it in a database and that's the threat constantly hanging, but not just for Americans, all of you as well. And they have partners in Europe that help with that effort, yeah. Yes, sir. You're creating this image of the NSA being a not very capable organization? Capable? Well, I mean, could it be possible that they'll just have programs superior to the prototype that you were developing at a level of classification that you weren't authorized to see? Well, it is possible, but then I question this. If ours observed privacy in accordance with the constitution and the privacy rights of individuals, why doesn't theirs? Why can they just unmask and look at anything they want to without going to a court? I understand correctly, the FISA court is a court. FISA? Oh, FISA. Yeah. A FISA court is one person. And an NSA person comes in and says, judge, we, the NSA, the United States Department of Defense declare that we need to unmask the identity of this person. The FISA judge isn't cleared to see why. He just has to believe the lawyer. And there's no defense standing up for this person that's about to be looked at, their private data. Is that a court in the traditional sense of a... Well, Obama made it and he was a lawyer, so... Yeah, yeah. No, you're right. He was a lawyer, but that doesn't mean what he thought was right. Well, we're looking at an organization that's meant to systemically reduce privacy all over the world. So I don't think Wright enters into the consideration here. So what you would say is, as long as we're all being screwed, that's okay. What I'm saying is, you're looking at an organization that's designed to be above the law. Oh, I see what you're saying. Yes, it is. I agree. And above the law, it is designed to steal corporate secrets all over the world and reduce the privacy of any foreigner to absolute zero. And now they've found excuses and methods, given that are above the law. It should be easy to do the same thing for Americans as well. Yeah, so what's the benefit of all that? Oh, the benefit to the organization should be pretty obvious. Yes, but what is the benefit to the people we rule over? You're looking here at a group of people that might know a thing about this. And outside of this event, you'll look at people that have absolutely no idea. Yes, in other words, they're not conscious of all this that's going on. A lot of people don't know the threat or what can be used. Well, I've heard this argument that the NSA is not that big a deal because they are concerned with issues of national security, which in the case of the United States government are indeed very serious things of national security. I'm just wondering what my privacy has to do with your national security, and probably the same thing goes for every individual. Well, no, our concern for your privacy is a matter of ethics. That's just our personal ethic that we built into the prototype because we thought it was wrong and actually troublesome to spy on people who are not connected with some kind of threat. It actually dirties up your database. Why should I look at all the stuff that's on the internet when 0.0001% is really of interest? So why you clog up the system? Well, I might throw up that all of this information could be used for machine learning and artificial intelligence and eventually lead to a net benefit to national security, especially in the case of violent revolution. I would agree with that if the topic were people who are candidate terrorists, criminals, but not the world. How do I develop an algorithm based on innocent people? Every innocent person will have a full life around them and the way that they behave will tell you something about the way others behave. I don't think innocent people will tell me much about bad people. I think you're making too clear a distinction there. Really? Guys, I think we should take this discussion to the other tent, I think. Are there any more questions? Do you think the big data in the database of NSA are right or might it be corrupted or is the bigness to corrupt it? Yeah, it's a good question. I cannot speak definitively about today's NSA database, but one thing I can say, it's full of stuff that's not important, and that makes the life of the analyst more difficult because he has to find needles in a growing haystack of data. So it actually works in reverse when you take that kind of an approach. There must be some corruption. I don't know what processes they use, but I know they couldn't find the 9-11, and that was a database, and that was standard internet data. I don't know what format the evidence was in, but it was there, and Drake saw it. So I think we have to assume that there's some level of corruption. If not in the data, the processes that feed the analyst desktop, by the time it gets there, something isn't right. But I think it's a selection problem. How do you select from a fire? How do you sip water from a fire hose? That's what NSA has to try to do. Yes, sir. Last question. Innovation and new technology from outside the United States that's to America. Do the corporations, in other words, do corporations want certain things not to be invented or developed? Yeah, but it's like all technology. It's, technology can be used to kill. Technology can be used to save lives. Technology can be used to undermine personal rights. Technology can be used to protect rights. And there are people in this audience that work on that problem every day. How can we help protect journalists? How do we protect truth anymore? Because if the bad people who invent technology want to change the records in the database, change your personnel files to make it look like you're a criminal, and oh, by the way, the Stasi did that, what's to say someone else won't? The only thing that makes NSA good are the people that run it. Are they ethical? The only thing that made the Stasi bad is the people who ran it. Are they ethical? Is it, can corporations look in the NSA database? You know, that's an interesting question. Maybe not directly, but maybe to some degree because there's such a tight relationship between the ISPs and some of the other people supplying NSA with data under the program Bill Binney showed you. Prism, yeah. And so we don't know that answer, but we do suspect that some of the intelligence NSA derives is economic in nature. And then the question is, does NSA share those insights with business to make it easier for them to compete against Europe or some other part of the world? Some would suggest, yes, that's happening. I have not definitive proof, but I'm suspicious. Any other questions? You have been wonderful and patient, but you must be hungry or thirsty. Give yourselves an applause. Thank you. Thank you, sir.


Carlos Elcros vs. Taylor Fritz is the second quarterfinal for the Miami Open for the men for 2023. And both players have been super impressive to get to the quarterfinals. Fritz started the tournament off as the number 9 seed and will get a buy in the first round. In the second round he take on the wild card Nava, who had just taken out Jon Isner in a close first round. This was no problem for Fritz getting through in straight sets, 6-4-6-1. In the third round he take on the number 24 seed Shapovalov. We had a losing record against, but again this was no problem for Fritz getting through in straight sets, 6-4-6-4. In the fourth round he take on the number 7 seed Runa, fellow top 10 player and a man he's never played before. Fortunately Runa was not on his game this day and Fritz destroyed him 6-3-6-4 to get to the quarterfinals. Elcros started the tournament off as the number 1 seed and will get a buy in the first round. In the second round he take on Bagnes and as expected he won in straight sets 6-love 6-2. In the third round he take on Lyovic, a man he'd already played two times in the last couple of months. But again, like those two other times, Elcros was winning in straight sets 6-love 7-6. In the fourth round he take on the number 16 seed Paul, who had beaten Elcros in Canada last year after saving match points. This time Elcros would get his revenge, winning 6-4-6-4 and getting to the quarterfinals of Miami. These guys have actually never played before, which is kind of crazy because they are a similar generation and also over the last 12 to 18 months they've been very, very competitive, but they've never crossed paths in the first time meeting. Fritz is going to win this one, he's going to have to serve well, he's going to have to really be aggressive against Elcros. Most of the guys that Elcros have played this week have been defensive and just kind of counter punching. Now we do know Fritz has got a big game, so he's going to have to use that to his advantage. If Elcros is going to win this one, he needs to use the variety. That's what he does every single match he plays, and Fritz is a little bit more like Medvedev from last week in Indian Wells with a big serving and maybe not the greatest movement. And Fritz does have a little bit of struggling when he moves. Elcros needs to get aggressive and I think come to the net and really use that variety to chop Fritz up. This is going to be a very interesting match because we've never seen them play before, despite both of them being in the top 10 for almost a year now. But I'm going to go with Elcros to win this one in three sets. I think it's going to be tough. I think he's going to drop his first set for the week. And Fritz's serve is going to come to the rescue, but I think Elcros is going to get the win in three in the end. Let me know down in the comments below. Who do you think is going to win this quarter final?


Helping teachers think about where to start when they want to embed critical thinking is an interesting and tricky question. So they can begin by saying, how do I problematize each lesson in a small way? And I would say, if I found a teacher who's a bit nervous about it, I'd say, look, let's just find five ways that I can tweak a lesson that you already teach and just try that out and that will build some confidence. Let me just show you how I might invite students to rewrite titles in a textbook that are boring so they become more interesting. Let's take notes and have them reduce them down to the most important points. So for some teachers it's going to be find that place that we can try a small tweak, try it out, see how it goes, see if it increases student learning. But the flip side of that is to say, but if I want more and I want it sustained, how do I weave those together? How do I launch with an interesting task that we're going to work with over the next few weeks? Now for some teachers that's an uncomfortable place because it requires a lot of scaffolding, a lot of planning. But for some it's an exciting place to say, how do I put that rich exciting task as the driver up front and then engage kids throughout the learning in that? So I would say depending on the teacher, and I would argue just like we differentiate for students, we want to differentiate for teachers, where are you in this process? What would be the most comfortable fit? Would it be a small task? You just try out and see how it goes as you layer in more? Are you willing to jump in with both feet and try something richer? So I think both are out there for teachers and teachers kind of figure out where their comfort level is.