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The Current Transcript for March 15, 2018

Host: Anna Maria Tremonti

Listen to the full episode

Prologue

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Many of us look to the post-Soviet Russia with hope. We wanted a better relationship. And it is tragic that President Putin has chosen to act in this way.

ANNA MARIA TREMONTI: Theresa May's government calculated that 40 percent of the Russians at the embassy in Britain had been involved in intelligence work and they are the ones being expelled over the next week. But Vladimir Putin is not bothered by the spies who come home. He has a record of saving his wrath for those who don't wish to return. The Russian president has made it clear he will never forgive betrayal just as he is signalling that he is not intimidated by condemnation over the nerve agent attack on former Russian spy Sergei Skripal, which is why the man who says he's on Russia's hit list believes Britain has to land a tougher punch on Putin by going after his money. We will hear from him in just a moment. And then it's a breakthrough that will allow a scientist to read your mind to see what you're thinking.

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We are looking at brain activity in real time. Now will take the recording if your brain waves and will try to reconstruct the appearance of images that you've been watching during this experiment.

AMT: It is still in the early stages but what they are doing at the University of Toronto has the potential to replicate the thoughts in your head. And that has others arguing that before fast moving neurotechnology goes any further we need new human rights laws to protect our mental privacy and cognitive liberty. We've got that story in half an hour. And we can protect our privacy but who stole our kindness and humanity.

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VOICE 1: But I wanted to come here today, and say: Stop.

[Laughter]

VOICE 1: Stop stop stop.

VOICE 2: Hurting America.

AMT: Jon Stewart was only half kidding when he accused a right wing broadcaster of hurting America with polarized politics. But Marilynne Robinson is deadly serious about the political divisions she fears are hurting Americans. Hear her reflections in an hour. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. This is The Current

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If Russia doesn't care about expelling diplomats, hit Putin in his wallet, says Bill Browder

Guests: Janice Stein, Bill Browder

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VOICE 1: British police now believe that former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were poisoned with a nerve agent.

VOICE 2: This is being treated as a major incident involving intent to murder. These two people remain critically ill in hospital.

VOICE 3: Should evidence emerge that implies state responsibility then her Majesty's will respond appropriately robustly.

VOICE 4: Under the Vienna Convention, the United Kingdom will now expel 23 Russian diplomats who have been identified as undeclared intelligence officers. They have just one week to leave.

AMT: Well it is seen as the largest expulsion of Russian diplomats since the Cold War. British Prime Minister Theresa May's retaliation against Russia yesterday does not go far enough, however, according to Bill Browder. And he knows a thing or two about being on the Russian president's bad side. In fact he calls himself Vladimir Putin's number one enemy. The founder and CEO of Hermitage Capital Management was once the biggest foreign investor in Russia. But in 2009 his lawyer Sergei Magnitsky died in police custody. He was beaten and he died of beatings and neglect. Mr. Magnitsky had been investigating allegations of fraud involving Russian tax officials and police. Today Bill Browder travels the world urging governments to adopt the Magnitsky Act targeting the assets of Russian officials who violate human rights. Bill Browder is the author of the book Red Notice. He joins us from our New York studio. Hello.

BILL BROWDER: Good morning.

AMT: What did you think when you heard about the poisonings of Sergei Skripal and his daughter?

BILL BROWDER: Well it's a shocking escalation in in the way in which Putin has sort of exercised his rogue powers around the world. The fact that he is willing to and comfortable using high grade military chemical weapons, chemical nerve agents, in the heart of Britain is- We're into a whole new ballgame in terms of his bad behavior and how we need to respond to it.

AMT: Did you ever meet Sergei Skripal?

BILL BROWDER: I've never met him nor have I even heard of him other than by reputation when the spy swap took place back a number of years ago.

AMT: Now you say you're on the top of President Putin's hit list. Why do you say that?

BILL BROWDER: Because they've been threatened with death. I've been threatened with all sorts of other things. But most importantly I've come up with a tool which Putin hates more than just about anything else which is going after his assets and the assets of his other cronies in the Putin regime. We've come up with this tool called the Magnitsky Act which was recently passed in Canada, the United States and various other places which goes which freezes assets and bans visas of Russian human rights violators. And Putin hates that.

AMT: Well given what the British say they believe Mr. Putin did, even though of course Mr. Putin is denying it, how frightened are you right now for your own safety?

BILL BROWDER: Well I'm no more frightened than I've ever been. I've been at a level of huge conflict with Vladimir Putin for the last eight years and so nothing has changed for me. The only thing that's changed for me is looking at the reaction of the British government in terms of this latest atrocity because Putin is a guy who only understands hard boundaries. He only understands real consequences and he only understands things that he cares about. And the expulsion of 23 diplomats, he doesn't care about it. It doesn't affect his personal interests. It might be you know is a small reputational issue. But what he cares about is his money. He cares about having his money safe. And I'm not confident, if this is the end of the story, if just expelling 23 diplomats is the end of the story then there will be more killings in the UK and I'm likely to be one of those people killed.

AMT: And what measures are you taking to protect yourself

ANNA MARIA TREMONTI: Well whatever measures I am taking I am not going to announce them to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation for the Russians to hear and then respond to those things.

AMT: So Theresa May has said Britain is going to bring in a tough version of the Magnitsky Act. They already have brought in the Magnitsky Act, have they not.

BILL BROWDER: They have they brought in something I would describe as Magnitsky-lite which came in last summer which is about a third of what the Canadian government brought in in in October. It was really a very very difficult exercise getting even Magnitsky-lite through the Parliament. And so now we have - together with a number of on a cross party basis members of parliament in the UK - to come up with amendments to the sanctions law which should bring us bring UK fully in conformity with Canada and the U.S. and have a tough Magnitsky law. But even with that then the question is how are they going to use it and will they use it in a tough and robust way against these bad guys.

AMT: Well you say that there's actually a real good financial hit that the British could make against Mr. Putin and his closest supporters. Why? What is the connection what have they got going on in Britain, financially?

BILL BROWDER: Well it's an interesting thing which is that Britain is the most popular country for Russian gangsters and corrupt Russian government officials to settle and buy property. And if you walk through some of the more fashionable neighborhoods of London you'll hear Russian being spoken on every street corner because that's where they like to have their properties. They like to have their properties in London because they see it as a rule of law country. They think that their property is safe and they considered it sort of a good bolthole to go to if times get tough in Russia. And that's the leverage that Theresa May and the British government have right now. Because all these people are there, because their properties are there that gives them a huge piece of leverage in which to seize those properties and show Putin that Britain means business.

AMT: Can Britain do that under the laws it has?

BILL BROWDER: It can under the laws that they have. It will be easier to do it under the laws that will be approved soon, that Theresa announced in the Parliament yesterday. But they have to do it because if they don't Putin will kill again.

AMT: How simple is it to legally connect the dots to people who happen to be wealthy Russians and Vladimir Putin?

BILL BROWDER: Well the thing is that Vladimir Putin doesn't keep any money in his own name. He keeps the money in the name of what I call oligarchs trusties. There are a number of oligarchs who are basically holding money for him. And it's been shown and proven in a number of different cases that these oligarchs hold money and provide him with material support or material support for other senior members of his regime. And that in my mind is all you need to know in order to go after these people's assets and seize them.

AMT: You contend that the wealthiest of the Russians have actually taken that money from the Russian state.

BILL BROWDER: I don't just contented. I can prove it. And there's multiple law enforcement investigations going on around the world which show that that's the case. And basically that's how most of these people get their money is not through honest business. It's through stealing from the people of Russia which makes it all the more important not just for the safety of Britain but ultimately for the sanctity of Russia that the West doesn't support this type of activity.

AMT: How do you think Vladimir Putin and his allies are reacting in private to the measures taken by Britain?

BILL BROWDER: I think they're saying 'look we can do anything we want there. These guys are total pushovers'. That's what they're thinking right now in the Kremlin as we speak.

AMT: They have publicly said that they had nothing to do with this poisoning in Britain can't prove it.

BILL BROWDER: Well they publicly have said that they had nothing to do with the downing of the MH-17 over Ukraine. Putin even said they had nothing to do with the takeover of Crimea. He said it was all just a bunch of tourists from Russia and local militias. And Putin is basically in the business of publicly lying about everything. Here we have a case it is pretty obvious. There was an enemy of Russia and then somebody attempted to assassinate him using high grade military nerve agents which effectively only the Russians possess. So just connect the dots there. It is not so hard to figure out.

AMT: Mr. Putin appears to be riding quite high and getting a lot of traction at home right now in these these few days before Sunday's presidential election. Do you think that's a coincidence?

BILL BROWDER: Well first of all I wouldn't call it a presidential election. The word election is not what's happening in Russia. Vladimir Putin is riding high to the extent that he has either killed, exiled or imprisoned all of his political opponents. He's riding high because he controls every minute of airtime on every different television and radio station, so he can blast out a fake message about what he's doing for the country. And he's going to be riding high in the polls when the fake vote happens because they'll stuff the ballot boxes. And so I don't think that we can really judge him as a popular leader when the whole thing is a fake from start to finish.

AMT: So let's get back to what Britain has announced so far. We know this isn't the first poisoning of a former Russian spy, of course the radio poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko in 2006. What did you think of the British government's response to that assassination?

BILL BROWDER: Well I think their lack of response which was effectively to do nothing when it was proven that Russia was involved in a nuclear assassination of a British citizen. That's what set the groundwork for the the nerve agent poisoning that took place in Salisbury ten days ago. That was by basically doing nothing, Putin realized that he could do whatever he wants in Britain and he did.

AMT: So what are the stakes for Western democracies if Russia is not challenged on another level?

BILL BROWDER: Well I think this is similar to the red line that we didn't enforce in Syria, the West didn't enforce in Syria when they first used chemical weapons a few years ago. And now they're using chemical weapons on a weekly basis. If we don't do something, if Britain doesn't do something and if the West doesn't do something to severely punished Putin for this latest action he will do it again and it won't just be in Britain.

AMT: So what do you think of the responses from Canada, from the US, France, the president still plans to go to Moscow?

BILL BROWDER: Well let's start out with the response should be from Britain first and foremost. Britain has to be the leader in this response. But the British government has gotten extremely robust statements from - as you said - from a number of allies and the allies should follow Britain. But it's the burden and the onus is on Theresa May to be absolutely focused and tough on this situation because if she's not it's going to affect us all. She has the right to do something very significant here and she should do it.

AMT: And I was just reading this morning that the foreign secretary Boris Johnson accuses the Kremlin of glorifying the poisoning. Did you think that his language is getting stronger? Do you see any kind of forward movement for Britain?.

BILL BROWDER: Well the language is all fine. Her language was great yesterday. His language is fine. It's the proper language. And the language of Britain's allies is fine. But it’s actions not language is what's important right now.

AMT: Do you think Britain fears going after some of the people that you say have all the money because you're talking billions of dollars; they're in the middle of Brexit, that would hurt London? How much other things are in play here?

BILL BROWDER: Well I think that everything is at play here but the most important thing that's at play here is national security. I mean one can't sacrifice national security for money. And that is the most important thing is the government's primary responsibility to keep people safe. If the British government wants to relegate that below profit, they'll lose the legitimacy.

AMT: So you see a pattern being set here that needs to be stopped.

BILL BROWDER: It absolutely has to be stopped and Putin is a man who only understands hard power. He looks around for weakness. He pokes around to see where there's responses where he doesn't find responses he pushes further.

AMT: OK Bill Browder thanks for speaking with me today.

BILL BROWDER: Thank you.

AMT: Bill Bowder. He's the author of Red Notice: A True Story of Finance, Murder and One Man's Fight for justice. He has been fighting successfully to have countries bring in the Magnitsky Act. He joined us from our New York studio. Well I'm going to get another take on this. I'm joined by international relations expert Janice Stein. She's the founding director of the Monks School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto. Janice Stein is in Toronto. Hello.

JANICE STEIN: Good morning Anna Maria.

AMT: So what do you think of what you're listening to from what Mr. Browder has to say?

JANICE STEIN: Well Bill has missed just a few steps along the way here Anna-Maria that we really do matter. First of all you need evidence at every step in the chain. So Britain has already taken this chemical nerve agent and given it to OPCW which is the Office for the Prevention of Chemical Warfare. They're going to do the analysis and confirm the British conclusion. So that matters before you proceed with what Bill is suggesting. Second of all and here's the bigger problem and Bill kind of just glossed over this when he was talking to you. You have to connect the dots directly to Putin. Yes this is a nerve agent which only the Russian government developed 20 years ago. But it's not impossible - it's not likely but it's not impossible - that a rogue agent got hold of some of it. And that's why the British government was careful. It said very likely. It didn't say conclusive. Before you can move to the kind of action that Bill is talking about. You need to show the pattern that a state official of some sort participated, made this available, or did it. Now that's really difficult to do.

AMT: So what do you think of the Canadian response? Yesterday our foreign minister issued a statement condemning the quote "despicable use of a chemical agent on the sovereign territory of the UK". What do you think of Canada's response?

JANICE STEIN: Well that was careful. That was a careful comment. It is despicable to use a chemical agent on foreign territory. But do you notice how careful? And we have the Magnitsky Act, Anna Maria. We have a tough Magnitsky Act. So we could have moved ahead very quickly with the kinds of sanctions on oligarchs that Bill is asking for, although we do not have the kind of Russian money in Ottawa, Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver that exists in London which is really the epicentre for so much of Russian money. But we haven't gone there and the foreign minister did not talk about going there because again you need to connect the dots you need some evidence to demonstrate that this is in fact done, organized, orchestrated by Russian officials.

AMT: I just want to point out we did request an interview with the Russian embassy in Ottawa. The embassy declined the request. We did get a statement and I'm going to quote that from this. It says: "We regret Canadian Foreign Minister's hasty support for the unfounded and unacceptable accusations on the part of the UK with regard to the Skripal case".

JANICE STEIN: Yes that's what you really expect right. The Russians are going to deny this. In fact with sneering denials after the prime minister May made her statement but the challenge is it really going to come down to the global intelligence community. What can they find? Who was part of what we call the supply chain? How did this nerve agent actually get to Britain? These are these are all big questions. And if we are actually looking at how we protect civilian populations because there were about 20 people, we haven't talked about those people, but there were about 20 people who were mildly sickened by this in addition to the two who are fighting for their lives. How did this get through? What do we need to do to improve our capacity to detect these kinds of chemical nerve agents when they're crossing borders? Because for this story to hang together they had to cross borders.

AMT: You know it isn't lost. I mean we're having this conversation around. You know there's a war in Syria, Ghouta is under attack. They've had chemical weapons attacks more than once. What does this tell you?

JANICE STEIN: This tells me we - the so-called global community - has watched hundreds if not thousands of people in Syria fall victim to chemical attacks all done by official forces and frankly has looked the other way. But use chemical nerve agent on two former Russian spies in London and all of a sudden there is outrage. There's a double standard here, Anna Maria. There's no question about it

AMT: Is there not also action with impunity on all fronts?

JANICE STEIN: There is that but that's part I think of a bigger story here, that what the Russian government has turned to over the last several years is below the radar warfare. And it's systematically doing that. It's doing this with the information warfare. It's doing it cyber warfare. Even the soldiers that were used in Ukraine do not wear Russian uniforms. It's very skilled expert at just staying beneath the radar having plausible deniability. It's a very difficult challenge.

AMT: Well and the Janice Stein, we have to leave it there but you just raised all those flags that we have to keep talking about. Thank you for your thoughts today.

JANICE STEIN: It's a pleasure.

AMT: Janice Stein, founding director of the Monk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto. She is in Toronto. Stay with us. The news is next. And then what would a world look like where we can see what everyone is thinking especially in the context of we're just talking about. It can be thrilling. It can also be terrifying. Researchers in Canada have made a breakthrough on this front. We're going to talk about the science of mind reading after the news. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. This is The Current

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The mind-blowing future of mind reading (which may be closer than you think)

Guests: Adrian Nestor, Marcello Lenca, Ann Cavoukian

AMT: Hello I'm Anna Maria Tremonti and you're listening to The Current.

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AMT: Still to come, What are we Doing Here? That's what Pulitzer Prize winning American writer Marilynne Robinson titled her latest collection of essays. She takes on a country divided between right and left inspired in part by her mother's recent conversion to Fox News. Marilynne Robinson joins me in about half an hour. But first mind the consequences of a new technology.

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AMT: Instead of asking one another 'what's on your mind?' the time may be coming when we can just have a look. Researchers at the University of Toronto have made a breakthrough in the field of mind reading. Specifically they found a way to reconstruct the images we see in our mind's eye which at first blush sounds pretty cool, in a science fiction sort of way, but it does raise thorny questions about the privacy of our very thoughts. We'll get to the big questions in just a few minutes but first to the lab at the University of Toronto Scarborough campus. Our intern producer Danielle Carr went to see the device in question at work. You'll hear researcher Dan Nemrodov with study participant Natasha Orobotenko.

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DAN NERODOV: We're going to do the experiment in here. So follow me.

NATASHA OROBOTENKO: Can I sit over here?

DAN NERODOV: Yes please. My name is Dan. I'm going to be your experimenter today. I want you to understand that you can terminate the experiment at any time you choose. Do you understand?

NATASHA OROBOTENKO: Yes I understand.

DAN NERODOV: Will first measure your head just to know what cap to fit. We need to inject gel in order to increase conductance so we can see clearly your brain activity. It's going to be a bit cold. How do you feel?

NATASHA OROBOTENKO: I'm feeling good. There's a little bit of pressure, not unbearable.

DAN NERODOV: Ok so I'm connecting now electrodes to your frontal part of your head cap. This electrodes pick up activities from your eye movements. So right here looking at brain activity in real time you can see a signal coming from this [unintelligible] electrodes. You're going to see a fast succession of faces. You'll have to spot a face of female gender. Every time you see a face you have to press 'M' button. Do you understand?

NATASHA OROBOTENKO: Yes I understand

DAN NERODOV: We'll start the experiment.

AMT: Well after that experiment researchers analyze the data to see if the digital image recreated from the brain waves is a match and then they reveal the results.

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DAN NERODOV: So we've done reconstructions from your previous round. And this is the reconstruction that we created based on your brainwaves.

NATASHA OROBOTENKO: Yes it's super similar. Like I can't actually remember the face that I was looking at. It is a little bit blurry but for the most part it's very similar to what I saw. It's crazy that they were able to get so much data from me just sitting here and all these wires that are attached to me.

AMT: Well University of Toronto researcher Adrian Nestor is another member of that team and he's with me in our studio. Hello.

ADRIAN NESTOR: Hello.

AMT: So explain what we were listening to. How does that experiment work?

ADRIAN NESTOR: Well we are connecting our participants to EEG equipment and we are recording brain activity is related to the cognitive tasks to their perception of human faces. And then we try to recreate their perception of those faces from their brainwaves from EEG recordings.

AMT: And remind us what EEG is?

ADRIAN NESTOR: EEG refers to electroencephalography. A way of recording electrical currents associated with the brain functioning. In this case, with cognitive activities.

AMT: And so what, when you showed Natasha something she could recognize a face she had looked at that was in her mind. Is that right?

ADRIAN NESTOR: Fortunately yes. Yes. This is a particular way of validating the results of the experiment making sure that participants can match the reconstructions against actual stimuli that participants saw in the experiment.

AMT: So in other words but you're using this to recreate what I saw in my head. What I saw on the page I recreated in my brain like I registered it in my brain and then you take that data and you recreate it again over there.

ADRIAN NESTOR: That's correct.

AMT: That's extraordinary. But you're calling it a breakthrough. How is it different from past studies?

ADRIAN NESTOR: It is important and different in several respects but I would say the most important novel aspect of the study is the fact that it's done with EEG and not with other techniques such as FMRI functional magnetic resonance imaging. And the reason for that is because FMRI is a great tool but it is also expensive. It is not as widely available as EEG and it is not portable. In contrast EEG has all those pluses which means that, for the purpose of designing practical applications, EEG would be the preferred tool. And these results open the door to such potential applications in the not so distant future.

AMT: And what kind of applications are you talking about? What are the possible uses for technology like this?

ADRIAN NESTOR: Oh one of the applications we've been speculating about concerns forensic goals. So for instance reconstructing of an individual face of a person of interest from someone's memory. And we're not quite there yet because we were reconstructing faces from perception from you looking at those faces. But again in the not so distant future we hope to be able to accomplish that from memory. We would ask someone to remember in as much visual detail as possible. The face of an individual and we would try hopefully successfully to recreate the visual memory of that individual.

AMT: So you could use that for example with an eyewitness.

ADRIAN NESTOR: That's correct.

AMT: So in other words what I might picture in my mind of something I saw I may not actually be able to communicate that to you but if you could read my mind and read my memory you could get a clearer picture of say the perpetrator.

ADRIAN NESTOR: That's very true and we're very excited about the possibility of making that happen.

AMT: What about people who are non-verbal? How can you use this with them?

ADRIAN NESTOR: That's a great question. And this is a particular population to which such techniques could provide a breakthrough in terms of ability to connect with the world. We've been reconstructing images of faces but more recently we've also had some success reconstructing visual words that people look at. And if that is the case and if we can extend this research again to memory beyond perception then this opens the door to communicating with individuals that are unable to communicate through verbal means or through sign language or let's say individuals you know complete locked in syndrome, either through images avoidance or through images of the visual environment. Let's say, images of faces, they can communicate a great deal of information hopefully in the future through such techniques

AMT: And reconstructing images of text would be if I was thinking- Say I was thinking 'help' you would be able to reconstruct that and know that I was in distress, if I couldn't otherwise tell you.

ADRIAN NESTOR: That would be one of the important goals of this search.

AMT: Okay. How close is this technology to being applied to the kinds of things we're talking about?

ADRIAN NESTOR: Well currently what we provide it is a proof of concept. We know that it is possible but there's a great deal of technical work to be performed so that the accuracy of these reconstructions is a lot better. And also we have to investigate the wide applicability of these techniques. So far we know that they work with healthy adults. But what about children? What about older individuals? What about individuals with all different types of visual impairment? But we are hopeful and it is my opinion that it's a matter of time. It's not a matter of if.

AMT: This study has received attention from people who read their thoughts could be stolen. What do you say to people with those fears?

ADRIAN NESTOR: I understand that concern but just to make things clear the stage we cannot really construct anything that all participants do not allow us to deconstruct. We need their full cooperation and also many of these algorithms, many of these approaches target specific categories. So in this case we can only reconstruct faces. We will not be able to reconstruct anything else within the framework of this experiment.

AMT: So can you read people's brains without their knowledge?

ADRIAN NESTOR: I would say not in the immediate future but the technology develops. We are surprised that some of the success we've had with some of these techniques.

AMT: Are you worried about the possibility that people could misuse the technology?

ADRIAN NESTOR: There's always a temptation to use technology in ways in which the experimenters or their designers did not intend. So with that in mind I think it's probably a good idea to put these things in perspective and approach them from ethical perspective.

AMT: And so you're saying the next step for you now is words and text.

ADRIAN NESTOR: Words and faces as well Bert using memory not just perception. That would truly be a breakthrough.

AMT: It sounds quite exciting thanks for explaining it.

ADRIAN NESTOR: Thank you. My pleasure.

AMT: Adrian Nestor University of Toronto research scientist here with me in our Toronto studio. Well according to the researchers the work they are doing cannot be used at this point to read people's brains without their knowledge. But as the technology advances there are concerns about its implications for our privacy, specifically the privacy of our thoughts. Marcello Lenca is a researcher at the Health Ethics and Policy Lab in the Department of Health Sciences and Technology at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. We reached him in Zurich, Switzerland. Hello.

MARCELLO LENCA: Hello. Glad to be here.

AMT: What do you think of this study?

MARCELLO LENCA: I think it's a very exciting study because it's a proof of concept of the possibility of reading visual information from somebody smiling in particular from their perception. And I think it's just studied corroborates existing evidence from other research groups in other parts of the world that are already proof the possibility of extracting relevant information from somebody's mind by using different types of technology, and also portable devices that are in that are being increasingly use that allow individuals to have their brain waves read in direct to consumer way, so without intermediation from research labs of clinical institutions.

AMT: So what's going on in the direct to consumer way right now?

MARCELLO LENCA: Last year Facebook unveiled a plan to develop a research group on the brain computer interfacing. They long term goal is to develop what they call a brain typing device that can allow people to type on their Facebook news feed directly by using their brain activity, bypassing the touch screen and the keyboard.

AMT: And so you have some concerns about some of this consumer developments as well. What are your concerns?

MARCELLO LENCA: Well my concern is brain chronology - just like any other technology can be misused - in ways that cannot be foreseen or intended originally by the researcher. And this is something we have observed throughout the entire history of technology. With the digital technology the Internet, for example, when it was originally developed the World Wide Web there was no clear understanding about the possibility of using the Internet for cyber-criminal activities and cyber warfare which is something that we are now experiencing. So I think that brain technology just like any other technology could be misused. But I also think that unlike other technologies we cannot afford to say [unintelligible] trajectory in which first we develop a certain technology and only then we start thinking about the possible risks.

AMT: You fear that this kind of technology might be used to what, extract information from our brains without our knowledge?

MARCELLO LENCA: Yes. I think it's very important to be clear when we talk about technology assessment in all fields and in particular in a sensitive field like neuro-technology to be clear about the timeline. We need to avoid fear mongering narratives that tell us that the risk is behind the corner. We can have our mind in [unintelligible] read. And information can be extracted from our brains without our consent or knowledge bcause at the moment this is not possible. And also we have to be clear that all the studies are conducted in compliance with strict standards of informed consent and research ethics. But the proof of concept shows that the technological capabilities for reading thoughts and somebodies mind are there. And we also know that the computing capacity is increasing rapidly. A lot of studies involve machine learning algorithms and other artificial intelligence techniques in order to teach algorithms how to extract and decode- extract information and decode brain data in order to reconstruct images or sentences or memories. And the more artificial intelligence advances, the more it will be possible to teach algorithms to do that without the research participants cooperating with the researchers. So in principle, on the long term, it would be possible to extract thoughts from somebody's mind without their consent and he authorization.

AMT: So in principle if you can read my mind and I can conjure an image that can be used to help me be an eyewitness you could read my mind and I could conjure an image of somebody that I might have to give up. That is my co-conspirator. Then you can, as the state, could find out who I'm thinking about.

MARCELLO LENCA: Yes for example you can imagine judicial applications of neuro-technology in which image reconstruction technique is used to determine whether you have experiential knowledge about a certain crime scene, or whether you have seen a certain criminal. So this is something that can be done and it can also be done in many other fields of society. For example in the military sector, we know that there is a lot of funding and research going on in military related neuro-technology. And for example these technologies could on the long term be used for interrogation purposes to understand whether a certain individual has experience and knowledge about places people or other type of privacy sensitive information.

AMT: What is Brain jacking?

MARCELLO LENCA: Well brain checking is a neologism that as being coined by researchers at the University of Oxford. It is used to refer to double the ability of maliciously hacking newer technologies in order to accomplish malevolent tasks. So this is also something that has been proved feasible through proof of concept studies. For example researchers have demonstrated the possibility of misusing a commercially available brain computer interface in order to extract thoughts from somebody's mind without their direct knowledge. They didn't reconstruct thoughts in their minds but what they could do was to use subliminal stimulation. And therefore they could present research participants with certain visual stimuli that could trigger brain responses that correlate with privacy sensitive information. And by doing that they were able to reconstruct for example the first digits of the participants pin codes or also determine whether the participants had known a certain person or where their or my address was.

AMT: Again that could have military application for interrogation as you point out

MARCELLO LENCA: Absolutely yes.

AMT: You are arguing that we need some kinds of human rights legislation or framework to deal then with how this technology could be used in the future.

MARCELLO LENCA: Yes because I think we have to make sure that we put this new technology for the good of the people. So of course we need to maximize the benefits of new technology for society at large. Therefore this is the reason why I'm against any type of outright ban against this type of technological developments. But I also think that we have to try to minimize the risks. And in order to minimize the risk we have to act proactively before the technology develops a sufficient degree of technological maturity that makes it pervasively distributed in our society.

AMT: So what kinds of rights would you like to enshrine?

MARCELLO LENCA: Professor Burton Dorner and I, is human rights lawyer at University of Zurich. We have developed the framework for the development of what we call neuro-rights. Neuro-rights are human rights specific to neuro-technology and to the protection of neural data. The rift suggests four rights. One is the right to privacy. The other one has the right to Cognitive Liberty and the third is mental integrity and finally the right to psychological continuity.

AMT: And so in other words we have to be able to protect our own minds and our own free thought.

MARCELLO LENCA: Yes I think we are at a stage of technological development where it's very important to address the societal question on what rights individuals are entitled to exercise in relation to their mental dimension.

AMT: Well we have to leave it there but thank you for raising those concerns with us.

MARCELLO LENCA: Thank you.

AMT: Marcello Lenca a researcher at the health ethics and policy lab in the Department of Health Sciences and Technology at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. He joins us from Zurich, Switzerland. Well for another take on whether we need new laws to protect ourselves against so-called brain jacking. I'm joined now by Ann Cavoukian. She is the former Information Privacy Commissioner of Ontario. Right now she's leading the Privacy by Design Center of Excellence at Ryerson University we've reached her in Scottsdale, Arizona today. Hello.

ANN CAVOUKIAN: Hi Anna Maria.

AMT: Do we need new human rights legislation to protect our mental privacy?

ANN CAVOUKIAN: With due respect, we do not. But let me be clear, it's an extremely important area but there is new legislation coming into effect in European Union in May of this year, called the General Data Protection Regulation. This is extremely strong privacy legislation that raises the bar dramatically on protecting privacy. And it includes something called Privacy by Design - which is something I developed years ago - and privacy of the default which is the second foundational principle of seven principles. And what this means is that you will be getting privacy automatically embedded into technologies, into policies, into processes. Privacy is the default means that automatically privacy will be embedded into the processes such that the information you collect from people can only be used for the primary purpose intended not for additional unknown purposes.

AMT: And how would that protect us say from military application or legal application from the state?

ANN CAVOUKIAN: So what we have to do with the kinds of neurological developments that were being considered is that as the individual before me just said right now based on the cooperation of the individual. So the positive consent of the individuals is already obtained. What we need to ensure is that any applications of this kind of technology would build upon transparency and positive consent of the data subjects, the individuals. Not doing it in a way that was the opposite of privacy as the default. So the protections that we need are coming out in May of this year. Our Federal Privacy Commissioner Daniel Therrien has already gone to the Canadian government saying we need to strengthen our privacy laws so that we can have adequacy with these new laws coming out in the EU. We're going to have very very strong privacy in the future and it's being built upon proactive measures to protect data.

AMT: And what about concerns on security issues? We know that the Canadian government can collect data now. It can subpoena telecommunications companies. It can look at data that's collected. How do we how do we protect ourselves from that?

ANN CAVOUKIAN: The growth of surveillance is a pervasive theme. There's no question but there's also a lot of scrutiny right now on intelligence agencies. What they're doing, the kinds of information being extracted and one of the safeguards is that increasingly they are going to be required to obtain warrants to get information from the telcoms. For example the telcoms have been very strong and not giving information to law enforcement and intelligence agencies without the necessary warrants that are required to show probable cause. So I think you're beginning to get a very strong sense of we are not going to give you information, law enforcement, unless it's warranted. And one of the reasons for this is that trust is at an all-time law, Anna Maria. The public's trust is just waning and concern for privacy is an all-time high. I've never seen data in the 90 percent of people polled by Internet Pew Internet Research for example and the Privacy Commissioner of Canada. 92 percent say extremely concerned about their privacy and they want something done about it. So I think you're going to see increasingly proactive measures being taken to protect data not after the fact.

AMT: And we know this technology is growing by leaps and bounds. Are you confident that the laws written now will be able to be flexible enough to encompass the changes that we might not even be able to imagine?

ANN CAVOUKIAN: You know we have to be vigilant always and I always say trust but verify. Ready anticipating what's coming down the road. It's almost like a chess game, point, counterpoint. So we have to be vigilant. We have to be responsive to new developments which of course will be massive. We're now working with artificial intelligence for example to try to embed the kind of transparency and accountability you want to ensure so that we know what's going on. None of this happens under the covers and we have no idea. So that kind of accountability and transparency will be critical and we have to remain vigilant. And I believe we're going to do that.

AMT: Okay well Ann Cavoukian thanks for your perspective on all of this.

ANN CAVOUKIAN: My pleasure thank you.

AMT: Ann Cavoukian former Information Privacy Commissioner of Ontario. Now leading Privacy by Design Center of Excellence at Ryerson University. Stay with us in our next half hour. In a society as divided as the U.S. people are seen as liberals, or conservatives, Democrats, or Republicans not so much seen as people. Pulitzer Prize winning author Marilynne Robinson joins me to talk about the ideas in her new collection of essays it's called What are we Doing Here. That's right after the break. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. This is The Current.

[Music: Theme]

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How Fox News stood between novelist Marilynne Robinson and her mother

Guest: Marilynne Robinson

AMT: Hello I'm Anna Maria Tremonti and you're listening to The Current.

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[Music]

COMMENTATOR 1: Even though many secular Americans deny there's a war on Christmas, there is one every day we see attempts to ban Christmas displays and even the word Christmas decided. We decided to launch a special Hannity investigation to find out if American Muslims think that Sharia law should supersede the U.S. Constitution.

COMMENTATOR 2: If this wasn't a big deal. Why didn't he release it two years ago? Why are we waiting this long for the long form birth certificate?

AMT: A few familiar refrains from Fox News personalities over the years. The network takes on American liberals every chance it gets and American liberals often give as good as they take shooting back at Fox from various media outlets. From the news media to politics to religion and beyond. The U.S. seems to be an increasingly polarized society and that's something the Pulitzer Prize winning author Marilynne Robinson has been pondering for years. It really hit home for her though when her mother became a big fan of Fox News. That's something we learn about in her newest essay collection What are we Doing Here. Marilynne Robinson is with me in our Toronto studio. Hello.

MARILYNNE ROBINSON: Thank you. Great to be here.

AMT: It's nice to have you with us. What did your mother like in Fox News and its view of the world?

MARILYNNE ROBINSON: Well you know I think it was exciting. You hate to think about things in these terms but threat, resentment, fear all of these things are stimulants you know. And I think that the great popularity of that channel among, you know, say the housebound elderly is a consequence of the fact that it puts a degree of excitement into their lives a very unhealthy kind. People enjoy stimulation of that you know. I mean that's why people watch horror movies I suppose

AMT: And you just you just kind of made that connection to Fox News and horror movies but I'll let that go for now.

[Laughter]

AMT: How did that change your relationship with your mother?

MARILYNNE ROBINSON: Well it made it quite difficult because many of the things that she had learned to be upset by were things that she did identify with me quite correctly. You know I've never made any bones about being liberal for example. It's you know a phenomenon among American families and I saw one of the reasons that I enlisted my poor mother in this narrative. Because I'm not speaking in the abstract you know, but I have thought maybe Fox is making a war on Thanksgiving because it's become very hard for lots of American families to sit down together, because of exactly the kinds of resentments and antagonisms that have been built into the national conversation.

AMT: Well and you make the point that it did become personal that she thought you were one of the liberals who had led to the decline of America.

MARILYNNE ROBINSON: Yes.

AMT: And so when you hear those stories from Fox News What does it tell you about the way political climates change?

MARILYNNE ROBINSON: I'm amazed at how quickly can change. But you know in order to find out if there was a war on Christmas what you basically had to do is go out in the street and say to somebody 'Merry Christmas' and then you would find out that they say 'Merry Christmas' [laughs]. But there were people that were actually learned to be anxious about that phrase on the basis of no experience that they would ever have anywhere. You know I think that's the most amazing thing that I have seen that people can become utterly convinced, in a way that actually damages their most meaningful human connections, that things are true when that test is available to them they couldn't find out whether it was true or not.

AMT: Did you ever reconcile with your mother on that front?

MARILYNNE ROBINSON: No not on that front. I mean we had a sort of bicameral relationship from sort of ordinary mother daughter it would [unintelligible] very quickly into some anxiety that she had learned, some hostility she had learned.

AMT: She passed away.

MARILYNNE ROBINSON: Yes she did. She did indeed.

AMT: In her 90s.

MARILYNNE ROBINSON: Yes.

AMT: And do you regret what that sort of conversation turned into?

MARILYNNE ROBINSON: Oh absolutely. I mean it was so so foreign. You know she and I had worlds of experience in common and places that were important to both of us. But suddenly you get this weird shift and to talk about Christmas and birth certificates and you know Shari'a law for heaven's sake. You know things that in the first place are quite extraneous from our normal conversation. And then the second place about which really she, nor I, had significant information, except you know what she heard on the news

AMT: So what role the words in stories play in that polarization, like the polarization with Fox News?

MARILYNNE ROBINSON: Well I mean Fox is not alone. It actually epitomizes a great many things that go on in the side of the culture but they make a kind of narrative of threat, a narrative of betrayal, the idea that unessential American civilization is compromised or lost. I think one of the most effective things that journalism of that kind has done - if journalism was the right word - is they have made people feel that if they read another point of view they would be instantly duped. If you pick up the Times or New York Review of Books, you know some intellectual germ could leap out and take over your brain you know.

AMT: Well you're connecting the dots to the whole idea of fakenews.

MARILYNNE ROBINSON: Exactly exactly which has been a very effective completely cynical construction of things.

AMT: But you also can take a step back and look at the left and the right in this. What areas do you see both the left and the right making with their worldviews?

MARILYNNE ROBINSON: There's a narrative spread through the culture that liberalism had somehow failed or been discredited. And so people began avoiding the word. Liberal people began avoiding that word you know and then if you say what happened that made this a discredited word, it's sort of like well no one uses it anymore. You know you can't get any substantive explanation for it. But with the word has gone a whole history of social action, it's like a loss of identity and an impulse to try to align with the less objectionable parts of the people that they see as their adversaries, which is not what we need now. We need criticism of that side of things because frankly they're very much in control and they're not doing us any good.

AMT: And you also kind of connect the dots to sort of the view of what we're talking about the United States but just really the Western world institutions, that the things that we once saw as a way to build nations and to move forward and suddenly are bad things like that word liberalism.

MARILYNNE ROBINSON: Exactly. And that's so strange. On my way here I was shown Trinity College.

AMT: At the University of Toronto.

MARILYNNE ROBINSON: Yes exactly. All that magnificent architecture, you know all that incredibly intensely self-loving institutional sort of morale that you see expressed in that architecture in campuses practically anywhere in the western world. They were the hope of people to enrich their spiritual or intellectual experience. And I think that historically the West has exalted learning as a value in itself. You know that value is being talked down now as being devalued. So these monuments stand on Western landscapes seeming to try to make aspiration out of stone. And it's almost as if people have forgotten what the impulse - or they are being encouraged to forget - what the impulse behind all that was.

AMT: That that goes into the sort of the catchphrase 'the elite'.

MARILYNNE ROBINSON: Yes exactly. And they are creating an elite by making university more difficult for people to have access to.

AMT: I want to ask about the economics of all of this too because economic issues dominate politics in the United States. There are lots of jobs in the American heartland, competition with other countries for jobs, the idea of what kind of job can you get with a degree from an elite institution, tariffs protectionism. What do you think of the concentration of economics like seeing politics through the prism of economics?

MARILYNNE ROBINSON: Well I don't think that people in the country are very happy with the prism through which things are seen. I think a lot of people feel that economic arguments are actually a form of bullying. You have to do this and so or you will be facing unemployment in your 40s kinds of things you know. It's much easier to speak in those terms than to try to speak in terms that are more meaningful. I have a house in upstate New York and in an area that's partly wealthy and partly depressed. Donald Trump went there and said this place doesn't work. You should leave. There are people that have been there for hundreds of years you know whose whole lives are built around that little civilization in good times and in bed you know. And it's that kind of crude economic thinking that runs against, so harshly against the grain of people who might indeed be struggling and nevertheless love the place where they are, love being who they are in that way that people identify with their place in the country.

AMT: Well you've said it essentially in our dialogue. I'm going to say our because it is a North American thing I think as well. We really talk about people as their job like we see them as workers. We don't see them as other bits of their humanity.

MARILYNNE ROBINSON: Exactly. People have to have that other, that person might do a certain kind of work and at the same time identify herself with the fact that she knows a great deal about music. You know that overplus of identity that education creates is essential to people. Otherwise they're simply trapped in some function that is not in their benefit.

AMT: Do you think most people know that though they know that they are more than one thing but we in the media maybe or the kind of conversation that makes it to air is not the conversation that actually embraces all of those things.

MARILYNNE ROBINSON: Absolutely. And when people talk about what they're proud of in themselves with their children, it's usually 'I paint' that sort of thing, or 'I go to lectures that are open to the public'. That's how people make themselves singular by finding their way into their own interests and tastes. It's inhumane to undervalue that and to deprive people of it.

AMT: And that's why you argue for more of education for education sake for the humanity, to get us thinking in a different way

MARILYNNE ROBINSON: Absolutely. Just large thinking you know and historically informed thinking.

AMT: What about those people who would say 'but I still need a job. I'm not going to be able to go to university. I can't get in. I can't afford it. That world is closed to me'. Is that where the resentment starts or does that world close down to the very people that you're talking about who you want to see be more open?

MARILYNNE ROBINSON: Well increasingly it is closing down. Historically there were a lot of public institutions in the United States that did not charge admission. They were public resources that people could make use of. And often people who had no history behind them that would encourage education become inventors and doctors and musicians and all the rest you know that tremendous seed bed of human ability that all of us benefit from every day. And increasingly as people learn to be hostile and resentful toward their own public institutions, these things become more elitist or more elite in their selection of people that can pay the price of admission.

AMT: How do you explain the fact that in that polarized discussion the people who are often against the institutions of government and education and don't see worth and that are highly educated? They've gone to Yale, they've gone to Harvard. They actually make a lot of money.

MARILYNNE ROBINSON: Exactly. It's true. Well one of the things that's always true is that there is a human impulse toward resentment. You find this in people who feel as if they are victims of taxation for example. You know I can testify from my own experience that if you make a good income you pay a lot of taxes from which you receive a lot of benefits, one of them feeling as if you live in a civilized country. There are people who say 'I earned it. I should be able to keep it' and then they resent anybody that they see as benefiting from taxation.

AMT: It's interesting because I wanted to ask you about where your Christian faith comes in with all of this? You write about your Calvinist Christian faith. But even in the talk of religion there is polarization.

MARILYNNE ROBINSON: Oh surely, yes.

AMT: But tell me a little bit more of what role you see for faith in American politics and public life.

MARILYNNE ROBINSON: As far as I'm concerned Christianity has a pretty clearly defined social pick. You know in so far as you did to the least of these you did it also onto me. And so there were people who brand themselves as Christians so that they are a sort of an effective corporate entity that does not necessarily embrace what you would find as Christian values, looking at the text. They have very successfully appropriated the word. Liberalism went out as a word Christianity I think has been taken over as a brand that has no specific origins in Christianity itself.

AMT: We don't hear the religious debate though, do we?

MARILYNNE ROBINSON: No. It's true. I've been depressed. I would not have thought this would be true of Americans. I really wouldn't. Not unimportant numbers. But they are too inclined to line up behind somebody. There are too enlisted in membership not substance you know.

AMT: You've said you're often asked by Christians whether you're afraid to talk about your faith in public.

MARILYNNE ROBINSON: Yes.

AMT: What do you think when you're asked that?

MARILYNNE ROBINSON: I feel embarrassed for the question. I mean it's one of those things. You could hear that in any context in the United States. Liberal people might say that conservative people would certainly say it, which is one of those mutually enforcing things that bother me so much. I don't think anybody comes away from what I have written with any serious doubt about my religious convictions. I don't think any writer in American literature has been treated more gently than I have. You know people that have no history with Midwest Protestantism, people who have no interest in religion at all are just as generous as anybody else you know.

AMT: Would you like to see more people move back to religion? Do you think we can get the same ideas in other ways?

MARILYNNE ROBINSON: That's just something for people to work out for themselves. I mean I really believe in you know every soul's, every person's obligation to serious reflection, a serious encounter with a life that will take the form it takes.

AMT: You want us to be more mindful

MARILYNNE ROBINSON: Way. Way more mindful.

AMT: Do you think we can be?

MARILYNNE ROBINSON: Absolutely. And I think we would be happy to do it and I think we would be surprised at how naturally it comes.

AMT: It's interesting. 2015 you sat down with President Obama for an extensive conversation for the New York Review of Books. And you described him as a philosopher, perhaps a theologian. Why?

MARILYNNE ROBINSON: He's pious in his relation to the world in the sense that he encounters any human being as an experience of real interest and real value. That's the thing that is amazing when you talk to him. You know that feeling that he is so interested in what say you know and then he talks about conversations he's had with other people and so on. And they always reflect that same acuity you know of attention and deep respect. I mean to the extent that we've communicated and so on. I would [unintelligible] ruffle him because I was more critical of his critics than he was himself. You know he was always trying to find that human way to speak and to receive other people's thinking. He's kind of an ideal of his type I think.

AMT: You've written that both the left and the right have sort of dropped the ideas that humans want to do good for the right reasons. What does that mean?

MARILYNNE ROBINSON: It's you know I take a lot of exception to the way that human psychologists is talked about in certain areas. They have this thing called the selfish gene which means that, under all surfaces, human being is basically self-interested. There there's nothing in science that confirms the existence of anything like a selfish gene. Their whole genetic model is primitive. But nevertheless the potency of it is to even the playing field in a certain sense everybody is basically selfish because genetically they are predisposed to this. You got survival and its little microscopic workings, you know. It's a redefinition of human nature that I think is most striking for being completely indifferent to human testimony. When you look at any civilization, what it has done and thought and build and all the rest of it, you see evidence for quite another definition of what human beings are.

AMT: It's interesting I was thinking about that. I did an interview not that long ago with a man who called himself the Mosul Eye. And he was stuck in Mosul when ISIS came, in Iraq. Early thirties University Prof who didn't like what he was seeing, who could have joined and eased his life - could have joined ISIS sort of been at least a supporter but chose not to and went about documenting what was happening to his city. And he risked his life. He's out now and he uses his name but he's not the only one in a place that is so violent and where the consequences are so extreme, if you are caught. But just would say 'this is wrong. I want the world to know'. It's the other side. Right. It's the people who will risk everything because they know what they're seeing is wrong.

MARILYNNE ROBINSON: Exactly. And then you know the extent to which you know- I mean they're wonderful heroes but there's a fact that we all live on the conscientiousness, the good will of most people. I mean the fact that most people deal with you honestly that if your house catches fire some young man will run in at great risk and carry you out if he can. I mean the way that we live in the world at this point, where there's peace, it's just lavish with the sort of accumulated collective wealth that is created by the fact that most people do their work day after day meaning well, doing well.

AMT: But that's not exciting.

MARILYNNE ROBINSON: I guess not.

AMT: That doesn't make the news.

MARILYNNE ROBINSON: It doesn't. It certainly doesn't make the news. But at the same time people need to be reminded of it because by the millions they go out into the morning you know and do some necessary thing that cumulatively is that sort of wealth and pleasure of safety of our experience. I mean civilizations are noble products of massive goodwill and that should never be forgotten.

AMT: And there are things within those civilizations that we do need to address.

MARILYNNE ROBINSON: Absolutely. But we have a basis for addressing them because the things that are wrong can be isolated.

AMT: So what can we learn from this because you also make the point that this is a moment in time, whatever people may not like about Donald Trump he isn't terribly unique. There are other leaders. There are other Congresses that have been divided in. But what can we learn from this moment in time when we read what you are talking about, too, to keep our focus on the human potential to be good to be kind and generous?

MARILYNNE ROBINSON: Well I think that there's a pretty strong counter movement in that direction already. I mean lots of on the ground sort of organizing has been done to protect the interests of immigrants for example. I mean that's one of the things that I think is less apparent in American life than it ought to be or it's more important than it's taken to be and that is that there is a lot of organizing that is done. There are a lot of institutions that function in ways that are countervailing from the point of view of public policy. Everything from philanthropy to religious organizations to cities that declare a kind of moral autonomy like San Francisco. You know the federal government can be barking and the rest of the country is navigating away from it, not being represented by it.

AMT: And the irony of our time I guess the people who go into government believing it is irrelevant end up being irrelevant, and the people who believe in government create some other system.

MARILYNNE ROBINSON: Exactly which is excellent. And you know among the things that we really are learning to appreciate I think is the federal system itself that the states have a kind of autonomy that make them so they can truly sail against the wind as far as this sort of thing is concerned. And we create examples basically about the effectiveness of certain kinds of institutions and policies and so on.

AMT: So you're looking for a kinder gentler nation.

MARILYNNE ROBINSON: Well a kinder gentler national government. But there's a lot of kindness and gentleness that's very active, now. It's called itself a resistance in some cases [laughs]. But this is always true you know.

AMT: Marilynne Robinson we're out of time but I could keep going. So thank you for coming in.

MARILYNNE ROBINSON: Well thank you it's been a pleasure.

AMT: Marilynne Robinson is a Pulitzer Prize winning author of fiction. She's an essayist. Her latest collection is called What are we Doing Here? She joined us in our Toronto studio. She's shared her worldview. If you'd like to respond, if you agree or disagree with her send us an e-mail. Go to our Web site cbc.ca/thecurrent. Click on the contact link. You can find us on Facebook or tweet us @TheCurrentCBC. Now we've got a word from the team that put the show together this week.

PACINTHE MATTAR: Hello I'm Pacinthe Mattar, one of the producers here at The Current. This week the show was produced by: Alison Masemann, Geoff Turner, Howard Goldenthal, Idella Sturino, Jason Vermes, Julie Crysler, Kristin Nelson, Liz Hoath, John Chipman, Rosa Kim, Samira Mohyeddin, Karin Marley and Jessica Linzey. Special thanks to Anne Penman in Vancouver, Suzanne Dufresne in Winnipeg, Laurene Jardin in Montreal, and Mary-Catherine McIntosh in Halifax. Our intern is Danielle Carr. The Current's writer is Peter Mitton. Our web producer is Lisa Ayuso. Our digital producer is Padraig Moran. Special thanks also to Lito House. Our documentary editor is Joan Webber. Transcriptions are provided by Rasha Shehata and Nikhil Sharma. Our technical producer is Gary Francis, with help this week from Jennifer Rowley. Our senior producers are Willow Smith in Toronto and Cathy Simon in Vancouver. The executive producer of The Current is Lara O'Brien.

AMT: That's our program for today's. Stay with Radio 1 for Q. Today film maker and puppeteer Frank Oz the man behind Miss Piggy, Cookie Monster Yoda and many others joins Tom Power to talk about the new documentary Muppet Guys Talking. Well after our look into the increasingly real world of mind reading today, we're going to leave you with If you Could Read my Mind, the first recorded of course by Canada's own Gordon Lightfoot then by Johnny Cash late in his career. Here's his version released posthumously in 2006. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti thanks for listening to The Current.

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[Song: If you Could Read]

If you could read my mind, love

What a tale my thoughts could tell

Just like an old time movie

About a ghost from a wishing well

In a castle tar a fortress strong

With chains around my feet

You know that ghost is me

And I will never be set free

As long as there's a ghost that you can see

If I could read your mind, love

What a tale your thoughts would tell

Just like a paperback novel

The kind that drugstores sell

When you reach the past

Where the heartaches come

The hero would be hero would be me

But heroes often fail

You won't read that book again

Because the end is just too hard to take.

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