Welcome to the Tech Policy Podcast. I'm Evan Swartzrop. On today's show, what happens when the FBI uses hacking to obtain evidence? Can that evidence be used against a defendant? What does this mean for the broader debate about how government should employ hacking for law enforcement purposes?

What does this mean for the larger debate about government surveillance?

Joining me to discuss this is Adam Klein, visiting fellow at the Center for a New American Security,

and he is also the International Affairs Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.

Adam, thanks for joining the show.

Thank you for having me.

So there is a particular case that sparked my interest in this issue and why I invited you on the

show. In 2015, the FBI took control of a child pornography site called Playpen, and it basically

ran the site from a government server in order to kind of find out

who was using it. And before we delve into that, can you just explain to our listeners what the

Tor browser is? Because I'm guessing most average internet users don't use the Tor browser,

and they often hear the term dark web or the deep web. Do you just explain briefly what

that is? Sure. I should add the caveat that I'm far from a technical expert, although perhaps

that will make my explanation more comprehensible to the average user. Absolutely. So Tor is a system,

it's a browser plugin that you can add to your Firefox browser, and it basically

routes your traffic through a series of other servers to the final destination, and then back

in such a way that the user's IP address is hidden from law enforcement.

So because the internet traffic kind of bounces all over the world.

Correct.

It's difficult.

It's not just like when I use a website and they can clearly tell that I'm in Washington, D.C.

And probably figure out who I am quite easily.

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