1 00:00:17,199 --> 00:00:21,199 We're back with another edition of the Federalist Radio Hour. I'm em Electrician Ski, 2 00:00:21,239 --> 00:00:23,719 culture editor here at the Federalist. As always, you can email the 3 00:00:23,719 --> 00:00:27,239 show at radio at the Federalist dot com, follow us on Twitter at fdr 4 00:00:27,440 --> 00:00:32,840 LST. Make sure to subscribe wherever you download your podcasts as well. Today, 5 00:00:32,880 --> 00:00:36,640 I'm really happy to be joined by Ken Clippenstan He is the reporter at 6 00:00:37,000 --> 00:00:41,880 A Reporter I almost said you were the reporter at the which Business leading? 7 00:00:42,439 --> 00:00:46,600 He is a reporter of The Intercept, self described foya nerd. You can 8 00:00:46,640 --> 00:00:51,840 follow more of Ken's work at Kens dot substack dot com. Ken, you're 9 00:00:51,880 --> 00:00:54,320 also I guess I should call you like the bad boy of the Internet. 10 00:00:54,359 --> 00:00:57,119 I feel like that's how you're known on the streets. I feel like there's 11 00:00:57,119 --> 00:01:00,280 not much competition in the journalism world, Like if you're just ready killer, 12 00:01:00,439 --> 00:01:03,399 that makes you like Edge and the rest of the crowd. So I wonder 13 00:01:03,399 --> 00:01:06,439 I've always felt like it says more about journalism as a profession than it does 14 00:01:06,480 --> 00:01:08,879 about me. But I persis edgy. I don't say myself as edgy. 15 00:01:10,200 --> 00:01:14,760 That's entirely fair. You actually speaking of edgy. This is a perfect transition 16 00:01:14,840 --> 00:01:18,519 because I was asking Keim how his Labor Day weekend was before we started rolling, 17 00:01:18,599 --> 00:01:19,760 and he told me it was great because they got to go to the 18 00:01:19,760 --> 00:01:26,439 dog park, and stupidly I responded, do you have a dog? Which, 19 00:01:26,239 --> 00:01:29,959 as Ken said, it's like a guy with no kids showing up at 20 00:01:29,959 --> 00:01:32,879 the schoolyard. So Ken does have a dog. You can breathe this I 21 00:01:32,959 --> 00:01:37,599 of relief. But then Ken told me a really a really sweet story about 22 00:01:37,599 --> 00:01:41,480 a life lesson he learned from his tiny little dog. Ken, can you 23 00:01:41,519 --> 00:01:42,599 share that with the audience. Okay, So when I was growing up, 24 00:01:42,599 --> 00:01:45,959 it was always my dream to get a black Lab. I just thought they 25 00:01:46,000 --> 00:01:48,879 were cool, versatile, they looked tough, and I don't know, I 26 00:01:49,000 --> 00:01:52,239 just cool breed a dog. So then I got married to my wife who 27 00:01:52,280 --> 00:01:56,480 was allergic to dogs. And there are certain dogs that don't breed or that 28 00:01:56,599 --> 00:02:00,560 don't shed, and they don't produce dander, so that doesn't trigger the reaction. 29 00:02:00,760 --> 00:02:02,120 However, it's a short list, and the list is a lot of 30 00:02:04,200 --> 00:02:07,599 let's say, not very tough looking dogs like poodles, and one that I 31 00:02:07,599 --> 00:02:09,680 got a beach on Freesay. Remember I was so blumbed when I saw that 32 00:02:09,719 --> 00:02:12,919 list. I was like, oh, man, I gotta get these ridiculous 33 00:02:12,919 --> 00:02:15,520 looking dogs. So I get it. And now that I've had her, 34 00:02:15,599 --> 00:02:16,840 she's twelve years old. Now it's like, if I could go back and 35 00:02:16,840 --> 00:02:21,240 pick any breed, I would pick this one a hundred times over. And 36 00:02:21,280 --> 00:02:23,560 it's just been this like a guy post for me that it's like, you 37 00:02:23,560 --> 00:02:25,840 don't always know, you don't. You think you know what you want, 38 00:02:25,919 --> 00:02:29,759 but you don't always in life. Life doesn't seem to go how you plan. 39 00:02:29,960 --> 00:02:31,400 But that's not always a bad thing. In fact, that sometimes a 40 00:02:31,400 --> 00:02:37,000 great thing. That's just a really good illustration of something we all kind of 41 00:02:37,120 --> 00:02:40,479 know intuitively, but we don't always like we're not willing to internalize it when 42 00:02:40,479 --> 00:02:44,800 we have decisions like that to make. And and Ken, your little dog 43 00:02:45,280 --> 00:02:47,960 was the illustration to me. I think of it all the time because life 44 00:02:49,039 --> 00:02:53,639 never seems to go how I plan. Ever, you know, in other 45 00:02:53,719 --> 00:03:00,599 news, this isn't there's no way to transition this smoothly at all. Now, 46 00:03:00,039 --> 00:03:07,400 now for some more news. The DNI is developing pants smart pants to 47 00:03:07,639 --> 00:03:13,960 surveill tax But in all seriousness, Ken has some of the best reporting on 48 00:03:14,000 --> 00:03:17,520 the intelligence community and a lot of our listeners I know are conservative. Ken 49 00:03:17,599 --> 00:03:22,159 is one of my very favorite reporters in Washington. He's absolutely a foint nerd. 50 00:03:22,199 --> 00:03:24,840 He does like the actual legwork that other journalists should be doing and comes 51 00:03:24,919 --> 00:03:30,719 up with fascinating results and asks questions, looks through documents that other people just 52 00:03:30,840 --> 00:03:37,319 don't out of laziness, out of ideological blindness, whatever it is. But 53 00:03:37,439 --> 00:03:42,520 Ken, this story about the DNI that you ran recently, that you reported 54 00:03:42,520 --> 00:03:46,039 out recently with your colleague Daniel Boguslaw, is a good example of that of 55 00:03:46,080 --> 00:03:51,439 how you caught something that nobody else was looking at. Can you tell us 56 00:03:51,439 --> 00:03:54,159 a little bit about this one? Yeah, so they're calling it smarty pants. 57 00:03:54,159 --> 00:03:58,719 Smarty pants for sure, that's an acronymic. Pants were smart, electrically 58 00:03:58,960 --> 00:04:01,639 powered and network exile systems, and so the ideas that they want to have 59 00:04:02,240 --> 00:04:06,039 not just underwear, but all kinds of garments that are audio, video and 60 00:04:06,120 --> 00:04:12,840 geolocation capable, and I don't know it just maybe laugh to be frank because 61 00:04:12,879 --> 00:04:15,560 they're pouring. So it's not just the twenty two million that's what we know. 62 00:04:15,840 --> 00:04:17,800 We don't know the classified side. We know the twenty two million side 63 00:04:17,800 --> 00:04:23,680 because that's what the Pentagon disclosed that the Pentagon tends to be the most proactive 64 00:04:23,680 --> 00:04:27,639 of the different components of the intelligence world. In disclosed what is they're working 65 00:04:27,680 --> 00:04:30,560 on, and it just sounded kind of like, I don't know, like 66 00:04:30,600 --> 00:04:32,680 the fashion version of like Juicero to me, because it's like, why would 67 00:04:32,720 --> 00:04:36,720 you necessarily want there's like Wi fi like underwear, dear. I mean, 68 00:04:36,800 --> 00:04:39,360 like, I don't know, I just starting to me silly. I mean, 69 00:04:39,439 --> 00:04:41,480 So to give them their due, if you were to ask the OD 70 00:04:41,560 --> 00:04:45,279 and I, they would say, this is extremely important for the situational awareness 71 00:04:45,279 --> 00:04:48,759 blah blah blah of our special operations community. So you know, there's there's 72 00:04:48,839 --> 00:04:56,240 arguments on both sides, but there's also a history of the government entity that's 73 00:04:56,279 --> 00:04:58,560 creating this. It's not dark, but it sounds like dark, but it's 74 00:04:58,560 --> 00:05:01,160 called i r PA. It's the Telligence Communities equivalent of DARPA, and they're 75 00:05:01,199 --> 00:05:08,079 known for all of these moonshot efforts to develop new technology, as one expert 76 00:05:08,120 --> 00:05:12,240 described at throwing spagetting aginst the wall and occasionally something sticks. And something I 77 00:05:12,319 --> 00:05:17,000 was amazed to learn in the course of this reporting was how many projects infancy 78 00:05:17,120 --> 00:05:21,839 or our birth in people's minds after watching a Hollywood movie. So for example, 79 00:05:23,000 --> 00:05:27,839 if you go back, there was an actual Iron Man like exoskeleton suit 80 00:05:27,920 --> 00:05:30,240 program around the time of the Iron Man movies and the I don't know if 81 00:05:30,240 --> 00:05:33,480 you remember the Matt Damon movie Elysium. And I was struck by that because 82 00:05:33,519 --> 00:05:36,519 that, to me, in some ways is like the predecessor of this smartypants. 83 00:05:36,639 --> 00:05:39,680 So I started going on interviewing people. They're like, oh, yeah, 84 00:05:39,720 --> 00:05:42,240 that happens all the time. The intellig community is getting their ideas from 85 00:05:42,319 --> 00:05:44,680 entertainment, just like the rest of us, which I thought was a little 86 00:05:44,680 --> 00:05:49,720 bit terrifying. Well though, it's like Alan Dulles was a huge Ian Fleming 87 00:05:49,759 --> 00:05:54,759 fan. Really oh yeah, oh my god, life, life and art 88 00:05:55,120 --> 00:06:01,439 for me each he gave JFK again reportedly gave JFK copy of a copy of 89 00:06:01,480 --> 00:06:05,560 the James Bond books and like encouraged if Kay to read the James Bond books. 90 00:06:06,160 --> 00:06:13,959 It's not wild not known for their authenticity or realist. Seriously, you 91 00:06:14,199 --> 00:06:15,759 think, I mean, you'd think, but it probably there was probably like 92 00:06:15,800 --> 00:06:19,439 more overlap in the than diagram that we realize. This is. This is 93 00:06:19,439 --> 00:06:24,519 a question Ken that is kind of silly. But how when you're reporting these 94 00:06:24,519 --> 00:06:30,399 stories out do you possibly keep these acronyms like right in your head because like 95 00:06:30,839 --> 00:06:35,399 AARPA and DARPA, O D and I all of these other like random Pentagon 96 00:06:35,519 --> 00:06:42,839 departments. It's honestly kind of insane and seems uh, sort of intentionally obfiscatory 97 00:06:42,879 --> 00:06:46,199 like they're they're doing. It's it's sort of like convoluted for the purpose of 98 00:06:46,519 --> 00:06:49,439 making it hard for reporters to be like, hey, twenty two millions go 99 00:06:49,480 --> 00:06:53,519 into the smarty Pants, Oh totally, and not just reporters, book congress 100 00:06:53,560 --> 00:06:57,800 too. There is an inundated in the stuff as as the reporters aren't they're 101 00:06:57,800 --> 00:07:01,279 not able to do the appropriate oversight. And something that's been terrifying to me 102 00:07:01,319 --> 00:07:03,600 to learn is when I get to know these guys, and you know, 103 00:07:03,600 --> 00:07:09,720 I'm often having help finding these things from folks inside, they themselves don't know 104 00:07:09,920 --> 00:07:14,560 all of the different acronyms, you know. I think it was former DNA 105 00:07:14,759 --> 00:07:17,480 clapper in an interview was asked about what's called Special Access Program. So it's 106 00:07:17,480 --> 00:07:23,000 like above top secret. It's supposed to be a very sensitive designation that's reserved 107 00:07:23,000 --> 00:07:25,920 for only the most sensitive stuff. It turns out they have so many of 108 00:07:25,920 --> 00:07:28,360 those that he said, if I remember the quote correctly, he said, 109 00:07:28,639 --> 00:07:32,120 no one other than God knows all the different SAPs. And that's that's not 110 00:07:32,160 --> 00:07:36,079 to prevent that's not for compartmentation. That's just because nobody can keep up with 111 00:07:36,079 --> 00:07:40,079 all this stuff. There's too many nobody would be able to be briefed on 112 00:07:40,120 --> 00:07:43,680 all of them. So to quote Alan Moore, the world is rudderless. 113 00:07:43,680 --> 00:07:46,000 There is nobody that knows all these things. And that's been one of the 114 00:07:46,000 --> 00:07:49,879 most terrifying realizations of reporting on the national scary community. Well, and speaking 115 00:07:49,879 --> 00:07:55,959 of terrifying, you end your peace with this graph that reads a smarty pant 116 00:07:56,000 --> 00:07:59,920 succeeds, it's likely to become a tool in IRP is arsenal to quote create 117 00:08:00,160 --> 00:08:05,040 the vast intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance systems of the future, said Annie Jacobson, 118 00:08:05,120 --> 00:08:07,560 an expert on this. She wrote a book about DARPA, and she 119 00:08:07,720 --> 00:08:11,839 ends, they want to know more about you than you. What are these 120 00:08:11,839 --> 00:08:16,600 civil liberty implications of you know what we know? That what we know has 121 00:08:16,639 --> 00:08:20,519 at least been funded to the twen of twenty two million dollars. How could 122 00:08:20,519 --> 00:08:24,839 this sort of go into the crosshairs of civil liberties going forward. Yeah, 123 00:08:24,879 --> 00:08:26,040 it's an important point because at first I laughed at it, but then as 124 00:08:26,040 --> 00:08:30,920 I spoke to Jacobson and other experts, I realized this is this is part 125 00:08:30,920 --> 00:08:33,279 of a broader push. This is perhaps a sillier version of it, but 126 00:08:33,320 --> 00:08:39,559 a broader push for basically smart wearables of the sort that exists in in you 127 00:08:39,600 --> 00:08:43,919 know, very rudimentary form on the on the consumer market. For example, 128 00:08:43,919 --> 00:08:48,279 I'm Marian Apple watch right now and that can you detect your heartbeat and other 129 00:08:48,320 --> 00:08:50,799 things. So these things do exist, but what the Intelligence Committee wants is 130 00:08:50,840 --> 00:08:56,279 more sophisticated, more prying, more able to generate, glean more information and 131 00:08:56,360 --> 00:09:01,320 insight not just about the other people around them, which was the most surprising 132 00:09:01,320 --> 00:09:03,399 part to me to learn, but about the person wearing it too, And 133 00:09:03,440 --> 00:09:09,600 I found that very interesting. So it's not just collection intelligence collection of the 134 00:09:09,639 --> 00:09:11,600 people around you. When you have video and audio of think like a like 135 00:09:11,639 --> 00:09:16,360 a body camerara that a police officer wears, also the person internal to it, 136 00:09:16,399 --> 00:09:20,799 you can get information about that individual. You know, this relates to 137 00:09:20,840 --> 00:09:22,799 another reporter I had recently on DNA. I mean the amount of stuff that 138 00:09:22,840 --> 00:09:28,120 they can glean at least in laboratory settings is really on inspiring. And the 139 00:09:28,200 --> 00:09:31,080 question is if they're going to be able to deploy that on a broad and 140 00:09:31,360 --> 00:09:33,519 cheaper basis as they've been able to do with DNA. Yeah, okay, 141 00:09:33,519 --> 00:09:37,279 So I was going to ask you about that too, because you had two 142 00:09:37,440 --> 00:09:41,159 really interesting stories in the last week of August that all kind of relate to 143 00:09:41,200 --> 00:09:45,519 this one too. The first one that I want to talk about is what 144 00:09:45,600 --> 00:09:48,679 you just reference, the FBI hoovering up DNA at a pace that ritles China 145 00:09:48,799 --> 00:09:54,120 holds twenty one million samples and counting. That's the headline. And the other 146 00:09:54,159 --> 00:09:56,720 one I definitely want to talk about. The headline there is NSI orders employees 147 00:09:56,759 --> 00:10:01,639 to spy on the world with quote dignity perspect amazing. But let's start with 148 00:10:01,679 --> 00:10:09,440 the FBI and the DNA because again, like using fairly innocuous or innocuous seeming 149 00:10:11,000 --> 00:10:15,080 technologies or these things, you really can be used for good. And I'm 150 00:10:15,120 --> 00:10:18,240 sure that is true of the spaghetti being front at the wall over at IARPA. 151 00:10:18,320 --> 00:10:22,000 There are some things that genuinely could be good, could be used for 152 00:10:22,039 --> 00:10:24,759 the good of you know, national defense, et cetera, et cetera. 153 00:10:24,840 --> 00:10:30,120 Then you're of course putting a whole lot of trust with people who deserve basically 154 00:10:30,200 --> 00:10:33,679 none of it to wield it that way. But let's talk about the FBI 155 00:10:33,759 --> 00:10:37,879 and the DNA. How are they collecting it at such a rapid clip, 156 00:10:37,519 --> 00:10:41,159 Yeah, and in really secretive environments. That's part of the point of the 157 00:10:41,240 --> 00:10:45,080 smarty pants thing is if this is a good investment, shouldn't we know a 158 00:10:45,120 --> 00:10:46,480 little bit more about it? And in the case of DNA collection, why 159 00:10:46,519 --> 00:10:50,879 am I the first one to report that they have seven percent of the US 160 00:10:50,000 --> 00:10:54,360 population's DNA profile? Shouldn't they be forthcoming about these things? I mean, 161 00:10:54,360 --> 00:10:56,759 this is not going to risk sources of methods. Who is this going to 162 00:10:56,799 --> 00:10:58,720 expose? It is an asset of theirs? Or what is the problem with 163 00:10:58,759 --> 00:11:03,080 this and these things? And they just don't And in those closed environments, 164 00:11:03,120 --> 00:11:05,679 that's where you know, not very smart ideas, maybe dangerous ideas can can 165 00:11:05,840 --> 00:11:07,960 really take hold because there's nobody to sit there and say, hey, this 166 00:11:09,039 --> 00:11:11,120 is crazy, let's not do this. So, you know, speaking of 167 00:11:11,120 --> 00:11:15,480 the DNA profile case, I was struck not just by that figure seven percent 168 00:11:15,480 --> 00:11:18,279 of the US population, which again nobody had tabulated. I was amazed by. 169 00:11:18,559 --> 00:11:22,919 And it's public right, this is from the budget. It's not from 170 00:11:22,919 --> 00:11:26,720 the budget, it's from like actual FBI documents to the public right right exactly, 171 00:11:26,759 --> 00:11:28,200 so they have the raw figures and you can just do a percentage tally 172 00:11:28,240 --> 00:11:31,919 of what the US population is. But what I was struck by was that's 173 00:11:31,919 --> 00:11:37,440 pretty much exactly the same percent of the population that China has DNA profiled of 174 00:11:37,480 --> 00:11:41,000 theirs. And you know, there was a raft of stories in twenty twenty 175 00:11:41,000 --> 00:11:43,879 and twenty twenty one, I think, you know, New York Times and 176 00:11:43,919 --> 00:11:48,639 others condemning the China's DNA collection and not that it's the same. I mean, 177 00:11:48,639 --> 00:11:50,679 we do have a rule of law here. China does not have one. 178 00:11:50,720 --> 00:11:54,279 They can just force people to take these things. So it's not apples 179 00:11:54,279 --> 00:11:58,840 to apples. But still I would rather not have anything in common with China's 180 00:11:58,279 --> 00:12:03,759 FBI action program and really fitting that their national security community is doing so. 181 00:12:05,039 --> 00:12:07,120 And just to look at the amount of money they're throwing at this, they're 182 00:12:07,120 --> 00:12:11,720 really increasing the budget and most recent requests, and there are a number of 183 00:12:11,720 --> 00:12:16,559 different factors that are that are driving this. You know, really, uh, 184 00:12:16,759 --> 00:12:20,639 spike in the number of DNA profiles they're collecting. One is just technology 185 00:12:20,639 --> 00:12:26,039 becoming much more advanced. So before they needed to gather these profiles in a 186 00:12:26,080 --> 00:12:28,919 lab in a formal laboratory setting. The FBI has a lab, and so 187 00:12:28,039 --> 00:12:33,840 that was that sort of impeded their ability to collector to analyze very much of 188 00:12:33,879 --> 00:12:35,279 what they were it will collect, so then there wasn't much reason to collect 189 00:12:35,320 --> 00:12:39,519 it. And breakthroughs in the last several years have led to what's called rapid 190 00:12:39,600 --> 00:12:46,399 DNA testing, So whereas uh to to process a DNA test and be able 191 00:12:46,440 --> 00:12:48,360 to associate it with someone that would have taken months before. Now it takes 192 00:12:48,399 --> 00:12:52,799 between one to two days. So just complete see change in terms of the 193 00:12:52,840 --> 00:12:56,720 technology that they're able to use and and you know, as the experts that 194 00:12:56,720 --> 00:13:00,480 I spooked to for the story said, that's a recipe for for some liberties 195 00:13:01,559 --> 00:13:05,360 problems because when it becomes much cheaper for them to analyze these things, there's 196 00:13:05,559 --> 00:13:09,879 not much reason for them not to do so. And indeed that's exactly what 197 00:13:09,919 --> 00:13:13,240 they're doing. If you look through the history of what's called codas coodis, 198 00:13:13,480 --> 00:13:20,639 that's what the FBI's DNA National DNA Database is called. It initially was pitched 199 00:13:20,720 --> 00:13:24,639 as just something that we're going to use for violent two populations, violent felons 200 00:13:24,679 --> 00:13:28,480 and sexual offenders, which I imagine, you know, most people will be 201 00:13:28,480 --> 00:13:31,960 fine with. But what we've seen since then is it's expanded to include all 202 00:13:33,120 --> 00:13:37,360 felons, literally any felony, and not just that, even people accused of 203 00:13:37,440 --> 00:13:43,399 like arrested for a felony but not charged or later having had the charges dropped, 204 00:13:43,039 --> 00:13:48,159 they can still compel you to provide your DNA. So I think it 205 00:13:48,279 --> 00:13:50,799 just is a pretty classic example of the sort of mission creep that you see 206 00:13:50,840 --> 00:13:56,679 happen in these national security agencies and really gives credence to the civil libertarians that 207 00:13:56,720 --> 00:14:00,399 were raising concerns about these things at the time, saying this is a slippery 208 00:14:00,399 --> 00:14:01,200 slope. They're going to start with this and they're going to expand it. 209 00:14:01,240 --> 00:14:07,440 That's exactly what happened. 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What 226 00:15:26,480 --> 00:15:28,799 does it mean that they have X in their database? Like? Where's that 227 00:15:28,840 --> 00:15:35,080 coming from? Yeah? So it's not just you know, basically all felons 228 00:15:35,440 --> 00:15:37,720 and in about I think over half of states, there are cases where if 229 00:15:37,720 --> 00:15:41,799 you're just suspected of a felony and so for example, you're arrested, then 230 00:15:41,840 --> 00:15:45,200 they can compel you to collect it. But it's also a lot of migrants. 231 00:15:45,360 --> 00:15:48,399 Policy with regard to the DIPRIMA Home and security accounts for a massive amount. 232 00:15:48,440 --> 00:15:52,600 That's actually what the FBI's budget request this year says, I'm gonna quote 233 00:15:52,600 --> 00:15:54,799 from it now, the requested resources. They're asking for fifty six million to 234 00:15:54,840 --> 00:15:58,480 process this stuff. The request resources will allow the FBI to process the rapidly 235 00:15:58,519 --> 00:16:03,000 increasing of DNA samples collected by the US apparental homeland security. So a lot 236 00:16:03,080 --> 00:16:08,240 of what that is is the border crisis at the southern border. They end 237 00:16:08,279 --> 00:16:12,240 up gathering at the DNA of everyone that comes to that comes through there and 238 00:16:12,360 --> 00:16:18,120 is booked and so but again that's one factor of several. It's a mixture 239 00:16:18,120 --> 00:16:21,159 of the technology changing. I don't want to give the impression that that's the 240 00:16:21,240 --> 00:16:25,159 only driver that's certainly driving the spike like this year last year, and that's 241 00:16:25,159 --> 00:16:29,240 a bipartisan thing. So there was legislation passed with overwhelming support by both the 242 00:16:29,279 --> 00:16:33,159 Democrats and Republicans in twenty seventeen. I think it gets flattened into just a 243 00:16:33,200 --> 00:16:34,879 Trump thing. That's not really accurate because if you look back at the Obama 244 00:16:34,879 --> 00:16:41,000 administration, they had plans laid to gather the DNA of people being looked at 245 00:16:41,000 --> 00:16:44,879 the border. It just wasn't I mean, it's complicated inside baseball, but 246 00:16:44,919 --> 00:16:48,639 basically Trump removed a waiver that the Obama administration had temporarily been giving them, 247 00:16:48,639 --> 00:16:52,039 but their intent was always to collect. And so now we have the Biden 248 00:16:52,039 --> 00:16:56,600 administration which is doing the same thing. And really I think it's a reflection 249 00:16:56,600 --> 00:16:59,240 of how much better the technology has gotten, how much cheaper the technology has 250 00:16:59,279 --> 00:17:02,080 gotten. Since you know, in these border cases, it's a lot easier 251 00:17:02,080 --> 00:17:07,079 to count them since it's DHS. It's harder at the state and local level 252 00:17:07,359 --> 00:17:08,920 too. I mean, they do have the data, but it doesn't it's 253 00:17:08,960 --> 00:17:11,559 not as easy to go through as the federal So I think we're just seeing 254 00:17:11,559 --> 00:17:17,079 a general push towards being I mean, there's basically no cost impediment anymore or 255 00:17:17,119 --> 00:17:19,480 time impediment to being able to do this. So what I was hoping to 256 00:17:19,480 --> 00:17:22,279 do with the stories trigger some kind of a debate again, I don't think 257 00:17:22,319 --> 00:17:26,039 anyone's against DNA profiling to you know, solve cases, but the question is, 258 00:17:26,039 --> 00:17:30,000 how are we going to do it with this windfall technology that we now 259 00:17:30,039 --> 00:17:33,000 have to so easily do it, not just with stuff the FBI collects, 260 00:17:33,000 --> 00:17:34,519 but like commercially as well. And I don't think we've had that debate yet. 261 00:17:34,519 --> 00:17:41,880 I think the technology has outstripped the the civiliberties discourse. Well, yeah, 262 00:17:41,920 --> 00:17:45,880 that's kind of what's frustrating is that I imagine DNA being in the database 263 00:17:47,160 --> 00:17:52,359 has particularly of convicted felons, has solved cold cases, has gotten people out 264 00:17:52,359 --> 00:17:56,160 of prison who have been there unjustly, etcetera, etcetera. I'm sure it 265 00:17:56,200 --> 00:18:02,319 has, but actually it makes justice so much harder for people in those situations 266 00:18:02,559 --> 00:18:07,519 when the debate isn't allowed to happen period, when you're like not allowed to 267 00:18:07,519 --> 00:18:10,079 ask questions. And I'm not saying, I'm not saying like you weren't censored 268 00:18:10,119 --> 00:18:11,599 for publishing the story, at least not that I know of from not that 269 00:18:11,640 --> 00:18:15,079 we know. I mean, I'm sure you know, pinged around and tell 270 00:18:15,319 --> 00:18:18,680 community circles, but you know, it's it's not something that other people, 271 00:18:18,839 --> 00:18:25,640 despite this being public information, even you know, reporters with the millions and 272 00:18:25,640 --> 00:18:27,880 millions, billions of dollars of resources of the mainstream media behind them, they 273 00:18:27,880 --> 00:18:33,279 didn't touch the story. And it's just strange. I mean, is there 274 00:18:33,200 --> 00:18:36,279 pretty as strange as you're seeing this just from the traffic side. There was 275 00:18:36,480 --> 00:18:40,160 huge public engagement the story. It was one of my best stories in weeks 276 00:18:40,240 --> 00:18:42,480 or months, I think, and so there was huge public like appetite for 277 00:18:42,519 --> 00:18:47,000 it. But as you say, none of the mainstream outlets you know, 278 00:18:47,039 --> 00:18:49,079 followed up on it. I tried to surmise more so, I think there's 279 00:18:49,079 --> 00:18:52,000 a real disconnect between what the public would like to learn about and what the 280 00:18:52,119 --> 00:18:56,559 media is willing to explore. Yeah, it's weird because it's one of those 281 00:18:56,559 --> 00:19:00,079 things where like I don't know, I wonder what I what it is that 282 00:19:00,160 --> 00:19:03,119 you know, maybe the people who sort of first of all, they're just 283 00:19:03,160 --> 00:19:07,519 fear beat reporters, so that might have something to do with it. But 284 00:19:07,559 --> 00:19:11,279 also it's just the people who cover these agencies and departments probably don't want to 285 00:19:14,599 --> 00:19:19,720 unnecessarily rankle or ruffle any feathers because I feel like they're stories. I'm sure 286 00:19:19,759 --> 00:19:23,079 you feel this here in Washington. I mean, people are so reliant on 287 00:19:23,200 --> 00:19:26,799 their sources who you know, I won't name names, but they are very 288 00:19:26,799 --> 00:19:29,400 prominent reporters that people you know, read and get all these groups. And 289 00:19:29,400 --> 00:19:32,240 they're getting it straight from the NSC, straight from the White House, straight 290 00:19:32,279 --> 00:19:38,000 from not even like senior officials, but like specifically public affairs, without questioning 291 00:19:38,160 --> 00:19:41,799 why they're being given it, what they're not being given, why they're given 292 00:19:41,839 --> 00:19:45,000 it, why they're being given it in the form that they are. And 293 00:19:45,079 --> 00:19:48,039 really, I mean it's some very kind words earlier about the stories that I've 294 00:19:48,039 --> 00:19:51,559 been able to get, and a lot of that is just from being willing 295 00:19:51,599 --> 00:19:56,400 to, you know, invite the ire of a lot of the same groups 296 00:19:56,400 --> 00:19:57,359 that I was mentioned before. And to be honest, it hasn't really hurt 297 00:19:57,400 --> 00:20:00,279 me. I mean, I have a different source bas as a consequence of 298 00:20:00,319 --> 00:20:03,599 that. I mean, those people won't help me, The administration officials, 299 00:20:03,599 --> 00:20:06,559 the appointees, they might not talk to me, but you reach a very 300 00:20:06,599 --> 00:20:11,880 different group of intelligence community folks that will talk to you as a consequence of 301 00:20:11,880 --> 00:20:14,400 that because they appreciate it and they're I mean, there are people in these 302 00:20:14,640 --> 00:20:17,759 I want to stress they're not monoliths. You know, you can be very 303 00:20:17,759 --> 00:20:19,799 critical of the National Security Agency and realize that you know, their rank and 304 00:20:19,799 --> 00:20:23,400 file folks themselves within them who also have problems with it, and they are 305 00:20:23,440 --> 00:20:26,480 willing to talk to the press and help the press if you know, if 306 00:20:26,519 --> 00:20:30,519 they're able to find that somebody would even listen, because so many times I 307 00:20:30,519 --> 00:20:33,000 have sources that give me amazing stories and it's like, why do you come 308 00:20:33,000 --> 00:20:33,359 to me? It's like, well, I came to the Times first, 309 00:20:33,359 --> 00:20:37,640 but they weren't interested in I've heard that so many times I can't tell you, 310 00:20:37,200 --> 00:20:40,720 so it's like, oh my gosh. Yeah, I think it's really 311 00:20:40,960 --> 00:20:45,759 like overreliance on the kind of like very political side of these things. Like 312 00:20:45,759 --> 00:20:51,079 I was saying before the appointees the heads of the agencies, the public affairs, 313 00:20:51,119 --> 00:20:55,480 that kind of thing is so insane because if anyone should be concerned about 314 00:20:55,559 --> 00:21:00,559 civil liberties and privacy, it's journalists. I mean, it's just completely bizarre 315 00:21:00,680 --> 00:21:06,240 that either the one group of people that should be the vanguard and the like 316 00:21:06,400 --> 00:21:11,359 ongoing, never ending battle for civil liberties would be the one that's not like 317 00:21:11,480 --> 00:21:15,319 freaking out about the scale of Dan hate collection. I mean, it's just 318 00:21:15,400 --> 00:21:18,279 it's so weird, and I guess we all saw that with you know, 319 00:21:18,480 --> 00:21:23,359 Greenwald and Snowdon and Asange. I mean, the media was really slow to 320 00:21:23,359 --> 00:21:29,400 come around on Julian Osange, at least in the sort of most recent charges 321 00:21:29,440 --> 00:21:33,200 that are pretty bogus. It's just it's such a weird. It has to 322 00:21:33,200 --> 00:21:34,960 be weird from your perspective watching it play out on the left too. Oh, 323 00:21:36,000 --> 00:21:40,279 it's been great for me personally. I mean stories that are doing all 324 00:21:40,359 --> 00:21:41,680 right. I mean it's bad for the country. I wish it wasn't. 325 00:21:41,880 --> 00:21:45,680 I would much rather not be doing great and have the country be doing great. 326 00:21:45,920 --> 00:21:51,920 But I mean also the politicization. I mean, it's just so criticism 327 00:21:51,960 --> 00:21:55,160 of the FBI now is coded as like conservative, which is so crazy to 328 00:21:55,200 --> 00:21:57,000 me. I don't it doesn't make any sense to me. How Why don't 329 00:21:57,039 --> 00:22:00,680 see why it should we coded anyway? But that fortunately is you know, 330 00:22:00,920 --> 00:22:06,079 Trump draws the air of the room so effectively that it's like, you know, 331 00:22:06,359 --> 00:22:08,319 the FBI has I was saying before, these institutions are not monoliths. 332 00:22:08,599 --> 00:22:11,000 Well, unfortunately, a lot of press, these the FBI's the guys are 333 00:22:11,000 --> 00:22:15,759 going after Trump and because of that, you know, just from personal conversation 334 00:22:15,759 --> 00:22:18,000 with a lot of ports. I think they're uneasy with criticizing that same institution 335 00:22:18,000 --> 00:22:22,640 that they view as doing something noble or benevolent or whatever. Yeah, it's 336 00:22:22,680 --> 00:22:26,680 weird because a lot of the media and Hollywood came around to what is now 337 00:22:26,759 --> 00:22:30,759 I think pretty much a consensus position, the correct position on their rock war. 338 00:22:30,960 --> 00:22:34,559 But because they had these close relationships to begin with, at least journalists 339 00:22:34,599 --> 00:22:37,759 who are are probably left of center, those relationships are what you know, 340 00:22:38,319 --> 00:22:41,960 that's what takes Judith Miller, and you know, probably allows her to give 341 00:22:42,359 --> 00:22:47,599 more credibility to a story than you know. Otherwise, an outsider who's not 342 00:22:47,599 --> 00:22:51,720 worried about those connections or doesn't know those people probably would ascribe to a story 343 00:22:51,759 --> 00:22:53,759 like that similar to her. Editors of the Associated Press or maybe it was 344 00:22:53,799 --> 00:22:57,839 some New York Times at the Times. But I think those social connections probably 345 00:22:57,880 --> 00:23:06,039 do bolster a lot of It feels like Natasha bertrand Politico CNN has been wrong 346 00:23:06,599 --> 00:23:11,319 so many times just by carrying water for the intelligence community and fails upboard. 347 00:23:11,839 --> 00:23:18,359 These public affairs offices are masterful at basically operant conditioning reporters through the selective meeting 348 00:23:18,400 --> 00:23:23,279 out of you piecemeal scoops and things to try to reward certain behaviors, and 349 00:23:23,279 --> 00:23:29,319 then withdrawing those those scooplets to punish certain behaviors that they've really been able to 350 00:23:29,359 --> 00:23:33,799 run rushot over over Washington. And I don't quite understand it, because you 351 00:23:33,839 --> 00:23:36,160 know, I mean, I don't have public affairs feeding me things, and 352 00:23:36,200 --> 00:23:37,519 I feel like I've done fine. I don't think you need it. I 353 00:23:37,559 --> 00:23:41,720 mean, certainly life would be easier if you just had a direct line and 354 00:23:41,720 --> 00:23:44,319 you could have a steady stream. But the stuff they're giving you to me 355 00:23:44,440 --> 00:23:48,920 doesn't seem very interesting or insightful or very exciting to do. But unfortunately that's 356 00:23:48,920 --> 00:23:52,799 the direction which much of Washington media has gone. No, I agree with 357 00:23:52,839 --> 00:23:56,680 that, and let this be a lesson to everybody in those public affair offices. 358 00:23:56,160 --> 00:24:00,759 You can DM Ken for his signal. Yeah, you guys got to 359 00:24:00,799 --> 00:24:03,319 court me if you want better covered to give me something here? What am 360 00:24:03,319 --> 00:24:06,359 I getting some of them? By kind of beer? I'm going to start 361 00:24:06,359 --> 00:24:08,319 a go fund me for the intelligence community to buy you a beer can. 362 00:24:10,400 --> 00:24:14,759 Speaking of which, you have another great story also from public documents, if 363 00:24:14,799 --> 00:24:18,680 I'm not not mistaken, where the headline is NSA orders employees to spy on 364 00:24:18,759 --> 00:24:22,720 the world. Quote with dignity and respect. Tell us more about this reporting. 365 00:24:22,920 --> 00:24:26,440 Yeah, I think this is really a Democrat thing because the language reflects 366 00:24:26,519 --> 00:24:30,759 language. It was first released in an executive order, if I remember, 367 00:24:30,559 --> 00:24:36,599 under under President Obama, and then it was updated under President Biden and sent 368 00:24:36,640 --> 00:24:41,839 out to the NSA personnel instructing them to do just what you said that when 369 00:24:41,920 --> 00:24:44,880 we spin foreign targets, it's got to be done with dignity and respect, 370 00:24:44,920 --> 00:24:47,640 which is absurd for a couple of reasons. Not that you shouldn't treat people 371 00:24:47,640 --> 00:24:52,960 with dignity and respect, but the presupposition of intelligence collection, the kind of 372 00:24:52,960 --> 00:24:56,960 signal stuff that the NSA specializes in, hacking emails, phone calls, text 373 00:24:56,960 --> 00:24:59,799 messages, is that kind of thing. The presupposition is that they are doing 374 00:24:59,839 --> 00:25:04,000 that to threats to the US national security. I eve Vladimir Putin, I 375 00:25:04,039 --> 00:25:07,920 E. Al Qaeda, I E isis. So do we really need to 376 00:25:07,960 --> 00:25:12,039 be super worried about dictating and respect for those types of groups? And if 377 00:25:12,039 --> 00:25:15,119 they aren't those types of groups, why are you spying on them? You 378 00:25:15,160 --> 00:25:18,720 know, if it's the if it's the girl Scouts, yes, I would 379 00:25:18,759 --> 00:25:22,960 be particularly concerned about dignity respect, but hopefully it's not the girl Scouts that 380 00:25:22,960 --> 00:25:25,960 they're spying on it. So I don't quite understand their rationale here, And 381 00:25:26,000 --> 00:25:27,920 in fact, a lot of military people thought it was ridiculous too when I 382 00:25:27,960 --> 00:25:30,799 posted this story both right and left, which I was struck by. They 383 00:25:30,799 --> 00:25:37,079 saw it as just, you know, kind of representative of the the kind 384 00:25:37,079 --> 00:25:41,240 of human human rights posturing, not not matched with any sort of like meaningful 385 00:25:41,319 --> 00:25:47,640 or substantive policy, but just the posturing that these administrations do. Do you 386 00:25:47,640 --> 00:25:52,359 think I mean, so the NSA, probably the CIA and the FBI two 387 00:25:52,000 --> 00:25:59,160 are rattled by I would imagine some of the opposition to reauthorization of section seven 388 00:25:59,200 --> 00:26:03,079 or two. Okay, tell us more about that, explain that. Yes, 389 00:26:03,200 --> 00:26:06,079 So that's that's exactly the context in which this is taking place. So 390 00:26:06,119 --> 00:26:07,640 they're having to do a pr push to show how much they care about this 391 00:26:07,640 --> 00:26:11,400 stuff because they're in the context of, as you said, reauthorizing what's called 392 00:26:11,400 --> 00:26:15,119 seven oh two programs, which are basically govern how they're allowed to you know, 393 00:26:15,200 --> 00:26:19,400 spy on and collect on these forms of signals intelligence. And so this 394 00:26:19,440 --> 00:26:22,559 is kind of like when you know, BP as an oil spill. They've 395 00:26:22,599 --> 00:26:27,440 got to start doing commercials where there's some guy like washing the oil off of 396 00:26:27,480 --> 00:26:30,920 a duck or something like. It's going to make everyone think, Yeah, 397 00:26:30,960 --> 00:26:33,440 we really care. You don't worry about the policy. You don't need the 398 00:26:33,480 --> 00:26:37,160 aggressive oversight. Just trust us because we care and because we're going to treat 399 00:26:37,160 --> 00:26:41,319 people with dignating respect. You want to read the quote in its entirety to 400 00:26:41,480 --> 00:26:44,079 just to show people that are not taking us out of context. It says, 401 00:26:44,119 --> 00:26:47,720 and you can find this they posted the NSA's website, and among their 402 00:26:48,000 --> 00:26:52,559 directives it says, quote in recognition at Sigent and Signals Intelligence activities must take 403 00:26:52,599 --> 00:26:55,680 into account that all persons should be treated with dignaty and respect, regardless of 404 00:26:55,720 --> 00:27:00,200 their nationality or wherever they may reside. So they're specifically saying this regard with 405 00:27:00,200 --> 00:27:03,440 regard decision. This isn't just some treat your co workers nicely or something. 406 00:27:03,440 --> 00:27:08,160 This is specifically the Yeah, the people who's privacy you've violated explicitly, that's 407 00:27:08,200 --> 00:27:11,960 what they're supposed to do, not necessarily against that in principle, Yeah, 408 00:27:12,000 --> 00:27:15,759 treat them with dignity and respect. It's like what you just hacked into them? 409 00:27:15,759 --> 00:27:18,119 How are you treating with denating respect, you know. But yeah, 410 00:27:18,119 --> 00:27:23,039 so it's not just a pr push on the part of seven or two domestically, 411 00:27:23,079 --> 00:27:26,440 but Europe is really unhappy about this. If you recall the Snow disclosures, 412 00:27:27,039 --> 00:27:30,279 one of them was, you know, hacking into Uncle and Markel, 413 00:27:30,440 --> 00:27:34,119 the then Prime Minister of Germany. You know, this is a very sore 414 00:27:34,200 --> 00:27:40,079 issue in Europe, not just because of that, but because of you know, 415 00:27:40,680 --> 00:27:42,599 signals activity in the in the I mean, these are supposed to be 416 00:27:42,640 --> 00:27:45,759 partner nations and were spying them like anyone else. So there's a lot of 417 00:27:47,279 --> 00:27:51,599 pressure internationally and domestically on the NSA, and this is this is one of 418 00:27:51,599 --> 00:27:53,960 their attempts to try to get in front of that. I think. I 419 00:27:55,000 --> 00:27:57,799 think it's also a tell as to how and not that they're super ashamed of 420 00:27:57,799 --> 00:28:03,559 saying this, but it is a tell that seven O two is so incredibly 421 00:28:03,599 --> 00:28:07,039 important to them, which they will admit, but not in the context that 422 00:28:07,359 --> 00:28:15,720 what it means is a vast, a vast hoovering up of data and so 423 00:28:15,839 --> 00:28:18,799 many uses of it. When you look at how often they're actually you know, 424 00:28:18,839 --> 00:28:22,079 going into the seven O two database and how often they're improperly doing it. 425 00:28:22,160 --> 00:28:27,000 I think there were Inspector General reports just last year about improper probing of 426 00:28:27,039 --> 00:28:32,319 Section seven O two. It's obviously incredibly important to them. Yeah, they 427 00:28:32,359 --> 00:28:34,079 really don't want people talking about I mean, that's got to be that's got 428 00:28:34,079 --> 00:28:37,759 to be the number one thing that the i S is worried about, like 429 00:28:37,039 --> 00:28:41,400 legislatively right now, because because the reauthorizations happen, it's not like an annual 430 00:28:41,440 --> 00:28:45,200 thing. This is something that happens once every X number of years, I 431 00:28:45,240 --> 00:28:48,359 don't know how many. Yeah, and there they're go ahead kind of. 432 00:28:48,799 --> 00:28:52,759 I mean, the really dramatic shift happened after nine to eleven, but it 433 00:28:52,799 --> 00:28:56,440 hasn't been turned back to the system that we had before. So they're enjoying 434 00:28:56,440 --> 00:29:02,960 the privileges of a you know, terrorized, scared population post nine eleven without 435 00:29:02,960 --> 00:29:06,480 having to justify what is the state of emergency that we're presently in anymore? 436 00:29:07,119 --> 00:29:08,839 You know. I mean you could say, you know, I mean there's 437 00:29:08,839 --> 00:29:12,039 a war in Ukraine. That's true, but too I mean, that's it's 438 00:29:12,160 --> 00:29:17,480 very different in character than a terror attack, you know, And there's just 439 00:29:17,519 --> 00:29:19,200 no there's no debate about it. It's just they're just kind of assuming how 440 00:29:19,240 --> 00:29:22,839 we deserve this privilege. It was supposed to be a privilege. It was 441 00:29:22,880 --> 00:29:25,119 not supposed to be this open ended, permanent thing. It was supposed to 442 00:29:25,160 --> 00:29:26,759 be a temporary thing while I figure out, you know, what happened with 443 00:29:26,799 --> 00:29:33,799 the attacks, and that's unfortunately not not being now it's treated the watched Alt 444 00:29:33,880 --> 00:29:37,599 on Wall Street podcast with Chris Markowski. Every day, Chris helps unpack the 445 00:29:37,599 --> 00:29:41,359 connection between politics and the economy and how it affects your wallet. There's a 446 00:29:41,400 --> 00:29:45,799 method to the madness. Biden plans to ask Congress for billions more dollars for 447 00:29:45,839 --> 00:29:52,920 another COVID vaccine. With more masks and vaccines, maybe stimulus checks Americans wallets 448 00:29:52,960 --> 00:29:56,759 can survive another free money hand out. Whether it's happening in DC or down 449 00:29:56,759 --> 00:29:59,519 on Wall Street, it's affecting you financially. Be informed. Check out the 450 00:29:59,519 --> 00:30:03,000 Watched at on Wall Street podcast with Chris Markowski on Apples, Spotify, or 451 00:30:03,000 --> 00:30:08,240 wherever you get your podcast right. And we were talking about this one time, 452 00:30:08,680 --> 00:30:15,319 something that perplexes me because we're going into a potential I would say likely 453 00:30:15,880 --> 00:30:19,559 government shutdown, but certainly that debate is upon us now that Congress is back 454 00:30:19,599 --> 00:30:26,839 from their fun little August break can and it blows my mind that Republicans don't 455 00:30:26,880 --> 00:30:32,039 when they're when they're focused on these like big spending fights and government shutdowns. 456 00:30:33,240 --> 00:30:36,480 I'm genuinely like blown away that they don't, especially like going back to the 457 00:30:36,480 --> 00:30:40,680 speakership fight, the budget fight that transpired in May. It blows my mind 458 00:30:40,680 --> 00:30:42,960 that they aren't, you know, I mean, I guess I shouldn't say 459 00:30:42,960 --> 00:30:48,920 blows my mind because I understand that establishment Republicans and you know, neo conservatives 460 00:30:48,960 --> 00:30:52,279 and maybe some people who legitimately really do believe that you've got to have these 461 00:30:52,319 --> 00:30:59,519 programs. But it just it's strange to me that Republicans don't blow up these 462 00:30:59,559 --> 00:31:03,720 issues during spending fights, like all of these random you're like basically discovered an 463 00:31:03,720 --> 00:31:07,480 office of the Pentagon earlier this summer, like everybody knew about it, and 464 00:31:07,519 --> 00:31:10,599 it's scary to be that's scariesful about it. It's like these are things they're 465 00:31:10,599 --> 00:31:14,880 getting how many millions of dollars? And it's like I again personally benefit from 466 00:31:14,880 --> 00:31:17,559 being the one to break these things. But I would love it if like 467 00:31:17,880 --> 00:31:22,880 the entire you know, patchwork of institutions we have here, there's think tanks 468 00:31:22,880 --> 00:31:25,000 are supposed to paying attention to these things. I would love it if they 469 00:31:25,000 --> 00:31:29,799 could point these things out in timely fashion so that you know, the people 470 00:31:29,839 --> 00:31:34,559 can you know, pressure their elected officials to make decisions in accordance with what's 471 00:31:34,559 --> 00:31:37,519 actually happening, rather than this retrospective Oh look at this thing that happened two 472 00:31:37,559 --> 00:31:42,319 years after because Ken figured it out. Yeah, it's very scary. They're 473 00:31:42,359 --> 00:31:45,759 not small sums. Again, these are entire like offices. This is not 474 00:31:45,799 --> 00:31:51,720 like a small thing. And there's there's That's the scariest thing about learning the 475 00:31:51,720 --> 00:31:55,359 culture here Washington is how much Congress is just like the rest of us and 476 00:31:55,559 --> 00:31:59,000 just trying to keep up with what's going on and unable to do so, 477 00:31:59,440 --> 00:32:02,599 whether it's because I mean it's crazy. Sometimes you see you see officials that 478 00:32:02,599 --> 00:32:07,519 that you know, give very fire rhetoric that's exciting you can get find and 479 00:32:07,559 --> 00:32:10,119 then you look at how much they're actually paying attention to the nuts and bolts 480 00:32:10,119 --> 00:32:15,079 to implement that rhetoric. And there's almost no correlation between between the two. 481 00:32:15,200 --> 00:32:19,319 The the you know, the vividness and the ardor of the of the rhetoric 482 00:32:19,400 --> 00:32:22,759 with the actual uh, you know, implementing that in a policy level. 483 00:32:24,039 --> 00:32:27,960 Yeah, no, it's and to me, like if ever there was an 484 00:32:28,000 --> 00:32:32,000 appetite on the right that people who are concerned about what's happening over at the 485 00:32:32,000 --> 00:32:38,640 Pentagon could exploit for political for the political goal of actually curtailing some of the 486 00:32:38,680 --> 00:32:42,559 power of these institutions. I mean, I really think it's right now a 487 00:32:42,720 --> 00:32:46,039 post covid B, while you have the DOJ doing whatever the DOJ is doing, 488 00:32:46,559 --> 00:32:51,440 that's deeply upsetting, not just Republicans in Washington, but like a lot 489 00:32:51,480 --> 00:32:54,599 of average Republican voters. It just maybe kind you could even tell us a 490 00:32:54,640 --> 00:33:00,119 little bit about the department that you like stumbled upon as you were reporting and 491 00:33:00,160 --> 00:33:01,359 all of this stuff. This was earlier the summer, it was like June, 492 00:33:01,400 --> 00:33:07,079 right, yeah, yeah. So it's called the Perception Office of Perception 493 00:33:07,160 --> 00:33:10,759 Management, which is just such all I mean, you want to talk about 494 00:33:10,759 --> 00:33:14,839 disinformation government sport, that was a good one, but perception management, and 495 00:33:14,880 --> 00:33:16,759 it actually has a history I guess where it comes from. So it comes 496 00:33:16,759 --> 00:33:21,720 from the belief it was Yes, it was the Reagan administration, the Iran 497 00:33:21,799 --> 00:33:27,839 contra war, so his so the Reagan administration had had a disinformation guy at 498 00:33:27,839 --> 00:33:30,640 the CIA who was later I think detailed to the National Security Council and he 499 00:33:30,720 --> 00:33:34,319 came up with this term perception management. The idea was, we have to 500 00:33:34,799 --> 00:33:39,519 we have to manage the perception of this deeply unpopular war backing the Contras in 501 00:33:40,039 --> 00:33:45,920 Nicaragua and their host of human rights atrocities. We didn't manage the perception of 502 00:33:45,960 --> 00:33:49,119 this because we're coming out of the Vietnam War where the public is very skeptical 503 00:33:49,680 --> 00:33:52,200 of for military entanglements, and so how are we going to manage them? 504 00:33:52,240 --> 00:33:59,599 And then it was it's sort of resurfaced during the Bush administration. Then Secretary 505 00:33:59,599 --> 00:34:05,160 of Defense Donald Rumsfeld created a very similar office, I can't remember exactly what 506 00:34:05,200 --> 00:34:08,000 the name was, but also working on perception management around the warne I Rock 507 00:34:08,920 --> 00:34:15,039 a similarly unpopular you know, faded to become very unpopular conflict. And then 508 00:34:15,079 --> 00:34:17,519 it was roundly criticized by the press just completely laughed at it. I mean, 509 00:34:17,559 --> 00:34:21,199 they ended up closing it because it was such a scandal. And what 510 00:34:21,239 --> 00:34:23,119 was, you know, disturbing to me about this story was when I reported 511 00:34:23,159 --> 00:34:25,800 on the existence of it, there wasn't that response from the liberal press that 512 00:34:25,800 --> 00:34:30,199 there was when when Rumsfeld did it. I mean, I don't know anyone 513 00:34:30,280 --> 00:34:34,599 that liked it, but I certainly didn't see, you know, calls for 514 00:34:34,639 --> 00:34:37,480 officials to defund it or pressure on the Pentagon to shutter it. And so 515 00:34:37,639 --> 00:34:44,559 you know, it exists to this day because again, the politicization is such 516 00:34:44,719 --> 00:34:47,840 that I think in a lot of ways the national security community has a halo 517 00:34:47,880 --> 00:34:53,519 on its head, particularly for those in the Democratic Party, as a consequence 518 00:34:53,559 --> 00:34:59,280 of you know, not just not just what's happened recently with what the FBI 519 00:34:59,360 --> 00:35:02,519 is doing with Trump, also Russia Gate in twenty sixteen and twenty seventeen, 520 00:35:02,559 --> 00:35:07,719 and so it's really you know, hamstrung, uh, you know, political 521 00:35:07,719 --> 00:35:13,679 a certain political tendencies from being able to conduct oversight in the aggressive fashion that 522 00:35:13,679 --> 00:35:16,199 we've seen as recently as the Bush administration or even Obama administration. I think, 523 00:35:19,119 --> 00:35:22,519 yeah, the Office of Perception Management, I think, if I'm remembering 524 00:35:22,559 --> 00:35:25,880 correctly, I want to say it was like Bill Casey from the Reagan administration. 525 00:35:27,440 --> 00:35:30,880 Yeah, so he was the CIA director and then yeah, I think 526 00:35:30,920 --> 00:35:34,880 he's a go to n SC. But you know, in the context of 527 00:35:34,880 --> 00:35:37,679 this whole fight about disinformation, where it's this like, you know, transcendent 528 00:35:37,719 --> 00:35:42,760 problem that we have to you know, through all these resources at and it's 529 00:35:42,760 --> 00:35:45,880 like, well, we're running disinformation off this out of the d D, 530 00:35:45,039 --> 00:35:47,480 you know, I mean, I can't how does that square? Well? 531 00:35:47,519 --> 00:35:51,199 Yeah, no, And actually this is a little teasert. This is one 532 00:35:51,239 --> 00:35:52,679 of those things that I was going to talk about on Breaking Points tomorrow, 533 00:35:52,800 --> 00:35:57,000 is this idea that you have as one Hunter Biden stuff that's going on. 534 00:35:57,039 --> 00:36:00,119 And Ken has reported on the Hunter Biden stuff, by the way, and 535 00:36:00,320 --> 00:36:01,960 that has to upset the left a little bit when you do it, Ken, 536 00:36:02,000 --> 00:36:06,159 because you're obviously at the intercept, and I'm sure your readers are sometimes 537 00:36:06,199 --> 00:36:09,679 like, hey, you what you're doing. But it's obviously when you have 538 00:36:09,760 --> 00:36:16,639 Joe Biden trying to reign in potentially corrupt uses of the millions and millions of 539 00:36:16,639 --> 00:36:20,679 dollars we've sent over to Ukraine, it's just really hard for him to have 540 00:36:20,719 --> 00:36:23,360 credibility and trying to reign in corruption. Be it in twenty fourteen, we're 541 00:36:23,400 --> 00:36:28,760 in twenty twenty three over in Ukraine, when his son was taking all of 542 00:36:28,760 --> 00:36:31,719 this money for no good reason other than influence, pedaling on the board of 543 00:36:31,960 --> 00:36:37,239 a wailing gas company in Ukraine. Like it is just absurd. The way 544 00:36:37,239 --> 00:36:42,800 that we sometimes send our very worst and our people with absolutely no credibility or 545 00:36:42,840 --> 00:36:45,840 even we put that foot forward in these negotiations and don't have a leg to 546 00:36:45,840 --> 00:36:49,320 stand on and don't seem to have the will to do anything about it. 547 00:36:50,920 --> 00:36:52,719 Yes, it's it's really bad. I mean, that's a pretty archetypical case 548 00:36:53,119 --> 00:36:57,639 where you know, the position I've always had on that is like, okay, 549 00:36:57,639 --> 00:37:00,559 well, evidence that exists looks bad. What needs to be substantiated is 550 00:37:00,599 --> 00:37:06,960 if the president knew about it, or if you know Hunter Biden who's clearly 551 00:37:07,000 --> 00:37:08,800 had you know, addiction issues, and as is known, in cases of 552 00:37:08,920 --> 00:37:12,639 addiction, people find ways to fund them. Is he just lying and pretending 553 00:37:12,639 --> 00:37:15,119 that access that he doesn't. Those are the questions that need to be answered. 554 00:37:15,159 --> 00:37:20,079 But to pretend like there's no questions that should be pursued or there's nothing 555 00:37:20,119 --> 00:37:24,039 there that really has the effect of when it does come out, then everybody, 556 00:37:24,039 --> 00:37:28,719 like you know, isn't there there's no appropriate context for it. And 557 00:37:28,960 --> 00:37:30,400 I mean that's what I've tried to do and just cover the basic facts of 558 00:37:30,400 --> 00:37:35,039 these things, is trying to situate people such that they're familiar with what's going 559 00:37:35,039 --> 00:37:37,519 on, so they don't hear it all at once and find themselves in a 560 00:37:37,559 --> 00:37:42,840 situation where they're where they're liable to believe whoever, you know, whatever spin 561 00:37:42,880 --> 00:37:45,360 somebody wants to put on it because they're completely unfamiliar with it. Because the 562 00:37:45,360 --> 00:37:47,000 press is refused to discuss any of these things. I mean, yeah, 563 00:37:47,480 --> 00:37:51,519 it sort of seems like a mirror. It's not quite exactly the same because 564 00:37:51,519 --> 00:37:54,239 he wasn't an official in the find administration, but you know, there was 565 00:37:54,280 --> 00:38:00,000 appropriate criticism of Trump's son and launch or Kushner in the Saudiast ever foreign influence, 566 00:38:00,480 --> 00:38:02,280 and I mean, you know, he was in advisor at White House, 567 00:38:02,280 --> 00:38:05,119 so it's a little different. But to me, it's like, well, 568 00:38:05,119 --> 00:38:07,679 if we're going to focus on the one, shouldn't we you know, 569 00:38:07,719 --> 00:38:10,159 extend that to these other cases. And unfortunately that's not that's not being what 570 00:38:10,199 --> 00:38:14,679 the press is doing. Yeah no, but I mean credit to the intercept 571 00:38:14,760 --> 00:38:17,159 for uh, you know, covering Jared, covering Hunter. I mean, 572 00:38:17,199 --> 00:38:21,880 it's the most important thing that you can do. But it also is it 573 00:38:21,960 --> 00:38:23,639 becomes so dangerous when we don't do that, because you kind of allow people 574 00:38:23,639 --> 00:38:28,760 in positions some power to get away with it, get away with corruption, 575 00:38:28,920 --> 00:38:31,079 because you know, nobody everyone is like too busy in the food fight over 576 00:38:31,199 --> 00:38:36,039 like media, there's like totally it's we shouldn't have to talk about, you 577 00:38:36,039 --> 00:38:40,079 know what, whether something's being used or is being covered by the media in 578 00:38:40,119 --> 00:38:44,960 a kind of neutral way. We should actually just talk about the corruption itself. 579 00:38:45,000 --> 00:38:47,519 But we're just like in the food Fight where we have to do this 580 00:38:47,960 --> 00:38:52,320 different conversation about why the media is covering something, why they aren't covering something. 581 00:38:52,400 --> 00:38:54,480 And then you get into Philip bump on this in this conversation with the 582 00:38:54,519 --> 00:38:58,639 owner of the comedy seller in New York, and it's just like, is 583 00:38:58,679 --> 00:39:00,199 this a story or isn't this a story? It's obviously a story, but 584 00:39:00,280 --> 00:39:04,800 Philip, you know, just insists that it's not because there's nothing tying it 585 00:39:04,800 --> 00:39:08,119 back to Joe. But and Ken, you have a really actually a really 586 00:39:08,159 --> 00:39:14,960 interesting story of actually being out of outside of DC when you started to dig 587 00:39:15,039 --> 00:39:16,599 into a lot of stuff. And I guess I just want to ask you 588 00:39:16,960 --> 00:39:21,159 if that was I think we've talked about this before, if that was helpful 589 00:39:22,000 --> 00:39:24,480 and sort of pushing you to places other people didn't want to go. Yeah. 590 00:39:24,519 --> 00:39:28,440 So I was in Wisconsin for almost ten years, prior to coming up 591 00:39:28,519 --> 00:39:30,679 to Washington and when I started. I mean, that's really why I got 592 00:39:31,000 --> 00:39:35,199 mentioned before Freedom of Information Act FOYA for short. That's how I got INTOY 593 00:39:35,239 --> 00:39:38,280 because I didn't have the ready access to official dumb next door that a lot 594 00:39:38,280 --> 00:39:40,880 of folks in you know, DC do, and so it forced me to 595 00:39:40,920 --> 00:39:44,800 become good at other things. In retrospect, that's the best thing that could 596 00:39:44,800 --> 00:39:46,079 have happened to me, because if you look at my reporting, it tends 597 00:39:46,119 --> 00:39:52,400 to be very document based. I don't use, you know, stuff from 598 00:39:52,440 --> 00:39:57,440 anonymous sources very much. And it's kind of interesting when I get young people 599 00:39:57,480 --> 00:40:00,599 calling me for advice a lot of times, and I feel bad because it's 600 00:40:00,599 --> 00:40:02,000 like they feel as though they're under so much pressure to either go to New 601 00:40:02,079 --> 00:40:06,360 York City or go to Washington, DC. And you know, no two 602 00:40:06,360 --> 00:40:08,199 persons experiences the same. I don't want to. It was a little reluctant 603 00:40:08,239 --> 00:40:12,119 to dispense any advice because you know, what worked for me worked for me. 604 00:40:12,159 --> 00:40:15,840 Who knows how what what other people want from life. For the black 605 00:40:15,920 --> 00:40:20,360 lab, everyone get a black lab exactly, and stop calling Ken. It's 606 00:40:20,360 --> 00:40:23,639 the same message, it's the exact same thing. No, but that's the 607 00:40:23,679 --> 00:40:27,800 foils stuff in particular. And maybe you can speak to this a little bit 608 00:40:27,800 --> 00:40:31,679 too, that there's just so many places where there is no sunlight. So 609 00:40:31,719 --> 00:40:35,159 like you can say democracy dies in darkness, and I feel like we can 610 00:40:35,159 --> 00:40:38,199 all agree with that sentiment, but even just for non ideological reasons, but 611 00:40:38,320 --> 00:40:43,079 for the fact that you know, the media has shrunk really quickly. Beat 612 00:40:43,119 --> 00:40:47,320 reporters have have withered away. There's just not people even looking in certain places 613 00:40:47,320 --> 00:40:52,519 because our government is also like so vast, and especially the security state. 614 00:40:52,559 --> 00:40:54,800 I mean, it's just expanded since nine eleven to a level that media could 615 00:40:54,840 --> 00:40:59,480 never keep up with even if it wanted to. Yeah, as revenues shrink. 616 00:40:59,519 --> 00:41:01,480 And then for a byproduct of that is that people don't have the time 617 00:41:01,519 --> 00:41:07,400 to familiarize themselves with these databases and learning the arcana of the Foyer requests process 618 00:41:07,440 --> 00:41:10,880 and figuring out where things are on their own, so they become more reliant 619 00:41:10,920 --> 00:41:14,559 on others to guide them along. And who are those others? Those are 620 00:41:14,599 --> 00:41:19,400 the think tank officials who are getting paid by the same by foreign governments and 621 00:41:20,119 --> 00:41:22,639 business interests. In the United States, those are the public affairs officials who 622 00:41:22,679 --> 00:41:27,599 are obviously advancing the interests of whatever agency or department they work for. These 623 00:41:27,639 --> 00:41:31,679 are the White House officials and so really my point, you know, when 624 00:41:31,679 --> 00:41:36,239 I talk about the decline of news media revenue is not boo hoo, poor 625 00:41:36,320 --> 00:41:37,960 us, who gives a shit about us? The thing is the public is 626 00:41:37,960 --> 00:41:44,400 going to get lower quality information because the way that they do more with less 627 00:41:44,639 --> 00:41:50,159 resources is farm out the investigative process. There's almost no investigations anymore. People 628 00:41:50,159 --> 00:41:55,000 are kind of weaving together stuff they get planted, you know, given to 629 00:41:55,000 --> 00:41:59,960 them on a platter by you know, official dumb or NGOs or whatever, 630 00:42:00,239 --> 00:42:04,599 because that's the most time off. To me, that's a major facet of 631 00:42:06,320 --> 00:42:08,840 media control. It's not like Soviet Russia, where someone is telling you to 632 00:42:08,840 --> 00:42:13,199 do something. Doesn't work that way. It's it's that someone has to file, 633 00:42:13,320 --> 00:42:15,440 you know, five stories a week, and how are you gonna have 634 00:42:15,480 --> 00:42:19,559 time to investigate that? You know, you're not You're going to need to 635 00:42:19,559 --> 00:42:22,400 get someone else to do the investigation. Well, the problem is that someone 636 00:42:22,440 --> 00:42:24,639 else has a motive and they have they have an agenda when they're pulling stuff 637 00:42:24,679 --> 00:42:28,800 together in what they're going to give you. And I think that explains a 638 00:42:28,840 --> 00:42:31,800 lot of the you know problems we see in media today. Well, and 639 00:42:31,840 --> 00:42:38,119 another thing I like about your work and the intercept in general is that it's 640 00:42:38,199 --> 00:42:44,519 it's kind of similar to what we do with the federalists in the sense that 641 00:42:45,079 --> 00:42:51,760 there's an open sort of ideological perspective and like you do not try to like 642 00:42:51,880 --> 00:42:55,000 conceal what you think about any of the issues that you cover. You just 643 00:42:55,079 --> 00:42:59,880 come at them and are completely honest with your audience. Let them people are 644 00:43:00,000 --> 00:43:04,440 smard enough to decide for them. So this whole charade. I'm not convinced 645 00:43:04,480 --> 00:43:07,360 there is anyone that doesn't have politics, and so long as you do, 646 00:43:07,559 --> 00:43:10,920 you might as well do a full discol It's like, if you have a 647 00:43:10,960 --> 00:43:15,119 conflict in a story, you disclose that, you don't pretend that you don't 648 00:43:15,159 --> 00:43:17,679 have one, which is what most of the press seems to do. Yeah, 649 00:43:17,679 --> 00:43:20,760 I know they love doing that. It was like, I don't know 650 00:43:20,840 --> 00:43:24,079 this person. Nobody believes that, why do we do this this pantomime of 651 00:43:24,239 --> 00:43:29,320 like I'm in some disembodied voice. He's completely dispatching it, like, come 652 00:43:29,360 --> 00:43:35,199 on, well, what brought you to like being It's sort of like taking 653 00:43:35,280 --> 00:43:37,719 that approach because no young journalists is trained to that to take that approach. 654 00:43:37,760 --> 00:43:40,920 There's not a journalism school in the world that trained was you exactly. I 655 00:43:40,960 --> 00:43:44,960 wasn't trained. I was never properly socialized. I didn't go to j school 656 00:43:44,960 --> 00:43:46,360 and never took a journalist of course. In fact, that's probably why I 657 00:43:46,360 --> 00:43:49,719 liked it. If I took any it seemed like anything I took in school. 658 00:43:49,760 --> 00:43:52,119 I hate it because they pitched it. If you had told me to 659 00:43:52,159 --> 00:43:53,599 be a journals when I was a kid, I would have been like, 660 00:43:53,599 --> 00:43:55,719 oh my god, like one of those guys on TV that chase the celebrities 661 00:43:55,719 --> 00:43:59,280 around with a microphone. I didn't know what it was, and so I 662 00:43:59,360 --> 00:44:01,360 just found myself kind of investigating things for fun. And then I realized, 663 00:44:01,400 --> 00:44:06,280 oh, I'm doing journalism right now. Maybe I should try to pitch this 664 00:44:06,360 --> 00:44:07,800 somewhere. And I did, and that's basically my whole career. So I 665 00:44:07,880 --> 00:44:14,000 never never had that socialization process. And then over time, as I started 666 00:44:14,039 --> 00:44:16,400 to learn that other people followed and update those norms, I was I thought, 667 00:44:16,840 --> 00:44:21,119 well, what what is that doing for them? Like, what's of 668 00:44:21,159 --> 00:44:22,559 any of this ship? And it doesn't seem to be any point other than 669 00:44:23,039 --> 00:44:27,039 that Columbia Journalism school tells you that you're supposed to do it, you know 670 00:44:27,079 --> 00:44:31,119 what I mean? Right, if it comported with some kind of ethical uh 671 00:44:31,159 --> 00:44:34,400 you know, reality or benefit or something, and then I would consider doing 672 00:44:34,400 --> 00:44:36,000 it. But as far as I can tell, it doesn't, so I'm 673 00:44:36,000 --> 00:44:38,199 not going to do it. Well, and that's it. It's also interesting 674 00:44:38,239 --> 00:44:40,960 because you were at the Nation before, you're before you were at the Intercept. 675 00:44:42,000 --> 00:44:46,000 And another good thing is that these places exist, like I'm trying to 676 00:44:46,039 --> 00:44:50,519 think of, you know, maybe twenty years ago, you basically there would 677 00:44:50,519 --> 00:44:52,159 have been you know, probably a bunch of jobs at the Nation, but 678 00:44:52,199 --> 00:44:55,000 it would have been limited to you know, sort of on the right. 679 00:44:55,039 --> 00:44:59,000 Maybe if you want to do this kind of reporting, you would be at 680 00:44:59,079 --> 00:45:01,159 you know, National You or the American Spectator, which did a bunch of 681 00:45:01,199 --> 00:45:05,960 like Whitewater stuff during the Clinton years. But there are, it seems like, 682 00:45:05,960 --> 00:45:08,719 on the left on the right, a lot more opportunities now because there's 683 00:45:08,800 --> 00:45:13,960 like the Internet allowed for new media politicians like the Intercept to come about and 684 00:45:13,960 --> 00:45:16,039 to do so much of this. And the Internet has let you like probe 685 00:45:16,079 --> 00:45:20,280 all of these public documents in ways that like you wouldn't have possibly been able 686 00:45:20,280 --> 00:45:23,599 to drive to every local Courthouse. That's what's so tragic about how low quality 687 00:45:23,639 --> 00:45:28,000 the reporting is now in Okay. In some respects it's worse because the revenues 688 00:45:28,000 --> 00:45:30,519 are smaller, but in other respects it's I feel like I'm a gold miner 689 00:45:30,519 --> 00:45:34,760 going to California during the gold Rush. It's the best time in human history 690 00:45:34,800 --> 00:45:39,119 to have access at your fingertips to all kinds of information. So I feel, 691 00:45:39,159 --> 00:45:42,280 I don't know. I see a lot of people are very black built 692 00:45:42,320 --> 00:45:46,239 and very doomware about future media, and there are some dimensions to it there. 693 00:45:46,239 --> 00:45:50,760 There are, you know, indeed negative but like in some ways there's 694 00:45:50,840 --> 00:45:54,079 reason to be very optimistic in my view, but unfortunately the press doesn't seem 695 00:45:54,079 --> 00:45:58,920 to take very much advantage of those sort of things. Yeah, I mean, 696 00:45:59,239 --> 00:46:04,199 yeah, makes sense. What can people expect if they subscribe to your 697 00:46:04,239 --> 00:46:07,880 substack, which again is clencing dot subsac dot com. A lot of what 698 00:46:07,880 --> 00:46:09,880 we've been talking about, just a candid discussion of what I found, and 699 00:46:10,000 --> 00:46:13,679 you guys can decide what you think of it, because I don't view that 700 00:46:13,719 --> 00:46:15,679 as my job. I'll I might tell you what I think of it, 701 00:46:15,719 --> 00:46:20,119 but it doesn't really matter. Yeah, that's my subsac And then my formal 702 00:46:20,199 --> 00:46:28,559 reporting is at the intersect and why are you a cyber bully? Why have 703 00:46:28,639 --> 00:46:34,280 you chosen the CID putting me on the couch? Now? Why is it 704 00:46:34,519 --> 00:46:37,880 ken that you feel compared? Are you projecting via your cyber bullying? Really 705 00:46:37,960 --> 00:46:43,800 is a reaction to the press and the sanctimony and of importance. If you 706 00:46:43,800 --> 00:46:45,320 look at my Twitter, the thing that I would take back from it is 707 00:46:45,360 --> 00:46:49,199 this guy doesn't take himself very seriously. Because I don't, and because I 708 00:46:49,280 --> 00:46:52,880 disagree with this whole like the media, the fourthest state is going to save 709 00:46:52,960 --> 00:46:55,599 us from terry. I don't take it that seriously. We're going to do 710 00:46:55,639 --> 00:47:00,360 our best to inform me about what we can probably not do. Agree job. 711 00:47:00,639 --> 00:47:04,000 If you look at so, I want to be honest about that, 712 00:47:04,039 --> 00:47:06,400 Like, I don't want to be some I don't know. I think I 713 00:47:06,480 --> 00:47:07,079 have a lot of people that are like, oh, this is good fruit. 714 00:47:07,079 --> 00:47:09,400 If you just cleaned up, you can have a job at the Times 715 00:47:09,480 --> 00:47:13,079 or whatever. It's like, I don't want that. I don't you know 716 00:47:13,079 --> 00:47:15,239 what I mean. I don't take Twitter seriously. I don't take myself particularly 717 00:47:15,320 --> 00:47:20,519 seriously. That's really all. And I do hate elites. I do hate 718 00:47:20,519 --> 00:47:22,760 a lot of elites, and so I voiced that, but that's just kind 719 00:47:22,800 --> 00:47:24,880 of how I am, and I think I feel like a lot of people 720 00:47:24,880 --> 00:47:30,119 are closer to that than they are to this like type of CNN reporter where 721 00:47:30,119 --> 00:47:34,960 they all have the same abby, Like it's like a company dictate that they 722 00:47:34,960 --> 00:47:38,360 all have the same background and that they only tweet headlines. I don't think 723 00:47:38,480 --> 00:47:44,360 people are I resent this idea that I'm kind of edgy guy. I'm just 724 00:47:44,400 --> 00:47:46,400 a regular guy. Everyone. All these other media people are freaks, in 725 00:47:46,440 --> 00:47:50,840 my opinion, not me. So no, it's completely true. Like if 726 00:47:50,880 --> 00:47:52,320 you sit down and you know this because you were you were in Wisconsin with 727 00:47:52,360 --> 00:47:54,920 your wife, Like if you sit down at a bar in Wisconsin, they 728 00:47:54,920 --> 00:48:00,679 all sound like you, they can don't sound like Jim shootout right exactly. 729 00:48:00,199 --> 00:48:02,920 So I would turn it around and say, well, why does everyone else? 730 00:48:02,920 --> 00:48:06,119 Why do I stand out? That's what I would say. I don't 731 00:48:06,159 --> 00:48:09,239 think I should. Didn't you, like, didn't you post the names of 732 00:48:09,280 --> 00:48:13,480 like Diane Feinstein staffers like a month ago and people freaked out about it? 733 00:48:13,760 --> 00:48:19,119 Yeah, apparently people that work for this aging senator and we now know from 734 00:48:19,119 --> 00:48:22,119 reporting, which I knew from people that I knew on the Hill. We're 735 00:48:22,199 --> 00:48:25,800 running cover and trying to hide from the press. Her mental decline. I 736 00:48:25,800 --> 00:48:29,159 don't think they should be able to do that in secret. I mean, 737 00:48:29,320 --> 00:48:30,920 I didn't post anything about where they live or anything like that. But I'm 738 00:48:30,920 --> 00:48:36,679 going to put their names out as officials they're participating in this, and apparently 739 00:48:36,719 --> 00:48:39,199 I'm supposed to do that. Another norm that again I don't think reports with 740 00:48:39,239 --> 00:48:44,119 any sort of ethical imperative, but is one that washed are respects. You 741 00:48:44,119 --> 00:48:46,280 don't name staffers. That's just some normative fool I don't give a shit about 742 00:48:46,320 --> 00:48:47,880 it. I'm going to do it. And then when I did it, 743 00:48:49,199 --> 00:48:52,039 the New York Times finally got off its ass and started reporting on this thing 744 00:48:52,039 --> 00:48:54,760 that they should have been reporting on weeks ago. And so if you have 745 00:48:54,840 --> 00:48:59,119 a nicer way to get the press to do its job, then I'm all 746 00:48:59,199 --> 00:49:01,159 for that. Unfortunately I haven't found that yet, well, the press in 747 00:49:01,199 --> 00:49:04,360 the Hill, I mean, and I bring that up because I think it 748 00:49:04,440 --> 00:49:07,760 is just such a good illustration of you know, if some people take issue 749 00:49:08,000 --> 00:49:13,679 with your social media or anybody else's social media, it's just because they have 750 00:49:13,800 --> 00:49:17,159 this gut instinct of protecting power that maybe they haven't even thought about. But 751 00:49:17,199 --> 00:49:23,639 it's like people who people are busting their asses to pay the salaries of these 752 00:49:23,679 --> 00:49:29,039 people who are protecting their boss, who is not doing your job and is 753 00:49:29,079 --> 00:49:34,239 not serving your constituents. And you're gonna wind about a reporter reporting. Yeah, 754 00:49:34,280 --> 00:49:37,320 you can't even say their names. That's the degree of privilege that that 755 00:49:37,320 --> 00:49:42,079 that the circle has you. I cannot even be spoken. I should be 756 00:49:42,159 --> 00:49:46,039 free to exist in in you know, total anonimity for what I'm doing, 757 00:49:46,079 --> 00:49:50,280 which everyone was disgusted by when it came out. No, you're not allowed 758 00:49:50,320 --> 00:49:52,960 to talk about that. I don't agree with that, you know, no, 759 00:49:53,320 --> 00:49:57,960 absolutely absolutely, because that is like the number one thing that brings all 760 00:49:58,119 --> 00:50:01,239 journalists and Mushian in DCA together. You know, we have to be civil 761 00:50:01,320 --> 00:50:06,400 at the end of the day, respect of the norms oh Man, Well, 762 00:50:06,559 --> 00:50:09,360 Ken Kloppenstein, thank you so much for coming on the podcast, coming 763 00:50:09,440 --> 00:50:12,599 on Federalist Radio Hour. I've wanted to have you on for a really long 764 00:50:12,639 --> 00:50:15,840 time. So this is your your stories last week for the perfect opportunity to 765 00:50:15,920 --> 00:50:17,880 do that. Just great reporting and thank you for being willing to come on 766 00:50:17,920 --> 00:50:22,039 and talk about it. My pleasure. Thanks for having the Emily. Of 767 00:50:22,079 --> 00:50:24,599 course, you have been listening to another edition of The Federalist Radio Hour. 768 00:50:24,639 --> 00:50:28,920 I'm Emily Joshinsky, culture editor here at the Federalist. We'll be back soon 769 00:50:29,079 --> 00:50:37,280 with more. Until then, the lovers of freedom and anxious for the fray right