Speaker 1: Hey, guys, ready or not, twenty twenty four is here,
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Speaker 4: They're collecting information about They said they can collect information
Speaker 4: about your sex life, your sexual activity, your union membership,
Speaker 4: your genetic information, and your biometrics, on top of all
Speaker 4: the car usage data of where you're driving, when you're driving,
Speaker 4: how fast you're driving, how many people are in the car,
Speaker 4: or radio stations you're listening to, and on and on
Speaker 4: and on. It was huge. It was really frightening.
Speaker 3: Actually, is your car spying on you?
Speaker 1: My name is James Lee and you're watching Beyond the
Speaker 1: Headlines on Breaking Points.
Speaker 3: Many people think.
Speaker 1: Of their car as a private space, somewhere to call
Speaker 1: their doctor, have a personal conversation, cry over a breakup,
Speaker 1: or hit the open road without the world knowing where
Speaker 1: you're headed. But that perception no longer matches reality. According
Speaker 1: to Mozilla research, popular global brands including BMW for Toyota, Tesla, Kia,
Speaker 1: and subru can collect deeply personal data such as sexual activity,
Speaker 1: immigration status, race, facial expressions, weight, health and genetic information
Speaker 1: and where you drive with data collected by sensors, microphones, cameras,
Speaker 1: and phones and devices drivers connect to their cars, as
Speaker 1: well as by car apps, company websites, dealerships and vehicle telematics.
Speaker 1: Where does all this information go, who has access to it?
Speaker 1: And for what purposes are they using it? Joining us
Speaker 1: today is gen cult Writer, program Director of Privacy not included,
Speaker 1: a Mozilla initiative and guide that helps consumers understand privacy
Speaker 1: and security features of various technology products and services.
Speaker 3: Jen, thank you for joining us today. Yeah, thanks for
Speaker 3: having me all right, I want.
Speaker 1: To start with the report itself. The Mozilla report found
Speaker 1: that all twenty five major car brands reviewed received failing
Speaker 1: marks for consumer privacy. I was wondering what exactly it
Speaker 1: means to receive a failing mark. If you can go
Speaker 1: into that a little bit and share with us some
Speaker 1: of the maybe they're some of the most surprising, perhaps
Speaker 1: startling findings. You guys, came across.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so all twenty five of the car brands we
Speaker 4: reviewed across fifteen car companies earned our privacy not included
Speaker 4: warning label. And what that means is we ding companies
Speaker 4: for how much data they collect, how they used that data?
Speaker 4: So are they sharing it for targeted advertising purposes? Are
Speaker 4: they selling it? Things like that? How much control a
Speaker 4: user has over their data? So can you get your
Speaker 4: data deleted no matter where you live or only if
Speaker 4: you live in a state where your privacy right is guaranteed.
Speaker 4: We look at companies known track records, so do they
Speaker 4: have a good track record of protecting, in respecting and
Speaker 4: securing the information that they collect on people. We also
Speaker 4: have a set of minimum security standards that we look
Speaker 4: at for every product we review. Does it use encryption,
Speaker 4: does it require a strong password?
Speaker 5: Things like that.
Speaker 4: And so with the reviewing of the car companies, we
Speaker 4: found like our eyes were bugging out when we found
Speaker 4: how much data these car companies said in their privacy
Speaker 4: policies that they could collect on users. And so you ask, well,
Speaker 4: what are some of the things that really surprised us?
Speaker 4: And I mean, first off was just the scope of
Speaker 4: how much information these car companies said they could collect
Speaker 4: and you think about, Okay, a car should collect the
Speaker 4: information it needs to get me from point A to
Speaker 4: point based safely. Right, Okay, that's like kind of the
Speaker 4: place where you start. Car companies felt like they went
Speaker 4: way beyond that. They're collecting information about They said they
Speaker 4: con collect information about your sex life, your sexual activity,
Speaker 4: your union membership, your genetic information, and your biometrics. On
Speaker 4: top of all the car stage data of where you're driving,
Speaker 4: when you're driving, how fast you're driving, how many people
Speaker 4: are in the car, what radio stations you're listening to,
Speaker 4: and on and on and on. It was. It was huge.
Speaker 4: It was really frightening.
Speaker 1: Actually, wow, So you mentioned right now some very startling
Speaker 1: like sexual activity, health information, these kinds of things. So
Speaker 1: what mechanisms or technologies are they using in the car
Speaker 1: to get that kind of data.
Speaker 4: That's a good question. So we know that all modern
Speaker 4: cars are smart cars. It's not like you can go
Speaker 4: to the lot right now and buy a dumb car
Speaker 4: because all the cars that they're selling on the lots
Speaker 4: now pretty much are cars that have sensors built in
Speaker 4: to track your speed, you're braking, whether you're wearing your
Speaker 4: seat belt, They have microphones in the cars, they have
Speaker 4: cameras in the cars outside the car, so there's a
Speaker 4: lot of data that is being collected and the potential
Speaker 4: for the data. They can collect everything, and this is
Speaker 4: kind of the tip of the iceberg. I just read
Speaker 4: some information last week about a company that was developing
Speaker 4: technology to use the indoor in camera in car cameras
Speaker 4: to study our emotions and moods to know what we're
Speaker 4: feeling when we're in our car, and so that's really scary.
Speaker 4: So they can collect the information through the sensors, the microphones,
Speaker 4: the cameras. How are they collecting information about your sex
Speaker 4: life or even are they That's something that I can't answer.
Speaker 4: I don't I'm not inside of the car companies to
Speaker 4: know what they're doing. But all I can say for
Speaker 4: certain is if you buy a Nissan or Akiya, the
Speaker 4: privacy policies that we reviewed last year's made you consent
Speaker 4: to it that said that they could collect that information.
Speaker 1: So you mentioned a couple of brands there, So I'm
Speaker 1: wondering if you guys spotted any regional differences between manufacturers
Speaker 1: and how they collect data or how much data they
Speaker 1: collect between let's say North American manufacturers versus European ones
Speaker 1: Asian ones. Was there any difference to how they approach
Speaker 1: this issue of data privacy.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So we reviewed the privacy documentation as best we
Speaker 4: could find it for kind of North American cars, mostly
Speaker 4: US based, and we also looked at EU privacy documentation,
Speaker 4: and so privacy documentation varies a little bit. In the EU,
Speaker 4: they have what's called GDPR, which is their privacy protecting law.
Speaker 4: It gives consumers rights, right to be deleted, right to
Speaker 4: not have data collected without you, without your explicit consent,
Speaker 4: things like that. In the US, we don't have a
Speaker 4: federal privacy law, and so you'll read the American privacy
Speaker 4: laws and you'll get an addendum for what's happening in
Speaker 4: California or maybe in Colorado or Virginia or a place
Speaker 4: like that. But across the board, car companies are saying
Speaker 4: they can collect a lot of information. In the EU,
Speaker 4: consumers are protected, they have certain rights, So everybody there
Speaker 4: will have the right to delete data. Here in the US,
Speaker 4: not everybody will have the right to delete data. Consent
Speaker 4: is required to be gotten a little more explicitly in
Speaker 4: the EU than it is here in the US, and
Speaker 4: so those were the major differences. I think looking at
Speaker 4: EU privacy policies, they don't tend to go in as
Speaker 4: much detail about the data, how the data is collected,
Speaker 4: or what data is collected and how is it used.
Speaker 4: And you will get that in North American privacy policies.
Speaker 1: And you spoke a little bit about consent. So I'm
Speaker 1: wondering if we dive into that a little bit more specifically.
Speaker 1: When we think of consent, we usually think in terms
Speaker 1: of social media companies, online services apps, things like that,
Speaker 1: where we physically click that we agree to specific terms
Speaker 1: and conditions. Albeit I don't think many of us actually
Speaker 1: read the document itself. But how does this happen, Let's say,
Speaker 1: with the owner of a car, or even a passenger
Speaker 1: in a vehicle, how do they give consent to the manufacturer?
Speaker 4: Yeah, consent is a really tricky issue, especially when it
Speaker 4: comes to cars. I you know, my family bought a
Speaker 4: car last year. At no point that I was I
Speaker 4: required to consent to the privacy policy for the car
Speaker 4: company that I bought. I chose not to download the app.
Speaker 4: If I downloaded the app, there would have been an
Speaker 4: opportunity to look at that privacy policy. Probably when the
Speaker 4: app was downloaded, and then the use of the connected services.
Speaker 4: Sometimes something will flash on the screen really quickly, Hey
Speaker 4: do you consent to this? But to sit through a
Speaker 4: car in a car and scroll through, you know, five
Speaker 4: thousand words of illegal document isn't. Isn't usually the way
Speaker 4: that people are going to do it. And so consent
Speaker 4: is really tricky. And we saw this with's the story
Speaker 4: that came out from the New York Times recently where
Speaker 4: GM was collecting usage data on people's cars, sharing that
Speaker 4: with data brokers. The insurance companies were buying it from
Speaker 4: the data brokers, and people's interest rates were going up.
Speaker 4: GM says, oh, we never did that without consent, But
Speaker 4: the consumers are like, I don't remember ever consenting to this.
Speaker 4: And it was a feature in there on Star and
Speaker 4: so you know whether it happened at the dealer. We're
Speaker 4: hurt hearing a lot about when people buy cars, the
Speaker 4: salespeople are actually incentivized to get them to download the
Speaker 4: app and except all conditions or sign up for connected services,
Speaker 4: and the car companies really push this and so you
Speaker 4: might not have realized before you drove off the lot
Speaker 4: when the car salesman was walking you through the features
Speaker 4: they actually consented for you, and you didn't realize it.
Speaker 4: And then it's hard to go in and an unconsent
Speaker 4: you know, once you've consented, it's really hard to kind
Speaker 4: of pull that back. And so and then there's apps,
Speaker 4: and then there's connected services. You know, if you use
Speaker 4: serious XM, do you call when you consented? So that's
Speaker 4: a problem. Consent is very murky. Car companies aren't very
Speaker 4: explicitly getting it. And then there's the funny parts that
Speaker 4: are kind of funny hab but also funny said where
Speaker 4: you read the privacy policies and it'll say, hey, you know,
Speaker 4: if you use these connected services in your car, you
Speaker 4: consent to all this data being collected. And anybody who
Speaker 4: becomes a passenger in your car is consented to this
Speaker 4: privacy policy as well. And it's your duty as the
Speaker 4: driver of this car to let the person the passenger
Speaker 4: know about this price policy, which is just ridiculous. Right,
Speaker 4: nobody picks their buddy up to go to a movie
Speaker 4: and says, hold on before we leave, let me read
Speaker 4: you this privy policy and make sure you consent to
Speaker 4: this data collection. That's just not how it works, and
Speaker 4: so consent is very it's a very dark subject. It's
Speaker 4: a very bad subject when it comes to this, and
Speaker 4: it needs to be improved.
Speaker 3: Absolutely. It seems very, very disturbing.
Speaker 1: So I'm wondering if have you received any specific responses
Speaker 1: from consumers after they've read your report, what kinds of
Speaker 1: the what's the vibe that we're getting from the people.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so I think the first reaction from people was like,
Speaker 4: holy cow, what is happening? Which is great because when
Speaker 4: we were doing the research, that was our reaction too.
Speaker 4: We're like, holy cow, what's going on? This is really bad?
Speaker 4: How come no one's talking about this? And so we
Speaker 4: were really pleased to see that. You know, it wasn't
Speaker 4: just us that we were feeling that way when we put
Speaker 4: our research out, like other people were like, holy cow,
Speaker 4: I had no idea. And I think that's in part
Speaker 4: because people don't buy cars all that freak, and if
Speaker 4: you bought a car ten years ago, you might not
Speaker 4: know that you go to buy a car now, and
Speaker 4: privacy is even something you need to contemplate and people
Speaker 4: can't can't rank privacy as something they do when they,
Speaker 4: you know, go car shopping, they have to look at
Speaker 4: price and affordability and safety and availability, and and then
Speaker 4: you know, people started sharing their own stories of the
Speaker 4: car salesman that really pushed them to sign up for
Speaker 4: things because they would get a bonus if you signed up.
Speaker 4: We heard lots of stories from people that were trying
Speaker 4: to opt out and figure out how to opt out
Speaker 4: and just being really confused about how to do it,
Speaker 4: and can I disable the cellular data? Well maybe, but
Speaker 4: you might avoid your warranty. Can I ask my dealer
Speaker 4: to stop doing this? It's like, well, the dealer and
Speaker 4: the car company you aren't always on the same page
Speaker 4: about data collection and data sharing. They're they're kind of
Speaker 4: pointing fingers back and forth at each other, so you
Speaker 4: might not get straight answers. You know, lots of stories
Speaker 4: like that. It was an interesting story. And Australia were
Speaker 4: a Toyota owner, lifelong Toyota owner I think, went to
Speaker 4: buy a new Toyota, put the deposit down and then
Speaker 4: while he's waiting for the vehicle to come in, learned
Speaker 4: about the privacy concerns. Contacted the dealer and said I
Speaker 4: didn't know about this. Can I opt out? And they
Speaker 4: were like, well you can opt out, but it's not
Speaker 4: like you're not You're gonna You're gonna have your data
Speaker 4: collected probably, And he's like, well, I don't want the car,
Speaker 4: but they wouldn't give him back his deposit. He got
Speaker 4: a consumer group involved, and after a lot of back
Speaker 4: and forth with the dealer and the car company and
Speaker 4: people pointing fingers, he eventually got his his deposit back.
Speaker 4: But it was a struggle, and so I think the
Speaker 4: biggest response is people were surprised and shocked and kind
Speaker 4: of angered and then asking well, what can we do?
Speaker 4: You know, what what options do we have? And unfortunately
Speaker 4: I am not able to give consumers a lot of
Speaker 4: good options because you can look and do your best
Speaker 4: to opt out of things and try not to give
Speaker 4: your consent. But again I worry that it's very confusing,
Speaker 4: and sometimes consent might not be explicit asked. You can
Speaker 4: not download and use the app, which is what I did,
Speaker 4: but you're giving up some features in your car that
Speaker 4: people might find really useful. You cannot use the connected services,
Speaker 4: but you might be paying for them anyways. Or you
Speaker 4: know you'll get the free trial and not realize that
Speaker 4: by agreeing to that free trial, you're giving up a
Speaker 4: lot of data, and you might not be able to
Speaker 4: delete your data. And so what I end up telling
Speaker 4: people is, you know, it's time for the US to
Speaker 4: have a strong federal privacy law where people have rights
Speaker 4: and car companies have to do better.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm glad I bought a car like seven years ago,
Speaker 1: so here and all this stuff. I read recently that
Speaker 1: according to Mackenzie Report, the monetization of car data that's
Speaker 1: what we're talking about here, is projected to be a
Speaker 1: huge industry seven hundred and fifty billion dollars. So we
Speaker 1: understand what's in it for the manufacturer, but for the consumer,
Speaker 1: it seems like there's a whole lot of issues there
Speaker 1: have How have the car manufacturers tried to justify this
Speaker 1: or or spend this maybe in a positive way the report,
Speaker 1: I know, I read in there that there was you
Speaker 1: guys mentioned privacy washing and the findings, meaning that they're
Speaker 1: pretending to protect consumers privacy without actually doing so.
Speaker 3: Wondering what your thoughts on this are.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Well, the car company's favorite argument about why they
Speaker 4: need all this data is for safety. Oh, we need
Speaker 4: all this data for safety reasons. This is just for safety.
Speaker 4: We're we're not collecting data for to make money off you.
Speaker 4: We're collecting data for safety reasons. And to be fair,
Speaker 4: some of the data they collect is for safety, but
Speaker 4: we think that the amount of data that they collect
Speaker 4: to get you from point A to point B safely
Speaker 4: is way more than they need to And we found
Speaker 4: it very funny that, you know, the car companies would
Speaker 4: at the top of their privacy policies to say, we
Speaker 4: really care about your privacy and we've we've created these
Speaker 4: privacy principles and we've signed it on to them, and
Speaker 4: then you go and read the privy principles. It's not
Speaker 4: things they're doing at all. They're not minimizing their data collection,
Speaker 4: they aren't being very transparent in everything they do. They
Speaker 4: don't have great consent mechanicisms where you know, people's choice
Speaker 4: is very clear and explicit, and so we called them
Speaker 4: out on that. I think I think that maybe they
Speaker 4: would disagree, but I think consumers will probably maybe we'll
Speaker 4: take a look at those privacy principles and also kind
Speaker 4: of feel what we're feeling. It's like, no, you're not
Speaker 4: doing these things, or if you are, you're doing them
Speaker 4: really poorly. Can you do better?
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, I know we don't have this any type
Speaker 1: of federal privacy law like you just talked about. Is
Speaker 1: there any or have you guys seen any regulatory pressure
Speaker 1: at all to enact such a law to protect consumer
Speaker 1: privacy or is this going to be kind of I
Speaker 1: guess what you would call just just the way things
Speaker 1: are going forward.
Speaker 4: Well, I hope it's not just the way things are
Speaker 4: going forward. It's my job to be pessimistic and optimistic.
Speaker 4: So yeah, there's a couple of things afoot. I mean,
Speaker 4: there is a draft federal privacy law that's been in existence.
Speaker 4: It's kind of languishing. One of the really positive things
Speaker 4: that we've seen since our research come out. As Senator
Speaker 4: Edward Markey has gotten involved. He sent letters to the
Speaker 4: car company the CEOs of fourteen car companies asking them
Speaker 4: to clarify the questions that we couldn't get answered. He
Speaker 4: was disappointed in the responses and has asked the FTC
Speaker 4: to step in and use the full force of their
Speaker 4: investigative power to try and hold the car companies accountable
Speaker 4: for that. So that's a good step forward. As for
Speaker 4: the federal privacy law, well, that's something that we're pushing
Speaker 4: you know, like I, every time I get an opportunity
Speaker 4: to tell people that they should support this a strong
Speaker 4: consumer federal privacy law, I do it because I think
Speaker 4: that's what we need. Interestingly, the car companies will also
Speaker 4: say we need a strong federal we need a They'll
Speaker 4: say they need it, we need a federal privacy law.
Speaker 4: I don't think that our version in their version is
Speaker 4: quite the same though. One of the reasons they say
Speaker 4: that is they claim that states having a patchwork of
Speaker 4: privacy makes it really difficult for them, which kind of
Speaker 4: makes me chuckle because I'm like, well, just pick the
Speaker 4: state with the strongest privacy and apply that to everybody.
Speaker 4: That seems really easy, but it doesn't seem like something
Speaker 4: they're keen to do.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but I do like your mindset right there, being
Speaker 1: pessimistic and optimistic at the same time. So kudos to
Speaker 1: you guys and the rest of folks at Mozilla for
Speaker 1: staying on top of this.
Speaker 3: Where can the audience find more of your work?
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, well, privacy not included. Dot Org is our
Speaker 4: buyer's guide where you can go and see our car
Speaker 4: reviews or reviews for your your smart speaker, your your
Speaker 4: fitness Tracker other things. So go there and if you
Speaker 4: see something that we didn't review that you'd like to review,
Speaker 4: we have a link there and let us know. We love,
Speaker 4: we love to hear from people and try and learn
Speaker 4: what they want us to review. So privacy not included
Speaker 4: dot org.
Speaker 3: Everybody, go check that out.
Speaker 1: And thank you Jen again for coming on the show
Speaker 1: and reminding us that we are almost always being watched,
Speaker 1: even in our cars as we are.
Speaker 4: Thank you.
Speaker 5: Hes Jordan with status ku news.
Speaker 6: I'm on the ground in Wyoming County, West Virginia, coal
Speaker 6: country where for over a year, the corporate media and
Speaker 6: the politicians who represent West Virginia have been completely ignoring
Speaker 6: a major water crisis in some areas, including creeks and
Speaker 6: private drinking wells that residents get their water from. We've
Speaker 6: seen water that looks like it's contaminated from coal mines.
Speaker 7: There was nothing compared to what we had coming out
Speaker 7: over and now the field so.
Speaker 5: Private well, private water wells. Residents all over this community,
Speaker 5: most of them have water wells and it's supposed to
Speaker 5: be water from the aquifer, yes, but that looks like.
Speaker 7: It's coming from a coal mines. They're saying it's coming
Speaker 7: from a coal mine.
Speaker 5: Yeah, the West. Coal mines all over the place here.
Speaker 6: Yes, we've seen water that have white particles and green
Speaker 6: looking fungus.
Speaker 7: I had a hydrologis send me pictures too. That's living.
Speaker 7: All that white stuff, it's for living organism. It's growing,
Speaker 7: that's growing.
Speaker 5: Oh my god.
Speaker 6: Well, for over a year, residents have been coming down
Speaker 6: with illnesses for what are the main symptoms?
Speaker 8: You've been seen falling in some cases, fever and abnormals.
Speaker 6: Some residents have suddenly died recently of unknown causes, and
Speaker 6: animals are dropping dead abruptly. Please subscribe to Status kup
Speaker 6: News on YouTube so we can get more support to
Speaker 6: keep on this important story that the corporate media is
Speaker 6: totally burying.
Speaker 5: So we're in the backwoods West Virginia, Wyoming County. Right
Speaker 5: down below this hill is Indian Creek, which uh short,
Speaker 5: looks contaminated to me. I see some stuff in there
Speaker 5: that looks like a sheen. I don't know if it's
Speaker 5: oil or something. But you live here, Paul, and tell
Speaker 5: me about when you first started noticing there were issues
Speaker 5: with the water.
Speaker 9: You could start smelling it and I come out and looked,
Speaker 9: and yeah, you could say it's been it's been a
Speaker 9: while now, at.
Speaker 5: Least over a here.
Speaker 9: Yes, and if you could say from right here, you
Speaker 9: could say it right there really bad.
Speaker 5: See the brown kind of almost looks like brown clay
Speaker 5: or settlement.
Speaker 7: Look, the DP doesn't give a shit about this. Christ
Speaker 7: Look look at this.
Speaker 10: Yeah, we're gonna walk.
Speaker 7: On down through here. I know when I was driving
Speaker 7: down here, probably about a quarter of a mile, I
Speaker 7: looked and it was just as dirty.
Speaker 5: Yeah, look at this, guys.
Speaker 7: Look this is your d PEA Bay West Virginia Department
Speaker 7: of Environmental Protection.
Speaker 5: This is your protection. That is not normal in a
Speaker 5: fresh creek. We've seen videos from Richard showing that brown stuff.
Speaker 5: Some independent testing has tested for high levels of manganese, lead,
Speaker 5: arsenic iron, But the state environmental testing they test for
Speaker 5: who knows only four things, and I don't know what
Speaker 5: they are. They say it's safe, but I mean your
Speaker 5: eyes and your nose won't lie. Right now, it doesn't
Speaker 5: smell so bad, But when it's hotter or it rains,
Speaker 5: the smell gets worse.
Speaker 9: Oh, yes, when it gets warmer, it it really gets bad. Yeah,
Speaker 9: you keep your door shut. You can't stand smell. Smells
Speaker 9: just like sooge like what sewage?
Speaker 5: And you reached out to Senator Mansion's office. Tell me
Speaker 5: about what up in there?
Speaker 8: Okay?
Speaker 9: When I reached Senator Mansion's office, first lady I spoke
Speaker 9: with she was from the Charleston office, and she tried
Speaker 9: to help me what she could. But when it came
Speaker 9: down to paying for my whale water testing because it
Speaker 9: was a public well, they told me in the beginning
Speaker 9: they was going to pay for it. And then the
Speaker 9: lady at the Charleston office, I wasn't using her no more.
Speaker 9: A lady from another office was contacting me that I
Speaker 9: had used before. When I asked him to pay for
Speaker 9: the water, he told me they wouldn't pay for it.
Speaker 9: So I called back and told the lady I said
Speaker 9: I wouldn't vote for him for Dogcatcher. So I hung up,
Speaker 9: and it must have made him mad, so they called
Speaker 9: me back. A man did, and he told me he
Speaker 9: said that was a state issue, not a federal issue,
Speaker 9: and don't call back.
Speaker 5: And this was a man from the Charleston office or
Speaker 5: the DC office.
Speaker 9: I'm not sure which office it was from, but it
Speaker 9: was from his office. And I also have the number
Speaker 9: in there from where they had called, so.
Speaker 5: Let me get this trade Mansion is the senator of
Speaker 5: the state of West Virginia. Yet they told you it
Speaker 5: was a state issue and not a federal issue, so
Speaker 5: he couldn't help you.
Speaker 9: Yes, it kept wanting me to fill out papers for
Speaker 9: them to represent me, and I did it, and then
Speaker 9: what they would do. They just keep sending papers to
Speaker 9: try to have But when it came to the money
Speaker 9: of having the well or the water from the creek,
Speaker 9: they wasn't gonna pay for that.
Speaker 5: What were they sending you papers for to.
Speaker 9: A paper to represent may Because they couldn't do it
Speaker 9: on their own, they had to have my signature.
Speaker 5: I'm not an expert on landownership, but he is the
Speaker 5: elected senator of West Virginia. I don't think he needs
Speaker 5: your signature to come down here and inspect her to
Speaker 5: look into a contaminated creek and residents that are sick.
Speaker 5: I don't know. It sounds like they just kind of
Speaker 5: gave you the go around.
Speaker 9: Yeah, they did. I filled out three papers. I have
Speaker 9: filled out three papers, and the man did say that
Speaker 9: to me not to call back, that it was a
Speaker 9: state not a federal issue.
Speaker 5: Can I ask you, I've talked to residents who their
Speaker 5: dogs have died, roosters suddenly dying, their cats have gotten
Speaker 5: sick and died.
Speaker 10: I've men seeing coons, men seeing deer dead, seeing my
Speaker 10: dogs get this like, they're sick one day and they're
Speaker 10: dead the next before you can even take them to
Speaker 10: the lead or anything.
Speaker 5: How many dogs do you think lost two?
Speaker 10: I've had about twenty roosters down my dogs. Anything it
Speaker 10: drinks out of that creek. I had to go about
Speaker 10: store bought water, It'll die here.
Speaker 5: They are the ones that are left drinking out of
Speaker 5: the creek.
Speaker 10: Still, no I buy water, live water. I ain't got
Speaker 10: many left. I ain't got three roosters left out about thirty.
Speaker 5: Your cats have had issues? Were they ever drinking out
Speaker 5: of the creek or just inhaling? Inhaling? Yeah, so the
Speaker 5: cats were also smelling this and they you've had to
Speaker 5: take them to the vet for respiratory stuff. Right, So
Speaker 5: what you're saying is when they were born, they could meow,
Speaker 5: and now they can't. They're getting health problems. I just
Speaker 5: spoke with a woman bad diarrhea, nausea.
Speaker 10: I haven't been able to breathe hardly, as you can
Speaker 10: tell I'm a little oars and we've had diary and
Speaker 10: stuff going on pretty bad at my house.
Speaker 5: You've been having diarrhea anything else. It's just secondlous.
Speaker 4: So I gotta go see a specialist over my stomach.
Speaker 5: Right now. We're wanting a puke. I just don't have
Speaker 5: the appetite stuff.
Speaker 10: But yeah, the headaches, the dryness in my mouth, the
Speaker 10: funny taste in my mouth.
Speaker 5: You seen fairly young. I don't know. I mean, I'm
Speaker 5: not at I'll be forty one next month. Right before
Speaker 5: all this, were you relatively healthy? Yeah, I didn't have
Speaker 5: no problem. I can get doctor records for you. Could
Speaker 5: these kind of things right now? It's causing you know,
Speaker 5: the stomach stuff. But could this lead to potentially worse
Speaker 5: issues down the road.
Speaker 4: Yes, And.
Speaker 8: Digesting all these chemicals that we are seeing that it
Speaker 8: has been tested for these whales can cause cancer. It
Speaker 8: can cause all kinds of different things, so especially if
Speaker 8: it's not treated. So I can if they're continuing to
Speaker 8: drink this and they're not being notified that hey, this
Speaker 8: wonders will be bad and has all these chemicals, I mean,
Speaker 8: just keep drinking it. It's it's not gonna be a
Speaker 8: good result.
Speaker 5: In the end. Have you had any issues from showering
Speaker 5: or drinking the water?
Speaker 9: Yeah, I've had trouble from I'm scarred up. I'm across
Speaker 9: my shoulders from showering in the water.
Speaker 5: If you want to show so all those white marks
Speaker 5: and splotches or.
Speaker 9: They were bumps, and then when they would heal, it
Speaker 9: would leave me scarred.
Speaker 5: And did when did you start noticing that? Or when
Speaker 5: were you told that those were on your skin?
Speaker 9: Uh? I had a buyopsy done. I had a boy done.
Speaker 5: You got some in the front to you.
Speaker 9: I had a buyopsy done a year ago from the
Speaker 9: b A Hospital and b A Hospital told me they
Speaker 9: don't know what it is.
Speaker 5: But it started around the same time that Jamie's yard
Speaker 5: was flooded about February twenty twenty three. Yes, and did it? Uh?
Speaker 5: Did it it or anything?
Speaker 8: Yeah?
Speaker 9: We did itch at times. They gave me some crane
Speaker 9: to put on it, but that wasn't that wasn't doing
Speaker 9: anything for it. So I just left it alone, let
Speaker 9: it here on its own, and it would ca me.
Speaker 5: The dermatologist basically said, I don't know what it is.
Speaker 9: Yeah, they told me they didn't know what it was,
Speaker 9: and that was after a biopsy.
Speaker 5: Uh, any problems with your animals? Did they used to
Speaker 5: drink out of the creek.
Speaker 9: Well, you say out there, I got a chicken house.
Speaker 9: I don't have no chickens in it because my chickens
Speaker 9: was dying and I wasn't going to I wasn't going
Speaker 9: to let it continue.
Speaker 5: You were in the Navy, yes, so you fight for
Speaker 5: your country and this is what's happening to you right there.
Speaker 5: I mean that's kind of a symbolic, right you. You're
Speaker 5: a veteran and you dealing with this and the government
Speaker 5: that sent you out is not even returning people's calls here.
Speaker 8: Yeah.
Speaker 9: Yeah, they're giving us the run around. And you could
Speaker 9: tell that it's not just it's not just the state,
Speaker 9: it's the county. The southern counties in West Virginia built
Speaker 9: the northern counties from when coal was came. So now
Speaker 9: they've forgotten us. We're the forgotten, Like I told Joe
Speaker 9: Manchi's office, we're the forgotten people of the Appalachian Mountains.
Speaker 5: What about the governor, I mean, he is a coal baron,
Speaker 5: he was a billionaire, he's got a coal empire, hasn't
Speaker 5: paid hundreds of millions of dollars and taxes and unpaid
Speaker 5: clean up for mines. I looked into it. I haven't
Speaker 5: heard anything from the governor on this, have you.
Speaker 9: No, No, I haven't heard anything from the county, to
Speaker 9: the state, to the federal I haven't heard anything from nobody.
Speaker 7: And the EPA told you were expendable as long as
Speaker 7: they got jobs. That's basically the way, you know. I
Speaker 7: took it, and I had asked him again what he said.
Speaker 7: He said, He goes, I'm not personally saying that. That's
Speaker 7: the way they think when they come in here and
Speaker 7: they say, well, we can't shut the minds down because
Speaker 7: four or five people has died. This county and the
Speaker 7: other counties in West Virginia and Kentucky Tennessee built this country.
Speaker 7: We built it, and we need them. We need a
Speaker 7: country to step in and do something. They're poisoning everybody,
Speaker 7: so it's time for them to give back to us.
Speaker 7: So that's what we want.