Speaker 1: Fellow conspiracy realist, have you ever had the feeling that
Speaker 1: you're in a place you shouldn't be?
Speaker 2: Only every day of my life, buddy.
Speaker 1: You ever walk in and you know, like the vibes off,
Speaker 1: or you wake up and you know, like, how did
Speaker 1: I get on this plane?
Speaker 2: Are we talking about a specific place? This is not
Speaker 2: my beautiful house, nor is this my beautiful life. This is
Speaker 2: a windowless room and I'm tied to a chair with
Speaker 2: a bag over my head. That's a hold on what.
Speaker 1: A non consentually? Yet, this is the true story that
Speaker 1: we explored in twenty nineteen. Here in these United States,
Speaker 1: for now, people accused of crimes are theoretically entitled to
Speaker 1: certain well known legal protections. And if you scope out
Speaker 1: to the globe overall, you'll see things like the Geneva
Speaker 1: Conventions that guarantee certain rights to prisoners of war. However,
Speaker 1: the theory does not always translate to the practice, does it.
Speaker 2: Now, there's some big butts in there, guys.
Speaker 1: Yeah, are we both waiting for that Brazilian Buttlet's.
Speaker 2: Joke, it was there all along.
Speaker 3: Please please do not get a BBL at a black site.
Speaker 2: Don't do it. Yeah, that's a place to do that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, black sites, we're uh, we're laughing by the gallows
Speaker 1: because there is no whistle like a graveyard whistle. Black
Speaker 1: sites are terrible. They're real. They are a violation of
Speaker 1: international law. They are an active conspiracy, both in twenty
Speaker 1: nineteen when we originally recorded this and in twenty twenty
Speaker 1: five as we record today.
Speaker 3: Yeah, call that because they don't exist, right, that's the concept.
Speaker 2: And yikes, where you get disappeared too.
Speaker 1: That's roll the tape from UFOs to psychic powers and
Speaker 1: government conspiracies. History is riddled with unexplained events. You can
Speaker 1: turn back now or learn this stuff. They do want
Speaker 1: you to know. A production of iHeart Radios How Stuff Works.
Speaker 2: Welcome back to the show. My name is Matt, my.
Speaker 3: Name is Nolan.
Speaker 1: They call me Ben, and we are joined as always
Speaker 1: with our super producer, Paul Mission Control Decant. Most importantly,
Speaker 1: you are you. You are here, and that makes this
Speaker 1: stuff they don't want you to know. If you want
Speaker 1: to be a part of the conversation as we delve
Speaker 1: into today's rabbit hole, you don't have to wait till
Speaker 1: the end of the show. You can just give us
Speaker 1: a call directly and then you know, oh, push pause,
Speaker 1: give us a call and then push play.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and make sure your vehicle is not in motion
Speaker 3: and you're not driving.
Speaker 1: Or that you have one of those cool voice activated ones.
Speaker 2: Definitely, and where should they point their telephonic device? Fellas well?
Speaker 3: You type in the numbers one eight three three std
Speaker 3: witk Yeah, give us.
Speaker 1: A call three minutes. Choose your time wisely and let
Speaker 1: us know if you have something that you do not
Speaker 1: want to end up on the air.
Speaker 2: Just please be explicit, you know, you guys here in Atlanta,
Speaker 2: I'm often taken in by these fake rap songs that
Speaker 2: are on the radio that are actually just advertisements for
Speaker 2: like one eight hundred, you know, buy gold or like
Speaker 2: an ambulance chaser type attorney. There's a few of them
Speaker 2: that are really good.
Speaker 1: They're great, and I'll always.
Speaker 2: Like find myself bopping to them, and then I'm like,
Speaker 2: got it, got me again when they drop the call
Speaker 2: to action. You know.
Speaker 1: I like the I Have No Regrets. I like the
Speaker 1: ones of sick verses. And there are a few out
Speaker 1: there actually where you're like, I know this is an ad,
Speaker 1: but it slaps.
Speaker 3: I know.
Speaker 2: There's one called one hundred and forty one one pain nice,
Speaker 2: that's the big one.
Speaker 3: My favorite is uh one eight three three cars for
Speaker 3: kids five seven two four five for kids.
Speaker 1: Boom airhorn. Maybe that's it. Uh Yes, So we recently
Speaker 1: did it episode diving into the strange story of closed cities.
Speaker 1: These are places that in some cases did not or
Speaker 1: do not officially exist.
Speaker 2: Many of them are.
Speaker 1: Radiated, and many of them are Cold War relics located
Speaker 1: in Russia, but not all of them. It's an interesting
Speaker 1: story and it may hit close to home for some
Speaker 1: of our fellow listeners. Today we're looking at something kind
Speaker 1: of related, another sort of invisible place, a place where
Speaker 1: people officially disappear. So here are the facts. First prisons,
Speaker 1: really starting on an up note today, guys, prisons are
Speaker 1: an ugly fact of every nation's existence. And if you
Speaker 1: have ever researched this or done some cursory googling in
Speaker 1: your time on the internet, you have found that some prisons,
Speaker 1: like those in Norway, are held up as models of
Speaker 1: successful rehabilitation. There's a lot of good and bad press
Speaker 1: out there about Norway's prisons. People who consider themselves hard
Speaker 1: on crime will say that Norway is coddling criminals, and
Speaker 1: people who consider themselves. I don't know, maybe more progressive
Speaker 1: or people who have studied recidivism rates will say that
Speaker 1: Norway is enormously successful rehabilitating prisoners. And you know what,
Speaker 1: you can't lie. You can pull up the pictures, you
Speaker 1: can check out the prisons. They are very nice, considering
Speaker 1: that their prisons they don't look like jails or prisons.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and some of the best attorneys in the world
Speaker 2: have come out of Norwegian prisons or they got their degrees.
Speaker 2: I did not know that. Well, well, hanging out in
Speaker 2: bubble baths. It's not true. Oh okay, sorry, I'm still
Speaker 2: back on the lawyer rap tip. But you know, there's
Speaker 2: definitely a broad spectrum of the types of activities and
Speaker 2: things that go on in prisons, Norway possibly being the
Speaker 2: extreme and the positive or you know, if you're hard
Speaker 2: on crime, you can say in the negative.
Speaker 3: But well, yeah, focusing on getting a person who's incarcerated
Speaker 3: back to existing and functioning within normalized society, that's one extreme.
Speaker 2: That's one extreme. Then you have places like South Africa
Speaker 2: where it's kind of just all bets are off. I mean,
Speaker 2: they're absurdly notorious for the types of horrible things that
Speaker 2: go on in there.
Speaker 1: That's correct. The violence, the crime, and the corruption are
Speaker 1: incredibly high. There is a triad of gangs that run
Speaker 1: many of the prisons in South Africa. I believe they're
Speaker 1: the twenty five's, the twenty sixes, and the twenty sevens.
Speaker 1: They are much more sinister than their names would lead
Speaker 1: you to believe. For instance, one of the common punishments
Speaker 1: for someone who has broken the codes or moraise of
Speaker 1: the gang is for someone to This is incredibly graphic,
Speaker 1: it may not be suitable for all listeners. Is for
Speaker 1: someone to be wounded in their anus and then to
Speaker 1: be assaulted by an HIV positive member of the gang.
Speaker 1: That happens in South African prisons. In some cases, the
Speaker 1: prisoners have almost as much power as the staff that
Speaker 1: technically keeps an eye on them. So we have very
Speaker 1: very very very very nice, sometimes called unfairly called Ikea
Speaker 1: prisons in Norway, and then we have very very very
Speaker 1: bad and dangerous places, and the US, depending on who
Speaker 1: you ask, can fall somewhere in between. One thing that's
Speaker 1: no secret is that there are a ton of prisons
Speaker 1: and jails here in these United States.
Speaker 3: Yes, and you're speaking about a ton of different places, right,
Speaker 3: and each of those is its own ecosystem in a
Speaker 3: lot of ways. In the US, we have over seventeen
Speaker 3: hundred state prisons, over one hundred federal prisons, and nine
Speaker 3: hundred and forty two juvenile correctional facilities. But let's keep
Speaker 3: going here, three two and eighty three local jails and
Speaker 3: seventy nine jails that are on indigenous people's reservations.
Speaker 2: And you might be saying to yourself, given the population
Speaker 2: of our country, those numbers actually seem kind of low, Yeah,
Speaker 2: which means severe overcrowding in many of the nation's prisons.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Let's keep in mind this does not count military prisons,
Speaker 1: immigration detention facilities, civil commitment centers, and prisons in the
Speaker 1: many US territories.
Speaker 2: And that's not to say that the kinds of things
Speaker 2: ben that you describe taking place in South African prisons
Speaker 2: don't happen in the United States. Largely due to this overcrowding,
Speaker 2: in New Mexico's State Penitentiary in February of nineteen eighty,
Speaker 2: prison inmates essentially took over the facility and got a
Speaker 2: hold of what you would call snitch files, where folks
Speaker 2: that were actually you know, reporting on you know, illegal activity,
Speaker 2: they end up in these physical files in the prison
Speaker 2: wardens office, and the folks that kind of took over
Speaker 2: the facility found those single those people out and did
Speaker 2: things very much in line with the kinds of tortures
Speaker 2: and punishments that Ben was describing taking place in South Africa,
Speaker 2: involving genital mutilation and you know, hanging from the rafters,
Speaker 2: you know, by their necks and things like that. Just
Speaker 2: absolute unimaginable terror.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And there has been a growing discrepancy between the
Speaker 1: way that prisons in the US are depicted in works
Speaker 1: of fiction versus how day to day life is for
Speaker 1: the inmates and the staff alike. The truth of the
Speaker 1: matter is that conditions at these sites can vary widely,
Speaker 1: sometimes due to issues of funding, and sometimes due to
Speaker 1: the type of crimes a given inmate may be found
Speaker 1: guilty of committeing, for example. There are a lot of
Speaker 1: people who might be in jail for a comparatively short
Speaker 1: amount of time, and some of our fellow listeners may
Speaker 1: had this experience at some point in their lives. In
Speaker 1: some cases, you can also participate in work release programs.
Speaker 1: This means that someone who's convicted of a crime and
Speaker 1: has jail time to serve, can serve that time on
Speaker 1: nights and weekends such that they are able to hopefully
Speaker 1: maintain employment while serving out their sentence, still be a
Speaker 1: part of their local community, and hints be less likely
Speaker 1: to end up back in jail.
Speaker 2: Jeffrey Epstein.
Speaker 1: Jeffrey Epstein did definitely have an extreme version of a
Speaker 1: work release program, and check out episode three on Jeffrey Epstein.
Speaker 1: I think, depending on audience interest, I think we need
Speaker 1: to do an episode four just to look at gislaying
Speaker 1: Maxwell exclusively.
Speaker 2: I would agree with you.
Speaker 1: So what about the other extreme of prisons, like if
Speaker 1: the Epstein's and the white collar criminals of the world
Speaker 1: go to what has sometimes been described as camp fed,
Speaker 1: you know, what's the what's the other the other far
Speaker 1: end of the spectrum.
Speaker 3: Here you're talking about super max facilities.
Speaker 2: And this is.
Speaker 3: It's a it's a different kind of torture. I think
Speaker 3: being alone for long long periods of time. Inmates in
Speaker 3: places that would be considered super max facilities could be
Speaker 3: alone in solitary confinement for a year, more than a
Speaker 3: year years, and then a lot of times when they're
Speaker 3: when they're experiencing that kind of thing, they will get
Speaker 3: some kind of moment to themselves, basically an hour to
Speaker 3: be outside, I mean during a single twenty four hour period.
Speaker 2: I'm not mistaken. There have been changes in the law
Speaker 2: surrounding confinement to solitary, isn't it I mean a little
Speaker 2: bit more regularly than it used to be. Or is
Speaker 2: it still just completely up to the discretion of prison officials,
Speaker 2: because I thought there were some human rights cases that
Speaker 2: sort of prevented just willing la shoving people in solitary
Speaker 2: and throwing away the key.
Speaker 1: In two thousand and twelve, there was a federal class
Speaker 1: action lawsuit against the Bureau of Prisons and people who
Speaker 1: run the ad X shoe or Secure House Security Housing Unit,
Speaker 1: it's the nice name for these prisons. The case was dismissed,
Speaker 1: So no, so that's off. I'm it's enormously controversial. The
Speaker 1: UN has condemned the practice, but the UN writes a
Speaker 1: lot of condemnations without a lot of teeth behind them.
Speaker 1: And supermax is it's a prison within a prison. And
Speaker 1: that thing that you're describing, Matt where they get outside
Speaker 1: time for an hour or whatever, it's pretty depressing, right,
Speaker 1: they're in a different cage outside. Yeah, so we see this,
Speaker 1: We see this huge, this huge discrepancy between some prisons
Speaker 1: or some detention facilities and another. But one thing is
Speaker 1: not up for debate. Going to a point I believe
Speaker 1: you raised earlier, This doesn't sound like a ton of facilities, right,
Speaker 1: given that the population of the United States is in
Speaker 1: the three hundred millions. The US prison population, however, the
Speaker 1: actual people incarcerated is huge. There was a twenty eighteen
Speaker 1: report from the Bureau of Justice Statistics that found, okay,
Speaker 1: the numbers are a little wonky, right, but they found
Speaker 1: almost two point two million people are caught up in
Speaker 1: the system, or as many as almost two point three
Speaker 1: million people, and that came from the end of two
Speaker 1: thousand and sixteen. That means, if we adjust for the
Speaker 1: population of this country, we find a disturbing statistic. For
Speaker 1: every one hundred thousand people residing in the United States,
Speaker 1: approximately six hundred and fifty five are behind bars as
Speaker 1: we speak, for one reason or another. But there's another
Speaker 1: way to think about it. We can get lost in
Speaker 1: these numbers, and I think a proportion is a good
Speaker 1: way to slice the pie. Or let you see the
Speaker 1: larger picture. But we have a good analogy to or
Speaker 1: good comparison would be a better way to say it.
Speaker 2: Yes, so, if the population currently in US prisons was
Speaker 2: the population of one city, it would be a city
Speaker 2: larger than Dallas or Philadelphia, which as we know, are
Speaker 2: pretty populous metro areas. It would in fact be one
Speaker 2: of the ten largest cities in these United States, just
Speaker 2: a little smaller than Houston and a little bigger than Phoenix.
Speaker 1: Staggering numbers. It's also, again, even more disturbing when we
Speaker 1: realize that these numbers do not count hundreds of thousands
Speaker 1: of people currently held in those other facilities, the military,
Speaker 1: the prisons in US territories, the detainment centers for immigrants
Speaker 1: and their children, the.
Speaker 2: Ones that are often much more difficult to even find
Speaker 2: out what those populations look like.
Speaker 3: It's true, But wait, Ben, what if there's even more
Speaker 3: to this story?
Speaker 2: Surely you jest, No, I do not.
Speaker 3: What if there are other facilities, not detainment centers, immigration centers,
Speaker 3: not your standard military prison. What if there's a much
Speaker 3: more secret place where people could be held and are.
Speaker 1: Held, Facilities like those closed cities of the Cold War
Speaker 1: that do not officially exist. Right, places where the normal
Speaker 1: laws do not apply, wherea's talking no real trials, none
Speaker 1: of the normal avenues for parole, probation and so on,
Speaker 1: severe constraints on your rights as an individual. What if
Speaker 1: there are places where, in a very real sense, people disappear.
Speaker 1: What exactly are these so called black sites?
Speaker 3: And we'll get to that right after a quick word
Speaker 3: from our sponsor.
Speaker 1: Here's where it gets crazy. Yes, it's true. This is
Speaker 1: one of the things where we have a conclusive, concrete,
Speaker 1: definitive answer. Black sites did and this is speculative, but
Speaker 1: they probably do still exist, almost certainly.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And to really get a full picture of the
Speaker 2: development of this, we're gonna have to zip back in
Speaker 2: time to that fateful day on September eleventh, two thousand
Speaker 2: and one, when what is officially recognized as a terrorist
Speaker 2: attack in New York City and Washington d C caused
Speaker 2: the Central Intelligence Agency to start to think outside the box,
Speaker 2: outside the existing prison boxes a military situations that were
Speaker 2: already in place, and to really go further and create
Speaker 2: an entire new network of facilities.
Speaker 3: I would say they're looking outside of that system as
Speaker 3: well as the judicial system in general, as well as
Speaker 3: maybe even oversight from the United Nations, and it.
Speaker 2: Takes one of these. It takes something as you know,
Speaker 2: life changing, as earth chattering politically, and just in terms
Speaker 2: of like day to day existence as September eleventh, to
Speaker 2: really cause this kind of sea change where it's like,
Speaker 2: you know, the ends justify the means is sort of
Speaker 2: the order of the day, right.
Speaker 1: The idea here is something that we've encountered in previous
Speaker 1: arguments for torture, which is the ticking time bomb scenario.
Speaker 1: You have an individual that you cannot legally arrest, but
Speaker 1: this individual has knowledge that could help you prevent another
Speaker 1: huge disaster. So you do what's called an extraordinary rendition.
Speaker 1: You move beyond the law. You take them someplace where
Speaker 1: the law does not fully apply. The CIA started looking
Speaker 1: for outside facilities where they could do this. They could
Speaker 1: detain and interrogate people they believed it's a very important distinction,
Speaker 1: people they believed to be high level Al Qaeda suspects.
Speaker 1: These secret prisons, known as black sites, were used by
Speaker 1: the CIA to interrogate the folks they thought were terrorists,
Speaker 1: often using what are called enhanced interrogation by some what
Speaker 1: are called torture techniques by others to obtain intelligence. And
Speaker 1: we know that this program began mere days after the
Speaker 1: events of September eleventh. I mean, you want to dive
Speaker 1: into the history.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we should and can do that, and we're going
Speaker 2: to do that with the help of a UN report
Speaker 2: that was officially titled Report of the Special Reporteur on
Speaker 2: the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms
Speaker 2: while Countering Terrorism by Ben Emerson. Yeah, that's the.
Speaker 1: Uh, that's the guy writing the report.
Speaker 2: This is why they write names like this because people
Speaker 2: have already like tuned out by the time they get
Speaker 2: to Special Reputeur and they're certainly not going to read
Speaker 2: the actual reporter. We will, and we're going to give
Speaker 2: you a little exert here that I think we'll maybe
Speaker 2: do this round robin style. On seventeen September two thousand
Speaker 2: and one, President Bush authorized the CIA to operate a
Speaker 2: secret detention program. It's obviously written by a brick because
Speaker 2: he's spelled program p R O g r MM.
Speaker 1: That's the way. That's the type of English the un US.
Speaker 2: Is that right? Interesting? That makes sense? Okay. A secret
Speaker 2: detention program, which involved the establishment of clandestine detention facilities
Speaker 2: known as quote black sites end quote on the territory
Speaker 2: of other states, with the collaboration of public officials in
Speaker 2: those states, And.
Speaker 3: Just to continue the quote here. At about the same time,
Speaker 3: he George W. Bush allegedly authorized the CIA to carry
Speaker 3: out extraordinary renditions, the secret transfers of prisoners outside any
Speaker 3: lawful process of extradition or expulsion, enabling them to be
Speaker 3: interrogated whilst in the formal custody of the public officials
Speaker 3: of other states, including states with a record of using torture.
Speaker 1: At the beginning of August two thousand and two, the
Speaker 1: Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel purported to authorize a
Speaker 1: range of physical and mental abuse of terrorist suspects known
Speaker 1: as enhanced interrogation techniques. So that's the end of the quote.
Speaker 1: And that's a pretty pretty easy summation there. Now, people
Speaker 1: who support the existence of black sites and the activities
Speaker 1: that took place within these sites will insert one thousand
Speaker 1: footnotes into that single paragraph, right, and we will give
Speaker 1: those We will give those opponents of this ride up there.
Speaker 1: Due However, everything in that paragraph is factual, that all
Speaker 1: actually happened. It has been vetted. We can look at
Speaker 1: examples of what black sites actually are. This iteration of
Speaker 1: black sites. The first one was built in Thailand. It
Speaker 1: was built shortly after the September eleventh attacks.
Speaker 3: That is just surprising to hear. I think of thinking
Speaker 3: of Thailand as being the first place.
Speaker 1: Well, Thailand is not a place that pops up on
Speaker 1: the map in a lot of areas. So, for instance,
Speaker 1: if you suspected the CIA to do something like this,
Speaker 1: one would naturally and rightfully imagine that they would have
Speaker 1: a site that was closer to the fracas, right, but this.
Speaker 2: I would think Saudi Arabia probably sure.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean they would probably just rent one of
Speaker 1: the one Saudi Arabia already has.
Speaker 2: And this is all done with full cooperation from these
Speaker 2: various governments, that is correct.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So wonder what.
Speaker 2: That negotiations like in a favor. Is it saying like,
Speaker 2: how can we do this together and make it mutually agreeable?
Speaker 2: Or is it basically just saying like, this is what's happening.
Speaker 2: We will withhold aid from you if you don't help
Speaker 2: us out. I'm wondering, speculator.
Speaker 1: Well, there's a later on we'll get to an example
Speaker 1: from Poland that has a good blow by blow of
Speaker 1: how this happens. But I suspect it is a case
Speaker 1: by case basis. You know, this is very much a
Speaker 1: situation in which US intelligence is building the car while
Speaker 1: they're driving the car, you know what I mean. So
Speaker 1: back to Thailand, the American officers there repeatedly water boarded
Speaker 1: at least two detainees. This was part of those interrogation
Speaker 1: techniques that the rest of the world, by the way,
Speaker 1: would later call torture. So waterboarding, for anyone who has
Speaker 1: an experience, it may sound relatively tame at first, it's
Speaker 1: a simulation of the experience of drowning. So anybody who
Speaker 1: has been in danger of drowning ever knows that it
Speaker 1: is not a pleasant way to go what happens. And
Speaker 1: there are you know, there are training courses where people
Speaker 1: who will later use those techniques have to experience it
Speaker 1: for themselves because you need to know at what point
Speaker 1: to stop. But here's what happens. You take the victim
Speaker 1: and you have a rag over their mouth and their
Speaker 1: nose important, and then you just continually pour a steady
Speaker 1: consistent amount of water into their mouth and goes through
Speaker 1: the rag.
Speaker 3: While they're laying back or sometimes even at a lower
Speaker 3: angle than.
Speaker 1: Just while their feet are elevated above their head. Yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: and you know usually on like a plank. Right. And
Speaker 1: while that sounds tame because you could say, well, they're
Speaker 1: not beating the snot out of people, They're not breaking
Speaker 1: fingers or collecting fingernails or teeth or whatever. This this
Speaker 1: is a incredibly from experience. This is an incredibly unpleasant thing.
Speaker 1: I was not waterboarded by government agency, but it is
Speaker 1: an extremely unpleasant experience. And more importantly, it is one
Speaker 1: that can be repeated ad nauseum, so you can keep
Speaker 1: drowning people, bringing them back, asking them to confess to something,
Speaker 1: and then just almost drowning them again.
Speaker 2: It's like death simulation. I mean, you know the things
Speaker 2: that kick in in situations like that are terror and
Speaker 2: anxiety and panic and just utter, you know, like not
Speaker 2: feeling safe in any way.
Speaker 3: I think you hit it right on the head when
Speaker 3: you use the t word terror being inflicted then on
Speaker 3: someone you know, perhaps suspected of being a terrorist, because
Speaker 3: you know, it's it's exactly what you're saying. You're simulating drowning, right,
Speaker 3: but it's it's like the most advance DAN flight simulator
Speaker 3: that's ever existed. If you're thinking about it as a
Speaker 3: one to one to flying to drowning, because your body
Speaker 3: experiences and ben you know this exactly physically, exactly what
Speaker 3: it would do if it were drowning.
Speaker 2: I need is a bucket and a rag a table.
Speaker 1: It's also sometimes called dry drowning, which I think is
Speaker 1: a more sinister phrase there. It can cause some serious
Speaker 1: physical damage, even if a person does not die while
Speaker 1: this is happening. And to be fair on the side
Speaker 1: of people who support this interrogation technique, it is described
Speaker 1: as something that the people administering it have received extensive
Speaker 1: training and such that they're not going to accidentally keep
Speaker 1: someone asphyxiated for too long. All in all, there were
Speaker 1: ten CIA prisoners that we know of who were arrested
Speaker 1: or held on the soil of Thailands before being transferred
Speaker 1: to Guantanamo Bay, which we all knew would show up
Speaker 1: at least partially in this episode. Guantanamo Bay is located
Speaker 1: on the island of Cuba, and these folks were transferred
Speaker 1: without any kind of due process or hearing. That's according
Speaker 1: to a report by the Open Society Justice Initiative from
Speaker 1: twenty thirteen. Funny story about this. It is the worst
Speaker 1: kept secret in Thailand. There have been successive members of
Speaker 1: the Thai government in the military in the years following this,
Speaker 1: and one thing they all have in common is they
Speaker 1: have all denied that this ever happened, that there was
Speaker 1: a black site. It's all a big misunderstanding. These are
Speaker 1: not the droids you're looking for. These prisons were not
Speaker 1: just in Thailand. They were initially located in at least
Speaker 1: eight different countries. They were classified, and they were so
Speaker 1: classified that inform on each one was known only to
Speaker 1: the President, a few other US officials, and the people
Speaker 1: doing the dirty work.
Speaker 3: And you know, there were a lot of problems. Pretty
Speaker 3: obviously on the face of these kinds of things, now
Speaker 3: I would have seen that kind of well, yeah, but
Speaker 3: a lot of these problems started to show up pretty
Speaker 3: quickly after these sites were established.
Speaker 2: Yeah, at least twenty six people were held due to
Speaker 2: cases of mistaken identity.
Speaker 3: There are a couple great documentaries around surrounding this. Something
Speaker 3: about the taxi. I can't remember the name of it,
Speaker 3: but there's a fantastic documentary that came out in the
Speaker 3: mid two thousands about a taxi driver that just ended
Speaker 3: up at Guantanomo crazy.
Speaker 2: That's the thing. If you're there due to a case
Speaker 2: of mistaken identity and you have no recourse to getting
Speaker 2: you know, your case heard and proving that you're not
Speaker 2: this person, at that point you just become like collateral
Speaker 2: damage of the system and you're just stuck, like what
Speaker 2: do you do? It gives me a panic attacks thinking
Speaker 2: about it.
Speaker 1: Also, add to that the language barrier. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: these many of these interrogators would have a translator of
Speaker 1: some sort, but the interrogators themselves were often not fluent
Speaker 1: in the language spoken by the people being detained. So yes,
Speaker 1: at least twenty six people, at least twenty six people
Speaker 1: were totally not supposed to be there. Their name just
Speaker 1: sounded similar, or there was a vague description, or they
Speaker 1: were turned over when reporting suspected terrorists became incentivized, which
Speaker 1: is a different problem. Second thing that cropped up almost immediately,
Speaker 1: the CIA gets caught line to Uncle Sam along with
Speaker 1: some other members of the CIA who had a problem
Speaker 1: with this. Because again, although it's tempting and it's easy
Speaker 1: and cognitively delicious to think these are monolithic entities, they
Speaker 1: are not. There are people within there are wheels within wheels,
Speaker 1: there are people competing for the same positions. There's a
Speaker 1: left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing.
Speaker 1: Kind of situation that crops up. And that's what compartmentalized
Speaker 1: intelligence is all about. So, according to The Washington Post,
Speaker 1: in at least one case, an internal CIA memo relays
Speaker 1: instructions from the White House to keep the program secret
Speaker 1: from the Secretary of State, the guy whose job is
Speaker 1: literally to know what's going on here. That was then
Speaker 1: Secretary of State Colin Powell, and they wanted to keep
Speaker 1: it a secret from him out of concern that he
Speaker 1: would quote blow his stack if he were to be
Speaker 1: briefed on what's going on.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 3: Wow, the guy that was, you know, giving a hearing
Speaker 3: in Congress showing the yellow cake.
Speaker 2: He's the guy who you're like, yeah, we can't let
Speaker 2: him know about this.
Speaker 1: He got misled several times. Ye, he did in his career.
Speaker 2: So of one hundred and nineteen known suspects who were held,
Speaker 2: thirty nine of them were subjected to this. Well, this
Speaker 2: story is full of these absurd terms, sort of these
Speaker 2: sanitized versions of the same idea. Enhanced interrogation was that
Speaker 2: a Cheney thing. That was a Cheney thing.
Speaker 3: I feel like the I think it was the lawyer
Speaker 3: who his name escapes you maybe yeah, no, oh ye
Speaker 3: not you, yoh yes.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: The thing is these these these are like any other buzzwords.
Speaker 1: Often the original author of the buzzword is not going
Speaker 1: to be super jazzed about it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, it's true. But these techniques referred to pretty
Speaker 2: controversially as enhanced interrogation, were used, and we'll get into
Speaker 2: more on that in just a bit. But some of
Speaker 2: these things included being slapped and this concept of wall
Speaker 2: which is new to me, and that's when people were
Speaker 2: slammed against walls, along with of course waterboarding and sleep deprivation.
Speaker 2: And you know, we've seen some of these photos with
Speaker 2: the Forest Unity from the Abou Gray prison where folks
Speaker 2: were forced to stand on buckets for extended periods of
Speaker 2: time with like bags over their heads and completely strip naked.
Speaker 2: It's just a lot of it comes down to humiliation
Speaker 2: as well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and at times, these this stuff included even more
Speaker 1: egregious acts. There were incidents of physical view, sexual assaults,
Speaker 1: threat I believe the photos you're referring to specifically feature
Speaker 1: people being threatened with military dogs. The thing about these
Speaker 1: techniques is they were chosen on purpose because they could
Speaker 1: be applied repeatedly for days or weeks at a stretch.
Speaker 1: And I just want to confirm off air. We checked
Speaker 1: back to this to make sure that we were correct.
Speaker 1: It was John You John chune U, an attorney, law professor,
Speaker 1: former government official. He was the author of the so
Speaker 1: called torture Memos, in which the phrase enhanced interrogation. As
Speaker 1: you might assume, shows up quite often. Seven of the
Speaker 1: people subjected to these techniques produced no intelligence whatsoever. What
Speaker 1: do we mean when we say they produced no intelligence whatsoever?
Speaker 1: We mean that they didn't even produce incorrect intelligence. They
Speaker 1: didn't even panic and say, well, maybe that guy I
Speaker 1: went to college with, maybe he's the one you're looking for.
Speaker 3: Or yeah, I'll say anything you want me to, just
Speaker 3: please stop drowning me.
Speaker 1: And at least three were confirmed to be subjected to waterboarding.
Speaker 1: We know about the two in Thailand. There's one other,
Speaker 1: but there are many, many more reports. A little bit
Speaker 1: earlier in the show, we mentioned that we had a
Speaker 1: specific example that gives us a look at the money
Speaker 1: and the operation. In the Blow by Blow Day by
Speaker 1: day operation involved let's pause for a word from our sponsor,
Speaker 1: and then let's travel to Poland.
Speaker 3: Okay, so we're back and we are now in Poland.
Speaker 3: You probably didn't expect to head that.
Speaker 2: Way, no episode.
Speaker 1: No one expects to go to Poland.
Speaker 3: I know, well except for that Germany went there one time,
Speaker 3: if I recall.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I mean nowadays, no one expects to go
Speaker 1: to Poland.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but it is interesting that we ended up there
Speaker 3: with one of these black sites. It was one of
Speaker 3: the first and the probably the most important European black site.
Speaker 3: It was it was there in Poland. The CIA made
Speaker 3: a fifteen million dollar deal with their intelligence agencies, their
Speaker 3: intelligence structure there to build the site, and they called
Speaker 3: it Quartz, or at least they referred to it as
Speaker 3: quartz Quartz.
Speaker 1: Yes, the accommodations wors were not on the level of
Speaker 1: a Norwegian prison. Instead, they could only hold a handful
Speaker 1: of detainees. There was very, very sparse accommodation. There was
Speaker 1: a shed behind the house that was also converted to
Speaker 1: a cell. Now if this sounds a little bit clandestine,
Speaker 1: it's because it was, you know, the biggest, the biggest
Speaker 1: task robstacle in front of the Polish and American authorities
Speaker 1: was to make sure that this remained the stuff. They
Speaker 1: don't want you to know very much. They wanted people
Speaker 1: to think this was just a villa, right and if
Speaker 1: someone were to look, say via satellite, and want it
Speaker 1: to be too obvious that this was an illegal jail
Speaker 1: prison torture chamber that did not officially exist. There was
Speaker 1: one room where detainees could ride a stationary bike or
Speaker 1: use a treadmill if they cooperated. We do know that
Speaker 1: despite the p problems, despite the injustices evolved, the system
Speaker 1: kept growing. It went global, it became an international franchise.
Speaker 1: At least fifty prisons have been used to hold detainees
Speaker 1: in over twenty well in twenty eight countries. And that's
Speaker 1: in addition to twenty five more prisons in Afghanistan, twenty
Speaker 1: in Iraq. There's also there's also this story, in this rumor,
Speaker 1: in this allegation of floating prisons, which I thought was
Speaker 1: incredibly devious and brutally clever.
Speaker 2: And it's estimated that the US had seventeen of those
Speaker 2: starting from two thousand and one, which brings the total
Speaker 2: estimated number of prisons operated by the US and our
Speaker 2: allies in order to house alleged terraces since two thousand
Speaker 2: and one to more than one hundred and other countries
Speaker 2: that held suspects on behalf of the US included.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna caution, let's try not to do the Animaniacs.
Speaker 2: So yeah, it's a lot long list. It's a lot
Speaker 2: we got and I can't do it. Algeria, Azerbaijan, Bosniah,
Speaker 2: Didjibuti Djibouti, Yes, that's the Dasylam, Egypt, Ethiopia, Gambia, Israel, Jordan, Kenya, Kosovo, Libya, Lithuania, Mauritania, Morocco, Pakistan, Poland, Katar, Romania,
Speaker 2: Saudi Arabia, Syria, Somalia, South Africa, Thailand, United Kingdom, Uzbekistan, Yemen,
Speaker 2: and Zambia.
Speaker 1: And according to the Human Rights Watch, the US held
Speaker 1: detainees from many different countries around the world, twenty one
Speaker 1: in all, including some that will be easily recognizable and
Speaker 1: some that might be a little bit surprising. So detainees
Speaker 1: from Algeria, Egypt, India, Iran, Iraq, Gaza in the West Bank, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Malaysia, Oman,
Speaker 1: Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Sweden, Tunisia, Turkey, Ukraine, the UK,
Speaker 1: and Yemen.
Speaker 3: Including a guy named Kelli Sheik Muhammad, the you know,
Speaker 3: the quote mastermind of nine to eleven, outside of Osama
Speaker 3: bin Laden, of course, but he was held in that
Speaker 3: Poland spot for quite a while there where he was
Speaker 3: waterboarded and all the he was enhancedly interrogated. Then he
Speaker 3: was moved several times to different places. But it's interesting
Speaker 3: too to think that someone of such a considered to
Speaker 3: be such a high level target would be kept in
Speaker 3: that two story villa in Poland, just hidden somewhere.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I'm sure the security was I'm sure it was robust, Yeah,
Speaker 1: but it wasn't enough. In several of these black sites,
Speaker 1: the detainees were you know, they had been tortured for
Speaker 1: whatever information they were perceived to have, and then they
Speaker 1: were shipped to a place that was deemed more secure
Speaker 1: or at least marginally more legal. And that is where
Speaker 1: Guantanamo Bay comes into play. Guantanamo or GITMO as it's
Speaker 1: been called before, is not exactly the same as a
Speaker 1: black site because it was not purposefully built for secret detention.
Speaker 1: In the wake of nine to eleven Guantanamo Bay as
Speaker 1: a US possession, has been around for a long time,
Speaker 1: and it has a strange history because it's on Guantanamo
Speaker 1: Bay Naval Base, right, and it's been there in some
Speaker 1: form since nineteenh three. So even when the US and
Speaker 1: Cuba have very antagonistic relationships or you know, interactions, Guantanamo
Speaker 1: Bay is still around and has stood the test of time.
Speaker 1: So it does have this in common with Black sites.
Speaker 1: Detainees from these secret sites were sent to Guantanamo Bay,
Speaker 1: and they were also subjected to enhanced interrogation techniques there
Speaker 1: with some real psychologically disturbing torture as well. They tried
Speaker 1: to get into not just physically threaten people, but also
Speaker 1: get into their heads and humiliate them.
Speaker 3: Yeah. There's a two thousand and five report that was
Speaker 3: presented to the Senate Armed Services Committee, I guess, and
Speaker 3: it detailed the interrogation of one man who was considered
Speaker 3: the twentieth hijacker in the nine to eleven attacks. His
Speaker 3: name was Mohammed al Katani. Might remember his name from
Speaker 3: news reports over the years. He was supposedly forced to
Speaker 3: wear a bra to dance with a man and do
Speaker 3: what we're called dog tricks. While tied to.
Speaker 1: A leash, set laid down, Yeah, rollover.
Speaker 3: So very much, just breaking him down essentially psychologically. But
Speaker 3: military investigators said this was not considered something that was
Speaker 3: prohibited and they did not consider it inhumane treatment either.
Speaker 2: I kind of wonder, like, do you think there's a
Speaker 2: committee that comes up with this stuff or is it
Speaker 2: just sort of like improv do you mean the torture? Yeah,
Speaker 2: Like that's so specific.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: It's like like like, do do you think it was
Speaker 2: like the guards or like the interrogators that come up
Speaker 2: with this or is there some higher level like committee
Speaker 2: or board that comes up with quote unquote acceptable humane forms,
Speaker 2: Because obviously waterboardings will go to because it's not going
Speaker 2: to kill them, it's considered maybe less problematic than like
Speaker 2: attaching electrodes to somebody in a car battery, you know,
Speaker 2: but like it's definitely still pretty rough. But I'm wondering,
Speaker 2: like where do these go to tortures come from?
Speaker 1: Like it's definitely not improvised, Yeah, yeah, I.
Speaker 2: Mean I don't think so either, But I'm wondering where,
Speaker 2: like if there's a committee that there's specific job is
Speaker 2: to come up with this stuff in some you know
Speaker 2: darkened room.
Speaker 1: Well, a lot of these techniques have stood the test
Speaker 1: of time. It's not for nothing that people decide to
Speaker 1: pursue the similar taking of physical or mental stress. I
Speaker 1: would draw everyone's attention to earlier published memos and pamphlets
Speaker 1: from the CIA in that were put out in South
Speaker 1: American countries and Central American countries that were meant to
Speaker 1: educate people on how to be insurgents and meant to
Speaker 1: give you some information about how to torture someone without
Speaker 1: killing them, because the thing is you want to get
Speaker 1: them right to the line right. There are some things
Speaker 1: that are so messed up they sound like they occur
Speaker 1: in fiction, but there are real cases. For instance, if
Speaker 1: you read some of this stuff where someone who is
Speaker 1: going to torture a detainee right will say whether for
Speaker 1: this government or another government. They'll walk in and they'll
Speaker 1: be your friend on a chat with you and make
Speaker 1: sure you're hungry, you need anything, you like sprite? I
Speaker 1: heard you like spit. Let's get this guy sprite. And
Speaker 1: then they'll have a conversation like, okay, look there's some
Speaker 1: stuff that we think you know. We know you know it,
Speaker 1: and we want you to tell us, but to me.
Speaker 1: It doesn't matter what you say. You and I are
Speaker 1: going to be quite close. Check this out. And then
Speaker 1: when they say check this out, they will harm themselves
Speaker 1: in front of the person, you know, like cut their
Speaker 1: arm such that it bleeds copiously, but not you know, lethally,
Speaker 1: not a north to south kind of cut, just like
Speaker 1: floah vertical cut like that with their arm hanging out
Speaker 1: of kimbo. And then they'll hold it there and like,
Speaker 1: I just did this to myself, What do you think
Speaker 1: I'm going to do to you? That kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: You're not physically hurting the person, but you're in their
Speaker 1: head and that thing. While it sounds like a complete
Speaker 1: malarkey written by a screenwriter somewhere, that has happened before,
Speaker 1: and people do that because it works. So all this stuff,
Speaker 1: in answer to your question is not is largely not improvised.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And it's also one of the things where it's like,
Speaker 2: to the subject being on the receiving end of said torture,
Speaker 2: they're like, go back to being nice again. Whatever I
Speaker 2: have to do to get you back to where you were,
Speaker 2: where you were giving me a sprite, you know and
Speaker 2: being my friend, I'll do that. You know it Literally,
Speaker 2: it's like you're showing this juxtaposition. You're like you're baiting
Speaker 2: and switching, and then you're like whatever it takes to
Speaker 2: get back to that first version of you, you know.
Speaker 3: So let's jump back here in time. We were talking
Speaker 3: about that two thousand and five report that went to
Speaker 3: the Senate Armed Services Committee, and then the next year,
Speaker 3: in September of two thousand and six, the president at
Speaker 3: the time, George W. Bush, acknowledged that the CIA had
Speaker 3: indeed held suspected terrorists in these places, these secret prisons
Speaker 3: overseas in different countries. He also announced the transfer of
Speaker 3: fourteen specific captured al Qaeda operatives. Again, like you're just
Speaker 3: kind of he's just announcing this to the public, like
Speaker 3: we just say, okay, those must be al Qaeda operatives,
Speaker 3: but he's saying fourteen captured Alkayeda operatives who were being transferred,
Speaker 3: including Mohammad bin al shib and Abu Zubaya to Guantanamo Bay.
Speaker 3: So two thousand and six is when the President of
Speaker 3: the United States says, yes, indeed, we are keeping people
Speaker 3: in these secret places, and we're shipping people now to Guantanamo.
Speaker 1: And there's been a lot of work leading up to
Speaker 1: this as well. There's some fantastic, i would say, heroic
Speaker 1: journalists such as Dana Priest, who did a lot of
Speaker 1: work for the Washington Post on this subject. So when
Speaker 1: it was confirmed by the then president, it was already
Speaker 1: something that was widely suspected or even already considered to
Speaker 1: be true by people a little more on the fringes
Speaker 1: of the national and international conversation. Let's fast forward twenty eighteen.
Speaker 1: As you may know, neither the naval base nor the
Speaker 1: detention center are closed. Posed last year January thirtieth, President
Speaker 1: Donald Trump signed an executive order to keep the detention
Speaker 1: center open and also to approve the transfer potential new
Speaker 1: prisoners to the site. So not only is it not closed,
Speaker 1: it might actually grow. There was a well, they're having
Speaker 1: a series of legal challenges to this because these people
Speaker 1: are often, you know, they're not experiencing due process. There
Speaker 1: have been people who have been held for years and
Speaker 1: turned out that they were completely the wrong person. Right.
Speaker 1: In June of this year, twenty nineteen, the Supreme Court
Speaker 1: of the US rejected a challenge to the indefinite detention
Speaker 1: of Guantanamo Bay detainees who have yet to be charged
Speaker 1: imagine being detained indefinitely, no charges brought against you for
Speaker 1: almost twenty years. Twenty years, that's how that's how long
Speaker 1: ago this was.
Speaker 3: Now it's basically saying we have enough evidence, like this
Speaker 3: is what you have to imagine the authorities saying to you,
Speaker 3: as the individual, we feel as though we have enough
Speaker 3: evidence to convince us that you were definitely a heinous
Speaker 3: person who has done heinous things or is plenty to
Speaker 3: do heinous things, But we don't have enough evidence to
Speaker 3: you know, take you to trial anywhere, or we don't
Speaker 3: have a place in which we can try you for
Speaker 3: these crimes.
Speaker 2: I mean, it reminds me of the way they used
Speaker 2: to just be able to, like, you know, a king
Speaker 2: back in the dark ages could just throw somebody in
Speaker 2: the dungeon, you know, and throw away the key, with
Speaker 2: no trial, no due process, and they wouldn't even have
Speaker 2: known what they have done.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: Think of the abuses that are likely inherent in this system.
Speaker 2: You know, people with a grudge, or people where someone
Speaker 2: maybe has some dirt, who knows. I mean, you know,
Speaker 2: I'm not trying it on. I mean, I think it's
Speaker 2: certainly what I'm saying is when you when you lack accountability,
Speaker 2: corruption tends to run free.
Speaker 4: Well.
Speaker 3: And the other thing is just how how human beings,
Speaker 3: through the legal eese and the manipulation of the law,
Speaker 3: are categorized. We've talked about this before on this show,
Speaker 3: but the concept of I believe it was during the
Speaker 3: Barack Obama's presidency where I think it was under his watch,
Speaker 3: where males of a fighting age in any country where
Speaker 3: the United States is engaged militarily are considered an enemy combatants. Right. Yeah,
Speaker 3: that means if you are within that age range and
Speaker 3: you are a male, then you could.
Speaker 2: Just be at a black site.
Speaker 1: The assumption is right. This is fascinating in a terrible,
Speaker 1: terrible way. We do have to also, again to be fair,
Speaker 1: we have to point out that because some of these
Speaker 1: people were victims of mistaken identity, because some of these
Speaker 1: people were accused of crimes that they did not commit,
Speaker 1: it does not mean that everyone there was innocent.
Speaker 2: Absolutely. That's why it's so difficult.
Speaker 1: Right, And of the fifty four countries that the Open
Speaker 1: Society that we mentioned at the top of the show,
Speaker 1: the fifty four countries that Open Society confirmed is having captured, held, question, tortured,
Speaker 1: or helped transport these detainees for the CIA, Fewer than
Speaker 1: half of them have opened any kind of domestic inquiry
Speaker 1: or had any court cases challenging their involvement. Means, in
Speaker 1: a very real sense, this stuff continues to officially not exist.
Speaker 1: But here is the ultimate question. Did these black sites
Speaker 1: and the interrogations performed within actually produce results? Plot twist
Speaker 1: spoiler alert. The CIA believes so, in case that was
Speaker 1: a big Shamalan moment for anyone.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they, I mean, they almost kind of have to
Speaker 3: believe so. And we have a quote here from the
Speaker 3: CIA Director John Brennan, or at the time CIA Director
Speaker 3: John Brennan.
Speaker 2: He gave this official statement. Our review indicates that interrogation
Speaker 2: of detainees on whom enhanced interrogation techniques were used, did
Speaker 2: produce intelligence that helped thwart attack plans, capture terrorists, and
Speaker 2: saved lives. The intelligence gained from the program was critical
Speaker 2: to our understanding of al Qaeda and continues to inform
Speaker 2: our counter terrorism efforts to this day. Congress, this is
Speaker 2: out of the quote. On the other hand, did not agree.
Speaker 1: Right right, So for many of us listening, or at
Speaker 1: least a few of us listening, This feels like an ugly,
Speaker 1: ugly reality, you know what I mean. War is a
Speaker 1: brutal thing. And when we are when we're in that
Speaker 1: hypothetical situation where doing something abominable to one person may
Speaker 1: save hundreds of thousands, we're very close to that needs
Speaker 1: of the many outnumber the needs of the few kind
Speaker 1: of cold logic argument.
Speaker 3: Right, well, what if those numbers are are just towards
Speaker 3: or do terrible things to one person and save ten.
Speaker 1: Right, even then the ratio still holds your safe. You're
Speaker 1: creating more net good by doing a little bit of evil.
Speaker 1: And the problem with that kind of experiment is that
Speaker 1: it is very very rare for someone to know with
Speaker 1: certitude that their activities prevented a disaster or a catastrophe,
Speaker 1: because by preventing it, it's never happened, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, It's kind.
Speaker 1: Of like the psychic prediction problem where someone says, oh,
Speaker 1: I have a premonition, Paul, mission controlled decand do not
Speaker 1: take do not take your car to I don't know
Speaker 1: and to a trip on Thanksgiving or something, because there
Speaker 1: will be an accident. So maybe they just go a
Speaker 1: different route and nothing happens. You know what, I mean, yeah,
Speaker 1: or take a flight, or take a flight and nothing weapons.
Speaker 1: So amongst the people who disagreed with that stance, amongst
Speaker 1: the people who disagreed with the CIA's pro interrogation, pro
Speaker 1: black site stance were members of Congress. Actually just Congress
Speaker 1: disagree because one thing Congress used to really have a
Speaker 1: problem with was being lied to. In their December ninth,
Speaker 1: twenty fourteen report, which was called the Committee's Study of
Speaker 1: the Central Intelligence Agencies Detention and Interrogation Program. Again you
Speaker 1: have to love the sexy titles, they found twenty different
Speaker 1: findings that were published where they took the CIA to task.
Speaker 1: They deemed the activities legal. They said, A, this doesn't work.
Speaker 1: B stop lying, and it went on and on. The
Speaker 1: weird thing about the report is that it is six
Speaker 1: thousand pages long. Five hundred and twenty five of those
Speaker 1: pages were declassified along with an executive summary, which is
Speaker 1: where most people got the facts. Right now, we do
Speaker 1: have an answer to the original question. We do know
Speaker 1: the black sites did exist. They were highly illegal. Despite
Speaker 1: the arguments made in court right and despite the clear
Speaker 1: illegality as espoused by members of the legislative branch, it
Speaker 1: appears the judicial branch of this government is stonewalling at
Speaker 1: different turns, right, and they're saying, well, again, it's ugly,
Speaker 1: but it's a special case. We have to protect the many,
Speaker 1: and we don't know if there are other black sites
Speaker 1: out there.
Speaker 3: It feels like one of those terrible, dark truths ugly
Speaker 3: secrets that almost oh, it's so weird because on this end,
Speaker 3: you know, as American citizens sitting in this room, in
Speaker 3: the privilege that we have just by existing in this country,
Speaker 3: it feels, in this really messed up way good to
Speaker 3: know that this kind of thing is out there to
Speaker 3: ostensibly protect us here in this country, right, And I
Speaker 3: think we have to acknowledge that there's like a there's
Speaker 3: a weird sense of like, okay, well, at least at
Speaker 3: least it's our my people, our people, our side, the
Speaker 3: good guy is doing this thing.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: Those are all like subjective terms to put on the
Speaker 3: American authorities, But I wonder what that feels like, what
Speaker 3: it truly feels like inside from let's say, a Polish
Speaker 3: citizen who finds out that there is a black site
Speaker 3: in their country where this kind of thing is being
Speaker 3: carried out on their soil.
Speaker 2: Well, I guess that all depends on how much benefit
Speaker 2: they feel like they're getting from their relationship with the
Speaker 2: United States, which varies from country to country and those arrangements, right,
Speaker 2: I don't know, like that, like the whole thing with
Speaker 2: Trump supposed to withholding aid from Ukraine in that situation,
Speaker 2: Ukraine really needed that aid. So there's a quid pro quote.
Speaker 2: I mean, not to throw around the buzz term of
Speaker 2: the moment, but there is an absolute benefit as a
Speaker 2: country where you say, oh, Okay, the US is giving
Speaker 2: us this military aid. Therefore maybe we'll turn the other
Speaker 2: cheek or you know, well we'll turn the other way
Speaker 2: if we think they're doing some nefarious stuff on our
Speaker 2: turf because we feel like they're actually actively helping us
Speaker 2: and having better lives.
Speaker 3: Sure, I don't think it could. I don't think it
Speaker 3: could occur without some kind of pretty heavy incentive like that.
Speaker 2: It's just to your point that you're thinking, like, how
Speaker 2: the average citizen, how do they feel about it? Well, yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean you're talking.
Speaker 3: I mean we listed off the number of places where
Speaker 3: these black sites existed. In a lot of them, you
Speaker 3: can imagine the citizens of those countries being at risk
Speaker 3: of ending up and you know, it would be a
Speaker 3: very small proportion of the citizens and almost not making
Speaker 3: you know, wouldn't even be a blip on a calculator.
Speaker 2: It's just I don't know.
Speaker 3: To me, I'm interested in the mindset of just somebody
Speaker 3: knowing that's happening, because it's very it.
Speaker 2: Feels even though even though sitting in.
Speaker 3: This room as an American citizen, it kind of feels
Speaker 3: not okay, but like I'm not scared about it.
Speaker 1: Oh right, because you probably won't get black backed for now.
Speaker 1: For now. Yeah, that's I mean, that's a very good
Speaker 1: point because we know in our previous episode it is
Speaker 1: completely possible for people to lose or hide entire cities
Speaker 1: with populations of thousands. So having a small area where
Speaker 1: you have a handful or at the most hundreds of
Speaker 1: detainees who have been disappeared, it's so disturbingly plausible that
Speaker 1: that could happen, could be happening now, and there would
Speaker 1: be no proof, and maybe the people who live in
Speaker 1: the next town or village over just have have been
Speaker 1: have been given to understand that no one goes near
Speaker 1: the old dairy factory, you.
Speaker 2: Know what I mean.
Speaker 1: And that's all it takes yep, that's all it takes.
Speaker 1: And this leads us to the question that we cannot
Speaker 1: really answer. Will this happen in the future. Have these
Speaker 1: black sites actually closed or have they just moved further
Speaker 1: from the public eye. If that is the case, then
Speaker 1: these locations remain the stuff they don't want you to know.
Speaker 1: And that's our classic episode for this evening. We can't
Speaker 1: wait to hear your thoughts.
Speaker 2: It's right let us know what you think. You can reach.
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Speaker 3: Stuff they don't want you to know is a production
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