WEBVTT - It Could Happen Here Weekly 123 0:00:02.160 --> 0:00:02.880 Zone Media. 0:00:03.400 --> 0:00:05.800 Hey everybody, Robert Evans here and I wanted to let 0:00:05.880 --> 0:00:09.480 you know this is a compilation episode. So every episode 0:00:09.640 --> 0:00:12.559 of the week that just happened is here in one 0:00:12.640 --> 0:00:16.400 convenient and with somewhat less ads package for you to 0:00:16.440 --> 0:00:18.880 listen to in a long stretch if you want. If 0:00:18.920 --> 0:00:20.840 you've been listening to the episodes every day this week, 0:00:20.880 --> 0:00:22.639 there's going to be nothing new here for you, but 0:00:23.000 --> 0:00:24.720 you can make your own decisions. 0:00:27.320 --> 0:00:31.320 Get ready for anarchy in Atlanta. 0:00:32.240 --> 0:00:36.240 You got to or you won't be arend anarchists start work. 0:00:37.200 --> 0:00:39.320 They struck again this week. 0:00:40.600 --> 0:00:48.239 Cops are approaching now. 0:00:46.520 --> 0:00:47.680 Obviously got a flashbawn. 0:00:48.440 --> 0:00:52.640 This is it could happen here. I'm Garrison Davis. For 0:00:52.760 --> 0:00:55.680 the past three years, a wide range of people in Atlanta, 0:00:55.720 --> 0:00:58.200 Georgia have been working to prevent the construction of a 0:00:58.280 --> 0:01:01.800 now one hundred and ten million million dollar militarized police 0:01:01.840 --> 0:01:05.560 training facility in the South River Forest in southeast Atlanta. 0:01:06.360 --> 0:01:09.399 I've continuously covered the evolving struggle on it Could Happen 0:01:09.440 --> 0:01:10.920 Here for the past few years. 0:01:11.000 --> 0:01:11.240 Now. 0:01:11.959 --> 0:01:14.560 In this episode, I will attempt to summarize some of 0:01:14.600 --> 0:01:17.560 the actions from the past six months and the wave 0:01:17.640 --> 0:01:21.400 of recent repression targeted against the movement. I will also 0:01:21.520 --> 0:01:24.840 offer some analysis and critique on behalf of anonymous Force 0:01:24.880 --> 0:01:29.480 defenders who spoke with me in dedicated conversations. After the 0:01:29.560 --> 0:01:32.280 last week of action in summer of twenty twenty three, 0:01:32.480 --> 0:01:34.760 it was clear the movement needed a new way of 0:01:34.800 --> 0:01:37.960 people to engage in the struggle against Cop City. Beyond 0:01:38.000 --> 0:01:42.840 the referendum and the occasional nighttime sabotage. Forest encampments were 0:01:42.920 --> 0:01:47.560 essentially impossible, and the weeks of action seemed to expunge 0:01:47.600 --> 0:01:52.120 their usefulness. A small group of people began organizing what 0:01:52.200 --> 0:01:56.520 would become known as block cop City. The idea was 0:01:56.560 --> 0:02:00.360 that on Monday, November thirteenth, a mass mobilization would descend 0:02:00.440 --> 0:02:03.240 upon the Cop City construction site in an act of 0:02:03.440 --> 0:02:07.880 non violent protest, and perhaps planted tree saplings where the 0:02:07.920 --> 0:02:12.240 forest once stood. This marks the first time that the 0:02:12.240 --> 0:02:16.560 framing of quote unquote strategic nonviolence and nonviolent direct action 0:02:16.960 --> 0:02:20.080 were embraced for a mass action like this, hoping that 0:02:20.120 --> 0:02:23.600 it may attract NGOs and activist groups to co sign 0:02:23.720 --> 0:02:28.600 onto the action. Historically, throughout this struggle, such quote unquote 0:02:28.680 --> 0:02:32.720 non violent framing was at least avoided if not explicitly 0:02:32.800 --> 0:02:37.120 rejected as a limiting restriction toward achieving measurable victories against 0:02:37.280 --> 0:02:42.000 the Atlanta Police Foundation and cop City contractors. Throughout the 0:02:42.120 --> 0:02:44.520 end of summer and the start of fall, a speaking 0:02:44.560 --> 0:02:47.440 tour for block cup City traveled to over eighty cities 0:02:47.480 --> 0:02:50.320 around the country to promote the action and recruit people 0:02:50.360 --> 0:02:54.080 to travel to Atlanta come November. Block cup City started 0:02:54.120 --> 0:02:58.040 as a very vertical, top down plan. The central conceit 0:02:58.160 --> 0:03:01.000 was decided upon by a small number of individuals, many 0:03:01.040 --> 0:03:03.880 of whom were not from Atlanta, and the finer details 0:03:03.880 --> 0:03:06.079 would be worked out in a series of public meetings 0:03:06.360 --> 0:03:09.840 in the days before the action. Whether or not local 0:03:09.880 --> 0:03:13.880 force defenders liked or disliked the proposal, block op City 0:03:13.919 --> 0:03:17.680 acted as a gravity well, sucking nearly all of the energy, time, 0:03:17.720 --> 0:03:20.760 and attention into its orbit for the entirety of a 0:03:20.880 --> 0:03:24.959 fall in Atlanta. Throughout the nationwide block coop City speaking 0:03:25.000 --> 0:03:28.560 to her a small subset of attendees voiced objections and 0:03:28.639 --> 0:03:31.640 disagreements with the proposed to strategy and its use of 0:03:31.720 --> 0:03:35.440 time and resources. Those opposed to block up City thought 0:03:35.560 --> 0:03:38.040 the idea of a large public march to the work 0:03:38.080 --> 0:03:41.840 site was going to put people in unnecessary harm without 0:03:41.920 --> 0:03:45.080 doing much to achieve a measurable blow against cop city. 0:03:45.720 --> 0:03:47.400 I'm going to quote from a report back that was 0:03:47.400 --> 0:03:49.920 published online shortly after the action. 0:03:50.480 --> 0:03:50.920 Quote. 0:03:51.200 --> 0:03:53.520 Something that tends to happen in autonomous action is that 0:03:53.640 --> 0:03:56.040 there ends up being an inner circle at the core, 0:03:56.160 --> 0:03:58.280 which can limit the scope of who is able to 0:03:58.320 --> 0:04:01.280 meaningfully contribute to the direction of action because it creates 0:04:01.320 --> 0:04:04.240 a hierarchy at spokes council. It felt like this at 0:04:04.240 --> 0:04:07.080 times because it was primarily a small group of speakers 0:04:07.320 --> 0:04:11.520 who were directing the entire block Copcity movement. This led 0:04:11.600 --> 0:04:14.320 to dismissal of certain concerns which were brought up by 0:04:14.360 --> 0:04:19.200 affinity groups. In the planning stages. Organizers pushed back on 0:04:19.240 --> 0:04:22.320 the notion that getting arrested was a part of the plan, 0:04:23.040 --> 0:04:26.279 but on the day before the November thirteenth action, a 0:04:26.320 --> 0:04:29.080 block op City organizer told press and media in a 0:04:29.120 --> 0:04:32.240 private meeting to have your cameras ready because there will 0:04:32.279 --> 0:04:36.120 be arrests at noon, demonstrating some form of intent to 0:04:36.240 --> 0:04:38.440 use people's safety and freedom as a way to generate 0:04:38.520 --> 0:04:41.960 online buzz with the hope of inspiring people to once 0:04:42.000 --> 0:04:46.080 again take action in the forest. The possibility of arrest 0:04:46.200 --> 0:04:49.599 was obviously mentioned at the Spokes Council meetings, but was 0:04:49.680 --> 0:04:54.000 framed as far from a certainty, with rallying cries insisting 0:04:54.279 --> 0:04:56.839 that the march will be able to all leave together. 0:04:58.279 --> 0:05:01.599 During the two days of Spokes Council meetings, the route 0:05:01.680 --> 0:05:04.200 and formation of the march to the construction site was 0:05:04.240 --> 0:05:08.479 decided upon, and quote unquote direct action trainings took place 0:05:08.520 --> 0:05:12.240 to prepare people for the march on Monday morning, the 0:05:12.279 --> 0:05:16.560 march was to be split into three distinct clusters, a frontline, middle, 0:05:16.600 --> 0:05:21.160 and rear. Before the march, there was limited communication between clusters, 0:05:21.480 --> 0:05:24.760 making it difficult to have informed expectations of how a 0:05:24.800 --> 0:05:28.520 confrontation with police will happen. Part of the quote unquote 0:05:28.560 --> 0:05:33.520 strategic non violence stipulation meant that throwne objects and projectiles 0:05:33.760 --> 0:05:38.520 were explicitly disallowed. On the morning of the march, words 0:05:38.520 --> 0:05:41.400 started to spread around that what was left of the 0:05:41.440 --> 0:05:46.320 frontline cluster decided that only bullets will make the frontline 0:05:46.400 --> 0:05:49.600 fall back and they would withstand all other forms of 0:05:49.680 --> 0:05:55.920 police violence, mostly les, lethal rounds, tear gas, batons, etc. Now, 0:05:56.080 --> 0:05:59.960 this whole thing about live rounds was not widely communicate 0:06:00.279 --> 0:06:02.200 to people who just showed up for the action. On 0:06:02.240 --> 0:06:05.720 Monday morning, during the spokes councils, it was learned that 0:06:06.200 --> 0:06:09.200 a vast majority of attendees had never before been to 0:06:09.240 --> 0:06:12.240 Atlanta or the Forest, and a great many of whom 0:06:12.320 --> 0:06:15.000 had never attended a protest or engaged in a clash 0:06:15.000 --> 0:06:19.520 with police before. Some local force defenders took issue with 0:06:19.600 --> 0:06:23.640 the perceived strategy of primarily recruiting young people from across 0:06:23.680 --> 0:06:27.880 the country with little to no experience going up against police. 0:06:28.040 --> 0:06:31.239 Come Monday morning, the number of people gathered to march 0:06:31.279 --> 0:06:34.560 on cop City was far fewer than what was initially hoped. 0:06:35.279 --> 0:06:39.039 It's impossible to say for sure whether the limiting of 0:06:39.080 --> 0:06:43.240 acceptable tactics and the non violent framing hurt or helped 0:06:43.360 --> 0:06:47.480 the final number of attendees. Regardless, the four hundred or 0:06:47.520 --> 0:06:50.800 so brave people that departed Gresham Park was not the 0:06:50.960 --> 0:06:53.680 mass action initially envisioned by organizers. 0:06:54.520 --> 0:06:55.320 Got about three. 0:06:55.160 --> 0:07:00.440 Dozen riot cops and SWAT teams stationed here. Walking off 0:07:00.480 --> 0:07:06.680 the road heading to the west, got police shields. We 0:07:06.720 --> 0:07:10.600 have air of fifteen's, we have tactical response vehicles ATV, 0:07:12.560 --> 0:07:14.320 A lot of cops behind us, a lot of cops 0:07:14.360 --> 0:07:18.880 in front of us. We are completely sandwiched in by 0:07:18.880 --> 0:07:19.200 the police. 0:07:19.240 --> 0:07:22.640 Right now, the front liners approached the police riot line 0:07:22.760 --> 0:07:26.679 at the big intersection near the entrance to Entrenchment Creek Park. 0:07:27.200 --> 0:07:30.720 Two large banners formed a V shaped wedge and the 0:07:30.760 --> 0:07:32.840 crowd advanced into the police line. 0:07:33.480 --> 0:07:35.560 People are pushing through. Cops are putting up to fight. 0:07:38.200 --> 0:07:42.080 People are continuing to move forward. The march is pushing 0:07:42.120 --> 0:07:42.880 the cops back. 0:07:43.920 --> 0:07:46.640 Under the pressure from a few hundred people. The police 0:07:46.680 --> 0:07:48.800 line was pushed back by one or two dozen feet 0:07:49.200 --> 0:07:53.040 front liners. We stood police batons and leslie communitions. Steady 0:07:53.080 --> 0:07:57.280 progress was being made. That was until tear gas got deployed. 0:07:58.240 --> 0:07:59.960 Cops are continuing to loop back. 0:08:00.080 --> 0:08:00.720 Flash bang. 0:08:02.760 --> 0:08:06.760 We got gap csgas was first launched into the middle 0:08:06.800 --> 0:08:09.960 of the crowd. Police paused to put on their own 0:08:10.040 --> 0:08:13.640 gas masks, but instead of using this moment to advance further, 0:08:14.040 --> 0:08:17.320 the bulk of the crowd held their position, with large 0:08:17.360 --> 0:08:21.160 sections of the middle cluster subsequently entering into the tree 0:08:21.160 --> 0:08:25.000 line of Entrenchment Creek Park. As continuing volleys of tear 0:08:25.040 --> 0:08:28.760 gas were fired by police. This caused the front line 0:08:28.800 --> 0:08:32.400 to retreat back, effectively ending the offensive portion of the action. 0:08:32.960 --> 0:08:35.200 As the group that entered into the forest was later 0:08:35.440 --> 0:08:39.720 escorted out by police, rejoined the march and eventually returned 0:08:39.760 --> 0:08:43.560 to Gresham Park. Everyone knew that it was a near 0:08:43.880 --> 0:08:48.240 certainty that police would confront a mobile crowd, and out 0:08:48.280 --> 0:08:51.560 maneuvering police all the way to the construction site would 0:08:51.600 --> 0:08:55.480 be highly unlikely. The only way a mass of people 0:08:55.520 --> 0:08:57.360 would be able to get to the work site is 0:08:57.360 --> 0:09:00.800 if police allowed it. Still, there's much to learn from 0:09:00.800 --> 0:09:03.960 block cop City and even just the brief skirmish with police, 0:09:04.360 --> 0:09:07.960 So forgive me for engaging in some tactical analysis based 0:09:08.000 --> 0:09:10.480 on the good portion of my life spent in riot 0:09:10.559 --> 0:09:14.199 jousts and input from others with more on the ground experience. 0:09:15.120 --> 0:09:17.960 We first have to think about what will cause a 0:09:18.040 --> 0:09:20.880 mass of people to break up, scatter, and retreat, both 0:09:20.880 --> 0:09:24.040 on the protester side and on the police side. The 0:09:24.080 --> 0:09:28.440 front lines are meant to act semi fluid. Typically, projectile 0:09:28.480 --> 0:09:31.200 launchers are behind the front line and are designed to 0:09:31.280 --> 0:09:35.160 scatter the opposing front line and middle sections of the 0:09:35.280 --> 0:09:38.679 enemy side to disrupt an offensive formation so that it 0:09:38.760 --> 0:09:42.360 loses its capacity for for momentum, or to stagger a 0:09:42.400 --> 0:09:46.439 defensive line enough to force retreat, as was the case 0:09:46.520 --> 0:09:50.240 on November thirteenth. When a layered defensive police line is 0:09:50.280 --> 0:09:53.400 backed up with vehicles like a bear cat, the on 0:09:53.600 --> 0:09:59.640 foot line will most likely not retreat back behind their vehicles. Frustratingly, 0:09:59.760 --> 0:10:03.719 these these massive police vehicles occupy a sort of paradoxical 0:10:03.800 --> 0:10:07.080 role as a ten ton roadblock that would force a 0:10:07.240 --> 0:10:10.040 center advancing line to break apart in order to pass, 0:10:10.520 --> 0:10:14.480 putting the advancing line in a less strategic position, even 0:10:14.520 --> 0:10:17.920 though if the vehicle was threatened by being overrun, police 0:10:17.920 --> 0:10:20.959 would probably attempt to pull the vehicle back, signifying retreat. 0:10:21.600 --> 0:10:25.400 So how has this paradox been solved before? Well with 0:10:25.640 --> 0:10:28.920 ranged attacks like bottles, fireworks and what the State of 0:10:29.040 --> 0:10:32.280 Ukraine was teaching its civilians to make in the early 0:10:32.400 --> 0:10:36.080 days of the Russian invasion. This is why projectiles are 0:10:36.120 --> 0:10:40.680 of such a strategic importance. One cannot break through a 0:10:40.679 --> 0:10:45.200 police line without employing violence. Utilizing projectiles is necessary to 0:10:45.320 --> 0:10:48.720 force rear police vehicles to retreat, along with the CoP's 0:10:48.720 --> 0:10:52.000 own projectile launchers placed behind their riot line, which are 0:10:52.120 --> 0:10:55.360 used to break up the opposing front line. And police 0:10:55.480 --> 0:11:00.160 have no such tactical non violence scruples against using projectiles. 0:11:00.800 --> 0:11:04.640 Some Atlanta anarchists have also noted that the resources put 0:11:04.679 --> 0:11:08.120 towards acquiring a great number of plants that ended up 0:11:08.240 --> 0:11:11.280 just being abandoned could also have been used to acquire 0:11:11.360 --> 0:11:15.480 gas masks for the middle cluster, reinforced shields, and ancillary 0:11:15.559 --> 0:11:19.280 materials put towards prioritizing the crowd's efficacy and safety against 0:11:19.320 --> 0:11:23.360 the use of crowd controlled munitions. Thankfully, there were no 0:11:23.600 --> 0:11:27.200 arrests made in direct connection to the march, but I 0:11:27.240 --> 0:11:31.319 don't believe this can be accredited to any comprehensive organizing. 0:11:31.480 --> 0:11:34.760 When the day prior media was told that arrests would 0:11:34.760 --> 0:11:38.840 be taking place by lunchtime, for whatever reason, the police 0:11:38.920 --> 0:11:41.960 let a kettled crowd of people go free. We can 0:11:42.040 --> 0:11:45.800 only speculate on why. Between the logistical hassles, the stretching 0:11:45.800 --> 0:11:49.240 of prosecutor resources, and the bomb squad that was actively 0:11:49.240 --> 0:11:52.200 sweeping the area of entrenchment Creek Park and checking all 0:11:52.240 --> 0:11:54.320 of the bags and backpacks that were dropped in the 0:11:54.360 --> 0:11:57.560 area where the splinter of the march was escorted out 0:11:57.600 --> 0:12:02.520 by police with force. Defenders in Atlanta who've spent years 0:12:02.559 --> 0:12:06.320 now engaging in militant struggle against police. They offered a 0:12:06.360 --> 0:12:10.800 more fundamental critique of this action. If the choice to 0:12:10.960 --> 0:12:14.679 employ a strategy of nonviolence is in response to grossly 0:12:14.720 --> 0:12:18.040 inflated charges and repression the movement is facing, as some 0:12:18.120 --> 0:12:21.040 block ops to the organizers have stated, that means that 0:12:21.080 --> 0:12:24.280 you're allowing the state to determine your rules of engagement. 0:12:25.360 --> 0:12:28.480 The entire idea of announcing your plan to walk onto 0:12:28.679 --> 0:12:31.640 one of the most policed areas in the country did, 0:12:31.720 --> 0:12:34.440 in fact prevent people with more on the ground experience 0:12:34.480 --> 0:12:38.920 from participating on the day of the action. Risk requires reward. 0:12:39.760 --> 0:12:42.839 A small core of organizers were so steadfast in one 0:12:42.880 --> 0:12:47.200 particular version of how this event would take shape, branding 0:12:47.240 --> 0:12:51.960 people with disagreements as all overly online disaffected nihilists no 0:12:52.040 --> 0:12:55.760 longer involved in the struggle in Atlanta. Not only were 0:12:55.880 --> 0:13:00.200 online critiques discarded, but opportunities for in person conversation as 0:13:00.200 --> 0:13:02.520 an input from people with more on the ground experience 0:13:02.520 --> 0:13:06.000 in Atlanta were also turned down. And I think it 0:13:06.040 --> 0:13:08.880 is important to state hats off to the many young 0:13:08.880 --> 0:13:11.800 people that traveled from around the country to participate in 0:13:11.840 --> 0:13:14.960 this action. One can hope that block cop City broadly 0:13:15.040 --> 0:13:17.800 and going up against this line of armed riot police 0:13:18.400 --> 0:13:22.440 was a useful learning experience for whatever happens next in 0:13:22.520 --> 0:13:25.480 these people's lives as we approach the twenty twenty four 0:13:25.480 --> 0:13:40.320 election and who knows what is to come. The night 0:13:40.400 --> 0:13:44.160 after Block cop City, six vehicles owned by the company 0:13:44.240 --> 0:13:48.040 Earned Concrete were set on fire in Gwinnett County, Georgia. 0:13:48.840 --> 0:13:52.920 Earlier that fall, Ernst Concrete trucks were seen working on 0:13:52.960 --> 0:13:57.000 the cop City construction site. After the arson, Ernst Concrete 0:13:57.040 --> 0:13:58.880 released a statement saying that they were not going to 0:13:58.920 --> 0:14:02.800 work on the cop City project. In an Atlanta Police 0:14:02.800 --> 0:14:06.480 Department press conference from December twenty twenty three, Chief Darren 0:14:06.520 --> 0:14:10.320 Sheerbaum discussed a wave of recent arsons Googa. 0:14:10.400 --> 0:14:13.920 The most recent one happened in Gwinnette County this past November. 0:14:14.400 --> 0:14:17.600 This was Ernst Concrete when a number of construction equipment 0:14:17.679 --> 0:14:20.560 was set on fire. Then we go to three arsons 0:14:20.560 --> 0:14:23.800 that happened right here in Atlanta mcdonna Boulevard where a contractor, 0:14:23.880 --> 0:14:26.440 a Brent Scarborough, was targeted three different times in the 0:14:26.480 --> 0:14:30.000 month of October of this year, July of this year, 0:14:30.160 --> 0:14:32.520 as well as April this year. We see that the 0:14:32.520 --> 0:14:35.320 same group takes credit each and every time on their 0:14:35.400 --> 0:14:38.360 source of giving information out and so it's likely to 0:14:38.400 --> 0:14:41.080 be that same group, very small in number, moving from 0:14:41.120 --> 0:14:44.360 state to state is likely the profile of these individuals. 0:14:44.400 --> 0:14:45.360 It's very very small. 0:14:45.480 --> 0:14:47.800 It is a handful of individuals that are having a 0:14:47.880 --> 0:14:50.000 much larger impact on the safety of this city than 0:14:50.000 --> 0:14:50.480 they should have. 0:14:51.000 --> 0:14:54.560 Atlanta Fire Chief Roderick Smith and John King, the Georgia 0:14:54.560 --> 0:14:58.080 Insurance and Fire Safety Commissioner, both talked about how these 0:14:58.200 --> 0:15:02.520 arsons negatively affect the contractors working to build cop city. 0:15:03.400 --> 0:15:04.040 As we talk. 0:15:03.920 --> 0:15:09.800 About impacts caused by arson, it affects our businesses, those 0:15:09.840 --> 0:15:13.840 that are participating in helping out building Atlanta Public Safety 0:15:13.920 --> 0:15:18.840 Training Center. We suffer from additional cost due to arson 0:15:19.640 --> 0:15:21.960 that these companies face and individuals face. 0:15:23.200 --> 0:15:25.800 This affects every one of our citizens in the area 0:15:25.840 --> 0:15:28.880 because all these losses. Yes, there's an insurance company that 0:15:28.880 --> 0:15:32.160 will probably cover some of the costs, but those losses 0:15:32.200 --> 0:15:35.400 will be passed on to customers, so we all will 0:15:35.440 --> 0:15:36.240 take the losses. 0:15:36.640 --> 0:15:40.160 On January seventeenth, APD put out another press conference to 0:15:40.160 --> 0:15:42.960 discuss even though the police are already doing such a 0:15:42.960 --> 0:15:46.280 great job out stopping crime when it's fourteen degrees and 0:15:46.360 --> 0:15:50.240 homicides continue to decline. Even still, a new state of 0:15:50.240 --> 0:15:53.560 the art police training facility is vital to maintain safety 0:15:53.600 --> 0:15:54.720 in the city of Atlanta. 0:15:55.160 --> 0:15:57.960 We've asked you to come together again today because there 0:15:58.040 --> 0:16:02.080 is an effort underway by very smart individuals anarchists that 0:16:02.160 --> 0:16:05.640 want to impact the safety of Atlanta, Georgia. Just yesterday, 0:16:06.160 --> 0:16:09.280 a piece of equipment aligned with one of the construction 0:16:09.400 --> 0:16:11.560 companies that is building the public safety training center for 0:16:11.560 --> 0:16:15.440 every lantin was set on fire. Next door in a 0:16:15.480 --> 0:16:19.320 neighboring state of South Carolina, we had a construction company 0:16:19.320 --> 0:16:21.200 that had a loose connection to the project here in 0:16:21.200 --> 0:16:24.120 Atlanta that was targeted by an individual that used one 0:16:24.160 --> 0:16:27.240 of the tools of violence sphere and intimidation that has 0:16:27.280 --> 0:16:29.800 been used mainly by this group, which is arson, set 0:16:29.840 --> 0:16:34.520 equipment on fire, going after concrete trucks, and so soon 0:16:34.640 --> 0:16:36.760 the individuals that have been in the dark of night 0:16:37.080 --> 0:16:39.680 impacting every one of our neighborhoods will be held responsible 0:16:39.920 --> 0:16:42.800 as we bring these individuals to justice. 0:16:43.320 --> 0:16:46.080 Police in South Carolina were able to identify a suspect 0:16:46.160 --> 0:16:49.520 and ended up arresting and charging them with arson. The 0:16:49.560 --> 0:16:54.200 fire chief elaborated on the theoretical risks of arson such 0:16:54.240 --> 0:16:57.600 as injury to human life and the ugly sight of 0:16:57.720 --> 0:17:01.520 burnt rubble left over in neighborhoods, as well as reiterating 0:17:01.680 --> 0:17:03.840 how it affects the cop City project. 0:17:04.480 --> 0:17:07.600 What are the effects of arson financial? 0:17:07.800 --> 0:17:11.520 As we've heard earlier, the impact that the equipment being 0:17:11.560 --> 0:17:16.760 burned plays of role with the company's working delays in 0:17:16.840 --> 0:17:18.000 the project. 0:17:17.680 --> 0:17:18.280 Due to this. 0:17:19.000 --> 0:17:21.840 Less than a week later, the city had another press 0:17:21.840 --> 0:17:25.280 conference in front of burnt husks of equipment outside a 0:17:25.320 --> 0:17:28.320 construction site run by a cop City contractor. 0:17:28.760 --> 0:17:30.720 If you look over my shoulder, you will see the 0:17:30.720 --> 0:17:32.359 equipment that was burned. 0:17:32.400 --> 0:17:34.840 It belongs to a private contractor. 0:17:35.240 --> 0:17:38.440 There were total four pieces of heavy construction equipment that 0:17:38.480 --> 0:17:39.520 were damaged this morning. 0:17:39.960 --> 0:17:43.280 Chief Scheerbomb quickly linked the attack to stop cop City 0:17:43.920 --> 0:17:47.840 due to a post online about the attack accompanied by 0:17:47.880 --> 0:17:49.959 the hashtag stop cop City. 0:17:50.400 --> 0:17:52.160 The hashtag is present. 0:17:52.480 --> 0:17:55.280 Scherbomb also gave an updated account on the number of 0:17:55.440 --> 0:17:58.160 arsen attacks which have targeted construction equipment. 0:17:58.720 --> 0:18:00.960 I believe now we're right at thirty five that have 0:18:01.000 --> 0:18:03.639 occurred here in the state of Georgia and elsewhere. The 0:18:03.720 --> 0:18:06.760 vast majority of them are concentrated in North Georgia, but 0:18:06.800 --> 0:18:09.640 there are others that have occurred elsewhere. We're very fortunate 0:18:09.680 --> 0:18:12.640 of an arrest in South Carolina. There's clearly at least 0:18:12.680 --> 0:18:15.840 one other person. This individual or individuals don't care about 0:18:15.880 --> 0:18:19.159 life and safety. If they firebombed police precincts, their go 0:18:19.520 --> 0:18:22.760 is to a road, proper public safety infrastructure, and to 0:18:22.840 --> 0:18:23.560 road the government. 0:18:24.359 --> 0:18:28.240 Very cool stuff. Indeed, I do believe that thirty four 0:18:28.359 --> 0:18:31.520 number is a gross undercount, but hey, if they've forgotten 0:18:31.520 --> 0:18:36.600 a few attacks, really no real harm in that. We have, however, 0:18:36.680 --> 0:18:40.640 gotten a few recent numbers on the monetary damages caused 0:18:40.640 --> 0:18:44.359 by stop Coop City activity. In a Georgia State Senate 0:18:44.359 --> 0:18:48.560 committee meeting near the end of January, Senator Deborah Silcox 0:18:48.800 --> 0:18:53.200 said that APD Chief Administrative Officer Peter Amman told her 0:18:53.320 --> 0:18:57.639 earlier that day that the estimated cost of nationwide property 0:18:57.720 --> 0:19:01.720 damage made in protest of cop City exceeds one hundred 0:19:01.920 --> 0:19:05.840 million dollars. That beats the ELF numbers. 0:19:06.480 --> 0:19:06.800 Now. 0:19:07.000 --> 0:19:10.800 Four days later, the Atlanta Police Department tried to backtrack 0:19:10.880 --> 0:19:14.320 that number to New York Times reporter Sean Keenan, now 0:19:14.400 --> 0:19:18.040 saying that it was ten million dollars in property damage 0:19:18.320 --> 0:19:21.560 a one thousand percent difference, which either way is a 0:19:21.640 --> 0:19:24.600 massive amount of money. And we do know for sure 0:19:24.720 --> 0:19:26.920 that the city has spent at least one point three 0:19:27.000 --> 0:19:31.040 million dollars just in the legal fees related to cop City. 0:19:31.840 --> 0:19:33.600 We know at least some of that one point three 0:19:33.600 --> 0:19:38.160 million dollars was used to combat the Cop City referendum campaign, 0:19:38.600 --> 0:19:42.080 an initiative started last summer to collect petition signatures to 0:19:42.200 --> 0:19:46.040 put cop City on an upcoming ballot. I talked with 0:19:46.119 --> 0:19:48.760 Sam Barnes of the Atlantic Community Press Collective to get 0:19:48.800 --> 0:19:51.840 an update on the current state of the referendum. 0:19:52.359 --> 0:19:55.720 The referendum has more or less been stalled out since 0:19:55.920 --> 0:20:01.840 last fall. In response to a lawsuit from Decab County 0:20:01.880 --> 0:20:05.920 residents who claimed that their First Amendment rights were being 0:20:05.920 --> 0:20:11.840 infringed upon because they were not allowed to canvas for signatures, 0:20:12.760 --> 0:20:19.760 A Core issued down an injunction basically allowing the referendum 0:20:19.840 --> 0:20:25.080 campaign to have additional time to collect and then turn 0:20:25.160 --> 0:20:30.800 in signatures. The city then appealed that injunction. That whole 0:20:30.840 --> 0:20:34.840 situation is currently before the US Court of Appeals, who 0:20:35.160 --> 0:20:38.640 heard arguments from the city's lawyers and the vote campaign's 0:20:38.720 --> 0:20:43.840 lawyers in January and who have not yet issued a 0:20:44.000 --> 0:20:45.080 ruling on that appeal. 0:20:45.880 --> 0:20:48.600 The referendum campaign has turned in what they say are 0:20:48.640 --> 0:20:53.119 one hundred and sixteen thousand signatures, which, if verified, should 0:20:53.160 --> 0:20:56.080 be more than enough to get the referendum onto the ballot, 0:20:56.760 --> 0:20:59.320 but the City of Atlanta has said that they cannot 0:20:59.359 --> 0:21:03.000 start counting these signatures until the Court of Appeals issues 0:21:03.040 --> 0:21:03.720 their ruling. 0:21:04.280 --> 0:21:07.000 It's not really clear of where in case law, or 0:21:07.040 --> 0:21:10.520 in Georgia code, or wherever they are getting that legal 0:21:11.080 --> 0:21:15.840 precedent from, but it is the line they are sticking to. 0:21:17.160 --> 0:21:22.159 So long story short, even if the city was to 0:21:22.160 --> 0:21:25.920 start counting votes today, and even if there were enough 0:21:26.160 --> 0:21:30.000 to get this referendum on the ballot the next election, 0:21:30.320 --> 0:21:33.399 it could appear on the ballot in is the general 0:21:33.440 --> 0:21:38.439 election in November twenty twenty four, Popcity for APD and 0:21:38.480 --> 0:21:41.880 the APF's repeated claims is going to open and fall 0:21:41.960 --> 0:21:45.639 of twenty twenty four. Now, I don't personally have a 0:21:45.640 --> 0:21:47.800 lot of faith in that at one point it was 0:21:47.840 --> 0:21:50.560 going to open in August twenty twenty three, just the 0:21:50.600 --> 0:21:55.480 simple fact of every construction project runs into delays. But 0:21:56.680 --> 0:22:00.880 I think it is pretty clear, especially given the clear 0:22:00.960 --> 0:22:04.359 cutting and the concrete pouring that has already happened on 0:22:04.400 --> 0:22:09.840 the site that it will make significant progress by by November. 0:22:10.440 --> 0:22:13.639 It's pretty obvious that the city's strategy here is to 0:22:13.720 --> 0:22:17.280 just delay and delay and delay the referendum until the 0:22:17.320 --> 0:22:22.000 thing gets built, effectively just making the referendum dead in 0:22:22.040 --> 0:22:22.400 the water. 0:22:23.400 --> 0:22:26.800 On February eighth, the Federal Bureau of Investigation connected a 0:22:26.840 --> 0:22:30.040 series of house rates on three homes in South Atlanta 0:22:30.119 --> 0:22:33.720 that they suspected of being linked to Stop Coop City activists. 0:22:34.680 --> 0:22:38.080 Phones and computers were seized, along with Stopcop City related 0:22:38.160 --> 0:22:42.399 zines and posters. Occupants of the house were dragged outside, 0:22:42.520 --> 0:22:46.200 sometimes literally. A few were detained for hours on end, 0:22:46.480 --> 0:22:49.480 with one being driven to a police headquarters for interrogation, 0:22:49.840 --> 0:22:51.639 but was released later that evening. 0:22:52.240 --> 0:22:54.440 This morning, at six am, investigators of the Alan of 0:22:54.480 --> 0:22:58.520 Fire Rescue, Georgia Berl of Investigation, Federal Burial of Investigation, 0:22:58.920 --> 0:23:01.399 Bureau of Alcohol to Back and Firearms, and the Atlanta 0:23:01.400 --> 0:23:04.399 Police Department, joined by uniformed elements of this department at 0:23:04.400 --> 0:23:08.560 Georgia State Patrol, executed search warrants signed by judges who'd 0:23:08.560 --> 0:23:12.080 review the probable cause, allowing us to enter three locations 0:23:12.080 --> 0:23:15.480 to seek evidence connected to acts of vandalism and arson 0:23:15.760 --> 0:23:19.119 that have occurred over the last few months. As investigators 0:23:19.160 --> 0:23:21.480 went to those locations, they were armed with an arrest warrant. 0:23:21.920 --> 0:23:25.520 It's worth noting that the search warrants cited federal statutes 0:23:25.560 --> 0:23:30.040 on the destruction of vehicles and reco While executing one 0:23:30.040 --> 0:23:33.280 of these raids, police located an individual whom an arrest 0:23:33.359 --> 0:23:37.680 warrant was issued for days prior and brought them into custody. 0:23:38.320 --> 0:23:41.399 This arrest, along with the one in South Carolina, also 0:23:41.440 --> 0:23:45.480 marked the very first arrests linked to clandestine and nighttime 0:23:45.520 --> 0:23:48.360 attacks in the three year history of the movement. 0:23:49.000 --> 0:23:52.439 We're processing all of the locations now. The evidence to 0:23:52.480 --> 0:23:54.840 make that arrest had already been in possession of law 0:23:54.880 --> 0:23:57.399 enforcement even before we executed the search warrants this morning, 0:23:57.600 --> 0:24:00.720 So the arrest warrant was signed before today, and the 0:24:00.800 --> 0:24:03.480 arrest work was not connected with the search morsols or 0:24:03.520 --> 0:24:05.480 independent of the arrest would be making once we located 0:24:05.480 --> 0:24:05.960 this gentleman. 0:24:06.440 --> 0:24:09.160 In a city press conference, the mayor opened by saying 0:24:09.240 --> 0:24:13.080 this arrest was quote linked to multiple acts of vandalism 0:24:13.080 --> 0:24:17.000 and arson unquote, yet they were only charged with one 0:24:17.040 --> 0:24:20.359 account of first earrye Arsen, which police linked to the 0:24:20.400 --> 0:24:23.800 burning of eight police motorcycles last July, near the end 0:24:23.840 --> 0:24:27.680 of that summer's week of action. This particular arson is 0:24:27.800 --> 0:24:31.080 unique from the many other cop city related arsons in 0:24:31.240 --> 0:24:35.119 a few ways. This was not targeting construction equipment. Instead, 0:24:35.160 --> 0:24:39.919 it was directly targeting police infrastructure. An unexploded plastic incendiary 0:24:40.000 --> 0:24:43.159 device was left at the scene, and the police training 0:24:43.160 --> 0:24:46.800 building that was singed. The city now claims was occupied 0:24:46.880 --> 0:24:48.359 by a police officer. 0:24:48.640 --> 0:24:52.119 But was often overlooked as inside of that precinct was 0:24:52.160 --> 0:24:55.560 a protector of the city Atlanta police officers inside. 0:24:55.600 --> 0:24:59.159 As police have said, they only had enough information to 0:24:59.240 --> 0:25:03.040 make this war arrest linked to this one specific instance 0:25:03.119 --> 0:25:06.600 of arson. Thus, these raids can be seen both as 0:25:06.640 --> 0:25:10.200 an intimidation attempt and a last ditch effort to collect 0:25:10.240 --> 0:25:13.200 additional information necessary to make future arrests. 0:25:14.080 --> 0:25:17.680 More rest will come. It will come soon and will continue. 0:25:17.359 --> 0:25:19.560 To hold people accountable to Everyone that has been involved 0:25:19.560 --> 0:25:22.200 in these acts are in jail and before a judge. 0:25:22.560 --> 0:25:25.280 The investigation is very active, ma'am. There's a reason we 0:25:25.359 --> 0:25:26.959 serve three search warrants today. 0:25:27.520 --> 0:25:27.760 We do. 0:25:28.320 --> 0:25:29.840 We are looking at a wide range of areas. 0:25:29.880 --> 0:25:31.360 We believe evidence as hell that will. 0:25:31.200 --> 0:25:33.920 Identify who is responsible or the others, and who else 0:25:34.000 --> 0:25:35.760 was responsible besides this gentleman. 0:25:36.400 --> 0:25:37.879 The investigation will play that out. 0:25:37.760 --> 0:25:39.680 But there are others that I anticipate will be resting 0:25:39.720 --> 0:25:40.680 in the end of weeks to come. 0:25:41.240 --> 0:25:44.320 This messaging from Chief Sheerbaum is obviously meant to spread 0:25:44.400 --> 0:25:49.000 panic and paranoia amongst activists, organizers, and the anarchists of Atlanta. 0:25:49.840 --> 0:25:52.760 Those in Atlanta were quick to prove that repression would 0:25:52.760 --> 0:25:56.040 not stifle attacks against copp City. On the night of 0:25:56.040 --> 0:25:58.800 February ninth, a police car was torched outside of the 0:25:58.840 --> 0:26:01.880 home of an APD officer officer in the Lakewood neighborhood 0:26:01.920 --> 0:26:05.040 of Atlanta. The next day, police claimed that they tracked 0:26:05.119 --> 0:26:08.760 the movements of two alleged arsonists via ring, doorbell and 0:26:08.840 --> 0:26:11.639 street cameras to a house in Lakewood and conducted a 0:26:11.720 --> 0:26:16.280 raid that afternoon. Nothing was found and no arrests were made. 0:26:16.320 --> 0:26:20.680 The FBI and the ATF viewed the vehicle arsen outside 0:26:20.680 --> 0:26:23.280 of the home of an Atlanta police officer as a 0:26:23.320 --> 0:26:28.000 significant escalation and made their first on camera speaking appearance 0:26:28.080 --> 0:26:32.360 on Channel two to discuss the possibility of introducing federal charges, 0:26:33.560 --> 0:26:37.200 the house raids threats, doing all these press conferences, it's 0:26:37.240 --> 0:26:40.960 all part of this media frenzy to elicit fear. Earlier 0:26:40.960 --> 0:26:44.280 this year, Chief sheerbamb unveiled plans to put four hundred 0:26:44.280 --> 0:26:48.320 and fifty billboards all across the country offering reward money 0:26:48.359 --> 0:26:52.639 for information, specifically placed in cities they believe anarchists are 0:26:52.680 --> 0:26:56.760 traveling from to set fires in Atlanta. Every single press 0:26:56.760 --> 0:26:59.760 conference the police du they are desperately begging for members 0:26:59.760 --> 0:27:02.840 of the public to snitch, saying the only way this 0:27:02.920 --> 0:27:05.920 case will be solved is if anonymous tipsters come forward 0:27:05.960 --> 0:27:10.200 with information, offering increasingly comical amounts of money if information 0:27:10.359 --> 0:27:13.240 leads to a conviction. Fear is one of the greatest 0:27:13.280 --> 0:27:16.480 tools this state has to bear. But through this sequence 0:27:16.480 --> 0:27:20.080 of events, police and investigators are also kind of showing 0:27:20.119 --> 0:27:24.560 their hand here, demonstrating the current limit of their actionable evidence. 0:27:25.200 --> 0:27:28.040 It has now been well over a month since these raids, 0:27:28.359 --> 0:27:39.040 and as of now, no subsequent arrests have been made. 0:27:43.800 --> 0:27:46.760 The timing of these house raids also seemed intended to 0:27:46.760 --> 0:27:49.800 disrupt an event planned for later that month called the 0:27:49.920 --> 0:27:55.240 Nationwide Summit to Stop Cop City, a convergence located in Tucson, Arizona, 0:27:55.720 --> 0:27:59.240 on Amazonia that was planned for February twenty third to 0:27:59.359 --> 0:28:02.439 the twenty six I was not able to attend, but 0:28:02.560 --> 0:28:05.360 I spoke with Sam from the Atlanta Community Press Collective 0:28:05.600 --> 0:28:07.320 who covered the summit in person. 0:28:08.040 --> 0:28:10.679 It was a four day convergence in twoson Arizona, called 0:28:10.720 --> 0:28:16.040 for by the pretty well entrenched radical organizing scene there 0:28:16.040 --> 0:28:18.520 in Tucson that was just intended to be the kind 0:28:18.560 --> 0:28:21.000 of summits we've seen here in Atlanta that are often 0:28:21.040 --> 0:28:24.200 called weeks of Action that can no longer take place 0:28:24.200 --> 0:28:27.679 here in Atlanta. So it was intended to be just 0:28:27.840 --> 0:28:31.679 a gathering of like minded people to share ideas, build community, 0:28:32.600 --> 0:28:36.000 have fun, frankly, and there also were some direct actions 0:28:36.000 --> 0:28:38.760 that occurred during the week. The hub for the summit 0:28:39.320 --> 0:28:42.080 was a park kind of on what i'd call the 0:28:42.360 --> 0:28:45.720 north end of Tucson called Mansfield Park, and there was 0:28:45.760 --> 0:28:50.800 a small camp space set up and organized by locals. 0:28:51.480 --> 0:28:54.080 The structure of the summit and of the camp space 0:28:54.120 --> 0:28:56.920 in general was again very familiar to anyone who has 0:28:56.920 --> 0:29:01.480 attended any of the Weeks of Action in Atlanta. At meals, breakfast, lunch, 0:29:01.480 --> 0:29:05.760 and dinner. There were camp announcements, a lot of spontaneous 0:29:05.760 --> 0:29:08.400 activities within the camp. A couple movie nights were held. 0:29:09.040 --> 0:29:13.640 Tucson, Arizona on Amazonia, is about one hundred miles from 0:29:13.640 --> 0:29:16.880 the US Mexico border. Sam told me about a panel 0:29:16.920 --> 0:29:20.920 they attended on the intersections between the border, Gaza and Atlanta. 0:29:21.720 --> 0:29:24.160 If you've been paying attention to the cop City struggle, 0:29:24.360 --> 0:29:27.640 you're probably already familiar with these themes. The Atlanta Police 0:29:27.640 --> 0:29:31.040 Department participates in the Georgia International Law Enforcement Exchange the 0:29:31.040 --> 0:29:34.400 GILLY program, where they trained with members of the IDF. 0:29:35.120 --> 0:29:41.880 The talk featured Jewish Americans, Palestinian Americans. A correspondent from 0:29:42.000 --> 0:29:44.920 Indian Collective who was there to cover the summit as well, 0:29:45.000 --> 0:29:49.560 also spoke during that event. And that intersection was I 0:29:49.600 --> 0:29:57.080 think even before Aaron Bushnell self imilated that Sunday was 0:29:57.120 --> 0:30:01.480 probably the most profound theme when I threw the weekend again, 0:30:01.600 --> 0:30:05.960 especially with Tucson's proximity to the border and to native 0:30:06.040 --> 0:30:10.200 lands that are on the border and which are often 0:30:10.240 --> 0:30:14.920 surveilled using wait for it, Israeli military technology. The sort 0:30:14.960 --> 0:30:20.240 of official name of the summit was the Nationwide Summit 0:30:20.480 --> 0:30:24.760 to Stop coop City, which was a sort of winking 0:30:24.960 --> 0:30:31.960 nudge nudge at Nationwide Insurance, which is the main underwriter 0:30:32.240 --> 0:30:36.400 of the insurance policies that ensure what would be cop city. 0:30:37.200 --> 0:30:43.720 Nationwide has a major corporate office in Scottsdale, Arizona, which 0:30:43.760 --> 0:30:46.280 is in between Tucson and Phoenix. 0:30:47.000 --> 0:30:49.720 On the first night of the summit, a small group 0:30:49.760 --> 0:30:56.520 of anonymous vandals attacked three subsidiaries of Nationwide Insurance in Tucson, Arizona, Tusan, Amazonia, 0:30:56.920 --> 0:31:01.400 breaking windows and vandalizing their buildings. Later on in the week, 0:31:01.640 --> 0:31:05.000 there were two more public direct actions that happened during 0:31:05.000 --> 0:31:07.880 the summit. The first was a black block march on 0:31:07.920 --> 0:31:11.520 the night of February twenty fifth in downtown Tucson, Arizona, 0:31:11.880 --> 0:31:14.880 sun Arizonia. As a crowd of a little under one 0:31:14.960 --> 0:31:19.520 hundred people moved through downtown stopcop City. Graffiti filled the plaza, 0:31:19.760 --> 0:31:21.520 and a P and C bank as well as a 0:31:21.560 --> 0:31:25.880 recently closed Wells Fargo branch, had their windows smashed. Wells 0:31:25.920 --> 0:31:29.000 Fargo is affiliated with the Atlanta Police Foundation and PNC 0:31:29.160 --> 0:31:31.880 is a financial backer of the Mountain Valley Pipeline in 0:31:31.920 --> 0:31:35.360 the Appalachians. Police were able to arrest at least three 0:31:35.360 --> 0:31:38.640 people suspected of participating in the march. Oddly, they were 0:31:38.720 --> 0:31:42.360 charged with arson of an occupied building, I believe due 0:31:42.400 --> 0:31:45.640 to fireworks being thrown in or near one of the banks. 0:31:46.320 --> 0:31:49.720 Given the name of the nationwide summit, it was expected 0:31:49.720 --> 0:31:53.400 that there would be a public action targeting nationwide insurance. 0:31:54.200 --> 0:31:59.200 So Monday morning we headed up to Scottsdale, Arizona, again 0:31:59.320 --> 0:32:02.000 just outside of feat Phoenix is about two hours away, 0:32:02.960 --> 0:32:08.120 where we stopped by a sort of sidewalk rally type 0:32:08.160 --> 0:32:12.480 situation that was happening outside of the Nationwide Regional offices, 0:32:12.560 --> 0:32:16.480 which was honestly quite locked down, quite hard to get 0:32:16.520 --> 0:32:20.560 access to it. As we were leaving the sidewalk rally 0:32:21.400 --> 0:32:26.200 and being followed by Scottsdale's finest bicycle riders, I thought 0:32:26.200 --> 0:32:29.000 it was interesting that one of the bicycle cops had 0:32:29.120 --> 0:32:34.960 a life behind Bars personalized painted bicycle bell. It was 0:32:35.080 --> 0:32:39.240 Teal and said a Life behind Bars, And when we 0:32:39.280 --> 0:32:41.960 asked him about it, he just said, I just thought 0:32:42.000 --> 0:32:44.480 it was funny because you know, I'm a cop and 0:32:44.840 --> 0:32:46.520 I'm behind bicycle bars. 0:32:47.320 --> 0:32:47.760 It was. 0:32:49.240 --> 0:32:53.360 Delightful and look forward to further coverage of this exciting 0:32:53.480 --> 0:32:57.400 story in a soon to be released ACPC video feature. 0:32:58.240 --> 0:33:03.520 So after the rally outside of nationwide offices, we got 0:33:03.520 --> 0:33:07.520 a tip that a lockdown style action would be happening 0:33:08.360 --> 0:33:13.400 somewhere in the Scottsdale Phoenix area that afternoon, So maybe 0:33:13.400 --> 0:33:17.400 around four or five o'clock, we traveled to the hills 0:33:17.440 --> 0:33:22.640 of Maricopa County, Arizona, formerly home to America's toughest sheriff, 0:33:22.720 --> 0:33:27.360 Joe Arpaio, into this sort of enclave of gated, dead 0:33:27.440 --> 0:33:33.280 end streets with fabulously expensive homes. One of these homes 0:33:33.360 --> 0:33:39.000 is owned by a nationwide insurance executive. So the activists 0:33:39.120 --> 0:33:43.160 that locked down placed their bodies in front of two 0:33:43.360 --> 0:33:50.640 entrances to this enclave with the intention of disrupting the 0:33:50.680 --> 0:33:55.800 evening of this nationwide executive and their neighbors. There were 0:33:55.960 --> 0:33:59.960 six activists in total that locked down, three at each entry. 0:34:00.920 --> 0:34:03.280 They used a device that has been ascribed to me 0:34:03.560 --> 0:34:06.800 as being called a cupcake, meaning it was a bag 0:34:06.840 --> 0:34:10.799 of concrete placed on the inside of a car tire 0:34:11.640 --> 0:34:15.200 set with some rebar and a kind of pipe sticking 0:34:15.239 --> 0:34:17.640 out of it where I assumed there was some sort 0:34:17.680 --> 0:34:20.480 of like handcuff locking on the inside of the pipe. 0:34:20.520 --> 0:34:25.000 The gates were also locked shut with like bicycle locks. 0:34:25.480 --> 0:34:27.960 People were locked to the entrance of the gated community 0:34:28.000 --> 0:34:31.239 for almost four hours before being arrested. All six were 0:34:31.320 --> 0:34:34.200 ultimately given misdemeanor charges and released within twenty four to 0:34:34.200 --> 0:34:37.400 forty eight hours. Sam also talks to me about how 0:34:37.560 --> 0:34:41.080 these big public gatherings like the summit in Tucson, Arizona, 0:34:41.400 --> 0:34:43.920 so I'm not as Zunia, seem like they just can't 0:34:43.960 --> 0:34:46.040 really happen in Atlanta anymore. 0:34:46.600 --> 0:34:46.719 So. 0:34:46.840 --> 0:34:49.040 In November here in Atlanta, we had the Block Cop 0:34:49.040 --> 0:34:54.280 City Convergence, which was organized to a pretty significant extent 0:34:54.800 --> 0:34:59.080 by folks not from Atlanta. I know one reason I 0:34:59.120 --> 0:35:03.080 heard for that. It's pretty well known that organizers in 0:35:03.080 --> 0:35:07.320 Atlanta are tired, and there was a group of people 0:35:08.840 --> 0:35:11.520 from outside of Atlanta that felt like they could carry 0:35:11.520 --> 0:35:15.440 that lift to organize and action here in Atlanta. The 0:35:15.480 --> 0:35:18.800 summit in Tucson, to my knowledge, is the first major 0:35:18.840 --> 0:35:22.560 convergence that has been organized outside of Atlanta with a 0:35:22.680 --> 0:35:26.799 call for folks to come from the nation over. It 0:35:26.920 --> 0:35:31.560 was a very keen or a very sharp feeling of 0:35:32.520 --> 0:35:35.480 grief that this was not happening in Atlanta, that could 0:35:35.520 --> 0:35:39.080 not happen in Atlanta, both because the forest has had 0:35:39.080 --> 0:35:42.520 a huge chunk of it bulldozed, but also due to 0:35:42.680 --> 0:35:48.680 the police occupation of the forest, that this could not 0:35:49.160 --> 0:35:53.200 happen in Atlanta right now in the Willani Forest, and 0:35:53.280 --> 0:35:57.800 I think, especially given recent events in Atlanta, in anywhere 0:35:57.920 --> 0:35:59.200 in Atlanta in Georgia. 0:35:59.239 --> 0:36:04.200 Frankly, even if due to continuating circumstances, events like this 0:36:04.320 --> 0:36:07.080 may not be able to happen in Georgia. Sam told 0:36:07.080 --> 0:36:09.680 me that once the summit kicked off and things got going, 0:36:10.160 --> 0:36:13.600 it became clear that, of course, convergences can and probably 0:36:13.640 --> 0:36:17.400 will continue to happen anywhere and everywhere. For a long time, 0:36:17.560 --> 0:36:22.160 a slogan of this struggle has been cop City is everywhere. 0:36:22.600 --> 0:36:29.560 Even if there weren't similar cop city like facilities planned 0:36:30.480 --> 0:36:33.959 or already being built all over the country. I believe 0:36:34.000 --> 0:36:37.960 the latest count was sixty nine or seventy. I can't 0:36:38.080 --> 0:36:41.040 quite remember who did that research, but even if it 0:36:41.080 --> 0:36:45.359 wasn't for that, again to go back to like the 0:36:45.400 --> 0:36:51.240 sharp through line of Gaza, the border, indigenous lands, Gilly 0:36:52.320 --> 0:36:59.000 historial genocide, this struggle is the same everywhere. The police 0:36:59.040 --> 0:37:01.560 are the same everywhere. As I was recently discussed on 0:37:01.560 --> 0:37:02.239 this podcast. 0:37:03.160 --> 0:37:06.120 As this episode draws to a close, I'd like to 0:37:06.320 --> 0:37:09.080 air out some thoughts I've had ruminating around my head 0:37:09.120 --> 0:37:14.040 for a while about inter conflict as desperation. These comments 0:37:14.080 --> 0:37:17.520 are not about any specific city or situation. This simply 0:37:17.560 --> 0:37:21.480 reflects a pattern I've observed in various struggles caught in 0:37:21.520 --> 0:37:24.920 a down spiral, particularly during the fallout of the twenty 0:37:24.960 --> 0:37:30.160 twenty protests nationwide. Historically, I think Atlanta has actually proven 0:37:30.200 --> 0:37:32.759 to be pretty resilient against this sort of thing, but 0:37:33.040 --> 0:37:35.920 as the stakes are quite high, I would hate to 0:37:35.960 --> 0:37:38.839 see something similar happen, as the cop city struggle here 0:37:38.840 --> 0:37:41.760 in Atlanta seems to be entering its latter stages. 0:37:42.760 --> 0:37:43.600 First, I'd like. 0:37:43.560 --> 0:37:47.200 To say it's always a worrying ticking clock once people 0:37:47.239 --> 0:37:50.799 start getting treated as disposable or as political props to 0:37:50.840 --> 0:37:54.799 be sacrificed in the service of spectacle. But primarily I've 0:37:54.800 --> 0:37:58.399 been thinking about at a certain point far enough within 0:37:58.440 --> 0:38:01.200 a struggle, it becomes easy to fight each other than 0:38:01.239 --> 0:38:04.360 it is to fight police. Which is not to say 0:38:04.400 --> 0:38:08.080 all conflict is bad. Conflict can often be good. Tension 0:38:08.160 --> 0:38:11.279 can result in a new innovative action that otherwise might 0:38:11.320 --> 0:38:15.960 not materialize. But when said, actionable conflict starts to materialize 0:38:16.000 --> 0:38:18.680 more frequently against each other rather than against the state. 0:38:19.360 --> 0:38:23.920 That signals impending doom. Being able to consistently put your 0:38:23.920 --> 0:38:26.360 beliefs into practice with a like minded group of people, 0:38:26.520 --> 0:38:29.640 to directly engage against systems of oppression like the police 0:38:29.719 --> 0:38:32.640 or the state, especially in your own city, is a 0:38:32.680 --> 0:38:37.319 life affirming process, almost intoxicating. It's very easy to become 0:38:37.320 --> 0:38:41.960 addicted to high intensity conflict. Unfortunately, the state is a 0:38:42.000 --> 0:38:45.680 resilient bastard. Even if you can land a few sizeable blows. 0:38:46.239 --> 0:38:49.120 Over time, this state can gather a lot of resources 0:38:49.120 --> 0:38:52.040 to push back, and it take a few days, weeks, months, 0:38:52.160 --> 0:38:55.680 or even years. Only in our minds may the glorious 0:38:55.800 --> 0:38:59.160 first spark of uprising last forever, the burning of the 0:38:59.200 --> 0:39:02.040 Third Precinct, or the first year or so of defend 0:39:02.040 --> 0:39:06.400 the Atlanta Forest. But nostalgia is a trap, and eventually 0:39:06.440 --> 0:39:10.040 the empire does in fact strike back. But as it 0:39:10.080 --> 0:39:13.360 becomes harder, more dangerous, more frightening to engage against the state, 0:39:14.280 --> 0:39:17.640 the desire for that rush of conflict stays. It lingers. 0:39:18.120 --> 0:39:20.680 So what is one to do? The walls are closing in, 0:39:20.760 --> 0:39:23.279 but you have this need to fight, so you take 0:39:23.320 --> 0:39:26.640 out your anxiety, PTSD and frustration on those around you. 0:39:27.480 --> 0:39:30.040 It is much more scary to fight the police. This, 0:39:30.160 --> 0:39:33.200 by comparison, is easy while still feeding that conflict you 0:39:33.239 --> 0:39:36.560 will drive we must keep on fighting, and since it's 0:39:36.960 --> 0:39:39.920 harder and more scary to continually fight the cops or 0:39:39.960 --> 0:39:42.839 the state, we instead are looking for ways to fight 0:39:42.880 --> 0:39:45.880 each other, to find scapegoats to purge, often in service 0:39:45.880 --> 0:39:49.520 of some unrelated personal grievance or in group self preservation 0:39:50.200 --> 0:39:54.480 constant attack, constant strength, constant purity. These conflicts can take 0:39:54.560 --> 0:39:57.480 form as blame as to why desired outcome is not 0:39:57.520 --> 0:40:02.239 being achieved, intensified a stratifica of in group out group dynamics, 0:40:02.280 --> 0:40:04.800 as in these are the bad people in the movement, 0:40:05.000 --> 0:40:08.360 whereas we are the enlightened definity group with the only 0:40:08.400 --> 0:40:13.759 successful strategy or conspiratorial co intel pro like actions such 0:40:13.840 --> 0:40:17.480 as cop jacketing, snitch jacketing, and more general bad jacketing 0:40:17.480 --> 0:40:22.000 against people who you have simple organizational disagreements with. This 0:40:22.080 --> 0:40:25.960 can also manifest as a deep unwillingness to hear preemptive 0:40:26.040 --> 0:40:29.480 critical commentary and the assumption that all criticism comes from 0:40:29.560 --> 0:40:32.920 place of bad faith, A recent article in a popular 0:40:32.920 --> 0:40:37.640 anarchist publication roped in genuine critique and disagreement as somehow 0:40:37.680 --> 0:40:41.200 being in alignment with the state's motivations against the movement. 0:40:41.520 --> 0:40:44.680 And this is not just a form of cop jacketing, saying 0:40:44.719 --> 0:40:47.640 that if you disagree with a particular strategy, that means 0:40:47.680 --> 0:40:50.440 you are in alignment with police because they also dislike 0:40:50.440 --> 0:40:54.200 a particular strategy. But the police dislike the strategy for 0:40:54.239 --> 0:40:57.600 a completely different reason, because they dislike any form of resistance. 0:40:58.680 --> 0:41:01.319 Claiming that critique from an anarchists and criticism from the 0:41:01.320 --> 0:41:05.320 state come from the same fundamental place is simply laughable. 0:41:06.200 --> 0:41:09.360 It is in moments such as this, when repression is increasing, 0:41:09.920 --> 0:41:14.120 that justified frustration and fear leading to paranoia can be 0:41:14.200 --> 0:41:17.920 turned into a weapon by the state. At these moments, 0:41:17.920 --> 0:41:20.720 people must be the most vigilant against their own fear, 0:41:20.840 --> 0:41:24.160 resulting in retreat from battle against the state and turning 0:41:24.239 --> 0:41:28.839 to intra conflict as a desperate form of alternative struggle. Solidarity, 0:41:28.920 --> 0:41:33.520 love and care are paramount, including harsh love, including well 0:41:33.560 --> 0:41:38.799 meaning critical commentary, debate, and constructive conversation. Well that's enough 0:41:38.800 --> 0:41:41.799 of that. Finally, I'd like to give an update on 0:41:41.920 --> 0:41:46.480 the Copcity construction timeline. The past few months, city officials 0:41:46.560 --> 0:41:48.960 and the Atlanta Police Foundation have made a series of 0:41:48.960 --> 0:41:53.200 statements claiming construction is very much on schedule and quickly 0:41:53.239 --> 0:41:54.320 approaching completion. 0:41:54.840 --> 0:41:57.680 I want to say this, the construction of those training 0:41:57.719 --> 0:41:58.720 centers on schedule. 0:41:59.160 --> 0:42:01.440 We will be moving in summer. It will be operational 0:42:01.560 --> 0:42:02.399 this time next year. 0:42:02.960 --> 0:42:07.680 The new facility is almost seventy percent complete with construction. 0:42:08.360 --> 0:42:11.600 Many have pointed out that this is a ridiculously high number, 0:42:11.719 --> 0:42:14.880 considering that a video published by the police just a 0:42:14.880 --> 0:42:18.920 few days ago showed an unfinished foundation and a single 0:42:19.000 --> 0:42:23.120 paved road. Now Sam from the Atlantic Community Press Collective 0:42:23.239 --> 0:42:26.600 helped explain what this number might be referring to. 0:42:27.400 --> 0:42:31.080 There are no walls built, to say the least. I 0:42:31.160 --> 0:42:35.759 personally believe that to be a very charitable reading of 0:42:36.480 --> 0:42:39.120 a document with a construction timeline. We've seen as a 0:42:39.120 --> 0:42:42.520 result of our open records requests that sort of break 0:42:42.840 --> 0:42:46.440 the what a lay person such as myself would call 0:42:46.440 --> 0:42:52.480 it the construction process up into things like permitting, pre construction, development, construction. 0:42:53.200 --> 0:42:56.799 On that timeline, they were about seventy percent done with 0:42:56.920 --> 0:43:01.600 the development, and they were also about seventy percent done 0:43:01.680 --> 0:43:06.040 with the whole process ranging from permitting to cutting the 0:43:06.040 --> 0:43:09.720 red ribbon. What again, as a layperson, I would also 0:43:09.800 --> 0:43:14.360 call the construction process, meaning the whole you know, roof walls, doors, 0:43:14.480 --> 0:43:18.880 thing on that particular document was zero percent complete or like, 0:43:19.480 --> 0:43:22.040 I shouldn't say zero percent because they have like concrete 0:43:22.080 --> 0:43:24.120 paths and stuff. I don't remember exactly what the date 0:43:24.160 --> 0:43:27.000 on this document was, but it was zero to a 0:43:27.120 --> 0:43:29.040 very small percentage of complete. 0:43:29.280 --> 0:43:30.440 So yes on the. 0:43:30.239 --> 0:43:34.520 Grand construction timeline of filing the first document to again 0:43:34.800 --> 0:43:39.000 literal walls. Yeah, sure they're seventy percent complete by any 0:43:39.040 --> 0:43:42.880 measure of construction to the average season. No, they are 0:43:42.920 --> 0:43:44.800 not seventy percent complete. 0:43:46.120 --> 0:43:48.520 Before I close this episode out, I do want to 0:43:48.600 --> 0:43:51.520 let listeners know about ways to support Jack, the person 0:43:51.560 --> 0:43:55.080 rested in the house raid last month. In the show notes, 0:43:55.120 --> 0:43:57.120 I will link to a fundraiser that goes towards his 0:43:57.200 --> 0:44:00.359 legal fees, jail commissary, and phone calls. You can also 0:44:00.360 --> 0:44:03.520 go to the website free Jack dot Co. That's free 0:44:03.719 --> 0:44:07.960 Jack dot Co for information on how to mail letters 0:44:07.960 --> 0:44:10.640 and books to Jack while he is currently being held 0:44:10.680 --> 0:44:14.680 in jail without bond. Trials and court cases related to 0:44:14.760 --> 0:44:18.640 the Georgia copcity recoindictment have all been delayed till at 0:44:18.719 --> 0:44:22.680 least this summer. Follow the Atlantic Community Press Collective for 0:44:22.840 --> 0:44:26.359 updates on that as they happen. See you on the 0:44:26.400 --> 0:44:27.239 other side. 0:44:27.760 --> 0:44:29.040 Do you think he's glaed to stay? 0:44:29.880 --> 0:44:33.319 You know, obviously he's not here and we're seeking him, 0:44:33.320 --> 0:44:34.600 and so we would ask him to come in and 0:44:34.680 --> 0:44:35.560 answer our questions. 0:44:48.960 --> 0:44:51.680 Welcome, sick it up and here, I'm Andrew Siege from 0:44:51.760 --> 0:44:55.799 the Channel andresm and say you will be shedding light 0:44:55.960 --> 0:44:59.920 on a recently popular discussion on the problem with mod 0:45:00.200 --> 0:45:04.920 cities and more specifically the growing absence of third places. 0:45:06.040 --> 0:45:09.840 Now love them or hate them, cities are here to stay. 0:45:10.360 --> 0:45:12.319 And if you spend any time on urban plan and 0:45:12.360 --> 0:45:15.560 YouTube or really just looked around, you know they have 0:45:15.600 --> 0:45:20.440 some issues. Traffic congestion is a big one, a notorious 0:45:20.520 --> 0:45:25.160 nemesis of modern cities, stemming from increased population, poor urban planning, 0:45:25.200 --> 0:45:28.600 and excessive vehicle usage, creating a big waste of time 0:45:28.640 --> 0:45:32.360 and straining or well being. There also issues of physical 0:45:32.400 --> 0:45:36.800 and mental health among city inhabitants. The environmental impact of 0:45:36.880 --> 0:45:38.640 urban areas can be quite terrible. 0:45:39.160 --> 0:45:40.759 Housing issues seem to. 0:45:40.800 --> 0:45:45.640 Be globally hellish, but still people flock to cities because 0:45:45.680 --> 0:45:48.800 that's where the opportunities are. Hence the growth of slums 0:45:48.840 --> 0:45:52.600 and the overall straining infrastructure like utilities and transportation, and 0:45:52.680 --> 0:45:55.880 the functionality of cities, many of which are currently well 0:45:55.920 --> 0:46:00.319 above their capacity. Of course, many of these issues just 0:46:00.400 --> 0:46:03.360 don't touch the wealthy in the same way. Within the 0:46:03.360 --> 0:46:08.600 city's gleaming skyscrapers lie stock disparities and income access to 0:46:08.640 --> 0:46:13.879 resources and opportunities. I for another issue, more relevantile discussionaire. 0:46:14.239 --> 0:46:18.040 In the midst of a crowd, even dwellers often grapple 0:46:18.120 --> 0:46:22.359 with feelings of loneliness and disconnection. The paradox are being 0:46:22.400 --> 0:46:28.640 surrounded by people yet feeling totally alone. In a seminar work, 0:46:28.760 --> 0:46:31.680 The Great Good Place, published in nineteen eighty nine, American 0:46:31.719 --> 0:46:35.520 sociologist Ray Olenberg presents a captivator notion for a balance 0:46:35.560 --> 0:46:40.080 and fulfilling life, a harmony among the three spheres, the home, 0:46:40.160 --> 0:46:43.799 of the workplace, and the realm of third places. These 0:46:43.840 --> 0:46:48.120 third places encompass inclusive social settings, crucial for community bonding 0:46:48.360 --> 0:46:52.919 and faster and meaningful interactions. Now, as for what qualifies 0:46:53.000 --> 0:46:55.759 a third place, common examples come to mind. 0:46:56.160 --> 0:46:58.280 Cafes, pubs, stoops parks. 0:46:58.360 --> 0:47:02.680 However, not every cafe, pubs, tupa park captures the essence 0:47:02.719 --> 0:47:04.080 of a true third. 0:47:03.800 --> 0:47:06.040 Place as Oldenburg described it. 0:47:07.040 --> 0:47:09.880 Historically, their places have been a powerful force in shaping 0:47:09.920 --> 0:47:13.680 the course of revolutions and cultural movements. During the American Revolution, 0:47:13.880 --> 0:47:18.200 the tavern was a vital health of political discourse. In 0:47:18.200 --> 0:47:21.160 the French Revolution, the cafe was a crucial meeting place 0:47:21.160 --> 0:47:25.080 for the revolutionary, intelligentia and common people. During the Enlightenment, 0:47:25.280 --> 0:47:28.759 coffeehouses in London assumed a central rule in fostering the 0:47:28.800 --> 0:47:33.279 intellectual and cultural transformation of society, and during the Harlem Renaissance, 0:47:33.520 --> 0:47:36.880 third places could be found in theaters, churches, jazz cafes 0:47:36.880 --> 0:47:41.080 and more sivin as vital he runs for African American musicians, writers, 0:47:41.120 --> 0:47:44.719 intellectuals the source to develop and celebrate their cultural identity. 0:47:45.280 --> 0:47:50.000 Oldenburg outlines eight key characteristics that define the allure of 0:47:50.040 --> 0:47:54.680 these communal spaces. He takes a rather strict approach, and 0:47:54.840 --> 0:47:59.200 this is key, emphasizing that his description excludes the maturity 0:47:59.360 --> 0:48:03.760 of venue even if they exhibit some of these defining traits. 0:48:04.920 --> 0:48:08.000 And I suppose you can argue with that, but I 0:48:08.000 --> 0:48:10.640 think that's equippal I've had with the discussions about third 0:48:10.680 --> 0:48:14.000 places because people seem to be more infatuated with the 0:48:14.239 --> 0:48:18.680 vague idea of them and not so much interested in 0:48:18.760 --> 0:48:22.000 what the two has actually been coined to describe. See 0:48:22.040 --> 0:48:25.000 end up with people label in all sorts of spaces, clubs, 0:48:25.000 --> 0:48:27.719 and organizations third places. 0:48:27.520 --> 0:48:30.440 Even if they don't fit the criteria. At this point, 0:48:30.560 --> 0:48:31.319 the Internet has. 0:48:31.239 --> 0:48:34.480 Seemingly lost the plot on third places and taken a 0:48:34.560 --> 0:48:37.600 life on its own independent of what Oldenburg intended. 0:48:38.239 --> 0:48:39.799 But he's dead. 0:48:40.560 --> 0:48:43.080 His book is still around, but I don't think a 0:48:43.120 --> 0:48:45.719 lot of people have read it. But I did in 0:48:45.840 --> 0:48:48.000 preparation for this, and so we'll tell into some of 0:48:48.000 --> 0:48:49.120 those characteristics now. 0:48:51.160 --> 0:48:54.320 For one, a third place lies on neutral ground. 0:48:54.960 --> 0:48:56.800 No one has expected to play host for the others, 0:48:56.840 --> 0:48:59.239 no one is obligated to be there, and people are 0:48:59.280 --> 0:49:01.760 comfortable and free to come and go as they please. 0:49:03.000 --> 0:49:06.640 Third places are spaces where people can jest, be where 0:49:06.640 --> 0:49:09.920 you can where opportunities can exist for fraternization in a 0:49:10.000 --> 0:49:12.760 safe public setting that car be found in the privacy 0:49:12.760 --> 0:49:15.560 of the home or the professional boundary. 0:49:15.040 --> 0:49:15.799 Of the workplace. 0:49:16.360 --> 0:49:19.520 A space where a variety of relationships can blossom, including 0:49:19.560 --> 0:49:23.840 the ones that don't go any deeper than friendly public encounters. Secondly, 0:49:23.840 --> 0:49:26.560 the third place is a level in place. It requires 0:49:26.560 --> 0:49:29.440 no formal criteria for membership. In place, there's no emphasis 0:49:29.520 --> 0:49:32.439 on one's social status, and provides the possibility for people 0:49:32.440 --> 0:49:35.799 of a variety of backgrounds and experiences to associate on 0:49:35.840 --> 0:49:40.240 the merit of their personality alone. Within third places, people 0:49:40.239 --> 0:49:43.240 can find friendships with those who are under ordinary circumstances 0:49:43.440 --> 0:49:47.200 that might never cross paths. The third characteristic of the 0:49:47.239 --> 0:49:49.560 third place is that it's a place in which conversation 0:49:49.760 --> 0:49:51.239 is meant to be the main activity. 0:49:52.000 --> 0:49:54.440 It doesn't have to be the only activity. For example, 0:49:54.520 --> 0:49:55.920 card games or pool. 0:49:55.760 --> 0:49:59.120 Or dominoes make for an excellent social lubricant, but the 0:49:59.160 --> 0:50:05.560 space should become enough to facilitate pleasurable, lighthearted, and entertaining conversation. Now, 0:50:05.600 --> 0:50:07.920 it's not difficult to create a space that can facilitate 0:50:07.960 --> 0:50:11.080 good conversation, but it's also easy to ruin the flow 0:50:11.120 --> 0:50:16.480 of good conversation. Music, personal screens, ecosistical people. They can 0:50:16.520 --> 0:50:18.680 all be quite ruinous to the social energy that a 0:50:18.719 --> 0:50:20.240 good third place tries to foster. 0:50:20.960 --> 0:50:24.640 Fourthly, third places need to be open and readily accessible. 0:50:25.239 --> 0:50:27.120 That means being accessible in the sense of being in 0:50:27.120 --> 0:50:30.720 a convenient location and open whenever the demons is holiness 0:50:30.800 --> 0:50:33.719 or bortant strike, or when the depressures and frustrations of 0:50:33.719 --> 0:50:35.680 the day call for relaxation a. 0:50:35.680 --> 0:50:37.080 Mid good company. 0:50:37.239 --> 0:50:39.399 In other words, third places are available when people need 0:50:39.440 --> 0:50:39.840 them to be. 0:50:40.800 --> 0:50:41.000 Now. 0:50:41.120 --> 0:50:44.640 The form of accessibility that Wodenburg describes is not the 0:50:44.680 --> 0:50:48.000 form of accessibility that disability just as advocates fight for, 0:50:48.640 --> 0:50:50.839 And that is one of the quibbles that I have 0:50:51.000 --> 0:50:54.080 with Wrotenberg's conception of third places that I'll get into 0:50:54.160 --> 0:50:59.080 later next. Third places are given their appeal by their regulars, 0:50:59.440 --> 0:51:01.920 who helps the mood of the space and provide a 0:51:01.920 --> 0:51:06.520 welcoming environment for newcomers. Every regular was once a newcomer, 0:51:06.760 --> 0:51:09.239 and the acceptance of newcomers is the central to the 0:51:09.280 --> 0:51:11.279 sustained vitality of. 0:51:11.239 --> 0:51:15.320 The third place. Sixth, third places keep a low profile. 0:51:15.360 --> 0:51:19.480 They're not exclusive, extravagant, potentious to overly fancy. They're not 0:51:19.560 --> 0:51:22.960 usually openly advertised, and they send to be older places 0:51:23.080 --> 0:51:26.279 with a sort of a modest or even CD atmosphere. 0:51:27.520 --> 0:51:32.840 They're certainly not tourist traps. Seventh, and we're almost done. 0:51:33.080 --> 0:51:36.560 Third places have a playful mood. People go to third 0:51:36.560 --> 0:51:40.520 places for the banter and the laughter, not tension and hostility, 0:51:40.920 --> 0:51:42.919 so that's what the space is set up to encourage. 0:51:43.480 --> 0:51:45.799 And lastly, number eight, third places. 0:51:45.440 --> 0:51:48.200 Are meant to be home away from home, offering a 0:51:48.239 --> 0:51:51.920 sense of intimacy, regeneration, and community that puts people at 0:51:51.960 --> 0:51:56.000 ease in a warm and friendly atmosphere. So to summarize, 0:51:56.239 --> 0:52:00.880 third places exist on neutral ground, function as equalizers social status. 0:52:01.239 --> 0:52:04.640 Provide an environment where conversations or the center keep a 0:52:04.680 --> 0:52:08.439 low profile, are open and accommodating, have an essence shape 0:52:08.440 --> 0:52:10.960 by their regulars, characterized by playfulness and a sense of 0:52:11.000 --> 0:52:15.320 home away from home. Third places, with their unique characteristics, 0:52:15.520 --> 0:52:18.759 present an array of advantages. There are only a hands 0:52:18.800 --> 0:52:22.160 in individual social and conversational skills, but also foster a 0:52:22.200 --> 0:52:26.280 sense of genuine connection and belonging within the community. Third 0:52:26.280 --> 0:52:28.839 places are arrested from the monot ney daily life under 0:52:28.840 --> 0:52:32.160 the weight of modern capitalism. They inject much needed novelty 0:52:32.200 --> 0:52:34.880 into our routines, often a diverse and free flow in 0:52:34.960 --> 0:52:38.120 atmosphere that stands apart from the rigidity of our daily 0:52:38.280 --> 0:52:42.120 crid There are bond for emotional wellbeing a spiritual tonic, 0:52:42.320 --> 0:52:45.640 and the loss to tap into our creative and expressive selves. 0:52:46.800 --> 0:52:49.040 Crucially, third places offer. 0:52:48.800 --> 0:52:52.720 With Oldenberg coined as friends by the set, they provide 0:52:52.760 --> 0:52:57.480 convenience paces for social gatherings, offering routine and reliable interactions 0:52:57.680 --> 0:53:01.160 with a diverse array of individuals, both casually and intimately, 0:53:01.560 --> 0:53:06.319 without the hassle of scheduling meetups. Unfortunately, third places kind 0:53:06.320 --> 0:53:10.279 of fell off in many areas, obviously not everywhere, but 0:53:10.480 --> 0:53:14.160 especially in places where American style urban sprawl and suburbia 0:53:14.200 --> 0:53:18.320 has proliferated. I've been describing the characteristics and benefits and 0:53:18.440 --> 0:53:21.560 historical potency of these spaces, but I've only gotten small 0:53:21.640 --> 0:53:23.960 tastes of some of these myself and for a lot 0:53:23.960 --> 0:53:28.080 of people, I think, particularly of my generation. Besides, perhaps 0:53:28.160 --> 0:53:33.240 the approximate experience of a college common room, third places 0:53:33.320 --> 0:53:38.840 are a distant cultural memory, not a lived experience. So 0:53:38.920 --> 0:53:42.960 Oldenberg basically asks what's up with that? And according to him, 0:53:42.960 --> 0:53:47.080 the blame for this mansion act falls squarely on the suburbs. 0:53:47.880 --> 0:53:52.680 These sprawl and enclays prioritized private abodes over public spaces, 0:53:53.080 --> 0:53:56.919 pfatuating and isolating narrative that confines the good life within 0:53:56.960 --> 0:54:03.040 individual homes and yards. Wind designs often imposed by distant developers, 0:54:03.600 --> 0:54:08.200 stifle community connections. Few opportunities exist within them for organic 0:54:08.239 --> 0:54:14.680 social interaction beyond your immediate neighbors. The car centrical layout 0:54:14.760 --> 0:54:18.320 further thoughts the revival of third places, as the reliance 0:54:18.360 --> 0:54:22.320 and cars diminishes chance encounters and informal gathering spots along 0:54:22.400 --> 0:54:26.960 daily routes, fostering a culture of detachment among neighbors. But 0:54:27.000 --> 0:54:31.040 it's not just the suburbs suffering this issue. Urban environments 0:54:31.040 --> 0:54:34.880 too have succumbed to efficiency and profit sacrifice in space 0:54:35.000 --> 0:54:39.800 vir genuine human connection. Standardized franchise chains dominate eras in 0:54:39.840 --> 0:54:44.040 the character and charm that encourage communal interaction, replacing. 0:54:43.480 --> 0:54:45.239 It sterile environments. 0:54:46.160 --> 0:54:50.560 And technology hasn't exactly aided third places either, as the 0:54:50.560 --> 0:54:52.879 alert of the Internet has been a substitute for real 0:54:52.920 --> 0:54:57.000 life interaction that tends to keep people indoors. Sure, you 0:54:57.040 --> 0:55:00.239 can see the Internet as the frontier for new third places, 0:55:00.480 --> 0:55:03.239 and in some ways they are, but not quite in 0:55:03.280 --> 0:55:03.839 the same way. 0:55:04.840 --> 0:55:06.960 And of course I mean less qual its out even 0:55:07.000 --> 0:55:08.160 though wordenburg doesn't. 0:55:08.800 --> 0:55:12.960 Capitalism plays a significant role in the decline of third places. 0:55:13.640 --> 0:55:17.600 Work life imbalances leaves scant time for social engagements to 0:55:17.719 --> 0:55:23.360 relentless commercialization, privatization of public spaces, gentrification, close intraditional hubs, 0:55:23.480 --> 0:55:27.960 and profit driven urban designs all contribute to this decline. 0:55:28.080 --> 0:55:31.360 The disappearance of third places isn't an accident of history, 0:55:31.760 --> 0:55:36.239 but a consequence of our modern societal choices and systemic pressures. 0:55:49.600 --> 0:55:52.640 So all those ideas have been catched on a lot lately, 0:55:52.719 --> 0:55:56.520 especially with younger generations. Like I said, it's this distant 0:55:56.600 --> 0:56:00.920 yet learned cultural memory for obvious reasons, though things kind 0:56:00.960 --> 0:56:04.040 of suck right now, and a lot of people are 0:56:04.080 --> 0:56:07.320 taken a half understood grasp of the concept and running 0:56:07.360 --> 0:56:09.680 wild with it, Like for example, I Aliso see some 0:56:09.760 --> 0:56:12.799 people like just Blankets applying the Internet as the new 0:56:12.840 --> 0:56:13.440 third place. 0:56:14.040 --> 0:56:15.520 And while there are corners. 0:56:15.120 --> 0:56:18.759 Of the Internet that do approximate that experience, and I 0:56:18.840 --> 0:56:22.680 recognize the potential virtual spaces such as Discord to embody 0:56:22.680 --> 0:56:26.600 the characteristics of third places, I fully believe that virtual 0:56:26.680 --> 0:56:30.920 third places lack the tangible elements inherent in traditional spaces 0:56:30.920 --> 0:56:34.840 that are essential for fostering deep emotional connections and empathy 0:56:35.080 --> 0:56:39.920 that are fighter for healthy community life. These social media platforms, 0:56:39.960 --> 0:56:44.440 particularly sites like Twitter, often lack the authenticity and nuanced 0:56:44.440 --> 0:56:48.480 communication president and face to face interactions. That's by design, 0:56:48.520 --> 0:56:52.000 of course. Twitter thrives on conflict. That's why I'm not 0:56:52.040 --> 0:56:55.360 there anymore. But it's all too easy on sites like 0:56:55.400 --> 0:56:59.680 those demit interpret intentions or to use anonymity for negative 0:56:59.719 --> 0:57:04.600 inter actions like cyber bullion, trolling, or online harassment. In 0:57:04.640 --> 0:57:08.880 real life, trolls get kicked out, bulliers in some cases 0:57:08.920 --> 0:57:12.680 are dealt with people who are harassing people also tend 0:57:12.680 --> 0:57:16.000 to get kicked out, But online all those things often 0:57:16.120 --> 0:57:22.240 run rampant. Moreover, the permanents of online interactions can hinder 0:57:22.280 --> 0:57:27.440 the relaxed vulnerability often experience in traditional spaces, as everything 0:57:27.640 --> 0:57:30.480 is recorded, which makes trust easier to breach. 0:57:33.880 --> 0:57:35.840 But despiteer critique of how. 0:57:35.760 --> 0:57:38.240 Some people have been run in with the term third places, 0:57:38.360 --> 0:57:41.440 I think the actual book and its concepts do deserve 0:57:41.720 --> 0:57:47.479 further scrutiny and in my view, radicalization. Wollmenburg's idea of 0:57:47.520 --> 0:57:49.520 the whole in the workplace in the third place is a. 0:57:49.560 --> 0:57:50.760 Sort of a pecan order. 0:57:51.120 --> 0:57:55.120 It also really sidelines domestic labor as like not really 0:57:55.200 --> 0:57:58.960 work as if it's separate from the workplace, and I 0:57:58.960 --> 0:58:02.040 also don't like the idea of work being prioritized over 0:58:02.240 --> 0:58:03.920 like essential social interaction. 0:58:05.280 --> 0:58:08.600 I think there's also the interesting aspect now that for 0:58:08.680 --> 0:58:11.600 a lot of people like myself included, working home are 0:58:11.600 --> 0:58:16.200 now the same spot and there is Ever since the pandemic, 0:58:16.280 --> 0:58:18.920 there's been a large searge of people working from home, 0:58:19.160 --> 0:58:22.080 which kind of complicates this dynamic. 0:58:23.120 --> 0:58:30.600 Yeah, yeah, pre industrialization, I think especially that idea also 0:58:30.640 --> 0:58:32.760 coincide it you know, the first and the second place 0:58:32.760 --> 0:58:35.720 to home. In the workplace, we're also a bit blurred. 0:58:36.360 --> 0:58:38.600 And now I think we're witnessing a similar blurred today, 0:58:38.680 --> 0:58:42.760 you know, post industrialization, and as a consequence of the pandemic, 0:58:43.320 --> 0:58:46.080 with remote work really catching on and blurring those lines 0:58:46.120 --> 0:58:51.440 for sure. I think another major oversighting Oldenbook's work is 0:58:51.480 --> 0:58:55.960 the gender bias within historical and contemporary three Places. You know, 0:58:56.040 --> 0:59:00.680 these spaces have been predominantly male dominated or gender segregated. 0:59:01.960 --> 0:59:05.040 I think it's nostalgia for three Places, which you kind 0:59:05.040 --> 0:59:08.400 of pick up on in the book, neglects the historical 0:59:08.440 --> 0:59:12.320 limitations who women face and accessing these spaces. So I 0:59:12.320 --> 0:59:15.200 think if three Places words make a resurgence, we would 0:59:15.200 --> 0:59:19.160 definitely need to address these systemic barriers, like the double 0:59:19.200 --> 0:59:21.880 shift that many women juggle to ensure. 0:59:21.600 --> 0:59:24.040 Their inclusion in future three places. 0:59:25.000 --> 0:59:29.560 I think another critique I would have is on ownership control. 0:59:30.160 --> 0:59:34.160 You know, third spaces are touted as neutral, but when 0:59:34.160 --> 0:59:37.640 they're operating under the whims of private owners or state authorities, 0:59:38.520 --> 0:59:41.800 they very easily succumb to those profit drift at motives. 0:59:43.320 --> 0:59:45.040 I don't think a community. 0:59:44.560 --> 0:59:46.400 Space, a space that is to be sent that is 0:59:46.440 --> 0:59:50.840 central to a community, should be so concentrated in the hands. 0:59:50.480 --> 0:59:54.000 Of private developers or private owners. 0:59:54.920 --> 0:59:58.600 I think those spaces are the types that should be 0:59:58.680 --> 1:00:05.040 collectively stewarded. There's also the cost barrier of third places. 1:00:05.080 --> 1:00:08.080 You know, due to financial constraints I have already's able to, 1:00:08.720 --> 1:00:10.640 you know, spend the time there and spend the kind 1:00:10.640 --> 1:00:13.240 of money there that those spaces kind of require for 1:00:13.280 --> 1:00:15.880 you to stay there for extended periods of time, they 1:00:15.960 --> 1:00:17.560 kindot have to buy something in all. 1:00:17.480 --> 1:00:18.320 Of those places. 1:00:19.280 --> 1:00:21.840 A lot of good places are alcohol oriented, which is 1:00:21.840 --> 1:00:25.600 not exactly inclusive for people who are not interested in 1:00:25.600 --> 1:00:30.600 alcohol consumption or recovering from addiction. But of course, speaking 1:00:30.760 --> 1:00:36.160 of inclusivity, Willenberg's idea of accessibility, like I said before, 1:00:36.320 --> 1:00:38.840 doesn't really come from a place of disability justice. 1:00:39.120 --> 1:00:40.320 But that has to change. 1:00:40.320 --> 1:00:44.280 You know, we in a broader grasp of accessibility, which 1:00:44.280 --> 1:00:47.080 is why, despite my critiques, I do acknowledge the merits 1:00:47.080 --> 1:00:51.440 of what are often tombed as virtual third places. They 1:00:51.440 --> 1:00:55.560 save us more accessible alternatives for the immunal compromise or 1:00:55.560 --> 1:01:00.720 disabled individuals. These spaces break down geographical barriers, uniting people 1:01:00.760 --> 1:01:05.680 from diverse backgrounds, locations, fostering connections, base since shared interests, passions, 1:01:05.680 --> 1:01:09.320 and identities with all the constraints of physical distance. And 1:01:09.440 --> 1:01:13.640 unlike physical third places, vircial third places are offered around 1:01:13.840 --> 1:01:18.560 the clock, case into users diverse lifestyles and rhythms, offering 1:01:18.600 --> 1:01:22.880 a flexibility that is really rarely found in real life settings. 1:01:24.720 --> 1:01:29.600 At the same time, though in Olenberg's defense, he does 1:01:29.680 --> 1:01:33.040 point out that third places will not resonate with everyone. 1:01:33.200 --> 1:01:35.200 There is this popular notion that third places have to 1:01:35.240 --> 1:01:39.840 be for everybody, and then I see people criticize them, saying, oh, well, 1:01:40.080 --> 1:01:41.400 I prefer to just stay at home. 1:01:41.480 --> 1:01:42.600 I don't really like the places. 1:01:42.640 --> 1:01:45.600 I don't like social interaction or whatever, or I don't 1:01:45.640 --> 1:01:47.040 like that form of social interaction. 1:01:47.480 --> 1:01:48.200 And that's cool. 1:01:48.240 --> 1:01:52.040 You know third places shouldn't be the sole remedy or 1:01:53.160 --> 1:01:57.040 the main remedy for social ills. Preferences will, of course vary, 1:01:57.120 --> 1:02:01.160 and not everyone finds cafes or bars appealing. Fine, but 1:02:01.240 --> 1:02:04.120 I still think we can radicalize their places a bit further, 1:02:04.440 --> 1:02:06.439 not just in the sense of diversifying it, but also 1:02:06.480 --> 1:02:12.000 in the sense of bringing it under popular power. I 1:02:12.080 --> 1:02:14.840 see radical toy places in my version on content to 1:02:14.920 --> 1:02:19.560 merely existing on neutral ground dictated by capital or stage initiatives. 1:02:19.960 --> 1:02:23.320 Know the envision has collective grounds, common grounds where in 1:02:23.320 --> 1:02:26.080 the vidual is not only frequent but co own. These 1:02:26.120 --> 1:02:30.360 spaces invest in time, energy, and resources to ensure their survival. 1:02:30.960 --> 1:02:35.160 Imagine spaces that transcend the typical lightheartedness associated with third places. 1:02:35.880 --> 1:02:39.840 They wield the power to spark social revolutions, serving as 1:02:39.920 --> 1:02:45.040 zones for decompression, rallying spots for union activities, and nurturing 1:02:45.080 --> 1:02:49.640 grounds for mutual aid, a nucleus of community driven change. 1:02:51.920 --> 1:02:54.240 But what says these radical spaces apart is not just 1:02:54.320 --> 1:02:58.480 the accessibility in location operating ours, but also a culture 1:02:58.560 --> 1:03:02.800 of inclusivity that goes beyond nostalgia for traditionally male dominated 1:03:02.800 --> 1:03:05.920 three places. You know, it's about welcoming or broader spectrum 1:03:05.920 --> 1:03:09.480 of perspectives againsties and abilities. Imagine this not just a 1:03:09.560 --> 1:03:13.160 space away from home, but integrated with the neighborhoods and 1:03:13.240 --> 1:03:15.600 mixed use buildings, fostering. 1:03:15.160 --> 1:03:16.360 Community into creation. 1:03:17.440 --> 1:03:20.640 As for how we bring these radical three places to life, 1:03:21.240 --> 1:03:24.360 the Road Flora in Hamburg, Germany, and I think provides 1:03:24.400 --> 1:03:28.840 some great inspiration. Formerly a theater, it was transformed into 1:03:28.840 --> 1:03:32.840 a political and cultural hub by activists in nineteen eighty nine. 1:03:33.400 --> 1:03:36.520 Today it stands as a symbol of resistance against against 1:03:36.520 --> 1:03:40.960 social injustice and a space pulsating with artistic expression and 1:03:41.160 --> 1:03:46.520 vibrant dialogue. They achieved that place through squatting and squattin 1:03:46.680 --> 1:03:50.200 is risky yet revolutionary, but it isn't the only path 1:03:50.280 --> 1:03:54.520 for secure in such spaces. I think we can mobilize communities, 1:03:54.560 --> 1:03:58.160 empowering them to actively participate in shape in public spaces 1:03:58.400 --> 1:04:01.320 instead of waiting for decisions from a I really like 1:04:01.400 --> 1:04:04.160 the idea of camera. 1:04:03.920 --> 1:04:08.720 Where the team comes from. But it's gorilla urban planning. 1:04:09.320 --> 1:04:12.200 You know, painting lines on the on the pavement for 1:04:12.280 --> 1:04:17.520 back paths, you know, reclaiming the sidewalk, claiming spaces in 1:04:17.560 --> 1:04:21.200 your neighborhood, taking control and not asking for permission to 1:04:21.240 --> 1:04:24.200 shape the park or the space that you share as 1:04:24.200 --> 1:04:27.960 you see fit. It's really about, you know, co creating 1:04:28.040 --> 1:04:32.520 our environment. It's not merely accepting what's imposed upon us. 1:04:34.240 --> 1:04:40.000 Reformist strategies in instances like these can have their merits. 1:04:40.040 --> 1:04:45.600 They don't exactly advance revolution, but you know, advocating for 1:04:45.640 --> 1:04:49.480 walkable neighborhood to improve probably transportation doesn't you know, it 1:04:49.480 --> 1:04:53.360 doesn't hurt. But the crocs remains, you know, these actions, 1:04:53.360 --> 1:04:56.600 these pushing this, this effort to push for reform. You know, 1:04:57.240 --> 1:05:02.600 it can solely accomplish potential some change, but the crux remains, 1:05:02.640 --> 1:05:06.000 you know, empowering people to manage their own lives and spaces, 1:05:06.280 --> 1:05:12.640 not relinquishing that power to uncare and autocrats. The decline 1:05:12.640 --> 1:05:17.000 of their places might not be catastrophic, but until we 1:05:17.040 --> 1:05:21.080 recognize and harness our power to shape physical environments, our 1:05:21.240 --> 1:05:24.040 urban social life will continue to lack of vibrancy. 1:05:25.280 --> 1:05:28.000 I think we have to acknowledge our profound. 1:05:27.600 --> 1:05:31.800 Influence and our surroundings and seize our agency to actively 1:05:31.880 --> 1:05:33.280 craft our spaces. 1:05:34.160 --> 1:05:38.120 All power to all the people. This is Andrew, This 1:05:38.240 --> 1:05:38.440 is a. 1:05:40.520 --> 1:05:58.880 Peace welcome back to It could happen here, the podcast 1:05:58.960 --> 1:06:02.040 that's happening here in your ear. And one of the 1:06:02.080 --> 1:06:06.520 things that we love talking about here is a critical 1:06:06.680 --> 1:06:12.600 ingredient towards creeping authoritarianism, towards growing corporate control and surveillance 1:06:12.640 --> 1:06:15.480 over all of our lives, which is of course technology 1:06:15.560 --> 1:06:19.160 that makes it even easier to monitor you than it 1:06:19.240 --> 1:06:22.120 already is. We're not talking primarily about like the government 1:06:22.880 --> 1:06:25.320 monitoring you, because they can, you know, do stuff like 1:06:25.480 --> 1:06:28.439 just pull your phone data from a you know which 1:06:28.480 --> 1:06:31.120 cell towers is pinged. We're talking about the kind of 1:06:31.120 --> 1:06:35.200 stuff that allows basically whoever can get an app on 1:06:35.240 --> 1:06:39.480 your phone to track and stalk you. And Yeah, I'm 1:06:39.480 --> 1:06:42.680 going to first introduce Mia Wong. Mia, welcome to the 1:06:42.720 --> 1:06:47.080 show that you also host. Yes, I'm here. So what 1:06:47.160 --> 1:06:48.919 are we what are we talking about today? And who 1:06:48.920 --> 1:06:50.080 are we talking with? 1:06:51.320 --> 1:06:53.840 Yeah? So we are talking about stalker war, which is 1:06:53.840 --> 1:06:56.760 the sort of broad name for the category of software 1:06:56.760 --> 1:06:59.560 that Robber's been talking about. And we are talking about 1:06:59.640 --> 1:07:04.960 someone who hacked one well, a stoker wear stalker. Yeah, 1:07:06.200 --> 1:07:09.680 one of the stockerware companies, my Aris and Crime, the 1:07:09.680 --> 1:07:13.280 Fame Hacker, the No fly List. Yeah. Returning guests always 1:07:13.280 --> 1:07:14.120 happy to have you on. 1:07:15.120 --> 1:07:20.000 Yeah, I always happy to be on. Yeah. 1:07:20.040 --> 1:07:24.280 So I think I think, I don't know, I think 1:07:24.280 --> 1:07:28.080 there's a real tendency among and I see this among 1:07:28.160 --> 1:07:31.040 leftists a lot for kind of good reasons and kind 1:07:31.040 --> 1:07:36.280 of not good reasons to really only focus on state 1:07:36.440 --> 1:07:40.840 and like large corporate actors in terms of surveillance. And 1:07:41.280 --> 1:07:42.160 that's a mistake. 1:07:42.920 --> 1:07:43.800 Yeah, totally. 1:07:45.280 --> 1:07:47.560 Yeah, And so I guess I guess the place where 1:07:47.560 --> 1:07:49.440 I want to start before we get into the specific 1:07:49.520 --> 1:07:52.840 company that you do do is it still called owned? 1:07:53.800 --> 1:07:54.240 I kin't. 1:07:54.600 --> 1:07:58.080 It's fine to call it owned or pond or whatever. 1:07:58.760 --> 1:08:01.080 I still do that. Sometimes people get confused. 1:08:01.520 --> 1:08:04.120 But yeah, yeah, But before we get into that, I 1:08:04.120 --> 1:08:06.000 want to I want to ask you a bit because 1:08:06.000 --> 1:08:09.080 you've done a lot of sort of I guess you 1:08:09.080 --> 1:08:13.000 could call it research, both actual research wise and then 1:08:13.240 --> 1:08:16.920 in terms of poking around their servers. 1:08:16.880 --> 1:08:20.240 Research and journalism and whatever you want to call it. 1:08:20.360 --> 1:08:24.720 Yeah, act Yeah, So I wanted to just start off 1:08:24.720 --> 1:08:26.680 by asking if you can give sort of like a 1:08:26.720 --> 1:08:29.120 brief summary of what stalker waar is. 1:08:30.680 --> 1:08:30.880 Yeah. 1:08:30.960 --> 1:08:34.680 So, so stalkerware like as a category, encompasses like a 1:08:34.760 --> 1:08:37.240 number of different types of apps. Most of them, like 1:08:37.320 --> 1:08:41.080 on the service, advertise themselves as like parental control software, 1:08:41.280 --> 1:08:44.800 which is already bad enough. Just to be clear that 1:08:44.800 --> 1:08:47.719 there's like advertised for like spying on your children's phone, 1:08:47.800 --> 1:08:51.280 like seeing their location in real time, seeing their messages 1:08:51.479 --> 1:08:55.160 that they receive, any photo they take. Ostensibly this is 1:08:55.160 --> 1:08:58.280 to like prevent bullying and help with them when they 1:08:58.320 --> 1:09:00.920 get depressed because they don't try you and talk to 1:09:00.960 --> 1:09:04.599 you for whatever reason, but obviously a lot of these 1:09:04.640 --> 1:09:08.000 are then furthermore, because that's like that, sure, that's a 1:09:08.200 --> 1:09:11.320 like target audience, that's a demographic you can advertise too. 1:09:11.320 --> 1:09:15.479 But then there's this even bigger potential target demographic of 1:09:15.960 --> 1:09:19.280 people who are insecure in their relationship, mostly men, not 1:09:19.400 --> 1:09:22.080 only men, but who are then solved this idea that 1:09:22.120 --> 1:09:25.439 they can use software like this for stalking their partner, 1:09:25.520 --> 1:09:28.000 for finding out if they are cheating on you, things 1:09:28.120 --> 1:09:30.639 like that, which is obviously an even bigger problem, which 1:09:30.720 --> 1:09:33.479 once again not to discount the problems that's spying on 1:09:33.520 --> 1:09:36.439 your children is already like bad enough, but yeah, lead 1:09:36.520 --> 1:09:39.759 this leads to this whole big industry of these apps 1:09:39.800 --> 1:09:44.519 being used by partners against each other, like also just 1:09:44.560 --> 1:09:48.200 by people like against anyone in the in their surroundings 1:09:48.200 --> 1:09:51.479 that they suspect might be doing something shady, might be 1:09:51.680 --> 1:09:55.439 like talking behind their backs. It often kind of turns 1:09:55.439 --> 1:09:58.599 into like it obviously turns into this obsessive thing, especially 1:09:58.600 --> 1:10:01.120 if you solve this idea that they this app can 1:10:01.160 --> 1:10:04.880 magically solve like interpersonal issues, like with anything that sells you, 1:10:04.960 --> 1:10:07.679 this magic idea of being able to solve any problem. 1:10:07.960 --> 1:10:10.400 That these people start kind of spying on everyone in 1:10:10.479 --> 1:10:14.679 their like circles to some of them, like not everyone, 1:10:14.720 --> 1:10:16.600 most like a lot of people on the spying like 1:10:16.600 --> 1:10:19.280 their partner or like their child or whatever. But it 1:10:19.360 --> 1:10:22.560 often like spirals out of control into this like controlling 1:10:22.640 --> 1:10:25.320 everyone in their surroundings, knowing what everyone is up to 1:10:25.360 --> 1:10:28.120 where they are, and spending like hundreds of dollars a 1:10:28.160 --> 1:10:31.479 month on doing so. And yeah, that's pretty fucked up 1:10:31.520 --> 1:10:32.320 if you ask me. 1:10:32.760 --> 1:10:34.040 Yeah, yeah. 1:10:34.120 --> 1:10:36.400 One of the things that's interesting too. It's also in 1:10:36.439 --> 1:10:38.840 a lot of cases illegal. This is going to vary, 1:10:38.960 --> 1:10:40.800 you know, from country to country, in state to state, 1:10:40.880 --> 1:10:43.320 but in the US there are states like California, which 1:10:43.360 --> 1:10:46.040 gets pointed out in the very good tech Crunch investigation 1:10:46.280 --> 1:10:49.760 on truth Spy, where there are really strict laws that 1:10:49.840 --> 1:10:51.720 journalists like you have to abide bias to when you 1:10:51.800 --> 1:10:55.200 can record someone that these apps absolutely break. 1:10:55.760 --> 1:10:58.200 Yes, it's specifically a thing that doesn't. Most of these 1:10:58.200 --> 1:11:00.439 app will have like a disclaimer at thebot that is 1:11:00.520 --> 1:11:03.599 like this might be illegal and your jurisdiction and please 1:11:03.640 --> 1:11:06.439 ask for consent before doing this, and then they have 1:11:06.520 --> 1:11:08.799 lots of tutorials on how to install this in someone's 1:11:08.840 --> 1:11:12.360 device without their consent. Yeah, but it's like always like 1:11:12.439 --> 1:11:15.120 a we do not take any like we it's not 1:11:15.280 --> 1:11:18.000 our fault if you break the law basically, which obviously, 1:11:18.040 --> 1:11:20.760 like it's so far not a lot of this has 1:11:20.800 --> 1:11:23.160 been challenged in court, but I don't think this would 1:11:23.200 --> 1:11:26.400 hold up too long. I'm not a y, but I 1:11:26.439 --> 1:11:28.760 don't think just saying we make a product to do 1:11:28.840 --> 1:11:30.800 crimes with if you do crimes with it, it's not 1:11:30.880 --> 1:11:32.800 I mean, it works for the gun industry. 1:11:32.880 --> 1:11:34.639 So yeah. 1:11:35.040 --> 1:11:38.120 The difference is that, like with the gun industry, it's 1:11:38.120 --> 1:11:40.360 a product where there is a legal and an illegal, 1:11:40.840 --> 1:11:42.479 like clear way to do it. 1:11:42.840 --> 1:11:45.080 The thing with stocker were as well is that like 1:11:45.120 --> 1:11:47.240 a lot of them will also explicitly say the only 1:11:47.360 --> 1:11:50.040 real use of this we allow you to to use 1:11:50.080 --> 1:11:53.479 it for is to surveil your child, which unfortunately is 1:11:53.600 --> 1:11:57.360 legal in most jurisdictions because children are property of their parents. 1:11:57.840 --> 1:12:00.200 Yeah quotes because I do not agree with that, but. 1:12:01.320 --> 1:12:03.680 Yeah, it's one of those things where people using it, 1:12:03.760 --> 1:12:06.559 like someone installing an app on their axes or their 1:12:07.240 --> 1:12:11.840 partner's phone or whatever without consent, could very easily would 1:12:11.920 --> 1:12:14.840 lose any court case, whether or not the company would 1:12:14.840 --> 1:12:17.080 get in trouble. I think it's going to rely a 1:12:17.080 --> 1:12:19.720 lot on the stuff the videos they're posting about, like 1:12:19.720 --> 1:12:22.000 how to put how to get these apps on people's 1:12:22.080 --> 1:12:24.040 phones without them knowing, but like they do have that 1:12:24.160 --> 1:12:26.920 out with like no, it's just for surveilling children, which is. 1:12:26.880 --> 1:12:29.680 Great for anyone else you need consent or whatever. But 1:12:29.720 --> 1:12:31.679 I think it is important, yeah, to point this out 1:12:31.760 --> 1:12:34.479 very early for anyone who's listening to this because they 1:12:34.520 --> 1:12:37.320 think they might have stock Aware on their phones, or 1:12:37.320 --> 1:12:39.840 because they know they have Stockaware on their phones. You 1:12:39.880 --> 1:12:43.240 can use this in a domestic abuse case, well immediately, 1:12:43.240 --> 1:12:47.200 this is explicit proof that abuse is happening, no matter 1:12:47.280 --> 1:12:50.360 anything else, because like that's the thing generally with domestic 1:12:50.360 --> 1:12:54.680 abuse cases. It's really hard to prove abuses happening. Stalkerware 1:12:55.160 --> 1:12:58.000 and any other type of spying device like also physical 1:12:58.080 --> 1:13:01.920 GPS trackers and stuff that is immediate proof that there 1:13:01.960 --> 1:13:05.360 is a there's controlling behavior going on, that you are 1:13:05.400 --> 1:13:08.640 being spied on. This it cannot only be used and 1:13:08.640 --> 1:13:13.439 there's explicit admissible evidence. This is also usually like makes 1:13:13.479 --> 1:13:16.920 cases first like not not for you, like it just yeah, 1:13:17.040 --> 1:13:21.439 it like can potentially add charges and make it more serious, 1:13:21.479 --> 1:13:24.360 and that it can help making cops give a shit 1:13:24.520 --> 1:13:27.720 about like abuse, which yeah, I hate that I need 1:13:27.760 --> 1:13:30.200 to say that, but yeah, it's like it makes it 1:13:30.320 --> 1:13:33.200 more serious because there's like spyware and whatever. 1:13:33.240 --> 1:13:35.639 It's easy evidence first off, like you can prove they're 1:13:35.640 --> 1:13:37.559 spying on you, and second, if you are in one 1:13:37.600 --> 1:13:39.960 of the states where that violates the law, then you 1:13:40.000 --> 1:13:42.920 can immediately say this person is breaking the law, like 1:13:43.439 --> 1:13:45.240 this is we don't have to debate whether or not 1:13:45.360 --> 1:13:46.960 they've they've crossed the line. 1:13:47.640 --> 1:13:50.360 Yeah, And even if it doesn't directly break the law 1:13:50.439 --> 1:13:53.280 to spy on someone on a partner like it, depending 1:13:53.320 --> 1:13:55.240 on the on the on the region, it can be 1:13:55.360 --> 1:13:57.719 kind of a hazy like thing, especially if it's a 1:13:57.760 --> 1:14:00.519 device you might co own. If it's like a state 1:14:00.800 --> 1:14:02.960 where you were with like code possession or whatever. In 1:14:03.000 --> 1:14:05.240 the US, I do not know US law very much 1:14:05.280 --> 1:14:07.960 around this, but yeah, there's like laws like that. But 1:14:08.080 --> 1:14:10.599 usually still the fact that you're being spied on can 1:14:10.600 --> 1:14:13.599 be used as proof for other abuse things you might 1:14:13.640 --> 1:14:17.000 be alleging, because it's like hard proof that something is happening. 1:14:17.200 --> 1:14:21.160 And also usually these companies will somewhat have to respond 1:14:21.240 --> 1:14:22.920 to some point US, so they will have to give 1:14:22.920 --> 1:14:25.640 out like who the account on there is behind like 1:14:26.120 --> 1:14:28.400 the spying on your phone for some of them, we 1:14:28.400 --> 1:14:30.800 can also there's also tools that help you find out 1:14:30.840 --> 1:14:33.720 who is spying on you, or there's like someone with 1:14:33.840 --> 1:14:35.240 forensic background can help. 1:14:35.800 --> 1:14:39.280 Yeah, and I think people One thing we should note 1:14:39.320 --> 1:14:42.120 is that if you're kind of curious, has my device 1:14:42.120 --> 1:14:44.960 been infected by some of these tools, the one that 1:14:44.960 --> 1:14:48.000 we've been talking about most truth spy. If you go 1:14:48.160 --> 1:14:49.920 to that tech Crunch article. 1:14:50.080 --> 1:14:52.320 Or to my article, it also has a link yet. 1:14:52.280 --> 1:14:54.880 Or to you to your article on your website. There's 1:14:55.080 --> 1:14:57.080 a tool you can use where you it'll tell you 1:14:57.120 --> 1:14:59.960 how to get your IMSI I think I must say, 1:15:00.320 --> 1:15:03.080 I am ai, yeah, which you just dial a thing 1:15:03.120 --> 1:15:05.400 on your phone and it gives you that number. It's 1:15:05.439 --> 1:15:09.880 basically how you identify specific bones and you plug that in. 1:15:10.040 --> 1:15:13.360 It will let you know if your device has been compromised. 1:15:13.360 --> 1:15:16.400 Now like December last year up until there is the 1:15:16.479 --> 1:15:19.599 data and if you yeah, it can pretty much tell 1:15:19.640 --> 1:15:22.320 you if you've been spined on using this specific tool 1:15:22.400 --> 1:15:24.920 until then. For other stuff, there's also guides usually on 1:15:25.000 --> 1:15:28.519 TechCrunch and otherwise also on Stop stockerwear dot ARC, which 1:15:28.560 --> 1:15:31.919 is the US Coalition against Stalker War, and also just generally, 1:15:32.360 --> 1:15:35.919 I think a lot of like more local anti stocking, 1:15:35.960 --> 1:15:38.599 anti abuse orcs are not as informed yet as they 1:15:38.640 --> 1:15:41.479 should be, but there's still a good point also to 1:15:41.520 --> 1:15:43.360 reach out to or like. 1:15:43.479 --> 1:15:44.760 Yeah, yeah. 1:15:45.160 --> 1:15:47.639 One of my questions about truth Spy that I'm hoping 1:15:47.640 --> 1:15:51.080 you can answer is I know that you can like 1:15:51.200 --> 1:15:54.880 text messages get transferred via it, your call records, all 1:15:54.880 --> 1:15:57.080 that kind of stuff, get and who you were calling. 1:15:57.479 --> 1:16:00.639 Does that include messages for like encrypted apps like Signal 1:16:00.840 --> 1:16:02.599 or is that not accessible through this? 1:16:02.760 --> 1:16:05.519 It depends, like for for some of these, it will 1:16:05.560 --> 1:16:08.519 like get signal messages, what's the messages and everything generally 1:16:08.560 --> 1:16:13.400 by reading the notification content, because like from notifications, you know, 1:16:13.560 --> 1:16:17.040 like what messages are have been like received. Sometimes it 1:16:17.040 --> 1:16:19.120 will only then have the received messages and not the 1:16:19.120 --> 1:16:21.840 set messages. Often these also include like a key logger 1:16:22.200 --> 1:16:26.439 component that maps messages then sent back as well. It 1:16:26.520 --> 1:16:30.200 depends a lot what these apps collect, but for most 1:16:30.240 --> 1:16:32.800 of them, also the collection for other texting apps is 1:16:32.880 --> 1:16:35.760 usually kind of broken. None of these apps are really 1:16:35.880 --> 1:16:39.519 well maintained. They're mostly just quick cash graps. Yeah, are 1:16:39.560 --> 1:16:42.000 there to maintain features usually don't really work. 1:16:42.520 --> 1:16:45.759 And it seems like based on that, one thing people 1:16:45.800 --> 1:16:47.920 can do outside of checking to see if their device 1:16:47.960 --> 1:16:53.400 has been compromised, is do stuff like turn off notifications 1:16:53.520 --> 1:16:56.479 for appsling signal, right, like, and that's that's actually just 1:16:56.479 --> 1:17:00.800 generally good advice. Notifications are are a promise of the 1:17:00.880 --> 1:17:06.040 security that signal offers. Don't have them enabled, you know, yeah, or. 1:17:06.000 --> 1:17:08.080 At the very least disabled them on the lock screen 1:17:08.080 --> 1:17:08.559 on Android. 1:17:08.640 --> 1:17:09.400 Yeah, I don't know how. 1:17:09.560 --> 1:17:12.120 I think that's also possible on iOS, but I think 1:17:12.200 --> 1:17:14.719 I doesn't show message content on the lock screen anyways. 1:17:14.760 --> 1:17:18.320 I'm not sure anymore. But yeah, it's just also small 1:17:18.360 --> 1:17:20.679 things like that. And also like one of the key 1:17:20.840 --> 1:17:24.080 tells that someone probably tampered with your phone, especially for 1:17:24.160 --> 1:17:27.880 Android is if Google play Protect is disabled and you 1:17:27.920 --> 1:17:31.519 do not remember disabling it for something else, it was 1:17:31.560 --> 1:17:34.840 almost definitely disabled because someone installed something on your phone. 1:17:35.160 --> 1:17:37.840 Just try re enabling it. Then they will probably tell 1:17:37.880 --> 1:17:39.800 you something. The thing also to keep in mind if 1:17:39.840 --> 1:17:43.120 you find stockaware on your phone, please get professional help. 1:17:43.360 --> 1:17:46.919 Do not just delete it. Do not like necessarily confront 1:17:46.920 --> 1:17:50.120 whoever you think might be your abuser about it unless 1:17:50.120 --> 1:17:52.599 you're very sure that that's the situation you can handle, 1:17:53.000 --> 1:17:56.559 because like, yeah, that is one of those things that 1:17:56.680 --> 1:17:59.200 like bringing it up or just deleting it can very 1:17:59.280 --> 1:18:04.160 quickly lead to like, yeah, yeah, complicating the situation a lot. 1:18:04.760 --> 1:18:06.439 You know what else complicates the situation. 1:18:07.160 --> 1:18:20.960 These ads and we are back. 1:18:21.960 --> 1:18:25.160 So when it comes to the actual fight against this stuff, 1:18:25.160 --> 1:18:27.599 obviously what you're doing is a big part of it. 1:18:27.800 --> 1:18:32.120 Getting inside these companies and finding out like what they're 1:18:32.200 --> 1:18:35.599 doing and their capabilities is huge for in terms of 1:18:35.640 --> 1:18:38.320 like what regular people are people who are interested in 1:18:38.360 --> 1:18:41.640 becoming activists about this can do. What is the what 1:18:41.760 --> 1:18:44.479 is the struggle to actually fight this stuff? Look like 1:18:44.479 --> 1:18:46.920 like how do we how do we put a bullet 1:18:46.920 --> 1:18:48.040 in this industry's head. 1:18:48.400 --> 1:18:50.360 I think one of the biggest things, and also like 1:18:50.400 --> 1:18:52.280 why I do the work I do with like hacking 1:18:52.280 --> 1:18:54.680 and with encouraging others to like send me data, be 1:18:54.800 --> 1:18:57.760 that insiders from these companies sending it I do to 1:18:57.760 --> 1:19:01.200 me or like TechCrunch specifically currently because like me and 1:19:01.240 --> 1:19:03.800 tech crunch are like the only people really doing like 1:19:04.120 --> 1:19:08.559 journalism on this like regularly. And the important thing with 1:19:08.600 --> 1:19:11.120 like journalism and all of this is like awareness. It's 1:19:11.200 --> 1:19:13.479 very important to create awareness about this. That's also why 1:19:13.520 --> 1:19:15.200 I do the media work with like being on this 1:19:15.360 --> 1:19:18.639 podcast and things like that. I think the most important 1:19:18.640 --> 1:19:21.600 thing is to make people aware, like talk about this 1:19:21.840 --> 1:19:25.639 in your feminist circles or whatever, things like that especially 1:19:25.640 --> 1:19:28.200 bring it up just also in like general info things 1:19:28.280 --> 1:19:30.840 about abuse or how to detect abuse. I think the 1:19:30.960 --> 1:19:34.519 most important thing to do against stocker whereas demestify it 1:19:34.880 --> 1:19:37.280 because most people don't even know that this is a thing, 1:19:37.400 --> 1:19:40.640 that this is, like that there's just commercially available spyware 1:19:41.240 --> 1:19:43.960 anyone can install on your phone. It's most important to 1:19:43.960 --> 1:19:46.320 not like give in to some sort of paranoia. As 1:19:46.360 --> 1:19:49.559 with any of these things, it's just important to like yeah, 1:19:49.680 --> 1:19:53.400 generate awareness, talk about it, and like spread these articles. 1:19:54.360 --> 1:19:57.559 Let friends know that this is a potential thing, and 1:19:57.600 --> 1:20:01.200 then yeah, I The hard thing with this is that, 1:20:01.240 --> 1:20:04.240 like obviously it should will probably help if there was 1:20:04.240 --> 1:20:07.000 some sort of legislation against some of this, it's going 1:20:07.040 --> 1:20:10.360 to be very hard to get any proper legislation that 1:20:10.479 --> 1:20:14.040 ends this industry because in most Western countries, which are 1:20:14.040 --> 1:20:17.120 the only countries which unfortunately would have enough power to 1:20:17.280 --> 1:20:20.720 like actually get these apps shut down, because that's the 1:20:20.760 --> 1:20:23.479 world we live in. But the problem there is usually 1:20:23.479 --> 1:20:25.760 that like this notion that children are owned by their 1:20:25.760 --> 1:20:28.519 parents is too strong to really make a full case 1:20:28.560 --> 1:20:31.519 against these apps. And at the very best what I can, 1:20:31.920 --> 1:20:35.200 like the very best time kind of hoping for from 1:20:36.400 --> 1:20:40.639 from legislators is just a ban on advertising these apps 1:20:40.640 --> 1:20:43.799 on use against other adults, which would be big already, 1:20:43.880 --> 1:20:46.960 but that doesn't really solve the issue because there's still 1:20:47.000 --> 1:20:48.920 going to be enough people who know of their use 1:20:49.000 --> 1:20:51.559 for use against adults, and there's going to be enough 1:20:51.560 --> 1:20:55.280 people on like credit threads talking about, hey, well yeah, 1:20:55.400 --> 1:20:57.880 you oh you're not sure if your government is cheating 1:20:57.880 --> 1:20:59.840 on you, look you can just use this app, you know. 1:21:00.439 --> 1:21:02.920 That's also how most of this marketing for this works. 1:21:02.920 --> 1:21:04.920 It's just yeah, at the end of the day, this 1:21:05.040 --> 1:21:10.000 is like a patriarchal issue. So yeah, I think that's 1:21:10.040 --> 1:21:12.800 also why, like I am so focused on like the 1:21:12.880 --> 1:21:15.920 hacking and the like blowing these companies up and showing 1:21:15.960 --> 1:21:18.280 like who's behind them. It's because at the end of 1:21:18.320 --> 1:21:20.720 the day, the most effective thing we have against these 1:21:20.760 --> 1:21:24.080 companies is like the grassroots movement of making them too 1:21:24.120 --> 1:21:27.080 scared to run in this business, making it not profitable enough, 1:21:27.320 --> 1:21:29.880 because as I said, most of this is like quick 1:21:30.000 --> 1:21:34.520 cash grabs from like web design studios and outsourcing companies. 1:21:35.120 --> 1:21:37.960 Yeah that a're just making a quick buck from this 1:21:38.000 --> 1:21:40.320 because otherwise they don't get paid enough. Like that's the 1:21:40.439 --> 1:21:42.600 sad thing really is how much of this industry is 1:21:42.640 --> 1:21:47.280 in all of these countries. Western companies outsource their IT too, 1:21:47.880 --> 1:21:50.479 because there's lots of IT companies there and they are 1:21:50.640 --> 1:21:55.759 entirely reliant on like Western companies giving them very underpaid tasks. 1:21:56.320 --> 1:21:58.519 And Yeah, this problem that you now have a bunch 1:21:58.520 --> 1:22:01.400 of employees and not enough money to always pay them. 1:22:01.600 --> 1:22:03.599 And what do you do, You like find some weird 1:22:03.680 --> 1:22:07.080 niche of like a tech product you can quickly build. Yeah, 1:22:07.280 --> 1:22:09.400 and this is like one of those easy niches it's 1:22:09.439 --> 1:22:13.839 like always the scummy stuff and like yeah, it's that's 1:22:13.880 --> 1:22:16.000 also why like so many of these companies are like 1:22:16.000 --> 1:22:18.519 based out of Vietnam, out of Iran and whatever. It's 1:22:18.560 --> 1:22:21.800 just companies that already have it hard enough to do 1:22:21.880 --> 1:22:26.280 business globally, where the IT industry is like falling apart 1:22:26.439 --> 1:22:30.760 because there's not enough like local customers and anything that's international. 1:22:31.320 --> 1:22:34.840 You're just the cheap workforce, right, So yeah, it's it's 1:22:34.880 --> 1:22:37.680 once again also like a class problem. I don't like 1:22:37.800 --> 1:22:40.559 most people working in this industry know that they're working 1:22:40.600 --> 1:22:42.240 in a like scummy industry. 1:22:42.600 --> 1:22:45.240 Yeah of course, but like yeah, you got to get 1:22:45.280 --> 1:22:46.360 paid and that's. 1:22:46.280 --> 1:22:49.080 Yeah, And that's like why I think making it more 1:22:49.160 --> 1:22:51.920 scary to operate in this industry is like, yes, the 1:22:52.080 --> 1:22:54.720 way to go, because like with just like these like 1:22:54.880 --> 1:22:58.160 four hacks that have happened against these companies over the 1:22:58.240 --> 1:23:02.160 last like half a year, so two of them, three 1:23:02.160 --> 1:23:06.160 of them, three of them have shut down completely. Others 1:23:06.320 --> 1:23:11.160 seem to be slowly moving towards just building other software primarily. Yeah, 1:23:11.520 --> 1:23:15.640 it's just like, yeah, it's like with any other like 1:23:15.680 --> 1:23:17.880 shady industry that the best we can do is just 1:23:17.920 --> 1:23:21.160 do not make it profitable to run the software because 1:23:22.000 --> 1:23:24.559 at the very best, anything else we will get it's 1:23:24.640 --> 1:23:26.840 just pushing them more into the shadows, which is not 1:23:26.880 --> 1:23:28.360 going to solve the issue at all. 1:23:28.960 --> 1:23:29.920 Yeah. 1:23:29.360 --> 1:23:33.880 I think a lot about like strategic thinking, which I 1:23:33.920 --> 1:23:36.000 do believe is kind of often in part because of 1:23:36.439 --> 1:23:39.439 how rightfully negative most people on the left think about 1:23:39.439 --> 1:23:43.160 the military. There's a tendency to ignore some of like 1:23:43.240 --> 1:23:46.880 the theory around how to actually win a conflict and 1:23:47.000 --> 1:23:50.880 all of it all strategy really, when you're talking about 1:23:50.880 --> 1:23:55.600 like defeating an opponent, revolves around denying and taking operational 1:23:55.680 --> 1:23:58.040 area from them, right Yeah, And that's what you're talking 1:23:58.080 --> 1:23:59.840 about when you talk about what we need to stop this. 1:24:00.080 --> 1:24:01.639 You know, one of the first things we can do 1:24:01.720 --> 1:24:03.920 as part of fighting this is to stop them from 1:24:03.960 --> 1:24:08.040 being able to advertise certain places. Right It's making sure 1:24:08.080 --> 1:24:10.800 that they're not able to operate without being seen. It's 1:24:10.800 --> 1:24:15.160 basically cutting down their area, their space to maneuver, their 1:24:15.200 --> 1:24:18.719 ability to profit, which cuts down their money, their access 1:24:18.760 --> 1:24:22.000 to people, their ability to actually like operate. 1:24:22.120 --> 1:24:22.320 Right. 1:24:22.360 --> 1:24:24.760 Like, that's what we're looking at in terms of how 1:24:24.760 --> 1:24:26.920 do you kill this stuff. It's not one single really, 1:24:26.960 --> 1:24:29.599 I use the comparison of like a bullet, but it's 1:24:29.600 --> 1:24:32.240 never going to be one bullet. These things are too durable. 1:24:32.240 --> 1:24:33.920 There's too many countries a delay to do that. 1:24:34.600 --> 1:24:37.600 Yeah, that's also why I put so much emphasis on 1:24:37.720 --> 1:24:40.439 doing media work about this and getting more people to 1:24:40.520 --> 1:24:43.840 talk about this and getting more awareness of this out there, 1:24:44.320 --> 1:24:45.960 to the point where I'm willing to work with more 1:24:46.000 --> 1:24:49.479 conservative newspapers on this because everyone needs to know about this. 1:24:49.600 --> 1:24:51.280 At the end of the day, this is how we 1:24:51.800 --> 1:24:54.840 stop people from falling victims to this. Most people who 1:24:54.840 --> 1:24:57.720 are a victim of stocker apps have never heard of 1:24:57.800 --> 1:25:01.040 stocker apps before, and I think that's like one of 1:25:01.080 --> 1:25:03.240 the biggest ways to tackle this. And on the other hand, 1:25:03.240 --> 1:25:06.160 we also have I think another big leverage point with 1:25:06.240 --> 1:25:08.640 how many of these are getting hacked because none of 1:25:08.680 --> 1:25:11.840 these apps are very secure. That's another thing is this 1:25:12.160 --> 1:25:15.719 can also be leveraged against like the abusers in this scenario. 1:25:15.840 --> 1:25:17.880 I think just pointing out to them that all of 1:25:17.920 --> 1:25:20.519 these apps get hacked all the time and that this 1:25:20.600 --> 1:25:22.240 is how they get found out, that that this is 1:25:22.280 --> 1:25:25.759 how their data of them as abusers ends up landing 1:25:25.800 --> 1:25:28.599 on the internet. I think it's also like a very 1:25:28.640 --> 1:25:30.559 important angle at the end of the day. Is just 1:25:30.600 --> 1:25:33.000 to make it clear, like yeah, no, not even you 1:25:33.080 --> 1:25:37.679 are like secure from this having consequences for your life, 1:25:37.720 --> 1:25:42.280 like beyond like direct interpersonal or legal consequences. This can 1:25:42.600 --> 1:25:45.439 and in the past has resulted in like your email 1:25:45.479 --> 1:25:47.680 adders being on a list of people who have do 1:25:47.840 --> 1:25:50.840 abuse to people online. You don't want to be on 1:25:50.880 --> 1:25:53.519 such a list. I think that's also important just to 1:25:53.680 --> 1:25:56.880 like point out there isn't one stock of a app 1:25:56.880 --> 1:25:59.040 that's not eventually going to get hacked. There is a 1:25:59.040 --> 1:26:01.920 big war against these apps. They're all like there's so 1:26:01.960 --> 1:26:05.080 many different hacking groups that keep sending me data from 1:26:05.080 --> 1:26:08.479 these like I'm already working on another article that already 1:26:08.760 --> 1:26:11.880 once again affects like the data of like I think 1:26:11.960 --> 1:26:15.600 like eighty thousand more like abusers, and it's just the 1:26:15.640 --> 1:26:17.960 abuser data this time. But I'm still going to report 1:26:17.960 --> 1:26:20.960 on it, like it's it's it's this is not going 1:26:21.040 --> 1:26:23.880 to stop. It's even also not going to stop when 1:26:23.920 --> 1:26:27.840 I stop reporting on this myself, like I've there's been 1:26:27.880 --> 1:26:30.519 work before me down on this. I also the first 1:26:30.560 --> 1:26:33.240 time I got involved in finding stockerber was back in 1:26:33.280 --> 1:26:36.720 twenty twenty. People have been hacking these apps forever and 1:26:36.800 --> 1:26:39.320 will keep hacking them. Like just look at the Wikipedia 1:26:39.360 --> 1:26:42.840 page for stockerver. There's an ever growing list of these 1:26:42.880 --> 1:26:44.920 apps that have been hacked, and I think at this 1:26:44.960 --> 1:26:48.080 point that like official count being kept by one of 1:26:48.080 --> 1:26:52.080 the people at TechCrunch is at like thirteen apps, a 1:26:52.080 --> 1:26:55.800 few of which have been hacked two or three times. Yeah, 1:26:56.960 --> 1:27:00.000 these are not These are not secure apps for any. 1:27:00.160 --> 1:27:01.000 No, no, of course not. 1:27:01.920 --> 1:27:05.160 Yeah, and they yeah, I mean it makes sense that 1:27:05.280 --> 1:27:09.120 like an app dedicated to violating people's privacy for money 1:27:09.120 --> 1:27:13.439 would also basically violate the privacy of the people using it. 1:27:13.600 --> 1:27:16.400 Yeah, and also they don't care. Like I said, of 1:27:16.400 --> 1:27:19.760 course it's a cash grap. It's nothing else. There's a 1:27:19.760 --> 1:27:21.880 few apps that are like a little more than a 1:27:21.880 --> 1:27:24.519 cash crap, but it's usually just because they're made, Like 1:27:24.560 --> 1:27:27.320 there's still a cash grap, but they're like more well made, 1:27:27.320 --> 1:27:29.679 but it's because they're a cash graph from a company 1:27:29.720 --> 1:27:33.599 that has better developers or more money to do the 1:27:33.640 --> 1:27:36.720 initial investment. The thing is also like most of these 1:27:36.720 --> 1:27:38.920 companies don't have a lot of initial investment, And I 1:27:39.000 --> 1:27:41.640 think the important thing to consider as well, here is 1:27:42.360 --> 1:27:45.080 one big area of this that I have not yet 1:27:45.120 --> 1:27:48.280 started tackling, but I do want to look into more. Sometimes. 1:27:48.280 --> 1:27:51.679 Is a big reason this industry is so big and 1:27:52.439 --> 1:27:55.040 most of these apps have a lot of users despite 1:27:55.040 --> 1:27:59.200 there being so many of them, is the affiliate marketing industry. 1:27:59.320 --> 1:28:03.479 Once again, very beloved friend. Yeah, all of these apps 1:28:03.520 --> 1:28:06.720 are parts of various affiliate marketing networks, some of them 1:28:06.800 --> 1:28:10.960 started by Stockerware Company, and some of them just other 1:28:11.240 --> 1:28:14.280 like things to advertise all the shady things like all 1:28:14.320 --> 1:28:17.120 those phone number locator apps or whatever, that's also part 1:28:17.160 --> 1:28:20.400 of those same affiliate marketing networks. And there's lots of 1:28:20.439 --> 1:28:22.880 money flowing here, and there's lots of money flowing to 1:28:23.120 --> 1:28:26.400 very big tech YouTube channels, and I might soon have 1:28:26.520 --> 1:28:29.160 some proof for some of that. But that's how these 1:28:29.200 --> 1:28:32.920 are advertised. It's everyone who advertises stockerware to you, who 1:28:32.960 --> 1:28:36.080 has a big platform, is doing that because they're getting money, 1:28:36.880 --> 1:28:38.120 not for any other reason. 1:28:39.240 --> 1:28:43.679 We need to do more ads. We will be back shortly, 1:28:55.040 --> 1:28:56.639 and we are back. 1:28:57.560 --> 1:28:59.880 Well that's all I had, Miya, what do you got? 1:29:00.600 --> 1:29:03.320 Yeah, I guess there's there's another thing I wanted to 1:29:03.360 --> 1:29:06.280 ask a little bit about, which Zach Whitaker, who's been 1:29:06.360 --> 1:29:08.360 one of the journal the journalists that tech Crunch doing 1:29:08.400 --> 1:29:11.320 a lot of the research was great. One of the 1:29:11.360 --> 1:29:14.160 things that he brings up that I think is another 1:29:14.800 --> 1:29:16.599 I don't know, it's kind of a plane with fire 1:29:17.080 --> 1:29:20.040 angle on them. But one of the issues that these 1:29:20.040 --> 1:29:25.599 companies seem to have is payment platforms, because a lot 1:29:25.640 --> 1:29:30.000 of payment platforms look at this and go wait, hold on, yeah, 1:29:30.040 --> 1:29:31.800 so that's yeah. We've talked about that a little bit. 1:29:31.840 --> 1:29:34.240 That's an angle. We've also been a fighting on a lot. 1:29:34.320 --> 1:29:36.360 Like me and Sick, we work on most of these 1:29:36.400 --> 1:29:39.920 stories together. Like it's kind of funny. We both got 1:29:39.960 --> 1:29:42.719 each other into the stockover thing back in twenty twenty. 1:29:42.840 --> 1:29:45.360 As I mentioned, that was the first time I stumbled 1:29:45.400 --> 1:29:48.120 into a stock cover app with a security issue. I 1:29:48.280 --> 1:29:51.320 reached out to some random journalists that tech Crunch about it. 1:29:51.600 --> 1:29:53.680 And now he is the only one talking about this 1:29:53.880 --> 1:29:56.400 forever because I reached out to him that one time 1:29:56.880 --> 1:30:00.839 and he got sucked into this horrible, horrible world of spying. 1:30:01.320 --> 1:30:03.840 But yeah, like, one of the things we focus on 1:30:03.880 --> 1:30:07.240 a lot is reporting these companies to their payment providers, 1:30:07.240 --> 1:30:10.439 to their server hosters, to the point where sometimes like 1:30:10.520 --> 1:30:13.040 for weeks, SAK will just wait for them to switch 1:30:13.080 --> 1:30:15.120 to when you provider after we got them taken them 1:30:15.120 --> 1:30:17.880 from like PayPal, and then from their other PayPal account 1:30:17.880 --> 1:30:20.840 where they're just using like the checkout experience from one 1:30:20.840 --> 1:30:24.240 of their completely unrelated software projects which they will later 1:30:24.280 --> 1:30:26.960 claim is not related at all and there are different 1:30:27.000 --> 1:30:30.240 companies and whatever. But then like eventually they get taken 1:30:30.240 --> 1:30:32.599 down from that as well, and usually we can get 1:30:32.600 --> 1:30:35.360 them taken them from most like Western hosters, like especially 1:30:35.439 --> 1:30:37.760 US housters, will immediately take them down. You do not 1:30:37.880 --> 1:30:43.760 want to risk being the company hosting spuywire on US grounds. Yeah, yeah, 1:30:43.840 --> 1:30:47.120 it's just like same with EU hosters. Like the few 1:30:47.160 --> 1:30:50.360 companies that we've seen that were on headsnerd, they immediately 1:30:50.400 --> 1:30:54.240 react because it's like yeah no, like under EUO, you 1:30:54.280 --> 1:30:56.639 don't want to like risk that. And also just because 1:30:56.680 --> 1:30:58.599 you don't want to host that, like there's no reason 1:30:58.680 --> 1:31:01.479 for you to host shit like that. It will have 1:31:01.560 --> 1:31:06.320 like image consequences, and that's an important thing that is 1:31:06.520 --> 1:31:08.640 maybe also something you can do as more like a 1:31:08.680 --> 1:31:11.320 grassroots thing. It's also like if you find one of 1:31:11.360 --> 1:31:13.559 these apps and if you see, oh they're using like 1:31:13.600 --> 1:31:17.680 PayPal or whatever, just reach out. I think paper is 1:31:17.720 --> 1:31:20.360 even harder to reach as like just an average lay person. 1:31:20.680 --> 1:31:23.439 I don't expect them to reply. They might still take action, 1:31:23.560 --> 1:31:26.639 you will have to manually check. PayPal doesn't really reply 1:31:26.760 --> 1:31:30.280 to things ever, But yeah, same as like hosting company, 1:31:30.320 --> 1:31:32.759 if it's either hosted on like a European or American 1:31:32.800 --> 1:31:35.479 hosting company, I just just reach out be like, hey, 1:31:35.479 --> 1:31:39.040 there's someone running spyware on your thing. Also used the 1:31:39.080 --> 1:31:41.280 word spyware, not stocker, where they will not know what 1:31:41.280 --> 1:31:45.519 that is, and it is spyware. So yeah, and that 1:31:45.680 --> 1:31:48.880 can usually get them taken down. And often they don't 1:31:48.920 --> 1:31:51.360 have proper backups and will have a few months of 1:31:51.439 --> 1:31:54.240 data missing, and it's like, yeah, that's how you slowly 1:31:54.720 --> 1:31:58.240 grind them to a halt. Yeah. And also once again 1:31:58.280 --> 1:32:01.160 like if you have tips about it any of these companies, 1:32:01.200 --> 1:32:04.840 be it having found the vulnerability just or insider info 1:32:04.920 --> 1:32:07.640 especially I'm always very happy about the insider info. You 1:32:07.680 --> 1:32:10.080 can reach out to either me or Sack with We're 1:32:10.160 --> 1:32:13.839 both very happy to talk about this. Yeah. 1:32:13.920 --> 1:32:17.000 Yeah, that's something that's been used really effectively by right 1:32:17.080 --> 1:32:20.800 wingers to target sex workers. There's been a huge thing, 1:32:20.840 --> 1:32:24.599 there's been a bunch of campaigns to get platform companies 1:32:24.840 --> 1:32:27.200 and yeah, so it's. 1:32:27.400 --> 1:32:30.200 It's interesting that for once we can use the very 1:32:30.280 --> 1:32:35.440 restrictive and conservative rules of payment providers for our good Yeah. 1:32:35.479 --> 1:32:38.080 But yeah, basically any of the big payment providers will 1:32:38.120 --> 1:32:41.080 not respect something like this. Some of the small regional 1:32:41.160 --> 1:32:44.040 odd ones probably won't really give a shit. They have 1:32:44.160 --> 1:32:48.000 no reason to. It's like revenue for them. But yeah, 1:32:48.400 --> 1:32:51.559 it's generally worth trying. And I'm always glad like if 1:32:51.560 --> 1:32:54.040 someone just reaches out to these companies and we don't 1:32:54.080 --> 1:32:57.320 have to do that ourselves. I think me and second 1:32:57.400 --> 1:33:00.280 to few other people like actively working in this are 1:33:00.280 --> 1:33:03.479 doing more than enough work currently. But yeah, just if 1:33:03.520 --> 1:33:05.599 you find one of these things that don't go digging 1:33:05.640 --> 1:33:08.280 too deep. It's a depressing world. But if you stumble 1:33:08.400 --> 1:33:12.519 upon one of these somewhere or whatever, just just report them. 1:33:12.760 --> 1:33:15.559 It's it's it's gonna disrupt their operations, and if it 1:33:15.600 --> 1:33:19.160 happens often enough, they might just give up. Yeah, And 1:33:19.240 --> 1:33:21.680 I mean, like in cases like the truth Spy, they 1:33:21.720 --> 1:33:26.840 are willing to do extreme amounts of fraud to get 1:33:26.880 --> 1:33:30.439 to money easily because they like started with like mostly 1:33:30.760 --> 1:33:33.400 just in like with the market they could get with 1:33:33.479 --> 1:33:36.920 their Vietnamese payment providers, right, and eventually they realized, well, 1:33:37.000 --> 1:33:39.600 the US is like this really big market, right, but 1:33:39.800 --> 1:33:42.400 for really easy like US stuff, we need like a 1:33:42.439 --> 1:33:46.120 paypoal thing, right, So they might like over twelve fake 1:33:46.160 --> 1:33:50.479 American identities with fake passports and fake addresses and sign 1:33:50.560 --> 1:33:53.080 up to PayPal a whole bunch of times and had 1:33:53.160 --> 1:33:57.040 various employees that the company move money around. Yeah, that's 1:33:57.640 --> 1:34:01.280 obviously not a thing the US cover will like if 1:34:01.320 --> 1:34:05.559 you do that. Generally speaking, they moved like millions like that, 1:34:05.840 --> 1:34:10.960 so yeah, which is pretty crazy like that. The amount 1:34:10.960 --> 1:34:15.040 of money that's moving in this industry is crazy, like yeah, actually, 1:34:15.080 --> 1:34:17.960 like most of these app apps will be half broken, 1:34:18.120 --> 1:34:20.759 which no one ever complains about because like it's shady, 1:34:20.920 --> 1:34:23.320 like you don't expect like if you go online and 1:34:23.400 --> 1:34:25.640 you search for something shady like anything like be it 1:34:25.720 --> 1:34:28.320 piracy or whatever, you don't expect it to be the 1:34:28.360 --> 1:34:31.000 best experience ever. Like you know, you're getting some weird 1:34:31.040 --> 1:34:33.760 service and it's probably going to be half broken. But yeah, 1:34:33.840 --> 1:34:36.240 like most of these talkover apps start at like forty 1:34:36.320 --> 1:34:40.000 dollars a month and more, and then some days for 1:34:40.080 --> 1:34:42.599 more features you pay like up to sixty or seventy 1:34:42.680 --> 1:34:45.200 or so and then all of these have like tens 1:34:45.280 --> 1:34:49.040 of thousands of users, sometimes hundreds of thousands of users. Yeah, 1:34:49.280 --> 1:34:53.519 you can do them at yourself. It's crazy. This is 1:34:53.520 --> 1:34:56.160 a really big industry, which makes it so crazy to 1:34:56.200 --> 1:34:58.360 me that it's like not a thing that's talked about more, 1:34:58.439 --> 1:35:02.240 especially like feminine spaces and things like that, because this 1:35:02.320 --> 1:35:05.280 is such a like big angle of like modern tech 1:35:05.360 --> 1:35:08.720 enabled abuse that they really think should should be more 1:35:08.720 --> 1:35:11.720 of a topic, especially on the left, like this is 1:35:11.760 --> 1:35:12.439 this is bad? 1:35:13.080 --> 1:35:16.439 Yeah, no, this is like critically bad. I agree entirely, 1:35:16.520 --> 1:35:18.519 And also like that the whole thing with like all 1:35:18.560 --> 1:35:21.080 of this data being so easily accept your data can 1:35:21.400 --> 1:35:24.160 end up getting sold on some dark web forum. You're 1:35:24.600 --> 1:35:27.600 both asked the abuse around that's the target, right, and 1:35:27.680 --> 1:35:30.519 the government can find these like I have no like 1:35:30.600 --> 1:35:33.000 this is this is not me making a statement of 1:35:33.040 --> 1:35:36.560 that's a thing that's happening, but there's nothing preventing the 1:35:36.680 --> 1:35:40.080 government from hacking these companies and getting like like I 1:35:40.160 --> 1:35:43.040 sometimes like when whenever I get these data sets, and 1:35:43.240 --> 1:35:45.759 it's always hard to work with data sets that include 1:35:45.840 --> 1:35:49.759 like non consent essentially collected data of people, right, yes, 1:35:49.760 --> 1:35:52.439 but like I do always like do some due diligence checks, 1:35:52.439 --> 1:35:54.760 like mostly trying to find if the government is using 1:35:54.760 --> 1:35:58.320 a specific app. Sometimes yes, there's always like the odd 1:35:58.439 --> 1:36:01.360 correction facility for ser who has signed up for one 1:36:01.479 --> 1:36:05.759 or two of these apps or like education people and whatever. 1:36:05.840 --> 1:36:08.160 But then I also on the search through the text 1:36:08.160 --> 1:36:10.280 message just for just some code words and the amount 1:36:10.320 --> 1:36:14.320 of people moving drugs have Stocker were on their phones. 1:36:14.680 --> 1:36:18.840 It's you know, yeah, and it's it's one of those 1:36:18.880 --> 1:36:22.720 things where there are laws, like technically if I if 1:36:22.760 --> 1:36:25.320 my understanding of the laws around this are correct, it 1:36:25.400 --> 1:36:28.680 is illegal for an organization like the FBI to utilize 1:36:28.720 --> 1:36:29.280 these apps. 1:36:29.680 --> 1:36:33.439 But yes, but we have an organized and called the 1:36:33.600 --> 1:36:34.760 NSA who. 1:36:36.200 --> 1:36:38.880 And it is it is on paper illegal for them 1:36:38.920 --> 1:36:41.559 to do this with a third party app. But one 1:36:41.600 --> 1:36:45.400 thing that often gets done, particularly by the FBI, but 1:36:45.600 --> 1:36:48.280 you know, not just by them, is it's not illegal 1:36:48.760 --> 1:36:53.280 for law enforcement agencies to contract with private agencies. And 1:36:53.320 --> 1:36:56.200 if those agencies you don't you just don't check in 1:36:56.320 --> 1:36:59.160 on what they're doing. You know, what they're using. 1:36:59.320 --> 1:37:01.800 But like or like if an inform or like if 1:37:01.840 --> 1:37:04.599 an informant like sends you the s data, like you're 1:37:04.640 --> 1:37:05.559 not going to say. 1:37:05.360 --> 1:37:07.000 No, exactly exactly. 1:37:07.000 --> 1:37:09.320 And also you don't really need to disclose that because 1:37:09.320 --> 1:37:11.680 it's information and got froment informant. You do not need 1:37:11.720 --> 1:37:14.840 to disclose that informant in court ever. So yeah, it's 1:37:16.520 --> 1:37:17.400 it's it's there. 1:37:17.439 --> 1:37:19.519 There are there are ways around, you know, the laws 1:37:19.520 --> 1:37:21.960 that we put up, not that we shouldn't continue to 1:37:22.080 --> 1:37:25.720 extend those laws, but you shouldn't like just because well 1:37:25.960 --> 1:37:27.920 they're not allowed to use this doesn't mean they can't 1:37:27.920 --> 1:37:29.160 get access to the info. 1:37:29.360 --> 1:37:30.000 Yeah. 1:37:30.160 --> 1:37:32.439 Yeah, And also there's all this important thing like there's 1:37:32.520 --> 1:37:35.360 more like also globally, like there's other governments that can 1:37:35.520 --> 1:37:37.320 just be using this. Like for one of the apps I. 1:37:37.240 --> 1:37:40.400 Got the government, the Russian government doesn't give a ship. 1:37:40.920 --> 1:37:43.840 That was also like another thing where I's like for 1:37:43.920 --> 1:37:45.640 one of the apps I got data for. There was 1:37:45.640 --> 1:37:48.639 some indication that at some point the Colombian National Police 1:37:48.720 --> 1:37:54.000 did a bigger evaluation of using UH commercials spyware for 1:37:54.120 --> 1:37:56.640 their use. Because you're in the country with not that 1:37:56.720 --> 1:37:59.479 big of a like police budget in comparison, you cannot 1:37:59.479 --> 1:38:02.960 afford like all the Coolestraeli tools everyone else has. So 1:38:03.040 --> 1:38:05.599 what do you do? You just look for random apps 1:38:05.640 --> 1:38:06.519 you can find you. 1:38:06.400 --> 1:38:09.280 Know, yeah you find the Walmart, the Kirklin. 1:38:09.439 --> 1:38:11.560 The Wish to the conversion I guess. 1:38:11.680 --> 1:38:15.400 Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah Ali baba spyware. Right. Yeah. 1:38:16.240 --> 1:38:18.360 I don't think most of them moved forward with this 1:38:18.479 --> 1:38:21.200 because these apps fucking suck. Like they're bad, Like that's 1:38:21.320 --> 1:38:23.400 that's the other thing, Like they don't even really do 1:38:23.479 --> 1:38:26.000 their jump. Well, they're bad and you don't know who 1:38:26.080 --> 1:38:28.160 is behind them. You cannot even go up to someone 1:38:28.160 --> 1:38:30.599 and be like, yo, don't do this. You also kinnot 1:38:30.640 --> 1:38:32.479 go to the cops and be like this company is 1:38:32.520 --> 1:38:37.200 scamming me, because yeah, I assume some people have probably 1:38:37.240 --> 1:38:40.360 done that before, but it does involve admitting to a crime. 1:38:40.520 --> 1:38:45.040 So yeah, it's like, yeah, these companies just get away 1:38:45.080 --> 1:38:47.559 with not giving a shit about their product because like. 1:38:47.720 --> 1:38:52.320 Yeah, yeah, well I think that's that's all we had. 1:38:52.680 --> 1:38:56.120 Thank you Maya for both the work you're doing and 1:38:56.200 --> 1:38:58.519 for talking to us. Yeah, is there anything you wanted 1:38:58.560 --> 1:39:00.559 to plug before we all out here? 1:39:00.680 --> 1:39:01.559 Just my just my. 1:39:01.560 --> 1:39:04.160 Blog, I think where we're like, I do this journalistic 1:39:04.200 --> 1:39:06.519 work and also more, there's about to be another cool 1:39:06.560 --> 1:39:11.679 investigative piece out soon, which eventually involves more tracking and whatever, 1:39:12.280 --> 1:39:14.960 and also involves like Hollywood and more. It's it's it's 1:39:15.080 --> 1:39:18.600 it's a crazy big story. I promise that will be 1:39:18.600 --> 1:39:21.200 out like hopefully in a month or so. But yeah, 1:39:21.439 --> 1:39:24.920 my blog at Maya dot CRIMEU dot gay crime. You 1:39:25.040 --> 1:39:31.360 as in crime, w yeah, and K as in gay yeah. 1:39:31.800 --> 1:39:32.000 Yeah. 1:39:32.120 --> 1:39:34.160 Just check out my blog at the bottom of the blog. 1:39:34.200 --> 1:39:36.559 There's all my links to my social media for anyone 1:39:36.600 --> 1:39:39.200 who's like listening to this and has been wondering where 1:39:39.200 --> 1:39:41.080 I am. I am back on Twitter as well. 1:39:41.479 --> 1:39:45.360 Yeah for now, for now, that's for for all of 1:39:45.439 --> 1:39:48.719 us these days. That's always like yeah at this. 1:39:48.680 --> 1:39:51.639 Point, but yeah, I am back on Twitter. I'm posting 1:39:51.720 --> 1:39:54.720 there sometimes. Yeah. 1:39:55.479 --> 1:39:58.799 All right, well, thank you and thank you all for listening. 1:39:58.920 --> 1:40:01.439 We will be back tomorrow unless this comes out on 1:40:01.479 --> 1:40:04.120 a Friday, in which case we'll be back at some 1:40:04.280 --> 1:40:05.559 other point but soon. 1:40:20.280 --> 1:40:23.080 Welcome Jacob app and here the podcast We're Getting Medication 1:40:23.240 --> 1:40:26.040 takes like four fucking hours because of a bunch of 1:40:26.160 --> 1:40:30.920 unbelievable bureaucratic bullshit. I your host Neo Wong, who was 1:40:31.040 --> 1:40:34.240 asked by by pharmacists today and I quote, have you 1:40:34.360 --> 1:40:37.640 been pregnant or have there been pregnancies? 1:40:38.520 --> 1:40:43.519 So I like, have that being pregnancies. Yeah, that was 1:40:43.560 --> 1:40:49.280 what I was like, what involved shooting of human life? 1:40:49.800 --> 1:40:52.280 She like she walks up to the thing, right and 1:40:52.320 --> 1:40:55.879 she she she puts the like she puts the meds 1:40:56.160 --> 1:40:58.519 like like she's about to ring them up right, and 1:40:58.560 --> 1:41:01.080 then she stops and then turns washed with other persons 1:41:01.080 --> 1:41:03.800 start talking to her boss and then comes back and 1:41:03.840 --> 1:41:05.640 they asked me pregnancy. 1:41:05.720 --> 1:41:07.679 So I'm like, what it's. 1:41:07.560 --> 1:41:10.160 Like, I am not passing, I'm just worrying. I'm just 1:41:10.200 --> 1:41:14.840 wearying like jeans, like a mask. It's like a random coat. 1:41:15.200 --> 1:41:15.640 It is. 1:41:17.640 --> 1:41:19.840 So it's been a it's been a time. 1:41:20.280 --> 1:41:22.479 Yeah, achievement in the world of healthcare where they can 1:41:22.560 --> 1:41:26.040 simultaneously like ask you for being pregnant and then make 1:41:26.120 --> 1:41:29.639 you fucking labor unpaid for half a day to obtain 1:41:29.760 --> 1:41:33.320 your like basic hormone therapy or whatever it is you need. 1:41:33.520 --> 1:41:36.519 Like my favorite is when the health insurance makes me 1:41:37.040 --> 1:41:39.120 this just existing podcast about health insurance and how we 1:41:39.160 --> 1:41:39.439 hate it. 1:41:39.520 --> 1:41:41.120 Have you enjoying it? 1:41:41.520 --> 1:41:44.080 When they're like, hey, we need a doctor to confirm 1:41:44.080 --> 1:41:46.000 you still need the instantly? What the fuck do you 1:41:46.040 --> 1:41:53.439 think has happened? You would have heard about it. I 1:41:53.760 --> 1:41:56.800 didn't at home pancreas transplant, didn't bill you guys for it. 1:41:56.880 --> 1:42:01.360 You're welcome. Yeah. With me is James, who is from 1:42:01.400 --> 1:42:04.400 a country that is more normal about healthcare but is 1:42:04.400 --> 1:42:08.679 now Yeah, more normal not the right word, but it's 1:42:08.840 --> 1:42:12.479 less ship is the correct word, unless you're trends, in 1:42:12.479 --> 1:42:13.720 which case it's about a toss. 1:42:14.040 --> 1:42:17.360 I was gonna say, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, country which 1:42:17.360 --> 1:42:19.760 has a different approach at least at least like has 1:42:19.800 --> 1:42:21.680 accepted the fact that if we're going to have the 1:42:21.720 --> 1:42:24.320 state pay for like sending bombs to kill little children 1:42:24.320 --> 1:42:27.160 in Palestine, it should also pay for my incident, which 1:42:27.200 --> 1:42:29.599 I think is is a good a good place to start. 1:42:29.960 --> 1:42:37.200 I guess, yeah, there's an ideal combination there, and no 1:42:37.280 --> 1:42:39.960 we no one is yet reached. This is this is 1:42:40.000 --> 1:42:44.200 this is the task of international socialism, et cetera, et cetera. Yeah. 1:42:44.320 --> 1:42:46.720 I will accept the necessity of the state only when 1:42:46.760 --> 1:42:47.840 it funds incident. 1:42:47.600 --> 1:42:50.599 Not moms. Yeah, but we we are here to talk 1:42:50.640 --> 1:42:55.760 about another incredibly violent state bureaucracy and the people who 1:42:55.880 --> 1:42:59.000 run it. We're gonna be talking about a series of 1:42:59.640 --> 1:43:06.000 very bizarre and incredibly authoritarian crackdown so that democratic well governors, 1:43:06.240 --> 1:43:11.200 city councils. Many many such cases, yeah, have have been 1:43:12.000 --> 1:43:17.040 have been invoking too nominally crack down on crime, a 1:43:17.080 --> 1:43:21.080 thing that is down everywhere and has been down everywhere 1:43:21.200 --> 1:43:22.120 for a long time. 1:43:23.040 --> 1:43:26.959 Yeah, in many such cases. It's great that the Democrat 1:43:27.200 --> 1:43:29.559 like local politicians are now doing everything that we were 1:43:29.600 --> 1:43:32.719 warned that Republican president would do four years ago. 1:43:33.520 --> 1:43:35.160 Yeah, it's really fun and I mean, this is one 1:43:35.200 --> 1:43:36.680 of these things. So, so the place we're going to 1:43:36.760 --> 1:43:43.120 start is New York governor cultural I think cutral. Yeah, 1:43:43.200 --> 1:43:46.160 I don't know. New York keeps going through politicians faster 1:43:46.240 --> 1:43:48.559 and I can learn how to pronounce their names. So 1:43:49.080 --> 1:43:51.599 with what they're gonna have, like Andrew Cuomo, the fourth 1:43:51.880 --> 1:43:54.200 in power, by the time this episode goes out, there'll 1:43:54.200 --> 1:43:55.840 be like two there will have been two new Kings 1:43:55.840 --> 1:43:57.559 of England. The secret sibling. 1:43:58.720 --> 1:44:01.479 Yeah, yeah, yeah, we're not making a podcast about the 1:44:01.560 --> 1:44:02.120 royal family. 1:44:02.160 --> 1:44:05.040 Nonsense, we don't care. No, no, this is this is 1:44:05.080 --> 1:44:06.439 this is the best that you're getting out of that. 1:44:06.880 --> 1:44:09.960 But yeah, So Houtral has deployed seven hundred and fifty 1:44:10.040 --> 1:44:14.320 National guardsmen to stand outside of some subway stations. That's 1:44:14.320 --> 1:44:16.519 a tongue twister. Try saying that one five times is 1:44:16.560 --> 1:44:20.040 fast in the mirror, to like do bag checks and 1:44:20.120 --> 1:44:23.120 generally just sort of stand around and be intimidating. 1:44:23.920 --> 1:44:26.719 Yeah, it's great. I'm sure it's what those people signed 1:44:26.760 --> 1:44:29.960 up to do. I'm sure they feel fulfilled, and I'm 1:44:29.960 --> 1:44:32.559 sure everyone in New York feels safer and happier as 1:44:32.600 --> 1:44:36.160 a result of random people in camouflage being standing around 1:44:36.160 --> 1:44:36.639 a subway. 1:44:37.800 --> 1:44:39.519 Yeah, and we're going to get into this sort of 1:44:39.520 --> 1:44:43.280 emotional effective aspect of this, because that is ultimately what 1:44:43.320 --> 1:44:47.760 this is about. But I think, okay, there's a lot 1:44:47.800 --> 1:44:51.479 of sort of interesting aspects of this. So Okay, there's 1:44:51.479 --> 1:44:53.000 been a lot of talk about what the sort of 1:44:53.040 --> 1:44:56.559 precursors to this are, and I'm gonna ask you about 1:44:56.840 --> 1:44:58.519 because there's a lot of nationally, there's a lot of 1:44:58.600 --> 1:45:02.400 very weird, absolutely dog shit National Guard deployment instead have happened. 1:45:02.840 --> 1:45:05.880 Yes, yeah, yes, there are I have uh yeah, yeah, 1:45:05.920 --> 1:45:06.760 we can get onto that. 1:45:06.960 --> 1:45:09.960 Yeah, but I think I think the most immediate predecessor 1:45:10.040 --> 1:45:11.880 to this, that that leaps to mind, this is some 1:45:11.920 --> 1:45:13.280 thing I talk about on the show all the time 1:45:13.280 --> 1:45:15.479 because everyone else seems to have completely forgotten it. I 1:45:15.520 --> 1:45:17.640 refused to let this be memory hold, which is the 1:45:17.680 --> 1:45:20.920 time that my previous shitty mayor ordered a bunch of 1:45:21.000 --> 1:45:23.200 in twenty twenty ordered a bunch This is in February 1:45:23.200 --> 1:45:26.400 twenty twents. This is this is pre uprising. Put just 1:45:26.600 --> 1:45:31.559 started putting swat teams on subways, okay, and they immediately 1:45:31.640 --> 1:45:33.000 did the thing that the swat team does, which they 1:45:33.000 --> 1:45:35.200 started putting swat teams on the fucking red line. The 1:45:35.280 --> 1:45:39.280 immediately shot a guy for no reason, like I think 1:45:39.360 --> 1:45:42.559 I I if I'm remembering correctly, the thing that originally 1:45:42.560 --> 1:45:44.960 they said it was fairrivation, and it wasn't fairrivation. It 1:45:45.080 --> 1:45:47.719 was the guy walked from one train car to another 1:45:47.800 --> 1:45:51.680 train car, a thing that like millions of people do 1:45:51.920 --> 1:45:52.479 every day. 1:45:52.600 --> 1:45:56.599 Yeah, and capital punishment for faavation is also wrong and bad. 1:45:56.680 --> 1:46:01.639 Yeah, well look this guy somehow survived himack. But yeah, 1:46:01.680 --> 1:46:03.400 they also tasted him a bunch of times and then 1:46:03.439 --> 1:46:07.920 shot him, so right, good, yeah bad, However, thankfully this 1:46:08.040 --> 1:46:11.840 guy survived. But yeah, but this is something that that happens. 1:46:12.600 --> 1:46:14.759 This is only that you know, with with the current 1:46:15.040 --> 1:46:19.000 crop of right wing mayors have been doing and you know, 1:46:19.040 --> 1:46:21.240 the twenty twenty one and it was such a fiasco 1:46:21.640 --> 1:46:26.120 that even even like Chicago's machine, while it wasn't really 1:46:26.200 --> 1:46:29.920 quite thee but like even Chicago's right wing Democrats were like, Okay, 1:46:29.960 --> 1:46:32.479 we probably shouldn't do this lest the SWAT teams have 1:46:32.520 --> 1:46:35.720 their like start the killing moment. But you know, so 1:46:35.880 --> 1:46:38.320 that that's like one sort of predecessor to this, and 1:46:38.360 --> 1:46:39.880 the second one is I wanted to actually ask you 1:46:39.960 --> 1:46:44.160 specifically about the Federal National Guard deployments on the border 1:46:44.200 --> 1:46:47.280 because I think, yes, that's the part of this has 1:46:47.320 --> 1:46:49.839 just been like disappeared, Yes, exactly. 1:46:49.880 --> 1:46:52.720 Again, those have been like completely overlooked and kind of 1:46:52.760 --> 1:46:56.400 memory hold by most apparently, like since since Biden came 1:46:56.439 --> 1:46:59.640 to power. Like there's there's a Texas state deployment right, 1:46:59.640 --> 1:47:02.160 which will very familiar with. They get cheated out of 1:47:02.200 --> 1:47:08.400 their benefits. They tend to die from suicide from bringing 1:47:08.400 --> 1:47:12.599 their own firearms on deployment or getting drunk and driving around. 1:47:12.960 --> 1:47:15.360 They've had like higher casualties, so they've had deployment to 1:47:15.400 --> 1:47:19.240 a rock in the Texas deployment, right. Federal one is different. 1:47:19.320 --> 1:47:23.400 I see these dudes often, it's nearly always dudes. I did, 1:47:23.680 --> 1:47:25.280 of course, women could be deployed in that capacity. But 1:47:25.280 --> 1:47:28.280 I haven't seen them, and they are for the most part, 1:47:28.400 --> 1:47:32.759 like scared kids with firearms guarding prison camps full of children. 1:47:33.439 --> 1:47:35.280 Like I had one of these guys go to drawers 1:47:35.320 --> 1:47:37.360 pistol on me the other day because I was trying 1:47:37.400 --> 1:47:41.240 to alert him. Yeah, I mean, like I guess, like 1:47:41.280 --> 1:47:43.080 it's better in that situation that, like it's not my 1:47:43.080 --> 1:47:45.400 first time having someone draw a pistol on me, and 1:47:45.439 --> 1:47:48.080 I can tell them to sit down and stop being 1:47:48.120 --> 1:47:52.280 a dick. But this in this case where someone was 1:47:52.680 --> 1:47:57.599 experiencing cardiac distress and I'd gone to the nearest person 1:47:57.640 --> 1:47:59.200 who I can do right, like I can't call an 1:47:59.240 --> 1:48:00.800 ambulance and having to come in there have to go 1:48:00.840 --> 1:48:03.280 to either get BP to radio or in this case 1:48:03.600 --> 1:48:06.760 national guide. But what they're doing is, in addition to 1:48:06.840 --> 1:48:10.679 like guarding these open air detention sites on and off, 1:48:10.840 --> 1:48:14.240 is they are conducting kind of surveillance along the border. 1:48:14.320 --> 1:48:17.080 So often I'll see them with like surveillance arraysed cameras. 1:48:17.960 --> 1:48:20.639 I assume also like listening to radios and stuff like that. 1:48:21.040 --> 1:48:25.160 They're not actually like interdicting or arresting vigrants. They're not 1:48:25.160 --> 1:48:27.400 supposed to be anyway. But what it's supposed to be doing. 1:48:27.479 --> 1:48:30.960 Is that like kind of having that surveillance capacity and 1:48:31.040 --> 1:48:32.639 I guess protection when it comes to. 1:48:32.600 --> 1:48:33.920 The to the o ads. 1:48:34.600 --> 1:48:37.799 But yeah, they are everywhere, Like I see these people 1:48:38.160 --> 1:48:41.640 all the time down here in you know, certainly on 1:48:41.760 --> 1:48:45.599 the eastern San Diego County border, and and they're all 1:48:45.600 --> 1:48:47.760 in rented vehicles as well, which is weird that they 1:48:47.800 --> 1:48:51.519 haven't got their humvees or whatever. It must be a 1:48:51.560 --> 1:48:57.000 significant expense. And obviously border crossings are not decreasing thanks 1:48:57.040 --> 1:48:59.719 to them being there, right they you know, they mostly 1:48:59.760 --> 1:49:02.479 like are always out doing a water drop on Sunday 1:49:02.479 --> 1:49:04.360 and you'll see them creasing around the dirt roads and 1:49:04.360 --> 1:49:08.519 then obviously people therefore just avoid the road. It doesn't 1:49:08.520 --> 1:49:11.880 make it doesn't reduce migration like everything else. It just 1:49:11.880 --> 1:49:14.720 makes it more dangerous. But yeah, they've been here for 1:49:14.760 --> 1:49:15.120 a while. 1:49:16.040 --> 1:49:18.160 It's one of these things where you know they're they're 1:49:18.200 --> 1:49:21.320 doing okay. So like the guys in New York just 1:49:21.600 --> 1:49:24.000 basically seem to be standing around and doing bag checks, 1:49:24.439 --> 1:49:26.600 whereas those guys are doing a lot more. But I 1:49:26.920 --> 1:49:29.479 think there's one of the things that's been happening here, 1:49:29.520 --> 1:49:31.880 and this has been this is you know, This is 1:49:32.439 --> 1:49:35.600 not just the focus has been on on the like 1:49:35.640 --> 1:49:38.479 the Republican Texas deployments, right, but this is something that 1:49:38.560 --> 1:49:41.200 both the Republicans and the Democrats. This is from what 1:49:41.240 --> 1:49:43.880 we're seeking to eat. Yes, and the federal government have 1:49:44.080 --> 1:49:47.160 decided that, you know, the thing that we are going 1:49:47.240 --> 1:49:51.320 to be doing is what are what are and I 1:49:51.320 --> 1:49:57.559 mean active militia deployments Like that's insane, like that that 1:49:57.640 --> 1:50:00.840 is a level of that is a level of authoritarianism, 1:50:01.200 --> 1:50:05.280 that is you know that that has become effectively normal, right, 1:50:05.360 --> 1:50:07.360 Like there was there wasn't. I mean, there was kind 1:50:07.400 --> 1:50:10.640 of an outcry against the subway stuff, but like it 1:50:10.680 --> 1:50:13.439 hasn't stopped because best I could tell, like they're still 1:50:13.439 --> 1:50:16.120 out like yeah, like nothing on if it stopped it 1:50:16.680 --> 1:50:19.960 that we've been you know what, the thing that we've 1:50:19.960 --> 1:50:22.800 been forced to accept is not even not just you know, 1:50:22.840 --> 1:50:24.400 because we've already been forced to accept the sort of 1:50:24.400 --> 1:50:26.800 the militarization of the police, right, but now it's just 1:50:26.840 --> 1:50:29.920 straight up the total militarization of society to the extent 1:50:29.960 --> 1:50:32.640 that like, yeah, we just have a bunch of soldiers 1:50:32.680 --> 1:50:36.520 wandering around doing like random security checks and doing surveillance 1:50:36.560 --> 1:50:38.639 and like holding people in these open air. 1:50:38.520 --> 1:50:42.800 Prisons, Yeah, exactly, and like deployed way outside their stay 1:50:42.840 --> 1:50:45.559 often right, Like I think so many people hear from 1:50:45.600 --> 1:50:49.160 Missouri or Illinois, like some of them the less kind 1:50:49.200 --> 1:50:52.799 of insane, are you? You know, the people who mistake 1:50:52.840 --> 1:50:54.400 me if I guess for a member of the cartel 1:50:54.520 --> 1:50:57.719 judging by that guy's actions or like some ridiculous somehow 1:50:57.760 --> 1:51:00.240 a threat to him. You know that we can talk 1:51:00.280 --> 1:51:03.800 to them and then yeah, it's a very bullshit mission. 1:51:03.840 --> 1:51:06.559 And I think most of them would agree. Like further east, 1:51:06.560 --> 1:51:08.920 they're just like standing around by the border wall and 1:51:08.960 --> 1:51:11.840 the baking sne in the desert, just just yeah, doing 1:51:11.880 --> 1:51:15.600 security theater, but with as you said, real consequences. 1:51:16.200 --> 1:51:18.000 Yeah, And it's like the thing that is happening is 1:51:18.000 --> 1:51:20.040 these people have realized that the National Guard, if you 1:51:20.080 --> 1:51:22.280 are a senior en of state official, is just your 1:51:22.280 --> 1:51:24.040 private army. You could do whatever the fuck you want 1:51:24.040 --> 1:51:26.679 with it. And this is the thing that they're doing 1:51:26.680 --> 1:51:28.559 with it. And I think you should you know, it's 1:51:28.840 --> 1:51:33.040 worth looking at what the sort of justification for this is, which. 1:51:32.800 --> 1:51:37.439 Are probably also I neglected to mention that there are 1:51:37.479 --> 1:51:41.200 a dozen Republican governments, governors who have deployed their national 1:51:41.240 --> 1:51:44.519 Guard to the border, right, like not as part of 1:51:44.520 --> 1:51:47.240 the federal deployment, like to your private army thing. And 1:51:47.280 --> 1:51:51.720 I believe that North Dakota it's funded by a private individual, 1:51:52.360 --> 1:51:54.519 Like a private individual is covering the state's costs to 1:51:54.560 --> 1:51:57.439 deploy them to the border. Like this is nuts, yeah, 1:51:57.680 --> 1:52:01.080 fully insane, like serving as a fucking PMC. 1:52:02.040 --> 1:52:04.880 Yeah, but I mean we're seeing, you know, very explicitly, 1:52:04.960 --> 1:52:08.120 we're seeing this fusion of like personal state and corporate 1:52:08.160 --> 1:52:11.599 power and that's being used to just deploy a bunch 1:52:11.600 --> 1:52:15.400 of guys with guns to a bunch of random places. 1:52:15.479 --> 1:52:18.760 And you know, like it's worth mentioning that, Like crime 1:52:18.840 --> 1:52:22.040 rates are down, they're down year on year, they're down, 1:52:22.439 --> 1:52:27.120 like the broadshrend is down. They're down, like like outrageous, 1:52:27.320 --> 1:52:29.040 Like I think it's not like almost like fifty percent 1:52:29.160 --> 1:52:32.800 or something from the nineties, right Yeah. 1:52:32.840 --> 1:52:37.160 And likewise, the ratio of people crossing the border to 1:52:37.200 --> 1:52:40.840 agents to process and is it's much lower than it 1:52:40.960 --> 1:52:43.360 was in the nineties. You know, we have more border 1:52:43.360 --> 1:52:46.680 patrol agents, we have a more militarized board patrol. They 1:52:46.720 --> 1:52:49.479 have all these assets that were previously seen only like 1:52:49.720 --> 1:52:52.439 see a black Hawk all the fucking time, so we 1:52:52.520 --> 1:52:54.799 call it a scrap hawk. It's like it's like several 1:52:55.000 --> 1:52:57.679 several black Hawks. It's like it's not any particular submodel 1:52:57.720 --> 1:52:58.280 of black Hawk. 1:52:58.400 --> 1:52:58.800 It's like. 1:53:00.280 --> 1:53:02.840 The surviving pieces of several black Corks. But yeah, they 1:53:02.840 --> 1:53:04.599 have a lot of kit that you would think would 1:53:04.600 --> 1:53:05.320 be military. Kid. 1:53:06.280 --> 1:53:09.080 Yeah, and you know, I was. I so when I 1:53:09.120 --> 1:53:12.120 was reading about this, I was like, Okay, so I'm 1:53:12.120 --> 1:53:14.960 trying to figure out how many crimes are actually happening 1:53:15.040 --> 1:53:16.960 on New York subway system. But I'm going to read 1:53:17.000 --> 1:53:21.320 this paragraph from Reuters because it is. It is outrageous. 1:53:22.200 --> 1:53:26.800 There were thirty eight robberies and seventy thefts including pickpocketing 1:53:27.320 --> 1:53:31.160 on the subway system in February, compared to forty robberies 1:53:31.160 --> 1:53:34.000 and ninety eight thefts in the same month last year. 1:53:34.040 --> 1:53:37.160 According to police data, there were thirty five assaults, the 1:53:37.200 --> 1:53:40.759 same number as for February twenty twenty three. About ninety 1:53:41.000 --> 1:53:44.200 million trips were taken on the subway over the month. 1:53:45.439 --> 1:53:52.599 Now that is nuts the subway including pickpocketing, right, You're 1:53:52.640 --> 1:53:54.920 at about one hundred yeah, yeah. 1:53:55.360 --> 1:53:57.480 Reveal a trivial number of incidents. 1:53:57.880 --> 1:54:01.400 Ninety million trips. Right, this means that like per trip, 1:54:01.479 --> 1:54:04.479 your odds of being pickpocketed are almost literally one in 1:54:04.520 --> 1:54:08.439 a million. This is this is about the same odds 1:54:08.479 --> 1:54:12.120 you have of being struck by lightning. You are seventeen 1:54:12.200 --> 1:54:14.439 times more likely to get killed by a bee or 1:54:14.520 --> 1:54:18.280 a wasp sting than you are in like pickpocket, like 1:54:18.439 --> 1:54:23.200 pickpock not even robbed, pickpocketed on the subway. Right, So 1:54:23.640 --> 1:54:25.720 there's I from what I can do, I think there 1:54:25.760 --> 1:54:29.240 was three killings on the New York subway in February. 1:54:29.360 --> 1:54:31.640 Yeah, that was a shooting. I think today, Oh yesterday 1:54:31.840 --> 1:54:32.120 wasn't that? 1:54:32.400 --> 1:54:33.920 Yeah? Yeah, But this is the thing, So these things 1:54:33.960 --> 1:54:36.840 is gonna get a lot of attention. Right, But again, 1:54:37.160 --> 1:54:41.040 thirty million trips, we're talking like maybe three maybe four 1:54:41.080 --> 1:54:44.280 people getting killed a month, So that's like one in 1:54:44.560 --> 1:54:51.160 thirty million rides. Yeah, someone gets shot. That is outrageously safe. 1:54:51.800 --> 1:54:56.080 Like that is bafflingly starlingly safe. But this, this sort 1:54:56.120 --> 1:54:58.560 of brings us to Wow, Okay, the thing, the thing 1:54:58.560 --> 1:55:00.800 that this immediately brings us to is ad break. But 1:55:00.920 --> 1:55:02.360 it will be a second thing. 1:55:03.080 --> 1:55:15.920 Yeah, great, ipe, it's a good one. 1:55:17.040 --> 1:55:19.320 All right, we're back for the ads. We're bringing you 1:55:19.880 --> 1:55:23.320 actually amazingly advertisements part of what part of the whole 1:55:23.360 --> 1:55:26.160 thing is happening here, because you know, one of the 1:55:26.160 --> 1:55:28.720 big drivers of what's happening in New York and the 1:55:28.760 --> 1:55:33.160 reason everyone thinks the subway is unsafe is New York's 1:55:33.200 --> 1:55:36.960 media market. And very this is a like you know, 1:55:36.960 --> 1:55:39.400 so like the media market in the US is not good, right, 1:55:40.320 --> 1:55:45.000 but very specifically, the New York media market is absolutely batshit. 1:55:45.560 --> 1:55:47.360 They are nuts. And this is one of these things 1:55:47.360 --> 1:55:49.360 where you know, you may have like a one in 1:55:49.480 --> 1:55:52.520 thirty million chance of getting killed on a subway, but 1:55:53.080 --> 1:55:58.080 every single one of those thirty million like incidents, like 1:55:58.120 --> 1:56:00.560 why all those one thirty million is every single one 1:56:00.600 --> 1:56:02.640 of those is is like FrontPage news, right, because this 1:56:02.720 --> 1:56:05.200 is you know this, this is both part of the 1:56:05.440 --> 1:56:08.160 part of the actual sort of conservative politics of these 1:56:08.200 --> 1:56:10.720 media organizations. They are you know, New York media market 1:56:10.760 --> 1:56:13.880 is dominated by a bunch of right wing tabloids and 1:56:13.960 --> 1:56:16.560 a bunch of newspapers that are normally not right wing 1:56:16.640 --> 1:56:20.360 but are yeah, and so you know, there's this sort 1:56:20.360 --> 1:56:22.400 of breathless coverage of every single time one of these 1:56:22.400 --> 1:56:24.200 attacks happened, And this is one of one of the 1:56:24.200 --> 1:56:26.840 things that Cutrol very much like literally says about this 1:56:26.880 --> 1:56:29.400 and what you know, like we're at a point in 1:56:29.440 --> 1:56:32.920 this sort of crime cycle where enough journalists have been 1:56:32.960 --> 1:56:35.600 screamed at by people who are like the crime rates 1:56:35.600 --> 1:56:38.440 are all down, that the journalists have to include in 1:56:38.520 --> 1:56:40.680 the article a thing that's like the crime rates are down. 1:56:40.960 --> 1:56:43.520 This took like four years of just screaming at them. 1:56:43.560 --> 1:56:46.000 Eventually it worked. But you know, like Kucios like asked 1:56:46.000 --> 1:56:48.120 about this and she goes, yeah, well it's it's it's 1:56:48.120 --> 1:56:50.440 about people feeling. It's about like the feeling that people 1:56:50.520 --> 1:56:54.680 have because they don't they don't seem to Yeah, yeah, 1:56:54.800 --> 1:56:56.040 and you know, and this is one of these things 1:56:56.040 --> 1:56:59.320 we're like, this is like how insane the New York 1:56:59.360 --> 1:57:01.160 media market is over this off has had like an 1:57:01.200 --> 1:57:04.560 actual substance of political impact. This is something that you know, 1:57:04.720 --> 1:57:07.200 the Democrats embrace of this sort of like especially in 1:57:07.240 --> 1:57:09.600 New York, this like tough on crime thing has gotten 1:57:09.600 --> 1:57:13.160 to the point we're literally Eric Adams has to be 1:57:13.200 --> 1:57:16.440 the guy who's like no, no, no, actually hold on, 1:57:16.560 --> 1:57:19.440 like it's the New York is safe. Please stop panicking. 1:57:19.680 --> 1:57:22.600 I got my bi got my police funding already, please stop, 1:57:22.680 --> 1:57:24.680 like fleeing the city in terror. 1:57:25.040 --> 1:57:27.600 Yeah, it's amazing. Though, that's similar to what's happening in 1:57:27.640 --> 1:57:31.160 San Diego, another city Democratic councilor mayor. Right, so we 1:57:31.240 --> 1:57:36.320 have this Gloria terrible mayor, serial bullshitter. And in Gloria, 1:57:36.560 --> 1:57:37.960 in the State of the City speech was saying we 1:57:38.000 --> 1:57:40.520 should be locking up criminals, not laundry detergent. 1:57:40.760 --> 1:57:42.640 This this was his big line. He was very proud of. 1:57:43.000 --> 1:57:46.880 I have successfully purchased laundry detergent that was not incarcerated 1:57:47.320 --> 1:57:50.040 since then. But I think he was talking about target. 1:57:50.120 --> 1:57:52.880 I guess apparently he's legislating for the interest of target. 1:57:52.920 --> 1:57:56.600 But you have then his opponent in the MAJORA race, 1:57:56.840 --> 1:58:01.560 who's a former Marine corp Republican guy, being like, yo, 1:58:01.600 --> 1:58:03.680 I think we fucked up on our homelessness policy. We're 1:58:03.720 --> 1:58:07.040 just like criminalizing this is not just the answer. And 1:58:07.760 --> 1:58:09.800 we've got glory to being like, no, lock them up, 1:58:09.880 --> 1:58:11.560 you know, like they're trying. 1:58:11.320 --> 1:58:11.880 To push this. 1:58:12.000 --> 1:58:16.560 Is this continued, like this California bill that will force 1:58:16.600 --> 1:58:20.240 incarcerated people with mental illness right against their will. 1:58:21.000 --> 1:58:22.600 Yeah, yeah, it's up. 1:58:22.800 --> 1:58:26.760 It's fucking I mean, it's not bizarre because like I 1:58:26.760 --> 1:58:30.840 think so many Democrats, and like certainly publications here have 1:58:31.000 --> 1:58:35.520 really leaned into like suburban grievance politics and you know, 1:58:35.640 --> 1:58:37.800 like fixed the potholes and make it so I don't 1:58:37.800 --> 1:58:41.440 have to see poor people is their entire ideology. But 1:58:41.680 --> 1:58:47.120 it's still, I know, it's just kind of I'm struggling 1:58:47.160 --> 1:58:49.360 for the words here. It makes me really fucking pissed off. 1:58:49.400 --> 1:58:51.200 The people who showed up to one or two BLM 1:58:51.240 --> 1:58:54.240 marches are now out there like barking for a second 1:58:54.320 --> 1:58:57.320 border wall and machine gunning the unhoused. 1:58:58.440 --> 1:59:02.560 Yeah, and you know, and this is had a especially 1:59:02.600 --> 1:59:05.240 in New York, this has had an actual this has 1:59:05.280 --> 1:59:08.920 been having a substantive like electoral impact. One of the 1:59:08.960 --> 1:59:12.400 stories that kind of got buried in twenty twenty two 1:59:12.680 --> 1:59:14.680 is that you can actually, if you look at the 1:59:14.720 --> 1:59:18.839 electoral map in twenty twenty two, you can actually literally 1:59:19.000 --> 1:59:22.520 see where the New York media market ends, because all 1:59:22.560 --> 1:59:24.720 of the districts in the New York media market became 1:59:24.760 --> 1:59:28.640 significantly more conservative. And this is and this is not 1:59:28.680 --> 1:59:31.200 a joke. This is literally this whole tough on crime 1:59:31.200 --> 1:59:34.000 shit is literally the thing like and in this New 1:59:34.080 --> 1:59:36.360 York media market, this, this is what caused the Democrats 1:59:36.440 --> 1:59:40.120 the House because basically everywhere else in the country there 1:59:40.200 --> 1:59:43.680 was okay, so like like red districts shifted red. Every 1:59:43.720 --> 1:59:46.120 single district that was contested, like all of the sort 1:59:46.160 --> 1:59:48.640 of like purple blah blah blah, like the districts they 1:59:48.680 --> 1:59:50.840 all went They all shifted to the left because of 1:59:50.880 --> 1:59:53.840 abortion stuff. But then specifically a bunch of the like 1:59:54.000 --> 1:59:56.480 what are supposed to be like very safe blue districts 1:59:56.920 --> 1:59:59.080 went red because they were all because all of them 1:59:59.080 --> 2:00:01.560 were doing this in a tough on crime stuff. And yeah, 2:00:01.640 --> 2:00:04.520 those seats, like the seats they lost in New York 2:00:04.600 --> 2:00:07.160 are the reason the Republicans have control of the House. 2:00:07.840 --> 2:00:10.480 So like, you know, this isn't working for them electorally, 2:00:11.400 --> 2:00:15.080 but they're still doing it because it's their ideology. And 2:00:15.280 --> 2:00:19.320 we're gonna get into a bit more about why about 2:00:19.320 --> 2:00:21.280 that that part a second, but beffore we do that. 2:00:21.320 --> 2:00:23.600 I want to talk about I think another one of 2:00:23.640 --> 2:00:25.760 these things that has gotten kind of lost in the shuffle, 2:00:25.800 --> 2:00:27.480 which is do you do you you heard about the 2:00:27.680 --> 2:00:29.920 giant like DC Crime Omnibus bill. 2:00:31.000 --> 2:00:33.640 I've had about this, yeah, yeah, Like I will say 2:00:33.640 --> 2:00:36.240 I'm not familiar with it other than like herring that 2:00:36.240 --> 2:00:36.720 it's bad. 2:00:37.640 --> 2:00:41.640 Yeah, so okay, So so in DC, the City Council 2:00:41.960 --> 2:00:46.520 passed this enormous sort of like giant set of like 2:00:46.600 --> 2:00:49.480 omnibus set of like policies are supposed to be there, 2:00:49.520 --> 2:00:54.960 like keep DC safe crime omnibus thing. I okay. There's 2:00:54.960 --> 2:00:56.440 a couple of things to note about this. One is 2:00:56.440 --> 2:00:58.600 that it's actually not as bad as it was originally 2:00:58.640 --> 2:01:02.080 going to be because there was so much like uproar, 2:01:02.120 --> 2:01:05.240 because I mean the original one like had provisions that 2:01:05.400 --> 2:01:08.200 was like banning masks at protests and ship and it 2:01:08.240 --> 2:01:11.640 was like it was really bad and it got like nuked. 2:01:12.400 --> 2:01:14.000 But it's still really bad, and there's a lot of 2:01:14.040 --> 2:01:16.320 it's a lot of really weird kind of grievance stuff, 2:01:16.360 --> 2:01:20.400 Like there's this provision specifically that's supposed to be about 2:01:20.440 --> 2:01:26.080 like like targeting quote quote organized retail theft, which is 2:01:26.080 --> 2:01:27.400 one of the insane this is. 2:01:27.640 --> 2:01:30.000 Yeah, this is one of the most like storm in 2:01:30.040 --> 2:01:32.560 a teacups that has been going for a while now. 2:01:33.160 --> 2:01:35.360 Yeah. But I mean there there's also kind of like 2:01:35.400 --> 2:01:37.880 there's sister standard police stuff, which is it they're trying 2:01:37.920 --> 2:01:41.680 to expand pre trial attention on which they did one 2:01:41.720 --> 2:01:44.840 of the the absolutely insane ones that have been cleared unconstitutional, 2:01:44.840 --> 2:01:48.040 but apparently they's just back now is allowing police chiefs 2:01:48.040 --> 2:01:54.520 to designate certain areas quote drug free zones where yeah. 2:01:55.240 --> 2:01:56.959 See, I'm I'm so, I'm confused. 2:01:57.800 --> 2:02:00.560 But basically what it lets it basically, what it lets 2:02:00.560 --> 2:02:04.440 you do is it lets the cops just harass a 2:02:04.520 --> 2:02:07.920 bunch of people even more than they already do, like 2:02:08.080 --> 2:02:10.640 mostly mostly what it does is just when you declare 2:02:10.640 --> 2:02:12.680 one of these areas, it's where all the black people are, 2:02:12.720 --> 2:02:15.800 and then the cops just have cops have like an incredible, 2:02:15.800 --> 2:02:19.000 like incredibly increased ability to just randomly stop people and 2:02:19.040 --> 2:02:19.839 search them. 2:02:19.760 --> 2:02:22.760 Right, and yeah, ship stop and frisk law. 2:02:22.960 --> 2:02:26.480 Yeah, there's there. So there there is a thing that 2:02:26.600 --> 2:02:30.960 like part of the mask provision stayed in force, which 2:02:31.000 --> 2:02:34.480 is that they're making it basically it's like like wearing 2:02:34.520 --> 2:02:37.680 a mask with the intent to commit a crime is 2:02:37.720 --> 2:02:44.560 a crime, right, the cops like determine, right, your intent, 2:02:44.800 --> 2:02:47.240 So like, yeah, it's one of those laws. 2:02:47.240 --> 2:02:49.080 Like they do this a lot with gun laws, right, 2:02:49.080 --> 2:02:51.600 they passed gun laws. It don't make anything that wasn't 2:02:51.840 --> 2:02:55.280 already illegal illegal, They just make it so that if 2:02:55.320 --> 2:02:57.600 they if you if you're if you're caught, you're going 2:02:57.640 --> 2:02:58.440 to prison for longer. 2:02:58.480 --> 2:03:01.400 Now, Yeah, that this this actually there are there are 2:03:01.400 --> 2:03:03.960 provisions like that in this too. There's also a bunch 2:03:04.000 --> 2:03:07.560 of random like gun provisions. There's all the like more 2:03:07.720 --> 2:03:12.080 nuts ones, like there's there's one where cops can arrest you. 2:03:12.240 --> 2:03:14.400 So if if they're trying to cite you for not 2:03:14.520 --> 2:03:17.120 paying a toll, if they they they claim that you 2:03:17.120 --> 2:03:20.400 didn't pay a you didn't like pay a transit fare, 2:03:21.720 --> 2:03:23.839 you have to give them your full name and address 2:03:23.840 --> 2:03:25.360 and if they don't, and if you don't, they can 2:03:25.480 --> 2:03:29.640 arrest you, which is nuts. 2:03:30.160 --> 2:03:32.440 This is like, don't disrespect me on the train in 2:03:32.440 --> 2:03:33.920 front of everyone, nor, isn't it? 2:03:34.200 --> 2:03:38.200 That's what that is. There's another one. There's another one, 2:03:38.200 --> 2:03:40.560 which is like, I I don't. I don't have another 2:03:40.560 --> 2:03:43.440 way to describe it other than this is the uh, 2:03:43.840 --> 2:03:45.680 this is the how to get away with murder bill, 2:03:46.320 --> 2:03:48.280 which is this is so one of the things that 2:03:48.280 --> 2:03:52.880 they're doing is letting cops review their own helmet footage 2:03:53.400 --> 2:03:58.360 before police inquiries. Right, ah, this is this is this 2:03:58.400 --> 2:03:59.920 is to get the narrative straight. 2:04:00.400 --> 2:04:03.080 Yeah, Bill, do you also get to edit it? 2:04:05.480 --> 2:04:05.840 I don't. 2:04:06.240 --> 2:04:10.720 Well, okay, so here's the thing about that quote unquote No, 2:04:10.920 --> 2:04:17.680 however come these things mysteriously vanish time mysteriously disappears. Yeah, 2:04:17.880 --> 2:04:20.520 there's also like a whole thing about like there are 2:04:20.560 --> 2:04:23.760 certain groups of people who the cops can just like 2:04:23.960 --> 2:04:27.400 force DNA collections from. Wow, which is it's a lot 2:04:27.480 --> 2:04:29.440 less broad than it used to be. But yeah, it's 2:04:29.440 --> 2:04:31.680 still a provision in there. But yeah, this is a 2:04:31.760 --> 2:04:35.840 nightmarish bill that they've been able to pass. And you know, 2:04:36.080 --> 2:04:39.520 I think it's worth thinking about why this is actually happening, 2:04:39.520 --> 2:04:42.160 which is that all of this stuff, all of these 2:04:42.200 --> 2:04:44.960 are sort of long range reaction to twenty twenty, right, 2:04:45.120 --> 2:04:48.360 this is this, This was the sort of strategy after 2:04:48.400 --> 2:04:52.200 twenty twenty for rebuilding legitimacy of the police, and you know, 2:04:52.240 --> 2:04:56.920 and and also now rebuilding sort of rebuilding the I 2:04:56.960 --> 2:05:01.120 don't know, psychological capacity, I guess to you know, I mean, 2:05:01.200 --> 2:05:04.839 just deploy a bunch of troops on US soil, right, right, yeah, 2:05:05.240 --> 2:05:09.280 sort of building up that tolerance. Yeah, and you know, 2:05:09.400 --> 2:05:11.080 like this is all of this stuff is sort of 2:05:11.080 --> 2:05:15.960 born on you know, on on on protest crackdowns on 2:05:15.960 --> 2:05:18.120 one of the things that's also sort of worth noting about. 2:05:18.160 --> 2:05:20.400 This is all of this stuff. I mean, the DC 2:05:20.520 --> 2:05:22.040 crime build but in the works for a long time, 2:05:22.080 --> 2:05:24.880 but the subway stuff is all stuff that happened like 2:05:25.240 --> 2:05:31.120 pretty quickly after they are ambushnell self Imlaysia. So a 2:05:31.160 --> 2:05:35.800 big part of this has been the sort of the 2:05:36.160 --> 2:05:40.760 Democratic ruling class kind of losing their minds after watching 2:05:40.840 --> 2:05:43.400 how widespread twenty twenty was, watching the extent to which 2:05:43.560 --> 2:05:47.000 they were forced to like you know, like there are 2:05:47.000 --> 2:05:51.680 democratic politicians in twenty twenty like talking about like I mean, 2:05:51.720 --> 2:05:54.400 there are like a lucky people talking about defunding the police. 2:05:54.440 --> 2:05:59.320 There are like they're all remember the weird like that 2:05:59.360 --> 2:06:02.760 whole like kneed laying thing in Congress. They all do 2:06:03.400 --> 2:06:04.920 oh yeah yeah. 2:06:04.720 --> 2:06:06.320 Have the pitched in the morning you can take with 2:06:06.520 --> 2:06:11.560 yeah yeah, ooh yeah. That's a powerful incents of ringe. 2:06:12.280 --> 2:06:14.600 Yeah. But there's a lot of like you know, there's 2:06:14.640 --> 2:06:17.240 there's this this sort of memory of that has been 2:06:17.280 --> 2:06:20.720 has been sort of drilled deep into into the Democratic 2:06:20.800 --> 2:06:25.760 party and so what what what has been happening like 2:06:25.760 --> 2:06:27.200 like you know and that what's been happening and this 2:06:27.240 --> 2:06:31.000 has been happening in blue states very explicitly is this 2:06:31.160 --> 2:06:36.280 is this strategy of hypermilitarization with the explicit like not explicit, sorry, 2:06:36.400 --> 2:06:39.760 with the implicit but not very well concealed goal of 2:06:39.840 --> 2:06:42.560 putting everyone back in their place after twenty twenty, and 2:06:42.880 --> 2:06:47.600 that is extremely grim. I mean, I think, I don't know, 2:06:47.720 --> 2:06:50.880 I'm I'm glad the DC stuff isn't as bad as 2:06:50.920 --> 2:06:53.120 it was originally because the original one we're just like 2:06:53.160 --> 2:06:55.680 straight up a bunch of fascist ship. This is also 2:06:55.760 --> 2:07:00.640 fascist shit, but like not as unhinged as the original 2:07:00.640 --> 2:07:05.280 bills were, So you know, it's like like the tide 2:07:05.280 --> 2:07:09.160 of this stuff isn't inevitable, right, but also very very 2:07:09.200 --> 2:07:13.560 powerful factions of the Democratic Party have decided that this 2:07:13.640 --> 2:07:16.360 is the thing that they want to do, and it 2:07:16.440 --> 2:07:19.080 absolutely sucks, and you know, and and and and this 2:07:19.200 --> 2:07:21.360 is you know, and this is in a similar way 2:07:21.400 --> 2:07:24.040 to sort of the stuff on the border being by parties. 2:07:24.040 --> 2:07:25.440 I mean, at some point I'm going to do an 2:07:25.440 --> 2:07:27.760 episode about the absolute shit show that's been happening in 2:07:27.840 --> 2:07:32.160 Chicago where yeah, they're like a a kid got fucking 2:07:32.240 --> 2:07:34.560 measles in one of these and one of the micro 2:07:34.600 --> 2:07:38.640 shelters in Pilsen in Chicago, and now the mayor's like 2:07:38.720 --> 2:07:41.480 evicting a bunch of a bunch of people from the 2:07:41.480 --> 2:07:45.320 bigrant shelters. Jesus, you know, so like there's a bip 2:07:45.440 --> 2:07:47.200 I mean, this is the thing Like in Chicago, I 2:07:47.280 --> 2:07:51.280 mean there's just outside of like you know, we're like 2:07:51.480 --> 2:07:55.760 outside of just like basically every like Walgreens or just 2:07:55.800 --> 2:07:59.800 on street corners, there's a bunch of refugee families like 2:08:00.240 --> 2:08:02.120 just sitting out there in the cold, trying to get 2:08:02.120 --> 2:08:06.000 some money because there's fucking nothing for them here. And 2:08:06.360 --> 2:08:09.160 this is a bipartisan you know this, this is a 2:08:09.160 --> 2:08:14.920 bipartisan political project. Yeah, you know, just sort of sheer 2:08:15.040 --> 2:08:17.640 terror inflicted on most of the little people in society. 2:08:19.200 --> 2:08:22.320 Yeah, it's it's really depressing to hear that, just because 2:08:22.360 --> 2:08:25.680 I know that, like, you know, I see people here 2:08:25.760 --> 2:08:27.440 and then they get out, and my friends see them, 2:08:27.480 --> 2:08:29.440 and we turn into the airport and my friends feed 2:08:29.480 --> 2:08:31.200 them and look after them there, and they get on 2:08:31.240 --> 2:08:32.960 their planes and we hope for the best for them, 2:08:32.960 --> 2:08:35.000 you know, and then then yeah, they just go to 2:08:35.040 --> 2:08:37.760 some other city where some other dog shit democrats who 2:08:37.880 --> 2:08:40.800 lied four years ago is gonna do everything they can 2:08:40.880 --> 2:08:42.480 to make life as hard for them as possible. 2:08:43.120 --> 2:08:43.520 Yeah. 2:08:43.600 --> 2:08:45.120 The good thing is you have to vote for them 2:08:45.120 --> 2:08:50.320 while you're voting for Fascismoo horay, how sad? 2:08:51.520 --> 2:08:53.560 Yeah that that that That's what I got today. We'll 2:08:53.600 --> 2:08:58.640 be back tomorrow with something. What are we back down? 2:08:58.760 --> 2:09:02.040 Yeah, it will be a podcast. It's with tomorrow's Friday. 2:09:02.440 --> 2:09:04.960 Oh yeah, Torow's Gaza day. So it's not getting Anny 2:09:05.000 --> 2:09:08.400 better for you. Yeah, lucky you, lucky you. Tomorrow we'll 2:09:08.440 --> 2:09:24.640 be hearing from our friends at park or Gaza. 2:09:25.920 --> 2:09:26.040 Hi. 2:09:26.120 --> 2:09:29.080 Everyone, it's me James, just introducing this podcast, and I'm 2:09:29.080 --> 2:09:32.760 recording this the day after we recorded the episode to 2:09:32.800 --> 2:09:35.960 today's Thursday, the twenty first of March. I wanted to 2:09:36.040 --> 2:09:38.120 just update a couple of things and correct a couple 2:09:38.120 --> 2:09:39.839 of things, so I've just listened through the episodes. 2:09:39.880 --> 2:09:40.800 I'm going to do that now. 2:09:41.080 --> 2:09:43.919 Firstly, I think I said Igler a couple of times 2:09:44.000 --> 2:09:47.840 when I meant Strella. It's the Strella portable surface to 2:09:47.840 --> 2:09:51.400 where missiles have been refitted with new batteries in the 2:09:51.400 --> 2:09:54.520 Syrian Civil Wars specifically, and I've included a link to 2:09:54.520 --> 2:09:57.840 a document about that in the show notes. So apologies 2:09:57.880 --> 2:10:00.560 for getting those two things confused. They're both I guess 2:10:00.600 --> 2:10:04.120 former Soviet service to a missile systems. The other things 2:10:04.160 --> 2:10:08.040 I wanted to mention that a few like throughout this 2:10:08.360 --> 2:10:13.120 episode we've used manpads, right, that's kind of the colloquial 2:10:13.320 --> 2:10:17.960 term or the official term really for person boughtable anti 2:10:18.000 --> 2:10:22.280 aircraft systems. Like obviously doesn't mean that you have to 2:10:22.320 --> 2:10:24.680 be a man to use one, certainly like the fact 2:10:24.680 --> 2:10:27.720 that the hPG are using them and that the Kurdish 2:10:27.720 --> 2:10:30.800 Freedom Movement are using them. Obviously women can use them, 2:10:30.840 --> 2:10:33.160 non binary folks can use them, to everyone can use them. 2:10:33.240 --> 2:10:36.640 And finally, I just wanted to mention that there have 2:10:36.720 --> 2:10:40.280 been some suggestions that the thing that was used to 2:10:40.280 --> 2:10:43.480 shoot down the Bay Reptars was like loatering munition, which 2:10:43.520 --> 2:10:46.320 is something that is often called a suicide drone. In 2:10:46.320 --> 2:10:49.600 this case, it's not a loitering munition that impacts something 2:10:49.640 --> 2:10:51.200 on the ground, but impacts something on the air. There's 2:10:51.240 --> 2:10:55.600 an Iranian system that does that, but apparently it's possible 2:10:55.640 --> 2:10:58.240 to replicate that with a large number of off the 2:10:58.280 --> 2:11:00.400 shelf or sort of commercially available pieces. 2:11:00.480 --> 2:11:01.960 So maybe that's what's going on. 2:11:02.680 --> 2:11:04.760 This episode was a little bit speculative, and we still 2:11:04.800 --> 2:11:07.080 don't have lots of hard answers, but we hope you'll 2:11:07.160 --> 2:11:10.000 enjoy it because it represents a change in a relationship 2:11:10.000 --> 2:11:11.880 between the state and people who are not the state, 2:11:12.000 --> 2:11:13.080 and that's why it's important. 2:11:13.200 --> 2:11:14.360 Okay, hope you enjoy. 2:11:15.160 --> 2:11:18.600 Hello, podcast fans, Welcome back to the podcast. I'm joined 2:11:18.600 --> 2:11:20.280 today by my friend Mia Himea. 2:11:21.040 --> 2:11:22.520 Hello, and we. 2:11:22.440 --> 2:11:25.720 Are talking about, of course, surface to wear missiles, a 2:11:25.760 --> 2:11:28.240 topic that I'm sure is on the top of mind 2:11:28.280 --> 2:11:30.640 for all of you as you drive to work this morning. 2:11:30.880 --> 2:11:33.080 Where are we talking about surface to wear missiles today? 2:11:33.400 --> 2:11:33.720 Well? 2:11:34.000 --> 2:11:38.320 Today is It is Wednesday, the twentieth of March, and 2:11:38.360 --> 2:11:40.840 today I'm sure maybe some of you would have seen 2:11:41.320 --> 2:11:43.120 most of you probably will not as you go about 2:11:43.120 --> 2:11:47.800 your daily life that the KSEK. The k CK is 2:11:47.960 --> 2:11:52.360 the group, the Kurdistan Communities Union, the joint group between 2:11:52.520 --> 2:11:55.440 the various groups in the different parts of Kurdistan. Right, 2:11:55.480 --> 2:11:59.920 So you have the PKK, you have the Yea Yepiga 2:12:00.480 --> 2:12:03.240 in Syria, PI k K and Turkey, right the p 2:12:03.440 --> 2:12:07.240 JACK in Iran in the k like brings all these 2:12:07.240 --> 2:12:08.000 groups together. 2:12:08.520 --> 2:12:08.800 Do they? 2:12:09.080 --> 2:12:11.000 Is there a name? Do they? Is there like an 2:12:11.000 --> 2:12:12.920 Iraqi branch? That's the one that I don't know. 2:12:13.040 --> 2:12:18.360 You have the Yevish, the the Azdi group, right, yeah, 2:12:19.400 --> 2:12:22.480 I think everyone I will reconsider my statement. 2:12:22.920 --> 2:12:24.840 The people who I have become aware of. 2:12:26.080 --> 2:12:30.200 Who are in Iraq, who are who I know about journalistically, 2:12:30.680 --> 2:12:36.600 are k c K people. Okay, little little bit of 2:12:37.720 --> 2:12:39.760 smoke and mirrors feed there, but yeah, the people the 2:12:39.800 --> 2:12:42.640 people who I who I know who are in in 2:12:42.720 --> 2:12:45.040 the Kurdistan Autonomous Region. 2:12:46.240 --> 2:12:46.960 Are ksey K. 2:12:47.640 --> 2:12:51.000 So I think that I think most of the sort 2:12:51.000 --> 2:12:54.200 of people within the greater like Kurdish Freedom move and 2:12:54.240 --> 2:12:56.000 the APOACHE people are ksey K. 2:12:56.160 --> 2:12:56.800 Within Iraq. 2:12:57.280 --> 2:13:01.320 It is in the Kurdistan Autonomous Region, So like Iraqi 2:13:01.360 --> 2:13:03.840 in a technical sense, but only only really in a 2:13:03.840 --> 2:13:06.440 technical sense. Like when you go to the Kurdistan Autonomous Region, 2:13:06.480 --> 2:13:10.000 you don't even do Iraqi immigration. You do Kurdistan immigration, 2:13:10.440 --> 2:13:12.360 which is nice because it's a lot easier. I was 2:13:12.400 --> 2:13:17.800 there in October of twenty twenty three, and since February 2:13:17.840 --> 2:13:21.520 of twenty twenty three, the KCK have announced they have 2:13:21.600 --> 2:13:26.840 shut down thirteen Turkish unmanned aerial vehicles, right, which what 2:13:26.960 --> 2:13:30.160 you and I would call drones. And we're not talking 2:13:30.240 --> 2:13:34.240 about drones like your friend has a drone and they 2:13:34.400 --> 2:13:37.000 use it to film you at the beach. Drones we're 2:13:37.040 --> 2:13:41.480 talking about like Bairaktar drones, which are it's an aircraft, right, 2:13:41.560 --> 2:13:43.480 Like if you saw one you would be like, oh, 2:13:43.480 --> 2:13:44.280 there goes a plane. 2:13:45.160 --> 2:13:47.240 Yeah, it's like it's like the Turkish version of the 2:13:47.280 --> 2:13:50.840 Predator drones and US users, Yeah, yeah, it's it's yeah, 2:13:50.840 --> 2:13:51.640 it's a very similar thing. 2:13:51.640 --> 2:13:54.920 It's a very popular drone system actually, right, they've sold 2:13:55.040 --> 2:13:59.600 bairaktars to I think dozens of countries, like they're i 2:13:59.600 --> 2:14:04.040 mean all over yeah, thirty one countries that they've exported 2:14:04.040 --> 2:14:06.600 the Biachta to, so that they're very widely used. They're 2:14:06.680 --> 2:14:09.280 kind of the the sort of drone of choice for 2:14:09.280 --> 2:14:11.400 people who are just like buying on the open market. Right, 2:14:11.680 --> 2:14:14.840 Karta uses them, Ukraine uses them a lot, but even 2:14:14.880 --> 2:14:19.800 countries like I'm looking here Bakina Faso has has bairactars. 2:14:20.400 --> 2:14:23.320 So what's notable about this is they've also shot down 2:14:23.320 --> 2:14:27.320 a kinchies A kinchiese are like the newer Bairaktar variant 2:14:27.440 --> 2:14:30.520 that they make a slightly different noise. I've spent some 2:14:30.600 --> 2:14:32.840 time in places that are being attacked by drones over 2:14:32.880 --> 2:14:36.080 the last year, and it's it's a highly unpleasant experience. 2:14:36.560 --> 2:14:39.960 But people who are used to this, which I am, 2:14:40.120 --> 2:14:42.120 I guess thankfully not, will tell you that they can 2:14:42.120 --> 2:14:44.480 tell the different about the noise at least these drones 2:14:44.520 --> 2:14:47.000 to make. But there was a Kinchi for instance. I 2:14:47.000 --> 2:14:50.280 believe it was in a Kinchi that did some of 2:14:50.320 --> 2:14:53.480 the attacks that I was unfortunate enough to be nearby 2:14:53.520 --> 2:14:58.200 when I was in ro in October. So what's notable 2:14:58.200 --> 2:15:01.800 about this is like the k c K obviously, like 2:15:01.840 --> 2:15:04.960 they're a non state actor, right, because there was not 2:15:05.000 --> 2:15:08.680 a Kurdish state. There is a Kurdish nation, one might argue, 2:15:08.720 --> 2:15:14.280 but it's split between four states Iraq, Iran, Syria, and Turkey, 2:15:14.600 --> 2:15:20.320 and so them being able to shoot down drones, it's 2:15:20.360 --> 2:15:21.240 quite remarkable. 2:15:22.760 --> 2:15:25.240 Yeah, no, one's none of the non state actors really 2:15:25.280 --> 2:15:27.080 in the last like twenty years have been able to 2:15:27.120 --> 2:15:30.600 do this. Like everyone talks about how advanced like Isis' 2:15:30.800 --> 2:15:33.360 capabilities were for a non state actor, and they were, 2:15:33.680 --> 2:15:39.080 but they couldn't do it, Like it's wild, No, like who. 2:15:38.920 --> 2:15:40.960 These have shut down some reaper drones? 2:15:42.040 --> 2:15:44.600 Yeah, but they're but they're a state, Like that's the 2:15:44.640 --> 2:15:47.280 thing like they'd have huge swaths of the regular you 2:15:47.400 --> 2:15:50.800 many military are just like yeah. 2:15:50.560 --> 2:15:53.640 And then they're supplied by other state actors, right, like 2:15:53.760 --> 2:15:57.760 very clearly as it's a little different. What Yeah, it's 2:15:58.240 --> 2:16:01.160 this is relatively remarkable, right, they've been able to shoot 2:16:01.200 --> 2:16:03.840 down like and not just it's not just like, oh 2:16:03.840 --> 2:16:06.120 we've got Lucky, we got we've got lucky and dropped 2:16:06.120 --> 2:16:09.640 a single drone. Ice has had, if I remember correctly, 2:16:10.160 --> 2:16:14.200 isis had some Igler man pads, like the old Russian 2:16:14.720 --> 2:16:16.800 man pads. The thing with those and we're going to 2:16:16.920 --> 2:16:21.000 talk about this a little bit later. They they have 2:16:21.160 --> 2:16:23.760 like a battery and that battery will run out over 2:16:23.720 --> 2:16:26.160 a certain or they're sold that some of them are 2:16:26.160 --> 2:16:28.440 just being sold on the black market without batteries. From 2:16:28.440 --> 2:16:31.760 what I've seen, some folks in that we've seen in 2:16:32.000 --> 2:16:34.120 the civil war in Syria have worked out how to 2:16:34.840 --> 2:16:38.520 somehow make that battery work with or make another battery, 2:16:38.600 --> 2:16:41.320 or make another electronic system for them. They don't have 2:16:41.400 --> 2:16:44.440 like a lockout, right, they don't have a like we've detected, 2:16:44.640 --> 2:16:47.000 you know, like your iPhone will sometimes get mad if 2:16:47.040 --> 2:16:50.240 you're using a third party charger. Yeah, yeah, yeah, right, 2:16:50.280 --> 2:16:53.119 So Tim Apple has was not involved in the design 2:16:53.280 --> 2:16:57.880 of the ki Igler most pity, and so he wasn't 2:16:57.920 --> 2:17:02.080 able to engineer it a third party. But those have 2:17:02.280 --> 2:17:06.960 been repurposed. But yeah, we did not see the Islamic 2:17:07.000 --> 2:17:09.800 state of Irak and al Sham dropping US drones. In fact, 2:17:10.879 --> 2:17:13.959 the reason like the thing that allowed there were two 2:17:14.000 --> 2:17:16.680 things that allowed the defeat of like the so called 2:17:16.720 --> 2:17:19.920 Islamic state rate One, the heroism of the people who 2:17:19.959 --> 2:17:23.840 fought against them, be they like Iraqi Kurdish, a lot 2:17:23.879 --> 2:17:27.280 of people fought against a fifteen thousand kurt died fighting Isis. 2:17:27.280 --> 2:17:29.680 But also the fact that the US had complete air 2:17:29.720 --> 2:17:34.400 dominance and could just fucking obliterate things from the sky 2:17:34.480 --> 2:17:38.560 whenever it wanted to it did. It did a lot 2:17:38.560 --> 2:17:42.520 of obliterating things from the sky, right, And so the 2:17:42.600 --> 2:17:45.920 ability to shoot down drones is something that has been 2:17:46.000 --> 2:17:49.720 very hard for non state actors. And it's not like 2:17:49.959 --> 2:17:53.520 it's not like the KCK has a state sponsor, right yeah. 2:17:53.600 --> 2:17:55.800 Yeah. Also so like like for example, like Hasbla has 2:17:55.840 --> 2:17:58.760 shot down too, although these weren't actually they shut down 2:17:58.760 --> 2:18:01.959 to Hermes like is really Hermes Jones. So though those 2:18:01.959 --> 2:18:04.480 are just those are surveillance things. But the thing is, 2:18:04.480 --> 2:18:08.680 like Hezbola did this by getting surface there missiles, like 2:18:08.720 --> 2:18:11.760 getting surface there rockets from Iran. Yeah, so yeah, that's 2:18:11.760 --> 2:18:14.640 why that's that's like, you know, the way that you 2:18:14.640 --> 2:18:18.320 can do this is if either like Iran, the US, 2:18:18.600 --> 2:18:22.160 I guess technically China and or and or Russia like 2:18:22.240 --> 2:18:23.800 hand you them. But if but if none of those 2:18:24.160 --> 2:18:26.320 four countries are willing to play ball or I mean, 2:18:26.320 --> 2:18:29.840 I guess ithically the UK, yes, or like France could 2:18:29.840 --> 2:18:32.600 send you one. But but like it's it's it's really 2:18:32.720 --> 2:18:34.160 really like. 2:18:34.120 --> 2:18:34.959 I don't, I don't. 2:18:35.000 --> 2:18:38.240 I don't think any non state actor who wasn't being 2:18:38.280 --> 2:18:40.600 just directly armed by one of those states has pulled 2:18:40.600 --> 2:18:42.160 it off. No. 2:18:42.920 --> 2:18:46.960 The other non state actor who I've seen with man 2:18:47.000 --> 2:18:51.120 pads very recently are the Koren, the current National Liberal 2:18:51.200 --> 2:18:53.440 k in l A. The k and LA have been 2:18:53.440 --> 2:18:56.800 putting out these pictures. This is this in memr Yes, 2:18:56.840 --> 2:18:58.959 this is in Mema. So for folks who haven't listened 2:18:58.959 --> 2:19:01.640 to our previous memp so to go and listen to them. 2:19:01.760 --> 2:19:03.920 But yeah, there's some of the work I'm proud of. 2:19:04.320 --> 2:19:07.880 But these k and LA guys have these photos, have 2:19:07.959 --> 2:19:10.440 come out that then they're not not post photos, right, 2:19:10.879 --> 2:19:13.960 they'lvery clearly they wanted these photos to come out, and 2:19:14.120 --> 2:19:17.800 it shows them with these manpad system. I'm actually not 2:19:17.840 --> 2:19:21.000 sure if it's a Streller or a Chinese. I think 2:19:21.000 --> 2:19:23.760 it's called the eight N five the Chinese. It's essentially 2:19:23.760 --> 2:19:27.600 the same thing, but they have the grip stock for them, 2:19:27.600 --> 2:19:29.320 but they don't have the coolant ball and the battery 2:19:29.360 --> 2:19:32.080 at the front, So like that they're what they have 2:19:32.240 --> 2:19:35.800 is a fancy looking doesn't appear to my eyes to 2:19:35.920 --> 2:19:40.039 be like fully functional, like in terms of tracking and 2:19:40.040 --> 2:19:45.320 shooting down an aeroplane, although I have seen footage from 2:19:45.360 --> 2:19:53.560 friends of Hunter aircraft deploying like flares over a current 2:19:53.640 --> 2:19:58.360 state and then like turning around and leaving. So perhaps 2:19:58.360 --> 2:20:01.440 there's something I'm missing here. Like it's entirely possible that 2:20:01.600 --> 2:20:03.520 when they decided for these photos come out, they they 2:20:03.680 --> 2:20:06.320 they're in a certain fashion. And like those guys have 2:20:06.440 --> 2:20:09.199 engineered and tire arms industry of their own using Reddit 2:20:09.240 --> 2:20:13.320 and Ali Express, Like I, if anybody can make something work, 2:20:13.360 --> 2:20:16.120 they can make something work. I have great faith in 2:20:16.160 --> 2:20:18.800 their ingenuity and as I said, like it it's people 2:20:18.800 --> 2:20:21.520 in Syria have previously made systems like this work. 2:20:21.600 --> 2:20:21.920 They're not. 2:20:22.280 --> 2:20:24.600 They don't have that lockout, so it's quite possible that 2:20:24.640 --> 2:20:29.160 they did. But I've not seen a video of anyone 2:20:29.360 --> 2:20:34.960 in Mianmar shooting down and any kind of aircraft yet, right, 2:20:35.000 --> 2:20:39.920 the Russian aircraft they have shot down aircraft Allegedly someone 2:20:39.959 --> 2:20:43.720 shot one down with with a like a grenade launcher, 2:20:43.720 --> 2:20:44.800 a single shot grenade. 2:20:44.560 --> 2:20:46.680 Launcher SOLI video. 2:20:46.920 --> 2:20:49.199 Yeah, it's one of the most chadly things that anyone's 2:20:49.240 --> 2:20:52.680 ever done. It's it's some like modern warfare or whatever 2:20:52.720 --> 2:20:58.039 whatever the computer game is called Battlefield, that's what it's called. Yeah, 2:20:58.120 --> 2:21:02.360 talking of talking of for Chadley and exciting stuff, then 2:21:02.480 --> 2:21:04.080 this might be an advert for like being a prison 2:21:04.080 --> 2:21:08.040 guard or something exciting that we have to introduce. Now, okay, 2:21:08.080 --> 2:21:21.120 don't be a prison guard. All right, and we're back. 2:21:21.400 --> 2:21:23.840 I hope you found again from employment elsewhere outside of 2:21:23.879 --> 2:21:27.680 the cast real system. And we're talking about service to 2:21:27.720 --> 2:21:31.720 our missiles, particularly these thirteen serpace to our missile of 2:21:31.879 --> 2:21:36.680 thirteen drones that the casey K have shut down. Right. 2:21:36.879 --> 2:21:39.000 One thing I thought that was noticeable is that they 2:21:39.000 --> 2:21:42.320 did say missiles they are people were able to pride 2:21:42.360 --> 2:21:46.680 the missile system necessary. That so, like there's a theory 2:21:46.760 --> 2:21:51.360 that I've seen that they were able to crash a 2:21:51.440 --> 2:21:55.440 drone of their own into a bairactar like a kind 2:21:55.440 --> 2:21:58.320 of like I guess like a suicide. I don't like 2:21:58.320 --> 2:22:00.520 the word suicide drone because it's not the drone that's dying, 2:22:00.600 --> 2:22:02.480 like normally when people talk about suicide drones, So theyre 2:22:02.560 --> 2:22:09.920 killing people, Yeah, but like a ramming drone. Yeah yeah, yeah, 2:22:10.000 --> 2:22:14.560 like a like a it's like robot Wars. But they 2:22:14.760 --> 2:22:16.760 said missile on their press. Really, so you know, if 2:22:16.760 --> 2:22:19.000 we take that on the if we take that on 2:22:19.040 --> 2:22:21.920 the face of it, that that suggests that they shut 2:22:21.959 --> 2:22:25.440 them down. Certainly there this like there is good video 2:22:25.480 --> 2:22:28.400 evidence of the mirror and I just reviewed the video. 2:22:29.240 --> 2:22:32.920 Incredible soundtrack. We'll link to it in the We'll link 2:22:32.959 --> 2:22:36.800 to it in the show notes. In the videos, you 2:22:36.920 --> 2:22:39.120 very clearly see, oh it's a drone. Oh it's a 2:22:39.200 --> 2:22:43.000 huge explosion that gravity is now having its effect on 2:22:43.000 --> 2:22:45.360 this drone, like it is plummeting to earth. 2:22:45.440 --> 2:22:49.800 Yeah, Like it's it's definitely not a like we've fired 2:22:49.840 --> 2:22:52.119 a machine gun in the air and it hit it 2:22:52.240 --> 2:22:56.640 somehow or something like it's right. It got it quite explosive. Yeah, yeah, 2:22:57.280 --> 2:22:59.440 that's remarkable. Yeah. 2:22:59.560 --> 2:23:01.440 One of the Yeah, there was a shooting down of 2:23:01.480 --> 2:23:03.760 an aircraft in the Amba. It wasn't one of them megs. 2:23:03.760 --> 2:23:05.280 I forgot it might have been. It was a two 2:23:05.280 --> 2:23:07.440 seater training plan. I can't remember quite what it was, 2:23:07.480 --> 2:23:09.920 but that was shot down supposedly by small arms fire 2:23:10.400 --> 2:23:13.720 or maybe like a Generally, the like the air defense 2:23:13.760 --> 2:23:16.520 of most non state armed groups has been dushcuts, right, 2:23:16.600 --> 2:23:18.960 like a it's a thing that you've seen in the 2:23:19.000 --> 2:23:23.039 back of a pickup truck going like bang bang with 2:23:23.080 --> 2:23:27.160 a big sort of spade grip. It's a classic technical gun. 2:23:28.120 --> 2:23:30.680 But this isn't that, Like, this is something very different. 2:23:30.680 --> 2:23:33.320 Something they're they're exploding when these drones get hit there 2:23:33.360 --> 2:23:37.600 exploding and they've all been in I think, oh yeah. 2:23:37.600 --> 2:23:42.000 All of them are in areas of the what we 2:23:42.120 --> 2:23:43.840 call the Curtis Donal Autonomous Reach in a bit of 2:23:43.920 --> 2:23:47.680 rock right, So some of them are in zap which 2:23:47.720 --> 2:23:51.360 is near to howk but towards north of there. 2:23:52.000 --> 2:23:54.120 Some of them in the. 2:23:53.440 --> 2:23:57.040 Kandel Mountains, which is part of the Zagross Mountain Range. 2:23:57.160 --> 2:24:00.360 Again it's it's in the north of that Curtis Done 2:24:00.959 --> 2:24:04.360 Autonomous Region, and I think some of them are in it. 2:24:04.480 --> 2:24:07.320 I think it's Gadat it's pronounced, but they're not in 2:24:07.480 --> 2:24:09.840 like I think obviously when a lot of people think 2:24:09.840 --> 2:24:12.879 about the Kurtis Down freedom movement and think about Rajava, 2:24:13.600 --> 2:24:16.920 this isn't there. The US did shoot down a bay 2:24:17.000 --> 2:24:20.960 Raktar or an a Kinchi over Rajava while I was there, 2:24:21.600 --> 2:24:23.240 but they only shot it down because it flew over 2:24:23.240 --> 2:24:26.360 their base. They continued to let the bay Raktars bomb 2:24:26.760 --> 2:24:30.080 civilian infrastructure all over the A and E S. 2:24:30.360 --> 2:24:33.120 So these these are not there. 2:24:33.160 --> 2:24:36.480 These are so perhaps whatever they're using very interesting, right, 2:24:36.520 --> 2:24:38.880 Like it's maybe it's not something they can take there, 2:24:39.760 --> 2:24:42.800 or maybe it's not you know, like it's not they're 2:24:42.800 --> 2:24:44.520 not able to get it out of the mountains. 2:24:44.520 --> 2:24:47.760 It's too much of a risk. No, it's it's interesting, 2:24:49.200 --> 2:24:51.800 I mean for a number of reasons. Well, yeah, partially 2:24:51.840 --> 2:24:53.800 that they're not using it in serior. Partially they're also they 2:24:53.800 --> 2:24:56.360 don't seem to be using them in Turkey either. 2:24:57.160 --> 2:25:02.760 No, it's interesting when take off, it's not that like subtle, right, 2:25:02.800 --> 2:25:04.880 it's a big aircraft, so they'll get some warning when 2:25:04.920 --> 2:25:06.640 they take off and that would allow them, I guess, 2:25:06.720 --> 2:25:08.800 to prepare their munitions. But yeah, they don't seem to 2:25:08.840 --> 2:25:11.600 be using it. They seem to be using it in 2:25:11.920 --> 2:25:15.840 like this this area. Whether they're very strong, right, whether 2:25:15.879 --> 2:25:21.240 these mountains are extremely fortified. They've been fighting Turkey. There 2:25:21.240 --> 2:25:23.640 are a lot in recent days and weeks. You can 2:25:23.640 --> 2:25:26.760 always I mean, obviously you're going to see some somewhat 2:25:26.800 --> 2:25:30.039 traumatic combat footage, but Garrilla TV always has like updates 2:25:30.040 --> 2:25:32.240 on these things, so that's the sort of thing that 2:25:32.320 --> 2:25:34.640 you you know, like to keep up to date with. 2:25:34.760 --> 2:25:37.840 But yeah, they're not using them there, They're not using them. 2:25:37.879 --> 2:25:41.760 They're they're very close to Turkey, right, but yeah, not 2:25:41.760 --> 2:25:45.439 not quite in and Turkey soldiers do occupy some areas 2:25:45.520 --> 2:25:51.080 inside the Iraqi curtash Down Autonomous Region, so like they 2:25:51.920 --> 2:25:54.720 it's kind of all and Turkey seems to be kind 2:25:54.760 --> 2:25:58.120 of trying to ramp up its operations against the Coast 2:25:58.160 --> 2:26:01.360 Down Freedom movement inside the st An Autonomous Region, but 2:26:01.920 --> 2:26:04.080 this is a significant impediment to that. 2:26:04.160 --> 2:26:04.240 Right. 2:26:04.320 --> 2:26:07.440 It's also very interesting that like we have not heard 2:26:07.440 --> 2:26:09.640 shit about this from Turkey. 2:26:09.840 --> 2:26:13.120 No, Yeah, well, and I think I think part of 2:26:13.160 --> 2:26:15.480 this is, you know, like I think It's something that 2:26:15.480 --> 2:26:18.320 as an indication of how serious this is, because I mean, 2:26:18.560 --> 2:26:20.560 this has been you know, the law of the twenty 2:26:20.600 --> 2:26:23.520 first century is that if you're a state actor, you 2:26:23.600 --> 2:26:27.000 have unlimited air superiority over any non state group you're bombing, 2:26:27.120 --> 2:26:29.360 and you can, you know, especially like especially if you're 2:26:29.400 --> 2:26:32.720 like the US, you can send bombers or drones into 2:26:32.840 --> 2:26:35.600 like any country you want and you can bomb them. Yeah, 2:26:35.720 --> 2:26:38.560 And that has been true. And this, this has been 2:26:38.600 --> 2:26:41.400 the basis of US military power. It's also been the 2:26:41.480 --> 2:26:43.680 basis of a lot of like, you know, the Turkey 2:26:43.680 --> 2:26:45.800 obviously doesn't have the same air doctrine as the US does, 2:26:45.840 --> 2:26:47.680 but like that's been the basis of a lot of 2:26:48.080 --> 2:26:51.600 Turkish operations that they like, they're the people who have airpower. 2:26:51.600 --> 2:26:54.600 And because they have airpower, because they have drones, because 2:26:54.600 --> 2:26:56.160 you can't shoot back at them, they can do whatever 2:26:56.160 --> 2:26:57.280 the fuck they want. 2:26:57.959 --> 2:27:02.440 Yeah, Like I've been in the situation where you are 2:27:02.480 --> 2:27:07.640 completely powerless and very afraid because at some point something 2:27:07.680 --> 2:27:09.080 could fall out the nights gy and kill you and 2:27:09.080 --> 2:27:11.760 there's fuck all you can do about it. And yeah, 2:27:11.800 --> 2:27:16.920 that has been the way of the world, like you say, 2:27:17.080 --> 2:27:20.680 for this entire century. Right, it's what we've seen only Meanmar, 2:27:21.400 --> 2:27:24.280 the pro democracy forces againing ground every day. They're doing 2:27:24.280 --> 2:27:27.760 an incredible job. But like, I've also talked to people 2:27:27.800 --> 2:27:29.840 whose whole unit has been wiped out and they've hidden 2:27:29.879 --> 2:27:31.959 under the dead bodies of their friends because there's a 2:27:31.959 --> 2:27:36.080 plane or a helicopter circling around and it's the one 2:27:36.120 --> 2:27:40.120 area where they've really struggled to defend themselves. Right, It's 2:27:40.600 --> 2:27:44.240 I'm writing a book about anarchist at war. Eventually I 2:27:44.240 --> 2:27:47.520 will publish that book. But this is the thing that 2:27:47.680 --> 2:27:51.520 defines then, like the state. Even when the state like 2:27:51.600 --> 2:27:55.480 loses its monopoly on legitimate violence, it still has monopoly 2:27:55.520 --> 2:28:01.080 on airborne violence. And the question that monopoly, like it 2:28:02.600 --> 2:28:07.800 is incredibly dangerous for the state's ability to for the state, 2:28:07.879 --> 2:28:10.280 I guess in general, like for it for its continued 2:28:10.280 --> 2:28:15.680 ability to crush movements, be they liberatory or be they otherwise. 2:28:15.800 --> 2:28:18.680 Right, and we can Yeah, I mean, this is something 2:28:18.959 --> 2:28:21.600 I think is really interesting. Is this is something that's 2:28:21.640 --> 2:28:26.080 been a fear of I mean everyone from like Western 2:28:26.120 --> 2:28:29.240 intelligence people through like I mean you can see people 2:28:29.280 --> 2:28:32.640 in like Hollywood freaking out about this, Like like rebel 2:28:32.640 --> 2:28:34.920 group gets access to a manpad is like one of 2:28:34.920 --> 2:28:39.440 the most common like spy show plots. Yeah, and yeah, 2:28:39.440 --> 2:28:41.240 it's like it's something that you know, you can you 2:28:41.240 --> 2:28:44.040 can listen to, like the US military talking about this 2:28:43.879 --> 2:28:47.760 is this is something that they're really concerned about. 2:28:48.320 --> 2:28:51.760 Yeah, they won't like it's their where. It's where they 2:28:51.840 --> 2:28:55.560 draw the line with the groups who are quote unquote allies, right, 2:28:55.640 --> 2:28:57.520 who'll be quote like the US will tell you that 2:28:57.560 --> 2:28:59.720 the SDF for their allies in the fight against ISIS, 2:28:59.720 --> 2:29:02.440 but they're willing to let their allies die rather than 2:29:02.440 --> 2:29:03.439 give them manpads. 2:29:03.560 --> 2:29:04.600 Right, Like I've seen this. 2:29:05.240 --> 2:29:08.440 I have. I've seen the funerals, you know, because the 2:29:08.560 --> 2:29:10.640 and the US. But I've also driven right past the 2:29:10.640 --> 2:29:13.080 fucking US base and I know that there are plenty 2:29:13.120 --> 2:29:15.879 of plenty of plenty of anti aircraft systems there because 2:29:15.879 --> 2:29:18.120 they shot down a Turkish drone while I was there. 2:29:18.120 --> 2:29:19.920 But they're not willing to give them to even the 2:29:19.920 --> 2:29:22.840 people who they'll fight side by side with because their 2:29:22.920 --> 2:29:26.840 fear of having manpads get into what they would maybe 2:29:26.879 --> 2:29:31.640 term the wrong hands is is. Yeah, it's like the 2:29:31.640 --> 2:29:36.440 the one area where they have I guess complete domination, right, 2:29:36.440 --> 2:29:40.200 They've given them to Ukraine, of course, but despite like 2:29:40.280 --> 2:29:43.320 repeated allegations, there is no evidence that Ukraine has sold 2:29:43.360 --> 2:29:47.280 surface to wear systems anywhere, and they obviously won't give 2:29:47.280 --> 2:29:51.360 them to me Anmar, right, So it's yeah, it if 2:29:51.360 --> 2:29:53.400 this is what it appears to be, then it's a 2:29:53.440 --> 2:29:57.400 really massive change. Talking of a massive change, you could 2:29:58.120 --> 2:30:00.000 you know, you can make a massive change to your 2:30:00.040 --> 2:30:08.960 financial situation by purchasing gold. 2:30:14.120 --> 2:30:18.000 We're back. Yeah. I think something that's really interesting about 2:30:18.000 --> 2:30:21.040 the way that the sort of manpad getting to nonstate 2:30:21.120 --> 2:30:24.920 actors has talked about is that usually the way that 2:30:25.040 --> 2:30:28.920 it's like usually the US line on it is like 2:30:28.959 --> 2:30:30.760 we can't like we can't let anyone get these yaus, 2:30:30.800 --> 2:30:33.560 They're gonna use it to shoot down civilian airliners. Yes, yeah, 2:30:34.160 --> 2:30:37.680 And now, to be fair, people do accidentally shoot down 2:30:37.879 --> 2:30:41.600 like militaries accidentally shoot down civilian airliners all the time. Yeah, 2:30:41.760 --> 2:30:44.520 that's a very common thing. But I think I think 2:30:44.560 --> 2:30:47.720 that's that's a smoke screed, right because like even like 2:30:48.040 --> 2:30:50.760 the actual thing that if you're if you're a militant group, 2:30:51.040 --> 2:30:53.240 usually the thing that you want to be doing if 2:30:53.240 --> 2:30:55.520 you have one of these weapons is shooting down the 2:30:55.560 --> 2:30:57.920 things that people who are bombing you. Yeah, And I 2:30:57.959 --> 2:31:01.000 think there's a really interesting sort of like psychological thing 2:31:01.040 --> 2:31:02.360 going on here with this. Is this is the sort 2:31:02.360 --> 2:31:04.720 of propaganda thing that that you know, to get to get, 2:31:04.760 --> 2:31:08.320 like you random person to be terrified of, like you know, 2:31:08.879 --> 2:31:12.920 the Kurds having surfaced air missiles. Is they used like 2:31:13.240 --> 2:31:15.120 they use people's like fear of getting born up on 2:31:15.120 --> 2:31:18.560 an airplane. It's like no, no, like click it, like 2:31:18.680 --> 2:31:21.760 you know, evidence suggests that what is actually what actually 2:31:21.760 --> 2:31:23.680 happens that is that they shoot down drones. 2:31:24.160 --> 2:31:26.920 Yeah, yes, exactly right, and not like the other thing, 2:31:26.959 --> 2:31:29.560 which is somewhat remarkable. It's it would be one thing 2:31:29.640 --> 2:31:31.800 to have got your hands on one or two, but 2:31:31.879 --> 2:31:34.600 to have been to have shut down in a one year, 2:31:34.840 --> 2:31:37.680 well just over one year, from February thirteenth, twenty twenty 2:31:37.720 --> 2:31:41.280 three until Mike's the first twenty twenty four, they have 2:31:41.320 --> 2:31:45.480 shot down fifteen UAVs like that. That's a that's a 2:31:45.520 --> 2:31:49.120 decent number of manpads or maybe not man pads. That's 2:31:49.160 --> 2:31:51.120 the other thing we kind of didn't mention, right, like 2:31:52.240 --> 2:31:54.800 big reptas can fly very high. We were just sort 2:31:54.800 --> 2:31:56.240 of checking this out before the show, and I think 2:31:56.280 --> 2:32:00.000 they can fly around seven thousand meters, which within theory 2:32:00.000 --> 2:32:04.720 about twenty five thousand feet, Yeah, which is about twice 2:32:04.840 --> 2:32:09.480 the like the the height previous generation manpads like things 2:32:09.480 --> 2:32:12.640 like stingers and iglers can can operate at I'm not 2:32:12.640 --> 2:32:16.359 sure of the the what the for for an igler 2:32:17.720 --> 2:32:20.760 reach targets and mactum altitude of twenty five hundred meters, 2:32:20.879 --> 2:32:23.840 So yeah, that's a little under as high as these 2:32:24.160 --> 2:32:27.000 as these like attack drones can fly. Maybe they have 2:32:27.040 --> 2:32:29.280 to come lower to like launch their munitions, or maybe 2:32:29.280 --> 2:32:34.240 they come lower to to search for people and presumably 2:32:34.440 --> 2:32:38.640 looking for The Kurdistan Freedom Movement has gorillas all over 2:32:38.640 --> 2:32:42.160 these mountains right here, extremely well camouflaged and extremely adept 2:32:42.240 --> 2:32:45.480 at avoiding drone attacks because that is what they have 2:32:45.600 --> 2:32:48.880 been doing for for a long time. So maybe that's how. 2:32:49.160 --> 2:32:52.640 But also maybe maybe there's something that we're not aware 2:32:52.720 --> 2:32:54.800 of or some kind of Maybe it's not a man 2:32:54.840 --> 2:32:57.560 portable system at all. Maybe it's something that is like 2:32:57.640 --> 2:32:59.760 fixed in place well in that in that. 2:33:00.080 --> 2:33:01.440 So, I think one of the one of the really 2:33:01.520 --> 2:33:04.280 interesting questions to you, which is how on earth did 2:33:04.320 --> 2:33:08.640 they get these? Yeah, like whatever system you're using, you know, 2:33:08.760 --> 2:33:13.240 normally like the only way, like you know, like hesblah 2:33:13.480 --> 2:33:15.720 or the Hoho thies get them from Iran, right, but 2:33:15.760 --> 2:33:18.440 the Ridians are absolutely under no circumstances are they going 2:33:18.440 --> 2:33:22.199 to I mean maybe if Turkey declared war on Iran, 2:33:22.520 --> 2:33:26.120 there's like a five percent chance maybe in like their 2:33:26.200 --> 2:33:28.440 darkest hour, they might try this, Like there's no way. 2:33:28.720 --> 2:33:31.840 Yeah, like Iraq and Iran have repeatedly attempted to mobilize 2:33:31.840 --> 2:33:34.800 the Kurds against each other, right, but yeah, I think 2:33:34.879 --> 2:33:37.800 that they would draw the line at handing over manpads 2:33:37.800 --> 2:33:42.200 and yeah, and they're definitely not getting them from the US. No, 2:33:42.320 --> 2:33:44.320 then they're using them in areas where they're with the 2:33:44.400 --> 2:33:49.000 US and the US like. 2:33:48.200 --> 2:33:49.960 Like you know, it's it's it's definitely not I don't 2:33:49.959 --> 2:33:52.560 think it's any other Western country either, Like it doesn't 2:33:52.560 --> 2:33:56.080 make any sense, Like I mean maybe like based Sweden's 2:33:56.120 --> 2:34:00.040 smothering pads in or something, but I really doubt it, 2:34:00.120 --> 2:34:03.480 which leaves it really like up in the air. I mean, 2:34:03.520 --> 2:34:08.800 like maybe Russia maybe somehow, I don't know. It's it's 2:34:09.040 --> 2:34:11.400 it's all very weird. 2:34:12.000 --> 2:34:14.840 Yeah, And I mean like in recent months, the A 2:34:14.920 --> 2:34:17.000 Side regime, which is backed by Russia has been an 2:34:17.000 --> 2:34:21.360 open conflict with the SDF, So I think it's it's 2:34:21.520 --> 2:34:26.360 very unlikely, like the side regime has been fighting with 2:34:26.560 --> 2:34:30.119 and killing it and dying with Yepaga and in Syria, 2:34:30.640 --> 2:34:34.320 so it seems very unlikely. Yeah, it's very That's what's 2:34:34.440 --> 2:34:37.600 very strange, Like the there seems to be a couple 2:34:37.600 --> 2:34:39.800 of different groups of people, right, like the Kuren have 2:34:39.920 --> 2:34:44.480 popped up with these previous generations Igla. 2:34:44.400 --> 2:34:45.640 Kind of manpads. 2:34:45.879 --> 2:34:48.680 The Kitchen have shot down a lot of planes recently, 2:34:48.959 --> 2:34:51.360 and it's not entirely clear how so the Kitchen or 2:34:51.400 --> 2:34:55.119 another ethnic group in Miandmyre somewhat closer ties to the PRC. 2:34:55.720 --> 2:34:59.480 The United ware State Army have man pads. They are 2:34:59.280 --> 2:35:02.800 the sort of closest tied to the PRC of the 2:35:02.800 --> 2:35:06.280 e Rros in Myanma. I'm using a lot of acronyms here. 2:35:07.480 --> 2:35:09.280 Yeah, this is just the problem we're talking about, Curtis 2:35:09.320 --> 2:35:13.560 Group's not I'm talking about, yes, ye, like the two 2:35:13.680 --> 2:35:15.960 great acronym like wars. 2:35:16.160 --> 2:35:20.160 Don't be overlooking the Spanish Civil War, the alphabet super conflicts. Yeah, 2:35:20.160 --> 2:35:22.039 this is this is a life I've chosen for myself. 2:35:22.280 --> 2:35:26.920 So yeah, the ethnic revolutionary organizations in Myanma the closest 2:35:26.959 --> 2:35:31.600 to China, it's the United War State Army who have 2:35:31.720 --> 2:35:34.320 been at the fringes of the conflict, but it's certainly 2:35:34.360 --> 2:35:36.520 not fully committed to fighting against the Hunter in the 2:35:36.560 --> 2:35:40.440 same way that the Karen, the Kachin, the Arakan Army, 2:35:40.640 --> 2:35:44.640 the PDF for the other groups that form the resistance 2:35:44.640 --> 2:35:48.800 in Burma or me m R. But there have definitely 2:35:48.800 --> 2:35:52.760 been more planes shut down in Themma this year than 2:35:52.840 --> 2:35:55.640 in the in the in the the last few years, 2:35:55.640 --> 2:35:59.000 so there's perhaps there's some kind of source in the 2:35:59.040 --> 2:36:03.720 world for these service to miss. There will come a 2:36:03.800 --> 2:36:07.560 point in the human future, right when one of these 2:36:08.040 --> 2:36:11.400 is either reverse engineered or someone just really, if someone 2:36:11.440 --> 2:36:13.080 had said to you ten years ago that, like several 2:36:13.120 --> 2:36:15.400 people online, some of whom I've spoken to, some of 2:36:15.440 --> 2:36:17.879 whom our friend j Camera had spoken to, would be 2:36:18.040 --> 2:36:21.480 able to construct a gun that you could print from 2:36:21.560 --> 2:36:26.560 your computer, Like you'd have said, you're barking, right, And 2:36:26.680 --> 2:36:29.280 at some point in the human future someone will work 2:36:29.320 --> 2:36:31.680 out how to use things they already have to make 2:36:31.720 --> 2:36:36.160 something that can shoot down aircraft. But yeah, it's baffling 2:36:36.200 --> 2:36:38.440 like that. There seems to be no obvious answer as 2:36:38.480 --> 2:36:42.520 to where what the source of these. The last thing 2:36:42.560 --> 2:36:46.320 I will say is that there was a yakuzer boss. Yeah, yeah, 2:36:46.520 --> 2:36:51.720 this guy legend. It's just like it like this man's 2:36:51.760 --> 2:36:55.640 my Man's done nothing wrong. He was convicted of selling 2:36:55.840 --> 2:36:58.840 trying to sell manpaed to the Karen and I think 2:36:58.840 --> 2:37:02.039 to the Kachin I can't remember, definitely one of them 2:37:02.040 --> 2:37:05.280 with the Kren, and he was trying to do so 2:37:05.800 --> 2:37:07.840 very funny. He was calling them cake and ice cream, 2:37:08.280 --> 2:37:13.080 incredibly incredibly good cipher it. It's a hell of a 2:37:13.120 --> 2:37:15.879 it's a banger of an indictment. Everyone should read it. 2:37:16.000 --> 2:37:16.480 To Keshi. 2:37:16.560 --> 2:37:19.000 I forget what his last name was, but he he 2:37:19.080 --> 2:37:23.480 was trying to sell them man pads and what he 2:37:23.560 --> 2:37:25.959 was actually doing was being monitored by the DEA. But 2:37:26.600 --> 2:37:29.600 the man pads that he thought that he had access 2:37:29.640 --> 2:37:33.200 to were fictional, like it was. It was the It 2:37:33.240 --> 2:37:36.280 was the FEDS who had conned him into thinking they 2:37:36.360 --> 2:37:39.720 had man pads. They did have some eighty fours. He 2:37:39.800 --> 2:37:43.440 met them in the Netherlands, took an incredible selfie with 2:37:43.480 --> 2:37:45.959 a light anti tank weapon and you can look it up. 2:37:46.040 --> 2:37:48.600 Leather jacket, like I think he's got Blue Aviators on 2:37:49.240 --> 2:37:53.840 like my man's been arrested for having incredible drip and 2:37:53.879 --> 2:37:56.720 it's very sad, But yeah, the man pads he thought 2:37:56.720 --> 2:37:59.120 he was selling were fictional. But the fact that people 2:37:59.160 --> 2:38:03.400 were like, yeah, this SMEs reasonable, like that people were like, okay, 2:38:03.480 --> 2:38:05.320 we're prepared to went to deal with you. They weren't like, 2:38:05.440 --> 2:38:09.280 what are you on about, suggests that maybe these things 2:38:09.480 --> 2:38:13.400 are entering the market. People will always say that they 2:38:13.440 --> 2:38:17.640 came from Afghanistan, like after the US left, But I 2:38:17.640 --> 2:38:19.760 don't think the Taliban would have any reason to sell them. 2:38:19.760 --> 2:38:23.800 They're getting bombed by Pakistan right now, Like what Yeah, yeah, 2:38:23.840 --> 2:38:25.840 it doesn't seem it doesn't make sense to me that 2:38:26.680 --> 2:38:28.199 they would sell them. 2:38:28.480 --> 2:38:28.640 Yeah. 2:38:28.680 --> 2:38:30.800 And one thing I should also mention is like every 2:38:30.879 --> 2:38:33.879 single time there is a war anywhere in the world, 2:38:34.280 --> 2:38:36.880 there are a trillion rumors that come out. They're like, oh, 2:38:36.920 --> 2:38:39.680 there's like this guy is selling like ex weapons or whatever, 2:38:39.720 --> 2:38:42.160 and it's like ninety nine percent of them are false. 2:38:42.520 --> 2:38:42.760 Yeah. 2:38:42.840 --> 2:38:46.680 Yeah, yeah, you hear this all the time and it's 2:38:46.720 --> 2:38:50.320 never true. Yeah, so that makes it really hard to 2:38:50.360 --> 2:38:52.440 sort out like where these things are coming from. 2:38:52.480 --> 2:38:56.080 Yeah, exactly. A friend of the podcast, Victor Boot. Is 2:38:56.400 --> 2:39:01.560 he's free again, He's back. Maybe maybe he's gotten back. 2:39:02.240 --> 2:39:06.199 Maybe the god of war is back. Baby. It would 2:39:06.200 --> 2:39:08.480 be incredible. There would be an incredible narrative arc for 2:39:08.640 --> 2:39:13.080 Victor Boot. But like as we said in that episode, right, 2:39:13.160 --> 2:39:16.240 like it's very easy to point to Victor Boot as 2:39:16.280 --> 2:39:18.440 being this evil guy, but in fact, like we've sort 2:39:18.440 --> 2:39:20.000 of ship tourn of weapons to people who turned out 2:39:20.000 --> 2:39:23.200 to be pretty pretty uncivil as the United States, a 2:39:23.240 --> 2:39:25.800 lot more people working you know, all the other places 2:39:25.800 --> 2:39:27.640 that have offices in San Diego made a lot more 2:39:27.640 --> 2:39:30.640 money than he did selling weapons to people. So you know, 2:39:30.800 --> 2:39:33.320 we ought to be you know, Popcorn and the cult 2:39:33.360 --> 2:39:37.080 back a bit there, but clearly something is up with 2:39:37.120 --> 2:39:39.960 surface to our missiles. I hope this makes your Spring 2:39:40.000 --> 2:39:43.760 Bake flights more exciting, just gives it a little edge 2:39:43.920 --> 2:39:44.280 as you. 2:39:44.240 --> 2:39:46.279 Take on't don't fly in Turkey. 2:39:46.640 --> 2:39:51.000 Yeah, yeah, that's the our tip is to to not 2:39:51.080 --> 2:39:54.680 fly from not land. I guess in I mean, like 2:39:54.720 --> 2:39:56.560 we said, the Casey King going to shoot down your 2:39:56.600 --> 2:39:59.760 civilian plane. That then they're nice people. I'll just say 2:40:00.040 --> 2:40:01.959 the K C. K and my experience have been very nice, 2:40:02.040 --> 2:40:06.520 very forthcoming, extremely communicative and responsive to press requests, which 2:40:07.440 --> 2:40:10.200 like much more so than a lot a lot of 2:40:10.240 --> 2:40:13.240 other state actors. And I don't think you have any 2:40:13.240 --> 2:40:15.680 worries about them shooting down your aircraft. But it's an 2:40:15.720 --> 2:40:21.400 interesting development that like, yeah, will fundamentally challenge the way 2:40:21.640 --> 2:40:25.480 that states are able to squash non state armed groups 2:40:25.520 --> 2:40:26.400 going forward. 2:40:26.879 --> 2:40:30.800 Yeah, and if we if we figure out where they 2:40:30.840 --> 2:40:35.760 got them from and that becomes public, well you'll you'll 2:40:35.760 --> 2:40:38.160 see the next episode called we found Out where the 2:40:38.240 --> 2:40:39.160 mad Pads are from? 2:40:39.720 --> 2:40:43.720 Yeah, yeah, I think in unlikelihood to no one's drest 2:40:43.800 --> 2:40:46.400 and to to like announce where these are from. And 2:40:46.480 --> 2:40:49.200 I don't think you know the ones in in Meanmar. 2:40:49.320 --> 2:40:52.280 It's not inconceivable that they came either directly or indirectly 2:40:52.280 --> 2:40:55.640 from China, certainly that that would be the most feasible, 2:40:55.640 --> 2:40:59.920 but seeing them elsewhere, it's fascinating, Like it's you know, 2:41:00.040 --> 2:41:02.480 if somebody has like either reverse engineered these are there's 2:41:02.520 --> 2:41:04.840 large now RHITHM available on the black market, that would 2:41:04.879 --> 2:41:10.280 be a sea change in the way conflict happens, right, like, 2:41:12.000 --> 2:41:13.640 you know, it's rare. Right now, it's able to bomb 2:41:13.760 --> 2:41:16.960 Palestine with complete impunity if non state arm groups had 2:41:17.000 --> 2:41:19.920 access to manpads there that maybe wouldn't be the case, 2:41:20.840 --> 2:41:23.320 but yeah, it's a change. It's a change in the 2:41:23.320 --> 2:41:25.840 way the world goes to war. I think it's always interesting. 2:41:25.879 --> 2:41:30.240 It's always interesting, like for a podcast that was built 2:41:30.280 --> 2:41:35.240 on speculative picture about future collapses like this certainly is 2:41:35.280 --> 2:41:37.039 something that challenges the monopoly of the state. 2:41:37.200 --> 2:41:38.920 So yeah, it's something to keep an eye on. 2:41:39.480 --> 2:41:43.080 I will attach in the notes the Guerrilla TV video 2:41:43.120 --> 2:41:46.240 of the Beiractars being shot down. Please enjoyed the soundtrack. 2:41:46.360 --> 2:41:49.760 Yeah it's banger, and will also include some links to 2:41:49.800 --> 2:41:53.600 those videos of the Karen National Liberation Army with their 2:41:53.640 --> 2:41:56.360 man pads. If you're a man pads understander, you know 2:41:56.600 --> 2:41:59.240 you know where to find me. It's all over the internet. 2:42:00.040 --> 2:42:00.440 And yep. 2:42:00.480 --> 2:42:02.600 With that, I will leave you. Have a great weekend, 2:42:03.720 --> 2:42:04.800 don't fly your sas news. 2:42:08.120 --> 2:42:11.320 Hey we'll be back Monday with more episodes every week 2:42:11.360 --> 2:42:13.240 from now until the heat death of the universe. 2:42:13.840 --> 2:42:14.440 It could happen. 2:42:14.440 --> 2:42:16.800 Here is a production of cool Zone Media. For more 2:42:16.800 --> 2:42:20.440 podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website Coolzonemedia dot com, 2:42:20.520 --> 2:42:23.160 or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, 2:42:23.240 --> 2:42:26.080 or wherever you listen to podcasts, you can find sources 2:42:26.080 --> 2:42:29.240 for It could happen here, Updated monthly at coolzonemedia dot 2:42:29.280 --> 2:42:31.480 com slash sources. Thanks for listening.