Speaker 1: Zone Media.
Speaker 2: Hey everybody, Robert Evans here and I wanted to let
Speaker 2: you know this is a compilation episode. So every episode
Speaker 2: of the week that just happened is here in one
Speaker 2: convenient and with somewhat less ads package for you to
Speaker 2: listen to in a long stretch if you want. If
Speaker 2: you've been listening to the episodes every day this week,
Speaker 2: there's going to be nothing new here for you, but
Speaker 2: you can make your own decisions.
Speaker 3: Get ready for anarchy in Atlanta.
Speaker 4: You got to or you won't be arend anarchists start work.
Speaker 4: They struck again this week.
Speaker 5: Cops are approaching now.
Speaker 6: Obviously got a flashbawn.
Speaker 7: This is it could happen here. I'm Garrison Davis. For
Speaker 7: the past three years, a wide range of people in Atlanta,
Speaker 7: Georgia have been working to prevent the construction of a
Speaker 7: now one hundred and ten million million dollar militarized police
Speaker 7: training facility in the South River Forest in southeast Atlanta.
Speaker 7: I've continuously covered the evolving struggle on it Could Happen
Speaker 7: Here for the past few years.
Speaker 6: Now.
Speaker 7: In this episode, I will attempt to summarize some of
Speaker 7: the actions from the past six months and the wave
Speaker 7: of recent repression targeted against the movement. I will also
Speaker 7: offer some analysis and critique on behalf of anonymous Force
Speaker 7: defenders who spoke with me in dedicated conversations. After the
Speaker 7: last week of action in summer of twenty twenty three,
Speaker 7: it was clear the movement needed a new way of
Speaker 7: people to engage in the struggle against Cop City. Beyond
Speaker 7: the referendum and the occasional nighttime sabotage. Forest encampments were
Speaker 7: essentially impossible, and the weeks of action seemed to expunge
Speaker 7: their usefulness. A small group of people began organizing what
Speaker 7: would become known as block cop City. The idea was
Speaker 7: that on Monday, November thirteenth, a mass mobilization would descend
Speaker 7: upon the Cop City construction site in an act of
Speaker 7: non violent protest, and perhaps planted tree saplings where the
Speaker 7: forest once stood. This marks the first time that the
Speaker 7: framing of quote unquote strategic nonviolence and nonviolent direct action
Speaker 7: were embraced for a mass action like this, hoping that
Speaker 7: it may attract NGOs and activist groups to co sign
Speaker 7: onto the action. Historically, throughout this struggle, such quote unquote
Speaker 7: non violent framing was at least avoided if not explicitly
Speaker 7: rejected as a limiting restriction toward achieving measurable victories against
Speaker 7: the Atlanta Police Foundation and cop City contractors. Throughout the
Speaker 7: end of summer and the start of fall, a speaking
Speaker 7: tour for block cup City traveled to over eighty cities
Speaker 7: around the country to promote the action and recruit people
Speaker 7: to travel to Atlanta come November. Block cup City started
Speaker 7: as a very vertical, top down plan. The central conceit
Speaker 7: was decided upon by a small number of individuals, many
Speaker 7: of whom were not from Atlanta, and the finer details
Speaker 7: would be worked out in a series of public meetings
Speaker 7: in the days before the action. Whether or not local
Speaker 7: force defenders liked or disliked the proposal, block op City
Speaker 7: acted as a gravity well, sucking nearly all of the energy, time,
Speaker 7: and attention into its orbit for the entirety of a
Speaker 7: fall in Atlanta. Throughout the nationwide block coop City speaking
Speaker 7: to her a small subset of attendees voiced objections and
Speaker 7: disagreements with the proposed to strategy and its use of
Speaker 7: time and resources. Those opposed to block up City thought
Speaker 7: the idea of a large public march to the work
Speaker 7: site was going to put people in unnecessary harm without
Speaker 7: doing much to achieve a measurable blow against cop city.
Speaker 7: I'm going to quote from a report back that was
Speaker 7: published online shortly after the action.
Speaker 6: Quote.
Speaker 7: Something that tends to happen in autonomous action is that
Speaker 7: there ends up being an inner circle at the core,
Speaker 7: which can limit the scope of who is able to
Speaker 7: meaningfully contribute to the direction of action because it creates
Speaker 7: a hierarchy at spokes council. It felt like this at
Speaker 7: times because it was primarily a small group of speakers
Speaker 7: who were directing the entire block Copcity movement. This led
Speaker 7: to dismissal of certain concerns which were brought up by
Speaker 7: affinity groups. In the planning stages. Organizers pushed back on
Speaker 7: the notion that getting arrested was a part of the plan,
Speaker 7: but on the day before the November thirteenth action, a
Speaker 7: block op City organizer told press and media in a
Speaker 7: private meeting to have your cameras ready because there will
Speaker 7: be arrests at noon, demonstrating some form of intent to
Speaker 7: use people's safety and freedom as a way to generate
Speaker 7: online buzz with the hope of inspiring people to once
Speaker 7: again take action in the forest. The possibility of arrest
Speaker 7: was obviously mentioned at the Spokes Council meetings, but was
Speaker 7: framed as far from a certainty, with rallying cries insisting
Speaker 7: that the march will be able to all leave together.
Speaker 7: During the two days of Spokes Council meetings, the route
Speaker 7: and formation of the march to the construction site was
Speaker 7: decided upon, and quote unquote direct action trainings took place
Speaker 7: to prepare people for the march on Monday morning, the
Speaker 7: march was to be split into three distinct clusters, a frontline, middle,
Speaker 7: and rear. Before the march, there was limited communication between clusters,
Speaker 7: making it difficult to have informed expectations of how a
Speaker 7: confrontation with police will happen. Part of the quote unquote
Speaker 7: strategic non violence stipulation meant that throwne objects and projectiles
Speaker 7: were explicitly disallowed. On the morning of the march, words
Speaker 7: started to spread around that what was left of the
Speaker 7: frontline cluster decided that only bullets will make the frontline
Speaker 7: fall back and they would withstand all other forms of
Speaker 7: police violence, mostly les, lethal rounds, tear gas, batons, etc. Now,
Speaker 7: this whole thing about live rounds was not widely communicate
Speaker 7: to people who just showed up for the action. On
Speaker 7: Monday morning, during the spokes councils, it was learned that
Speaker 7: a vast majority of attendees had never before been to
Speaker 7: Atlanta or the Forest, and a great many of whom
Speaker 7: had never attended a protest or engaged in a clash
Speaker 7: with police before. Some local force defenders took issue with
Speaker 7: the perceived strategy of primarily recruiting young people from across
Speaker 7: the country with little to no experience going up against police.
Speaker 7: Come Monday morning, the number of people gathered to march
Speaker 7: on cop City was far fewer than what was initially hoped.
Speaker 7: It's impossible to say for sure whether the limiting of
Speaker 7: acceptable tactics and the non violent framing hurt or helped
Speaker 7: the final number of attendees. Regardless, the four hundred or
Speaker 7: so brave people that departed Gresham Park was not the
Speaker 7: mass action initially envisioned by organizers.
Speaker 8: Got about three.
Speaker 5: Dozen riot cops and SWAT teams stationed here. Walking off
Speaker 5: the road heading to the west, got police shields. We
Speaker 5: have air of fifteen's, we have tactical response vehicles ATV,
Speaker 5: A lot of cops behind us, a lot of cops
Speaker 5: in front of us. We are completely sandwiched in by
Speaker 5: the police.
Speaker 7: Right now, the front liners approached the police riot line
Speaker 7: at the big intersection near the entrance to Entrenchment Creek Park.
Speaker 7: Two large banners formed a V shaped wedge and the
Speaker 7: crowd advanced into the police line.
Speaker 5: People are pushing through. Cops are putting up to fight.
Speaker 5: People are continuing to move forward. The march is pushing
Speaker 5: the cops back.
Speaker 7: Under the pressure from a few hundred people. The police
Speaker 7: line was pushed back by one or two dozen feet
Speaker 7: front liners. We stood police batons and leslie communitions. Steady
Speaker 7: progress was being made. That was until tear gas got deployed.
Speaker 7: Cops are continuing to loop back.
Speaker 6: Flash bang.
Speaker 7: We got gap csgas was first launched into the middle
Speaker 7: of the crowd. Police paused to put on their own
Speaker 7: gas masks, but instead of using this moment to advance further,
Speaker 7: the bulk of the crowd held their position, with large
Speaker 7: sections of the middle cluster subsequently entering into the tree
Speaker 7: line of Entrenchment Creek Park. As continuing volleys of tear
Speaker 7: gas were fired by police. This caused the front line
Speaker 7: to retreat back, effectively ending the offensive portion of the action.
Speaker 7: As the group that entered into the forest was later
Speaker 7: escorted out by police, rejoined the march and eventually returned
Speaker 7: to Gresham Park. Everyone knew that it was a near
Speaker 7: certainty that police would confront a mobile crowd, and out
Speaker 7: maneuvering police all the way to the construction site would
Speaker 7: be highly unlikely. The only way a mass of people
Speaker 7: would be able to get to the work site is
Speaker 7: if police allowed it. Still, there's much to learn from
Speaker 7: block cop City and even just the brief skirmish with police,
Speaker 7: So forgive me for engaging in some tactical analysis based
Speaker 7: on the good portion of my life spent in riot
Speaker 7: jousts and input from others with more on the ground experience.
Speaker 7: We first have to think about what will cause a
Speaker 7: mass of people to break up, scatter, and retreat, both
Speaker 7: on the protester side and on the police side. The
Speaker 7: front lines are meant to act semi fluid. Typically, projectile
Speaker 7: launchers are behind the front line and are designed to
Speaker 7: scatter the opposing front line and middle sections of the
Speaker 7: enemy side to disrupt an offensive formation so that it
Speaker 7: loses its capacity for for momentum, or to stagger a
Speaker 7: defensive line enough to force retreat, as was the case
Speaker 7: on November thirteenth. When a layered defensive police line is
Speaker 7: backed up with vehicles like a bear cat, the on
Speaker 7: foot line will most likely not retreat back behind their vehicles. Frustratingly,
Speaker 7: these these massive police vehicles occupy a sort of paradoxical
Speaker 7: role as a ten ton roadblock that would force a
Speaker 7: center advancing line to break apart in order to pass,
Speaker 7: putting the advancing line in a less strategic position, even
Speaker 7: though if the vehicle was threatened by being overrun, police
Speaker 7: would probably attempt to pull the vehicle back, signifying retreat.
Speaker 7: So how has this paradox been solved before? Well with
Speaker 7: ranged attacks like bottles, fireworks and what the State of
Speaker 7: Ukraine was teaching its civilians to make in the early
Speaker 7: days of the Russian invasion. This is why projectiles are
Speaker 7: of such a strategic importance. One cannot break through a
Speaker 7: police line without employing violence. Utilizing projectiles is necessary to
Speaker 7: force rear police vehicles to retreat, along with the CoP's
Speaker 7: own projectile launchers placed behind their riot line, which are
Speaker 7: used to break up the opposing front line. And police
Speaker 7: have no such tactical non violence scruples against using projectiles.
Speaker 7: Some Atlanta anarchists have also noted that the resources put
Speaker 7: towards acquiring a great number of plants that ended up
Speaker 7: just being abandoned could also have been used to acquire
Speaker 7: gas masks for the middle cluster, reinforced shields, and ancillary
Speaker 7: materials put towards prioritizing the crowd's efficacy and safety against
Speaker 7: the use of crowd controlled munitions. Thankfully, there were no
Speaker 7: arrests made in direct connection to the march, but I
Speaker 7: don't believe this can be accredited to any comprehensive organizing.
Speaker 7: When the day prior media was told that arrests would
Speaker 7: be taking place by lunchtime, for whatever reason, the police
Speaker 7: let a kettled crowd of people go free. We can
Speaker 7: only speculate on why. Between the logistical hassles, the stretching
Speaker 7: of prosecutor resources, and the bomb squad that was actively
Speaker 7: sweeping the area of entrenchment Creek Park and checking all
Speaker 7: of the bags and backpacks that were dropped in the
Speaker 7: area where the splinter of the march was escorted out
Speaker 7: by police with force. Defenders in Atlanta who've spent years
Speaker 7: now engaging in militant struggle against police. They offered a
Speaker 7: more fundamental critique of this action. If the choice to
Speaker 7: employ a strategy of nonviolence is in response to grossly
Speaker 7: inflated charges and repression the movement is facing, as some
Speaker 7: block ops to the organizers have stated, that means that
Speaker 7: you're allowing the state to determine your rules of engagement.
Speaker 7: The entire idea of announcing your plan to walk onto
Speaker 7: one of the most policed areas in the country did,
Speaker 7: in fact prevent people with more on the ground experience
Speaker 7: from participating on the day of the action. Risk requires reward.
Speaker 7: A small core of organizers were so steadfast in one
Speaker 7: particular version of how this event would take shape, branding
Speaker 7: people with disagreements as all overly online disaffected nihilists no
Speaker 7: longer involved in the struggle in Atlanta. Not only were
Speaker 7: online critiques discarded, but opportunities for in person conversation as
Speaker 7: an input from people with more on the ground experience
Speaker 7: in Atlanta were also turned down. And I think it
Speaker 7: is important to state hats off to the many young
Speaker 7: people that traveled from around the country to participate in
Speaker 7: this action. One can hope that block cop City broadly
Speaker 7: and going up against this line of armed riot police
Speaker 7: was a useful learning experience for whatever happens next in
Speaker 7: these people's lives as we approach the twenty twenty four
Speaker 7: election and who knows what is to come. The night
Speaker 7: after Block cop City, six vehicles owned by the company
Speaker 7: Earned Concrete were set on fire in Gwinnett County, Georgia.
Speaker 7: Earlier that fall, Ernst Concrete trucks were seen working on
Speaker 7: the cop City construction site. After the arson, Ernst Concrete
Speaker 7: released a statement saying that they were not going to
Speaker 7: work on the cop City project. In an Atlanta Police
Speaker 7: Department press conference from December twenty twenty three, Chief Darren
Speaker 7: Sheerbaum discussed a wave of recent arsons Googa.
Speaker 3: The most recent one happened in Gwinnette County this past November.
Speaker 3: This was Ernst Concrete when a number of construction equipment
Speaker 3: was set on fire. Then we go to three arsons
Speaker 3: that happened right here in Atlanta mcdonna Boulevard where a contractor,
Speaker 3: a Brent Scarborough, was targeted three different times in the
Speaker 3: month of October of this year, July of this year,
Speaker 3: as well as April this year. We see that the
Speaker 3: same group takes credit each and every time on their
Speaker 3: source of giving information out and so it's likely to
Speaker 3: be that same group, very small in number, moving from
Speaker 3: state to state is likely the profile of these individuals.
Speaker 4: It's very very small.
Speaker 3: It is a handful of individuals that are having a
Speaker 3: much larger impact on the safety of this city than
Speaker 3: they should have.
Speaker 7: Atlanta Fire Chief Roderick Smith and John King, the Georgia
Speaker 7: Insurance and Fire Safety Commissioner, both talked about how these
Speaker 7: arsons negatively affect the contractors working to build cop city.
Speaker 6: As we talk.
Speaker 9: About impacts caused by arson, it affects our businesses, those
Speaker 9: that are participating in helping out building Atlanta Public Safety
Speaker 9: Training Center. We suffer from additional cost due to arson
Speaker 9: that these companies face and individuals face.
Speaker 10: This affects every one of our citizens in the area
Speaker 10: because all these losses. Yes, there's an insurance company that
Speaker 10: will probably cover some of the costs, but those losses
Speaker 10: will be passed on to customers, so we all will
Speaker 10: take the losses.
Speaker 7: On January seventeenth, APD put out another press conference to
Speaker 7: discuss even though the police are already doing such a
Speaker 7: great job out stopping crime when it's fourteen degrees and
Speaker 7: homicides continue to decline. Even still, a new state of
Speaker 7: the art police training facility is vital to maintain safety
Speaker 7: in the city of Atlanta.
Speaker 3: We've asked you to come together again today because there
Speaker 3: is an effort underway by very smart individuals anarchists that
Speaker 3: want to impact the safety of Atlanta, Georgia. Just yesterday,
Speaker 3: a piece of equipment aligned with one of the construction
Speaker 3: companies that is building the public safety training center for
Speaker 3: every lantin was set on fire. Next door in a
Speaker 3: neighboring state of South Carolina, we had a construction company
Speaker 3: that had a loose connection to the project here in
Speaker 3: Atlanta that was targeted by an individual that used one
Speaker 3: of the tools of violence sphere and intimidation that has
Speaker 3: been used mainly by this group, which is arson, set
Speaker 3: equipment on fire, going after concrete trucks, and so soon
Speaker 3: the individuals that have been in the dark of night
Speaker 3: impacting every one of our neighborhoods will be held responsible
Speaker 3: as we bring these individuals to justice.
Speaker 7: Police in South Carolina were able to identify a suspect
Speaker 7: and ended up arresting and charging them with arson. The
Speaker 7: fire chief elaborated on the theoretical risks of arson such
Speaker 7: as injury to human life and the ugly sight of
Speaker 7: burnt rubble left over in neighborhoods, as well as reiterating
Speaker 7: how it affects the cop City project.
Speaker 6: What are the effects of arson financial?
Speaker 9: As we've heard earlier, the impact that the equipment being
Speaker 9: burned plays of role with the company's working delays in
Speaker 9: the project.
Speaker 6: Due to this.
Speaker 7: Less than a week later, the city had another press
Speaker 7: conference in front of burnt husks of equipment outside a
Speaker 7: construction site run by a cop City contractor.
Speaker 3: If you look over my shoulder, you will see the
Speaker 3: equipment that was burned.
Speaker 4: It belongs to a private contractor.
Speaker 9: There were total four pieces of heavy construction equipment that
Speaker 9: were damaged this morning.
Speaker 7: Chief Scheerbomb quickly linked the attack to stop cop City
Speaker 7: due to a post online about the attack accompanied by
Speaker 7: the hashtag stop cop City.
Speaker 4: The hashtag is present.
Speaker 7: Scherbomb also gave an updated account on the number of
Speaker 7: arsen attacks which have targeted construction equipment.
Speaker 3: I believe now we're right at thirty five that have
Speaker 3: occurred here in the state of Georgia and elsewhere. The
Speaker 3: vast majority of them are concentrated in North Georgia, but
Speaker 3: there are others that have occurred elsewhere. We're very fortunate
Speaker 3: of an arrest in South Carolina. There's clearly at least
Speaker 3: one other person. This individual or individuals don't care about
Speaker 3: life and safety. If they firebombed police precincts, their go
Speaker 3: is to a road, proper public safety infrastructure, and to
Speaker 3: road the government.
Speaker 7: Very cool stuff. Indeed, I do believe that thirty four
Speaker 7: number is a gross undercount, but hey, if they've forgotten
Speaker 7: a few attacks, really no real harm in that. We have, however,
Speaker 7: gotten a few recent numbers on the monetary damages caused
Speaker 7: by stop Coop City activity. In a Georgia State Senate
Speaker 7: committee meeting near the end of January, Senator Deborah Silcox
Speaker 7: said that APD Chief Administrative Officer Peter Amman told her
Speaker 7: earlier that day that the estimated cost of nationwide property
Speaker 7: damage made in protest of cop City exceeds one hundred
Speaker 7: million dollars. That beats the ELF numbers.
Speaker 5: Now.
Speaker 7: Four days later, the Atlanta Police Department tried to backtrack
Speaker 7: that number to New York Times reporter Sean Keenan, now
Speaker 7: saying that it was ten million dollars in property damage
Speaker 7: a one thousand percent difference, which either way is a
Speaker 7: massive amount of money. And we do know for sure
Speaker 7: that the city has spent at least one point three
Speaker 7: million dollars just in the legal fees related to cop City.
Speaker 7: We know at least some of that one point three
Speaker 7: million dollars was used to combat the Cop City referendum campaign,
Speaker 7: an initiative started last summer to collect petition signatures to
Speaker 7: put cop City on an upcoming ballot. I talked with
Speaker 7: Sam Barnes of the Atlantic Community Press Collective to get
Speaker 7: an update on the current state of the referendum.
Speaker 11: The referendum has more or less been stalled out since
Speaker 11: last fall. In response to a lawsuit from Decab County
Speaker 11: residents who claimed that their First Amendment rights were being
Speaker 11: infringed upon because they were not allowed to canvas for signatures,
Speaker 11: A Core issued down an injunction basically allowing the referendum
Speaker 11: campaign to have additional time to collect and then turn
Speaker 11: in signatures. The city then appealed that injunction. That whole
Speaker 11: situation is currently before the US Court of Appeals, who
Speaker 11: heard arguments from the city's lawyers and the vote campaign's
Speaker 11: lawyers in January and who have not yet issued a
Speaker 11: ruling on that appeal.
Speaker 7: The referendum campaign has turned in what they say are
Speaker 7: one hundred and sixteen thousand signatures, which, if verified, should
Speaker 7: be more than enough to get the referendum onto the ballot,
Speaker 7: but the City of Atlanta has said that they cannot
Speaker 7: start counting these signatures until the Court of Appeals issues
Speaker 7: their ruling.
Speaker 11: It's not really clear of where in case law, or
Speaker 11: in Georgia code, or wherever they are getting that legal
Speaker 11: precedent from, but it is the line they are sticking to.
Speaker 11: So long story short, even if the city was to
Speaker 11: start counting votes today, and even if there were enough
Speaker 11: to get this referendum on the ballot the next election,
Speaker 11: it could appear on the ballot in is the general
Speaker 11: election in November twenty twenty four, Popcity for APD and
Speaker 11: the APF's repeated claims is going to open and fall
Speaker 11: of twenty twenty four. Now, I don't personally have a
Speaker 11: lot of faith in that at one point it was
Speaker 11: going to open in August twenty twenty three, just the
Speaker 11: simple fact of every construction project runs into delays. But
Speaker 11: I think it is pretty clear, especially given the clear
Speaker 11: cutting and the concrete pouring that has already happened on
Speaker 11: the site that it will make significant progress by by November.
Speaker 11: It's pretty obvious that the city's strategy here is to
Speaker 11: just delay and delay and delay the referendum until the
Speaker 11: thing gets built, effectively just making the referendum dead in
Speaker 11: the water.
Speaker 7: On February eighth, the Federal Bureau of Investigation connected a
Speaker 7: series of house rates on three homes in South Atlanta
Speaker 7: that they suspected of being linked to Stop Coop City activists.
Speaker 7: Phones and computers were seized, along with Stopcop City related
Speaker 7: zines and posters. Occupants of the house were dragged outside,
Speaker 7: sometimes literally. A few were detained for hours on end,
Speaker 7: with one being driven to a police headquarters for interrogation,
Speaker 7: but was released later that evening.
Speaker 3: This morning, at six am, investigators of the Alan of
Speaker 3: Fire Rescue, Georgia Berl of Investigation, Federal Burial of Investigation,
Speaker 3: Bureau of Alcohol to Back and Firearms, and the Atlanta
Speaker 3: Police Department, joined by uniformed elements of this department at
Speaker 3: Georgia State Patrol, executed search warrants signed by judges who'd
Speaker 3: review the probable cause, allowing us to enter three locations
Speaker 3: to seek evidence connected to acts of vandalism and arson
Speaker 3: that have occurred over the last few months. As investigators
Speaker 3: went to those locations, they were armed with an arrest warrant.
Speaker 7: It's worth noting that the search warrants cited federal statutes
Speaker 7: on the destruction of vehicles and reco While executing one
Speaker 7: of these raids, police located an individual whom an arrest
Speaker 7: warrant was issued for days prior and brought them into custody.
Speaker 7: This arrest, along with the one in South Carolina, also
Speaker 7: marked the very first arrests linked to clandestine and nighttime
Speaker 7: attacks in the three year history of the movement.
Speaker 3: We're processing all of the locations now. The evidence to
Speaker 3: make that arrest had already been in possession of law
Speaker 3: enforcement even before we executed the search warrants this morning,
Speaker 3: So the arrest warrant was signed before today, and the
Speaker 3: arrest work was not connected with the search morsols or
Speaker 3: independent of the arrest would be making once we located
Speaker 3: this gentleman.
Speaker 7: In a city press conference, the mayor opened by saying
Speaker 7: this arrest was quote linked to multiple acts of vandalism
Speaker 7: and arson unquote, yet they were only charged with one
Speaker 7: account of first earrye Arsen, which police linked to the
Speaker 7: burning of eight police motorcycles last July, near the end
Speaker 7: of that summer's week of action. This particular arson is
Speaker 7: unique from the many other cop city related arsons in
Speaker 7: a few ways. This was not targeting construction equipment. Instead,
Speaker 7: it was directly targeting police infrastructure. An unexploded plastic incendiary
Speaker 7: device was left at the scene, and the police training
Speaker 7: building that was singed. The city now claims was occupied
Speaker 7: by a police officer.
Speaker 3: But was often overlooked as inside of that precinct was
Speaker 3: a protector of the city Atlanta police officers inside.
Speaker 7: As police have said, they only had enough information to
Speaker 7: make this war arrest linked to this one specific instance
Speaker 7: of arson. Thus, these raids can be seen both as
Speaker 7: an intimidation attempt and a last ditch effort to collect
Speaker 7: additional information necessary to make future arrests.
Speaker 4: More rest will come. It will come soon and will continue.
Speaker 3: To hold people accountable to Everyone that has been involved
Speaker 3: in these acts are in jail and before a judge.
Speaker 3: The investigation is very active, ma'am. There's a reason we
Speaker 3: serve three search warrants today.
Speaker 6: We do.
Speaker 4: We are looking at a wide range of areas.
Speaker 12: We believe evidence as hell that will.
Speaker 3: Identify who is responsible or the others, and who else
Speaker 3: was responsible besides this gentleman.
Speaker 4: The investigation will play that out.
Speaker 3: But there are others that I anticipate will be resting
Speaker 3: in the end of weeks to come.
Speaker 7: This messaging from Chief Sheerbaum is obviously meant to spread
Speaker 7: panic and paranoia amongst activists, organizers, and the anarchists of Atlanta.
Speaker 7: Those in Atlanta were quick to prove that repression would
Speaker 7: not stifle attacks against copp City. On the night of
Speaker 7: February ninth, a police car was torched outside of the
Speaker 7: home of an APD officer officer in the Lakewood neighborhood
Speaker 7: of Atlanta. The next day, police claimed that they tracked
Speaker 7: the movements of two alleged arsonists via ring, doorbell and
Speaker 7: street cameras to a house in Lakewood and conducted a
Speaker 7: raid that afternoon. Nothing was found and no arrests were made.
Speaker 7: The FBI and the ATF viewed the vehicle arsen outside
Speaker 7: of the home of an Atlanta police officer as a
Speaker 7: significant escalation and made their first on camera speaking appearance
Speaker 7: on Channel two to discuss the possibility of introducing federal charges,
Speaker 7: the house raids threats, doing all these press conferences, it's
Speaker 7: all part of this media frenzy to elicit fear. Earlier
Speaker 7: this year, Chief sheerbamb unveiled plans to put four hundred
Speaker 7: and fifty billboards all across the country offering reward money
Speaker 7: for information, specifically placed in cities they believe anarchists are
Speaker 7: traveling from to set fires in Atlanta. Every single press
Speaker 7: conference the police du they are desperately begging for members
Speaker 7: of the public to snitch, saying the only way this
Speaker 7: case will be solved is if anonymous tipsters come forward
Speaker 7: with information, offering increasingly comical amounts of money if information
Speaker 7: leads to a conviction. Fear is one of the greatest
Speaker 7: tools this state has to bear. But through this sequence
Speaker 7: of events, police and investigators are also kind of showing
Speaker 7: their hand here, demonstrating the current limit of their actionable evidence.
Speaker 7: It has now been well over a month since these raids,
Speaker 7: and as of now, no subsequent arrests have been made.
Speaker 7: The timing of these house raids also seemed intended to
Speaker 7: disrupt an event planned for later that month called the
Speaker 7: Nationwide Summit to Stop Cop City, a convergence located in Tucson, Arizona,
Speaker 7: on Amazonia that was planned for February twenty third to
Speaker 7: the twenty six I was not able to attend, but
Speaker 7: I spoke with Sam from the Atlanta Community Press Collective
Speaker 7: who covered the summit in person.
Speaker 11: It was a four day convergence in twoson Arizona, called
Speaker 11: for by the pretty well entrenched radical organizing scene there
Speaker 11: in Tucson that was just intended to be the kind
Speaker 11: of summits we've seen here in Atlanta that are often
Speaker 11: called weeks of Action that can no longer take place
Speaker 11: here in Atlanta. So it was intended to be just
Speaker 11: a gathering of like minded people to share ideas, build community,
Speaker 11: have fun, frankly, and there also were some direct actions
Speaker 11: that occurred during the week. The hub for the summit
Speaker 11: was a park kind of on what i'd call the
Speaker 11: north end of Tucson called Mansfield Park, and there was
Speaker 11: a small camp space set up and organized by locals.
Speaker 11: The structure of the summit and of the camp space
Speaker 11: in general was again very familiar to anyone who has
Speaker 11: attended any of the Weeks of Action in Atlanta. At meals, breakfast, lunch,
Speaker 11: and dinner. There were camp announcements, a lot of spontaneous
Speaker 11: activities within the camp. A couple movie nights were held.
Speaker 7: Tucson, Arizona on Amazonia, is about one hundred miles from
Speaker 7: the US Mexico border. Sam told me about a panel
Speaker 7: they attended on the intersections between the border, Gaza and Atlanta.
Speaker 7: If you've been paying attention to the cop City struggle,
Speaker 7: you're probably already familiar with these themes. The Atlanta Police
Speaker 7: Department participates in the Georgia International Law Enforcement Exchange the
Speaker 7: GILLY program, where they trained with members of the IDF.
Speaker 11: The talk featured Jewish Americans, Palestinian Americans. A correspondent from
Speaker 11: Indian Collective who was there to cover the summit as well,
Speaker 11: also spoke during that event. And that intersection was I
Speaker 11: think even before Aaron Bushnell self imilated that Sunday was
Speaker 11: probably the most profound theme when I threw the weekend again,
Speaker 11: especially with Tucson's proximity to the border and to native
Speaker 11: lands that are on the border and which are often
Speaker 11: surveilled using wait for it, Israeli military technology. The sort
Speaker 11: of official name of the summit was the Nationwide Summit
Speaker 11: to Stop coop City, which was a sort of winking
Speaker 11: nudge nudge at Nationwide Insurance, which is the main underwriter
Speaker 11: of the insurance policies that ensure what would be cop city.
Speaker 11: Nationwide has a major corporate office in Scottsdale, Arizona, which
Speaker 11: is in between Tucson and Phoenix.
Speaker 7: On the first night of the summit, a small group
Speaker 7: of anonymous vandals attacked three subsidiaries of Nationwide Insurance in Tucson, Arizona, Tusan, Amazonia,
Speaker 7: breaking windows and vandalizing their buildings. Later on in the week,
Speaker 7: there were two more public direct actions that happened during
Speaker 7: the summit. The first was a black block march on
Speaker 7: the night of February twenty fifth in downtown Tucson, Arizona,
Speaker 7: sun Arizonia. As a crowd of a little under one
Speaker 7: hundred people moved through downtown stopcop City. Graffiti filled the plaza,
Speaker 7: and a P and C bank as well as a
Speaker 7: recently closed Wells Fargo branch, had their windows smashed. Wells
Speaker 7: Fargo is affiliated with the Atlanta Police Foundation and PNC
Speaker 7: is a financial backer of the Mountain Valley Pipeline in
Speaker 7: the Appalachians. Police were able to arrest at least three
Speaker 7: people suspected of participating in the march. Oddly, they were
Speaker 7: charged with arson of an occupied building, I believe due
Speaker 7: to fireworks being thrown in or near one of the banks.
Speaker 7: Given the name of the nationwide summit, it was expected
Speaker 7: that there would be a public action targeting nationwide insurance.
Speaker 11: So Monday morning we headed up to Scottsdale, Arizona, again
Speaker 11: just outside of feat Phoenix is about two hours away,
Speaker 11: where we stopped by a sort of sidewalk rally type
Speaker 11: situation that was happening outside of the Nationwide Regional offices,
Speaker 11: which was honestly quite locked down, quite hard to get
Speaker 11: access to it. As we were leaving the sidewalk rally
Speaker 11: and being followed by Scottsdale's finest bicycle riders, I thought
Speaker 11: it was interesting that one of the bicycle cops had
Speaker 11: a life behind Bars personalized painted bicycle bell. It was
Speaker 11: Teal and said a Life behind Bars, And when we
Speaker 11: asked him about it, he just said, I just thought
Speaker 11: it was funny because you know, I'm a cop and
Speaker 11: I'm behind bicycle bars.
Speaker 6: It was.
Speaker 11: Delightful and look forward to further coverage of this exciting
Speaker 11: story in a soon to be released ACPC video feature.
Speaker 11: So after the rally outside of nationwide offices, we got
Speaker 11: a tip that a lockdown style action would be happening
Speaker 11: somewhere in the Scottsdale Phoenix area that afternoon, So maybe
Speaker 11: around four or five o'clock, we traveled to the hills
Speaker 11: of Maricopa County, Arizona, formerly home to America's toughest sheriff,
Speaker 11: Joe Arpaio, into this sort of enclave of gated, dead
Speaker 11: end streets with fabulously expensive homes. One of these homes
Speaker 11: is owned by a nationwide insurance executive. So the activists
Speaker 11: that locked down placed their bodies in front of two
Speaker 11: entrances to this enclave with the intention of disrupting the
Speaker 11: evening of this nationwide executive and their neighbors. There were
Speaker 11: six activists in total that locked down, three at each entry.
Speaker 11: They used a device that has been ascribed to me
Speaker 11: as being called a cupcake, meaning it was a bag
Speaker 11: of concrete placed on the inside of a car tire
Speaker 11: set with some rebar and a kind of pipe sticking
Speaker 11: out of it where I assumed there was some sort
Speaker 11: of like handcuff locking on the inside of the pipe.
Speaker 11: The gates were also locked shut with like bicycle locks.
Speaker 7: People were locked to the entrance of the gated community
Speaker 7: for almost four hours before being arrested. All six were
Speaker 7: ultimately given misdemeanor charges and released within twenty four to
Speaker 7: forty eight hours. Sam also talks to me about how
Speaker 7: these big public gatherings like the summit in Tucson, Arizona,
Speaker 7: so I'm not as Zunia, seem like they just can't
Speaker 7: really happen in Atlanta anymore.
Speaker 4: So.
Speaker 11: In November here in Atlanta, we had the Block Cop
Speaker 11: City Convergence, which was organized to a pretty significant extent
Speaker 11: by folks not from Atlanta. I know one reason I
Speaker 11: heard for that. It's pretty well known that organizers in
Speaker 11: Atlanta are tired, and there was a group of people
Speaker 11: from outside of Atlanta that felt like they could carry
Speaker 11: that lift to organize and action here in Atlanta. The
Speaker 11: summit in Tucson, to my knowledge, is the first major
Speaker 11: convergence that has been organized outside of Atlanta with a
Speaker 11: call for folks to come from the nation over. It
Speaker 11: was a very keen or a very sharp feeling of
Speaker 11: grief that this was not happening in Atlanta, that could
Speaker 11: not happen in Atlanta, both because the forest has had
Speaker 11: a huge chunk of it bulldozed, but also due to
Speaker 11: the police occupation of the forest, that this could not
Speaker 11: happen in Atlanta right now in the Willani Forest, and
Speaker 11: I think, especially given recent events in Atlanta, in anywhere
Speaker 11: in Atlanta in Georgia.
Speaker 7: Frankly, even if due to continuating circumstances, events like this
Speaker 7: may not be able to happen in Georgia. Sam told
Speaker 7: me that once the summit kicked off and things got going,
Speaker 7: it became clear that, of course, convergences can and probably
Speaker 7: will continue to happen anywhere and everywhere. For a long time,
Speaker 7: a slogan of this struggle has been cop City is everywhere.
Speaker 11: Even if there weren't similar cop city like facilities planned
Speaker 11: or already being built all over the country. I believe
Speaker 11: the latest count was sixty nine or seventy. I can't
Speaker 11: quite remember who did that research, but even if it
Speaker 11: wasn't for that, again to go back to like the
Speaker 11: sharp through line of Gaza, the border, indigenous lands, Gilly
Speaker 11: historial genocide, this struggle is the same everywhere. The police
Speaker 11: are the same everywhere. As I was recently discussed on
Speaker 11: this podcast.
Speaker 7: As this episode draws to a close, I'd like to
Speaker 7: air out some thoughts I've had ruminating around my head
Speaker 7: for a while about inter conflict as desperation. These comments
Speaker 7: are not about any specific city or situation. This simply
Speaker 7: reflects a pattern I've observed in various struggles caught in
Speaker 7: a down spiral, particularly during the fallout of the twenty
Speaker 7: twenty protests nationwide. Historically, I think Atlanta has actually proven
Speaker 7: to be pretty resilient against this sort of thing, but
Speaker 7: as the stakes are quite high, I would hate to
Speaker 7: see something similar happen, as the cop city struggle here
Speaker 7: in Atlanta seems to be entering its latter stages.
Speaker 6: First, I'd like.
Speaker 7: To say it's always a worrying ticking clock once people
Speaker 7: start getting treated as disposable or as political props to
Speaker 7: be sacrificed in the service of spectacle. But primarily I've
Speaker 7: been thinking about at a certain point far enough within
Speaker 7: a struggle, it becomes easy to fight each other than
Speaker 7: it is to fight police. Which is not to say
Speaker 7: all conflict is bad. Conflict can often be good. Tension
Speaker 7: can result in a new innovative action that otherwise might
Speaker 7: not materialize. But when said, actionable conflict starts to materialize
Speaker 7: more frequently against each other rather than against the state.
Speaker 7: That signals impending doom. Being able to consistently put your
Speaker 7: beliefs into practice with a like minded group of people,
Speaker 7: to directly engage against systems of oppression like the police
Speaker 7: or the state, especially in your own city, is a
Speaker 7: life affirming process, almost intoxicating. It's very easy to become
Speaker 7: addicted to high intensity conflict. Unfortunately, the state is a
Speaker 7: resilient bastard. Even if you can land a few sizeable blows.
Speaker 7: Over time, this state can gather a lot of resources
Speaker 7: to push back, and it take a few days, weeks, months,
Speaker 7: or even years. Only in our minds may the glorious
Speaker 7: first spark of uprising last forever, the burning of the
Speaker 7: Third Precinct, or the first year or so of defend
Speaker 7: the Atlanta Forest. But nostalgia is a trap, and eventually
Speaker 7: the empire does in fact strike back. But as it
Speaker 7: becomes harder, more dangerous, more frightening to engage against the state,
Speaker 7: the desire for that rush of conflict stays. It lingers.
Speaker 7: So what is one to do? The walls are closing in,
Speaker 7: but you have this need to fight, so you take
Speaker 7: out your anxiety, PTSD and frustration on those around you.
Speaker 7: It is much more scary to fight the police. This,
Speaker 7: by comparison, is easy while still feeding that conflict you
Speaker 7: will drive we must keep on fighting, and since it's
Speaker 7: harder and more scary to continually fight the cops or
Speaker 7: the state, we instead are looking for ways to fight
Speaker 7: each other, to find scapegoats to purge, often in service
Speaker 7: of some unrelated personal grievance or in group self preservation
Speaker 7: constant attack, constant strength, constant purity. These conflicts can take
Speaker 7: form as blame as to why desired outcome is not
Speaker 7: being achieved, intensified a stratifica of in group out group dynamics,
Speaker 7: as in these are the bad people in the movement,
Speaker 7: whereas we are the enlightened definity group with the only
Speaker 7: successful strategy or conspiratorial co intel pro like actions such
Speaker 7: as cop jacketing, snitch jacketing, and more general bad jacketing
Speaker 7: against people who you have simple organizational disagreements with. This
Speaker 7: can also manifest as a deep unwillingness to hear preemptive
Speaker 7: critical commentary and the assumption that all criticism comes from
Speaker 7: place of bad faith, A recent article in a popular
Speaker 7: anarchist publication roped in genuine critique and disagreement as somehow
Speaker 7: being in alignment with the state's motivations against the movement.
Speaker 7: And this is not just a form of cop jacketing, saying
Speaker 7: that if you disagree with a particular strategy, that means
Speaker 7: you are in alignment with police because they also dislike
Speaker 7: a particular strategy. But the police dislike the strategy for
Speaker 7: a completely different reason, because they dislike any form of resistance.
Speaker 7: Claiming that critique from an anarchists and criticism from the
Speaker 7: state come from the same fundamental place is simply laughable.
Speaker 7: It is in moments such as this, when repression is increasing,
Speaker 7: that justified frustration and fear leading to paranoia can be
Speaker 7: turned into a weapon by the state. At these moments,
Speaker 7: people must be the most vigilant against their own fear,
Speaker 7: resulting in retreat from battle against the state and turning
Speaker 7: to intra conflict as a desperate form of alternative struggle. Solidarity,
Speaker 7: love and care are paramount, including harsh love, including well
Speaker 7: meaning critical commentary, debate, and constructive conversation. Well that's enough
Speaker 7: of that. Finally, I'd like to give an update on
Speaker 7: the Copcity construction timeline. The past few months, city officials
Speaker 7: and the Atlanta Police Foundation have made a series of
Speaker 7: statements claiming construction is very much on schedule and quickly
Speaker 7: approaching completion.
Speaker 3: I want to say this, the construction of those training
Speaker 3: centers on schedule.
Speaker 4: We will be moving in summer. It will be operational
Speaker 4: this time next year.
Speaker 9: The new facility is almost seventy percent complete with construction.
Speaker 7: Many have pointed out that this is a ridiculously high number,
Speaker 7: considering that a video published by the police just a
Speaker 7: few days ago showed an unfinished foundation and a single
Speaker 7: paved road. Now Sam from the Atlantic Community Press Collective
Speaker 7: helped explain what this number might be referring to.
Speaker 11: There are no walls built, to say the least. I
Speaker 11: personally believe that to be a very charitable reading of
Speaker 11: a document with a construction timeline. We've seen as a
Speaker 11: result of our open records requests that sort of break
Speaker 11: the what a lay person such as myself would call
Speaker 11: it the construction process up into things like permitting, pre construction, development, construction.
Speaker 11: On that timeline, they were about seventy percent done with
Speaker 11: the development, and they were also about seventy percent done
Speaker 11: with the whole process ranging from permitting to cutting the
Speaker 11: red ribbon. What again, as a layperson, I would also
Speaker 11: call the construction process, meaning the whole you know, roof walls, doors,
Speaker 11: thing on that particular document was zero percent complete or like,
Speaker 11: I shouldn't say zero percent because they have like concrete
Speaker 11: paths and stuff. I don't remember exactly what the date
Speaker 11: on this document was, but it was zero to a
Speaker 11: very small percentage of complete.
Speaker 6: So yes on the.
Speaker 11: Grand construction timeline of filing the first document to again
Speaker 11: literal walls. Yeah, sure they're seventy percent complete by any
Speaker 11: measure of construction to the average season. No, they are
Speaker 11: not seventy percent complete.
Speaker 7: Before I close this episode out, I do want to
Speaker 7: let listeners know about ways to support Jack, the person
Speaker 7: rested in the house raid last month. In the show notes,
Speaker 7: I will link to a fundraiser that goes towards his
Speaker 7: legal fees, jail commissary, and phone calls. You can also
Speaker 7: go to the website free Jack dot Co. That's free
Speaker 7: Jack dot Co for information on how to mail letters
Speaker 7: and books to Jack while he is currently being held
Speaker 7: in jail without bond. Trials and court cases related to
Speaker 7: the Georgia copcity recoindictment have all been delayed till at
Speaker 7: least this summer. Follow the Atlantic Community Press Collective for
Speaker 7: updates on that as they happen. See you on the
Speaker 7: other side.
Speaker 6: Do you think he's glaed to stay?
Speaker 3: You know, obviously he's not here and we're seeking him,
Speaker 3: and so we would ask him to come in and
Speaker 3: answer our questions.
Speaker 13: Welcome, sick it up and here, I'm Andrew Siege from
Speaker 13: the Channel andresm and say you will be shedding light
Speaker 13: on a recently popular discussion on the problem with mod
Speaker 13: cities and more specifically the growing absence of third places.
Speaker 13: Now love them or hate them, cities are here to stay.
Speaker 13: And if you spend any time on urban plan and
Speaker 13: YouTube or really just looked around, you know they have
Speaker 13: some issues. Traffic congestion is a big one, a notorious
Speaker 13: nemesis of modern cities, stemming from increased population, poor urban planning,
Speaker 13: and excessive vehicle usage, creating a big waste of time
Speaker 13: and straining or well being. There also issues of physical
Speaker 13: and mental health among city inhabitants. The environmental impact of
Speaker 13: urban areas can be quite terrible.
Speaker 12: Housing issues seem to.
Speaker 14: Be globally hellish, but still people flock to cities because
Speaker 14: that's where the opportunities are. Hence the growth of slums
Speaker 14: and the overall straining infrastructure like utilities and transportation, and
Speaker 14: the functionality of cities, many of which are currently well
Speaker 14: above their capacity. Of course, many of these issues just
Speaker 14: don't touch the wealthy in the same way. Within the
Speaker 14: city's gleaming skyscrapers lie stock disparities and income access to
Speaker 14: resources and opportunities. I for another issue, more relevantile discussionaire.
Speaker 14: In the midst of a crowd, even dwellers often grapple
Speaker 14: with feelings of loneliness and disconnection. The paradox are being
Speaker 14: surrounded by people yet feeling totally alone. In a seminar work,
Speaker 14: The Great Good Place, published in nineteen eighty nine, American
Speaker 14: sociologist Ray Olenberg presents a captivator notion for a balance
Speaker 14: and fulfilling life, a harmony among the three spheres, the home,
Speaker 14: of the workplace, and the realm of third places. These
Speaker 14: third places encompass inclusive social settings, crucial for community bonding
Speaker 14: and faster and meaningful interactions. Now, as for what qualifies
Speaker 14: a third place, common examples come to mind.
Speaker 12: Cafes, pubs, stoops parks.
Speaker 14: However, not every cafe, pubs, tupa park captures the essence
Speaker 14: of a true third.
Speaker 12: Place as Oldenburg described it.
Speaker 14: Historically, their places have been a powerful force in shaping
Speaker 14: the course of revolutions and cultural movements. During the American Revolution,
Speaker 14: the tavern was a vital health of political discourse. In
Speaker 14: the French Revolution, the cafe was a crucial meeting place
Speaker 14: for the revolutionary, intelligentia and common people. During the Enlightenment,
Speaker 14: coffeehouses in London assumed a central rule in fostering the
Speaker 14: intellectual and cultural transformation of society, and during the Harlem Renaissance,
Speaker 14: third places could be found in theaters, churches, jazz cafes
Speaker 14: and more sivin as vital he runs for African American musicians, writers,
Speaker 14: intellectuals the source to develop and celebrate their cultural identity.
Speaker 14: Oldenburg outlines eight key characteristics that define the allure of
Speaker 14: these communal spaces. He takes a rather strict approach, and
Speaker 14: this is key, emphasizing that his description excludes the maturity
Speaker 14: of venue even if they exhibit some of these defining traits.
Speaker 14: And I suppose you can argue with that, but I
Speaker 14: think that's equippal I've had with the discussions about third
Speaker 14: places because people seem to be more infatuated with the
Speaker 14: vague idea of them and not so much interested in
Speaker 14: what the two has actually been coined to describe. See
Speaker 14: end up with people label in all sorts of spaces, clubs,
Speaker 14: and organizations third places.
Speaker 12: Even if they don't fit the criteria. At this point,
Speaker 12: the Internet has.
Speaker 14: Seemingly lost the plot on third places and taken a
Speaker 14: life on its own independent of what Oldenburg intended.
Speaker 12: But he's dead.
Speaker 14: His book is still around, but I don't think a
Speaker 14: lot of people have read it. But I did in
Speaker 14: preparation for this, and so we'll tell into some of
Speaker 14: those characteristics now.
Speaker 12: For one, a third place lies on neutral ground.
Speaker 14: No one has expected to play host for the others,
Speaker 14: no one is obligated to be there, and people are
Speaker 14: comfortable and free to come and go as they please.
Speaker 14: Third places are spaces where people can jest, be where
Speaker 14: you can where opportunities can exist for fraternization in a
Speaker 14: safe public setting that car be found in the privacy
Speaker 14: of the home or the professional boundary.
Speaker 12: Of the workplace.
Speaker 14: A space where a variety of relationships can blossom, including
Speaker 14: the ones that don't go any deeper than friendly public encounters. Secondly,
Speaker 14: the third place is a level in place. It requires
Speaker 14: no formal criteria for membership. In place, there's no emphasis
Speaker 14: on one's social status, and provides the possibility for people
Speaker 14: of a variety of backgrounds and experiences to associate on
Speaker 14: the merit of their personality alone. Within third places, people
Speaker 14: can find friendships with those who are under ordinary circumstances
Speaker 14: that might never cross paths. The third characteristic of the
Speaker 14: third place is that it's a place in which conversation
Speaker 14: is meant to be the main activity.
Speaker 12: It doesn't have to be the only activity. For example,
Speaker 12: card games or pool.
Speaker 14: Or dominoes make for an excellent social lubricant, but the
Speaker 14: space should become enough to facilitate pleasurable, lighthearted, and entertaining conversation. Now,
Speaker 14: it's not difficult to create a space that can facilitate
Speaker 14: good conversation, but it's also easy to ruin the flow
Speaker 14: of good conversation. Music, personal screens, ecosistical people. They can
Speaker 14: all be quite ruinous to the social energy that a
Speaker 14: good third place tries to foster.
Speaker 12: Fourthly, third places need to be open and readily accessible.
Speaker 14: That means being accessible in the sense of being in
Speaker 14: a convenient location and open whenever the demons is holiness
Speaker 14: or bortant strike, or when the depressures and frustrations of
Speaker 14: the day call for relaxation a.
Speaker 12: Mid good company.
Speaker 14: In other words, third places are available when people need
Speaker 14: them to be.
Speaker 12: Now.
Speaker 14: The form of accessibility that Wodenburg describes is not the
Speaker 14: form of accessibility that disability just as advocates fight for,
Speaker 14: And that is one of the quibbles that I have
Speaker 14: with Wrotenberg's conception of third places that I'll get into
Speaker 14: later next. Third places are given their appeal by their regulars,
Speaker 14: who helps the mood of the space and provide a
Speaker 14: welcoming environment for newcomers. Every regular was once a newcomer,
Speaker 14: and the acceptance of newcomers is the central to the
Speaker 14: sustained vitality of.
Speaker 12: The third place. Sixth, third places keep a low profile.
Speaker 14: They're not exclusive, extravagant, potentious to overly fancy. They're not
Speaker 14: usually openly advertised, and they send to be older places
Speaker 14: with a sort of a modest or even CD atmosphere.
Speaker 14: They're certainly not tourist traps. Seventh, and we're almost done.
Speaker 14: Third places have a playful mood. People go to third
Speaker 14: places for the banter and the laughter, not tension and hostility,
Speaker 14: so that's what the space is set up to encourage.
Speaker 12: And lastly, number eight, third places.
Speaker 14: Are meant to be home away from home, offering a
Speaker 14: sense of intimacy, regeneration, and community that puts people at
Speaker 14: ease in a warm and friendly atmosphere. So to summarize,
Speaker 14: third places exist on neutral ground, function as equalizers social status.
Speaker 14: Provide an environment where conversations or the center keep a
Speaker 14: low profile, are open and accommodating, have an essence shape
Speaker 14: by their regulars, characterized by playfulness and a sense of
Speaker 14: home away from home. Third places, with their unique characteristics,
Speaker 14: present an array of advantages. There are only a hands
Speaker 14: in individual social and conversational skills, but also foster a
Speaker 14: sense of genuine connection and belonging within the community. Third
Speaker 14: places are arrested from the monot ney daily life under
Speaker 14: the weight of modern capitalism. They inject much needed novelty
Speaker 14: into our routines, often a diverse and free flow in
Speaker 14: atmosphere that stands apart from the rigidity of our daily
Speaker 14: crid There are bond for emotional wellbeing a spiritual tonic,
Speaker 14: and the loss to tap into our creative and expressive selves.
Speaker 12: Crucially, third places offer.
Speaker 14: With Oldenberg coined as friends by the set, they provide
Speaker 14: convenience paces for social gatherings, offering routine and reliable interactions
Speaker 14: with a diverse array of individuals, both casually and intimately,
Speaker 14: without the hassle of scheduling meetups. Unfortunately, third places kind
Speaker 14: of fell off in many areas, obviously not everywhere, but
Speaker 14: especially in places where American style urban sprawl and suburbia
Speaker 14: has proliferated. I've been describing the characteristics and benefits and
Speaker 14: historical potency of these spaces, but I've only gotten small
Speaker 14: tastes of some of these myself and for a lot
Speaker 14: of people, I think, particularly of my generation. Besides, perhaps
Speaker 14: the approximate experience of a college common room, third places
Speaker 14: are a distant cultural memory, not a lived experience. So
Speaker 14: Oldenberg basically asks what's up with that? And according to him,
Speaker 14: the blame for this mansion act falls squarely on the suburbs.
Speaker 14: These sprawl and enclays prioritized private abodes over public spaces,
Speaker 14: pfatuating and isolating narrative that confines the good life within
Speaker 14: individual homes and yards. Wind designs often imposed by distant developers,
Speaker 14: stifle community connections. Few opportunities exist within them for organic
Speaker 14: social interaction beyond your immediate neighbors. The car centrical layout
Speaker 14: further thoughts the revival of third places, as the reliance
Speaker 14: and cars diminishes chance encounters and informal gathering spots along
Speaker 14: daily routes, fostering a culture of detachment among neighbors. But
Speaker 14: it's not just the suburbs suffering this issue. Urban environments
Speaker 14: too have succumbed to efficiency and profit sacrifice in space
Speaker 14: vir genuine human connection. Standardized franchise chains dominate eras in
Speaker 14: the character and charm that encourage communal interaction, replacing.
Speaker 12: It sterile environments.
Speaker 14: And technology hasn't exactly aided third places either, as the
Speaker 14: alert of the Internet has been a substitute for real
Speaker 14: life interaction that tends to keep people indoors. Sure, you
Speaker 14: can see the Internet as the frontier for new third places,
Speaker 14: and in some ways they are, but not quite in
Speaker 14: the same way.
Speaker 12: And of course I mean less qual its out even
Speaker 12: though wordenburg doesn't.
Speaker 14: Capitalism plays a significant role in the decline of third places.
Speaker 14: Work life imbalances leaves scant time for social engagements to
Speaker 14: relentless commercialization, privatization of public spaces, gentrification, close intraditional hubs,
Speaker 14: and profit driven urban designs all contribute to this decline.
Speaker 14: The disappearance of third places isn't an accident of history,
Speaker 14: but a consequence of our modern societal choices and systemic pressures.
Speaker 14: So all those ideas have been catched on a lot lately,
Speaker 14: especially with younger generations. Like I said, it's this distant
Speaker 14: yet learned cultural memory for obvious reasons, though things kind
Speaker 14: of suck right now, and a lot of people are
Speaker 14: taken a half understood grasp of the concept and running
Speaker 14: wild with it, Like for example, I Aliso see some
Speaker 14: people like just Blankets applying the Internet as the new
Speaker 14: third place.
Speaker 12: And while there are corners.
Speaker 14: Of the Internet that do approximate that experience, and I
Speaker 14: recognize the potential virtual spaces such as Discord to embody
Speaker 14: the characteristics of third places, I fully believe that virtual
Speaker 14: third places lack the tangible elements inherent in traditional spaces
Speaker 14: that are essential for fostering deep emotional connections and empathy
Speaker 14: that are fighter for healthy community life. These social media platforms,
Speaker 14: particularly sites like Twitter, often lack the authenticity and nuanced
Speaker 14: communication president and face to face interactions. That's by design,
Speaker 14: of course. Twitter thrives on conflict. That's why I'm not
Speaker 14: there anymore. But it's all too easy on sites like
Speaker 14: those demit interpret intentions or to use anonymity for negative
Speaker 14: inter actions like cyber bullion, trolling, or online harassment. In
Speaker 14: real life, trolls get kicked out, bulliers in some cases
Speaker 14: are dealt with people who are harassing people also tend
Speaker 14: to get kicked out, But online all those things often
Speaker 14: run rampant. Moreover, the permanents of online interactions can hinder
Speaker 14: the relaxed vulnerability often experience in traditional spaces, as everything
Speaker 14: is recorded, which makes trust easier to breach.
Speaker 12: But despiteer critique of how.
Speaker 14: Some people have been run in with the term third places,
Speaker 14: I think the actual book and its concepts do deserve
Speaker 14: further scrutiny and in my view, radicalization. Wollmenburg's idea of
Speaker 14: the whole in the workplace in the third place is a.
Speaker 12: Sort of a pecan order.
Speaker 14: It also really sidelines domestic labor as like not really
Speaker 14: work as if it's separate from the workplace, and I
Speaker 14: also don't like the idea of work being prioritized over
Speaker 14: like essential social interaction.
Speaker 7: I think there's also the interesting aspect now that for
Speaker 7: a lot of people like myself included, working home are
Speaker 7: now the same spot and there is Ever since the pandemic,
Speaker 7: there's been a large searge of people working from home,
Speaker 7: which kind of complicates this dynamic.
Speaker 14: Yeah, yeah, pre industrialization, I think especially that idea also
Speaker 14: coincide it you know, the first and the second place
Speaker 14: to home. In the workplace, we're also a bit blurred.
Speaker 14: And now I think we're witnessing a similar blurred today,
Speaker 14: you know, post industrialization, and as a consequence of the pandemic,
Speaker 14: with remote work really catching on and blurring those lines
Speaker 14: for sure. I think another major oversighting Oldenbook's work is
Speaker 14: the gender bias within historical and contemporary three Places. You know,
Speaker 14: these spaces have been predominantly male dominated or gender segregated.
Speaker 14: I think it's nostalgia for three Places, which you kind
Speaker 14: of pick up on in the book, neglects the historical
Speaker 14: limitations who women face and accessing these spaces. So I
Speaker 14: think if three Places words make a resurgence, we would
Speaker 14: definitely need to address these systemic barriers, like the double
Speaker 14: shift that many women juggle to ensure.
Speaker 12: Their inclusion in future three places.
Speaker 14: I think another critique I would have is on ownership control.
Speaker 14: You know, third spaces are touted as neutral, but when
Speaker 14: they're operating under the whims of private owners or state authorities,
Speaker 14: they very easily succumb to those profit drift at motives.
Speaker 12: I don't think a community.
Speaker 14: Space, a space that is to be sent that is
Speaker 14: central to a community, should be so concentrated in the hands.
Speaker 12: Of private developers or private owners.
Speaker 14: I think those spaces are the types that should be
Speaker 14: collectively stewarded. There's also the cost barrier of third places.
Speaker 14: You know, due to financial constraints I have already's able to,
Speaker 14: you know, spend the time there and spend the kind
Speaker 14: of money there that those spaces kind of require for
Speaker 14: you to stay there for extended periods of time, they
Speaker 14: kindot have to buy something in all.
Speaker 12: Of those places.
Speaker 14: A lot of good places are alcohol oriented, which is
Speaker 14: not exactly inclusive for people who are not interested in
Speaker 14: alcohol consumption or recovering from addiction. But of course, speaking
Speaker 14: of inclusivity, Willenberg's idea of accessibility, like I said before,
Speaker 14: doesn't really come from a place of disability justice.
Speaker 12: But that has to change.
Speaker 14: You know, we in a broader grasp of accessibility, which
Speaker 14: is why, despite my critiques, I do acknowledge the merits
Speaker 14: of what are often tombed as virtual third places. They
Speaker 14: save us more accessible alternatives for the immunal compromise or
Speaker 14: disabled individuals. These spaces break down geographical barriers, uniting people
Speaker 14: from diverse backgrounds, locations, fostering connections, base since shared interests, passions,
Speaker 14: and identities with all the constraints of physical distance. And
Speaker 14: unlike physical third places, vircial third places are offered around
Speaker 14: the clock, case into users diverse lifestyles and rhythms, offering
Speaker 14: a flexibility that is really rarely found in real life settings.
Speaker 14: At the same time, though in Olenberg's defense, he does
Speaker 14: point out that third places will not resonate with everyone.
Speaker 14: There is this popular notion that third places have to
Speaker 14: be for everybody, and then I see people criticize them, saying, oh, well,
Speaker 14: I prefer to just stay at home.
Speaker 12: I don't really like the places.
Speaker 14: I don't like social interaction or whatever, or I don't
Speaker 14: like that form of social interaction.
Speaker 12: And that's cool.
Speaker 14: You know third places shouldn't be the sole remedy or
Speaker 14: the main remedy for social ills. Preferences will, of course vary,
Speaker 14: and not everyone finds cafes or bars appealing. Fine, but
Speaker 14: I still think we can radicalize their places a bit further,
Speaker 14: not just in the sense of diversifying it, but also
Speaker 14: in the sense of bringing it under popular power. I
Speaker 14: see radical toy places in my version on content to
Speaker 14: merely existing on neutral ground dictated by capital or stage initiatives.
Speaker 14: Know the envision has collective grounds, common grounds where in
Speaker 14: the vidual is not only frequent but co own. These
Speaker 14: spaces invest in time, energy, and resources to ensure their survival.
Speaker 14: Imagine spaces that transcend the typical lightheartedness associated with third places.
Speaker 14: They wield the power to spark social revolutions, serving as
Speaker 14: zones for decompression, rallying spots for union activities, and nurturing
Speaker 14: grounds for mutual aid, a nucleus of community driven change.
Speaker 14: But what says these radical spaces apart is not just
Speaker 14: the accessibility in location operating ours, but also a culture
Speaker 14: of inclusivity that goes beyond nostalgia for traditionally male dominated
Speaker 14: three places. You know, it's about welcoming or broader spectrum
Speaker 14: of perspectives againsties and abilities. Imagine this not just a
Speaker 14: space away from home, but integrated with the neighborhoods and
Speaker 14: mixed use buildings, fostering.
Speaker 12: Community into creation.
Speaker 14: As for how we bring these radical three places to life,
Speaker 14: the Road Flora in Hamburg, Germany, and I think provides
Speaker 14: some great inspiration. Formerly a theater, it was transformed into
Speaker 14: a political and cultural hub by activists in nineteen eighty nine.
Speaker 14: Today it stands as a symbol of resistance against against
Speaker 14: social injustice and a space pulsating with artistic expression and
Speaker 14: vibrant dialogue. They achieved that place through squatting and squattin
Speaker 14: is risky yet revolutionary, but it isn't the only path
Speaker 14: for secure in such spaces. I think we can mobilize communities,
Speaker 14: empowering them to actively participate in shape in public spaces
Speaker 14: instead of waiting for decisions from a I really like
Speaker 14: the idea of camera.
Speaker 12: Where the team comes from. But it's gorilla urban planning.
Speaker 14: You know, painting lines on the on the pavement for
Speaker 14: back paths, you know, reclaiming the sidewalk, claiming spaces in
Speaker 14: your neighborhood, taking control and not asking for permission to
Speaker 14: shape the park or the space that you share as
Speaker 14: you see fit. It's really about, you know, co creating
Speaker 14: our environment. It's not merely accepting what's imposed upon us.
Speaker 14: Reformist strategies in instances like these can have their merits.
Speaker 14: They don't exactly advance revolution, but you know, advocating for
Speaker 14: walkable neighborhood to improve probably transportation doesn't you know, it
Speaker 14: doesn't hurt. But the crocs remains, you know, these actions,
Speaker 14: these pushing this, this effort to push for reform. You know,
Speaker 14: it can solely accomplish potential some change, but the crux remains,
Speaker 14: you know, empowering people to manage their own lives and spaces,
Speaker 14: not relinquishing that power to uncare and autocrats. The decline
Speaker 14: of their places might not be catastrophic, but until we
Speaker 14: recognize and harness our power to shape physical environments, our
Speaker 14: urban social life will continue to lack of vibrancy.
Speaker 12: I think we have to acknowledge our profound.
Speaker 14: Influence and our surroundings and seize our agency to actively
Speaker 14: craft our spaces.
Speaker 12: All power to all the people. This is Andrew, This
Speaker 12: is a.
Speaker 2: Peace welcome back to It could happen here, the podcast
Speaker 2: that's happening here in your ear. And one of the
Speaker 2: things that we love talking about here is a critical
Speaker 2: ingredient towards creeping authoritarianism, towards growing corporate control and surveillance
Speaker 2: over all of our lives, which is of course technology
Speaker 2: that makes it even easier to monitor you than it
Speaker 2: already is. We're not talking primarily about like the government
Speaker 2: monitoring you, because they can, you know, do stuff like
Speaker 2: just pull your phone data from a you know which
Speaker 2: cell towers is pinged. We're talking about the kind of
Speaker 2: stuff that allows basically whoever can get an app on
Speaker 2: your phone to track and stalk you. And Yeah, I'm
Speaker 2: going to first introduce Mia Wong. Mia, welcome to the
Speaker 2: show that you also host. Yes, I'm here. So what
Speaker 2: are we what are we talking about today? And who
Speaker 2: are we talking with?
Speaker 6: Yeah? So we are talking about stalker war, which is
Speaker 6: the sort of broad name for the category of software
Speaker 6: that Robber's been talking about. And we are talking about
Speaker 6: someone who hacked one well, a stoker wear stalker. Yeah,
Speaker 6: one of the stockerware companies, my Aris and Crime, the
Speaker 6: Fame Hacker, the No fly List. Yeah. Returning guests always
Speaker 6: happy to have you on.
Speaker 15: Yeah, I always happy to be on. Yeah.
Speaker 6: So I think I think, I don't know, I think
Speaker 6: there's a real tendency among and I see this among
Speaker 6: leftists a lot for kind of good reasons and kind
Speaker 6: of not good reasons to really only focus on state
Speaker 6: and like large corporate actors in terms of surveillance. And
Speaker 6: that's a mistake.
Speaker 15: Yeah, totally.
Speaker 6: Yeah, And so I guess I guess the place where
Speaker 6: I want to start before we get into the specific
Speaker 6: company that you do do is it still called owned?
Speaker 5: I kin't.
Speaker 15: It's fine to call it owned or pond or whatever.
Speaker 15: I still do that. Sometimes people get confused.
Speaker 6: But yeah, yeah, But before we get into that, I
Speaker 6: want to I want to ask you a bit because
Speaker 6: you've done a lot of sort of I guess you
Speaker 6: could call it research, both actual research wise and then
Speaker 6: in terms of poking around their servers.
Speaker 15: Research and journalism and whatever you want to call it.
Speaker 6: Yeah, act Yeah, So I wanted to just start off
Speaker 6: by asking if you can give sort of like a
Speaker 6: brief summary of what stalker waar is.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 15: So, so stalkerware like as a category, encompasses like a
Speaker 15: number of different types of apps. Most of them, like
Speaker 15: on the service, advertise themselves as like parental control software,
Speaker 15: which is already bad enough. Just to be clear that
Speaker 15: there's like advertised for like spying on your children's phone,
Speaker 15: like seeing their location in real time, seeing their messages
Speaker 15: that they receive, any photo they take. Ostensibly this is
Speaker 15: to like prevent bullying and help with them when they
Speaker 15: get depressed because they don't try you and talk to
Speaker 15: you for whatever reason, but obviously a lot of these
Speaker 15: are then furthermore, because that's like that, sure, that's a
Speaker 15: like target audience, that's a demographic you can advertise too.
Speaker 15: But then there's this even bigger potential target demographic of
Speaker 15: people who are insecure in their relationship, mostly men, not
Speaker 15: only men, but who are then solved this idea that
Speaker 15: they can use software like this for stalking their partner,
Speaker 15: for finding out if they are cheating on you, things
Speaker 15: like that, which is obviously an even bigger problem, which
Speaker 15: once again not to discount the problems that's spying on
Speaker 15: your children is already like bad enough, but yeah, lead
Speaker 15: this leads to this whole big industry of these apps
Speaker 15: being used by partners against each other, like also just
Speaker 15: by people like against anyone in the in their surroundings
Speaker 15: that they suspect might be doing something shady, might be
Speaker 15: like talking behind their backs. It often kind of turns
Speaker 15: into like it obviously turns into this obsessive thing, especially
Speaker 15: if you solve this idea that they this app can
Speaker 15: magically solve like interpersonal issues, like with anything that sells you,
Speaker 15: this magic idea of being able to solve any problem.
Speaker 15: That these people start kind of spying on everyone in
Speaker 15: their like circles to some of them, like not everyone,
Speaker 15: most like a lot of people on the spying like
Speaker 15: their partner or like their child or whatever. But it
Speaker 15: often like spirals out of control into this like controlling
Speaker 15: everyone in their surroundings, knowing what everyone is up to
Speaker 15: where they are, and spending like hundreds of dollars a
Speaker 15: month on doing so. And yeah, that's pretty fucked up
Speaker 15: if you ask me.
Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: One of the things that's interesting too. It's also in
Speaker 2: a lot of cases illegal. This is going to vary,
Speaker 2: you know, from country to country, in state to state,
Speaker 2: but in the US there are states like California, which
Speaker 2: gets pointed out in the very good tech Crunch investigation
Speaker 2: on truth Spy, where there are really strict laws that
Speaker 2: journalists like you have to abide bias to when you
Speaker 2: can record someone that these apps absolutely break.
Speaker 15: Yes, it's specifically a thing that doesn't. Most of these
Speaker 15: app will have like a disclaimer at thebot that is
Speaker 15: like this might be illegal and your jurisdiction and please
Speaker 15: ask for consent before doing this, and then they have
Speaker 15: lots of tutorials on how to install this in someone's
Speaker 15: device without their consent. Yeah, but it's like always like
Speaker 15: a we do not take any like we it's not
Speaker 15: our fault if you break the law basically, which obviously,
Speaker 15: like it's so far not a lot of this has
Speaker 15: been challenged in court, but I don't think this would
Speaker 15: hold up too long. I'm not a y, but I
Speaker 15: don't think just saying we make a product to do
Speaker 15: crimes with if you do crimes with it, it's not
Speaker 15: I mean, it works for the gun industry.
Speaker 6: So yeah.
Speaker 2: The difference is that, like with the gun industry, it's
Speaker 2: a product where there is a legal and an illegal,
Speaker 2: like clear way to do it.
Speaker 15: The thing with stocker were as well is that like
Speaker 15: a lot of them will also explicitly say the only
Speaker 15: real use of this we allow you to to use
Speaker 15: it for is to surveil your child, which unfortunately is
Speaker 15: legal in most jurisdictions because children are property of their parents.
Speaker 15: Yeah quotes because I do not agree with that, but.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's one of those things where people using it,
Speaker 2: like someone installing an app on their axes or their
Speaker 2: partner's phone or whatever without consent, could very easily would
Speaker 2: lose any court case, whether or not the company would
Speaker 2: get in trouble. I think it's going to rely a
Speaker 2: lot on the stuff the videos they're posting about, like
Speaker 2: how to put how to get these apps on people's
Speaker 2: phones without them knowing, but like they do have that
Speaker 2: out with like no, it's just for surveilling children, which is.
Speaker 15: Great for anyone else you need consent or whatever. But
Speaker 15: I think it is important, yeah, to point this out
Speaker 15: very early for anyone who's listening to this because they
Speaker 15: think they might have stock Aware on their phones, or
Speaker 15: because they know they have Stockaware on their phones. You
Speaker 15: can use this in a domestic abuse case, well immediately,
Speaker 15: this is explicit proof that abuse is happening, no matter
Speaker 15: anything else, because like that's the thing generally with domestic
Speaker 15: abuse cases. It's really hard to prove abuses happening. Stalkerware
Speaker 15: and any other type of spying device like also physical
Speaker 15: GPS trackers and stuff that is immediate proof that there
Speaker 15: is a there's controlling behavior going on, that you are
Speaker 15: being spied on. This it cannot only be used and
Speaker 15: there's explicit admissible evidence. This is also usually like makes
Speaker 15: cases first like not not for you, like it just yeah,
Speaker 15: it like can potentially add charges and make it more serious,
Speaker 15: and that it can help making cops give a shit
Speaker 15: about like abuse, which yeah, I hate that I need
Speaker 15: to say that, but yeah, it's like it makes it
Speaker 15: more serious because there's like spyware and whatever.
Speaker 2: It's easy evidence first off, like you can prove they're
Speaker 2: spying on you, and second, if you are in one
Speaker 2: of the states where that violates the law, then you
Speaker 2: can immediately say this person is breaking the law, like
Speaker 2: this is we don't have to debate whether or not
Speaker 2: they've they've crossed the line.
Speaker 15: Yeah, And even if it doesn't directly break the law
Speaker 15: to spy on someone on a partner like it, depending
Speaker 15: on the on the on the region, it can be
Speaker 15: kind of a hazy like thing, especially if it's a
Speaker 15: device you might co own. If it's like a state
Speaker 15: where you were with like code possession or whatever. In
Speaker 15: the US, I do not know US law very much
Speaker 15: around this, but yeah, there's like laws like that. But
Speaker 15: usually still the fact that you're being spied on can
Speaker 15: be used as proof for other abuse things you might
Speaker 15: be alleging, because it's like hard proof that something is happening.
Speaker 15: And also usually these companies will somewhat have to respond
Speaker 15: to some point US, so they will have to give
Speaker 15: out like who the account on there is behind like
Speaker 15: the spying on your phone for some of them, we
Speaker 15: can also there's also tools that help you find out
Speaker 15: who is spying on you, or there's like someone with
Speaker 15: forensic background can help.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think people One thing we should note
Speaker 2: is that if you're kind of curious, has my device
Speaker 2: been infected by some of these tools, the one that
Speaker 2: we've been talking about most truth spy. If you go
Speaker 2: to that tech Crunch article.
Speaker 15: Or to my article, it also has a link yet.
Speaker 2: Or to you to your article on your website. There's
Speaker 2: a tool you can use where you it'll tell you
Speaker 2: how to get your IMSI I think I must say,
Speaker 2: I am ai, yeah, which you just dial a thing
Speaker 2: on your phone and it gives you that number. It's
Speaker 2: basically how you identify specific bones and you plug that in.
Speaker 2: It will let you know if your device has been compromised.
Speaker 15: Now like December last year up until there is the
Speaker 15: data and if you yeah, it can pretty much tell
Speaker 15: you if you've been spined on using this specific tool
Speaker 15: until then. For other stuff, there's also guides usually on
Speaker 15: TechCrunch and otherwise also on Stop stockerwear dot ARC, which
Speaker 15: is the US Coalition against Stalker War, and also just generally,
Speaker 15: I think a lot of like more local anti stocking,
Speaker 15: anti abuse orcs are not as informed yet as they
Speaker 15: should be, but there's still a good point also to
Speaker 15: reach out to or like.
Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: One of my questions about truth Spy that I'm hoping
Speaker 2: you can answer is I know that you can like
Speaker 2: text messages get transferred via it, your call records, all
Speaker 2: that kind of stuff, get and who you were calling.
Speaker 2: Does that include messages for like encrypted apps like Signal
Speaker 2: or is that not accessible through this?
Speaker 15: It depends, like for for some of these, it will
Speaker 15: like get signal messages, what's the messages and everything generally
Speaker 15: by reading the notification content, because like from notifications, you know,
Speaker 15: like what messages are have been like received. Sometimes it
Speaker 15: will only then have the received messages and not the
Speaker 15: set messages. Often these also include like a key logger
Speaker 15: component that maps messages then sent back as well. It
Speaker 15: depends a lot what these apps collect, but for most
Speaker 15: of them, also the collection for other texting apps is
Speaker 15: usually kind of broken. None of these apps are really
Speaker 15: well maintained. They're mostly just quick cash graps. Yeah, are
Speaker 15: there to maintain features usually don't really work.
Speaker 2: And it seems like based on that, one thing people
Speaker 2: can do outside of checking to see if their device
Speaker 2: has been compromised, is do stuff like turn off notifications
Speaker 2: for appsling signal, right, like, and that's that's actually just
Speaker 2: generally good advice. Notifications are are a promise of the
Speaker 2: security that signal offers. Don't have them enabled, you know, yeah, or.
Speaker 15: At the very least disabled them on the lock screen
Speaker 15: on Android.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I don't know how.
Speaker 15: I think that's also possible on iOS, but I think
Speaker 15: I doesn't show message content on the lock screen anyways.
Speaker 15: I'm not sure anymore. But yeah, it's just also small
Speaker 15: things like that. And also like one of the key
Speaker 15: tells that someone probably tampered with your phone, especially for
Speaker 15: Android is if Google play Protect is disabled and you
Speaker 15: do not remember disabling it for something else, it was
Speaker 15: almost definitely disabled because someone installed something on your phone.
Speaker 15: Just try re enabling it. Then they will probably tell
Speaker 15: you something. The thing also to keep in mind if
Speaker 15: you find stockaware on your phone, please get professional help.
Speaker 15: Do not just delete it. Do not like necessarily confront
Speaker 15: whoever you think might be your abuser about it unless
Speaker 15: you're very sure that that's the situation you can handle,
Speaker 15: because like, yeah, that is one of those things that
Speaker 15: like bringing it up or just deleting it can very
Speaker 15: quickly lead to like, yeah, yeah, complicating the situation a lot.
Speaker 6: You know what else complicates the situation.
Speaker 16: These ads and we are back.
Speaker 2: So when it comes to the actual fight against this stuff,
Speaker 2: obviously what you're doing is a big part of it.
Speaker 2: Getting inside these companies and finding out like what they're
Speaker 2: doing and their capabilities is huge for in terms of
Speaker 2: like what regular people are people who are interested in
Speaker 2: becoming activists about this can do. What is the what
Speaker 2: is the struggle to actually fight this stuff? Look like
Speaker 2: like how do we how do we put a bullet
Speaker 2: in this industry's head.
Speaker 15: I think one of the biggest things, and also like
Speaker 15: why I do the work I do with like hacking
Speaker 15: and with encouraging others to like send me data, be
Speaker 15: that insiders from these companies sending it I do to
Speaker 15: me or like TechCrunch specifically currently because like me and
Speaker 15: tech crunch are like the only people really doing like
Speaker 15: journalism on this like regularly. And the important thing with
Speaker 15: like journalism and all of this is like awareness. It's
Speaker 15: very important to create awareness about this. That's also why
Speaker 15: I do the media work with like being on this
Speaker 15: podcast and things like that. I think the most important
Speaker 15: thing is to make people aware, like talk about this
Speaker 15: in your feminist circles or whatever, things like that especially
Speaker 15: bring it up just also in like general info things
Speaker 15: about abuse or how to detect abuse. I think the
Speaker 15: most important thing to do against stocker whereas demestify it
Speaker 15: because most people don't even know that this is a thing,
Speaker 15: that this is, like that there's just commercially available spyware
Speaker 15: anyone can install on your phone. It's most important to
Speaker 15: not like give in to some sort of paranoia. As
Speaker 15: with any of these things, it's just important to like yeah,
Speaker 15: generate awareness, talk about it, and like spread these articles.
Speaker 15: Let friends know that this is a potential thing, and
Speaker 15: then yeah, I The hard thing with this is that,
Speaker 15: like obviously it should will probably help if there was
Speaker 15: some sort of legislation against some of this, it's going
Speaker 15: to be very hard to get any proper legislation that
Speaker 15: ends this industry because in most Western countries, which are
Speaker 15: the only countries which unfortunately would have enough power to
Speaker 15: like actually get these apps shut down, because that's the
Speaker 15: world we live in. But the problem there is usually
Speaker 15: that like this notion that children are owned by their
Speaker 15: parents is too strong to really make a full case
Speaker 15: against these apps. And at the very best what I can,
Speaker 15: like the very best time kind of hoping for from
Speaker 15: from legislators is just a ban on advertising these apps
Speaker 15: on use against other adults, which would be big already,
Speaker 15: but that doesn't really solve the issue because there's still
Speaker 15: going to be enough people who know of their use
Speaker 15: for use against adults, and there's going to be enough
Speaker 15: people on like credit threads talking about, hey, well yeah,
Speaker 15: you oh you're not sure if your government is cheating
Speaker 15: on you, look you can just use this app, you know.
Speaker 15: That's also how most of this marketing for this works.
Speaker 15: It's just yeah, at the end of the day, this
Speaker 15: is like a patriarchal issue. So yeah, I think that's
Speaker 15: also why, like I am so focused on like the
Speaker 15: hacking and the like blowing these companies up and showing
Speaker 15: like who's behind them. It's because at the end of
Speaker 15: the day, the most effective thing we have against these
Speaker 15: companies is like the grassroots movement of making them too
Speaker 15: scared to run in this business, making it not profitable enough,
Speaker 15: because as I said, most of this is like quick
Speaker 15: cash grabs from like web design studios and outsourcing companies.
Speaker 15: Yeah that a're just making a quick buck from this
Speaker 15: because otherwise they don't get paid enough. Like that's the
Speaker 15: sad thing really is how much of this industry is
Speaker 15: in all of these countries. Western companies outsource their IT too,
Speaker 15: because there's lots of IT companies there and they are
Speaker 15: entirely reliant on like Western companies giving them very underpaid tasks.
Speaker 15: And Yeah, this problem that you now have a bunch
Speaker 15: of employees and not enough money to always pay them.
Speaker 15: And what do you do, You like find some weird
Speaker 15: niche of like a tech product you can quickly build. Yeah,
Speaker 15: and this is like one of those easy niches it's
Speaker 15: like always the scummy stuff and like yeah, it's that's
Speaker 15: also why like so many of these companies are like
Speaker 15: based out of Vietnam, out of Iran and whatever. It's
Speaker 15: just companies that already have it hard enough to do
Speaker 15: business globally, where the IT industry is like falling apart
Speaker 15: because there's not enough like local customers and anything that's international.
Speaker 15: You're just the cheap workforce, right, So yeah, it's it's
Speaker 15: once again also like a class problem. I don't like
Speaker 15: most people working in this industry know that they're working
Speaker 15: in a like scummy industry.
Speaker 6: Yeah of course, but like yeah, you got to get
Speaker 6: paid and that's.
Speaker 15: Yeah, And that's like why I think making it more
Speaker 15: scary to operate in this industry is like, yes, the
Speaker 15: way to go, because like with just like these like
Speaker 15: four hacks that have happened against these companies over the
Speaker 15: last like half a year, so two of them, three
Speaker 15: of them, three of them have shut down completely. Others
Speaker 15: seem to be slowly moving towards just building other software primarily. Yeah,
Speaker 15: it's just like, yeah, it's like with any other like
Speaker 15: shady industry that the best we can do is just
Speaker 15: do not make it profitable to run the software because
Speaker 15: at the very best, anything else we will get it's
Speaker 15: just pushing them more into the shadows, which is not
Speaker 15: going to solve the issue at all.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I think a lot about like strategic thinking, which I
Speaker 2: do believe is kind of often in part because of
Speaker 2: how rightfully negative most people on the left think about
Speaker 2: the military. There's a tendency to ignore some of like
Speaker 2: the theory around how to actually win a conflict and
Speaker 2: all of it all strategy really, when you're talking about
Speaker 2: like defeating an opponent, revolves around denying and taking operational
Speaker 2: area from them, right Yeah, And that's what you're talking
Speaker 2: about when you talk about what we need to stop this.
Speaker 2: You know, one of the first things we can do
Speaker 2: as part of fighting this is to stop them from
Speaker 2: being able to advertise certain places. Right It's making sure
Speaker 2: that they're not able to operate without being seen. It's
Speaker 2: basically cutting down their area, their space to maneuver, their
Speaker 2: ability to profit, which cuts down their money, their access
Speaker 2: to people, their ability to actually like operate.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 2: Like, that's what we're looking at in terms of how
Speaker 2: do you kill this stuff. It's not one single really,
Speaker 2: I use the comparison of like a bullet, but it's
Speaker 2: never going to be one bullet. These things are too durable.
Speaker 2: There's too many countries a delay to do that.
Speaker 15: Yeah, that's also why I put so much emphasis on
Speaker 15: doing media work about this and getting more people to
Speaker 15: talk about this and getting more awareness of this out there,
Speaker 15: to the point where I'm willing to work with more
Speaker 15: conservative newspapers on this because everyone needs to know about this.
Speaker 15: At the end of the day, this is how we
Speaker 15: stop people from falling victims to this. Most people who
Speaker 15: are a victim of stocker apps have never heard of
Speaker 15: stocker apps before, and I think that's like one of
Speaker 15: the biggest ways to tackle this. And on the other hand,
Speaker 15: we also have I think another big leverage point with
Speaker 15: how many of these are getting hacked because none of
Speaker 15: these apps are very secure. That's another thing is this
Speaker 15: can also be leveraged against like the abusers in this scenario.
Speaker 15: I think just pointing out to them that all of
Speaker 15: these apps get hacked all the time and that this
Speaker 15: is how they get found out, that that this is
Speaker 15: how their data of them as abusers ends up landing
Speaker 15: on the internet. I think it's also like a very
Speaker 15: important angle at the end of the day. Is just
Speaker 15: to make it clear, like yeah, no, not even you
Speaker 15: are like secure from this having consequences for your life,
Speaker 15: like beyond like direct interpersonal or legal consequences. This can
Speaker 15: and in the past has resulted in like your email
Speaker 15: adders being on a list of people who have do
Speaker 15: abuse to people online. You don't want to be on
Speaker 15: such a list. I think that's also important just to
Speaker 15: like point out there isn't one stock of a app
Speaker 15: that's not eventually going to get hacked. There is a
Speaker 15: big war against these apps. They're all like there's so
Speaker 15: many different hacking groups that keep sending me data from
Speaker 15: these like I'm already working on another article that already
Speaker 15: once again affects like the data of like I think
Speaker 15: like eighty thousand more like abusers, and it's just the
Speaker 15: abuser data this time. But I'm still going to report
Speaker 15: on it, like it's it's it's this is not going
Speaker 15: to stop. It's even also not going to stop when
Speaker 15: I stop reporting on this myself, like I've there's been
Speaker 15: work before me down on this. I also the first
Speaker 15: time I got involved in finding stockerber was back in
Speaker 15: twenty twenty. People have been hacking these apps forever and
Speaker 15: will keep hacking them. Like just look at the Wikipedia
Speaker 15: page for stockerver. There's an ever growing list of these
Speaker 15: apps that have been hacked, and I think at this
Speaker 15: point that like official count being kept by one of
Speaker 15: the people at TechCrunch is at like thirteen apps, a
Speaker 15: few of which have been hacked two or three times. Yeah,
Speaker 15: these are not These are not secure apps for any.
Speaker 6: No, no, of course not.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and they yeah, I mean it makes sense that
Speaker 2: like an app dedicated to violating people's privacy for money
Speaker 2: would also basically violate the privacy of the people using it.
Speaker 15: Yeah, and also they don't care. Like I said, of
Speaker 15: course it's a cash grap. It's nothing else. There's a
Speaker 15: few apps that are like a little more than a
Speaker 15: cash crap, but it's usually just because they're made, Like
Speaker 15: there's still a cash grap, but they're like more well made,
Speaker 15: but it's because they're a cash graph from a company
Speaker 15: that has better developers or more money to do the
Speaker 15: initial investment. The thing is also like most of these
Speaker 15: companies don't have a lot of initial investment, And I
Speaker 15: think the important thing to consider as well, here is
Speaker 15: one big area of this that I have not yet
Speaker 15: started tackling, but I do want to look into more. Sometimes.
Speaker 15: Is a big reason this industry is so big and
Speaker 15: most of these apps have a lot of users despite
Speaker 15: there being so many of them, is the affiliate marketing industry.
Speaker 15: Once again, very beloved friend. Yeah, all of these apps
Speaker 15: are parts of various affiliate marketing networks, some of them
Speaker 15: started by Stockerware Company, and some of them just other
Speaker 15: like things to advertise all the shady things like all
Speaker 15: those phone number locator apps or whatever, that's also part
Speaker 15: of those same affiliate marketing networks. And there's lots of
Speaker 15: money flowing here, and there's lots of money flowing to
Speaker 15: very big tech YouTube channels, and I might soon have
Speaker 15: some proof for some of that. But that's how these
Speaker 15: are advertised. It's everyone who advertises stockerware to you, who
Speaker 15: has a big platform, is doing that because they're getting money,
Speaker 15: not for any other reason.
Speaker 6: We need to do more ads. We will be back shortly,
Speaker 6: and we are back.
Speaker 2: Well that's all I had, Miya, what do you got?
Speaker 6: Yeah, I guess there's there's another thing I wanted to
Speaker 6: ask a little bit about, which Zach Whitaker, who's been
Speaker 6: one of the journal the journalists that tech Crunch doing
Speaker 6: a lot of the research was great. One of the
Speaker 6: things that he brings up that I think is another
Speaker 6: I don't know, it's kind of a plane with fire
Speaker 6: angle on them. But one of the issues that these
Speaker 6: companies seem to have is payment platforms, because a lot
Speaker 6: of payment platforms look at this and go wait, hold on, yeah,
Speaker 6: so that's yeah. We've talked about that a little bit.
Speaker 15: That's an angle. We've also been a fighting on a lot.
Speaker 15: Like me and Sick, we work on most of these
Speaker 15: stories together. Like it's kind of funny. We both got
Speaker 15: each other into the stockover thing back in twenty twenty.
Speaker 15: As I mentioned, that was the first time I stumbled
Speaker 15: into a stock cover app with a security issue. I
Speaker 15: reached out to some random journalists that tech Crunch about it.
Speaker 15: And now he is the only one talking about this
Speaker 15: forever because I reached out to him that one time
Speaker 15: and he got sucked into this horrible, horrible world of spying.
Speaker 15: But yeah, like, one of the things we focus on
Speaker 15: a lot is reporting these companies to their payment providers,
Speaker 15: to their server hosters, to the point where sometimes like
Speaker 15: for weeks, SAK will just wait for them to switch
Speaker 15: to when you provider after we got them taken them
Speaker 15: from like PayPal, and then from their other PayPal account
Speaker 15: where they're just using like the checkout experience from one
Speaker 15: of their completely unrelated software projects which they will later
Speaker 15: claim is not related at all and there are different
Speaker 15: companies and whatever. But then like eventually they get taken
Speaker 15: down from that as well, and usually we can get
Speaker 15: them taken them from most like Western hosters, like especially
Speaker 15: US housters, will immediately take them down. You do not
Speaker 15: want to risk being the company hosting spuywire on US grounds. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 15: it's just like same with EU hosters. Like the few
Speaker 15: companies that we've seen that were on headsnerd, they immediately
Speaker 15: react because it's like yeah no, like under EUO, you
Speaker 15: don't want to like risk that. And also just because
Speaker 15: you don't want to host that, like there's no reason
Speaker 15: for you to host shit like that. It will have
Speaker 15: like image consequences, and that's an important thing that is
Speaker 15: maybe also something you can do as more like a
Speaker 15: grassroots thing. It's also like if you find one of
Speaker 15: these apps and if you see, oh they're using like
Speaker 15: PayPal or whatever, just reach out. I think paper is
Speaker 15: even harder to reach as like just an average lay person.
Speaker 15: I don't expect them to reply. They might still take action,
Speaker 15: you will have to manually check. PayPal doesn't really reply
Speaker 15: to things ever, But yeah, same as like hosting company,
Speaker 15: if it's either hosted on like a European or American
Speaker 15: hosting company, I just just reach out be like, hey,
Speaker 15: there's someone running spyware on your thing. Also used the
Speaker 15: word spyware, not stocker, where they will not know what
Speaker 15: that is, and it is spyware. So yeah, and that
Speaker 15: can usually get them taken down. And often they don't
Speaker 15: have proper backups and will have a few months of
Speaker 15: data missing, and it's like, yeah, that's how you slowly
Speaker 15: grind them to a halt. Yeah. And also once again
Speaker 15: like if you have tips about it any of these companies,
Speaker 15: be it having found the vulnerability just or insider info
Speaker 15: especially I'm always very happy about the insider info. You
Speaker 15: can reach out to either me or Sack with We're
Speaker 15: both very happy to talk about this. Yeah.
Speaker 6: Yeah, that's something that's been used really effectively by right
Speaker 6: wingers to target sex workers. There's been a huge thing,
Speaker 6: there's been a bunch of campaigns to get platform companies
Speaker 6: and yeah, so it's.
Speaker 15: It's interesting that for once we can use the very
Speaker 15: restrictive and conservative rules of payment providers for our good Yeah.
Speaker 15: But yeah, basically any of the big payment providers will
Speaker 15: not respect something like this. Some of the small regional
Speaker 15: odd ones probably won't really give a shit. They have
Speaker 15: no reason to. It's like revenue for them. But yeah,
Speaker 15: it's generally worth trying. And I'm always glad like if
Speaker 15: someone just reaches out to these companies and we don't
Speaker 15: have to do that ourselves. I think me and second
Speaker 15: to few other people like actively working in this are
Speaker 15: doing more than enough work currently. But yeah, just if
Speaker 15: you find one of these things that don't go digging
Speaker 15: too deep. It's a depressing world. But if you stumble
Speaker 15: upon one of these somewhere or whatever, just just report them.
Speaker 15: It's it's it's gonna disrupt their operations, and if it
Speaker 15: happens often enough, they might just give up. Yeah, And
Speaker 15: I mean, like in cases like the truth Spy, they
Speaker 15: are willing to do extreme amounts of fraud to get
Speaker 15: to money easily because they like started with like mostly
Speaker 15: just in like with the market they could get with
Speaker 15: their Vietnamese payment providers, right, and eventually they realized, well,
Speaker 15: the US is like this really big market, right, but
Speaker 15: for really easy like US stuff, we need like a
Speaker 15: paypoal thing, right, So they might like over twelve fake
Speaker 15: American identities with fake passports and fake addresses and sign
Speaker 15: up to PayPal a whole bunch of times and had
Speaker 15: various employees that the company move money around. Yeah, that's
Speaker 15: obviously not a thing the US cover will like if
Speaker 15: you do that. Generally speaking, they moved like millions like that,
Speaker 15: so yeah, which is pretty crazy like that. The amount
Speaker 15: of money that's moving in this industry is crazy, like yeah, actually,
Speaker 15: like most of these app apps will be half broken,
Speaker 15: which no one ever complains about because like it's shady,
Speaker 15: like you don't expect like if you go online and
Speaker 15: you search for something shady like anything like be it
Speaker 15: piracy or whatever, you don't expect it to be the
Speaker 15: best experience ever. Like you know, you're getting some weird
Speaker 15: service and it's probably going to be half broken. But yeah,
Speaker 15: like most of these talkover apps start at like forty
Speaker 15: dollars a month and more, and then some days for
Speaker 15: more features you pay like up to sixty or seventy
Speaker 15: or so and then all of these have like tens
Speaker 15: of thousands of users, sometimes hundreds of thousands of users. Yeah,
Speaker 15: you can do them at yourself. It's crazy. This is
Speaker 15: a really big industry, which makes it so crazy to
Speaker 15: me that it's like not a thing that's talked about more,
Speaker 15: especially like feminine spaces and things like that, because this
Speaker 15: is such a like big angle of like modern tech
Speaker 15: enabled abuse that they really think should should be more
Speaker 15: of a topic, especially on the left, like this is
Speaker 15: this is bad?
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, this is like critically bad. I agree entirely,
Speaker 2: And also like that the whole thing with like all
Speaker 2: of this data being so easily accept your data can
Speaker 2: end up getting sold on some dark web forum. You're
Speaker 2: both asked the abuse around that's the target, right, and
Speaker 2: the government can find these like I have no like
Speaker 2: this is this is not me making a statement of
Speaker 2: that's a thing that's happening, but there's nothing preventing the
Speaker 2: government from hacking these companies and getting like like I
Speaker 2: sometimes like when whenever I get these data sets, and
Speaker 2: it's always hard to work with data sets that include
Speaker 2: like non consent essentially collected data of people, right, yes,
Speaker 2: but like I do always like do some due diligence checks,
Speaker 2: like mostly trying to find if the government is using
Speaker 2: a specific app. Sometimes yes, there's always like the odd
Speaker 2: correction facility for ser who has signed up for one
Speaker 2: or two of these apps or like education people and whatever.
Speaker 2: But then I also on the search through the text
Speaker 2: message just for just some code words and the amount
Speaker 2: of people moving drugs have Stocker were on their phones.
Speaker 2: It's you know, yeah, and it's it's one of those
Speaker 2: things where there are laws, like technically if I if
Speaker 2: my understanding of the laws around this are correct, it
Speaker 2: is illegal for an organization like the FBI to utilize
Speaker 2: these apps.
Speaker 15: But yes, but we have an organized and called the
Speaker 15: NSA who.
Speaker 2: And it is it is on paper illegal for them
Speaker 2: to do this with a third party app. But one
Speaker 2: thing that often gets done, particularly by the FBI, but
Speaker 2: you know, not just by them, is it's not illegal
Speaker 2: for law enforcement agencies to contract with private agencies. And
Speaker 2: if those agencies you don't you just don't check in
Speaker 2: on what they're doing. You know, what they're using.
Speaker 15: But like or like if an inform or like if
Speaker 15: an informant like sends you the s data, like you're
Speaker 15: not going to say.
Speaker 6: No, exactly exactly.
Speaker 15: And also you don't really need to disclose that because
Speaker 15: it's information and got froment informant. You do not need
Speaker 15: to disclose that informant in court ever. So yeah, it's
Speaker 15: it's it's there.
Speaker 2: There are there are ways around, you know, the laws
Speaker 2: that we put up, not that we shouldn't continue to
Speaker 2: extend those laws, but you shouldn't like just because well
Speaker 2: they're not allowed to use this doesn't mean they can't
Speaker 2: get access to the info.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 15: Yeah, And also there's all this important thing like there's
Speaker 15: more like also globally, like there's other governments that can
Speaker 15: just be using this. Like for one of the apps I.
Speaker 2: Got the government, the Russian government doesn't give a ship.
Speaker 15: That was also like another thing where I's like for
Speaker 15: one of the apps I got data for. There was
Speaker 15: some indication that at some point the Colombian National Police
Speaker 15: did a bigger evaluation of using UH commercials spyware for
Speaker 15: their use. Because you're in the country with not that
Speaker 15: big of a like police budget in comparison, you cannot
Speaker 15: afford like all the Coolestraeli tools everyone else has. So
Speaker 15: what do you do? You just look for random apps
Speaker 15: you can find you.
Speaker 2: Know, yeah you find the Walmart, the Kirklin.
Speaker 15: The Wish to the conversion I guess.
Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah Ali baba spyware. Right. Yeah.
Speaker 15: I don't think most of them moved forward with this
Speaker 15: because these apps fucking suck. Like they're bad, Like that's
Speaker 15: that's the other thing, Like they don't even really do
Speaker 15: their jump. Well, they're bad and you don't know who
Speaker 15: is behind them. You cannot even go up to someone
Speaker 15: and be like, yo, don't do this. You also kinnot
Speaker 15: go to the cops and be like this company is
Speaker 15: scamming me, because yeah, I assume some people have probably
Speaker 15: done that before, but it does involve admitting to a crime.
Speaker 15: So yeah, it's like, yeah, these companies just get away
Speaker 15: with not giving a shit about their product because like.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, well I think that's that's all we had.
Speaker 2: Thank you Maya for both the work you're doing and
Speaker 2: for talking to us. Yeah, is there anything you wanted
Speaker 2: to plug before we all out here?
Speaker 16: Just my just my.
Speaker 15: Blog, I think where we're like, I do this journalistic
Speaker 15: work and also more, there's about to be another cool
Speaker 15: investigative piece out soon, which eventually involves more tracking and whatever,
Speaker 15: and also involves like Hollywood and more. It's it's it's
Speaker 15: it's a crazy big story. I promise that will be
Speaker 15: out like hopefully in a month or so. But yeah,
Speaker 15: my blog at Maya dot CRIMEU dot gay crime. You
Speaker 15: as in crime, w yeah, and K as in gay yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 15: Just check out my blog at the bottom of the blog.
Speaker 15: There's all my links to my social media for anyone
Speaker 15: who's like listening to this and has been wondering where
Speaker 15: I am. I am back on Twitter as well.
Speaker 2: Yeah for now, for now, that's for for all of
Speaker 2: us these days. That's always like yeah at this.
Speaker 15: Point, but yeah, I am back on Twitter. I'm posting
Speaker 15: there sometimes. Yeah.
Speaker 2: All right, well, thank you and thank you all for listening.
Speaker 2: We will be back tomorrow unless this comes out on
Speaker 2: a Friday, in which case we'll be back at some
Speaker 2: other point but soon.
Speaker 6: Welcome Jacob app and here the podcast We're Getting Medication
Speaker 6: takes like four fucking hours because of a bunch of
Speaker 6: unbelievable bureaucratic bullshit. I your host Neo Wong, who was
Speaker 6: asked by by pharmacists today and I quote, have you
Speaker 6: been pregnant or have there been pregnancies?
Speaker 8: So I like, have that being pregnancies. Yeah, that was
Speaker 8: what I was like, what involved shooting of human life?
Speaker 6: She like she walks up to the thing, right and
Speaker 6: she she she puts the like she puts the meds
Speaker 6: like like she's about to ring them up right, and
Speaker 6: then she stops and then turns washed with other persons
Speaker 6: start talking to her boss and then comes back and
Speaker 6: they asked me pregnancy.
Speaker 16: So I'm like, what it's.
Speaker 6: Like, I am not passing, I'm just worrying. I'm just
Speaker 6: wearying like jeans, like a mask. It's like a random coat.
Speaker 14: It is.
Speaker 6: So it's been a it's been a time.
Speaker 8: Yeah, achievement in the world of healthcare where they can
Speaker 8: simultaneously like ask you for being pregnant and then make
Speaker 8: you fucking labor unpaid for half a day to obtain
Speaker 8: your like basic hormone therapy or whatever it is you need.
Speaker 8: Like my favorite is when the health insurance makes me
Speaker 8: this just existing podcast about health insurance and how we
Speaker 8: hate it.
Speaker 6: Have you enjoying it?
Speaker 8: When they're like, hey, we need a doctor to confirm
Speaker 8: you still need the instantly? What the fuck do you
Speaker 8: think has happened? You would have heard about it. I
Speaker 8: didn't at home pancreas transplant, didn't bill you guys for it.
Speaker 6: You're welcome. Yeah. With me is James, who is from
Speaker 6: a country that is more normal about healthcare but is
Speaker 6: now Yeah, more normal not the right word, but it's
Speaker 6: less ship is the correct word, unless you're trends, in
Speaker 6: which case it's about a toss.
Speaker 8: I was gonna say, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, country which
Speaker 8: has a different approach at least at least like has
Speaker 8: accepted the fact that if we're going to have the
Speaker 8: state pay for like sending bombs to kill little children
Speaker 8: in Palestine, it should also pay for my incident, which
Speaker 8: I think is is a good a good place to start.
Speaker 6: I guess, yeah, there's an ideal combination there, and no
Speaker 6: we no one is yet reached. This is this is
Speaker 6: this is the task of international socialism, et cetera, et cetera. Yeah.
Speaker 8: I will accept the necessity of the state only when
Speaker 8: it funds incident.
Speaker 6: Not moms. Yeah, but we we are here to talk
Speaker 6: about another incredibly violent state bureaucracy and the people who
Speaker 6: run it. We're gonna be talking about a series of
Speaker 6: very bizarre and incredibly authoritarian crackdown so that democratic well governors,
Speaker 6: city councils. Many many such cases, yeah, have have been
Speaker 6: have been invoking too nominally crack down on crime, a
Speaker 6: thing that is down everywhere and has been down everywhere
Speaker 6: for a long time.
Speaker 8: Yeah, in many such cases. It's great that the Democrat
Speaker 8: like local politicians are now doing everything that we were
Speaker 8: warned that Republican president would do four years ago.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's really fun and I mean, this is one
Speaker 6: of these things. So, so the place we're going to
Speaker 6: start is New York governor cultural I think cutral. Yeah,
Speaker 6: I don't know. New York keeps going through politicians faster
Speaker 6: and I can learn how to pronounce their names. So
Speaker 6: with what they're gonna have, like Andrew Cuomo, the fourth
Speaker 6: in power, by the time this episode goes out, there'll
Speaker 6: be like two there will have been two new Kings
Speaker 6: of England. The secret sibling.
Speaker 8: Yeah, yeah, yeah, we're not making a podcast about the
Speaker 8: royal family.
Speaker 6: Nonsense, we don't care. No, no, this is this is
Speaker 6: this is the best that you're getting out of that.
Speaker 6: But yeah, So Houtral has deployed seven hundred and fifty
Speaker 6: National guardsmen to stand outside of some subway stations. That's
Speaker 6: a tongue twister. Try saying that one five times is
Speaker 6: fast in the mirror, to like do bag checks and
Speaker 6: generally just sort of stand around and be intimidating.
Speaker 8: Yeah, it's great. I'm sure it's what those people signed
Speaker 8: up to do. I'm sure they feel fulfilled, and I'm
Speaker 8: sure everyone in New York feels safer and happier as
Speaker 8: a result of random people in camouflage being standing around
Speaker 8: a subway.
Speaker 6: Yeah, and we're going to get into this sort of
Speaker 6: emotional effective aspect of this, because that is ultimately what
Speaker 6: this is about. But I think, okay, there's a lot
Speaker 6: of sort of interesting aspects of this. So Okay, there's
Speaker 6: been a lot of talk about what the sort of
Speaker 6: precursors to this are, and I'm gonna ask you about
Speaker 6: because there's a lot of nationally, there's a lot of
Speaker 6: very weird, absolutely dog shit National Guard deployment instead have happened.
Speaker 8: Yes, yeah, yes, there are I have uh yeah, yeah,
Speaker 8: we can get onto that.
Speaker 6: Yeah, but I think I think the most immediate predecessor
Speaker 6: to this, that that leaps to mind, this is some
Speaker 6: thing I talk about on the show all the time
Speaker 6: because everyone else seems to have completely forgotten it. I
Speaker 6: refused to let this be memory hold, which is the
Speaker 6: time that my previous shitty mayor ordered a bunch of
Speaker 6: in twenty twenty ordered a bunch This is in February
Speaker 6: twenty twents. This is this is pre uprising. Put just
Speaker 6: started putting swat teams on subways, okay, and they immediately
Speaker 6: did the thing that the swat team does, which they
Speaker 6: started putting swat teams on the fucking red line. The
Speaker 6: immediately shot a guy for no reason, like I think
Speaker 6: I I if I'm remembering correctly, the thing that originally
Speaker 6: they said it was fairrivation, and it wasn't fairrivation. It
Speaker 6: was the guy walked from one train car to another
Speaker 6: train car, a thing that like millions of people do
Speaker 6: every day.
Speaker 8: Yeah, and capital punishment for faavation is also wrong and bad.
Speaker 6: Yeah, well look this guy somehow survived himack. But yeah,
Speaker 6: they also tasted him a bunch of times and then
Speaker 6: shot him, so right, good, yeah bad, However, thankfully this
Speaker 6: guy survived. But yeah, but this is something that that happens.
Speaker 6: This is only that you know, with with the current
Speaker 6: crop of right wing mayors have been doing and you know,
Speaker 6: the twenty twenty one and it was such a fiasco
Speaker 6: that even even like Chicago's machine, while it wasn't really
Speaker 6: quite thee but like even Chicago's right wing Democrats were like, Okay,
Speaker 6: we probably shouldn't do this lest the SWAT teams have
Speaker 6: their like start the killing moment. But you know, so
Speaker 6: that that's like one sort of predecessor to this, and
Speaker 6: the second one is I wanted to actually ask you
Speaker 6: specifically about the Federal National Guard deployments on the border
Speaker 6: because I think, yes, that's the part of this has
Speaker 6: just been like disappeared, Yes, exactly.
Speaker 8: Again, those have been like completely overlooked and kind of
Speaker 8: memory hold by most apparently, like since since Biden came
Speaker 8: to power. Like there's there's a Texas state deployment right,
Speaker 8: which will very familiar with. They get cheated out of
Speaker 8: their benefits. They tend to die from suicide from bringing
Speaker 8: their own firearms on deployment or getting drunk and driving around.
Speaker 8: They've had like higher casualties, so they've had deployment to
Speaker 8: a rock in the Texas deployment, right. Federal one is different.
Speaker 8: I see these dudes often, it's nearly always dudes. I did,
Speaker 8: of course, women could be deployed in that capacity. But
Speaker 8: I haven't seen them, and they are for the most part,
Speaker 8: like scared kids with firearms guarding prison camps full of children.
Speaker 8: Like I had one of these guys go to drawers
Speaker 8: pistol on me the other day because I was trying
Speaker 8: to alert him. Yeah, I mean, like I guess, like
Speaker 8: it's better in that situation that, like it's not my
Speaker 8: first time having someone draw a pistol on me, and
Speaker 8: I can tell them to sit down and stop being
Speaker 8: a dick. But this in this case where someone was
Speaker 8: experiencing cardiac distress and I'd gone to the nearest person
Speaker 8: who I can do right, like I can't call an
Speaker 8: ambulance and having to come in there have to go
Speaker 8: to either get BP to radio or in this case
Speaker 8: national guide. But what they're doing is, in addition to
Speaker 8: like guarding these open air detention sites on and off,
Speaker 8: is they are conducting kind of surveillance along the border.
Speaker 8: So often I'll see them with like surveillance arraysed cameras.
Speaker 8: I assume also like listening to radios and stuff like that.
Speaker 8: They're not actually like interdicting or arresting vigrants. They're not
Speaker 8: supposed to be anyway. But what it's supposed to be doing.
Speaker 8: Is that like kind of having that surveillance capacity and
Speaker 8: I guess protection when it comes to.
Speaker 6: The to the o ads.
Speaker 8: But yeah, they are everywhere, Like I see these people
Speaker 8: all the time down here in you know, certainly on
Speaker 8: the eastern San Diego County border, and and they're all
Speaker 8: in rented vehicles as well, which is weird that they
Speaker 8: haven't got their humvees or whatever. It must be a
Speaker 8: significant expense. And obviously border crossings are not decreasing thanks
Speaker 8: to them being there, right they you know, they mostly
Speaker 8: like are always out doing a water drop on Sunday
Speaker 8: and you'll see them creasing around the dirt roads and
Speaker 8: then obviously people therefore just avoid the road. It doesn't
Speaker 8: make it doesn't reduce migration like everything else. It just
Speaker 8: makes it more dangerous. But yeah, they've been here for
Speaker 8: a while.
Speaker 6: It's one of these things where you know they're they're
Speaker 6: doing okay. So like the guys in New York just
Speaker 6: basically seem to be standing around and doing bag checks,
Speaker 6: whereas those guys are doing a lot more. But I
Speaker 6: think there's one of the things that's been happening here,
Speaker 6: and this has been this is you know, This is
Speaker 6: not just the focus has been on on the like
Speaker 6: the Republican Texas deployments, right, but this is something that
Speaker 6: both the Republicans and the Democrats. This is from what
Speaker 6: we're seeking to eat. Yes, and the federal government have
Speaker 6: decided that, you know, the thing that we are going
Speaker 6: to be doing is what are what are and I
Speaker 6: mean active militia deployments Like that's insane, like that that
Speaker 6: is a level of that is a level of authoritarianism,
Speaker 6: that is you know that that has become effectively normal, right,
Speaker 6: Like there was there wasn't. I mean, there was kind
Speaker 6: of an outcry against the subway stuff, but like it
Speaker 6: hasn't stopped because best I could tell, like they're still
Speaker 6: out like yeah, like nothing on if it stopped it
Speaker 6: that we've been you know what, the thing that we've
Speaker 6: been forced to accept is not even not just you know,
Speaker 6: because we've already been forced to accept the sort of
Speaker 6: the militarization of the police, right, but now it's just
Speaker 6: straight up the total militarization of society to the extent
Speaker 6: that like, yeah, we just have a bunch of soldiers
Speaker 6: wandering around doing like random security checks and doing surveillance
Speaker 6: and like holding people in these open air.
Speaker 8: Prisons, Yeah, exactly, and like deployed way outside their stay
Speaker 8: often right, Like I think so many people hear from
Speaker 8: Missouri or Illinois, like some of them the less kind
Speaker 8: of insane, are you? You know, the people who mistake
Speaker 8: me if I guess for a member of the cartel
Speaker 8: judging by that guy's actions or like some ridiculous somehow
Speaker 8: a threat to him. You know that we can talk
Speaker 8: to them and then yeah, it's a very bullshit mission.
Speaker 8: And I think most of them would agree. Like further east,
Speaker 8: they're just like standing around by the border wall and
Speaker 8: the baking sne in the desert, just just yeah, doing
Speaker 8: security theater, but with as you said, real consequences.
Speaker 6: Yeah, And it's like the thing that is happening is
Speaker 6: these people have realized that the National Guard, if you
Speaker 6: are a senior en of state official, is just your
Speaker 6: private army. You could do whatever the fuck you want
Speaker 6: with it. And this is the thing that they're doing
Speaker 6: with it. And I think you should you know, it's
Speaker 6: worth looking at what the sort of justification for this is, which.
Speaker 8: Are probably also I neglected to mention that there are
Speaker 8: a dozen Republican governments, governors who have deployed their national
Speaker 8: Guard to the border, right, like not as part of
Speaker 8: the federal deployment, like to your private army thing. And
Speaker 8: I believe that North Dakota it's funded by a private individual,
Speaker 8: Like a private individual is covering the state's costs to
Speaker 8: deploy them to the border. Like this is nuts, yeah,
Speaker 8: fully insane, like serving as a fucking PMC.
Speaker 6: Yeah, but I mean we're seeing, you know, very explicitly,
Speaker 6: we're seeing this fusion of like personal state and corporate
Speaker 6: power and that's being used to just deploy a bunch
Speaker 6: of guys with guns to a bunch of random places.
Speaker 6: And you know, like it's worth mentioning that, Like crime
Speaker 6: rates are down, they're down year on year, they're down,
Speaker 6: like the broadshrend is down. They're down, like like outrageous,
Speaker 6: Like I think it's not like almost like fifty percent
Speaker 6: or something from the nineties, right Yeah.
Speaker 8: And likewise, the ratio of people crossing the border to
Speaker 8: agents to process and is it's much lower than it
Speaker 8: was in the nineties. You know, we have more border
Speaker 8: patrol agents, we have a more militarized board patrol. They
Speaker 8: have all these assets that were previously seen only like
Speaker 8: see a black Hawk all the fucking time, so we
Speaker 8: call it a scrap hawk. It's like it's like several
Speaker 8: several black Hawks. It's like it's not any particular submodel
Speaker 8: of black Hawk.
Speaker 12: It's like.
Speaker 8: The surviving pieces of several black Corks. But yeah, they
Speaker 8: have a lot of kit that you would think would
Speaker 8: be military. Kid.
Speaker 6: Yeah, and you know, I was. I so when I
Speaker 6: was reading about this, I was like, Okay, so I'm
Speaker 6: trying to figure out how many crimes are actually happening
Speaker 6: on New York subway system. But I'm going to read
Speaker 6: this paragraph from Reuters because it is. It is outrageous.
Speaker 6: There were thirty eight robberies and seventy thefts including pickpocketing
Speaker 6: on the subway system in February, compared to forty robberies
Speaker 6: and ninety eight thefts in the same month last year.
Speaker 6: According to police data, there were thirty five assaults, the
Speaker 6: same number as for February twenty twenty three. About ninety
Speaker 6: million trips were taken on the subway over the month.
Speaker 6: Now that is nuts the subway including pickpocketing, right, You're
Speaker 6: at about one hundred yeah, yeah.
Speaker 8: Reveal a trivial number of incidents.
Speaker 6: Ninety million trips. Right, this means that like per trip,
Speaker 6: your odds of being pickpocketed are almost literally one in
Speaker 6: a million. This is this is about the same odds
Speaker 6: you have of being struck by lightning. You are seventeen
Speaker 6: times more likely to get killed by a bee or
Speaker 6: a wasp sting than you are in like pickpocket, like
Speaker 6: pickpock not even robbed, pickpocketed on the subway. Right, So
Speaker 6: there's I from what I can do, I think there
Speaker 6: was three killings on the New York subway in February.
Speaker 8: Yeah, that was a shooting. I think today, Oh yesterday
Speaker 8: wasn't that?
Speaker 6: Yeah? Yeah, But this is the thing, So these things
Speaker 6: is gonna get a lot of attention. Right, But again,
Speaker 6: thirty million trips, we're talking like maybe three maybe four
Speaker 6: people getting killed a month, So that's like one in
Speaker 6: thirty million rides. Yeah, someone gets shot. That is outrageously safe.
Speaker 6: Like that is bafflingly starlingly safe. But this, this sort
Speaker 6: of brings us to Wow, Okay, the thing, the thing
Speaker 6: that this immediately brings us to is ad break. But
Speaker 6: it will be a second thing.
Speaker 17: Yeah, great, ipe, it's a good one.
Speaker 6: All right, we're back for the ads. We're bringing you
Speaker 6: actually amazingly advertisements part of what part of the whole
Speaker 6: thing is happening here, because you know, one of the
Speaker 6: big drivers of what's happening in New York and the
Speaker 6: reason everyone thinks the subway is unsafe is New York's
Speaker 6: media market. And very this is a like you know,
Speaker 6: so like the media market in the US is not good, right,
Speaker 6: but very specifically, the New York media market is absolutely batshit.
Speaker 6: They are nuts. And this is one of these things
Speaker 6: where you know, you may have like a one in
Speaker 6: thirty million chance of getting killed on a subway, but
Speaker 6: every single one of those thirty million like incidents, like
Speaker 6: why all those one thirty million is every single one
Speaker 6: of those is is like FrontPage news, right, because this
Speaker 6: is you know this, this is both part of the
Speaker 6: part of the actual sort of conservative politics of these
Speaker 6: media organizations. They are you know, New York media market
Speaker 6: is dominated by a bunch of right wing tabloids and
Speaker 6: a bunch of newspapers that are normally not right wing
Speaker 6: but are yeah, and so you know, there's this sort
Speaker 6: of breathless coverage of every single time one of these
Speaker 6: attacks happened, And this is one of one of the
Speaker 6: things that Cutrol very much like literally says about this
Speaker 6: and what you know, like we're at a point in
Speaker 6: this sort of crime cycle where enough journalists have been
Speaker 6: screamed at by people who are like the crime rates
Speaker 6: are all down, that the journalists have to include in
Speaker 6: the article a thing that's like the crime rates are down.
Speaker 6: This took like four years of just screaming at them.
Speaker 6: Eventually it worked. But you know, like Kucios like asked
Speaker 6: about this and she goes, yeah, well it's it's it's
Speaker 6: about people feeling. It's about like the feeling that people
Speaker 6: have because they don't they don't seem to Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 6: and you know, and this is one of these things
Speaker 6: we're like, this is like how insane the New York
Speaker 6: media market is over this off has had like an
Speaker 6: actual substance of political impact. This is something that you know,
Speaker 6: the Democrats embrace of this sort of like especially in
Speaker 6: New York, this like tough on crime thing has gotten
Speaker 6: to the point we're literally Eric Adams has to be
Speaker 6: the guy who's like no, no, no, actually hold on,
Speaker 6: like it's the New York is safe. Please stop panicking.
Speaker 6: I got my bi got my police funding already, please stop,
Speaker 6: like fleeing the city in terror.
Speaker 8: Yeah, it's amazing. Though, that's similar to what's happening in
Speaker 8: San Diego, another city Democratic councilor mayor. Right, so we
Speaker 8: have this Gloria terrible mayor, serial bullshitter. And in Gloria,
Speaker 8: in the State of the City speech was saying we
Speaker 8: should be locking up criminals, not laundry detergent.
Speaker 6: This this was his big line. He was very proud of.
Speaker 8: I have successfully purchased laundry detergent that was not incarcerated
Speaker 8: since then. But I think he was talking about target.
Speaker 8: I guess apparently he's legislating for the interest of target.
Speaker 8: But you have then his opponent in the MAJORA race,
Speaker 8: who's a former Marine corp Republican guy, being like, yo,
Speaker 8: I think we fucked up on our homelessness policy. We're
Speaker 8: just like criminalizing this is not just the answer. And
Speaker 8: we've got glory to being like, no, lock them up,
Speaker 8: you know, like they're trying.
Speaker 6: To push this.
Speaker 8: Is this continued, like this California bill that will force
Speaker 8: incarcerated people with mental illness right against their will.
Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, it's up.
Speaker 8: It's fucking I mean, it's not bizarre because like I
Speaker 8: think so many Democrats, and like certainly publications here have
Speaker 8: really leaned into like suburban grievance politics and you know,
Speaker 8: like fixed the potholes and make it so I don't
Speaker 8: have to see poor people is their entire ideology. But
Speaker 8: it's still, I know, it's just kind of I'm struggling
Speaker 8: for the words here. It makes me really fucking pissed off.
Speaker 8: The people who showed up to one or two BLM
Speaker 8: marches are now out there like barking for a second
Speaker 8: border wall and machine gunning the unhoused.
Speaker 6: Yeah, and you know, and this is had a especially
Speaker 6: in New York, this has had an actual this has
Speaker 6: been having a substantive like electoral impact. One of the
Speaker 6: stories that kind of got buried in twenty twenty two
Speaker 6: is that you can actually, if you look at the
Speaker 6: electoral map in twenty twenty two, you can actually literally
Speaker 6: see where the New York media market ends, because all
Speaker 6: of the districts in the New York media market became
Speaker 6: significantly more conservative. And this is and this is not
Speaker 6: a joke. This is literally this whole tough on crime
Speaker 6: shit is literally the thing like and in this New
Speaker 6: York media market, this, this is what caused the Democrats
Speaker 6: the House because basically everywhere else in the country there
Speaker 6: was okay, so like like red districts shifted red. Every
Speaker 6: single district that was contested, like all of the sort
Speaker 6: of like purple blah blah blah, like the districts they
Speaker 6: all went They all shifted to the left because of
Speaker 6: abortion stuff. But then specifically a bunch of the like
Speaker 6: what are supposed to be like very safe blue districts
Speaker 6: went red because they were all because all of them
Speaker 6: were doing this in a tough on crime stuff. And yeah,
Speaker 6: those seats, like the seats they lost in New York
Speaker 6: are the reason the Republicans have control of the House.
Speaker 6: So like, you know, this isn't working for them electorally,
Speaker 6: but they're still doing it because it's their ideology. And
Speaker 6: we're gonna get into a bit more about why about
Speaker 6: that that part a second, but beffore we do that.
Speaker 6: I want to talk about I think another one of
Speaker 6: these things that has gotten kind of lost in the shuffle,
Speaker 6: which is do you do you you heard about the
Speaker 6: giant like DC Crime Omnibus bill.
Speaker 8: I've had about this, yeah, yeah, Like I will say
Speaker 8: I'm not familiar with it other than like herring that
Speaker 8: it's bad.
Speaker 6: Yeah, so okay, So so in DC, the City Council
Speaker 6: passed this enormous sort of like giant set of like
Speaker 6: omnibus set of like policies are supposed to be there,
Speaker 6: like keep DC safe crime omnibus thing. I okay. There's
Speaker 6: a couple of things to note about this. One is
Speaker 6: that it's actually not as bad as it was originally
Speaker 6: going to be because there was so much like uproar,
Speaker 6: because I mean the original one like had provisions that
Speaker 6: was like banning masks at protests and ship and it
Speaker 6: was like it was really bad and it got like nuked.
Speaker 6: But it's still really bad, and there's a lot of
Speaker 6: it's a lot of really weird kind of grievance stuff,
Speaker 6: Like there's this provision specifically that's supposed to be about
Speaker 6: like like targeting quote quote organized retail theft, which is
Speaker 6: one of the insane this is.
Speaker 8: Yeah, this is one of the most like storm in
Speaker 8: a teacups that has been going for a while now.
Speaker 6: Yeah. But I mean there there's also kind of like
Speaker 6: there's sister standard police stuff, which is it they're trying
Speaker 6: to expand pre trial attention on which they did one
Speaker 6: of the the absolutely insane ones that have been cleared unconstitutional,
Speaker 6: but apparently they's just back now is allowing police chiefs
Speaker 6: to designate certain areas quote drug free zones where yeah.
Speaker 8: See, I'm I'm so, I'm confused.
Speaker 6: But basically what it lets it basically, what it lets
Speaker 6: you do is it lets the cops just harass a
Speaker 6: bunch of people even more than they already do, like
Speaker 6: mostly mostly what it does is just when you declare
Speaker 6: one of these areas, it's where all the black people are,
Speaker 6: and then the cops just have cops have like an incredible,
Speaker 6: like incredibly increased ability to just randomly stop people and
Speaker 6: search them.
Speaker 8: Right, and yeah, ship stop and frisk law.
Speaker 6: Yeah, there's there. So there there is a thing that
Speaker 6: like part of the mask provision stayed in force, which
Speaker 6: is that they're making it basically it's like like wearing
Speaker 6: a mask with the intent to commit a crime is
Speaker 6: a crime, right, the cops like determine, right, your intent,
Speaker 6: So like, yeah, it's one of those laws.
Speaker 8: Like they do this a lot with gun laws, right,
Speaker 8: they passed gun laws. It don't make anything that wasn't
Speaker 8: already illegal illegal, They just make it so that if
Speaker 8: they if you if you're if you're caught, you're going
Speaker 8: to prison for longer.
Speaker 6: Now, Yeah, that this this actually there are there are
Speaker 6: provisions like that in this too. There's also a bunch
Speaker 6: of random like gun provisions. There's all the like more
Speaker 6: nuts ones, like there's there's one where cops can arrest you.
Speaker 6: So if if they're trying to cite you for not
Speaker 6: paying a toll, if they they they claim that you
Speaker 6: didn't pay a you didn't like pay a transit fare,
Speaker 6: you have to give them your full name and address
Speaker 6: and if they don't, and if you don't, they can
Speaker 6: arrest you, which is nuts.
Speaker 8: This is like, don't disrespect me on the train in
Speaker 8: front of everyone, nor, isn't it?
Speaker 6: That's what that is. There's another one. There's another one,
Speaker 6: which is like, I I don't. I don't have another
Speaker 6: way to describe it other than this is the uh,
Speaker 6: this is the how to get away with murder bill,
Speaker 6: which is this is so one of the things that
Speaker 6: they're doing is letting cops review their own helmet footage
Speaker 6: before police inquiries. Right, ah, this is this is this
Speaker 6: is to get the narrative straight.
Speaker 8: Yeah, Bill, do you also get to edit it?
Speaker 10: I don't.
Speaker 6: Well, okay, so here's the thing about that quote unquote No,
Speaker 6: however come these things mysteriously vanish time mysteriously disappears. Yeah,
Speaker 6: there's also like a whole thing about like there are
Speaker 6: certain groups of people who the cops can just like
Speaker 6: force DNA collections from. Wow, which is it's a lot
Speaker 6: less broad than it used to be. But yeah, it's
Speaker 6: still a provision in there. But yeah, this is a
Speaker 6: nightmarish bill that they've been able to pass. And you know,
Speaker 6: I think it's worth thinking about why this is actually happening,
Speaker 6: which is that all of this stuff, all of these
Speaker 6: are sort of long range reaction to twenty twenty, right,
Speaker 6: this is this, This was the sort of strategy after
Speaker 6: twenty twenty for rebuilding legitimacy of the police, and you know,
Speaker 6: and and also now rebuilding sort of rebuilding the I
Speaker 6: don't know, psychological capacity, I guess to you know, I mean,
Speaker 6: just deploy a bunch of troops on US soil, right, right, yeah,
Speaker 6: sort of building up that tolerance. Yeah, and you know,
Speaker 6: like this is all of this stuff is sort of
Speaker 6: born on you know, on on on protest crackdowns on
Speaker 6: one of the things that's also sort of worth noting about.
Speaker 6: This is all of this stuff. I mean, the DC
Speaker 6: crime build but in the works for a long time,
Speaker 6: but the subway stuff is all stuff that happened like
Speaker 6: pretty quickly after they are ambushnell self Imlaysia. So a
Speaker 6: big part of this has been the sort of the
Speaker 6: Democratic ruling class kind of losing their minds after watching
Speaker 6: how widespread twenty twenty was, watching the extent to which
Speaker 6: they were forced to like you know, like there are
Speaker 6: democratic politicians in twenty twenty like talking about like I mean,
Speaker 6: there are like a lucky people talking about defunding the police.
Speaker 6: There are like they're all remember the weird like that
Speaker 6: whole like kneed laying thing in Congress. They all do
Speaker 6: oh yeah yeah.
Speaker 8: Have the pitched in the morning you can take with
Speaker 8: yeah yeah, ooh yeah. That's a powerful incents of ringe.
Speaker 6: Yeah. But there's a lot of like you know, there's
Speaker 6: there's this this sort of memory of that has been
Speaker 6: has been sort of drilled deep into into the Democratic
Speaker 6: party and so what what what has been happening like
Speaker 6: like you know and that what's been happening and this
Speaker 6: has been happening in blue states very explicitly is this
Speaker 6: is this strategy of hypermilitarization with the explicit like not explicit, sorry,
Speaker 6: with the implicit but not very well concealed goal of
Speaker 6: putting everyone back in their place after twenty twenty, and
Speaker 6: that is extremely grim. I mean, I think, I don't know,
Speaker 6: I'm I'm glad the DC stuff isn't as bad as
Speaker 6: it was originally because the original one we're just like
Speaker 6: straight up a bunch of fascist ship. This is also
Speaker 6: fascist shit, but like not as unhinged as the original
Speaker 6: bills were, So you know, it's like like the tide
Speaker 6: of this stuff isn't inevitable, right, but also very very
Speaker 6: powerful factions of the Democratic Party have decided that this
Speaker 6: is the thing that they want to do, and it
Speaker 6: absolutely sucks, and you know, and and and and this
Speaker 6: is you know, and this is in a similar way
Speaker 6: to sort of the stuff on the border being by parties.
Speaker 6: I mean, at some point I'm going to do an
Speaker 6: episode about the absolute shit show that's been happening in
Speaker 6: Chicago where yeah, they're like a a kid got fucking
Speaker 6: measles in one of these and one of the micro
Speaker 6: shelters in Pilsen in Chicago, and now the mayor's like
Speaker 6: evicting a bunch of a bunch of people from the
Speaker 6: bigrant shelters. Jesus, you know, so like there's a bip
Speaker 6: I mean, this is the thing Like in Chicago, I
Speaker 6: mean there's just outside of like you know, we're like
Speaker 6: outside of just like basically every like Walgreens or just
Speaker 6: on street corners, there's a bunch of refugee families like
Speaker 6: just sitting out there in the cold, trying to get
Speaker 6: some money because there's fucking nothing for them here. And
Speaker 6: this is a bipartisan you know this, this is a
Speaker 6: bipartisan political project. Yeah, you know, just sort of sheer
Speaker 6: terror inflicted on most of the little people in society.
Speaker 8: Yeah, it's it's really depressing to hear that, just because
Speaker 8: I know that, like, you know, I see people here
Speaker 8: and then they get out, and my friends see them,
Speaker 8: and we turn into the airport and my friends feed
Speaker 8: them and look after them there, and they get on
Speaker 8: their planes and we hope for the best for them,
Speaker 8: you know, and then then yeah, they just go to
Speaker 8: some other city where some other dog shit democrats who
Speaker 8: lied four years ago is gonna do everything they can
Speaker 8: to make life as hard for them as possible.
Speaker 12: Yeah.
Speaker 8: The good thing is you have to vote for them
Speaker 8: while you're voting for Fascismoo horay, how sad?
Speaker 6: Yeah that that that That's what I got today. We'll
Speaker 6: be back tomorrow with something. What are we back down?
Speaker 8: Yeah, it will be a podcast. It's with tomorrow's Friday.
Speaker 8: Oh yeah, Torow's Gaza day. So it's not getting Anny
Speaker 8: better for you. Yeah, lucky you, lucky you. Tomorrow we'll
Speaker 8: be hearing from our friends at park or Gaza.
Speaker 7: Hi.
Speaker 8: Everyone, it's me James, just introducing this podcast, and I'm
Speaker 8: recording this the day after we recorded the episode to
Speaker 8: today's Thursday, the twenty first of March. I wanted to
Speaker 8: just update a couple of things and correct a couple
Speaker 8: of things, so I've just listened through the episodes.
Speaker 6: I'm going to do that now.
Speaker 8: Firstly, I think I said Igler a couple of times
Speaker 8: when I meant Strella. It's the Strella portable surface to
Speaker 8: where missiles have been refitted with new batteries in the
Speaker 8: Syrian Civil Wars specifically, and I've included a link to
Speaker 8: a document about that in the show notes. So apologies
Speaker 8: for getting those two things confused. They're both I guess
Speaker 8: former Soviet service to a missile systems. The other things
Speaker 8: I wanted to mention that a few like throughout this
Speaker 8: episode we've used manpads, right, that's kind of the colloquial
Speaker 8: term or the official term really for person boughtable anti
Speaker 8: aircraft systems. Like obviously doesn't mean that you have to
Speaker 8: be a man to use one, certainly like the fact
Speaker 8: that the hPG are using them and that the Kurdish
Speaker 8: Freedom Movement are using them. Obviously women can use them,
Speaker 8: non binary folks can use them, to everyone can use them.
Speaker 8: And finally, I just wanted to mention that there have
Speaker 8: been some suggestions that the thing that was used to
Speaker 8: shoot down the Bay Reptars was like loatering munition, which
Speaker 8: is something that is often called a suicide drone. In
Speaker 8: this case, it's not a loitering munition that impacts something
Speaker 8: on the ground, but impacts something on the air. There's
Speaker 8: an Iranian system that does that, but apparently it's possible
Speaker 8: to replicate that with a large number of off the
Speaker 8: shelf or sort of commercially available pieces.
Speaker 6: So maybe that's what's going on.
Speaker 8: This episode was a little bit speculative, and we still
Speaker 8: don't have lots of hard answers, but we hope you'll
Speaker 8: enjoy it because it represents a change in a relationship
Speaker 8: between the state and people who are not the state,
Speaker 8: and that's why it's important.
Speaker 6: Okay, hope you enjoy.
Speaker 8: Hello, podcast fans, Welcome back to the podcast. I'm joined
Speaker 8: today by my friend Mia Himea.
Speaker 6: Hello, and we.
Speaker 8: Are talking about, of course, surface to wear missiles, a
Speaker 8: topic that I'm sure is on the top of mind
Speaker 8: for all of you as you drive to work this morning.
Speaker 8: Where are we talking about surface to wear missiles today?
Speaker 6: Well?
Speaker 8: Today is It is Wednesday, the twentieth of March, and
Speaker 8: today I'm sure maybe some of you would have seen
Speaker 8: most of you probably will not as you go about
Speaker 8: your daily life that the KSEK. The k CK is
Speaker 8: the group, the Kurdistan Communities Union, the joint group between
Speaker 8: the various groups in the different parts of Kurdistan. Right,
Speaker 8: So you have the PKK, you have the Yea Yepiga
Speaker 8: in Syria, PI k K and Turkey, right the p
Speaker 8: JACK in Iran in the k like brings all these
Speaker 8: groups together.
Speaker 1: Do they?
Speaker 6: Is there a name? Do they? Is there like an
Speaker 6: Iraqi branch? That's the one that I don't know.
Speaker 8: You have the Yevish, the the Azdi group, right, yeah,
Speaker 8: I think everyone I will reconsider my statement.
Speaker 6: The people who I have become aware of.
Speaker 8: Who are in Iraq, who are who I know about journalistically,
Speaker 8: are k c K people. Okay, little little bit of
Speaker 8: smoke and mirrors feed there, but yeah, the people the
Speaker 8: people who I who I know who are in in
Speaker 8: the Kurdistan Autonomous Region.
Speaker 6: Are ksey K.
Speaker 8: So I think that I think most of the sort
Speaker 8: of people within the greater like Kurdish Freedom move and
Speaker 8: the APOACHE people are ksey K.
Speaker 6: Within Iraq.
Speaker 8: It is in the Kurdistan Autonomous Region, So like Iraqi
Speaker 8: in a technical sense, but only only really in a
Speaker 8: technical sense. Like when you go to the Kurdistan Autonomous Region,
Speaker 8: you don't even do Iraqi immigration. You do Kurdistan immigration,
Speaker 8: which is nice because it's a lot easier. I was
Speaker 8: there in October of twenty twenty three, and since February
Speaker 8: of twenty twenty three, the KCK have announced they have
Speaker 8: shut down thirteen Turkish unmanned aerial vehicles, right, which what
Speaker 8: you and I would call drones. And we're not talking
Speaker 8: about drones like your friend has a drone and they
Speaker 8: use it to film you at the beach. Drones we're
Speaker 8: talking about like Bairaktar drones, which are it's an aircraft, right,
Speaker 8: Like if you saw one you would be like, oh,
Speaker 8: there goes a plane.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's like it's like the Turkish version of the
Speaker 6: Predator drones and US users, Yeah, yeah, it's it's yeah,
Speaker 6: it's a very similar thing.
Speaker 8: It's a very popular drone system actually, right, they've sold
Speaker 8: bairaktars to I think dozens of countries, like they're i
Speaker 8: mean all over yeah, thirty one countries that they've exported
Speaker 8: the Biachta to, so that they're very widely used. They're
Speaker 8: kind of the the sort of drone of choice for
Speaker 8: people who are just like buying on the open market. Right,
Speaker 8: Karta uses them, Ukraine uses them a lot, but even
Speaker 8: countries like I'm looking here Bakina Faso has has bairactars.
Speaker 8: So what's notable about this is they've also shot down
Speaker 8: a kinchies A kinchiese are like the newer Bairaktar variant
Speaker 8: that they make a slightly different noise. I've spent some
Speaker 8: time in places that are being attacked by drones over
Speaker 8: the last year, and it's it's a highly unpleasant experience.
Speaker 8: But people who are used to this, which I am,
Speaker 8: I guess thankfully not, will tell you that they can
Speaker 8: tell the different about the noise at least these drones
Speaker 8: to make. But there was a Kinchi for instance. I
Speaker 8: believe it was in a Kinchi that did some of
Speaker 8: the attacks that I was unfortunate enough to be nearby
Speaker 8: when I was in ro in October. So what's notable
Speaker 8: about this is like the k c K obviously, like
Speaker 8: they're a non state actor, right, because there was not
Speaker 8: a Kurdish state. There is a Kurdish nation, one might argue,
Speaker 8: but it's split between four states Iraq, Iran, Syria, and Turkey,
Speaker 8: and so them being able to shoot down drones, it's
Speaker 8: quite remarkable.
Speaker 6: Yeah, no, one's none of the non state actors really
Speaker 6: in the last like twenty years have been able to
Speaker 6: do this. Like everyone talks about how advanced like Isis'
Speaker 6: capabilities were for a non state actor, and they were,
Speaker 6: but they couldn't do it, Like it's wild, No, like who.
Speaker 8: These have shut down some reaper drones?
Speaker 6: Yeah, but they're but they're a state, Like that's the
Speaker 6: thing like they'd have huge swaths of the regular you
Speaker 6: many military are just like yeah.
Speaker 8: And then they're supplied by other state actors, right, like
Speaker 8: very clearly as it's a little different. What Yeah, it's
Speaker 8: this is relatively remarkable, right, they've been able to shoot
Speaker 8: down like and not just it's not just like, oh
Speaker 8: we've got Lucky, we got we've got lucky and dropped
Speaker 8: a single drone. Ice has had, if I remember correctly,
Speaker 8: isis had some Igler man pads, like the old Russian
Speaker 8: man pads. The thing with those and we're going to
Speaker 8: talk about this a little bit later. They they have
Speaker 8: like a battery and that battery will run out over
Speaker 8: a certain or they're sold that some of them are
Speaker 8: just being sold on the black market without batteries. From
Speaker 8: what I've seen, some folks in that we've seen in
Speaker 8: the civil war in Syria have worked out how to
Speaker 8: somehow make that battery work with or make another battery,
Speaker 8: or make another electronic system for them. They don't have
Speaker 8: like a lockout, right, they don't have a like we've detected,
Speaker 8: you know, like your iPhone will sometimes get mad if
Speaker 8: you're using a third party charger. Yeah, yeah, yeah, right,
Speaker 8: So Tim Apple has was not involved in the design
Speaker 8: of the ki Igler most pity, and so he wasn't
Speaker 8: able to engineer it a third party. But those have
Speaker 8: been repurposed. But yeah, we did not see the Islamic
Speaker 8: state of Irak and al Sham dropping US drones. In fact,
Speaker 8: the reason like the thing that allowed there were two
Speaker 8: things that allowed the defeat of like the so called
Speaker 8: Islamic state rate One, the heroism of the people who
Speaker 8: fought against them, be they like Iraqi Kurdish, a lot
Speaker 8: of people fought against a fifteen thousand kurt died fighting Isis.
Speaker 8: But also the fact that the US had complete air
Speaker 8: dominance and could just fucking obliterate things from the sky
Speaker 8: whenever it wanted to it did. It did a lot
Speaker 8: of obliterating things from the sky, right, And so the
Speaker 8: ability to shoot down drones is something that has been
Speaker 8: very hard for non state actors. And it's not like
Speaker 8: it's not like the KCK has a state sponsor, right yeah.
Speaker 6: Yeah. Also so like like for example, like Hasbla has
Speaker 6: shot down too, although these weren't actually they shut down
Speaker 6: to Hermes like is really Hermes Jones. So though those
Speaker 6: are just those are surveillance things. But the thing is,
Speaker 6: like Hezbola did this by getting surface there missiles, like
Speaker 6: getting surface there rockets from Iran. Yeah, so yeah, that's
Speaker 6: why that's that's like, you know, the way that you
Speaker 6: can do this is if either like Iran, the US,
Speaker 6: I guess technically China and or and or Russia like
Speaker 6: hand you them. But if but if none of those
Speaker 6: four countries are willing to play ball or I mean,
Speaker 6: I guess ithically the UK, yes, or like France could
Speaker 6: send you one. But but like it's it's it's really
Speaker 6: really like.
Speaker 1: I don't, I don't.
Speaker 6: I don't think any non state actor who wasn't being
Speaker 6: just directly armed by one of those states has pulled
Speaker 6: it off. No.
Speaker 8: The other non state actor who I've seen with man
Speaker 8: pads very recently are the Koren, the current National Liberal
Speaker 8: k in l A. The k and LA have been
Speaker 8: putting out these pictures. This is this in memr Yes,
Speaker 8: this is in Mema. So for folks who haven't listened
Speaker 8: to our previous memp so to go and listen to them.
Speaker 8: But yeah, there's some of the work I'm proud of.
Speaker 8: But these k and LA guys have these photos, have
Speaker 8: come out that then they're not not post photos, right,
Speaker 8: they'lvery clearly they wanted these photos to come out, and
Speaker 8: it shows them with these manpad system. I'm actually not
Speaker 8: sure if it's a Streller or a Chinese. I think
Speaker 8: it's called the eight N five the Chinese. It's essentially
Speaker 8: the same thing, but they have the grip stock for them,
Speaker 8: but they don't have the coolant ball and the battery
Speaker 8: at the front, So like that they're what they have
Speaker 8: is a fancy looking doesn't appear to my eyes to
Speaker 8: be like fully functional, like in terms of tracking and
Speaker 8: shooting down an aeroplane, although I have seen footage from
Speaker 8: friends of Hunter aircraft deploying like flares over a current
Speaker 8: state and then like turning around and leaving. So perhaps
Speaker 8: there's something I'm missing here. Like it's entirely possible that
Speaker 8: when they decided for these photos come out, they they
Speaker 8: they're in a certain fashion. And like those guys have
Speaker 8: engineered and tire arms industry of their own using Reddit
Speaker 8: and Ali Express, Like I, if anybody can make something work,
Speaker 8: they can make something work. I have great faith in
Speaker 8: their ingenuity and as I said, like it it's people
Speaker 8: in Syria have previously made systems like this work.
Speaker 6: They're not.
Speaker 8: They don't have that lockout, so it's quite possible that
Speaker 8: they did. But I've not seen a video of anyone
Speaker 8: in Mianmar shooting down and any kind of aircraft yet, right,
Speaker 8: the Russian aircraft they have shot down aircraft Allegedly someone
Speaker 8: shot one down with with a like a grenade launcher,
Speaker 8: a single shot grenade.
Speaker 6: Launcher SOLI video.
Speaker 8: Yeah, it's one of the most chadly things that anyone's
Speaker 8: ever done. It's it's some like modern warfare or whatever
Speaker 8: whatever the computer game is called Battlefield, that's what it's called. Yeah,
Speaker 8: talking of talking of for Chadley and exciting stuff, then
Speaker 8: this might be an advert for like being a prison
Speaker 8: guard or something exciting that we have to introduce. Now, okay,
Speaker 8: don't be a prison guard. All right, and we're back.
Speaker 8: I hope you found again from employment elsewhere outside of
Speaker 8: the cast real system. And we're talking about service to
Speaker 8: our missiles, particularly these thirteen serpace to our missile of
Speaker 8: thirteen drones that the casey K have shut down. Right.
Speaker 8: One thing I thought that was noticeable is that they
Speaker 8: did say missiles they are people were able to pride
Speaker 8: the missile system necessary. That so, like there's a theory
Speaker 8: that I've seen that they were able to crash a
Speaker 8: drone of their own into a bairactar like a kind
Speaker 8: of like I guess like a suicide. I don't like
Speaker 8: the word suicide drone because it's not the drone that's dying,
Speaker 8: like normally when people talk about suicide drones, So theyre
Speaker 8: killing people, Yeah, but like a ramming drone. Yeah yeah, yeah,
Speaker 8: like a like a it's like robot Wars. But they
Speaker 8: said missile on their press. Really, so you know, if
Speaker 8: we take that on the if we take that on
Speaker 8: the face of it, that that suggests that they shut
Speaker 8: them down. Certainly there this like there is good video
Speaker 8: evidence of the mirror and I just reviewed the video.
Speaker 8: Incredible soundtrack. We'll link to it in the We'll link
Speaker 8: to it in the show notes. In the videos, you
Speaker 8: very clearly see, oh it's a drone. Oh it's a
Speaker 8: huge explosion that gravity is now having its effect on
Speaker 8: this drone, like it is plummeting to earth.
Speaker 6: Yeah, Like it's it's definitely not a like we've fired
Speaker 6: a machine gun in the air and it hit it
Speaker 6: somehow or something like it's right. It got it quite explosive. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 6: that's remarkable. Yeah.
Speaker 8: One of the Yeah, there was a shooting down of
Speaker 8: an aircraft in the Amba. It wasn't one of them megs.
Speaker 8: I forgot it might have been. It was a two
Speaker 8: seater training plan. I can't remember quite what it was,
Speaker 8: but that was shot down supposedly by small arms fire
Speaker 8: or maybe like a Generally, the like the air defense
Speaker 8: of most non state armed groups has been dushcuts, right,
Speaker 8: like a it's a thing that you've seen in the
Speaker 8: back of a pickup truck going like bang bang with
Speaker 8: a big sort of spade grip. It's a classic technical gun.
Speaker 8: But this isn't that, Like, this is something very different.
Speaker 8: Something they're they're exploding when these drones get hit there
Speaker 8: exploding and they've all been in I think, oh yeah.
Speaker 8: All of them are in areas of the what we
Speaker 8: call the Curtis Donal Autonomous Reach in a bit of
Speaker 8: rock right, So some of them are in zap which
Speaker 8: is near to howk but towards north of there.
Speaker 6: Some of them in the.
Speaker 8: Kandel Mountains, which is part of the Zagross Mountain Range.
Speaker 8: Again it's it's in the north of that Curtis Done
Speaker 8: Autonomous Region, and I think some of them are in it.
Speaker 8: I think it's Gadat it's pronounced, but they're not in
Speaker 8: like I think obviously when a lot of people think
Speaker 8: about the Kurtis Down freedom movement and think about Rajava,
Speaker 8: this isn't there. The US did shoot down a bay
Speaker 8: Raktar or an a Kinchi over Rajava while I was there,
Speaker 8: but they only shot it down because it flew over
Speaker 8: their base. They continued to let the bay Raktars bomb
Speaker 8: civilian infrastructure all over the A and E S.
Speaker 6: So these these are not there.
Speaker 8: These are so perhaps whatever they're using very interesting, right,
Speaker 8: Like it's maybe it's not something they can take there,
Speaker 8: or maybe it's not you know, like it's not they're
Speaker 8: not able to get it out of the mountains.
Speaker 6: It's too much of a risk. No, it's it's interesting,
Speaker 6: I mean for a number of reasons. Well, yeah, partially
Speaker 6: that they're not using it in serior. Partially they're also they
Speaker 6: don't seem to be using them in Turkey either.
Speaker 8: No, it's interesting when take off, it's not that like subtle, right,
Speaker 8: it's a big aircraft, so they'll get some warning when
Speaker 8: they take off and that would allow them, I guess,
Speaker 8: to prepare their munitions. But yeah, they don't seem to
Speaker 8: be using it. They seem to be using it in
Speaker 8: like this this area. Whether they're very strong, right, whether
Speaker 8: these mountains are extremely fortified. They've been fighting Turkey. There
Speaker 8: are a lot in recent days and weeks. You can
Speaker 8: always I mean, obviously you're going to see some somewhat
Speaker 8: traumatic combat footage, but Garrilla TV always has like updates
Speaker 8: on these things, so that's the sort of thing that
Speaker 8: you you know, like to keep up to date with.
Speaker 8: But yeah, they're not using them there, They're not using them.
Speaker 8: They're they're very close to Turkey, right, but yeah, not
Speaker 8: not quite in and Turkey soldiers do occupy some areas
Speaker 8: inside the Iraqi curtash Down Autonomous Region, so like they
Speaker 8: it's kind of all and Turkey seems to be kind
Speaker 8: of trying to ramp up its operations against the Coast
Speaker 8: Down Freedom movement inside the st An Autonomous Region, but
Speaker 8: this is a significant impediment to that.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 8: It's also very interesting that like we have not heard
Speaker 8: shit about this from Turkey.
Speaker 6: No, Yeah, well, and I think I think part of
Speaker 6: this is, you know, like I think It's something that
Speaker 6: as an indication of how serious this is, because I mean,
Speaker 6: this has been you know, the law of the twenty
Speaker 6: first century is that if you're a state actor, you
Speaker 6: have unlimited air superiority over any non state group you're bombing,
Speaker 6: and you can, you know, especially like especially if you're
Speaker 6: like the US, you can send bombers or drones into
Speaker 6: like any country you want and you can bomb them. Yeah,
Speaker 6: And that has been true. And this, this has been
Speaker 6: the basis of US military power. It's also been the
Speaker 6: basis of a lot of like, you know, the Turkey
Speaker 6: obviously doesn't have the same air doctrine as the US does,
Speaker 6: but like that's been the basis of a lot of
Speaker 6: Turkish operations that they like, they're the people who have airpower.
Speaker 6: And because they have airpower, because they have drones, because
Speaker 6: you can't shoot back at them, they can do whatever
Speaker 6: the fuck they want.
Speaker 8: Yeah, Like I've been in the situation where you are
Speaker 8: completely powerless and very afraid because at some point something
Speaker 8: could fall out the nights gy and kill you and
Speaker 8: there's fuck all you can do about it. And yeah,
Speaker 8: that has been the way of the world, like you say,
Speaker 8: for this entire century. Right, it's what we've seen only Meanmar,
Speaker 8: the pro democracy forces againing ground every day. They're doing
Speaker 8: an incredible job. But like, I've also talked to people
Speaker 8: whose whole unit has been wiped out and they've hidden
Speaker 8: under the dead bodies of their friends because there's a
Speaker 8: plane or a helicopter circling around and it's the one
Speaker 8: area where they've really struggled to defend themselves. Right, It's
Speaker 8: I'm writing a book about anarchist at war. Eventually I
Speaker 8: will publish that book. But this is the thing that
Speaker 8: defines then, like the state. Even when the state like
Speaker 8: loses its monopoly on legitimate violence, it still has monopoly
Speaker 8: on airborne violence. And the question that monopoly, like it
Speaker 8: is incredibly dangerous for the state's ability to for the state,
Speaker 8: I guess in general, like for it for its continued
Speaker 8: ability to crush movements, be they liberatory or be they otherwise.
Speaker 6: Right, and we can Yeah, I mean, this is something
Speaker 6: I think is really interesting. Is this is something that's
Speaker 6: been a fear of I mean everyone from like Western
Speaker 6: intelligence people through like I mean you can see people
Speaker 6: in like Hollywood freaking out about this, Like like rebel
Speaker 6: group gets access to a manpad is like one of
Speaker 6: the most common like spy show plots. Yeah, and yeah,
Speaker 6: it's like it's something that you know, you can you
Speaker 6: can listen to, like the US military talking about this
Speaker 6: is this is something that they're really concerned about.
Speaker 8: Yeah, they won't like it's their where. It's where they
Speaker 8: draw the line with the groups who are quote unquote allies, right,
Speaker 8: who'll be quote like the US will tell you that
Speaker 8: the SDF for their allies in the fight against ISIS,
Speaker 8: but they're willing to let their allies die rather than
Speaker 8: give them manpads.
Speaker 6: Right, Like I've seen this.
Speaker 8: I have. I've seen the funerals, you know, because the
Speaker 8: and the US. But I've also driven right past the
Speaker 8: fucking US base and I know that there are plenty
Speaker 8: of plenty of plenty of anti aircraft systems there because
Speaker 8: they shot down a Turkish drone while I was there.
Speaker 8: But they're not willing to give them to even the
Speaker 8: people who they'll fight side by side with because their
Speaker 8: fear of having manpads get into what they would maybe
Speaker 8: term the wrong hands is is. Yeah, it's like the
Speaker 8: the one area where they have I guess complete domination, right,
Speaker 8: They've given them to Ukraine, of course, but despite like
Speaker 8: repeated allegations, there is no evidence that Ukraine has sold
Speaker 8: surface to wear systems anywhere, and they obviously won't give
Speaker 8: them to me Anmar, right, So it's yeah, it if
Speaker 8: this is what it appears to be, then it's a
Speaker 8: really massive change. Talking of a massive change, you could
Speaker 8: you know, you can make a massive change to your
Speaker 8: financial situation by purchasing gold.
Speaker 6: We're back. Yeah. I think something that's really interesting about
Speaker 6: the way that the sort of manpad getting to nonstate
Speaker 6: actors has talked about is that usually the way that
Speaker 6: it's like usually the US line on it is like
Speaker 6: we can't like we can't let anyone get these yaus,
Speaker 6: They're gonna use it to shoot down civilian airliners. Yes, yeah,
Speaker 6: And now, to be fair, people do accidentally shoot down
Speaker 6: like militaries accidentally shoot down civilian airliners all the time. Yeah,
Speaker 6: that's a very common thing. But I think I think
Speaker 6: that's that's a smoke screed, right because like even like
Speaker 6: the actual thing that if you're if you're a militant group,
Speaker 6: usually the thing that you want to be doing if
Speaker 6: you have one of these weapons is shooting down the
Speaker 6: things that people who are bombing you. Yeah, And I
Speaker 6: think there's a really interesting sort of like psychological thing
Speaker 6: going on here with this. Is this is the sort
Speaker 6: of propaganda thing that that you know, to get to get,
Speaker 6: like you random person to be terrified of, like you know,
Speaker 6: the Kurds having surfaced air missiles. Is they used like
Speaker 6: they use people's like fear of getting born up on
Speaker 6: an airplane. It's like no, no, like click it, like
Speaker 6: you know, evidence suggests that what is actually what actually
Speaker 6: happens that is that they shoot down drones.
Speaker 8: Yeah, yes, exactly right, and not like the other thing,
Speaker 8: which is somewhat remarkable. It's it would be one thing
Speaker 8: to have got your hands on one or two, but
Speaker 8: to have been to have shut down in a one year,
Speaker 8: well just over one year, from February thirteenth, twenty twenty
Speaker 8: three until Mike's the first twenty twenty four, they have
Speaker 8: shot down fifteen UAVs like that. That's a that's a
Speaker 8: decent number of manpads or maybe not man pads. That's
Speaker 8: the other thing we kind of didn't mention, right, like
Speaker 8: big reptas can fly very high. We were just sort
Speaker 8: of checking this out before the show, and I think
Speaker 8: they can fly around seven thousand meters, which within theory
Speaker 8: about twenty five thousand feet, Yeah, which is about twice
Speaker 8: the like the the height previous generation manpads like things
Speaker 8: like stingers and iglers can can operate at I'm not
Speaker 8: sure of the the what the for for an igler
Speaker 8: reach targets and mactum altitude of twenty five hundred meters,
Speaker 8: So yeah, that's a little under as high as these
Speaker 8: as these like attack drones can fly. Maybe they have
Speaker 8: to come lower to like launch their munitions, or maybe
Speaker 8: they come lower to to search for people and presumably
Speaker 8: looking for The Kurdistan Freedom Movement has gorillas all over
Speaker 8: these mountains right here, extremely well camouflaged and extremely adept
Speaker 8: at avoiding drone attacks because that is what they have
Speaker 8: been doing for for a long time. So maybe that's how.
Speaker 8: But also maybe maybe there's something that we're not aware
Speaker 8: of or some kind of Maybe it's not a man
Speaker 8: portable system at all. Maybe it's something that is like
Speaker 8: fixed in place well in that in that.
Speaker 6: So, I think one of the one of the really
Speaker 6: interesting questions to you, which is how on earth did
Speaker 6: they get these? Yeah, like whatever system you're using, you know,
Speaker 6: normally like the only way, like you know, like hesblah
Speaker 6: or the Hoho thies get them from Iran, right, but
Speaker 6: the Ridians are absolutely under no circumstances are they going
Speaker 6: to I mean maybe if Turkey declared war on Iran,
Speaker 6: there's like a five percent chance maybe in like their
Speaker 6: darkest hour, they might try this, Like there's no way.
Speaker 8: Yeah, like Iraq and Iran have repeatedly attempted to mobilize
Speaker 8: the Kurds against each other, right, but yeah, I think
Speaker 8: that they would draw the line at handing over manpads
Speaker 8: and yeah, and they're definitely not getting them from the US. No,
Speaker 8: then they're using them in areas where they're with the
Speaker 8: US and the US like.
Speaker 6: Like you know, it's it's it's definitely not I don't
Speaker 6: think it's any other Western country either, Like it doesn't
Speaker 6: make any sense, Like I mean maybe like based Sweden's
Speaker 6: smothering pads in or something, but I really doubt it,
Speaker 6: which leaves it really like up in the air. I mean,
Speaker 6: like maybe Russia maybe somehow, I don't know. It's it's
Speaker 6: it's all very weird.
Speaker 8: Yeah, And I mean like in recent months, the A
Speaker 8: Side regime, which is backed by Russia has been an
Speaker 8: open conflict with the SDF, So I think it's it's
Speaker 8: very unlikely, like the side regime has been fighting with
Speaker 8: and killing it and dying with Yepaga and in Syria,
Speaker 8: so it seems very unlikely. Yeah, it's very That's what's
Speaker 8: very strange, Like the there seems to be a couple
Speaker 8: of different groups of people, right, like the Kuren have
Speaker 8: popped up with these previous generations Igla.
Speaker 6: Kind of manpads.
Speaker 8: The Kitchen have shot down a lot of planes recently,
Speaker 8: and it's not entirely clear how so the Kitchen or
Speaker 8: another ethnic group in Miandmyre somewhat closer ties to the PRC.
Speaker 8: The United ware State Army have man pads. They are
Speaker 8: the sort of closest tied to the PRC of the
Speaker 8: e Rros in Myanma. I'm using a lot of acronyms here.
Speaker 6: Yeah, this is just the problem we're talking about, Curtis
Speaker 6: Group's not I'm talking about, yes, ye, like the two
Speaker 6: great acronym like wars.
Speaker 8: Don't be overlooking the Spanish Civil War, the alphabet super conflicts. Yeah,
Speaker 8: this is this is a life I've chosen for myself.
Speaker 8: So yeah, the ethnic revolutionary organizations in Myanma the closest
Speaker 8: to China, it's the United War State Army who have
Speaker 8: been at the fringes of the conflict, but it's certainly
Speaker 8: not fully committed to fighting against the Hunter in the
Speaker 8: same way that the Karen, the Kachin, the Arakan Army,
Speaker 8: the PDF for the other groups that form the resistance
Speaker 8: in Burma or me m R. But there have definitely
Speaker 8: been more planes shut down in Themma this year than
Speaker 8: in the in the in the the last few years,
Speaker 8: so there's perhaps there's some kind of source in the
Speaker 8: world for these service to miss. There will come a
Speaker 8: point in the human future, right when one of these
Speaker 8: is either reverse engineered or someone just really, if someone
Speaker 8: had said to you ten years ago that, like several
Speaker 8: people online, some of whom I've spoken to, some of
Speaker 8: whom our friend j Camera had spoken to, would be
Speaker 8: able to construct a gun that you could print from
Speaker 8: your computer, Like you'd have said, you're barking, right, And
Speaker 8: at some point in the human future someone will work
Speaker 8: out how to use things they already have to make
Speaker 8: something that can shoot down aircraft. But yeah, it's baffling
Speaker 8: like that. There seems to be no obvious answer as
Speaker 8: to where what the source of these. The last thing
Speaker 8: I will say is that there was a yakuzer boss. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 8: this guy legend. It's just like it like this man's
Speaker 8: my Man's done nothing wrong. He was convicted of selling
Speaker 8: trying to sell manpaed to the Karen and I think
Speaker 8: to the Kachin I can't remember, definitely one of them
Speaker 8: with the Kren, and he was trying to do so
Speaker 8: very funny. He was calling them cake and ice cream,
Speaker 8: incredibly incredibly good cipher it. It's a hell of a
Speaker 8: it's a banger of an indictment. Everyone should read it.
Speaker 6: To Keshi.
Speaker 8: I forget what his last name was, but he he
Speaker 8: was trying to sell them man pads and what he
Speaker 8: was actually doing was being monitored by the DEA. But
Speaker 8: the man pads that he thought that he had access
Speaker 8: to were fictional, like it was. It was the It
Speaker 8: was the FEDS who had conned him into thinking they
Speaker 8: had man pads. They did have some eighty fours. He
Speaker 8: met them in the Netherlands, took an incredible selfie with
Speaker 8: a light anti tank weapon and you can look it up.
Speaker 8: Leather jacket, like I think he's got Blue Aviators on
Speaker 8: like my man's been arrested for having incredible drip and
Speaker 8: it's very sad, But yeah, the man pads he thought
Speaker 8: he was selling were fictional. But the fact that people
Speaker 8: were like, yeah, this SMEs reasonable, like that people were like, okay,
Speaker 8: we're prepared to went to deal with you. They weren't like,
Speaker 8: what are you on about, suggests that maybe these things
Speaker 8: are entering the market. People will always say that they
Speaker 8: came from Afghanistan, like after the US left, But I
Speaker 8: don't think the Taliban would have any reason to sell them.
Speaker 8: They're getting bombed by Pakistan right now, Like what Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 8: it doesn't seem it doesn't make sense to me that
Speaker 8: they would sell them.
Speaker 15: Yeah.
Speaker 6: And one thing I should also mention is like every
Speaker 6: single time there is a war anywhere in the world,
Speaker 6: there are a trillion rumors that come out. They're like, oh,
Speaker 6: there's like this guy is selling like ex weapons or whatever,
Speaker 6: and it's like ninety nine percent of them are false.
Speaker 15: Yeah.
Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, you hear this all the time and it's
Speaker 6: never true. Yeah, so that makes it really hard to
Speaker 6: sort out like where these things are coming from.
Speaker 8: Yeah, exactly. A friend of the podcast, Victor Boot. Is
Speaker 8: he's free again, He's back. Maybe maybe he's gotten back.
Speaker 8: Maybe the god of war is back. Baby. It would
Speaker 8: be incredible. There would be an incredible narrative arc for
Speaker 8: Victor Boot. But like as we said in that episode, right,
Speaker 8: like it's very easy to point to Victor Boot as
Speaker 8: being this evil guy, but in fact, like we've sort
Speaker 8: of ship tourn of weapons to people who turned out
Speaker 8: to be pretty pretty uncivil as the United States, a
Speaker 8: lot more people working you know, all the other places
Speaker 8: that have offices in San Diego made a lot more
Speaker 8: money than he did selling weapons to people. So you know,
Speaker 8: we ought to be you know, Popcorn and the cult
Speaker 8: back a bit there, but clearly something is up with
Speaker 8: surface to our missiles. I hope this makes your Spring
Speaker 8: Bake flights more exciting, just gives it a little edge
Speaker 8: as you.
Speaker 6: Take on't don't fly in Turkey.
Speaker 8: Yeah, yeah, that's the our tip is to to not
Speaker 8: fly from not land. I guess in I mean, like
Speaker 8: we said, the Casey King going to shoot down your
Speaker 8: civilian plane. That then they're nice people. I'll just say
Speaker 8: the K C. K and my experience have been very nice,
Speaker 8: very forthcoming, extremely communicative and responsive to press requests, which
Speaker 8: like much more so than a lot a lot of
Speaker 8: other state actors. And I don't think you have any
Speaker 8: worries about them shooting down your aircraft. But it's an
Speaker 8: interesting development that like, yeah, will fundamentally challenge the way
Speaker 8: that states are able to squash non state armed groups
Speaker 8: going forward.
Speaker 6: Yeah, and if we if we figure out where they
Speaker 6: got them from and that becomes public, well you'll you'll
Speaker 6: see the next episode called we found Out where the
Speaker 6: mad Pads are from?
Speaker 8: Yeah, yeah, I think in unlikelihood to no one's drest
Speaker 8: and to to like announce where these are from. And
Speaker 8: I don't think you know the ones in in Meanmar.
Speaker 8: It's not inconceivable that they came either directly or indirectly
Speaker 8: from China, certainly that that would be the most feasible,
Speaker 8: but seeing them elsewhere, it's fascinating, Like it's you know,
Speaker 8: if somebody has like either reverse engineered these are there's
Speaker 8: large now RHITHM available on the black market, that would
Speaker 8: be a sea change in the way conflict happens, right, like,
Speaker 8: you know, it's rare. Right now, it's able to bomb
Speaker 8: Palestine with complete impunity if non state arm groups had
Speaker 8: access to manpads there that maybe wouldn't be the case,
Speaker 8: but yeah, it's a change. It's a change in the
Speaker 8: way the world goes to war. I think it's always interesting.
Speaker 8: It's always interesting, like for a podcast that was built
Speaker 8: on speculative picture about future collapses like this certainly is
Speaker 8: something that challenges the monopoly of the state.
Speaker 6: So yeah, it's something to keep an eye on.
Speaker 8: I will attach in the notes the Guerrilla TV video
Speaker 8: of the Beiractars being shot down. Please enjoyed the soundtrack.
Speaker 8: Yeah it's banger, and will also include some links to
Speaker 8: those videos of the Karen National Liberation Army with their
Speaker 8: man pads. If you're a man pads understander, you know
Speaker 8: you know where to find me. It's all over the internet.
Speaker 6: And yep.
Speaker 8: With that, I will leave you. Have a great weekend,
Speaker 8: don't fly your sas news.
Speaker 2: Hey we'll be back Monday with more episodes every week
Speaker 2: from now until the heat death of the universe.
Speaker 6: It could happen.
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