Speaker 1: This massive and pervasive hacking by China of US telecom
Speaker 1: companies is significant. Your colleague Mark Warner said, it's most
Speaker 1: significant breach he has ever seen in his entire time
Speaker 1: on the committee. Do you know if China has been
Speaker 1: able to access the audio of Americans phone calls?
Speaker 2: Well, I'm not going to comment on what they access,
Speaker 2: but I agree with Mark Warner's statement, it is an egregious, outrageous,
Speaker 2: and dangerous breach of our telecommunications systems across multiple companies.
Speaker 2: I'll leave it at that. I think as time goes on,
Speaker 2: we're going to learn more about it. Some of it
Speaker 2: will be made public. I think there's more that's still
Speaker 2: being gathered. It's a very serious situation that we face,
Speaker 2: and I think one that is quite threatening, maybe not
Speaker 2: directly to the election per se, but certainly to the
Speaker 2: national security of our country moving forward. It's a vulnerability
Speaker 2: that no one imagined or anticipated, but here it is.
Speaker 3: It's interesting that he put it in the context of
Speaker 3: the election. That is the problem. We're so focused on
Speaker 3: the election. This China Chinese hack of AT and T
Speaker 3: and Verizon and and again, as you just heard, there
Speaker 3: maybe the biggest hack that we've had in our nation's history.
Speaker 3: It's all being run through the prism of the election.
Speaker 3: Did they get anything on Trump or Harris that will
Speaker 3: affect the election? And blah blah blah, and otherwise ignoring
Speaker 3: the fact that Brennan asked at one point, were they
Speaker 3: actually listening to our phone calls of American citizens? And
Speaker 3: Mark Rubia said, well, I'm not going to comment on that.
Speaker 3: What what that seems like a big story.
Speaker 4: Josh Rogan wrote a terrific piece in The Washington Post
Speaker 4: about this. Josh is the columnist for the Global Opinion
Speaker 4: section of the Post, author of a terrific book, Chaos
Speaker 4: under Heaven. Trump she in the Battle for the twenty
Speaker 4: first century, among other things, and Josh joins us. Now, Josh,
Speaker 4: this seems like the all time champion great significance to
Speaker 4: little attention story of all time, or close to it.
Speaker 5: Right in any sane world, this would be the most
Speaker 5: important thing on the news right now. But the timing
Speaker 5: of the election is actually kind of unfortunate because it's
Speaker 5: overshadowing what one of my sources said is the biggest
Speaker 5: intelligence breach in US history.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 5: And after that, Marco Ribo wanted to give but couldn't
Speaker 5: because it's classified information. But I'm going to tell you anyway,
Speaker 5: is that yes, they're listening to the audio real time
Speaker 5: phone calls and watching the text messages in real time
Speaker 5: of hundreds, if not thousands, of American citizens. That they've
Speaker 5: been doing it for a year, and they're embedded in
Speaker 5: the telecom systems in a way that even our own
Speaker 5: intelligence community doesn't fully understand. They don't know how to
Speaker 5: get them out, they don't know if they can get
Speaker 5: them out. And this is a problem that's just so
Speaker 5: big and so hard to wrap your head around that
Speaker 5: the US companies doesn't want to talk about it because
Speaker 5: it's embarrassing. They don't have any answers, and if people
Speaker 5: really knew what was going on, they would freak out.
Speaker 5: And the bottom line is that the telecoms don't want
Speaker 5: to tell anybody either, because it's their systems that got hacked.
Speaker 5: But I think what you heard from Warner and from
Speaker 5: Rubio in that clip is that this is real, This
Speaker 5: is big, and this is not going away. It's only
Speaker 5: going to get worse.
Speaker 3: Wow. So the Chinese have been into our biggest phone
Speaker 3: companies for a year and they don't know how to
Speaker 3: get them out, or if they can get them.
Speaker 5: Out, it's even worse than that because they not only
Speaker 5: did they get are they into the phone companies, they
Speaker 5: got through in the system that the phone company is
Speaker 5: built for the FBI to do wire tapping on criminals
Speaker 5: and spies and people talking with criminals.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 5: FBI can only do that theoretically with a legal warrant,
Speaker 5: but the Chinese intelligence services don't care about that. So
Speaker 5: they have all the access maybe not only to our phones,
Speaker 5: into our text but also to all of the federal
Speaker 5: investigations that are underway and all the counter intelligence operations
Speaker 5: that are underway, which could be completely compromised everywhere around
Speaker 5: the world. And how you deal with that is a
Speaker 5: whole other problem.
Speaker 4: Boy, to say this is devastating. I need to invent
Speaker 4: a new word to correctly convey the seriousness. Astounding kind
Speaker 4: of clip Well, that seems like a good word, And Josh,
Speaker 4: I hate to leap to the libertarian you know angle
Speaker 4: of this immediately, but the idea that the government and
Speaker 4: the phone companies assured us that no, these portals into
Speaker 4: your private communications will only be used for the most
Speaker 4: important of investigations and get very serious, very safe rather
Speaker 4: has has always been you know, exposed as a lie. Right,
Speaker 4: There'll be.
Speaker 5: There'll be a time for the politics of all of this,
Speaker 5: But I have to agree that it proves that when
Speaker 5: you build back doors for the government into encrypted systems,
Speaker 5: things go wrong because those back doors are vulnerabilities and
Speaker 5: they get the bad guys as well as the good
Speaker 5: guys can figure out how to get into them. And
Speaker 5: there's another political angle too, which is the PISO warrant issue,
Speaker 5: because if you're anywhere in Donald Trump's orbit, you have
Speaker 5: a thing against PISO warrants because they were used to
Speaker 5: spy on the Trump campaign in twenty sixteen, and that's
Speaker 5: that's the same system. It's not the same issue, but
Speaker 5: it's the same system. So there's a lot of crazy
Speaker 5: tangents that will come out of this. But the first
Speaker 5: thing is just for in my opinion, of Americans to
Speaker 5: know that they're vulnerable so that they could do something
Speaker 5: about it, so they can change their practices, and for
Speaker 5: the telecom community and for the intelligence community to tell
Speaker 5: us what's going on, because that's what they're supposed to
Speaker 5: do when something like this happened.
Speaker 3: What's your worst case scenario for what China could do
Speaker 3: with some of this information that they've gathered.
Speaker 5: Well, I mean again, I think the worst case scenario,
Speaker 5: hopefully that we want to see is that they use
Speaker 5: it to interfere in our politics in a direct way.
Speaker 5: That's kind of what the Russians or the Iritians would do.
Speaker 5: What it seems more likely is that they'll just save
Speaker 5: it all and use it in intelligence ways for blackmail, disinformation,
Speaker 5: deep fakes, you know, collecting on any American they want
Speaker 5: for any time. So it's kind of like there's a
Speaker 5: lot of worst case scenarios, and you know, there's no
Speaker 5: way to sort of plan for all of them. But
Speaker 5: it seems that the primary worst case scenario, which is
Speaker 5: that our telecommunications network are compromised, that's already here. That's
Speaker 5: a pretty bad case scenario already.
Speaker 4: Right. I completely understand the concept of if they know
Speaker 4: all of our secrets, the worst case scenario is that
Speaker 4: they will use them whenever they need to for the
Speaker 4: next one hundred years. But at the same time, I'm sorry,
Speaker 4: I'm just so flabbergasted by the notion that they have
Speaker 4: access to a great deal of our counter intelligence.
Speaker 6: I mean, that is just so disastrous, right, So we
Speaker 6: have you know, not just counter intelligence, criminal investigation, any
Speaker 6: wire tap or surveillance that the FBI or any other
Speaker 6: federal law enforcement is doing.
Speaker 5: Those records are kept somewhere. Now this is a kind
Speaker 5: of a part we don't know, to be clear, we
Speaker 5: don't know if they have that. What we do know
Speaker 5: is that they, excuse me, collect already collected audio on
Speaker 5: for example, former President Trump, jd Vance, Jared Kushner, Eric Trump,
Speaker 5: members of the Harris campaign, congressional staffers for Chuck Schumer,
Speaker 5: leading US business leaders, leading US government officials. We don't
Speaker 5: know their names. So those are the people they've already
Speaker 5: spied on and already have got stuff on. And the
Speaker 5: list keeps growing every day. The FBI finds out more people,
Speaker 5: and eventually you have to think like, oh, maybe we
Speaker 5: should tell those people, right, And the FBI has been
Speaker 5: reluctant to do that because once they tell these people,
Speaker 5: these people tell other people, and all of a sudden,
Speaker 5: people like me start to figure out what's going on,
Speaker 5: and I'm like, oh, I got to tell the country,
Speaker 5: you know. But you know, eventually there's this problem where
Speaker 5: people are getting spied on. They need to know it, okay,
Speaker 5: And if the government doesn't want to tell us because
Speaker 5: they're embarrassed about it. That's a that's its own problem.
Speaker 4: You know, the more I Josh Rogan, Global Opinions, Calumnists
Speaker 4: or the Washington Post is online, Jack go ahead.
Speaker 3: And the more I think about it, it makes such sense.
Speaker 3: I mean, it is small ball for she or whoever
Speaker 3: makes these decisions to try to affect the election. He's
Speaker 3: thinking bigger than that. I mean, he wants to influence
Speaker 3: policy on a major level, or understand it ahead of
Speaker 3: time or whatever over whoever ends up in the administry,
Speaker 3: maybe for years to come. So yeah, just you know,
Speaker 3: nudging the election one where or another's probably small compared to
Speaker 3: their thoughts.
Speaker 5: Well, that's right. They'd rather preserve it for let's say, hypothetically,
Speaker 5: China invades Taiwan and then we try to do something
Speaker 5: about it, and then they shut down our telecomsystem. Not
Speaker 5: to mention whatever else they're in, because this is just
Speaker 5: a piece of a puzzle. The Chinese are also into
Speaker 5: our energy systems and our manufacturing and construction systems, and
Speaker 5: you know, our internet service providers. Do you can imagine
Speaker 5: that's a pretty big deterrent for us getting involved to
Speaker 5: try to save Taiwan. If they're like, oh, we're just
Speaker 5: going to shut off your internet and your phones and
Speaker 5: then we're going to see what's what you know, So, yeah,
Speaker 5: they have their own interests. It's also not clear that
Speaker 5: the Chinese have a clear preference between Harris and Trump.
Speaker 5: The Russians want Harris, I'm sorry. The Russians want Trump,
Speaker 5: The Iranians want Harris. The Chinese could play it either way.
Speaker 5: So they're preparing for both scenarios. That's why they're spying
Speaker 5: on both camps because they want to be ready either way.
Speaker 4: Right, And it occurs to me that, you know, given
Speaker 4: the openness of our democrat system and the fact that
Speaker 4: the legislature weighs in on so many of the important
Speaker 4: policies and topics vis vir relationship with China going forward
Speaker 4: for the next twenty years, you know, decoupling the economies,
Speaker 4: the farm, big pharma, you know, tech, military technologies, chips,
Speaker 4: just all of it. All of that is going to
Speaker 4: go through the legislative process. And if they can bring
Speaker 4: pressure to bear on one point six million people who
Speaker 4: they have dossiers on having just talked to their lover
Speaker 4: on the cell phone or texting their bookie or whatever.
Speaker 4: I mean, they are going to exert that pressure wherever
Speaker 4: they can. Oh my god, what a what a what
Speaker 4: a situation.
Speaker 5: It's really bad.
Speaker 3: You have got to be I mean, this was the
Speaker 3: reason of your piece. Just shocked that it's not getting
Speaker 3: more attention than it is.
Speaker 5: Well, you know, I think, to be honest, guys, this
Speaker 5: is why people inside the system brought this story to me.
Speaker 5: One of them said, because they're taking a risk by
Speaker 5: you know, killing me Ali the questions information knowing that
Speaker 5: I'm going to tell the world, because they thought it
Speaker 5: was that important. And one of them said to me, listen, Josh,
Speaker 5: this is bigger than the election, and we can't afford
Speaker 5: to let this get caught up in political and you
Speaker 5: know again sort of the blame game and how it's
Speaker 5: going to affect privacy and how it's going to you know,
Speaker 5: the debate over FAISA and the Russia Gate or whatever.
Speaker 5: My source said to me, listen, that's not but that's
Speaker 5: not the most important thing right now. The people need
Speaker 5: to know because the response has to have a fire
Speaker 5: lit under it, because the telecom companies in the FBI
Speaker 5: and the intelligence community are bearing this thing now, are
Speaker 5: they burying it because of the election. No, they're probably
Speaker 5: bearing it because they don't know what they're do. You know,
Speaker 5: they don't know what to do, you know, And it's
Speaker 5: it's real. It's just such a huge problem that you know,
Speaker 5: people are going to get freaked out, but better that
Speaker 5: they get freaked out by the truth and not. And
Speaker 5: I don't see any reason to wait election or no
Speaker 5: election to tell people that they're at risk.
Speaker 4: Did I just have an acid flag? Did your source
Speaker 4: say to you, Josh, this is bigger than the election.
Speaker 5: That's a direct quote, you know, Okay, and good.
Speaker 3: Well, you're you're gonna be the Woodward and Bernstein of
Speaker 3: this story. Then we will keep an eye on your
Speaker 3: column and uh, you know, and your Twitter feed on
Speaker 3: this one, because this has got legs. I'm sure.
Speaker 4: Oh my goodness.
Speaker 5: I'll let you know when I get another piece of it,
Speaker 5: because this is going to get worse before it gets better.
Speaker 4: Wow.
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 4: We have a link to Josh's whole piece at the
Speaker 4: top of hot Links, Armstrong and getty dot com. Josh
Speaker 4: always enlightening in a pleasure. Thanks a million, have good day.
Speaker 4: We are so Jack, Just real quick, I'm looking at
Speaker 4: the top of the most red opinion pieces in the
Speaker 4: UH the WAPO right now. Number one, who's going to
Speaker 4: win on election Day? Here are eight columnist predictions. Number two,
Speaker 4: women can send Trump packing? Number three can you guess
Speaker 4: who people will vote for? Try the squiz? Number four?
Speaker 4: If Trump loses Pennsylvania, he'll have no one to blame
Speaker 4: but himself. Fifth, it's about abortion.
Speaker 3: And I had at a lefty friend was always so
Speaker 3: into who was president and Trump and then this and that,
Speaker 3: and I could never get them into a conversation about
Speaker 3: China or anything, you know, big because they always go
Speaker 3: back to the election. That's way a lot of people are.
Speaker 3: And how about how about sources going to Josh Rogan
Speaker 3: because they know he's into this sort of stuff, saying, Okay,
Speaker 3: we got to give you some information. Print a piece
Speaker 3: about this. Nobody's paying attention. It's bigger than the election.
Speaker 3: It's the biggest hack of our systems in US history
Speaker 3: by China, our number one enemy, and it's getting no coverage.
Speaker 3: And Margaret Brennan throws it in at the end after
Speaker 3: arguing about Trump and what he said about Liz Cheney.
Speaker 3: She throws around in at the very end after like
Speaker 3: an eight minute interview as an afterthought. As an afterthought,
Speaker 3: Yeah wow wow, well, Gully, how do we transition?
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Speaker 3: God, we're so fat, soft and happy with our who's said, what,
Speaker 3: mean thing about whoever? And arguing about that for days
Speaker 3: and ignoring the fact that world history is not going
Speaker 3: to change. There's always a battle for who's in charge
Speaker 3: of what, and China wants to take over and they
Speaker 3: just had and they just you know, had a huge, huge,
Speaker 3: wintured go ahead. If you talk to a thousand people today,
Speaker 3: how many people would know this story?
Speaker 4: And I'm picturing Shijhin Ping. They're in Beijing saying, oh
Speaker 4: my god, they discovered our hack. What are the Americans saying?
Speaker 4: And his advisers saying, nobody's really noticed. They're not talking
Speaker 4: about it at all. Other than the Armstrong and Getty show.
Speaker 4: We got a lot more on the way. Stay here,
Speaker 4: Armstrong and