Speaker 1: Get in touch with technology with tex Stuff from how
Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot Com. Hey there, and welcome to text Stuff.
Speaker 1: I'm Jonathan Strickland, and today we are going to start
Speaker 1: a two part series and we may even go further
Speaker 1: into this in the future about PRISM and the n
Speaker 1: s A and intelligence and intelligence gathering and how that
Speaker 1: affects everybody, American citizens, people all around the world. And
Speaker 1: what is all this this hubub about anyway, right, because
Speaker 1: there's been quite a great deal of hubbub ever since
Speaker 1: a fellow named Edward Snowden uh leaked some information to
Speaker 1: some to some press like The Guardian and the Washington Post.
Speaker 1: Although to be fair, the hubb had really been going
Speaker 1: on for much longer than that, and and and this
Speaker 1: was just kind of one of those big things that
Speaker 1: everyone has gone a minute, yeah, for good reasons. But
Speaker 1: snow Din pushed the snowball that became the avalanche. That's
Speaker 1: that's what happened. But you know, today, what we're going
Speaker 1: to talk about in this episode is kind of laying
Speaker 1: the groundwork so that our discussion about the PRISM program
Speaker 1: and the related programs makes sense. So in order for
Speaker 1: us to do that, we really wanted to talk more
Speaker 1: about kind of the groundwork here, knowing the existing US policy, right,
Speaker 1: knowing that some people, some of our listeners may not
Speaker 1: be familiar with the US policy. Some of our listeners
Speaker 1: live in other countries and are therefore not exposed to
Speaker 1: US law on a regular basis. And more we're brought
Speaker 1: up within the American public school system and weren't exposed
Speaker 1: to US law. Right. Sorry, that's a cheap shot vocal bomb,
Speaker 1: but that's kind of a little bit accurate one. But anyway, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's there's there's a lot of stuff that we
Speaker 1: need to be able to talk about, and so we're
Speaker 1: gonna lay down some some basic truths. People come along
Speaker 1: with us. So to begin with, one of the things
Speaker 1: that this really concerns is one of the specific amendments
Speaker 1: to the U. S Constitution. This is one from the
Speaker 1: Bill of Rights. Yeah, Bill of Rights are the first
Speaker 1: ten amendments to that Constitution. Now, the Constitution, of course,
Speaker 1: is the document that established that the United States is
Speaker 1: in fact a sovereign nation and it has its own
Speaker 1: laws and its own way of governing the people. And
Speaker 1: the amendments are kind of the the ways of addressing
Speaker 1: the Constitution to either expand or focus parts of US
Speaker 1: policy so that it has a broad application. And and
Speaker 1: in terms of the Bill of Rights, it's specifically to
Speaker 1: um protect the freedoms of the individual citizens right right.
Speaker 1: So everyone's heard of. The first Amendment is the freedom
Speaker 1: of speech. That's the one that a lot of people
Speaker 1: will quote quite a bit. But the one we are
Speaker 1: specifically concerned with is the fourth Amendment, which and I
Speaker 1: will quote this, this is the actual amendment. The right
Speaker 1: of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers,
Speaker 1: and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures shall not be violated.
Speaker 1: And no warrants shall issue but upon probable cause, supported
Speaker 1: by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to
Speaker 1: be searched and the persons or things to be seized.
Speaker 1: And now this was created in UM in nine, ratified
Speaker 1: in sevente So the Internet wasn't a thing, no, but
Speaker 1: this was. You know, you can see what the founding
Speaker 1: fathers were thinking at the time that they they had
Speaker 1: already experienced what they were calling tyranny under the British monarchy.
Speaker 1: Those of us who are anglophiles and monarchists might sting
Speaker 1: a little at that phrase. But at any rate, Uh, no,
Speaker 1: it was pretty accurate. Really. Uh. What this is essentially
Speaker 1: saying is that in order for any one to be
Speaker 1: able to search you or anything you own, whether that's
Speaker 1: property or effects on your person, they have to have
Speaker 1: authorization to do so. And further, in order to get authorization,
Speaker 1: they have to have a good reason for it. There
Speaker 1: can't just be a blanket. Yeah, you go out and
Speaker 1: do whatever you need to do to make sure that
Speaker 1: that we get the bad guy. This is to protect
Speaker 1: against that, so that people aren't subject to unreasonable searches.
Speaker 1: And so that's what a lot of this fuss is
Speaker 1: about is. And when I say fuss, I'm not trying
Speaker 1: to diminish it. I'm just using a word because I
Speaker 1: was brought up in the South and that's that's what happens.
Speaker 1: But no, I'm not. I'm not suggesting that this is
Speaker 1: a trivial matter at all. In fact, it's the very opposite.
Speaker 1: This is fundamental to the freedoms that are considered to
Speaker 1: be integral in American citizen Yeah. Yeah, and I would
Speaker 1: say that that that modern ly internationally speaking, it's it's
Speaker 1: a human rights, no, sure, Yeah, these are rights that
Speaker 1: that organizations like the United Nations have said this is
Speaker 1: this is a universal right. This is not something that
Speaker 1: is is a peculiar to a particular government. This should
Speaker 1: be something that everyone should expect. And in fact, that's
Speaker 1: another good point just out of the gate, is to
Speaker 1: say the Constitution is protecting American citizens rights, it does
Speaker 1: not protect people who are not American citizens, right. So
Speaker 1: in other words, uh, and that's that plays a huge
Speaker 1: part in in the both PRISM and the related programs
Speaker 1: that the n s A and other intelligence organizations are following.
Speaker 1: So that's what the key of all of this is
Speaker 1: about this this constitutional amendment. Uh. And we'll get into
Speaker 1: detail in the second podcast about kind of what is
Speaker 1: going on and why people are concerned and the arguments
Speaker 1: on both sides, because both sides have presented their own
Speaker 1: arguments on this. Now, another thing we need to kind
Speaker 1: of define are the different agencies within the United States
Speaker 1: that are tasked with maintaining law and order, investigating crime,
Speaker 1: and also gathering intelligence or or acting in counter intelligence roles. Right,
Speaker 1: Because although we will be talking mostly about the n Essay,
Speaker 1: which is the program that's responsible for PRISM, there are
Speaker 1: actually seventeen governmental bodies that have to do with intelligence gathering. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is it's it's complicated stuff. So we're gonna actually
Speaker 1: give you a lowdown on all seventeen offices and agencies
Speaker 1: because it's good to know what these different organizations are.
Speaker 1: And it can be really confusing, right, I Mean, there's
Speaker 1: always that time where I get to something. It's like
Speaker 1: a central intelligence agency does that? Is that domestic or
Speaker 1: is it foreign? Is it which one is? Federal Federal
Speaker 1: Bureau of Investigation. That's certainly domestic, But what do you know?
Speaker 1: And then you start you start going down this this
Speaker 1: rabbit hole of all these different agencies. It really shows
Speaker 1: how complex and gargantuan and bureaucratic our government this to
Speaker 1: the point where you're thinking, there's there's probably some streamlining
Speaker 1: that could happen at some point um. And also keep
Speaker 1: in mind that not all of these agencies and offices
Speaker 1: have traditionally work together. Some of them are have been
Speaker 1: at odds, very much so at the CIA and the
Speaker 1: n s A in in particular have not always seen
Speaker 1: ida I will partially because their their duties come very
Speaker 1: close to overlapping in some cases. And I think the
Speaker 1: CIA is tired of the n s A reading their emails.
Speaker 1: That's really what it comes down to. That's a joke.
Speaker 1: It's kind of not too but anyway, Yeah, the CIA
Speaker 1: and n s A have actually competed. There's a in
Speaker 1: fact that there's a little aside. We can give a
Speaker 1: little bit later, but let's talk about these basic definitions.
Speaker 1: So we've got law enforcement, all right, law enforcement, that's
Speaker 1: pretty much what it sounds like. These are the agents
Speaker 1: who are designated to protect citizens, to enforce laws, to
Speaker 1: apprehend people who are violating laws. So this is essentially
Speaker 1: your police, so of various levels, whether it's in the
Speaker 1: United States, we have lots of different kinds of police.
Speaker 1: There's a federal, state, county, municipal. Yeah, there's there's lots
Speaker 1: of different police. You know, because you can you can
Speaker 1: violate federal law, you can violate state law. I mean
Speaker 1: you can't. Don't go do that. I'm just saying that
Speaker 1: there are different agencies that are in charge of No
Speaker 1: you may not. Well, I mean it's bad. We do
Speaker 1: not condone that goes without saying, we're just we're both loopy.
Speaker 1: Has been a very long day of lots of research.
Speaker 1: You would be amazed at how much research we have
Speaker 1: in front of us right now, But so so who
Speaker 1: who Who oversees all of these? So the Department of
Speaker 1: Justice oversees law enforcement, and this involves agencies beyond just
Speaker 1: the police. We're talking about the Federal Bureau of Investigation,
Speaker 1: the Drug Enforcement Agency or d e A UH, the
Speaker 1: Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives also known as
Speaker 1: a t F because they didn't have explosives in their
Speaker 1: name for a long time, and the U. S. Marshals Service.
Speaker 1: All of those fall under the Department of Justice and
Speaker 1: its law enforcement. UH. Then you have investigation, which is
Speaker 1: actually part of law enforcement. It's not like it's completely separate,
Speaker 1: but investing. You know, law enforcement can be about enforcing
Speaker 1: laws and apprehending people who are violating the law. Investigators
Speaker 1: they are the ones who actually investigate crime to determine
Speaker 1: who committed the crime and and and how to apprehend
Speaker 1: that person. Sometimes detectives, right right, You can have investigators
Speaker 1: or detectives. These are the type of names that you
Speaker 1: tend to hear with investigators, and that can be with
Speaker 1: agencies like the police, with the FBI. We also in
Speaker 1: the United States have private investigators who can get a
Speaker 1: private license to be uh to to investigate certain things. Um,
Speaker 1: so that's that's another level. Then you've got intelligence. Now
Speaker 1: this is different from law enforcement. It's different from an investigation. Uh.
Speaker 1: It involves some investigative work, but it's not an investigation role.
Speaker 1: So intelligence is all about gathering data, getting as much
Speaker 1: information as possible. Generally speaking, it tends to be focused
Speaker 1: on foreign entities. So foreign intelligence would be uh, information
Speaker 1: about other nations, governments, their activities there, their motivations, what
Speaker 1: you know, what they are doing, and the activities of
Speaker 1: their agents, both within those foreign nations and abroad. So
Speaker 1: this is the James Bond stuff, right, this is spy stuff.
Speaker 1: And then uh, you've got two broad versions of intelligence.
Speaker 1: You have human intelligence. That's specifically the James Bond type stuff,
Speaker 1: because this is what you get when you have interpersonal contact,
Speaker 1: when you have a spy meeting a double agent and
Speaker 1: they're exchanging information so that the spy can bring the
Speaker 1: information back home or uh it's a spy who has
Speaker 1: infiltrated an agency or a government office or whatever to
Speaker 1: gather information. That's human intelligence. That's the CEE I a's
Speaker 1: job that they oversee human intelligence in the United States
Speaker 1: for foreign intelligence, so CEE I A focused on the
Speaker 1: foreign um intelligence, by the way, can also be domestic.
Speaker 1: There's domestic intelligence where you've got especially with things like
Speaker 1: homeland security. You have within the United States lots of
Speaker 1: domestic intelligence UH officials as well, but we're mainly looking
Speaker 1: at foreign in these podcasts. The other broad type of
Speaker 1: intelligence you have your human intelligence. The other broad type
Speaker 1: is signal intelligence. Now this is messages communication, right, so
Speaker 1: this is the realm of anything digital or phones or yeah,
Speaker 1: this is this is what the n s A looks at, right,
Speaker 1: this is this is their department. So the signals Intelligence,
Speaker 1: by the way, sometimes abbreviated I'm signed yeah yeah, which
Speaker 1: I just love and n s A by the way,
Speaker 1: in case we were using the acronymics National Security Agency M.
Speaker 1: I don't think we said that at the top, No,
Speaker 1: but that's their actual full name, and they are in
Speaker 1: charge are of intercepting and decrypting messages between entities, normally
Speaker 1: foreign entities or foreign like a foreign government and its agents.
Speaker 1: Agents can be located within the United States, which gives
Speaker 1: rise to Yeah, that's that's one of the big reasons
Speaker 1: why this whole mess has become you know, it's become
Speaker 1: such a powder kig really because the potential for agents
Speaker 1: to be in the United States means that the n
Speaker 1: s A has to look at the broadest approach to
Speaker 1: trying to gather information, but that then creeps in on
Speaker 1: the individual liberties and the expectation of privacy that American
Speaker 1: citizens have. That's the crux of this. So the signal
Speaker 1: intelligence is really what we're looking at, though the human
Speaker 1: intelligence is awesomely cool. And we have to do a
Speaker 1: podcast about spy stuff at some point. Absolutely we haven't.
Speaker 1: You know, we never did. Chris never did, you know.
Speaker 1: I tried to convince Chris to do it, but then
Speaker 1: he would just sort of glance around and say red
Speaker 1: roses and then just run away. And I have no
Speaker 1: idea what that means to this day. Um. He told
Speaker 1: me that I was supposed to use my Captain decoder
Speaker 1: encryption ring. I don't have one of those. Chris is
Speaker 1: a little messed up. I love you, Mr Polettic wherever
Speaker 1: you are. Um. Anyway, then there's counter intelligence. So counter
Speaker 1: intelligence does not mean that you sit around, you know,
Speaker 1: watching reality TV and about counterintelligence is about preventing other
Speaker 1: entities from gaining information about your country, government, agency, whatever. Right.
Speaker 1: This can also be called information assurance, Yes, that's the
Speaker 1: other term for it. So really this is all about
Speaker 1: protecting the information structures within whatever, whether it's a country
Speaker 1: or whatever it's it's encrypting communications, you know, doing the
Speaker 1: opposite of essentially intelligence. This is this is where you
Speaker 1: end up hiring what are called white hat hackers who
Speaker 1: try to break into a systems so that way you
Speaker 1: can identify any vulnerabilities that your system has and address
Speaker 1: it before real bad guys are able to get into
Speaker 1: your systems. Um. So those are your basic terms. Now
Speaker 1: we've defined that, which leads us to the intelligence community
Speaker 1: of the United States. And I don't mean to suggest
Speaker 1: that the intelligence community is a big old band of
Speaker 1: happy spies who just sit around and chat spy stuff
Speaker 1: all the time, because, uh, like we said, they can
Speaker 1: sometimes be a little competitive. Now, there's quite a few
Speaker 1: of them, and we're gonna go through and mention them.
Speaker 1: I will go ahead, and I'm gonna lump in four
Speaker 1: of them together, actually I think five of them together.
Speaker 1: The military branches of intelligence, so Air Force, Army, Coast Guard, Marines,
Speaker 1: and Navy all have their own offices of intelligence. Uh,
Speaker 1: and they're all similar enough where I feel like I
Speaker 1: can lump them in together in the sense that yeah,
Speaker 1: because that way it cuts down the other like five down,
Speaker 1: twelve to go um. But they essentially all concentrate on
Speaker 1: gathering intelligence to support wartime efforts. So specifically, when the
Speaker 1: United States is in some form of actual combat type
Speaker 1: of situation, there's some sort of conflict, even if it
Speaker 1: hasn't broken out into all out war, these offices are
Speaker 1: gathering the information that gives the United States the best
Speaker 1: chance to counteract anything that the various other parties could
Speaker 1: be doing. But they also coordinate with other intelligence agencies
Speaker 1: whenever they gather intelligence that could be key to national security.
Speaker 1: It's just not their main focus. Their main focus is
Speaker 1: to support whatever branch of the military they happen to
Speaker 1: be part of. So, but each one does have its
Speaker 1: own intelligence agency. Then you've got the Central Intelligence Agency,
Speaker 1: which we've already kind of alluded to. It gathers information
Speaker 1: about foreign governments, corporations, and individuals in an effort to
Speaker 1: provide intelligence that affects national security interests, and they report
Speaker 1: directly to the the The CIA has its own structure,
Speaker 1: but the CIA reports to the Director of National Intelligence,
Speaker 1: which replaced and the CIA replaced the Office of Strategic Services.
Speaker 1: Are the OSS back in? Here's a bit of trivia.
Speaker 1: Do you know what pop culture character started in the
Speaker 1: early eighties had a stint in the O s S.
Speaker 1: But you only get to hear about it in a
Speaker 1: little bit of a side dialogue and the most recent
Speaker 1: version of his movies. He wears a fedora and carries
Speaker 1: a whip. Indiana Indiana Jones was part of well, he
Speaker 1: at least worked with the OSS. According to India Jones
Speaker 1: and Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, he has this one
Speaker 1: little aside where he mentions the OSS. And as soon
Speaker 1: as I heard that, I thought, this is the movie
Speaker 1: I want to see, not the one that I'm currently watching.
Speaker 1: That I would. I would, if anyone out there is listening,
Speaker 1: I would watch that movie too. An audience of two, Yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, I've done more for less, all right,
Speaker 1: So then we've got skipping over the other military ones.
Speaker 1: We've got the Defense Intelligence Agency, which is a central
Speaker 1: producer and manager of foreign military intelligence. It's part of
Speaker 1: the Department of Defense. There's actually quite a few civilian
Speaker 1: employees who work for the Defense Intelligence Agency. They're not
Speaker 1: all military employees, and it includes a clandestine service that
Speaker 1: conducts spy activities. So, in other words, a lot of
Speaker 1: our spies report to the Defense Intelligence Agency UM. It
Speaker 1: was established back in nineteen sixty one, and the director
Speaker 1: of the d i A answers to the Director of
Speaker 1: National Intelligence just like the CIA does, and also advises
Speaker 1: the Secretary of Defense and the Chairman of the Joint
Speaker 1: Chiefs of Staff, so important person in the role of
Speaker 1: the United States government. Like I said, the one thing,
Speaker 1: if you don't take anything else away from this podcast,
Speaker 1: you will take away the fact that our government in
Speaker 1: the United States is enormous and complicated. And then we've
Speaker 1: got the Department of Energy, which has its own Office
Speaker 1: of Intelligence and counter Intelligence, which might surprise you to
Speaker 1: hear that the Department of Energy has one. But then
Speaker 1: when you think how important energy is, yeah, yeah, it's
Speaker 1: it's a huge part of our infrastructure. So yeah, so
Speaker 1: you know, you remember hearing the news a couple of
Speaker 1: years ago about how hackers had discovered not just hackers,
Speaker 1: but people working in cybersecurity had discovered that uh, hackers
Speaker 1: in in foreign countries had accessed certain parts of our
Speaker 1: power grid and placed essentially little uh surveillance, Yeah, just
Speaker 1: to keep an eye on what was going on with
Speaker 1: the potential maybe down the road at some point to
Speaker 1: commit sabotage. Although there was no evidence of sabotage being
Speaker 1: committed at that time, the potential there was a big
Speaker 1: you know that that that raised some huge alarms. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and we have we have a whole um what one
Speaker 1: or two part series on them on cybersecurity from a
Speaker 1: few months back, if you care to go listen to that,
Speaker 1: right exactly. And so the Department of Energy has its
Speaker 1: own Office of Intelligence and counter Intelligence. They provide information
Speaker 1: to the Secretary of Energy, and the expertise for this
Speaker 1: office includes nuclear energy, radioactive waste, energy security. So these
Speaker 1: are the people that you go to when you want
Speaker 1: to be able to gather information about uh, not just
Speaker 1: not just domestic but foreign activities as well that could
Speaker 1: involve specifically things like nuclear power or even nuclear weapon capability. Uh.
Speaker 1: The counterintelligence efforts are led by the Department's National Nuclear
Speaker 1: Security Administration or in an essay. Then we've got the
Speaker 1: Department of Homeland Security. This is a relatively young department
Speaker 1: really was formed in response to the terrorist attacks on
Speaker 1: September eleven, two thousand one, and it's responsible for the
Speaker 1: protection of the US and its territories from terrorist attacks
Speaker 1: as well as to respond to other events like natural disasters.
Speaker 1: So it's it's supposed to be all about, you know,
Speaker 1: it's in the name Homeland Security. It's the supposed to
Speaker 1: be protecting the United States citizens. That particular department has
Speaker 1: been the recipient of lots of criticism from various people
Speaker 1: who think that the legislation that created that department may
Speaker 1: have overstepped some constitutional bounds, and that's still a matter
Speaker 1: of debate in the United States. A lot of these
Speaker 1: policies that were formed very quickly after nine eleven um
Speaker 1: are going to come back in the conversation because because
Speaker 1: they were a bunch of them, and they were big, yeah, yes,
Speaker 1: and rapid change was sometimes uh, sometimes led to concerns
Speaker 1: after the fact, like everyone was so concerned about responding
Speaker 1: to a particular horrible event in the United States history
Speaker 1: that some would argue that that mistakes were made in
Speaker 1: that process. Others would argue that it was exactly what
Speaker 1: was needed. So I don't mean to say that, you know,
Speaker 1: it's a one sided debate. It really isn't. There's a
Speaker 1: lot of absolutely cogent points being made on both sides.
Speaker 1: Then you have the Department of State and they have
Speaker 1: the Bureau of Intelligence and Research. Their primary responsibility is
Speaker 1: to analyze intelligence data. So this was originally part of
Speaker 1: the os S, so it was part of what is
Speaker 1: now the CIA, but it's its own separate department at
Speaker 1: this point. So they are all about, you know, if
Speaker 1: you they don't necessarily gather intelligence, but they analyze it.
Speaker 1: So it's one of the departments that really focuses on
Speaker 1: what does this intelligence actually mean. Then you have the
Speaker 1: Department of the Treasury. They have an Office of Terrorism
Speaker 1: and Financial Intelligence that's meant to guard the US financial
Speaker 1: system against threats from rogue nations, terrorists, money launderers, and
Speaker 1: et cetera. Then you've got the Drug Enforcement Administration, which,
Speaker 1: as I mentioned before, was part of the Department of
Speaker 1: Justice that was established in nineteen seventy and it's a
Speaker 1: federal law enforcement agency and its main purposes to combat
Speaker 1: drug smuggling and uh and within the United States. It
Speaker 1: also has a responsibility for controlling and pursuing US drug investigations.
Speaker 1: In foreign countries, which is tricky business. Anytime you have
Speaker 1: a country performing an investigation in another country, you know,
Speaker 1: you've got that's sticky, absolutely, especially with with you know,
Speaker 1: something as sticky as drug laws, which are so different
Speaker 1: in so many places, so so economically driven. Yes, yes, economically,
Speaker 1: that's plays a huge role in it. Politically, it gets
Speaker 1: really sticky. It's a tough situation. Then you've got your
Speaker 1: Federal Bureau of Investigation the FBI. It's also part of
Speaker 1: the Department of Justice. That's meant to be a federal
Speaker 1: criminal investigative body and also an internal intelligence agency, and
Speaker 1: that was established back in nine eight. Of course, uh
Speaker 1: I would say that the most famous director of the
Speaker 1: FBI would be j Edgar Hoover, known for, according to
Speaker 1: the movie Clue, known for a cleaning up multiple murders
Speaker 1: because his name is Hoover. But dump Bump. I just
Speaker 1: saw a Clue like a couple of weeks ago. So again,
Speaker 1: it wasn't my first time. I've seen it many times.
Speaker 1: I'm glad that you're pulling in puns from other storiess.
Speaker 1: Now that's really I can't be the sole source of puns.
Speaker 1: I'm only one man. Then, We've got the National Geospatial
Speaker 1: Intelligence Agency, which I'm gonna be honest, I had never
Speaker 1: heard of until I did the research for this podcast.
Speaker 1: I did not know this agency existed. Um, but they're
Speaker 1: also known as the ng A, and they're part of
Speaker 1: the Department of Defense, and they're an agency that plays
Speaker 1: a role in combat support, so it's kind of similar
Speaker 1: to the military roles. They're primarily tasked with gathering and
Speaker 1: analyzing geospatial intelligence to protect national security, and they were
Speaker 1: formerly known as the National Imagery and Mapping Agency. Then
Speaker 1: you've got the National Reconnaissance Office, which is a spy
Speaker 1: organization and they create spy satellites and provide imagery and
Speaker 1: signal intelligence to various agencies and military offices in the
Speaker 1: United States. So this is the agency that's gathering lots
Speaker 1: of data from electronic communications, but then they end up
Speaker 1: funneling that data to other agencies. They're not necessarily um
Speaker 1: analyzing the information themselves. Uh. And again they report to
Speaker 1: the Director of National Intelligence and the Secretary of Defense.
Speaker 1: Then we've got our our our darling are our buddies,
Speaker 1: the ones that will be talking about quite a bit.
Speaker 1: We finally got to them and The only reason it's
Speaker 1: taken so long is because I've been going in alphabetical order.
Speaker 1: The National Security Agency the n S a centralized agency
Speaker 1: that produces and manages signals intelligence for the United States,
Speaker 1: gathers foreign intelligence through various means, including spying. Also in
Speaker 1: charge of communication security. They are experts in cryptanalysis and cryptography,
Speaker 1: meaning that codes and crypto, cryptograms, anything that has to
Speaker 1: do with encoding information. They are experts at both doing
Speaker 1: that to protect our information the United States is information
Speaker 1: and also undoing that, yes, also on doing that to
Speaker 1: figure out what the heck people are talking about. And
Speaker 1: they're experts, in fact, such experts that there's a famous
Speaker 1: there's a famous statue outside that has four sides, and
Speaker 1: each side is encrypted in a different a different way, right,
Speaker 1: So each cryptogram is is different, and each one, like
Speaker 1: if you were to number the sides one through four,
Speaker 1: one would be the quote unquote easiest to decrypt and
Speaker 1: four would be the most difficult. Uh. And there was
Speaker 1: sort of a challenge that was thrown down to both
Speaker 1: the CIA and an essay to decrypt these sides, and
Speaker 1: the CIA decrypted the first three sides within a set
Speaker 1: number of years. I can't remember exactly what it is.
Speaker 1: I'm this is anecdotal. I didn't write them down in
Speaker 1: my notes. So yeah, I think this was put up
Speaker 1: in the nineteen fifties or maybe the sixty which is
Speaker 1: I'm like, so there was sometimes well that this was
Speaker 1: this is just sort of an aside to everything else,
Speaker 1: which is why we don't have all the data in
Speaker 1: front of us. Uh, this would be its own kind
Speaker 1: of fun podcast. But at any rate, the CIA went
Speaker 1: to try and crack this. They really were taking this
Speaker 1: to heart and saying this, we want to be the
Speaker 1: ones to crack this information. And they started working on
Speaker 1: and they were so proud when they announced it. And
Speaker 1: then fairly recently it came to light that the n
Speaker 1: s A had already done it about eight years before
Speaker 1: the CIA did, just didn't bother telling them, And you
Speaker 1: know that was apparently they the n s A director
Speaker 1: Ted told people like, if you want to do this,
Speaker 1: you should do it, and totally everybody else, but we're
Speaker 1: not doing it. But if you want to do it,
Speaker 1: you should totally go and do it. But you know,
Speaker 1: officially we are not doing this, but go and do
Speaker 1: that thing. So and that's what they did. So it
Speaker 1: looks like they are really good at decrypting stuff, which
Speaker 1: that should give anyone pause. I mean, there are a
Speaker 1: lot of people who advocate that even just as a
Speaker 1: personal choice, day to day kind of activity, that you
Speaker 1: encrypt everything. Like you know, there are people who will
Speaker 1: not communicate with you if you do not use an
Speaker 1: emails service that allows you to encrypt your messages. UM.
Speaker 1: But their decryption abilities show that they're really really good
Speaker 1: at breaking those codes. It might take some time, but
Speaker 1: they they have shown that they are capable of doing
Speaker 1: such things absolutely. Now that they are officially a part
Speaker 1: of the Department of Defense, yep. Yeah, they report to
Speaker 1: the Director of National Intelligence as well. Uh. They formed
Speaker 1: back in nineteen fifty one. They were originally a replacement
Speaker 1: for the Armed Forces Security Agency or FSA. Right. They
Speaker 1: were created specifically by the order of US President at
Speaker 1: the time, Harry S. Truman UM and and began as
Speaker 1: a group of only UM seven thousand, six hundred military
Speaker 1: and civilian workers. Are there now, like, that's pretty big growth.
Speaker 1: They've they've been grown a lot actually in the past
Speaker 1: couple of years. Also, trivia question, was the S stand
Speaker 1: for and Harry S. Truman nothing it's just sent Harry S. Truman.
Speaker 1: The S stands for nothing, but Truman stood for a lot. Uh.
Speaker 1: I have tiny little bits of historical trivia that I
Speaker 1: never get to use because they never invite me on
Speaker 1: stuff you missed in history class, So I have to
Speaker 1: save it all up for episodes like this. UM. And
Speaker 1: then we finally get to the Office of the Director
Speaker 1: of National Intelligence. Yeah, the the n s A is
Speaker 1: the important one that we'll be talking about for the
Speaker 1: most part when we get into the actual particulars for PRISM.
Speaker 1: But this is the office that we often will say,
Speaker 1: there are sixteen agencies in the intelligence community, and this
Speaker 1: is the seventeenth office. This is kind of the the head.
Speaker 1: This is where everything funnels up. So the idea here
Speaker 1: is that it oversees many other intelligence agents and offices,
Speaker 1: including the Office of the National Counterintelligence Executive, and its
Speaker 1: mission is to exploit and defeat adversarial intelligence activities directed
Speaker 1: against American interests, Protect the integrity of the U S
Speaker 1: intelligence system, Provide incisive, actionable intelligence to the decision makers
Speaker 1: at all levels, Protect vital national assets from adversarial intelligence activities.
Speaker 1: Neutralize and exploit adversarial intelligence activities targeting the armed forces,
Speaker 1: and the Director of National Intelligence reports to the President
Speaker 1: of the United States. So this is the head of
Speaker 1: the intelligence community. Keeping in mind that every single one
Speaker 1: of these agencies we have mentioned has its own hierarchy,
Speaker 1: has its own leadership, and they all have different requirements
Speaker 1: for what that leader can be. In fact, the n
Speaker 1: s A is is kind of cool, but we'll talk
Speaker 1: about that probably in the second podcast. So there we've
Speaker 1: laid it down, the Constitution, the different types of law
Speaker 1: enforcement and intelligence, the various members of the intelligence community.
Speaker 1: But we still have some more groundwork. From from here
Speaker 1: in it gets sticky. Yeah, this is where this is
Speaker 1: where we've That was the easy part, y'all. But before
Speaker 1: we dive into the really tricky part, let's take a
Speaker 1: quick break to thank our sponsored Jack Threads. Jack Threads
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Speaker 1: so we're back. We've laid out that that groundwork. Let's
Speaker 1: talk specifically about the n s A for a little
Speaker 1: bit because that's really what most of this this stuff involves. Right.
Speaker 1: Um okay, So, so, like we said, as of today,
Speaker 1: they have about thirty thousand employees. They're working out of Maryland,
Speaker 1: um Fort Mead, Maryland specific and the NSA actually works
Speaker 1: alongside an organization called the Central Security Service, which is
Speaker 1: it's basically the n s A, but it's comprised of
Speaker 1: active military members. Now, the director of both of these
Speaker 1: organizations is appointed by the Secretary of Defense and approved
Speaker 1: by the President, and he must be a or here
Speaker 1: she I'm sorry, that was terrible. I'm a bad feminist. Um.
Speaker 1: There must be a commissioned military officer with at least
Speaker 1: a three star rank, right, So, now that that could
Speaker 1: be of any of the branches of the military, doesn't
Speaker 1: I always think three star general, but you could also
Speaker 1: have an admiral or of course etcetera. Right this, uh,
Speaker 1: this leader also heads what's called the US Cyber Command UM,
Speaker 1: which was created in two thousand five and is a
Speaker 1: network warfare unit that protects against terrorist data and network threats. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So in our cybersecurity podcast where we were talking about
Speaker 1: some of the reactions to cyber threats in the United States,
Speaker 1: that's really the organization that is adding that for in
Speaker 1: large part. There. Keep in mind they're also multiple organizations
Speaker 1: within other agencies that also investigate and tried to prevent cybercrime.
Speaker 1: But this is one of the big ones right here,
Speaker 1: right especially or I mean you know, yes, kind of
Speaker 1: kind of during all of that panic that happened a
Speaker 1: few years back, this this one sort of floated to
Speaker 1: the top. UM So, so the n s A and
Speaker 1: the CSS, like we said earlier, work in UM information
Speaker 1: assurance or counter intelligence, and also in signals intelligence or
Speaker 1: signat so intercepting signet ring I don't know, I don't
Speaker 1: know signals intelligence at the n s A. And they
Speaker 1: just kind of looked at me and then they just
Speaker 1: slowly shook their head and tapped your phone. Um, well,
Speaker 1: they I have no illusions they're already doing that. If
Speaker 1: I wasn't on a list before we started this podcast,
Speaker 1: I sure am on one now. Anyway intercepting the messages
Speaker 1: and decrypting them. You know. That's that's easy to say. Uh,
Speaker 1: when it gets down to how they actually do that,
Speaker 1: it gets a little more tricky because you're wondering, all right, well,
Speaker 1: when I'm sending a message, if I were to send
Speaker 1: a message from myself to Lauren, then the way that
Speaker 1: would work, assuming that we were not on the same
Speaker 1: email server, that was kind of a bad example. Let's
Speaker 1: say I'm sending a message to Chris who was not
Speaker 1: on our email server, and I was just saying, hey,
Speaker 1: what up, and what's would that red Roses comment you
Speaker 1: used to make and then walk away. The way this
Speaker 1: works is my message would get broken up into packets,
Speaker 1: and each packet has a little bit of information in
Speaker 1: the header and footer that tell essentially computers one where
Speaker 1: that information is supposed to go and to how it
Speaker 1: fits together with the other packets, so that when all
Speaker 1: the packets get to their destination, they get put back
Speaker 1: together and then Chris can read the email or get
Speaker 1: the file or whatever it is that I'm trying to
Speaker 1: send to him. So, Uh, the interesting thing about the
Speaker 1: Internet is it's designed in such a way so that
Speaker 1: this pathway can be. You know, there are multiple routes
Speaker 1: that this information could take, and that's a good thing
Speaker 1: because if one of the routes ends up being compromised,
Speaker 1: if something happens like a server goes down, then this
Speaker 1: information can go a different route to get to Chris.
Speaker 1: And each packet can even take different routes so that
Speaker 1: they're not all going in a line down one roadway.
Speaker 1: They've kind of split up and they're all trying to
Speaker 1: get to the same destination. So that kind of leads
Speaker 1: to the question how does the n s A do this?
Speaker 1: And that In fact, we'll we'll go into more about
Speaker 1: that in the second podcast. But that's another one of
Speaker 1: those things that has people scratching their heads, like not
Speaker 1: just that you're intercepting and decrypting messages, but how are
Speaker 1: you actually doing this without getting help from entities like
Speaker 1: internet service providers. More on that later, because it turns
Speaker 1: out they are spoiler alert, they are getting help from
Speaker 1: Internet service providers. Um. Not that there's necessarily anything the
Speaker 1: Internet service providers can do about it, but but but
Speaker 1: lots of that probably in the second podcast that we
Speaker 1: are going to do. Um. But but let's let's talk
Speaker 1: a little bit about the different legislation that has come
Speaker 1: out that regulates and defines what they can and can't do. Sure,
Speaker 1: So one of the earliest things we want to talk
Speaker 1: about is the Wire Tap Act of nineteen sixty eight. Now,
Speaker 1: this regulates the collection of actual content of wire and
Speaker 1: electronic communications. And it was first passed as Title three
Speaker 1: of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty eight, So we generally refer to it as
Speaker 1: Title three, although a lot of people will just refer
Speaker 1: to as Act. And originally it only covered wire and
Speaker 1: oral communications. In other words, if you were sending something
Speaker 1: via some sort of like if you're using like a
Speaker 1: telegraph or if you're using a telephone, that's what it
Speaker 1: was covering. But Title one of the Electronic Communication Privacy
Speaker 1: Act of nineteen eight six extended this protection to electronic
Speaker 1: communications in general, so it went beyond just verbal communication
Speaker 1: over the phone to everything from email, instant messaging. All
Speaker 1: of that was covered under this Act. Now, what this
Speaker 1: Act would do was it it created some broad prohibitions
Speaker 1: against international interception, use, or disclosure of wire and electronic
Speaker 1: communications without a statutory exception. So you were supposed to
Speaker 1: if you wanted to get access to something, if if
Speaker 1: you had identified a target as being either if if
Speaker 1: you're intelligence and you're identifying the target as being of
Speaker 1: interest because they are, for some dangerous reason right there,
Speaker 1: an agent of a foreign government and you need to
Speaker 1: get information, or if you've identified them as someone who
Speaker 1: has committed a crime, then you needed to receive a
Speaker 1: court order from the Department of Justice. It had to
Speaker 1: be signed by a US district court or a Court
Speaker 1: of Appeals judge, and that would authorize wire tapping for
Speaker 1: that specific target for up to thirty days. Agents had
Speaker 1: to meet some pretty tough requirements in order to get
Speaker 1: this authorization. It was and just go up to a
Speaker 1: judge and say, hey, can you sign this for me?
Speaker 1: I know you're busy, Just write it down here and
Speaker 1: I'll get out of your hair. They had to actually
Speaker 1: show probable cause, meaning that it means different things. Within crime,
Speaker 1: probable cause means that you have a valid reason why
Speaker 1: you suspect that person to be involved in committing a crime,
Speaker 1: and intelligence it's that you have a reasonable suspicion that
Speaker 1: that person is an agent of a foreign government. So
Speaker 1: it's two separate things. The foreign agent part doesn't have
Speaker 1: to be involved in any crime whatsoever when it comes
Speaker 1: to intelligence gathering and wire tap if they are merely
Speaker 1: an agent. Yeah. And in fact, that old that will
Speaker 1: come into play more when we get into a little
Speaker 1: bit later on one of the other acts, in fact,
Speaker 1: the next act. But um, I want to make sure
Speaker 1: do you have anything else you want to say about
Speaker 1: the wire tap before I jump on? Well, um, you
Speaker 1: know this, this was enacted in by the early seventies,
Speaker 1: n s A was tapping um, foreign cables under the oceans.
Speaker 1: As as you may or may not know, there is
Speaker 1: a lot of information that is zipping right along in
Speaker 1: in in cables that are going across the Atlantic. And
Speaker 1: it turns out most of those messages say things like darling,
Speaker 1: it's better downwards weather under the sea, or are these
Speaker 1: days are just just videos of people's cats? But um,
Speaker 1: But but also it can contain very sensitive international information
Speaker 1: to um, that's another thing that can contain. And so before,
Speaker 1: by the way, before the Wiretap Act was passed, there
Speaker 1: weren't that many prohibitions about tapping phones or anything else
Speaker 1: at all. I mean, it all depended upon the particular
Speaker 1: era and the particular area. So I think that part
Speaker 1: of this was in I think that part of the
Speaker 1: Act was in fact in response to folks like Hoover
Speaker 1: who were perhaps overstepping their bounds in terms of of
Speaker 1: surveillance and gathering. Yeah, the FBI had become infamous for
Speaker 1: gathering huge files on citizens and maintaining them, and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, then you had things like the House of
Speaker 1: American Activities. Uh that all kinds of creepy post war stuff. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of stuff that was going on that
Speaker 1: was it was definitely creeping up on people's freedoms, and
Speaker 1: in some cases more than creeping up, but just denying
Speaker 1: people their freedoms. So these kind of acts were a
Speaker 1: response to that to try and correct some wrongs and
Speaker 1: to prevent it from happening again. So so in nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy eight, another big one that that is going to
Speaker 1: be coming back, especially amendments to it, the Foreign Intelligence
Speaker 1: Surveillance Act or UM Yeah FISA, nineteen seventy eight, that
Speaker 1: was introduced by Ted Kennedy and it was signed into
Speaker 1: law by Jimmy Carter. Yeah. So, uh, both of them Democrats,
Speaker 1: both of them known as being liberal, which might surprise
Speaker 1: people when they're sitting there thinking about FISA and they've
Speaker 1: heard these other amendments to FISA, and how how the
Speaker 1: n s A is using that to um to gather
Speaker 1: all this information that has come to light. Uh. But
Speaker 1: you know, you could also argue that when this Act
Speaker 1: was introduced that was not the intent necessarily. However, it
Speaker 1: did establish the procedures or surveillance in an effort to
Speaker 1: collect foreign intelligence between foreign powers and their agents. Right.
Speaker 1: It was hypothetically designed to ensure that the that the
Speaker 1: n s A and other federal intelligence agencies couldn't monitor
Speaker 1: American citizens electronic communications without obtaining a warrant based on
Speaker 1: probable cause first, right, Yeah, this was this was essentially
Speaker 1: saying that you can only do this kind of crazy
Speaker 1: spy stuff if you're talking about non people who are
Speaker 1: not American citizens and people who are not in the
Speaker 1: United States. It was supposed to cover activity that occurred
Speaker 1: outside the US. Now, as we've seen, that's getting trickier
Speaker 1: and trickier because the way the world works now, and
Speaker 1: the way that the Internet works and and and our
Speaker 1: various communication systems work, it's global entity and sometimes that
Speaker 1: involves communications passing through the US sometimes involved passing between
Speaker 1: people in the US, but the pathway may actually go
Speaker 1: outside the US, and so that's caused some blurring of
Speaker 1: lines as well. Absolutely. UM. This this act also created
Speaker 1: UM an independent court called the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court,
Speaker 1: and this was made up of eleven federal judges UM
Speaker 1: tasked with reviewing these warrant applications that would come in. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and we will talk more about that court in the
Speaker 1: next episode, because there's a lot to say about how
Speaker 1: that court is formed, what they do, and how much
Speaker 1: we know about it, which, by the way, that last
Speaker 1: a little bit I'll go ahead and spoil it, not
Speaker 1: a whole lot. Yeah, the whole thing classified is a thing,
Speaker 1: and you know we are getting some leaked stuff. But
Speaker 1: but when it comes down to details, we only I mean,
Speaker 1: we know it exists, we know what it does, we
Speaker 1: know who is on it, and we know how they
Speaker 1: got there. That's about it, right, But a quick, quick
Speaker 1: fun teaser. UM. Supposedly, the court has denied only eleven
Speaker 1: of the nearly thirty four thousand warrant applications it's reviewed,
Speaker 1: between inteen sent right. They have said that they don't
Speaker 1: just rubber stamp approval for these requests. But when you
Speaker 1: only have eleven denied requests, that causes me to wonder
Speaker 1: suspect rubber stamping, well, or at least wonder what they're
Speaker 1: sort of standards. Is that it can be either either
Speaker 1: that either their standards are incredibly low and then they
Speaker 1: approve pretty much everything, or all the warrants are extremely warranted. Right,
Speaker 1: that's quite possible. That's the other possibility, right, So I
Speaker 1: shouldn't just say as a blanket statement that they approve anything.
Speaker 1: It may very well be that the the by the
Speaker 1: time the application gets to them, it's actually a valid application.
Speaker 1: I don't know because their secret. But anyway, so, yeah,
Speaker 1: the FISA requires the government to get search warrants and
Speaker 1: wire tap orders from a court even when investigating foreign
Speaker 1: threats to national security. So it can't just go out
Speaker 1: and act on its own without court approval. But that
Speaker 1: or it is, like we said, a secret court and
Speaker 1: we'll we'll go into more detail. Also, by the way,
Speaker 1: if if you are served with a wire tap order
Speaker 1: or a warrant from FISA, it also comes with a
Speaker 1: gag order saying that you can never discuss the fact
Speaker 1: that you were served. Yeah, you can't talk about it
Speaker 1: at all. You can't indicate that it was served to you.
Speaker 1: You cannot indicate that you whether you gave information that
Speaker 1: was relevant or not. You you have to just disavow
Speaker 1: that even existed. So that's kind of interesting. And then
Speaker 1: we have the last of our major points of legislation
Speaker 1: we wanted to touch on in this podcast, which is
Speaker 1: which is the US Patriot Active two thou one. Now, now,
Speaker 1: of course, to two thousand one was was when the
Speaker 1: attacks of Septemper and leventh happened. Um. The n s
Speaker 1: A came up under a huge fire for failing to
Speaker 1: catch this plot and UM and they have said that
Speaker 1: they had intercepted two messages that something major was going
Speaker 1: to happen on that date, but had no information on
Speaker 1: what or where that action would be happening. Right, And
Speaker 1: you have to keep in mind again that traditionally a
Speaker 1: lot of these agencies UH work very much independently of
Speaker 1: one another. So there's been a lot of criticism that
Speaker 1: said that if if there was more UH collaborative work,
Speaker 1: that we would catch more of this these potential attacks
Speaker 1: and stop them. And in fact, there there are plenty
Speaker 1: of people who have said, you don't even realize how
Speaker 1: many incidents have been prevented because of the changes that
Speaker 1: have happened. Uh. And the reason why you don't know
Speaker 1: about them is because they never never happened. Um, which
Speaker 1: is you know that could be that could be a
Speaker 1: valid argument. It's hard to say because again, you know,
Speaker 1: we don't didn't happen, so we don't know. Lack of
Speaker 1: results is hard to uh, hard to prove a negative. Right.
Speaker 1: So the US Patriot Act is is the an Act
Speaker 1: of Congress as signed the law by President George W. Bush,
Speaker 1: And it's meant to detect, prevent, and combat terrorism by
Speaker 1: broadening the powers of intelligence gathering agencies. And it actually
Speaker 1: reduced quite a few restrictions that were placed on intelligence gathering.
Speaker 1: Title five removes obstacles to investigating terrorism. It expanded FISA
Speaker 1: counterintelligence access to telephone toll and transactional records, which will
Speaker 1: come into play in our next episode. And it requires
Speaker 1: national security letters. What are national security letters their secret subpoenas.
Speaker 1: They're issued directly by the FBI without the involvement of
Speaker 1: a court, So the FBI does not have to go
Speaker 1: to a court judge in order to get a national
Speaker 1: security led letter to h to submit to someone. They
Speaker 1: can actually demand an entity like an Internet service provider,
Speaker 1: that that entity must hand over information about customers as
Speaker 1: long as the FBI delivers to the entity a document
Speaker 1: stating that such information is part of an authorized investigation.
Speaker 1: But there's no court oversight, So really it just means
Speaker 1: that the FBI kind of has free reign to to
Speaker 1: issue these orders. Now, people in the FBI say that
Speaker 1: there is a very strict process that must be followed
Speaker 1: and that it's not just that. Again, it's not like
Speaker 1: some low level FBI administrative person can rubber stamp one
Speaker 1: of these letters. But um, but it also has this
Speaker 1: gag order part to it where you can't talk about
Speaker 1: it if you get one. Uh, then you've also got
Speaker 1: the Right to Financial Privacy Act of nineteen seventy eight,
Speaker 1: which gave the FBI authority to require financial institutions to
Speaker 1: provide information about their customers or any entities financial records,
Speaker 1: and um, the Fair Credit Reporting Act, which requires a
Speaker 1: consumer reporting agency to provide the FBI the names and
Speaker 1: addresses of all financial institutions at which a customer maintains
Speaker 1: or has maintained an account. Now that of course they
Speaker 1: have to have the justification to do that. But um,
Speaker 1: these are all the things that play into to this
Speaker 1: whole idea of privacy, data security, national security and spying
Speaker 1: and intelligence and counter intelligence. And now this Act received
Speaker 1: sweeping bipartisan support in Congress, and no one was really
Speaker 1: willing to argue with it after the events of nine eleven,
Speaker 1: which is understandable. But but also you know, I I
Speaker 1: think it I think it did get pushed through a
Speaker 1: little bit too quickly, um, and a little bit too unanimously.
Speaker 1: There quite a few people who because because people were
Speaker 1: understandably upset, right, And there have been a lot of
Speaker 1: critics who have who have said that the changes uh
Speaker 1: in the with the Patriot Act were too great. They
Speaker 1: gave the government too much power, it took too much
Speaker 1: away from individual citizens. Uh. And you know that again,
Speaker 1: that's a debate that continues to this day. And in fact,
Speaker 1: the Patriot Act is not something that was meant to
Speaker 1: exist in perpetuity. It has to be renewed every few years. Now.
Speaker 1: So far Congress has been renewing it. Yeah, but there
Speaker 1: are certain titles under the Patriot Act that may not
Speaker 1: be renewed. According to people who are now responding to
Speaker 1: the the controversy that has happened since the information was
Speaker 1: leaked to the public about the n Essays activities. And
Speaker 1: in fact, one interesting thing that we should point out,
Speaker 1: and we will talk about it more in the next podcast,
Speaker 1: is that one of the architects for the Patriot Act
Speaker 1: has gone on record as saying this goes too far.
Speaker 1: So if the person who authored the act that gave
Speaker 1: the government broad uh release of restrictions says, hey, that's
Speaker 1: going too far, it's time to at least have a
Speaker 1: conversation about it. If not, you know, make some really
Speaker 1: tough decisions. But we're going to save that for our
Speaker 1: next episode, right. I think that we've set the stage
Speaker 1: for everything that um that has happened in the past
Speaker 1: uh ten, ten eleven years. Yeah, and you and we
Speaker 1: understand this episode is not really tech heavy. Obviously, this
Speaker 1: is more like government stuff than tech stuff. But it
Speaker 1: really have a conversation about the tech stuff you have
Speaker 1: to understand all of this other stuff that's going on.
Speaker 1: And also, I mean, you know, these these are all
Speaker 1: issues that that affect all of us and all of
Speaker 1: our our internet you said in Communications and Privacy every day.
Speaker 1: So yep, it's important so all right, so we're gonna
Speaker 1: wrap this one up, and we're gonna Lauren and I
Speaker 1: are going to take a quick break and take some
Speaker 1: time to drink some tea, and then we're gonna dive
Speaker 1: into the next episode, which you guys get to hear
Speaker 1: in a couple of days, unless you just save these
Speaker 1: all up at once, in which case enjoy. So, if
Speaker 1: you guys have any suggestions for topics we should tackle
Speaker 1: in future episodes of tech Stuff, I've got a great
Speaker 1: suggestion for you. What is it, Jonathan? Let us know,
Speaker 1: because we can't read your mind or your email, we're
Speaker 1: not the n s A. Send us a message, uh
Speaker 1: encrypted it you like? Send us a message. Our email
Speaker 1: is tex Stuff at Discovery dot com, or drop us
Speaker 1: a line on Twitter or Facebook. I warn you if
Speaker 1: you do use code, we may never know what you said,
Speaker 1: but you can find us with a handle tech Stuff
Speaker 1: hs W and Lauren and I will talk to you
Speaker 1: again really soon. For more on this and thousands of
Speaker 1: other topics, visit how staff works dot com.