Speaker 1: From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
Speaker 1: riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
Speaker 1: learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
Speaker 1: production of My Heart Radio. Hello, welcome back to the show.
Speaker 1: My name is Matt, my name is Nol and they
Speaker 1: called me Ben. We're joined as always with our super producer,
Speaker 1: Mr Matt Frederick. Most importantly, you are you. You are here,
Speaker 1: and that makes this the stuff they don't want you
Speaker 1: to know. So this is a follow up episode, folks,
Speaker 1: we did uh we previously looked at the absolute messy
Speaker 1: Bollos spaghetti that is federal classification, How it got there,
Speaker 1: why no one really wants to fix it now, just
Speaker 1: because you know it's like legacy code. It's so precarious,
Speaker 1: and I I cursed a lot in that episode, just
Speaker 1: because you know it's uh in in saying how how
Speaker 1: strange the situation is. That would be a fun experiment.
Speaker 1: Give one person uh Ubert clearance to be able to
Speaker 1: see everything right, and then they get to go through
Speaker 1: everything that's ever ever been classified top secret down and
Speaker 1: just like go through it and what is necessary and
Speaker 1: what is not? Make do it? Maybe Jagger right he
Speaker 1: probably got pretty close and used it, used it for
Speaker 1: nefarious ends. Yes, Jagger Hoover was basically running the FBI
Speaker 1: like a mob. That sounds like a monkey's park on
Speaker 1: a scenario the two because like you'd find out so
Speaker 1: much it would break your brain and then you would
Speaker 1: just like you know, go postal in some very profound
Speaker 1: and alarming way. Well, I mean, we could let Charlie
Speaker 1: do it. Charlie Day would do it, or you know
Speaker 1: what's Jared Kushner up to right now? Oh? Boy? Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a that's a billion dollar question, isn't it. Uh.
Speaker 1: This follow up answers some of the questions that we
Speaker 1: left off with. In federal Classification. We didn't get to
Speaker 1: the part about security clearances. We talked about how things
Speaker 1: are secret and why the concept of secrecy is so slippy.
Speaker 1: We also learned a lot about Dagastani weddings, which was
Speaker 1: apparently top secret or classified. Uh. But today we're gonna
Speaker 1: look at how people actually get official access to this information.
Speaker 1: So here are the facts. First thing, first, what what
Speaker 1: is a security clearance like in real life? Well, here
Speaker 1: in the United States, and security clearance is the official
Speaker 1: um designation given to an individual UH in terms of
Speaker 1: their level of access to varying types of classified information
Speaker 1: within differing parts of the government. It allows them to
Speaker 1: kind of, you know, it's silos information to different individuals
Speaker 1: who qualify UH for these various security so it's very hierarchical.
Speaker 1: In other words, access at one level UM gives you
Speaker 1: access to the information at lower levels, but not you know,
Speaker 1: the other way around. Yeah, so if you if you
Speaker 1: get a secret clearance, then you odds are you're going
Speaker 1: to have access to stuff that's less sensitive like classified
Speaker 1: stuff as well. But if you just have a UM,
Speaker 1: if you just have a number of clearances that are
Speaker 1: like public trust clearance or just regular classified, then no,
Speaker 1: you're not in the room where they talk about top
Speaker 1: secret stuff. And the weirdest thing is, you know, a
Speaker 1: lot of if you're going back to your idea the
Speaker 1: one guy, the one guy or the one person, I
Speaker 1: think what would surprise them the most be Yeah, there's
Speaker 1: some horrific, frightening stuff, but a lot of it probably
Speaker 1: doesn't matter to the average person, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: It's like, oh, we we have a line on you know,
Speaker 1: the chocolate futures in insert company here. Most people aren't
Speaker 1: gonna care, right, aren't going to be able to capitalize
Speaker 1: on that, But they might come in handy for the
Speaker 1: next coup though, just say yeah, yeah, the next the
Speaker 1: chocolate coup. They'll call it, uh, this chocolate cous It
Speaker 1: would be great. Yeah, it's chocolate coup already a thing
Speaker 1: someone have that. I don't think so, I think it's
Speaker 1: just chocolate range chocolate. Yeah, yeah, okay, no, chocolate coup
Speaker 1: totally different. So so we have to remember, like, no,
Speaker 1: you're correct. We have to also remember that secret clearance
Speaker 1: for one agency or again fiefdom, does not necessarily mean
Speaker 1: you have access to information other agencies consider secret. On paper,
Speaker 1: they're supposed to the credit transfer of background check is
Speaker 1: supposed to work, but that's not always the case, especially
Speaker 1: when you get to the really sticky stuff. So how
Speaker 1: do you get a security clearance? You have to be vetted.
Speaker 1: There's a background investigation. Shout out to anybody who's had
Speaker 1: one of those. They go pretty deep depending on your
Speaker 1: level of clearance. Well, and you could think about this
Speaker 1: too in maybe more of a workplace kind of situation.
Speaker 1: Let's not connect to the government, like let's say somebody
Speaker 1: works for a nuclear power plant, you know, it's that
Speaker 1: you don't you don't have access to certain areas unless
Speaker 1: you get clearance. And those clearances, because you're working with
Speaker 1: potentially dangerous materials, do require significant background checks and regular
Speaker 1: drug tests and all of that kind of stuff. So
Speaker 1: there's there's some cross over there, but it's probably not
Speaker 1: like something you've experienced unless you have had work in
Speaker 1: one of those really dangerous, you know, situations right where
Speaker 1: you're handling materials. The background checks I've had probably have
Speaker 1: never gotten close to the level that you'd get if
Speaker 1: you were going for a clearance, no question. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think maybe all of us at some point had
Speaker 1: to just get like a right to work background check,
Speaker 1: you know, or had to present some sort of citizenship
Speaker 1: documents or whatever just to satisfy certain legal criterias for corporations.
Speaker 1: But it's probably about the extent of it for me. Man,
Speaker 1: My understand is, you you need like this is like
Speaker 1: talking to your friends and loved ones and like a
Speaker 1: physical human being hanging out and going, hey, so what
Speaker 1: do you know about this Noel Brown character? Right? You've
Speaker 1: seen it in fiction, and it's actually not too far away.
Speaker 1: In some cases, Uh, they might you might let's say,
Speaker 1: I might get a call from someone who says, we're, uh,
Speaker 1: we're evaluating nod friend of yours, Matthew Frederick, and uh,
Speaker 1: just like to ask you some questions. We understand that
Speaker 1: he played in a in a musical outfit called Lions
Speaker 1: and Scissors. Is that correct to your knowledge? And they
Speaker 1: were good. They not slap, I mean a little the fiction.
Speaker 1: They're like, there's something interesting here because he's a co
Speaker 1: writer on you know, track seven. Uh, and just like
Speaker 1: to read these lyrics and get gone confirmed whether or
Speaker 1: not he was involved ideologically with the message of this song.
Speaker 1: Usually it's not. He was just but but they will
Speaker 1: look into you know, your foreign contacts. They will, we'll
Speaker 1: we'll get into all the stuff they'll look into. Uh.
Speaker 1: And the drummer is the most important party. When people
Speaker 1: say just the drummer, frontmen need to deal with that.
Speaker 1: The drummer is the most important part. Oh, you frontmen
Speaker 1: out there, stop front but your ego and check so
Speaker 1: uh while all that's happening. And yes, the last you know,
Speaker 1: maybe your college professors, maybe even down to your grade
Speaker 1: school folks. Uh, they'll check every address you lived at
Speaker 1: and if you spend time in another country, if you
Speaker 1: have a dual passport, forget about it. Honestly, for some
Speaker 1: of this stuff, you just you can't be trusted, even
Speaker 1: if your record spotless. But you you also have to
Speaker 1: sign really serious n d A s uh. This one
Speaker 1: is called s F three one two because governments love
Speaker 1: doing this. It's a standard form, but that's what s
Speaker 1: F stands for. It applies to any employee of the
Speaker 1: government or someone who contracts out, and a lot of
Speaker 1: private citizens, a lot of civilians contractors do have clearances
Speaker 1: they have to. But then it gets this other thing.
Speaker 1: There has to be a proven reason that you need
Speaker 1: to know this. You need to know about this Dagastani wedding,
Speaker 1: you need to know about nuclear um nuclear enrichment technology.
Speaker 1: So they have to say, here's why you do this.
Speaker 1: Sometimes it's a formality. That might be the easiest part
Speaker 1: because there's a lot of information that gets technically classified.
Speaker 1: But if you're already in a secure network because of
Speaker 1: your job, or you're going to a lot of meetings
Speaker 1: because of your job, you're probably gonna hear about it,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. So sometimes the need to
Speaker 1: know is we just feel like this person is naturally
Speaker 1: going to run into this, So let's make it has
Speaker 1: down to one off of these clearances. Uh. But then
Speaker 1: you know, the stuff I think a lot of us
Speaker 1: think of from the outside looking in is special access programs,
Speaker 1: compartmentalized intelligence. This stuff did not happen kind of things,
Speaker 1: black bag ops. You know, how do we get that
Speaker 1: cocaine over the border into Los Angeles? That's that's that
Speaker 1: didn't happen. Right officially, that's what the courts will tell you.
Speaker 1: But I don't know, like how far how far should
Speaker 1: you go for security clearance? Just the idea spooks some
Speaker 1: people out, honestly. You know, they've got polygraphs sometimes even
Speaker 1: though that's not solid science. Uh, in a lot of ways, right,
Speaker 1: like how like you said, in all the deepest background check, Um,
Speaker 1: they might have it at jobs like some n d A,
Speaker 1: some basic prove you have a Social Security number in
Speaker 1: the US birth certificate stuff. But it can go deeper
Speaker 1: when you get a mortgage right or alone. Right, mortgages
Speaker 1: are tough. They're like checking on your toe a nailing. Well,
Speaker 1: not not to get too too personal, but like you know, recently, uh,
Speaker 1: Matt and I both recently had to get a mortgage,
Speaker 1: and um day before you know, my closing, all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, there's this like five alarm kind of situation
Speaker 1: where they're missing these uh details about my previous rental history.
Speaker 1: And it's because I'm still renting the place and it
Speaker 1: hasn't been exactly two years to the day, but it
Speaker 1: will have been by the time my my lease is up.
Speaker 1: And even though the lease says it's you know, for
Speaker 1: this period through this period, the fact that I haven't
Speaker 1: actually paid it doesn't match up to a payment that
Speaker 1: I haven't made yet. So all of a sudden, they're like,
Speaker 1: you gotta make the payment now, and I'm like, okay,
Speaker 1: but I I do. I read through this property management
Speaker 1: company and I don't even know how to go about
Speaker 1: doing that comes out and it's like after hours on
Speaker 1: the weekend, you know, and it was just, oh my god.
Speaker 1: It was bonkers. And depending on the type of loan
Speaker 1: you're getting to, you're going to have to do more
Speaker 1: and more and more stringent kind of like submit yourself
Speaker 1: to more stringent background checks and and very specific situations. Sorry,
Speaker 1: I just just triggered me because that was like I
Speaker 1: thought I was gonna lose it. And I literally thought
Speaker 1: I was gonna lose my mind. No, we I get it.
Speaker 1: I think we've all been through some kind of weird
Speaker 1: situation like that, right, I really quickly, I want to
Speaker 1: bring up Secret Service and I think we've talked about
Speaker 1: this before quickly in the past been and I just
Speaker 1: super fast. Um, I knew a guy who went into
Speaker 1: UH to become a Secret Service agent and what he
Speaker 1: had to go through to get that position and to
Speaker 1: get cleared for that, Like the process was so nuts.
Speaker 1: He had to prove that he has never ever once
Speaker 1: smoked cannabis, Like he had to prove something that he's
Speaker 1: never Yeah, because I guess they're worried about his potential
Speaker 1: mind state because of that drug. Like that just that
Speaker 1: that confused me to no end. Yeah, But I mean
Speaker 1: that's an it's also an achronistic in archaic in some ways,
Speaker 1: right that that law has not caught up with recent science,
Speaker 1: That law is not caught up with other laws that
Speaker 1: decriminalize or legalized cannabis in a federal level law to
Speaker 1: that degree is probably on the way. But that's also
Speaker 1: another reason why a lot of US cyber outfits are
Speaker 1: in are having a tough time because it seems like
Speaker 1: I'm quoting an anonymous source here. It seems like all
Speaker 1: the good hackers get high and then like and that's
Speaker 1: that's a deal breaker for a lot of clearances. So
Speaker 1: they're gonna have to address that at some point. Um,
Speaker 1: here's another thing. If you live in the US or
Speaker 1: if you follow US politics, you've heard you've heard the
Speaker 1: recent hubble ub uh. Security clearances and classification got in
Speaker 1: the news in a big way not too long ago.
Speaker 1: So we're gonna just clear the air here once and
Speaker 1: for all. Yes, the President of the United States, the bodus,
Speaker 1: whomever that may be, does have the ability to declassify
Speaker 1: previously classified information. But it's not like just yelling base
Speaker 1: in a game of tag. You have to do stuff.
Speaker 1: There is a detailed process. You can't just you know,
Speaker 1: snap your fingers and make it so well, he can't
Speaker 1: do it with his mind. Man. Well, that was in
Speaker 1: the news recently for President Donald Trump. I believe it
Speaker 1: came out that he made a statement that he believed
Speaker 1: he could just decide what to take by thinking about it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so that's and that's why all these arms of the
Speaker 1: US government are freaking out now because make no mistake.
Speaker 1: If you had that kind of there's not malevolence, let's
Speaker 1: call it negligence. If you had that kind of negligence
Speaker 1: as a government employee, you'd be fired. You you'd be
Speaker 1: fired and sent to jail most likely with that. With that,
Speaker 1: just because of the weight he's carried. Think of it
Speaker 1: like drugs, right, information is like a drug. And he
Speaker 1: was moving weight. Uh, and he was moving weight the
Speaker 1: wrong way. So yes, However, a president does have the ability,
Speaker 1: through some pretty detailed processes, to declassify some previously classified stuff.
Speaker 1: So why won't they tell us about the aliens? Moving on?
Speaker 1: Moving on? Man, I could take all the classified documents
Speaker 1: I want and Adidas can't drop me right the scope,
Speaker 1: I have a sneaker deal. I wonder what kind of
Speaker 1: sneakers they would be. And he's got a big red
Speaker 1: tie deal. Um over long, I thought it was the
Speaker 1: same tie. But yes, no, no, it's it's true. U. Still,
Speaker 1: the thing is that if they can't declassify it without
Speaker 1: going through this process, if you are the president, you
Speaker 1: do get some loopholes. You can get access to any
Speaker 1: of the information you request, like a lot of it. Uh,
Speaker 1: even if you would ordinarily not be able to get
Speaker 1: a security clearance if you weren't president. So if you're
Speaker 1: a president who says, yeah, I smoked weed and I inhaled,
Speaker 1: like former President Barack Obama, you know that knocks you
Speaker 1: out of the running for so like he couldn't be
Speaker 1: on his own secret Service detail. But because he's the president,
Speaker 1: you know, you circumvent that. So that's right, because you're
Speaker 1: a duly elected president, all of that stuff goes by
Speaker 1: the wayside, correct, Like you just have carte blotch. You
Speaker 1: have access to all the things, a lot of them.
Speaker 1: There's also the ideal plausible deniability because there's some stuff
Speaker 1: you have to even if you have the vibe, you
Speaker 1: have to not know about it. Uh, in case I'm
Speaker 1: gonna start sniffing around or you get caught out. I
Speaker 1: would imagine they would recommend that you not look at this.
Speaker 1: But couldn't you also just say, na, screw that, show
Speaker 1: me the goods you quite plausibly? Yeah, And you know
Speaker 1: it's still the weird thing is it feels like there's
Speaker 1: a lot of precedent there, But we have to remember
Speaker 1: there haven't been a lot of US presidents. It's a
Speaker 1: young country, so there's always there. There may well be
Speaker 1: a plot twist on the way. And you know, but
Speaker 1: until relatively recently, we seem to have had a tradition
Speaker 1: of kind of following the rules and and and and
Speaker 1: adhering to these kind of recommended uh standardizations. Right, yeah,
Speaker 1: well people try. You know, the US is still in
Speaker 1: the experiment phase as a country. Uh. Look, we know
Speaker 1: that just like classification, a bunch of agencies can make
Speaker 1: something secret or top secret, a bunch of agencies can
Speaker 1: also clear people two do their stuff right to be
Speaker 1: read on read into these programs. Right now, I think
Speaker 1: the d D issues the majority of all clearances. If
Speaker 1: you take all of their employees because they're huge, the Pentagons,
Speaker 1: like the world world's biggest office building, and then you
Speaker 1: take all the people who contract out, then about that
Speaker 1: is going to be the D O T. But you know,
Speaker 1: D O, E, C, I, A, all the all the
Speaker 1: alphabet soup guys, they all have clearances and they're generally
Speaker 1: something just hit, yeah, something just hit uh ben FBI
Speaker 1: C I A A T F K K K K
Speaker 1: K R S C and C B S wait I
Speaker 1: R S NBC T N T. I was just I
Speaker 1: was thinking up FBI, A, T F KKK I R, S, NBC, CBS,
Speaker 1: T N T telling LIZE. Yeah, okay, okay, sorry, shout
Speaker 1: out dead press. Yeah, that's that's the third verse and
Speaker 1: a dead press. It's just that chance. It's pretty pretty sick.
Speaker 1: Um dead press would not get security clearances. They say,
Speaker 1: this is a big fan of him one and stick Man.
Speaker 1: Uh No, they would not get clearances. Um, but if
Speaker 1: you are a person gets clearances, they're like five types
Speaker 1: you can get and they're they're a little bit snoozy
Speaker 1: until you get to the end, but it's important to
Speaker 1: know them. Let's hit you with it. Controlled unclassified. We
Speaker 1: talked about that in the last episode, hopping over to
Speaker 1: episode one in this series to learn about that one.
Speaker 1: We got a public trust position. Now that's interesting, that's
Speaker 1: that's I don't understand that one. Yeah, it's a weird one.
Speaker 1: And so so like you are, you are not getting
Speaker 1: a security clearance. It's not the same as being read
Speaker 1: onto confidential stuff. But you're the nature of your job
Speaker 1: whatever that might be, requires access to certain sensitive information,
Speaker 1: so it can't be necessarily classified. But it is something
Speaker 1: that could be weaponized. It's something that could be dangerous,
Speaker 1: So you might you might be in a public trust
Speaker 1: position if you work with certain levels of infrastructure or utilities. Right,
Speaker 1: I know how I know how to hack the water
Speaker 1: treatment facility, says someone work, right, so that I can
Speaker 1: make it work? Well, WHOA what the guns out? So
Speaker 1: we can make it work? Guys. So that's one that
Speaker 1: I think is new to a lot of us. Those
Speaker 1: can be considered moderate risk or high risk in the
Speaker 1: U s pt P. That's another man. Okay, Next, you've
Speaker 1: got confidential, that's you know, something we've all heard about.
Speaker 1: That's like, that's like your low tier super controlled information. Right.
Speaker 1: Then you got secret that's above that. Gotta you gotta
Speaker 1: have another level to reach out one. Then top secret
Speaker 1: and you know that's of course the one that's the
Speaker 1: most exciting usually, but it's not really the most exciting
Speaker 1: stuff is compartmented. Oh yeah, don't let don't let that
Speaker 1: incredibly boring name fool you. It's not a bento box.
Speaker 1: It's uh, the absolutely, it's not eligible, it's the absolute
Speaker 1: top secret, creme de la creme of no one can know.
Speaker 1: It's called sensitive compartmented information. And this is where all
Speaker 1: the badgers, this is the bag where all the all
Speaker 1: the interesting badgers are. You know, we're talking about signals
Speaker 1: intelligence measures and signature intelligence mass and we're talking about
Speaker 1: um the US Navy control systems, the Helm of Power here,
Speaker 1: electronic surveillance programs like Stellar Wind, which was another thing
Speaker 1: people were it's supposed to know about, and those have
Speaker 1: the Really, here's a question I want to put to you, guys.
Speaker 1: By the time you get to compartmented information access, aren't
Speaker 1: you already pretty vetted? Like I would think, because this
Speaker 1: is only case by case stuff. If you are read
Speaker 1: onto some red into some aspect of Stellar Wind, then
Speaker 1: you are not automatically read into any other hypothetical s
Speaker 1: c I thing like you know, if they've been secretly
Speaker 1: hunting Bigfoot or sixty years and there's a crack team
Speaker 1: of neo Neanderthals who are participating in that search, you're
Speaker 1: not going to know about it unless you get read
Speaker 1: into that program. I was, Stellar Wind is a huge
Speaker 1: surveillance thing. Everyone should be mad about it. Yeah that,
Speaker 1: I mean that was was Stellar Wind before Snowdon or
Speaker 1: was that a part of Snowden. That's the only thing
Speaker 1: I can't remember because I know that's what I learned
Speaker 1: about what Yes Nowdon talked about. I think Wired released
Speaker 1: that when Wired and Washington Post in the Guardian, we're
Speaker 1: able to do as this huge data mining operation very
Speaker 1: illegal as in the wake of nine eleven that's when
Speaker 1: it happened, and a lot of people who had top
Speaker 1: secret security clearance wouldn't know about it, and a lot
Speaker 1: of people who could have raised a flag in the
Speaker 1: halls of government weren't told about it because you can
Speaker 1: weaponize classification. There's an incredible whistle blower. I remember seeing
Speaker 1: videos of him talking about this, and it's like I've
Speaker 1: been trying to get tell people about this. William Binny
Speaker 1: b I n n E. Yu say he was an
Speaker 1: n s A agent who became a whistle blower and
Speaker 1: talked about Stellar Wind and was not promoted afterwards. To
Speaker 1: put it likely, so to get access to this, let's
Speaker 1: take Benny as an example, he had to successfully go
Speaker 1: through what's called a single scope background investigation. This is
Speaker 1: the high level one they talk about. They check every
Speaker 1: job you've ever had, whether you told them about it
Speaker 1: or not. Education, any affiliations or organizations you've been kicking
Speaker 1: it with, UH, any local law enforcement stuff, about every
Speaker 1: place you have lived, worked, traveled, or attended school. Uh.
Speaker 1: They'll also interview people who you personally and professionally. They'll
Speaker 1: run your credit. Uh, they'll look if you've got a
Speaker 1: spouse or someone who lives with you, whether that's a
Speaker 1: roommate or a romantic partner. They're getting the business to
Speaker 1: Everyone gets touched. And the reason everyone gets touched, as
Speaker 1: paranoid as it sounds, is because in the era of
Speaker 1: the Cold War, a lot of like deep cover folks
Speaker 1: were able to successfully fool the system. So it's a
Speaker 1: real thing. Even when it seems silly. Uh, it is dangerous.
Speaker 1: And if at any point you refuse to us close
Speaker 1: something or you accidentally don't disclose it, the rule is
Speaker 1: you're automatically disqualified. That's the rule. So no scrups. You're
Speaker 1: doing this cross word in pen and you can't get
Speaker 1: an answer wrong. And in the end, it's like, how
Speaker 1: how often do you still say the pledge of allegiance
Speaker 1: to yourself in your mind? Because really it's what it's about,
Speaker 1: right allegiance to the United States. If it's that, if
Speaker 1: that's the government you're trying to get into. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: let's think of it in terms of without getting too
Speaker 1: in the weeds when you get to the crazy stuff, right,
Speaker 1: So without getting too in the weeds, investigators are looking
Speaker 1: for exactly the kind of stuff you would think about.
Speaker 1: They want to see whether someone has lots of debt
Speaker 1: that means they're easier to manipulate. Right, there's a financial motive.
Speaker 1: They want to see if someone has a personal relationship
Speaker 1: with sketchy characters. You know, how tight are you with
Speaker 1: the ruling body of Saudi Arabia? Right, it's spent a
Speaker 1: lot of time and you're in Yeah, okay, Sun be
Speaker 1: a terrible example. Let's say mean mar or China would
Speaker 1: be a spooky winner Russia something like that. Uh, if
Speaker 1: you have a standing record, that's an interesting one of
Speaker 1: immoral behavior, like moral turpitude. If you've ever heard that
Speaker 1: phrase trying to pass customs. Uh. This can be sticky
Speaker 1: and subjective because a lot of people say smoking wheat
Speaker 1: in college or having an edible at a God Speed
Speaker 1: to Black Emperor show when you're in your you know, twenties,
Speaker 1: doesn't this is the best thing, the best of all
Speaker 1: possible worlds, everything everywhere, all at once level cool. But
Speaker 1: that would be regarded in some situations as immoral, you
Speaker 1: might be able to mitigate it, but it'd be really tough.
Speaker 1: Other things like d u I s. Of course, if
Speaker 1: you have a bunch of if you've been busted with
Speaker 1: a bunch of cocaine and you weren't working off the
Speaker 1: books for an intelligence agency, and that's that's a problem. Um.
Speaker 1: And one really messy thing about that one in particular
Speaker 1: is you know, back in the day when the government
Speaker 1: even more openly persecuted lgbt Q people, evidence of same
Speaker 1: sex relationships or being being non heterosexual could also be
Speaker 1: seen as even making you even more of a weak
Speaker 1: link than having a lot of debt, because you might
Speaker 1: be manipulated. That was how their their logic went. We're
Speaker 1: not saying that. So that's what I mean when sticky,
Speaker 1: it's subjective what is immoral? But also like the don't
Speaker 1: people with families fall into that category? You know, if
Speaker 1: you have loved ones or anyone that could be kidnapped
Speaker 1: or threatened in order to get some information from you.
Speaker 1: Isn't that sort of what we always see in like
Speaker 1: action movies that just by you know, we we have
Speaker 1: we have these like Lone Wolf characters have decided to
Speaker 1: rid themselves off any attachment. It's because everyone they love,
Speaker 1: they've ever loved, was hurt because of them. You know.
Speaker 1: I just it seems like there are other ways outside
Speaker 1: of this this moral turpitude kind of like path to
Speaker 1: manipulate people. Yeah, there's always a way to get in.
Speaker 1: There's a chink in every armor obviously, right. But uh,
Speaker 1: but with the basically is how easy can we make
Speaker 1: a p tape of this person? Right? Right? Right? Can
Speaker 1: they get honey potted? So this, Uh, I've heard before,
Speaker 1: and this is kind of off the record, but I've
Speaker 1: heard before people saying that they like folks who have
Speaker 1: an established family. They like you know, as long as
Speaker 1: your family is also US based and you're children aren't
Speaker 1: openly working as mercenaries, then uh, they like it because
Speaker 1: it gives you, um, at least an appearance a higher
Speaker 1: likelihood of stability. You have stuff on the line, you know. Um,
Speaker 1: So it can it can go different ways, obviously, Yeah,
Speaker 1: no criminal background, that's a big one. Uh. Sometimes people
Speaker 1: get around it and then it goes the most subjective
Speaker 1: thing that that you have mentioned, that sense of loyalty.
Speaker 1: How do you prove that? How do you measure that flag?
Speaker 1: Outside your house on a pole U flag on your
Speaker 1: vehicle somewhere, either a sticker or like a lapel pit.
Speaker 1: You have to own a bald eagle or no someone
Speaker 1: for every meal pledge of allegiance before every meal, Um,
Speaker 1: you have to have gone to the Stone Mountain laser
Speaker 1: show at least twice. You remember that one? Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, it's not been that long. I remember it was.
Speaker 1: It's one of those things that seems normal when you're
Speaker 1: a kid, and looking back, I'm like, wow, that's kind
Speaker 1: of indoctrination, isn't it. Yeah, Stillmoult lasers show, folks, I
Speaker 1: don't know if they still do it. Check it out.
Speaker 1: So it's obvious white people have this right. Most people
Speaker 1: who have security clearances aren't James Bond level wet work dudes.
Speaker 1: They just need the info to do their job. You
Speaker 1: are a janitorial staff at the Pentagon, then you probably
Speaker 1: have a security clearance just because you probably don't have
Speaker 1: You know, you're probably not read on two compartmented intelligence
Speaker 1: or compartmentalized, but you are. They definitely looked into you.
Speaker 1: Didn't just like give you the job on a handshaken
Speaker 1: a vibe. Do you think instead of trash cans at
Speaker 1: a secured facility like that. They have just paper shredders
Speaker 1: everywhere instead like everybody has a paper shudder at their
Speaker 1: desk or an incinerator. They actually have they have a
Speaker 1: specific measure than they used to have, this specific measure
Speaker 1: for the level of shredding, Like you couldn't have just
Speaker 1: your you know, your office depo are best buy shredder
Speaker 1: had to They didn't want people taping the strips together,
Speaker 1: is what what they meant? Um, Yeah, that's a good question.
Speaker 1: There was a rumor for a long time that you know,
Speaker 1: there's a food court in the Pentagon or there was, Um,
Speaker 1: it's probably still there. And for a long time I
Speaker 1: had heard that even the folks were working at the
Speaker 1: subway had to have a background check. And at that point,
Speaker 1: I feel like I would think it was too much trouble,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, Like I'm and that's not
Speaker 1: a ding on subway at all, But I would just
Speaker 1: say I'm going through a lot. You know, this is
Speaker 1: we're in an area in the world where they're like
Speaker 1: twenty other subways down the street. Yeah. Can you imagine
Speaker 1: just getting into work every day to have to do
Speaker 1: prepped like to to make that tuna say, I which
Speaker 1: you I bet that people were cool though you know
Speaker 1: you're all you always gotta be nice in person. Makes
Speaker 1: your food so right right now, It's so difficult to
Speaker 1: guess how many people have a security clearance, but back
Speaker 1: in the Washington Post put the number at about five
Speaker 1: point one million. Again, how many people can know about
Speaker 1: something before it no longer becomes secret. Five point one
Speaker 1: million Americans some sort of security clearance for sense of
Speaker 1: scale that is higher than the population of Norway. It's
Speaker 1: like we told a group of people as big as
Speaker 1: the population of Norway. Yeah, but that's why the compartment
Speaker 1: and stuff is so much more interesting because there are
Speaker 1: so many fewer people that have that kind of clearance.
Speaker 1: Quick correction, So we checked these facts. I'm sorry, Matt, No,
Speaker 1: I just remembered as of the population, Norway's five point
Speaker 1: four zero eight million people, so they went up. Norwegians.
Speaker 1: Please don't send the angry email. We checked. Uh, And
Speaker 1: this is a lot of secrets. So the question is
Speaker 1: what could go wrong? It turns out a great deal
Speaker 1: and pause for word from our sponsors. Here's where it
Speaker 1: gets crazy. Okay, No, Matt, how seriously how many people
Speaker 1: can know something before we just throw up our heads
Speaker 1: and say it's not a secret anymore. Those are what
Speaker 1: they call open secrets, right, like Israel's nuclear program, right right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: but I don't know it's it's is it more of
Speaker 1: a is it more of an issue or a question
Speaker 1: of decorum at that point, you know, where it's like, yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: the cats out of the bag, But we don't want
Speaker 1: to claim responsibility for letting the cat and or badgers
Speaker 1: out of the bag. So we're gonna keep it classified
Speaker 1: like that even though we know, because you know, it
Speaker 1: behooves us for more people not to know. And if
Speaker 1: something is an open secret, that also it still has
Speaker 1: the air of around it. M hmm. Well, let's let's
Speaker 1: talk about how weird these numbers are. So before the break,
Speaker 1: we talked about five point one million Americans to have
Speaker 1: some sort of security clearance. That number came from according
Speaker 1: to the Washington Post. But this year CNN put out
Speaker 1: an article written by Zachary B. Wolfe found that the
Speaker 1: Director of National Intelligence twenty seventeen security clearance Determinations. Wow,
Speaker 1: that's a lot listed more than two point eight million
Speaker 1: people as having clearance as of that October, so like October. Um, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's an interesting one. So are they talking about government
Speaker 1: employees only, right, or the because that seems like a
Speaker 1: heck of a drop from five million. Uh, you know
Speaker 1: most of those again one point six have confidential or
Speaker 1: secret information access and then one point to have the
Speaker 1: top secret rating. But one point two million with top secret. Yeah,
Speaker 1: a lot of secrets, a lot of a lot of
Speaker 1: top secrets. But uh, but yeah, it's it's weird. There
Speaker 1: are other people like said who have security clearance but
Speaker 1: they don't currently have access to information. Private contractors clearances.
Speaker 1: It's crazy they have to. And now in recent years
Speaker 1: the idea of that, even the very important but often
Speaker 1: snooze festi process of getting a security clearance has become
Speaker 1: controversial politically charged. Uh. Two of the biggest issues, of course,
Speaker 1: include when politics gets inserted into the into the clearance
Speaker 1: game political impointees, I'm not saying this. It's not like
Speaker 1: you know in the sixties, are you now or have
Speaker 1: you ever been a member of the Communist Party. It's
Speaker 1: like a bunch of people in in intelligence saying no,
Speaker 1: not this guy, don't give it to him. And then
Speaker 1: someone with a lot of political capital, using their juice
Speaker 1: to say I don't care, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: And that's what happened with Trump and his son in law.
Speaker 1: I see what you're saying. You're saying that like purity
Speaker 1: clearances can kind of be rammed through with a little
Speaker 1: grease from the right person. Yeah, and that's the problem
Speaker 1: that they shouldn't I mean, yeah, right, yes, agreed, agreed,
Speaker 1: I agreed. Yeah, I mean, let's let's talk about it. Then,
Speaker 1: you guys, remember right with this wash the administration of
Speaker 1: them President Trump, um, And we're using this one because
Speaker 1: it's just the best, most recent example. And he gotten
Speaker 1: a lot of hot water in the press and with
Speaker 1: the intelligence community because he did two things that don't
Speaker 1: make a lot of sense in a meritocracy or in
Speaker 1: a competent security environment. One, he gave his son in
Speaker 1: law a job right as like senior advisor. And this
Speaker 1: was a political appointee position, which means it's really up
Speaker 1: to hint, it's up to the president. It's the president's staff.
Speaker 1: You can't say, I mean, you could say you don't
Speaker 1: like someone, but that you don't have any influence on
Speaker 1: whether or not they can get hired. Well, multiple high
Speaker 1: level people did say that they they did. They did
Speaker 1: because he not only hired Jared Koshner, his son in law,
Speaker 1: but he gave him top secret clearance. Right. Yeah. Uh,
Speaker 1: multiple agencies said back in like eighteen, they said, this
Speaker 1: guy has a lot of conflicts of interest. Mr President. Uh,
Speaker 1: we're just saying that if we were, if we were
Speaker 1: doing the background check, she would check a lot of boxes.
Speaker 1: That meant he could never work at this level. Bad
Speaker 1: boxes bad But he had checking bad boxes. Yeah, because
Speaker 1: I mean also, the question too becomes like why and
Speaker 1: to what ends? Because you know, we're not and this
Speaker 1: isn't what we do in the show. We're not trying
Speaker 1: to smear anybody politically or anything. But there there there
Speaker 1: was a sense I think among some you know, even
Speaker 1: down to why did Trump take home those classified documents
Speaker 1: and not give them up when asked that perhaps he
Speaker 1: was priming uh, some of these close personal um confidants, uh,
Speaker 1: to be able to access information and kind of hold
Speaker 1: it over certain individuals. Yeah. And when you're dealing with
Speaker 1: stuff that the Kushner family really was dealing with at
Speaker 1: that time, you could you could be compromised in various ways.
Speaker 1: One of the biggest ones been was this six million
Speaker 1: dollar like real estate thing, Manhattan real estate deal American dream. Uh.
Speaker 1: The Kushner family owned this pretty nice tower in Manhattan,
Speaker 1: but they were hemorrhaging money on it. They were having
Speaker 1: trouble with the deal. And again, to be fair, real
Speaker 1: estate can be a risky business, right, So no one's
Speaker 1: saying this was necessarily a scam, but it was seen
Speaker 1: as a conflict of interest when it came out that
Speaker 1: Uh Kushner and the Kushner companies were actively courting foreign
Speaker 1: investors to help with the cash. That's something that is,
Speaker 1: you know, not uncommon in the world of real estate,
Speaker 1: but in the world of dealing with government secrets. You
Speaker 1: don't want people who need money from foreign powers. It's
Speaker 1: just like day one stuff. Yeah. And not only that,
Speaker 1: they I think there was something about them they like
Speaker 1: met with White House officials, the family did, and then
Speaker 1: when they came away, I think the City Group and
Speaker 1: maybe one other outfit like lent them a ton of
Speaker 1: money after, you know. And and that's not necessarily that bit,
Speaker 1: but it is kind of weird that they met with
Speaker 1: White House officials to Greece some wheels there m h.
Speaker 1: And then of course, Charlie dat and start drawing some
Speaker 1: red strings between uh, that meeting and those loans Apollo
Speaker 1: Global Management and City Group. Uh and and then just
Speaker 1: connect the thoughts out to let's say, favorable financial policies
Speaker 1: that might come up out you know, little stuff too,
Speaker 1: maybe that the average person wouldn't notice because you don't
Speaker 1: touch that rarefied air. Right. Uh So those are two
Speaker 1: Those are two issues that people had, And the Washington
Speaker 1: Post said that they had on record confirmed that foreign
Speaker 1: officials were already having water cooler talk with themselves, going hey, okay,
Speaker 1: so we got this guy over a barrel, how do
Speaker 1: we leverage him? How can we turn this to our advantage?
Speaker 1: You know, let's not say blackmail, but you know, how
Speaker 1: do we how do we get to the kind of
Speaker 1: a win win now that he's financially weak. That's exactly
Speaker 1: what security clearance is supposed to figure out first. So
Speaker 1: this doesn't even talk about Russia. We don't even we can't.
Speaker 1: We don't have time to talk about Christian and Russia.
Speaker 1: There's an episode for another day. I don't know, well
Speaker 1: the big deal there. We can just say this, we
Speaker 1: know that Kushner met with foreign officials with out letting
Speaker 1: the groups know, they're supposed to know when someone at
Speaker 1: that level is meeting with foreign officials, right, yeah, that's
Speaker 1: the other thing. If you are meeting, so if you're
Speaker 1: meeting as a representative of US policy, right, this is
Speaker 1: not your college friend or whatever. You are meeting with
Speaker 1: someone and you're saying, Hey, quid pro quo because I
Speaker 1: can get some stuff done. I know just what you like.
Speaker 1: You know what I like. I like favors to you
Speaker 1: know what I mean, that kind of thing that's your
Speaker 1: You are supposed to tell the National Security Council, like, hey,
Speaker 1: I'm going out on the geopolitical town, might be out late,
Speaker 1: might get in some trouble, don't wait up, uh, in
Speaker 1: which case they would say, what the hell is wrong
Speaker 1: with you? Right? Yeah, please please stay inside, Mr Koshner.
Speaker 1: So how did he get a clearance? Then that's the question. Well,
Speaker 1: I think you know, we've been tipping our hand a
Speaker 1: little bit at that the present it in his in
Speaker 1: his wisdom, or in in the power that the companies
Speaker 1: that position was able to ram it through. He insisted.
Speaker 1: He ordered it to be done, despite advisors, uh you know,
Speaker 1: advising him to the contrary, and you know, it really
Speaker 1: makes me think about you know, one of the first
Speaker 1: things they teach you in like high school Civics class, uh,
Speaker 1: for whatever reason, whether it's like to make you feel
Speaker 1: better about this weird experiment called, you know, democracy that
Speaker 1: we have is this idea of checks and balances. And
Speaker 1: I know that's more about lawmaking, but at the end
Speaker 1: of the day, when you have a president who is
Speaker 1: gonna throw all tradition by the wayside, is going to
Speaker 1: throw all kind of you know, pre established precedents and
Speaker 1: and uh, decorum out the window, checks and balances kind
Speaker 1: of go out the window too. I mean, you literally
Speaker 1: have someone that is is able to order someone like
Speaker 1: a king to to do a thing that everyone you
Speaker 1: know who has more experience probably knows to be not
Speaker 1: a good idea. That kind of absolute power is Uh,
Speaker 1: here's a corrupting force, right and dangerous. That's how he
Speaker 1: checks and balances are so important regardless of where uh
Speaker 1: people might find themselves as individuals on the political spectrum. Right,
Speaker 1: and the president over rides all these concerns. His White
Speaker 1: House counsel says, don't do it. The White House Chief
Speaker 1: of Staff is like, bro, don't do it, sleep it off,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, wake up and and and
Speaker 1: have a look around. Uh In at the dawn of
Speaker 1: a bright new day. And the day after, White House
Speaker 1: Council Don McGann says, I'm going on record, you just
Speaker 1: can't do it. There's too many conflicts of interest. Trump
Speaker 1: does just what you described, nol Uh. Then President Trump
Speaker 1: says this he forces it through this clearance, and that
Speaker 1: meant that he ordered his son in law. Again, there's
Speaker 1: a familial relationship to get access to top secret information
Speaker 1: over the objections of prety much everybody who had actually
Speaker 1: worked in this space. Not a good look. You know,
Speaker 1: Like you're you Let's say you own the fire station
Speaker 1: and you say, all right, I want my cousin Ernie
Speaker 1: to be the chief firefighter. And they're like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: has Ernie ever put out a fire or fontifier? It's like, well,
Speaker 1: not so much put out, but he loves fire. He's
Speaker 1: the man for the job. And they can't do anything
Speaker 1: because you own the firehouse. It's not a perfect example
Speaker 1: firehouse subs. Uh So this is this is problematic, you know,
Speaker 1: And I guess if we're being fair, you have to say,
Speaker 1: if he's let's leave the nepotism to one side. If
Speaker 1: you are the senior advisor to the President of the
Speaker 1: United States, it's it's functionally impossible to do that job
Speaker 1: without a clearance, right, Like, I've never done it, But
Speaker 1: I assume you run into a lot of classified stuff.
Speaker 1: How are you going to advise the president on classified
Speaker 1: stuff if you're not read in? Yeah, that's a good point.
Speaker 1: Do you just go off vibes? Well, I can't really
Speaker 1: make out most of this black highlighter, but Mr President,
Speaker 1: I would recommend also remember how he said earlier that
Speaker 1: someone accidentally leaves something out there. Clearance can be declined
Speaker 1: or revoked. If they can prove you intentionally decided to
Speaker 1: leave stuff out, you might be on the way to prison.
Speaker 1: Pushner did that, or his legal team did, and his
Speaker 1: team said the omissions weren't oversight. And here's their explanation.
Speaker 1: This is true. This is on record. We can quote
Speaker 1: chapter and verse from the Independent here by Rachel Revez,
Speaker 1: his lawyer said, one of the staff members accidentally hit
Speaker 1: the send button too early. That's what happened. Really, Oh man,
Speaker 1: you guys ever had a moment like that where you
Speaker 1: wish you could undersend something or you had an email
Speaker 1: address one letter wrong, or you accidentally had an attachment
Speaker 1: that wasn't right, or you know, a thread that contained
Speaker 1: information that you shouldn't be sending to this person. I've
Speaker 1: done with my phone multiple times, hitting you know, until
Speaker 1: I go down the next thing and it just goes go, Well,
Speaker 1: I had this weird auto tat feelings I'm getting yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: especially to pay on the email process. You're using your platform,
Speaker 1: you're using because someone let you unsend things, or you
Speaker 1: can get an extension that does it, and other ones
Speaker 1: are like a gotcha. Here's the thing though, when even
Speaker 1: I don't know how it works on every platform, but
Speaker 1: on outlook, if you unsend something, which you can within
Speaker 1: a certain period of time, it will still have a
Speaker 1: remnant of like sober and so unsent an email tea,
Speaker 1: It's like, what was that about? Man? You know, I
Speaker 1: want to know what did you do? I've seen that.
Speaker 1: But usually um, like if that happened between us, and
Speaker 1: most of the folks who work with might just text
Speaker 1: of them like what's it going on on? But but
Speaker 1: in this situation, in this deep water, that feels like
Speaker 1: a weird um narrative, right, not saying it's not true.
Speaker 1: It just feels, especially people who are already distrustful of Kushner,
Speaker 1: it feels like it's just even fishier, right, fishier than
Speaker 1: an aquarium. This guy, they're saying. But at this point
Speaker 1: we've got to say, we're kind of yeah, we're singing
Speaker 1: amount because again, this is a great recent example of
Speaker 1: how this stuff can go wrong. There's a whole laborntine
Speaker 1: system meant to stop people with conflicts of interest from
Speaker 1: getting through right to the beating heart of American secrecy.
Speaker 1: But Pushner is not the only example. It's a matter
Speaker 1: of fact, I say, maybe we pause for word from
Speaker 1: our sponsors and zoom out a little and look at
Speaker 1: the rest of the playing field. We're back, okay, we
Speaker 1: we are kind of we were kind of dunking on
Speaker 1: Jered Kushner. But uh, that's not the only problem. There's
Speaker 1: been going on for more than a decade. There's a
Speaker 1: lot of corruption in the system. It's like reading about this,
Speaker 1: fellow listeners will make you wonder, what if you already
Speaker 1: have a security clearance and just don't know. In two
Speaker 1: thousand thirteen, UM the news organization Politico found that UH
Speaker 1: found the following was gonna quote from because it's very
Speaker 1: excellent reporting. Um quote. The process of conducting background checks
Speaker 1: for national security clearances is riddled with extensive fraud that
Speaker 1: can't be adequately combating, sort of like how history is
Speaker 1: riddled with unexplained events. This h these this processes are
Speaker 1: riddled with extensive fraud and can't be adequately combative. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's right, I think the again not picking on Trump here,
Speaker 1: but that example is a perfect example of it of
Speaker 1: not being able to do anything about it. So this
Speaker 1: there was a lot of soul searching that happened after
Speaker 1: these uh, incredibly sensitive leaks and whistleblowers. You know, like
Speaker 1: Edward Snowden comes out now living in Russia, he got
Speaker 1: a security clearance and it allowed him to leak all
Speaker 1: this in food to the public. So people started investigating
Speaker 1: their own clearance process and what they found was really frightening.
Speaker 1: Is where we have to go to a guy named
Speaker 1: Inspector General Patrick McFarlane and McFarland found that sixteen hundred
Speaker 1: different background check reports were fabricated by guess what, one
Speaker 1: employee who was herself hired on a faulty background check.
Speaker 1: This is like that that one lab in lab Tech
Speaker 1: who was doing all the U bad DNA test right, yeah,
Speaker 1: or it reminds me of um. One of the morticians
Speaker 1: are one of the people that were supposed to be
Speaker 1: disposing of bodies in one way, but they were just
Speaker 1: piling them up in the back because they didn't have
Speaker 1: to spend any more money and they were making tons
Speaker 1: of money Georgia. Yeah. Despicable. Despicable. So somebody was just going, uh,
Speaker 1: fiddle d D. I'm sure that's fine. I spoke to
Speaker 1: their employer and it was great. I didn't have time
Speaker 1: to pull their financials, but I did make my quota
Speaker 1: of X number of checks right over y period of time.
Speaker 1: It might have been something like that. Uh. And the
Speaker 1: weird thing is that employee who made up more than
Speaker 1: background checks was herself hired on a screwed up background check.
Speaker 1: The system is compromised. I'm telling you, Yeah, that's a problem.
Speaker 1: That's a problem, you guys. I always I always think
Speaker 1: about Edward Snowden and how like, you know, it's like
Speaker 1: this guy got a background check to leak all this stuff,
Speaker 1: But wasn't it more like he had a crisis of
Speaker 1: conscience and he was like I gotta I gotta leak
Speaker 1: this stuff. I thought that's how the thing went. I
Speaker 1: imagine that that kind of thing could happen, and that's
Speaker 1: way more dangerous. So, like, these background checks are meant
Speaker 1: to prevent hiring someone who may at some point have
Speaker 1: a crisis of conscience and want to leak information. Right
Speaker 1: to have that lifelong loyalty, Right, even if you don't
Speaker 1: always agree with everything your government does, you're going to
Speaker 1: honor the agreement that you made right the charge you
Speaker 1: took on. So these classifications, like a background investigation might
Speaker 1: not be considered current. You get reinvestigated for the top
Speaker 1: levels of stuff on a rotating basis, I think. But
Speaker 1: mainly the idea is that you are meant to hold
Speaker 1: those secrets for the rest of your waking days, right
Speaker 1: even after you've gone through the debrief process, even after
Speaker 1: you've been retired for twenty five years turned into a
Speaker 1: weird robot somehow. Have you talked about the consequences for
Speaker 1: for breaking one of these clearances? I mean, it varies,
Speaker 1: I'm sure, and I know that's kind of what we're
Speaker 1: talking about. You know, when you leak classified information, But
Speaker 1: is there are there worst penalties associated with like breaking
Speaker 1: that confidence when you've been obviously your clearance will be revoked.
Speaker 1: But uh, is there like some sort of standard kind
Speaker 1: of table of consequences that we can see. Yeah, well
Speaker 1: they're not guaranteed to uh last forever, but you can
Speaker 1: do stuff that will make your clearance automatically revoked. Right. Um,
Speaker 1: and then if you and everybody is supposed to report
Speaker 1: you like you're watching each other. Right, So there's there's
Speaker 1: a lot of stuff that could be an accident to
Speaker 1: you know, somebody's going home, right, they leave a facility
Speaker 1: and they've got a briefcase with them, and they legitimately
Speaker 1: just forgot that one of the things in that briefcase
Speaker 1: was supposed to be under lock and key in a
Speaker 1: secured area, right. Or you know, here's another one that's
Speaker 1: a weird one. What if you're just you're on a
Speaker 1: base somewhere, you're walking around. You see a piece of
Speaker 1: paper just laying on the ground in the hallway. Human
Speaker 1: error happens. Do you pick it up? Are you do
Speaker 1: you have the classification to read it? Where where do
Speaker 1: you take it? It's a it's like it's it's like
Speaker 1: the emails I Heart sends us the fake phishing emails
Speaker 1: that trying to trick out the emails. I don't think
Speaker 1: people know about this. Our company all the time sends
Speaker 1: us emails that are phishing attempts, but and they're meant
Speaker 1: to resemble I heart official communications but be just a
Speaker 1: little off. They're trying to train us to be able
Speaker 1: to see phishing attempts. But it's they get us, they don't.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't think they've gotten me yet,
Speaker 1: but you never know, and then all of a sudden
Speaker 1: you'll get another email that's like, did we get you
Speaker 1: for it? I gotta say, though, UM, I have actually
Speaker 1: avoided being scammed recently because of things that I learned
Speaker 1: to look for because of those little got you uh
Speaker 1: moments courtesy of our company. I was trying to sell
Speaker 1: some stuff on Facebook Marketplace and there was this like
Speaker 1: Zel scam that UM. I almost fell for it one time.
Speaker 1: And what ultimately it led me to not fall for
Speaker 1: it was remembering to look at the U R L
Speaker 1: of the email that it was coming from. Uh. It
Speaker 1: was payments Zel payments one five, six, seven three to
Speaker 1: one at gmail dot com. Oh super legit. Yeah, So
Speaker 1: I feel you, Matt and I've always felt a little
Speaker 1: a little screwed with about those two, but it this
Speaker 1: did kind of and then I and then it kept happening.
Speaker 1: I was telling someone on Facebook marketplace, and then I
Speaker 1: kept having like the same type of scams come up,
Speaker 1: and I was just like, ha, got you. Well, uh,
Speaker 1: you know that's that's good to hear that it has
Speaker 1: had some use in uh, some impact, because otherwise it
Speaker 1: just feels like such a weird flex to me. I
Speaker 1: think I'm reading this email and I I would like
Speaker 1: to say I never get caught. Um. There was one
Speaker 1: that had me on a bit of a snipe hunt.
Speaker 1: It was something about vacation time, and so I didn't
Speaker 1: click on anything. I just went into the place where
Speaker 1: I figure out vacation time and I my real response,
Speaker 1: like my genuine response, was do I take vacations? When's
Speaker 1: the last time I did? That? Is that you ever
Speaker 1: logged a vacation day? Ever? Did this come from? Did
Speaker 1: this come from the top angrily texting? But the moral
Speaker 1: of the story is every floor paper you find out
Speaker 1: the Pentagon is a trap. So do not pick the
Speaker 1: world of the stories. Everything is a trap. Life is
Speaker 1: one big escape room, a bar and our own We're
Speaker 1: all the admiral act bars of our own story. This
Speaker 1: of the party where no one gets out alive. Um
Speaker 1: took it in a weird direction at the end, but
Speaker 1: I like, I like what we're building. So they also
Speaker 1: found this investigation. They also found that people who were
Speaker 1: suspected of fraud couldn't get suspended. And it's so weird
Speaker 1: because one individual got a job doing background checks for
Speaker 1: a federal agency while they were facing appending criminal case
Speaker 1: for falsifying background checks at another place. It's like, it's
Speaker 1: like a big banker who's done some financial crimes gets
Speaker 1: consulted on huge bailouts because they know the system the best.
Speaker 1: You know, we need to do, guys, we need to
Speaker 1: automate this thing with an algorithm and an AI and
Speaker 1: it does all the human background checks. It's the only
Speaker 1: way we're ever going to be able to trust a
Speaker 1: background check again, is if a computer. Right, Well, we're
Speaker 1: already this, you know. Honestly, that's my favorite. That's one
Speaker 1: of my favorite background checks. Click on all the traffic lights,
Speaker 1: click on all the stop sides. You know what I mean,
Speaker 1: proof you're not a robot. I feel so validated when
Speaker 1: that happens. I'm like, still got it. I love walking
Speaker 1: on the leg and breathing with the lung, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean, just the one. I'm being serious though,
Speaker 1: I'm imagining a system that's like this human is not
Speaker 1: fit to serve our government machine. Like, oh what what
Speaker 1: we have obtained second hand cellular phone footage of Derek
Speaker 1: Smith in college hitting a bong and commenting on the
Speaker 1: colors of music. I mean, that's clo disqualified. Uh he
Speaker 1: will not work at the Pentagon Subway. I don't know
Speaker 1: if they still have this suthing. So then it has
Speaker 1: to start manufacturing, you know, automatons to do the as
Speaker 1: jobs and then to do the government jobs. It's going
Speaker 1: to hit the balld. You talk about music both both.
Speaker 1: Let's phase out the human part entirely. Let's just have
Speaker 1: let's also have miscreant robots. Uh So, look, you can
Speaker 1: see there are some problems with this. They go across administrations.
Speaker 1: Part of it is due to the enormity and the
Speaker 1: necessity of bureaucracy, right, And that's why this kind of
Speaker 1: stuff is easy to not pay attention to. But there
Speaker 1: are tons of people, literal tons of people who are
Speaker 1: working in this field, and they're doing they're not really
Speaker 1: doing it for the money. They're doing it because they're
Speaker 1: good at it, and they're doing it because the security
Speaker 1: of the country is important. This goes the same for
Speaker 1: any other country, by the way, United Kingdom, China, you
Speaker 1: name it. The systems are different, but they're ultimately designed
Speaker 1: to do the same thing. Uh. And I was wondering
Speaker 1: maybe we end on finally talking a little bit about
Speaker 1: Q clearance. Not the awesome show by our pal Jake Hanrahan,
Speaker 1: but shout out to you, Jake, Q clearance. That's what
Speaker 1: the you know, the Q and on entity was like,
Speaker 1: I don't know what's going on. I got Q clearance. Now,
Speaker 1: Ben Minders saying is that Q clearance is just a
Speaker 1: way to designate or a shorthand for top secret clearance.
Speaker 1: Is that right or wrong? Yeah? Yeah, you're on base.
Speaker 1: It's um it's the Department of Energy clearance that is
Speaker 1: analogous the top secret clearance, got it, okay, Department of Energy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: nuclear weapons. But they just wanted to be different, right. Uh.
Speaker 1: This Q clearance is uh is something you've probably heard
Speaker 1: of if you're if you have read about Q and
Speaker 1: on at all, Um and you can get in the weeds.
Speaker 1: You know, it's not a huge secret how it works
Speaker 1: or what it is, because you know, it's got a
Speaker 1: Wikipedia page. Check it out. But in pop culture and
Speaker 1: the world of online colts, this thing attained legendary mythological status. Uh.
Speaker 1: And it dates back to six A guy named Peter
Speaker 1: Benchlet writes this novel called Q Clearance, and it's a
Speaker 1: satirical novel. It's a comedy about how weird the government is. Uh.
Speaker 1: And then of course we all know what happened. Then
Speaker 1: that's when Q came along and started posting on four
Speaker 1: Chan and eight chan and given all kinds of top
Speaker 1: secrets about the storm because it was coming. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: may it may have come and gone. We're not quite
Speaker 1: sure it might still be coming. Um, although you know,
Speaker 1: Q and on kind of coverage in the larger media
Speaker 1: does seem to have waned a good bit. I imagine
Speaker 1: that there are communities and pockets on the Internet that
Speaker 1: are still pretty active in this stuff. Right, Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: I bet you're right. I mean, so Q not Q Clearance,
Speaker 1: but Q online claimed to have tremendous closeness with the
Speaker 1: Trump administration and the inner circle of that administration. But
Speaker 1: this was later proven probably to be false because a
Speaker 1: lot of the so called predictions simply didn't come to
Speaker 1: pass um and it became almost a surrealist game at
Speaker 1: a time. You know, people were treating it as it
Speaker 1: choose your own adventure version of conspiracy theory. And you know,
Speaker 1: it was probably hilarious to the ninety two thousands something
Speaker 1: people who have a real life QUE clearance. They're probably thinking,
Speaker 1: I wish my job was that cool, you know, I
Speaker 1: wish my job is that cue. But but this is
Speaker 1: the problem. It's true, clearances are getting falsify. Uh, they're
Speaker 1: being given out despite serious problems with the people who
Speaker 1: are being cleared. And that spells danger for the United States.
Speaker 1: Given that the United States is a powerful and dangerous country.
Speaker 1: That spells danger for every person on earth. No hyperbole. So, uh,
Speaker 1: what's to be done? I think we have to ask
Speaker 1: our fellow listeners, Um, folks, let us can you solve it?
Speaker 1: Can you solve it for us? Should just one person
Speaker 1: be in charge of clearing everybody? That's it? Everything clear everyone?
Speaker 1: Just one person gets in there, they know everything, they
Speaker 1: clear everyone, then we all know all the secrets that
Speaker 1: we'd all know too much, and then we'd all be
Speaker 1: driving around and see, that's my thing. I've said it before,
Speaker 1: I'll say it again. Secret secrets are no fun. Secret
Speaker 1: secrets hurt someone. Um, we could if we could just
Speaker 1: take that approach, you know, maybe we'd all be happier.
Speaker 1: And I think it's just magically morph into a utopian
Speaker 1: kind of situation. I'm not checking this so I I'm
Speaker 1: just trying to figure it out off the top of
Speaker 1: my head. If there are okay, we just take the
Speaker 1: number of days in a year, right, we divide five
Speaker 1: point one million by the number of days and year.
Speaker 1: Then that person, if they didn't take vacations, would have
Speaker 1: to clear four teen thousand, no, thirteen something thousand people
Speaker 1: a day perfect he's done light work. Well, I mean
Speaker 1: Meta is about to be you know, well, I don't
Speaker 1: know Meta there. Maybe they'll be fine, but you know,
Speaker 1: if something goes real wrong with Meta, we could just
Speaker 1: put all their stuff, all their AI and all their
Speaker 1: whatever they're working on. Just put it ton of companies
Speaker 1: who want a piece of that pipe. Because the government
Speaker 1: sustains the cost for these investigations regardless of how it
Speaker 1: works out. And folks, we know it's a very high level. Look,
Speaker 1: we are not active in that in that sphere, but
Speaker 1: we are fascinating. We think that the average member of
Speaker 1: the public should know more about this and about the
Speaker 1: problems with the current system, so let us know how
Speaker 1: it can be fixed. If you got any funny war
Speaker 1: stories that you're comfortable sharing about background investigations and how
Speaker 1: they did or did not go the way you thought,
Speaker 1: we can't wait to hear it. We try to be
Speaker 1: easy to find online. Correct. You can find this on Twitter.
Speaker 1: You and find us on Facebook, and you can find
Speaker 1: us on YouTube with a handle conspiracy stuff. We also
Speaker 1: have a telephone number you can reach us at. Yes,
Speaker 1: the number is one eight three three st d w
Speaker 1: y t K. It's a voicemail system. You've got three minutes.
Speaker 1: Give yourself a cool nickname so we know who you are,
Speaker 1: but you're also anonymous. That's the that's the perfect way
Speaker 1: to do it. We will give you the appropriate clearance
Speaker 1: just by calling in, so you don't have to worry
Speaker 1: about that, and uh say whatever you want. Just let
Speaker 1: us know if we can use your voice and message
Speaker 1: on the air. If you don't like talking on the phone,
Speaker 1: why not instead type it all out in a good
Speaker 1: old fashioned email. We are conspiracy at i heart radio
Speaker 1: dot com st if they don't want you to know
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