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Speaker 1: Welcome to Worst Year Ever, a production of I Heart

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Speaker 1: Radio Well Together Everything so do Welcome back to the

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Speaker 1: Worst Year Ever. I'm Robert Evans, the incredibly professional host

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Speaker 1: of the show who incredibly professionally without telling anyone that

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Speaker 1: fled to fortified compound in the mountains this week. So

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Speaker 1: we had some audio issues at the start of this.

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Speaker 1: But now I'm going to introduce the introductions of my

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Speaker 1: co hosts, who will introduce themselves because that's that's their business.

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Speaker 1: Thank you for introducing the introduction section of this podcast.

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Speaker 1: My name is Katie Stole, a co host. You have

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Speaker 1: another co host, right, what's their name? Oh? Mine, it's

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Speaker 1: Cody john Ston. Hello, Hello, both of you, Hello Robert.

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Speaker 1: Everyone doing good in this this week in which presumably

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Speaker 1: we're not sure when this episode will drop, but I

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Speaker 1: assume something terrible has happened. Uh the President has said

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Speaker 1: something baffling and there's frightening news about diseases or incipient

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Speaker 1: fascism somewhere in the world. That was a long sentence. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I'm doing great that there's a debate tonight. Maybe maybe

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Speaker 1: Joe shoves somebody in the chest. One can only hope. Yeah, yeah, beautiful. Well,

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Speaker 1: today we're not going to be talking about the election,

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Speaker 1: so to speak, but we are going to be talking

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Speaker 1: about something that can influence the election, and most specifically,

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Speaker 1: something that you, the listener can do to have an

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Speaker 1: influence on American politics all your life. We are talking

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Speaker 1: about the Freedom of Information Act. Uh and today to

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Speaker 1: help us is a real foil wizard, a master of

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Speaker 1: making the government give him information that read he didn't

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Speaker 1: want to give him. Ken Clippenstein, Hey, guys, it's great

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Speaker 1: to be on. I'll tell you one thing I've already

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Speaker 1: learned on this episode. It's that it's pronounced foy. I've

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Speaker 1: been saying it differently in my head. Fa. Yeah. I

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Speaker 1: mean I frequently saved words completely wrong that I read

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Speaker 1: a lot, But that's how my mind works anyway. Hi, Ken,

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Speaker 1: thank you so much for joining us today. Hey, good

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Speaker 1: to be with you guys. Is there someone you'd prefer

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Speaker 1: to introduce yourself other than Wizard? Um? Well, I'm the

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Speaker 1: Nation's d C correspondent, um, but I do think wizard

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Speaker 1: sounds cooler, so maybe we should go with that. Open records.

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Speaker 1: What's that I said, the Nation's DC Wizard. I don't

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Speaker 1: know soft pitch when you're up for a promotion, and

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Speaker 1: you know we're gonna talk about FOYA all day today.

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Speaker 1: In short, basically, it's a law passed in the late

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Speaker 1: nineteen sixties that gives uh, you, the people the right

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Speaker 1: to ask the government for files that it has, and

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Speaker 1: the government has to give them, you know, with some

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Speaker 1: limitations in terms of like classified information and whatnot. But

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Speaker 1: that's that's like the that's that's the very brief, dumb

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Speaker 1: summary of FOIA. Ken, how would you like to explain it?

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Speaker 1: As a smarter person than me, m hmm, Well, as

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Speaker 1: one that has used this um frequently, I would distinguish

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Speaker 1: that from being smart. UM. It as you say, it

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Speaker 1: was past the late nineteen sixties, and this is really

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Speaker 1: a victory of the free speech movement that existed at

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Speaker 1: the time. UM. And uh. You know, if you read

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Speaker 1: my reporting, uh, you'll see that I'm you know, quite

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Speaker 1: critical of u. S domestic and foreign policy. UM. But

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Speaker 1: one thing that's really cool about this country is that

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Speaker 1: we have one of the richest open records laws. UM,

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Speaker 1: certainly in the West, perhaps in the world. UM. And

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Speaker 1: so in many ways, I think that FOIA is one

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Speaker 1: of the best kept secrets, not just of journalism, but

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Speaker 1: if any concern citizen that wants to learn what's going

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Speaker 1: on with the government, because you can literally just ask

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Speaker 1: them and pursue it to a number of exemptions, um,

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Speaker 1: you know, privacy exemptions that you mentioned, classified information, national security,

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Speaker 1: that kind of thing. Um, they have to give you

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Speaker 1: these things. And the idea behind that is, you know,

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Speaker 1: our taxes paid for the government to produce these records,

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Speaker 1: and therefore we're entitled to the contents. Yeah. It's like

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Speaker 1: you don't think about it much, but it really is

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Speaker 1: kind of a beautiful thing about this country is that

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Speaker 1: we we have and it took like a lot of

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Speaker 1: fighting from a lot of people to enshrine this right

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Speaker 1: that like, if the government does something, we have the

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Speaker 1: right to know exactly what it is. Yeah, and there

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Speaker 1: are many countries um that either don't have that or

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Speaker 1: it's severely curtailed in terms of um, what they'll release,

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Speaker 1: and so UM, I think the extent to which it

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Speaker 1: is deficient um is um there you know, there could

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Speaker 1: be more compliance, better compliance, there could be better enforcement. Um,

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Speaker 1: you can have more meaningful oversight, that is to say,

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Speaker 1: oversight from you know, a part of the government that

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Speaker 1: is separate and distinct, um and independent from the agencies

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Speaker 1: that it's supposed to be overseeing. Plenty of criticisms of it. UM.

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Speaker 1: All that being said, it's a great tool and it's

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Speaker 1: tragically under use. I wish not just reporters, but you know,

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Speaker 1: concerned citizens would use this stuff because UM, you know,

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Speaker 1: if you're trying to get a FOIA from the state

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Speaker 1: department or the CIA or the FBI, UM, you know,

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Speaker 1: that's an experience that will probably take a little time

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Speaker 1: and maybe frustrating. But at the local level, UM, where

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Speaker 1: every state in the country has its own interpretation of FOIL,

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Speaker 1: you can get things back remarkably quickly and with minimal

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Speaker 1: redactions too. So yeah, I think it's I think it's

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Speaker 1: a wonderful tool, and I'm a big evangelist for um.

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Speaker 1: You know, everyone trying to use it, not just not

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Speaker 1: just journalists. So what's the process for your average citizen

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Speaker 1: wanting to submit a FOIA request? So, UM, there is

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Speaker 1: of course for you know, each of the fifty states,

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Speaker 1: they have their own interpretation of FOIA, which is a

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Speaker 1: state um statute, and that's going to you know very

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Speaker 1: a I'm according to by state, But for the federal one.

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Speaker 1: You don't even have to be an American citizen to

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Speaker 1: use this. It breaks my heart because I get so

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Speaker 1: many calls from people that are asking me for help

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Speaker 1: with these things, and or saying, you're a journalist, you

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Speaker 1: have credentials, are you able to do this stuff? And

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Speaker 1: I'll tell them you don't need credentials for this. Anybody can.

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Speaker 1: You can be a Russian national and you can ask

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Speaker 1: for things and and it's the same laws governing you know,

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Speaker 1: public disclosure of the information. So it doesn't matter who

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Speaker 1: you are, where you're from, you can you can use it.

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Speaker 1: M what was the when did you, like, what was

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Speaker 1: your first FO request that you ever filed? Like, what

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Speaker 1: was the first thing that that kind of prompted you

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Speaker 1: to get into doing this? Um? When the torture report

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Speaker 1: came out, I remember seeing Stephen you and he was

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Speaker 1: I think he was with the Office of Legal Counsel,

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Speaker 1: and he created a sort of um byzantine legal justification

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Speaker 1: for for what, frankly is you know, the torture program. Um.

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Speaker 1: You know they would call it enhanced and derrication. But UM,

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Speaker 1: I remember thinking, how can I find out more about

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Speaker 1: this than what's being reported? Because there was so much

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Speaker 1: reliance on, um, you know, anonymy sources, and I don't

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Speaker 1: want to you know, denigrate journalists in the national security world.

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Speaker 1: You have to use amount of my sources because, um,

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Speaker 1: the Justice Department is very aggressive about rooting out, you know,

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Speaker 1: people that disclose information that's either classified or destroying their careers. Um,

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Speaker 1: if it's embarrassing to the administration. Um. But all that

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Speaker 1: being said, primari suiters, documents can go a long way

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Speaker 1: towards giving us a picture, a sort of unbiased, unvarnished

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Speaker 1: view into what's going on, since the documents speak for themselves. UM.

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Speaker 1: And so I noticed that Stephen you as a professor

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Speaker 1: at the University of California at Berkeley. And once I

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Speaker 1: saw that, I was like, hello, So I just floid

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Speaker 1: his emails from the week that the torture report, the

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Speaker 1: Senate Torture Report was released. And what I found was

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Speaker 1: trying to remember, this is so long ago. Um, was

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Speaker 1: him dodging all these requests from media for him to

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Speaker 1: go on and either answer questions about it, you know, um,

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Speaker 1: discussed it alongside a c l U representative, or even

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Speaker 1: just like talk about it and defend it. He declined,

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Speaker 1: to do any of that, and I thought that that

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Speaker 1: was quite telling. Um and when I reported, I remember

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Speaker 1: Marcy Wheeler retweeted it, and UM, at the time, that

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Speaker 1: was like, I mean, I still respect Marcy's work quite

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Speaker 1: a lot, but that I was like over the moon,

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Speaker 1: And I was like, at that point, I had I

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Speaker 1: had caught the FOY a buck because it was so

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Speaker 1: cool that I was able to get this stuff back

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Speaker 1: within a pretty timely um uh sort of time frame.

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Speaker 1: And and then also that I was able to reach

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Speaker 1: people and get shared and they didn't care who I

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Speaker 1: was or what publication I was with, what my politics

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Speaker 1: were because I was a very young reporter at that time.

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Speaker 1: Because they were able to see the primary Schurts documents

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Speaker 1: there and and and those are indisputable. And that sort

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Speaker 1: of showed me how how this tool can can work

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Speaker 1: at its best, I think, And that like what's so

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Speaker 1: cool to that to me is the kind of the

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Speaker 1: thought process you had to go through to figure out

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Speaker 1: like what to request because kind of the thing about FOYA,

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Speaker 1: there's no like drop down menu that says here's what

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Speaker 1: the government has, like what files do you want? Right?

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Speaker 1: Like you have to you had to kind of cleverly

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Speaker 1: work out what thing you could ask for that would

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Speaker 1: correspond directly to files that exist, so that the government

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Speaker 1: would have to prove I had them right. Like, there's

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Speaker 1: a little bit of um, Like you have to be

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Speaker 1: able to kind of think like the government to figure

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Speaker 1: out what it is you're going to look for. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's very like perceptive that that you say that, because

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Speaker 1: a lot of people think, you know, how do you

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Speaker 1: do this FOYA stuff, Like you're just pulling out a nowhere.

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Speaker 1: It's like, no, very often I have sources that are

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Speaker 1: like directing me and telling me where things are located

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Speaker 1: and what they're called. Because it's insane to think that

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Speaker 1: any individual is gonna be able to learn the you know,

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Speaker 1: absolutely byzantine structure of the State Department, the you know

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Speaker 1: d O D, the d O j UM. It's much

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Speaker 1: easier to have someone who either retired from there or

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Speaker 1: still active and familiar with these institutions to kind of

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Speaker 1: guide you along and describe to you, Oh, you're interested

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Speaker 1: in this, well, we produce a quarterly report on that

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Speaker 1: and um, as you sort of alluded to. UM. One

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Speaker 1: of my biggest criticism of FOY is that we don't

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Speaker 1: really have freedom of information. I think we have freedom

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Speaker 1: of records. This is the point I was trying to

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Speaker 1: make the people and are asking me for help with FOYA. UM.

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Speaker 1: That is to say, we have we have the ability

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Speaker 1: to request extant records, records that have been already produced

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Speaker 1: and have titles, and we know where they're located in

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Speaker 1: and what you know. UM. But that that's different from saying, oh,

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Speaker 1: I'd like to learn about UM. I don't know UM

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Speaker 1: homeland security policy on the southern border. UM that they

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Speaker 1: are under no obligation under case law or under FLOYA

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Speaker 1: itself to conduct any sort of research for you. All

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Speaker 1: they have to do is give you documents that are exist,

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Speaker 1: and unless you're in the institution are very familiar with

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Speaker 1: it, it it can be hard to know what those documents

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Speaker 1: are called. In the case of the emails that are requested, I, UM,

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Speaker 1: I just requested a very narrow time room, I said,

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Speaker 1: all emails containing the key word UM torture sent to

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Speaker 1: and from UM. You and I knew. When I asked

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Speaker 1: for the emails from UC Berkeley, I figured, well, that's

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Speaker 1: a public university. Remember, you can't request these things from

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Speaker 1: businesses because those are private institutions. UM, it's a really

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Speaker 1: good exercise in why um private ownership what that means

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Speaker 1: for um um you know, the public's right to know

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Speaker 1: about things because you you just have no access to

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Speaker 1: anything that's that's corporate, that's not government. And whereas in

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Speaker 1: the other hand, you can criticize government all you want

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Speaker 1: and they're playing you know, sensible criticisms of it. At

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Speaker 1: least we have access to what they're doing, at least

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Speaker 1: in principle. UM. So so, yeah, I just requested a

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Speaker 1: very narrow timeframe with a keyword and NET produced it.

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Speaker 1: But um, looking back, that's like a very rookie way

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Speaker 1: to do it without having someone guide you along and

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Speaker 1: tell you what sorts of things are okay to where

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Speaker 1: and you know, I I uh, I think like one

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Speaker 1: of the most important sort of lessons in terms of

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Speaker 1: you know, filing FUYD requests, but also in terms of

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Speaker 1: like actually getting useful information out of the government in

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Speaker 1: this way and the stuff that they're doing with our

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Speaker 1: with our money and in our name is kind of

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Speaker 1: learning at ways to um think around like them, like

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Speaker 1: to to sort of figure out like what the way

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Speaker 1: that they think and then use that knowledge to figure

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Speaker 1: out stuff that they may have left out. I still

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Speaker 1: lit upon a neat breadcrumb recently. That was just sort

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Speaker 1: of like playing around in Google. I did a file

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Speaker 1: type search, so type and file type coal and PDF,

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Speaker 1: and it'll bring up you know, PDF results. And then

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Speaker 1: I did a site colon search for ICE dot gov

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Speaker 1: and it brought up a bunch of records for all

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Speaker 1: of the FOI requests serve two ICE because they have

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Speaker 1: to publish all of that, and so among that was

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Speaker 1: like all of the different files that the Republican Party

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Speaker 1: requested um from ICE during the two thousand and sixteen election. UM.

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Speaker 1: And so like doing stuff like that, then you could say, okay, well,

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Speaker 1: then I'm going to file a FOI request to ICE,

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Speaker 1: and I'm going to see what the Republican Party wanted

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Speaker 1: to know, like as they were, you know, ramping up

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Speaker 1: plans for will become the Trump administration. Like there's all

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Speaker 1: sorts of um like kind of the more more use

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Speaker 1: time you spend fooling around online trying to figure out

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Speaker 1: what's out there, the more ideas you'll get for things

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Speaker 1: to request. Oh totally UM. And that's the part that's

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Speaker 1: really hard for me to impress on people. Is it

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Speaker 1: really helps to have a curious mind. Um. With this

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Speaker 1: kind of thing, I always call for force a very

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Speaker 1: asimic or tool. It's a very It's like it minds

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Speaker 1: me of jiu jitsu. It's like the injiu jitsu you're

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Speaker 1: supposed to use the weight of your opponent against themselves, uh,

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Speaker 1: because you're a smaller person. And so with this stuff,

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Speaker 1: a tendency of power systems generally, I think, and certainly

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Speaker 1: the government is they love to obsess over everything and

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Speaker 1: memorialize everything and documents and and just surveil everything and

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Speaker 1: write everything down. And that creates a weakness because when

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Speaker 1: they've written everything down, then conceivably you might be able

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Speaker 1: to get at it um. And so all you have

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Speaker 1: to do at that point then is learn their sort

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Speaker 1: of internal system of uh, you know, organization and classification,

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Speaker 1: all these things, and you can get a lot of

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Speaker 1: these things that they obsessively are are are writing down

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Speaker 1: in in memorializing. I love that analogy, And like, what's

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Speaker 1: the general time frame? It is there a time frame

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Speaker 1: that you're supposed that they're supposed to honor and getting

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Speaker 1: you information, getting you documents. Yes, there is, and many

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Speaker 1: of them violate it. This is what I was getting

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Speaker 1: at before when I said that there's not enough compliance,

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Speaker 1: there's not enough oversight. So under the law, they're supposed

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Speaker 1: to respond within twenty days, and they can invoke a

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Speaker 1: ten day extension on that, but within thirty days max,

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Speaker 1: they're supposed to have um, you know either you know,

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Speaker 1: I think, yeah, produced records, and it almost is never

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Speaker 1: that is almost they almost never make that deadline at

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Speaker 1: the federal level. At the state level, it's way faster,

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Speaker 1: much much more um you know, rapid, And I think

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Speaker 1: that a lot of ways to get around FAY is

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Speaker 1: just by sort of defunding and understaff and these agencies,

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Speaker 1: so they don't have the resources to be able to

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Speaker 1: respond to these things quickly, because why would they want

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Speaker 1: want them to do so? UM. But if you you know,

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Speaker 1: litigate and and put in front of a judge, then

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Speaker 1: they you know, immediately will require them to create um

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Speaker 1: in many you know, and the results are quite good

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Speaker 1: from from the courts. Of course, that's cost prohibited for

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Speaker 1: a lot of people. But um, I would say it's

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Speaker 1: it varies wildly. I've gotten things back from ICE in

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Speaker 1: the State Department within you know, a few maybe three

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Speaker 1: weeks or so, and then I've had to wait for

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Speaker 1: documents from those same agencies for like four or five years,

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Speaker 1: so it's like really hard. Yeah, there's different backlogs, and

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Speaker 1: they have different tracks that they try to relegate people to,

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Speaker 1: what's called the complex versus the simple track, depending on um,

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Speaker 1: you know, how they how they think and and some

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Speaker 1: of that makes sense because a lot of requests are

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Speaker 1: way too broad and so it isn't you know, reasonable

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Speaker 1: for them to be able to, um, you know, respond

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Speaker 1: to them promptly. But like that opens up a lot

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Speaker 1: of possibility for abuse when you have things like that,

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Speaker 1: because then they can get something that's perhaps you know,

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Speaker 1: politically embarrassing and say, oh, yeah, that feels a little

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Speaker 1: complex to me. Maybe we'll put it on the back

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Speaker 1: burner and maybe get around to it once the administration

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Speaker 1: is no longer no longer in power. UM. Of course

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Speaker 1: that doesn't work at the at the judiciary level. But um,

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Speaker 1: not everyone has money for a lawsuit. UM. So to

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Speaker 1: answer your question, it varies wildly, and and also how

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Speaker 1: narrow you were the request of your extremely narrow with

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Speaker 1: the request, UM, I would say that the interests of

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Speaker 1: the FOI offices are generally to try to increase UM

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Speaker 1: they're raw number of uh like responses that they give out,

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Speaker 1: and so if they see something that's really simple that like,

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Speaker 1: oh I cannot this how quick have another response that

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Speaker 1: I can report to Congress at the end of the

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Speaker 1: ye are saying all of it at least documents that

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Speaker 1: we released, Then yeah, you want to make it as

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Speaker 1: easy for them as they can, or at least it's

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Speaker 1: hard for them as possible to claim that they can't

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Speaker 1: do it quickly, you know what I mean. But so

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Speaker 1: it's very it's very complicated. Is there any instance that

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Speaker 1: was like the like sticks in your mind is an

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Speaker 1: incredibly frustrating UH time when you requested something, had a

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Speaker 1: lot of back and forth but ultimately did it, or

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Speaker 1: one that you're like still waiting on. Um, yeah, I

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Speaker 1: would say one out of four of these. I always

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Speaker 1: hate to give people an impression when if you just

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Speaker 1: read my reporting, you think, oh wow, this guy's got

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Speaker 1: it all figured out. But the story that pays that

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Speaker 1: turned into stories are a small fraction of the ones

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Speaker 1: that I sent out. Um. I really have like a

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Speaker 1: shotgun approach where I sound a bunch out and um

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Speaker 1: quite a lot of it will be interesting, but it's

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Speaker 1: not really may not be timely, may not you know,

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Speaker 1: rise the level of you know, full written news story.

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Speaker 1: So UM like, yeah, this is small fraction the ones

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Speaker 1: that that have become the kind of stuff that I

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Speaker 1: sort of tweet out and have a and have a

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Speaker 1: right above, so I would say, um, yeah, quite a

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Speaker 1: lot of them are are pretty frustrating. UM. Working with

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Speaker 1: the four officers, I often encourage it because we don't

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Speaker 1: yet have the compliance in place to kind of um,

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Speaker 1: you know, assume a measure of good faith, and so

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Speaker 1: it can help to sort of, um, kind of make

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Speaker 1: common cause of them and say, Okay, look like you've

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Speaker 1: got your interests. I have mine. Let's see if we

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Speaker 1: can figure out some way that it overlaps. UM. And

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Speaker 1: often I think there is if you're clever about it.

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Speaker 1: M hm. And what would you say, like, is there

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Speaker 1: one that particularly stands out as like what you would

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Speaker 1: call your greatest success, like the kind of the hit

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Speaker 1: that you got that that was you know, most impressive

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Speaker 1: to you and that you felt had the biggest impact. Um,

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Speaker 1: I guess I fod this is kind of funny. UM.

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Speaker 1: In the State Department. UM Trump has targeted a lot

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Speaker 1: of diplomats that he, you know, considers disloyal UM. And

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Speaker 1: so what he's doing in many cases since there are

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Speaker 1: like federal you know, laws against just getting rid of people,

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Speaker 1: it's hard to just get rid of a bunch of

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Speaker 1: people because you don't like them, because that's not you know,

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Speaker 1: if their career people. You can't you can't do that.

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Speaker 1: So he'll relegate them to the FOI office. Now, what

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Speaker 1: do you think happens when you take a bunch of um,

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Speaker 1: you know, probably from Trump's point of view, left wing

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Speaker 1: people that don't like Trump, and you put them in

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Speaker 1: the record's disclosure office. Um, well, what happens is they

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Speaker 1: work with people like me, you know, perhaps not explicitly,

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Speaker 1: I don't want get anyone in trouble, but um to

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Speaker 1: you know, release things that should be released. But perhaps

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Speaker 1: you know, another four officer would would sense was politically

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Speaker 1: UM sensitive and and not release. And I had a

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Speaker 1: number and very good year with State Department fouz um,

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Speaker 1: you know, not directly related to this necessarily, but let's see,

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Speaker 1: I got a list of gifts that saw that that

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Speaker 1: Trump was given by the Saudi Um royals when he

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Speaker 1: visited that was his first foreign visit in seventeen, which

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Speaker 1: of course was jettison ng. Um you know a history

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Speaker 1: of always either picking Mexico or Canada, which makes sense

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Speaker 1: their neighboring countries. Um so I requested the gifts list,

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Speaker 1: and um, you know, if they had their head on straight,

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Speaker 1: they would have sensed that this was sort of a

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Speaker 1: politically touchy thing. Um I don't. I don't think this

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Speaker 1: was yet when when he started pushing the diplomats into

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Speaker 1: the FOI office. So I don't think that's what was

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Speaker 1: that play. But um, yeah, they were listed the whole list.

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Speaker 1: That's just what you'd expect, kind of like you know,

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Speaker 1: golden coins, like swords, like all this, all the stuff

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Speaker 1: that it's just like after Trump literally said like I

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Speaker 1: think he said that. Yeah, he said, Reybe did nine

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Speaker 1: eleven and Clinton's with them and Clinton Foundation and is

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Speaker 1: close to the Gulf, and then we have this whole

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Speaker 1: list of stuff they lavished on him. Um So I

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Speaker 1: would say that was a pretty fun story and sort

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Speaker 1: of illustrative of um, you know, uh, how little Trump

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Speaker 1: seems to actually believe as opposed to like what do

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Speaker 1: you what do you? What do you? Purports to believe. Um.

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Speaker 1: And that was also explained to me by a former

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Speaker 1: diplomat who was familiar with UM uh, you know the

401
00:20:05,280 --> 00:20:07,879
Speaker 1: sorts of stuff that gets written down when when a

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Speaker 1: when a president has a has a foreign visit, which

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Speaker 1: which I didn't know about. It's just really I mean,

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Speaker 1: I would really encourage people talk to retire people one

405
00:20:14,920 --> 00:20:16,879
Speaker 1: of the best ways. But that, Yeah, that's maybe my

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Speaker 1: favorite one. It's hard for me to assess, like what

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Speaker 1: the impact is, Um, how many would you say that

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Speaker 1: you have out now? Like I know you've shared, like

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Speaker 1: here's the pile that I just sent out, But like

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Speaker 1: would you say you've got hundreds out there? Or yeah,

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Speaker 1: a few, a few hundred I've done. I'm less. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I probably have less out now than I have. Can

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Speaker 1: We're gonna have to ask you to say, HONDO on

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Speaker 1: the podcast very important in house style guide. I'll try

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Speaker 1: to keep that in mind. Um yeah, probably a few hundred.

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Speaker 1: I know. I still am in the FBI's list, which

417
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Speaker 1: is funny to have a have a term for it.

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Speaker 1: It's called something like high Volume Team HVT. Yeah, And

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Speaker 1: what's funny about that term is HPT also means something

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Speaker 1: else and Robert knows what that means. Yeah, HBT means

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Speaker 1: something else, which I don't think is lost on on

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Speaker 1: FBI agents because they're in the intelligence community. HBT means

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Speaker 1: high value targets. That's what they That's what they call

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Speaker 1: people that they're going to drone. Creepy. I doffed my

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Speaker 1: cap at that. Yeah. I thought that was quite funny

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Speaker 1: and and quite creepy to um guys, we need to

427
00:21:22,560 --> 00:21:26,200
Speaker 1: take a real quick break for you know, ads and stuff.

428
00:21:26,720 --> 00:21:30,160
Speaker 1: Speaking of drones, you know who makes the guidance systems

429
00:21:30,240 --> 00:21:33,680
Speaker 1: in the drones that kill most of America's high value targets,

430
00:21:34,000 --> 00:21:39,200
Speaker 1: the fine people at Raytheon sponsor worst year ever. We'll

431
00:21:39,200 --> 00:21:52,920
Speaker 1: be right backget everything, So don't don't don't As promised,

432
00:21:53,160 --> 00:21:59,080
Speaker 1: We're right back. Yeah. Oh man. I I for one,

433
00:21:59,200 --> 00:22:02,000
Speaker 1: I'm a big fan of that sword missile that they

434
00:22:02,040 --> 00:22:06,080
Speaker 1: make with Lockheed Martin with the swords, that's my favorite

435
00:22:06,080 --> 00:22:11,280
Speaker 1: Graytheon product. I like the hell fires your classics man,

436
00:22:11,960 --> 00:22:16,360
Speaker 1: Yeah exactly. Yeah, it's like the michelob ultra of of

437
00:22:17,000 --> 00:22:20,879
Speaker 1: killing people at range. Yeah. Yeah, I'm just thinking of

438
00:22:21,080 --> 00:22:24,840
Speaker 1: um rust Cole and true detective reason like uh, you know,

439
00:22:25,000 --> 00:22:30,240
Speaker 1: just just yeah, yeah, exactly. I don't need any grancy, no, no,

440
00:22:30,400 --> 00:22:34,719
Speaker 1: just a good old fashioned hell fire. Well, um so

441
00:22:34,840 --> 00:22:37,560
Speaker 1: I kind of figured ken that we would talk for

442
00:22:37,560 --> 00:22:39,400
Speaker 1: a little bit about some We all did a little

443
00:22:39,400 --> 00:22:41,960
Speaker 1: bit of digging and pulled up some fun cases of

444
00:22:43,240 --> 00:22:46,080
Speaker 1: past Foyer requests that people have sent out and seen

445
00:22:46,119 --> 00:22:48,600
Speaker 1: some successors, and most of the ones I found came

446
00:22:48,600 --> 00:22:51,879
Speaker 1: from muck rock um, which seems to be a pretty

447
00:22:51,880 --> 00:22:54,879
Speaker 1: good site for collecting information on like Foyer request that

448
00:22:54,920 --> 00:22:56,800
Speaker 1: people are sending out and getting info back from. I

449
00:22:56,800 --> 00:22:59,480
Speaker 1: know they've done an interview with you before. Oh yeah,

450
00:22:59,520 --> 00:23:04,760
Speaker 1: they're great. Yeah. Um, so I found one on this

451
00:23:04,880 --> 00:23:08,479
Speaker 1: journalist filed. Does everyone remember when object Pie of the

452
00:23:08,480 --> 00:23:11,800
Speaker 1: the fcc UM did that Harlem shake video to like

453
00:23:12,280 --> 00:23:15,239
Speaker 1: make fun of people who were worried about the end

454
00:23:15,280 --> 00:23:19,320
Speaker 1: of Internet neutrality. Oh my god, that was like the

455
00:23:19,320 --> 00:23:21,840
Speaker 1: most depressing thing because it's just like, not just are

456
00:23:21,840 --> 00:23:23,840
Speaker 1: we're gonna take this thing from you that you know,

457
00:23:23,840 --> 00:23:26,000
Speaker 1: it's really formative for a lot of people my age, um,

458
00:23:26,040 --> 00:23:28,800
Speaker 1: you know, relatively open web. But I'm going to do

459
00:23:28,840 --> 00:23:31,399
Speaker 1: it in the most humiliating way that shows that we

460
00:23:31,440 --> 00:23:34,200
Speaker 1: don't care about you at all, and we don't even

461
00:23:34,280 --> 00:23:36,520
Speaker 1: know the cultural touchdones that we're trying to use right

462
00:23:36,520 --> 00:23:40,000
Speaker 1: now to um inducing you some some affection for for

463
00:23:40,040 --> 00:23:42,440
Speaker 1: the people that are going about doing this. It's it's

464
00:23:42,520 --> 00:23:45,400
Speaker 1: it was a remarkably I want to call it tone deaf,

465
00:23:45,480 --> 00:23:49,280
Speaker 1: but I actually think it was completely He completely understood

466
00:23:49,320 --> 00:23:54,560
Speaker 1: how celty was Twelty was the point. Yeah, yeah, exactly yeah. Um.

467
00:23:54,600 --> 00:23:59,639
Speaker 1: So he releases this absurd video and this journalist files

468
00:23:59,680 --> 00:24:03,880
Speaker 1: a four request UM for all of the emails UM

469
00:24:04,000 --> 00:24:06,199
Speaker 1: that were related to the Harlem Shake video, and the

470
00:24:06,240 --> 00:24:10,240
Speaker 1: FEC rejects the request under the B five exemption UM,

471
00:24:10,280 --> 00:24:12,879
Speaker 1: which basically means that they're arguing that releasing these emails

472
00:24:12,880 --> 00:24:16,119
Speaker 1: would harm the agency's ability to make similar videos in

473
00:24:16,119 --> 00:24:20,159
Speaker 1: the future. UM. So the journalist appeals and claims that

474
00:24:20,200 --> 00:24:22,800
Speaker 1: this is a bad faith interpretation of the B five

475
00:24:23,680 --> 00:24:30,080
Speaker 1: UM and eventually he gets so. Eventually he gets a

476
00:24:30,119 --> 00:24:33,040
Speaker 1: redacted version of the email one of the emails Pie

477
00:24:33,119 --> 00:24:35,880
Speaker 1: had sent related to this video, and it's like very

478
00:24:35,960 --> 00:24:39,399
Speaker 1: clearly just a single word, And he goes back and

479
00:24:39,440 --> 00:24:43,320
Speaker 1: forth with the FEC like over and over again, UM

480
00:24:43,640 --> 00:24:47,080
Speaker 1: to try and get the email unredacted, and when he does,

481
00:24:47,240 --> 00:24:51,000
Speaker 1: it's literally just an email with the word okay in it,

482
00:24:51,520 --> 00:24:58,640
Speaker 1: like yes, there are a lot of things like that. Yeah,

483
00:24:58,840 --> 00:25:01,920
Speaker 1: And the reality of f offices they perceive at the

484
00:25:01,960 --> 00:25:04,280
Speaker 1: federal level, they know that the White House is their boss,

485
00:25:04,359 --> 00:25:06,840
Speaker 1: or at least that's who they perceive in many respects,

486
00:25:07,640 --> 00:25:11,000
Speaker 1: Um who who who they're answering to. Each agency has

487
00:25:11,000 --> 00:25:14,040
Speaker 1: its own sort of FOI oversight, which can help. I

488
00:25:14,520 --> 00:25:16,880
Speaker 1: do think that it's worth Um. I've had cases where

489
00:25:16,880 --> 00:25:19,000
Speaker 1: I have appealed, many cases where I've appealed and and

490
00:25:19,000 --> 00:25:22,159
Speaker 1: and gotten stuff um lifted. So for example, and if

491
00:25:22,160 --> 00:25:24,199
Speaker 1: you go in the FBI office, I know that in

492
00:25:24,200 --> 00:25:26,560
Speaker 1: the FOIA office, they have something on the wall that says,

493
00:25:26,680 --> 00:25:29,600
Speaker 1: when in doubt, black it out. So they're going to

494
00:25:29,840 --> 00:25:33,720
Speaker 1: like very liberally redact things. And um, you know, while

495
00:25:33,800 --> 00:25:36,840
Speaker 1: the oversight that exists isn't perfect, um, they're not quite

496
00:25:36,880 --> 00:25:39,480
Speaker 1: that bad. And so they'll look at things and be like,

497
00:25:39,520 --> 00:25:42,000
Speaker 1: come on, guys, like give them this part or whatever.

498
00:25:42,119 --> 00:25:44,359
Speaker 1: So um. So yeah, I'm a big proponent of of

499
00:25:44,400 --> 00:25:48,840
Speaker 1: going through the appeals process, um wherever you can. But

500
00:25:48,960 --> 00:25:52,000
Speaker 1: that sadly is not an unusual unusual story. No, And

501
00:25:52,040 --> 00:25:54,440
Speaker 1: in this case, because it was a very good journalist

502
00:25:54,480 --> 00:25:57,359
Speaker 1: who was kind of doing this digging. Um. They obviously

503
00:25:57,400 --> 00:25:59,480
Speaker 1: knew that this one email with the word okay, and

504
00:25:59,520 --> 00:26:02,600
Speaker 1: it wasn't the extent of of or sorry. No, that's

505
00:26:02,600 --> 00:26:05,879
Speaker 1: a different case. UM, sorry, I UM, my notes are

506
00:26:05,880 --> 00:26:08,680
Speaker 1: a little bit messy. So the other fourier case I

507
00:26:08,720 --> 00:26:12,400
Speaker 1: wanted to bring up with somebody who filed a request

508
00:26:12,640 --> 00:26:17,280
Speaker 1: for UM all memos related to President Donald Trump's proposed

509
00:26:17,320 --> 00:26:21,240
Speaker 1: border wall. UM and after like seventeen months, Ice closed

510
00:26:21,240 --> 00:26:24,240
Speaker 1: out the four request UM saying that there were no records.

511
00:26:26,960 --> 00:26:31,600
Speaker 1: So obviously that's not true. Um. The journalists, come on,

512
00:26:33,440 --> 00:26:35,679
Speaker 1: we're getting fake news art, We're getting a fake news territory. Ever,

513
00:26:35,800 --> 00:26:37,440
Speaker 1: I need a fact check. Can we get some pinocchio

514
00:26:37,560 --> 00:26:41,200
Speaker 1: is on the Uh? There was a fact check done.

515
00:26:41,840 --> 00:26:44,520
Speaker 1: The journalist fact checked it by doing a search on

516
00:26:45,000 --> 00:26:48,080
Speaker 1: just basically combing through the Department of Homeland Securities website

517
00:26:48,480 --> 00:26:50,639
Speaker 1: and realized that they had posted up a ton of

518
00:26:50,720 --> 00:26:54,080
Speaker 1: PDF documents on the site in a non public place

519
00:26:54,480 --> 00:26:57,399
Speaker 1: and didn't realize that they were still indexed by Google

520
00:26:57,480 --> 00:27:03,680
Speaker 1: and searching beautiful beautiful, And so they found at least

521
00:27:03,720 --> 00:27:07,560
Speaker 1: two memos signed by John Kelly implementing the President's Border

522
00:27:07,600 --> 00:27:11,000
Speaker 1: security and Immigration enforcement improvements policies and enforcement of the

523
00:27:11,000 --> 00:27:14,760
Speaker 1: immigration laws to serve the national interests. Um. These were

524
00:27:14,760 --> 00:27:18,120
Speaker 1: both like linked to they were on the way back machine. UM.

525
00:27:18,440 --> 00:27:21,800
Speaker 1: Like it's and the like the way you find stuff

526
00:27:21,840 --> 00:27:24,879
Speaker 1: like that. It's actually shockingly common to run into stuff

527
00:27:24,920 --> 00:27:29,359
Speaker 1: that hasn't been like isn't supposed to be publicly available,

528
00:27:29,400 --> 00:27:32,000
Speaker 1: but it's still on like indexed and searchable. If you

529
00:27:32,080 --> 00:27:34,320
Speaker 1: just do like a file type PDF site for like

530
00:27:34,760 --> 00:27:36,959
Speaker 1: DHS dot gov or something like, you can just scroll

531
00:27:37,000 --> 00:27:40,000
Speaker 1: through everything that's up there. You can do keyword searches.

532
00:27:40,080 --> 00:27:44,200
Speaker 1: I'm guessing that's how his person did it. Um. But yeah,

533
00:27:44,320 --> 00:27:47,240
Speaker 1: it's it's a great story. Yeah, there's so many cases

534
00:27:47,280 --> 00:27:50,560
Speaker 1: like that where um, Stephen after Good at the Federation

535
00:27:50,600 --> 00:27:53,120
Speaker 1: of American Scientists, Um, he does very good for work. Two,

536
00:27:53,160 --> 00:27:56,200
Speaker 1: he did a case where he sent out identical requests

537
00:27:56,800 --> 00:28:00,160
Speaker 1: um to uh the same agency, but like he eight

538
00:28:00,200 --> 00:28:04,000
Speaker 1: in a year or trying remember that what he sent

539
00:28:04,080 --> 00:28:05,919
Speaker 1: maybe three out once once at the beginning of each

540
00:28:05,960 --> 00:28:07,919
Speaker 1: year or something like that, and then he looked at

541
00:28:07,920 --> 00:28:11,080
Speaker 1: the results and every every response was different. There were

542
00:28:11,119 --> 00:28:13,440
Speaker 1: in some responses these things were redacted and others these

543
00:28:13,440 --> 00:28:16,320
Speaker 1: weren't and in another of these words. So there's clearly

544
00:28:16,359 --> 00:28:19,320
Speaker 1: not you know, consistency with with with how they're interpreting

545
00:28:19,359 --> 00:28:25,320
Speaker 1: these um these exemptions. Yeah, um, like yeah, and it

546
00:28:25,680 --> 00:28:27,000
Speaker 1: goes into what you were saying. It just kind of

547
00:28:27,040 --> 00:28:31,440
Speaker 1: depends on like who's processing the request, Like there's not right, yeah,

548
00:28:31,440 --> 00:28:33,400
Speaker 1: when they when they upload a document or like when

549
00:28:33,440 --> 00:28:35,760
Speaker 1: the government you know, puts together a document, they don't

550
00:28:35,800 --> 00:28:38,040
Speaker 1: like right into it. And like if somebody happens to

551
00:28:38,080 --> 00:28:40,760
Speaker 1: foya this where in the word blacken years but you

552
00:28:40,800 --> 00:28:44,920
Speaker 1: don't Yeah, um yeah, Katie, Cody, once you have a

553
00:28:45,160 --> 00:28:47,680
Speaker 1: what did one of you have a example you wanted

554
00:28:47,720 --> 00:28:51,440
Speaker 1: to go into. Yeah, I misinterpreted what we were doing.

555
00:28:51,560 --> 00:28:54,560
Speaker 1: I just pulled up some of my favorite articles articles

556
00:28:54,560 --> 00:29:00,440
Speaker 1: of yours can talk a look ahead Cody. Oh, I

557
00:29:00,520 --> 00:29:03,280
Speaker 1: just thought, I there's this one funny one because you

558
00:29:03,280 --> 00:29:05,920
Speaker 1: know how like they're they're gonna be movies where the

559
00:29:05,920 --> 00:29:10,120
Speaker 1: production company works with the government on them, and I know,

560
00:29:10,200 --> 00:29:13,360
Speaker 1: like Marvel's got some you know, there's a propaganda out there.

561
00:29:13,440 --> 00:29:16,920
Speaker 1: When the movie Battleship based off the game Battleship, they

562
00:29:16,960 --> 00:29:19,640
Speaker 1: worked on that with the Navy, so they had like

563
00:29:19,640 --> 00:29:24,160
Speaker 1: a deals with the Navy. UM and Ingu King formerly

564
00:29:24,320 --> 00:29:28,080
Speaker 1: Slate Works at the Hollywood Reporter now just did a

565
00:29:28,120 --> 00:29:33,160
Speaker 1: FOYA for records like between the production company of Battleship,

566
00:29:33,200 --> 00:29:37,880
Speaker 1: the game, the movie, and the Navy. UM just to see. Um.

567
00:29:37,920 --> 00:29:40,440
Speaker 1: It's like standard stuff mostly like pay for this, pay

568
00:29:40,480 --> 00:29:43,360
Speaker 1: for this. UM. I thought it was very funny that

569
00:29:43,440 --> 00:29:47,920
Speaker 1: one of the stipulations was that the production provides at

570
00:29:48,000 --> 00:29:53,480
Speaker 1: least ten DVD copies of the movie Battleship. That's over.

571
00:29:54,600 --> 00:29:58,320
Speaker 1: That's such a specific number of tvds of Battleship to

572
00:29:58,720 --> 00:30:02,600
Speaker 1: It's very specific they claim for like historical records. UM,

573
00:30:02,640 --> 00:30:04,960
Speaker 1: but I know they just wanted to see Battleship. You

574
00:30:05,080 --> 00:30:07,360
Speaker 1: know what I love about that is that clearly one

575
00:30:07,440 --> 00:30:09,800
Speaker 1: copy of Battleship would have been enough for the whole

576
00:30:09,800 --> 00:30:13,400
Speaker 1: species for forever. Absolutely. We we like, just go into

577
00:30:13,400 --> 00:30:15,240
Speaker 1: the theater and watch it. Once it's in your brain,

578
00:30:15,280 --> 00:30:17,200
Speaker 1: you're good. You don't need to even need the DVD.

579
00:30:20,040 --> 00:30:24,800
Speaker 1: That's awesome. UM. So like less important for sure, UM,

580
00:30:24,960 --> 00:30:27,040
Speaker 1: but I do think, yeah, it's I mean, it's valuable.

581
00:30:27,080 --> 00:30:29,600
Speaker 1: I think also to be able to point to like no,

582
00:30:29,720 --> 00:30:33,880
Speaker 1: I mean the Department of Defense works with these movies

583
00:30:33,920 --> 00:30:36,280
Speaker 1: to make sure that they're to make sure they're presented,

584
00:30:36,800 --> 00:30:38,280
Speaker 1: uh in the way that they want to be. A

585
00:30:38,280 --> 00:30:41,959
Speaker 1: lot of the documents show that it was very clearly like,

586
00:30:42,600 --> 00:30:44,080
Speaker 1: you know, we need to have someone on there all

587
00:30:44,120 --> 00:30:46,280
Speaker 1: the time, so you make sure that we were presented

588
00:30:46,680 --> 00:30:50,040
Speaker 1: not just accurately but positively. Yeah. Oh yeah, no. I

589
00:30:50,040 --> 00:30:52,120
Speaker 1: mean that's actually a hugely important story. And there have

590
00:30:52,160 --> 00:30:55,400
Speaker 1: been a couple of really good articles written about the

591
00:30:55,560 --> 00:30:57,440
Speaker 1: I mean it's at this point, like close to half

592
00:30:57,480 --> 00:31:01,520
Speaker 1: a century um collaboration between the Department of Defense uh

593
00:31:01,560 --> 00:31:07,360
Speaker 1: and Hollywood. UM that is like largely responsible for how

594
00:31:08,120 --> 00:31:10,040
Speaker 1: like like a lot of the attitudes of the American

595
00:31:10,040 --> 00:31:13,720
Speaker 1: populace has not just of our military, but of its capabilities. UM.

596
00:31:13,840 --> 00:31:17,280
Speaker 1: And I think like number one, like the reporting on

597
00:31:17,320 --> 00:31:20,640
Speaker 1: these on this story has heavily involved for your requests,

598
00:31:20,640 --> 00:31:24,120
Speaker 1: which has revealed the hundreds of millions of dollars UM

599
00:31:24,120 --> 00:31:27,520
Speaker 1: worth of of free assistance that the Department of Defense

600
00:31:27,560 --> 00:31:30,440
Speaker 1: gives Hollywood. Like there's a lot of movies that probably

601
00:31:30,440 --> 00:31:33,280
Speaker 1: wouldn't have been made um without the d O D

602
00:31:33,560 --> 00:31:36,160
Speaker 1: you know giving these like like like all of the

603
00:31:36,200 --> 00:31:39,560
Speaker 1: Michael Bay movies like have millions of dollars in free

604
00:31:40,360 --> 00:31:43,360
Speaker 1: government like equipment grants and stuff where they're just handing

605
00:31:43,360 --> 00:31:46,479
Speaker 1: them tanks and personnel to man them, get giving them

606
00:31:46,520 --> 00:31:50,120
Speaker 1: access to aircraft carriers and stuff. And you know, it's

607
00:31:50,120 --> 00:31:52,600
Speaker 1: like it's it does kind of seem silly when you're

608
00:31:52,600 --> 00:31:56,280
Speaker 1: focusing on like battleship DVDs. But I think this, this

609
00:31:56,720 --> 00:32:00,280
Speaker 1: decades long propaganda campaign is also partly responsible. Are like

610
00:32:00,720 --> 00:32:03,240
Speaker 1: why so many Americans thought that when we rolled into

611
00:32:03,240 --> 00:32:05,800
Speaker 1: Iraq in two thousand three it was going to be easy, like,

612
00:32:06,160 --> 00:32:09,240
Speaker 1: of course we could handle this like the Yeah, I've

613
00:32:09,240 --> 00:32:15,479
Speaker 1: seen movies. Yeah, And I think it's also responsible for

614
00:32:15,520 --> 00:32:19,000
Speaker 1: a lot of my young friends making poor decisions about

615
00:32:19,040 --> 00:32:22,479
Speaker 1: what you do after high school. Sure, yeah, yeah, so,

616
00:32:22,560 --> 00:32:25,120
Speaker 1: as I said, I misinterpreted what you wanted us to

617
00:32:25,160 --> 00:32:27,400
Speaker 1: do here. But yeah, I did pull up a couple

618
00:32:28,000 --> 00:32:31,760
Speaker 1: um pieces from you can that I remembered seeing in

619
00:32:31,800 --> 00:32:34,600
Speaker 1: the past, and one of them I think actually uh

620
00:32:34,760 --> 00:32:37,360
Speaker 1: underscores what you said earlier about how you can request

621
00:32:37,400 --> 00:32:41,840
Speaker 1: documents from other countries. Uh. And it's this this um

622
00:32:42,160 --> 00:32:44,600
Speaker 1: less less I'm completely wrong. Uh. This one about how

623
00:32:44,760 --> 00:32:51,200
Speaker 1: an Israeli official had warned Trump against cutting Palestinian aid uh,

624
00:32:51,280 --> 00:32:53,480
Speaker 1: and I believe in this. You also talk about how

625
00:32:53,560 --> 00:32:57,120
Speaker 1: you got documents from Israel as well. Can you talk

626
00:32:57,160 --> 00:33:00,760
Speaker 1: a little bit about this story coming together. Yes, I

627
00:33:00,760 --> 00:33:02,560
Speaker 1: feel like you would be better to explain it than

628
00:33:02,600 --> 00:33:06,040
Speaker 1: me because you wrote it. Yeah, So I'd like Katie

629
00:33:06,120 --> 00:33:12,480
Speaker 1: explaining Kin's reporting, Katie splaining quietly, Katie splaining Yet. Um.

630
00:33:12,520 --> 00:33:16,240
Speaker 1: The SO I had this was when President Trump was

631
00:33:16,240 --> 00:33:18,440
Speaker 1: trying to cut like all A to the Palicinian Authority.

632
00:33:18,520 --> 00:33:21,480
Speaker 1: I of course knew that, um, you know, between people

633
00:33:21,560 --> 00:33:24,000
Speaker 1: at State that I know, we're telling me that this

634
00:33:24,040 --> 00:33:26,120
Speaker 1: was going to create, you know, security issue like whether

635
00:33:26,200 --> 00:33:28,080
Speaker 1: or not. I mean, it's a moral thing on one side,

636
00:33:28,120 --> 00:33:30,040
Speaker 1: like you know, people should have food to eat, but

637
00:33:30,080 --> 00:33:34,760
Speaker 1: then also there is like, uh, serious security things that

638
00:33:34,800 --> 00:33:37,520
Speaker 1: arise when people don't have food. They they're not gonna

639
00:33:37,560 --> 00:33:40,280
Speaker 1: be happy, you know. So UM I requested. I can't

640
00:33:40,280 --> 00:33:42,080
Speaker 1: remember exactly how I word of the request, but what

641
00:33:42,200 --> 00:33:45,040
Speaker 1: I got back was it was incredible. It was from

642
00:33:45,080 --> 00:33:49,200
Speaker 1: the UM I had for the the U. S Embassy

643
00:33:49,240 --> 00:33:53,440
Speaker 1: in Tel aviv Um and it was something like documents

644
00:33:53,480 --> 00:33:56,600
Speaker 1: relating to the decision to cut the p A funding

645
00:33:57,240 --> 00:34:01,520
Speaker 1: which the US providing part um and what it showed

646
00:34:01,640 --> 00:34:04,160
Speaker 1: and suggests to me that actually that that that there

647
00:34:04,200 --> 00:34:07,040
Speaker 1: was descent within state, because I don't know that's for certain,

648
00:34:07,080 --> 00:34:08,400
Speaker 1: but I don't see why they would have given me

649
00:34:08,400 --> 00:34:12,600
Speaker 1: this otherwise. UM. They they had they had a diplomatic

650
00:34:12,640 --> 00:34:17,600
Speaker 1: cable UM describing a Ministry of Defense official from Israel

651
00:34:18,040 --> 00:34:21,120
Speaker 1: urging UM the US embassy in Tel Aviv not to

652
00:34:21,160 --> 00:34:22,920
Speaker 1: do this because it's going to have you know, I

653
00:34:23,000 --> 00:34:26,640
Speaker 1: might have catastrophic UM effects on UM, as I said,

654
00:34:26,680 --> 00:34:28,160
Speaker 1: not just in a livelihood of the region, but also

655
00:34:28,239 --> 00:34:30,880
Speaker 1: like the security situation, like this could be an increase

656
00:34:30,880 --> 00:34:35,120
Speaker 1: in terrorism. UM. And what's amazing is they even identified,

657
00:34:35,440 --> 00:34:38,040
Speaker 1: if I recall right the document, who the official was,

658
00:34:38,640 --> 00:34:41,560
Speaker 1: and usually they redact those things because this person was

659
00:34:41,880 --> 00:34:46,280
Speaker 1: was cited as a confidential informant UM who had told

660
00:34:46,920 --> 00:34:49,960
Speaker 1: because you know, he's working under and Yahoo UM, so

661
00:34:50,040 --> 00:34:51,640
Speaker 1: he doesn't want to This person doesn't want to get

662
00:34:51,640 --> 00:34:55,120
Speaker 1: caught um uh, you know, criticizing the United States or

663
00:34:55,160 --> 00:34:57,279
Speaker 1: criticizing the Trump administration like that. So I end up

664
00:34:57,280 --> 00:34:59,719
Speaker 1: reporting it. And in the US, the response, of course

665
00:34:59,719 --> 00:35:01,560
Speaker 1: was mu it. But in Israel, I think it was

666
00:35:01,680 --> 00:35:03,880
Speaker 1: I think their foreign minister was screaming about it, and

667
00:35:04,160 --> 00:35:07,320
Speaker 1: people are really angry that that had come out because

668
00:35:07,360 --> 00:35:09,560
Speaker 1: I think it's very likely that that, you know, um,

669
00:35:09,719 --> 00:35:11,880
Speaker 1: factions within the state Department wanted it out because they

670
00:35:11,880 --> 00:35:14,400
Speaker 1: were very worried about it, whether or not they're you know,

671
00:35:14,440 --> 00:35:16,719
Speaker 1: conservative or liberal or whatever. Just seeing how crazy of

672
00:35:16,719 --> 00:35:21,879
Speaker 1: a posse it is. That's probably feels satisfying. You're like, oh, oh,

673
00:35:21,920 --> 00:35:24,479
Speaker 1: I was to help the Palatine's out. Yeah, for sure.

674
00:35:24,520 --> 00:35:27,759
Speaker 1: I mean so sad um the conditions generally, and then

675
00:35:27,840 --> 00:35:30,839
Speaker 1: especially under the Trevor administration, Yeah, that was definitely one

676
00:35:30,840 --> 00:35:33,839
Speaker 1: of them. More, I mean, there's so many disappointing for outcomes,

677
00:35:34,000 --> 00:35:41,600
Speaker 1: it's nice to have a good one. Um. Sorry one second, yeah, um.

678
00:35:41,640 --> 00:35:43,879
Speaker 1: I wanted to talk a little bit about like one

679
00:35:43,880 --> 00:35:45,799
Speaker 1: of the things that sort of does like this is

680
00:35:45,800 --> 00:35:48,320
Speaker 1: such an accessible thing to do filing for your requests,

681
00:35:48,360 --> 00:35:51,920
Speaker 1: with the exception that there are there are fees sometimes

682
00:35:51,920 --> 00:35:55,080
Speaker 1: and they're not always insignificant fees, and there are ways

683
00:35:55,120 --> 00:35:57,120
Speaker 1: to get those abated though, And I wanted to kind

684
00:35:57,120 --> 00:35:59,120
Speaker 1: of talk to you about that, like, do you have

685
00:35:59,160 --> 00:36:02,440
Speaker 1: any sort of advice on you know, how folks can

686
00:36:02,600 --> 00:36:05,959
Speaker 1: can go through this stuff without you know, breaking the bank.

687
00:36:06,000 --> 00:36:07,440
Speaker 1: If they don't have a lot, like because one of

688
00:36:07,440 --> 00:36:09,680
Speaker 1: the things that should be good about this is that

689
00:36:09,760 --> 00:36:12,320
Speaker 1: you don't have to have the resources of the Washington

690
00:36:12,400 --> 00:36:14,759
Speaker 1: Post of the New York Times. But like for the

691
00:36:14,840 --> 00:36:17,040
Speaker 1: requests that you know, the Washington Post published a great

692
00:36:17,080 --> 00:36:20,960
Speaker 1: article earlier this year based on like a ton of requests. Uh,

693
00:36:21,080 --> 00:36:23,560
Speaker 1: they filed and fought in court to get from the

694
00:36:23,560 --> 00:36:26,960
Speaker 1: Pentagon about the war in Afghanistan, and that obviously cost

695
00:36:27,000 --> 00:36:30,240
Speaker 1: them probably millions of dollars in legal fees and everything

696
00:36:30,280 --> 00:36:32,840
Speaker 1: like that. Um, the work that you do, and I

697
00:36:32,880 --> 00:36:34,920
Speaker 1: think the work that other people can do, you know,

698
00:36:35,080 --> 00:36:37,120
Speaker 1: doesn't doesn't need that kind of funding, but you do

699
00:36:37,200 --> 00:36:39,040
Speaker 1: kind of have to be smart about the way you

700
00:36:39,080 --> 00:36:42,040
Speaker 1: go about doing it. Yeah, totally. And I want to

701
00:36:42,080 --> 00:36:45,400
Speaker 1: stress that, you know, we're talking about these um subjects

702
00:36:45,400 --> 00:36:48,400
Speaker 1: that it may seem um sort of lofty, like you know,

703
00:36:48,400 --> 00:36:51,080
Speaker 1: foreign policy in the Middle East is real pals sign Um,

704
00:36:51,120 --> 00:36:54,080
Speaker 1: it's not all like that. Let me give you a story. Um,

705
00:36:54,440 --> 00:36:56,799
Speaker 1: there was a big controversy, I don't remember where this

706
00:36:56,840 --> 00:36:59,880
Speaker 1: is in a local paper somewhere. A kid at foydum

707
00:37:00,280 --> 00:37:02,840
Speaker 1: the like final exam, the answers to final exam, and

708
00:37:02,840 --> 00:37:06,040
Speaker 1: they produced it under Foy and he was able to

709
00:37:06,280 --> 00:37:08,520
Speaker 1: half the test them. After this, they had to change

710
00:37:08,600 --> 00:37:12,719
Speaker 1: the state interpretation of how it's applied to like educational institution.

711
00:37:12,800 --> 00:37:15,880
Speaker 1: I mean, honestly, that creative out of the box thinking

712
00:37:15,920 --> 00:37:21,719
Speaker 1: deserves an aute. So you can use this stuff for like,

713
00:37:21,800 --> 00:37:23,200
Speaker 1: I mean, if you want to go to a city

714
00:37:23,239 --> 00:37:26,520
Speaker 1: council meeting and figure out some sort of zoning thing

715
00:37:26,520 --> 00:37:28,720
Speaker 1: where they're gonna put a stop sign, Like, it doesn't

716
00:37:28,719 --> 00:37:31,839
Speaker 1: have to be this, you know, um kind of stuff

717
00:37:31,880 --> 00:37:33,279
Speaker 1: that you would think about being in the New York

718
00:37:33,320 --> 00:37:36,799
Speaker 1: Times or something. But to answer your question, yeah, there, Um,

719
00:37:37,000 --> 00:37:38,640
Speaker 1: it is important to know the way the law is written.

720
00:37:38,680 --> 00:37:40,239
Speaker 1: It's a fairly simple law. I don't want people to

721
00:37:40,280 --> 00:37:45,399
Speaker 1: be um deterred um thinking that, you know, it sounds

722
00:37:45,400 --> 00:37:46,959
Speaker 1: like I have to know all this stuff. There's learning

723
00:37:46,960 --> 00:37:49,880
Speaker 1: prove for getting better results, but just a sort of

724
00:37:49,880 --> 00:37:52,680
Speaker 1: crash course and it's really not that bad. So um,

725
00:37:52,719 --> 00:37:55,760
Speaker 1: I'm as a reporter, I get what's called a media

726
00:37:55,920 --> 00:37:59,600
Speaker 1: fee requests status at the federal level. Again, there's um

727
00:37:59,600 --> 00:38:01,600
Speaker 1: federal FOIA, and then there's every single one in a

728
00:38:01,640 --> 00:38:04,040
Speaker 1: state level. So California has like the Sunshine Law and

729
00:38:04,080 --> 00:38:07,040
Speaker 1: then you know, maybe Illinois has the illinor Upan records law.

730
00:38:07,080 --> 00:38:08,680
Speaker 1: So I'm just talking about the federal one right now,

731
00:38:08,719 --> 00:38:12,719
Speaker 1: but they're not enormously different. UM in most states UM

732
00:38:12,800 --> 00:38:16,600
Speaker 1: at as with the federal government, if you can demonstrate,

733
00:38:16,840 --> 00:38:19,759
Speaker 1: for example, a public need for the information, if you

734
00:38:19,800 --> 00:38:22,160
Speaker 1: can demonstrate that that there's some UM for me, I

735
00:38:22,239 --> 00:38:24,799
Speaker 1: have to demonstrate newsworthiness of the information requested. But if

736
00:38:24,800 --> 00:38:27,880
Speaker 1: you're an ordinary person just requesting UM, you can also

737
00:38:27,960 --> 00:38:30,719
Speaker 1: get UM a fee waiver. If you're with an educational institution,

738
00:38:30,760 --> 00:38:33,400
Speaker 1: say you're a student, for instance, and you're doing something

739
00:38:33,400 --> 00:38:35,879
Speaker 1: for a dissertation or something like that, UM you can

740
00:38:35,880 --> 00:38:38,359
Speaker 1: get a special fee waiver for that UM. I would

741
00:38:38,440 --> 00:38:40,680
Speaker 1: encourage people to look at muck rock. You mentioned mccarth.

742
00:38:40,719 --> 00:38:42,920
Speaker 1: That's a great resource or just kind of showing you

743
00:38:42,960 --> 00:38:44,759
Speaker 1: the basics of of how this stuff works, and they'll

744
00:38:44,800 --> 00:38:48,680
Speaker 1: list they'll list UM what the different um UH they're

745
00:38:48,680 --> 00:38:52,600
Speaker 1: called fee waiver status is UM are and you can

746
00:38:52,640 --> 00:38:54,320
Speaker 1: find if one applies to you, and in many cases,

747
00:38:54,520 --> 00:38:56,880
Speaker 1: in many cases it can depending on how you depending

748
00:38:56,880 --> 00:38:58,640
Speaker 1: on how you weard it. And that's something that they

749
00:38:58,760 --> 00:39:01,040
Speaker 1: do actually tend to be pretty recent about UM certainly

750
00:39:01,040 --> 00:39:02,719
Speaker 1: at the federal level. They might fight a little bit

751
00:39:02,719 --> 00:39:04,560
Speaker 1: more at the state level, but that's something that's well

752
00:39:04,560 --> 00:39:06,440
Speaker 1: worth it, and we'll save you a whole lot of money. Um,

753
00:39:06,480 --> 00:39:08,560
Speaker 1: so I woul encourage people. Yeah, just type in um

754
00:39:08,760 --> 00:39:12,360
Speaker 1: Foya fee Waivers muck rock and I'm sure there'll be

755
00:39:12,360 --> 00:39:14,960
Speaker 1: plenty of resources for you to to go off of

756
00:39:15,000 --> 00:39:17,799
Speaker 1: and see how to sort of craft and frame your request. Yeah.

757
00:39:17,840 --> 00:39:20,680
Speaker 1: They also have you can like, if you request something

758
00:39:21,000 --> 00:39:24,400
Speaker 1: and it's just an overwhelming document with too much in

759
00:39:24,480 --> 00:39:26,839
Speaker 1: it on muck rock, I think you can post it

760
00:39:27,120 --> 00:39:29,400
Speaker 1: and like the community will help you sort of go

761
00:39:29,560 --> 00:39:32,640
Speaker 1: through the actual documents. Um. Yeah, if you know, like

762
00:39:32,680 --> 00:39:34,359
Speaker 1: there's a topic or like something you want to see,

763
00:39:34,360 --> 00:39:36,799
Speaker 1: but like you just don't have the knowledge necessarily to

764
00:39:37,040 --> 00:39:40,120
Speaker 1: go through the fort however, you know long it is.

765
00:39:40,560 --> 00:39:45,840
Speaker 1: Imagine if every citizen exercised they're right to submit a request,

766
00:39:46,000 --> 00:39:49,560
Speaker 1: how much we would uncover. We can stop the government.

767
00:39:49,719 --> 00:39:52,960
Speaker 1: This is how we get our libertarian paradise elapse the

768
00:39:53,000 --> 00:39:56,440
Speaker 1: federal government through Foyer requests. Joke about it, but this

769
00:39:56,480 --> 00:40:00,520
Speaker 1: is actually Um culturally, Foya warriors people perceed me as

770
00:40:00,520 --> 00:40:02,520
Speaker 1: a big FOI person, But I think a part of

771
00:40:02,600 --> 00:40:05,799
Speaker 1: I'm certainly not the best by any means. Um, I'm

772
00:40:05,800 --> 00:40:07,560
Speaker 1: just someone that uses it that happens not to be

773
00:40:07,600 --> 00:40:10,040
Speaker 1: the I'm different in that I tend to ask the

774
00:40:10,080 --> 00:40:12,360
Speaker 1: sort of stuff that that that maybe people with my

775
00:40:12,480 --> 00:40:16,080
Speaker 1: broadly speaking, I don't know progressive politics might find interesting.

776
00:40:16,640 --> 00:40:19,200
Speaker 1: FOIA for years and still now has been dominated by

777
00:40:19,280 --> 00:40:23,360
Speaker 1: right wing libertarian types, and um, it's in some respects.

778
00:40:23,600 --> 00:40:25,000
Speaker 1: You know, I don't want to denigrate them, because they

779
00:40:25,000 --> 00:40:26,799
Speaker 1: do a lot of good work and and you know,

780
00:40:26,840 --> 00:40:28,480
Speaker 1: I work with them a lot of things, but that's

781
00:40:28,480 --> 00:40:30,320
Speaker 1: going to put blinders on this type of stuff that

782
00:40:30,320 --> 00:40:32,680
Speaker 1: they're interested in. Um. They tend to be, for instance,

783
00:40:32,680 --> 00:40:36,880
Speaker 1: more interested in waste. Um. Then uh, you know, perhaps

784
00:40:37,040 --> 00:40:39,359
Speaker 1: I don't know what what what any other left group

785
00:40:39,440 --> 00:40:42,600
Speaker 1: might might might think is important. And uh and above

786
00:40:42,840 --> 00:40:45,040
Speaker 1: all of that, UM, if you go through, say you

787
00:40:45,080 --> 00:40:47,120
Speaker 1: can request foil logs, that's a lot of fun to

788
00:40:47,200 --> 00:40:48,600
Speaker 1: just go through them and see the kind of stuff

789
00:40:48,600 --> 00:40:50,200
Speaker 1: people are requesting. They can give you a good idea

790
00:40:50,239 --> 00:40:52,360
Speaker 1: for how to word these requests because it will often

791
00:40:52,560 --> 00:40:55,000
Speaker 1: tell you the disposition of each request, what ended up happening.

792
00:40:55,200 --> 00:40:57,239
Speaker 1: Where you've given things, where you've given partial things where

793
00:40:57,239 --> 00:40:59,480
Speaker 1: you rejected blah blah blah. But if you go through

794
00:40:59,600 --> 00:41:02,080
Speaker 1: the foil oxper say the FBI, it's heartbreaking. The most

795
00:41:02,080 --> 00:41:06,359
Speaker 1: common request is Q and on is like UFOs. Well

796
00:41:07,600 --> 00:41:09,360
Speaker 1: those are those are the majority of people that are

797
00:41:09,440 --> 00:41:11,680
Speaker 1: using this. Their ordinary people do not use this tool.

798
00:41:11,719 --> 00:41:13,719
Speaker 1: I don't know why, um, but if they did, I

799
00:41:13,719 --> 00:41:15,920
Speaker 1: do think you'd see a big sea change because this

800
00:41:15,960 --> 00:41:17,920
Speaker 1: is really I think this is the garlic to the

801
00:41:18,000 --> 00:41:22,120
Speaker 1: vampire of kind of like UM takes and ideology and

802
00:41:22,200 --> 00:41:25,600
Speaker 1: opinion is just the primary source documents UM that you

803
00:41:25,600 --> 00:41:29,080
Speaker 1: know everyone can sort of agree is is fact based. Okay,

804
00:41:29,120 --> 00:41:31,640
Speaker 1: we have to take another quick break for the ads

805
00:41:31,640 --> 00:41:34,799
Speaker 1: and stuff, and then we're we'll be back. When we

806
00:41:34,880 --> 00:41:37,440
Speaker 1: come back, we're gonna we're gonna talk about what I'm

807
00:41:37,440 --> 00:41:40,120
Speaker 1: sure we've all been waiting to talk about everybody on

808
00:41:40,160 --> 00:41:49,200
Speaker 1: the podcasts. Friend and friend of the podcast, Michael Bloomberg

809
00:41:43,960 --> 00:42:00,600
Speaker 1: Wine everything We're bad. Oh my god. I love it

810
00:42:01,840 --> 00:42:04,880
Speaker 1: in those ads that we got both both Raytheon and

811
00:42:04,960 --> 00:42:08,160
Speaker 1: Michael Bloomberg ads. I love that he's decided to announce

812
00:42:08,200 --> 00:42:10,480
Speaker 1: early that his VP is just going to be a

813
00:42:10,480 --> 00:42:14,120
Speaker 1: predator drone. I'm very excited in many ways. I think

814
00:42:14,120 --> 00:42:16,080
Speaker 1: it'll work. It keeps the focus on him. You know,

815
00:42:17,040 --> 00:42:19,480
Speaker 1: he's so charismatic. You don't want you don't want to

816
00:42:19,520 --> 00:42:25,239
Speaker 1: overshadow that, now. Can You recently had a non Foy

817
00:42:25,239 --> 00:42:29,520
Speaker 1: foy a related coup relating to the Bloomberg campaign, and

818
00:42:29,560 --> 00:42:31,920
Speaker 1: I wonder if you wouldn't mind telling that story so

819
00:42:31,960 --> 00:42:36,520
Speaker 1: that we can gloat over it with you. Yes, So

820
00:42:36,520 --> 00:42:38,400
Speaker 1: I've been a bit, a bit, a little bit typecast.

821
00:42:38,400 --> 00:42:40,360
Speaker 1: There's more to me than I'm you know, I'm not

822
00:42:40,440 --> 00:42:42,399
Speaker 1: just I'm not just a Foy guy. I do other

823
00:42:42,440 --> 00:42:45,000
Speaker 1: things too. One thing I really enjoys. I alluded to

824
00:42:45,000 --> 00:42:46,880
Speaker 1: this earlier, but like a lot of my fours come

825
00:42:46,920 --> 00:42:49,839
Speaker 1: from tips that sources give me, I'm probably better work

826
00:42:49,920 --> 00:42:51,719
Speaker 1: my sources, I think than than Foy is a lot

827
00:42:51,719 --> 00:42:53,760
Speaker 1: of the credit I think should go to the sources

828
00:42:53,760 --> 00:42:56,560
Speaker 1: who describe where these things are. Um. But you know,

829
00:42:56,560 --> 00:42:59,360
Speaker 1: all that being said, I used that in uh my

830
00:42:59,400 --> 00:43:02,000
Speaker 1: reporting on Boomberg, and what I found, um is that

831
00:43:02,040 --> 00:43:04,080
Speaker 1: there are a whole lot of people working for Bloomberg

832
00:43:04,200 --> 00:43:07,680
Speaker 1: that are both you know, willing and actually quite enthusiastic

833
00:43:07,719 --> 00:43:11,160
Speaker 1: to try to help inform their um fellow Americans about

834
00:43:11,480 --> 00:43:15,600
Speaker 1: what's going on with this billionaire funded um sort of

835
00:43:15,640 --> 00:43:20,360
Speaker 1: grassroots I'm sorry, um astro turfed not grassroots campaign. Yeah,

836
00:43:20,360 --> 00:43:23,600
Speaker 1: it's almost like when you offer to pay organizers and

837
00:43:23,640 --> 00:43:27,200
Speaker 1: activists who are generally broke six thousand dollars a month

838
00:43:27,239 --> 00:43:29,359
Speaker 1: and give them health insurance, a lot of people who

839
00:43:29,440 --> 00:43:31,879
Speaker 1: don't otherwise agree with who you will get on board

840
00:43:32,000 --> 00:43:36,640
Speaker 1: because they need the money to survive. Yeah. I always

841
00:43:36,680 --> 00:43:38,560
Speaker 1: laugh when people are like, oh, your source is going

842
00:43:38,600 --> 00:43:40,440
Speaker 1: to get caught for these different stories you're getting, And

843
00:43:40,440 --> 00:43:42,759
Speaker 1: it's like, what makes you think I have one source? Right?

844
00:43:43,320 --> 00:43:44,560
Speaker 1: I don't want to I don't want to get a

845
00:43:44,640 --> 00:43:46,640
Speaker 1: specific but I talked to a lot of people in

846
00:43:46,680 --> 00:43:49,120
Speaker 1: the Bloomberg campaign. They are not authorized to talk to me.

847
00:43:50,640 --> 00:43:54,040
Speaker 1: So this, uh, you get this document sent to you

848
00:43:54,239 --> 00:43:58,320
Speaker 1: that is um like the like right after the debate

849
00:43:58,360 --> 00:44:01,239
Speaker 1: comes out, and obviously like Joe Biden even and uh

850
00:44:01,239 --> 00:44:06,080
Speaker 1: and Elizabeth Warren hit Bloomberg on the n d A issue, Um,

851
00:44:06,120 --> 00:44:08,000
Speaker 1: the fact that he's had a whole lot of women

852
00:44:08,120 --> 00:44:11,640
Speaker 1: signed in das for uh, you know, we know some

853
00:44:11,800 --> 00:44:13,320
Speaker 1: of what it is, but we don't know most of what.

854
00:44:13,600 --> 00:44:16,680
Speaker 1: You know, those have been about and you get sent

855
00:44:16,920 --> 00:44:19,800
Speaker 1: the document that is like the India the employees on

856
00:44:19,920 --> 00:44:23,160
Speaker 1: his campaign are required to sign. UM. And what is

857
00:44:23,200 --> 00:44:29,239
Speaker 1: it like getting something like that in your inbox? Ken? Well, Um,

858
00:44:29,400 --> 00:44:31,440
Speaker 1: there's always a mix of anxiety because you don't want

859
00:44:31,480 --> 00:44:34,319
Speaker 1: to get anyone in trouble. To me, that's, um, I'm sorry,

860
00:44:34,440 --> 00:44:36,400
Speaker 1: more important than the story. My stories I sit on

861
00:44:36,440 --> 00:44:38,440
Speaker 1: because I don't want to get anyone in trouble. Um.

862
00:44:38,600 --> 00:44:40,360
Speaker 1: But once I sort of you know, poked her and

863
00:44:40,400 --> 00:44:41,800
Speaker 1: looked at it, it sounds like this is one that

864
00:44:41,840 --> 00:44:45,120
Speaker 1: a whole lot of people sign. And I, um, you know,

865
00:44:45,160 --> 00:44:47,919
Speaker 1: I have waste. There are waste like I don't. I'll

866
00:44:47,920 --> 00:44:49,480
Speaker 1: print it and I'll blur it a little bit. There

867
00:44:49,480 --> 00:44:50,960
Speaker 1: are all sorts of things you can do to to

868
00:44:51,120 --> 00:44:55,040
Speaker 1: obscure um sourcing. UM. And So when I felt comfortable,

869
00:44:55,320 --> 00:44:56,719
Speaker 1: you know, that that this was not gonna be something

870
00:44:56,719 --> 00:44:59,360
Speaker 1: that would get back to the person UM, then I

871
00:44:59,480 --> 00:45:01,400
Speaker 1: was excited, really because I think that this is the

872
00:45:01,480 --> 00:45:03,480
Speaker 1: lustrative of the approach that he was trying to import

873
00:45:03,520 --> 00:45:07,800
Speaker 1: from Wall Street into government. Um. You know, he's running

874
00:45:07,840 --> 00:45:11,040
Speaker 1: this campaign just like he does his corporations, making people

875
00:45:11,120 --> 00:45:14,520
Speaker 1: sign these das. And I guess in a corporate context

876
00:45:14,560 --> 00:45:16,800
Speaker 1: that can make sense. You don't want to have proprietary information,

877
00:45:16,840 --> 00:45:18,440
Speaker 1: get out if you have, say R and D for

878
00:45:18,560 --> 00:45:21,239
Speaker 1: a product or something. I mean, I'm not an enthusiast

879
00:45:21,320 --> 00:45:24,200
Speaker 1: for the you know, UM, you know, capitalism and the

880
00:45:24,239 --> 00:45:26,520
Speaker 1: private market or anything. But I can understand that at least.

881
00:45:26,920 --> 00:45:30,480
Speaker 1: But UM, when it comes to government, UM, why do

882
00:45:30,560 --> 00:45:32,719
Speaker 1: you need an NDA as? This one was that was

883
00:45:32,840 --> 00:45:35,080
Speaker 1: I think nine pages long in the language. If you

884
00:45:35,120 --> 00:45:37,800
Speaker 1: would just read it and encourage people to, you know,

885
00:45:37,840 --> 00:45:41,280
Speaker 1: look at the primary source documented story. It's extremely broad

886
00:45:41,400 --> 00:45:44,680
Speaker 1: and can conceivably apply to anything. And I talked to UM,

887
00:45:44,960 --> 00:45:49,880
Speaker 1: you know, some government transparency experts at Crew. They do

888
00:45:50,040 --> 00:45:52,400
Speaker 1: very good work, UM, and they described to me that

889
00:45:52,800 --> 00:45:57,320
Speaker 1: many campaign um nd as, you know, the practices increasing.

890
00:45:57,320 --> 00:45:58,719
Speaker 1: I don't want to give people the impression that that

891
00:45:58,880 --> 00:46:01,120
Speaker 1: all any of us started with Bloomberg. This has been

892
00:46:01,160 --> 00:46:03,279
Speaker 1: a has been a practice that that more and more

893
00:46:03,320 --> 00:46:06,520
Speaker 1: campaigns have been engaged in UM. They told me that

894
00:46:06,719 --> 00:46:09,560
Speaker 1: often das or maybe a few sentences long saying you know,

895
00:46:09,600 --> 00:46:12,239
Speaker 1: I just don't do this in this and very specific. Now,

896
00:46:12,280 --> 00:46:13,640
Speaker 1: if you look at the language of this one, it

897
00:46:13,840 --> 00:46:17,840
Speaker 1: covers virtually everything that could conceivably have anything to do

898
00:46:17,920 --> 00:46:20,000
Speaker 1: with the campaign, and why you would need to do that,

899
00:46:20,440 --> 00:46:24,120
Speaker 1: not just of itself, but also indefinitely there's no expiration

900
00:46:24,200 --> 00:46:27,080
Speaker 1: date for these um NDAs. Uh, first of all, I

901
00:46:27,080 --> 00:46:28,920
Speaker 1: don't understand, and second of all, that's going to deprive

902
00:46:29,000 --> 00:46:31,520
Speaker 1: the public of an understanding of what happened with this

903
00:46:31,640 --> 00:46:35,040
Speaker 1: really unprecedented attempt by a billionaire to sort of insert

904
00:46:35,120 --> 00:46:38,759
Speaker 1: himself in the national um, you know stage, And I'm sorry,

905
00:46:38,840 --> 00:46:41,160
Speaker 1: essentially by an election. Um, I think we should know

906
00:46:41,200 --> 00:46:46,680
Speaker 1: what's going on with that. Don't apologizegize. Are you suggesting

907
00:46:46,760 --> 00:46:49,279
Speaker 1: maybe that running the government like a business is actually

908
00:46:49,320 --> 00:46:52,399
Speaker 1: a bad idea? Well, I'm gonna you see, I'm gonna reporter,

909
00:46:52,440 --> 00:46:54,800
Speaker 1: so I'm an android. I don't have feelings or opinions.

910
00:46:55,480 --> 00:47:02,600
Speaker 1: Will of the world, taking in the information and then

911
00:47:02,719 --> 00:47:07,080
Speaker 1: never make decisions based on exactly yeah, yeah, no, I

912
00:47:07,160 --> 00:47:09,800
Speaker 1: think yeah, And I mean we have an example of that.

913
00:47:09,880 --> 00:47:12,560
Speaker 1: We have an example of an extraordinarily wealthy mogul that um,

914
00:47:12,760 --> 00:47:17,160
Speaker 1: you know, imported um his conduct in private business into

915
00:47:17,520 --> 00:47:19,880
Speaker 1: the public sphere, and what you see is extraordinary secrecy

916
00:47:20,880 --> 00:47:24,400
Speaker 1: UM and mismanagement and incompetence because the thing is secrecy

917
00:47:24,480 --> 00:47:27,359
Speaker 1: is not just something to insulate yourself. It has all

918
00:47:27,440 --> 00:47:30,800
Speaker 1: sorts of side effects, which is that people can't communicate

919
00:47:30,840 --> 00:47:32,919
Speaker 1: with each other because everyone's paranoid. And as I'm told

920
00:47:32,960 --> 00:47:34,759
Speaker 1: by you know, staffers on the campaign, everyone's like, oh

921
00:47:34,800 --> 00:47:36,400
Speaker 1: signed ye, Like I don't know if I'm even a

922
00:47:36,440 --> 00:47:38,960
Speaker 1: lot of talk about this with somebody else or you know,

923
00:47:39,040 --> 00:47:41,680
Speaker 1: And so campaigns then become it's difficult for them to

924
00:47:42,000 --> 00:47:44,800
Speaker 1: communicate internally, and it has all sorts of consequences that

925
00:47:44,840 --> 00:47:47,400
Speaker 1: go beyond just you know, protecting the privacy of of

926
00:47:47,520 --> 00:47:51,520
Speaker 1: whoever the individual. Of the heart of it is, well,

927
00:47:52,920 --> 00:47:55,759
Speaker 1: I can't get paid by Bloomberg to change your mind,

928
00:47:58,120 --> 00:47:59,800
Speaker 1: right right, Well, I'm so waiting for the check. But

929
00:48:00,239 --> 00:48:02,520
Speaker 1: when that comes, then, uh, I'll be doing any more

930
00:48:02,520 --> 00:48:09,719
Speaker 1: of these now to employer requests about Bernie Sanders, I

931
00:48:09,760 --> 00:48:13,799
Speaker 1: don't know writing essays when he was in his early

932
00:48:13,920 --> 00:48:16,719
Speaker 1: twenties that that weren't very good and how relevant that

933
00:48:16,880 --> 00:48:24,279
Speaker 1: is to a presidential campaign half a century later, Bernie Yeah,

934
00:48:24,360 --> 00:48:26,560
Speaker 1: of courtunately for Bernie Foya and this is a criticism

935
00:48:26,640 --> 00:48:29,200
Speaker 1: of it does not apply to presidential campaigns. Are in

936
00:48:29,280 --> 00:48:33,600
Speaker 1: this weird quasi public private space that there are expectations

937
00:48:33,640 --> 00:48:36,520
Speaker 1: of disclosure and information, but it's limited and it's not

938
00:48:36,719 --> 00:48:39,880
Speaker 1: quite the same as a formal federal agency or or

939
00:48:40,280 --> 00:48:42,640
Speaker 1: or you know, government body. So it's a really weird,

940
00:48:43,400 --> 00:48:46,879
Speaker 1: uh sort of middle ground. That's interesting. Does it Does

941
00:48:46,960 --> 00:48:49,759
Speaker 1: the sort of status of the campaign change once they

942
00:48:50,120 --> 00:48:51,920
Speaker 1: like we're out of the primary season, Like I know

943
00:48:52,080 --> 00:48:54,360
Speaker 1: that you you tend to get your like secret service,

944
00:48:54,760 --> 00:48:57,040
Speaker 1: you know, detail once you know you're kind of out

945
00:48:57,080 --> 00:48:58,960
Speaker 1: of the primary season. Is that sort of the same

946
00:48:59,000 --> 00:49:04,040
Speaker 1: thing with like your disclosure requirements change? Unfortunately, um, the

947
00:49:04,200 --> 00:49:08,920
Speaker 1: presidency in general is very resistant to um uh you know,

948
00:49:09,080 --> 00:49:13,919
Speaker 1: public disclosure. So for example, parts of the White House

949
00:49:14,719 --> 00:49:17,319
Speaker 1: are um you can for them, for example, the Office

950
00:49:17,360 --> 00:49:20,880
Speaker 1: of Management and Budget, but the Executive Office of the

951
00:49:20,920 --> 00:49:23,799
Speaker 1: President or the Oval Office, those are completely exempt from

952
00:49:23,800 --> 00:49:30,080
Speaker 1: FOIA UM. And our executive has really amazing privileges, at

953
00:49:30,160 --> 00:49:33,520
Speaker 1: least relative to the rest of the agencies UM in

954
00:49:33,600 --> 00:49:37,080
Speaker 1: our government. And so that is a big sort of

955
00:49:37,680 --> 00:49:41,080
Speaker 1: UM thing I enjoy complaining about all the times is

956
00:49:41,120 --> 00:49:45,279
Speaker 1: how impenetrable the executive is to to disclosure. I mean

957
00:49:45,360 --> 00:49:49,879
Speaker 1: that seems like something with no downside though, so uh yeah, right, yeah,

958
00:49:50,280 --> 00:49:54,520
Speaker 1: I think we're all fans of a completely unaccountable UM

959
00:49:54,640 --> 00:49:58,560
Speaker 1: and empowered executive with with you know, nor no sort

960
00:49:58,560 --> 00:50:01,080
Speaker 1: of accountability. UM you just want to have you don't

961
00:50:01,080 --> 00:50:02,960
Speaker 1: want to have to think about it, you know. Ye?

962
00:50:04,400 --> 00:50:07,600
Speaker 1: How does this saying go absolute power leads to good things?

963
00:50:07,880 --> 00:50:11,800
Speaker 1: Absolute power leads to absolute vodka, which is easily in

964
00:50:11,880 --> 00:50:15,960
Speaker 1: the top eleven or twelve kinds of vodka. Yeah, I

965
00:50:16,040 --> 00:50:19,440
Speaker 1: knew it was something good. This was founded by people

966
00:50:19,480 --> 00:50:23,000
Speaker 1: who looked at an absolute ruler accountable to no one,

967
00:50:23,080 --> 00:50:25,920
Speaker 1: and we're like, that's a good idea. Let's never stop

968
00:50:28,520 --> 00:50:32,319
Speaker 1: your preacher of the choir. Uh, Ken, I think we've

969
00:50:32,360 --> 00:50:34,440
Speaker 1: gone into everything we wanted to cover today. Is there

970
00:50:34,440 --> 00:50:37,160
Speaker 1: anything else you wanted to talk about? What we have

971
00:50:37,320 --> 00:50:40,480
Speaker 1: you here in your brain opened up on the table

972
00:50:40,840 --> 00:50:48,080
Speaker 1: for us to lick Chris kicking the electrodes off right now? Yeah?

973
00:50:49,880 --> 00:50:52,279
Speaker 1: I would say stay tuned, there's more to come on

974
00:50:52,360 --> 00:50:58,120
Speaker 1: the Bloomberg campaign. I'm excited the hell out of Kim

975
00:50:58,160 --> 00:51:01,480
Speaker 1: Cliffenstein on Twitter. Uh and you might see him have

976
00:51:01,560 --> 00:51:05,160
Speaker 1: another interaction with Jacob wol because Jacob Bowl is definitely

977
00:51:05,280 --> 00:51:09,120
Speaker 1: using a sock puppet account. Is a strange brother. Oh,

978
00:51:09,200 --> 00:51:13,680
Speaker 1: my god. Yeah. For people who aren't aware Klin had

979
00:51:13,840 --> 00:51:16,880
Speaker 1: Ken had probably the greatest moment in the history of

980
00:51:16,920 --> 00:51:21,800
Speaker 1: Twitter a year or so ago. Um and uh, I

981
00:51:21,840 --> 00:51:23,359
Speaker 1: don't know, Kenny, do you do? What do you mind

982
00:51:23,400 --> 00:51:26,359
Speaker 1: closing this out by telling that beautiful story because it's

983
00:51:26,400 --> 00:51:29,239
Speaker 1: one of the moments I go back to whenever I

984
00:51:29,560 --> 00:51:31,720
Speaker 1: need a little bit of a pick me up. Okay,

985
00:51:31,800 --> 00:51:33,080
Speaker 1: let me see here. I want to get the exact

986
00:51:33,120 --> 00:51:35,080
Speaker 1: wording right because it's too insane to be People won't

987
00:51:35,080 --> 00:51:36,640
Speaker 1: believe me if I'm not just reading it for bab

988
00:51:37,160 --> 00:51:41,800
Speaker 1: For background, Jacob wool is a scammer who uh initially

989
00:51:42,280 --> 00:51:46,600
Speaker 1: branded himself as the youngest trader in in the stock

990
00:51:46,680 --> 00:51:50,440
Speaker 1: market history, and it turned out he was just scamming people, uh,

991
00:51:50,560 --> 00:51:52,400
Speaker 1: and then moved on to being a right wing grifter

992
00:51:52,960 --> 00:51:55,400
Speaker 1: and is now trying to sell fitness tips for five

993
00:51:55,800 --> 00:51:58,839
Speaker 1: dollars apiece and the Crass and Stein brothers are kind

994
00:51:58,840 --> 00:52:02,320
Speaker 1: of the left wing version of him over and basically

995
00:52:02,440 --> 00:52:05,680
Speaker 1: just would harangue Donald Trump on Twitter and then tried

996
00:52:05,760 --> 00:52:07,480
Speaker 1: to raise a bunch of money to make the worst

997
00:52:07,680 --> 00:52:13,480
Speaker 1: illustrated children's book about how Robert Mueller is a shirtless authoritarianism,

998
00:52:13,560 --> 00:52:17,720
Speaker 1: fighting hero. It was a very embarrassing segment of American history.

999
00:52:18,160 --> 00:52:21,600
Speaker 1: Who's going to save us? All? Yeah, I don't want

1000
00:52:21,640 --> 00:52:24,560
Speaker 1: to hear how embarrassing he is from people that weren't

1001
00:52:24,600 --> 00:52:29,120
Speaker 1: constantly mistaken for them in earnest by countless countless, like

1002
00:52:29,360 --> 00:52:32,400
Speaker 1: not very online, people that genuinely thought I was. And

1003
00:52:33,120 --> 00:52:35,799
Speaker 1: one of the most common resplies to my stories by

1004
00:52:35,920 --> 00:52:38,040
Speaker 1: kind of like sincere sort of resistance moms were like,

1005
00:52:38,520 --> 00:52:41,120
Speaker 1: this story looks good, but aren't aren't these guys supposed

1006
00:52:41,120 --> 00:52:42,640
Speaker 1: to be not credible? I think I heard that somewhere

1007
00:52:42,640 --> 00:52:46,080
Speaker 1: and they're not. Because it's like it's like resistance Karen, like,

1008
00:52:46,120 --> 00:52:48,640
Speaker 1: I don't think she's doing an irony when says that.

1009
00:52:48,880 --> 00:52:50,800
Speaker 1: I think you know what I mean. So so I

1010
00:52:50,880 --> 00:52:53,520
Speaker 1: don't hear that, but um so yeah, between us two.

1011
00:52:53,520 --> 00:52:55,279
Speaker 1: What was funny about the story was it was kind

1012
00:52:55,280 --> 00:53:00,040
Speaker 1: of all of these unsavory characters in one like it

1013
00:53:00,280 --> 00:53:02,480
Speaker 1: like it was like we were saying before, how I

1014
00:53:02,560 --> 00:53:06,040
Speaker 1: attract all these great surreal figures. It was like I

1015
00:53:06,200 --> 00:53:09,120
Speaker 1: was emptying the lint trap in whatever it was. That's

1016
00:53:09,239 --> 00:53:12,080
Speaker 1: all these people are collecting in because so I said,

1017
00:53:12,239 --> 00:53:13,759
Speaker 1: I said of Jacob will what's it. I don't remember

1018
00:53:13,760 --> 00:53:15,960
Speaker 1: what it was replying to it's some silly tweet a base.

1019
00:53:16,000 --> 00:53:17,160
Speaker 1: I said, what's it like to have a brain made

1020
00:53:17,160 --> 00:53:20,279
Speaker 1: of jello? He replies, you tell me Krassenstein. Um, they're

1021
00:53:20,280 --> 00:53:22,520
Speaker 1: always mistaken me for them. Um. And then I reply,

1022
00:53:22,800 --> 00:53:24,360
Speaker 1: the difference between you and the crass and scenes is

1023
00:53:24,400 --> 00:53:27,920
Speaker 1: their grips don't immediately implode. And then I just I

1024
00:53:27,960 --> 00:53:30,320
Speaker 1: don't even have the words. It was like brain melting.

1025
00:53:30,400 --> 00:53:33,239
Speaker 1: What happened next, because it was like it felt like

1026
00:53:33,480 --> 00:53:35,279
Speaker 1: you were in the matrix, like it can't be real.

1027
00:53:35,480 --> 00:53:37,719
Speaker 1: And then so ed ed cress and scene comes on

1028
00:53:37,800 --> 00:53:39,560
Speaker 1: the actual account, not a not a like tell me

1029
00:53:39,800 --> 00:53:43,120
Speaker 1: he interviews. He replies, he's in response to my want

1030
00:53:43,160 --> 00:53:46,719
Speaker 1: about the grips not immediately imploding. He says, boom, it

1031
00:53:46,800 --> 00:53:53,400
Speaker 1: was an explanation and I was just blinking looking at it,

1032
00:53:53,480 --> 00:53:56,280
Speaker 1: thinking it had to be a like a parody account

1033
00:53:56,280 --> 00:53:57,880
Speaker 1: of paints or something, and it was him. It's he

1034
00:53:57,920 --> 00:54:00,880
Speaker 1: actually said that it's amazing. It's spent a lot of

1035
00:54:00,920 --> 00:54:04,799
Speaker 1: time thinking about Yeah, it's never far from my mind.

1036
00:54:05,960 --> 00:54:10,040
Speaker 1: It's bizarre. It's so bizarre. Ken you want to plug

1037
00:54:10,080 --> 00:54:12,759
Speaker 1: your plug Aubles before we roll out for the day. Yeah,

1038
00:54:12,760 --> 00:54:14,279
Speaker 1: I would say, Um, you can find me on Twitter

1039
00:54:14,320 --> 00:54:16,719
Speaker 1: at Ken Clippen segn Um. Check up my bio. I've

1040
00:54:16,760 --> 00:54:19,000
Speaker 1: got my signal in there. Um if your government or

1041
00:54:19,000 --> 00:54:22,879
Speaker 1: anywhere adjacent to it. I'm always happy to chat with people. Yeah,

1042
00:54:22,920 --> 00:54:26,120
Speaker 1: give him tips, yeah, yeah it send me tips. Yeah.

1043
00:54:26,280 --> 00:54:28,239
Speaker 1: Michael Bloomberg is a fan of the show, so I'm

1044
00:54:28,239 --> 00:54:29,920
Speaker 1: hoping he's going to reach out to you with some

1045
00:54:30,760 --> 00:54:32,680
Speaker 1: like bloomberge. And you're close to him and you know,

1046
00:54:33,040 --> 00:54:35,120
Speaker 1: potentially derogatory thinks about him. I'm not going to do

1047
00:54:35,160 --> 00:54:36,640
Speaker 1: anything with that. Just tell me about it. I like

1048
00:54:36,719 --> 00:54:38,480
Speaker 1: to hear about it because it makes me feel more

1049
00:54:38,560 --> 00:54:41,120
Speaker 1: human realizing that a great man like him has flaws

1050
00:54:41,920 --> 00:54:44,120
Speaker 1: as we all do. So yeah, go ahead and do that.

1051
00:54:46,680 --> 00:54:49,560
Speaker 1: And you can find us online at Worst Year Pod

1052
00:54:49,719 --> 00:54:54,600
Speaker 1: on Twitter and Instagram, and that's it. That's the only

1053
00:54:54,680 --> 00:54:59,480
Speaker 1: place you can find any of us. Thanks Ken, all right,

1054
00:54:59,480 --> 00:55:02,279
Speaker 1: really near you, guys, Thank you, Ken, Thank you so much.

1055
00:55:04,120 --> 00:55:09,520
Speaker 1: Everything so dull, everything so dumb, and it's got again.

1056
00:55:11,640 --> 00:55:15,880
Speaker 1: I tried Daniel. Worst Year Ever is a production of

1057
00:55:15,960 --> 00:55:18,680
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from my Heart Radio

1058
00:55:18,800 --> 00:55:21,720
Speaker 1: visit the I heart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever

1059
00:55:21,800 --> 00:55:23,120
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows.