Speaker 1: From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
Speaker 1: riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
Speaker 1: learn this stuff they don't want you to know. A
Speaker 1: production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
Speaker 2: my name is Noah.
Speaker 3: They call be Bed. We're joined as always with our
Speaker 3: super producer, Dylan the Tennessee pal Fagod. Most importantly, you
Speaker 3: are you. You are here. That makes this the stuff
Speaker 3: they don't want you to know. Let's start here, gentlemen,
Speaker 3: have you ever been interrogated.
Speaker 4: Oh, goshya by my mom, my ex wife. This little
Speaker 4: guy right here sometimes gets a little demanded. No, not
Speaker 4: in a professional setting, look like you know, under duress
Speaker 4: or in confinement.
Speaker 2: I've been interrogated by my dog about why it is
Speaker 2: time to eat right now, and there's you know, we
Speaker 2: can't wait on your rules. It's time to eat now.
Speaker 3: I've also been there, Matt. I've been interrogated sometimes on
Speaker 3: air by my cats who don't understand podcast in general.
Speaker 3: But that's what you could say about so many other
Speaker 3: family members. I think we've we all at least know
Speaker 3: someone who has been involved in a legal inquiry of
Speaker 3: one sort or another. Or maybe you're a bystander and
Speaker 3: you see a automobile accident, right, and you stop to
Speaker 3: be a witness for the police. They're going to ask
Speaker 3: you some questions. You're not necessarily in trouble, but they
Speaker 3: are kind of interrogating you because they want to know
Speaker 3: what's going on.
Speaker 4: Well, it's interesting that you bring that up, and because
Speaker 4: I've always been curious as to whether there is a
Speaker 4: line between being questioned and being interrogated.
Speaker 3: Right, where did the Miranda rights kick in? For example? Well,
Speaker 3: we know that in the ui U there are an
Speaker 3: increasing number of people who are being put to some
Speaker 3: kind of interrogation for any number of reasons, especially with
Speaker 3: the rise of ice. And you could be the hardest
Speaker 3: badger in the bag and tire, but given enough time
Speaker 3: and incentive, everybody confirms that you will break. So yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: the best we can hope is to resist for as
Speaker 3: long as possible. We have to say this part loud.
Speaker 3: Video producers make sure we get this across. This is
Speaker 3: not legal advice. None of this is legal advice.
Speaker 4: Just gentle you know, the encouragement, you know, to act
Speaker 4: as in a certain way.
Speaker 2: Yes, and in all likelihood you will never be fully
Speaker 2: interrogated in some of the ways we're going to discuss here.
Speaker 5: Knock on, would we hope not.
Speaker 2: The paramilitary military stuff, you know, extra judicial interrogation kind
Speaker 2: of thing, but the likelihood that you end up in
Speaker 2: a situation that Ben was describing the but you know
Speaker 2: you're going to be asked a bunch of questions at
Speaker 2: some point by law enforcement. That that can and probably
Speaker 2: will happen. And it doesn't mean there's like a murder
Speaker 2: charge anywhere involved there. It just means you might get questions.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and that's a great place for us to start.
Speaker 3: Maybe we take a break for a word from our
Speaker 3: sponsors and we dive in. Here are the facts first
Speaker 3: things verse Again, Cadot emphasize this enough. We are not lawyers,
Speaker 3: but the lawyers are correct. You can avoid it. Do
Speaker 3: not speak to any law of your land if you
Speaker 3: can avoid it. If you're in the US, you have
Speaker 3: a constitutional right to remain silent via something called the
Speaker 3: Fifth Amendment, which I think sometimes gets unfairly portrayed as
Speaker 3: the sketchiest of amendments.
Speaker 4: Also sometimes fairly portrayed, I think in the way we've
Speaker 4: been seeing it flung around willy nilly these days, and
Speaker 4: of course there is a certain uh stigma surrounding it
Speaker 4: that it does imply some level of guilt, which to
Speaker 4: your point, Ben, I think isn't always fair though in
Speaker 4: some of the Gelane Maxwell uses of it, for example, uh,
Speaker 4: some of the Epstein you know files of it all
Speaker 4: does seem to cast dispersions, let's just say, on the
Speaker 4: innocence of the folks using it to answer every single question.
Speaker 3: Plus those hilarious depositions. When you can get a hold
Speaker 3: of the footage where it's somebody being asked a question,
Speaker 3: they just go fifth.
Speaker 5: Hold on, I plead the fifth?
Speaker 2: Yeah, five?
Speaker 5: Is that a Chappelle thing?
Speaker 3: Yes?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it's so good.
Speaker 3: The Fifth Amendment states mandates that no person shall quote
Speaker 3: be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness
Speaker 3: against himself. That's why people are saying that does it
Speaker 3: imply that you did a crime?
Speaker 4: I guess I've been hearing a lot of chatter too.
Speaker 4: Maybe you guys have thoughts about this, certainly you do.
Speaker 5: Whether or not it is.
Speaker 4: Lost some of its effectiveness or there is a world
Speaker 4: where it is unfairly used or used in a way
Speaker 4: that seems to be a way of skirting the law
Speaker 4: rather than it being a benefit to individual civil liberties.
Speaker 3: I mean, it definitely can happen. It can be loopholed, weaponized,
Speaker 3: especially if you have the socioeconomic wherewithal to get a
Speaker 3: cracked team of lawyers. Then they are going to do
Speaker 3: everything possible to get the best outcome for whatever your
Speaker 3: case is. It also Maxwell right, Galai Maxwell cough cough
Speaker 3: current Potus cough cough right. I mean, I don't know,
Speaker 3: it's it's weird because if we ask why it's important,
Speaker 3: Like to your point, Noel, the laws only work so
Speaker 3: long as they are honestly enforced, which is coming in
Speaker 3: increasing issue here. But why did the founding fathers, who
Speaker 3: were very busy at the time, why did they make
Speaker 3: the Constitution and then go back and make a whole
Speaker 3: other document we call the Bill of Rights. It's probably
Speaker 3: because George and the boys knew how crazy English law
Speaker 3: could get, and if we're being honest, just a little
Speaker 3: outside of the textbook, they probably knew they would be
Speaker 3: up for some serious accusations of war crimes if things
Speaker 3: didn't go to plant.
Speaker 4: All right, I mean George and the boys were revolutionaries,
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, criminals you know, a terrorists perhaps, right, they
Speaker 4: could be called that by the English crown.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and if you're doing a little pigh in the
Speaker 2: sky with the Founders, you may think, oh, they recognize
Speaker 2: that power can be abused, you know, no matter who's
Speaker 2: holding it, and maybe even we could become corrupted one day. No,
Speaker 2: that's a little bit mythical. Well when it comes there's
Speaker 2: so many Founding Father mythical things that are out there,
Speaker 2: But there is a knowledge here that it just depends
Speaker 2: on who's on the other side of the table in
Speaker 2: that eight x ten room, right, it just depends. So
Speaker 2: you need to have safeguards to protect everybody.
Speaker 4: Well, I mean the whole point of the Second Amendments
Speaker 4: and the right to bear arms was i believe specifically
Speaker 4: in reference to defending yourself against a corrupt government.
Speaker 3: Yes, yeah. Also the also the mandate against being forced
Speaker 3: to station troops in your home and to feed them
Speaker 3: and so on. Like a lot of this stuff is
Speaker 3: a good idea in theory. Another thing about who's on
Speaker 3: which side of the interrogation table. There's something called the
Speaker 3: sixth Amendment in the United States, which was an absolute
Speaker 3: banger when it came out. It said you have the
Speaker 3: right to the assistance of counsel, which means that in
Speaker 3: a criminal interrogation caveat pastric copyat, you have the right
Speaker 3: to speak with an attorney before speaking to law enforcement.
Speaker 3: This is why in all the copaganda films or programs
Speaker 3: you see on television, that's why someone suddenly clams up
Speaker 3: and just says, lawyer, that does happen, Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 4: And these are the Miranda rights, ben Or like I believe,
Speaker 4: I've always been curious as to the etymology. That's not
Speaker 4: the right word, but just the history of the Miranda rights.
Speaker 4: Obviously it had something to do with, you know, people
Speaker 4: not being aware, and it was a way of covering
Speaker 4: the butts of the law enforcement as well as you know,
Speaker 4: making individuals accused of a crime aware of their rights.
Speaker 4: But it seems like most of the ones that are
Speaker 4: contained in those rights they read you are contained within
Speaker 4: the Bill of Rights.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, it's supposed to. It's from nineteen sixty six
Speaker 3: Miranda versus Arizona Supreme Court case, and eventually, as a
Speaker 3: result of the Court's findings, the United States said, look,
Speaker 3: we need a special additional protection to make sure the
Speaker 3: Fifth Amendment against self incrimination is a thing everybody knows
Speaker 3: about because not everybody knew about it. Right, you're panicked,
Speaker 3: you're detained, you may have done something. You may have
Speaker 3: just been in the wrong place at the wrong time,
Speaker 3: and then in your panic you might run a little
Speaker 3: bit at the mouth.
Speaker 4: In a way, the thing you say can and will
Speaker 4: be used against you in a court of loss. That
Speaker 4: just don't say anything. We're trying to help you out there, buddy,
Speaker 4: We're doing to have a solid here.
Speaker 2: That's something that attorneys will often say, and they'll they'll
Speaker 2: usually on the YouTube at least they'll give that same
Speaker 2: disclaimer we gave. Hey, this is my legal advice. I'm
Speaker 2: just telling you my experience as an attorney. This concept
Speaker 2: that anything you say that that part of them Miranda writes,
Speaker 2: anything you say or do can't be used against you
Speaker 2: in a court of law. The concept that when you
Speaker 2: are being interviewed, right, if you are in one of
Speaker 2: those rooms, you are probably already looked as guilty of
Speaker 2: something by the folks who put you in that room,
Speaker 2: or at least have a strong suspicion that you're guilty
Speaker 2: of something.
Speaker 4: You are sus my friend, Yes, indeed, so when you.
Speaker 2: Say things in that room, it is not to defend
Speaker 2: yourself by any means. It is literally to build the
Speaker 2: case against you what you're saying in that room.
Speaker 3: Right, regardless of how friendly the demeanor may be.
Speaker 2: Exactly so. But once you have that attorney present, right,
Speaker 2: or and you have discussions with an attorney, then you
Speaker 2: can say things that are probably going to be better
Speaker 2: for you.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Again, these two amendments in particular might sound a
Speaker 3: little bit sketchy, but anybody who's been on the wrong
Speaker 3: side of certain conversations with law enforcement knows exactly why
Speaker 3: those rights exist, why they're so important. Before the rise
Speaker 3: of modern legal proceedings, which are still very much work
Speaker 3: in progress, the law was arbitrary and cartoonishly brutal. The
Speaker 3: local ruler, whomever the mucky you muck may be, could,
Speaker 3: at any point in time just decide they don't like
Speaker 3: you for one reason or another. Maybe you're Jewish, maybe
Speaker 3: you're from the poor part of town, maybe there's economic instability.
Speaker 3: They need a convenient scapegoat. So if targeted, your guilt
Speaker 3: is historically going to be assumed, and the protections, at
Speaker 3: least in Western Europe, for proving oneself innocent were likewise
Speaker 3: kind of buffo trial by ordeal, like, hey, you know,
Speaker 3: trial by ordeal could be something like sticking your hand
Speaker 3: and boiling water or just fighting and seeing who survives.
Speaker 4: Are you all up on Night of the Seven Kingdoms? Yes,
Speaker 4: I think it's phenomenal, I want to say, And the
Speaker 4: most recent episode involved a trial by combat, which I've
Speaker 4: always found delightfully brutal and just esoteric and like it's
Speaker 4: about the gods they decide. You mentioned in the document
Speaker 4: here ban or the outline, the idea of a kangaroo court,
Speaker 4: h the notion that for optics, for the presentation of fairness,
Speaker 4: we will have a trial, but the outcome is predetermined,
Speaker 4: and it is all literally just to say we did
Speaker 4: the thing and you know, keep the peace quote unquote,
Speaker 4: make make you know, perhaps prevent an uprising because no, no,
Speaker 4: we did. We gave them their fair shake. But it
Speaker 4: is in fact predetermined and you have no chance of
Speaker 4: being acquitted.
Speaker 3: Yes, And we see even back then, we see the
Speaker 3: same method of loaded questions that exist in modern interrogations today.
Speaker 3: So it's not necessarily for instance, hey, Dylan tennessee pel Fagan,
Speaker 3: did you kill mothman instead? It's hey, Dylan, why did
Speaker 3: you kill Mothman?
Speaker 2: He had it coming.
Speaker 4: So pretty much attack and those buns were too glistening
Speaker 4: for my takes. I couldn't have a creature that beautiful
Speaker 4: in the world Premio looking like a Master's of the
Speaker 4: Universe action figure.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they really does.
Speaker 2: Even back then, I was like, oh, in the days
Speaker 2: of winterfella.
Speaker 3: No, yeah, so the days of before the fall of winterfel.
Speaker 3: I mean, okay, So during this time we see that
Speaker 3: interrogation wasn't highly evolved the way it is theoretically today. Theoretically, right,
Speaker 3: if you're an enemy soldier, they're going to torture you
Speaker 3: for information and then they'll murder you in any number
Speaker 3: of ghastly ways. And so this is how crooked it was. You.
Speaker 3: Let's say you fell victim to the inquisition. Maybe you
Speaker 3: are an older person living on the fringes of society
Speaker 3: they need someone to blame.
Speaker 4: Might have a word on your nose, you know, or
Speaker 4: you might have.
Speaker 3: You might have assets, especially like property of some sort.
Speaker 3: And often the inquisitors were I don't work it on commission,
Speaker 3: so they got a share of your stuff if they
Speaker 3: were able to quote unquote prove you're a witch, which
Speaker 3: meant that they were incentivized not to find the truth
Speaker 3: but to get your stuffed.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Bit of that.
Speaker 4: Going on with the ice raids these days in terms
Speaker 4: of their quotas that they've got to meet. If you're
Speaker 4: incentivized that way, not to mention the bonuses of it all,
Speaker 4: you are much more likely to take some shortcuts and
Speaker 4: you know, roll up people that maybe shouldn't be rolled up.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And saying I'm not a witch could indeed be
Speaker 3: held as solid proof that you are in fact a witch.
Speaker 3: Or saying you know, I have my passport, it's just
Speaker 3: over there, can I get it?
Speaker 4: And then being told we don't have time. We're just
Speaker 4: sorting a shot in the face when you reach for it, right.
Speaker 4: Not to be too much of a pill about it.
Speaker 4: It's just there's a lot of parallels here, you know,
Speaker 4: Like again, saying I am a US citizen in many
Speaker 4: ways is even further reason to drag people, you know,
Speaker 4: through the ringer.
Speaker 5: And you're talking about in the olden.
Speaker 4: Days, the witch trials of it all using a methodology
Speaker 4: that is inherently flawed, and that is there's no version
Speaker 4: of these events where you are going to come out
Speaker 4: clean on the other side, once you've been pulled into
Speaker 4: this rigmarole.
Speaker 3: I mean, the issue here is that the inquisitors would
Speaker 3: get whatever confession they wanted, it would not necessarily be
Speaker 3: an accurate confession because torture doesn't work at least in
Speaker 3: that way. Torture is very good at getting people, the victims,
Speaker 3: to say whatever you want them to say, but it
Speaker 3: is not very good at getting them to tell you
Speaker 3: the truth, especially with perishable intelligence.
Speaker 4: Whether it works or not, I guess is a question
Speaker 4: of what you want the outcome to be. You know,
Speaker 4: are people actually seeking the truth or are they just
Speaker 4: looking to oppress?
Speaker 3: And then further, once that confession by Hooker by Krop
Speaker 3: was obtained, then the victim of these proceedings pretty much
Speaker 3: lost all their usefulness. There was no longer really a
Speaker 3: reason to keep them alive. It was much more socio
Speaker 3: economically advantageous for the authorities to kill that person in
Speaker 3: a public spectacle to set an example. So progress has
Speaker 3: been made, but there's still a lot of work to do.
Speaker 3: The US on paper has a clear code of rights,
Speaker 3: roles responsibilities to Matt's point for everybody involved, and these
Speaker 3: roles and responsibilities and rights. They're all about how info
Speaker 3: is disclosed, the rights of the person being questioned, and
Speaker 3: the limits on behavior for those seeking the answers. Again
Speaker 3: caveat pof cough as.
Speaker 2: Not supposed to hit the people in your interview room
Speaker 2: right now, supposed to Luther looking at you.
Speaker 5: I've been watching Luther.
Speaker 2: I just watched that.
Speaker 4: I didn't realize there was a fifth season. I binged
Speaker 4: on it's the entire thing last night. Really good.
Speaker 3: You're also supposed to respect the rules of the road
Speaker 3: as far as things like attorney client privilege, so you
Speaker 3: can't can't sneak a little little eavesdropping in. But this
Speaker 3: is the deal. We keep saying the word theoretically, we
Speaker 3: keep saying phrases like on paper. That's because the US
Speaker 3: has a terrifying track record when it comes to interrogation.
Speaker 3: Some of us in the crowd tonight are old enough
Speaker 3: to remember when government agencies throughout the rule book entirely.
Speaker 4: And if we enhanced these interrogations.
Speaker 3: Exactly engaged in a system of torture known as enhanced interrogation.
Speaker 3: They argued, Look for the greater good, we have to
Speaker 3: kidnap people around the world, and we have to find
Speaker 3: creative ways to beat the hit out of them until
Speaker 3: they tell us what we want to know. And this
Speaker 3: was the old ticking time bomb scenario, the idea that
Speaker 3: a terrorist attack could occur within months, hours, days, and
Speaker 3: saving many lives therefore outweighed the sin of ending one
Speaker 3: and people just always.
Speaker 4: A scary argument, the greater good argument. I don't know
Speaker 4: that there's a version of it that benefits everyone.
Speaker 5: I think it's such.
Speaker 4: As it kind of a straw man argument. Maybe just
Speaker 4: the idea of the greater good. It just feels like
Speaker 4: double speak, like there is no version of for the
Speaker 4: greater good that is actually for the greater good.
Speaker 3: It's a rationalization, it's it's a way for the people
Speaker 3: in power who are doing untoward things to justify their actions,
Speaker 3: especially given that history has shown us time and time
Speaker 3: again the ticking time bomb scenario proves false. Doesn't really
Speaker 3: happen the way it's depicted.
Speaker 2: Such a weird thing that went down in history. Guys,
Speaker 2: you know the September eleventh attacks. If they went down
Speaker 2: the way the government says they went down, then it
Speaker 2: was a terrible breach of intelligence and a horrifying loss
Speaker 2: of life. And you know, just a whole it was
Speaker 2: just terrible, right, So I think we all understand that
Speaker 2: that base desire to prevent that from happening again, you
Speaker 2: know all the show twenty four and and folks who
Speaker 2: are out there on land, Yeah, yes, who want to
Speaker 2: stop those bad guys, And we're the guys are stopped
Speaker 2: the bad guys. That rationalization thing you're talking about there
Speaker 2: very least right, Well, it is, but it's also really
Speaker 2: tough to just to recognize and realize that it went
Speaker 2: on for years and years and years with that same
Speaker 2: rationalization of preventing one of these with the number of
Speaker 2: human beings that get, you know, stuck in a location
Speaker 2: in another country that is not the one they're from,
Speaker 2: not the US place where they're just in a hole
Speaker 2: and being subject to the things we're going to describe here.
Speaker 2: I don't know, as we're going through it, I don't
Speaker 2: know how you like categorize what's what's the worst verse
Speaker 2: version of the things we're going to talk about right
Speaker 2: that someone could experience. But the more I go through this,
Speaker 2: I feel like sleep deprivation is one of those things
Speaker 2: that I didn't understand how horrifying sleep deprivation just alone
Speaker 2: is when it comes to what was happening to human
Speaker 2: beings during that time that the United States subjected people to.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, these are all great points because as we
Speaker 3: record right now, folks, there are multiple people in Guantanamo
Speaker 3: Bay and something like twenty sixhi Ish black sites around
Speaker 3: the world, third part of countries, and a lot of
Speaker 3: these people who have been held for years or decades.
Speaker 3: They've never been officially accused of a crime. They've been waterboarded,
Speaker 3: put in stress positions, cold rooms, deprived of sleep, force fed, beaten, sodomized,
Speaker 3: and emotionally manipulated to disclose information that they did not
Speaker 3: and do not possess. Barking up the wrong tree and
Speaker 3: we're torturing the tree in the process.
Speaker 4: Guys, I just had a this is probably obvious, but
Speaker 4: I was reminded and watching some YouTube stuff the other
Speaker 4: day that the Department of Homeland Security is such a
Speaker 4: recent innovations, like it was literally created as a response
Speaker 4: to nine to eleven. I know probably everybody remembered that
Speaker 4: but me, But I kind of it just goes to
Speaker 4: show how quickly something can be normalized and you kind
Speaker 4: of forget the circumstances that led it to the creation
Speaker 4: of a thing that now has taken on this whole
Speaker 4: other bizarre life of its own.
Speaker 3: And homeland is a very specific word choice for a
Speaker 3: government agency like that. Right, No, it's a fascism if
Speaker 3: I was sipping it like ice coffee or wine. Ooh,
Speaker 3: World War two.
Speaker 5: Here we'll have our home.
Speaker 2: Again, guys, and we will protect that home by listening
Speaker 2: to everything everybody says and watching everyone on every street corner,
Speaker 2: but definitely not the cell phones. We won't look at
Speaker 2: your cell phones camera, guys, pinky promise, did you get
Speaker 2: let us see the there's a recent picture of net
Speaker 2: and Yahoo on the phone by his car, and it's
Speaker 2: his personal phone, and he's got tape with black marker
Speaker 2: across all of three of the cameras.
Speaker 3: Should pay attention to what those guys in the political
Speaker 3: class pay attention to what they do with their phones.
Speaker 3: We also, we also know the scenes so clearly where
Speaker 3: we should save the quiet part out loud. The Patriot
Speaker 3: Act devilish thing, just tremendous marketing in the name, Like Congressman,
Speaker 3: could you explain why you voted against the Patriot Act?
Speaker 7: Ooh, just because look you're we assumed you were patriot
Speaker 7: serving your constituency of US citizens, but you voted against.
Speaker 3: The Patriot Act.
Speaker 2: Yeah, why do you hate the troops so much?
Speaker 3: Man?
Speaker 4: That term patriot has become such a dog whistle these days.
Speaker 5: I can't handle it.
Speaker 4: It's just bro When you refer to somebody as being
Speaker 4: a patriot in a certain context, you're basically saying that they,
Speaker 4: you know, are they just like white people.
Speaker 3: It's it has become a dog whistle. Agree with that.
Speaker 3: And let's also I'm not saying that's accurate.
Speaker 4: I'm saying that's the way it's used. That's the parlance
Speaker 4: that it has taken on, you know.
Speaker 3: Weaponized, right, and dog whistled. As you said. It's also
Speaker 3: we shouldn't forget that, Uh, Patriot didn't just become a
Speaker 3: dog whistle. It's also the name of one of the
Speaker 3: most dangerous missiles on the planet.
Speaker 4: What a weird thing to name a missile and an
Speaker 4: excellent nineteen nineties political thriller Patriot cames.
Speaker 3: We're rolling out our newest ICBM. It's a hypersonic missile.
Speaker 3: We call it the Puppy Hug.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, well that to our point. We often make
Speaker 4: the most of the more innocuous to name the scarier
Speaker 4: the thing. So puppy hug would be the ultimate doomsday device.
Speaker 3: I think drop a puppy hug. Oh my gosh, that's
Speaker 3: going to come back to bitus. All right, So we know,
Speaker 3: we hope you never find yourself in any situation like this. Ever,
Speaker 3: we hope not. But if you do, you need to
Speaker 3: understand that, depending on the amount of time the questioners
Speaker 3: have with you, you will break. No matter how badass
Speaker 3: you feel right now as you're tuning in, you will break.
Speaker 3: And we have that confirmed by people who've been through interrogation,
Speaker 3: real hard cases. You know, members of special forces, for instance,
Speaker 3: across the planet, right, members of terrorist and counter terrorist groups.
Speaker 3: Things get hairy no matter who you are. Given enough time,
Speaker 3: and depending upon the methods of physical and mental torture,
Speaker 3: you're eventually not only going to confess, but you'll confess
Speaker 3: this stuff that isn't true. You'll say whatever they want
Speaker 3: as long as you can get some water, go to sleep,
Speaker 3: maybe hope to regrow your fingernails.
Speaker 2: Yew.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's one of them.
Speaker 2: Well, well, you know when we're gonna talk about it,
Speaker 2: But when these interrogation techniques are crazy A effective. They
Speaker 2: don't have to actually torture you physically. It's all in
Speaker 2: this thing and they know it.
Speaker 3: It is.
Speaker 2: But I was watching a video of a guy SAS,
Speaker 2: which is I always forget because I watched extras and
Speaker 2: I Special Air Services. I think is the actual essays? Yeah,
Speaker 2: did you guys see that one where there's I forget
Speaker 2: the actor's name, but he's like, I'm in s I S.
Speaker 2: But he's not actually at all. He's like a just
Speaker 2: an actor and puts on that he was an essay.
Speaker 2: I can't remember anyway, I'm sorry. Ye Oh crap, I've
Speaker 2: completely lost my place. Now, never mind, no mental break.
Speaker 3: Let's keep it mental break. Because you could water after
Speaker 3: someone has been waterboarded often enough, right, then here's a
Speaker 3: here's a form of the psychological manipulation. You don't have
Speaker 3: to waterboard them anymore. It is traumatizing enough for them
Speaker 3: to see you walk in with a bucket and put
Speaker 3: the towel on the table.
Speaker 2: Yeah. But the biggest thing you're saying, though, is the
Speaker 2: sleep deprivation. When they get trained, the SAS soldiers get
Speaker 2: trained to resist interrogation. It's a known thing that you
Speaker 2: cannot right, but it is a time thing, yes, like
Speaker 2: how long can you go?
Speaker 3: Basically yes, exactly, your only choice, resist as long as possible,
Speaker 3: and hope that help arrives. Please beware, folks, there are
Speaker 3: going to be some graphic depictions of violence here. Here's
Speaker 3: where it gets grease, all right again, Virtually anyone, everyone
Speaker 3: will break given incentives and time. This means that the smartest,
Speaker 3: meanest guys on the planet spend a lot of time
Speaker 3: figuring out what effective interrogation looks like, right, how to
Speaker 3: resist it, and at the same time time, how to
Speaker 3: overcome that resistance. Because learning to resist interrogation and learning
Speaker 3: to break resistance are two fingers on the same hand,
Speaker 3: they're just two different ways of looking at the same
Speaker 3: skill sets and techniques. So for comparison, folks, let's think
Speaker 3: of it this way. Think of it as the difference
Speaker 3: between flame proof and flame resistant. Flame Proof is a
Speaker 3: myth because past a certain temperature, pretty much anything will
Speaker 3: burn jet. You'll still be et cetera. Flame resistance, we
Speaker 3: got to get it in. Flame Resistant is more accurate, though,
Speaker 3: because it describes making flame difficult, and that's the key
Speaker 3: to resisting interrogation. You're never going to be interrogation proof.
Speaker 4: Well, and I also like to stick with that analogy.
Speaker 4: It is not in the best interests of the interrogator
Speaker 4: to set someone on fire, you know, letting the word go,
Speaker 4: because you're not going to get anything out of them. So,
Speaker 4: you know, being a little bit resistant to these techniques,
Speaker 4: it could serve you well being that their job is
Speaker 4: to meet out just enough to you know, to get
Speaker 4: you to do what they want to do, rather than
Speaker 4: to like, you know, do the whole thing up front.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a great point that leads us directly to
Speaker 3: one of the most important things, the good news. Let's
Speaker 3: hit the good news first. If you are in an
Speaker 3: interrogation scenario, that means you have not already been murdered.
Speaker 3: That means you, for the moment, are alive, and that
Speaker 3: logically means your captors want something from you. It could
Speaker 3: be information on an operation they think you're involved in.
Speaker 3: If it's that, they're gonna want the specific old school
Speaker 3: journalism details who, what, when, and where, don't worry about
Speaker 3: why because they feel like they figured out why before
Speaker 3: they snagged you.
Speaker 5: That's right.
Speaker 4: There's that classic line you often see in these types
Speaker 4: of thrillers where it's like if.
Speaker 5: They wanted us dead, we'd be dead.
Speaker 4: We'd be dead already, you know, Like there is that
Speaker 4: certain amount of level that comes with the fact that
Speaker 4: that you are in captivity and being kept alive for reasons,
Speaker 4: so you have the very least amount of leverage you
Speaker 4: could hope for. But it is something, Yeah, it is.
Speaker 3: And it also could be as simple as your questioners
Speaker 3: believing that they already know the answers to the questions
Speaker 3: they are going to ask you, right, they just need
Speaker 3: you to say it, or they want you to sign something. Also,
Speaker 3: never sign anything, I mean, signe stuff for your regular life.
Speaker 3: Don't be afraid of that, like a credit card slip
Speaker 3: or whatever. But and this thing, don't sign stuff.
Speaker 2: Oh, let's talk about it really quickly. Because in that
Speaker 2: same says training, he talks about at some point pretty
Speaker 2: soon into your interrogation, they attempt to get you to
Speaker 2: sign something, and they'll use something simple like, hey, I
Speaker 2: bet you're really thirsty. I'll give you this drink. All
Speaker 2: you gotta do is sign this, you know, and like
Speaker 2: someone will come in gently at some point and offer
Speaker 2: you things for a quick signature at the moment like
Speaker 2: the height of your discomfort yeah.
Speaker 3: And then that goes into the mental hacks of forcing compliance,
Speaker 3: putting somebody in a kobayashi maru situation where there's no
Speaker 3: correct answer, there's no way to not comply, or then
Speaker 3: also getting you to do it's almost like little salesperson tactics,
Speaker 3: like saying, here, we'll give you this water. I know
Speaker 3: you don't want to sign anything, but just hold this
Speaker 3: pen for a second. I'm giving you this pen. I
Speaker 3: want you to hold this pen, so just say yes
Speaker 3: and take the pin. That happens, and it's effective because
Speaker 3: as accumulative, it accumulates in your mind. Right, the habit
Speaker 3: of saying yes and comply. Is this your jacket. That's
Speaker 3: one of the examples from an SAS video and it's
Speaker 3: clearly the guy's jacket. But if he says yes, then
Speaker 3: he's starting to comply. And every time you break that seal,
Speaker 3: it's a little bit easier and more tempting to say
Speaker 3: yes to another thing, and that yes is always going
Speaker 3: to escalate. But at party's I mean, but like the
Speaker 3: confirming information thing, guys, that's what gets mean because that
Speaker 3: can be so tricky in an interrogation. They already they say,
Speaker 3: they already know the answer, right. They'll ask you something
Speaker 3: that you know they know and that you can confirm,
Speaker 3: like is this your cousin Janet? Didn't Janet live in
Speaker 3: far rockaway New York. They might not be threatening Janet yet,
Speaker 3: although that could be implied. But they're getting you. It's
Speaker 3: all about getting you to say yes. And the most
Speaker 3: important thing to remember at this point is the following
Speaker 3: you say, good news, you're alive, aster caveat. You are
Speaker 3: probably only alive due to possible information you possess or
Speaker 3: your larger propagandistic value. So every time you disclose information,
Speaker 3: you lose a little bit of that value. Does that
Speaker 3: makes sense?
Speaker 5: Does?
Speaker 2: I'm having a really disturbing picture kind of in my mind,
Speaker 2: and I don't want to believe that we could ever
Speaker 2: get there again, especially here in the United States. But
Speaker 2: the concept that anyone, you, me, anyone could get picked
Speaker 2: up at some point and be forced under these kinds
Speaker 2: of conditions an attempt to get information about like where
Speaker 2: your family is. Yes, right, And that feels so World
Speaker 2: War two to me, so in the past, so it
Speaker 2: can't happen again. But we know that that kind of
Speaker 2: thing has occurred again since World War Two. And in
Speaker 2: other parts of the world, not always where the US
Speaker 2: is engaged in stuff, but sometimes, but just the concept
Speaker 2: of information about where your family is hiding. I don't know,
Speaker 2: there's something so insidious and terrifying to that, But now
Speaker 2: I can kind of see it happening.
Speaker 3: Oh one hundred percent. I mean, think of the various
Speaker 3: red scares here in the United States, or think of
Speaker 3: the multiple genocides, right and the operations of secret police.
Speaker 3: Stuff like that is happening in Iran right now, and
Speaker 3: it may be on the way to an even more
Speaker 3: extreme degree here in the United States sooner than we
Speaker 3: would like to think. History does a lot of things,
Speaker 3: but originality is not one of humanity's strong suits.
Speaker 4: Yeah, especially when we keep repeating the same mistakes of
Speaker 4: the past.
Speaker 2: Yes, I think it's one of those things that maybe
Speaker 2: a lot of us because of popular culture. See, someone
Speaker 2: who would be undergoing this kind of interrogation would be
Speaker 2: a part of some military group, right, or some elite
Speaker 2: you know, like an SAS or Navy seals or someone
Speaker 2: you know, a soldier who's behind enemy lines or something.
Speaker 2: But it just realizing that it doesn't have to be that,
Speaker 2: and it could even be the government of a country
Speaker 2: that you are in and you're a citizen of could
Speaker 2: be subjecting you to this.
Speaker 3: Absolutely yeah. And especially in a case of moral panic,
Speaker 3: you might just have misfortune of carrying a very similar
Speaker 3: name to a suspected criminal, you know what I mean,
Speaker 3: and then you have to say, oh, I'm not that
Speaker 3: Ben Bolan, and they're like, that's what you would say,
Speaker 3: isn't it.
Speaker 2: Well, Ben Boland would definitely say that.
Speaker 4: I mean, guys, I think we maybe take for granted
Speaker 4: a little bit the ease with which we're able to
Speaker 4: traverse different borders, you know, and travel internationally with very
Speaker 4: little incidents.
Speaker 5: I've certainly never been detained or anything like that.
Speaker 4: Is there a world though, whereas things get a little
Speaker 4: more heated between our country and other countries where we
Speaker 4: might not enjoy that same level of you know, undisturbed
Speaker 4: border crossing.
Speaker 5: Absolutely yeah, I feel it. I feel it coming.
Speaker 3: Absolutely moving toward a what we call a multi polar world,
Speaker 3: sort of balkanizes the current international order. For instance, I
Speaker 3: know of a friend who a while back was traveling
Speaker 3: to Japan as a foreigner, right and this was not
Speaker 3: the US national but at the time they had to
Speaker 3: upon arrival in Japan, they had to provide the address
Speaker 3: of where they were staying. This is not uncommon in
Speaker 3: a lot of countries, run into it in the UK,
Speaker 3: for instance, But they address they provided, this is a
Speaker 3: somewhat thrifty person. The address they provided was in a
Speaker 3: very bad slum because it was the cheapest hostile in
Speaker 3: the area. It's heavily associated with criminal activity. So this person,
Speaker 3: because of that address of a place that were staying
Speaker 3: at for like a week or two. Because of that address,
Speaker 3: they were detained for further questioning by the Japanese state.
Speaker 3: And from what I understand, this was not a horror show.
Speaker 3: This was more like your buddies checking in and going okay, sir,
Speaker 3: so you're staying at this hostel and he's like, yeah, okay,
Speaker 3: you know why we stopped you, right, that's a terrible neighborhood.
Speaker 4: Well, I mean, frankly, even the most innocuous encounter with
Speaker 4: a passport control agent is a mild interrogation.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I I love an audition and I feel
Speaker 3: bad you guys when I feel like I worked hard
Speaker 3: on being cool and having good answers and then they're
Speaker 3: just like, oh you again, all right, go ahead.
Speaker 4: Well, but I even have felt I've even felt a
Speaker 4: little gun shy in the situation where I'm like almost
Speaker 4: like am I.
Speaker 5: Doing something bad?
Speaker 4: Like I just feel almost like, you know, I've I've
Speaker 4: almost stuttered a few times when asked who I'm going
Speaker 4: to see, where I met them, how I know them,
Speaker 4: Where am I staying?
Speaker 5: How long am I going to be here? I have
Speaker 5: found myself, but I don't know. I wasn't ready for this, you.
Speaker 4: Know, and i've ever you know, had any issues, But
Speaker 4: I do feel that sense, and I just wonder how
Speaker 4: I would react given a much more aggressive form of Yeah.
Speaker 3: That's the thing too, because this is interesting when those
Speaker 3: folks are asking you questions. Just real quick pro tip
Speaker 3: for anybody there. The information is secondary to how you
Speaker 3: react a million part. That's why. Yeah, if you've ever
Speaker 3: been put on the spot, maybe if you're not, if
Speaker 3: you're not already kind of an extroverted person, then the
Speaker 3: simplest questions can leave you feeling like a deer in
Speaker 3: the headlights, like oh, what day in August is your birthday? Like, oh, my.
Speaker 4: Birthday, I have to say this out loud and say
Speaker 4: when you.
Speaker 3: Say something like I do have a birthday.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was born a human right.
Speaker 4: And it's funny too, because a lot of times those
Speaker 4: agents they ask people these things sort of randomly. You'll
Speaker 4: see people in front of you get a complete pass
Speaker 4: zero back and forth, and then they get to you
Speaker 4: and they ask you the questions.
Speaker 5: You're like, what is it about me that make mean
Speaker 5: you know? Worthy of these questions?
Speaker 2: I'll tell you you did not pass the ocular pat down. No,
Speaker 2: that's what happened. You gotta first gird yourself for the
Speaker 2: ocular pat down.
Speaker 4: Ye, your Lloyd's for being undressed.
Speaker 2: Yes, that's then Mac will. Mac will look you up
Speaker 2: and down and then back up a little bit and
Speaker 2: then finally back up to your eyes. And once he
Speaker 2: gets there, he will know if he needs to ask
Speaker 2: you further question this.
Speaker 3: I thought I thought Mac cleared him? Did you not
Speaker 3: clear them? Uh? God? What a show? All right. So
Speaker 3: what we're saying is, regardless of these situations, we'll get
Speaker 3: into the very deep, painful water. If you are in
Speaker 3: an interrogation situation, you don't have legal counsel, say as
Speaker 3: little as possible, don't say anything, because if they were
Speaker 3: going to kill you, they already would have. And if
Speaker 3: they're dragging stuff out, it means they still want something
Speaker 3: for you. This is where we get to the methods
Speaker 3: of things like survival, evasion, resistance, and escape or sare.
Speaker 4: Really quickly ben Just sticking with the international side of
Speaker 4: things for a second, Ye, you are you entitled to
Speaker 4: perhaps the representation from your local consulate or like or
Speaker 4: are you just on your own like if you're not,
Speaker 4: you know, in your home turf, like, do you still
Speaker 4: get to have some representation or at that point is
Speaker 4: it kind of you know, every every traveler for themselves.
Speaker 3: It's a great question depends. I mean, these are sovereign countries, right,
Speaker 3: so you're playing in an away game. Typically if there
Speaker 3: is a consulate or an embassy of your home nation
Speaker 3: in that other nation, then you can request them for help.
Speaker 3: You can request help from them, you can notify them. Hey,
Speaker 3: this stuff went sideways, but their ability to intervene is
Speaker 3: going to vary place by place. Especially you know, consider
Speaker 3: if you are in a country that is hostile ale
Speaker 3: to the United States already and the US doesn't have
Speaker 3: an embassy there.
Speaker 4: They're prerogative to even produce that person for your right.
Speaker 3: You become a bargaining chip right likes as it has
Speaker 3: happened so often in the DPRK or North Korea street name.
Speaker 3: But then they'll contact a friendly embassy that does its
Speaker 3: best to vicariously represent your country's interests. So for instance, surprise,
Speaker 3: there's not a US embassy in Tehran in Iran, but
Speaker 3: stuff goes through the Swiss embassy. So if you are
Speaker 3: sol and you're beyond the reach of the embassy right
Speaker 3: or beyond the reach of friendly forces. If you are
Speaker 3: in the military, you'll be familiar with something called SAIR
Speaker 3: again survival, evasion, resistance and escape. It's not the word SAIR,
Speaker 3: which is different.
Speaker 4: And this is a type of training right school they
Speaker 4: call it, especially if you're like in the deep cover
Speaker 4: operative or I believe I first heard of this on
Speaker 4: the show lion S, which is an excellent, you know
Speaker 4: kind of military sort of spy ops, you know, black
Speaker 4: ops kind of show. And going to sear school is
Speaker 4: where you're like put through the ringer. It is considered
Speaker 4: like the gnarliest of training scenarios.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's pretty brutal.
Speaker 4: Like they beat the out of you as part of
Speaker 4: your training to make sure you won't crack.
Speaker 3: Yeah, once you get the level C for sure. I mean,
Speaker 3: so this is a training regimen that was first deployed
Speaker 3: by our British cousins in World War Two. Initially, what
Speaker 3: they were trying to figure out is this, how do
Speaker 3: we help soldiers or pilots especially who find themselves stranded
Speaker 3: behind enemy lines. We got to teach them four basic things. First,
Speaker 3: survival makes sense, all about finding food, water, shelter, and cops. Second, evasion, hide,
Speaker 3: don't die on this hill, run away, get in the woods,
Speaker 3: run away, which is what you should. I mean, martial
Speaker 3: arts supports evasion as well, avoid the fight if you can.
Speaker 3: And then we get to resistance. This one sucks. Resistance
Speaker 3: is the rough one. That's about fighting when you have
Speaker 3: to going back to evasion, resist the interrogation so long
Speaker 3: as possible, and trying to run out that clock until
Speaker 3: you reach the final letter. Escape. Escape is the dream escape.
Speaker 4: When the real dream is extraction, Like the real dream
Speaker 4: is like holding out until you are rescued, you know,
Speaker 4: and people know where you are.
Speaker 5: That is the catbird seat.
Speaker 4: But oftentimes that's not going to be the case, and
Speaker 4: you're going to absolutely be on your own.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know. Extraction is sort of the business class
Speaker 3: of escape to one. Here we go, Yes, exactly, you sweet.
Speaker 2: The really scary part to me about all this is
Speaker 2: that when you sign up for something like SAS, which
Speaker 2: oh in extras I remembered, guys, it's super army soldiers,
Speaker 2: that's what he says it is, but it's actually that's
Speaker 2: not at all what it is. But the scary thing
Speaker 2: is that if you are known to have been captured
Speaker 2: or at least, let's say, lost behind enemy lines during
Speaker 2: some kind of operation that probably shouldn't be happening or
Speaker 2: isn't officially happening. Uh, then it's that thing we've we
Speaker 2: discussed before. I can't remember what episode it was Ben
Speaker 2: in Noll, but we talked about that denial of operations
Speaker 2: that will.
Speaker 3: Maybe disavowed like the unwarned access, disavowment of official involvement.
Speaker 2: So I would just argue that that's why the E
Speaker 2: is escape and not extraction.
Speaker 3: Escape is the is the broader term. But yes, if disavowed,
Speaker 3: which can't happen, and these guys know what they're signing
Speaker 3: up for. If disavowed, you are Kevin McAllister, I'm alone,
Speaker 3: you know what I mean?
Speaker 5: All right? Peez? What love her? So much and yes, yeah,
Speaker 5: you're definitely doing this one.
Speaker 3: Right if you can still move your hands. Yeah, But
Speaker 3: the important caveat so here in the US, you'll hear
Speaker 3: about this being taught on an ABC tier, meaning that
Speaker 3: the at the most extreme levels, Like we're saying, your
Speaker 3: trainers can do a lot of mean stuff to you.
Speaker 3: Some of it might not sound so bad if you're
Speaker 3: just watching the YouTube video. We say, oh, they can
Speaker 3: hit you with an open hand, but not a closed fist.
Speaker 3: These guys slap hard just to be good, like you
Speaker 3: slap pretty hard. And they also they also are trained
Speaker 3: to deliver physical damage to the same place each time.
Speaker 3: So no matter how hard you are or how much
Speaker 3: punishment you think you could take, you can shrug it.
Speaker 3: Maybe you can shrug it a first slap, right, But
Speaker 3: then what if it's the same thing repeatedly, same area, right?
Speaker 3: And then they say okay, and by the way, we're
Speaker 3: also going to start slapping your friend and hurting them
Speaker 3: because you didn't comply. And while they're hurting your friend,
Speaker 3: they say, look at that guy, it's his fault. We
Speaker 3: don't want to do this.
Speaker 4: Well to great point, Ben, because so much of this
Speaker 4: is not only about are there to go hand in
Speaker 4: hand not only about resisting physical pain and abuse, but
Speaker 4: the emotional toll that can take on you over time,
Speaker 4: and the way physical abuse or torture or whatever attacks
Speaker 4: on others is then used and weaponized against you, and
Speaker 4: the idea of like not allowing that to seep into
Speaker 4: your psyche. So it's not only about hardening yourself physically,
Speaker 4: it's about how do you, you know, process these things emotionally.
Speaker 2: It really is like ninety nine percent mental game. When
Speaker 2: it comes to all the things we're about to talk about,
Speaker 2: including being slapped, they we we I know if you've
Speaker 2: mentioned it before, but you guys have heard of power slap, right, dude.
Speaker 4: It comes up on my feet all the time when
Speaker 4: they like powder their hands all up and whenever they
Speaker 4: get the slap, you to see this cloud of like
Speaker 4: the hand chalk just exploding and then the boy they
Speaker 4: hit the deck.
Speaker 5: Sometimes it is brutal stuff.
Speaker 2: It's the Dana White you know UFC competition. Yeah, it
Speaker 2: is actually Dana White and it's actually their thing, which,
Speaker 2: by the way, according to this you can see Wolverine
Speaker 2: take on the Crazy Hawaiian On March sixth, Wolverine's.
Speaker 4: Got an edge though, Guys, he's out of manteam clause.
Speaker 4: I wouldn't want to go slap by that guy.
Speaker 3: He had a skeleton too. That a mantium skull means
Speaker 3: you'll break your hands slap them exactly.
Speaker 2: But just just to read your point, Ben, that slapping
Speaker 2: isn't maybe what you think it is.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the real slap is not as cool as you
Speaker 3: know slap jokes. So we we also know that people
Speaker 3: have died in trading like this. It's just unfortunate, but
Speaker 3: we have to admit this is serious enough that there
Speaker 3: is a rate of attrition, a fatal rate of attrition
Speaker 3: that can occur. And in this situation. Again, it's all
Speaker 3: to familiarize you with the possibility of this happening in
Speaker 3: real life. So if you are in a real life
Speaker 3: situation like this, your only value is propaganda or information.
Speaker 3: The information you have may be perishable. You want to
Speaker 3: deny it for as long as possible. But at the
Speaker 3: same time, you want to appear to be reluctantly compliant
Speaker 3: and to appear to be mentally and physically infirm. Sadly,
Speaker 3: appearing to be mentally and physically infirm is not going
Speaker 3: to be difficult after seventy two hours without sleepwater or food.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and of brutal beatings.
Speaker 4: And I just want to add one more time, the
Speaker 4: tailor shared and show Lion asked the very first season,
Speaker 4: it just does such an incredible job of like dramatizing
Speaker 4: all of the stuff that we're talking about here, Like,
Speaker 4: I'd never really understood how psychotic this stuff is until
Speaker 4: I saw that season of television.
Speaker 5: So dude, check that out if you're interested.
Speaker 3: I am going to look that up. To the mental
Speaker 3: game stuff, we also see things like burn this flag
Speaker 3: and you can have whatever you want, or something like hey,
Speaker 3: we can feed you, but we're going to feed you.
Speaker 5: Pork or poop.
Speaker 3: Right, very very nasty stuff that has been to attack
Speaker 3: somebody's core identity and values. That makes it easier to comply.
Speaker 3: I what say we take a quick break for word
Speaker 3: from our sponsors, and maybe we get into some of
Speaker 3: the helpful rules for resisting interrogation. We have returned. Here
Speaker 3: are the rules. One, do not make eye contact. Ever,
Speaker 3: they will ask you to look at them, Don't do it.
Speaker 4: Is it because they can see into your soul?
Speaker 5: Is it sort of like a poker faced kind of situation?
Speaker 4: Like because if you're in if you're an experienced interrogator,
Speaker 4: you can learn a lot from the eyes. Or is
Speaker 4: it a power dynamic thing, which I guess figures into
Speaker 4: my first question.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think it's both, at least because the folks
Speaker 3: we were researching for this, professional interrogators from all sorts
Speaker 3: of places. They put a lot of emphasis on the
Speaker 3: importance of making eye contact with a victim or a detaining.
Speaker 4: You can't hide your lion eyes, that's for sure.
Speaker 2: I wonder, and I don't have it in front of me,
Speaker 2: or I didn't find this in my research, you guys,
Speaker 2: But I wonder if it is to prevent the person
Speaker 2: being interrogated from humanizing the person sitting across from them,
Speaker 2: or identifying with them in some way, or finding, you know,
Speaker 2: that connection, because when you make eye contact with someone,
Speaker 2: there is like a there's a connection that occurs, the window.
Speaker 5: To the soul.
Speaker 4: There's a certain amount that you cannot truly shield from
Speaker 4: experienced you know, well experience or inexperience, like the idea
Speaker 4: of making deep eye contact is one of the most
Speaker 4: intimate things you can do with say a partner or
Speaker 4: on a date, you know, with a friend, because you
Speaker 4: really do have this unfiltered view into the humanity of
Speaker 4: that person.
Speaker 3: And if you're trained to read micro expressions, then the
Speaker 3: eyes and the muscles around them are a gold mine
Speaker 3: because people can people can have enough control over their
Speaker 3: larger body language or their larger facial expressions. But if
Speaker 3: you are a specifically trained interrogator, and if you've had
Speaker 3: previous experience, then you can tell a lot by little
Speaker 3: twitches or by the unconscious directions in which an eye moves.
Speaker 4: What even like the constriction or dilation of the pupils
Speaker 4: that can come with certain emotional responses, not just like drugs,
Speaker 4: like literally adrenaline flooding your system because you're telling a
Speaker 4: lie or that you're something triggers you in a certain way.
Speaker 4: I believe that could cause some of these unintentional or
Speaker 4: subconscious not sound quite the right word, but just you know,
Speaker 4: literally physiological reactions that someone in the know could interpret.
Speaker 2: Yeah, might just really thought it would be a good
Speaker 2: thing for I. Yeah, that's shows how a naive I am.
Speaker 2: I really thought it would be a good thing for
Speaker 2: someone in that situation to make that connection with their
Speaker 2: you know, potential torture or their interrogator to like show
Speaker 2: in some way I am also human. I am you know,
Speaker 2: like that kind of thing. But I think if you're
Speaker 2: dealing with someone that is, yeah, that kind.
Speaker 4: Of beyond that kind of influence, right. I truly think
Speaker 4: that there's no version of the world where you are
Speaker 4: a human or where they're going to like empathize.
Speaker 5: That's just you.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And if you're a proper interrogator, you have sort
Speaker 4: of had the empathy beaten out of you in many ways.
Speaker 4: And that's a feature, not a bug, right right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well said, you have to be able to emulate
Speaker 3: that empathy or rapport. So the most some of the
Speaker 3: most successful interrogations in history are not the waterboarding ones.
Speaker 3: They're not the ones where you torture someone and they
Speaker 3: give you information. They're the ones where, say, someone is
Speaker 3: tortured by another one of your coworkers, let's call them,
Speaker 3: and later you come in as the good cop. This
Speaker 3: is when you establish rapport, like hey, look at me, man,
Speaker 3: all right, this is things can get out of hand.
Speaker 3: None of us wanted to be here today. I would
Speaker 3: like to give you some orange juice. As a matter
Speaker 3: of fact, I will. All you have to do is
Speaker 3: help me help you out a little bit, all right,
Speaker 3: or else I'm going to have to leave, and the
Speaker 3: other guy his shifts up next. So that kind of
Speaker 3: rapport building can be very effective, but it's also an artifice.
Speaker 3: The interrogators to those points don't really care pass getting
Speaker 3: the information. And if you do have to speak, which
Speaker 3: you might have to save your life, only repeat what
Speaker 3: you said initially. Just like if you are being interviewed
Speaker 3: by police, they will ask you the same question about
Speaker 3: the same events multiple different ways because they want you
Speaker 3: to trip up. They want some part of your story
Speaker 3: to differ from one iteration to the next. That's why
Speaker 3: you hear that old movie troupe about someone getting caught
Speaker 3: by enemy forces and say name, ranked, serial number whatever.
Speaker 3: But as silly as it sounds, there's truth to it.
Speaker 3: You encounter semantic satiation, it becomes a mantra, and it
Speaker 3: can even move you away a little bit from the
Speaker 3: dire physical circumstances.
Speaker 2: Question for the class, if we're just a regular old citizen,
Speaker 2: what is our name, rank, serial number?
Speaker 3: I would say pick three things that just stick with it. Social,
Speaker 3: your social If you really want to be a jerk,
Speaker 3: just tell them your vin.
Speaker 5: For your car, citizen or a podcaster. I think it would.
Speaker 2: Be a driver's license pavilion.
Speaker 3: Yeah, something like that. Also, if you get to the
Speaker 3: point where there's hard questioning, your interrogation is going to
Speaker 3: be increasingly tailored to give you the most nightmarish time possible.
Speaker 3: So what do we mean by this. We mean that
Speaker 3: if you have a social media footprint that will be researched,
Speaker 3: All of your known associations or interactions will be researched.
Speaker 3: Any any medical dependencies you might have, like a heart
Speaker 3: medication or something, or insulin, they're going to know about
Speaker 3: that too, and they're all they're going to use all
Speaker 3: this information to squeeze whatever they can out of you.
Speaker 3: So like, how silly could this be? Or how terrifying?
Speaker 3: In one case, and this was on the I want
Speaker 3: to say this was on the US or British side.
Speaker 3: In one case, they knew a detainee had an historic,
Speaker 3: deep phobia of bugs, so they locked them in a
Speaker 3: metal coffin. They filled it with insects, not the kind
Speaker 3: that could you poison him or anything, and they locked
Speaker 3: him in there for three days because they knew how
Speaker 3: to tailor that nightmare toward him. So as you progress further,
Speaker 3: they're going to be able to say like oh this
Speaker 3: guy is terrified of touching metal, or like oh this
Speaker 3: person is something simple.
Speaker 4: They would menace me with birds, Ben. That's what happened,
Speaker 4: you know, the escalation of bird menacing once they got
Speaker 4: to like eagle say, i'd I'd give them everything they
Speaker 4: wanted to hear, just get that thing away from me.
Speaker 3: Look, mister Brown, I don't want to put you back
Speaker 3: in the room with the shoe bill.
Speaker 4: Okay, I got to put you in that room unnatural
Speaker 4: dinosaur ass creatures.
Speaker 5: Yeah, what do you want me to say? What do
Speaker 5: you want me to say?
Speaker 3: Right? Exactly?
Speaker 2: Cute too.
Speaker 3: I think I think they're a little bit sarcastic. I
Speaker 3: think they've got a little bit of zest to them
Speaker 3: because they if they like you, they will to you
Speaker 3: when you bow to them, just like the deer at
Speaker 3: Nara Park, And you can see videos of this. But
Speaker 3: I think the way they bow is a little bit sassy.
Speaker 3: I don't like that. Yeah, they share, they're making fun
Speaker 3: of you, like, oh, this is your thing. I guess
Speaker 3: I'll bow for you.
Speaker 5: Just God forbid a cashuary.
Speaker 4: Those things will gut you in a heartbeat.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, no, shoe bilover a cassewary any day. They
Speaker 3: shoe bills just seem like very sweet animals that look
Speaker 3: like Pinister Star Wars villains.
Speaker 4: Cashuaries are like the velociraptor of the of the Bird Kingdom.
Speaker 5: Whatever.
Speaker 3: They've got some stuff they need to unpack evolutionarily. But yeah,
Speaker 3: so again we're saying composure always. Like we said, this
Speaker 3: applies to passport control as well as deep interrogation. The
Speaker 3: interrogator is often not going to look for your overt vocalizations. Instead,
Speaker 3: the questioner is going to say, what are your micro expressions?
Speaker 3: Where your eyes moving when you talk about certain things,
Speaker 3: what's your posture? What's your sweat? And now days with
Speaker 3: the rollout of very affordable medical monitoring technology, you're probably
Speaker 3: also going to say, how did their heart rate change?
Speaker 3: When I asked them about this? Even if they didn't
Speaker 3: look at me, they didn't react. Why.
Speaker 4: We haven't even really talked about polygraph tests, so we
Speaker 4: certainly know those are incredibly fallible and increasingly.
Speaker 5: Less reliable.
Speaker 3: Right, yeah, yep, exactly.
Speaker 4: To your point, though, it almost might be a better
Speaker 4: value to just check their Apple watch, you know, and
Speaker 4: just see the elevated heart rate and you know when
Speaker 4: it spikes. On a particular question, I wanted to ask you, guys,
Speaker 4: what do you think it takes to make a good interrogator.
Speaker 4: Do you think that's something you like go out for
Speaker 4: like a football team, like is there something you're shooting for?
Speaker 4: Or do you get recognized as having the skill set
Speaker 4: to be a good interrogator?
Speaker 2: Psychopathy?
Speaker 5: There you go.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you can say this surgence right and CEOs right
Speaker 3: when maybe one way to put it is through analogy.
Speaker 3: One of the guys who was the big whistleblower for
Speaker 3: the CIA's enhanced interrogation program the way he described being recruited,
Speaker 3: was already worked at the CIA, right, He already had
Speaker 3: loads of experience under his belt, and then he was
Speaker 3: invited along with thirteen other people to get certification in
Speaker 3: this kind of interrogation. And he's one of the only
Speaker 3: folks who said no, But the rest went on to
Speaker 3: commit war crimes. So an interrogator would ideally have a
Speaker 3: sense of mission, right, a greater good such that they
Speaker 3: can rationalize the horrific stuff they're going to do to people.
Speaker 3: They probably will also have an understanding like the dream
Speaker 3: interrogator will also have undergone some version of these tactics themselves,
Speaker 3: so they know they know the other side of the experience.
Speaker 3: And then they will also either have medical training or
Speaker 3: they'll have a medical expert on staff, maybe just out
Speaker 3: of frame to keep.
Speaker 4: Them alive, yes, right, to bring them back from the Yeah,
Speaker 4: you see, Yeah for sure. And you got to wonder too,
Speaker 4: if the mission part of it is almost tertiary, like
Speaker 4: there's a version of this where it's just people that
Speaker 4: really like hurting people.
Speaker 3: Definitely, that definitely exists. History seems to indicate that those
Speaker 3: guys actually don't make the best interrogators m because they're
Speaker 3: the idea of achieving information it self becomes secondary to
Speaker 3: their ghoulish love of harming others.
Speaker 5: That's a great point, Ben, I didn't think about them.
Speaker 3: I don't know. I mean, they'll probably get results, but
Speaker 3: I don't know if you want someone gleefully getting those results,
Speaker 3: because then how dependable are they? Right? If you train
Speaker 3: a dog to bite, what's going to stop it from
Speaker 3: biting you one day?
Speaker 1: Well?
Speaker 4: I mean, and you know, not to get back into
Speaker 4: the ice of it all, but it certainly starts to
Speaker 4: you start to see that level of what are we
Speaker 4: looking for in an ice recruits as more looking for
Speaker 4: people that are just like wanting to hurt people or
Speaker 4: wanting to you know, live out some of their sociopathic
Speaker 4: kind of fantasies. We've talked often about, like off Mike
Speaker 4: at least, like what happened to the Proud Boys? How
Speaker 4: come they're not out there doing the thing anymore? It's
Speaker 4: because they're all they're all iced up now, and those
Speaker 4: are folks that are probably have a mission, sure, but
Speaker 4: they also just want to hurt people who don't look
Speaker 4: like them.
Speaker 3: I don't think you should give cause players real guns.
Speaker 3: Don't know why that became a hot take, but the
Speaker 3: this is the thing to repetition escalation. We talked a
Speaker 3: little bit about this, asking the same questions over and
Speaker 3: over again until you can't even really understand what they're saying,
Speaker 3: because that's semantic satiation. They're breaking you down. Semantic satiation
Speaker 3: is when you take a word or a phrase and
Speaker 3: you just repeated it repeated and repeated. Eventually it loses
Speaker 3: all meaning to your brain. It's a fun thing to
Speaker 3: try at home in safe circumstances, but it can be
Speaker 3: really brutal experience and interrogation. That's why you're mantra your
Speaker 3: one phrase, whatever it is, that's why it's so important.
Speaker 3: It becomes your resistance tactic. Now you just lose yourself
Speaker 3: mentally in that phrase.
Speaker 2: I just want to remind everybody that everything we're talking
Speaker 2: in Hero, everything that's happening, at least with the SAS training.
Speaker 2: What they do is they make sure you have been
Speaker 2: awake for thirty six hours before they begin the interrogation,
Speaker 2: and that means you are at least at stage two
Speaker 2: of sleep deprivation, if not stage three, where hallucinations are beginning.
Speaker 2: So all of this other stuff, the effects of all
Speaker 2: the mental game stuff are enhanced, they're amplified, they're intensified.
Speaker 2: And that sleep deprivation thing, we should we should talk
Speaker 2: about it more at some point. I think we did
Speaker 2: a whole episode on it when we talked about and
Speaker 2: enhance an interrogation. But it is so it's such a
Speaker 2: dirty thing to do to somebody, to the mental faculties
Speaker 2: of somebody. And I'm talking sorry, I'm talking a little weird, y'all.
Speaker 2: I've been eating these Thai red chilies on purpose to
Speaker 2: see if I can resist drinking the milk that I've got.
Speaker 5: Sound Do you sound great?
Speaker 4: Man? I never would have known you're such a heat seeker.
Speaker 2: So much the live of happening, But I'm trying to
Speaker 2: do it just to see as we're talking about these
Speaker 2: intense things, because it is so like I'm trying to
Speaker 2: put myself in that position and imagine some of these
Speaker 2: horrific things, and could could you be mentally strong enough?
Speaker 2: And I still I don't think you could be.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because it's difficult to know how you would react
Speaker 3: until you're in that situation. And there are you know,
Speaker 3: the majority of people who end up being interrogated, it's
Speaker 3: the first time in their lives that happens for real. Right,
Speaker 3: So you might have training out the wazoo, and thank
Speaker 3: goodness you have it, but you are going that training
Speaker 3: is still not going to be the same thing as
Speaker 3: the real experience. I mean, that's why look extremely spooky dangerous.
Speaker 3: People long ago figured out that despite all the tricks
Speaker 3: and tactics, there are some folks who simply cannot be
Speaker 3: coerced by personal harm, right or by mental attacks. So
Speaker 3: their solution then becomes to find an external source of vulnerability,
Speaker 3: which is much more important like, sure, you might die
Speaker 3: for your country, but if you could save your child,
Speaker 3: or your spouse or one of your platoon pals by
Speaker 3: just signing your propaganda statement, then why wouldn't you?
Speaker 4: Does come a point where it's the only.
Speaker 3: Choice, and the interrogator always seeks compliance. Nobody really knows
Speaker 3: how they're going to act in that situation until they've
Speaker 3: been in it. What you can do, this is funny.
Speaker 3: This reminds us of the Simple Sabotage Field Manual. What
Speaker 3: you can't do is fate compliance subtle means of resistance.
Speaker 3: I think we all remember. The funniest part of the
Speaker 3: Simple Sabotage Manual is where it tells you how to
Speaker 3: be just an absolute jerk and a drip at work.
Speaker 3: They're like, always talk longer than you need to, always
Speaker 3: say there should be another meeting about a thing. When
Speaker 3: confronted about this, weap and say that you have been attacked.
Speaker 3: That's the thing. You Acting sickly can be helpful in
Speaker 3: these situations, and you won't have to act that sick really,
Speaker 3: because you'll already be pretty sick. Read a lot about fainting.
Speaker 3: Apparently fainting is a tactic that a lot of people
Speaker 3: would use just to end questioning right and maybe get
Speaker 3: some time to recharge. But if you try in front
Speaker 3: of the wrong people, they're just going to beat the
Speaker 3: crap out or like dump cold water.
Speaker 5: On you or something.
Speaker 4: I mean, there's any number of ways to get you
Speaker 4: to snap out of it. You just mentioned Compliance, Ben,
Speaker 4: and it just reminded me. I just want to give
Speaker 4: one more film recommendation that he does a great job
Speaker 4: of dramatizing a lot of these things that we're talking about,
Speaker 4: and also describes very well the slippery slope of compliance
Speaker 4: on the part of an individual being faced with an
Speaker 4: authority figure telling them to do horrible things. It's a
Speaker 4: movie called Compliance by Craig Zobel, and it's about a
Speaker 4: fast food worker who gets accused of theft and her
Speaker 4: boss essentially tortures and interrogates her at the behest of
Speaker 4: an anonymous phone caller who says he's a cop and
Speaker 4: instructs the manager on various ways of getting the truth
Speaker 4: quote unquote out of her. And it's a very odd
Speaker 4: way of framing this kind of thing, but I think
Speaker 4: it does a really fantastic job. It's not a pleasant watch,
Speaker 4: but I think it's very educational.
Speaker 2: Is that based on a real thing?
Speaker 5: I think it is.
Speaker 3: It is that also reminds me of my absolute favorite
Speaker 3: episode of Law and Order SVU, season nine, episode seventeen, Authority,
Speaker 3: featuring guest star Robin Williams. Oh wow, spoiler, folks, whenever
Speaker 3: there's a famous guest star, they usually did it right.
Speaker 3: I'm right about no offense to the writers. But authority
Speaker 3: is exactly the same thing. A guy is calling people
Speaker 3: and sort of hacking their minds and seeing how far
Speaker 3: they will go in ordinarily evil actions because they feel
Speaker 3: that they are complying with an authority. It's a very
Speaker 3: dangerous problem in humans.
Speaker 4: Just also sadly, and you know, disturbingly relevant with a
Speaker 4: lot of stuff that's going on in the world.
Speaker 2: Did I make the Emperor happy?
Speaker 6: Right?
Speaker 3: Exactly? So? Okay, you could also consider acting out a
Speaker 3: heart attack right or an eileptic seizure, But if you
Speaker 3: do that, you have to be convincing enough to persuade
Speaker 3: the interrogators. Don't attempt that stuff unless you know you
Speaker 3: can emulate the signs and then upon waking or whatever
Speaker 3: happens to you after being sickly, just repeat your mantra
Speaker 3: when they demand information, feel free to tell them half truths,
Speaker 3: you know what I mean. It's like you're being questioned
Speaker 3: about your family to earlier example, you like, most people
Speaker 3: have a social media blueprint of some sort. Right, you
Speaker 3: have left traces of you on the internet, So they're
Speaker 3: gonna know about this, right they you know that they
Speaker 3: know part of your family lives in far rockaway New York.
Speaker 3: Maybe the interrogator pulls up an image of your cousin
Speaker 3: from their TikTok, ask where they're going next. False compliance
Speaker 3: in this case would be something like saying, I've heard
Speaker 3: social media is a big deal.
Speaker 2: Nice. Have we thought about a lot of farting, like
Speaker 2: really really bad gas?
Speaker 3: People have literally their pa ants as a power purpose,
Speaker 3: and it's really difficult to do that.
Speaker 4: But I think Matt might be approaching that point with
Speaker 4: this pepper. That's going to be a hot one.
Speaker 3: I mean, this is this is the thing. Right, We've
Speaker 3: established the basics here. There's much more to get to
Speaker 3: check out our episodes on whether or not torture works.
Speaker 3: Spoiler depends on how you define working while you are alive.
Speaker 3: You have to remember your propaganda value and your info
Speaker 3: value are perishable, so it's it's as perishable sometimes as
Speaker 3: a banana or an avocado. So your ultimate goal is escape.
Speaker 3: You can escape in a practical sense, right help arrives,
Speaker 3: you're extracted, but you if you're on your own, then
Speaker 3: you would have to be able to get out of
Speaker 3: an interrogation room than a hostile environment. Then somehow get
Speaker 3: to a friendly country or environment. So the one version
Speaker 3: of escape people you when they can't do the practical
Speaker 3: version is philosophical escape. Using that mantras, a milestone, counting
Speaker 3: your heads, the number of times you say the phrase
Speaker 3: to the interrogator. That'll help you keep track of time,
Speaker 3: because also part of sleep deprivation. What makes it so
Speaker 3: devilishly effective is it removes your sense of the passage
Speaker 3: of time. They want you to forget how long you've
Speaker 3: been in a place.
Speaker 5: Well, and it makes you go insane.
Speaker 3: Oh yes, oh yes. So hopefully you get home safe,
Speaker 3: Hopefully help is on the way. Why are we a
Speaker 3: critical thought conspiracy show exploring all of this, Well, as
Speaker 3: we've said throughout this episode, it is because right now
Speaker 3: a great many people in the United States are being
Speaker 3: interrogated without the protection of those amendments we mentioned earlier.
Speaker 3: Children do not know SARA tactics, and thank goodness, they
Speaker 3: should never have to. They should have ordinary childhoods. And
Speaker 3: if you live in the US right now, your constitutional
Speaker 3: rights are being eroded. If you don't have a billion
Speaker 3: dollars for the ear of Congress, you should start behaving
Speaker 3: as though you are going to be in some way
Speaker 3: targeted lest.
Speaker 5: Your fork it too.
Speaker 4: I mean, in the earlier discussion of the whole ice
Speaker 4: aspect of this, even if you say, yeah, I'm a
Speaker 4: US citizen, or you have your papers but you don't
Speaker 4: have them on you, you may still be detained. And
Speaker 4: just by being detained, you are being thrown into a
Speaker 4: system that could take weeks, months longer to get you
Speaker 4: through the proper channels to get you out of it.
Speaker 4: And just by being in these detainment centers, these detention
Speaker 4: centers which we're gonna do episodes on or episode in
Speaker 4: the near future, you've already had your rights stripped to
Speaker 4: view you know, and you're and you're there, and that's
Speaker 4: goin to the level of PTSD that that being in
Speaker 4: one of those places is going to cause. It's it's
Speaker 4: very hard to measure, and it's gonna stick with folks
Speaker 4: for the rest of their lives. Even if they are
Speaker 4: eventuallyquote unquote have their rights restored or they're.
Speaker 5: You know, they're released.
Speaker 4: The damage is done at that point, agreed.
Speaker 2: I would just say the vast majority of people aren't
Speaker 2: going to go through this, I don't think, and I.
Speaker 4: We are not trying to be scare mongering here. That's
Speaker 4: a very good point.
Speaker 2: But there are going to be people who go through this.
Speaker 2: Right just because you don't go through it there, it
Speaker 2: doesn't mean other people are not going through it. So
Speaker 2: I think that's maybe for me one of the most
Speaker 2: important things to keep in mind. I don't know. It
Speaker 2: could be helpful information, I think.
Speaker 3: And again, the at least for me and hopefully for
Speaker 3: all of us. Folks. Can we hope you are never
Speaker 3: in a situation remotely like this, and we do hope
Speaker 3: you realize, especially if you live in the United States,
Speaker 3: but other places well, your rights as resident are important
Speaker 3: constitutional rights being eroded. For any rationale, it's a bad thing. Historically,
Speaker 3: it's a big deal, and this is the stuff they
Speaker 3: don't want you to know. Thank you so much for
Speaker 3: tuning in, folks. We would love to hear from you.
Speaker 3: We've got some exciting stuff on the way. Also, please
Speaker 3: recommend some paranormal cryptid topics you'd like us to cover.
Speaker 3: You can find us online, You can call us on phone.
Speaker 3: You can always send us an email.
Speaker 5: If you would like to.
Speaker 4: Reach us on the internet, you can find us at
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