November 16, 2022 • 56 mins
You've seen it in countless works of film and fiction -- a shady operative hands someone a folder, marked 'classified,' or 'top secret.' But what is classification in real life? What makes one piece of information fit for the public, and another piece the kind of thing that has to be buried for generations? In today's episode, the guys explore the fact, fiction and controversy surrounding how the government chooses the stuff it doesn't want you to know. They don’t want you to read our book.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of My Heart Radio. Hello, welcome back to the show.
(00:25):
My name is Matt, my name is Noel. They called
me Ben. We're joined as always with our super producer Paul.
Mission Control decons. Most importantly, you are you, You are here,
and that makes this the stuff they don't want you
to know. You know. I was thinking, we're all familiar
with the idea of secret documents in fiction, right, It's
(00:47):
it's the the mommy of any any good spy thriller. Right,
It's the great mcguffin of so many stories. And increasingly
conversations about real life classified documents are in the mainstream news.
More people are thinking about them in a factual way
than they have for many years. But, as our fellow
conspiracy realist Jack Over on Instagram recently asked, what does
(01:12):
all this stuff mean? What is all this gobbledegook? That's
why today we're exploring federal classification. They're probably a couple
of episodes related to this and why it is such
a problem in the modern day, Uh, here are the facts.
You gotta have it, right, You gotta have secrets. It's
a necessary evil. And uh, you know we're big transparency advocates,
(01:36):
but even even folks like us know that some doors
have have to remain closed, right, Like, it's I think
it's reasonable to assume, you know, whether you were died
in the wool patriot, or whether you're like an avowed
enemy of the so called Great Satan, or like millions
of other people, you just happened to live in the US.
(01:57):
I think we all assume that this country has a
lot of secrets to keep. Oh yeah, no question there. Well, yeah,
and anytime there's global conflict, because of the way our
systems of society are set up, you've got to have
secret action possible. And in order to take a secret action,
you have to conspire with your team basically, or collude
(02:19):
with your team, work with your team in secret to
get things done. It's just weird that we also have
a system of democracy, at least in this country, where
were we all kind of pay for a government to
function for us, but then we don't get to know
what that government is doing. Often. It's very strange. Yeah,
(02:41):
that's you can at the root of one of the
paradox is here, and it very much is a conspiracy.
You know, we we mentioned this in our books stuff
that will want you to know, which is out now
wherever you find your favorite books, uh, and just you know,
to mention some some local spots you can get it.
Books are Magic in Brooklyn has them, and pal Books
in Portland. We've had some really cool reports of sightings
(03:02):
in the wild. Need to know that these very awesome, legacy,
amazing businesses have the book. So the US itself started
as a secret plot. It started as a conspiracy and
now hundreds of years later, like any other government, this
need for secrecy eventually lead to wait for it, paperwork.
(03:26):
Oh and also murder and also coups and uh ton
of corruption. But well, just for today, we'll we'll put
that to the side a little bit and you'll see why. Vocabulary,
oh gosh, so much fun. Vocabulary so much dare we
say jargon meant to obfiskate? Yeah, legally ease right, Uh,
(03:49):
all sorts of things. You know, we said this years
ago and I still think it's true. At a certain
point you have to ask, is this language purposely meant
to be off putting right there. There are a lot
of people who don't want you to read these sorts
of things. Uh. And that's not saying that they're all
(04:09):
Munti Burns esque lawful evil on the D and D scale,
just you know, doing some weird stuff, steepling their fingers
and going No one would make it through this paragraph,
but the result ends up being the same as if
they had done that on purpose. Every other nation has
done this too. It's not a glasshouse situation. It's a
(04:30):
glass planet here. Uh. In the US, the Civil Service
Act of eighty three established what we call the predecessor
of background checks. Background checks still very much a thing.
We've got an episode coming up. I think it will
be later this week on that. Uh. But it's strange
because they've always been, as Corporate America puts it, building
(04:52):
the plane while they're flying it, right, or building the
car while they're driving it. The current system for classifying
stuff with established way back in nine and it keeps
getting uh readdressed by executive orders often and then there
will be congressional investigations that usually happen when someone has
(05:13):
shot the bed in one way or another. Uh. Currently,
anything we say about the classification system as it stands today,
is mapped out by an executive order from the Barack
Obama administration Executive Order one three, five to six. Save
you some time. It's not really a page turner. It's
(05:35):
freely available online. You can read it. It's got a
lot of the legal ease nomenclature. It tries to be precise,
but as we'll see, it still runs into some of
the same vague and dangerous problems of the classification system overall,
which are conspiracies. Yeah, I mean, it's it's it's kind
of like, you know, when maybe a legal an opposing
(05:55):
legal team wants to just throw a wrench in the
works of you know who, remember they're arguing against, they
will just um bury them in in discovery or or
in like you know, paperwork that is literally sending like
truckloads of stuff. Uh So they end up in a
needle in the haystack situation. And that's kind of what
a lot of these overly long, overly complex documents kind
(06:17):
of are for the public. Because I had a minor
revelation I just want to share with you before we
move on to the next part. I was thinking about
why the uh colonists were so successful in their tradecraft
attempts during the Revolutionary War when the United States was
founded through this conspiracy, right, And I imagine the British forces,
(06:38):
the government itself being very much used to tradecraft, trying
to infiltrate their ranks, right, trying to get in and
find information, figure stuff out about their movements for an advantage. Right.
But it feels I was trying to think of a
time when the British government would have had British like people,
people who were recently British uh, trying attempting to do
(07:02):
that against them, attempting to work against them like and
then figuring out it must have been much more difficult
to ascertain whether someone was a perhaps foreign spy in
this case, because foreign spy would have been formerly British,
not that long ago, I guess, does that make sense? Sure?
Yet there were also, of course, you know, uh, colonists
(07:23):
from other parts of Europe, you know, Germany, France and
so on, who would have been treated as possible you know,
possible possible spies or infiltrators. One one thing I think
that's huge about that situation is we have to remember
how slow information was. You know what I mean. So
(07:43):
there there was literally no way for the crown to
know what was going down until someone got across the
ocean to tell them. So there was a lot there
was a big window of time here that just doesn't
exist today. You know, I think that's I think that's
a big part of it. Um. Also, there was a
(08:04):
lot of a lot of local support. That part of
history isn't isn't sanitized, that part is true. A lot
of people were going, I might not agree on everything
with you, but yeah, no, screw these taxes. I hate this.
I hate this keen guy. Where does he get the nerve?
And you know what, if you have a problem, come
(08:25):
find us. The exact same thing is going to happen
when lunar colonies come into existence. The exact same thing
is going to happen if people ever have a permanent
foothold on Mars. What are you gonna do? Yeah? Um,
I mean nuclear weapons would be the danger, but then
you would literally be wiping everything off the map. So anyway,
(08:50):
that's that's definitely gonna happen, right Uh. The first the
first lunar government, if it is a government not a
private entity, is a only gonna be part of the
Terran world. For Generation or two, I would give it,
you know, and I'm glad to Eat Crow on air
if I'm wrong in the show still on when that happens.
(09:10):
But Generation or two, Max, Hey, there should be a
podcast called Eating Crow. I don't know, Sorry, it just
occurred to me. That's I don't know why. I don't
know what it will be about. It might be a
weird a SMR like muck Bang type thing, or it
might just be someone apologizing, um, you know, very self
deprecatingly every every episode. I almost guarantee it already exists.
(09:32):
It's a good name, Tom, I'm saying it is. It
is hosted by Pete de Reya. Eating Crow. It's for uh,
it's amazing. It's stories of amazing people, for entrepreneurs and leaders.
We haven't heard it. I haven't heard it. I don't know,
but you know, we we are very much. We're not
(09:52):
a zero sum game here. We do believe that rising
tides carry all vessels. Federal classification does think of things
in the terms of a zero sum game. Right now,
multiple agencies in the government can classify stuff. From the
Department of Defense does most of it. Uh, Department of
Energy does a lot because they touch nuclear technology. Uh.
(10:16):
And for a while, being cleared by one agency didn't
always mean you were cleared by another one. That's changed.
So now like if you get a background check and
you pass it such that say, uh, the d o
D gives you secret access, then that same background check
(10:37):
is supposed to be honored by other agencies as long
as it's still current. But you know, it's like transferring
credits at a college. You'd be surprised by how how
messy it can get. Of course, you know, if you're
the average US resident, you're not going to run into
this stuff. And unfortunately, folks, we looked into this. You
(10:58):
cannot classify info on your own. You can't. You can
like make a motion to have a record sealed, but
if you're a civilian, that's about as close as you get.
You can't. You know, um, you can't accidentally shart at
your next holiday party and then tell everybody that that
is considered classified information, right and that because you can't
(11:21):
put them in prison if they say, oh, man, you know,
Derek or Jane or whatever totally started and everybody knew
it because they were talking at the time. But wait
a minute, but there are are there not instances though,
where something maybe you know, of national security interest does
occur with witnesses what happens then then then well, yeah,
(11:45):
that's my first go to. But are there potentially like
you better sign this thing and we'll give you some
money or something, and if you say anything then at
this point you will be liable And if they don't
play ball, then maybe it has take them out. But
surely this has happened. Yeah. Before the days of the
Internet and social media especially, was a lot easier to
tamp down on that kind of um. The strategy used
(12:07):
to be tamped down in suppressing information, right, and now
increasingly the strategy is to flood information. Right. So now
you've gone from like one person says here's a needle,
and you go, oh, snap, that's a secret needle. Shut up,
don't tell anyone. Now that doesn't work as well. So
(12:27):
now people have to increasingly or agencies and entities have
to increasingly say, oh, maybe there's a needle, but let's
see if you can find it through these I was
talking about earlier, where it's like, yeah, either the thing
is in here and we are technically in compliance of
what we're supposed to do under the law. But also
(12:49):
like screw you and fat chance you're ever gonna find
what you're looking for. Oh also speaking of fighting the
because I love going into the trenches on this kind
of stuff, guys, you know that. Uh, not to brag,
but someone just got their piece of the settlement with
Wells Fargo. Uh So you get what you get what
(13:10):
I can't. I can't put a number on it. But
the next round of drinks, his next next half a shot,
we'll share, We'll split it. Uh So, for a long time,
the issue was and this is still a thing. Anybody
who's listening, who's in the business today knows this. A
(13:33):
lot of agencies tend to function as their own little fiefdoms.
And that's a that's a problem, you know, that kind
of siloing of information that continual in fighting for budget
that leads to serious issues. And I don't know, I'm
still stuck on it. You know, just for fun, it
would be great to hear from some of our fellow
(13:53):
conspiracy realists who tried to convince a government or friend
group they had classified something. Let us know if it
works for you. But to our knowledge, I think at
this point The closest you as a civilian can get
is trying to get someone to find to file an
inn d A, which actually can get pretty unethical and
(14:14):
they don't always work. You can uh petition to have
a record sealed or something, but if there, if there's
a witness, and you yourself are not a man in black,
uh Johnny Cash or otherwise, you're gonna have a tough
time keeping it secret. But maybe we talked about that
so secret there are there are different levels right there,
levels to the game. So maybe we can walk through
(14:37):
what those are, and then some of the exceptions, which
we might have to save for a later episode because
they're the real juicy ones. So um, getting back to
what classification is. It can typically be divided up into
three sections or or I guess levels, you know, almost
like escalations, you know, each one kind of being more
(14:57):
more secret than the next. You've got confidential, which is
described officially as the unauthorized disclosure of which reasonably could
be expected to cause damage to the national security that
the original classification authority is able to identify or describe. God,
that's clear as clear as crystal. The most important thing
(15:20):
here is it's something that could reasonably be expected to
cause damage. Right, reasonably expected to cause some damage to
national security. And then it just goes up from there
with with tiny little modifiers to let you know the
severity has increased. And then we've got secret secret secrets
(15:41):
are no fun because it could like get you killed,
the unauthorized disclosure of which reasonably once again could be
expected to cause serious damage to the national security um
that the original classification authority is able to identify or describe.
So we've gone from damage to serious damage. Right, Okay,
(16:01):
it's also really important to note there that that part
at the end where your brain kind of shuts off
the that the original classification authority is able to identify
or describe. It's very important. You have to be able
to show that this thing will cause damage. Right. You
can't just say some agent or some person who is
in charge of one of these organizations can't just say, well,
(16:25):
we're pretty sure it's gonna cause damage. You have to
show it again. Shout out to the Mitchell and Webb
conspiracy sketches. They're so good. Please watch them. Uh they've
got one on the moon landing, one on Princess Diana,
and then one on aliens. I think so they're The
next one is the crowd favorite, beloved by conspiracy realists
(16:45):
and screenwriters alike. Top secret, also also weirdly beloved by
a lot of folks in government. Uh. This is the
unauthorized disclosure of which reasonably could be expected to cause
exceptionally rave damage to the national security that the original
classification authority is able to identify or describe. We're gonna
(17:08):
keep things like special Access programs or s a p
s and controlled unclassified to one side for now. Although
controlled unclassifies my favorite because it is one of my favorites.
Because they're saying it's illegal to distribute this. Okay, we
know that people know, but we don't wanna, you know,
put it in the headline. We don't want it on
(17:29):
page one of the conversation. Uh. And this, you know.
I'm glad you guys point out the commonalities here. There
are three big components to the way this is constructed.
So the first is it's all about national security. Right.
It's a purposely vague, broad and shifting term. That's one
(17:49):
of the big problems as well. Uh, Matt, I want
to go back to what you said earlier. The addition
at the end of classifying, agency can't just say you know,
they have to they have to say this, we have
to describe what makes this information a threat, and we
have to describe the ways in which it could damage
national security. However, this agency or entity defines national security,
(18:15):
which is a great boogeyman and rhetorical device used to
scare you if you were American. Also, reasonably, that term
throws me a little bit, reasonably to whom you know
what I mean, like like that that that that to
me where it seems like it might be a unifying
element or a way of kind of like, you know,
having these things have some sort of standard. To me,
(18:36):
it's kind of like a vague element reasonably, you know
what I mean, I mean it just reasonably depending on
the circumstance. And then too, and who's who's talking. Yeah,
there's some I mean, it's almost like we'll get to
this later. But it's, uh, it's pretty subjective. Those those
three components are all dangerously subjective, and sometimes they have
(18:58):
to be. But good example, just off the top of
the dome would be um going public with the construction
details an operation manual for a new type of nuclear missile,
right that could reasonably be expected to damage national security
(19:19):
because you're telling geopolitical rivals, hey, here's what we built.
You can do it at home. But unreasonable would be
creating like a Rube Goldberg esque mousetrap series of events
that would lead to a harmy national security. Like nobody
can know that the head of the n essay is
UH super into the sport of cricket, because if people
(19:44):
know cricket, being popular in areas like Pakistan may lead
to him being approached by people who are big in
the cricket community and they may leverage him for secrets. Therefore,
he is a it's a grave threat to national security.
Knowing to know that he is an absolute nut for cricket,
(20:04):
that would be kind of unreasonable. But you can see
it making sense if I keep thinking about the SR
seventi one UH plane, guys, the spy plane. It feels
like if that thing, if you're writing that out in
the same way in long form of why that thing
has to be kept secret, it would make sense, even
though it would be a chain of events. Right the public,
(20:24):
if we tell the public that these UFOs they were
seeing were actually this you know, new spy plane, then
our you know, geopolitical enemies find out that we have
this spy plane. Then they realized that they've also been
seeing the spy plane, and just like you could make sense,
and it's a it's a feedback loop too because one
of the big and you know, we want to speak
(20:45):
carefully about this, but one of the big motivators for
a lot of classification, at least in those hypotheticals were discussing,
involves not letting the enemy know how we know what
we know, right, So some U A piece stuff might
be classified because uh, factions of the US government don't
(21:06):
want other countries to know the sophistication or the nature
of their surveillance techniques. That's a very real concern. So
that's it. Those rankings. By the way, Uh, since they
all talk about the degree of potential harm what they
call potential harm in the business sensitivity, How sensitive is this?
They're not talking about emo albums, so they're talking about
(21:28):
how dangerous something could be, and they just thought sensitive
was a less scary word. So anyway, that's the show.
We got them record scratched. Not really. Uh, this feels
high level, right, it feels cut and dried, but it's
just scratching the surface. And there is no doubt. There's
absolutely no doubt that in some cases over the years
(21:49):
and quite recently, this same approach to secrecy has done
much more harm than it has done good. We'll tell
you what we mean after word from our sponsors. Here's
where it gets crazy. Uh, first, first things first, way
(22:12):
more people have access to this stuff than you might think,
like millions of people in the US soon talking about right, So,
how many people, Like, what's the threshold for secrecy? This
is my question. I know it's a very dumb question,
but I love dumb questions. What's the like, at what
(22:35):
threshold does something no longer become secret? How many people
does it take to know something before everybody can say
this is no longer a secret? Right? Like, if if
three millions something people all get top secret classification tomorrow,
are we still gonna pretend it's a secret. We have
(22:58):
a handshake, have to it's for national security. But I
have a question for you guys. I was watching a
show with my girlfriend the other night, and uh, there
was like a redacted document, you know, and it had
all the like the scratched out text correct, And she
pointed out, like why would you even print the thing
out if you're just gonna go through it? And uh
and and you know black line it like that. And
(23:19):
I guess my my response was, well, it wasn't always
like that, you know. It's like some of those things change,
right and and and yeah, sometimes you legally have to
print that stuff out right because you're compelled to by
the law government. Well and also if you think about
(23:40):
the old school, the old school methods are still in place,
that's because now they're more secure than a lot of
you know, like cloud storage. Why would you do that? Um,
But this, this kind of this clearance question also gets
us in really crazy situations. When the Chelsea Manning leaks hit,
(24:03):
they're parts of the government put out orders to their
employees saying, hey, if you don't have access, you can't
read this. Even though it's like all over the news,
even though it's all over wiki leaks, it's a type
and a click away. It gets surreal. So as of August,
which is some of the latest numbers, we could find
(24:24):
somewhere around one point three million people in this country
had some kind of top secret security clearance. That doesn't
mean they all hang out in some borges esque library,
you know, joking about who really killed jfk Uh. They
also don't get universal access to everything. Uh, that's not
(24:45):
how it works. And everybody works in the security field
who just heard that idea probably almost had a heart
attack because that's ridiculous. It's a messy bag of badgers.
It's a ton of people. They're expected to keep a
ton of secrets, and a lot of these secrets. Honestly,
to you, the average resident of the US, if that's
(25:06):
what you're based, it wouldn't matter to you. You wouldn't care.
You'd be like, what's the big hubbub bub? Where's the beef? Right? Why? Why?
Why is this a secret? It's like if you caught somebody, Um,
if you caught somebody in a completely unnecessary lie, you know,
and you said, uh you they were like, Okay, I'm
(25:28):
wearing green socks but no one can know, and you
found out their socks were read, and you would say, well,
why why are we having this conversation? Man trying to
contuse you because you might be the enemy? Right. It's
weird stuff. It makes this whole conversation makes me think
about that listener who sent us a voicemail about that
(25:48):
manhole cover that had the alarm on it, Like, how
many people knew that manhole had an alarm on it? Like,
I wonder how many people there were. I bet it's
way more than I imagine. Oh yeah, yeah, And and
sadly it's not. It's still not Chen or Chen's employer,
(26:08):
the people who could help avoid that that situation. And
we're able to joke about this because Chen's okay, by
the way, Uh, but this happens a lot more than
you think, and a lot more people have access to
secret stuff than that it sounds. But that's a big problem.
There's their fiefdoms, their cliques. You know, we said before
(26:29):
the break that a lot of groups can classify something
well to be very diplomatic, they're they're a little proactive
about it, they're a little zealous about it. And this
is where we go to a great piece written by
Mike Giglio for The Atlantic back in correct Um. And
in this piece, Giglio points out that since World War Two,
(26:53):
eight different government commissions have taken a a hard look
at this um and every single one of them found
that the US is most likely overclassifying things. So the
question then becomes, what does it mean to over classify. Um.
It essentially means that some people are getting a little
(27:16):
bit too high on their own authority and and uh
and wielding it like a like a like a blunt instrument. Um,
their horses too high. Indeed, it is your soapboxes are
too stacked. Uh. This is not to say that the
classification is a bad thing, because we know it's not
a bad thing. I mean there's a reason for it
to exist. There is information that if falling into the
(27:38):
wrong hands, could actually put you know, American lives at risk.
And and look, if there was no classification, if there
were no secrets, not just in the US, but around
the planet, then civilization as you know it listening to
this podcast would come toppling down very quick. Things would
(28:00):
descend into chaos. And that's not hyperbole. But Giglio knowing
this as well, says too much national security information, from
trivial to the politically inconvenient, gets labeled confidential secret or
top secret, meaning you can't you will never be able
to access it unless you have that clearance, you pass
(28:22):
that background check, you get read on as they say
in special access programs. But again, like to the earlier point,
you made matter of course, you have to classify stuff
like undercover operations, black bags, stuff abroad, sending the stealth
helicopters to get bin laden, or the latest hot gossip
on a foreign rival, or research into surveillance tech and
(28:46):
weapons of war. But then there's stuff like this, And
I really appreciate that you put this in here, Mike.
This is a legitimate classified paragraph from a two thousand
six diplomatic cable. It was leaked by Chelsea Manning in
I suggest we round robin it and just well, it's
kind of long, so we'll just switch off sentence to sentence. Uh,
(29:09):
And then, dear listeners, tell us if you think this
should have been classified at the end, or actually, um,
if you guys have already read this, well, let's let's
also amongst ourselves talk about whether this should have been secret.
Dakastani weddings are serious business, a forum for showing respect,
fealty and alliance among families. The bride and groom themselves
(29:30):
are a little more than show pieces. Weddings take place
in discreet parts over three days. On the first day,
the groom's family and the bride's family simultaneously hold separate
receptions that sounds nice. During the receptions, the groom leads
a delegation to the bride's reception and escorts her back
to his own reception, at which point she formerly becomes
(29:51):
a member of the groom's family, for saking her old
family and clan. The next day, the groom's parents hold
another reception, this time for the bride's family and friends,
who can inspect the family they have given their daughter too.
On the third day, he rose no, it says, the
bride's family holds a reception for the groom's parents and family.
(30:12):
If annything has redacted the word reception, because that'd be
would be a lot of black ink right there. Attle
does this is like a column out of like you know,
a Vanity fair or something like that. It really just
sounds like sort of like a you know, Robin Leech
kind of Lifestyles of the rich and famous, sort of
David Attenborough anthropological word. It's a cable. It's a cable.
(30:34):
So it's just it's information coming from is it from
the consulate or from from an embassy? Right, that's generally
what these cables were. Just communications. Yes, they're just diplomatic messages.
So look this doesn't have it. It's like a telegram, right,
it's a text best text based message from you know,
(30:56):
various parts of the Department of State. So I guess, first,
congratulations to all the Dagastani newlyweds out there, But how
is this national security? When Chelsea Manning leaks this is
technically a crime for which one can be imprisoned, despite
the fact that when we confirm this, you can find
(31:17):
information about these weddings at any number of publicly accessible forums,
right you can. You know, it's the age of the internet.
You could go on Twitter and say, hey, anybody know
uh Dagastani person, tell me about the weddings, and then
they would tell you. Because it's not like they're giving
you the keys to nuclear power, so that stuff is classified.
(31:40):
And and again that's not a thing on the Dakastani newlyweds. Again, congratulations,
but your wedding is not a matter of national security,
most people would say another another funny one that got
me here, h was very hell arresque catch twenty two.
Even the grand Poobas of the intelligence community think this
(32:04):
is overkilled. The former director of the CIA and the
n s A famously complained about it Michael Hayden said
everything secret. I mean I got an email see Merry Christmas.
It carried a top secret in s A classification marking.
That's his quote, Ship Christmas. Nobody. I should have said
(32:26):
happy holidays. That's why, uh war on Christmas? I said.
So that's that's kind of weird though, right like when
we because when we think about this stuff, we think
of you know, uh, secret operations, we think of suppressed technology,
(32:48):
we think of active spies or active wet work missions.
But no, it's stuff like sometimes this stuff like Merry Christmas.
And here's how these people handle weddings, very like talk
of the town. It is there is the purpose of
this redaction just so you don't even know the person
was there and and and who they were. And maybe
(33:11):
there's more to it that could be you know, from
prying eyes, uh give away the game to some degree,
right right, figuring out how we got this information again
or um, you know. But then the question comes up
from earlier, what is a reasonable expectation of damage the
(33:31):
national security? I mean it gets weird. You could say
this is people with good intentions just being a little
over zealous, little over protective, and that does make sense
until you realize the next problem. Different agencies of the
same government use classification against each other. They use it
to beef. And this is a true story. It's that
(33:52):
old jurism addiction crap, right, Yes, it's like but I
like it. It's almost like up tweets, you know what
I mean, But like that that people can't see, you know.
It's it's it's like because there's they're these you know,
back and forth with these agencies, etcetera. That they're they're
seeing these. So there could be little digs kind of
(34:13):
built in, uh, in the same way that you know,
celebrity might dis another celebrity on Twitter without actually naming them.
M yeah, I think that's a good comparison. I mean,
each agency can function often is its own little kingdom,
and they have goals and desires that might contradict the
goals and desires of their counterparts. They're also in an
eternal existential war for that piece of that beautiful taxpayer pie.
(34:37):
So despite having common cause on paper, these groups beef
with each other literally all the time. And and Giglio, Uh,
if we go back to Atlantic article. Uh, Giglio points
out how this becomes an issue Giglio says, quote, there
are many scandals that were shielded from view, not just
(34:57):
from the public, but from government officials who might have
put a stop to them, at least in part by classification.
That makes so much sense to me. Guys. We talk
on the show all the time about how often when
some conspiracy begins, it's because somebody messed up just a
tiny bit or maybe a really big bit. But but
(35:18):
the organization decided, note, we have to protect ourselves by
protecting this person, by making this whole thing not have happened. Right,
And everybody messes up sometimes. It doesn't matter how awesome
you are, it doesn't matter what clearance you've got. Everybody
messes up a little bit sometimes. So like I'm just
imagining this game where they're all trying to shield their
(35:42):
own mess ups from each other organization. It's so silly,
it's weird, it seems. It seems like a comedy movie
to me. It is. It is very much. You know,
we get to a death, a death of Stalin again
Catch twenty two territory with this doctor Strange Love as well.
So yeah, correct, actor Strange Love as well. So this
(36:03):
is where we go to folks like Elizabeth Goydon, who
directs the National Security Program at the Brennan Center, and
Goydon notes that it's not always just to cover up
the happy accidents, the little mistakes that are all but
part of the beautiful human tapestry. It's also a known
(36:23):
technique used to keep other people out of the conversation
and minimize resistance. You're the CIA, you're gonna do something
that you know the FBI or Congress or whomever might
not like, then just classify it so that they can't
they can't get access to it. Uh. A notorious ajaimable
that Goydon brings up would be the CIA's use of
(36:46):
torture or I guess the Legal Department requires me to
call it enhanced interrogation or something. In the aftermath of September. Uh,
they they did conduct torture. They definitely did it. Black
sites scattered across the world, and this was seen as
a necessary evil. But also visibility of this program was
(37:09):
classified out of conversations so that people couldn't stop them beforehand.
And that's the issue. The higher classification, the fewer people
can read it or raise a flag if something's wrong.
And this is the weaponization of classification. It doesn't get
talked about much in mainstream discourse because people would rather
(37:31):
you not know about it. Just to put it plainly,
people don't want you to think about the ways of
which this stuff could be used. They want you on
your heels. They want you defensive and scared of whatever
fits under the umbrella of the national security boogeyman. And
that's simply not always the case. Yell by time, Well,
(37:52):
let's take a quick pause, have it worth our sponsor,
and then we're gonna come back and get more, get
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because man, there's a lot a lot more dig into.
This episode of stuff they don't want you to know.
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Illumination Global Unlimited. If you are not read onto the
third act of this episode, then unfortunately, we're gonna have
to advise you to stop listening. Now. It's not even
gonna play if you try and keep going, not even
gonna play. So if it's playing, congratulations, whether or not
you know it, you have a clearance. Uh. And that's
(40:26):
because you must be important to national security, which leads
us to the big question what exactly is national security? Well,
sort of like beauty or porn. People are gonna tell
you I you know it when I see it, and
they're all gonna have different opinions and both run deep.
The hardest thing about this concept is that national security
is a very real thing and it is important whatever
(40:50):
it is, as a as a morphous as it may be,
whatever it is, we we know it's important. Yeah, that's
like number one. It's like we're in always study trying
to figure out what a vigu is, you know, like,
what's the I'm trying to get a you know how
like gangsters say something at the top. You know, it's
like a vague as it's short for something too oh vigorous. Yeah, okay, okay,
(41:14):
co I had to learn that's literally just now Murban Dictionary.
So yeah, so there's a there is no deniance real thing.
It is true. I imagine you're the head of the
d OE, the Department of Energy. We mentioned them because
they're huge in this field because they touched the nukes.
So you know, nuclear research needs as much secrecy as
possible because billions of dollars and more importantly, if you're
(41:37):
a decent person, millions of human lives hang in the balance.
But stuff gets so sticky so quick. I know, I'm
cursing a lot in today's episode, but there's just so
much free about the concept of national security has experienced
a cartoonish degree of what is called mission creep. We've
discussed this in the past. Mission creep is when something
(41:59):
starts with a narrow scope, just like an easy example
is let's say let's say Matt Noel and I are
on a mission to buy a pizza. So we started
having meetings about it for some reason, and by the
end of our meetings, we're not just buying one pizza.
Now we have constructed a multi year strategic plan that
(42:23):
allocates certain amounts of funding to various types of pizza
rated by desirability and allergens. Or or we've just decided
to go into the pizzeria business. Yeah, that's the next step. Man.
You conjured in my mind this image of the Department
of Energy and there's just some nukes about and it's
(42:43):
just about later. Yeah. But it's like like cats at
a bookstore. Yeah. Yeah, Yeah, it's this thing that is
the Department of Energy and it's just got these nukes
and it's just like huh oh yeah, just touching the nukes.
I don't know, it's just yeah, that's very doctor strange love.
I was listening to a podcast about and they pointed
(43:05):
out some I didn't really clock there's a lot of
weird sexual energy in that movie surrounding I mean I did,
but I didn't really think about how overt it was. Like,
I mean, obviously talking about precious bodily fluids, but just
like the General Ripper I think is his name, he's
just ready to go, like he and and and he's
like about about to pop. If you know what, I yeah,
(43:27):
I think he. I think he needs that kind of
military situation to really, you know, feel adequation exactly. Thank you.
Here's an old Playboy fold out is actually just a missile,
you know. So it's it's true. These things get sticky
because al right, originally, oh gosh, yeah, no, we gotta
(43:51):
keep it. That was accidental. Legal will just write to us.
Um so it originally meant just a possible military attack.
You have to have operational security. You have to protect
national security because you're making sure the nation is safe
from adversaries foreign and domestic. But these days, because big
(44:14):
business is so hand in hand with governments on a
global level and on a domestic level, it is a
national security has stretched, it's warped. You could say it's
evolved or devolved, we don't care. But it now it
means things like economic security, Will this make us lose money?
Energy security? Will this mean we can't keep the lights on?
(44:36):
Food security? Can we will this threaten our ability to
feed the population, etcetera, etcetera. But it gets even worse
and more ridiculous when government officials start conflating, oh, and
business tycoons start conflating national security with political goals. Will
this helper hurt my team? Will this and endanger my job,
(44:57):
my career, my profits? From Q one to queue four
and people do that all the time. The Goydon says,
the system is set up to fail. There's not really accountability.
So what happens when national security becomes more like personal security?
How great would that be? How great would it be
to say, hey, you know, um, I need a zero
(45:22):
percent loan because me going broke is a matter of
national security. Banks have done that, you know what I mean.
They didn't get in trouble, so why not me? Says America.
It's making me think about those cables again, um, the
diplomatic cables, and just about how much of that stuff
(45:44):
didn't feel important because there's so many cables that were
leaked at that time into a lot of it was
just I don't know, regular calms, except communications between people
that seem to be kind of mean in nature when
they're talking about other people, like seriously, like just kind
of I don't know I E. And you imagine that
(46:10):
maybe that's really one of the main reasons people wanted
to keep this stuff. Well, there are two things. Because
those communications are classified, they're not going to come out,
so you can kind of say whatever you want. I
guess maybe that's what makes those people say some of
those things. But at the same time, it makes me
think that that that's one of the reasons you'd want
(46:30):
to keep it classified. Yeah, because it's all about relationships.
You could impact a relationship at some at some level,
and this this is a real problem and there's a
hypothetical aspect to it. So let's talk about the valid part. Yeah,
you're the president, you're a prime minister something like that.
You're you're you're a big man on campus, and you're
(46:54):
about to conclude this huge policy deal. You campaigned on
this deal. People are waiting for you to do your job,
you know, and it doesn't matter what it is. It
could be anything autonomous drones, trade deal on semiconductors, expansion
of resource extraction, and foreign minds. And you're having this
candid conversation with your team about how your counterpart in
(47:17):
another country is just a wild dude. He's getting plastered,
he's hiring sex workers, he's even showed up in public
at Pennsylvania Avenue drunk is a skunk and his underwear
trying to get a cab and get some pizza. That
is a true story that happens with Yelson sounding familiar. Yeah,
(47:39):
uh yeah, yeah Yelson. It was uh even more fun
than us at parties where's Yelton did get over served
as they would say, wandered into the street in d
C and his underwear trying to halicap and gets pizza.
Security got to him before the dominoes. But it was
so funny, gosh, but it really happens. And you know,
(48:04):
the truth of the matter is the real politic is like, yeah,
you might winge and moan about this guy in private,
but you need to make sure the public, both your
country and his or hers are theirs, sees you as
too important, level headed folks with good intentions, so you
classify your little therapy and complaining sessions as a matter
(48:25):
of national security. This happens so much more often than
people think. But also it has to Oh yeah, man,
it's like when a cop turns on their blue lights
so they can run a light, you know, I mean,
only it's much more agreeingus than that, and and and
much more obscured. But yeah, that's that's just a blatant
abuse of power. But how can you even go about
(48:48):
calling someone on it when it's been classified? Right, you
don't have the right to ask me that you should
be arrested for even knowing about that time. Well, you know,
me and that guy went to that place, which was
not a brothel but a charity. Uh so, yeah, I mean,
(49:11):
so there are clear problems. That's our that's our statement today.
And whether you were in the business or outside of it, uh,
you can see those problems are clear and apparent to
go across administrations, to go across political ideologies. If you're
not in the United States the unfortunately, something very much
like this is probably occurring in your neck of the
global woods. So how do we fix it? Should we
(49:35):
fix it? Yeah? No, let's just keep it now. I'll say,
you know, I love I love imagining founding fathers and
historical figures of yesteryear on Twitter. You know that never
happened until recently. But I mean maybe people should be
(49:56):
overly cautious. Do we have to do? We have to
just accept the corrupt in conspiracy of people, you know,
doing what seems best for them, even if it endangers
the nation, because the alternative is living in a world
where your government leaders are going on social social media
and saying stuff like l M A O yels and
(50:17):
you're a real one shots on me. Once we squash
this cold war, you know what I mean, ro guys,
squash this cold beef. Yes, squash that cold correct, squash
that cold beef. But I mean, that's the thing. These people,
no matter what the propaganda tells you about anyone in
the world, these people are human. And that means that
if they're human, they talk the way that you talk
(50:39):
with your friends in private. It's just more dangerous for
them to be around a hot mic. So it's kind
of weird. It's like, you know what else it reminds
me of, I know, we're going along. It reminds me
of legacy software stuff that has been patched and repatched
and bandiated so much over time that it's almost a
(51:03):
ship of thesis argument. And people don't always know how
it works. They just know that there's some stuff that
you can't do. You know, there's other stuff that you
have to do. That's the reason why sometimes in the
world of I T there are people whose entire job
is just to um, just to be the one person
who knows how this crazy thing works, right, like training
(51:26):
programs or stuff like Scimitar for delta UM. This kind
of stuff is UM. I don't know. It's a very
fragile system. You try. You could try to fix some things,
but then you could end up making it worse. And
one of the immediate consequences of that is going to
(51:46):
be the definition of national security just gets a little
bit bigger every single time you try to fix it.
In the end, we don't have to worry about any
of this guy's It's not gonna last much longer. I
I had this dream the other night. I'm sorry to
bore you with this real quick, but the other night
that everything ends, just like humanity. Civilization just ends for
(52:08):
whatever reason. And there's there's this one person who managed to,
uh to make it in one of these bunkers. It's
like a billionaire, right, really smart billionaire, and they made it.
And before they die, uh, they're able to type out
everything they can remember that happened in history in a
(52:29):
like a text document, and that's the only thing that
sticks around for the next time humanity begins to arise.
And that becomes the Holy Book. It's just this billionaire's
remembrances of what happened in history as he died of starvation. Anyway, eha.
You know, history is written by the victors, and that's
(52:52):
the reason why it's so important to read as much
about history as you can, because somewhere hidden in there
is the future of what's going to happen to you
and the generations after you, which I know sounds terrifying,
but it is very true. I had a had a
dream recently, Matt where I had a series of dreams
where I was hanging out with Robin Williams. I'm not
(53:12):
sure why I was in his He had this really
nice apartment in New York, and it it was like helping
him build furniture and he's giving me advice. It's a
weird dream, and he was he wasn't it felt realistic,
you guys, because he wasn't nice to everyone. He was
the weird as some people. My dream logs are classified. Okay, stop,
(53:32):
how do I get read on? Yeah? Alright, so read
us onto your opinions there, folks. We're gonna be following
up later with an episode on security clearances and how
that becomes so insanely weird as well. In the meantime,
we want to know your thoughts, whether you're inside or
outside the biz. Is there a way to fix this?
(53:53):
Should it be fixed? What? What are some other problems
you think people need to be made aware of. We
can't wait to your thoughts. We try to be easy
to find UM online until they classify us. Yeah, you
can find us on Facebook, on YouTube, and on Twitter
at the handle conspiracy Stuff and by the way, Twitter
as a platform right now, absolute bonker's delight to behold.
(54:14):
I just thought i'd thrown this in. A fake newly
eight dollar verified Chiquita Bennett Brand's account tweeted, We've just
overthrown the government of Brazil, to which the actual still
identical with the same verified check mark that they, you know,
actually received legitimately responded, we apologize to those who have
(54:35):
who have been served a misleading message from a fake
Chiquita account. We have not overthrown a government since nineteen
fifty four. That's great. Here's here's another one I read.
I left it was Tesla looking verified saying breaking a
second Tesla has hit the World Trade Center. Uh so
this is yeah, it's what a time to be alive.
(54:57):
What a time. We're conspiracy stuff on those plat forums
including Twitter, um conspiracy stuff show on Instagram. Yeah, hopefully
you can discern if it's actually us or not. Oh guys,
the uncertainty is peak. It's top uncertainty. And in these
uncertain times, some of our fellow conspiracy realists find nothing
(55:20):
more reliable than an old school phone call. The power
is yours. All you have to do is pick up
your phone telephonic device and dial one eight three three
st d W y t K. You'll hear a voice.
You'll hear a beep that tells you you're in the
right place beep. After that, you get three minutes. Go wild,
(55:40):
get really weird. Give yourself a nickname, a moniker and
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Tell us what's on your mind. Tell us if we
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We always love that. Take us to the edge of
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(56:01):
to do is drop us a line at our old
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(56:28):
a production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts from
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From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
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production of My Heart Radio. Hello, welcome back to the show.
(00:25):
My name is Matt, my name is Noel. They called
me Ben. We're joined as always with our super producer Paul.
Mission Control decons. Most importantly, you are you, You are here,
and that makes this the stuff they don't want you
to know. You know. I was thinking, we're all familiar
with the idea of secret documents in fiction, right, It's
(00:47):
it's the the mommy of any any good spy thriller. Right,
It's the great mcguffin of so many stories. And increasingly
conversations about real life classified documents are in the mainstream news.
More people are thinking about them in a factual way
than they have for many years. But, as our fellow
conspiracy realist Jack Over on Instagram recently asked, what does
(01:12):
all this stuff mean? What is all this gobbledegook? That's
why today we're exploring federal classification. They're probably a couple
of episodes related to this and why it is such
a problem in the modern day, Uh, here are the facts.
You gotta have it, right, You gotta have secrets. It's
a necessary evil. And uh, you know we're big transparency advocates,
(01:36):
but even even folks like us know that some doors
have have to remain closed, right, Like, it's I think
it's reasonable to assume, you know, whether you were died
in the wool patriot, or whether you're like an avowed
enemy of the so called Great Satan, or like millions
of other people, you just happened to live in the US.
(01:57):
I think we all assume that this country has a
lot of secrets to keep. Oh yeah, no question there. Well, yeah,
and anytime there's global conflict, because of the way our
systems of society are set up, you've got to have
secret action possible. And in order to take a secret action,
you have to conspire with your team basically, or collude
(02:19):
with your team, work with your team in secret to
get things done. It's just weird that we also have
a system of democracy, at least in this country, where
were we all kind of pay for a government to
function for us, but then we don't get to know
what that government is doing. Often. It's very strange. Yeah,
(02:41):
that's you can at the root of one of the
paradox is here, and it very much is a conspiracy.
You know, we we mentioned this in our books stuff
that will want you to know, which is out now
wherever you find your favorite books, uh, and just you know,
to mention some some local spots you can get it.
Books are Magic in Brooklyn has them, and pal Books
in Portland. We've had some really cool reports of sightings
(03:02):
in the wild. Need to know that these very awesome, legacy,
amazing businesses have the book. So the US itself started
as a secret plot. It started as a conspiracy and
now hundreds of years later, like any other government, this
need for secrecy eventually lead to wait for it, paperwork.
(03:26):
Oh and also murder and also coups and uh ton
of corruption. But well, just for today, we'll we'll put
that to the side a little bit and you'll see why. Vocabulary,
oh gosh, so much fun. Vocabulary so much dare we
say jargon meant to obfiskate? Yeah, legally ease right, Uh,
(03:49):
all sorts of things. You know, we said this years
ago and I still think it's true. At a certain
point you have to ask, is this language purposely meant
to be off putting right there. There are a lot
of people who don't want you to read these sorts
of things. Uh. And that's not saying that they're all
(04:09):
Munti Burns esque lawful evil on the D and D scale,
just you know, doing some weird stuff, steepling their fingers
and going No one would make it through this paragraph,
but the result ends up being the same as if
they had done that on purpose. Every other nation has
done this too. It's not a glasshouse situation. It's a
(04:30):
glass planet here. Uh. In the US, the Civil Service
Act of eighty three established what we call the predecessor
of background checks. Background checks still very much a thing.
We've got an episode coming up. I think it will
be later this week on that. Uh. But it's strange
because they've always been, as Corporate America puts it, building
(04:52):
the plane while they're flying it, right, or building the
car while they're driving it. The current system for classifying
stuff with established way back in nine and it keeps
getting uh readdressed by executive orders often and then there
will be congressional investigations that usually happen when someone has
(05:13):
shot the bed in one way or another. Uh. Currently,
anything we say about the classification system as it stands today,
is mapped out by an executive order from the Barack
Obama administration Executive Order one three, five to six. Save
you some time. It's not really a page turner. It's
(05:35):
freely available online. You can read it. It's got a
lot of the legal ease nomenclature. It tries to be precise,
but as we'll see, it still runs into some of
the same vague and dangerous problems of the classification system overall,
which are conspiracies. Yeah, I mean, it's it's it's kind
of like, you know, when maybe a legal an opposing
(05:55):
legal team wants to just throw a wrench in the
works of you know who, remember they're arguing against, they
will just um bury them in in discovery or or
in like you know, paperwork that is literally sending like
truckloads of stuff. Uh So they end up in a
needle in the haystack situation. And that's kind of what
a lot of these overly long, overly complex documents kind
(06:17):
of are for the public. Because I had a minor
revelation I just want to share with you before we
move on to the next part. I was thinking about
why the uh colonists were so successful in their tradecraft
attempts during the Revolutionary War when the United States was
founded through this conspiracy, right, And I imagine the British forces,
(06:38):
the government itself being very much used to tradecraft, trying
to infiltrate their ranks, right, trying to get in and
find information, figure stuff out about their movements for an advantage. Right.
But it feels I was trying to think of a
time when the British government would have had British like people,
people who were recently British uh, trying attempting to do
(07:02):
that against them, attempting to work against them like and
then figuring out it must have been much more difficult
to ascertain whether someone was a perhaps foreign spy in
this case, because foreign spy would have been formerly British,
not that long ago, I guess, does that make sense? Sure?
Yet there were also, of course, you know, uh, colonists
(07:23):
from other parts of Europe, you know, Germany, France and
so on, who would have been treated as possible you know,
possible possible spies or infiltrators. One one thing I think
that's huge about that situation is we have to remember
how slow information was. You know what I mean. So
(07:43):
there there was literally no way for the crown to
know what was going down until someone got across the
ocean to tell them. So there was a lot there
was a big window of time here that just doesn't
exist today. You know, I think that's I think that's
a big part of it. Um. Also, there was a
(08:04):
lot of a lot of local support. That part of
history isn't isn't sanitized, that part is true. A lot
of people were going, I might not agree on everything
with you, but yeah, no, screw these taxes. I hate this.
I hate this keen guy. Where does he get the nerve?
And you know what, if you have a problem, come
(08:25):
find us. The exact same thing is going to happen
when lunar colonies come into existence. The exact same thing
is going to happen if people ever have a permanent
foothold on Mars. What are you gonna do? Yeah? Um,
I mean nuclear weapons would be the danger, but then
you would literally be wiping everything off the map. So anyway,
(08:50):
that's that's definitely gonna happen, right Uh. The first the
first lunar government, if it is a government not a
private entity, is a only gonna be part of the
Terran world. For Generation or two, I would give it,
you know, and I'm glad to Eat Crow on air
if I'm wrong in the show still on when that happens.
(09:10):
But Generation or two, Max, Hey, there should be a
podcast called Eating Crow. I don't know, Sorry, it just
occurred to me. That's I don't know why. I don't
know what it will be about. It might be a
weird a SMR like muck Bang type thing, or it
might just be someone apologizing, um, you know, very self
deprecatingly every every episode. I almost guarantee it already exists.
(09:32):
It's a good name, Tom, I'm saying it is. It
is hosted by Pete de Reya. Eating Crow. It's for uh,
it's amazing. It's stories of amazing people, for entrepreneurs and leaders.
We haven't heard it. I haven't heard it. I don't know,
but you know, we we are very much. We're not
(09:52):
a zero sum game here. We do believe that rising
tides carry all vessels. Federal classification does think of things
in the terms of a zero sum game. Right now,
multiple agencies in the government can classify stuff. From the
Department of Defense does most of it. Uh, Department of
Energy does a lot because they touch nuclear technology. Uh.
(10:16):
And for a while, being cleared by one agency didn't
always mean you were cleared by another one. That's changed.
So now like if you get a background check and
you pass it such that say, uh, the d o
D gives you secret access, then that same background check
(10:37):
is supposed to be honored by other agencies as long
as it's still current. But you know, it's like transferring
credits at a college. You'd be surprised by how how
messy it can get. Of course, you know, if you're
the average US resident, you're not going to run into
this stuff. And unfortunately, folks, we looked into this. You
(10:58):
cannot classify info on your own. You can't. You can
like make a motion to have a record sealed, but
if you're a civilian, that's about as close as you get.
You can't. You know, um, you can't accidentally shart at
your next holiday party and then tell everybody that that
is considered classified information, right and that because you can't
(11:21):
put them in prison if they say, oh, man, you know,
Derek or Jane or whatever totally started and everybody knew
it because they were talking at the time. But wait
a minute, but there are are there not instances though,
where something maybe you know, of national security interest does
occur with witnesses what happens then then then well, yeah,
(11:45):
that's my first go to. But are there potentially like
you better sign this thing and we'll give you some
money or something, and if you say anything then at
this point you will be liable And if they don't
play ball, then maybe it has take them out. But
surely this has happened. Yeah. Before the days of the
Internet and social media especially, was a lot easier to
tamp down on that kind of um. The strategy used
(12:07):
to be tamped down in suppressing information, right, and now
increasingly the strategy is to flood information. Right. So now
you've gone from like one person says here's a needle,
and you go, oh, snap, that's a secret needle. Shut up,
don't tell anyone. Now that doesn't work as well. So
(12:27):
now people have to increasingly or agencies and entities have
to increasingly say, oh, maybe there's a needle, but let's
see if you can find it through these I was
talking about earlier, where it's like, yeah, either the thing
is in here and we are technically in compliance of
what we're supposed to do under the law. But also
(12:49):
like screw you and fat chance you're ever gonna find
what you're looking for. Oh also speaking of fighting the
because I love going into the trenches on this kind
of stuff, guys, you know that. Uh, not to brag,
but someone just got their piece of the settlement with
Wells Fargo. Uh So you get what you get what
(13:10):
I can't. I can't put a number on it. But
the next round of drinks, his next next half a shot,
we'll share, We'll split it. Uh So, for a long time,
the issue was and this is still a thing. Anybody
who's listening, who's in the business today knows this. A
(13:33):
lot of agencies tend to function as their own little fiefdoms.
And that's a that's a problem, you know, that kind
of siloing of information that continual in fighting for budget
that leads to serious issues. And I don't know, I'm
still stuck on it. You know, just for fun, it
would be great to hear from some of our fellow
(13:53):
conspiracy realists who tried to convince a government or friend
group they had classified something. Let us know if it
works for you. But to our knowledge, I think at
this point The closest you as a civilian can get
is trying to get someone to find to file an
inn d A, which actually can get pretty unethical and
(14:14):
they don't always work. You can uh petition to have
a record sealed or something, but if there, if there's
a witness, and you yourself are not a man in black,
uh Johnny Cash or otherwise, you're gonna have a tough
time keeping it secret. But maybe we talked about that
so secret there are there are different levels right there,
levels to the game. So maybe we can walk through
(14:37):
what those are, and then some of the exceptions, which
we might have to save for a later episode because
they're the real juicy ones. So um, getting back to
what classification is. It can typically be divided up into
three sections or or I guess levels, you know, almost
like escalations, you know, each one kind of being more
(14:57):
more secret than the next. You've got confidential, which is
described officially as the unauthorized disclosure of which reasonably could
be expected to cause damage to the national security that
the original classification authority is able to identify or describe. God,
that's clear as clear as crystal. The most important thing
(15:20):
here is it's something that could reasonably be expected to
cause damage. Right, reasonably expected to cause some damage to
national security. And then it just goes up from there
with with tiny little modifiers to let you know the
severity has increased. And then we've got secret secret secrets
(15:41):
are no fun because it could like get you killed,
the unauthorized disclosure of which reasonably once again could be
expected to cause serious damage to the national security um
that the original classification authority is able to identify or describe.
So we've gone from damage to serious damage. Right, Okay,
(16:01):
it's also really important to note there that that part
at the end where your brain kind of shuts off
the that the original classification authority is able to identify
or describe. It's very important. You have to be able
to show that this thing will cause damage. Right. You
can't just say some agent or some person who is
in charge of one of these organizations can't just say, well,
(16:25):
we're pretty sure it's gonna cause damage. You have to
show it again. Shout out to the Mitchell and Webb
conspiracy sketches. They're so good. Please watch them. Uh they've
got one on the moon landing, one on Princess Diana,
and then one on aliens. I think so they're The
next one is the crowd favorite, beloved by conspiracy realists
(16:45):
and screenwriters alike. Top secret, also also weirdly beloved by
a lot of folks in government. Uh. This is the
unauthorized disclosure of which reasonably could be expected to cause
exceptionally rave damage to the national security that the original
classification authority is able to identify or describe. We're gonna
(17:08):
keep things like special Access programs or s a p
s and controlled unclassified to one side for now. Although
controlled unclassifies my favorite because it is one of my favorites.
Because they're saying it's illegal to distribute this. Okay, we
know that people know, but we don't wanna, you know,
put it in the headline. We don't want it on
(17:29):
page one of the conversation. Uh. And this, you know.
I'm glad you guys point out the commonalities here. There
are three big components to the way this is constructed.
So the first is it's all about national security. Right.
It's a purposely vague, broad and shifting term. That's one
(17:49):
of the big problems as well. Uh, Matt, I want
to go back to what you said earlier. The addition
at the end of classifying, agency can't just say you know,
they have to they have to say this, we have
to describe what makes this information a threat, and we
have to describe the ways in which it could damage
national security. However, this agency or entity defines national security,
(18:15):
which is a great boogeyman and rhetorical device used to
scare you if you were American. Also, reasonably, that term
throws me a little bit, reasonably to whom you know
what I mean, like like that that that that to
me where it seems like it might be a unifying
element or a way of kind of like, you know,
having these things have some sort of standard. To me,
(18:36):
it's kind of like a vague element reasonably, you know
what I mean, I mean it just reasonably depending on
the circumstance. And then too, and who's who's talking. Yeah,
there's some I mean, it's almost like we'll get to
this later. But it's, uh, it's pretty subjective. Those those
three components are all dangerously subjective, and sometimes they have
(18:58):
to be. But good example, just off the top of
the dome would be um going public with the construction
details an operation manual for a new type of nuclear missile,
right that could reasonably be expected to damage national security
(19:19):
because you're telling geopolitical rivals, hey, here's what we built.
You can do it at home. But unreasonable would be
creating like a Rube Goldberg esque mousetrap series of events
that would lead to a harmy national security. Like nobody
can know that the head of the n essay is
UH super into the sport of cricket, because if people
(19:44):
know cricket, being popular in areas like Pakistan may lead
to him being approached by people who are big in
the cricket community and they may leverage him for secrets. Therefore,
he is a it's a grave threat to national security.
Knowing to know that he is an absolute nut for cricket,
(20:04):
that would be kind of unreasonable. But you can see
it making sense if I keep thinking about the SR
seventi one UH plane, guys, the spy plane. It feels
like if that thing, if you're writing that out in
the same way in long form of why that thing
has to be kept secret, it would make sense, even
though it would be a chain of events. Right the public,
(20:24):
if we tell the public that these UFOs they were
seeing were actually this you know, new spy plane, then
our you know, geopolitical enemies find out that we have
this spy plane. Then they realized that they've also been
seeing the spy plane, and just like you could make sense,
and it's a it's a feedback loop too because one
of the big and you know, we want to speak
(20:45):
carefully about this, but one of the big motivators for
a lot of classification, at least in those hypotheticals were discussing,
involves not letting the enemy know how we know what
we know, right, So some U A piece stuff might
be classified because uh, factions of the US government don't
(21:06):
want other countries to know the sophistication or the nature
of their surveillance techniques. That's a very real concern. So
that's it. Those rankings. By the way, Uh, since they
all talk about the degree of potential harm what they
call potential harm in the business sensitivity, How sensitive is this?
They're not talking about emo albums, so they're talking about
(21:28):
how dangerous something could be, and they just thought sensitive
was a less scary word. So anyway, that's the show.
We got them record scratched. Not really. Uh, this feels
high level, right, it feels cut and dried, but it's
just scratching the surface. And there is no doubt. There's
absolutely no doubt that in some cases over the years
(21:49):
and quite recently, this same approach to secrecy has done
much more harm than it has done good. We'll tell
you what we mean after word from our sponsors. Here's
where it gets crazy. Uh, first, first things first, way
(22:12):
more people have access to this stuff than you might think,
like millions of people in the US soon talking about right, So,
how many people, Like, what's the threshold for secrecy? This
is my question. I know it's a very dumb question,
but I love dumb questions. What's the like, at what
(22:35):
threshold does something no longer become secret? How many people
does it take to know something before everybody can say
this is no longer a secret? Right? Like, if if
three millions something people all get top secret classification tomorrow,
are we still gonna pretend it's a secret. We have
(22:58):
a handshake, have to it's for national security. But I
have a question for you guys. I was watching a
show with my girlfriend the other night, and uh, there
was like a redacted document, you know, and it had
all the like the scratched out text correct, And she
pointed out, like why would you even print the thing
out if you're just gonna go through it? And uh
and and you know black line it like that. And
(23:19):
I guess my my response was, well, it wasn't always
like that, you know. It's like some of those things change,
right and and and yeah, sometimes you legally have to
print that stuff out right because you're compelled to by
the law government. Well and also if you think about
(23:40):
the old school, the old school methods are still in place,
that's because now they're more secure than a lot of
you know, like cloud storage. Why would you do that? Um,
But this, this kind of this clearance question also gets
us in really crazy situations. When the Chelsea Manning leaks hit,
(24:03):
they're parts of the government put out orders to their
employees saying, hey, if you don't have access, you can't
read this. Even though it's like all over the news,
even though it's all over wiki leaks, it's a type
and a click away. It gets surreal. So as of August,
which is some of the latest numbers, we could find
(24:24):
somewhere around one point three million people in this country
had some kind of top secret security clearance. That doesn't
mean they all hang out in some borges esque library,
you know, joking about who really killed jfk Uh. They
also don't get universal access to everything. Uh, that's not
(24:45):
how it works. And everybody works in the security field
who just heard that idea probably almost had a heart
attack because that's ridiculous. It's a messy bag of badgers.
It's a ton of people. They're expected to keep a
ton of secrets, and a lot of these secrets. Honestly,
to you, the average resident of the US, if that's
(25:06):
what you're based, it wouldn't matter to you. You wouldn't care.
You'd be like, what's the big hubbub bub? Where's the beef? Right? Why? Why?
Why is this a secret? It's like if you caught somebody, Um,
if you caught somebody in a completely unnecessary lie, you know,
and you said, uh you they were like, Okay, I'm
(25:28):
wearing green socks but no one can know, and you
found out their socks were read, and you would say, well,
why why are we having this conversation? Man trying to
contuse you because you might be the enemy? Right. It's
weird stuff. It makes this whole conversation makes me think
about that listener who sent us a voicemail about that
(25:48):
manhole cover that had the alarm on it, Like, how
many people knew that manhole had an alarm on it? Like,
I wonder how many people there were. I bet it's
way more than I imagine. Oh yeah, yeah, And and
sadly it's not. It's still not Chen or Chen's employer,
(26:08):
the people who could help avoid that that situation. And
we're able to joke about this because Chen's okay, by
the way, Uh, but this happens a lot more than
you think, and a lot more people have access to
secret stuff than that it sounds. But that's a big problem.
There's their fiefdoms, their cliques. You know, we said before
(26:29):
the break that a lot of groups can classify something
well to be very diplomatic, they're they're a little proactive
about it, they're a little zealous about it. And this
is where we go to a great piece written by
Mike Giglio for The Atlantic back in correct Um. And
in this piece, Giglio points out that since World War Two,
(26:53):
eight different government commissions have taken a a hard look
at this um and every single one of them found
that the US is most likely overclassifying things. So the
question then becomes, what does it mean to over classify. Um.
It essentially means that some people are getting a little
(27:16):
bit too high on their own authority and and uh
and wielding it like a like a like a blunt instrument. Um,
their horses too high. Indeed, it is your soapboxes are
too stacked. Uh. This is not to say that the
classification is a bad thing, because we know it's not
a bad thing. I mean there's a reason for it
to exist. There is information that if falling into the
(27:38):
wrong hands, could actually put you know, American lives at risk.
And and look, if there was no classification, if there
were no secrets, not just in the US, but around
the planet, then civilization as you know it listening to
this podcast would come toppling down very quick. Things would
(28:00):
descend into chaos. And that's not hyperbole. But Giglio knowing
this as well, says too much national security information, from
trivial to the politically inconvenient, gets labeled confidential secret or
top secret, meaning you can't you will never be able
to access it unless you have that clearance, you pass
(28:22):
that background check, you get read on as they say
in special access programs. But again, like to the earlier point,
you made matter of course, you have to classify stuff
like undercover operations, black bags, stuff abroad, sending the stealth
helicopters to get bin laden, or the latest hot gossip
on a foreign rival, or research into surveillance tech and
(28:46):
weapons of war. But then there's stuff like this, And
I really appreciate that you put this in here, Mike.
This is a legitimate classified paragraph from a two thousand
six diplomatic cable. It was leaked by Chelsea Manning in
I suggest we round robin it and just well, it's
kind of long, so we'll just switch off sentence to sentence. Uh,
(29:09):
And then, dear listeners, tell us if you think this
should have been classified at the end, or actually, um,
if you guys have already read this, well, let's let's
also amongst ourselves talk about whether this should have been secret.
Dakastani weddings are serious business, a forum for showing respect,
fealty and alliance among families. The bride and groom themselves
(29:30):
are a little more than show pieces. Weddings take place
in discreet parts over three days. On the first day,
the groom's family and the bride's family simultaneously hold separate
receptions that sounds nice. During the receptions, the groom leads
a delegation to the bride's reception and escorts her back
to his own reception, at which point she formerly becomes
(29:51):
a member of the groom's family, for saking her old
family and clan. The next day, the groom's parents hold
another reception, this time for the bride's family and friends,
who can inspect the family they have given their daughter too.
On the third day, he rose no, it says, the
bride's family holds a reception for the groom's parents and family.
(30:12):
If annything has redacted the word reception, because that'd be
would be a lot of black ink right there. Attle
does this is like a column out of like you know,
a Vanity fair or something like that. It really just
sounds like sort of like a you know, Robin Leech
kind of Lifestyles of the rich and famous, sort of
David Attenborough anthropological word. It's a cable. It's a cable.
(30:34):
So it's just it's information coming from is it from
the consulate or from from an embassy? Right, that's generally
what these cables were. Just communications. Yes, they're just diplomatic messages.
So look this doesn't have it. It's like a telegram, right,
it's a text best text based message from you know,
(30:56):
various parts of the Department of State. So I guess, first,
congratulations to all the Dagastani newlyweds out there, But how
is this national security? When Chelsea Manning leaks this is
technically a crime for which one can be imprisoned, despite
the fact that when we confirm this, you can find
(31:17):
information about these weddings at any number of publicly accessible forums,
right you can. You know, it's the age of the internet.
You could go on Twitter and say, hey, anybody know
uh Dagastani person, tell me about the weddings, and then
they would tell you. Because it's not like they're giving
you the keys to nuclear power, so that stuff is classified.
(31:40):
And and again that's not a thing on the Dakastani newlyweds. Again, congratulations,
but your wedding is not a matter of national security,
most people would say another another funny one that got
me here, h was very hell arresque catch twenty two.
Even the grand Poobas of the intelligence community think this
(32:04):
is overkilled. The former director of the CIA and the
n s A famously complained about it Michael Hayden said
everything secret. I mean I got an email see Merry Christmas.
It carried a top secret in s A classification marking.
That's his quote, Ship Christmas. Nobody. I should have said
(32:26):
happy holidays. That's why, uh war on Christmas? I said.
So that's that's kind of weird though, right like when
we because when we think about this stuff, we think
of you know, uh, secret operations, we think of suppressed technology,
(32:48):
we think of active spies or active wet work missions.
But no, it's stuff like sometimes this stuff like Merry Christmas.
And here's how these people handle weddings, very like talk
of the town. It is there is the purpose of
this redaction just so you don't even know the person
was there and and and who they were. And maybe
(33:11):
there's more to it that could be you know, from
prying eyes, uh give away the game to some degree,
right right, figuring out how we got this information again
or um, you know. But then the question comes up
from earlier, what is a reasonable expectation of damage the
(33:31):
national security? I mean it gets weird. You could say
this is people with good intentions just being a little
over zealous, little over protective, and that does make sense
until you realize the next problem. Different agencies of the
same government use classification against each other. They use it
to beef. And this is a true story. It's that
(33:52):
old jurism addiction crap, right, Yes, it's like but I
like it. It's almost like up tweets, you know what
I mean, But like that that people can't see, you know.
It's it's it's like because there's they're these you know,
back and forth with these agencies, etcetera. That they're they're
seeing these. So there could be little digs kind of
(34:13):
built in, uh, in the same way that you know,
celebrity might dis another celebrity on Twitter without actually naming them.
M yeah, I think that's a good comparison. I mean,
each agency can function often is its own little kingdom,
and they have goals and desires that might contradict the
goals and desires of their counterparts. They're also in an
eternal existential war for that piece of that beautiful taxpayer pie.
(34:37):
So despite having common cause on paper, these groups beef
with each other literally all the time. And and Giglio, Uh,
if we go back to Atlantic article. Uh, Giglio points
out how this becomes an issue Giglio says, quote, there
are many scandals that were shielded from view, not just
(34:57):
from the public, but from government officials who might have
put a stop to them, at least in part by classification.
That makes so much sense to me. Guys. We talk
on the show all the time about how often when
some conspiracy begins, it's because somebody messed up just a
tiny bit or maybe a really big bit. But but
(35:18):
the organization decided, note, we have to protect ourselves by
protecting this person, by making this whole thing not have happened. Right,
And everybody messes up sometimes. It doesn't matter how awesome
you are, it doesn't matter what clearance you've got. Everybody
messes up a little bit sometimes. So like I'm just
imagining this game where they're all trying to shield their
(35:42):
own mess ups from each other organization. It's so silly,
it's weird, it seems. It seems like a comedy movie
to me. It is. It is very much. You know,
we get to a death, a death of Stalin again
Catch twenty two territory with this doctor Strange Love as well.
So yeah, correct, actor Strange Love as well. So this
(36:03):
is where we go to folks like Elizabeth Goydon, who
directs the National Security Program at the Brennan Center, and
Goydon notes that it's not always just to cover up
the happy accidents, the little mistakes that are all but
part of the beautiful human tapestry. It's also a known
(36:23):
technique used to keep other people out of the conversation
and minimize resistance. You're the CIA, you're gonna do something
that you know the FBI or Congress or whomever might
not like, then just classify it so that they can't
they can't get access to it. Uh. A notorious ajaimable
that Goydon brings up would be the CIA's use of
(36:46):
torture or I guess the Legal Department requires me to
call it enhanced interrogation or something. In the aftermath of September. Uh,
they they did conduct torture. They definitely did it. Black
sites scattered across the world, and this was seen as
a necessary evil. But also visibility of this program was
(37:09):
classified out of conversations so that people couldn't stop them beforehand.
And that's the issue. The higher classification, the fewer people
can read it or raise a flag if something's wrong.
And this is the weaponization of classification. It doesn't get
talked about much in mainstream discourse because people would rather
(37:31):
you not know about it. Just to put it plainly,
people don't want you to think about the ways of
which this stuff could be used. They want you on
your heels. They want you defensive and scared of whatever
fits under the umbrella of the national security boogeyman. And
that's simply not always the case. Yell by time, Well,
(37:52):
let's take a quick pause, have it worth our sponsor,
and then we're gonna come back and get more, get
more top secret, get more in the weeds of this stuff,
because man, there's a lot a lot more dig into.
This episode of stuff they don't want you to know.
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to advise you to stop listening. Now. It's not even
gonna play if you try and keep going, not even
gonna play. So if it's playing, congratulations, whether or not
you know it, you have a clearance. Uh. And that's
(40:26):
because you must be important to national security, which leads
us to the big question what exactly is national security? Well,
sort of like beauty or porn. People are gonna tell
you I you know it when I see it, and
they're all gonna have different opinions and both run deep.
The hardest thing about this concept is that national security
is a very real thing and it is important whatever
(40:50):
it is, as a as a morphous as it may be,
whatever it is, we we know it's important. Yeah, that's
like number one. It's like we're in always study trying
to figure out what a vigu is, you know, like,
what's the I'm trying to get a you know how
like gangsters say something at the top. You know, it's
like a vague as it's short for something too oh vigorous. Yeah, okay, okay,
(41:14):
co I had to learn that's literally just now Murban Dictionary.
So yeah, so there's a there is no deniance real thing.
It is true. I imagine you're the head of the
d OE, the Department of Energy. We mentioned them because
they're huge in this field because they touched the nukes.
So you know, nuclear research needs as much secrecy as
possible because billions of dollars and more importantly, if you're
(41:37):
a decent person, millions of human lives hang in the balance.
But stuff gets so sticky so quick. I know, I'm
cursing a lot in today's episode, but there's just so
much free about the concept of national security has experienced
a cartoonish degree of what is called mission creep. We've
discussed this in the past. Mission creep is when something
(41:59):
starts with a narrow scope, just like an easy example
is let's say let's say Matt Noel and I are
on a mission to buy a pizza. So we started
having meetings about it for some reason, and by the
end of our meetings, we're not just buying one pizza.
Now we have constructed a multi year strategic plan that
(42:23):
allocates certain amounts of funding to various types of pizza
rated by desirability and allergens. Or or we've just decided
to go into the pizzeria business. Yeah, that's the next step. Man.
You conjured in my mind this image of the Department
of Energy and there's just some nukes about and it's
(42:43):
just about later. Yeah. But it's like like cats at
a bookstore. Yeah. Yeah, Yeah, it's this thing that is
the Department of Energy and it's just got these nukes
and it's just like huh oh yeah, just touching the nukes.
I don't know, it's just yeah, that's very doctor strange love.
I was listening to a podcast about and they pointed
(43:05):
out some I didn't really clock there's a lot of
weird sexual energy in that movie surrounding I mean I did,
but I didn't really think about how overt it was. Like,
I mean, obviously talking about precious bodily fluids, but just
like the General Ripper I think is his name, he's
just ready to go, like he and and and he's
like about about to pop. If you know what, I yeah,
(43:27):
I think he. I think he needs that kind of
military situation to really, you know, feel adequation exactly. Thank you.
Here's an old Playboy fold out is actually just a missile,
you know. So it's it's true. These things get sticky
because al right, originally, oh gosh, yeah, no, we gotta
(43:51):
keep it. That was accidental. Legal will just write to us.
Um so it originally meant just a possible military attack.
You have to have operational security. You have to protect
national security because you're making sure the nation is safe
from adversaries foreign and domestic. But these days, because big
(44:14):
business is so hand in hand with governments on a
global level and on a domestic level, it is a
national security has stretched, it's warped. You could say it's
evolved or devolved, we don't care. But it now it
means things like economic security, Will this make us lose money?
Energy security? Will this mean we can't keep the lights on?
(44:36):
Food security? Can we will this threaten our ability to
feed the population, etcetera, etcetera. But it gets even worse
and more ridiculous when government officials start conflating, oh, and
business tycoons start conflating national security with political goals. Will
this helper hurt my team? Will this and endanger my job,
(44:57):
my career, my profits? From Q one to queue four
and people do that all the time. The Goydon says,
the system is set up to fail. There's not really accountability.
So what happens when national security becomes more like personal security?
How great would that be? How great would it be
to say, hey, you know, um, I need a zero
(45:22):
percent loan because me going broke is a matter of
national security. Banks have done that, you know what I mean.
They didn't get in trouble, so why not me? Says America.
It's making me think about those cables again, um, the
diplomatic cables, and just about how much of that stuff
(45:44):
didn't feel important because there's so many cables that were
leaked at that time into a lot of it was
just I don't know, regular calms, except communications between people
that seem to be kind of mean in nature when
they're talking about other people, like seriously, like just kind
of I don't know I E. And you imagine that
(46:10):
maybe that's really one of the main reasons people wanted
to keep this stuff. Well, there are two things. Because
those communications are classified, they're not going to come out,
so you can kind of say whatever you want. I
guess maybe that's what makes those people say some of
those things. But at the same time, it makes me
think that that that's one of the reasons you'd want
(46:30):
to keep it classified. Yeah, because it's all about relationships.
You could impact a relationship at some at some level,
and this this is a real problem and there's a
hypothetical aspect to it. So let's talk about the valid part. Yeah,
you're the president, you're a prime minister something like that.
You're you're you're a big man on campus, and you're
(46:54):
about to conclude this huge policy deal. You campaigned on
this deal. People are waiting for you to do your job,
you know, and it doesn't matter what it is. It
could be anything autonomous drones, trade deal on semiconductors, expansion
of resource extraction, and foreign minds. And you're having this
candid conversation with your team about how your counterpart in
(47:17):
another country is just a wild dude. He's getting plastered,
he's hiring sex workers, he's even showed up in public
at Pennsylvania Avenue drunk is a skunk and his underwear
trying to get a cab and get some pizza. That
is a true story that happens with Yelson sounding familiar. Yeah,
(47:39):
uh yeah, yeah Yelson. It was uh even more fun
than us at parties where's Yelton did get over served
as they would say, wandered into the street in d
C and his underwear trying to halicap and gets pizza.
Security got to him before the dominoes. But it was
so funny, gosh, but it really happens. And you know,
(48:04):
the truth of the matter is the real politic is like, yeah,
you might winge and moan about this guy in private,
but you need to make sure the public, both your
country and his or hers are theirs, sees you as
too important, level headed folks with good intentions, so you
classify your little therapy and complaining sessions as a matter
(48:25):
of national security. This happens so much more often than
people think. But also it has to Oh yeah, man,
it's like when a cop turns on their blue lights
so they can run a light, you know, I mean,
only it's much more agreeingus than that, and and and
much more obscured. But yeah, that's that's just a blatant
abuse of power. But how can you even go about
(48:48):
calling someone on it when it's been classified? Right, you
don't have the right to ask me that you should
be arrested for even knowing about that time. Well, you know,
me and that guy went to that place, which was
not a brothel but a charity. Uh so, yeah, I mean,
(49:11):
so there are clear problems. That's our that's our statement today.
And whether you were in the business or outside of it, uh,
you can see those problems are clear and apparent to
go across administrations, to go across political ideologies. If you're
not in the United States the unfortunately, something very much
like this is probably occurring in your neck of the
global woods. So how do we fix it? Should we
(49:35):
fix it? Yeah? No, let's just keep it now. I'll say,
you know, I love I love imagining founding fathers and
historical figures of yesteryear on Twitter. You know that never
happened until recently. But I mean maybe people should be
(49:56):
overly cautious. Do we have to do? We have to
just accept the corrupt in conspiracy of people, you know,
doing what seems best for them, even if it endangers
the nation, because the alternative is living in a world
where your government leaders are going on social social media
and saying stuff like l M A O yels and
(50:17):
you're a real one shots on me. Once we squash
this cold war, you know what I mean, ro guys,
squash this cold beef. Yes, squash that cold correct, squash
that cold beef. But I mean, that's the thing. These people,
no matter what the propaganda tells you about anyone in
the world, these people are human. And that means that
if they're human, they talk the way that you talk
(50:39):
with your friends in private. It's just more dangerous for
them to be around a hot mic. So it's kind
of weird. It's like, you know what else it reminds
me of, I know, we're going along. It reminds me
of legacy software stuff that has been patched and repatched
and bandiated so much over time that it's almost a
(51:03):
ship of thesis argument. And people don't always know how
it works. They just know that there's some stuff that
you can't do. You know, there's other stuff that you
have to do. That's the reason why sometimes in the
world of I T there are people whose entire job
is just to um, just to be the one person
who knows how this crazy thing works, right, like training
(51:26):
programs or stuff like Scimitar for delta UM. This kind
of stuff is UM. I don't know. It's a very
fragile system. You try. You could try to fix some things,
but then you could end up making it worse. And
one of the immediate consequences of that is going to
(51:46):
be the definition of national security just gets a little
bit bigger every single time you try to fix it.
In the end, we don't have to worry about any
of this guy's It's not gonna last much longer. I
I had this dream the other night. I'm sorry to
bore you with this real quick, but the other night
that everything ends, just like humanity. Civilization just ends for
(52:08):
whatever reason. And there's there's this one person who managed to,
uh to make it in one of these bunkers. It's
like a billionaire, right, really smart billionaire, and they made it.
And before they die, uh, they're able to type out
everything they can remember that happened in history in a
(52:29):
like a text document, and that's the only thing that
sticks around for the next time humanity begins to arise.
And that becomes the Holy Book. It's just this billionaire's
remembrances of what happened in history as he died of starvation. Anyway, eha.
You know, history is written by the victors, and that's
(52:52):
the reason why it's so important to read as much
about history as you can, because somewhere hidden in there
is the future of what's going to happen to you
and the generations after you, which I know sounds terrifying,
but it is very true. I had a had a
dream recently, Matt where I had a series of dreams
where I was hanging out with Robin Williams. I'm not
(53:12):
sure why I was in his He had this really
nice apartment in New York, and it it was like helping
him build furniture and he's giving me advice. It's a
weird dream, and he was he wasn't it felt realistic,
you guys, because he wasn't nice to everyone. He was
the weird as some people. My dream logs are classified. Okay, stop,
(53:32):
how do I get read on? Yeah? Alright, so read
us onto your opinions there, folks. We're gonna be following
up later with an episode on security clearances and how
that becomes so insanely weird as well. In the meantime,
we want to know your thoughts, whether you're inside or
outside the biz. Is there a way to fix this?
(53:53):
Should it be fixed? What? What are some other problems
you think people need to be made aware of. We
can't wait to your thoughts. We try to be easy
to find UM online until they classify us. Yeah, you
can find us on Facebook, on YouTube, and on Twitter
at the handle conspiracy Stuff and by the way, Twitter
as a platform right now, absolute bonker's delight to behold.
(54:14):
I just thought i'd thrown this in. A fake newly
eight dollar verified Chiquita Bennett Brand's account tweeted, We've just
overthrown the government of Brazil, to which the actual still
identical with the same verified check mark that they, you know,
actually received legitimately responded, we apologize to those who have
(54:35):
who have been served a misleading message from a fake
Chiquita account. We have not overthrown a government since nineteen
fifty four. That's great. Here's here's another one I read.
I left it was Tesla looking verified saying breaking a
second Tesla has hit the World Trade Center. Uh so
this is yeah, it's what a time to be alive.
(54:57):
What a time. We're conspiracy stuff on those plat forums
including Twitter, um conspiracy stuff show on Instagram. Yeah, hopefully
you can discern if it's actually us or not. Oh guys,
the uncertainty is peak. It's top uncertainty. And in these
uncertain times, some of our fellow conspiracy realists find nothing
(55:20):
more reliable than an old school phone call. The power
is yours. All you have to do is pick up
your phone telephonic device and dial one eight three three
st d W y t K. You'll hear a voice.
You'll hear a beep that tells you you're in the
right place beep. After that, you get three minutes. Go wild,
(55:40):
get really weird. Give yourself a nickname, a moniker and
a k A. We love them as much as Daily Zeitgeist.
Tell us what's on your mind. Tell us if we
can use your name and message on the air. Most importantly,
don't censor yourself. If you need uh more than three
minutes to tell us your story, you got links this end.
We always love that. Take us to the edge of
the rabbit hole. Will do the rest. All you have
(56:01):
to do is drop us a line at our old
fashioned email address where we are conspiracy at iHeart radio
dot com. Stuff they don't want you to know is
(56:28):
a production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts from
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