December 21, 2020 • 60 mins
There's a growing industry dedicated to forging proof of COVID-19 vaccinations. Another attempted coup goes widely unreported in the west -- and it's part of a larger pattern. Hackers -- Ben thinks Russian in origin -- just successfully cracked into multiple systems across the planet, including agencies of the US government. All this and more in this week's Strange News segment.
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Episode Transcript
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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 I 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
Lexus code name Doc Holiday Jackson. Most importantly, you are you.
You are here, and that makes this stuff they don't
want you to know stop of the week, which means
it's time conspiracy realists for some strange news, and the
(00:47):
strange news segments just get curiouser and curious er. We're
finding more and more odd stuff with each passing day.
You should see our group chat actually, which were probably
won't publish. I don't think we should. What do you got?
Just a snippet, just a little taste of a screenshot.
Give the people what they want. Guys, Come on, well,
(01:09):
let's figure out if if that's something you all want,
let us let us know. We've got uh, we've got coups,
we've got the black market, we've got some uh, we've
got some hacking afoot in multiple cases. Uh, let's see
where do you, uh, where where do you guys want
to start? You know, No, Actually I was going to
shine in and say it being a little bit of
(01:30):
a grab baggy, updated kind of zeitgeist thing, I thought
maybe we could start with mine. Does that sound okay? Everyone? Yeah, yeah, yeah,
let's I think. I think COVID is on a lot
of it. It's on a lot of people's minds. I
think because of the holiday, and I think there's a
lot of hope that things were going to be better
by the holidays, because everybody's been really thirsting for that,
(01:52):
you know, personal touch and seeing family and going through
a lot to social social distance. It was hoping maybe
for a little payoff, but as it turns out out
that's not the way, uh it turned out. Um, we've
been seeing COVID cases spiking, hospitalization spiking across the country,
and also kind of just a general malaise associated with
the whole COVID experience situation understandably, so uh, thankfully, you know,
(02:16):
there is sort of a light at the end of
the tunnel, and that we've got these two vaccines that
are testing very positively, and um, we can talk a
little bit about this process too, about how they were
able to accelerate because I think there's a lot of
misconceptions around that. But it looks like they're already shipping.
I think I saw a story today, UM, a nurse
in somewhere in New York was given like the first
(02:39):
kind of televised injection of the Fightser covid vaccine, which
was tested and proven to be effective in I believe
fighting the disease and in nine like a little under
that in completely preventing it. But I think you need
two instances of it. I think that's really important that
you get the second dose of it. So understandably, there's
(03:01):
a lot of demand for this product. Uh, there's always
already a lot of competition in developing it, and now
we've got it. What is it Fightser? What was the
other company at ben Uh? There are a couple in
phase three trials. There's mad vaccine Jansen, as well as
astrosenic probably here all four of those in the news,
But right now Fiser is the only one that is CDC.
(03:22):
That's exactly right, um, And we can talk a little
bit about this before we even get into the story.
What they've done to my understanding, guys, UH, in fast
tracking This is not just like Willie Nilly fast tracking,
and there's it's a three step process in vetting these
types of medications, and I believe they got rid of
step two UM. Step three is all all of the
(03:46):
placebo effects studies studying for side effects. Obviously, we don't
have a long enough timeline to know any potential long
term side effects, but I think within the best of
their ability, or of the ability of any clinical trial els,
they're gonna find out if there are any immediate side
effects that that are to be worried about. I've been
seeing a couple of articles discussing the concern of it
(04:09):
causing UM facial paralysis on one side, but then there
was a kind of a clarification article that came up
after that that said that there was UM, it wasn't
directly linked to it, and I believe there were a
handful of deaths involved in the clinical trials, but then
those came back around and they weren't determined to not
be directly linked to it either, but they are watching
(04:30):
for the facial paralysis. So with all of this kind
of hustle to get this, you know, medication out UM
as quickly as possible and the holidays and all of that. Um,
I started looking into the idea of black market surrounding
not only the vaccine, but also looking back, you know,
(04:52):
into the big travel push that happened during um during Thanksgiving,
black market COVID test results. Uh. And I actually was
getting a haircut the other day and the person cutting
my hair mentioned that there that there were reports of
people buying forged, falsified negative COVID test results that they
(05:14):
could present at you know, check in or whatever at
the airport, because that is a requirement for for a
lot of airlines. Um and I found an article that
talked about that very thing. Uh, so let's we can
start there and then go into the vaccine stuff. Just
this is like, it's at basically a month old story.
That's why I wanted a caveata. But it's not something
we've discussed. I think it's interesting. So just to be clear,
(05:35):
this is somehow just a piece of paper that's being
generated and purchased that says you've got negative results. Well
that's the thing, guys. It's like when you go get
a COVID test, you get your results via text message
or like an email, And how hard is it The
screenshot that text message mattch the font and just change
the name and birthday associated with it. It's really nothing
(05:58):
much more advanced than that. And that's what this article
that I found on insider dot com um talked about,
and again it's from about a month ago, from November sixteenth,
talking about there's a thriving black market for fake COVID
night team tests and the travel industry is just beginning
to kind of get wise to it and cracked down.
But it really isn't anything much more advanced, um than
(06:20):
what I just described, because we don't really have the
infrastructure to That's also a question I have about like
the future of all this stuff. When there is a vaccine,
is are there we then going to have some kind
of like notarized credential like a passport, like some sort
of stamped document officially, you know, notarized that shows that
we got the vaccine or the will what what, or
(06:41):
or have a negative result or have the antibody. Right. Yeah,
So it's it's a longstanding thing, the idea of proven
paper documentation for vaccine for international travelers. So you could
just take that same admittedly outdated, i would say, archaic
system and transferred over. But with the push to be paperless,
(07:02):
what we would probably see is a all right, well,
we probably see is a government created website or monitoring
system that probably it's very expensive for Uncle Sam and
then probably has a ton of tech issues. But I
saw what I saw with the fake tests. The first
report I heard occurred in France at Charles de Gaul
(07:26):
and when they caught somebody who was selling them at
Charles de Gal where like seven people were arrested for
selling selling these fake certificates. So they were just forgers. Uh,
they didn't have to your point, they did not have
some kind of infrastructure. They just to fly, They needed
a piece of paper that said they were good to go.
(07:47):
These also costs from a hundred and eighty to three
and sixty bucks, So feel free to negotiate if you're
already going to be a horrible person. Yeah, And that's
sort of what it comes down to, isn't it. It's
it's essentially putting everyone else at risk so that you
can do whatever you want. And that's why I think
the whole politicization of a lot of this stuff is
so infuriating, because like the idea of wearing a mask
(08:08):
isn't even really for you as much as it is
for others, and to prevent the spread if you happen
to have it, and other for others just comfort level,
you know. So that's always kind of blown my mind.
That's become such a you know, hot button issue. But um,
it's true with this, Like like you said, Ben, it
literally was uh. You know, in this Insider article, someone
(08:28):
was talking about how everybody they know has a COVID test,
and it's almost like it's even easier than like faking
a urine test. Like let's say you have a job
that's trying to screen you for drugs, and you know
that you've smoked marijuana recently, which is the one that
stays in your system the longest. So you get your
friend to give you their their urine and you keep
it in like a bag tape to your leg or something.
(08:50):
So I've heard, um, but this is like that, but
even easier because with the urine, they take the temperature
of it. You know, there's things that they do safeguards
in play is at a clinic or a lab to
make sure you're not you know, giving them fake urine
or whatever. If somebody else's earin and with this, it's
so new that there just isn't UM, so it's kind
of mind blowe. I people would pay that much, like
(09:11):
you said, been between a hundred and eighty and three
hundred and sixty bucks according to the Associated Press. Have
you heard about the the proposals for a COVID nineteen
so called immunity passport. That's sort of I have not been,
but that seems to be the kind of thing we'd
be looking at that would be more official, more traceable,
some kind of database associated with it. You know, what
(09:35):
have you to tell us about it? I really don't
know anything. Where are you talking about Compass or is
this something different? Uh? There is? It could compass. There's
the one I know about is the International Air Transport Association.
This is all in the ideation stage. There's not an
actual passport yet. UM. But this this would be something
(09:57):
that would be considered a digital pass or to your
earlier point knell. And this would allow travelers I think
it would be opt in, but it would allow travelers
to share their vaccination status and test results with border
patrol via this app. So you would just have this
on your app. Uh. Security becomes a concern, but then also,
(10:19):
you know, even if you don't make this mandatory for
travelers as a law, airlines and uh cargo ships and
cruise ships can make it a de facto law because
they will just refuse to let you on if you
don't have a negative result, which I will say is
just my opinion. I think it's the right thing to do,
(10:40):
but a lot of people are worried about what they
see as overreach. I completely agree. But come on to
those people. They won't let you on if you have
the wrong size shaving gel, you know what I mean? Like,
how is this more egregious that than that? Or like
more of an invasion of privacy or or you know, uh,
screwing around with your civil produce? I think we're past
(11:01):
that when it comes to air travel, well it is.
You know, this the whole situation, as we've discussed before,
just brings up questions about healthcare, about your own health
and the information associated with it, and who should have
access to that information. And it's been widely commonly recognized
(11:23):
that nobody should have it besides healthcare practitioners, yourself and
anyone else that you specifically say can have access to
any of it, and a test like this falls under
that same criteria or it's the same kind of information.
It's just there's a there's a public need to know
whether you know that one tiny aspect about your health.
(11:46):
Uh So something like common Pass, which is something slightly different,
it would it was it would try, at least according
to their UM, the nonprofit that's trying to make Common
Pass a thing. Uh, they're saying they're trying to make
essentially a trust structure for individuals to be able to
share small bits of information about their health with, you know,
(12:09):
like the t s A and other organizations that are
trying to clear passengers for travel. UM. I don't know,
it's interesting. It's an interesting concept to be able to
have that an apple like you were talking about ben
where you could just flash it or just a QR
code or something that just specifically has that updated information
about your health and that's it, but it's verified. Yeah. Yeah,
(12:30):
but think about Okay, so think about this. Let's get
real dystopian and weird and depressing with it. So, first off,
we've had systems like this that just existed on paper,
which made them more difficult and arguably a little bit
more secure in some ways, like you have to get
polio vaccination or yellow fever vaccinations if you're going to
different parts of the world, often developing countries where those
(12:54):
diseases occur at a higher frequency. But the thing about
common pass is that it's rule lean out in a
couple of cities, right, and flights from a discrete number
of cities. At first, these solutions help, but they don't.
They gain the most benefits when they are at scale,
but every group hasn't. And what should be interesting to
(13:16):
a lot of people who recognize that now is that
there are multiple kind of brand name passes coming out.
Like another, the International Chamber of Commerce CEOC is developing
something they call the a O KA Pass. But anyway,
so their competitors out there already hopefully they can work together.
But the second thing is once this kind of thing
(13:37):
is accepted, once it's out there, uh, you can this
can be used to transmit all sorts of medical information
unless strong safeguards are in place, Like I I don't
think there's any I think this is a door that
does not close. I think we need it for COVID.
But I think the same technology again, uh, the same
(13:58):
thing that that warms you can burn you. You know,
it's the same it's the same slippery slope as that
ring uh dot com um database we talked about on
the last news episode, right where it's like, oh, on
the surface, yes, this is a good thing to help
protect our citizens and make sure the police knows if
the folks are in trouble. But then there's all kinds
of other things that can get rolled up into it
(14:19):
over time. And you know, it's just cliche to even say,
but it's like a slippery slope. And then obviously this
is too um. But another slippery slope is the implications
of how the black market enters into the actual vaccine. Okay,
I mean that's, you know, obvious. I don't think that
(14:40):
anyone's like, oh, it would never never occurred to me,
but yeah, I mean it's like the moment you have
something in high demand like that. We talked about it
with with oregan transplants all the time, We talked about
it with all kinds of commodities that are only available
in limited supply um, and that will be absolutely no
exception when it comes to COVID nineteen vaccines, because we
(15:02):
know that. I think there was even like talk where
it was going to get rolled out to the White
House very very quickly. Uh. And I think a lot
of people probably had a problem with that, considering how
many White House employees got COVID um from being not
super smart about social distancing, you know, politics aside. I
think we can at least agree that's pretty much a fact. Um,
(15:24):
So the idea of giving them I've even heard that
if you've had COVID before, which I have, I got
it earlier. I don't know if I've mentioned on the
show before, but early on I was in and I
was traveling and I got sick, and it was like
back in March, and then I got an antibody test recently,
and I did have it. So even though my instance
of having gotten it was way back in March, I
(15:44):
do still have the antibody apparently, or at least I didn't,
you know, um, however many months ago it was that
I got that test. I'm not supposed to try to
get the vaccine like for a long time. They are
asking people like me and anyone else out there who's
gotten it and and survived it to hold on and
not try to get it because you technically are in
better shape to be not immune because they're not saying
(16:05):
that they don't really even know that anybody makes you immune.
But um, this black market idea is fascinating because they're
giving its just healthcare workers first, understandably, But there's even
outside of the black market angle, the idea of being
a UM what's the word they use, guys, uh, critical
workers or there's there's a there's a term essential workers.
(16:30):
So apparently in Florida, the World Wrestling Entertainment Organization that
that's the one, not the wildlife one, the wrestling one,
um was deemed to be essential Uh. And the chairman
of w w E is Vince McMahon, who's really good
friends with Donald Trump and his wife Lynda McMahon actually
(16:52):
was on the U is the chair of a superpack
for for Trump. So take that do with the way
you will. But the idea of who is deemed essential workers,
even in and of itself, is a little slippery and political.
But um, once the vaccine rolls out, there's so much
possibility for it to get you know, uh, oh, a
(17:14):
bunch of doses fell off a truck, you know that
kind of story, or counterfeit doses sold to people in need.
You didn't even think about that one. That's that's like
a whole another bollow acts Also, I would add uh quickly, like,
regardless of your regardless of your own personal political leanings, folks,
it does make sense for world leaders to have early
(17:35):
access to a virus just for stability of government. Um.
And you know, as far as the w W E
not to knock on them, You're right, Maybe essential is
in the eye of the beholder. But also remember that
this country, the United States, did a brilliant and and
(17:57):
and and ruthless Marcavellian job of cauling people essential workers
and putting out nice commercials about them and not doing
a damn thing to help them, like other than what
Bucks wants. Like there's I I would be um. I
would be surprised if all of the people who are
(18:17):
described as essential, essential workers and a lot of that propaganda,
I would be surprised if they do get early access
to the vaccine. When the rubber hits the road, I
do think it's gonna be um. We'll see a lot
of medical personnel. Um. But one important point raised is
that Fiser I call it the double dose because you've
(18:37):
gotta get two shots, and that the interim between those
shots is gonna knock a lot of people who are
essential workers out of the game. Also, there's other loopholes
to consider. So, I mean the black market stuff, we
all know how that works. It basically just means folks
are circumventing the law either stealing, uh falsifying whatever, bootlegging,
(18:57):
and that could be a whole other thing. It could
actually kill peop. But let's just say those doses are real.
They're gotten in some nefarious way, but not necessarily because
they are actually uh perfectly legal. Ways to circumvent this
in the jump in line, and one of them is
by having like a pre existing condition like asthma or
high blood pressure, or even being a smoker, would consider
(19:20):
would be considered having like a mitigating factor that would
make you more high risk and could potentially bump you
up in the line. It's sort of like when people
were trying to get medical marijuana, and the easiest way
to do that is to go to your doctor and say,
I have described the symptoms of whatever it was that
you needed in order to get the thing. I think
(19:41):
we all know that that happens. You know, if if
people are like having mild anxiety and they know that
if they play it up a little bit, the doctor
will probably give them like xan X or something. You know. Um,
but this is an absolute thing that that that we
need to be thinking about the idea of people kind
of overplaying their medical risk factors in order to convince
(20:03):
the doctor to put them on that list. It's a
tough thing, and I'm not the right person to make
the decision about who is essential and not and who
gets the vaccine first, but I think anyone who's working
in any kind of health care capacity is all immediately
top of the list. Well, I mean, if we're if
we're choosing to send kids back to school, then yeah, um,
(20:27):
and then anyone who's again, anybody who's handling food, like
let's why not, why not let's do that. And then
after that, if we can, if we can eat drink
water and save people who are dying, then you know,
the rest of us, well, we'll get it eventually, we'll
get the vaccine. Actually, one thing I think everybody gets
(20:49):
after this is an injection of common sense. Like I
was just thinking about buffets, you guys, remember buffet's Why
why were we going to buffets? Even free? Uh? COVID
and then of course everyone's seen the memes where it's
like if you kiss a dog, if you kiss your
dog on the mouth, don't worry about what's in this vaccine,
et cetera. But there are there are serious concerns in
(21:11):
the black market. Is is a big one, and I
think one of the most important parts for me that
you bring up here all is that, uh, there are
legal ways to circumvent this system. At least in the US.
The health care system is world class if you are
well to do. It's designed to be that way. They're
not breaking the law in many cases by doing this,
(21:34):
So it's something to keep an eye on, regardless of
how you feel personally about the Fiser vaccine or the
other three that are on the way. I would just
I would pay attention, you know what I would do.
I don't think this counts is inside or info because
we're not experts on this, but I would be if
I were an investor, I would be very, very interested
(21:56):
in the medical monitoring technology, uh and biotech stocks because
they're they're gonna they're gonna zoom up, you know, maybe
as much as zoom stock, I don't know. Then I'll
add one last just little quote from a bioethicist from
n YU named Arthur Kaplan and to the point that
you just made ben about access to better health care. Um,
(22:16):
this is what he has to say about that some
of the richest investment firms have their own many health
systems so they can run vaccines through those doctors that
give the physicals and maintain the health of the executives
in the company. So to unpack that, it's basically like
almost just like the most exclusive and private of insurance
(22:37):
that's that's taking care of high level executives and who
it behooves to, you know, get the vaccine early. And
it's all at the you know, behest of these doctors
a lot of the time that are part of these
health systems. So it's interesting stuff. UM, a little scary.
I I know, if everyone will get get it who
wants it eventually really quickly before we wrap, How do
(22:57):
you guys feel about like the whole trust factor and
people even like being willing to take it or or
or refusing to take it, or the idea of that
being made mandatory for certain jobs, because that's different episode
has to be made for certain jobs. Don't understand the
controversy got it interested that I'm interested to have that episode.
What do you made? Made a huge mistake and started
(23:19):
watching the US version of Utopia. I've been trying to
watch the British version for a long time, but I
still can't get access to it. Somebody sent me some
blue rays. Uh, it just used express VPN man. Well,
it's just reignited. Yeah, well, it just reignited some of
my fears, some of my personal fears about mass vaccination,
(23:40):
even though I'm fully on board with understanding why they exist,
why there are things in them that have been harmful
in the past, Like didn't understand fully squaling and some
of these other additives to vaccines until we made that
episode that's the shark one, right, Yes, anything that seems
to cause them to be more effective as an outside
(24:02):
thing that kind of just jump starts your immune system. Um. Like,
I understand people's fears, um, but but I think if
you look, if you look closely enough the way we
did in that episode. And I can't remember the name
of that episode, but I'd recommend going back and listen
to some of our episodes on COVID and vaccinations, um,
(24:22):
just to get some more info and then do your
own research, and I would say there is stuff to
be slightly fearful of or fearful about, but it is
not it's not maybe to the level that you currently
fear field. Yeah, to be completely clear, what I don't see.
I don't see the controversy of people having to have
(24:43):
vaccinations for certain jobs in general. That just makes sense.
But I do understand, and I think we're very clear
about that. You know. Um, I think we did a
good job with that one, Matt, where we we said,
you know, like these fears about mass vaccination don't come
out of nowhere. It's not something somebody is made up.
There are historical additives that, uh, they give people pause,
(25:05):
Like I understand, and without spoiling utopia, Um I I
get it. I mean fiction is a mirror of fact.
That's all fiction will ever be. In some ways, it's
a conversation with reality. So so yeah, the thing is
there's a lot of missing information right now. Um, but
we want to hear your thoughts. Are you going to
(25:27):
get the shot? Did you get the fiser one? You
have to get both of them. Remember that first one
is not going to do deadly If you don't get
this the follow up, I get the combo. Yeah, and
and then you mentioned like some of them are not
gonna have to be kept at like sub zero temperature.
That's obviously like a positive in terms of transporting, in
(25:48):
terms of like the uh, logistics of getting them distributed.
But the Fiser one, the one that's closest, it does correct. Yeah,
that's that's correct. Uh, the five Eiser, the Fiser vaccine
needs to be stored at minus seventy degrees celsius. So
that's very tough for supply chains, especially in developing countries.
(26:09):
So doesn't that mean they're sort of shooting themselves in
the foot from the start, like the other ones are
going to supersede them, like if they're if they're easier
to transport or is it kind of like because it's
just sort of like a one these are I don't know,
imprecise questions. I'm just wondering like that that sort of
seems like a bug, you know, like a problem. Yeah,
(26:30):
they're in a race to save lives, so it's really
it's not a situation where you can say millions of
people are gonna die, but we want to make sure
this is at a more convenient temperature. I'm sure they're
working on something like that. But you know, the clock
immortality is taking faster than usual for some and speaking
of clocks, hours takes away. So we're gonna take a
(26:52):
quick break to your word from our sponsor, but we'll
be right back. And we have returned, but maybe we
haven't returned to the US. I mean we're returning to
Haiti where last year another person tried to launch a
(27:14):
coup in this country. Coup's don't get discussed super often
in the Western media, partially because historically Uncle Sam is
responsible for a lot of them through various proxies. Uh.
This one is different because the architect of the coup,
which was unsuccessful, was a former sergeant in the U. S. Marines.
(27:39):
Was born in Haiti and in April nineteen this marine
sergeant Jacquiss Eve's Sebastian Dodo so uh he he started
planning on going back to his homeland with a bunch
of firearms to start a military or militant group excuse me,
(28:03):
to overthrow the current government of Haiti and to become
the president. Almost year ago to the day, they arrived
at the airport in Port of Prince and they were
doctoring paperwork such that it seemed that he was a
marine colonel on orders, on legitimate orders to go there.
(28:27):
And he had a friend, a guy named t h
That's all we know so far, who would pretend to
be Drossels subordinate and they would like fill out paperwork
to transport these items. But everything that they said they
were transporting, and it was a lie. It was a
(28:48):
cover story because they were taking weapons, body arbor, rifle scopes,
and they almost got away with it too, but those
pesky folks at customs finally stopped him. And when they
stopped him, he said something very interesting. He checked his luggage.
He was detained and instead of calling for a lawyer,
(29:10):
instead of remaining silent, he waived all his rights. He
told the investigators he was traveling to Haiti to help
the Haitian people quote, defeat the thugs that have been
creating a little bit of part of the instability in Haiti.
This story is crazy, right, it's already, Um, it's already
an unfortunate thing. We saw a failed invasion of what
(29:35):
was Venezuela earlier this year. Do you guys remember that. Um.
We've seen a couple of other loan actors. But the
thing That's the most nuts about this is that this
is just the most recent example of a thing that
happens way more often than it gets reported. There's a
marine corporal named Toussain farah add who used to lie
(29:57):
to his bosses about missing drill periods. He would say
he had to travel outside the country, and what he
was actually doing he was doing that was returning to
Somalia where he worked for his father, Mohammed farah Add. Oh. Yeah,
the job he did for his father was to be
(30:18):
a general in his militia because his father is a warlord,
because of course he is. And this uh, the coup
actions instabilizing actions of a deed led to the deaths
of eighteen US service members in UH in an incident
that you may most easily remember from the film and
(30:39):
book Black Hawk Down. Yeah, this is nice, m yep,
spot on. Just so so we have a lot of
like we have multiple cases of people going out on
their own, going rogue and launching launching coups. Now is this, Matt,
you said, this is something you hadn't heard heard of, nol.
(31:01):
Was this familiar to you and at all? No, this
is all news to me. I just feel like it's
such a dangerous thing, but it also makes me feel
like people are so motivated, you know what I mean.
One time people are out here changing the world for
the better or the worst, and one time I legitimately
fell asleep. Try and put on a pair of pants
like this puts ambition into perspective. Um, but I just
(31:24):
I just want to know more about that. But you know,
we'll leave it there for now. It was a long
it was a long day. They weren't complicated pants either.
Is this the same two legs that humans would have?
But uh, but yeah, So the reason we know about
the reason we know about ourselves plan was that just recently,
(31:44):
just a few days ago, he was found guilty. There's
just last week. Actually he's found guilty this past thursday.
We're recording this on December four. Is convicted of five
various counts smuggling firearms, and of course it was acknowledged
that he was going in there to train up his
(32:05):
own secessionist group. The Justice Department said that he was
going to be sentenced during March of the maximum penalty
for getting caught planning a coup. At least in this situation,
if you're evaluating your options is twenty years in prison
and a two hundred and fifty thousand dollar five which
(32:28):
gave you know, this gave me a tangentially related question
I went to pass to you guys. Do you know
how when you see people convicted and they get the
maximum fine for something and it's like two fifty grand
or grand or something like that, if they're not well
to do, if they're not a burnie made off, how
do they pay that? Do their wages get garnished? Like?
(32:50):
What what happens? I'm sure that's what it would be.
There's an attempt to pay it off, and then I
don't know what pressures are able to be placed on
any individual who owes something like that. I just don't know.
I've never experienced that before. Yeah, legal beagles or legal badgers.
We should say in the audience, let let us know
(33:11):
how how that works, because it's something that's always I
haven't looked into, but but it always confused me. You know,
when you hear somebody get hit with a tremendous fine
and you know that they are not part of the
upper crust, so they probably can't pay it, you know,
just out of pocket. So I I guess they just
spend their lives with like some crippling debt. It's kind
(33:34):
of like student loans, right, but it's crime loans. But
then I just want to make sure. So the guy
in question took all this stuff, all these weapons over
to Haiti. It sounds like a bunch of handguns, mostly handguns,
a couple of rifles, some body armor and stuff. What.
He was not charged in Haiti for attempting a coup.
(33:55):
He was sent back to the US and charged here
or there. Yeah, yeah, he was because he was smuggling
guns from the US to r K d uh So,
So the US Justice Department came down on him because he,
according to Robert Higden, the U S Attorney for the
(34:16):
Eastern District of North Carolina, uh, he violated US firearms laws,
particularly in relation to export and licensing. And then he says,
just Bury's lead here quote. But it additionally post concerns
about our citizens unilaterally acting in relation to the government
(34:36):
of a foreign country, especially because he's a marine. He
has the training we talked about this earlier, right, he has.
He has the expertise and familiarity to teach people. He
once served as a marksman in Quantico and Uh, this
was this was the real deal. It makes you wonder
how many oh he was also a personating or rank
(34:58):
he did not earn durstaying your colonel, So how it
makes you wonder how many close call coups or coup
attempts we've had from these like lone Rangers, right like
the I don't know if we ever talked about do
we talked about the Venezuelan coup on this show. It
was called Operation Gideon. I know we mentioned it when
(35:22):
it came when what was happening, but I think it
was just in passing conversation. Yeah. Yeah, This one was
a partnership with an American private military company called silver
Core USA spelled like c O R P USA to
infiltrate Venezuela by sea and then forcibly removed Maduro from office,
(35:43):
so a coup. Apparently the problem is this happened in
May of this year, and apparently it was just a
real Uh, it was a real show because they had
little to do, chance to see cess. There was like
this kind of slapstick attempt to get these motor boats
(36:06):
into the area. They didn't. They had former Green Berets
serving as mercenaries and the green Berets must have just
been severely unimpressed with the whole operation. And you'll recall
there were some there were some rumors quickly buried in
US media of a tacit agreement between silver Core and
(36:28):
a couple of I believe it was private industry actors
and maybe some factions of the US government itself, but
no actual Uncle Sam stuff. Wow. So far, it does
make me think about some of these defense contracting companies
and some of the essentially mercenaries that end up in
(36:50):
war torn areas of the world, and you know, somewhere
a coverage of that in the past. And it also
makes me think about do you guys remember something called
Arrow Trade? Did you ever hear of that? That was
this was just a really similar thing that occurred. It
was a company in the United States, so Lord of
I think it has I think it was Haiti. Maybe
(37:12):
it's a different country, but where this company was essentially
training or or spending money to train and provide weapons
and materials for the Haitian military, I think or maybe, um,
maybe it was. Maybe it wasn't Haiti. Was it Haiti?
I don't know it. Yeah, it was a private company
(37:33):
like that this providing all this stuff, and they don't
They're not going through official channels. It's almost like it
reminds me of the CIA front companies and some of
the some of the work that we've looked at in
the past there where you use a front company or
a defense contractor to go in to a different country
and just operate under the radar or at least until
(37:54):
you're caught. Right. This also led me down a path
when I was looking at coup's resistance groups um and
and other insurrections movements. This let me down a path
that really disturbed me. First off, the long history of
US intervention in Haiti is an episode all its own. Uh. Secondly,
I've fell into a very disturbing rabbit hole on the
(38:16):
practice of like the phenomenon of child soldiers, how they
are recruited, how they are brainwashed, what happens in the aftermath,
and it's it's honestly, it's an episode that I feel
like we should do, but it's um it's immensely disturbing.
The idea of coup has always really fascinating to me
because oftentimes, you know, a coup will overthrow an illegitimate
(38:40):
or dangerous regime like that already maybe seized power via
a coup of their own, but it's defined as like
a typically illegal, unconstitutional act um by a political factions.
I'm interested to hear what you guys think about the
idea of coups. Are they inherently illegitimate or is it
just a fan see word for like an uprising or
(39:02):
a revolution. A lot of times it's an overthrow by
an outside actor, or at least spurred on by an
outside actor A lot of times, not always, but I
understand that. But I'm saying, is that is it a
specific word that refers to that or is it only
a word that's used when it's when when those conditions
are in play, or or could you consider a coup
(39:24):
to be a legitimate overthrow of a like is it
our coup and revolution ever interchangeable? Or are they like
you know, one person's coup is another person's revolution, that
kind of thing. Yeah, well, kudata translates the blow of state.
So all coup data are inherently technically illegal in the
(39:45):
country in which they occur because they're un constitutional. Those
constitutions will have, at least on paper, some legal mechanism
for the Uh, for the transfer power. Uh. This is
kind of silly. There's a lot of stuff in international
affairs that's kind of silly. But a lot of professors
and pundits will tell you that a coup is considered
(40:06):
successful when the group, the people who are in charge
of the coup, when they can hold power for about
a week, for seven days. For some reason, that's the rule.
They don't take it seriously on Thursday. But if you
make it the Friday, congratulations, you are the you are
the new Prime Minister of uh Matt Vania. Sorry, Matt,
(40:27):
it was just came to mind. I've been meaning to
step down for a while. So that's that's something that
I would love to dive into. Like the history of coup's,
I mean, the history of human governance is one written
in blood. It would be dishonest to phrase it any
other way. However, I'm telling you this child soldier thing
(40:49):
we have to look at very close to cults, and
it's not it's you know, I think a lot of
people in the West have some stereotype of this occurring
only in uh certain parts of the world, but it
also occurs in the Middle East, occurred in the US.
We had child soldiers in the Civil War, you know,
and we even romanticized the idea of kids lying about
(41:12):
their age to get into the military. Like there's these
are two vaguely related ideas, but I think they're they're
each on their own. We talked about this before, but
my wife has personal stories working with children, like young
kids who are gang members, who are actively using weapons
and you know, engaging in activities that are similar to
(41:34):
being a soldier, um if not the same thing fighting
a war. So I mean I think it's uh yeah,
this is definitely something worth our time and attention. So
I'm down. Ben awesome, Okay, I've got one one last
thing on this, uh as we move on. I you
may have if you are whether or not you're in
(41:55):
the U S. If you follow us domestic news, you
may have heard, uh some of recent actions of the
current administration described as a coup. I would very much
like to hear your thoughts on this, conspiracy realist. Just
hit us up conspiracy at iHeart media dot com. We
have our section at the end where we tell you
all the ways to contact us. But the question that
(42:16):
I have for this segment is, are the recent events
in the domestic sphere of the US. Do they or
do they not meet the threshold for what would be
described as an attempted to cope no judgment, let us
know yes or no and why. And with that, we're
gonna pause for one more word from our sponsor and
will return with more strange news. And we are back
(42:46):
and moving over to United States what let's call this
domestic cybersecurity news. UM. Many times on this show we
have spoken to you about hacking, an interesting term to
describe forms of espionage, forms of snooping around sometimes just
(43:07):
to see what can be achieved. And and that's my
son in the background. And depending on the aims of
someone who was equipped with the skills to breach networks
and get inside of you know, whether it's a single
computer or an entire network. UM. Who knows what the
aims are behind any group, but they there there can
(43:30):
be vast reasons for doing so. And today we're coming
to you with a story about a group that is
being described by the United States government as Russian government
hackers and actions that were taken against several United States
government agencies. So here's here is the Washington Post title
(43:51):
from the article Russian Government Hackers are behind a broad
espionage campaign that has compromised US agencies including Treasury and Commerce.
This was reported today December fourteenth, the day that we're
recording this episode. And according to this article, it is
saying that it was just coming to light. It's kind
(44:13):
of been known or it's information about this attack some
might call it, others just might call it a breach.
Um has been coming forth throughout the entire weekend this
past weekend, and there are several hackers that go by
nicknames that are supposedly behind this. One is a p
(44:34):
T twenty nine, also known as Cozy Bear. These are, um,
there's a group of hackers, not not just one, it's
like a collective essentially. Um. They are supposedly and again
it's tough to know just that it's reporting coming from
the United States and it's an attack on the United States.
Hard to know how much is real info, how much
(44:55):
is dis info on purpose, how much is being a
little more slanted because it's an US or them kind
of story. Um. But they're saying that this group is
part of Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service UH also known as
the s VR, and they're saying that this group breached
email systems. That's the primary thing that occurred here. And
(45:19):
I guess the scary thing is that it's email systems
throughout a whole bunch of the United States infrastructure, of
the government infrastructure. Uh. And according to the Washington Post,
the Federal Bureau of Investigation here in the United States
is looking into this, and they say that the victims
have included government consulting, technology, telecom, oil and gas companies
(45:44):
in North America, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. And
this is according to Oh, it's it's a group called
fire I. I can't remember if we've if we've mentioned
them before, but they are a firm that generally is
watching out for these kinds of a acts and uh,
they got they got breached, and they were one of
(46:05):
the first people to kind of raise a flag. UH.
And my understanding that it was a while ago when
they first uh said this. But then if you reach
out to Russia like the if you go to the
embassy in Washington, UH, they say the they call the
hacking reports baseless. They say the attacking the information space
(46:28):
contradict Russian foreign policy and national interests, and that Russia
does not conduct offensive operations in the cyber domain. Okay,
so it's just it's just motivated patriots acting on their
own just like uh, it's like China's China's hacker army.
I will say that the big difference here between this
(46:49):
and a lot of hacks is that this is not
just a hack for information. Also, the FBI said it
was a state level actor, but they did not officially
say it's Russia. They did not kind of like that
putin law where the laws for you know, anybody who
happens to have been president of Russia. They said it
was a state level thing, but they clearly think it's Russia. Uh.
(47:11):
The dangerous part here is the fire Eye hack is
not a hack for information. Primarily, they're not looking for
you know, uh, database codes. They're learning more creepy stuff
for later surveillance or sign or whatever. What they're what
they did was they stole the fire There's something Promethean
(47:33):
about this. It's like it's like, for a for very
basic they stole a tool kit. So it's like, for
very basic analogy of this or comparison, imagine someone robs
a guns store and they do it with a gun,
and they pull this off. And then when they robbed
the store. Uh, they might check the register, but what
(47:54):
they really want is more guns, more guns, more AMMO
that they can use, the more robberies. That's what happened
here because the stuff they're taking enables them to hack
into a bunch of other networks. Yeah, exactly so. So
this is a document that another group, Solar Winds UH,
filed with the Security Exchange Commission, and what they're saying
(48:16):
is that fewer than eighteen thousand, that's eighteen thousand of
its more than three hundred thousand customers were affected. And
but here's what Ben is why it's supported. What Ben
is saying, what these eighteen thousand people did was install
an update patch essentially to the software. And this update
patch was not like the certified one that should have
(48:38):
been coming from Solar Winds for you know, in the
like when you get an official update on your computer
or your Mac or your Winness machine or whatever it is.
This one was falsified and that enabled those eighteen thousand
machines to then be activated for the purposes of this group.
That's what Ben is saying, that they're like getting more
weapons essentially. Yeah, you're right, and thank you for that.
(49:02):
Thank you for that. Clarification, Matt I would say fire
Eye may not be familiar to a lot of our listeners,
especially if you're not in the tech space or in
the weird spy space, but UH, they are familiar with you.
Their clients include things like Equifax. They worked with Sony
when we did that very weird episode about the Sony
(49:23):
hack back in. They've also worked with UH several other places.
They worked with the State Department when UH another agencies
were breached in It's m It's messy because they have
what you could kind of say is the skeleton key.
(49:45):
Not quite, but their fingers are in a lot of
digital pies and someone has hijacked their hand. Yeah. Well,
I mean, well, these are products that are used by
critical organizations in the United States. Millar Terry like multiple branches,
the Pentagon, the State Department, Justice Department, NASA, the Executive
(50:05):
Office of the President, and the n s A like.
These are all people who use this software. These are
all groups that use this software. And they were able
whoever this was was able to hack into the update
server of this Solar Winds fire Eye thing and then
(50:26):
through that system jump into all these other machines and
the scariest thing is that, I mean, does anybody out
there use Microsoft Office three. That's one of the ways
they're calling it a vector in this that they were
able to carry out this attack by by using Microsoft Office.
It's a little scary. We don't know enough right now.
(50:48):
We just know that it's gone through. We nothing necessarily
has happened. There haven't been officially any consequences because of this,
at least there's no reporting on that yet. But it
is let's use the word troubling. Yeah, yeah, because we
don't know what happens next, do we. Uh. We also
don't know what the reporting filter is. Like, what I
(51:12):
mean by reporting filter is the ways in which government
agencies or companies choose to or choose not to disclose
information to end users citizens in the case of countries,
or you know, customers in the case of consumers. So
if you are the n Essay or you are fire
(51:32):
or you know, you're the FBI or something, and you
absolutely get rocked on something like this, then you know,
if you're a company, you would arguably do the same
for your government. But if your company, you do need
to tell your customers that, like with the Sony hack.
But the thing is when when you're when you're a
(51:53):
government agency, this whole other level of mind games comes
into play. What do we disclose? How much do we disclose? Right?
And when do we message it? How do we say
it happens? Like look at the way look at the
way Ron handled stucks Net, which is probably one of
the most famous hacking events of the past few years.
(52:17):
How do you report that because you want to maintain
your position? Uh, and you want I don't know, like
a lot of these things. Whenever you hear an anonymous
source familiar with the case or blah blah blah, that's
someone who doesn't want to go on record because or
they've been told not to go on record because they
don't want to escalate a possible conflict. But they were
(52:38):
totally green lit to say that these sources who are
close to the investigation. Yeah, dude, do you mean the FBI? Yeah, yeah, exactly.
And we're gonna see fallout, man, We're definitely, we're definitely
gonna see fallout, hopefully just the political kind and you know,
not the nuclear kind. Um. That's a really weird Gallows
(53:01):
humor joke. I'm sorry for that, everyone. Um, it's interesting stuff.
Because in this article from the Washington Post, they're going
back to the d n C and some of the hacking,
you know, alleged hacking that was occurring there back in
the day. Everyone remembers that we certainly talked about it.
Um and there's we're just gonna have to wait and
(53:23):
see essentially. Yeah, but this is from the article. Solar
Winds monitoring tool has extremely deep administrative access to a
network's core functions, which means that hacking the tool would
allow anyone they're saying the Russians to freely root around
(53:43):
victims systems. So who knows what they might find or
have found. Uh, we'll find out when something gets released
on I don't know where things get released on anymore.
Is someplace? Yeah, yeah, I would say of horse Facebook memes, right, yeah,
it'll be they'll post it on Facebook. Uh. I will say,
(54:06):
fire Eye did yesterday release an official statement about this.
You can find it if you just look at fire Eye,
uh statement solar wind or solar winds. They took the
solar wind supply chain in order to distribute this thing
called they called Sunburst. That's the name they're using fire
(54:27):
Eyes term for the malware. So I would be Yeah,
I would be hesitant to say that this is going
to be an easy fix on the fire eye side
or on the side of anybody who is compromised in
this regard. So it's uh like this, okay, the scariest
(54:47):
thing just to put a sunburst the bright point on
what Matt has said here. The reason you should be
freaked out about this, and not in a conspiratorial way.
You should be very freaked out right now is that
solar Winds. According to employees, solar wind software gives you
access to pretty much everything like think cis admit and system.
(55:08):
I'm administrator and it's used by the Pentagon and the
White House. From the sound of it, it reminds me
of something. I only know this through a couple of
friends of mine that are way better computers than me.
But there is something called root access, like with Max
in particular. I don't know if this translates to Windows
systems as well, but it's something you have to get through,
like the little terminal window that like where you actually
(55:30):
enter a keystroke commands to to get you know, to
navigate around the different folders and stuff. And root access
is like god level admin access that not only gives
you access to everything. It lets you gives you, you know,
the ability to wreak havoc on systems if you so choose,
like by deleting lines of code or you know, moving
things around or making things not function properly. Yeah. Root
(55:51):
access will be familiar to a lot of our friends
who have tried to take who have needed to take
uh mandatory bloatware off of the our cell phones, the shones.
I know, we talked about this, but it really didn't
dawn on me just until now that the updates that
went out that were compromised were released in March and June.
(56:15):
So they really have been active for a long time.
And it's interesting that they were in there prior to
the US presidential election. Um. But again, like I don't
think there's any I don't mean that as in these
this group influence the election in some way. It's just
they could probably monitor a lot of things that occurred
(56:37):
in communications that were happening around the election. Um. So
that's fascinating stuff like where your head's at, Matt, Um
So everybody's hacked. Uh, everybody's hacked. Everybody's got fake COVID tests.
What's the other way everybody's trying to overthrow a country.
That's that's strange. Use today o mon days. If there
(57:01):
we go. If you guys could be in charge of
a country, like be the ruler of a country? A
would you want to? And be which country? I'm just interested?
What do you guys? What would you aim for? You
want to like a big one or you want to know? Man,
it seems like a lot of trouble for not a
lot of payoff. Maybe I'm just not benevolent enough. I
mean maybe if I thought I could do some good,
(57:22):
I might do it, but I probably would just muck
it up even worse. You could be a monarch, No,
that's fair, but I'd probably let it go to my
head and become an absolute monster. I'm gonna bow out.
I would change my name to Joseph. I would go
just out in the middle of nowhere and start Eden's
gate Um, start Hope. It would be a Hope County,
(57:45):
That's what I would call it. And uh, is this
a fallout? Are you doing a fallout thing? Is this fallout? Nope,
it's not fall out, but it would just it would
definitely be That's what I would want to do, and
I'd want to have my son John his stir and
brother like be my second, third and fourth thing. Man,
that's what I would want to do. Wait, okay, no, no,
(58:11):
one day, Matt, I'm gonna get you one day. I'll
catch these references. One day I'm up to like seventy
percent humans, So I'm I'm gonna get there one day.
This is this is how you find out what old
video game Mats playing. Just listen to the weird references
and then type them into a search the New Vegas. Nope,
let's just move. Not a fall out at all, is
(58:31):
it do do? Let me say no, We'll just let
everybody right. This is your part of the game, folks.
So let us let us know what what game is
Matt playing currently. Let us know what country you would
like to be in charge of. If you're in charge
of a country, how you would do it. Let us
know what you think about what we covered with mass
(58:53):
vaccinations with uh fraudulent COVID results and whether or not
people should have to get a vaccine depending on their
job and so on. We try to make it easy
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(59:14):
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(59:38):
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(59:59):
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radio dot com. Stuff they don't want you to know
(01:00:30):
is a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts
from my heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app,
Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
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 I 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
Lexus code name Doc Holiday Jackson. Most importantly, you are you.
You are here, and that makes this stuff they don't
want you to know stop of the week, which means
it's time conspiracy realists for some strange news, and the
(00:47):
strange news segments just get curiouser and curious er. We're
finding more and more odd stuff with each passing day.
You should see our group chat actually, which were probably
won't publish. I don't think we should. What do you got?
Just a snippet, just a little taste of a screenshot.
Give the people what they want. Guys, Come on, well,
(01:09):
let's figure out if if that's something you all want,
let us let us know. We've got uh, we've got coups,
we've got the black market, we've got some uh, we've
got some hacking afoot in multiple cases. Uh, let's see
where do you, uh, where where do you guys want
to start? You know, No, Actually I was going to
shine in and say it being a little bit of
(01:30):
a grab baggy, updated kind of zeitgeist thing, I thought
maybe we could start with mine. Does that sound okay? Everyone? Yeah, yeah, yeah,
let's I think. I think COVID is on a lot
of it. It's on a lot of people's minds. I
think because of the holiday, and I think there's a
lot of hope that things were going to be better
by the holidays, because everybody's been really thirsting for that,
(01:52):
you know, personal touch and seeing family and going through
a lot to social social distance. It was hoping maybe
for a little payoff, but as it turns out out
that's not the way, uh it turned out. Um, we've
been seeing COVID cases spiking, hospitalization spiking across the country,
and also kind of just a general malaise associated with
the whole COVID experience situation understandably, so uh, thankfully, you know,
(02:16):
there is sort of a light at the end of
the tunnel, and that we've got these two vaccines that
are testing very positively, and um, we can talk a
little bit about this process too, about how they were
able to accelerate because I think there's a lot of
misconceptions around that. But it looks like they're already shipping.
I think I saw a story today, UM, a nurse
in somewhere in New York was given like the first
(02:39):
kind of televised injection of the Fightser covid vaccine, which
was tested and proven to be effective in I believe
fighting the disease and in nine like a little under
that in completely preventing it. But I think you need
two instances of it. I think that's really important that
you get the second dose of it. So understandably, there's
(03:01):
a lot of demand for this product. Uh, there's always
already a lot of competition in developing it, and now
we've got it. What is it Fightser? What was the
other company at ben Uh? There are a couple in
phase three trials. There's mad vaccine Jansen, as well as
astrosenic probably here all four of those in the news,
But right now Fiser is the only one that is CDC.
(03:22):
That's exactly right, um, And we can talk a little
bit about this before we even get into the story.
What they've done to my understanding, guys, UH, in fast
tracking This is not just like Willie Nilly fast tracking,
and there's it's a three step process in vetting these
types of medications, and I believe they got rid of
step two UM. Step three is all all of the
(03:46):
placebo effects studies studying for side effects. Obviously, we don't
have a long enough timeline to know any potential long
term side effects, but I think within the best of
their ability, or of the ability of any clinical trial els,
they're gonna find out if there are any immediate side
effects that that are to be worried about. I've been
seeing a couple of articles discussing the concern of it
(04:09):
causing UM facial paralysis on one side, but then there
was a kind of a clarification article that came up
after that that said that there was UM, it wasn't
directly linked to it, and I believe there were a
handful of deaths involved in the clinical trials, but then
those came back around and they weren't determined to not
be directly linked to it either, but they are watching
(04:30):
for the facial paralysis. So with all of this kind
of hustle to get this, you know, medication out UM
as quickly as possible and the holidays and all of that. Um,
I started looking into the idea of black market surrounding
not only the vaccine, but also looking back, you know,
(04:52):
into the big travel push that happened during um during Thanksgiving,
black market COVID test results. Uh. And I actually was
getting a haircut the other day and the person cutting
my hair mentioned that there that there were reports of
people buying forged, falsified negative COVID test results that they
(05:14):
could present at you know, check in or whatever at
the airport, because that is a requirement for for a
lot of airlines. Um and I found an article that
talked about that very thing. Uh, so let's we can
start there and then go into the vaccine stuff. Just
this is like, it's at basically a month old story.
That's why I wanted a caveata. But it's not something
we've discussed. I think it's interesting. So just to be clear,
(05:35):
this is somehow just a piece of paper that's being
generated and purchased that says you've got negative results. Well
that's the thing, guys. It's like when you go get
a COVID test, you get your results via text message
or like an email, And how hard is it The
screenshot that text message mattch the font and just change
the name and birthday associated with it. It's really nothing
(05:58):
much more advanced than that. And that's what this article
that I found on insider dot com um talked about,
and again it's from about a month ago, from November sixteenth,
talking about there's a thriving black market for fake COVID
night team tests and the travel industry is just beginning
to kind of get wise to it and cracked down.
But it really isn't anything much more advanced, um than
(06:20):
what I just described, because we don't really have the
infrastructure to That's also a question I have about like
the future of all this stuff. When there is a vaccine,
is are there we then going to have some kind
of like notarized credential like a passport, like some sort
of stamped document officially, you know, notarized that shows that
we got the vaccine or the will what what, or
(06:41):
or have a negative result or have the antibody. Right. Yeah,
So it's it's a longstanding thing, the idea of proven
paper documentation for vaccine for international travelers. So you could
just take that same admittedly outdated, i would say, archaic
system and transferred over. But with the push to be paperless,
(07:02):
what we would probably see is a all right, well,
we probably see is a government created website or monitoring
system that probably it's very expensive for Uncle Sam and
then probably has a ton of tech issues. But I
saw what I saw with the fake tests. The first
report I heard occurred in France at Charles de Gaul
(07:26):
and when they caught somebody who was selling them at
Charles de Gal where like seven people were arrested for
selling selling these fake certificates. So they were just forgers. Uh,
they didn't have to your point, they did not have
some kind of infrastructure. They just to fly, They needed
a piece of paper that said they were good to go.
(07:47):
These also costs from a hundred and eighty to three
and sixty bucks, So feel free to negotiate if you're
already going to be a horrible person. Yeah, And that's
sort of what it comes down to, isn't it. It's
it's essentially putting everyone else at risk so that you
can do whatever you want. And that's why I think
the whole politicization of a lot of this stuff is
so infuriating, because like the idea of wearing a mask
(08:08):
isn't even really for you as much as it is
for others, and to prevent the spread if you happen
to have it, and other for others just comfort level,
you know. So that's always kind of blown my mind.
That's become such a you know, hot button issue. But um,
it's true with this, Like like you said, Ben, it
literally was uh. You know, in this Insider article, someone
(08:28):
was talking about how everybody they know has a COVID test,
and it's almost like it's even easier than like faking
a urine test. Like let's say you have a job
that's trying to screen you for drugs, and you know
that you've smoked marijuana recently, which is the one that
stays in your system the longest. So you get your
friend to give you their their urine and you keep
it in like a bag tape to your leg or something.
(08:50):
So I've heard, um, but this is like that, but
even easier because with the urine, they take the temperature
of it. You know, there's things that they do safeguards
in play is at a clinic or a lab to
make sure you're not you know, giving them fake urine
or whatever. If somebody else's earin and with this, it's
so new that there just isn't UM, so it's kind
of mind blowe. I people would pay that much, like
(09:11):
you said, been between a hundred and eighty and three
hundred and sixty bucks according to the Associated Press. Have
you heard about the the proposals for a COVID nineteen
so called immunity passport. That's sort of I have not been,
but that seems to be the kind of thing we'd
be looking at that would be more official, more traceable,
some kind of database associated with it. You know, what
(09:35):
have you to tell us about it? I really don't
know anything. Where are you talking about Compass or is
this something different? Uh? There is? It could compass. There's
the one I know about is the International Air Transport Association.
This is all in the ideation stage. There's not an
actual passport yet. UM. But this this would be something
(09:57):
that would be considered a digital pass or to your
earlier point knell. And this would allow travelers I think
it would be opt in, but it would allow travelers
to share their vaccination status and test results with border
patrol via this app. So you would just have this
on your app. Uh. Security becomes a concern, but then also,
(10:19):
you know, even if you don't make this mandatory for
travelers as a law, airlines and uh cargo ships and
cruise ships can make it a de facto law because
they will just refuse to let you on if you
don't have a negative result, which I will say is
just my opinion. I think it's the right thing to do,
(10:40):
but a lot of people are worried about what they
see as overreach. I completely agree. But come on to
those people. They won't let you on if you have
the wrong size shaving gel, you know what I mean? Like,
how is this more egregious that than that? Or like
more of an invasion of privacy or or you know, uh,
screwing around with your civil produce? I think we're past
(11:01):
that when it comes to air travel, well it is.
You know, this the whole situation, as we've discussed before,
just brings up questions about healthcare, about your own health
and the information associated with it, and who should have
access to that information. And it's been widely commonly recognized
(11:23):
that nobody should have it besides healthcare practitioners, yourself and
anyone else that you specifically say can have access to
any of it, and a test like this falls under
that same criteria or it's the same kind of information.
It's just there's a there's a public need to know
whether you know that one tiny aspect about your health.
(11:46):
Uh So something like common Pass, which is something slightly different,
it would it was it would try, at least according
to their UM, the nonprofit that's trying to make Common
Pass a thing. Uh, they're saying they're trying to make
essentially a trust structure for individuals to be able to
share small bits of information about their health with, you know,
(12:09):
like the t s A and other organizations that are
trying to clear passengers for travel. UM. I don't know,
it's interesting. It's an interesting concept to be able to
have that an apple like you were talking about ben
where you could just flash it or just a QR
code or something that just specifically has that updated information
about your health and that's it, but it's verified. Yeah. Yeah,
(12:30):
but think about Okay, so think about this. Let's get
real dystopian and weird and depressing with it. So, first off,
we've had systems like this that just existed on paper,
which made them more difficult and arguably a little bit
more secure in some ways, like you have to get
polio vaccination or yellow fever vaccinations if you're going to
different parts of the world, often developing countries where those
(12:54):
diseases occur at a higher frequency. But the thing about
common pass is that it's rule lean out in a
couple of cities, right, and flights from a discrete number
of cities. At first, these solutions help, but they don't.
They gain the most benefits when they are at scale,
but every group hasn't. And what should be interesting to
(13:16):
a lot of people who recognize that now is that
there are multiple kind of brand name passes coming out.
Like another, the International Chamber of Commerce CEOC is developing
something they call the a O KA Pass. But anyway,
so their competitors out there already hopefully they can work together.
But the second thing is once this kind of thing
(13:37):
is accepted, once it's out there, uh, you can this
can be used to transmit all sorts of medical information
unless strong safeguards are in place, Like I I don't
think there's any I think this is a door that
does not close. I think we need it for COVID.
But I think the same technology again, uh, the same
(13:58):
thing that that warms you can burn you. You know,
it's the same it's the same slippery slope as that
ring uh dot com um database we talked about on
the last news episode, right where it's like, oh, on
the surface, yes, this is a good thing to help
protect our citizens and make sure the police knows if
the folks are in trouble. But then there's all kinds
of other things that can get rolled up into it
(14:19):
over time. And you know, it's just cliche to even say,
but it's like a slippery slope. And then obviously this
is too um. But another slippery slope is the implications
of how the black market enters into the actual vaccine. Okay,
I mean that's, you know, obvious. I don't think that
(14:40):
anyone's like, oh, it would never never occurred to me,
but yeah, I mean it's like the moment you have
something in high demand like that. We talked about it
with with oregan transplants all the time, We talked about
it with all kinds of commodities that are only available
in limited supply um, and that will be absolutely no
exception when it comes to COVID nineteen vaccines, because we
(15:02):
know that. I think there was even like talk where
it was going to get rolled out to the White
House very very quickly. Uh. And I think a lot
of people probably had a problem with that, considering how
many White House employees got COVID um from being not
super smart about social distancing, you know, politics aside. I
think we can at least agree that's pretty much a fact. Um,
(15:24):
So the idea of giving them I've even heard that
if you've had COVID before, which I have, I got
it earlier. I don't know if I've mentioned on the
show before, but early on I was in and I
was traveling and I got sick, and it was like
back in March, and then I got an antibody test recently,
and I did have it. So even though my instance
of having gotten it was way back in March, I
(15:44):
do still have the antibody apparently, or at least I didn't,
you know, um, however many months ago it was that
I got that test. I'm not supposed to try to
get the vaccine like for a long time. They are
asking people like me and anyone else out there who's
gotten it and and survived it to hold on and
not try to get it because you technically are in
better shape to be not immune because they're not saying
(16:05):
that they don't really even know that anybody makes you immune.
But um, this black market idea is fascinating because they're
giving its just healthcare workers first, understandably, But there's even
outside of the black market angle, the idea of being
a UM what's the word they use, guys, uh, critical
workers or there's there's a there's a term essential workers.
(16:30):
So apparently in Florida, the World Wrestling Entertainment Organization that
that's the one, not the wildlife one, the wrestling one,
um was deemed to be essential Uh. And the chairman
of w w E is Vince McMahon, who's really good
friends with Donald Trump and his wife Lynda McMahon actually
(16:52):
was on the U is the chair of a superpack
for for Trump. So take that do with the way
you will. But the idea of who is deemed essential workers,
even in and of itself, is a little slippery and political.
But um, once the vaccine rolls out, there's so much
possibility for it to get you know, uh, oh, a
(17:14):
bunch of doses fell off a truck, you know that
kind of story, or counterfeit doses sold to people in need.
You didn't even think about that one. That's that's like
a whole another bollow acts Also, I would add uh quickly, like,
regardless of your regardless of your own personal political leanings, folks,
it does make sense for world leaders to have early
(17:35):
access to a virus just for stability of government. Um.
And you know, as far as the w W E
not to knock on them, You're right, Maybe essential is
in the eye of the beholder. But also remember that
this country, the United States, did a brilliant and and
(17:57):
and and ruthless Marcavellian job of cauling people essential workers
and putting out nice commercials about them and not doing
a damn thing to help them, like other than what
Bucks wants. Like there's I I would be um. I
would be surprised if all of the people who are
(18:17):
described as essential, essential workers and a lot of that propaganda,
I would be surprised if they do get early access
to the vaccine. When the rubber hits the road, I
do think it's gonna be um. We'll see a lot
of medical personnel. Um. But one important point raised is
that Fiser I call it the double dose because you've
(18:37):
gotta get two shots, and that the interim between those
shots is gonna knock a lot of people who are
essential workers out of the game. Also, there's other loopholes
to consider. So, I mean the black market stuff, we
all know how that works. It basically just means folks
are circumventing the law either stealing, uh falsifying whatever, bootlegging,
(18:57):
and that could be a whole other thing. It could
actually kill peop. But let's just say those doses are real.
They're gotten in some nefarious way, but not necessarily because
they are actually uh perfectly legal. Ways to circumvent this
in the jump in line, and one of them is
by having like a pre existing condition like asthma or
high blood pressure, or even being a smoker, would consider
(19:20):
would be considered having like a mitigating factor that would
make you more high risk and could potentially bump you
up in the line. It's sort of like when people
were trying to get medical marijuana, and the easiest way
to do that is to go to your doctor and say,
I have described the symptoms of whatever it was that
you needed in order to get the thing. I think
(19:41):
we all know that that happens. You know, if if
people are like having mild anxiety and they know that
if they play it up a little bit, the doctor
will probably give them like xan X or something. You know. Um,
but this is an absolute thing that that that we
need to be thinking about the idea of people kind
of overplaying their medical risk factors in order to convince
(20:03):
the doctor to put them on that list. It's a
tough thing, and I'm not the right person to make
the decision about who is essential and not and who
gets the vaccine first, but I think anyone who's working
in any kind of health care capacity is all immediately
top of the list. Well, I mean, if we're if
we're choosing to send kids back to school, then yeah, um,
(20:27):
and then anyone who's again, anybody who's handling food, like
let's why not, why not let's do that. And then
after that, if we can, if we can eat drink
water and save people who are dying, then you know,
the rest of us, well, we'll get it eventually, we'll
get the vaccine. Actually, one thing I think everybody gets
(20:49):
after this is an injection of common sense. Like I
was just thinking about buffets, you guys, remember buffet's Why
why were we going to buffets? Even free? Uh? COVID
and then of course everyone's seen the memes where it's
like if you kiss a dog, if you kiss your
dog on the mouth, don't worry about what's in this vaccine,
et cetera. But there are there are serious concerns in
(21:11):
the black market. Is is a big one, and I
think one of the most important parts for me that
you bring up here all is that, uh, there are
legal ways to circumvent this system. At least in the US.
The health care system is world class if you are
well to do. It's designed to be that way. They're
not breaking the law in many cases by doing this,
(21:34):
So it's something to keep an eye on, regardless of
how you feel personally about the Fiser vaccine or the
other three that are on the way. I would just
I would pay attention, you know what I would do.
I don't think this counts is inside or info because
we're not experts on this, but I would be if
I were an investor, I would be very, very interested
(21:56):
in the medical monitoring technology, uh and biotech stocks because
they're they're gonna they're gonna zoom up, you know, maybe
as much as zoom stock, I don't know. Then I'll
add one last just little quote from a bioethicist from
n YU named Arthur Kaplan and to the point that
you just made ben about access to better health care. Um,
(22:16):
this is what he has to say about that some
of the richest investment firms have their own many health
systems so they can run vaccines through those doctors that
give the physicals and maintain the health of the executives
in the company. So to unpack that, it's basically like
almost just like the most exclusive and private of insurance
(22:37):
that's that's taking care of high level executives and who
it behooves to, you know, get the vaccine early. And
it's all at the you know, behest of these doctors
a lot of the time that are part of these
health systems. So it's interesting stuff. UM, a little scary.
I I know, if everyone will get get it who
wants it eventually really quickly before we wrap, How do
(22:57):
you guys feel about like the whole trust factor and
people even like being willing to take it or or
or refusing to take it, or the idea of that
being made mandatory for certain jobs, because that's different episode
has to be made for certain jobs. Don't understand the
controversy got it interested that I'm interested to have that episode.
What do you made? Made a huge mistake and started
(23:19):
watching the US version of Utopia. I've been trying to
watch the British version for a long time, but I
still can't get access to it. Somebody sent me some
blue rays. Uh, it just used express VPN man. Well,
it's just reignited. Yeah, well, it just reignited some of
my fears, some of my personal fears about mass vaccination,
(23:40):
even though I'm fully on board with understanding why they exist,
why there are things in them that have been harmful
in the past, Like didn't understand fully squaling and some
of these other additives to vaccines until we made that
episode that's the shark one, right, Yes, anything that seems
to cause them to be more effective as an outside
(24:02):
thing that kind of just jump starts your immune system. Um. Like,
I understand people's fears, um, but but I think if
you look, if you look closely enough the way we
did in that episode. And I can't remember the name
of that episode, but I'd recommend going back and listen
to some of our episodes on COVID and vaccinations, um,
(24:22):
just to get some more info and then do your
own research, and I would say there is stuff to
be slightly fearful of or fearful about, but it is
not it's not maybe to the level that you currently
fear field. Yeah, to be completely clear, what I don't see.
I don't see the controversy of people having to have
(24:43):
vaccinations for certain jobs in general. That just makes sense.
But I do understand, and I think we're very clear
about that. You know. Um, I think we did a
good job with that one, Matt, where we we said,
you know, like these fears about mass vaccination don't come
out of nowhere. It's not something somebody is made up.
There are historical additives that, uh, they give people pause,
(25:05):
Like I understand, and without spoiling utopia, Um I I
get it. I mean fiction is a mirror of fact.
That's all fiction will ever be. In some ways, it's
a conversation with reality. So so yeah, the thing is
there's a lot of missing information right now. Um, but
we want to hear your thoughts. Are you going to
(25:27):
get the shot? Did you get the fiser one? You
have to get both of them. Remember that first one
is not going to do deadly If you don't get
this the follow up, I get the combo. Yeah, and
and then you mentioned like some of them are not
gonna have to be kept at like sub zero temperature.
That's obviously like a positive in terms of transporting, in
(25:48):
terms of like the uh, logistics of getting them distributed.
But the Fiser one, the one that's closest, it does correct. Yeah,
that's that's correct. Uh, the five Eiser, the Fiser vaccine
needs to be stored at minus seventy degrees celsius. So
that's very tough for supply chains, especially in developing countries.
(26:09):
So doesn't that mean they're sort of shooting themselves in
the foot from the start, like the other ones are
going to supersede them, like if they're if they're easier
to transport or is it kind of like because it's
just sort of like a one these are I don't know,
imprecise questions. I'm just wondering like that that sort of
seems like a bug, you know, like a problem. Yeah,
(26:30):
they're in a race to save lives, so it's really
it's not a situation where you can say millions of
people are gonna die, but we want to make sure
this is at a more convenient temperature. I'm sure they're
working on something like that. But you know, the clock
immortality is taking faster than usual for some and speaking
of clocks, hours takes away. So we're gonna take a
(26:52):
quick break to your word from our sponsor, but we'll
be right back. And we have returned, but maybe we
haven't returned to the US. I mean we're returning to
Haiti where last year another person tried to launch a
(27:14):
coup in this country. Coup's don't get discussed super often
in the Western media, partially because historically Uncle Sam is
responsible for a lot of them through various proxies. Uh.
This one is different because the architect of the coup,
which was unsuccessful, was a former sergeant in the U. S. Marines.
(27:39):
Was born in Haiti and in April nineteen this marine
sergeant Jacquiss Eve's Sebastian Dodo so uh he he started
planning on going back to his homeland with a bunch
of firearms to start a military or militant group excuse me,
(28:03):
to overthrow the current government of Haiti and to become
the president. Almost year ago to the day, they arrived
at the airport in Port of Prince and they were
doctoring paperwork such that it seemed that he was a
marine colonel on orders, on legitimate orders to go there.
(28:27):
And he had a friend, a guy named t h
That's all we know so far, who would pretend to
be Drossels subordinate and they would like fill out paperwork
to transport these items. But everything that they said they
were transporting, and it was a lie. It was a
(28:48):
cover story because they were taking weapons, body arbor, rifle scopes,
and they almost got away with it too, but those
pesky folks at customs finally stopped him. And when they
stopped him, he said something very interesting. He checked his luggage.
He was detained and instead of calling for a lawyer,
(29:10):
instead of remaining silent, he waived all his rights. He
told the investigators he was traveling to Haiti to help
the Haitian people quote, defeat the thugs that have been
creating a little bit of part of the instability in Haiti.
This story is crazy, right, it's already, Um, it's already
an unfortunate thing. We saw a failed invasion of what
(29:35):
was Venezuela earlier this year. Do you guys remember that. Um.
We've seen a couple of other loan actors. But the
thing That's the most nuts about this is that this
is just the most recent example of a thing that
happens way more often than it gets reported. There's a
marine corporal named Toussain farah add who used to lie
(29:57):
to his bosses about missing drill periods. He would say
he had to travel outside the country, and what he
was actually doing he was doing that was returning to
Somalia where he worked for his father, Mohammed farah Add. Oh. Yeah,
the job he did for his father was to be
(30:18):
a general in his militia because his father is a warlord,
because of course he is. And this uh, the coup
actions instabilizing actions of a deed led to the deaths
of eighteen US service members in UH in an incident
that you may most easily remember from the film and
(30:39):
book Black Hawk Down. Yeah, this is nice, m yep,
spot on. Just so so we have a lot of
like we have multiple cases of people going out on
their own, going rogue and launching launching coups. Now is this, Matt,
you said, this is something you hadn't heard heard of, nol.
(31:01):
Was this familiar to you and at all? No, this
is all news to me. I just feel like it's
such a dangerous thing, but it also makes me feel
like people are so motivated, you know what I mean.
One time people are out here changing the world for
the better or the worst, and one time I legitimately
fell asleep. Try and put on a pair of pants
like this puts ambition into perspective. Um, but I just
(31:24):
I just want to know more about that. But you know,
we'll leave it there for now. It was a long
it was a long day. They weren't complicated pants either.
Is this the same two legs that humans would have?
But uh, but yeah, So the reason we know about
the reason we know about ourselves plan was that just recently,
(31:44):
just a few days ago, he was found guilty. There's
just last week. Actually he's found guilty this past thursday.
We're recording this on December four. Is convicted of five
various counts smuggling firearms, and of course it was acknowledged
that he was going in there to train up his
(32:05):
own secessionist group. The Justice Department said that he was
going to be sentenced during March of the maximum penalty
for getting caught planning a coup. At least in this situation,
if you're evaluating your options is twenty years in prison
and a two hundred and fifty thousand dollar five which
(32:28):
gave you know, this gave me a tangentially related question
I went to pass to you guys. Do you know
how when you see people convicted and they get the
maximum fine for something and it's like two fifty grand
or grand or something like that, if they're not well
to do, if they're not a burnie made off, how
do they pay that? Do their wages get garnished? Like?
(32:50):
What what happens? I'm sure that's what it would be.
There's an attempt to pay it off, and then I
don't know what pressures are able to be placed on
any individual who owes something like that. I just don't know.
I've never experienced that before. Yeah, legal beagles or legal badgers.
We should say in the audience, let let us know
(33:11):
how how that works, because it's something that's always I
haven't looked into, but but it always confused me. You know,
when you hear somebody get hit with a tremendous fine
and you know that they are not part of the
upper crust, so they probably can't pay it, you know,
just out of pocket. So I I guess they just
spend their lives with like some crippling debt. It's kind
(33:34):
of like student loans, right, but it's crime loans. But
then I just want to make sure. So the guy
in question took all this stuff, all these weapons over
to Haiti. It sounds like a bunch of handguns, mostly handguns,
a couple of rifles, some body armor and stuff. What.
He was not charged in Haiti for attempting a coup.
(33:55):
He was sent back to the US and charged here
or there. Yeah, yeah, he was because he was smuggling
guns from the US to r K d uh So,
So the US Justice Department came down on him because he,
according to Robert Higden, the U S Attorney for the
(34:16):
Eastern District of North Carolina, uh, he violated US firearms laws,
particularly in relation to export and licensing. And then he says,
just Bury's lead here quote. But it additionally post concerns
about our citizens unilaterally acting in relation to the government
(34:36):
of a foreign country, especially because he's a marine. He
has the training we talked about this earlier, right, he has.
He has the expertise and familiarity to teach people. He
once served as a marksman in Quantico and Uh, this
was this was the real deal. It makes you wonder
how many oh he was also a personating or rank
(34:58):
he did not earn durstaying your colonel, So how it
makes you wonder how many close call coups or coup
attempts we've had from these like lone Rangers, right like
the I don't know if we ever talked about do
we talked about the Venezuelan coup on this show. It
was called Operation Gideon. I know we mentioned it when
(35:22):
it came when what was happening, but I think it
was just in passing conversation. Yeah. Yeah, This one was
a partnership with an American private military company called silver
Core USA spelled like c O R P USA to
infiltrate Venezuela by sea and then forcibly removed Maduro from office,
(35:43):
so a coup. Apparently the problem is this happened in
May of this year, and apparently it was just a
real Uh, it was a real show because they had
little to do, chance to see cess. There was like
this kind of slapstick attempt to get these motor boats
(36:06):
into the area. They didn't. They had former Green Berets
serving as mercenaries and the green Berets must have just
been severely unimpressed with the whole operation. And you'll recall
there were some there were some rumors quickly buried in
US media of a tacit agreement between silver Core and
(36:28):
a couple of I believe it was private industry actors
and maybe some factions of the US government itself, but
no actual Uncle Sam stuff. Wow. So far, it does
make me think about some of these defense contracting companies
and some of the essentially mercenaries that end up in
(36:50):
war torn areas of the world, and you know, somewhere
a coverage of that in the past. And it also
makes me think about do you guys remember something called
Arrow Trade? Did you ever hear of that? That was
this was just a really similar thing that occurred. It
was a company in the United States, so Lord of
I think it has I think it was Haiti. Maybe
(37:12):
it's a different country, but where this company was essentially
training or or spending money to train and provide weapons
and materials for the Haitian military, I think or maybe, um,
maybe it was. Maybe it wasn't Haiti. Was it Haiti?
I don't know it. Yeah, it was a private company
(37:33):
like that this providing all this stuff, and they don't
They're not going through official channels. It's almost like it
reminds me of the CIA front companies and some of
the some of the work that we've looked at in
the past there where you use a front company or
a defense contractor to go in to a different country
and just operate under the radar or at least until
(37:54):
you're caught. Right. This also led me down a path
when I was looking at coup's resistance groups um and
and other insurrections movements. This let me down a path
that really disturbed me. First off, the long history of
US intervention in Haiti is an episode all its own. Uh. Secondly,
I've fell into a very disturbing rabbit hole on the
(38:16):
practice of like the phenomenon of child soldiers, how they
are recruited, how they are brainwashed, what happens in the aftermath,
and it's it's honestly, it's an episode that I feel
like we should do, but it's um it's immensely disturbing.
The idea of coup has always really fascinating to me
because oftentimes, you know, a coup will overthrow an illegitimate
(38:40):
or dangerous regime like that already maybe seized power via
a coup of their own, but it's defined as like
a typically illegal, unconstitutional act um by a political factions.
I'm interested to hear what you guys think about the
idea of coups. Are they inherently illegitimate or is it
just a fan see word for like an uprising or
(39:02):
a revolution. A lot of times it's an overthrow by
an outside actor, or at least spurred on by an
outside actor A lot of times, not always, but I
understand that. But I'm saying, is that is it a
specific word that refers to that or is it only
a word that's used when it's when when those conditions
are in play, or or could you consider a coup
(39:24):
to be a legitimate overthrow of a like is it
our coup and revolution ever interchangeable? Or are they like
you know, one person's coup is another person's revolution, that
kind of thing. Yeah, well, kudata translates the blow of state.
So all coup data are inherently technically illegal in the
(39:45):
country in which they occur because they're un constitutional. Those
constitutions will have, at least on paper, some legal mechanism
for the Uh, for the transfer power. Uh. This is
kind of silly. There's a lot of stuff in international
affairs that's kind of silly. But a lot of professors
and pundits will tell you that a coup is considered
(40:06):
successful when the group, the people who are in charge
of the coup, when they can hold power for about
a week, for seven days. For some reason, that's the rule.
They don't take it seriously on Thursday. But if you
make it the Friday, congratulations, you are the you are
the new Prime Minister of uh Matt Vania. Sorry, Matt,
(40:27):
it was just came to mind. I've been meaning to
step down for a while. So that's that's something that
I would love to dive into. Like the history of coup's,
I mean, the history of human governance is one written
in blood. It would be dishonest to phrase it any
other way. However, I'm telling you this child soldier thing
(40:49):
we have to look at very close to cults, and
it's not it's you know, I think a lot of
people in the West have some stereotype of this occurring
only in uh certain parts of the world, but it
also occurs in the Middle East, occurred in the US.
We had child soldiers in the Civil War, you know,
and we even romanticized the idea of kids lying about
(41:12):
their age to get into the military. Like there's these
are two vaguely related ideas, but I think they're they're
each on their own. We talked about this before, but
my wife has personal stories working with children, like young
kids who are gang members, who are actively using weapons
and you know, engaging in activities that are similar to
(41:34):
being a soldier, um if not the same thing fighting
a war. So I mean I think it's uh yeah,
this is definitely something worth our time and attention. So
I'm down. Ben awesome, Okay, I've got one one last
thing on this, uh as we move on. I you
may have if you are whether or not you're in
(41:55):
the U S. If you follow us domestic news, you
may have heard, uh some of recent actions of the
current administration described as a coup. I would very much
like to hear your thoughts on this, conspiracy realist. Just
hit us up conspiracy at iHeart media dot com. We
have our section at the end where we tell you
all the ways to contact us. But the question that
(42:16):
I have for this segment is, are the recent events
in the domestic sphere of the US. Do they or
do they not meet the threshold for what would be
described as an attempted to cope no judgment, let us
know yes or no and why. And with that, we're
gonna pause for one more word from our sponsor and
will return with more strange news. And we are back
(42:46):
and moving over to United States what let's call this
domestic cybersecurity news. UM. Many times on this show we
have spoken to you about hacking, an interesting term to
describe forms of espionage, forms of snooping around sometimes just
(43:07):
to see what can be achieved. And and that's my
son in the background. And depending on the aims of
someone who was equipped with the skills to breach networks
and get inside of you know, whether it's a single
computer or an entire network. UM. Who knows what the
aims are behind any group, but they there there can
(43:30):
be vast reasons for doing so. And today we're coming
to you with a story about a group that is
being described by the United States government as Russian government
hackers and actions that were taken against several United States
government agencies. So here's here is the Washington Post title
(43:51):
from the article Russian Government Hackers are behind a broad
espionage campaign that has compromised US agencies including Treasury and Commerce.
This was reported today December fourteenth, the day that we're
recording this episode. And according to this article, it is
saying that it was just coming to light. It's kind
(44:13):
of been known or it's information about this attack some
might call it, others just might call it a breach.
Um has been coming forth throughout the entire weekend this
past weekend, and there are several hackers that go by
nicknames that are supposedly behind this. One is a p
(44:34):
T twenty nine, also known as Cozy Bear. These are, um,
there's a group of hackers, not not just one, it's
like a collective essentially. Um. They are supposedly and again
it's tough to know just that it's reporting coming from
the United States and it's an attack on the United States.
Hard to know how much is real info, how much
(44:55):
is dis info on purpose, how much is being a
little more slanted because it's an US or them kind
of story. Um. But they're saying that this group is
part of Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service UH also known as
the s VR, and they're saying that this group breached
email systems. That's the primary thing that occurred here. And
(45:19):
I guess the scary thing is that it's email systems
throughout a whole bunch of the United States infrastructure, of
the government infrastructure. Uh. And according to the Washington Post,
the Federal Bureau of Investigation here in the United States
is looking into this, and they say that the victims
have included government consulting, technology, telecom, oil and gas companies
(45:44):
in North America, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. And
this is according to Oh, it's it's a group called
fire I. I can't remember if we've if we've mentioned
them before, but they are a firm that generally is
watching out for these kinds of a acts and uh,
they got they got breached, and they were one of
(46:05):
the first people to kind of raise a flag. UH.
And my understanding that it was a while ago when
they first uh said this. But then if you reach
out to Russia like the if you go to the
embassy in Washington, UH, they say the they call the
hacking reports baseless. They say the attacking the information space
(46:28):
contradict Russian foreign policy and national interests, and that Russia
does not conduct offensive operations in the cyber domain. Okay,
so it's just it's just motivated patriots acting on their
own just like uh, it's like China's China's hacker army.
I will say that the big difference here between this
(46:49):
and a lot of hacks is that this is not
just a hack for information. Also, the FBI said it
was a state level actor, but they did not officially
say it's Russia. They did not kind of like that
putin law where the laws for you know, anybody who
happens to have been president of Russia. They said it
was a state level thing, but they clearly think it's Russia. Uh.
(47:11):
The dangerous part here is the fire Eye hack is
not a hack for information. Primarily, they're not looking for
you know, uh, database codes. They're learning more creepy stuff
for later surveillance or sign or whatever. What they're what
they did was they stole the fire There's something Promethean
(47:33):
about this. It's like it's like, for a for very
basic they stole a tool kit. So it's like, for
very basic analogy of this or comparison, imagine someone robs
a guns store and they do it with a gun,
and they pull this off. And then when they robbed
the store. Uh, they might check the register, but what
(47:54):
they really want is more guns, more guns, more AMMO
that they can use, the more robberies. That's what happened
here because the stuff they're taking enables them to hack
into a bunch of other networks. Yeah, exactly so. So
this is a document that another group, Solar Winds UH,
filed with the Security Exchange Commission, and what they're saying
(48:16):
is that fewer than eighteen thousand, that's eighteen thousand of
its more than three hundred thousand customers were affected. And
but here's what Ben is why it's supported. What Ben
is saying, what these eighteen thousand people did was install
an update patch essentially to the software. And this update
patch was not like the certified one that should have
(48:38):
been coming from Solar Winds for you know, in the
like when you get an official update on your computer
or your Mac or your Winness machine or whatever it is.
This one was falsified and that enabled those eighteen thousand
machines to then be activated for the purposes of this group.
That's what Ben is saying, that they're like getting more
weapons essentially. Yeah, you're right, and thank you for that.
(49:02):
Thank you for that. Clarification, Matt I would say fire
Eye may not be familiar to a lot of our listeners,
especially if you're not in the tech space or in
the weird spy space, but UH, they are familiar with you.
Their clients include things like Equifax. They worked with Sony
when we did that very weird episode about the Sony
(49:23):
hack back in. They've also worked with UH several other places.
They worked with the State Department when UH another agencies
were breached in It's m It's messy because they have
what you could kind of say is the skeleton key.
(49:45):
Not quite, but their fingers are in a lot of
digital pies and someone has hijacked their hand. Yeah. Well,
I mean, well, these are products that are used by
critical organizations in the United States. Millar Terry like multiple branches,
the Pentagon, the State Department, Justice Department, NASA, the Executive
(50:05):
Office of the President, and the n s A like.
These are all people who use this software. These are
all groups that use this software. And they were able
whoever this was was able to hack into the update
server of this Solar Winds fire Eye thing and then
(50:26):
through that system jump into all these other machines and
the scariest thing is that, I mean, does anybody out
there use Microsoft Office three. That's one of the ways
they're calling it a vector in this that they were
able to carry out this attack by by using Microsoft Office.
It's a little scary. We don't know enough right now.
(50:48):
We just know that it's gone through. We nothing necessarily
has happened. There haven't been officially any consequences because of this,
at least there's no reporting on that yet. But it
is let's use the word troubling. Yeah, yeah, because we
don't know what happens next, do we. Uh. We also
don't know what the reporting filter is. Like, what I
(51:12):
mean by reporting filter is the ways in which government
agencies or companies choose to or choose not to disclose
information to end users citizens in the case of countries,
or you know, customers in the case of consumers. So
if you are the n Essay or you are fire
(51:32):
or you know, you're the FBI or something, and you
absolutely get rocked on something like this, then you know,
if you're a company, you would arguably do the same
for your government. But if your company, you do need
to tell your customers that, like with the Sony hack.
But the thing is when when you're when you're a
(51:53):
government agency, this whole other level of mind games comes
into play. What do we disclose? How much do we disclose? Right?
And when do we message it? How do we say
it happens? Like look at the way look at the
way Ron handled stucks Net, which is probably one of
the most famous hacking events of the past few years.
(52:17):
How do you report that because you want to maintain
your position? Uh, and you want I don't know, like
a lot of these things. Whenever you hear an anonymous
source familiar with the case or blah blah blah, that's
someone who doesn't want to go on record because or
they've been told not to go on record because they
don't want to escalate a possible conflict. But they were
(52:38):
totally green lit to say that these sources who are
close to the investigation. Yeah, dude, do you mean the FBI? Yeah, yeah, exactly.
And we're gonna see fallout, man, We're definitely, we're definitely
gonna see fallout, hopefully just the political kind and you know,
not the nuclear kind. Um. That's a really weird Gallows
(53:01):
humor joke. I'm sorry for that, everyone. Um, it's interesting stuff.
Because in this article from the Washington Post, they're going
back to the d n C and some of the hacking,
you know, alleged hacking that was occurring there back in
the day. Everyone remembers that we certainly talked about it.
Um and there's we're just gonna have to wait and
(53:23):
see essentially. Yeah, but this is from the article. Solar
Winds monitoring tool has extremely deep administrative access to a
network's core functions, which means that hacking the tool would
allow anyone they're saying the Russians to freely root around
(53:43):
victims systems. So who knows what they might find or
have found. Uh, we'll find out when something gets released
on I don't know where things get released on anymore.
Is someplace? Yeah, yeah, I would say of horse Facebook memes, right, yeah,
it'll be they'll post it on Facebook. Uh. I will say,
(54:06):
fire Eye did yesterday release an official statement about this.
You can find it if you just look at fire Eye,
uh statement solar wind or solar winds. They took the
solar wind supply chain in order to distribute this thing
called they called Sunburst. That's the name they're using fire
(54:27):
Eyes term for the malware. So I would be Yeah,
I would be hesitant to say that this is going
to be an easy fix on the fire eye side
or on the side of anybody who is compromised in
this regard. So it's uh like this, okay, the scariest
(54:47):
thing just to put a sunburst the bright point on
what Matt has said here. The reason you should be
freaked out about this, and not in a conspiratorial way.
You should be very freaked out right now is that
solar Winds. According to employees, solar wind software gives you
access to pretty much everything like think cis admit and system.
(55:08):
I'm administrator and it's used by the Pentagon and the
White House. From the sound of it, it reminds me
of something. I only know this through a couple of
friends of mine that are way better computers than me.
But there is something called root access, like with Max
in particular. I don't know if this translates to Windows
systems as well, but it's something you have to get through,
like the little terminal window that like where you actually
(55:30):
enter a keystroke commands to to get you know, to
navigate around the different folders and stuff. And root access
is like god level admin access that not only gives
you access to everything. It lets you gives you, you know,
the ability to wreak havoc on systems if you so choose,
like by deleting lines of code or you know, moving
things around or making things not function properly. Yeah. Root
(55:51):
access will be familiar to a lot of our friends
who have tried to take who have needed to take
uh mandatory bloatware off of the our cell phones, the shones.
I know, we talked about this, but it really didn't
dawn on me just until now that the updates that
went out that were compromised were released in March and June.
(56:15):
So they really have been active for a long time.
And it's interesting that they were in there prior to
the US presidential election. Um. But again, like I don't
think there's any I don't mean that as in these
this group influence the election in some way. It's just
they could probably monitor a lot of things that occurred
(56:37):
in communications that were happening around the election. Um. So
that's fascinating stuff like where your head's at, Matt, Um
So everybody's hacked. Uh, everybody's hacked. Everybody's got fake COVID tests.
What's the other way everybody's trying to overthrow a country.
That's that's strange. Use today o mon days. If there
(57:01):
we go. If you guys could be in charge of
a country, like be the ruler of a country? A
would you want to? And be which country? I'm just interested?
What do you guys? What would you aim for? You
want to like a big one or you want to know? Man,
it seems like a lot of trouble for not a
lot of payoff. Maybe I'm just not benevolent enough. I
mean maybe if I thought I could do some good,
(57:22):
I might do it, but I probably would just muck
it up even worse. You could be a monarch, No,
that's fair, but I'd probably let it go to my
head and become an absolute monster. I'm gonna bow out.
I would change my name to Joseph. I would go
just out in the middle of nowhere and start Eden's
gate Um, start Hope. It would be a Hope County,
(57:45):
That's what I would call it. And uh, is this
a fallout? Are you doing a fallout thing? Is this fallout? Nope,
it's not fall out, but it would just it would
definitely be That's what I would want to do, and
I'd want to have my son John his stir and
brother like be my second, third and fourth thing. Man,
that's what I would want to do. Wait, okay, no, no,
(58:11):
one day, Matt, I'm gonna get you one day. I'll
catch these references. One day I'm up to like seventy
percent humans, So I'm I'm gonna get there one day.
This is this is how you find out what old
video game Mats playing. Just listen to the weird references
and then type them into a search the New Vegas. Nope,
let's just move. Not a fall out at all, is
(58:31):
it do do? Let me say no, We'll just let
everybody right. This is your part of the game, folks.
So let us let us know what what game is
Matt playing currently. Let us know what country you would
like to be in charge of. If you're in charge
of a country, how you would do it. Let us
know what you think about what we covered with mass
(58:53):
vaccinations with uh fraudulent COVID results and whether or not
people should have to get a vaccine depending on their
job and so on. We try to make it easy
to find us. We're all over the internet. We're on Facebook,
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and our excellent mods on Here's where it gets crazy.
(59:14):
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(59:38):
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(59:59):
you can and also, you know, get in touch with
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radio dot com. Stuff they don't want you to know
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