August 30, 2021 • 57 mins
Network Security expert Chelsea Manning comes on to talk about surveillance, online security, and steps we can take to protect our privacy.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
What's surveilling my you. This is Robert Evans, host of
It Could Happen Here, a podcast about how things are
kind of falling apart uh and also advice on how
to you know, deal with that ship. UM. Today, I'm
(00:25):
here with my colleagues Garrison Davis. Hello, Garrison, Garrison. Hi,
Sorry Garrison, it did not know we're getting called on
Garrison and Christopher Wong. HELLU, yes, that's right. And we're
going to talk about privacy, about information, self defense, about
(00:45):
avoiding surveillance with somebody who knows what the funk they're
talking about, because I sure as held down. Uh. And
for that, I want to welcome Chelsea Manning. Hey, how's
it going good? Chelsea? Um? Well, why wouldn't you want
the government to no exact actually what you're doing? Well,
I mean it's not just the government. UM. So you know,
(01:06):
one of the things that I do as a security
consultant is I UM is I provide sort of a
an analysis as to what your actual tangible threats are. UM.
So depending on who you are, what you're doing, and
what environment you're in, UM, that that is going to change.
So in the instance of the government, it may be
(01:26):
that you are a political dissident. It may be that
you are UM engaged in activities that are criminalized in
that society or culture UM or or it may be
that you know, you are simply trying to get you know,
you're trying to live your life, uh and not not
have to engage with UM, you know, tax authorities or
(01:50):
you know, so so it could be, it could be.
It could depend on what you're doing, UH and who
you're trying to avoid UM with respect to the government. UM,
I'm mostly focus on political activism and dissidents, and uh,
you know a part of that is, you know, ensuring
that you are actually not being uh you know, spide
(02:12):
on or threatened by whoever your government is, whether it's
a local, state, national, or international threat for you. And UH,
I don't know. I guess my first question would be,
like for a person who's UM, I don't know, perhaps
(02:33):
a slightly lower imminent threat of I mean, any of
the stuff that that you worry about, or that perhaps
people who are much more involved in kind of organizing
have to worry about, Like what is what do you
think is kind of the basic security hygiene toolkit that
you know, an average person ought to ought to at
least understand, if not actively practice. Right. So the basics are,
(02:58):
you know, a privacy based browser, you know, something that
doesn't have cookies for your Internet browsing UM and changing
changing Firefox. No, I mean I think I think you
know it's it's understanding the privacy features of your particular
UM browser. UM. There are browsers like Brave that that
(03:22):
that specifically specialized in this or tour browser. But UM,
you know, the vast majority of browsers today have privacy
feud features. Although you know there are there, there are
risks that come with that as to whether or not
they are UM revealing the true nature of how much
you know, information that they're collecting on you, where it's stored,
(03:42):
whether it's in a cloud hosting service, or whether it's
you know, on your on your device, on your phone,
on your computer, UM, or whether or not it's being
sold to a third party advertising you know company, or
you know to advertisers or to you know, data mining companies.
So you know it it really depends, you know, like
basically basically, nothing you do, Unfortunately, nothing you do on
(04:05):
the Internet or on an electronic device is that is
connected to another computer. UM. Is truly private. UM. So
it's about sort of reducing your um your we would
say surface area, your attack surface area or your visibility
surface area as much as possible while also maintaining a
(04:28):
certain amount of um, you know, usability because you know,
you can you can go out into a cabin in
Montana and live live off of live live out in
the woods if you so choose. But I mean, you're
not gonna be able to accomplish you know, the things
that you need to do, um that you can that
you can do with mobile devices, with computers, with servers
(04:49):
and with cloud cloud services. So it's about it's about balancing.
It's about balancing the risk versus what you actually want
to accomplish and how usable that is. Yeah, And I
don't know what is what is like when you think
of a of a of kind of an ideal browser solution,
because right like tour is a is a whole thing
(05:11):
as opposed to just like grabbing Chrome or Firefox. It's
it's it's more involved of a process to use. What
do you think, like what when when you're kind of
like recommending like what people should do, kind of what
is what is you're probably safe best practice in terms
of just browsing. In terms of just browsing, I would say, no,
(05:33):
the no, the sites that you're browsing, No, their privacy UM.
You know, like you don't have to read the privacy UM.
You know, in terms of conditions yourself, because it's usually
in legalistic gobblegook um. What you can read articles about it.
You can find out um, you know from somebody who knows,
(05:54):
UM what those are and how they change. You have
to update that, so you know, they update their terms
of service sometimes every six months. I know that some
companies do this more frequently and they don't notify you.
They and they'll they'll notify you that it's been changed
like three months ago, you know, like so you know,
you gotta you gotta keep on top of it. UM
(06:16):
and then UM, you know we're you know just sort
of like no. I mean, another big thing is is
password hygiene. You know you've got to use. I mean,
I always recommend using a password manager, like the most
basic people should use a strong password manager UM that
generates you know, specific passwords for specific accounts UM. Because
(06:38):
nobody nobody can memorize no, no, no, nobody can memorize
like I I think I have like nine d passwords
that I use on a regular basis, but only I
only memorize like three or four, you know, for my
one for my device, um, one from each specific device,
and then another for the pastor manager itself. So you know,
(06:58):
you know it just it just mostly you know, those
are basics. So everyone should be doing those things. They aren't,
but you should, you know, even if you're even if
you are you you your uh your political views are
that you know bridge brittan nity spears should be freed, uh,
(07:22):
you know if it if you're not facing like an
existential threat from your from like a you know, fascist
dictator you know, or or a police state that you
know is discriminating against you know, a particular class of
group of people, then you should be doing these things anyway,
(07:46):
you know, even though they would help you in that situation.
You should be doing these things baseline and um. Okay,
so outside of just kind of like browsing protection, right, like,
let's let's say, uh, that's not your primary word. Let's
say you're worried about being kind of like physically surveiled
(08:08):
um or physically followed, having your your your space, having
someone inter it UM, and uh, you know potentially even
when you're not there. What are kind of the physical
security measures that that you think are kind of accessible,
you know, without getting James Bond about it and buying
a bunch of bugs. Like we're talking kind of low tech,
low cost things that a person could deploy kind of
(08:31):
in the moment if they suddenly start to worry that
they're being targeted for that sort of thing. Right, So,
in terms of physical surveillance and protection, UM, there's again
you know, a ladder in terms of what you can
do and what you should do. UM. Some basic things
are put us put a strong alpha numeric password onto
(08:52):
your phone. UM, even if you have uh, you know,
your facial recognition or your your touch feature enabled, UM,
your biometrics enabled. UM, maintain physical possession of your phone.
Have a strong password. And then if you're in an
environment where you feel it that you're at risk, know
how to disable the biometric feature. For instance, you know
(09:15):
with my phone, the iPhone twelve, you have to hold
down to buttons for five seconds. UM. You know it's
the it's the top, it's the up volume button and
the power button. If you hold those two down for
five seconds, Uh, it automatically locks the biometric featricks features,
which don't have the same protections um as. I mean,
they don't have the same for legal protections as your password.
(09:38):
And you know, you you you can't be forced and
even if you even if you are in a place
where they can force you to do so, you know,
they can't just hold up your phone or you know,
put your finger right onto your device. UM have UH
encrypt your phones, like ensure that you have hardware encryption
(09:58):
on your Apple on your But you know, I always
recommend like iPhones, UH in particular for people, not because
androids are bad or anything. It's just that, you know,
the type of encryption that it uses is baked into
the hardware as opposed to UM into the software. You know.
And I know there's this whole debate over and you
(10:19):
know Android, you know, Apple being able to dig crypt
phones and and and things like that. But I mean,
at the end of the day, an Android phone is
one hundred thousand times easier to break into than an
Apple phone, UM, just by virtue of the fact that
UH it has hardware encryption and it's baked right into
the device. UH. And UM android phones use U use
(10:42):
software which is a type of software that is crackable. Um.
You know. Uh, and it's the type that's not used
on like a Linux computer you know crypt set up
so um and yeah. So as you're moving up the
ladder in terms of like physical surf alience, um, by
somebody who's following you, Um, there's this uh. There there
(11:06):
are ways in which you can detect that because you know,
you can be paranoid and you can be like, okay,
is this person following Well, but you know, there's things
that you can do. You know, you can alter your route.
You can alter the patterns of where and how you
are moving. Um. For instance, if you go to the
coffee shop at three pm every day, at the same
time every weekday that you go to your you know,
(11:28):
wherever you go, um, change it up, you know, like
don't don't go to that coffee shop one day, or
go to a different coffee shop, or you know, change
up the pattern of how you go, like you know,
go down this street, you know, mix mix it up
a bit. Um. If you are active, if you believe
that you are actively being surrealed, you can do what's
called a surveillance detection route, which is where you alter
(11:51):
your path uh to a predesignated UM bottleneck where no
other person where there's no there's no way of like
there's not like three passes a place, there's a bottleneck
like a bridge or a tunnel or an alleyway that
UM you would have to go through UM if you
(12:13):
are being followed, and then you can detect and confirm
that you are in fact being followed by by by
an individual. And physical surveillance is typically not done by
an individual. Obviously in the case of like a stalker,
it maybe, but UM if if if it's like a
law enforcement agency or an intelligence agency or even like
(12:35):
a paramilitary you know, militia group, UM, typically they're going
to use UH two typically at least three or more
UM people too that are in communication with each other.
And then that's another thing you can look for is
do they have radios? Do they have earpieces? Are they
wearing clothing that would um hide uh the fact that
(13:00):
they're wearing a radio for instance, or you know, and
all that also goes for like firearms, right, you know,
if they're wearing a baggy clothing UM or a suit
that uh is a little ill fitting, it's a little
too much then they may be trying to hide, um,
some bolts or something. Somebody who's in a tight fitting
(13:21):
leotard is probably not surveilling you. And um. One of
the things that kind of I always have in mind
when I'm at like a hotel or you know, an
airbnb or whatever in a strange place, if I am
concerned about like being followed, is trying to set up
little um, little catches. Uh yeah, tell tales, Um, would
(13:45):
you talk about that a little bit? So tell tales
and there's new there's the hundreds of methods of doing
these things. They're little, so sometimes they can be um.
Sometimes they can be simple things like setting a book
or an item on top of something or in front
of something at a particular angle and that angle maybe
(14:09):
you know, you can take a picture of it, or
you can mark the angle of that particular item. Um.
You know, something that that you know you would that
you would not think, you know, you would just be like, okay,
here's an item that's in the way, and you might
move that if you are trying to surreptitiously enter into something. Um,
And then they would put it back, but they wouldn't
put it back quite in the same way right. So
(14:33):
if they if they don't see the tell tale the
fact that it's a tell tale, UM, they may they
they may it may be like completely off right. UM.
There's also things that you can do in terms of
like having seals UM. You know, I tend to keep um,
you know, evidence tape, which is difficult to break and
(14:53):
serialize that evidence tape at that UM to know that
you know that it has a particular serial number on it.
UM to be able to detect whether an item has
been broken into UM or that you know that seal
has been broken into and that would be very difficult.
I mean it's possible, but it would take You would
be talking about the resources of of a very sophisticated
(15:16):
state actor with an enormous amount of planning, an enormous
amount of intelligence gathering to be able to replicate um
that uh, that seal has been broken UM. And there's
simple things like you know, using using tape and spaghetti,
you know like drive spaghetti like prety like pre cooks spaghetti.
Something that would break if you know a door is
(15:37):
open or something. Literally that photo of the cheeto over
the door latch, Yeah, I think that's from that that's
that's from death note right, I don't know. Actually, you know,
you and I talk pretty regularly. At one thing you
you've kind of are constantly going over in your head
is kind of different potential uh risk scenarios you see happening. Um.
(16:02):
You spend a lot of time thinking about what might happen,
um and what the what the best response would be
in that situation. Yeah, And and there's a lot of
precedent for most most things. Most things are typically a
lot of precedent. You know, it may not be because
I mean, like for instance, the US. You know, there
may be situations or you know, things that are that
(16:23):
have that have happened in the past, um but not recently,
or things that um have happened internationally that have not
happened recently in the US that you can look to
as a as a as a corollarya or an example.
So yeah, what do you I mean when it when
it comes to kind of threats you see for let's say,
people who are activists, community organizers, who have you know,
(16:47):
had their face published as part of an anti fascist
gathering or whatever. When you think about like crackdown concerns, UM,
what are kind of the what are kind of what
are the potentialities that kind of run through your head
is as kind of likely narrative events that that could happen,
and then kind of what you see is the best
(17:07):
reactions to those, right, So you know, I I mostly
focus on, UM, either the basics or the worst case scenario.
So obviously there's that that step ladder, right, you know,
So I am always thinking about, UM, you know, the
basics of you know, okay, what happens if I have
been docked? Right? You know, the vast majority of people
(17:31):
that come to me for assistance tend to be people
who are afraid of being docked or who have already
been docked. UM. Doxing is the this is I mean,
I'm I'm I'll just explain it real fast. You know.
Doxing is whenever either your face, your your identity, UM who,
what your name is, your age, your location, who your
(17:53):
family is, your associations have been revealed and pulp and
shared with a threat group or a large group of
people who may who who could potentially gather this information
and be and and use it as a threat against you, UM,
you know, to to harass you, to show up at
your house to UM find you in a crowd, um,
(18:15):
and to attack you, or to harass you, or to
you know, um, discourage an employer from working with you
and whatnot. Um. And so you know, they're like unfortunately,
once they're docs, it's kind of hard to it's it's
it's you know, it's a it's a it's an edge
ropy cut kind of thing. Like it's it's you. You
can break it, you know, like you you can. You can.
(18:37):
Once you make an omelet out of eggs, it's very
hard to make that the eggs back into an omelet, right, So, UM,
you've got to kind of start over after you've already
been docks and start from scratch in terms of like
how to protect yourself. And you'll never have the same
level of protection as you did if you hadn't been
docks in the first place. And that's that's the unfortunate reality. Um,
(18:58):
the kinds of things that you you can try to do. Obviously,
you know, if you were in a crowd where um
you may be docked, you know, where some kind of
face face covering or protection. You know, obviously we're in
a pandemic, so you know, uh, you know, masks makes
sense these days. Um. Another situation or another thing that
(19:19):
you can do is you can just avoid being in
the main group of a crowd or in the front
line of a crowd like that. You know, it's sometimes
it's just as simple as just not being where the
cameras are as well, like being aware of where cameras are,
where people who are maybe what you know, like documenting
things are and avoiding those locations. I personally tend to
(19:43):
be around the journalist gaggle myself because that way I
see where the cameras are pointed, because I'm behind them
as opposed to in front of them. So that's my
own personal little trick to not being um captured on
film or on camera. Um, you know, if if I'm
at an event. Uh, so you know, Uh, this is
(20:05):
something as simple as that, as just sort of knowing
your angles and knowing you know, who's watching and and
things like that, and then uh, don't put out your address,
don't give out your address, and you know, like do
surveillance detect you know, do surveillance detection routes when you
go home or when you're leaving, you know, for a
high risk event or activity. Um and um, you know,
(20:28):
just the more that you think about it. The more
and the more the questions that you ask, the better
off you are you tend to be. And um, I
think that a lot of people get very focused on
their phones as well as opposed to like simple things
like their faces and um, their interactions and how they
(20:49):
how they address and how they look in a crowd. Um,
there's this concept called the great person concept. Um prep
you know, prepper, the preper community tends to degenerate, right
and the man yeah, yeah, and you know like, okay,
so I'll wait on that. No no, no, no, go
ahead and explain it, and then I'll talk about because
(21:11):
I think there's a there's a difference between the wisdom
and the concept and also how idiots tend to adopt it.
So I'll chat about that after you introduce it. Right, So,
the great person concept, in my mind, it tends to
be a way of you know, just sort of blending
into a crowd, you know, or into an environment. Right.
(21:32):
You know, if you are in a small town in
a rural area, you know, dress like look, look how
other people dress. You know, if you show up you
know wearing a wearing a bright colored you know, um
jacket with brand names on it and a beanie cap.
You'll probably be recognizable even by people who are not
(21:53):
looking for you. They'll there will be people who will
be like, that person looks out of place, and then
they can go come back in their member or and
be like, you know, if somebody asks questions them, they'll
be like, oh, yeah, I remember the person in the
orange Nike jacket wearing a red cap. You know. Um.
The great person concept is about avoiding that just being
(22:15):
being unrememberable, unrecognizable in in a crowd an environment like that.
You know. Um, I have I have names for what
I do. Like I have my I have my my
soccer mom vibe. I have my you know for for
the suburbs. I have my business attire vibe for when
I'm in an urban area. I have, um, you know,
(22:37):
my street I have my street clothing, you know, for
if I'm out a protest or at a march of
some variety. Um. And and then you know, if I'm
out in the rural areas, you know, I've got my
I've got my jeans, We've got my belt buckle, and
I've got my uh, I've got my plaid, my plaid
for shirt, right, you know. So it's you know, and
with a little bit of cama, right, you know, Like
(22:57):
it depends on your environment. But you know, some basics
are no bright, avoid bright colors, um, avoid branding unless
everybody else is wearing the same branding. So if you're
at a sport, if you're if you're in a college town,
you know, and you have the mascot of the mascot
of that team is everywhere, then it makes sense, um
(23:20):
to have a jacket that has that sports team color
on it, you know, or that or that mascot on it, um.
You know. So it's about it. It's it's it's juggling.
It's an adjustment, and no situation is the same. Like
this idea that there there's this one great person outfit
is kind of absurd. And uh, I think a lot
a lot of a lot of a lot of a
(23:42):
lot of a lot of people who do this stuff.
They tend to like buy the most tactical stuff like
don't wear don't we don't wear tactical gear and Hawaiian shirts,
you know, in the middle of in the middle of
in the middle of like upstate New York for instance. Right,
you're gonna stay, You're gonna stand out. So the gray
man in a it's usually referred to in like kind
of the tactical prepper community is like gray man um
(24:05):
has has turned into its its whole fashioned brand, which
is like literally the opposite of the point. The point
is that like nothing about you would stand out in
a crowd um. But people have this like if you,
if you're, if you're, if you, if you're like me,
and you talk about guns at all on social media,
you get a bunch of targeted ads for like specific
backpacks that are meant to carry entire rifles and have
(24:26):
like body armor panels in them, and like yeah, hoodies
with gun holsters, and we know it and we see it.
So if we if we're you know, I I can
tell if I wileven tactical bag from mile away. You know,
I I own them a car, I own my own
good bags. I carry good bags. But the idea that
the idea that a threat, that that a potential threat
(24:47):
isn't going to immediately recognize those brands, uh, those brands
of bags and those foreign factors of bags and jackets
and pants is absurd. You know, any law enforcement person
is going to know, you know, any law enforcement or
intelligence or paramilitary group is going to be able to
be like I know that, I know those pants. Yeah,
(25:07):
you'd be much more useful to basically Jerry Jerry your
own of these scenarios kind of like what booster Begs
used to be brands that like seldom now, which is like, no,
that's not the point of Yeah, that's not the thing.
If you want, if you want, if you want strong,
sturdy wear, then go for the tactical stuff. But if
(25:27):
you're trying to do the great person concept, go to target. Yeah. Yeah,
like the the the way it's been taken by like
the prepper tactical communities. You have to like dress like
Jason Bourne, right, and like so everybody who winds up
doing gray Man in that community woinds up looking like
a federal agent. Right. They have like the cargo pants
(25:47):
and they've got like yeah, but if everyone can see you,
But if you're in Northern Virginia, that is the great person.
Like if you are if you're in the country, dress
like a fed for sure. Um. But if you're smaller, yeah,
and there's even like smaller simple things like my I
(26:11):
have a friend who is decently good at like this
great person concept I don't think he uses that term,
but he teaches stealth classes at a park ordium. I
used to go at um And one of the main
things that gets talked about is like even like controlling
where your eyes are and controlling where your head is
is super useful for trying to do that. Like if
you're like looking around always, if always parked up, if
(26:33):
you're trying, if you're like very focused on things, people
are gonna pay attention to you. If if you keep
your head down, if you keep your body kind of
slouched of people's eyes graze over you so so much more. Yeah,
be the loser kid in the hallway and be the
good to a grocery store, and like watch the moms right,
like watch the kind of clothing they're wearing, or like
(26:56):
watch you know, dad's with their kids. Like watch people
who normally you would just kind of like, oh, these
are just other people around in the world. Um and
and and dress like those people like they don't. That
doesn't attract much in the way of attention. Like you
you are, you are being less of a gray man
if you're wearing the specific gun concealing tactical pants. Then
(27:16):
if you're wearing I don't know, sweat pants and a
flannel you know, like just just just like think about
how people actually dress in the world and go like
part of effectively doing that is actually paying attention. It's
like Chelsea said, if you live in a place where
like every third person as a government contractor, then yeah,
maybe maybe go with the khakis and the polo and whatever, like, right,
(27:39):
Like that's that maybe your best bet, um, But if
you're in Williamsburg or whatever you're going to have, there's
going to be different clothing that isn't going to like
arouse any suspicion, right, And you know, you know, you
we you all often saw this as an example, you
know from my own military background. You know, you would
see this with um, with special forces, right, the special
(28:00):
operators would come in wearing you know, and come into
a village wearing just decked out in tactical gear with
their beer, with their beards and their um and their schmods, right,
and you know, of course, of course they stand out, right,
you know it it's the idea that they were that
they were secret or that they were invisible is you know,
(28:21):
they may they may fit into the culture and they
may look cool, but they you know, a true operator,
uh is not going to do those things. I mean,
at least one who is who is actually trying to
do the great person concept. Yeah, and it's um it
kind of dovetails into one of the other things I
think is the dumbest thing you see on kind of
(28:43):
like the prepper whatever, right, is like open carry, which
is like, you can't get further from this concept than
than visibly carrying a weapon. Um, which if your your goal,
and it always should be in a violent situation, yeah,
it should be, it should be concealed, but X yeah,
if if you're carrying a firearm. But in general, um,
(29:04):
there's there's a concept within kind of like the military
and people who like particularly within kind of like special
forces of it's called the onion of survivability, and the
basic idea, you know, it's a it's a diagram of
an onion that's supposed to kind of explain to you
the different things you can do that make you more
survivable in a gunfight or another dangerous situation, and stuff
(29:27):
like having body armor is the tiniest part of the
onion because if body armor is useful to you, a
number of things have gone wrong because you've been shot. Like,
it's not the worst case scenario, but it's the second
worst case scenario. The things that protect you most are
not having body armor, they're not being seen, if you
are seen, not being acquired, which means not but not
(29:48):
being seen, not being noticed. Not being targeted is by
far like the biggest thing, um. And so if you
know you are, wherever you are becomes a markedly more
dangerous place, whether you specifically you're targeted or if there's
just a lot of random violence going on, your best
bet for safety is always going to be not being targeted. Um.
(30:10):
And obviously there's no perfectly doing that right as you know,
we've all seen enough stories of mass shootings where the
victim is a bunch of kids in a fucking elementary school.
I'm not trying to like victim blame people who do
get targeted, but there are things that you can do
to make it less likely that you'll be targeted, because
anyone looking to do well there there's you know, there
are there are also things that you can't do, like,
(30:31):
you know, like you can't change that, you can't choose
the color of his skin, you can't the language that
you speak. You know, and these are these are things
that the proper community just don't take into effect. It's
always it's always a white it's always a white dude, right,
you know, uh, you know, and I'm me being a
FIM presenting trans person, right, My outfits tend to lean
towards something that is non threatening in a in a
(30:53):
great person situation. And that's why I have my sort
of uh my soccer mom, get up right, you know
which is you know, it's the kind of thing where
you know, you wouldn't notice me in a in in
a in a Walmart, right, you know it's I'm not
wearing you know, I'm not wearing boots, I'm not wearing
(31:13):
you know, fancy clothes. I'm not wearing. You know. It's
it's it's stuff that you get at Target. It's and
it's like faded clothe It's it's it's faded clothing that
maybe like one that's been worn a bit, but you know, uh,
neutral neutral tones of clothing. Um, you know, a bag,
you know, just what fits for that particular environment, right,
(31:35):
you know, and and who you are, it will affect that.
You know, if you have brown skin, you are not
going to be able to dress up the same way
as you would in West Texas. Like you're not going
to be able to blend in, um the same way
that a that a white you know, guy in a
cowboy in a you know, in a gallon sized cowboy hat,
it is able to do. I would like to talk
(32:09):
about something that was brought up a lot last year,
mostly towards the end of the protests, with stuff like
sell Bright and Pegasus UM. Oh boy, Yeah, the the
the ms I catchers or whatever they are, the phone
hacking slash phone cloning UM. Specifically, those two brands boast
for their abilities two break into Apple phones, both from
(32:33):
a distance and you know when once the phone is
actually like once they have physical possession of the phone. UM.
And you know, this freaked out a lot of people
and people, you know, there's a lot of people when
they go to demos they're talking about like not not
bringing your phone, which can be very very useful for
a lot of ways, but for some people it is
and it is it is a necessity, um, because they
need for for various reasons, they needed to like get
(32:55):
around and can get in contact with certain people. UM.
So what are good security things to kind of get
in the habit of if you need to have your
phone at places and you are thinking of these types
of raiance technologies. You know, it's stuff like our our
Faraday begs useful are are a certain dance better than others?
What are like? I know, there's there's a lot of
like grifting in this kind of sphere online as well.
(33:17):
If people could like make these like you know, security
type of things, you know, to protect yourself. There's a
lot of like dubious websites claiming that they can protect you. Um. Yeah,
how how would one go about, well, at first to
give if you give, if you would be able to
explain what celebrate is? Um, and like what what would
people can do too? Well? Yeah, to try to prevent
(33:38):
some of the worst effects. So there are a number
of tools that law enforcement and forensics UM offices use. Um,
they're not as good as the intelligence agencies. You know,
I think people just jumped immediately to the n s
A because of the Stone leaks. UM. You know, your
biggest threat groups are actually going to be much lower
(33:58):
tier if if you're pro tester UM, since those are
those those methods tend to be reserved for the most
uh um for the most extreme cases, you know, not
anything involving like large math casualty incidents, national security, or
you know, foreign foreign states. Right, if you're a protester
on the street, UM, your biggest threat group is going
(34:19):
to be your local law enforcement and your local federal
eight federal agencies in the US UM, and the methods
that they use are going to be these these tools
called you know they're there are different brands. There are
different brands for it UM. There are different there are
different methods UM. You know for MZ catching, which is
an older methods UM for uh, you know, capturing your
(34:41):
location both your location uh and uh what you know,
any text messages that you're doing over SMS UM can
be just sort of grabbed out of the air um uh.
If you're using a data plan UM, you know, like
just tend to you know, your your your stuff is
gonna be at a higher level of encryption, so you
want to keep your If you are going to use
(35:02):
your communications using cryptic communications, I highly recommend signal UM.
There are a number of problems with WhatsApp, there's a
number of problems with Telegram. There's another number of problems
with all these different applications. They will they will provide
you some level of protection. But but signal I think
is just the most is just the safest and the
most reliable, But it also is it perfect. And there
(35:23):
are going to be situations where where you know, using
signal fails. Um I you know, I can think of
a number of situations where signal in particular failed on
Android devices that were physics that physical possession was obtained
by a law enforcement agency and they were able to
even see disappeared messages. And that that brings us back
(35:44):
a little bit to the turning off. You know, the
thing that is often recommended for protesters. Turn off biometrics
if you're going, if you're bringing your phone to a protest,
which is not ideal, turn off biometrics, and uh, turn
off like visible notifications, so like when they aren't popping
up with people's names and all the contents of the message,
(36:04):
because then I don't need to break into the phone.
They could just watch your screen. Yeah yeah, yeah exactly,
Um yeah, Put it and do not disturb. Stick it
in the Faraday bag. Put the Faraday bag in one
of your holes. Turn off your phone importantly if you're
if you put it, if if you have a fairity bag.
There's no there's no point if you put your bag
into a fairy if you put your if you have
(36:26):
your cell phone not on airplane mode and it's on
the data, it's on the cell network, and it's and
you know it's pinging, and you've got bars, and you
leave it on and you put it into a fairity bag,
you may as well. You may as well just be
in an elevator at that point, because that's the best
protection you're going to get. You can double wrap it,
but actually physically like turn it off into completely off
(36:50):
where you actually have to turn it on if you're
going to put it into a fairity bag, because you
are reducing the purpose on the level of protection that
you have. And I know a number of people who
have made this mistake where they think, oh, my my
phone is safe because it's an a fairity bag. Well,
you know, you have, you are muffling your you're you're
getting one bar, but you're you're still if somebody is
close enough and they have if they have, if they're
(37:11):
physically close enough, they can still MC catch, they can
still identify you, and your phone is automatically going to
try to transmit harder and and use up more battery power.
So it's it's even a risk in terms of like
you know, just soaking sucking up all the juice out
of out of your battery as quickly as possible, you know,
by putting it in there, and it's not it's not off. Um.
(37:35):
And yeah, I think that turning off your phone and
keep putting it into a fairity bag is the best
is the best compromise for not bringing your phone at all. Um.
That's what I tend to do, is I turn off
my phone, put it into a feririty bag, dig it
into my bag, and then if I need it, I
can pull it out and I keep my phone on
(37:55):
airplane mode and use you know, like whatever WiFi services
there are with a V Like. These are things that
I do if I'm if I'm in a situation like that. Um.
One thing that's been on my mind more and more,
are you know, situations where which are more extreme and
which are less of what we've been seeing for the
last you know, decade or so. And what do you
(38:19):
mean by that? Well, I mean what I mean is
is imagine such a situations where, um, you know, the
people in the United States haven't seen, haven't seen very
often the full effects of the security establishment just unleashed, unshamped, right,
(38:40):
Boomerang hasn't come all the way back around yet, right,
so it has. It's just the people forgotten about situations
where the government has unleashed its full potential, right you know, yeah, oh,
even even bigger, like, you know, the biggest, the biggest
example that I can think of is the Boston bombing,
(39:01):
right where essentially West Boston and Cambridge and Watertown were
turning to a we're turned into a military occupation, right
where they were just worrelessly busting down doors using every
single surveillance method you know, and and just you know,
somebody you know push the you know, somebody in Washington
(39:21):
pushed the button and said we're going to you know,
unleash the full potential, you know, And it was it
was over two guys you know who and and who
murdered a couple of people you know, uh, you know,
and more people have done more, more people have died
in some of these protests than you know than they
killed and injured in that bombing. So, you know, like
the government has the option and the choice to fully
(39:44):
unleash its full potential. And those are the kinds of
situations that I've been trying to sort of threaten model
for its situations that are more extreme and that are
that we haven't really encountered before. Um, you know, what,
what happens whenever you know, warrants don't mean anything. What
happens whever you know, like what happens whenever you have
a blend, a hybridized blend between a para between whether
(40:05):
you know, you can't tell whether it's a whether it's
a paramilitary street gang, or if it's a or if
it's a legitimate law enforcement agency. You know, like and
something that happened to people in Oregon last year with
the checkpoints during fire season, where there were folks who
looked almost indistinguishable from cops in in their body armor
and guns, checking people for driving into certain towns. Yeah,
(40:30):
it's a mild version of the thing you're talking about.
But like this isn't you know, this isn't uh what
what you're modeling is like five minutes ahead. It's not
a not a huge leap. Yeah, So you know in
those kinds of situations, you know, Um, your threat models
are going to change for everyone, right, you know in
that instance, you know, um, you may not have Internet access,
(40:52):
it may be shut down, it may be restricted, right,
you know, So a lot of those things, a lot
of those resources that I was suggesting before in terms
of protecting yourself are you know, uh are for situations
where you have a somewhat functioning you know, liberal society
and government, right with with with some norms and protections, right,
(41:14):
But if those norms and protections are eroded to a
to a certain point, or they are removed, then you
need to start look thinking about like the kinds of
methods that are used by more extreme situation and more
extreme situations such as in conflict zones like where you were,
you might not use your cell phone at all. You
may only use a laptop you know that is disconnected
(41:38):
from the Internet, and to do all of your things,
you may have to physically carry you know, um USB
devices to transfer information you may need. You know, your
your your least concern may maybe showing out a p
up at a protest, Your your your your primary motivation
maybe to avoid all crowds at all. You know, in
those kinds of situations, you know, you you know, and
(42:02):
that's what what I've been talking about in terms of
like threat modeling, you have to understand what your threat is,
and that can change. You know, if you're a normally
that can that can shoot up if you're in a
situation where you're not sure who the actual governing authority is.
(42:29):
I don't want to with this get to the place
where we're like we're like trying to hunt people up
or freak them out. Part of the point of like
thinking about this stuff and and understanding, um, kind of
the risks and what could happen and how to mitigate
it is so that um, it's less freaky if something
like it happens, and so that you're kind of prepared
(42:52):
and understand what the possibilities are. UM. And I wonder
kind of why you think we didn't hit things didn't
go as like to the extent you're talking about, like
what happens if this national security apparatus turns like it
on fully and hits people kind of like full in
the face. Where do you think that didn't happen last year? So?
(43:16):
I think it didn't happen last year because you know,
the it was it wasn't it was too big of
a protest movement for the government to to try to
suppress fully. Um, and it would lead the backlash. And
also it wasn't it wasn't enough of a threat to
the order of things, so to speak, um for it
(43:39):
to be for that level of you know, of extreme
measures to be uh enacted and and and used. Right, Um,
those are those those methods tend to be used for
the most extreme situations in which the federal which the
federal government in particular, not just the state of local authorities,
(44:00):
The federal government feels that there is that there is
a distinct threat. I mean obviously in the case of
the Boston bombing, Um, they viewed, they viewed the you know,
they they viewed that situation very differently than they do
you know, a couple of thousand people protesting, you know. Um,
it just it just has very very different Um, it
(44:21):
has a very very different intent. What my concern is
what happens when um, you know, local state and local
authority is in a particular region or locality cease to function,
you know, they just stop showing up. And what the
federal government does in that situation, right you know, where
you know, law enforcement decide actually we're we're gonna let
(44:43):
you know, We're we're gonna let people murder each other,
we don't care. You know. Um, we're gonna let We're
gonna let paramilitary groups do policing operations, we don't care.
You know. In that kind of situation, the federal government
may step in, uh and assert its authority. You know,
And it has happened before, you know, reconstruction. Um, you
(45:05):
know where you know, there wasn't really a share. There
weren't really sheriffs that you could go to in the South.
So you know, the military essentially established its own court system,
its own government. Um. So there is precedent, but it's
never been used in the twenty one century high technology,
high surveillance like you know, like the the Union Army
(45:28):
in in South Carolina was not using drones, right. I
wonder if the closest thing we've gotten to that sort
of recently was during the La riots in the nineties
because I mean, like ye know that they have to
play the army there. I think we almost got that
last summer, we did. Um. The problem the problem there,
The problem is is that there there were it was
(45:49):
happening in too many cities, and the federal the military
only like people forget the military only has so many
logistics that it can move at a time. Right, It
actually takes time to move a division of true, right,
you know, uh, you can move a brigade combat team
in ninety six hours only because that that brigade combat
team has been designated and has been trained for and
(46:10):
been tooled up for six months to be able to
do that. And it can only do that. It only
has that capability for a year. Right. So A the
idea that you can move multiple divisions of troops to
a to multiple major cities, uh in a in the
span of a week or a month, is is a reaching.
(46:30):
You know, you have to pre stage that stuff. It
takes time. It takes time to move this stuff, even
even if you cut corners. You know, the redeployment in
Afghanistan is about the speed that you're going to see
a deployment within the United States of say, um the
military or and that's essentially like a deployment to a
city and as even in some ways kind of less
(46:52):
than you would need because of the limited scope of
the mission. If you were trying to like lockdown New
York or Los Angeles, you can you can send you
could send activity troops to Los Angeles. And two because
it's it's limited to Los Angeles, you have a specific mission.
You also have you know, there used to be a
military base that was nearby, um, you know, not not
(47:14):
nearby like you know probably in military terms like a
three hour drive. You know you had you had, um
what is it for Ordo uh in? Yeah, by Monterey
you know if it was called basilone yet. But yeah,
there's like Marine Corps training bases near San Diego. Yeah. Yeah,
so you know, like it it's feasible. Right. The idea
(47:34):
that you can that you can do this in in
what fifty sixty cities is you can't do it's we
couldn't do it Iraq with troops. So you know, the
best the best we could do was like deploy was deployed,
was deploy a division here and there and play you
know what John McCain called black Amole. Yeah. Yeah, I
(47:55):
did ask the military to come to Portland. They just
said no because they thought it would be a bad idea. Yeah.
And where where where this Where wud this troops come from?
What affiliate? You know, what kind of what kind of
affiliation would they have? What kind of you know, um.
National Guard to National Guard troops tend to reflect the
(48:18):
sentiment of a slightly more right wing um, you know,
version of the population. Maybe maybe the Overton window is
a little bit more to the right, but not that much,
you know, Yeah, they're not not certainly not as much
as like cops. It's a much more mainstream chunk of
the populace um, which is why when we did have
National Guard in Portland, they were a lot less violent
(48:40):
than the federal agents had been, or than the kind
they're also green, you know, they're they don't have the
They don't they have They haven't been inculcated or indoctrinated
for years with this idea that we are we are
here too occupy and to suppress right um. In this
very it takes a while for that mindset to sort
(49:01):
of set in. It did happen interack in Afghanistan. So
it doesn't mean that troops can't won't won't gain that
mindset if there's if there was a domestic occupation of
some variety um from a federalization of troops, but it
would it would start to kick in, and it wouldn't
it wouldn't take It wouldn't take as long as you
think maybe maybe maybe a few and maybe a few
(49:22):
violent incidents, you know, before that mentality starts to to
kick in. One other interesting thing to look at, like
in terms of like how fast the apabis can be deployed.
It's like in the days after January six, there was
like a lot of people, um, we're getting doortalks in
(49:43):
the FBI. Like there was a lot of there's a
lot of people, like to the point where there was
like bystanders who were just watching were like, the FBI
should have at my house, and they said that they
knew I was around January six, and they like they
showed me on a map the actual spot where I
was standing on the sidewalk, and like the FBI very
quickly got tons of phone records. Yeah, that was like immediate,
(50:06):
So like they don't always have them all the time,
but they can get them very quickly whenever they watched too. Yeah. Yeah,
they were reaching out to so many people that like
FBI agents whose job is not at all doing anything
like that. Like everybody who was like not outsick for
work was doing door knob knocks, Like people who were
(50:28):
in completely different branches because they were they were they
had gotten so many people's records, and they were just
kind of flooding the zone. Yeah, which I think is
less less about fact finding because I don't think I
don't know how munch. I think it was less about
fact finding and more about kind of a show of force,
you know, the kind of force that the FBI does exert,
(50:49):
which is information force primarily. Yeah, I mean that in
presence you know the fact that they can knock on door.
They can knock on your doors even though they met.
There may not be actual purpose, you might not have information,
but they don't care because the whole point is we
knocked on your door, like we you know. Um that
(51:10):
it won. Six was the second I mean, I was
I think the largest investigation, I mean, which is quite
something if you look at the fact that nine eleven
was previously the largest investigation, Like nine eleven is now
the second largest federal law enforcement investigation in US history,
with one six being higher. Um, we did it, everybody,
(51:33):
We beat bin Laden. Yeah, so you know, it's ladies
and gentlemen, the capability exist. The capability exists a matter
of of of of actually enabling those resources, you know.
So um, and in that instance, it was for eighteen
people in this instance, it was for several hundred, which
is one of the reasons why it's scaled out. But
the consequence of the consequences from lawn from from the
(51:57):
federal agency's perspective of the of this investigation are different.
Like I don't think anybody's gonna I don't think you're
looking at a death penalty Guantanamo case. I guess one
other thing that I wouldn't see if you think there's
something you can take from it, which is that you know,
if if you look at the response between like the
(52:18):
people fighting outside the White House last summer and then
January six, is that there there's kind of you get
safety and numbers to some extent, Like it isn't always
protect you know a lot of people, Like I mean,
there's there's a bunch of FED or a bunch of
FED raids in Atlanta at the end of last year,
people who were involved in protest stuff. But yeah, like
(52:39):
I guess it. You know, the the more unrest is happening,
the more sort of but the harder it is for
the crackdown to come. Yes, um, which is why they
tend to hold that you know, UM security forces have
it to. I mean, this is why I think it's
very important if there is another uprising situation like last year. Um,
(53:00):
you know, and I don't think I don't think. I
don't think that they've I don't think that that that
is that that is over. From their perspective. They are
going to continue to do investigations into what happened in summer.
You know, there are investigations still ongoing from the stuff
that happened in sen you know, with Standing Rock. So
you know, um, obviously you know, like the investigation in
in my own in my own personal case in twenty
(53:22):
ten seems to never end, right you know, so, uh,
something happen, Yeah I had, Yeah, I got. I won't
get into that, but you know that. But the point
is is that is that the the one of the
advantages that a federal that the federal government or state
law enforcement has is time. You know, they don't have
(53:46):
to always be there in a show of force. Um,
so you want to re do you know if if
you and that time can mean political changes, right, you know,
where a situation like under a Republican president will be
different than a democratic president will be different than a
situation where there where it's unclear who the president is. Well,
(54:10):
this has been a fun one. UM, fun stuff to
think about. Um, Chelsea, where can the good people or
the bad people find you? The good people or the
bad people can find me at x y chelsea on Twitter.
I am at x y chelse eight seven on Twitch.
I do some game streams periodically. I have slowed that
(54:33):
down a bit though. UM. I have a Patreon at
UH patreon dot com forward slash x y Chelsea UM
for content that I am currently in the late stages
of producing UH for tech related things, including you know,
things like cryptocurrency, are official intelligence, surveillance, those kinds of
concepts UM. And I am also on Instagram at x
(54:57):
l c oh and I have a TikTok now so
I will be I'm working on several TikTok's that are
related to these kinds of things, UM, privacy, surveillance, and
protecting yourself. UM. As I showed my my everyday carry
bag was one of the first things that I showed. Awesome. Well,
all right, UH, find Chelsea there and find us tomorrow
(55:21):
with another episode of it could happen here talking about
I don't know something something something, let's go oh, actually, Garrison.
We know what it'll be. Why don't you put in
a plug for the thing you did? Oh yeah, tomorrow
we uh, I will be releasing the first of a
two part episode. On my trip to northern Minnesota, I
(55:44):
traveled to an Earth First gathering and subsequent Stop Playing
three protest camp. UM was there for a little little
over a week, was present and documenting multiple kind of
direct actions. And yeah, we'll be talking about with like
Earth First and like the history of environmental organizing and
then the more modern kind of Stop Line three UM
(56:07):
protests going on and what Mbridge is doing, so that
that is going to be the next next two episodes
will be covering that topic. And actually, in another fun,
fun little side note, I had just finished a video
game called Telling Lies, which is about the federal surveillance
operation into an environmental protest group. And I think they
(56:29):
hand this game was done very well. UM. I would
love to talk about it more on the podcast eventually, UM,
after I do some more like reading on its development.
But um, if you want to, if you want to
get a look at like potential ways FEDS do like surveillance,
this game is actually a great example of how they
infiltrate um in in the environmental activist groups and different
different methods they use to survey surveil people, and how
(56:53):
they can pull like, um, you know, videos and phone
records that kind of stuff. So it was fun, fun
to entent on these all these topic. Yeah, this has
been a fun, fun day for everybody. Well that's going
to do it for us that it could happen here. Oh,
this wasn't even the heaviest stuff that I could get into.
Well we'll do that maybe in another week, thanks Chelsea. Alright,
(57:16):
well until next week or tomorrow whatever. Bye, it happened.
What's surveilling my you. This is Robert Evans, host of
It Could Happen Here, a podcast about how things are
kind of falling apart uh and also advice on how
to you know, deal with that ship. UM. Today, I'm
(00:25):
here with my colleagues Garrison Davis. Hello, Garrison, Garrison. Hi,
Sorry Garrison, it did not know we're getting called on
Garrison and Christopher Wong. HELLU, yes, that's right. And we're
going to talk about privacy, about information, self defense, about
(00:45):
avoiding surveillance with somebody who knows what the funk they're
talking about, because I sure as held down. Uh. And
for that, I want to welcome Chelsea Manning. Hey, how's
it going good? Chelsea? Um? Well, why wouldn't you want
the government to no exact actually what you're doing? Well,
I mean it's not just the government. UM. So you know,
(01:06):
one of the things that I do as a security
consultant is I UM is I provide sort of a
an analysis as to what your actual tangible threats are. UM.
So depending on who you are, what you're doing, and
what environment you're in, UM, that that is going to change.
So in the instance of the government, it may be
(01:26):
that you are a political dissident. It may be that
you are UM engaged in activities that are criminalized in
that society or culture UM or or it may be
that you know, you are simply trying to get you know,
you're trying to live your life, uh and not not
have to engage with UM, you know, tax authorities or
(01:50):
you know, so so it could be, it could be.
It could depend on what you're doing, UH and who
you're trying to avoid UM with respect to the government. UM,
I'm mostly focus on political activism and dissidents, and uh,
you know a part of that is, you know, ensuring
that you are actually not being uh you know, spide
(02:12):
on or threatened by whoever your government is, whether it's
a local, state, national, or international threat for you. And UH,
I don't know. I guess my first question would be,
like for a person who's UM, I don't know, perhaps
(02:33):
a slightly lower imminent threat of I mean, any of
the stuff that that you worry about, or that perhaps
people who are much more involved in kind of organizing
have to worry about, Like what is what do you
think is kind of the basic security hygiene toolkit that
you know, an average person ought to ought to at
least understand, if not actively practice. Right. So the basics are,
(02:58):
you know, a privacy based browser, you know, something that
doesn't have cookies for your Internet browsing UM and changing
changing Firefox. No, I mean I think I think you
know it's it's understanding the privacy features of your particular
UM browser. UM. There are browsers like Brave that that
(03:22):
that specifically specialized in this or tour browser. But UM,
you know, the vast majority of browsers today have privacy
feud features. Although you know there are there, there are
risks that come with that as to whether or not
they are UM revealing the true nature of how much
you know, information that they're collecting on you, where it's stored,
(03:42):
whether it's in a cloud hosting service, or whether it's
you know, on your on your device, on your phone,
on your computer, UM, or whether or not it's being
sold to a third party advertising you know company, or
you know to advertisers or to you know, data mining companies.
So you know it it really depends, you know, like
basically basically, nothing you do, Unfortunately, nothing you do on
(04:05):
the Internet or on an electronic device is that is
connected to another computer. UM. Is truly private. UM. So
it's about sort of reducing your um your we would
say surface area, your attack surface area or your visibility
surface area as much as possible while also maintaining a
(04:28):
certain amount of um, you know, usability because you know,
you can you can go out into a cabin in
Montana and live live off of live live out in
the woods if you so choose. But I mean, you're
not gonna be able to accomplish you know, the things
that you need to do, um that you can that
you can do with mobile devices, with computers, with servers
(04:49):
and with cloud cloud services. So it's about it's about balancing.
It's about balancing the risk versus what you actually want
to accomplish and how usable that is. Yeah, And I
don't know what is what is like when you think
of a of a of kind of an ideal browser solution,
because right like tour is a is a whole thing
(05:11):
as opposed to just like grabbing Chrome or Firefox. It's
it's it's more involved of a process to use. What
do you think, like what when when you're kind of
like recommending like what people should do, kind of what
is what is you're probably safe best practice in terms
of just browsing. In terms of just browsing, I would say, no,
(05:33):
the no, the sites that you're browsing, No, their privacy UM.
You know, like you don't have to read the privacy UM.
You know, in terms of conditions yourself, because it's usually
in legalistic gobblegook um. What you can read articles about it.
You can find out um, you know from somebody who knows,
(05:54):
UM what those are and how they change. You have
to update that, so you know, they update their terms
of service sometimes every six months. I know that some
companies do this more frequently and they don't notify you.
They and they'll they'll notify you that it's been changed
like three months ago, you know, like so you know,
you gotta you gotta keep on top of it. UM
(06:16):
and then UM, you know we're you know just sort
of like no. I mean, another big thing is is
password hygiene. You know you've got to use. I mean,
I always recommend using a password manager, like the most
basic people should use a strong password manager UM that
generates you know, specific passwords for specific accounts UM. Because
(06:38):
nobody nobody can memorize no, no, no, nobody can memorize
like I I think I have like nine d passwords
that I use on a regular basis, but only I
only memorize like three or four, you know, for my
one for my device, um, one from each specific device,
and then another for the pastor manager itself. So you know,
(06:58):
you know it just it just mostly you know, those
are basics. So everyone should be doing those things. They aren't,
but you should, you know, even if you're even if
you are you you your uh your political views are
that you know bridge brittan nity spears should be freed, uh,
(07:22):
you know if it if you're not facing like an
existential threat from your from like a you know, fascist
dictator you know, or or a police state that you
know is discriminating against you know, a particular class of
group of people, then you should be doing these things anyway,
(07:46):
you know, even though they would help you in that situation.
You should be doing these things baseline and um. Okay,
so outside of just kind of like browsing protection, right, like,
let's let's say, uh, that's not your primary word. Let's
say you're worried about being kind of like physically surveiled
(08:08):
um or physically followed, having your your your space, having
someone inter it UM, and uh, you know potentially even
when you're not there. What are kind of the physical
security measures that that you think are kind of accessible,
you know, without getting James Bond about it and buying
a bunch of bugs. Like we're talking kind of low tech,
low cost things that a person could deploy kind of
(08:31):
in the moment if they suddenly start to worry that
they're being targeted for that sort of thing. Right, So,
in terms of physical surveillance and protection, UM, there's again
you know, a ladder in terms of what you can
do and what you should do. UM. Some basic things
are put us put a strong alpha numeric password onto
(08:52):
your phone. UM, even if you have uh, you know,
your facial recognition or your your touch feature enabled, UM,
your biometrics enabled. UM, maintain physical possession of your phone.
Have a strong password. And then if you're in an
environment where you feel it that you're at risk, know
how to disable the biometric feature. For instance, you know
(09:15):
with my phone, the iPhone twelve, you have to hold
down to buttons for five seconds. UM. You know it's
the it's the top, it's the up volume button and
the power button. If you hold those two down for
five seconds, Uh, it automatically locks the biometric featricks features,
which don't have the same protections um as. I mean,
they don't have the same for legal protections as your password.
(09:38):
And you know, you you you can't be forced and
even if you even if you are in a place
where they can force you to do so, you know,
they can't just hold up your phone or you know,
put your finger right onto your device. UM have UH
encrypt your phones, like ensure that you have hardware encryption
(09:58):
on your Apple on your But you know, I always
recommend like iPhones, UH in particular for people, not because
androids are bad or anything. It's just that, you know,
the type of encryption that it uses is baked into
the hardware as opposed to UM into the software. You know.
And I know there's this whole debate over and you
(10:19):
know Android, you know, Apple being able to dig crypt
phones and and and things like that. But I mean,
at the end of the day, an Android phone is
one hundred thousand times easier to break into than an
Apple phone, UM, just by virtue of the fact that
UH it has hardware encryption and it's baked right into
the device. UH. And UM android phones use U use
(10:42):
software which is a type of software that is crackable. Um.
You know. Uh, and it's the type that's not used
on like a Linux computer you know crypt set up
so um and yeah. So as you're moving up the
ladder in terms of like physical surf alience, um, by
somebody who's following you, Um, there's this uh. There there
(11:06):
are ways in which you can detect that because you know,
you can be paranoid and you can be like, okay,
is this person following Well, but you know, there's things
that you can do. You know, you can alter your route.
You can alter the patterns of where and how you
are moving. Um. For instance, if you go to the
coffee shop at three pm every day, at the same
time every weekday that you go to your you know,
(11:28):
wherever you go, um, change it up, you know, like
don't don't go to that coffee shop one day, or
go to a different coffee shop, or you know, change
up the pattern of how you go, like you know,
go down this street, you know, mix mix it up
a bit. Um. If you are active, if you believe
that you are actively being surrealed, you can do what's
called a surveillance detection route, which is where you alter
(11:51):
your path uh to a predesignated UM bottleneck where no
other person where there's no there's no way of like
there's not like three passes a place, there's a bottleneck
like a bridge or a tunnel or an alleyway that
UM you would have to go through UM if you
(12:13):
are being followed, and then you can detect and confirm
that you are in fact being followed by by by
an individual. And physical surveillance is typically not done by
an individual. Obviously in the case of like a stalker,
it maybe, but UM if if if it's like a
law enforcement agency or an intelligence agency or even like
(12:35):
a paramilitary you know, militia group, UM, typically they're going
to use UH two typically at least three or more
UM people too that are in communication with each other.
And then that's another thing you can look for is
do they have radios? Do they have earpieces? Are they
wearing clothing that would um hide uh the fact that
(13:00):
they're wearing a radio for instance, or you know, and
all that also goes for like firearms, right, you know,
if they're wearing a baggy clothing UM or a suit
that uh is a little ill fitting, it's a little
too much then they may be trying to hide, um,
some bolts or something. Somebody who's in a tight fitting
(13:21):
leotard is probably not surveilling you. And um. One of
the things that kind of I always have in mind
when I'm at like a hotel or you know, an
airbnb or whatever in a strange place, if I am
concerned about like being followed, is trying to set up
little um, little catches. Uh yeah, tell tales, Um, would
(13:45):
you talk about that a little bit? So tell tales
and there's new there's the hundreds of methods of doing
these things. They're little, so sometimes they can be um.
Sometimes they can be simple things like setting a book
or an item on top of something or in front
of something at a particular angle and that angle maybe
(14:09):
you know, you can take a picture of it, or
you can mark the angle of that particular item. Um.
You know, something that that you know you would that
you would not think, you know, you would just be like, okay,
here's an item that's in the way, and you might
move that if you are trying to surreptitiously enter into something. Um,
And then they would put it back, but they wouldn't
put it back quite in the same way right. So
(14:33):
if they if they don't see the tell tale the
fact that it's a tell tale, UM, they may they
they may it may be like completely off right. UM.
There's also things that you can do in terms of
like having seals UM. You know, I tend to keep um,
you know, evidence tape, which is difficult to break and
(14:53):
serialize that evidence tape at that UM to know that
you know that it has a particular serial number on it.
UM to be able to detect whether an item has
been broken into UM or that you know that seal
has been broken into and that would be very difficult.
I mean it's possible, but it would take You would
be talking about the resources of of a very sophisticated
(15:16):
state actor with an enormous amount of planning, an enormous
amount of intelligence gathering to be able to replicate um
that uh, that seal has been broken UM. And there's
simple things like you know, using using tape and spaghetti,
you know like drive spaghetti like prety like pre cooks spaghetti.
Something that would break if you know a door is
(15:37):
open or something. Literally that photo of the cheeto over
the door latch, Yeah, I think that's from that that's
that's from death note right, I don't know. Actually, you know,
you and I talk pretty regularly. At one thing you
you've kind of are constantly going over in your head
is kind of different potential uh risk scenarios you see happening. Um.
(16:02):
You spend a lot of time thinking about what might happen,
um and what the what the best response would be
in that situation. Yeah, And and there's a lot of
precedent for most most things. Most things are typically a
lot of precedent. You know, it may not be because
I mean, like for instance, the US. You know, there
may be situations or you know, things that are that
(16:23):
have that have happened in the past, um but not recently,
or things that um have happened internationally that have not
happened recently in the US that you can look to
as a as a as a corollarya or an example.
So yeah, what do you I mean when it when
it comes to kind of threats you see for let's say,
people who are activists, community organizers, who have you know,
(16:47):
had their face published as part of an anti fascist
gathering or whatever. When you think about like crackdown concerns, UM,
what are kind of the what are kind of what
are the potentialities that kind of run through your head
is as kind of likely narrative events that that could happen,
and then kind of what you see is the best
(17:07):
reactions to those, right, So you know, I I mostly
focus on, UM, either the basics or the worst case scenario.
So obviously there's that that step ladder, right, you know,
So I am always thinking about, UM, you know, the
basics of you know, okay, what happens if I have
been docked? Right? You know, the vast majority of people
(17:31):
that come to me for assistance tend to be people
who are afraid of being docked or who have already
been docked. UM. Doxing is the this is I mean,
I'm I'm I'll just explain it real fast. You know.
Doxing is whenever either your face, your your identity, UM who,
what your name is, your age, your location, who your
(17:53):
family is, your associations have been revealed and pulp and
shared with a threat group or a large group of
people who may who who could potentially gather this information
and be and and use it as a threat against you, UM,
you know, to to harass you, to show up at
your house to UM find you in a crowd, um,
(18:15):
and to attack you, or to harass you, or to
you know, um, discourage an employer from working with you
and whatnot. Um. And so you know, they're like unfortunately,
once they're docs, it's kind of hard to it's it's
it's you know, it's a it's a it's an edge
ropy cut kind of thing. Like it's it's you. You
can break it, you know, like you you can. You can.
(18:37):
Once you make an omelet out of eggs, it's very
hard to make that the eggs back into an omelet, right, So, UM,
you've got to kind of start over after you've already
been docks and start from scratch in terms of like
how to protect yourself. And you'll never have the same
level of protection as you did if you hadn't been
docks in the first place. And that's that's the unfortunate reality. Um,
(18:58):
the kinds of things that you you can try to do. Obviously,
you know, if you were in a crowd where um
you may be docked, you know, where some kind of
face face covering or protection. You know, obviously we're in
a pandemic, so you know, uh, you know, masks makes
sense these days. Um. Another situation or another thing that
(19:19):
you can do is you can just avoid being in
the main group of a crowd or in the front
line of a crowd like that. You know, it's sometimes
it's just as simple as just not being where the
cameras are as well, like being aware of where cameras are,
where people who are maybe what you know, like documenting
things are and avoiding those locations. I personally tend to
(19:43):
be around the journalist gaggle myself because that way I
see where the cameras are pointed, because I'm behind them
as opposed to in front of them. So that's my
own personal little trick to not being um captured on
film or on camera. Um, you know, if if I'm
at an event. Uh, so you know, Uh, this is
(20:05):
something as simple as that, as just sort of knowing
your angles and knowing you know, who's watching and and
things like that, and then uh, don't put out your address,
don't give out your address, and you know, like do
surveillance detect you know, do surveillance detection routes when you
go home or when you're leaving, you know, for a
high risk event or activity. Um and um, you know,
(20:28):
just the more that you think about it. The more
and the more the questions that you ask, the better
off you are you tend to be. And um, I
think that a lot of people get very focused on
their phones as well as opposed to like simple things
like their faces and um, their interactions and how they
(20:49):
how they address and how they look in a crowd. Um,
there's this concept called the great person concept. Um prep
you know, prepper, the preper community tends to degenerate, right
and the man yeah, yeah, and you know like, okay,
so I'll wait on that. No no, no, no, go
ahead and explain it, and then I'll talk about because
(21:11):
I think there's a there's a difference between the wisdom
and the concept and also how idiots tend to adopt it.
So I'll chat about that after you introduce it. Right, So,
the great person concept, in my mind, it tends to
be a way of you know, just sort of blending
into a crowd, you know, or into an environment. Right.
(21:32):
You know, if you are in a small town in
a rural area, you know, dress like look, look how
other people dress. You know, if you show up you
know wearing a wearing a bright colored you know, um
jacket with brand names on it and a beanie cap.
You'll probably be recognizable even by people who are not
(21:53):
looking for you. They'll there will be people who will
be like, that person looks out of place, and then
they can go come back in their member or and
be like, you know, if somebody asks questions them, they'll
be like, oh, yeah, I remember the person in the
orange Nike jacket wearing a red cap. You know. Um.
The great person concept is about avoiding that just being
(22:15):
being unrememberable, unrecognizable in in a crowd an environment like that.
You know. Um, I have I have names for what
I do. Like I have my I have my my
soccer mom vibe. I have my you know for for
the suburbs. I have my business attire vibe for when
I'm in an urban area. I have, um, you know,
(22:37):
my street I have my street clothing, you know, for
if I'm out a protest or at a march of
some variety. Um. And and then you know, if I'm
out in the rural areas, you know, I've got my
I've got my jeans, We've got my belt buckle, and
I've got my uh, I've got my plaid, my plaid
for shirt, right, you know. So it's you know, and
with a little bit of cama, right, you know, Like
(22:57):
it depends on your environment. But you know, some basics
are no bright, avoid bright colors, um, avoid branding unless
everybody else is wearing the same branding. So if you're
at a sport, if you're if you're in a college town,
you know, and you have the mascot of the mascot
of that team is everywhere, then it makes sense, um
(23:20):
to have a jacket that has that sports team color
on it, you know, or that or that mascot on it, um.
You know. So it's about it. It's it's it's juggling.
It's an adjustment, and no situation is the same. Like
this idea that there there's this one great person outfit
is kind of absurd. And uh, I think a lot
a lot of a lot of a lot of a
(23:42):
lot of a lot of people who do this stuff.
They tend to like buy the most tactical stuff like
don't wear don't we don't wear tactical gear and Hawaiian shirts,
you know, in the middle of in the middle of
in the middle of like upstate New York for instance. Right,
you're gonna stay, You're gonna stand out. So the gray
man in a it's usually referred to in like kind
of the tactical prepper community is like gray man um
(24:05):
has has turned into its its whole fashioned brand, which
is like literally the opposite of the point. The point
is that like nothing about you would stand out in
a crowd um. But people have this like if you,
if you're, if you're, if you, if you're like me,
and you talk about guns at all on social media,
you get a bunch of targeted ads for like specific
backpacks that are meant to carry entire rifles and have
(24:26):
like body armor panels in them, and like yeah, hoodies
with gun holsters, and we know it and we see it.
So if we if we're you know, I I can
tell if I wileven tactical bag from mile away. You know,
I I own them a car, I own my own
good bags. I carry good bags. But the idea that
the idea that a threat, that that a potential threat
(24:47):
isn't going to immediately recognize those brands, uh, those brands
of bags and those foreign factors of bags and jackets
and pants is absurd. You know, any law enforcement person
is going to know, you know, any law enforcement or
intelligence or paramilitary group is going to be able to
be like I know that, I know those pants. Yeah,
(25:07):
you'd be much more useful to basically Jerry Jerry your
own of these scenarios kind of like what booster Begs
used to be brands that like seldom now, which is like, no,
that's not the point of Yeah, that's not the thing.
If you want, if you want, if you want strong,
sturdy wear, then go for the tactical stuff. But if
(25:27):
you're trying to do the great person concept, go to target. Yeah. Yeah,
like the the the way it's been taken by like
the prepper tactical communities. You have to like dress like
Jason Bourne, right, and like so everybody who winds up
doing gray Man in that community woinds up looking like
a federal agent. Right. They have like the cargo pants
(25:47):
and they've got like yeah, but if everyone can see you,
But if you're in Northern Virginia, that is the great person.
Like if you are if you're in the country, dress
like a fed for sure. Um. But if you're smaller, yeah,
and there's even like smaller simple things like my I
(26:11):
have a friend who is decently good at like this
great person concept I don't think he uses that term,
but he teaches stealth classes at a park ordium. I
used to go at um And one of the main
things that gets talked about is like even like controlling
where your eyes are and controlling where your head is
is super useful for trying to do that. Like if
you're like looking around always, if always parked up, if
(26:33):
you're trying, if you're like very focused on things, people
are gonna pay attention to you. If if you keep
your head down, if you keep your body kind of
slouched of people's eyes graze over you so so much more. Yeah,
be the loser kid in the hallway and be the
good to a grocery store, and like watch the moms right,
like watch the kind of clothing they're wearing, or like
(26:56):
watch you know, dad's with their kids. Like watch people
who normally you would just kind of like, oh, these
are just other people around in the world. Um and
and and dress like those people like they don't. That
doesn't attract much in the way of attention. Like you
you are, you are being less of a gray man
if you're wearing the specific gun concealing tactical pants. Then
(27:16):
if you're wearing I don't know, sweat pants and a
flannel you know, like just just just like think about
how people actually dress in the world and go like
part of effectively doing that is actually paying attention. It's
like Chelsea said, if you live in a place where
like every third person as a government contractor, then yeah,
maybe maybe go with the khakis and the polo and whatever, like, right,
(27:39):
Like that's that maybe your best bet, um, But if
you're in Williamsburg or whatever you're going to have, there's
going to be different clothing that isn't going to like
arouse any suspicion, right, And you know, you know, you
we you all often saw this as an example, you
know from my own military background. You know, you would
see this with um, with special forces, right, the special
(28:00):
operators would come in wearing you know, and come into
a village wearing just decked out in tactical gear with
their beer, with their beards and their um and their schmods, right,
and you know, of course, of course they stand out, right,
you know it it's the idea that they were that
they were secret or that they were invisible is you know,
(28:21):
they may they may fit into the culture and they
may look cool, but they you know, a true operator,
uh is not going to do those things. I mean,
at least one who is who is actually trying to
do the great person concept. Yeah, and it's um it
kind of dovetails into one of the other things I
think is the dumbest thing you see on kind of
(28:43):
like the prepper whatever, right, is like open carry, which
is like, you can't get further from this concept than
than visibly carrying a weapon. Um, which if your your goal,
and it always should be in a violent situation, yeah,
it should be, it should be concealed, but X yeah,
if if you're carrying a firearm. But in general, um,
(29:04):
there's there's a concept within kind of like the military
and people who like particularly within kind of like special
forces of it's called the onion of survivability, and the
basic idea, you know, it's a it's a diagram of
an onion that's supposed to kind of explain to you
the different things you can do that make you more
survivable in a gunfight or another dangerous situation, and stuff
(29:27):
like having body armor is the tiniest part of the
onion because if body armor is useful to you, a
number of things have gone wrong because you've been shot. Like,
it's not the worst case scenario, but it's the second
worst case scenario. The things that protect you most are
not having body armor, they're not being seen, if you
are seen, not being acquired, which means not but not
(29:48):
being seen, not being noticed. Not being targeted is by
far like the biggest thing, um. And so if you
know you are, wherever you are becomes a markedly more
dangerous place, whether you specifically you're targeted or if there's
just a lot of random violence going on, your best
bet for safety is always going to be not being targeted. Um.
(30:10):
And obviously there's no perfectly doing that right as you know,
we've all seen enough stories of mass shootings where the
victim is a bunch of kids in a fucking elementary school.
I'm not trying to like victim blame people who do
get targeted, but there are things that you can do
to make it less likely that you'll be targeted, because
anyone looking to do well there there's you know, there
are there are also things that you can't do, like,
(30:31):
you know, like you can't change that, you can't choose
the color of his skin, you can't the language that
you speak. You know, and these are these are things
that the proper community just don't take into effect. It's
always it's always a white it's always a white dude, right,
you know, uh, you know, and I'm me being a
FIM presenting trans person, right, My outfits tend to lean
towards something that is non threatening in a in a
(30:53):
great person situation. And that's why I have my sort
of uh my soccer mom, get up right, you know
which is you know, it's the kind of thing where
you know, you wouldn't notice me in a in in
a in a Walmart, right, you know it's I'm not
wearing you know, I'm not wearing boots, I'm not wearing
(31:13):
you know, fancy clothes. I'm not wearing. You know. It's
it's it's stuff that you get at Target. It's and
it's like faded clothe It's it's it's faded clothing that
maybe like one that's been worn a bit, but you know, uh,
neutral neutral tones of clothing. Um, you know, a bag,
you know, just what fits for that particular environment, right,
(31:35):
you know, and and who you are, it will affect that.
You know, if you have brown skin, you are not
going to be able to dress up the same way
as you would in West Texas. Like you're not going
to be able to blend in, um the same way
that a that a white you know, guy in a
cowboy in a you know, in a gallon sized cowboy hat,
it is able to do. I would like to talk
(32:09):
about something that was brought up a lot last year,
mostly towards the end of the protests, with stuff like
sell Bright and Pegasus UM. Oh boy, Yeah, the the
the ms I catchers or whatever they are, the phone
hacking slash phone cloning UM. Specifically, those two brands boast
for their abilities two break into Apple phones, both from
(32:33):
a distance and you know when once the phone is
actually like once they have physical possession of the phone. UM.
And you know, this freaked out a lot of people
and people, you know, there's a lot of people when
they go to demos they're talking about like not not
bringing your phone, which can be very very useful for
a lot of ways, but for some people it is
and it is it is a necessity, um, because they
need for for various reasons, they needed to like get
(32:55):
around and can get in contact with certain people. UM.
So what are good security things to kind of get
in the habit of if you need to have your
phone at places and you are thinking of these types
of raiance technologies. You know, it's stuff like our our
Faraday begs useful are are a certain dance better than others?
What are like? I know, there's there's a lot of
like grifting in this kind of sphere online as well.
(33:17):
If people could like make these like you know, security
type of things, you know, to protect yourself. There's a
lot of like dubious websites claiming that they can protect you. Um. Yeah,
how how would one go about, well, at first to
give if you give, if you would be able to
explain what celebrate is? Um, and like what what would
people can do too? Well? Yeah, to try to prevent
(33:38):
some of the worst effects. So there are a number
of tools that law enforcement and forensics UM offices use. Um,
they're not as good as the intelligence agencies. You know,
I think people just jumped immediately to the n s
A because of the Stone leaks. UM. You know, your
biggest threat groups are actually going to be much lower
(33:58):
tier if if you're pro tester UM, since those are
those those methods tend to be reserved for the most
uh um for the most extreme cases, you know, not
anything involving like large math casualty incidents, national security, or
you know, foreign foreign states. Right, if you're a protester
on the street, UM, your biggest threat group is going
(34:19):
to be your local law enforcement and your local federal
eight federal agencies in the US UM, and the methods
that they use are going to be these these tools
called you know they're there are different brands. There are
different brands for it UM. There are different there are
different methods UM. You know for MZ catching, which is
an older methods UM for uh, you know, capturing your
(34:41):
location both your location uh and uh what you know,
any text messages that you're doing over SMS UM can
be just sort of grabbed out of the air um uh.
If you're using a data plan UM, you know, like
just tend to you know, your your your stuff is
gonna be at a higher level of encryption, so you
want to keep your If you are going to use
(35:02):
your communications using cryptic communications, I highly recommend signal UM.
There are a number of problems with WhatsApp, there's a
number of problems with Telegram. There's another number of problems
with all these different applications. They will they will provide
you some level of protection. But but signal I think
is just the most is just the safest and the
most reliable, But it also is it perfect. And there
(35:23):
are going to be situations where where you know, using
signal fails. Um I you know, I can think of
a number of situations where signal in particular failed on
Android devices that were physics that physical possession was obtained
by a law enforcement agency and they were able to
even see disappeared messages. And that that brings us back
(35:44):
a little bit to the turning off. You know, the
thing that is often recommended for protesters. Turn off biometrics
if you're going, if you're bringing your phone to a protest,
which is not ideal, turn off biometrics, and uh, turn
off like visible notifications, so like when they aren't popping
up with people's names and all the contents of the message,
(36:04):
because then I don't need to break into the phone.
They could just watch your screen. Yeah yeah, yeah exactly,
Um yeah, Put it and do not disturb. Stick it
in the Faraday bag. Put the Faraday bag in one
of your holes. Turn off your phone importantly if you're
if you put it, if if you have a fairity bag.
There's no there's no point if you put your bag
into a fairy if you put your if you have
(36:26):
your cell phone not on airplane mode and it's on
the data, it's on the cell network, and it's and
you know it's pinging, and you've got bars, and you
leave it on and you put it into a fairity bag,
you may as well. You may as well just be
in an elevator at that point, because that's the best
protection you're going to get. You can double wrap it,
but actually physically like turn it off into completely off
(36:50):
where you actually have to turn it on if you're
going to put it into a fairity bag, because you
are reducing the purpose on the level of protection that
you have. And I know a number of people who
have made this mistake where they think, oh, my my
phone is safe because it's an a fairity bag. Well,
you know, you have, you are muffling your you're you're
getting one bar, but you're you're still if somebody is
close enough and they have if they have, if they're
(37:11):
physically close enough, they can still MC catch, they can
still identify you, and your phone is automatically going to
try to transmit harder and and use up more battery power.
So it's it's even a risk in terms of like
you know, just soaking sucking up all the juice out
of out of your battery as quickly as possible, you know,
by putting it in there, and it's not it's not off. Um.
(37:35):
And yeah, I think that turning off your phone and
keep putting it into a fairity bag is the best
is the best compromise for not bringing your phone at all. Um.
That's what I tend to do, is I turn off
my phone, put it into a feririty bag, dig it
into my bag, and then if I need it, I
can pull it out and I keep my phone on
(37:55):
airplane mode and use you know, like whatever WiFi services
there are with a V Like. These are things that
I do if I'm if I'm in a situation like that. Um.
One thing that's been on my mind more and more,
are you know, situations where which are more extreme and
which are less of what we've been seeing for the
last you know, decade or so. And what do you
(38:19):
mean by that? Well, I mean what I mean is
is imagine such a situations where, um, you know, the
people in the United States haven't seen, haven't seen very
often the full effects of the security establishment just unleashed, unshamped, right,
(38:40):
Boomerang hasn't come all the way back around yet, right,
so it has. It's just the people forgotten about situations
where the government has unleashed its full potential, right you know, yeah, oh,
even even bigger, like, you know, the biggest, the biggest
example that I can think of is the Boston bombing,
(39:01):
right where essentially West Boston and Cambridge and Watertown were
turning to a we're turned into a military occupation, right
where they were just worrelessly busting down doors using every
single surveillance method you know, and and just you know,
somebody you know push the you know, somebody in Washington
(39:21):
pushed the button and said we're going to you know,
unleash the full potential, you know, And it was it
was over two guys you know who and and who
murdered a couple of people you know, uh, you know,
and more people have done more, more people have died
in some of these protests than you know than they
killed and injured in that bombing. So, you know, like
the government has the option and the choice to fully
(39:44):
unleash its full potential. And those are the kinds of
situations that I've been trying to sort of threaten model
for its situations that are more extreme and that are
that we haven't really encountered before. Um, you know, what,
what happens whenever you know, warrants don't mean anything. What
happens whever you know, like what happens whenever you have
a blend, a hybridized blend between a para between whether
(40:05):
you know, you can't tell whether it's a whether it's
a paramilitary street gang, or if it's a or if
it's a legitimate law enforcement agency. You know, like and
something that happened to people in Oregon last year with
the checkpoints during fire season, where there were folks who
looked almost indistinguishable from cops in in their body armor
and guns, checking people for driving into certain towns. Yeah,
(40:30):
it's a mild version of the thing you're talking about.
But like this isn't you know, this isn't uh what
what you're modeling is like five minutes ahead. It's not
a not a huge leap. Yeah, So you know in
those kinds of situations, you know, Um, your threat models
are going to change for everyone, right, you know in
that instance, you know, um, you may not have Internet access,
(40:52):
it may be shut down, it may be restricted, right,
you know, So a lot of those things, a lot
of those resources that I was suggesting before in terms
of protecting yourself are you know, uh are for situations
where you have a somewhat functioning you know, liberal society
and government, right with with with some norms and protections, right,
(41:14):
But if those norms and protections are eroded to a
to a certain point, or they are removed, then you
need to start look thinking about like the kinds of
methods that are used by more extreme situation and more
extreme situations such as in conflict zones like where you were,
you might not use your cell phone at all. You
may only use a laptop you know that is disconnected
(41:38):
from the Internet, and to do all of your things,
you may have to physically carry you know, um USB
devices to transfer information you may need. You know, your
your your least concern may maybe showing out a p
up at a protest, Your your your your primary motivation
maybe to avoid all crowds at all. You know, in
those kinds of situations, you know, you you know, and
(42:02):
that's what what I've been talking about in terms of
like threat modeling, you have to understand what your threat is,
and that can change. You know, if you're a normally
that can that can shoot up if you're in a
situation where you're not sure who the actual governing authority is.
(42:29):
I don't want to with this get to the place
where we're like we're like trying to hunt people up
or freak them out. Part of the point of like
thinking about this stuff and and understanding, um, kind of
the risks and what could happen and how to mitigate
it is so that um, it's less freaky if something
like it happens, and so that you're kind of prepared
(42:52):
and understand what the possibilities are. UM. And I wonder
kind of why you think we didn't hit things didn't
go as like to the extent you're talking about, like
what happens if this national security apparatus turns like it
on fully and hits people kind of like full in
the face. Where do you think that didn't happen last year? So?
(43:16):
I think it didn't happen last year because you know,
the it was it wasn't it was too big of
a protest movement for the government to to try to
suppress fully. Um, and it would lead the backlash. And
also it wasn't it wasn't enough of a threat to
the order of things, so to speak, um for it
(43:39):
to be for that level of you know, of extreme
measures to be uh enacted and and and used. Right, Um,
those are those those methods tend to be used for
the most extreme situations in which the federal which the
federal government in particular, not just the state of local authorities,
(44:00):
The federal government feels that there is that there is
a distinct threat. I mean obviously in the case of
the Boston bombing, Um, they viewed, they viewed the you know,
they they viewed that situation very differently than they do
you know, a couple of thousand people protesting, you know. Um,
it just it just has very very different Um, it
(44:21):
has a very very different intent. What my concern is
what happens when um, you know, local state and local
authority is in a particular region or locality cease to function,
you know, they just stop showing up. And what the
federal government does in that situation, right you know, where
you know, law enforcement decide actually we're we're gonna let
(44:43):
you know, We're we're gonna let people murder each other,
we don't care. You know. Um, we're gonna let We're
gonna let paramilitary groups do policing operations, we don't care.
You know. In that kind of situation, the federal government
may step in, uh and assert its authority. You know,
And it has happened before, you know, reconstruction. Um, you
(45:05):
know where you know, there wasn't really a share. There
weren't really sheriffs that you could go to in the South.
So you know, the military essentially established its own court system,
its own government. Um. So there is precedent, but it's
never been used in the twenty one century high technology,
high surveillance like you know, like the the Union Army
(45:28):
in in South Carolina was not using drones, right. I
wonder if the closest thing we've gotten to that sort
of recently was during the La riots in the nineties
because I mean, like ye know that they have to
play the army there. I think we almost got that
last summer, we did. Um. The problem the problem there,
The problem is is that there there were it was
(45:49):
happening in too many cities, and the federal the military
only like people forget the military only has so many
logistics that it can move at a time. Right, It
actually takes time to move a division of true, right,
you know, uh, you can move a brigade combat team
in ninety six hours only because that that brigade combat
team has been designated and has been trained for and
(46:10):
been tooled up for six months to be able to
do that. And it can only do that. It only
has that capability for a year. Right. So A the
idea that you can move multiple divisions of troops to
a to multiple major cities, uh in a in the
span of a week or a month, is is a reaching.
(46:30):
You know, you have to pre stage that stuff. It
takes time. It takes time to move this stuff, even
even if you cut corners. You know, the redeployment in
Afghanistan is about the speed that you're going to see
a deployment within the United States of say, um the
military or and that's essentially like a deployment to a
city and as even in some ways kind of less
(46:52):
than you would need because of the limited scope of
the mission. If you were trying to like lockdown New
York or Los Angeles, you can you can send you
could send activity troops to Los Angeles. And two because
it's it's limited to Los Angeles, you have a specific mission.
You also have you know, there used to be a
military base that was nearby, um, you know, not not
(47:14):
nearby like you know probably in military terms like a
three hour drive. You know you had you had, um
what is it for Ordo uh in? Yeah, by Monterey
you know if it was called basilone yet. But yeah,
there's like Marine Corps training bases near San Diego. Yeah. Yeah,
so you know, like it it's feasible. Right. The idea
(47:34):
that you can that you can do this in in
what fifty sixty cities is you can't do it's we
couldn't do it Iraq with troops. So you know, the
best the best we could do was like deploy was deployed,
was deploy a division here and there and play you
know what John McCain called black Amole. Yeah. Yeah, I
(47:55):
did ask the military to come to Portland. They just
said no because they thought it would be a bad idea. Yeah.
And where where where this Where wud this troops come from?
What affiliate? You know, what kind of what kind of
affiliation would they have? What kind of you know, um.
National Guard to National Guard troops tend to reflect the
(48:18):
sentiment of a slightly more right wing um, you know,
version of the population. Maybe maybe the Overton window is
a little bit more to the right, but not that much,
you know, Yeah, they're not not certainly not as much
as like cops. It's a much more mainstream chunk of
the populace um, which is why when we did have
National Guard in Portland, they were a lot less violent
(48:40):
than the federal agents had been, or than the kind
they're also green, you know, they're they don't have the
They don't they have They haven't been inculcated or indoctrinated
for years with this idea that we are we are
here too occupy and to suppress right um. In this
very it takes a while for that mindset to sort
(49:01):
of set in. It did happen interack in Afghanistan. So
it doesn't mean that troops can't won't won't gain that
mindset if there's if there was a domestic occupation of
some variety um from a federalization of troops, but it
would it would start to kick in, and it wouldn't
it wouldn't take It wouldn't take as long as you
think maybe maybe maybe a few and maybe a few
(49:22):
violent incidents, you know, before that mentality starts to to
kick in. One other interesting thing to look at, like
in terms of like how fast the apabis can be deployed.
It's like in the days after January six, there was
like a lot of people, um, we're getting doortalks in
(49:43):
the FBI. Like there was a lot of there's a
lot of people, like to the point where there was
like bystanders who were just watching were like, the FBI
should have at my house, and they said that they
knew I was around January six, and they like they
showed me on a map the actual spot where I
was standing on the sidewalk, and like the FBI very
quickly got tons of phone records. Yeah, that was like immediate,
(50:06):
So like they don't always have them all the time,
but they can get them very quickly whenever they watched too. Yeah. Yeah,
they were reaching out to so many people that like
FBI agents whose job is not at all doing anything
like that. Like everybody who was like not outsick for
work was doing door knob knocks, Like people who were
(50:28):
in completely different branches because they were they were they
had gotten so many people's records, and they were just
kind of flooding the zone. Yeah, which I think is
less less about fact finding because I don't think I
don't know how munch. I think it was less about
fact finding and more about kind of a show of force,
you know, the kind of force that the FBI does exert,
(50:49):
which is information force primarily. Yeah, I mean that in
presence you know the fact that they can knock on door.
They can knock on your doors even though they met.
There may not be actual purpose, you might not have information,
but they don't care because the whole point is we
knocked on your door, like we you know. Um that
(51:10):
it won. Six was the second I mean, I was
I think the largest investigation, I mean, which is quite
something if you look at the fact that nine eleven
was previously the largest investigation, Like nine eleven is now
the second largest federal law enforcement investigation in US history,
with one six being higher. Um, we did it, everybody,
(51:33):
We beat bin Laden. Yeah, so you know, it's ladies
and gentlemen, the capability exist. The capability exists a matter
of of of of actually enabling those resources, you know.
So um, and in that instance, it was for eighteen
people in this instance, it was for several hundred, which
is one of the reasons why it's scaled out. But
the consequence of the consequences from lawn from from the
(51:57):
federal agency's perspective of the of this investigation are different.
Like I don't think anybody's gonna I don't think you're
looking at a death penalty Guantanamo case. I guess one
other thing that I wouldn't see if you think there's
something you can take from it, which is that you know,
if if you look at the response between like the
(52:18):
people fighting outside the White House last summer and then
January six, is that there there's kind of you get
safety and numbers to some extent, Like it isn't always
protect you know a lot of people, Like I mean,
there's there's a bunch of FED or a bunch of
FED raids in Atlanta at the end of last year,
people who were involved in protest stuff. But yeah, like
(52:39):
I guess it. You know, the the more unrest is happening,
the more sort of but the harder it is for
the crackdown to come. Yes, um, which is why they
tend to hold that you know, UM security forces have
it to. I mean, this is why I think it's
very important if there is another uprising situation like last year. Um,
(53:00):
you know, and I don't think I don't think. I
don't think that they've I don't think that that that
is that that is over. From their perspective. They are
going to continue to do investigations into what happened in summer.
You know, there are investigations still ongoing from the stuff
that happened in sen you know, with Standing Rock. So
you know, um, obviously you know, like the investigation in
in my own in my own personal case in twenty
(53:22):
ten seems to never end, right you know, so, uh,
something happen, Yeah I had, Yeah, I got. I won't
get into that, but you know that. But the point
is is that is that the the one of the
advantages that a federal that the federal government or state
law enforcement has is time. You know, they don't have
(53:46):
to always be there in a show of force. Um,
so you want to re do you know if if
you and that time can mean political changes, right, you know,
where a situation like under a Republican president will be
different than a democratic president will be different than a
situation where there where it's unclear who the president is. Well,
(54:10):
this has been a fun one. UM, fun stuff to
think about. Um, Chelsea, where can the good people or
the bad people find you? The good people or the
bad people can find me at x y chelsea on Twitter.
I am at x y chelse eight seven on Twitch.
I do some game streams periodically. I have slowed that
(54:33):
down a bit though. UM. I have a Patreon at
UH patreon dot com forward slash x y Chelsea UM
for content that I am currently in the late stages
of producing UH for tech related things, including you know,
things like cryptocurrency, are official intelligence, surveillance, those kinds of
concepts UM. And I am also on Instagram at x
(54:57):
l c oh and I have a TikTok now so
I will be I'm working on several TikTok's that are
related to these kinds of things, UM, privacy, surveillance, and
protecting yourself. UM. As I showed my my everyday carry
bag was one of the first things that I showed. Awesome. Well,
all right, UH, find Chelsea there and find us tomorrow
(55:21):
with another episode of it could happen here talking about
I don't know something something something, let's go oh, actually, Garrison.
We know what it'll be. Why don't you put in
a plug for the thing you did? Oh yeah, tomorrow
we uh, I will be releasing the first of a
two part episode. On my trip to northern Minnesota, I
(55:44):
traveled to an Earth First gathering and subsequent Stop Playing
three protest camp. UM was there for a little little
over a week, was present and documenting multiple kind of
direct actions. And yeah, we'll be talking about with like
Earth First and like the history of environmental organizing and
then the more modern kind of Stop Line three UM
(56:07):
protests going on and what Mbridge is doing, so that
that is going to be the next next two episodes
will be covering that topic. And actually, in another fun,
fun little side note, I had just finished a video
game called Telling Lies, which is about the federal surveillance
operation into an environmental protest group. And I think they
(56:29):
hand this game was done very well. UM. I would
love to talk about it more on the podcast eventually, UM,
after I do some more like reading on its development.
But um, if you want to, if you want to
get a look at like potential ways FEDS do like surveillance,
this game is actually a great example of how they
infiltrate um in in the environmental activist groups and different
different methods they use to survey surveil people, and how
(56:53):
they can pull like, um, you know, videos and phone
records that kind of stuff. So it was fun, fun
to entent on these all these topic. Yeah, this has
been a fun, fun day for everybody. Well that's going
to do it for us that it could happen here. Oh,
this wasn't even the heaviest stuff that I could get into.
Well we'll do that maybe in another week, thanks Chelsea. Alright,
(57:16):
well until next week or tomorrow whatever. Bye, it happened.
It Could Happen Here News
Host
Robert Evans
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