September 2, 2024 • 27 mins
In this episode, Lisa welcomes Kara Frederick, director of tech policy at the Heritage Foundation, to discuss pressing issues. They delve into the assassination attempt on Donald Trump, cyber attacks linked to the Chinese government, and Mark Zuckerberg's letter revealing government pressure on Facebook to censor content. Frederick provides expert insights on encrypted accounts, the nature of cyber threats, and the implications of Section 230 for big tech. The Truth with Lisa Boothe is part of the Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Podcast Network - new episodes debut every Monday & Thursday.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
We had Congressman Mike Waltz on the show recently from Florida,
and he raised some important questions about Thomas Matthew Crooks,
the guy who attempted to assassinate Donald Trump. He raised
questions like why would Thomas Crooks hav ingencrypted accounts in
three different countries, also asking about, you know, how did
he learn how to build these IEDs with remote detonators,
(00:21):
three of which were built and ready to go. He
raised the point that it's almost as if Crooks's online
presence was sterilized on purpose. So we're going to get
to the bottom of that today and ask someone with
background in that arena. We're also going to ask her
about recent reports a group of hackers linked to the
Chinese government we're able to target US internet service providers.
(00:44):
We all remember recently AT and T notifying millions of
customers that their.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
Data was likely stolen.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
So what kind of cyber attacks can we expect in
the future, what does that look like. Finally, we'll get
to a big one with Mark Zuckerberg and this bombshell
that he just made this letter to Chairman Jim Jordan,
admitting three things. According to the Judiciary Committee one Biden
Harris administration pressured Facebook to censor Americans, two that Facebook
(01:10):
censored Americans, and three that Facebook throttled the Hunter Biden
laptop story. We'll get into a court case regarding TikTok
at what it means for section two thirty. So a
lot of wonkey data, cyber stuff, and who better to
have on the show than my friend Kara Frederick. She
is the director of Tech Policy at the Heritage Foundation.
(01:31):
She also has a long background and all of this stuff.
Team lead for Facebook Headquarters Regional Intelligence team for Facebook.
She was a senior intelligence analyst for the US Naval
Special Warfare Command. She spent six years as counterintelligence analysts
at the Department of Defense, deployed Afghanistan three times. So
(01:52):
she's done a bunch of different things in all these arenas.
So we're going to get to the bottom of all
of this with her. So stay tuned for my friend
care Frederick. Cara Frederick, it's great to have you on
the show. I always love when I get to see you.
You're just an awesome person and so smart, So love
(02:13):
having you on. Appreciate you making the time my friend.
Speaker 3 (02:16):
Oh, it is mutual. Lisa booth. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
You're the best, Okay, So I wanted to ask you.
I had a congress of Mike Waltz on this show
the other day, and he was just talking about raising
questions about, you know, why would Thomas Matthew Crooks, that
would be you know, the want to be assassin trying
to assassinate Donald Trump? Why would he have three encrypted
accounts and encrypted accounts in three different countries. So, as
(02:40):
someone who's worked in counter terrorism, national security, data, all
those things, all those things aligning, why would he have
encrypted accounts in three different countries?
Speaker 4 (02:49):
Like?
Speaker 2 (02:49):
What does that signal to you? How concerning is that, Lisa?
Speaker 3 (02:53):
It could mean everything or it could mean nothing. So
one of the issues here when it talks about when
we talk about encrypted accounts is I've told people before,
you know, all forms of encryption are not created equal.
So some people think something as simple as a Telegram
account and they consider it encrypted, whereas it's not. There's
a lot less than meets the eye when it comes
(03:13):
to Telegram being a widely touted encrypted platform. So so
this could mean he just had, you know, Telegram accounts
that were bouncing off ips in different countries. Or it
could be indicative of something a little more sinister. And
my bigger question in all of this with Thomas Crooks
and that attempt is, you know, this guy, there had
(03:36):
to have been some form of help really that he
had people that he was talking to, because when we
were targeting all kinda first online and then isis isis
would actually send through the dark web these you know,
slick propaganda videos. Everybody knows that, but then they would
have these things like how to build a bomb in
(03:57):
the kitchen of your mom, and it would you know,
passed through certain hands, people would send it to other
propagandas you would have cheerleaders who would send it over.
So there should be some what we call like digital
chains of custody that Thomas Crooks left in his wake
when it came to using all of these digital platforms
(04:17):
that the FBI says they know about. So to me,
this just it provides more questions than it does answers,
like I'm sure it does for a lot of the
congressmen who are conducting oversight over this, But it's smacks
of something something a lot deeper in my mind than
(04:38):
just a really smart kid who is pretty good online,
Because you also remember the first things that we were
told about this guy is that he didn't have a
digital footprint. You know, this young guy who came of
age during COVID, when the entire world went digital, was
supposed to not have any sort of of digital exhaust,
(05:01):
which is nearly impossible for even us, you know, geriatric
millennials these days.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
So we don't want to go that far.
Speaker 3 (05:10):
Fair enough, fair enough, but something just it doesn't smell right.
As I've said before, you know, it doesn't pass the
smell test. Everything that we're being told about this guy,
and especially about his digital life, does not pass the
smell test. And the questions are piling up and the
answers are very scant at this point.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
Well, you know that's what he pointed out too, because
he was asking, you know, how did Thomas Crux learn
how to build these IEDs with remote detonators, three of
which were bill and ready to go. And then you know,
I was talking about it's almost as if his online
presence was sterilized on purpose. I guess who would sterilize
his online presence and what would the intention be behind that?
Speaker 3 (05:51):
Yeah, that's a good question, especially if you know there
are things that you can do beforehand, you know, basic
digital hygiene of that he could have conducted. But we
know that there are all sorts of offensive tricks that
you can get after online too, like you can spoof
IP addresses, and if he was doing that to sort
of take people off of his scent, that is a
(06:13):
possibility as well. We know, you know, a kid with
a computer, it's not very hard. But again, where where
are the digital forensic guys and the information that they're
supposedly exploiting? Like every time I worked with special Operations
units in the field and every time we're in Afghanistan
and those guys would hit a target, they would come
back with a bunch of cell phones with a bunch
(06:34):
of things to exploit, and we the nerves would get
to work figuring out, you know, who are in those contexts,
what are they saying? And we called it exploiting those devices.
Those devices. If any of these intel analysts in the
government are worth their salt, they should have been exploited
twenty ways from Sunday by now. And his ability to
wipe that clean. If he actually did that, and we
(06:57):
can't get any information as the US government from these devices,
then all of these guys should be fired because that
is something that you know, even the most seasoned Al
Kaida operative is not as good as apparently this guy
was when it can't comes to operational security. So again
doesn't really pass the smell test.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
You know. So I guess, why do we not know
more about this guy? Do you think our government does
and they're just not telling us or you know, it's
just it's just strange that we don't know more.
Speaker 3 (07:29):
No, I agree. I think there's like a lack of
curiosity first and foremost from from the governments, as we
all know, because Donald Trump happens to be on the
wrong side of a lot of the faceless bureaucrats who
are employed in it. And then secondly, I I to me,
I've heard I've heard a number of things. I've heard
(07:49):
people say that the technical capability to exploit some of
the stuff is beyond the people that we have right
now employed by the US government. Don't really buy that,
to be quite honest. And then the other thing is,
you know, they have information, they're just sitting on it,
kind of like they released the body for cremation before
(08:11):
most people could actually have an interest in figuring out,
you know, how this guy actually died, et cetera, et cetera.
So to me, it's all just a lack of transparency.
And when you have a lack of transparency in the
information environment, then lots of things will quickly fill that vacuum,
and none of them good.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
No, I know, my head's definitely filling that vacuum. And
I tried, I tried. I try to be careful about
how much I verbalize that without facts, so.
Speaker 2 (08:41):
But you know, my mind's filling that void, I'll assure you.
Speaker 1 (08:44):
All right, Well, I want to you know, we've just
seen a lot of cyber attacks. You know, there was
these reports recently that a group of hackers linked to
the Chinese government had you know, uh, you know, exposed
some vulnerability and was able to target US internet service provider.
We saw not too long ago AT and T notifying
all their customers that basically, like you know, everyone was
(09:05):
hacked more or less or that you know, information was
stolen for a period of time. I guess it seems
like this is becoming more frequent with these cyber attacks. One,
who do you think or behind these increased cyber attacks?
Obviously you know that one was China. Why do you
think they're happening, and and sort of what do you
expect in the future with cyber attacks?
Speaker 3 (09:26):
Oh yeah, I think you know, you can't discount the
usual suspects, Right, there's China, there's around, there's North Korea,
and there's Russia. But then there's also a bevy of
what we call patriotic nedicines, so people linked to the
CCP in very indirect ways that are kind of feeling
like they're doing their duty for China. So you can't
(09:47):
discount those guys. There's chaos agents always and then sort
of activists that are always percolating in this environment too,
So there's a litany of actors that are all sort
of you know, creating the problems that we have now.
But I do think zeroing in on China is really
critical here because you look at from twenty fourteen onward
and even before that, of course, but twenty fourteen twenty fifteen,
(10:09):
you have the OPM hacks right where most of the
information of government employees was exploited by China linked actors.
You have the Anthem hack this is a healthcare You
have the Equifax that's money obviously credit, and then you
have the Marriott hack, which most people know. You know,
a lot of government especially DOOD personnel, use Marriott to travel.
(10:32):
That's sort of their where they get their points, their
system and whatnot. So you have China taking all of
these data sets state linked actors rather and you know,
being able to at this point integrate them and then
use artificial intelligence to single people out for blackmail, for espionage,
for future exploitation, or anything really they want to do
(10:53):
with it. They tend to hack first and ask questions later.
I think this is the biggest problem that we face
in terms of the cybersecurity environment. That is China. Iran's
really really good. We don't really think about them too
often when it comes to cyberspace, but they are very good,
and they've been probing our critical infrastructure just like China
(11:13):
for a long time, and probing attacks are really interesting.
They're almost like hey, come and get me, or like
sort of a big manning the US in specific ways
because they're like, look, we're in your systems. We haven't
done anything yet, but we just want you to know
that we're here, and we could if we wanted to.
So that's another interesting element to the cybersecurity environment that
(11:37):
I don't think many people talk about. And it's very
problematic because then you can sort of turn on those
bigger attacks that eventually cripple and take down elements of
our critical infrastructure whenever they want or at critical times,
say maybe if Iran and Israel start to get into
a big hot war, that kind of thing. So cybersecurity,
I tell people this, you might not be interested in cybersecurity,
(12:00):
but cybersecurity is interested in you. So you've got to
be eternally vigilant when it comes to the cyberspace environment,
in particular in America.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
Now, yeah, and god forbid, like the electrical grid or
anything like that. I was on a panel one time,
I was moderating it, and one of the guys said
that there's two types of businesses, the ones who know
they've been hacked and the ones who don't know they've
been hacked, you know, basically implying that everyone's been hacked.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
We've got to take a quick commercial break. More with care.
Speaker 1 (12:26):
On the other side, you had mentioned like a sort
of for usage of espionage, and is that for like coercion,
you know? And then if so, like how many members
of Congress do you think have been compromised at then yeah, that's.
Speaker 3 (12:42):
Part of it too. I think with their sort of
United frontwork, you know, they've been pretty successful in softer ways.
I really think Peter Swipes are who I think you've
probably had him on your show.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
He's great. I love him, excellent.
Speaker 3 (12:55):
He's excellent. And I like to think of when I
think of American politicians and how their compromise, I think
of that that phrase that he is really brought to
our consciousness big help with a little bad mouth, you know,
Tim Waltz comes to mind in particular. It's the whole
idea is, you know, you have American politicians that are
really helping the efforts of the Chinese Communist Party, but
(13:17):
then they'll say bad things about them every now and then, like, oh,
you know the wigers in concentration camps. That's not great.
But overall, China is not a competitor. They're really just
our ally, you know, they're not an adversary, They're they're
a challenger at times. So I think they've pretty much
got that whole big help with a little big badmouth
(13:37):
and United Front work sort of going. And the United
frontwork is the more softer aspects of it, so not
necessarily those hard cybersecurity vulnerabilities that we're talking about in
terms of getting troves of information to integrate and then
potentially use later for dossier's and whatnot. But when it
comes to that kind of that kind of work, we
(14:01):
know that they have long and fullsome dossiers on Australian politicians,
and obviously there's a proximity issue there, So they've been
targeting the West via Australia for a very long time.
And we know that they also have dossier's on UK
politicians as well too, So I'm sure that there's some
(14:21):
element of, hey, we know all of these things, we
could you know, let the American people know, or you
could you know, work with us in in other ways.
So I'm sure those elements have occurred before. Obviously, we
know the Biden family is in deep via the University
of Pennsylvania and their think tanks and whatnot, and all
(14:42):
of the reporting on Hunter Biden's associations with people in
the intelligence world in China, So I have no doubt
that that the espionage, of the exploitation, the blackmail game
has been occurring in the corridors of Washington, DC and
elsewhere as well.
Speaker 1 (14:58):
By China I wanted to get your take on this
bombshell from Mark Zuckerberg, you know, writing a letter to
Chairman Jim Jordan saying the letter in twenty twenty one,
senior officials from the bid administration, including the White House,
repeatedly pressured our teams for months to center certain to
censor certain COVID nineteen content. You know, it goes on,
(15:22):
but basically just you know, admitting what we had known,
admitting that the FBI was meddling with the Russian you know,
the fake Russian disinformation story ahead of the twenty twenty
election as well. What do you make of this bombshell
and why now?
Speaker 3 (15:38):
Yeah, this is a great question. And what I've been
trying to do right now is to tell Republicans put
the ticker tape parade away. Stop everybody, stop this, because
stop taking a victory lap for free speech and thinking
that your work here is done and packing up and
going home like this is not that the timing is critical,
as you noted, because what I think Mark Zuckerberg has
(15:59):
done here because he is a very savvy actor. He
is a very smart man, and his instincts are very
good when it comes to some of the political environment.
You know, I've said that he gets his pr people
and some of the politicals and the building to kind
of mess him up and mess with what he really
wants to do and get him to make bad decisions.
But when he's left to his own devices, he's really
(16:21):
really smart. And what I think he's done here is
taking a look at the landscape and basically said, Okay.
It's In June, the Supreme Court and a decision in
Murphy v. Missouri, the Court found no standing for plaintiffs
that were demanding an end to this exact type of
collusion between Big Tech and the Biden administration and Biden
(16:43):
campaign officials at the time, and they rejected. This is
the Supreme Court again rejected state efforts to permanently block
the Biden administration from working with big Tech to censor speech.
What they did is they kicked it down to the
lower court. They had a chance to say this is
a violation of the First amend this cannot stand, but
they didn't. They were more like, m lower course, you
(17:04):
decide it, like, we're not going to decide this case
on the merits. We're gonna sort of have a process
decision here, Like you guys do it in the lower
course again, so that was a big blow to our
efforts on my side to hold big tech accountable. And
obviously Mark Zuckerberg did not release his letter when that
lawsuit was going on, before that decision was occurring. So
(17:25):
that's point one. Point two is that he knows. Democrats
like what had happened here. They like what's continuing to
happen on Facebook's platform, aka helping the left censoring conservative speech,
so they're not going to do anything to him. Republicans,
they are amazing at writing these strongly worded letters at fundraising,
but ultimately, when it comes down to it, they're really
(17:46):
not going to do anything to Facebook because it's a
private company, and private companies are the enngines of innovation
in America and you can't touch him that kind of thing.
So Mark's like, all right, we don't know what's going
to happen in at the end of this year for
the election, So I'm going to pander a little bit
to the Joe Rogan crowd. I'm going to get on
my you know, UFC. I'm going to roll on the
mat a little bit. I'm going to surf with an
(18:08):
American flag and I'm going to say, you know, Trump,
the you know, when he stood up after he got shot,
that was a bad mammagama kind of action to do.
And I'm going to give them this little nugget and
they'll probably be happy, and they'll probably you know, take
the pressure off me a little bit. So I think
that's all this is. Because the last thing that you'll
(18:28):
have to remember and then I promise I'll stop, is
that all the while this is happening, Facebook is still
censoring conservative and conservative coded and heterodox information. Twenty nine
out thirty days ago. At this point, Facebook apologized for
considering Trump the iconic picture of him raising his fist
(18:48):
in the air. They labeled it misinformation. And again, these mistakes,
these content moderation quote unquote mistakes, only seem to go
in one direction, the one that benefits the left. So
Mark and say what do it has to say? But
Facebook is still crushing conservative speech.
Speaker 1 (19:06):
Do you is there any world where he might start
liking Trump and you know, with the you had mentioned
the fact that he you know, because he does like
Mma and like these different you know, do you think
there's any world where he really did see Trump get
shot and get back up and was like, all right,
like that, that's pretty cool. Yeah, we've seen in Silicon
Valley move a little bit more, you know, towards Trump
(19:28):
via David Sachs do that big fundraiser I think it
was back in June. You've got more people coming out
in the tech world being like I, you know, I
actually kind of like Trump.
Speaker 2 (19:38):
I was fooled before.
Speaker 1 (19:39):
So I don't know, like, do you think there's a
world where maybe he is kind of like part of
that group that are sort of coming around to Donald Trump,
or do you think it's just for safe, you know,
face saving purposes as you pointed out, No, I think
it's actually both.
Speaker 3 (19:53):
So, like I said, his instincts like, this is the
guy who in October twenty nineteen, he went to Georgetown
and he gave a speech and he basically said, China
censors people. China is overly censorious and awful, and Facebook
is going to be the free speech platform that you
guys should basically cling to. We are going to be
(20:14):
that counterweight to a authoritarian, digitally minded China. And I
remember I listened to it live. I was like, wow,
this is okay, okay, and it really tracked with some
of the things that I heard from him say in
some of his you know, public quarterly meetings and whatnot.
When I worked at Facebook, I was like, this guy
is really compelling. Like his vision if he could enact
it purely, like is kind of interesting. And again, his
(20:36):
instincts are pretty good. And then you have you know,
the logan Paul's, these famous golfers like all sort of
like gravitating toward the common man nature that Trump evinces.
So I think there's something in Mark Zuckerberg, who also
said I believe the antidote to bad speech is more speech.
There's something in Mark that wants to be a good guy. Right,
(20:57):
There's something in him that just wants to be good
and wants to understand the truth with a capital T.
But again, everyone he gets so bamboozled, I think by
all of the voices that are around him. And then
and generally right, like, let's be honest, Facebook is probably
(21:18):
a net negative for the world. And I have said
this before, like it is not a good thing. This
platform and Instagram that you know, connects perverts with young children.
And Wall Street Journal has done tons and tons of
very technical, great expose as of what these algorithms do,
and what these platforms do and what they knowingly do
and double down on, especially when it comes to children.
(21:39):
So on balance, not a great guy, not a great
thing in my mind that Facebook came into the world.
But there's something inside of Mark Zuckerberg I do think
can be turned. In the end. We might see it
in about twenty years, but we're not quite there yet.
Speaker 2 (21:53):
Well, Mark, if you're listening, we'll have you if you
promised to be a good boy.
Speaker 1 (21:57):
We've got more with carap but first we are quickly
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support IFCJ dot org is real needs or support. Now,
I wanted to ask you about this TikTok case that
has ramifications for Section two thirty, you know, sort of
explain the significance of this and how it might then impact,
you know, some of these other social media companies.
Speaker 3 (23:30):
Yeah, so this is interesting, potentially huge, potentially bigger than
the Zuckerberg bombshell. And what it is is a third
circuit circuit court decided to start to pierce the armor
of big tech when it comes to Section two thirty
immunity from civil liability. So a lot of people have
now heard of this famous section two thirty. What it is.
(23:52):
It's part of the nineteen ninety six Communications Decency Act
that basically says, Okay, big tech, you are not liable
for You're not gonna have to face all of these
lawsuits that could potentially inhibit your growth as nascent platforms
for third party content that's hosted on your platform. So
if someone's in the comment section saying like really gross, horrible,
(24:13):
it's seen disgusting things and somebody wants to sue you
for it, you are going to be safe from civiliability
because what you are a platform. You're not a publisher,
You're a platform. So big tech companies have really hidden
behind this when their platforms have really, i would say
propagated all manner of evil and really ridiculous things. And
(24:38):
one of these platforms, TikTok, more evil than most. They
faced a lawsuit based off of a Pennsylvania mother whose
ten year old was in her feed. She by the
for you algorithm of TikTok. She was fed the blackout challenge,
where kids try to choke themselves until they pass out.
She watched one of these videos, she went to the closet.
(25:00):
She tried to use I believe it was her mother's
belt or a belt in the closet to attempt the
blackout challenge, and she killed herself on accident, and her
mother ended up suing. It was tossed out based off
of Section two thirty protections, but the third circuit actually
said no, no, TikTok, you could be liable because of
your algorithms for pushing this kind of thing to this
(25:23):
child who eventually killed herself because without that algorithm surfacing
that content, she never would have seen it, never would
have done this. So this could be the first chink
in the armor of Section two thirty that big tech
has really coded itself in for the past few decades,
which which we believe, and my here's my mantra, this
(25:43):
is axiomatic at this point. If Justice Thomas says it,
it's right.
Speaker 4 (25:47):
So Justice Thomas has really really been questioning the expanded
interpretation of Section two thirty when tech companies don't really
have any responsibilities in tandem with this immunity, So the
decision really expands.
Speaker 3 (26:03):
At least one of the judges says there's something too
claras Thomas's interpretation of this overly broad Section two thirty protection.
It's too extended. It's been interpreted by the courts over
the years in too broad a fashion. Maybe it's time
to rein it in. So, my friend Matt Stoller, kind
of a famous anti trust influencer, he's gone so far
(26:24):
as to say big text business model is over because
section two thirty might not be that perfect set of armor,
and that big tech's been using against families, against children,
against the American people.
Speaker 1 (26:36):
Really, yeah, I think we need bracelet, says say, what
would Clarence Thomas do?
Speaker 2 (26:42):
Wait, he'll have one. I've got one.
Speaker 1 (26:44):
He's a good barometer of wrong versus rights. So I agree.
Hi Kera Frederick, love YOUO. Thanks so much for coming on.
You're so smart. Always appreciate you making the time. I
always love saying you anything for you all right, come
to Florida and visit.
Speaker 3 (26:59):
I'm well done.
Speaker 1 (27:00):
That was Kara Frederick with heritage. Appreciate her making the
time to come on the show. Appreciate you guys at
home for listening every Monday and Thursday, but of course
you can listen throughout the week. I want to thank
John Cassio and my producer for putting the show together.
Until next time
We had Congressman Mike Waltz on the show recently from Florida,
and he raised some important questions about Thomas Matthew Crooks,
the guy who attempted to assassinate Donald Trump. He raised
questions like why would Thomas Crooks hav ingencrypted accounts in
three different countries, also asking about, you know, how did
he learn how to build these IEDs with remote detonators,
(00:21):
three of which were built and ready to go. He
raised the point that it's almost as if Crooks's online
presence was sterilized on purpose. So we're going to get
to the bottom of that today and ask someone with
background in that arena. We're also going to ask her
about recent reports a group of hackers linked to the
Chinese government we're able to target US internet service providers.
(00:44):
We all remember recently AT and T notifying millions of
customers that their.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
Data was likely stolen.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
So what kind of cyber attacks can we expect in
the future, what does that look like. Finally, we'll get
to a big one with Mark Zuckerberg and this bombshell
that he just made this letter to Chairman Jim Jordan,
admitting three things. According to the Judiciary Committee one Biden
Harris administration pressured Facebook to censor Americans, two that Facebook
(01:10):
censored Americans, and three that Facebook throttled the Hunter Biden
laptop story. We'll get into a court case regarding TikTok
at what it means for section two thirty. So a
lot of wonkey data, cyber stuff, and who better to
have on the show than my friend Kara Frederick. She
is the director of Tech Policy at the Heritage Foundation.
(01:31):
She also has a long background and all of this stuff.
Team lead for Facebook Headquarters Regional Intelligence team for Facebook.
She was a senior intelligence analyst for the US Naval
Special Warfare Command. She spent six years as counterintelligence analysts
at the Department of Defense, deployed Afghanistan three times. So
(01:52):
she's done a bunch of different things in all these arenas.
So we're going to get to the bottom of all
of this with her. So stay tuned for my friend
care Frederick. Cara Frederick, it's great to have you on
the show. I always love when I get to see you.
You're just an awesome person and so smart, So love
(02:13):
having you on. Appreciate you making the time my friend.
Speaker 3 (02:16):
Oh, it is mutual. Lisa booth. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
You're the best, Okay, So I wanted to ask you.
I had a congress of Mike Waltz on this show
the other day, and he was just talking about raising
questions about, you know, why would Thomas Matthew Crooks, that
would be you know, the want to be assassin trying
to assassinate Donald Trump? Why would he have three encrypted
accounts and encrypted accounts in three different countries. So, as
(02:40):
someone who's worked in counter terrorism, national security, data, all
those things, all those things aligning, why would he have
encrypted accounts in three different countries?
Speaker 4 (02:49):
Like?
Speaker 2 (02:49):
What does that signal to you? How concerning is that, Lisa?
Speaker 3 (02:53):
It could mean everything or it could mean nothing. So
one of the issues here when it talks about when
we talk about encrypted accounts is I've told people before,
you know, all forms of encryption are not created equal.
So some people think something as simple as a Telegram
account and they consider it encrypted, whereas it's not. There's
a lot less than meets the eye when it comes
(03:13):
to Telegram being a widely touted encrypted platform. So so
this could mean he just had, you know, Telegram accounts
that were bouncing off ips in different countries. Or it
could be indicative of something a little more sinister. And
my bigger question in all of this with Thomas Crooks
and that attempt is, you know, this guy, there had
(03:36):
to have been some form of help really that he
had people that he was talking to, because when we
were targeting all kinda first online and then isis isis
would actually send through the dark web these you know,
slick propaganda videos. Everybody knows that, but then they would
have these things like how to build a bomb in
(03:57):
the kitchen of your mom, and it would you know,
passed through certain hands, people would send it to other
propagandas you would have cheerleaders who would send it over.
So there should be some what we call like digital
chains of custody that Thomas Crooks left in his wake
when it came to using all of these digital platforms
(04:17):
that the FBI says they know about. So to me,
this just it provides more questions than it does answers,
like I'm sure it does for a lot of the
congressmen who are conducting oversight over this, But it's smacks
of something something a lot deeper in my mind than
(04:38):
just a really smart kid who is pretty good online,
Because you also remember the first things that we were
told about this guy is that he didn't have a
digital footprint. You know, this young guy who came of
age during COVID, when the entire world went digital, was
supposed to not have any sort of of digital exhaust,
(05:01):
which is nearly impossible for even us, you know, geriatric
millennials these days.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
So we don't want to go that far.
Speaker 3 (05:10):
Fair enough, fair enough, but something just it doesn't smell right.
As I've said before, you know, it doesn't pass the
smell test. Everything that we're being told about this guy,
and especially about his digital life, does not pass the
smell test. And the questions are piling up and the
answers are very scant at this point.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
Well, you know that's what he pointed out too, because
he was asking, you know, how did Thomas Crux learn
how to build these IEDs with remote detonators, three of
which were bill and ready to go. And then you know,
I was talking about it's almost as if his online
presence was sterilized on purpose. I guess who would sterilize
his online presence and what would the intention be behind that?
Speaker 3 (05:51):
Yeah, that's a good question, especially if you know there
are things that you can do beforehand, you know, basic
digital hygiene of that he could have conducted. But we
know that there are all sorts of offensive tricks that
you can get after online too, like you can spoof
IP addresses, and if he was doing that to sort
of take people off of his scent, that is a
(06:13):
possibility as well. We know, you know, a kid with
a computer, it's not very hard. But again, where where
are the digital forensic guys and the information that they're
supposedly exploiting? Like every time I worked with special Operations
units in the field and every time we're in Afghanistan
and those guys would hit a target, they would come
back with a bunch of cell phones with a bunch
(06:34):
of things to exploit, and we the nerves would get
to work figuring out, you know, who are in those contexts,
what are they saying? And we called it exploiting those devices.
Those devices. If any of these intel analysts in the
government are worth their salt, they should have been exploited
twenty ways from Sunday by now. And his ability to
wipe that clean. If he actually did that, and we
(06:57):
can't get any information as the US government from these devices,
then all of these guys should be fired because that
is something that you know, even the most seasoned Al
Kaida operative is not as good as apparently this guy
was when it can't comes to operational security. So again
doesn't really pass the smell test.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
You know. So I guess, why do we not know
more about this guy? Do you think our government does
and they're just not telling us or you know, it's
just it's just strange that we don't know more.
Speaker 3 (07:29):
No, I agree. I think there's like a lack of
curiosity first and foremost from from the governments, as we
all know, because Donald Trump happens to be on the
wrong side of a lot of the faceless bureaucrats who
are employed in it. And then secondly, I I to me,
I've heard I've heard a number of things. I've heard
(07:49):
people say that the technical capability to exploit some of
the stuff is beyond the people that we have right
now employed by the US government. Don't really buy that,
to be quite honest. And then the other thing is,
you know, they have information, they're just sitting on it,
kind of like they released the body for cremation before
(08:11):
most people could actually have an interest in figuring out,
you know, how this guy actually died, et cetera, et cetera.
So to me, it's all just a lack of transparency.
And when you have a lack of transparency in the
information environment, then lots of things will quickly fill that vacuum,
and none of them good.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
No, I know, my head's definitely filling that vacuum. And
I tried, I tried. I try to be careful about
how much I verbalize that without facts, so.
Speaker 2 (08:41):
But you know, my mind's filling that void, I'll assure you.
Speaker 1 (08:44):
All right, Well, I want to you know, we've just
seen a lot of cyber attacks. You know, there was
these reports recently that a group of hackers linked to
the Chinese government had you know, uh, you know, exposed
some vulnerability and was able to target US internet service provider.
We saw not too long ago AT and T notifying
all their customers that basically, like you know, everyone was
(09:05):
hacked more or less or that you know, information was
stolen for a period of time. I guess it seems
like this is becoming more frequent with these cyber attacks. One,
who do you think or behind these increased cyber attacks?
Obviously you know that one was China. Why do you
think they're happening, and and sort of what do you
expect in the future with cyber attacks?
Speaker 3 (09:26):
Oh yeah, I think you know, you can't discount the
usual suspects, Right, there's China, there's around, there's North Korea,
and there's Russia. But then there's also a bevy of
what we call patriotic nedicines, so people linked to the
CCP in very indirect ways that are kind of feeling
like they're doing their duty for China. So you can't
(09:47):
discount those guys. There's chaos agents always and then sort
of activists that are always percolating in this environment too,
So there's a litany of actors that are all sort
of you know, creating the problems that we have now.
But I do think zeroing in on China is really
critical here because you look at from twenty fourteen onward
and even before that, of course, but twenty fourteen twenty fifteen,
(10:09):
you have the OPM hacks right where most of the
information of government employees was exploited by China linked actors.
You have the Anthem hack this is a healthcare You
have the Equifax that's money obviously credit, and then you
have the Marriott hack, which most people know. You know,
a lot of government especially DOOD personnel, use Marriott to travel.
(10:32):
That's sort of their where they get their points, their
system and whatnot. So you have China taking all of
these data sets state linked actors rather and you know,
being able to at this point integrate them and then
use artificial intelligence to single people out for blackmail, for espionage,
for future exploitation, or anything really they want to do
(10:53):
with it. They tend to hack first and ask questions later.
I think this is the biggest problem that we face
in terms of the cybersecurity environment. That is China. Iran's
really really good. We don't really think about them too
often when it comes to cyberspace, but they are very good,
and they've been probing our critical infrastructure just like China
(11:13):
for a long time, and probing attacks are really interesting.
They're almost like hey, come and get me, or like
sort of a big manning the US in specific ways
because they're like, look, we're in your systems. We haven't
done anything yet, but we just want you to know
that we're here, and we could if we wanted to.
So that's another interesting element to the cybersecurity environment that
(11:37):
I don't think many people talk about. And it's very
problematic because then you can sort of turn on those
bigger attacks that eventually cripple and take down elements of
our critical infrastructure whenever they want or at critical times,
say maybe if Iran and Israel start to get into
a big hot war, that kind of thing. So cybersecurity,
I tell people this, you might not be interested in cybersecurity,
(12:00):
but cybersecurity is interested in you. So you've got to
be eternally vigilant when it comes to the cyberspace environment,
in particular in America.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
Now, yeah, and god forbid, like the electrical grid or
anything like that. I was on a panel one time,
I was moderating it, and one of the guys said
that there's two types of businesses, the ones who know
they've been hacked and the ones who don't know they've
been hacked, you know, basically implying that everyone's been hacked.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
We've got to take a quick commercial break. More with care.
Speaker 1 (12:26):
On the other side, you had mentioned like a sort
of for usage of espionage, and is that for like coercion,
you know? And then if so, like how many members
of Congress do you think have been compromised at then yeah, that's.
Speaker 3 (12:42):
Part of it too. I think with their sort of
United frontwork, you know, they've been pretty successful in softer ways.
I really think Peter Swipes are who I think you've
probably had him on your show.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
He's great. I love him, excellent.
Speaker 3 (12:55):
He's excellent. And I like to think of when I
think of American politicians and how their compromise, I think
of that that phrase that he is really brought to
our consciousness big help with a little bad mouth, you know,
Tim Waltz comes to mind in particular. It's the whole
idea is, you know, you have American politicians that are
really helping the efforts of the Chinese Communist Party, but
(13:17):
then they'll say bad things about them every now and then, like, oh,
you know the wigers in concentration camps. That's not great.
But overall, China is not a competitor. They're really just
our ally, you know, they're not an adversary, They're they're
a challenger at times. So I think they've pretty much
got that whole big help with a little big badmouth
(13:37):
and United Front work sort of going. And the United
frontwork is the more softer aspects of it, so not
necessarily those hard cybersecurity vulnerabilities that we're talking about in
terms of getting troves of information to integrate and then
potentially use later for dossier's and whatnot. But when it
comes to that kind of that kind of work, we
(14:01):
know that they have long and fullsome dossiers on Australian politicians,
and obviously there's a proximity issue there, So they've been
targeting the West via Australia for a very long time.
And we know that they also have dossier's on UK
politicians as well too, So I'm sure that there's some
(14:21):
element of, hey, we know all of these things, we
could you know, let the American people know, or you
could you know, work with us in in other ways.
So I'm sure those elements have occurred before. Obviously, we
know the Biden family is in deep via the University
of Pennsylvania and their think tanks and whatnot, and all
(14:42):
of the reporting on Hunter Biden's associations with people in
the intelligence world in China, So I have no doubt
that that the espionage, of the exploitation, the blackmail game
has been occurring in the corridors of Washington, DC and
elsewhere as well.
Speaker 1 (14:58):
By China I wanted to get your take on this
bombshell from Mark Zuckerberg, you know, writing a letter to
Chairman Jim Jordan saying the letter in twenty twenty one,
senior officials from the bid administration, including the White House,
repeatedly pressured our teams for months to center certain to
censor certain COVID nineteen content. You know, it goes on,
(15:22):
but basically just you know, admitting what we had known,
admitting that the FBI was meddling with the Russian you know,
the fake Russian disinformation story ahead of the twenty twenty
election as well. What do you make of this bombshell
and why now?
Speaker 3 (15:38):
Yeah, this is a great question. And what I've been
trying to do right now is to tell Republicans put
the ticker tape parade away. Stop everybody, stop this, because
stop taking a victory lap for free speech and thinking
that your work here is done and packing up and
going home like this is not that the timing is critical,
as you noted, because what I think Mark Zuckerberg has
(15:59):
done here because he is a very savvy actor. He
is a very smart man, and his instincts are very
good when it comes to some of the political environment.
You know, I've said that he gets his pr people
and some of the politicals and the building to kind
of mess him up and mess with what he really
wants to do and get him to make bad decisions.
But when he's left to his own devices, he's really
(16:21):
really smart. And what I think he's done here is
taking a look at the landscape and basically said, Okay.
It's In June, the Supreme Court and a decision in
Murphy v. Missouri, the Court found no standing for plaintiffs
that were demanding an end to this exact type of
collusion between Big Tech and the Biden administration and Biden
(16:43):
campaign officials at the time, and they rejected. This is
the Supreme Court again rejected state efforts to permanently block
the Biden administration from working with big Tech to censor speech.
What they did is they kicked it down to the
lower court. They had a chance to say this is
a violation of the First amend this cannot stand, but
they didn't. They were more like, m lower course, you
(17:04):
decide it, like, we're not going to decide this case
on the merits. We're gonna sort of have a process
decision here, Like you guys do it in the lower
course again, so that was a big blow to our
efforts on my side to hold big tech accountable. And
obviously Mark Zuckerberg did not release his letter when that
lawsuit was going on, before that decision was occurring. So
(17:25):
that's point one. Point two is that he knows. Democrats
like what had happened here. They like what's continuing to
happen on Facebook's platform, aka helping the left censoring conservative speech,
so they're not going to do anything to him. Republicans,
they are amazing at writing these strongly worded letters at fundraising,
but ultimately, when it comes down to it, they're really
(17:46):
not going to do anything to Facebook because it's a
private company, and private companies are the enngines of innovation
in America and you can't touch him that kind of thing.
So Mark's like, all right, we don't know what's going
to happen in at the end of this year for
the election, So I'm going to pander a little bit
to the Joe Rogan crowd. I'm going to get on
my you know, UFC. I'm going to roll on the
mat a little bit. I'm going to surf with an
(18:08):
American flag and I'm going to say, you know, Trump,
the you know, when he stood up after he got shot,
that was a bad mammagama kind of action to do.
And I'm going to give them this little nugget and
they'll probably be happy, and they'll probably you know, take
the pressure off me a little bit. So I think
that's all this is. Because the last thing that you'll
(18:28):
have to remember and then I promise I'll stop, is
that all the while this is happening, Facebook is still
censoring conservative and conservative coded and heterodox information. Twenty nine
out thirty days ago. At this point, Facebook apologized for
considering Trump the iconic picture of him raising his fist
(18:48):
in the air. They labeled it misinformation. And again, these mistakes,
these content moderation quote unquote mistakes, only seem to go
in one direction, the one that benefits the left. So
Mark and say what do it has to say? But
Facebook is still crushing conservative speech.
Speaker 1 (19:06):
Do you is there any world where he might start
liking Trump and you know, with the you had mentioned
the fact that he you know, because he does like
Mma and like these different you know, do you think
there's any world where he really did see Trump get
shot and get back up and was like, all right,
like that, that's pretty cool. Yeah, we've seen in Silicon
Valley move a little bit more, you know, towards Trump
(19:28):
via David Sachs do that big fundraiser I think it
was back in June. You've got more people coming out
in the tech world being like I, you know, I
actually kind of like Trump.
Speaker 2 (19:38):
I was fooled before.
Speaker 1 (19:39):
So I don't know, like, do you think there's a
world where maybe he is kind of like part of
that group that are sort of coming around to Donald Trump,
or do you think it's just for safe, you know,
face saving purposes as you pointed out, No, I think
it's actually both.
Speaker 3 (19:53):
So, like I said, his instincts like, this is the
guy who in October twenty nineteen, he went to Georgetown
and he gave a speech and he basically said, China
censors people. China is overly censorious and awful, and Facebook
is going to be the free speech platform that you
guys should basically cling to. We are going to be
(20:14):
that counterweight to a authoritarian, digitally minded China. And I
remember I listened to it live. I was like, wow,
this is okay, okay, and it really tracked with some
of the things that I heard from him say in
some of his you know, public quarterly meetings and whatnot.
When I worked at Facebook, I was like, this guy
is really compelling. Like his vision if he could enact
it purely, like is kind of interesting. And again, his
(20:36):
instincts are pretty good. And then you have you know,
the logan Paul's, these famous golfers like all sort of
like gravitating toward the common man nature that Trump evinces.
So I think there's something in Mark Zuckerberg, who also
said I believe the antidote to bad speech is more speech.
There's something in Mark that wants to be a good guy. Right,
(20:57):
There's something in him that just wants to be good
and wants to understand the truth with a capital T.
But again, everyone he gets so bamboozled, I think by
all of the voices that are around him. And then
and generally right, like, let's be honest, Facebook is probably
(21:18):
a net negative for the world. And I have said
this before, like it is not a good thing. This
platform and Instagram that you know, connects perverts with young children.
And Wall Street Journal has done tons and tons of
very technical, great expose as of what these algorithms do,
and what these platforms do and what they knowingly do
and double down on, especially when it comes to children.
(21:39):
So on balance, not a great guy, not a great
thing in my mind that Facebook came into the world.
But there's something inside of Mark Zuckerberg I do think
can be turned. In the end. We might see it
in about twenty years, but we're not quite there yet.
Speaker 2 (21:53):
Well, Mark, if you're listening, we'll have you if you
promised to be a good boy.
Speaker 1 (21:57):
We've got more with carap but first we are quickly
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support IFCJ dot org is real needs or support. Now,
I wanted to ask you about this TikTok case that
has ramifications for Section two thirty, you know, sort of
explain the significance of this and how it might then impact,
you know, some of these other social media companies.
Speaker 3 (23:30):
Yeah, so this is interesting, potentially huge, potentially bigger than
the Zuckerberg bombshell. And what it is is a third
circuit circuit court decided to start to pierce the armor
of big tech when it comes to Section two thirty
immunity from civil liability. So a lot of people have
now heard of this famous section two thirty. What it is.
(23:52):
It's part of the nineteen ninety six Communications Decency Act
that basically says, Okay, big tech, you are not liable
for You're not gonna have to face all of these
lawsuits that could potentially inhibit your growth as nascent platforms
for third party content that's hosted on your platform. So
if someone's in the comment section saying like really gross, horrible,
(24:13):
it's seen disgusting things and somebody wants to sue you
for it, you are going to be safe from civiliability
because what you are a platform. You're not a publisher,
You're a platform. So big tech companies have really hidden
behind this when their platforms have really, i would say
propagated all manner of evil and really ridiculous things. And
(24:38):
one of these platforms, TikTok, more evil than most. They
faced a lawsuit based off of a Pennsylvania mother whose
ten year old was in her feed. She by the
for you algorithm of TikTok. She was fed the blackout challenge,
where kids try to choke themselves until they pass out.
She watched one of these videos, she went to the closet.
(25:00):
She tried to use I believe it was her mother's
belt or a belt in the closet to attempt the
blackout challenge, and she killed herself on accident, and her
mother ended up suing. It was tossed out based off
of Section two thirty protections, but the third circuit actually
said no, no, TikTok, you could be liable because of
your algorithms for pushing this kind of thing to this
(25:23):
child who eventually killed herself because without that algorithm surfacing
that content, she never would have seen it, never would
have done this. So this could be the first chink
in the armor of Section two thirty that big tech
has really coded itself in for the past few decades,
which which we believe, and my here's my mantra, this
(25:43):
is axiomatic at this point. If Justice Thomas says it,
it's right.
Speaker 4 (25:47):
So Justice Thomas has really really been questioning the expanded
interpretation of Section two thirty when tech companies don't really
have any responsibilities in tandem with this immunity, So the
decision really expands.
Speaker 3 (26:03):
At least one of the judges says there's something too
claras Thomas's interpretation of this overly broad Section two thirty protection.
It's too extended. It's been interpreted by the courts over
the years in too broad a fashion. Maybe it's time
to rein it in. So, my friend Matt Stoller, kind
of a famous anti trust influencer, he's gone so far
(26:24):
as to say big text business model is over because
section two thirty might not be that perfect set of armor,
and that big tech's been using against families, against children,
against the American people.
Speaker 1 (26:36):
Really, yeah, I think we need bracelet, says say, what
would Clarence Thomas do?
Speaker 2 (26:42):
Wait, he'll have one. I've got one.
Speaker 1 (26:44):
He's a good barometer of wrong versus rights. So I agree.
Hi Kera Frederick, love YOUO. Thanks so much for coming on.
You're so smart. Always appreciate you making the time. I
always love saying you anything for you all right, come
to Florida and visit.
Speaker 3 (26:59):
I'm well done.
Speaker 1 (27:00):
That was Kara Frederick with heritage. Appreciate her making the
time to come on the show. Appreciate you guys at
home for listening every Monday and Thursday, but of course
you can listen throughout the week. I want to thank
John Cassio and my producer for putting the show together.
Until next time
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show News
Hosts And Creators
Clay Travis
Buck Sexton
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