Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Yes, what a bunch of baes.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
If Dragon was in a wheelchair, whether permanently or not,
you'd blast them all over the air.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
Don't give me that crap.
Speaker 3 (00:13):
But the catch is I would probably be making fun
of myself. That then would lead it to be open
that I am more than welcome for my friends and yeah,
maybe even Michael to say something about it.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
I just want to say real quickly, I don't want
to go into detail. Many people have asked, well, wait
a minute, what's the difference between shri a law is
law must established a no go zone and Shria law
and this idea about tribes? What about the tribes? The
(00:53):
tribes are governed by state and federal law. American Indians
Alaskan Nades are generally subject to federal, state, and local
laws on federal Indian reservations. Federal law and tribal laws
apply to members of the tribe unless Congress provides otherwise,
(01:16):
and they have provided otherwise in public law to eighty
and that law permits the states to exercise criminal and
civil jurisdiction over tribal lands, but the extent of that
jurisdiction depends upon the state and the specific tribe and
the agreements between those tribes and the state. So the
(01:42):
extent to which state laws are enforced now federal law,
no question, federal laws are That's why you know, if
you watch, for example, Dark Winds, which is a series
on Hulu or Netflix somewhere which is about the Navajo tribe,
and you know crime on the on the Navajo tribe,
you have both the well you actually have three. You've
(02:04):
got the FBI, You've got the local sheriff I forget
which county it is, and you've got the tribal police.
So you actually have three jurisdictions, all operating in the
same place. Indian law it is an entirely I mean
you can take when I was in law school, there
were numerous courses on Indian law, and it's an incredibly
(02:30):
complex genre of law to study. But yeah, generally federal
state local laws apply on tribal lands, and tribal law
applies also, and so then you have lots of times
you'll have the question of who has jurisdiction, like who's
(02:50):
going to be in charge, who's going to do this investigation,
who's going to prosecute, And that's usually subject to you know,
the agreement between all of those parties that have jurisdiction,
what's their caseload? How busy are they? You know, what's
the level of the crime. Is it a you know,
is it a huge felony or is it a misdemeanor.
Is it just some some you know, civil infraction or whatever.
(03:12):
So it's it's complex, but yes, generally speaking, the general
rule is that American Indians and Alaskan Natives are generally
subject to federal, state, and local laws. The difference with
Shria law is they claim that they are not, which
takes them outside the protections of the First Amendment. So
it's and remember distinguished between Islam as a religion and
(03:37):
Sharia law as their governance and separate that governance from
you know, their their Bible about you know, their their
religious rules, all three separate things. Yesterday there was there
(03:58):
was a hearing about the censorship operations going on in
this country and in particular by the government. And I
think it's time to kind of revisit the whole censorship
industrial complex because the blowback from it is really kind
(04:18):
of coming up again. You might recall back when jd
Vance before he became before the election, remember his debate
with Tim walls when Vance declared that the vice president
was engaged in censorship at an industrial scale, and that
(04:39):
that was false according to poluit a fact. Well, that's
because the Biden administration's efforts to contact platforms about social
media posts weren't censorship unless they crossed the line into coercion,
which the Democrats kept claiming that they didn't do.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
And according to.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
PolitiFact, unless there was coercion, then they weren't actually engaged
in any sort of censorship. In fact, in that same
PolitiFact story, a professor from of all Places, Columbia told
PolitiFact that quote attempts to limit the spread of dangerous
or false information pertaining to election results or a vaccine's
(05:25):
efficacy during a pandemic is not a threat to democracy.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
Well wait a minute, yes, it is.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
Preventing people from criticizing elections, whether verbally on social media platforms,
on the Internet, or however, that undermines our republican form
of government. The public's our ability to exercise free speech,
our right to question election results, our right to question
(05:56):
election procedures is something that ensures our elections are free
and fair. Now, even PolitiFact acknowledged that Zuckerbird actually sent
a letter in August to the House Judiciary Committee where
he said the Biden Harrison administration repeatedly pressured. Pressured was
(06:17):
the word that Zuckerbird used in the letter, that the administration,
the Biden Ministry of the Auto Pen administration repeatedly pressured
medical censor certain COVID nineteen content. I think that's a
given today. I don't know why that's even debatable. But
PolitiFact at the time waived away the letter, noting that
(06:40):
the Supreme Court had ruled that federal employees pressuring social
media companies to remove posts was not unconstitutional, and then
they went on to quote of again, of all people,
Associate Justice Amy Comy Bahrett, who wrote this, the evidence
indicates that the platforms had independent and thieves to moderate
(07:01):
content and often exercise their own judgment. What drives me
crazy about that is that she didn't consider the government's
pressure of Meta or many other cases of government demands
for censorship. Now, ultimately the court dismissed the case. I'm standing,
but still Amy, call me Barrett. Even back then was well,
(07:25):
you know, they still had their own reasons to do this. Well,
wait a minute, If I've got three reasons to do things,
one of which is my own reason. I just want to.
I just want to. This is my company, and I
want to do it. I want to limit what people
can say. And I got another reason to do it.
I personally is the owner of the company. I just
(07:47):
don't like the stuff that I want to keep it off.
But I got a third reason over here too, and
that is I'm also getting pressure from the government. I'm
getting pressure from the White House of all places to
censor this content. That all blends into my reason for
censoring the content. And Amy call me, Barrett says, well,
(08:09):
you because you had these other reasons, then I can't
consider the fact that the government did it too. I mean,
what come on, come on, she's not even she's not
even logical interrationale here. So why did PolitiFact get this
story so wrong back last year? Perhaps because that's PolitiFact
(08:30):
explained in its article it actually partners with Meta on
this fact checking program in order to slow the spread
of misinformation.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
H political fact political facts.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
And here they are admitting that, yeah, we partner with
Meta because we want to slow the spread of so
called misinformation. Who decides what's misinformation? Well, apparently the fact
checking organization PolitiFact determines what are.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
Facts and not facts.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
We now know the truth, and the truth is that
the government's been waging a war on speech. Australia was
considering at one point, I don't remember what happened to it,
but they were thinking about passing this horrendous censorship legislation
back while we are doing our elections. You go to Ireland, Ireland,
(09:28):
the government Ireland has abandoned its hate speech legislation for
this term, but the governing parties are promising that they're
going to bring it back. And the European Union. Great Britain,
I mean Great Britain has gone down the rat hole
so bad.
Speaker 1 (09:46):
That just expressing something that.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
Offends somebody else, something I apparently do every single day
can land you in jail. You've got go back to November.
Back in November, back during before and after the election,
(10:11):
you had Bill Gates, John Kerry, Hillary Clinton all calling
for stronger regulation of the Internet and trying to.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
Eliminate wrong think. You know, there was.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
And maybe it was Dick Derbott. Somebody yesterday or day
before in a hearing was mesmerized by the word wrong think.
They were asking, They were asking, maybe Tulsa Gabbard or
Cash Pttel or one of them. About you keep referring
to wrong think. I've never heard this word in my life.
(10:51):
Wrong think. Wrong thing's been in our lexicon for at
least seventy years, maybe longer. Wrong think. In other words,
you're thinking the wrong way. You've got the wrong narrative
in your head. Let me plan a new narrative in
your head. Bill Gates has a now old Netflix show
(11:15):
called What's Next, and he demands AI powered censorship, and
he particularly went censorship of online harassment and wrong speech
or wrong think on vaccines and why is that happening?
Why are they doing it? If you follow Mike Ben's
(11:37):
on X, he's the founder of the Foundation for Freedom Online.
He's got answers to those questions, and he calls an
I think he's the one that first came up with
the phrase the censorship industrial complex, and he explains that
it's also part of what he calls the free speech
(11:58):
industrial complex and the between the two because after World
War Two, the government's advocacy for free speech worldwide allowed
this country to pry open societies in order to get
our political influence networks embedded into those other societies you
can't do that, he says, if an authoritarian state boxes
(12:20):
you out. So in order for the United States to
manage its global empire after World War II, he says, quote,
we built an enormous web of institutions to do free
speech diplomacy, and empowered executive agencies such as USAID to
advocate for explicit judicial reforms. He points out correctly that
(12:43):
it's actually in the charter of USAID to use that
money to get laws passed, including laws around free speech,
passing sanction sanctions on countries like Iran and North Korea
that would crack down on journalists who serendipitously happened to
be journalists funded by USAID. A classified nineteen forty eight
(13:07):
memo called the Inauguration of Organized Political Warfare, written by
George Kennon, who's sort of the godfather of the CIA,
just twelve days after the CIA regular election in Italy,
explains why we need to do this everywhere in perpetuity,
because it's a and they actually use this phrase because
(13:28):
in the memo, he says, because it's a brave new
world and this is something we just have to do now.
The point being is that this eventually spreads over into
our own society. Your tax dollars funded one of the
largest censorship operations in modern history, and here, according to
(13:52):
this hearing yesterday, is exactly how it worked.
Speaker 4 (13:57):
In the Missouri versus Biden case forced the Biden administration
to release twenty thousand pages of evidence emails, clack messages,
meeting notes, and other internal communications between the White House,
the tech.
Speaker 1 (14:10):
Companies, and the NGOs.
Speaker 4 (14:12):
These documents revealed a vast censorship enterprise, far larger in
scope and scale than we could have previously imagined, a coordinated,
well oiled machine with the NGOs at the very center.
This spacincent machine is waging war on our free speech
across multiple fronts. The first is blacklists groups like NewsGuard
(14:33):
and Global Disinformation Index, both of which refused our invitation
to testify here today we did ask feed blacklists of
disfavored media outlets to major advertising firms, depriving these outlets
of access to critical ad dollars. What this does, in effect,
is to box out conservative or dissident outlets from access
to the public square. The top ten outlets on GDI's
(14:57):
blacklists were all on the political right. Another front involves
the manipulation of the private of the public narrative. The
nonprofits work with the press to justify mass censorship, manufacture
hysteria about right wing disinformation, and smear and defame their critics.
Groups like the Atlantic Council actively trained journalists in their
(15:19):
talking points about disinformation, which, surprise, surprise, almost always means
conservative speech. This provides the public pretexts for those same
groups to push for more censorship. We've seen that in
practice and a series of aggressive pressure campaigns waged against
platforms that are too friendly to the free speech. In
(15:42):
twenty twenty, the quote stop Hate for Profit campaign, led
by a coalition of powerful censorship groups, allied with journalists
and advertisers to push for far more aggressive censorship on Facebook,
and Facebook swiftly complied. They tried to run the same
play against Elon Musk during his acquisit Twitter, but Elon
Musk was the only leader of a major social media
(16:04):
platform who was willing to take a stand and defend
free speech. Finally, many of these organizations are directly involved
with real time censorship. Groups like the Stanford Internet Observatory
and the University of Washington Center for an Informed Public,
inform Public monitor social media platforms and flag disfavored narratives
(16:25):
for the tech platforms themselves.
Speaker 5 (16:29):
I'm back in DC this week and well, staying busy,
walking around, checking things out, beautiful weather, checking out the
cherry blossoms. And yeah, we'll see what happens. Hopefully get
some stuff accomplished. But yeah, one day you blink, next
day it's all new. So ever changing the environment. Have
(16:50):
a great day, guys, keep it up and I'll listen
to the podcast later.
Speaker 1 (16:53):
Take care. What was that ever? A cryptic talk back?
Speaker 3 (17:00):
We've gotten a couple of them like that today.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
What are you doing? And are we part of a
group chat or not? So?
Speaker 2 (17:12):
And I'm doing this in the fly now because I
just had an email. You know, I subscribe so you
don't have to to the New York Times. And here's
the email from the New York Times Breaking news The Atlantic.
The magazine The Atlantic publishes transcript of group chat as
(17:35):
criticism mounts over the leak. According to the text, Defense
Secretary Pete Hegsath posted the time that American fighter jets
would take off for strikes on Yemen in the signal chat,
which inadvertently included a journalist several Democrats are calling for
resignations of some Trump officials involved. Fallow Live updates. So
(17:57):
I look at the New York Times story the break,
and I go over to the Atlantic and I'm reading
through the Atlantic, and I'm thinking, Yah, I need to
talk about this because this is actually worse than I
thought it was yesterday. Because basically, and here's what's driving
(18:21):
me nuts. So I told you Jeffrey Goldberg, who is
the editor of the Atlantic. He and I have met before.
We kind of know each well, we do know each other.
And Jeffrey Goldberg, I believe has a dual obligation here.
(18:42):
He has an obligation as a journalist to report the story,
and the story is and I asked this, No, I
don't think I asked this yesterday because I was thinking
about it, but I decided not to because I couldn't
find the answer. I decided not to publish this on
last night. But Jeffrey Goldberg has two obligations. He has
(19:06):
an obligation as a journalist. He has an obligation as
an American citizen. The obligation as a journalist is to
report that this group called the let me scroll up
see exactly what they called themselves they called themselves the
(19:26):
who the PC small group nineteen members disappearing. Message time
was set to one week. This group chat on signal. Now,
there are conflicting reports about the use of signal for
(19:49):
the discussion of what I would call non classified information,
but probably official information, probably not necessarily for your eyes only,
but for official use only. That's about the lowest category
of classification you can get other than being non classified.
(20:12):
There are some reports, and I've read the memo that
says that the use of signal this messaging app was
approved in the Biden administration by the National Security Council
for group chats to discuss non classified but perhaps for
(20:34):
official use only information. I cannot confirm whether or not
that memo is still applicable, or whether it was rescinded
by the Trump administration when they came into office or not.
Now why would that make a difference, Because if the
(20:55):
Trump administration rescinded the Biden memo authorizing the use of signal,
then the use of signal by the National Security Council
and all nineteen members would be in violation of the
administration's own policy, which creates a problem for not following
(21:15):
the rules of the administration. But back to Jeffrey Goldberg
and his dual responsibility. Yes, he has a responsibility as
a journalist. He has a higher responsibility as a citizen.
And my question was this, did he publish yesterday or
day before yesterday? Did he publish the story in the
(21:36):
Atlantic before or if he ever informed Mike Walls, the
National Security Advisor, that Hey, I've been included on a
group chat that I don't think I should be on
because I think he has an if I suddenly got
(21:57):
a invitation to go to join a group chat called
the Hohothy PC small Group, and it included the Secretary
of Defense, the Vice President, this National Security Advisor, the
Director of National Intelligence. Maybe I don't know. There's nineteen
people in here, who knows. I don't know who they
(22:19):
all are. Some are just staffers, but some are senate
confirmed positions. I would have instantly responded, Hey, this is
Michael Brown. I you know, in case you're telling who
I am, here's who I am. I don't think I
belong in this chat. I don't know who added me
(22:41):
to this chat. It appears that maybe Mike Waltz did
take me off, and then I would.
Speaker 1 (22:48):
Have deleted it.
Speaker 2 (22:49):
I think that's Jeffrey Goldberg's responsibility as a citizen. Now
as a journalist, he has probably a journalistic responsibility to
report something like this.
Speaker 3 (23:04):
If we can give a real world example here relatively quickly,
is that my name is the same name as one
of our big wig promotions guys. Here, first name and
first initial of the last name exactly the same. I
was recently, as of this week, put on some upcoming
(23:28):
prize emails and they had absolutely nothing to do with
me because of the other person who was the prize
coordinator prize guy. So I didn't say anything. I hadn't
seen the email chain until much later in the day,
but it was noticed relatively quickly. Hey, wrong guy, and
(23:50):
then they continue the communication without me, and I just
deleted all those other I didn't have to say anything,
like I said, but because I didn't have, had that.
Speaker 1 (23:59):
Not happened prior to to what would you have done?
Speaker 3 (24:01):
I probably said, Hey, are you sure you mean men
not me?
Speaker 1 (24:05):
You really mean him not me? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (24:08):
Yeah, Now imagine that it's a a.
Speaker 1 (24:12):
National security issue.
Speaker 3 (24:13):
And don't get me wrong, I'm very interested in what
those prizes were.
Speaker 1 (24:16):
They look really cool.
Speaker 2 (24:19):
Yeah, at I'm not saying that I wouldn't have scrolled.
I'm admitted, guests, I would have scrolled through to see
what was on there, but I would have made sure
that I instantly told somebody that hey, I this is
this ain't for me and I but I do think
that would said something.
Speaker 3 (24:36):
If it wasn't recognized relatively quickly, I'd have said something.
Speaker 2 (24:39):
Yeah, And I think that Goldberg did have a responsibility
as a journalist to say, you know, the Atlantic wants
to report that our editor was included on a group
chat on Signal in which they were discussing the Hoofy attacks,
and the editor, being the responsible American citizen, he is
(25:04):
immediately informed the White House that I was on a
group chat that I should not.
Speaker 1 (25:07):
Be on and have since deleted the chat.
Speaker 2 (25:11):
But he didn't do that, So there's blame to go
around for everyone. But here's what the New York Times
and The Atlantic are reporting today. So let's go to
the Atlantic and let me scroll through. This is the chat.
I think this is behind the paywall, so I don't
(25:31):
know that you can access it, but we get to
Pete Hagson at ninety six am on whatever date this was,
I think over the weekend offers a team update. And
here's where I think this really is a big mistake. Now,
(25:52):
I don't think it affected operations. I don't think it
effected obviously affected the operational security of the attacks because
someone who should not know about it did know about it.
And this was my question yesterday. Yesterday, I couldn't find
any evidence anywhere that there was actual national security operational
(26:19):
information in this group text. Indeed there is, and this
is what it says. Let me start and I'll finish
after the break. Hegsith in the group chat at nine
forty six am, writes this team update time now eleven
forty four Eastern time, whether it's favorable. Just confirmed with
(26:42):
Sentcom Central Command down in Florida that we are a
go for mission launch, and then he describes it twelve
to fifteen Eastern time. F eighteen's launch first Strike Package
thirteen forty five trigger based F eighteen first Strike Windows
Star target terrorless terrorists is at his known location location,
(27:06):
so should be on time. Also strike drones launch m
Q nine's fourteen ten to ten Eastern time. More F
eighteen's launch second Strike Package fourteen to fifteen strike drones
on target. This is when the first drums will definitely drop,
pending earlier trigger based targets. Meaning this is when the
(27:27):
drums are going to drop, pending confirmation by the drones
that the terrorist is in sight. We have identified and
located the terrorists, the head of the Hooties fifteen thirteen
fifteen thirty six f eighteen second strike starts. Also first
sea based tomahawks launched. More to follow per timeline. We
(27:50):
are currently clean on op SEC.
Speaker 1 (27:53):
No, you are not. You are not clean on OPSEEC.
Speaker 2 (28:01):
Dvance responds, I will, The Vice President responds, I will
say a prayer for victory.
Speaker 1 (28:10):
This is a big mistake. Let me explain why.
Speaker 6 (28:13):
Next, Michael, I was talking to a woman from Sweden
who described what these no go zones that essentially Sharia
law are like in Sweden. And I can tell you
we don't want anything to do with them. We need
to make sure they don't even get started. Yeah, Sweden, Isle,
(28:35):
She says, it's ruining Sweden.
Speaker 2 (28:38):
Yeah, it is, and they're starting to get the some
backlash you're starting to occur in Sweden. So I retired
Leo Goober seventy five ninety two rights Michael, given the
Goldberg is the creator of the false Suckers and Losers line.
He's also a proponent of the Russia Russia Russia. I
(29:01):
doubt Goldberg's credibility, why doubt is credibility too, But the
Atlantic is actually publishing now there is a question how
did he get added when or if did he ever
tell somebody that he, hey, I'm in a group chat
(29:21):
I should not be on And then they now have
published the transcript. So now the Atlantic might actually itself
also be in trouble for having published what appears to
me to be classified information, And it raises the question
should this classified information have been on a signal chat
(29:42):
or not been on a signal chat? I personally, I
personally don't think it should have been. But again, I'm
not aware of what the current White House policy is.
I'm only aware that the previous White House at least
I've read one memo that said, yes, you can discuss
things on signal, you know, by the way, I don't
know that it was signal necessarily. But the use of
(30:06):
encrypted and disappearing chats like this is not just confined
to the FEDS. Mayor Mike Johnston and his lawyers did
it before he testified before Congress about illegal aliens in Denver.
I don't say that to justify anything. I'm just saying
that this is something that is relatively common. But having
(30:29):
now read it, and look, it goes on to point
out things like building collapsed, We've had multiple positive IDs.
So they're talking about on and encrypted ad in which
(30:52):
they have added someone that should not have been added,
or someone has gotten added that should not have been added. Look,
I think everything is possible right now. But to Dragon's point,
what nobody did was nobody went through. And I know
it's but when you're talking about when you're talking about
(31:13):
op sec, when you're talking about operational security, and you
don't take at least a few minutes to say, okay,
let me just check. Uh, I've got nineteen people in here.
Do I have the right nineteen people? Who's this number?
Speaker 1 (31:30):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (31:31):
Well I don't know this number, so delete or ask
who is this before you start doing anything. I think
it's a humongous blunder.
Speaker 3 (31:41):
I do think it is also important to point out
this is not Signal's fault.
Speaker 1 (31:46):
Oh, it's not signal fault at all.
Speaker 3 (31:48):
Signal did nothing wrong with any of this. Their job
is to make sure that the chat that you are
having is encrypted from point A to point B, and
that's it.
Speaker 1 (31:56):
That's it.
Speaker 3 (31:57):
It's unfortunate that point A added the wrong point B.
Speaker 2 (32:02):
Or even that somehow point B somebody nefariously with This
is where there's so much here that it's difficult to
condense it into obvious I advise you can't do in
this segment, but it wouldn't be beyond my imagination that
(32:24):
somebody a holdover, a permanent member of the National Security
Council would have done this deliberately add someone into that
group chat. There is within the West Wing and within
the White House Comms Office. I can see them sitting
(32:46):
right outside the Situation room. There's a whole bunch of
naval officers and civilians that oversee all of this going on.
It's not beyond the fact that somebody could have just
added Goldberg in order to try to literally harm an
ongoing operation m HM
Yes, what a bunch of baes.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
If Dragon was in a wheelchair, whether permanently or not,
you'd blast them all over the air.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
Don't give me that crap.
Speaker 3 (00:13):
But the catch is I would probably be making fun
of myself. That then would lead it to be open
that I am more than welcome for my friends and yeah,
maybe even Michael to say something about it.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
I just want to say real quickly, I don't want
to go into detail. Many people have asked, well, wait
a minute, what's the difference between shri a law is
law must established a no go zone and Shria law
and this idea about tribes? What about the tribes? The
(00:53):
tribes are governed by state and federal law. American Indians
Alaskan Nades are generally subject to federal, state, and local
laws on federal Indian reservations. Federal law and tribal laws
apply to members of the tribe unless Congress provides otherwise,
(01:16):
and they have provided otherwise in public law to eighty
and that law permits the states to exercise criminal and
civil jurisdiction over tribal lands, but the extent of that
jurisdiction depends upon the state and the specific tribe and
the agreements between those tribes and the state. So the
(01:42):
extent to which state laws are enforced now federal law,
no question, federal laws are That's why you know, if
you watch, for example, Dark Winds, which is a series
on Hulu or Netflix somewhere which is about the Navajo tribe,
and you know crime on the on the Navajo tribe,
you have both the well you actually have three. You've
(02:04):
got the FBI, You've got the local sheriff I forget
which county it is, and you've got the tribal police.
So you actually have three jurisdictions, all operating in the
same place. Indian law it is an entirely I mean
you can take when I was in law school, there
were numerous courses on Indian law, and it's an incredibly
(02:30):
complex genre of law to study. But yeah, generally federal
state local laws apply on tribal lands, and tribal law
applies also, and so then you have lots of times
you'll have the question of who has jurisdiction, like who's
(02:50):
going to be in charge, who's going to do this investigation,
who's going to prosecute, And that's usually subject to you know,
the agreement between all of those parties that have jurisdiction,
what's their caseload? How busy are they? You know, what's
the level of the crime. Is it a you know,
is it a huge felony or is it a misdemeanor.
Is it just some some you know, civil infraction or whatever.
(03:12):
So it's it's complex, but yes, generally speaking, the general
rule is that American Indians and Alaskan Natives are generally
subject to federal, state, and local laws. The difference with
Shria law is they claim that they are not, which
takes them outside the protections of the First Amendment. So
it's and remember distinguished between Islam as a religion and
(03:37):
Sharia law as their governance and separate that governance from
you know, their their Bible about you know, their their
religious rules, all three separate things. Yesterday there was there
(03:58):
was a hearing about the censorship operations going on in
this country and in particular by the government. And I
think it's time to kind of revisit the whole censorship
industrial complex because the blowback from it is really kind
(04:18):
of coming up again. You might recall back when jd
Vance before he became before the election, remember his debate
with Tim walls when Vance declared that the vice president
was engaged in censorship at an industrial scale, and that
(04:39):
that was false according to poluit a fact. Well, that's
because the Biden administration's efforts to contact platforms about social
media posts weren't censorship unless they crossed the line into coercion,
which the Democrats kept claiming that they didn't do.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
And according to.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
PolitiFact, unless there was coercion, then they weren't actually engaged
in any sort of censorship. In fact, in that same
PolitiFact story, a professor from of all Places, Columbia told
PolitiFact that quote attempts to limit the spread of dangerous
or false information pertaining to election results or a vaccine's
(05:25):
efficacy during a pandemic is not a threat to democracy.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
Well wait a minute, yes, it is.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
Preventing people from criticizing elections, whether verbally on social media platforms,
on the Internet, or however, that undermines our republican form
of government. The public's our ability to exercise free speech,
our right to question election results, our right to question
(05:56):
election procedures is something that ensures our elections are free
and fair. Now, even PolitiFact acknowledged that Zuckerbird actually sent
a letter in August to the House Judiciary Committee where
he said the Biden Harrison administration repeatedly pressured. Pressured was
(06:17):
the word that Zuckerbird used in the letter, that the administration,
the Biden Ministry of the Auto Pen administration repeatedly pressured
medical censor certain COVID nineteen content. I think that's a
given today. I don't know why that's even debatable. But
PolitiFact at the time waived away the letter, noting that
(06:40):
the Supreme Court had ruled that federal employees pressuring social
media companies to remove posts was not unconstitutional, and then
they went on to quote of again, of all people,
Associate Justice Amy Comy Bahrett, who wrote this, the evidence
indicates that the platforms had independent and thieves to moderate
(07:01):
content and often exercise their own judgment. What drives me
crazy about that is that she didn't consider the government's
pressure of Meta or many other cases of government demands
for censorship. Now, ultimately the court dismissed the case. I'm standing,
but still Amy, call me Barrett. Even back then was well,
(07:25):
you know, they still had their own reasons to do this. Well,
wait a minute, If I've got three reasons to do things,
one of which is my own reason. I just want to.
I just want to. This is my company, and I
want to do it. I want to limit what people
can say. And I got another reason to do it.
I personally is the owner of the company. I just
(07:47):
don't like the stuff that I want to keep it off.
But I got a third reason over here too, and
that is I'm also getting pressure from the government. I'm
getting pressure from the White House of all places to
censor this content. That all blends into my reason for
censoring the content. And Amy call me, Barrett says, well,
(08:09):
you because you had these other reasons, then I can't
consider the fact that the government did it too. I mean,
what come on, come on, she's not even she's not
even logical interrationale here. So why did PolitiFact get this
story so wrong back last year? Perhaps because that's PolitiFact
(08:30):
explained in its article it actually partners with Meta on
this fact checking program in order to slow the spread
of misinformation.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
H political fact political facts.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
And here they are admitting that, yeah, we partner with
Meta because we want to slow the spread of so
called misinformation. Who decides what's misinformation? Well, apparently the fact
checking organization PolitiFact determines what are.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
Facts and not facts.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
We now know the truth, and the truth is that
the government's been waging a war on speech. Australia was
considering at one point, I don't remember what happened to it,
but they were thinking about passing this horrendous censorship legislation
back while we are doing our elections. You go to Ireland, Ireland,
(09:28):
the government Ireland has abandoned its hate speech legislation for
this term, but the governing parties are promising that they're
going to bring it back. And the European Union. Great Britain,
I mean Great Britain has gone down the rat hole
so bad.
Speaker 1 (09:46):
That just expressing something that.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
Offends somebody else, something I apparently do every single day
can land you in jail. You've got go back to November.
Back in November, back during before and after the election,
(10:11):
you had Bill Gates, John Kerry, Hillary Clinton all calling
for stronger regulation of the Internet and trying to.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
Eliminate wrong think. You know, there was.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
And maybe it was Dick Derbott. Somebody yesterday or day
before in a hearing was mesmerized by the word wrong think.
They were asking, They were asking, maybe Tulsa Gabbard or
Cash Pttel or one of them. About you keep referring
to wrong think. I've never heard this word in my life.
(10:51):
Wrong think. Wrong thing's been in our lexicon for at
least seventy years, maybe longer. Wrong think. In other words,
you're thinking the wrong way. You've got the wrong narrative
in your head. Let me plan a new narrative in
your head. Bill Gates has a now old Netflix show
(11:15):
called What's Next, and he demands AI powered censorship, and
he particularly went censorship of online harassment and wrong speech
or wrong think on vaccines and why is that happening?
Why are they doing it? If you follow Mike Ben's
(11:37):
on X, he's the founder of the Foundation for Freedom Online.
He's got answers to those questions, and he calls an
I think he's the one that first came up with
the phrase the censorship industrial complex, and he explains that
it's also part of what he calls the free speech
(11:58):
industrial complex and the between the two because after World
War Two, the government's advocacy for free speech worldwide allowed
this country to pry open societies in order to get
our political influence networks embedded into those other societies you
can't do that, he says, if an authoritarian state boxes
(12:20):
you out. So in order for the United States to
manage its global empire after World War II, he says, quote,
we built an enormous web of institutions to do free
speech diplomacy, and empowered executive agencies such as USAID to
advocate for explicit judicial reforms. He points out correctly that
(12:43):
it's actually in the charter of USAID to use that
money to get laws passed, including laws around free speech,
passing sanction sanctions on countries like Iran and North Korea
that would crack down on journalists who serendipitously happened to
be journalists funded by USAID. A classified nineteen forty eight
(13:07):
memo called the Inauguration of Organized Political Warfare, written by
George Kennon, who's sort of the godfather of the CIA,
just twelve days after the CIA regular election in Italy,
explains why we need to do this everywhere in perpetuity,
because it's a and they actually use this phrase because
(13:28):
in the memo, he says, because it's a brave new
world and this is something we just have to do now.
The point being is that this eventually spreads over into
our own society. Your tax dollars funded one of the
largest censorship operations in modern history, and here, according to
(13:52):
this hearing yesterday, is exactly how it worked.
Speaker 4 (13:57):
In the Missouri versus Biden case forced the Biden administration
to release twenty thousand pages of evidence emails, clack messages,
meeting notes, and other internal communications between the White House,
the tech.
Speaker 1 (14:10):
Companies, and the NGOs.
Speaker 4 (14:12):
These documents revealed a vast censorship enterprise, far larger in
scope and scale than we could have previously imagined, a coordinated,
well oiled machine with the NGOs at the very center.
This spacincent machine is waging war on our free speech
across multiple fronts. The first is blacklists groups like NewsGuard
(14:33):
and Global Disinformation Index, both of which refused our invitation
to testify here today we did ask feed blacklists of
disfavored media outlets to major advertising firms, depriving these outlets
of access to critical ad dollars. What this does, in effect,
is to box out conservative or dissident outlets from access
to the public square. The top ten outlets on GDI's
(14:57):
blacklists were all on the political right. Another front involves
the manipulation of the private of the public narrative. The
nonprofits work with the press to justify mass censorship, manufacture
hysteria about right wing disinformation, and smear and defame their critics.
Groups like the Atlantic Council actively trained journalists in their
(15:19):
talking points about disinformation, which, surprise, surprise, almost always means
conservative speech. This provides the public pretexts for those same
groups to push for more censorship. We've seen that in
practice and a series of aggressive pressure campaigns waged against
platforms that are too friendly to the free speech. In
(15:42):
twenty twenty, the quote stop Hate for Profit campaign, led
by a coalition of powerful censorship groups, allied with journalists
and advertisers to push for far more aggressive censorship on Facebook,
and Facebook swiftly complied. They tried to run the same
play against Elon Musk during his acquisit Twitter, but Elon
Musk was the only leader of a major social media
(16:04):
platform who was willing to take a stand and defend
free speech. Finally, many of these organizations are directly involved
with real time censorship. Groups like the Stanford Internet Observatory
and the University of Washington Center for an Informed Public,
inform Public monitor social media platforms and flag disfavored narratives
(16:25):
for the tech platforms themselves.
Speaker 5 (16:29):
I'm back in DC this week and well, staying busy,
walking around, checking things out, beautiful weather, checking out the
cherry blossoms. And yeah, we'll see what happens. Hopefully get
some stuff accomplished. But yeah, one day you blink, next
day it's all new. So ever changing the environment. Have
(16:50):
a great day, guys, keep it up and I'll listen
to the podcast later.
Speaker 1 (16:53):
Take care. What was that ever? A cryptic talk back?
Speaker 3 (17:00):
We've gotten a couple of them like that today.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
What are you doing? And are we part of a
group chat or not? So?
Speaker 2 (17:12):
And I'm doing this in the fly now because I
just had an email. You know, I subscribe so you
don't have to to the New York Times. And here's
the email from the New York Times Breaking news The Atlantic.
The magazine The Atlantic publishes transcript of group chat as
(17:35):
criticism mounts over the leak. According to the text, Defense
Secretary Pete Hegsath posted the time that American fighter jets
would take off for strikes on Yemen in the signal chat,
which inadvertently included a journalist several Democrats are calling for
resignations of some Trump officials involved. Fallow Live updates. So
(17:57):
I look at the New York Times story the break,
and I go over to the Atlantic and I'm reading
through the Atlantic, and I'm thinking, Yah, I need to
talk about this because this is actually worse than I
thought it was yesterday. Because basically, and here's what's driving
(18:21):
me nuts. So I told you Jeffrey Goldberg, who is
the editor of the Atlantic. He and I have met before.
We kind of know each well, we do know each other.
And Jeffrey Goldberg, I believe has a dual obligation here.
(18:42):
He has an obligation as a journalist to report the story,
and the story is and I asked this, No, I
don't think I asked this yesterday because I was thinking
about it, but I decided not to because I couldn't
find the answer. I decided not to publish this on
last night. But Jeffrey Goldberg has two obligations. He has
(19:06):
an obligation as a journalist. He has an obligation as
an American citizen. The obligation as a journalist is to
report that this group called the let me scroll up
see exactly what they called themselves they called themselves the
(19:26):
who the PC small group nineteen members disappearing. Message time
was set to one week. This group chat on signal. Now,
there are conflicting reports about the use of signal for
(19:49):
the discussion of what I would call non classified information,
but probably official information, probably not necessarily for your eyes only,
but for official use only. That's about the lowest category
of classification you can get other than being non classified.
(20:12):
There are some reports, and I've read the memo that
says that the use of signal this messaging app was
approved in the Biden administration by the National Security Council
for group chats to discuss non classified but perhaps for
(20:34):
official use only information. I cannot confirm whether or not
that memo is still applicable, or whether it was rescinded
by the Trump administration when they came into office or not.
Now why would that make a difference, Because if the
(20:55):
Trump administration rescinded the Biden memo authorizing the use of signal,
then the use of signal by the National Security Council
and all nineteen members would be in violation of the
administration's own policy, which creates a problem for not following
(21:15):
the rules of the administration. But back to Jeffrey Goldberg
and his dual responsibility. Yes, he has a responsibility as
a journalist. He has a higher responsibility as a citizen.
And my question was this, did he publish yesterday or
day before yesterday? Did he publish the story in the
(21:36):
Atlantic before or if he ever informed Mike Walls, the
National Security Advisor, that Hey, I've been included on a
group chat that I don't think I should be on
because I think he has an if I suddenly got
(21:57):
a invitation to go to join a group chat called
the Hohothy PC small Group, and it included the Secretary
of Defense, the Vice President, this National Security Advisor, the
Director of National Intelligence. Maybe I don't know. There's nineteen
people in here, who knows. I don't know who they
(22:19):
all are. Some are just staffers, but some are senate
confirmed positions. I would have instantly responded, Hey, this is
Michael Brown. I you know, in case you're telling who
I am, here's who I am. I don't think I
belong in this chat. I don't know who added me
(22:41):
to this chat. It appears that maybe Mike Waltz did
take me off, and then I would.
Speaker 1 (22:48):
Have deleted it.
Speaker 2 (22:49):
I think that's Jeffrey Goldberg's responsibility as a citizen. Now
as a journalist, he has probably a journalistic responsibility to
report something like this.
Speaker 3 (23:04):
If we can give a real world example here relatively quickly,
is that my name is the same name as one
of our big wig promotions guys. Here, first name and
first initial of the last name exactly the same. I
was recently, as of this week, put on some upcoming
(23:28):
prize emails and they had absolutely nothing to do with
me because of the other person who was the prize
coordinator prize guy. So I didn't say anything. I hadn't
seen the email chain until much later in the day,
but it was noticed relatively quickly. Hey, wrong guy, and
(23:50):
then they continue the communication without me, and I just
deleted all those other I didn't have to say anything,
like I said, but because I didn't have, had that.
Speaker 1 (23:59):
Not happened prior to to what would you have done?
Speaker 3 (24:01):
I probably said, Hey, are you sure you mean men
not me?
Speaker 1 (24:05):
You really mean him not me? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (24:08):
Yeah, Now imagine that it's a a.
Speaker 1 (24:12):
National security issue.
Speaker 3 (24:13):
And don't get me wrong, I'm very interested in what
those prizes were.
Speaker 1 (24:16):
They look really cool.
Speaker 2 (24:19):
Yeah, at I'm not saying that I wouldn't have scrolled.
I'm admitted, guests, I would have scrolled through to see
what was on there, but I would have made sure
that I instantly told somebody that hey, I this is
this ain't for me and I but I do think
that would said something.
Speaker 3 (24:36):
If it wasn't recognized relatively quickly, I'd have said something.
Speaker 2 (24:39):
Yeah, And I think that Goldberg did have a responsibility
as a journalist to say, you know, the Atlantic wants
to report that our editor was included on a group
chat on Signal in which they were discussing the Hoofy attacks,
and the editor, being the responsible American citizen, he is
(25:04):
immediately informed the White House that I was on a
group chat that I should not.
Speaker 1 (25:07):
Be on and have since deleted the chat.
Speaker 2 (25:11):
But he didn't do that, So there's blame to go
around for everyone. But here's what the New York Times
and The Atlantic are reporting today. So let's go to
the Atlantic and let me scroll through. This is the chat.
I think this is behind the paywall, so I don't
(25:31):
know that you can access it, but we get to
Pete Hagson at ninety six am on whatever date this was,
I think over the weekend offers a team update. And
here's where I think this really is a big mistake. Now,
(25:52):
I don't think it affected operations. I don't think it
effected obviously affected the operational security of the attacks because
someone who should not know about it did know about it.
And this was my question yesterday. Yesterday, I couldn't find
any evidence anywhere that there was actual national security operational
(26:19):
information in this group text. Indeed there is, and this
is what it says. Let me start and I'll finish
after the break. Hegsith in the group chat at nine
forty six am, writes this team update time now eleven
forty four Eastern time, whether it's favorable. Just confirmed with
(26:42):
Sentcom Central Command down in Florida that we are a
go for mission launch, and then he describes it twelve
to fifteen Eastern time. F eighteen's launch first Strike Package
thirteen forty five trigger based F eighteen first Strike Windows
Star target terrorless terrorists is at his known location location,
(27:06):
so should be on time. Also strike drones launch m
Q nine's fourteen ten to ten Eastern time. More F
eighteen's launch second Strike Package fourteen to fifteen strike drones
on target. This is when the first drums will definitely drop,
pending earlier trigger based targets. Meaning this is when the
(27:27):
drums are going to drop, pending confirmation by the drones
that the terrorist is in sight. We have identified and
located the terrorists, the head of the Hooties fifteen thirteen
fifteen thirty six f eighteen second strike starts. Also first
sea based tomahawks launched. More to follow per timeline. We
(27:50):
are currently clean on op SEC.
Speaker 1 (27:53):
No, you are not. You are not clean on OPSEEC.
Speaker 2 (28:01):
Dvance responds, I will, The Vice President responds, I will
say a prayer for victory.
Speaker 1 (28:10):
This is a big mistake. Let me explain why.
Speaker 6 (28:13):
Next, Michael, I was talking to a woman from Sweden
who described what these no go zones that essentially Sharia
law are like in Sweden. And I can tell you
we don't want anything to do with them. We need
to make sure they don't even get started. Yeah, Sweden, Isle,
(28:35):
She says, it's ruining Sweden.
Speaker 2 (28:38):
Yeah, it is, and they're starting to get the some
backlash you're starting to occur in Sweden. So I retired
Leo Goober seventy five ninety two rights Michael, given the
Goldberg is the creator of the false Suckers and Losers line.
He's also a proponent of the Russia Russia Russia. I
(29:01):
doubt Goldberg's credibility, why doubt is credibility too, But the
Atlantic is actually publishing now there is a question how
did he get added when or if did he ever
tell somebody that he, hey, I'm in a group chat
(29:21):
I should not be on And then they now have
published the transcript. So now the Atlantic might actually itself
also be in trouble for having published what appears to
me to be classified information, And it raises the question
should this classified information have been on a signal chat
(29:42):
or not been on a signal chat? I personally, I
personally don't think it should have been. But again, I'm
not aware of what the current White House policy is.
I'm only aware that the previous White House at least
I've read one memo that said, yes, you can discuss
things on signal, you know, by the way, I don't
know that it was signal necessarily. But the use of
(30:06):
encrypted and disappearing chats like this is not just confined
to the FEDS. Mayor Mike Johnston and his lawyers did
it before he testified before Congress about illegal aliens in Denver.
I don't say that to justify anything. I'm just saying
that this is something that is relatively common. But having
(30:29):
now read it, and look, it goes on to point
out things like building collapsed, We've had multiple positive IDs.
So they're talking about on and encrypted ad in which
(30:52):
they have added someone that should not have been added,
or someone has gotten added that should not have been added. Look,
I think everything is possible right now. But to Dragon's point,
what nobody did was nobody went through. And I know
it's but when you're talking about when you're talking about
(31:13):
op sec, when you're talking about operational security, and you
don't take at least a few minutes to say, okay,
let me just check. Uh, I've got nineteen people in here.
Do I have the right nineteen people? Who's this number?
Speaker 1 (31:30):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (31:31):
Well I don't know this number, so delete or ask
who is this before you start doing anything. I think
it's a humongous blunder.
Speaker 3 (31:41):
I do think it is also important to point out
this is not Signal's fault.
Speaker 1 (31:46):
Oh, it's not signal fault at all.
Speaker 3 (31:48):
Signal did nothing wrong with any of this. Their job
is to make sure that the chat that you are
having is encrypted from point A to point B, and
that's it.
Speaker 1 (31:56):
That's it.
Speaker 3 (31:57):
It's unfortunate that point A added the wrong point B.
Speaker 2 (32:02):
Or even that somehow point B somebody nefariously with This
is where there's so much here that it's difficult to
condense it into obvious I advise you can't do in
this segment, but it wouldn't be beyond my imagination that
(32:24):
somebody a holdover, a permanent member of the National Security
Council would have done this deliberately add someone into that
group chat. There is within the West Wing and within
the White House Comms Office. I can see them sitting
(32:46):
right outside the Situation room. There's a whole bunch of
naval officers and civilians that oversee all of this going on.
It's not beyond the fact that somebody could have just
added Goldberg in order to try to literally harm an
ongoing operation m HM
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.