Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard - Flightless Bird: Surveillance

Episode Date: April 23, 2024

In this week's Flightless Bird, David Farrier looks at how America surveils its own citizens and asks why America is a “spying superpower.” In 2022 alone, 145,000 Facebook users and 100,000 Gmail accounts were rifled through by the US government’s spy agencies. How come? Farrier delves into America’s Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and “Section 702" and talks with journalist Byron Tau, author of “Means of Control: How The Hidden Alliance of Tech and Government is Creating a New American Surveillance State.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I'm David Ferrier in New Zealand, I accidentally marooned in America and I want to figure out what makes this country tick. Now if there's one thing I've learned about America this year, it's that it both loves TikTok and also hates TikTok. TikTok influencers beware. Today a House committee voted on a bipartisan bill that could effectively ban the app in the United States. The fear of the Chinese spying on America using the popular social media app became

a giant talking point in politics. No American likes the idea of another country potentially spying on them, and I get it. But then I started to think about all the ways America likes to spy as well. America is a spying superpower. A huge amount of internet traffic runs through America, plus a bunch of powerful software the world loves, from Zoom to Gmail, are all American, and open to the American government's prying eyes. In 2022 alone, 145,000 Facebook users and 100,000 Gmail accounts were rifled through

by the US government's spy agencies. America's Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act has a bit called Section 702, which means the government is able to take part in mass surveillance of things like emails, texts, social media, DMs and whatever you've been up to on your dating apps. I wanted to know what this means for me living in America and whether it's time for me to grab my podcasting gear and run for the hills. So get ready to share your location data on all your apps and wonder about who's looking because this is the surveillance episode. I'm a flightless bird that's down in America.

Monica they're watching. They are. Now don't get scared, it sounds like quite a serious meaty topic, but it's also fun thinking about these things, you know? Yeah, I mean, I have a weird perspective on this, where to an extent, I don't really care. I'm kind of with you. On a personal basis, it's hard to get fired up because I was actually thinking about this. I was thinking, you know, I'm in America now.

I'm a suspicious New Zealander. You know, maybe they're keeping an eye on me. They always look at me a bit suspiciously when I arrive at the airport. They always want to know what I'm doing here. They're like, what are you doing here? I might do a podcast. Like what podcast? Always feel like I'm going to get kicked out again.

But when it comes down to it, yeah, I don't really mind if they're reading my emails. It's funny, isn't it? Before I came here, I put a whole lot of my stuff in New Zealand into storage. It's in a big storage shed and there's some private stuff, like old diaries and stuff. And I'm like, if someone cuts thearies and stuff and I'm like if someone Cuts the bolt and steals everything from my storage here. There's anything in there that I'd be like, oh no someone's Got that and I feel a bit the same about so it was a bit of a weird sort of metaphor But I feel a bit like surveillance. I don't think it's a weird metaphor

I think it's that's exactly what it is except the difference is like if Roosevelt Finds your diaries. Oh, you might not want her to read it You know because you have all your secret thoughts about her and the egg and all kinds of things. That's true It's almost worse having a friend get a hold of your private things than a complete stranger who has no context, right? Yeah, and Rosabelle or me, we wanna read your diary. We have a big interest in your secrets and what you're keeping from all of us. I think of nothing worse, yeah.

But I really, truly believe, I mean this, I don't think the government cares about our baby secrets or even secrets that for us mean a lot, right? And like could ruin our personal lives. They don't care. Absolutely not. How do you feel about that balance of privacy, this idea of having privacy, but also protecting all of us from whatever perceived threats, whether they're internal or external, that

balance to you, does it matter that much to you day to day? I've moved along the spectrum on this because I used to really not care about privacy. Go ahead, look through everything. I think you should look through everything of everyone's. If you're going to catch a predator or a terrorist or something, go ahead. But now, and I do think this has to do with my proximity to public figures, I do respect privacy more. I understand privacy more. And I do understand that people like to exploit public figures,

and those people are my friends, so that is scary. So I now care about it more, but I'm more worried about the hacker who would want to expose something than the government. Because again, I don't think the government cares about, I don't even know some gossipy person on the internet. Someone malicious coming in is much more terrifying. And I guess that comes down to your trust of the government. Do you think it's great? They've got a best interest in mind. It's a perception of them, right? Some people of the government. Do you think it's great they've got our best interests in mind? It's a perception of them right? Some people see the government as being this really scary force,

others are like thank gosh it's there looking after us. Yeah I don't think it's either of those. I don't think they necessarily have our personal best interests at heart, but they do have an overarching plan. They are trying to maintain, well depending on who's in charge, democracy and they are trying to ultimately keep America at number one. I know that they don't care about some gossipy fit. They just like don't have time for that. Government aside, have you ever had a little secret revealed? Has anyone surveilled you? Someone at school got into your diary or did your parents ever open the wrong drawer and get all your private stuff?

Have you sort of had any privacy violations? My mom went through my diary one time, but I was just a Christian boy, so it was dead boring. Which is like, pray today. It was nothing scandalous in there. I did nothing scandalous until I was 25 or something. But your thoughts were probably scandalous because you're naughty.

Yeah. Oh, no. The thoughts were bad. But they stayed in the brain, which is very healthy. I never wrote them down or anything. They were just ping ponging around up there. Never got them on paper. Thank god.

OK, I'm sort of with you on that. I don't trust a journal. You know, Dax has these journals. He's written in these journals every day since since he got sober. And I am baffled by his willingness to just have his journal. Obviously, trust the people in his home. Yeah, it's like having your brain sort of all out there. It's like getting your brain and putting it externally. That's a scary thing. Yeah. And I've tried diaries a couple times

because I think it's supposed to be good. They say that. For you, they do say that. And every time I do it, the next day, I just like rip up the papers from the day before to make sure nobody can ever read them. You get rid of that, get rid of the evidence. Got it.

Before the government gets to you. Dax could get one of those little diaries that has a little lock on it. So he locks it with a little key, one of those diaries. That's my whole point. He doesn't care. He must just be writing, who knows what's in there. It probably is like your Christian diary.

Just his name again and again. Like it's boring. But also I'm sort of baffled by the trust. Also like if he knew that you read his journal, you're probably just never in his life ever again. Yeah, imagine if he left one a little diary in the attic and he got in there and I was just rifling through it, taking photos.

Oh my God, David. He's so big, if he attacked, it would be scary. Because I know he does get, he can get fired up. I wouldn't like to be at the receiving end. I wouldn't do well. No, you wouldn't. I'm going to go, he can get fired up. I wouldn't like to be at the receiving end. I wouldn't do well. No, you wouldn't. I'm going to go ahead and say you would not. Okay, this is sort of a ding ding ding

because we just had a diagnosed sociopath on Armchair Expert, on experts. It's taking a weird turn, your show. She's also a therapist, but she's a diagnosed sociopath. She has a book coming out and she's written a lot for like publications and stuff. I love this. It's fascinating, but part of what her sociopathy presents, she does a lot of stalking and snooping.

That's a big part of her compulsions. And so if his diary was out, she'd be in there. A hundred percent she'd be in there. So she's fully aware and she's decided to use this as a learning experience instead of teach others and spread awareness. She describes it as a emotional learning disorder. There are ways you can learn. It's just obviously not in the ways that neurotypical people do. So you do have

to know that about yourself. And it's so interesting. She should work in government surveillance, I think. She'd be good at it. Get secrets. This is an abrupt turn and no way tonally to do this in a good way. Now we're recording this remotely because you've got a little cough coming on and in case you've got the flu you don't want to infect me. So I got feijos. I got feijos. If you're recording this remotely because you've got a little cough coming on and in case you've got the flu you don't want to infect me. So I got phyjo's. I got phyjo's. If you're going like what the hell is a phyjo? Two episodes ago, phyjo is a really popular fruit in New Zealand. They're super common. They're a certain time of the year. They're

just falling off trees. They're everywhere. Like you just can, there's too many phyjo's. In America, very hard to find. So after that episode, some sort of produce place, Melissa's, which is apparently its headquarters is in California, but they're all over America, they sell Fijoas. And they sent me, it's the first amazing thing I've gotten from doing the show, it's just a big box of Fijoas.

So anyway, I crept over to your house this morning and I left, at the bottom of your stairs, I left Fijoas, so you're gripping one now. I am, it was so nice of you. I'm really excited. We talked about them a lot on the episode. Is it what you pictured? The skin is tougher than I pictured. It's tough skin. It's tough. Maybe you said that but I didn't internalize it. It's kind of like the shape of an egg and it's got a unique little thing at the top. a little hat. It's got a little hat on it. It has a hat on it. It does have a hat.

I feel that it looks like a lemon shaped cucumber. Yeah, you're not wrong. They're very funny associations, but you're completely right. The skin feels cucumber-y. Now, give it a big sniff. Inhale the skin. What do you think of that? Oh, it does smell, you're right, it smells really good actually.

Okay, so I want you to eat this thing. Yeah, it's very floral. Okay, you've got a knife there. I want you to- Okay, no, I have a spoon. And then you want me to get a knife. Well, you can maybe cut through it with a spoon. We need to cut it in half.

However you'd think about cutting this thing in half, a spoon could do it. Let me give it a try. Cause it is a tough exterior exterior but it's also gentle and if you just sort of saw through with your spoon in half that should do it. I might squirt a little bit on you. It's a juicy center, a moist center. Yeah really get in there really saw through. Okay. Look at that what a beautiful center. Now smell that, give that a good sniff and see what you think of that. What a beautiful center. Now smell that. Give that a good sniff and see what you think of that.

Okay. It smells delicious. Okay, great. It really does. Doesn't look good. Wow. The color looks not vibrant. Not vibrant.

No. Looks like my pale skin. It looks like a banana was squished up in here. Yeah, I think that's fair. This is sort of a jellyish center and then sort of a more textured bit around the outside. It smells so good though, it really does. Now is it potentially it could do with another couple of days ripening so I'm a little bit worried it will be a little bit on the sour side but I want you to get that spoon I want you to scoop

out just the whole thing almost like an egg. goo all of it the white the hard and the goo you need to like slide that spoon around and really just lift it out of its green shell I think you're right about the ripeness but I'm gonna take this bite oh wow you're chewing oh wow now look is it sour? Very. Okay, so I've given you an unripe fijo, which is a bad move on my behalf. I got too excited. Wow. Gave it to you too early.

This is so interesting though. Okay. Mine is very sour, but wow, it has a lot of different flavors. This is interesting. This is not what I would... You're going back for more. This is a good sign. Okay. I just watched this wine show and on the wine show, they're identifying all the flavors and the aromas. That's what I feel like I'm doing right now. I taste strawberry.

I taste a berryness. Absolutely. People talk about strawberry. They talk about hints of pineapple. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. This is nice. It is extremely sour. Okay. So that's not the ideal way. So I should wait until tomorrow? Yeah. Hold that. Yeah. I've got, I've left you a couple of others there. So just sit them out on the shelf, maybe next to some bananas, and that'll help ripen them all up. Is it bad that I'm eating it not right? I know it's great. I mean, I just love seeing you enjoying New Zealand's best thing

It's really good David fantastic Well, yeah, I'm so glad. Okay. This is great. I think this is the first New Zealand thing you like Tim Tams You didn't like pineapple lumps. I don't think you like the Whittaker's chocolate. You didn't like Jaffas you hated those Hold on what would every I don't think you like the Whittaker's chocolate. You didn't like Jeffers, you hated those. Hold on. What would, every- Jeffers, do you remember I bought you those like round red candies?

You hated those. Oh, are you talking about the orange chocolate? Yeah. Ugh, yeah, that was disgusting. You hated them, yeah. I hated those, but I know the chocolate was good. The chocolate was very good. I saw it sitting there a couple of months later.

Sees something different, doesn't it? The chocolate was good, but it wasn't, you made it out to be like it was gonna have like magical powers or something. Which to me didn't, but it was very good. No, I liked the meat pies. No, you did like the meat pie. That's right, you've had a meat pie. You've had a sausage roll.

I got you a Lamington. Yeah. The coconut sort of, you know, that sort of fluffy cake. They had, yeah, that was good. That was delicious. But I think this is the best. Yes. This is great.

This is great news. I actually found out something interesting. It was in an article, actually an article written by Whititticca's Chocolate, which is the New Zealand chocolate brand, so possibly a bit biased. But the headline in this piece was, Why does American chocolate taste bad? Oh, God.

And I'm going to look more into this because I think I want to do a chocolate episode, but apparently there's a certain compound in some American chocolates that's also present in rancid butter and vomit. No! No! That, who wrote this? Yeah, so sometimes there's some brands, and I gotta be careful, there's some brands of American chocolate I've eaten and I thought that does taste a bit like vomit to me. No! And so that's why we've got very different tastes I think. So you as an American have

been raised on vomit tasting chocolate. So when you actually taste sweet, delicious chocolate, you're like, something's wrong here. No, it's not. OK, first of all, you are going to have to do an episode on this because I don't believe you. Also, I on a fact check recently because we had Rebel Wilson on, she brought us Tim Tams so good from Australia. Yeah, she bought you the right thing. They were delicious.

And then we dig it on the conversation of Australian chocolate. And then I did look it up. It's because in Europe and I guess Australia and probably New Zealand, there's God, I forget all the facts I read. On my brain, it's the same thing. Believe me. They're completely gone. But it's the same thing, believe me. They're completely gone. But it's not that there's something in our chocolate,

there's something in your chocolate. It's about like the milk solid. It's something about the salt that make it good. Yeah, it's the milk side of things. That we don't have. Well, no, it's butyric acid. Butyric acid is the compound that's found in a lot of American chocolate.

And that's the thing that's also present in a lot of vomit. Ugh, stop saying that! Oh, God. I vomited for the first time in a long time the other day. Oh, when you had the flu? We're really off topic. Yeah, I had the flu. I've been sick. I've been in a bad way. It's awful vomiting, isn't it? It's horrible. It's degrading. You're like, what am I doing?

It's awful. I'm knocking on. You're like, what am I doing? It's awful. It's, I'm knocking on wood. I don't want that. Okay. Now, so I got us way off topic. You've had a feature, really happy. Okay. So I'm going to play you this little surveillance documentary. I'm very excited about surveillance because I read this book, which I'm about to talk to you about means of control.

And so I just find this topic so interesting. So yeah, this is what I learned. When I was 16 and living in a small town called Bethlehem in New Zealand, I was obsessed with a movie called Enemy of the State. It was directed by the late great Tony Scott and starred Will Smith and Gene Hackman. A powerful man has been murdered. A hidden camera recorded the crime. None of this goes beyond us. We don't remember it all that well 25 years later but it had something to do with a rogue NSA agent who used America's surveillance powers to try and

kill Will Smith. Now here in 2024 with all this constant talk about TikTok spying on us, I was back to wondering what the NSA was up to, and the FBI, and the CIA, the American government. I lived in America now, and I wanted to know who might be prying into my business. My name is Byron Tau. I'm a reporter in Washington, D.C., where I cover mainly law, courts, and some national security. I was talking to Byron because he's just written an amazing book called Means of Control. It's about how America's tech industry has joined forces with the government to make America more of a surveillance state than ever before. It wasn't an easy book for him to write. He interviewed over 300 sources over four years, including a lot of people who didn't

want to talk. Yeah, well, the most difficult part is that when you're writing about government surveillance programs or law enforcement techniques that police agencies would like to keep quiet, it's difficult to get people to speak candidly. Often you have to work on them hard to get them to trust you. Often you have to offer them anonymity or confidentiality. And just in general, it's a hard world to report on and just takes a lot of time. But he's done with the book. It's out. Dedicated to his mum, Barbara Ann. And now he's stuck

here with me. What do you see as the thing that sort of sets America apart and makes it interesting to you when it comes to how we're being surveilled? First, the United States, at least in the past 20 or 30 years, has been the place where a lot of these technologies emerged. And so, of course, U.S. government entities are kind of at the forefront of figuring out clever ways to use them and to exploit them. And there's just a robust technology sector in the United States, and that technology

sector sometimes works with the government. The second thing I would say is actually in America there's a deep skepticism about government power and government surveillance which makes this topic controversial in ways that I don't actually think it's that controversial in other places. You know at one point I interviewed someone who was from the UK originally and he kind of rolled his eyes at the notion that anyone would be concerned about the government getting location data from his phone or tracking him all the time on CCTV cameras. He said that's just kind of how it is in the UK. And I think that Americans don't have that attitude because a lot of Americans don't trust their government.

There's a long history of civil liberties and civil libertarianism in the United States and there's the lingering distrust about government power. A lingering distrust of government power. It has me thinking about Enemy of the State again and a whole bunch of American movies I grew up with where America was the bad guy. Why are they after me? Two targets, two of them. You have something they want!

I don't have anything! I suppose Americans not trusting their government is pretty clear when you look to things like the capital riots, or just anything in politics at the moment. This election year so far has been a shit show of distrust. But back to surveillance. Something I've found sort of interesting as an outsider being here is that there's so much talk and paranoia in America about the likes of TikTok and how China is surveilling Americans. And yet, obviously, America is doing similar things and using similar tricks with its own people. I find that kind of fascinating. It is really interesting, right, because there's obviously not a moral equivalent you draw

between the People's Republic of China and the United States. I mean, both governments can be criticized, but China is engaged in activities that the US has called genocide in Xinjiang. But if you're just talking about the tools and the techniques of using, say, covert social media accounts to push content or surveilling large parts of the globe using data, well that is something that the United States government does and has done. The United States government builds apps or has contractors build apps that collect data from people around the world for intelligence purposes. And that's sort of the same thing that US national security officials are worried about

with TikTok. So these information networks, the internet and apps and advertising, all of them can be exploited by governments, whether it's the United States government or the Chinese government. And I think we're suddenly seeing the US government become aware that though the US had the technology lead for 20 or 30 years, the future probably belongs to other countries. And then there will be a robust Chinese tech sector, there will be a robust Indian tech sector, there will be a robust African tech sector, and in the future those countries will exploit data, potentially

data about Americans in the way that our government has been exploiting it for the past few decades. What Byron became particularly fascinated by is how the American government uses consumer data that's been hoovered up by various apps and programs. When people click I agree when they sign up to a new thing on the internet they're not generally reading the small print and a lot of the time that small print is saying your data is up for grabs to the highest bidder. So while generally spy agency aren't allowed to spy domestically, there are loopholes, like buying data that already exists on you.

The phenomenon I'm describing of data being available for sale, I think that is a form of bulk surveillance and in the United States in general we as a society have been very skeptical about bulk surveillance right, we're okay saying we think this person is a criminal, I'm going to go before a judge, I'm going to get a warrant, I'm going to look at their email accounts or their text messages. I think most people think that's reasonable. Where they don't think it's reasonable is that everybody's data gets vacuumed up into a giant database. And that is technically not really allowed under American law if you're targeting Americans. The loophole is that if you buy the data on the open market, suddenly those constitutional protections that Americans are used to, they go away.

And so I think Americans, generally speaking, have been skeptical about bulk surveillance programs, about mass surveillance. They've been much more okay with targeted surveillance, with limited surveillance, with a judge supervising surveillance. And so I think that the amount of data that's sloshing around is starting to challenge those traditional notions of Americans' privacy and Americans' limited government.

Now, it's possible that the social bargain has simply changed and that we all essentially have accepted this world with both the upsides of convenience and free digital apps, as well as the downside of persistent tracking by corporations and governments. This also comes down to this big concept of the lawfulness versus how ethical it is, right? Yeah, I think so, right? Because in some of these programs that I write about where the government

is buying large amounts of, say, location data on the movement of phones and cars, I mean, it's technically been deemed legal but if you look at the way the data was collected, if you look at the justifications the government has given for doing this, that essentially they're saying well consumers have opted into this don't worry but really consumers are not really being told exactly how the data is collected, they're not being told where it's going so it's not really truly meaningfully consent if you want to talk about having a consumer truly ethically opt into these programs. Because nobody who's a potential target for surveillance by the Department of Homeland Security or local law

enforcement is ever really gonna voluntarily opt into a surveillance program, right? So you are relying on some level of public ignorance to track people this way. There's a whole industry of data brokers in America, and their big customer is the American government. Of course, none of this is new. Back in 2019, a Harvard professor termed it surveillance capitalism. One senior national security official told Byron that we're backing ourselves into a surveillance state, and that data collection tilts the power away from the individual towards the government. In some of the ways we're being surveilled, well, they're things I'd

never really thought of before. Like when you realize something is seemingly innocent as the tyres on your car mean you can be followed. So whenever you start your car and you flip through the little screen that shows the tyre pressure, the way your car knows the tyre pressure is because there's a little sensor, a wireless sensor embedded in the tyre that's constantly communicating to the central computer of the car and saying, you know, hey, I'm tire number 3573 and my tire pressure is 42. All is good. But of course, that transmission is actually just going out into the clear.

And so some very clever government intelligence agencies have figured out ways to build little sensors that can detect and read these tire pressure readings. Now I don't know if this is like a true mass surveillance technology. I don't recommend that people go deflate their tires, but it just shows that there's a vector for surveillance in all of these ordinary consumer technologies that we use and that none of them are really built for privacy. They're not built to protect us against tracking. They're sort of carelessly designed in many ways and the government is very clever.

All these agencies, they have missions and they have technologists and they find very clever ways to deliver on these capabilities. And so there are many factors for surveillance that go unconsidered by the average person. Byron also did a deep dive into how dating apps can be used in surveillance.

How our horniness can be weaponized against us. The issues around dating apps are fascinating to me as well. I sort of start a whole chapter in your book about Grindr and how that can be used dating apps are the ultimate form of giving out your location, right? And we do that willingly. So it's not even that these apps are making the location available for sale per se.

They're just plugged into this very complicated advertising ecosystem, and because people, when they load up dating apps on their phone, they want to date people near them, right? They wanna know, are you two miles away, are you 50 miles away? Often we wanna date the person that's two miles away, so we enable our location settings, we turn it on.

But when you do that, you're sharing all this information with tens of thousands of parties on these advertising networks. And some of them are just sitting there vacuuming it all up. And some of those people are selling it to who knows who, right? Government agencies, private investigators, dark web criminals. We don't know where the data goes once it leaves our phone. And in terms of dating apps, they really generate a very rich repository of information because people swipe when they're bored, they swipe when they're lonely, and they've turned on a rich amount of data that they're sharing with the app and the advertisers. And so, of course, governments and data brokers have become interested in getting location data,

and dating apps generate a very rich stream of that. I'm increasingly aware of how much data is being collected on me, all the time, from various apps and companies. I went into one of those Amazon stores when I was at a baseball game. An army of cameras was trained on me as I walked around picking things up. There was no checkout. When I left the store it knew what I'd gotten, and I was charged for it. Look, if you're American this sort of shit's old news to you, but to me it's all pretty novel still. And when you throw one of those Vision Pro things on your face, that's a whole bunch of cameras, including infrared cameras collecting your raw biological data. No doubt at some point it'll be used to train AI about everything to do with you.

But you can't help but wonder, who else might end up prying. I think it's like previous generations of technology, like the car tires, like the advertising networks that we're creating these systems and we really don't know or even start to think about how they're going to be exploited in the future, right? People are putting large amounts of data into these large language models, which I don't even think their creators fully understand how they work and what they do. And so I do think in the future, there's going to be incidents that we don't even conceive of because we don't quite understand these systems and we don't

build them for privacy and security and to make sure that the dignity of all the individuals using them are going to be protected. We instead, like Americans, rush headlong into embracing new technologies without really thinking through that there are downsides, there are costs, there are potential concerns about the way these things will work. And so I think we're just at the very, very beginning of understanding how these systems will be used and how they will betray us. Stay tuned for more Flightless Bird. We'll be right back after a word from our sponsors.

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It's a lot to take in, but it's pretty meaty. I just find it really interesting when you think of all these day-to-day things where the very American thing is that because America loves money, so there's advertisers everywhere. And so all this data is being hoovered up to be used commercially, and then the American government can jump onto that data and legally track its citizens and see what we're up to. Yeah, I understand the fear around it, but I also feel a little bit like we want the technology. We want our car to be able to tell us about the tire pressure. We don't want to check it every other day. We like that. We like dating app. We like the convenience. So to me that is a trade-off.

I think Byron described it as the social contract changing over time and the idea that it has changed over time. We're happy to put all our photos out onto the internet now. We used to be paranoid about people having our photos, but then Facebook came along and suddenly we were uploading thousands of photos. And I feel it's the same with the tire pressures and the cameras. It makes our life so convenient. We're okay to let that privacy stuff drop behind a little bit.

I also like what he said, and I think it's really true. A lot of other countries, they just don't have this dedication to privacy. They're like, well, yeah, this is how government works. I think because we are a country of liberty, that's such a big tenant that it creates this big conversation. Yeah. And that's something I hadn't really thought about how America is less

trusting of its government than potentially people in New Zealand or the UK. I, it seems obvious since he stated that, but it's something I hadn't really clocked. I quite like that suspicious aspect. I love that cynical take a little bit, it's very me. It is very you. But also that's what I mean. When you're in New Zealand, were you thinking about any of this?

Cause it's happening there too. Absolutely. It's just not loud. It's just not a bunch of people being like, this is bad. No, I mean, New Zealand, I mean, we have a sort of a secret spy base in New Zealand and we're New Zealand is part of the single the five eyes network, which are five different countries that have joined together with America to surveil like swapping information about each other.

So New Zealand is via very much a part of this 100% this book, I think what Byron's done and means of control it just outlines things I never would have thought of before around how in our day to day life information is just being hoovered up and used in various ways. And obviously for us fairly ordinary members of the public, who cares? But you know, you think of journalists trying to do their job or people trying to speak truth to power. If suddenly they are being surveilled, it's more of an issue for them and trying to do their work.

Yeah, it definitely can be. I mean, I struggle with this topic a little bit. And what I'm going to say, I'm saying it because I wonder if other people will have this thought. I feel I'm still forming my thoughts as well. Again, this book, I was just at stuff I haven't really given a great level of thought to before. There's a part of this conversation that feels

conspiracy theory adjacent. The government is tracking our tire pressure. I know that sure with tech, with the cloud, with all of it, we're available to them, you know. It very lines up with paranoid thinking. Paranoia. Yeah, and I think there's a level, there's a level of looking at it sensibly and being like, this is a thing that's happening.

But then this is the kind of content that gets mentally unwell people really worried about being tracked at every moment and having chips installed in their brain. It's in this wheelhouse. Yeah, it's very adjacent and to me dips in and out of it. And so I keep it at a little bit of an arm's length. Something I've literally sort of thought about this now as far as where America fits and obviously something like 9-11.

We've talked about this so much on Armchair in Dangerous and stuff. But obviously 9-11 was a big shift in America's surveillance policies. And suddenly that changed the whole world and the way that we flew and traveled and how much we're being surveilled as we jumped on planes. And I wonder what is the consensus. I wonder if we did a survey of the American populace. Are we happier that we have those precautions post 9-11 or are we not? I mean, I am. I like knowing that we're doing everything we can to prevent a disaster. Oh, completely. Did I tell you when in New Zealand,

I got this part-time job at the airport one summer when I was studying and I had to go onto planes and check that no one had hidden weapons on them to be used by terrorists? Did I tell you about this? That was your part-time job. Pretty loose, right? It is.

Yeah, I think they had strikes at the main Auckland New Zealand airport, and so they were down on staff. And so one summer they did this massive hire. And so I was brought in, I headed out to the airport at three in the morning and the planes would land and I would go on with my team of people that have been trained over sort of a week and we'd look under the seats in the seat pockets up above in the luggage storage to make sure no one did like take the knife under the seat or something to be used by their colleagues who was like on the next flight. It was very

dramatic. Very dramatic. Wow. Did you ever find one? Did anyone ever find one? Nothing. I actually, I just found some vomit under a seat one time. Yeah. I found nothing exciting. It was the least exciting job I've ever had in my life. Although it was fun going out on the tarmac and a little buggy to like get to the pains. That was really fun. That's fun. Yeah.

Anyway. All right. I did talk to Byron a little bit more about something called the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which is just a very American thing so this is the last little bit of the doc. Something I'd forgotten to talk to Byron about earlier was that Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, we probably should have started there, as it's the thing that allows the government to get potential access to our horny dating app data, email inboxes, and whatever memes we can't tell spies and terrorists that their data is being vacuumed up by the US government. Now I should say all governments do a form of this. European governments do it, Asian governments do it, African governments do it.

They tap telecom networks, they spy, they compel companies to turn over information for national security purposes. But what makes America different is that so much of the world's telecommunications traffic passes through the United States. A lot of it passes through switches here in the DC area that makes it vulnerable to interception by the US government. And second, that a lot of the global tech brands are American companies and have data in the United States.

So what makes America special, what makes it a spying superpower in many ways, is the fact that so many global tech companies are based here and the American government can just walk into Google's headquarters or walk into Metta's headquarters with a list of all the people that it wants to target for surveillance

and get a ton of information about those people. And it does it all in secret. America is, in Byron's words, a spying superpower. And look, all power to America in catching the bad guys. But what about the good guys that get caught up in this? Look, I've seen Enemy of the State, I've read about Edward Snowden, and as I talked to Byron I wondered how paranoid he is about doing the kind of work he does here. I realize we're talking on Zoom right now, something made in America, with data centers in America, could easily be intercepted. I wonder if stuff like that plays over in his mind. It certainly does because you know as a reporter I'm talking to a lot of people,

I'm trying to offer them confidentiality, in some cases people people are breaking NDAs and I'm trying to protect them. I don't want consequences visited on them. So I do try to be very, very security conscious about where I store data, how I store data, what platforms I use. It doesn't mean I give up using social media. I'm wearing a fitness ring that tracks how well I sleep. There are benefits to these technologies. We don't all have to go live in the woods, but we should really use them mindfully.

We should use them aware of the downside risk. As you say, I'm talking to you on Zoom. Zoom has a potential to be intercepted. So I'm, you know, I'm not saying anything tremendously sensitive. We're having a conversation for public consumption. If I were talking to someone who was kind of a whistleblower, a government insider, maybe I wouldn't use Zoom, maybe I would use Signal or something. So I certainly as a reporter try to be aware of this stuff and I think increasingly as more and

more information becomes digitized, as so many more professions are gonna entirely live on computers, that I think more and more people are going to have to think about this stuff in their day-to-day lives. Before I let Byron get back to his life writing about surveillance, I wanted to know what other tips he had when it came to protecting data from prying eyes. It depends what you're worried about protecting, right? So I do think if you're talking about shady data brokers collecting your location, you certainly can disable a lot of the location settings in a lot of your commercially available apps. You don't need to tell the weather app where you are, you could just type in the city where you are. You could

just let it know your location when you open it, not 24-7. So I would tell people to primarily be conscious of what information they share with these apps that they put on their phone. There are certainly very good privacy protecting technologies, especially communications technologies, WhatsApp, Signal, Apple's iMessage. These are all encrypted. They will all protect the contents of your communications. Some of them are stronger encryption than others. Some of them collect less data than others, but in general the ordinary person using these services will get a pretty decent level of privacy. It's not perfect, you could always hack people and steal their data, but it's harder for snoopers, governments,

telecoms to see messages transiting on that platform. And finally I would really recommend that people rethink their relationship to paying for digital services because when apps can't rely on people to pay 99 cents or $1.99 for an app or a few bucks a month for a service, that's really when they do turn to monetizing their user base because it's not free to make an app. It does cost money. You've got to hire coders to code it. Rent server space. You have to hire lawyers to

draw up a privacy policy, you have to pay employees. So technology is never really free. And so when people are unwilling to spend even a few dollars on an app or a service, then that's when these companies start to turn around and say, okay, well, they want our app, but they don't want to pay for it. Why don't we just monetize them? Why don't we sell their data? Yeah amen to all of that and you do all of that and obviously also occasionally

let some air out of your tires right? That's right if you really are concerned about surveillance yes you probably want to find a mechanic to rip those sensors out of your car tires. Look to be honest I couldn't really care less about who's tracking my information. I won't be deflating my tires anytime soon. Then again I just rewatched Minority Report and it reminded me what can go wrong when our data is harvested and used against us. I also think the whole tick-tock panic has been really interesting to watch and shows how differently the likes of China thinks about this stuff to how America thinks about it. As Byron notes in the closing of his book, China wants its citizens to know they're being watched. In America, the success lies in its

secrecy. By the time this goes to air, the whole TikTok thing may have changed entirely, but I do think it's kind of fascinating how there's no great proof right now that China is using TikTok to influence the masses in America or to surveil us, but it turned into such a giant talking point, like such a big thing, it's almost talked about as if it's definite fact. I'm not on TikTok, so I know so little about this. I mean, I know the gist. You're lurking on TikTok somewhere watching those videos. No, I'm not. I'm not. Thank God.

I'm so glad I've avoided that rabbit hole. I'm with you. I think it's the last social network where I think I just, I haven't gotten on. It's like I've aged out and I'm aware of it and that's okay. I agree. I agree. I think it's okay. But this has been talked about since the beginning, since TikTok first blew up. Oh, China, Chinese app. They have all our data. They're tracking like all of it.

And then what made it turn so quickly in the past month? There's just been hearings about it. It's just been this big push by America. It's sort of a political track down just a crackdown. So there was no impetus, no reveal or anything. No big data's come out and you see quotes from various American intelligence agencies and they're not saying this is a definite.

They're like, oh, China could be doing this or this is a possibility. It's nothing concrete, but yeah, it's being reported on so widely. I just think it's interesting the paranoia China's spying on us is much more worried about by I think your typical American than the idea that your location data is being hoovered up

by private data brokers and then sold elsewhere. It's so easy to like fear this outside force as opposed to powers within. Yeah, but there's a reason for that, right? Oh, you don't want other countries prying on all our data. Yeah, but there's a reason for that, right? Oh, you don't want other countries crying on all our data. Yeah, they have a much bigger incentive to use it for, to quote, take us down than the American government does. So are there examples of journalists who talk about being surveilled and then stifled?

Yeah, no, absolutely. It's mainly comes to protecting sources. And I was just revisiting the Edward Snowden story. And that's the idea of data being used against American citizens is this whole other topic to go down. But yeah, means of control, the book, it talks about it so competently and Byron, he talked to 300 sources for this.

It's just one of those books that's so well researched and so level headed. I just loved reading it. So I'm like, I've got to talk to this guy and, you know, we've got to talk a little bit about surveillance because it's just a fascinating space. And I think when I was at that baseball game, looking at what felt like 60 cameras staring at me in the Amazon store as I picked out my chocolate bar and my drink. I was so stunned that this technology existed. There was no counter. It just knew what I had.

And I walked out and it charged my card. Yeah. There are whole foods that do that as well. That's right. Yeah. Which is so bonkers. I mean, you know when you're going into that store or you know when you're going into that whole foods,

that's what's happening. So I think there's personal responsibility. Here's sort of what he said. He's like, if you're talking about something extremely sensitive, maybe know how to do that in a way. And I, yeah, I'm kind of like have some personal responsibility in general, like if you're worried about being surveilled, probably don't shop in that Amazon store. You know, like if you're worried about being surveilled, probably don't shop in that Amazon store.

You know, there's other things you can do. There's other ways to get those, you know, that aren't as convenient. But again, that's the trade-off. No, I agree. And it's like what he was saying. There's a reason that some apps, it's good to pay for them because then those apps don't have to find other ways to make money out of you as a product. So there's a reason.

That was interesting. So it's just like little things like that that I think are interesting to think about. Also I've heard this come out of a lot of people's mouths that they like their algorithm. Oh, they're like, oh, this curates it really well for me. Yeah, like everything I'm getting is what I want. I'm going to get ads anyway, might as well get the ads of things that I might actually use or enjoy or, I don't know, I find that take sort of interesting as well.

The algorithm is not working well for me at the moment. Do you know what the algorithm is giving me all over Facebook and Instagram? Vomit. It's giving me, I wish it was vomit, it's giving me birds, which I like, but they are AI birds with giant testicles. That's what I'm getting. All I'm getting is a whole

century. David, what are you talking about? I'm being served up some kind of hellish AI art space and now all Facebook is serving me and it's my fault for being on Facebook in the first place. It's just birds with massive nuts. Wait, to buy a painting? Or I'm so confused. No, just like the caption will be, here's some beautiful nature. And then, okay, I'm gonna send it to you.

Don't send it to me, I don't want that. I'm gonna send it to you, I'm gonna send it to you. Ah. Because it's hard to describe the stuff that I'm being served up. What are you being served up? Some good stuff? I mean, I get like a lot of- This might be work. Oh my god. Is this workplace sexual harassment? It's awful, isn't it? This is horrific. What in the fuck? I also don't get it. I don't get why. Is this an ad? No, it's just a lot of Facebook has been taken over by bad AI.

It's kind of built to go viral because it's so weird. There was a big phenomenon of Jesus's made out of shrimp. That was a big thing. What the fuck? Oh my god. Yeah, a lot of Facebook has been taken over by this. You're on regular Facebook? Regular Facebook. Yeah, it's just a whole lot of birds with big...

I think maybe you need to get off of that. I need to get out. I don't have that on Instagram. I just have ads of clothes. Actually, I bought this. Great outfit. It's looking great. This sweater. Thank you. That was in targeted ad. I'll see it's working for you.

I wish I was getting great wardrobe advice, not big knotted. Yeah. You need a new suit. He says you needed a new suit. You should get some targeted suit ads. I need to fix my algorithm. Obviously. I actually blame you for this.

I think whatever you're doing on there. It's a me problem? Yeah. Let's not get into what I'm actually searching for in my search terms. Don't make this a me problem, Monica. All right. Well, I would say I've become slightly more American because I have been thinking about American surveillance.

So at least I've got to be another 2% American. Yeah. I mean, I think we're all being surveilled on this globe, in this global economy. And it's only going to get more. And so, gosh, I guess it's up to everyone individually to embrace it or reject it. I am tired. I'm just going to embrace it.

And so there's so much effort to tap out of society in any way as well. It's kind of part of the shit. Let's just hope it doesn't get turned against us in some way. Yeah. We'll be all right. We'll be okay. And if it all goes bad, we'll just like head to the hills. Where are the hills?

Where do you go to the hills in LA? In New Zealand, if things go bad, we'll go to the hills. Be like the Kaimai Ranges. Where do you go in LA? Up the Griffith Observatory or something. No, I think we go down. I think we like go into our bunkers, ding, ding, ding. We go down.

Yeah. Of course we go into the bunker. Yeah. Which I'm kind of excited for that. There are some beautiful bunkers. All right. Well, I'm glad you enjoyed the feature. You're more New Zealand.

This was great. I'm more American. Merry Christmas. Happy birthday.