00:00SPEAKER(upbeat music)
00:30SPEAKER- Welcome to Brad and Will Made a Tech Pod.
00:32SPEAKERI'm Will.
00:33SPEAKER- I'm Brad on what feels like a very strange week
00:36SPEAKERto be doing a podcast.
00:37SPEAKER- I, this is the first time I've ever had a week
00:40SPEAKERwhere I was like, Jesus Christ,
00:42SPEAKERI need to do a politics podcast
00:44SPEAKERso I can get this out of my system.
00:46SPEAKER- Yeah.
00:47SPEAKER- 'Cause you know, I can't talk
00:49SPEAKERif I'm not on a podcast, it turns out.
00:51SPEAKER- Yes.
00:52SPEAKER- How are you doing? - How are you doing?
00:53SPEAKER- I'm all right.
00:54SPEAKERI mean, we ping ponged a bunch of non politics,
00:57SPEAKERnon current events related topics back and forth last night.
01:00SPEAKER- It seemed cowardly.
01:01SPEAKER- None of them felt right.
01:03SPEAKER- Yeah, I mean, I asked the, we asked the Discord too
01:06SPEAKERand they had a bunch of great ideas for episodes
01:08SPEAKERthat weren't gonna happen this week,
01:10SPEAKERbut we'll do them in the future.
01:11SPEAKER- I don't know if I'd say cowardly so much as just like,
01:16SPEAKERyou know, I don't know the term for it.
01:18SPEAKERIt just didn't feel right to talk about anything else.
01:21SPEAKERI mean, how do you record a podcast three or four days
01:24SPEAKERafter the attempted violent overthrow of your government
01:27SPEAKERand talk about the state of VR headsets?
01:31SPEAKER- Yeah, it's funny, like the common wisdom in our spaces
01:37SPEAKERand in our, you know, is to stay in your,
01:39SPEAKERthat we're supposed to stay in our lane
01:41SPEAKERand not talk about politics stuff
01:43SPEAKERbecause we might lose some of our audience.
01:45SPEAKERSo let's get this out of the way up front.
01:48SPEAKERGita from Vice was asking about this on Twitter
01:52SPEAKERthe other day and I responded
01:53SPEAKERthe same way I respond to people in my Twitch channel
01:56SPEAKERwhen they asked me why I talk about politics
01:58SPEAKERin my Twitch channel and they'd say,
01:59SPEAKERI'd rather, they'd rather not.
02:00SPEAKERI'm like, well, here's the deal.
02:03SPEAKERI, if you support the current regime in the United States,
02:08SPEAKERI don't want your time or money or presence in my spaces, so.
02:12SPEAKER- Yes, I'm comfortable with saying that as well.
02:15SPEAKER- Yeah, and also, I mean, also fuck classifying this
02:18SPEAKERand what's just happened as mundane everyday,
02:21SPEAKERlike day-to-day politics.
02:22SPEAKERI mean, this is like history at this point.
02:24SPEAKER- Yeah, we're not talking about budget deficits.
02:26SPEAKERWe're talking about, yeah.
02:28SPEAKER- Like we seriously just,
02:29SPEAKERwe've just experienced one of the gravest days
02:32SPEAKERin American history.
02:35SPEAKERNot 72, 96 hours ago, something like that.
02:38SPEAKER- Well, and so the reason I feel this way,
02:41SPEAKERand I think that you had similar experiences too
02:43SPEAKERalong the way, is that at some point I got an email early
02:47SPEAKERand tested and somebody was like, hey,
02:48SPEAKERI know where you're from and I know what you believe,
02:51SPEAKERbut I get that you have to be quiet about it
02:52SPEAKERbecause of who you are and what you do for a living.
02:54SPEAKERAnd I was like, oh, fuck this, this is not okay.
02:58SPEAKERIf you think I'm on the side of the people
03:00SPEAKERthat think some people aren't people
03:02SPEAKERand some people are less human than other people
03:05SPEAKERand don't deserve the same rights as everybody else,
03:08SPEAKERget wrecked, I want nothing to do with you.
03:09SPEAKERSo anyway, enough of that.
03:12SPEAKER- Yes, but here we are responsible
03:14SPEAKERfor producing a tech podcast on this week of all weeks.
03:17SPEAKERAnd it's like, I don't know,
03:19SPEAKERI guess we're just gonna chat about it for a little bit
03:21SPEAKERand see where it goes.
03:21SPEAKERBut I think there are some,
03:23SPEAKERand some of this came out of the Discord,
03:24SPEAKERthere are some tech angles
03:25SPEAKERthat we could examine this from.
03:27SPEAKER- And also, I mean, a long time ago,
03:31SPEAKERwhen I was 18 years old,
03:33SPEAKERI thought I wanted to go into politics.
03:34SPEAKERAnd I spent a couple summers, a month or two
03:37SPEAKERfor a couple of summers as an intern on Capitol Hill.
03:39SPEAKER- And then you quickly turned and ran screaming from-
03:41SPEAKER- Yeah, and the first time I was like,
03:43SPEAKERoh yeah, this seems okay.
03:44SPEAKERAnd then the second time I was like, no, I'm done, f this.
03:47SPEAKER- But yeah, your brief history as a congressional staffer
03:50SPEAKERwas kind of what I figured we would start with.
03:54SPEAKERAnd I know it was, what did you say about 20 years ago?
03:57SPEAKER- '93, '94, it was the two times that I was there.
04:00SPEAKER- That's longer than that.
04:01SPEAKER- It's almost 30 years.
04:03SPEAKER- That is, I mean, that is for numerous reasons,
04:05SPEAKERthat is basically a different government at that point,
04:07SPEAKERboth from the level of tech that was being employed
04:10SPEAKERin the day-to-day operation of the government,
04:12SPEAKERand also, I don't know how much you want to get into it.
04:14SPEAKERI mean, ideologically, that was just prior to the era
04:18SPEAKERof extreme polarization.
04:21SPEAKERSo I'm sure your experiences then were maybe not
04:23SPEAKERa hundred percent relevant to now, but I'm still curious.
04:25SPEAKER- They're absolutely not relevant to now.
04:29SPEAKERThe time I was there, the beginning was the year
04:32SPEAKERthat they voted on NAFTA, which was the big issue
04:35SPEAKERthe first summer I was there.
04:38SPEAKERIt was also as Newt Gingrich was gaining power.
04:41SPEAKER- That was the era of polarization I was referring to.
04:45SPEAKER- Yeah. - Specifically.
04:46SPEAKER- That was a moment, the Newt Gingrich gaining power
04:49SPEAKERwas the moment that I was like, oh, I don't want anything.
04:51SPEAKERThere were two things that made me realize
04:52SPEAKERI didn't want anything to do with it.
04:53SPEAKEROne was that the fact that one of my jobs one summer
04:56SPEAKERwas to escort, like make sure that if one of our
05:01SPEAKERlegislative assistants was walking through certain parts
05:03SPEAKERof the Capitol, I was, that somebody was with her.
05:06SPEAKEROne of the interns was walking with her
05:08SPEAKERso she wouldn't be harassed by members as much.
05:11SPEAKERLike just to be clear, elected representatives of the House,
05:14SPEAKERso that this 40 year old woman who was recently divorced
05:18SPEAKERwould not be harassed by the elected representatives
05:20SPEAKERof our government.
05:21SPEAKER- Thanks. - It was a bad time.
05:22SPEAKER- Yes, yeah.
05:24SPEAKER- The other.
05:25SPEAKER- And things have only gotten worse.
05:27SPEAKER- I mean, the other thing was it became really clear
05:29SPEAKERthat the Republicans were going in a direction.
05:32SPEAKERThe first summer I was there, I drove one of,
05:38SPEAKERI was an intern, so my job was threefold.
05:40SPEAKERI answered emails, answered mail, not emails,
05:43SPEAKERmails and faxes and I would collect them
05:46SPEAKERand sort them and feed them into the,
05:48SPEAKERfeed the people's names and addresses
05:49SPEAKERinto our Wang mini computer and then I would generate,
05:53SPEAKERI would refer the complicated ones to full-time staffers
05:56SPEAKERand the ones that were just like, hey, I think NAFTA sucks
05:58SPEAKERor I think NAFTA rules, I would generate a form letter
06:01SPEAKERtailored for that person and print it
06:04SPEAKERon the Wang mini computer, which is funny to think about.
06:07SPEAKER- Wow. - If you don't know
06:08SPEAKERwhat a mini computer is, it is a giant ass computer box
06:12SPEAKERthat five or six terminals were connected to
06:15SPEAKERand they shared time and I think we had a spreadsheet,
06:20SPEAKERa word processor and the most minimal database imaginable
06:25SPEAKERthat were accessible on that thing.
06:26SPEAKER- Huh, interesting.
06:28SPEAKERCan you speak to, so the tech experience
06:32SPEAKERof working on the Hill I'm sure is completely different
06:35SPEAKERat this point. - God, I actually hope so.
06:37SPEAKER- But some of the cultural and political aspects
06:40SPEAKERI'm sure are pretty consistent.
06:41SPEAKERCan you speak to like how much those letters and calls
06:44SPEAKERmake a difference, how much are on an individual basis,
06:47SPEAKERhow much are they acknowledged and passed along
06:49SPEAKERand like how much of an impact do they make?
06:50SPEAKER'Cause I mean, I would say we are in an unprecedented times
06:54SPEAKERin terms of people needing to contact their reps
06:57SPEAKERand demand action.
06:58SPEAKER- Yeah, so like that was half of my day most days
07:03SPEAKERand as we got closer to the NAFTA vote,
07:05SPEAKERit became a full-time.
07:06SPEAKERSo I would do that in the mornings every day
07:09SPEAKERand then the afternoons I would either like run errands
07:13SPEAKERwhich could involve like carrying stuff back and forth
07:15SPEAKERto the floor for the representative, for our congressmen.
07:19SPEAKERIt could be giving tours to constituents
07:21SPEAKERwho had come to visit.
07:23SPEAKERI did a lot of that 'cause I was good at it
07:25SPEAKERand then really enjoyed it and had taken the time
07:26SPEAKERto learn about the art and the history of the Capitol
07:29SPEAKERand stuff like that.
07:31SPEAKERI worked for the rules committee one summer,
07:33SPEAKERwhich the rules committee basically determines
07:36SPEAKERthe amount of time and the context
07:38SPEAKERin which bills are discussed on the floor
07:41SPEAKERand it is the place where the majority basically determines
07:46SPEAKERwhether or not something is going to land
07:49SPEAKERfor discussion on the floor and the constraints
07:51SPEAKERunder which that discussion will be made.
07:55SPEAKERSo I did a lot of like running stuff back and forth
07:58SPEAKERto different offices back then
07:58SPEAKER'cause we didn't have an email, right?
08:00SPEAKERThis was '93, so it was everything was paper memos
08:04SPEAKERand it would either go into the interoffice mail,
08:06SPEAKERwhich was picked up multiple times a day
08:08SPEAKERor if it needed to be taken to another member's office,
08:11SPEAKERsomebody would run it over there physically.
08:15SPEAKERThe answering emails, now, just to be clear,
08:19SPEAKER30 years ago, long time ago, things changed.
08:21SPEAKERThe volume of message that they're getting now
08:23SPEAKERis probably substantially,
08:24SPEAKERlike several orders of magnitude higher.
08:26SPEAKER- Right, just 'cause the barrier to communication
08:28SPEAKERis so much lower, right?
08:29SPEAKER- Yeah, like back then you had to put a piece of paper
08:31SPEAKERinto a fax machine and dial a number and get through
08:34SPEAKERor you had to like put a stamp on something and send mail.
08:38SPEAKERSince that time, there've been multiple attacks
08:41SPEAKERon Congress congressional leaders.
08:45SPEAKERSo like the process for mail is dramatically different now.
08:48SPEAKERIt goes through multiple screening processes offsite
08:50SPEAKERbefore they see it at the Capitol.
08:51SPEAKERSo it's a very slow way to get your message to Congress.
08:55SPEAKERYou're much better off.
08:56SPEAKERIt's fine to send paper mail,
08:58SPEAKERbut if it's something that is time sensitive,
09:01SPEAKERlike the current situation,
09:02SPEAKERyou're better off sending an email, as I understand it.
09:05SPEAKER- You can't sprinkle anthrax into an email,
09:07SPEAKERso it's probably gonna get there quite a bit faster.
09:10SPEAKER- Tweets are essentially useless.
09:12SPEAKERSo like you can shit post all you want,
09:14SPEAKERbut if you want your Congress,
09:15SPEAKERyour congressional representatives or your Senator
09:17SPEAKERto pay attention to it, send an email.
09:19SPEAKER- Okay, that's interesting to hear.
09:21SPEAKER'Cause I mean, I'm sure a decent number of people,
09:23SPEAKERmyself included to some extent,
09:24SPEAKERhave the kind of jaded perspective
09:26SPEAKERthat all of those messages are probably at best
09:29SPEAKERgetting met with an eye roll from a staffer
09:31SPEAKERand then getting flushed down the toilet.
09:33SPEAKERSo hearing that they actually do care to some degree
09:37SPEAKERwhat they hear from their constituents is kind of nice.
09:39SPEAKER- So the thing, I mean, that depends,
09:41SPEAKERthat varies probably on a representative
09:43SPEAKERby representative basis,
09:44SPEAKERhow much they pay attention to stuff.
09:45SPEAKER- And how much, you know, how safe the seat that they're in
09:47SPEAKERis and that kind of thing, I'm sure.
09:48SPEAKER- Right, the thing I will say is if you send an email,
09:52SPEAKERusually the thing to do is to use the form
09:54SPEAKERon the members house.gov or senate.gov website,
10:00SPEAKER'cause those go directly into the system.
10:04SPEAKERPut your name and address and zip code
10:06SPEAKERso they know you're one of their constituents.
10:08SPEAKER'Cause the thing that is always true
10:10SPEAKERis that if somebody from another district,
10:14SPEAKERanother representative's area sent us a letter,
10:17SPEAKERit just went straight in the trash, right?
10:19SPEAKERThere's no, you don't bother reading.
10:21SPEAKERI don't know if that's the same in the house leader
10:23SPEAKERor the senate leader or whatever his office is,
10:24SPEAKER'cause they do have a little bit of a larger role.
10:27SPEAKERBut for the most part, like we don't refer them
10:29SPEAKERto the other members or anything like that, they go away.
10:32SPEAKERThe next thing we would do is tally.
10:34SPEAKERSo we would kind of scan the letter.
10:36SPEAKERThis one is somebody that wants help
10:37SPEAKERwith unemployment or social security.
10:39SPEAKERThis is somebody who wants to let you know
10:41SPEAKERthat they think NAFTA sucks.
10:42SPEAKERThis one is an obvious crank
10:44SPEAKERwho thinks that we didn't land on the moon.
10:46SPEAKERAnd we would file them all accordingly, laugh at the cranks
10:48SPEAKERand, but maintain both a running overall tally
10:54SPEAKERof how the constituents felt about a particular topic
10:58SPEAKERand how it was changing on a day-by-day basis.
11:00SPEAKERSo, and that, I don't know that the member read it.
11:04SPEAKERHe read it most days that I was with him,
11:06SPEAKERbut that was one of the things that a couple of times a day,
11:08SPEAKERespecially if he was on the floor
11:09SPEAKERin committee meetings all day,
11:11SPEAKERwe would run a packet with the things
11:13SPEAKERthat he needed to look at and sign
11:16SPEAKERor give feedback on immediately, at least twice a day,
11:22SPEAKERand sometimes more often than that.
11:25SPEAKERAnd that tally was always part of that, right?
11:29SPEAKERLike that was the three o'clock report
11:31SPEAKERdidn't go out without the tally.
11:33SPEAKERAnd that is like, they look at that
11:36SPEAKERand they keep track of that.
11:37SPEAKERAnd even if you are in a district that is hopeless
11:42SPEAKERor you are in a district that is,
11:45SPEAKERthat you know that your representative
11:47SPEAKERbelieves the same thing you do,
11:48SPEAKERit's worth taking a minute.
11:50SPEAKERI think every day right now, given the situation we're in
11:53SPEAKERand either sending it through the house.gov
11:56SPEAKERor senate.gov forms for your representatives, each of them,
11:58SPEAKERor using something like resist bot to do it quickly,
12:04SPEAKERthat lets you send basically a text message
12:06SPEAKERthat goes in through their email system
12:07SPEAKERand lets them know that you're one of their constituents.
12:11SPEAKER- It's never been easier.
12:12SPEAKER- It literally has never been easier.
12:14SPEAKERYou just have to spend money to give feedback.
12:16SPEAKER- Right, I should probably do that.
12:17SPEAKERI mean, for better or worse,
12:19SPEAKERmy representative is Nancy Pelosi
12:21SPEAKERand I certainly have felt over time
12:24SPEAKERthat she's going to do what she's going to do
12:26SPEAKER'cause she's been there for so long and is in leadership.
12:28SPEAKERSo like, what can I do personally?
12:29SPEAKERBut from what you're saying,
12:31SPEAKERit sounds like it's never not worth it to reach out.
12:33SPEAKER- It's worth letting her know that you support her
12:35SPEAKERor you're angry at her and that you vote.
12:37SPEAKERAnd maybe some of both.
12:39SPEAKERLike I never thought that I'd be sitting here on a Saturday
12:42SPEAKERwhen we were recording this
12:43SPEAKERafter an attempted insurrection on Wednesday
12:46SPEAKERand that the person who attempted the insurrection
12:48SPEAKERwould still be the president four days later.
12:51SPEAKER- It is unthinkable.
12:52SPEAKERWe'll get into that in a minute.
12:54SPEAKERJust kind of some of the little manifestations
12:56SPEAKERof the situation in day-to-day life
12:58SPEAKERis one of the things I wanted to touch on.
12:59SPEAKERBut before we move on to that,
13:01SPEAKERI just wanted to ask you,
13:03SPEAKERsince we're talking about your time there,
13:06SPEAKERhere's a kind of an ignorant civics 101 question.
13:09SPEAKERAre all the congressional offices in the Capitol building
13:12SPEAKERor are they in like adjacent buildings around the Capitol?
13:14SPEAKERIs that just where the collective business takes place?
13:17SPEAKER- So leadership has offices in the building.
13:21SPEAKERSo McConnell, I think Pelosi, Price Denny Hoyer, McCarthy,
13:29SPEAKERSchumer all have small offices in the building.
13:32SPEAKERThey'll also have offices, much larger offices
13:35SPEAKERin the surrounding office building.
13:37SPEAKERSo on the Senate side, there were three then,
13:42SPEAKERI think there's another one now.
13:44SPEAKERSenate office buildings.
13:45SPEAKEROn the House side, there's three
13:48SPEAKERor maybe four Senate House office buildings now.
13:50SPEAKER- Oh, you know, that was actually some of the first
13:52SPEAKERnews stories that were going around after things,
13:54SPEAKERafter it became clear that things were really getting bad,
13:56SPEAKERthat we were starting to see like, oh, building X,
13:59SPEAKERI forget some of the names,
14:00SPEAKERlike this building is being evacuated.
14:02SPEAKER- House office building.
14:03SPEAKER- Yes, names like that were starting to go around of like,
14:06SPEAKERoh, this office building is being evacuated.
14:07SPEAKERThey're being told to report to the super top secret tunnels
14:10SPEAKERunderneath the building and stuff like that.
14:12SPEAKER- Yeah, so the tunnels aren't super top secret.
14:14SPEAKERThey used to be open to the public.
14:16SPEAKERI don't know that they still are, but they-
14:19SPEAKER- It's more like emergency tunnels, I guess.
14:22SPEAKER- No, no, no, no.
14:22SPEAKERThose are the ones that the members used to get
14:24SPEAKERfrom the House office buildings.
14:26SPEAKER- Oh, you mean the little congressional subway?
14:28SPEAKER- So there's a congressional subway,
14:30SPEAKERbut there's also just walking paths on those tunnels.
14:32SPEAKER- Okay, okay, okay.
14:33SPEAKERI thought these were more sort of
14:35SPEAKERemergency evacuation type tunnels.
14:37SPEAKER- No, no, no, they're heavily trafficked day-to-day.
14:39SPEAKER- I see, I see, okay.
14:41SPEAKER- And it immediately conjured images of like Cold War era,
14:46SPEAKERlike hardened escape tunnels and stuff like that.
14:48SPEAKER- Yeah, it's not like the Eisenhower escape tunnel
14:50SPEAKERfrom the White House.
14:53SPEAKERThese are big, wide, like 30 or 40 foot wide tunnels.
14:58SPEAKERThey often have like art installations from constituents,
15:00SPEAKERfrom kids and stuff like that in there.
15:02SPEAKERSo if they do like a draw your,
15:04SPEAKERdraw how your country makes you feel contest
15:06SPEAKERfor second graders in Des Moines,
15:07SPEAKERthey'll put the art up there for a couple of weeks.
15:10SPEAKERThe tunnels, so just to be clear,
15:13SPEAKERthere have been, I think, three major security incidents
15:16SPEAKERin the time since I was there.
15:18SPEAKERThere was a bombing threat in like '95 or '96.
15:23SPEAKERThere was a shooting at one point,
15:25SPEAKERand then there was 9/11,
15:25SPEAKERwhich impacted all federal security.
15:30SPEAKERAt the time I was there, you didn't,
15:33SPEAKERyou went through metal detectors
15:34SPEAKERto go into all of the house office buildings.
15:36SPEAKERAll of those entrances were lightly secured,
15:38SPEAKERand there was like a Capitol cop at each of them.
15:41SPEAKERBut most of those Capitol cops weren't armed.
15:44SPEAKERIt felt more like a campus PD than like a actual,
15:49SPEAKERlike, you know, more like a campus PD PD
15:52SPEAKERthan something like TSA does today even, right?
15:54SPEAKERIt was very light.
15:57SPEAKERThe same cops worked the same stations every day.
15:59SPEAKERI got to know them as an intern,
16:00SPEAKERworking there two months a year for two years.
16:04SPEAKERAnd like members don't go through security,
16:07SPEAKER'cause, so this is the other thing to know.
16:10SPEAKERMembers and senators will be all over that campus
16:15SPEAKERall day long on most days.
16:18SPEAKERSo there's their food.
16:20SPEAKERThey have a member seating on the house side
16:26SPEAKERand a Senate cafeteria or Senate dining room
16:29SPEAKERon the other side.
16:30SPEAKERAnd those are open to senators and their guests
16:32SPEAKERand members and their guests.
16:34SPEAKERBut like, they're also in the rules,
16:36SPEAKERin the offices for the committees.
16:37SPEAKER'Cause the committees,
16:38SPEAKERwhile the committees may have like a hearing room
16:40SPEAKERon the Hill, in the Capitol itself,
16:43SPEAKERthey don't necessarily have offices for all the people,
16:46SPEAKERall the lawyers and all the legislative assistants
16:48SPEAKERand all the staffers that work for those committees.
16:51SPEAKERAnd each of those committees, you know,
16:53SPEAKERthe rules committee, the judiciary, the finance,
16:57SPEAKERthe foreign affairs, the military, the defense,
17:03SPEAKERall of the different committees have like 10 to 50 people
17:07SPEAKERon staff, right?
17:08SPEAKERSo those offices are all in the office buildings
17:10SPEAKERon the edges of the congressional Hill as well.
17:13SPEAKER- Okay.
17:14SPEAKER- It's actually, since you mentioned it,
17:15SPEAKERwhen people use that phrase on the Hill colloquially,
17:17SPEAKERI mean, I assume they're talking about that entire complex
17:19SPEAKERand not just the Capitol building.
17:22SPEAKER- Yeah, and kind of the library,
17:24SPEAKERlike up to the library of Congress and stuff like that even.
17:26SPEAKER- Right.
17:27SPEAKERSo I assume you must've spent at least some time
17:29SPEAKERin the Capitol itself.
17:30SPEAKERLike I guess, you know, what we're building up to here is,
17:32SPEAKERhey, that's the building that was breached primarily.
17:34SPEAKERSo like, I'm curious, like what your experience was.
17:36SPEAKER- Well, the house and the office buildings
17:37SPEAKERas well is my understanding.
17:38SPEAKER- Did they get in?
17:39SPEAKEROh, really? Okay.
17:40SPEAKER- Or they had to vacate that office buildings
17:41SPEAKERbecause of the bomb threats
17:43SPEAKERand then people were able to get in there.
17:46SPEAKER- Right, but primarily, you know,
17:47SPEAKERthat's the most of the footage you saw.
17:48SPEAKERAnd obviously that's where the electoral vote certification
17:51SPEAKERwas taking place.
17:52SPEAKERAnd, you know, you've been in that building.
17:53SPEAKERI just kind of wanted to get a sense of like,
17:56SPEAKERboth operationally and also a little bit more like,
18:01SPEAKERI don't know.
18:02SPEAKERTo patriotic and reverential,
18:03SPEAKERlike what is the feeling in that building?
18:05SPEAKERYou know, like you see people talking about like,
18:06SPEAKERoh, there's so much history
18:07SPEAKERand reverence for the nation here.
18:09SPEAKERAnd like, I don't know,
18:10SPEAKERjust kind of open-ended question of like what it means
18:13SPEAKERto you having been in there and worked there
18:15SPEAKERto think about this kind of breach taking place.
18:18SPEAKER- So I spent a lot, I mean, you spent a lot of time there.
18:22SPEAKER'Cause like, if you're running, if you're the gopher,
18:24SPEAKERyou go where the Congressman is and he's on, you know,
18:28SPEAKERyou wait for him outside the floor at the exit he prefers.
18:31SPEAKERAnd you go to the committee room where he is.
18:34SPEAKERAnd when there's a recess,
18:35SPEAKERyou hand him the paperwork that he needs, right?
18:38SPEAKERAnd that happened constantly.
18:40SPEAKERAnd then also, like I said, I gave tours on the reg.
18:42SPEAKERSo that was a large part of a lot of my afternoons
18:45SPEAKER'cause I was good at it and I enjoyed talking to people
18:47SPEAKERand I was personable and the other interns
18:49SPEAKERwere kind of trolls one summer I was there.
18:50SPEAKERSo the feeling, so there's a, I've never been to Europe
18:58SPEAKERand I haven't done tours like of castles
19:01SPEAKERthat are thousands of years old.
19:03SPEAKERBut there's not a lot of places in the US
19:06SPEAKERwhere you can walk around and you feel the weight of history.
19:11SPEAKERYou know what I mean?
19:11SPEAKERLike we're young and most of our places are new.
19:15SPEAKERAnd the last time I was in a building
19:16SPEAKERthat was more than 200 years ago was probably,
19:18SPEAKER200 years old was probably 10 years ago.
19:23SPEAKERIt's you feel, it's the thing that Lin-Manuel Miranda
19:27SPEAKERwrote in Hamilton that you feel the weight of history
19:30SPEAKERand you feel that history has its eyes on you.
19:32SPEAKEREven if you're just a 19 year old intern,
19:34SPEAKERwalking, carrying paperwork, inconsequential paperwork
19:38SPEAKERto one of 438 representatives on a Tuesday afternoon.
19:44SPEAKERAnd part of it is the architecture
19:47SPEAKERand part of it is the art.
19:49SPEAKERBut the big thing I think for me
19:52SPEAKERwas thinking about all of so many of the decisions
19:56SPEAKERthat shaped our country and the world in a lot of ways
20:00SPEAKERwere made in that building and both good and bad.
20:04SPEAKERLike we have as a country made horrific mistakes.
20:07SPEAKERWe've also done a lot of good and you feel that
20:12SPEAKERand you think about that every single day.
20:15SPEAKERAnd that's one of the reasons that like when I was there
20:18SPEAKERand one of the best things about that job,
20:20SPEAKERI loved giving tours.
20:22SPEAKEROne of the best things about that job
20:23SPEAKERwas going on an afternoon that I was free
20:26SPEAKERor if I had 30 minutes to kill,
20:28SPEAKERI could go sit up in the gallery anytime I wanted
20:31SPEAKERand watch the proceedings, right?
20:33SPEAKERIn the house or the Senate, whichever one I wanted.
20:35SPEAKERAnd it was absolutely like the procedural shenanigans,
20:41SPEAKERespecially like Mitch McConnell is a bad man, right?
20:45SPEAKERLike just to be clear, I think he is maybe the most damaging
20:50SPEAKERSenate majority leader we've had in modern times.
20:54SPEAKER- Certainly one of the like top three most dire figures
20:58SPEAKERin American politics last quarter century or something.
21:02SPEAKER- But I didn't understand where he was coming from
21:05SPEAKERuntil he gave that speech the other day.
21:06SPEAKERAnd it's the speech that's gonna define his legacy,
21:09SPEAKERthe one that started before the riots
21:12SPEAKERand finished after the riots
21:13SPEAKERduring the electoral vote count.
21:15SPEAKERAnd like, it's pretty clear that he sees himself
21:17SPEAKERas the way the framers, or at least what he tells himself
21:21SPEAKERto sleep at night, I guess, is that he sees himself
21:23SPEAKERas the speed bump to slow the pace of change
21:28SPEAKERdemanded by the rabble, right?
21:31SPEAKERWhich is what the framers intended.
21:34SPEAKER- His no bless, no please, you mean?
21:36SPEAKER- Yes, yes, exactly.
21:38SPEAKERI mean, he also clearly loves to give tax cuts
21:41SPEAKERto billionaires and all the other evil shit
21:42SPEAKERthat Republicans stand for these days.
21:45SPEAKERBut, you know, it was always fascinating
21:51SPEAKERwatching the push and pull of government.
21:53SPEAKERAnd then the other thing that was fascinating
21:54SPEAKERwas like going to the after hours events,
21:57SPEAKERwhether it's something that some lobbyists put on
21:59SPEAKERor a cocktail reception or whatever,
22:01SPEAKERand standing there and holding the bag
22:03SPEAKERwhile the representatives were talking to each other
22:05SPEAKERand actually deciding where they were gonna meet.
22:07SPEAKERAnd as I understand it, I haven't been there
22:09SPEAKERsince this happened, but as I understand it,
22:11SPEAKERthat's one of the things that Gingrich's regime stopped
22:14SPEAKERwas the kind of out of office cross pollination
22:17SPEAKERacross the aisle, which is where
22:19SPEAKERa lot of government happened.
22:21SPEAKERNot that that's a good thing,
22:22SPEAKERbut it was working better then than I think it is now.
22:25SPEAKER- Sure.
22:26SPEAKER- Anyway, so yeah, watching a bunch of yahoos
22:29SPEAKERbreak into this place that I couldn't,
22:35SPEAKERI found it at 18 years old,
22:37SPEAKERimpossible to walk up a stairway.
22:39SPEAKERLike even one of the service stairways,
22:41SPEAKERnot the big wide marble ones,
22:42SPEAKERbut just the hidden back stairways that the staff use,
22:48SPEAKERit made me feel physically ill.
22:54SPEAKERWe haven't had a foreign power
22:55SPEAKERoverrun our country in 200 years.
22:57SPEAKER- Right.
22:59SPEAKER- I have to imagine it's what Dolly Madison felt like
23:03SPEAKERas she was grabbing George Washington's portrait
23:05SPEAKERas the British were about to smash
23:07SPEAKERthe doors of the White House, right?
23:09SPEAKERIt's the thing that's important about that building
23:13SPEAKERisn't the building, it's not the architecture,
23:14SPEAKERit's not even the people in there,
23:16SPEAKERit's the history and it's the shared belief
23:19SPEAKERthat what we're doing is right, even when it often isn't.
23:23SPEAKERAnd that is the thing that was defiled
23:28SPEAKERby the president's attempted insurrection on Wednesday.
23:30SPEAKER- Yeah, I mean, when you get down to it,
23:33SPEAKERyes, we have all just collectively witnessed,
23:35SPEAKERor we've experienced a moment of national trauma, right?
23:37SPEAKER- Yeah.
23:38SPEAKER- Like seeing people active in neo-Nazi movements
23:43SPEAKERand adorned in fascist iconography of various sorts,
23:47SPEAKERstorming and overrunning our seat of government is,
23:54SPEAKERyes, obviously say what you want
23:55SPEAKERabout this nation's many sins historically and so forth,
23:58SPEAKERbut they still, they profaned
24:01SPEAKERwhat is basically a sacred place.
24:03SPEAKER- Well, and this may be naive,
24:09SPEAKERI feel like the people,
24:12SPEAKERI feel like more often than not,
24:15SPEAKERthe intentions are good, even if the actions are bad.
24:19SPEAKER- Yeah. - You know what I mean?
24:20SPEAKER- Sure.
24:21SPEAKER- The further back in time you go,
24:23SPEAKERthe worse that gets probably, but.
24:24SPEAKER- Yeah, we don't need to get too deep into that.
24:26SPEAKERI mean, everybody is the hero of their own story, right?
24:29SPEAKER- Yes, very true.
24:30SPEAKER- Even the fascists.
24:31SPEAKERBut, you know, like from this kind of dovetails
24:37SPEAKERwith the actual theme of the podcast,
24:39SPEAKERlike there's the kind of basic info sec aspect
24:42SPEAKERof all those terminals were left unlocked
24:44SPEAKERand like files were stolen.
24:45SPEAKERYou know, like you died.
24:47SPEAKERI don't think they've gotten super, super specific,
24:49SPEAKERbut there have been some stories coming out
24:50SPEAKERthat what was the term they use?
24:52SPEAKERNational security equities were stolen.
24:54SPEAKER- Yeah, I don't know what that means.
24:55SPEAKERI tried to find that out and it's not defined.
24:58SPEAKER- The little I could tell, I took that to just mean
25:00SPEAKERthat that's just a generic term for like any kind
25:03SPEAKERof information or files of national security value.
25:06SPEAKERBut, you know, the point is like a lot of sort
25:08SPEAKERof digital information was just sitting there
25:10SPEAKERout in the open that has now been accessed by who knows?
25:14SPEAKER- Yeah, I mean, if you thought Hunter Biden's laptop
25:15SPEAKERwas a bad right wing news red herring, guess what?
25:19SPEAKERPelosi's laptop's gonna be worse.
25:22SPEAKER- Like, you know, I don't know that either of us
25:24SPEAKERhave any real special insight into that topic,
25:27SPEAKERbut it is a topic to discuss that like a lot of security
25:30SPEAKERhas been breached in the course of this,
25:31SPEAKERalong with like the human aspect.
25:33SPEAKER- I spent a lot of time yesterday reading about,
25:35SPEAKERfrom the InfoSec community about what the rational,
25:40SPEAKERinsane response to unfettered access,
25:44SPEAKERan unknown mob having unfettered access to the Capitol
25:49SPEAKERand members' offices and things like that was.
25:52SPEAKERAnd the consensus seemed to be that everything
25:55SPEAKERfrom the power plugs on up should be treated
25:57SPEAKERas suspect until it's cleared.
25:59SPEAKERAnd that if there weren't foreign governments,
26:02SPEAKERboth friendly and antagonistic,
26:08SPEAKERparticipating in that mob, either through proxies
26:11SPEAKERor with people on the ground, they would be shocked.
26:15SPEAKERSo I would assume that every piece of electronics
26:18SPEAKERin the Capitol has to be replaced
26:22SPEAKERand that somebody from the NSA or CIA or whoever does this,
26:27SPEAKERthe FBI is probably going through all of that
26:29SPEAKERand that they're gonna find a whole bunch
26:31SPEAKERof brand new zero days on all of those devices
26:36SPEAKERbecause it's as easy as plugging a USB thumb drive in
26:39SPEAKERin some cases and just letting the software do its magic.
26:44SPEAKER- Fun times, a lot of stuff to unpack from this event,
26:49SPEAKERI guess, the thing that kind of made me think
26:54SPEAKERof doing this episode this way in the first place
26:56SPEAKERwas when we asked for suggestions on the Discord
26:58SPEAKERand somebody, I apologize, I can't remember who,
27:01SPEAKERbut somebody suggested like,
27:01SPEAKER"Hey, what techie ways did you keep up
27:04SPEAKER"with all this shit going on?"
27:05SPEAKERAnd that kind of made me think like,
27:07SPEAKERit did make me think back to that morning.
27:08SPEAKERI mean, I went into it,
27:09SPEAKERI've been very anxious person by nature,
27:12SPEAKERbut I have been quite worried about the 6th of January
27:16SPEAKERfor the better part of a month
27:18SPEAKERbecause you didn't have to go very far online
27:20SPEAKERto see the very people who ended up perpetrating this
27:23SPEAKERtalking about exactly what they were going to do.
27:26SPEAKERSo it wasn't a huge surprise,
27:27SPEAKERbut I kind of went into that morning thinking like,
27:29SPEAKER"Okay, this is it, I better hunker down at the computer.
27:33SPEAKER"I've got work to do,
27:34SPEAKER"but I'm gonna have this, this, and this open
27:36SPEAKER"to try to keep track of it."
27:37SPEAKERAnd obviously within like 45 minutes,
27:39SPEAKERall work ceased because of what began to transpire.
27:43SPEAKERBut I thought we could talk about like,
27:45SPEAKERwhat was that like for you and for me
27:48SPEAKERin terms of trying to absorb all this stuff?
27:52SPEAKER- Yeah, I don't know about you,
27:55SPEAKERbut I had a couple of news channels open
27:58SPEAKERand about 50 Twitter tabs probably at any given point,
28:03SPEAKERa couple of Twitch streams from like anti,
28:07SPEAKERpeople who've been covering protests for the last year.
28:10SPEAKER- Yeah, that's an interesting topic there.
28:12SPEAKERLike the split now between like,
28:14SPEAKERdo you stick with sort of quote unquote vetted
28:16SPEAKERlike cable news, like major accredited news outlets
28:22SPEAKERor like you said, like kind of citizen reporting,
28:25SPEAKERlike on the ground live streaming type stuff
28:27SPEAKERhas become a lot more prominent,
28:29SPEAKERespecially since like the protests
28:30SPEAKERand kind of civil unrest last summer.
28:34SPEAKERLike that was becoming an increasingly like valid
28:36SPEAKERand the kind of up to the minute way
28:38SPEAKERto get information from this part.
28:41SPEAKER- I found that this summer,
28:42SPEAKERthe only way to actually see what was happening
28:44SPEAKERon the ground at this protest was to be at them
28:46SPEAKERor to be watching a bunch of streams
28:49SPEAKERfrom people that were on the ground.
28:50SPEAKER- Those protests, I absolutely agree.
28:52SPEAKERBut particularly with respect to the kind of point back there.
28:57SPEAKER- Aggregate of a bunch of people, not just one.
29:00SPEAKERLike it's easy to have one person present a very skewed look
29:04SPEAKERat what a protest on the ground looks like.
29:07SPEAKER- Yeah, although, I mean,
29:08SPEAKERthat was a slightly different situation
29:09SPEAKERbecause I mean, in that context,
29:11SPEAKERa lot of what needed to be reported on was police brutality
29:14SPEAKERthat the authorities would much rather do not see.
29:17SPEAKERWhereas this is much more of a singular developing situation
29:20SPEAKERthat is like unprecedented, you know?
29:23SPEAKER- Yeah.
29:24SPEAKER- This was like, sadly, we have many years of experience
29:28SPEAKERof protests being brutally suppressed
29:33SPEAKERand the evidence not necessarily being aired in public
29:37SPEAKERversus what happened on Wednesday being something
29:39SPEAKERthat nobody in living memory has experience of.
29:42SPEAKERSo like that was much more of a like, what the fuck, man?
29:46SPEAKERLike it was like, there was about a two hour window there
29:50SPEAKERwhere it was just like hackles raised, you know,
29:52SPEAKERjust hair standing up in the back of your neck
29:54SPEAKERas like one thing or another would trickle out, you know?
29:56SPEAKERIt's like, oh my God, they've breached the Capitol.
29:58SPEAKERIt's then there's like,
30:00SPEAKERand this is a topic for kind of social media analysis
30:03SPEAKERof like the ability of one tweet to go around
30:07SPEAKERand nearly incite a panic.
30:09SPEAKERAnd the tweet in this case that I'm thinking of
30:10SPEAKERis the one that said, in essence,
30:13SPEAKERthe Department of Defense has denied the request
30:16SPEAKERto deploy the National Guard.
30:17SPEAKER- Oh, there were two for me, that one.
30:19SPEAKERAnd then I think it's a Businessweek or a Bloomberg reporter
30:22SPEAKERwho was on the pool, he was one of the pool reporters
30:26SPEAKERwho was in the gallery that day,
30:28SPEAKERwho said there've been shots fired on the House floor
30:30SPEAKERand that was it.
30:31SPEAKER- Yes, yes, those two for sure.
30:33SPEAKER- Those two were both real bad.
30:35SPEAKER- Yeah, but the one about the National Guard in particular
30:37SPEAKERwas suddenly a moment of like,
30:39SPEAKERoh, is this not just a spontaneous thing
30:42SPEAKERamong rabble rousers?
30:45SPEAKER- Yeah.
30:46SPEAKER- Is there institutional support behind this
30:48SPEAKERis the question that that tweet raised is what I mean.
30:50SPEAKERAnd because the individual tweets are so easily shared,
30:55SPEAKERsomething like that can really make the rounds
30:57SPEAKERbefore there's any real context given to it.
31:00SPEAKER- Well, so for me, the antidote to that is to follow,
31:05SPEAKERI went and it was easy to figure out who the pool reporters
31:08SPEAKERthat still had phone service were at that point.
31:10SPEAKERAnd Gina and I were both watching both of those people
31:20SPEAKERon the reg.
31:21SPEAKERIt's funny, I've been reporting QAnon posters
31:24SPEAKERfor the last two months on the reg on Twitter.
31:27SPEAKERAnd my Twitter mentions right now are just like,
31:30SPEAKERhey, somebody liked this, somebody liked this,
31:32SPEAKERhere's an update.
31:33SPEAKERSomebody liked this, somebody liked this, here's an update.
31:35SPEAKERAnd they're all just getting banned,
31:36SPEAKERwhich fucking finally, good job, I guess, Twitter,
31:39SPEAKERI don't know.
31:39SPEAKER- God, yeah, that's a whole other topic
31:41SPEAKERis the kind of crazy wave of bans
31:43SPEAKERthat has been issued in the last 12 hours.
31:46SPEAKER- I would say long overdue rather than crazy.
31:48SPEAKERI think the same thing was to ban them, I don't think.
31:50SPEAKERAnyway.
31:51SPEAKER- We're recording this midday Saturday
31:53SPEAKERand the president has been banned permanently from Twitter,
31:57SPEAKERfrom Facebook, from you name it, YouTube, Shopify,
32:02SPEAKERshut down all their retail operations.
32:04SPEAKERI mean, it's pretty-
32:05SPEAKER- Oh really, I didn't know that.
32:06SPEAKER- Oh yeah, oh yes, it's pretty extensive at this point.
32:10SPEAKER- So yeah, I mean, for me,
32:13SPEAKERit was looking at all the sources that I could find,
32:17SPEAKERwatching what was on the news,
32:19SPEAKER'cause they were curating those things.
32:23SPEAKERI mean, the incredible thing about all this is that,
32:27SPEAKERand I think the thing that is one of the things
32:29SPEAKERthat's going to hose the president in the end
32:32SPEAKERis that these people felt like they were empowered
32:35SPEAKERby an authority, by his authority
32:38SPEAKERand didn't even feel the need to conceal their faces
32:41SPEAKERas they were committing seditious acts.
32:44SPEAKERSo yeah, I mean, but the way I managed it
32:51SPEAKERwas by watching as much as I could
32:53SPEAKERand making sure that the sources
32:55SPEAKERwere at least fairly legitimate.
32:57SPEAKEROr I mean, in some cases, like the video of the cop
33:01SPEAKERthat the protester, the mob opened the door.
33:06SPEAKERSee, this is another thing, language is important.
33:08SPEAKERI almost called the people that broke
33:09SPEAKERinto the Capitol protesters, which is absolutely incorrect.
33:13SPEAKERWe have to use the words that describe
33:14SPEAKERwhat these people are and their mob
33:15SPEAKERor their insurrectionists or whatever.
33:18SPEAKERYeah, like I recognize that stairway, right?
33:26SPEAKERThe stairway, there's a big stairway on the Capitol,
33:30SPEAKERon the house side.
33:31SPEAKERThat's like the grand stairway that goes from the area,
33:34SPEAKERthe speaker's lobby outside the house chamber
33:36SPEAKERis up to the viewing balcony above, the gallery above.
33:42SPEAKERAnd it has this huge picture painting of George Washington.
33:45SPEAKERIt's like 25 feet wide on it.
33:47SPEAKERIt's gorgeous, it's an amazing painting.
33:49SPEAKERAnd it is one of those areas of the Capitol
33:52SPEAKERthat the Hall of Statues and the Central Rotunda
33:55SPEAKERall remind you that you're in a place that's important
34:00SPEAKERand a place that, you can literally sit in the spot
34:04SPEAKERin the Hall of Statues, which used to be the Senate chamber
34:08SPEAKERbefore they added the additional wings on the house.
34:10SPEAKERAnd you can sit in the spot where Henry Clay would sit.
34:13SPEAKERAnd because of the arched nature of the ceiling,
34:16SPEAKERhe could hear somebody at another desk across the room.
34:19SPEAKERAnd because senators have always had assigned seats,
34:21SPEAKERhe could just sit there and hear everything
34:23SPEAKERthat they were whispering about on the other side of the room
34:25SPEAKERwhenever he wanted to sit down at his desk for five minutes.
34:29SPEAKERAnd you can do it, it still works.
34:32SPEAKERI think they have it stanchioned off now.
34:34SPEAKERBut when I was there, you take people on tours
34:36SPEAKERand you put a kid over in the listening area
34:38SPEAKERand then the adults would go stand in the talking area.
34:40SPEAKERAnd it works every time, it's fabulous.
34:44SPEAKERLike seeing, I mean, it just made me unbelievably sad
34:51SPEAKERfor our country, for the state that we've reached.
34:54SPEAKER- And angry.
34:55SPEAKER- And angry at the people who both encouraged it
34:59SPEAKERand allowed it to happen.
35:00SPEAKERLike I think this is the reason we all need to be writing
35:04SPEAKERto our representatives, like I said,
35:05SPEAKERwhether they agree with you or disagree with you
35:07SPEAKERevery single day to let them know
35:09SPEAKERthat this cannot stand.
35:11SPEAKERLike we have, this is the kind of warning sign
35:14SPEAKERthat if your republic survives the first time,
35:17SPEAKERyou're incredibly lucky and we need to treat it
35:19SPEAKERlike we have like a problem that has to be solved
35:22SPEAKERfor the health of the union.
35:25SPEAKER- You don't have to go far in history to find examples
35:27SPEAKERof people who try to work straight things like this,
35:31SPEAKERgetting a slap on the wrist
35:32SPEAKERand then it going very bad the second time.
35:35SPEAKER- Yeah, don't let people beta test a revolution.
35:37SPEAKER- Yes, it turns out I, yeah, you know,
35:41SPEAKERI don't even know like what the run of show is here.
35:44SPEAKERThis is just kind of a stream of consciousness,
35:47SPEAKERbut one of the things that always gets to me
35:49SPEAKERaround situations like this,
35:50SPEAKERand unfortunately we've been having this experience
35:52SPEAKERmore and more over the last handful of years
35:54SPEAKERis the kind of juxtaposition of the mundane
35:59SPEAKERand the extraordinary.
36:01SPEAKER- Yeah.
36:01SPEAKER- You know, like extraordinary things couched
36:03SPEAKERin like very mundane day-to-day sort of settings.
36:05SPEAKERAnd like one of those is something I took a screenshot
36:07SPEAKERof that morning, which is that I was using Xfinity
36:10SPEAKERwith the cable login to watch cable news
36:13SPEAKERand they've got their recommendation engines
36:15SPEAKERlike everybody does.
36:16SPEAKERAnd like on the front page, when I loaded it,
36:18SPEAKERtop it says Xfinity stream, which is the logo.
36:20SPEAKERAnd then there's the little for you column
36:23SPEAKERand then featured and the first promotional unit
36:26SPEAKERUS Capitol breached.
36:28SPEAKER- Yeah.
36:29SPEAKER- You know, it's just like-
36:30SPEAKER- The American fascism show,
36:31SPEAKERthe season finale is a real banger, Brad.
36:34SPEAKER- Totally, like normally they'd be serving up
36:35SPEAKERlike, I don't know, great British Bake Off in that unit
36:38SPEAKERor, you know, you name it, Anderson Cooper
36:41SPEAKERor just like something super whatever, right?
36:44SPEAKERAnd yet, yeah, like the idea that somebody typed
36:47SPEAKERthe words US Capitol breached into some CMS
36:52SPEAKERto spit out this recommendation is just like hard
36:54SPEAKERto grapple with, you know what I mean?
36:55SPEAKERLike...
36:57SPEAKER- Here's another fun thing to think about.
37:00SPEAKERSo I think we all agree that it's good
37:02SPEAKERthat Twitter finally banned Trump from their platform.
37:07SPEAKERHowever, for the last five years, maybe longer than that,
37:10SPEAKERpeople have been embedding his tweets
37:12SPEAKERin news articles around the web.
37:14SPEAKER- Yeah.
37:14SPEAKER- And because his account is banned and gone,
37:16SPEAKERnow all of those tweets are gone, all those links are dead.
37:19SPEAKERSo you have all these articles about the president
37:22SPEAKERmisbehaving or posting things that are insane.
37:25SPEAKERAnd now the references for those people
37:28SPEAKERthat didn't screenshot them and embed them are gone.
37:30SPEAKERSo I think, A, this is a warning sign
37:32SPEAKERfor journalists in the future to not use the embedded,
37:35SPEAKERthe basic embeds for any social media post
37:39SPEAKERand to screenshot and save those rather than embed them.
37:43SPEAKERAnd two, it's a question for Twitter
37:45SPEAKERabout what they're going to do.
37:47SPEAKERI hope that at some point in the not too distant future,
37:49SPEAKERthey'll restore the past tweets without allowing him access
37:53SPEAKERto new tweets and remove the ones
37:55SPEAKERthat are potentially inflammatory.
37:58SPEAKER- Yeah, yes, there's a legitimate archival need there
38:01SPEAKERfor sure, and I have to imagine they can engineer that
38:03SPEAKEReven if it's in a bespoke way, right?
38:05SPEAKEREven if their system doesn't actually support it.
38:07SPEAKER- Yeah, it's worth doing it, even if they don't support it.
38:12SPEAKER- As of this recording, last I checked,
38:14SPEAKERI don't think Apple had removed Parler
38:16SPEAKERfrom their app store, had they?
38:19SPEAKERGoogle did that last night.
38:23SPEAKERDo you know?
38:25SPEAKER- Parler was on, Parler was removed from Google,
38:30SPEAKERwas suspended from Google.
38:31SPEAKERApple gave them 24 hours or 12 hours, I can't remember,
38:35SPEAKERto add moderation, judging by my browsing Parler
38:39SPEAKERthis morning, it seems like they have not managed to do yet.
38:42SPEAKER- Okay.
38:43SPEAKER- I think it's, the Apple response to this
38:48SPEAKERseems especially cowardly given that there are people
38:50SPEAKERfomenting active revolution on that app right now.
38:55SPEAKER- Yeah, I'm shocked that they didn't follow
38:56SPEAKERGoogle's lead almost immediately.
38:58SPEAKER- Right, like giving them 24 hours to remove the,
39:04SPEAKERto add moderation at three o'clock or four o'clock
39:06SPEAKERon a Friday afternoon Pacific time is essentially saying,
39:09SPEAKERhey, yo dog, we're just gonna turn you off
39:11SPEAKERin 24 hours regardless.
39:13SPEAKER- Yeah.
39:14SPEAKER- So why not just kill the product, the service
39:17SPEAKERat that point, to kill the app at that point.
39:19SPEAKERThe next thing is people are gonna go off to their hosts,
39:21SPEAKERI think Parler's hosted on AWS, so that's the next Amazon
39:26SPEAKERhas to decide whether they want to allow that
39:28SPEAKERon their servers or not.
39:29SPEAKER- Yeah.
39:33SPEAKER- What other, are we forgetting other things?
39:36SPEAKERI mean, the other thing that struck me,
39:39SPEAKERHollywood, who is a Twitter person who I've enjoyed
39:43SPEAKERher work over the years about politics and fascism
39:47SPEAKERand the late stage capitalism and apparently also
39:53SPEAKERlike millennial slash gen Z dating rituals,
39:58SPEAKERposted that on left Twitter, people have been like,
40:02SPEAKERsend off your fingerprints and use signal
40:04SPEAKERand encrypt everything and be ultra paranoid
40:06SPEAKERand meanwhile, this whole thing was planned
40:08SPEAKERon like open Facebook groups and advertised
40:11SPEAKERby the president on Twitter and public forums
40:14SPEAKERand things like that.
40:17SPEAKERSo, you know, that's a thing to think about.
40:23SPEAKER- I suppose so.
40:24SPEAKER- Do that again.
40:26SPEAKER- Yeah, I don't know, I mean, I get so frustrated,
40:28SPEAKERI've seen people in the last couple of days saying like,
40:32SPEAKERdredging up a tweet from some reporter or writer
40:34SPEAKERfrom like three weeks ago, like, you know,
40:36SPEAKERfew days before Christmas or something going like,
40:38SPEAKERlook, this person predicted everything they did
40:40SPEAKERon January 6th, it's amazing, like he figured it all out,
40:43SPEAKERhe got all of it and it's like--
40:44SPEAKER- He didn't have to fucking predict it,
40:45SPEAKERthey told you they were gonna do it.
40:47SPEAKER- Yes, I was looking at that shit throughout the break,
40:49SPEAKERwhich is not a healthy way to spend your holiday break,
40:50SPEAKERbut like, nobody predicted anything,
40:53SPEAKERthey were flat out proclaiming exactly what happened
40:57SPEAKERfor three weeks before it happened,
40:59SPEAKERlike it's just such an unbelievable breakdown
41:01SPEAKERof like security protocol and information gathering
41:03SPEAKERand like equal application, equal application
41:07SPEAKERof like security and the law, quite frankly.
41:10SPEAKER- I'm sure there's a cognitive fallacy,
41:13SPEAKERa cognitive studies fallacy or whatever for this,
41:17SPEAKERbut I mean, the thing that Trump has skated by on
41:21SPEAKERso often is that he says so many insane things
41:26SPEAKERthat people just say, oh yeah, don't believe what he says,
41:29SPEAKERhe doesn't actually, he can't believe that,
41:31SPEAKERthat's not real.
41:32SPEAKERAt this, we're four years in,
41:34SPEAKERhe's tried to have an insurrection,
41:35SPEAKERwe like believe what he says,
41:37SPEAKERif he tells you he's going to have like,
41:38SPEAKERwhen he posts that he's not going to be
41:42SPEAKERat the inauguration as a fucking dog whistle
41:47SPEAKERto go attack the inauguration, please believe him,
41:50SPEAKERfor the love of God.
41:52SPEAKERLike, the number of times he said,
41:54SPEAKERlike he said, I want to ban Muslims
41:57SPEAKERfrom entering the country.
41:59SPEAKEROh, he can't possibly mean that, that would be insane.
42:01SPEAKERAnd then-- - Yes, five days
42:02SPEAKERinto the term. - Five days after, yeah,
42:04SPEAKERafter he was the president, he wrote an executive order
42:06SPEAKERthat tried to ban Muslims from entering the country.
42:08SPEAKER- It's, yeah, when the fascist says I'm going to do fascist
42:13SPEAKERstuff, believe the fascist in the future.
42:14SPEAKER- Believe the autocrat, that's the Masha Gessen advice,
42:18SPEAKERwhich has proved to be quite apt.
42:21SPEAKER- It turns out, you listen to the people
42:23SPEAKERwho've survived autocratic and authoritarian regimes
42:27SPEAKERand said, hey, here are a bunch of bad things
42:28SPEAKERthat are going to happen,
42:29SPEAKERmaybe we should have listened to them.
42:31SPEAKER- Yeah.
42:33SPEAKER- So yeah, I mean, I don't know about you,
42:37SPEAKERI feel okay, I guess, as good as could be expected.
42:44SPEAKERI'm incredibly concerned about the next 12 days.
42:46SPEAKER- I was gonna say, as good as can be expected,
42:48SPEAKERgiven that they have not removed him
42:50SPEAKERfrom fucking office yet.
42:51SPEAKER- Yeah, I mean, look, the, here's,
42:58SPEAKERthe one thing I will say about the fact
43:00SPEAKERthat we haven't started impeachment proceedings here
43:01SPEAKERfour days after is that there are good reasons
43:06SPEAKERthat we, that it takes a long time
43:08SPEAKERto start a process like this, right?
43:10SPEAKERLike writing the articles of impeachment
43:12SPEAKERisn't as simple as copying, pasting the last ones
43:15SPEAKERand finding and replacing Ukraine
43:17SPEAKERfor insurrection or sedition, right?
43:19SPEAKERLike, if they don't get that stuff right,
43:21SPEAKERthen it won't work, and it's like casting a magic spell,
43:25SPEAKERyou have to have all the bits and pieces in place
43:27SPEAKERbefore you start chucking stuff into the pot.
43:31SPEAKERThe, not invoking the 25th Amendment
43:34SPEAKERwhen he waited for 90-ish minutes
43:40SPEAKERwithout answering calls from the Capitol
43:42SPEAKERfrom our elected leaders to send in the National Guard
43:47SPEAKERand federal agents to help with the mob
43:50SPEAKERthat was storming the Capitol is the thing
43:52SPEAKERthat he should be impeached, convicted,
43:55SPEAKERand sent to jail for.
43:56SPEAKER- Absolutely, well, one of several.
43:59SPEAKER- I mean, look, if nothing else sticks,
44:02SPEAKERI hope, oh, you know, there's one more thing
44:04SPEAKERI wanna talk about while we're here
44:05SPEAKERand burning bridges with all the five Republican listeners
44:08SPEAKERthat are left.
44:13SPEAKERI hope that the elected, the members of House and Congress
44:17SPEAKERthat spent multiple hours hiding on the floor, under desks,
44:23SPEAKERtrying to get anything between them and potential shooters,
44:27SPEAKERI hope that they remember what that feels like
44:29SPEAKERfor the rest of their lives,
44:31SPEAKERand I hope that every single time
44:32SPEAKERthere's a gun control bill
44:34SPEAKERor they have, you know, moms demand people
44:37SPEAKERwanting to meet with them that they won't talk to,
44:40SPEAKERI hope they remember what it feels like
44:41SPEAKERto be under the threat of the active shooters,
44:43SPEAKERbecause that's something that every time
44:45SPEAKERwe do an active shooter drill at my daughter's school,
44:48SPEAKERshe comes home, she cries, she tells us what it was like,
44:52SPEAKERwe tell her it's gonna be okay,
44:54SPEAKEReven though I know it fucking for sure
44:56SPEAKERis not going to be okay if we're ever
44:57SPEAKERin that actual situation.
44:59SPEAKERAnd, you know, we put our five-year-olds
45:03SPEAKERand our 10-year-olds and our 18-year-olds
45:05SPEAKERthrough this multiple times a year,
45:07SPEAKERand fuck them for not doing anything
45:10SPEAKERabout gun control in this country,
45:12SPEAKERbecause it's asinine, it's asinine that, you know,
45:16SPEAKERpeople stormed the Michigan Capitol with guns
45:18SPEAKERand we couldn't remove them.
45:20SPEAKERIt's asinine that there were multiple people
45:22SPEAKERcarrying firearms into the Capitol
45:24SPEAKERbecause we couldn't control them.
45:25SPEAKERLike, it is, it's time, and when these people
45:29SPEAKERare voting to not convict Donald Trump next week
45:33SPEAKERfor an impeachment, or to use rules committee bullshit
45:36SPEAKERto make sure that the articles of impeachment
45:38SPEAKERdon't show up on the Senate
45:40SPEAKERuntil after McConnell's not in charge anymore,
45:44SPEAKERI want them to think about what it felt like
45:47SPEAKERto be laying on the floor and wondering
45:48SPEAKERif they were gonna survive the next hour
45:50SPEAKERat the angry mob that the president sicced on them.
45:53SPEAKERAnd yeah, that's it.
45:55SPEAKERThat's, I've said, that's my piece.
45:58SPEAKER- Yeah, well, it's all said.
46:00SPEAKEREnough said.
46:01SPEAKERI don't like, I guess that's it.
46:02SPEAKERI don't, I think we're all just kind of like stunned
46:06SPEAKERand heartbroken and angry
46:09SPEAKERand not sure what to do next here.
46:13SPEAKER- I mean, so the thing to do next,
46:14SPEAKERthere, as a citizen of the United States
46:16SPEAKERin a district where you have a representative
46:18SPEAKERand two senators that represent you,
46:20SPEAKERyou have an easy thing to do,
46:22SPEAKERwhether you believe that they agree with you or not,
46:24SPEAKERyou need to send them a letter that says,
46:25SPEAKER"Hey, I would like you to do something
46:27SPEAKER"about the armed insurrection.
46:29SPEAKER"This is not something that will pass.
46:30SPEAKER"We do not need unity.
46:31SPEAKER"We do not need thoughts and prayers.
46:33SPEAKER"We need action taken against the people
46:35SPEAKER"that both broke into the Capitol
46:37SPEAKER"and instigated the break into the Capitol,
46:40SPEAKER"or else this will happen again
46:41SPEAKER"and the next time we all may not be so lucky."
46:44SPEAKERAnd I, like, yeah.
46:47SPEAKER- Yes, that has to be the takeaway from this,
46:50SPEAKERif nothing else.
46:51SPEAKERIf people don't get anything else
46:52SPEAKERthrough their heads about this,
46:53SPEAKERit is that, if this is not, you know,
46:56SPEAKERif the people responsible for this
46:57SPEAKERare not held accountable to the fullest possible extent,
47:00SPEAKERit's going to happen again.
47:01SPEAKER- The fact that we got a second chance to fix this,
47:07SPEAKERthe fact that we have the ability to have a second chance
47:10SPEAKERto fix this problem is a blessing.
47:13SPEAKERWe are unbelievably lucky.
47:15SPEAKERWe will not get a third chance.
47:16SPEAKER- No, yep. - So we need to behave
47:18SPEAKERin every way.
47:19SPEAKERI put this in my letters, too.
47:20SPEAKERI'm sending a slightly different letter every day
47:22SPEAKERto my representatives,
47:23SPEAKERwho probably all agree with me completely,
47:25SPEAKERbut they need to be reminded constantly,
47:28SPEAKERwe will not get a third chance to fix this problem,
47:32SPEAKERand we need to take advantage of it now.
47:34SPEAKER- Yep.
47:36SPEAKER- And I guess on that note,
47:37SPEAKERlet's thank our patrons for supporting the show.
47:40SPEAKER- Yes.
47:43SPEAKER- As always, thank you, everyone who supports the show.
47:46SPEAKERI want to shout out the folks in the Discord,
47:49SPEAKERbecause we still don't have moderators,
47:51SPEAKEReven after this week.
47:53SPEAKERI think I had to ask people not to be kind once,
47:59SPEAKERnot necessarily to fascists, but just in general.
48:03SPEAKERAnd I asked people not to post any videos
48:06SPEAKERthat they wouldn't want their kids to see.
48:08SPEAKER- Yeah, sure, that's a good policy.
48:10SPEAKER- But overall, even in times of great turmoil,
48:14SPEAKERpeople were incredibly well-behaved,
48:16SPEAKERand I'm proud to be part of that community,
48:17SPEAKERand I was incredibly grateful this week
48:22SPEAKERto have places where we could come and talk about this
48:25SPEAKERin an adult and frank and thoughtful way.
48:28SPEAKER- Yeah, I should've mentioned it earlier
48:31SPEAKERthat Discord was a not insignificant part
48:33SPEAKERof my kind of digital array of resources on the day.
48:42SPEAKER- I was in three different Discords.
48:43SPEAKERI was in a couple that were shared
48:45SPEAKERwith some small ones with friends,
48:47SPEAKERand then our Discord,
48:51SPEAKERand then the one for my Twitch channel at Will Smith,
48:53SPEAKERand all of those places were a large part
48:59SPEAKERof the filtering process for what was important,
49:02SPEAKERwho was writing thoughtful things that were worth reading,
49:07SPEAKERwhat was going on outside of the sphere of my friend group,
49:11SPEAKERwhich is mostly middle-aged white guys,
49:14SPEAKERand it's incredibly valuable and helpful
49:18SPEAKERand good and important.
49:19SPEAKERSo thank you all.
49:20SPEAKER- Yes.
49:22SPEAKER- Extra special thanks to our executive producer,
49:24SPEAKERlevel patrons, The Bunny Fiend, Jacob Chappell,
49:27SPEAKERAndrew Cotton, David Allen, and James Kamik.
49:30SPEAKERWe appreciate you all so much.
49:31SPEAKER- Absolutely.
49:33SPEAKER- And if you would like to support the podcast
49:35SPEAKERand support the Patreon,
49:37SPEAKERI'm sure we'll get a couple of angry unsubscribes this week
49:40SPEAKERfrom people who are like, "Fuck you.
49:42SPEAKERYou're gonna talk bad about Republicans.
49:43SPEAKERI'm leaving."
49:44SPEAKERI'm like, "That's fine, see ya.
49:46SPEAKERTake your money someplace else."
49:47SPEAKER- You know, to whatever extent they deserve credit,
49:50SPEAKERthere are plenty of Republicans
49:52SPEAKERwho should have broken ranks long before now
49:55SPEAKERwho have finally done so in the last few days.
49:57SPEAKER- That is absolutely, yeah.
49:59SPEAKER- I can't give them much credit,
50:00SPEAKERbut it's worthy of recognition.
50:04SPEAKER- I had a family member who thought I was a lunatic
50:06SPEAKERfor the last five years who sent me a note yesterday
50:08SPEAKERand apologized, and I was like,
50:09SPEAKER"I never thought I would speak to you again,
50:11SPEAKERso hey, welcome back.
50:12SPEAKERIt's good to hear from you."
50:12SPEAKER- Yeah, honestly, I am not always the person who,
50:16SPEAKERwhen somebody finally comes around months, two years
50:18SPEAKERafter they should have, to say,
50:20SPEAKER"Fuck you, where were you two years ago?"
50:23SPEAKERTo some extent, there has always got to be
50:26SPEAKERsome potential for repentance.
50:32SPEAKER- I will never forgive the people who vote
50:35SPEAKERto not convict Trump on this, right, in the Senate.
50:39SPEAKER- Yes.
50:40SPEAKER- But look, I voted for Bush in 2000.
50:43SPEAKERWe all make mistakes, fair?
50:47SPEAKERIf I had that to do over again, probably would.
50:48SPEAKERI didn't live in Florida, so it didn't matter.
50:50SPEAKERBut look, it is never too late to look up and say,
50:55SPEAKER"Hey, I made a mistake.
50:57SPEAKERI shouldn't have believed what this lunatic was saying.
50:59SPEAKERI really liked "The Apprentice."
51:01SPEAKERFuck, I don't know, man, I watched "The Apprentice."
51:04SPEAKERI'd look, we all make mistakes, Brad.
51:06SPEAKER- Yeah, I mean, the only point I'm making is
51:07SPEAKERthat even among Republicans, there are quite a few people
51:10SPEAKERin the last few days that seem to have had their heads
51:14SPEAKERscrewed on straight finally after living
51:16SPEAKERin delusion for too long.
51:18SPEAKER- I guess my point is, I don't feel like I would
51:20SPEAKERself-identify as a Republican after the events
51:22SPEAKERof the last few weeks.
51:24SPEAKERBut yeah, if you recant Trump, you're welcome.
51:28SPEAKERWe're happy to have you.
51:32SPEAKERThat's it.
51:32SPEAKERYou can find the Patreon at patreon.com/techbot.
51:35SPEAKERIf you wanna support it, awesome, we love you.
51:37SPEAKERWe love you either way, unless you're supporting fascism
51:40SPEAKERin America, in which case, get wrecked.
51:43SPEAKERI guess that's it.
51:44SPEAKER- Yeah, stay safe, everybody.
51:46SPEAKER- Yes, please be safe.
51:48SPEAKEROh, here's one more thing that's important.
51:51SPEAKERIf this is all overwhelming and you need to take a minute
51:54SPEAKERand do something else, take a break away from the madness
51:58SPEAKERof our current thing, that's fine.
52:02SPEAKERThe most important thing you can do is send your letter
52:04SPEAKERto your representatives.
52:05SPEAKERAfter you do that, don't feel compelled to stay glued
52:09SPEAKERto the TV or the Twitter or the Discords.
52:13SPEAKEREverybody needs to go do something
52:15SPEAKERand be a normal human being and make some food
52:18SPEAKERand take a shower and go on a walk and wear a mask
52:21SPEAKERand talk to your loved ones and do things that are not this.
52:27SPEAKERAnd we have to take care of ourselves.
52:28SPEAKERBut anyway, thank you all so much,
52:29SPEAKERand we'll be back next week
52:31SPEAKERwith hopefully a more normal techbot, I hope.
52:34SPEAKER- God only knows.
52:36SPEAKER- Yeah, fingers crossed.
52:39SPEAKER(upbeat music)