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Hey everybody, Robert Evans here and I wanted to let you know this is a compilation episode. So every episode of the week that just happened is here in one convenient and with somewhat less ads package for you to listen to in a long stretch if you want. If you've been listening to the episodes every day this week, there's going to be nothing new here for you, but you can make your own decisions.
Get ready for anarchy in Atlanta.
You got to or you won't be arend anarchists start work. They struck again this week.
Cops are approaching now.
Obviously got a flashbawn.
This is it could happen here. I'm Garrison Davis. For the past three years, a wide range of people in Atlanta, Georgia have been working to prevent the construction of a now one hundred and ten million million dollar militarized police training facility in the South River Forest in southeast Atlanta. I've continuously covered the evolving struggle on it Could Happen Here for the past few years.
Now.
In this episode, I will attempt to summarize some of the actions from the past six months and the wave of recent repression targeted against the movement. I will also offer some analysis and critique on behalf of anonymous Force defenders who spoke with me in dedicated conversations. After the last week of action in summer of twenty twenty three, it was clear the movement needed a new way of people to engage in the struggle against Cop City. Beyond
the referendum and the occasional nighttime sabotage. Forest encampments were essentially impossible, and the weeks of action seemed to expunge their usefulness. A small group of people began organizing what would become known as block cop City. The idea was that on Monday, November thirteenth, a mass mobilization would descend upon the Cop City construction site in an act of non violent protest, and perhaps planted tree saplings where the
forest once stood. This marks the first time that the framing of quote unquote strategic nonviolence and nonviolent direct action were embraced for a mass action like this, hoping that it may attract NGOs and activist groups to co sign onto the action. Historically, throughout this struggle, such quote unquote non violent framing was at least avoided if not explicitly rejected as a limiting restriction toward achieving measurable victories against
the Atlanta Police Foundation and cop City contractors. Throughout the end of summer and the start of fall, a speaking tour for block cup City traveled to over eighty cities around the country to promote the action and recruit people to travel to Atlanta come November. Block cup City started
as a very vertical, top down plan. The central conceit was decided upon by a small number of individuals, many of whom were not from Atlanta, and the finer details would be worked out in a series of public meetings in the days before the action. Whether or not local force defenders liked or disliked the proposal, block op City acted as a gravity well, sucking nearly all of the energy, time, and attention into its orbit for the entirety of a
fall in Atlanta. Throughout the nationwide block coop City speaking to her a small subset of attendees voiced objections and disagreements with the proposed to strategy and its use of time and resources. Those opposed to block up City thought the idea of a large public march to the work site was going to put people in unnecessary harm without doing much to achieve a measurable blow against cop city. I'm going to quote from a report back that was published online shortly after the action.
Quote.
Something that tends to happen in autonomous action is that there ends up being an inner circle at the core, which can limit the scope of who is able to meaningfully contribute to the direction of action because it creates a hierarchy at spokes council. It felt like this at times because it was primarily a small group of speakers who were directing the entire block Copcity movement. This led to dismissal of certain concerns which were brought up by
affinity groups. In the planning stages. Organizers pushed back on the notion that getting arrested was a part of the plan, but on the day before the November thirteenth action, a block op City organizer told press and media in a private meeting to have your cameras ready because there will be arrests at noon, demonstrating some form of intent to use people's safety and freedom as a way to generate online buzz with the hope of inspiring people to once
again take action in the forest. The possibility of arrest was obviously mentioned at the Spokes Council meetings, but was framed as far from a certainty, with rallying cries insisting that the march will be able to all leave together.
During the two days of Spokes Council meetings, the route and formation of the march to the construction site was decided upon, and quote unquote direct action trainings took place to prepare people for the march on Monday morning, the march was to be split into three distinct clusters, a frontline, middle, and rear. Before the march, there was limited communication between clusters, making it difficult to have informed expectations of how a
confrontation with police will happen. Part of the quote unquote strategic non violence stipulation meant that throwne objects and projectiles
were explicitly disallowed. On the morning of the march, words started to spread around that what was left of the frontline cluster decided that only bullets will make the frontline fall back and they would withstand all other forms of police violence, mostly les, lethal rounds, tear gas, batons, etc. Now, this whole thing about live rounds was not widely communicate
to people who just showed up for the action. On Monday morning, during the spokes councils, it was learned that a vast majority of attendees had never before been to Atlanta or the Forest, and a great many of whom had never attended a protest or engaged in a clash with police before. Some local force defenders took issue with the perceived strategy of primarily recruiting young people from across the country with little to no experience going up against police.
Come Monday morning, the number of people gathered to march on cop City was far fewer than what was initially hoped. It's impossible to say for sure whether the limiting of acceptable tactics and the non violent framing hurt or helped the final number of attendees. Regardless, the four hundred or so brave people that departed Gresham Park was not the mass action initially envisioned by organizers.
Got about three.
Dozen riot cops and SWAT teams stationed here. Walking off the road heading to the west, got police shields. We have air of fifteen's, we have tactical response vehicles ATV, A lot of cops behind us, a lot of cops in front of us. We are completely sandwiched in by the police.
Right now, the front liners approached the police riot line at the big intersection near the entrance to Entrenchment Creek Park. Two large banners formed a V shaped wedge and the crowd advanced into the police line.
People are pushing through. Cops are putting up to fight. People are continuing to move forward. The march is pushing the cops back.
Under the pressure from a few hundred people. The police line was pushed back by one or two dozen feet front liners. We stood police batons and leslie communitions. Steady progress was being made. That was until tear gas got deployed. Cops are continuing to loop back.
Flash bang.
We got gap csgas was first launched into the middle of the crowd. Police paused to put on their own gas masks, but instead of using this moment to advance further, the bulk of the crowd held their position, with large sections of the middle cluster subsequently entering into the tree line of Entrenchment Creek Park. As continuing volleys of tear gas were fired by police. This caused the front line to retreat back, effectively ending the offensive portion of the action.
As the group that entered into the forest was later escorted out by police, rejoined the march and eventually returned to Gresham Park. Everyone knew that it was a near certainty that police would confront a mobile crowd, and out maneuvering police all the way to the construction site would be highly unlikely. The only way a mass of people would be able to get to the work site is
if police allowed it. Still, there's much to learn from block cop City and even just the brief skirmish with police, So forgive me for engaging in some tactical analysis based on the good portion of my life spent in riot jousts and input from others with more on the ground experience. We first have to think about what will cause a mass of people to break up, scatter, and retreat, both on the protester side and on the police side. The
front lines are meant to act semi fluid. Typically, projectile launchers are behind the front line and are designed to scatter the opposing front line and middle sections of the enemy side to disrupt an offensive formation so that it loses its capacity for for momentum, or to stagger a defensive line enough to force retreat, as was the case on November thirteenth. When a layered defensive police line is backed up with vehicles like a bear cat, the on
foot line will most likely not retreat back behind their vehicles. Frustratingly, these these massive police vehicles occupy a sort of paradoxical role as a ten ton roadblock that would force a center advancing line to break apart in order to pass, putting the advancing line in a less strategic position, even though if the vehicle was threatened by being overrun, police would probably attempt to pull the vehicle back, signifying retreat.
So how has this paradox been solved before? Well with ranged attacks like bottles, fireworks and what the State of Ukraine was teaching its civilians to make in the early days of the Russian invasion. This is why projectiles are of such a strategic importance. One cannot break through a police line without employing violence. Utilizing projectiles is necessary to force rear police vehicles to retreat, along with the CoP's own projectile launchers placed behind their riot line, which are
used to break up the opposing front line. And police have no such tactical non violence scruples against using projectiles. Some Atlanta anarchists have also noted that the resources put towards acquiring a great number of plants that ended up just being abandoned could also have been used to acquire gas masks for the middle cluster, reinforced shields, and ancillary materials put towards prioritizing the crowd's efficacy and safety against
the use of crowd controlled munitions. Thankfully, there were no arrests made in direct connection to the march, but I don't believe this can be accredited to any comprehensive organizing. When the day prior media was told that arrests would be taking place by lunchtime, for whatever reason, the police let a kettled crowd of people go free. We can
only speculate on why. Between the logistical hassles, the stretching of prosecutor resources, and the bomb squad that was actively sweeping the area of entrenchment Creek Park and checking all of the bags and backpacks that were dropped in the area where the splinter of the march was escorted out by police with force. Defenders in Atlanta who've spent years now engaging in militant struggle against police. They offered a
more fundamental critique of this action. If the choice to employ a strategy of nonviolence is in response to grossly inflated charges and repression the movement is facing, as some block ops to the organizers have stated, that means that you're allowing the state to determine your rules of engagement. The entire idea of announcing your plan to walk onto one of the most policed areas in the country did, in fact prevent people with more on the ground experience
from participating on the day of the action. Risk requires reward. A small core of organizers were so steadfast in one particular version of how this event would take shape, branding people with disagreements as all overly online disaffected nihilists no longer involved in the struggle in Atlanta. Not only were online critiques discarded, but opportunities for in person conversation as an input from people with more on the ground experience
in Atlanta were also turned down. And I think it is important to state hats off to the many young people that traveled from around the country to participate in this action. One can hope that block cop City broadly and going up against this line of armed riot police was a useful learning experience for whatever happens next in these people's lives as we approach the twenty twenty four
election and who knows what is to come. The night after Block cop City, six vehicles owned by the company Earned Concrete were set on fire in Gwinnett County, Georgia. Earlier that fall, Ernst Concrete trucks were seen working on the cop City construction site. After the arson, Ernst Concrete released a statement saying that they were not going to
work on the cop City project. In an Atlanta Police Department press conference from December twenty twenty three, Chief Darren Sheerbaum discussed a wave of recent arsons Googa.
The most recent one happened in Gwinnette County this past November. This was Ernst Concrete when a number of construction equipment was set on fire. Then we go to three arsons that happened right here in Atlanta mcdonna Boulevard where a contractor, a Brent Scarborough, was targeted three different times in the month of October of this year, July of this year,
as well as April this year. We see that the same group takes credit each and every time on their source of giving information out and so it's likely to be that same group, very small in number, moving from state to state is likely the profile of these individuals.
It's very very small.
It is a handful of individuals that are having a much larger impact on the safety of this city than they should have.
Atlanta Fire Chief Roderick Smith and John King, the Georgia Insurance and Fire Safety Commissioner, both talked about how these arsons negatively affect the contractors working to build cop city.
As we talk.
About impacts caused by arson, it affects our businesses, those that are participating in helping out building Atlanta Public Safety Training Center. We suffer from additional cost due to arson that these companies face and individuals face.
This affects every one of our citizens in the area because all these losses. Yes, there's an insurance company that will probably cover some of the costs, but those losses will be passed on to customers, so we all will take the losses.
On January seventeenth, APD put out another press conference to discuss even though the police are already doing such a great job out stopping crime when it's fourteen degrees and homicides continue to decline. Even still, a new state of the art police training facility is vital to maintain safety in the city of Atlanta.
We've asked you to come together again today because there is an effort underway by very smart individuals anarchists that want to impact the safety of Atlanta, Georgia. Just yesterday, a piece of equipment aligned with one of the construction companies that is building the public safety training center for
every lantin was set on fire. Next door in a neighboring state of South Carolina, we had a construction company that had a loose connection to the project here in Atlanta that was targeted by an individual that used one of the tools of violence sphere and intimidation that has been used mainly by this group, which is arson, set equipment on fire, going after concrete trucks, and so soon the individuals that have been in the dark of night
impacting every one of our neighborhoods will be held responsible as we bring these individuals to justice.
Police in South Carolina were able to identify a suspect and ended up arresting and charging them with arson. The fire chief elaborated on the theoretical risks of arson such as injury to human life and the ugly sight of burnt rubble left over in neighborhoods, as well as reiterating how it affects the cop City project.
What are the effects of arson financial?
As we've heard earlier, the impact that the equipment being burned plays of role with the company's working delays in the project.
Due to this.
Less than a week later, the city had another press conference in front of burnt husks of equipment outside a construction site run by a cop City contractor.
If you look over my shoulder, you will see the equipment that was burned.
It belongs to a private contractor.
There were total four pieces of heavy construction equipment that were damaged this morning.
Chief Scheerbomb quickly linked the attack to stop cop City due to a post online about the attack accompanied by the hashtag stop cop City.
The hashtag is present.
Scherbomb also gave an updated account on the number of arsen attacks which have targeted construction equipment.
I believe now we're right at thirty five that have occurred here in the state of Georgia and elsewhere. The vast majority of them are concentrated in North Georgia, but there are others that have occurred elsewhere. We're very fortunate of an arrest in South Carolina. There's clearly at least one other person. This individual or individuals don't care about
life and safety. If they firebombed police precincts, their go is to a road, proper public safety infrastructure, and to road the government.
Very cool stuff. Indeed, I do believe that thirty four number is a gross undercount, but hey, if they've forgotten a few attacks, really no real harm in that. We have, however, gotten a few recent numbers on the monetary damages caused
by stop Coop City activity. In a Georgia State Senate committee meeting near the end of January, Senator Deborah Silcox said that APD Chief Administrative Officer Peter Amman told her earlier that day that the estimated cost of nationwide property damage made in protest of cop City exceeds one hundred million dollars. That beats the ELF numbers.
Now.
Four days later, the Atlanta Police Department tried to backtrack that number to New York Times reporter Sean Keenan, now saying that it was ten million dollars in property damage a one thousand percent difference, which either way is a massive amount of money. And we do know for sure that the city has spent at least one point three million dollars just in the legal fees related to cop City.
We know at least some of that one point three million dollars was used to combat the Cop City referendum campaign, an initiative started last summer to collect petition signatures to put cop City on an upcoming ballot. I talked with Sam Barnes of the Atlantic Community Press Collective to get an update on the current state of the referendum.
The referendum has more or less been stalled out since last fall. In response to a lawsuit from Decab County residents who claimed that their First Amendment rights were being infringed upon because they were not allowed to canvas for signatures, A Core issued down an injunction basically allowing the referendum campaign to have additional time to collect and then turn
in signatures. The city then appealed that injunction. That whole situation is currently before the US Court of Appeals, who heard arguments from the city's lawyers and the vote campaign's lawyers in January and who have not yet issued a ruling on that appeal.
The referendum campaign has turned in what they say are one hundred and sixteen thousand signatures, which, if verified, should be more than enough to get the referendum onto the ballot, but the City of Atlanta has said that they cannot start counting these signatures until the Court of Appeals issues their ruling.
It's not really clear of where in case law, or in Georgia code, or wherever they are getting that legal precedent from, but it is the line they are sticking to. So long story short, even if the city was to start counting votes today, and even if there were enough to get this referendum on the ballot the next election, it could appear on the ballot in is the general election in November twenty twenty four, Popcity for APD and the APF's repeated claims is going to open and fall
of twenty twenty four. Now, I don't personally have a lot of faith in that at one point it was going to open in August twenty twenty three, just the simple fact of every construction project runs into delays. But I think it is pretty clear, especially given the clear cutting and the concrete pouring that has already happened on the site that it will make significant progress by by November.
It's pretty obvious that the city's strategy here is to just delay and delay and delay the referendum until the thing gets built, effectively just making the referendum dead in the water.
On February eighth, the Federal Bureau of Investigation connected a series of house rates on three homes in South Atlanta that they suspected of being linked to Stop Coop City activists. Phones and computers were seized, along with Stopcop City related zines and posters. Occupants of the house were dragged outside, sometimes literally. A few were detained for hours on end, with one being driven to a police headquarters for interrogation, but was released later that evening.
This morning, at six am, investigators of the Alan of Fire Rescue, Georgia Berl of Investigation, Federal Burial of Investigation, Bureau of Alcohol to Back and Firearms, and the Atlanta Police Department, joined by uniformed elements of this department at Georgia State Patrol, executed search warrants signed by judges who'd review the probable cause, allowing us to enter three locations to seek evidence connected to acts of vandalism and arson
that have occurred over the last few months. As investigators went to those locations, they were armed with an arrest warrant.
It's worth noting that the search warrants cited federal statutes on the destruction of vehicles and reco While executing one of these raids, police located an individual whom an arrest warrant was issued for days prior and brought them into custody. This arrest, along with the one in South Carolina, also marked the very first arrests linked to clandestine and nighttime attacks in the three year history of the movement.
We're processing all of the locations now. The evidence to make that arrest had already been in possession of law enforcement even before we executed the search warrants this morning, So the arrest warrant was signed before today, and the arrest work was not connected with the search morsols or independent of the arrest would be making once we located this gentleman.
In a city press conference, the mayor opened by saying this arrest was quote linked to multiple acts of vandalism and arson unquote, yet they were only charged with one account of first earrye Arsen, which police linked to the burning of eight police motorcycles last July, near the end of that summer's week of action. This particular arson is unique from the many other cop city related arsons in a few ways. This was not targeting construction equipment. Instead,
it was directly targeting police infrastructure. An unexploded plastic incendiary device was left at the scene, and the police training building that was singed. The city now claims was occupied by a police officer.
But was often overlooked as inside of that precinct was a protector of the city Atlanta police officers inside.
As police have said, they only had enough information to make this war arrest linked to this one specific instance of arson. Thus, these raids can be seen both as an intimidation attempt and a last ditch effort to collect additional information necessary to make future arrests.
More rest will come. It will come soon and will continue.
To hold people accountable to Everyone that has been involved in these acts are in jail and before a judge. The investigation is very active, ma'am. There's a reason we serve three search warrants today.
We do.
We are looking at a wide range of areas.
We believe evidence as hell that will.
Identify who is responsible or the others, and who else was responsible besides this gentleman.
The investigation will play that out.
But there are others that I anticipate will be resting in the end of weeks to come.
This messaging from Chief Sheerbaum is obviously meant to spread panic and paranoia amongst activists, organizers, and the anarchists of Atlanta. Those in Atlanta were quick to prove that repression would not stifle attacks against copp City. On the night of February ninth, a police car was torched outside of the home of an APD officer officer in the Lakewood neighborhood
of Atlanta. The next day, police claimed that they tracked the movements of two alleged arsonists via ring, doorbell and street cameras to a house in Lakewood and conducted a raid that afternoon. Nothing was found and no arrests were made.
The FBI and the ATF viewed the vehicle arsen outside of the home of an Atlanta police officer as a significant escalation and made their first on camera speaking appearance on Channel two to discuss the possibility of introducing federal charges, the house raids threats, doing all these press conferences, it's
all part of this media frenzy to elicit fear. Earlier this year, Chief sheerbamb unveiled plans to put four hundred and fifty billboards all across the country offering reward money for information, specifically placed in cities they believe anarchists are
traveling from to set fires in Atlanta. Every single press conference the police du they are desperately begging for members of the public to snitch, saying the only way this case will be solved is if anonymous tipsters come forward with information, offering increasingly comical amounts of money if information leads to a conviction. Fear is one of the greatest
tools this state has to bear. But through this sequence of events, police and investigators are also kind of showing their hand here, demonstrating the current limit of their actionable evidence. It has now been well over a month since these raids, and as of now, no subsequent arrests have been made.
The timing of these house raids also seemed intended to disrupt an event planned for later that month called the Nationwide Summit to Stop Cop City, a convergence located in Tucson, Arizona, on Amazonia that was planned for February twenty third to the twenty six I was not able to attend, but I spoke with Sam from the Atlanta Community Press Collective who covered the summit in person.
It was a four day convergence in twoson Arizona, called for by the pretty well entrenched radical organizing scene there in Tucson that was just intended to be the kind of summits we've seen here in Atlanta that are often called weeks of Action that can no longer take place here in Atlanta. So it was intended to be just a gathering of like minded people to share ideas, build community, have fun, frankly, and there also were some direct actions
that occurred during the week. The hub for the summit was a park kind of on what i'd call the north end of Tucson called Mansfield Park, and there was a small camp space set up and organized by locals. The structure of the summit and of the camp space in general was again very familiar to anyone who has attended any of the Weeks of Action in Atlanta. At meals, breakfast, lunch, and dinner. There were camp announcements, a lot of spontaneous
activities within the camp. A couple movie nights were held.
Tucson, Arizona on Amazonia, is about one hundred miles from the US Mexico border. Sam told me about a panel they attended on the intersections between the border, Gaza and Atlanta. If you've been paying attention to the cop City struggle, you're probably already familiar with these themes. The Atlanta Police Department participates in the Georgia International Law Enforcement Exchange the GILLY program, where they trained with members of the IDF.
The talk featured Jewish Americans, Palestinian Americans. A correspondent from Indian Collective who was there to cover the summit as well, also spoke during that event. And that intersection was I think even before Aaron Bushnell self imilated that Sunday was probably the most profound theme when I threw the weekend again, especially with Tucson's proximity to the border and to native lands that are on the border and which are often
surveilled using wait for it, Israeli military technology. The sort of official name of the summit was the Nationwide Summit to Stop coop City, which was a sort of winking nudge nudge at Nationwide Insurance, which is the main underwriter of the insurance policies that ensure what would be cop city. Nationwide has a major corporate office in Scottsdale, Arizona, which is in between Tucson and Phoenix.
On the first night of the summit, a small group of anonymous vandals attacked three subsidiaries of Nationwide Insurance in Tucson, Arizona, Tusan, Amazonia, breaking windows and vandalizing their buildings. Later on in the week, there were two more public direct actions that happened during the summit. The first was a black block march on the night of February twenty fifth in downtown Tucson, Arizona, sun Arizonia. As a crowd of a little under one
hundred people moved through downtown stopcop City. Graffiti filled the plaza, and a P and C bank as well as a recently closed Wells Fargo branch, had their windows smashed. Wells Fargo is affiliated with the Atlanta Police Foundation and PNC is a financial backer of the Mountain Valley Pipeline in the Appalachians. Police were able to arrest at least three
people suspected of participating in the march. Oddly, they were charged with arson of an occupied building, I believe due to fireworks being thrown in or near one of the banks. Given the name of the nationwide summit, it was expected that there would be a public action targeting nationwide insurance.
So Monday morning we headed up to Scottsdale, Arizona, again just outside of feat Phoenix is about two hours away, where we stopped by a sort of sidewalk rally type situation that was happening outside of the Nationwide Regional offices, which was honestly quite locked down, quite hard to get access to it. As we were leaving the sidewalk rally and being followed by Scottsdale's finest bicycle riders, I thought it was interesting that one of the bicycle cops had
a life behind Bars personalized painted bicycle bell. It was Teal and said a Life behind Bars, And when we asked him about it, he just said, I just thought it was funny because you know, I'm a cop and I'm behind bicycle bars.
It was.
Delightful and look forward to further coverage of this exciting story in a soon to be released ACPC video feature. So after the rally outside of nationwide offices, we got a tip that a lockdown style action would be happening somewhere in the Scottsdale Phoenix area that afternoon, So maybe around four or five o'clock, we traveled to the hills of Maricopa County, Arizona, formerly home to America's toughest sheriff, Joe Arpaio, into this sort of enclave of gated, dead
end streets with fabulously expensive homes. One of these homes is owned by a nationwide insurance executive. So the activists that locked down placed their bodies in front of two entrances to this enclave with the intention of disrupting the evening of this nationwide executive and their neighbors. There were six activists in total that locked down, three at each entry.
They used a device that has been ascribed to me as being called a cupcake, meaning it was a bag of concrete placed on the inside of a car tire set with some rebar and a kind of pipe sticking out of it where I assumed there was some sort of like handcuff locking on the inside of the pipe. The gates were also locked shut with like bicycle locks.
People were locked to the entrance of the gated community for almost four hours before being arrested. All six were ultimately given misdemeanor charges and released within twenty four to forty eight hours. Sam also talks to me about how these big public gatherings like the summit in Tucson, Arizona, so I'm not as Zunia, seem like they just can't really happen in Atlanta anymore.
So.
In November here in Atlanta, we had the Block Cop City Convergence, which was organized to a pretty significant extent by folks not from Atlanta. I know one reason I heard for that. It's pretty well known that organizers in Atlanta are tired, and there was a group of people from outside of Atlanta that felt like they could carry that lift to organize and action here in Atlanta. The summit in Tucson, to my knowledge, is the first major convergence that has been organized outside of Atlanta with a
call for folks to come from the nation over. It was a very keen or a very sharp feeling of grief that this was not happening in Atlanta, that could not happen in Atlanta, both because the forest has had a huge chunk of it bulldozed, but also due to the police occupation of the forest, that this could not happen in Atlanta right now in the Willani Forest, and I think, especially given recent events in Atlanta, in anywhere in Atlanta in Georgia.
Frankly, even if due to continuating circumstances, events like this may not be able to happen in Georgia. Sam told me that once the summit kicked off and things got going, it became clear that, of course, convergences can and probably will continue to happen anywhere and everywhere. For a long time, a slogan of this struggle has been cop City is everywhere.
Even if there weren't similar cop city like facilities planned or already being built all over the country. I believe the latest count was sixty nine or seventy. I can't quite remember who did that research, but even if it wasn't for that, again to go back to like the sharp through line of Gaza, the border, indigenous lands, Gilly historial genocide, this struggle is the same everywhere. The police are the same everywhere. As I was recently discussed on this podcast.
As this episode draws to a close, I'd like to air out some thoughts I've had ruminating around my head for a while about inter conflict as desperation. These comments are not about any specific city or situation. This simply reflects a pattern I've observed in various struggles caught in a down spiral, particularly during the fallout of the twenty
twenty protests nationwide. Historically, I think Atlanta has actually proven to be pretty resilient against this sort of thing, but as the stakes are quite high, I would hate to see something similar happen, as the cop city struggle here in Atlanta seems to be entering its latter stages.
First, I'd like.
To say it's always a worrying ticking clock once people start getting treated as disposable or as political props to be sacrificed in the service of spectacle. But primarily I've been thinking about at a certain point far enough within a struggle, it becomes easy to fight each other than it is to fight police. Which is not to say all conflict is bad. Conflict can often be good. Tension can result in a new innovative action that otherwise might
not materialize. But when said, actionable conflict starts to materialize more frequently against each other rather than against the state. That signals impending doom. Being able to consistently put your beliefs into practice with a like minded group of people, to directly engage against systems of oppression like the police or the state, especially in your own city, is a life affirming process, almost intoxicating. It's very easy to become
addicted to high intensity conflict. Unfortunately, the state is a resilient bastard. Even if you can land a few sizeable blows. Over time, this state can gather a lot of resources to push back, and it take a few days, weeks, months, or even years. Only in our minds may the glorious first spark of uprising last forever, the burning of the Third Precinct, or the first year or so of defend the Atlanta Forest. But nostalgia is a trap, and eventually
the empire does in fact strike back. But as it becomes harder, more dangerous, more frightening to engage against the state, the desire for that rush of conflict stays. It lingers. So what is one to do? The walls are closing in, but you have this need to fight, so you take out your anxiety, PTSD and frustration on those around you.
It is much more scary to fight the police. This, by comparison, is easy while still feeding that conflict you will drive we must keep on fighting, and since it's harder and more scary to continually fight the cops or the state, we instead are looking for ways to fight each other, to find scapegoats to purge, often in service of some unrelated personal grievance or in group self preservation
constant attack, constant strength, constant purity. These conflicts can take form as blame as to why desired outcome is not being achieved, intensified a stratifica of in group out group dynamics, as in these are the bad people in the movement, whereas we are the enlightened definity group with the only successful strategy or conspiratorial co intel pro like actions such as cop jacketing, snitch jacketing, and more general bad jacketing
against people who you have simple organizational disagreements with. This can also manifest as a deep unwillingness to hear preemptive critical commentary and the assumption that all criticism comes from place of bad faith, A recent article in a popular anarchist publication roped in genuine critique and disagreement as somehow being in alignment with the state's motivations against the movement.
And this is not just a form of cop jacketing, saying that if you disagree with a particular strategy, that means you are in alignment with police because they also dislike a particular strategy. But the police dislike the strategy for a completely different reason, because they dislike any form of resistance. Claiming that critique from an anarchists and criticism from the state come from the same fundamental place is simply laughable.
It is in moments such as this, when repression is increasing, that justified frustration and fear leading to paranoia can be turned into a weapon by the state. At these moments, people must be the most vigilant against their own fear, resulting in retreat from battle against the state and turning to intra conflict as a desperate form of alternative struggle. Solidarity, love and care are paramount, including harsh love, including well
meaning critical commentary, debate, and constructive conversation. Well that's enough of that. Finally, I'd like to give an update on the Copcity construction timeline. The past few months, city officials and the Atlanta Police Foundation have made a series of statements claiming construction is very much on schedule and quickly approaching completion.
I want to say this, the construction of those training centers on schedule.
We will be moving in summer. It will be operational this time next year.
The new facility is almost seventy percent complete with construction.
Many have pointed out that this is a ridiculously high number, considering that a video published by the police just a few days ago showed an unfinished foundation and a single paved road. Now Sam from the Atlantic Community Press Collective helped explain what this number might be referring to.
There are no walls built, to say the least. I personally believe that to be a very charitable reading of a document with a construction timeline. We've seen as a result of our open records requests that sort of break the what a lay person such as myself would call it the construction process up into things like permitting, pre construction, development, construction.
On that timeline, they were about seventy percent done with the development, and they were also about seventy percent done with the whole process ranging from permitting to cutting the red ribbon. What again, as a layperson, I would also call the construction process, meaning the whole you know, roof walls, doors, thing on that particular document was zero percent complete or like, I shouldn't say zero percent because they have like concrete
paths and stuff. I don't remember exactly what the date on this document was, but it was zero to a very small percentage of complete.
So yes on the.
Grand construction timeline of filing the first document to again literal walls. Yeah, sure they're seventy percent complete by any measure of construction to the average season. No, they are not seventy percent complete.
Before I close this episode out, I do want to let listeners know about ways to support Jack, the person rested in the house raid last month. In the show notes, I will link to a fundraiser that goes towards his legal fees, jail commissary, and phone calls. You can also go to the website free Jack dot Co. That's free Jack dot Co for information on how to mail letters and books to Jack while he is currently being held
in jail without bond. Trials and court cases related to the Georgia copcity recoindictment have all been delayed till at least this summer. Follow the Atlantic Community Press Collective for updates on that as they happen. See you on the other side.
Do you think he's glaed to stay?
You know, obviously he's not here and we're seeking him, and so we would ask him to come in and answer our questions.
Welcome, sick it up and here, I'm Andrew Siege from the Channel andresm and say you will be shedding light on a recently popular discussion on the problem with mod cities and more specifically the growing absence of third places. Now love them or hate them, cities are here to stay. And if you spend any time on urban plan and YouTube or really just looked around, you know they have
some issues. Traffic congestion is a big one, a notorious nemesis of modern cities, stemming from increased population, poor urban planning, and excessive vehicle usage, creating a big waste of time and straining or well being. There also issues of physical and mental health among city inhabitants. The environmental impact of urban areas can be quite terrible.
Housing issues seem to.
Be globally hellish, but still people flock to cities because that's where the opportunities are. Hence the growth of slums and the overall straining infrastructure like utilities and transportation, and the functionality of cities, many of which are currently well above their capacity. Of course, many of these issues just don't touch the wealthy in the same way. Within the city's gleaming skyscrapers lie stock disparities and income access to
resources and opportunities. I for another issue, more relevantile discussionaire. In the midst of a crowd, even dwellers often grapple with feelings of loneliness and disconnection. The paradox are being surrounded by people yet feeling totally alone. In a seminar work, The Great Good Place, published in nineteen eighty nine, American sociologist Ray Olenberg presents a captivator notion for a balance and fulfilling life, a harmony among the three spheres, the home,
of the workplace, and the realm of third places. These third places encompass inclusive social settings, crucial for community bonding and faster and meaningful interactions. Now, as for what qualifies a third place, common examples come to mind.
Cafes, pubs, stoops parks.
However, not every cafe, pubs, tupa park captures the essence of a true third.
Place as Oldenburg described it.
Historically, their places have been a powerful force in shaping the course of revolutions and cultural movements. During the American Revolution, the tavern was a vital health of political discourse. In the French Revolution, the cafe was a crucial meeting place
for the revolutionary, intelligentia and common people. During the Enlightenment, coffeehouses in London assumed a central rule in fostering the intellectual and cultural transformation of society, and during the Harlem Renaissance, third places could be found in theaters, churches, jazz cafes and more sivin as vital he runs for African American musicians, writers, intellectuals the source to develop and celebrate their cultural identity.
Oldenburg outlines eight key characteristics that define the allure of these communal spaces. He takes a rather strict approach, and this is key, emphasizing that his description excludes the maturity of venue even if they exhibit some of these defining traits. And I suppose you can argue with that, but I think that's equippal I've had with the discussions about third places because people seem to be more infatuated with the vague idea of them and not so much interested in
what the two has actually been coined to describe. See end up with people label in all sorts of spaces, clubs, and organizations third places.
Even if they don't fit the criteria. At this point, the Internet has.
Seemingly lost the plot on third places and taken a life on its own independent of what Oldenburg intended.
But he's dead.
His book is still around, but I don't think a lot of people have read it. But I did in preparation for this, and so we'll tell into some of those characteristics now.
For one, a third place lies on neutral ground.
No one has expected to play host for the others, no one is obligated to be there, and people are comfortable and free to come and go as they please. Third places are spaces where people can jest, be where you can where opportunities can exist for fraternization in a safe public setting that car be found in the privacy of the home or the professional boundary.
Of the workplace.
A space where a variety of relationships can blossom, including the ones that don't go any deeper than friendly public encounters. Secondly, the third place is a level in place. It requires no formal criteria for membership. In place, there's no emphasis on one's social status, and provides the possibility for people of a variety of backgrounds and experiences to associate on
the merit of their personality alone. Within third places, people can find friendships with those who are under ordinary circumstances that might never cross paths. The third characteristic of the third place is that it's a place in which conversation is meant to be the main activity.
It doesn't have to be the only activity. For example, card games or pool.
Or dominoes make for an excellent social lubricant, but the space should become enough to facilitate pleasurable, lighthearted, and entertaining conversation. Now, it's not difficult to create a space that can facilitate good conversation, but it's also easy to ruin the flow of good conversation. Music, personal screens, ecosistical people. They can all be quite ruinous to the social energy that a good third place tries to foster.
Fourthly, third places need to be open and readily accessible.
That means being accessible in the sense of being in a convenient location and open whenever the demons is holiness or bortant strike, or when the depressures and frustrations of the day call for relaxation a.
Mid good company.
In other words, third places are available when people need them to be.
Now.
The form of accessibility that Wodenburg describes is not the form of accessibility that disability just as advocates fight for, And that is one of the quibbles that I have with Wrotenberg's conception of third places that I'll get into later next. Third places are given their appeal by their regulars, who helps the mood of the space and provide a welcoming environment for newcomers. Every regular was once a newcomer, and the acceptance of newcomers is the central to the sustained vitality of.
The third place. Sixth, third places keep a low profile.
They're not exclusive, extravagant, potentious to overly fancy. They're not usually openly advertised, and they send to be older places with a sort of a modest or even CD atmosphere. They're certainly not tourist traps. Seventh, and we're almost done. Third places have a playful mood. People go to third places for the banter and the laughter, not tension and hostility, so that's what the space is set up to encourage.
And lastly, number eight, third places.
Are meant to be home away from home, offering a sense of intimacy, regeneration, and community that puts people at ease in a warm and friendly atmosphere. So to summarize, third places exist on neutral ground, function as equalizers social status. Provide an environment where conversations or the center keep a low profile, are open and accommodating, have an essence shape by their regulars, characterized by playfulness and a sense of
home away from home. Third places, with their unique characteristics, present an array of advantages. There are only a hands in individual social and conversational skills, but also foster a sense of genuine connection and belonging within the community. Third places are arrested from the monot ney daily life under
the weight of modern capitalism. They inject much needed novelty into our routines, often a diverse and free flow in atmosphere that stands apart from the rigidity of our daily crid There are bond for emotional wellbeing a spiritual tonic, and the loss to tap into our creative and expressive selves.
Crucially, third places offer.
With Oldenberg coined as friends by the set, they provide convenience paces for social gatherings, offering routine and reliable interactions with a diverse array of individuals, both casually and intimately, without the hassle of scheduling meetups. Unfortunately, third places kind of fell off in many areas, obviously not everywhere, but especially in places where American style urban sprawl and suburbia
has proliferated. I've been describing the characteristics and benefits and historical potency of these spaces, but I've only gotten small tastes of some of these myself and for a lot of people, I think, particularly of my generation. Besides, perhaps the approximate experience of a college common room, third places are a distant cultural memory, not a lived experience. So
Oldenberg basically asks what's up with that? And according to him, the blame for this mansion act falls squarely on the suburbs. These sprawl and enclays prioritized private abodes over public spaces, pfatuating and isolating narrative that confines the good life within individual homes and yards. Wind designs often imposed by distant developers, stifle community connections. Few opportunities exist within them for organic
social interaction beyond your immediate neighbors. The car centrical layout further thoughts the revival of third places, as the reliance and cars diminishes chance encounters and informal gathering spots along daily routes, fostering a culture of detachment among neighbors. But it's not just the suburbs suffering this issue. Urban environments too have succumbed to efficiency and profit sacrifice in space
vir genuine human connection. Standardized franchise chains dominate eras in the character and charm that encourage communal interaction, replacing.
It sterile environments.
And technology hasn't exactly aided third places either, as the alert of the Internet has been a substitute for real life interaction that tends to keep people indoors. Sure, you can see the Internet as the frontier for new third places, and in some ways they are, but not quite in the same way.
And of course I mean less qual its out even though wordenburg doesn't.
Capitalism plays a significant role in the decline of third places. Work life imbalances leaves scant time for social engagements to relentless commercialization, privatization of public spaces, gentrification, close intraditional hubs, and profit driven urban designs all contribute to this decline. The disappearance of third places isn't an accident of history, but a consequence of our modern societal choices and systemic pressures. So all those ideas have been catched on a lot lately,
especially with younger generations. Like I said, it's this distant yet learned cultural memory for obvious reasons, though things kind of suck right now, and a lot of people are taken a half understood grasp of the concept and running wild with it, Like for example, I Aliso see some people like just Blankets applying the Internet as the new third place.
And while there are corners.
Of the Internet that do approximate that experience, and I recognize the potential virtual spaces such as Discord to embody the characteristics of third places, I fully believe that virtual third places lack the tangible elements inherent in traditional spaces that are essential for fostering deep emotional connections and empathy that are fighter for healthy community life. These social media platforms, particularly sites like Twitter, often lack the authenticity and nuanced
communication president and face to face interactions. That's by design, of course. Twitter thrives on conflict. That's why I'm not there anymore. But it's all too easy on sites like those demit interpret intentions or to use anonymity for negative inter actions like cyber bullion, trolling, or online harassment. In real life, trolls get kicked out, bulliers in some cases are dealt with people who are harassing people also tend to get kicked out, But online all those things often
run rampant. Moreover, the permanents of online interactions can hinder the relaxed vulnerability often experience in traditional spaces, as everything is recorded, which makes trust easier to breach.
But despiteer critique of how.
Some people have been run in with the term third places, I think the actual book and its concepts do deserve further scrutiny and in my view, radicalization. Wollmenburg's idea of the whole in the workplace in the third place is a.
Sort of a pecan order.
It also really sidelines domestic labor as like not really work as if it's separate from the workplace, and I also don't like the idea of work being prioritized over like essential social interaction.
I think there's also the interesting aspect now that for a lot of people like myself included, working home are now the same spot and there is Ever since the pandemic, there's been a large searge of people working from home, which kind of complicates this dynamic.
Yeah, yeah, pre industrialization, I think especially that idea also coincide it you know, the first and the second place to home. In the workplace, we're also a bit blurred. And now I think we're witnessing a similar blurred today, you know, post industrialization, and as a consequence of the pandemic, with remote work really catching on and blurring those lines for sure. I think another major oversighting Oldenbook's work is
the gender bias within historical and contemporary three Places. You know, these spaces have been predominantly male dominated or gender segregated. I think it's nostalgia for three Places, which you kind of pick up on in the book, neglects the historical limitations who women face and accessing these spaces. So I think if three Places words make a resurgence, we would definitely need to address these systemic barriers, like the double shift that many women juggle to ensure.
Their inclusion in future three places.
I think another critique I would have is on ownership control. You know, third spaces are touted as neutral, but when they're operating under the whims of private owners or state authorities, they very easily succumb to those profit drift at motives.
I don't think a community.
Space, a space that is to be sent that is central to a community, should be so concentrated in the hands.
Of private developers or private owners.
I think those spaces are the types that should be collectively stewarded. There's also the cost barrier of third places. You know, due to financial constraints I have already's able to, you know, spend the time there and spend the kind of money there that those spaces kind of require for you to stay there for extended periods of time, they kindot have to buy something in all.
Of those places.
A lot of good places are alcohol oriented, which is not exactly inclusive for people who are not interested in alcohol consumption or recovering from addiction. But of course, speaking of inclusivity, Willenberg's idea of accessibility, like I said before, doesn't really come from a place of disability justice.
But that has to change.
You know, we in a broader grasp of accessibility, which is why, despite my critiques, I do acknowledge the merits of what are often tombed as virtual third places. They save us more accessible alternatives for the immunal compromise or disabled individuals. These spaces break down geographical barriers, uniting people from diverse backgrounds, locations, fostering connections, base since shared interests, passions,
and identities with all the constraints of physical distance. And unlike physical third places, vircial third places are offered around the clock, case into users diverse lifestyles and rhythms, offering a flexibility that is really rarely found in real life settings. At the same time, though in Olenberg's defense, he does point out that third places will not resonate with everyone.
There is this popular notion that third places have to be for everybody, and then I see people criticize them, saying, oh, well, I prefer to just stay at home.
I don't really like the places.
I don't like social interaction or whatever, or I don't like that form of social interaction.
And that's cool.
You know third places shouldn't be the sole remedy or the main remedy for social ills. Preferences will, of course vary, and not everyone finds cafes or bars appealing. Fine, but I still think we can radicalize their places a bit further, not just in the sense of diversifying it, but also in the sense of bringing it under popular power. I see radical toy places in my version on content to merely existing on neutral ground dictated by capital or stage initiatives.
Know the envision has collective grounds, common grounds where in the vidual is not only frequent but co own. These spaces invest in time, energy, and resources to ensure their survival. Imagine spaces that transcend the typical lightheartedness associated with third places. They wield the power to spark social revolutions, serving as zones for decompression, rallying spots for union activities, and nurturing grounds for mutual aid, a nucleus of community driven change.
But what says these radical spaces apart is not just the accessibility in location operating ours, but also a culture of inclusivity that goes beyond nostalgia for traditionally male dominated three places. You know, it's about welcoming or broader spectrum of perspectives againsties and abilities. Imagine this not just a space away from home, but integrated with the neighborhoods and mixed use buildings, fostering.
Community into creation.
As for how we bring these radical three places to life, the Road Flora in Hamburg, Germany, and I think provides some great inspiration. Formerly a theater, it was transformed into a political and cultural hub by activists in nineteen eighty nine. Today it stands as a symbol of resistance against against social injustice and a space pulsating with artistic expression and
vibrant dialogue. They achieved that place through squatting and squattin is risky yet revolutionary, but it isn't the only path for secure in such spaces. I think we can mobilize communities, empowering them to actively participate in shape in public spaces instead of waiting for decisions from a I really like the idea of camera.
Where the team comes from. But it's gorilla urban planning.
You know, painting lines on the on the pavement for back paths, you know, reclaiming the sidewalk, claiming spaces in your neighborhood, taking control and not asking for permission to shape the park or the space that you share as you see fit. It's really about, you know, co creating our environment. It's not merely accepting what's imposed upon us. Reformist strategies in instances like these can have their merits.
They don't exactly advance revolution, but you know, advocating for walkable neighborhood to improve probably transportation doesn't you know, it doesn't hurt. But the crocs remains, you know, these actions, these pushing this, this effort to push for reform. You know, it can solely accomplish potential some change, but the crux remains, you know, empowering people to manage their own lives and spaces,
not relinquishing that power to uncare and autocrats. The decline of their places might not be catastrophic, but until we recognize and harness our power to shape physical environments, our urban social life will continue to lack of vibrancy.
I think we have to acknowledge our profound.
Influence and our surroundings and seize our agency to actively craft our spaces.
All power to all the people. This is Andrew, This is a.
Peace welcome back to It could happen here, the podcast that's happening here in your ear. And one of the things that we love talking about here is a critical ingredient towards creeping authoritarianism, towards growing corporate control and surveillance over all of our lives, which is of course technology that makes it even easier to monitor you than it
already is. We're not talking primarily about like the government monitoring you, because they can, you know, do stuff like just pull your phone data from a you know which cell towers is pinged. We're talking about the kind of stuff that allows basically whoever can get an app on your phone to track and stalk you. And Yeah, I'm going to first introduce Mia Wong. Mia, welcome to the show that you also host. Yes, I'm here. So what
are we what are we talking about today? And who are we talking with?
Yeah? So we are talking about stalker war, which is the sort of broad name for the category of software that Robber's been talking about. And we are talking about someone who hacked one well, a stoker wear stalker. Yeah, one of the stockerware companies, my Aris and Crime, the Fame Hacker, the No fly List. Yeah. Returning guests always happy to have you on.
Yeah, I always happy to be on. Yeah.
So I think I think, I don't know, I think there's a real tendency among and I see this among leftists a lot for kind of good reasons and kind of not good reasons to really only focus on state and like large corporate actors in terms of surveillance. And that's a mistake.
Yeah, totally.
Yeah, And so I guess I guess the place where I want to start before we get into the specific company that you do do is it still called owned?
I kin't.
It's fine to call it owned or pond or whatever. I still do that. Sometimes people get confused.
But yeah, yeah, But before we get into that, I want to I want to ask you a bit because you've done a lot of sort of I guess you could call it research, both actual research wise and then in terms of poking around their servers.
Research and journalism and whatever you want to call it.
Yeah, act Yeah, So I wanted to just start off by asking if you can give sort of like a brief summary of what stalker waar is.
Yeah.
So, so stalkerware like as a category, encompasses like a number of different types of apps. Most of them, like on the service, advertise themselves as like parental control software, which is already bad enough. Just to be clear that there's like advertised for like spying on your children's phone, like seeing their location in real time, seeing their messages
that they receive, any photo they take. Ostensibly this is to like prevent bullying and help with them when they get depressed because they don't try you and talk to you for whatever reason, but obviously a lot of these are then furthermore, because that's like that, sure, that's a like target audience, that's a demographic you can advertise too.
But then there's this even bigger potential target demographic of people who are insecure in their relationship, mostly men, not only men, but who are then solved this idea that they can use software like this for stalking their partner, for finding out if they are cheating on you, things like that, which is obviously an even bigger problem, which once again not to discount the problems that's spying on your children is already like bad enough, but yeah, lead
this leads to this whole big industry of these apps being used by partners against each other, like also just by people like against anyone in the in their surroundings that they suspect might be doing something shady, might be
like talking behind their backs. It often kind of turns into like it obviously turns into this obsessive thing, especially if you solve this idea that they this app can magically solve like interpersonal issues, like with anything that sells you, this magic idea of being able to solve any problem. That these people start kind of spying on everyone in their like circles to some of them, like not everyone, most like a lot of people on the spying like
their partner or like their child or whatever. But it often like spirals out of control into this like controlling everyone in their surroundings, knowing what everyone is up to where they are, and spending like hundreds of dollars a month on doing so. And yeah, that's pretty fucked up if you ask me.
Yeah, yeah.
One of the things that's interesting too. It's also in a lot of cases illegal. This is going to vary, you know, from country to country, in state to state, but in the US there are states like California, which gets pointed out in the very good tech Crunch investigation on truth Spy, where there are really strict laws that journalists like you have to abide bias to when you can record someone that these apps absolutely break.
Yes, it's specifically a thing that doesn't. Most of these app will have like a disclaimer at thebot that is like this might be illegal and your jurisdiction and please ask for consent before doing this, and then they have lots of tutorials on how to install this in someone's
device without their consent. Yeah, but it's like always like a we do not take any like we it's not our fault if you break the law basically, which obviously, like it's so far not a lot of this has been challenged in court, but I don't think this would hold up too long. I'm not a y, but I don't think just saying we make a product to do crimes with if you do crimes with it, it's not I mean, it works for the gun industry.
So yeah.
The difference is that, like with the gun industry, it's a product where there is a legal and an illegal, like clear way to do it.
The thing with stocker were as well is that like a lot of them will also explicitly say the only real use of this we allow you to to use it for is to surveil your child, which unfortunately is legal in most jurisdictions because children are property of their parents. Yeah quotes because I do not agree with that, but.
Yeah, it's one of those things where people using it, like someone installing an app on their axes or their partner's phone or whatever without consent, could very easily would lose any court case, whether or not the company would get in trouble. I think it's going to rely a lot on the stuff the videos they're posting about, like how to put how to get these apps on people's phones without them knowing, but like they do have that out with like no, it's just for surveilling children, which is.
Great for anyone else you need consent or whatever. But I think it is important, yeah, to point this out very early for anyone who's listening to this because they think they might have stock Aware on their phones, or because they know they have Stockaware on their phones. You can use this in a domestic abuse case, well immediately, this is explicit proof that abuse is happening, no matter anything else, because like that's the thing generally with domestic
abuse cases. It's really hard to prove abuses happening. Stalkerware and any other type of spying device like also physical GPS trackers and stuff that is immediate proof that there is a there's controlling behavior going on, that you are being spied on. This it cannot only be used and
there's explicit admissible evidence. This is also usually like makes cases first like not not for you, like it just yeah, it like can potentially add charges and make it more serious, and that it can help making cops give a shit about like abuse, which yeah, I hate that I need to say that, but yeah, it's like it makes it more serious because there's like spyware and whatever.
It's easy evidence first off, like you can prove they're spying on you, and second, if you are in one of the states where that violates the law, then you can immediately say this person is breaking the law, like this is we don't have to debate whether or not they've they've crossed the line.
Yeah, And even if it doesn't directly break the law to spy on someone on a partner like it, depending on the on the on the region, it can be kind of a hazy like thing, especially if it's a device you might co own. If it's like a state where you were with like code possession or whatever. In the US, I do not know US law very much
around this, but yeah, there's like laws like that. But usually still the fact that you're being spied on can be used as proof for other abuse things you might be alleging, because it's like hard proof that something is happening.
And also usually these companies will somewhat have to respond to some point US, so they will have to give out like who the account on there is behind like the spying on your phone for some of them, we can also there's also tools that help you find out who is spying on you, or there's like someone with forensic background can help.
Yeah, and I think people One thing we should note is that if you're kind of curious, has my device been infected by some of these tools, the one that we've been talking about most truth spy. If you go to that tech Crunch article.
Or to my article, it also has a link yet.
Or to you to your article on your website. There's a tool you can use where you it'll tell you how to get your IMSI I think I must say, I am ai, yeah, which you just dial a thing on your phone and it gives you that number. It's basically how you identify specific bones and you plug that in. It will let you know if your device has been compromised.
Now like December last year up until there is the data and if you yeah, it can pretty much tell you if you've been spined on using this specific tool
until then. For other stuff, there's also guides usually on TechCrunch and otherwise also on Stop stockerwear dot ARC, which is the US Coalition against Stalker War, and also just generally, I think a lot of like more local anti stocking, anti abuse orcs are not as informed yet as they should be, but there's still a good point also to reach out to or like.
Yeah, yeah.
One of my questions about truth Spy that I'm hoping you can answer is I know that you can like text messages get transferred via it, your call records, all that kind of stuff, get and who you were calling. Does that include messages for like encrypted apps like Signal or is that not accessible through this?
It depends, like for for some of these, it will like get signal messages, what's the messages and everything generally by reading the notification content, because like from notifications, you know, like what messages are have been like received. Sometimes it will only then have the received messages and not the set messages. Often these also include like a key logger
component that maps messages then sent back as well. It depends a lot what these apps collect, but for most of them, also the collection for other texting apps is usually kind of broken. None of these apps are really well maintained. They're mostly just quick cash graps. Yeah, are there to maintain features usually don't really work.
And it seems like based on that, one thing people can do outside of checking to see if their device has been compromised, is do stuff like turn off notifications for appsling signal, right, like, and that's that's actually just generally good advice. Notifications are are a promise of the security that signal offers. Don't have them enabled, you know, yeah, or.
At the very least disabled them on the lock screen on Android.
Yeah, I don't know how.
I think that's also possible on iOS, but I think I doesn't show message content on the lock screen anyways. I'm not sure anymore. But yeah, it's just also small things like that. And also like one of the key tells that someone probably tampered with your phone, especially for Android is if Google play Protect is disabled and you do not remember disabling it for something else, it was almost definitely disabled because someone installed something on your phone.
Just try re enabling it. Then they will probably tell you something. The thing also to keep in mind if you find stockaware on your phone, please get professional help.
Do not just delete it. Do not like necessarily confront whoever you think might be your abuser about it unless you're very sure that that's the situation you can handle, because like, yeah, that is one of those things that like bringing it up or just deleting it can very quickly lead to like, yeah, yeah, complicating the situation a lot.
You know what else complicates the situation.
These ads and we are back.
So when it comes to the actual fight against this stuff, obviously what you're doing is a big part of it. Getting inside these companies and finding out like what they're doing and their capabilities is huge for in terms of like what regular people are people who are interested in becoming activists about this can do. What is the what is the struggle to actually fight this stuff? Look like like how do we how do we put a bullet in this industry's head.
I think one of the biggest things, and also like why I do the work I do with like hacking and with encouraging others to like send me data, be that insiders from these companies sending it I do to me or like TechCrunch specifically currently because like me and tech crunch are like the only people really doing like journalism on this like regularly. And the important thing with like journalism and all of this is like awareness. It's
very important to create awareness about this. That's also why I do the media work with like being on this podcast and things like that. I think the most important thing is to make people aware, like talk about this in your feminist circles or whatever, things like that especially bring it up just also in like general info things
about abuse or how to detect abuse. I think the most important thing to do against stocker whereas demestify it because most people don't even know that this is a thing, that this is, like that there's just commercially available spyware anyone can install on your phone. It's most important to not like give in to some sort of paranoia. As with any of these things, it's just important to like yeah, generate awareness, talk about it, and like spread these articles.
Let friends know that this is a potential thing, and then yeah, I The hard thing with this is that, like obviously it should will probably help if there was some sort of legislation against some of this, it's going to be very hard to get any proper legislation that ends this industry because in most Western countries, which are the only countries which unfortunately would have enough power to like actually get these apps shut down, because that's the
world we live in. But the problem there is usually that like this notion that children are owned by their parents is too strong to really make a full case
against these apps. And at the very best what I can, like the very best time kind of hoping for from from legislators is just a ban on advertising these apps on use against other adults, which would be big already, but that doesn't really solve the issue because there's still going to be enough people who know of their use for use against adults, and there's going to be enough people on like credit threads talking about, hey, well yeah, you oh you're not sure if your government is cheating
on you, look you can just use this app, you know. That's also how most of this marketing for this works. It's just yeah, at the end of the day, this is like a patriarchal issue. So yeah, I think that's also why, like I am so focused on like the hacking and the like blowing these companies up and showing
like who's behind them. It's because at the end of the day, the most effective thing we have against these companies is like the grassroots movement of making them too scared to run in this business, making it not profitable enough, because as I said, most of this is like quick cash grabs from like web design studios and outsourcing companies. Yeah that a're just making a quick buck from this
because otherwise they don't get paid enough. Like that's the sad thing really is how much of this industry is in all of these countries. Western companies outsource their IT too, because there's lots of IT companies there and they are entirely reliant on like Western companies giving them very underpaid tasks. And Yeah, this problem that you now have a bunch of employees and not enough money to always pay them. And what do you do, You like find some weird
niche of like a tech product you can quickly build. Yeah, and this is like one of those easy niches it's like always the scummy stuff and like yeah, it's that's also why like so many of these companies are like based out of Vietnam, out of Iran and whatever. It's just companies that already have it hard enough to do business globally, where the IT industry is like falling apart because there's not enough like local customers and anything that's international.
You're just the cheap workforce, right, So yeah, it's it's once again also like a class problem. I don't like most people working in this industry know that they're working in a like scummy industry.
Yeah of course, but like yeah, you got to get paid and that's.
Yeah, And that's like why I think making it more scary to operate in this industry is like, yes, the way to go, because like with just like these like four hacks that have happened against these companies over the last like half a year, so two of them, three of them, three of them have shut down completely. Others
seem to be slowly moving towards just building other software primarily. Yeah, it's just like, yeah, it's like with any other like shady industry that the best we can do is just do not make it profitable to run the software because at the very best, anything else we will get it's just pushing them more into the shadows, which is not going to solve the issue at all.
Yeah.
I think a lot about like strategic thinking, which I do believe is kind of often in part because of how rightfully negative most people on the left think about
the military. There's a tendency to ignore some of like the theory around how to actually win a conflict and all of it all strategy really, when you're talking about like defeating an opponent, revolves around denying and taking operational area from them, right Yeah, And that's what you're talking about when you talk about what we need to stop this. You know, one of the first things we can do as part of fighting this is to stop them from
being able to advertise certain places. Right It's making sure that they're not able to operate without being seen. It's basically cutting down their area, their space to maneuver, their ability to profit, which cuts down their money, their access to people, their ability to actually like operate.
Right.
Like, that's what we're looking at in terms of how do you kill this stuff. It's not one single really, I use the comparison of like a bullet, but it's never going to be one bullet. These things are too durable. There's too many countries a delay to do that.
Yeah, that's also why I put so much emphasis on doing media work about this and getting more people to talk about this and getting more awareness of this out there, to the point where I'm willing to work with more conservative newspapers on this because everyone needs to know about this. At the end of the day, this is how we stop people from falling victims to this. Most people who are a victim of stocker apps have never heard of stocker apps before, and I think that's like one of
the biggest ways to tackle this. And on the other hand, we also have I think another big leverage point with how many of these are getting hacked because none of these apps are very secure. That's another thing is this can also be leveraged against like the abusers in this scenario. I think just pointing out to them that all of these apps get hacked all the time and that this is how they get found out, that that this is how their data of them as abusers ends up landing
on the internet. I think it's also like a very important angle at the end of the day. Is just to make it clear, like yeah, no, not even you are like secure from this having consequences for your life, like beyond like direct interpersonal or legal consequences. This can and in the past has resulted in like your email adders being on a list of people who have do abuse to people online. You don't want to be on
such a list. I think that's also important just to like point out there isn't one stock of a app that's not eventually going to get hacked. There is a big war against these apps. They're all like there's so many different hacking groups that keep sending me data from these like I'm already working on another article that already once again affects like the data of like I think like eighty thousand more like abusers, and it's just the
abuser data this time. But I'm still going to report on it, like it's it's it's this is not going to stop. It's even also not going to stop when I stop reporting on this myself, like I've there's been work before me down on this. I also the first time I got involved in finding stockerber was back in twenty twenty. People have been hacking these apps forever and will keep hacking them. Like just look at the Wikipedia
page for stockerver. There's an ever growing list of these apps that have been hacked, and I think at this point that like official count being kept by one of the people at TechCrunch is at like thirteen apps, a few of which have been hacked two or three times. Yeah, these are not These are not secure apps for any.
No, no, of course not.
Yeah, and they yeah, I mean it makes sense that like an app dedicated to violating people's privacy for money would also basically violate the privacy of the people using it.
Yeah, and also they don't care. Like I said, of course it's a cash grap. It's nothing else. There's a few apps that are like a little more than a cash crap, but it's usually just because they're made, Like there's still a cash grap, but they're like more well made, but it's because they're a cash graph from a company that has better developers or more money to do the
initial investment. The thing is also like most of these companies don't have a lot of initial investment, And I think the important thing to consider as well, here is one big area of this that I have not yet started tackling, but I do want to look into more. Sometimes. Is a big reason this industry is so big and most of these apps have a lot of users despite there being so many of them, is the affiliate marketing industry.
Once again, very beloved friend. Yeah, all of these apps are parts of various affiliate marketing networks, some of them started by Stockerware Company, and some of them just other like things to advertise all the shady things like all those phone number locator apps or whatever, that's also part of those same affiliate marketing networks. And there's lots of money flowing here, and there's lots of money flowing to very big tech YouTube channels, and I might soon have
some proof for some of that. But that's how these are advertised. It's everyone who advertises stockerware to you, who has a big platform, is doing that because they're getting money, not for any other reason.
We need to do more ads. We will be back shortly, and we are back.
Well that's all I had, Miya, what do you got?
Yeah, I guess there's there's another thing I wanted to ask a little bit about, which Zach Whitaker, who's been one of the journal the journalists that tech Crunch doing a lot of the research was great. One of the things that he brings up that I think is another I don't know, it's kind of a plane with fire angle on them. But one of the issues that these companies seem to have is payment platforms, because a lot of payment platforms look at this and go wait, hold on, yeah,
so that's yeah. We've talked about that a little bit.
That's an angle. We've also been a fighting on a lot. Like me and Sick, we work on most of these stories together. Like it's kind of funny. We both got each other into the stockover thing back in twenty twenty. As I mentioned, that was the first time I stumbled into a stock cover app with a security issue. I reached out to some random journalists that tech Crunch about it.
And now he is the only one talking about this forever because I reached out to him that one time and he got sucked into this horrible, horrible world of spying.
But yeah, like, one of the things we focus on a lot is reporting these companies to their payment providers, to their server hosters, to the point where sometimes like for weeks, SAK will just wait for them to switch to when you provider after we got them taken them from like PayPal, and then from their other PayPal account where they're just using like the checkout experience from one of their completely unrelated software projects which they will later
claim is not related at all and there are different companies and whatever. But then like eventually they get taken down from that as well, and usually we can get them taken them from most like Western hosters, like especially US housters, will immediately take them down. You do not want to risk being the company hosting spuywire on US grounds. Yeah, yeah,
it's just like same with EU hosters. Like the few companies that we've seen that were on headsnerd, they immediately react because it's like yeah no, like under EUO, you don't want to like risk that. And also just because you don't want to host that, like there's no reason for you to host shit like that. It will have like image consequences, and that's an important thing that is maybe also something you can do as more like a
grassroots thing. It's also like if you find one of these apps and if you see, oh they're using like PayPal or whatever, just reach out. I think paper is even harder to reach as like just an average lay person. I don't expect them to reply. They might still take action, you will have to manually check. PayPal doesn't really reply to things ever, But yeah, same as like hosting company, if it's either hosted on like a European or American hosting company, I just just reach out be like, hey,
there's someone running spyware on your thing. Also used the word spyware, not stocker, where they will not know what that is, and it is spyware. So yeah, and that can usually get them taken down. And often they don't have proper backups and will have a few months of data missing, and it's like, yeah, that's how you slowly grind them to a halt. Yeah. And also once again like if you have tips about it any of these companies, be it having found the vulnerability just or insider info
especially I'm always very happy about the insider info. You can reach out to either me or Sack with We're both very happy to talk about this. Yeah.
Yeah, that's something that's been used really effectively by right wingers to target sex workers. There's been a huge thing, there's been a bunch of campaigns to get platform companies and yeah, so it's.
It's interesting that for once we can use the very restrictive and conservative rules of payment providers for our good Yeah. But yeah, basically any of the big payment providers will not respect something like this. Some of the small regional odd ones probably won't really give a shit. They have no reason to. It's like revenue for them. But yeah, it's generally worth trying. And I'm always glad like if someone just reaches out to these companies and we don't
have to do that ourselves. I think me and second to few other people like actively working in this are doing more than enough work currently. But yeah, just if you find one of these things that don't go digging too deep. It's a depressing world. But if you stumble upon one of these somewhere or whatever, just just report them. It's it's it's gonna disrupt their operations, and if it
happens often enough, they might just give up. Yeah, And I mean, like in cases like the truth Spy, they are willing to do extreme amounts of fraud to get to money easily because they like started with like mostly just in like with the market they could get with their Vietnamese payment providers, right, and eventually they realized, well, the US is like this really big market, right, but for really easy like US stuff, we need like a paypoal thing, right, So they might like over twelve fake
American identities with fake passports and fake addresses and sign up to PayPal a whole bunch of times and had various employees that the company move money around. Yeah, that's obviously not a thing the US cover will like if you do that. Generally speaking, they moved like millions like that,
so yeah, which is pretty crazy like that. The amount of money that's moving in this industry is crazy, like yeah, actually, like most of these app apps will be half broken, which no one ever complains about because like it's shady, like you don't expect like if you go online and you search for something shady like anything like be it piracy or whatever, you don't expect it to be the best experience ever. Like you know, you're getting some weird
service and it's probably going to be half broken. But yeah, like most of these talkover apps start at like forty dollars a month and more, and then some days for more features you pay like up to sixty or seventy or so and then all of these have like tens of thousands of users, sometimes hundreds of thousands of users. Yeah,
you can do them at yourself. It's crazy. This is a really big industry, which makes it so crazy to me that it's like not a thing that's talked about more, especially like feminine spaces and things like that, because this is such a like big angle of like modern tech enabled abuse that they really think should should be more of a topic, especially on the left, like this is this is bad?
Yeah, no, this is like critically bad. I agree entirely, And also like that the whole thing with like all of this data being so easily accept your data can
end up getting sold on some dark web forum. You're both asked the abuse around that's the target, right, and the government can find these like I have no like this is this is not me making a statement of that's a thing that's happening, but there's nothing preventing the government from hacking these companies and getting like like I sometimes like when whenever I get these data sets, and it's always hard to work with data sets that include
like non consent essentially collected data of people, right, yes, but like I do always like do some due diligence checks, like mostly trying to find if the government is using a specific app. Sometimes yes, there's always like the odd correction facility for ser who has signed up for one or two of these apps or like education people and whatever.
But then I also on the search through the text message just for just some code words and the amount of people moving drugs have Stocker were on their phones. It's you know, yeah, and it's it's one of those things where there are laws, like technically if I if my understanding of the laws around this are correct, it is illegal for an organization like the FBI to utilize these apps.
But yes, but we have an organized and called the NSA who.
And it is it is on paper illegal for them to do this with a third party app. But one thing that often gets done, particularly by the FBI, but you know, not just by them, is it's not illegal for law enforcement agencies to contract with private agencies. And if those agencies you don't you just don't check in on what they're doing. You know, what they're using.
But like or like if an inform or like if an informant like sends you the s data, like you're not going to say.
No, exactly exactly.
And also you don't really need to disclose that because it's information and got froment informant. You do not need to disclose that informant in court ever. So yeah, it's it's it's there.
There are there are ways around, you know, the laws that we put up, not that we shouldn't continue to extend those laws, but you shouldn't like just because well they're not allowed to use this doesn't mean they can't get access to the info.
Yeah.
Yeah, And also there's all this important thing like there's more like also globally, like there's other governments that can just be using this. Like for one of the apps I.
Got the government, the Russian government doesn't give a ship.
That was also like another thing where I's like for one of the apps I got data for. There was some indication that at some point the Colombian National Police did a bigger evaluation of using UH commercials spyware for their use. Because you're in the country with not that big of a like police budget in comparison, you cannot afford like all the Coolestraeli tools everyone else has. So what do you do? You just look for random apps you can find you.
Know, yeah you find the Walmart, the Kirklin.
The Wish to the conversion I guess.
Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah Ali baba spyware. Right. Yeah.
I don't think most of them moved forward with this because these apps fucking suck. Like they're bad, Like that's that's the other thing, Like they don't even really do their jump. Well, they're bad and you don't know who is behind them. You cannot even go up to someone and be like, yo, don't do this. You also kinnot go to the cops and be like this company is scamming me, because yeah, I assume some people have probably done that before, but it does involve admitting to a crime.
So yeah, it's like, yeah, these companies just get away with not giving a shit about their product because like.
Yeah, yeah, well I think that's that's all we had. Thank you Maya for both the work you're doing and for talking to us. Yeah, is there anything you wanted to plug before we all out here?
Just my just my.
Blog, I think where we're like, I do this journalistic work and also more, there's about to be another cool investigative piece out soon, which eventually involves more tracking and whatever, and also involves like Hollywood and more. It's it's it's it's a crazy big story. I promise that will be out like hopefully in a month or so. But yeah, my blog at Maya dot CRIMEU dot gay crime. You as in crime, w yeah, and K as in gay yeah.
Yeah.
Just check out my blog at the bottom of the blog. There's all my links to my social media for anyone who's like listening to this and has been wondering where I am. I am back on Twitter as well.
Yeah for now, for now, that's for for all of us these days. That's always like yeah at this.
Point, but yeah, I am back on Twitter. I'm posting there sometimes. Yeah.
All right, well, thank you and thank you all for listening. We will be back tomorrow unless this comes out on a Friday, in which case we'll be back at some other point but soon.
Welcome Jacob app and here the podcast We're Getting Medication takes like four fucking hours because of a bunch of unbelievable bureaucratic bullshit. I your host Neo Wong, who was asked by by pharmacists today and I quote, have you been pregnant or have there been pregnancies?
So I like, have that being pregnancies. Yeah, that was what I was like, what involved shooting of human life?
She like she walks up to the thing, right and she she she puts the like she puts the meds like like she's about to ring them up right, and then she stops and then turns washed with other persons start talking to her boss and then comes back and they asked me pregnancy.
So I'm like, what it's.
Like, I am not passing, I'm just worrying. I'm just wearying like jeans, like a mask. It's like a random coat.
It is.
So it's been a it's been a time.
Yeah, achievement in the world of healthcare where they can simultaneously like ask you for being pregnant and then make you fucking labor unpaid for half a day to obtain your like basic hormone therapy or whatever it is you need. Like my favorite is when the health insurance makes me this just existing podcast about health insurance and how we hate it.
Have you enjoying it?
When they're like, hey, we need a doctor to confirm you still need the instantly? What the fuck do you think has happened? You would have heard about it. I didn't at home pancreas transplant, didn't bill you guys for it.
You're welcome. Yeah. With me is James, who is from a country that is more normal about healthcare but is now Yeah, more normal not the right word, but it's less ship is the correct word, unless you're trends, in which case it's about a toss.
I was gonna say, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, country which has a different approach at least at least like has accepted the fact that if we're going to have the state pay for like sending bombs to kill little children in Palestine, it should also pay for my incident, which I think is is a good a good place to start.
I guess, yeah, there's an ideal combination there, and no we no one is yet reached. This is this is this is the task of international socialism, et cetera, et cetera. Yeah.
I will accept the necessity of the state only when it funds incident.
Not moms. Yeah, but we we are here to talk about another incredibly violent state bureaucracy and the people who run it. We're gonna be talking about a series of very bizarre and incredibly authoritarian crackdown so that democratic well governors, city councils. Many many such cases, yeah, have have been have been invoking too nominally crack down on crime, a thing that is down everywhere and has been down everywhere for a long time.
Yeah, in many such cases. It's great that the Democrat like local politicians are now doing everything that we were warned that Republican president would do four years ago.
Yeah, it's really fun and I mean, this is one of these things. So, so the place we're going to start is New York governor cultural I think cutral. Yeah, I don't know. New York keeps going through politicians faster and I can learn how to pronounce their names. So with what they're gonna have, like Andrew Cuomo, the fourth in power, by the time this episode goes out, there'll be like two there will have been two new Kings of England. The secret sibling.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, we're not making a podcast about the royal family.
Nonsense, we don't care. No, no, this is this is this is the best that you're getting out of that. But yeah, So Houtral has deployed seven hundred and fifty National guardsmen to stand outside of some subway stations. That's a tongue twister. Try saying that one five times is fast in the mirror, to like do bag checks and generally just sort of stand around and be intimidating.
Yeah, it's great. I'm sure it's what those people signed up to do. I'm sure they feel fulfilled, and I'm sure everyone in New York feels safer and happier as a result of random people in camouflage being standing around a subway.
Yeah, and we're going to get into this sort of emotional effective aspect of this, because that is ultimately what this is about. But I think, okay, there's a lot of sort of interesting aspects of this. So Okay, there's been a lot of talk about what the sort of precursors to this are, and I'm gonna ask you about because there's a lot of nationally, there's a lot of very weird, absolutely dog shit National Guard deployment instead have happened.
Yes, yeah, yes, there are I have uh yeah, yeah, we can get onto that.
Yeah, but I think I think the most immediate predecessor to this, that that leaps to mind, this is some thing I talk about on the show all the time because everyone else seems to have completely forgotten it. I refused to let this be memory hold, which is the time that my previous shitty mayor ordered a bunch of in twenty twenty ordered a bunch This is in February
twenty twents. This is this is pre uprising. Put just started putting swat teams on subways, okay, and they immediately did the thing that the swat team does, which they started putting swat teams on the fucking red line. The immediately shot a guy for no reason, like I think I I if I'm remembering correctly, the thing that originally
they said it was fairrivation, and it wasn't fairrivation. It was the guy walked from one train car to another train car, a thing that like millions of people do every day.
Yeah, and capital punishment for faavation is also wrong and bad.
Yeah, well look this guy somehow survived himack. But yeah, they also tasted him a bunch of times and then shot him, so right, good, yeah bad, However, thankfully this guy survived. But yeah, but this is something that that happens.
This is only that you know, with with the current crop of right wing mayors have been doing and you know, the twenty twenty one and it was such a fiasco that even even like Chicago's machine, while it wasn't really quite thee but like even Chicago's right wing Democrats were like, Okay, we probably shouldn't do this lest the SWAT teams have
their like start the killing moment. But you know, so that that's like one sort of predecessor to this, and the second one is I wanted to actually ask you specifically about the Federal National Guard deployments on the border because I think, yes, that's the part of this has just been like disappeared, Yes, exactly.
Again, those have been like completely overlooked and kind of memory hold by most apparently, like since since Biden came to power. Like there's there's a Texas state deployment right, which will very familiar with. They get cheated out of their benefits. They tend to die from suicide from bringing their own firearms on deployment or getting drunk and driving around. They've had like higher casualties, so they've had deployment to a rock in the Texas deployment, right. Federal one is different.
I see these dudes often, it's nearly always dudes. I did, of course, women could be deployed in that capacity. But I haven't seen them, and they are for the most part, like scared kids with firearms guarding prison camps full of children. Like I had one of these guys go to drawers pistol on me the other day because I was trying
to alert him. Yeah, I mean, like I guess, like it's better in that situation that, like it's not my first time having someone draw a pistol on me, and I can tell them to sit down and stop being a dick. But this in this case where someone was experiencing cardiac distress and I'd gone to the nearest person who I can do right, like I can't call an ambulance and having to come in there have to go to either get BP to radio or in this case
national guide. But what they're doing is, in addition to like guarding these open air detention sites on and off, is they are conducting kind of surveillance along the border. So often I'll see them with like surveillance arraysed cameras. I assume also like listening to radios and stuff like that. They're not actually like interdicting or arresting vigrants. They're not supposed to be anyway. But what it's supposed to be doing.
Is that like kind of having that surveillance capacity and I guess protection when it comes to.
The to the o ads.
But yeah, they are everywhere, Like I see these people all the time down here in you know, certainly on the eastern San Diego County border, and and they're all in rented vehicles as well, which is weird that they haven't got their humvees or whatever. It must be a
significant expense. And obviously border crossings are not decreasing thanks to them being there, right they you know, they mostly like are always out doing a water drop on Sunday and you'll see them creasing around the dirt roads and then obviously people therefore just avoid the road. It doesn't make it doesn't reduce migration like everything else. It just makes it more dangerous. But yeah, they've been here for a while.
It's one of these things where you know they're they're doing okay. So like the guys in New York just basically seem to be standing around and doing bag checks, whereas those guys are doing a lot more. But I think there's one of the things that's been happening here, and this has been this is you know, This is not just the focus has been on on the like the Republican Texas deployments, right, but this is something that both the Republicans and the Democrats. This is from what
we're seeking to eat. Yes, and the federal government have decided that, you know, the thing that we are going to be doing is what are what are and I mean active militia deployments Like that's insane, like that that is a level of that is a level of authoritarianism, that is you know that that has become effectively normal, right,
Like there was there wasn't. I mean, there was kind of an outcry against the subway stuff, but like it hasn't stopped because best I could tell, like they're still out like yeah, like nothing on if it stopped it that we've been you know what, the thing that we've been forced to accept is not even not just you know, because we've already been forced to accept the sort of the militarization of the police, right, but now it's just straight up the total militarization of society to the extent
that like, yeah, we just have a bunch of soldiers wandering around doing like random security checks and doing surveillance and like holding people in these open air.
Prisons, Yeah, exactly, and like deployed way outside their stay often right, Like I think so many people hear from Missouri or Illinois, like some of them the less kind of insane, are you? You know, the people who mistake me if I guess for a member of the cartel judging by that guy's actions or like some ridiculous somehow a threat to him. You know that we can talk to them and then yeah, it's a very bullshit mission.
And I think most of them would agree. Like further east, they're just like standing around by the border wall and the baking sne in the desert, just just yeah, doing security theater, but with as you said, real consequences.
Yeah, And it's like the thing that is happening is these people have realized that the National Guard, if you are a senior en of state official, is just your private army. You could do whatever the fuck you want with it. And this is the thing that they're doing with it. And I think you should you know, it's worth looking at what the sort of justification for this is, which.
Are probably also I neglected to mention that there are a dozen Republican governments, governors who have deployed their national Guard to the border, right, like not as part of the federal deployment, like to your private army thing. And I believe that North Dakota it's funded by a private individual, Like a private individual is covering the state's costs to deploy them to the border. Like this is nuts, yeah, fully insane, like serving as a fucking PMC.
Yeah, but I mean we're seeing, you know, very explicitly, we're seeing this fusion of like personal state and corporate power and that's being used to just deploy a bunch of guys with guns to a bunch of random places. And you know, like it's worth mentioning that, Like crime rates are down, they're down year on year, they're down, like the broadshrend is down. They're down, like like outrageous, Like I think it's not like almost like fifty percent or something from the nineties, right Yeah.
And likewise, the ratio of people crossing the border to agents to process and is it's much lower than it was in the nineties. You know, we have more border patrol agents, we have a more militarized board patrol. They have all these assets that were previously seen only like see a black Hawk all the fucking time, so we call it a scrap hawk. It's like it's like several several black Hawks. It's like it's not any particular submodel of black Hawk.
It's like.
The surviving pieces of several black Corks. But yeah, they have a lot of kit that you would think would be military. Kid.
Yeah, and you know, I was. I so when I was reading about this, I was like, Okay, so I'm trying to figure out how many crimes are actually happening on New York subway system. But I'm going to read this paragraph from Reuters because it is. It is outrageous. There were thirty eight robberies and seventy thefts including pickpocketing on the subway system in February, compared to forty robberies and ninety eight thefts in the same month last year.
According to police data, there were thirty five assaults, the same number as for February twenty twenty three. About ninety million trips were taken on the subway over the month. Now that is nuts the subway including pickpocketing, right, You're at about one hundred yeah, yeah.
Reveal a trivial number of incidents.
Ninety million trips. Right, this means that like per trip, your odds of being pickpocketed are almost literally one in a million. This is this is about the same odds you have of being struck by lightning. You are seventeen times more likely to get killed by a bee or a wasp sting than you are in like pickpocket, like pickpock not even robbed, pickpocketed on the subway. Right, So there's I from what I can do, I think there was three killings on the New York subway in February.
Yeah, that was a shooting. I think today, Oh yesterday wasn't that?
Yeah? Yeah, But this is the thing, So these things is gonna get a lot of attention. Right, But again, thirty million trips, we're talking like maybe three maybe four people getting killed a month, So that's like one in thirty million rides. Yeah, someone gets shot. That is outrageously safe. Like that is bafflingly starlingly safe. But this, this sort of brings us to Wow, Okay, the thing, the thing that this immediately brings us to is ad break. But it will be a second thing.
Yeah, great, ipe, it's a good one.
All right, we're back for the ads. We're bringing you actually amazingly advertisements part of what part of the whole thing is happening here, because you know, one of the big drivers of what's happening in New York and the reason everyone thinks the subway is unsafe is New York's media market. And very this is a like you know, so like the media market in the US is not good, right, but very specifically, the New York media market is absolutely batshit.
They are nuts. And this is one of these things where you know, you may have like a one in thirty million chance of getting killed on a subway, but every single one of those thirty million like incidents, like why all those one thirty million is every single one of those is is like FrontPage news, right, because this is you know this, this is both part of the part of the actual sort of conservative politics of these
media organizations. They are you know, New York media market is dominated by a bunch of right wing tabloids and a bunch of newspapers that are normally not right wing but are yeah, and so you know, there's this sort of breathless coverage of every single time one of these attacks happened, And this is one of one of the things that Cutrol very much like literally says about this and what you know, like we're at a point in this sort of crime cycle where enough journalists have been
screamed at by people who are like the crime rates are all down, that the journalists have to include in the article a thing that's like the crime rates are down. This took like four years of just screaming at them. Eventually it worked. But you know, like Kucios like asked about this and she goes, yeah, well it's it's it's
about people feeling. It's about like the feeling that people have because they don't they don't seem to Yeah, yeah, and you know, and this is one of these things we're like, this is like how insane the New York media market is over this off has had like an
actual substance of political impact. This is something that you know, the Democrats embrace of this sort of like especially in New York, this like tough on crime thing has gotten to the point we're literally Eric Adams has to be the guy who's like no, no, no, actually hold on, like it's the New York is safe. Please stop panicking. I got my bi got my police funding already, please stop, like fleeing the city in terror.
Yeah, it's amazing. Though, that's similar to what's happening in San Diego, another city Democratic councilor mayor. Right, so we have this Gloria terrible mayor, serial bullshitter. And in Gloria, in the State of the City speech was saying we should be locking up criminals, not laundry detergent.
This this was his big line. He was very proud of.
I have successfully purchased laundry detergent that was not incarcerated since then. But I think he was talking about target. I guess apparently he's legislating for the interest of target. But you have then his opponent in the MAJORA race, who's a former Marine corp Republican guy, being like, yo, I think we fucked up on our homelessness policy. We're just like criminalizing this is not just the answer. And we've got glory to being like, no, lock them up, you know, like they're trying.
To push this.
Is this continued, like this California bill that will force incarcerated people with mental illness right against their will.
Yeah, yeah, it's up.
It's fucking I mean, it's not bizarre because like I think so many Democrats, and like certainly publications here have really leaned into like suburban grievance politics and you know, like fixed the potholes and make it so I don't have to see poor people is their entire ideology. But it's still, I know, it's just kind of I'm struggling for the words here. It makes me really fucking pissed off.
The people who showed up to one or two BLM marches are now out there like barking for a second border wall and machine gunning the unhoused.
Yeah, and you know, and this is had a especially in New York, this has had an actual this has been having a substantive like electoral impact. One of the stories that kind of got buried in twenty twenty two is that you can actually, if you look at the electoral map in twenty twenty two, you can actually literally see where the New York media market ends, because all of the districts in the New York media market became significantly more conservative. And this is and this is not
a joke. This is literally this whole tough on crime shit is literally the thing like and in this New York media market, this, this is what caused the Democrats the House because basically everywhere else in the country there was okay, so like like red districts shifted red. Every single district that was contested, like all of the sort of like purple blah blah blah, like the districts they all went They all shifted to the left because of
abortion stuff. But then specifically a bunch of the like what are supposed to be like very safe blue districts went red because they were all because all of them were doing this in a tough on crime stuff. And yeah, those seats, like the seats they lost in New York are the reason the Republicans have control of the House. So like, you know, this isn't working for them electorally,
but they're still doing it because it's their ideology. And we're gonna get into a bit more about why about that that part a second, but beffore we do that. I want to talk about I think another one of these things that has gotten kind of lost in the shuffle, which is do you do you you heard about the giant like DC Crime Omnibus bill.
I've had about this, yeah, yeah, Like I will say I'm not familiar with it other than like herring that it's bad.
Yeah, so okay, So so in DC, the City Council passed this enormous sort of like giant set of like omnibus set of like policies are supposed to be there, like keep DC safe crime omnibus thing. I okay. There's
a couple of things to note about this. One is that it's actually not as bad as it was originally going to be because there was so much like uproar, because I mean the original one like had provisions that was like banning masks at protests and ship and it was like it was really bad and it got like nuked.
But it's still really bad, and there's a lot of it's a lot of really weird kind of grievance stuff, Like there's this provision specifically that's supposed to be about like like targeting quote quote organized retail theft, which is one of the insane this is.
Yeah, this is one of the most like storm in a teacups that has been going for a while now.
Yeah. But I mean there there's also kind of like there's sister standard police stuff, which is it they're trying to expand pre trial attention on which they did one of the the absolutely insane ones that have been cleared unconstitutional, but apparently they's just back now is allowing police chiefs to designate certain areas quote drug free zones where yeah.
See, I'm I'm so, I'm confused.
But basically what it lets it basically, what it lets you do is it lets the cops just harass a bunch of people even more than they already do, like mostly mostly what it does is just when you declare one of these areas, it's where all the black people are, and then the cops just have cops have like an incredible, like incredibly increased ability to just randomly stop people and search them.
Right, and yeah, ship stop and frisk law.
Yeah, there's there. So there there is a thing that like part of the mask provision stayed in force, which is that they're making it basically it's like like wearing a mask with the intent to commit a crime is a crime, right, the cops like determine, right, your intent, So like, yeah, it's one of those laws.
Like they do this a lot with gun laws, right, they passed gun laws. It don't make anything that wasn't already illegal illegal, They just make it so that if they if you if you're if you're caught, you're going to prison for longer.
Now, Yeah, that this this actually there are there are provisions like that in this too. There's also a bunch of random like gun provisions. There's all the like more nuts ones, like there's there's one where cops can arrest you. So if if they're trying to cite you for not paying a toll, if they they they claim that you didn't pay a you didn't like pay a transit fare, you have to give them your full name and address and if they don't, and if you don't, they can arrest you, which is nuts.
This is like, don't disrespect me on the train in front of everyone, nor, isn't it?
That's what that is. There's another one. There's another one, which is like, I I don't. I don't have another way to describe it other than this is the uh, this is the how to get away with murder bill, which is this is so one of the things that they're doing is letting cops review their own helmet footage before police inquiries. Right, ah, this is this is this is to get the narrative straight.
Yeah, Bill, do you also get to edit it?
I don't.
Well, okay, so here's the thing about that quote unquote No, however come these things mysteriously vanish time mysteriously disappears. Yeah, there's also like a whole thing about like there are certain groups of people who the cops can just like force DNA collections from. Wow, which is it's a lot less broad than it used to be. But yeah, it's still a provision in there. But yeah, this is a
nightmarish bill that they've been able to pass. And you know, I think it's worth thinking about why this is actually happening, which is that all of this stuff, all of these are sort of long range reaction to twenty twenty, right, this is this, This was the sort of strategy after twenty twenty for rebuilding legitimacy of the police, and you know, and and also now rebuilding sort of rebuilding the I don't know, psychological capacity, I guess to you know, I mean,
just deploy a bunch of troops on US soil, right, right, yeah, sort of building up that tolerance. Yeah, and you know, like this is all of this stuff is sort of born on you know, on on on protest crackdowns on one of the things that's also sort of worth noting about. This is all of this stuff. I mean, the DC crime build but in the works for a long time, but the subway stuff is all stuff that happened like
pretty quickly after they are ambushnell self Imlaysia. So a big part of this has been the sort of the Democratic ruling class kind of losing their minds after watching how widespread twenty twenty was, watching the extent to which they were forced to like you know, like there are democratic politicians in twenty twenty like talking about like I mean, there are like a lucky people talking about defunding the police. There are like they're all remember the weird like that
whole like kneed laying thing in Congress. They all do oh yeah yeah.
Have the pitched in the morning you can take with yeah yeah, ooh yeah. That's a powerful incents of ringe.
Yeah. But there's a lot of like you know, there's there's this this sort of memory of that has been has been sort of drilled deep into into the Democratic party and so what what what has been happening like like you know and that what's been happening and this has been happening in blue states very explicitly is this is this strategy of hypermilitarization with the explicit like not explicit, sorry, with the implicit but not very well concealed goal of
putting everyone back in their place after twenty twenty, and that is extremely grim. I mean, I think, I don't know, I'm I'm glad the DC stuff isn't as bad as it was originally because the original one we're just like
straight up a bunch of fascist ship. This is also fascist shit, but like not as unhinged as the original bills were, So you know, it's like like the tide of this stuff isn't inevitable, right, but also very very powerful factions of the Democratic Party have decided that this is the thing that they want to do, and it absolutely sucks, and you know, and and and and this is you know, and this is in a similar way to sort of the stuff on the border being by parties.
I mean, at some point I'm going to do an episode about the absolute shit show that's been happening in Chicago where yeah, they're like a a kid got fucking measles in one of these and one of the micro shelters in Pilsen in Chicago, and now the mayor's like evicting a bunch of a bunch of people from the
bigrant shelters. Jesus, you know, so like there's a bip I mean, this is the thing Like in Chicago, I mean there's just outside of like you know, we're like outside of just like basically every like Walgreens or just on street corners, there's a bunch of refugee families like just sitting out there in the cold, trying to get some money because there's fucking nothing for them here. And this is a bipartisan you know this, this is a
bipartisan political project. Yeah, you know, just sort of sheer terror inflicted on most of the little people in society.
Yeah, it's it's really depressing to hear that, just because I know that, like, you know, I see people here and then they get out, and my friends see them, and we turn into the airport and my friends feed them and look after them there, and they get on their planes and we hope for the best for them, you know, and then then yeah, they just go to some other city where some other dog shit democrats who lied four years ago is gonna do everything they can to make life as hard for them as possible.
Yeah.
The good thing is you have to vote for them while you're voting for Fascismoo horay, how sad?
Yeah that that that That's what I got today. We'll be back tomorrow with something. What are we back down?
Yeah, it will be a podcast. It's with tomorrow's Friday. Oh yeah, Torow's Gaza day. So it's not getting Anny better for you. Yeah, lucky you, lucky you. Tomorrow we'll be hearing from our friends at park or Gaza.
Hi.
Everyone, it's me James, just introducing this podcast, and I'm recording this the day after we recorded the episode to today's Thursday, the twenty first of March. I wanted to just update a couple of things and correct a couple of things, so I've just listened through the episodes.
I'm going to do that now.
Firstly, I think I said Igler a couple of times when I meant Strella. It's the Strella portable surface to where missiles have been refitted with new batteries in the Syrian Civil Wars specifically, and I've included a link to a document about that in the show notes. So apologies for getting those two things confused. They're both I guess
former Soviet service to a missile systems. The other things I wanted to mention that a few like throughout this episode we've used manpads, right, that's kind of the colloquial term or the official term really for person boughtable anti aircraft systems. Like obviously doesn't mean that you have to be a man to use one, certainly like the fact that the hPG are using them and that the Kurdish
Freedom Movement are using them. Obviously women can use them, non binary folks can use them, to everyone can use them. And finally, I just wanted to mention that there have been some suggestions that the thing that was used to shoot down the Bay Reptars was like loatering munition, which is something that is often called a suicide drone. In this case, it's not a loitering munition that impacts something
on the ground, but impacts something on the air. There's an Iranian system that does that, but apparently it's possible to replicate that with a large number of off the shelf or sort of commercially available pieces.
So maybe that's what's going on.
This episode was a little bit speculative, and we still don't have lots of hard answers, but we hope you'll enjoy it because it represents a change in a relationship between the state and people who are not the state, and that's why it's important.
Okay, hope you enjoy.
Hello, podcast fans, Welcome back to the podcast. I'm joined today by my friend Mia Himea.
Hello, and we.
Are talking about, of course, surface to wear missiles, a topic that I'm sure is on the top of mind for all of you as you drive to work this morning. Where are we talking about surface to wear missiles today?
Well?
Today is It is Wednesday, the twentieth of March, and today I'm sure maybe some of you would have seen most of you probably will not as you go about your daily life that the KSEK. The k CK is the group, the Kurdistan Communities Union, the joint group between the various groups in the different parts of Kurdistan. Right, So you have the PKK, you have the Yea Yepiga in Syria, PI k K and Turkey, right the p JACK in Iran in the k like brings all these groups together.
Do they?
Is there a name? Do they? Is there like an Iraqi branch? That's the one that I don't know.
You have the Yevish, the the Azdi group, right, yeah, I think everyone I will reconsider my statement.
The people who I have become aware of.
Who are in Iraq, who are who I know about journalistically, are k c K people. Okay, little little bit of smoke and mirrors feed there, but yeah, the people the people who I who I know who are in in the Kurdistan Autonomous Region.
Are ksey K.
So I think that I think most of the sort of people within the greater like Kurdish Freedom move and the APOACHE people are ksey K.
Within Iraq.
It is in the Kurdistan Autonomous Region, So like Iraqi in a technical sense, but only only really in a technical sense. Like when you go to the Kurdistan Autonomous Region, you don't even do Iraqi immigration. You do Kurdistan immigration, which is nice because it's a lot easier. I was there in October of twenty twenty three, and since February of twenty twenty three, the KCK have announced they have shut down thirteen Turkish unmanned aerial vehicles, right, which what
you and I would call drones. And we're not talking about drones like your friend has a drone and they use it to film you at the beach. Drones we're talking about like Bairaktar drones, which are it's an aircraft, right, Like if you saw one you would be like, oh, there goes a plane.
Yeah, it's like it's like the Turkish version of the Predator drones and US users, Yeah, yeah, it's it's yeah, it's a very similar thing.
It's a very popular drone system actually, right, they've sold bairaktars to I think dozens of countries, like they're i mean all over yeah, thirty one countries that they've exported the Biachta to, so that they're very widely used. They're kind of the the sort of drone of choice for people who are just like buying on the open market. Right, Karta uses them, Ukraine uses them a lot, but even countries like I'm looking here Bakina Faso has has bairactars.
So what's notable about this is they've also shot down a kinchies A kinchiese are like the newer Bairaktar variant that they make a slightly different noise. I've spent some time in places that are being attacked by drones over the last year, and it's it's a highly unpleasant experience. But people who are used to this, which I am, I guess thankfully not, will tell you that they can tell the different about the noise at least these drones
to make. But there was a Kinchi for instance. I believe it was in a Kinchi that did some of the attacks that I was unfortunate enough to be nearby when I was in ro in October. So what's notable about this is like the k c K obviously, like they're a non state actor, right, because there was not a Kurdish state. There is a Kurdish nation, one might argue, but it's split between four states Iraq, Iran, Syria, and Turkey, and so them being able to shoot down drones, it's quite remarkable.
Yeah, no, one's none of the non state actors really in the last like twenty years have been able to do this. Like everyone talks about how advanced like Isis' capabilities were for a non state actor, and they were, but they couldn't do it, Like it's wild, No, like who.
These have shut down some reaper drones?
Yeah, but they're but they're a state, Like that's the thing like they'd have huge swaths of the regular you many military are just like yeah.
And then they're supplied by other state actors, right, like very clearly as it's a little different. What Yeah, it's this is relatively remarkable, right, they've been able to shoot down like and not just it's not just like, oh we've got Lucky, we got we've got lucky and dropped a single drone. Ice has had, if I remember correctly, isis had some Igler man pads, like the old Russian man pads. The thing with those and we're going to
talk about this a little bit later. They they have like a battery and that battery will run out over a certain or they're sold that some of them are just being sold on the black market without batteries. From what I've seen, some folks in that we've seen in the civil war in Syria have worked out how to somehow make that battery work with or make another battery,
or make another electronic system for them. They don't have like a lockout, right, they don't have a like we've detected, you know, like your iPhone will sometimes get mad if you're using a third party charger. Yeah, yeah, yeah, right, So Tim Apple has was not involved in the design of the ki Igler most pity, and so he wasn't able to engineer it a third party. But those have been repurposed. But yeah, we did not see the Islamic
state of Irak and al Sham dropping US drones. In fact, the reason like the thing that allowed there were two things that allowed the defeat of like the so called Islamic state rate One, the heroism of the people who fought against them, be they like Iraqi Kurdish, a lot of people fought against a fifteen thousand kurt died fighting Isis. But also the fact that the US had complete air dominance and could just fucking obliterate things from the sky
whenever it wanted to it did. It did a lot of obliterating things from the sky, right, And so the ability to shoot down drones is something that has been very hard for non state actors. And it's not like it's not like the KCK has a state sponsor, right yeah.
Yeah. Also so like like for example, like Hasbla has shot down too, although these weren't actually they shut down to Hermes like is really Hermes Jones. So though those are just those are surveillance things. But the thing is, like Hezbola did this by getting surface there missiles, like getting surface there rockets from Iran. Yeah, so yeah, that's why that's that's like, you know, the way that you can do this is if either like Iran, the US, I guess technically China and or and or Russia like
hand you them. But if but if none of those four countries are willing to play ball or I mean, I guess ithically the UK, yes, or like France could send you one. But but like it's it's it's really really like.
I don't, I don't.
I don't think any non state actor who wasn't being just directly armed by one of those states has pulled it off. No.
The other non state actor who I've seen with man pads very recently are the Koren, the current National Liberal k in l A. The k and LA have been putting out these pictures. This is this in memr Yes, this is in Mema. So for folks who haven't listened to our previous memp so to go and listen to them. But yeah, there's some of the work I'm proud of.
But these k and LA guys have these photos, have come out that then they're not not post photos, right, they'lvery clearly they wanted these photos to come out, and it shows them with these manpad system. I'm actually not sure if it's a Streller or a Chinese. I think
it's called the eight N five the Chinese. It's essentially the same thing, but they have the grip stock for them, but they don't have the coolant ball and the battery at the front, So like that they're what they have is a fancy looking doesn't appear to my eyes to be like fully functional, like in terms of tracking and shooting down an aeroplane, although I have seen footage from friends of Hunter aircraft deploying like flares over a current
state and then like turning around and leaving. So perhaps there's something I'm missing here. Like it's entirely possible that when they decided for these photos come out, they they they're in a certain fashion. And like those guys have engineered and tire arms industry of their own using Reddit and Ali Express, Like I, if anybody can make something work,
they can make something work. I have great faith in their ingenuity and as I said, like it it's people in Syria have previously made systems like this work.
They're not.
They don't have that lockout, so it's quite possible that they did. But I've not seen a video of anyone in Mianmar shooting down and any kind of aircraft yet, right, the Russian aircraft they have shot down aircraft Allegedly someone shot one down with with a like a grenade launcher, a single shot grenade.
Launcher SOLI video.
Yeah, it's one of the most chadly things that anyone's ever done. It's it's some like modern warfare or whatever whatever the computer game is called Battlefield, that's what it's called. Yeah, talking of talking of for Chadley and exciting stuff, then this might be an advert for like being a prison guard or something exciting that we have to introduce. Now, okay, don't be a prison guard. All right, and we're back. I hope you found again from employment elsewhere outside of
the cast real system. And we're talking about service to our missiles, particularly these thirteen serpace to our missile of thirteen drones that the casey K have shut down. Right. One thing I thought that was noticeable is that they did say missiles they are people were able to pride the missile system necessary. That so, like there's a theory that I've seen that they were able to crash a drone of their own into a bairactar like a kind
of like I guess like a suicide. I don't like the word suicide drone because it's not the drone that's dying, like normally when people talk about suicide drones, So theyre killing people, Yeah, but like a ramming drone. Yeah yeah, yeah, like a like a it's like robot Wars. But they said missile on their press. Really, so you know, if we take that on the if we take that on the face of it, that that suggests that they shut
them down. Certainly there this like there is good video evidence of the mirror and I just reviewed the video. Incredible soundtrack. We'll link to it in the We'll link to it in the show notes. In the videos, you very clearly see, oh it's a drone. Oh it's a huge explosion that gravity is now having its effect on this drone, like it is plummeting to earth.
Yeah, Like it's it's definitely not a like we've fired a machine gun in the air and it hit it somehow or something like it's right. It got it quite explosive. Yeah, yeah, that's remarkable. Yeah.
One of the Yeah, there was a shooting down of an aircraft in the Amba. It wasn't one of them megs. I forgot it might have been. It was a two seater training plan. I can't remember quite what it was, but that was shot down supposedly by small arms fire or maybe like a Generally, the like the air defense of most non state armed groups has been dushcuts, right, like a it's a thing that you've seen in the back of a pickup truck going like bang bang with
a big sort of spade grip. It's a classic technical gun. But this isn't that, Like, this is something very different. Something they're they're exploding when these drones get hit there exploding and they've all been in I think, oh yeah. All of them are in areas of the what we call the Curtis Donal Autonomous Reach in a bit of rock right, So some of them are in zap which is near to howk but towards north of there.
Some of them in the.
Kandel Mountains, which is part of the Zagross Mountain Range. Again it's it's in the north of that Curtis Done Autonomous Region, and I think some of them are in it. I think it's Gadat it's pronounced, but they're not in like I think obviously when a lot of people think about the Kurtis Down freedom movement and think about Rajava, this isn't there. The US did shoot down a bay Raktar or an a Kinchi over Rajava while I was there, but they only shot it down because it flew over
their base. They continued to let the bay Raktars bomb civilian infrastructure all over the A and E S.
So these these are not there.
These are so perhaps whatever they're using very interesting, right, Like it's maybe it's not something they can take there, or maybe it's not you know, like it's not they're not able to get it out of the mountains.
It's too much of a risk. No, it's it's interesting, I mean for a number of reasons. Well, yeah, partially that they're not using it in serior. Partially they're also they don't seem to be using them in Turkey either.
No, it's interesting when take off, it's not that like subtle, right, it's a big aircraft, so they'll get some warning when they take off and that would allow them, I guess, to prepare their munitions. But yeah, they don't seem to be using it. They seem to be using it in like this this area. Whether they're very strong, right, whether these mountains are extremely fortified. They've been fighting Turkey. There
are a lot in recent days and weeks. You can always I mean, obviously you're going to see some somewhat traumatic combat footage, but Garrilla TV always has like updates on these things, so that's the sort of thing that you you know, like to keep up to date with. But yeah, they're not using them there, They're not using them.
They're they're very close to Turkey, right, but yeah, not not quite in and Turkey soldiers do occupy some areas inside the Iraqi curtash Down Autonomous Region, so like they it's kind of all and Turkey seems to be kind of trying to ramp up its operations against the Coast Down Freedom movement inside the st An Autonomous Region, but this is a significant impediment to that.
Right.
It's also very interesting that like we have not heard shit about this from Turkey.
No, Yeah, well, and I think I think part of this is, you know, like I think It's something that as an indication of how serious this is, because I mean, this has been you know, the law of the twenty first century is that if you're a state actor, you have unlimited air superiority over any non state group you're bombing, and you can, you know, especially like especially if you're like the US, you can send bombers or drones into like any country you want and you can bomb them. Yeah,
And that has been true. And this, this has been the basis of US military power. It's also been the basis of a lot of like, you know, the Turkey obviously doesn't have the same air doctrine as the US does, but like that's been the basis of a lot of Turkish operations that they like, they're the people who have airpower. And because they have airpower, because they have drones, because you can't shoot back at them, they can do whatever the fuck they want.
Yeah, Like I've been in the situation where you are completely powerless and very afraid because at some point something could fall out the nights gy and kill you and there's fuck all you can do about it. And yeah, that has been the way of the world, like you say, for this entire century. Right, it's what we've seen only Meanmar, the pro democracy forces againing ground every day. They're doing
an incredible job. But like, I've also talked to people whose whole unit has been wiped out and they've hidden under the dead bodies of their friends because there's a plane or a helicopter circling around and it's the one area where they've really struggled to defend themselves. Right, It's I'm writing a book about anarchist at war. Eventually I will publish that book. But this is the thing that
defines then, like the state. Even when the state like loses its monopoly on legitimate violence, it still has monopoly on airborne violence. And the question that monopoly, like it is incredibly dangerous for the state's ability to for the state, I guess in general, like for it for its continued ability to crush movements, be they liberatory or be they otherwise.
Right, and we can Yeah, I mean, this is something I think is really interesting. Is this is something that's been a fear of I mean everyone from like Western intelligence people through like I mean you can see people in like Hollywood freaking out about this, Like like rebel group gets access to a manpad is like one of
the most common like spy show plots. Yeah, and yeah, it's like it's something that you know, you can you can listen to, like the US military talking about this is this is something that they're really concerned about.
Yeah, they won't like it's their where. It's where they draw the line with the groups who are quote unquote allies, right, who'll be quote like the US will tell you that the SDF for their allies in the fight against ISIS, but they're willing to let their allies die rather than give them manpads.
Right, Like I've seen this.
I have. I've seen the funerals, you know, because the and the US. But I've also driven right past the fucking US base and I know that there are plenty of plenty of plenty of anti aircraft systems there because they shot down a Turkish drone while I was there. But they're not willing to give them to even the people who they'll fight side by side with because their fear of having manpads get into what they would maybe
term the wrong hands is is. Yeah, it's like the the one area where they have I guess complete domination, right, They've given them to Ukraine, of course, but despite like repeated allegations, there is no evidence that Ukraine has sold surface to wear systems anywhere, and they obviously won't give them to me Anmar, right, So it's yeah, it if this is what it appears to be, then it's a
really massive change. Talking of a massive change, you could you know, you can make a massive change to your financial situation by purchasing gold.
We're back. Yeah. I think something that's really interesting about the way that the sort of manpad getting to nonstate actors has talked about is that usually the way that it's like usually the US line on it is like we can't like we can't let anyone get these yaus, They're gonna use it to shoot down civilian airliners. Yes, yeah, And now, to be fair, people do accidentally shoot down like militaries accidentally shoot down civilian airliners all the time. Yeah,
that's a very common thing. But I think I think that's that's a smoke screed, right because like even like the actual thing that if you're if you're a militant group, usually the thing that you want to be doing if you have one of these weapons is shooting down the things that people who are bombing you. Yeah, And I think there's a really interesting sort of like psychological thing
going on here with this. Is this is the sort of propaganda thing that that you know, to get to get, like you random person to be terrified of, like you know, the Kurds having surfaced air missiles. Is they used like they use people's like fear of getting born up on an airplane. It's like no, no, like click it, like you know, evidence suggests that what is actually what actually happens that is that they shoot down drones.
Yeah, yes, exactly right, and not like the other thing, which is somewhat remarkable. It's it would be one thing to have got your hands on one or two, but to have been to have shut down in a one year, well just over one year, from February thirteenth, twenty twenty three until Mike's the first twenty twenty four, they have shot down fifteen UAVs like that. That's a that's a decent number of manpads or maybe not man pads. That's the other thing we kind of didn't mention, right, like
big reptas can fly very high. We were just sort of checking this out before the show, and I think they can fly around seven thousand meters, which within theory about twenty five thousand feet, Yeah, which is about twice the like the the height previous generation manpads like things like stingers and iglers can can operate at I'm not sure of the the what the for for an igler reach targets and mactum altitude of twenty five hundred meters, So yeah, that's a little under as high as these
as these like attack drones can fly. Maybe they have to come lower to like launch their munitions, or maybe they come lower to to search for people and presumably looking for The Kurdistan Freedom Movement has gorillas all over these mountains right here, extremely well camouflaged and extremely adept at avoiding drone attacks because that is what they have been doing for for a long time. So maybe that's how.
But also maybe maybe there's something that we're not aware of or some kind of Maybe it's not a man portable system at all. Maybe it's something that is like fixed in place well in that in that.
So, I think one of the one of the really interesting questions to you, which is how on earth did they get these? Yeah, like whatever system you're using, you know, normally like the only way, like you know, like hesblah or the Hoho thies get them from Iran, right, but the Ridians are absolutely under no circumstances are they going to I mean maybe if Turkey declared war on Iran, there's like a five percent chance maybe in like their darkest hour, they might try this, Like there's no way.
Yeah, like Iraq and Iran have repeatedly attempted to mobilize the Kurds against each other, right, but yeah, I think that they would draw the line at handing over manpads and yeah, and they're definitely not getting them from the US. No, then they're using them in areas where they're with the US and the US like.
Like you know, it's it's it's definitely not I don't think it's any other Western country either, Like it doesn't make any sense, Like I mean maybe like based Sweden's smothering pads in or something, but I really doubt it, which leaves it really like up in the air. I mean, like maybe Russia maybe somehow, I don't know. It's it's it's all very weird.
Yeah, And I mean like in recent months, the A Side regime, which is backed by Russia has been an open conflict with the SDF, So I think it's it's very unlikely, like the side regime has been fighting with and killing it and dying with Yepaga and in Syria, so it seems very unlikely. Yeah, it's very That's what's very strange, Like the there seems to be a couple of different groups of people, right, like the Kuren have popped up with these previous generations Igla.
Kind of manpads.
The Kitchen have shot down a lot of planes recently, and it's not entirely clear how so the Kitchen or another ethnic group in Miandmyre somewhat closer ties to the PRC. The United ware State Army have man pads. They are the sort of closest tied to the PRC of the e Rros in Myanma. I'm using a lot of acronyms here.
Yeah, this is just the problem we're talking about, Curtis Group's not I'm talking about, yes, ye, like the two great acronym like wars.
Don't be overlooking the Spanish Civil War, the alphabet super conflicts. Yeah, this is this is a life I've chosen for myself.
So yeah, the ethnic revolutionary organizations in Myanma the closest to China, it's the United War State Army who have been at the fringes of the conflict, but it's certainly not fully committed to fighting against the Hunter in the same way that the Karen, the Kachin, the Arakan Army, the PDF for the other groups that form the resistance in Burma or me m R. But there have definitely been more planes shut down in Themma this year than in the in the in the the last few years,
so there's perhaps there's some kind of source in the
world for these service to miss. There will come a point in the human future, right when one of these is either reverse engineered or someone just really, if someone had said to you ten years ago that, like several people online, some of whom I've spoken to, some of whom our friend j Camera had spoken to, would be able to construct a gun that you could print from your computer, Like you'd have said, you're barking, right, And at some point in the human future someone will work
out how to use things they already have to make something that can shoot down aircraft. But yeah, it's baffling like that. There seems to be no obvious answer as to where what the source of these. The last thing I will say is that there was a yakuzer boss. Yeah, yeah, this guy legend. It's just like it like this man's
my Man's done nothing wrong. He was convicted of selling trying to sell manpaed to the Karen and I think to the Kachin I can't remember, definitely one of them with the Kren, and he was trying to do so very funny. He was calling them cake and ice cream, incredibly incredibly good cipher it. It's a hell of a it's a banger of an indictment. Everyone should read it.
To Keshi.
I forget what his last name was, but he he was trying to sell them man pads and what he was actually doing was being monitored by the DEA. But the man pads that he thought that he had access to were fictional, like it was. It was the It was the FEDS who had conned him into thinking they had man pads. They did have some eighty fours. He met them in the Netherlands, took an incredible selfie with a light anti tank weapon and you can look it up.
Leather jacket, like I think he's got Blue Aviators on like my man's been arrested for having incredible drip and it's very sad, But yeah, the man pads he thought he was selling were fictional. But the fact that people were like, yeah, this SMEs reasonable, like that people were like, okay, we're prepared to went to deal with you. They weren't like, what are you on about, suggests that maybe these things
are entering the market. People will always say that they came from Afghanistan, like after the US left, But I don't think the Taliban would have any reason to sell them. They're getting bombed by Pakistan right now, Like what Yeah, yeah, it doesn't seem it doesn't make sense to me that they would sell them.
Yeah.
And one thing I should also mention is like every single time there is a war anywhere in the world, there are a trillion rumors that come out. They're like, oh, there's like this guy is selling like ex weapons or whatever, and it's like ninety nine percent of them are false.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, you hear this all the time and it's never true. Yeah, so that makes it really hard to sort out like where these things are coming from.
Yeah, exactly. A friend of the podcast, Victor Boot. Is he's free again, He's back. Maybe maybe he's gotten back. Maybe the god of war is back. Baby. It would be incredible. There would be an incredible narrative arc for
Victor Boot. But like as we said in that episode, right, like it's very easy to point to Victor Boot as being this evil guy, but in fact, like we've sort of ship tourn of weapons to people who turned out to be pretty pretty uncivil as the United States, a lot more people working you know, all the other places that have offices in San Diego made a lot more
money than he did selling weapons to people. So you know, we ought to be you know, Popcorn and the cult back a bit there, but clearly something is up with surface to our missiles. I hope this makes your Spring Bake flights more exciting, just gives it a little edge as you.
Take on't don't fly in Turkey.
Yeah, yeah, that's the our tip is to to not fly from not land. I guess in I mean, like we said, the Casey King going to shoot down your civilian plane. That then they're nice people. I'll just say the K C. K and my experience have been very nice, very forthcoming, extremely communicative and responsive to press requests, which like much more so than a lot a lot of other state actors. And I don't think you have any
worries about them shooting down your aircraft. But it's an interesting development that like, yeah, will fundamentally challenge the way that states are able to squash non state armed groups going forward.
Yeah, and if we if we figure out where they got them from and that becomes public, well you'll you'll see the next episode called we found Out where the mad Pads are from?
Yeah, yeah, I think in unlikelihood to no one's drest and to to like announce where these are from. And I don't think you know the ones in in Meanmar.
It's not inconceivable that they came either directly or indirectly from China, certainly that that would be the most feasible, but seeing them elsewhere, it's fascinating, Like it's you know, if somebody has like either reverse engineered these are there's large now RHITHM available on the black market, that would be a sea change in the way conflict happens, right, like,
you know, it's rare. Right now, it's able to bomb Palestine with complete impunity if non state arm groups had access to manpads there that maybe wouldn't be the case, but yeah, it's a change. It's a change in the way the world goes to war. I think it's always interesting. It's always interesting, like for a podcast that was built on speculative picture about future collapses like this certainly is something that challenges the monopoly of the state.
So yeah, it's something to keep an eye on.
I will attach in the notes the Guerrilla TV video of the Beiractars being shot down. Please enjoyed the soundtrack. Yeah it's banger, and will also include some links to those videos of the Karen National Liberation Army with their man pads. If you're a man pads understander, you know you know where to find me. It's all over the internet.
And yep.
With that, I will leave you. Have a great weekend, don't fly your sas news.
Hey we'll be back Monday with more episodes every week from now until the heat death of the universe.
It could happen.
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