It Could Happen Here Weekly 159

The only time you see Trump advance together is after Trump's ABC debate, when JD like preps him for the Spin room. That's the only time, Wow, we see them in a act.

label Trump a fascists. There's been a lot of discussion on like Trump's authoritarian and dictatorial desires and tendencies and expressions of those fears in particular were not enough to persuade the majority of voters against Trump, let alone safe and Republican support towards Harris and we on this show have not talked much about the escalation of rhetoric used by Trump and his allies this campaign cycle, with the Biden administration's horrific border policies and the enabling of Israel's

genocidal actions in Gaza drawing a great deal of our attention in the past few months. But now I do want to draw attention to the ethno nationalist framing that has become all too common, especially with the Democrats just complete submission to Trump and the GOP's distinct focus on immigration as the top issue facing America. So part of what I'm gonna do here is I've outlined a few

clips and some quotes I'm trying. I tried to limit the clips because I know no one wants to hear Trump and these guys talk for too long, but I will place some And Robert, you've spent a lot of your time thinking about fascism in the past few years and reading about fascism, so I'm certainly curious on your thoughts on some of these clips and quotes. As we'll kind of go through like three specific rallies, mostly great and outline what type of rhetoric they are using and

what it kind of points to historically. Now, one of the reoccurring phrases at Trump rallies this cycle was that the United States has become an occupied territory. Here's Trump invoking that language at a rally in Atlanta a week before the election.

point bog standard Christian nationalism. But this is a rally of about ten thousand people. It's not an official Trump rally. It is a turning point action rally that Trump did speak at. But I like to hone in once again on Tucker Carlson's comments. Now, he called this the first speech he's ever given at a political rally. Now, both me and you saw Tucker speak at the RNC. I guess he kind of views the R and C is a little bit different from like a standard like kind

of more like a campaign rally type event. But Tucker called Trump a triumph of the human spirit, Christ, a triumph of the will. You could say, yeah, yes, like, what's another word for the human spirit?

And like I had to actually like like look up stuff on this because I'm like, I know Freud and a few others have like written about this type of thing before, and specifically Adorno has written about this in an essay called Freudian Theory and the Pattern of Fascist Propaganda that I'd like to read just a few brief quotes from.

Hitler shunned the traditional role of the loving father and replaced it entirely by the negative one of threatening authority unquote. I'm going to pivot to Freud here, specifically his essay on group behavior and how individuals regressed become part of masses. He writes about how a leader of a cult can exploit psychological shortcuts in its followers to embody this like group ideal that governs their ego as a substitution quote, the leader of the group is the dreaded primal Father.

The group still wishes to be governed by unrestricted force. It has an extreme passion for authority, It has a thirst for obedience. The primal Father is the group ideal. This is like so displayed what Tucker is doing like this is just exactly what it is. I mean, it reminds me of the other quote about how people seek out salvation in subjugation. And I'll leave just one more quote from Adorno here quote. Fascist agitation is centered in the idea of the leader, no matter whether he actually

leads or is only the mandatory of group interests. Because only the psychological image of the leader is apt to reanimate the idea of the all powerful and threatening primal Father.

The formation of the imagery of an omnipotent and unbridled father figure, by far transcending the individual father and therefore apt to be enlargened into a group ego, is the only way to promulgate the passive masochistic attitude to whoms one's will has to be surrendered, an attitude required of the fascist follower the more his political behavior becomes irreconcilable with his own rational interests as a private person, as well as those of the group or class to which

he actually belongs. The followers reawakened irrationality is therefore quite rational from the leader's point of view. It necessarily has to be a conviction which is not based on perception

and reasoning, but on an erotic tie. I'm sure someone more skilled than me could write like a whole dissertation just on Tucker's speech here, because like it invokes so many of these ideas and like without trying to this is always like subconscious on their part, Like they're pulling on these things like specifically, like like the passive masochistic attitude. It's like their submission to Trump is like this deep masochistic urge.

underdiscussed aspect of psychology and fascist states. One of the one of the phenomenons within Nazi Germany was, you know, there were a number of Nazi policies, Hitler's policies that

had serious negative effects on people in Germany. And one of the most common phrases that you would hear from them was if only Hitler knew, right, you know, you usually deployed when like you were dealing with a government agency that was headed by just like an absolute criminal that you know, Hitler had appointed that like, oh, well, Hitler doesn't know that the Gestapo are doing this, right, you know, he would stop this, he'd put a stop to this if he knew, he wouldn't let this happen.

of the reaction that the crowd had previously. I'm going to play the very end of his speech where he basically endorses like a coup. If Harris actually wins.

many of whom raised me. That's what it really was about for them was never having to acknowledge the mistakes that they had made, the things that they had supported that didn't work out. Like it was a rage at the people who insisted on pointing out, Hey, you said this was going to happen, and the opposite happened. So that promise of like even if they win, Dad's going to come home and beat them into submission is deeply attractive.

like their personality. He's fully occupied their life. And yeah, like that's that's similar into the way that like occult leader has like how Freud wrote about it. Freud wrote all that stuff like in the nineteen twenties before before, like Hitler really rose to power, but he could like sense what was like coming in Germany. He could he could feel it. Yeah, And what I'm gonna feel right now is the products and services that support this podcast.

apartment complex holding firearms. A false claim then spread that a Venezuelan gang was forcibly taking over entire buildings in this city. At a Trump rally in Aurora on October eleventh, massive banners on both sides of the stage read Deport illegals now and end Migrant crime. On either side of the podium, there were large mugshots of Latino men with

text that reads occupied America. Steven Miller, now Chief Advisor for Immigration Policy, takes the stage and says that the patriots gathered at this event can quote end the invasion and end the occupation by voting for Trump.

According to the police, none of the armed men seen in that viral video, who have all been since identified or arrested, none of them have any ties to Venezuelan gangs or organized crime. What happened was slumlords spread a false story about their apartment complex being taken over by a gang as a way to get out of doing repairs on the property, saying it was too dangerous to to the premises.

influx of Venezuelan immigrants in the Denver metro area. The complex is now under new care, but a similar false tale of an apartment building in Chicago being taken over by immigrant gangs went viral in September due to the efforts of libs of TikTok and Elon Musk, with libs of TikTok saying, quote, first they did this in Aurora, Colorado, and now Chicago, which city will be next? This invasion

happened on Kamala's watch unquote. The last thing I will mention here is all of the blood comments that Trump has been making the past year. In intervery last year, Trump said that immigrants are poisoning the blood of our country. It's so bad, and people are coming in with disease, people are coming in with every possible thing that you

could have unquote. This clearly invoked like blood framing used by Hitler and Nazis, and like eugenics in general, and this is rhetoric that he's continuing to use for the present. In an interview last month, Trump so that immigrants are naturally murderers because quote it's in their genes. We've got a lot of bad genes in our country right now.

to put together this illucidation of indigenous anarchist history. So the lands that now bear the titles of Chile and Argentina have long held the Mapuche people long before borders were drawn, long before the world learned to cage the wild. The land itself is considered while mapoo, and it's deeply entwined with the identity of the Mapuche people. While poo is of course not just a geographical term, is also

a spiritual one. It's a tapestry of their histories and their dreams, and also their view of the world through a lens of reciprocity, because the Uche do acknowledge their kinship with the land, the rivers, the mountains, and that worldview that they hold and have traditionally held. Rather champions balance and harmony and respect for all forms of life, which is what has been fuel in their ongoing against occupation. So in a sense, the Mapuche struggle echoes an anarchist

ethos of autonomy and mutual aid. But I wouldn't cau as far as to call them anarchists, you know, I mean, they have a very specific cultural and historical and spiritual context that is distinct from anarchists. Thought. Despite these similarities and overlaps in there so s, they will be exploring the history, people, and struggles of all Mapou that have

shaped the Mapuche experience now. Ancient archaeological finds from tools to pottery have suggested that the Mapuche may have settled in present day southern Chile and Argentina as far back

twenty five hundred to three thousand years ago. Genetic and linguistic research connects the Mapuche lineage to other indigenous groups across the Andes, meaning that their ancestors may have migrated down the western spin of South America in waves, adapt into the rainforests, coastlines, and valleys of what's now one Mapu. Historically and currently, the Mapuch spoken Mapudungun, and the language itself carries aspects of their cultural identity, others to be expected.

Mapudungun is a polysynthetic language, meaning its words can be formed by combining smaller parts to reflect complex ideas. Mapuche itself combines Mapu meaning land and Chay meaning people. Sapuch lived on the border of the Incan Empire, meaning that they were in contact with centralized state organizations and hierarchical societies. I would have chosen to differentiate themselves and the societies from these status peoples, So how do they do so exactly?

The Puschi way of life would have revolved around, as I said, a deep respective for kinship, communal responsibility, and spiritual stewardship of the land. The society itself was based around the loaf or family based communal unit, each love holding shared responsibility over a specific territory, ensuring the one's personal wealth doesn't override the interest and well being of the environment in the community. The love wasn't just limited to the people of that family based community unit, it

also incorporated the ecosystem. That unit, incombust and occupied nature was in a sense part of the family. Rivers, mountains, forests, and other animals were treated as living relatives with the spirit and agency that desiled respect. In the Mapuche world view, all beings and elements possess nuen, the life force, and so they have to be respected. And that police system also leads the mapootated practice a sustainable use of resources

and intergenerational land care. And it also compels there as I said, resistance to colonial resource extraction, deforestation, and industrial expansion. In Mapuchev's spirituality, Juanumapu or The land of the ancestors refers to the spiritual realm connected to the physical world. They've traditionally believed that the spirits of past generations inhabit this realm, offering guidance and protection the matches or spiritual leaders,

so as the bridges between these worlds. So they're supposed to do things that conduct ceremonies, heal the sick, and connect with the ancestral spirits. They've stilled as the custodians in a sense of spiritual knowledge and medicine, and that makes them an essential component in each love. The socio political structure of the Mapuche has been a confederation of love groups known as the Alaraway system, where the different loves would come together to make communal decisions and joint actions,

particularly in times of conflict or threat. Each love will be represented in these confederations by alonco, who would be bringing their communities voice and perspective to regional councils without necessarily exercise and centralized authority. The decisions these councils are based on consensus traditionally and cooperation compromise, honoring the collective will as much as possible, rather than imposing will from above, and contrary to popular belief, this lack of centralization has

actually made them more resilient, not more fragile. Rather than beckering and fighting and split in and splintering constantly than Pouch have historically united and together resisted multiple attempts at subjugation. So they centralized alliances have empowered them to respond flexibly and quickly to the ever changing landscape of the threats that they're facing, and this resistance can use to this day.

But let me not skip ahead. The Spanish fullst made their way to Mapouche territory in the mid fifteen hundreds, initially confident that they could conquer the area with the same ease they had subdued the InCor Empire to the north. But the Mapuche were not easily intimidated. Early encounters quickly to into conflict, and the Spanish found themselves up against

a serious resistance movement. From the start, the Spanish had underestimated the Impucha's ability to adapt when the conquistadors introduced horses and new weaponry. Thelpuch observed and learned quickly, incorporating captured horses and arms into their own defense strategies. Rather than a simple series of skirmishes, This struggle would become a prolonged confrontation, one of the longest and most determined

resistances to colonization throughout the Americas. This was Lagira Tirauco or the Arako War, known for over one hundred years of protracted, brutal conflicts maintained by guerrilla warfare, and there would be no definitive battle or grand conclusion to this war.

Thelpuch recognized that they were facing vast resources. They knew they had to find ways to level that playing field, and so, using their familiarity with the forests, rivers and mountains of Albapo, they ambushed, evaded, and outflanked Spanish troops, cut off supply lines, and employed tactics that frustrated and exhausted their laws and equipped opponents. The Lapuche were fighting on two fronts, defending their territories from physical invasion and

preserving their cultural practices from Spanish influence. Those Mupuch are traditionally egalitarian. They did elect toki or war years during times of conflict. These figures were limited to their role in coordinating forces during these conflicts and had no other political power to yield above others. One of the more

notable of these toki was a man named Lautaro. He was a young Mapuche who had been captured by the Spanish as a teenager and had worked for some time as a stable boy for chief conquistado and governor of Gilet, Pedro de Valgivia. While working as a stable boy, Lautaro managed to secretly observe many of the tactics the Spanish employed.

He gained intimate knowledge of what made them tick in a sense, and eventually escaped captivity and brought this knowledge back to his people, transforming a Puchi resistance by effectively using captured horses and new formations to confront the Spanish

on ivan ground. Lautaux was a brilliant military strategist and by all accounts, a charismatic young man that inspired his people through several major victories, including defeating a large Spanish force at the Battle of Tucapel in fifteen fifty three, which is a confrontation that killed his former master and

a good bit of Spanish morale. Unfortunately, the outbreak of a typhus plague, a drought, and a famine slowed the Mapuchier advance to expel the Spanish as they had to spend some time recovering, but Lautero did try to push a band of Apoucha as far north as Santiago, Chile to liberate the country from Spanish rule. Unfortunately, before he could even turn thirty, he was killed in an ambush, and well his spirit continues to live on as a symbol of Ampuche resilience. As the war evolved, they had

cycles of conflict interspersed with uneasy pieces Spanish settlements. The Mapuche frontier became isolated, vulnerable outpost subject to sudden raids, so in an attempt to hold the territory, the Spanish had to divert large amount of their resources to maintain a military presence, which was a very costly strategy that didn't end up being sustainable long term. So finally, after decades of failed attempts to subdue the Mapucha by force,

the Spanish had to adopt a different approach. Resulted in a series of peace treaties which will be unheard of in the rest of Clonal Latin America. Among these was the Parliament of Killin in sixteen forty one, which established a formal boundary between Spanish controlled Chile and the autonomous Mapuche territories, granted the mapucha I legal recognition as an independent people with territorial rights. This is ritually unheard of across the rest of the Americas, and that's to tell

you how powerful their resistance was at the time. The Spanish crown recognized Mapuche control over lands south of the Bbio River and agreed to regular negotiations. And although this agreement was tenuous and at times violated, it did also mark an era of semi autonomy for the Mapuche, allowing them to maintain their land, language and traditions in the

face of surrounding clunal expansion. The fact that they could even secure legal recognition of their autonomy from a state power as stubborn as a Spanish in a time like the seventeenth century, it's just remarkable. But unfortunately, as you could probably predict that recognition of the autonomy would not last. In the eighteen hundreds, Chile and Argentina emerged as independent republics following Spanish clunial rule, each driven by an appetite

for territorial expansion and a nationalist vision. The excluded indigenous autonomy with new ambitions to civilize and consolidate the nations. Chilean and Argentine leaders saw them Mapouche held lands as resources to be exploited. Both governments are justified their encroachment on Morepouche land under the guise of national progress. To them, these indigenous lands were free real estate to be conquered and improved, not sovereign regions held by an indigenous population.

They saw way of life as a barrier as the economic development to your place with European style land holdings set the colonies and extractive industries under new management. They would not respect the sixteen forty one Parliament kill in as far as they were concerned. They didn't sign that agreement, and they would never sign an agreement with savages.

Some have argued that this attempted annexation was triggered by the events surrounding the wreck of Hooven Danielle at the coast of Hrakania in eighteen forty nine, where erecked Chilean navy vessel was allegedly looted and its survivors allegedly attacked on Apoucha territory by members of Apouche society, despite the Mapuche arguing there had been no survivors, and despite them handing over some of the accused of lutin to be tried by Chilean authorities, even retilling in so of what

was allegedly looted. The perception of the incident as a brutal loot and rape by the Mapuche fueled anti Mapouche sentiment within Chilean society. Although President Manualnais of Chile dismissed the opposition's calls for a punitive expedition at the time. The conquest would eventually come to pass, begetting in eighteen

sixty one. If you dig into this story, by the way, you come to find out that a lot of the Loutenant and Mapouche were accused of was actually members of Chilean society and bazilin the resources from the wreck and then play into office if the Mapuche were wholly responsible for the loss of the resources. Some of the same people who are accusing the Wapouchier looters of stealing all the all the loot from the ship, many of them had received some of that loot from the Mahuche themselves.

Thempuche were trying to return the loot and they decided to keep it for themselves instead of you know, retaining it's the Chilean government. So it's like the whole trial was bunked. There was a whole bunch of corruption and it was a real master And although the president did you know, dismiss the attempts to attack at the time, like I said, it would come to pass. The campaign

was justified as every government does by necessity. You know, the reality however, was a brutal invasion ended up Upuch communities, displacing thousands, absorbing their lands into the Chilean state.

the same way against like other colonial nations. And then every subsequent development and every subsequent incursion onto land, all all of it is just based on this like underlying level of dehumanization that just sees land as resources and the people there as like acceptable casualties or just fierce obstacles to overcome in conquest of those lands.

At the tip of South America. It was almost like a race between Argentina and child had to see who could reach the edge and claim it first, and THEUCH will something that was keeping them from doing that, and Additionally, Tapouch would not have been granted the same legitimacy of a claim as Argentina. You know, Chile and Argentina would eventually comes in agreement about where their border would lie, and their respected that agreement. Same couldn't be said for

them Puch. And of course there were a lot of border disagreements of course in South America following the you know, evacuation of the Spanish, but of course those are treated on equal foot in the natives are different matter. So Chilean forces would corner advance into Aracania forcibly, removed thousands of families from the ancestral territories and subject those that

remade into the authority to the Chilean government. The traditional cumin land holdings have remained were fragmented and redistributed, often to Chilean settlers and the government's imposed European style laws, education and religion to attempt to assimilate the Mapuche and

suppress the identity. Military outposts and settlements also established in the newly annexed land, fastily facing the region under martial law and making it difficult from Pucci communities to resist openly replace the words Chilean government with Israeli government, and Mapuche with Palestinian And that's just to tell you how antiquated the current tactics of colonization are. Very little has changed.

the I dentity. You know, military outpost being established on New Leanix Land, Marcia law being established for the native inhabitants, all those things. Hear about it, and pushing of the American frontier, and you hear about it and throughout South America and Africa's cooling history. You don't really tend to think about that here and now it's happening in four.

similarly like it. It's just built on this base level of dehumanization exactly that a whole bunch of other like imperial powers kind of try to like hide or like mask a little bit, and with Israels just so mask off.

because Israel did? And like that's kind of part of looking into the next four years and looking into just just how how the world is going in this general kind of far right power grab happening all like all over the globe. Will more and more countries be kind of willing to utilize these types of colonial tactics.

textile trade as a whole and how it impacts different parts of the globe and whatever, and just talking about this now, I'm just thinking like, if workers in those countries were to stand up, well, in all this time, you know, some of the most deadly struggles or taking place in these regions, in these saturns, but if they were to stand up and resist, now, I mean it, mind, you've got even more open and then blatant with the suppression of those people and those voices, and as they

attempt to try and make their way out of those those hot spots, those hot regions of instability and violence and climate catastrophe. You know, we have all this migrant rhetoric to yes, make the struggle even worse.

course levied against like trans people. You still see that livid against indigenous people, and it's just like a growing list of people that are no longer seen as like real humans.

They held on to their language, they held on to their customs, they held onto their spiritual practices, they held on to their identity in defiance of assimilations policies and across the Andes. Meanwhile, Argentina was pursuing a similarly aggressive

campaign just known as the Conquest of the Desert. This was led by General Julio Argentino Rocca in the eighteen seventies and eighteen eighties, and this really sort of eradicate and displace all the indigenous groups through in the area, including the Mapuch who had lived on the fertile Pampas and Patagonian regions, to secure valuable land for wait for it, cattle ranchin agriculture and European settler expansion cattaranchian as in you know, the whole meat trade.

other plants. Right with these cotton monocultures, it really quickly strips the soil of its nutrients, and so they were pushing westward because they kept on having to find new land to grow the cotton on. And of course who was working that cotton and who was working with plantations, just explotation all the way down and all that just

to feed this rapacious appetite of expansion. You know, we had thousands of years of sustainable growth and sustainable cyclical economy use, but things that that would last, and just in these last few centuries we've just completely lost that because above all the line has to go up well.

least part of the goal of this expansion. As we see in Argentina, the few Mapuche who survived this massacre because they employed all sorts of tactics rangers from scorch student policies to force relocations to like outright just you know, the few that survived for relocated to reservations, tripped to their land and reduced to laborers within this modern or rapidly modernized in Argentina and General Rocker's campaign was celebrated

by the Argentine elite as a triumph of civilization over barbarism. Where have I heard that before? So in both Chile's passification of Aracanya and Argentina's conquest of the desert. He had this large scale dispossession of Apucca land. And while Mapoo now being fully split by the border of Argentina and Chile, the vast majority of Puce now live in Chile. There are only a few times one thousands left in

Argentina to this day. Initially, Mapucha leaders and communities launched uprisings and gorilla attacks against the Chilean and Argentine military forces, fighting to defend their territories, but as military suppression tensified, resistance also had to adapt When Puchia communities had to adopt more fluid forms of opposition, intaining cultural practices, stories,

and languages as an active resistance. Some of Pucci leaders petitioned for land rights and autonomy through legal channels, seeking to challenge dispossession through the courts. Others continue to resist through armed confrontation, often leading isolated uprisings when government forces overstepped or attempted to cease more landed. The future resistance that follows this period is basically rooted in the traumas of this period, as the people were forcibly integrated into

Chilean and Argentine societies, yet never fully accepted. As we move into the early twentieth century, the Pusche communities continue to be hit hard by policies that aim to dissolve the traditional ways of life. The Chilean and Argentine governments squeeze Onucha onto reservations, but surrounding lands were given to

power for landowners and settlers. Land's guesty was a significant issue, as from Puchet families often had thoughts too more to sustain their traditional agricultural practices, and the dispossession led economic hardship and wide tread poverty further marginalized them from national economies. The assimilation attempts to frame ndition as community identity as something to be erased in favor of European norms, pushed out the Mapundun language and cultural ties and aimed to

impose Spanish as the primary language. Thankfully, today, Mapundum still survives as the language and the Jucha people at the time Mapuchi were also forced into the wage labor on settler farms experience and of course very harsh conditions are

very little protection. Many of them. Mapuchi ended up migrating from rural areas to cities as the arable land twindled, and then found themselves in places like Santiago and Temuco beginning the nineteen thirty years and Anima Puchier families ended up working as laborers and urban centers where their these new forms of discrimination. A lot of Mpuche women ended up going to work as servants within the houses of the Chilean elite, and during this period of hardship, Iarlimapoucha political

movements began to take shape. In the nineteen tens, Wabuchi leaders organized groups like Societ Dad Kapu Likan Defense Soa de la Arakanya, which advocated for land rights and civil protections agent to reclaim the dispossessed land and fight against the abuse of indigenous laborers. These early organizations marked a significant shift in Mapuche strategy represented a movement towards formal political approaches to resistance. The assaulstionment of political alliances that

sympathetic groups also strengthened Mpucha cause. In the nineteen twenties nineteen thirties, indigenous organizations began working with the Chilean communists and socialist parties, focusing on indigenous labor issues and broader anti landlord campaigns. However, these alliances often prioritized national labor and Akrainian reform over specific indition's rights, leaving Themapouche to

continue the fight largely on their own terms. But in spite of this limited political power, these early efforts helped lay the groundwork for later land rights activism. From the mid twentieth century onward, rapid and gustrialization, extractive forestry operations and monoculture plantations began to dominate Mapucha land, and pollution increased. Rivers were contaminated. Forest power of diversity was replaced by non native species like pine and eucalyptus plantations, and all

of this leads, of course, soiled depletion. The remaining Mapuchia, agriculture and local ecosystems were naturally threatened, which fully compel their resistance. At the same time, they were still, of course, working to preserve their language, their cultural practices, their music,

their arts, the spiritual ceremonies. For a small moment, there was some hope as the government of Salvador Allende, you know this is going passed an indigenous law that recognized their distinctive culture and history and began to restore Mapuche Commune a lot. But I think we all remember how that to end oubt. Bam bam, you have a who are coop sponsored by the US, and Pinochet is in power. In power, Pinochet calls for the division of the reserves

and the liquidation of the Indian communities. He initially sounds like a cartoon villain of everything I've read and learned about him, I mean, who speaks of the liquidation of a people?

can be. Sure, and this isn't even just a pure principle, like I don't like dehumanization in general, it's that I think it actually makes these people harder to beat if you view them as like some monstrous force instead of something that's actually deeply human and Yeah, he is a cartoon villain. He's also like a person, and like that's actually kind of more scary than just viewing him as some monster.

They all started as a baby, and Pinochet was unfortunately no exception. After the pass and of his decree twenty five sixty eight to nineteen seventy nine, the number of indigenous creaties was reduced by twenty five percent and several Mapuchia leaders were murdered, threatened with imprisonment or excerpt. After the fall of Pinochet and returned to democracy, uppuch had a resurgionce and identity and political activism for the nineteen nineties.

This revival gained momentum after the passage of Chile's Indigenous Law in nineteen ninety three, which acknowledged the Puche land right to advocated for bilingual education, opening new paths for cultural reclamatia. That same year, Nampuchi representatives at the UN pushed for Chile to adopt Iolo Convention one sixty nine, a key indigious rights treaty, but Chile didn't actually ratify

the convention until two thousand and eight. Despite the established run to the National Cooperation of Indigenous Development or KANNADI in nineteen twenty three to facilitate indigenous inclusion in policy making, Mapucha involvement in such state institutions has not guaranteed geruine representation. Several KANNADI leaders who openly advocated from Mapucha autonomy or pushed against corporate interests have been removed from their positions.

In twenty fifteen, Governor Francisco Juanchomia, a Promapuchi advocate in Aracanya, was removed from his position due to his support for legal reforms recognizing Mapucha rights. He can'tgo and change the system. System changes you will gets you out of the way. With the intensification of extractive industries roach lands, a wave of activism emerged, specifically aimed the protecting secret territories and

the environment. Mapuchi activists frequently have stood up against forestry companies, hydroelectric projects, and multinational corporations that have aimed to exploit their resources, the e engaging land occupations and protests for land restitution and environmental protection. The Chilean stage reaction to Maputa activism is entirely predictable harsh repression under anti terrorism legislation.

Mapoochier activists fe heightened police, civil lands, in prison, lond accusations of terrorism a toxic which is universally used to delegitimize resistance to injustice and violence, explotation, and destructure.

of people. In the past few years, it's been the you know, machete and ak waven Islamist fightal but in other time periods it was another prominent stereotype, you know, the Black seventies revolutionary or Vietcong And in the Chilean situation, media portrayals have also reinforced stereotypes of ampuch violence, which of course serves the rule of obscure in the reality of their fight for justice and environmental stewardship. It hasn't

all been for not the mapuch struggle. That is, they have had a few legal triumphs rulans where the Inter American Court of Human Rights has held Chile accountable in air quotes as much as any state is actually held accountable for valuating Mapuche rights. Grassroots groups and as collectives with white have also supported Mapucha efforts. But curly these small victories and triumphs are really not much. They're not enough.

Within the broader Auch movement, you do have the reformists and the simulationists, and you have groups like Quording their Daughter Arako Mayeko or Camp and they're splinter group, which is why chan Alca Mapu and they've adopted separatist stances, advocating for direct actions such as land occupations and resistance against state forces because they view autonomy and territorial reclamation as essential to mapuchia soeignty and they have no interest

in compromise with the extractive industries and government that are responsible for their suffering. Traditionally, these groups have focused on acts of economic sabotage against companies that are infringing on

their lands and their stewardship. Within wider Chilean society. There's still some prejudice against some Mapuche, particularly, but not exclusively from the right way, but she lays twenty nineteen uprising against inequality and government abuses found strong supports and allieship between wider Chilean society and Upuche communities who had seen

echoes of their own grievances and national protests. The protests were initially sparked by a Maturro affair hike, but they quickly became a national movement demanding systemic reform in both urban and rural spaces. Thepuche communities joined or supported protesters. Were resistant continued to government policies that marginalize their communities

and undermined their cultural rights. Mapuocha symbols and flags emerged prominently align in aditional struggles with these were demands of social justice, and the government response can you predict, was swift and severe. Military and police forces were deployed to

use excessive violence. Apuch Ben knew about this, but some of the Chileans their experiencing this for the first time, and this mutual experience of repression reinforced alliances between the Mapuche and the Chilean activists, as both faced the stature of enviolence of propaganda that portrayed them as radicals and

terrorists and extremists. So despite the crackdown, the uprising saw unprecedented support for the Mapuche cause, amplifying calls for restitution of indigious lands, former recognition of Appouoche rights in a reformed constitution, and a declinal approach to governments the respects

indigenous autonomy. The twenty nineteen protests laid the groundwork for a national constitutional reform was significant Mapucha involvement to public support in a new constitutions with the twenty one raised the potential for ensurance indigenous rights from Puccier representatives actively participate in the process and creating renewed optimism for meaningful

legal reprotections the respecting Puja, culture, territory and autonomy. That somewhat progressive attempt at a constitution reform, which also included gender equality measures, was rejected, and so there was another attempt just last year enter to twenty three, but it was a very conservative attempt shaped by the far right Republican Party, which trickter provisions and immigration, a ban and abortion, and a free market focus that did not resonate with

the majority of voters. Fifty five point eight percent voted against the twenty twenty three draft and forty four point two percent in fever. Chile In President Gabriel Borek, whose administration had supported constitutional change, acknowledged that further attempts that

constitutional reform were unlikely. So for now, Chile continues to be governed by the constitution that dates back to the dictatorship of Pinochet, while its leaders looking at alternative calves for address and social, economic, and environments of this suites in line with Chilean public opinion. If you know anything about me and my positions, you know that I'm not confident in the ability of states to meaningfully respect people's

agency and autonomy ever. But I wish them Pucha all the best wherever their struggle goes, and I've personally found their story very impactful. It's one of resilience, adaptability, and vase of centuries of advolicity. They've had an unyielding desire to maintain their connection to the land and cultural identity, and they aren't going fright. Is really just a testament to the power of solidarity. And that's it for me. This has been all power to all the people.

Would you mind giving us a sort of very reef explanation of what has happened since last Wednesday when HTS, who will have to explain later, launch their operation against Aleppo.

Alappo city. There have been agreements between Russia, Iran, and Turkey and Syria in Astana about the deconflection zone in the northwestern province of Italy. So the HTS insurgents, they claim they launched this operation towards Aleppo in response to violation of this Astana agreement. So according to that agreement, this area will be in control of the HDS and the other area will be control of the regime and they wouldn't bother each other. But this agreement was never

really implemented, I mean versus Russia. They were constantly bombing it. Sometimes the HTS would attack regime positions. Also according to this deconfliction zone, actually the Serian government and I reining back armed groups. They went actually in that the de confliction zone was supposed to be controlled by the Seyian insurgents.

So they launched this operation in response to the they say the violations by the Serian government, and I think because when they realized that the defenses of the Serian government very weak, they pushed further into Aleppo. And it was not really planned to take the city of Aleppo, although there's also a video of Jiulani, the leader of HDS, saying that my brothers, one day we're going to be

an Aleppo, So maybe it was planned. We don't know really for sure, but the fact is that the Syrian government defense is collab and for some people in the region, it was sort of reminded of the days of Mussol when the Iraqi army they fled Mussol in twenty thirty fourteen and then Isis took over, although the HTS really denied that they are similar to ISIS, although they have

a similar Islamish ideology. So they took the city of Aleppo in three days, and they have been trying to go up towards Hama, a city more up so far, they haven't been able to take the city. And on the other hand, you also have another group called the Seran National Army, which is groups composed of basic groups that were supported by the Turkish government. They also started to move. They also started to carry out operations against Kurtish lad Forces also known as the Cerrian Democratic Forces

of the YPG. And also they started to do operations against the Syrian government in above Albab and also in northern Aleppo. And they took also several towns in northern Aleppo and also they advanced and I think their main

reason of that. So while the HDS is primarily mostly fighting against the Syrian government, I think the Serian National Army, because it's back by Turkey, they also have an interest to undermine the Serian Democratic Forces because Turkey in the past they have said they don't want to have a second Kurdish autonomous region in the region, because you have already won in Iraq, which was became recognized after the fall of the Damp, So you have a Kurdistan region

in Iraq, and Turkey was sort of afraid to have a second Kurdistan region in Syria, especially because it's created by a group which has ideological affiliation with the pik Ak with they follow the idology of the imprisoned leader of the pik A k Abdulachlan, which Turkey sees is a terrorist organization. So it's very complex, which we always keep saying about Syria, but you basically have two different operations.

You have the Turkish back groups that are trying to stop the Kurts from linking up with Aleppo, and then you have the HDS, the Islamist groups that are trying to go up and they already took Alepo and they also took many areas in the countryside of Hama, and actually they now control all of the province. So in the past the certain government they control some parts of lip but now they control the it's as they control all of Yeah.

with that in mind, I think we should explain. Perhaps we've talked before in this show about Operation Piece Spring e Fretty Shield and these Turkish incursions into previously SDF controlled areas and the genocide or violence that accompanied that, or ethnic cleansing, however you want to phrase it. Can you explain what happened in the areas where the SNA have advanced and like what that's meant for the Kurdish people who lived there or in some cases are still there.

Then you have also you have like Kurts that were displaced from Afrine because Turkey they carried out an operation against the YPG in twenty eighteen, So you have thousands

of Kurts that left Afrine. So the statistics are a bit unclear, but at least there were around ten thousand IDPs living in camps in northern Aleppo, and you also have people living outside of the camp, so the statistics are always a bit unclear, but it's they now say that they were around ten thousand families that were displaced,

so they were already displaced from Afrine before. And there's this town of Tararapad, which has been a strategic location in Aleppo because it was sort of like opening up the way to Aleppo City and the Kurdish back forces they took actually this town with Russian support from the Turkish back rebels, so they had like grievances about this town. But Turkey, even during the Afrine operation, they didn't get the green light to take this town from the Kurtkish

back groups. Also, the Syrian government was there by the way after dreamings, so this town always was like a focal point of contention between the Kurts and the Syrian insurgents. So what happened after HCS took Aleppo, the Syrian National Army with the backing of Turkey, they moved on towards Teara Lapad. And also because in the past, there was more bad because you have also two small towns called

Mumble and Zahara. They were like prominently inhabited by people from the Shia religion, so there were Iranian back groups there and they were in the back of Telarafad, so they were sort of as a balance. So they sort of like the curves, were able to hold out in Tarapad despite like many offensive by the Turkish back groups. So what happened because of basically all the Syrian government, they were removed from Aleppo and as a result, like

they were very weakend and completely isolated. I mean until now there's Kurtish forces in Astrophia and Czech Masud, but they're completely surrounded and embargoed by the HTS, which is not something new because before this conflict, this new renewed conflict in Aleppo, the Syrian government was also imposing embargoes on those two neighborhoods, not allowing food and topping electricity and bothering people at checkpoints because they had like always

issues with the Kurtish led forces because they're sort of in the Syrian Civil War, they have always played sort of a third role, like they want to have their autonomy. Then you have the Shiran armed groups. They are trying to topple the Syrian government, and then you had the Syrian government trying to stop this from happening. And then yeah, the Kurtish led forces were trying to create the autonomous administration and they got some support from the US in

the fight against ISIS since the Battle of Kovani. Yeah, so yeah, this is like the situation a lepos. So now what happened is that thea fat were in twenty sixteen, the Parabs of Telfad, they fled. Actually this after s THEFYPG took this down. So now the Seen rebels they took this down, and this time that the people that fled from after into these towns that they were living around four or five six IDP camps there, they were

forced to flee. So the Kurdish groups they were like trying to resist the SNA advances, but they were not able to resist them because they were completely surrounded because as I mentioned, Nobel and Zaka fell, so they were like completely pinched from all sides. But before they had always like Nobble and Zacha behind them, so they could not not be completely surrounded. But this time they were completely surrounded. They were forced to leave there or not

able to continue the fight. So I think there was like a de facto deal or something, because you saw like convoys with actually with fighters with weapons and armed hunvies. They were like being escorted two checkpoints and they were allowed to cross towards Sabka actually a town in northeast Aria.

And maybe most likely the US they were involved in the sort of de facto deal and Turkey, but so far the US they haven't comment on that, but most likely there was sort of a deal for the forces in Tarafa to leave with the civilians and they're now hosted in camps, in displacement camps in the town of Tabca. And then there are still Kurts living as I mentioned in Astrapia and chef Marsuda to big neighborhoods in Aleppo.

And then you have also two small Kurdish towns around the Hassa which are now controlled by the year National Army the Turkish back groups, so the hyattas their local administration. They offered the deal to the Kurdish fighters. He said, you can leave these two Kurtish neighborhoods and Aleppo without any issues and the Curs that are living there, we respect them and they can stay there, but the Kurdish

fighters they have to leave. But then there was a statement i think yesterday by the leader of the SEF, the Muslim Ubdi. He was saying like we were forced to evacuate the people because we were trying to create a corridor between these Kurdish enclaves in Aleppo with the rest of North East area, because they are like Turkish backed rebels and the certain government in between trying to trying to make a corridor. So they said this corridor was actually was broken and they were forced to evacuate.

But he said that the Kurtish forces were still in Aleppo resisting. So it seems that the YPG didn't completely follow this offer of the HS. But of course we don't know if there was maybe a backdoor deal with the HTS to allow first people in nordern Alapo to leave and then maybe in a later phase that they will also leave Aleppo because they are there in a quite difficult situation.

to leave that area if they wanted. But then the buses didn't show up and they didn't leave, because I mean, they need only not only evacuated Kurdish civilians from northern Lepo, but I think they also evacuated the Shia population of Dubo Zakha. There were sometimes also that they were also evacuated to North East Ayria because they don't feel safe for their lives if those rebels take those areas. Yeah,

and they are still there. They don't want to be captured by the rebels and used as hostages or so most likely they left with the Kurts to north east Syria and what will happen to them. They probably go to Iraq or to other areas in Syria.

In the Rezor, we have a different situation, right, we have their the SDF attacking Iranian back Relicious and the regime. Do you feel comfortable explaining what's going on in Derisora where that's a different calculus.

Republicans that he was forced to come back. So until now, there are still nine hundred Jewish troops in Detozor Province and in Husska Province, which is actually not a lot because if you look to for instance, South Korea, there are thousands of troops in South Korea and in other places. So it's not very a lot. But in the US discussions it's always discussed all we have troops in Syria, but actually compared to other countries, is not a very big number.

were killed, so ye had the anti Isis fight. This is one of the reasons actually why the Kurtish led forces they were forced to go to Detozor because it was their last beast on in twenty nineteen when they defeated the territorial Caliphate of Isis. So since there you have this the SEF there and they have their own administration in the Rezor and they have like local forces and Arabs that joined them in the fight against sizes.

So what happened that in the last few years, in the last one or two years, there have been attempts by the Syrian government and Iranian back groups basically to recruit Arab tribes to fight against the SDF. So there have been several skirmishes and battles since that time. After also the SDF they arrested a commander of them that

they thought he was like going to portrade them. So since that time, there were like several skirmishes between these milasies that are calling themselves the tribal army or something in that regard. And then you have the SCF, so you had like fights between the Ranian back groups and the SDF. And recently with all the changes in Syria, there were a number of villages around seven six villages that were actually Russian army was based in those villages.

It was like the line sort of dividing the US back as theF forces and the Syrian government forces. And there's also a river, but those villages they were like in front of the river, so the river is sort of naturally dividing the areas between the SDF and the Syrian government. But there were like still a number of villages that were not on that line, and actually there

were Russian troops based in that villages. Yeah, but with the whole crisis with Aleppo and the fight now between the HCS and the Syrian government in Hannah, the Russians they moved out from those villages. So those villages that actually are almost empty, there is nothing there. So during this situation they as UF they just moved in those villages and there was actually not so much fighting, although on the social media I see that all there's fighting

and this kind of stuff. So there was some over these like the last one or two years, they have been heavy fighting between the SDF and Reign Impact Groups, but in these villages not so much because it was just anti villages and they just took them over and there was no one there.

and they also said the SDF is linked to the PIKK, although the SDF they deny links to the pi AK, although they don't deny their idological affiliation with the prison pick A k Here.

I don't know how to say it, but can you explain a little bit of this transformation of HDS and what you make of it.

which was the affiliate of al Qaeda. But then he decided to basically split from al Qaeda and he announced like these links to I think at the time that it was Zawahiri, but I'm not sure. So he basically split from al Qaeda, and you still have a split off group from al Qaeda in itlyp it's called h Russell Din, which they actually they had issues with. They

had some problems with them. So HDS, although Isis territory was defeated twenty nineteen, the HTS or they basically with all the creates in Syria because I mean they have been fighting out for all the problems between the Sern government and different armed groups. They managed to sort of cementa crowd throw in the province of lip and they created their own little administration there. But despite that, they say that we don't have any links to al Qaeda.

I mean they're still listed by for instance, the US as a terrorist organization.

there are people being imprisoned. I mean, you also had protests actually it left against Jolani that they were actually opposed to the authoritarian rule. And I think then you have separate from the sort of the Islamic Islamics, which you can actually sort of compare to the Taliban. Yes, I think that's a good comparison, Yes, to the Taliban.

And also I think Taliban they have some relationships actually the HS, and they also congratulated the HTS after they took control of Aleppo, so sort of it's like a Taliban rule, though of course Taliban is very different contacts related to Syria culture Afghan culture, so it's different of course, but they're both, yes, Islamist projects with a national project at the same time. So it's Islamist project for Syria and the Taliban have an Islamist project for Afghanistan, although

you also have Pakistani Taliban et cetera. Yeah, so it's not like a transnational jihad, but you can call it like a national jihad maybe.

They split in several groups. I mean some like linked to Muslim brotherhoods, some linked to Turkmen groups, other groups secular groups et cetera. So all these groups that were basically fighting in different provinces, they were all gathered because Turkey. They did several Turkish military did several operations in twenty sixteen in northern Syria with the main aim is to stop the YPG from linking up the Kurdish enclaves on the border with Turkey. So they did I think the

first one I was Euphraid Shield. Then they had I think Operation All of Brands in Afrin in twenty eighteen.

that used to FI. Some of them even they in the past they received support from the US from the CIA against the Seian regimes. So some of them they receive support and this is like a sort of umbrella of self organizations. So HDS is one group and they control also other groups in but it's one group. But the SNA there are like a lot of different groups, and they also have been fighting each other several times

in areas and Turkish control. So this is very different and there are more sectarian in nature, let's say more. I mean, they have also been less under control than the HTS in the way that there have been a lot of kidnappings for ransom, a lot of like sexual violence against women and rape. This is all documented by self organizations, Juan organizations. They also have child soldiers, so they have different kinds of issues, and but they have been more accused of like more sort of gang style

of activity, and that's why. Also some of them there were sanctioned by the US and also some of them they have integrated like former IIS fighters in their ranks. And you also have like first you have some groups that are frondos or the other are originally for instance from the area around Mato or Aza. Some of them they could they were displaced from Gutta, so a lot of them there also they came because the Serian government they advanced with Russian support, and then these groups were

brought by buses to the areas under Turkish control. Yeah, so these areas became a sort of like maybe it's a bad word, or sort of a dumping ground for all these Srian rebel groups that were not completely defeated but displaced by Serrian government and offenses with the Russian support.

So I mean before they were an Aleppo and homes and Hamma and Damascats in all this group they were moved with buses through agreements between around Turkey, Russia and Syria to northern Syria to it and now these groups they are coming back because they were never completely defeated.

I mean they had their own administration, so the Syrian Army they fall under the Turkish back the Cerian opposition I think they call it the Serian National Coalition or in Arabic the ital AF, so they have their own interim government administration in THEIRS on the Turkish control, and then you have the Salvation government under the Ahso the

are t two different administrations. And they also doesn't mean that they agree with so so just calling them the rebels it's a little bit like, yeah, it doesn't really doesn't fit to the reality. But of course you also have to deal with the fact that for media, if they want to explain complex situations to a general public, it's very difficult to just say, Okay, you have this acronym, and you have this acronym, and you have the white and the Ahs and the SNA. So people they will

lose their interest. So that's why it always becomes sort of this black and white. So, oh, you have the Syrian insurgence and then you have the Serian government, and then it's already complex enough to also add Kurts to the mix. So they also, of course often the Turkish government. They got very angry that the media keeps calling the YPG the curse because oh, they don't represent the curse. But you can't say that with any group in Syria or anywhere in the world. I mean, I mean you

have in Americans, you have different political parties. You have different parties in Syria, you have different parties in Turkey. So these groups don't represent all the Syrians, or all the Arabs, or all the Kurts or all the Allwais. There are always different political factions and that's what it makes so complicated in Syria because a lot of these based groups got fragmented. But actually with versus the support of Turkey, they actually united on the one umbrella, which

is called the Syrian National Army. And then of course even on the Syrian government side, there's many different groups. I mean you have you have Iranian back armed groups, you have groups from Lebanon that are helping the Hezbola Albani says Bola. Then you have Iraqi Iranian back groups that are supporting Syrian government. Then you have also Shias

that were recruited from Afghanistan. And then also in the Syrian government security structure, I mean, in the past there was no room for malicious but they have, for instance, the NDF, which is sort of like a Syrian govern want back militia, which even sometimes part with the Syrian government itself when they tried to become become more too much powerful, sort of like what you haven't Wagner in Russia that we try to challenge the Russian government and

then they got third bailed. So it's like even with a certain sort of the forces back in the Cerian army, it's not like so simple. It's also not you have just a Serian army that's it. You have also different kinds of militia, some supported by Iran, some supported by Russia that are backing the Syrian government.

much more complex in in in Syria. Althoio obviously also have different groups fighting in Ukraine, but in Syria it's a bit more complex and it's difficult for the media to get a grip on that without like you know, like trying to also explain to a normal reader of what is going on in Syria. But also in general you have all this international media that are cutting down

costs and they're closing there for and bureaus. So also i mean the money for like extensive reporting in Syria is also getting less or in general in internationally speaking, yes, And then you have another problem is that you have the problem of access in Syria. So if you are wanted to go to the same government area is very difficult because if you have reported in Syrian rebel areas, the same government is not going to give you a visa.

You have to be like very l Serian government if you go to the areas under rebel control to be honest, like, it's very difficult for any journalists to go to HDS areas or the Eran National Army area. So even if a journalist wants to report positively about the rebels, it's

very difficult. Then they have like a press adcutation in Turkey and they have to cross the boarders very complicated, so there's barely in very rare cases journalists going into northwest Aria and then with the Kurdish controlled areas if you can call them like that, like northeast here, it's a bit easier. I mean, there are people flying to Iraqi, Curtistan and then they can get like a permission from the Kurdish authorities. They're in Iraqi, Curtistan and then they

can cross the border. So it's a bit easier. But the number of journals going there is very limited, and most of the interests actually of the Western media was not so much about the cern conflict. It was more about this western ISIS woman and ISIS fighters that were jailed or held in in Northeast Airia. So most of the focus of the Western media was most of the time, okay, what's happening in the whole camp, because you have thousands

of ISIS families there or in versus in the prison. So, I mean, the American journals were interested in US doash fighters, and the Dutch were interested in Dutch ices families are fighters, and the same for many other countries.

they have their own domestic issues. So also in general, the interesting in Syria has gone down a lot, and I think also with this current conflict and Aleppo, it will get some intention in the media for a few days, but at some point it's gonna go down again, yes, of course, and maybe there will be conflicts and other

parts of the world again. So I think at some point also this media attention because the media attention for Sir already was like very low, unless it's gonna affect Europe in a large extent because it could also create new waves of refugees trying to go to Europe. Yeah, there's many people that were displaced. Again. It was a very nice post on X by one Journeys from I think a Saudi outlet, and he was saying it's very

sad to see. He was basically saying like at any moment, our people can be displaced at any time or can be displaced again. So that's like sort of the life of Syrians that live in these different like front lines, like anytime they can displace, like the people at Traffreine they were displaced in twenty eighteen and now twenty twenty

four they were displaced again. And then you have people displaced by the Syrian government living in the houses of kurts in Afrine and they're also victims of this conflict. So yeah, so it's a very complicated situation, people being displaced, moving in the houses of displaced and displace living in other people's houses that are also displaced. So it's like a very cynical and sad situation.

those displaced civilians in the near future. And certainly we've seen a lot of Kurdish people who have been displaced either by Turkish aggression or who there's a whole other situation with the Kurdish areas in Turkey at the moment and their elections and such which we don't have time to go into but many of them have come to the US, and I've interviewed lots of them for this show, so we've I think people will be familiar with that, right, I mean, I think that's probably about all we have

time for. But I wanted to offer you a chance. You have very good tweets, you have a very good understanding of the whole situation. You have your articles do an excellent job of making it understandable. So where can people find your writing and follow you?

few times on the situation and Aduchavella. So you can find my work on my Twitter profile. Always post my articles there and yeah, yep, that's great.

posting stuff. And then also I think it's very interesting and good to follow the maps of the Serian Civil War because you have several places where they publish maps of the civil war, so it's easier to follow it on the map than by tweets or posts on eggs. But I think in general, I mean, I mean, there are still like many international media that are trying to do reporting on Syria, but I think in general what I've seen it's becoming more limited, and it's mostly based on,

for instance, the Serum Observretory for Human Rights. Yes, so the same observatory for human rights. It's a good source. They have a page in English and Arabic, although sometimes they are the English pages are a bit difficult to follow for people if they don't know the background of the conflict because it's more written for locals. Yeah, and then also you have fends. There's this civil site organization that focus on human rights abuses. I think it's called

Seriance for Justice. They are very good reports on the situation, but it's a bit slow because it's not like twenty four hours. I mean it's like they're doing investigative reports

on abuses by all sides of the ceriin civil conflict. Yeah, so Johtal I think it is very grud And also like telegram, I mean a lot of these different groups they have telegram channels where they post the latest updates, but of course all of them are quite biased, but bias you will get anyway in such a conflicts, in over the war, so.

truly spectacularly stupid coup. That coup ended with the army running away from a bunch of protesters who were just like yelling at them meanly, so that one had I thing I've never seen before, which is the army that the protesters were trying to bring something up to break a barricade, and the army ran away before they could get the like anti barricade thing up to the police barricade,

So that was a disaster. Today we are talking about what I having now studied this like since it was since it started, I genuinely believe this somehow is an even stupider coup than the last. Like I you have to go back to like the CIA coup in Venezuela where everyone just got that like arrested by fishermen to find a stupider coup than this, it is, and even that one, like at least they like landed guys with guns.

It was over so quick, like yeah, I think the official number is that the amount of time the martial law was technically in effect before the Assembly voted to get rid of it was one hundred and ninety minutes.

was an attempted coup in South Korea. I don't know what day it's gonna be when I don't know what day it's gonna be in Korea when this comes out, because yeah, but on on Tuesday day, on our Tuesday in like the the it was I think ten thirty night there the hideously unpopular president of Korea, Sok yel yun, tried to declared martial law. Une is. His approval rating is like half of Joe Biden's approval rating. Like his approval rating is like twenty percent. He is staggeringly unpopular.

He yeah, so you. And he won one election in twenty twenty two, very narrowly, in a race where neither of the candidates were particularly good. And he is a hardline, far right dipshit. He's you know, I mean, one of his big things. He has this unbelievably hardline in North Korea, which is not you know, doing anything productive at all. He's also you know, and this is like if you want to look at like, who are his twenty percent of supporters left? He was the guy of the unbelievably

unhinged Korean misogynist movement. I guess you would call them, who are some of the worst people on earth. I mean, these are guys who will just There was a court case recently that decided that you can't just like beat someone up for having short hair because you think they're a feminist. Like, that's the kind of like unhinged misogynists that we're dealing with. That's that's Union's base. However, a

couple of things have happened since then. One is that he's racked by like a thousand scandals everyone in his in his cabinet. He keeps getting impeached for doing corruption. There are so many different corruption scandals with him going on right now that I was considering like reading out a list of all of them as a joke, but it's too long. One of the important ones is that he was like basically doing like a pay for play thing to like fuck with his own party's primary process.

Nice and this has pissed off basically his entire party, which is great, which is exactly the thing you want to be doing right before you auld take the stage of coup, is piss off your own political party. So all right, let's get to the coup. He major problem, one of his very major problems is that he hasn't been able to do anything basically since he's been in power. And the reason he hasn't been able to do anything is that his first sort of like off election was

this unbelievably crushing electoral defeat for his party. The National Assembly, which is their like parliament, is just straight up controlled by the opposition Democratic like Liberal well, okay, let me be very cific about this is controlled by the opposition Democratic Party, who are the sort of like Korean Liberal Party and also a bunch of like minor allied opposition parties, and they keep on again impeaching all of his cabinet members,

which is very funny. You know, he was trying to get a budget through and the budget got eviscerated and he hasn't been able to do it. So he's been very very angry and very frustrated, and so his plan apparently to deal with this was just to knock out the National Assembly.

were staggeringly hideous. They killed unbelievable numbers of people, they tortured unbelievab numbers of people. They were full back by the United States, and the military has also always had this real chip on its shoulder about sort of liberal civilian politicians, and they have their version of like all of the conspiracy things that we have about how all democratic communists and how they're all like secretly et cetera,

et cetera. So for this is like they're all secretly North Korea supporters, et cetera, et cetera.

number two. Oh yeah, that's that is an that is an experience the side of like very very experienced military coup people announced martial Law Command Proclamation number one based on the contents of prohibiting all political activities of the National Assembly and local assemblies. The acclaimation also included contents that controlled the press and publications and prohibited citizens assemblies and demonstrations, as well as strikes and workstop wages by workers.

It is also notable that it included the content quote all medical personnel, including residents who are on a strike who have left the medical field must return to their original work within forty eight hours and work faithfully, and

violations will be published in accordance with the Martial Law Act. Now, it's important to note here if the thing you are trying to do is impose martial law on Korea according to the Constitution, and obviously if you're in the state where you're opposing martial law, the law has kind of got out the window. But you can't get rid of the National Assembly. That is not a thing that marshial

law allows you to do. With In fact, very explicitly in the Korean Constitution it says that like the National Assembly can't be gotten rid of by martial law. So this suggests to me that, yeah, this was something that was also being sort of spearheaded by parts of the

Korean military. Because if you're not someone in the army who has their own interest in doing a coup, and someone asks you to just like overthrow the parliament, which is a thing that they're not allowed to do, you just say no, which which also makes the failure of this and how unbelievably stupidly it was all put together even more baffling, right, because if we assume that parts of the clicks in the army had to have been involved with this, and like we know and this only

FPR talks about Un is like fucked right. There's no way he's holding onto power. He's screwed and he's gonna be That will make him the second Korean president in seven years to be ran out by mass protests, and dream the last set of politicians who were getting rid out by mass protests. The army actually started drafting like procedures for how they were going to do a military takeover to like to knock out the protests, and they

never did it. But this is a this has been a thing that's been in the background for a long time, and the liberal the liberal establishment has been talking about how the right wants to bring back military rule for ages. This is a situation that in some ways is similar to Brazil, where the right has always been a sort of like, we like military rule kind of thing, but nobody actually seriously thought they would do it until they did.

And you know, I'm gonna read one more thing before we go to ads here, which is he claimed that the National Assembly was quote the mastermind behind the downfall of the country, which, okay, that's pretty normal coup stuff, quote monsters and quote anti state forces seeking to overthrow

the system. Now again he has just described the National Assembly, which is the Korean parliament as quote anti state forces seeking to overthrow the system, which now gives us the specter of the Anarco Parliament.

opposition political figures. You need to seize the radio stations that this includes you know today, like newspapers, TV stations.

one of the largest GUESTI bases in the world. The other thing is like, this is an entire country of protesters and capitalist protesters, very scary. Well, but like everyone fucking like fucking everyone in this country either like was a protester when they were a fucking kid or was one now to the extent we're like liberal members of

parliament know how to build barricades. It's so cool. This actually matter enormously, like like fucking guys who are just like random aids where and there are videos of this of the of like just like random staffer guys like holding barricades from like against like paratrooper units and like like just random staffers like shooting fire extinguishers at army special forces units. Like can you fucking imagine that shit in the.

It's like there are a protests outside the National Assembly like every fucking day, right, Like again, the last time they brought down a prime minister with maths protest was seven years ago. This is a whole country of people who know how to do this shit, and for some reason these idiots were like, we have no popular support whatsoever, and we're just gonna be able to like roll over

this entire country in one night. So I think the plan was to hold the National Assembly and prevent the National Assembly from convening so that there was nobody who could override the martial law order.

this guy who showed up. This is again the part I'm I'm talking about this being a country of protesters. Like these guys aren't like leftists like revolutionaries, right, this Like one of the guys they were talking to the New York Times, like their journals on the ground, pulls over a random guy and he's a sixty year old real estate agent. Right, this is a guy who should be like, this should be the base of a military coup. Right.

This is a sixty year old man who doesn't real estate it and he heard about this and immediately his life was quote, this is the end. So he drove for a fucking hour at like one in the morning to show up to the National Assembly to go fight the army. There was just no way this is good to work. And so people, even though it's really late up,

people just flood out. And suddenly there's all of these protesters in front of the National Assembly and they're doing shit like there's this unbelievable video of this soldier like tries to take a guy's phone, and this guy has some kind of e martial arts trading. It just grabs his arm and just spins him around.

the American side. They are notorious as the people who the military has always used to sort of put down protests. One of the most famous examples of this is the Guandra Uprising in nineteen eighty, which was a pro democracy uprising after one of the various stages of insane military coup stuff was going on in South Korea in nineteen eighty and there's a large democratic uprising from sort of

students and workers. There's a bunch of strikes. They take this area and the paratroopers come to shoot them all.

They killed probably several thousand people, and a lot of the paratrooper units that were deployed to take the National Assembly were literally the same units that were sent into crushes uprising in nineteen eighty, So this was in some ways very very scary, right because these are like, again, these are the units that were sent in to shoot a bunch of fucking civilians in the streets in order to keep military rule intact. However, this time these para

units just got their shthanded to them. So it's sort of unclear exactly what was going on in the National Assembly. It seemed like some National semi members were still there, but somehow, and we don't part of how this happened, which is protesters were just there's a video of I think it was like the opposition leader. The protesters like like pushed him up over a fence so he could break into the National Assembly and get past the military barricades.

Like like one hundred and ninety lawmakers somehow like got into the National Assembly and barricaded themselves in.

of the White House. Like the police in this country lost control of the centers of several major American cities. So like Americans will fight, right, but can you imagine like Nancy Pelosi or like like Chuck Schumer or whoever it was around like trying to set up, like setting up barricades to stop the army from like marching into Like no, it's unreal. And these were good barricades too.

These were very well constructive barricades. These are barricades that like are better than a lot of barricades I've seen set up by protesters over the like in the US over the last few years. And the consequence of this was that the National Assembly just voted for the coup to be over, because they can just vote to say that the martial laws over. And then the military kind of was just like, well shit and just kind of left.

do it later. I don't know. But the troops have already all pulled out by this point and like they go back to their barracks after the National Assembly is like what the fuck. So there's been a lot of haymade about how one hundred and ninety members of the National Assembly showed up and every single one of them

voted to end martial law and like that's cool. But I've seen a lot of people be like, oh, look at how democratic the PPP, which is the right wing party that UN's a part of, is from, like they voted to do it, but like, okay, yes it was. This was a unanimous vote. I need everyone to understand that there were three hundred members of the National Assembly and that means that means one hundred and ten of them didn't show up, and that of the people who

showed up, there were only eighteen members. Yeah, of the PPP who showed up to this now, and part of that, like it is true, it is. It was a bit difficult to get through the fucking military occupation fit with paratroopers but everyone else you have managed to, so you know, and UN's own party also just hates him because again, like one of the scandals he's going down for is like fucking with their primaries and like getting a bunch of people who had safe seats, like losing their safe

seats so he could put his guys in. And again he also tried to arrest the head of his own parties. So like, these people don't like him for very immediate person or reason is not because the PPP is somehow like a party more committed to democracy than the Republican Party is here like no, these people all suck, like, oh god, But this leaves us with the aftermath of this, and the first thing I want to kind of go

over is what the fuck were they doing? Because again, if you look at the sequence of events here, right, there's this coup, right, the martial law goes into effect, the army backs it and tries to occupy the National Assembly, but then the National Assembly votes that the martial law

is over, and then the army just leaves. Now what if you go back to remembering when I was talking about the beginning of this, right, seizing the National Assembly is not something you are allowed to do in a state of emergency or a martial law in position, right, that's something explicitly the army is banned from doing. They did it anyways, which means that like probably like a bunch of generals are also going to prison for this.

But then they also immediately back down when it be came clear that you know, they were gonna there was going to be resistance, and that if they were going to try to stop this, they were either wouldn't have to beat the shit out of or just like actually

shoot a bunch of lawmakers in the National Assembly. And I understand that that's a bad idea, and I get why these people didn't want to do that, just like from their own things politically, But if if you weren't willing to do that, why did you do this in the first place? Like, how did you think this was gonna go? The only thing I could think of was that they thought they could just should have. I thought it was ten thirty at night, we can just shock

and awe everyone. Yeah, we'll just roll them over. But like, do you know what country you were in?

to go before he got fired. This one, there was no time pressure. He could have just done this whenever with better planning, And I don't know it's it's all very very deeply weird in terms of what's happening next. I mean Yun was finished anyways, Like he again he had a twenty percent of proof of rating going into this. Coming out of this, there's immediately a Democratic party is trying to impeach him, Like a bunch of the PPP, who's again supposed to be his party, are also going

along with it because they hate him. There was some very funny comments from PPP guys who were like his supporters, who were like, well he literally one of them said that he did this thing and as anyone thought about like the pressure of burden placed on him, maybe someone should have gotten to talk to him or did this because he was lonely, which is the most insane thing I've ever heard of my life. Like he just he just tried to argue that this guy you need a

coup because he was lonely. What the fuck?

Like this faction of people who have been running the country is just gone. I mean they'll still be the PPP, right, this will be like conservatives, but like, they just have obliterated themselves in maybe the most spectacular fashion I have ever seen. And you know what happens when they are sort of unclear? Is it right now? We're recording this Wednesday, Yeah,

Wednesday at like ten am. Yeah, so it's it's unclear exactly what's gonna happen in the time between when this when we record this and when this goes out, but uns finished. This is it's pretty yeah, and I'm I'm hoping that we see a serious attempt to actually like deal with the fact that the army is ran by a bunch of people who tried to do a coup. We won't and we might well no like it. Here's

the thing in the US, absolutely not South Korea. Maybe there's a chance, there's like a there is a slight chance that people get purged from this, right and in a similar way to like Lula kind of purging some of the army.

So you know, there was a lot of pressure to clean house here, and like a lot of Korean liberalism is based on this, the sort of mythos of like of the student protesters, and like the protesters, you brought down the military dictatorship and trying to do a military coup and immediately failing is like the best possible thing you could have done for them. The consequences of this for you and are going to be extremely bad. I

hope we get a better Korea out of this. I hope this sort of starts to stem the tide of the unhinged right wing surge that's been happening there for a while now.

abortion in this country. I'm your host, Na Wong. Things have been very bad under the last administration and the administration before that, and the administration before that, and going back a long long time, things have been not good.

They've been steadily getting worse, and there is a lot of fear, and I think a lot of is very justified that things are going to get even worse under Trump, and to talk about what we need to be afraid of and what we don't is Kate Bertash, who's the executive director of the Digital Defense Fund, and also Crystal, who's an abortion worker and also a volunteer for abortion hotlines. So both of you two, welcome to the show.

we provide free digital security evaluations trainings. We do a lot of project management work to help people set up what they'd like to change about their systems and security and we also help people pay for it, which is a really wonderful way to get to kind of see through our values. So I'm excited to be on here today to talk a little bit more about the implications for both organizations and individuals.

which is like how do we know? And I think we're sort of lucky in this way that we know what are likely to be risks now to both people who are seeking abortions as well as people who help them get their folks as well, like Crystal, I know, will provide some additional color to this as well, But we know what kind of threats face people facing abortions in those who help them, because unfortunately a lot of these threats have been happening for the last several decades,

people have been prosecuted for suspicion of ending their own pregnancies. We get a lot of really incredible and insightful data from organizations like IF one how who put out these reports that are called self care Criminalized, and they look backwards across all of the different cases that have happened to this space and try to come up with sort

of like these key aspects. And one of the big things that we know that I'm sure we're going to talk about a lot through this episode is that the core way that people come to the attention of law enforcement for seeking to allegedly end their own pregnancies is through usually someone they know reporting them or someone responsible

for their care. So that might be like healthcare worker, social worker, other representative agent of the state, and it can be really devastating to kind of hear and I think internalize that it's often people's family members like X or friends, neighbor who might turn somebody in expecting or misunderstanding that it is a crime to end your own pregnancy.

I think one of the things that's really hard about this is that it involves some of the ways in which, like I guess it's what you would call very unfortunately typical policing practices, the way in which people's rights are violated when they are interrogated, when they are pressured into

disclosing information. There's something called consent search that it unfortunately ends up being a very common feature of these kinds of cases, which is where you're put in a room and you're talking to representive agent and state or a police officer, and they sort of pressure you into agreeing to unlock and disclose often your phone and other device or to or whyse share information quote unquote voluntarily. And it's easy to see why people kind of get pressured

into that. So that is something that tends to happen in many kinds of prosecutions of crimes or alleged crimes.

And I think it's hard for a lot of people to imagine what that's like to be pulled over and searched in this way, or like they're often like people are not the targeted victims of something like stop and frisk, and so it's sort of hard to imagine in your mind the way in which somebody is information or their data or their case comes to the attention of law enforcement, and so we like tend to then imagine these other threats that feel perhaps closer to our daily experience, especially

as like often people who are not racially targeted by police, who are not targeted by the family policing system, or have their pregnancies surveiled by the hospital systems. So people like to imagine then that. I think a big one that we all hear and I think we're all going to take a deep breath at the same time is period tracking apps was kind of remarkable, as Crystal.

giving you my real name? Ordering medication online? Can the United States get my records if I order from this provider overseas? Such as women on web and just yeah, people asking like can I be arrested?

any issue. But there is also risk and it's kind of like what Kate was saying, where people tend to it seems like people don't know what the risk has been or what it looks like because like Kate was saying, there's like I been all these years of pregnancy criminalization, and we know what it looks like, and it tends to not be what people are worrying about right now, where people seem to be thinking like that the police are going to come up arrest them for putting in

this order along with hundreds of other people in a given day, or that the police or somehow are going to get their period tracker information on their on their phone, and you know, like, of course, you know, practice dicial security in a way that makes you feel comfortable. Like if you don't want to use a period tracking app, you know there are safer ones to use, or you

don't have to use it. But the fact of the matter is is that even if you are using pen and paper to record your period, if you have an abusive partner, they're going to be able to take pictures and collaborate with police. So the biggest threats are always, you know, as the data shown, like Kate was saying, going to be healthcare workers and the people that you know such as partners, family members, neighbors, friends, et cetera, who are going to get access to pictures, screenshots.

not leave evidence. Like so, yeah, you can order the medication online, but you can also use signal and we can know that Kate's probably going to go more into this, but you can make sure you have disappearing messages. You can use encrypted emails and search engines. You have to make sure you're thinking about who can see your data

and you know where your data is being recorded. And that's really like if you want to protect yourself in terms of avoiding criminalization for abortion and pregnancy outcomes and you know, having a secure and safe abortion in the

United it stays. Then you have to look at the basics like this, And I'm going to let Kate talk about that a little bit more because I know that you have all the good information that the Digital Defense Line has looked into about the apps and then how to delete data and what data to delete and how to think about this.

we can have our digital devices and our technology sort of support us with these by default type of settings. One of the things that's really tough to I think understand until you've been through it is sort of like what it looks like when you go through any kind of investigation. I think the other hard kind of like context to get from the way we talk about it now is that a lot of how pregnancy is criminalized that sort of scaffolding that infrastructure was built during the

drug war. So one of the most common kinds of pregnancy criminalization in America is drug testing people who are pregnant or come to give birth without their consent. And you know, so we basically consider like being an alleged drug user to be the sort of like primary way that our decision of like how much the digital evidence

matters has like kind of come to take shape. So often when an investigation is happening, the police will look for where are all the sources of information I can find about this, because like the human body is like not super compliant with like digital forensic evidence.

So often when we're like imagining all of the data that lives in our phone, because unfortunately, in many cases, when you are perhaps coerced into consenting to the search of a device, they will often take your phone and

then have you unlock it. It gets plugged into a device that makes clone of the entire drive, and then they can sort of with many different techniques kind of leisurely look through it for keywords to kind of tell where there might be evidence somewhere on your phone that you, for example, when on the internet, search for and purchased abortion medication. So yes, like period track and data might

be one portion of that. But unfortunately, in all the cases that we've seen, or at least in most of the ones that we're most familiar with, all of that quote unquote plain text data. So where you've just written out in your own unencrypted words into a search bar in the search engine on your phone, or you've sent a text message to a very close contact with somebody telling them how you feel about your pregnancy. That you desire to end it, perhaps your plan to buypills, even

the receipt that comes into your inbox. It's not necessary then to go to all these companies and go file a you know, for a warrant and get all that information, because now it's in just plain text, quote unquote on your phone, and that is far more information than the like abstract information that might come out of a period tracker. So unfortunately cops don't tend to use these in cases

that we've seen because it's quite simply not necessary. That kind of like plain text admission of your state of mind or the statement of your intent has unfortunately been the sort of core evidence that comes up. And I think this has like a lot of like really quite sad implications. I know, in prior to prepare for this episode, we were discussing a couple of cases that I know

folks might be more familiar with. A big one that came up is, you know, the case of a mother and daughter out of Nebraska who were having a discussion around allegedly helping the daughter to find and end for her pregnancy over Meta's Facebook messenger. And I think what I find really quite devastating about it for many reasons, is that these messages were actually ones that like I think any of us could hope to have with a

very supportive parent or other person in our life. Is like, why we have, you know, these conversations so that we can feel connected and supported through such a complex and affecting process. It then becomes very sad to me that it becomes a criminal matter just because it was in a place that that conversation, you know, Meta did not have this family's back in terms of encrypting those messages or ensuring that they were free to speak of what

they wish when they wish by default. So I think like when we start to give out advice, it's been important for us at Digital Defense Fund to kind of work backwards. I know it's been an existential crisis I think for everybody in the digital security space to know that like the list of advice I could give you on how to protect yourself when going through these transactions, or when seeking support, or like just having a normal you know, questions and going on the Internet being able

to google them and get them answered. That we have to kind of like start from the basics, because like you have the right to find information from reliable resources. You have the right to buy pills from a reliable source. You have the right to like seek that kind of

connection and support from people in your life. And so we're trying to cut down on like all the infinite amount of advice that we could give and try to like narrow it to like what is actionable, what has the greatest impact potentially in the cases we've seen.

was what was used. Even though the lawsuit was dismissed because it was a very silly lawsuit, total waste of time. But that is the kind of thing that we really you really need to be asking yourself, is you know, where are my messages going?

household surveillance threat model I think is vastly underestimated. I can't recall the figures at the moment, but one of those more recent reports from if one how actually had detailed just how frequently actually that sort of like how it is also this like intimate partner violence situation that comes up also in a regnancy or abortion criminalization case.

And so you know, this person challenged me to think about the exact threat model of the unlocked iPad on the on the family coffee table and thinking about like when we share information and we share devices kind of

like where does it go? So like, actually, our first piece of recommendation that we often give is is it can sound deceptively simple and it doesn't sound technical at all, but it is to think about like who you are telling about your experience and about like you know, your abortion or wanting to have an abortion, and then understanding whether you've like been clear about your boundaries, like do you expect them to not share or tell with others?

Like can you delete any messages with them? Would they ask if you ask them after the fact to delete

things for you, would they absolutely do that? I think you've can be really challenging to kind of like zoom out and realize, like you know, it's often not as easy as it sounds to like kind of do this mental inventory and think about all the different ways that like me and my best friend talk, or you know, when I mentioned things to people offhand, we don't have a really good I think like social practice of you know,

understanding the implication of like sharing other people's information without their permission, and so, like you know, it's very impactful but also very difficult, and it can't be very individual for all of us to kind of think more carefully about with whom we share things and how we ask people to keep our confidence, and how we can even offer each other the ability to like delete things that

we don't want to exist indefinitely. I think one of the biggest sort of existential struggles that crosses over to where people get support for abortions from like organizations, also includes the fact that I know has been discussed many times on this podcast, that there is a difference in how much information is kept depending on where you were

having a conversation on your phone. So an SMS text message, those little green bubbles that go back and forth between you and possibly other people who are on iOS like iOS and Android combination conversation you're friends with and an Android might have a green bubble come back to you.

That basically means that that is going as an SMS text message to your phone carrier, and that means that it's going quote unquote in plain text, totally unencrypted to the cell tower, and it's being held by that phone carrier, unencrypted, readable as it is as you typed it in as far as we know forever. It can vary depending on

whether or not you move to a different carrier. But unfortunately, phone carriers have a very long history also of disclosing that information readily on request, either from law enforcement or from other agencies, and I think that is troubling. I think, like no person would really like to know that, regardless of what that you intend to do with your text messages. But it's why we often then encourage people as like sort of a second step to try and use encrypted

chat with Signal or another trusted and encrypted chat. Again sounds overly simplistic, but I think having those disappearing messages on, especially between people who are seeking support from one another, whether it's somebody in your life or another organization that's helping you to get your abortion, there really is something to that ability to again speak freely, to be best friends, helping your friends you know, allegedly get abortion medication, or

to being a mom you know, there to support your child. No matter what, I think, it's just something really wonderful about how using disappearing messages with Signal like reflects the values that we actually have already with each other and just like make sure that technology companies or corporations or law enforcement don't get to get in the way of how we want to live our lives.

And you're in you're and you avoiding criminalization, So you know, part of the service is also reassuring people of that too, that it is possible to have a safe abortions.

for very good reasons. There are many good reasons to not want to go to r including costs, including your safety and security, the chance of criminalization.

some of my symptoms. And you know, it's like this extra kind of added support that you can access as a pregnant person or you know, if you're having a miscarriage, if you're having an abortion, to assess your risk and to see if you can avoid even going to a medical slight given that you know, going to an emergency room in a banned state is something that does increase the risk of criminalization.

questions about your abortion or pregnancy experience. I know that it's really hard because often when folks are in a hospital setting, we're sort of socialized to disclose everything. You know, we want to tell our doctor what's wrong and tell them everything we took, and you know, you worry it might be relevant. But I was reassured, I think by many other professionals in the space that doctors treat based on the symptoms that you present with, regardless of how

they got there. You might be at a physician where you don't know, so you know, if you just tell folks what's going on with your body, what you are seeing, what you were feeling and experiencing. It is their job to treat you regardless of what you choose to share. And I would say that that's actually a true regardless of what healthcare condition you come into the ear with, it is your right to only disclose as much as

you feel safe doing so. So I think, like that was something that I know, again we're not used to thinking about that as like a digital security measure, but it is an information in security measure, and I think an operational security measure that you know, we've had to like then realize that that's actually probably almost more important to tell people before we start getting into this nitty gritty of like things to do with your phone, is

to understand that those principles that we believe that you know, the human again, the human body is very varied and how it experiences something like pregnancy, miscarriage, and abortion, and that you know, folks have a responsibility to treat you regardless of you know, what's in your phone or what happened before that, or the like statement of facts that are relevant to a courtroom and not to your care.

For our second item, we're going to make a plan for if we need to get care after the fact and ensure that we're trying to again have our support people. Also understand that you know, doctors treat you based on the symptoms you present with That is I don't have to tell them anything else that you do not wish

to disclose. And the third thing is that something that I think as digital security practitioners we kind of forget is super important, which is that like you know, I think I run into this conflict where as like experts or smart people, we try to like imagine in our mind, like how we would have this perfectly like footprint free abortion, you know like this like use signal, use Tori's bitcoin, kind of like strange way of architecting, you know, privacy

in our mind, And I call it the ghost abortion, like that it's it's a myth. You can't have one. There's no such thing as an abortion that leads no footprint. But I think we forget then that it actually is super meaningful to delete what's within our power to delete. So our third recommendation for folks is to like be aware of what's collected and then ensure that you know that.

I think there you get more options than ever to decide like how long you want to keep something, And it does make it so that that primary thing we talked about, like if somebody were to take my phone from me and to like you know, make a clone of it and try to look through it, at least it's deleted. That copy is no longer on my device. Even if they would have to go to like you know, get a warrant later, that is still great. It still gives me and my council time to respond and also

allows me to access my right to do process. And I think so like these are like these three simple things I know that will give to link that our guide that kind of puts this all in a row and very plain language. We also have a Spanish language guide for it as well. But just to know that,

like you know, these things are within our power. I think it's really easy to get tangled up in the idea of like abstract data and things that are really tough for us to always know when they're generated, like ad tracker data or you know, who is reselling or doing something with my period tracking apps. There are great options that are local only to your phone, like Yuki app. If you are concerned about that other apps seeing whether

or not they use best practice of security. If they've responded and said like how they would respond to a legal request.

the abortion restrictions and the abortion bands. Now we are only you know, admittedly they're going to get worse. This is going to get less safe. There is going to be greater risk of criminalization. So when people call, when people call and they ask like can I access pills.

of you. They'll let you confess your crime, so invoke your right to remain silent, get a fucking lawyer, don't talk to them. And you know, listen, this is advice. It's not just coming from me, right like this, This is the advice you will get from every single person who does who does any kind of from offense. This is what you'll get from a public defender. This is what you'll get from anyone who has even sort of

interacted with the legal system. And this is also true even if they tell you, oh, you're not a suspect, you're just a blah blah blah. We're trying to get information. It is their job to lie to you. Think about it roughly the same way of like if you're dealing with like a country secret police. How much information would you give them? The answer is do not. Simply do not do this.