I got this problem. I go to Costco and when I'm there, I always sneak and I buy like a big giant cub of peanut and MPs and I eat them. Carob, get sick.
You are weak, John Cipher. The KGB is going to see this, and they're going to know this vulnerability. This is Jerry O'Shea and my co conspirator, John Cipher, and this is a mini episode of Mission Implausible.
So in nineteen seventy eight, the government passed the PISA Law, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, to try to create a mechanism by which intelligence collectors in the intelligence community could collect on foreign intelligence targets. The thing that we're talking about today. Section seven oh two of the Pisa Act was enacted to address a collection gap that resulted from the evolution of technology in the years after the Pisa
actress passed in nineteen seventy eight. So by the mid two thousands, many terrorists and other foreign adversaries were using email accounts served by US companies and telecommunications companies in the United States. In other words, someone talking from Pakistan to Afghanistan, their email may rout through the United States, and therefore we needed to create a process by which we could collect this. That's what seven h two is.
The program cannot target US persons regardless of location, whether they're overseas or in the United States.
But for the audience, if you're not dealing with ISIS terrorists in Afghanistan, and you're not dealing with Russian intelligence officers and having shady deals with them, you don't actually have to worry about this. So anybody out there who is not dealing with Russian intelligence officers Chinese intelligence officers are terrorists. FIS A dozen't impact on you, And if people try to make you believe that it does, they're conspiring to get you to believe something that isn't true.
So why that's a big deal this week is that law runs out at the end of the month and Congress has to either change it, reform it, or continue the law. And people on the far right and far left are trying to kill off fis A seven oh two. Many people in the middle but also our national security
professionals are saying it's critical. Sixty percent of the presidential daily brief material that is briefed from the intelligence agencies to the president comes from seven oh two FISA collection and multiple terrorists plots have been foiled based on this information. For example, the location of the OLCAEDA leader Zawahiri, who was eventually killed in Afghanistan last year, it was all
information that came from FISA seven or two collection. What's happened as former President Trump is running for reelection that FISA seven or two should be killed now because in twenty sixteen, the information that led to the Muller report and the Senate report and a number of people that were part of the Trump campaign being arrested because of
contact with Russian intelligence officers. Those people have convinced themselves that they were being quote unquote spied on by the FBI or the intelligence community, and so therefore we have to get rid of it.
I'm not sure exactly what an aspersion is, but let me cast one out right. So if I've got something to hide, the last thing I want is someone investigating me. So when edver anybody says get rid of the process of like checking up on me, I got to wonder, like why, I just want to go through a real quick list of people in Trump's organization who you know,
why he might be concerned. So there's his campaign chairman, Paul Mayniford, senior campaign official, Rick Gates, national security advisor, Mike Flynn, his son Don Trump, Jared Kushner, Trump campaign advisor, George Papadopolis campaign advisor, Rick Page, Jeff Sessions, Jack Guy, the name of G. D. Gordon, Roger Stone, Mike Caputo, Eric Prince, Abby Berkowitz, Michael Cohen, and Avonka Trump. All these people, and you can go look it up, were
in touch directly or indirectly with Russian intelligence officers. If you're saying, hey, in my world, me and all my friends are in touch secretly with Russian intelligence officers and lying about it. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with having Russian intelligence officers as your best friend and your best friend's best friends. But I worry about that.
But what happened Trump in Russia and Russia collusion, all those things that happened in the twenty sixteen election, That was a tool that was used to spy on Russians, on Russian intelligence activities in the United States. It just turned out that Trump campaign officials were on the other end of those calls. So the reason this is a big deal is almost every NAW security professional is saying, this is absolutely critical. This is where we get the
bulk of our intelligence. This is the place that we stop hackers, that we stopped terrorists. And just because President Trump misunderstands the thing and wants to attack what he calls a deep state, and in this case he's one hundred percent wrong, it was a different FISA law that the FBI used to track foreign interference in the United States. There was a case just last week, for example, where a teenage boy planning to attack churches in Idaho in
support of ISIS was arrested. Now, I don't know for sure, but I wouldn't be surprised if that came through some sort of PISA seven or two collection that the FBI then queried to find out that there is an American tied to a foreign terrorist organization and they were able to stop him. His plan was, and the quote, was to stop close by the church, equip the webs, and storm the temple, kill as many people as possible before they inevitably disperse and scatter, then burn the temple to
the ground, and flee the scene. And then he said he would repeat it for all twenty one churches in the town.
And he could have been talking to someone in Afghanistan telling him how to build a bomb. And I would want to be the one going to the relatives of the people who were killed and saying I just didn't want Fiza, because you know, I don't know what you'd say.
You know, there's always been conspiracies around intelligence services because it's secrecy and surveillance.
I got to tell you, John, when I was on the inside, we had trouble figuring out which possible like numbers to follow of people that we were pretty sure were involved in terrasm. You know, if you're speaking Urdu or Farsi or Arabic, these are generally the Chechen these are the numbers that were interested in. If you're speaking in English, chances are you're not being picked up anyway.
So this specific conspiracy theory about what's happening today, though, is a conspiracy much from the right. Is it confusion, is it to raise money, is it for personal in reasons? All these type of things. But in this case, it's really about Donald Trump trying to reap for election. Yeah, I think so, And so I think he is trying to stir up people in his base that the evil government is out for him, and you need to stick
with me against this evil government. But what's interesting to me is that conspiracy that's being used by the right now is one that was very strong on the left. And the issue of surveillance and FIZA things in the past.
Yeah, that was always the big brother thing was always more about the left. So I guess the personal paranoia has sort of chained sides. Oho, there's still plenty of like paranoia on the left as well.
I mean, there's a long history of the FBI surveiling people like Martin Luther King and using illegal means to do so, and so that's why there's ben reforms and that's in fact why FISA was created in nineteen seventy eight, so that there is oversight and judges and processes. In a sense, throwing out FAIZA now is actually creating the problem that the Republicans claim that is why they want to throw it out.
And it looks like the House is going to pass FIZA now. It still has to go to the Senate, and there's still supple of hurdles it has to go through. But I'm wondering, why is it you think, John that when they brief Mike Johnson and some of the other senior people what made them change their minds.
You know, on one hand, to be partisan and to support this base, you want to create an enemy, the deep state, this conspiracy they're working against. But on the other hand, you do have a responsibility American people and American securities. When you're briefed that the great proportion of the intelligence we have that saves American lives is from
this program, you're put into a hard place. You want to support what Trump is saying, supposedly, but at the other end, you don't want to be stuck with Americans dying and saying that's because you were afraid to do your duty and vote in this way.
You know, Thoughts and prayers is what you'd say, but I'm not going to actually friggin do anything about it.
Good chatting, but remember on Wednesday, there'll be a new episode of Mission Implausible and we're going to be talking about UFOs with comedian Michael ian Black.