Today, the EXPLOSIVE findings of the Durham Report and the FBI's investigation into Donald Trump. Mainstream Reporter of The Day, Charlie Langton from Fox 2 News tells us all about 4/20 day (a chilled annual event in Detroit). And special guest, Matthew Connelly, a renowned expert in US intelligence and CIA secrecy joins us.Matthew's book: ‘Declassification Engine’ is available, here: https://bit.ly/3W7PPuUFor a bit more from us join our Stay Free Community here:https://russellbrand.locals.com/Come to my festival COMMUNITY - https://www.russellbrand.com/community-2023/NEW MERCH! https://stuff.russellbrand.com/
Just to let you know that what happened was Donald Trump was collaborating with the Russians.
That's right.
And that's the only reason he won that election.
Otherwise, how could Donald Trump win an election?
It's not like people are so disillusioned with democracy and career politicians.
And the obvious financial corruption that's rife in Washington, that someone that used populist rhetoric and had charisma would overcome a plain-as-day career politician and out-and-out cynic like Hillary Clinton, must have been that the Russians were involved.
So finally we've got proof that it was because of Russian cyber hacking that Donald Trump even won the election.
So I guess he shouldn't have... Oh no, sorry, it's the opposite.
Russia weren't involved at all and the mainstream media and the Democrat Party and the FBI conspired to ensure that a theory, a story that never had legs from the get-go was spread everywhere.
Let us know in the chat and the comments right now how you feel about what you gotta call deep state duplicity.
Real life conspiracy!
However you feel about Donald Trump, how do you feel about the systems that generate the possibility for new types of populist leaders to emerge?
I know a lot of you love Donald Trump and I know a lot of you don't like Donald Trump and we believe that it's the system itself that needs to change and that's the kind of conversation we want to have with you and guess what?
We can't have that conversation with you on YouTube because YouTube censors the kind of information that we'll be talking about on Rumble, so there's a link in the description.
You click on that, after our 15-20 minutes, we'll be available exclusively on Rumble.
And thank God we are, because I'll be talking to Matthew Colony, who's going to talk to us about how the Deep State has been running things for time!
That's how long it's been going on!
The Deep State are running things, whether it's the CIA murdering JFK... Allegedly!
That's what was alleged by RFK on this channel recently.
You've got to watch that interview.
It's up in full.
You can watch it.
He says that Lee Harvey Oswald was undoubtedly a CIA operative.
Allegedly.
I don't think that.
Is that controversial still?
He said it.
He said it.
Yeah, he said it.
Allegedly.
So look, we're going to be talking about that.
We're going to be talking about the FBI running with this steel dossier funded by the Clinton campaign.
Hillary Clinton personally signing that off.
We're going to be talking about how 1.3 million people have access to your most private data and the government spent $18 billion a year preventing you from seeing any of it.
So if you want to learn about that, Hate speech?
We call it hate speech?
Hate speech!
Attacking the deep state and global corporatism and the total hollowing out of American democracy in order to create a globalist new order where none but the most powerful have any sway over process at all, where simple things like asking water companies to stop polluting the water that they use, where things like making energy companies responsible and ending their subsidies We're things like asking big tech to stop bundling and selling your data.
We're getting the mainstream media to be honest with you.
Where all of these things seem impossible now.
Where the impossibility of ordinary people reaching out in love to one another is daily doubled down on by a hate-generating mainstream media.
But if you want to change all that stuff, join us.
That's what we're interested in doing.
But first, Elon Musk went out the other night.
Look, he ain't even had a shave.
Did you see that guy boogieing?
Have a look at that.
Have a look at him enjoying himself.
Look at him go.
Look at him go.
Have a look.
Put it.
[Music]
Okay.
Go on.
What are you saying?
Yeah, I just, well first of all that's exactly how I dance, and secondly I'm amazed that there aren't like loads of bodyguards.
You see, I mean unless... They might be off.
I would say... It's the hands in the air moment, isn't it?
Yeah, he's not losing himself there, is he, Elon?
No, he's not.
I would say that, would you estimate that Elon is on the level, you're speaking euphemistically, in terms of chemical enhanced states?
Who knows?
Who knows?
He's very relaxed.
He's not like sort of sweating, but he pays a price for it.
Because even though he was keeping it together on the night itself, have a look at the next day when he's meeting Macron.
I don't know how at ease I would be meeting Macron.
Macron anyway, especially after a big night out.
Get all mashed up.
Well, I'm not suggesting that Elon Musk was anything other than on the level.
So the main news that we're talking about on the show today is the Durham report.
The whole Russiagate thing was just basically made up.
Now we can deal with that because we've been telling you for a long time, and you've been telling us, let us know in the comments in the chat if you were surprised by this stuff, that the deep state and global corporations are involved in managing narratives, manipulating power.
So when stuff like this happens, it doesn't bother me, of course, naturally.
But how is it for people that are invested in the mainstream media?
That believe that by voting for this party over that party you're doing something meaningful.
That it actually represents something to them.
Stay free with Russell Brand.
See it first on Rumble.
They want absolute control.
That's why there's new legislation being passed in all of the Five Eyes countries.
Those are the anglophonic nation who Edward Snowden revealed share the data of their partners with one another to get round domestic spying laws.
You're not supposed to spy on your own domestic population.
As Snowden revealed, your government does spy on you and one of the techniques is stockpiling that data and then like New Zealand will spy on the English people, the English people will spy on the Australian people and it's like a little circle jerk wife swap of espionage and it sickens me and it's gotta stop and that's why I'm talking to Matthew Connolly later about deep state power, but we can only do that exclusively on Rumble.
And because free speech is so important to us, why would we deny it to you?
If you're not with us on Locals already, join us there now.
There's a red button on your screen.
Join us join us on Locals where we can see your questions.
Look at this, Cypher2000 saying, "Temp needs to clean house, drain the swamp."
Circle of Mistrust says, "Clawn, true Chimera."
I sort of like the dude.
I think, are you talking about RFK?
Who you guys talking about?
Anyway, hit us up over there, click on that button.
There's no charge at all, although there is great content to be accessed down the line if you get into it.
Time now to celebrate your free speech in an item that we call Freech.
Now the title sequence has been created by an intern here, although I do believe we pay Young Jack, don't we?
That doesn't seem like a good investment.
I think legally we have to.
We have to pay him because of the law.
If it was not the law, we simply wouldn't do it.
Let's have a look at what he's created.
So it's time for your comments and your views, your free speech, because this is a free speech platform, in an item we call Freech.
Let's see what he's done with it.
Have the word free and the word speech going together like this.
Free speech.
And then all the fireworks come off it.
Free, free, like that.
And then that's it.
Right, well what he's done there, that's sarcastic isn't it?
It is sarcastic.
Because what he's done there is he's simply got, I described how to do it in a recent episode because in the last one, the last title sequence, I mean show the last title sequence.
That's actually very clever what he's done there because there's literally not, there's nothing you can say about it.
There is, I can say that that was a starting point, that was a starting point.
Now employ your expertise, pull up the previous thing that you had before, show us what you had last time.
Your comments?
Yeah, like when it was called your comments or whatever.
Free.
Also, look how offensive that font is that he's used.
Yeah, it's as basic as they come, isn't it?
It's blocky and awful.
Well, the first one is from Woollyhead, a member of our Locals community, that you can join.
There's a red button on your screen.
Click on that now.
Woollyhead says, leave Jack alone.
He has a big future, not in graphic design, but somewhere less creative.
Let's have a look at Jack, how he's responding to all this.
There he is now.
What a sweet lad trying his best.
And then, Gareth's title should be Good Shirt Guy.
Okay, let's try that.
Could you create us a garish and awful graphic for that, Jack?
Watching the show while doing extreme sports.
This is Sakrin.
This episode was so funny, I sprained my ankle while skateboarding.
I don't think you should be- Watching the show while skateboarding?
Skateboarding, that seems dangerous.
Although you can listen to it as a podcast, wherever you get your podcasts, you can- Maybe that's what they're in.
Listen to this show.
Yeah, it seems, that seems More plausible and less lethal.
And let me see what else.
Thanks for bringing me the news.
I stopped watching the news in 2021.
It made me feel sick, said Izzy Bean.
Feech, baby.
Feech.
We could make such great merch out of the word feech.
It's such a...
Potentially fantastic assets some people pointing out that our item about this week in history showed in the photo We showed the first ever McDonald's advert and it showcased a man called Willard Scott who if you're American you care about There's some stuff here about Pfizer vaccines and all sorts of stuff.
Allegedly!
As soon as I just say that name, I'm not saying anything.
Have a look at the art.
Before we leave the item for each, which is brilliant, and Gareth, please pick a few comments of your own.
Have a look at what Jack did previously that led me to give him the opportunity to create that meta ironic and sarcastic piece of graphics that you've just seen.
It's the very sort of thing we've come to expect from Gen Z, but this is his previous effort.
Have a look.
It's your comments!
It's your comments!
You've got mail!
That's so bad, you know, it's like offensively bad on sort of every single level.
Because it's like, the sort of like slightly folky jokey vocal, the terrible "you've got mail",
I don't know what they're... I actually would like...
Makes you angry, doesn't it?
Yeah, I want to interview them and say "what do you think you're doing?"
Right.
Like, like, I don't know...
I can see what you are doing.
Yeah.
Listen, in a minute we're going to... Oh, do you have any content?
No, well, Bexy Bex says, when's RFK coming back on the show?
Amazing interview.
So when are you ready for that?
We will get RFK back on because we have made this decision.
We are going to showcase and platform RFK because I think that he will alter the debate.
I'm sure that a democratic party that Stymies and ultimately negates the popularity of Bernie Sanders through the internal party mechanics.
He's going to give pretty short shrift to a guy that's saying he's going to disband the CIA.
That JFK was a CIA asset that they then went on to murder.
The pandemic, I'm not going to say what he said about the pandemic.
Antony Fauci, I'm not going to say what he said about Antony Fauci.
They are going to shut that guy down hard.
But the fact is, is with independent media, he is going to have a voice.
And because the stuff he's talking about, it's the very things that we care about.
So he will be coming back soon.
I got his number and I've been communicating.
We'll get Marian Williamson again, will we?
We'll get Marianne Williamson.
Like, because Marianne believes that as, like, you know, we always talk about the necessity for significant systemic change.
That's why later in the week when we talk to former MI5 operative Ami Mashon, I raise with her the possibility of disbanding MI5, FBI, CIA.
She, of course, will say that there's good people in those organizations, such as there are great people in the police force, teaching professions, national health or medical professions.
But they, within their institutions, it's difficult to succeed because the institutions all become corralled either to minimising expenditure or servicing the needs of powerful establishment elites.
Either that or they just don't do the work, as is the case with this Trump case that Dimes found out.
Did you do even the rudimentary checks?
Yes, not rudimentary ones, no, we didn't do those.
We just went on and just sort of promulgated this story throughout the mainstream media with our allies over at CNN, without checking if it was remotely true.
Willful negligence.
Also, from the mainstream media, we're going to be talking to our friend Charlie Langton, who you might remember from his, is it May the 4th or May 20th?
The one where you're allowed to smoke marijuana and stuff in America.
Yeah, I think it's April 20th, I think.
He did a very amusing report for Fox News.
And sometimes we like to talk to mainstream reporters to see what sort of stuff they do and say, hey, listen, we're going to leave.
If you're on YouTube, remember in a minute, we're going to be talking to Matthew Connolly about the deep state, about the 1.3 million Americans who have access to your top secret information.
They can spy on you, but they spend billions preventing you knowing what they're doing.
So click on the link.
Join us on Rumble and even on Locals if you want to by pressing the red button and becoming a member of a thriving and loving community.
Over there.
Right, let's have a look at our item about mainstream media reports and see what the graphics team have come up with for this.
God bless them.
And why isn't Ron Burgundy animated?
So little effort.
Why that colour?
Why that graphic?
Why those colours?
He might be a genius.
Like, that's the only... Yeah.
You mean, after we're all dead, people look back and they'll be like, God, he's amazing, isn't he?
Actually, these were good.
Okay, so in case you don't remember who Charlie Langton is, can we show this?
Yeah, because it's actually casual drug use in this, which also you can't show on YouTube, which is an odd thing, isn't it?
You can't show people just smoking weed.
Yeah, we got this video that we did last week, demonetised.
Demonetised?
Yeah, there they go.
What did you do?
Well, then we... Because I'm blaming you.
No, I mean, it's just, it wasn't showing this, it was just talking about marijuana and just like, you know, some of the legal stuff that's going on with marijuana at the moment.
They took Rachel Maddow saying you can get a vaccine, you won't spread it.
That's there, that's there.
That's still up.
Okay, good.
As long as it's fair.
All right, let's have a look at old Charlie Langton hanging out and smoking doobies.
Smoking on the news!
Smoke it, man!
Hit it, Charlie!
Yeah, hit it, man!
Hit it, Charlie!
That holiday, 4-20, April 20th, celebrating everything pot.
How are you celebrating it today?
Like this, you know what I'm saying?
Smoking weed, you know what I'm saying?
Charlie, are you there from Fox News?
Are you with us?
Have you joined us?
Yes, I am.
And I haven't had anything.
I'm totally sober.
Are you?
Charlie, you were taking recreational drugs or medical drugs, depends on how you frame it.
What was the impact of that on you, mate?
Uh, nothing.
I'm good.
Me was good.
But the people on 4-20, the day that they, apparently they smoked marijuana out in the open, we went to the west side of Detroit, which is kind of an area of Detroit that's a, you know, it's a little poverty area, that type of thing.
But people were celebrating.
They were having a great time.
It is legal in Michigan, and in particular Detroit, to smoke marijuana out in the open.
I think you have to be 21.
There may be a couple little things, a couple little rules.
But pretty much that's it.
And 420 is a day that really has been adopted by pretty much all over the United States.
Maybe not as much as the people I found.
I admit they may be a little extreme, but they were having fun.
It's kind of like the St.
Patrick's Day celebration, the drinking of the green beer, for those that like that, with pot, marijuana, joints, blunts.
And they were having a great time.
They really were.
Charlie, I get the sense from speaking with you that you've worked in the media for a long time.
How do you feel that the modern media landscape has become sort of cleaved into these various tributaries of opposition and hate?
What do you think about the revelation that the FBI pushed that story about Russiagate?
How do you feel about the sort of lack of trust in media organizations and if you can tie in the sort of payoff from
your lot for the Dominion machines into this and the sort of stuff that's
going on into Tucker into just a broad sketch about how the media mainstream
media landscape has changed in the time you've been there and where we find
ourselves now bringing in all those kind of stories I'd love your perspective.
Well so before I got into media I'm a lawyer and I practiced law for 25 years
before I did anything on television or radio.
So for me, I wanted to get into the media because I think there's an element of Of stories.
I know it sounds cliche, but you can tell a story.
And I mean, I can relate it to the pot thing about how we've changed.
The laws have changed and the attitude has changed.
I mean, smoking many, many years ago was totally acceptable.
Now it's not.
You know, they had to have a massive campaign to put your seatbelt on a car.
Now it's automatic.
So I think that the media can I think it reflects culture in a way that, if I did this, I could never do the pot story on the weed bus five years ago.
I probably couldn't do it three years ago.
I did it last year, but this year it evolves.
I think we have—listen, mainstream media is entertainment.
In my view, it's got to be an element of entertainment, 50 percent, 60 percent, whatever the story is.
Obviously, on a triple murder on the east side of Detroit, it's not going to be as ha-ha entertaining.
But there still has to be an element of where we want people to relate to it.
So, you know, we can do a hate piece, and I do think sometimes media types tend to maybe over Serious the story doesn't need to be.
Tell the story as if you know it, as if it can relate to anybody out there.
And what is the point of a story?
If we're looking for a barricaded gun or something, that's fine.
If it's pot, if it's just smoking and people having fun and don't judge on how we've evolved, then that's it too.
But make it entertaining.
So you think, yes, no doubt news media has started to centre not only on entertainment, but on getting views.
And I feel that Tucker was a particular, let's say, genius in that space.
Someone who spoke in exactly the manner that you described.
While being intelligent and not patronising to an audience, he was able to convey information in a way that made it Relatable.
Now, I imagine being a lawyer and a Fox employee, there are numerous reasons why you can't answer that question with total transparency.
But again, to talk about how the media has become the focus of so much derision.
How do you think that contemporary news media will survive when there is so much derision
and criticism and mistrust?
When there is so much partisanship with CNN and MSNBC saying Fox is the worst thing in the world,
with Fox saying that they're snowflakes and they're like, you know, full of crap and stuff.
How do you feel the media is gonna have to evolve and adapt?
Do you think it will be by becoming more partisan?
How do you feel it relates to stories like the one that I mentioned,
like with the FBI and the mainstream media collaborating to create the Russiagate story,
and also the media becoming part of the story as through the aforementioned Dominion thing?
But I think, I think with the Dominion, I think with Fox, I think that if I'm a conservative person and I love Donald Trump and I want to see him run again, I'm going to listen to Fox.
I'm going to watch Fox.
I'm going to, you know, I'm going to curse the day that they got rid of Tucker Carlson.
It's not going to change.
If I am, if I love Bernie Sanders or Joe Biden, I'm going to watch MSNBC and I'm going to hate Fox.
And I think that we're often, we peg ourselves, if I want to be a good conservative, I'm going to watch and do everything that the Fox people say.
Listen, media's a smart people.
They know that there's an audience out there, and they know that they can play to the audience.
Give me a—in the United States, where's one station that you would automatically say is neutral?
It's right down.
Or it's there for entertainment.
Maybe the cooking channel.
Okay.
But other than if it's a news station, I think that we have evolved on a network side.
I think there's a bent, there's a slant.
And I think that the advertisers, they understand that.
They'll go and they'll advertise.
I don't know if strip clubs would advertise on certain channels.
Not that we can now anyway.
But there's always a market out there.
I do local news.
Some of the stories like this one went national, but most of the time it's local.
And I think the local Local's a little bit different.
We need traffic and weather is very important to us over here.
And, you know, did our Tiger baseball team win or lose?
And how do we celebrate 420?
That's not really a partisan issue.
I do think, though, when we get into the network level, for the most part, there's going to be a slant.
I don't see that changing.
I think that's going to stay.
Yeah, it's interesting when you have a story like CNN giving Trump that town hall and then going into a sort of orgy of coruscation and self-exhoration.
After is an interesting litmus test for where the media finds itself.
It requires the views.
It needs to take a strong, apparently ethical stance.
But those ethics don't often hold up to scrutiny, because the ultimate requirement is to get views.
I'm interested in local news, actually, Charlie, because I feel that the more power and information are
decentralized, the more a community feels that they are being spoken to peer to peer,
rather than being spoken down to by didactic and condescending media.
I think that's a great improvement.
I think the creation of communities that share views while continuing to recognize we all have stuff in common with one another is important.
I think that's an interesting distinction you've drawn there about local news.
Feels like you are part of that community somewhat.
I think I can make an argument that, you know, Donald Trump, for example, whether you love him or hate him, he's great for viewing.
And I think that the fact that CNN is—and I watch CNN, I watch MSNBC, I watch Fox, I watch them all on the network.
But I think that when they're going to—they're not going to end at Trump.
Trump is a lightning rod.
And I think that a lot of the Democrats perceive that they want Trump to run
because he's gonna divide the party.
You know, locally in Michigan, the Republican Party, some would argue because of Trump,
has destroyed the Republican Party.
Now you have Republicans fighting each other Republicans.
Now, I'm not saying that on our local level that we're gonna be so partisan as the network,
but I do think that there's gonna be a lot of talk about Donald Trump, how it's,
the CNN, the MSNBC, the more traditional liberal media, they're gonna be talking and they're basically gonna say,
Let's talk about Trump every single day, because he's a divisive, he's divisive.
And it helps Democrats in the long run.
Abortion, we just went through a big abortion debate.
Our Supreme Court struck down Roe versus Wade.
Okay.
Democrats, they harped on that.
They said, we're going to dodge it.
Roe versus, oh my God, it's the end of the world.
Maybe it was.
People came out to the polls, people tend to vote when they're mad, and they did.
And as a result, at least here in Michigan, Republicans lost every single race, all of the major statewide races for governor, attorney general, secretary of state, etc.
So I do think the media, though, Again, on the network level, I think that they're looking for things that are lightning rods, whether they get people to mad one way or another.
And I think the Republicans now have to take a little bit of a step back and say, what issue is really going to get our party, the conservative party, to really go out there and vote?
And I don't think it's happening so much on the local level, although Donald Trump's going to be in Michigan in about another month, I think it is.
And oh, wow.
I mean, we will have, I mean, it's going to be a circus and I hope I can cover that one.
You'll be all over that, Charlie.
Take a couple of doobies.
Do what you do best.
Use your legal skills and your love of recreational and medical marijuana to get the best damn Donald Trump interview that the world has seen.
Charlie, thank you so much for giving us those insights and for sharing your time with us.
Thank you so much.
I appreciate it.
Thank you.
You can follow Charlie Langton over on Fox, particularly if you're in Michigan and Detroit
and those kind of areas.
I'll be watching more of Charlie's stuff.
It makes sense that Charlie's a lawyer because he spoke with a lot of clarity.
Didn't he?
Yes, he did.
Yeah, Charlie knows what he's doing.
Listen, we've got a fantastic conversation coming up.
We're going to be speaking with Matthew Connolly about the influence and nefarious insidious power of the deep state.
The way that they are able to assert and exert power and control in a manner that you may not have even speculated on before, unless you are a well-versed and well-read viewer of our channel.
Before that, Oh yeah, well, Putin has put his nuclear forces on high alert.
In other news, we're probably all going to be dead soon.
And what's the thing that we were pairing it with?
Oh yeah, when CNN put Trump on there for that town hall, and it became once again a culturally bifurcating issue, One area that struck us as significant here on Stay Free was Trump's refusal to, in a trite manner, say, oh, I support Ukraine or Russia, which sort of amount to, you know, sort of a new... Who do you want to win?
Who do you want to win?
Like, it just comes down to a new form of patriotism, carrying the message, whatever.
You know, and really, I can't help but think that Trump's point that what's required is a diplomatic and peaceful solution is one worth investigating.
Stay free with Russell Brand.
See it first on Rumble.
We have Matthew Connolly, Professor of International and Global History at Columbia and
author of the Declassification Engine. Matthew, welcome to the show. My apologies for inadvertently
firing up a sting that's a terrifying AI orifice emulating human vocal sounds.
Okay, no worries.
Talk to you about the story that's broken today that the FBI didn't, it seems like, at least practice due diligence before promulgating the Russiagate allegations that dogged Trump throughout his presidency.
Tell me, how does this fit into your broader understanding of deep state espionage agencies such as the FBI and CIA, please?
Yeah, well, Russell, you know, if you were paying attention, you know, people who are tracking like FBI disclosures over the last few decades, you would find that time and again, they've had to admit agents, you know, at best misbehaving.
Uh, and making mistakes, as they like to call them, when it comes to the surveillance of U.S.
citizens.
I mean, you go back almost a quarter of a century ago, the FBI disclosed dozens and dozens of instances in which FBI agents had gathered more information than they were entitled to.
There was a study, another example, they found that FBI headquarters, when they ordered surveillance, more than half the time, they were exceeding the legal limits, right?
So this has happened over and over and over again.
And to me, like, the scandalous thing is what isn't illegal?
I mean, the fact that, you know, these kinds of things have happened continuously for decades now, and yet no one has held to account.
If this is an institutional problem, as you describe, and each time we learn of the FBI paying Twitter to censor information, or the CIA being involved in coups that ultimately lead to greater conflagration, Is there an argument, as Robert F. Kennedy suggests, for disbanding the CIA in particular?
Are these institutions salvageable or do they have, at essence, a kind of, I don't know, if not negligence, a kind of hypocrisy?
Is it impossible for them to function in order to protect a population?
Well, you know, it is hard to imagine a world, you know, without the FBI, without the CIA.
But I like to remind people that in the United States, these are relatively recent inventions.
You know, going back, you know, before World War One, there was no Central Intelligence Agency.
There was no Federal Bureau of Investigation.
You know, the U.S.
was really an outlier.
For the first 150 years of our history, we didn't have intelligence agencies.
The only time that the U.S., you know, after the first You know, period, the revolution in the early republic.
After that point, the only time the U.S.
employed, you know, large numbers of spies and intercepted communications was during wartime.
And after wars ended, they dismantled this apparatus.
So it's not impossible to imagine that in the future, we won't necessarily have to have 18 different intelligence agencies.
Like, to me, that's the aberration, the way that this system has just grown completely out of control.
Matthew, since the Patriot Act, no American has any privacy.
It's possible for them to store your data and look at it at will.
One of the things that you cover in your book is the number of people that have access to information.
I think you said up to 1.3 million people.
I wonder if this kind of legislation and this kind of intrusion enforces the idea that the state has a degree of authority that infantilises a population.
As you've just said, that typically these are the kind of measures that would be deployed in a war, then rescinded subsequently.
The fact that they are ubiquitously applied suggests that there is a permanent state ...of paternalism and I'd like you to just explain to us a little more how since the Patriot Act the American population have been universally spied on and also about this how the recent attempts to review that legislation are being delayed under the auspices of protecting us from American drug cartels and stuff.
Yeah, well, you know, there are people who would say the reason why we have the Patriot Act, you know, the reason why we have 18 different intelligence agencies and so on, you know, it's because that's the only way we can protect American lives, right?
That it's our national security that's at stake.
You know, but when you look back, those moments, periods, long periods, you know, when the United States was at peace, you know, in fact, you know, for a time where the world's only superpower I'm talking about the 1990s.
Even then, you know, these intelligence agencies, especially the National Security Agency, were pushing to expand their surveillance powers, right?
So it almost doesn't matter, you know, what kind of threats supposedly, you know, threatened the country.
It seems like no matter what is happening in that outside world, inside our government, there are people who are constantly pushing to expand their ability to spy on the American people.
I'll give you one example of this.
Back in 1984, The Justice Department Office of Legal Counsel, this is the part of the government that sets the rules for everyone else.
They're the ones at the OLC who get to decide what's legal and what isn't.
They wrote an opinion according to which American surveillance agencies like the NSA, they can intercept our communications when they go abroad, right?
So when American, you know, phone calls or emails or what have you, when they go through foreign data centers, all of that is fair game.
Right.
And that is a giant legal loophole that allows, at least in principle, you know, the NSA and all these other agencies to systematically spy on American communications.
You know, the funny part to me, first of all, it's the fact that it was written in 1984.
That's one.
And the second, second thing is nobody outside of government has ever been allowed to see this ruling.
Even American senators have asked to see this and they have been told they're not allowed.
So we have this secret law that allows government agencies to spy on us in secret.
That is funny.
One of the other revelations of Snowden was the collaboration between what are known as the Five Eyes countries, which I suppose suggests that ultimately this is a global problem, whilst there's no doubt that America has avowed enmity towards Russia and China and other countries that might challenge them for unipolar There is elsewhere a kind of what appears to be the deep state apparatus that undergirds global corporatism with neither party being willing to meaningfully amend these institutions and the legislation that we've even so far discussed which allows intrusion and breach of privacy of an unprecedented level
What is there to be hopeful for in the conventional political space?
How can they ever be stopped?
No one talks about releasing Julian Assange.
No one talks about releasing, to any serious degree, the files surrounding the murder of JFK.
And this is all presumably because if we had the type of transparency to which we are entitled, we would conclude that these agencies primarily function in order to control the American population rather than protect them.
So what is the political solution for a problem of the nature that's outlined in your writing?
Yeah, well, you know, the theory behind the Five Eyes, and I think there's a lot of evidence to support it, is that what they're doing, basically, the Britain, British government, together with the United States, New Zealand, Canada, Australia, each one of them can act, you know, outside their national boundaries in ways that they're not legally allowed to within those boundaries and against their own citizens.
So the theory is that, you know, they could each spy on each other's citizens.
No, I don't know.
I don't know for a fact, you know, that that's happening right now.
But the fact is, you know, every government, including the U.S.
government, does do these very operations when they're working abroad.
And there's almost no limit, right, to how much and in what ways they will spy on the citizens of other states.
So that means, you know, that no matter where you live, you're fair game, you know, for dozens of different intelligence agencies, many of them now equipped with the most powerful tools available from the private sector, right?
Like the Pegasus software allows them to break into your iPhones and even turn smartphones into surveillance devices, right?
So even like relatively small countries can now purchase this kind of technology off the shelf.
So what do we do?
I think the first thing people need to know is they need to be aware.
You know, of what's now possible and what in fact is likely.
Because one thing these surveillance programs want most of all, and they even use the word itself, they want us to be naive.
They thrive on our naivete.
So to the extent that people are blithely unaware of how governments can spy on them, this only is to their benefit and empowers them further.
How come so many people got access and security clearance?
You said like 1.3 million people.
Well, how come?
Yeah, well, because, you know, there's so much classified information that you couldn't run this government without giving, you know, over a million people access to top secret information.
So to give an example, back in 2012, the U.S.
government itself issued an estimate as to how many times government officials were classifying information secret, so nobody would be allowed to see it for decades to come.
It came to 93 million times.
Three times every second, some government official is deciding something had to be classified secret, right?
So just imagine, you know, how would you even run, you know, the American military, these 18 different intelligence agencies, the Justice Department, the FBI, and all the rest of it, if you didn't have lots and lots of employees who had access to this information?
And also all of their many consultants, right?
So many hundreds of thousands of these people are not actually government employees.
They're consultants working for the government, in some cases earning more than they used to, Back when they still worked for government, when they got these clearances.
And so yeah, it's 1.3 million.
And that includes people like Jack Teixeira, the airman first class, who is found to be sharing secrets with his friends on Discord.
So all kinds of people now have access to all kinds of information.
And yet billions are being spent to prevent ordinary people gaining access to this information.
So again, what kind of relationship does this suggest that actually exists between the state and the population that they govern?
If they have access to all of our information and our access to their information is significantly impaired, how can we begin to meaningfully change the world, have a fairer world without Meaningfully addressing and amending institutes that don't tend to be affected by the cycles of transition within ordinary electoral democracy.
Well, Russell, you know, every person who's run successfully for president of the United States has promised that they would bring a new day of transparency and accountability, and that includes Donald Trump.
You know, Donald Trump, back in 2015, 2016, he promised he was going to release all the JFK files, but he didn't do it.
It tells you something.
It tells you something, the fact that these people, once they become president, If they didn't already, they fall in love with secrecy.
It's one of the few ways that presidents can be completely unaccountable.
Because Trump was right when he said basically presidents are sovereign over secrecy.
What they decide is national security information is information nobody else is legally entitled to see, unless they have that so-called need to know.
So how do we change this?
Well, we have to stop believing presidential candidates.
When they tell us that as soon as they're in charge of this system, they're going to dismantle it.
It's just not going to happen.
The only parts of our government that could actually do something about this are Congress and the courts.
Right.
So that's the only way.
If you want to check on federal power, you've got to bring in the other two branches of government.
Oh wow, so you don't think that even a political figure like RFK, that is at least in terms of his rhetoric,
and we've spoke to him, and he's a very sincere man who I think is extremely well intentioned, if I may say,
that he says he would disband the CIA.
So you don't think that it's even within the office of the president to all of these systems,
and that in a sense is perhaps the problem with the type of power that we have now,
is that once you're within the system, you're part of the system,
and it's impossible to amend it.
And it suggests that the only solution that we have is to establish alternative means of communication,
alternative currency, alternative media, because the systems are self-sustaining
and don't appear to be able to significantly change.
[BLANK_AUDIO]
Well, if the next president actually did, you know, get elected on that platform and really did manage to dismantle this vast secrecy complex, it would be like nothing that's ever happened before in American history.
It's just never happened.
And I'll give you a couple of examples.
Look at Jimmy Carter.
Jimmy Carter, he was a born-again Christian, right?
Came out of Georgia.
And here's a man who so believed in transparency that when he gave an interview to Playboy magazine, he confessed that he sometimes felt lust in his heart, and he felt guilty about having these feelings that weren't about his wife, Rosalyn.
OK, so this is the kind of man we're talking about.
He promised a totally new day.
You know, he was going to reform all the secrecy and corruption of the Kissinger and Nixon years.
And what happens in the time that he was president?
We can actually track this now.
We can enumerate and count the number of classified documents.
There was even more secrecy than before.
And by the end of it, he was complaining, you know, about how so much information that was top secret and sensitive was available to far too many people.
They wanted to create their own presidential secrecy stamp.
You know what they were going to call it, Russell?
Royal.
Oh, yes.
Okay, we better stamp that with Royal.
Just had a few more feelings that weren't about Rosalind.
Give that a stamp.
Oh, there's a new secretary starting.
Oh my God, that guy's gorgeous.
Give that the Royal stamp.
Power corrupts people.
They are unable to fulfill their earnest, heartfelt impressions once they are within these institutions.
In a sense, it's an invitation to end the mudslinging and personal invective and condemnation of the individuals within that system.
And to recognise that it's institutional change that is required, that whether it's someone like Donald Trump or RFK or Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton, that ultimately, once they're within that system, they will behave like people within that system, almost like an environmental thing, like it was a river or a rainforest.
You might say, when I'm in the rainforest, I'm going to wear UGG boots and a heavy woolen shawl, but once you get in there, you're going to be trying to avoid the tree frogs and you're going to be there in a pair of swimming trunks.
You're damn right, Russell.
It is a song.
I like the analogy!
And, you know, the founders are right about this.
You know, Jefferson and Adams, they'd write to each other, as soon as someone's in power, all of a sudden they believe they can do no wrong.
Right?
No matter what they do, they're doing it for the right reasons.
The only way you can hold people in check is to pit power against power.
The only way you're going to bring a president to account and have them give up this sovereign control, this royal system of secrecy, is by getting the courts and Congress to start using their power.
Okay, well I don't know enough to argue with you about that, because you're a professor at Columbia, and I'm the bloke out for getting Sarah Marshall.
So you have the advantage, sir!
Plainly.
But like, what's going on over there at Columbia?
What are you teaching?
Well, I'm actually starting an exciting new job.
I'm going to be starting in July.
I'll be directing something called the Center for the Study of Existential Risk over at Cambridge.
And so I'm not giving up my Columbia job.
I'm still going to be an historian here.
But for the next, you know, who knows how long, as long as it takes, perhaps, I'll be defending the world against super volcanoes and killer asteroids and AI insurrections.
So you can rest easy.
Do rest easy at night.
Cambridge, Massachusetts or Cambridge, UK?
Cambridge in the UK.
All right.
Good.
Right.
Well, you come around here then.
Can I ask one question?
Yeah, hold on one second.
[Music]
Sorry about that.
I was really interested in, obviously we mentioned Julian Assange and we were talking about RFK and his position is that he would pardon Assange and obviously that's a very popular opinion, but like the growing number of whistleblowers that have been charged under the Espionage Act, The way you talk about the bulk collection of data and the kind of surveillance and how it's just multiplying year upon year, what do you see for the, you mentioned Jack Teixeira as well, how do you see the kind of future of whistleblowing and the way in which the whistleblowers will be kind of shut down and the espionage app will be used against them?
Do you see the amount of people, I mean I know Obama and Trump used it way more than had been used in the past, Do you think that this is just going to kind of keep growing exponentially until we have prisons full of whistleblowers?
Where's this going to lead to?
Yeah, you're right.
Under Obama, they prosecuted more people for leaking classified information under the Espionage Act than every administration combined up until that point.
And one reason why that's now possible is because using electronic record systems, they can track more easily that people had access to particular kinds of records.
So, it's now, like, technologically possible, you know, to begin more systematically identifying the people who are leaking information for their own secret reasons, in some cases.
So, you know, I'm worried about the Assange case.
Like, whatever you think of Julian Assange, in the last months of the Trump administration, they've decided to add to this indictment, you know, account for having violated the Espionage Act merely for releasing those Classified documents online.
OK, so what's important about that is that this would be the first time that somebody has been prosecuted, you know, just for sharing what the government considers classified information.
Now, if Assange is eventually brought to trial and is convicted for that, that's going to be an incredibly important and potentially dangerous precedent, because there are a lot of people out there, including perhaps you and me, you know, who share information the government thinks is classified.
Could we also be prosecuted under the Espionage Act?
If you actually read the black letter text of that law, it seems like there are hundreds of millions of people who could be locked up in American jails.
You happy with that?
Yeah, wow, that's terrifying.
It seems like it is going to get worse, yeah.
And I guess that's why the Assange case is so important.
I expect that when Matthew comes to Cambridge, you'll probably be troubling him on the regular with questions like that, will you?
That's right.
I'll be there with my French horn.
In Cambridge.
Did you have something else to say, Matthew?
I'm sorry to interrupt.
I was just going to say, that's one reason why it's exciting for me because, you know, what you learn over the years, decades, you know, studying government information and the secrets that governments keep, is a lot of times that information is truly dangerous.
Like, it really could get people killed.
Maybe not every last human being on the planet, but as long as that's possible, people who care about the future of humanity, we have to care about government secrecy as well.
Why are you so cheerful?
Oh, well, it's like gallows humor, you know.
I tell my students on the first day, I teach a class at History of the End of the World, and I say, like, if you can't laugh at things like pandemics and nuclear war, then this may not be the right class for you.
And I say that in all sincerity, because the only way that I personally can study these horrible subjects like this is if I maintain a sense of humor.
It's a little bit like that classic film, you know, the Manchurian Kennedy.
Always with a sense of humor, comrade.
Always with a sense of humor.
Yeah, we have to do that as well, because once in a while we get told stuff that makes us upset.
Hey, someone on the chat called Girl says, Matthew, how do you recognize propaganda?
Ah, great question.
How do you recognize propaganda?
So, you know, I spent years studying this stuff because when I first started out as a historian, I wanted to understand how France carried out this murderous war in North Africa.
You know, anywhere from half a million to a million people in the end were killed in the course of Algeria's fight for independence.
I spent months like looking at You know, propaganda files in government.
And, you know, it's one of these things, it's a little bit like pornography, right, as the Supreme Court said, is you know it when you see it.
But, you know, having seen it from the inside, you can see how it is, you know, even 60 years ago, that's what I'm talking about now, 60 years ago, governments were hiring like Madison Avenue firms to advise them on how they could carry out like counterinsurgency operations and make it appealing to the American public.
And so you can only imagine now what's possible now that they're using things like ChatGPT to create this information.
They're going to be able to do it now on an industrial scale.
They'll be able to populate infinite numbers of websites with infinite amounts of false content.
So yeah, it's just going to get worse.
Matthew?
Well, Matthew, it's been a fantastic conversation.
I've really enjoyed speaking with you.
Would you tell us a little bit about your book before we wrap up our conversation?
Matthew, thank you so much for your time.
Good luck in your new job in Cambridge.
We're looking forward to meeting you in person then, and thank you for sharing this complex information in such an accessible manner.
Thank you.
Thank you, Russell.
On tomorrow's show, we'll be speaking to the U.S.
medic and healthcare professional turned activist, Dr. Bob, talking about how the U.S.
healthcare corporations are expanding control of the federal funded Medicare.
So join us tomorrow, not for more of the same, but for more of the different.
You lot, though, get over on local.
It might go quiet for a second, but then we'll be back on there talking about the most private, intimate, brilliant stuff.
