Flightless Bird: Surveillance

This episode explores the intricacies and implications of surveillance in America, particularly focusing on government and commercial data collection practices.

1. Surveillance in America extends beyond government spying; it involves significant corporate participation that affects everyday technology users.
2. The episode emphasizes the importance of understanding and navigating the privacy implications of commonly used technologies and platforms.
3. Legal frameworks like FISA allow for extensive data collection, often without the knowledge or explicit consent of individuals.
4. The discussion raises awareness about the normalization of surveillance and its acceptance under the guise of security and convenience.
5. Insights from the episode highlight a growing public concern about privacy, urging listeners to consider the trade-offs involved in digital convenience.

1: Introduction to Surveillance

David Farrier introduces the theme of surveillance in America, discussing both governmental and commercial aspects. He sets the stage for a deeper exploration of how surveillance has become embedded in daily life. David Farrier: "America is a spying superpower...surveillance is not just about security but deeply intertwined with daily convenience."

2: Legal and Ethical Considerations

Discussion on the legal frameworks enabling surveillance, including the impacts and ethical considerations of laws like Section 702 of FISA. Byron Tau: "It's about how America's tech industry has joined forces with the government to make America more of a surveillance state than ever."

3: Personal Experiences and Anecdotes

Personal reflections on privacy and surveillance from both the hosts and guests, providing a relatable context to the discussion. Monica Padman: "It's hard to get fired up because on a personal level, it doesn't feel like my privacy concerns are significant in the grand scheme."

4: Technological Implications

Exploration of how modern technologies, from smartphones to social media, are used for surveillance purposes. David Farrier: "Every device, every app, every service can potentially be turned into a surveillance tool."

1. Review App Permissions: Regularly check and manage app permissions to minimize unnecessary data sharing.
2. Use Encrypted Communication Tools: Opt for services like Signal or WhatsApp that offer end-to-end encryption for better privacy.
3. Stay Informed About Privacy Policies: Read and understand the privacy policies of services you use to know how your data is handled.
4. Advocate for Stronger Privacy Laws: Support or campaign for laws that enhance user privacy and control over personal data.
5. Educate Others About Privacy: Share knowledge about privacy settings and the importance of data security with friends and family.

In this week's Flightless Bird, David Farrier looks at how America surveils its own citizens and asks why America is a “spying superpower.” In 2022 alone, 145,000 Facebook users and 100,000 Gmail accounts were rifled through by the US government’s spy agencies. How come? Farrier delves into America’s Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and “Section 702" and talks with journalist Byron Tau, author of “Means of Control: How The Hidden Alliance of Tech and Government is Creating a New American Surveillance State.”

People

David Farrier, Monica Padman, Byron Tau

Companies

Google, Meta, Twitter

Books

"Means of Control" by Byron Tau

Guest Name(s):

Byron Tau

Content Warnings:

None

David Farrier
I'm David Farrier in New Zealand. It accidentally marooned in America and I want to figure out what makes this country tick. Now, if there's one thing I've learned about America this year, it's that it both loves TikTok and also hates TikTok. TikTok influencers beware. Today, a House committee voted on a.

Bipartisan bill that could effectively ban the app in the United States. The fear of the Chinese spying on America using the popular social media app became a giant talking point in politics. No American likes the idea of another country potentially spying on them. And I get it. But then I started to think about all the ways America likes to spy as well.

America is a spying superpower. A huge amount of Internet traffic runs through America. Plus a bunch of powerful software the world loves, from Zoom to Gmail are all american and open to the american governments. Prying eyes. In 2022 alone, 145,000 Facebook users and 100,000 Gmail accounts were rifled through by the US government spy agency.

Americas Foreign Intelligence Surveillance act has a bit called section 702, which means the government is able to take part in mass surveillance of things like emails, texts, social media, DM's and whatever youve been up to on your dating apps. I wanted to know what this means for me living in America and whether its time for me to grab my podcasting gear and run for the hills. So get ready to share your location data on all your apps and wonder about whos looking because this is the surveillance episode flightless, flightless, flightless bird touchdown in America. I'm a flightless bird touchdown in America.

Monica, they're watching. They are now. Don't get scared. It sounds like quite a serious meaty topic. But it's also fun thinking about these things, you know?

Monica Padman
Yeah, I mean, I have a weird perspective on this where to an extent I don't really care. I'm kind of with you on a personal basis. It's hard to get fired up cause I was actually thinking about this. I was thinking, you know, I'm in America now. I'm a suspicious New Zealander.

David Farrier
You know, maybe they're keeping an eye on me. They always look at me a bit suspiciously when I arrive at the airport. They always want to know what I'm doing here. They're like, what are you doing here? I might do a podcast.

Like what podcast? Always feel like I'm gonna get kicked out again, but when it comes down to it, yeah, I don't really mind if they're reading my emails. It's funny, isn't it? Before I came here, I put a whole lot of my stuff in New Zealand into storage. It's in a big storage shed.

And it's some private stuff, like old diaries and stuff. And I'm like, if someone cuts the bolt and steals everything from my storage shed, is there anything in there that I'd be like, oh, no, someone's got that. And I feel a bit the same about. It's a bit of a weird sort of metaphor, but I feel a bit like surveillance. I don't think it's a weird metaphor.

Monica Padman
I think that's exactly what it is. Except the difference is, like, if Rosabelle finds your diaries, you might not want her to read it, you know? Cause you have all your secret thoughts about her and the egg and all kinds of things. That's true. It's almost worse having a friend get a hold of your private things than a complete stranger who has no context.

David Farrier
Right. Yeah. And Rosabelle or me, we want to read your diary. We have a big interest in your secrets and what you're keeping from all of us. Think of nothing worse.

Yeah. But I really, truly believe. I mean this. I don't think the government cares about our baby secrets, or even secrets that, for us, mean a lot. Right.

Monica Padman
And, like, could ruin our personal lives. They don't care. Absolutely not. How do you feel about that balance of privacy? This idea of having privacy, but also protecting all of us from whatever perceived threats, whether they're internal or external, that balance?

David Farrier
Do you. Does it matter that much to you? Day to day? I've moved along the spectrum on this because I used to really not care about privacy. Go ahead.

Monica Padman
Look through everything. I think you should look through everything of everyone's. If you're going to catch a predator or a terrorist or something, go ahead. But now, and I do think this has to do with my proximity to public figures. I do respect privacy more.

I understand privacy more. And I do understand that people like to exploit public figures. And those people are my friends. So that is scary. So I now care about it more.

But I'm more worried about the hacker. Who would want to expose something than the government? Cause again, I don't think the government cares about. I don't even know some gossipy person on the Internet. Someone malicious coming in is much more terrifying.

David Farrier
And I guess that comes down to your trust of the government. Do you think it's great they've got our best interests in mind? It's a perception of them. Right? Some people see the government as being this really scary force.

Others are like, thank gosh it's there looking after us. Yeah, I don't think it's either of those. I don't think they necessarily have our personal best interests at heart. No. But they do have an overarching plan.

Monica Padman
They are trying to maintain, well, depending on who's in charge, democracy. And they are trying to ultimately keep America at number one. I know that they don't care about some gossipy thing. They just don't have time for that. Government aside, have you ever had a little secret revealed?

David Farrier
Has anyone surveilled you? Someone at school got into your diary or did your parents ever open the wrong drawer and get all your private stuff? Have you sort of had any privacy violations? My mum went through my diary one time, but I was just a christian boy, so it was dead boring, which is like, pray today. It was nothing scandalous in there.

I did nothing scandalous until I was 25 or something. But your thoughts were probably scandalous because you're naughty. Yeah, I know the thoughts were bad, but they stayed in the brain, which is very healthy. I never wrote them down or anything. They were just ping ponging around up there.

Never got them on paper. Thank God. Okay. I'm sort of with you on that. I don't trust a journal.

Monica Padman
You know, Dax has these journals. He's written in these journals every day since he got sober. And I am baffled by his willingness to just have his journal. Obviously trust the people in his home. Yeah.

David Farrier
It's like having your brain sort of all out there. It's like getting your brain and putting it externally. That's a scary thing. Yeah. And I've tried diaries a couple times.

Monica Padman
Cause I think it's supposed to be good. They say that for you. They do say that and every time I do it the next day, I just, like, rip up the papers from the day before to make sure nobody can ever read them. You get rid of that. Get rid of the evidence.

Got it. Before the government gets to you. Dax could get one of those little diaries that has a little lock on it. So he locks it with a little key. One of those diaries.

That's my whole point. He doesn't care. He must just be writing. Who knows what's in there? It probably is.

Like. You're.

Like. It's boring. But also, I'm sort of baffled by the trust. Also, if he knew that you read his journal, you're probably just never in his life ever again. Yeah.

David Farrier
Imagine if he left one, a little diary in the attic and he got in there, and I was just rifling through it, taking photos. David, he's so big. If he attacked, it would be scary. Cause I know he does get. He can get fired up.

I wouldn't like to be at the receiving end. I wouldn't do well. No, you wouldn't. I'm gonna go ahead and say you would not. Okay.

Monica Padman
This is sort of a ding ding ding, because we just had a diagnosed sociopath on armchair expert. Experts. It's taken a weird turn, your show. She's also a therapist, but she's a diagnosed sociopath. She has a book coming out, and she's written a lot for, like, publications and stuff.

David Farrier
I love this. It's fascinating. But part of what her sociopathy presents, she does a lot of stalking and snooping. That's a big part of her compulsions. And so if his diary was out.

She'D be in there. 100% she'd be in there. Right. So she's fully aware, and she's decided to use this as a learning experience instead of teach others and kind of spread awareness. She describes it as a emotional learning disorder.

Monica Padman
And so there are ways you can learn. It's just obviously not in the ways that neurotypical people do. So you do have to know that about yourself. And it's so interesting. She should work in government surveillance.

I think she'd be good at it. Get secrets. This is an abrupt turn, and no way, tonally, to do this in a good way. Now we're recording this remotely because you've got a little cough coming on, and in case you've got the flu, you don't want to infect me. So I got fijos.

David Farrier
I got fijos. If you're going like, what the hell is a fee Joe? A few episodes ago, Fejo is a really popular fruit in New Zealand. They have super common. They're a certain time of the year, they're just falling off trees.

They're everywhere. Like, you just can't. There's too many fellows in America. Very hard to find. So after that episode, some sort of produce place, Melissa's, which is apparently its headquarters, is in California, but they're all over America.

They sell fijos, and they sent me. It's the first, like, amazing thing I've gotten from doing the show. It's just a big box of feed joas. So, anyway, I crept over to your house this morning, and I left the bottom of your stairs. I left a feedjoy.

So you're gripping one now. I am. It was so nice of you. I'm really excited. We talked about them a lot on the episode.

Is it what you pictured? The skin is tougher than I pictured. It's tough skin. It's tough. Maybe you said that, but I didn't internalize it.

It's kind of like the shape of an egg, and it's got a unique little thing at the top. A little? Yeah, a little hat. It's got a little hat on. It has a hat on it.

Monica Padman
And it does have a hat. I feel that it looks like a lemon shaped cucumber. Yeah. You're not wrong. They have very funny thing associations, but you're completely right.

The skin feels cucumber y. No. Give it a big sniff. Inhale the skin. What do you think of that?

Ooh, it does smell. You're right. It smells really good. Okay, great. Okay, so I want you to eat this thing.

Yeah. It's very floral. Okay. You've got a knife there. I want you to.

Okay. No, I have a spoon. And then you want me to get a knife? Well, you can maybe cut through it with a spoon. We need to cut it in half.

David Farrier
However you'd think about cutting this thing in half, a spoon could do it. Let me give it a try. Because it is a tough exterior, but it's also gentle. And if you just sort of saw through with your spoon in half, that should do it. It might squirt a little bit on you.

It's a juicy center. A moist center. Yeah. Really get in there. Really saw through.

Monica Padman
Okay. Look at that. What a beautiful scented. Now smell that. Give that a good sniff and see what you think of that.

Okay. It smells delicious. Okay, great. It really does. Doesn't look good.

Wow, the color looks not vibrant. Not vibrant, no. Looks like my pale skin. It looks like a banana was squished up in here. Yeah, I think that's fair.

David Farrier
Sort of a jelly ish center and then sort of a more textured bit around the outside. It smells so good, though. It really does. Now, is it? Potentially, it could do with another couple of days ripening.

So I'm a little bit worried it will be a little bit on the sour side. But I want you to get that spoon. I want you to scoop out just the whole thing. Almost like an egg. The goo, all of it.

The white, the hard, and the goo. You need to, like, slide that spoon around and really just lift it out of its green shell. I think you're right about the ripeness, but I'm gonna take this bite. Oh, wow. Okay, you're chewing.

Monica Padman
Oh. Oh, wow. Now look is it sour? Okay, so I've given you an unripe fijo, which is a bad move on my behalf. I got too excited.

Wow. Gave it to you too early. This is so interesting, though. Okay. Mine is very sour, but wow.

It has a lot of different flavors. This is interesting. This is not what I would. You're going back for more. This is a good sign.

David Farrier
Okay. I just watched this wine show, and on the wine show, they're identifying all the flavors and the aromas. That's what I feel like I'm doing right now. I taste strawberry. I taste a berriness.

Absolutely. People talk about strawberry. They talk about hints of pineapple. Mm hmm. Mm hmm.

Monica Padman
This is nice. It is extremely sour. Okay. So that's not the ideal way until tomorrow. Yeah.

David Farrier
Hold that. Yeah. I've left you a couple of others there, so just sit them out on the shelf, maybe next to some bananas, and that'll help ripen them all up. Is it bad that I'm eating it? Not ripe?

Oh, no, it's great. I mean, I just loved seeing you enjoying New Zealand's best thing. It's really good, David. Fantastic. Well, yeah.

I'm so glad. Okay. This is great. I think this is the first New Zealand thing. You like Tim Tams.

You didn't like pineapple lumps. I don't think you like the Whittaker's chocolate. You didn't like jaffers. You hated those. Hold on.

Monica Padman
What would every jaffers do? You remember I bought you those, like, round, red candies. You hated those. Oh, are you talking about the orange chocolate? Yeah.

Ugh. Yeah, that was. You hated them. Yeah, I hated those. But I know the chocolate was good.

The chocolate was very good. I saw it sitting there a couple of months later. Sees something different, doesn't it? The chocolate was good, but it wasn't. You made it out to be, like, it was gonna have, like, magical powers or something, which to me didn't.

But it was very good. No, I liked the meat pies. No, you did like the meat pie. That's right. You've had a meat pie.

David Farrier
You've had a sausage roll. I got your lamington. Yeah. The coconut sort of, you know, that sort of fluffy cake that had. Yeah, that was good.

Monica Padman
That was delicious. But I think this is the best. Yes. This is great. This is great news.

David Farrier
I actually found out something interesting was in an article, actually an article written by Whitaker's chocolate, which is the New Zealand chocolate brand. So possibly a bit biased, but the headline in this piece was, why does american chocolate taste bad? Oh, God. And I'm going to look more into this because I think I want to do a chocolate episode. But apparently there's a certain compound in some american chocolates that's also present in rancid butter and vomit.

Monica Padman
No, no, that cool ransomware. So sometimes there's some brands, and I gotta be careful. There's some brands of american chocolate I've eaten. And I thought, that does taste a bit like vomit to me. And so that's why we've got very different tastes, I think.

David Farrier
So you as an american, have been raised on vomit, tasting chocolate. So when you actually taste sweet, delicious chocolate, you're like, something's wrong here. No, it's not. Okay, first of all, you are gonna have to do an episode on this. Cause I don't believe you.

Monica Padman
Also, I on a fact check recently, because we had Rebel Wilson on. She brought us Tim Tams. So good. From Australia. Yeah, she bought you the right thing.

They were delicious. And then we dig it on the conversation of australian chocolate. And then I did look it up. It's because in Europe and I guess Australia and probably New Zealand, there's. God, I forget all the facts.

I read. My brain does the same thing. Believe me, they're completely gone. But it's not that. There's something in our chocolate.

There's something in your chocolate. It's about like, the milk solid. It's something about the salt that make it good. Yeah, it's the milk side of things we don't have. Well, no, it's butyric acid.

David Farrier
Butyric acid is the compound that's found in a lot of american chocolate. And that's the thing that's also present in a lot of vomit. Stop saying that. Oh, God. I vomited for the first time in a long time the other day.

Monica Padman
Oh, when you had the flu. We're really off topic. Yeah, I had the flu. I've been sick. I've been in a bad way.

David Farrier
It's awful, vomiting, isn't it? It's horrible. It's degrading. You're like, what am I doing? It's awful.

Monica Padman
I'm knocking on wood. I don't want that. Okay, now, sorry, I got us way off topic. You've had a feature. Really happy.

David Farrier
Okay, so I'm going to play you this little surveillance documentary. I'm very excited about surveillance because I read this book, which I'm about to talk to you about means of control. And so I just find this topic so interesting. So, yeah, this is what I learned when I was 16 and living in a small town called Bethlehem in New Zealand, I was obsessed with a movie called Enemy of the State. It was directed by the late, great Tony Scott and starred Will Smith and Gene Hackman.

A powerful man has been murdered. A hidden camera recorded the crime. None of this goes beyond us. We don't need any more problems, do we? I don't remember it all that well 25 years later, but it had something to do with a rogue NSA agent who used America's surveillance powers to try and kill Will Smith.

David Farrier
Now here in 2024, with all this constant talk about TikTok spying on us, I was back to wondering what the NSA was up to and the FBI and the CIA, the american government. I lived in America now, and I wanted to know who might be prying into my business. My name's Byron Tao. I'm a reporter in Washington, DC, where I cover mainly law courts and some national security. I was talking to Byron because he's just written an amazing book called means of control.

It's about how America's tech industry has joined forces with the government to make America more of a surveillance state than ever. It wasnt an easy book for him to write. He interviewed over 300 sources over four years, including a lot of people who didnt want to talk. Yeah, well, the most difficult part is that when youre writing about government surveillance programs or law enforcement techniques that police agencies would like to keep quiet, its difficult to get people to speak candidly. Often you have to work on them hard to get them to trust you.

Often you have to offer them anonymity or confidentiality. And just in general, it's a hard world to report on and just takes a lot of time. But he's done with the book. It's out dedicated to his mum, Barbara Ann, and now he's stuck here with me. What do you see as the thing that sort of sets America apart and makes it interesting to you when it comes to how we're being surveilled?

First, the United States, at least in the past 20 or 30 years, has been the place where a lot of these technologies emerged. And so, of course, us government entities are kind of at the forefront of figuring out clever ways to use them and to exploit them. And there's just a robust technology sector in the United States, and that technology sector sometimes works with the government. The second thing I would say is, actually, in America, there's a deep skepticism about government power and government surveillance, which makes this topic controversial in ways that I don't actually think it's that controversial? And other places.

You know, at one point, I interviewed someone who was from the UK originally, and he kind of rolled his eyes at the notion that anyone would be concerned about the government getting location data from his phone or tracking him all the time on cctv cameras. He said, that's just kind of how it is in the UK. And I think that Americans don't have that attitude because a lot of Americans don't trust their government. There's a long history of civil liberties and civil libertarianism in the United States, and there's a lingering distrust about government power. A lingering distrust of government power.

David Farrier
It has me thinking about enemy of the state again, and a whole bunch of american movies I grew up with where America was the bad guy. Why are they after me? Two targets, rooftop. You have something they want. I don't have anything.

I suppose Americans not trusting their government is pretty clear when you look to things like the Capitol riots or just anything in politics at the moment. This election year so far has been a shit show of distrust. But back to surveillance. Something I've found sort of interesting as an outsider being here is that there's so much talk and paranoia in America about the likes of TikTok and how China is surveilling Americans. And yet, obviously, America is doing similar things and using similar tricks with its own people.

Byron Tau
I find that kind of fascinating. It is really interesting, right? Because there's obviously not a moral equivalent you draw between the People's Republic of China and the United States. Both governments can be criticized, but China is engaged in activities that the US has called genocide in Xinjiang. But if you're just talking about the tools and the techniques of using, say, covert social media accounts to push content or surveilling large parts of the globe using data, well, that is something that the United States government does and has done.

The United States government builds apps or has contractors build apps that collect data from people around the world for intelligence purposes. And that's sort of the same thing that us national security officials are worried about with TikTok. So these information networks, the Internet, and apps and advertising, all of them can be exploited by governments, whether it's the United States government or the chinese government. And I think we're suddenly seeing the US government become aware that of though the US had the technology lead for 20 or 30 years, the future probably belongs to other countries. And that there will be a robust chinese tech sector, there will be a robust indian tech sector, there will be a robust african tech sector.

And in the future, those countries will exploit data, potentially data about Americans in the way that our government has been exploiting it for the past few decades. What Byron became particularly fascinated by is how the american government uses consumer data that's been hoovered up by various apps and programs. When people click. I agree, when they sign up to a new thing on the Internet, they're not generally reading the small print. And a lot of the time that small print is saying, your data is up for grabs to the highest bidder.

David Farrier
So while generally spy agency aren't allowed to spy domestically, there are loopholes, like buying data that already exists on you. The phenomenon I'm describing of data being available for sale, I think that is a form of bulk surveillance. And in the United States in general, we as a society have been very skeptical about bulk surveillance. Right. We're okay saying we think this person is a criminal.

I'm gonna go before a judge. I'm going to get a warrant. I'm going to look at their email accounts or their text messages. I think most people think that's reasonable. Where they don't think it's reasonable is that everybody's data gets vacuumed up into a giant database.

And that is technically not really allowed under american law. If you're targeting Americans, the loophole is that if you buy the data on the open market, suddenly those constitutional protections that Americans are used to, they go away. And so I think Americans, generally speaking, have been skeptical about bulk surveillance programs, about mass surveillance. They've been much more okay with targeted surveillance, with limited surveillance, with a judge supervising surveillance. And so I think that the amount of data that's sloshing around is starting to challenge those traditional notions of Americans privacy and Americans limited government.

Now it's possible that the social bargain has simply changed and that we all essentially have accepted this world with both the upsides of convenience and free digital apps, as well as the downside of persistent tracking by corporations and governments is. It also comes down to this big concept of the lawfulness versus how ethical it is. Right? Yeah, I think so. Right.

In some of these programs that I write about where the government is buying large amounts of, say, location data on the movement of phones and cars, I mean, it's technically been deemed legal. But if you look at the way the data was collected, if you look at the justifications the government has given for doing this, that essentially they're saying, well, consumers have opted into this, don't worry. But really, consumers are not really being told exactly how the data is collected. They're not being told where it's going, going to. So it's not really truly meaningfully consent if you want to talk about having a consumer truly ethically opt into these programs, because nobody who's a potential target for surveillance by the Department of Homeland Security or local law enforcement is ever really going to voluntarily opt into a surveillance program.

Right? So you are relying on some level of public ignorance to track people this way. There's a whole industry of data brokers in America, and their big customer is the american government. Of course, none of this is new. Back in 2019, a Harvard professor termed it surveillance capitalism.

David Farrier
One senior national security official told Byron that were backing ourselves into a surveillance state and that data collection tilts the power away from the individual towards the government. And some of the ways where being surveils, well, theyre things id never really thought of before. Like when you realize something as seemingly innocent as the tires on your car mean you can be followed. So whenever you start your car and you flip through the little screen that shows the tire pressure, the way your car knows the tire pressure is because there's a little sensor, a wireless sensor embedded in the tire that's constantly communicating to the central computer of the car and saying, you know, hey, I'm tire number 3573 and my tire pressure is 42. All is good.

But of course, that transmission is actually just going out into the clear. And so some very clever government intelligence agencies have figured out ways to build little sensors that can detect and read these tire pressure readings. Now, I don't know if this is like a true mass surveillance technology. I don't recommend that people go deflate their tires, but it just shows that there's a vector for surveillance in all of these ordinary consumer technologies that we use, and that none of them are really built for privacy. They're not built to protect us against tracking.

They're sort of carelessly designed in many ways. And the government is very clever. All these agencies, they have missions and they have technologists, and they find very clever ways to deliver on these capabilities. And so there are many factors for surveillance that go unconsidered by the average person. Byron also did a deep dive into how dating apps can be used in surveillance, how our horniness can be weaponized against us.

Byron Tau
The issues around dating apps are fascinating to me as well, and they sort of start a whole chapter in your book about Grindr and how that can be used. Dating apps are the ultimate form of giving out your location. Right? And we do that willingly. So it's not even that these apps are making the location available for sale per se.

They're just plugged into this very complicated advertising ecosystem. And because people, when they load up dating apps on their phone, they want to date people near them, right? They want to know, are you 2 miles away or are you 50 miles away? Often we want to date the person that's 2 miles away. So we enable our location settings, we turn it on.

But when you do that, you're sharing all this information with tens of thousands of parties on these advertising networks, and some of them are just sitting there vacuuming it all up. And some of those people are selling it to who knows who, right? Government agencies, private, private investigators, dark web criminals. We don't know where the data goes once it leaves our phone. And in terms of dating apps, they really generate a very rich repository of information because people swipe when they're bored, they swipe when they're lonely, and they've turned on a rich amount of data that they're sharing with the app and the advertisers.

And so of course, governments and data brokers have become interested in getting location data. And dating apps generate a very rich stream of that. I'm increasingly aware of how much data is being collected on me all the time from various apps and companies. I went into one of those Amazon stores when I was at a baseball game. An army of cameras was trained on me as I walked around picking things up.

David Farrier
There was no checkout when I left the store. It knew what I'd gotten and I was charged for it. Look, if you're american, this sort of shit's old news to you, but to me it's all pretty novel still. And when you throw one of those vision pro things on your face, thats a whole bunch of cameras, including infrared cameras, collecting your raw biological data. No doubt at some point itll be used to train AI about everything to do with you.

But you cant help but wonder who else might end up prying. I think its like previous generations of technology, like the car tires, like the advertising networks that were creating these systems. And we really dont know or even start to think about how they're going to be exploited in the future, right? People are putting large amounts of data into these large language models, which I don't even think their creators fully understand how they work and what they do. And so I do think in the future there's going to be incidents that we don't even conceive of because we don't quite understand these systems and we don't build them for privacy and security.

And to make sure that the dignity of all the individuals using them are going to be protected. We instead, like Americans, rush headlong into embracing new technologies without really thinking through that. There are downsides, there are costs, there are potential concerns about the way these things will work. And so I think we're just at the very, very beginning of understanding how these systems will be used and how they will betray us.

David Farrier
Stay tuned for more flightless bird. We'll be right back after a word from our sponsors. Support for flightless bird comes from factor now. I've recently started getting factor meals delivered to me because two main reasons, I'm a terrible cook and I also want to start eating way more healthily. And this is where factor comes in.

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It's a lot to take in, but it's pretty meaty. And I just find it really interesting when you think of all these day to day things where the very american thing is that because America loves money, so there's advertisers everywhere, and so all this data is being hoovered up to be used commercially, and then the american government can jump onto that data and legally track its citizens and see what we're up to. Yeah, I understand the fear around it, but I also feel a little bit like we want the technology, we want our car to be able to tell us about the tire. Oh, I love it. We don't want to check it every other day.

Monica Padman
We like that. We like dating app, we like the convenience. So to me, that is a trade off. I think Byron described it as the social contract changing over time and the idea that it has changed over time. We're happy to put all our photos out onto the Internet now.

David Farrier
We used to be paranoid about people having our photos, but then Facebook came along and suddenly we were uploading thousands of photos. And I feel it's the same with the tire pressures and the cameras. It makes our life so convenient. We're okay to let that privacy stuff drop behind a little bit. I also like what he said, and I think it's really true.

Monica Padman
A lot of other countries, they just don't have this dedication to privacy. They're like, well, yeah, this is how government works. I think because we are a country of liberty, that's such a big tenet that it creates this big conversation. Yeah. And that's something I hadn't really thought about, how America is less trusting of its government than potentially people in New Zealand or the UK.

David Farrier
It seems obvious since he stated that, but it's something I hadn't really. I quite like that suspicious aspect. I love that cynical take a little bit. It's very me. It is very you.

Monica Padman
But also, that's what I mean, when you're in New Zealand, were you thinking about any of this? Cause it's happening there, too. Absolutely. It's just not loud. It's just not a bunch of people being like, this is bad.

David Farrier
No, I mean New Zealand. I mean, we have a sort of a secret spy base. In New Zealand. And New Zealand is part of this thing called the five Eyes Network, which are five different countries that have joined together with America to surveil, like, swapping information about each other. So New Zealand is very much a part of this, 100%.

This book, I think what Byron's done in means of control, it just outlines things I never would have thought of before around how in our day to day life, information is just being hoovered up and used in various ways. And obviously, for us fairly ordinary members of the public, who cares? But, you know, you think of journalists trying to do their job or people trying to, you know, speak truth to power. If suddenly they are being surveilled, it's more of an issue for them in trying to do their work. Yeah, it definitely can be.

Monica Padman
I mean, I struggle with this topic a little bit. And what I'm going to say, I'm saying it because I wonder if other people will have this thought. Well, I feel I'm still forming my thoughts as well. Again, this book, I was just. It's stuff I haven't really given a great level of thought to before.

There's a part of this conversation that feels conspiracy theory adjacent. The government is tracking our tire pressure. I know that. Sure. With tech, with the cloud, with all of it, we're available to them.

David Farrier
You know, it very lines up with paranoid thinking. Paranoia. Yeah. And I think there's a level. There's a level of looking at it sensibly and being like, this is a thing that's happening.

But then this is the kind of content that gets mentally unwell. People really worried about being tracted every moment and having chips installed in their brain. It's in this wheelhouse. Yeah, it's very adjacent. And to me, dips in and out of it.

Monica Padman
And so I keep it at a little bit of an arm's length. Something. I've literally sort of thought about this now, as far as where America fits. And obviously something like 911, we've talked about this so much on armchair and dangerous and stuff, but obviously, 911 was a big shift in America's surveillance policies, and suddenly that changed the whole world and the way that we flew and traveled and how much we were being surveilled as we jumped on planes. And I wonder, what is the consensus?

I wonder if we did a survey of the american populace, are we happier that we have those precautions post 911, or are we not? I mean, I am. I like knowing that we're doing everything we can to prevent a disaster. Oh, completely. Did I tell you when in New Zealand.

David Farrier
I got this part time job at the airport one summer when I was studying, and I had to go onto planes and check that no one had hidden weapons on them to be used by terrorists. Did I tell you about this? That was your part time job? Pretty loose, right? It is, yeah.

I think they had strikes at the main Auckland, New Zealand airport, and so they were down on staff. And so one summer they did this massive hire. And so I was brought in, head out to the airport at three in the morning and the planes would land and I would go on with my team of people that had been trained over sort of a week, and we'd look under the seats, in the seat pockets up above in the luggage storage to make sure no one had like taped the knife under the seat or something to be used by their colleagues who was like, on the next flight. It was very dramatic. Very dramatic.

Monica Padman
Wow. Did you ever find one? Did anyone ever find one? Nothing. I actually, I just found some vomit under a seat one time.

David Farrier
Back to the vomit. No, I found nothing exciting. It was the least exciting job I've ever had in my life. Although it was fun going out on the tarmac and a little buggy to get to the planes. That was really fun.

Monica Padman
That was fun, yeah. Anyway, all right, I did talk to Byron a little bit more about something called the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance act, which is just a very american thing. So this is the last little bit of the dog. Something I'd forgotten to talk to Byron about earlier was that Foreign Intelligence Surveillance act. We probably should have started there as its the thing that allows the government to get potential access to our horny dating app, data, email inboxes and whatever memes were texting to our friends.

Its called the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance act, section 702. Thats a real mouthful. But what it essentially allows is the american government to go to tech companies like Google, like Meta, like Twitter, and get private information about people that it deems to be lawful intelligence targets. And it does that entirely in secret. Right.

Because we can't tell spies and terrorists that their data is being vacuumed up by the US government. Now, I should say all governments do a form of this. European governments do it. Asian governments do it. African governments do it.

They tap telecom networks, they spy, they compel companies to turn over information for national security purposes. But what makes America different is that so much of the world's telecommunications traffic passes through the United States. A lot of it passes through switches here in the DC area. That makes it vulnerable to interception by the US government and second that a lot of the global tech brands are american companies and have data in the United States. So what makes America special, what makes it a spying superpower in many ways is the fact that so many global tech companies are based here, here, and the american government can just walk into Google's headquarters or walk into metas headquarters with a list of all the people that it wants to target for surveillance and get a ton of information about those people.

And it does it all in secret. America is, in Byron's words, a spying superpower. And look, all power to America and catching the bad guys. But what about the good guys that get caught up in this? Look, ive seen enemy of the state.

David Farrier
Ive read about Edward Snowden. And as I talked to Byron, I wondered how paranoid he is about doing the kind of work he does here. I realize were talking on Zoom right now, something made in America with data centers in America could easily be intercepted. I wonder if stuff like that plays over in his mind. It certainly does, because, you know, as a reporter, Im talking to a lot of people.

Im trying to offer them confidentiality. In some cases, people are breaking in NDAs and I'm trying to protect them. Right. I don't want consequences visited on them. So I do try to be very, very security conscious about where I store data, how I store data, what platforms I use.

It doesn't mean I give up using social media. You know, I'm wearing a fitness ring that tracks how well I sleep. There are benefits to these technologies. We don't all have to go live in the woods, but we should really use them mindfully, we should use them over aware of the downside risk. As you say, I'm talking to you on Zoom.

Zoom has a potential to be intercepted. So I'm, you know, I'm not saying anything tremendously sensitive. We're having a conversation for public consumption. If I were talking to someone who was kind of a whistleblower, a government insider, maybe I wouldn't use zoom, maybe I would use signal or something. So I certainly as a reporter try to be aware of this stuff.

And I think increasingly as, as more and more information becomes digitized, as so many more professions are going to entirely live on computers, that I think more and more people are going to have to think about this stuff in their day to day lives. Before I let Byron get back to his life writing about surveillance, I wanted to know what other tips he had when it came to protecting data from prying eyes. It depends what you're worried about protecting. Right? So I do think if you're talking about shady data brokers collecting your location, you certainly can disable a lot of the location settings in a lot of your commercially available apps.

You don't need to tell the weather app where you are. You can just type in the city where you are. You could just let it know your location when you open it, not 24/7 so I would tell people to primarily be conscious of what information they share with these apps that they put on their phone. There are certainly very good privacy protecting technologies, especially communications technologies. WhatsApp Signal, Apple's iMessage, these are all encrypted.

They will all protect the contents of your communications. Some of them are stronger encryption than others. Some of them collect less data than others. But in general, the ordinary person using these services will get a pretty decent level of privacy. It's not perfect.

You could always hack people and steal their data, but it was harder for snoopers, governments, telecoms to see messages transiting on that platform. And finally, I would really recommend that people rethink their relationship to paying for digital services. Because when apps can't rely on people to pay $0.99 or 199 for an app or a few bucks a month for a service, that's really when they do turn to monetizing their user base. Because it's not free to make an app, it does cost money. You gotta hire coders to code it, rent server space.

You have to hire lawyers to draw up a privacy policy. You have to pay employees. So technology is never really free. And so when people are unwilling to spend even a few dollars on an app or a service, then that's when these companies start to turn around and say, okay, well, they want our app, but they don't want to pay for it. Why don't we just monetize them?

Why don't we sell their data? Yeah, amen to all of that. And do all of that. And obviously also occasionally let some air out of your tires, right? That's right.

If you really are concerned about surveillance, yes. You probably want to find a mechanic to rip those sensors out of your car tires. Look, to be honest, I couldn't really care less about who's tracking my information. I won't be deflating my tires anytime soon. Then again, I just rewatch minority report, and it reminded me what can go wrong when our data is harvested and used against us.

David Farrier
I also think the whole TikTok panic has been really interesting to watch and shows how differently the likes of China thinks about this stuff to how I'm America thinks about it, as Byron notes doing in the closing of his book, China wants its citizens to know they're being watched in America. The success lies in its secrecy. By the time this goes to air, the whole TikTok thing may have changed entirely. But I do think it's kind of fascinating how there's no great proof right now that China is using TikTok to influence the masses in America or to surveil us. But it turned into such a giant talking point, like, such a big thing.

It's almost talked about as if it's definite fact. I'm not on TikTok, so I know so little about this. I mean, I know lurking on TikTok somewhere, watching. I'm lurking. No, I'm not.

Monica Padman
I'm not. Thank God. I'm so glad I've avoided that rabbit hole. Oh, I'm with you. I think it's the last social network where I think I just.

David Farrier
I haven't gotten on. It's like I've aged out, and I'm aware of it, and that's okay. I agree. I agree. I think it's okay.

Monica Padman
But this has been talked about since the beginning, since TikTok first blew up. Oh, China. Chinese app. They have all our data. They're tracking, like, all of it.

And then what made it turn so quickly? In the past month, there's just been hearings about it. It's just been this big push by America. It's sort of a political talking point, just a crackdown. So there was no impetus, no reveal or anything?

No. No big data's come out, and you see quotes from various american intelligence agencies, and they're not saying this is a definite. They're like, oh, China could be doing this, or this is a possibility. It's nothing concrete, but, yeah, it's been reported on so widely. I just think it's interesting, the paranoia China spying on us is much more worried about by, I think, a typical american than the idea that your location data is being hoovered up by private data brokers and then sold elsewhere.

David Farrier
It's so easy to, like, fear this outside force as opposed to powers within. Yeah, but there's a reason for that, right? Oh, you don't want other countries prying on all our data. Yeah. They have a much bigger incentive to use it for.

Monica Padman
To, quote, take us down than the american government does. So are there examples of journalists who talk about being surveilled and then stifled? Yeah, no, absolutely. It mainly comes to, you know, protecting sources. Sources.

David Farrier
And I was just revisiting the Edward Snowden story. And that's the idea of data being used against american citizens is this whole other topic to go down. But, yeah, means of control. The book, it talks about it so competently in. Byron, you know, he talked to 300 sources for this.

It's just one of those books that's so well researched and so level headed. I just loved reading it. So I'm like, I've got to talk to this guy. And, you know, we've got to talk a little bit about surveillance because it's just a fascinating space. And I think when I was at that baseball game, looking at what felt like 60 cameras staring at me in the Amazon store as I picked out my chocolate bar and my drink, I was so stunned that this technology existed.

There was no counter. It just knew what I had, and I walked out and it charged my card. Yeah, there are whole foods that do that as well. That's right. Yeah.

Monica Padman
Which is so bonkers. I mean, you know, when you're going into that store or, you know, when you're going into that whole foods, that's what's happening. So I think there's personal responsibility here. Sort of what he said. He's like, if you're talking about something extremely sensitive, maybe know how to do that in a way.

And I. Yeah, I'm kind of like, have some personal responsibility 100% in general, you know, like, if you're worried about being surveilled, probably don't shop in that Amazon store. You know, there's other things you can do. There's other ways to get those, you know, that aren't as convenient. But again, that's the trade off.

David Farrier
No, I agree. And it's like what he was saying, there's a reason that some apps, it's good to pay for them, because then those apps don't have to find other ways to make money out of you as a product. There's a reason that was interesting. So it's just like little things like that that I think are interesting to think about. Also, I've heard this come out of a lot of people's mouths that they like their algorithm.

Oh, they're like, oh, this curates it really well for me. Yeah. Like, everything I'm getting is what I want. I'm going to get ads anyway. Might as well get the ads of things that I might actually use or enjoy or.

Monica Padman
I don't know. I find that takes sort of interesting as well. The algorithm is not working well for me at the moment. Do you know what the algorithm is giving me all over Facebook and Instagram. Vomit.

David Farrier
It's giving me. I wish it was vomit. It's giving me birds, which I like, but they are AI birds with giant testicles. That's what I'm getting. All I'm getting is, I'll send you.

Monica Padman
David. No, it's. What? It's messed up. What are you talking about?

David Farrier
I'm being served up some kind of hellish AI art space, and now all Facebook is serving me, and it's my fault for being on Facebook in the first place. It's just birds with massive nuts. Wait to buy a painting or. I'm so confused. No, just, like, the caption will be, here's some beautiful nature, and then.

Okay, I'm gonna send it to you. Don't send it to me. I don't want to send it to you. I'm gonna send it to you. Give me a second.

Because it's hard to describe the stuff that I'm being served up. What are you being served up? Some good stuff. I mean, I get, like, a lot of. This might be.

Is this workplace sexual harassment? It's awful, isn't it? This is horrific. What in the fuck? I also don't get it.

Monica Padman
I don't get world. Why is this an ad? No, it's just a lot of Facebook is being taken over by bad AI art. It's kind of built to go viral because it's so weird. There was a big phenomenon of jesuses made out of shrimp.

David Farrier
That was a big thing. What the fuck? Oh, my God. Yeah. A lot of Facebook has been taken over by this.

Monica Padman
You're on regular Facebook. Regular Facebook? Yeah. It's just a whole lot of birds as big. I think maybe get off of that.

David Farrier
I need to get out of that. I don't have that on Instagram. I just have ads of clothes. Actually, I bought this great outfit. It's looking great.

Monica Padman
Thank you. That was in targeted ad. I see it's working for you. I wish I was getting great wardrobe advice. Not big nuts.

Yeah, you need a new suit. He says you needed a new suit. You should get some targeted suit. Suit ads. I need to fix my algorithm.

Obviously. I actually blame you for this. I think it's a me problem. Let's not get into what I'm actually searching for in my search terms. Don't make this a me problem, Monica.

David Farrier
All right. Well, I would say I've become slightly more american because I have been thinking about american surveillance. So at least I've got to be another 2% american. Yeah, I mean, I think we're all being surveilled on this globe in this global economy, and it's only going to get more. And so, gosh, I guess it's up to everyone, individually to embrace it or reject it.

Monica Padman
I am tired. I'm just going to embrace it. And it's so much effort to tap out of society in any way as well. It's kind of part of the shit. Let's just hope it doesn't get turned against us in some way.

David Farrier
Yeah, we'll be all right. We'll be okay. And if it all goes bad, we'll just like, head to the hills. Where are the hills? Where do you go to the hills?

In LA? In New Zealand? If things go bad, it'll go to the hills. Be like the Kiamai ranges. Where do you go in LA?

Up the Griffith Observatory or something? No, I think we go down. I think we, like go into our bunkers. Ding, ding, ding, ding. We go down?

Yeah, of course we go into the bunker. Yeah. Which I'm kind of excited for that. There are some beautiful bunkers. All right, well, I'm glad you enjoyed the feature.

You want more New Zealand? This was great. Merry Christmas. Happy birthday.

Monica Padman
Happy birthday.

David Farrier
Happy birthday.

Monica Padman
Happy birthday.