KEITH (00:00.834)
Without you

KEITH (00:07.869)
YAAAW!

KEITH (00:32.11)
But right now, places I go make me feel done time

You see how they put down the pyramid inside Here's where the story ends

KEITH (00:58.626)
I see, wearing me, sharing the good side

You see how people look down? I'm on the X-Line. It's where the story ends.

Hit when the story ends

It's that little souvenir of a terrible year which makes my heart spin so. Oh, I never should have said, the most that you ran for all I love you for. It's that little souvenir of a terrible year which makes me wonder why. It's the memories of your shine, the night you

KEITH (02:10.702)
We're racing on now, places I go, make me feel sad-tide. I can see how, people look down, I'm on the outside. It's where the story ends.

It's where the story ends It's that little souvenir of a terrible year which makes my eyes whistle

And whoever would've thought, who much you brought, were all I left behind. Oh, the devil in me sat, got down to the shed, I know who I belong. But the only thing I ever really wanted to say was wrong, was wrong, was

It's that little souvenir of a colorful year, which makes me smile inside. So I cynically, cynically say, well, that way? Surprise, surprise, surprise, surprise.

KEITH (03:49.708)
kids when the story ends.

is when the story comes

KEITH (04:25.646)
It's shiver in the dark, it's raining in the park, but meantime, Sound of the river, you're stopping your whole everything.

KEITH (04:39.598)
And it's growing dixie, double fall time

KEITH (04:47.618)
you

you

KEITH (04:54.734)
Step inside but you don't see too many faces Coming in out of the rain and hear the jazz go down Competition in other places

KEITH (05:15.266)
But the horns, they blowin' that sound

We on down south We on down south London town

KEITH (05:39.512)
Check out Guitar George! He knows all the cards!

you

KEITH (05:46.766)
When it's strictly random, doesn't wanna make it cry or sing

KEITH (05:53.846)
His Dan and Old Guitar is off, he can't afford When he gets up under the lights to play his thing

KEITH (06:09.966)
Harry doesn't mind if he doesn't make the scene He's got a day time job, he's doing alright He can play the honk, he don't like anything

KEITH (06:29.388)
Saving it up Friday night

KEITH (06:36.174)
With the sultans With the sultans

KEITH (06:47.544)
Hey kids. my goodness. Welcome to this edition of At the Mic. I am your host, Keith Malinak. It's a Thursday deep dive. And my goodness, I have got a couple of guests for you to talk about the subject at hand, the Patriot Act. I feel that it's very important as Americans, we take stock in that because there was a news story that broke yesterday that needs some attention. And I'm looking forward to discussing that with

guys that know quite a bit about that. So before we do that, please don't forget to like and subscribe wherever you're watching this. We're doing this live on X. We do this every Thursday and Friday at 3 p.m. And then tonight at 8 o'clock Eastern, it'll run at YouTube and Rumble Live. And then tomorrow morning at 9 a.m. Eastern, it posts on Spotify, iTunes, iHeartRadio, all those good places.

big thanks to Hero Wes and all that he does over at Second Floor Studios. So grateful for all the help that I get. Gabby. my gosh, Gabby. Hard at work posting stuff over Instagram at The Mike Show. Please follow over there. And she's always putting up a lot of good stuff. OK, now.

I tweeted out yesterday, I was like, you know what guys, I think we're just gonna hang out today on the Thursday deep dive. You know, let's just have like an open phones type show and you talk about whatever you want to and let's just have a conversation. And then all of a sudden I saw this story that representative Annapalina Luna is trying to get rid of the Patriot Act once and for all. And all of a sudden I perked up and I was like, wait a minute, hold on, is this?

Is this even possible? And so, we're going to talk about that. And I reached out to Steve Friend, who you should follow him, at real Steve Friend on Twitter. Is that that's primarily where you hang out, right? Just making sure, just making sure at real Steve Friend. He co-hosts the great show. You want to you want to learn stuff. You need to subscribe, make sure that you follow along with the

STEVE FRIEND (08:55.458)
Yep, sure is.

KEITH (09:09.166)
American Radicals podcast. I always want to say real Americans for some reason, but American Radicals podcast. And he and Garrett O'Boyle, they really ditch the information if you want to know what's going on at the FBI and with your nation's federal law enforcement. That's your source right there. And also joining us today for the first time, George Hill, my goodness, this guy. What an honor it is to meet you, man.

And shame on me for not having talked to you before. 26 years in the military. You worked over at the NSA. You worked over a decade at the FBI. So you have quite the street cred, my friend, and someone else that I need to talk to on this issue. And I think before we even, I want you to let me down easy. Let's do this. Tell me before we get started on the Patriot Act.

Is there any chance that you see this thing getting repealed? Never mind anytime soon, but ever. Anybody want to take that?

Take it, George.

Not gonna happen. They've had multiple chances. They just voted on it a year ago. Jim Jordan said he took a good look at 702 and it sailed right through again, despite a history of having no record of success in any aspect other than supporting political narratives, whether it be on the left or the right side of the aisle.

KEITH (10:42.816)
Yeah, and that's frustrating thing is it doesn't seem to matter who's in office. This thing always gets sent through. kudos, I guess, to Representative Annapolina Luna, who was 12 years old when 9-11 happened and could have just, I guess, accepted this as just the way we do business now. The Patriot Act is just a part of America. And shame on me for not...

revisiting it more frequently. But it seems like it used to be, we used to have a real discussion on the Patriot Act and all of the encroachments on our liberties that it injected into our system, our federal system. And now it just, whatever. It comes up for renewal and we say a few things and then we just move on. But I thought it would be a good refresher for people like me who maybe have forgotten.

or people that never really took the time to learn about the Patriot Act. Because as I've said before on this show, I was for the Patriot Act the first go around. After that, I wised up, I got smarter, I realized, holy crap, no, no, this is not the way to govern America. And so I thought I would invite y'all on here to just kind of go through this because you guys have both been in federal law enforcement. And so who better to talk to about the tools in the Patriot Act?

to kind of remind us what we have done to ourselves. That thing is now a quarter of a century, this thing is. We did some silly stuff. We did some really short-sighted things after 9-11. And of course, the Patriot Act is one of them. So who wants to go first here as far as just, I guess, a thumbnail sketch as to why the Patriot Act is not a good thing for this country?

This

GEORGE HILL (12:40.409)
I want to put out heads.

No, I mean, I think George is gonna have the wealth of knowledge when it comes to like intelligence gathering aspect because that's that's really his lane But me let me kick it off with one thing that's operational that you know, the agent would essentially initiate And that is what the FBI does all the time and they open cases, right? They they open investigations, but they have different names for them There could be a full investigation there could be a preliminary investigation or there could be what's called an assessment in the assessment

is derived from the Patriot Act. It's essentially a lower tier investigation that the FBI can open. You don't get access to all the goodies, but any agent can open up any assessment on any American for an articulable purpose. No crime needs to have been committed, no allegations, no reasonable suspicion, probable cause, nothing.

articulable purpose, maybe, but you can just explain why you have a hunch about something. And for 30 days, you can have an assessment open without even a supervisor approving of it. And then beyond that, you get a supervisor, they just sign off on it because you don't want to be in a situation where, well, he was on our radar and we just closed it on down.

And that was unique to the Patriot Act? Okay, okay, see.

GEORGE HILL (14:03.326)
The Patriot Act changed all that. I think it's interesting that Representative Paul Luna introduced that bill. There's nothing I can see in the reporting that says that she reached out to the other 10 members of Congress that co-authored a letter that was drafted by Rashida Tlaib, who is no longer in Congress. She put together a letter, oddly enough, right after the Fed's erection day of January 6th, asking that the Patriot Act be

you know, be rescinded. And, you know, so they go through these dog and pony shows periodically to get their name in the news. Maybe their name recognition starts to drop a little bit and they put this stuff out there. But if she were really serious about it, she would have reached out to some of those representatives that signed that letter with Rashida to leave and tried to build a cross aisle coalition. But she's not going to get anywhere. People like Jim Jordan and others.

Chuck Grassley on the Senate side, are going to shut her down immediately. It's never going to be repealed, but it actually gets worse because the Patriot Act has been used to, Steve was talking about writing assessments. if you are an FBI analyst, which are the predominant abusers of the Patriot Act, it's not the National Security Agency.

They're the collector. It's the FBI analyst who's on the operational end of it. And you can just go and peruse the FBI databases, which Barack Obama opened up at the end, literally within the last few days of his administration changing the executive order 12333. And you can, as an analyst, just go through the NSA databases and look for the criteria that's articulated in the Patriot Act. Website browsing.

social media history, can listen to people's voicemails, all that stuff gets hoovered up without any predication, any case being opened. And you can start to look at people based solely on their behaviors, which then also gave us the Quiet Skies program, which uses the same criteria of just looking at people's behaviors for closer scrutiny. So this is the police state.

GEORGE HILL (16:27.278)
on steroids that's not going to change, but wait, it gets worse. Artificial intelligence is going to take the analyst out of that process of perusing and data mining these databases that are, people can't even begin to comprehend the size of them. And it's going to scour those databases and it's going to build its own profile.

on people. the Patriot Act, the change in 702 and the changes that Barack Obama made to 12-333 with artificial intelligence really starting to replace analysts, I would think within the next three to five years, replace human beings. We're looking at a level of police state that Hollywood hasn't even touched.

I tell you what, George, what were the years that you were at the NSA, if I may ask?

Sure, so I joined the NSA on June 6th of 2005. It's easy for me to remember, it's D-Day. By that time I had finished three deployments post 9-11 and was recruited by the National Security Agency and things were very different then. I too, and I'm gonna be always candid, I call balls and strikes and I think Steve can back me up on that. When the Patriot Act first came out, I thought it was a pretty good idea.

I misjudged human behavior and I take full responsibility for that. It didn't take me long to come around, but when I was at the National Security Agency, the databases were the holy of holies. To get access to those databases obviously required need to know, higher levels of clearance beyond top secrets, so compartmentalized levels of clearance.

GEORGE HILL (18:26.107)
And you didn't keep those forever. that changed. That was changing by the time I left in 2010.

Okay, so I don't want to put you on the spot with this, but it sounds like you were gone before Edward Snowden leaked what was happening there with the NSA and all the collection there. I am curious though, in the context of this conversation, what you, and then I'll ask you Steve as well, what are your thoughts on Edward Snowden and what he did and is what he revealed, this is what made me think of him.

George, when you said AI is going to make the surveillance state a catapult here. wonder, so I two questions. Your thoughts on Edward Snowden and what he revealed. Compare the capabilities that the government had, what, 13 years ago now compared to what you're foreshadowing here with AI.

When Edward Snowden, when that story first broke, I was horrified. And I think if given an opportunity, I would have gutted him and left a pile of guts on the floor where he stood. That's really how strongly I felt. then he did, I think it was so long that it ran two episodes. He did an interview with Joe Rogan that completely changed my mind. I'm glad he did what he did.

I think it took an extreme measure, you know, that he had to go the route that he did. It's unfortunate that he had to do it. And the issue, Keith, and your audience is not so much the collection capability, because it still exists. The issue is what do you do with all that data? And right now we're using human beings to make use of it.

GEORGE HILL (20:27.522)
And that's going to change in a few years.

STEVE FRIEND (20:32.59)
Now I'm kind of on par with where George is vibing on that, you know, and it was a lot of, think my opinions were derived from how he was portrayed in media, which was still rah rah team America and how dare you do this to us and the damage that you've inflicted now on our ability to collect intelligence. Well, I mean, he exposed prism. They have other things that are exactly the same, just as capable. So I don't think that that's one exposure.

brought down the intelligence collection apparatus of United States of America by any stretch of imagination. And then also he ran to Russia, which was we saw with the problems with Ukraine and Russia, like that still pulls on Americans' heartstrings. Like there are still a sizable chunk of Americans who exist in a rocky four life where they still think that the wall is up and that Ivan Drago is a

more than a man, he's a machine. And that's a really convenient crush for people in power to lean on because all they have to say is Russia, Russia, Russia.

Okay, yeah, that's a man. So true. Okay. I told you the onset shame on me for not knowing or in some cases forgot some cases didn't even know was oblivious to all of the levers of control that are available to the federal government through the Patriot Act. So full disclosure, I asked Rock before we sat down here today. I said,

What are some libertarian and constitutionalist objections that people might have toward the Patriot Act? And let me just, I'm going to stop on each bullet point and let you gentlemen kind of discuss among yourselves here. But it talks about, obviously, the bulk data collection in section 215. And just remind people what this does, this section, and what it allows. And buckle up, gentlemen, because.

KEITH (22:32.674)
There's a lot of bullet points here and I hope you block some time to discuss this stuff. But let's start with the bulk data collection that everybody talks about the section 215 stuff. Who wants to go first, George?

Yeah, take it George.

That's what we're talking about earlier, hoovering up everything. Any everything that you do electronically is now available without predication and without an order from a judge to include FISA. So it's all just sitting out there. And the reason our collection has not been hampered post Edward Snowden is because essentially we built the world's communications network.

So we sit atop of everything. It all has to pass through us. So all that information is out there. And where it really made a big difference is with FinCEN, Financial Intelligence Center, where you're hoovering up all of the financial transactions that are taking place out there under the guise of fighting terrorism. Well, Islamic terrorists don't use

the international banking system. They use an ancient thing called the Hualadar. And you're not going to find any of those nefarious activities for Islamic extremism, which was the basis for the Patriot Act. that we've declared transnational criminal organizations, also incorrectly referred to as cartels, as terrorist entities, the Patriot Act

GEORGE HILL (24:08.77)
will be effective in going up against them. But they've also discovered Bitcoin and they also use the Chinese government to launder their money. it's like I said, it's a giant shopping mall for people with less than honorable intentions.

Yeah.

STEVE FRIEND (24:31.468)
I think probably the best way to put it is to go in reverse as to what they can't collect. Because whatever they can't collect is what they're going to complain about, right? So you always hear about the going dark initiative or maybe people aren't aware of it. And that's the push that we saw that the federal government, specifically the FBI, any member of the IC, they need to have a skeleton key to get into encrypted messaging services so they can get them real time. Like your signal chat, they can't get to because of Patriot Act.

hasn't given them that capability yet. That's why they're screaming about it, because they can get to everything else. And I do think it's interesting how we made the transnational organized crime syndicates, these cartels, into terrorist organizations. Because now if you buy drugs, you're essentially providing material support to terrorism. Ergo, the Patriot Act could be used against you for buying a dime bag on the street court.

Yeah, you could be charged with a variety of materials for a tire issue.

And that's the other thing about the Patriot Act. I recall correctly, hell, might even be in here somewhere from Grok. I didn't look at all. mean, trust me. I'm going to spare you guys quite a bit because Grok went on and on and on with objections. But hey, really, correct me if I'm wrong, the Patriot Act really expanded the definition of what qualifies to be a terrorist, right? Do I have that right?

Grok's a secret libertarian.

GEORGE HILL (25:56.886)
Now it expanded what you're allowed to do and then it kind of leaves it up to you what a terrorist is.

Okay.

And that power has led to the devolution of what we've seen, where they keep redefining terrorism or the object of a terrorist investigation. So, you know, it might be someone who is an actual bad actor, who's inspired by an ideology, wants to carry out a violent action to get through fear, get to political outcomes. Like that is terrorism, right? Well, you know, it's somebody who's inspired by a foreign terrorist organization.

Okay, maybe. Well, it's somebody who has an ideology that we think is problematic. mean, these people going to school boards, they're making the school board members very fearful. So that could be domestic terrorism. So we're going to investigate. And you continue to see the evolution go further and further. And whoever's at the top just sort of directs the attack dog to go after whoever they want.

So terrorism has become a pejorative term, it's a legal term. And the State Department, the Department of Defense, the FBI, Department of Justice, Homeland Security, and other countries have various definitions of terrorism. But if you just sew them all down, it essentially boils down to the use of violence to affect a political outcome. Well, there's a lot of latitude with that statement. threats and intimidation

GEORGE HILL (27:26.862)
the use of violence, know, is marching 1,500 people through the Capitol, the use of violence. And it was a really quick trip to label those people as domestic terrorists because it's really, it's almost how you, like I said earlier, how you want to define it.

The word terrorist is pretty clearly laid out in legal documentation. The problem is that there's so much latitude now because the word has been so misused over decades. he's a terrorist. I was coming out of the gym the other day wearing an NRA jacket and a woman accosted me and said, the NRA is a terrorist organization. I'm like, really? What parts of the US code have they violated? Who have they killed?

It's just become a pejorative that people just throw around without any understanding that there's actually a legal construct to it.

So gentlemen, I guess let me go to you here on this one, Steve. What is a national security letter, NSL, that the Patriot Act empowers you through?

It basically is like a think of it like a subpoena, right? mean it's something that you can draft but you don't need to go need to go through the courts it goes Yes, yeah, you just go to the chief division counsel Basically the lawyer the on staff attorney who's typically an FBI agent who works for your field office So, you know why I worked out of two different divisions in my time the FBI the Omaha field office and the Jacksonville field office and if you want to draft a national security letter

KEITH (28:49.772)
He bypasses judges,

STEVE FRIEND (29:09.624)
You basically had to have them sign off on it. The FBI has some pretty convenient software. just work your way through, check all the boxes. And again, it's pretty broad. the attorneys try to, I guess, in my experience, I didn't have to do it very often, but they tried to make sure that you were wordsmithing it to it seemed like you actually cared about civil liberties. But again, it's outside of the judicial system.

Yeah, and what it gives you is phone activity, not the actual transcript or it just gives you time and duration of call and the numbers called. So from there, you're pretty much off to the races. Now you can start to do deep dives on those phone numbers.

And refresh my memory, I try to search my memory banks because I've been in talk radio forever. And I feel like there was a time where we were discussing the, once we had realized, my gosh, what power have we given the federal government? And I recall that it was a, there was some sort of, I don't know, it was almost like six degrees of Kevin Bacon or whatever. Like what is the email thing? Can you remind me what that one is? Like if you are.

If someone you communicate with had commu... Do you know what I'm talking about?

the two hops rule.

KEITH (30:26.562)
Is that what it is? Yes. Too hot. Okay. Okay. All right. That was FISA. All right. Very good. Okay. That's a whole other topic. Check your calendars, gentlemen. Okay. So I think you're right though, Steve. is definitely a libertarian. Grok flagged first, fourth, fifth, and sixth amendment violations in the Patriot Act. How the hell? When is this thing? See, this is the thing.

That's Pfizer.

KEITH (30:56.032)
George started off by saying, you want to talk about opposite ends of the political spectrum. It's Annapolina Luna and Rashida Tlaib. You would think that when you have people who disagree on damn near everything that passes through Congress, maybe we find common ground every now and then on something as far reaching and impactful as the Patriot Act.

And it's just, I want to know when it comes up for renewal. But I don't know. just wouldn't.

Two years it was two years because it's two years Yeah because trump gave the blessing when he was candidate trump at the time and said that it would come back up during His next term if you were elected now and when it was renewed They there was a push of the last gasp of any sort of hope for a modicum of libertarianism was Okay, you're gonna get section 702 and faiza and be able to collect all this information

But in order to look at that information, if it relates to an American citizen, you need to have a warrant. And they folded on that one like a cardboard box in a rainstorm. They gave the entire thing back as it is, and they actually enhanced it. I I went back and read it, unfortunately. And there is an actual portion of the renewal for Section 702 that if you read it in the right way,

whistleblower who comes forward like a Snowden could be construed to have violated the law. You could be prosecuted for bringing information saying, look, you know, we're abusing section 702, we're doing reverse targeting, that's completely out of step with how this law is going on. Well, that's against America's interests, so Ergo, you have now violated the law and you could be arrested for that, even if you came forward to a member of Congress.

KEITH (32:56.406)
Neat. Okay, so one of the things Grok does not point out is the 10th Amendment violations, right? I mean, that has really federalized so much more. And I love the point that you make, Steve, when we discuss the FBI and how you want to disarm the FBI and make it more of an investigative, you know, it's in the name, Federal Bureau of Investigation. And then if there is, you know, physical enforcement that needs to occur,

that involves drawing guns or what have you, then you would defer to the local authorities. What the Patriot Act, it just seems like, just reading here, it seems like it has also taken away the authority from the states, yes?

Yeah, in 2008, Bob Mueller, then FBI Director Bob Mueller testified and said that the FBI is no longer the Federal Bureau of Investigation. We're now the Federal Bureau of Intelligence. So the FBI has turned into a domestic intelligence service, which was a part of a very acrimonious part of the discussion when they were debating the Patriot Act was how are we going to do this domestic intelligence

Are we going to create an MI5 like the Brits have? A standalone entity or are going to do something else? And they went with something else and created this capability and then lashed it up to the FBI. So the FBI is a domestic intelligence service and it serves whoever is writing the checks. So both sides of the aisle understand that Amman Power and the FBI and the Domestic Intelligence Service is my attack dog now.

And then when they come out of power, they're willing to accept that the other side coming in is now going to have the attack dog that used to come to their heel.

KEITH (34:50.198)
Yeah, isn't that kind of where we're at with Obamacare too? Yeah, okay.

Well, and also to piggyback, I mean, look, the FBI tells you who they are. The Bible for the FBI is the DIOG, which stands for Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide. And that basically tells you how to do investigations if you work at the FBI and how everything is supposed to work. Like there's a rule book there. And basically on page one, where they lay out their mission statement and they say like, who are we? Why are, why do we exist? The first thing they say is to collect intelligence.

And number two is to investigate violations of federal law.

KEITH (35:32.3)
Well, this is fun.

Intercalate and cold?

the

12th, 2001.

is exactly what that is. Okay, so let's see here. What else do we want to touch on? if a regular average American citizen like me reaches out and says, hey guys, let's talk about any concerns that you have with the Patriot Act. want to know, I want to know, well, before I do that, let me go back. Think about you guys and your role at the FBI. I'll come back to that question I was setting up.

KEITH (36:31.512)
Think of your role in the FBI. Was it part of you that said, I don't know, man, this actually makes my job easier. I kind of like what this thing or was the entire time during your career and your time at the FBI really like, that seems like a moral dilemma. Like you don't want to violate the constitution, but boy, you got the tools there.

Steve and I sit on, we're both on the same coin, but we're different sides of that coin. So Steve was an 1811 agent doing investigations. I ran the national security intelligence side of the coin for the Boston field office. So from an analyst point of view, the Patriot Act and the changes that would have been made to visor 702 by Obama essentially just gave

the intelligence cadre, an easy day. just go in, you set your criteria, you do your research, you write your paper, and it just makes your job easier. Now, from an investigative standpoint, whether it makes you work harder or easier, Steve, what are your thoughts on that?

I mean you can just go back to reverse targeting that what 702 essentially authorizes you to do they give you the tool that is only useful if you misuse it now I didn't misuse it but you could see how you would be somebody who's got has a missions focus of we can't allow another 9-eleven no American can ever die at the hands of a terrorist again and Nobody we have to be left of boom. We have to be there before the attack. We have to do pre-crime

Unless I can beyond our shadow of a doubt prove that this person is not a terrorist Then I need to keep looking at them and digging out you could see how even the in the intent behind that might not be nefarious You might be actually interested in keeping the country safe from an attack But then you're completely out of step with how things are supposed to be and that is that there's a certain inherent risk in a free and libertarian society And it's not incumbent on the government to to be dad to everyone at all times

STEVE FRIEND (38:38.494)
But that's how you actually get the FBI sending an agent and an analyst to go talk to a woman in Oklahoma who was posting things on Facebook about how she wanted to see American troops come home in tiny pine boxes from combat because she was against what the American military was engaged in. But we allegedly live in a free society and she's allowed to be a jerk and say those things in line. It's not the business of the government to look at that. But she was on their radar.

And now they're going to look at her communications. They can hoover up exactly what she was saying on Facebook, who she was saying it with, and who she was having conversations with.

We've been talking all about the downside of the Patriot Act and the changes made to FISA 702. So the upside would be, well, how many terrorist plots have we disrupted? How safe have we made the country?

the

I want to say about maybe five years ago, maybe a little bit longer when Patriot Act was coming up for renewal. He had the deputy director of the NSA, gentleman by the name of John Inglis, I-N-G-L-I-S. Nice guy, civilian, NSA's dual had it, civilian and military. I've met John, I've had exchanges with him, and he asserted that the

GEORGE HILL (40:09.72)
collection that the FBI, I'm sorry, the NSA is doing and sharing with the FBI has disrupted 54 terrorist attacks. And within 30 minutes, John Leahy, through a series of question was able to get that down to zero. So the answer to that question is there is no upside.

STEVE FRIEND (40:31.362)
Look, it could be useful to like say it take a 702 section 702 FISA Like I said, it's it's only useful if it's misused in its purest form What you're going to use section 702 is to monitor someone's communications be it email phone text Someone that someone has to be overseas they have to be a principal or a representative of a foreign government

not an American. And you can only monitor them when they're overseas engaging in that, right? But that's not really useful to you if you're a criminal investigator and you want to put bad guys in jail that are grabbable. Like, I mean, if I know what a bad guy is talking about in Iran and he works for the Iranian government, like I can't put handcuffs on him. But 702 will give me who he's talking to and if they're in America and now I know their identity and I'm not supposed to do that, but then I could.

And then another element of it is that the way the FBI has written things like Appendix G and the Investigative Investigations Operations Guide is you can open up a full scope counterintelligence investigation on any person if they have contact with someone who is overseas, a foreign actor. Because the concern is, know, Keith, you are being targeted for recruitment by a foreign nation to become an asset for them to become a spy, right?

And we want to look at you and just make sure you're aware. You could be getting targeted. You're the victim here. We're looking at you as a victim. But because you're the victim of a case or the subject of a case, it doesn't matter. Now we have the ability to look at everything that Keith is doing here. So now you can see how you combine them of you've identified someone overseas who happens to be talking to Keith. And now Keith is the victim, allegedly, of this full counterintelligence investigation where we can look at Keith and we can look at Keith's bank accounts.

We can look at all of your communications now because we're really concerned that you're going to be recruited to go and give sensitive information over to Russia, who is allegedly recruiting you. the, the, the final note is the communication can be one way. Like you got a spam email and deleted it and never read it and don't actually have an ongoing dialogue with somebody from Russia, but that's all we needed. And now we have this open case and.

STEVE FRIEND (42:57.346)
We don't want say that Keith was on our radar all this time. We better find some.

Okay, so

And we can two hop you after that. we can whoever Keith's talking to and then whoever they're talking to. So it's unlimited.

And this is election all under the Patriot Act. Yes.

GEORGE HILL (43:17.048)
Well, Pfizer existed before the Patriot Act, but yes, they go together.

And Steve, as you were using me as an example, you don't need to come up with a hypothetical. I believe you made this same case when Cash Patel was in the running for the nomination to be FBI director. All of a sudden, was a news story that, fill in the blanks here, the FBI was saying, hey, he's being targeted by Iranians. What was it? Because I believe you.

explain how that came to be, right?

It meant that they had identified him as somebody who was possibly being targeted by a foreign actor. And as a result, they have a full counterintelligence investigation open on Cash Patel, which means that they could look at everything about him and then maybe find a crime and you never know, like leak it over to somebody on the Democrat side in order to have some information to impeach him and stop his nomination from happening. And here's another thing that we haven't even thrown out there. The United States has allies. The intelligence community has counterparts in other countries.

There's nothing stopping them from calling one of their counterparts and being like, Hey, can you get somebody who's one of your assets that you're running to just email Keith?

KEITH (44:36.03)
Wow, so true. count. Okay, so this actually nicely ties it back to the question I started to ask. The average American citizen who hears you guys spilling all of this information and educating us on what is in this behemoth law, it's so unconstitutional. Actually, hold on, that's gonna be my next question, so stand by. But what would you tell?

The average American...

trying to think of how to word this. It's like, what do you do? Because you clearly, you're being surveilled. Every American. It convinced me that not every American is under some sort of surveillance, or at least should operate under the assumption that they are, based on how loose these connections can be.

So let's tighten down the definition of surveillance. Every American is being collected on. Now, whether someone is being actively surveilled, very, very small, almost immeasurable number. But as I like to say, I use the prison terminology, anybody can get got. So at any point in time, any three of us should

Yeah, okay.

STEVE FRIEND (45:47.15)
Okay.

GEORGE HILL (46:00.822)
somebody in the federal government grow tired of Steve Friend or George Hill, we could be finished within 24 hours. Is that fair, Steve?

Yes, I think so. mean, like you can, the only solace you can take is that the number of people working for the federal government is relatively small compared to the overall population. So, you you're just in the herd and maybe you would just elude the scrutiny that they happen to do, but it's also a chilling effect, right? Like who are they going to go after? Well, people who are allowed and maybe outspoken.

and saying things that are out of step with what the regime's preferred narratives are. So if you're saying something that could range from, like we shouldn't be droning American citizens overseas to I think it might be an infringement of my liberties to make me have a face diaper in order to fly, whatever it is, you could be then on the radar of somebody who's just gonna look at you. I have an articulable purpose. You're saying things that are kind of make me come to the conclusion that you might believe that the United States government

has a overreach problem which makes you an anti-government, anti-authority, violent, extremist, domestic terrorist.

Which has a threat tag and signal.

STEVE FRIEND (47:16.364)
Yes, and we're going to open up an assessment and then we'll just dig and dig and we find something and then we're off to the races. I mean, the novel, or not novel, the book Harvey Silverglade wrote, three felonies a day. It's really easy to charge people with a crime. The legal code is incredibly broad. now we have an activist.

sensibilities within United States Attorney's offices where they want new and novel ways of interpreting the laws as they're on the books because you you didn't break the law but you know we kind of maybe can wordsmith it in the way that we can say you actually did follow foul law like you didn't shred documents involving a tax case but you walked through the Capitol so same difference.

But wait, it gets worse. no. The FBI under Bob Mueller brought in McKinsey and company and started this program to measure how awesome they are called Integrated Program Management. So the FBI has codified through the entire promotion and rewards system where it directs its attention to.

So we're talking about these infractions. We're not talking about them occurring potentially in a vacuum. We're talking about infractions that occur that people are rewarded for, and there's an entire mechanism to capture that data and move people further up the hierarchy.

Yeah, it's a quota system. mean, and it goes every year. It's a negotiation between the field offices and headquarters where they identify where the priorities are. it might be a benign reason for doing it originally because you don't want the FBI to be the DMV and people are just like sitting around not doing any work. But then once you incentivize and say like, we need to have a certain number of cases or intelligence products or tools used, well.

STEVE FRIEND (49:18.846)
Ask for and you shall receive, particularly if there's a financial incentive attached to it or the ability to promote by hitting these numbers and then that's what you will get.

And talk to us about this indefinite detention. This is a section 412 provision, detaining suspects without charges. Seriously, indefinite detention under that?

Yeah, I can't think of any case where that's been done. I'm not defending it, I just that would be a boy talk about a bridge too far. But I think that's the scary music that the Democrats like to play when they talk about illegal aliens, which don't fall under due process criteria anyway, because immigration doesn't fall under federal code.

from the law stand.

And ultimately the opportunity cost here is something that really gets kind of overlooked because they have this capability. All these capabilities exist within the federal government and it's the incentive structure is to just get the numbers, get the people. And then also I have the event diagram overlap with our political enemies and we have all these capabilities. And then there are actual real threats out there, but they're just too hard, right? Like George, you know,

STEVE FRIEND (50:44.376)
Keith isn't really familiar with your background. mean, you did interrogations in Gitmo of some really bad people. mean, I you should bring that forward as like what there are legitimate threats out there, but there needs to be a mechanism is to redirect our resources and our attention. And rather than having this overly broad system where we can just target anyone.

KEITH (51:08.46)
Yeah, yeah. So so George, I will say that just in my 45 minutes of talking with you, I definitely would not want to be interrogated by you. That's for sure.

Thank you. I can be quite charming.

the

Look at this complexion. Face the franchise here. I'll put on my southern charm and I'll make the ladies' melt.

Yeah, no, a former Marine, of the, besides Semper Fidelis, one of the other mottos is go ugly early. So yeah.

KEITH (51:52.366)
Well, so if you're ever in an interrogation room and George and Steve walk in at the same time, good luck. Steve's the good cop and he still has that poker face. I wanted to ask you guys this. Just looking through this research and listen to y'all talk, I wrote down first, fourth, fifth, sixth, tenth amendments. The case could be made for violations from the Patriot Act.

to those five amendments. Now, my question to y'all off of that is, there not been, am I just in a bubble? Have there not been big legal challenges? How has this not gotten to the Supreme Court, to my knowledge, some sort of unconstitutional violation to the point where it would throw the whole law out or at least large chunks of it take its teeth out

Good Steve.

A lot of it's unknown to the people who are then roped into things and eventually they get entrapped into something to the effect of, you know, we had you with your finger on the button of the device that we gave you the entire time and they're not really going to win that. And I think ultimately, you know, a lot of the Supreme Court justices, you know, allegedly they're falling down on the conservative side of things. That doesn't mean they're libertarian. mean, you Neil Gorsuch, but everything else, it's...

very much a neocon-esque view on things. I was just looking at a Supreme Court decision from 2010, the name of it alludes me at the moment, but it effectively said, and the Supreme Court justices ruled in this case, and Antonin Scalia was on the majority side, making a case a promotion for a foreign terrorist organization. like speaking out at the mic.

STEVE FRIEND (53:46.414)
Keith gets up there and says, you know, I think that ISIS is actually a really good thing. Well, ISIS would actually pay you money to say that, right? So you've basically given them an in-kind contribution. That is providing material support to terrorism. That's not First Amendment protection activity, and Scalia agreed.

No!

So Steve might be able to remember the author, but the book, The Terror Factory. has made bank for over 20 years since the Patriot Act of being able to walk that razor's edge of entrapment. So you get someone with a room temperature IQ and they're talking smack somewhere and they come to the FBI's attention and we immediately insert an undercover

Trevor.

GEORGE HILL (54:37.038)
It may be online, it may be in person. We had a case in Boston and it was one of the first ones I had when I got there. And I can't remember the guy's name, it's not that I'm withholding it. But he was gonna build model airplanes, laden them with explosives and fly them into the Pentagon. And he couldn't do anything. He couldn't back a car out of a driveway with a backup camera. But we were there to help him and he's in jail today warming the cell.

That case is called Holder versus Humanitarian Law Project from 2010, where Scalia went on that side. I've been on the program before, Keith, and we've talked about these entrapment schemes. That effectively is what winds up going on here. They identify the vulnerable person, the person who is suggestible but not capable or predisposed to carrying this out. the terror factory written by Trevor Aronson, he highlights it and he's of the political left.

Yeah, and Faradow's was the subject's name that just came to my mind. I was, what, 2011, so was a while ago.

So Steve, kind of I was scratching down all the names of the nine justices here and you kind of kind of popped the bubble there before I had a chance to even play this hypothetical. I wanted to ask you guys, let's just have fun. Let's just do this exercise and then we'll move along here. But when you said Scalia, you know, coming down on the side of of the Patriot Act effectively, that really ruined my whole hypothetical here. But

Let's just say the Patriot Act came in front of the court today. And I know the nuances of the case here. It's impossible to do this, but let's just try anyway. On their best pro-liberty day, who might vote to defeat the Patriot Act? I'm just going to go through the names here.

KEITH (56:39.522)
We could get Samuel Alito, right? I mean, he would maybe, yes.

It depends on who the subject is. Okay. Are they intersectional?

I thought I thought justice was blind okay so we're gonna say Sam Alito all right Clarence Thomas you can see him right yeah okay all right yeah okay so we got two votes you mentioned Neil Gorsuch there George disagrees

Probably the only one.

STEVE FRIEND (57:06.476)
I think you'd get killed, of course.

No way.

He's a squish. Okay, you know what, George? I'm pretending I didn't hear that. Steve said yes. So we have three. We have three. Okay, let's just, all right. Now, don't laugh at me, but Elena Kagan has some libertarian tendencies. They've popped up here and there, you know, because it's Republican Supreme Court votes that,

you always see going, siding with the left and the liberal justices. It's, and I can no longer say never do you see a Democrat. It's very, very rarely that you see a Democrat nominee side with the more conservative justice, justices. And I've seen Alina Kagan do that multiple times. And so now I ask when it comes to the Patriot, is it going to be, depends on who the, defendant is.

What that?

GEORGE HILL (58:08.424)
Yeah, I think if there's a good case, I think she would.

Okay, if it's a Trendy Aragwa member, you got her.

You know what? I don't care who's in front of the court. If it gets rid of the Patriot Act, so help me get that case in front of them. All right. So we're up to four possibles here. Okay, guys. This is where it gets sticky. Who's our fifth vote? Can we go ahead and say that Sotomayor is not going to vote to get rid of the Patriot Act? Yeah.

No, it depends on what a woman is. don't know.

That's Kitanji Brown Jackson, right? We're not gonna get her either. You want to talk about Squish. We're not gonna get Justice Roberts. So now we're down. We gotta get one of the other two here. Coney Barrett, has proven. Yeah, so Brett Kavanaugh. Where would he, no.

GEORGE HILL (58:40.11)
Yeah.

GEORGE HILL (58:54.114)
Disappointing.

STEVE FRIEND (59:00.204)
No, institutionalists and they've effectively co-opted Amy Barrett. I say Amy Barrett and I say Kataji Jackson because the patriarchy always wins. And hyphenating your name means that you're using your father's surname and your husband's surname because the patriarchy always wins.

When you boil it all down.

Ha ha ha.

These people all pull down a government paycheck. And the Patriot Act and the Domestic Intelligence Service, formerly known as the FBI, protect the government. They don't protect the people. So at the end of the day, they're all going to vote to keep it. It'll never leave us barring some extraordinary upheaval.

from the public and I'll stop there.

STEVE FRIEND (59:56.968)
I think in light of George's comments, I'm inclined to think that it actually might get nine to zero so that they could say that a bipartisan worldview on the Supreme Court said, no, we need this Patriot Act. There would be tremendous pressure to get to nine zero.

I got it to five four. Come on, let me have my fantasy. We still lost, but it was five to four. But I think you guys are right. think, Steve, think, yes, it's either gonna be eight to one, Clarence Thomas, or nine zero. And my goodness, and Clarence Thomas.

Your only hope would be it would be a Eskimo little person member of MS-13. That's right. Actually bringing the case.

Yeah.

KEITH (01:00:42.476)
we gotta find that I mean that's all we have to do we have to find an Eskimo midget MS-13 gang member to bring before the court. Right trans Eskimo.

and trans.

I thought the moments went without saying but yeah.

Yeah, and that's how we defeat the Patriot Act once and for all. Okay, gentlemen, I really appreciated your thoughts on this today. Just to kind of, you know, just I mean, it's been 24 years since 9 11 and all of the fun stuff that we did in the wake of that, that that seemed boy felt good at the time. And boy, it's like the hangover now and the freedom once lost.

It ain't coming back. Are there any other thoughts about whether it's the Patriot Act, whether it's FISA, anything that you would like to convey knowledge-wise to the American public about how their rights are infringed by the very laws that are supposedly there to protect us?

GEORGE HILL (01:01:47.116)
You go Steve? Beauty before age.

sure.

But I mean, I've said it before, I'd say it again. I think any member of Congress, the Senate, a president who advocates on behalf of this is advocating diametrically opposed to your constitutional liberties. And I won't hesitate to call. I don't care if there's a D or an R next to their name. They're a communist. You're effectively assigning a tremendous authority and power.

to a government that's a photo negative 180 degrees opposed to what our view is of having a alleged land of the free. So good on Paula Luna for doing it. I mean, I don't know what her intents are behind it, but anybody else along the lines as they renewed section seven as you last year, they violated their oath of office and spat in face of American people that put.

How does Thomas Massey vote on this when it comes up?

STEVE FRIEND (01:02:50.808)
He's the only one pushing for the least award requirement. And yet we have the primary him.

He's the one.

Yeah, our country has grown increasingly risk adverse over the last few decades. I think 9 11 kind of made that perfectly clear that we are a risk adverse society by and large. We want government to protect us. Obviously, I'm not speaking for everyone. I'm speaking in generalities. And without going into detail, because that would be a whole nother couple of shows, but the national security environment is deteriorating on a minute by minute basis.

probably gonna get kicked in the groin here really soon, really hard. And it's just gonna solidify people's call for more government, less freedom.

Yeah. I hate to say it, but I think you're right in your prediction and it's yeah. What else is there to say to that, right? God bless you both. I before I go though, Steve, thank you so much for introducing me to your friend Dan Egan and did I pronounce his last name right? Yes.

KEITH (01:04:05.96)
He is such an awesome guy and I want to make sure, please everyone grab a pen and paper for this. Go to this website. We won't be canceled.org. We won't be canceled.org. Just arrived today and I got to send him a text as soon as we're done here. I'm going to thank Dan. He sent me this killer polo. It's so, it just, this is great. This is so comfortable. Dan, bless you. We won't be canceled.org and what that website does y'all.

is Dan raises money. Let's see who's on the board.

Riley Gaines.

In Nick Cerci, I mean, there's some great people that you would know that are on this board and what they've done, I hadn't even said it, I'm just babbling here, is they raise money for whistleblowers that are getting canceled. Hi, Steve friend. Because they stood up and they did the right thing and they called out the government when the government has abused the constitution, which is what we've just spent the last hour talking about.

And people that stand up in the face of this kind of corruption and this trampling of our rights. Dan has that group, wewon'tbecancelled.org, where they raise money. Because once you get canceled and once you lose your job, it's tough to pay the bills. And it's tough to take care of your kids and keep a roof over their heads. so, and food on the table. And that's where people like Dan Agen step in, taking donations.

KEITH (01:05:37.43)
and then giving them to these whistleblowers and their families that are much needed. Gentlemen, any last thoughts? I appreciate your time and for enlightening us on so much today on this Patriot Act stuff.

Thanks for having me.

Yes, sir. Appreciate the time as always, Keith.

Absolutely, gentlemen. OK, everybody will be back at 3 p.m. Eastern tomorrow. We'll have some fun. Rebecca will be here. We'll watch animal videos and have a good time at themikeshow.com. Wes will get everything up over there. I'm so grateful for him and his help as well. Thank you all for tuning in. Enjoy the rest of your day and we'll see you all tomorrow. Bye bye.