the hey rick sanchez here. this is direct impact and this is part of what we're going to be talking about. back in june astronauts bush, wilmore and sunny williams flow to the international space station on boeing star liner. but now they'll fly home next february and a space x crew dragon, or so they say they'll fly home to after knots stranded in space. friends bowen, this is a wild story. i'm rick sanchez. hey, let's do this thing the lot. there's still a lot of chatter uh world wide regarding the arrest of a telegram founder, hobble durham, especially now that we know why he was essentially arrested at 1st. we thought, well, look, who knows, maybe this guy did something awful. maybe he was running drugs or maybe he was

involved in some kind of office scandal or something. but we're now finding out that that's about the case because we have the charging document. it's been released. and it's mostly about complicity. it was complicity mean completely basically means that they're charging him with whatever any one up is. 1000000000 users on his platform might have done or thought to do, which is like arresting the head of a phone company because somebody use their telephone to do a drug deal or something. i mean, it's kind of ridiculous that no, it's, it's beyond ridiculous. there's a document that we're talking about, what appears to be the most damaging charge is the one right there listed as charge number 2, the one that reads refusal to communicate at the request of confident authorities information or documents necessary for carrying out and operating interceptions allowed by law, now, what that means is that france essentially wants the ability to involve itself in

the inner workings of this private company called telegram or the telegram platform that they'd like to be able to monitor the users who are on there. and the messages that they send obviously the question that comes to mind for me, especially as a journalist, i'm in this business, is, should a government be allowed to do that? and i, by the way, what happens when you give the government the right to go in and look at people stuff, whether it's listening to their phone calls or, you know, listening to what they write on telegram or whatever other uh, platform they're using. what we know kind of the answer to that question. because just yesterday, interestingly enough, facebook slash metal founder mark zuckerberg released the letter to the us congress, where he's apologizing for that. he's apologizing for allowing the u. s. government to inform and manage his platform. this is, this is,

you can't make this stuff up. by the way, what he's saying, the government did with him is much like what france is asking to do with our graham. there it is in a letterman. congress document says on several occasions this company was incorrectly pressured by the white house to change or pull content regarding colbin, which he now wishes he hadn't changed or done, but the most damaging admission in the letter is that one right there. see that right there? that we highlighted for you in yellow. that's where a sucker bird writes quote. in a separate situation, the f. b, i warned us about a potential russian, this information operation about the biden's family and bear ridgemont in the lead up to the 2020 election that fall. he writes to congress, when we saw a new york post story reporting on corruption allegations involving the then democratic presidential nominee jo biden's family. we sent that story to fact checkers for review and temporarily get mode it. that means they stopped it. they

pulled the story while waiting for a reply. it since been made clear that the reporting was not russian, this information. and in retrospect, and retrospect, pardon me. we should not have demoted the story. we've changed our policies in process to make sure this doesn't happen again. so look, what's that number is saying right there is. he allowed the government, the white house in this case to tell him what to do. and now he regrets it. they did their usual blame, rush of thing, you know, and then he jumped when he heard that. and now is like a broken saying he was essentially lied to and possibly manipulated. and as a result, more than 3000000000 users that you know use, facebook did not hear the truth. so what does that tell us? that maybe france or any other government should not be granted whatever they want?

because that could lead to some kind of censorship. look, i frankly believe no government, not ours, not russia, about frances, not china is no government should be given access to determine what people should or should not here or be allowed to monitor what people write or say. now here's where i'm going to go back a little bit on this. my thinking should certainly be concerned about how to best manage social and digital media platforms. yes. 100 percent. absolutely. we should come up with a way to do that. can i come up with some way of doing that? sure, here's my take. in a perfect world there's, there's, we would create a body of fair minded, informed, intelligent objective men and women who would run down every communication, every story and determine its value. and those people would need to not be

connected to any party to any cause to any ideology, to any government, to any religion, whatever. can we find those people? can we make that grouping that committee? i don't know. maybe i don't think so. so what do we do? well, between now and then the world according to rick sanchez for what it's worth, the best we can do as in perfect as it sounds, sorry. just let all ideas into the marketplace, but all ideas into the marketplace, even the stupid ones, even the wrong ones, even though heard for once. and then we just need to trust our collective humanity . figure it out. it's what i know, i know you've been given this a lot of thought yourself. what are your thoughts? i agree with you on on that front, but i want to talk about mark zocker bergs. o may a copa. right, and i call it

a phone me a call, but obviously he had to address this issue because another tech titan similar to him in powell derived with his arrest. mark 2nd berg had to say something, because i would turn to him eventually. so obviously, like we heard the founder of rumbles fleeing france, who happened to be there the same time that that people drop was there. he fled before he actually made a post about it on twitter himself. but i'm calling this a full may a copa, and it's a day late and a buck short. because how does he respond? how does he answer to the fact that facebook meta is pep bird with x books? yeah x c i a agents as, as a, as alan mcloud mccloud from mit press news. in december of 2022 exposed that facebook has this revolving door between washington dc.

the intel agencies, specifically the c. i a, me, at a number of leadership roles within facebook, the silicon valley is completely blanketed with x books from right here at langley. how does he address that? and he does it in his letter. that's the thing. so the thing here, rick, is that, that, that there is government interference taking place. you're saying there is government out there and 2nd place. okay. well, today i'll be almost letter, okay. need to they don't, they don't need the government to apply pressure and put a jack boot on their neck. he has willingly hired folks from washington to be within his ranks to kind of control from the inside out x x. but yeah, so yeah, i'm not going to consider no, it's, it's a great point. you know, just because he came out and put this letter out because he was being forced to by members of congress. doesn't mean that what he says in that letter is any different

than what he's actually doing. and i think that's your point and it's a damn well valid one. hey, here's our other story that i wanted to get to you on a us. and this is beginning to sound like an academy award winning movie. here's the treatment, right. if we wrote a treatment and sent it to hollywood to astronauts are stuck in space and who knows when or how they will come home? well, maybe next february we now will learn right. how to get there while they went there on a boeing. yes. boeing starlight or capsule that apparently now it don't work. i can june astronauts bush will more and sunny williams flow to the international space station and boeing star liner. but now the fly home next february, and a space x crew dragon. despite bullies, insistence star liner is safe to fly them back by 12 more sunny. williams blasted off to the international space station that was, as you heard just in june,

supposed to be in a day mission, a dates. that's it. a days now they're going to have to wait at least another 6 months. and who else, if you know they're going to even be able to get back that instead of coming back on the boeing star line or they're gonna be coming back on top rescued, really, they're gonna be rescued right? by a space x, a private company owned by law mosque. and why can't they come back on the boeing rocket that they went up? all right, while it's leaking, helium is it's leaking helium, and it's thrusters reportedly don't work. no question. should we be surprised? as one of our members archive pointed up, sorry line, or is it safe? is a 737 max. right. it's a wait. exactly. that's why i do not in any way but grudge nassau for making this decision. it is awful that these 2 astronaut, they're going to be stuck for many months in the international space station. they won't be able to come home until february you cannot make this stuff up too. i

think the assessment is pretty much what the whole world is thinking. uh, it goes something like this. can boeing get anything why? i mean, can these people get anything right? and why didn't i keep getting paid with my tax dollars? i mean, if i did that or any of you did that, things like what they have done stuff like they've screwed up. we would have been fired ages ago. but i keep going on the air and reading about stuff that they got and government contracts and more planes and bigger planes and new designs. and now this, this is a joke, manila. yeah, rick, i the only thing i would say they would add to the hollywood movie version of this would be that the to asked or not who have why did after not always have cool names like sunny and bush and because it's actually point that out. but, but when they, when they do come back in february, they're going to come back on valentine's day and they fall in love that's. that's

the only thing you asked if. right. but on the serious part of this, the sad part about boeing reg, as you and i have discussed in the last several episodes about boeing, their reputation, the max jet, that at least 2 times have claimed the lives of hundreds of people. yeah. they've been down because the failure of inspection there, there is something internally, massively wrong at boeing and when lives are on the table like this, the us government should not continue to invest our tax dollars. yes. into. i don't know what kind of r and d that they're doing, but now the private company in it, you know, an e on less space x is going to have to go bail, bowing out. this is yet another corporate bail out in another form in another fashion. boeing is getting, you know, let go off the hook from this. nobody's saying that much the government is going to

continue to deploy an employee. boeing as a major contractor because let's face that boeing, make some other equipment that the us government, namely the d. o. d likes to use, rick? yeah. well now listen, i agree with you and whether i've been a supervisor or i've actually run a companies throughout my life. i believe one word is the most important and that is meritocracy. meritocracy, you, you, you get what you deserve, what your show me, you can do is your value and i'll pay you according to your value. and i'll either keep you, that's right. remote, you or fire you based on your value. i'm sorry, but you're absolutely right. manila, when it mean a why is the government treating these people like they're a students when they seem to be d minus a best? i don't get it. it's not personal. i'm just looking at the record. where's the marriage here? um and that's important. i mean, and that's where we are great conversation, we're gonna talk somebody in a little bit by the way, who's going to be able to help us kind of work through some of these things out as

well. his name is larry johnson. larry johnson worked at the c i. for 4 years, he worked as an atlas that he moved over to the state departments. he worked at the state department's office and counterterrorism. by the way, areas, he's a commentator, he's a blogger now, and he's going to join us right here in a jeff, once he read back the,

[000:00:00;00] the what is the strength of the continental fox, our son we into, around with the rest of the world. we're going to relate to the while and in terms of donation is all his thumb is old tray. also it's a month to define what she wants politically asked. mont, define a soft top ostrich on the define ourselves critically. the cause of your guys? no choice,

but to move forward. forward. shoot with the united states trying to impose sanctions on russia. that's the best thing the this could have happened to russia because the sanctions on russia, against agriculture, against the other items, or made russia fetus produce that song. so as on agriculture and now, so the major growth export are no longer dependence on the united states and europe . the hey, welcome back. i'm rick sanchez and this is direct impact. our guest, laurie johnson, former c i analyst officer and blogger of welcome. eric, thanks for joining us. why it's going to be with the wreck. what do you make of this telegram situation?

i mean, i'm sitting here thinking like a. it's almost like a to me anyway. a little bit of a bridge too far from france to be telling any digital platform, we need to know who the people are on your platform. we need to have access to what they say, and we're going to hold you responsible for anything they do. seems a little bit of an overreach to me, but what the hell do i know? it looks to be like the french are acting at the behest of the united states. because the particular language is used in that charge that you reference. it says refusal to provide information or documents necessary for the conduct and implementation of a wire tap are permitted by law upon request of an enforcement agency. now, i'm not an international law specialist, but what i do know is that the united states is one of the few countries where we do draw a distinction between intelligence collection and law enforcement being able to use

a communication in court. so it, remember what happened to scott read or just uh, 23 weeks ago. mm hm. the f b i showed up and they wanted to see says phone and his computer. yet, you're already had in hand all of his text messages, all of his e mails did already intercepted so that they didn't need to grab is equipment because they already had it. the national security agency and british general communications headquarters, g c, h q. mm hm. which does is the british version of the say they actually those 2 units sit side by side over in england and work together. they're scooping up all this information anyway. anybody that tells you the telegram is encrypted. what app is encrypted? any of these platforms that are supposedly encrypted and not available, they are being intercepted. mm hm. and i am sure the encryption spin broke. so what

you've got going on here is an effort to try to shut down telegram. not because it's not cooperating with united states. let's. let's just say that. think of it, you're telegrams a global company. yeah. it serves the world. yeah. are they supposed to give information out to every body? so iran wants to be intercepted communication. so in the us user, then the united states and, and so you're going to try. that's a great point. that's a great point. yeah, that's a great point you just made. i hadn't even thought of it that way, but you're right. it's almost like france's saying, well, we want to know what the chinese and the russians and the iranians are up to the chinese. they're gonna also take them to court and say we want to know what the americans and the brits are up to. and then the russians are going to take them to court and say, you know, we want to know would be in need and screw up to, or you crazy ends or up to it would never read. and then we would have no telecommunications companies already platforms like price. wow. right. your points a good one else. so that go ahead. i mean that,

that's what's going on here. there's the, the problem is, telegram allows free speech. and by allowing free speech, they are interfering with the intelligence community narratives that the west is trying desperately to promote, both with respect to what is going on and you can, right. and what's, what's going on between industrial genocide, a war against the palace. do you agree with manila? manila point seemed to be, and i think it's a fair one that they've already gotten zocker berg, knuckle under. is that correct? uh, according to manila and her reporting, zocker bird is pretty much doing whatever the hell it is. a white house, the c i a and the state department wants and he gives it to him without questions asked for the most part. and then he sent this letter to congress saying, wow, i wish i hadn't done this. i shouldn't listen to them. very france and the us and perhaps breton, as you mentioned, are trying to get the possible to do the same thing. let's talk a bunch done. is that, is that, do you see it that way?

yeah, yeah. i mean, the middle is part about the number of ca, officers that have gone to work it. these are the social media platforms is telling, you know, they, they realizing go make more money outside of governments. but still curry favor with the government by becoming a conduit up. but you know, nobody should up labor under the illusion that any of the social media platforms that advertise themselves as being, is secure and encrypted. your, your information is safe and private. it's not the way things this means stooped up by the government to wait so, so for that's a little bothersome though. i mean, i'm an american, you're in american, we love this country. we love what we generally stand for, but it does seem like more and more every day. there are forces within our government that are doing everything possible to invade our privacy. how, how,

right, how, how far have they gone? where exactly are we in this point? is there anything, any of us can do to maintain the level of privacy? i think we kind of maybe used to have when you and i were growing up to go off the grid. i don't have a cell phone. don't use a computer, don't use a credit card. that's not reasonable. it's no. what is it? all right, that's the only one. that's the only way. if you're going to do anything that's electronic, anything that is going to pass over the internet. mm hm. the are there, scoop it up there, there it is being collected. so just expect that they have ever, that they can have everything. i mean, you know, we, we, we have a meeting, we have a meeting for the show every day at 9 o'clock in the morning, right. the, everybody's on, we talked about ideas. what are we going to talk to all we're going to get larry johnson on today and talk to him. we're going to cover this story cover this story . and here's the elements we're going to do when we discuss everything out there. somebody has the right to go in there and listen to whatever the hell we're talking about and they probably go right?

yeah. right. yeah, that's a good. if we got the time, i mean, it looked us. this has been going on the boy and even before there were, let's say cell phones were ubiquitous. yeah. i know my what am i, one of my former business partner. she was the chief of international opposite d. e a. and when they were trying to tread chase down the guy, the blue walk. yeah. bianca played in uh that, uh mm hm. when down in columbia with the there was a, the attempt to kill a bus driver at the time. yeah. presidential candidates up. they, they were able to track the guy that they got, they got permission to set up a phone, tap on him, and they, they trapped him by getting him to call his mother. and he was, he was at a phone booth and brooklyn when they grabbed it, but they were able to track real time. now this is back or what? 19? yeah. 19. 1988. so this is, you know,

were retired and we're more than 30 years ago. they were able to do it then with technology was far less sophisticated than what we have today. is that the problem, the technology because it seems to me like there are times when i want my government, i want the c i a to do certain things that investigate certain people. i want the state apartment to do its job and look out for the bad guys who actually want to do his harm. but one of turns into we're going to use the excuse that we're going after bad guys. so we can just investigate you because we don't like your politics or we don't like the way you think that's a whole different story. and it seems that right there technology today that they didn't have in the past gives them the opportunity using like, you know, things like a i to, to, to, to model out of us. whereas i used to monitor only 10 point people. is that right? did i get that right? yeah, the, it snowed and talked about. this was revealed in the movie that oliver stone did with that snowden and, you know, one of the issues was they found out that they could actually go in to the computer

even if you got it turned off. and through there, there's technology out there that allows spies to look through your computer. and if you've got your camera up, if the camera is not covered, they can actually look in and monitor you visually. and then what you thought is the privacy of your home or your bedroom. my life is pretty boring. i mean i'm, i'm a grand dad and, and you know, i got some kids and a wife and i got a regular house and everything. and i'm kind of just, you know, and i do this job where i consider myself a journalist, but i imagine i probably say some things that bother some folks over there. i wouldn't be surprised if they're listening and i should assume they are. yes. no, it's the only thing that for you know, that the, they get sound to targeting there's, there's such a volume of information. so it's night. it's not like they've got us. they have a software system that will automatically flag and say, hey, here's this problem, child, go grab him or her, right? but, but once there is a decision made from a political standpoint of,

we don't like what rick is saying. we don't like footman bellows saying, we don't like when larry is saying, then they can come and start targeting you. and then they, they can, you know, call through all that information real quick. mm hm. and make sure that it's targeted on you. so you get, you get the focus and that's takes us back to the beginning of this conversation. that's what frances trying to do. and that's why they're trying to get the possible to knock a lender so that he can help them do that. and they'll put them in jail if he does . and that seems wrong whether they're already doing it. what you're trying to get him to do is to stop being a platform that allows alternative voices. interesting. interesting. yeah. and there we go back to what they think, what they're ideology is and how they might have alternative being the key word. a different way of thinking, wow, very, that's a great conversation. it's really, it's really great to talk to you based on your judgment and your experience for you

to be able to share that with us. thank you very much. i look forward to talking to you again. always a pleasure. thanks for it. it's our show number. always try and look at your own box too. so 11 boxes, i'm rick sanchez, and we'll be looking for you. and i broke sima. next time of the age 1834 prance invaded algeria and straight away the french started in, habiting it to strengthen their position. the column is known as the new wires took the best land from day one. the local population was put into an unequal position

and was briefly exploited. this caused them as these guns and the people of algeria began their long term fight for independence. 1954, the banner of freedom was raised by the national liberation front. a guerrilla war against the occupants broke out. the french tried to suppress, to rebuild you and using cruel measures. whole villages were wiped out, acts of georgia and executions of civil people, including pregnant women, children, and old people took place. more than 2000000 people were born into concentration camps. however, these punitive measures didn't help. cl, jerry and patriot managed to induce france, his dark face negotiation in 1962 heavy and the cords were assigned 40 l. jerry on the bass warrants independence. but this was achieved at a colossal price, algeria by rights is considered to be

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