Transcript

10.22.26 · Washington Post

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Speaker 1: Good morning. Welcome to the reading of the Washington Post
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Speaker 1: for Thursday, October 22nd, 2026. As a reminder, Radio Eye
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Speaker 1: is a reading service intended for people who are blind
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Speaker 1: or have other disabilities that make it difficult to read
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Speaker 1: printed material. Your reader for today is Woody Snowden. Today's
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Speaker 1: front page headlines from the Washington Post are Putin frees U.S.
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Speaker 1: citizen in goodwill maneuver. Russia and Ukraine compete for Trump's
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Speaker 1: favor amid efforts to end the war. U.S. aims to
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Speaker 1: beef up spying, a deep cover prong to confront China,
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Speaker 1: economic espionage a new priority at the Pentagon. Families are
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Speaker 1: no longer off limits in political attacks. Some of the
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Speaker 1: most audacious examples come from Republicans in tight races. New
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Speaker 1: Mexico judge hits meta with a $ 25 billion judgment. He
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Speaker 1: rules that users were duped about the handling of their
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Speaker 1: private data. U.S. gets first new national park in six years.
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Speaker 1: Arizona's Chiricahua, previously a monument, is known for its rock spires.
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Speaker 1: Some cops who left force kept on tracking people. Our
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Speaker 1: first article this morning. Families are no longer off limits
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Speaker 1: in political attacks. Some of the most audacious familial attacks
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Speaker 1: have come from Republicans in tough 2026 races. Article by
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Speaker 1: Dan Marica. In the final weeks of the 2026 midterms,
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Speaker 1: political candidates have dragged their opponents' families into campaigns. reflecting
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Speaker 1: how divisive politics has become, with few barbs, if any,
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Speaker 1: off limits. Some of the most audacious familial attacks, a
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Speaker 1: departure from past campaigns when Republicans and Democrats barred their
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Speaker 1: operations from such acrimonious hits, have come from Republicans, as
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Speaker 1: polls show their candidates trailing in key races. In Maine,
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Speaker 1: Republicans have embarked on a campaign to cast Democratic Senate
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Speaker 1: candidate Troy Jackson as weird candidates. because his longtime partner
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Speaker 1: and mother of his two children, Lana Pelletier, is his
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Speaker 1: second cousin. The Senate Leadership Fund, the top Republican super
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Speaker 1: PAC focused on holding the Senate, is running a radio
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Speaker 1: ad containing bleeped profanity in which a country-style performer sings,
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Speaker 1: Troy Jackson is weird. If he'll bleep his own family,
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Speaker 1: he'll bleep yours, too. In Ohio, Republican gubernatorial nominee Vivek
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Speaker 1: Ramaswamy has put $ 4 million behind an attack ad against
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Speaker 1: Democrat Amy Acton that features her long-estranged mother calling her
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Speaker 1: daughter a liar. The ad has drawn bipartisan condemnation because
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Speaker 1: Acton and her brother were removed from their mother's home
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Speaker 1: after Acton's stepfather was indicted on a charge of raping her.
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Speaker 1: And in Michigan, Republicans and reporters have repeatedly questioned whether
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Speaker 1: Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed condemns the Muslim Brotherhood because
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Speaker 1: of old social media posts from his half-sister about ties
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Speaker 1: his mother had to the group. El-Sayed, who has criticized
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Speaker 1: the group, was not raised by his mother, and Democrats
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Speaker 1: have described the attacks as Islamophobic against someone who, if elected,
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Speaker 1: would be the first Muslim senator. Taken together, the attacks
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Speaker 1: highlight a concerted Republican effort to draw families into political
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Speaker 1: campaigns at a moment when the party is struggling to
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Speaker 1: find a closing message that lands with an electorate that
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Speaker 1: has grown increasingly skeptical of their unified leadership in Washington.
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Speaker 1: Some Democrats have invoked their opponents' families, including two candidates
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Speaker 1: in battleground Senate races who accused their opponents' husbands of
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Speaker 1: profiting off their connections. The campaigning also extends to President
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Speaker 1: Donald Trump's personal attacks, including those targeting family members of
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Speaker 1: his political rivals. Several Republican operatives quickly lambasted Ramaswamy's campaign
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Speaker 1: but argued that the attacks on Jackson and El-Sayed were
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Speaker 1: more valid. The Acton ad is tasteless and shows Vivek's
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Speaker 1: campaign didn't do basic homework, said Doug Hay, a longtime
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Speaker 1: Republican operative. It would be foolish to think the family
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Speaker 1: issues surrounding El-Sayed and Jackson wouldn't be used in the campaign,
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Speaker 1: just as it was foolish of Vivek's campaign not to
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Speaker 1: do basic homework to realize their ad would massively backfire.
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Speaker 1: Some Republicans worry the Ramaswamy ad campaign's seediness could backfire
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Speaker 1: not only on his gubernatorial campaign, but also on Republicans
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Speaker 1: across the ballot in Ohio. This is a dastardly ad.
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Speaker 1: It never should have been created. Shame on whatever consultant
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Speaker 1: firm created this. Meghan McCain, the daughter of the late
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Speaker 1: GOP Senator John McCain, wrote on X in response to
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Speaker 1: the ad. As the Republican presidential nominee in 2008, McCain
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Speaker 1: pushed back against conspiracy theories about his rival, Democrat Barack Obama,
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Speaker 1: by calling him a decent family man and instructing his
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Speaker 1: campaign to keep the race focused on his policy disagreements
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Speaker 1: with the senator from Illinois, not the Democrats' family or
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Speaker 1: personal background. McCain was on the receiving end of family
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Speaker 1: attacks with false rumors during his 2000 presidential bid that
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Speaker 1: his adopted daughter was his illegitimate child. And McCain was
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Speaker 1: not alone in 2008. When it was revealed that the
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Speaker 1: Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin's teenage daughter was pregnant,
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Speaker 1: Obama shut down any chatter about using the issue against
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Speaker 1: the Republican campaign. Let me be as clear as possible,
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Speaker 1: Obama said. I think people's families are off limits and
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Speaker 1: people's children are especially off limits. This shouldn't be part
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Speaker 1: of our politics. Mark Salter, a former top aide to
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Speaker 1: McCain and Republican operative who has long opposed Trump, said
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Speaker 1: the president has just made it okay for people of
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Speaker 1: low character to be in politics without pretending they are
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Speaker 1: people of better character. Most people hate it, Salter said,
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Speaker 1: and I think Vivek Ramaswamy is about to discover that.
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Speaker 1: Not all Republicans have backed away from the ad, however,
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Speaker 1: a sign that even the most audacious attacks are now
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Speaker 1: seen as acceptable. While campaigning in his home state of Ohio,
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Speaker 1: Vice President J.D. Vance said, whether the ad was appropriate
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Speaker 1: or not is not really my concern. Politics is a
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Speaker 1: tough business, and my message to my fellow elected Republicans is,
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Speaker 1: if you actually believe in the things you say you
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Speaker 1: believe in, stop whining about an advertisement and go win
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Speaker 1: the race in 13 days, Vance said. Democrats have sought
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Speaker 1: to turn the attacks into opportunities to argue their opponents
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Speaker 1: are out of touch. Acton's campaign released its own ad
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Speaker 1: featuring Philip Stearns, Acton's brother, recalling a difficult childhood and
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Speaker 1: how his sister protected him. If she hadn't done that,
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Speaker 1: who knows where I would have ended up, he said.
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Speaker 1: Shame on Vivek. Pelletier, Jackson's partner, wrote an opinion piece
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Speaker 1: published Wednesday that criticized his Senate opponent, incumbent Susan Collins,
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Speaker 1: and Republicans for deciding they know my life better than
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Speaker 1: I do. They do not. Our children have been dragged
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Speaker 1: into this campaign. Our relationship has been mocked. Our family
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Speaker 1: has been talked about as though there is something shameful
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Speaker 1: about who we are or where we come from, she
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Speaker 1: wrote in the Banger Daily News. A spokesperson for the
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Speaker 1: Senate Leadership Fund did not respond to a request for comment.
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Speaker 1: Sean Roderick, a spokesperson for the Collins campaign, said the
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Speaker 1: senator believes there have been far too many personal attacks
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Speaker 1: in this campaign and called for the ad to be
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Speaker 1: taken down immediately. Republicans are not alone in pulling family
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Speaker 1: members into campaigns. During a debate between Jackson and Collins,
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Speaker 1: the Democrat accused the Republican and her husband, Thomas A. Daffron,
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Speaker 1: of making money off the Iran war. She could use
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Speaker 1: her leverage to stop this war, but instead they're making money,
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Speaker 1: he said, and his campaign later cited the couple's oil
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Speaker 1: and gas holdings. Collins called the attack absolutely outrageous and
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Speaker 1: demanded an apology from Jackson, who did not provide one.
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Speaker 1: In Iowa, Democratic Senate Nominee Josh Turek accused his Republican opponent,
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Speaker 1: Representative Ashley Henson, of contributing to a corruption crisis in
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Speaker 1: Washington and called her husband a shadow lobbyist, a claim
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Speaker 1: fact-checkers have deemed misleading. My husband's not a lobbyist. He's
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Speaker 1: an insurance agent, Henson said during the debate. She added,
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Speaker 1: he works in our basement. He's still working at home
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Speaker 1: tonight while he's home with our kids. And in Georgia,
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Speaker 1: Democratic Senator John Ossoff hammered his Republican opponent, Mike Collins,
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Speaker 1: in a recent debate over CNN reporting that his son-in-law,
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Speaker 1: David Alan Scheer II, shared Nazi imagery online. How weak
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Speaker 1: a person do you have to be to be unable
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Speaker 1: to stop someone under your own roof from disseminating neo-Nazi
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Speaker 1: propaganda while you run for the Senate, Ossoff said. Several Democrats,
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Speaker 1: including operative Alyssa Cass, argued that candidates or their families
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Speaker 1: enriching themselves through their office should be fair game in campaigns.
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Speaker 1: But Cass also said campaigns now have to decide whether
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Speaker 1: the personal attack is worth the risk. If you are
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Speaker 1: someone who comes off like a sleazy jerk, it can
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Speaker 1: reinforce the perception that you are a sleazy jerk, Cass said.
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Speaker 1: If you are someone who is seen like a good hang,
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Speaker 1: it might undermine the perception that you are a good hang.
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Speaker 1: Our next article, Meta ordered to pay $ 25 billion in
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Speaker 1: New Mexico for misleading users on privacy. The judgment is
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Speaker 1: one of the largest of its kind, according to the
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Speaker 1: state's attorney general, and exceeds an $ 18 billion child safety
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Speaker 1: settlement Meta agreed to in August. Article written by Ian Duncan.
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Speaker 1: A judge in New Mexico ordered social media giant Meta
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Speaker 1: to pay a $ 25 billion judgment Wednesday for deceiving users
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Speaker 1: of about how it handled their personal data, a penalty
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Speaker 1: the state's attorney general said appeared to be the largest
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Speaker 1: of its kind ever issued. Judge Francis J. Matthew wrote
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Speaker 1: in a 20-page ruling that the wrongdoing involved Meta chief
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Speaker 1: executive Mark Zuckerberg and stood at the heart of the
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Speaker 1: company's business. The harm in this matter is difficult to overstate,
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Speaker 1: the judge wrote, to induce users to provide their personal
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Speaker 1: information to Facebook. Facebook made many false promises respecting the
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Speaker 1: security and control of that data over the course of
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Speaker 1: more than a decade. The judgment is a fresh blow
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Speaker 1: to Meadow, which repeatedly has been dealt defeats in court
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Speaker 1: this year. It extends State Attorney General Raul Torres' winning
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Speaker 1: record against the company. Following victories this year in child
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Speaker 1: safety cases, Torres, a Democrat, said the results should send
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Speaker 1: a message to other tech companies that his office will
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Speaker 1: hold them accountable. Today's judgment from a state which admittedly
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Speaker 1: is not very big in terms of population should be
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Speaker 1: a clear warning to everyone in big tech, Torres said
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Speaker 1: at a news conference. Mehta said it would appeal the
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Speaker 1: result and was confident it would succeed in higher courts.
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Speaker 1: This ruling and the Attorney General's approach to this enforcement
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Speaker 1: makes it all but impossible to do business in the
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Speaker 1: state of New Mexico, said C.J. Mahoney, Mehta's chief legal officer.
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Speaker 1: At its core, this lawsuit seeks to impose a tax
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Speaker 1: on speech to enforce new rules for what people can
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Speaker 1: say online. While the judgment is almost certain to be appealed,
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Speaker 1: it is larger than the settlement of up to $ 18
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Speaker 1: billion Meta agreed to in August to resolve child safety
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Speaker 1: allegations brought by states. The company also agreed to impose
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Speaker 1: new restrictions on teenagers' accounts, including blocking access between midnight
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Speaker 1: and 6 a.m. New Mexico did not join in that settlement,
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Speaker 1: which also involved many states resolving similar data privacy issues
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Speaker 1: for $ 460 million. Torres has taken a different path, with
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Speaker 1: New Mexico pursuing its own cases through the state courts.
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Speaker 1: The state first won a jury verdict on child safety
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Speaker 1: claims in March and then prevailed again before a state
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Speaker 1: judge months later. Torres said the $ 25 billion awarded Wednesday
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Speaker 1: would be allocated to school construction under New Mexico law,
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Speaker 1: representing a huge windfall for a state that approved a $ 1. 5
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Speaker 1: billion capital budget this year. The case had its roots
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Speaker 1: in 2018 revelations about the use of Facebook data by
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Speaker 1: the Republican-aligned political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica. The now-closed company
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Speaker 1: improperly obtained users' data, to target political ads, prompting a
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Speaker 1: reckoning about privacy in the social media era. But the
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Speaker 1: case New Mexico's lawyers presented to a jury in September
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Speaker 1: aimed to paint a broader picture about the way in
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Speaker 1: which Meta sought to gain access to vast amounts of
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Speaker 1: user data and failed to effectively combat misinformation on Facebook.
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Speaker 1: The company took advantage of its users' lack of knowledge
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Speaker 1: about their privacy settings and misrepresented the level of control
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Speaker 1: they had over their information. in an effort that Matthew
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Speaker 1: wrote amounted to a systematic pattern of deception at the
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Speaker 1: core of Facebook's business model. On September 25th, jurors concluded
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Speaker 1: that Meta had committed 43,899,725 willful violations of state consumer
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Speaker 1: protection laws. Our next article takes us out west and
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Speaker 1: gives us a break. From Politics and Lawsuits. U.S. gets
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Speaker 1: its first new national park in six years. Arizona's Chiricahua,
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Speaker 1: previously a monument, is known for its rock spires. Article
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Speaker 1: by Jake Spring. In southeastern Arizona, hundreds of rock spires
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Speaker 1: rise out of a landscape where desert, grassland, and forest
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Speaker 1: ecosystems meet. Meet the United States' newest national park, Chiricahua.
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Speaker 1: The sacred Apache site, also called the Wonderland of Rocks,
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Speaker 1: became the 64th national park late Tuesday when President Trump
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Speaker 1: signed the Chiricahua National Park Act. The law had easily
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Speaker 1: passed in the House by voice vote in March and
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Speaker 1: was agreed by unanimous consent in the Senate last month. Chiricahua,
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Speaker 1: pronounced Chiricahua, I'll do that moving forward, is the first
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Speaker 1: national park declared in the U.S. in six years. Before it,
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Speaker 1: the most recently declared national park was New River Gorge
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Speaker 1: National Park and Preserve in West Virginia, signed into law
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Speaker 1: by President Trump in 2020. Chiricahuas, towering rock spires, rich
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Speaker 1: Apache heritage, and remarkable biodiversity make it one of America's
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Speaker 1: most extraordinary landscapes, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said in a statement.
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Speaker 1: The new designation will shine a national spotlight on one
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Speaker 1: of Arizona's hidden gems, creating opportunities to welcome more visitors,
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Speaker 1: strengthen local economies, and share this incredible landscape with more Americans.
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Speaker 1: President Calvin Coolidge declared Chiricahua a national monument in 1924,
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Speaker 1: stating that the area of volcanic spires called the Pinnacles
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Speaker 1: was of scientific interest. The government of Cochise County, Arizona,
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Speaker 1: where the park is located, has said that late Air
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Speaker 1: Force Lieutenant Colonel Bob Gint began efforts to declare Chiricahua
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Speaker 1: a national park more than a decade ago. Then-Representative Martha McSally,
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Speaker 1: Republican Arizona, introduced a bill to do so in 2016,
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Speaker 1: and similar legislation has been proposed in every subsequent congressional session.
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Speaker 1: Representative Juan Siskamani, Republican Arizona, ultimately introduced the bill that
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Speaker 1: Congress passed this year, with Senators Mark Kelly, Democrat Arizona,
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Speaker 1: and Ruben Gallego, Democrat Arizona, introducing companion legislation. Siskamani, whose
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Speaker 1: district contains Chiricahua, is seeking a third term in a
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Speaker 1: tight race against Democratic challenger Joanna Mendoza. Siskamani appeared alongside
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Speaker 1: Burgum in the park Tuesday to celebrate Trump's signing. After
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Speaker 1: nearly a decade of work, persistence has finally paid off
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Speaker 1: and this historic effort has reached the summit, Siskamani said
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Speaker 1: in a statement thanking local partners. This achievement will preserve
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Speaker 1: Arizona's rich heritage for generations to come. Siskamani's office in
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Speaker 1: the White House did not respond to questions about the
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Speaker 1: designation or the timing of the announcement. Chiricahua is roughly 12,000 acres,
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Speaker 1: making it the fourth smallest national park. The new designation
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Speaker 1: will not expand the size of the previous national monument.
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Speaker 1: The park has a mom-and-pop feel because of its small size,
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Speaker 1: said Sanabar Mirza, Arizona Senior Program Manager at the National
16:50
Speaker 1: Parks Conservation Association, an advocacy group. It almost feels like
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Speaker 1: its own small town when you're there. You see the
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Speaker 1: same people on the trails that you're seeing at the campground,
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Speaker 1: and that's one of the amazing parts of its character,
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Speaker 1: Mirza said. The area of rhyolite rock spires and balanced
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Speaker 1: rocks was formed roughly 27 million years ago in a
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Speaker 1: volcanic eruption. according to the National Park Service. National parks
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Speaker 1: are considered the crown jewels of American nature and can
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Speaker 1: only be declared by Congress, with the designation generally bringing
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Speaker 1: the area higher levels of protection and resources. In a statement,
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Speaker 1: Christina Hazard, the NPCA's legislative director, called for restored staffing
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Speaker 1: and funding for the National Park Service to protect parks
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Speaker 1: like Chiricahua. The Trump administration has reduced the agency's staff
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Speaker 1: by roughly 25%. and withheld millions of dollars in funding.
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Speaker 1: The administration has also diverted a portion of visitor entry
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Speaker 1: fees from parks nationally to fund priority projects in Trump's D.C.
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Speaker 1: beautification efforts. Other groups took the moment to criticize the
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Speaker 1: Trump administration for declaring a new park while cutting resources
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Speaker 1: to take care of existing parks. It's inexcusable for our
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Speaker 1: Interior Secretary to trumpet a new national park designation while
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Speaker 1: he refuses to take care of the places that his
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Speaker 1: department has been charged with stewarding for more than a century,
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Speaker 1: said Rob Arnberger, former superintendent of Grand Canyon and Saguaro
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Speaker 1: National Parks, in a statement. Arnberger pointed to the fact
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Speaker 1: that Grand Canyon National Park is waiting on funding for
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Speaker 1: recovery work and safety upgrades following last year's Dragon Bravo
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Speaker 1: fire and the recent deadly flash floods. The Trump administration
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Speaker 1: has prioritized D.C. projects like renovating the golf course in
18:38
Speaker 1: East Potomac Park and repairing fountains around D.C. when Arizona
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Speaker 1: parks desperately need funding for visitor safety and other priorities,
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Speaker 1: said Bill Wade, executive director of the Association of National
18:49
Speaker 1: Park Rangers, an organization that represents the interests of Park
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Speaker 1: Service employees. The new national park is within the Chiricahua
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Speaker 1: Mountains that are part of a chain of Sky Islands,
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Speaker 1: 55 mountain ranges home to tremendous diversity of plants and
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Speaker 1: animals that cannot otherwise survive in the arid desert and
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Speaker 1: grasslands that surround them. From Chiricahua National Park to Coronado
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Speaker 1: National Memorial, the National Park Service stewards these rare sky
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Speaker 1: island ecosystems that are unlike any other landscape in the country,
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Speaker 1: said Hazard with the NPCA. Our next article is a
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Speaker 1: Washington Post exclusive. Cops left the force. They kept tracking
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Speaker 1: people with a powerful camera network. Police kept access to
19:36
Speaker 1: Flock's vast surveillance system long after they left the force.
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Speaker 1: Some used it to track the locations of romantic partners.
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Speaker 1: Article co-authored by Douglas MacMillan, Drew Harvey, and Aaron Schaffer.
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Speaker 1: When Andre Wright left his job as an investigator at
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Speaker 1: the Effingham County Sheriff's Office in 2021, he handed in
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Speaker 1: his gun and badge. But he kept something powerful, his
20:02
Speaker 1: login credentials for Flock, a police tool he used to
20:06
Speaker 1: search a vast network of roadside cameras tracking the locations
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Speaker 1: of passing cars. In the five years after leaving the force,
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Speaker 1: Wright searched the system more than 60 times without being
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Speaker 1: stopped by anyone at the Georgia Sheriff's Office, according to
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Speaker 1: a statement by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation and flock
20:25
Speaker 1: audit logs reviewed by the Post. He repeatedly searched the
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Speaker 1: location of a vanity license plate bearing the middle name
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Speaker 1: of his wife, according to the audit logs. The couple
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Speaker 1: divorced this year, court records show. And at the time
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Speaker 1: of some of his flock searches, Wright was fighting for
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Speaker 1: permanent custody of their teenage daughter. In July, after a
20:47
Speaker 1: tipster alerted local authorities, police arrested Wright and charged him
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Speaker 1: with stalking his wife, claiming he misused flock data for
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Speaker 1: the purpose of harassing and intimidating her, according to his warrant.
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Speaker 1: State law restricts the use of license plate readers to
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Speaker 1: legitimate law enforcement investigations. Wright did not respond to phone calls,
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Speaker 1: text messages, or voicemails seeking comment. Brian Bailey, a sheriff's
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Speaker 1: office spokesman, said that the agency had not conducted regular
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Speaker 1: audits of who had access to its flock system during
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Speaker 1: that time, but that it plans to begin doing so.
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Speaker 1: The case marked one of at least 11 times in
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Speaker 1: which government officials have discovered unauthorized users have gained access
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Speaker 1: to flock databases and searched them without permission. sometimes to
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Speaker 1: track the locations of romantic partners, a Washington Post investigation
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Speaker 1: has found. The incidents expose what security experts describe as
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Speaker 1: alarming vulnerabilities within Flock's nationwide network of license plate reading
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Speaker 1: cameras and the law enforcement agencies that use them. Though
21:47
Speaker 1: Flock has pitched itself as a security-first business that closely
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Speaker 1: controls access to its trove of license plate data, company
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Speaker 1: leaders have resisted calls from their own staff to implement
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Speaker 1: stricter guardrails. according to three former employees who spoke on
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Speaker 1: the condition of anonymity to avoid professional repercussions. Flock managers
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Speaker 1: told staff repeatedly that they didn't want to create barriers
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Speaker 1: to securing camera contracts with law enforcement agencies that were
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Speaker 1: resistant to more restrictive security controls, two of the employees said.
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Speaker 1: To provide the most detailed accounting to date of unauthorized access,
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Speaker 1: including two incidents that have not previously been reported, the
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Speaker 1: Post interviewed police or city officials in eight states and
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Speaker 1: three former Flock employees who worked on technical issues. The
22:34
Speaker 1: Post also analyzed Flock's software logs released in response to
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Speaker 1: public records requests, court documents, police records, and officials' statements.
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Speaker 1: The 11 incidents of unauthorized access tallied by the Post
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Speaker 1: reveal how easily users could gain or retain access to
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Speaker 1: Flock's data. In four of the cases, officers were able
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Speaker 1: to keep using their logins to Flock after leaving the
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Speaker 1: force or while serving a suspension. because their accounts were
23:01
Speaker 1: not shut off. In six of the cases, police shared
23:03
Speaker 1: logins or passwords with active law enforcement officers from other
23:07
Speaker 1: agencies in what officials later deemed violations of state laws,
23:11
Speaker 1: department policies, or FLOC contracts. In Indianapolis, a police recruit
23:17
Speaker 1: who was not authorized to access FLOC was able to
23:20
Speaker 1: use the tool for more than two years after a
23:22
Speaker 1: more senior officer opened it on the more junior officer's
23:25
Speaker 1: laptop and didn't log out. The junior officer, Matthew Benford,
23:29
Speaker 1: used his colleague's credentials to search his estranged wife's license
23:33
Speaker 1: plate more than 1,000 times over a 12-month period, according
23:37
Speaker 1: to a court affidavit. Prosecutors criminally charged Benford and four
23:41
Speaker 1: other Indianapolis officers last month after an August inquiry from
23:45
Speaker 1: the Post prompted an agency-wide audit by the city's police department.
23:51
Speaker 1: Benford declined to comment when reached by phone. Flock Safety,
23:54
Speaker 1: an Atlanta-based company valued by investors at $ 7. 5 billion last year,
23:58
Speaker 1: has rapidly built a nationwide surveillance network blanketing roadsides with
24:02
Speaker 1: at least 120,000 cameras that photograph passing cars and enable
24:06
Speaker 1: police to track suspects' vehicles over time. The network's growth
24:10
Speaker 1: has also expanded the potential for abuse. The Post has
24:14
Speaker 1: reported that at least 100 employees of law enforcement agencies
24:17
Speaker 1: have been charged with or accused of misusing license plate
24:20
Speaker 1: readers for unauthorized purposes. Block has been slow to adopt
24:24
Speaker 1: basic safeguards that are standard practice among commercial and government
24:27
Speaker 1: software vendors. measures that could have prevented many of the intrusions,
24:31
Speaker 1: according to security experts interviewed by the Post. Many police
24:35
Speaker 1: departments don't require employees to register Flock accounts to a
24:39
Speaker 1: government-issued email address, which could be deactivated at the end
24:43
Speaker 1: of their employment, interviews and officials' statements show. Though Flock
24:47
Speaker 1: contractually requires the use of official emails, the company acknowledged
24:52
Speaker 1: it hasn't widely enforced that policy until recently. While movie
24:57
Speaker 1: streaming companies like Netflix have built tools to crack down
25:00
Speaker 1: on password sharing, Flock does not appear to closely monitor
25:03
Speaker 1: for logins occurring from unusual locations and devices, said John Gaines,
25:08
Speaker 1: an independent security researcher. Security experts also said Flock could
25:13
Speaker 1: have prevented Benford, the Indianapolis officer, from using his co-workers'
25:16
Speaker 1: credentials if it had taken the simple step of periodically
25:21
Speaker 1: asking users to re-enter their passwords. a common practice for
25:25
Speaker 1: apps that deal with medical, banking, or other sensitive data.
25:29
Speaker 1: There's zero reason you can't prompt a cop to put
25:32
Speaker 1: in his password, Gaines said, even if it's once a month.
25:35
Speaker 1: After the Post presented Flock with its findings, the company
25:38
Speaker 1: said in an email statement that it plans to implement
25:42
Speaker 1: additional security measures that it had not previously announced. Paris Lubel,
25:47
Speaker 1: Flock's spokesman, said that since earlier this year, the company
25:50
Speaker 1: has been working with customers to identify and remove accounts
25:54
Speaker 1: that violate its terms of service, including accounts registered to
25:57
Speaker 1: non-agency email addresses and logins shared among multiple people. Starting
26:03
Speaker 1: next year, the company said it will also begin requiring
26:06
Speaker 1: users to log back in every 12 hours. Lubel declined
26:10
Speaker 1: to comment on the individual cases of unauthorized access or
26:13
Speaker 1: the accounts of former employees, but said, when we identify
26:17
Speaker 1: security gaps or violations of our policies, we take action.
26:21
Speaker 1: In several of the incidents described, we've done exactly that.
26:27
Speaker 1: Several of the incidents of unauthorized access could have been
26:30
Speaker 1: prevented if Flock had required its users to provide an
26:33
Speaker 1: additional form of verification, such as a code from an
26:36
Speaker 1: email message or an app, a security practice called multi-factor authentication, MFA,
26:42
Speaker 1: that has been standard for many companies, including at least
26:47
Speaker 1: one of Flock's competitors. Flock should have had this on
26:51
Speaker 1: day one and enforced it, said Mert Karakaya, a senior
26:54
Speaker 1: research engineer at IPVM, a surveillance industry research group. It's
26:59
Speaker 1: cybersecurity ABCs. Flock made MFA the default option for users
27:05
Speaker 1: in 2024. In August, amid a flurry of reports of
27:09
Speaker 1: officers misusing Flock to stalk romantic partners and exes, the
27:12
Speaker 1: company began requiring MFA. One of Flock's competitors, ReCore, has
27:17
Speaker 1: required MFA for all customers since 2019, the company's chairman,
27:22
Speaker 1: Robert A. Berman, said in an interview. Lubel said MFA
27:26
Speaker 1: has always been available to Flock customers who wanted it.
27:29
Speaker 1: Multiple employees implored the company to require MFA after an
27:33
Speaker 1: unauthorized user obtained the Flock login credentials of a police
27:37
Speaker 1: officer in Mishawaka, Indiana. in August 2024, said two of
27:42
Speaker 1: the former employees who were involved in detecting and responding
27:48
Speaker 1: to the incident. The person who used the name Grimoire
27:53
Speaker 1: obtained license plate data and, in an online forum, published
27:57
Speaker 1: files containing the locations of 24,356 flock cameras across the
28:00
Speaker 1: United States and the details of 167,944 hot list alerts
28:09
Speaker 1: triggered by Flock cameras in the vicinity of Mishawaka, according
28:13
Speaker 1: to a copy of the raw data reviewed by the
28:15
Speaker 1: post and screenshots of the forum post that were published
28:19
Speaker 1: on the blog Dark Web Informer. I thought I would
28:23
Speaker 1: post this if anyone is interested in how U.S. mass
28:25
Speaker 1: surveillance tools like Flock work, the unauthorized user wrote, according
28:30
Speaker 1: to the Dark Web Informer post. Following the incident, Flock
28:34
Speaker 1: employees told senior executives that the breach could have been
28:37
Speaker 1: prevented if the company had required police departments to use
28:40
Speaker 1: multi-factor authentication, the two former employees said. Soon after that,
28:45
Speaker 1: Flock made MFA the default setting but continued to allow
28:49
Speaker 1: agencies to opt out. Though the former Flock employees said
28:52
Speaker 1: they discussed the incident on a war room video conference
28:56
Speaker 1: call and Slack messages, Mishawaka officials said Flock never informed
29:01
Speaker 1: them of a data breach. In an August 16, 2024
29:04
Speaker 1: email to Mishawaka, which the city later shared with the Post,
29:08
Speaker 1: Flock said it had deactivated one of the department's users
29:11
Speaker 1: who was running an abnormal number of lookup searches. But
29:16
Speaker 1: it did not mention a breach. In a blog post
29:19
Speaker 1: and in emails to customers, the company maintained that it
29:22
Speaker 1: had never been hacked. I want there to be zero
29:25
Speaker 1: confusion about what is happening, Garrett Langley, Flock's CEO, said.
29:29
Speaker 1: In December 2025, he mails to several local agencies, Flock
29:34
Speaker 1: has never been hacked. Never. In his statement for this article,
29:39
Speaker 1: Lubel said the August 2024 incident was not a hack
29:42
Speaker 1: because it involved unauthorized access or misuse of customer accounts,
29:47
Speaker 1: not a compromise of Flock's underlying cloud infrastructure. Flock, he added,
29:51
Speaker 1: has taken significant steps to strengthen account security and make
29:55
Speaker 1: it harder for unauthorized users to gain or retain access.
29:59
Speaker 1: Matthew Lynch, a spokesman for Mishawaka, said the city has
30:05
Speaker 1: not found evidence of a data breach. He declined to
30:08
Speaker 1: comment on the details the former Flock employees provided to
30:11
Speaker 1: the Post. Five months after the incident, Flock notified Mishawaka
30:15
Speaker 1: that it was offering MFA, which the city worked with
30:18
Speaker 1: Flock to expediently implement, Lynch said. In a letter last
30:23
Speaker 1: year to the Federal Trade Commission, Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat, Oregon,
30:28
Speaker 1: and Representative Raja Krishnamoorthy, Democrat, Illinois, said the company's cavalier
30:33
Speaker 1: attitude towards cybersecurity needlessly exposes Americans to the threat of
30:38
Speaker 1: hackers and foreign spies. The lawmakers cited evidence that hackers
30:42
Speaker 1: used malware to steal the flock passwords of 35 police
30:45
Speaker 1: officers and highlighted that the company did not require MFA.
30:50
Speaker 1: Police guidelines in published this year by the International Association
30:54
Speaker 1: of Chiefs of Police, an Alexandria, Virginia-based trade group representing 35,000
31:00
Speaker 1: police officials around the world, said access to license plate
31:03
Speaker 1: readers should be granted only to staff members who need
31:06
Speaker 1: it to do their jobs and promptly removed when an
31:10
Speaker 1: individual's duties no longer require it. But in practice, some
31:13
Speaker 1: departments don't keep track of who is using these tools
31:16
Speaker 1: or restrict those who don't need access. During an agency-wide
31:22
Speaker 1: review last month, triggered by reports of flock misuse in Georgia,
31:26
Speaker 1: the Cobb County Sheriff's Office learned that around 200 of
31:29
Speaker 1: the agency's roughly 900 staff members had access to flock,
31:33
Speaker 1: including people who worked at the county jail. We had
31:36
Speaker 1: people on there who had no reason to be accessing it,
31:38
Speaker 1: Assistant Chief Jeopardy Gina Hawkins said in an interview, adding
31:42
Speaker 1: that her review did not identify any cases of apparent misuse.
31:46
Speaker 1: Cobb County shrank the pool of authorized users to about 50.
31:50
Speaker 1: Flock's contracts restrict customers from granting access to any people
31:54
Speaker 1: who are not officers, employees, or agents of their agencies.
31:58
Speaker 1: But around the country, police have informally shared their passwords
32:02
Speaker 1: with non-employees and sometimes even set up formal accounts to
32:05
Speaker 1: allow officers from other agencies access to their Flock dashboard,
32:09
Speaker 1: according to interviews and officials' statements. During an internal audit
32:14
Speaker 1: in August, Kevin Collins, the chief of police in Covington, Louisiana,
32:19
Speaker 1: discovered that a previous chief of his department had granted
32:22
Speaker 1: access to officers from the Louisiana State Police and two
32:25
Speaker 1: neighboring law enforcement agencies. Realizing he had no way of
32:29
Speaker 1: governing their use or investigating their actions, Collins deactivated their accounts.
32:35
Speaker 1: Extending search access to outside agencies limits our ability to
32:39
Speaker 1: fully verify the purpose behind each individual query run against
32:43
Speaker 1: our system, Collins said in a letter to the agencies,
32:46
Speaker 1: which the Post obtained through a public records request. Last year,
32:50
Speaker 1: officials in Richmond learned that giving outsiders access to flock
32:53
Speaker 1: database can lead to unforeseen policy violations. Shortly after President
32:58
Speaker 1: Donald Trump was inaugurated, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms,
33:02
Speaker 1: and Explosives began deploying agents to work on immigration enforcement.
33:07
Speaker 1: An ATF analyst who had previously been given access to
33:10
Speaker 1: Richmond's flock system to assist with local investigations began using
33:14
Speaker 1: it to search for immigrants. including several who had escaped
33:17
Speaker 1: from a Virginia detention center in March 2025, according to
33:21
Speaker 1: a statement the city issued later that year. Richmond officials
33:25
Speaker 1: became aware of the unauthorized access when the ATF agent
33:29
Speaker 1: used the city's FLOX system to search for an immigrant
33:32
Speaker 1: in Illinois. Because Illinois is one of several states that
33:35
Speaker 1: banned the use of license plate readers for immigration enforcement,
33:40
Speaker 1: FLOX says it scans for searches like these and automatically
33:43
Speaker 1: prevents the state's cameras from from being accessed for this purpose.
33:48
Speaker 1: Flock sent Richmond police an alert that two searches from
33:51
Speaker 1: the ATF analyst inadvertently accessed Illinois vehicle data with ICE
33:55
Speaker 1: in the query field, the city said. Richmond immediately terminated
34:00
Speaker 1: the agent's access and the city later banned all access
34:03
Speaker 1: to its Flock system by federal agencies. The city said
34:06
Speaker 1: this month it would not renew its contract with Flock.
34:10
Speaker 1: Since Andre Wright was arrested and charged in July, Authorities
34:13
Speaker 1: have investigated two more former police officers, another in Georgia
34:17
Speaker 1: and one in Michigan, for allegedly running flock searches after
34:20
Speaker 1: their employment ended. The Fulton County Sheriff's Office in Atlanta
34:25
Speaker 1: told the Post last month it had become aware of
34:27
Speaker 1: unusual activity by a former officer who continued to use
34:31
Speaker 1: the agency's flock system after leaving the force. The activity
34:34
Speaker 1: had gone unnoticed, in part because the officer had worked
34:38
Speaker 1: for the Fulton County Police Department. a sister agency that
34:41
Speaker 1: shared a flock subscription with the sheriff's office. In an interview,
34:46
Speaker 1: Sheriff Patrick Labatt suggested that the intrusion would have been
34:49
Speaker 1: uniquely challenging to prevent and compared it to a hack
34:52
Speaker 1: of federal infrastructure by sophisticated foreign actors. But Wade Yates,
34:57
Speaker 1: chief of the Fulton County Police Department, said the problem
35:00
Speaker 1: was pretty clear. When the officer resigned, nobody at the
35:03
Speaker 1: police department told the sheriff's office to remove her access.
35:07
Speaker 1: And because her department didn't require MFA at the time,
35:10
Speaker 1: She would not have been prompted to authenticate her identity
35:12
Speaker 1: with an active government email. The case is now being
35:15
Speaker 1: investigated by the GBI. The officer could not be reached
35:19
Speaker 1: for comment. Yates said the department now has its own
35:23
Speaker 1: flock account separate from the sheriff's office as well as
35:25
Speaker 1: a process for deactivating former employees. It requires everyone to
35:29
Speaker 1: log in while connected to the government's IT network. They
35:34
Speaker 1: didn't remove the employee, Yates said. I'll take the heat
35:37
Speaker 1: for that. Our next article is another Washington Post exclusive.
35:44
Speaker 1: Pentagon looks to build a deep cover spy program to
35:47
Speaker 1: confront China. Economic espionage is a new priority at the
35:52
Speaker 1: Defense Department, but the Pentagon doesn't have a great track
35:56
Speaker 1: record with human spying. Article co-authored by Zach Dorfman and
36:03
Speaker 1: Warren P. Strobel. The Pentagon is looking to build a
36:08
Speaker 1: more robust deep cover spying program to conduct economic warfare
36:12
Speaker 1: against China and other U.S. competitors, according to half a
36:16
Speaker 1: dozen people familiar with the initiative. This new next generation
36:20
Speaker 1: spying program, in which U.S. operatives would go undercover as
36:24
Speaker 1: business people or other private sector personnel without any overt U.S.
36:28
Speaker 1: government affiliation, is intended to be a covert prong of
36:32
Speaker 1: the Pentagon's larger economic warfare campaign, the people said. This
36:37
Speaker 1: new spy program of non-official cover officers, or NOCs, is
36:41
Speaker 1: being overseen by Tom Rackesand, a 39-year CIA veteran and
36:46
Speaker 1: now senior advisor to Deputy Defense Secretary Steve Feinberg, according
36:51
Speaker 1: to those familiar with it, who spoke on the condition
36:54
Speaker 1: of anonymity to discuss the sensitive initiative. Rackesand, who retired
37:00
Speaker 1: from the CIA in 2021, rose to Deputy Director of Operations,
37:04
Speaker 1: the CIA's top spy runner, in 2017. He later led
37:08
Speaker 1: the CIA's response to Russia's election interference campaign in the
37:11
Speaker 1: 2016 presidential election. After leaving the agency, Rakhishan joined Cerberus
37:17
Speaker 1: Capital Management, the private equity firm co-founded by Feinberg and
37:21
Speaker 1: followed the billionaire to the Pentagon in 2025. Experts from
37:26
Speaker 1: within the Pentagon's service branches and Office of the Undersecretary
37:29
Speaker 1: of War for Intelligence and Security, as well as retired
37:33
Speaker 1: CIA officials, have been pulled in to work on the initiative,
37:36
Speaker 1: people familiar with the program said. The program is in
37:40
Speaker 1: the planning phase and is not operational, they said. Where
37:45
Speaker 1: it will sit inside the Pentagon is unclear, and multiple
37:49
Speaker 1: individuals familiar with the planning. The effort might function as
37:52
Speaker 1: a new stand-alone deep cover unit or an enhancement and
37:56
Speaker 1: expansion of existing Pentagon clandestine human intelligence gathering capabilities. The
38:01
Speaker 1: Defense Department, in response to questions from the Washington Post,
38:05
Speaker 1: denied such an initiative is underway. This query appears to
38:08
Speaker 1: be built on information that is simply not true, Pentagon
38:12
Speaker 1: Deputy Press Secretary Jacob Bliss said in a statement. Whoever
38:15
Speaker 1: is feeding you these claims are either badly misinformed or
38:19
Speaker 1: deliberately leading you astray to peddle their fantasies. The CIA
38:25
Speaker 1: declined to comment. Rakishan did not respond to a request
38:28
Speaker 1: for comment. Congressional committees do not appear to have been
38:31
Speaker 1: briefed on the initiative. A new economic warfare priority. The
38:35
Speaker 1: Trump administration has embraced economic warfare as a key tool
38:38
Speaker 1: of statecraft. It has imposed tariffs and export controls, making
38:42
Speaker 1: investments in critical U.S. resources and technologies, coordinated with private
38:47
Speaker 1: capital to shore up support for key components of the
38:49
Speaker 1: defense industrial base, and prioritized economic intelligence. In a September speech,
38:55
Speaker 1: CIA Deputy Director Michael Ellis said the United States is
38:59
Speaker 1: broadening its espionage against China, targeting Chinese companies in such
39:03
Speaker 1: areas as artificial intelligence, biotechnology, and advanced semiconductors. While U.S.
39:09
Speaker 1: intelligence agencies have long spied on key Chinese firms, Ellis'
39:13
Speaker 1: public discussion of the CIA's shifting priorities was an unusual
39:19
Speaker 1: disclosure by a high-ranking agency official. Ellis's predecessor of CIA
39:23
Speaker 1: Deputy David S. Cohen argued in a recent article published
39:27
Speaker 1: in Foreign Affairs that the U.S. intelligence community should go
39:30
Speaker 1: a step further. The U.S. should end a longstanding prohibition
39:34
Speaker 1: on sharing economic secrets gathered via espionage with U.S. companies
39:38
Speaker 1: working on advanced technology to give them a competitive advantage,
39:41
Speaker 1: he wrote. We have been collecting economically sensitive information for
39:45
Speaker 1: years and years, Cohen said in an interview. We should
39:48
Speaker 1: not be hung up on whether we should be providing U.S.
39:51
Speaker 1: companies a commercial advantage, although there would have to be
39:54
Speaker 1: an oversight to guard against favoritism or corruption in choosing
39:58
Speaker 1: which firms benefit, Cohen said. Cohen said he was unaware
40:02
Speaker 1: of the Pentagon NOC initiative. Some of the Pentagon's economic
40:06
Speaker 1: warfare-related activities have been overt. Feinberg announced the formation of
40:11
Speaker 1: an economic defense unit this year as part of a
40:14
Speaker 1: drive toward deterring, denying, disrupting, and helping U.S. to defeat
40:18
Speaker 1: adversaries through economic means. According to a memo Feinberg wrote
40:22
Speaker 1: to senior Pentagon officials announcing the unit's formation. Defense Scoop
40:27
Speaker 1: first reported on the EDU memo. Feinberg tapped George Kalatidis,
40:35
Speaker 1: another Cerberus alumnus and senior advisor at the Pentagon, to
40:38
Speaker 1: run the EDU in February. That office has since announced
40:41
Speaker 1: hundreds of millions of dollars in public investments in refineries
40:45
Speaker 1: and mining interests domestically and abroad. One deal used $ 750
40:50
Speaker 1: million in Pentagon funds to help secure a major deposit
40:53
Speaker 1: of rare earth minerals in Brazil. Alongside the Pentagon's public-facing
40:58
Speaker 1: economic warfare-related mandates, RACISAN is overseeing the planned buildup of
41:04
Speaker 1: the clandestine component. Multiple individuals familiar with the program said
41:09
Speaker 1: the EDU was once seen as the potential home for
41:11
Speaker 1: this enhanced deep cover initiative. But the increased press and
41:15
Speaker 1: congressional scrutiny directed toward the EDU and its investments, and
41:20
Speaker 1: the possibility that such attention will only increase if Democrats
41:23
Speaker 1: retake Congress in November, has led to an abandonment of
41:26
Speaker 1: that idea, said one person familiar with the current planning.
41:30
Speaker 1: Turf wars in spy world. Not all of Rackusand's former
41:34
Speaker 1: colleagues are enthusiastic about the new effort. Rackusand just wants
41:37
Speaker 1: to build his own CIA down in the Pentagon, said
41:39
Speaker 1: a former senior CIA official familiar with the discussions around
41:43
Speaker 1: the program. Rakishan is a polarizing figure among some of
41:47
Speaker 1: his former agency colleagues, but he is lauded by many
41:50
Speaker 1: for his operational aggressiveness and prowess. He was a pipe swinger,
41:54
Speaker 1: recalled a White House official from the first Trump administration,
41:57
Speaker 1: keen to hit the Russians back hard after their 2016
41:59
Speaker 1: interference in the U.S. presidential election. Rakishan undertook high-wire operations
42:05
Speaker 1: throughout his CIA career, traveling in Iraq on a Czech passport,
42:10
Speaker 1: according to former officials, and was similarly supportive of subordinates
42:14
Speaker 1: undertaking risky missions. The reaction inside Langley to the Pentagon
42:19
Speaker 1: initiative has been frosty, according to the former agency official.
42:23
Speaker 1: The CIA has traditionally been resistant to other agencies stepping
42:27
Speaker 1: on what it perceives as its core human spying turf,
42:30
Speaker 1: insisting that such efforts be coordinated under the CIA chief
42:33
Speaker 1: of station in the country concerned. The move to augment
42:36
Speaker 1: the Pentagon's capabilities came as the CIA's own NOC program
42:40
Speaker 1: has withered away, former agency officials say. Operating under non-official
42:45
Speaker 1: cover is considered particularly risky because officers in the program
42:49
Speaker 1: cannot work out of American embassies or other U.S. government facilities,
42:54
Speaker 1: and they cannot claim diplomatic immunity if detained. A COVID-era
43:00
Speaker 1: internal CIA report revealed that roughly 75% of all deep
43:04
Speaker 1: cover agency officers would be eligible for retirement by the mid-2020s,
43:09
Speaker 1: another former CIA official said. These veteran NOCs are now
43:13
Speaker 1: retiring without new ones being trained to replace them. Sort
43:17
Speaker 1: of quiet death by attrition, former officials say. Despite recent
43:20
Speaker 1: efforts to rethink the program, very few actual deep cover
43:24
Speaker 1: CIA officers remain in the field, they said. The agency's
43:27
Speaker 1: NOC program has waxed and waned over the decades with
43:31
Speaker 1: ambitious plans for expansion frequently giving way to a chastening
43:35
Speaker 1: after agency difficulties in scaling up such initiatives, usually because
43:39
Speaker 1: of inadequate training or mismanagement of young deep cover officers.
43:43
Speaker 1: One such attempt in the 2000s, championed by Congress's intelligence
43:47
Speaker 1: committees and known inside the CIA as the Global Deployment Initiative,
43:52
Speaker 1: was a particularly acute example of this dynamic. former intelligence
43:56
Speaker 1: officials say, because of the proposed size and rapidity of
44:00
Speaker 1: the NOC buildup and insufficient oversight of it. The program
44:05
Speaker 1: collapsed with many young NOCs being forced to go inside
44:09
Speaker 1: the building at CIA or leave the agency. The Defense
44:14
Speaker 1: Department has had its own longstanding struggles with fielding deep
44:17
Speaker 1: cover spies. The Defense Intelligence Agency and Joint Special Operations
44:21
Speaker 1: Command among other Pentagon elements, have long experimented with commercial
44:26
Speaker 1: cover operations with decidedly mixed results. In one illustrative post-911 case,
44:33
Speaker 1: a group of Joint Special Operations Command-affiliated NOCs operating in
44:37
Speaker 1: a remote corner of Africa had their cover exposed when
44:41
Speaker 1: they stumbled upon a group of geologists and engineers who
44:44
Speaker 1: began asking questions about their activities, according to an investigation
44:48
Speaker 1: by the high side, a substack focused on special operations
44:52
Speaker 1: and intelligence. The NOCs were posing as employees of a
44:56
Speaker 1: mining company but had no real knowledge of the subject,
44:59
Speaker 1: which quickly became apparent to the actual experts with whom
45:01
Speaker 1: they were speaking. The NOCs somehow talked their way out
45:04
Speaker 1: of the jam, and the Joint Special Operations Command later
45:07
Speaker 1: began sending its commercial cover operatives to specialized schools to
45:12
Speaker 1: undertake crash courses in their supposed areas of expertise, according
45:17
Speaker 1: to the high side. The Pentagon faces multiple challenges with
45:20
Speaker 1: deep cover spying, former officials say. Military service records are
45:24
Speaker 1: difficult to hide, and the rise of biometrics and other
45:28
Speaker 1: digital dust means working under alias has become increasingly fraught. Plus,
45:33
Speaker 1: the martial bearing of many undercover Pentagon operatives makes them
45:37
Speaker 1: often easy to spot. The legal remit under which the
45:41
Speaker 1: new economic warfare-focused deep cover spy program might operate remains murky,
45:46
Speaker 1: the people familiar said. The military's Title X authorities allow
45:53
Speaker 1: for intelligence preparation of the battlefield, which the Pentagon has
45:56
Speaker 1: interpreted to allow a broad swath of espionage-related activities, including
46:01
Speaker 1: some far afield from narrow battlefield intelligence, former officials say. U.S.
46:05
Speaker 1: intelligence agencies such as the CIA operate under Title 50 authorities,
46:10
Speaker 1: which govern their abilities to collect intelligence and conduct covert
46:14
Speaker 1: actions abroad. The new Pentagon NOC initiative would likely function
46:20
Speaker 1: as a sort of Title 60 entity, said multiple former officials,
46:24
Speaker 1: a half-joking reference to a non-existent hybrid legal authority combining
46:29
Speaker 1: elements of Title 10 and Title 50. The effort also
46:32
Speaker 1: reflects shifting power dynamics inside the Trump administration, with an
46:37
Speaker 1: ascendant Pentagon seeking a record budget of $ 1. 5 trillion. CIA
46:42
Speaker 1: Director John Ratcliffe has promised a more muscular approach to
46:46
Speaker 1: recruiting human sources overseas and stealing adversaries' secrets. But some
46:51
Speaker 1: former officials say the CIA remains cautious about undertaking aggressive
46:55
Speaker 1: spying operations, with an assertive Pentagon willing to shoulder greater risks.
47:00
Speaker 1: The Pentagon has a lot of money and a lot
47:02
Speaker 1: of authorities and a lot of capabilities, a former CIA
47:06
Speaker 1: official said, and God bless them. We come now to
47:14
Speaker 1: our final article from the front page of today's Washington Post.
47:18
Speaker 1: Russia frees U.S. citizen as Kremlin maneuvers to show goodwill
47:22
Speaker 1: to Trump. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky reiterated his willingness to
47:27
Speaker 1: freeze the war along current battlefield lines, a Trump proposal
47:32
Speaker 1: Russia rejected a year ago. Article one. contributors include Mary Ilyushina,
47:42
Speaker 1: Natalia Abakumova, and Victoria Kroll. Russia on Wednesday freed Stephen Hubbard,
47:50
Speaker 1: a retired U.S. teacher imprisoned there since 2022, in what
47:53
Speaker 1: Moscow portrayed as a gesture of goodwill to President Donald Trump,
47:58
Speaker 1: who had requested his release. The move comes as Russia
48:01
Speaker 1: and Ukraine appear to be locked in a fierce tug-of-war
48:04
Speaker 1: for the Trump administration's favor. amid Washington's effort to negotiate
48:08
Speaker 1: an end to Russia's war against its neighbor. Hubbard's release,
48:13
Speaker 1: which follows a deal by Russian President Vladimir Putin to
48:16
Speaker 1: sell diesel to the United States, suggests the Kremlin has
48:20
Speaker 1: shifted tactics in its dealings with Washington, focusing on generous
48:23
Speaker 1: gestures toward Trump, who is eager for successes to tout
48:27
Speaker 1: ahead of the midterm elections. Trump's friend and special envoy,
48:30
Speaker 1: Steve Witkoff, who was in St. Petersburg to receive Hubbard,
48:34
Speaker 1: thanked Putin, calling him a humanitarian. Even his other world
48:37
Speaker 1: leaders view Putin as responsible for the brutal onslaught against
48:41
Speaker 1: Ukraine that has killed hundreds of thousands of people. Witkoff
48:45
Speaker 1: previously has heaped flattering praise on the Russian leader, telling
48:48
Speaker 1: him just last month at the start of a meeting
48:51
Speaker 1: at the Kremlin that once Witkoff retires, he will have
48:54
Speaker 1: these incredible stories and incredible memories, and yours will be
48:57
Speaker 1: right at the top of it all. You are a humanitarian, sir,
49:01
Speaker 1: Witkoff said Wednesday as he hailed Hubbard's release. I salute
49:04
Speaker 1: that and I commend you and I thank you again.
49:07
Speaker 1: On a day of fast-moving events, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky,
49:11
Speaker 1: in an interview with Fox News, repeated his willingness to
49:14
Speaker 1: freeze the war along current battlefield lines, a proposal made
49:17
Speaker 1: by Trump more than a year ago. that Zelensky had
49:20
Speaker 1: endorsed but Putin rejected, insisting that Kyiv surrender the entirety
49:25
Speaker 1: of its Donetsk region. Just after a year ago, after
49:29
Speaker 1: meeting Zelensky at the White House, Trump wrote on social media,
49:32
Speaker 1: it is time to stop the killing and make a deal.
49:35
Speaker 1: Enough blood has been shed, with property lines being defined
49:37
Speaker 1: by war and guts. They should stop where they are.
49:40
Speaker 1: Let both claim victory. Let history decide. Freezing the lines,
49:45
Speaker 1: as Trump has proposed, would not require Ukraine to surrender territory,
49:49
Speaker 1: but would set the stage for further negotiations, which Ukraine
49:53
Speaker 1: and its European backers have said must include security guarantees
49:56
Speaker 1: to prevent Russian attacks in the future. Russia previously had
50:00
Speaker 1: swapped imprisoned U.S. citizens only for Russians held abroad, but
50:04
Speaker 1: it recently changed course. In August, Russia released a former U.S. Marine,
50:08
Speaker 1: Robert Gilman, amid concerns about his poor health, with Trump
50:11
Speaker 1: saying at the time that the United States appreciated the
50:14
Speaker 1: decision to free him on a humanitarian basis. Gilman had
50:18
Speaker 1: been arrested in 2022 for allegedly kicking a police officer
50:22
Speaker 1: while drunk aboard a train to Moscow. The shift was
50:26
Speaker 1: potentially modeled on the success of U.S. Special Envoy John
50:29
Speaker 1: Cole in persuading Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko to to release
50:33
Speaker 1: close to 300 political prisoners in exchange for which the U.S.
50:36
Speaker 1: agreed to lift sanctions on several key Belarusian enterprises. The
50:41
Speaker 1: Trump administration cultivated the warmer relationship with Minsk, long an
50:45
Speaker 1: international pariah, partly to gain another inroad to Putin, who
50:49
Speaker 1: is one of Lukashenko's closest allies and a frequent participant
50:53
Speaker 1: in one-on-one meetings with the Russian leader. Hubbard, 74, who
50:58
Speaker 1: had been held since 2022, was detained in eastern Ukraine
51:02
Speaker 1: and accused by Russia of fighting as a mercenary for Ukraine.
51:05
Speaker 1: In the days before Hubbard's release, Trump once again appeared
51:10
Speaker 1: to shift his favor toward Moscow. He has barraged Zelensky
51:14
Speaker 1: with criticism, echoing the explosive clash the two leaders had
51:17
Speaker 1: in 2025 that led to Zelensky being ejected from the
51:21
Speaker 1: White House. Trump has recently called for Zelensky's ouster and
51:25
Speaker 1: has portrayed Moscow as more willing to negotiate an end
51:28
Speaker 1: to Russia's war in Ukraine. Trump also signed a diesel
51:32
Speaker 1: deal with Russia and waived punishing sanctions against Moscow just
51:35
Speaker 1: days before they were due to go into effect, stirring
51:38
Speaker 1: bipartisan outrage in the U.S. and Ukraine. Russia has welcomed
51:43
Speaker 1: the latest moves as a sign that Western support for
51:46
Speaker 1: Ukraine is crumbling. On Tuesday, Trump said he had been
51:50
Speaker 1: speaking to Putin about Hubbard's release. I'd love to get
51:52
Speaker 1: him back, Trump told reporters in the Oval Office Tuesday.
51:56
Speaker 1: It's time to have Mr. Hubbard back. On Wednesday, Trump
52:00
Speaker 1: suggested his decision to waive decisions against Russia was linked
52:03
Speaker 1: to Hubbard's release. If sanctions would have been placed, certainly
52:06
Speaker 1: those negotiations would have come to a complete and total halt,
52:09
Speaker 1: he said. Stephen is on his way back home and
52:12
Speaker 1: will soon be with his family, Trump said in a
52:14
Speaker 1: post on social media. adding that the decision came after
52:17
Speaker 1: a request he made during a phone conversation with Putin
52:20
Speaker 1: last week. Trump posting on social media said Hubbard's release
52:26
Speaker 1: was not part of a broader prisoner exchange. The United States,
52:33
Speaker 1: out of respect for President Trump, was not required to
52:35
Speaker 1: give anything in return, an unprecedented situation for Russia. There
52:39
Speaker 1: was no swap necessary for this release, he wrote. For Putin,
52:43
Speaker 1: the cost of releasing a U.S. citizen without getting a
52:45
Speaker 1: detained Russian national in return is negligible compared with the
52:49
Speaker 1: potential dividends should the Trump administration side with Russia in
52:53
Speaker 1: negotiations to end the war. Zelensky, speaking to NBC News'
52:57
Speaker 1: Meet the Press on Sunday, said that if the United
53:00
Speaker 1: States will support Putin, it's unbelievable, it's a tragedy. In
53:03
Speaker 1: remarks broadcast on Russian state media, Putin said Hubbard was
53:07
Speaker 1: at Pulkovo Airport in St. Petersburg while the Russian leader
53:11
Speaker 1: was meeting Witkow. On Tuesday, Witkoff met Zelensky in Norway
53:15
Speaker 1: alongside Finnish President Alexander Stubb and Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Garstore.
53:21
Speaker 1: Witkoff told Putin he hoped he would consider trilateral talks
53:25
Speaker 1: to discuss a settlement to the war. Putin thanked Trump
53:28
Speaker 1: for his efforts and said he wanted to discuss how
53:31
Speaker 1: to restore economic cooperation with the United States. Russia has
53:38
Speaker 1: said the possibility of such talks involving Ukraine was undermined
53:42
Speaker 1: by the large-scale drone strikes that disrupted Russia's parliamentary elections
53:45
Speaker 1: in September. Following Putin's meeting with Witkow, however, Kremlin foreign
53:50
Speaker 1: policy aide Yuri Yushakov said Moscow has analyzed the situation
53:54
Speaker 1: again and will be ready to resume the talks in mid-November.
53:57
Speaker 1: This topic would concern the establishment of a security system
54:00
Speaker 1: for Russia and Ukraine, Yushakov said in a news briefing.
54:04
Speaker 1: Putin has also discussed with Witkoff a potential trilateral summit
54:08
Speaker 1: with Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines
54:12
Speaker 1: of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting in China next month.
54:15
Speaker 1: Immediately after meeting Witkoff, Putin met Li Kuang, chairman of
54:20
Speaker 1: the State Council of China, saying that our Chinese friends
54:23
Speaker 1: are working to prepare the meeting. Hubbard's attorney, Martin De Luca,
54:26
Speaker 1: thanked the Trump administration in a statement Wednesday for making
54:29
Speaker 1: Hubbard's return a top priority. Hubbard, originally from Big Rapids, Michigan,
54:35
Speaker 1: worked as an English teacher abroad for decades, including in
54:38
Speaker 1: Japan and Cyprus. He had lived in Ukraine since 2014.
54:44
Speaker 1: He was captured in the Ukrainian city of Izyum in
54:46
Speaker 1: April 2022, a few weeks after Russia began its full-scale invasion.
54:51
Speaker 1: It's not clear how he was transferred to Russia. Due
54:54
Speaker 1: to time constraints, we will need to end this article
54:58
Speaker 1: at this time. This concludes the reading of the Washington
55:02
Speaker 1: Post for today. Thursday, October 22, 2026. Your reader for
55:07
Speaker 1: today has been Woody Snowden. If you have any questions, comments,
55:11
Speaker 1: or suggestions concerning this program, please feel free to call
55:15
Speaker 1: us at 859-422-6390. That's 859-422-6390. Thank you for listening, and
55:18
Speaker 1: now please stay tuned for continued programming on Radio Eye.