Latest / The Oath and The Office / Trump Targets the Press—and Spies on Americans (with Sen. Ron Wyden)
Transcript
- 0:10Speaker 1: Welcome to another episode of The Oath and the Office.
- 0:13Speaker 1: I am John Fiebel, saying it is a pleasure to
- 0:15Speaker 1: be with you, and it's my pleasure to welcome the
- 0:17Speaker 1: star of this show, the man behind it all. They
- 0:20Speaker 1: call him the Mac Professor Corey Bretschneider, author of The
- 0:24Speaker 1: Oath and the Office. Hello, Corey, how's it going.
- 0:26Speaker 2: It's going great.
- 0:27Speaker 3: John, A really pleasure, of course to do this show
- 0:30Speaker 3: with you. And today is a special show. You know,
- 0:33Speaker 3: so often on The Oath in the Office, we're talking
- 0:35Speaker 3: not just about the destruction of our democracy by Donald Trump,
- 0:39Speaker 3: but how to fight back and how to pass laws
- 0:41Speaker 3: that ensure that not only does it stop happening now,
- 0:44Speaker 3: but that it doesn't happen in the future. And I
- 0:48Speaker 3: can't really think of anybody more than Senator Ron Wyden
- 0:50Speaker 3: who's led the fight on Pfizer reform, the fight to
- 0:54Speaker 3: protect our First Amendment, to protect First Amendment rights to
- 0:58Speaker 3: free speech, to protect our four Amendment rights to not
- 1:01Speaker 3: be searched by unreasonable search and seizure. And so it's,
- 1:05Speaker 3: you know, a really special episode. We'll talk in depth
- 1:07Speaker 3: about what's happening about the assault on democracy, and we'll
- 1:11Speaker 3: have this amazing interview with him about the hope for
- 1:13Speaker 3: the future.
- 1:14Speaker 1: What a great guest. Thank you so much, Professor. I
- 1:16Speaker 1: got to say, there's a lot to cover right now,
- 1:19Speaker 1: and it's been a bit crazy over here. But before
- 1:22Speaker 1: we even dive into what's going on with the malfeasans
- 1:25Speaker 1: in our government, you know, we hear this expression constitutional
- 1:28Speaker 1: crisis all the time, and you have cautioned against using
- 1:32Speaker 1: that phrase too loosely. How should conscientious, well intentioned, nerdy
- 1:37Speaker 1: citizens distinguish between politics they dislike and actions that might
- 1:41Speaker 1: be legally dodgy and then actions that genuinely threaten constitutional democracy.
- 1:46Speaker 1: Where is the line where a constitutional challenge becomes a
- 1:49Speaker 1: constitutional crisis?
- 1:51Speaker 3: You know, in normal politics, laws are proposed or actions
- 1:54Speaker 3: are proposed that we argue, is this constitutional? Is that
- 1:57Speaker 3: not constitutional? Is abortion constitutional or not? Is it constitutionally
- 2:02Speaker 3: protected by the right to privacy? These are sort of
- 2:04Speaker 3: classic debates. But what we're facing in our democracy now
- 2:07Speaker 3: goes so far beyond that. It really is Donald Trump
- 2:11Speaker 3: shutting down the opposition. If you think about what free
- 2:14Speaker 3: speech is, the right to say what you think without
- 2:17Speaker 3: being charged with a crime, without being put in prison.
- 2:20Speaker 3: That's you know, more fundamental in some ways even than
- 2:23Speaker 3: the right to vote. Without it, we wouldn't have a democracy.
- 2:26Speaker 3: So when you have a president really attacking the fundamental
- 2:29Speaker 3: rights of democracy, that's not politics as normal, that's not
- 2:32Speaker 3: a debate about constitutional law. That is at minimum of
- 2:36Speaker 3: constitutional crisis.
- 2:37Speaker 2: I think that's an.
- 2:38Speaker 3: Optimistic way to put it, because constitutional crisis suggests that,
- 2:41Speaker 3: you know, there's some back and forth. I think, as
- 2:44Speaker 3: I've said often on this show, that we're in the
- 2:46Speaker 3: middle of an attempted self coup, and part of it
- 2:49Speaker 3: is the assault on free speech.
- 2:51Speaker 2: But it also is the use of so.
- 2:53Speaker 3: Many of the powers that have been handed over to
- 2:56Speaker 3: the executive branch in the hands of a want to
- 2:59Speaker 3: be dictator.
- 3:00Speaker 2: It's so dangerous. So in the War on Terror, for instance.
- 3:03Speaker 3: And before that, we've handed over enormous power to the
- 3:07Speaker 3: executive branch, to the president to fight the so called
- 3:10Speaker 3: war on terror. Yeah, what happens when the war on
- 3:13Speaker 3: terror when those powers, including the power of surveillance, which includes, unfortunately,
- 3:19Speaker 3: and people will be shocked to hear this, the power
- 3:21Speaker 3: to really read the emails without a warrant of domestic
- 3:25Speaker 3: citizens if they're in conversation with those abroad if they've
- 3:28Speaker 3: been caught up in the dragnet that wasn't aimed at
- 3:30Speaker 3: getting them. There are all these situations in which the
- 3:33Speaker 3: president has this power of surveillance, including over his enemies.
- 3:37Speaker 3: That's what really makes this so scary that an attack
- 3:39Speaker 3: on free speech, the use of these supposedly powers to
- 3:43Speaker 3: provide for security in order to shut down our democracy.
- 3:47Speaker 3: So we're way beyond politics as normal. I think we're
- 3:49Speaker 3: beyond constitutional crisis. We're fighting against an attempted coup by
- 3:53Speaker 3: a president.
- 3:54Speaker 1: Yeah, and we have to remember we get to thank
- 3:56Speaker 1: both parties for that, right, Corey, when it comes to
- 3:58Speaker 1: these visive uses. I mean, let me ask you about
- 4:02Speaker 1: the president subpoening New York Times reporters, because this story
- 4:06Speaker 1: has the founders screaming from their crypts. It involves federal
- 4:10Speaker 1: prosecutors subpoenaing reporters from the New York Times over a
- 4:14Speaker 1: national security story, rather than prosecuting an actual leak. Right,
- 4:19Speaker 1: these government officials are treating anonymous sources like they're the
- 4:22Speaker 1: biggest threat to national security, not corruption the people talking
- 4:26Speaker 1: about corruption. But they're going after the journalists, not the leakers.
- 4:30Speaker 1: This is another example of stochastic self censorship is a
- 4:34Speaker 1: dot of just trying to intimidate the president of silence.
- 4:37Speaker 3: You know, are they going to be able to get
- 4:39Speaker 3: a conviction on these journalists.
- 4:40Speaker 2: Are they even going to bring an indictment. It's unclear.
- 4:42Speaker 3: But what they're doing, and we've talked about this often,
- 4:45Speaker 3: is they're trying to induce they meaning the administration. And
- 4:48Speaker 3: I'll call out in particular Jay Clayton, the US Attorney
- 4:52Speaker 3: for the Southern District of New York. So we're getting
- 4:54Speaker 3: we're getting about him, We're going to talk about him
- 4:57Speaker 3: as as the nominee actually to be the Director of
- 5:00Speaker 3: National Intelligence. Totally frightening stuff. But what he's done is
- 5:05Speaker 3: he's taken this fundamental right in democracy, the right of
- 5:09Speaker 3: the press to tell us what's going on with this
- 5:12Speaker 3: corrupt regime. The receipt of this bribe plane and their
- 5:16Speaker 3: story in particular about how it doesn't have any of
- 5:18Speaker 3: the needed security that you did have on Air Force
- 5:21Speaker 3: one and that you would need in order to protect
- 5:23Speaker 3: the president. That's just a normal story in democracy that
- 5:27Speaker 3: we need to have access to. That's being This isn't
- 5:31Speaker 3: a national security concern. The national security concern is the President,
- 5:35Speaker 3: and yet who's being attacked by the Southern District of
- 5:38Speaker 3: New York. They're not investigating the president, They're investigating the reporters.
- 5:42Speaker 2: Yeah, so that really is an example.
- 5:45Speaker 1: Reporting a threat to this president's safety and this president
- 5:49Speaker 1: is sticking as dogs on them.
- 5:51Speaker 2: Right.
- 5:52Speaker 1: That's where it gets really weird, right, I mean, one
- 5:55Speaker 1: of the positive side effects of all this awfulness is
- 5:58Speaker 1: that Donald Trump is forcing us all to have a
- 6:00Speaker 1: lot of civics lessons and remind ourselves why norms got
- 6:02Speaker 1: to be norms in the first place. Story, why have
- 6:05Speaker 1: administrations of both parties generally been hesitant to compel reporters
- 6:10Speaker 1: to reveal sources. We have to explain again why this
- 6:14Speaker 1: is messed up.
- 6:15Speaker 3: You know, it goes back to the First Amendment, and
- 6:16Speaker 3: the First Amendment is in trouble, and it guarantees two
- 6:19Speaker 3: specific rights that are both at issue here.
- 6:21Speaker 2: One is the right to free speech. And I'll say
- 6:23Speaker 2: something about that.
- 6:24Speaker 3: A lot of times we think about free speech is
- 6:26Speaker 3: just the right to say what I feel or what
- 6:28Speaker 3: I think. But the right is the right of democracy.
- 6:31Speaker 3: It's the right to hear arguments, to see information, because
- 6:35Speaker 3: without access to that information, how are we supposed to
- 6:38Speaker 3: decide as democratic citizens what to do. We won't even
- 6:42Speaker 3: know what our government is doing. That kind of transparency
- 6:45Speaker 3: is so important. And the related First Amendment right that
- 6:48Speaker 3: is specifically in there of the right to the freedom
- 6:51Speaker 3: of the press, that also is so necessary to democracy.
- 6:55Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, nothing says I support the First Amendment
- 6:58Speaker 1: like subpeeding the people who are using it. Right, Like
- 7:01Speaker 1: David mccrob the New York Times said that federal agents
- 7:05Speaker 1: showing up at reporters' homes should shock the conscience. Is
- 7:09Speaker 1: that flowery rhetoric or is this professor seriously an extraordinary
- 7:14Speaker 1: constitutional moment?
- 7:15Speaker 3: Well, I don't think it goes I mean I like
- 7:18Speaker 3: that phrase, but it doesn't even go far enough. Shocks
- 7:20Speaker 3: the conscience is something unusual. This is really a threat
- 7:24Speaker 3: to the entire system. And let's of course remember and
- 7:27Speaker 3: listeners to this show no because we're covering it so closely.
- 7:30Speaker 2: This isn't a one off.
- 7:32Speaker 3: It is part of an overall assault on democracy in
- 7:35Speaker 3: which Donald Trump has his minions the Department of Justice
- 7:39Speaker 3: go after those he.
- 7:40Speaker 2: Considers political opponents.
- 7:43Speaker 3: And so the attack on Letitia James, even if it
- 7:45Speaker 3: doesn't go anywhere, it makes people think, wow, you know,
- 7:48Speaker 3: maybe they won't get a conviction out of me. I
- 7:50Speaker 3: won't go to prison. But if you accuse me of
- 7:53Speaker 3: you know, mortgage fraud, you know, I'm gonna think twice
- 7:56Speaker 3: if you're.
- 7:56Speaker 2: Willing to do that.
- 7:57Speaker 3: Or how about James Comy eighty six forty seven, a
- 8:00Speaker 3: pure example of let's get rid of the president we
- 8:03Speaker 3: don't like. Now the guy is facing potentially criminal charges,
- 8:07Speaker 3: you know, that insistence on shutting down the opposition, you know.
- 8:11Speaker 3: And then if we go back to the historical and allegory,
- 8:15Speaker 3: the analogy of John Adams who did shut down the
- 8:18Speaker 3: opposition party, how do you do it? He went after
- 8:21Speaker 3: what he considered the press that was revealing things that
- 8:24Speaker 3: he was doing, like trying to his party, trying to
- 8:27Speaker 3: steal the election of eighteen hundred. Now we're seeing that again,
- 8:30Speaker 3: the bride plane, the reporting on this plane, which I
- 8:32Speaker 3: know we'll talk about more.
- 8:34Speaker 2: What is it?
- 8:34Speaker 3: It's just revealing the corruption that's part of this administration.
- 8:38Speaker 2: And what do you get for that? You get a
- 8:39Speaker 2: criminal subpoena. Now I should say, we don't know what
- 8:42Speaker 2: these are for.
- 8:43Speaker 3: It's just potentially some sort of criminal action, you know.
- 8:46Speaker 3: The vagueness of it is part of what's so scary.
- 8:49Speaker 3: So we don't know what the charges are. It's the
- 8:52Speaker 3: ging really trying to shut up his critics.
- 8:54Speaker 1: Yeah, and by the way, I don't know if you
- 8:57Speaker 1: knew this scory, but this is the anniversary this week.
- 9:00Speaker 1: It was on the fourteenth of July seventeen ninety eight
- 9:03Speaker 1: that President John Adams signed this Edition Act targeting false,
- 9:07Speaker 1: scandalous or malicious writing against the US Government. America tried
- 9:12Speaker 1: to do away with the First Amendment and pretended it
- 9:15Speaker 1: was about keeping people safe. So happy anniversary to while
- 9:19Speaker 1: out there who celebrate. But I mean, let me ask
- 9:21Speaker 1: you about the founders. Because the Constitution never explicitly, you know,
- 9:25Speaker 1: creates the press as an institution. But the First Amendment
- 9:30Speaker 1: places freedom of the press alongside freedom of religion, alongside
- 9:35Speaker 1: freedom of speech. Why was that so important to the founders?
- 9:39Speaker 3: Well, you know, there really were two views at the
- 9:41Speaker 3: Founding and often we hide from the fact. You brought
- 9:44Speaker 3: up John Adams. I'm going to say something about him
- 9:46Speaker 3: before giving you a full answer. There were founders, and
- 9:49Speaker 3: John Adams was chief among them. Also the Supreme Court
- 9:52Speaker 3: of the Founding period, including in seventeen ninety eight justices
- 9:55Speaker 3: like Samuel Chase. What they believed was that we had
- 9:59Speaker 3: a kind of constant titutional monarchy in this society in
- 10:02Speaker 3: which the president couldn't be subject to criticism. That seems
- 10:06Speaker 3: outrageous now, but they read the First Amendment, including the
- 10:09Speaker 3: right of free speech and the right to the freedom
- 10:11Speaker 3: of press is really not that different than the rules
- 10:14Speaker 3: and protections, which were some that we had in England,
- 10:17Speaker 3: but they didn't include the right to criticize the king.
- 10:19Speaker 3: But what that Sedition Act crisis did that you're talking about.
- 10:23Speaker 3: The Sedition Act made it a crime to criticize the
- 10:25Speaker 3: president of the United States.
- 10:27Speaker 2: By the way, it wasn't.
- 10:28Speaker 3: A crime to criticize the vice president, who was Thomas
- 10:31Speaker 3: Jefferson of the opposition Party.
- 10:34Speaker 1: So what happened how that worked out?
- 10:36Speaker 2: Huh?
- 10:36Speaker 3: What happened in seventeen ninety eight was a battle over
- 10:39Speaker 3: the meaning of free speech. And thankfully the Jeffersonians and
- 10:42Speaker 3: Madison and the editors who were prosecuted use their.
- 10:46Speaker 2: Own trials to put John Adams on trial.
- 10:49Speaker 3: And the result really was this legacy that we're talking
- 10:52Speaker 3: about now, that we have a right to dissent a
- 10:55Speaker 3: right to criticize this president. But what Donald Trump and
- 10:58Speaker 3: Jay Clayton would do is bring back before seventeen ninety
- 11:01Speaker 3: eight to this authoritarian idea of the Constitution as some
- 11:06Speaker 3: sort of system of monarchy. And wow, that couldn't be
- 11:08Speaker 3: more dangerous for the very idea of democracy. By the way,
- 11:11Speaker 3: the first three words of the Constitution, I'll just remind everyone,
- 11:14Speaker 3: are we the people?
- 11:15Speaker 2: That's what it's supposed to be about.
- 11:17Speaker 1: And absolutely and you know the founders wrote freedom of
- 11:20Speaker 1: the press. They didn't add unless the president gets embarrassed.
- 11:24Speaker 1: Let's talk about Can we talk about the actual plane?
- 11:27Speaker 1: They call it air Force one, We call it Bribeforce one,
- 11:30Speaker 1: but the maintenance crew called it maybe let's not This
- 11:33Speaker 1: story is again so strange. Reports indicate the Secret Service
- 11:38Speaker 1: advised Trump not to fly on the newer aircraft because
- 11:42Speaker 1: their defensive systems were incomplete. And you know, when it's
- 11:45Speaker 1: the people whose job it is to take bullets for
- 11:47Speaker 1: you say hard pass listen, I guess. But imagine getting
- 11:51Speaker 1: a free luxury jet and finding out it's still somehow
- 11:54Speaker 1: the cheap option. Corey, doesn't this illustrate why independent professional
- 11:59Speaker 1: agency have to exist to tell presidents know, when safety
- 12:03Speaker 1: requires it. Right, we're talking about Trump at the Supreme
- 12:07Speaker 1: Court letting him do away with independent agencies. One of
- 12:09Speaker 1: those just saved us life.
- 12:12Speaker 3: We need civil servants, you know, in independent agencies also
- 12:15Speaker 3: within the executive branch itself, to tell the truth. And
- 12:18Speaker 3: that's why they traditionally have all sorts of protections to
- 12:22Speaker 3: allow for that. And yes, this president has done away
- 12:24Speaker 3: with so many of those protections. They've weakened the civil
- 12:28Speaker 3: service protection. We've essentially, through the recent case that we
- 12:31Speaker 3: talked about, overturning Humphrey's executive done away with independent agencies.
- 12:36Speaker 2: The degree to which they exist anymore is really almost nothing.
- 12:40Speaker 3: And you know, let's also just talk about the other
- 12:43Speaker 3: you know, dynamic in all of this, which is that
- 12:45Speaker 3: the Jay Clayton's of the world, the Donald Trump's, are
- 12:47Speaker 3: saying that this is a national security issue and the
- 12:50Speaker 3: freedom of the press, you know, is limited when it
- 12:52Speaker 3: comes to national security. No, it's an issue about a
- 12:56Speaker 3: bribe that was paid by a foreign government of violation
- 12:59Speaker 3: of the Luman's clause, and also a national security threat
- 13:03Speaker 3: that this bribe of you know, it turns out doesn't
- 13:06Speaker 3: turns out to be the best way to, you know,
- 13:09Speaker 3: create the plane that carries the president of the United States.
- 13:12Speaker 3: Those are essential stories for the press to be reporting on.
- 13:16Speaker 3: But what you always hear those who want to shut
- 13:19Speaker 3: down civil liberties say is the phrase national security.
- 13:22Speaker 2: National security.
- 13:22Speaker 3: We'll talk about that with Ron Wyden, the fives of
- 13:25Speaker 3: the law, the use of fear of security in order
- 13:29Speaker 3: to shut down our civil liberties.
- 13:30Speaker 2: That's what's going on here. But let's not lose sight
- 13:32Speaker 2: of it.
- 13:33Speaker 3: It's people of integrity who are reporting on the truth,
- 13:35Speaker 3: and the New York Times journalists who are facing, you know,
- 13:38Speaker 3: possible criminal charges for doing it. They're the ones defending
- 13:41Speaker 3: our democracy right now.
- 13:43Speaker 1: Well, let me ask you about Jay Clayton, because he
- 13:45Speaker 1: is heading into the Senate confirmation hearing after authorizing subpoenas
- 13:49Speaker 1: for the New York Times reporters over there reporting on
- 13:53Speaker 1: Air Force one security. I guess it's kind of awkward
- 13:56Speaker 1: right to explain your respect for press freedom while reporters
- 13:59Speaker 1: are also their inboxes for subpoenas from you. Should senators
- 14:03Speaker 1: view those subpoenas as a legitimate league investigation or is
- 14:07Speaker 1: this a First Amendment issue that goes directly to this
- 14:10Speaker 1: man's fitness for higher office.
- 14:11Speaker 3: Well, you know, I cannot wait to get into this,
- 14:14Speaker 3: Senator Widen. Yeah, and he's going to be the person
- 14:18Speaker 3: that is interrogating Jake Clayton about all of this.
- 14:21Speaker 2: And one thing I'll push him on.
- 14:23Speaker 3: Listeners can look for this is the question of whether
- 14:26Speaker 3: or not the fact that this person who is supposed to,
- 14:29Speaker 3: by the way, be the alternative to Bill Polti's clearly
- 14:32Speaker 3: not qualified to be the permanent director of National Intelligence.
- 14:37Speaker 3: This is supposed to be somebody who is confirmable. This
- 14:40Speaker 3: is the former head of the SEC, for instance. So
- 14:44Speaker 3: you know that was the assumption before. But you know,
- 14:46Speaker 3: one thing I guess he's trying to do this is
- 14:48Speaker 3: now just my surmise is kiss up to Donald Trump. Well,
- 14:51Speaker 3: how do you do? You attack his opponents? You attack
- 14:54Speaker 3: the journalists who are doing their job. And to my mind,
- 14:57Speaker 3: I mean, I'll just say it in a blunt way.
- 14:59Speaker 3: You know, I don't think this is a hard case
- 15:01Speaker 3: if you're subpoenating journalists, unless we're missing something in this
- 15:04Speaker 3: story and he has some knowledge that we don't know
- 15:07Speaker 3: about that's going to come out in the confirmation. If
- 15:09Speaker 3: you're helping Trump shut down free speed, shut down democracy
- 15:14Speaker 3: domestically as the US Attorney for the Southern District of
- 15:17Speaker 3: New York, an incredibly important part of our system, our
- 15:20Speaker 3: Department of Justice. This is the position that pre Berarra,
- 15:24Speaker 3: former guests on our show held, how can we trust
- 15:28Speaker 3: you to get the reins of power that come with
- 15:30Speaker 3: the Director of National Intelligence, including again the power to
- 15:34Speaker 3: engage in surveillance that might wind up looking into even
- 15:38Speaker 3: domestic US citizens.
- 15:40Speaker 2: Phone calls and emails. If we can't.
- 15:43Speaker 3: Trust you to protect our civil liberties as US attorney,
- 15:47Speaker 3: I don't see how we can expect you to do
- 15:49Speaker 3: that as the Director of National Intelligence. And so when
- 15:52Speaker 3: he comes before this confirmation, and assuming that it is scheduled,
- 15:55Speaker 3: assuming that Trump doesn't withdraw it, I expect very tough
- 15:59Speaker 3: questions not just about what he would do as the
- 16:01Speaker 3: Director of National Intelligence, but about this specific case.
- 16:06Speaker 1: Well, yeah, because I mean, I don't know, there's no
- 16:09Speaker 1: federal shield law protecting reporters sources, right.
- 16:12Speaker 3: You know, there's supposed to be a First Amendment, And
- 16:14Speaker 3: this is another thing we'll talk that I'm going to
- 16:17Speaker 3: definitely talk to Center Widen about. But so often you
- 16:21Speaker 3: know that First Amendment has been weakened by this Supreme Court.
- 16:24Speaker 3: And you know, there are really important precedents actually involving
- 16:27Speaker 3: the New York Times, for instance, as listeners know, in
- 16:31Speaker 3: my book The Presidents and the People, I have one
- 16:33Speaker 3: of the last at length interviews.
- 16:35Speaker 2: With Daniel Elsberg.
- 16:36Speaker 3: Well, he is the source of one of the most
- 16:39Speaker 3: important precedents about national security, upholding the right of the
- 16:42Speaker 3: New York Times to even publish a secret history of
- 16:46Speaker 3: the Vietnam War. This wasn't supposed to be released, and
- 16:48Speaker 3: yet the First Amendment right was upheld here when it
- 16:51Speaker 3: comes to this bride plane or bribe force one, of
- 16:54Speaker 3: course there's a right in order to publish this. So
- 16:57Speaker 3: you know, one of the things I think you're pointing to, though, John,
- 17:00Speaker 3: is that we need legislation to build this up. And
- 17:03Speaker 3: so it's one of the things that I'm going to
- 17:04Speaker 3: talk about in this interview et cent Widen. What kind
- 17:07Speaker 3: of laws do we need to pass in order to
- 17:09Speaker 3: reinforce the First Amendment right of free speech, the right
- 17:13Speaker 3: of the press, the things that the Court you know,
- 17:15Speaker 3: should be doing, but I don't know that we can
- 17:17Speaker 3: trust it to do so anymore.
- 17:19Speaker 1: Should a nominee be asked whether he believes that Justice
- 17:22Speaker 1: Department has an obligation to protect press independence, even if
- 17:27Speaker 1: reporting is embarrassing or politically damaging to the administration. I'd
- 17:33Speaker 1: love to hear that question asked.
- 17:35Speaker 3: This is a nominee to be the Director of National Intelligence.
- 17:39Speaker 3: One of the most important things that this person's tasked
- 17:41Speaker 3: with doing is balancing civil liberties and security. And too
- 17:46Speaker 3: much actually power has been given to this apparatus, including
- 17:50Speaker 3: the Director of National Intelligence, and trying to show ethics
- 17:54Speaker 3: in that balance. But if you can't even protect the
- 17:57Speaker 3: First Amendment as a prosecutor as the US attorney, how
- 18:01Speaker 3: are we possibly trust you to do that in this
- 18:04Speaker 3: enormous role. And so, you know, the Constitution Thankfully we're
- 18:07Speaker 3: not powerless.
- 18:08Speaker 2: You know. We talk about hope, how to fight back.
- 18:11Speaker 3: Confirmation hearings the requirement of them are the place for that.
- 18:15Speaker 2: So yeah, that's what we need to you know, i'd
- 18:17Speaker 2: make the whole hearing about that. Frankly, I don't want
- 18:19Speaker 2: to hear his views about abstract subjects.
- 18:22Speaker 3: I want to know how you get past the threshold
- 18:23Speaker 3: question that you seem to be involved in the shutdown
- 18:26Speaker 3: of free speech. How do you expect to be Director
- 18:28Speaker 3: of National Intelligence?
- 18:30Speaker 1: I'd make the whole thing about convincing democrats. The harsher
- 18:33Speaker 1: your questions are, the better your fundraising will be this quarter.
- 18:36Speaker 1: That's how I would do it personally, Corey, we are
- 18:39Speaker 1: back to this administration murdering innocent, unarmed men in the streets.
- 18:44Speaker 1: Of course, Ice has now ended two lives that we
- 18:47Speaker 1: know of in the last week, one in Houston and
- 18:48Speaker 1: one in Maine. In both cases, no body cameras. Again.
- 18:54Speaker 1: We shovel billions and billions and billions into this organization,
- 18:58Speaker 1: and wow, they can afford every kind of tactical gear,
- 19:00Speaker 1: every kind of tank, every kind of electronics, but oh,
- 19:04Speaker 1: they can't afford a go pro No body cameras again.
- 19:07Speaker 1: The one profession Corey that insists everyone must be documented
- 19:12Speaker 1: somehow keeps forgetting to document itself. It's really funny how
- 19:16Speaker 1: the cameras always disappear faster than male dignity at a
- 19:20Speaker 1: Trump cabinet meeting. But this is despicable. Ice has already
- 19:24Speaker 1: been caught in lies, demonstrably saying that, as with Renee Good,
- 19:28Speaker 1: that both of these men weaponize their vehicles. Of course,
- 19:32Speaker 1: there is in the case of mister Arajo, there are
- 19:35Speaker 1: three witnesses who say none of that's true, and they're
- 19:37Speaker 1: trying to get them to sign deportation papers so they
- 19:40Speaker 1: can never be interviewed in any investigation. According to their lawyer.
- 19:43Speaker 1: I mean, what safeguards exist when federal agents use lethal force.
- 19:49Speaker 1: There's never going to be any accountability for these men.
- 19:52Speaker 2: You know, we haven't seen a lot of accountability.
- 19:54Speaker 3: And in the same way that the Constitution gives enormous power,
- 19:58Speaker 3: and I should say, legislation has hand over even more
- 20:01Speaker 3: power to the National Intelligence Apparatus, to the Director of
- 20:06Speaker 3: National Intelligence, to those who are you know, supposedly going
- 20:10Speaker 3: after foreign terrorists but wind up sometimes violating the civil
- 20:13Speaker 3: liberties of Americans. The other place that our legal system
- 20:17Speaker 3: really has major holes in it is when it comes
- 20:20Speaker 3: to immigration, and at least as I seize itself and
- 20:24Speaker 3: the Homeland Security that when you're engaged in immigration enforcement,
- 20:27Speaker 3: you know, they think there's no talk about the First Amendment.
- 20:30Speaker 3: They think there's no right to free speech, so they
- 20:32Speaker 3: can deport people for what they say.
- 20:34Speaker 2: When it comes to.
- 20:35Speaker 3: Those who are members of supposedly enemy nations, they go
- 20:38Speaker 3: back to John Adams Law from seventeen ninety eight, the
- 20:41Speaker 3: Enemy Aliens Act, and try to deprive them of habeas corpus.
- 20:44Speaker 3: And now what we're seeing is domestically, you know, the
- 20:47Speaker 3: impunity when it comes to assault and murder, including with vehicles,
- 20:51Speaker 3: and the claim of impunity. Now we've got to just
- 20:54Speaker 3: stop this. And the way to do it, I think
- 20:56Speaker 3: there is a way to do it. It's for local officials,
- 20:59Speaker 3: local prosecutors, and the absence of you know, the Jay
- 21:02Speaker 3: Clayton's of the world of US attorneys. The federal system
- 21:05Speaker 3: has its own system of prosecutors, and then there are
- 21:08Speaker 3: prosecutors at the state and local level. But if you
- 21:11Speaker 3: murder somebody, it doesn't matter if you're in Houston or
- 21:13Speaker 3: in Minneapolis, you should be prosecuted full stop. There is
- 21:17Speaker 3: no despite what the Vice President said, absolute immunity. Thank
- 21:20Speaker 3: you for ICE officers, and I want to start seeing
- 21:24Speaker 3: some of these prosecutions happening. My understanding is there is
- 21:27Speaker 3: at least one investigation in Minnesota that's happening. We should
- 21:30Speaker 3: see it as well in Texas and Houston. And you know,
- 21:33Speaker 3: the pressure has that's going to happen on their own,
- 21:36Speaker 3: but local people have to put pressure on their local
- 21:39Speaker 3: officials to do these criminal investigations.
- 21:41Speaker 1: Should all federal officers who exercise deadly forest be required
- 21:46Speaker 1: to wear body gamras.
- 21:47Speaker 2: I think absolutely.
- 21:48Speaker 3: You know how in a democracy, the most dangerous moment
- 21:51Speaker 3: in our democracy, the thing that really you know, where
- 21:55Speaker 3: reason gets replaced by forrest, is arrest and policing and including, unfortunately,
- 22:00Speaker 3: these ice lawless roundups. How are we supposed to know
- 22:04Speaker 3: what goes on while so many local officers are required
- 22:07Speaker 3: to record all their interactions. Yeah, and so if they
- 22:09Speaker 3: kill somebody, or they assault somebody, if they violate the law,
- 22:12Speaker 3: we see it. And that is how countless officers who
- 22:15Speaker 3: have broken the law.
- 22:16Speaker 2: Held to account.
- 22:17Speaker 3: So if these prosecutions are to happen, a minimum thing
- 22:21Speaker 3: that I'd like to see, and this could be done
- 22:23Speaker 3: either through an administrative action that's not going to be done,
- 22:26Speaker 3: but certainly through legislation, is to require body cams on
- 22:29Speaker 3: all ICE officers.
- 22:30Speaker 2: Absolutely.
- 22:31Speaker 1: Yep, that's it. One last question on this, Corey. They're
- 22:35Speaker 1: going to deport these three men who were in mister
- 22:38Speaker 1: Araju's car. Obviously, the available surveillance footage shows he never
- 22:42Speaker 1: weaponized his car and never tried to ram the agents.
- 22:44Speaker 1: So we've already been lied to about this by the
- 22:47Speaker 1: same government that lied to us about Renee Good being
- 22:50Speaker 1: a terrorist. They're trying to deport these three men, according
- 22:53Speaker 1: to their lawyer, before they can tell their side of
- 22:56Speaker 1: the story. Doesn't basic justice require preserving witness testimony regardless
- 23:01Speaker 1: of their immigration status, because this man's three children are
- 23:04Speaker 1: all American citizens, And if my government was doing this,
- 23:07Speaker 1: I'm just thinking about the lawsuit i'd have.
- 23:10Speaker 3: You know, it's one of the horrible things about this
- 23:13Speaker 3: moment that ICE has really been engaged in an attempt
- 23:17Speaker 3: to strip all civil liberties.
- 23:19Speaker 2: From non citizens.
- 23:20Speaker 3: They've done it with the right to free speech, They've
- 23:22Speaker 3: done it in the case of Venezuelan migrants, and when
- 23:25Speaker 3: it comes even to the right to trial, and they're
- 23:27Speaker 3: trying to do it here, to deny even court hearings.
- 23:30Speaker 2: And you know, it's a good point.
- 23:31Speaker 3: Sometimes one way to make the argument for non citizens'
- 23:35Speaker 3: rights there should be in these cases, I think a
- 23:37Speaker 3: matter of human rights. But another way to do it
- 23:40Speaker 3: is to talk about those even if they're deported, the
- 23:42Speaker 3: interests of the family in knowing what happened, and so
- 23:45Speaker 3: that might be one way to go at this, to
- 23:47Speaker 3: have the family sue for information as to what's happening,
- 23:51Speaker 3: and you know, you have rights, you have civil liberties.
- 23:54Speaker 3: They've been eroded. But there are ways to fight back.
- 23:56Speaker 3: So yes, these are all ways to push forward. I
- 23:59Speaker 3: don't want to miss what said two about Renee Good
- 24:01Speaker 3: that we were told, you know, that this was some
- 24:03Speaker 3: sort of.
- 24:03Speaker 2: Terrorists the mast We know now that you.
- 24:05Speaker 3: Know that couldn't be furthest from the truth, and even
- 24:08Speaker 3: the Trump administration, of course, I had to back down.
- 24:11Speaker 1: Stephen Miller literally said that Alex Freddy attacked officers and
- 24:16Speaker 1: he's still allowed to be employed. Like there's no accountability
- 24:19Speaker 1: in our government for lying about the murder of citizens.
- 24:23Speaker 3: Yeah, and you know, we're talking so often about the law,
- 24:25Speaker 3: and that is important because it's the way we get accountability.
- 24:29Speaker 3: We also have to talk about morality. Human beings are
- 24:32Speaker 3: entitled to basic dignity, and that's what Ice.
- 24:34Speaker 2: Is denying here in murdering people.
- 24:37Speaker 3: This is supposed to be a country that holds up
- 24:39Speaker 3: human rights as a beacon to the world, and what
- 24:41Speaker 3: the world is seeing is anything but.
- 24:43Speaker 2: And that's one of the great tragedies of the moment.
- 24:45Speaker 1: We have to take a quick break. We'll be right back.
- 24:47Speaker 1: This is the oath of the Office.
- 24:54Speaker 4: Hey, al clan Kershner here, so friends, I hope you'll
- 24:57Speaker 4: join me on my audio podcast, Justice Matters. You care
- 25:01Speaker 4: about ethics and government, criminal justice, reform, a conflict free
- 25:07Speaker 4: federal judiciary. I thought so. On Justice Matters, we take
- 25:12Speaker 4: on issues involving the need to reform our government and
- 25:16Speaker 4: its institutions, and we talk about real, achievable reform. I
- 25:21Speaker 4: hope you'll join us. Look for Justice Matters wherever you
- 25:25Speaker 4: usually get your podcasts.
- 25:31Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Oath in the Office. Hey, Professor Pretschneider,
- 25:34Speaker 1: I want to ask you about what's going on with
- 25:36Speaker 1: the Smithsonian right now. You know, it's funny this administration
- 25:40Speaker 1: is criticizing them for studying history at the Smithsonian right
- 25:46Speaker 1: because the Trump administration is here to edit history. They
- 25:51Speaker 1: don't like that the Smithsonian is here to study and
- 25:54Speaker 1: exhibit history that covers slavery, systemic racism, women's rights, LGBTQ,
- 25:59Speaker 1: his immigration, and other subjects. They don't like museums covering
- 26:04Speaker 1: subjects that might make the children of bigots ask uncomfortable questions.
- 26:08Speaker 1: I think to me, this is the most noble thing
- 26:11Speaker 1: a nation with a checkered past can do. Have its
- 26:14Speaker 1: official museums tell the truth and give the correct record.
- 26:18Speaker 1: But I mean, get a president constitutionally pressure federally supported
- 26:22Speaker 1: museums to reinterpret history. I mean, this is Soviet level
- 26:27Speaker 1: crap here, am I right?
- 26:29Speaker 3: You know, one puzzle that we've had for a long
- 26:31Speaker 3: time is why is Donald Trump so interested in history?
- 26:33Speaker 1: This is not a why you know why.
- 26:37Speaker 2: Part of it is the racism, of course, but the specific.
- 26:40Speaker 1: Racists being the bad guys all the time. That's why
- 26:43Speaker 1: they're going after the Southern Poverty Law Center. If you
- 26:46Speaker 1: can convince people that the anti racist are the real
- 26:48Speaker 1: bad guys, well, that all those white supremacists and Charlott'sville
- 26:52Speaker 1: were probably wronged, right, I.
- 26:53Speaker 3: Mean, that's their whole scheme, and you are seeing it
- 26:56Speaker 3: all over as I think you know, and I've mentioned before,
- 26:59Speaker 3: but I'll say it again. I'm working on a documentary
- 27:01Speaker 3: series version of my book, The Presidents and the People,
- 27:04Speaker 3: and one of the first places that we filmed was
- 27:07Speaker 3: in Philadelphia at the President's house of George Washington and
- 27:11Speaker 3: John Adams. And there there was an amazing exhibit that
- 27:14Speaker 3: told the truth about the fact that enslaved people lived
- 27:17Speaker 3: in that house all of a sudden that exhibit was removed. Well,
- 27:20Speaker 3: why would you do that, because you're trying to erase
- 27:23Speaker 3: the truth of slavery. And now there's even more frankly
- 27:27Speaker 3: detailed reporting, even shocking reporting. Trump was given a tour
- 27:30Speaker 3: of the Smithsonian by a high level official and showed
- 27:33Speaker 3: no interest, of course, in the history of slavery, and
- 27:36Speaker 3: he was called out for that. They didn't keep quiet
- 27:39Speaker 3: that the Smithsonian official told the truth. He wanted to,
- 27:45Speaker 3: evidently on the tour, of course, just talk about places
- 27:47Speaker 3: in the world in which he was very popular. Wanted
- 27:50Speaker 3: to talk about himself rather than one of the times.
- 27:54Speaker 1: You know who doesn't like exhibits about slavery and segregation.
- 27:58Speaker 1: Corey White people who his parents didn't raise them to
- 28:01Speaker 1: identify with abolitionists. You know what I'm saying.
- 28:05Speaker 3: Yes, he was not raised right, and narcissism comes through,
- 28:09Speaker 3: and you know that's part of what's going on here.
- 28:11Speaker 3: It's partly, you know, as we saw in Philadelphia at
- 28:13Speaker 3: the President's House and take down of that exhibit, pure
- 28:17Speaker 3: attempt to erase the facts of history, the horrible crime
- 28:21Speaker 3: against humanity that was American slavery to you know, because
- 28:25Speaker 3: it makes people feel bad but it also is retaliation here.
- 28:28Speaker 3: I mean, that's what's amazing about all these stories as
- 28:31Speaker 3: you get into them. Of course, they have the white supremacy,
- 28:34Speaker 3: but they also often have another element. And this is
- 28:36Speaker 3: also a story about shutting down critics. So wow, Donald Trump,
- 28:40Speaker 3: you know, knows how to basically hit easily a trifecta
- 28:43Speaker 3: of constitutional violations, the white supremacy, the shutdown of free speech.
- 28:49Speaker 3: And I'd add to that, the Smithsonian is not an
- 28:52Speaker 3: executive agency. It's supposed to be independent. So what he's
- 28:55Speaker 3: really doing is taking an independent agency again and trying
- 28:58Speaker 3: to you know, his affect his will on it. And
- 29:02Speaker 3: we've seen that so often with his attempts to what
- 29:05Speaker 3: influence private companies.
- 29:08Speaker 1: Yeah, he's trying to make history take a loyalty oath. Now, really,
- 29:10Speaker 1: what you think about it? I mean, you know you're
- 29:12Speaker 1: losing the argument when your big next move is rewriting
- 29:16Speaker 1: the timeline, you know. I mean, but let's give their
- 29:19Speaker 1: argument that the Smithsonian is publicly funded by taxpayer dollars.
- 29:24Speaker 1: Does that mean elected officials should get to dictate historical
- 29:28Speaker 1: interpretation or should there be an expectation of some kind
- 29:32Speaker 1: of scholarly independence.
- 29:34Speaker 2: Yeah, I think.
- 29:34Speaker 3: Actually it is a harder case. For instance, in the
- 29:37Speaker 3: CBS case. The CBS case and what we'll get into this,
- 29:40Speaker 3: I know a little more before the interview and certainly
- 29:42Speaker 3: in the interview with Senator Widen. When government is trying
- 29:45Speaker 3: to commandeer and control a private company and tell it
- 29:48Speaker 3: what to do or what to think, and when it's
- 29:50Speaker 3: trying to really use, you know, often in secret force
- 29:54Speaker 3: in order to do so, that's a violation of the
- 29:56Speaker 3: First Amendment. But what you're bringing out, John, is that
- 29:59Speaker 3: this is a more common, implicated issue because when government speaks,
- 30:02Speaker 3: when it sends its own messages. Donald Trump, for instance,
- 30:04Speaker 3: can get up and you know, say all sorts of
- 30:06Speaker 3: racist things that the podium when he speaks before the
- 30:09Speaker 3: American people, even though that podium is publicly funded, and
- 30:13Speaker 3: even though the White House is publicly funded, he has
- 30:16Speaker 3: a right as an attempt to speak on behalf of
- 30:18Speaker 3: the government to say all sorts of things. So his argument,
- 30:21Speaker 3: a constitutional argument, would be, well, the Smithsonian is an
- 30:24Speaker 3: expression of my will, my idea is. But there are
- 30:27Speaker 3: two problems with that. One is this really isn't the
- 30:30Speaker 3: equivalent of his press office or even an executive agency.
- 30:34Speaker 3: It's set up to be an independent, publicly funded but
- 30:37Speaker 3: still independent entity. In fact, it's chair, it's Justice Roberts,
- 30:41Speaker 3: and part of the reporting is about Justice Roberts's role
- 30:44Speaker 3: in trying to mediate all of this. But the other
- 30:47Speaker 3: thing that is, you know, sometimes even when there's not
- 30:49Speaker 3: a free speech issue, there's an issue of the.
- 30:52Speaker 2: Truth and not lying. And that's what with the Smithsonian.
- 30:56Speaker 3: As much as there are issues about free speech, I
- 30:58Speaker 3: think the real issue is.
- 31:00Speaker 2: That government shouldn't lie to you.
- 31:01Speaker 3: And when Donald Trump tries to erase the crime of slavery,
- 31:05Speaker 3: that is a lie. And that's we've got to talk
- 31:07Speaker 3: about that too, not just issues of free speech. But yeah,
- 31:10Speaker 3: the problem with government not saying what it should say,
- 31:12Speaker 3: not telling the truth.
- 31:14Speaker 1: That's another hallmark of authoritarian regimes. It's like the Soviets
- 31:17Speaker 1: airbrushing cosmonauts they don't like anymore out of old photos.
- 31:21Speaker 1: But it's also another example of job owning, isn't it.
- 31:23Speaker 1: I mean, this is him using whatever leverage he has,
- 31:26Speaker 1: you know, is like with the FCC, I mean against
- 31:28Speaker 1: these agencies, and government officials say no, well, we're not
- 31:31Speaker 1: forcing private companies to comply, you know, we're not forcing
- 31:35Speaker 1: independent agencies to bend to our will. We're just making
- 31:38Speaker 1: refusal professionally inconvenient, right. I mean, that's what we're witnessing here.
- 31:44Speaker 2: And you know, I think it's a great transition. The
- 31:46Speaker 2: Job Owning Act is nan.
- 31:48Speaker 1: I was proud of that. I was proud of that myself.
- 31:50Speaker 3: Going is trying to stop exactly what you're talking about.
- 31:53Speaker 2: We'll talk about that with Senator Wyden.
- 31:55Speaker 3: Let me say what job owning is, and then I'll
- 31:57Speaker 3: answer your question about the Smithsonian and definitely talk about
- 31:59Speaker 3: the case of CBS and also talk about some complications
- 32:03Speaker 3: with it that we'll get into. So job owning is
- 32:06Speaker 3: the idea and First Amendment law. For instance, there's a
- 32:09Speaker 3: case about booksellers in Rhode Island that were intimidated by
- 32:12Speaker 3: the police and by government into banning certain books. Now,
- 32:15Speaker 3: the First Amendment protects us against government censorship.
- 32:19Speaker 2: Well, this is a private.
- 32:21Speaker 3: Company that decided a bookstore to censor. Is that a
- 32:25Speaker 3: violation of our First Amendment? If it was just a
- 32:28Speaker 3: choice by the bookstore, it wouldn't be. But if it's
- 32:30Speaker 3: a result of government threats, absolutely it is. And so
- 32:34Speaker 3: job owning is the idea that sometimes secretly or through
- 32:37Speaker 3: other means government puts pressure or even coercion on private
- 32:41Speaker 3: companies in order to do the will of government in censoring.
- 32:45Speaker 2: So what about the Smithsonian. It's complicated.
- 32:48Speaker 3: I think you know, it's not obviously a private entity.
- 32:50Speaker 3: It's not a purely executive agency, so there would be
- 32:53Speaker 3: one to talk about. But here's what's not complicated. When
- 32:56Speaker 3: the head of the FCC is exerting pressure on CBS
- 33:00Speaker 3: to fire Stephen Colbert because he makes the president feel bad, that.
- 33:05Speaker 2: Is really the kind of thing that should be stopped.
- 33:07Speaker 3: It's not protected speech because the pressure from the FCC
- 33:11Speaker 3: that part of it, and the more we find out
- 33:13Speaker 3: about it, the more pressure we'll.
- 33:15Speaker 2: See that crosses the line. But yet courts have not
- 33:18Speaker 2: been great about this.
- 33:19Speaker 3: Again, so that's why this legislation that's been proposed by
- 33:22Speaker 3: Senator Widen is so important because in the same way
- 33:25Speaker 3: that we need reforms to other laws to protect our rights,
- 33:28Speaker 3: to protect rights of search and seizure, we need to
- 33:31Speaker 3: re up the protection of the First Amendment free speech
- 33:35Speaker 3: rights to press.
- 33:35Speaker 2: And that's part of what it's going to do. John.
- 33:37Speaker 2: I'm going to throw in just a complication.
- 33:39Speaker 3: Because I don't want people to miss this one weird
- 33:41Speaker 3: thing about this law. And the ACLU or a sponsor.
- 33:45Speaker 3: I'm so happy to have their sponsorship. Yes, they are
- 33:49Speaker 3: supporting this laws under Widen, but so is Ted Cruz.
- 33:53Speaker 3: Uh oh, why is Ted Cruz supporting this law? That
- 33:56Speaker 3: makes me instantly suspicious. And it's because he thinks there
- 34:00Speaker 3: was job boning that went on in the Biden administration,
- 34:03Speaker 3: pushing Facebook for instance.
- 34:06Speaker 1: So now he's running for president, that's all. It means
- 34:11Speaker 1: he needs something to brag about.
- 34:13Speaker 3: Well, I think yeah, it's partly that I think that
- 34:15Speaker 3: there are on the right is a sort of you know,
- 34:17Speaker 3: myth that Biden was Well. I guess one thing that
- 34:20Speaker 3: we'll find out is how much was this job boning
- 34:24Speaker 3: and how much was it demanding, you know, not the
- 34:27Speaker 3: spread of misinformation. So that's one of the complicated issues here.
- 34:31Speaker 3: That we do need a law, no question, to protect
- 34:33Speaker 3: against job boning, But where the where the line is
- 34:37Speaker 3: between coercion and simply sending out important information, that's a
- 34:41Speaker 3: hard question.
- 34:42Speaker 2: This legislation. I've looked at it pretty closely.
- 34:45Speaker 3: It's written in a way that's very careful, But that
- 34:47Speaker 3: is something that's going to be interesting because different politicians
- 34:50Speaker 3: are going to sign on to it, are going to
- 34:52Speaker 3: support it for very different reasons, with very different cases
- 34:55Speaker 3: in mind. One last thing about this, I think that's okay.
- 34:58Speaker 3: You know, people have all sorts of re reasons why
- 35:00Speaker 3: they might come to good legislation, and in the end,
- 35:02Speaker 3: it's going to be up to well to the interpreters
- 35:05Speaker 3: of those laws in order to enforce them, and I
- 35:07Speaker 3: hope they do a good job of it.
- 35:09Speaker 1: Oh wait, well, then let me ask you about FISA,
- 35:11Speaker 1: because I need a little catch up on them. Well,
- 35:13Speaker 1: Congress is again wrestling with one of the most controversial
- 35:16Speaker 1: surveillance authorities in our law, and that is Section seven
- 35:19Speaker 1: oh two right of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act seven
- 35:22Speaker 1: oh two, which we're told by its supporters is indispensable
- 35:27Speaker 1: for stopping terrorism and foreign espionage. But as we know,
- 35:30Speaker 1: it has repeatedly swept up Americans communications. It's been misused
- 35:34Speaker 1: in many ways that threaten civil liberties. And we're told
- 35:38Speaker 1: we're just using against the Muslims, We're just using against
- 35:40Speaker 1: the illegals. But it turns out, no, we don't know
- 35:43Speaker 1: who you're using this against. And the debate is getting
- 35:46Speaker 1: even fiercer now, you know, Corey I think every surveillance program,
- 35:50Speaker 1: you know, it always begins with trust us and then
- 35:52Speaker 1: it always ends with a congressional hearing somewhere. So for
- 35:55Speaker 1: those who who've heard the term FAISA and who we're
- 35:57Speaker 1: going to hear you and Ron White and talk about this,
- 36:00Speaker 1: what exactly is seven Z two and why is this
- 36:02Speaker 1: so controversial?
- 36:03Speaker 2: Now?
- 36:04Speaker 3: Well, what the PHISO law does as it recognizes that,
- 36:08Speaker 3: you know, we need to look into terrorism abroad and
- 36:12Speaker 3: we've had different iterations of it over time, and that
- 36:15Speaker 3: when it comes to terrorism, there is some secrecy that's required.
- 36:19Speaker 3: So it creates a system of pies of courts that
- 36:21Speaker 3: review various actions. But it also you know, this is
- 36:25Speaker 3: the question now, has resulted we know, has resulted in abuse? Yeah,
- 36:31Speaker 3: because you don't need a warrant to look into, say,
- 36:34Speaker 3: suspected terrorists abroad.
- 36:36Speaker 2: And you know, at first.
- 36:37Speaker 3: Glance you think, oh, what does this even have to
- 36:39Speaker 3: do with American citizens? But now ask this question, what
- 36:42Speaker 3: if a suspected terrorists or somebody who's under suspicion abroad
- 36:46Speaker 3: and there's a warrant. Without a warrant, we're reading the
- 36:49Speaker 3: intelligence services, the CIA for instance, and are reading their
- 36:53Speaker 3: emails and listening to their phone calls, but they call
- 36:56Speaker 3: or email a domestic citizen.
- 36:58Speaker 2: What about that?
- 36:59Speaker 3: And as things stand now, even though normally the Fourth
- 37:03Speaker 3: Amendment of the Constitution protects us against unreasonable searches and seizure,
- 37:07Speaker 3: you have to show that there's suspicion in seizing my emails,
- 37:11Speaker 3: for instance, in a normal courts.
- 37:13Speaker 2: This is a potential.
- 37:14Speaker 3: Exception while it's in the service of investigating foreign affairs,
- 37:18Speaker 3: of investigating terrorism. And you know, here's where it gets scary.
- 37:23Speaker 3: It assigns a lot of power to those in the
- 37:26Speaker 3: FBI and in the intelligence services to making calls about
- 37:30Speaker 3: where it trusts us between including and here's what we'll
- 37:34Speaker 3: get into with Senator Widen, including giving power to the
- 37:38Speaker 3: deputy director of the FBI, who was just to remind
- 37:42Speaker 3: folks the podcast Damn Bongina a conspiracy theorist. So not
- 37:47Speaker 3: only trust, you know, it was one thing in the
- 37:49Speaker 3: past when we said trust me, Can we trust the government?
- 37:52Speaker 2: What if there's a dictator? No, it's not hypothetical. We
- 37:55Speaker 2: have people in these positions, including person that we know
- 37:59Speaker 2: who well.
- 38:00Speaker 3: Dan Bongino, a total out there conspiracy theorist, making these decisions.
- 38:06Speaker 2: And so that's why there's.
- 38:07Speaker 1: A need pushed out of the emment so far. That's
- 38:10Speaker 1: the first one, first one pushed out of the administration
- 38:13Speaker 1: to Christina Marlin too yes.
- 38:15Speaker 2: Being too whacking.
- 38:16Speaker 3: You know, the situation is bad, and that's why we
- 38:19Speaker 3: need reform. And so that's part of what Center Widen
- 38:22Speaker 3: is working on. And I'm going to talk to him
- 38:24Speaker 3: about the ways that we might protect ourselves against this abuse.
- 38:28Speaker 3: One is to really through a law reinforce the idea
- 38:31Speaker 3: that yeah, if it's a.
- 38:32Speaker 2: Domestic citizen, you need a warrant.
- 38:34Speaker 3: Another thing is to stop these fives of courts from
- 38:37Speaker 3: being so secretive.
- 38:38Speaker 1: Yeah, And it's also calling out the language, you know
- 38:40Speaker 1: when they say things like how our data is incidentally collected.
- 38:45Speaker 1: You know, like, oh, it was incidentally collected, but usually
- 38:50Speaker 1: we're the incident, you know, and like you're right. The
- 38:53Speaker 1: Fourth Amendment is supposed to protect us against unreasonable searches
- 38:57Speaker 1: and seizures. The founders could not have imagined in this capacity.
- 39:01Speaker 1: But it's strange, Corey, how the Fourth Amendment keeps being
- 39:04Speaker 1: asked to make a few more exceptions all the time, right,
- 39:07Speaker 1: I mean, we've seen administrations of both parties defend the
- 39:11Speaker 1: surveillance that I gotta be fair about that. So doesn't
- 39:14Speaker 1: that suggest that we've seen both parties defend this one
- 39:17Speaker 1: in power, that it's less about partisan politics and it's
- 39:21Speaker 1: just about the tendency of executive power to get bigger
- 39:24Speaker 1: and bigger over time.
- 39:25Speaker 3: I can't agree more, but I think, you know, there's
- 39:28Speaker 3: a wake up call. And his name is Donald Trump,
- 39:30Speaker 3: and and you know how when you're in the hotel,
- 39:32Speaker 3: there's a wake up call, and then there's a second one.
- 39:34Speaker 2: That second one is Dan Bongino.
- 39:36Speaker 3: These are the people who are now in charge of,
- 39:39Speaker 3: you know, deciding whether or not you need a warrant
- 39:42Speaker 3: or not to search American citizens' emails and phone calls
- 39:46Speaker 3: and phone records. And I think you know, yes, it's
- 39:48Speaker 3: been bipartisan, this trust me theory, hand it all over,
- 39:52Speaker 3: hand over the power. You know, isn't it time to
- 39:54Speaker 3: rethink that? I think it certainly is that this wake
- 39:58Speaker 3: up call is a time for both parties to stop
- 40:00Speaker 3: pushing back against the tendency to get rid of our
- 40:04Speaker 3: rights like the Fourth Amendment right against search and seizure
- 40:07Speaker 3: in this trust me system that hands over so much power,
- 40:10Speaker 3: not just to the federal government.
- 40:12Speaker 2: But to the President and his cronies.
- 40:14Speaker 1: I know you're right about everything. The problem is, we
- 40:16Speaker 1: got a several million people in this country who would
- 40:18Speaker 1: willingly buy fentanyl from RFK Junior like they don't care.
- 40:25Speaker 1: They don't care that their data is being scraped as
- 40:27Speaker 1: long as the scraper has an R after their name.
- 40:29Speaker 1: We got to take a quick break. When we return,
- 40:32Speaker 1: the professor sits down with the Senator on the oath
- 40:35Speaker 1: in the office. Hey, I'm John Fugel sang. Do you
- 40:43Speaker 1: ever watch these Christian nationalists and right wing fundamentalists on
- 40:47Speaker 1: TV and think Jesus Christ. These people are the opposite
- 40:51Speaker 1: of Jesus Christ. You know, Christianity was supposed to be
- 40:54Speaker 1: about love and service, but millions of Americans have grown
- 40:57Speaker 1: up to find their nice religions been hijacked by this mean, authoritarian,
- 41:01Speaker 1: tax free clique. I wrote a book about how these
- 41:04Speaker 1: right wingers aren't actually on the side of Jesus and
- 41:07Speaker 1: historically they never have been. Separation of Church and hate
- 41:10Speaker 1: A sane person's guide to taking back the Bible from
- 41:12Speaker 1: fundamentalist fascists and flock fleecing frauds. It's a very irreverent
- 41:17Speaker 1: and biblically correct book for believers, atheist, agnostics, and anybody
- 41:20Speaker 1: who's ever going to have to deal with a Christian
- 41:22Speaker 1: extremist in your family, workplace, or government on all the
- 41:25Speaker 1: issues that divide us, using actual verses from that book
- 41:28Speaker 1: they claim to follow. They've got a First Amendment right
- 41:31Speaker 1: to twist the Bibles to their liking. You've got a
- 41:33Speaker 1: first Amendment right to call them out for it, and
- 41:36Speaker 1: you'll be surprised at how good it feels.
- 41:44Speaker 3: Welcome back to the Oath in the Office. It is
- 41:46Speaker 3: a real pleasure to welcome to the podcast. Senator Ron Wyden,
- 41:50Speaker 3: who has represented Oregon in Congress for more than four decades.
- 41:53Speaker 3: He's been a leading voice on questions of constitutional law,
- 41:57Speaker 3: how to restore the Fourth Amendment, the First Amendment, topics
- 42:00Speaker 3: like privacy, surveillance, press freedom, and executive power. So, Senator
- 42:05Speaker 3: I'll say, just very directly, you're the ideal guest for
- 42:07Speaker 3: this podcast, which is all about restoring our democracy, protecting
- 42:12Speaker 3: our constitution.
- 42:13Speaker 2: So welcome to the Oath in the Office. Corey.
- 42:15Speaker 5: What an inflationary introduction. Let's have some fun and talk
- 42:19Speaker 5: about what you're interested in.
- 42:21Speaker 3: Absolutely, let's begin with the question of government surveillance and FIZA,
- 42:26Speaker 3: and of course you serve on the Senate Intelligence Committee.
- 42:30Speaker 3: I want to talk in particular about what's wrong with
- 42:33Speaker 3: FIZA and how it might jeopardize, as it stands now,
- 42:36Speaker 3: our constitutional rights.
- 42:37Speaker 2: So as I.
- 42:38Speaker 3: Understand it, as it stands now, the government is entitled
- 42:43Speaker 3: without a warrant to collect the communication of foreign targets.
- 42:47Speaker 3: But when it comes to domestic citizens, to citizens of
- 42:50Speaker 3: the United States, although the Fourth Amendment protects the right
- 42:54Speaker 3: against unreasonable search and seizure, there's a way around it.
- 42:57Speaker 3: So can you talk to us just in the beginning
- 42:59Speaker 3: about what the problems with VIIZA as it stands now
- 43:02Speaker 3: might be.
- 43:03Speaker 5: So in English, Corey, because a lot of the doubledegook
- 43:07Speaker 5: is hard to follow. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act was
- 43:10Speaker 5: passed to deal with foreign threats, and there was bipartisan
- 43:15Speaker 5: support for it. I was all in for you know,
- 43:17Speaker 5: the concept. What's happening now though is untold numbers of Americans,
- 43:23Speaker 5: but we know it's huge or getting swept up in
- 43:26Speaker 5: these searches. You know, it used to be that people
- 43:30Speaker 5: had a measure of privacy just because there were things
- 43:33Speaker 5: that the technology couldn't do. Now the technology can go
- 43:37Speaker 5: almost anywhere, and so you've got a lot of law
- 43:40Speaker 5: abiding Americans getting swept up. I think the bottom line
- 43:44Speaker 5: here is, and it's what I've been working on with
- 43:47Speaker 5: my colleagues, Democrats and Republicans, is to have a warrant
- 43:51Speaker 5: before you go search in all those Americans you know, records.
- 43:56Speaker 5: It's getting particularly important because right now the government is
- 44:01Speaker 5: using data brokers. It's another loophole to go out and
- 44:04Speaker 5: buy people's records. And that's over the line as well,
- 44:07Speaker 5: and I'm trying to curtail purchasing people's personal data.
- 44:11Speaker 3: Great so important for the moment, and I did want
- 44:14Speaker 3: to say something about the moment because I saw in
- 44:16Speaker 3: your Dear colleague letter that you called out some of
- 44:19Speaker 3: the obvious abuses that are happening. Can you talk to
- 44:22Speaker 3: me about the role that Dan Bongino had in all this.
- 44:25Speaker 3: One thing that scares me, I take it it scares
- 44:27Speaker 3: you too, is that you know, conspiracy theorists, people who
- 44:32Speaker 3: are really tending towards the worst impulses in American politics
- 44:36Speaker 3: right now, are in this administration, or at least were
- 44:39Speaker 3: and had a role.
- 44:40Speaker 2: So specifically my.
- 44:41Speaker 3: Understanding, and it would be great if you could explain
- 44:43Speaker 3: this to us, is that Bongino had some role in
- 44:46Speaker 3: deciding whether or not some of the Americans who were
- 44:49Speaker 3: caught up and these warrantless searches had a role in
- 44:52Speaker 3: deciding who was caught up and who might be subject
- 44:56Speaker 3: to these searches. So that concerns me, of course, and
- 44:58Speaker 3: just interested in his role and breaking it down why
- 45:02Speaker 3: there's a threat right now, especially that might not have
- 45:05Speaker 3: been obvious before I take it in past discussions of five.
- 45:09Speaker 3: So there are a lot of abstract discussions about what
- 45:11Speaker 3: if a dictator came to power, what if a bad
- 45:13Speaker 3: actor came to power. But we're in a world now
- 45:15Speaker 3: where that's not so abstract.
- 45:18Speaker 5: Well, a couple of things. I mean, we've long been
- 45:22Speaker 5: concerned about some of the FBI issues, and you're really
- 45:25Speaker 5: talking about that. We're been concerned about some of the ICE,
- 45:28Speaker 5: you know issues there are in terms of my being
- 45:32Speaker 5: able because I'm on the intelligence committee, my older child
- 45:34Speaker 5: off and calls up and says, hey, Dad, what's going
- 45:37Speaker 5: on on? You're so called intelligence.
- 45:42Speaker 2: Heller.
- 45:42Speaker 5: But the point is, in a lot of these you
- 45:45Speaker 5: know areas, you see these agencies don't really get what
- 45:49Speaker 5: Ben Franklin was talking about Ben Franklin said that you
- 45:52Speaker 5: could have a balance between liberty and security, and if
- 45:54Speaker 5: you weren't interested in both, you didn't deserve either. And
- 45:57Speaker 5: that's what I've tried to make my focus. And whether
- 45:59Speaker 5: it's ICE, or whether it's the FBI or a variety
- 46:02Speaker 5: of these agencies under the Trump administration, my own personal
- 46:06Speaker 5: judgment is you've got a lot of these government agencies
- 46:09Speaker 5: simply out of control, and they're targeting reporters and attacking elections,
- 46:13Speaker 5: and you know, making limits on what people can talk
- 46:17Speaker 5: about on TV. And that's what I'm trying to do,
- 46:19Speaker 5: is get our liberties back.
- 46:21Speaker 3: Yeah, I want to ask you some more about that.
- 46:24Speaker 3: I mean, so part of the problem, as I understand,
- 46:26Speaker 3: and tell me if I've got any of this wrong,
- 46:28Speaker 3: is the Congress has handed over a great deal of
- 46:30Speaker 3: discretion to the executive branch. Now, the hope had always
- 46:33Speaker 3: been that they would respect that balance between liberty and privacy.
- 46:37Speaker 3: But we have an administration now which, well, i'll put
- 46:40Speaker 3: it lightly, that I don't completely trust when it comes
- 46:43Speaker 3: to striking that balance.
- 46:45Speaker 2: So part of what you're trying to.
- 46:46Speaker 3: Do now is to pass legislation, to pass laws that
- 46:49Speaker 3: reign in that power.
- 46:51Speaker 2: So can you talk to me some about what we
- 46:53Speaker 2: might do.
- 46:53Speaker 3: I mean, we're, of course worried about so much of
- 46:55Speaker 3: what's happening at this moment, but part of why I
- 46:58Speaker 3: wanted to talk to you is that you really are
- 46:59Speaker 3: one of the people out there looking for solutions crafting legislation.
- 47:04Speaker 2: So what is it that we should do.
- 47:05Speaker 3: Is should we just simply say that if you're going
- 47:07Speaker 3: to search an American's phone, call or email, that you
- 47:11Speaker 3: need to have a warrant full stop.
- 47:14Speaker 5: But that's what my bipartisan bill talks about. So I
- 47:17Speaker 5: think you got to start with that, and you've got
- 47:20Speaker 5: to start with them not buying up people's you know,
- 47:22Speaker 5: personal data. Now, they're different areas of policy. You know,
- 47:26Speaker 5: the question of targeting reporters. This is horrifying what we
- 47:29Speaker 5: do about Jay Clayton, yes, being considered for the top
- 47:33Speaker 5: job and intelligence and the like. I mean, you can't
- 47:37Speaker 5: have the head of intelligence, you know, basically have being
- 47:40Speaker 5: up to their eyeballs in terms of getting subpoenas out
- 47:42Speaker 5: and then sending people to people's houses. I mean it's
- 47:45Speaker 5: almost like thugs showing up at the house. So you
- 47:47Speaker 5: have that and then of course, I'm working to prevent
- 47:51Speaker 5: the government from trying to attack people's personal information in
- 47:56Speaker 5: terms of censorship, and that's what job owning is all about.
- 47:59Speaker 5: Job owned would provide Americans with the ability to sue
- 48:02Speaker 5: in the government illegally coerce the censorship, and creates transparency
- 48:08Speaker 5: around government's requests to censor speech. The bottom line is here.
- 48:13Speaker 5: The founding fathers thought that the First Amendment, many of
- 48:16Speaker 5: them like Jefferson, was probably even more important than government.
- 48:20Speaker 5: I mean, they thought the government was useful and would
- 48:23Speaker 5: collect records and things like that, but the First Amendment
- 48:26Speaker 5: was really sacred. And now we've got and you mentioned
- 48:30Speaker 5: the probability that both challenges are faced with the question
- 48:34Speaker 5: of people in the executive branch invading their privacy. This
- 48:37Speaker 5: has gone on with Democrats and Republicans, and so my bill,
- 48:41Speaker 5: for example, on job owning would limit the executive branch
- 48:44Speaker 5: of any administration.
- 48:46Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 48:46Speaker 3: I mean, I think that, as you said, we want
- 48:49Speaker 3: to stay away from the goblgook and get into the
- 48:51Speaker 3: concrete and when we talk about people like Dan Bongino
- 48:54Speaker 3: and Jake Clayton, we start to see what we're talking about.
- 48:56Speaker 2: I did want to ask you about.
- 48:57Speaker 3: Jake Clayton, because in the way he pulls together both
- 49:01Speaker 3: the bills that we're talking about today want to restore
- 49:03Speaker 3: our First Amendment right to free speech, which as you say,
- 49:06Speaker 3: is absolutely necessary to our sovereignty. Is a democracy, how
- 49:10Speaker 3: can we be a democracy without information and then also
- 49:13Speaker 3: curtailing the ability of the government to search without warrants.
- 49:18Speaker 3: So I take it that Jay Clayton was meant to
- 49:19Speaker 3: be the more acceptable nominee for Director of National Intelligence.
- 49:24Speaker 3: But I mean, how are you starting to have questions
- 49:26Speaker 3: about him given that his role in serving subpoenas to
- 49:29Speaker 3: the New York Times. We've been talking about that, of
- 49:31Speaker 3: course on this episode, And I mean, how does he
- 49:34Speaker 3: in particular relate to this story and what he's done
- 49:37Speaker 3: in the Southern District of New York with these subpoenas
- 49:39Speaker 3: on New York Times journalists for doing nothing else than
- 49:42Speaker 3: as I understand that just looking into this plane, this gift,
- 49:46Speaker 3: this emolument's violation that the president has received.
- 49:50Speaker 5: Well, the first thing it really does, Corey, it tells
- 49:53Speaker 5: everybody that this should be a wake up call about
- 49:56Speaker 5: the importance of asking really tough questions. That it's come
- 49:59Speaker 5: from me here as people said, well, this isn't the predecessor.
- 50:03Speaker 2: Who was even worse.
- 50:05Speaker 5: I mean, we need real questions since Jay Clayton, according
- 50:08Speaker 5: to the reporting on this whole news story about Donald
- 50:11Speaker 5: Trump's plane issue, to subpoena and to forced reporters to
- 50:14Speaker 5: testify before a grand jury, Now that's not anything that
- 50:17Speaker 5: you feel very good about if your dan with work
- 50:20Speaker 5: on a pop job in terms of intelligence. And yes,
- 50:24Speaker 5: there are things you can do. I wrote the Press
- 50:26Speaker 5: Act to stop the executive branch from secretly scooping up
- 50:30Speaker 5: on reporters mails, So there is things you can do.
- 50:33Speaker 3: I guess I'm going to ask you a direct question.
- 50:35Speaker 3: I mean, to me, you know, what Jay Clayton is
- 50:38Speaker 3: asking for is to be the person making that decision
- 50:41Speaker 3: between the balance between our liberties and security. And yet
- 50:45Speaker 3: here he is basically engaging and regardless of whether or
- 50:48Speaker 3: not there's a conviction or even an indictment, engaging in
- 50:51Speaker 3: a limit on press freedom by pulling reporters before a
- 50:54Speaker 3: grand jury. So I don't know, is that go too
- 50:56Speaker 3: far to say that he's disqualifying or do we have
- 50:59Speaker 3: to balance out the evils here? And you know, he's
- 51:01Speaker 3: not as bad as the acting Director of National Intelligence.
- 51:04Speaker 2: How do you think about that compromation.
- 51:06Speaker 5: First, you have to assess what you think he did.
- 51:09Speaker 5: And based on what I read all through the weekend
- 51:11Speaker 5: as Jay Clayton was up to his eyeballs in sending
- 51:15Speaker 5: intimidation subpoenas to reporters and sending people to folks houses.
- 51:21Speaker 5: And I think that the members of the Intelligence Committee
- 51:23Speaker 5: and the hearing is coming up, we ought to ask
- 51:25Speaker 5: some tough questions. And this is not somebody who maybe
- 51:28Speaker 5: people thought previously, oh, this is a decent client. Now
- 51:32Speaker 5: tough questions are in order, and that's what I'll be
- 51:34Speaker 5: dealing with.
- 51:36Speaker 3: Great and I want to I mean, of course, you know,
- 51:38Speaker 3: as was true when we were talking about FISA and
- 51:40Speaker 3: the need for actual warrants and the way the executive
- 51:43Speaker 3: branch has escaped that.
- 51:44Speaker 2: There also is an issue that you raised.
- 51:47Speaker 3: About the First Amendment, which is of course, guarantees the
- 51:50Speaker 3: right to free speech in addition to the freedom of
- 51:52Speaker 3: the press. And you have legislation this Job Owning Act,
- 51:55Speaker 3: also bipartisan co authored. I take it with Senator Cruz
- 51:59Speaker 3: to try to reinforce our First Amendment in issues in
- 52:02Speaker 3: which private companies are forced by the government often in
- 52:06Speaker 3: secret to violate our First Amendment, right, So I mean,
- 52:10Speaker 3: talk to me maybe first about some of the concrete
- 52:12Speaker 3: things that we're seeing, and then how this would solve it.
- 52:14Speaker 2: So Brandon Carr, we've.
- 52:15Speaker 3: Talked a lot about, of course of the FCC and
- 52:18Speaker 3: his pressure on CBS is kind of call for sanctioning.
- 52:22Speaker 3: Stephen Colbert, I mean, is that the kind of thing
- 52:25Speaker 3: that you're worried about, and how would this act resolve?
- 52:29Speaker 5: Well, you're describing for your people following the program an
- 52:33Speaker 5: example that's concrete. I mean, Trump has been threatening TV
- 52:36Speaker 5: companies because he doesn't like the late night shows, and
- 52:41Speaker 5: Kim All has been getting at the view. Brendan Carr
- 52:43Speaker 5: and the FCC have threatened broadcasters' licenses. And here's what
- 52:47Speaker 5: we do in the jaw Boning Act, because people have
- 52:50Speaker 5: been trying to follow it. The text of it says,
- 52:52Speaker 5: we're making sure that if the government is illegally censoring
- 52:57Speaker 5: information and limiting transparency with respect to speech, that those
- 53:01Speaker 5: people would have a legal remedy. They would be in
- 53:04Speaker 5: a position to speak up for themselves in terms of
- 53:07Speaker 5: illegal proceeding, in the ability to sue in the government illegally. Course,
- 53:11Speaker 5: the censorship. I think it's about time. And by the way, again,
- 53:16Speaker 5: lots of people and lots of administrations have engaged in this,
- 53:19Speaker 5: and that's why people are kind of surprised when I'm
- 53:22Speaker 5: coming in with Conservative Republican ACLU, if you can believe
- 53:26Speaker 5: it supporting our bill.
- 53:28Speaker 3: So that's absolutely and I should say it's CLU a
- 53:32Speaker 3: sponsor of this podcast and proud to have them as
- 53:35Speaker 3: a sponsor. I want to ask a follow up question,
- 53:37Speaker 3: just to get into it a little bit, So what
- 53:39Speaker 3: the job Boning Act, as you explain extremely well, does
- 53:43Speaker 3: is it you know, allows for the fact that sometimes
- 53:45Speaker 3: private companies are pressured by the government to limit our rights.
- 53:48Speaker 3: And that's not the same as when Jay Clayton says,
- 53:51Speaker 3: subpoena's reporter before the grand jury. But it's obviously a
- 53:55Speaker 3: problem and we're seeing that. I think, as you agree
- 53:57Speaker 3: that Brandon Carr example with pressure media companies seems to
- 54:01Speaker 3: be the prime example. But what do we do I mean,
- 54:04Speaker 3: in the kind of examples that I love bipartisan consensus,
- 54:07Speaker 3: but I want to ask you about the way that
- 54:09Speaker 3: Senator Cruz might seeing this, because sometimes it looks to
- 54:11Speaker 3: me a little bit like the Duck rabbit.
- 54:13Speaker 2: I mean he's worried.
- 54:14Speaker 3: I think about the Biden administration pressuring Facebook and other
- 54:19Speaker 3: social media companies during COVID, But isn't there I mean,
- 54:22Speaker 3: I take it in the First Amendment that there's a
- 54:24Speaker 3: line between coercing somebody and simply saying your opinions. So
- 54:28Speaker 3: what do you think about that? Did the Biden administration
- 54:30Speaker 3: go too far? Or is that you know the kind
- 54:32Speaker 3: of thing we just argue out in court. And you know,
- 54:35Speaker 3: you both have different examples in mind. I did look
- 54:37Speaker 3: at the legislation and it says very clearly this is
- 54:40Speaker 3: about the protection of the First Amendment.
- 54:42Speaker 2: So you know that a lot of it will come
- 54:44Speaker 2: down to that.
- 54:45Speaker 3: But what do you think about the Biden example speaking
- 54:47Speaker 3: of bipartisan consensus.
- 54:49Speaker 5: Well, what's important is a bill like this is not
- 54:54Speaker 5: threatening legitimate government engage. Right In other words, Senator Cruise,
- 55:00Speaker 5: iile certainly disagree. Right, Well, a lot of matters. I mean,
- 55:03Speaker 5: it doesn't stop the government from warning social media companies
- 55:07Speaker 5: about Russian influence campaigns enforcing the law. But if the
- 55:11Speaker 5: government targets a company Corey specifically to try to censor
- 55:17Speaker 5: First Amendment protected the speech, then the bill creates a
- 55:20Speaker 5: remedy for individuals. So there's a lot here to kind
- 55:24Speaker 5: of think through. And that's the point trying to demonstrate
- 55:28Speaker 5: that what you're doing is really and that's why we
- 55:30Speaker 5: got the ACLU support.
- 55:32Speaker 2: Yeah, to the.
- 55:33Speaker 5: Heart of the matter, that censorship is out of control,
- 55:37Speaker 5: and we can say that both administrations may be dealing
- 55:41Speaker 5: with it, and we're talking about abuse of government power.
- 55:44Speaker 5: And this is a way for Congress and the country
- 55:47Speaker 5: to fight back. And the way you get a remedy
- 55:49Speaker 5: here is black live law.
- 55:51Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 55:52Speaker 3: I love that idea and I completely agree with you. Look,
- 55:54Speaker 3: the fact that you and Senator Cruz might have different
- 55:56Speaker 3: examples in mind or disagree about some particular case doesn't
- 56:00Speaker 3: stop you from collaborating and protecting the First Amendment.
- 56:03Speaker 2: And that's what this legislation does.
- 56:06Speaker 5: And particularly on that point, for people who are just
- 56:09Speaker 5: starting to hear about this discussion, i'd say, take a
- 56:12Speaker 5: look at what the acl you's had to say about it. Yeah,
- 56:15Speaker 5: they're really talking about what I really saw is central here,
- 56:20Speaker 5: and that's things like Jefferson in the First Amendment being
- 56:23Speaker 5: probably in many respects more important than government.
- 56:26Speaker 3: Yeah, and when we see the FCC case, we know
- 56:28Speaker 3: that we need legislation. I think too, you know, if
- 56:31Speaker 3: people on the other side of the aisle are misrepresenting
- 56:35Speaker 3: the fact that Russia did try to interfere with the
- 56:37Speaker 3: election and that there were warnings about that with the
- 56:40Speaker 3: violation of the First Amendment, well that's on them. The
- 56:42Speaker 3: legislation protects us. I'll say one other thing too that
- 56:46Speaker 3: maybe you have thoughts on. I think one common element
- 56:48Speaker 3: in the Faiza discussion and in this one is the
- 56:51Speaker 3: issue of transparency. That this by giving individuals the right
- 56:54Speaker 3: to sue, it allows us to see what's actually happening
- 56:56Speaker 3: and whether job owning is happening or not.
- 57:00Speaker 5: You're being logical, Corey, in this that's a push out
- 57:04Speaker 5: as much transparency, accountability, and opportunity to get out abuses
- 57:10Speaker 5: of government in the speech area.
- 57:12Speaker 3: I want to pull back and ask you some big
- 57:14Speaker 3: picture question, which is you know, in doing this podcast,
- 57:18Speaker 3: we're trying to do two things. One is to talk
- 57:19Speaker 3: about the details of the abuses of power and also
- 57:23Speaker 3: to do what we've been doing in this discussion to
- 57:24Speaker 3: talk about how to resolve them. And of course, after
- 57:27Speaker 3: I've spent a lot of time in the Nixon archives
- 57:29Speaker 3: and writing about Nixon, but also about the aftermath in
- 57:32Speaker 3: the nineteen seventies when we did have legislation to rein
- 57:35Speaker 3: in executive power and abuses.
- 57:37Speaker 2: I mean, how hopeful are you?
- 57:39Speaker 3: That's really part of what we're trying to do is
- 57:41Speaker 3: to talk about the kind of legislation that we've talked
- 57:43Speaker 3: about and you know, in pretty good detail. Do you
- 57:46Speaker 3: see it as a kind of a hopeful moment in
- 57:49Speaker 3: which despite the frightening things that we're seeing, that the
- 57:52Speaker 3: Congress is starting to push back or should we be
- 57:55Speaker 3: more leery about the threat to our democracy?
- 57:57Speaker 2: How are you feeling? Big picture?
- 57:59Speaker 5: Well, certainly because of the technology. It is a challenge
- 58:05Speaker 5: of dealing with new threats. As I told you at
- 58:08Speaker 5: the beginning, there was just because technology couldn't go everywhere.
- 58:11Speaker 5: But I had six town hall meetings at home in Oregon.
- 58:15Speaker 5: I've now had over eleven hundred of them because I
- 58:17Speaker 5: think that too, it's part of speech and ability. I
- 58:21Speaker 5: think people are concerned about it. Back when I started,
- 58:24Speaker 5: I blew the whistle on John Poindexter's Total Information Awareness program,
- 58:28Speaker 5: you know, years ago when he wanted to pay money
- 58:31Speaker 5: for going out and assassinating you know, bets on assassinating leaders.
- 58:35Speaker 5: We've come a long way, but there's a lot more
- 58:37Speaker 5: to do.
- 58:38Speaker 3: One kind of follow up to that, and this just
- 58:41Speaker 3: relates to everything really that you've been saying. I mean,
- 58:44Speaker 3: is there a sense in which given the abuses that
- 58:45Speaker 3: you're seeing now, and then given your point that you
- 58:48Speaker 3: just made about technology and the vastness of it, I mean,
- 58:51Speaker 3: there was no AI when the Pizer Court was created.
- 58:54Speaker 2: For instance.
- 58:55Speaker 3: You know, have you gotten more oriented towards civil liberties?
- 58:58Speaker 3: Do we have to be more distrust full of grants
- 59:00Speaker 3: of power to the executive branch? I know, part of
- 59:02Speaker 3: what your legislation does is create more transparency and more
- 59:06Speaker 3: pushback frankly on the Pies accord.
- 59:09Speaker 2: But I'm interested too more generally.
- 59:11Speaker 3: I mean, are you seeing just a kind of mistake
- 59:14Speaker 3: basically and handing too much power to the executive branch
- 59:16Speaker 3: at this moment?
- 59:18Speaker 5: Well, the way I summed it up on the floor
- 59:20Speaker 5: of the Senate, and I've thought about it, is that
- 59:24Speaker 5: new tools require new rules. And now we've got this
- 59:28Speaker 5: big debate about AI and there hasn't been a lot
- 59:31Speaker 5: of thought given to it, and AI data brokers and
- 59:36Speaker 5: the like. That's a prescription for trouble and why I'm
- 59:38Speaker 5: trying to direct as much attention to it as I can.
- 59:41Speaker 3: Great, and one last question before we say goodbye to
- 59:44Speaker 3: you and hopefully we'll have you back. This has been
- 59:46Speaker 3: exactly the kind of conversation that we love to have
- 59:49Speaker 3: on this show. Is there anything we've talked about job
- 59:51Speaker 3: owning about pis of reform? I mean, coming back to
- 59:55Speaker 3: Jake Clayton and coming back to these really direct threats
- 59:58Speaker 3: to democracy that we're seeing from the depart Mean of
- 1:00:00Speaker 3: Justice and the US Attorneys eighty six forty seven as
- 1:00:03Speaker 3: a way of going after the former FBI director James Comy,
- 1:00:07Speaker 3: I mean, what can we do not in these job
- 1:00:10Speaker 3: owning examples, but where the government is really just directly
- 1:00:13Speaker 3: trying to shut down speech And do you have any
- 1:00:15Speaker 3: thoughts about that?
- 1:00:17Speaker 5: Well, that's why the Clayton hearing is so important. I
- 1:00:19Speaker 5: mean was kind of stunned at how a couple of
- 1:00:23Speaker 5: days before his hearing he was out, you know, basically
- 1:00:26Speaker 5: intimidating you know, reporters and doing something that I thought
- 1:00:29Speaker 5: was way beyond what was responsible activity for somebody who
- 1:00:33Speaker 5: wants to be on DNI heads. So I think before
- 1:00:37Speaker 5: we saw all that over the weekend, a lot of
- 1:00:39Speaker 5: people said, well, sounds better than the other guy who
- 1:00:42Speaker 5: has just gone. But now it's time to ask some
- 1:00:45Speaker 5: tough questions about what people heard about, and that I
- 1:00:48Speaker 5: see is my job. You know, my dad was a journalist.
- 1:00:51Speaker 5: I think I meant one of the things I'm very
- 1:00:53Speaker 5: proud of. So he wrote The Bay of Pigs and
- 1:00:55Speaker 5: there's a picture of him and Castro on the back
- 1:00:58Speaker 5: of the book, and Castro, says Peter Widen knows more
- 1:01:02Speaker 5: about this than we do. I do myself. As I
- 1:01:07Speaker 5: was thinking about public service, I want to ask some
- 1:01:09Speaker 5: tough questions like my dad didn't. He sort of showed
- 1:01:12Speaker 5: me how to do it.
- 1:01:13Speaker 2: Terrific.
- 1:01:14Speaker 3: What a great discussion, Senator Widen, thank you for your work.
- 1:01:17Speaker 3: Thank you for your work on these two issues, piser
- 1:01:20Speaker 3: reform and also the Job Owning Act. And absolutely we're
- 1:01:24Speaker 3: looking forward to you holding Jay Clayton and any other
- 1:01:26Speaker 3: administrative officials that come before your committee Transparency Congress asserting
- 1:01:32Speaker 3: its authority. These are the things that really matter at
- 1:01:34Speaker 3: this dangerous moment, So thank you for joining us on
- 1:01:37Speaker 3: the oath in the office.
- 1:01:39Speaker 5: Let's also thank Wendy from Grant's Pass who helped us
- 1:01:42Speaker 5: put together the show.
- 1:01:43Speaker 2: Absolutely. Thank you so much, Senator.
- 1:01:46Speaker 5: Thank you well.
- 1:01:48Speaker 1: I want to give Ron Widen points for giving points
- 1:01:50Speaker 1: to Wendy, so right on, classy guy and great conversation, professor.
- 1:01:55Speaker 2: Thanks so much, John.
- 1:01:56Speaker 3: I mean, you know, this is complicated stuff, and this
- 1:02:00Speaker 3: interview and our discussion earlier went deep into the weeds.
- 1:02:03Speaker 2: And that's what we've got to do.
- 1:02:04Speaker 3: We have to understand what our government is doing when
- 1:02:06Speaker 3: it violates our civil liberties. And you know, the most
- 1:02:09Speaker 3: important thing though I think about this episode, about the
- 1:02:12Speaker 3: conversation with the Senator, about our conversation, is we talked
- 1:02:15Speaker 3: about some pretty frightening stuff, the shutdown of free speech,
- 1:02:18Speaker 3: the shutdown of democracy, the elimination of our rights to
- 1:02:23Speaker 3: the Fourth Amendment guarantee against unreasonable search and seizure. And
- 1:02:27Speaker 3: yet there are ways to push back. Legislation can do that.
- 1:02:30Speaker 3: Laws can do that, and that's what we're going to continue.
- 1:02:33Speaker 1: Showing up to vote can do that too, Professor. What's
- 1:02:36Speaker 1: the best way for our listeners to follow you and
- 1:02:38Speaker 1: keep up with your brilliance the other six days of
- 1:02:40Speaker 1: a week.
- 1:02:41Speaker 3: You can find me on Blue Sky as Democracy Profit.
- 1:02:44Speaker 3: You can find us wherever you get your podcasts. I
- 1:02:47Speaker 3: should have said at the beginning of the podcast, but
- 1:02:49Speaker 3: I'll say it now twice. Subscribe, Subscribe, tell your friends,
- 1:02:52Speaker 3: send it out, and leave us a review.
- 1:02:55Speaker 2: These reviews keep.
- 1:02:56Speaker 3: Coming in, and wow, John, you know we're consistently hitting
- 1:02:59Speaker 3: that number one spot on Apple Trending Podcasts after our
- 1:03:03Speaker 3: episodes come out. It means that we've just got intense
- 1:03:06Speaker 3: interest in what we're doing and nothing could be more encouraging.
- 1:03:09Speaker 3: What a pleasure to do this with you every week.
- 1:03:11Speaker 3: And yes, Wendy's so glad that you got a shout out,
- 1:03:14Speaker 3: Wendy from Oregon, And what a.
- 1:03:16Speaker 2: Pleasure to do this show with you every week. John.
- 1:03:18Speaker 1: I also want to announce to our audience that you
- 1:03:21Speaker 1: can now hear Corey and Me on Sirius XM at
- 1:03:24Speaker 1: a different time. My show on Sirius XM Progress has moved.
- 1:03:28Speaker 1: We are no longer the late night primetime broadcast. We
- 1:03:32Speaker 1: are now going to be twelve noon to three pm
- 1:03:35Speaker 1: on the East Coast, nine am to twelve noon on
- 1:03:38Speaker 1: the Pacific Coast, and our first week's guests include Martin
- 1:03:41Speaker 1: Sheen and Joey Reed and Congressman Glenn Ivy and Congressman
- 1:03:44Speaker 1: Bonnie Watson Coleman, and Professor Corey Bretschneier will be joining
- 1:03:47Speaker 1: me live taking your calls every Monday in the two
- 1:03:51Speaker 1: to three pm hour on the East Coast. So Corey,
- 1:03:54Speaker 1: thank you for making the transition you began with me
- 1:03:56Speaker 1: in the daytime. We've been doing late nights for several
- 1:03:59Speaker 1: years now on Sirius D and it's nice to finally
- 1:04:01Speaker 1: see you in the daylight again.
- 1:04:03Speaker 2: I love doing it.
- 1:04:04Speaker 3: Congrats on the new Times thought, John, and I loved
- 1:04:07Speaker 3: talking to you, of course and taking calls beginning your
- 1:04:10Speaker 3: new show with the former President of the United States
- 1:04:13Speaker 3: Martin Sheen.
- 1:04:14Speaker 1: Yeah, but he was your warm up. Aacked by the
- 1:04:16Speaker 1: way you had Martin Sheen A you're opening Yeah.
- 1:04:19Speaker 3: And I've got to say one last thing, John, which
- 1:04:21Speaker 3: is congratulations. Woopy Goldberg named your book Separation of Church
- 1:04:25Speaker 3: and Hate as one of the best summer reads.
- 1:04:28Speaker 2: Is it?
- 1:04:28Speaker 3: Yesix is that on the View, which is not a
- 1:04:31Speaker 3: small show, And of course that's well deserved and so
- 1:04:35Speaker 3: glad to see you get that recognition.
- 1:04:37Speaker 1: Listen, I was just glad that the View wasn't afraid
- 1:04:40Speaker 1: to mention my book on the air At this point
- 1:04:41Speaker 1: because a year ago it was pretty scary time for ABC.
- 1:04:44Speaker 1: So it means, I guess if they can mention my
- 1:04:46Speaker 1: show on the air, Kimmel's job is safe for now.
- 1:04:49Speaker 1: That's that's how I'm measuring it. But thank you, Corey,
- 1:04:51Speaker 1: and thank you Whoopy Goldberg as well, and thank you
- 1:04:54Speaker 1: to Wendy and Beowulf and everyone who puts this magnificent
- 1:04:56Speaker 1: monster together every week. Oh and one more thing before
- 1:05:00Speaker 1: we go, last, but not least, let me talk on
- 1:05:02Speaker 1: your code about something, Corey. Isn't today a special date?
- 1:05:06Speaker 3: It is an unbelievably special date. We're recording this on Tuesday,
- 1:05:10Speaker 3: July fourteenth, with a Bastille Day, And it also is
- 1:05:13Speaker 3: my twenty fifth anniversary. I married my wife Ali on
- 1:05:17Speaker 3: the Princeton campus twenty five years ago and the love
- 1:05:21Speaker 3: of my life, and so I'm so glad to say
- 1:05:24Speaker 3: happy anniversary to Ali, who listens to the show, talks
- 1:05:27Speaker 3: to me about it, and has been such a great
- 1:05:29Speaker 3: support in all walks of life and an amazing mom
- 1:05:34Speaker 3: person in education and curriculum design and really in everything.
- 1:05:38Speaker 2: So happy anniversary, Alley.
- 1:05:40Speaker 1: Okay, that was totally not the date I was talking about.
- 1:05:43Speaker 1: I met the early inns Edition Act of seventeen ninety eight. Well,
- 1:05:46Speaker 1: you know what your anniversary is nice too, Corey. That's
- 1:05:50Speaker 1: very sweet. We'll see you next time on the oath
- 1:05:53Speaker 1: in the office