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I m David Farrier, a New Zealander accidentally marooned in America, and I want to figure out what makes this country tick.
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Now, if there s one thing I ve learned about America this year, it s that it both loves TikTok and also hates TikTok.
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TikTok influencers beware.
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Today, a House committee voted on a bipartisan bill that could effectively ban the app in the United States.
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The fear of the Chinese spying on America using the popular social media app became a giant talking point in politics.
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No American likes the idea of another country potentially spying on them, and I get it, but then I started to think about all the ways America likes to spy as well.
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America is a spying superpower, a huge amount of internet traffic runs through America,
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Plus a bunch of powerful software the world loves, from Zoom to Gmail, are all American, and open to the American government s prying eyes.
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In 2022 alone, 145,000 Facebook users and 100,000 Gmail accounts were rifled through by the US government s spy agencies.
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America s Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act has a bit called Section 702, which means the government s able to take part in mass surveillance of things like emails, texts, social media, DMs, and whatever you ve been up to on your dating apps.
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I wanted to know what this means for me living in America and whether it s time for me to grab my podcasting gear and run for the hills.
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So, get ready to share your location data on all your apps and wonder about who s looking.
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Because this is The Surveillance Episode.
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Monica, they re watching.
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They are.
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Now don t get scared, it sounds like quite a serious, meaty topic, but it s also fun thinking about these things, you know?
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Yeah, I mean, I have a weird perspective on this, where, to an extent, I don t really care.
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I m kind of with you on a personal basis.
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It s hard to get fired up because I was actually thinking about this.
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I was thinking, you know, I m in America now.
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I m a suspicious New Zealander.
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You know, maybe they re keeping an eye on me.
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They always look at me a bit suspiciously.
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When I arrive at the airport, they always want to know what I m doing here.
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They re like, what are you doing here?
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I might do a podcast.
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Like what podcast always feel like I m going to get kicked out again.
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But when it comes down to it.
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Yeah, I don t really mind if they re reading my emails.
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It s funny, isn t it?
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Before I came here, I put a whole lot of my stuff in New Zealand into storage.
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It s in a big storage shed.
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And there s some private stuff like old diaries and stuff.
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And I m like, if someone cuts the bolt and steals everything from my storage shed, is there anything in there that I d be like, Oh no, someone s got that.
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And I feel a bit the same about, it s a bit of a weird sort of metaphor, but I feel a bit like surveillance.
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I don t think it s a weird metaphor.
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I think it s that s exactly what it is.
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Except the difference is like if Rosabelle finds your diaries, you might not want her to read it, you know, because you have all your secret thoughts about her and the egg and all kinds of things.
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That s true.
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It s almost worse having a friend get a hold of your private things than a complete stranger who has no context, right?
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Yeah.
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And Rosabelle or me, we want to read your diary.
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Like we have a big interest in your secrets and what you re keeping from all of us.
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I think of nothing worse.
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Yeah.
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But I really truly believe I mean this.
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I don t think the government cares about our baby secrets or even secrets that for us mean a lot.
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Right.
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And like could ruin our personal lives.
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They don t care.
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Absolutely not.
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How do you feel about that balance of privacy, this idea of having privacy, but also protecting all of us from whatever perceived threats, whether they re internal or external.
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That balance, do you, does it matter that much to you day to day?
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I ve moved along the spectrum on this because I used to really not care about privacy.
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Go ahead, look through everything.
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I think you should look through everything of everyone s.
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If you re going to catch a predator or a terrorist or something, go ahead.
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But now, and I do think this has to do with my proximity to public figures, I do respect privacy more.
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I understand privacy more.
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And I do understand that people like to exploit public figures.
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Yeah.
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And those people are my friends.
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So that is scary.
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So I now care about it more, but I m more worried about the hacker who would want to expose something than the government.
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Because again, I don t think the government cares about, I don t even know, some gossipy person on the Internet.
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Someone malicious coming in is much more terrifying.
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And I guess that comes down to your trust of the government.
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Do you think it s great?
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They ve got our best interests in mind.
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It s a perception of them, right?
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Some people see the government as being this really scary force.
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Others are like, thank gosh, it s there looking after us.
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Yeah, I don t think it s either of those.
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I don t think they necessarily have our personal best interests at heart, but they do have an overarching plan.
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They are trying to maintain, well, depending on who s in charge, democracy, and they are trying to ultimately keep America at number one.
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I know that they don t care about some gossipy thing.
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They just, like, don t have time for that.
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Government aside, have you ever had a little secret revealed?
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Has anyone surveilled you?
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Someone at school got into your diary?
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Or did your parents ever open the wrong drawer and get all your private stuff?
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Have you sort of had any privacy violations?
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My mum went through my diary one time, but I was just a Christian boy, so it was dead boring.
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It was just like, pray today.
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It was nothing scandalous in there.
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I did nothing scandalous until I was 25 or something.
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But your thoughts were probably scandalous because you re naughty.
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Yeah, the thoughts were bad, but they stayed in the brain, which is very healthy.
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I never wrote them down or anything.
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They were just ping ponging around up there.
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Never got them on paper.
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Thank God.
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OK, I m sort of with you on that.
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I don t trust a journal.
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You know, Dax has these journals.
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He s written in these journals every day since since he got sober.
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Yeah.
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And I am baffled by his willingness to just have his journal obviously trust the people in his home.
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Yeah, it s like having your brain sort of all out there.
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It s like getting your brain and putting it externally.
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That s a scary thing.
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Yeah, and I ve tried diaries a couple times because I think it s supposed to be good.
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They say that for you.
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They do say that.
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And every time I do it the next day, I just like rip up the papers from the day before to make sure nobody can ever read them.
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You get rid of that.
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Get rid of the evidence.
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before the government gets to you.
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Dax could get one of those little diaries that has a little lock on it.
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So he locks it with a little key, one of those diaries.
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That s my whole point.
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He doesn t care.
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He must just be writing, who knows what s in there.
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It probably is like your Christian diary.
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Just his name again and again.
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Like it s boring.
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But also I m sort of baffled by the trust.
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Also, like if he knew that you read his journal, you re probably just never in his life ever again.
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Yeah, imagine if he left one, a little diary in the attic and he got in there and I was just rifling through it, taking photos.
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Oh my God, David.
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He s so big.
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If he attacked, it would be scary because I know he does get, he can get fired up.
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I wouldn t like to be at the receiving end.
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I wouldn t do well.
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No, you wouldn t.
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I m going to go ahead and say you would not.
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Okay.
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This is sort of a ding, ding, ding, because we just had a diagnosed sociopath on Armchair Expert.
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Oh, it s taking a weird turn, your show.
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She s also a therapist, but she s a diagnosed sociopath.
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She has a book coming out and she s written a lot for like publications and stuff.
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I love this.
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It s fascinating.
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But part of what her sociopathy presents, she does a lot of stalking and snooping.
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That s a big part of her compulsions.
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And so if his diary was out.
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She d be in there.
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100% she d be in there.
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Right, so she s fully aware and she s decided to use this as a learning experience instead of teach others and kind of spread awareness.
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She describes it as a emotional learning disorder.
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And so there are ways you can learn.
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It s just obviously not in the ways that neurotypical people do.
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So you do have to know that about yourself.
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And it s so interesting.
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She should work in government surveillance, I think.
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She d be good at it.
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Get secrets.
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This is an abrupt turn, and no way tonally to do this in a good way.
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Now, we re recording this remotely because you ve got a little cough coming on, and in case you ve got the flu, you don t want to infect me.
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So I got feijoas.
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I got feijoas.
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If you re going like, what the hell is a feijoa?
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A few episodes ago, feijoa is a really popular fruit in New Zealand.
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They re super common.
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there a certain time of the year they re just falling off trees they re everywhere like you just get there s too many features in america very hard to find so after that episode some sort of produce place melissa s which is apparently
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Apparently it s headquarters is in California, but they re all over America.
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They sell Feijoas.
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And they sent me, it s the first like amazing thing I ve gotten from doing the show is just a big box of Feijoas.
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So anyway, I crept over to your house this morning and I left the bottom of your stairs, I left Feijoas.
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So you re gripping one now.
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I am.
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It was so nice of you.
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I m really excited.
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We talked about them a lot on the episode.
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Is it what you pictured?
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The skin is tougher than I pictured.
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It s tough skin.
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It s tough.
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Maybe you said that, but I didn t internalize it.
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It s kind of like the shape of an egg, and it s got a unique little thing at the top.
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A hat.
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Yeah, a little hat.
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It s got a little hat on it.
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It has a hat on it.
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It does have a hat.
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I feel that it looks like a lemon-shaped cucumber.
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Yeah, you re not wrong.
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They re very funny thing associations, but you re completely right.
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The skin feels cucumber-y.
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No, give it a big sniff.
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Inhale the skin.
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What do you think of that?
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It does smell.
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You re right.
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It smells really good.
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Okay.
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SPEAKER_02
Great.
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SPEAKER_02
Okay.
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So I want you to eat this thing.
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Yeah, it s very floral.
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SPEAKER_02
Okay.
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You ve got a knife there.
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I want you to.
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I have a spoon and then you want me to get a knife.
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SPEAKER_02
Well, you can maybe cut through it with a spoon.
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We need to cut it in half.
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However, you d think about cutting this thing in half.
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A spoon could do it.
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Let me give it a try.
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Because it is a tough exterior, but it s also gentle.
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And if you just sort of saw through with your spoon in half, that should do it.
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It might squirt a little bit on you.
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It s a juicy center, a moist center.
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Yeah, really get in there, really saw through.
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Okay.
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Look at that, what a beautiful center.
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Now smell that, give that a good sniff and see what you think of that.
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Okay, it smells delicious.
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Okay, great.
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It really does.
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SPEAKER_03
Doesn t look good.
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Wow.
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SPEAKER_03
The color looks not vibrant.
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SPEAKER_02
Not vibrant, no.
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Looks like my pale skin.
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SPEAKER_03
It looks like a banana was squished up in here.
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SPEAKER_02
Yeah, I think that s fair.
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This is sort of a jelly-ish center and then sort of a more textured bit around the outside.
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It smells so good though, it really does.
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Now, potentially it could do with another couple of days ripening, so I m a little bit worried it will be a little bit on the sour side.
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But I want you to get that spoon.
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I want you to scoop out just the whole thing.
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Almost like an egg.
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The goo?
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All of it.
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The white, the hard and the goo.
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You need to like slide that spoon around and really just lift it out of its green shell.
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SPEAKER_03
I think you re right about the ripeness, but I m going to take this bite.
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Oh, wow.
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You re chewing.
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SPEAKER_03
Oh, oh, wow.
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Now look, is it sour?
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Very.
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Okay.
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So I ve given you an unripe Fijo, which is a bad move on my behalf.
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I got too excited.
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Wow.
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Gave it to you too early.
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This is so interesting though.
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Okay.
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Mine is very sour, but wow, it has a lot of different flavors.
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This is interesting.
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This is not what I would... You re going back for more.
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This is a good sign.
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Okay.
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I just watched this wine show and on the wine show, they re identifying all the flavors and the aromas.
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That s what I feel like I m doing right now.
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I taste strawberry.
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I taste a berry-ness.
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Absolutely.
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People talk about strawberry.
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They talk about hints of pineapple.
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Mm-hmm.
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Mm-hmm.
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This is nice.
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It is extremely sour.
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SPEAKER_02
Okay, so that s not the ideal way.
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SPEAKER_02
So I should wait till tomorrow?
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SPEAKER_02
Yeah, hold that.
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SPEAKER_02
I ve left you a couple of others there, so just sit them out on the shelf, maybe next to some bananas, and that ll help ripen them all up.
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SPEAKER_03
Is it bad that I m eating it not right?
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SPEAKER_02
No, it s great.
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I mean, I just love seeing you enjoying New Zealand s best thing.
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SPEAKER_03
It s really good, David.
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SPEAKER_02
Fantastic.
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SPEAKER_02
Well, yeah, I m so glad.
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SPEAKER_02
Okay, this is great.
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I think this is the first New Zealand thing.
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SPEAKER_02
You like Tim Tams.
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SPEAKER_02
You didn t like pineapple lumps.
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SPEAKER_02
I don t think you like the Whitaker s chocolate.
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SPEAKER_02
You didn t like Jaffa s.
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SPEAKER_02
You hated those.
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SPEAKER_03
Hold on.
1
SPEAKER_02
Jaffa s.
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SPEAKER_02
Do you remember I bought you those like round red candies?
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SPEAKER_02
You hated those.
1
SPEAKER_03
Oh, are you talking about the orange chocolate?
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SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
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SPEAKER_03
Yeah.
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SPEAKER_03
That was disgusting.
1
SPEAKER_02
You hated them.
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SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
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SPEAKER_03
I hated those.
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SPEAKER_03
But I know the chocolate was good.
1
SPEAKER_03
The chocolate was very good.
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SPEAKER_02
I saw it sitting there a couple of months later.
1
SPEAKER_02
See, it s something different, doesn t it?
1
SPEAKER_03
The chocolate was good, but it wasn t.
1
SPEAKER_03
You made it out to be like it was going to have like magical powers or something, which to me didn t, but it was very good.
1
SPEAKER_03
No, I liked the meat pies.
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SPEAKER_02
I know you did like the meat pie.
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SPEAKER_02
That s right.
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SPEAKER_02
You ve had a meat pie.
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SPEAKER_02
You ve had a sausage roll.
1
SPEAKER_02
I got you a lambington.
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SPEAKER_03
Yeah.
1
SPEAKER_02
The coconut sort of, you know, that, that sort of fluffy cake they had.
1
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
1
SPEAKER_02
That was good.
1
SPEAKER_03
That was delicious.
1
SPEAKER_03
But I think this is the best.
1
Yes.
1
SPEAKER_02
This is great.
1
SPEAKER_02
This is great news.
1
SPEAKER_02
I actually found out something interesting, it was in an article, actually an article written by Whitaker s Chocolate, which is the New Zealand chocolate brand, so possibly a bit biased, but the headline in this piece was, why does American chocolate taste bad?
1
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And I m going to look more into this because I think I want to do a chocolate episode, but apparently there s a certain compound in some American chocolates that s also present in rancid butter and vomit.
1
SPEAKER_03
No!
1
SPEAKER_03
No!
1
SPEAKER_03
Who wrote this?
1
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, so sometimes there s some brands, and I gotta be careful, there s some brands of American chocolate I ve eaten and I thought that does taste a bit like vomit to me.
1
SPEAKER_02
And so that s why, we ve got very different tastes I think.
1
SPEAKER_02
So you as an American have been raised on vomit tasting chocolate, so when you actually taste sweet, delicious chocolate, you re like, something s wrong here.
1
SPEAKER_03
No, it s not.
1
SPEAKER_03
OK, first of all, you are going to have to do an episode on this because I don t believe you.
1
SPEAKER_03
Also, I own a fact check recently because we had Rebel Wilson on.
1
SPEAKER_03
She brought us Tim Tam s so good from Australia.
1
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, she bought you the right thing.
1
SPEAKER_03
They were delicious.
1
SPEAKER_03
And then we dig it on the conversation of Australian chocolate.
1
SPEAKER_03
And then I did look it up.
1
SPEAKER_03
It s because in Europe, and I guess Australia and probably New Zealand, there s... God, I forget all the facts I read.
1
SPEAKER_01
On my brain, it s the same thing.
1
SPEAKER_01
Believe me.
1
SPEAKER_03
They re completely gone.
1
SPEAKER_03
But it s not that there s something in our chocolate.
1
SPEAKER_03
There s something in your chocolate.
1
SPEAKER_03
It s about like the milk solid.
1
SPEAKER_03
It s something about the salt that make it good.
1
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, it s the milk side of things we don t have.
1
SPEAKER_02
Well, no, it s butyric acid.
1
SPEAKER_02
Butyric acid is the compound that s found in a lot of American chocolate.
1
SPEAKER_02
And that s the thing that s also present in a lot of vomit.
1
SPEAKER_03
Oh, stop saying that.
1
SPEAKER_03
Oh, God.
1
SPEAKER_02
I vomited for the first time in a long time the other day.
1
SPEAKER_03
Oh, when you had the flu?
1
SPEAKER_02
We re really off topic.
1
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, I had the flu.
1
SPEAKER_02
I ve been sick.
1
SPEAKER_02
I ve been in a bad way.
1
SPEAKER_02
It s awful vomiting, isn t it?
1
SPEAKER_02
It s horrible.
1
SPEAKER_02
It s degrading.
1
SPEAKER_02
You re like, what am I doing?
1
SPEAKER_03
It s awful.
1
SPEAKER_03
I m knocking on wood.
1
SPEAKER_03
I don t want that.
1
SPEAKER_02
OK, now, so I got us way off topic.
1
SPEAKER_02
You ve had a fever.
1
SPEAKER_02
Really happy.
1
SPEAKER_02
OK, so I m going to play you this little surveillance documentary.
1
SPEAKER_02
I m very excited about surveillance because I read this book, which I m about to talk to you about means of control.
1
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And so I just find this topic so interesting.
1
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So yeah, this is what I learned.
1
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When I was 16 and living in a small town called Bethlehem in New Zealand, I was obsessed with a movie called Enemy of the State.
1
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It was directed by the late great Tony Scott and starred Will Smith and Gene Hackman.
1
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A powerful man has been murdered.
1
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A hidden camera recorded the crime.
1
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None of this goes beyond us.
1
SPEAKER_01
We don t need any more problems, do we?
1
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I don t remember it all that well 25 years later, but it had something to do with a rogue NSA agent who used America s surveillance powers to try and kill Will Smith.
1
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Now here in 2024, with all this constant talk about TikTok spying on us, I was back to wondering what the NSA was up to, and the FBI, and the CIA, the American government.
1
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I lived in America now, and I wanted to know who might be prying into my business.
1
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My name s Byron Tao.
1
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I m a reporter in Washington, D.C.
1
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where I cover mainly law, courts, and some national security.
1
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I was talking to Byron because he s just written an amazing book called Means of Control.
1
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It s about how America s tech industry has joined forces with the government to make America more of a surveillance state than ever before.
1
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It wasn t an easy book for him to write.
1
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He interviewed over 300 sources over four years, including a lot of people who didn t want to talk.
1
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, well, the most difficult part is that when you re writing about government surveillance programs or law enforcement techniques that police agencies would like to keep quiet, it s difficult to get people to speak candidly.
1
SPEAKER_00
Often you have to work on them hard to get them to trust you.
1
SPEAKER_00
Often you have to offer them anonymity or confidentiality.
1
SPEAKER_00
And just in general, it s a hard world to report on and just takes a lot of time.
1
SPEAKER_00
But he s done with the book.
1
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It s out.
1
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dedicated to his mum, Barbara Ann.
1
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And now he s stuck here with me.
1
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What do you see as the thing that sort of sets America apart and makes it interesting to you when it comes to how we re being surveilled?
1
SPEAKER_00
First, the United States, at least in the past 20 or 30 years, has been the place where a lot of these technologies emerged.
1
SPEAKER_00
And so, of course, US government entities are kind of at the forefront of figuring
2
SPEAKER_00
out clever ways to use them and to exploit them and there s just a robust technology sector in the United States and that technology sector sometimes works with the government.
2
SPEAKER_00
The second thing I would say is actually in America there s a deep skepticism about government power and government surveillance which makes this topic controversial in ways that I don t actually think it s that controversial in other places.
2
SPEAKER_00
You know at one point I interviewed a
2
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someone who was from the UK originally, and he kind of rolled his eyes at the notion that anyone would be concerned about the government getting location data from his phone or tracking him all the time on CCTV cameras.
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SPEAKER_00
He said, that s just kind of how it is in the UK.
2
SPEAKER_00
And I think that Americans don t have that attitude because a lot of Americans don t trust their government.
2
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There s a long history of civil liberties and civil libertarianism in the United States, and there s a lingering distrust about government power.
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A lingering distrust of government power.
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It has me thinking about Enemy of the State again, and a whole bunch of American movies I grew up with where America was the bad guy.
2
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I suppose Americans not trusting their government is pretty clear when you look to things like the Capitol riots, or just anything in politics at the moment.
2
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This election year so far has been a shitshow of distrust.
2
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But, back to surveillance.
2
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Something I ve found sort of interesting as an outsider being here is that there s so much talk and paranoia in America about the likes of TikTok and how China is surveilling Americans.
2
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And yet obviously America is doing similar things and using similar tricks with its own people.
2
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I find that kind of fascinating.
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SPEAKER_00
It is really interesting, right?
2
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Because there s obviously not a moral equivalent you draw between the People s Republic of China and the United States.
2
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I mean, both governments can be criticized, but China is engaged in activities that the U.S.
2
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has called genocide in Xinjiang.
2
SPEAKER_00
But if you re just talking about the tools and the techniques of using
2
SPEAKER_00
say, covert social media accounts to push content or surveilling large parts of the globe using data, well, that is something that the United States government does and has done.
2
SPEAKER_00
The United States government builds apps or has contractors build apps that collect data from people around the world for intelligence purposes.
2
SPEAKER_00
And that s sort of the same thing that U.S.
2
SPEAKER_00
national security officials are worried about with TikTok.
2
SPEAKER_00
So these information networks, the internet and apps and advertising, all of them can be exploited by governments, whether it s the United States government or the Chinese government.
2
SPEAKER_00
I think we re suddenly seeing the U.S.
2
SPEAKER_00
government become aware that though the U.S.
2
SPEAKER_00
had the technology lead for 20 or 30 years, the future probably belongs to other countries, and that there will be a robust Chinese tech sector, there will be a robust Indian tech sector, there will be a robust African tech sector, and in the future, those countries will exploit data, potentially data about Americans, in the way that our government has been exploiting it for the past few decades.
2
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What Byron became particularly fascinated by is how the American government uses consumer data that s been hoovered up by various apps and programs.
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When people click I agree when they sign up to a new thing on the internet, they re not generally reading the small print.
2
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And a lot of the time that small print is saying your data is up for grabs to the highest bidder.
2
SPEAKER_01
So while generally spy agency aren t allowed to spy domestically, there are loopholes, like buying data that already exists on you.
2
SPEAKER_00
The phenomenon I m describing of data being available for sale, I think that is a form of bulk surveillance.
2
SPEAKER_00
And in the United States in general, we as a society have been very skeptical about bulk surveillance, right?
2
SPEAKER_00
We re okay saying, we think this person is a criminal, I m going to go before a judge, I m going to get a warrant, I m going to look at their email accounts or their text messages.
2
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Most people think that s reasonable.
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Where they don t think it s reasonable is that everybody s data gets vacuumed up into a giant database.
2
SPEAKER_00
And that is technically not really allowed under American law if you re targeting Americans.
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The loophole is that if you buy the data on the open market, suddenly
2
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those constitutional protections that Americans are used to, they go away.
2
SPEAKER_00
And so I think Americans, generally speaking, have been skeptical about bulk surveillance programs, about mass surveillance.
2
SPEAKER_00
They ve been much more okay with targeted surveillance, with limited surveillance, with a judge supervising surveillance.
2
SPEAKER_00
And so
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I think that the amount of data that s sloshing around is starting to challenge those traditional notions of Americans  privacy and Americans  limited government.
2
SPEAKER_00
Now, it s possible that the social bargain has simply changed and that we all essentially have accepted this world with both the upsides of convenience and free digital apps, as well as the downside of persistent tracking by corporations and governments.
2
SPEAKER_02
It also comes down to this big concept of the lawfulness versus how ethical it is, right?
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I think so, right?
2
SPEAKER_00
Because in some of these programs that I write about where the government is buying large amounts of, say, location data on the movement of phones and cars, I mean, it s technically been deemed legal.
2
SPEAKER_00
But if you look at the way the data was collected, if you look at the justifications the government has given for doing this, that essentially they re saying, well, consumers have opted into this, don t worry.
2
SPEAKER_00
But really, consumers are not really being told exactly
2
SPEAKER_00
how the data is collected, they re not being told where it s going, so it s not really truly meaningfully consent if you want to talk about having a consumer truly ethically opt into these programs.
2
SPEAKER_00
Because nobody who s a potential target for surveillance by the Department of Homeland Security or local law enforcement is ever really gonna voluntarily opt into a surveillance program, right?
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SPEAKER_00
So you are relying on some level of public ignorance to track people this way.
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There s a whole industry of data brokers in America, and their big customer is the American government.
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Of course, none of this is new.
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Back in 2019, a Harvard professor termed it surveillance capitalism.
2
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One senior national security official told Byron that we re backing ourselves into a surveillance state, and that data collection tilts the power away from the individual towards the government.
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SPEAKER_01
And some of the ways we re being surveilled, well, they re things I d never really thought of before.
2
SPEAKER_01
Like when you realize something as seemingly innocent as the tires on your car mean you can be followed.
2
SPEAKER_00
So whenever you start your car and you flip through the little screen that shows the tire pressure, the way your car knows the tire pressure is because there s a little sensor, a wireless sensor embedded in the tire that s constantly communicating to the central computer of the car and saying, you know, hey, I m tire number 3573 and my tire pressure is 42.
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SPEAKER_00
All is good.
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SPEAKER_00
But, of course, that transmission is actually just going out into the clear.
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SPEAKER_00
And so some very clever government intelligence agencies have figured out ways to build little sensors that can detect and read these tire pressure readings.
2
SPEAKER_00
Now, I don t know if this is like a true mass surveillance technology.
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SPEAKER_00
I don t recommend that people go deflate their tires.
2
SPEAKER_00
But it just shows that there s a
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vector for surveillance in all of these ordinary consumer technologies that we use, and that none of them are really built for privacy.
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SPEAKER_00
They re not built to protect us against tracking.
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SPEAKER_00
They re sort of carelessly designed in many ways, and the government is very clever.
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All these agencies, they have missions, and they have technologists, and they find very clever ways to deliver on these capabilities, and so there are many vectors for surveillance that go unconsidered by the average person.
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Byron also did a deep dive into how dating apps can be used in surveillance.
2
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How our horniness can be weaponised against us.
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The issues around dating apps are fascinating to me as well.
2
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You sort of start a whole chapter in your book about Grindr and how that can be used.
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SPEAKER_02
Dating apps are the ultimate form of giving out your location, right?
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And we do that willingly.
2
SPEAKER_00
So it s not even that these apps are making the location available for sale per se.
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They re just plugged into this very complicated advertising ecosystem.
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SPEAKER_00
And because people, when they
2
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load up dating apps on their phone, they want to date people near them, right?
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SPEAKER_00
They want to know, are you two miles away?
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Are you 50 miles away?
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Often we want to date the person that s two miles away.
2
SPEAKER_00
So we enable our location settings.
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SPEAKER_00
We turn it on.
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SPEAKER_00
But when you do that, you re sharing all this information with tens of thousands of parties on these advertising networks.
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SPEAKER_00
And some of them are just sitting there vacuuming it all up.
2
SPEAKER_00
And some of those people are selling it to who knows who, right?
2
SPEAKER_00
Government agencies, private investigators,
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dark web criminals.
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SPEAKER_00
We don t know where the data goes once it leaves our phone.
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SPEAKER_00
And in terms of dating apps, they really generate a very rich repository of information because people swipe when they re bored, they swipe when they re lonely, and they ve turned on a rich amount of data that they re sharing with the app and the advertisers.
2
SPEAKER_00
And so, of course, governments and data brokers have become interested in getting location data, and dating apps generate a very rich stream of that.
2
SPEAKER_01
I m increasingly aware of how much data is being collected on me, all the time, from various apps and companies.
2
SPEAKER_01
I went into one of those Amazon stores when I was at a baseball game.
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An army of cameras was trained on me as I walked around, picking things up.
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SPEAKER_01
There was no checkout.
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SPEAKER_01
When I left the store, it knew what I d gotten, and I was charged for it.
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SPEAKER_02
Look, if you re American, this sort of shit s old news to you, but to me it s all pretty novel still.
3
SPEAKER_02
And when you throw one of those Vision Pro things on your face, that s a whole bunch of cameras, including infrared cameras, collecting your raw biological data.
3
SPEAKER_02
No doubt at some point it ll be used to train AI about everything to do with you.
3
SPEAKER_02
But you can t help but wonder who else might end up prying.
3
SPEAKER_00
I think it s like previous generations of technology, like the car tires, like the advertising networks, that we re creating these systems and we really don t know or even start to think about how they re going to be exploited in the future, right?
3
SPEAKER_00
People are putting large amounts of data into these large language models, which I don t even think their creators fully understand how they work and what they do.
3
SPEAKER_00
And so I do think in the future there s going to be incidents that we don t even conceive of because we don t quite understand these systems and we don t build them for privacy and security and to make sure that the dignity of all the individuals using them are going to be protected.
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SPEAKER_00
We instead, like Americans, rush headlong into embracing new technologies without really thinking through that there are
3
SPEAKER_00
downsides, there are costs, there are potential concerns about the way these things will work.
3
SPEAKER_00
And so I think we re just at the very, very beginning of understanding how these systems will be used and how they will betray us.
3
SPEAKER_02
Stay tuned for more Flightless Bird.
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We ll be right back after a word from our sponsors.
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if a bear doesn t rip my body apart.
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It s a lot to take in, but it s pretty meaty.
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And I just find it really interesting when you think of all these day-to-day things where the very American thing is that because America loves money, so there s advertisers everywhere.
3
SPEAKER_02
And so all this data is being hoovered up to be used commercially.
3
SPEAKER_02
And then the American government can jump onto that data and legally track its citizens and see what we re up to.
3
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
3
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I understand the fear around it, but I also feel a little bit like we want the technology.
3
SPEAKER_01
We want our car to be able to tell us about the tire pressure.
3
SPEAKER_01
We don t want to check it every other day.
3
SPEAKER_01
We like that.
3
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We like dating app.
3
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We like the convenience.
3
SPEAKER_01
So to me, that is a trade-off.
3
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I think Byron described it as the social contract changing over time and the idea that it has changed over time.
3
SPEAKER_02
We re happy to put all our photos out onto the internet now.
3
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We used to be paranoid about people having our photos, but then Facebook came along and suddenly we were uploading thousands of photos.
3
SPEAKER_02
And I feel it s the same with the tire pressures and the cameras.
3
SPEAKER_02
It makes our life so convenient.
3
SPEAKER_02
We re okay to let that privacy stuff drop behind a little bit.
3
SPEAKER_01
I also like what he said, and I think it s really true.
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A lot of other countries, they just don t have this dedication to privacy.
3
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They re like, well, yeah, this is how government works.
3
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I think because we are a country of liberty, that s such a big tenant that it creates this big conversation.
3
SPEAKER_02
And that s something I hadn t really thought about how America is less trusting of its government than potentially people in New Zealand or the UK.
3
SPEAKER_02
It seems obvious since he stated that, but it s something I hadn t really clocked.
3
SPEAKER_02
I quite like that suspicious aspect.
3
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I love that cynical take a little bit.
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It s very me.
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It is very you, but also that s what I mean.
3
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When you re in New Zealand, were you thinking about any of this?
3
SPEAKER_01
Cause it s happening there too.
3
SPEAKER_01
Absolutely.
3
SPEAKER_01
It s just not loud.
3
SPEAKER_01
It s just not a bunch of people being like, this is bad.
3
SPEAKER_02
No, I mean, New Zealand, I mean, we have a sort of a secret spy base in New Zealand and where New Zealand is part of the thing called the five eyes network, which, uh, five different countries that have joined together with America to surveil, like swapping information about each other.
3
SPEAKER_02
So New Zealand is via very much a part of this.
3
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A hundred percent.
3
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This book, I think what Byron s done in Means of Control, it just outlines things I never would have thought of before around how in our day to day life, information is just being hoovered up and used in various ways.
3
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And obviously for us fairly ordinary members of the public who cares, but you know, you think of journalists trying to do their job or.
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people trying to, you know, speak truth to power.
3
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Suddenly they are being surveilled.
3
SPEAKER_02
It s more of an issue for them and trying to do their work.
3
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, it definitely can be.
3
SPEAKER_01
I mean, I struggle with this topic a little bit.
3
SPEAKER_01
And what I m going to say, I m saying it because I wonder if other people have this thought.
3
SPEAKER_02
I feel I m still forming my thoughts as well.
3
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Again, this book, I was just at stuff I haven t really given a great level of thought to before.
3
SPEAKER_01
There s a part of this conversation that feels conspiracy theory adjacent.
3
SPEAKER_01
The government is tracking our tire pressure.
3
SPEAKER_01
I know that, sure, with tech, with the cloud, with all of it, we re available to them.
3
SPEAKER_01
You know?
3
SPEAKER_02
It very lines up with paranoid thinking.
3
SPEAKER_01
Paranoia.
3
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_02
And I think there s a level, there s a level of looking at it sensibly and being like, this is the thing that s happening.
3
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But then this is the kind of content that gets mentally unwell people really worried about being tracked at every moment and having chips installed in their brain.
3
SPEAKER_02
It s in this wheelhouse.
3
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
3
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It s very adjacent and to me dips in and out of it.
3
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And so I keep it at a little bit of an arm s length.
3
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something I ve literally sort of thought about this now, as far as where America fits in, obviously something like 9-11.
3
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We ve talked about this so much on, on armchair and dangerous and stuff, but obviously 9-11 was a big shift in America s surveillance policies.
3
SPEAKER_02
And suddenly that changed the whole world in the way that we flew and traveled and how much we were being surveilled as we jumped on planes.
3
SPEAKER_01
And I wonder what is the consensus?
3
SPEAKER_01
I wonder if we did a survey of the American populace.
3
SPEAKER_01
Are we happier that we have those precautions post 9-11 or are we not?
3
SPEAKER_01
I mean, I am.
3
SPEAKER_01
I like knowing that we re doing everything we can to prevent a disaster.
3
SPEAKER_02
Oh, completely.
3
SPEAKER_02
Did I tell you when in New Zealand I got this part-time job at the airport one summer when I was studying and I had to go onto planes and check that no one had hidden weapons on them to be used by terrorists?
3
SPEAKER_02
Did I tell you about this?
3
SPEAKER_01
That was your part-time job?
3
SPEAKER_02
Pretty loose, right?
3
SPEAKER_01
It is!
3
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, I think they had strikes at the main Auckland New Zealand airport and so they were down on staff and so one summer they did this massive hire and so I was brought in.
3
SPEAKER_02
I head out to the airport at three in the morning and the planes would land and I would go on with my team of people that had been trained over sort of a week and we d look under the seats and the seat pockets up above and the luggage storage to make sure no one had like taped a knife under the seat or something.
3
SPEAKER_02
to be used by their colleagues who was on the next flight.
3
SPEAKER_02
So it s very dramatic, very dramatic.
3
SPEAKER_01
Wow.
3
SPEAKER_01
Did you ever find one?
3
SPEAKER_01
Did anyone ever find nothing?
3
SPEAKER_02
I actually, I just found some vomit under a seat one time.
3
SPEAKER_02
No, I found nothing exciting.
4
SPEAKER_02
It was the least exciting job I ve ever had in my life.
4
SPEAKER_02
Although it was fun going out on the tarmac and a little buggy to like get to the planes.
4
SPEAKER_02
That was really fun.
4
SPEAKER_03
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_02
Anyway.
4
SPEAKER_02
All right.
4
SPEAKER_02
I did talk to Byron a little bit more about something called the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which is just a very American thing.
4
SPEAKER_02
So this is the last little bit of the dog.
4
SPEAKER_02
Something I d forgotten to talk to Byron about earlier was that Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
4
SPEAKER_02
We probably should have started there, as it s the thing that allows the government to get potential access to our horny dating app data, email inboxes, and whatever memes we re texting to our friends.
4
SPEAKER_00
It s called the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, Section 702.
4
SPEAKER_00
That s a real mouthful, but what it essentially allows is the American government to go to tech companies like Google, like Meta, like Twitter,
4
SPEAKER_00
and get private information about people that it deems to be lawful intelligence targets.
4
SPEAKER_00
And it does that entirely in secret, right, because we can t tell spies and terrorists that their data is being vacuumed up by the U.S.
4
SPEAKER_00
government.
4
SPEAKER_00
Now, I should say, all governments do a form of this.
4
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European governments do it, Asian governments do it, African governments do it.
4
SPEAKER_00
They tap telecom networks, they spy.
4
SPEAKER_00
They compel companies to turn over information for national security purposes.
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But what makes America different is that so much of the world s telecommunications traffic passes through the United States.
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A lot of it passes through switches here in the DC area that makes it vulnerable to interception by the US government.
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And second, that a lot of the global tech brands are American companies and have data in the United States.
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SPEAKER_00
So what makes America special, what makes it a spying superpower in many ways, is the fact that so many global tech companies are based here and the American government can just walk into Google s headquarters or walk into Meta s headquarters with a list of all the people that it wants to target for surveillance and get a ton of information about those people.
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And it does it all in secret.
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America is, in Byron s words, a spying superpower.
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And look, all power to America in catching the bad guys.
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But what about the good guys that get caught up in this?
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Look, I ve seen Enemy of the State, I ve read about Edward Snowden, and as I talked to Byron, I wondered how paranoid he is about doing the kind of work he does here.
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I realize we re talking on Zoom right now.
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Something made in America, with data centers in America, could easily be intercepted.
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I wonder if stuff like that plays over in his mind.
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SPEAKER_00
It certainly does because, you know, as a reporter, I m talking to a lot of people, I m trying to offer them confidentiality.
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SPEAKER_00
In some cases, people are breaking NDAs, and I m trying to protect them, right?
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SPEAKER_00
I don t want consequences visited on them.
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SPEAKER_00
So I do try to be very, very security conscious about
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where I store data, how I store data, what platforms I use.
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It doesn t mean I give up using social media.
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You know, I m wearing a fitness ring that tracks how well I sleep.
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There are benefits to these technologies.
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We don t all have to go live in the woods, but we should really use them mindfully.
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We should use them aware of the downside risk.
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SPEAKER_00
As you say, I m talking to you on Zoom.
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Zoom has a potential to be intercepted.
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SPEAKER_00
So I m, you know, I m not saying anything tremendously sensitive.
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We re having a conversation for public consumption.
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SPEAKER_00
If I were talking to someone who was kind of a whistleblower, a government insider, maybe I wouldn t use Zoom.
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Maybe I would use Signal or something.
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So I certainly, as a reporter, try to be aware of this stuff.
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And I think increasingly, as more and more information becomes digitized, as so many more professions are going to entirely live on computers, that I think more and more people are going to have to think about this stuff in their day-to-day lives.
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Before I let Byron get back to his life writing about surveillance, I wanted to know what other tips he had when it came to protecting data from prying eyes.
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SPEAKER_00
It depends what you re worried about protecting, right?
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SPEAKER_00
So I do think if you re talking about shady data brokers collecting your location, you certainly can disable a lot of the location settings in a lot of your commercially available apps.
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SPEAKER_00
You don t need to tell the weather app
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SPEAKER_00
where you are, you could just type in the city where you are.
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SPEAKER_00
You could just let it know your location when you open it, not 24-7.
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SPEAKER_00
So I would tell people to primarily be conscious of what information they share with these apps that they put on their phone.
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SPEAKER_00
There are certainly very good privacy-protecting technologies, especially communications technologies, WhatsApp,
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SPEAKER_00
Signal, Apple s iMessage, these are all encrypted.
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SPEAKER_00
They will all protect the contents of your communications.
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SPEAKER_00
Some of them are stronger encryption than others.
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SPEAKER_00
Some of them collect less data than others.
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SPEAKER_00
But in general, the ordinary person using these services will get a pretty decent level of privacy.
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SPEAKER_00
It s not perfect.
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SPEAKER_00
You could always hack people and steal their data, but...
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It s harder for snoopers, governments, telecoms to see messages transiting on that platform.
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And finally, I would really recommend that people rethink their relationship to paying for digital services because when apps can t rely on people to pay 99 cents or $1.99 for an app or
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a few bucks a month for a service, that s really when they do turn to monetizing their user base because it s not free to make an app.
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SPEAKER_00
It does cost money.
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You ve got to hire coders to code it, rent server space, you have to hire lawyers to draw up a privacy policy, you have to pay employees.
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SPEAKER_00
Technology is never really free.
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SPEAKER_00
And so when people are unwilling to spend even a few dollars on an app or a service, then that s when these companies start to turn around and say, OK, well, they want our app, but they don t want to pay for it.
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SPEAKER_00
Why don t we just monetize them?
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SPEAKER_00
Why don t we sell their data?
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SPEAKER_01
Yeah, amen to all of that.
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SPEAKER_01
And yeah, do all of that.
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SPEAKER_01
And obviously also occasionally let some air out of your tires, right?
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SPEAKER_00
That s right.
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SPEAKER_00
If you really are concerned about surveillance, yes, you probably want to find a mechanic to rip those sensors out of your car tires.
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Look, to be honest, I couldn t really care less about who s tracking my information.
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I won t be deflating my tyres anytime soon.
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Then again, I just rewatched Minority Report, and it reminded me what can go wrong when our data is harvested and used against us.
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SPEAKER_02
I also think the whole TikTok panic has been really interesting to watch, and shows how differently the likes of China thinks about this stuff to how America thinks about it.
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As Byron notes in the closing of his book, China wants its citizens to know they re being watched.
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In America, the success lies in its secrecy.
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SPEAKER_02
By the time this goes to air, the whole TikTok thing may have changed entirely.
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But I do think it s kind of fascinating how there s no great proof right now that China is using TikTok to influence the masses in America or to surveil us.
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But it turned into such a giant talking point, like such a big thing, it s almost talked about as if it s definite fact.
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SPEAKER_03
I m not on TikTok, so I know so little about this.
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SPEAKER_03
I mean, I know the gist.
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SPEAKER_02
You re lurking on TikTok somewhere watching those videos.
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SPEAKER_03
I m lurking.
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SPEAKER_03
No, I m not.
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SPEAKER_03
I m not.
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SPEAKER_03
Thank God.
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I m so glad I ve avoided that rabbit hole.
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I m with you.
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I think it s the last social network where I think I just, I haven t gotten on.
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It s like I ve aged out and I m aware of it and that s okay.
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SPEAKER_03
I agree.
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SPEAKER_03
I agree.
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SPEAKER_03
I think it s okay.
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SPEAKER_03
But this has been talked about since the beginning, since TikTok first blew up.
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SPEAKER_03
Oh, China, Chinese app.
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SPEAKER_03
They have all our data.
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SPEAKER_03
They re tracking like all of it.
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SPEAKER_03
And then what made it turn so quickly in the past month?
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SPEAKER_02
There s just been hearings about it.
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SPEAKER_02
It s just been this big push by America.
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SPEAKER_02
It s sort of a political talking point, just a crackdown.
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SPEAKER_03
So there was no impetus, no reveal or anything?
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SPEAKER_02
No big data s come out.
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SPEAKER_02
And you d see quotes from various American intelligence agencies, and they re not saying this is a definite.
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SPEAKER_02
They re like, oh, China could be doing this, or this is a possibility.
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SPEAKER_02
It s nothing concrete.
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SPEAKER_02
Yeah, it s been reported on so widely.
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I just think it s interesting the paranoia China spying on us is much more worried about by, I think a typical American than the idea that your location data is being hoovered up by private data brokers and then sold elsewhere.
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SPEAKER_02
It s so easy to like fear this outside force as opposed to powers within.
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SPEAKER_03
Yeah, but there s a reason for that, right?
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SPEAKER_02
Oh, you don t want other countries prying on our data.
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SPEAKER_03
Yeah, they have a much bigger incentive to use it for to, quote, take us down than the American government does.
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SPEAKER_03
So are there examples of journalists who talk about being surveilled and then stifled?
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SPEAKER_02
Yeah, no, absolutely.
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It s mainly comes to, you know, protecting sources.
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And I was just revisiting the Edward Snowden story.
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And that s the idea of data being used against American citizens is this whole other topic to go down.
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But yeah, means of control, the book, it talks about it so competently and Byron, you know, he talked to 300 sources for this.
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It s just one of those books that s so well researched and so level headed.
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I just loved reading it.
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So I m like, I ve got to talk to this guy.
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And, you know, we ve got to talk a little bit about surveillance because it s
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It s just a fascinating space.
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And I think when I was at that baseball game, looking at what felt like 60 cameras staring at me in the Amazon store, as I picked out my chocolate bar and my drink, I was so stunned that this technology existed.
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SPEAKER_02
There was no counter.
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SPEAKER_02
It just knew what I had.
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SPEAKER_02
And I walked out and it charged my card.
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SPEAKER_02
That s crazy.
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SPEAKER_03
Yeah.
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SPEAKER_03
There are Whole Foods that do that as well.
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SPEAKER_01
That s right.
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Yeah.
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SPEAKER_00
Which is so bonkers.
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SPEAKER_00
I mean, you know, when you re going into that store or you know, when you re going into that Whole Foods, that s what s happening.
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SPEAKER_00
So I think there s personal responsibility here.
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Sort of what he said.
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He s like, if you re talking about something extremely sensitive, maybe know how to do that in a way.
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And I, yeah, I m kind of like have some personal responsibility.
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SPEAKER_00
100 percent.
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SPEAKER_00
In general, you know, like if you re worried about being surveilled, probably don t shop in that Amazon store.
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SPEAKER_00
You know, there s other things you can do.
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SPEAKER_00
There s other ways to get those, you know, that aren t as convenient.
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SPEAKER_00
But again, that s the trade off.
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SPEAKER_01
No, I agree.
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SPEAKER_01
And it s like what he was saying.
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There s a reason that some apps, it s good to pay for them because then those apps don t have to find other ways to make money out of you as a product.
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SPEAKER_01
So there s a reason.
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SPEAKER_00
That was interesting.
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SPEAKER_01
So it s just like little things like that that I think are interesting to think about.
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SPEAKER_00
Also, I ve heard this come out of a lot of people s mouths that they like their algorithm.
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SPEAKER_01
Oh, they re like, oh, this curates it really well for me.
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SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
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SPEAKER_00
Like everything I m getting is what I want.
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SPEAKER_00
I m going to get ads anyway.
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SPEAKER_00
Might as well get the ads of things that I might actually use or enjoy, or I don t know.
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SPEAKER_00
I find that takes sort of interesting as well.
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SPEAKER_01
The algorithm is not working well for me at the moment.
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SPEAKER_01
Do you know what the algorithm is giving me all over Facebook and Instagram?
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SPEAKER_00
Vomit?
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SPEAKER_01
It s giving me... I wish it was vomit.
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SPEAKER_01
It s giving me birds, which I like, but they are AI birds with giant testicles.
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SPEAKER_01
That s what I m getting.
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SPEAKER_01
All I m getting is... What?
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SPEAKER_00
David!
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SPEAKER_00
No, it s messed up.
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SPEAKER_00
What are you talking about?
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SPEAKER_01
I m being served up some kind of hellish AI art space, and now all Facebook is serving me.
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SPEAKER_01
And it s my fault for being on Facebook in the first place.
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SPEAKER_01
It s just birds with massive nuts.
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SPEAKER_01
wait to buy a painting or i m so confused no just like the caption will be here s some beautiful nature and then okay i m gonna send it to you
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SPEAKER_00
Don t send it to me.
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SPEAKER_00
I don t want that.
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SPEAKER_01
I m going to send it to you.
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SPEAKER_01
Because it s hard to describe the stuff that I m being served up.
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SPEAKER_01
What are you being served up?
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SPEAKER_01
Some good stuff?
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SPEAKER_00
I mean, I get like a lot of this might be what this might.
5
SPEAKER_01
Is this workplace sexual harassment?
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SPEAKER_01
It s awful, isn t it?
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SPEAKER_00
This is horrific.
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SPEAKER_00
What in the fuck?
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SPEAKER_00
I also don t get it.
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SPEAKER_00
I don t get why.
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SPEAKER_00
Is this an ad?
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SPEAKER_01
No, it s just a lot of Facebook is being taken over by bad AI.
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SPEAKER_01
It s kind of built to go viral because it s so weird.
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SPEAKER_01
There was a big phenomenon of Jesus s made out of shrimp.
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SPEAKER_01
That was a big thing.
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SPEAKER_00
What the fuck?
5
SPEAKER_00
Oh, my God.
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SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
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SPEAKER_01
A lot of Facebook has been taken over by this.
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SPEAKER_00
You re on regular Facebook.
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SPEAKER_00
You re on Facebook.
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SPEAKER_01
Yeah, it s just a whole lot of birds with big... I think maybe you need to get off of that.
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SPEAKER_00
I need to get out.
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SPEAKER_00
I don t have that on Instagram.
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SPEAKER_00
I just have ads of clothes.
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SPEAKER_00
Actually, I bought this.
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SPEAKER_01
Great outfit.
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SPEAKER_00
It s looking great.
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SPEAKER_00
This sweater.
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SPEAKER_00
Thank you.
5
SPEAKER_00
That was in targeted ad.
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SPEAKER_01
I see it s working for you.
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SPEAKER_01
I wish I was getting great wardrobe advice, not big nutted fans.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, you need a new suit.
5
SPEAKER_00
He says you needed a new suit.
5
SPEAKER_00
You should get some targeted suit ads.
5
SPEAKER_01
I need to fix my algorithm.
5
SPEAKER_00
Obviously.
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SPEAKER_00
I actually blame you for this.
5
SPEAKER_00
I think whatever you re doing on there.
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SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_01
Let s not get into what I m actually searching for in my search terms.
5
SPEAKER_01
Don t make this a me problem, Monica.
5
SPEAKER_01
All right.
5
SPEAKER_01
Well, I would say I ve become slightly more American because I have been thinking about American surveillance.
5
SPEAKER_01
So at least I ve got to be another 2% American.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I mean, I think we re all being surveilled on this globe, in this global economy, and it s only going to get more.
5
SPEAKER_00
And so, gosh, I guess it s up to everyone individually to embrace it or reject it.
5
SPEAKER_00
I am tired.
5
SPEAKER_00
I m just going to embrace it.
5
SPEAKER_01
And I d say there s so much effort to tap out of society in any way as well.
5
SPEAKER_01
It s kind of part of the shit.
5
SPEAKER_01
Let s just hope it doesn t get turned against us in some way.
5
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, we ll be all right.
5
SPEAKER_01
We ll be OK.
5
SPEAKER_01
And if it all goes bad, we ll just like head to the hills.
5
SPEAKER_01
Where are the hills?
5
SPEAKER_01
Where do you go to the hills in L.A.?
5
SPEAKER_01
New Zealand is like if things go bad, you go to the hills.
5
SPEAKER_01
Be like the Kiamiah Ranges.
5
SPEAKER_01
Where do you go in L.A.?
5
SPEAKER_01
The Griffith Observatory or something?
5
SPEAKER_00
No, I think we go down.
5
SPEAKER_00
I think we like go into our bunkers.
5
SPEAKER_00
Ding, ding, ding.
5
SPEAKER_01
We go down.
5
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, of course we go into the bunker.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_00
Which I m kind of excited for that.
5
SPEAKER_01
There are some beautiful bunkers.
5
SPEAKER_01
Well, I m glad you enjoyed the feature.
5
SPEAKER_01
You are more New Zealand s great American Merry Christmas Happy birthday