Ep. 18: Who is trying to interfere with our elections and how you can stop them

We're sure it comes as no surprise that this world is filled with people who want to manipulate you - to shape your thoughts and feelings so they can influence your behaviors. This episode is all about how humans construct our realities with our five senses and the information we gather beyond our senses. And this is a garbage-in garbage-out process - when we consume bogus information, we tend to make decisions that aren't aligned with the interests of ourselves, our families, and our nation. Joining us in this episode is Zach Fryer-Biggs (1:33), the managing editor of Military.com - one of the military and veteran community's "hometown newspapers." Zach talks about why our system of self government requires a free, fair, independent, and inquisitive press. Next, we speak with Sasha Havilcek (18:05), the CEO of ISD Global who is an expert on extremism, polarization, and disinformation to help us uncover who is trying to influence you during our elections and why. Lastly, Joe brings former USMC intelligence officer Andrew Borene (1:00:54) aboard to talk about the dirty tricks propagandists use to fool us and how we can detect their attempts and thwart them. Nobody messes with M'erica! Andrew now serves as an open source intelligence expert, and we urge veterans and their family members to treat their news and social media consumption in the same way we'd gather intelligence - confirm the source, verify the information, cross check with other sources, and analyze for motive before deciding. It's up to us to seek good information upon which to make decisions about the future of this country. Now you're armed to do just that.

Transcript

SPEAKER_06 0:00

What I really want to hone in now is the malign covert foreign influence aspect. And that's the part where you have uh a threat actor like Russia, China, Iran, uh seeking to use covert influence or to uh suppress the vote by frightening Americans. If you go to this election site, there's scary people with guns there and there's a fake picture of that, right? Or even more subtle things, you know, uh false reporting of really long lines at a voting facility. Um and uh we so we have seen that in the past. Uh we've we've seen it where uh certainly uh Iran was targeting uh, you know, kind of uh trying to dissuade Trump voters uh and so some Discord because you know, and part of that probably has to do with the response to Sulawani strike. Uh and that's the legitimate intelligence services and uh IRGC and Coots Force type uh activity.

SPEAKER_01 0:58

Welcome back to the Vetted Conversations Podcast, where we delve into the foundations, workings, and current challenges to the American way of self-governance.

SPEAKER_03 1:07

In today's confusing world, it's more important than ever to understand how our government works and how we as citizens can actively participate in the discussion to safeguard our liberties and continue freedom.

SPEAKER_01 1:18

Our mission is to ensure you, our listeners, have the knowledge and insights needed to become more informed and engaged citizens and active members of your communities. So let's get into it.

SPEAKER_03 1:37

Of the 17 major U.S. Democratic institutions ranked in terms of public opinion by Gallup, Americans have the most faith in small businesses and the military, which are ranked one and two. And newspapers and TV news rank in the bottom four of 17, with the U.S. Congress dead last. I've worked with thousands of journalists from hundreds of news organizations over my career, and I've had uniformly positive experiences with most of them. I've had to arrest one in Iraq in 2003, but that's another issue altogether. Here's the thing America's founders knew that if we were to have a democratically elected constitutional republic, the citizens' ability to participate in electing our leaders and advocating for policy positions by petitioning those elected leaders demanded that the people be educated about public affairs. This is exactly why we have a public school system. This is exactly why we have public libraries, and this is why we have a free press. Joining us today to discuss how a free and fair press corps contributes to the functioning of our system of self-government is Zach Fryer Biggs. Zach is the managing editor of the largest military and veteran focused news outlet, military.com. And many of you replied upon military.com when you looked for information when joining the military. Your parents looked up their stuff to see what you were getting into, and you've read the reports when you served in uniform, whether here in CONIS or overseas when you were deployed. And many veterans look to them as our community's hometown newspaper. Zach's been a national security journalist for more than 15 years. During that time, he's worked as a Pentagon reporter and investigative journalist covering national security. And Zach, it's great to have you here. Thanks for having me. Awesome. Well, you've heard, you know, um, you had one of the most important uh news organizations for veterans and active duty military folks and families. Um I see you as our hometown news outlet uh for the military. Could you tell us like why our system of self-government requires a free and fair press?

SPEAKER_02 3:26

So I think of our system of government similar to our economy, in that they're kind of free and open markets. And the only way a market functions, the only way democracy functions is if you have effective distribution of information. And I mean information, not rumor, not innuendo, but information, validated information. And so for us, for our democracy, that requires people who are good at validating information, regularly distributing that info to people. And so that's that's what the press is. I mean, that's uh maybe a little more academic jargony, but that that's that's what the press is is a group of folks who are specifically trained in validating information that is multiple sources, that is trying to differentiate between what might be spin versus the sort of reality of a situation, and then trying to distill that in a fashion that is able to be consumed by as large a component of our citizens uh our population as possible. And so that's that's really what the role is of the press is to distribute that information. Like we get into trouble when people have a hard time recognizing the difference between types of information, but that's that that's a separate point. But that fundamentally it's we have this open opportunity. We have our votes. The only way to effectively make decisions on how we vote is if we have information on what those votes mean. 100%.

SPEAKER_03 5:00

And and I love, love, love, love that you equated it to uh a free and fair market. I mean, instead of like, you know, trading pork bellies, we're you know, it's it's ideas that are at play. And it's competitive. A lot of people don't realize how like um news organizations compete to be the first to reach the public with the most accurate news. Do I do I have that correct?

SPEAKER_02 5:19

Or absolutely. I mean, we're always weighing because there is a competitive tendency to want to be the first. Um, and some news organizations live off of kind of the small incremental detail where they're first. I'd say our news organization isn't as focused on that. We're kind of focused on providing context and bigger picture information. Part of that's just the ecosystem we exist in. But you know, for us, we'd rather have the story with the extra, you know, where you took the extra five phone calls to talk to experts and you got the extra information and context the next day than have the story 20 minutes after the thing breaks. But that's you know, there are different news organizations that emphasize those differently. That's just sort of the way we function.

SPEAKER_03 6:05

Yeah, I guess there's a point, you know, I want to reinforce that you made with our listeners is that it's a competitive process. So like you can't say the media, right? Because the media is almost like a meaningless term because it, you know, it's like saying the American population. There is a wide array of like different kinds of people and thoughts and institutions and philosophies that kind of goes into um the news business. I mean, what are your thoughts on that?

SPEAKER_02 6:28

Yeah. I mean, I always have a really hard time when people use the phrase the media, just because you know, there are those wildly different actors in that space. Um, you know, when it comes to covering the military and sort of national security and veterans more broadly, it's a really small community. There's no newsroom that you can look at that covers these issues where I haven't worked with those people at some point. Um it's it's just the way it is. Uh but we all have slightly different priorities. There are going to be some newsrooms even covering this space where you know they're really being written for and supported by advertising from defense contractors. And so acquisition is going to be the stuff they care about. They don't really care about people getting from. They're going to be outlets like us. We don't really care about platforms and where the money is going to, you know, buy X Plane. We only care about the people. So there's a difference in focus that exists. And there's also some differences in standards, honestly, um, between different newsrooms. Um, that, you know, the the economic pressures on our industry are really rough right now. And so that creates problems. I'll tell you, for any significant feature investigation, we have at least three editors going through it. Um there are a lot of newsrooms these days where you're lucky to get one edit on something just because of the trimming to staff. So there's some difference in standards, but that's that goes to kind of what we were talking about with the validated, vetted, real information. A lot of that is tied to the brand of the news outlet because you know if it's coming from X News Outlet, they have processes in place to make sure that it's real. And, you know, other news outlets don't necessarily have that. Um, and you know, I think the vast majority of the time, journalists are doing the absolute best they can. Um and, you know, I think the vast majority of the time, any real news outlet that is going through the news gathering process is gonna get you pretty good info. Um but you always, and this is where, you know, sort of it it's hard. And this is the area where I really wish we taught more of it, honestly, in schools, the ability to validate or differentiate between sources of information. Um, that's you know, that's hard to do. And I think in the current environment in which anyone can post anything on the internet, um, it becomes even more important that the individual reader or listener or watcher is sure they know where their information is coming from.

SPEAKER_03 9:00

What would our country be like if we only had state-run media or you know, corporate-run media? You know, there were there is no uh free and fair press. What would that look like?

SPEAKER_02 9:12

It would be a wonderful time to be interested in grift or abusing people, basically. Um if you don't have that check, then it makes it all the easier to take advantage of uh lack of information being distributed. You know, it's easier to lie if no one's checking to see if you're lying or not.

SPEAKER_03 9:32

I think you know, maybe that's a good segue into you know um our next uh uh question, you know, because like I think one of the things that comes to mind is like the lack of comprehension about what journalists actually do, right? And a lot of people get confused and angry, especially when the news that comes out doesn't meet their expectations. Um, how do journalists go about their work? Yeah, can you give me some like North Stars or guiding principles that you all follow?

SPEAKER_02 9:56

Yeah. So, you know, when I look at the uh my inbox and the responses I get to stories that we produce, I'd say the most common complaint would boil down to what I had hoped had died with the Soviet Union, but basically whataboutism. Um, which is like you did this story. I'm not questioning the validity of the story, but what about these other issues? And what about these other things? Um and I think that comes from just a lack of understanding of what we're fundamentally trying to do. No story is ever designed or intended to cover absolutely everything. What we're doing is, you know, we will discuss, and this is the discussion between the reporters and editors, what we would call a news peg. I'm not gonna I promise I'm not gonna jargon this up too much, but a news peg which is like something happened that makes it news. And this isn't just like a history lesson, this is something happened that's newsworthy. And then we go, okay, that's the news peg. Give me context. What does this mean? Why does it matter? Et cetera. And so we'll we'll start building stories that way. And then the that's how you end up with, okay, something happened. We're gonna do this, we're gonna have some context. It's not gonna be, well, you know, this politician did this. Why don't we cover the opposite politician doing that? Some people argue that's an effort to create quote unquote balance. Um, I am of the school and was trained that artificial balance, where it's just there everything has two sides, and both sides get equal air every time, can be deceptive. Because, you know, if I have two sides and one side says the earth is flat and the other says that, you know, the earth orbits the sun, I can't give them equal time. I can't give them equal space. So when I'd say our North Star, which we really follow closely, is fairness to the facts. And fairness doesn't mean necessarily perfect balance, but it means that we are honestly and sincerely trying to lay out what is occurring. And if there's dissent, we will absolutely include the dissent or the disagreement with, you know, as best we can determine what's happening.

SPEAKER_03 12:17

Right. Um, and that's where people are like, oh, well, you know, it's all a conspiracy. I'm like, no, it's not. Like, you know, even you know, people looking at the Pentagon, you know, which there's all this mystery about that place, but um, how hard it is to really, really keep a secret a secret, right? With so many people looking at it. And I think that's the value of it, right? Because if something happens, you're gonna have Associated Press is gonna jump on it, you're gonna jump on it, New York Times is gonna jump on it, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, MSNBC, Fox, you know, Breitbart, all these different groups are gonna be writing stories about it. And in the aggregate, over the long, over the duration, you know, you're gonna be able to establish like almost every facet of what happened, other than the thoughts that were in the six inches between people's ears that weren't expressed. But like all the observable behavior, nine times out of ten is gonna come out in full. So, I mean, um, you know, I I just um a big, big supporter of keeping a free and fair press. Um, what do you wish to do?

SPEAKER_02 13:11

I do want to jump in good one thing on that, which is just um, you know, you talk about that first draft, and that is what we're doing, right? We're dealing with the best information we have at a given moment. You should always question, and I would tell your listeners to question any outlet that doesn't correct things. Because we all know we're doing a first draft. If you never run corrections, uh that that is a sign that you are not trying to accurately uh relay information.

SPEAKER_03 13:39

Final question, and you've been so good to spend a little bit of your time with us. Um, what do you wish your fellow Americans knew uh about the value journalists bring to our democracy?

SPEAKER_02 13:52

I think that and this you know, this goes back to my original argument about democracy as a free market. Um, in order for a market to function effectively, you have to have distribution of real information. When there is a lack of that information, the market doesn't function right. Um, and that can mean you know, things like um you get deceptive businesses who are lying and get away with it because there's no information to undermine those lies to consumers. You get you know all sorts of things. The money doesn't flow effectively, the market doesn't run effectively, innovation, everything else that's supposed to work in a free market doesn't work if the information's wrong. Similarly, if you can't validate or find good information, you're gonna make bad decisions in your voting. You're gonna make bad decisions in the way you participate in civic life. Um, you're gonna start villainizing people who are fellow Americans because so-and-so said something that isn't true. Uh and I think you lose not only democracy, but you lose community. And because it's such an effective thing to vilify other folks, you probably lose a little bit of touch with kind of your fellow Americans. Um and so, like, that's you know, uh yeah, I'll I'll I'll leave you with this. But you know, I I had a conversation again, family member. I my family covers a lot of different bases. Um, but uh and they're talking about like, you know, this a divide between um different groups of Americans. And it the question to me was like, well, does this group you know hate us as this other group? I was like, no, they don't hate you. Like you may disagree in certain areas, um, and that's fine, but they don't actually hate you. There are plenty of people who want to create this picture that everybody hates somebody else, and so you have to double down and you know, protect your herd from some other herd. But fundamentally, like if you get good information, you'll see that there's not that much differentiating. And so, all right, let's have policy discussions. Let's talk about like what you want for X, Y, or Z to do, or what would be good or what wouldn't be. And that's totally fair. You know, my uh not to be weird about it, but my family fought me a revolutionary war. You know, my my family's been in this country a very, very long time, at least on one side of it. And I like to believe that there's been a commitment in trying to make sure that you know democracy functioned in the various forms in which my family members have participated. I never served in the military, but um, you know, my small part of contributing to that democracy is doing what I do now.

SPEAKER_03 16:40

Yeah, 100%. And I could I couldn't I couldn't agree with you more. I mean, you know, when we invaded Iraq in 2003, we embedded over 100 reporters in 1st Marine Division, and all of them, you know, risked their lives to tell the stories of young Americans at war. So, I mean, you know, freedom isn't free. We hear that said a lot in the veteran space. Um, and it also applies to reporters because I know a ton of folks who are either injured or killed uh reporting on news, um, who have left pieces of themselves, both physically and mentally, on battlefields all around the world. So, you know, Zach, I really, really appreciate this conversation. You've been very generous with your time and wisdom. And uh, you know, for the listeners out there, next time you you complain about the media in our free press, I would just ask you to think about like maybe giving someone a call in Russia or Iran or North Korea where they don't have a free press and ask the people how that state-run media works for them. So thanks so much. Really appreciate having you here today.

SPEAKER_02 17:35

My pleasure.

SPEAKER_03 17:40

Functioning democracy relies heavily on a properly functioning news media. Being able to get good information is essential to our ability to make good decisions on matters of policy and who will lead us at the local, state, and federal levels. In today's episode, we'll deep dive into the ever-evolving landscape of disinformation. We'll attempt to unravel the intricate web of falsehoods, half-truths, and misleading narratives that permeate our news and influence the way we perceive reality. Joining us today for this important discussion is Sasha Hobacek, the co-founder and CEO of the Institute for Strategic Dialogue. With a background in conflict resolution and expertise in extremism, digital information operations, and electoral interference, she has advised a range of governments at the highest levels and has spear-headed partnerships with the UN, the EU Commission on Global Counter-terrorism forum. And she also worked with the private and civil society sectors to promote innovation, including developing major programs. We're in a partnership with Google and Facebook and Microsoft. Sasha, welcome. Where are you and how are you doing today?

SPEAKER_00 18:38

How are you, Joe? It's wonderful to be with you here. I am a very, very big admirer of the work that you will do. Uh so it's a real honor. I'm in DC today.

SPEAKER_03 18:48

Awesome. No, that's excellent. Um, yeah, I mean, and for the audience, Ellen and I met Sasha at a conference in DC on both strain democracy and how we can all get involved. And our conversation over lunch is so fascinating that we wanted to continue it on the podcast so we could share it with you who's who are our listeners. So um yeah, I think maybe a good place to start is what's the mission of ISD Global and how did you come to this work?

SPEAKER_00 19:13

So our mission at ISD is to deliver solutions to the rising global tide of weaponized hate, division, violent extremism that we see around the world today that threatens democracy and the rights of people. Uh, we see that tide of division and extremism, extremism, by the way, in all its ideological forms, stoked increasingly by hostile states and continuously hypercharged by social media. So to deliver on that mission, we work at ISD in every global region, firstly, to detect information and cyber threats to public safety, to national security, to democratic process online, threats from terrorist groups, from extremist organizations of all ideological persuasions, as I've said, and from authoritarian states like China. Russia and Iran. We work to prevent those threats from materializing.

SPEAKER_01 20:05

How did you get into this work, Sasha?

SPEAKER_00 20:10

Yes, in my next life. It'll be something else. I mean, I my father was Yugoslav, and I watched as a teenager what was then a developed and an integrated society descend into a civil war.

SPEAKER_04 20:23

Into a black war.

SPEAKER_00 20:25

It took only 18 months of fear-mongering by irresponsible, self-serving politicians with total control at the time of the media ecosystem there to whip up that storm. And I saw family and friends divided by fear and hatred. And after nearly a decade of working in a formal Yugoslavia on conflict resolution, after the wars there, I set up ISD in 2006 to try to really understand better what those phenomena of radicalization of extremism were, how they happen, how to prevent them, and to develop really practical ways to prevent that kind of thing from happening again elsewhere. And I know that some of your community may have served in Yugoslavia, where were it not for US intervention, blood bath would have likely continued.

SPEAKER_03 21:19

Please. Well when you started describing that situation, it it kind of reminded me of the 1935 Sinclair Lewis book, It Can't Happen Here, because you know I think you know where it's it's happened in other countries around the world, uh, where we see like increasing division um here in the United States. I know a lot of people are are getting a little bit nervous about the potential for extremist violence here.

SPEAKER_04 21:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 21:43

Um but you take a global look at this. So what do you see as like the greatest threats to democracies around the world?

SPEAKER_00 21:50

There's there are two things that really stand out for me. One is that we're now increasingly seeing a coalescing of authoritarian state interests. In particular, Chinese, Iranian, and Russian interests. And I think it's clear that they smell blood. They see in our divisions and and polarization a big opportunity to weaken support for democratic institutions and process, which for them are dangerous. And and with that, the international order that they underpin to see and and and they see in this weakness an opportunity to legitimize their own regimes around the world. They are actively promoting the idea that authoritarianism, their mood, their model of government is a viable alternative to liberal democracy. The second big thing is that they have learned to very successfully piggyback on domestic division and hate movements within liberal democracies using social media and using that, you know, using our tools in a way of free speech to stoke divides and grievances. Because of the enormous lack of transparency and accountability of social media, because we haven't done the job of properly uh regulating some of that, much of the effort to manipulate people in democracies goes essentially unnoticed and certainly unchecked.

SPEAKER_01 23:12

Yeah. And so you, when you say sort of unnoticed and unchecked, what are what you know, what are some of the key things that world leaders, you know, not just in America, but all all around the world are not paying enough attention to and are, you know, sort of the greatest risk elements of those of those issues.

SPEAKER_00 23:32

I I mean, there's a number of things that I think really need to be done. And I hope we can talk a little bit about what can be done in terms of social media accountability, transparency, regulation. There's some interesting developments that are happening now. Um, you know, on the other side of the pond, you know, in Europe, uh in the UK, even the Canadians now have a bill proposed. And I think there's a real gap now emerging between the US and other leading liberal democracies in terms of trying to regulate this space in a way that isn't about speech removing content. It's really about the systems themselves. Systems that inorganically amplify some of the worst stuff that comes closest to the red line. Um and and and really that give you the systems that are now intransparent to anybody, that we, you know, we don't have access to the data needed to actually start to really understand what's happening there and to track these bad actors comprehensively. But I think there's other things. I mean, we have not seen a joined up enough approach. We've not seen the sorts of investments needed to really shore up democracies in the face of what is a hybridized threat environment. It's an asymmetric set of battles we're fighting. That they fight, you know, our adversaries fight with both kinetic and non-kinetic means, with hard and soft power, with you know, so cyber and information warfare are seen as central prongs of their strategy. And we have yet to develop the kinds of policies and competencies needed to protect us comprehensively in the context of that hybridized landscape. And those are the policies we really need to be developing now. We need to understand how they operate and see where our gaps are.

SPEAKER_03 25:10

It almost sounds like the double-edged sword of access to information. I mean, back in the traditional news media era, you know, we had the nightly broadcasts, you had your hometown newspaper, um, and there were a lot of gatekeepers to that information and a lot of fact checkers. Uh, and with the internet now, anyone, including us, can kind of put out information into the landscape, into the ecosystem. Um and that may or may not um come with a positive, good pro-social intent, is what I hear hear you saying.

SPEAKER_00 25:40

So um considering that our our our I think it's good that everybody can put out information and ideas and opinions into the you know, into this uh information environment. What I'm what I'm not happy about is where we see a handful of social media giants essentially decide based on the data that they're collecting, user data that they're collecting, what you see. And what you will see is different to what I see based on that algorithmic decision. That's not free speech, that's a curated speech environment.

SPEAKER_03 26:17

That's a great quote.

SPEAKER_00 26:18

And increasingly, what we're seeing is that some of the most harmful and dangerous material is being served to some of the most vulnerable users because the data shows that in fact they will be able to take them down that rabbit hole. So, as you said, the conversations that you know that we used to have as a whole, as a society, you know, on the nightly news, everybody seeing the same thing. Of course, we we are no longer having those conversations. We are in fragmented spaces.

SPEAKER_04 26:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:47

We are sort of segregated in different pockets of the information environment now, often not seeing each other, each each other's views, each other's ideas. And so there's no chance for competition of ideas if you don't see the other perspective.

SPEAKER_01 27:00

That's oh that but that is such an important point that I'm just gonna double back on because the arguments are always you know made that any restriction or regulation on these platforms is a restriction or regulation on our free speech as users of those platforms, as sort of like the platforms are our mouthpiece and we are f we should have free speech, you know, therefore the platform should not be restricted. But you made such an important distinction, which is that if the platforms are actually deciding, curating, adding you know, mathematical equations to our voices and our output, then it is not just free speech and whoever ideas are rise to the top. It is actually instead of government regulation, it is business deciding what rises to the top. And of course, that's profit motive. That's not what's best for everyone. And that is such a different way. I I live, I mean, and it's ridiculous. I've never actually framed it that way. Um do you have any other like ways to kind of double down on that?

SPEAKER_00 28:01

Yeah, I mean, this is a business model that essentially is based on engagement rates.

SPEAKER_04 28:07

Right.

SPEAKER_00 28:07

And the algorithms are designed to hold your attention as long as possible in order to be able to see stuff, to advertise against that time. And what the algorithms have understood is that by feeding you slightly more, ever slightly more extreme or sensationalist variants of whatever it is that you might have had expressed some interest in in some shape or another, um, they hold your attention longer. And by doing that, they're essentially funneling you into spaces, sometimes really dramatically dangerous spaces for individuals. I mean, we've seen, for instance, minors pulled into um rabbit holes that, you know, they wouldn't have landed in if this was a genuine sort of open, free speech environment. They were going looking for it. They were sort of led there. And, you know, there's a particularly shocking stat, which is um, from a piece of research that Facebook did internally itself and then was leaked, that you may have heard, which is that 64% of joins to extremist groups on Facebook at that time when this was leaked, um, were a result of their own recommendations algorithm.

SPEAKER_03 29:23

So essentially, if I'm surf surfing the web, I'm on Facebook or Twitter, and I have a negative reaction to something, and I might respond to it or thumbs up, thumbs down it, what I hear you say is that these social media companies are going to feed me more of that content based on my um my own act reaction to the information.

SPEAKER_00 29:46

Well, that's and and on many of the data points that they gather on you, you know, they're gathering an enormous amount of data from you that they use in order to essentially target you, micro-target you. And um, and you're absolutely right, Joe, that the stuff that is really viral is the stuff that receives a reaction, whether negative or positive. And the combined negative and positive reactions make for things that go viral. And and that's part of the challenge, is that toxicity, if you like, is is part of the algorithmic problem. And we've seen that the platforms have tried and tested um tweaks to that algorithm at times, and and it can be fairly successful. But ultimately, they have often then gone back to the original approach because they see that with certain types of tweaks that decrease toxicity, they are also decreasing engagement rates. And that means ultimately a decrease in profit.

SPEAKER_03 30:44

Wow. So it's it's less about like my ability to communicate and post and more about the algorithms that these social media companies are doing to create outrage and maintain attention in order to make a profit.

SPEAKER_00 30:59

Well, I would say let's start there.

SPEAKER_03 31:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:02

I mean, I can't see how algorithms that promote something over another thing should be protected by free speech laws. I don't see how bots should be protected by free speech laws. Stuff that is designed to be deceptive. Why? Why would that be? If we were to regulate for those systems problems and give transparency to the system, so provide outside researchers, vetted researchers, an opportunity to really bring to light what these systems are doing in terms of these types of harms, then we're in a position to say, okay, if we correct for these types of things, this is what free speech really looks like. Let's compete here. Can we do it? And then there is a conversation, of course, to be had about what should and shouldn't be allowed. I mean, I I work, my organization has done a lot of work on terrorism and violence online. As you when, well, no, I mean, there's a lot of terrorist activity online that is simply illegal. It's illegal in America, it's illegal elsewhere, and they're still not doing a great job of really policing that side of things, but they are marking their own homework on that front. So we need we need transparency so that we've got a kind of ecosystem of scrutiny. All of us should be able to, you know, journalists and academics and NGOs should be able to get at that data so that we can really see, okay, what is happening here?

SPEAKER_04 32:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:30

Um, that kind of transparency, I think, is the only approach in a democratic environment. Authoritarian states will go about it differently. They'll go about it by essentially censoring, right? Cutting things down, it's what they do. But they're happy to use these tools to target liberal democratic societies, and they do that really effectively.

SPEAKER_01 32:51

So in in a in our society, in American society, I should say, um, you know, do we or how how far are we, first of all, from sort of getting any of this right? Um, being the you know, complex democracy um that we are, and and sort of, you know, where do we where do we fit on on sort of like the you know line of of modern, you know, pluralistic democracies trying to figure this out? Um, how are we doing on that?

SPEAKER_00 33:20

Well, so I think there's so many strengths in America in terms of democracy, but I do think that the big weakness is in fact that America is behind in terms of getting a handle on uh on this social media environment. And we now see big sort of landmark pieces of legislation coming into place in Europe at the EU level, uh in the UK now, the Canadians have a bill uh that's going through Parliament. So five eyes, the the e-safety commissioner in Australia has been particularly front-footed. You've started to see, you know, so five eyes countries and the EU are all moving in that direction, except in the US, that regulatory push has been slow. And I know that there are many conversations about this. I know it's a very challenging issue, and it should be handled with a lot of care because bad regulation can be disastrous, no question. But you now have a roadmap for systems regulation happening in Europe. In particular, what I would say is there's one bit of low-hanging fruit that I feel should be a no-brainer here, which is that to mandate the transparency I've just been talking about, to mandate data, platform data access for the research community to be able to properly lay bare what is happening on these platforms, how the algorithms of products are affecting harms online, how they are skewing speech online. And just laying that bare, just mandating that data access would get us a long way and would be the basis for a real discussion among lawmakers within wider society about what we should do, you know, how we should proceed based on that evidence. But right now, the evidence isn't there.

SPEAKER_03 35:08

Yeah. And that makes a lot of sense. And it used the term five eyes. And for those that don't know, that's the intelligence alliance between uh correct me if I'm wrong, but it's Australia, Canada, New Zealand, United States, and the UK.

SPEAKER_04 35:21

Yeah, that's right. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 35:23

Um with um with that though, but it makes a lot of sense because the image that comes to mind is like when I go to the internet to search for information, I should be metaphorically kind of looking through a telescope into the world, right? And what I hear you're saying is that through this curated experience that feeds me more uh of what I already like. One, it's biased confirmation um instead of searching for for news, but two, in a very real sense, we're looking into the fun house mirror instead of an accurate depiction of the world.

SPEAKER_00 35:55

That's right, but also bad actors, you know, those groups, those states that want to sow Discord, that want to manipulate, are able to sort of game the system quite effectively. And they've been doing that. And so we see, you know, states like Russia, Iran, China develop, you know, they've developed some pretty actually some fairly basic but also fairly sophisticated um tactics in the cyber and information environment to um to really do harm um to Western democracies, to liberal democracies worldwide. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:37

So and which which of the, I mean, what of the hostile foreign actors have been especially effective um in sort of creating internal discontent with within American society?

SPEAKER_00 36:50

I mean, our so we have been monitoring at ISD um uh the information operations by you know being waged by pro-Kremlin CCP, so Chinese Communist Party, an Iranian network, specifically seeking to exacerbate divides and grievances within America over the recent years. And they are the most um sophisticated actors in this space, and therefore I think of the greatest concern. Um, and they developed a mix of you know, overt, semi-covert, and covert information operations, some of which have been focused on the US election for a while now. Um, and we've seen a rise in successful, you know, cyber hacks by pro-Kremlin and pro-Iranian activist networks on US targets like water plants for state governments. This is happening frequently now. And it bears noting that China has become much more proactive in its campaign strategy. They, you know, they've gone from a largely defensive posture in their information operations, you know, defending their own reputation globally, to a much more offensive, much more Kremlin-styled information operation posture, exploiting racial divides, other types of divides in the US, starting to test infiltration tactics on US audiences. So setting up fake profiles and groups, impersonating uh Americans, American groups, and so on. And this has really grown quite significantly in the last couple of years. Uh and then there's Iran, which manages large, you know, a large network of interlinked propaganda channels, some of which carry their branding, but also outlets that are designed to fool audiences. It's a lot of deceptive activity that I think is having, you know, quite a serious, starting to have a serious bearing, and and and they piggyback off domestic networks and use their content and amplify that to where they can see that it's going to cause uh division.

SPEAKER_03 38:51

And the the polling, I mean, there's data to support that they're being fairly effective. I mean, I saw a Gallup report that said in 1984, like north of 60% of the people in the United States were satisfied with the way democracy was working. And uh January this year, 28% are satisfied with democracy. So, I mean, what's the long term? If like we don't get a lasso around this and start taking meaningful action, what does that look like for the United States and for other democracies around the world?

SPEAKER_00 39:20

I mean, this is the thing. They take information, information war very seriously. It's a central piece of what they do because over time one off, but over time, it really has an impact.

SPEAKER_05 39:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 39:36

And I I mean, we, you know, we've seen things that, you know, have started to take hold. I mean, just to give you a couple of examples, you know, you've got this Russian large scale doppelganger campaign that's well documented, um, but that our research has shown at ISD really has been targeting US audiences quite, you know, concertedly, at least since August of 2020. And this is a set of cloned websites impersonating legitimate news outlets like the Washington Post or Fox News. There's, you know, they are using, you know, really deceptive and creative tactics to stay on mainstream social media platforms, including X and Facebook and Instagram and YouTube. So they're part of our mainstream ecosystem of information. And we're seeing them now increasingly leveraging generative AI to AI tools. I mean, across text and image and video. And I mean, and it's this is a whole new um dynamic to this um to this onslaught of information uh threats that we're seeing. And so, and we've just found now, just very recently, a Russian campaign that used generative AI text to impersonate Americans from different parts of the country, using cultural references, you know, again, really designed to start to influence US electorate electorate attitudes. We've just seen with another investigation into this long-running, running, although fairly low impact campaign known as spamouflage, which pushes pro-CCP messaging. We found that again, accounts are now using AI-generated generated imagery to try and reach American audiences ahead of the election. So we're we're seeing a whole new uh set of um capabilities being used by these bad actors. So this is going to become incredibly important. They're using alt-tech video hosting platforms, um, which are really popular in the US. You know, so we saw RT, Russia, today pivot towards Rumble when they were removed from YouTube, they're very agile and they are committed and uh and they are combining cyber and information attacks. And if we don't and if we don't start to genuinely develop strategies to mitigate this, um that go from you know prevention from a policy perspective to educating the public in um in a really concerted and sort of universalized way, we are gonna lose.

SPEAKER_01 42:21

And and when you say committed, you know, sort of from a national security perspective, what you mean is these groups are committed to their goal of dividing Americans because that is good for them. And so dividing Americans, making problems in American society is just good for any enemy of America.

SPEAKER_00 42:43

Um I mean, and so to weaken America is a big, you know, is a big objective to weaken the steeping of democratic governments um with their own citizens. And as a result, on the international stage, it also means that these actors get left alone to do their bidding. Right.

SPEAKER_01 43:06

To get off internally, right, right, correct.

SPEAKER_00 43:09

And but it's not just that, you know, they know for them actually liberal democracy is the greatest strategic threat. Ultimately, liberal democracy poses the a threat to authoritarianism. And they know it.

SPEAKER_01 43:21

I mean, the people see it too much, then those authoritarians are are gone. So so here's a so the follow-up's like, okay, so what can we do on, of course, on a personal level? I mean, people in our community are are more national security oriented than most. Um, but so what can we do on sort of a personal level to to defeat them? And and then what should we be doing on a societal or you know, sort of policy level to defeat them?

SPEAKER_00 43:46

Yeah, I think it's important also to know that veterans and um active servicemen and women are also directly targeted by some of these information operations. Um, and to be really alive to that. And, you know, I know that this I'm sure is very visible within your community, but the the Wagner case, which we saw recently that we were investigating, we saw pro-Kremlin accounts in January of 2023 across several social media platforms, uh, shared a recruitment video targeting retired US service men and women to fight with Wagner.

SPEAKER_04 44:27

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 44:28

Um, and so there's recruitment activities that we've seen. And and again, these were amassing thousands of views across mainstream social media. We saw in the middle of 2023 we did an investigation into the kinds of narratives that were being used uh by hostile states and other bad actors to target um vets. And so we saw a very concerted um campaign um around the idea that the US military was being weakened by woke progressive policies.

SPEAKER_04 45:04

Right.

SPEAKER_00 45:04

And that campaign was amplified by Russia Today, by China's Global Times. Um, and you know, they were pushing it to receive more and more engagement within US military communities online.

SPEAKER_04 45:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 45:20

Um, and and the idea was that you know the US military was being you know weakened by this, by this, uh, by this policy. We saw similar things being done around anti-vaccine conspiracy theories tied to you know the vaccine military mandate. And so we are seeing consistent opportunities being exploited by these bad actors to undermine um not just wider society, but to weaken the resolve of the US military, to undermine them by stoking radicalization, to recruit them to the causes of these groups, um, and to have military voices which are influential in society, align with those narratives. So when when we think about what to do back, I think number one is to protect those constituencies and make them extremely aware of the kind of manipulation that's coming at them. Number two is that, of course, and and more needs to be done, I mean, the obvious answer is that, of course, more needs to be done of the kind of work that you do, you know, investing in community engagement and welfare programming across this community is absolutely critical. It's the sort of baseline. But veterans are influential and knowledgeable, and they hold an influential position in society. And I think that they have an opportunity, a role to play in educating the wider public about the threats from authoritarian hostile states. They understand those actors well and the implication of their manipulation within wider society. I think veterans are leaders in their communities, and there's so much that they can do to carry forward a really clear message of education, uh, about how to protect society from and you know, to be trusted voices about how to educate ourselves in terms of digital literacy in relation to all of these attacks, in relation to social media and in relation to AI. Um, and as we go into this election cycle, we I think also could really need to be mobilizing all the credible voices across society. And I think vets are incredibly important in doing more about this complete, you know, the shambolic situation on social media platforms. They are right now decimating trust and safety teams. Just as we head into this election cycle, they are shuttering data access as we speak. Um, so we don't get as much information even as we did in 2020 or 2022 in terms of these types of threats. I think veterans and the military community at large it can play an important advocacy role to remind lawmakers to remind social media platforms that this is not the time to be playing with that. That we need we need to end complacency, we need to end obscurity, we need better scrutiny and oversight and accountability. And I think that that's a message that the military community can carry forward in incredibly effective ways.

SPEAKER_03 48:21

Very, very well said. I think what what I'm hearing out of that, just to reflect back, is one, we need to educate ourselves on all the dirty tricks being played by people who want to see democracy fail, both um both uh foreign and domestic. Uh two, have a lot of now wait a minute conversations with our fellow citizens about like, yeah, I'm not so sure that that's really true. Like, where did you get the source? How do you know? Um, somebody's obviously trying to make us feel afraid. Why? You know, to use advantages of that. Um and the third thing I heard out of that is you know, democracy being um a participant sport, call your elected officials and demand accountability and and and smart regulation of social media companies so that we get an accurate picture of the world.

SPEAKER_00 49:13

I mean, that's absolutely right, Joe. I think you've you've really hit it on the nail entirely with that. I think that there's so much that can be done. So I feel genuinely optimistic because I do also believe that within, you know, and across society relajment, American society, there's so much strength and incredibly goodwill. Um, you know, I'm a foreigner in this country, and the thing that really jumps out to me in terms of the strength here is um this culture of volunteering that you know can do in schools, in neighborhoods, in the workplace, people volunteer to help out their fellows, fellow citizens to make things a little bit better, to solve, you know, from small to really large problems. And elsewhere, those problems are often often seen as somebody else's to solve government or some authority and so on. But here really people do feel empowered.

SPEAKER_04 50:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 50:13

And and I and I think that that's an enormous strength. It's a feature of American culture, it's the strength of American actually democracy. So and it's why some of the work that we do at ISD really focuses on that hyper-local level. We work with mayors and local authorities. We have a major, amazing program called Strong Cities, which is really mayors and city-led, um, a network that is working to deliver and share local community-driven best practices in addressing polarization and hate. And it's that kind of thing that I think can go an enormously long way. Um so we, you know, while we ask for better policies and strategies of uh of our of our leaders, of our legislators, I think there's a huge amount we can at the same time be doing within communities.

SPEAKER_01 51:00

Do you so an you know, just a follow-up question? This this concept, this work, this the name, mist malinformation, all of that has become, you know, politicized. And as the you know, many military folks and people who study national security see information operations, information warfare, you know, these are completely apolitical concepts. They're actually just weapons of conflict. And so how, I mean, do you have any thoughts on, first of all, how how we got there, that this the concept that there is misinformation that's targeting us and that something we see on social media may not at all be true, or something we see on a website that we think is legitimate at American may not at all be American? I mean, how did that how did how do we how you know how do we move that away from the political realm and back to the national security realm where Americans agree that we have to stop this enemy infiltration uh in and therefore give it some heft when it comes to solving, you know, and and policy solutions.

SPEAKER_00 52:10

I mean, Helen, I think I think you said it. I think we need to start to understand that this is a national security requirement.

SPEAKER_04 52:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 52:19

And to under and I think the national security community needs to be vocal and visible for Americans on this point. And the national security community needs to come together across the aisle, across the political aisle, to speak to what those threats are. And and I do think that we need to be clearer about what we are, in fact, talking about. We're talking about malign deceptive tactics. That is, you know, tactics intended to deceive populations, intended um to weaken us in a number of ways, intended to divide. And and I and that can be evidenced if we have the right policies in place to ensure that there is enough transparency and oversight of that data. We we can evidence that. So it is the sort of invisible hand, if you like, of deception that we want to be exposing.

SPEAKER_04 53:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 53:19

It is what people's divergent views that need to be removed in any shape or form. There are going to be people with views that we don't like, that I don't like, that we don't like, um, out there always. And the whole idea of a free speech environment is that we in fact get to compete in the marketplace of ideas. We cannot effectively compete in the marketplace of ideas if the playing field is distorted, tilted in the interest of one type of um communication, which is essentially extreme, because of these algorithmic problems. So that's what we need to solve for. We need to, we need to, we need essentially regulation that levels the playing field for speech again. Um, and we need the national security establishment to come together across the aisles to educate the public as to the threats at hand, to be clear on what those threats are. Um, and and and that is absolutely a requirement for public safety and national security today.

SPEAKER_03 54:30

Yeah. And and I think you hit out hit the nail on the head, Sasha. And another big asset is America's 17 million plus veterans and their family members. I mean, it's it's not enough just to stand up before the baseball game for the national anthem and fly the flag out in front of your house. I mean, those are important things to do, and and we all agree with it. But you know, I've I've read enough over the years of history and enough about you know dictators' playbooks to know if they want to keep a society uh under their thumb, they need to keep them poor, they need to keep them dumb, and they need to keep them afraid. So you know, in the military, we talked about like avoiding ambushes by being a hard target, and it's almost like we want to do the same thing here where we don't want to be suckers, right? So kind of keep our antennas up, have a massive bullshit detector switched on and running 24-7.

SPEAKER_00 55:17

Um also veterans understand they're knowledgeable about these types of threats in you know in a very big way. I mean, that you know, they've experienced these threats on the ground internationally, and and so they they can bring the kind of expertise and knowledge to the table in the discussions that are being had about this.

SPEAKER_04 55:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 55:40

So, you know, it is clear for a veteran that, you know, just to give you a sense of the kinds of things that we find online at the sharpest tip of the spectrum in terms of egregious activity, right? On October 11th of last year, we identified on X um the present, you know, the presence of a mad amount of branded terrorist content. Yeah. You know, that again reaching millions of people. This is illegal content. This is also terrorist content that veterans would would recognize and understand, you know, the impact of. We saw, I mean, similarly, just internationally, you know, 27% growth of al-Shabaab and Somali, ISIS, Facebook page membership in the first half of 2022. I mean, these things happen in ebbs and flows all around the world. Um, you know, these are the sorts of things that I think that there is a real understanding of. We we found research, you know, content ecosystems glorifying mass casualty shooters in in the US, accessible to minors across platforms, including TikTok, Discord, robots, telegram, and X. I mean, these things everybody understands shouldn't be happening. Um, we found content glorifying attacks in Christchurch Mosque, the Charleston Church attacks, the Columbine and Buffalo attacks, garnering millions of views in just a four-month period. And this has implications. I think that there's a very, you know, the Osama bin Laden Laden letter to America veterans fully understand the implications of that. This was reaching, you know, I mean, 790 million impressions across X when that were called just recently in November of last year. Um 6.9 million views on TikTok. I mean, these are large numbers. And again, I think the expertise, the understanding of these threats within that community, within your community, educating the public as to why this is problematic is is an enormous benefit to society.

SPEAKER_01 57:48

So, so if you were to tell the veteran and military family community sort of one to do, you know, within their um social media ecosystem today, let's say. Like and and and every veteran or military family member could, you know, go on go on social media or and do this or say this or purge this, you know, is there is there a like a first step that everyone could could do that would make America safer by taking this action?

SPEAKER_00 58:18

Yeah. I think the very first step and what they can what they need to be telling people, and I think that they will have a huge impact with it, is um number one pause before you share. Just pause. Pause, take a deep breath, take a look at what you're seeing, and think, who am I receiving this from? Why am I receiving this? Who wants me to share this? Who benefits from me sharing this more broadly? Has this incited an emotional response from me and why? Who has an interest in me feeling strongly about this? Pause before you share. And with that pause, think hard about why you're receiving this. And and I think that this is where, you know, then there's a lot, of course, that veterans can do to genuinely start to educate others on the interests that bad actors from terrorist groups to hostile states might have in relation to American strength on the global stage and to American cohesion at home. I think they understand that better than anybody. Think about what others b you know, what other bad actors have to gain from weakening our society. And just that message I think can go a long way. I then think that they can genuinely be deploying you know education education in a much bigger way for young and old, you know, for all sorts of constituencies. Um and I and I hope it's something that we see much more of over time.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:18

That is a fantastic to do for all of us, and uh certainly one that we hope to share and and uh spread out through uh the veteran community. This has been a fascinating conversation. I think it's especially helpful to have the views of people outside the United States to take a look at us as well. So thank you for that. Um and we really appreciate the gift of your time, your insight, and your wisdom today.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:44

Oh, Ellen, thank you so much. Thank you so much for everything you do.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:47

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:48

Thank you.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:53

Welcome back to Vetted Conversations, the podcast where we explore the heart and soul of our system of self-governance. I'm Marine Corps veteran Joe Plunsler, and I'm here today with my co-host Ellen Gustison. And today we're diving into a topic that impacts every citizen. How do we tell what's true in the media and in our world? And who's trying to influence the way we see the world? From hopeful candidates for elected office to hostile foreign governments who want to crack our faith in democracy. And considering that human beings construct what we consider to be reality based on the data we gather from our five senses, we also rely on information from other people about what's happening beyond our sphere of observation. So when I was at the post office the other day, I heard two of my fellow citizens talking about the news and elections, and one remarked to the other, he said, I just don't know who to believe when it comes to the news anymore. And I don't think he's alone. This is a big problem because our ability to self-govern depends on our ability to get good information about who to vote for as leaders and what policies we should advocate for. In short, bad information leads to garbage decisions. So today we're bringing in former U.S. Marine Corps intelligence officer and current executive director for global business development at Flashpoint National Security Solutions, my good friend Andrew Moreen. Andrew, or Sweet as I know him, and I served together in combat in Iraq in 2003 during the initial invasion. He was one of our intelligence officers for 1st Marine Division, and we've stayed in touch ever since. He comes to this conversation with more than 25 years of experience in intelligence operations, cybersecurity, and investigations. He's a licensed attorney, and most recently held senior roles at the Director of National Intelligence, leading teams and initiatives on OS um open source intelligence research, privacy policy, counterintelligence, and international terrorism. So he's a true American patriot and someone who epitomizes the phrase in a democracy, you've got to be a player. Andrew, welcome.

SPEAKER_06 1:02:39

Hey, it is awesome to be here, Joe. Thank you so much uh for inviting me. Um, and uh as you know, I've been a huge fan of yours. And even before we begin kind of diving into this in a little more detail, I just want to say uh remind you of a story about open source intelligence. Uh and it goes back to when I became a huge advocate uh and believer. Uh and it was after the fall of Baghdad, uh, you may recall we uh General Mattis pushed up Task Force Tarawa to Tecrete. Uh and it it was a detached kind of set of subordinate units of the division, and we needed to get route reconnaissance uh to determine if there were uh any Iraqi formal military positions, or cruiser weapons, or artillery pieces uh on the route uh from Baghdad to the Tecrete airfield. Uh and as I was scrambling as the one of the collections managers uh at the time in the combat operations center to try to figure out if we could find air assets to fly over and and report, if we could find uh other coverage, uh, you know, other means, and and I got to be careful about classified stuff, but you know, the other things like overhead coverage, if we had uh high enough resolution and near enough time, you gotta coordinate all that stuff to get it out and bring it back for that high trust information, right? Uh and as we were doing that, uh you may, I think it might have been you or it might have been uh General Mattis, but somebody said, Hey, we've got this feed. Can we split split off a little bit of a satellite feed that includes CNN coverage and have it live real time in the combat operations center? And I kid you not, as I'm trying to scramble in, and we've got uh you know marine enlisted analysts scrambling to try to find coverage resources, and what can what what can we get eyes on this route? I hear uh uh like a British accent, and I think his guy's name was Brent Sadler. I'm assuming he was one of the embeds that you were working with. Um, and he was a CNN crew, and he had punched forward live video on CNN of the highway uh going from Baghdad to Tikrete. And it was like, it's Brent Sadler, I'm moving toward Tikrete, blah blah blah. And he was going ahead of everybody. Uh and as he's driving, like, holy crap! So I got the analysts looking at uh it means military great uh imagery and uh geographical data, mapping it out, saying, Hey, what was that? What did you just see? What right? So we actually had real live coverage from the news media showing eyes on the thing that we were simultaneously scrambling to get uh, you know, using these classified sensitive resources to get coverage on. Um, and then at one point, Brett Settler actually got fired upon. Uh and hey, I'm gonna turn around, and you know, that actually answered a question, didn't it? Um so it was I use that as a kind of an anecdote of like that was my OSINT uh origin story, right? Um you know, I I had joined the Marines to do cool military stuff. I uh got to do military intelligence because I really wanted to work with all the cool intelligence stuff. And you know, can we get re reconnaissance battalion out there? Can we get scout snipers? Can we get uh aviation assets? And and you know what? At the end of the day, uh that all stuff always is important, but the news media, the courage uh of a journalist going out reporting, uh created a really important, unclassified uh information fee. Uh, and and so I use that story sometimes and have been using it over the last 20 years when I talk about uh a lot of times in the intelligence practice, analysts become overdependent on what they value, what they view as hey, it came classified, it's you know, it's better. And it's not necessarily better. Yeah, and you know, uh in to that extent, it's not that there's no single source, is what I'm getting at. Need to look at multiple sources and not dismiss any one. Um, and uh, and another one on the invasion piece that I that I do kind of frequently go back to is uh that you know, at one point, because we had uh high frequency radio uh for communications, um, I would periodically go out with one of our Intel analysts and we tune into BBC World Service. Uh yeah using the military HF. So that would then give us some real-time reporting on what was happening in global opinion, what were other reporters feeding back to BBC London? So uh we had kind of a feedback group of uh of what's the world seeing that we're doing. And yeah, so it's really funny, Joe. Like our my origin story from 2003, uh, you know, is the first time I did anything, yeah, what I would argue is real uh intelligence when when you and I were part of that combat operation, um, it has informed my entire career ever since. Uh and yeah, a lot of that work that you did and and that the military does to empower the American people to see the truth uh is uh really important. You know, that that combined freedom of speech with uh committed uh military service uh can actually build trust and show the truth of things that are happening in the world that Americans would otherwise be uninformed of.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:56

Oh, for sure. Absolutely. And Andrew, I I think for listeners that might become into the term open source intelligence for the first time, could you just kind of break it down in a sentence or two? Like, what is it?

SPEAKER_06 1:08:07

Boy, you know, that word is a little bit like terrorism, it's got multiple definitions, uh, and people get confused. So, yeah, so OSINT OSINT or open source intelligence actually has a couple of different definitions. There's uh one super highly legal definition, and that is the US government's uh kind of definition for its use of publicly available information, right? Information that anybody could find on the internet or read in uh an opinion piece or or watch on the news. Uh, it would include also things like observer reports, right? Somebody saw a thing and they shared it about what they saw. Um, and then using that to answer an intelligence question. That's what makes it OSINT for the United States government. Uh, then there's like a much broader use of the word now, and I think it's really important. When I when I have this conversation from Flashpoint with our customers, uh, and I talk about professional open source intelligence, I'm not talking about it on behalf of the United States government. I'm not talking about it on behalf of any allied government, you know, the United Kingdom or a NATO ally. I'm talking about professional open source intelligence because that term now gets used kind of in general usage, right? Uh, or is like a colloquial term for people just doing research on the internet, right? And so, hey, I searched for a thing. I did some OSINT, is a thing I frequently hear. And like, what did they mean? Oh, I searched it up on the internet and I looked at some stuff. And yeah, I think it is important to be aware uh that that when we start when we talk about OSINT, there's a highly legal definition on the one hand, and that's a lot of times what kind of government people or military people think about. And then there's the use of it. And I think it's really important to think about what does it mean to most of the world when they use that term, right? Cybersecurity professionals talk about OSINT, and what they're talking about is um information, and it's not necessarily publicly available, it can be commercially available. Information that uh a company like ours at Flashman, and there are others that do it that kind of aggregate insights uh in parts of the internet that are not publicly available, right? And then uh and and make that provide insights. So um commercially available, and there's also proprietary information, right? Where a company has internal information that's proprietary to itself, uh, and then uh, you know, so a lot of times that word gets a little jumbled up when we say OSINT. Um, so it's not an easy definition. Um, but I think when we talk about the professional use and the professional tradecraft, uh, when we talk about OSINT, that's the part where I think there's a lot that the American people and anybody can use uh to help them reduce bias, use critical thinking, uh, leverage multiple sources, and really use uh their brain in conjunction with the really high value information that is all around.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:48

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. So I mean if I'm understanding correctly, open source meaning it's not a classified uh source of information. Intelligence means like quality information to help me make decisions and some sort of systematic way of going about looking at the world, um, and and really testing reports against each other to see what's true.

SPEAKER_06 1:11:09

Yeah, yeah, it's a process, right? It's uh in in uh intelligence discipline, if it was human intelligence or signals intelligence or imagery intelligence, it would all go through a full cycle, right? Uh uh we call it the intelligence cycle from planning and direction to collection to uh to to kind of refining. Uh, I hate the word exploitation because it sounds like we're exploiting what they mean is pulling the high value data out of a huge information set uh and then turning that into something that's a useful product to inform a decision. And so um when we talk about OSINT, yes, I think it's really important uh professional OSINT or you know, kind of like highly refined tradecraft involves using that full cycle and then informing future collection.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:52

Yeah, yeah. No, and that makes a lot of sense. And I think, you know, um going back to that that conversation I overheard in the post office about like where do I get information about who to vote for this fall? Um you know, we're I'm curious like as to your thoughts about like beyond the obvious, like who's trying to influence our thoughts about our elections? I mean, we know Trump and Vance and their lieutenants are trying to get America to vote for them. We know Harris and Waltz and their lieutenants are trying to get America to vote for them. And that's all pretty over, but you know, you've been around the world. I know recently you've been uh close to a hot European battlefield going on right now.

SPEAKER_06 1:12:31

Yeah, and I was in uh been to Ukraine twice since I uh left the government. Yeah. Uh and actually you can take one moment to pause. Uh you got me think about Kyiv. Uh I was in Kyiv in February uh with uh Nate Fick, who's now the ambassador at large uh for diplomacy for all of the cyber defense government. Yeah, I know you know. And uh and I just wanted to say a thing that actually I was talking earlier about the importance of journalists and the courage uh of bringing bringing like bringing light to darkness where uh people need understanding. And uh Nate Fick and I, we got uh uh last time I had been near Indirect Fire with Nate Fick, we were second lieutenants.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:12

Uh and he was the subject of the first recon battalion, right?

SPEAKER_06 1:13:16

Yeah, and he was the subject of the Killer Elite series that was being published by Rolling Stone. Uh which Generation Kill. Yep. And so we got a picture of us with Blue Diamond t-shirt uh in Kiev, and I made it. Yeah, and uh we made I'm like, dude, I gotta stay away from you. Like, you are bad luck, you know. Thanks. I could be part of an invasion, or I can be you know till close to the the Russian rocketry. Uh and and and we had a good laugh in the basement of the Kyiv Grand Hotel. But uh to bring that home serious, Evan Wright wrote that series, and he was lost to suicide. Uh and so I just want to take a moment because it really, you know, it's fascinating kind of how thin the crust of the world is, right? Like there I'm Kyiv with Nate. Yeah, now I'm talking to Joe Plensler, uh, who led the really first large-scale set of embedded uh journalists at the at the scale that you did it, yeah, uh, General Mattis, for that operation. Uh and um, and then to see that impact. So I, you know, I just want to want to kind of say thanks uh and rest in peace, Evan. Uh and also you know, stuff comes with a cost, but uh, but it does. It shows the importance of getting accurate news. Uh, and that's kind of what he was doing. You know, he was reporting it as he saw it, uh, good, bad, ugly. Yeah. Um, and uh, and so there are trusted news sources, and we do also, and as much as we support vets and everything, I really think it's important to support uh journalists as well, uh, especially those that lean forward.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:46

Yeah, who who have yeah, who have even less mental health resources than veterans typically do, right? You know, after they've gone to cover war. Yeah. Um well, and and we just had I think we're all upset.

SPEAKER_06 1:14:58

Yeah, sorry. I mean, but take a little Wall Street Journal on the prisoner swap. You know? That's right. Yeah, the Russians are arresting legitimate uh known journalists. And um I think I'm gonna answer your question specifically. You're like, hey, what are we gonna see? What are people doing? You know, whatever um there's two kinds of election influence in America there's legitimate election influence, and there's illegitimate. And legitimate foreign influence is things like a PAC, you know, uh, because it's reported to the American people. There's an element of transparency to it. They can spend that money and buy advertisements, uh, but it's got to be disclosed what the source of the funds was, right? There's also those political action committees, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Or super PACs, yeah, Darkline. But like the point is that there's some mechanism of influencing elections, and you can you can see that it exists, right? And it's meant to be part of the open public debate where the source came from. Uh and then there's also domestic, like there are dirty tactics in politics. You hear about robocall campaigns when uh many years ago, and actually recently you're gonna hear a lot more about deep fakes and cheap fakes this cycle, right? Uh hey, that looked just like uh JD Vance. Hey, that looked just like Tim Walls, but it wasn't that. It was uh a deep fake generative guy. Uh, and and and so we're gonna see that this cycle in new ways. Uh, but then what I really want to hone in now is the malign covert foreign influence aspect. And that's the part where you have uh a threat actor like Russia, China, Iran, uh seeking to use covert influence or to uh suppress the vote by frightening Americans. That if you go to this election site, there's scary people with guns there and there's a fake picture of that, right? Or even more subtle things, you know, uh false reporting of really long lines at a voting facility. Um and uh we so we have seen that in the past. Uh we've we've seen it where uh certainly uh Iran was targeting uh, you know, kind of uh trying to dissuade Trump voters uh and so some Discord because you know, and part of that probably has to do with uh response to the Sulawani strike. Uh and that's the legitimate intelligence services and uh IRGC and Cootsforce type uh activity. Uh and then we've seen uh also uh patterns where uh China and Russia have been seeking to uh undermine, you know, uh back when Biden was the candidate, uh, you know, Biden camping. Things things like hack and leak information uh targeting a political party uh or a campaign. And so it's interesting because, you know, um I'm not sure that the strategic outcome for that adversary nation or competitor like China or Russia uh uh or Iran kind of works out in the favor that they think it's going to. Um but it but it is real. There is uh there's a hybrid campaign that does seek to undermine American confidence in elections, UK confidence in elections, and European confidence in elections. Right.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:07

Yeah, and I I think you know lately I saw a uh OD and I report, and it seems like they're working with CISA quite a bit lately on election infrastructure and integrity and security. And what I heard was um China might sit this one out, right? You know, they uh they want to continue to do business with whoever the next administration is. Iran and Russia are basically looking like to sow chaos, right? And Russia would like to see nothing more than Americans at each other's throat um and create violence wherever they could. Is is that kind of accurate? Is that your understanding of kind of the current state of play?

SPEAKER_06 1:18:45

Um, you know, it it it is interesting. I think that the the just recently the shift uh in a new campaign, uh I'm not uh you know, in some ways what I would say is what we need to be is agnostic about what that what those adversaries may or may not be doing or what their objectives are, because either way, the the resolution of that pain or the resolution to that problem for uh you know kind of free democratic society voters and American voters, it's gonna be the same uh set of tools to mitigate that, right? It's going to be the same, and it's the individual's consumption and the individual's uh relay of information largely on the internet. You mentioned the guys at the post office, but a lot of it's on the internet. And you know, if I could, I just give you a couple of like steps that that make sense for that for your listeners. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. So so again, regardless of you know, we know we know that there is some formal line influence. We also know, like I said, that there's domestic uh influence, and then there's the political campaigning, which is completely legitimate but often comes seems underhanded, right? Kind of yucky. Uh um, you know, booty ble. So just like a handful of things that I Are really important for bias reduction is I'd say kind of four key factors. One, always check on emotions. We often forget that we're human beings, that we are cognitive and emotional. And a lot of times we're unaware of our emotional state before we share information. You know, uh, there can be a sense of urgency. Uh, and and I'll go back to military stuff, right? Timely, actionable, relevant. What do I know? Uh, have I told who needs to know it? Have I told them? Okay, so let's temper that sense of urgency a little bit with a check on our emotions. Did this thing it give me an emotional response that's giving me a sense of urgency that isn't really a sense of urgency? Can I take a couple of deep breaths? And I think that's actually like really important. I mean, this is not brand new, this is thousands of year years old. Marcus Raleigh is tells us to do the same stuff, right? Um and then in the internet, then take that emotional emotional state. Did this trigger me to feel kind of ecstatic or did trigger me to feel kind of angry? And then uh before I like or share that, if I'm on a social media platform, before I forward that email, right? Did I actually read the article or am I just looking at the little preview? If I'm just looking at the little preview, I might very well be forwarding uh a URL that is a spoof. It's not CNN, it's not Fox News, yeah. It's not my local TV network. And um, and and to take that to the next level, don't like or share on red articles. Hey, um, did I did I mouse over the URL? Or did I, if I opened it, did I look at that that URL string and is it, you know, we do that we see this a lot with phishing campaigns where people get their credit card data stolen or they enter credentials into like a fake mail account or a fake login for a fake bank because it looks similar, but you have to read that full URL. And that's that's another very helpful tale, right? Like if it's if it's from NBC, it'll say nbc.com and then a little bit and then an ad. But if it's got a very suspicious string uh that doesn't follow what you expect to see, maybe don't share that one, right? Uh maybe look right elsewhere, maybe go, maybe go back to the nbc.com and see if it actually is findable from that site. And I realize that slows people down because they want to be emotional, they want to click those buttons. Uh, and then the third one look out for themes. Look out for themes and patterns of disinformation. Um, yeah, you know, and that's that's that that is good counterintelligence for those that you know came out of the military or national security space. Yes, the adversary seeks to deceive, seeks to deny, seeks to distract, right? But it's often within a pattern. It's often kind of, is this in phase? Does this does this seem to kind of hit the pattern of uh, you know, and and I gotta be careful not like uh uh again, agnostic about the political outcome of it. But like there were events we saw where uh after the George Floyd murder, uh you know, there would be foreign adversaries would set up a black Black Lives, try to set up like an organ, what looked like an organic Black Lives Matter rally next to the equivalent of like a Proud Boys rally, right? And the idea was to put actual unwitting Americans in close proximity to each other, right? And so if you saw that pattern of, hey, this is a really emotional moment, we've got to rally and organize at this corner at this time, and you got to get there in the next six hours. Well, that fit within the pattern. Uh, and that was a thing that local law enforcement, public safety officials, federal officials were looking at and saying, hey, maybe you know, when we see these two things emerge and it's uh a high sense of urgency, that kind of fits the theme. So uh watch out for kind of the themes, and if it if it rhymes, like think it through. And then the very last thing, and I think this is probably my the best advice I can give. Uh, and it's hard, but be skeptical, but not cynical, right? Um yeah, it's really hard because you just mentioned those guys at the post office. You know, it sounds like they're getting kind of toward that cynicism jaded. I can't believe anything anymore. Uh, and that is exactly what the old uh uh Russian KGB active measures campaign sought to do. It's what the current Putin administration does to the Russian people through information control and push, is it's a learned helplessness. Make them so cynical that they believe nothing. Become a nihilist, have no values, right? Um, and so I would really urge people to combat that. Remember what what you know, especially for military, you got a lot of military families, veterans that listen to your podcast. There's a reason that we signed that contract because we have values, because we believe in a cause greater than ourselves, and we have to remind ourselves that that is something, you know, it was worth if it was worth signing up to fight for, it's certainly worth remembering that we believe in it and that uh there is underlying merit in it. And so, you know, be skeptical of the things you read, but don't become so cynical that you either write off your neighbor because they posted a thing on Facebook for their candidate. Um, you know, have a jaded eye, but don't, you know what I'm saying? Like remember that we are all Americans and that um, you know, we don't we don't have to get degrade into what the adversary is trying to get us to degrade into.

SPEAKER_03 1:25:20

But that's a really good point. So I think, you know, remembering that politics is politics, and the way we settle our differences in the United States is at the ballot box, not by shooting each other in the streets, right? So I think um we've got a long tradition of that in reminding our fellow Americans that the person on the other side of your perceived issue isn't the enemy, regardless if you're being told that or not. It's still your fellow American. You may disagree with them, you may disagree with them a lot, but they're still your fellow Americans. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:25:51

No, well, absolutely. And and I think, yeah, I mean, you're the the reason for your podcast, the reason that you know I've been a fan of Joe Clensler since I met him in 2002, uh in the in in the uh back in the White House for some briefing or something, right? So it's because we do share those values, right? It's be because we don't become cynics. And the military is a place where people of wildly varying uh kind of, you know, they might have a slightly different worldview or slightly different kind of set of internal values, but the bigger cause, the bigger belief does unite us, right? And so I think that's uh that's one where I think military families, uh military uh service members uh and uh veterans can really we're we're a very small minority of America, um, but I think have the ability to do that leadership by example. Uh and you know, go back to those times we had you know you had conversations with people in your unit that um definitely were not on your political spectrum, um but but but your brothers and sisters in arms, and you know, you pick each other up on a on a hard evolution, you work a long shift, you know, it doesn't matter you don't have to do combat stuff. Um it's one one fight all the way. And so I think um I'd like you know, I love that you're doing podcasts. I know your listeners probably both sides of the aisle, uh, and probably some that are neither side of the aisle. Um, but uh but remember the things that brought us to service in the first place, uh and and don't lose sight.

SPEAKER_03 1:27:22

Yeah, and I think your admonishment about like, hey, anytime you have a strong reaction, especially a strong negative reaction to some news, you know, take a deep breath, count to 10, pause. I mean, the ancients knew that. You mentioned Marcus Aurelius, and neuroscientists today, you know, can show that when our fight or flight mechanism gets charged up in our brains, our reason center actually shuts down for a while, right? And it in by deep breathing, we can kind of restore that rational capacity. So propagandists know that they know if they can make you afraid, they can make you malleable. And uh, you know, just like Voltaire said, if I can get you to believe absurdities, I will get you to commit atrocities. So, you know, we need to be really careful about the quality of information that we're putting in our brains. And and um, what I'm hearing you also say is kind of like the joke in journalism school, like is if your mom says she loves you, get a second source, right? Check it out. You know, and uh um, but but seriously, you know, it's kind of like if you see something that seems really inflammatory or weird, you know, see what the other major networks are saying about it, see what some of the major newspapers are saying about it. Is it a first report? Um, and we know like the accuracy of first reports on the battlefield, it's no different than accuracy of first reports on the internet or in the news. And so 100%.

SPEAKER_06 1:28:36

I mean, and and I give you the exact examples, right? So uh with the Israeli Hamas uh conflict after October 7th. Um I don't know. I mean, I I have a I have a feeling many people, if they remember it at all, remember it exactly the wrong way. There was a missile that hit a hospital uh in the Gaza Strip. Yeah, and Iran proxies immediately just piled on and said this was an Israeli missile, this was an Israeli missile, this was an Israeli missile. And that first battlefield report, uh, it went like wildfire fired. And a lot of me, a lot of journalists I've spoken to and trust, and and good on them, right? Again in America, hey, Mia Kolpa, they owned it, we screwed up. Turns out that not only did Israeli uh information denounce that, but so did the US and other independent Allied nations, Arab nations at some actually showed no, that was Palestinian Islamic jihad had a misfire. So a different Iranian proxy terrorist group trying to launch a rocket into Israel had killed a bunch of children at a children's hospital in the Gaza Strip, and the world narrative had become Israel did this. And so um I I use that as an ace example because a lot of journalists here in the West were you know kind of saying, oh, oops, and they issued corrections. And you know, uh, and I think that you know, again, time and forensics uh are more likely to bear truth than the immediate first report, right? And uh and I think that's another aspect of you know, you get to elections, the sense of urgency, you must believe this now, you must share, tell all your friends, blank. It's like, yeah, you know, that should that should sound like a used car dealership, you know. Oh, if you don't get in here today for the discount, you know, you don't get the infrastructure. It's like, oh, you definitely need to sell me that car tomorrow and next week. And so, you know, just be yeah, be astute, be wise.

SPEAKER_03 1:30:34

Yeah, yeah, and and I love that because it's just kind of like um, you know, it a similar thing. I was in England uh for the last two weeks, uh hiking around, and you know, there was uh a tragic stabbing of you know three young kids by another kid, and a lot of misinformation started getting pumped into the internet about like, oh, this is a foreigner came here to do this, and next thing you know, you've got like right wingers you know fighting cops in the streets, and none of it's true. I mean, you know, so um, you know, we just need to all be really careful before we act, right? You know, and and eventually, you know, have a little bit of patience because the the beauty of a free press and the competitive nature of journalism is that sooner or later the truth's gonna get out in full. That's right, right? You know, enough people will be looking at this thing and reporting on it of you know and validating it. So it's uh uh we wouldn't base military operations on a singular report. We shouldn't make life decisions based on a singular report either.

SPEAKER_06 1:31:30

Yeah, I think I mean I think you're really hitting it. And and uh any other piece of advice I gave to uh I would give uh I'm here out at Black Hat and DEF CON in Las Vegas this week. Uh a couple of big uh one one is kind of the corporate security conference, Black Hat, yeah, it's big uh and then and then DEF CON is the other one that's more of kind of the community, uh, and you know, it covers the spectrum of types of people. But but uh an interesting thing is there was just a keynote panel yesterday uh with Department of Homeland Security's Jen Easterly. Uh she's also a veteran uh on the U.S. side, focused on elections. Uh it also included the United Kingdom's uh Felicity Oswald, who leads their national uh cybersecurity uh center, uh, and Hans DeVries, who's the European Union's cybersecurity lead. So you you really those big three core Western allies that have very similar respect for individual human rights and free press and election integrity with democratic principles. Um, and all three of them openly acknowledge that we are facing a hybrid warfare campaign targeting, you know, individual voters. And so um it is a market of opportunity. Uh we've seen it uh emerge, you know, the before before Director Easterly's time, uh, even in 2017, uh during Trump administration, the Department of Homeland Security uh designated election infrastructure uh as critical infrastructure to be defended and to educate uh uh the the administrators. Um and so you know, I I think that the what I what I'm saying is that it's elevated. People are aware that there are challenges to that system. Uh and it's yeah, so so so it's like we we are in a heightened environment. Um, and I think that's the other thing a lot of Americans in particular may not be aware of how highly refined the ad targeting data is that can be bought by a Russian proxy like the Internet Research Agency or you know by an Iranian threat actor, right? And they can micro-target down into your interests and what stuff you've liked over uh Facebook or or uh LinkedIn over the last 20 years, 10 years, five years. They know your pattern of life. And it's not so much that they know you individually as a human, they know some of those patterns. So they target cognitive influence uh media at you. Uh, and so it's really, really important that people remember they might be, we all are. We are all not only subject to our bias, but we are now also subject to a little bit of an information bubble of our own creation. And it's not necessarily a horrible thing. It's why we get why we get the right ad for the medicine that we need to buy. It's why we get the reminder that there's a target discount on the brand of paper towels we buy. But it has a it has a uh a backside as well, and that is that it also can lead uh influence actors to put content in our face uh that they think will resonate with us. And so uh yeah, I mean, and last thing here, know how to vote if you're overseas military family, if you're a military member, know the get ahead of the curve. You know, we don't go to battle without preparing. And we do a two-thirds, one-third rule and we do operational planning. You know, two-thirds planning, one-third issue. Um, and so let's do that two-thirds planning on knowing it know you're in your state, in your voting precinct, what do you actually need to have to vote? When does the poll open and when does the poll close? Because we have seen uh things, and this is a very common tactic. Uh it's kind of right out of that Russian active measures old playbook, start telling people that the polls have closed, right? Ah, polls have closed. Guess what? No, no, they didn't. The polls didn't close, but you heard the report, you thought you were gonna go after work, and oh, it's too late. Well, you know, guess what? In America, if you're standing in the poll line before the polls close, they they get to stand in that line. It might be 2 a.m. before you get in and cast that ballot, but your vote counts. And so I think that's another one uh advisory to do that work in advance, know those things, and then you won't then you won't fall for the scam.

SPEAKER_03 1:35:28

Yeah, yeah, 100%. And I think, you know, um also know that there's a considerable number of veterans and military family members working the polls. You know, we America needs about a million two volunteers every year to run elections. Uh this year, vet the votes recruited over 139,000 uh veterans and family members to be poll workers. And in my county, uh, when I was in training, um I asked all the training, you know, people who are volunteering. Um, you know, we're going through refresher training, and I was like, hey, if you're a vet, uh stand up, and 40% of the room stood up. And I'm like, wow. So Warren County, Virginia, you know, you're you're in really good hands. Um, but Andrew, this is great, man. I you know, I think you know, we we know there's people out there trying to trick us. Um, we know that if we're careful, we can get good information and kind of thwart their best efforts to, you know, run the propaganda um campaigns on us. But it's up to us, you know, make sure that, like you said, know how to vote. You know, vote.org. You can find out like how to register, if you're currently registered, what your precinct is, what the hours are for the polls. Early voting's a big thing, right? You can get out in the state of Virginia 45 days uh and start voting ahead of elections, and a lot of other states have early voting now, too. So um it's your right, you know. Vets like Andrew and I and so many others have fought for our rights to self-govern. And uh please uh get out there and uh and do your job, right? And we don't care who you vote for, we do care that you do vote.

SPEAKER_06 1:36:51

Don't click the links, Joe. Yeah, until you've read them, read them before you share them. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:36:58

That's right. Yeah. And smoke them if you got them. Don't smoke them. Smoke them if you got them. I mean, come on. But uh, man, I ever see in your face just brings back so many memories of of being in Iraq um, you know, in 2002-2003 time frame. And man, it's it's really good to have you on the show. I just thank you for your time, your gifts of wisdom, and more importantly, man, your friendship over these many years. So I I think you're uh doing good in the world, and I think our listeners will be well served to kind of heed your advice, man. So thank you so much for your time today.

SPEAKER_01 1:37:32

Thank you so much for listening. If you found this podcast episode interesting or useful, please share it with the people you know. This episode was co-hosted by Joe Plensler and Ellen Gustafson. The audio and video were edited by King's Collab Studios. This podcast is a production of We the Veterans and Military Families, 501c3 not-for-profit, nonpartisan, veteran and military spouse-led organization focused on promoting positive and patriotic civic engagement to strengthen American freedom and liberty. Find out more about us at weTheVeterans.us and follow us on social media.