How will the FBI deal with the repercussions of the Iran War?

In this episode of Intelligence Conversations, Neil Bisson sits down with former FBI executive Lauren C. Anderson for a timely and wide-ranging discussion on the current state of intelligence, law enforcement, and geopolitical instability in the United States and beyond.

Drawing on her experience inside the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Lauren reflects on her transition from the Bureau to her work supporting U.S. government initiatives and mentoring women entrepreneurs globally. She also offers a candid perspective on the pressures now facing the American intelligence and national security community.

Neil and Lauren examine the potential repercussions of the current conflict involving the United States, Israel, and Iran, and what that could mean for North America. They explore the role of proxy operations, the risks facing diaspora communities, and how foreign conflicts can influence domestic security environments in both Canada and the United States.

The conversation also addresses growing concerns within the FBI, including leadership challenges, the loss of institutional expertise, recruitment pressures, and the impact of political dynamics on intelligence operations. They discuss how these factors may affect counterintelligence, cyber security, and the Bureau’s ability to respond to evolving threats.

The discussion also turns to whether enough attention is being paid to Russia amid ongoing global tensions, recent attacks targeting synagogues and diplomatic sites, and whether shifting priorities may be affecting intelligence sharing and collaboration among Western allies.

This is a timely and important conversation about intelligence, leadership, geopolitics, and the increasingly complex threat environment facing North America.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to Intelligence Conversations, the podcast where intelligence professionals explore and discuss real-world issues shaping intelligence, national security, and global affairs. In this episode, Neil B. Sans sits down with former FBI executive Lauren C. Anderson for a timely and wide-ranging conversation on the rapidly evolving security landscape in the United States and beyond. Drawing on her years of experience inside the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Lauren reflects on her transition from the Bureau to her current work supporting government initiatives and women entrepreneurs around the world, while also offering sharp insight into the pressures now facing the American intelligence and law enforcement community. Together, Neil and Lauren examine the potential repercussions of the current conflict involving the United States, Israel, and Iran, and what that could mean here in North America. They discussed the role of proxy actors, the threat environment facing diaspora communities, and the possible implications for public safety in both Canada and the United States. The conversation also turns to growing concerns within the FBI itself, including leadership changes, the loss of institutional expertise, reported firings tied to politically sensitive investigations, and what this may mean for counterintelligence, cybersecurity, and the Bureau's ability to respond to emerging threats. Neil and Lauren also explore whether enough attention is being paid to Russia amid escalating global tensions, the impact of attacks targeting synagogues and diplomatic sites, and whether political pressure and shifting government priorities are beginning to affect intelligence collaboration between Western allies. This is a candid and important discussion about leadership, intelligence, risk, and what may lie ahead for those tasked with keeping democratic societies safe. Let's begin.

SPEAKER_03 2:00

Lauren Anderson is a former senior executive with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and she spent nearly three decades working on national security counterterrorism and international operations. Lauren is currently the co-host of City State Sentinel Podcast, and she is an individual who has a lot, has had a lot of firsts. She was one of the first women to serve on the FBI squad team and went on to hold a number of senior leadership roles throughout her career. She later served as the FBI's legal attaché in Paris, where she oversaw operations across more than 20 countries and led international terrorism programs within the FBI's New York Joint Task Force, which is one of the largest or the largest in the United States. So she has a lot of experience. And when I had an opportunity to meet with her, I thought it would be so great if I could get her on the podcast, especially now that we've been seeing a lot of things changing, a lot of things going on in US politics and US intelligence. And I thought, who better to speak to some of these issues than Lauren herself? So thank you so much for coming on, Lauren.

SPEAKER_01 3:02

Thanks, Neil, for having me. I appreciate the opportunity to talk with you again.

SPEAKER_03 3:07

That's great. So maybe you can tell us a little bit about what's been going on because in intelligence conversations, a lot of times what we'll talk about is how people are still contributing to the intelligence and national security sphere, even though they've moved on from their uh original careers as either intelligence officer, case officer, special agent. So maybe you can talk a little bit about what you've been doing.

SPEAKER_01 3:28

Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for that. And I have been very active. I've um I've kind of had a couple of different tracks going since linking the Bureau, but I've kept my hand, if you will, in geopolitics and intelligence work through a couple of different part-time roles that I have. One is I've almost 11 years now I've been an advisor to the US Comptroller General who runs the government accountability office in the United States. And that's been an absolutely wonderful opportunity because not only do I advise him on things, but I also have the opportunity to work on projects that GAO is working on in terms of the efficiency and effectiveness of how government operates. So sometimes that's been in law enforcement with the FBI, sometimes it's been intelligence community matters or Department of Homeland Security. And other times, um, for example, looking at USAID or State Department programs, because track two of what I've been doing is working with women entrepreneurs around the world, most of whom are residing in conflict areas. So that gives me a unique lens as well. And I support the US Army in warfighter exercises periodically, which I also love. And it's given me a different window into that component of the government. But so I've kept involved through all that time. And I've also um started writing, and I sit, I have sat on several corporate boards in the technology space.

SPEAKER_03 4:54

Well, it's amazing. It doesn't sound like you've slowed down at all. It sounds like retirement is just uh another way to keep yourself busy doing other things.

SPEAKER_01 5:02

Well, they say it's retirement from that job, but it's not a retirement in the sense of the word that that some people might consider.

SPEAKER_03 5:10

Yeah, exactly. So um I've only got a little amount, I've got some time, but I really want to make sure that I get some of these issues out there to you, because I think the audience is gonna have a real interest in what you have to say about some of these things. So before we turn the mics on, we had a bit of an opportunity to go over a few things. And one of the things that uh we wanted to talk about was I think it's pressing for everyone right now, is what's happening happening in the current Iran military conflict/slash war, however you want to say what that is. One of the concerns uh that I've had from looking at this conflict is what are some of the repercussions that we could possibly see here in North America when it comes to some of these proxy oper organizations or some of these proxy um players? Um what do we have to worry about when it comes to uh Xi extremism? What do we have to worry about? Um, you know, we've seen a couple of things happen already. So from your perspective, maybe you can give us a little bit of insight into some of the concerns you feel might be coming over the horizon when it comes to that threat, Vector.

SPEAKER_01 6:14

Yeah, absolutely. Um first of all, I have a couple of concerns before I get into the substance, and and that is as you know and and some of your listeners may know, uh Director Patel made has made the decision over the last year to fire anyone that he has believed has worked on any of the cases uh that were surrounding President Trump before he took office this time around. And one of the areas without going down that road with the hundreds that have lost their jobs for no reason, um more significantly, just a few weeks ago, right after he returned from uh the Olympics in Italy, he fired almost the entire squad, which is the smallest investigating body in the FBI that was responsible for investigating matters involving Iran, including around praxis and the cybersecurity component of Iran's targeting of the United States and other countries. So that expertise in Washington DC was thrown out the door.

SPEAKER_02 7:16

That's so frightening.

SPEAKER_01 7:18

It's very frightening. I mean, when we're making a decision to go to war, you know, we have expertise in other offices and I have enormous confidence in the FBI, but still to strip that expertise out at a time when we need it is critical. Um, as you probably recall that I mentioned when I was up in Canada, and you know this from your own work, it takes at least five years to build a really good counterintelligence or counterterrorism agent. It's just complex work that you can't learn overnight. So, for example, there hasn't been anecdotal information coming out with the director saying, Well, I'm gonna put new agents on those squads and backfill, as we say. The problem with that is they're great people, I'm sure they're great and enthusiastic new agents, but they know nothing when it comes to working sophisticated targets, whether that's Iran, whether it's China, whether it's Russia.

unknown 8:11

Right.

SPEAKER_01 8:11

So that's a very deep concern uh that I have. The other concern that I have is clearly I was not in the planning part of the planning or the strategy to make the decision to go to war in Iran.

SPEAKER_03 8:22

Which is their loss, because you probably could have had a sober second thought, I'm sure.

SPEAKER_01 8:27

Which yeah, thanks for that. Yeah, it's what what troubles me though is that, and I I know a lot of my colleagues share this view, is one thing historically the United States has not been good at. So we're very good at war. We're very good at that military tactical work. We're not good at thinking about what comes the next day or what comes the day after the end of conflicts and cease uh ceases. And this is my concern. And we did not look at it clearly enough with everything happened that has happened in in Gaza after the horrific Hamas attack. And we're not looking at it here effectively. There are proxies all around the world, um, certainly in the region and throughout the West, with Hezbollah, with other organizations, with the Houtis in Yemen. And so to me, the uh what appears to be a lack of consideration for the likelihood of the proxies and non-state actors to start taking activities on behalf of Iran has been underestimated, much as what would happen in the Strait of Hormuz appears to have been underestimated. And that's a real concern because there's a history throughout the the last forty years anyway, of these proxies conducting attacks against civilians because they don't care. Much of the world may respect the rules of war and not pulling in civilian population, but the Iranians don't care. And that's where the concern is for me is become and for everybody is because these proxies are out there. There's plots being disrupted all the time, not only here, but elsewhere. And another point which I think is part of the potential perfect storm, and I'm not trying to be fear-mongering anyway. But when we look at what's happening with funding for our Department of Homeland Security, the fact that our transportation security administration folks have not been paid, we had lines out airports into completely out of the secure area. We know that in airports, once you're be in what we call the sterile zone, so you pass security, there's great security there. But there's that's not the case outside. And so when you layer the fact that we're at war in multiple places or supporting wars in multiple places and conflict, and we have this security situation in a lot of airports around the United States, we're creating an incredible vulnerability that nobody really seems to be paying close attention to. Now, I I trust the professionals, but that to me is another component. I mean, there's a history, and and you may well know this, it goes back quite a few decades, but in the United States and in Europe, but more recently in Turkey, there have been attacks by terrorist organizations at airports. And they're happening outside that sterile zone. So to me, that's a real concern with overlaying everything that's going on with DHS, the Department of Homeland Security in this current environment. And we're seeing more individual lone wolf actors being uh caught here, disruption and plots and actually committing attacks. Right. Those are not gonna dissipate. They're gonna grow. And then the third part of this concern, and then I will stop there, is that we are not paying close enough attention to what Russia is doing. There's some look at it like we're gonna lift sanctions so oil can move. But the fact that there's good reporting out of Europe from our allies in in the West that the Russians are feeding targeting and other intelligence information to the Iranians, right? That's a problem. It's taken the eye off what's happening in Ukraine and Russia, which also presents a threat to everybody. And so to me, this is the perfect story because that's another area where the FBI has lost a lot of expertise in the past year, is in the Russian programs, in the cyber programs, counterintelligence broadly. So when you're looking at all that's going on, you're looking at the firing, the removal, um, the in some cases they took what we called the fork in the road and they left because they saw what was going on and decided they didn't want to be a part of it. Right. It's created what I feel is a very vulnerable situation, despite the expertise and my supreme confidence in the agents and analysts working out there. But you've just watched all that expertise exit, and we've got all these different things going on around the world, and we've led that expertise out. So that to me is creating a perfect storm.

SPEAKER_03 12:59

Yeah, and it's frightening from the perspective of looking at it that you do have all that expertise leaving, but on top of that, the direction that's being given to the individuals that are left over aren't necessarily in the places that most intelligence experts or national security folk would have said, this is where you need to start focusing, this is what you need to be concerned about, these are the ripple effects. You know, um, I just wanted to get your uh thoughts on this before we move on to the next topic. But now that we're seeing uh more of a ground attack from Israel into Lebanon, I know Canada has a very large population of Lebanese, and this goes beyond just um Hezbollah and um Israel. This goes to the point where I think a lot of people may interpret, misinterpret, depending on how that is, that the United States basically decided to side with Israel and they went after Iran, and now Israel is also going after Lebanon and people are dying and land is being taken over. So, regardless of what your religious motivations may be behind this, you may also see this as okay, what am I gonna do in my emigrated country against what's happening in the rest of the world? So I just wanted to get your thoughts on that.

SPEAKER_01 14:18

Yeah, I I completely agree with you. You know, we had the horrific attack on the synagogue in Michigan ten days ago, two weeks ago.

SPEAKER_02 14:25

Right.

SPEAKER_01 14:26

And the individual who did that had just learned that his entire family had been killed by the Israelis in Lebanon.

SPEAKER_02 14:33

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 14:34

Um there was reporting after that suggesting that his brother uh may have been a member of Hezbollah or a leader in Hezbollah. I'm not seeing the intelligence, so I don't know if that's true or not, but it's so indicative of what we're going to see is people you know, even if this man had nothing to do with terrorism apart from the act that he did and ended his own life, clearly um an act against the synagogue terrorism. But we all have to think about what does this mean for us as humans? If somebody killed our entire family, right, including children, including mothers, including siblings, how would we feel? You know, you can in a sense step aside from the politics and look at it as a human being. So for me, that threat of humanity has to be there in everything. And when we look at that, we are setting up a situation in the Middle East where we're gonna have a whole lot of angry people not only in Israel proper and in Gaza and in the West Bank, but in Lebanon, anywhere else that people are in the Gulf where people's families are being harmed. This is creating animus and anger toward the United States. It doesn't matter whether you agree or disagree with that point. That's a fact. And I don't know if you saw this, but just this morning I read something coming out of uh Israel, I think in Heretz in Israeli Daily. And that was that they've just passed a law. Now I don't well, they passed a bill, I don't know that it's become law in Parliament, right that says that they're gonna now implement the death penalty for Palestinians who engage in certain kinds of activity, but it specifically says Palestinians silent on the Israeli settlers who've been killing people to the point where they attacked the CNN crew and the Israeli defense forces have now pulled this entire unit of settlers out of there and they say, hey, this is a no-go. And that worries me. I I think we both know this. You can criticize the state. It doesn't mean you are criticizing the people or you're anti-Semitic. But when you look at all the expedic um war activities going on, the bombs, people being killed, and then you layer on that potentially new laws that say if you're Palestinian, you do this, we're gonna kill you. But if you're Israeli and you do this, well, maybe you'll get prosecuted, maybe you won't, maybe you'll go to jail, maybe you won't. And that's also going to create a terrible situation if it moves forward for us in the future around the world for that diaspora population.

SPEAKER_03 17:15

Because at one time, you know, going back 10, 15, 20 years, we saw what the American administration or the US administration was trying to de-escalate some of the issues that were happening in that part of the world. And I'm not saying that you're seeing it um almost a provocation for escalation, but what you're seeing is almost a blind eye to the fact that whatever is happening can just continue to happen and nothing's going to be done about it. So I see exactly what you're saying, and it's one of the concerns that I have too going forward is that Canada uh just recently over the last couple of weeks, Toronto has seen an uptick in the amount of anti-Semitic um attacks against synagogues and against Jewish community centers. Um, yes, they've been, you know, basically drive-by shootings, luckily no one's been hurt or injured, but it does send a message, right? So this is going way beyond just a geopolitical situation. This is going on to, you know, for seeing that religiously motivated violent extremists and popping its head up, but it's also getting um dispersed with just a geographic situation where, like we talked about, you've got people from different parts of the world who are saying, My family is being annihilated, my friends are being destroyed, I've lost land back in my homeland, and this is all because of what's happening right now. So uh I don't know if there's going to be any real simple answers to any of this, but I do feel that there will be those repercussions. And even if we don't see it within the next six, seven, ten, fifteen months, we were going to eventually see that the repercussions.

SPEAKER_01 18:46

There's no question. And I lived in Israel for a time in early 2001. So I've worked with the Israelis, I've worked with and against the Palestinian terror organization, I've mentored Palestinian entrepreneurs, so I have a very unique perspective of that. And I some of one of the Palestinians I've been mentoring for more than a decade, her family's land was taken from them with no recourse, going back some decades. And you're right, this is going to create a terrible dynamic and a whole lot of angry people. I think it's an entire generation that we're risking losing and that could go out there and turn into future terrorists.

SPEAKER_03 19:27

Yeah. Okay, well, let's move on to one of the other topics that I want to talk to you about. And you mentioned it uh a little bit earlier, is that now we're seeing, you know, this whole transition from uh individuals with a lot of experience um within the FBI higher up, have just basically either been told, listen, you're gonna march to this drum beat or you're gonna get out. And a lot of people have decided, okay, I can't do this anymore. I am gonna get out. And then you're also seeing certain individuals that are within the organization being persecuted against because of investigations that they were asked to do that you know is beyond their control. So I'm just trying to get a sense from um your personal experience inside the Bureau as well as your thoughts as to where does this lead us going forward with the f the FBI.

SPEAKER_01 20:19

I am very, very troubled by it because, as you know, with a lot of the work that you did when you were at CESIS, and I think what people need to understand, and I want them to understand, is that agents and analysts don't pick what they work on. Right. They're assigned work. There's also an internal process within the FBI and within the Department of Justice. If you believe that employee an employee has engaged in misconduct or has done something wrong relative to the job, there's a process. So whether I agree or disagree with that, at least follow the process, and that hasn't happened. So I am deeply be concerned now because there's also a tremendous atmosphere of fear. I am fortunate to know some people still working who are very troubled and who are looking for a lot of support outside because they don't know what to do. They're afraid to say anything in the office, they're afraid of blowback, and that's going all the way up through management. So you now have throughout the FBI a culture of fear, a culture of, wow, I don't want to say anything that's gonna contradict what the directors say because then I might get fired and I've got children and a partner to be concerned about. And it's creating a terrible atmosphere of fear and also risk aversion, which is never healthy in an organization like the FBI with a mission that they have. But this fear, it's also impacting recruitment.

unknown 21:53

Right.

SPEAKER_01 21:54

Despite some of the public claims the numbers are down. They just made a decision that If you're an onboard employee, you could apply to go to FBI agent training. That's that's open to everybody. But you still have to go through the process. The director has made the decision that he's going to eliminate more than 50% of the process to have these people consider to go to Quantico. So that's traveling. Also the decision he made months ago that he would take that classification of law enforcement officer. There's two classifications. I don't want to get too wonky, but we're 1811, that's gun toters in one area. The ICE enforcement guy, not the same category. But he made a decision that he would accept people from other agencies. They're not subjected to the same kind of training. They're not subjected to the same kind of legal, deep, deep, deep legal work that has to be done. And so there's real, you don't do those things if you're not having recruitment problems. And for the first time in all my years, both before I went in the bureau and up to now, and talking to former colleagues, none of us feel like we can encourage anybody to apply to the FBI. I've never felt this. So we're saying, well, it's a great organization. Why don't you just hold on that and let things settle down and see thing how things look in a couple of years? Um, because uh my biggest concern now, and this is talking to the onboard agents, because the other area that's been stripped is the white collar crime and corruption squads. So the very things that we also need to be worried about, they've stripped them down to one or two people trying to manage that. And my concern is that we're creating damage that can be fixed, but I think we might be looking at half a generation to get things back where they need because the organization has lost so much expertise and so much seniority. And one thing I think is really important for people to understand is you can't read a file or you can't read paperwork and know what to do. Knowing what to do comes from talking about it. Right. People have a lot more experience and who can say, hey, that worked. You're not gonna find that on a piece of paper. You'll find the facts in terms of the best way forward. That comes from those conversations. And that's another part that has been really um diminished. And that's really, really concerning on a lot of levels.

SPEAKER_03 24:25

This kind of leads me into my next uh topic or question and concern. And um we talked about a little bit when it comes to the politicization or weaponization of intelligence now and how we're seeing this happening, where um, and we've seen this before. Uh, you know, we can use almost any intelligence organization as an example that those individuals who are in power may pick and choose what they feel is the information that is most prevalent to the actions that they want to take. You know, we can go back some of the years when there was the discussion on whether or not there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and you know, all of these other things. But how do you see this fitting into that? You've got a whole set of new people coming in. There, there's a lot of fear in the organization, there's a lot of fear in the national security intelligence apparatus of the United States right now. How do you see this potentially changing, if at all?

SPEAKER_01 25:24

So that's a really good point. I think something that when I was a young supervisor that I didn't appreciate initially, but rapidly came to appreciate it, like very quickly within a month, is to recognize that having people around you who push back and who challenge your ideas and your decision is healthy. And my concern is that in this environment, we're really, again, you know, as you said, we're picking and choosing. There's another really superb FBI executive who lost her job named Tanya Ugarith. And she was a deputy director of the cyber division for a period of time and the uh highest level person over all the analysis, the director of intelligence information. And she's extraordinary. I met her when she only had a few years on the job, and she doesn't know for sure, but her belief is that part of the reason that she was uh shown the doer was because she pushed back on certain assertions that were trying to be made relative to China. And she said, no, that's not what we're seeing. And I think that not questioning, not pushing back, not having an environment anymore where people feel free to push back above them. Right is really troublesome. And that's one thing Director Muller, who just passed away, uh who I had the privilege of working with, that's one of the things that he was known for, and that I personally enormously respected because he thought nothing of saying to the person on the ground as he did with me and something and some reminiscences I wrote about him, is that he wanted to know. Like he asked me at one point whether we should open an office or we're gonna open an office in North Africa, and certain people wanted it in a location. And um, he said to me, What do you think? And I just looked at him and I was quiet because it's just the two of us. He said, Oh, they told you not to talk to me. I said, Yes, sir. He said, I'm asking the question again, Lauren, and I want to answer. So, I mean, that's what set him apart. To me, that's healthy leadership, that's the kind of leadership that I grew up with and worked with and worked for during my tenure in the FBI, and that's critical because if we aren't willing to question, you know, you might not get your way at the end of the day, it doesn't matter. But to be able to have those conversations and to know what you don't know and to be able to start figuring out what you don't know, you don't know. Which sounds like word salad to people, but in our truth behind all that though. There is, you know, so to me, that's um that's another problem. When you look at the national security strategy, the national defense strategy, and the annual threat assessment, all three documents that come out since January in the United States, they conflict with one another. They're not even saying the same thing in different documents, and they conflict within the document. So, for example, um, narcotics, uh trafficking organizations, absolutely a threat. Unquestionable. But when you're reading all the way through national security and you've got to get way down in there before you start hearing about our traditional adversaries, including Iran, which doesn't get much attention in that document, and you begin to wonder, and for those of us who know, it's cool completely politicized, and that's not healthy for the country. It doesn't matter who the occupant of the White House is, it really doesn't. But when somebody is trying to push an agenda that's not reflective of the actual threats or the the ranking of the threats, then that to me does harm to the United States. Because if you focus on something that's a threat, but there's a larger threat, and you're taking your eyes off that larger threat, you put people at risk.

SPEAKER_03 29:08

Yeah, I can see that. For my listeners that are outside of the United States, and I want to ask you a quick question because traditionally the United States, Canada, Great Britain, and other 5I partners have been collaborative on so much information when it comes to threats. But if the current state of non security and intelligence in the United States is focused in a different direction or potentially not even taking the information that's being given to them to use for the purposes of providing that information, how do you see that affecting the relationship between the American intelligence community and the rest of the world?

SPEAKER_01 29:49

I'm very concerned about it. The I want to start off with a positive thing, and that is as we both know, those relationships have existed institutionally for for 70 years or more in some cases. Um, but it's also very dependent on the personal relationships.

SPEAKER_02 30:09

Right.

SPEAKER_01 30:09

And I think that's something that will continue to hold a lot of this in good stead with the CIA, the FBI, and their partners in Canada and around the world, is those hopefully those personal relationships will continue to take precedence. But it has a chilling effect. It has a chilling effect in the same way that if a country, and this I'm sure has happened to you, I know it's happened to me, where a partner shares intelligence information that's highly sensitive, really, really valuable to them and to us.

SPEAKER_02 30:41

Right.

SPEAKER_01 30:42

And then you send that back to Washington or to Ottawa, and somebody there decides without really talking to the source of the information, hey, I'm gonna use that information. And then you damage that. That happened when we went to war in Iraq. There was information that was cited by the United States at the UN and it was information the French had given us on at the time a very closely held spot that they disrupted. And they were livid. They called me in and ripped me up one side and down the other, and justifiably so. So I think there's there's real risks there because that creates a chilling effect. And what I have confidence in and I hope can carry the day on things until things stabilize is those personal relationships. Because they are critical. But there's no question that our ability to share information with our allies, with our partners around the world, is being diminished because the trust is being diminished. And I just hope it's I'm confident that it's not going to be a terminal illness. Um but I am I am very concerned in the short term, um, particularly because some of the people we've lost out of the roles, for example, in London, a very experienced agent was running that office, and and he was another one of the people that Patel threw up.

SPEAKER_03 32:07

Right. Well, I have to say, one of the things that I've taken a lot of um joy from is the fact that still keeping in contact with individuals like yourself when it comes to these types of um discussions, I think is another indication that we haven't gone that far apart. We're just looking at things a little bit differently or being forced to look at things a little bit differently. I'm looking at the time on the wall, and I know we're getting to the end here, and I just want to thank you so much, Lauren, for taking the time. I'll have to have you on again if you're willing to come on, or I'd love to you know also be a guest on any one of your uh uh content creations, so please let me know. But for my listeners, uh please make sure to uh leave some comments. Um I want to thank Lauren. Please come back again, but thank you for being on.

SPEAKER_01 32:55

Thank you so much for having me, and I look forward to another conversation because clearly, as with Phil Gerski, you and I, the three of us, could talk for for hours, I think, without ceasing.

SPEAKER_03 33:06

We have a lot to say, that's for sure. Okay, take care. Thanks, Lauren.

SPEAKER_01 33:09

Thank you so much. Bye-bye.

SPEAKER_00 33:11

Thank you for being part of this episode of Intelligence Conversations. A sincere thank you to Lauren C. Anderson for providing insightful and timely commentary. Lauren is a major contributor to the Steady State Sentinel, produced by the Steady State, a community of former national security professionals who spent their careers safeguarding the United States at home and abroad. From the evolving security implications of the conflict involving the United States, Israel, and Iran, to the growing concerns surrounding proxy operations, diaspora intimidation, intelligence politicization, and the future direction of the FBI. This conversation highlights just how interconnected today's threat environment has become. As global tensions continue to rise and the intelligence landscape shifts, discussions like this are more important than ever. Not only for those working in national security, but for anyone trying to better understand the risks shaping our world. If you enjoyed this episode, please be sure to like, share, comment, and subscribe. Your support helps expand these important conversations and ensures more listeners have access to expert insight and analysis on the issues that matter most. And if you'd like to help support the continued production of intelligence conversations and other content from the Global Intelligence Knowledge Network, please consider supporting the channel through BuzzSprout. Stay tuned for the next Intelligence Conversations.