From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A production of My Heart Radio. Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt, my name is Noel. They called me Ben. We're joined as always with our super producer Paul. Mission Control decons. Most importantly, you are you, You are here, and that makes this the stuff they don't want you to know. You know. I was thinking, we're all familiar with the idea of secret documents in fiction, right, It's it's the the mommy of any any good spy thriller. Right, It's the great mcguffin of so many stories. And increasingly conversations about real life classified documents are in the mainstream news. More people are thinking about them in a factual way than they have for many years. But, as our fellow conspiracy realist Jack Over on Instagram recently asked, what does all this stuff mean? What is all this gobbledegook? That's why today we're exploring federal classification. They're probably a couple of episodes related to this and why it is such a problem in the modern day, Uh, here are the facts. You gotta have it, right, You gotta have secrets. It's a necessary evil. And uh, you know we're big transparency advocates, but even even folks like us know that some doors have have to remain closed, right, Like, it's I think it's reasonable to assume, you know, whether you were died in the wool patriot, or whether you're like an avowed enemy of the so called Great Satan, or like millions of other people, you just happened to live in the US. I think we all assume that this country has a lot of secrets to keep. Oh yeah, no question there. Well, yeah, and anytime there's global conflict, because of the way our systems of society are set up, you've got to have secret action possible. And in order to take a secret action, you have to conspire with your team basically, or collude with your team, work with your team in secret to get things done. It's just weird that we also have a system of democracy, at least in this country, where were we all kind of pay for a government to function for us, but then we don't get to know what that government is doing. Often. It's very strange. Yeah, that's you can at the root of one of the paradox is here, and it very much is a conspiracy. You know, we we mentioned this in our books stuff that will want you to know, which is out now wherever you find your favorite books, uh, and just you know, to mention some some local spots you can get it. Books are Magic in Brooklyn has them, and pal Books in Portland. We've had some really cool reports of sightings in the wild. Need to know that these very awesome, legacy, amazing businesses have the book. So the US itself started as a secret plot. It started as a conspiracy and now hundreds of years later, like any other government, this need for secrecy eventually lead to wait for it, paperwork. Oh and also murder and also coups and uh ton of corruption. But well, just for today, we'll we'll put that to the side a little bit and you'll see why. Vocabulary, oh gosh, so much fun. Vocabulary so much dare we say jargon meant to obfiskate? Yeah, legally ease right, Uh, all sorts of things. You know, we said this years ago and I still think it's true. At a certain point you have to ask, is this language purposely meant to be off putting right there. There are a lot of people who don't want you to read these sorts of things. Uh. And that's not saying that they're all Munti Burns esque lawful evil on the D and D scale, just you know, doing some weird stuff, steepling their fingers and going No one would make it through this paragraph, but the result ends up being the same as if they had done that on purpose. Every other nation has done this too. It's not a glasshouse situation. It's a glass planet here. Uh. In the US, the Civil Service Act of eighty three established what we call the predecessor of background checks. Background checks still very much a thing. We've got an episode coming up. I think it will be later this week on that. Uh. But it's strange because they've always been, as Corporate America puts it, building the plane while they're flying it, right, or building the car while they're driving it. The current system for classifying stuff with established way back in nine and it keeps getting uh readdressed by executive orders often and then there will be congressional investigations that usually happen when someone has shot the bed in one way or another. Uh. Currently, anything we say about the classification system as it stands today, is mapped out by an executive order from the Barack Obama administration Executive Order one three, five to six. Save you some time. It's not really a page turner. It's freely available online. You can read it. It's got a lot of the legal ease nomenclature. It tries to be precise, but as we'll see, it still runs into some of the same vague and dangerous problems of the classification system overall, which are conspiracies. Yeah, I mean, it's it's it's kind of like, you know, when maybe a legal an opposing legal team wants to just throw a wrench in the works of you know who, remember they're arguing against, they will just um bury them in in discovery or or in like you know, paperwork that is literally sending like truckloads of stuff. Uh So they end up in a needle in the haystack situation. And that's kind of what a lot of these overly long, overly complex documents kind of are for the public. Because I had a minor revelation I just want to share with you before we move on to the next part. I was thinking about why the uh colonists were so successful in their tradecraft attempts during the Revolutionary War when the United States was founded through this conspiracy, right, And I imagine the British forces, the government itself being very much used to tradecraft, trying to infiltrate their ranks, right, trying to get in and find information, figure stuff out about their movements for an advantage. Right. But it feels I was trying to think of a time when the British government would have had British like people, people who were recently British uh, trying attempting to do that against them, attempting to work against them like and then figuring out it must have been much more difficult to ascertain whether someone was a perhaps foreign spy in this case, because foreign spy would have been formerly British, not that long ago, I guess, does that make sense? Sure? Yet there were also, of course, you know, uh, colonists from other parts of Europe, you know, Germany, France and so on, who would have been treated as possible you know, possible possible spies or infiltrators. One one thing I think that's huge about that situation is we have to remember how slow information was. You know what I mean. So there there was literally no way for the crown to know what was going down until someone got across the ocean to tell them. So there was a lot there was a big window of time here that just doesn't exist today. You know, I think that's I think that's a big part of it. Um. Also, there was a lot of a lot of local support. That part of history isn't isn't sanitized, that part is true. A lot of people were going, I might not agree on everything with you, but yeah, no, screw these taxes. I hate this. I hate this keen guy. Where does he get the nerve? And you know what, if you have a problem, come find us. The exact same thing is going to happen when lunar colonies come into existence. The exact same thing is going to happen if people ever have a permanent foothold on Mars. What are you gonna do? Yeah? Um, I mean nuclear weapons would be the danger, but then you would literally be wiping everything off the map. So anyway, that's that's definitely gonna happen, right Uh. The first the first lunar government, if it is a government not a private entity, is a only gonna be part of the Terran world. For Generation or two, I would give it, you know, and I'm glad to Eat Crow on air if I'm wrong in the show still on when that happens. But Generation or two, Max, Hey, there should be a podcast called Eating Crow. I don't know, Sorry, it just occurred to me. That's I don't know why. I don't know what it will be about. It might be a weird a SMR like muck Bang type thing, or it might just be someone apologizing, um, you know, very self deprecatingly every every episode. I almost guarantee it already exists. It's a good name, Tom, I'm saying it is. It is hosted by Pete de Reya. Eating Crow. It's for uh, it's amazing. It's stories of amazing people, for entrepreneurs and leaders. We haven't heard it. I haven't heard it. I don't know, but you know, we we are very much. We're not a zero sum game here. We do believe that rising tides carry all vessels. Federal classification does think of things in the terms of a zero sum game. Right now, multiple agencies in the government can classify stuff. From the Department of Defense does most of it. Uh, Department of Energy does a lot because they touch nuclear technology. Uh. And for a while, being cleared by one agency didn't always mean you were cleared by another one. That's changed. So now like if you get a background check and you pass it such that say, uh, the d o D gives you secret access, then that same background check is supposed to be honored by other agencies as long as it's still current. But you know, it's like transferring credits at a college. You'd be surprised by how how messy it can get. Of course, you know, if you're the average US resident, you're not going to run into this stuff. And unfortunately, folks, we looked into this. You cannot classify info on your own. You can't. You can like make a motion to have a record sealed, but if you're a civilian, that's about as close as you get. You can't. You know, um, you can't accidentally shart at your next holiday party and then tell everybody that that is considered classified information, right and that because you can't put them in prison if they say, oh, man, you know, Derek or Jane or whatever totally started and everybody knew it because they were talking at the time. But wait a minute, but there are are there not instances though, where something maybe you know, of national security interest does occur with witnesses what happens then then then well, yeah, that's my first go to. But are there potentially like you better sign this thing and we'll give you some money or something, and if you say anything then at this point you will be liable And if they don't play ball, then maybe it has take them out. But surely this has happened. Yeah. Before the days of the Internet and social media especially, was a lot easier to tamp down on that kind of um. The strategy used to be tamped down in suppressing information, right, and now increasingly the strategy is to flood information. Right. So now you've gone from like one person says here's a needle, and you go, oh, snap, that's a secret needle. Shut up, don't tell anyone. Now that doesn't work as well. So now people have to increasingly or agencies and entities have to increasingly say, oh, maybe there's a needle, but let's see if you can find it through these I was talking about earlier, where it's like, yeah, either the thing is in here and we are technically in compliance of what we're supposed to do under the law. But also like screw you and fat chance you're ever gonna find what you're looking for. Oh also speaking of fighting the because I love going into the trenches on this kind of stuff, guys, you know that. Uh, not to brag, but someone just got their piece of the settlement with Wells Fargo. Uh So you get what you get what I can't. I can't put a number on it. But the next round of drinks, his next next half a shot, we'll share, We'll split it. Uh So, for a long time, the issue was and this is still a thing. Anybody who's listening, who's in the business today knows this. A lot of agencies tend to function as their own little fiefdoms. And that's a that's a problem, you know, that kind of siloing of information that continual in fighting for budget that leads to serious issues. And I don't know, I'm still stuck on it. You know, just for fun, it would be great to hear from some of our fellow conspiracy realists who tried to convince a government or friend group they had classified something. Let us know if it works for you. But to our knowledge, I think at this point The closest you as a civilian can get is trying to get someone to find to file an inn d A, which actually can get pretty unethical and they don't always work. You can uh petition to have a record sealed or something, but if there, if there's a witness, and you yourself are not a man in black, uh Johnny Cash or otherwise, you're gonna have a tough time keeping it secret. But maybe we talked about that so secret there are there are different levels right there, levels to the game. So maybe we can walk through what those are, and then some of the exceptions, which we might have to save for a later episode because they're the real juicy ones. So um, getting back to what classification is. It can typically be divided up into three sections or or I guess levels, you know, almost like escalations, you know, each one kind of being more more secret than the next. You've got confidential, which is described officially as the unauthorized disclosure of which reasonably could be expected to cause damage to the national security that the original classification authority is able to identify or describe. God, that's clear as clear as crystal. The most important thing here is it's something that could reasonably be expected to cause damage. Right, reasonably expected to cause some damage to national security. And then it just goes up from there with with tiny little modifiers to let you know the severity has increased. And then we've got secret secret secrets are no fun because it could like get you killed, the unauthorized disclosure of which reasonably once again could be expected to cause serious damage to the national security um that the original classification authority is able to identify or describe. So we've gone from damage to serious damage. Right, Okay, it's also really important to note there that that part at the end where your brain kind of shuts off the that the original classification authority is able to identify or describe. It's very important. You have to be able to show that this thing will cause damage. Right. You can't just say some agent or some person who is in charge of one of these organizations can't just say, well, we're pretty sure it's gonna cause damage. You have to show it again. Shout out to the Mitchell and Webb conspiracy sketches. They're so good. Please watch them. Uh they've got one on the moon landing, one on Princess Diana, and then one on aliens. I think so they're The next one is the crowd favorite, beloved by conspiracy realists and screenwriters alike. Top secret, also also weirdly beloved by a lot of folks in government. Uh. This is the unauthorized disclosure of which reasonably could be expected to cause exceptionally rave damage to the national security that the original classification authority is able to identify or describe. We're gonna keep things like special Access programs or s a p s and controlled unclassified to one side for now. Although controlled unclassifies my favorite because it is one of my favorites. Because they're saying it's illegal to distribute this. Okay, we know that people know, but we don't wanna, you know, put it in the headline. We don't want it on page one of the conversation. Uh. And this, you know. I'm glad you guys point out the commonalities here. There are three big components to the way this is constructed. So the first is it's all about national security. Right. It's a purposely vague, broad and shifting term. That's one of the big problems as well. Uh, Matt, I want to go back to what you said earlier. The addition at the end of classifying, agency can't just say you know, they have to they have to say this, we have to describe what makes this information a threat, and we have to describe the ways in which it could damage national security. However, this agency or entity defines national security, which is a great boogeyman and rhetorical device used to scare you if you were American. Also, reasonably, that term throws me a little bit, reasonably to whom you know what I mean, like like that that that that to me where it seems like it might be a unifying element or a way of kind of like, you know, having these things have some sort of standard. To me, it's kind of like a vague element reasonably, you know what I mean, I mean it just reasonably depending on the circumstance. And then too, and who's who's talking. Yeah, there's some I mean, it's almost like we'll get to this later. But it's, uh, it's pretty subjective. Those those three components are all dangerously subjective, and sometimes they have to be. But good example, just off the top of the dome would be um going public with the construction details an operation manual for a new type of nuclear missile, right that could reasonably be expected to damage national security because you're telling geopolitical rivals, hey, here's what we built. You can do it at home. But unreasonable would be creating like a Rube Goldberg esque mousetrap series of events that would lead to a harmy national security. Like nobody can know that the head of the n essay is UH super into the sport of cricket, because if people know cricket, being popular in areas like Pakistan may lead to him being approached by people who are big in the cricket community and they may leverage him for secrets. Therefore, he is a it's a grave threat to national security. Knowing to know that he is an absolute nut for cricket, that would be kind of unreasonable. But you can see it making sense if I keep thinking about the SR seventi one UH plane, guys, the spy plane. It feels like if that thing, if you're writing that out in the same way in long form of why that thing has to be kept secret, it would make sense, even though it would be a chain of events. Right the public, if we tell the public that these UFOs they were seeing were actually this you know, new spy plane, then our you know, geopolitical enemies find out that we have this spy plane. Then they realized that they've also been seeing the spy plane, and just like you could make sense, and it's a it's a feedback loop too because one of the big and you know, we want to speak carefully about this, but one of the big motivators for a lot of classification, at least in those hypotheticals were discussing, involves not letting the enemy know how we know what we know, right, So some U A piece stuff might be classified because uh, factions of the US government don't want other countries to know the sophistication or the nature of their surveillance techniques. That's a very real concern. So that's it. Those rankings. By the way, Uh, since they all talk about the degree of potential harm what they call potential harm in the business sensitivity, How sensitive is this? They're not talking about emo albums, so they're talking about how dangerous something could be, and they just thought sensitive was a less scary word. So anyway, that's the show. We got them record scratched. Not really. Uh, this feels high level, right, it feels cut and dried, but it's just scratching the surface. And there is no doubt. There's absolutely no doubt that in some cases over the years and quite recently, this same approach to secrecy has done much more harm than it has done good. We'll tell you what we mean after word from our sponsors. Here's where it gets crazy. Uh, first, first things first, way more people have access to this stuff than you might think, like millions of people in the US soon talking about right, So, how many people, Like, what's the threshold for secrecy? This is my question. I know it's a very dumb question, but I love dumb questions. What's the like, at what threshold does something no longer become secret? How many people does it take to know something before everybody can say this is no longer a secret? Right? Like, if if three millions something people all get top secret classification tomorrow, are we still gonna pretend it's a secret. We have a handshake, have to it's for national security. But I have a question for you guys. I was watching a show with my girlfriend the other night, and uh, there was like a redacted document, you know, and it had all the like the scratched out text correct, And she pointed out, like why would you even print the thing out if you're just gonna go through it? And uh and and you know black line it like that. And I guess my my response was, well, it wasn't always like that, you know. It's like some of those things change, right and and and yeah, sometimes you legally have to print that stuff out right because you're compelled to by the law government. Well and also if you think about the old school, the old school methods are still in place, that's because now they're more secure than a lot of you know, like cloud storage. Why would you do that? Um, But this, this kind of this clearance question also gets us in really crazy situations. When the Chelsea Manning leaks hit, they're parts of the government put out orders to their employees saying, hey, if you don't have access, you can't read this. Even though it's like all over the news, even though it's all over wiki leaks, it's a type and a click away. It gets surreal. So as of August, which is some of the latest numbers, we could find somewhere around one point three million people in this country had some kind of top secret security clearance. That doesn't mean they all hang out in some borges esque library, you know, joking about who really killed jfk Uh. They also don't get universal access to everything. Uh, that's not how it works. And everybody works in the security field who just heard that idea probably almost had a heart attack because that's ridiculous. It's a messy bag of badgers. It's a ton of people. They're expected to keep a ton of secrets, and a lot of these secrets. Honestly, to you, the average resident of the US, if that's what you're based, it wouldn't matter to you. You wouldn't care. You'd be like, what's the big hubbub bub? Where's the beef? Right? Why? Why? Why is this a secret? It's like if you caught somebody, Um, if you caught somebody in a completely unnecessary lie, you know, and you said, uh you they were like, Okay, I'm wearing green socks but no one can know, and you found out their socks were read, and you would say, well, why why are we having this conversation? Man trying to contuse you because you might be the enemy? Right. It's weird stuff. It makes this whole conversation makes me think about that listener who sent us a voicemail about that manhole cover that had the alarm on it, Like, how many people knew that manhole had an alarm on it? Like, I wonder how many people there were. I bet it's way more than I imagine. Oh yeah, yeah, And and sadly it's not. It's still not Chen or Chen's employer, the people who could help avoid that that situation. And we're able to joke about this because Chen's okay, by the way, Uh, but this happens a lot more than you think, and a lot more people have access to secret stuff than that it sounds. But that's a big problem. There's their fiefdoms, their cliques. You know, we said before the break that a lot of groups can classify something well to be very diplomatic, they're they're a little proactive about it, they're a little zealous about it. And this is where we go to a great piece written by Mike Giglio for The Atlantic back in correct Um. And in this piece, Giglio points out that since World War Two, eight different government commissions have taken a a hard look at this um and every single one of them found that the US is most likely overclassifying things. So the question then becomes, what does it mean to over classify. Um. It essentially means that some people are getting a little bit too high on their own authority and and uh and wielding it like a like a like a blunt instrument. Um, their horses too high. Indeed, it is your soapboxes are too stacked. Uh. This is not to say that the classification is a bad thing, because we know it's not a bad thing. I mean there's a reason for it to exist. There is information that if falling into the wrong hands, could actually put you know, American lives at risk. And and look, if there was no classification, if there were no secrets, not just in the US, but around the planet, then civilization as you know it listening to this podcast would come toppling down very quick. Things would descend into chaos. And that's not hyperbole. But Giglio knowing this as well, says too much national security information, from trivial to the politically inconvenient, gets labeled confidential secret or top secret, meaning you can't you will never be able to access it unless you have that clearance, you pass that background check, you get read on as they say in special access programs. But again, like to the earlier point, you made matter of course, you have to classify stuff like undercover operations, black bags, stuff abroad, sending the stealth helicopters to get bin laden, or the latest hot gossip on a foreign rival, or research into surveillance tech and weapons of war. But then there's stuff like this, And I really appreciate that you put this in here, Mike. This is a legitimate classified paragraph from a two thousand six diplomatic cable. It was leaked by Chelsea Manning in I suggest we round robin it and just well, it's kind of long, so we'll just switch off sentence to sentence. Uh, And then, dear listeners, tell us if you think this should have been classified at the end, or actually, um, if you guys have already read this, well, let's let's also amongst ourselves talk about whether this should have been secret. Dakastani weddings are serious business, a forum for showing respect, fealty and alliance among families. The bride and groom themselves are a little more than show pieces. Weddings take place in discreet parts over three days. On the first day, the groom's family and the bride's family simultaneously hold separate receptions that sounds nice. During the receptions, the groom leads a delegation to the bride's reception and escorts her back to his own reception, at which point she formerly becomes a member of the groom's family, for saking her old family and clan. The next day, the groom's parents hold another reception, this time for the bride's family and friends, who can inspect the family they have given their daughter too. On the third day, he rose no, it says, the bride's family holds a reception for the groom's parents and family. If annything has redacted the word reception, because that'd be would be a lot of black ink right there. Attle does this is like a column out of like you know, a Vanity fair or something like that. It really just sounds like sort of like a you know, Robin Leech kind of Lifestyles of the rich and famous, sort of David Attenborough anthropological word. It's a cable. It's a cable. So it's just it's information coming from is it from the consulate or from from an embassy? Right, that's generally what these cables were. Just communications. Yes, they're just diplomatic messages. So look this doesn't have it. It's like a telegram, right, it's a text best text based message from you know, various parts of the Department of State. So I guess, first, congratulations to all the Dagastani newlyweds out there, But how is this national security? When Chelsea Manning leaks this is technically a crime for which one can be imprisoned, despite the fact that when we confirm this, you can find information about these weddings at any number of publicly accessible forums, right you can. You know, it's the age of the internet. You could go on Twitter and say, hey, anybody know uh Dagastani person, tell me about the weddings, and then they would tell you. Because it's not like they're giving you the keys to nuclear power, so that stuff is classified. And and again that's not a thing on the Dakastani newlyweds. Again, congratulations, but your wedding is not a matter of national security, most people would say another another funny one that got me here, h was very hell arresque catch twenty two. Even the grand Poobas of the intelligence community think this is overkilled. The former director of the CIA and the n s A famously complained about it Michael Hayden said everything secret. I mean I got an email see Merry Christmas. It carried a top secret in s A classification marking. That's his quote, Ship Christmas. Nobody. I should have said happy holidays. That's why, uh war on Christmas? I said. So that's that's kind of weird though, right like when we because when we think about this stuff, we think of you know, uh, secret operations, we think of suppressed technology, we think of active spies or active wet work missions. But no, it's stuff like sometimes this stuff like Merry Christmas. And here's how these people handle weddings, very like talk of the town. It is there is the purpose of this redaction just so you don't even know the person was there and and and who they were. And maybe there's more to it that could be you know, from prying eyes, uh give away the game to some degree, right right, figuring out how we got this information again or um, you know. But then the question comes up from earlier, what is a reasonable expectation of damage the national security? I mean it gets weird. You could say this is people with good intentions just being a little over zealous, little over protective, and that does make sense until you realize the next problem. Different agencies of the same government use classification against each other. They use it to beef. And this is a true story. It's that old jurism addiction crap, right, Yes, it's like but I like it. It's almost like up tweets, you know what I mean, But like that that people can't see, you know. It's it's it's like because there's they're these you know, back and forth with these agencies, etcetera. That they're they're seeing these. So there could be little digs kind of built in, uh, in the same way that you know, celebrity might dis another celebrity on Twitter without actually naming them. M yeah, I think that's a good comparison. I mean, each agency can function often is its own little kingdom, and they have goals and desires that might contradict the goals and desires of their counterparts. They're also in an eternal existential war for that piece of that beautiful taxpayer pie. So despite having common cause on paper, these groups beef with each other literally all the time. And and Giglio, Uh, if we go back to Atlantic article. Uh, Giglio points out how this becomes an issue Giglio says, quote, there are many scandals that were shielded from view, not just from the public, but from government officials who might have put a stop to them, at least in part by classification. That makes so much sense to me. Guys. We talk on the show all the time about how often when some conspiracy begins, it's because somebody messed up just a tiny bit or maybe a really big bit. But but the organization decided, note, we have to protect ourselves by protecting this person, by making this whole thing not have happened. Right, And everybody messes up sometimes. It doesn't matter how awesome you are, it doesn't matter what clearance you've got. Everybody messes up a little bit sometimes. So like I'm just imagining this game where they're all trying to shield their own mess ups from each other organization. It's so silly, it's weird, it seems. It seems like a comedy movie to me. It is. It is very much. You know, we get to a death, a death of Stalin again Catch twenty two territory with this doctor Strange Love as well. So yeah, correct, actor Strange Love as well. So this is where we go to folks like Elizabeth Goydon, who directs the National Security Program at the Brennan Center, and Goydon notes that it's not always just to cover up the happy accidents, the little mistakes that are all but part of the beautiful human tapestry. It's also a known technique used to keep other people out of the conversation and minimize resistance. You're the CIA, you're gonna do something that you know the FBI or Congress or whomever might not like, then just classify it so that they can't they can't get access to it. Uh. A notorious ajaimable that Goydon brings up would be the CIA's use of torture or I guess the Legal Department requires me to call it enhanced interrogation or something. In the aftermath of September. Uh, they they did conduct torture. They definitely did it. Black sites scattered across the world, and this was seen as a necessary evil. But also visibility of this program was classified out of conversations so that people couldn't stop them beforehand. And that's the issue. The higher classification, the fewer people can read it or raise a flag if something's wrong. And this is the weaponization of classification. It doesn't get talked about much in mainstream discourse because people would rather you not know about it. Just to put it plainly, people don't want you to think about the ways of which this stuff could be used. They want you on your heels. They want you defensive and scared of whatever fits under the umbrella of the national security boogeyman. And that's simply not always the case. Yell by time, Well, let's take a quick pause, have it worth our sponsor, and then we're gonna come back and get more, get more top secret, get more in the weeds of this stuff, because man, there's a lot a lot more dig into. This episode of stuff they don't want you to know. Is brought to you in part by Illumination Global Unlimited. Tired of things is not going your way? Are the people constantly getting the better of you? Why not try Secret Sausage, the brand new clandestine concierge service from Illumination Global Unlimited. Secret Sausage. Huh that sounds fishy? What is that? It sure as fishy, my friend signed up as simple. Just visit your local meat market literally anywhere selling meat, and say the magic words. I'll have one sausage. Please and make it secret for me. That will trigger the sensor embedded deep within the butcher's brain. Trust me, friend, They'll know exactly what to do. Then all you have to do is pony up the fee of one thousand, eight hundred and eighty three dollars American exactly that amount if you please, and he'll be all set. Nothing else to do but wait for the benefits to start kicking in. Okay, So what kind of benefits. That's a lot of money. I don't know if I can afford that. Am I getting something amazing? Well, it's a lot of money and a lot of questions. Look, you'll never know how the Secret Sausage is made, and frankly, neither will we. Like who cares? As long as it works, right, Daddy, I don't fear anything anymore. It's fabulous. Must be that Secret Sausage cod hows a lot of money. Become a special access patron today. Secret Sausage can, in limited use, provide the following side effects drops the scurvy ropes two, toes, three, toes five, the number seven appearing in strange places. If your mes Litho Limited Edition release Vinyl Secret sausage subsidiary of Illumination Global Unlimited. And we have returned as I always folks. You know, we don't always get to choose the ads. The Legal Department says, UH, tells us to say that we are grateful for the continued sponsorship of Illumination Global Unlimited. If you are not read onto the third act of this episode, then unfortunately, we're gonna have to advise you to stop listening. Now. It's not even gonna play if you try and keep going, not even gonna play. So if it's playing, congratulations, whether or not you know it, you have a clearance. Uh. And that's because you must be important to national security, which leads us to the big question what exactly is national security? Well, sort of like beauty or porn. People are gonna tell you I you know it when I see it, and they're all gonna have different opinions and both run deep. The hardest thing about this concept is that national security is a very real thing and it is important whatever it is, as a as a morphous as it may be, whatever it is, we we know it's important. Yeah, that's like number one. It's like we're in always study trying to figure out what a vigu is, you know, like, what's the I'm trying to get a you know how like gangsters say something at the top. You know, it's like a vague as it's short for something too oh vigorous. Yeah, okay, okay, co I had to learn that's literally just now Murban Dictionary. So yeah, so there's a there is no deniance real thing. It is true. I imagine you're the head of the d OE, the Department of Energy. We mentioned them because they're huge in this field because they touched the nukes. So you know, nuclear research needs as much secrecy as possible because billions of dollars and more importantly, if you're a decent person, millions of human lives hang in the balance. But stuff gets so sticky so quick. I know, I'm cursing a lot in today's episode, but there's just so much free about the concept of national security has experienced a cartoonish degree of what is called mission creep. We've discussed this in the past. Mission creep is when something starts with a narrow scope, just like an easy example is let's say let's say Matt Noel and I are on a mission to buy a pizza. So we started having meetings about it for some reason, and by the end of our meetings, we're not just buying one pizza. Now we have constructed a multi year strategic plan that allocates certain amounts of funding to various types of pizza rated by desirability and allergens. Or or we've just decided to go into the pizzeria business. Yeah, that's the next step. Man. You conjured in my mind this image of the Department of Energy and there's just some nukes about and it's just about later. Yeah. But it's like like cats at a bookstore. Yeah. Yeah, Yeah, it's this thing that is the Department of Energy and it's just got these nukes and it's just like huh oh yeah, just touching the nukes. I don't know, it's just yeah, that's very doctor strange love. I was listening to a podcast about and they pointed out some I didn't really clock there's a lot of weird sexual energy in that movie surrounding I mean I did, but I didn't really think about how overt it was. Like, I mean, obviously talking about precious bodily fluids, but just like the General Ripper I think is his name, he's just ready to go, like he and and and he's like about about to pop. If you know what, I yeah, I think he. I think he needs that kind of military situation to really, you know, feel adequation exactly. Thank you. Here's an old Playboy fold out is actually just a missile, you know. So it's it's true. These things get sticky because al right, originally, oh gosh, yeah, no, we gotta keep it. That was accidental. Legal will just write to us. Um so it originally meant just a possible military attack. You have to have operational security. You have to protect national security because you're making sure the nation is safe from adversaries foreign and domestic. But these days, because big business is so hand in hand with governments on a global level and on a domestic level, it is a national security has stretched, it's warped. You could say it's evolved or devolved, we don't care. But it now it means things like economic security, Will this make us lose money? Energy security? Will this mean we can't keep the lights on? Food security? Can we will this threaten our ability to feed the population, etcetera, etcetera. But it gets even worse and more ridiculous when government officials start conflating, oh, and business tycoons start conflating national security with political goals. Will this helper hurt my team? Will this and endanger my job, my career, my profits? From Q one to queue four and people do that all the time. The Goydon says, the system is set up to fail. There's not really accountability. So what happens when national security becomes more like personal security? How great would that be? How great would it be to say, hey, you know, um, I need a zero percent loan because me going broke is a matter of national security. Banks have done that, you know what I mean. They didn't get in trouble, so why not me? Says America. It's making me think about those cables again, um, the diplomatic cables, and just about how much of that stuff didn't feel important because there's so many cables that were leaked at that time into a lot of it was just I don't know, regular calms, except communications between people that seem to be kind of mean in nature when they're talking about other people, like seriously, like just kind of I don't know I E. And you imagine that maybe that's really one of the main reasons people wanted to keep this stuff. Well, there are two things. Because those communications are classified, they're not going to come out, so you can kind of say whatever you want. I guess maybe that's what makes those people say some of those things. But at the same time, it makes me think that that that's one of the reasons you'd want to keep it classified. Yeah, because it's all about relationships. You could impact a relationship at some at some level, and this this is a real problem and there's a hypothetical aspect to it. So let's talk about the valid part. Yeah, you're the president, you're a prime minister something like that. You're you're you're a big man on campus, and you're about to conclude this huge policy deal. You campaigned on this deal. People are waiting for you to do your job, you know, and it doesn't matter what it is. It could be anything autonomous drones, trade deal on semiconductors, expansion of resource extraction, and foreign minds. And you're having this candid conversation with your team about how your counterpart in another country is just a wild dude. He's getting plastered, he's hiring sex workers, he's even showed up in public at Pennsylvania Avenue drunk is a skunk and his underwear trying to get a cab and get some pizza. That is a true story that happens with Yelson sounding familiar. Yeah, uh yeah, yeah Yelson. It was uh even more fun than us at parties where's Yelton did get over served as they would say, wandered into the street in d C and his underwear trying to halicap and gets pizza. Security got to him before the dominoes. But it was so funny, gosh, but it really happens. And you know, the truth of the matter is the real politic is like, yeah, you might winge and moan about this guy in private, but you need to make sure the public, both your country and his or hers are theirs, sees you as too important, level headed folks with good intentions, so you classify your little therapy and complaining sessions as a matter of national security. This happens so much more often than people think. But also it has to Oh yeah, man, it's like when a cop turns on their blue lights so they can run a light, you know, I mean, only it's much more agreeingus than that, and and and much more obscured. But yeah, that's that's just a blatant abuse of power. But how can you even go about calling someone on it when it's been classified? Right, you don't have the right to ask me that you should be arrested for even knowing about that time. Well, you know, me and that guy went to that place, which was not a brothel but a charity. Uh so, yeah, I mean, so there are clear problems. That's our that's our statement today. And whether you were in the business or outside of it, uh, you can see those problems are clear and apparent to go across administrations, to go across political ideologies. If you're not in the United States the unfortunately, something very much like this is probably occurring in your neck of the global woods. So how do we fix it? Should we fix it? Yeah? No, let's just keep it now. I'll say, you know, I love I love imagining founding fathers and historical figures of yesteryear on Twitter. You know that never happened until recently. But I mean maybe people should be overly cautious. Do we have to do? We have to just accept the corrupt in conspiracy of people, you know, doing what seems best for them, even if it endangers the nation, because the alternative is living in a world where your government leaders are going on social social media and saying stuff like l M A O yels and you're a real one shots on me. Once we squash this cold war, you know what I mean, ro guys, squash this cold beef. Yes, squash that cold correct, squash that cold beef. But I mean, that's the thing. These people, no matter what the propaganda tells you about anyone in the world, these people are human. And that means that if they're human, they talk the way that you talk with your friends in private. It's just more dangerous for them to be around a hot mic. So it's kind of weird. It's like, you know what else it reminds me of, I know, we're going along. It reminds me of legacy software stuff that has been patched and repatched and bandiated so much over time that it's almost a ship of thesis argument. And people don't always know how it works. They just know that there's some stuff that you can't do. You know, there's other stuff that you have to do. That's the reason why sometimes in the world of I T there are people whose entire job is just to um, just to be the one person who knows how this crazy thing works, right, like training programs or stuff like Scimitar for delta UM. This kind of stuff is UM. I don't know. It's a very fragile system. You try. You could try to fix some things, but then you could end up making it worse. And one of the immediate consequences of that is going to be the definition of national security just gets a little bit bigger every single time you try to fix it. In the end, we don't have to worry about any of this guy's It's not gonna last much longer. I I had this dream the other night. I'm sorry to bore you with this real quick, but the other night that everything ends, just like humanity. Civilization just ends for whatever reason. And there's there's this one person who managed to, uh to make it in one of these bunkers. It's like a billionaire, right, really smart billionaire, and they made it. And before they die, uh, they're able to type out everything they can remember that happened in history in a like a text document, and that's the only thing that sticks around for the next time humanity begins to arise. And that becomes the Holy Book. It's just this billionaire's remembrances of what happened in history as he died of starvation. Anyway, eha. You know, history is written by the victors, and that's the reason why it's so important to read as much about history as you can, because somewhere hidden in there is the future of what's going to happen to you and the generations after you, which I know sounds terrifying, but it is very true. I had a had a dream recently, Matt where I had a series of dreams where I was hanging out with Robin Williams. I'm not sure why I was in his He had this really nice apartment in New York, and it it was like helping him build furniture and he's giving me advice. It's a weird dream, and he was he wasn't it felt realistic, you guys, because he wasn't nice to everyone. He was the weird as some people. My dream logs are classified. Okay, stop, how do I get read on? Yeah? Alright, so read us onto your opinions there, folks. We're gonna be following up later with an episode on security clearances and how that becomes so insanely weird as well. In the meantime, we want to know your thoughts, whether you're inside or outside the biz. Is there a way to fix this? Should it be fixed? What? What are some other problems you think people need to be made aware of. We can't wait to your thoughts. We try to be easy to find UM online until they classify us. Yeah, you can find us on Facebook, on YouTube, and on Twitter at the handle conspiracy Stuff and by the way, Twitter as a platform right now, absolute bonker's delight to behold. I just thought i'd thrown this in. A fake newly eight dollar verified Chiquita Bennett Brand's account tweeted, We've just overthrown the government of Brazil, to which the actual still identical with the same verified check mark that they, you know, actually received legitimately responded, we apologize to those who have who have been served a misleading message from a fake Chiquita account. We have not overthrown a government since nineteen fifty four. That's great. Here's here's another one I read. I left it was Tesla looking verified saying breaking a second Tesla has hit the World Trade Center. Uh so this is yeah, it's what a time to be alive. What a time. We're conspiracy stuff on those plat forums including Twitter, um conspiracy stuff show on Instagram. Yeah, hopefully you can discern if it's actually us or not. Oh guys, the uncertainty is peak. It's top uncertainty. And in these uncertain times, some of our fellow conspiracy realists find nothing more reliable than an old school phone call. The power is yours. All you have to do is pick up your phone telephonic device and dial one eight three three st d W y t K. You'll hear a voice. You'll hear a beep that tells you you're in the right place beep. After that, you get three minutes. Go wild, get really weird. Give yourself a nickname, a moniker and a k A. We love them as much as Daily Zeitgeist. Tell us what's on your mind. Tell us if we can use your name and message on the air. Most importantly, don't censor yourself. If you need uh more than three minutes to tell us your story, you got links this end. We always love that. Take us to the edge of the rabbit hole. Will do the rest. All you have to do is drop us a line at our old fashioned email address where we are conspiracy at iHeart radio dot com. Stuff they don't want you to know is a production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the i heart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.