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Good evening. 
Welcome, everybody. 
Sorry, I don't know if anybody caught it, but we played the recordings in reverse order. 
That's a mistake. 
We don't usually do that. 
I also want to remind people, please support this radio station because this radio station brings you such fantastic programming. 
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It is really, really important in the world of free speech, which we are going to be delving into with a passion today. 
I'm going to start by reading a bit of a little story. 
Let's sit close by the radio because this is going to be rather interesting. 
It's a story that ran in a news organization known as Reuters back in November. 
You might have read it. 
It's called How an Indian Startup Hacked the World. 
We can't read the whole thing. 
It's 21 pages long, but we're going to read a little bit of it. 
All right. 
It's, again, called How an Indian Startup Hacked the World. 
Came out in November. 
Chuck Randall was on the verge of unveiling an ambitious real estate deal he hoped would give his small Native American tribe a bigger cut of a potentially lucrative casino project. 
A well-timed leak derailed it all. 
In July of 2012, printed excerpts from Randall's private emails were hand-distributed across the Shinnecock Nation's Square Mile Reservation, a wooded peninsula hanging off the South Fork of Long Island. 
The five-page pamphlets detailed secret negotiations between Randall, his tribal government allies, and outside investors to wrest some of the profits from the tribe's then-partner in the gambling deal. 
They sparked an uproar. 
The pamphlets claimed Randall's plan would sell out the tribe's lands, resources, and future revenues. 
Within days, four of Randall's allies were voted out of tribal government. 
Randall, who held no formal position with the tribe, was ordered to cease acting on his behalf. 
Amid the upheaval, the Shinnecocks Casino hopes faded. 
We lost the biggest economic opportunity that has come to the tribe in forever, Randall told Reuters. 
My emails were weaponized. 
The scandal that roiled the Shinnecocks barely registered beyond the reservation, but it was part of a phenomenon that has drawn interest from law enforcement and intelligence agencies on both sides of the Atlantic. 
Randall's inbox was breached by a New Delhi-based information technology firm named Appen, whose sudden interference in the matters of a faraway tribe was part of a sprawling cyber-mercenary operation that extended across the world, a Reuters investigation found. 
The Indian company hacked on an industrial scale, stealing data from political leaders, international executives, prominent attorneys, and more. 
By the time of the Shinnecock scandal, Appen was a premier provider of cyber espionage services for private investigators working on behalf of big business, law firms, and wealthy clients. 
Unauthorized access to computer systems is a crime worldwide, including in India. 
Yet, at least 17 pitch documents prepared for prospective business partners and reviewed by Reuters advertised Appens Pares in activities such as cyber spying, email monitoring, cyber warfare, and social engineering. 
Security lingo for manipulating people into revealing sensitive information. 
In one 2010 presentation, the company explicitly bragged about hacking businessmen on behalf of corporate clients. 
Reuters previously named Appen in a story about Indian cyber-mercenaries published last year. 
Other media outlets, including The New Yorker, Paris-based Intelligence Online, Swiss investigative program Runschau, and tech companies such as Alphabet on Google, have also reported on the firm's activities. 
This report paints the clearest picture yet of how Appen operated, detailing the world-spanning extent of its business and international law enforcement's abortive efforts to get a handle on it. 
Run by a pair of brothers, Rajat and Anuj Kar, the company began as a small Indian educational startup. 
It went on to train a generation of spies for hire that are still in business today. 
Several cyber-defense training organizations in India carry the Appen name, the legacy of an old franchise model, but there's no suggestion that those firms are involved in hacking. 
Rajat Kar's U.S. 
representative, the law firm Claire Locke, rejected any association between its client and the cyber-mercenary business. 
It said Kar had never operated or supported and certainly did not create any illegal hack-for-hire industry in India or anywhere else. 
In a series of letters sent to Reuters over the past year, Claire Locke said that Mr. 
Kerr has dedicated much of his career to the fields of information technology security, that is, cyber-defense and the prevention of illicit hacking. 
Claire Locke said that under Kerr's tenure, Appen specialized in training thousands of students in cybersecurity, robotics, and artificial intelligence, never in illicit hacking. 
The lawyers said Kerr left Appen in part because rogue actors were operating under the company's brand and he wanted to avoid the appearance of associations with people who are misusing the Appen name. 
The lawyers described media articles tying Kerr to hacking as false or fundamentally flawed. 
As for the 2010 Appen presentation boasting of hacking services, they said Kerr had never seen it before. 
The document is a forgery or was doctored, they said. 
Claire Locke added that Kerr could not be held responsible for Appen employees who went on to work as mercenary hackers, saying that doing so would be akin to holding Harvard University responsible for the terrorist bombings carried out by his former student Ted Kaczynski, referring to the former math prodigy known as the Unabomber. 
A lawyer acting for Rajat's brother, Anuj, said his client's position was the same as the one laid out by Claire Locke. 
This report on Appen draws on thousands of company emails, as well as financial records, presentations, photos, and instant messages from the firm. 
Reporters also reviewed case files from American, Norwegian, Dominican, and Swiss law enforcement, and interviewed dozens of former Appen employees and hundreds of victims of India-based hackers. 
Writers gathered the information, or gathered the material rather, which spans 2005 until earlier in 2023, from ex-employees, clients, and security professionals who have studied the company. 
Writers verified the authenticity of the Appen communications with 15 people, including private investigators who commissioned hacks and ex-Appen hackers themselves. 
The news agency also asked U.S. 
cybersecurity firm Sentinel-1 to review the material for signs that it had been digitally altered. 
The firm said it found none. 
We assessed the emails to be accurately represented and verifiably associated with the Appen organization, Sentinel-1 researcher Tom Hagel said. 
Though CARES lawyers say Appen focused on teaching cybersecurity and cyber defense, company communications seen by Reuters detailed the creation of an arsenal of hacking tools, including malicious code and websites. 
Hegel and two other U.S.-based researchers, one from cybersecurity firm Mandiant, the other from Symantec, all worked independently, were able, all working independently, rather, were able to match that infrastructure to publicly known cyber espionage campaigns. 
It all lines up perfectly, Hegel said. 
Over the past decade, Google saw hackers linked to Appen target tens of thousands of email accounts on its service alone. 
That's according to Shane Huntley, who leads the California company's cyber threat intelligence team. 
These groups worked very high volumes to the point that we actually had to expand our systems and procedures to work out how to track them, Huntley said. 
The original Appen has now largely disappeared from public view, but its impact is still felt today. 
Copycat firms led by Appen alumni continue to target thousands, according to court records and cybersecurity industry reporting. 
Well, that's about as far as I want to get. 
But as I said, it's 21 pages long. 
We got into four pages of it. 
It's a fascinating story. 
It's a story that I imagine people really are interested in finding out more about. 
Here's the problem, though. 
You won't find this story on the Internet, at least not on the Reuters site. 
Why? 
Because it's been taken down because of threats from courts in India, from all kinds of legal firms. 
And not only has this story disappeared, but many stories that talk about the story disappearing have also disappeared. 
It's actually more interesting than what Appen is being accused of here, which we can also discuss. 
But I think really what people in the hacking community, people in the freedom of speech community, are most fascinated by is when powerful firms are able to silence critics or investigators and just shut down the conversation. 
We've seen many stories disappear. 
We've even seen podcasts discussing this disappear. 
Joining us for this discussion tonight from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, we have Senior Public Interest Technologist Cooper Quinton, and we have Civil Liberties Director and Senior Staff Attorney David Green. 
Gentlemen, thank you and welcome to Off the Hook. 
Hi, Michael. 
Happy to be here. 
Happy to join you. 
So this is an incredible story, is it not? 
I mean, seeing how this has disappeared, how this original writer's story, which was very thoroughly researched, 21 pages long, and a lot of people were part of the investigation. 
What does it tell you? 
What is going on here? 
How does a court in India have the power to shut this down globally? 
So the court in India issued a judgment, an issued order that ordered Reuters to take the story down. 
It actually also indicated that it had reached agreement with Google to de-index the story. 
So actually, Reuters, and that's disturbing, we don't like foreign courts telling, you know, make it difficult for us not in that country to read stuff. 
But Reuters does have to comply with the Indian court order, for better or for worse. 
What I think is really shocking and really disturbing is how others are using that Indian court order to make it seem like everybody has to take down everything they've written and said about the story, even though the Indian court order doesn't say that in any way at all. 
It's only limited. 
It only says Reuters has to take it down and whatever Google is going to do. 
So I think we could be – I don't know if there are other ways Reuters could have complied with the order. 
It doesn't seem so from the language of the order, but that case is still ongoing. 
And so hopefully at some point, you know, they'll be able to republish the story. 
So who is it who is going beyond what the Indian court initially was ordering? 
Yeah, so there's an entity called the Association of Appen Training Centers that is apparently a group of people who are associated with Appen, who use the Appen techniques and who continue to train people. 
And again, the sort of – the corporate structure of this whole thing is really confusing because there's – it's unclear whether what – who uses the Appen name, who's authorized to use it, if there's a former Appen entity that doesn't exist anymore. 
But there's this group called the Association of Appen Trading Centers in India that says that they still, you know, use the Appen name for trading purposes and that – and their director is the one who brought this action in Indian courts, in the Delhi – in the New Delhi court against first Reuters. 
They've also since brought one against the New Yorker as well. 
And so they're – and what they've done since they got this Indian court judgment is they've gone around – they've been sending emails to lots of people who have, you know, written about this or either republished the Reuters article or digested it or talked about it and say – and, you know, first, you're asking them to help remove this information. 
But then they also, to some people, you know, represent that the Indian court order found that the article was defamatory, which it didn't. 
It represent that they'd be in contempt of court if they did not remove the article, their articles. 
And again, that's – that's not true. 
But it was effective because apparently a lot of people were intimidated or a lot of organizations were intimidated by that language. 
Yeah, you know, it's not unusual when – if you're just a publisher and you get something from someone telling you there's an Indian court order saying you have to take something down, you know, your choices are to spend a lot of time and a lot of money looking into it and seeing if that's actually the case or just to take it down. 
And it's obviously much easier just to do the latter. 
Cooper, your thoughts? 
Yeah, I mean, it has been really effective. 
Unfortunately, over 20 stories have been taken down as of this time. 
And, you know, it's – it shows just how, you know, how sort of easy it is to intimidate people by just, you know, even the presence of a lawyer, for better or for worse. 
Well, we've got a bunch of them on the show right now, so I'm not sure. 
We're going to be intimidated by this. 
And, of course, reading the story, I guess, is kind of similar to publishing the story, although I couldn't read all 21 pages on the air. 
But this is – we've seen many instances in the past where people have taken offense or companies have taken offense at the way they've been portrayed in a story. 
And the normal reaction is to counter with facts, with evidence, and in extreme cases, bring some kind of a lawsuit against the reporting entity if you feel that they have gotten key facts wrong or they're defaming. 
What do you suppose it is about this that made this case evolve differently? 
Yeah, I mean, well, they did sue Reuters, right? 
So they went that far. 
And it's going to be a lot of trouble for them to try and sue other people. 
So they sue Reuters, and I think they're just trying to get as much out of the interim court judgment in that case as they possibly can before they have to go through the time and expense of filing another lawsuit. 
They did sue the New Yorker. 
Unlike Reuters, the New Yorker doesn't do business in India, and the court there said that it could not order the New Yorker because it didn't have the ability to order a non-Indian entity to depublish. 
It said that it could not order the New Yorker to take down its article. 
So that might have indicated then the limit of who they can try and drag into Indian courts. 
But, you know, it's a fairly effective technique. 
I mean, we don't just see this in this case. 
It's actually not that uncommon for people to get judgments in foreign courts and then to wave those around and say, look, there's a court telling you you have to depublish what you wrote. 
Now, go ahead. 
And the sort of exploit, and David can speak more to this, but the sort of exploit that they've used in this case is that the Indian courts apparently in libel cases tend to order the content taken down right away until the lawsuit is settled. 
And so, you know, by suing an Indian court, they're able to instantly take down the content, which achieves their goals, right? 
And they're able to tie this up for years, you know, until everybody's sort of forgotten about the story and moved on, right? 
So it's really sort of, you know, they're taking advantage of an exploit in the Indian legal system, which, you know, happens to be where they're located, but it makes it far more advantageous for them. 
And they have the ability to make that a global action? 
So, I'm not a lawyer. 
David is the lawyer, but no, we argue that no, in fact, that they do not. 
Okay. 
Yeah, it's not a global takedown. 
What they said in some of their emails was they tried to represent it as such. 
And again, someone getting that email is, you know, they could try and hire a lawyer in India if they really wanted to look into it or they can take the story down. 
So it's been fairly effective. 
I mean, not everyone has taken things down, but certainly lots of the reporting has been passed. 
So if Reuters had kept the story up, even if it was only directed at an audience in the United States, they would still be held liable? 
Reuters is a global news company. 
It does business all over the world. 
So Reuters is subject to Indian court's jurisdiction. 
So whether the Indian court could have decided instead of what it did, to only limit their publication in India or in .in domains or Reuters.in, or it could have, the Indian court might have been able to do that, but it didn't. 
That's not what it did. 
And that's, I think, is a question that would require, you know, someone with expertise in how Indian courts work to answer. 
But that's not, that's not what the court did. 
They ordered them to take it, to take it down. 
And because Reuters is subject to Indian court jurisdiction, it has to comply. 
So Alex is our lawyer here on Off the Hook. 
I know you have some input for this. 
Go ahead. 
Yeah, that's great to have you back, David. 
And great to be in touch, Cooper. 
Cooper, by the way, just so you know, this is Alex that also sends the EFF, the DNS data, every day. 
Oh. 
Yeah. 
Alex, good to hear from you again. 
Yeah. 
Yeah. 
Alex, I think you hit a button because now you're not making any noise. 
Ah, I did hit a button. 
You're right. 
Look at that. 
Yeah. 
What a small world indeed. 
But great to have you both back. 
And to talk about such an interesting topic here, too, is I think, you know, David's expertise on this being a really preeminent First Amendment scholar, I think, is so important to how we interpret this. 
But I also think it's just important to remember what Appen did here through their lawyers is essentially a social engineering attack. 
They took something, they misinterpreted it, and they are using psychological pressure points in other legal departments around the world essentially to force these companies into compliance. 
Because legal departments around the world, as David noted, you know, look, we are very risk-averse as a profession. 
If we see something come in and it looks like a valid court order, we're going to try to comply to the lowest common denominator, and we don't want to get the company in trouble. 
So our recommendation generally is going to be to comply with whatever the court's order is. 
And in my experience, and I think Cooper may have insinuated this, too, but in India, things can be pretty extreme. 
And in my experience, especially with intellectual property matters and trademark filings in India, you really have to watch what goes into the pleadings because sometimes Indian counsel will put in some really inflammatory or highly hyperbolic language, and then, you know, the input essentially becomes the output. 
And so you could come out, you know, with a judgment from an Indian court that sounds quite far-reaching but really isn't. 
And I think that media organizations need to stop the default posture of being comply with whatever the court order is for this very example because other companies are going to weaponize that automatic default knee-jerk reaction of complying with whatever the court order is. 
I think that we need to make much more noise about this particular story because it is so incredibly important. 
And if I recall correctly, the reporter who originally broke this story was Raphael Satter at Reuters, and he's been on this show numerous times as well. 
I did not know that. 
What a small world this is. 
That is incredible. 
Yeah. 
Yeah. 
So the other thing that's really a very small world here, and I'll mention this to you guys, and we can talk about it more offline. 
But this is such an important story, I think, for the EFF as well because if you look at the history of the Appen Technology Center and what it was before that, it was Beltrox before that. 
And Beltrox was this essentially hacker-for-hire outfit that was running roughshod all throughout, I think, from about 2015 onwards. 
But you can connect the dots. 
Beltrox actually comes after Appen, is my understanding. 
They were Appen alumni. 
Oh, you know, that might be right. 
Yeah, it might be right. 
And then I think you have this Appen Technology Center that's trying to, you know, enforce this judgment around the world, so maybe it's kind of going full circle. 
But the- The Appen name has been passed around a lot, for sure. 
And, Cooper, you may know more about this, but if you go back and you look at the Beltrox data, and I have a lot of data that is a separate branch of this, a separate branch of what I believe are Beltrox-related attacks, but they all relate to a threat. 
Well, not all of them, but a good number of those earlier attacks relate to a threat actor that was associated with the name Amanda Lovers. 
And Amanda Lovers was also associated with attacks on the EFF quite a few years ago. 
Yeah, we actually wrote a story about this. 
The Fish for the Future story. 
Yeah. 
Yeah. 
So it really is a much smaller world. 
It goes really kind of full circle here because, you know, if we can't get the word out about this type of threat intelligence and this type of data, then, you know, it's harming, I think, worldwide and global cybersecurity efforts as well. 
Not just, it's not just about reporting. 
It's about security. 
And on that note, we're talking about something that came out of a court in, I believe, New Delhi in India. 
What if the court was in Moscow? 
What if the court was in Beijing? 
What if the court was in one of the so-called adversaries of the United States? 
And there was a story reporting on hacking attempts or something else coming from one of those nations. 
And they took exception to it and said, no, we're going to file suit against you. 
Would we find ourselves shutting it down because of what they say? 
Or is there something different about an Indian court? 
So this phenomenon where people get foreign court judgments and then wave them around and say that everyone in the world has to take things down actually happens far too frequently. 
I mean, there's even – in the libel area, there's a term for it, which is libel tourism, which means you file your lawsuit in the most libel-friendly jurisdiction in the world, which probably right now is probably Australia. 
And you get a judgment there. 
And some courts will even do things like order people who they have no jurisdiction over to – The takedowns are rare, but they might have monetary judgments against people. 
And then your choice is to defend a lawsuit in – if you're the one sued to go – whether you want to defend a lawsuit in Australia or take a default judgment. 
You just ignore it and the court answer a default. 
The U.S. 
actually passed a law specifically to address this called the Speech Act. 
And what that law says is that if someone obtains a foreign court judgment in a defamation case, that judgment is not enforceable in U.S. 
courts if they would not have won the case under U.S. 
law. 
So if someone has First Amendment defenses or statutory defenses or even state constitutional defenses that would have immunized them, then the foreign judgment cannot be enforced against them in U.S. 
courts. 
Now, it means that person can't go to the foreign country because then he might be able to be enforced against them. 
But it was such a big phenomenon that Congress actually passed a law to address it. 
So that doesn't apply in this case? 
Well, it doesn't – well, it does apply. 
That law is really designed for monetary judgments because the court systems that will issue – sort of take order things to be depublished like here, that's actually quite unusual. 
Although, for what I've heard from talking to lawyers in India, it's routine in India. 
But that's actually quite unusual, especially for a country that has its legal system founded on English commonwealth law, as India does. 
So – and the speech act is really more designed for monetary judgments. 
That being said, if they really tried to enforce the speech act against someone – if I tried to enforce it in U.S. 
courts, I don't – I'm sorry. 
If they tried to enforce the Indian court order in U.S. 
courts, I do believe the speech act would be one of the many defenses that someone would have. 
So – well, you know, it's – go ahead. 
I wanted to put myself in the chair for a minute too. 
Like I think that their concern is probably that if they try any sort of legal cuteness, right, by leaving it up in the U.S. 
or leaving it up in other countries, that they expose their employees in India to risk, right? 
So I can understand why they're taking sort of the most broad stance because they have a lot of employees in India that they don't want to put at risk. 
And in fact, Raphael Satter, who we mentioned earlier, one of the authors of the original story, he had Indian citizenship by marriage. 
And he has – since this story came out, he's had that Indian citizenship revoked by the Indian court pretty clearly because of this story. 
So the sort of – the effects, right, aren't without – you know, the concerns aren't without merit, right? 
There's definitely already some blowback against the journalists who have reported this. 
Well, you know, that's kind of disturbing to hear because my understanding is there's a criminal complaint in India's Central Bureau of Investigation against CARE, the guy from Appen Technology. 
That is publicly available, it can be seen, and despite that, the story was ordered to be taken down. 
But it's still under investigation. 
How does the Indian court justify taking away someone's citizenship when they're complying with the court order in the first place? 
So my understanding, and David can probably correct me on this, but is that the Indian court decided that he – I think that somebody filed that he had – you know, basically, since he is – basically, he has the equivalent of, like, an Indian green card. 
And that he was besmirching the good name of India by writing these stories. 
And so that was grounds to revoke his citizenship. 
I don't know if David can correct that. 
Yeah, I don't know anything about this. 
India has this special citizenship for people who don't reside in India. 
And I don't know anything about what qualifies or how you get it, where it gets revoked. 
But I do know that in the Appen Online – Association of Appen Training Center's complaint against Reuters, what are the claims they make is that this story, even though it defames Appen, is actually does damage to the whole – all the people of India because Appen has trained so many people in India that its harm is so widespread. 
So they are really casting this as about, you know, harming, you know, the whole populace and not just this company. 
So in their eyes, Appen is beyond any kind of critique or investigation. 
Anyone who does that is an enemy of the state of India. 
India is a democracy, so it's really – or at least they were last time I checked. 
This is incredible that we're seeing this kind of action taken against someone trying to get to the truth. 
Yeah, it is. 
And I do think, you know, the Indian court order is an interim order. 
And so by its terms, it's saying that we are not making a finding. 
All we are making – all we have found is that they have – is that the plaintiffs, this guy Pandey, who represents Association of Appen Training Centers, all I say is that he has stated claims that if he can prove are true, that that could be a successful lawsuit. 
That's all – and that's enough under Indian law to get an interim takedown order. 
So the court says that, you know, we're – this is not a final order. 
We are – you know, Reuters has not submitted its evidence yet. 
And so we're – this is no final decision about whether the article is actually defamatory, but it's just what they call a prima facie – it's just an order that they've made a prima facie case. 
That's enough to move forward and get this temporary takedown order. 
Now, one of the reasons we're citing that Reuters is complying is because they do business in India. 
Now, let's say this was a situation where it was an organization that did not do business in India. 
They solely did business here in the United States. 
They were a small publisher. 
And they printed a story like this. 
And they put it online. 
But they put it online in the cloud. 
And they used Amazon. 
And while they don't do business in India, Amazon does do business in India. 
Would Amazon then be compelled to take down the story? 
And the publisher that was a small publisher in the United States would be playing by Amazon's rules then? 
Yeah, I don't want to give them any ideas. 
It certainly is – I don't know how – we don't know everything they've done and what they've pursued. 
Also, I don't want to be too critical of people who've decided to take this down rather than incur the expense of trying a lawyer or whatever to try and figure it out. 
Everyone makes their own risk assessment. 
But I offer thanks to those who have decided to keep it up and who are brave enough into weather legal risks. 
But it's a tough thing to get someone just asserting these things. 
And one of the reasons that we – I guess we can get into this, what we've done in terms of responding to these emails on behalf of two publications was really to help try to embolden others who may have received the same emails if they wanted to make the decision to not take their reporting down. 
I guess we should also discuss to a degree what's known as SLAP lawsuits, a strategic lawsuit against public participation, which basically is using an expensive legal claim against someone who, as you say, does not want to spend enormous amounts of time and money on a lawsuit. 
There are some states here in this country who have laws against SLAP lawsuits. 
Can you tell us something about that? 
Sure, yeah. 
So SLAP, it's an acronym, Strategic Illigation Against Public Participation. 
And these are typically meritless lawsuits. 
So the idea about SLAP is you have a lawsuit, it's not going to win, but merely by filing against somebody and burdening them with the expense, the time and the money of having to defend it, you could get what you want, which is typically that they'll shut up. 
They'll either depublish what they publish. 
They'll agree not to speak anymore. 
They will, you know, and again, it's not just about writing, it could be about, you know, I've seen the file against people who are protesting. 
It's really just to get them, get people to stop exercising their First Amendment rights, whether by speaking or writing or protesting. 
And this is taking advantage of the fact that even if you have really worthy defenses in the U.S. 
legal system, it can still be really difficult to assert them. 
And so what anti-SLAP laws do is try to create a procedure to try and get rid of these lawsuits really quickly and then also create some disincentives for those who file them. 
They do this in two ways, so these laws vary by state, but most of them have some procedure where the court will very early on look at the merits of the case and decide whether this is a case that has even minimal merit. 
And then if it doesn't, they can dismiss the case, and typically they also have some provisions for reversing attorney's fees. 
So if you're – so that if you successfully get a SLAP lawsuit dismissed, then the other side, those who filed the lawsuit, would have to pay your lawyer's fees. 
And so that's, again, to both, you know, disincentivize filing them as well as make it easier for people who get sued to get lawyers. 
But this is not the case in all states, correct? 
It's not the case in all states, and it's not the case in all countries, so there's not one of these in – there's not one of these in India. 
And we do see SLAPs as it's not just a U.S. 
phenomenon. 
It happens all over. 
There was sort of a famous one in Malta not too long ago. 
They're happy – Greenpeace has been slapped, I think, in, you know, 12 different countries around the world. 
Well, it's – we do see these – you know, we do see the – it's unfortunately a very common phenomenon. 
And again, yeah, you're right. 
Not every state has this protection. 
If you are sued in U.S. 
courts in some states, you won't – I think maybe 38 states do. 
I'm not – not completely – Well, it's interesting that you mentioned Greenpeace. 
Jason Kelly, who is a fellow EFF employee and also writes for 2600, mentioned the Greenpeace lawsuit in Next Issues column. 
Basically, they were being sued by a company called Resolute Forest Products simply because they had blog posts saying such things as logging. 
Their logging was bad news for the climate, and these SLAP lawsuits can be ways of really quelling speech and making it so it's almost impossible to criticize or say anything that could be seen as negative about a powerful entity. 
Yeah, that's a really common – that's a really common application of SLAPs, where there's someone who's very powerful. 
They get publicly criticized. 
Sometimes it's even people making comments in public meetings and things like that, and so they sue them to get them to shut up. 
And fortunately, I mean, Greenpeace ended up winning, getting that case dismissed, and there was a very large attorney's fees award, so it ended up coming out okay for them. 
I think if you'd ask Greenpeace, they would rather have not have had to go through the whole thing to begin with. 
And as you might imagine, it's a lot more – for a big organization like Greenpeace, they have a lot more funds. 
They have a lot more lawyers. 
They have a lot more appetite to fight this sort of thing. 
But for a small environmental group or really a grassroots organization, they might not have the legal backing or funding to really even fight something like this. 
So it's a lot more effective against smaller organizations, against grassroots organizations. 
And I want to really quickly shout out the work of another nonprofit, the Civil Liberties Defense Center up in the Pacific Northwest. 
They've been working for years helping small organizations, environmental organizations, fight these sort of SLAP lawsuits. 
They're a great resource for this sort of thing. 
Go ahead, Kyle. 
Yeah, I just – I would emphasize that not only in the case that someone would be able to – were they a small entity to fight it, but thereafter, the lasting effects of the overall intimidation of what might be around the next corner constantly and how that affects their operations after the positive outcome or the ability that if they're able to get past it, it just hangs over smaller organizations in ways that a really large entity might even just have institutional memory loss over it. 
But it could really harm something that's really on a shoestring or otherwise would cave to the kind of pressure that they'd have to face changing their habits or otherwise their overall mission. 
Well, any other comment from people out in Skyplan? 
Rob, Gila, Alex? 
Yeah, sure. 
I'll jump in and say, you know, I think we should talk a little bit about, you know, the blowback here in the Appen case and what people like, you know, Distributed Denial of Secrets and others are doing in order to fight this type of activity. 
You know, in law, we have something called the Streisand effect, right, which was, you know, filing a lawsuit essentially to stop attention from going to one person. 
You know, you know, a particular object, but then you wind up filing this lawsuit that gets a lot of attention and, you know, the whole thing blows up in your face. 
And I think that the actions of a few media outlets that have not taken this down, and I think David alluded to those brave outlets earlier, but I think it's really admirable. 
And I think that, you know, what we're doing here and talking about this tonight is really important, too, because the more we bring attention to this type of activity, the less likely it's going to be successful again in the future. 
And I really think that, you know, we need to be able to, I think, number one, train lawyers and legal departments to not necessarily kowtow to, you know, the whims of all of these courts, some of whose public policies may not comport at all with our traditional notions of fairness and due process. 
I think we should view with skepticism these types of judgments, and I think that, you know, when it comes to news organizations as well, I think we're right to expect that they should fight for our First Amendment freedoms because it, you know, their bottom line depends on it, number one. 
And, you know, the other aspect of this is, you know, this affects all of us, right? 
I mean, we're talking about First Amendment freedoms on the same day that Julian Assange had his last high court appearance trying to contest extradition to the United States, and I think we are seeing the press being attacked on many, many different fronts right now. 
And this one that involves a, I think, coordinated misinterpretation and manipulation of the legal system is particularly dangerous as well. 
Speaking of small worlds, so the term stridesand effects was actually coined by Mike Masnick, who's the publisher of TechDirt, which is one of the two organizations that EFF is supporting. 
And we've written, them and MuckRock are two of the organizations that have received the letters from the Association of App and Training Centers asking them to take down their content. 
And EFF is representing both of those organizations in responding to those letters and asserting that there is no legal basis for this takedown. 
But the stridesand effect is absolutely right. 
It's an interesting nexus there, too. 
But I think that with this sort of tactic that's being taken in the courts by the Association of App and Training Centers, the stridesand effect is exactly our best tactic here, right? 
The more that, because they want to silence this story, right? 
They want this story to go away. 
They want the reputation of App and Carey to be spotless, right? 
And the more that we can talk about this story, the more that we can talk about the really visceral reaction to this story by these organizations, right? 
The more that this spreads, the less effective their tactics are, even if the Reuters story, you know, officially stays down, right? 
You can still read it on distributed denial of secrets, right? 
And shout out to them for their amazing work, right? 
And you can still read about it on places like MuckRock and TechDirt and the EFF website. 
And here, you know, you can hear about it here on the radio. 
And it's interesting. 
Yeah, the stridesand effect is a fantastic pushback to this. 
Absolutely. 
And, Cooper, it's interesting because just as you were saying that, I was pulling up the story on TechDirt, and I really recommend people read this. 
And it's entitled, Sorry, Appen, We're Not Taking Down Our Article About Your Attempts to Silence Reporters. 
And I just think that's brilliant. 
We need more of that. 
And, of course, your folks at EFF are a major part of that. 
I don't know what we would do without you. 
We're in the closing minute, but is there something that people can do to get more information, stay involved, or help out? 
Well, keep on reading the stories. 
I think if you want more information, there are, I mean, so Mike Mazik at TechDirt has written about it a few times. 
MuckRock, which was actually, you know, they got the nasty email from Association of App and Training Centers because of their document cloud service, which Reuters used to actually host some of the documents. 
But they've also written about it. 
And so and and even Wired magazine had had a story recently. 
They've actually just gotten a letter, a takedown demand from Kare's U.S. 
lawyers threatening to sue them in U.S. 
courts. 
So it'll be interesting to see how how that plays out. 
Well, I just wonder what we're going to get because we read part of the story and we talked about this for an hour. 
And we're going to continue talking about this on Overtime, which starts at 8 o'clock on YouTube. 
Just go to the link on 2600.com on the main page or simply go to channel 2600 on YouTube. 
In the few seconds we have left, what do you anticipate happening next in what is the next step in all of this? 
Well, in our letter, in our email back to App and Training Centers, we said, here's why we think you're misleading people, that the Indian court judgment, it's not a judgment, didn't make any final determination that was defamatory, that it only apply, even if it did, it only applies to Reuters and Google and no one else. 
And even if it did apply to them, it's not enforceable to U.S. 
courts. 
And we said, you know, if you disagree with any of this, please let us know. 
And we haven't heard back from them. 
I don't expect to ever hear back from them, but if we do, we'll let you all know. 
But it will be interesting to see whether Kare's U.S. 
lawyers actually file any actions in U.S. 
courts on his behalf. 
We've been talking with David Green, Civil Liberties Director and Senior Staff Attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, as well as Cooper Quinton, Senior Public Interest Technologist at EFF. 
And hopefully the both of you can join us on overtime at 8 o'clock. 
As promised, I will be asking people again at WBAI to support WBAI by calling 212-209-2950 or going to give to WBAI.org. 
We have defended freedom of speech from our beginning back in 1960, and we always will. 
I don't think there's a single radio station anywhere in New York City on any of the frequencies, AM or FM, that would dare to have an hour-long conversation about this kind of thing, where anyone who talks about it is targeted by powerful entities. 
That is our promise to you, our listeners, that we will always be here to do this, to stand up for your freedom of speech, for freedom of speech globally, and that we will continue to inform and speak out when necessary. 
All right, we are off next week, but you can write to us, OTH at 2600.com. 
And again, we will be on overtime at 8 o'clock on YouTube, and we'll see you again on WBAI in two weeks. 
Good night. 
  And welcome everybody on YouTube as we start overtime. 
Kyle, you make it okay? 
I made it. 
Yeah. 
I mean, sort of. 
Yeah, I'll say okay. 
Is this working? 
Because I don't see any numbers on here. 
Rob Gila, you see what I'm seeing? 
We are. 
Whoa. 
We are. 
What's going on? 
We are live. 
We're live. 
We're good. 
We have 19 people so far. 
I don't see that. 
I don't see anything. 
Wow. 
I don't know what to tell you. 
Oh, okay. 
Never mind. 
It scrolled off the screen. 
I don't know why it did that. 
Okay. 
That's fine. 
I thought it was the Indian court that was getting to us. 
Okay, fine. 
I did just check the fax machine. 
No legal threats yet. 
So we'll keep an eye on that. 
It's because Rob's wearing that Appen t-shirt that I think is. 
Yeah, let's talk about that. 
That's why they're not mad. 
Rob, you know, people... 
I think you should do it so that it just reads Appen. 
I think that's better. 
Yeah, people on the radio can't see this, obviously, but we see it. 
And, you know, for a while during the show, it says Appen right there, the company we're talking about, except it's part of a bigger word. 
Is that what we're trying to understand? 
Yes, I'm wearing a t-shirt that says Napping Enthusiast, and it's got a nice picture of a cartoon pillow there with a smiling face on it. 
But I'm also wearing a button-down shirt over this t-shirt. 
And so a comment was made during the show in our internal chat that it looked like I had chosen to wear an Appen t-shirt. 
And I don't own an Appen t-shirt, but now, given this story we're talking about, I kind of want one. 
Is that wrong? 
Well, I think when you get threatened by massive companies, it's traditional for them to send you a t-shirt at the end. 
An Indian court might order you to take that t-shirt off if you're wearing it. 
Wow. 
Okay, David Green, obviously, is joining us from EFF. 
Cooper, are you with us as well? 
Yes, I am still here. 
Great. 
Thank you both so much for being a part of it. 
Gila, you had something. 
Go ahead. 
I actually do have a clarifying question. 
Listen, if Cooper is with us, are we going to be able to take phone calls? 
Well, he's on the phone, so no. 
Okay, I was not sure how he was connected to us. 
But what you are doing, you're conveying messages from people who are listening to us right now. 
So, you know, it's kind of the same thing, except we just maybe don't get rebel this week. 
100%. 
100%. 
So, just so everybody in the chat is aware, we cannot take phone calls tonight. 
So, please stick in the chat. 
Okay, I also want to clarify something else. 
Just to clear a few things up. 
A reminder that while the chat exists before the show starts, we are not monitoring it before we start on overtime. 
No one is blocking you from chatting. 
No one is afraid of you chatting. 
Sometimes your moderator gets annoyed. 
That's all. 
I don't know what's going on here. 
Just want to remind you of that. 
This is why I stay away from the chat. 
I just do the radio. 
And yeah, okay, fine. 
Whatever drama is happening out there. 
Yeah. 
And also, again, just to the folks who are chatting, we are going to stick with putting question in brackets. 
Especially this week when we can't take phone calls. 
And if you want to be part of the conversation, please tag your question for us on air. 
And Rebel, this is your warning. 
Wait, we have to warn Rebel in the chat as well as on the phone? 
Can we just not read what is said if we don't like it? 
No, we absolutely can. 
But if Rebel's going to continue to pretend to be 9X, we're banning it from the chat for the week. 
Okay. 
All right. 
And you say questions have to be in brackets? 
No, that will just make it easier for us to see. 
Okay. 
If you want your question to be on the air, please. 
But people won't be penalized if they don't do that, right? 
They will not be penalized, but we will definitely know if your question is for the panel if you preface it with questions in brackets. 
Because, you know, online, I don't do a lot online as far as interaction, but, you know, I'm aware of all kinds of rules that exist for one reason or another on certain social boards where, you know, if you don't phrase something in a particular way, you get thrown out. 
And it just seems so harmless, like, you know, you just don't phrase a question in a particular manner. 
And it's just really a little weird. 
I see that on Facebook a lot in different places. 
But, you know, we try to be fairly loose here, right? 
We try to be as carefree as possible. 
But some people bring that with them. 
And we don't really have the patience for it. 
All right. 
So, anyway, let's get back to this incredible story because, you know, I only heard about this a couple of weeks ago. 
And, you know, again, the folks at EFF, I don't know what we would do if they weren't there to make this into some form of sanity. 
But do you guys feel like this is getting worse? 
This kind of thing is becoming more prevalent with massive media companies and online entities controlling everything? 
Are individuals going to be suffering more? 
You know, it's – I hope it's not getting worse. 
It's been a pretty steady problem. 
And this is an especially brazen example because they've actually been sending things to some fairly high-profile news outlets. 
A lot of times things like this happen completely under the radar due to smaller outlets. 
It's not – one of the reasons that this was a bit unusual is because it was actually – they chose to try and, you know, flound this order around to, you know, to sort of – to real publications that had a lot of success take them down. 
So I don't know that it's a bigger problem that has to – but that in no way – by saying that, I don't want to say that it's not like a bad problem. 
Like, it's been sort of a steady problem. 
And really, since internet publication went international, you know, people pretty quickly realized that, you know, they had now had sort of the world's courts to try and, you know, find a good one to get some – something – some order they thought might be useful for them. 
Yeah, I mean, this also – I think I'll say that kind of relates here is that this, you know, cyber mercenary organizations, you know, and engaging in the activities that Appen is accused of engaging in, right, and that there's good evidence that they have engaged in historically, right? 
But these sorts of companies really do a lot of damage to free expression and free speech, right? 
Like, they go after a lot of activists, right, a lot of journalists, a lot of human rights defenders, and really try to, you know, squash a lot of stories, right? 
There's the really sort of famous example of Ronan Farrow, right, and the sort of, you know, cyber mercenary spy organization, Black Cube, that was hired to go after him to catch and kill his story about Harvey Weinstein, right? 
And so, like – and that's obviously a different organization, but that is sort of the MO of these organizations, right? 
They're really, really dangerous for free speech, really dangerous for free expression, and it sort of gets it – you know, we have this danger, in this case, on both ends, right? 
You're, you know, you're at risk. 
Your freedom of speech is at risk just by these guys existing, right? 
But your freedom of speech is also at risk once you've written the story about them, right? 
And so they're sort of coming at it from both sides, and that's what I think is really dangerous here. 
Excellent. 
Alex, did you have something? 
Yeah, I do think there may be some precedent here, too, for these bad guys, the Appen Tech Center clowns, actually coming after podcasts as well, that have talked about this particular issue. 
Because I think that the podcast, the Behind the Bastards, had talked about this particular story, and then they received a takedown, and I think that whatever their podcast producer was or whatever it is actually removed the content. 
So I think it's quite possible that if the lawyers for these clowns get wind of the fact that we had discussed this at length during a session of live radio on WBAI that then gets distributed as a podcast, and then we talked about it live on YouTube, that we may very well be on the receiving end of a takedown notice. 
And don't forget, it's going to be in the magazine, too. 
Yeah, that's exactly right. 
And we're going to make a motion picture about it and have a Broadway show, so we're trying to cover all bases here. 
Come get it. 
That's right. 
We could have Barbara Streisand herself, maybe, star in the show. 
That would bring a really full circle. 
There's a lot of full circles tonight happening on the show. 
We do take it seriously, though, so don't let it be said that we're making a mockery of this, because there's nothing more serious than freedom of speech. 
It's hugely important, needs to be defended at every level. 
And, Kyle, I think you've got something? 
Well, I just am curious, like, what else is on the horizon? 
And broadly, like, why aren't they as fearful of us, of the publications? 
And I think I want to know in the sort of light of good faith actors and sort of, as Alex pointed out, this bad faith world that maybe institutions that are law-abiding and just trying to operate, they don't necessarily have the sort of cadre of tools and repercussions and things they can draw upon. 
Because they're not acting in the same world or landscape. 
And I'm wondering, is that something that is a hindrance? 
Does anybody want to take that? 
Because I was actually losing a little bit of the connection towards the end there, so I'm sorry. 
Anyone? 
David, do you want to take that one? 
Yeah. 
And, Kyle, let me know if I answer your question. 
There's two things going on here. 
One, they're sort of the Association of Append Training Centers. 
I think just trying to get as much out of this Indian corridor as they possibly can. 
And I think they've probably run up against the limit of it. 
And that's one of the reasons we really wanted to publicly – wanted to respond to them and then make our response public was so that others who would get this would realize that it was – that they were misrepresenting the import of the court order. 
The other thing that's going on, I think it's much scarier for people and I think is probably what motivated iHeartRadio to take down the Behind the Bastards episodes. 
was that when you get the letter from Kare's U.S. 
lawyers, a law firm called Clairlock, which is one of the sort of preeminent defamation plaintiffs' lawyers. 
When you get the letter from them saying we're going to sue you in U.S. 
courts, that's a completely different threat model than someone saying, oh, there's some foreign court that you'll probably never go to that, like, is mad at you, right? 
And so that's a completely different – that's a completely different threat model. 
And, you know, they – I did not hear the Behind the Bastards podcast, so I don't – but, you know, that's just something really – that's a person who's very wealthy, who has U.S. 
lawyers, who is least representing, and he's prepared to sue in U.S. 
courts. 
So that's a much more, you know, serious threat for somebody, for someone to – someone to consider. 
And I think it's probably a bit – there's a bit difference, you know, between sort of talking about the Reuters reporting about Appen and then how this association of online – Appen, sorry, Appen Trading Centers responded to it. 
And then – or to, you know, the – I think who've really sort of found themselves facing this serious threat, and the people have really sort of delved into facts about Kare himself, and that's – and they tend to be getting those letters saying, well, we'll sue you in U.S. 
courts. 
Wow, yeah, and I think it's just fascinating. 
I mean, mostly because there seems to be – there's a lot of playfulness in how much money and investment they're willing to make in, I guess, protecting their speech and squelching and otherwise, you know, putting down other speech. 
And I just feel perhaps is this underfunded, in other words, because I don't feel we're as playful enough with throwing around the kind of, well, legal stationery and other big scary things that we're supposed to, you know, cow to. 
I like your use of the word playful. 
It is. 
It's really gross, actually. 
I think it's a form of conspicuous consumption that our country and sort of transnationalism itself is breeding. 
And, I mean, I just – I want to know, like, what is the – what measure of fuck you in money and legal prowess will it take to put fear in them? 
And we're on the podcast now so we can say that. 
Yeah, I mean, I don't know what will put fear into these people because they seem to have some kind of bizarre motivation here in terms of just taking down this information. 
But I think there's a danger here too that goes back to what Cooper and I were rapping about a bit during the main show, which is what we're talking about here is a company that seems to be the successor to a massive threat actor that has targeted thousands of individuals and companies around the globe for political purposes, espionage, theft of trade secrets. 
I mean, all kinds of really insane, right? 
I mean, this is what the reporting has really borne out and what the threat intelligence shows. 
You know, it really demonstrates. 
But if we can't talk about that company and we can't talk about how we got to this point where we are talking about that company, then that's going to prevent us from sharing intelligence between entities that are going to be targeted, between governments, between institutions. 
And that's an extraordinarily dangerous world to be a part of at this point when we can't share things like, you know, the tactics, techniques and procedures of a threat actor because of an Indian court order that has been misinterpreted and manipulated and passed around the world as if this is some kind of global takedown order. 
It's totally nuts. 
It's absolutely insane. 
It's dangerous. 
And it shouldn't be tolerated. 
It also kind of reminds me in a bizarre way of Disney movies that have to be watered down for Chinese audiences because you don't want to offend the Chinese government because that's a huge audience. 
So movies that are made by Disney actually are affected by totalitarian regimes on the other side of the world. 
So this global control of how we say certain things and what we talk about and what we don't, it seems to be getting worse year by year. 
Well, and diminishing the brand in any way, pointing out it becomes leverage in associating them with their criminal and other activity, not the activity that they want you to associate with their brand that they're trying to protect. 
And I just think that they've got you if you're the only one and you're running scared. 
Uh, and in actuality, the, um, the, like 10 other entities copying them, uh, are, are what you are, are the landscape that you should be kind of measuring them as a threat. 
Like, it's not just one entity. 
We should be sick of this happening over and over again in all regards. 
And I think it is like the reporting being, um, silenced takes, uh, away the ability for the public to, um, associate their, their, um, bad faith actions, not the actions of their, what this, uh, front, uh, claims to be. 
And I just want to know, well, will, will app and continue to, will they be trading in this is, are they going to keep trying to trade in this as long as we don't report on it? 
Cause that's kind of what it seems like. 
Yeah, it's a good question. 
Um, I, I, you know, I, I hope not, but they did go ahead and, you know, sue the New Yorker. 
Um, again, that wasn't as successful, uh, at least hasn't been successful so far. 
Um, I, I, I think the point you're making is really that other, that we, other made is that like, this is an especially important topic, you know, for people to be able to report about, um, and, you know, the use of, of spyware, spyware and hacking technologies against human rights activists. 
And really everybody, um, is a really, you know, is something that really needs, um, reporting. 
And, um, we certainly don't want that generally to be, um, inhibited because one company is now filing lawsuits. 
I'm, uh, you know, I, I, I remain hopeful that Appen will, uh, Appen will be a little quieter now, um, after the New York, after the Indian court, you know, did not, wouldn't take the action they wanted against the New Yorker. 
And I hope, I hope our email to them, um, as well. 
And so I hope Appen will be a little quieter. 
Um, it doesn't seem like, uh, for those who've reported on CARE in particular, again, they seem to be still quite active trying to, um, threaten U.S. 
legal action. 
If I'm interpreting things correctly, I believe Cooper Quentin has joined us on Skype and has left us on the phone. 
Is that correct? 
Yes, I have. 
And that's the mysterious busy signal everybody heard also. 
Which means we can take phone calls, 802-321-4225, 802-321-HACK. 
Uh, but please keep it on topic. 
What do you mean? 
Uh, we'll, we'll, we'll talk about other issues in the hacker world or technical issues, um, at a different time. 
But right now we're talking about this. 
Gila, go ahead. 
Do have a interesting, an interesting point, uh, from the chat that I just wanted to bump up to the main conversation. 
Uh, from our friend Johnny Fusion, who says, I can't help but make the connection to the Julian Assange prosecution of how one country's laws are being applied anywhere in the world to people not in or in national of that country. 
It's not a question. 
I mean, it's, it's a timely, it's a timely comparison to, to make, given that, you know, today was, uh, Assange's last, last chance to challenge his extradition to the U.S. 
And was there a decision made or is that, uh, coming, coming soon? 
Not as far as I know. 
I don't think they expected a decision today. 
Okay. 
No, no decision, yeah. 
I, uh, so far as I've, I've heard either, but yeah. 
We might as well talk about this for a second because it is what we would have been talking about were we not talking about this, this weekend. 
We're not on next week. 
Um, how do we think this is going to go? 
Do we think it's going to be rubber stamped and he's going to be, uh, extradited to the U.S.? 
Is that, is that the general consensus? 
Not what we, not what we want, what we expect to happen. 
Well, yeah, I, I, you, you want to go first, David? 
No, go ahead, Alex. 
Well, I, I, I've written a lot about this. 
Um, I've, I've had, uh, I've published two CNN, uh, opinion pieces on this. 
I, I have some, some fairly pointed views on it. 
And I think, I, I, I think there, there's, there's a big difference between the first set of indictments that were brought, or rather the first criminal charges that were unsealed against Assange in 2019, and then the superseding indictment that added, added an additional 17 charges to Assange that all related to the Espionage Act. 
Now, the first charge that was brought against Assange, and I wrote about this on CNN, I said, wow, this was a really narrowly tailored indictment here. 
It literally just has to do with essentially what would be colloquially known as a hacking charge, right? 
A CFAA charge, a conspiracy charge. 
And it relates to cracking a DOD password. 
And the issue was that Assange had, um, apparently crossed the line from, according to the government, crossed the line from becoming, uh, from being an investigative journalist to becoming part of a criminal conspiracy when he offered assistance to Chelsea Manning to, uh, crack a hash password, to essentially use something like a rainbow table to reverse the hash of a password and then access a federally protected computer system. 
And if he did do that, then arguably, you know, that could be an act in furtherance of a criminal conspiracy. 
And that was very narrowly drawn, and it was apolitical, and it didn't really have a lot of implications to journalism more broadly. 
Now, the superseding indictment that came out a couple of months later, um, was crazy. 
And, um, I wrote another article on CNN about this, about why it was, um, legally idiotic, but politically shrewd to bring those superseding indictments against Assange, because under the U.S.-U.K. 
extradition treaty, you cannot, the U.K. 
will not extradite to the United States anybody who is charged with a, quote-unquote, political offense. 
And by criminalizing the manner in which journalists talk with sources and report on national security information and adding a slew of charges under the Espionage Act that were wholesale rejected during the Obama administration, the Trump administration, I argued in my article, all but intended to preclude or prevent Assange from being extradited to the United States. 
And that was because, I argued again, this is my opinion, that Assange would have been tried in the United States during 2020, which was an election cycle. 
And the last thing the Trump administration would want would be Assange bringing to the attention of the world the fact that WikiLeaks had direct connections with the Trump campaign during the 2016 election after he just got through the whole Mueller bit. 
So I think it was very, very, very politically shrewd for them to make this into a wildly contested issue that would prevent Assange from being brought back to the United States during 2020. 
Now, unfortunately, we have the Biden administration, which has maintained the same slew of charges against Assange, the same charges under the Espionage, the same things that the journalists around the world have been crying and bemoaning about because it's anathema to the First Amendment. 
It could be destructive of journalistic integrity. 
It could wholesale destroy how journalists work on national security related matters and make their job into something akin to a criminal enterprise. 
So the fact that the Biden administration hasn't withdrawn these charges against Assange, I think, is really disappointing. 
And there was actually a bipartisan group of senators and senators, members of the House, I think it was, so congressmen and women, a couple of months ago that actually, I think 16 or 17 of them that called on the Biden administration to withdraw all the charges. 
Now, I personally believe that the Biden administration should withdraw all of the Espionage Act charges, but I think that they should have the discretion to keep the single, quote-unquote, hacking charge about whether or not Assange crossed the line into engaging in a criminal conspiracy. 
I think that one would still be valid, but I think the other should fall away because they're very destructive of First Amendment principles and they don't comport with our American ideals or values. 
That's my long way of describing the whole fiasco. 
Well, yeah, you described the whole fiasco, but what I asked was, what do you think is going to happen? 
What I think is going to happen is I think he will be extradited and the charges will stand. 
And I hope and pray that the Biden administration comes to its senses and we have a more sane and a more rational Department of Justice than we did under the Trump administration and that these charges will fall away. 
At least some of them should fall away. 
Because he's facing 175 years in prison if he's convicted on all of these, which is just insane. 
Yeah, it is insane. 
And honestly, if you hate Julian Assange with every fiber of your being, I still think you would reach the conclusion that he has suffered enough up to this point. 
And the whole thing has just gone on way too long. 
But if he were to be extradited to the U.S., Alex or David or Cooper, how do you see that playing out? 
Where is it likely that the trial will be held? 
What kind of, how will that, will that be something that there'll be crowds of people outside? 
Will there be representation from various organizations? 
What do you envision? 
Yeah, I mean, I, I, I, I think, I don't think the UK court, high court will stop the extradition. 
I mean, I, and I really hope I'm wrong. 
Um, and I also agree with that. 
I really hope that when he does get extradited, that they will not pursue the Espionage Act charges because, um, again, this, this will really, there's been this sort of unspoken agreement that the Espionage Act will not be used against journalistic activity. 
And so this would break that. 
And I'm scared about, again, even if you don't care about Assange personally, I mean, I think I'll be scared about where that would go. 
Originally, the UK courts had said he would not be extradited because they feared that his incarceration in the U.S. 
would be tantamount to torture in violation of UK law. 
And they only lifted, changed that decision when the U.S. 
assured that he would be held like in a humane, non-torture-y way. 
I, I think the, if, if he does get, if he is, I think there'll be an order for him to be a physically extradited. 
I think whether he actually is or not actually might depend on his health, which is extremely, reportedly extremely poor right now. 
I don't know that he's actually, according to what his family and supporters have been saying, I don't know that he's actually competent to stand trial at the moment because his mental health and physical health have both suffered. 
So, but if something does go forward, I imagine that it will be pursued in courts in D.C. 
because that's where the charges were, were filed. 
But again, I, I think there's a, there's a, there's a lot of questions about whether he can be physically moved without endangering his health and, and whether he's going to be mentally competent to, to defend the charges. 
If this, if this were to happen, what kind of timeframe are we looking at? 
I don't know. 
I might ask Alex that question. 
Yeah, I don't, I think it would probably take a little while. 
I think the, I think the indictments were filed in Virginia. 
So it might be, might be Eastern or Northern district of Virginia. 
So probably right around D.C. 
areas where, where they would, would, would occur. 
But I mean, I imagine the extradition wouldn't happen overnight. 
There'd be, there'd be arrangements for this. 
And then there'd be a massive amount of motions. 
Counsel would appear in the criminal case. 
There'd be, you know, it would be like any trial, right? 
And I mean, there would be discovery amongst the parties. 
There'd be motion practice, motions eliminated, be exclusionary orders. 
I would say it would probably be the end of the year, maybe possibly just ahead of the election before things started to really heat up. 
And that would be, if this was moving really quickly, I would guess it would probably be 2025, though, by the time that Assange would stand trial. 
And if, if it goes the other way, if they, if they deny extradition, what happens then? 
And he stays in the United Kingdom and there's charges pending against him in the United States. 
And he's just, you know, stuck over there in the UK. 
I, I, I, I don't know what the UK courts will do with him in terms of whether he would remain in custody, though. 
That, that I'm not entirely sure. 
We need somebody from, I always forget the name of the, the UK equivalent of like the, the EFF over there. 
I would, I would just say, we've had them on a couple of times too, but. 
There's a few good folks doing the work over there. 
But yeah, I mean, I, I think he actually might be a release, but he, anytime he, if he would travel to a different country, he would have, he could face extradition all over. 
Yeah. 
And again, apparently, you know, for what his family has said, he's not, he's not well. 
I didn't mean to cut Rob off there. 
I see him raising his hand. 
Yeah, go ahead, Rob. 
Well, I just wanted to mention, David, I know you have to take off in a minute, but are there any final things that you'd like to say about like where people can find what you're doing or what you're up to? 
Yeah, well, always, everything I'm doing will be on the EFF website. 
So, you know, always check EFF.org to look, not this work that I'm doing, but my wonderful colleagues are doing as well. 
And when I sign off of here, I'll have to, we just filed a brief today and I'll have to post something on our blog about that. 
So you might get some very current news about, about some of the stuff that I'm doing. 
And is there any contact info you want to give out? 
Just, you know, everything is at EFF.org. 
If you want to contact me personally, you can do it. 
You can look at my email and way to get to me is available through the website. 
Okay. 
Well, David, if you're leaving now, thank you so much for joining us and for everything that you do over at EFF. 
And it's always a pleasure having you on. 
Our phone number, 802-321-4225. 
Kyle, have we gotten any calls or, um, I haven't heard the phone ringing. 
So sometimes the ringer is off, but. 
No. 
Okay. 
Sorry. 
Your mic was not either. 
Say that again. 
What's new? 
Uh, no. 
Okay. 
802-321-HACK is our phone number. 
If there's anything you wish to add to the conversation, feel free to give us a call. 
Well, you know, before and earlier weeks, we've always said people shouldn't be calling until we give out the phone number. 
So it's not surprising that we didn't receive any calls until we gave out the phone number, I think. 
That's, uh, that's my guess as to what's happening here. 
Um, Alex, I actually have a question for you. 
So the, the, and then this is Cooper from EFF for all those in listening land. 
I'm still on, by the way, I have not left. 
Um, I, so the thing that, the thing that upset me the most, and I think the thing that relates the most, uh, or another thing that relates between the Assange, um, trial. 
And then, uh, the, uh, goings on with Appen and Kare is that, is that it's been used as a cudgel to bring in other people, uh, you know, even loosely associated with Assange, right? 
Chelsea was sent back to prison for a number of years, right? 
Jeremy Hammond had his sentence extended, uh, both for, you know, refusing to, uh, participate in the, um, in the, uh, um, I'm blanking on the, on the type of trial, in the, um, the, the, the trial that was held against the grand jury. 
Thank you. 
The grand jury that was held against Assange here in the U.S. 
Um, and, I mean, I guess my, you know, that's, that's my biggest worry is that, you know, if, if Assange is extradited to the U.S., um, that, that, that will, you know, those trials will again be used as a cudgel to go after everybody else, uh, you know, that has ever been even, um, tangentially associated with him in the U.S. 
Do you think that that's a possibility? 
Is that something I should be worried about for my friends or? 
You know, I, I think, I, I think it's always a possibility that they could be investigating something else or something anew, but in, in all likelihood, those grand jury investigations have already happened. 
Um, there could be some new superseding indictment where people are expected to testify to the grand jury about their interactions with Assange or something like that. 
Um, but, but I think they've hit him with all that they're going to hit him with now so far. 
I mean, I can't be a hundred, a hundred percent sure, but I, it's such a great point you bring up though, Cooper, because the cascading effect of, of these charges isn't something that's very often addressed. 
And it, and it, and it does really trickle down to everybody that was around them. 
Uh, and those people's communications can be subpoenaed. 
They can be, uh, expected to testify. 
It can be a very stressful and time consuming as well, uh, endeavor to try to have to deal with, with this type of thing going on. 
Um, and, um, and it prevents people within that, that orbit, within that ecosystem from continuing to do what they were doing, which was publishing facts, being journalists, getting data, acquiring data. 
You know, this could very easily have a chilling effect on, uh, WikiLeaks and its progeny and a lot of the important types of organizations that exist out there. 
Again, like distributed denial of secrets that are, are getting out the facts. 
And, and again, I think it's, it's so important that we support those types of organizations now as well, because we live in this post-truth, uh, deep fake nonsense dystopia now, where it's really, really hard to figure out what the hell is truth and what is, what is on truth, what's false. 
Right. 
And to have something like a WikiLeaks or a distributed denial of secrets, that's a repository of documents and facts that one can review is going to be extraordinarily important. 
And I don't, I don't think we even understand the importance of that just yet. 
Um, and then to bring it back again, another full circle here is that with the Appin case here, um, my understanding too, is that they even went so far as to request documents, being removed from the internet archive. 
And I, and I think that they had actually complied. 
So having actually, yeah, they were successful in that. 
Yeah. 
Yeah. 
Yeah. 
So it is, it's, uh, it's really scary stuff. 
Go ahead, Kyle. 
So I think, um, what one outcome we might see is, uh, that the UK actually departs from the pressure campaign from the U S. 
And I, I say that because I think there's been sort of a wave of discontent with larger, uh, uh, bodies. 
You saw that with the Brexit resistance to that and, um, and, and other, and I know security agreements and, and, and the current state of affairs in the world might dictate all kinds of, uh, cooperation. 
But where there is some sort of, uh, check, especially in journalism, um, where else would someone take asylum or, uh, refuge from the, the reach of an entity as powerful as the U S. 
And it just dawns on me that like, yeah, we assume that they are, um, in lockstep in every regard, but wouldn't it actually be historically, um, kind of logical that the UK would say, well, you know what? 
In fact, um, in this case, you do, you can't, um, necessarily have your way as, uh, you know, whatever, um, the, the DOD and military wants to, to dictate in this. 
And I just think I have a lot of other feelings about this. 
I think a lot of it is old news and that's another thing that I really wanted to get in. 
And, and, and, and I say that because the, um, and, and, and, and the interest of the, the DOD, like, um, pursuing this and prosecuting this and holding this up as an example is actually, if they do do that, I think it's a, it's a huge, huge betrayal. 
And using it in the political context, timing it in the way that you're suggesting they may be, um, I think is a disservice in fact, because, uh, overall the, the, um, emphasis on, um, security and, uh, getting cooperation and stuff is, it's their systems and their procedures and, um, things that in fact, you pointed out, um, private Manning was responsible. 
And has already been punished over and over again for, and, um, aside from whatever technical thing we want to hang on to that was, uh, crossing some line, um, the, the danger of the actual person at fault is actually, I think, very, very small because of the advanced age, the, um, health issues. 
And, and, and I've said this many times before the, the scrutiny is, is if, if he goes free, is he just going like, I'm, I would be fascinated if, if I felt he was such a terrible threat, I'd be fascinated what he did. 
And if I, if we, if we, we let him lose, yeah, let's follow him, let's see what he does. 
This big, bad character we're so scared of. 
So that just tells me like, this is being set up. 
And I frankly think we're kind of playing into it. 
I'm not going to, I'm not going to be negative about it, but I think we should stop being so kind of sanguine or just like, like, um, uh, accepting it. 
You know, acquiescing, just like being okay with it. 
It's, it's, it's torture. 
It's insane. 
It's old news. 
The, the person that if they do hold this up just to try to scare future campaigners and journalists, I mean, that's it. 
It's over. 
I mean, that's the betrayal. 
I would, I would, I have nothing but a middle finger for that, especially being involved in reporting on tech and reporting on hacking. 
The very thing, the DOD fucked up. 
So I, I just, I have a lot of feelings about this stupid trash that is honestly a total diversion to, to where our priorities actually should be as a society. 
Um, anyway, I just, just wanted to get that little comment in there. 
All right. 
Any, any, any reaction to Kyle's thoughts there? 
Nobody. 
All kinds of different reactions. 
Go ahead. 
Let's say something. 
Okay, go ahead, Rob. 
Go ahead, Rob. 
You had your hand. 
You. 
I did. 
Excuse me. 
Um, I, what I, one thing I wanted to make sure we mention, uh, in the time we have left is the Streisand effect of it all as regards the Appen case. 
And, uh, I want to, I want to particularly mention, um, our friends at, uh, distributed denial of secrets, um, which, uh, which posted the writer's story under a new project they have called the Greenhouse Project, which is, uh, building on previous efforts to create a, what they call a warming effect to reverse the chilling effects of censorship. 
And, uh, so you can find this, uh, this article on how an Indian startup hacked the world. 
It's backed up on, uh, distributed denial of secrets that ddosecrets.com and just search for Appen Uncensored in their, uh, in their search tool and you'll find it. 
And, uh, of course it's, it's in other places around as well. 
And it is, we do love our Streisand effect on this program, don't we? 
Do we have a phone call? 
We've had a phone call all this time. 
I'm terribly sorry. 
Good, good evening. 
You're on off hook over time. 
Good evening, gang. 
This is Tim in Connecticut. 
How are you doing? 
Hey, Tim. 
Sorry we, uh, we, we put you on hold for so long. 
We forgot. 
The conversation was just so enthralling. 
I just couldn't see any way to, I wasn't even going to interrupt because, uh, the reason why I called was just to ask if, uh, your, uh, situation with Gmail, uh, getting the word of hope out to everybody had improved. 
Uh, I just came over it as I was making my, uh, hotel reservations today. 
But I didn't know, uh, I know you were having a problem with, uh, Gmail and all that. 
I just was wondering if that had improved. 
Well, uh, you know, it's, it's, there's no comparison, uh, between the, the kinds of, uh, struggles that people and entities are going through around the world and, and, and our problems with Gmail. 
But it is interesting because we kind of feel, um, um, um, dissuaded from, from saying anything, uh, in that forum. 
Um, and, and just to, to catch people up, we've, uh, posted several announcements about our upcoming Hackers on Planet Earth conference in July. 
Uh, and, uh, nearly every announcement we have sent out has been labeled as spam by, by Gmail. 
And considering half of the people who have signed up for our announcement mailing list are on Gmail, it's made it very hard to reach those people. 
And, you know, we can't mail them and say, we're trying to reach you because whatever we mail is, is labeled as spam. 
Uh, or, uh, if we mention the conference for some reason, that's labeled as spam. 
We're told that, uh, yeah, if you, if you send out another announcement that it's too similar to an announcement before that they labeled as spam. 
So, if you can send out an announcement about the conference that doesn't mention the conference or say the word hacker in it or anything else, uh, then maybe it'll get through. 
You know, this kind of control over speech is something that we're becoming all too familiar with. 
Whether it's a government, a court, or, uh, a gigantic email provider, um, the, the end result is the same where you're basically intimidated into just not saying anything. 
So, um, in answer to your question, we haven't sent anything else out since the last time we, we are going to have, uh, some announcements. 
And by the way, one of those announcements is going to involve a special deal with a hotel. 
So hopefully it's not better than the deal you made today, but, uh, we, we, we have been busy, uh, organizing some things and we are getting all kinds of, um, of speaker submissions and, uh, workshop submissions, villages, all sorts of things. 
So it's really, it's building up to be a great conference. 
Uh, and hopefully we can let people know that I cancel up to like two days before the conference. 
Okay. 
Something better came down the line. 
I could always rebook. 
There are going to be a lot of options. 
So, uh, people can stay in, in, in places for under a hundred bucks a night, which is great for New York city. 
Uh, yeah. 
So, um, uh, there will be a lot of announcements, but if you are on Gmail, keep checking that spam folder because, uh, uh, they tend to send a lot of things there. 
It's, it's, it's really terrible and check the spam folder anyway, because guaranteed there's going to be mail there that you don't want in there that, um, for some reason they put there. 
Okay. 
I'll get off the phone. 
I'll let everybody else call in. 
Okay. 
Good hearing from you. 
Have a good one guys. 
Take care. 
Thank you. 
And again, that phone number 802-321-4225-802-321-HACK. 
Uh, talking about, um, um, all kinds of speech being, uh, manipulated, controlled. 
We're talking about injustice of one sort or another, whether it's in the UK or in India or in the United States. 
Um, these things just, uh, don't seem to, um, uh, to ever end. 
Um, while we get that call, let me just ask, um, uh, Cooper, uh, when did you guys first hear about this, uh, this case out of India? 
How did, how did you find out what was happening with Reuters? 
Yeah. 
Uh, so we, we heard about this, um, through sort of the usual channels. 
You know, we have a lot of friends, uh, who are journalists. 
We talked to a lot of journalists and things like that. 
So we, we heard about this from a few different sources and, um, you know, it was, it was really concerning to me for a number of reasons. 
Right. 
Um, there's, there's the free speech angle. 
There's the, I do a lot of work on cyber mercenaries. 
I've done work before that's touched on Appen, uh, and, and Beltrox, uh, which is sort of the successor to one of the earlier iterations of Appen. 
Um, but most of all, I, you know, I was concerned that if this was successful, that there would be, you know, that this would be a tactic that other oligarchs, other cyber mercenaries, other, um, you know, horrible people all around the world could use to silence reporting. 
Right. 
Um, I think that this was a, I mean, you know, bad guys can be clever. 
Right. 
And I, I hate that dichotomy, bad guys, good guys, but like, you know, people we don't like can also be clever. 
Right. 
Uh, and I think that this was a really clever legal tactic to try to silence this story. 
Now, of course, uh, I think we are in the midst of watching it horribly backfire thanks to the Streisand effect. 
Um, but the, the, you know, I think sort of the interesting thing we've taken away from this is that the Streisand effect doesn't happen by itself. 
Right. 
Just because the Reuters story, if the Reuters story had been taken down and nobody had written about it, nobody would have known about it. 
Right. 
Like nobody would have ever, we wouldn't be talking about it right now. 
There wouldn't be all these stories about it. 
Right. 
There wouldn't be other large podcasts talking about it. 
Right. 
Um, and you know, we, along with many others, uh, this was not, you know, at all just EFF, the freedom of the press foundation had a hand in this organizations like tech dirt and muck rock, um, and a bunch of other news organizations, right. 
Wired, um, all had a hand in amplifying this story and amplifying the story about the story and the story about the takedowns. 
Right. 
And that really got the Streisand effect going. 
But if you want to, if you want to see the Streisand effect to get going, you have to sort of kickstart it. 
Right. 
That's been the big lesson for me is that we really did have to push this along, right. 
And build up a lot of interest in this case before the ball started rolling. 
And now the ball is rolling on its own. 
Right. 
So ever since the Behind the Bastards episode got taken down, uh, off of iHeartRadio's official channels, for example. 
Uh, so the, the subreddit of the Behind the Bastards show has been very active. 
Um, they've been, they have archived the show for people to find on the subreddit. 
Um, they've been busy, uh, spreading rumors that Kare likes to, um, engage in copulation with lizards, uh, just to try to ruin his Google juice and piss him off. 
Right. 
Of course, these claims are untrue, completely untrue. 
And I'm Reddit is what's saying this, not me. 
Well, you don't know they're not 2600 enterprises, but you don't know that we don't know they're true. 
We don't know they're untrue or true. 
We, yeah, exactly. 
Yeah. 
I'm just trying to keep you from getting sued, but, um, none, nonetheless, I think it's really interesting. 
Right. 
And then this whole, you know, ever since the episode got taken down from Behind the Bastards, it's sort of taken on a life of its own. 
Right. 
And people who wouldn't have otherwise heard about it have really started engaging with it and learning more about this. 
Right. 
So I, I think that that's a really, that's a really interesting example of the Stryzen effect taking off, but it took a lot of work to get it there. 
Right. 
Um, but I'm glad because I, you know, I hope that the fact that this has taken off so much, right. 
And now suddenly the, the Wikipedia entries for Appen and for Kare are a lot more extensive than they were a couple of weeks ago. 
Right. 
And they go a lot more into, uh, the details that were exposed in the Reuters story. 
Right. 
So like, I, I hope that this will dissuade other oligarchs, other cyber mercenaries from trying to engage in this particular tactic. 
Right. 
Um, but if it doesn't, right. 
I hope, you know, I, I know that there is a large group of organizations, um, that are, you know, that are going to go to the mat, uh, to make sure the Stryzen effect happens. 
But I hope that, you know, all of the listeners and everybody involved here, um, will also take that lesson to heart and remember, you know, tell your friends, tell your coworkers, tell your families, right. 
Like get, get the word out there to, to, to, to groups and communities that don't necessarily care about this. 
Right. 
Or that do care about this, but go about it. 
Right. 
Tell your church group, right. 
Like this is, that's how the Streisand effect happens. 
And in the end, it's always about individual people like, like us, uh, that have the real power here. 
Now, you know, uh, this, this podcast that was taken down was on iHeartRadio. 
They're a big company. 
They, they came to this kind of, yeah, they came, they came to this pressure pretty, uh, pretty readily. 
Uh, whereas we run our own setup and, um, it's, it's, it's a, it's a lot more difficult to convince us. 
Uh, so when, when you, when you do things on your own, when you run your own, um, email server, when you run your own website, um, you're not beholden to all these, um, the ties that some massive company might have. 
And reasons why they don't care so much about your speech. 
In the end, you have to be the one protecting your speech. 
And, um, and, and you'll find a lot of people will back you up on that. 
We have a phone call. 
Good evening. 
You're on off the hook over time. 
Go ahead. 
Yes, you do have a phone call. 
Hi, Bobcat. 
Hey, Bobcat. 
How are you doing? 
All right. 
Um, since you were mentioning India, I thought I'd call in and tell you, um, or remind you about the WIPO decision, the World Intellectual Property Organization decision from 23 years ago about, uh, the domain bodacious tatas. 
I'm, I'm sure you remember that. 
Wasn't that a cult of the dead cow thing? 
Uh, no, it was some porn site. 
Uh, but okay. 
Bodacious tatas. 
You can go look urban dictionary, see what it means. 
It means large, full figured breasts, but the Tata group in India, the Tata family is like the, um, the, the Murdochs or the wall, the Walton family in the United States. 
Billionaires, they have, uh, conglomerates. 
They, they build ships, they build cars, they build all kinds of things, but they sued to take over the domain name bodacious tatas because it was too close to being like tata.com. 
Um, and so the World Intellectual Property Organization, it's a United Nations run organization that decides whether you can have a domain name, handed bodacious tatas over back to tata.com. 
And it was like the, the small guy against the big guy, the very, very small guy who had no money against the billion dollar industry. 
Um, so for 23 years, uh, tata.com has had registered bodacious tatas.com. 
Um, they let it expire. 
Oh dear. 
So if you want to go right now, you could, you can get it for $9.98. 
Wait, no one's taken it? 
No one's taken it. 
I just checked a minute ago. 
Well, well, Bobcat, why don't you take it? 
I don't, I don't have any bodacious tatas to post. 
Yeah, but you could have the domain and then you could, you could basically, you know, issue your terms and, and, oh wow. 
It's an opportunity. 
I'm buying that right now. 
Yeah. 
The guy who owned it 20 years ago got sued. 
I'm not going to be sued by a large Indian conglomerate. 
That would be a bad idea. 
I think we're all going to get sued by a large Indian conglomerate. 
I think that's the theme of tonight. 
Yes, Alex, go ahead. 
I'm seeing it as registered, though, from 2023, unless I'm spelling tatas wrong. 
Well, are you spelling bodacious right? 
Wait, is it, that's not part of it. 
Is it .com or .in? 
.com. 
If you look for bodacious hyphen tatas. 
Ah, hyphen. 
Okay, gotcha. 
I see. 
Yeah, let's, let's take a look right now. 
Let's see. 
Yeah, you're right. 
It does not exist. 
So, I thought Rob would probably be the person who'd be best suited. 
Wait, why would you, why would you think Rob was the person to, to go for this? 
He's the funniest person in the room. 
That's why. 
Wow. 
Rob's the funniest person in the room. 
So, I won't, he could be talking about the room he's in right now, which, you know, he's in there with Gila, which, you know, I think Gila's pretty funny when she wants to be. 
Thank you. 
But looks aren't everything, you know? 
I get it, that's it. 
Alex, you're going to get your ass kicked by somebody. 
I'm not sure who. 
Oh, well, you know, somebody's got to, right? 
Yep. 
Well, I mean, Alex, you're, you're looking up bodacious ta-tas on your work computer. 
So, I mean, you're already in trouble, dude. 
We've spent entirely too much time on this. 
So, anything else that you wish to share with us? 
Oh, yes. 
I do have a question for Alex. 
If, if a police officer is sleeping on a job, is that theft of honest services? 
Oh, I don't know. 
That's a good question. 
Yeah. 
If it was, we'd have a lot of claims. 
Okay, if you go to x.com slash bobkitten, you will see my pinned tweet. 
I'm starting to release videos of my local police sleeping on the job. 
Wait, this happens on a regular basis? 
Oh. 
Oh, I've seen them thousands of times, and I mean thousands of times, sleeping behind the church down the street from my house. 
Why would a cop want to sleep behind the church? 
Because it's a huge empty parking lot and it's dark over there. 
Are you sure they're sleeping or just maybe, you know, lying in wait for somebody who thinks they're sleeping? 
x.com slash bobkitten. 
Look at the pinned tweet. 
There's the video. 
That's the first video I took of a sleeping police officer. 
He's sleeping with his chair all the way back. 
He's dozed out. 
I shine a light in his car, in his face. 
It doesn't move. 
Wait, hold on a second. 
You go up to a police car and you shine a flashlight into their face? 
And, okay. 
I am not easily intimidated. 
It's scary. 
I will admit that. 
It's scary. 
Yeah. 
It's scary. 
Any other things you want to share with us? 
It's really been a hell ride so far. 
I will save it for a couple of weeks and then. 
Okay. 
Fair enough. 
While you're still on the phone, I want to let you know that I am now the proud owner of BodaciousTotTot.com. 
Wow. 
Just like that. 
History has changed. 
Yep. 
Why not? 
You don't become a prodigious domain name collector like me without being signed into the DNS at all times. 
That's right. 
Yep. 
Well, I'm glad we accomplished something tonight. 
Also, by the way, if you search for App in India, the first hits you get are articles from Reuters saying we had to take down this article because of an Indian court decision. 
Reuters. 
Reuters folded. 
Unbelievable. 
Yeah, well, that's what we were talking about. 
Actually, on that point, I think there's a really interesting thread here, which is that the larger the organization, the more quickly they fold, right? 
Contrary to what I was saying before about, like, slapsuits are more intimidating for smaller organizations, which they are. 
But the larger an organization is, the more they have to defend, right? 
So, like, iHeartRadio folds immediately, right? 
Reuters folds immediately, right? 
But, like, littler organizations, you know, TechDirt, MuckRock, right, you guys have been more willing to take the risk and actually fight this. 
So, you know, I think that there's, you know, obviously I'm against monopolies. 
We've been talking about how monopolies are bad here. 
But I think that there's another advantage of having a lot of littler organizations is that we do have a larger appetite for risk, right? 
We just have less money to back that up legally. 
But, you know, like you were saying, we protect us, right? 
We've got to protect ourselves. 
We've got to protect our communities and keep fighting for each other. 
The individual is stronger than the monopoly, I think. 
The individual has less to lose because we're all broke. 
Well, there's that. 
There's that. 
Hey, thanks for your call. 
Be well. 
All right. 
Bye. 
And, Rob, you have something before we go. 
Yeah, I just I actually wanted to mention to Bobcat, I hope he's still listening, that I like his video, but I couldn't help but notice the absence of shots of things like maybe the license plate on the car or the badge number or anything really fun like that. 
Are you suggesting this might be a prop of one sort or another? 
Fake cop with a fake car? 
No, no, I'm suggesting maybe maybe the direction of the next film in the series could use a little a little extra. 
Shamery. 
Yeah. 
Yeah. 
Well, let's hope he doesn't get himself in a situation he can't readily get out of. 
Don't encourage people to go up to cop cars and shine lights at them. 
That probably isn't going to end well. 
All right. 
Cooper, I want to thank you so much for sticking on with us for the hour and for all you do down at EFF. 
EFF, it's incredible what you guys are able to share with the world and the fights that you willingly engage in and the victories, the many victories that you have had. 
Yeah, thanks so much for having me on. 
I've been reading 2600 and listening to Off the Hook since I was a wayward teenager, Lashkey kid on the forums and on reading text files. 
So it's really, really great to be here. 
And, yeah, if I can, if people want to keep in touch with me, I'm Cooper Q, the letter Q, not to be confused with the weirdo cult on the various social medias. 
You can find me on all of them. 
I think on Mastodon, I'm at Infosec.exchange. 
I'm on Blue Sky. 
I'm on the shitty bird site and all the rest of them. 
And then I also want to, you know, in addition to being involved with EFF, I'm involved with an organization called Open Archive that has an app that allows people to record human rights violations or anything else in real time, encrypt those, get them timestamped, and securely upload them to the cloud or to a server you control so that you can keep records of human rights violations and, you know, perhaps even get them introduced in court. 
I also do, so check them out, open-archive.org. 
I also do some work with an organization called Lucy Parsons Labs that's doing really amazing things. 
They have a database of the faces of every Chicago police officer along with their badge numbers so that if you happen to be in Chicago and you get beaten by the cops, you can sort of go through a mugshot light-up and find out which cop beat the crap out of you. 
That was just their first project. 
They're doing really, really awesome stuff. 
So definitely go check them out as well. 
Holy crap. 
Wow, that's a lot of cool stuff you're involved in. 
You just described a whole bunch of shows that we can do just talking about those or maybe articles in the magazine or certainly talks at Hope because I think every single one of those people want to hear more about. 
To be clear, I loosely work with these organizations. 
I'm taking no credit for this work. 
All this work is being done by other really, really amazing people who are working super hard, and I just want to shout them out as friends of mine. 
Well, if you can spread the word about it, you're definitely doing the work as well. 
So thank you for that, and we look forward to hearing more from you. 
Thank you. 
All right, and thanks, everybody, for listening. 
OTH at 2600.com is our email address, so please write to us if you have any thoughts or questions. 
I believe, Rob, there are 2600 meetings next Friday, not the one coming up, but since we're not on the air next week, maybe you want to remind people about those, even though I just did? 
Correct. 
The 1st of March is the 1st Friday of March, and so 2600 meetings happen all over the world. 
Go to 2600.com slash meetings. 
Here in New York City, you could go to nyc2600.net, or you could go to 2600.com slash meetings to start one near you. 
All the info is there. 
Yes, click on guidelines, and that'll tell you everything you need to know about how to start a meeting in your area. 
All right, for Off the Hook and Off the Hook Overtime, this is Emanuel. 
Have a good night. 
We will see you in two weeks. 
Bye.