Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
This week, the ACLU's Rebecca Williams joins BJ Mendelson to talk about the do's and don'ts of filming ICE, using cash whenever possible, and why crypto currency is a scam. You're not going to want to miss it. Show notes and more can be found at StupidSexyPrivacy.com
Creators and Guests
Host
Rosie Tran
Rosie Tran is one of the fastest rising stars in the entertainment business! Originally from New Orleans, Louisiana, she moved to Hollywood to pursue her career as a professional entertainer. The stand up comedian, writer, podcast personality, and actress has toured internationally, at comedy clubs, colleges, and overseas for the USO in Europe and the Middle East.
Editor
Andrew
I am the Editor of all things on the Stupid Sexy Privacy Podcast.
What is Stupid Sexy Privacy?
Stupid Sexy Privacy is a miniseries about how to protect yourself from fascists and weirdos. Your host is comedian Rosie Tran, and the show is written by information privacy expert B.J. Mendelson. Every episode is sponsored by our friends at DuckDuckGo. Tune in every Thursday night —or Friday morning if you're nasty — at 12 am EST to catch the next episode.
00:00
Hey, here's a joke. Knock knock. It's Google Chrome, and I don't need to ask who's there. I already know it's you. I know your search history, your email address, location, device settings, even your financial and medical data. Wow, that's not funny. Now I'm definitely switching to DuckDuckGo. That's smart. If you use Google Search or Chrome, your personal information is probably exposed. And that's no laughing matter. The free DuckDuckGo browser
00:26
protects your personal information from hackers, scammers, and data-hungry companies. DuckDuckGo has a search engine built in, but unlike Google, it never tracks your searches. And you can browse like on Chrome, but it blocks most cookies and ads that follow you around. DuckDuckGo is built for data protection, not data collection. That's why it's used by millions to search and browse online. Don't wait. Download the free DuckDuckGo browser today.
00:53
Visit DuckDuckGo.com or wherever you get your apps. uh
00:59
Welcome to another edition of Stupid Sexy Privacy, a podcast mini series sponsored by our friends at DuckDuckGo. I'm your host, Rosie Tran. You may have seen me on Rosie Tran Presents, which is now available on Amazon Prime. And I'm your co-producer, Andrew VanVooris. With us, as always, is Bonzo the Snow Monkey.
01:23
I'm pretty sure that's not what a Japanese Macau sounds like. Oh, it's not. Not even close. Let's hope there aren't any zoologists listening. oh
01:39
Okay, oh I'm also pretty sure that's not what a snow monkey sounds like. Over the course of this miniseries, we're going to offer you short, actionable tips to protect your data, your privacy, and yourself from fascists and weirdos. These tips were sourced by our fearless leader. He really hates when we call him that. PJ Mendelsohn. Episodes 1 through 31 were written a couple of years ago.
02:07
But since a lot of that advice is still relevant, we thought it would be worth sharing again for those who missed it. And if you have heard these episodes before, you should know we've gone back and updated a bunch of them, even adding some brand new interviews and privacy tips along the way. That's right. So before we get into today's episode, make sure you visit StupidSexyPrivacy.com and subscribe to our newsletter. This way you can get updates on the show and be the first to know when new episodes are released in 2026.
02:36
And if you sign up for the newsletter, you'll also get a free PDF and mp3 copy of BJ and Amanda King's new book, How to Protect Yourself from Fascists and Weirdos. All you have to do is visit StupidSexyPrivacy.com. StupidSexyPrivacy.com. That's what I just said. StupidSexyPrivacy.com. I know, but repetition is key to success. You know what else is? What? We cannot break bread with you. Huh?
03:05
Becky, what's going on? Wednesday! You have taken the land which is rightfully ours.
03:13
Years from now, my people will be forced to live in mobile homes on reservations. Your people will wear cardigans and drink high balls. We will sell our bracelets by the roadsides. You will play golf and enjoy hot hors d'oeuvres. My people will have pain and degradation. Your people will have stick shifts. The gods of my tribe have spoken. They have said, not trust the pilgrims, especially Sarah Miller.
03:42
Gary, she's changing the words. And for all these reasons, I've decided to scalp you and burn your village to the ground.
04:00
I'm really glad this show isn't on YouTube because they pull it down like immediately. I know. Google sucks. And on that note, let's get to today's privacy tip.
04:16
This week, we're joined by Rebecca Williams, a senior strategist at the American Civil Liberties Union. Rebecca works in the Privacy and Data Governance Unit. B.J. and Rebecca cover a lot of different topics in this interview, including whether or not it's safe to film ICE agents. If you're curious about what some of the do's and don'ts are, we encourage you to listen to this interview, and we'll link to a number of resources in today's show notes on how to record ICE properly. Remember.
04:41
Documentation is a key skill we need to develop as it's one of the best ways to defeat fascists and weirdos. So we're going to be talking about it lot in the not too distant future. My name is Rebecca Williams. She, her pronouns. I'm the senior strategist at the American Civil Liberties Union. That was a role that is unique to you. Are you one of the first people to have that? Yeah, I should have said the unit. I'm not the senior strategist of the whole org. The Privacy and Data Governance Unit is about three years old.
05:11
We started off as two people, we're now five, but I'm the first person to inhabit this role. Yeah, that's awesome. I mean, imagine now it's crazier than it was when you first started, but what's been that role like to have? Yeah, uh when I explain to people, I've done a lot of advocacy work. I've also done a lot of implementation work for the government throughout my career. This sort of combines both of those things in that. um
05:40
I am trying to protect the privacy of our clients, supporters, donors, voters, anyone that interacts with ASLU. And as you can imagine, there's a heightened risk, scrutiny and attention to this in the current political climate. Yeah, I can only imagine. I mean, I have a letter from the DOJ asking New York State for like a list of 22 different things.
06:07
And one of the things they specifically asked for was a list of like every single registered voter. And New York State said, yeah, you can get that through FOIL. So I tested that and I put in the FOIL request and I was able to get all that information. But it was a little worrying how easily accessible like that database was of every registered voter. Yeah, there's a lot of talk about commercial data brokers.
06:32
and government data brokers, but there's also a broader sort of uh nonprofit data broker industry that also relies on public voter data. And there's a lot of pros and cons to public voter data and states handle it differently, but it's something I've become intimately familiar with because we do interact with it as part of our advocacy work. Now, there are three different topics I'm hoping I can ask you about. We probably won't get to everything, ah but I'll do my best.
07:01
And actually coincidentally, just the day that you and I were supposed to speak, I got an email from a local resident in the village of Monroe. And I just want to read it because I think it speaks to some of what we wanted to talk about. ah And I won't read the whole thing in full, but just ah so real quick, it says, hi, Mayor Dwyer. And for people that don't know, Neil Dwyer is the mayor of the village of Monroe. ah She says, early yesterday morning, I was informed that there was an ice presence in the parking lot behind Village Hall.
07:28
My daughter and I drove there and discovered 10 people standing around, two of whom were women, the rest were men. Both women were masked, as were some of the men. They were carrying guns. I walked towards them, documenting the presence of my iPhone. A large male with a gun and a mask approached me and asked me if I was recording them, which unfortunately at the moment I was not. I feared he would take my phone. He then told me, incredibly, that he was here to protect the US and that we didn't need to be here before stepping back.
07:58
I was too terrified to respond, but in retrospect, I wish I had told them that my real protectors, on whom I rely, are the Monroe Police. Be that as it may, I am an 81-year-old woman. I felt threatened and frightened as did my daughter, who grew up here. You probably already know about the ICE presence in the village of Monroe. They have been spotted several times on North Main Street, at Dollar General, Park Avenue, Franklin Avenue, and along State Road and Lakes Road. I wanted to let you know what I saw and felt upon encountering them myself. I have attached a tiny video of the man who approached me.
08:27
He's wearing the ICE police vest. If you want more photos, I'd be happy to send them along. And just for context, for people, I'll have the video with this interview so people can see it. It's just a guy who looks like he fell out of any shopping mall in America ah wearing an ICE vest. So you probably have been answering a lot of questions about what your rights are in terms of filming these things. And so I just want to talk to you a little bit about the letter and just your impressions and what we can learn from it.
08:58
Yeah, mean, first of all, that's a very scary encounter for somebody to have. And it's a hard thing to really prepare for. Even if you listen to this podcast, like in the moment, it's really hard to make that calculus. Like, what are my rights? What do I do? Especially when you're surprised to see someone like that and you don't know what to do with your device. I think some of the things that we've talked about at the ACLU,
09:24
have that not just protecting our supporters and clients and prospective clients, but also our attorneys. A lot of our attorneys are in these situations or crossing borders as well. ah And I think when you're thinking about these scenarios, uh the more you can think ahead, the better. So if you're listening to this podcast, you can think about yourself and also spread the good word. uh But ah it's always healthy to do.
09:50
what folks in the information security industry call risk modeling. You figure out like what's my situation, like what's the worst case scenario? Like what are, am I um undocumented immigrant? Do I have kids at home that I need to get home to? Do I have a bunch of ACLU attorney friends that can probably help me get out of jail if I needed to? Like we all are in different scenarios and you have to like think about your scenario before you do anything. uh
10:20
I also think at the same time, uh one of the things that has um helped out a lot of cases is having footage of things that are happening and the fact that we have these mini cameras and videos in our pockets. You can also hold other things other than your phone, but if that's what you have on hand, it's really, really useful in coming up with evidence that can um support people and support justice in the long term.
10:46
ah So I think some of my reactions to like how do you uh handle that situation or attending an ICE raid or attending a protest ah is you think about like keeping yourself safe, keeping the people around you safe and like what those trade-offs are. ah One of the big thing that's come up in ICE raids, I think a lot of uh folks that want to support uh immigrants that are or not even immigrants, random people that are being pulled. uh
11:15
by ICE agents ah is you're told to like go there and film what's happening. And I think that is true. But one of the things ah that we've been talking about is what happens when you also um film somebody like a third party in the vicinity and that ends up being evidence that can be used against them. So you just have to be really mindful of everything that's happening um in a very, um you know, heightened situation. And I think... um
11:46
Yeah, I think if this is something that you're very serious about, you should get trained on and you should rely on people that are trained on it. Like you don't have to be a hero. And you should really think about like which devices and what scenarios you're in. Right, and so this, you know, I'm probably skipping ahead a little bit, but I know you're offering a class on burner phones, burner phone 101. We call them stranger danger phones. And so I wonder if this is a situation where you would want not your phone. Like this was probably.
12:14
this person's iPhone, their personal device, but I wonder if this is one of those situations where you would want like that, that there's the burner phone and the stranger danger phone, whatever you want to call it, instead of this kind of incident. Yeah, so you're right. I'm teaching a burner phone workshop at the Brooklyn Public Library, which is very exciting. A lot of the...
12:35
documentation about setting up a burner phone is like go to your public library to set it up. So I was really excited that the library was happy to host this workshop as they've been encouraged to be the place to set one up. But the way I'm setting up that workshop is very much like a digital security training in disguise. Hopefully you bring a burner phone and we also do that. But it's really talking about like the full landscape of what your options are. Like if you have your smartphone that you use every day, you could probably secure a little bit better than you already are.
13:05
and like, let's talk about that. Let's talk about that full suite. And then if you want a burner phone, like what do you want it for? Do you want it to go to an ice rave one time? Or do you want it for like every protest and then what are you doing with it? Are you texting your friends at the protest? ah Or like, are you just thinking that you want to unplug more? ah Is it like a privacy thing? Like, let's parse actually like why you want a burner phone and how... ah
13:32
different burner phone setups won't get you or will get you what you want. There's also the pretty good phone privacy like eSIM option if you're worried about location information. There's just a suite of what a burner phone might be. I also appreciate that you don't call it a burner phone, but burner phone 101 is the attractive term. For the mass audience. But yeah, what's the suite of options?
13:58
And if you really wanted something that's not traceable, you can't text your best friend from it. You become traceable very quickly. So you have to really think about what are you doing with it? And then the third option would be when should you bring no phone at all? Those scenarios might exist, but just eyes wide open. What are your options? And can you pick the scenarios? um But also, again, the grain of salt is just like, can't.
14:27
It's more about digital literacy and education as much as it is about planning because it's not realistic unless maybe you're in the industry to have 15 devices. Exactly. So the reason why we call it the stranger danger phone is if you're dating, right, you don't give them your real phone number. We recommend you get a dumb phone, pop in a SIM card and that's what you use. Right. So that's stranger danger.
14:54
I wonder, me, I don't mean to put you on the spot, but like one of the things we recommend, so we're kind of sneaking in the sense of it's about stupid, sexy privacy. But once we have people in, we're actually teaching them how to defend and fight against fascists and weirdos. Like that's our whole, whole deal. one of the things we talk about is, you know, having a secure phone that's got graphene OS that just has signal. That is, know, you, you do all the, like we have a list of settings that we give people.
15:23
And I wonder, have you encountered any situations where even with that extreme privacy, like using the Michael Basile term, ah you might still run a risk if you're at a protest or if you're at an ICE raid ah where they might still be able to get information off of it? Yeah. I mean, the perfect phone setup doesn't exist.
15:51
Yeah, I don't know. I'm like hesitant to say it does. That would be like my recommendation to like have it as locked down as possible. I think the issue is like the more you lock yourself down, it's like when you have privacy settings on your web browsers, all of a sudden like your fingerprint actually, or yeah, like your web fingerprint, is it called fingerprint? Web becomes more noticeable because you're different. ah And then it's also just sort of like, uh
16:17
protests and these events, you're not usually going alone as a spy and sometimes you'll go to a second location. It's great if you have it all locked down, but very quickly you can accidentally talk to a friend or go to a place you always go or do something else or be like, I'm just gonna log into the Google Drive real quick on browser because I had to. There's just something that always comes up and then all of a sudden you're attached to yourself again or...
16:46
if you're just so locked down, you look like an anomaly and then someone can figure out where that locking down started, speak in very vague terms. But oh yeah, think most phones are dangerous, but it's also like, it's just about ah also in the spirit of just digital privacy across the board, some people are a little defeatist, like my info is already out there. I'm like, the more you lock down, the less it is. um
17:15
just another data point that could be used against you or against uh a third party or if we're not talking about, um you know, um government or third party vigilante actors after you, like the less sort of like commercial information somebody has about you, it's worth reducing your footprint. Hey everyone, this is Amanda King, one of the co-hosts of Stupid Sexy Privacy.
17:41
These days, I spend most of my time talking to businesses and clients about search engine optimization. But that's not what this is about. I wanted to tell you a little bit about a book I've co-authored with BJ Mendelsohn called How to Protect Yourself from Fascists and Weirdos. And the title tells you pretty much everything you would want to know about what's in the book. And thanks to our friends at DuckDuckGo, we'll actually be able to give you this book for free in 2026.
18:11
All you need to do is go to the website stupidsexyprivacy.com and sign up to our newsletter. Again, that website is stupidsexyprivacy.com and then put your name in the box and sign up for our newsletter. We'll let you know when the book and the audiobook is ready because if you want a PDF copy that's DRM free, it's yours. And if you want an MP3 of the new audiobook, also DRM free,
18:40
you could get that too. Now, I gotta get outta here before Bonzo corners me because he doesn't think that SEO is real and I don't have the patience to argue with him. I got a book to finish. Yeah, no, and that's one of the things that I want to talk to you about was this movement towards digital identity and digital identification. Here in New York, you have a list that we'll link to where it says they do have an ID and there's no law.
19:10
And I was hoping you might be able to talk a little bit about digital identity, just in a broader sense, because I feel like it's definitely something everyone is talking about now, but for our audience, we're trying to appeal to people who realize there's a problem with fascists and weirdos ah that involves their digital footprint, but they may not understand what digital identity is and what it means ah in terms of like governing of their information.
19:38
Yeah, absolutely. Where to start with digital identity and where to end. um So the way I would describe like why everyone's talking about digital identity now is the more our lives have become digital, the easier it is for folks to do identity fraud online. um If you're not in person, you don't have all of these in-person ways to vet that I am who I say I am. And
20:04
because that has become so fraught, we keep adding layers and layers of sort of like, how do we make sure it's you? And this has come up like across the board in sort of our presence on the internet. If you even think about like the evolution of passwords to two factor, to multi factor, to pass keys, like it's all about sort of like, how do we prevent this fraudulent access on the internet? ah And then it also becomes tied to um
20:34
other types of access. So if you're applying to a government service, especially in the United States, all of our services are very means tested. So if you want to have any sort of uh healthcare, you have to go through all these steps to make sure it's you and no fraud is happening. But it's been happening across the board in our digital space. Simultaneously, while ad tech is trying to track who you are through cookies and other activities to like make sure they're selling you the best
21:04
um thing that you might like the most. um And then the surveillance state. So all these things are happening. It's all happening at once and um it feels like uh there's this confluence of a variety of different uh issues of fraud online and ID online. And there's a lot of state and corporate actors that would love to know it's you doing every single thing.
21:28
to either prevent access or there's a huge thing with personalized pricing now to like give you a singular price. But there's so much incentive, there's so much money. ah Like public funding for law enforcement and corporate funding to really wanna make sure they know it's you doing something. ah And there's not a lot of space for people to like unwind that clock.
21:54
because it's getting easier and easier to do fraud online, including all the new emergent generative AI, spoofing of licenses and faces and all these things. So you see this battle between fraudsters, some playful, some not totally nefarious, or some people just trying to get around a paywall or something, and state and corporate actors that really want to track you online. Unfortunately, it doesn't...
22:24
it can't end. To really make sure it's you, they're gonna have to collect more and more data because more of it's gonna be swoopable. ah So there's a lot of talk about how AI is breaking captures even now. verifying your human on the internet uh is getting more challenging. So if you thought cookies were bad, they really wanna track all these things. ah I mentioned that uh if you have privacy settings on, it actually makes your... ah
22:53
Impression on the internet more knowable because not everyone has those on so then that like you're trying to protect yourself But you've become like more identifiable because not everyone has those on ah But it's all it's all happening. There's like a big big ah I would describe failed rollout of age ID in the UK last week um But we're seeing all of these um really harmful um The most generous term is like side effects
23:22
but I think these are like knowable effects. So I'm not sure that they're totally side. But all these issues were all of a sudden, you know, in the name of safety, in the name of security, folks can no longer have access to things like forums related to violence in Gaza or LGBTQ communities or...
23:49
or all these sorts of things and you're starting to see uh what was the open web becoming very, very closed. And that's just serving the internet for information. In terms of surveillance, it uh just gets really scary because it's not just, again, it's this confluence. It's not just your passkey, but they can scan your face and they attach that to who you are. There's this... ah
24:15
I don't know. Like the panopticon's really becoming more doable. It's scary. It's honestly, you've probably been at this longer than I have. I've been researching privacy fields since about 2015. And ah yeah, like, you know, the panopticon very much is a real thing. uh so to that point in a situation, so let me back up.
24:43
The thing that we talk about, or we're going to talk about quite a bit at Stupid, Sexy Privacy is you can't count on the federal government for anything. So if there's going to be change, it's going to happen on the state level. so in a case like New York, where there is no law governing this digital ID, what is something that people could do? Who can they talk to to alleviate that? Yeah, I think... m
25:11
I mean, I'm hopeful that New York City can craft some things eventually. um I think there is a lot of energy and a new like uh new political energy in New York City that's happening. uh There's certainly a sense even from our governor that we don't want ICE to come in and do these things. So the tides might turn a bit on in terms of legislation. But I think um what
25:39
What my institution, ACLU, often says is just like we have like many different plays in the playbook or like tools in the toolbox. Like it's not just litigation, it's not just legislation, it's not just advocacy. There's organizing, there's all these other activities. And I do agree that uh the fights that are happening now or the ways to protect ourselves will be local. uh I think they...
26:08
they also will be formal and informal. So I think local legislation is a possibility, but I think there's a lot of different strategies. If you don't have a legal protection, you can work on some of the privacy tips that I said, obfuscation, it doesn't always work, but it can work. I think sort of having community, like knowing what your options are.
26:37
and making sure that you have a strategy that protects you. ah I don't know, a diversified strategy would be my tip for always, especially right now. Absolutely. Let me ask you real quick about cash. So I noticed that one of the tips that you talked about in terms of this larger issue of digital identity is we must protect cash, which is something that we've already put up a privacy tip about and we're probably gonna hit home on a bunch of times.
27:06
So I was wondering if you could speak a bit more about the importance of uh utilization of cash versus something like Apple Wallet. Yeah, so in the Surveillance Resistance Lab Demand for Digital Identity, we talked about cash cards and clerks, so like the three Cs.
27:23
ah But they're all very much tied to digital identity or digital wallet like they're being replaced ah And I think they're they're all really interesting the clerks part is also interesting just to have like human vetting and like protecting labor Against AI like that's all happening at the same time, but it's like worth Sometimes in in digital identity we get really into the weeds about like privacy preserving selective disclosure Attributes and it's just sort of like actually know something bigger is happening here and we're shifting
27:53
from a human, more anonymous, more of the time process to something that's highly datafied, highly reliant on computers and the powers that be. And that shift is not just uh in the physical ID, it's in the clerks, but the cache. So the importance of cache is, uh there's many things going on with cache. uh
28:19
But again, sort of like over the years, we've shifted to like cards and digital payment uh rather than physical cash. And at the same time, we have uh growing sort of uh crypto um interests and also crypto relationships with very powerful government officials. And we can talk about crypto separately, but there's... um
28:44
By virtue of just passing cash, that is uh inherently more anonymous. That's not being tracked in your economic ledger that you went to that place. um But also, there's just sort of, if you're using these fintech services or if you're using crypto services, there's um this, I don't know, like you can start um imagining. ah
29:13
off-the-wall scenarios, but they could be true where someone just turns off your wallet so you can't use money anymore. There's all these things, you're being tracked, but also you're giving up uh a lot of agency in addition to the privacy tracking that's happening. ah And I don't know, I even think about cash in terms of uh you pass a homeless person on the street and folks don't have cash so they can't give that up. It makes you a different community member when all of a sudden you're in this
29:41
this PayPal world. Right. Yeah. And that's something we that's something I've come around on because 10 years ago I was one of those people saying, you know what, if someone wants to give me money in exchange for my data, I'm all for it. But as I started to read more about privacy in a broader sense, you realize it's a community effort. Right. And you realize that you can't give up your data without in turn impacting other people either intentionally or unintentionally.
30:11
So there's really no arrangement where one-on-one, if I were to sell you my data, you're just getting my data. You're still going to get someone else's data. You're still going to get potentially pictures of other people, which could then be used to build a shadow profile on them. So when you talk about being able to give cash to someone on the street that's homeless, there is a community aspect here that I think often gets lost when we talk about privacy. Yeah. That's it.
30:38
Yeah, people talk a lot about sort of like the collective harms when it comes to genetic data. Like that's the perfect example. Like if you, I remember I was an early adopter, 23 and me, I've deleted it before the sale. But my brother was so mad at me. This is like before I was in privacy. He was like, how could you do that? And I was like, what? I wanted to know. But like the genetic, and also by the way, you should be, we should have a world in which you get to know about yourself.
31:06
like the quantified self without giving yourself up to like these networks um of all sorts of actors, state, corporate, um hackers. Like you should be able to get to know about yourself without these things happening. But um yeah, the collective harms are across the board. And I feel like a lot of um the relational and contextual aspects, like it's not just the social graphs.
31:35
relate a lot of the uh advocacy tools now. ah Like, one's called like, ah represent us or something like that. It's like, get out the boat with me. Like you're supposed to like text your friends, like vote this way. Or like particle is like very network based. can like see the social graph. Like a lot of tools that are emerging lately are not just about you, they're about your network. And there's like a huge, a huge um
32:04
you know, data market related to your network. But if you zelle someone on the street, which I've done because I didn't have cash, that person is like now somehow in my network and you can like learn something about me and that person and like it doesn't go away. And if it was cash, that just wouldn't happen. Exactly. And you know, with Crypto Hour, our position is it's a scam. oh I don't I never know who I'm talking to.
32:33
with the privacy. Yeah, yeah. It's one of those things where the idea of it is exciting, Like the larger concept of, you can send money to anyone anywhere on the planet by doing this. And you could do it anonymously. This is an audio interview, so people can't see me doing the air quotes. But then you start to read into the technology and you're like, oh, well, wait a second, that doesn't do at all what it's advertised.
33:01
And it really seems to be a Ponzi scheme for like super wealthy investors and government officials. And so that's our policy. I'm wondering if you feel the same. I guess the only flourishes I have, which are not even they're not deep flourishes. But I'm like, it's a scam and it's like making the powerful more powerful. So it's just sort of like rich VC people sort of taking advantage of other folks, people that already have.
33:30
taking advantage of people that don't, uh not just sort of like with the way the markets go, but it was in vogue for a while uh to try to sell uh Citicoin to certain uh mayors, like uh crypto for cities. And the local governments just like didn't even understand like what the issue was. uh
33:52
They seem to just be excited to have an influx of initial cash, which was promised as part of the onboarding, but was really trying to be an off-ramp for some of these pyramid schemes, Ponzi schemes. So uh it also takes advantage of our public institutions, in addition to people that think they're investing in something. It's really horrible. Yeah, no, I think it's well said. uh
34:21
I hate to see people being taken advantage of and that's just what it looks like. And ah we're only gonna have a few minutes left, so I wanna get just to, um are some of the most frequently asked questions that you get about Know Your Rights? Because I just wanted to go back to that, because there's a lot of people who, like I'm on an Indivisible Steering Committee, the audience for Super Sexy Privacy is, we're going to them first, we're going to all the local Indivisible groups.
34:48
So they're probably gonna all have these questions. I'm curious, like what's like the most asked question you get? I mean, there's a lot of the know your rights versus like know your privacy or like know your data I think are like different questions. The know your rights is so fluid like jurisdiction to jurisdiction to a point where I'm just like, what state are you in? What airport? it gets really in the weeds really.
35:16
quickly and the Know Your Privacy, Know Your Data is actually a little bit more stable because people are usually using an Android or an iPhone and we can talk about like turning off your phone and like what those options are. Also like the Know Your Rights, uh some people aren't following the rights right now. So we might have consequences even like, so it's important to know sort of like your status like in the US like citizens versus non-citizens have different.
35:46
rights, uh different jurisdictions have different uh rules uh related to even like scanning your biometric to like open your phone for something.
36:00
ah So I think um the rights get specific, but you should ah not official attorney advice, but any advice that any attorney would give you is like say less and like request an attorney all the time. Like really, um the less you say the better until you have representation. um think too, um I make uh jokes at the expense of Mayor Eric A.
36:29
in New York City, which is that he's a privacy warrior in terms of devices and like really good example in that he was using Signal for all of his communications and he used a pin, a long pin and he said he forgot it. I don't remember the pin and they couldn't unlock his phone and all the evidence they have from his text is from other people's screenshots of his texts. Like he had a new iPhone that couldn't be...
36:56
be opened. uh I don't know. I think it's a funny example because you don't want corruption in your government, but it's sort of like, uh what did Eric Adams do? A lot. Yeah, yeah. He did a lot. He did a lot. But he also locked down his phone and didn't say anything and said he couldn't remember his password. And that was one option.
37:17
for folks uh in a search scenario. There's also just like a lot of little things that you learn uh through these digital security trainings, which are worthwhile in that, um like if you're in the airport and say you're not using your pass on your phone or something, which I know a lot of people do, um is ah turning off your phone actually makes it much harder to ah search than just like airplane mode.
37:43
So if you have any sort of risk and you can just turn off your phone when you're going through security, sometimes when they're patting you down, they'll take the phone in the back. If it's off, it's less easy to open. I think, I'm very like uh work versus personal device. You don't have to have a trillion burner phones, but if you do anything, if you're an attorney, you should have a separate device and you should leave it now when you're crossing the border.
38:11
And so just the last point of that, one of the things we've advised, and I'm just curious to get your feedback on it, is before you go to the airport, upload anything you need to, let's say, Proton Drive, and then wipe the device, and then turn it off. then when you get, wherever you're going, you could just download everything from Proton and then wipe it again before you go back. Does that sound along the lines of what might be recommended? Yeah, absolutely. I think...
38:39
All those little things too, like even if you're not wiping the full device, like there's legal and less legal or not legal ways that somebody, once they physically have your device, can look through your phone. So it's even like, uh do you have an Instagram account? If you've deleted it from your phone, they can't see it when they have your phone. ah So like.
39:02
Yeah, wipe everything, but also just like the more you can wipe when you're doing that sort of travel, if they have access to it, they won't see anything. We're out of time. I feel like I have a million more questions for you. But where can we find you? I know you have a newsletter. us about the newsletter real quick. How can we find you online? Yeah. So I'm probably most active on Blue Sky.
39:29
I also have a budding newsletter that I don't put out very often, but I have a lot of ambition to put out. um It's called Tech Shadow Work, where we talk about how one of the things you can learn from tech policy is what's going on uh with our culture and politics more broadly. um It's less about tech, it's more about the world. ah RebeccaWilliams.info is the newsletter and my Blue Sky handle. ah And yeah, everything's linked there.
39:58
There are two economies in America, one for the wealthy and one for you and me. And the one for you and me resembles what used to be called a third world country. These days, we more politely call them developing countries. And we should, because with the way things are going, those developing countries are soon going to kick our ass and offer things like universal healthcare coverage. So we know managing your privacy, data security, and anonymity can get expensive, which leads to the question.
40:25
What's the least you can do to get the most in protecting yourself from fascists and weirdos? We'd like to recommend the following. Use Signal for all text messaging with your friends, family, coworkers, and fellow protesters. Do not use WhatsApp. Use Bitwarden to manage your passwords. And last but not least, get the DuckDuckGo subscription plan. For about $10 a month or around $100 a year, DuckDuckGo offers a solid VPN identity theft restoration protection, private access to advanced AI chat models, and a data removal service.
40:55
These four items are often sold separately for way more than $100 a year. And $100 a year is way less than what you spend on virtually every streaming service. You can sign up for DuckDuckGo subscription via the settings menu in the DuckDuckGo browser available on iOS, Android, Mac, and Windows, or via the DuckDuckGo subscription website, DuckDuckGo.com slash subscriptions. The DuckDuckGo subscription is currently available to residents of the US, UK, EU, and Canada. Feature availability varies by region, but your peace of mind will not.
41:24
because supporting companies like DuckDuckGo is one of the key ways we can defeat fascists and weirdos. Don't support companies that support fascists and weirdos, support DuckDuckGo instead. This episode of Stupid Sexy Privacy was recorded in Hollywood, California. It was written by BG Mendelson, produced by Andrew Van Vorse, and hosted by me, Rosie Tran. And of course, our program is sponsored by our friends at DuckDuckGo.
41:49
If you enjoy the show, I hope you'll take a moment to leave us a review on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you may be listening. This won't take more than two minutes of your time, and leaving us a review will help other people find it. We have a crazy goal of helping 5 % of Americans get 1 % better at protecting themselves from fascists and weirdos. Your reviews can help us reach that goal, since leaving one makes our show easier to find. So please take a moment to leave us a review, and I'll see you right back here next Thursday at midnight.
42:16
after you watch Rosie Tran Presents on Amazon Prime, right? Bonzo, I wish that you'll have many more birthdays just like this one. With those you love and trust around you always to share your happiness. And I wish that you'll get a chance very soon to prove that being loved and looked after like a human being has made you feel like a human being. And that if love can do that to you, then it ought to be able to make some other human beings...
42:46
human beings.