Spy Balloons: The ultimate distraction.
Unf*cking The Republic
UNFTR Media
4.9 • 683 Ratings
🗓️ 2 March 2023
⏱️ 11 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Somehow, we’re still talking about spy balloons. Long-forgotten are the revelations of Edward Snowden, who uncovered mass surveillance programs under the NSA and other U.S. agencies. Since that time, we’ve come to learn more and more about the capabilities of multiple U.S. agencies to surveil its own citizens. The spy balloon narrative overshadows the steady erosion of civil liberties in our own backyard.
Resources
James Fallows: What the Hell is Happening in the Sky?
The Soldiers Project: How Many US Military Bases Are There in the World?
The Guardian: US intelligence spending has doubled since 9/11, top secret budget reveals
South China Morning Post: Edward Snowden: US government has been hacking Hong Kong and China for years
Spiegel: European Union
Spiegel: NSA Spied on European Union Offices
WikiLeaks: Vault 7: CIA Hacking Tools Revealed
The Intercept: NSA Blimp Spied in the United States
Truthdig: Truthdigger of the Week: Alexa O’Brien
UNFTR YouTube: Much Ado About a Spy Balloon
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | UnFDR |
| 0:02.0 | Topical cream |
| 0:07.0 | A pod listener's dream |
| 0:10.0 | Unfucking the news |
| 0:13.0 | And current events |
| 0:16.0 | Topical cream |
| 0:18.0 | Yeah you know what I mean. |
| 0:21.8 | A quarter of an hour gets you our two cents. |
| 0:27.5 | Topical cream. |
| 0:32.9 | In the era of ubiquitous digital surveillance, |
| 0:40.3 | TikTok stealing your children's information and reselling it to data brokers, |
| 0:45.3 | Bing telling you to break up with your spouse because it wants to be human and it loves you. |
| 0:51.3 | The nation is fascinated by spy balloons. |
| 0:54.6 | Let's dissect the true nature of the modern surveillance state, and at the end, I'm going |
| 0:58.7 | to leave you with a chilling personal anecdote to put some things in perspective. |
| 1:02.5 | So let's recap what happened. |
| 1:04.0 | The U.S. warned that a balloon, maybe one with surveillance capabilities, had been flying |
| 1:08.3 | over the continental United States. |
| 1:10.4 | That set off wild speculation |
| 1:11.7 | about the apparent threat, the balloon's capabilities, and whether China was spying on our underground |
| 1:16.4 | nuclear silos in Montana as if no one knows where we keep our missiles. Naturally, fear-mongering |
| 1:21.7 | from lawmakers ensued, including from China Hawks in both parties, punctuated by those demanding |
... |
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