Wiretaps are the most intrusive capability that law enforcement has.

And we don't get to just use wiretap ability willy-nilly, like wherever we want.

We have to prove to both in New York State and with federal agencies that I had worked with,

it works the same way on the Fed side, that you have to prove exhaustion,

meaning you have to show the judge that you used every single means at your disposal outside of a wiretap to try to bring this case to an end before you get the ability to do that. So you have to prove exhaustion. And once you do that, then the judge can finally approve, hey, all right, I see that you've tried all the other things. I see you've tried by busts. I see you've tried surveillance, but you can't get close to the house, whatever it is, right? Document all that.

And then the judge can say, okay, I'm good for a wiretap.

John, welcome to Lockton. Thank you for coming on the show today. We always love a good law enforcement officer and military story. And we've had quite a few on the show. And we're excited for this episode today. Sure. Great. Thanks for having me. You grew up in New York? I did. Yeah. I was born in Buffalo. But when I was in elementary school, fifth grade, I think it was, we moved to the eastern side of New York. So I live in upstate New York now in Saratoga. Okay. And that's a couple hours from where we are now. Yeah. So I drove out here today, two and a half, two and a half hours, decent traffic. Do you like driving? Yeah. Yeah, I love it. Just get in the car, put on some tunes or a podcast,

you know,

some weird military podcast probably. And then, yeah, I love it. Oh, you like the military podcast? Oh, yeah. Yeah, no doubt. And I also, you know, doing what I do, I try to keep up on everything that's happening, you know, overseas in particular in foreign affairs and those things. So, and, you know, there's some really, really good, you know, detailed podcasts that are out there that give you the real close in, really, perspective on what's happening, in particular in some, some of these dynamic areas like Ukraine and Russia, for example. And then there's a lot of like the conspiracy ones, that can kind of take you down a rabbit hole. Of course. Of course. It's funny because of, you know, some recent interviews that I've done, the one thing that they always want to go to is conspiracy stuff. And it doesn't matter if I'm talking about wiretaps or it doesn't matter if I'm talking about military stuff. They're like, all right, so everybody, the government's listening to everybody's phone all the time, right?

And I'm like, no, it doesn't work that way. Okay, 9-11 was George Bush, right? No, no, that wasn't true either. Don't worry, we're a conspiracy-free podcast. Yeah, that's fine. But we can talk about that is fine.

Some people do,

I mean,

they do profit off

of telling wild

conspiracies.

Oh,

of course.

And it's just like,

people get hooked on. talk about it. It's fine. Some people do, I mean, they do profit off of telling wild conspiracies.

Oh, of course. And it just like, people get hooked on that. Like, you come across some TikToks and stuff where it brings you down that rabbit hole of them. Yeah. And it is intriguing. And you can, you know, and they do just enough to make it sound plausible. And then they bring up some historical examples of when the government really did do some things they probably shouldn't have done and they're like see but there's proof and then yes but now did you grow up in a big family small family no so um I would say average you know I have two brothers and one sister my sister's from my my dad's previous So pretty common. I wouldn't say there was anything out of the ordinary. You know, I did, it is my stepdad who adopted me. So really

he's my legal father. But I met him when I was, when he married my mom when I was seven. So he's really kind of been my real dad the whole time you know and other than that I would say it's pretty average you know just an upstate New York kid to normal parents yeah I don't know if everyone would call him normal but but two normal parents and normal childhood would say. Did any of them have a law enforcement or military background?

So no law enforcement, but multiple family members on my, really both sides actually,

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