Hidden Forces

In Episode 354 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with investigative journalist Byron Tau, who specializes in law, courts, and national security, about how a hidden alliance between technology companies and the government is creating a new American surveillance state. Many of you are probably thinking, “Yeah, I know this. We all have cell phones. They have GPS trackers, and my phone calls are being monitored. Tell me something I don’t know.” Yet, the truth is that our smartphones, wearable devices, networked homes, credit cards, and even the tires we drive on emit an overwhelming amount of data revealing details about our lives, daily habits, and most intimate behaviors that would astonish you. That data is being captured and available for sale, and the U.S. government is its biggest customer. In the first hour of this conversation, you will learn that in the years after 9/11, the U.S. government, working with scores of anonymous companies, built a foreign and domestic surveillance apparatus that can p