The Security Guy And CIA Spy PodBroadcast

And welcome to The Security Guy and the CIA Spy Podcast. I am Robert Siciliano, and this is Peter Wormka.

Robert, how are you? It's been a while.

It has been a while, Peter. I, I'm good. I have been on the road. I did a presentation yesterday in Louisiana to the Louisiana Association of Realtors, spoke to 200+ people. They are a lot of fun down there. I was on a big stage in front of lots of people and haven't done a lot of that due to COVID, obviously. But yeah, the energy and the reaction from the audience and the interaction was engaging. It was fun. It was lively. Lots of questions. And that's really how it should be, you know. How about you, Peter?

Absolutely. No, I've been— the traveling has been kind of crazy. It goes in spurts, right? I, in a matter of 5, you know, in a matter of 4 days, I gave 3 presentations. First one in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, the second one in Las Vegas, the third one back in Philadelphia. So you imagine what my— how much, how much time I was spending in the airplane, in the airports. That's the only downside. Being in person is far better than the virtual. It is so much better, as you know. But now we got to deal with, uh, the travel aspect, the, uh, you know, going through TSA, going to the airports, flight delays, cancellations, rerouting. Um, my wife says, well, you know, you asked for it. You used to complain about virtual, now you got to deal with the travel. But it's fine. It's good.

Yeah, it's fine. And, uh, the The learning experience ultimately I find is better when it's a live presentation. The interaction, the ongoing engagement is better. Virtual, there's tons and tons of benefits to virtual, tons and tons of benefits to live in person. I will present anytime online, in person, doesn't make a difference. The point is I'm gonna get my message across no matter what, and I know you're gonna do the same thing.

Well, you know, I guess with the COVID it kind of like opened up the, uh, it opened up the channels more for us and for other speakers, right? Because before it was only in person and we could only reach, you know, a certain amount of people. Now with virtual, uh, there's a lot of events that are hybrid, you know, conferences that are hybrid where they'll have in-person as well as virtual. So we can, we can reach many more people, which is really important to both of us.

Yeah. So Peter, today, um, you You know, we're, as you know, talking about the shooting in Buffalo. Okay. Both of us have experience in issues like this, speaking to issues like this, you know, what to do, how to prevent it, being proactive, what are the signs to look for. I've done plenty of programs on workplace violence and active shooters, and unfortunately, The general public is not getting the message. Corporations aren't getting the message. Um, government isn't getting the message. Uh, those who see someone, know someone who is acting out, uh, aren't speaking up when they should. Okay. And I, uh, look at— we're gonna— this is gonna be a controversial topic we're going to talk about today. Uh, we're not going to get into too deep into the weeds regarding things like gun control, but we do need to talk about the political aspects of things in at some level and how some are stoking the fire. Okay, so now guaranteed we're gonna upset somebody. There's no question about it.

We can't point a finger at just one party or one person or whatever. I mean, it's accountability across so many different facets of our society.

No question. Okay. I am going to lead with an article from the New York Times, which I got just in the past day or so. And it's important that we discuss this. So the Buffalo killings are part of a pattern. Most extremist violence in the US comes from the political right. Now, no one wants to hear that, but let's just get into the stats. Okay? So numbers don't lie. Over the past decade, the Anti-Defamation League counted about 450 US murders committed by political extremists. Of these 450 killings, right-wing extremists committed about 75%. Islamic extremists were responsible for about 20%, and left-wing extremists about 4%. Okay? I mean, the numbers don't lie, right? So nearly half of the murders were specifically tied to white supremacists. Now, anybody who's aligning themselves with a white supremacist, which is considered the far right, the far right, not the right, not the left, not the center, the far right. Anybody lining themselves up the far right isn't going to like this. If you're on the right, Okay, that's fine, but you're not the far right. All right, agreed, right?

Correct.

Okay, so murders connected to political extremists by type: white supremacy 55%, anti-government 14%, other right-wing 6%, Islamist 20%, left-wing 4%, other 1%. So as this data shows, says the New York Times, the American political right has a violence problem that has no equivalent on the left.. And the 10 victims in Buffalo this past weekend are now part of this toll. Right-wing extremist violence is part— is our biggest threat, says Jonathan Greenblatt, the head of the ADL, has written. The numbers don't lie. The pattern extends to violence less severe than murder, like the January 6th attack on Congress. It also extends to the language from some Republican politicians, including Donald Trump. Okay, uh, and conservative media figures that treats violence as a legitimate form of political expression. A much larger number of political Republicans don't use this language but also do not denounce or punish politicians who do use it. Kevin McCarthy, the top House Republican, is a leading example. So you can— we provide the, the, the show notes, uh, at the end of the, uh, you know, once it goes live. You can dig into the information yourself. You could do your own research and find out what is, you know, legit and what is not. It is important to emphasize that not all extremist violence comes from the right and that the precise explanation of any one attack can be murky, involving a mixture of ideology, definitely, definitely mental illness, gun access, and more. The immediate aftermath of an attack, aftermath of an attack, people are sometimes too quick to claim direct cause and effect. But it is also incorrect to pretend the right-wing violence and left-wing violence are equivalent problems. So, Doc.

I would like to insert something here. It's kind of interesting because I think we always, to give some perspective, need to compare what happens inside of America to what happens in other countries around the world. Because there's not only this pattern of right-wing extremists in the United States, there is a lot of it in other countries. There's a lot of it through parts of Europe. Western, Central, and even Eastern Europe, but they do not have these incidents of these shootings tied back to— I mean, so we have a problem. We have some of the same issues in other countries, but here it is manifested in this violence more than in these other countries that also have severe cases of extreme White supremacy.

And having access to 400 million firearms, high-powered firearms with high-capacity magazines, obviously, you know, fuels the problem. Guns aren't, you know, as they say, you know, like, there's no question about it, I'm going to step in something here. Having access to high-powered firearms and mental illness doesn't work. Obviously, uh, there are millions and millions of people that have access to high-powered firearms with high-capacity magazines that aren't causing any problems whatsoever, right? So are guns the problem? I, I, I can't say that guns are the problem. It's, it's people who are mentally ill that have access to guns that are the problem. Obviously, um, guns aren't the problem, but the— there is a problem with people who have access to guns who shouldn't have access to guns. How to solve that? Um, you know, background checks, mental health wellness checks. I, I don't know what the answer is.

Is there the case of any mental health wellness checks for the issuance or maintenance of a firearm license?

So they, they, they, they— there is a, a red flag, um, rule out there that, uh, and, and I, and I, and I don't have the exact language at my fingertips and I apologize, uh, that basically if somebody is, uh, under some— having some type of a mental health crisis, uh, that, uh, in, in certain states, uh, you can just go in and just take those guns away. And in this particular instance, even though this person was flagged locally, guns weren't taken away. So we're going to read up on that right now. All right. So right here, Yahoo News talks about copycat mass shootings become deadlier. Experts warn after the New York attack. So the 18-year-old shot and killed 10 people is the latest in a line of copycat gunmen carrying out deadly mass shootings inspired by previous attackers, right? So, uh, Gendron, who surrendered to police, uh, apparently publicized his racist manifesto on the internet and broadcast the attack in real time on social media platform Twitch. And others have done the exact same thing. Twitch is owned by Amazon. This, of course, was a racially motivated, violent extremism. Experts say the trend of mostly young white men being inspired by previous racist gun massacres is on the rise, citing recent mass shootings including the 2015 attack at a Black church in Charleston, South Carolina. And actually, on the perpetrator's gun in this particular crime, he had written in gray marker, Dylann Roof, who perpetrated that crime. Mm-hmm. So he obviously was motivated by Dylann Roof.

Most of these, they actually consider themselves, I mean, they want to be martyrs for their cause, right? Because even this individual, he attempted to shoot himself before he was apprehended by the police. He probably assumed that he was going to die in all this and that his name would be glorified and talked about for days and days on end. I mean, via the press. The press gives them an extreme amount of publicity. Just like the extreme— think about the terrorists that go and conduct an attack. A lot of times it's also to terrorize people through, you know, all this information coming out in the media. This is kind of related, really, when you think about it.

Exactly, you're 100% correct. So other examples are the 2018 shooting at a synagogue in Pittsburgh, and in 2019, attack at Walmart at a Hispanic neighborhood in El Paso. So Adam Langford, a criminology professor at, uh, University of Alabama, studied trends in mass shootings over time. His 2020 study analyzing victim data showed that the deadliest shootings where more than 8 people are killed had doubled since 2010 compared with the previous 40 years. It's clearly not just random. They are, they are not people dreaming this up on their own. They are learning it from each other, he said. He added that they want to be like the previous attackers who is a role model. That is like as awful as it gets. Who's your role model? Oh, you know, Dylan Roof. Really?

It's— I don't know. I mean, I, I wasn't part of this generation of the gaming, you know, but that's— it's also, I think, an issue because I think the generation that's really involved in gaming, a lot of these type of games that are ultra violent, you know, people sometimes begin to be feeling a little bit, uh, numb, I think, to what this type of violence inflicts, you know. And so I think it's a lot of these individuals— I think even this individual had a background extensively in, you know, playing certain video games. Now, when—

now, when you make a comment like that, people are guaranteed to say, well, that's a dated comment. Like, you know, they're going to say, like, you, you, you don't play video games, you don't know. I play video games all the time and I don't have a problem, right? Right.

Most people don't.

Right, exactly. But here's the problem. People are definitely— some people who don't think like you and I do, who are unstable, um, become desensitized to violence based on the consumption of violent video games. And just they themselves, whether you would consider them, you know, antisocial personality disorder, sociopathic, psychopathic, they don't have the same level of empathy, sympathy guilt or remorse as you and I do. And so a video game that glorifies violence, uh, that, that desensitizes that person in such a way where, uh, it becomes normal for them and they actually engage and enjoy the process of shooting and thinking in the real world they would enjoy it even more is a problem. Do 99.999% of people who play video games experience it in that way? No, but some do. And but you can't blame a video game. No, you definitely have to look at some people who experience this process of playing that video game and how— what the outcome is. I learned a long time ago that we as human beings, we become what we think about. And so if you are somebody who consumes information all the time about mass killings and begin to find pleasure in that and, and the ideology wrapped around, uh, replacement theory, whatever it might be, uh, and that, uh, you find, you know, a certain amount of satisfaction in others who have taken lives of others for a certain cause. As you become— you become what you are consuming, and you become what you think about, you are likely to act on it.

Well, I think in almost every single case this doesn't happen in a vacuum where it's like, oh, that's surprising, we never saw anything happen in this individual's past that would indicate that there was a concern. In almost every case, there have been people, whether it could have been maybe, I don't know, they haven't really mentioned too much about his parents, but he's only 18 years old. I would think the parents would have some pretty good insight into his formation and kind of like what he's been going through over the last few years. I would think, given his young age. Then there's going to be maybe a few friends and acquaintances, perhaps coworkers. There's going to definitely be people, and it's been mentioned that he was posting things online. There were people that knew about it. So it's not like this just happened, you know, out of the blue without any sort of indication.

Yeah. So as a matter of fact, in the New York Post, they talk about how he had wore a hazmat suit to school. Was hospitalized after threatening classmates. Uh, the Buffalo accused teen mass shooter once wore a full hazmat suit to school during the pandemic and was later hospitalized for a day and a half after threatening classmates. State police had brought the 18-year-old in, uh, to a local hospital for a mental evaluation back in June of 2021 after he made a generalized threat of violence against the school. They did not provide details about the threat, but a government official previously told the Buffalo News that he had made statements indicating he wanted to, wanted to do a shooting either at a graduation ceremony or sometime after. After making the threat, he went to a local hospital. He was there for about a day and a half, evaluated, and released. The teen was not on the radar of federal law enforcement even after writing a 181-page race-hated hate manifesto online at some point during detailing his murderous plans. So in every single situation, there are leaks, purposeful leaks of this data, of data that shows the intentions of these killers. They always act out in some way. They tell friends, they tell family, they tell classmates. They, they, they cannot not leak it. They want people to know about it. Generally, they're not completely silent about it. Like, they're putting it out there for others to, to, to, to, to, to hear them. They want validation, you know?

Absolutely.

And, and as a mom and dad who see their son going through mental health issues and he says that he's— he wants to, you know, commit a mass killing at graduation, and he still has guns. Parents who don't engage are in denial. We, we've talked about this before. We've seen this. If this, if this man was actually a child, 17 and under, it is likely at this point his parents would probably have been arrested at some point for providing their child with a firearm. And not doing something about it? Because we're seeing that more and more.

I think it's unfortunately in this society, so many people, I mean, whether it's people or organizations tend not to want to get involved beyond what they necessarily have to get involved. They don't want to get involved unless there are consequences for not doing something. If there's liability. However form that takes, whether there'd be liability on the parents, in some cases, or on the seller of, uh, of an— of a particular gun or ammunition, or liability of a judge that maybe got— released somebody, or liability of someone, a mental health professional that, that maybe didn't do what they were supposed to do. I don't know, but I think unfortunately, until there's more liability issues, uh, addressed, that a lot of people are just not going to Sorry about that, Peter.

Okay.

You know, that are not going to get involved, and this really takes all of us to get more involved.

And it really does take, you know, a village, as they say. When you see something, you say something, as the Department of Homeland Security says. And when you recognize someone is coming undone, that— and of course, if they have access to firearms, if they are expressing threats of violence in some way, Definitely get involved. Definitely say something. Definitely drop a dime. Even if it's somebody that you love, somebody in your own family. We've seen plenty of stories where, you know, moms have turned their sons in. And congratulations, you know, to them for having the gall to do that, you know, the courage to do that. Gall not being the right word, courage. It really does, you know, boil down to taking action, even if it's painful.

Robert Siciliano, do you know whether or not the answer to this question is hate speech a crime in America?

You know, I think hate speech is not a crime. I think threats of violence are. You could say something hateful, but you can't make a threat. You can say, I, you know, hate you. 'But you can't say I'm going to hurt you.' There's a difference.

In either case, though, I would think that with a lot of these, you know, social media platforms today have these filters in place to be able to identify a lot of this very quickly. Now, you know, what action to take— that's why I ask you, is hate speech a crime? You know, what action— I mean, I'm sure if that was provided to law enforcement officials, there would be literally hundreds, if not thousands of cases or stuff popping up on a daily basis. And where do you go? But I mean, it seems to me that a lot of that information can easily be pulled up instantaneous on some of these sites and potentially reported.

Yeah, and it is. There are law enforcement officers at all levels that are monitoring this. There are tools that social media has access to that monitor this. The unfortunate part is, is that you have probably tens of thousands of people just like this Payton Gendron that are planning an attack. And I would say tens of thousands that may or may not follow through with it. Maybe hundreds follow through with it. And I would say maybe dozens are thwarted.

Right?

Only, only a few are thwarted compared to how many actually are, you know, actually follow through with it. So here, MSN talks about a new generation of white supremacist killer shedding blood with internet winks, memes, and live streams. So bored during the early days of the pandemic, he logged into the 4chan message board website to browse ironic memes and infographics and spread the ideas that the white race is going extinct. He was soon lurking on the web, uh, even more sinister fringes, scrolling through extremist and neo-Nazi sites that peddle conspiracy theories and anti-Black racism. It wasn't until he spotted a GIF of a man shooting a shotgun through a dark hallway and then tracked down a live stream of the 2019 killing of 51 people at two mosques in New Zealand, uh, that Gendron appeared to have found his calling as a uh, violent, vir— virulently racist copycat mass shooter with a craving for notoriety. He found his calling. He found his idol, right? Uh, the 18-year-old from New York suspected of killing 10 people appears to represent a new generation of white supremacists. They are isolated and online, radicalizing the internet memes and misinformation, apparently inspired by live streams to find fame through bloodshed, much of it propelled by convoluted ideas that the white race is under threat from everything from interracial marriage to immigration. You know, like, what is the problem? So we have an integrated society. What's the problem? I don't see what the problem is.

You know, Robert, I just thought about this, but it would not surprise me. I'm not saying that this is the cause of this, but something that maybe pours a little bit of fuel on the fire. If you were— and you know my background, right? Intelligence and always looking at how nation-states will try to weaken other ones, you know, who might be bigger threats, right? We— so here in America, we have the case, you know, with concern about Russia, especially these days. But Russia, for the longest period of time, and China, where they do get involved in— and I referred to this before as active measures, trying to promote certain causes and create divisions within societies. And this is one, and I am saying that they necessarily establish the forum, maybe they do establish some of the forums, but they can foment them and add fuel to the fire of these forums where people are exchanging these extremist ideas. You have some of these state actors like Russia, and you have some of the terrorist groups out there. Maybe, you know, they disguise themselves not as, you know, jihad, but they can easily be via the internet, get into some of these groups all as well. And it is also the same cause. At the end of the day, they want to destroy Western, you know, society, Western democracies. And so, you could have these type of individuals also who are engaged in trying to, you know, promote it. No one talks about that.

And, and, and if, if for a recap on what Peter just said, so those of you tuning in, That was said brilliantly, Peter. So, so essentially, you know, countries like Russia and China and others would love to see us all kill each other. ISIS would love to see us blow ourselves up and have a civil war. And so when you have somebody like this 18-year-old who's online at some of these fringe websites, it's likely that foreign nations are integrated their own people, their own extremists, their own, uh, uh, people to fuel the fire, to encourage this kid to, to, to pull off what he did, uh, and, and to, to, to help him in the process and to, to provide him some level of gratification that he— in, in encouragement to do what it is that he sets out to do, uh, to add fuel to that fire. I, I remember you know, during, you know, when, when, when, when, when BLM was doing all their marches and all the racial strife that we experienced during the Trump administration, and I had something to say about what was going on, it was obvious that there were internet trolls infecting my feed in such a way where they were coming out as white supremacists. And on my own feed countering what I was saying. So speaking to, you know, Kaepernick kneeling in the field and why he did what he did, I would speak to it in such a way where, you know, he's doing it specifically because, you know, young Black men are being killed by law enforcement officers, and that's a horrible thing. And that's all this man is doing is bringing attention to that. That's why he's protesting. It's not because of the flag. He's doing it because he wants to bring attention to you know, young Black men being killed. And, and my feed would immediately be infiltrated with all these memes that it was obvious to me weren't actually humans. It was like bots specifically trying to like add fuel to the fire.

Yes.

And that's the point, you know, like they want to divide us, and if we are divided, it's easy to conquer us. So yeah, brilliant insight, Peter.

Yeah, yeah, there's so many different, you know, things that have happened in the past, you know, where they've done that. And this is, this is, you know, I think it's a perfect— it's a perfect storm for them to be involved in this right now. It really is.

All right, so, you know, listen, everybody out there, just pay attention what's going on around you. Be aware, be alert, you know, know what's going on around the perimeter of your body. Um, if you see something, say something. If somebody in your life is acting up or acting out, definitely drop a dime. And there's nothing wrong with that. Especially if it's a mental health issue. People who have mental health issues, they just can't help themselves, and they need help from people around them. Even if they're difficult, in some way you should bring attention to what they're— what's going on. Now, this right here is really important. Um, you know, the CDC came out just this week saying that gun crime wave, uh, warning over summer of violence with kids pressurized to carry— pressure to carry guns in U.S. war zones. After shooting deaths hit record high. So there are fears that this summer will bring a Wild West-like gun violence in US cities where even good kids feel pressure to carry guns. Okay, this feeling of an impending storm follows Monday's CDC analysis of shooting deaths during the pandemic, which reached levels Americans hasn't— haven't seen since 1968 and disproportionately impacted Black Black men. So the red states have the highest firearm mortality rates according to the CDC. That's significant. Um, think about that.

I think, though, I think, I mean, there was, there was a raise, a rise in shootings during the pandemic, but I think it was more limited to smaller shootings in certain, in certain communities. And that's, if you compare it to mass shootings, I think mass shootings overall were way down during the pandemic than during the pandemic. I think these are more, maybe more incidences, but I think smaller compared to before. And I think now we're starting to see some of the mass shootings again. My fear is that they are right. I mean, that there will be more. And what could happen, I think it will force us society once again become more isolationist, right? Because during the pandemic, people weren't going out. They were afraid of getting the virus. They started to do a lot of things online. They're shopping online, attending religious services online, etc. If we get to the point— I hope we don't, but there's that danger— that with increased amount of mass shootings, people are going to be afraid to go to the mall. They're going to be afraid to go to Walmart. They're going to be afraid to go to the stores. And they might say, well, I'm going to order this online. I'm not— I don't want to go out into these places where there's going to be a lot of people. I mean, I hope, I hope that doesn't happen, but yeah, there's always that risk.

I'm not sure I agree, um, only because I think that people are just so hungry to get out, you know. There is definitely going to be a part of the population that will be afraid to leave their house, but I, I just think that people are just going to get out. We are social creatures. And the other part of it is, like, people say, it can't happen to me. So they function at a level of denial, which actually, like, is, is a survival mechanism. So that remains to be seen, right? So that firearms were involved in 79% of all homicides in 2020, a 35% increase from 2019, according to a May 10th report published by the Centers for Disease Control. There were 19,384 gun murders in 2020, which surpassed the previous high of 18,253 recorded by the CDC in 1993. The sky-high number of firearm murders coincide with the pandemic-fueled spike in gun sales. Um, in 2020, the number of monthly federal background checks for guns purchases were consistently, uh, at least 20% higher than the same month in 2019. So, uh, it's about to be a crazy summer, and you can feel it in the air, some say. Look at, like, your head being on a swivel. Look to the right, looking to the left, knowing what's going on behind you. When you see something, someone acting up, pay attention, be alert, be aware. I think that, you know, with what's going on out there, people— like, you always hear people talk about, you know, just being real, just be real. And, and people being real today means them being their true self. And I have a sense, I have a feeling based on observation that people being real is that people who are angry are angrier. People who are kind are kinder. People who are impatient are more impatient, right? People who are violent are more violent. So people are more real. I think, I think over the past 5 to 6 years, people have essentially, whatever they are or whatever they were, they've come out of the closet in so many ways. Their true selves are exposed, and they're not apologizing for it. And you see it all over social media, and I think that's a problem. I think you're right, because it's causing a significant amount of divisiveness and It's gonna get worse unless people just get nicer, uh, and I, and I, I don't know if that's even possible.

Well, we can't give up. We got to maintain a positive attitude. And I think your comment really— we got to be aware, situational awareness. Yeah, you know, in this country for years, decades, we've kind of had— didn't have to worry about looking over our shoulder or looking right or left, you know. But a lot of other countries you do, because I've been living in a lot of these other countries. And but here, people are just sort of like You know, even when they drive their car, they never look in the rearview mirror or the side mirrors. You just, you know, but you really got to know what's going on because otherwise you're not going to be able to react right.

And it's not about being paranoid, it's not about worrying, it's about taking control in such a way where you are on your toes, you're aware, you're alert, you're, uh, knowing what's going on around the perimeter of your body 50 to 100 feet at all times. That you are cognizant of your environment and of all those around you and what their intentions are, what their facial expressions say, what their body language exudes, what their voice is telling you, right? You know, the tonation, the tonation in their voice. And if you, you know, encounter somebody with a firearm who means to do harm, you have two options: run the opposite direction or run towards them. And running towards them in many situations, if you don't have a firearm, is extremely, extremely volatile and difficult, and for some, virtually impossible. Peter?

Yeah, I've— and I agree 100%. I just thought about this. I've been conditioned for such a long period of time, when I see somebody, or especially if someone's kind of like approaching in my direction, I look at two things. I look in their eyes and I look at their hands. Those— for everybody, I always look at those two areas right away because then I can determine whether or not they could, you know, be a threat in some way just by looking at it. And, uh, because if you are looking at their eyes, usually if they're going to be a threat, they're going to be— you know, people that are going to be a threat, they're going to be looking at you, they're going to be looking at you, uh, your eyes, and they're probably going to be carrying something. So maybe that's my paranoia, but I feel pretty much more aware of my my surroundings by doing—

by exercising that sort of, uh, yeah, I don't call that paranoia, I call that training. That's your training, Peter. And if more people did that, uh, I think that more opportunities where people were acting out would be stopped. Yeah. And on that note, Peter, um, what do you got to plug?

Well, as you know, doing a lot of travel is really picking up, doing a lot of presentations. I always love to plug my book, Confessions of a CIA Spy. The Art of Human Hacking. It's, it's really, really doing well to the point of I'm gonna— I'm in the process of having it translated into Portuguese, and I'm going to release it into the Brazilian market a little bit later this year and look for other ways for promoting it. But, uh, yeah, my biggest plug right now.

All right, and you can see me and my team online at protectnowllc.com. Again, that's protectnowllc.com. And hey everybody, just be nice to each other out there, and, um, we will talk to you soon.

Take care.

Thank you, Peter.