Big Brother Is Listening, Watching, And Tracking Us, And He Is Being Nosey

Summary

Practical Prepping Podcast: "Big Brother Is Listening, Watching, And Tracking Us, And He Is Being Nosey"

Hosts: Mark & Krista Lawley
Date: October 6, 2025 (original recording: 2022)
Episode Number: 527

---

Episode Overview

This episode deep-dives into concerns about surveillance, privacy, and government overreach in modern American life. Mark and Krista Lawley, practical prepping advocates, dissect how personal information is being harvested, watched, and sometimes potentially misused by both corporations and the government. Their tone is conversational yet urgent, warning listeners to stay informed and vigilant, not just about disasters, but about everyday privacy threats.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. From “Conspiracy Theory” to Proven Reality

• Surveillance is no longer a fringe concern—it’s a daily reality backed by evidence from tech giants’ cooperation with the government.
• The hosts stress this is a nonpartisan issue, impacting all citizens regardless of beliefs or affiliations.
  • Mark: "What about when a conspiracy theory becomes truth, when it's proven not to be a conspiracy theory and that we were right all along?" (01:53)

2. Surveillance Mechanisms: Search Terms & Devices

• Search Term/Keyword Warrants:
  • Law enforcement agencies have issued broad search warrants demanding data from search engines for anyone using certain terms (e.g., “how to make a bomb”).
  • Krista: "You have to be careful what you search." (03:24)
  • Even innocent searches can become part of a digital profile.
• Device Eavesdropping:
  • Devices like phones, Alexa, and rings can covertly listen or transmit conversations.
  • Shared a personal anecdote: After a private, in-person conversation about buying a tuba, an ad for tubas popped up unprompted on their phone.
    • Mark: "Nothing was typed in ... we were quite astonished when we saw that they were listening.” (07:08)
  • Hacking incidents with systems like Ring devices:
    • “A man's voice began to speak to that child because they could now see and hear that little six year old in her own room through hacking.” (07:55)
• Market Profiling:
  • Social media and advertisers routinely track online activities, building user profiles and anticipating future choices.

3. Due Process and the Constitution

• Emphasis on the importance of traditional warrant processes for surveillance.
  • Mark: "Protect the rights as guaranteed under the Constitution and do it like we had to do 30 years ago to get a warrant to put a tap on a telephone." (08:48)
• Concern about expanding surveillance to non-criminal, personal, or dissenting conversations:
  • "What if simply because of that conversation, their data gets sent to some agency... and they go on a watch list because they are preppers?" (11:34)

4. The Shift in Labeling and Public Perception

• Preppers, parents at school board meetings, and others are being flagged as “extremists” or even “domestic terrorists” for viewpoints or behaviors once considered normal.
  • Examples: School boards closing public meetings, parents “labeled as domestic terrorists” for protesting curriculum, and preppers flagged on social media.
• Raises alarms about the growing redefinition of extremism and who determines those standards.
  • Mark: “What’s extreme? ...Am I over prepped and are prepped beyond what the government recommends or sanctions?" (12:41)
  • Krista: "The government made up of people that we elect to be working for us, not against us." (10:44)

5. Data Misuse: Deepfakes and Media Manipulation

• Technology now allows voices and faces to be manipulated to produce believable deepfakes.
• Cites recent deepfake examples, such as manipulated Tom Cruise videos or political figures.
  • Krista: "I would have sworn in a court of law. What I just saw and heard was Tom Cruise." (22:08)
  • Mark: "The technology is good. Oh, the technology is being misused.” (22:42)

6. Practical Ways to Defend Privacy

• Digital Strategies:
  • Use alternative search engines (e.g., DuckDuckGo) that claim not to track users.
  • Consider VPNs for online anonymity.
  • Remove or physically separate smart devices from sensitive conversations.
    • “Put your phone in the other room. Don't just turn it off, but take it to the other end of the house or the car.” (26:00)
• Financial Strategies:
  • Growing concern about IRS plans to monitor transactions over $600 (“aggregate” during the year), vastly expanding surveillance of private banking.
  • Recommendation to use cash whenever possible to avoid transaction tracking.
    • “What I'm going to start doing is I'm going more to cash.” (39:02)
  • Warns that “rewards cards” or store loyalty programs track purchases regardless of payment type.
    • "Even if you pay cash, if you've got a rewards card that promises you points off...that's a form of tracking." (40:25)

7. Societal Trends: Centralized Control & Erosion of Property Rights

• Exposes fears about movement towards national firearm registries and the philosophy that private property should be relinquished for "the greater good."
  • Krista: “There have been some people in very high positions...that are publicly calling for us to relinquish our property rights." (32:30)
  • Discussion on “equal outcome” vs. “equal opportunity”—with warnings that forced equality leads toward harmful ideologies.

8. Personal Responsibility & Activism

• Encourages listeners to contact their representatives and demand transparency and protection of civil liberties.
  • Krista: "If we do nothing, nothing happens...Reach out to your local...state...federal representatives..." (24:17)
• Cites the quote: “All it takes for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing.” (25:04)
• Final advice: Stay prepared, stay informed, and err on the side of caution.

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On being profiled for searches:
  • “They begin to develop an almost profile, so to speak, of you...they can even anticipate what you may be interested in just based on your search terms.” – Co-host (05:05)
• On surveillance reaching into private conversations:
  • “We were quite astonished when we saw that they were listening. Not only is that happening on your telephone, it's happening in your house every day.” – Mark (07:08)
• On the principle of privacy:
  • "Private and personal conversations should have and have up to a certain point been protected because you're not breaking any laws ..." – Krista (10:44)
• On being excessive about prepping:
  • "What's extreme? ...Does that mean if I've got 10 days worth of supplies, I'm an extreme prepper?” – Mark (12:41)
• On deepfake dangers:
  • "Somebody could take a political leader and create a recording...saying exactly the opposite of what they actually believe.” – Co-host (22:47)
• On the philosophy of government overreach:
  • “It's about control. I mean, there's no doubt that it's about control.” – Mark (13:32)
• On everyday responses:
  • "I totally agree with where you're coming from paying cash for your purchases. However...even if you pay cash, if you've got a rewards card...that's a form of tracking.” – Co-host (40:25)
• On civic engagement:
  • “If we do nothing, nothing happens.” (24:55)

---

Timestamps for Important Segments

• 02:29: Early discussion of surveillance schemes and keyword warrants
• 06:39: Story about search term leading to phone ad after offline conversation
• 07:55: Ring device hacked to talk to a child—real hacking dangers
• 11:34: Preppers, prepping, and being flagged as "extreme"
• 14:08: DOJ and school board dissenters labeled as "domestic terrorists"
• 21:17: Dangers of manipulated/altered recordings and deepfakes
• 25:37: How law enforcement uses phone pings, tracking via technology
• 27:00: Practical privacy precautions (VPNs, removing devices)
• 28:03: IRS proposal to monitor all bank transactions over $600
• 39:02: Advocating cash transactions to reduce trackability
• 40:25: Loyalty/rewards cards as surveillance tools
• 44:31: Call to listeners for feedback, and closing practical advice

---

Wrap-Up & Call to Action

The Lawleys close with a reminder: in an age when both government and corporations can—and do—watch, listen, and log nearly every move, citizens must remain aware and proactive. "Stuff happens, stay prepared... and stay informed, do your research and be careful." (44:31-44:46)

Contact:
Email: [e-mail]
Website: practicalprepping.info

---

Summary Takeaway:
This episode serves as an urgent, practical alert: surveillance is real, broad, and growing. The best defense is awareness, conscious action, and civic engagement—protect your privacy, understand the systems around you, and don’t hesitate to speak out for your rights.

Transcript

[Host 1]

Big Brother is listening, watching, and tracking us, and he's being nosy. It's not a conspiracy. And we bring proof of that today from our phones and computers. Welcome to Practical prepping. Today is October 6, 2025, and this is episode number 527. Due to unforeseen circumstances, we are extending our hiatus one additional week. But we've selected one of our most popular episodes from 2022, where we're talking about government overreach. And you had better believe that they are listening and watching and still being very nosy. If you'd like the expanded notes for this episode, go to practicalprepping.info 527. Now let's get to the show.

[Mark Lawley]

Government overreach. Big Brother is listening, watching, and tracking us, and he is being nosy. Much of the information that's here is just as applicable today as it was the day that we recorded it. So thank you for bearing with us. We hope you enjoy this and it may make you a little bit concerned about some of the devices that we use to enable others to listen to what we say. So sit back, enjoy, and we'll see you next time.

[Christa Lawley]

Welcome to the Practical Prepping Podcast. We're helping everyday people become prepared for.

[Co-host]

Whatever emergencies come our way.

[Christa Lawley]

Where gear is good, but knowledge is better, because the more you know, the less you have to carry.

[Co-host]

We're your hosts, Mark and Christa Lawley.

[Mark Lawley]

And let me ask you this question. What about when a conspiracy theory becomes truth, when it's proven not to be a conspiracy theory and that we were right all along? Oh, my number of ways that we can see that. But one of the things that we want to talk about tonight is government overreach. There's definitely been an overreach and is being an overreach in the government. We're not saying this is one side or the other. Republican, Democrat, conservative, liberal. It is an overreach of the government.

[Co-host]

Exactly.

[Mark Lawley]

One of the things that we're going to talk about is surveillance schemes that they have come up with. And some of these have been around for a long time.

[Co-host]

Yes. But I think most people just aren't aware of it. They're only becoming aware of this type of thing right now. So I think what happens is those that are in power and have these abilities have kind of run unchecked and been given somewhat of a sense of permission to do some things that some people might agree with and other people.

[Mark Lawley]

Might not agree with, and it's overreach in. In a number of ways. And some Information that's come to light in the last day or two is how Google has been complicit might be the best word to use with the American government in monitoring people. And one of the ways that we see that is in search term warrants.

[Co-host]

Or what they call a keyword warrant.

[Mark Lawley]

That's correct. What this amounts to is that there have been search warrants issued very, very broadly to cause Google, Yahoo and Microsoft to turn over information or data that Google, that any search engine is capable of doing. On certain search terms, you have to be careful what you search. We know that the search terms that you put in the keywords that you search for cause the social media sites to put certain ads onto your phone or Facebook or whatever.

[Co-host]

I have found that if I'm on the Internet and I'm searching, for example, shoes, let's say I'm looking for sneakers or tennis shoes or boots or sandals and I'm just looking on a various amount of different retailers and suddenly I go over to Facebook and then ads pop up on Facebook of the exact shoes I've already been looking at on another site. And I'm in Facebook now and like how do they know I was looking at that pair of shoes from that vendor? And I'm like, they're figuring me out. I have provided data and they're extrapolating.

[Christa Lawley]

Information from that data and sending me now to sites to A, remind me of what I've already looked at or B, send me to other spots for which they think I may have an interest. And it's all market driven.

[Co-host]

There's a dollar in it somewhere.

[Christa Lawley]

You know these, this information is being.

[Mark Lawley]

Bought and sold and it says too that they know who you are.

[Co-host]

Yes, they begin to develop an almost profile, so to speak, of you in a sense of they can even anticipate what you may be interested in just based on your search terms. And we're talking about an innocent, completely above board, nothing surreptitious, nothing shady or smoky about it. But let's just say I want to do a research for a paper and I need to investigate how to build an explosive or the different kinds of explosives. And I get on Google or I get on Microsoft and I go to a search engine and I want to investigate explosives that's going to trigger something, so to speak, Pun intended.

[Mark Lawley]

That is one of the search terms that is definitely being watched.

[Christa Lawley]

Yes.

[Mark Lawley]

That's why I jokingly said one day that if you're going to search things like how to make a bomb, you use your co workers computer oh dear.

[Co-host]

Oh, well.

[Mark Lawley]

But that is one of the terms that is under surveillance. Now let's go back. It goes further than just what you put in. And we've said that they were watching and they are listening. You'll remember this incident and let me relate it to y'. All. Christa and I were sitting in our den one night. We have a great nephew, more like a nephew, who is a tremendous tuba player.

[Co-host]

He is.

[Mark Lawley]

He's going to school on a scholarship playing tuba. If I'd have been him, I'd have picked a smaller instrument anyway.

[Co-host]

Well, he'll have big muscles after carrying this tuba for many years.

[Mark Lawley]

He's a pretty good strapping boy anyway. Well, we were sitting there and you told me that our brother in law was looking at buying his grandson a tuba. It was later that night, I believe that on your telephone, which was laying on the table between you and me when we were having that conversation, popped up with an advertisement for a tuba.

[Co-host]

Yeah, it was astonishing.

[Mark Lawley]

Nothing was typed in. And we were quite astonished when we saw that they were listening. Not only is that happening on your telephone, it's happening in your house every day. If you have something like Alexa.

[Co-host]

Yeah, the Alexa, Google Echo, some of the smart home devices that are on voice command. And there have been some people that have reported that they have heard voices coming back through Alexa. They've heard laughter, they've heard whispering. It's a two way thing that they found out that that speaker that's accepting your voice is also transmitting somebody else's.

[Mark Lawley]

Voice or can be.

[Co-host]

And we saw that ring video not too long ago somewhere in another midwestern state.

[Christa Lawley]

A family had installed ring videos all throughout their home. And they had one in their daughter's bedro and someone was speaking to her actively in real time. A man's voice began to speak to that child because they could now see and hear that little six year old in her own room through hacking. I mean, it took some hacking to do, but there's a sense that people are watching and people are listening.

[Co-host]

And we have a segment of society that believes that, well, maybe we need to find the traffickers and the abusers and the molesters that are out there. And I say that's what law enforcement is for, their active seeking these people.

[Mark Lawley]

And I'm fine with that. And if you give due process and you have probable cause to get a warrant on electronic communications, I'm fine with that. Once you have identified the person that.

[Co-host]

Laws have actually been broken.

[Mark Lawley]

That laws have been broken and we're searching for this trafficker. And we know who we believe he is, and we believe he is conducting communications that would implicate him as a trafficker, then let's go with that. But let's do it with a warrant. Very specific. Protect the rights as guaranteed under the Constitution and do it like we had to do 30 years ago to get a warrant to put a tap on a telephone. We didn't monitor all of the telephone calls to see what was being said in case something was being said that might lead to not necessarily a crime. But what if it leads to someone who has a different opinion of the current administration?

[Co-host]

Oh, I remember the kerfuffle that blew up when we learned that the NSA was recording and storing random phone calls, just phone calls off cell phones and landlines and where in the world they would be storing literally millions and millions, maybe billions of telephone conversations. And what would be the purpose of that? And people are saying, well, if you're not anything wrong, you've got nothing to worry about.

[Mark Lawley]

It's about freedom.

[Co-host]

To which I say, well, then what is the purpose of someone eavesdropping on my telephone call? Why would I want a stranger sitting in my living room judging and profiling and categorizing my thoughts and my speech? For what purpose? What's the end game here?

[Mark Lawley]

Especially if you and I are discussing something, some personal subject.

[Christa Lawley]

Exactly.

[Mark Lawley]

Maybe we're discussing our finances, what you are going to do with our money.

[Co-host]

Or maybe we're discussing a met.

[Mark Lawley]

Oh, you got that?

[Christa Lawley]

I got that one.

[Co-host]

Or maybe we're discussing a sensitive medical.

[Christa Lawley]

Issue regarding a family member or.

[Co-host]

Or something that we need to do.

[Christa Lawley]

To take steps to protect a family member or something. Private and personal conversations should have and have up to a certain point been protected because you're not breaking any laws by having a private conversation in your space. And you should expect respect from the law and those that are in charge. The government made up of people that we elect to be working for us, not against us. And that's kind of where all of this starting to blow up is that. Where is the end game is this. If it's just about law enforcement, there's already laws, like you said, there's already a due process system that has been working and it does not trample upon the liberties and freedoms of our neighbors or ourselves.

[Mark Lawley]

Right. There's a constitutional process set up. What if we're sitting there and we make no bones about it, that we are preppers? I mean, we host a prepping website, we've written a prepping Book. We host a podcast on prepping. We make no bones about it. But what if a couple is sitting in their house discussing the next prepper supplies that they plan to buy? What if they're discussing where their bug out location is or what they are taking to that location? And what if simply because of that conversation, their data gets sent to some agency, FBI, whatever, and they go on a watch list because they are preppers? We saw something not too long ago, and it was on Facebook that was encouraging people to report people who were prepping too much.

[Co-host]

Yes. They actually called it extremists.

[Mark Lawley]

Extremists.

[Co-host]

Prepper extremists. And they were just simply flagging groups, forums, and private citizens who are just simply discussing prepper.

[Mark Lawley]

And what's extreme? The government says to be prepared for three days. Now they're changing that to seven days. So does that mean if I've got 10 days worth of supplies, I'm an extreme prepper? Am I over prepped and are prepped beyond what the government recommends or sanctions?

[Co-host]

Exactly. It's like, why is the government even interested in anything like that? I mean, what is the end game? What is the reasoning behind targeting someone for their thoughts, their speech, their convictions, their belief system, their financial status, whatever it is that is of interest to them? Why does the government need to stick their nose in and then flag you for words or search terms that make them feel nervous about what you're doing?

[Mark Lawley]

It's about control. I mean, there's no doubt that it's about control.

[Co-host]

Well, didn't we read in one of these articles that even though there have been very few keyword warrants that have actually been acted upon, the finding or.

[Mark Lawley]

That have been made public.

[Co-host]

Made public because the government's been up to this for a great deal. In fact, Forbes magazine recently released an article about this very thing.

[Mark Lawley]

And there have been two that have been disclosed and a third one that is sealed. And that's just what's been made public. Who knows how many more have been acted upon in the background?

[Co-host]

We really don't know, do we?

[Mark Lawley]

We don't know. Look at where the DOJ is right now. The Department of Justice, they are labeling people who go to school board meetings and speak out against critical race theory being taught to their children in school, those folks are being labeled as domestic terrorists.

[Christa Lawley]

Yes, that's actually Merrick Garland. The Attorney General has gone along with and agreed to the language of labeling a concerned parent as some sort of a militant extremist who was highly dangerous.

[Mark Lawley]

For years and years, teachers and school administrators dearly wanted parents to be involved in their children's education. Apparently that's changed. Apparently they know better than we do and they know what our children need to be indoctrinated, I mean, taught, rather than having our input into that. And we're seeing repercussions of that.

[Co-host]

Yes. It sounds like there are several school boards that are attempting to make their quote, unquote, public meetings not open to the public anymore. They want to conduct business in private, and that is not the purpose of a school board. They're supposed to be transparent and open door and they should address parents concerns. Curricula should be understood. Not that a parent has to have their way on the curriculum, but it should at least be agreed upon that it follows the educational principles and statutes that have been agreed upon. What's happened is a lot of rogue teachers cut loose and they bring their own thoughts and their own personal belief systems that may be age inappropriate or topic inappropriate for the subject that they've been hired to teach.

[Mark Lawley]

We've seen that reported lately, things that are being allowed in the classroom and things that are not being allowed in the classroom. And if you had the parents input, you would probably see that flipped. The things that were remaining in the classroom would be taken out and the things that were taken out of the classroom would be put back into the classroom.

[Co-host]

Well, because we're finding that a lot of the classroom time is now spent not so much on the academic subject or the enrichment or the art program, but that it seems to be the platform for certain teachers to expose their students to their own personal political bent, their own personal religious thoughts, their own personal identity issues that have absolutely nothing to do with the curriculum or some of the curriculum has been tainted with books and literature that are very age and topic inappropriate. And a lot of parents are finding out too, too late. They haven't paid close enough attention. They've had a little bit too much.

[Christa Lawley]

Trust and too much faith in a system that has changed out from under.

[Co-host]

Them and they don't even know.

[Mark Lawley]

And we're changing history. We're going back and we're rewriting a lot of American history, world history, and we're changing it to fit a narrative. I shouldn't say we, because I wouldn't be changing anything. Slavery is part of American history. It's part of world history. It's been done in many places across the world. Not saying that it was right, it was wrong, but there are places that are experiencing slavery today. And right here in the United States of America, we have slaves, whether we want to admit it or not. We have slave traffic. We have this human trafficking. People being brought into this country and being forced to perform certain jobs or perform sex acts or any number of things. And they're being greatly watched. They're being taken to work in a group of people, and they're being taken home in a group of people, and they have no freedom. They are basically enslaved. Back to my point, slavery is a part of American history, and we cannot get away from it. And changing the history book does not make it go away. We cannot change what happened hundreds of years ago. But we do need to teach it and teach that it was wrong so that it never happens again.

[Co-host]

If we sanitize all the bad, disturbing, hurtful stories that history teaches us. Because part of history's job is to offend. A lot of history teachers get that. A lot of people nowadays don't. But some of history's duty is to offend so that we can learn why things can be wrong or were wrong. And sanitizing history, what will. What can be learned? What can be, you know, without struggle, no tree can grow. Without some sort of challenge, no strength can be had. Even a trainer in the gym with student athletes is going to tell you, I've got to tear your muscles up in order for them to build. And if we just soft soap and sanitize and throw rose petals and gummy sprinkles all over history, we'll never, ever learn where we came from and why it is so important to learn those things from history today.

[Mark Lawley]

Yeah. How can you teach World War II without having the Holocaust?

[Christa Lawley]

How can you teach World War II.

[Co-host]

Without realizing that it truly was indeed a world war and that there were Axis powers, there were allies. And I'll tell you that if you really deeply study World War II, you can know that there are nations today that fell, that surrendered, and other nations that were literally on the brink.

[Christa Lawley]

And had it not been for the forces of democratic freedom to vanquish these powers that were becoming very, very successful, who knows what world it would have.

[Co-host]

Brought us to today? But anyway, we're digressing somewhat.

[Mark Lawley]

Well, we're talking about the history and what's being taught in the classroom.

[Christa Lawley]

But we're also talking about government's intrusion into our private conversations and into our private thought processes and going further than we would have ever invited any other stranger to go. I mean, I just don't leave my front door open for just anybody to walk in and sit down and listen to the things I have to say, and then knowing that I don't know what their purpose is for gathering the things that I've had to say, are they going to construe it in such a way to misrepresent me? We know you can take a speech and alter it to make it say something you didn't say. In fact, there's a commercial on TV right now. It's a humorous commercial about phones that if you drop the call or it breaks up, you're going to hear a completely different message. Well, that's not funny when it's actually happening to you.

[Mark Lawley]

That's the commercial where the lady actually tells the other one it's not a costume party.

[Christa Lawley]

Yes, it.

[Co-host]

Yeah.

[Mark Lawley]

And she doesn't hear the knot and she hears costume parties, so she dresses up in some like a medieval outfit.

[Co-host]

And she goes to a business dinner. Yeah. And so it's humorous and it's funny when a speech or a tape or a recording can be altered and monkeyed with. Basically for you to be able to be heard by someone that can vouch that's your voice, those are your words. But you never said what you just heard.

[Mark Lawley]

Oh, yes.

[Co-host]

That type of. That type of technology should frighten us just a little bit.

[Mark Lawley]

Wasn't there a program out not long ago that you could take public figures and taking their speeches and it would do exactly that?

[Co-host]

Oh yeah, the Tom Cruise. Some. An actor was able to utilize Tom Cruise's face, voice, likeness, body shape, mannerisms, and produced an actual transmission that Tom Cruise himself never did. But I was fooled. I would have sworn in a court of law. What I just saw and heard was Tom Cruise. Now some people applaud that kind of technology. Oh, that's amazing technology. What a masterful use of engineering and so on and et cetera.

[Mark Lawley]

Well, the technology is good. Oh, the technology is being misused.

[Christa Lawley]

Exactly.

[Co-host]

I mean, where could they now take a political leader and create a recording of a political leader standing and saying.

[Mark Lawley]

Something, saying exactly the opposite of what they actually believe? They do that anyway.

[Co-host]

Well, I'm saying too, there's.

[Christa Lawley]

I mean, regardless of what, like you said, this is.

[Co-host]

This is apolitical. This is above and beyond party.

[Christa Lawley]

This is some people having power beyond their scope and using it for an end game beyond our trust. And so who's really in charge here? Do we really have the freedoms? Are our freedoms being protected by the laws we already have on the books? Because it looks to me after reading some of this article that Forbes put out, that we're kind of held captive in some ways by those who have this technology and have no way of knowing what their purposes are. And so I say it's call to action time. And what I mean by that is, since these types of technologies have already been utilized and quote, unquote for the greater good in order to try to track criminals and whatnot, I can also see that a keyword warrant is something along the lines of some of those FISA warrants that were issued that turned out to be a complete and utter is a fiasco and false and fake. But it had all the government stamp of approval on it to make it look legit, but it was not legit.

[Co-host]

So I say you American citizens, reach out to your local representatives, reach out to your state representatives, reach out to your federal representatives. And I would go across party lines, I would go to whoever they are of whatever party, and you lodge your complaint and your insistence that they look into this and that they get transparent with the American people, if we do nothing, nothing happens. My mother used to tell me that many, many times, and she was right. If we do nothing and just expect somebody else to speak up or carry the water on it, nothing's going to happen.

[Mark Lawley]

And there's an old quote that all it takes for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing.

[Co-host]

Exactly.

[Mark Lawley]

And so we're going down a slippery slope with that. I take it one further. Knowing that they listen. Knowing that they can listen through these little devices that we buy, pay mega dollars for and carry around for them to be able to track us. They can track us, our locations, even when our location is off. Yes, on our phone. Our phones can be pinged. We do that quite often in law enforcement to find missing people.

[Co-host]

And that does work.

[Mark Lawley]

We can ping their telephone. We can find out the last time that it pinged at a tower and narrowed down a search. That's a good use of that technology. But who knows what Big Brother is doing in tracking our location. They know where we go, they know what we're searching for. They know what we're looking for on the Internet. They know our search terms. Now I'll throw in here, I quit using Google quite some time ago and I used Duck, Duck, Go. They say they do not track your search terms. They do not track it to you. Now, they do keep up with what's being searched simply for the what's trending things. I don't think that they are associating our searches with our IP addresses and such as that. Now there's a couple of things that you can do. We're talking about if we're sitting there discussing personal business, put your phone in the other room. Don't just turn it off, but take it to the other end of the house or take it and put it in the car. If this is a really sensitive conversation, leave it in the house and go get in the car and leave the car off and have your conversation in there. Not guaranteed that you won't get listened to, but you've cut the chance down for it greatly. Another thing you can do is use a vpn, a virtual private network.

[Co-host]

Yeah, a lot of folks advertise this.

[Mark Lawley]

And I'm looking into that for us right now. And that way we can have a Russian IP address. If we want to search something, we can hide ourselves from Big Brother and from others through a vpn, at least for now. They'll eventually get around that somehow. Now let's go to another overreach and that is this. Internal Revenue's proposed financial tracking. They have come out with. What they want to do is that they want to force every bank to reveal every financial transaction. They've got slightly conflicting information here. One it says over $600, but then another one that says that if you have had $600 worth of transactions aggregate for the year. In other words, they're going to track all of our purchases through our checking accounts and debit accounts.

[Co-host]

Yes, and they're saying that and they're, they're explaining and excusing it by stating that they're trying to close this gargantuous tax hole, that there's a tax gap somewhere. I don't see it.

[Mark Lawley]

Well, they're talking about too finding fraud through it. Somebody who is. Has $600 in the bank. They're not going through a lot of fraud on this thing.

[Co-host]

No. I think it's interesting that they have literally lowered the bar on it so far that there's very few Americans that would be left out. In fact, probably nobody that's got a bank account would be left out of this. And I can promise you, and I'm going to step out on a limb here by saying that I think the people that are more upset about this are the banks themselves. They're issuing letters of consternation to their clients saying we think this is very, very inappropriate. And they're sending those letters to their clients, the bank customer. But the bank does not want the IRS poking into their accounts either. Now, I'm not accusing any bank of doing anything wrong.

[Mark Lawley]

Well, look at how much more labor intensive this would become for the bank.

[Christa Lawley]

Well, look, how.

[Co-host]

I mean, what is the IRS going to do? Like, does the IRS have the time and the wherewithal to add this level of overreach into their auspices? I just don't think so.

[Mark Lawley]

All they need to do is to put out certain, again, keywords, certain purchases. If you purchase this, it goes into the look see box. If you've purchased groceries within a reasonable limit. I mean, if you're going in buying $1,000 worth of groceries, they may flag that one as well. But if you're just making normal purchases within your normal things, it's kind of like the credit card company watching your account and they notice it. You know, you usually don't spend more than you know. Your average purchase on a debit card is $50, $75, and you purchase something that's 750. I have gotten an email that says, is this you? We noticed irregular activity, activity on your account. Contact us if this is not you.

[Co-host]

So, oh, yes, I've had that happen to me, too. When I made a. I had a credit card that sat dormant for a year. Then I used it on a large jewelry purchase and I got a phone call. And I'm glad because this was their fraud department making certain that it indeed was me. Well, that's one. That's the credit card company, right?

[Mark Lawley]

That's protecting you. But that's not the irs. They can always build bigger buildings to put more servers and storage in.

[Co-host]

And they won't do that for free.

[Mark Lawley]

No, but that comes out of our pocket.

[Co-host]

Of course.

[Mark Lawley]

But it would be no problem for them to flag certain purchases. You purchase a gun, well, the ATF knows about it, the FBI knows about it because of the nics check, and then now the IRS knows about it. Go on with this. I remember at one time, I think it was the grocery store that we used. We could sign up for them, tracking what we purchased in groceries, and it was supposed to help them with inventory so that we would have some assurance that what we purchase is there when we go to get it. Take that system and make it federal, with the IRS learning of every single purchase you make when where they can prove it was you. You used your credit card, your debit card. They have your location going to the gun store. You bought ammo. Well, you've bought more than you should for an average person this month.

[Co-host]

Yeah, and who's the judge of that? The government. So they've made these artificial guidelines on that. But what's the. Again, I'm looking at the overarching agenda here. It's not enough to just want to figure out what they're doing today, this hour, what's motivating them? Where are they going with this? Are we.

[Christa Lawley]

Are we headed toward a national registry on firearms?

[Co-host]

Are we headed toward a society that wants us to minimize our material possessions?

[Christa Lawley]

There have been some people in very high positions of power, not necessarily government, but positions of authority in other ways that are publicly calling for us to relinquish our property rights. We don't own a house, we don't own a car, we don't own real estate, and we don't own our stocks and bonds.

[Mark Lawley]

They're issued to us as we need them.

[Co-host]

Yes, it's the. The thinking is that private property ownership is the demise of kind and benevolent America. That it's not fair to those that don't have these things.

[Mark Lawley]

And I'm like, well, if you don't have it and you want it, go get a job and work for it.

[Co-host]

A lot of folks did. You know, we're not born owning these things. We work hard for these things, and these are the items and materials. And yes, maybe we are a fat cat materialistic society, but I think that we're also a very generous and benevolent society. And I think that many people do have it in their heart to help others to raise people out of the poverty level. But to announce to me that I no longer own the things that I've.

[Mark Lawley]

Worked for and that we're going to create equal outcome. I think the concept of equal opportunity is in the Constitution. Yes, but not equal outcome.

[Co-host]

Equal outcome is the marker of communism. I mean, just look at it. Equal outcome means that nobody owns it. You are issued what you need to have.

[Mark Lawley]

Well, professional sports a number of years ago came out with a salary cap for the team. You could spend it all on one player or you could buy a lot of good players. The idea there was each team could spend this amount of money on salaries, guaranteeing somewhat or trying to guarantee equal opportunity. That way, one team is not spending a hundred million and the other team is spending a billion on salaries. If a team had a billion dollars to spend on salaries, they could get all of the top players, of course, and they would. That's exactly what they did. So the idea was to give equal opportunity opportunity, level the playing field, so to speak. It does not guarantee equal outcome exactly. Because at the end of the year, after the super bowl, there's one trophy, there's one team that has gotten there, and they had the same salary cap that the other teams had coming into the Season.

[Co-host]

Yeah. An equal, equal outcome in the NFL would mean that two teams could play a game and they both shake hands at the end of the fourth quarter as winners and that there is no super bowl because every game that's played has two winners. That's equal outcome. Now why play the game? What's the point now? What would be, are we trying to be equal and kind and benevolent? No. Sports teams want to win. They want to be champions, they want to have tournaments, they want to excel, they want to sharpen their skills and they want to prove to the world that they deserve the win that they achieve. If we're just going to have two winners at the end of a game, there's no reason to keep score. There's no reason.

[Mark Lawley]

A lot of kids, sports have quit keeping score.

[Co-host]

Well, that's not very realistic because now.

[Mark Lawley]

I can understand, you know, if it's a four year old team, something like that, they're out there to have fun, they're out there to learn something, skills and stuff. But if you're having a game, you need to have a score because even if you don't have a scoreboard, parents are keeping up with that score. Kids are keeping up with that.

[Co-host]

There are parents that are, bless their hearts. There are parents today that believe that their little Johnny and little Sally should never taste disappointment or an upset, or no tear should ever fall from their eye. That they must be pampered and poo pooed everywhere they go so that they have a happy, happy, joy, joy life. And they're setting these young people up for a lifetime of misery and everyone around them to be miserable. Because you one of the greatest things you can teach your children of any age. But hopefully early on you need to teach your children how to get back up once they've been knocked down.

[Mark Lawley]

Teach them it's okay to fail.

[Co-host]

It's okay to fail.

[Mark Lawley]

It's not okay to quit.

[Co-host]

Because failing simply means you tried. It does. Again, there's no outcome that can be guaranteed. Much of what I have learned in my life came on the heels of a failure. And some of the failures that I have experienced have been large. And I learned so much by going through that experience and understanding that, hey, you know what? I can actually survive failure. I can survive the hurt, the pain, the disappointment and the anger, the humiliation or whatever is happening.

[Mark Lawley]

But if you never fail, you're not trying hard enough.

[Co-host]

Well, that's the thing, is that not failing would really warp me if I had been taught that as a young child, that I'm that Everything I do is good. Everything I do is perfect. And others around me need to shield me and keep me from harm and keep me from being having my heart broken or my feelings hurt. And that just never happens. I would soon learn that the world is at my beck and call. I don't have any respect for those around me, and I don't have any compassion for the hurts others are feeling.

[Mark Lawley]

Well, we've taken a little bit of a turn here and we've run down a rabbit hole. And that's okay.

[Co-host]

We're. We. We're just kind of podcasting from the heart tonight.

[Mark Lawley]

You folks know where we stand on a few of these things. But back to some of this. Tracking our expenditures, all of our transactions. Who needs to know that we bought new furniture? Who needs to know that I bought a gallon of paint today?

[Co-host]

If it's for tax gap reasons, the things you're purchasing at a retail store are already taxed. That. That's a done deal.

[Mark Lawley]

Either tax there.

[Co-host]

Yeah.

[Mark Lawley]

And the sheriff's department sends me this form each year that's called a W2. And it goes to the government as well. The IRS gets a copy.

[Co-host]

Exactly.

[Mark Lawley]

So they know how much I made this year. Right, but whose business is it and what can we do about it? What this is making me do. And I used to carry more cash. I've gotten back out of the habit of doing more transactions in cash. But what I'm going to start doing is I'm going more to cash.

[Co-host]

A lot of people are.

[Mark Lawley]

And I'm going to spend that cash the way I want to spend that cash. And I'm not worried about the government finding out what I purchased. If I go buy two boxes of ammunition, I'm going to pay cash. I'm not going to let them have a record of. Of what I do. If we're getting ready, we're looking forward to ordering some water storage containers to store approximately 180 gallons of water. Who in their right mind would need 180 gallons of water? And who would do that except a prepper? So we see this and we know this is a prepper. Maybe we need to go check on this guy. Maybe we need to keep an eye on them as a couple. You know, they might be right wing, radical extremist domestic terrorists when we're not. I'm nothing but a fuzzy face papaw. That's a papaw with a beard.

[Co-host]

Well, let me go back to something that you said and it caused my mind to think something through. I totally agree with where you're coming from paying cash for your purchases. However, I want to flag something here and I want people to really think with me along this. Pretty much every store you walk into have some form of a rewards program that you sign up for. And so even if you pay cash, if you've got a rewards card that promises you points off or dollars off on your next okay, that's a form of tracking so your purchase can be tracked to that rewards card. So now you've got to ask yourself if you really want to go off the grid, so to speak, spending wise, don't use the rewards card and you do forfeit whatever they promise you in terms of like, you gain so many points you get dollars off. Okay, fine. You're going to need to make up your mind. Do you want to be tracked or do you not want to be tracked? And I'm not suggesting that anybody that doesn't want to be tracked is up to no good or breaking the law, because most people are not, not doing that. So it's causing me to even think, okay, like when I go to my local grocery store and I've got their little card and I've habitually popped it.

[Christa Lawley]

In there in order for them to give me the discounts that are associated with that card, well, it doesn't matter how I pay for my purchase. That grocery store can track me.

[Mark Lawley]

But you're purchasing things that are normal stuff.

[Co-host]

Well, what about a, let's say, what about a place like a sporting goods store? I'm not going to name any names, but what about a sporting goods store, a camping store, hiking store, and they ask you for your zip code or they ask you to sign up for, you know, you probably just going to have to be in a position where you just say no and they're going to look at you really funny like, okay, you're buying all this ammunition, but you don't want us to know who you are. Whose business is it to know who you are?

[Mark Lawley]

Nobody's business.

[Co-host]

Nobody's business.

[Mark Lawley]

But there are at least 10 zip codes within just a few miles from here. Pick one.

[Co-host]

Well, I know, I know. But you see, and I don't want to feel, I don't want people to get the idea that I'm getting way down the pier here, down into the deep ocean of extreme paranoia. They're out to get me to everybody's not trustworthy. The government's. I'm not going there. But I am speaking out against what I have learned is going on or wants to go on.

[Christa Lawley]

Now, this thing about the irs.

[Co-host]

I understand that this was actually buried into this bill that's been put before Congress.

[Mark Lawley]

It's part of this three and a half trillion dollar bill.

[Co-host]

Yeah, they've buried, they've buried a lot of interesting things down deep into this bill hoping that nobody's going to read any of this. How many was it? 5, 6, 7,000 pages?

[Mark Lawley]

Something like that. And you know, you're talking about over a case of paper just to print it out.

[Co-host]

Well, apparently we've been told that we have to, to pass it first before we can read it. And these are the people that are in charge.

[Mark Lawley]

That's what we were told with the health care bill, that we didn't know what was in it and said, well, we have to pass it so we can find out.

[Co-host]

Yeah, that that should, that should never have flown. That that statement should have been media should have done its job and it didn't.

[Mark Lawley]

Well, that tells us what some politicians think about us. Yeah, some politicians think that we are too stupid to be able to realize some of what's going on. We realize it. We know you realize it. We just wanted to bring this to your attention tonight and it might have been that we wanted to rant about it a little bit, but we've touched on quite several things tonight and we hope that you've enjoyed it. We would welcome your email back to give us your opinion of this. Please drop us an email. Tell us if you agree, agree with us. Tell us if you disagree with us. You know, we would love to hear your feedback on that and we would certainly appreciate it if you would do that. Anything else you want to add tonight?

[Co-host]

Well, just, you know, stuff happens, stay prepared and I'm going to add to that. Stay informed and do your research and be careful.

[Mark Lawley]

Big Brother is watching, listening and tracking and we'll see you next time.

[Co-host]

You can email us at inforacticalprepping.info and our website is practicalprepping.info and remember, stuff happens, stay prepared.