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- [00:00]
Joseph Cox
Foreign hello and welcome to the 404 Media podcast where we bring you unparalleled access to hidden worlds, both online and IRL. 404 Media is a journalist founded company and needs your support. To subscribe, go to 404 Media Co as well as bonus content every single week. Subscribers also get access to additional episodes where we respond to to the best comments. Gain access to that content at 404 Media co. I'm your host Joseph and with me are 404 Media co founders Sam Cole.
- [00:37]
Sam Cole
Hi.
- [00:38]
Joseph Cox
And Jason Kebler.
- [00:40]
Jason Kebler
Hello. Good to be here.
- [00:42]
Joseph Cox
So Tiny Bit of Housekeeping on Wednesday 18th of June at 1pm Eastern we will have our latest FOIA Forum. This is a live streamed event where paid 404 media subscribers can join and we will tell them how to pry records from the government. We've done a few of these. Sometimes it's pretty hard to find time to schedule them, but really looking forward to this one. Jason, just briefly, what is the story we're going to be explaining to subscribers? Like how we got these government records?
- [01:18]
Jason Kebler
Yeah, we are going to primarily be talking about this article that Emmanuel and I did called about Massive Blue, which was where cops were deploying AI avatars to social media in order to gather evidence. The reason that we're doing this one is because the actual FOIA process was really interesting, I think, and it was pretty complicated. So we're going to be talking about exactly how we did that and how you can do it as well. Are we going to talk at all about Flock? If there's time, maybe we'll talk briefly about Flock stuff as well because we've been doing a lot of FOIA reporting there, but I assume that there'll be some time to talk a little bit about that reporting as well.
- [02:02]
Joseph Cox
Yeah, if we don't do it on this one, we should absolutely do a dedicated one. Like we've spoken about Flock and FUSIS before, which is sort of another surveillance platform that we've done a lot of public records work around. The stuff Jason's referring to is to public records that found immigration related lookups into Flock license plate readers and abortion related ones as well. We'll see if we have time. But regardless, please become a paid subscriber if you're not already and I will send a link out to the livestream probably the day before. Again, that's Wednesday, 18th of June at 1:00pm EST. All right, Jason, do you want to take the headline of this story and ask me some questions? Because I wrote it yeah.
- [02:51]
Jason Kebler
So this week we are going to be talking during the the Normal podcast all about the anti ICE protests in Los Angeles. This first story is DHS Blackhawks and military aircraft surveilled the LA protests. I guess to preface this a little bit, many of you know that I live in Los Angeles. I have actually been traveling this last week, though I'm not in Los Angeles right now. So I haven't been able to go to any of the protests, which I was hoping to do, to do some reporting and talk to people about what they're protesting, sort of like get a vibe check. But I guess to set the stage here, I am only able to follow this the same way that everyone else has been following it, like over social media, talking to friends who are there and also sort of like watching some of the news coverage there. I mean, I have a lot of the sort of geographical knowledge and neighborhood knowledge about what is happening, but ideally I would be there sort of like on the ground reporting. I just haven't been there. But basically on Friday in a city called Paramount, which is in Los Angeles county but is outside of sort of the actual city, ICE did some raids at a Home Depot and this spurred spontaneous protests in Paramount. And these protests have continued throughout the weekend and into early this week in downtown Los Angeles. And Joseph, you have sort of been tracking the airplanes and aircraft that are in the sky above these protests because in previous years, like during the George Floyd protests, for example, we knew that sort of like state, local and also federal surveillance aircraft fly around to sort of. I don't know, they fly around for all sorts of reasons. So let's talk about it. So what did you find in the flight data? Saturday and Sunday?
- [04:59]
Joseph Cox
Yeah, so I mean, basically whenever there is a significant event or protest or something like that, I will log on to adsb exchange.com which is a website which collects flight data and makes it very easy for anybody to access and search. It's all donated or collected by volunteers. So you will get a little bit of gear, costs about 400 bucks. Or you'll make your own, I believe, for a lot cheaper. That scans for aircraft traffic and then adds it to this database. It's similar to, you know, Flight Radar or one of these other websites as well. I just kind of prefer the UI and the data of ADS B. So I spent Saturday and Sunday looking at Paramount, where you said the protests started, and then later at downtown la. And immediately there was some interesting things. There was the California Highway Patrol, right, which is a state law enforcement agency. And they were flying a small aircraft over the area. That's not unusual, like at all really. But that's sort of where it starts. Then it goes up to. I saw DHS flying multiple Black Hawk helicopters and we actually saw videos of some of those Black Hawks landing and delivering, I don't know, items, boxes. Some people speculated it was ammunition. I don't know if we actually saw reporting that verified that. But they were landing and then moving items into the area. Then there were some more unusual flights as well.
- [06:50]
Jason Kebler
Yeah. So you saw these flights from the March Air Reserve Base, which is in Southern California, I believe. And then also these hexagon shaped flight patterns. So basically like you, you were able to look at the map and you saw, I mean, they're hexagons, they fly basically like, you know, six sides, but they're circling directly above the protest, Correct?
- [07:15]
Joseph Cox
Yeah. So there's two things. There was. I saw these circular flights which I think were at about 9 to 10,000ft, something like that. And the UI of ADSB is really good in that it color codes the craft depending on their altitude. So you can very quickly see, oh, it's orange or yellow. That means it's lower altitude. That's going to be like an LAPD chopper or something like that. And then sort of in the mid range you have green and that's sort of more than 9 to 10,000. And I kept seeing these repeating circles above Paramount and then above downtown L. A. And I followed back. Huh, well, where did these aircraft come from? And they actually came from, as you say, the March Air Reserve Base, which is to the east of Los Angeles. I mean, that's very, very interesting. When, even though the craft didn't have a call sign, which is ordinarily how you determine. Oh, well, that's that type of aircraft. I can Google the call sign, I can look up FAA registration information like you would with the California Highway Patrol or anything like that. And then you can then go, oh, that's owned by that agency. And that's that type of aircraft. That was kind of a mystery that I left and I got batted around between so many agencies. I pinged the National Guard because of course, Trump has deployed thousands of National Guard troops into Los Angeles and now the Marines at the time we're recording this as well, or at least there are plans to. I pinned the National Guard, I got, I think, batted over to the main Pentagon inbox. The main Pentagon said, go to Air Force, I went to Air Force, they said, go to dhs and basically nobody was taking responsibility for flying those craft that took off from an air reserve base. And I've actually got some tips and photos of the craft I'll have a look at probably after we record this. That was sort of the first very interesting thing. The second is what you mentioned with the hexagons. And I mean, you're kind of looking for two things when you dig through flight data. I think you're looking for planes without a call sign because it's like, huh, why, why don't they have a call sign? That's pretty weird. And then if there's very distinctive flight patterns, and sometimes that's just, you know, a plane, maybe a small aircraft going round, round, round in a circle above a particular area. Well, that's probably surveilling that particular location. Right? That's a very obvious one to point out. But as you say, there were some really distinctive flight patterns which were in a hexagon. And maybe that's the way they're flying. Maybe that's just the way that being translated or collected. But as soon as I saw that, it made me think, oh, I've seen these hexagons before. During the 2020 George Floyd protests.
- [10:08]
Jason Kebler
Right. And you did a big story then that sort of showed that these were Customs and Border Patrol Predator drones that were flying over Minneapolis and in this same pattern, correct?
- [10:22]
Joseph Cox
Yeah. So other people who were looking at flight data saw that at the time, in 2020, they posted it to Twitter. I think that's the site we were using in 2020. I then verified that. I think got confirmation from Customs and Border Protection, and CPP has a fleet of drones, you know, and they look. I mean, they are Predator drones. They are literally the same drones that are flown in. In war zones. It's just these aren't carrying Hellfire missiles, you know, as far as I know, I'm pretty, Pretty sure.
- [10:56]
Jason Kebler
No, they're not. They're not. So back at Motherboard, a long time ago, I actually went to Grand Forks Air Force Base in North Dakota, North Dakota, I believe, because there was sort of like this opportunity, this press junket, to see how drones were being flown internationally. They were flying Global Hawk drones, which are surveillance drones, really big ones that were piloted out of Grand Forks Air Force Base. But while I was there, I also learned that Customs and Border Patrol was starting to fly Predator drones along the Canada U.S. border. And these are, you know, DHS drones, which are not armed, but they are the same drones. It's like the. The company that makes it is called General Atomics. And for the CIA and the Air Force, they have Hellfire missiles on them. Don't quote me on what the name of the missiles are, but they. They have missiles on them, but then when they're flown in the United States, they don't, but they. They're like incredibly sophisticated surveillance technology on it. And this has been, like, quite controversial over the years because they've only been flown within the United States, like, not that often. And more than people would expect, though. More. More than you'd expect. But they're primarily flown along the borders. They're primarily flown along the Mexico US Border and the Canada US Border. And then only in these, like, really, like, these moments of protests have they been flown kind of like over other things. And then there was one story, one of my first stories that I ever did as a journalist. There was this guy named Rodney Brossard, also in North Dakota, and he was a cattle farmer and the local police. He was like a sovereign citizen type. And he holed up in this ranch. And the Department of Homeland Security flew a Predator drone over his house and. Or over the ranch that he was like, barricaded up in. I think that this was in like, 2010, maybe. It was a long time ago. And he was arrested. Like, they rated him using the surveillance footage from that drone to basically determine, like, oh, it's safe to go in now. And they arrested him and it became this, like, huge, huge deal. It was the first, like, real big tech story that I actually followed ever in my career. But still, like, to this day, it is pretty controversial that Predator drones fly in the United States. So I know that was the aggression, but we're going to hop into your second story, which is DHS flew Predator drones over LA protests, audio shows. So basically this is a story about how you took those hexagons and attributed them to DHS Predator drones. So this starts out with someone else analyzing and seeing the exact same thing that you saw. And I believe they reached out to you. Or maybe you saw, saw it. But who is this person and sort of what happened next?
- [14:11]
Joseph Cox
Yeah, I think the friend pinged me on Blue sky and I got in touch with them just to wrap up the previous story. So I see these hexagons, and what I do see is, is the aircraft, whatever it is, without a call sign. That sure looks like a Predator drone, but we're not exactly sure yet. It flies to the US Mexico border. So, like, I'm pretty damn sure this is a DHS drone, but it's not enough to publish at this point. So this aviation tracking enthusiast called aeroscout, they also saw these hexagons, and they decided to dig into the. This a little bit deeper. And what they noticed was that the flight path of this drone or this potential drone, and actually another one coming towards la, they sort of cross paths. One's heading east, one is heading west. They're crossing paths in this particular sector of airspace below Los Angeles called Sector nine. And this is just. I'm. When guest Streb said, this is like, really smart investigation work, and I'm really kind of impressed by what they did and the work they involved. But they then went to liveatc.com, which is a website again, where the data is contributed by volunteers, but it allows you to listen to air traffic control audio. Right. Jason, correct me if I'm wrong, but I feel like you did a story on atc.
- [15:42]
Jason Kebler
Well, I've done. I've done a couple stories about live atc. I did one many years ago in New York City, where basically the NYPD claimed that a hobby drone had flown at one of their helicopters and, like, not attacked them, but. But kind of was like flying menacingly at them. But the air traffic control audio, which was captured on Live atc, caught the NYPD basically, like, fabricating that because they were, like, joking about it. They were like, oh, let's fly at this drone. Like, they were the aggressor, more or less, and that was captured by this air traffic control. And then I did one more recently about the drones in New Jersey.
- [16:29]
Joseph Cox
The UFOs? Yeah, the.
- [16:31]
Jason Kebler
The like, quote, unquote UFOs. And basically what was happening was because there were so many drone sightings, people took their hobby drones. They're like DJI Phantoms and stuff like that. They're small drones, and started flying them at blinking lights in the sky, which were passenger aircraft. And so it was air traffic control, like pilots basically being like, oh, my God, these idiots are flying at us. It's very dangerous. But, like, long story short, this is an incredible resource, Live atc. It's a. It's basically a forum that has, as you said, it captures live air traffic control tower audio from all over the country.
- [17:19]
Joseph Cox
Yeah, I really need to look into it more. It's absolutely a haystack. And what Aeroscale, excuse me, what aeroscout found here was a needle in a haystack. But it's definitely an area that we and others should look more into. But anyway, so the flight path goes through Sector 9, and then it goes into another Area to the east, Aeroscout goes to the relevant audio on liveatc.com and hears people talking with this call sign called Troy T R O Y. And that's very interesting because Troy is a call sign used by dhs. One of the Blackhawk helicopters I tracked over the weekend, that was a DHS helicopter publicly registered, you can look it up. And that used the call sign Troy something, something, something. So that's already very interesting. Clearly these are linked to DHS in some capacity. Then what happens when one of the craft goes east into another section? Aeroscout pulls up that audio and here's an absolutely key, vital part which sort of solves the puzzle. I'm just going to play a tiny bit of that now. 01 traffic clock 10 miles opposite direction. Another Troy Q9 Foval 220. So at the end the air traffic controller says Troy Q9. Troy again being DHS. But Q9 is what seals. This is very, very likely being Predator drones because the sort of official name or title of these drones is MQ9. Q9 is sort of ATC shorthand for these drones, it seems. So, I mean, that kind of seals the deal for me. Right. What did you think of that, Jason?
- [19:10]
Jason Kebler
Yeah, I mean, to be real with you, I think that just the hexagon patterns.
- [19:15]
Joseph Cox
Oh yeah, Correct.
- [19:16]
Jason Kebler
Like, like we sort of knew from the get go, but it's like we can't be wrong about this. And so you, you want some additional level of confirmation and air traffic control saying like, hey, watch out for the Q9, you know, brackets, because they didn't say it, but like, watch out for the Predator drone is like basically what they're saying. That's very, very good confirmation.
- [19:42]
Joseph Cox
Yeah. And there was another piece of audio that they found where an Alaska Airlines flight was told to watch out for drone traffic as well. So that again confirms it's some sort of unmanned aircraft rather than, you know, an ordinary plane in the sky.
- [20:00]
Jason Kebler
Yeah, yeah. So has CBP said anything about this yet?
- [20:08]
Joseph Cox
Not really. I contacted Customs and Border Protection either on Saturday or Sunday, certainly over the weekend, for initial comment when I found the hexagons. They appear to be very, very busy at the moment, which maybe this is too behind the scenes for most people, but like I used to, and I still do occasionally get pretty quick reliable information from Customs and Border Protection. That has changed in this administration, especially over the last few months as well. It can be quite difficult. I get the impression they're swamped. That's not them saying that. That's just my interpretation. I then followed up with the audio that aeroscout found as well, and they still haven't commented. They haven't denied that this is their predator drone. But we're, we're waiting to see, you know, and of course we'll update or we'll do another article if they do provide a statement. But the audio and the flight data is amazing, in my opinion.
- [21:10]
Jason Kebler
Yeah. And I mean, I guess it's an extremely volatile time right now in Los Angeles. We're going to keep talking about in the second half of this show, but there's a lot of stuff in the sky right now and I imagine that you're going to continue looking at ADS B and just sort of trying to figure out, like, what is in the sky, like, what is it equipped with. I know that you are trying to learn more information about, like, what types of surveillance technologies some of these planes have, I would imagine, but. Yeah. What do you think happens next?
- [21:47]
Joseph Cox
Yeah, I mean, there are plenty more events coming up on Saturday. There is the military parade in Washington, D.C. where it would be insane if there weren't surveillance craft flying in the air at that time. President Trump has already said that any people protesting this parade, even those doing so peacefully, will be met with force, essentially. I would be surprised if surveillance craft aren't in the air as well. So I guess I'm going to be spending my weekend looking at that as well again. And then of course, you know, I'll be very curious how Customs and Border Protection continues to use its drones. Is that something? I don't know. Maybe they use it in conjunction with ICE for raids. I don't really know how that would work because the key thing is CPP sometimes deploys these drones at the request of other agencies. I believe the EFF found that several years ago where it's not just CPP going, oh, let's go fly a drone. There'll be a request from local cops or another agency or something like that. So, yeah, we'll keep an eye on that.
- [23:00]
Jason Kebler
As it should be noted that I think of the three of us, Sam is the only one who has spoken to Air Traffic Control.
- [23:08]
Sam Cole
Not me, not personally. I've been in, in the, the cockpit of a small plane and heard atc. They talk really fast.
- [23:17]
Jason Kebler
They talk so fast. It's incredibly hard to. Yeah. How do they do this?
- [23:21]
Sam Cole
I don't know. I don't know. It's, it's, it's a real. I don't know. It takes a real strong mind to do atc work? I think so, yeah.
- [23:30]
Jason Kebler
Let alone maybe we'll do more reporting. Yeah, about that at some point because there's an ATC crisis in this country. So if you know more about that, please, please let us know.
- [23:39]
Joseph Cox
Yeah.
- [23:39]
Jason Kebler
Joseph, you look surprised. Did you not hear about Newark?
- [23:42]
Joseph Cox
No, no, no. I'm just really enthusiastic about it because like I've been reading all the coverage about ATC being a shit show out of that airport and I feel, I feel like there's way more to tell there, you know? Yeah, yeah. All right, let's leave that there. When we come back after the break, more on the LA protests, but this time on the ground and on fire. We'll be right back after this.
- [24:14]
Jason Kebler
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- [29:08]
Joseph Cox
All right, and we are back. This is one that Jason wrote. Waymo pauses service in downtown LA neighborhood where they're getting lit on fire. Well, the end of that headline kind of says, what happened, but what happened to Waymo in la. Jason?
- [29:26]
Jason Kebler
Yeah, I believe it's now been confirmed that five wayo driverless cars were lit on fire in downtown la. You know, I don't know who did it. I. I believe it was the protesters. I don't think that the, the cops did this, but basically, like, they have been defaced and lit on fire. And it's become some of the, like, most enduring imagery thus far of these protests. And yeah, for people who are, like, unaware, Waymos are driverless taxis. They're. They're essentially driverless Ubers that are owned by Google, or rather like, Waymo is a Google company, and they're operating in San Francisco where, where notoriously, they, a few of them have been vandalized and attacked, and then they've been operating in Los Angeles for maybe the last, like, six or eight months, something like that. And it's a little longer than that because they were definitely here last year, but they become really popular. Like, I see them all the time. And so is it.
- [30:36]
Joseph Cox
Is it not just the tech people taking them? Like, what's your reading?
- [30:39]
Jason Kebler
Oh, I mean, a lot of my friends take them for, like, you know, all sorts of reasons. It's become a truly, like, a competitor to Uber. And, you know, frankly, it's like, it's cheaper than Uber because there's no driver. And it's just like every day it seems like there's more and more and more of them. You know, at first they were just kind of like, testing on my neighborhood. Then it was like, okay, it's open, but it was invite only. Like, you had to be invited to the app. Now it's open to everyone. And I took one to a basketball game. Like, I've taken them a few times.
- [31:18]
Joseph Cox
Now, like, to watch the basketball game. Sorry, that's just the way you said it, I imagine.
- [31:22]
Jason Kebler
The way I took them. I took them to an LA Clippers game. So I went, I took them to an arena, and there was a line of like 15 of them, which is to say, like, they're Everywhere. They're absolutely everywhere in the city now. And they're normalized. Which is just to say that. I don't know, like, you hear. I don't know if you're. If you don't live in Los Angeles and you hear, like, robo taxis are set on fire. You're like, there's Robo taxis.
- [31:54]
Joseph Cox
Okay, Right. So they get set on fire. Our friend Brian Merchant at Blood in the Machine went and spoke to people on the ground, I think the day after. And according to his reporting, people deliberately ordered the vehicles there to then set on fire. And especially because they're in a nice little neat row, but I guess that's how Waymos move. Anyway, anyway, they get set on fire. Basically destroyed, as you say. Really visual imagery. How does Waymo respond to these vehicles being torched?
- [32:27]
Jason Kebler
Yeah, I mean, I. I guess I'll highlight Brian's reporting because it wasn't clear why the Waymos were there, like, at first, as in, it could have been protesters taking a Waymo to the protest. It could have been people at the protest ordering Waymos in order to just, like. Like, frankly, Waymos are sort of known for, like, having infinite patience in a way that a person in a. Like a driver would not. So, you know, just as, like, an obstruction. It's also, you could imagine them trying to just, like, traverse the area because someone ordered one. And. And the protest was in the way. And so they were like, oh, we're stuck now. Because Waymo's very much like, they're. They're pretty good at driving, but when there's, like, construction or weird stuff happening, they don't always know what to do. There's, like, lots of stories of Wayos getting stuck. And so it was, like, unclear, kind of like, why they were there. And Brian's reporting shows that, like, some of the protesters called them in, which is pretty interesting. But, yeah, basically, I had written a story about Waymo recently that we'll get into in a second. So I hit up their press person and was like, what are you doing about these way mos that are on fire? And they were like, well, we're continuing to operate in the city of Los Angeles, but we're not going to go downtown anymore. And then they also said that they were coordinating with the cops, which I felt was not great language to use at this moment. But they said they were working with the cops to learn when it would be safe to remove the charred Waymos from downtown. Notably, they did not say that they're working with the cops to, like, Share video footage and stuff with them. I mean, whether that's happening, we don't know. But they didn't. I asked them and they didn't answer that question. And they didn't. Yeah, they didn't answer that question, basically.
- [34:29]
Joseph Cox
Yeah. Yeah. We'll get to the data stuff in a second. I. I think Waymo didn't give information on this, but did they specify how they were suspending service in downtown LA or not? Like, is there, like, a geofence where they draw it on the map and, like, no Waymo go here? I guess they didn't get that. Granted.
- [34:47]
Jason Kebler
Yeah, that's how Waymo works already, is that they're not. They're not everywhere in Los Angeles. They can only go to certain neighborhoods. And that geographic area is expanding all the time. But there are certain places where, for whatever reason, you can't order a wayo to at this moment. So I assume that they just, like, took that, like, they probably geofenced it, just removed it off of the. The map. And interestingly, like, they kind of only recently expanded to downtown LA in the first place. So it's entirely possible that they just, like, reverted to an older map or something like that. Yeah, yeah.
- [35:28]
Joseph Cox
And I think they also suspended service briefly in San Francisco as well, just according to something that Brian mentioned in his report as well. So that happens, as you say. Waymo didn't say we're working with the cops to identify the people who burned the vehicles, but at least potentially they could, because Waymo has been used by the police as basically an extension of surveillance, or I guess is a criminal investigative tool. What was this story you covered a few months ago at this point around that?
- [36:06]
Jason Kebler
Yeah, I mean, I think this is really the biggest concern with driverless vehicles at the moment, is they work with cameras. Like, Waymo uses lidar detectors as well. But there's a bunch of cameras on them as well because they need to see to, you know, not run things over. And so they are necessarily recording all the time. And cops have learned that. That this is happening. And so, like, I don't think. I really don't think that Waymo itself sees itself as a surveillance company in the same way that, like, ring the doorbell camera sort of does see itself as a we're here to prevent crime sort of company by having cameras. And they certainly don't see themselves as like a flock, which is a specific surveillance technology. But because of the way that the product works, they are filming all the time. And cops have realized that that's the case. And so in April there was a hit and run in Koreatown, which is not that far from downtown L. A. But it wasn't the Waymo that hit a pedestrian, it was another driver that hit a pedestrian. But it happened in front of a Waymo. And the Los Angeles Police Department requested footage from that. Waymo obtained it and then published it on its own YouTube and said like, does anyone in the public know whose car this is?
- [37:43]
Joseph Cox
Like and subscribe. Yeah, yeah.
- [37:46]
Jason Kebler
And we knew it was Waymo footage because the footage said Waymo proprietary and confidential, like more or less like on it. And so that, that just means that the cops have, have realized that these are a potential source of surveillance footage. And I, I honestly think that like once the cops understand that it's like it, it's going to become routine because we actually have seen in the past like these potential like technologies that could be used for surveillance that like the cops just weren't creative enough to think of to, to request footage from or request data from. And then it's like one cop will do it and then it becomes a really popular surveillance tool. And, and I guess like an example of that would be like Google Maps geofencing or like YouTube search histories and things like that. Like these are things that you have written about before, Joseph, where this data has existed for a really long time, but only recently cops realized that it could be used as a tool of surveillance.
- [38:58]
Joseph Cox
Yeah, or as we wrote about recently, push notification data, which was only really sort of revealed in 2023 by Senator Ron Wyden's office. And then we found court documents mentioning it. But yeah, there's ring, there's reverse location data warrants, there's DNA companies, there's push notifications. And I think the, the broader thing is if law enforcement have a legal mechanism to access data, and in many cases they will have a completely legitimate use case for accessing that data and it will be legal. If they can get a legal mechanism to request that data, they will absolutely do that. If they can, they want or they need. The thing that stops that sort of thing is technical solutions such as end to end encryption. You know, like law enforcement literally cannot get the content of end to end encrypted messages because it's just technically impossible. Technically they have the legal right to signal messages if they get a search warrant and there's probable cause and it's searched by a judge, but they literally can't get that, obviously. And this is just an extension of that. And as you say, it's not just as police learn about Waymo and you can get data from it. It's, of course, Waymo becoming way more popular across the U.S. and I mean, potentially other countries as well. Right?
- [40:22]
Jason Kebler
Yeah. So there's a few things I want to highlight here because I published this article. And then a few people said, well, don't Teslas have cameras on them? And the answer is yes, and cops have cops subpoena that as well. So. So that's also bad. They also say, like, a lot of people have dash cams, so can't they, you know, get footage from dash cams? And the answer to that also is yes, but. But the difference here is that Waymo is a centralized company. And so, as you say, Joseph, like, as these become more popular, a cop will probably be able to think, well, like, surely a Waymo was nearby. And, you know, because of the way that Waymo works, the company knows where all of its vehicles are at any given moment. And so theoretically, the cops can say, well, did you have any vehicles at this intersection at this time? And, you know, Waymo may need to give that up versus trying to get dash cam footage from a private owner. They're not going to know to ask for that, except for in very specific circumstances. So there's that. And then the other thing is, I said, I don't think that Waymo sees itself as a surveillance company. However, we have seen in the past, like, with delivery robots, which I've written about, these companies are very invested in protecting their own assets. And so a lot of them have, like, either training manuals or, like, informal situations with cops where it's like, here's what you should do if you happen upon a Waymo that has been vandalized or attacked. Here's what you should do if you see a delivery robot that's, like, stuck somewhere, these sorts of things. And so Waymo does have, like, a system for if a Waymo gets stuck somewhere and the cops show up, like, how to contact Waymo and interact with them in some way. And so it's just like, there is a relationship between police and Waymo because Waymo doesn't really have a driver. It doesn't have a driver in the car. And there's only so much that you can do remotely. And if the car gets into an accident or gets stuck or whatever, the cops might need to know, like, what to do with it. And so that is like a. A wrinkle here where there, like, already is kind of a relationship between the company and the cops for this, like, business purpose, more or less.
- [42:59]
Joseph Cox
Yeah. And I guess just the last thing is why your thoughts on Waymo a little bit more broadly, not even necessarily about the surveillance or the data stuff, but this company is getting much more popular. I believe you've used it as well. Like what do you think of some of the trade offs there? And you know, are people going to be okay with this? Do you think people are not going to be okay with Waymos? Like, what do you think?
- [43:23]
Jason Kebler
Yeah, this is the question that's designed to get me in trouble, I believe.
- [43:27]
Joseph Cox
And you have to write very careful Blue sky posts about because it's nuanced.
- [43:31]
Jason Kebler
Yeah, let's ask Sam first. Sam, please go first. You've written in a way mode as well.
- [43:37]
Sam Cole
Yeah, I don't know. I wrote in a Waymo out of desperation because the Ubers could not figure out how to get to the specific alleyway that I was in, in la and the Waymo couldn't either. But the Uber drivers kept canceling on me because they couldn't figure it out. They were like, fuck it, I don't know. And the Waymo was like, I'm gonna wait here and you can find me. And that's what I did. It's total skill issue. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, Jason wrote this in the story that he wrote about Waymos and the protests. Remember you said this on Blue Sky. I don't remember where you said this, but it was basically like Waymos are more careful than most drivers. I'm an atrocious driver, so guilty as charged.
- [44:16]
Joseph Cox
Verified. So.
- [44:18]
Sam Cole
Yeah, yeah, exactly. So the times I've written in them, I was kind of surprised that it fel felt pretty safe. There are definitely moments where you're like crossing three lanes of traffic, making a left turn and you're like, oh God, is it gonna see the cars coming? And it does. But you know, again it's because it's absolutely coded in cameras, which we've talked about on this podcast before. I hate that every car now has cameras all over it because of the partial like assisted driving self driving technologies that they all have in them now, including Teslas. But also just like normal, normalized car brands now have all of this stuff on them too. Increasingly. I don't think it's great. I wish, I wish more of these companies would stand up and say we're not going to comply with, you know, requests from the police about our users. But maybe that's not something that's like legally.
- [45:18]
Jason Kebler
Well, it's become a real problem for them, like an actual real problem for them. And so yeah, I think that they do need to push back a little bit more.
- [45:26]
Sam Cole
Yeah.
- [45:28]
Jason Kebler
Okay. My thoughts is we're a technology website. We're extremely skeptical of a lot of different technologies. We try to talk about how technology is impacting culture and humanity and we talk a lot of shit. But I think that we all need to pick one technology that we are going to say is good and explain why. And I think mine is going to be robo taxis. And I think that's because I was really, really, really skeptical of driverless cars. And I'm really skeptical of Teslas in particular because of the ways that they're being rolled out like really dangerously just with like turn on autopilot, do whatever you want. Like it doesn't have lidar, it relies on cameras only. Whereas Waymo has been working on this technology for a really, really long time. They've rolled it out super slowly. Like self driving cars from Waymo have go back to like a Google project that is over a decade old. Only recently they've sort of like started a commercial service. And if you have driven in Los Angeles or anywhere in the United States, human drivers are often on their phones. A lot of people drive drunk, like more than you would want, which you would want zero to, you know, people get distracted, people are eating, people are fighting, they're singing songs, whatever. And I've experienced this like as a passenger, I've experienced this as a driver, I've experienced this as a pedestrian, as a biker, as someone who walks my dog. And it's really, really scary. It's like scary to cross the road in Los Angeles, it's scary to drive on the highways in Los Angeles, so on and so forth. And I just don't, I think that like longer term like robo taxis are going to be good. I think that they solve a lot of these problems. I think that the big things are we really, really need to solve the labor issue of like displaced people who make their money by driving. You know, like AI and automation is, is displacing a lot of jobs. That's something that we really need to figure out. And we really, really need to figure out the surveillance aspect. Because without the sort of like surveillance aspect and if we can figure out what to do with the drivers, then like I'm all for it, I'm extremely all for public transit, way, way, way more of it. But I'm, I'm really like in favor of just like more and different like transportation solutions. And I think that like I've taken Awaymo to the train was great. Like, had a good time. I do think that it drives really safe. It follows all rules. One thing that is very interesting is that if you are a pedestrian, like, people have realized that a Waymo is not going to run you over. Like, it's just not. It's not going to run you over unless something like crazy happens where it, like, you know, you jump out from behind a bus and it can't detect you. But like, in normal circumstances, if you walk out in front of a Waymo and you just stand there, it will sit there forever. And like, people in LA have like noticed that. And so, like, if you're stuck at a busy intersection, like, you might never get to turn, that Waymo might not ever get to turn because people will just like walk out in front of it. Which is funny in a way that you would like never step out in front of a human car because it might be speeding. You might not make eye contact with them. You might be jaywalking. Like, and I've noticed bikers will like get in front of a Waymo and they will go very slowly and like fuck with it. And that is. It's kind of funny. But I wonder what will happen there. Anyways, I'm like pro Robo taxi with like various asterisks.
- [49:29]
Joseph Cox
Sure. And I mean, I guess that kind of brings us to the story again, which is people fucking with it. Kind of brings us to the protests and potentially people calling them over there. All right, we will leave that there. If you're listening to the free version of the podcast, I'll now play us out. But if you are a paying 404 media subscriber, not only will you get access to the upcoming foyer forum, but right now we're going to talk about a pretty big guilty plea in the case that Sam has been following for years. At this point, you can subscribe and gain access to that content at 404 Media co. As a reminder, 404 Media is journalist founded and supported by subscribers. If you do wish to subscribe to 404 Media and directly support our work, please go to 404 Media co. You'll get a name, limited access to our articles and an ad free version of this podcast. You'll also get to listen to the subscribers only section where we talk about a bonus story each week. This podcast is made in partnership with Kaleidoscope. Another way to support us is by leaving a five star rating and review for the podcast. Here is one of those I listen to every episode without fail because the reporting from the entire team is of such high quality and the stories are fascinating. That's from visiting Blue. Thank you so much. This has been 404 Media. We'll see you again next week.