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Tudor Dixon
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Tudor Dixon
The Tudor Dixon Podcast. So I just want to ask if any of you have ever felt like there was somebody watching you, watching what you're doing in your house. I know we all had those baby monitors when our kids were little. I had baby monitors all over the house. Cause I had four kids and there was a part of me that was like, is it just me that is watching on these baby monitors? Well, we have Attorney General Mike Hilgers with us today to tell us. No, it's not. It's not just you and your family. Welcome to the podcast.
Mike Hilgers
Hey, great to be here. Thanks for having me. Tudor.
Tudor Dixon
So tell us what is going on? Honestly, I heard the story. I'm like, okay, the Nebraska AG is on top of what's happening. China is now in our kids bedrooms watching, watching us. And I gotta tell you, I heard this and I said, what are they getting out of this? I mean, these are some of my worst moments in the middle of the night, walking into my kids room and being like, why are you awake again?
Mike Hilgers
Well, it's a good question. Although I would tell you China's probably number one in the world in terms of using surveillance of their citizens for evil purposes. So I can't necessarily put myself in their shoes, but I do know that it's not going to be good.
Tudor Dixon
Although I'm glad you can't put yourself in their shoes. That actually, that was comforting.
Mike Hilgers
Yeah. Well, I'm in the 4K club like you and I know those days. And so sometimes you think, what can they get? But the truth is those monitors can actually capture some of the most intimate and private moments of our lives. And if you, if you actually have them across, you know, millions of people in the United States, some of whom have very prominent jobs, have access to really critical infrastructure. It could be actually probably more information than maybe we would think. But this is actually part of a broader theme, I think Tutor, where you have Chinese based companies that are selling consumer products or services. So in this case it's this baby monitor we'll talk about. In other cases, it's services like Temu or even TikTok, where they are telling American consumers one thing, that these are safe, that they're, that they're secure, they're private, when in fact they are, they are anything but. And so in this case, we have a company by the name of Lorex they, they sell these baby monitor and other surveillance equipment by the way. So also other home surveillance, if you have something that's monitoring the external part of your house, maybe your backyard, they make those kinds of products and they tell, they tell you online that they are safe and they're secure and they do, they take every step that they can to keep your information private. The problem is, and that's by the way, that's great. And a lot of home security companies do the same thing. The problem is that this company uses for its hardware and software a back end Chinese hardware manufactured by a ch Chinese company that we know have significant ties to the Chinese military and is on the FCC list as having enormous backend security issues. And so really creates sort of a gaping privacy loophole for both hackers and also the Chinese government.
Tudor Dixon
Well, I've always been nervous about having any type of camera in my home for this exact reason and the ring doorbells and all of that. But then you see what happened just a few weeks ago and it's almost as if the ring doorbells or the security cameras in the neighborhood around that Utah University where Charlie Kirk was assassinated caught the assassin on camera. So what is the balance here?
Mike Hilgers
Well, that's a, that's a really good question. I think when you talk to at least Nebraska consumers or if I talk to my wife, who's always a good barometer to these things, I think people are, are decently comfortable. I mean they don't maybe necessarily love that you can get information that's sort of shows something indirectly about you or your life. So think about some of the information on cell phones or maybe even a ring camera. You know, ring camera gets part of a public street. You know, so what, whatever's on the public street, maybe that's fair game or maybe if you can get track a little bit of my movements. I don't love that. I don't think that's right. But you know, I think we're willing to accept it if our phone is going to be tapped into a wireless system and we're getting some benefit. But I think the difference here, and I think this is where it's unbalanced tutor is these are actually in, these are some of those private things that you can have. This is in your home. Private conversations you're having with your spouse, your loved one, your kids, maybe your good friends who are coming over, maybe work colleagues. Yeah. And even though it's, I can't see what the Chinese can get out of me when I'm sort of half awake at 2 in the morning, trying to, like, put my, my daughter back to sleep. It's still, it's sort of a breach of privacy that I think is pretty alarming. And when you have so that kind of information that's flowing in the aggregate, maybe millions of people flowing to our greatest geopolitical adversary, I don't know where the balance is, but I think that wherever, wherever the line is drawn, I think that's so far over it to be sort of very objectionable.
Tudor Dixon
Well, you've watched China come into the United States, and especially here in Michigan, we've seen they've sent Chinese nationals to our universities that have brought some potentially biohazardous materials into the university. We've seen they've tried to buy property in the state of Michigan right outside of one of our military bases. We've actually caught students who were at the university outside spying on one of our military units that was training soldiers to protect, to protect Taiwan. So when we think about China, it is, it is very concerning that they have any type of insight into American life. But you did say they see things differently. They are monitoring for different reasons. I think that's something that the American people need to understand, that having this in your home, you have to be aware of who is watching, because it is not just the conversations that you're having or your interactions with your baby. It is what American life is like because they're propagandists. They're trying to get into the minds of the next generation and change America fundamentally.
Mike Hilgers
I think that's exactly right. I think we've been lulled to sleep a little bit, say, since the end of the Cold War. So I was born gen X, late 70s, in the 80s, we had a significant adversary, the Soviet Union. Everyone sort of understood that was that we were in this geopolitical race that we had to win or maybe really bad things were going to happen. I think in the last 20 or 30 years, we've been lulled to sleep a little bit. I think we're the world's only superpower. We haven't had this sort of like, significant geopolitical adversary that both had the will and potentially the ability to really go after the United States in this kind of way. And I think we've also been lulled to sleep by a lot of our consumer companies selling us all these products and having a flood of cheap Chinese goods over the last 20 years. I think people have generally sort of looked at these as, yeah, maybe there's something bad happening, maybe it's having some impact on our manufacturing base. Or maybe it's done. You know, maybe there's a little bit of information there, but I think we're looking through the wrong lens. It's a lens that's outdated. It's a lens that basically assumes that the people who are selling us products, who are competing with us have more or less decent intentions. And I think what is very clear over the last several years, but very recently in particular, is that China does not have the best of intentions when it comes to the United States. And I think viewing it through that new lens tutor really, I think hopefully it's a wake up call to Americans like we are, we are in a significant competition and they are using an all of. They're using every resource that they can, from missiles and guns and cyber, cyber attacks to. Or the ability to conduct cyber attacks to espionage, to maybe these types of things done at scale that we just need to be on guard for, need to push back.
Tudor Dixon
That's something that we haven't really considered. The knowledge of the American home and the conversations that go along with it. And then you, you add in companies like TikTok into that. And we know that the president just signed an executive order on TikTok. The, the administration has come out and said TikTok will be safe. Now, I think we are still concerned about whether or not TikTok can actually be safe. I think that your personal data in TikTok could, can be safe from now on. But something you're saying is making me think, if I had somebody in my home listening to our conversations, you can kind of listen to the political battle and get into the culture war. I mean, just the other day we had someone at our house who was saying, how could you possibly be supportive of the Trump administration? Kash Patel was just a podcaster and now he's running the FBI. What are you talking about? That's not even true. Not even close to being true. And yet this is what is seeping in through apps like TikTok, like Reddit, those types of places where misinformation, for a lack of a better term, or just lies, propaganda, I would say, is going into the minds of young Americans, but all ages. All ages. I've had my mom come over to my house and say, you know, I saw this, this, this video. This is terrible. I'm like, that's not, that is not real on both sides. There's just a infiltration of propaganda into the United States. There is no better propaganda. There are no better propagandists in the world than communists. That's how they get into power. That's what they do. That's the, the whole platform that they run on is to get into the minds of people with their propaganda. And if you have a Chinese company, which we know Chinese companies are connected to the ccp, the CCP wants to know how to cause chaos in the United States. They want to be the world power. They want to take over if they can get to the younger generation or if they can even just split Americans. And you've seen a great split, a great divide in America right now. I mean, honestly, I was reading the notes for this podcast and I said, if this guy is a Republican, the minute he says this, you know, there's going to be all these liberal women that are going to put cameras all over their house and be like, here's my, here's what I'm doing. You know, that's just how it is. Like, that's how divided we are. I watch these women downing Thailand, I'm like, the next thing you know, they're going to be like, here's my bank account. Look in the camera. You know, like, this is how divided we are. But that's how China works. And I don't think people, I think you're, you are so spot on. When you said that I'm the same age as you, it was exactly the same story. Was like the Soviet Union's bad. We all knew it was bad. It was in our schools. We were told about it. Now the propaganda is so strong, it's even in our, in our elementary schools, in our high schools. Nobody is talking about the fact that China is a threat. And when they do say China is the biggest threat to the United States, the media does not talk about it.
Mike Hilgers
Boy, Tudor, I could not agree more with everything you just said. I mean, part of this conversation is about what kind of information China can get from us. But the other part of it, to your point, is what kind of information are they pushing to us? And let me give you a very, very, very alarming example. And that is in the, in the TikTok, you sort of touched on TikTok for the misinformation, which is absolutely true. But let me give you a part of another part of what TikTok has done which has really poison our youth. And this is actually part of another lawsuit that we have filed. And if you go to, if you sign up as a 10 year old boy or girl on TikTok and we, we had investigators do this, they sign up these accounts within Minutes. The algorithm was so powerful. Within minutes we had an example of an account for a 12 year old girl within minutes tutor. That account, the videos, without doing any searching or anything else, they were getting videos that were pretty poisonous, that had to do with pornography, glorifying drug use, suicidal ideation, how to hide suicide from your parents. And if you go to. So all these things that we know are caught driving mental health issues for our young people. And if you go to China, if you use TikTok in China, actually none of that's available. You can't use it during the school day. And they, they shove video, they really pour videos about patriotism and productivity and working hard and positivity, all these things. And so it's really a national security issue for the reasons you just stated, which is flooding this information that's really either poisoning our discourse. And I saw the same Tylenol videos that you saw. Just sort of mind boggling or really influencing our youth in a way that we, we have to wake up to and we have to fight back against. I couldn't agree more.
Tudor Dixon
Let's take a quick commercial break. We'll continue next on the Tutor Dixon podcast.
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Tudor Dixon
We had a state senator who is running for US Senate post a video on Twitter or she posted a post on Twitter saying, or X, whatever we call it now, saying, if you have to take Tylenol during your pregnancy, you should take it as recommended. It's safe. Don't listen to the Trump administration. And I think the boldness. Imagine if the Biden administration had come out. I mean, we saw the Biden administration come out and say kids should take vaccines because even though there was no, I mean, now you see the experts saying, ah, these kids don't have to have the COVID vaccine. They were all about the minute the Biden administration said newborns should be getting the COVID vaccine, they were all about it. But the minute you have Harvard studies, studies from Johns Hopkins saying, you know what, this needs to be looked at, don't take too much Tylenol when you're pregnant, you've got a state senator with no medical degree coming out and just parroting anything on the other side. And I do believe that this is where China thrives. They have gotten into the minds of these people. I mean, we, I was just on Newsmax and I was watching, they had this woman who was Colin Firth's ex wife, whoever that is. You know, we don't know who she is, but she's making news because she received an award from the government in the UK and she's ripping it up because they had Trump over there. Give, I mean, this is definitely because they have had this stuff fed to them. And, and that's because I do believe that as you are trying to take over another country, as you are trying to cause chaos, the best way of understanding that country is to be in the homes of the people, to learn how they interact, to hear the families talking to one another, to be there for their early mornings, for bedtime those, those conversations are had right in front of those monitors, right in front of the Alexa, right in front of the ring cam. You know, all of those conversations, I mean, you've got kids in bed, you go out on the front porch to have a business conversation, you're right in front of your camera. I just think we don't even think about the fact that those conversations give China such an insight into how to divide, how to get into the minds of Americans. Because they're in our deepest conversations, they're in our minds, they don't know how to manipulate our minds.
Mike Hilgers
Mind boy. Couldn't agree more. Let me take two points. One, on your point about saying, listen to the fda, that is like a little, there's a through line on the left where they, they try to destroy institutions that are issuing opinions that they don't agree with. And you've seen it maybe most prominently with the Supreme Court. Once there was a conservative majority on the court. What do they do? They've, they've tried, you know, Senator Whitehouse and others have tried to slowly delegitimize the court. I think when you take out these institutions, like they're trying to do with the fda, like that has a long, very long term, significant harm that I think we're going to have to wrestle with for a long time to come and really weakens our ability from a national security perspective or internally to really be nimble and respond to big problems. The other thing, I think to layer on to your point about looking at the cameras, I think people don't fully appreciate, appreciate the technological tools that are now available to nation states, especially in the AI realm. So there's probably not someone, I hope not sitting in China, look, looking at my baby monitor and saying, what is Mike seeing?
Tudor Dixon
Oh, look at this woman, she's breastfeeding.
Mike Hilgers
But it is certainly true that they had the capability to sort of aggregate millions of data points across their entire, whatever ecosystem that they're pulling from, whether it's TEMU technology, where they're getting access to our text, they can get access to text messages in your microphone, or Lorex, where they can actually get access to some of these, your surveillance videos and the audio on your home security cameras, or TikTok and being able to have the technological tools to pull all that information together, aggregate it, both understand it, and then manipulate. To your point, Tutor, I think that, I think sometimes people fail to appreciate how far the technological advances have gone and what they can do. So it kind of changed the conversation a little bit when you're like, wow, what's the big deal? Them seeing me at two in the morning while actually there's a really significant deal of them being able to see the patterns and trends of Americans throughout their day to day lives throughout the country to do it for the kind of things that you're describing.
Tudor Dixon
So how does this work? Even though, I mean I also feel like when I'm on my cell phone anybody can be listening. And I think that was the concern when Everybody was saying TikTok is such a dangerous app. TikTok my understanding and as you said, I don't know how this technology works. It's so far beyond what our generation had growing up. I mean I remember my mom picking up the phone in the house and saying get off. That was the technology we had. This is so far beyond. So I don't know what to think. And when I hear if you have TikTok, it can go through your phone and it can hear your conversations. I get concerned about that. But how many other apps do I download on a daily basis that are not made in the United States? I don't even really think about it. We assume this is in my purse, it's in my house, it's my phone, so it's safe. But how do you protect yourself? How do you know? I mean you talk about these baby monitors, but as a parent, I mean, I'm not going to have a baby monitor again because I don't have little kids. But if you're a new parent or you're a grandparent, your kids are buying baby monitors. How do you find something that's safe and still doing the job?
Mike Hilgers
It's a great question and I think education is maybe the most important way to fight back against this. And that's partly what we're trying to do because I think most parents, well first and my kids are now out of the crib years. But you're, I know what, that's not long ago. You're very busy, you're running around. You don't have hours every day to sort of think through what you're all your, the nuances of every particular consumer choice that you're going to make. But I also think there's been an assumption in our country of like, yeah, maybe there's some data, but the people getting the data, probably large corporations, maybe I like them, maybe I don't. But what they're not doing with the data because of all the trial lawyers out there willing to sue them is taking it for some really nefarious purpose. So we might joke about, you know, talking about a product or iPhone, picking it up, and then getting ads for that product. But for a lot of people, that feels maybe intrusive but somewhat benign. And I guess what we're trying to tell people is just maybe change your assumptions. You know, don't just assume everyone who's loading things on your phone is doing so with, like, with really good.
Tudor Dixon
How do you look at it? I mean, you. You have the App Store, and I guess there's information there that we don't necessarily read. We just click yes. Download that little cloud with the arrow. Yeah, I'm good.
Mike Hilgers
Well, first you should subscribe to the alerts from the Nebraska Attorney General's office, because we have been trying to go against these companies. Temu is a good example. Tutor little, plug Temu. They will. So Temu is a great example. When you sign up on the App Store, it will say what kind of data it's getting. And it's very limited what it tells you. But what we found is once it downloads on your phone, the software recompiles and it can get access to pretty much anything on your phone, everything from your keystrokes to your text messages to your audio. So part of it is being keystrokes.
Tudor Dixon
So they literally have your password, everything.
Mike Hilgers
That is what. That's what our investigation has done so far shown. So far. Yeah. So it's. It can get a lot of information. So part of it is being aware of some of these. Some of these that maybe not every. Maybe start with an assumption that, ooh, maybe. Maybe not trust but verify, but maybe sort of do a little diligence beforehand. If they're domestic, if they're local companies and their brand names, I think generally speaking, you're probably okay. I don't think Amazon is putting out apps that are going to send your information.
Tudor Dixon
I think people think of Temu as a brand name.
Mike Hilgers
Yeah, I think that's right. That's part of. I think you're right. I think in this case, we have been trying to push against that because of the Chinese tie. Certainly anything that has a Chinese manufacturing base, that's a Chinese tie of any kind. I would strongly recommend people not download the app unless they've done some additional diligence.
Tudor Dixon
Let's take a quick commercial break. We'll continue next on the Tudor Dixon Podcast.
Nicole Safire
This is Nicole Safire from Wellness unmass with Dr. Nicole Safire. If collagen products are not part of your daily routine, you may want to pay attention to this. Did you know Collagen makes up about 30% of the body's total protein and is essential for healthy joints, skin elasticity, bone strength and even your gut lining. Starting as early as your 30s, collagen production declines by roughly 1% each year. By age 60, you may have lost nearly half of your body's natural collagen, contributing to joint degeneration, wrinkles and brittle bones. Multiple clinical studies have shown that supplementing with collagen can help reverse some of this decline. In one trial, participants saw a 43% reduction in joint pain within just six months. In another, women experienced up to a 20% increase in skin elasticity after 12 weeks. That's why I trust NativePath Collagen. Its peptides are clinically shown to absorb and rebuild damaged tissue. If you're serious about aging well, NativePath collagen is one of the smartest, most evidence based choices you can make. And for a limited time you'll receive a special bundle offer up to 45% off the retail price. Go online and type in explorenative path.com for 45% off. Today, that website is explornativepath.com explorenative path.com Life's messy.
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Tudor Dixon
You have to pay so much attention because even if you aren't downloading the app, some of these places the, the quality of their stuff, everything, and, and they are getting your address, they're sending things to your house, they're monitoring what they're sending to your house. I say you have to be careful because a few years ago my girls came home and they were like, oh, we're, we have cash app on their phones in case they need to get something when they're out with friends and they come home and they're like, oh, we ordered all this stuff from Sheen. And I was like, I don't know this Sheen. What is this? They had down they had gotten into this. They didn't download it. They got into the website. They ordered all the stuff. This was the worst quality stuff I have ever seen. But also, it's all coming from China. I don't. Then you start seeing these articles that there's chemicals in these clothes. I mean, we really don't know when it's coming over directly from the manufacturer. I think, like, you know, if you order from J. Crew and they're getting some of their stuff in, they have a quality control system. You have to explain to your kids. Temu and all and Sheen and all these places, all these Alibaba places, they are vendors that are not monitored by the United States. They do not go through the same care and scrutiny that our products go through.
Mike Hilgers
That's exactly right. And in fact, some of them can be tied to slave labor in China, in addition to some of these national security. National security issues that we've been talking a little bit about. I mean, maybe one test tutor as a starting point is if they existed when you and I were kids, if they're a brand that existed in the 80s, they're fine. You know, if you get a JCPenney app or, you know, I guess Sears or Kmart aren't around in the same way that when you were younger, Whoa.
Tudor Dixon
We do have a JCPenney, which I do shop at. But our Sears died and our Kmart. Kmart, Nobody remembers Kmart. That's so exciting.
Mike Hilgers
Hey, we're bringing it back. But I will say this. I mean, part of the challenge is, I mean, look, we have all the inflation from the Biden years. People are being stretched and still feeling the impact of the increase of all the costs from 2020 post Covid. And so I understand the human impulse to say, hey, this is a little cheaper. I gotta save some money for my family. Whether it's Sheen or Timo or anything else. I. It can't be that bad. And I'm just going to make this in the moment decision. And that's a very, very rational and understandable thing. I think what we. We have to try to do as much as we can, whether it's through podcasts like yours, using your voice and platform, using my voice and platform is just to try to spread the known risks. Temu is one, Lorex is another. And just start to educate people as much as we can, that this is actually a bigger issue for both. For them and their family. Because a lot of people don't want to be spied on. They don't want hackers to be able to access the home, you know, their baby monitors, their home security networks. But it also is a big issue, bigger issue for the country. And I don't know any other better way than to sue the bad guys when they're doing wrong things and trying to elevate these issues with the voice and platform that we have.
Tudor Dixon
But it's hard when you have pirates over in China. And that's something that I think people don't understand either. As someone who had a steel foundry, and we know that China took the majority of those steel castings for that steel casting business from the United States and then our customers went there, oh, this is so much less expensive. Same thing on a bigger corporate scale. So much less expensive. And then their products were being re engineered and then reverse engineered and then stolen and made over there. Now we're seeing that same thing at some of these companies like Temu and Shein. My daughter had a brand that's a faith brand sweatshirt that says you are a child of God on the back. And it was, it was a very popular sweatshirt. But in the United States, it's a small company that makes the sweatshirts and they're about 65 to $70. Her friend came over one day, exact same sweatshirt. She's like, I got this on shein for $6.99. That is all. How do you manage that when another country is pirating your products and selling them like they're the exact same thing?
Mike Hilgers
Well, and we saw that with temu. We actually found that they were selling local brands in Nebraska, very prominent brands, ones like Runza, which you've probably never heard of, but it's a very big deal in Nebraska, Nebraska football, Creighton Blue Jays, we saw that and it is a little bit of a whack, a mole. And it's very difficult, especially for a small business. I mean, I think if you're going to zoom out, tutor and think about really how to try to solve these types of problems, number one, I think we actually have to do better about making sure that we're not fighting over Tylenol during pregnancy and having, you know, we need to have people who are the people who are taking Tylenol and doing TikTok videos while they're pregnant. Like actually maybe put that aside and start thinking about the bigger problems that are facing our country. Secondly, I do think there's probably a pretty significant federal component here. I mean, a lot of what we're talking about are import controls, you know, import, export issues, what's coming into our country Also maybe some reforms of some section 230 or some of these other things that have given some of these online platforms a little of immunity in some of these contexts. Not necessarily selling up the products, but that's part of this. I think, I do think if it's probably there's a significant federal component probably to give more teeth on the import side to help really shut down some of these. Because they got it. That's once they get into the United States and they're in the stream of commerce, it's very difficult for anyone, including the Nebraska Attorney general, to completely stop them. I mean, you could play whack a mole and you could do some things, but to really stop the problem, I think there's a federal component here.
Tudor Dixon
All right, so you said we should follow you to figure out what's happening in this world. So tell people where they can follow you.
Mike Hilgers
Well, probably the best place is on X. Mike Hilgers is my what X handle X X account. I don't know what the, what the word is now. I'm like you. I'm still trying to. I know I, I know it's X and I think I still say tweet, but I don't know. Anyway, so Mike, I just say tweet.
Tudor Dixon
I mean, it's very hard to change us. We're old.
Mike Hilgers
That's right, that's right, that's right. And then you, the Nebraska, that's probably the best and most efficient way. Just follow me on X. And whenever we're suing these, these, these bad guys will let people know. We do consumer alerts and any consumer alert that happens in Nebraska really is relevant to the rest of the country because these are national, these are national brands.
Tudor Dixon
All right, well, Nebraska Attorney General Mike Hilders, thank you so much for being on the tudor.
Mike Hilgers
It's great to be on it. Thanks tutor so much.
Tudor Dixon
Absolutely. And thank you all for listening as always. You can find this on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcast. Podcast or you can watch the full video. Go over to Rumble or youtubeutter Dixon and make sure you join us next time. Have a blessed day.
Mike Hilgers
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Let's be honest, building wealth doesn't look the same for everyone.
Tudor Dixon
I feel like sometimes being broke is a cycle and that we might have.
Travis Holloway
To revisit that and we're not stopping at success stories.
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What happens when it doesn't go right? How do you cope with it?
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Podcast: The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show (The Tudor Dixon Podcast)
Episode: The Hidden Dangers of Chinese Surveillance Tech: Privacy, TikTok, and National Security Risks
Host: Tudor Dixon
Guest: Nebraska Attorney General Mike Hilgers
Date: October 1, 2025
This episode dives into the increasingly pervasive threat posed by Chinese surveillance technology in American homes, focusing on consumer tech such as baby monitors, smart cameras, and popular apps like TikTok and Temu. Tudor Dixon and AG Mike Hilgers discuss how these technologies can compromise privacy, manipulate information, and jeopardize national security. Together, they explore the scale and depth of the risk—from intimate family moments being accessible to foreign actors, to the more insidious societal influence campaigns run through social media and e-commerce platforms.
Tudor Dixon and Mike Hilgers’ discussion is candid, urgent, and laced with personal anecdotes, humor, and concern. The mood leans serious and patriotic—a call for renewed vigilance in an age where digital convenience can carry hidden threats. The core message is clear: Americans must move beyond complacency, educate themselves and their families, and demand both personal and legislative action to counteract these hidden dangers.