Secret Agent Klon

Klon Kitchen returns to the Remnant for another round of vigorous wonkery on all things ...

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Klon Kitchen returns to the Remnant for another round of vigorous wonkery on all things national security. This time, he’s primarily concerned with the threat of Chinese espionage and the prospect of a geopolitical confrontation between China and the U.S. But he also has thoughts on the Ukraine conflict, the morality of Edward Snowden and Julian Assange, and the nature of quantum computing. Plus, tune in to hear his case for why you should delete TikTok.

Show Notes:

– Klon’s page at AEI

– The Current, Klon’s Dispatch newsletter

– CNN’s Huawei exclusive

– Klon: “Ban TikTok Now”

– China’s “thousand grains of sand” approach to intelligence collection

– Klon: “When the Chips Are Down”

– Last weekend’s Ruminant

– Klon: “Quantum Q&A”

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Comments (45)
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  1. Avatar photo
    Ben Connelly

    Wait, when Klon said that during the Cold War Snowden would have just ended up dead in a ditch somewhere, did he mean that we would have assassinated him? Or the Russians?

    Also, when Klon said it didn’t matter what his motives were, my thought was that it does matter from a standpoint of: if he was a normal patriotic guy and then the Russians turned him and caused him to do what he did, I would be a LOT more worried because it would indicate that they could get deep into our national security/intelligence establishment.

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  2. Tedsisson

    Thank you for the great conversation Jonah and Klon. I didn't understand the quantum stuff but it sounds amazing.

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  3. AHenry

    Thank goodness Klon went beyond TikTok which is the tip of the tip of the iceberg of the CCP's infiltration on the US. Every time you see an ad for a smart device it will include some kind of Chinese chip or electronics capable of gathering information.

    While Klon doesn't want to give chip manufacturers money to build fabrication plants in China, these same companies has strong ESG statements and to honor those they should be made to move their manufacturing to the US or Europe.

    In China they use dirty coal power and lots of it. Chinese 2021 carbon emissions are more than double US 2021 emissions.

    Their factories sometimes use slave labor and support a genocidal, racist government. They do not properly mine or dispose of toxic chemicals such as lithium or cobalt.

    China is an ESG nightmare.

    So for security as well as a cleaner world all companies should onshore all their manufacturing now!

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  4. Lieseandrew

    I understand why a state security guy like Klon would think negatively of Snowden, but I expected better from Jonah. I learned more about English-Enlightenment notions of liberty, "a man's home is his castle" etc. from Suicide of the West than anywhere else. So why, then, should the NSA be spying on everyone without a warrant or Congressional oversight? Rule by state security is bad whether it's the NSA or the Stasi.

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    1. Niku

      Snowden is a traitor. I agree with Klon Kitchen's assessment. Julian Assange is also a very bad actor, I hope his extradition goes through soon. The monitoring of communications is necessary for the state to exist and and have been going on since smoke signals. The NSA monitoring of domestic communications was primarily billing data (who called whom, when and for how long) and certain domestic <-> foreign calls and key words/phrases triggers more extensive scrutiny. Its not bad, it's defense, the NSA and Stasi comparison are a false equivalency.

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      1. Lieseandrew

        I'm glad that state security types like Klon exist to the extent that, you know, the U.S. is much better than Russia and China and has to prevail against them. But the FBI/CIA line exists for a reason. As Jonah notes, the whole reason for the English Enlightenment is that the lack of a standing army made it harder for a King to wield power against people. Whether a boot with a rifle or a spy with a computer, the tools of war cannot be turned against the citizenry.

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      2. Lieseandrew

        The whole point of the Fourth Amendment, and Classical Liberalism generally, is that governments need a particular interest in someone before conducting surveillance on them. Otherwise, well, "show me the person and I'll show you the crime," and the state can remove someone who threatens them, say, by exposing that 90% of those killed by our drones were innocent bystanders (as Jonah says, "sometimes big states step on people", just innocents murdered by our tax dollars, no big deal).

        It's not the same as the NSA, but I worked for a while in BSA monitoring, supposedly about counter-terrorist financing but really an excuse to snoop through the finances of millions of people a day. From a bank statement and access to Google, you can quickly build a coherent narrative of someone's life. All done without a warrant. I'm sure what I had access too wasn't a tenth of what the NSA has on any random person, and bless Snowden for giving up a cushy job in Hawaii to make sure we knew the panopticon we live in.

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        1. Niku

          Have to disagree. The national security exception is by no means gives federal agents carte blanche investigatory power. The "pure intelligence" interpretation says that evidence gleaned from warrantless searches and surveillance is constitutionally inadmissible in subsequent prosecutions-a limitation with important ramifications. Despite the post 911 interpretations of homeland security, there is a clear legal framework that regulates the scope of national security investigations, and records reveal a "palpable opinio juris" that governs the constitutional boundaries of security operations. Your beef seems to be with Google, the internet and meta data from banks. I would love to hear a Jonah/Klon discussion on this, but I maintain my evaluation of Snowden and Assange and their threat to this country and democracy generally.

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  5. Avatar photo
    Richard Maxton

    So what I've basically gotten out of this is that we've (as in the US Gov and some private industry) have avoided making hard decisions for a long time now.

    So now we have an enough tougher hill to climb in making those hard decisions.

    GREAT job from public and private leadership. UGH

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  6. Tom and Robin Moore

    Yes, Jason we sure have. For the past few years we have played over the 4th of July at the Port Austin Farmers market. In the past we have played at Bird Creek and Pak's Backyard. We picked up a gig while we were there at Thumb Brewing over the 4th. Cheers.

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  7. Avatar photo
    PB3

    Voice’s like Klon’s are why people think the moon landing was faked. Too soothing and steady. I don’t trust it.
    Are you telling me you wouldn’t look twice at a documentary of why COVID vaccines have alien microchips if Klon narrated it?

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    1. Niku

      I trust him, but he does have a "matter of fact" demeanor.

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      CynthiaW

      That's a funny observation, but I can definitely see where you're coming from.

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  8. Avatar photo
    Anne W (Raw5254)

    I don’t know how TD got Klon, but what a great addition! I knew this was going to be good, but even better than I expected. I don’t have TikTok, but I promise that any social media he says we need to get rid of for security reasons, and I have it, it’s gone.

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  9. Avatar photo
    Calvin S.

    The classic science fiction technology that best fits with what Jonah and Klon were talking about with quantum entanglement is the ansible from Ursula K. LeGuin's Hanish novels.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ansible?wprov=sfla1

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  10. jd

    Klon definitely needs to be fast tracked to gold jacket status. Always learn new things, always interesting topics when he’s on. As a retired software dev for a multinational sporting a significant manufacturing footprint in China, it’s good to be kept abreast of the downside that kind of footprint entails. Plus it’s all good geeky stuff. 🙂

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