President Biden announces a deal offered by Israel to end with war with Hamas. Former President Trump says he'll appeal his conviction on 34 counts of falsifying business records in connection to a hush money scheme. And the Texas Supreme Court rejects a challenge to the state's abortion law over medical exceptions.
There is a constant arms race between law enforcement and criminals, especially when it comes to technology. For years, law enforcement has been frustrated with encrypted messaging apps, like Signal and Telegram. And law enforcement has been even more frustrated by encrypted phones, specifically designed to thwart authorities from snooping.
But in 2018, in a story that seems like it's straight out of a spy novel, the FBI was approached with an offer: Would they like to get into the encrypted cell phone business? What if they could convince criminals to use their phones to plan and document their crimes — all while the FBI was secretly watching? It could be an unprecedented peek into the criminal underground.
To pull off this massive sting operation, the FBI needed to design a cell phone that criminals wanted to use and adopt. Their mission: to make a tech platform for the criminal underworld. And in many ways, the FBI's journey was filled with all the hallmarks of many Silicon Valley start-ups.
On this show, we talk with journalist Joseph Cox, who wrote a new book about the FBI's cell phone business, called Dark Wire. And we hear from the federal prosecutor who became an unlikely tech company founder. Help support Planet Money and hear our bonus episodes by subscribing to Planet Money+ in Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org/planetmoney.
Indicators of the Week is back, where we dig into three economic snapshots from the global economy. This week, we are exploring consumers' ever so slightly improved perception of the economy, what's going on with carbon offsets, and why China is sending some pandas to U.S. zoos.
Related Episodes: Actors back. Pandas gone. WeBankrupt. (Apple / Spotify) How Red Lobster got cooked and other indicators (Apple / Spotify) Emission Impossible (Apple / Spotify)
For sponsor-free episodes of The Indicator from Planet Money, subscribe to Planet Money+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org.
The trial of Donald Trump was not rigged. That is a piece of disinformation. But those who believe it was might not think it was literally rigged, they might just have the sense that Trump is unfairly victimized in general, and the accusation of rigging more or less fits into the claim of "rigged." It's called a "symbolic belief," and, New Yorker writer and anthropologist, Manvir Singh says that's different from a factual belief. In the Spiel, I talk about all the misinformation flooding into my consciousness, which doesn't originate in Russia or from Trump's statements on Truth Social, but sews doubt just the same.
Donald Trump collaborated with a slimy crew to break the law, and it may have swung the 2016 election. Russia's election interference was troubling—and so is the National Enquirer's. And the deranged response from MAGA goons to his conviction only shows how much Trumpworld operates like an organized crime syndicate. Ben Wittes and Ron Filipkowski join Tim Miller for the weekend pod.
Former President Donald Trump has been convicted on felony charges of falsifying business records to conceal crimes. Cato's Clark Neily discusses the trial in the context of how criminal prosecutions work generally.
On this episode of "The Federalist Radio Hour," Mary Margaret Olohan, a senior reporter for The Daily Signal, joins Federalist Culture Editor Emily Jashinsky to discuss the repressed studies and true stories about detransitioners and their experiences with radical gender ideology, cross-sex hormones, and mutilation.
You can find Olohan's book, Detrans: True Stories of Escaping the Gender Ideology Cult, here.
If you care about combatting the corrupt media that continue to inflict devastating damage, please give a gift to help The Federalist do the real journalism America needs.
Social mobility means helping people improve their prospects for creating and building long-term wealth. What stands in the way? The Archbridge Institute's Gonzalo Schwarz discusses what he's learned.
