L.O.G. 232 Your iPhone and the 4th Amendment

All right. So, we'll go ahead and get started here, Brian. Good morning.

Good morning. It's an interesting case we want to discuss today, and it actually hits on a number of topics that we get into. Obviously, when we talk about intent a lot and demonstrations of intent, we talk about that with understanding and reading human behavior. But we also get into that with the legal side of things as well, and with the Supreme Court. So, this one, we'll talk about the case and then why we think it's an interesting one. So, it's a bit of a legal episode. But this is an important one because it has to do with recent technologies—what you can get access to with your iPhone or any phone that you have, and also how data backs up and how that can be used. So, it's an interesting one for a number of facets.

But I'll start off and just give this incident that happened in 2020. A guy by the name of Kevin McCall was playing poker with four other men at a private residence. As the poker game progressed, McCall began losing large sums of money. He became increasingly frustrated with his losses. He made threats to "do something about it," as he said. And the group saw McCall – this is obviously reports after the crime with the investigation – he was frantically using his cell phone to make calls and texts to unknown persons, and he eventually received a phone call and then stepped outside, saying that he needed to "take care of something."

So, I can see this play out and it's just so dumb. But so, obviously, he stepped outside. Shortly thereafter, there was a knock at the door. One of the poker players saw McCall standing outside, but when he opened the door for him, two masked men wielding a rifle and a handgun stormed inside. They ordered everyone to the ground, grabbed cell phones, cash on the poker table, and then the masked men shot two of the poker players and escaped with cash and cell phones. They were not killed; I don't even think they were hurt that seriously, but they were shot. McCall was arrested on April 14, 2020, on two counts of attempted felony murder and four counts of armed robbery.

So then, what happened from that case is that they arrested him, and he didn't actually give up, I think, the other folks involved, right? He said, "I'm not telling you anything." So, they said, "Okay." And they got a warrant to search his phone. Then on his phone, what happened was when they were searching his phone, they couldn't find a whole lot. I don't think they could figure out exactly who else it was connected to. But because, and there's the issue too, with how the phone was backed up to the iCloud, it had been 12 hours prior to the robbery, which was the last time it got backed up. So, they were like, "Okay, well, we're not going to find any direct evidence to that crime on here, but there may be some type of other evidence that we can use." And then, obviously, in searching this phone, because they got the warrant approved, they found a photo of him with a gun. And so, he was a convicted felon. A prior convicted felon can't own or possess a firearm. So, they said, "Okay, well, we got him on this charge as well. We know that we can get him on this."

So, anyway, fast forward, it goes through. He gets convicted on – I don't have all the charges that he got convicted on here, I'll look up here in a second – and then appeals his conviction, and specifically, with the warrant saying it was too broad. Basically, they shouldn't have had access to all of his data; it needs to have access to specific data. You can't have too broad of a search warrant and then just come across something that you find. So, basically, this sort of turned into a Fourth Amendment case in a sense about what you can and cannot search for, or what the police can and cannot search for, when investigating a crime, what rights you have. And then it plays into technology. There are a lot of great cases coming out now with this stuff about what you can and can't do and how your data is used. So, I thought this was a good one to talk about. That's sort of the background. I don't want to give away too many other things. Jump into it.

So, I just had to tell the story because I mean, just imagine sitting there and this guy's freaking out, then he's frantically on his phone, then he steps out and says, "I need to take care of something." It reminded me of the American Psycho, where he's like, "I have to return some videotapes." Like, where are you going? There are so many capers like this. John Holmes with the break-in murder of all those folks, and John Holmes actually setting the people on the direction of where the apartment was, and then saying, "Hey, I got to step out for a minute," and leaving the door unlocked. I mean, there's so many precedents for this, and this kid truly, a Hollywood look at the drama here unfolding. McCall is a thinker, but he's not a critical thinker.

So, let's go non sequitur for a minute. You know how I like to go out of order. First of all, the reason that McCall was charged with the armed robbery and murder, even though he didn't take place in either – the attempted murder, let's be very specific – the felony murder rule. Because the felony murder rule, your approximate cause of this going down, so you're as guilty as the principal pulling the trigger. So, that's going on, and McCall's got to be lucky that these high-strung sons of guns that he called at the last minute – and remember, he probably had it set up, "I'm going to this poker game if this goes sideways, trust me," – and then made the final plans right during the text and the phone call, Brian. I mean, this wasn't something that just spontaneously happened with his thumb as he's betting on the hand of cards. This was developing over these hours of playing cards. And, you know, think about how bad this is degrading.

You used a great term, and I want to make sure that everybody, when you read this case (it'll be in the episode details, by the way), this can't be a fishing trip, Brian. So, you can't have a speculative search warrant. Search warrants are for specific items detailed in that search warrant. "I expect to find this, this, this, because it's what I'm looking for." And then to the judge, the return of search warrant is just as important, because "here's the items I did in fact find that I'm using for evidence." And then under discovery, that goes to the defense, right? So, the important thing about that is, the phone is locked, and they know there's evidence on the phone.

Yeah.

So, this young detective who doesn't know how these types of search warrants go, because technology goes faster than the law, Brian, what he does is he says, "Hey, it's likely that if we get this iCloud account where he routinely dumps to his phone, the last time being 12 hours before, we'll probably find the code for the phone. And in the phone is going to be the prize; it's going to be these text messages that we want to use against them. There's probably going to be photos that are going to be used." So, if we use just that, the idea of the court is, "Wait a minute. So, if I arrest John's brother Tim, Tim might give me information on John? You can't do that." Okay? It's got to be a very laser-focused: A goes to B, goes to C. So, therefore, I assume you're assuming right.

You have to lay it out just like that. I just want to hit up on that in perfect because it's important to go, "If you want to get to this end state, you have to say I took step one, which will lead me to step two, which will lead me to step three, which will obviously..." And then you're supposed to go, "Okay, I got you now. I see." And it can't be broad, Brian. It can't, like for example, in a search warrant, you always name the thing: "all vehicles parked on the property," "the curtilage of the property, including sheds and outbuildings." These are things that you actually type into every affidavit for a search warrant as the affiant (person making the affidavit). Now, while you're doing that, to the judge, the judge goes, "What's with the shed?" And you go, "Well, a computer's portable, and a guy might hide it in a shed." "Okay, that makes sense to me." "Well, what about the vehicles that are parked on the property?" "Look, people come and go, and there's probably the evidence of the dope sale in the vehicles from previous coming and go." "Oh, okay, I got that." "You know, a handgun is mobile, so they may have put it in the car just before our hit in the house." So, the judge has the ability, and so does the DA (District Attorney), right? Because your prosecuting attorney is going to look at what you draft and go, "No, change subsection 24. That's too broad." The idea is that, "Okay, let's keep this laser-focused on what we expect to find and why we're going into that."

Now, the great thing about the law is, I don't have to do that during the time of the arrest. Okay? I can go into your pocket. I can go into your car, because I'm seizing the car as chattel; it's part of the caper. I can go onto your phone very initially. Now, the Supreme Court says, "No, America." But Colorado's got a caveat. Colorado says, "Hey, if it's incident to the lawful arrest, you've got the right to take a look at those calls that are on there."

Hang on, hang on. And because before you go any further with that, explain that real quickly. Because that means if it pertains to the situation that you're in in that arrest, it has to directly pertain to that. So, it's something you observe, something you witness.

Right. I mean, so, like a cop coming up on you, and you're making the call, "Go, go, go," for the robbery or for the drug sale, "The drugs are here." The cop grabbing your phone at that time can take a look at your call record and use that as part of the case. Now, Colorado is the only state I know of that allows that. But again, it's contemporaneous. Why? Because of the fast-moving nature of new technology. But the Supreme Court goes, "Wait, wait, wait. If it's on there and you need it for the case, best route is always what?"

The search warrant.

Yeah, warrant.

You see. And so, you and I both agree on that. You and I agree that when in doubt, whip it out. And you should always, even if you have "plain view" exception and you're in the house – you know, I chase the guy out, I tackle him in his living room, I look around and I see all this evidence of other crimes – perfect. You don't have to get the search warrant. But what do we both do? We both start drafting the affidavit and lock down the house. Because you can keep that item for as long as you want. Like for that cell phone, you don't have to return the cell phone when the guy's lawyer shows up to bond him out. You go, "No, it's part of the case, and I'm going to unlock it over time."

So, in this case, the specific thing was that the iCloud was accessed for the information. And then what happened, Brian? What did Apple do?

Well, yeah, this kind of gets into it, and what they've done before. Well, this one, they just – he had access to everything, right, in this case. And sometimes these companies like that, especially Apple – just because iPhone use is so prevalent, it's really why they're involved in a lot of these – they've done it before where they said, "Well, we're not going to give you access to certain areas, or we're only going to give you this much, or we're not going to do that." And because they think it's a violation of your privacy, they think it's, "Hey, that's our customers' private" – which, you know, that is not superseded, or the law supersedes that. I mean, if you have a warrant for that...

Yeah, this is not a First Amendment (issue). No, this is Fourth Amendment.

Fourth Amendment. That's a great distinction.

That's a key mistake there, Brian. So, the people working at Apple rightly think, "I don't want to release it." So, that's why the mandamus comes down from the judge going, "Stay in your lane. This is law. Release it." And then Apple turns around on this specific – the McCall caper – and releases everything in McCall's iCloud. Which, how does that complicate the case now, right? Because Apple has no idea what might be or what might not be relevant. So, they try to do the best for the law and release everything. Well, that's not in McCall's best interest.

So, here's a great argument for the defense attorney saying, "Look, this is speculative, and you have an unlimited breadth of search. That's not at all what the Fourth Amendment says." Fourth Amendment says that you have to be detailed in those items and where you're likely to find those items. And there's so many case laws about it, like the "elephant in the matchbox," you know what I'm saying? You're unlikely to find an elephant in a matchbox, so you can't tell me that's where you're looking for it. That's too broad, Brian.

And so, you laugh at those, but that's how justice is. Try to remember, your average cop now has more training and experience than a cop ever has had. And we know both of us are friends with cops that are PhDs and Chiefs of Police that have multiple degrees and a PhD, right? That wasn't always the case. So, you had to go to a judge, and remember, sometimes the judge was voted in or appointed and didn't have that experience. But most judges have a wealth of knowledge on the law.

So, here you've got defense attorneys and SCOTUS (Supreme Court of the United States). Like SCOTUS says, "fruit of the poisonous tree." If your intent was nefarious, we're going to exclude all that evidence, everything you found from that, everything. And so, anything that touched it – I don't know if you know much about arson investigation, but like when they're rebuilding a part of a house from an arson or from a natural fire, anything that the fire touched has to be replaced. So, even if it's a 2x4 that was jammed in another room and it was just smoke-damaged, "Hey, that's fire, it's got to be replaced." You know, it's just weird laws like that. Well, SCOTUS wants to make sure that they don't leave any stone unturned. So, if you got these things from an illegal search, whether your intent was to do it illegally or not, unless your intent was completely accidental, it's going to be excluded.

So, and this is the big point of this case, of what, I think. So, they brought this up, his attorney said, "Well, wait a minute, this search into his phone is way too broad. You can't get – you can't look at all this stuff. This doesn't have – you don't know. You're just – you're on a fishing expedition, right? This is junk."

Exactly.

And the way it went – this is why this one's so interesting – because they ended up, the appellate court saying, "Well, hang on here. It, that maybe was too broad. Maybe the warrant should have been written differently or excluded certain things. But the intent of the officer was to locate these things and do X, Y, and Z," right? Meaning he had a clear intent. He was not trying to find – I'm sure they – you don't want everything on someone's phone anyway. It's too much for your investigation, you don't have to go through it, right? But the idea was, his intent was clear, and it was not nefarious. It was for very specific (reasons). So, therefore, the court said, "Well, hang on. Although this may be too broad in general, although this could have been written differently, it's clear." And that's important to understand too, because case law can get pretty difficult, and then applying case law in the moment can be very difficult, especially a lot of police officers that listen to podcasts too. So, you know, there, I see some – there's some good stuff out there right now on social media where they're trying to explain certain case laws for you to use in the moment, and that's tough. But it falls down to, as long as you're acting within the intent of the law, you don't have to know and name and recall and recite every single case. You get what I'm saying? Meaning, "I don't – well, that was Jackson versus this in 1978." It's like, no, as long as what you're doing falls in with the intent, and even if you had the case name wrong, and you had the spelling wrong.

So, Brian, the U.S. Constitution, there is no place in the Constitution that says what to do if a search warrant is unreasonable.

Okay.

Or the search itself is unreasonable and uncovers stuff.

Real quick, what do you mean by that? Just explain.

The Supreme Court of the United States had to come in and create what's called the "exclusionary rule" to throw out evidence that was seized during unreasonable searches. Because the law in the Fourth Amendment says "no search," and the idea is that, "except when," and it shows all the instances that you can do a legal search. But what it doesn't say, "Now, if the search is illegal, folks, throw out the evidence." It doesn't say that. Now, it's implied and assumed, but Brian, it's not the letter of (the) law. The Supreme Court of the United States said, "Okay, well, let's make this the letter of the law. This is excluded." So, it's been called the exclusionary rule, and it specifically discourages police from acting poorly, writing bad warrants. Mapp v. Ohio, we could go through all the cases, right?

Tons of, yeah.

But what they also said, "There's a good faith exception to the exclusionary rule." Now, it wasn't the same day. These things happen (over) time. The law moves like a glacier, Brian. That's an important, a really good point there. So, whenever police act in good faith, and they believe that the warrant is valid, then the warrant is flawed, but it's not going to stop that evidence from being included. So, the good faith exception is how you save that evidence. But you can't intentionally try to force the hand of the court.

The idea is, in this case, the court, the appeals court, and another appellate court higher up, the 11th Circuit, looked at the evidence, and they all said that the detective's efforts were objectively reasonable. And objectively reasonable means that they were guided by good faith at that time and that place. He didn't sit down and conspire and go, "Shit, let's go for the cloud." What he did is he said, "I think these codes for the phone are in the cloud," and so he wrote the warrant based on that information and didn't understand that that was sufficiently broad, and certainly was never likely to expect that Apple was going to come back and release all of that information, some of which could have been deemed prejudicial.

So, whenever the court sees something that might be prejudicial, the court steps in and says, "Oh, whoa, whoa." And the judge should too. The good rules of evidentiary procedure are, if something comes out at the trial and it's overly prejudicial, the judge should stop it, right, and not let the jury see it. Or at the bench trial, the judge shouldn't include it. And what do we mean by that? We mean stuff like a photograph that is overly graphic, do you get what I'm trying to say? A video or audio tape that, when taken out of context, is a lot of screaming and yelling and gunfire, and now all of a sudden you're tainted, Brian, because you're going, "Well, holy crap," you know, "that must have been this type of situation." You've got to rule on the evidence. And here it was likely that the cop was guided by genuine good faith.

I mean, when you read the caper (and the caper is going to be in the episode details for all of the folks that like to listen to us and look at stuff that we think is interesting), when you read this caper, it's great. You can actually see how McCall, as this is going on, is going through his mind and going, "I swear to God if I lose any more money," right? And I would love to read about the contempts at some point in the future about what made them shoot these guys. Did the guys get aggressive, "Hey, you're not getting out of here with that. I don't think the gun is loaded." There's a caper right now out of – gosh darn – Panama or the Philippines, I don't know which, where an American-born lawyer was stopped at a blockade, you know how the people are stopping the roadways now, and he pulls out a gun and goes, "Ah, this is the day that I make the decision in the caper." And somebody goes, "Hey, what are you going to do, shoot us, old man?" And he does, he shoots two of them dead, right? You've got to be careful when you're making those kind of statements. And in this high-tense situation of this card game, and all of a sudden these two guys burst in with an armed robbery, Brian, can you imagine being in that room? I mean, all of us have been in the crap.

Oh, yeah. You never know how those things are going to go. There was actually just one that came out on social media. I think it was out in California, I can't remember where it happened. It was literally these three guys are just sitting in their garage drinking beer, sitting down at the table, just bullshitting, having a beer. And these two guys walk in, one's got a rifle, one's got, I think, a pistol, I don't remember. But then they walk right in, it's like, "Hey," they want to take all their stuff. And these guys are sitting there, you could tell, like they were like, "What?" You couldn't hear everything that was said, I don't know what it was, I don't know what the relationship was. But you could tell the way these three were sitting there, were like, they didn't feel overly threatened by the situation. And they were like, "What's going on here?" And the guys had to even like push the one guy with the barrel of the weapon. And then eventually, these three guys just kind of looked at each other and they jumped these dudes and they took the guns and the guys had to run off. But it was like, you're always rolling the dice at that point. You don't know.

But you really are, even with high, high levels of training. And the more folks in that smaller area start to complicate things. Look, there was a guy that wrote an article on – this is being recorded on Thursday, so it would have been Monday – and Brian, he was, he had to get a replacement phone and was in a phone store. And minutes into being at the counter at the phone store, the place gets robbed by two guys that are holding their hands in their pockets as if they have weapons. And the guy says, "I wasn't sure they had weapons because they were certainly using both hands to grab all the free stuff they were stealing," right?

Yeah.

But at the beginning when they announced it, he said the most amazing thing was that he was the only person that was looking for something to club him with, because he was afraid that he was going to die. He said half of the people in the store kept shopping, and the other half in the store pulled out their phones and started recording. And he said it just shocked him. Look, we're in a time when you're really not sure. Look, you stop a shoplifter and you're the one that gets fired. Store policies are actually saying, "Do whatever you want to do inside the store, we don't want to create havoc." Or the court systems, Brian, say, "We're going to charge for the lowest level misdemeanor possible and release you with a ticket for a future court appearance, not even book you or process you." These are unprecedented times for those type of capers.

So, here you've got a really good caper. The detectives did great work on this, Brian. They determined, "Hey, listen, there were these calls. What could have transpired?" Well, you can't make a search warrant on "maybe," okay? The search warrant has to be drafted on reasonableness first, and on artifacts and evidence that would tend to show the person reading that affidavit, who's going to be a judge, Brian, a sworn member of the court. And that sworn member of the court can't just look at what's on that paper. He has to determine, "Are the rules of evidence followed? Does this forward justice? Will this help both the prosecution and the defense?" These are tough things we don't think about, do we? We think about it, "It's just a procedure, yeah, check in the box, go ahead, swear to it." It's so much more. And that's why this case is so important for digital forensics.

Well, that's, and for future technology, right? And that's partly why I was so interested too when you sent me this one because, obviously now you have a precedent here, right? Every past case is precedent that you base future cases on. And, you know, this – because there's been problems, well, problems before in the past where let's say law enforcement was trying to get something from, let's say, Apple – because they're, again, because iPhones are prevalent, it's usually them – and remember with the shooting out in San Bernardino years ago? I think there was during that investigation they didn't want – they didn't want to turn over and they didn't want to give it to them because they, I think their argument was something like, "Well, if we show them or give to them, now they're going to know how to do it, and then once they know how to do it, that – you know, we don't want the FBI to be able to..."

The Pandora (Box) coming out.

Exactly.

"We can't put it back in."

Brian, you're exactly right on that paper, and that started a legal challenge that went on for years. Yeah, and those things don't – they don't get addressed until something happens, right? That's the whole thing. It's like, "Oh, crap, well, where does this fall under?" You know what I mean? And obviously, like you brought up a great point earlier when I was like, "This isn't a First Amendment right. This isn't about you saying something. This is about you, this is a Fourth Amendment tied to a criminal case, felony, armed robbery." You know what I mean? This was, and where people were shot, and the detectives at that time had no idea whether those people were going to live or die, Brian.

And that's the same thing that happened with the shooting, the husband and wife team going to the (Christmas) party. They didn't know if people had plots, if it was part of a larger (conspiracy). That one, they were trying to say, "There's some exigency," right? There was some emergent thing that was still ongoing, there's still a potential threat to the public right now, so we need to do (this), which is a recognized exception to the search warrant rule. And that's important.

It is. But I think at that, and I think that puts that company, Apple – because you got to remember, they're private companies, or it's a publicly traded company, but it's a private, whatever. It doesn't matter, it's a company. So, they have certain rights. But because they're a telecom company, you're thrown into all kinds of different legal issues because you're part of society, you're part of all these things that are going to happen. You don't just have some product, you know what I'm saying, that people, a toy you sell, and they play in your house and you're never going to come involved with (the law). This is tough for them to navigate because privacy is extremely important to everyone, especially in the United States. And what we can control and can't control. And Apple's really good at a lot of privacy stuff because mostly because they want to own your data and not give it to anyone else. Like on your iPhone, it has all this, "Hey, this app wants to track you across other apps," and you can say, "No, I don't want it to do that. No, I don't want it to track you." So, Apple loves that because you're as a consumer, you're like, "Oh wow, they really care about my privacy." And they're just like, "No, we want to be the ones who own all of your data."

Exactly, and we'll sell it for the right price, but we're not going to give it to you for a search warrant. So, let's talk about that for just a minute. Let's do a sidebar. Strategic, operational, and tactical. The strategic – it's early, man – strategic, operational, and tactical view. We talk about that often in class because we try to tell you to adjust your lens for the right argument, right? So, when we talk about the First and the Fourth (Amendments), let's talk about the First in context for a minute.

So, you're on a plane, you've had a couple of extra drinks, you're 35,000 feet. You stand up, you pee your pants – this is getting – start fighting and yelling, but I'm not going to attribute it, so I'm not going to tell you it was you. But, you know, you start yelling at people and everything, and now it's making other people uncomfortable and they're afraid, and the plane has to land. And then your pilots are arguing whether they should shoot each other. Another argument there. Several cases put together.

But I like it.

Yeah, but let's string this together too. Okay, when you take a look at that, there's so much that's in play. For example, I've got my First Amendment rights. I can say, "Fire in a crowded theater," or I can say, "Bomb on a plane." Well, no, you can't. And that's again, people not fully understanding it. But let's look at the obverse, the other side of that, pardon my language. And let's look at the strategic concerns of the company are to get that plane to a location on time and safely, and to make as much money possible (while) doing it. Right now, that opens them up because part of that is the allegation of overservice, which at the operational level would be the airport, the bar on the ground, those other people. And now the tactical level, Brian, is your steward or stewardess – they don't call them that, flight attendant, now – a flight attendant who makes the decision that, "I'm just going to move that person's seat," where they don't anticipate that it's going to be a larger issue. Now the plane has to be diverted, and that's a million dollars, and all the people have all these other problems.

So, wherever you are in the stack, and now let's look at the cop that was on this caper. Cop gets the call, "There's been a shooting." Now he figures out there's two people that are down. The shooters are still out. So, there's a whole part of that tactical level that's going after those shooters. Now you've got your operational level that's saying, "Let's safeguard the evidence, let's take a look." And then your strategic level here is the infighting between the defense attorney and the prosecuting attorney and the law, and what elements are we actually looking for and who's the suspect? So, we – the reason we get so excited – I don't want to take words out of your mouth – the reason we get so excited about these types of capers is they're so rich, they're fidelity-rich capers that have so much to do. Now it has to do with technology, but it has to do with the First and the Fourth (Amendments), and it has to do with digital forensics, and it has to do with legal rights.

So, that person at Apple says, "I'm not going to do your bidding because I work for Apple, I don't work for you." Yeah, but you're working in the United States, and so you're subject to the law of the United (States). You get what I'm saying? So, man, that's tough, right? And I'll give you another one here. Here's a hot-button topic; might as well throw some fat and lard on the fire to see it sparkle this morning. When we start seeing the responses, and everybody's seen the responses, "Hamas: down, boo, hate, death, fear." "Israel: yay, we support." Right? But when you see the marginal data that comes out and somebody says, "Yeah, hunt them down and hang them and kill them and do that." Hold on a minute. What you're doing is, what you're doing is, you're diving right into that cesspool and trying to swim around there. Look, we have an incredible country because when you look at how the legal process goes, the only people that hate the legal process are (those) where it doesn't go your way. Well, of course. But here, you can't be corralled up and killed and lined up against (a wall). So, I love that.

I love that part. That's always the First Amendment right. "Well, we (have) free speech." Well, unless it's something you don't like, and then suddenly everyone wants to shut down, quiet them.

Exactly. You can't – I thought you were going to use "chicken," which is great because it was on Turner Classic last night, by the way.

Well, and you know, this is the issue with anything, anything digital, is the next – we – the law is still being written on it, right? And but there's precedent for all of this stuff, and which is why I love talking about this, because everyone's like, "Well, this is a new thing." It's like, "Well, no, it's really not." And, you know, to back to your point too, when someone's like, "Oh, let's hunt them down like dogs, let's do this." They get, it was the same thing after 9/11. It was like, "Well, the gloves are coming off now." It's like, "What do you mean? Like, what? If this felt within our what we can do legally in the laws of armed conflict, and this met the criteria, why didn't you do it before?"

Exactly.

It's like, "Well, why does it change?" No, it doesn't change. The law is the law. Our intent is the intent, and our policies (and) procedures are this. So, because if it's pendulous...

Brian, what rights do we really retain? Do you see what I'm trying to say? What's the goal of having a Constitution? What's the goal of having a Bill of Rights? Now, what those people did was patently wrong, and it's barbaric, and it's horrible, and they'll pay, okay? But, you know, and this is a war, so there's different rules. There's the absolute Rules of Engagement and Laws of Armed Combat. And the idea is that countries agreed to that. Why?

Exactly for this.

Exactly for this situation to happen. So, McCall had absolutely every right to say that the search was too broad. But the courts reined them in by going, "Wait a minute, this is a new thing, and it's in flux. And in the best interest of the gosh darn Constitution of the United States, we created the good faith exception, and you know what? It's right more than it's wrong, and that's what saves us as a nation. That's what saves us."

That's a standard that I think a lot of people don't truly understand, right? We want it to be yes or no. We want it to be A or B. We want it to be this cut and dry, black and white. Absolutely not. And the law – the law can't be that way. It cannot be that way. It's always about how...

Certainly not if you're the one being arrested. You get what I'm trying to say?

That's what I mean. It's, it's, it's, the problem is when we get into these cases is you have to take them all at an individual level and not go, "Well, this is again, another broad overreach of this." It's like, "Well, no, it's not. Here's what actually happened." And so, that's the issue with some of these because, you know, everyone's for it when it's helping them out, and then when it's against them, they're like, "Wait a minute, I don't like this." It's like, "Well, this is the system." And it's to your point of, "It's right more than it's wrong." That's about as good as it gets. I mean, you're always trying to get it to be more right than wrong.

Exactly. Meaning, you're always trying to increase that confidence. Medicine, same way.

Exact same way, right?

And as long as we're on – and this is where good faith comes in – as long as we're on the side of right, but you don't get to decide right and wrong by might, by sheer volume of force, by your gun. Because then if we did, we could say, "Well, you know, I have more guns than you, so this is the new law." America's never been that way. Well, we were kind of in a revolution, but the whole idea was that what did we have to do with our prior presidents? A lot of people don't know this. First through third, real important presidencies that were going on there, and especially their vice presidents. And when they left office, you know what a lot of time was spent? Is going across to Europe and going, "We're a legitimate country now. Yes, we have an army and a navy, and we have a Constitution and a Bill of Rights, and we're a country. So, let's get back to trading, and you deal with us like you would deal with France or Spain." Brian, do you know how big that is? This case is that big. You get what I'm saying? It's legacy. You have to establish this is a legitimate thing for you.

Yeah, McCall.

For every similar case that's coming, and those cases, Brian, that are right around the corner that we don't see, because it beholds down and up, it beholds back to the original thing that, "Listen, if a flawed warrant comes out, then we have to deter that information, that evidence cannot go forward." But in this case, "tie goes to the runner," because the guy didn't do it illegally, and he didn't do it intentionally. It was an unintentional mistake that he made. So, his actions and efforts were objectively reasonable – reasonable in standard.

What do we find in human behavior pattern recognition analysis? People come up to us all the time and they go, "Well, if you take a look at these different formulas, like even Bayes' (Theorem) – because, you know, I'm a big Bayes' fan – but the idea is those formulas are flawed. Why? Because those formulas happen in a vacuum, and life doesn't happen in a vacuum. Laws aren't broken in a vacuum, and that detective wasn't working in a vacuum." You know?

Yeah. You just opened up a really big door. I apologize.

No, and we, you know what you're talking about is probability and likelihood of these events, and then how people go, "Well, then this could happen, then that could happen." It's like, "Well, no, not necessarily. That's not how medicine or law or math work." That's an unlikely scenario in this sense. And then you're talking (about) how gravity, you're talking about Bayes' Theorem, and, you know, inferring information with some sort of statistical probability, which you can do. But, like you said, that's sort of what Bayes said at white belt, Bayes said at white belt before he started putting pen to paper. And I, I believe it. Bayes was like, "Look, the best indicator of future behavior is past behavior." And that idea, Brian, has been around for a good long time, right? So, those are the types of things that I like to hang my hat on, because even now it's hard to argue the logic there.

In this case, the defense attorney had a lot to hang his hat on, and there was a lot of meat on this bone. One: Apple released way too much information. Two: the cloud had nothing to do with it because the information was dumped 12 hours before the crime was committed. So, if he didn't – like, you can't say, "I bet that McCall was thinking about this in the days coming up to it, so I want to go back and I want to search everything." You can't. You see, and that's, that's why there's no evidence to support that claim, right? But there's evidence to support physics. There's evidence to support centripetal force. So, that's what I'm trying to say is when we take a look at these, if we side with the hard sciences and a couple of the soft sciences, the answer tends to rise to the top. You know, the rising tide raises all boats, and we're a better nation because of it.

This is the perfect case where somebody would go, "Hey, man, they overreached. They went into his cloud." And Brian, I got stuff, if I die, clear my browser history. Say that should be your first act. Do me a favor. So, none of us want that black (mark). What were his final words? "Please delete my browser history."

Exactly.

But think about that for a minute, right? But what didn't we do? We didn't create an armed robbery and an attempted murder, right?

Yeah, big, big difference in the standard there. Okay. And the way I look at it, because you're bringing in Bayes, and you're bringing up physics, is, and you kind of said it without – you kind of, well, you sort of brushed past it, but you sort of said that that happens in a vacuum. And the sort of the analogy I would use when you talk about this stuff, it's like, you know, what the equation for gravity (is). You know, the objects fall at 9.8 meters per second squared until it reaches terminal velocity.

Exactly.

But it doesn't in real life. Meaning, that does in a vacuum, everything will fall at the same rate. But if I have a parachute on, or I have wind resistance, or there's drag, there's all of these other factors that come into play. But the baseline for it is this equation, and that works, and that's what we compare it off of. But it's just like this, it's like, "Hey, this is the..."

Precisely. Baseline plus anomaly equals decision. Right?

But, well, I'm getting into it. Meaning this is the rule, but then there are – that's not how it plays out in real life.

But it is how it is. It is. That rule never changes. Your situations and elements of the event change. So, look, I remember an old argument, I remember a couple of ridiculous arguments in law school. One of them is the welcome mat. You remember me telling you about that? "Well, I didn't break into the guy's house because he had a welcome mat." You know what I – "I took him for face value." "Okay, shut up. First of all, just shut up." That's my legal defense on that one. "It says 'come on in.'" I mean, right?

And then the argument that I heard in the 37th District Court where a person said, "Yeah, well, the cop was speeding too." And the driver trying to beat a ticket said, "Look, I know I was going 65 in a 35, but the cop had to be doing that much to catch me." And the judge, Judge Kennedy at the time, God rest his soul, did everything but slap the guy. You get what I'm trying to say? Now, look, that quantum leap of logic can only occur in that experiment, in that test case, in that lab, because when you take it out to the clear light of day and you play it with real humans, Brian, it doesn't work.

What was our biggest argument all the time when we were managing 40 or 50 role players a mile away from, you know, Tier One operators that were looking at binoculars, and we had a very clear script? What did we always tell the role players? What don't you do? "Don't grow a brain!" Don't grow a brain because you think that when you step around, "Man, it would be better if you jogged around that corner." And you think that it would be better when you light that cigarette, that you look left and right before you light it. The whole dynamic of the – so everything spiraled into the sun, Brian, and we're all worse for wear. And that's what we're talking about here. What we're talking about is, this happened. Now there were things that happened a few seconds before, a few seconds after it, but this happened. So, at that time and at that place, did the detective make the right call? Not a minute later, or an hour later, or a week later with all this new information coming in, but at that time and at that place.

I think that's an important – it's like you're hitting the pause button and saying, "Here, stop," and explain it. And this is important because this gets into sometimes when people get stuff wrong and it's on our social media stuff. When I'll put stuff on Instagram or something, and it kind of spirals out or people don't really get it. It's hilarious when that happens because you have people that are like spot on, like, "Oh my God, yes, this is." And then, "What about this?" And they go all over. And it's like, "Look, you're making this determination, this observation, this explanation at a time and place, at this second." The entire situation, physics keeps going, right? But we're pausing it right here and saying, "Based on what we know right now, here's what can happen." Now the situation's going to continue after that, and other things may happen, but you have to influence what happened at that point.

The one – you know, when you were in the airport in Newark, and the alarms start going off and it's telling people to exit, and no one's looking around and no one's doing anything. And, you know, we had – I posted sort of that clip, as it just shows, and part of it is there's different terms for it, but it's really just, you know, sensory adaptation. The more times I hear an alarm, the less likely I am to notice it. I don't pay attention anymore. And how many times that happened? It's the, "Oh, I thought it was balloons popping," and it was gunfire. You know?

Right.

And so, you don't have to overreact, but you have to stop and take a second and go, "What is going on here? Is this the real thing?" And most people, it's not my choice at that point, because it's the choice for the better good, just like the law, to get the hell out of there. And but to bring it in, someone's like, "Well, yeah, but they could have just been using that to channelize people down this area, and that's where they're..." It's like, "Okay, here we go." Like, you don't know any of that. You don't know any of that. You can't speculate. Here's what you know right now. And if you're speculating, you're right back to what you said at minute one about a fishing trip, and you can't do that.

So, let's blow some minds. A car is going down the road at 65 miles an hour. The speed limit is 65. Everything is right. If you press pause and you freeze it, we've got a tactical freeze. It's going, and you draw a line that's – what would up and down be? Perpendicular to the ground.

Okay, yeah. Vertical line.

But I want it perpendicular to the ground, so it's exactly at a 90 (degree angle) this way. Yeah, whatever that would be. Right? Okay. So, stop. Just go with me on this, okay? It's an up and down line that goes to the ground, which is left and right. So, you're making like a cross, but it's a "T," an upside-down T. At that exact point where that radial is spinning and it's touching the ground, it's going zero miles an hour. But the car is still going 65 miles an hour. So, each millisecond, nanosecond that goes by where the tire is in contact with the ground, it's not moving. So, that's the problem. Is that the big picture is still in motion constantly, okay? And there is no pause button on life. But this allows us to go back and specify what likely was occurring at that point and how it influenced all future events. If we can't do that, then predictive analysis would be so flawed that it would be a parlor trick. And it's not. And predicting the weather, and predicting the stock market – even though you've got the predicting the stock market being kind of like a parlor trick – when we take a look at the people that are really good at it, there's some science and math and statistics and some insight that you have.

Because when you get out to like the macro level like that, it's there's so much – there's so many factors and there's so much complexity. So, you have to...

Well, yeah, so this is why you have to define it within a specific context. Like what people are like, "Well, you can't..." That's what I'm trying to get to. I'm trying to get that Mobius loop of logic to come back and say, "So, this is so much more complex than the average person considers." So, you can't just make a knee-jerk reaction and go, "Well, that's crap." And that's what America does, right? That's what 97% of Americans do. They look at this and go, "Well, I don't want my phone records looked at." "Well, this is not about you." "Well, yeah, but it's kind of about me." Do you see what I'm trying to say? This is very specific to McCall and his situation, although it's going to talk to all of us in the future. And the more cases, the more times this happens, actually, the more, the more specific it gets, right? The more corners (are) put on the document, right? Because now it's like the more limiting factors get put in. When these cases come out, it's not that it opens it up. It's actually...

No, no, no.

When these things occur, it makes it much more narrow. So, it's good that these things occur because then it gives a clear definition of what. Why do we always argue, why do we always argue for big data sets when it comes to human testing? Because the more people that go through the situation, we're probably going to get the realistic answer, rather than you said, "Yeah, we tested seven people over two and a half weeks." "We did our 12." "We did our 12-person study." Am I lying? Okay? But how many times do we see that, and we see a white paper that comes out, and immediately it's picked up by the news media that says, "Hey, this just in: caffeine and cigarettes are good for you." You know, that's it. Can't beat that. But that knee-jerk reaction. And the other thing, and going back to everybody that knows me knows what I mean about the stock market, Brian, over time, the law has proven that it was right. And there's somebody going to say, "Yeah, well, Jim Crow." Yeah, and guess what? They found it and they fixed it. It was wrong. And guess what? All of these other things that were found, like women, you know, with their voting and all that other stuff, we're wrong, and it was fixed. And look, those aren't our personal opinions. Those were people's opinions at that time and at that place. And if you're going to use that argument, you have to put everything else in context. You've got to go and wear period clothing, you've got to say what they wanted, you've got to eat whale blubber for three meals a day. I mean, Brian, if you want to use those archaic arguments, you have to go back there. The law is catching up. Technology evolves very quickly. The law evolves slowly, but it does.

Wasn't that the – you know, I love it. You, again, you have to put it in the intent of what it was written for or what it was meant for. And at that time and place, it's – I love, I think it was The Simpsons one where they're all like, "Well, this couldn't be clearer." Or there's a Second Amendment one, "Everyone has a right to bear arms," and they're wearing bare arms on their (shoulders).

Yes, bare arms. But look, that tongue-in-cheek is hilarious. Hilarious humor goes. And other people go, "See, see what I mean? So, the Second Amendment is against gun rights." No, stop for a minute, that's not. Look, we infer so much. Why? Because we're egoists, and we have to – the world is our world, okay? And so, absolutely everything in our environment belongs to me, and it's how I get up this morning and what I have for breakfast and where I go. And so, when we look at it, the law is a great equalizer. And again, the people that are telling you, "No, it's not," are the people that feel as though they've been wronged by it. And if you have been wronged, you have the right to redress. And what does redress mean? Redress means that you petition the court, but you don't do it with a Molotov cocktail.

And yeah, that's, that's to the argument of the freedom fighter versus the terrorist. Kiss my ass. Okay? It's context-relevant. You can't make a definition, right? It just excludes everybody and says what you want today. That, "Oh my God, we're back to impostor syndrome." You can't just come up with crap and make it a thing and start making money on it, right? Come on.

Yeah. That's how, that's, that's one of my favorite ones. Oh my God, this, my every time I read that in the first couple of lines of a person and you see that they're a doctor and a PhD and they're a life coach and all this other stuff, it's like, "Well, then why did you go there? Why don't you come up with your own shit and tell us what you're about?" You know?

Yeah, it's a lot of times it's just people wanting to talk about themselves.

And of course it is. But we also call those snipers, because most of those social media allows you to put shots on target even if you're not the designated rifleman, you get what I'm saying? And even if you have no idea what (they're) talking about. I, I feel sometimes in my mind – and I'm not on social media, but I read the crap you send me – where some people just want to be the classic obstructionist, yeah. And they want to say something just because they're in their basement, they want to be heard, and it has nothing to do with bettering society, you know?

Right. And a lot of that is that that sort of perception is just really taken. I mean, you know, we want to, we want to make it about ourselves, right, and go, "Of course, of course, it's identifying my point of view because you started this, and now I've got to..." It's even, it's even back to those terms that people come up with sometimes, those, or different studies. And I know we did the episode on even personality tests. Some of those, like, start off really well, or are great in a lab, or in for insight. And so, well, even the people that do it, they're like, "Hey, look, this is what I found. This is what it means. This is what I think it is." And it's all really great. And then usually that part isn't usually the problem. It's when it then goes out into mainstream, people go, "Oh yeah, that's right, I that's me, that's, I have that." It's like, "Wait, what? That's me. I do that all the time."

What do I always check when I have a headache or my toe hurts? I check WebMD, and I've had Parkinson's! You know what I mean? That's what it says. I've got a brain injury, and I have to go get treated. And Char's like, "No, you're just fat." I know I know when you're not feeling well because you'll send that text like, "I think I have Parkinson's."

Exactly.

Because that's when I've been on WebMD all morning trying to look at my, you know, listen, there was a time that I didn't look in the toilet after I went to the bathroom. Those times are long gone, Brian. It's a new life for me. Your dad would understand. Ask your father. No, no. But listen, back to this argument, somebody in the audience right now is going to go, "Why are we going to bat for this piece of crap?" First of all, he's a human just like you. And I would fight for him as hard as I would fight for you. And even though his, his intent was to right or wrong him losing money in an illegal gambling venue, okay, in his brain, at that time, in that place, he thought he was doing the right thing, okay? And guess what? He was a criminal. He was wrong. He needs to go to jail. But the legal representation he gets should be the best that he can afford, and the best that we can afford to make sure that he's not wrongfully accused or convicted, and that his rights weren't violated. And his iCloud (account) has rights. So (do) yours. And you don't want people just poking around and looking in there because, again, I like to use the word fishing expedition. The worst cop cases you and I read, and we read a dozen a week, start with what? A fishing expedition. "Hey, look at those two guys in that car. Let's go rouse them and see what's going on." And that spins out of control. And now we have an excessive use of force, and a death, and a pursuit, and all this other crap. I mean, come on, you know?

That's, bottom line is this. Well, this is, and people don't like it when, you know, people who did commit a crime and they are guilty, they did do it, but then they get off on some technicality. And it's like that technicality is the most important thing. Your future, it really, really is, because that applies to all of us. It's like, and that's what everyone wants in the situations they want until it happens to them. Until they're an innocent person getting subjected to this thing because the law went too far, or didn't go far enough. And that, that's the issue is that that's what these rights are for.

And every cop on the road in the inner city, and many in other jurisdictions, has one time or the other, Brian, heard from the person that they're stopping or contacting or whatever else, "Why me? Why are you doing this? What does this have to do with me?" Why? Because we make that personal. And in some instances, and very rarely, and (a) very low number of percentages, that contact is illegal, and the court's there to fix that. But the idea is that the most of the people, just like these cops, were doing the right things. You know what it's hard to say? But those guys in that illegal poker game that weren't in on the McCall caper, the people that were just robbed, okay, they've got rights too. And you're going, "Well, how do they got rights? You know, they're in a seedy hotel in a mill, whatever the case is." We can't do that. We can't go backwards and gild the lily and add all this drama and do all those things. That's for Hollywood, and Hollywood blows. But what we want to do in our own mind is we want to interpret the case in our viewpoint, and we've got to stop doing that.

What does tactical cunning say? Tactical cunning says, "I have to put myself in that person's shoes and see the world through their eyes and smell the coffee through their nose at that time and that place." And guess what? I'll make a better decision. That's why you've got to read these cases and don't just read what the paper says on them. Brian, how hard is it to look up this case?

Well, it's not. Well, but that's, that's why, you know, people reach out to us, "Hey, what are your thoughts on this case?" where it's like, "It just happened, dude. Like, you have no idea what really occurred until that investigation comes out, and until you know, that's when you have to look at everything because you don't know everything else. It's just, it's speculation. It's pure..."

Because here, what do we see here, Brian? We see now, because of all the stuff that you have in the episode details, we see that it started as a speculative fishing trip. It's also, or a, you know, fishing analogy again. But then it goes into the iCloud. It's technology versus digital forensics versus a guy at a poker game versus, and the complexity level branches and goes. But guess what else is in that case? All the files and all the motions and the judges' opinions and the different circuit court. Now, that's when we can go back and take a look at it and give you, the audience member, the best view on it. What happens is they hire CNN and all the other news stations, a pundit, to go on right now and go, "What's happening right now with this?" And Brian, what do we find? Pedantic, or wrong, or even if they are well-intentioned, way too early to start knee-jerk reaction on the information. And we don't want to be that. We want to be somebody that gives you facets of the case to look at that'll make your life better or, or at least to help you understand better those things that are out of your span and control, right? Because one of the things is, the Constitution is about me, and so are the Bill of Rights. But some of the aspects of it are out of my ken because I don't use them normally, and that is for the court of law. The whole reason it's called the court of law, you know, because that's where it's played before the bar, right? And I don't think people look backwards sometimes for that historical perspective.

And this one actually will narrow future searches. That's the thing why we (need) to embrace it, because they said, "You know, well, wait a minute, yeah, I see why you did that. You were sort of given more information." "Well, yeah, it was okay. Your intent..." Even it says – because I was just trying to find it – it said in here, the detective who, who was the, who wrote up the search warrant, he, before submitting it to the judge, he asked a supervisor and an assistant state attorney to review the document. He also consulted two other detectives and a forensic supervisor. So, how many people is that that he went to even before? So, he did – what does that demonstrate? It's his intent. And he went, "Is this correct? Is this?" They went, "Okay, I think they were all in the same boat, like, yeah, I think so, you know. Well, we haven't really seen it like this before." And then, you know, that's what the appellate court came down and said. It's like, "Okay, you, you, you wrote the warrant. It shouldn't have been this broad. It shouldn't have included these things. But you didn't do that in the attempts of just randomly finding stuff. You actually took steps to ensure that his rights were protected, and you only got information that was pertinent to the case. However, that's not how it turned out, but that's not your fault. You are then allowed to use that."

And that's the beauty of this case, and why I owe this so much when you sent it to me, because it shows that it literally shows, "Well, A squared plus B squared equals C squared. Got it. That's why you did this." Now, going forward, this one will then be used to limit warrant searches.

Right. I mean, I think this one actually can only go certain areas. See how this case came about? This is what the court said, this is what the appellate court said. They said, "You need to rewrite the warrant differently." And now is that a new area? Well, yeah, of course it is, because of the text work. It'll fix future cops, right? It'll show them how to get this and do this correctly. It'll help Apple, it'll help security, it'll help the nation.

But I, I want to go back for just a second to what you're talking about, narrowing the scope. Look, B plus A equals D. I keep throwing it out there: Baseline plus Anomaly equals Decision. But the expert people that we try to train, we also tell them that not all evidence is weighted equally, not all cues in your environment. And so, we have to do this balancing act, and we can't put a round peg in a square hole. That's what I love about cases like these, okay? Because what they do is they point to those things that change the balance. The iCloud changed the balance of this argument. It wasn't just about the iPhone. And then when they went for just the code to get into the iPhone to get pictures of them, and guess what, Brian? There were pictures of them with a gun and all those other things, right? But you can't use ends justification and end the case there and go, "So there!" So, that's what we do. We don't just look at something and go, "It's a horse. Dee and back. Cow. It's a cow." Right? We don't just sit there and our knee-jerk. What we do, and you use the term "due diligence," we take a look at the artifacts and evidence to tend to support a reasonable conclusion. We created a few explanatory storyline spirals, and we measure what happens next. And what happens next indicates what the most likely and most dangerous courses of action are, and we're right more than we're wrong. What else can you ask for?

Right. Well, that's, that's a lot of the issue. It goes back to kind of what I brought up earlier. That's a lot of the, we don't – people don't like that. They don't. They want the, "Well, what's the, what's, what's, what's left? What's right? What's good? What's evil? What's, what's wrong?" You know what I mean? We want these very clear sort of boundaries, and it just, it just – that's just not how it is. It's in flux, right? It's complex.

Life is. Exactly. So, you can't do the, "All right, you know, it's this team versus that team." That's too simple. I mean, it really is. So, that, that, that definitely brings into account of – and this too is why I love talking about these cases. And, you know, a lot of people like, "Why do you guys bring up the Supreme Court stuff a lot? Why do you talk about this case law? Like, I'm not a cop, I'm not this." It's like, "No, this is your right." But it's a great way to understand perception. I mean, it really is. Meaning, how you, how you articulate what happened, and then what you can do with that information. The law is a good example. Healthcare is a good example. There's a bunch out there to how you – I mean, that literally relates to situation awareness, right? This is what this is. This just – it's no different. It's artifacts and evidence.

Right. You're just pointing the flashlight or the laser at a different part of the issue.

Right, we're using different lenses. Right? This is, this is legal ones in the Constitution versus behavior and this. So, it could – because they're all intertwined, right? They're all built on one another. They're all built on these basic underlying principles of how humans in a society interact with one another. You've got to have laws. Once you get past a few hundred people, now you have to have a police force. You have to have laws. You have to have codified rules. Because you can't just work as a team together at that point. And that number that you can do that, then the next answer Tommy told me and it spins out of control. And then, you know, we have confrontations that are going to lead to death.

So, what does Brian mean about lenses? Well, the lens on this could have changed if we didn't go for the law enforcement lens and we went for the poker playing lens. "Hey, folks, make sure you lock that door. And if anybody leaves the party, they're not coming back." Then it could also come for the, "Hey, these vests are the poker players' friend because they'll deflect, you know, .38, .45, and 9 millimeter weapons if you get shot at a poker (game)." What I'm talking about there is that when you take a look at life, life is like spinning that flashlight around in the room and having a bunch of Post-it notes on the room on what's important. And as that light flashes by for that second in time, that thing's most important. Well, you can't do it that way. You have to slow time down, and at this incident...

Yeah, and you could look at his comments and his behavior from the report of during the game to be like when he's saying, "Oh, I'm going to fix this. Oh, I'm going to change this." He gets up and leaves. I'd be like, "Hey, guys, how about we jump out the window? Where's the fire escape? I don't think we should let him back in."

But there again, is you, you have the training component. And some people that do training that I don't absolutely agree with would say, "Okay, so from now on, no cell phones at the poker game." "Okay, I got it." "But a predetermined time." You know, "Okay, no watches." You get what I'm trying to say? That's that, that unreasonable leap of quantum logic that we're trying to avoid. We're saying that most things happen for a reason. Most of those things can be constructed, and you can find the central points of it. And that's the rule of law. And the rule of law helps with this because there's laws of arithmetic, and there's laws of physics, and there's laws of entropy. And we like those. We like those because it's a digestible chunk, and we can point it not flashlight, but laser now, laser-focused, and we get more out of it. We get more meaning.

Yeah, well, that, I think that's probably a good place to, to end. What were we talking about today? I don't remember exactly. We went down some, we went down some black holes, not rabbit holes, man.

Yeah, I know that. Well, there's a, there's a lot we got into there. Couple future episodes in there, I think.

Yeah, that you opened some doors that I tried closing.

But Brian, if you don't start drinking now, you can't say you've been drinking all day. I'm just saying, the Marine Corps birthday is tomorrow from when we're recording this, and it's a Friday. And while you're sobering up, it's Veterans Day on a Saturday. Holy crap, you talk about double-fisted. Yeah, so, it's a, it's a weekend filled with poor coping skills.

Yep.

So, Brian, just so you know, to be ready for the Marine Corps birthday, and thank you, Marines, for your service. Thank you, all veterans, first responders, everybody, you guys know who you are. Brian is going to break his own nose and give himself a black eye before he goes to the bar because he knows that's how he's coming back anyway, and he thinks he'll get, you know, beat less because people leave me alone. Then they're like, "Well, that guy already, that guy already got what was coming to him."

Exactly.

Well, I think we'll leave him alone. Except for the Marines that find him and go, "Oh, that's not good enough. I got to break an arm here."

That's a perfect example of when I was on, I, one of the deployments, it was based out of Okinawa, and I had to go there. Me and a couple guys had to go prior to the rest of the unit getting there. We had to go through a bunch of, bunch of training over there and a bunch of courses that were fun. And then there's an unlisted club on, on – which you're already shaking your head going, "Oh God, I know what that means." So, when everyone got in, like, "Oh cool, when you guys get in, get settled, and then come meet us for a drink." And I'm standing there talking to my buddy, and we're having a beer, and then I'm just literally standing there talking. We're in the middle of a story and I just get punched in the face. And I'm like, and I literally start bleeding. I look over and it's my buddy who just got there. And I'm like, "Well, welcome to the..."

Welcome to the party. Exactly. Brian, the only thing that could parallel a rival, something like that, is, you know, when you get that briefing for weekend Libo (liberty), and you look on there and the NCO Club is listed. That's how you know that you're probably going to have a problem. The worst thing they do is say, "Here's the places you're not going to," and then everyone's writing it down. "Uh-huh, what other place am I not allowed to go to? Uh-huh, okay." And then you immediately go to those places because those are obviously the fun ones. Honestly, God, what a weekend.

So, to add to that, we're just a week and a smattering out – this is the month, we'll just call it that – my mom's death day is on the 11th, so that's Somber Town, right, which is also Veterans Day. But I don't – I'm not the one that goes backwards (to) all horrible trauma and stuff. I think my brothers do. But I don't. But what I do get Somber Town about, it's Shelley's birthday coming up, our CEO. And God only knows what we're looking at there, okay? That can go a whole bunch of different tangents. "I'm happy, I'm sad, shut up." So, I don't know what to do, Brian, and I'm thinking of leaving for the couple of days before that birthday. I know, I got to – that reminded me, I got to send her something. So, let me know.

Let me know. Don't even bring it up. I think you avoid it like the plague. Is that what we're doing this year?

I don't know, I don't know yet. Maybe we should ask our viewers because I'm a little frightened. I'll send it to you there and we decide, and then you decide in the moment if it's a good thing, like, "Oh, well, sent this (and) seen (it)."

Shoot. I've seen her fight, man. I don't know.

I know that's, this is such a weird one. And it's a significant big 60, you know what I'm saying? So, that just complicated it. It's like, "I don't know, man." I don't know. I'll be wearing a helmet, I'll tell you that. You know what I'm saying? I'm going to have some protective clothing.

What if we all just pretend it's, it's only her 50th birthday?

See, now we're cooking with death. The kind of idea, "Happy 50th!" "Hey everyone, it's her 50th, you know, it's a big milestone." And then I'm going to get my ass kicked just for bringing this up. I'll just let me warn everybody right now, we're not talking domestic violence, we're talking about professional courtesy here. You know what I mean? I'm afraid everyone that's, that's, that's got to go on your, on her business card. "We're not talking domestic violence, it's called professional courtesy." I'm just saying, if you know Shelley, you'll laugh. God bless her.

Exactly. You'll laugh, you'll cry a little.

You'll cry. You bite your lip. It's nervous laughter. Is that okay to laugh at Shelley? Exactly. Oh my God, we have to stop this.

It's all right. Well, thanks, thanks everyone for tuning in. Check the episode details for the links to that case, and then check us out. We've got more on Patreon and more coming up. And we appreciate you all tuning in. Please share this with your friends if you enjoyed it or if you didn't enjoy it too, because either way, the numbers go up, and it's good for us. So, thank you.

Just share the episode. Exactly. So, thanks, everyone, for listening. And don't forget that training changes behavior.