Interviews

A collection of 80 posts

Covert Contact

The Poisoning of Sergei Skripal

Fred Burton joined me shortly after the attack on Sergei Skripal. We look at the many implications of this brazen attack, security issues surrounding it, and the need for a serious response.

Covert Contact

The Jerry Chun Shing Lee Case

Jerry Chun Shing Lee, a former CIA case officer, is suspected by many to have compromised CIA activities in China but has only been charged with the less serious crime of unlawful retention of national defense information.

Covert Contact

Protecting the British Royal Family

Fred Burton, former deputy chief of counterterrorism at the Diplomatic Security Service and the author of GHOST: Confessions of a Counterterrorism Agent joins me to break down some of these security efforts and the challenges he faced on the job.

Covert Contact

Beyond Bitcoin: Cryptocurrency Investing

Andrew Trabulsi joins me to discuss Cryptocurrency investing. We look at how blockchain and cryptocurrency models have evolved since the introduction of Bitcoin. For those new to the technologies and markets we share the easiest way to get started and important things to consider before you do.

Covert Contact

Bullets of Palestine

Author Howard Kaplan returns to Covert Contact to discuss Bullets of Palestine (the second novel in his Jerusalem Spy Series), chronic tensions in the Middle East, the prospect for reconciliation, Abu Nidal, and his approach to writing.

Covert Contact

Terrorists and Technology

Levi West, Director of Terrorism Studies at Charles Sturt University in Canberra, returns to look at how terrorists leverage (or don’t) emerging apps and platforms ranging from social media, to encryption, to cryptocurrencies.

Covert Contact

Economic Espionage: No One Is Immune

William J. Tucker, a regular contributor on counterintelligence and security topics for Blogs of War and Covert Contact, joins me for a deep dive on economic espionage.

Covert Contact

Iraq’s Consolidation and the Kurds

Iraq has made surprising gains in its effort to undermine or eliminate Kurdish autonomy since mid-October when we first visited this issue. Phillip Smyth joins me again to look at recent developments and the potential implications.

Covert Contact

From CIA Case Officer to Rookie Cop

Former Air Marshall and CIA Case Officer Patrick Skinner has become a become a police officer in his community in an effort to drive change. We discuss the transition and what he is learning in episode 81.

Covert Contact

Australian Cyber Policy

Episode 78 wraps up a full month of focus on Australian defense perspectives with a look at cyber policy with the highly-regarded freelance journalist, commentator, and broadcaster Stilgherrian.

Covert Contact

Australian Approaches to Counterterrorism

Levi West, the Director of Terrorism Studies at Charles Sturt University in Canberra, joins me for a wide ranging discussion on Australian counterterrorism programs.

Covert Contact

Australian Special Operations Forces

In episode 76 we’re taking a look at Australia’s special operations forces. We discuss how SOF are utilized, structured, and how they compliment and differ from similar forces in the United States.

Covert Contact

Understanding and Developing Resilience To Information Warfare

Dr. Clint Arizmendi, an Adjunct Senior Research Fellow for the Australian Graduate School of Policing & Security's Terrorism Studies program at Charles Sturt University, joins me to discuss information warfare in episode 75.

Covert Contact

Deep State Conspiracies

Alex Finley, a former officer of the CIA’s Directorate of Operations, joined me to discuss the rise of deep state conspiracies that often feature a monolithic, highly partisan, intelligence community at their center.

Covert Contact

System Failure: It Only Gets More Difficult from Here

What if Charlottesville and the dysfunction in Washington are not aberrations? What happens if the challenges facing society and governance only get more difficult for failing systems to tackle?

Covert Contact

Securing Data, Communications, and Identity with Keybase

Keybase is a small but ambitious company that aims to make cyrpto available and virtually seamless for everyone. Their approach to this problem, a massively challenging one that hasn’t really been cracked to date, has been creative.

Covert Contact

Egyptian, Muslim, American

My friend Angie Gad joins me for episode 68 of Covert Contact to discuss growing up as a first generation Egyptian-American Muslim. We cover a lot of ground in this episode including her family's struggle to maintain and establish roots in two very different worlds

Covert Contact

Intelligence Analysis: Feedback, Bias, and Other Challenges

In this episode we discuss bias and how it can impact both the production and consumption of intelligence products.

Covert Contact

Counterintelligence in the Trump Era

William J. Tucker, regular contributor on counterintelligence topics for Blogs of War and Covert Contact, joins me to discuss the unprecedented challenge the Trump presidency poses to both U.S. counterintelligence and the intelligence community as whole.

Covert Contact

Understanding the Pace and Scope of Technology Driven Change with Andrew Trabulsi

Andrew Trabulsi, entrepreneur, consultant, and co-editor of Warlords, Inc.: Black Markets, Broken States, and the Rise of the Warlord Entrepreneur, joins me again for a discussion about the inherent challenges in understanding and forecasting technology-driven change.

Covert Contact

Russia, Trump, and Hillary: What a Debate

In episode 62 I look at what may have been the most bizarre presidential debate in U.S. history. Covert Contact regular William J. Tucker joins me later in the show to discuss the U.S. government’s formal acknowledgement that Russia is meddling in the U.S. election. You

Covert Contact

Putin’s Struggle for Relevancy and Power with William J. Tucker

Covert Contact regular William J. Tucker joins me for a quick look at Putin’s outlook and the challenges he faces despite domestic political wins, successful rounds of international meddling, and attempts to reshape Russia’s domestic security, military, and intelligence services. Putin appears to be working from a position

Covert Contact

Citizen Soldiers: Service and Sacrifice with Wendy R. Anderson

Wendy R. Anderson [http://twitter.com/wendyranderson], Managing Director of Military and National Security Initiatives at Strong Eagle Media [http://strongeaglemedia.com/], joins me to discuss her company’s amazing new documentary Citizen Soldier and her previous work inside senior levels of the Department of Defense [http://www.cnas.org/

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Inside the President’s Daily Brief with David Priess

Dr. David Priess delivered the Presidents Daily Brief during the Bill Clinton and George W. Bush administrations and has produced the definitive history on the subject with The President’s Book of Secrets: The Untold Story of Intelligence Briefings to America’s Presidents from Kennedy to Obama [https://www.amazon.

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Fragmented Realities with Robert Rath

Freelance writer and Zam.com [http://www.zam.com/author/robert-rath] columnist Robert Rath joins me in episode 57 to review the latest advances in virtual and augmented reality. Augmented reality, in the form of Pokemon Go, has captured much of the attention but the virtual reality market will continue