Reboil - User contributions [en]

Bitcoin

2025-02-11T20:14:18Z

Admin: Text replacement - "[" to "["

'''Bitcoin''' is a [[proof-of-work]] deflationary decentralized [[cryptocurrency]] developed and deployed in [[2009]].

==Stats==
* Website: https://bitcoincore.org
* Supply : 21,000,000 BTC (2,100,000,000,000,000 satoshis)
* Price: 67,569.64 USD/BTC ([[2024-05-30]]) {{#lst:{{PAGENAME}}/prv|bk_20231114}}

==History==
* [[2009-01-03]]: Bitcoin launched with the mining of the ''genesis block'' (i.e. block number 0).
* [[2012-11-28]]: Bitcoin reward halved from 50 BTC to 25 BTC at block number 210 000.
* [[2016-07-09]]: Bitcoin reward halved from 25 BTC to 12.5 BTC at block number 420 000.
* [[2017]]: The [[BIP 148 UASF]] movement occurred to oppose a takeover by merchants and miners of the Bitcoin blockchain.<ref name="bm_20190801_bitcoin2017uasf">
“[https://bitcoinmagazine.com/culture/bitcoin-independence-day-how-this-watershed-day-defines-community-consensus Bitcoin Independence Day: How This Watershed Day Defines Community Consensus]”. ([[2019-08-01]]). [[Colin Harper|Harper, Colin]]. ''[[Bitcoin Magazine]]''. Accessed [[2023-01-28]]. [https://web.archive.org/web/20210310231108/https://bitcoinmagazine.com/culture/bitcoin-independence-day-how-this-watershed-day-defines-community-consensus Archived] from the original on [[2021-03-10]].</ref>.
* [[2017-04-05]]: [[Gregory Maxwell]] publishes an analysis suggesting [[BitMain]] halted adoption of [[SegWit]] due to the soft fork's incompatibility with the [[ASICBoost]] mining technique that exploits how [[SHA-256]] hashing is implemented when mining block headers.<ref name="medium_20170406_asicboost">
[[WhalePanda]]. ([[2017-04-06]]). “[https://medium.com/@WhalePanda/asicboost-the-reason-why-bitmain-blocked-segwit-901fd346ee9f ASICBoost, the reason why Bitmain blocked Segwit.]”. ''[[medium.com]]''. Accessed [[2023-11-11]].</ref> <ref name="maxwell_20170405_asicboost">[[Gregory Maxwell]]. ([[2017-04-05]]). “[https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-dev/2017-April/013996.html [bitcoin-dev] BIP proposal: Inhibiting a covert attack on the Bitcoin POW function]”. ''[[lists.linuxfoundation.org]]''. Accessed [[2023-11-11]]. “The general idea of this attack is that SHA2-256 is a merkle damgard hash function which consumes 64 bytes of data at a time. ¶ The Bitcoin mining process repeatedly hashes an 80-byte 'block header' while incriminating a 32-bit nonce which is at the end of this header data. This means that the processing of the header involves two runs of the compression function run-- one that consumes the first 64 bytes of the header and a second which processes the remaining 16 bytes and padding. ¶ The initial 'message expansion' operations in each step of the SHA2-256 function operate exclusively on that step's 64-bytes of input with no influence from prior data that entered the hash. ¶ Because of this if a miner is able to prepare a block header with multiple distinct first 64-byte chunks but identical 16-byte second chunks they can reuse the computation of the initial expansion for multiple trials. This reduces power consumption.” </ref>
* [[2017-12-16]]: Bitcoin price hits a local maximum of about [https://www.cnbc.com/2017/12/06/bitcoin-tops-13000-surging-1000-in-less-than-24-hours.html 19 000 USD/BTC]
* [[2018-12-10]]: Bitcoin price hits a local minimum of about [https://www.cnbc.com/2018/12/17/bitcoin-jumps-11percent-rebounding-above-3400.html 3 400 USD/BTC]
* [[2020-05-11]]: Bitcoin reward halved from 12.5 BTC to 6.25 BTC at block number 630 000.
* [[2021-11-09]]: Bitcoin price hits a local maximum of about [https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/nov/09/bitcoin-price-record-high-cryptocurrencies-ethereum 68 000 USD/BTC].
*[[2022-11-22]]: Bitcoin price hits a local minimum of [https://www.cnbc.com/2022/11/22/bitcoin-btc-hits-2-year-low-as-ftx-collapse-contagion-fears-linger.html about 15 480 USD/BTC], coinciding with the collapse of [[FTX]].
* [[2024-01-09]]: A short-term price spike occurred due to a false announcement by a compromised [[SEC]] [[Twitter]] account post regarding a decision on whether [[Bitcoin]] [[ETF]]s are allowed. The decision was expected to be published on [[2024-01-10]].<ref name="gizmodo_20240109_x-sec-bitcoin-etf-hack">[[Lucas Ropek]]. ([[2024-01-09]]). “[https://gizmodo.com/x-2fa-bitcoin-etf-elon-musk-sec-hacking-1851154490 X Confirms SEC Hack, Says Account Didn't Have 2FA Turned On]”. ''[[gizmodo.com]]''. Accessed [[2024-01-09]]. [https://web.archive.org/web/20240110065933/https://gizmodo.com/x-2fa-bitcoin-etf-elon-musk-sec-hacking-1851154490 Archived] from the original on [[2024-01-10]]. “We can confirm that the account @SECGov was compromised and we have completed a preliminary investigation. Based on our investigation, the compromise was not due to any breach of X’s systems, but rather due to an unidentified individual obtaining control over a phone number associated with the @SECGov account through a third party. We can also confirm that the account did not have two-factor authentication enabled at the time the account was compromised.”. </ref>
* [[2024-01-10]]: The [[SEC]] approves [[Bitcoin]] Exchange Traded Funds ([[ETF]]s).<ref name="sec_20240110_btc-etf-approval-gg">[[Gary Gensler]]. ([[2024-01-10]]). “[https://www.sec.gov/news/statement/gensler-statement-spot-bitcoin-011023 Statement on the Approval of Spot Bitcoin Exchange-Traded Products]”. ''[[sec.gov]]''. Accessed [[2024-01-10]]. [https://web.archive.org/web/20240110213139/https://www.sec.gov/news/statement/gensler-statement-spot-bitcoin-011023 Archived from the original on [[2024-01-10]]. “Today, the Commission approved the listing and trading of a number of spot bitcoin exchange-traded product (ETP) shares.” </ref><ref name="reuters_20240110_btc-etf">“[https://www.reuters.com/technology/us-sec-approves-some-spot-bitcoin-etfs-2024-01-10/ US SEC approves 11 spot bitcoin ETFs]”. ([[2024-01-10]]). ''[[reuters.com]]''. </ref><ref name="coindesk_20240110_btc-etf">[[Nikhilesh De]]; [[Stephen Alpher]]; [[Nick Bake]]. ([[2024-01-10]]). “[https://www.coindesk.com/business/2024/01/10/sec-posts-order-approving-bitcoin-etfs-and-then-it-disappears-from-website/ Bitcoin ETFs Win SEC Approval, Bringing Easier Access to Biggest Cryptocurrency]”. ''[[coindesk.com]]''. Accessed [[2024-01-10]]. [https://web.archive.org/web/20240110213418/https://www.coindesk.com/business/2024/01/10/sec-posts-order-approving-bitcoin-etfs-and-then-it-disappears-from-website/ Archived] from the original on [[2024-01-10]]. </ref><ref name="sec_20240110_btc-etf-proposal-approval">“[https://www.sec.gov/files/rules/sro/nysearca/2024/fg-89shlq.pdf (no title)]”. ([[2024-01-10]]). ''[[sec.gov]]''. [https://web.archive.org/web/20240110204508/https://www.sec.gov/files/rules/sro/nysearca/2024/fg-89shlq.pdf Archived] from the original on [[2024-01-10]]. “After careful review, the Commission finds that the Proposals are consistent with the Exchange Act and rules and regulations thereunder applicable to a national securities exchange.” </ref>
* [[2024-04]]: Bitcoin reward halved from 6.25 BTC to 3.125 BTC at block number [https://chainflyer.bitflyer.jp/Block/Height/840000 840 000].<ref group=fn>{{bk}}: [[2024-04-19]]: Block hash: <code>0000000000000000000320283a032748cef8227873ff4872689bf23f1cda83a5</code>. </ref><ref name="reuters_20240419_bitcoin-having">[[Elizabeth Howcroft]]. ([[2024-04-19]]). “[https://www.reuters.com/markets/currencies/crypto-fans-count-down-bitcoins-halving-2024-04-19/ Bitcoin 'halving' has taken place, CoinGecko says]”. ''[[reuters.com]]''. Accessed [[2024-04-20]]. [https://web.archive.org/web/20240515144738/https://www.reuters.com/markets/currencies/crypto-fans-count-down-bitcoins-halving-2024-04-19/ Archived] from the original on [[2024-05-15]]. </ref>

{{#ifexist: {{FULLPAGENAME}}/prv |{{#lsth:{{PAGENAME}}/prv|private}} | }}
==See also==
* [[Wikipedia:{{PAGENAME}}]]
{{#ifexist: {{FULLPAGENAME}}/prv |* [[{{FULLPAGENAME}}/prv]] | }}

==External links==
* {{bk wikis}}
* [https://bitcoin.org bitcoin.org]
* [https://jochen-hoenicke.de/queue/#BTC,30d,fee jochen-hoenicke.de Mempool and miner fee statistics] ([https://jochen-hoenicke.de/queue/#BTC,6m,weight weight])
* [https://bitbo.io/halving/ Halving clock]
* [https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/BTC-USD/history/ Price history]

==References==
<references />

==Footnotes==
<references group=fn />

==Comments==
<references group=cmt />

[[Category:Cryptocurrencies]]
[[Category:Software]]

Emacs notes

2025-02-11T20:14:18Z

Admin: Text replacement - "]" to "]"

This page contains notes for using [[Emacs]]. {{#ifexist: {{FULLPAGENAME}}/prv | {{#lst:{{PAGENAME}}/prv|lede-prv}} | }}

==Stats==

==Commands==
; fill-paragraph
: (Shortcut: <code>M-q</code>) Depending on mode, reduces column width of text to that set by <code>set-fill-column</code>

; query-replace
: Search and replace, prompting (i.e. querying) for each replacement.

; query-replace-regexp
: Search and replace with [[regular expressions]]{{bkc|[[2025-01-20]]: For more on [[Emacs]]'s particular flavor of [[regular expressions]], see the [https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/emacs/Regexps.html manual]. }}, prompting (i.e. querying) for each replacement.

; quoted-insert TAB
: (Shortcut: <code>C-q TAB</code>) Inserts a <code>TAB</code> character.

; revert-buffer
: Reload file to buffer, discarding changes.

; set-fill-column
: Prompts setting the paragraph width produced by commands such as <code>fill-paragraph</code>

; toggle-truncate-lines
: Make long lines [[word wrap|wrap]] around to stay within view in a window.

; text-scale-adjust
: (Shortcut: <code>C-x C-+</code>, <code>C-x C-=</code>, or <code>C-x C--</code>) Increase or decrease size of text, pressing <code>+</code>, <code>-</code> or <code>0</code> to adjust. Note: only effective on GUI.

==Modes==
===hs-minor-mode===
[https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/emacs/Hideshow.html Reference manual].

Shortcuts:

* Hide current block (<code>M-x hs-hide-block</code>)
** <code>C-c @ C-h</code>
** <code>C-c @ C-d</code> (note: required for [[vg2]]'s [[LXQt]] desktop environment )
* Show current block (<code>M-x hs-show-block</code>)
** <code>C-c @ C-s</code>
* Hide all
** <code>C-c @ C-M-h</code>
** <code>C-c @ C-t</code>
* Show all
** <code>C-c @ C-M-s</code>
** <code>C-c @ C-a</code>

===visual-line-mode===
Wraps lines at word boundaries.<ref name="so_20100719_emacs-visual-line-mode">[https://stackoverflow.com/users/395927/kirk-kelsey Kirk Kelsey]. ([[2010-07-19]]). “[https://stackoverflow.com/a/3282132 How can I enable line wrap on word boundaries only in Emacs?]”. ''[[stackoverflow.com]]''. Accessed [[2024-03-13]]. </ref>
M-x visual-line-mode

==Useful techniques==
Reformat footnote numbers with <code>query-replace-regexp</code> in [[Mediawiki]] wikicode. (e.g. link to a corresponding <code>#c4n{n}</code> anchor in a subpage at <code>[[../Notes]]</code>.)
<pre>
M-x query-replace-regexp
$[0-9]+$
[[../Notes#c4n\1|\1]]
ENTER

M-x query-replace-regexp
$[0-9]+$$
[[../Notes#c4n\1|\1]]
ENTER
</pre>

==History==

{{#ifexist: {{FULLPAGENAME}}/prv |{{#lsth:{{PAGENAME}}/prv|private}} | }}

==See also==
* [[Emacs]]
{{#ifexist: {{FULLPAGENAME}}/prv |* [[{{FULLPAGENAME}}/prv]] | }}
{{#ifexist: {{FULLPAGENAME}}/prv |{{#lsth:{{PAGENAME}}/prv|See also private}} | }}

==External links==
* {{bk wikis}}
* [https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/emacs/index.html gnu.org manual]

{{Refsec}}

Baltakatei's Useful CLI Commands

2025-02-11T20:14:17Z

Admin: Text replacement - "]" to "]"

These are mostly [[Debian]] GNU/Linux command line interface commands. {{#ifexist: {{FULLPAGENAME}}/prv | {{#lst:{{PAGENAME}}/prv|lede-prv}} | }}

==Stats==

==Commands==
===Linux kernel stuff===
Flush cache.<ref>[https://unix.stackexchange.com/users/542349/pavan pavan]. ([[2022-09-22]]). “[https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/718217 Setting /proc/sys/vm/drop_caches to clear cache]”. ''[[stackexchange.com]]''. Accessed [[2024-09-11]]. </ref>
$ sudo sh -c "sync; echo 3 > /proc/sys/vm/drop_caches"

===[[ansi2txt]]===
Part of the [[colorized-logs]] [[Debian]] package.

Remove color codes from text.<ref>https://stackoverflow.com/a/67316339/10850071</ref>
$ ansi2txt < ./input.txt > ./output.txt
$ cat input.txt | ansi2txt > output.txt # alternate method with pipes

<code>[[grep]]</code> example that searches file.txt, highlighting “2023” in color.
<pre style="white-space: pre;">
$ grep --color=always -- "2023" file.txt # view with color
$ grep --color=always -- "2023" file.txt > results_color.txt # store with color-codes
$ ansi2txt < ./results_color.txt > ./results_nocolor.txt # strip color codes
</pre>

===apt===
Show details of any package, installed or not.
$ apt show [package-name]
$ apt show gpg # example

Check which packages depend on package <code>package-name</code>.<ref name="askubuntu_20181126_rdepends">[[Corrado Topi]]. ([[2018-11-26]]). “[https://askubuntu.com/a/1096318 How to list dependent packages (reverse dependencies)?]”. ''askubuntu.com''. Accessed [[2023-07-04]]. </ref>
$ apt rdepends package-name

Install upgrades without prompts<ref>https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/314281/411854</ref>
$ sudo DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive apt upgrade -y

===base64===
Calculate [[MD5]] [[checksum]] of a binary file.<ref>{{bk}}: [[2024-01-12]]: Note, <code>md5</code> may be replaced with <code>sha256</code> to get a [[SHA-256]] digest.</ref>
$ openssl md5 -binary foo.txt | base64 # with [[openssl]] and [[base64]]
$ md5sum --binary foo.txt | cut -d' ' -f1 | xxd -r -p | base64 # with [[md5sum]], [[xxd]] and [[base64]]<ref name="se_20101101_base64-xxd">[https://unix.stackexchange.com/users/1946/alex alex] ([[2010-11-01]]). “[https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/3678/ How can I get a base64 encoded shaX on the cli?]”. ''[[stackexchange.com]]''. Accessed [[2024-01-11]]. </ref>

===bash===
[https://www.gnu.org/software/bash/manual/bash.html Manual].

Check if <code>$stringA</code> comes alphabetically before <code>$stringB</code> using current locale.
$ if [[ "$stringA" < "$stringB" ]]; then echo true; else echo false; fi;

Search <code>find</code> results with <code>grep</code> using the exit code from a statement evaluated by the built-in <code>if</code>.
$ mkdir a;
$ touch ./a/foo.txt
$ touch ./a/bar.txt
$ if results="$(find . -type f | grep 'foo')"; then printf "Found:\n%s\n" "$results"; else printf "Found nothing.\n"; fi;
Found:
./a/foo.txt
$ if results="$(find . -type f | grep 'baz')"; then printf "Found:\n%s\n" "$results"; else printf "Found nothing.\n"; fi;
Found nothing.
$ if results="$(find . -type f | grep '.txt$')"; then printf "Found:\n%s\n" "$results"; else printf "Found nothing.\n"; fi;
Found:
./a/bar.txt
./a/foo.txt

Use modulo integer math to print the integers between 0 and 100 that are divisible by 5.
#!/bin/bash
for ((i=0; i<=100; i++)); do
if [ $((i % 5)) -eq 0 ]; then
echo $i
fi
done

Count the number of occurrences of a single ASCII character (e.g. <code>,</code>) (see [https://stackoverflow.com/a/16679640 ref])
#!/bin/bash
var="text,text,text,text"
res="${var//[^,]}"
echo "$res"
echo "${#res}"

====Quotation rules====
How to insert a single apostrophe into an already single-apostrophe-quoted string.
$ echo "You can't do it easily" | sed -E -e 's/can'\''t/can/' # sed example
You can do it easily.

====Bash input/output====
Provide string to a command via stdin. The following are equivalent.
$ echo "666" | sed 's/6/7/g'; # Uses pipe format.
777
$ myVar="666"; sed 's/6/7/g <<< "$myVar"; # Uses “here string” format.<ref>See https://www.gnu.org/software/bash/manual/bash.html#Here-Strings .</ref>
777

Supply the first line of a text file as an argument.
$ fpass=/dev/shm/password.txt; # create file
$ touch "$fpass" && chmod 700 "$fpass"; # set to user-only permission
$ echo "hunter2" > "$fpass"; # save password to file
$ echo "$(head -n1 "$fpass")"; # read contents of file as argument

====Bash job management====
''See https://www.gnu.org/savannah-checkouts/gnu/bash/manual/bash.html#Job-Control ''

Push job into background.
^Z # (i.e. Ctrl-Z)
[1]+ Stopped git tag --sign 2023-04-15 -m "SignStamp state" 6e31b1a

Get a list of current background jobs
$ jobs
[1]+ Stopped git tag --sign 2023-04-15 -m "SignStamp state" 6e31b1a

Restart a job (e.g. one with <code>jobspec</code> 1) in the background and check that it is running.
$ bg 1
[1]+ git tag --sign 2023-04-15 -m "SignStamp state" 6e31b1a &
$ jobs
[1]+ Running git tag --sign 2023-04-15 -m "SignStamp state" 6e31b1a &

Detach a job (e.g. one with <code>jobspec</code> 1) from the current shell to permit safe exit without terminating the job.
$ disown %1

====Bash string manipulation====
''See [https://tldp.org/LDP/abs/html/string-manipulation.html Manipulating Strings].''

Replace substring in variable.<ref name="cooper_20140310_bash-strings">[[Mendel Cooper]]. ([[2014-03-10]]). “[https://tldp.org/LDP/abs/html/string-manipulation.html Advanced Bash-Scripting Guide: 10. Manipulating Strings]”. ''[[tldp.org]]''. Accessed [[2024-02-12]]. </ref>
<pre style="white-space: pre;">
$ myVar="foobarbaz";
$ echo "${myVar/bar/qux}";
fooquxbaz
</pre>

Get first 7 characters of a string.
$ myVar="deadbeef";
$ echo "${myVar:0:7}"
deadbee

Get last 4 characters of a string.
$ myVar="deadbeef";
$ echo "${myVar:(-4)}";
beef

Lowercase characters in a variable
$ myVar="fooBARbaz";
$ echo "${myVar,,}";
foobarbaz

====Array manipulation====
Declare an array. (usually not needed, but good practice; not an “associative array”)
$ declare -a my_array

Store lines into an array. (Requires [[Bash]] version 4 or above)
$ mapfile -t my_array < <(find "$HOME" -type f) # store file list
$ mapfile -t my_array < <(seq 1 10) # store the integers 1 through 10

Store lines into an array without <code>mapfile</code> and process substitution (<code>< <(...)</code>); compatible with Bash 3.
<pre style="white-space: pre;">
while IFS='' read -r line; do
my_array+=("$line");
done < <(find "$HOME" -type f);
</pre>

Check contents of an array in verbose style. (or any Bash variable)
$ declare -p my_array

Get count of array elements. (works even after you <code>unset</code> an array element)
$ echo "${#my_array[@]}" # note the “#”

Get array indices (each array element as a word; useful for <code>for</code> loops)
$ echo "${!my_array[@]}" # note the “!”

View a particular element of an array by index (Note: zero-indexed)
$ printf "%s\n" "${my_array[1]}" # display second element
$ echo "${my_array[1]}" # mostly the same, but beware special escaped character cases

View all elements of an array, printing one line per array element.
$ printf "%s\n" "${my_array[@]}"

Act on each array element sequentially in a <code>for</code> loop.
<pre style="white-space: pre;">
for i in "${!my_array[@]}"; do
printf "%s\n" "Checking element ${i} of ${#my_array[@]}.";
done;
</pre>

Remove a particular array element by index.
$ unset my_array[1] # remove second element.

Declare an associative array. (i.e. an array that uses strings as indices)
$ declare -A myaa #みゃあ

Add an element to an associative array. (various styles)
$ myaa["september"]="7";
$ myaa["october"]=8;
$ my_month="december"; my_var="10"; myaa["${my_month}"]="${my_var}";

Check contents of an associative array (same as for any Bash array)
$ declare -p myaa
$ declare -p my_array myaa # check two variables at the same time

===[[bc]]===
Evaluate math expressions
$ echo "scale=12; 1 / 1.61803398875" | bc -l # division with 12 decimal places
.618033988749
$ echo "scale=6; l(2.718281)" | bc -l # logarithm with only 6 decimal places
.999999

===brew===
[[Homebrew (package manager)|Homebrew]] is a package manager for [[macOS]].

Install via script and [[curl]] (simple, but sketchy method available at https://brew.sh ):
$ /bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)"

Update packages
$ brew update

Get info on a package
$ brew info coreutils

Install a package
$ brew install coreutils

Test package commands
$ gdate -Is # Equivalent to Debian 12 `$ date -Is`.
2024-10-08T20:03:18+00:00

===chmod===
References:
* https://www.pluralsight.com/blog/it-ops/linux-file-permissions
* https://linuxconfig.org/chmod

Remove read, write, and execute permissions for ''others'' to a file or directory named <code>foo</code>.
# chmod o-rwx foo

Add read and execute permissions for ''group'' to a file or directory named <code>foo</code>.
# chmod g+rx foo

Make all ''directories'' openable (i.e. executable) by ''user'' starting at a directory named <code>bar</code>.
# find ./bar -type d -exec chmod u+x \;

Make all ''files'' non-executable by everyone within a directory named <code>bar</code>.
# find ./bar -type f -exec chmod ugo-x \;
# find ./bar -type f -exec chmod -x \;

Make a file named <code>foo</code> executable for ''user'', ''group'', and ''others'' (i.e. everyone).
# chown +x foo

===choom===
Get OOM score for process with PID <code>1</code>
$ choom --pid 1

List the bottom 50 processes in the OOM priority list (during low memory, the bottom is killed first).
$ printf "pid,ooms,name\n"; while read -r line; do pid="$(echo "$line" | cut -d' ' -f2)"; name="$(echo "$line" | cut -d' ' -f11-)"; ooms="$(choom -p "$pid" | grep -Eo "[0-9]+$" | head -n1)"; printf "%9d,%4d,%s\n" "$pid" "$ooms" "$name"; done < <(ps aux | tr -s ' ' | tail -n+2) | sort -k2 | tail -n50

===chown===
Change ownership of a file or directory named <code>baz</code> to ''user'' <code>debuser</code> and ''group'' <code>debuser</code>.
# chown debuser:debuser baz

Change ownership of all files and directories contained within the directory named <code>foo</code> to ''user'' <code>debuser</code> and ''group'' <code>debuser</code>.
root@h: chown -R debuser:debuser foo

===[[chrony]]===
The following commands assume the package [[chrony]] is installed.

Get a list of NTP refclocks being used to adjust local time:
$ chronyc sources

Get current machine's statistics (e.g. get Frequency or how slow or fast local clock is)
$ chronyc tracking

===convert===
''See [[#ImageMagick]]''

===column===
<code>column</code> may be used to print lines of standard input into columns (to reduce the total number of lines) or to create tables with custom delimiters (same number of lines). Part of the <code>util-linux</code> package (version <code>2.39.3</code>) in [[Debian]] systems.

Reduce number of rows.
$ seq 1 10 # example multi-line input
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

$ seq 1 10 | column; # minimze rows
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

$ seq 1 10 | column -c 30 # reduce rows to width of 30 characters
1 5 9
2 6 10
3 7
4 8

Display text table with separator <code>/</code>.
$ printf "foo/bar/baz\nbi/boo/tax\n"
foo/bar/baz
bi/boo/tax
$ printf "foo/bar/baz\nbi/boo/tax\n" | column -t -s'/'
foo bar baz
bi boo tax

Display <code>/etc/passwd</code> contents (which uses <code>:</code> as separator)
$ sudo cat /etc/passwd | column -t -s ':'

===[[cron|crontab]]===
Edit crontab.
$ crontab -e

Print crontab to stdout:
$ crontab -l

Erase crontab (DON'T DO UNLESS YOU HAVE A BACKUP OF THE CRONTAB):
$ crontab -r

Print to stdout the <code>crontab</code> of user <code>www-data</code> via user <code>root</code> ([https://askubuntu.com/questions/189189/how-to-run-crontab-as-userwww-data ref]):
$ sudo su - www-data -s /bin/bash -c "crontab -l"

===cryptsetup===
====Get details on a volume encrypted with LUKS====

$ cryptsetup status /dev/mapper/$some_volume

where <code>$some_volume</code> is the name of an encrypted volume. [https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/260533/how-to-determine-what-encryption-is-being-used-a-luks-partition Reference].

===[[date]]===
''Note: Assumes GNU date.''

Print today's calendar date in [[ISO 8601]] format
$ date -I
$ date -Id
$ date +%Y-%m-%d

Print current date and time in [[ISO 8601]] format to second resolution.
$ date -Is # e.g. 2024-02-01T05:44:58+00:00
$ date +%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%S%:z # e.g. 2024-02-01T05:44:58+00:00

Print current date and time in [[ISO 8601]] format to second resolution with minimal separators. (e.g. for file name use)
$ date +%Y%m%dT%H%M%S%z # e.g. 20240201T054458+00

Print current UNIX epoch. (i.e. integer seconds since [[1970-01-01]].)
$ date +%s

Print all calendar dates for the next 365 days. (e.g. <code>2024-02-01\n2024-02-02\n2024-02-03\n…</code>)
<pre style="white-space: pre;">
#!/bin/bash
today="$(date +%s)"; n=0; for dia in {0..365}; do
day="$((today + dia * (24*60*60) ))";
date --date="@$day" "+%Y-%m-%d";
done;
</pre>

===dd===
Read every block of a block device <code>/dev/sdb</code> in 4 KiB increments.
$ sudo dd if=/dev/sdb of=/dev/random bs=4k

Create a 10 MiB file containing [[pseudorandom noise]] using 2 MiB of [[Random access memory|RAM]] at a time.<ref name="su_20120906_ddrandfile">[[u1686_grawity]]. ([[2012-09-06]]). “[https://superuser.com/a/470957/1142336 How do I create a 1GB random file in Linux?]”. ''superuser.com''. Accessed [[2023-07-01]].</ref>
$ dd if=/dev/urandom of=sample.txt bs=2M count=5

===dig===
Get public IP address<ref name="cyberciti_20230311_getpublicip">[[Vivek Gite|Gite, Vivek]]. ([[2023-03-11]]). “[https://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/how-to-find-my-public-ip-address-from-command-line-on-a-linux/ How To Find My Public IP Address From Linux CLI]”. ''cyberciti.biz''. Accessed [[2023-05-08]].</ref>:
$ dig +short myip.opendns.com @resolver1.opendns.com
$ dig +short txt ch whoami.cloudflare @1.0.0.1
$ dig TXT +short o-o.myaddr.l.google.com @ns1.google.com

===[[dpkg]]===
List available [[kernel]]s.
$ dpkg --list | grep -- linux-image

Check which package owns a file.
$ dpkg -S /etc/systemd/logind.conf # by file path
$ dpkg -S "$(which zdump)" # by command name, e.g. `zdump`

===dpkg-reconfigure===
Add a [[locale]] in [[Debian]]-based systems that use [[dpkg]].
$ sudo dpkg-reconfigure locales
: Navigate menus to select the local. Recommended: locales ending in <code>.UTF-8</code> (e.g. <code>C.UTF-8</code> (compatibility), <code>en_US.UTF-8</code> ([[English language|English]] of United States), <code>zh_CN.UTF-8</code> ([[Chinese language|Chinese]] of mainland China), <code>id_ID.UTF-8</code> ([[Indonesian language|Indonesian]] of [[Indonesia]]), <code>ja_JP.UTF-8</code> ([[Japanese language|Japanese]] of [[Japan]]), <code>ko_KR.UTF-8</code> ([[Korean language|Korean]] of [[South Korea]]).

===[[dstat]]===
''Consider using [[dool]] ([https://github.com/scottchiefbaker/dool GitHub])''

Show system stats, averaged every 60 seconds per line
dstat --time --load --proc --cpu --mem --disk --io --net --sys --vm 60

===[[dool]]===
''A [[python3]] fork of [[dstat]].''

Show system stats, averaged every 60 seconds per line
dool --time --load --proc --cpu --mem --disk --io --net --bytes --sys --vm 60

===[[emacs]]===
''See [[Emacs notes]]''

===[[exiftool]]===
''Note: Consider using [[BK-2020-03]]<code>bkphotorights</code> script to add XMP data with Creative Commons attribution data.''

List all EXIF data, including XMP tags.
$ exiftool file.jpg

Remove all EXIF data from photograph files
$ exiftool -all= file.jpg

Remove only GPS EXIF data from JPG (see https://exiftool.org/forum/index.php?topic=6037.0 )
$ exiftool -gps:all= file.jpg

remove only GPS EXIF data from JPG If GPS is in XMP:
$ exiftool "-gps*=" file.jpg

Rotate image via EXIF tag<ref name="exiftool_20161218_rotate">Alan Clifford. ([[2016-12-18]]). “[https://exiftool.org/forum/index.php?PHPSESSID=57842c30da5ac949b63ec7325448da35&msg=40314 Writing to the EXIF:Orientation Tag]”. ''[[exiftool.org]]''. Accessed [[2024-07-13]]. </ref>:
$ exiftool -Orientation#=1 file.jpg # Horizontal (normal)
$ exiftool -Orientation#=2 file.jpg # Mirror horizontal
$ exiftool -Orientation#=3 file.jpg # Rotate 180
$ exiftool -Orientation#=4 file.jpg # Mirror vertical
$ exiftool -Orientation#=5 file.jpg # Mirror horizontal and rotate 270 CW
$ exiftool -Orientation#=6 file.jpg # Rotate 90 CW
$ exiftool -Orientation#=7 file.jpg # Mirror horizontal and rotate 90 CW
$ exiftool -Orientation#=8 file.jpg # Rotate 270 CW

===[[f3]]===
'''Fight Fake Flash''' (F3) is a utility for detecting fake flash storage drives.<ref name="debian_2023_fightfakeflash">“[https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/f3 f3 - test real flash memory capacity]”. ([[2023]]). ''[[tracker.debian.org]]''. Accessed [[2024-11-10]]. </ref>

Install
$ sudo apt install f3

Run on drive mounted at <code>/media/baltakatei/myusb</code>
$ f3write /media/baltakatei/myusb

Verify
$ f3read /media/baltakatei/myusb

===[[ffmpeg]]===
Encode [[h264]] video for compatibility with [[Firefox]].
$ ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -c:v libx264 -pix_fmt yuv420p output.mp4
$ ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -c:v libx264 -preset veryslow -crf 18 -pix_fmt yuv420p output.mp4 # higher quality
$ ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -c:v libx264 -preset veryslow -crf 26 -pix_fmt yuv420p output.mp4 # smaller size

Extract clip with time codes.
$ ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -ss 00:01:00.000 -to 00:03:00.000 -avoid_negative_ts 1 output.mp4
$ ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -ss 00:01:00.000 -to 00:03:00.000 -c:v libx264 -preset slow -crf 18 -c:a aac -b:a 128k -avoid_negative_ts 1 output.mp4
$ ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -ss 60 -t 120 -avoid_negative_ts 1 output.mp4

Extract frame of video to save as [[PNG]] file (e.g. the first frame).
$ ffmpeg -i input.webm -ss 00:00:00 -frames:v 1 output.png

Extract album artwork from one of the original audiobook mp3 files. (''see [[Audiobook transcoding notes]].'')
$ ffmpeg -i How\ To\ -\ Track\ 001.mp3 -an -vcodec copy album_artwork.png

====Quality of life====
Hide verbose configuration banner. (e.g. <code>built with gcc 11… configuration: --prefix=/usr…</code>)
$ ffmpeg -hide_banner

====Encode video====
Encode video using [[VP9]] codec with 2 passes and tile-based multithreading.<ref name="ffmpeg_2024_vp9-encoding">“[https://trac.ffmpeg.org/wiki/Encode/VP9 FFmpeg and VP9 Encoding Guide]”. ([[2024-01]]). ''[[ffmpeg.org]]''. Accessed [[2024-05-23]]. </ref>
<pre style="white-space: pre;">
#!/bin/bash
fin=input.mkv;
ffmpeg -nostdin -i "$fin" -c:v libvpx-vp9 -row-mt 1 -b:v 0 -crf 18 -pass 1 -f null /dev/null && \
ffmpeg -nostdin -i "$fin" -c:v libvpx-vp9 -row-mt 1 -b:v 0 -crf 18 -pass 2 "${fin%.mkv}.webm"
</pre>

Specify a constant rate factor (CRF)
$ ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -c:v libx264 -preset slow -crf 18 -c:a copy output.mp4

Clip a video at CRF 18 and encode audio to [[OPUS]].
$ ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -ss 00:01:00.000 -to 00:03:00.000 -c:v libx264 -preset slow -crf 18 -c:a libopus -b:a 128k -avoid_negative_ts 1 output.mp4

Process multiple videos in a [[Bash]] while loop. (Avoid [[stdin]] conflict with <code>-nostdin</code> option)<ref name="bashfaq_20221030_089stdin">“[https://mywiki.wooledge.org/BashFAQ/089 BashFAQ/089 I'm reading a file line by line and running ssh or ffmpeg, only the first line gets processed!]”. ([[2022-10-30]]). ''mywiki.wooledge.org''. Accessed [[2023-07-29]]. [https://web.archive.org/web/20230723080923/https://mywiki.wooledge.org/BashFAQ/089 Archived] from the original on [[2023-07-23]]. </ref><ref name="se_20220922_bashvarffmpeg">[[roaima]]. ([[2022-09-22]]). “[https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/718279 Bash variable truncated when passed into ffmpeg]”. ''[[unix.stackexchange.com]]''. Accessed [[2023-07-29]]. [https://web.archive.org/web/20230729161626/https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/718277/bash-variable-truncated-when-passed-into-ffmpeg/718279#718279 Archived] from the original on [[2023-07-29]].</ref>

while IFS= read -r file; do
ffmpeg -nostdin -i "$file" -c:v libx264 -c:a aac "${file%.avi}".mkv
done < <(find . -name '*.avi')

=====Apply video filters=====
Create a 1-minute 60 fps time lapse video from 3 hours of 30 fps input.
: From videos, create a file list then run <code>ffmpeg</code> on the list.
$ for f in ./*.MP4; do echo "file '$PWD/$f'" >> filelist.txt; done

: Create the 60 fps (<code>-r 60</code>) timelapse of 3 hours reduced into 1 minute. The <code>setpts</code> factor is equal to <code>(duration out)/(duration in)*(fps out)/(fps in)</code>. So, <code>(1*60)/(3*60*60)*(60/30) ≈ 0.01111</code>)
$ ffmpeg -nostdin -f concat -safe 0 -i filelist.txt -vf "setpts=0.01111*PTS" -an -r 60 output_timelapse.mp4

Apply a temporal median filter across a radius of 10 frames.<ref name="ffmpeg_2024_filter-tmedian">“[https://ffmpeg.org/ffmpeg-filters.html#tmedian 11.259 tmedian]”. (n.d.). ''[[ffmpeg.org]]''. Accessed [[2024-09-04]]. </ref>
$ ffmpeg -f -i input.mp4 -vf "tmedian=radius=10:planes=15:percentile=0.5" -an output.mp4

Apply both a time lapse and a temporal median filter for several <code>.[[MP4]]</code> files.
$ for f in ./*.MP4; do echo "file '$PWD/$f'" >> filelist.txt; done;
$ ffmpeg -f concat -safe 0 -i filelist.txt -vf "setpts=0.01111*PTS, tmedian=radius=10:planes=15:percentile=0.5" -an -r 60 -crf 30 output_timelapse_crf30_median.mp4

====Split a video file into roughly equal segments====
Reference: https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/212518/411854

$ ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -c copy -map 0 -segment_time 00:20:00 -f segment -reset_timestamps 1 output%03d.mp4

====Combine video files into a single file====
Reference: https://trac.ffmpeg.org/wiki/Concatenate

# this is a comment of the file named mylist.txt
file '/path/to/file1.wav'
file '/path/to/file2.wav'
file '/path/to/file3.wav'

ffmpeg -f concat -safe 0 -i mylist.txt -c copy output.wav

====Add subtitles to a video file====
Add multiple [[ASS]] subtitle files to a single [[MP4]] video file.<ref>{{bk}}: [[2024-03-01]]: See [[ffmpeg]]ʼs [https://trac.ffmpeg.org/wiki/Map <code>map</code>] option. Order is important.</ref>
<pre style="white-space: pre;">
ffmpeg -i input.mp4 \
-sub_charenc 'UTF-8' -f ass -i input.en-US.ass \
-sub_charenc 'UTF-8' -f ass -i input.es-US.ass \
-sub_charenc 'UTF-8' -f ass -i input.id.ass \
-sub_charenc 'UTF-8' -f ass -i input.ja.ass \
-map 0:v -map 0:a \
-map 1 -map 2 -map 3 -map 4 \
-metadata:s:s:0 language=eng \
-metadata:s:s:1 language=spa \
-metadata:s:s:2 language=ind \
-metadata:s:s:3 language=jpn \
-c copy \
-c:s ass output.mkv
</pre>

===[[ffprobe]]===
Get audio duration in seconds as a decimal number.<ref name="so_20110604_duration-audio-file">[https://stackoverflow.com/users/200265/louise louise]. ([[2011-06-04]]). “[https://stackoverflow.com/a/22243834/10850071 How to extract duration time from ffmpeg output?]”. ''[[stackoverflow.com]]''. Accessed [[2024-02-10]]. </ref>
$ ffprobe -i "$file" -show_entries format=duration -v quiet -of csv="p=0";

: Get audio duration in seconds of all <code>.flac</code> files in the working directory with [[bc]].
<pre style="white-space: pre;">
#!/bin/bash
dur="0.0"; while read -r line; do
line_dur="$(ffprobe -i "$line" -show_entries format=duration -v quiet -of csv="p=0")";
dur="$(echo "$dur + $line_dur" | bc -l)";
done < <(find . -type f -name "*.flac");
echo "$dur";
</pre>

Get chapter times.<ref name="se_20190425_ffmpeg-chapters">[https://unix.stackexchange.com/users/349887/nemo Nemo]. ([[2019-04-25]]). “[https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/515371 Using ffmpeg to split an Audible audio-book into chapters?]”. ''[[stackexchange.com]]''. Accessed [[2024-01-20]]. </ref><ref group=fn>{{bk}}: See <code>[[BK-2020-03]]:user/mw_get_audiobook_chapters.sh</code>. </ref>
$ ffprobe -i "$file" -print_format json -show_chapters -sexagesimal

===[[find]]===
Outputs newline-delimited (default) list of paths of files or directories matching specified filters.

List all files and directories in the <code>/path/to/dir</code> directory recursively.
$ find /path/to/dir

List all files in working directory recursively
$ find . -type f

List all directories in working directory recursively
$ find . -type d

Search <code>$HOME</code> for files ending in <code>.jpg</code> or <code>.JPG</code>.
$ find $HOME/ -type f -iname "*.jpg"

Get file sizes, via [[du]], of all files in the working directory recursively
$ find . -type f -exec du -b '{}' \;

List all files and directories within the working directory.
$ find . -maxdepth 1

List all files and directories precisely 4 subdirectories deep
$ find . -mindepth 4 -maxdepth 4

List all files in the working directory recursively, following symlinks up to a maximum depth of 10 subdirectories deep
$ find -L . -maxdepth 10 -type f

List all files and directories in the working directory starting with a <code>.</code> (i.e. list all dotfiles and dotdirs)
$ find . -name ".*"

List all files and directories in the working directory starting with a <code>.</code>
$ find . ! -name ".*"

List all files in the working directory recursively except those ending in either <code>.ots</code> or <code>.ots.bak</code>
$ find . -type f ! $ -name "*.ots" -or -name "*.ots.bak" $

Find files in the working directory of a minimum size. (e.g. greater than but not equal to 1 MiB)
$ find . -type f -size +$((1024 * 1024))c # calc MiB
$ find . -type f -size +$((1024 ** 2))c # calc MiB
$ find . -type f -size +1048576c # use bytes
$ find . -type f -size +1M # do not use due to rounding issues

Find files in the working directory of a maximum size. (e.g. less than but not equal to 1 MiB)
$ find /path/to/dir -type f -size -1048576c # use -1048576c instead of -1M due to rounding issues

Find files in <code>/path/to/dir</code> older than a certain date (e.g. <code>2024-01-01</code>)
$ find /path/to/search -not -newermt 2024-01-01

List files sorted by modification date
$ find /path/to/directory -type f -printf '%T@ %p\n' | sort -n | cut -d' ' -f2-

List all <code>.json</code> files in <code>/path/to/dir</code> that lack an accompanying <code>.txt</code> file. (e.g. show <code>file.json</code> if <code>file.txt</code> does not exist.
$ while read -r line; do if [[ ! -f "${line%.json}.txt" ]]; then declare -p line; fi; done < <(find /path/to/dir -type f -name "*.json");

===[[gcc]]===
''Available in Debian <code>build-essential</code> package.

The GNU C Compiler

Compile C-code specified in the command line.<ref name="se_20141024_gccbashprocsub">[https://unix.stackexchange.com/users/14034/celada Celada]. ([[2014-10-24]]). “[https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/164109/411854 Why does BASH process substitution not work with some commands?]”. Accessed [[2023-07-14]]. </ref>
$ gcc -x c <(echo 'int main(){return 0;}')
$ echo 'int main(){return 0;}' | gcc -x c -
$ gcc -x c -o hello <(echo -e "#include <stdio.h>\n main()\n{\nprintf(\"hello, \");\nprintf(\"world\");\nprintf(\"\\\n\");\n}")

===[[git]]===
{{#lsth:{{PAGENAME}}/prv|git}}

See recent checkout, commit, or other operations by commit reference. (e.g. to find a commit lost because it was on a detached HEAD).
$ git reflog

To automatically sign merges (not default).
$ git config merge.gpgsign true
$ git -c merge.gpgsign='true' pull

See remotes.
$ git remote -v

Rename a remote. ([https://support.beanstalkapp.com/article/16-how-do-i-rename-an-existing-git-remote ref])
$ git remote rename beanstalk origin

Export a git bundle (repository backup)
$ git bundle create filename.bundle --all

Trace git operations (especially those involving <code>gpg</code> signing operations). ([https://gist.github.com/paolocarrasco/18ca8fe6e63490ae1be23e84a7039374 ref])
$ GIT_TRACE=1 git commit

Get current commit, short git log entry, and ISO-8601 date
$ git log -1 --pretty=format:"%h %s %cd" --date=iso
$ git log -1 --pretty=format:"%h %s %cd" --date=format:"%Y-%m-%d" #shorter date

Delete a local branch named `develop` (assuming `develop` is not checked out).
$ git branch -d develop

Untrack but don't remove committed file. ([https://stackoverflow.com/questions/12481639/remove-files-from-git-commit#comment28735458_12481977 Ref/attrib]; useful if you tracked something that shouldn't be tracked like <code>repo.git/config</code>)
$ git rm --cached path/to/committed/file

Pull branch <code>develop</code> from remote <code>origin</code> to unchecked out local branch <code>develop</code> without altering working tree (useful if worktree files are being used by something else).
$ git pull origin develop:develop

Set single configuration parameters for the duration of a single command.
: Disable checking [[GPG]] signatures when running </code>$ git log</code>. (see [https://stackoverflow.com/a/19841177 ref])
$ git -c log.showSignature='false' log

: Commit and/or tag with <code>ots --wait</code> option.
$ pathOtsWait="/home/debuser/.local/share/ots/ots-git-gpg-wrapper-wait.sh";
$ git -c gpg.program="$pathOtsWait" commit -S
$ git -c gpg.program="$pathOtsWait" tag --sign "some_tag_name" main

Set a remote branch `origin/develop` as the upstream branch for a local branch named `develop`.<ref name="git_20190816_gitbranch">“[https://git-scm.com/docs/git-branch/2.23.0 git-branch - List, create, or delete branches]”. ([[2019-08-16]]). ''git-scm.com''. Accessed [[2023-04-20]].</ref>
$ git branch --set-upstream-to=origin/develop develop

Get current commit, short git log entry, and ISO-8601 date
$ git log -1 --pretty=format:"%h %s %cd" --date=iso
$ git log -1 --pretty=format:"%h %s %cd" --date=format:"%Y-%m-%d" #shorter date

Delete a local branch named `develop` (assuming `develop` is not checked out).
$ git branch -d develop

Untrack but don't remove committed file. ([https://stackoverflow.com/questions/12481639/remove-files-from-git-commit#comment28735458_12481977 Ref/attrib]; useful if you tracked something that shouldn't be tracked like <code>repo.git/config</code>)
$ git rm --cached path/to/committed/file

Pull branch <code>develop</code> from remote <code>origin</code> to unchecked out local branch <code>develop</code> without altering working tree (useful if worktree files are being used by something else).
$ git pull origin develop:develop

Set a remote branch `origin/develop` as the upstream branch for a local branch named `develop`.<ref name="git_20190816_gitbranch">“[https://git-scm.com/docs/git-branch/2.23.0 git-branch - List, create, or delete branches]”. ([[2019-08-16]]). ''git-scm.com''. Accessed [[2023-04-20]].</ref>
$ git branch --set-upstream-to=origin/develop develop

Disable git credential helper for a single command.<ref name="so_20170517_gitdisablecredhelp">[https://stackoverflow.com/users/6309/vonc VonC]. ([[2017-05-17]]). “[https://stackoverflow.com/a/44033298 How do I disable git's credential helper for a single repository?]”. ''[[Stack Overflow]]''. Accessed [[2023-08-02]]. [https://web.archive.org/web/20230802203919/https://stackoverflow.com/questions/13198143/how-do-i-disable-gits-credential-helper-for-a-single-repository/44033298 Archived] from the original on [[2023-08-02]]. </ref>
$ git -c credential.helper= pull origin refs/heads/master

===[[gpg]]===
''See also [[GnuPG]]''

{{#lsth:{{PAGENAME}}/prv|gpg}}

Verify a file named <code>SHA256SUMS</code> against detached signature file <code>SHA256SUMS.gpg</code>
$ gpg --verify SHA256SUMS.gpg SHA256SUMS

Use a temporary keyring
$ gpg --no-default-keyring --keyring /dev/shm/temp-keyring.kbx

Refresh keys
$ gpg --keyserver keys.openpgp.org --receive-keys deadbeef deadbeef
$ gpg --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --receive-keys deadbeef deadbeef

Verify a file (e.g. <code>SHA256SUMS</code>) against a detached signature (e.g. <code>SHA256SUMS.gpg</code>).
$ gpg --verify SHA256SUMS.gpg SHA256SUMS

===grep===
Search for a process named “<code>bash</code>” with <code>ps aux</code> and <code>grep bash</code> but exclude matches of “<code>grep bash</code>" itself.
$ ps aux | grep "bas[h]"

Ignore binary matches with <code>-I</code> option.
$ grep "a" largeProgram.exe && echo "Match found." || echo "No match found."
grep: get_put_char: binary file matches
Match found.
$ grep -I "a" largeProgram.exe && echo "Match found." || echo "No match found."
No match found.

Use [[find]] with [[parallel]] to recursively search a file tree for text matches.
$ find . -type f -name "*.tsv" | parallel grep -iHIC3 --color=always -e 'mexico' '{}'
: <code>-name "*.tsv"</code>: Search only files with names ending in <code>.tsv</code>.
: <code>-i</code>: Ignore character capitalization.
: <code>-H</code>: Print name of file containing match.
: <code>-C3</code>: Show 3 lines before and after match.
: <code>-I</code>: Do not search binary files.
: <code>-e 'mexico'</code>: Search for lines containing the string <code>mexico</code>
: <code>'{}'</code>: Filename word placeholder for [[parallel]].

===[[gs]]===
See also [[Ghostscript]].

Remove raster images from a PDF.<ref name="so_20160616_removepdfraster">[https://stackoverflow.com/users/359307/kurt-pfeifle Kurt Pfeifle]. ([[2016-06-16]]). “[https://stackoverflow.com/a/37858893 ]”. ''[[stackoverflow.com]]''. Accessed [[2023-10-28]]. </ref>
$ gs -o noimages.pdf -sDEVICE=pdfwrite -dFILTERIMAGE input.pdf

====[[Regular Expressions]]====

Show lines that match pattern.
$ grep 'some pattern' -- file.txt

Show lines that don't match pattern.
$ grep -v 'some pattern' -- file.txt

Match integers of a range of numbers of digits (e.g. 2 to 3)
$ myVar="$(printf "S2 E3\nS57 E11\nS131 E51\nS7212 E3\n")"
$ echo "$myVar"
S2 E3
S57 E11
S131 E51
S7212 E3
$ echo "$myVar" | grep -E "S[0-9]{2,3} "
S57 E11
S131 E51

Match http URLs in a text file (see [https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/181258 ref])
$ cat input.txt | grep -Eo "(http|https)://[a-zA-Z0-9./?=_%:-]*" | sort -u

===[[gunzip]]===
See [[{{PAGENAME}}#gzip|#gzip]].

===[[gzip]]===
Transform a <code>sql.gz</code> archive into a <code>sql.xz</code> archive.
$ gunzip -c archivo.sql.gz | xz -z - > archivo.sql.xz

===[[iftop]]===
Show data traffic (i.e. [[bandwidth]] usage) on network interface <code>eth0</code>. Note: consider using in tandem with [[nethogs]].
$ sudo iftop -i eth0

===[[iotop]]===
Show disk write rates for a given process by PID.
$ iotop -p PID

List accumulative (<code>-a</code>) disk read/write rates for all <code>tar</code> and <code>xz</code> processes via process PIDs (<code>-p</code>), updating every 10 seconds (<code>-d10</code>).
$ sudo iotop -ad10 $(pgrep "tar|xz" | xargs -I "{}" echo -n "-p {} ")

===[[ip]]===
Show available network interfaces.
$ ip link show

===[[ImageMagick]]===
Convert a [[PNG]] file into a [[JPEG]] at 90% quality.
$ convert input.png -quality 90 output.jpg

Convert a [[GIF]] into a set of frames (Note: May fail with some optimized GIF formats)
$ convert Year_2038_problem.gif output%02d.gif

===[[jdupes]]===
List duplicates in DIR greater than or equal to 100MB.
$ jdupes -X size+=:100MB DIR -r

List duplicates within DIR1 (not following subdirectories) and within DIR2 (following subdirectories)
$ jdupes -X size+=:100MB DIR1 -R DIR2

List duplicates within DIR1, DIR2, and DIR3 recursively, listing duplicates of DIR1 first
$ jdupes -r -O DIR1 DIR2 DIR3

===[[journalctl]]===
Show previous 1 hour of logs:
$ journalctl --utc --all --output=short-iso --since=-1h

Show logs since <code>2023-01-10T09:15</code> and before <code>2023-01-10T13:00</code>:
$ journalctl --utc --all --output=short-iso --since=\"2023-01-10 09:15\" --until=\"2023-01-10 13:00\"

===[[less]]===
Display file as scrollable buffer.
$ less file.txt

Display file and display live updates.
$ less +F file.txt

Display file while truncating display of long lines.
$ less -S file.txt

Display file while interpreting [[ANSI]] color codes (e.g. <code>$ jq -C '.' file.json | less --RAW-CONTROL-CHARS</code>)
$ less --RAW-CONTROL-CHARS

===[[locate]]===
Install on [[ubuntu]] 24.{{bkc|[[2024-12-11]]: Apparently this package used to be part of GNU <code>findutils</code>. }}
$ sudo apt install locate

===[[ls]]===
Note: assumes <code>ls</code> from GNU Coreutils 8.32

List all files, sorted by [[ISO-8601]]-style date.
$ ls -alh --time-style=long-iso | sort -k6,7
-rw-rw-r-- 1 baltakatei baltakatei 88K 2005-08-19 19:18 file1
-rw-rw-r-- 1 baltakatei baltakatei 930K 2010-07-28 02:01 file2
-rw-rw-r-- 1 baltakatei baltakatei 2.4M 2016-05-18 14:52 file3
-rw-rw-r-- 1 baltakatei baltakatei 7.2K 2021-05-11 15:29 file4

===[[lsof]]===
Display all files opened by a process by a single PID.<ref name="tecmint_20230714_lsof-examples" />
$ lsof -p PID

Display all files opened by a process by name (e.g. [[xz]])<ref name="tecmint_20230714_lsof-examples">[[Narad Shrestha]]. ([[2023-07-14]]). “[https://www.tecmint.com/10-lsof-command-examples-in-linux/ How to Use ‘lsof’ Command to Check Open Files in Linux]”. ''[[tecmint.com]]''. Accessed [[2024-01-05]]. </ref>
$ while read -r line; do lsof -p "$line"; printf "\n"; done < <(pgrep xz)

===[[mail]]===
Reference: https://devanswers.co/you-have-mail-how-to-read-mail-in-ubuntu/

Commands:
$ mail # start mail
& h$ # list latest messages<ref name="johnkerl_19970428_unix-mail">[[John Kerl]] ([[1997-04-28]]). “[https://www.johnkerl.org/doc/mail-how-to.html How to use the Unix command-line mail tool]”. ''[[johnkerl.org]]''. Accessed [[2024-01-05]]. </ref>
& 5 # read message 5
& d 1 # delete message 1
& q # quit mail

Send mail to self:
$ mail -s "I'm in your base" -- "$(whoami)" < <(printf "Killing your dudes.\n")

Delete all mail<ref name="so_20121117_deletemail">[[timaschew]]. ([[2012-11-17]]). “[https://stackoverflow.com/a/13430307 How do I purge a linux mail box with huge number of emails? [closed]]”. ''Stack Overflow''. Accessed [[2023-06-06]].</ref>:
$ mail -N
& d *
& quit

===[[make]]===
''See [[GNU Make]]''

Compile source code according to a file named <code>Makefile</code>
$ make

Note, even with [[GNU make]], column 1 indentations REQUIRE a tab (i.e. `\t`), not a space (`\s`).<ref name="se_20210701_maketabs">[https://retrocomputing.stackexchange.com/users/79/stephen-kitt Stephen Kitt]. ([[2021-07-01]]). “[https://retrocomputing.stackexchange.com/a/20293 Why does make only accept tab-indentation?]” ''Stack Exchange''. Accessed [[2023-07-10]]. [https://web.archive.org/web/20230528004825/https://retrocomputing.stackexchange.com/questions/20292/why-does-make-only-accept-tab-indentation Archived] from the original on [[2023-05-28]].
</ref>

Compile multiple source code files with a single `make all` command.<ref name="so_20110510_makemultiplefiles">[https://stackoverflow.com/users/714501/cnicutar cnicutar]. ([[2011-05-10]]). “[https://stackoverflow.com/a/5950445/10850071 Makefile to compile multiple C programs?]”. ''Stack Overflow''. Accessed [[2023-07-13]]. [https://web.archive.org/web/20230714044550/https://stackoverflow.com/questions/5950395/makefile-to-compile-multiple-c-programs/5950445 Archived] from the original on [[2023-07-14]].</ref> `Makefile` contents:

all: program1 program2

program1: program1.c
gcc -o program1 program1.c

program2: program2.c
gcc -o program2 program2.c

===[[mdadm]]===
Software [[RAID]] manager.

Check status of RAID device <code>/dev/md0</code>.<ref name="se_20120108_mmdadmcheck">[[Gilles]]. ([[2012-01-08]]). “[https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/28642/411854 How to check 'mdadm' RAIDs while running?]”. Accessed [[2023-03-26]]. [https://web.archive.org/web/20150925044124/http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/28636/how-to-check-mdadm-raids-while-running/28642#28642 Archived] from the original on [[2015-09-25]].</ref>
$ sudo mdadm --detail /dev/md0

Check status of all RAID devices.<ref name="se_20120108_mmdadmcheck" />
$ sudo cat /proc/mdstat

===mimetype===
Get file mimetype
$ cat file.jpg | mimetype --stdin

===[[mpv]]===
Use newline-delimited stdin list of file paths as playlist.
$ find ~/Music/ -type f | mpv --playlist=-

Enable shuffle
$ mpv --shuffle

Settings for fast playback (e.g. 2x){{bkc|[[2024-08-11]]: This option may cause issues with playback of some [[FLAC]] files.}}
$ mpv --af=scaletempo=stride=15:overlap=1:search=15'

Play video with subtitle file
$ mpv --embed-subs="$filepath" video.mp4

===[[neofetch]]===
Show system information without art
$ neofetch --off

===[[nethogs]]===
Show data traffic (i.e. [[bandwidth]] usage) by process on network interface <code>eth0</code>.
$ sudo nethogs eth0

: Toggle between data rates and total data amounts with `m`.

===[[notify-send]]===
Note (Debian): Installed via the [[libnotify-bin]] package.

Create a system notification:
$ notify-send "title" "body"

===[[openbox]]===
A window manager for [[LxQt]] and [[Lubuntu]].

Reload configuration files.{{bkc|[[2024-08-21]]: Such as those kept at <code>/usr/share/themes/Mikachu/openbox-3/themerc</code>. }}<ref name="askubuntu_20161006_openbox-window-resize-grab-area">[https://askubuntu.com/users/248158/dk-bose DK Bose]. ([[2016-10-06]]). “[https://askubuntu.com/a/834022 Size of grab area for resizing window in lubuntu]”. Accessed [[2024-08-21]]. </ref>
$ openbox --reconfigure

===[[ots]]===
Use [[OpenTimestamps]] ([https://opentimestamps.org/ website]) to timestamp files against the [[Bitcoin]] blockchain. Program by [[Peter Todd]], a [[Bitcoin Core]] developer.

Install Opentimestamps on Ubuntu 24 via [[pipx]].{{bkc|[[2025-01-18]]: [[pipx]] recommended to install [[ots]] due to [[PEP 668]] ([https://peps.python.org/pep-0668/ link] mandating partitioning operating system environment from user-space. }} Provides the <code>ots</code> executable.
$ sudo apt install pipx
$ pipx install opentimestamps-client

Timestamp <code>file.txt</code>. Creates timestamp file <code>file.txt.ots</code>.
$ ots s file.txt
$ ots stamp file.txt

Upgrade a timestamp file. Creates a backup file (<code>file.txt.ots.bak</code>) if necessary.
$ ots upgrade file.txt.ots
$ ots u file.txt.ots

Verify a timestamp file.
$ ots verify file.txt.ots
$ ots v file.txt.ots

Verify a specific file against a specific timestamp file.
$ ots v -f file.txt file.txt.ots

===[[pandoc]]===
Convert [[markdown]] text file into mediawiki code.<ref name="so_20100926_markdown-to-mediawiki">[https://stackoverflow.com/users/315013/applicative applicative]. ([[2010-09-26]]). “[https://stackoverflow.com/a/3796608 Are there any tools to convert markdown to Wiki text in other formats]”. ''[[stackoverflow.com]]''. Accessed [[2024-02-27]]. </ref>
$ pandoc -f markdown -t mediawiki -o output.wc input.txt

===[[par2]]===
{{#lsth:{{PAGENAME}}/prv|par2}}

Create parity files of <code>archive.tar.xz</code> with default settings.
$ par2 create archive.tar.xz.par2 archive.tar.xz

===[[GNU parallel|parallel]]===
''See [[GNU parallel]]''

Duplicate a set of directories (non-recursively) (e.g. home sub-directories). Metadata not copied.
$ find "$HOME" -mindepth 1 -maxdepth 1 -type d | parallel mkdir "$HOME/{}"

Hash every file in the home directory.
$ find "$HOME" -type f | parallel --jobs="" sha256sum '{}' # use all CPUs
$ find "$HOME" -type f | parallel --jobs="25%" sha256sum '{}' # use at most 25% of CPU cores
$ find "$HOME" -type f | parallel sha256sum '{}' #

Run a thread for every item in an array.
<pre style="white-space: pre;">
$ myArray=("jan"); myArray=("feb"); myArray=("mar");
$ declare -p myArray
declare -a myArray=([0]="jan" [1]="feb" [2]="mar")
$ parallel echo '{}' ::: "${myArray[@]}"
jan
feb
mar
</pre>

Supply different arguments for each job with an `--arg-file`.
$ printf "foo\tbee\n" >> args.txt;
$ printf "bar\tboo\n" >> args.txt;
$ printf "baz\ttax\n" >> args.txt;
$ parallel --col-sep '\t' --arg-file args.txt echo '{2}' '{1}';
bee foo
boo bar
tax baz

Avoid OOM by suspending jobs on low memory via <code>--memsuspend 512M</code> (e.g. 512 [[mebibytes]]), which suspends job if less than <code>2 * 512 = 1024</code> mebibytes memory free. If only one job remains, it will not suspend.
$ seq 1 10 | parallel --memsuspend 512M echo '{}';

===[[ps]]===
Show process PIDs and full commands.
$ ps -eo pid,args

===[[pdftk]]===
Install{{bkc|[[2025-01-26]]: As of [[2025]], <code>$ sudo apt install pdftk</code> no longer works, likely due to licensing issues with [[PDF Labs]] ([https://www.pdflabs.com/tools/pdftk-the-pdf-toolkit/ web]) }}<ref name="gitlab_2023_pdftk-java">[[Marc Vinyals]]. ([[2023]]). “[https://gitlab.com/pdftk-java/pdftk pdftk-java]”. ''[[gitlab.com]]''. Accessed [[2025-01-26]]. </ref>
$ sudo apt install pdftk-java

Combine PDFs
$ pdftk doc1.pdf doc2.pdf doc3.pdf cat output output.pdf

Extract page range from a PDF. (e.g. extract first 13 pages)
$ pdftk input.pdf cat 1-13 output output.pdf

===[[pdftotext]]===
Install.
$ sudo apt install poppler-utils

Convert PDF to text. (Note: If text is [[Raster graphics|rasterized]], use [[#tesseract|tesseract]] instead).
$ pdftotext output.pdf output.txt

===[[pgrep]]===
Exit early if a specific process (e.g. <code>yt-dlp</code>) is already running.
$ if pgrep "yt-dlp" 1>/dev/random 2>&1; then exit 1; fi;

===printf===
====GNU Coreutils====
Round a float to nearest integer<ref>{{bk}}: [[2023-09-09]]: Tested with GNU Coreutils 8.32</ref>:
$ myVar="14.28571"; printf "%.0f\n" "$myVar";
14
$ myVar="14.28571"; printf "%.2f\n" "$myVar"
14.29
$ myVar="14.28571"; printf "%.1f\n" "$myVar"
14.3
$ myVar="-14.28571"; printf "%.2f\n" "$myVar"
-14.29
$ myVar="28.57142"; printf "%.2f\n" "$myVar"
28.57
$ myVar="28.57142"; printf "%.0f\n" "$myVar"
29

: Note, GNU Coreutils printf uses “[[Rounding|round to even]]” (i.e. “Bankerʼs rounding”) for cases when 5 must be rounded.<ref name="se_20151101_printfrounding">user79742. ([[2015-11-01]]). “[https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/240113 Weird float rounding behavior with printf]”. ''[[unix.stackexchange.com]]''. Accessed [[2023-10-04]]. [https://web.archive.org/web/20231004195404/https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/240112/weird-float-rounding-behavior-with-printf/240113#240113 Archived] from the original on [[2023-10-04]]. </ref>
$ myVar="5.5"; printf "%.0f\n" "$myVar"
6
$ myVar="6.5"; printf "%.0f\n" "$myVar"
6
$ myVar="7.5"; printf "%.0f\n" "$myVar"
8
$ myVar="8.5"; printf "%.0f\n" "$myVar"
8

Print integer with leading zeroes. (see [https://stackoverflow.com/a/18460742/10850071 ref])

$ n=7; printf "%05d\n" "$n";
00007

Print a bash array (see [https://stackoverflow.com/a/15692004/10850071 ref])

$ declare -a my_array; my_array+=("jan"); my_array+=("feb");
$ printf '%s\n' "${my_array[@]}";
jan
feb

Print a progress bar
#!/bin/bash

total_iterations=100
current_iteration=0

while [ $current_iteration -lt $total_iterations ]; do
# Your actual loop content goes here
sleep 0.1 # This is just an example, replace with your actual task

# Calculate progress percentage
progress_percentage=$(( 100 * current_iteration / total_iterations ))

# Print progress percentage without causing scrolling
printf "\rProgress: %3d%%" $progress_percentage

# Increment the iteration counter
current_iteration=$(( current_iteration + 1 ))
done

# Print a newline character to move to the next line after the loop is done
echo

====C stdio.h====
Print an int as a hexadecimal

int a=17; printf("%x\n",a);

Print an int as a binary (<code>glibc >2.35</code>, check via <code>$ ldd --version</code>)

#include <stdio.h>
int main()
int a=1023; printf("%b\n",a); return 0;

: When compiled with <code>gcc-12</code> (previous versions throw errors) and glibc >2.35, this prints:

1111111111

===[[rev]]===
Get a counted list of unique file extensions in the current working directory.

$ find ./ -type f | rev | cut -d'/' -f1 | cut -d'.' -f1 | rev | sort | uniq -c | sort -hk1;

: An explanation:
<pre style="white-space: pre;">
$ find ./ -type f | \ # Get a list of files in current working directory.
rev | \ # Reverse order of characters within each line.
cut -d'/' -f1 | \ # Get file name.
cut -d'.' -f1 | \ # Cut all characters except for those before the final `.` in the filename.
rev | \ # Restore order of characters within each line.
sort | \ # Sort for uniq.
uniq -c | \ # Count and remove duplicates.
sort -hk1; # Sort by extension count field of each line.
</pre>

===[[rsync]]===
Note: These commands assume use of ''rsync'' version <code>3.2.7 protocol version 31</code>, which is available on [[Debian]] version <code>11</code>.

{{#lsth:{{PAGENAME}}/prv|rsync}}

Exclude all dotfiles or dotdirectories at any directory level.
$ echo ".*/**" >> exclude.txt
$ rsync -avu --exclude-from=exclude.txt somepath/SOURCE/ anotherpath/DEST/

Copy all files contained within a directory named <code>SOURCE</code> located within <code>somepath</code> into a directory named <code>DEST</code> within <code>anotherpath</code>, preserving file attributes (e.g. user:group, read/write/execute permissions), and overwriting existing files within <code>DEST</code> if they differ in modification date and/or size from those of <code>SOURCE</code>. The forward slashes after <code>SOURCE</code> and <code>DEST</code> are significant; omitting them may cause the creation of a new directory layer instead of synchronizing the file trees of <code>SOURCE</code> and <code>DEST</code>.
$ rsync -avu somepath/SOURCE/ anotherpath/DEST/

Make the contents of <code>DEST</code> exactly match that of <code>SOURCE</code>, overwriting and deleting files as required in <code>DEST</code> via the <code>--delete-before</code> command, performing all deletions before file copying begins. This is useful for updating a backup of <code>SOURCE</code> at <code>DEST</code>.
$ rsync -avu --delete-before somepath/SOURCE/ anotherpath/somedir/DEST/

Copy files from a local <code>SOURCE</code> to a <code>DEST</code> in a remote user's home directory (e.g. <code>/home/username/DEST/</code>) via the [[ssh]] command.
$ rsync -avu -e 'ssh' somepath/SOURCE/ username@hostname:DEST/

Copy files only files containing <code>_small</code> in their filenames from a <code>SOURCE</code> to <code>DEST</code>. This preserves the directory tree of <code>SOURCE</code>.
$ rsync -avu --progress --include '*/' --include '*_small*' --exclude '*' somepath/SOURCE/ somepath/DEST/

:: Exclude <code>_small</code>files larger than 100 000 000 bytes.
$ rsync -avu --progress --include '*/' --include '*_small*' --exclude '*' --max-size=100MB --remove-source-files somepath/SOURCE/ somepath/DEST/

: Move (i.e. extract) only the files containing <code>_small</code> in their file names, deleting them from <code>SOURCE</code> if successfully copied to <code>DEST</code>.
$ rsync -avu --progress --include '*/' --include '*_small*' --exclude '*' --remove-source-files somepath/SOURCE/ somepath/DEST/

Recreate full path at destination.<ref name="askubuntu_20141121_rsync-preserve-dirtree">[https://askubuntu.com/users/193328/jan jan]. ([[2014-11-21]]). “[https://askubuntu.com/a/552122 Preserve directory tree while copying with rsync]”. ''[[askubuntu.com]]''. Accessed [[2024-04-01]]. </ref>
$ rsync -avu -R somepath/SOURCE/ anotherpath/DEST/
$ ls anotherpath/DEST/somepath/SOURCE/

===sed===
[https://www.gnu.org/software/sed/manual/sed.html GNU sed manual].

Replace first instance of a string.
$ echo "foo foo" | sed 's/oo/ee/'
fee foo

Replace all instances of a string.
$ echo "foo foo" | sed 's/oo/ee/g'
fee fee

Replace all instances of a string in a file (CAUTION: modifies the file):
$ printf "foo\n" > bar.txt
$ cat bar.txt
foo
$ sed -i 's/oo/ee/g' bar.txt
$ cat bar.txt
fee

Append something to the start of each line ([https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/443150 ref]):
$ printf "bar\nbaz\n" | sed 's/^/foo/'
foobar
foobaz
$ printf "bar\nbaz\n" | sed 's~^~foo~' # use ~ instead of / as regex delimiter
foobar
foobaz

Delete blank lines. (see [https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/76066/411854 ref])
$ printf "foo\n\nbar\n"
foo

bar
$ printf "foo\n\nbar\n" | sed '/^$/d'
foo
bar

Remove an initial `./` from the start of file lists produced by `find` whether newlines or NULL chars are used as list delimiters. Example: [[sumdir]] v0.1.2
$ sed -E 's/(^|\x00)\.\//\1/g'

Print specific lines of a file. (i.e. get a specific line from a file)
$ some_command | sed -n '2p' # prints line 2 of standard input
$ sed -n '2p' file.txt # prints line 2<ref>{{bk}}; [[2024-01-29]]: See https://stackoverflow.com/a/74076669</ref>
$ sed -n '2q;d' big_file.txt # prints line of a very large file.<ref>{{bk}}; [[2024-01-29]]: See https://stackoverflow.com/a/30657175 </ref>
$ sed -n '2p;'
$ sed -n '2,5p' file.txt # prints lines 2 through 5 inclusive.
$ sed -n '2;5;' file.txt # prints only lines 2 and 5.

Substitute special characters
$ echo "2 * 5 = 8" | sed -E -e 's/*/x/' # doesn't work because asterisk is special regex
sed: -e expression #1, char 6: Invalid preceding regular expression
$ echo "2 * 5 = 10" | sed -E -e 's/\*/x/' # works

===[[ssh]]===
Connect to a local machine's [[Syncthing]] instance via [[firefox]].
$ firefox 127.0.0.1:8384

Connect to a remote server's [[Syncthing]] instance via [[ssh]] port forwarding and [[firefox]].
$ ssh -L 127.0.0.1:8388:127.0.0.1:8384 user@hostname
$ firefox 127.0.0.1:8388

Get a host's SSH fingerprint<ref name="se_20160509_sshkeyscan">[[Anthony Geoghegan]]. ([[2016-05-09]]). “[https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/268692/411854 Get SSH server key fingerprint]”. Accessed [[2023-06-25]]. </ref>
$ ssh-keygen -l -f /etc/ssh/ssh_host_ecdsa_key.pub

====Configure [[gnupg]], [[ssh]], and smartcard on [[macOS]]====
Install necessary [[homebrew]] packages
% [[#brew|brew]] update && brew upgrade;
% brew install gnupg pinentry-mac

<code>$ gpg -K</code> should have a line like this with <code>[A]</code>:
ssb> rsa4096/0x5F9D26B9A598A2D3 2018-05-16 [A] [expires: 2026-07-07]

Configure [[GnuPG]] to use <code>pinentry-mac</code>
% which pinentry;
/opt/homebrew/bin/pinentry-mac;
% which pinentry-mac >> ~/.gnupg/gpg-agent.conf;

Configure [[GnuPG]] to be able to talk to [[ssh]] by:
: Adding these lines to <code>~/.gnupg/gpg-agent.conf</code>:
<pre>
default-cache-ttl 300
max-cache-ttl 999999
enable-ssh-support
</pre>

: and exporting these environment variables to your shell (probably <code>~/.[[zsh]]rc</code> as of [[2024]])
<pre>
export GPG_TTY="$(tty)";
export SSH_AUTH_SOCK="$(gpgconf --list-dirs agent-ssh-socket)";
</pre>

Export the [[ssh]] public key from your [[OpenPGP]] key via [[GnuPG]]:
: Get public key line to add to remote machine
$ gpg --export-ssh-key YOUR_KEY_ID > my_gpg_ssh_pubkey.txt

: This should look like:
$ cat my_gpg_ssh_pubkey.txt
$ ssh-rsa AAAAB3NzaC1yc2EAAAA… user@host

: Add ssh pubkey to remote machine by
:: running this command remotely (via a preëxisting [[ssh]] session or by visiting the remote machine physically)
remote$ echo "ssh-rsa AAAAB3NzaC1yc2EAAAA… user@host" >> ~/.ssh/authorized_keys
:: or by running this comand locally:
$ gpg --export-ssh-key YOUR_KEY_ID | ssh user@remote 'cat >> ~/.ssh/authorized_keys'

Restart [[gnupg]] to apply configuration changes:
$ gpgconf --kill gpg-agent;
$ gpgconf --launch gpg-agent;

Test
$ ssh user@remote

: If you never have to use the server's password for the <code>user</code> user, then you succeeded.

{{#lsth:{{PAGENAME}}/prv|ssh}}

===[[sort]]===
Sort part of a checksum file while ignoring some initial lines (e.g. a checksum file generated by <code>sumdir</code>). Sorts every line except for the first three lines which it leaves at the top; the output is written to <code>/tmp/0.txt</code>. Uses the <code>-k2</code> (i.e. "key 2") option of <code>sort</code> which says to sort by the file name, not the hash (hash is first whitespace-separated entry, file name is the second).

file=.SUMSHA256--20230126T050458+0000; ( cat "$file" | head -n3; cat "$file" | tail -n+4 | sort -k2; ) > /tmp/0.txt

Sort on the third field of comma-delimited lines
$ printf "1,foo,kobo\n2,bar,kaela\n3,baz,zeta\n" | sort -t',' -k3
2,bar,kaela
1,foo,kobo
3,baz,zeta

Remove duplicate lines without sorted result (preserving first copied unique line). (see [https://stackoverflow.com/a/20639730/10850071 ref])
$ myVar="$( printf "gundam\ninuyasha\ngundam\nbleach\ngundam\nnaruto\ngundam\n" )"
$ echo "$myVar" | cat -n | sort -uk2 | sort -n | cut -f2-
gundam
inuyasha
bleach
naruto

: Preserving last unique copied line.
echo "$myVar" | tac | cat -n | sort -uk2 | sort -n | cut -f2- | tac
inuyasha
bleach
naruto
gundam

===[[stdbuf]]===
A [[GNU Coreutils]] program that controls how stdin, stdout, and error data is passed in and out of a program.

Read input from ''stdin'' and pass through output to ''stdout'' without any buffering.<ref name="se_20110619_stdbuf">[[a3nm]]. ([[2011-06-19]]). “[https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/25378 Turn off buffering in pipe]”. ''Stack Exchange''. Accessed [[2023-06-06]].</ref>
$ stdbuf -i0 -o0 -e0 command

: Example: Continuously filtering [[journalctl]] output to capture <code>apache-access</code> lines while discarding the first 7 space-delimited fields of each line. If ''stdbuf'' is not used in this type of scenario, [[tr]] and [[cut]] may fail to immediately display important lines as they arrive from ''journalctl'', choosing to wait until a buffer is filled before displaying them (defeating the purpose of the <code>--follow</code> option of ''journalctl'').
<pre style="white-space: pre;">
#!/bin/bash
journalctl --all --output=short-iso --since=-7d --follow |\
grep --line-buffered -Eiv " 404 " |\
grep --line-buffered "apache-access" |\
stdbuf -i0 -o0 -e0 tr -s ' ' |\
stdbuf -i0 -o0 -e0 cut -d' ' -f8- -
</pre>

===[[strace]]===
Read stderr of a backgrounded and disowned process with process ID <code>pid</code>.
$ strace -p "$pid" -e trace=write

===su===
Open a shell as root.
alice@host: sudo su -
root@host: whoami
root

Open a <code>bash</code> shell as another user, e.g. <code>www-data</code>.
alice@host: whoami
alice
alice@host: sudo su - www-data -s /bin/bash
[sudo] password for alice:
www-data@host: whoami
www-data

===sumdir===
A script by [[Christopher Lovejoy]] (used with <code>checkdir</code>). [https://github.com/monking/shell-utilities/blob/main/sumdir Source at GitHub].

Create checksum of files in working directory recursively, excluding files with names: ending in <code>.asc</code> or <code>.ots</code> and files starting with <code>.SUM</code>. Resulting file has pattern: <code>.SUM${digest_name}</code> (e.g. <code>.SUMB2--20230128T013153+0000</code>).
$ sumdir -a sha256 -r -x "*.asc" -x "*.ots" -x ".SUM*"
$ sumdir -a b2 -r -x "*.asc" -x "*.ots" -x ".SUM*"

===swapoff===
''Possibly [[Ubuntu]]-specific''

Temporarily all swap file entries in <code>/etc/fstab</code>.{{bkc|[[2025-01-21]]: Generally, to permanently disable swap, comment out the relevant swap lines in <code>/etc/fstab</code>. }}
$ sudo swapoff -a

===[[tar]]===
''See [[File compression notes]].''

Extract a compressed archive (e.g. <code>.tar.xz</code>) in the current working directory.
$ tar -xf archive.tar.xz

: Extract to a different directory <code>some/path/</code>. (The positioning of <code>-C</code> is important.)
$ tar -xf archive.tar.xz -C some/path/

===tee===
Echo stdout to stderr ([https://stackoverflow.com/a/3142166/10850071 ref]):
$ echo "This is standard error" | tee /dev/stderr | sed 's/error/out/g'
This is standard error
This is standard out

===[[Tesseract (software)|tesseract]]===
Install.
$ sudo apt install tesseract-ocr

===[[top (software)|top]]===
View process, sorted by CPU usage
$ top

Shortcuts<ref name="transip_2024_linux-top-shortcuts">“[https://www.transip.eu/knowledgebase/entry/1979-using-the-top-command-linux/ Using the top command in Linux]”. (n.d.). ''[[transip.eu]]''. Accessed [[2024-01-06]]. [https://web.archive.org/web/20231127225012/https://www.transip.eu/knowledgebase/entry/1979-using-the-top-command-linux/ Archived] from the original on [[2023-11-27]]. </ref>:
* Arrow keys & page up/down: Navigate through the displayed list in the Task area.
* <code>q</code>: Finish the top with the <code>q</code>-key.
* <code>S-p</code>: Sort the processes by CPU usage.
* <code>S-m</code>: Sort the processes by memory (%MEM) usage.
* <code>S-t</code>: Sort the processes by running-time.
* <code>S-n></code>: Sort the processes by process ID.
* <code>t</code>: Changes the display of the CPU usage in the summary section.
* <code>m</code>: Changes the display of memory usage in the summary section.
* <code>S-r</code>: Sort the processes in ascending order instead of descending (default).
* <code>c</code>: By pressing <code>c</code>, the 'Command' column shows the entire path from which the processes were started.
* <code>S-v</code>: Shows the parent / child process hierarchy.
* <code>k</code>: Prompts for a process ID and closes the specified process. By default, SIGTERM is used for a graceful shutdown of the process. For a forced shutdown, you use SIGKILL.

===[[tr]]===
====Remove unwanted character sets====
Keep only printable characters and spaces from a string.

<pre style="white-space: pre;">
/bin/bash
name="message:おはよう　ございます.";
name_new="$( printf "%s" "$name" | tr -dc '[:graph:][:space:]' )";
printf "%s\n" "$name";
printf "%s\n" "$name_new";
</pre>

: This results in:
<pre style="white-space: pre;">
message:おはよう　ございます.
message:.
</pre>

===[[tree (command)]]===
Recursively list contents of current working directory.
$ tree

: List contents without colorized text.
$ tree | ansi2txt

===unar===
Install on a [[Debian]] system via [[apt]].
$ sudo apt update && sudo apt install unar

Decompress a [[rar]] archive.
$ unar archive.rar

===unzip===
''For <code>.rar</code> files, see [[#unar]].''

Unzip to directory <code>foo</code>
$ mkdir foo
$ unzip -d foo archive.zip

Unzip archives containing file names encoded in non-English encodings:
: [[Shift JIS]] [[Japanese]] encoding.<ref name="askubuntu_20170711_unzip-shiftjis">[https://askubuntu.com/users/4066/nicolas-raoul Nicolas Raoul]. ([[2017-07-11]]). “[https://askubuntu.com/a/935023 How to unzip a Japanese ZIP file, and avoid mojibake/garbled characters]”. ''[[askubuntu.com]]''. Accessed [[2024-04-12]]. </ref>
$ unzip -O shift-jis archive.zip
: [[Simplified Chinese characters]] encoding.
$ unzip -O gb18030 archive.zip # [[GB 18030]] is a superset of [[GBK]]. Try this first.
$ unzip -O gbk archive.zip # [[GBK (character encoding)|GBK]] an extension of [[GB 2312]].
$ unzip -O gb2312 archive.zip # [[GB 2312]] deprecated in 2017
: [[Big5]] [[Traditional Chinese characters]] encoding.
$ unzip -O big5 archive.zip

===[[veracrypt]]===
Mount a volume.
$ veracrypt volume.hc

Unmount all volumes.
$ veracrypt -d
: If you get an error message resembling <code>Error: umount: /media/veracrypt1: target is busy</code>, then identify the offending process with [[lsof]]<ref name="so_20111024_unmountbusydev">[[Frank Tudor|Tudor, Frank]]. ([[2011-10-24]]). “[https://stackoverflow.com/a/7878763 How to unmount a busy device [closed]]”. ''[[stackoverflow.com]]''. Accessed [[2023-07-25]]. [https://web.archive.org/web/20230620181852/https://stackoverflow.com/questions/7878707/how-to-unmount-a-busy-device/7878763#7878763 Archived] from the original on [[2023-06-20]]. </ref>:
$ lsof | grep '/media/veracrypt1'

Unmount a specific volume.
$ veracrypt -d volume.hc

Create a volume.
$ veracrypt -t -c

===[[wondershaper]]===
Limit bandwidth of network interface <code>eth0</code><ref>{{bk}}: [[2024-01-12]]: Network interfaces and [[DHCP]]-assigned [[IP address]]es can be listed via <code>ifconfig</code>.</ref> to 5000kbps download and 1000kbps upload.
$ wondershaper eth0 5000 1000

Clear [[wondershaper]] limits.
$ wondershaper clear

===[[yt-dlp]]===
''For all options, see [[yt-dlp]] GitHub page [https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp here].''

''See example wrapper script [https://gitlab.com/baltakatei/baltakatei-exdev/-/blob/107b9c5341a52d03350d698b5ec42e26d810a93c/user/bkytpldl-generic here (<code>bkytpldl-generic</code> v4.1.1)].''

Delay between downloads
$ yt-dlp --sleep-requests 2

Remember downloaded videos to avoid redownload attempts.
$ yt-dlp --download-archive some/path/history.txt "$URL"

Randomize order in which playlist items are downloaded.
$ yt-dlp --playlist-random "$URL"

Handle <code>File name too long</code> error by limiting long fields by byte count.<ref name="ytdlp_2021_long-filename">[[tylerszabo]]. ([[2021-10-01]]). “[https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/issues/1136 [Feature request] Handle Long filenames in default template and temporary files #1136]”. ''[[github.com]]'', [[yt-dlp]]. Accessed [[2024-07-25]]. “<code>$ yt-dlp -o '%(title).200B.%(ext)s' '<url>'</code>”. </ref>
$ yt-dlp -o '%(title).140B.%(ext)s' '<url>' # limits title to 140 bytes
$ yt-dlp -o '%(title)s.%(ext)s' '<url>' # may fail if title too long

Download lowest quality.<ref name="su_20210806_ytdlp-lowest-quality">[https://superuser.com/users/1052727/sherman Sherman]. ([[2021-08-06]]). “[https://superuser.com/a/1667932/1142336 Download the lowest quality video with youtube-dl]”. ''[[superuser.com]]''. Accessed [[2024-02-10]]. </ref>
$ yt-dlp -S '+size,+br'

Write automatic subtitles of a [[YouTube]] video to a <code>.vtt</code> file:
$ yt-dlp --write-subs --write-auto-subs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbkUn0o3L1Y

: Parse such a <code>.vtt</code> file in order to extract the text (reading every 8th line with an offset)

<pre style="white-space: pre;">clear; offset=1; cycle=8; n=0; {
while read -r line; do
if [[ ! $((n % cycle)) -eq "$offset" ]]; then
((n++)); continue; fi;
printf "%s\n" "$line";
((n++));
done < Unicode\ and\ Byte\ Order\ \[bbkUn0o3L1Y\].en.vtt;
echo "STATUS:Done." 1>&2;
} | grep -v "^$";
</pre>

===[[xargs]]===
Convert several lines of [[stdin]] into words. This may be useful if a command needs to perform an operation on all items in a long [[newline-delimited]] [[list]] as [[argument]] [[parameters]] instead of [[standard input]]. The following expressions are equivalent calls of [[ls]] to list the files <code>foo</code>, <code>bar</code>, and <code>baz</code>:
$ printf "foo\nbar\nbaz\n" | xargs -d '\n' ls -alh;
$ ls -alh foo bar baz;
: Note: <code>-d '\n'</code> requires that only [[newlines]] are used to separate (i.e. [[delimiter|delimit]]) arguments. The <code>-d</code> option is necessary in newline-delimited lists because <code>xargs</code> will split lines on [[whitespace characters]] such as the [[space character]]. For example, <code>printf "1 qux\n2 quux\n3 corge\n" | xargs -d '\n' ls -alh;</code> will not apply <code>ls -alh</code> to the three files <code>1 qux</code>, <code>2 quux</code>, and <code>3 corge</code>, but instead will erroneously use six other files <code>1</code>, <code>qux</code>, <code>2</code>, <code>quux</code>, <code>3</code>, and <code>corge</code>.

==History==

{{#ifexist: {{FULLPAGENAME}}/prv |{{#lsth:{{PAGENAME}}/prv|private}} | }}
==See also==
* [[Wikipedia:{{PAGENAME}}]]
{{#ifexist: {{FULLPAGENAME}}/prv |* [[{{FULLPAGENAME}}/prv]] | }}
{{#ifexist: {{FULLPAGENAME}}/prv |{{#lsth:{{PAGENAME}}/prv|See also private}} | }}

==External links==
* {{bk wikis}}

{{refsec}}

[[Category:Command line]]

OA 1094/Transcript

2025-02-11T20:14:17Z

Admin: Text replacement - "]" to "]"

An annotated transcript of [[Opening Arguments]] episode [[OA 1094|1094]]: “Please Stop Spreading Panic About Denaturalization” dated [[2024-12-02]]. {{#ifexist: {{FULLPAGENAME}}/prv | {{#lst:{{PAGENAME}}/prv|lede-prv}} | }}

==Stats==
* Date published: [[2024-12-02]]
* Hosts: [[Thomas Smith]], [[Matt Cameron]].
* Podcast source: ([https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/please-stop-spreading-panic-about-denaturalization/id1147092464?i=1000678881924 Apple])

==Trancript==
===Opening music===
You must never, ever give up or give in. You must keep the faith and keep your eyes on the prize. That is your calling. That is your mission. That is your moral obligation. That is your mandate. Get out there and do it. Get in the way.

Change happens because people care.

You, the people, have the power to make this life free and beautiful, to make this life a wonderful adventure.

I still believe with all my heart America can be a place where no child is left hungry, no community is left behind, and no one gets told they don't belong.

The fight for our country is always worth it.

===Introduction===
THOMAS SMITH:

: Hello and welcome to [[Opening Arguments]]. This is episode 1094. I'm your host, [[Thomas Smith]]. That over there is real-life attorney Matt Cameron. How are you doing, Matt?

MATT CAMERON:

: Just had a big plate of [[Thanksgiving]] leftovers, so I'm a little sleepy, but I'll make it. Doing all right?

THOMAS:

: I'm excited today. I feel like this has been something stuck in your craw for a while, or many things.

MATT:

: One of them. It's one of them. You know, there are not a lot of things that really annoy me, but unnecessarily scaring non-citizens really annoys me a lot. I really don't think that we should be doing that to people. Unnecessarily scaring citizens is almost even worse because these are people that really should not have to worry about their status. So I want to talk today about two different things, [[denaturalization]] and [[birthright citizenship]], and kind of what the actual threats to those are, what the theories are, and how it actually looks for preserving them.

THOMAS:

: Yeah, I think it's really important. It's time to clear the air. I mean, there are people really worried about, you know, denaturalization, getting rid of birthright citizenship, and I think the best use of this show is breaking that down. How worried should we be? We want to be realistic, but if there's one less thing we have to worry about, that's great, because you know what? We've got enough of those things. We don't actually need another thing to worry about.

MATT:

: We don't. This is way down my list, I have to tell you. And I'm realistic, and this is my thing. I've been thinking about this stuff for 18 years, and I am really not worried about this one. So I'll tell you why.

THOMAS:

: Time to feel better, hopefully. All right, well, after this break, we'll get to it.

(commercial break)

===Denaturalization===
MATT:

: Let me just say up front that I'm not an idiot. Neither are you. I don't know, I feel like I have to go on record for this.

THOMAS:

: Do we need to start every episode like that? I didn't realize that was the thing we needed to say.

MATT:

: Easy disclaimer. And I'm not really an institutionalist, which I think maybe I'm repeating myself now, but I really understand that [[Donald Trump]] is lawless, that he's intent on doing things outside the law, but he is not a god king, not yet. And we do still have judges, and we do still have [[DOJ]]. We have people who can be prosecuted if they break the law, people who aren't the president.

THOMAS:

: And people who have to carry out his will that are probably a little worried about breaking the law.

MATT:

: And he's promising pardons, but I mean, do they really want to break the law? So what I'm going to be talking about is the way that the law works right now. And certainly if we're in a position where the stuff I'm talking about today is being wantonly ignored, then we've all got bigger problems, much bigger problems than this.

: So just from the beginning, understand that I am talking about the current state of the law. I'm talking about [[precedent]]. I'm talking about some very good reasons to believe that even the Supreme Court right now, based on its own precedent recently, would not go for some of this stuff. But at the end of the day, I do understand. But people have been yelling at me. For not getting people worried enough about denaturalization and loss of birthright citizenship and telling citizens they don't have anything to worry about. And I really don't appreciate that, honestly, because I do think that we know exactly who needs to be concerned right now. And we're going to talk to them in another episode when I actually break down what [[mass deportation]], that expression, whatever that means to Trump, what it actually means, who's actually at risk, because we know those things. And those are the people we need to be rallying around right now. But I wanted to start with an easy one and talk about these two subjects.

THOMAS:

: Well, let me just say, I appreciate this. It's something I said before, but I think there isn't any value to maximum cynicism, maximum worry all the time. That's not valuable. Like, you can do that yourself. You can do that at home. In the comfort of your own home, you can just say, well, there's no laws, nothing exists. It's all the worst that it's going to be. You don't need a show for that. I'm going to save you some money or some time. Don't listen to anyone if that's all you want to hear. What we're trying here to do is help us kind of triage, help us focus on what really needs to be focused. If there's something that is less of a worry, it's valuable to know that.

MATT:

: And if this happens, this kind of stuff we're talking about today, we will see it coming from a very long way away. There's going to be a lot of groundwork that's going to have to be laid. And certainly if it starts to change and it looks like I have to change my opinion, I'm here for it. I'll be back to do that. That's right. That's right. But, you know, I keep getting all this weird, like, I guess I'd call it like doomerous fanfic thrown at me about like, well, what if the state department stops issuing passports or revokes passport of natural born citizens or whatever. I don't know. I mean, sure, that person could be charged with a crime for denial of civil rights. Like, I mean, there's all kinds of things that could happen. Maybe that person would completely get away with it. Maybe we'll get to a future where a dystopian government can just do whatever it wants to do to people. But again, we're a law show. We're going to talk about the law as we know it right now and as we foreseeably see it happening. So I guess I just have to give that disclaimer.

MATT:

: All right. So speaking of the law, let's talk about [[denaturalization]] first. This is the easier of the two, I think, to knock out.

THOMAS:

: I mean, it's something we covered when I actively am rooting for it for [[Elon Musk]]. And I think we should do it. I think [[Joe Biden|Biden]], go out a legend, do it, man. Find a way, denaturalize him.

MATT:

: You know, and he is somebody who has some reason to be concerned. He's in the category of people, I would say, you might want to think about that if you get on the wrong side of Donald Trump, because he's got something on you. But it's a pretty narrow category, as we're going to see. And fortunately, as it should be, this is the single hardest thing for the government to do to somebody who's not born in this country in terms of immigration. It should be, because it's a very difficult thing to prove. Yeah. And it's a huge thing to do to somebody when they have taken the effort to become a United States citizen with the point at which they cross over to naturalization. We treat them as one of our own. They get to vote. They get to travel. They get to live wherever they want and come back, you know, without any trouble. And they can't be deported. So, you know, they have these built-in rights. And I really don't want people who are listening to this who have naturalized to worry about that status. Now, there is only one way, really, that you and I could lose our citizenship as people who were born here. And that's if we actually go in front of a diplomatic or consular officer and ask to have it renounced it.

THOMAS:

: That's right.

MATT:

: So that's a long process. You can't just kind of spontaneously decide. But who was it? The co-founder of [[Facebook]] did it, right? For tax purposes. He was Brazilian.

THOMAS:

: Oh, really?

MATT:

: Turned out Brazilian. And a lot of people have done it for tax purposes. A lot of top one percenters. So that's something, if you want to do it, that you'll know that you're doing.

THOMAS:

: I'm a fan of tax savings,
but that's, I mean, that seems a little extreme.
Yeah, it's pretty extreme.

MATT:

: Well, I will say that, and this is something that people should know before they're naturalized. We are one of, we're one of the only countries on earth that actually makes people pay taxes on their income, no matter where they live in the world, forever. That is unusual. I don't think there are very many countries that do that. So, because there are a lot of U.S. citizens out there that either don't know that or are just counting on the [[IRS]] not finding them. And the IRS has occasionally made efforts to find them because they're often pretty wealthy. So just so you know.

THOMAS:

: Well, there won't be much of an IRS in the new administration, so.

MATT:

: Yeah, I guess so. So naturalization typically is going to be for somebody who's been a resident, a lawful permanent resident for more than five years, three if through marriage and can pass the basic exam, civics and English. And, you know, I just want to be very clear about this because people often talk about people showing up in the United States and just becoming citizens. And that is not how it works. That's the last step in the process. And you have to get through a lot of things first and you have to have a basis.

THOMAS:

: Well, the first step is you have to vote for Democrats in [[sanctuary cities]]. And then, and only then.

MATT:

: Yeah, that's very well known. I hope everybody understands that.

THOMAS:

: It's an [[MLM]]. If you find like a hundred other [[immigrants]] to vote illegally, then we let you in. It's how it works.

MATT:

: This is absolutely our secret plan and it's going great, obviously.

THOMAS:

: Yeah, isn't it cool how well it worked? Boy.

MATT:

: Yeah, yeah. But Elon Musk still talks about how the Democrats' big plan is to import people and make them citizens. And that's just not how it works, as he knows.

THOMAS:

: He literally talked about like, wow, these immigrants are coming in and having more children than, and we're like, dude, you're an immigrant with like 25 kids, you idiot. It's the weird, these narcissists. The rules do not apply.

MATT:

: No, no. I think within the next year or two, he's going to get on Donald Trump's bad side pretty badly.

THOMAS:

: Oh yeah, I don't think it'll take that long.

MATT:

: We'll see what happens. And again, I'm not rooting for anybody in citizenship to be taken away, ever.

THOMAS:

: I am rooting for his, yeah.

MATT:

: But you know, I wouldn't be too mad.

THOMAS:

: I don't know what this weird like principled stand you're taking over rooting against his citizenship being taken away. I don't know what you're talking about. I am actively rooting for that.

MATT:

: Yeah, it might be better for all of us. It's true. So denaturalization is not common because it's very hard to do. It has to be done in front of an actual federal judge, not an immigration judge. And if it's in the course of a criminal case, of course, it has to be proven beyond a reasonable doubt. And if it's in the course of a civil case, it's a very high standard as well that the government has to meet that we'll talk about. But this made some news under the Trump administration because in [[2020]], they set up a new denaturalization unit in [[DOJ]]. And they, I think, effectively doubled the number of attorneys who are working on reviewing potential denaturalization cases. Now, the government has always made efforts to denaturalize people, but usually pretty extreme cases. There was a little, a swath of [[Nazis]] who've been denaturalized because they lied about having been Nazis. Yeah, most famously, [[John Demjanjuk|Ivan Demjanjuk]] was a concentration camp guard and responsible probably for the deaths of thousands of people.

THOMAS:

: And he made the mistake of not [[Operation Paperclip|building us any rockets]].

MATT:

: So yes, that's right. So no use for him. That's right. But one of the questions is if you've been involved with any kind of genocide or war crimes or other things of that nature, that's one thing that you can lie about. But, you know, again, these are extreme cases. They have been historically. They've been people who lied about things to that level, not just kind of like checked the wrong box somewhere or, you know, put the wrong height or weight on the application. Like, that's not the kind of thing we care about. In fact, the [[US Supreme Court|Supreme Court]], as we're going to talk about, has said it has to be a lot more than that. This has made headlines again recently because [[Project 2025]] talked about in one sentence, just mentioned in passing. I'll just read actually so we know what we're talking about. This is something that just made a lot of hysterical headlines. I think it's worth reading.

<blockquote>
Other structural changes should include re-implementation of the [[USCIS]] denaturalization unit, an effort to maintain integrity in the system by identifying and prosecuting criminal and civil denaturalization cases in combination with the Department of Justice for aliens who obtain citizenship through fraud or other illicit means.
</blockquote>

: So again, they're just saying we need to reestablish what Trump already did, build back the denaturalization unit. The denaturalization unit under Trump, I believe, successfully only managed to denaturalize about 125 people, maybe something around that, in four years.

THOMAS:

: Seems like not zero.

MATT:

: Not zero. Certainly, it's not great for those people. But again, it's a long, arduous process. And they can't just arbitrarily take away somebody's citizenship. And it's designed that way. You have to have the [[U.S. attorney]] involved. You have to have a judge involved if it's going to a criminal case that you can have a jury. And, you know, it is just not something that Emperor God King Trump can do by himself.

: So criminal denaturalization is required under [[18 U.S.C. 1425]] for people who are convicted of certain kinds of naturalization fraud, such as unlawful procurement, attempts to procure naturalization, or providing documentary evidence of naturalization that's false. And that has a 10-year statute of limitations. And again, it has to be proven beyond a reasonable doubt. But the more common form of denaturalization is civil, which doesn't have any statute of limitations, which is a little concerning. And that's initiated by a complaint in your local district court where you live. There are a few different grounds for denaturalization all around. And I just want to review how narrow these are. The one that anybody listening is least likely to have applied to them is that if you refuse to testify before a congressional committee on alleged subversive activities, you could be denaturalized.

: So, yeah. Been a while since we had those, but who knows? That could happen again. If you naturalized through wartime military service, which was not uncommon in the last couple of decades, and were dishonorably discharged, you could potentially, within five years of that dishonorable discharge, be denaturalized because that was the basis of your naturalization. There's the criminal denaturalization we already talked about. And then the most common is going to be illegal procurement or concealment or willful misrepresentation under [[INA 340A]]. You have to have illegally procured your citizenship by a concealment of a material fact or by willful misrepresentation. So, the fact is, if this applies to you, you almost certainly already know it because you have lied to the government in a material way, in a way that got you citizenship. And I'll give you an example here from the actual form. Here's a very popular question on the [[N-400]]. Under the relevance section, you've got question 15. And if you really search within your heart to answer this question, there's only one answer to this question that we can all have. But it's not the right one.

<blockquote>
Have you ever committed, agreed to commit, asked someone else to commit, helped commit, or tried to commit a crime or offense for which you were not arrested?
</blockquote>

MATT:

: You're not under oath today, Thomas, but I think that if we really think about it, we have all committed a crime for which we were not arrested.

THOMAS:

: Oh, really?

MATT:

: Well, sure.

THOMAS:

: I don't know. What kind of crime?

MATT:

: Strictly speaking, if you've ever, for example, been in possession of [[marijuana]] or [[jaywalked]] or [[littered]] or done pretty much anything. Now, these aren't disqualifying offenses, but they are technically, if you are saying “no” to that and they find out that you've actually committed a real crime, something that would have actually affected your naturalization, they can come back on you. And technically, even now, possession of marijuana is a criminal offense. I'm not trying to scare people. That's very unlikely. But, you know, that is sort of the most general, vague question. It's one in most cases is the only one that people should give you pause to think about.

THOMAS:

: Yeah.

MATT:

: But the, the fact is that, you know, I always tell my clients this is not a [[confessional booth]]. Like, we're not talking to a priest here. You don't have to confess all of your sins. Our concern is the stuff for which you know that you've already been charged by the criminal justice system and, you know, either had those cases dismissed or held responsible. And they have a lot of different questions about your different contacts with the police and with court cases and things that you might have been convicted of. And that matters a lot because naturalization is the last chance that the system has to get a look at you.

: So if you try to lie about, for example, this is very popular, having been convicted of an offense in your home country. If you're just counting on the fact that maybe your home country's records aren't good enough and they're not going to find out and you actually, you know, committed a very serious offense that would have gotten you denied residency and you lie about it, that's going to come back later. This is a real catch-all kind of question. But I don't want to put the fear in people. This is not something that is going to apply unless you know for sure that you are concealing an actual serious crime that would be deportable. It can't just be that along the way in your time in the United States that, you committed one of the minor little things I'm talking about. And the way this is most likely going to be used is if it comes out later that you actually had been involved in, I don't know, drug trafficking, right, during the time that you were applying for citizenship and you said that you've never committed a crime and they come back and say, well, look, you just got convicted of drug trafficking, you lied about that in your naturalization, we could start denaturalization proceedings.

: So that is one way it could go. But there's a [[2017]] case which I wanted to make sure that we talked about which I think is very instructive for what the Supreme Court thinks about this right now. And the reason I think it's so important is that this was a unanimous case. This was a 9-0 and it was written by [[Elena Kagan]]. And in the case, I hope I don't get this wrong, but the case was [[Maslenjak v. United States|Maslenjak]].{{bkc|[[2025-01-24]]: 582 U.S. 335 (2017). }} And it was reviewing a case of a woman who testified in her husband's [[asylum]] proceedings and lied in those proceedings. And it turned out she had also lied in her [[refugee]] application. But the jury instructions, when they tried to denaturalize her for saying that she had procured her citizenship illegally, the phrasing question was obtaining citizenship illegally. So the question was, could it just be that along the way you did some illegal stuff? And the answer was very clearly. And they were really at oral argument. I listened to the oral argument on this one a while back. They were very strict with the government on this one. They were not happy with the arguments the government was making. [[Stephen Breyer|Breyer]] said, got a few quotes here, that “it would throw into doubt the citizenship of mass percentages of all naturalized citizens.”. [[John Roberts]] said that “you could have a real problem of prosecutorial abuse and the government had an opportunity to denaturalize anyone they wanted under this logic.”. [[Anthony Kennedy|Kennedy]] said “it demeans the priceless value of citizenship” for them to just come in here and say, well, because, you know, somebody had ''something'' along the way, even if it's not directly relevant, because the law is pretty clear that it has to be material to your naturalization. It has to be that you lied about something that if you had told them, they would have possibly denied your naturalization. It can't just be anything. And [[Elena Kagan|Kagan]] uses the example in this of, if someone is charged with procuring a painting illegally and he actually bought it at an auction, but he made an illegal turn while driving, right? He procured it illegally because, you know, getting to the auction house, he committed a small violation, right? She's saying it's kind of that level that we don't want to give the government any kind of excuse. This, again, is 9-0. [[Samuel Alito|Alito]] wrote a concurrence, but he was on board with the logic and with the holding.

THOMAS:

: So the key was, oh, you lied, but that wasn't related to, like, your naturalization or anything.

MATT:

: Right. You committed a misrepresentation. Now, in the end, you still could be, it still could be found because of previous things she'd also lied about. There still could be an issue, but the issue in this case was the jury instructions that were given, which were far too broad about procuring naturalization illegally and didn't talk about the ''material'' misrepresentation requirement.{{bkc|[[2025-01-24]]: In a [[law]] context, ''material'' is an adjective that means “[https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/material generally significant enough to determine an issue]”. }} And the court made it very clear, and this is in [[2017]], it's not that long ago, the Supreme Court, current Supreme Court, made it very clear that they care a lot about it being ''material'' and it has to be actually related to the naturalization proceedings themselves.

: So, yeah, because in that case, over the defendant's objection, the jury instructions included a statement that even if the statement was not material and did not influence the decision to approve naturalization, they could still find it guilty, and they did. So you can see the problem there. We don't want that as a precedent for ''anything'' along the way. And that's kind of what I'm hearing people talk about is this idea that they could go digging and find anything at all. I've had multiple people ask me, well, I've been on the streets protesting for [[Gaza–Israel conflict|Gaza]], right? And I give money to [[Jews for Peace]] and other organizations. You know, they're going to say I'm a [[terrorist]] and denaturalize me.

: And there are all kinds of reasons for the moment. Again, not legal advice, and if you're really that concerned, you can have a consultation with a qualified immigration attorney to talk about it. But I do not want people in this situation who naturalized many years ago to worry about this kind of thing. And if we're getting to the point where an organization like Jews for Peace is classified as a terrorist organization, maybe that could turn out to be different. But again, we're way ahead of things here, and we'll know. You know, this is not something we have to worry about right now. And I'm very concerned about how many people are getting anxiety over this. And I just want to be realistic as we are as often as possible on this show about an actual assessment of the risks and what's going on here. And as you said, as a triage, these people are way off the list.

THOMAS:

: We know that they've wanted to designate [[Antifa]] as a [[terrorist organization]]. Is there, if we're talking about like the darkest timeline thing, do they do that and then just start accusing anyone who's done anything [[Left-wing politics|lefty]] as being Antifa kind of thing?

MATT:

: I want to talk about that because that's something, I'm glad you remembered that because a lot of people have already forgotten that there was that last push right at the end of the Trump administration to designate an organization that is not an organization that really doesn't exist as a terrorist organization because that is a very dangerous thing. I meant to mention one of the other ways that you can be denaturalized is if you become a member of or affiliated with the [[Communist Party]], other [[totalitarian]] party or [[terrorist organization]] within five years of his or her naturalization. So even if you are concerned about donations you've made, it has to have been within five years and that's just black letter law.

: So, you know, again, if we do go down the very darkest version of this where they're just willy-nilly calling people Antifa, which certainly could happen. You and I could end up being Antifa. There's a foreseeable future in which this happens. But we're not there and we'll talk about it if we get there. I just, again, trying to be realistic about where we're at right now.

THOMAS:

: Mhmm.

MATT:

: So this is something to watch. What they do with this denaturalization for is how they use it and the kinds of cases they start bringing. But this is not going to be mass denaturalization and in fact, if we're talking about logistically, the resources, which are unlimited, they don't have unlimited resources for these things.

THOMAS:

: They're having a hard enough time doing normal immigration stuff and they're having a hard enough time deporting people that they want to deport.

MATT:

: Exactly. Deportable people, clearly deportable people. That's still not easy. And I want to talk again another episode soon about how that's actually going to work and what it looks like. But for the moment, you're talking about enormous legal resources that would be tied up trying to denaturalize all these people. And sure, if you have a particular political point you want to make, that's happened before. Certainly people like [[Emma Goldman]], who was the Russian radical who was denaturalized and sent back for her subversive activities allegedly in the [[1920s|20s]]. You know, and that, that has been used politically. I'm not saying it's impossible. I want to acknowledge that that certainly has happened in U.S. history. But there's no way that they can do this en masse. It's just not going to happen anytime soon. So I hope that's at least somewhat helpful.

THOMAS:

: Yep. And like you say, it's again, it's not like these things are physically impossible. It's just that we're not there yet and we'll be keeping a keen eye on it, obviously. And then the first steps along the way, you'll know about it.

MATT:

: That's right. And even [[Project 2025]], which they do seem to be following so far.

THOMAS:

: Oh, man. Too bad. Who knew? Big apology, by the way. We got that wrong. We had, you know, Trump solemnly swore. He was, he said, Scouts Honor, I'm not going to do Project 2025.

MATT:

: Never even read it.

THOMAS:

: And we at this show were he seems like a trustworthy guy. I totally believe that.

MATT:

: As we so often do. Yep. Fell for it again.

THOMAS:

: Hook, line, and sinker. And I was like, man, and I just want to issue an apology. Our bad.

MATT:

: Yeah. Well, fortunately, at least for this one, again, it's not saying they're going to mass denaturalize everybody, it's just saying that we should restore what Trump was trying to do with this unit, which only ended up, you know, maybe 150 at the most people, I think. They did refer quite a few people, but it's very hard to get those things going. So that's the most that we can expect for the moment. And this is something I certainly will be watching, along with the next thing we're going to talk about, which is [[birthright citizenship]].

THOMAS:

: Oh, all right. we'll take a break and get to that.

(commercial break)

===Birthright Citizenship===
THOMAS:

: [[Birthright citizenship]]. Isn't this pretty solidly in the [[US Constitution|Constitution]] or am I misremembering?

MATT:

: If you're the [[14th Amendment]], literally, it certainly seems to be.

THOMAS:

: Well, that depends. Are we talking about keeping an [[January 6 United States Capitol attack|insurrectionist]] off a ballot or are we talking about that depends on what our purpose is?

MATT:

: Arguably, this is even far more literally understandable than that section of the 14th Amendment, which is section three. This is section one, first sentence, side one, track one of the First Amendment, just directly in. Here we go.

<blockquote>
All persons born
or naturalized
in the United States
and subject to the
jurisdiction thereof
are citizens
of the United States
and of the United States
and of the state
wherein they reside.
</blockquote>

MATT:

: All right. Well, I hope you got some fun bloopers because there's our episode. We're done.

THOMAS:

: Yeah. Yeah, it would seem hard. I mean, on the other hand,

MATT:

: We got to talk about it.

THOMAS:

: There was an insurrectionist shouldn't be on the ballot thing that seemed pretty black and white to me.

MATT:

: Sure, sure. But, you know, the mechanism for that was very fuzzy and clearly not something, you know, there was room for debate. There is not a lot of room for debate, but there is a debate happening and I don't want to give it too much air in the same way that we don't want to sit here, you know, talking to the one, one climate scientist who is still saying that there's no human [[climate change]] happening. But this theory is getting steam and it's been in the headlines a lot and I want to explain it so that we know how we don't have to take it seriously and we can have a pretty good idea of what's going to happen when it gets up there.

: So this is basically what I'm going to do today is just the first class in my [[immigration policy]] course where we start by talking about how [[citizenship]] works. So I'll take you through some of the basics here just so we're grounded in the fundamentals of citizenship. So as a starting point, around the world, there are basically two kinds of citizenship. There's, I'm probably going to mangle this, it's a Latin expression, but it's [[jus soli]], which is the law of the soil, and [[jus sanguinis]], which is the law of the blood. So either it's based on where you're born or it's based on who your parents are. And those are the ways. Now we have had birthright citizenship since the very beginning because it is [[common law]]. It is how it worked in [[England]]. It's what the founders knew. It's what they brought over.

: So if you're going originalist, it doesn't seem to be a lot of question that they thought that people born here were going to be citizens. The word citizen appears in the [[US Constitution|Constitution]] 22 times, but it is not defined at any point until we get to the 14th Amendment, which, again, as we just read, seems like a pretty clear definition. People born here are citizens. We'll talk about the wiggle room in a second, but the year after the Constitution was [[Timeline of drafting and ratification of the United States Constitution|ratified]] in [[1790]], the Congress passed the [[Citizenship Act of 1790]] to define how people could be naturalized because, you know, again, we had a lot of people at the founding of the country who were not necessarily born there.

: So this as close as they to defining citizenship for quite a while,

<blockquote>
be it enacted, [et cetera, et cetera,] that any alien, being a free white person who shall have resided within the limits and under the jurisdiction of the United States for a term of two years, may be admitted to become a citizen thereof on application to any common law court.
</blockquote>

: And it was actually very easy. And right up until, I think, the mid-century, in the [[20th century]], you could just go down to your local state or federal courthouse and become a citizen. It was a very different process. But free white person, that's all you had to be for two years to get citizenship. And then, again, we're talking about naturalization. I want to be clear. The two things we're talking about today, denaturalization and birthright citizenship, are mutually exclusive. You're going to be one or the other because you're either born here or you're naturalized. And there are people who have birthright citizenship who are born abroad if they're born abroad to an American parent. They don't have to be born here. So that is a form of jus sanguinis that we do have in our system.

: Now, the Constitution, again, it's a little loose on all of this because, as we know, there's a natural-born citizenship requirement for president. And to become a senator, you have to have been a citizen for nine years. So they're clearly anticipating some kind of naturalization process by making these distinctions in the Constitution, but they did not bother to define it and nobody really wrote down how birthright citizenship worked. And I would argue, and pretty much all the scholars on this have argued, that it's because everybody understood that we were applying the common law, which was that you were under whatever sovereign territory you were born into, that's where you were a citizen.

: Now, the 14th Amendment, I think it gets really short shrift these days because, it was very hard fought. And I mean that literally because, of course, we had to fight a [[American Civil War|civil war]] to get to the point that we passed the [[Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution|13th]], [[Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution|14th]], and [[Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution|15th Amendments]]{{bkc|[[2025-01-24]]: From [[Wikipedia]], these are the three “[[Reconstruction Amendments]] to the Constitution: the [[Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution|13th]] outlawing slavery ([[1865]]), the [[Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution|14th]] guaranteeing citizenship to former slaves ([[1868]]), and the [[Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution|15th]] prohibiting the denial of voting rights "on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude" ([[1870]]).”. }} in which we gave full rights and equal protection to all people living in the country. And there'd been a fight for many, many years before that.

: And I can recommend a great book about this by [[Martha Jones]] called ''[[Birthright Citizens, A History of Race and Rights in Antebellum America]]''.<ref name="jones_2018_birthright">[[Martha Jones]]. ([[2018]]). “[https://search.worldcat.org/title/1022080095 Birthright Citizens, A History of Race and Rights in Antebellum America]]”. ''[[Cambridge University Press]]'', Cambridge, United Kingdom. OCLC: [https://search.worldcat.org/title/1022080095 1022080095]. ISBN: 9781107150348. </ref> And she documents through some really incredible research that she did in local court papers and personal papers to try to show how much effort [[Black Americans]] were putting into this as freed slaves for the most part, people that wanted to be seen as full citizens because there was this open question through the entire [[19th century]] about whether people who had been brought here as slaves and then freed could be seen as [[U.S. citizens]]. At one point, early in [[Pennsylvania]] history, they were allowed to vote and then they took that vote away when they realized or thought they weren't citizens. There were all kinds of confusions about this because to go to sea is a lot of, that was a very popular thing for freed slaves to do was to go out to the sea. You had to get a special certificate recognizing you as a [[seaman]] and that was your [[proof of citizenship]] even before we had [[citizenship certificates]]. And those were issued but then [[southern states]] would refuse to recognize them. They'd lock people up when they got into ports. There were laws allowing them to do that even though they were considered citizens for other purposes. It was chaos. It was a mess. And it wasn't until we got to the 14th Amendment that we had a strict definition of people born in the United States subject to the jurisdiction thereof are citizens. And I think we really need to appreciate the many, many years of fighting and advocacy and writing and the many allies along the way that tried to bring these cases in and to say that these people were citizens.

: And of course the most famous of those cases is the worst case in Supreme Court history. The one that we all recognize at this point as the worst, the baddest one. And that is ''[[Dred Scott v. Sandford]]'', [[1857]]. And Dred Scott, technically speaking, is still on the books as good law. It just happens to have been overruled by the 14th Amendment. The Supreme Court has never actually come back and said they were wrong on this one, I don't think. But they don't need to because the Constitution overruled it. But, you know, as you might remember, Dred Scott was simply bringing to the court the question of, you know, I was born in [[Missouri]]. Am I not a citizen now that I'm not enslaved? And [[Roger B. Taney|Roger Taney]], who was pretty famous for this kind of thing, wrote some pretty horrific stuff in this case and explained about how there's a certain class of people who were brought here and that they are an unfortunate race that they're, beings of an inferior order altogether unfit to associate with the white race either in social or political relations. And, of course, the very famous line about how they have “no rights that the white man is bound to respect”. Again, the Supreme Court Justice writing in [[1857]]. And this is as this issue is starting to tear the country apart. Obviously, it will drive it to war in a few years after that. And I like to tell my students, you have to think about [[Dred Scott]] as an [[immigration]] case because it's defining the limits of citizenship. And in a very literal way, it actually is because, [[Martha Jones]] makes the point that at this time, there was an active conversation happening about what was called the [[colonization movement]]. And there were two colonization movements. There was one with [[white people]] and one with [[black people]]. And, of course, the one with white people was trying very hard to find a way to send all the former slaves away. And [[Abraham Lincoln|Lincoln]] was sympathetic to this idea in establishing [[Liberia]] where they could go and relocate after slavery was ended because they were very concerned about what might happen if we kept a lot of people around who had been treated this badly.

THOMAS:

: Yeah. I remember famously after, like, speaking with [[Frederick Douglass]], who's getting more and more oppressed these days. That's when Lincoln kind of changed his mind on that based–. By my memory, was what I thought.

MATT:

: Yeah. But there was actually, briefly at least, a conversation about [[mass deportation]] of [[former slaves]], about sending them forcefully back to [[Africa]]. And the black population had very good reason to be concerned about this because they were watching the [[Indian removal]] process [[Native American genocide in the United States|happen]]. They were watching these [[Forced displacement|mass relocations]] of natives. [[Andrew Jackson]] certainly had no qualms about moving people around [[genocide|forcibly]]. So this was part of the drumbeat as well to get them to be declared [[Citizenship of the United States|citizens]] so they would have the right not to be deported, which is such a strange thought now that that was actually part of the conversation.

: So because, you know, the [[Conservatism in the United States|conservatives]] today will talk about how the [[14th Amendment]] is a product of its times, how they were only concerned with the [[citizenship]] and [[civil rights]] of [[freed slaves]] and black people generally in the United States. And that certainly is where it came from. But there was definitely this understanding, that they needed to nail this down for history to make sure that we knew that you couldn't deport people who had [been] born here. The history of tribal citizenship, that's a whole other episode, but it took us a very long time to give [[Indian Citizenship Act|full citizenship rights to natives]] right up until [[1924]], basically.

THOMAS:

: Oof.

MATT:

: But that's something else. But there are two related cases that I want to talk about before we get into... Because I'm going to give you the best version of the conservative argument so that we can understand at least what they're trying to say. Some of it's been misrepresented, and I think it's, again, overinflated.

But let's talk about these two cases that most clearly define this. And there's a reason the Supreme Court has not revisited this in 126 years. First, in ''[[Elk v. Wilkins]]'', which was [[1884]], written by Justice [[Horace Gray]], we had a man who tried to renounce his tribal citizenship. And he claimed he was a birthright citizen of the United States even though he was born on tribal land. And the Supreme Court found that he owed true allegiance to his tribe and not the U.S., and that Indians and native land are not U.S. citizens that had constitutional support. And that, of course, is a very different issue. from the question of people from other countries born in this country. But ''Elk v. Wilkins'' is something that I expect that conservatives are going to be citing more, so I just wanted to mention it.

THOMAS:

: That's still good law?

MATT:

: No.

THOMAS:

: Oh, okay. I was like, then why are they going to be citing it?

MATT:

: The logic of it. They want to try to show–

THOMAS:

: Oh, okay.

MATT:

: {{Anchor|wong-kim-ark}} Yeah, yeah. But ''[[United States v. Wong Kim Ark|Wong Kim Ark]]''<ref name="scotus_1898_us-v-wong-kimark">''[[United States v. Womg Kim Ark]]''. 169 U.S. 649 ([[1898]]). [https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/ll/usrep/usrep169/usrep169649/usrep169649.pdf PDF]. </ref> is the heavy hitter here. This is the one that is the golden standard for understanding what the [[14th Amendment]]'s birthright citizenship provision is. And this, again, I think it's important because it was written by the same justice, [[Horace Gray]]. So the same person wrote these two cases. Clearly, as you can assume, there's a line of continuity here. And this is in the context of the [[Chinese Exclusion Act]], which I'd love to do a full episode on sometime. But as I'm sure you know, there was very strict limits on Chinese people coming into the U.S. as of [[1883]].

: The plaintiff in this case was a man named [[Wong Kim Ark]], who was born in [[San Francisco]]. And he left in [[1894]], and he actually had papers with him that allowed him to return to the United States because he was so concerned about this because everybody knew what was being done to Chinese people coming back into [[California]].

: So, I'm looking at this paper, which we'll link to. There's an affidavit here. We, the undersigned, do certify that Wong Kim Ark is well-known to us. He was born in the city of San Francisco, state of California, that his father is a merchant, et cetera, et cetera. So he's got this affidavit with him confirming that he was born in the United States and that he's allowed to return back from [[China]]. And so he tries to come back after visiting family in [[1895]], and he's held for five months.

THOMAS:

: Five months? Oh, wow.

MATT:

: This is very common at [[Angel Island]]. Angel Island is sort of the anti-[[Ellis Island]]. It had, like, a 2% admission rate, whereas Ellis Island had about a 2% rejection rate. So you can see the very clear difference between those two scenarios and the people that they're processing. So he filed a habeas petition to challenge his detention, and this was the case that exclusionists had been looking for because they wanted a clear statement that people born to Chinese nationals were not U.S. citizens, and that is ''not'' what they got. They got a clear statement very much in a different direction, the other direction. Justice Gray found that the clear word and manifest intent of the 14th Amendment were that anyone of whatever [[race]] or color domiciled with the United States when they give birth to that person is a citizen.

<blockquote>
[It]affirms the ancient and fundamental rule of citizenship by birth within the territory

…

[The] exceptions or qualifications (as old as the rule itself) of children of foreign sovereigns or their ministers, or born in foreign public ships, or of enemies within and during a hostile occupation.
</blockquote>

MATT:

: We'll come back to that.

<blockquote>
… and with the single additional exception of children of members of the Indian tribes.
</blockquote>

MATT:

: So,

<blockquote>
To hold that the 14th Amendment of the Constitution excludes from citizenship the children born in the United States, of citizens or subjects of other countries, would be to deny citizenship to thousands of persons of [[England|English]], [[Scotland|Scotch]], [[Ireland|Irish]], [[Germany|German]], or other … ancestries.
</blockquote>

THOMAS:

: I mean, this really just belies the racism of it. Like, I'm sure so many people in our country feel like this makes sense. Well, it's foreigners and they come and have a kid and that kid gets to be the, yeah, okay, but that's all of us. If only, the only citizenship was people who were born here, I don't know, before the time of the country, I mean, there'd be, there'd be a lot fewer citizens and they wouldn't be white.

MATT:

: How far back do you want to go?

THOMAS:

: Yeah, exactly. And it's like, it's so arbitrary and the unstated thing is, “yeah, but if they have the skin color that I am cool with, then I don't really question it much.”

MATT:

: That's really what it comes down to. And that's literally what Gray is saying here. I mean, it's so obvious that he's saying, well, hold on, this is going to affect the citizenship of English, Scotch, Irish, or Germans. Right?

THOMAS:

: Yeah.

MATT:

: We can't go applying this rule to the Chinese if we don't want it to come back on us. But it is a clear, unequivocal statement and the Supreme Court has never questioned it, never challenged it, and there has never been a serious argument against it. I will just mention, in [[1982]], in [[Plyler v. Doe]],<ref name="scotus_1982_plyler-v-doe">''[[United States v. Doe]]''. 457 U.S. 202 ([[1982]]). [http://cdn.loc.gov/service/ll/usrep/usrep457/usrep457202/usrep457202.pdf PDF]. </ref> which is the case in which the Supreme Court found that all [[school children]] have the right to go to [[school]] no matter their immigration status. The government in that case was trying to argue the children in that were not persons within the jurisdiction of the state of [[Texas]] and they didn't have the right to equal protection of Texas law. The Supreme Court completely rejected this, as [[William J. Brennan Jr.|Justice Brennan]] writing.

<blockquote>
And whatever his status under the immigration laws, an alien is [surely] a “person” in any ordinary sense of that term.
</blockquote>

THOMAS:

: You would think.

MATT:

: Good to know. Thank you. Yeah, appreciate that.

<blockquote>
Aliens, even aliens whose presence in this country is unlawful, have long been recognized as “persons” guaranteed due process of law.
</blockquote> 

THOMAS:

: And you think this is safe? I don't know.

MATT:

: This is not directly relevant, but I also want to mention this footnote here because, of course, I've got to mention a footnote.

THOMAS:

: Sure, yeah.

MATT:

<blockquote>
We have never suggested that the class of persons who might avail themselves of … equal protection guarantee[s] is less than coextensive with that entitled to due process.

To the contrary, we have recognized …

 “… [e]very citizen or subject of another country, while domiciled here, is within the allegiance and the protection, and consequently subject to the jurisdiction, of the United States.”
</blockquote> 

: And they specifically cite the 14th Amendment and that there's no plausible distinction between the jurisdiction that's over resident aliens and people who unlawfully entered. And that's, again, that's [[1982]]. And that's not directly an immigration case, but it's just really making the point that there's no reason to visit Wong Kim Ark. The 14th Amendment means what it says. And ''that'' has generally been, now, I will say, generally speaking, there has been kind of a fringe, wingnut, view of this that subject to the jurisdiction does not mean subject to the jurisdiction. That it means if you are a non-citizen from another country that you're actually subject to the jurisdiction of that country, which doesn't make a lot of sense if you think about it for five seconds because if you kill someone, you're going to be subject to the jurisdiction of United States law. That's how that works. And I've heard this argument that somehow, oh, sure, there's legal jurisdiction if they commit a crime, but it's not political jurisdiction, which isn't a thing. I know. I know.

: They have to really stretch on this one. And I'm not saying they couldn't. I'm not saying they couldn't get there, but it is a stretch to the point that, I'm sure you're familiar with [[James C. Ho|James Ho]] of the [[United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit|Fifth Circuit]]. He's a very conservative justice. It does seem like right now he is trying out for [[Clarence Thomas]]' seat and he may well get it. But James Ho has been a fierce defender of [[birthright citizenship]]. In [[2009]], he wrote the definitive guide<ref name="aic_200909_myths-birthright-citizenship">[[James C. Ho|James Ho]]; [[Margaret Stock]]; [[Eric Ward]]; [[Elizabeth Wydra]]. ([[2009-09]]). “[https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/research/made-america-myths-and-facts-about-birthright-citizenship Myths & Facts About Birthright Citizenship]”. ''[[americanimmigrationcouncil.org]]''. Accessed [[2025-01-26]]. [https://web.archive.org/web/20160827020637/https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/research/made-america-myths-and-facts-about-birthright-citizenship Archived] from the original on [[2016-08-27]]. [https://web.archive.org/web/20160827021008/https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/sites/default/files/research/Birthright%20Citizenship%20091509.pdf Archived PDF]. </ref> to it from the [[American Immigration Council]] with [[Margaret Stock]], who's one of my immigration law heroes. Got to talk to her a while back. And other luminaries, and very, very strong, firm defense in saying there's really no other way to read this, [[Originalism|originalist]] or otherwise, we have to say that everybody born in this country is a citizen. And we'll come back to James Ho, but I think it's notable that somebody who's now considered to be one of the nuttiest people on the Fifth Circuit as of [[2009]] and onward, even more recently, has had this opinion.

: I went listening to, and again, the things I do for you, the listeners, I went listening to a panel of the [[Heritage Foundation]]<ref name="yt_20180928_heritage-foundation-birthright-citizenship">[[Arthur Milikh]] (host); [[Michael Anton]]; [[Ryan Williams]] (moderator); [[Edward J. Erler]]; [[John Fonte]]. ([[2018-09-28]]). “[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujqYBldkdq0 The Case Against Birthright Citizenship]”. ''[[youtube.com]]'', [https://www.youtube.com/@TheHeritageFoundation @TheHeritageFoundation]. Accessed [[2025-01-26]]. </ref> to try to understand. There's, there's a man named [[Michael Anton]] who's been stirring this up. He's responsible for sort of getting this into Trump's head as far as we know. And I tried. I tried to understand it. I really did. I listened closely. Michael Anton's theory, as much as I could tell, is that [[social compact theory]] is incompatible with [[birthright citizenship]].

THOMAS:

: What?

MATT:

: It's the most I've ever heard conservatives talking about consent in my life. He's talking about how you have to consent to the jurisdiction of a country and we have to consent to you. And, you know, this, this is like a right of kings kind of stuff to allow people to just be born on our soil. It's a very theoretical, a very sort of philosophical argument that has no basis in actual law. His mentor, [[Edward J. Erler|Ed Erlach]], also spoke at this panel and just said straight up, well, you know, everyone believes that the 14th Amendment adopted the English common law model of [[Jus Soli]], but, you know, I don't. Pretty much.

THOMAS:

: Cool.

MATT:

: Yeah, I know. Because again, there is so much contemporary stuff at the time on both sides of this issue of people acknowledging the 14th Amendment was going to allow anybody born in this country to be a citizen. And there were some people including [[Andrew Jackson]] who did not like it. The [[Civil Rights Act of 1866]] passed over Johnson's veto. And one of their arguments is that they chose not to include the word “allegiance” in the Civil Rights Act to define citizenship. And, you know, this is before the 14th Amendment because allegiance to the king could be temporary. So they changed it to jurisdiction.

: And again, what they're trying to say is they're just resting completely on subject to the jurisdiction. And clearly, subject to the jurisdiction was supposed to exclude people who were the children of diplomats. Or, you know, if the king of [[England]] came over and his wife had a baby while they're visiting, right? I mean, we can't have that person being a citizen necessarily. That kind of thing. There are people who are in the United States who are not necessarily subject to our jurisdiction in that way. But that's a very ''limited'' class of people. Now, that is different from the thing that James Ho was recently asked about that made headlines.

: And I wanted to mention that since that was a thing. He was asked in a very theoretical way about this new theory, this new, even nuttier, theory that has popped up that has suggested that if we classify the people who are in this country without permission as invading aliens, that somehow we could say, because there's this language I read you before about how, obviously, if we were under invasion, if [[China]] was just full-on invading the West Coast and they had soldiers that started giving birth in hospitals, we could say, potentially, those people are not U.S. citizens because you're not supposed to be here at all. You're actually forcefully invading us. That is a very unusual situation that is, never happened.

: And this freakish, ghoulish, wingnut theory would require a finding that a [[Honduras|Honduran]] immigrant who came here escaping gang violence and had a child was an invader. That they were just coming here as, and again, that has a very specific legal meaning, an [[invasion]]. It has to be something that's actually sanctioned by the Honduran government. That's not happening. [[Honduras]] is not just invading us. [[Mexico]] is not invading us. Despite the language that you keep hearing. Yeah. Because, you know, this thing that Ho said really made headlines and got people saying, okay, well, this is it. You know, as soon as it gets to the court, they're going to overturn birthright citizenship. And this is what he said.<ref> [[James C. Ho]]; [[Josh Blackman]]. ([[2024-11-11]]). “[https://reason.com/volokh/2024/11/11/an-interview-with-judge-james-c-ho/ An Interview with Judge James C. Ho]”. ''[[reason.com]]''. Accessed [[2025-01-26]]. “Q: One of your opinions that has been [https://reason.com/volokh/2024/07/31/en-banc-fifth-circuit-rules-for-texas-in-water-buoy-case-but-doesnt-resolve-issue-of-whether-illegal-migration-qualifies-as-invasion/ recently trashed] by academics concerns the states having the power to declare illegal immigration as an invasion. Some critics have charged you with being hostile to immigrants. This criticism is a bit rich, considering you are yourself an immigrant. And you've argued in [https://www.gibsondunn.com/wp-content/uploads/documents/publications/Ho-DefiningAmerican.pdf support of constitutional birthright citizenship]—a topic that I [https://www.wsj.com/articles/birthright-citizenship-is-a-constitutional-mandate-1541025952 agree with you on]. Is the criticism of your invasion opinion the kind of academic commentary that you were thinking of? ¶ A: I'm not going to talk about any pending case, of course. But anyone who reads my prior writings on these topics should see a direct connection between birthright citizenship and invasion. Birthright citizenship is supported by various Supreme Court opinions, both unanimous and separate opinions involving Justices Scalia, Thomas, Alito, and others. But birthright citizenship obviously doesn't apply in case of war or invasion. No one to my knowledge has ever argued that the children of invading aliens are entitled to birthright citizenship. And I can't imagine what the legal argument for that would be. It's like the debate over unlawful combatants after 9/11. Everyone agrees that birthright citizenship doesn't apply to the children of lawful combatants. And it's hard to see anyone arguing that unlawful combatants should be treated more favorably than lawful combatants.” </ref>

<blockquote>
Birthright citizenship is supported by various Supreme Court opinions, both unanimous and separate opinions involving Justices [[Antonin Scalia|Scalia]], [[Clarence Thomas|Thomas]], [[Samuel Alito|Alito]], and others.
</blockquote>

: So he's even there saying, like, even my guys agree with this.

<blockquote>
But birthright citizenship obviously doesn't apply in case of war or invasion. No one, by knowledge, has ever argued that the children of invading aliens are entitled to birthright citizenship.
</blockquote>

: So, nobody's actually argued that they're not either, at least not in front of a judge. So if that's where you want to go with it.

THOMAS:

: Also, they didn't do the terminology of “invading aliens” because that's not real.

MATT:

: Yeah, right. You know, there is this, in [[United States v. Wong Kim Ark|''Wong Kim Ark'']], there's the language I read you before about during a hostile occupation, you know, of enemies in our territory.

THOMAS:

: Sure, that makes sense.

MATT:

: That would make a lot of sense. I mean, it would be a weird loophole if you could just come over here and an invading army could just bring over a bunch of pregnant women and start giving birth. But that's the way they talk about it. And there is such a thing as [[Birth tourism|birthright citizenship tourism]]. I will acknowledge that does happen. You can buy a package for, and these are going to be very, very wealthy people around the world, often from [[Russia]] and [[China]]. You can buy a package and come over here and have a really nice hospital visit in a deluxe suite and you can give birth and that child will have a U.S. passport. And I'm not saying that's not potentially a problem, but that is a very, extremely limited class of things that's happening that is not a common issue. And for the most part, the chaos of undoing this, which I'll talk about at the end, would far outstrip any benefit you think it might have in the short term.

: So let's hear about [[Donald Trump|Trump]]'s perspective on this and what he actually wants to do. I'm going to start with, yeah, I know. We couldn't get through this without hearing Trump's voice. I'm very sorry. It's okay. So [[2015]], here's a conversation that caught my ear back then.

THOMAS:

: [[2015]], wow.

MATT:

: Yeah.

THOMAS:

: Several insurrections ago. That's so...

MATT:

: This is not long after he announced. This is very much on his mind. This is a conversation with [[Bill O'Reilly]] and I regret to inform you that Bill O'Reilly sounds pretty reasonable here.<ref name="foxnews_20150819_oreilley-trump-immigration">[[Bill O'Reilly]] (host); [[Donald Trump]]. ([[2015-08-19]]). “[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80cY76l-pMQ&t=110s Trump on Immigration Plan: 'Start by Building a Big, Beautiful, Powerful Wall']”. ''[[youtube.com]]'', [https://www.youtube.com/@FoxnewsinsiderPlus @FoxnewsinsiderPlus]. Accessed [[2025-01-26]]. </ref>

<blockquote>
BILL O'REILLY:

: A lot of the illegal immigration and, not only that, the drug trafficking, which is out of control. So I support the wall. But then you say, well, we've got to have mass deportations. That's not going to happen because the 14th Amendment says if you're born here, you're an American and you can't kick Americans out. And then if you wanted to deport the people already here, each and every one are entitled to due process and it would take decades to do that and gazillions of dollars and the courts would block you at every turn. You must know all that.

DONALD TRUMP:

: Bill, I think you're wrong about the 14th Amendment and, frankly, the whole thing with anchor babies and the concept of anchor babies. I don't think you're right about that. I think it's going to be proven that you're wrong.

O'REILLY:

: you want me to quote you the amendment? If you're born here, you're an American. Period. (Matt Cameron: Close enough.) Period.

TRUMP:

: But there are many lawyers, many lawyers are saying that's not the way it is in terms of this.
</blockquote>

MATT:

: Many lawyers. He always like to cite the [[Claremont Institute]].

THOMAS:

: Yeah, many lawyers are saying, God, what a different time. [[2015]], the way he's talking to them, like this is some clown that's not going to be a,

MATT:

: Yeah

THOMAS:

: You know, and then, look at now, he's taken over everything. It's just, wow. Wow.

MATT:

: Yep. No, I wanted to go back that far just to show not only was this very, within the first few months of his campaign, this is on his mind, but, you know, I want to acknowledge this is something that Donald Trump has apparently believed to the extent he believes anything for quite a while and want to do something about it. It's not new. And he certainly didn't do anything about it in his first term. There was some talk about it. And there have been various legislative ideas about how to undo this, but it's generally been agreed this is a constitutional issue.

: So now, we're being promised that he's going to sign an executive order. So let's hear him talk about his plans for, this is from [[Agenda 47]].<ref name="rumble_20230530_trump-end-birthright-citizenship">[[Donald Trump]]. ([[2023-05-30]]). “[https://rumble.com/v2qxy9q-agenda47-day-one-executive-order-ending-automatic-citizenship-for-children-.html Agenda47: Day One Executive Order Ending Citizenship for Children of Illegals and Outlawing Birth Tourism]”. ''[[rumble.com]]'', [https://rumble.com/c/DonaldTrump DonaldTrump]. Accessed [[2025-01-26]]. </ref>

THOMAS:

: That'll do it.

MATT:

: Yeah.

THOMAS:

: Which is totally not [[Project 2025]].

MATT:

: No. Very different thing. Also something he hasn't read.

THOMAS:

: Entirely.

MATT:

: It's on donaldjtrump.com, but.

THOMAS:

: He's like, I haven't read it. This one I do want to read. I just lazy. I haven't gotten to it.

<blockquote>
They come from jails, prisoners, some of the toughest, meanest people you'll ever see. The United States is among the only countries in the world that says that even neither parent is a citizen nor even lawfully in the country, their future children are automatic citizens the moment the parents trespass onto our soil. As has been laid out by many scholars, this current policy is based on a historical myth and a willful misinterpretation of the law by the open borders advocates. There aren't that many of them around. It's amazing. Who wants this? Who wants to have prisoners coming into our country? Who wants to have people, who are very sick, coming into our country? (THOMAS: He's riffing. I feel like he's gone off-script, Matt.) People from mental institutions coming into our country. And come they will, they're coming by the thousands, by the tens of thousands. (M: I'm waiting for the part where he talks about the border. ) As part of my plan to secure the border on day one, (THOMAS: There was a cut. Clearly they were, like, “alright…”. ) my new chairman office, I will sign an executive order making clear to federal agencies that under the correct interpretation of the law, going forward, the future children of illegal aliens will not receive automatic U.S. citizenship. It's things like this that bring millions of people to our country. And they enter our country illegally. My policy will choke off a major incentive for continued illegal immigration, deter more migrants from coming, and encourage many of the aliens [[Joe Biden]] has unlawfully let into our country to go back to their home countries. They must go back. (M: Okay, sure. ) Nobody could.
</blockquote>

MATT:

: So by finding out their children won't be citizens, this is the thing they came for, was to have babies who are citizens. And I think maybe people know this, I hope people know this, but you don't just automatically get residency or citizenship by having a child here. I can't say that strictly enough. You have to wait 21 years until that child becomes a 21-year-old U.S. citizen to file for you. And even then, if you've been here illegally and entered without permission, you're going to have a very long, long road ahead of you.

THOMAS:

: Boy, these people are planners.

MATT:

: Yeah, long-term thinkers.

THOMAS:

: They're invading, they're timing their pregnancies so that they come here. Then they're waiting 21 years. And then, you know, I want some of these industrious folk to make up our population.

MATT:

: Americans can barely keep a savings account.

THOMAS:

: Exactly.

MATT:

: So what Trump is talking about here is an executive order that they've been kicking around for a while. And, you know, obviously, when I talk about Trump can't do things, I mean that legally this is something you can't do. But I do believe that as soon as this order were signed, that there will be an injunction immediately because the [[ACLU]] will take this to court. What will happen is, under this executive order, the children of people who can't prove their legal status, and they're going to limit it to, this is going to be even worse, they're going to limit it to U.S. citizens are lawful permanent residents.

: So if you have [[Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals|DACA]], or temporary protected status, your children would still be considered to be undocumented. I know. So what they can do, obviously, the most that you can do with an executive order is to direct the [[Social Security Administration]] to not issue a [[social security number]] and to not issue [[passports]] from the [[US Department of State|State Department]]. So that's what they're going to be doing. That's how the executive order will work.

: And, you know, and the first time, and the ACLU is ready to go, hair trigger, I'm sure they have the basics of this suit already outlined, and as soon as one of these agencies refuses to issue one of these documents for one of these babies, they're going to be rushing to the best court that they can find for it, and they will get a [[permanent injunction]]. There is no way that this will not get an injunction in a federal court because the harm is so overwhelming. And the legal theory here is so on the fringe that it just has to qualify to get an injunction. So during that, during that time, none of this will happen. There will just be an injunction in place until the [[US Supreme Court|Supreme Court]] reviews it.

: And at this point, we have to ask, what happens when this reaches our current U.S. Supreme Court in its current composition?

THOMAS:

: Yep. Yep.

MATT:

: And do they really want to do this? I will argue to you that this would be, and again, we're talking about prospectively. He's saying children born from this date forward. He's not talking about retroactively revoking everybody's citizenship. Maybe if they got a win on this, they'd try to go back and do that, but that would be absolute chaos. But this would be chaos enough. Because I would argue to you that this would be immediately more consequential than ''[[Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization|Dobbs]]''{{bkc|[[2025-01-26]]: ''[[Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization]]'' was a [[2022]] [[US Supreme Court]] decision that overturned ''[[Roe v. Wade]]'' ([[1973]]) and ''[[Planned Parenthood v. Casey]]'' ([[1992]]), mostly removing US federal rights to an [[abortion]]. }} and potentially far more consequential because it immediately renders a whole lot of people born, you know, after a certain date undocumented. They don't have a country. And so now, you're creating a much worse situation even than just having undocumented people. You've got people that would have to actually go to some effort to get passports from the countries that their parents are from to prove their citizenship there. And they'd be among us and completely, not even second-class citizens, they would just not even be people, really, for the purposes of the federal government. Which is the idea. That's what they want, obviously.

: Does the Supreme Court want to sign off on this? Because potentially, we're talking about increasing significantly the size of the undocumented population. You're talking about creating a whole subclass of people that just don't have any rights.

: By the way, when you have [[jus sanguinis]], which is the law of the blood, which a lot of Europe has, you end up with situations like they have in [[France]] and [[Germany]] where people born to people living in France and Germany are not French or German citizens. And that has caused a lot of civil unrest, as you can imagine. They're completely outside society. You've got riots. You've got people that are living in terrible conditions that never feel included. And you've got institutionalized [[xenophobia]].

THOMAS:

: What are they citizens of? They just don't get to be citizens of anything?

MATT:

: They're still considered citizens of the countries their parents are from.

THOMAS:

: Well, those countries probably have a say in it. It's not like they get automatic citizenship from another country, do they?

MATT:

: Right. So, well, if your parents are, yeah, again, that really depends. I can't speak on all this.

THOMAS:

: It depends on the other country, right?

MATT:

: Right. If you're from [[Turkey]] and your parents have claimed a Turkish citizenship, you could apply for Turkish citizenship at that point. But you're never going to become an actual full voting member of France or Germany. And that's by design.

THOMAS:

: Wow.

MATT:

: And that's what they're trying to do here. But we have had birthright citizens for all this time. And it's not unusual. A lot of countries still haven't. But the system shock of trying to process what you're going to do with this, because then you're throwing it to Congress, right? Which is never a good idea. At the point at which you've got people who are not getting social security numbers and passports, Congress is going to have to figure out what to do with them, what their status is. And the immigration authorities will have to decide if they want to start deporting these people who were born here, which is a very unusual situation as well.

THOMAS:

: Jeez.

MATT:

: Yeah. So this theory, as I said, has no basis in any Supreme Court precedent. There's no deeply rooted right to the opposite of birthright citizenship. And arguably, I mean, not even arguably, if you're talking about deeply rooted rights, birthright citizenship is absolutely one of them. It goes back quite a ways. So again, I know better than to take these people, you know, on their own terms, at their word. I know that they're hypocrites. I understand that if they want to get somewhere, they're going to get somewhere. But the [[originalism|originalist]] argument for this is extremely weak.

: And again, for what it's worth, call me naive. I don't know. Because again, obviously there are a lot of people who thought that we would never get to the point where there would be an individual right to own a firearm in the United States. The [[Second Amendment to the United States Constitution|Second Amendment]], right, was always read to mean that that applied to [[militias]]. There's a famous quote from [[Warren Burger]] about how the gun lobby's interpretation of the Second Amendment is “one of the greatest pieces of fraud, I repeat, fraud, on the American people, by special interest groups that I've ever seen in my lifetime.”. <ref name="pbs_19911216_burger-2nd-amendment-fraud">[[Warren Burger]]. ([[1991-12-16]]). “[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKfQpGk7KKw WATCH: Special interest push behind 2nd Amendment a ‘fraud,’ former chief justice said in 1991]”. ''[[youtube.com]]'', [https://www.youtube.com/@PBSNewsHour @PBSNewsHour], ''MacNeil/Lehrer Newshour''. Accessed [[2025-01-26]]. </ref> And of course, that became, thanks to [[Antonin Scalia]], became the law, that interpretation of the individual right to own a gun. Not saying things can't charge.

THOMAS:

: Well done, Burger.

MATT:

: That's right. So, you know, maybe I will end up being the [[Warren Burger]] of the future here. And having said that under all precedent, there's no way that they can actually reconsider this and do it. I'm not going to say no way. I'm not going to say it's impossible. I'm just going to say it's going to be a long fight. And even if Trump starts doing this day one and denying these things, as I'm sure he will try, there will be an injunction. That I am absolutely secure in saying. It's about as secure as I've been saying anything on this show, that there's no way that a court is going to allow that to go forward without full review.

: So this, again, in terms of triage, in terms of the people we need to worry about right now, babies being born on our soil, not so concerned. I'm going to talk in later shows about the people that I am concerned about and what we could do about them. And again, we'll be able to watch this. We'll see it coming. We'll be able to follow the arguments. You know, step by step, we'll take you through it as it comes. My message, I guess, today is just that this is not something to worry about for the moment. And if it needs to be, we'll talk about it.

THOMAS:

: Yeah, I hear you. I think that, I don't know, part of me while you were saying that was, on the other hand, I can take this as a really, really horrifying preview of what could be possible. But I hear you. I mean, there's so many steps along the way. There's so many other horrible things before then, which I guess is encouraging? But no, this is good knowledge. This is good information. If any of these steps along the way happen, obviously you'll be the first to know. We'll be keeping an eye on that. But yeah, we shouldn't be spreading this panic unnecessarily.

MATT:

: Not at all. And especially, I've been seeing people saying that it'll be applied retroactively, which isn't even what Trump is asking for, as you heard in that video, he's saying prospectively going forward. And that would be ''absolute'' chaos. That would tear this country apart. I mean, my grandmother, when she tried to travel abroad for the first time, had the hardest time getting her own [[birth certificate]] to prove that she was born in the United States. Imagine if everybody in the United States right now had to prove their citizenship so that they could prove that their kids were born here. And it's just that that's...

THOMAS:

: Crazy.

MATT:

: This happened in the [[Dominican Republic]] when they denaturalized a bunch of [[Haiti|Haitians]] and, you know, just an openly racist, xenophobic thing. And it caused all kinds of problems. It's still causing problems. Again, not to say it couldn't happen, not to say they might not try it. This is something that the [[Heritage Foundation]] at this point has become dogma for them, that they're saying since at least [[2018]], I could find, that they've been arguing that birthright citizenship doesn't mean what it says.

: So, you know, again, I'm not saying that we may not be seeing signs that this could start to turn around. But even what [[James C. Ho|James Ho]] there said isn't reconsidering necessarily his fundamental position. I haven't seen anything, unless I've missed something, that James Ho has said that he's reconsidering the things that he's already written about his firm defense of birthright citizenship. And even in that quote I read you, he was still saying that he still acknowledges the precedence from the people he agrees with.

THOMAS:

: All right. Well, I, for one, feel great now. No, I'm just kidding. Thanks for that breakdown. I know this is something you've been wanting to get off your chest for a while. So stop scaring people unnecessarily, everybody. Thanks so much, Matt, for the breakdown.

: Thanks for listening, everybody. Hey, please support the show. Please share the show. If you see anybody scaring someone, you know, maybe send them our way.

MATT:

: I'll set them straight.

THOMAS:

: Yeah, exactly. All right. Thanks so much, and we'll see you on Wednesday, everyone.

===Outro===
This podcast is a production of Opening Arguments Media, LLC, All Rights Reserved. It is produced and edited by Thomas Smith, who also provided the fabulous intro and outro music used with permission.

===Bloopers===
MATT:

: Let me just say up front
that I'm not an idiot.

==History==

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==External links==
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{{Refsec}}

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==History==

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==See also==
* [[Wikipedia:{{PAGENAME}}]]
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==External links==
* {{bk wikis}}

==References==
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==Comments==
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OA 1061

2025-02-11T20:13:55Z

Admin: Text replacement - "]" to "]"

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==Stats==
* Hosts: [[Thomas Smith]]; [[Matt Cameron]]
* Title: A 9/11 Lawsuit No One Is Talking About Reveals Deep Saudi Complicity
* Date published: [[2024-08-19]]
* Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/posts/9-11-lawsuit-no-110371017

==Podcast decription==
<blockquote>
OA1061

This week [[Matt Cameron|Matt]] shares a mostly under-the-radar story which has completely changed his understanding of the events of [[2001-09-11|September 11, 2001]].

As the 23rd anniversary of the [[September 11 attacks|attacks]] approaches, a mountain of information emerging from lawsuits filed by 9/11 families has revealed far more extensive ties between both [[al-Qaeda]] and at least two of the hijackers to the Saudi government than were ever previously known. Why has justice taken so long? How does the law even allow this suit to proceed, and why did Congress have to override [[Barack Obama]]’s veto to allow it to move forward? Why has some of the best journalism about this lawsuit been from [[Golf Digest]]? And has the time come for a second 9/11 commission to re-evaluate everything we thought we knew about the day that changed everything?

* [https://static1.squarespace.com/static/57fbbfa88419c2de35c1639d/t/58d03556ff7c50abde86720f/1490040171270/Ashton-v-KSA-2017.pdf Complaint in Ashton v. Kingdom of Saudi Arabia] (filed March 20, 2017)

* [https://www.floridabulldog.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/9795saudi.pdf Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s Memorandum in Support of Motion to Dismiss] (filed 5/10/24)

* [https://www.floridabulldog.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Redacted-Brief.pdf Plaintiffs’ Opposition to Motion to Dismiss] (filed 5/7/24)

* [https://www.golfdigest.com/story/blood-oil-golf-liv-golf-emergence-highlights-kingdoms-troubling-influence Blood, Oil and Golf: The emergence of LIV Golf highlights the Kingdom’s troubling influence Alan Shipnuck, Golf Digest] (8/19/2022)

* [https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/05/september-11-attacks-saudi-arabia-lawsuit/678430/ New 9/11 Evidence Points to Deep Saudi Complicity, Daniel Benjamin and Stephen Simon, The Atlantic] (5/20/24)

* [https://28pages.org/the-declassified-28-pages/ “The Declassified 28 Pages,”] 28Pages.org

* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VmeOhUyuyo8 60 Minutes excerpt which includes Omar Al Bayoumi’s 1999 video of the US Capitol] (6/20/2024)
</blockquote>

==Notes==
* [[Matt Cameron]] notes senior leaders of [[Saudi Arabia]] actively supported the plot to crash airplanes into buildings in the [[United States]].

==Transcript==
''Note: Text copyright [[Opening Arguments, LLC]].''

<blockquote>
[ intro ]

THOMAS: Hello and welcome to [[Opening Arguments]]. This is episode 1061. I'm [[Thomas Smith]]. That over there is real life lawyer [[Matt Cameron]]. How you doing?

MATT: Hey, Thomas. I'm excited to talk about something I just have not seen covered enough.

T: Yeah, you know, the legal system moves slowly.
But...
How...
How are we just having updates on a 9-11 lawsuit now?
Let me do some math. 23-ish years later.

M: Yeah, coming up on the 23rd anniversary in a few weeks here.
I mean, a number of reasons we might get into as to why we haven't heard that much about it.
But there has been not too much long-form journalism about this.
There's been some basic, you know, mainstream coverage.
But until an [[Atlantic]] piece back in May, the only major long-form coverage of this was in [[Golf Digest]].
Which is usually where I go for my anti-terrorism news.

T: Oh!
Is it because of the Saudi League that they're doing?

M: Yeah.

T: Yeah, wow.

M: They did a very long piece about that.
And they explained in detail about the claims that the families had, just to really underscore this.
And I want to start just to set this up.
I think that learning this information, as I have over the last couple of weeks, has really changed my view of September 11th.
And I think it should change the view of anybody listening.
Because there is a lot now that the [[9-11 Commission]] did not have.
And I guess I want to say this right at the beginning, just as I did with the MKUltra episode.
Everything we're going to be talking about here is going to be carefully sourced in places from [[PBS]], [[ProPublica]], [[New York Times]].
These are all major sources.
If it's something that's only alleged in the complaint, I'll be clear that it's only alleged in the complaint.
But if half the stuff alleged in this complaint is true, then this is an incredible case.
And almost all of it is verifiable, just the documentation that has been released.

T: Wow.
Well, as crazy as this is, it's probably not as crazy as MKUltra. But! It's as well sourced and I can't wait to hear.
I know there is some crazy stuff about this.
So I'm so glad you looked into it.
And I'm really fascinated to hear what's happening and how it took so long.
So on the other side of this break, we're going to get into it.

(commercial break)

T: What is happening? Who? (laughs) I just heard about these buildings coming down.
What happened?
Seems crazy.
No, not really.
But how did we just have new updates now?
That's the first question.
How could it have taken so long?
I don't get it.
You can say my question sucks if you want and move on.

M: No, it's a good question.
It's a good question.
I think that it's taken so long because [[US Congress|Congress]] had to actually change the law to make this lawsuit possible.
The families have been running up against the wall of the existing law again and again and again.
Most of the case was dismissed at some point until Congress finally changed the law.
So I want to take you through how that happened.
I think that if the law had been as it is now, as of [[2002]], [[2003]], maybe we'd be seeing a lot more justice here.
But just off the top, this suit is outlining in exhaustive detail–
And I recommend that anybody who's halfway interested in this, go just browse the complaint.
If you have any doubt about the things we're saying, about what I'm saying about the Saudi government's complicity here, just read the complaint and read the plaintiff's response to the defendant's motion to dismiss because it's just overwhelming.
The evidence that the Saudi government was not only aware that there was going to be a major attack in the United States involving planes crashing into buildings, but was actively facilitating it, actually helping to plan it.
And senior officials of the Saudi government.
And again, the degree to which the Saudi government itself was involved is still being litigated.

T: But we knew all this.
That's why we bombed [[Iraq]].

M: That's right.
And Afghanistan. Naturally.

T: And Afghanistan.
You're right.
I don't know if geographically I'm terrible at it.
Is that getting close?
Like, were we closing in, maybe?

M: Americans aren't great at geography.
Yeah, that might be the whole thing.
But the question I keep running against as I think about all of this is what you just said.
Why not just invade [[Saudi Arabia]]?
Once we proved that 15 out of the 19 people were nationals of Saudi Arabia who were responsible for the hijackings, we have extensive funding that we can prove.
We know that they were funding [[al-Qaeda]].
That they were funding al-Qaeda.
All this other extremism that became the [[Taliban]], everything else.
I think the answer is that we've been depending on them as a sort of geopolitical axis there, along with [[Israel]].
And we're ready to have them fight a [[proxy war]] because they're deeply opposed to [[Iran]] and they'll do anything on our behalf for Iran, it seems.
And now with the [[Abraham Accords]], they're moving closer to a better relationship with Israel.
So at this point, I think we're trying not to rock the boat too much.
But this is a boat that needs rocking.
This is not a country that we should be this close with.

T: But back then, I feel like it's hard to remember.
But I don't remember us having anywhere near the friendly relationship back then that kinda now have with them.
So it's one thing now to say, yeah, now we'll let them get away with [[Assassination of Jamal Khashoggi|murdering a journalist in an embassy]], apparently, and do almost nothing.
But back then, I still don't fully get it.

M: No, we've been counting on them for a long time as allies in that area.
And if nothing else, [[Oil reserves in Saudi Arabia|it's a quarter of the world's oil]].
And that's really what it comes down to.
But if they say that we've invaded Iraq for the oil, which I certainly don't dispute, why would we not have gone to the place that has a quarter of the world's oil?
It's just, I don't know.
This is a very complicated geopolitical question.
And it's a little beyond the scope of this discussion.
But let's start with the fact that you can't really sue a foreign government.
That's the first part.

T: Now, when you say “you”, you mean just like a citizen?

M: Right.

T: Okay. Can a country sue another country? Is there somebody that can do that?
Or is it just not really how it works?

M: Yeah, there are ways.
But it's very limited.
And I'm talking about the [[Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act|Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act of 1976]].
It generally controls this stuff.
That's 28 U.S.C. 1330.
And generally speaking, it only has a couple of exceptions.
And the families in this case found themselves tripping up against these established exceptions because the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act
was not really contemplating a non-state actor with possible backing from a state doing something
like this on U.S. soil.
So the exceptions are that you can sue a foreign government for non-commercial torts, because
they don't want people suing over business deals, obviously, occurring within the United
States, as this did.
And the other exception is that you can sue state sponsors of terrorism.
But of course, the Saudi government has never been determined to be a state sponsor of terrorism
despite overwhelming evidence that they have been a state sponsor of terrorism for a very long time, for most of our lifetimes.

T: Boy, we got to fix our detector.
You know, like, I don't know if we're using one of those [[Ghostbusters]] things or whatever is detecting
whether or not you're a state sponsor of terrorism, maybe we need to adjust the dials on that a little bit.

M: Well, the problem with that detector is it's really bad in the presence of oil.
For some reason, that really seems to throw it off.

T: (laughs) A lot of interference. You know, oil.
Yeah, it's a technical thing.

M: Really suppresses that needle.
Yeah.
So I want to take you through.
I don't want to get too far in the weeds.
But I think the legal evolution here is interesting.
And it's also interesting to sort of see why Congress had to finally do something.
Because everyone understood this needed to change.
And I want to thank a friend of the show, [[Steve Vladeck]], for a lot of this analysis.
He's done a lot of writing, obviously, on national security issues.
It's one of his main things.
And I was really helped a lot.
I was edified by a lot of what he had to say about this.
So I want to make sure I give him credit.
So you've got this fundamental problem that the courts are just not going to find jurisdiction over the Saudi government
because none of these exceptions clearly apply.
And the families have been starting in [[2002]].
There's another major one we're going to talk about that started in 2017.
They're kind of conglomerated right now.
I'm going to sort of refer to them as one sort of giant action because the same issues arise in all of them.
And there were two [[2005]] rulings early on when the families are trying to go after banks.
They're trying to go after Saudi officials.
They're trying to go after anybody they could prove was linked to funding or plotting anything.
And these two cases were called NRE terrorist attacks one and two (?).
And these went through.

M: It's interesting just to track the analysis of how they're looking at this.
So the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, when they're looking at these exceptions,
the district court originally found that the discretionary function exception applied,
which means that if a foreign state is doing something that arises from its discretionary function,
which they literally said was funding terror groups where it puts its money.
Yeah.

T: Yeah, in my budget, I put that.
That's not like medical or, you know, rent or anything.
I put that in discretionary personally.

M: Just terror.
Yeah.
But they found that that actually, because it was a discretionary spending thing,
the original district court decision found.
That the foreign states were protected.
And the Second Circuit reviewed this.
They agreed that there was no jurisdiction, but they found that there could be no exception,
simply because the U.S. had not designated the Saudis a state sponsor of terror,
which has been the fundamental problem through all of this,
because there's non-state actors that were officially responsible.
The other issue that continued to come up, as we'll discuss, is ''secondary liability''.
And I'll get to that in a minute.
But obviously, you can't say that the Saudis were primarily responsible,
because obviously Al-Qaeda as an organization actually carried it out.
And you have to be able to show these links to show secondary.

M: So when this was done,
this went up.
This is just a little interesting note here on a process I don't think we've talked about.
But the Supreme Court, when it receives a cert petition,
it will sometimes put out what's called a “call for the view of the [[Solicitor General of the United States|Solicitor General]]”.
So literally just kind of calling up the [[Solicitor General of the United States|SG]] and saying,
hey, what do you think?
You represent the United States in front of us.
Would you like to provide a brief?
And apparently this is not so much a call as an actual order.
And [[Elena Kagan]] was the Solicitor General at the time.
And she actually introduced a new argument, which has come up since,
that you theoretically could allow a non-state sponsor of terror to be sued,
but only if the entire tort took place in the territorial U.S.
So sort of merging the two exemptions that are there.

T: Now, not to make light of it, but is terrorism a [[tort]]?

M: Yeah, it's strange to think of.
But yeah, I mean, we've got wrongful death, we've got property damage.

T: Building demolition.
I don't know.
Hijacking.
A lot of things, I guess.
It's just down to like the death part.

M: Yeah, the wrongful death is the main thing, right?
But certainly there's a lot of other claims.
It is very strange, though, to think of the worst terrorist attack in American history as a “tort”.
It's kind of the least of it.
Yeah.

T: Just the guy on the—
Have you been hit by two to three jets?
Yeah.
That's not really how it works.
It's weird to think of that, but you know.

M: Yeah, but if you can get money, let's get money out of this.
So this became more and more of an issue because everything,
like all of these families, every one of these litigations,
were just finding themselves up against the wall of the law not really applying to them.
So Congress got energized about this.
And this was an unusually bipartisan thing.
It was first introduced in [[2009]].
But it's the [[Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act]].
It was originally introduced by [[John Cornyn]] and [[Chuck Schumer]],
so you can get an idea of the across-the-isle-ness of this.
And it went through the [[United States Senate|Senate]] with no opposition.
And it unanimously passed the House, which, again, in [[2016-05|May 2016]],
I don't think it was much that it was unanimously passing the [[United States House of Representatives|House]].

T: I do remember this, though.
I remember that, like, [[2016]], obviously, interesting for many reasons.
But I do think that election showed—was the first one where it really showed we were kind of moving on
from the mindset of 9-11 a bit, like the—you know?
And more people were like, hey, maybe we should look at what actually happened, you know?
And who actually sponsored it.
And I do remember I have a—kind of a [[libertarian]] friend who, at the time, was talking a lot about it.
It was refreshing that that was kind of a bipartisan thing somewhat.

M: It was.
But unfortunately, it was vetoed by [[Barack Obama]] almost immediately.
Because he actually said he was disappointed with Congress for passing this unanimously.
He said that it was unfortunate because it was an election year that they felt like they had to do it.
But he said he was looking out for the bigger interest.
It does seem very strange to veto a bill that allows 9-11 families to sue.
Because it was—the bill was written very broadly, but it was obviously supposed to be for this purpose.

T: Did they override the veto?

M: Yes.
Five days later, they did pass it, again, overwhelmingly.
Overrode the veto.<ref name="nyt_20160928_9-11-veto-override-senate">[[Jennifer Steinhauer]]; [[Mark Mazzetti]]; [[Julie Hirschfeld Davis]]. ([[2016-09-28]]). “[https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/29/us/politics/senate-votes-to-override-obama-veto-on-9-11-victims-bill.html Congress Votes to Override Obama Veto on 9/11 Victims Bill]”. ''[[nytimes.com]]''. Accessed [[2024-09-20]]. </ref>

T: What a weird thing.

M: It is.

T: Like, why would Obama—
It's weird to see something, like, unanimous and be like, I'm disappointed in you.
Like, what are you—

M: Yeah.

T: When's the last time Congress was unanimous on anything?

M: Yeah.
Well, I can read a bit from his statement, because I had the same question.
I certainly would like to know.
And he was positioning it as kind of more of a political and economic issue.
But he said that enacting this into law would neither protect Americans from terrorist attacks or improve the effectiveness of our response.

T: Doesn't seem like—
Doesn't seem like it was what we were trying to do, though.

M: Yeah.
He said it would permit litigation against countries that have not been designated by the executive branch as state sponsors of terrorism, nor taken direct actions in the United States.
He says it would be detrimental to the U.S. national interest more broadly.
I will tell you that the Saudis were very angry about this.
They were threatening to sell off $750 billion worth of treasuries, which would have hurt them quite a lot if they'd done it.<ref name="nytimes_20160415_saudi-warning-against-9-11-bill">[[Mark Mazzetti]]. ([[2016-04-15]]). “[https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/16/world/middleeast/saudi-arabia-warns-ofeconomic-fallout-if-congress-passes-9-11-bill.html Saudi Arabia Warns of Economic Fallout if Congress Passes 9/11 Bill]”. ''[[nytimes.com]]''. Accessed [[2024-09-20]]. </ref>
I don't think they would have gone—followed through on that.
But they were really worked up about this.
Even when they passed it, though—and there's—again, I'm going to link to [[Steve Vladeck]]'s analysis.
Because he's brilliant on this stuff.
And this is not my field, obviously.
And I trust what he's saying here.
But he has a couple of pieces on how they watered it down.
Even what was passed was not—didn't have the teeth that it should have, necessarily.

M: So there's another bill involved.
And again, I don't want to get too far in the weeds.
I want to try to keep this to what we need to understand this.
But the Anti-Terrorism Act<ref name="cr_19910207_grassley-ata">[[Chuck Grassley]]. ([[1991-02-07]]). “[https://www.congress.gov/bound-congressional-record/1991/02/07/senate-section (statement of Sen. Grassley)]”. ''[[Congressional Record]]'', Congress.gov, Library of Congress. Pages 3303–3304. Accessed [[2024-09-21]]. “I am proud to report that on [[1990-11-05|November 5, 1990]], President [[George H.W. Bush|Bush]] signed into law, the [[Anti-Terrorism Act of 1990]], a bill I introduced last April. … When I first introduced the [[ATA]] [[1990-04|last April]], our Federal laws provided for extra-territorial criminal jursidiction over terrorists but there was little civil relief available to the victims. The Anti-Terrorism Act fills this gap as the civil counterpart to the criminal statute. With the Anti-Terrorist Act law, victims of terrorism now have the right to have their day in court. 
The [[Anti-Terrorism Act]] removes the jurisdictional hurdles in the courts confronting victims and it empowers victims with all the weapons available in civil litigation, including: Subpoenas for financial records, banking information, and shipping receipts—this law provides victims with the tools necessary to find terrorists' assets and seize them. And this law accords victims of terrorism the remedies of [[United States tort law|American tort law]], including [[treble damages]] and attorney's fees.”. </ref>
is also in play here.
And that actually allows [[Treble damages|triple damages]], if you can prove.
Now, the Anti-Terrorism Act is very poorly drafted, as Ledeck points out.
So the Anti-Terrorism Act says any national of the United States injured in person, property, or business by reason of an act of international terrorism—or as a state and survivors—may sue, therefore, in any appropriate district court of the United States and shall recover threefold the damages.
But it doesn't say who you get to sue.
And it doesn't say what the standard for that suit is.
So there's been all kinds of litigation around this.

T: So how would you collect that?

M: Right. Well, that's—we'll talk about that at the end.
That's the real problem when you're talking about these people.
So in the Second and Seventh Circuit, both held at the point that JASTA was being considered,
that the Anti-Terrorism Act didn't allow [[secondary liability]]{{bkc|[[2024-09-21]]: i.e. the ATA does not permit victims of terrorism to sue people who facilitate terrorism (e.g. Saudi Arabia paying to fly terrorists to the US to attend flight school). According to the [[1991-02-07]] speech by Senator [[Chuck Grassley]], it seems his intended targets of the ATA were individual terrorists themselves who, after a successful hijacking would flee with their ill-gotten gains to a country such as Italy which might give them a lenient punishment, as was the case with the [[Achille Lauro hijacking|''Achille Lauro'' hijacking]] of [[1985-10-07]]. In that case, Grassley names two individuals convicted but then released early by [[Italy]] in connection with the hijacking: “[[Issa Abbas|Mohammed Abbas]], who is the cousin of [[Abu Abbas|Abul Abbas]]–the convicted murderer of Mr. [[Leon Klinghoffer|Klinghoffer]] and mastermind of the hijacking; and [[Youssef Saad|Youssuf Saʼad]].”. Reading between the lines, Grassleyʼs objective was to complain about the early release and to promote the ATA as a way for terrorist victims to apply additional legal pressure against terrorists who otherwise might convince their local governments to release them early. However, up until the [[September 11 attacks]], most terrorist hijackings were not suicidal in nature; hijackers generally survived and, in the case of [[Abu Abbas]], often eventually led investigators to the mastermind of the crime. This is the weakness [[Matt Cameron]] and [[Steve Vladeck]] are pointing pointing out about the ATA, I believe: Senator [[Chuck Grassley]] either did not contemplate or did not take seriously the idea that trade partner nation-states such as [[Alleged Saudi role in the September 11 attacks|Saudi Arabia]] might need to be prosecuted for supporting terrorists. (i.e. [[State-sponsored terrorism]]). }}<ref name="nytimes_19910206_achille-lauro-christmas-release">“[https://www.nytimes.com/1991/02/06/nyregion/terrorists-get-early-release.html Terrorists Get Early Release]”. ([[1991-02-06]]). ''[[New York Times]]''. Accessed [[2024-09-20]]. “The men were identified as Issa Abbas, a cousin of the fugitive Palestine Liberation Front leader [[Abul Abbas]], and Youssef Saad, said Gianfranco Pagano, the lawyer. He said they were released from prison on Christmas Eve under a law allowing a reduction of two years at Christmas season. The two departed for Algeria early in January, he said. … Issa Abbas, a Syrian, was convicted of using a false passport in aiding the hijackers and sentenced to six months in prison in [[1986]]. In a separate trial in [[1985-11|November 1985]], he had been convicted of smuggling the hijackersʼ weapons aboard and received a seven-year sentence. Mr. Saad was convicted and sentenced to six years in prison in the [[1986]] trial for having imported money used to finance the hijacking.”. </ref>, which remains the problem.
So the specific issue that they had to pass JASTA to address was the fact, as we've discussed, that this was a secondarily liable country.
They're not necessarily primarily liable as a state.
And what's really interesting about this to me is Congress, when they passed this,
the authority that they claimed to be able to authorize these kinds of claims was based on a D.C. Circuit case, on an actual judicial case.
I don't think I've really seen it put that way before.

But they were very explicit in the bill itself that it was [[Halberstam v. Welch]] from [[1983]].
And I want to talk about that because they're applying the logic of a petty burglary.
We're talking about a career burglar named [[Bernard Welch]] who broke into someone's home,
unfortunately killed the [[Michael J. Halberstam|father of the home]] during the burglary.<ref name="nytimes_19801207_halberstam-murder">[[Robert Reinhold]]. ([[1980-12-07]]). “[https://www.nytimes.com/1980/12/07/archives/michael-j-halberstam-washington-physician-and-author-fatally-shot.html Michael J. Halberstam, Washington Physician and Author, Fatally Shot; Confrontation Near Front Door A Man of Many Talents]”. ''[[New York Times]]''. Accessed [[2024-09-21]]. “Dr. Michael J. Halberstam, a prominent physician, journalist and novelist, was fatally shot last night after he and his wife surprised a burglar in their home. He died while undergoing surgery for two bullet wounds in the chest. After he was shot and was trying to drive to a hospital, Dr. Halberstam, 48 years old, reportedly saw his assailant running in the street, pursued him with his vehicle and struck him. At a news conference th is afternoon, [[Alphonso D. Gibson]], deputy chief of the [[District of Columbia Police]], identified the suspect as [[Bernard Charles Welch]], 40, a fugitive from the [[Clinton Correctional Facility]] at [[Dannemora, NY|Dannemora, N.Y.]], who had been living in the Washington suburb of [[Great Falls, Virginia|Great Falls, Va]]. The suspect, who was originally misidentified by a police detective, was charged with homicide.”
</ref>

T: And then hijacked a plane and crashed into a building? How is this—

M: No, yeah, you wouldn't think this would be related at all, but it actually really is.
And it was an interesting read. I did not expect to be reading a burglary case in the research for this.
But the fact was that Welch was living with a woman named [[Linda Hamilton]], and they'd lived together for five years.
And she knew that he had nothing when they got together.

T: The [[The Terminator|Terminator]] lady?

M: Yeah, that's right, the Terminator lady.{{bkc|[[2024-09-21]]: This is a joke. Not the actor who played [[Sarah Connor]].}}
Yeah.
That's right, I knew that name.
They had nothing when they got together, and she knew that by the end of their five-year relationship that he had a fortune.
And she didn't really seem to care where it came from.
And they found that there's all kinds of reasons that she should have known what he was getting up to.
So she was sued as a secondary liability theory.<ref name="nytimes_19830608_halberstam-v-welch">[[Michael de Courcy Hinds]]. ([[1983-06-08]]). “[https://www.nytimes.com/1983/06/08/us/decision-file-shared-responsibility-for-a-murder.html DECISION FILE; Shared Responsibility For a Murder]”.
''[[New York Times]]''. Accessed [[2024-09-21]]. “Partners in crime, even ‘passive and compliant’ ones, are civilly liable for the dollar damages incurred by the principal culprit, according to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. 
In a case relating to the slaying three years ago of Dr. [[Michael Halberstam]], the cardiologist and author who was shot by a burglar in his Washington home, the court recently affirmed a lower court finding that [[Elliott Jones Halberstam]], the doctor's widow, was entitled to collect payment for damages from [[Linda Hamilton]], the woman who lived with the convicted murderer, [[Bernard C. Welch]]. 
The Federal District Court here awarded Mrs. Halberstam $5,715,188.05 last year, saying that Miss Hamilton was liable along with Mr. Welch. The court concluded that Miss Hamilton should pay because she had ‘closed neither her eyes nor her pocketbook to the reality of the life she and Welch were living.’ ”. </ref><ref name="justia_19830412_halberstam-v-welch">''[https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F2/705/472/250679/ Halberstam v. Welch]'', 705 F.2d 472 (D.C. Cir. [[1983]]). </ref>
And this allowed the court to examine vicarious liability for tortious conduct, you know, as it relates to secondary defendants, not the perpetrators.
And this is becoming relevant, obviously, for the Saudi issue here.
So they're talking about the aiding and abetting analysis for criminal liability and how that applies to civil conspiracy.
And it's all pretty interesting.
But when it comes down to it, what they arrive at is a civil aiding and abetting liability standard in which the part of the defendant is aiding.
The defendant, in this case, being the secondarily liable person, has caused the injury.
The defendant has to be generally aware of what the person is doing, that they're doing things that are illegal or tortious, and they must knowingly and substantially assist the violation.
So it's pretty straightforward for secondary.
And the problem, though, with JASTA is that Congress just says in the bill, well, this is what we're proceeding on.
This is the legal theory.
But they don't really break down how it's going to work, what the standards are so much.
And that's up to the courts, as it always is.

M: So the Supreme Court got around to refining this, actually, in a case I wouldn't have expected.
I missed this one somehow, but it was called [[Twitter, Inc. v. Taamneh|Twitter v. Taamneh]] from last year.
And there was a case in which the plaintiffs were claiming that [[Twitter]] failed to control terrorist activity on its platform.
And that actually ended up resulting in a shooting in [[Istanbul]].
And so they're trying to apply the secondary vicarious liability theory to Twitter.

T: Interesting.
Even though they're not, like, funding it?

M: Yeah, even though they're allowing these communications.
They're allowing these communications knowingly.

T: Oh, okay.
So it's like sort of aiding.
So being basically, it sounds like the standard is like you have to be aware of it and in some way helping, not necessarily like cutting checks, really.

M: Yeah, that you know that this person is doing things that are illegal, atrocious, and you're just kind of letting it happen.

T: Gotcha.

M: So the Supreme Court took it upon itself to review the Halberstam standard and to refine all of this.
And they decided they could come up with something better.
It's kind of interesting the way that [[Clarence Thomas]] does this, where he says basically, well, you know, they had some factors.
And Halberstam, we think those are interesting.
But at the end of the day, they were just using the common law.
So we're going to go back to a common law standard.
And we're just going to say as long as you have a conscious, voluntary, and culpable participation in another's wrongdoing, then that's enough for secondary liability.
And at the end of the day, it comes down to the basic common law idea that you participated in a way that helps it succeed.
But they said we don't have to resolve the extent of this difference.
But, you know, as it is, that's the standard now.

M: They also said that you don't have to have a strict nexus between the activity and the attack.
You don't have to know what the plan is.
You don't have to know exactly what they're going to do.
You just have to know they're going to be doing something illicit, something that's going to hurt people in this case.
You still have to be supporting the attack in some way.
That's what it comes down to.
Sorry, I just wanted to give some of the history.
This is why it has taken so long.
This is the very long answer to your question, is that it has taken so long because we had to not only pass a bill but then figure out what that bill meant.
And then there have been multiple motions dismissed and all kinds of litigation around what this bill meant, even after it was passed, trying to help the families to do this.

M: The other complication, as Vladeck points out, is that in the end, it not only limited the ATA claims.
So the ATA claims are only limited.
It's only for primary liability at this point.
We can only do the JASTA-based claims.
So you don't get the triple damages is the main significance of that.
But it also allows the U.S. government to intervene to seek a stay if the [[United States Secretary of State|Secretary of State]] can certify that the U.S. is in some sort of good faith discussion with the foreign government about trying to resolve it.
So you can imagine what happens to that.
You're going to end up in litigation limbo.
You're going to have the U.S. Secretary of State say, just to smooth things over with Saudis.

T: (sarcastically) Talking over, yeah, we'll find some diplomatic solution to this, you know.

M: We're working on it.
It's on the agenda.
And they can come back every 180 days.
And just keep getting stay after stay after stay indefinitely.

T: No wonder.
Okay, that sounds like it could be the major timing factor.

M: Yeah.

T: That could go on forever.
I can certainly see that be a problem.
There is one more issue that we'll discuss at the end when we're getting through.
I just want to keep it organized.
So that is what we're working from.
And that is why we're able now to finally get into the courthouse door after all of this back and forth and all of this effort.
And now we're going to start to talk about some of the facts that I wasn't really aware of and that a lot of listeners may not have been aware of either.
And, of course, we've learned a lot since [[2002]].
And a lot of things have been declassified.
Other governments have discovered things and handed them over to us.

T: Plus, I bet we learn a lot when we're not making an effort to justify [[2003 invasion of Iraq|a war]] that had absolutely [[Rationale for the Iraq War|no justification]].{{bkc|[[2024-09-21]]: Although unrelated to the [[9-11 attacks]], [[Abu Abbas]] was captured by the [[US]] during the [[2003 invasion of Iraq]], which the [[George W. Bush]] administration made sure to retroacrtively promote as partial justification for the war, despite, [[Iraq and weapons of mass destruction|weapons of mass destruction]], the main [[Rationale for the Iraq War|rationale]] being non-existent in Iraq by the time of the [[9-11 attacks]] in [[2001]] when [[George W. Bush]] misdirected the general fervor for revenge against the [[9-11]] attackers to follow through with [[Gulf War]] objectives his father, [[George H.W. Bush]] had left uncompleted. [[Saddam Hussein]], fifth [[president of Iraq]] had developed and deployed chemical weapons against [[Iranian]] and [[Kurdish]] civilians during the [[Iran-Iraq War]] of the [[1980s]] and pursued a nuclear weapons program. However, Hussein had complied with [[United Nations]] inspections, destroying its chemical weapons and ceasing its chemical, biological, and nuclear programs. }}<ref name="armscontrol_200309_no-iraq-wmd-2001">[[Frank Ronald Cleminson]]. ([[2003-09]]). “[https://www.armscontrol.org/act/2003-09/features/what-happened-saddams-weapons-mass-destruction What Happened to Saddam's Weapons of Mass Destruction?]”. ''[[Arms Control Today]]''. Accessed [[2024-09-21]]. “In retrospect, therefore, it seems reasonable to conclude that one of the most significant reasons that U.S. and British troops have not found nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons or proscribed missiles in Iraq is that, following the [[1991]] [[Gulf War]], the bulk of these weapons and associated facilities were destroyed either by the [[United Nations]] or unilaterally by [[Iraq]]. Thus, significant quantities of proscribed weapons (nuclear, chemical, or missile) simply did not exist. On top of that, any attempt by [[Baghdad]] to regenerate its proscribed weapons programs was effectively inhibited by the package of other UN control measures in operation since 1991. These measures included a severe sanctions program initiated in 1991, the export/import monitoring mechanism that followed, the [[Oil-for-Food Programme|UN escrow funds into which all Iraqi oil sales revenue was directed]], the strict management of those funds by the [[UN Office of the Iraq Program]], the interdiction operations at sea undertaken under UN mandate, and a number of other control mechanisms. Although relatively unknown to the general public, these control mechanisms operated effectively throughout the decade of the [[1990s]]. In combination, they served to prevent any significant reactivation of WMD programs on the part of Iraq.”. </ref>
Like I'm sure once you've taken those lenses off, your analysis probably helps learn more actual facts.

M: It certainly does when you can actually step back and pay attention.
You know, again, we're talking about basically there's a whole suite of cases here.
But the one of them is ''Burnett'' from 2003 that's been going on for a very long time.
The other one is ''Ashton v. Saudi Arabia'' from 2017.{{bkc|[[2024-09-20]]: I think these are ''[https://casetext.com/case/burnett-v-al-baraka-investment-development-corporation-2 BURNETT v. AL BARAKA INVESTMENT DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION]'' and ''[https://casetext.com/case/ashton-v-kingdom-of-saudi-arabia-in-re-terrorist-attacks Ashton v. Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (In re Terrorist Attacks)]''. }}
And that one was filed actually by the guys you want to get if you're doing any kind of aviation disaster.
Kreindler & Kreindler.
And the New York Times called Lee Kreindler the founder of air aviation disaster law.<ref name="nytimes_20030219_obit-kreindler">[[Adam Liptak]]. ([[2003-02-19]]). “[https://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/19/nyregion/lee-kreindler-78-air-crash-lawyer-dies.html Lee Kreindler, 78, Air-Crash Lawyer, Dies]”. ''[[nytimes.com]]''. Accessed [[2024-09-21]]. “Lee S. Kreindler, who is considered the founder of air disaster law, and whose law firm, Kreindler & Kreindler, represented plaintiffs in almost every major aircraft disaster in the last half-century, died yesterday at New York University Hospital in Manhattan. He was 78. … In [[1989]], [[The National Law Journal]] asked lawyers in the aviation field whom they would hire if a family member died in a plane crash. About 20 lawyers and firms were mentioned in all, but the newspaper noted that Mr. Kreindler, ‘the grandfather of the field,’ was at the top of nearly everyoneʼs list. … He played leading roles in the lawsuits after the [[TWA Flight 800|crash of Trans World Airlines Flight 800]] off Long Island in [[1996-07-17|1996]], the [[Pan Am Flight 103|bombing of Pan American Flight 103]] over [[Lockerbie, Scotland]], in [[1988]], and scores of others.”. </ref>
Basically, they've had their hands in all kinds of cases you've heard of.
The biggest one before this was the [[Pan Am Flight 103|Pan Am 103 Lockerbie bombing]], which they not only won the suit against Pan Am for negligence, but then they got $2.7 billion in a settlement with [[Libya]].

T: Wow.

M: Which is a lot of money.

T: Huh.

M: Yeah.
Some heavy hitters on that side.
On the other side of it, representing [[Saudi Arabia|the kingdom]], you've got [[Kellogg, Hansen, Todd, Figel & Frederick]].
And they're a very well-known commercial litigation firm, best known recently for [[Neil Gorsuch]] being an alumni.
We had to mention Neil Gorsuch somewhere in here, I guess.

T: Yeah.
I mean, I get that there's always the, you know, everyone deserves their advocate in court.
But it's pretty weird to be like, we're going to defend Saudi Arabia.

M: Yeah.

T: I don't know who does that job and why, I guess.

M: Yeah.
I well, I know why.
There's a lot of it.{{bkc|[[2024-09-20]]: Saudi Arabia is wealthy due to its [[Oil reserves in Saudi Arabia|petroleum]] sales and can afford to pay much money for legal defense.}}
I mean, I, okay.
But yeah, I agree.
I don't judge lawyers by their clients.

T: Well, no, I do.
I do judge them by their clients. Somewhat.

M: You can.
It can be done.
They're usually like an antitrust and communications kind of firm, like doing serious commercial litigation.

M: So the 2017 case I wanted to focus on because it really brings everything into focus here.
Beautiful complaint, as I said, is extremely well written and it incorporates at the time a lot of what they knew and now they've been able to update it through several more filings.
But just talk about some of the basic things here.
There's so much that has been revealed, but starting with somebody named [[Omar al-Bayoumi]], and he was a known Saudi intelligence agent and the [[FBI]] has finally admitted that they know that he was a known Saudi intelligence agent.
He was posing as a grad student.
He had a fake job, but he was getting a stipend from the Saudi government to do intelligence work in the United States for more than 20 years.

T: Wow.

M: And he was working on behalf of the [[Ministry of Islamic Affairs]], which is the part of the kingdom which spreads their [[Wahhabism|Wahhabi Islam]], you know, the very extremeist form of Islam that they support.

T: Right.

M: And this office was openly, actively supporting al-Qaeda and other extremist operatives.
Like, they're not being very subtle about it even.
And, that, you know, he was sending information directly on to Ambassador [[Bandar bin Sultan Al Saud|Bandar]].
I mean, this is, again, a known Saudi intelligence agent who was working in the United States.
But we didn't know exactly what he was doing for all these things.
And more and more has come out.
But the most important thing that we have learned and that really is the top line item out of all of this is that agents of the Saudi government, including al-Bayoumi,
met [[Nawaf al-Hamzi]] and [[Khalid al-Mihdhar]], who were two of the hijackers who were in the Pentagon plane.
These are people who just showed up in the U.S.
They didn't speak English, have ties to the area, they didn't know anything about anything.
And al-Bayoumi just claims to have run into them at random somewhere in [[Los Angeles|L.A.]]
And then they just show up in San Diego.
The Saudi government's official position on this still is that these two Saudi nationals who would go on to be on the Pentagon plane, al-Hamzi and al-Mihdhar,
they showed up in L.A. and just randomly ran into al-Bayoumi.
Al-Bayoumi at the consulate, even though he didn't actually need a new passport, allegedly that's what he was doing.
And he runs into a cafe near the mosque and they start chatting.
And they claim, the Saudis still claim, that al-Bayoumi never offered any help, never invited them to San Diego.
That somehow, for some reason, they just turned up in San Diego a few days later and then happened to have a welcome party, which was caught on video.
Like, they have this entire welcome party of them hanging out with these terrorists, just, you know, having a party on video.
But he found them an apartment, he co-signed their lease, he opened up a bank account.
And put in $10,000 of his money.

T: That's like he's trying to win the award for best aiding and abetting.

M: That's right, yeah, just the full package.

T: You need direct, I printed out the [[MapQuest]] for you of where you need to go.
Yeah, just everything you could possibly need.

M: Yeah, here's some [[Starbucks]] gift cards and, yeah, you know, get yourself started.
But, you know, the party is a remarkable document, just the video itself, because you've got any number of key figures that we know about.

T: Why is someone videoing?

M: Yeah, I know.
It's a good question, too.

T: Are there some amount of people involved that were, like, don't know what's happening or just know?
Are they just normal people or something?
Like, is that why?
Or is this, I don't know, they do weird stuff, these terrorists sometimes.
They do film stuff, maybe because they're proud of it.
I don't know.

M: Yeah, they're just having a party and want it on video.
I guess everybody's videoing everything.
I don't know.
This is before cell phones, so.
Yeah, you're out of your way to actually do it.

T: I know.
It wasn't that easy back then.

M: Sure.
And the complaint exhaustively details all of the different ways that funding has been flowing through.
And all of the different ways that known contacts in the U.S. were assisting these people.
But discovery at the moment has been limited.
And itʼs probably going to be opened up pretty soon.
But it's been limited to these two terrorists we've been talking about.

T: Wow.

M: And there's more than enough there.
But, yeah.

T: Geez.
So everything we're talking about with all of this is just these two?

M: Right.
Because this is what all this new information mostly pertains to.
But there's a lot of other stuff that could likely come out.
And a lot of things that have been declassified.
And I should mention, the [[9-11 Commission]], which did a beautiful report.
I haven't read the whole thing, but I was going back and revisiting some of it.
They did not have a lot of the information that I'm telling you about.
And I should read their official finding as to the Saudis right now, just so we have this in mind.
The Commission staff found no evidence that the Saudi government as an institution or as individual senior officials supported al-Qaeda.
Which I'm not the first person to point out that's individual senior officials.
So certainly you're leaving room for other officials.
And the Saudi government as an institution is a very specific turn of phrase.
Because it appears to maybe have been factions within the Saudi government that were doing this.
But there's a lot here.
And I want to be careful not to speculate beyond what we know.
And I don't want to be getting into conspiracy stuff.
I'm just going to present the stuff that we have here.
But there was a section called,
“Finding Consensus on Certain Security Matters”.
Which remained classified until [[2016]].
It was 28 pages.
And it opens with this finding.
“While in the United States, some of the September 11th hijackers were in contact with and received support or assistance from an individual connected to the Saudi government.
There is information, primarily from FBI sources, that at least two of these individuals were alleged by some to be Saudi intelligence officers.”
So, the 9-11 Commission was at least aware of this.
But they have said they did not know a lot of this stuff about Bayoumi.
They didn't have a lot of the evidence that is now coming out.
And that, you know, maybe things would have been different.
It seems like it's time to revisit a lot of this.
Because there's just this network of support that we seem to know about now.

T: Yeah.
They are remaking every single movie.
They're doing a sequel where everybody's old.
You know, do that with the 9-11 Commission.

M: That's right.
Do the 2024 edition.

T: No, I don't do that anymore.
I'm retired.
I know.
But there's...
Get the band back together, you know?

M: Or just a reboot.
Reboots are big now, too.

T: Yeah.
You know, the one, like, younger member, just in case the franchise is going to continue forward.
You do have to have that, like, you know, one of them's...
Well, he's no longer with us.
Okay.
But I hear his grandson is just as good at 9-11 commissioning.
So, let's just get him.

M: The evidence that really recently came out for declassification...
I've sent you a video here.
We'll just play a few minutes of it.
This was on [[60 Minutes]] in June.
And this is al-Bayoumi casing the Capitol.
There's no other way to say it.

([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VmeOhUyuyo8 video]<ref name="60min_20240620_al-bayoumi-capitol">“[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VmeOhUyuyo8 Video shows what a Saudi national filmed before the 9/11 terror attacks]”. ([[2024-06-20]]). ''[[youtube.com]]'', [https://www.youtube.com/@60minutes 60 Minutes].
Accessed [[2024-09-21]]. </ref>)

<blockquote>
A voice on the video says in Arabic,
I am transmitting these scenes to you
from the heart of the American capital, Washington.
This video, unsealed in federal court this week
and obtained by 60 Minutes, was recorded in the summer of 1999.
The man behind the camera is Omar al-Bayoumi,
who the FBI says was an operative of the Saudi intelligence service
with close ties to two of the 9-11 hijackers.
The video was filmed over several days.
Bayoumi recorded entrances and exits of the Capitol,
security posts,
a model of the building,
and nearby landmarks. 

In this portion of the video,
Bayoumi points out the Washington Monument and says,
‘I will get over there and report to you in detail what is there.’
He also notes the airport is not far away.
</blockquote>

M: I'm sure you'd like to know how the Saudi government has characterized this.

T: Oh, just, yeah, tourism.

M: Yeah.
Plaintiff's increasingly wild theories even include assertions that al-Bayoumi prepared a flight plan and a casing report for the attacks. I'll skip, we'll talk about the other thing in a second. A tourist video that includes footage of artwork, flower beds, and a squirrel on the White House lawn. That's what he was really concerned about, was the squirrel.

T: The squirrel was one of the targets, yeah.

M: But, I mean, you can see in the link to the video, it is explicitly, he's targeting security stuff.
He's just showing you all the different security things.
It's not, I don't know, maybe I don't do tourism right,
but I don't usually take extended videos of security.

T: Oh, you're missing out, yeah.

M: It's the best part.
Yeah, the Saudi's position is very indignant, all the way through their response to all of this. They think this is all coincidence. You know, how dare you say this guy was an agent? How dare you say that the stipend that he was receiving, and, you know, just coincidentally it happens that we, you know, quadrupled his stipend just when the terrorists showed up and, you know, started giving him more money. There's also another piece of evidence that was found by the British that was given to us, and we didn't seem to really know what to do with it,
and the 9-11 Commission didn't see it either,
but I sent it to you actually in an email.
If you want to take a look so you can see what I'm looking at,
it is a notepad.

T: Someone's math notes, yeah.

M: Math notes.
And you can see it in cursive there,
so there's definitely a drawing of a plane and some little dotted lines,
and under the dotted lines it says,
distance from the plane on horizon.
And height, the plane, something, the earth,
I can't quite read that, in mile, but it's pretty obvious.

T: Height, the plane from the earth in mile.

M: Yeah.

T: They could see the horizon, that's what they wanted to know?

M: Yeah, so the expert that analyzed this
said that it could be used to help calculate the rate at which a plane would need to descend
in order to hit a target on the horizon.
And so,
Bayoumi acknowledged in the deposition that he did this,
and the Saudi story, the official Saudi story,
as argued in court and their motion to dismiss,
was that this was his 14-year-old son's math homework.
Which, I don't know.
That doesn't seem like something that you'd be assigned in math class
to calculate a plane crash.

T: Doubtful. Doubtful.

M: Good on them for trying to explain it, I guess,
because you've got to come up with something.
But the judge was very skeptical and said,
you know, if he didn't testify this belonged to his son,
if he's saying, yeah, that was mine,
why are we supposed to believe this?
Like, this is in his deposition, you know, come on.

M: So, you know, these two things that were not previously available,
and that video I should mention, I just showed you a little bit of it,
but he not only is casing the building,
but he talks about the demons of the [[White House]],
and he talks about a plan.

T: Tourism stuff!
You know, I go on the demons of the White House tour,
there's a double-decker bus.

M: Yeah, again, it's just hard to miss what this stuff is
and what's going on.
And especially, I just can't encourage you enough
to just read the complaint<ref name="usdc-sdny_20170320_ashton-v-saudi-arabia">
''[https://static1.squarespace.com/static/57fbbfa88419c2de35c1639d/t/58d03556ff7c50abde86720f/1490040171270/Ashton-v-KSA-2017.pdf Ashton v. Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (In re Terrorist Attacks)]'', 03 MDL 1570 (GBD) (SN) (S.D.N.Y. Jul. 24, 2023)</ref> because it is just a mountain.
I mean, it's just, it's incredible, too,
the way that they've just responded to this.
They're doing the best they can to respond,
but all they can really do is just try to say that this isn't us.
Like, it just, you know, but they can't.

T: Well, and that's the thing about complaints.
Obviously, you can say pretty much anything in a complaint,
but this is not your typical, you know,
two civilians suing each other over some car accident,
just nonsense.
This is like, first off,
massive resources going into this.
And you can also, yes, you can allege anything in a complaint,
but the response is pretty telling.
Like, if you allege something and the best they can do is,
(sarcastically) you know, tourism stuff, like, that's...

M: Math homework.

T: Yeah.

M: And the plaintiffs make that point in their response.
They say,
The Kingdom's unwillingness to engage the very question
the Court directed the parties to address,
which is about their agency in this,
reflects its recognition that it has no credible argument
to make on the agency issue.
“The evidence is clear that Saudi Arabia
deployed its officials and agents
to serve in an illegal government enterprise
that was extensively intertwined with terrorism.”<ref>https://www.floridabulldog.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Redacted-Brief.pdf
</ref>
So they're coming on strong with this.
And I just want to point out the legal theory at this point.
So what the case is down to is ''[[respondeat superior]]''. We're looking at the scope of the agency. That's the official sort of Latin term for when you're, you know, how liable an employer is for something that employee does. And kind of an interesting side note here that they had to narrow it down to California law because they decided that California was where the agency was established because of this [[San Diego]] connection. But they also acknowledged that, even if we use New York law, it basically works out to the same. And the standard that we're working with here is if the employer's liability extends beyond his actual or possible control of the employee to include risks inherent in or created by what they call an enterprise, this is enterprise liability.
And they're saying that the Saudis were aware
that there's some kind of enterprise,
that they're responsible for anything
that happens out of that.
And it makes sense.
You know, I think that's what you can do with this.

T: Yeah, again, it does seem pretty reasonable to be like,
you can't have, just as an example,
you can't have a state
set up a cell somewhere and be like,
hey, we don't really want to know what's going on,
but, you know, here's some help,
and give them hell, you know?
Like, that doesn't get you out of jail free.

M: You can't wash your hands, yeah.
No, it's not that easy.
I mean, the Saudis in this case,
they went so far out of their way to give him cover.
They gave him a false job with the Saudi presidency
of civil aviation.
You know, they tried to, in every different way,
deny or cover up anything that he was doing for them.
And he and this imam, Thumairy, provided,
they were hosting.<ref name="usdc-sdny_20240507_ashton-v-ksa-opp-to-dismiss">[https://www.floridabulldog.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Redacted-Brief.pdf PLAINTIFFS’ MEMORANDUM OF LAW IN OPPOSITION
TO THE RENEWED MOTION TO DISMISS OF THE KINGDOM OF SAUDI ARABIA], In re Terrorist Attacks on September 11, 2001. ([[2024-05-07]]). “Thumairy and Bayoumi regularly hosted extremists on missions to the United States as a feature of their core work for the MOIA. They did so in coordination with senior Saudi government Islamic Affairs officials, and in circumstances that mirror their mobilization of support for and hosting of Hazmi and Mihdhar”. </ref>
I mean, there's no other way to say it.
They were hosting these people.
They were helping them through.
They were facilitating all kinds of extremists.
But these two terrorists, of course,
are the people that were focused on the most.

T: You know, this may be a dumb question, Matt,
and maybe out of the scope of what you're looking at,
but, like, why?
Why did Saudi Arabia want to do, like,
you know, was it merely a question of extremism?
You know, like, is there any answer to that?
Like, why they, as a country or as a,
certainly to a broader extent than we knew,
would have wanted to,
do something like this?

M: It might be a little bit beyond my understanding.
I mean, the official reason, right,
was that the U.S. was too involved in Saudi Arabia.
That was the official reason that [[Al-Qaeda]] gave.
And maybe there were people in the Saudi government
that felt the same way.
You know, maybe they just thought
we should be taking down a peg.
Certainly one way to do it.
But that's pretty far beyond what I can speculate on.
I should mention also that we know a lot about this
from [[Abu Zubaydah]], who was number three
at some point in [[Al-Qaeda]].
Now, some of what we know about him, unfortunately,
is from extreme acts of torture.
He was one of the people who was tortured the most.
We still have him in custody.

T: So do we really ''know'' it?{{bkc|[[2024-09-20]]: [[Thomas Smith]] is questioning the efficacy of [[interrogational torture]] since detainees are extremely motivated to say whatever their captors demand they confess to, reducing the quality of intelligence produced. }}

M: He did provide the actual private phone numbers of people
when he was, you know, under interrogation
in the Saudi government,
including [[Ahmed bin Salman Al Saud|Ahmed bin Salman]],
who's a pretty important Saudi businessman
who was actually one of the first people to get out.
You know, I'm sure you're familiar with the flights
that, you know, we now know about,
that the [[FAA]] denied for a long time.
There were flights of not only the [[bin Ladens]],
but some other Saudis.

T: Oh, no, I don't remember this.
Like after the terror attacks,
they got out of there?

M: Yeah.
No, there was this whole story,
especially about this one on the 13th,
because planes were down.
Nothing was happening.

T: Right.

M: Nobody was going anywhere.
And the bin Laden family
and a number of high-ranking Saudi officials,
including Prince Achman [sic?] {{bkc|[[2024-09-20]]: I think Matt meant [[Ahmed bin Salman Al Saud|Ahmed bin Salman]]. }}
were allowed to leave
at a time when nobody else was.{{bkc|[[2024-09-20]]: I believe Matt is echoing false reporting here. See [https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/flights-of-fancy/ this Snopes] article. According to the [[9-11 Commission]], “During the morning of September 11, the FAA suspended all nonemergency air activity in the national airspace. While the national airspace was closed, decisions to allow aircraft to fly were made by the FAA working with the Department of Defense, Department of State, U.S. Secret Service, and the FBI. The Department of Transportation reopened the national airspace to U.S. carriers effective 11:00 A.M. on September 13, 2001, for flights out of or into airports that had implemented the FAA's new security requirements.After the airspace reopened, nine chartered flights with 160 people, mostly Saudi nationals, departed from the United States between September 14 and 24. In addition, one Saudi government flight, containing the Saudi deputy defense minister and other members of an official Saudi delegation, departed Newark Airport on September 14. Every airport involved in these Saudi flights was open when the flight departed, and no inappropriate actions were taken to allow those flights to depart.”. In other words, although Saudi nationals hurriedly organized chartered flights out of the [[US]], none of them departed before the [[FAA]] approved commercial and chartered flights on the morning of [[2001-09-13]]. }}
And this all kind of came out in [[2004]].
But the official explanation was
the U.S. government was concerned
about acts of retaliation
against the bin Laden family,
that there are a lot of bin Ladens.
I think that [[Osama bin Laden]]
was 17th out of 54 or something.
Very influential.

T: Wow.

M: For those who don't know,
very involved in construction.
You know, at the time,
Prince Ahmed was in the process
of spending $1.2 million
on a thoroughbred
when he was snapped up.
And, you know,
this is just what they've been doing.

M: The FAA denied, though,
for years, for whatever reason,
that this had ever happened
until they finally had to,
until [[2004-06|June 2004]].

M: You know, he also provided,
Abu Sayyed [sic?] {{bkc|[[2024-09-20]]: I think Matt means [[Abu Zubaydah]] instead of Abu Sayyed. }} also provided numbers
and information about
a number of Saudi princes
and military commanders
who would know about this attack.
And three of them were killed
under mysterious circumstances
within days of this information
coming out.
And I should mention,
I'm drawing on the book
''[[Secrets of the Kingdom]]''
by [[Gerald Posner]]
from [[2005]].<ref name="posner_2005_secrets-of-the-kingdom">[[Gerald Posner]]. ([[2005]]). “[https://search.worldcat.org/title/827601423 Secrets of the kingdom : the inside story of the secret saudi-u.s. connection]”. OCLC: [https://search.worldcat.org/title/827601423 827601423]. Accessed [[2024-09-21]]. </ref>
So some of this
obviously doesn't have to do
with the new stuff,
but I went back
just to try to get a sense
of what we knew.
And we've actually known
quite a lot,
a lot more than I would have expected,
has been known for quite a while.
And Posner's a serious journalist.
He actually, just for context,
he wrote a book about
why [[Lee Harvey Oswald|Oswald]] acted alone.{{bkc|[[2024-09-20]]: Matt is referencing the [[Assassination of John F. Kennedy]], 35th [[President of the United States]]. }}
So he's not a conspiracy theorist.

T: Why Oswald acted alone?

M: Mm-hmm.
It's called ''[[Case Closed]]''.<ref name="posner_1993_case-closed">[[Gerald Posner]]. ([[1993]]). “[https://search.worldcat.org/title/27810647 Case Closed]”. ''[[Random House]]'', New York. Accessed [[2024-09-21]]. </ref>
And he's establishing his belief
that there was a solo act.
That book is really well researched,
and it's really,
it's an interesting read.
I just went back and read some of it.
But again,
just the known connections
between the U.S.
and Saudi government.

T: So [[Saudi Arabia]]
didn't support
[[Lee Harvey Oswald]]. Okay.

M: No.
We do know that at least.
We got that for sure.

T: Cleared that up. Glad I could help.

M: But they have been spending
a lot of money on PR
and lawyers
and trying to protect themselves here
and do their best to make sure
that this is not
what we know about it.

T: I was going to ask that too,
because they have more money
than is even believable.

M: Mm-hmm.

T: And I have to imagine,
like a settlement
probably could happen,
but, is it less about money for them
and more about image and reputation
and the principle of it?

M: Yeah.
I don't think they want to have
any kind of admission
that anything to do with, you know,
the worst terrorist attack.
But yeah, no, I mean, it is, I was going back, and I mean,
as of the time he wrote the book, it was,
Saudi Arabia was making in profits
$300 million a day,
and that's split between 6,000 men
in the kingdom.

T: Jesus.

M: That's why they have
so much money.
And it's much more a day now.

T: Can we get off the oil, everybody?
You want to maybe get off oil?

M: Yeah.

T: A little bit?

M: I think that
the quarter of the world's oil
ended up in this place.
I mean,
it's really unfortunate
because this is,
these are not people
we should be doing business with.
The more you learn
about this government
and about their beliefs
and what they're spreading
in the world right now,
it's bad.
It's very concerning.

M: So remember,
of course,
this isn't a criminal case,
so they don't have to prove
beyond a reasonable doubt.
They just have to prove
to the civil standard.
And the test from [[JASTA]],
from 18 USC 2333,
is that they can be held liable
if they aid in abets
by knowingly providing
substantial assistance
or conspires with the person
who committed such an act of
international terrorism.
It has to be more
than negligence.
They have to be
actively involved
in aiding and abetting
and knowing that there's
some kind of plot out there.
And at this point,
it just seems like
I don't see how they haven't
met that burden.
I don't see how the motion
to dismiss is possibly
going to work.
This is what was just
litigated recently.
It was a motion to dismiss
in which the Saudis
are denying agency.
And that was heard
on [[2024-07-31|July 31st]].
It's in front of
District Judge [[George Daniels]]
down there
in the mother court,
as we like to call it.
For those of us
who heard the
[[Lawd Awful Movies]] episode
so good.
What was the name
of that show?
I've already forgotten.

T: Oh, it wasn't
the mother court.
Like it seemed like
the name of the show
was that
and then it got changed.
I don't remember.
It's Justice for
It's a really generic name.

M: Something bland.

T: Metallica album.
Love is blind.
No, just
I don't know.

M: It was a fun episode.

T: We the People.
It might have been
We the People, honestly.

M: I think it was.
It was We the People.

T: It was so generic.

M: Yeah.
And I'm going to think
of the SDNY
as the mother court forever.
Thank you very much. So. It is stuck in my mind.

M: But George Daniels is managing all of this and he has taken under advisement this very long motionand I'm sure we're going to
get some kind of decision
over the next few months
and we'll be able to
talk about it again.
I'd love to talk to [[Steve Vladeck]]
about this actually because
he follows this stuff
like nobody else.
National security is
very much his game.
There's so much complexity
to this, but knowingly
provide substantial assistance
is not the highest standard.
I think that's something
that they should be able
to prove here.
I don't see how this
doesn't get past
a motion to dismiss
and how this doesn't
go on to real damages,
but we will have to see.

T: Okay.
How would you collect
those damages?

M: That is a really good question.

T: I do remember
that for this show
when we covered
the [[Fanni Willis]] hearings,
the best character
in the history
of all fiction
except somehow he's real
came on.
Governor [[Roy Barnes|Barnes]],
I want to say.

M: Barnes, yeah.

T: His past [[governor of Georgia, I think.
Most interesting.
He's so interesting.
[[Lydia]]{{bkc|[[2024-09-20]]: [[Thomas Smith]]ʼs wife. }} and I went back
and watched that again
like a month ago
because we were like,
remember that guy?
It's the best.
Anyway, he talked about
when he sued
some, might have been Saudia Arabia?,
I don't know.
He sued somebody,
some other country
for killing someone
and did win money.
So it must be possible,
but I don't know how.

M: It can be done.

T: How would you get that money?

M: Well, the thing is
that you're getting this money
through this new bill,
which again is untested
and we don't know a lot about
because it's really only
for this kind of case.
And it creates a new exception
in the [[Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act|Foreign Sovereignty Immunity Act]],

M: but there's a problem
that [[Steve Vladeck]] pointed out
and this is an extremely
technical problem,
but it could be
a very serious issue
and he's pointing it
as one of the ways
that it was actually watered down and has become more toothless
than it should have been maybe.
So this new exception
that it created under JASTA
for non-state sponsors of terror,
for secondary liability,
doesn't actually have
a corresponding waiver
of [[attachment immunity]].
And attachment immunity
is how you actually do
the job of collecting.
So, you know,
there's the separate question
as to if you can actually
bring the suit
versus can you attach
any kind of damages
to this foreign state
and actually get the money
out of them.
So that's something
that may have to be looked at
after all this anyway.
But at the end of the day,
you know,
you read the interviews of families
you hear them talking about this,
and what they really want
is the knowledge
of this responsibility.
They want an admission
more than anything, of course.
That's often what people want
in litigation like this.
They just want to know the truth
and they want to know
that we are able to hold,
at least in some public way,
that we're able to hold
the Saudi government
responsible for this.

M: And it is just,
I don't know why in my mind,
even as I'm saying that out loud,
it does seem so strange
to just say out loud
the Saudi response,
the Saudi government
was responsible for 9-11.
And again, in a broad sense,
they absolutely were.
And that's new information
but it's not really new information.
Most of this has been around
since [[2002]], [[2003]].
We know one way or another,
we've known about
some of these people.

T: Well, from the very beginning,
weren't some number
of the hijackers
that's a very vast majority
from Saudi Arabia?

M: 15 or 19. (!!!!)

T: Yeah.
I remember that early on.
It was like,
what's going on there?
That seems weird.
But then I thought
the explanation was
that was some sort of
intentional choice
by [[Osama bin Laden|bin Laden]] or something.
But is that now bullshit
or is that not,
you have no idea?

M: No, I really don't know.
It's, I mean, it's,
Anything goes at this point. I am willing to believe after reading
the complaint
and especially the way
the Saudis respond to this,
I'm willing to believe
quite a lot here.
There's nothing I'm really
not willing to believe
about the Saudi complicity
in this at this point
because it just seems
so widespread.
It seems like they put
so much money into it.
And if nothing else,
they really were pretty intent
on funding al-Qaeda.
They've denied this.
They say that they're fighting al-Qaeda
and whatever.
But at the same time,
they are our best allies
against [[Iran]].
So this is very complicated
to the United States
and I think they would
probably prefer that we didn't
talk about this at all.

T: So, this is all very complex and there is so much going on.
Can you dumb it down a little
in terms of the extent?
Now, granted,
we're just talking about
these two hijackers.
So literally,
who knows if there's
way more connections
to the others, right?
But when it comes
to these two hijackers,
draw us that straight line
again in summary
just for our takeaway.
It's that this known Saudi spy, {{bkc|[[2024-09-20]]: [[Omar al-Bayoumi]]. }}
this agent,
was aiding and abetting
in all the ways you said.
What's the argument
against that person
being a rogue agent
or whatever?
I mean,
it sounds like
they didn't even try
to argue that,
but what's the,
I guess,
the evidence that you've seen
that makes the case more
against a broader group
of Saudis
rather than just
some one or two people
like the original
[[9-11 Commission]] said?

M: I mean,
just starting with the fact
that the [[FBI]] has confirmed
that [[Omar al-Bayoumi|al-Bayoumi]] was
a Saudi agent.
So we already got somebody
who's on the Saudi payroll
who they were pretending
to give a job
but actually paying directly
to do this kind of
intelligence work.
And it was a no-show job.
He never did anything
resembling the job
that he was being paid for.

M: So we've got that
to begin with.
The FBI is aware of this.
It's very hard for the Saudi
government to deny,
but they try to.
And they are trying to say
that all of these things
are coincidental
and there's just no way
that you could possibly believe
that they weren't.
And these people,
I mean,
try to imagine the version
of this where these two
potential hijackers
show up not speaking English
or knowing anything
about the United States
with no help, right?
I mean,
I don't know if it's a
big comedy.
I can see a comedy
version of that
where they just don't
have any ability
to rent a place.
They don't know how to order food.

T: They have to train. There's a lot they had to do.

M: Sure.

M: So once these issues
are established
and once,
I'm assuming,
just based on everything
I've read so far,
that this is going
to go forward,
what's going to get
really interesting
is when this opens up
and the plaintiffs
would then be allowed
to examine the ''other'' hijackers
to see locations
including [[Florida]]
and [[Phoenix]]
and [[Virginia]],
[[New Jersey]],
you know,
the people that were
operating all over
and start looking
into more ties
because I think
there's a lot more
that's going to come up
when you start turning
these rocks over
and this could be a story that is potentially with us for, unfortunately, many more anniversaries of September 11th.
But this really seems
like a turning point
from what I've seen.
This seems like
if this goes forward
from this motion to dismiss
that we're actually
going to get somewhere,
assuming that the government
doesn't step in
and put in a stay {{bkc|[[2024-09-20|Matt may be referencing the provision in [[JASTA]] to permit the US government to intervene if the [[United States Secretary of State]] involves themselves to prevent the JASTA-based claims from going forward. From earlier: “But it also allows the U.S. government to intervene to seek a stay if the [[United States Secretary of State|Secretary of State]] can certify that the U.S. is in some sort of good faith discussion with the foreign government about trying to resolve it.” }}
that we were talking about
or there's not something else
that trips up the litigation.
But there's more
that should still be declassified
and probably more things
we should know
and more that's going
to come out in discovery.
But I am fundamentally
shocked, honestly,
by just the weight
of the evidence
against the Saudi government
in all of this.
And it's so hard
to argue with
when you see it all in one place and I hope that that gets
the families some justice
because… and also
fundamentally changes
our understanding
of what this event was
and why it happened.
There's a lot we don't know.
And even the why,
as you said at this point,
we don't really know
if it's the Saudis doing it.
I'm not sophisticated enough
in geopolitics
to be able to tell you
what this all means.
I'm just trying to look
at it as a lawyer.

T: Sure.
Yeah, me neither.
Yeah, it is interesting, though.
And they have put
so much money and effort
into laundering
their reputation
in the past 20 years
or whatever, you know.
Soccer teams,
golf leagues,
like there's so much stuff.
It is depressing
because I feel like
while I do hope
there's some level
of success
on this legal front,
I don't know
what that really means.
You know,
it might be nice
to get some sort of
piece of paper
that says something
or maybe some money
for those families.
But I don't, …
I feel like a lot of this
was probably known
at some,
at least it's maybe
not at first,
but like U.S. intelligence
that we have to
have known this.
And there's so many times
it seems like
we just prioritize
some other objective or something than justice
on these things.

M: In typical fashion.
It's just really,
it's unfortunate.

M: There was one more
little detail I meant
to mention involving
[[Jamal Khashoggi]].
And this is, again,
kind of like in the [[MKUltra]]
direction of things
I don't really know
what to do with.
The last time,
and because Khashoggi
was very well connected,
I think we all remember
that he was,
we know for sure,
assassinated by the
Saudi government
when he went into
the embassy there
in [[Turkey]].
But the last known
interaction between
Khashoggi and the
Saudi ambassador
to the U.S.
happened the day that he met with the investigator for this case. A former FBI agent who was interviewing people
in connection
with this lawsuit.
And the investigator
for this case
has talked about this
and said that he was
kind of agitated,
that he was very concerned
about talking about
these things,
that he had a lot to say.
And that was the last time
that she met with him.
He was killed about
a year later,
so it wasn't like
it was the next day.
But it certainly,
if he wasn't already
a target,
it seems like that
might have really
moved him into
that territory.
But I don't want
to make any direct connections.
We don't know for sure
any of these things.
It just happens
that Jamal Khashoggi
was involved in this on top of everything else.
And as is the case with a lot of these lawsuits, though,
even if you can't ever
an admimssion of liability, even if you can't ever get damages.
And I badly hope
the families get
both of those things.
I think they deserve it.
The country deserves it
at this point.
We all need to know
what actually happened.
What this lawsuit
is kind of doing
is writing a second
9-11 commission report
just in its filings.
And we might get something
approaching that
from all of this discovery.
And I think it would
actually be a good time
once this comes
a little further along
and maybe if it does
open up to the rest
of the investigation
to call on Congress
to revisit all of it
and to do a second report.
You know, we're joking about a reboot, but, you know, things come out and
I don't think
that the report
as it is
should be allowed
to stand
without this information
and it just seems too vital.

T: Yeah.
Well, what's the next thing
we look for
court deadline-wise?

M: Well, we should see
what happens
with this motion dismissed.
As I said,
I'm optimistic
that it will not be dismissed.
We don't have a date.
We don't have anything
official yet.
So we're just going
to have to wait to see
and we'll keep talking about it.
All right.

T: Well, fascinating, Matt.
Thanks for doing
that deep dive.
And yeah.
Wow.
What the hell.

M: Yeah. I'm still getting my head around it weeks later. I'm still trying to understand everything I have just read and putting it into context for what I thought I knew for the last 23 years.

T: All right, Matt.
Well, thanks as always
for the deep dive
and thanks to our listeners
as always.
And please support the show
[https://patreon.com/law patreon.com/law]
We promise
none of those funds
will support terrorism.
Yeah.
I'm pretty sure.
I'm pretty sure
none of those funds
will support terrorism.
I think I could commit
100% to that.

M: Good to know.

T: Yeah.
Okay.
We'll see everybody
on Wednesday.

M: All right.

OUTRO: This podcast
is a production
of Opening Arguments Media LLC,
All Rights Reserved.
It is produced
and edited
by [[Thomas Smith]]
who also provided
the fabulous intro
and outro music
used with permission.

[ BLOOPERS ]

M: Well, the real question
is how this action was...
Oh, I'm sorry.
Let me not reframe that.
Let me answer
your question.

M: Most especially
for the purposes
of this lawsuit,
what we have learned
is...
Let me make sure
I've got these
in front of me.

T: Suspense.
Geez.

M: Yeah.

T: Is this the end
of a reality
TV show episode?

M: Sorry! M: I want to make sure I got...

T: And the thing we have learned... is...
</blockquote>

==History==

{{#ifexist: {{FULLPAGENAME}}/prv |{{#lsth:{{PAGENAME}}/prv|private}} | }}
==See also==
* [[Opening Arguments]]
* [[List of Opening Arguments episodes]]
{{#ifexist: {{FULLPAGENAME}}/prv |* [[{{FULLPAGENAME}}/prv]] | }}
{{#ifexist: {{FULLPAGENAME}}/prv |{{#lsth:{{PAGENAME}}/prv|See also private}} | }}

==External links==
* {{bk wikis}}

{{Refsec}}

Syncthing

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'''Syncthing''' is a [[FOSS]] [[file synchronization software]] package. {{#ifexist: {{FULLPAGENAME}}/prv | {{#lst:{{PAGENAME}}/prv|lede-prv}} | }}

==Stats==
* Website: https://syncthing.net

==History==
* [[2014-03-30]]: First [[IA]] [https://web.archive.org/web/20140330053706/http://syncthing.net/ snapshot] of the main website https://syncthing.net .
* [[2024-12-03]]: [[Simon Frei]] ([https://github.com/imsodin github]), main developer for [[syncthing-android]] ceased maintenance.<ref name="frei_20241203_syncthing-discontinued">[[Simon Frei]]. ([[2024-12-03]]). “[https://github.com/syncthing/syncthing-android/commit/64d2b8e362d45988dfc21dda3b0b494d7e8bb2c1 syncthing-android]”. ''[[github.com]]''. Accessed [[2024-12-10]]. “This app is discontinued. The last release on Github and F-Droid will happen with the December 2024 Syncthing version. Interactions (issues, PRs) are limited now, and the entire repo will be archived after the last release. Thus all contributions are preserved for any future (re)use. The forum is still open for discussions and questions. I would kindly ask you to refrain from trying to challenge the decision or asking "why-type" questions - I wont engage with them. ¶ The reason is a combination of Google making Play publishing something between hard and impossible and no active maintenance. The app saw no significant development for a long time and without Play releases I do no longer see enough benefit and/or have enough motivation to keep up the ongoing maintenance an app requires even without doing much, if any, changes. ¶Thanks a lot to everyone who ever contributed to this app!”. </ref> The [[F-Droid]] page for [[Syncthing]] recommends [[syncthing-fork]].<ref name="fdroid_2024_syncthing-android-rec">“[https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.nutomic.syncthingandroid/ Syncthing]”.([[2024]]). ''[[f-droid.org]]''. Accessed [[2024-12-10]]. “NOTE: The app has been discontinued and may no loger [sic] get updated after [[2024-12|December 2024]]. The fork [https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.github.catfriend1.syncthingandroid/ com.github.catfriend1.syncthingandroid] is recommended.”. </ref> ([https://github.com/Catfriend1/syncthing-android github])
{{#ifexist: {{FULLPAGENAME}}/prv |{{#lsth:{{PAGENAME}}/prv|private}} | }}

==See also==
* [[Wikipedia:{{PAGENAME}}]]
{{#ifexist: {{FULLPAGENAME}}/prv |* [[{{FULLPAGENAME}}/prv]] | }}
{{#ifexist: {{FULLPAGENAME}}/prv |{{#lsth:{{PAGENAME}}/prv|See also private}} | }}

==External links==
* {{bk wikis}}
* [https://syncthing.net Main website]

{{Refsec}}

[[Category:Software]]

Org mode notes

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Emacs notes

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Syncthing

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Baltakatei's Useful CLI Commands

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OA 1061

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OA 1094/Transcript

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''Looking for [[Wikipedia:{{PAGENAME}}]]?''
You have followed a link to a page that does not exist yet.
To create the page, start typing in the box below (see the [$1 help page] for more info).
If you are here by mistake, click your browser's back button.

MediaWiki:Noarticletext

2024-02-26T21:15:49Z

Admin: Created page with "''Looking for Wikipedia:{{PAGENAME}}?'' There is currently no text in this page. You can search for this page title in other pages, <span..."

''Looking for [[Wikipedia:{{PAGENAME}}]]?''

There is currently no text in this page.
You can [[Special:Search/{{PAGENAME}}|search for this page title]] in other pages,
[{{fullurl:{{#Special:Log}}|page={{FULLPAGENAMEE}}}} search the related logs],
or [{{fullurl:{{FULLPAGENAME}}|action=edit}} create this page].

MediaWiki:Noarticletext-nopermission

2024-02-26T21:14:34Z

Admin: Add Wikipedia link.

''Looking for [[Wikipedia:{{PAGENAME}}]]?''

There is currently no text in this page.
You can [[Special:Search/{{PAGENAME}}|search for this page title]] in other pages, or [{{fullurl:{{#Special:Log}}|page={{FULLPAGENAMEE}}}} search the related logs], but you do not have permission to create this page.

MediaWiki:Newarticletext

2024-02-26T21:11:11Z

Admin: test custom wikipedia link

You have followed a link to a page that does not exist yet.
It may exist at [[Wikipedia:{{PAGENAME}}]].
To create the page, start typing in the box below (see the [$1 help page] for more info).
If you are here by mistake, click your browser's back button.

MediaWiki:Sidebar

2023-06-07T18:23:47Z

Admin: Add Wanted Pages link.

* Integrate
** mainpage|mainpage-description
** recentchanges-url|recentchanges
** Special:WantedPages|Wanted pages
** randompage-url|randompage
** Reboil.com|About Reboil.com
* Reticulate
** https://twit.social/@baltakatei/|Baltakateiʼs Mastodon
** https://reboil.com/ikiwiki/blog/|Baltakateiʼs blog
* Observe
** {{#time:Y-m-d|now -7 hours|local=false}}|Today (UTC-07) 
** Special:EditPage|Edit some page
** Special:Upload|Upload file
* SEARCH
* TOOLBOX
* LANGUAGES
* Help
** helppage|help-mediawiki

MediaWiki:Copyright

2023-06-06T21:39:30Z

Admin: Keep copyright generally applicable.

Content available under $1 unless otherwise noted.

MediaWiki:Copyright

2023-06-06T21:37:12Z

Admin:

MediaWiki:Copyright

2023-06-06T21:36:17Z

Admin: Undo revision 196403 by Admin (talk)

MediaWiki:Copyright

2023-06-06T21:35:38Z

Admin:

MediaWiki:Copyright

2023-06-06T21:35:25Z

Admin:

MediaWiki:Copyright

2023-06-06T21:33:54Z

Admin: Add name to copyright notice.

MediaWiki:Sidebar

2023-05-24T23:23:14Z

Admin:

* Integrate
** mainpage|mainpage-description
** recentchanges-url|recentchanges
** randompage-url|randompage
** Reboil.com|About Reboil.com
* Reticulate
** https://twit.social/@baltakatei/|Baltakateiʼs Mastodon
** https://reboil.com/ikiwiki/blog/|Baltakateiʼs blog
* Observe
** {{#time:Y-m-d|now -7 hours|local=false}}|Today (UTC-07) 
** Special:EditPage|Edit some page
** Special:Upload|Upload file
* SEARCH
* TOOLBOX
* LANGUAGES

MediaWiki:Sidebar

2023-05-24T23:22:34Z

Admin: Add link to Reboil.com wiki

* Integrate
** mainpage|mainpage-description
** recentchanges-url|recentchanges
** randompage-url|randompage
** Reboil.com wiki|About Reboil
* Reticulate
** https://twit.social/@baltakatei/|Baltakateiʼs Mastodon
** https://reboil.com/ikiwiki/blog/|Baltakateiʼs blog
* Observe
** {{#time:Y-m-d|now -7 hours|local=false}}|Today (UTC-07) 
** Special:EditPage|Edit some page
** Special:Upload|Upload file
* SEARCH
* TOOLBOX
* LANGUAGES

MediaWiki:Sidebar

2023-05-24T07:52:53Z

Admin: Add sidebar link to today's journal entry.

* Integrate
** mainpage|mainpage-description
** recentchanges-url|recentchanges
** randompage-url|randompage
** helppage|help-mediawiki
* Reticulate
** https://twit.social/@baltakatei/|Baltakateiʼs Mastodon
** https://reboil.com/ikiwiki/blog/|Baltakateiʼs blog
* Observe
** {{#time:Y-m-d|now -7 hours|local=false}}|Today (UTC-07) 
** Special:EditPage|Edit some page
** Special:Upload|Upload file
* SEARCH
* TOOLBOX
* LANGUAGES

MediaWiki:Sidebar

2023-04-27T12:52:37Z

Admin:

MediaWiki:Sidebar

2023-04-27T08:08:57Z

Admin:

MediaWiki:Sidebar

2023-04-27T08:08:05Z

Admin:

MediaWiki:Sidebar

2023-04-27T08:07:11Z

Admin: Import from bk4.