S its a seinfeld shutdown. Im michael smerconish. When we have been here before, it was for understandable reasons. In the 90s it was about spend ing cuts. 2013 the issue was bipartisan disagreement over the Affordable Care act on president obamas watch. In 2018 the issue was president trumps desire to build a wall on the mexican border. But this time, the American Enterprise institute has started to recefer to the impasse as th seinfeld shutdown. It dates fwook georges pitch to tv executives. I think i can sum up the show for you with one word. Nothing. Nothing . Nothing. What does that mean . The show is about nothing. Indeed like the series, it is a shutdown about nothing to which i would add nothing except polarization. Well get to the impact that it all has on the military in just a moment. Also on todays program, police say an online influencer live streamed the widespread looting in philadelphia this week and encouraged the targeting of specific stores. Ill discuss the thorny issue of whether Law Enforcement should be allowed to monitor social media to thwart such crimes, or does that violate privacy rights. Its the inspiration for todays Poll Question at smerconish. Com. Go there and answer this. Is it appropriate for Law Enforcement to monitor social media to prevent and solve crimes . Also on todays program, is the biggest peril of Artificial Intelligence the trend of Ai Girlfriends on americas young men. They are already in a crisis of loneliness, now that ta can program a fake companion, will they ever learn to find a real one . Plus considering california Governor Newsom isnt a candidate for anything, hes having quite a moment in the spotlight. He was the democratic spin doctor at the gop debate this week. He will be taking on ron desantis head on in a debate of their own, and now after the death of senator Dianne Feinstein, he has the tricky position of naming her temporary successor, when three of his states representatives are already trying to win the seat in 2024. But first, the impasse doesnt just threaten peoples paychecks and government function, but americas Military Capability and National Security. Thats what my next guest, retired Lieutenant GeneralDavid Deptula warns in a recent piece. The family of the 118 congress to sufficiently fund a requirements of the u. S. Military may have a higher likelihood of undermining our security than china does. He joins me now. He was the first deputy chief of intelligence, surveillance and recognizance. Hes a fighter pilot. He was the principal Attack Planner for the air campaign, commander of nofly operations in the 90ss and served on two commissions focused on the future Defense Strategy these days, hes the dean of the Mitchell Institute for aerospace studies. General, welcome back. What worries you most . First, i think its important for americans to understand that with a Government Shutdown, or even with a continuing resolution, the military is going to lose critical new initiatives to deal with the threats facing america. And the reason is simple. A continuing resolution essentially freezes spending to last years appropriations, and it does allow new Military Programs to go into effect. So youre not going to see any new Tracking Satellites to counter hostile missile launches. There wont be any new Combat Equipment to counter the chinese in the pacific. There wont be any new drones to replace our ageing air force. There will be a halt in production of the new Ballistic Missile submarine as well as other delayed purchases important military equipment. So gridlock and Congress Budget ena action come at a steep pras, especially given the scale and scope of the current threat environment. How might our adversaries take advantage of the situation . Weakness encourages aggression. We have seen recently an increase in the number of Chinese Air Force intercepts of u. S. Recognizance aircraft and attempts to push those and create a situation that they can then focus their nation on the United States and external actions, creating issues that might flare up into all out conflict. So these are the kinds of issues that when they see this kind of dysfunction occurring in the United States, it tends to signal an opportunity for them to engage in adventurism. And they are the kinds of things that we simply thats an immediate indicator, but the longterm ones are much more damage ing, if if you will. Thats our inability to recover, quite frankly, from 20 years of taking our eye off the ball. This is what President Biden sit on that subject yesterday. Our troops deserve so much better. The house fails to fulfill its most basic function and fails to Fund Government by tomorrow, they have tailed all our troops. Keeping our country secure, but they wont get paid. Its a disgrace. General, thats what really brings it home for me. The idea this our men and women in uniform wont get paid. Your reaction . They are all going to be negatively affected. To what degree they are depending on their spefcific status and how long the lapse in appropriations. But over 2 million Military Personnel and active duty are going to have to continue to report to duty, but they are not going to receive pay for the work performed after today until those Appropriations Bills are passed just like you heard the president say, the other part of this is the civilian workforce in the department of defense. There are over 800,000 civilians who work there and over half of them will be furloughed. While the other ones are legally exempt because they are not funded in annual appropriations. The other point to bring to your aud audiences attention is retirees will get continued to pay because their pay kooms from a trust fund, not an annual appropriation. One other point id like to make for you too, and that is that under a shutdown, the government stops payments on invoices that have not yet been paid or uncured before the shutdown. So theres some small private businesses out there who simply dont have the financial reserves to pay their cost than the government is not paying them. General, its embarrassing. Its third worldish. Thank you for being here. I appreciate it. Thank you. Take care. What are your thoughts . Hit me up on social media. Ill share some responses throughout the course of the program. This is from the world of x. Why isnt the military exempt from the effects of a Government Shutdown like they did with ukraine funding . The governments priorities are obvious. Its also i meant what i said at the outset. I paid close attention to this. Its very hard to express to discern what its all about. In the last several shutdowns or come close to a shutdown, you can articulate its about the wall. Its about spending cuts, its about the Affordable Care act. What is it that the 21 of those cats that could the not be h herded by Kevin Mccarthy last night, what are they even seeking . I have no idea. Up ahead, young men in america are in crisis. A crisis of loneliness. Many lacking friends, romance and sex. Now technology is offering up a fix. Virtual Ai Girlfriends, like alice. But they will probably make the problem only worse. Ill explain. And widespread looting in philadelphia. Police say it was live streamed and encouraged by an online influencer known as meatball, who was later arrested and charged. Heres a question. Should Law Enforcement be permitted to monitor social media to prevent such crimes from happening. Or does that violate a Right To PrivacyPresident Bush thats todays Poll Question. Go to smerconish and answer this. Is it appropriate for Law Enforcement to monitor social media to prevent and solve crimes. Sign up for the free newsletter. Youll get great editorial cartoons from legends like this commentary from rob rogers. Is it appropriate for Law Enforcement to monitor social media to prevent and solve crimes . I ask because here parts of the city were ransacked by widespread Smash And Grab Loot Ing the thieves targeted clothing and sneaker shops, highend stores, wine and spirits, pharmacies and an apple store. Police say the agitators organized their plans on social media. Among the more than 50 folks arrested was an influencer. According to police she live streamed the ransacking and broadcast which stores and locations to loot. Everybody wants it. She was later arrested after what the Philadelphia Inquirer dubbed a digital cat and mouse game with police. She faces eight charges. She declined cnns request for comment, but later told a local tv station that her lawyer advise d her not to do interviews. What happened in philadelphia isnt a lone incident. They are working to combat Organized Crime and performance crime for perpetrators brag about their actions on social media. With with more people posting crimes publicly online or using social media as a criminal tool, Police Departments are stressing the importance of ramping up surveillance so that they can monitor accounts for threats or criminal activity. But their they are facing stiff opposition from Civil Liberty A Advocates who say its another way for the government to infringe on your Right To Privacy. Take boston as one example. In 2016 the city wanted to spend 1. 4 million to beef up its social Media Monitoring. But kicked it down the road after backlash from the aclu who said it would chill free speech and target communities already subjected to scrutiny, including muslims and people of color. New york has ramped up their monitoring, even signing a contract with a company that uses ai to monitor online behavior. And the 2021 Public Records request by the center found a Los Angeles Police department authorizes officers to enfwaj in extensive surveillance of social media without internal monitoring of the nature or effectively of the searches. The lapd responded but saying it works to keep residents safe and committed to protecting privacy rights, as we confront the challenge every day. With me now to discuss is the senior director of the liberty and National Security program at the Brennan Center for justice. Thank you for being here. To me, it seems natural, logical that Law Enforcement would be following the social media accounts of individuals they know, suspect or involved in this kind of activity. In they said were headed to the apple store, police ought to be there to meet them. What am i getting wrong . Youre not getting anything wrong. Its just that thats not what thats not the only thing that police use social media for, and thats the problem. If you think about investigating a client. You know of some kind of criminal ring that is posting things on social media that might be relevant to your investigation. Of course, the cop should be able to look at that. If you know that that is a protest or a demonstration organized somewhere and the cops want to know how many people do we need to have out there, what is the potential that things might get out of hand, absolutely. You need to look at social media to do that. Unfort unfortunately, because the rules are so lax, plis also use social media to monitor protest movements. The contract for social Media Monitoring, why did it get derailed . In part because evidence came out that it was actually monitoring black lives matter hashtags, as well as what they call hashtag muslimlivesmatter. The same thing is true with the lapd. Its not that we were worried to solve crimes. We were worried because we found evidence they were using it to monitor protest activity. What if theres overlap between the two . In the examples that you articulated or a hypothetical where theres a group thats seemingly involved in some Social Justice profile, but theres reason to believe that there will be trouble afoot from some of its members. Then what . Then you have the ability to monitor, but you have to have rules around it. Thats where most Police Departments fall down. The rules that they have are very permissive. Social Media Monitoring is useful. Youre allowed to do it. But in fact, if youre monitoring for Public Safety purposes, say to figure out what resources you need at a protest or might be afraid there might be some violence, whats that protest is done, you dont need to keep that data anymore. You dont need to be creatings dots areas on protesters. So its really a question of how to make sure that police can use social media as an effective Crime Fighting tool, put not use it to infringe on peoples First Amendment rights. Youre reminding me of a im on the fly here, but i think im right. The last couple years, there was a Supreme Court case. Tell me if you think this is fair for comparison. It said if youre driving down the street, Law Enforcement can follow you as you go about your business in public, but in order to place a gps tracker on your car, there has to be a showing and a warrant. How does that compare to this . Because this individual who has been charged in philadelphia with 185,000 instagram followers is very publicly making the case, heres where we should go. And so in my analysis, thats the case of Law Enforcement following you down the street. They shouldnt need to do anything they should be able to follow her. So one of the things to understand about Surveillance Technology over the last couple decades is that it has changed dramatically. When we used to think about surveillance, we would think about wiretaps. I call you, if the police want to listen in, they need to get a warrant. Now what were looking at more and more is public surveillance. Which is the ability of technology to track people, generally without their knowing, through cell phone, gps, those kinds of technologies. Social media falls in a slightly different place because in those instances, youre not actively trying to reveal your location to anybody. Youre just walking down the street. Where social media youre putting information out there. So i think it is reasonable to allow Police Access to social media, but at the same time, we need to make sure that we have protections in place so that that access is not used to monitor protesters and people who are exercising their rights. Let me site by way of example its from the Philadelphia Inquirer about what went on here. This was some of what was being said in social media. What time we going . We looting or not . I know they say tearing up our stuff aint right, but thats the only way they hear us. Im just hope ing theres a cop with a smart phone in a Police Van On Patrol who is also following this and saying, heres what we need to go next. You get the final word. What did most want to say in 30 seconds . I think that social Media Monitoring can be a useful tool for fighting crime, but i think its really, really important that Police Departments have clear standards and safeguards so that tool is not turned against americans exercising their First Amendment rights. Thank you so much for being here. Speaking of social media, what has come in relative to this issue . Robert, if they can get the bad guys to friend them, i see no legal problem. We arent concerned about ethics when it comes to stop ping violence. We are concerned about ethic, but you already heard me. Its not only proper, its necessary. I always worry that Law Enforcement are the last ones to get the best of the tools of technology, but in the example that i just cited for you and where they are selltelegraphing where they are going next, the cops ought to be there waiting for therm. What do we have on this . With a court order only. Really . I hope that you right now are following me on x, because i have a twitter account. And anyone in the public can follow me on twitter. But were going to say, Law Enforcement cannot follow smerconish, Maybe Smerconish is going to stir things up and cause looting. While you can follow me, the cops