Name: Are Our Phones Being Tapped? By Who?
Uploaded: 2025-09-18T14:45:05.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Are Our Phones Being Tapped? By Who?' from Theo Von Clips on Comedy Buff. Published 2025-09-18. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Are Our Phones Being Tapped? By Who?' from Theo Von Clips on Comedy Buff. Published 2025-09-18. Transcript available.

You had mentioned that What's Happened Signal are farcical, right?
I'm not sure if they're farcical.
I mean, I know that there are ways the government can go into it.
I mean, there's a Pegasus, which is a program developed in Israel,
which was used by governments all around the world, including Saudi Arabia.
At some point, it was being used by the United States government as well,
in which they could basically gain access to our phones and see everything
inside,
even the encrypted messaging apps.
However, it's still the app.
Those are still apps that I use.
But if, you know, we don't talk about locations and dates or the most sensitive
information,
we usually talk face-to-face or certain ways that I'm not going to disclose.
For sure.
I went to Katara a few months ago to do comedy for some military personnel over
there.
Yeah.
And part of me wondered if they had tapped my phone when I was there.
Yeah.
And because they kind of had me come very quickly at the last minute.
I was like, why aren't they having me come, you know?
Oh, wow.
I mean, I thought it was very-
Was it the government that invited you or was it the military?
Yes, it was the hospitality people there.
And they were extremely hospitable and they were very kind.
I didn't get nothing inside of me set off any qualms from them personally that
they had any ill.
Where they were out for anything nefarious against me.
Sorry, this was for the Qatari military that you were doing that?
It was for the U.S.
Oh, yeah.
It was a joint base.
Okay.
But it just happened very fast.
They're like, you know-
Can you come?
My agent was like, if you can be at the airport in like five hours, you can go.
Wow.
And you'll be back in 36 hours.
Wow.
And so it was just a lot.
And I was like, I was very gracious.
I would go back in a heartbeat.
I had a great time.
So in a situation like that, do you go, do you already know what, do you have a
set?
Do you have your comedy set already?
Oh, that was a hectic moment for me because, well, first I thought there was a
part of me
that was like, I'm going to, I could, are they going to kill me or whatever?
Because, you know, journalism has recently become a little bit more, and I
wouldn't call
this journalism.
I would definitely call this somebody recovering from addiction, doing their
best in front of
equipment from Best Buy.
But, but I would say that.
I love how they laugh.
But these days, that is kind of like what the world, you know, it's like, it's
somebody
trying to share what they think or get information that's not mainstream media.
Right.
Yeah.
So, and I just didn't know.
I said, who knows if they put out a hit on, you know, the top 80 podcast, you
know, right.
Podcasts and like, okay, they're filing us in the, in, there was a part of me
that was
scared.
So what did you, did you do anything with your phone?
Well, the first thing I did was bring a friend.
I was like, I'm not dying by myself over there, you know?
So I brought my buddy Bizzle because he's had a good life.
And, and so I was like, yeah, I'm picking somebody that's, I'm not picking
somebody that
still has to figure it out.
But anyway, no, I just, I didn't, cause at first I didn't think that they would
tap my
phone or that they could have, but I don't know.
Is it easier over there?
And then I asked Sean Ryan and he's like, they probably did.
They probably did.
They're probably, they tapped.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's very possible.
You know, I went to Vietnam.
I did a story about the bride trafficking story we did was in Vietnam.
And this in this new season for the new season.
Yeah.
And it's a very sort of the government controls the press over there.
And so it took us months, months to even get the visa approved, the journalism
visa to
go into the country where we can bring all our camera gear and all that.
And once we did, we were told immediately we were assigned a government minder,
a guy who's
with us the whole time.
And he also had some law enforcement guy with him.
So every single interview we did, they were right there.
Oh, and we had to send them questions in advance before every interview.
And they would have to tell us it's OK to ask this.
It's not OK to ask that, which for me, for the kind of work we do is horrible.
We're trying to talk to, you know, these bride traffickers and these underworld
characters,
the Valdemores of the world.
And we were being spied and listened, not spied, listened to the whole time.
And then we actually found out through some sources there that they believed
our phones
were absolutely being tapped.
And there was one day.
And so, oh, and that our vans, our rental vans were being tapped as well.
And when we were told this one afternoon, the next morning we had to go get
into the vans
and we were told that the fixer had taken our van because the van had had some
problems
overnight.
And we were like, oh, we are definitely being listened to spied and listened to
his bananas.
While your van was sitting there overnight doing nothing.
And it wasn't even his job.
I mean, he was the government minder and he took our van and disappeared with
it for hours.
And we're like, OK, this is real for real.
But that's the problem, too.
In some of those third world countries, you have to work two or three jobs even
to get
things organized.
You're like, wait, I'm the fixer.
I'm also, I also have to install these spy equipment.
Come on, guys.
And then I get into the hotel room and we're staying at a really nice hotel in
northern Vietnam.
The Rex Hotel, was that it?
It's not the Rex Hotel.
Is there a Rex Hotel in there?
There's a beautiful Rex Hotel, I believe, in Ho Chi Minh City.
Oh, you've been?
Yeah, I've just been there once when I was a student, but it was nice.
This was a long time ago.
We were in a place called Sapa.
It's up in the mountains.
OK.
Carry on, sorry.
And we, and the phone is, there is a light, a red light.
So basically, I'm calling another room and discussing when is dinner or
something with one of my
colleagues.
And the red light is like going on.
And then basically all signs that I was being.
And then I was not on the phone.
And then the red light kept on going in moments that I was on my cell phone
talking to people,
which they're not, if I was being in fact tapped, which people there told me I
was,
they're not doing a great job.
Because figure out the light, you know?
Yeah.
Like the craziest would have been if you just open the closet and it's just
like a little
Vietnamese guy just over here.
With a glass.
Yeah.
But that is kind of funny when you get into like, you know, like, I don't want
to say
poor because a lot of times I think of poor countries as more creative
countries.
But as you get into more creative countries, you'll see like more creative, fun,
things
like that that are actually.
Oh, that's why I love traveling.
Yeah.
It's pretty heartwarming to see the way that they're like, this guy's a
spy.
This is your equipment.
It's just an empty pint glass.
And the guy's like, come on, guys.
It's so good.
It's so good.
But the Biden administration had been there with the State Department.
Several members of State Department's phones had been tapped.
They found out.
So it is absolutely possible.
It actually happens.
And it happens at the highest level.
So for, you know, poor journalists like myself, where they're trying to control
what
I'm putting out there, they were afraid that I was going to be critical of
China because
China is the one are the ones who are sort of the kidnapped women.
Vietnamese women are being taken to China and they have a very sort of fragile
alliance
with China and they don't want to make them angry.
So they had every, they wanted to know everything we were doing and make sure
they weren't going
to make China angry.
Thank you.