[00:00] What happens when your bank becomes a weapon? All over the world, people are being debanked, cut off from their money, not because they broke the law, but because they held the wrong beliefs or supported the wrong causes. That's what happened to Pancquake, a privacy focused social media platform, when an Icelandic bank froze their funds with no real explanation. Well, now they're fighting back, teaming up with Wikileaks legal team in a case that could set a global precedent and blow the lid off how banks are being used to silence disscent. Joining us is former CIA whistleblower and pancquake spokesperson
[00:32] John Kiryaku to explain what's really at stake and why none of us are safe from this if it goes unchecked. John, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for being here. Uh, thanks for the invitation, Kim. Good to see you. This is one of those things that people don't really think about in the fight against censorship and it is uh because it's it it's happening more and more but it's fairly rare. You know, most of us think of censorship. We think being ripped off social media. We think of being demonetized even from certain platforms, but debanking is a serious one. This is
[01:02] where the bank institution says, "We're no longer going to even do business with you." Um, explain, first of all, tell us what Pancquake is. Sure. Pancake is a tech startup, but it's a tech startup that does a lot of different things, all of which are focused on on both privacy and on transparency. Uh it uh it uh for example serves as a social media platform that once it's it's actually out there up and running, it's going to be competing with
[01:32] the likes of Facebook and Twitter. Secondly, it is a short URL service where you can um you can take a URL, put it into a pancake uh uh uh box and get a shortened URL so that you cannot be tracked on the internet while you're surfing. Very valuable in terms of privacy. And I'd like to comment if I could, Kim, on on this whole issue of debanking. Yeah, I think it's actually more common than most Americans think.
[02:03] When I was arrested after blowing the whistle on the CIA's torture program, I had not been convicted. I had just been arrested. Bank of America sent me a letter saying that they were closing my accounts. I had been banking with Bank of America for decades and they included a check for the amount of money that I had in my checking account and they said that they no longer wanted to do business with me. Wow. That was followed Yeah. That was followed by USAA which cancelled my homeowner's insurance and
[02:35] my credit card as well as my car insurance. Jeez. And then Yeah. And then when I went out to find a new bank, for example, there's a United Bank uh walking distance from my my home. I went in, I said, "Hi, I'd like to open a checking account." They said, "Great. Can I have your uh driver's license?" I gave the driver's license. They put it into the computer and the woman said, "Oh, I'm sorry. We don't want to do business with you. Wow. So, this is this is actually more common than I think most people realize. And and that's
[03:05] before you weren't even convicted of anything at this point. You had just been arrested. That's it. With Pancake, Susie Dawson, the chief product officer, established the company's finances in Iceland. Now, they're in Iceland for a number of reasons, all of which are really cool to me. For example, the servers are even powered by by like underwater hot springs and steam power. It's really amazing. It's a totally green company. I absolutely love it for that reason. But
[03:36] anyway, she opened the the company's bank accounts in Iceland and then like flipping a switch one day, the uh the Bank of Iceland froze the accounts. Now Susie's not only never been convicted of any crime, she's never even been accused of any crime. But what what is it about? Right. But why what is it about Pancake that made them want to do that? Well, Pancquake I think there are a couple of reasons. Pancake number one is a threat to some very big, very powerful and important companies. But number two,
[04:09] it focuses on these issues of privacy, security, and transparency at the same time. And that I think is a threat to powerful governments or governmental organizations. And so a lot of Pancquake people, myself included, have been supportive of Wikileaks and Julian Assange and Ed Snowden and this whole issue of of transparency when it comes to national
[04:39] security. And I think that very powerful people, very powerful organizations have deemed Pancquake to be some sort of threat. And I think the idea was, and I'm speculating here, right, but I think the idea was uh to try to smother the company in its crib. And that's just simply not going to work. So Pancake has not launched yet. No, this has set us back. So there is an there's an actual
[05:09] documentable impact that the freezing of these accounts has had and that's why Pancake has decided to take legal action. Yeah. Well, right. So, uh because I've heard of Pancquake before. I've been hearing about it for a year or so, but I wasn't really sure what it was and largely because it's not out yet. It hasn't launched. So, um but this kind of sounds a lot like what was that one social media platform that they shut down and it was it was a response to Twitter, you know, when Twitter had gone all sensory and then there was that other one uh started with a P and it was
[05:42] and then they they basically ripped it off of all the app stores. They shut it down completely and um do you remember what the one I'm talking about? And this was a I don't I remember mastadon and blue sky and no this was one that they that they had gone after I forgot the name of it but they went after it and they they completely got it shut down basically before I mean it launched and people were starting to migrate toward it but they got it to be taken off all the app stores and yeah I think they
[06:13] even debanked them. I mean, it was just like this terrible way to shut down uh any sort of disscent. And it's this is such a scary time to live in that that they're able to use all of these various tools to shut down disscent to strongarm us into behaving, right? I mean, everybody needs money to live. Unless you've got your own garden in the back, even then you're going to have to pay property tax. So, you need money to live at all. and and if they have the ability
[06:43] to go in and just debank you completely or halt your funds in some way uh take you off the market. I mean, this this type of stuff, this is so dystopian, so scary. And and the thing about the pancake, exactly right, the thing about it that that makes this one even extra scary is we don't even know why. From everything I've read about Panquake, there's no there was no explanation from the bank, from the Icelandic bank. There was no like this is why. It just happened. It just happened. And listen,
[07:15] I I will admit to you that that I have, of course, I'm I'm a I'm a Pancake employee, but I I will tell you, I know these people. I like them. I trust them. I wouldn't work with them if I didn't trust them. These are good, honest, hardworking, law-abiding people. This move to freeze the accounts, this is a political move. It's a political strategy. But Pancake is handling it in the right way. They've hired Wikileaks Iceland attorneys. These are the Iceland
[07:47] attorneys that have had success in the Icelandic courts. I' I've attended uh some of the uh the hearings. There's one thing that I I didn't understand and and well, I'll admit to you that I don't like uh and that is in the Icelandic legal system, there is no system of of discovery. So we can't say that the bank has to turn over all uh memos for example or emails related to the decision to to debank pancquake. What we
[08:19] have to say is we think that there are these memos out there and we want the bank to turn over the memos. Well the bank can just as easily say oh those memos don't exist. There are no such memos. Mhm. So, it's a little bit tougher, but um we we've got the best lawyers in the country and uh and we're moving forward very quickly with this. What happens, do you think, if you guys win this case? I mean, will this prevent has there been any other case yet? I'm wondering that has tackled this. See,
[08:52] see, this is not about the money. Yeah, this is not about the money because the the money has been has been unfrozen. We've got the money and and we're we've got two dozen employees. we're we're in the process of getting our products out there. This is not about the money. It's about the principle and it's about the precedent. And so I think you're right and you were right during the intro that this is going to send to send a precedent not just to the government of Iceland and to the uh to the banking uh
[09:22] system uh in Iceland but to everybody that you can't discriminate against people. You can't target people just because you don't like their politics. Yeah. Or you don't like what you think might be their politics. So I think this is a very important case. The US has some laws that when it comes to banking that are so bizarre to me and um like when they debanked you and they were like well we don't like the fact
[09:53] that you exposed US torture program John. How dare you? How dare you? How do you like that? Uh but the there's there's this weird um idea and I I guess I haven't really thought it through fully. Maybe we can think it through. But the the government takes a position that a bank should not be um doing business with like mobsters, right? So they sure not a problem. Okay. But or is it then? That's what I'm wanting to think about like is it a problem? Only only if there is documentable evidence
[10:25] of some kind of crime like money laundering let's say you you know the whole concept of know your customer that all these financial institutions have to go through. But I don't think they should. They don't want to be I don't think they should know me. I don't think they should know. I I don't think it's any of their business what I do with my money. Like if if I commit a crime, let me deal with that and the government will come after me and I'll go to jail and that'll be that, right? But like why does my banker need to know what I'm spending my money on? I mean, I this how or even how I'm making the money. This
[10:56] decision should not be up to the bank, right? It shouldn't be up to the bank. I agree with you about that. So it's just like the cell phone company. Should the cell phone company be able to say, "You know what? We're not going to issue you a phone, uh, or we're shutting off your phone service because we think you might be committing crime with your phone." Plenty of people commit crime with their phones, and yet we're not that for whatever reason, there's not that same rule on like the cell phone companies that there is on the banking system. The banks are expected, for whatever reason, I don't know where this comes from, but
[11:26] the banks are expected to know their customer and to get really involved in the money. And I I I and and in some cases, you know, I see a lot of people that are the real even the the freedom warriors, the non-censorship crowd, and they'll get all in on this when it comes to Yeah, but the Epstein stuff, right? We want to know about the banks and the Epstein and there was and Epstein was uh getting this money and and um it was nefarious and so the banks should have known and and we're going to take down Chase Bank, right? They've been going after Chase for hey, you knew about
[11:58] Epstein and all this stuff. And so a lot of people want to cheer that on. But I sit there and I think why I I I that doesn't make unless the banker himself like the bank the head of the bank was at Epstein Island and actually engaging in the in the nefarious activity, you know, that but to I I don't think it should be, you know, a thing for banks to have to know what the hell we're doing, how we made our money, where the money came from, where it's going. I don't think they should know any of that. And I don't I I'm trying to think of if
[12:28] there's a good legitimate. So even in in the most heinous of crimes like child, you know, child trafficking, child pornography, that type of stuff, right? So that's like the most heinous crime that we can all I think think of. And we're all everybody's very against this. And this is why Epstein triggers people because then they say, "Yeah, we'll just do whatever it takes to crack down on the Epstein guy." Um, but even in that most heinous crime of like child trafficking, is it the bank's responsibility to know that you received this money because you were selling
[12:59] little children for sex? I mean, that's the worst thing I can think of. And I still don't think it's the bank's responsibility to or even their business at all to know where my money came from, where anybody's money came from. That's up to now if the bank suspects the bank may want to tip off the police, right? It might be in good moral and ethics for the bank to say, uh, that's different. But maybe, but even then, that's like a
[13:30] privacy issue that, you know, like when Apple held its ground and said, "We're not cracking open the phone of this terrorist." That's right. Right. Yes. Um. Yes. So then it goes into that into that question. Should you should you then even if you do know that maybe this person is a bad person like Apple knowing yeah it's a terrorist but we're still not going to unlock the phone. Um you know is it is it the bank's responsibility to tip off the police? I you know these are the types we these are the types of conversations
[14:00] I guess we have to have in society because this is this is where it's this is where it started. It started and it always starts with the good intentions, right? That's where all of these censorship laws start. And it started off with we want to we want to prevent the mobsters and the child traffickers. So the bank should know their customer and the bank should follow the money. And if the money looks like it's coming from someplace bad, then the bank should be debunking this person. That's where it comes from. That good intention. Shut down the child trafficker. Dick Cheney along the same lines. Dick Cheney once said that he would rather he
[14:32] would rather incarcerate a hundred innocent men than to let one guilty one go free. And I'm exactly the opposite. And I think you are too. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Just like I don't agree that we should blow up a 100 people in order to get one bad guy. I don't think that the FBI should be allowed to storm into a business building and massacre everybody and then go on TV and say, "Well, that's because we were going after the one terrorist and they were
[15:02] using the rest as human shields, so what were we supposed to do?" You know, we don't agree with that usually fundamentally. Um, no, I'm with you. But, but apparently Dick Cheney thinks that that's okay. Well, a lot of people clearly do think that's okay. Yeah, apparently they do. But that's where it starts. And I think that's what people need to understand and reconcile because I'm seeing this also with other censorship stuff like right now I'm seeing a lot of the anti-censorship crowd very proensorship suddenly when it comes to like Israel for example they're suddenly like that's right yeah censor
[15:33] them right uh and it's yeah that's exactly right we have to be for the principle even when we don't agree with whatever you know like the child trafficking is horrible and heinous but I still don't think the bank should be debanking uh that you Oh, right. You you've heard the old saying, I I disagree with what you say, but I'll fight to the death for your right to say it. Right. You know, that's that should be all of our positions here. You know, Pancake is a very small company compared to these other these titans of
[16:05] technology. Yeah. Um it it's not a threat to these titans, but the idea of of transparency is the threat to them. The idea of transparency is a threat to some governments. I'm looking at you, Washington, DC. And I think that's why they're trying to snuff it out. Now, we've been fortunate, too, in that we have investors in Pancake who believe in the company and who believe in its
[16:36] principles and they've kept us going. Now, of course, the bank has backed off and has unfrozen the the funds, but um but this is a bigger fight than just the funds. This is a fight about principle, and so we have to keep up this fight. Yeah. No, you really do because it is um we we've got to stop the debanking. I just wonder though with this fight being in Iceland, if it will affect any I don't, you know, I doubt it'll affect anyone in the United States. Uh maybe it would affect people as well. Yeah. Is is Iceland in the EU? Are they part of the
[17:07] EU? It it has kind of a partnership with the EU. When you go through immigration, it's considered to be entering the EU, but it doesn't use the Euro. Okay. Yeah. I don't remember what Shenhen status. Yeah, you're it says it is Iceland is not a member of the EU, but it is a member of the European Economic Area and the Shenhen area. That's what it is. So, it is in the Shenen zone. Interesting. Uh, by the way, the app that was taken off of all of the services, the Twitter app was called
[17:37] Parlor, and that's the one that in Oh, I remember Parlor. Yeah. And they were able to It was a conservative app, right? And they were able to bury it because they didn't like the voices that were going to be on it. And it sounds like that's similar to what's happening to Panquake. That's exactly right. What kind of a dystopian world are we living in? Where are we headed? Do you think, John, do you think we're going to get better or worse? Like, what's happening here? I think things get worse before they get better. Because even here in the United States, you know, there's really no push
[18:08] back from Democrats when Republicans are in the White House and vice versa on these big issues of censorship under the guise of national security. They all agree. They agree with one another. You know, where where are the so-called progressives? Where I'm not saying they disappeared. Yeah. Yeah. When when you look back through relatively recent history, where are the Daniel Patrick Moyahanss or the Frank Churches or Otis Pikes? Where are these guys? They're all
[18:38] dead and gone. The Ted Kennedy's, they're all dead. And I I can't think of anybody on Capitol Hill right now who I would consider to be a giant, you know, a philosopher like like Moahan was who could lead us out of this wilderness. There's nobody up there. Well, and that's the problem. Those that said they were going to fight for free speech or whatever, you know, they're just happy to censor just a topic that a different topic. They want their topics to be uncensored and they want to censor
[19:10] other people's topics. And it is just the hypocrisy going against the actual just Oh my god. Yes. That's that's I'll give you an example if I may. Last night, last night I went to an event to celebrate Arab ArabAmerican Heritage Month. And uh it's a it's a big deal. They do it every year. It's a beautiful dinner and then they have a concert and they have speakers. It's awesome. And so this year it was supposed to be at the Amazon headquarters in Arlington, Virginia. They have a large facility and
[19:42] there were about five or six hundred people last night. So 48 hours before the event, Amazon canled it and said, "Oh no, you can't come here." And they wouldn't give any reason. Well, we know the reason. So in just 48 hours, they had to, it's the ArabAmerican Heritage Foundation. They had to move the entire event and they found a church hall at the St. Peter and Paul um Antioch and
[20:14] Orthodox Cathedral in PTOAC, Maryland. Beautiful facility, but they were able to move the whole thing there. Now, it's nowhere near a subway. So, there were like a hundred students from universities that couldn't make it because it's impossible to get there unless you have a car. Um, and we had speakers like Rashida Tale, for example, prominent doctors from the Arab-American community. And finally, one of the speakers, Andy Shal, he's a beloved uh restaurant tour here in
[20:46] Washington. He owns a a local chain called Bus Boys and Poets, which is based on the concept of free speech. And Andy said, "Look, let's call a spade a spade." Amazon cancelled this because they're trying to silence the ArabAmerican community because the message of the Arab-American community is in support of human rights in Gaza, anti- genocide in Gaza. And that doesn't fit into Amazon's plan. And it's the same thing with Pancake. It's the same
[21:17] thing that is happening to Pancake and to countless other companies and organizations around the world. Yeah. So much for free, you know, a free country, free speech. So much for all of that. Censorship is a real thing. Yeah. And we have to constantly fight it. Jeez. Um, thank you for talking to us about Pancake and what's going on there. I mean, I hope the fight I hope you guys win the fight. I mean, I hope you guys take it and and um and make some progress on this cuz we do have to fight
[21:48] these every single time. And like you said, Pancake has the money back. It's not about that. It's about the issue. And we need more people fighting these issues because it does I mean how else are we going to have our freedom and and we have to keep fighting for it. I mean that's the whole got to keep fighting for it. Um John tell everybody what you're up to these days. Oh thanks. I'm up to a bunch of things. I have a show on a platform called Unified Television. It's unifyd. It's called CIA declassified. And we take declassified CIA documents
[22:19] and use them to tell stories through history. Sometimes these stories are kind of ugly things that the CIA did. Um, I'm on u uh YouTube. I have two podcasts. One with Ted Raw is called Deep Program. The other is just myself, Deep Focus with John Kuryaku. And I've got my Substack. Oh, okay. John Kuryaku.substack. Have you been diving into those JFK files yet? Those declassified? Yeah. You know, and and they really do have some some real nuggets that we've never known before.
[22:50] What do you think is like the biggest um like I guess bombshell from this latest drop? The bombshell really is that James uh Angleton, the former deputy director of the CIA for counter intelligence, um ordered CIA officers to recruit Lee Harvey Oswald as a source. That's long been speculated uh on and long dismissed as a conspiracy theory. Was not a conspiracy theory. It was the truth. And for the very first time, people are
[23:20] starting to look at the Israeli angle to this whole thing. Yeah. Well, because Angleton was clearly a MSAD double agent. I mean, that guy was Oh my god. I mean, how how just as an aside Yeah. Angleton's best friend, and when I say best friend, I mean they were best man in each other's weddings. And Angleton was the other guy's daughter's godfather was his best friend was Kim Philby, one of the most notorious traders in in modern history. He was the he was the
[23:51] director of the deputy director of MI6, the British Intelligence Service. The entire time he was a KGB double agent. And when Angleton got burned, he just assumed that everybody was a potential double agent. He ruined lives, countless lives by accusing everybody of being a KGB mole. And meanwhile, he was a double agent from Yeah. clearly. I mean, we don't know for a fact, I guess, but I, you know, but it's like highly suspicious.
[24:24] Yeah. Yeah. How what would be the mo I mean, you were in the CIA. What's the motivation for somebody to do that? And how common do you think it was or is for there to be CIA double agents? Like why would these people betray the country like this? money. It's almost always about money. Uh in counter intelligence training, they they teach us that the motivation for people accepting a pitch from us, for example, 95% of the time is money. The rest of the 5% uh is uh people are
[24:55] um ideological. They just love the United States, right? Or conversely, love Israel, love communism, you know, whatever. Um, and there's about 1% where the motivation is revenge. They've been passed over for promotion. They hate their bosses. Somebody wronged them in some way, and so they volunteer uh at the CIA. But 95% of the time, it's money. They'll just betray the country for money. Yeah. And in the 15 years that I was at
[25:27] the CIA, we had um we had two moles and uh and the FBI had a mole that you found. we found. Yeah. And there's always there's always been speculation that there was a that there was a third that we just didn't find. Yeah. In fact, you know, Robert Hansen, the FBI mole, was in charge of the FBI's mole hunting team. And so, every time they got close to figuring out that it was him, he would
[25:57] deflect. And he accused U. Brian Kelly, a friend of mine at the CIA of being a mole. Brian was fired and threatened with the death penalty. And then finally, when they revealed it was Hansen. And the only reason they were able to figure it out it was Hansen is because they got a short recording of the mole um speaking with his KGB handler. Uh everybody was gathered around the table to listen to the recording thinking we finally got
[26:28] Brian Kelly. and they played the recording and it was Hansen, their boss. Uh he went to the dead drop site which was under a little pedestrian bridge in a park in Vienna, Virginia and they got him. He died a year ago in Supermax in Florence, Colorado. Wow. Yeah. Have was there ever a mole that was uh or any sort of double agent that was found for Israel? Has that ever been cracked down or was it always like other
[26:58] countries? Jonathan Pard. Jonathan Pard. Uh we got him we got him fair and square. He was sentenced to 30 years. He did every single day of the 30 years. And uh when he was expelled, he was on the first flight to Israel on an Israeli government plane. They gave him Israeli citizenship and a parade when he got home. Oh gosh. Why? How is this country our greatest ally? I I just don't understand it like this. Well, I'll leave you I'll leave you with one other thought. Yeah, on my
[27:29] very first day at the CIA, you know, you put your hand in the air, you swear to uphold and protect the Constitution against all enemies, domestic and foreign, and uh we had a speech by the CIA's director of security. And he was talking about counter intelligence. And he said that at the Israeli embassy here in Washington, there are two declared uh intelligence officers, one for Mossad, which is external intu intelligence, and one for Shinbet, which is the Israeli version of the FBI. And he said, "The FBI has been able to
[28:01] identify 187 undeclared Israeli intelligence agents all across the United States, mostly trying to infiltrate our defense contractors to steal our defense secrets. Even though we give the Israelis 99% of our defense secrets, they want that last 1% for themselves." And they spy on us to get it constantly. greatest ally everybody. Greatest ally.
[28:32] Say that. John, thank you so much for being here uh and giving us the insight into Pancake and and everything else. Best of luck to you. We have the links down below to all of the projects that you're working on. Um appreciate your time, John. It's always a pleasure. Thanks for for doing this. Thank you for watching this clip from the full Kim Iverson show, which you could catch Monday through Friday, 2:00 p. p.m. Pacific, 5:00 p. p.m. Eastern, by going to kim Iverson showow.com. You'll catch it live. It is free to watch. 2:00 p.m. Pacific, 5:00 p.m.
[29:02] Eastern. See you there.