The Black Rock Coalition, Faith and the Michael Hill Blues Band, along with Carl Berger's Rhythm Changes, Bev Grant, Eastside Bandits, The Unforgotten Voices, The Living Theater, and much, much more at the Tompkins Square Park Bandshell this Sunday, October 28th, starting at noon.
Informative tabling welcomed.
This has been a public service announcement on behalf of Sane Freeze and the Lower East Side Squatters.
Hi, I'm Edward Asner. Do you believe in freedom of speech? I do.
That's why I support Free Speech Radio, listener-sponsored WBAI New York, 99.5 on your FM dial.
Show.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
The telephone keeps ringing
So I ripped it off the wall
I cut myself while shaving
Now I can't make a cough
It couldn't get much worse
But if they could, they would
Bum Diddly Bum
For the best, expect the worst
I hope that's understood
Bum Diddly Bum
Bum Diddly Bum
And a very good evening to one and all
This is Emmanuel Goldstein
And the program is
Off the Hook
And I just barely got off the hook tonight
Getting here on time can be sometimes
Quite a challenge in itself
But you know, I learned something
I learned something very important tonight
And that is kind of
Similar to the things we talk about here
Where you trust yourself
You trust your lives
Your well-being
You put it all in the hands of
Of technology, you know
In the hands of
Somebody else who says
Don't worry
Everything's going to be just fine
Well
As some of you may know
I have a rather long commute to get in here
And
Tonight I was kind of
Driving at
At moderately high speeds
To get here on time
And suddenly I realized
Hey, I'm so far ahead of the game
You know
I might as well just sit back
Relax
Get on the MTA
And read a paper
Plan out the program a little bit
You know
Just like they do in the commercials
Well
Got to the train station
And
Waited for the train
And all these trains kept passing by
One after the other
About three or four trains kept passing by
A crowd of people getting angrier and angrier
And I realized
Standing on that train platform
Waiting for a train
That eventually came about half an hour late
That once you
Trust your
Your well-being
And put that in somebody else's hands
You lose so much control
Over
Your
Future
My future almost
Not making it here tonight
Because
Of a foul up that I still
Do not understand
Well
Foul ups
And blunders
Are
Something that we like to focus on
In this
Program
It's not that we
Get any kind of
Of
Sadistic delight
In seeing things mess up
But it is interesting to see
Just how bad things can get
And
That's one of the things that we
Are going to look at
Right now
Particularly
With regards to computers
And telephones
Some of you may know
Of a few stories
That have not been told
And if that's the case
I would appreciate you
Sharing it with us
We'll have a
A section for
Calling in
A little bit later on
In the program
You ever have a problem
In a
In a car
I mean I was okay
In my car tonight
It was
It was working
It was doing everything
It was supposed to do
And
You know
You're
You're in control
Of your destiny
You're in control
Of moving that machine
And
A lot of people
Feel much more comfortable
When they're
You know
They have kind of
A one-on-one relationship
With a piece of machinery
Well
You're on a bus
You don't have that same
Relationship
You're on an airplane
You have even less
You have to
Completely trust your well-being
In fact
You have to trust
Your entire
Life
Whether or not
You will continue
To be alive
Depends upon
The actions of somebody
You don't even see
And the actions of
Computers
And machinery
That you have no
Conception of how it works
Well
That's coming closer
And closer to us
And
Such remoteness
Is actually reaching us
In our cars now
Listen to this story
From the
Risks Computer Digest
Which is an
Electronic newsletter
That is
Passed around
From place to place
With all of the
Discussion on
Computerized
And electronic controls
And aircraft
One should not
Overlook the fact
That there could be
More down-to-earth
Risks along
The same lines
One of our cars
Has a computer
And various other
Electronic sensors
That control the engine
A couple of years back
Shortly after we bought
The car
It started
Intermittently
Losing power
Not too much trouble
On city streets
But on the freeway
It was downright dangerous
The symptom was
That the car's engine
Would drop to idle speed
And would not speed up
No matter what we did
With the gas pedal
It could be reset
By turning off
And restarting the engine
We had brought the car
In several times
But the dealership
Could not find the problem
Then came the fateful day
My wife was driving the car
When the engine
Dropped to idle
At the merge
Of two freeways
And she was in
The slow lane
Of one freeway
That merged
With the fast lane
Of the other
I was not happy
When I got the call
I told her to call
The dealership
To come get the car
But somehow
She was talked
Into driving the car
To the dealership
And then the same
Problem occurred
This time though
It occurred
In front of a truck
Hauling an oversized
Load in the slow lane
Of the freeway
If there had not
Been an off-ramp
And a truck driver
That was on his toes
We might be talking
About my wife
In the past tense
At this point
The eventual problem
Was an intermittent
Failure of a sensor
In the air intake system
The computer responded
By cutting down
The fuel flow
To its minimum setting
One has to wonder
How many of these
Types of problems
Exist out there
And how many people
Have been killed
By such actions
Out in California
They're having a lot of fun
With the Department
Of Motor Vehicles
This person here says
I just received
My registration notice
From the DMV
This piece of paper
Shows the amount
Of money I need to pay
So that I can drive
My car for the next
Year in California
Well imagine my surprise
When I saw the amount
$2,214
An extremely big surprise
Since I only paid
$600 last year
Which is still
Quite a lot of money
I don't know
If that includes insurance
If anybody knows
How that works
It's a lot of money
To pay for registration
Here in New York
It's much less than that
But he was billed
$2,214
And only paid
About $600
The year before
When he purchased
The car new
Now the excuse
From the clerks
At the Department
Of Motor Vehicles
Seems that they have
Just started using
A new computer program
For billing purposes
Apparently on their
New tandem computers
And surprise surprise
It seems that everybody
Who got a recent
Registration statement
Has an invalid amount
I had to go
To the local office
So that they could
Print up a new form
With the correct amount
I don't know
If registration statements
Were the only
Incorrect items produced
They didn't volunteer
The information
And I didn't ask
I certainly would have asked
Supposedly some people
Received bills
For less than
The correct amount
And by the way
The correct amount
I was supposed to pay
$351
And this poor guy
Was billed
$2,214
And continuing along
That note
Electronics Times
Reports that
National Semiconductor's
Real-time clock chip
Part number MM58274B
Quote
Has a tendency
To switch from
A 24-hour clock
To a 12-hour clock
When subjected
To electronic noise
Two examples
Are given
Of problems
Allegedly caused
By the chip
Quote
The chip caused
The time clock
In a financial system
To skip from
Thursday to Saturday
Leaving employees
Without paychecks
And it has also
Caused problems
For the United Nations
Atomic Energy
Agency
Let's try that again
The United Nations
Atomic Energy Agency
Boy, I wonder how
They answered the phone
Probably
UNAEA
Anyway
It has caused
Problems for them
Which uses the chip
In a televised
Security system
For guarding
Nuclear fuel
Oh boy
And
If you were
Reading the
San Jose Mercury News
Which most of you
Probably were not
You may have found
This piece
All sorts of
Explanations have been
Offered for record
High temperatures
Across the country
The greenhouse effect
The growth of cities
Even chance
But
The National Weather Service
Is examining an additional
Theory
The thermometers
Were wrong
The service
Is studying
The thermometer
At issue
An electronic sensor
Called the
HO-83
adora
Three
Trying to
To
To
To
To
To
To
To
To
To
To
To
Ahhhhhhh!
Oh, my God.
Oh, my God.
Oh, my God.
Oh, there's more folks.
We could talk all night about this, but I selected a few classic stories of computer foul-ups and abuses of privacy and that kind of thing.
And living proof of how things can get so out of hand if only we allow them to.
Check this one out.
On behalf of them, she would have to change her license plate.
Her plate read, W-O-P-E-R-1.
W-O-P-E-R-1.
Coming from a feminist word, woman, person.
W-O-P-E-R.
And the one was there because the license plate Bible reported that somebody already had W-O-P-E-R.
The Italian PR guy had the DMV search their computers for any string containing the word WOP, W-O-P.
Now, my mom's plate had nothing to do with Italians, and there are plenty of words that GREP might pick up, all containing W-O-P.
And I might say GREP is a Unix term, an operating system on various computer systems.
And what GREP does is it allows you to search for a particular string in any body of text.
So you could look for, you know, the letter A and the letter A followed by B, and it would give you every instance of that.
So what this person had done was GREP for W-O-P.
Now, my mom wrote an extremely formal letter, she's an attorney after all, and that's good for something, to the Department of Motor Vehicles, and they apologized over the phone.
But they would change the plate to W-O-Space-P-E-R.
W-O-Space-P-E-R with that space to distinguish the word from any anti-Italian slang.
They also reported that the first person who had W-O-P-E-R no longer had the plate, and that plate was available for use.
Well, the new plate arrived last week.
It read W-O-P-E-R, no space.
Nice job on behalf of the DMV.
And the bill for the plate read $1,200.
And the actual bill was $108, but because of the recent computer foul-up that we mentioned before.
Or, uh, certain little things happen like that.
Anyway, the concern here is, uh, should agencies like the Department of Motor Vehicles be allowed to just GREP a database on behalf of a PR stunt for any phrase containing W-O-P or anything else?
Something is wrong here.
Next thing you know, colleges will be scanning their applications for last names ending in E-Z to fill some quota of Mexican students.
Well, Mexicans aren't the only people whose last names might end in E-Z.
W-O-P, just as W-O-P isn't always a derogatory slang against Italians.
Computers are becoming more useful to the tools of prejudice.
And, uh, speaking of the tools of prejudice, this is, uh, kind of a public service announcement for some folks out there.
Uh, this was posted on a computer board known as Alt.Activism.
And it's one of those internet things that gets sent all over the place.
And subject is, uh, called New Dimensions Phone Zap.
All right, let's see what that means.
New Dimensions Magazine is not to be confused with New Dimensions, the radio program, which is not like this at all.
New Dimensions Magazine is a new right-wing news magazine.
And they put news in quotes.
It is known for its misinformation about AIDS, saying things like AIDS is airborne, uh, misinformation about gays, activists, for instance, AIDS or gay activists are potentially dangerous because they may have dementia and could do something crazy or destructive.
That kind of thing.
So, uh, Act Up of Portland has called for a phone zap of this rag.
Phone zap being sort of the same thing that happened to, uh, Jerry Falwell's 800 number a few years back, where a hacker would, uh, continuously call up with his computer.
And, uh, Jerry Falwell would, of course, foot the bill for every single call that came in.
Now, uh, they gave the number out for New Dimensions, 800-877-3227.
But, uh, a warning is in order here for anybody that might be engaging in this practice.
As we have proven on this radio program, when you call 800 numbers, your number very often, more often than not these days, shows up.
So, you don't want to be doing things like that if your number is attached to it.
So, uh, be very careful with that kind of thing.
Because I'm sure they, uh, they're looking for people to, uh, to nail.
It's very annoying when people keep calling 800 numbers, and we all know that.
And finally, not finally, second to finally, uh, from government computer news of October 1st,
agencies violated the Privacy Act 292 times last year by failing to notify the public about a third of their largest personal record systems.
The, uh, report by GAO's Information Management and Technology Division, Computers and Privacy,
said many agencies ignored the Privacy Act's publication requirements
and did not issue federal register notices for 35% of their personal record systems.
The, um, Defense Department, uh, reported the most systems covered by the law with 360,
followed by the Departments of Health and Human Services with 210,
Department of Justice 169, Department of Agriculture 87.
However, agencies published notices for only 535 systems.
Forty-six agencies said they, uh, participated in computer matches.
The report said 4.32 million matches, 78% of the total, were done for law enforcement purposes.
Another 16,245 were for tax purposes, and 10,028 involved queries on delinquent payments.
The Drug Enforcement Administration and Farmers Home Administration accounted for 97% of all matches.
This, uh, contributor observes that many federal criminal databases are not even covered by the Privacy Act's provisions,
and that computer matching of government databases was supposedly prohibited by the Privacy Act.
However, it still goes on in increasing numbers.
And finally, phone lines, including the 911 emergency number,
were dead throughout San Luis Obispo in California for 30 minutes on October 9th.
The interruption, which affected 30,000 customers, occurred at 10.15 p.m.
and affected virtually all phone lines in the city, said Jim Bauer, Pacific Bell's Central Coast Area Manager.
Bauer said the interruption was caused by a computer programming error made by a Pacific Bell employee.
We were putting in a new program, and an error was made, he said.
We were responsible for the error and corrected it as soon as we could.
As soon as we could meant more than 30 minutes of no phone service to the Sheriff's Department,
from the Sheriff's Department, including the 911 number.
That, according to, uh, Sergeant Scott Thompson of the Sheriff's Department.
But the disruption didn't cause any serious problems this time.
So, you gotta be careful with all these computerized systems,
because things will go wrong.
They will go wrong.
Next, we'll be talking about long distance,
and we'll be taking your semi-long distance phone calls.
Stay with us.
Off the hook.
Off the hook.
Off the hook.
Off the hook.
Off the hook.
Off the hook.
Off the hook.
Off the hook.
Off the hook.
Off the hook.
Off the hook.
Thank you.
You know, given enough time, there's always the human desire for some reason to rip other humans off.
And I don't understand what this necessarily draws from, what particular human chemical there is that says thou must rip off thy fellow human.

About people that don't even know they exist.
Only $2 a minute.
Only $25 per call.
It's insane.
Do people really fall for this garbage?
And what is it that allows this garbage to exist in the first place?
Well, of course, part of it is developing technology that allows multiple lines, allows interpretative billing.
Let's put it that way.
Rather nice way of putting it.
A couple of years ago, New York City only had the 976 exchange for mass announcements, and we didn't have that many of them, and they were a set rate, or I think they were about 25 cents at that point.
Now we have the capability to have interactive systems where you get hooked up to conference calls, where you can punch in touch tones and leave messages for people, where you can get connected to all kinds of suggestive recordings.
And, you know, we all expected a flurry of these kind of things to pop up, but I must admit, I am in awe as to how long this has been going on for.
Picking up the village voice.
Otherwise, wonderful paper, but I cannot understand why they have this glut of advertisement in the back of every issue.
Hot gals tell all.
Uncensored confessions.
1-900-990-1212.
Only $2 a minute.
Ladies night on the line.
Meet hot ladies who know what you want.
Men, TVs, couples.
TVs?
I don't know what that means.
Leave a message free.
$3.50 per call.
$3.50 to leave a message.
Love Talk Live.
1-900-230-LIVE for real women who want to go live with you.
That's right.
We're real women on the other end of the phone.
It's the most incredible technological breakthrough you've ever heard of.
Sassy Lady.
1-900-454-0400.
A dollar per minute.
Two dollars the first.
Something different.
Something you can't get at home.
Gals are waiting.
Call them all.
Hot dates for adults only.
Ladies are waiting.
The hot one-on-one line.
Oriental dream dates.
Women's secret fantasies.
Midnight confession.
The night makes them tell.
Women's private dreams.
Turning the page.
1-900-LOVED-MEN.
Dial now.
Guys are waiting.
Transvestite transsexual cross-dresser.
99 cents a minute.
Two dollars first minute.
It just goes on and on and on.
The black line.
We're all men.
O'errochem.
For black gay people who want to pay two dollars a minute.
To talk to other people.
You know, it doesn't cost that much money to...
Well, let's just find out here because this is something that I find very, very annoying.
Let's see if we can actually get an answer on this.
Okay, I've got a dial tone.
I don't know why I have a dial tone here.
Let's try dialing that number again.
Hello?
Yes.
That's one of our callers.
You just sit tight.
We'll get to you in a minute.
Okay.
We should have an operator coming online.
Any second now if these phones will actually work the way they're supposed to work.
Okay, we have an operator coming online.
A laughing operator.
The telephone is great.
May I help you?
Yes.
Hi.
Can I have the long distance company, please?
Darling.
Thank you.
One moment for an operator who can assist you.
Thank you.
I hope this one's not laughing.
Hey, Team T, how can we help you?
Hi, operator.
I'm interested in the rates to call Japan.
Japan at this time of day, how much it costs to call there.
Okay.
Hold on, please.
Thank you very much.
Okay.
From 8 p.m. to 3 a.m.
It's $2.55 for the first minute, 99 cents each additional.
99 cents each additional minute.
Thank you very much.
You're welcome.
All right.
So, folks, 99 cents for each additional minute.
You can call Japan.
You can call Japan for less money than most of these lines are asking for.
And speak to Japanese people who want to hear from you.
Yes, real Japanese women are waiting on the other end.
And all kinds of other people, too.
So, make random calls.
You'll probably wind up in better shape.
There's actually, there's another interesting one that just showed up a couple of weeks ago
in the Village Voice.
That was free adult phone fantasy.
And it's an international number.
It's located in the Netherlands Antilles.
Country code 599 and number 2626 or 6262.
And the funny thing about this, you know, you say to yourself,
I'm making an overseas call somewhere.
But you're actually paying less than you would pay to call one of these rip-off numbers
that show up all over the place.
But ripping people off does not stop at these mass announcement numbers.
You find all kinds of rip-offs in the long-distance field as well.
I just got something in the mail today from AT&T.
And if this is true, if what AT&T is saying is true,
then there's some pretty sleazy things going on out there.
Look at this.
This line that appears on an advertisement says very distinctly,
this is from another long-distance company,
domestic rate comparisons refer to our discount level versus AT&T basic rates.
I mean, do you know what that means?
That means the other company is comparing their discount level to AT&T's full price level.
And much as I dislike AT&T for whatever reasons,
this kind of advertising is so sleazy,
so incredibly sleazy and so apt to capture people
who are unwitting victims of all this.
Now, how did all this come about?
Obviously, the breakup of the phone company is a major part of it all.
And the free enterprise system, I suppose, allows for this kind of thing to happen.
It will continue to get worse unless people become educated and know what to look for.
And you don't become educated by saying,
well, all the new companies are bad
and all of the competitors are out to rip people off.
You look for the warning signs.
You look for those sleazy campaigns.
And you tell other people when you find them.
That's really the only way to become an educated consumer.
In a moment, we'll be speaking with somebody who works for one of those phone companies,
actually a very unusual phone company,
one that does not exactly fit the mold.
And when we...
At your long-distance telephone company,
you can now begin placing your dial-one calls on the All-Net network.
Yes, they had a bad splice in there.
You could hear it.
And there are even more.
Thank you for choosing MetroMedia ITT for your easy one-plus dialing.
Your service is active, and we appreciate your business.
I know.
It sounded like somebody was chasing her.
Thank you for using Telesphere.
Simple and to the point.
If anyone has any others out there, feel free to let us know what they are.
Send us recordings.
We'd like to hear them.
Here's one more.
One-two-one-five.
Welcome to Telecom USA One-Plus Dialing.
If you have any questions, call 1-800-383-3333.
One-two-one-five.
Longest 800 number in history.
One-two-one-five.
Even longer.
And that's a little summation of some of the long-distance companies that are out there.
Now, there is one other long-distance company, and this is a rather unique one.
It's called Working Assets.
Now, you may have heard of the Working Assets Visa card, which takes a percentage of your purchases
and donates them to various causes.
Well, now there's a long-distance company that does basically the same thing.
We'll be speaking with the president of that company in just a moment.
Building houses for the homeless, starting a lab to test your home's water and soil,
helping to prosecute a white supremacist organization,
are just some of the direct results of more than 100,000 progressive consumers
using their credit cards and long-distance phone service as tools for social change.
These consumers are all customers of Working Assets Funding Service,
the company that helps people change the world just by doing what they do every day.
In the last year alone, Working Assets donated $356,415 to 32 non-profit action groups
working for the environment, human rights, economic justice, and peace.
Working Assets donations are a result of green tapping,
a process by which money already in the economic system is redirected toward improving the world.
When a member uses Working Assets Long Distance, for example,
1% of the charges goes to action groups at no cost to the caller,
and Long Distance and credit card holders vote on how to allocate the funds among the 32 selected groups.
Now, we've got on the line with us Peter Barnes.
To read over this brief biography sheet I've got here,
Peter Barnes is a true practical idealist who has combined social activism with enterprise throughout his career.
He is co-founder and president of Working Assets,
the socially responsible San Francisco-based company that allows members to generate funds
to help the world through everyday activities like charging a purchase or making a long-distance phone call.
In 1985, as a co-founder of the Working Assets Money Market Fund,
the nation's largest socially responsible investment fund,
Barnes developed the concept of building a fund for social change through consumer spending.
And as a result, the first Working Assets Consumer Service, the Working Assets Visa, was born.
Prior to the launch of Working Assets,
Peter co-founded and was president of a California-based solar energy company called the Solar Center.
His career also spans more than a decade of journalistic activity.
He has served as publisher of Mother Jones, as an editor of the New Republic, and as a correspondent for Newsweek.
Devoted to making the world a better place,
Peter has served as a director of several non-profit organizations dedicated to social change,
including the National Cooperative Bank and the State Assistance Fund for Energy.
He's a graduate of Harvard University, holds a master's degree in government from Georgetown University.
Enough of that. Peter Barnes, are you on the line with us?
I'm on the line. Gosh, I feel like I should say 26-1215. This is Peter Barnes.
Yes, I don't know why they have to keep those numbers in there.
I guess it's for their own purposes.
But we're glad you didn't say that.
We're glad that you're here with us live on the radio.
And, well, if you could perhaps say in a way that these press releases and biographies can say,
what is working assets all about?
Well, we could talk about long distance because that's really what we're talking about tonight.
And I like to think of working assets long distance as basically the AT&T of the left.
And, you know, long distance service these days, just like credit cards, pretty much a commodity.
They all do the same thing, pretty much.
They all make the same number of computer errors, more or less.
And to some extent, they all charge about the same rates.
What we do is we charge the same rates as U.S. Sprint, which is to say we're a little bit lower than AT&T.
And then at no cost to people who make these long distance calls,
we give 1% of the cost of every call into a pool of nonprofit action groups, such as you described,
that work for peace, human rights, economic justice, and a safer environment.
So basically, the more you talk, the more you help.
It's a way to not really put your money where your mouth is, but put our money where your mouth is
and use the business system, use the services that we use every day,
like long distance, talking on the phone and going shopping with credit cards,
turn those essentially mundane acts into acts that, at least to a small degree, help promote a better world.
Now, how is this possible without any additional cost to the consumer?
Well, I think what it boils down to is we're not as greedy as some of the other companies.
So basically, we offer the same services at the same price and forego a small percentage,
which goes into this is money that would otherwise go to like AT&T or Citibank,
depending on who you do your visa card with.
And what we sort of take pride in is cleverly spinning, diverting some of that money
to good, progressive nonprofit organizations.
I see. Now, you've mentioned that you use Sprint.
Do you use Sprint lines?
We use the Sprint fiber optic lines.
I see. Now, how are you able to use Sprint lines without having to pay the full Sprint price?
Well, we have a deal with Sprint.
But basically, we buy wholesale from them and pass on some of those savings to the nonprofit groups.
That's sort of the essence of how we do it.
I see. Now, how come Sprint, not MCI, not AT&T?
Well, we shopped around a couple of years ago when we got this started.
AT&T wasn't interested in talking with us, mostly because with 80% market share, who cares, right?
Remember what Lily Tomlin used to say, we are omnipotent.
And then we talked to MCI, Sprint, and a couple of the smaller ones,
and it just turned out that Sprint was the most amenable to working with us.
Now, does it take away business from Sprint if somebody uses you instead of them?
Well, yeah. If people use us instead of them, it does take away business from Sprint.
But their hope, and in fact what's happening, is that there's a net gain in customers for Sprint
because while we obviously attract some Sprint customers to working assets,
we attract more AT&T customers than Sprint customers.
So there's more traffic flowing over Sprint lines than there would be without us.
That's how Sprint looks at it.
So it does help Sprint then to have somebody using you rather than to use AT&T, right?
Yeah. I mean, our goal in life is not to help Sprint, but in effect that does happen.
Now, you mentioned that customers are able to vote on what kind of causes you fund.
How do they do this? How does it work?
Well, we have about a three-step system where, first of all,
we limit the groups that we can support to national groups, not local or regional groups.
Otherwise, we would be inundated with nominations.
So we're talking, first of all, about national or international groups.
Then the customers, the long-distance customers, and the credit card holders
nominate groups that are national or international in one of the four issue areas,
peace, environment, human rights, and economic justice.
So we get several hundred nominations every year.
We then screen these nominations.
Actually, we hire a progressive foundation called the Tides Foundation to do screening of these groups
that are nominated and check them for effectiveness and so forth.
And we then select, out of the hundreds that are nominated, 32.
Actually, this year we increased it to 36 because the pool has been getting bigger.
We then list all those groups that we selected.
And we try to have a broad sort of representative portfolio in there covering all the major issues.
We then put all those groups on a ballot, which gets mailed to all the long-distance users
and the credit card holders.
We stuff it in one of your bills.
And part of that is a ballot, which people can send back, where you can vote.
You can basically take 100 percent, a pie of 100 percent,
and divide it however you want among the groups that are nominated.
And we get a very high participation in this voting.
It's much more fun than paying your taxes.
I can imagine.
It doesn't cost you anything, and you get to say where you want the money to go.
And none of it goes for weapons.
Anyway, then the ballots come in, and we count every single one of them.
And last year we got over 20,000 of these ballots back.
And the bottom line, at the end of all of this, we then divide the kitty, which keeps getting bigger.
Last year, as you mentioned, it was 365,000.
This year it will probably be about 500,000.
We divide that in accordance with the vote.
So it's kind of a budgeting process.
There's a certain amount of money to be divided among these groups.
And you, the customer who basically generated this kitty by making the long-distance calls,
you get to be the budget committee and determine where the money goes.
I see.
I mentioned that working assets doesn't allow casual users.
Are you familiar with that phrase?
Uh, no.
Well, it's the equivalent where you can access AT&T no matter what your long-distance company is
by dialing 10288.
You don't have that kind of service, though, do you?
Oh, yeah, yeah, we do.
I mean, you can sign up for working assets and still dial your 102880 and get AT&T
just in case you're really afraid of cutting the umbilical cord with Ma Bell.
You can still do that.
Right, you can do that, but can you do it the other way around and keep AT&T and use
working assets by dialing a special code?
You could, but it's not worth the effort.
There's just a whole bunch of numbers you have to punch in.
It's much better to call us.
We, like everyone else in the world, have an 800 number.
And if you call our 800 number, we can get you on dial one service with working assets
so you don't have to worry about it.
Every time you make a long-distance call, you dial one plus the area code and number,
just like any other long-distance carrier, and automatically 1% of your calls are going
to help these progressive nonprofit groups.
Okay, why don't you give us that 800 number?
And if you know the other, the five-digit code, I'd just like to have that for my records,
but give out all the information that you have.
Yeah, well, the main number is 800-522-7759.
800-522-7759.
If you call right now, you can leave your name and address, and we'll mail you information tomorrow.
If you wait until tomorrow, you can talk to some real-life people.
Sounds good.
Okay.
Now, if you want to speak to real-life people here at the radio station, give us a call,
212-279-3400.
And that is our phone number here.
Do you guys at Working Assets have any kind of travel card, something you can use on the road?
Yeah, we have a travel card just like any of the other carriers.
You have to dial an 800 number first and then punch in the number you're calling, followed by another code.
And you get a special Working Assets card?
Yeah, you get a little card you can carry in your wallet just like the other cards.
Great.
Okay, so you'd have all that information at the number then.
Right.
Any other surprises or things that you didn't expect to have happen that have occurred with this company since its inception?
Well, we have been getting a lot of business lately from people who are pissed at AT&T for abandoning Planned Parenthood.
And we, of course, not only fund Planned Parenthood, but NARAL and the Ms. Foundation for Women and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force
and a whole lot of other groups that AT&T wouldn't touch with a 10-foot pole.
So I think there are a lot of people out there who are all part of one community.
And we as a long-distance company and a credit card company really see ourselves as being accountable to this progressive community
or as we like to call it, the community of practical idealists.
And I love the idea.
I have this vision in my mind of all the practical idealists in America being hooked up on a network
where they're supporting the things they believe in just by doing things they do every day.
So we're kind of building to that.
It takes a while to get the thing set up and to spread the word.
But that's what we're doing.
Now, working assets is very obviously the exception to something that we've been seeing a lot of recently,
what we were talking about earlier.
A lot of these new companies, these new services, really seem to be very blatant attempts at ripping people off.
Why do you think so many new companies, so many small companies are doing this?
And how does working assets deal with that kind of problem with any kind of new company trying to start up?
Well, as they say, it's a jungle out there.
And, you know, we do not engage in fraudulent practices.
And our pricing policy is pretty simple, namely that we keep our prices identical to the prices that Sprint charges.
So basically we're always competitive with, we're equal to Sprint and competitive with MCI and AT&T.
Yeah, I mean, you're asking a pretty deep philosophical question about why humans are into ripping each other off.
God only knows.
I guess in a sense what we're doing is trying to rip off the economic system in a way.
So we're playing the game, but with the same game, but with a slightly different twist.
You've heard of those companies, though, haven't you?
The ones that charge double what AT&T charges, making you seem like you're using a different company.
And those customer-owned pay phones that take all your money.
Yeah, particularly the pay phones is where a lot of that's going on.
It's gotten to the point, though, where people don't trust anything that's new.
And that's kind of a sad comment.
I know, it's too bad.
It really, really taints the fact that there are good companies out there in a lot of businesses.
There's really, I think, in the last few years, an upsurge of socially responsible companies,
small companies that are starting up and trying to do business in a way that is environmentally sensitive.
Like Ben & Jerry's, for instance?
Ben & Jerry's is one example.
In fact, there's a bunch of companies like this, including Ben & Jerry's, Esprit, Patagonia,
Seventh Generation, which is a mail-order company based in Vermont,
which sells environmentally sensitive products.
Smith & Hawken.
We're forming a little group of socially responsible businesses,
which we hope to convert into some sort of a political tool.
We haven't got all the details worked out, but we think that there is a way for us as businesses,
in just the course of everything we do as businesses,
we're communicating with millions of people all the time,
and to use not only the money that flows through our businesses,
but also the communications systems and tools that we have at our disposal
to use those for progressive political purposes and for social and environmental change.
Hands-on access, in other words.
For what?
Hands-on access to new technology.
Yeah, yeah.
All right, let's take some phone calls as we're running out of time rapidly.
The number is 279-3400.
Good evening.
Hi, let me turn off my radio.
Okay.
I should say to anybody that's calling now, turn your radios down so you don't have to do that.
I just wanted to say that every Motor Vehicles Bureau in the country
has a list of letters and numbers that cannot be used because they are brought up as obscene.
Yeah, I can imagine there are quite a few of those.
I'd give anything to have a copy of that list, though.
Okay, well, I have a copy, but...
You have a copy?
I have a copy of the list.
Well, I'll grant you immortality right here if you send it in.
Well, that'd be kind of difficult because I'd have to take a part book.
Ah, okay.
I'll send you the reference, though.
You can always look it up.
Okay, good enough.
Thanks very much.
And the address here at WBAI is 505 8th Avenue, New York, New York, 10018.
Address anything that you find interesting to Off the Hook, care of Emanuel Goldstein,
and I will be forever grateful.
Good evening.
As they fumble for the phone, are you there?
Yes.
I'd just like to say that in spite of all the technology that we have
and in spite of how much WBAI talks about freedom of speech,
it's being abused every day, even though I enjoy your program.
Earlier this evening, Malika Lee Whitney hung up on two very fine gentlemen twice.
Whoops.
I don't know how that happened.
There's people out there with 10-line phones that sometimes manage to get on every line.
Good evening.
Is this limited to questions about working assets, or can I ask something?
Well, go ahead and ask.
Okay.
I wanted to find out, is there any way to determine the difference
between the normal insanity of interference on your line
and something else that might actually be going on?
The normal insanity of interference?
Yeah.
In other words, we all have a certain amount of calls where you reach a squeal sound or a static sound.
But I have had a number of things on my line that I really consider the land of Oz.
And I wonder, you know, at what point can you determine the difference?
Well, that's a tough question.
You know, you'd have to have a professional look at your line.
I mean, you know, look for taps, look for, you know, a cross-connection or something like that.
I mean, every case is different.
Right.
Okay.
You know, it depends on the wiring.
But thanks for the question.
279-3400, good evening.
Hello.
How are you doing?
Yes, hi.
I would like to know if one has a card, if I can call Jamaica,
because it's one of my big grabs with AT&T.
I cannot call Jamaica with one of their, you know, phone cards.
We're talking about Jamaica, the island, I assume.
Right, right.
Okay, do you have an answer for that?
I'm going to call the 800 number to switch my service, but it's busy,
and I'm definitely going to keep calling because I like very much that idea,
and I wish everyone with a conscience could.
Okay.
Well, sir, we want the person that you asked the question of to answer the question.
Can people answer you?
Yeah, hi.
To be honest, I don't know about Jamaica.
What you should do is call the 800 number tomorrow and talk to a live person and ask them about Jamaica.
They'll be able to tell you off the top of my head.
But in general, you do have a card that one can make calls from any pay phone,
and it'll be billed to their own phone, yeah?
That's correct, and the card covers a lot of international countries,
but it doesn't cover every single country in the world,
so I'm not sure if Jamaica is covered.
Okay.
Thank you very much.
Okay.
Thanks for calling.
And, yeah, he touched upon a good point.
AT&T does block certain countries,
especially if there are a lot of fraudulent calls to that country,
which is, you know, I can understand them doing it,
but it also inconveniences a lot of other people as well.
So it's a valid point.
Let's take a couple more calls.
Good evening.
Yes, I just read something very disturbing in the latest issue of Mondo 2000
in the letters to the editor section where it says,
it refers to an article they apparently had on an ATM hack,
and it says basically there were two problems.
This is why they did not reproduce schematics or diagrams of this thing.
It says there were two problems.
One is that the ATM hack, as we currently know it,
allows you to steal from existing accounts
rather than allowing you to set up an account and rob banks.
Up to a point, the banks are covering the customer's losses,
but if we examine that more closely,
it becomes obvious that the customer would at least have to prove it.
Furthermore, good, i.e., rich customers,
would probably be taken at their word,
while poor customers would be suspect.
Finally, those of us who are less anal and less money-centered than the norm
tend to, as it were, lose our balance.
We thought that delusions about overthrowing blah, blah, blah,
poor people would be the primary victims.
We also thought it was worth showing how the big, solid system
is vulnerable to that kind of hack,
and thus publish the article,
but we have better, et cetera.
Now, the point is, I hadn't been aware until this point
that the system was vulnerable to hacking,
and that is something to think about.
That certainly is,
and that's something we'll be discussing on future programs.
Thanks so much for bringing that up, though.
We are just about out of time.
Peter Barnes, president of Working Assets,
want to thank you for being with us tonight
and wish you the best of luck.
Why don't you give out that 800 number one more time
before we move on to the next program?
Thanks. It's 800-522-7759,
and we'll talk to you tomorrow morning.
This is 5226-XY, signing off.
Okay. Thanks very much for being part of the program.
Stay tuned for the personal computer show.
And this is WBAI in New York, Emmanuel Goldstein.
We'll see you in two weeks.
Good night.
Hi, I'm Edward Asner.
Do you believe in freedom of speech?
I do.
That's why I support Free Speech Radio,
listener-sponsored WBAI New York,
99.5 on your FM dial.
Get into a country state of mind
with Tom Tortorella's Country Music Alternatives.
Saturday afternoons, 2 p.m. right here,
WBAI New York, 99.5 FM.