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And you're listening to radio station WBAI in New York.
It's time now for Off the Hook.
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17,
18.
And another Wednesday evening is upon us.
This is Emanuel Goldstein.
The program is Off the Hook.
And there's no way to introduce this, but we've got a story for you tonight that's just
so incredible that you just won't believe it.
Stay tuned, though.
You'll hear the whole thing.
There's no way out of here when you come in, you're in for good.
There was no promise made, the part you played, the chance you took.
There are no boundaries set, the time, and yet you waste it still.
So it slips through your hands like grains of sand.
You've got no fear when you come in, you're in for good.
There's no way out of here when you come in, you're in for good.
There are no boundaries set, the time, and yet you waste it still.
So it slips through your hands like grains of sand.
You've got no fear when you come in, you're in for good.
There are no boundaries set, the time, and yet you waste it still.
So it slips through your hands like grains of sand.
You've got no fear when you come in, you're in for good.
There are no boundaries set, the time, and yet you waste it still.
There's no way out of here when you come in, you're in for good.
Well, we may not be trapped inside here, but there's many ways we can be locked away and
caught without a way out.
I guess visiting a prison so many times sort of drives that home.
I've seen fiber optic twice in the past couple of weeks, and you know, it just keeps getting
more and more bureaucratic, more and more difficult to deal with.
Here's the latest thing.
I know we've been telling people to send him books and magazines.
We can't do that anymore.
There's a new regulation, a new law, not really a new law, but just a new way that they're
dealing with things, a new way that they're going to make life a bit more difficult.
In this particular case, it involves the fact that Mark has been receiving lots and lots
of books and magazines from people like you, who have been kind enough to send him these
things.
Well, now the prison authorities are rather upset.
They're saying that he can no longer get books or magazines.
That is, he can have a total limit of five books and six magazines.
Can't have any more than that.
If he has any more than that, he faces demerits, and enough demerits leads to somebody being
put in the hole, which is solitary confinement.
That's the kind of crap we've got to deal with.
At the moment, he's asked me to convey that people not send him books and magazines.
He has to ship home a lot of the extra ones.
Obviously, letters are a very good thing to send in.
We'll give out the address a little bit later on in the program.
Here's something else that happened concerning prisons, which just gets me so angry.
There's one other person still in prison from this particular group of people that got sent
away for what I think are absolutely ridiculous charges.
This is someone who went by the handle of Scorpion.
His real name is Paul.
I've submitted an application to visit.
They don't tell you this when you watch TV and you see people in movies visiting someone
in prison.
There's a long process to this.
This is a minimal security prison.
You have to fill out forms.
You have to be approved.
You have to answer all these questions.
One of the questions being, do you desire to visit with the above-named individual?
Well, why would you be filling out the form if you didn't?
Did you know this individual prior to his period of confinement?
How long have you known this individual?
Where did the relationship develop?
Have you ever been convicted of a crime?
Are you presently on probation or parole?
Actually, it says, are you presently on probation of parole, but I'm sure they don't mean it
that way.
Do you correspond or visit with other inmates?
If so, who?
What kind of car do you drive?
What's your license plate number?
All kinds of things like that.
Well, Paul sent me a form in January to visit him.
I got it in February.
I filled it out the day I got it and sent it back.
And then, yesterday, March 29th, keep in mind, he sent me this form in January.
I got it in February and received this March 29th.
The form came back.
It seemed that I forgot to write his name.
Even though his name is written all over this document, they sent it back to me saying,
please complete the rest of the form.
Put in his name.
We can't figure that out.
It's not necessarily the same person's name throughout this document.
You have to write that name in and his number as well.
Because I missed that one line, they waited a month and sent me this form back.
Now, it's pointless.
He's getting out on April 15th.
If I send this form in now, by the time I get it back, it'll be May.
So that's a small taste of the frustration that you live when you're inside a place like
that.
And that's one of the good ones.
So it's something to keep in mind, those of us who have the freedom to walk around every
day.
It's something that a lot less of us seem to be having these days.
They're building prisons everywhere.
All right.
That's part of what I wanted to talk about today.
But the real story concerns what happened in Chicago last week.
Actually, yeah, last week and over the weekend.
The Computers, Freedom, and Privacy Conference, the fourth annual one, usually takes place
in either the Bay Area or Washington, D.C.
Well, this time it took place in Chicago.
And it drew people from all over the world who are interested in such topics as computers
and freedom of speech and all kinds of other issues.
It drew a fair number of computer hackers, civil liberties lawyers, media representatives.
You name it, they were there.
It was an interesting smorgasbord of events and discussions.
We had a hacker panel, which was, I think, very informative and got people their first
glimpse of hackers from all different sides of the tracks, so to say.
That's nothing unusual in and of itself.
The CFP conference happens once a year, and it's a great way to meet people.
It's a great way to exchange ideas and to see that even though we may be on different
sides of the fence, we still have a common ground.
We still can talk.
We still can hang out together and have fun.
And that's what we did.
We hung out.
We went out to dinner.
We walked around the town.
We just traded information of all sorts.
All kinds of contacts were made.
But you know, this year, something really bizarre, something really strange happened.
Now, at these events, there's representatives from all different governmental agencies,
all different investigative agencies, CIA, NSA, FBI, they're all there.
And they walk around with name tags on them, so you can tell who these people are.
It's kind of neat.
I mean, I was talking to one guy from the NSA, and he was a really nice person, you
know.
He was just kind of chewing the fat about various things.
And you know, it's kind of a revelation, one I've gotten before, but it still hits you.
These people are human beings.
My God, they're not aliens from another planet.
So once you realize that, you can sort of become more comfortable with them.
Maybe they'll see where you're trying to come from.
Maybe you'll understand something that they're trying to say.
And that's sort of what the whole purpose of the conference is.
Computers, freedom, and privacy, all kind of ties together.
But you know, this year, something different happened.
Yeah, this year, one of those agencies was working really, really hard.
And what this meant was that, well, I guess the best way to say it is that CFP got raided
by the feds.
A bunch of FBI people were there, and apparently, they were looking for some computer hackers.
Now, we have three stories here, three different stories.
And what we're going to do is go from one story to the next in the words of the people
that live them.
Our first story comes from someone from New York, actually, Lee Nussbaum, who was attending
the conference and had an interesting event happen while he was attending the conference.
So let's cut over to Lee now, who joins us from St. Louis.
And Lee, are you there?
Okay, I'm not picking you up.
Let me try you over here.
Can you hear me now?
Yes.
Okay, we're not getting you very loudly.
Okay.
Is anybody else there?
Yeah, Robert.
But Lee, speak up.
You know, the problem is with this phone line, I think.
Okay, we're going to have to probably patch this or something.
That's just not loud enough, I'm afraid.
Okay, we have some technical difficulties.
We're going to work these out.
We'll be back in a minute.
Oh, is it real life?
Oh, sweet, come on and soon.
I can't bear this lonely road.
And I'm caught with my own mind.
Is this a dream or is it real life?
Oh, sweet, come on and soon.
I can't bear this lonely road.
Oh, sweet, come on and soon.
I can't bear this lonely road.
Oh, sweet, come on and soon.
I can't bear this lonely road.
Oh, sweet, come on and soon.
I can't bear this lonely road.
Oh, sweet, come on and soon.
I can't bear this lonely road.
Oh, sweet, come on and soon.
Look at that head lying there.
The moon is dark, she shows no fear.
I'm lying still, my eyes are wide.
My heart is pumping, I'm still alive.
I'm still awake against my will.
What will it ever take to still this burning?
And I'm caught with my own mind.
Is this a dream or is it real life?
Oh, sweet, come on and soon.
I can't bear this lonely road.
Oh, sweet, come on and soon.
I can't bear this lonely road.
We had some federal agents who were apparently calming the crowd for some people.
Can you tell us how this affected you?
Friday morning, some point between 8 and 8.30, a couple minutes after I'd awakened,
I got a knock on the door and answered it.
It was four Chicago FBI,
who basically in about three sentences told me I was Kevin Mitnick.
Kevin Mitnick being a renowned computer hacker who is currently on the run.
Did this surprise you to find out that you were actually Kevin Mitnick?
Of course.
I let them know and basically my next sentence to them was,
to the effect of, no, I'm not Emily Nussbaum.
Their response was, yes, we know about the aliases.
Okay.
They mentioned later that apparently he has used William Nussbaum as an alias in the past.
And when someone had recognized me,
or had recognized someone who looked enough like Mitnick to be worth checking,
the night before this name had come up in the search as an alias.
They therefore took me down to the Chicago FBI office,
which was about two blocks from the hotel.
Okay.
Well, they handcuffed you, didn't they, on the way down?
Yes.
They handcuffed me in the room and gave me an opportunity to dress first.
How nice of them.
And, yes, walked me to that office and handcuffed.
And when we got there, started asking questions and ran a fingerprint
to check the identity then.
And basically spent the next half hour talking, trying, you know,
basically establishing other things that established a difference between us
until we got the negative back on the fingerprint.
So it took about a half hour for the fingerprints to go through.
Correct.
And then they realized that you were not Kevin Mitnick,
and what did they do at that point?
Apologized, walked me most of the way back to the hotel and...
Took the handcuffs off, I hope.
Yeah, they took the handcuffs off as soon as we got to the office.
Oh, that's good.
Well, this is definitely interesting.
This happened about 8 a.m. in the morning on Friday, correct?
Yes.
Okay.
Let me go now to a voice you may have just heard,
Robert Steele, who has been on this program before,
who is an ex-CIA case officer,
who now works for a company called Open Systems Solutions, I believe.
And Robert Steele has been, in fact, described by author Bruce Sterling
as somebody who's 100 times smarter than Kevin Mitnick
and about 10,000 times more dangerous.
Now, Robert Steele had a similar type of incident,
well, not really a similar type of incident,
but an incident of some sort,
which happened at about 9.15 that same morning.
And Robert, do you want to tell us what happened to you?
Well, not to bash the FBI,
because I'm sure someone gave them a lead
that they thought was worth following up.
But they probably didn't expect to run into
an old, middle-aged, balding case officer.
Basically, I had three young puppies outside my door,
a very good-looking young woman
and two fine-looking high school football captains.
They knocked on the door,
and at first they said,
room service.
And now, this woke me up,
because I had gotten in at 5 o'clock that morning
from Honolulu,
and they said,
FBI.
And I was just a mite irritated,
because I hadn't ordered room service.
So I said,
I didn't order room service.
Go away.
And they said at that point,
FBI.
Well, respecting the law and having a sense of humor,
I opened the door, naked,
and stuck my naked chest around the door
and said,
well, what do you want?
They were asking for Mr. Peterson.
I don't know what they thought they would find,
but they found a corporate president
who had a meeting in an hour
and was not happy about being woken up.
I think that
as soon as they saw me,
they realized they'd made a mistake.
They didn't throw their credentials out,
they didn't come bursting into the room
with guns or handcuffs,
and they apologized and melted back into the woodwork.
Well, basically, as soon as you opened the door,
they at that point said,
we've got the wrong room or something?
No, at that point, they asked me
if I was Mr. Peterson,
and I explained that I wasn't,
and they didn't require any identification.
I'm curious, going back to our other fellow,
was there a woman in the FBI team?
Yes.
And did she watch you dress?
What are you getting at here?
Watching, but there was
the lead officer, actually.
So someone came into the room
and accompanied you while you dressed?
I think she was doing something else.
I think it was one of the men.
She was actually speaking to one of the other people
I was sharing the room with
while I was dressing.
Was she in the room with you while you were dressing?
Yes.
I consider that a gross invasion of your privacy.
Okay, well, we'll get into that in some detail,
but we still have another case
that's unfolding here.
Now, this happened at 9-15 to Robert Steele.
At 10-15,
Joe Stavala, who was a student
at Harvard University attending
his first Computers, Freedom and Privacy Convention
from here in New York
going out to Chicago.
He also had an incident happen to him.
Joe, are you with us?
How are you doing?
Okay, tell us what happened to you.
It was about 10-15 or so.
I came out of the elevator
on the floor of the conference
and as soon as I stepped out of the elevator
a woman and a man came up to me.
They announced they were from the FBI
and they said, can I see some ID?
So I had asked, why?
And they said, can I see some ID?
And I asked, why?
And they said, can I see some ID?
So this went on for a little bit.
Finally, the woman asked, can I see some ID?
So I said, okay.
I showed it to them and they were comparing it
to a picture which I couldn't see
because they were looking at it towards themselves.
And I asked them what was going on.
So they asked me to take a little walk with them.
I said, okay.
And I was talking to the guy
and I asked him what was going on
and what he told me was
I looked like somebody
who was associated with
the World Trade Center bombings.
One of their accomplices,
who was supposed to be in Chicago.
I see.
Do you look Iranian?
I don't know.
That's what they told me.
So I said, okay.
So he asked me if I'd take a little walk with him.
So we went into the room where we eat lunch.
So we were sitting in there
and me and him were just chatting on a social level.
And he looks down
at my sneakers, you know.
And he's like, so, you know.
And I was wearing a pair of black Reeboks.
And he just was talking about my sneakers.
And I was like, well, whatever, you know,
they're my brothers, this and that.
And so he goes down and looks at my sneakers
and he grabs my ankles.
So, anyway, I didn't know whatever it was.
So we're just standing around talking.
And I walk over with the other FBI guys.
And this one guy,
I don't remember his name, he shakes my hand and says, hi.
And he says, can I see your left leg?
So, and all this time,
I was wondering, you know, whatever.
So I showed him my left leg.
He reaches down and grabs my ankle, you know.
And I'm like, whatever.
Then he looks at me and just says, you can go.
So I said, okay.
So I walked away and I came back
and I asked him if I could see the picture of the person
who they were looking for.
I mean, I saw somewhat of a resemblance.
It wasn't anything major.
And that was it. And I left.
And I went over to the conference.
I see. Okay.
Well, what we've been able to gather out of this,
apart from what happened to Lee Nussbaum,
they apparently were looking for Kevin Mitnick,
the case with Robert Steele
and with Joe Stivala,
apparently, from what we were able to gather,
they were looking for another hacker
that has been on the run, actually a hacker
turned informant from the West Coast
who goes by the handle Agent Steele.
Now, Agent Steele,
Robert Steele, maybe they thought
there was a connection somehow.
His last name does happen to be Peterson.
So when they were asking for Mr. Peterson,
there's no small doubt
that that was the Peterson they were looking for.
What's interesting about this Agent Steele
character is that he has a wooden leg,
which would explain
why they were looking at Mr. Stivala's leg.
What's interesting, though,
is that it doesn't really look all that much
like him. He's got long dark hair
and
I believe Agent Steele has long
blonde hair, if I'm not mistaken,
but they're not really the same build.
This is an interesting
turn of events because
basically what happened at the conference
from that point on is that all kinds of
rumors and allegations went
flying around as far as
who was watching who,
were there lists being given out by the hotel
to various agencies,
were rooms being searched,
were other people being questioned,
were people arrested.
This is computer's freedom and privacy.
It's probably the worst type of place
for this kind of thing to happen.
Unfortunately,
the FBI did this in front of
a lot of people.
Not necessarily the actual questioning,
but word of it got out.
You didn't have to make
any phone calls because everybody you would call
would be right there. The civil liberties
the media people, they were all there.
It's no surprise that this made it to the New York Times
the next day.
It's kind of
funny in a way, but also
there's a part of this that is not
so funny. I imagine that
at least a couple of you were
kind of shaken up by this. How about
you, Lee?
Initially, at least until they got
to the office
and started showing
they weren't so sure.
Even still,
it's...
But they didn't get you all the way back
to the point at which they arrested you?
I'm sorry?
They just threw you out in the street
and said, find your own way back?
No, they brought me
close to the hotel.
They didn't
basically come back in with me.
They didn't escort me back in.
Now, after the conference was
over, and the conference ended
Saturday night, there was
a massive push to have
a post-conference
session with one of the
FBI representatives. His name is Jim Settle.
He's a very forthright person.
He's fun to talk to. He's
open and honest, I think.
He answered everybody's
questions as far as what this was all about.
While he didn't
give out all the information that
people wanted him to give out,
he did answer a few questions
and just give the sense, I found
a sense of frustration
on their part. I can kind of imagine
this. In a way, you sort of feel sorry for the FBI
because they
wanted to catch these people so badly
and their luck was not running with them.
But one thing that
he said which stuck with me
and something which
I think contrasts with what we're being told
here today, he was adamant
in that no more than two FBI
people were working at any one time.
Joe, you said
there were a couple of people.
How many people were there for you?
Initially, when I got stopped, there was a man
and a woman.
Finally, when I was talking
to the one guy, the woman
came over with two other people.
The one
FBI
guy was there at the museum
on
Saturday night. I recognized
him from there and there was some other guy
who I didn't recognize, so there was at least four
people when I was talking to them.
Four people in the hotel?
Yeah. The guy who was with me,
the woman that first came, and then two other guys.
It was four of them.
Robert, how many people came to your room?
Three. A good-looking blonde,
about 5'6",
and two young studs.
Also blonde, about 5'8",
5'9", maybe a little higher.
So you had three people. Lee, how about you?
How many people were actually in the hotel?
There were four at the room.
Four at the room. This is interesting because
this was said in front of many, many
people in the conference room that there were
no more than two people working at any one time.
None of those four were
at the conference.
None of them were at the conference?
They may have been referring to
only two of the conference participants.
Well, I don't
know. That's not the way it came across.
It came across very definitely as there were no more than two
FBI agents in the hotel at any one
time.
Well, now, Joe,
how do you feel? I mean, were you shaken up by what happened
to you? I thought it was a joke.
When the whole thing started,
I mean, I came out of the elevator and there's two
people. I was like, what could the FBI possibly
want? You know, I mean, I guess I'm
new pretty much at all this and everything
like that. So at first I thought it was a joke
and then after a while I was like, I guess, you know,
I was like, these people are serious and
they told me this World Trade Center
bombing thing and all this and I was just like...
So what was that all about? Did they ever explain what they
meant by that? No. They
told me when I got stopped, they just said that
somebody who was associated
or an accomplice or whatever with the people
from the World Trade Center bombing was going to be
in Chicago. The FBI guy told me
somebody else got stopped at the Hyatt
either earlier that morning
or the night before
and that's all I got out of them.
But he had said, the person,
the guy who stopped when I was talking to him, he said,
we don't think you're the person because
he's, you know, like this tall and he stuck
his hand about five or six inches
above my head. Well, couldn't they figure that out
before they cornered
you like that? Yeah, but then they grabbed his
ankles. Then they grabbed your ankles,
right. Right.
So, I mean, either you're a wooden leg and a former
hacker or you're a World Trade Center bomber.
Which is it? I never got an answer
from them, you know, that they told me that
that's what I did and this and that
and when I had spoke to the
FBI guy that they were having a meeting with
why they told me this and that
he couldn't give me an answer. Why they told
me why I was associated
with this instead of telling me they were looking
for the steel person.
So, they never really gave you an
explanation as to what the World Trade
Center thing was or why
they thought you were the person?
The only answer I got
from the person at the meeting
was he said he didn't know
why they told me that but
an assumption of his was
that they were trying to keep it
pretty low key and
if they were telling me they were looking for a hacker and this
and that, you know, it might have spread
and I guess they weren't planning on
this whole thing happening. So, they just, I guess,
concocted some story or this and that.
And that's all I can get out of him.
He wouldn't really go too much farther than that.
Okay. We're talking with three
people that had
several...
that were the victims, I guess is the best way to say this
of some sort of a
search by the FBI.
The question is whether or not
this kind of thing is
correct, whether this kind of thing should
occur, whether we can expect this kind
of thing to occur. My thoughts on it
are that this is rather disturbing
because, well, I mean,
when something like this happens to you
and you're innocent, a lot
of people seem to think that, well, you
can just continue with your life, you did
nothing wrong, but it does
shake you up. It does make you
a bit jittery afterwards,
even if you've done absolutely nothing wrong,
to have somebody come up to you and say
that you're suspected of some horrific
crime. And also
if you tell other people that this happened to you,
they might start looking at you with a bit of doubt
in their eyes. So, it's not
quite that simple a matter of just walking away
from it. It's a case of mistaken
identity. The other issue is
are we going to
have a society where
we can simply pull somebody
aside if they look like somebody
or if they act somehow
the same way as somebody who's
wanted, how
far are we going to let that go?
In the past
we've had incidents where
somebody of a particular ethnic race was
wanted and the people looking
for that particular person
decided to simply call in
everybody from that particular ethnic race
and treat them all as suspects.
Is this far from that particular
scenario? One thing that I asked
Jim Settle at the
conference, the post conference
meeting
afterwards, I asked him
how many people are you looking for?
It's a fair shot that
at least one FBI
suspect
is similar looking
to people in this room.
Can we all expect to be
questioned at some point simply because we look like
somebody? It was
a bizarre circumstance. One
I could not have
written
to be more bizarre than this.
I'd like to know if you folks have any
comments on that and I'd also like to open up the phone
lines to our listeners so they can ask any questions.
212-279-3400.
Warning though, our phone lines
are acting weird so it's possible
that even if you do get through you won't be heard.
Keep that in mind. That's a risk you have to
take. Any thoughts from any
of our guests tonight?
I wouldn't make that much
of it. I feel bad for the fellow that got
handcuffed and taken down there.
From my point of view, working
out of his room and looking through
his identification, they should have
rapidly established that he was not
traveling under a false identity.
Between pocket litter and
other elements, they should have very clearly
seen this guy was more than just
a false driving license.
From my point of view, they didn't take
the time in the hotel
to really thoroughly vet whether this person
was traveling in alias or
was in fact an imposter.
But as far
as myself, I'm happy.
You know, they
looked at me. It took me less
than 60 seconds to blow
them away and then I went back
to sleep. So, they
treated me well. But everybody knows
who you are. That's what I don't understand.
Everybody knows Robert Steele.
I don't know who I am. I think they
simply were looking at a Robert
Steele and they had no idea they were
dealing with someone
who's been written about by Alvin Toffler
or done these other things.
Uh-huh. Joe, do you
feel the same way?
Here and there.
I feel, I guess,
you know, I mean, the guy who saw me,
I mean, there's a difference between me and the person
of like five, you know, actually
like seven or eight inches, supposedly,
between me and him. And
how they could have mistaken him
for me, I don't know. But the guy said that he saw
me sitting down.
You know, but the conferences weren't that long,
so I'm sure he could have saw me walking around.
Uh-huh. So, how
he made a mistake like that, I'm not really sure
to tell you the whole truth on something like that.
How did they track you? Because you said they
got you just as you were walking out of the elevator.
So, how long were they watching you for?
He said, when I spoke
to him after the meeting, he said he saw me
Thursday. He said, like,
I saw you Wednesday or Thursday. And I said, I wasn't
here Wednesday.
So, he said, oh, it must have been on Thursday.
He said, I saw you sitting down on Thursday.
And I
mentioned, you know, whatever the
procedure is. And they were waiting for me since like
8.30 Friday morning.
And I had missed the first
seminar, so to speak,
Friday morning. And I didn't get there until like quarter
after ten. So, supposedly, he must have
been there from like 8.30 or so
right outside the elevator just waiting for me to come
out.
Now, they were there.
That's something. Now, how do you guys feel?
Those of you that are attending
this kind of a conference for the first
time, knowing
that anytime you go to a conference
like this, you could be watched by
a government agency and
compared to various wanted people.
Does it affect you? Do you think you'll be
going to conferences like this in the future?
Lee? Joe?
I'll answer. I
think being my first time here
was a new experience and the whole
thing like that.
I'll definitely go again.
I don't see how this would stop me from
going. This is something I'm interested in.
It wouldn't stop me from going to future conferences
and stuff like that.
But the whole thing of being watched
and everything, that was definitely something
that I'm not used to. And it was a little
odd.
But maybe in the future,
take a look around and you hope this thing
doesn't happen everywhere you go.
But it wouldn't stop me
from going to other conferences. Definitely not.
Lee, how about you?
No, it's not going to stop me.
I am probably
going to spend more effort than I'd like
establishing
and
carrying
more around to establish my identity and so forth.
You know, it's
funny. At the end
of the conference, everybody there,
just to show the level of the sense of
humor at these things, everybody was wearing a
Kevin Mitnick badge.
So it made it very difficult to
see who was who, in fact.
Even the NSA guy was wearing a
Kevin Mitnick badge.
We can look at this with humor.
There is a serious side to this.
This is something that
can be kind of troubling, can be
kind of ominous.
For one thing, how many
hackers do you think are going to feel
right participating in this kind of thing
in the future? Especially if it's
possible that they might have done something
which got some company mad at them at some point.
You never really know. When you're a hacker,
you never really know who it is that
wants to lock you up for what.
Because it's possible
you can make enemies and not even know it.
So that's something that needs
to be considered.
Guys, it is
computer's freedom and privacy. There is
something of an element of trust there.
Even if somebody is
wanted for something, it's just
kind of
not the right form to have
searches and seizures.
While I sympathize with them trying to
catch people they believe to be criminals,
this
I think is a very damaging thing.
Does anybody here think the FBI
can save face after something like this?
Robert, how about you?
Well, I
think they need instruction.
I don't think they did anything wrong.
I think they were doing their job as they
understand it.
What we came out with
was that hacking
is cutting edge elegance.
It's not breaking the law.
And the fact that our computer
security across the country is so
rotten, so vulnerable.
From my point of view,
if someone cracks a system
out of curiosity, it's not hacking.
It's bad engineering on the system's side.
I think we need a
redefinition of the law.
We need to place
a much more significant responsibility
on system administrators
and on hardware and software
developers to embed security.
I was very
annoyed to have the
house break-in analogy used
during the hacking panel.
I mean, he just didn't get it.
We don't have a
nationwide computer system that is
all these elegantly constructed
houses with locks and locked windows
and everything. What we have is
a development that's just barely under
construction. And houses that are
nothing more than frameworks.
They haven't even had the outside
walls applied. They certainly don't have doors
and windows in place.
Or the house analogy is inevitable.
But in that context, people have
to understand that hackers
are, in fact, a priceless national resource.
They are pushing the edge of the envelope.
And the reality is that
both the law and the engineering
are retarded.
Okay. I'd like to go to some phone calls.
212-279-3400.
We're speaking with three people that
were questioned by the FBI at the
Computers, Freedom, and Privacy conference.
And last I
heard, all the people they were looking for
were still at large.
That's, I guess, a complete
washout for them.
Let's take some phone calls. Good evening.
You're on.
Hi. Okay. What I was thinking of as I
heard the three stories
was I think it was in
Alexander Solzhenitsyn's Gulag Archipelago
when he was
talking about when the police come to
take you away. They always come very late
at night or very early in the morning
so that everyone's asleep and no one
knows what happened to you.
You just disappear.
And
I remember at around the same time
that I was reading that, which is going back a long
time,
it was back in the days when everybody
was smoking pot and the
police were raiding people's houses and
people didn't quite know
how to receive the police.
The advice was given
out to never ever invite them in
and don't cooperate
and make a lot of noise.
Draw a lot of attention to what
they're doing so that you have witnesses.
And so
the first thing I thought of when I heard of these
stories that took place in a hotel room
or rooms
was of these little
sort of pocket-sized
alarms that they're
selling.
I don't know. These high-tech stores have them
and they're for travelers to
use on their hotel room
in case someone breaks
into the room. You can pull the
plug on it and a loud alarm will
sound to frighten away
the burglar.
Well, there's also the question of people
coming in to make up the beds. At least
to an interesting point, one other person, in fact
an employee of AT&T, claimed
that his room was made up twice
and that the hotel had
told him that he
was on a list of names
that was given to the FBI.
We questioned the hotel staff later on in the day.
They denied any knowledge of this.
However, the FBI agent that
we questioned afterwards said that the hotel
had to have known about it because they could not have
gotten permission
without that. So a lot of
conflicting stories here.
It's good to be able to know when somebody
is getting into your hotel room.
However, in a case like that,
people do enter it to
do various things legitimately. It's hard
to differentiate that between the illegitimate
ones.
Especially when you know
that you're not guilty
of any transgressions.
It's really a good idea not to go anywhere with anyone
until you at least know that some of
your friends know that you're going somewhere.
You're not guilty of anything. There's no reason not
to make a lot of noise, especially if somebody
wakes you up at 4 o'clock in the morning.
That's an interesting point.
When you're all alone in a strange city
and you don't have a lawyer handy,
it did occur to me, thinking about it
afterwards, that had I
really been concerned, by closing
the door and getting time to dress, my first
call would have been to the CFP press
room.
It's always good, and I think this is very
important here, that all three of these
people, their first
instinct was to tell people, not to
hide, not to cover it up, not to do anything
like that, but to tell people.
I think that's very important. When something happens,
you let people know about it
so that there's no mystery.
Even while it's happening, because
in fact, although these people said they were
FBI agents, they could have been kidnappers.
That's a possibility.
Thanks for your call. Bye.
Okay, let's take another phone call.
212-279-3400.
Good evening. You're on. Hi, Emanuel.
How are you doing? Okay, how are you? Just a second.
Let me turn on the radio. First of all,
speaking of
phones acting weird,
just on that note, right now,
our telephone here, where I live...
You'll have to speak up, because we're having trouble getting you.
Okay, this telephone that I'm on right now,
because you were talking about phones acting weird,
something very strange is going on
with our telephone. When people call us,
they, unless they're
local to me, like in the same city,
they're getting AT&T.
They're getting some sort of a two-voice demonstration
when they call me.
I do know there's something going on in New York.
I was talking to a phone company representative today.
They said that some network, and of course,
speaking to a phone company representative,
you have to realize 90% of what you're hearing probably isn't true,
but they said some network
is not working right,
and their phone calls
are not going where they're supposed to be going.
Well, they're certainly not, because I'm getting calls
for 100 radio stations.
They're calling me, you know,
they say they're calling an 800 number,
and they end up getting me.
And they're calling what radio station?
100, WHTV. Really?
And they're calling an 800 number, and they're getting you?
Somehow, I mean, the AT&T representative
that I talked to about this
said that all the 800 calls
have to terminate
at a regular phone number.
Right.
I'm assuming that somehow they switched this phone number,
and now they're being routed to me.
How many calls have you gotten?
I just took the phone off the hook.
I've been getting just nonstop.
I have to disable call waiting.
All right, what you have to do, first of all,
you have to call the radio station
and tell them what's going on,
and tell them that they have to solve this problem,
because you're getting their calls.
That way, at least, you'll get them working for you
to solve the problem, because it's their problem, too.
And tell them if they don't,
you're just going to start telling people
that they've just switched to easy listening format,
and that their call means nothing to you,
and you can do anything you want, really.
But basically, what you have to do
is get them and the phone company
to solve this right away,
because that's an intolerable situation.
We have to move on.
All right, thanks for calling.
Good evening, you're on the air.
Hello?
Yes, you don't have to speak up.
You've got one of those bad lines.
Okay, I'm afraid there's only time for one thing for you,
because we can barely hear you.
Oh, okay.
I've got to give the boo of the week to 9X.
The switch that they put on
for the caller services,
like caller ID,
and all that other stuff.
...waiting and call conferencing
on my line.
When I used to, under the old switch,
when I used to have my
three-way calling in use,
my call waiting worked.
Now it doesn't. Now people get a busy signal.
Doesn't that defeat the purpose?
I suppose it does,
but we're having such trouble
hearing you that we're not going to be able
to really address this right now,
so we're going to try to go to another line.
Sorry about this.
The telephone system is really the pits.
I have to say that right here.
Good evening. You're on.
I'm hearing this story
about the FBI people.
In my past,
when I was doing some labor organizing,
I had some encounters
with spook types also.
What I found from experience
will scare them away
real quick
is I just started
to take their picture.
Oh, yes. That's something we've learned
at the 2600 meetings. They hate that.
In particular,
this is a case where
we were in a strike.
You could tell the real press people
because they would sort of come right in
and talk to you, but the spooks
never come and talk to you directly.
They sort of like to stay at a distance.
I remember
in particular
one time we found that
there was a guy who was clearly
had all the markings of a police
officer because he had a flasher on his
car and all. I just
started trying to take his picture and he ran off
quicker than you can believe.
That just seems to get rid
of them very quickly.
The other thing I was going to say
is I know of
some judges and others who
have nicknamed
the FBI as standing
for Federal Bureau of Incompetence
or Federal Bureau of
Intimidation because of what
they do.
This certainly is consistent with that.
I guess my reaction in
these situations is before I show them
anything, I would ask for their ID
because
if they're doing
what they're supposed to be doing, they should
be willing to tell you who they are.
I know in Robert's case
there wasn't a need for that, but
in Lee and Joe's
case, were they forthcoming in
showing ID?
I had to ask.
They weren't going to show me...
I don't know if they were going to
or they didn't feel like it or this or that,
but I finally asked if they
would because I said, you know, can I see some ID?
The woman
opened up her thing and
showed it to me. It was upside down.
I don't know what FBI
stuff looks like anyway, but
she half-heartedly
pretty much showed me her ID and stuff like that.
I don't know if they were
so happy about it or this or that, but
reluctantly she did show me hers
and the guy didn't show me his.
That did surprise me.
Normally I would expect
in a professional encounter like that,
particularly when you're coming on someone cold in their
room,
to have your badge out
and show it because
that's the first establishment of professional
credentials. Initially
there was, through my mind, just
for one second I wondered if it was a joke,
if I was being spoofed by
hacker friends or whatever, but they look
like such young, clean-cut bureaucrats
that I took them for real.
How about you, Lee?
Did they show you the ID right away?
When they entered the room, I was
not really in a state to figure out
at the moment, but they did show.
How were you dressed when they entered the room?
Underwear.
Uh-huh.
You were asleep when they entered the room, right?
I'd been awake about two minutes.
One of my room chairs had just gone into the bathroom
and that had woken me up.
Did they ask any questions of your roommates?
A couple, but they were making
enough other noise that I didn't hear.
Manuel?
Yes?
I'll say this. If I didn't ask,
I don't think they were going to volunteer to show me anything
because the whole time
before I asked them, the whole situation
took a couple of minutes, and they didn't volunteer.
They told me they were from the FBI, but that was it.
They weren't volunteering to show me anything.
And if I didn't ask, I don't think they would have
even followed to show me anything.
If that makes a difference or not.
That is rather disturbing.
And I've heard things like that many times
with regards to this, that
IDs aren't shown, rights aren't read,
things like that. Lee, did they read you your rights?
Um, they showed them.
Actually, on a printed form.
They showed you your rights?
Yes.
Really? Did you sign an acknowledgement that you understood them?
Um,
at the end of the 90 minutes.
Interesting.
What would have they done if you hadn't signed that?
That's a good question.
And I'm not sure anybody really knows the answer.
What we need are more
legal experts to
help us out here. For instance...
Your rights before you were questioned.
For instance, when somebody knocks in a hotel room,
do they have to have a warrant
for that specific hotel room?
Or can they simply go into any room in the hotel?
I have no idea.
Ask Mike Goodwin.
Nobody seems to really know the answer to that.
But we do intend to find out.
Because this is an entirely new situation for us.
This is something that has never really happened before.
And it's kind of...
The whole community, not just the hacker community,
but computer professionals, lawyers, media,
we're all kind of in shock by this.
Because it was just so strange.
I'm not an expert.
But I would think that they would need a warrant.
Because you should have a reasonable expectation
of privacy when you're in your hotel room.
Especially at 4 in the morning.
Yeah, you would expect that.
That is true.
Thanks for the call.
Thank you.
See if we can squeeze in another call here.
Good evening. You're on.
Yeah, listen, on that...
Oh, and you get a phone call and it's a lousy connection?
Yeah.
There's a voice drop.
Oh, I realize that. That's not the problem here.
There's something loose in our board, I think.
Oh, no. I just thought I'd mention that.
That's all. I was only trying to be helpful.
Yeah, well, you were.
But in this particular case,
it's something of a more phenomenal nature, I think.
Did you have a question?
No, no. That's all I wanted to tell you.
Because you had a few people
you were trying to get in contact with on the show.
Right. Okay. Well, thanks very much.
And the audio was coming in bad.
That's because we're using some bad lines.
In fact, half of our lines are bad right now.
There'll be a lot of people tapping in on you.
Yeah, I don't know what it is exactly.
But thanks for the help.
You know, I tried that once with a friend of mine.
And I had the kids pick up the extensions
in different parts of the house.
Right.
And the voice got weaker.
Well, yeah, every time you pick up an extension,
there's a slight voltage drop.
So, yeah, that would account for that.
A gang in on your one conversation.
Okay, well, thanks for calling.
And in this particular case,
we can't blame the FBI.
We have to blame ourselves here at BAI
because this phone system is terrible.
We're going to have to tear it apart and rebuild it.
And if anybody out there wants to help,
please show up at the front door with a machete or something.
Good evening. You're on.
Hello? Yes, go ahead.
Am I on the air? Yes, you are.
Um...
Well, please say something.
Hello? All right, that's fine.
Good evening.
Yes?
Hi. Go ahead.
Can you hear me? Yes, I hear you fine.
Okay, good.
You covered pretty extensively
the incompetence in the design aspect
of the people who are supposedly
in charge of monitoring
for the computers
and how far behind the times they are.
I think that there's a whole new group
of managerial,
what I call soft-target cops
that are going to be recruited to this...
You know, since the Soviet thing
is low-key now,
there's going to be a whole new raison d'etre.
And incompetence, I think,
is just going to spread
where people are put out there on a limb
not really knowing what the heck they're doing
because there's a whole procedure
involved in surveillance
that these people that you're describing
have absolutely no knowledge
of what they're supposed to be doing on their job.
There must be thousands of people like this
and it's outrageous that the FDA
is doing the same kind of thing.
And if you hand them tools like the clipper chip
and digital telephony,
who knows what kind of abuses of rights
we'll see in the future.
And thrown out in court,
which is after you have to spend
thousands of your own hard-earned money,
they lose the case in the end anyway.
That's true, and as in the case of Craig Neidorf,
though, you'll lose lots of money
even if you are proven innocent.
Oh, by the way, it's fiber-optic keys
Actually, he's getting out
I believe November 22nd is the date.
I thought I just heard you say something
about April or something.
No, no.
I misunderstood.
That's a hacker named Paul.
Okay, different guy.
I'm going to hang up and let you get someone else.
Actually, we're not going to have time
for anybody else because we are out of time.
But I'd like to give our guests
a couple of seconds
to give any kind of summation
if they feel like giving.
Anybody care to say anything?
I didn't join this to bash the FBI.
I mean, they were young, clean-cut kids
and they were doing their job,
and my feeling is we have a responsibility
to help them understand that hacking isn't illegal.
Okay. Joe?
I pretty much agree with what he has to say.
I don't think...
I mean, the FBI was probably doing their job.
I think mistaking me
was a little, you know,
out there with the whole
height and this and that.
But I don't know.
They're trying to do their job and this and that.
I think the whole situation was just a little weird.
Especially the location
and the event.
Lee, any final remarks from you?
Pretty straightforward.
Agree for the most part.
Uh-huh.
And everybody was coming up to you at the conference
and calling you Kevin from then on.
Wasn't that true?
That's how reputations are built, I guess.
So computers, freedom and privacy
is history for this year
and I think it's probably one of the more interesting ones.
We don't know what's going to happen in the future
and we don't know if Kevin Mitnick
or Agent Steele will ever be caught,
but we'll keep you updated from here.
I want to thank all of you for joining us tonight
and wish you luck in the future.
Good night.
We'll see you soon.
Okay. And as a conclusion tonight,
we said we were going to give out
a letter to Kevin Mitnick.
I'm going to stress one more time.
Remember, can't send books, can't send magazines
because he'll get in trouble now.
So send him a letter.
I can't really think of anything else you can send him
because that's pretty much all they're letting us do now.
It would be nice if everybody visited him
except he's limited to 10 visitors
in total.
So it's real hell.
Prison is hell.
That's something you've got to remember.
And even a minimum security prison is hell.
I go there.
I've been there three times now.
I don't like it.
I don't like being there.
It feels bad being there even if I'm just visiting.
Anyway, his address is
Mark Abene, that's A-B-E-N-E
and his number is
32109-054
and that's
F-P-C as in Federal Prison Camp
Schoolkill,
S-C-H-U-Y-L-K-I-L-L
1 P.O. Box 670
Minersville,
Pennsylvania, zip code
17954-0670
Remember,
all incoming mail is red.
Maybe that's something
we should all get used to.
This has been Off the Hook.
We'll be back again next week.
Who knows what we'll be talking about then.
I have a feeling there's going to be a scandal in the air
and it'll involve some phone companies.
We'll be there for you.
For the WBAI Evening News,
this is Emanuel Goldstein. Have a good night.
♪♪
Good evening.
In the news tonight, the case of an
upstate school district exclusively
for Hasidic Jews goes before the
U.S. Supreme Court.
A black-owned Ohio newspaper is
firebombed and the publisher suspects
the Nation of Islam.
And in New York, Latinos call on the Giuliani
administration to investigate the
unresolved murder of Manuel
Mayi. With these and other
stories, I'm Jose Santiago in New York
with Verna Avery-Brown in Washington
and this is the news for Wednesday,
March 30, 1994.
First to Washington for the
Pacifica National News.
Mexico's ruling party
has chosen a new presidential candidate
to replace Luis Donaldo Colosio
who was assassinated last week.
Ernesto Dedillo is considered
the businessman's choice for president.
From Mexico City, Sandina Robbins reports.
Former Education
Secretary Ernesto Dedillo received
poor grades for his job in charge
of Mexico's public school system,
according to many parents and teachers.
It's widely accepted that Dedillo was
chosen by the ruling Institutional
Revolutionary Party, or PRI,
based on his appeal to foreign investors
and Mexico's private sector.
The Yale-educated economist is
well-received in financial circles
as a close collaborator of President
Carlos Salinas de Gortari.
Dedillo took over Salinas' job as
Secretary of Budget and Planning when
Salinas ran for president.
Dedillo is one of the chief architects
of the administration's privatization plan.
His doctoral thesis focused on the oil industry.
Opposition Party of the Democratic
Revolution candidate Cuauhtemoc Cardenas
calls Dedillo the continuation
of President Salinas'
pro-business strategies.
For Pacifica Network News,
this is Sandina Robbins in Mexico City.
Fighting today in two Muslim towns
in Bosnia is reportedly heavy.
Battles raged around the southeast
town of Garazda and the northwest
town of Bihac. According to the government-run
Bosnian radio, Serbs attacked
Garazda around midnight.
The attack appears to be a response
to an offensive by the Muslim-led government.
The government claims to have gained ground
against the Serbs in a weekend push.
Today's fighting between Serbs and
Muslims has not hampered efforts
between Bosnian Muslims and Croats.
Meeting in Sarajevo as the battles raged
on, they have approved a constitution
for the new Muslim Croat Federation.
South Africa's multi-party
transitional council is preparing to give
security forces special powers
in the KwaZulu homeland.
KwaZulu is the stronghold of the
Nkata Freedom Party, which is opposing
the country's first democratic elections next month.
James Lorimer reports from Johannesburg.
Although Nkata leader Mangusudu
Butolezi has declared he will allow the
elections to go ahead, violence continues.
Most of the fighting is between Nkata
members who oppose the voting and
African National Congress members who are campaigning.
Supporters of both sides are using
to promote their views. Police say
74 people have been killed in KwaZulu and
the adjoining Natal province since Friday.
Overnight, five ANC members were
lured to a meeting with Nkata supporters
and then executed. Survivors say
that was in revenge for the shooting of Nkata
members by the ANC in Johannesburg
on Monday. The ANC says the
South African government should send in the army to
take control. The multi-party transitional
council met today with the government
to draw up regulations for a state of emergency
in the region. The ANC says
nationwide police powers are necessary
for a free and fair election.
Butolezi says if troops move into his
stronghold, they risk confrontation with
his supporters. For Pacifica Network
News, I'm James Lorimer in Johannesburg.
China says it will go along
with the UN resolution that imposes
minimum requirements on North Korea
to open its suspect nuclear
sites to international inspections.
As a permanent member of the Security Council
with veto power to kill any
resolution imposing economic sanctions
on North Korea, China's support is vital.
The South Korean foreign minister
said today the Chinese are on board
in the sense of discussing the form and contents
of a resolution. And he says
although that means there will only be
minimum requirements in the resolution,
it's unlikely the Chinese will veto
the kind of resolution they're currently working on.
Kentucky's Democratic lawmaker
Representative William Natcher has died
at age 84. Natcher
had earned a place in the Guinness Book of Records
for his unbroken string of
14,401 votes
in the U.S. Congress. Natcher
was chairman of the powerful House Appropriations Committee
which controls most of the nation's
discretionary spending. And those are
the stories topping the news.
The battle
over the separation of church and state
took center stage today before the U.S.
Supreme Court. At issue
was a New York public school district
specifically designed for the disabled children
of a Hasidic Jewish group.
Lawyers for the state and local school boards
say it's just a way to accommodate
cultural differences. But an
attorney for taxpayers who sued the district
says the district crosses the line
separating church and state.
Pacificus Don Rush has more on the story.
The case began one night
during the Christmas holidays.
Malka Silberstein went to a school play
where her young, retarded daughter was dressed up
as Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.
Silberstein is a member of the
Jewish Sapmar Hasidic community,
a small but religiously insular group.
And she was so outraged
that she joined other parents who felt
the environment of the public school
was detrimental to their children.
She was forced
to participate in Christmas
celebrations. I don't think
that's secular at all.
She was taken out to
restaurants that she couldn't
partake. She couldn't
reach her potential because she was in an alien
setting.
So in 1989
they got the New York State Legislature
to create a special district
for the disabled children of Kiryas Joel
Village. But two taxpayers
sued the district, claiming it
crossed the line separating church and state.
And last year, New York's highest
court ruled that the creation of the
district produced an unconstitutional
symbolic union between the sect
and the state. Today, Nathan
Lewin, attorney for the school board,
said that the district was not based
on religion, but on cultural
differences. As I told the Supreme
Court, it is the creation
of a district recognizing
that there are
problems or that there are difficulties
that the residents of the village have
as a result of their lifestyle
and as a result of the fact that
their children can't attend the public schools
because of that lifestyle and because they
want to preserve those traditions
for generations to come.
That doesn't make it
creation of a school district for religious
purposes. But the lawyer for
taxpayers suing the state told the court
this was a distinction without
a difference. Attorney Jay Walrona.
With this particular community
there is no distinction between culture and religion.
Religion is, the culture is
driven by religion and it would be
ignoring the entire context in which
this legislation was passed.
But Justice Antonin Scalia said he was
not sure that the state was fostering
religious beliefs because it did not
allow worship in the schools. And indeed
10 to 20 percent of the students
are not members of the Satmar sect.
But not everyone in the Satmar
community is happy with the new
district. This school district is totally
run by the religious
theocracy. Joseph Waldman
claimed that the top leadership of the
sect drew up a list of candidates
for the school board and they all won.
Waldman ran and lost.
I ran without the blessing of the
grand rabbi which he ordered
me specifically not to run for office.
He warned me with death threats
my tire was slashed, my window was
broken. I ran for office.
I received 673 votes.
But school district officials say
there was no rigging of the elections.
Abraham Weter, president of the school
district. The election was supervised
by the state education department
by the superintendent of BOCES
they found it to be in total
in compliance as well as the whole
school district is in compliance
in total with the laws,
procedures, regulations and
policies from state education department
from the federal and we're not
violating one iota. The implications
of the case however go far beyond the
immediate situation in New York.
Justice Sandra Day O'Connor was concerned
that this set up a dangerous precedent
by favoring a particular group.
David Saperstein with the Religious Action
Center of Reform Judaism
predicted that such districts would lead to
a splintering of American society.
If this school district is allowed to prevail
then every group, religious
group that is a minority in any particular
school district, Catholic,
Methodist, Hindu or anything else
can demand their own school district.
That is the end of the public school
system as we know it in America.
It is a balkanization of American life
and it would be disastrous for
freedom of religion and for the quality
of life in America. Don Rush, Pacific
Network News, Washington.
The Clinton administration today
announced its pleasure with the Guatemalan
Human Rights Accord signed yesterday
in Mexico City. After five
days of talks, the Guatemalan government
and leftist rebels signed
an agreement allowing the United Nations
to establish a human rights mission.
The facility will have the authority
to visit any part of the Central American
country at any time to monitor
the human rights situation. State Department
spokesperson Mike McCurry.
The two parties have committed themselves to reaching
a comprehensive peace accord by the end
of this year. We are encouraged by the
political will and flexibility that both
sides demonstrated. Difficult issues
certainly remain to be negotiated.
We will look forward to working closely
with the UN moderator Jean Arnault
and the group of friends to help
the parties achieve a definitive settlement.
The two sides in the negotiations
were able to come to agreement after the rebels
postponed their demand for a commission
to investigate past human rights abuses,
a large proportion of which were
committed by the government or its agents.
Frank LaRue with the Center for Human Rights
Legal Action calls yesterday's signing
an historical step forward.
As you well know, the negotiations
in Guatemala, these negotiations were stalled
for the last three years, specifically
on the issue of human rights.
Obviously, human rights is the most
important topic because the military of Guatemala
has systematically violated the human rights
of the people there. So they found
it very difficult to come to terms with that.
Guatemala has laws protecting
human rights. They just aren't obeyed
and violators are not brought to justice.
So the principal benefit of this
new agreement, says LaRue, is that the
world will now be watching to make certain
Guatemala's laws are followed.
It's been reported that another element of this
agreement is that the rebels will have to disarm,
but LaRue says this is not true.
The rebels will disarm
at the end of the
negotiation. You see, what was negotiated on Monday
was only the human rights agreement.
And this is not the
final peace agreement. So,
this particular agreement on human rights only
forces both parties, the government and
the guerrillas, to
recognize human rights, to allow
the UN to verify
the international standards.
But it does not call upon the rebels to disarm
as of yet. That will
come later in the negotiation.
LaRue adds, this agreement could very well
be the first step towards ending the
33-year civil war that has seen
the deaths and disappearances of
140,000 people.
Someone
lobbed a fire bomb through the
window of a small black Cincinnati
newspaper around 3 a.m. Tuesday,
and investigators now think they
know who did it. Authorities have
produced a pair of fingerprints from the bombing
device and say an arrest is
imminent. No one was injured,
but damages to the publication's office
is estimated at $12,000.
And the paper's weekly edition will hit the streets
tomorrow, as usual. The Cincinnati
Herald has a circulation of about
25,000. It's housed
in a building with other tenants, but
William Spillers, the publisher, is convinced
the newspaper was the target of the attack.
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.
Without question,
we had had
some phone threats that day
about an article
that was in our paper.
The title of the article was
Blacks and Islam.
And
we had a
couple of phone calls
warning us that someone
was going to
retaliate for the fact
that we had run the article.
However,
as you know in this business,
generally you don't
take threats that
seriously. What was
the tone of the article?
The tone of the article was really a historical
piece
and understand
that it was an
opinion that someone
sent us.
And it was on our commentary page.
The tone of the article, however, was
a historical
kind of rendering on
going back to the
early
1600s, 1700s in
Europe, and
how the Islamic religion
came to be
and the whole thing around
Islam
and the African people.
Would you say that it cast
Islam in a favorable light?
It didn't cast it in any kind of
light, really.
There were some comments that
could have maybe been taken
as unfavorable, but
at the same time, they were favorable comments.
What were
the negative things
said in the article?
It
kind of alluded to the fact that