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On Saturday night, June 22nd, starting at midnight, Labrish presents writer David Henderson,
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On Saturday night, June 22nd, starting at midnight, the music of Jimi Hendrix.
And you're listening to Radio Station WBAI New York.
It's 8 o'clock on a Wednesday night, I'm sorry, it's 8 o'clock on a Tuesday night, which means
that we're in the right place.
It's time for Off the Hook.
The telephone keeps ringing, so I ripped it off the wall.
I cut myself while shaving, now I can't make a call.
I couldn't get much worse, but if I could, I would.
I'll do it all for the best, it's best for worse.
I hope that's understood, but really, no, it's not.
It's not.
I hope that's understood, but really, no.
So it's what we've been saying all along, and I guess a bunch of us knew it was inevitable
that sooner or later somebody would overturn it.
However, in this particular case, this particular case, the justices were pretty vehement in
their opposition to it.
And I think that's a good thing.
Well, the more evil part of the government said that they had every intention of appealing mm-hmm. Yes
Well, I mean that that goes without saying that they will appeal that they're going to try and I mean, did you hear Clinton's?
Remarks about this basically, you know, I still think that children need to be protected
Like yeah, okay
That's what all of us are saying out here is that children should not be protected and that you know
We're all for abusing children and things like that. That's that's not exactly
What it boils down to it's a question freedom of speech something that has stood up for the last couple hundred years
And I think the internet should
Should definitely continue the tradition
So that that happened we sort of knew that was going to happen at some point
the things though that
Continue to be ignored by most entities involved individuals people like Kevin Mitnick people like Bernie S who continue to to sit in prison
paying a price for something that nobody can put a finger on and
Laying the foundation for many many more people to do the exact same thing to be just locked away
I mean I was listening to the news today and I heard how that that that swine. Oh, well, okay
I'll be fair here that alleged swine that took part in the racial beating out of Long Island where
This black kid was was beaten to a pulp by a bunch of white police officers from New York
Their bail or his bail the one who was accused of it. His bail was just reduced
To less than half of what Bernie S's bail is less than half or was when he was
Able to even qualify for bail at one point he was held without bail now
we're talking about a case where someone can practically kill somebody and
Be treated
More civilly than somebody who is simply suspected of having a device which could maybe be used to make a free phone call
Well, what kind of society are we hoping into where those kind of laws are actually allowed to to be enforced
Or written or even considered
Some it's something I think we just need to
Continue to spread so people know that these things are happening, but they're just not right
So we'll be hearing from Bernie in just a little while updating us on his case. Yeah, he's still in prison
He should be out by now. But as he mentioned last week, they just just not letting him out. No particular reason
They just aren't letting him out. Just don't feel like just don't feel like it at this moment in time
Unbelievable, they they they sent an appeal or some sort of a letter to the judge saying hey look this guy's supposed to be out
And they're not letting him out and we'll see if the judge has any reaction or whatsoever
There's that I had a fun experience today with with a pay phone
Do you have any experiences with pay phones recently? No, but I've been hearing lots of stories of pay phones that you know
These 9x cocotte phones. Yeah that are becoming increasingly dubious and not letting you use your calling course. There's one downstairs
Oh, really? Yeah, I was outside
you see what happened was I I was outside in a parking space and it was earlier than I thought it was and
I wasn't able to park legally because I had to you know
I had to wait till it became legal so I had to sit in the car and I had to be with somebody
I wanted to beep somebody so I could I could make arrangements to do something else
And so I I called my 950 number which I've had for years and it's one thing that I depend upon
Get my tone enter the number to beep somebody and then it connects
All right, it connects to the to the beeper and I start entering the numbers
I get two numbers into it and then that stupid recording comes on saying no additional dialing allowed and I'm like, oh great now
I've paid for the call and I've sent some cryptic two-letter or two-number beep to somebody then I can know what that means and
And and it was it was extremely frustrating. I had to eventually call somebody else and have them beat the person
I wanted to beep you should have tried the trick
We finally did try the Chinatown trick and guess what the Chinatown trick does not work anymore Wow
Yeah, that was carrier access code
Preface before right before Claude you want something you you keep wandering in here with a with a panicked look on your face
Yes, Claude. What's up? Well something that I discovered recently. Yes
I was speaking from a 9x pay phone. Uh-huh, and
The person I I talked with said let me call you back
He did I was able to hear him clear as a bell. Uh-huh. He could not hear me
So it's an interesting way to disallow
Incoming calls while still receiving a quarter. You sure the mouthpiece wasn't broken
Well his mouth in the earpiece, you mean if it was your mouth, you know, I'm really broken
Maybe I talked with him previous. Oh on the same phone on the same phone. That's interesting. Mm-hmm. That is very interesting
Well, thank you for bringing that to our attention to hear anything like that fiber
Oh, well, I wouldn't put it past them to shut off the mouthpiece. I mean they shut off the buttons
They shut off everything else. I hear they're gonna introduce electric shocks for people
Continuing to try my favorite. My favorite is the muted ringer the muted ringer. Oh, that's where it's ringing, but you don't know
It's ringing. Yeah, so you just kind of like pick it up
Yeah, hoping the person's gonna be there and hoping they don't call at the moment that you pick up. Yeah
It's it's really getting ridiculous, but you know, it caused me to commit a sin it caused me to lie
What'd you do? Well?
You see the thing is I connected to something right and my call was not all it could have been because it didn't I?
Wasn't able to beat the person like I wanted to beat them
So I should get credit for that. Shouldn't I you two one one did well
I did two one one it but you know two one one gave me a reorder
Really I wasn't able to two one one it I had to six one one over to
To repair which by the way, I can't understand repair now
You dial six one one and it gives you the same menu that your business office gives you
You know
You have to tell it that you want to report a phone out of order when you dial six one one
It's like what else are you gonna be calling six one one four?
So you have to go through all that
I guess you the quickest thing is to hit zero a couple times and eventually you get somebody and I explained to them
Look this this phone isn't working
You know, it's it's cutting off touch tones and they they treated it like it was a problem with the phone
I tried to explain to them. It's a recording. It's saying that I'm not allowed to dial anymore
It's it's really a policy thing more than a technical thing
But they still said they would have the problem cleared by tomorrow at 9 a.m
Or 5 p.m. Or something like that. So I'd love to see what they try to do
But then yes, I continued to try to get credit because I was pretty upset at this point
And so I called the operator
The operator is
Is the person that you're supposed to you know
Call whenever you really have a big problem and they can transfer you to credit and they didn't believe I couldn't get through to credit
myself
So what I did was I called the operator said yeah, I can't get through the credit. She said oh, really?
Yeah, really? I can't get through to credit
No, this is a big ruse that I that I pull every day
That's I can get to talk to an operator and tie up your transferring equipment
So please just transfer me over to to two one one or whatever. So eventually I got over to the credit operator
and I I was explaining to them, you know, I
Called my toll-free long-distance access number and then I placed the call and that's when the 9x phone
decided to cancel its contract on me and
You know that the long-distance company is supposed to give me credit
However, I didn't place a call using 9x. So I'm not quite sure how I'm supposed to get credit here
I can't ask the long-distance company for credit because they did what they were supposed to do and
It's kind of hard to ask 9x for credit because I didn't place a call through 9x
They just simply messed up my long-distance
access call
There was a silence and eventually she said so
How much money did you put into the phone?
She didn't get it at all
So I just I sat there for a second realizing that this could turn into an hour-long discussion
Or I could just simply end it quickly. And so I said 75 cents
I figured I said 75 cents because I figured my time is worth something, too
They bill you if if say you bounce a check for instance, they just have this this fee, you know $15 fee
That's what it costs. You know, no one knows why it cost that it's $15, you know you
You pay late one point five percent finance charge
That's just what they what they charge and plus what they charge for phone calls, you know, why is it cost a quarter?
I don't know. It just cost a quarter. That's what they say. That's what we pay
Well, I decided I'm gonna have my own rate structure now, too
If they you know foul up my particular plans and my calls they disconnect me. That's gonna be a quarter right there
Okay, every time I get disconnected even if it's if it's to a service representative 25 cents, okay
Now that's that's payable in many different ways either by getting credit on a particular call getting credit on a service saying my line
is out I'm collecting 25 cents one way or another and
I suggest people start implementing this policy by themselves because
That's really the only way you're gonna get any justice
Had I had I stuck to the rules and played by by the way
I'm supposed to play I'd still be on the phone now with them trying to explain what it was
I was trying to do. I think 9x really needs to wake up and start
Disassembling some of these silly policies. They're implementing, you know on the corner that that pay phone was at
It didn't stop drugs. I can tell you that right now
That's their stupid reason for having a phone that cuts off touch tones after a certain amount of time
Guess what? People are still selling drugs without touch tones. I don't think you need touch tones to sell drugs
They have cellular phones. They're cellular phones, too
And I'm sure they'll try to do something to those but it's you know
That's that's not gonna affect anything. All it's gonna do is inconvenience people and it's gonna make me complain a lot
so
That's um, that's the latest on that. You don't have that kind of problem
You know like the yellow phones you use your 9x calling card in my in my neighborhood in the East Village
They still have I haven't run into
very many if any 9x co cuts as of yet, and
In most circumstances if I know I'm gonna be on the phone
Less than 10 minutes because of course even if you pay for a call the yellow phones cut you off after 10 minutes
You make a calling card call, but I like the yellow phones because no one ever uses them. They're always free
They're getting pretty ramshackle looking now if you noticed yeah, they're getting kind of beat up
They're getting very beat up and I think I know why because I see people beating them up all the time
You know, it's very frustrating when they you know, when they don't allow you to to do things that you want to do
Yeah, so I
I've never had a successful call experience with a with a yellow phone
In fact, I even borrowed a card from somebody wants to access my 950 number
You're thinking that maybe okay if I have a card, maybe then
It'll let me make a toll-free call to a 950 number right and it said even with
How much of those cards have on them? I don't know. I've still to this day. I've not used the change card
I thought you had one. No, I have AT&T calling card. Okay, so you don't never actually use the change card
Well, let's say they have what $5 on them or something like that doesn't matter how much they have if you try dialing a 950
They'll say you don't have enough money to make this call
No money on earth will allow them to to make that call and it's it's terrible because
Half the phones in the city now don't allow the same access that they that phones used to allow and it's it's just not right
And yes, they don't take incoming calls, which is something that we used to pay for
I mean, why can't a pay phone take an incoming call? What is the big problem with that?
You know, you're you're standing on a street corner. You want somebody to call you back?
You beep somebody you call somebody at your house. You want them to call you back?
You don't want to be putting quarters in all the time
Could that be it could it be that they just want you to keep putting quarters in or maybe have the the calling card?
Fees pile up make that the only way you can make a phone call
Well, what would you rather make 25 cents and then a nickel for each additional? What is it three to five?
Oh, they change it. It's not even five minutes anymore at three minutes
It's nickel for three minutes, or would you rather just make ten point six cents forever?
Well, I mean ten point six cents forever. I think is probably better. It's a better deal
Yeah
It is a better deal and that's the deal you get from your house right someplace ten point six cents and you can stay on
As long as you want they don't want that they want more money
But you know the thing is people will not stand on street corners forever talking on a payphone
It's not like they're they're gonna cut off the revenue to the phone company by taking an incoming call every now and then
in fact
If phones took incoming calls
I would be making more phone calls on those phones calling people getting them to call me back and they
Tend to make more money on that first minute than anything else. You know the first
Quarter or whatever you put into the phone. I think a lot more people will be doing that as well
I don't think 9x has this street understanding of the way things are no they they certainly don't it also
It's not something mechanical that makes the phone break taking an incoming call whereas putting money in is a mechanical feature that eventually you know
fouls up and
You know you have to you have to service that kind of thing which is why a lot of phones are being converted to
Non-coin well pay phones also eventually fill up and they have to pay people to come around and collect all the money out of them
Yes, I think we have Bernie s
called from
At the County Correctional Facility
To refuse this call hang up
If you accept this call do not use three-way or call waiting feature or you will be disconnected
To accept this call dial one now
Thank you
Yes Bernie s is on the line with us live from Bucks County Prison in
This time I got the right prison yes now we were just mentioning the fact that a few minutes ago that the
The suspect in the racial beating that took place on if you heard about this on Long Island
Just had his bail reduced today to a hundred thousand dollars, which I think is as
Yours is 250 at one point
We were just wondering how much more of a threat to society you are over there
Touchdown
Totally well now update us on your situation. We're going to talk about the CDA a little bit and take some phone calls
Technically eligible for parole however, I've not been reviewed yet and
Pretty frustrating knowing that you could be out and the rules say I could be out and no one has talked to me about being released
so
I've had my lawyer and friends and family called the appropriate authorities
Finger-pointing game and no one wants to accept the responsibility to
Now the judge was sent a letter last week telling him about the problem did he respond
I was entitled to for a time. I served last year
On a charge that was subsequently dropped when the Secret Service decided to pick up the case with their own personal reasons, I guess
But this person in Northampton County just refused to he admitted there was an error in the calculation of the sentence
but he refused to correct it and
All we can do is bring that to the judge's attention and hope is in order to this fellow to
Credit me
Okay, so you'll have some sort of an update tomorrow and we'll continue to update people on the internet and things like that
We're going to be having a couple of retrospective shows over the next couple of weeks
So we won't be able to hear from you live. But if there's any update we'll be able to
We'll be able to tell people
Pretty much. Yeah, that's that's that's that's the nice way of saying
Retrospective
But my federal appeal on the new statute that I was charged with last year the new federal statute
I was charged with for people who aren't familiar with my case is
Makes it a federal felony to possess
Hardware or software that can modify a telecommunications instrument for the unauthorized access to telecommunication services
Unfortunately, the the wording in that statute is rather vague. It doesn't specify what a telecommunications instrument
What what hardware or software they're talking about what what unauthorized use or unauthorized access pertains to
Say what's authorized or not authorized. None of these things are defined and
I've challenged that new statute of being the first person in the country charged with it
I was given the opportunity to challenge it with my a plea agreement and I'm challenging that the statute is
Unconstitutionally vague. They don't define the terms in the wording of the statute
And the reason that's unconstitutional is that the 14th Amendment grants us due process and to have a vague law
Violates our due process rights the judges in the third third Federal Circuit last week decided that the term indecent
was also
unconstitutionally vague
Under the void for vagueness doctrine embodied by the 14th Amendment
So this is good news that I have now a very recent case law which is bindings
It's also the same federal circuit for the third circuit and I can use this in my upcoming federal appeal
And hopefully that will that won't fall upon deaf ears. One thing which which I've noticed is that there's a lot of
Backslapping congratulations going around with various civil liberties groups
But you know
I really think that these groups have failed us by ignoring your case and by ignoring the fact that there are people in prison
right now because of
Weirdly worded federal laws and I think that does deserve a lot of attention
They're talking about hypothetical cases where somebody could go to prison if this happens. Well, guess what folks? It's already happening
it's already happened to a bunch of people and
I I think that they're guilty of
Turning their attention towards those things that get you headlines
At the expense of individuals who might not get as much attention
All right fiber any views on the CDA that we haven't already discussed
Well, I'm sure it's gonna be back like with with everything. Mm-hmm
Like when we saw the the FBI's digital telephony proposal
Went away and then simply got snuck in when nobody was really paying attention
I'm sure with all the all the fanfare and stuff
They might try to sneak in some other thing that we're not looking for
Clipper Chase
Yeah
Yeah
It's a negative thing but the way the way we seem to be moving it seems almost inevitable
I don't know two one two two, seven. Nine three four hundred is our our telephone number Bernie has anything else happened here this week
I
Don't know whether it was bacteria or what but it was a mild case of food poison
I did notice something interesting a few weeks ago here outside the
chow hall
There's a hallway where we'll be three three times a day. We're we're heard it out of the cell block
There's about 90 odd inmates in this particular cell block and at different times. They were led down to the
telephone to
To eat the daily gruel
And I noticed a few weeks ago that there's a very large pipe right outside the entrance
We've done it all although it's leaking a brown liquid all over the floor
And a small puddle and I asked one of the guards. What is this? He said it was
Well, I probably can't say that I'm talking on radio
With a term
Composed of four letters. I'm sure we can figure it out. Yeah
I
Guess it's sort of a reminder, you know of some sort. I don't know that's
That's a real real stirring image to think of
We don't have any phone calls. What happened? There's our phone line broken. I gave out the phone
We didn't know 2 1 2 2 7 9 3 400. Okay, that's our phone number
We're taking phone calls and then a single line is live. That's never happened before
We just got three calls at once come in
I'm not sure what's happening. Okay now we up to four. I'm gonna wait till we have a bingo here
So a few more people call in. I don't know what what's going on out there people falling asleep or something
But usually when we give the phone number out the phones are ringing immediately
In fact, there's usually people waiting since the show begins. Well, they camp out from the morning
Let the phone ring all day long. Of course, it keeps disconnecting, but they keep trying again. All right, let's see
Yeah, let's see who's out there. Good evening. You're on the air
Hello. Yes, go ahead. Yeah, how you doing? Okay. I just wanted to say a couple of things
One of the things is I've done some time. I'm not mr. Hardman or something, but I've done some time and
In
Situations like things dripping or you know, a lot of things you've mentioned, you know, and I'm not attacking you
Or just par for the course. It's just what goes on
Well prison is generally like that. Yeah, no question about it. Yeah, it's just
Yeah, no question about it, yeah, it's just unfortunate, you know
It seems that some at many points that they just they try to really break your spirit
I mean Bernie you would know that it's like a Kafka is type of a thing where they're trying to break you
Yeah, that's part of it
Another thing is the bail issues
You know just in all fairness
the guy who did the
The cop who beat this guy, you know beat this kid
I probably doesn't have any substantial past record. Well, Bernie s didn't have much of a record either
Oh, no, that's nothing I have been following it, you know follow the show before Bernie s's
Excur you know, we'll call him the excursion for now and following Bernie s's ordeal and stuff. But yeah, I didn't realize
Person it's got to be more that you what you're messing with is a corporate pig then then, you know, just prosecutors
I think that's probably uh, that's probably it right there
It's one thing to beat up a black man and some people unfortunately think that's nothing what should be done
And that's wrong
But uh to mess with the corporate pig
Is it wrong?
All right. All right. Well
That's probably what the price you're paying. It's not it's not even a question of messing with the corporate pig
It's it's it's more that they see your natural actions as possibly
Uh something that will that'll be bad for them at some point, right? You know, it's it's bernie wasn't going around
defrauding big
Corporations or or doing things that would directly hurt them. However, the knowledge that he had
Might be used by somebody in the future in a bad way. That's that's that's quite possible. But again, it's you know, it's information
I was not alleged to have committed any fraud or done anything illegal with with what I possess what I possess is easily
I know
I know that like I said, i've followed pretty closely. I know what you know
what's in the books and stuff and and what they're saying and
You know what I can not only do I have to go by I could stay home yet
The people in radio shack that will sell me a device, uh do possess it today. So that's right
Yeah, that never sat with me properly
So one other thing that it's a point of law again
That one of the most uh powerful things in american law is the grand jury, you know
How they could do secret indictments and things like that, right?
but another very powerful thing is the parole board they have the power to say after you've done your
You do somewhere between your minimum and your maximum
They decide where in between that minimum maximum they let you go and i'm waiting to go before them right now
Right and they can they can say yes, they could say no they can not only that
They don't have to come see you the minute you're eligible, which is they have to give a reason for denying your parole
Which is lame
Yeah, they give you a reason. Yeah
They haven't given a reason yet. No in this particular case. Yeah, you should uh compel them for it, but
It it's the other thing, you know
It's the more you push them sometimes the harder it is to get the end results you want and now
You know
not that I would sell out like that, but
you know
Okay, uh guys, I think you're doing a great job. Have a great show bernie. Hang in there. Thank you
and uh fiber, we appreciate you sitting in and uh
Thanks all the above. Okay. Thanks for calling. Thanks again for what you're doing. Okay. Take care. Bye-bye
Let's uh, take another phone call. Good evening. You're on the air. Hi emmanuel. How are you? Good. How are you?
Okay, I got a question for you
The time that bernie s has served, okay, um
Do you think that like, you know, whatever parole board or whatever would give him credit for that?
Well bernie, uh, you could probably best answer that well, it's already been decided the issue at hand at this time is uh
I was arrested last year
um by local police in delaware county pennsylvania on a state charge for possessing this types of types of hardware that was
Apparently illegal to possess but could be purchased anywhere really that's true
Hello, yeah, the charge was dropped and then the feds picked it up
I was in prison during that during that time for charges that were that were later dropped and the judge in my
ultimately sentenced me said that I would be eligible for
For getting credit for that previous time served and north hampton county prison decided they weren't going to go by that order
So the prison decided that they knew better than a judge, um, actually one of the prison counselors told me that uh,
What the judge says doesn't mean and it's that same word. I couldn't say earlier
Yes, I guess that word comes up quite a bit over there
I don't know. I mean, it's a real heinous crime to just like take batteries out of a tone dialer
I mean in a country where you have rapists and murderers and other things. I mean these cops beating people going around
I mean, I don't see how they can just keep you in prison like that. It's it's really you know
there's some other issues involved here that
That the federal prosecutor admitted that the real reason I was in prison was because of the information
I had about the secret service in my files that somehow ended up on television in philadelphia, but that's uh,
you know, that's not a crime, but the secret service has a way of uh,
Teaching people a lesson. I've uh learned a pretty valuable one
Yeah, well the way that I see it, you know for all the time that you've served
I mean, it's not like you went out and killed somebody
No
He'd be out by now if he did that
Yeah, well, you know what clinton stands for what's that certified liar in national top office now? Wow, that's interesting
How about that? Well, you see flick really got an acronym just for his name on the subject of clinton
Um, I should mention that this uh communications agency act is going to go before the supreme court
either this fall or uh
or winter probably
um, whether it goes before the supreme court, uh
before
um
the next uh
presidential election or not is anybody's guess but
Um, I do know that at least one of the supreme court justices is planning to step down immediately after the election
And that may tip the balance right there. If we get a conservative in office, he will uh, very quickly appoint a conservative judge
Which may tip the balance as far as how this communication
Lawsuit is uh is finally resolved. So, uh, anyone's uh,
Pinging on who they want to vote for uh, that that may be one consideration
Yeah, I see well
Really good luck to you bernie. I mean i've been meaning to write and everything but I have been following your case
You know, hey drop me a note
Well every little bit helps yeah, I can drop you one at uh, 2600.com, right? That's true bernie. Yes
Okay, i've been trying to get that but you guys just give it out so quick
All right, we'll give it out. We'll give it out twice. All right, so, uh, we'll give it out
We'll give it out now. Okay. Okay. Sounds good. All right manual fiber more power to the people. Okay
Keep the flame alive
Right on we need a hacker salute of some sort
Um, okay bernie, why don't you give out that address?
My address here is uh, where'd you guys go to me? My name is ed coming c-u-m-m-i-n-g-s
and
The address is bucks county prison
And that's a one seven three zero south eastern road. That's e-a-s-t-o-n
And that's in doylestown. D-o-y-l-e-s-t-o-w-n-p-a
1-8-9-0-1
You can send me letters, but you can't send me stamps
Uh, if you want to send me a book or magazine, that's great
Just make sure it says reading materials on the outside or they won't accept it
Now, what about letters do they have to say reading material, too?
It can't hurt if it says reading materials on the outside of the letter
I've had a couple letters rejected for reasons they wouldn't explain
So, uh, bear in mind that the authorities may read anything that's written to me
So don't send me anything that could be uh interpreted as being illegal or or with the evil intent
Good idea
Okay, let's take another phone call
Good evening. You're on the air. Hi, it's jeremy here. How you doing everybody?
Yeah, you do have to write printed matter or reading materials because I
Sent something that had some a letter but had newspaper clippings and I got it back
Oh my well, thanks for sending him
Anyway, yeah, you got you got part of the other thing but not all of it
And so now i'm going to send this out again in two separate parts
Okay, um, I wanted to know what the name of the warden
that made the judgment was
And if he's still there, I'd like to well the the person who's responsible for uh,
For miscalculating the time and not crediting me for it. His name is joe
Tamando is he part of is he the head of the parole board? No, he's not part of the parole board
This is an individual whose job at the prison is to calculate
Inmates remaining sentences after their sentence how much time they have left to spend behind bars
Okay, who's who's in charge of the parole board? Do you know I have a letter that's sort of I don't know. I I do know
Well, it's the allentown, uh state parole
Office serves, uh this county, um county and the person in charge of that office is uh, jerry marshall
The allentown state parole office, but I don't have the number off hand. Okay. Okay
Yeah, I have an interesting a little different kind of a letter and um, uh, yeah
I wasn't trying to thought I had a question. Um
About the uh, oh, yeah just to say about about parole
It's considered a privilege a parole situation. It's it's it's silly
It's ridiculous, but it's considered a privilege on good behavior
very technically they don't have to
Even um recognize it. I hate to say
And uh, they could if they wanted, you know, my sentence is actually like two years I could spend anywhere between six months
To two years in prison after six months of eligible parole
Yes, what I what I'm saying is that's an eligible it means sort of like eligible based on good behavior is reading between the lines
And they could they could do the two year thing. It's I would be careful about um
How much force you strike from inside there, you know what I mean?
All right, you know
Well, I don't think bernie is uh is is you know doing anything bad inside prison as far as uh, you know causing trouble
No speech, of course is something that I know the secret service hates but there's really not a whole lot they can do about that
Yeah, uh, right because even if bernie s isn't here, we're still going to be talking about it
which is uh, that's that's
It would expect that but I mean as long as it's not coming from him
Oh, they're just they're just so they're so picky about public
The public opinion of the whole justice system that even saying something like the food is bad
They they don't like people saying that well
I'll tell you this just knowledge of this case knowledge of what's happening with mitnick and various other hacker cases
The opinion of justice in this country among people I know has plummeted over the past couple of years. Yeah
Yeah, and it's you know at some point they're going to have to address this
yeah, uh, it's
I know everybody is uh
This area and the whole situation with police right now in the city, I think we're we're in a very very
Scary place right now in this country and it's all
You know, it's all wrapped up, but I I don't even want to waste time with that. I get too emotional about it. Yeah, but uh,
Okay, I just um something about the telephone emmanuel
I got charged three dollars for calling a directory
Assistance in boston and like when I questioned the charge
They said it was because I had asked for an operator
To give me the number you asked for an operator to give you the the uh, the information number and I said
No, I didn't ask for an operator
But when I dialed the information an operator came on when I when I expected the voice to come on
Which we've gotten used to now where they're used to the operators giving the number, right?
The voice did not come on the actual operator did I didn't think twice about it
Shows up on the bill that I requested the operator. Well, just tell them that you didn't know I did I did
You know arguing about it
So they they gave me a two dollar and eighty something cent credit that I have to wait about six months for
Just to say everybody, you know, you gotta watch every little thing
You know, it's amazing too how they charge you for operator assisted calls now when there's no operator
Yeah, you know, it's all computerized yet. You still have to pay the same operator assisted rate
All right. Thanks. Uh, thanks for the call. All right. Take care. Bye bernie. Bye everybody. Thank you. Take care
Okay, let's uh go to the phones again two on two two seven nine three four hundred good evening you're on off the hook
Yeah. Hi emmanuel. I just called I was talking to bernie
Yes, i'm listening to your previous phone call about the lady that got the uh, three dollar charge for directory assistance
That's incredible. Well, it's uh, it's operator assisted operator computer assisted
Oh, usually when I call I tell them, uh, no area code or no automation and the operator just gives me the number and i've i've never
Gotten charged for using an operator
Well, they can do all kinds of things
I mean sometimes if you call an operator and you ask a particular question
Like you want to know where a certain area code is without even asking you they'll just switch you to information
Which racks up a charge right there used to be they would just tell you
Off the top of their head by looking it up on a computer as they're supposed to do
Where that area code is? Yeah
That's incredible. Yeah, okay
Interesting in a charge that i've noticed happens I had one of these
Tdds a telecommunications device for the deaf and at&t has set up an 800 number for uh,
For hearing impaired individuals to uh, get nationwide directory assistance by calling the central number
Anyone interested in calling a number is 800
855-1155
I remember this you discovered this in fact, yes
What I found though is if you call that 800 toll free number
and uh
communicate with uh with an operator
the keyboard display
Uh, you're not you're not being told there's any charge involved
Yet about a two dollar charge will appear on your bill for for every time you call this 800 number and use the uh,
the services of the uh
Hearing impaired directory assistance. I contested that repeatedly and they continue to charge me every time I use that service and uh, that's the only
Service I know of that at&t offers when you call an 800 number
You're not told that you can be charged anything and you get charged two dollars every time they call the 800 number
I remember there was a big here in cryo and mci tried a similar thing with nationwide directory assistance
And that was soon changed to a 900 number
On this particular case, I guess because it's only deaf people calling they don't have uh much say in uh in matters like that
So it's totally unfair
To experiment with that without spending any money on a tdd you can go under the go to one of the uh,
public pay telephones that has a
Has a keyboard or a tdd
Logo or logo or symbol there you can tell you see it says
There's tdd on the phone, right?
If you pick up the phone and dial 800-855-1155 and wait for the carrier tone, then the keyboard will magically
Come out of this motorized drawer
And then you can uh, you can type messages back and forth to the operator surprisingly when you do this
You're not communicating with a computer on the keyboard communicating with a live operator who's sitting a keyboard somewhere else
And then she will pick up another phone
at her end and
verbally call a
Regular director assistant operator get the number from from him or her and then type it into the keyboard a real interesting
Use of technology. It's amazing. You'd think by now they'd be tied into the internet. Somehow you wouldn't be using these primitive machines
You know be so much faster just look something up on a cd-rom or connect someplace
I guess I guess that's coming
212-279-3400 good evening. You're on the air
Excuse me. You're on the air. Hey
Um, I was wondering you know, if you guys are going to be doing any kind of simulcast or webcast into california into the bay area
Uh, well that uh, that really depends. Excuse me a second that that really depends on um on what kind of interest there is
Uh in other parts of the country for the show. Okay, if there's an interest then then that kind of thing will happen
All right, well i'm from california and i'm just here up here for pc expo
And i'm a little tape recorder out and i'm taping everything that I hear here
Right, you guys don't update the web too much. So I gotta keep up with that
Well now do you uh, were you listening to the shows on ftp because we have some shows available there in the gsm format
Yeah, and I gotta unpack it and unpack it again. Yeah, it just takes a while but it gets there
We're we're looking into doing something on real audio and hopefully that'll happen soon
We just need some coordination as far as that goes. Okay. All right. Thank you. All right. Take care
It would be really nice to have to have a complete library on the internet
Don't you think? Yeah, definitely
Good evening on the air
Hello. Yes. Hi. I have two comments. Okay. One was about the telephone calls
um calling from prisons very often
You get disconnected three times. So you're charged. I agree with you about the first minute being the biggest charge
Because uh, it will say uh, you have collect call from an inmate
Please say your name and then there's a blank so you don't even know who the inmate is, right?
Unless you're in prison or right that activist, um, and you'll say yes, i'll accept it
And you say oh it's so and so now especially from adx florence
I noticed they'll say this is the locktel operator and then you just accept it now in the course of the call
You'll invariably be disconnected three times
So then you try to find out this telecom the country the company that's supposed to be
Uh in charge of that, you know who's billing but you never can find them
It's a 1-800-TELCOM
So you're kind of in a catch-22 and there's not even anybody to complain to well, actually, it's not entirely true
You can call 9x. It's a special number that they'll give you at your business office where you can call them and say that
You're not going to pay that particular charge from that particular company
They'll take it off your bill, but it's possible that company might then contact you
However, if they do that, then you know who they are and how to contact them
So they they will do that if you if you reach that particular stage and i've reached that stage many times
I've tried to do that and I was I didn't have any luck
But what I did try to do once when I got disconnected three times was try to find
Telcom because the person who called me from the prison said they knew absolutely that it was a 1-800 number that handled this
That phone and I couldn't find them
The other thing you should do is since you've noticed that the first
Just the acceptance of the call is the first minute is the bulk of the
What you should do to try to justify you're not getting charged so much
Um, what you can do is say that you're involuntarily cut off three times or two times or how many times
And have them combine
All those as if it were one lengthy long distance collect call as opposed to three separate ones or a separate connection charge for each
And you always have the one minute calls taken off because that's invariably something messed up with the system
well, I think they know I think that's purposely messed up because they feel that
First of all, there's a line and everybody wants the phone
So till you get reconnected the person's cherish 10 minutes is going by very quickly, right?
So they're they're left with something like six minutes while you're arguing with the operator for two, right?
But it's a good show. Thanks. All right. Thanks for calling. Bye
Bernie I know in your case when we get the bill, uh for you
There's a lot of one-minute calls there and those are those are times when someone's not around to pick up the phone
And they bill us anyway, and there's other times where for some reason, uh, it just accepts itself now
In fact, I called your answer. I called your number today
Your home number and your answering machine accepted the call. Well, okay
Now that's not quite fair because my answering machine isn't doing anything of the of the sort
At&t for some reason thinks that somebody is accepting it and I don't understand because half the time
Whenever I do accept the call, it doesn't recognize me. So I don't know what it's recognizing when nobody does anything
It's supposed to be some uh, it's supposed to recognize a touch tone one, but there's no touch tone one
Recording on your answering playback not even close. I like to know this is at&t. This is the best they can do
You think they could do better? I'm sure they can do better
They just don't care because they're the more the more hang-ups that there are the more money they make there's no incentive for them to fix it
I'd like to find out more about that particular system. Maybe we can do an foia on
On what kind of setup they have at bucks county prison. I'm working on that right now. Oh, are you great?
Okay, you're really on top of things I gotta say
I don't have a lot to do. That's that's true. 212-279-3400. Let's take another phone call. Good evening. You're on the air
Okay, you're not on the air good evening you're on the air. Yeah. Hi emmanuel. I got nailed by the bai phone system
Got nailed, huh? Yeah nailed me again
Was it you mean it called you or what it hung up on you? What what happened?
Yeah, I was listening to bernie s and it just hung up on me
Oh, well, you know, it's not the bai phone system that's doing that. It's 9x. It does that 9x loves us
Yeah, they'll cut you off after a certain number of rings. No, we I was connected now
Listening to bernie s and it cut us off. I was the one that said power to the people earlier
Well, then this is your third call. Yeah. Okay. Well, we have to ask it. Uh, you know, you're not called that many times
Yeah, I know other people have a question for you and I I forgot to ask it before I got cut off. Okay
Okay, I just wanted to know what is the oldest phone system in the country and what it's and what is it running?
Where it's located. Okay fiber you you have that information, right? The oldest phone system still in operation
Yeah
Well, i'm sure that somewhere there's still a step-by-step switch which was the first automatic switching system in this country you think so
Well somewhere i'm sure in some rural area. I know in canada. They still have something like that
I'd read in a telecommunications trade magazine about four years ago that there was a step-by-step switch
somewhere in south southern new jersey
And they were going to be replacing it and it was like, uh, the last step-by-step switch still in operation
I don't know if that's that's a true fact or not, but that's what i'd read in
It was a telephone engineering and
management magazine
They they have replaced things pretty quickly though over the past
Uh a few years in fact when you hear the retrospective shows over the next couple of weeks
you'll uh, you'll notice the difference in rings when we connect to things how there's more crossbars and uh,
And and I don't think steps but the sounds are generally different
In fact last week when we played the uh, the tape from the early 80s
Uh, it was it was dramatically different how things yeah, that was good. I really enjoyed that i'm glad
Thanks, uh, thanks for the call any other questions. Oh, yeah
Uh, just wanted to let you know emmanuel
I don't know if you remember me or not. I'm the blind guy that goes to the meetings in new york. Uh-huh
Deeply shrouded. Uh-huh. Oh, yeah, how you doing? Yeah, it's been a while
You know, I was out in oregon for a while, but now i'm back back in new york, huh? Yeah back in new york
Okay, well welcome back and hopefully we'll we'll be hearing from you again. Okay, bernie
I'll be sending you a letter soon. You have yourself a good night and uh,
I'll send you some reading material if I can
No problem old man. Enjoy. Take care
2-1-2-2-7-9-3-400. Good evening. You're on off the hook. Hello. How you doing? Oh, let's turn on my radio here. Okay
Question for you. Yeah, um
easiest ways on a mirage phone system
To get around the nine digit thing
The nine digit thing, uh, okay not being entirely familiar with that system. I guess you're talking about some sort of an access code
Yeah, okay
And you don't want to have to dial that access code to get out
Well, no because it curtails it goes through a whole database of certain things
Which then prohibits you from dialing certain ranges of numbers
So, how is it possible to bypass those?
Uh, well, I mean there's a couple of things first of all when you dial nine
Does it give you a beep for an access code at that point or is it after you dial a number?
Well, i'm not really sure. Um when I dial nine, I get a steady tone. Yeah steady dial tone
Okay, it's not a real dial tone. It's probably something inside the pbx
Um, if you dial are there any like let's say you want to dial an 800 number
Do you have to enter the code for that? Oh, no, just dial nine and then yeah. Yeah, you do have dial nine
You dial nine. Yeah, but do you have to wait?
Are you talking about you just talk about dialing the nine or are you talking about nine digit authorization code?
No, it's a nine digit authorization code to get out. Okay, so you dial nine and then you know 1-800 whatever
You don't have to dial the nine digit authorization code. No, okay
So it does allow calls to go through
On some circumstances without a code
So now if you could somehow get to an operator, the operator isn't going to know what your pbx restriction is
Uh, they're going to know what your line restriction is
If there's any restriction on the line, which doesn't seem to be likely it's probably grabbing an outside trunk
So once I get an outside in the 800 I can bounce around it's possible
Your system might be so primitive that just reverts back to an unrestricted dial tone
It's unlikely but it happens doesn't it? Do you have any idea who makes this phone system? Um, I think it was put in by um,
I'm, not really sure
I'm, not really sure. It just says mirage
Up on top. Um, hold on. I'm actually looking at the box now. The only letters on there are pat
Uh-huh. So that would be a t a t. Yeah, I bet the last letter is telephone
No, no
Do they did does it does it uh want you to put in a nine digit access code if you call a local number?
Um, usually not. No, there are some local numbers which do kick it in though
You mean a some number are you in two one two? Yeah, i'm two and two
There's some numbers in two one two that ask for a code that will ask for a code
Well with a system that's screwed up. I would say that there's probably a lot of holes in it
But most likely if you do something involving carrier access codes operators, uh reverted dial tones things like that
There's there's bound to be something there. You might want to play with the carrier access code ten triple zero
I actually did get a hold of one of the disks that was in the service box next to it
It was pat all access software
So i'm trying to play around with that. We can't get it working per se
I don't even know what platform it's running on looks like some sort of hybrid dos thing. Uh-huh
You don't have access to the actual computer the thing is running on do you?
Um, I don't have physical access to it. I could sneak in during the day and probably play for a couple minutes. Yeah
I don't want to piss off the tech. No, you certainly don't want to do that
Um, well, I mean there's all kinds of possibilities just try try scanning out some other types of numbers 950s 800s operators
You guys never heard pat. It doesn't ring a bell with you guys
I'm, not familiar with it, but just because we haven't heard of it doesn't mean that's you know, it's not
Yeah, it is it is
I don't know what that means, but I don't think that's it. I don't think anyone was reading tap magazine back there
Probably not maybe lod but not that
All right. Well keep us updated. I'm sure you'll find a way
See you soon along with nick. Jarecki. Yeah, okay
Good evening. You're on the air
Uh, hello. How you doing? All right
Uh, can I get on off the hook? Uh, you're on the air right now
Uh, oh I am. Yes. Okay
Well, I hope that was as much fun for you as it was for me good evening you're on the air hello
Yes, go ahead. I'm waiting to speak to emmanuel. Uh, you're on the air. Oh great. I'm, sorry. Yes. Uh, I just want to say um
Did you in way in the past used to have a show on wusb news of the world
Uh, yeah, in fact that show aired here a couple of times, too. Really?
Oh a long time fan then that was shortwave radio. We played shortwave radio bits from various parts of the world
Well, um, let's say hello to uh
to um ed
It's uh, i've missed you guys on a lot of tuesday nights since you moved from wednesday nights and uh,
I'm sad to see that he's still in jail
um
How do you feel about the about this time slot is it uh
I I went to nights was so much better. I thought for you guys. Oh, it doesn't really matter where you stick me
I'm, i'm pretty happy. Yeah, any any slot?
All right. And who do you use for a long-distance carrier yourself? Are you an at&t customer?
I'll use all of them you do at some point. I always i'm always making phone calls through various different means interesting
All right. Thanks a lot. All right. Take care
Add that to the file
All right
Good evening. You're on the air
Hi, how you doing?
Um, i'm uh, i'm interested in talking about two different problems. One is uh in mich in the in the state of new york
Okay, uh, they are um
Uh in the prison system
They uh have private carriers and the private carriers not only charge you enormous amounts
uh, but they also um
They also charge you for calls. You didn't make if you if you refuse to call they charge you anyway
And many people the poorest people the the people who have uh, prisoners, uh, uh put in their family and so on are ripped off
And they don't even have any they don't even know any way of uh, complaining about this. Absolutely
Yeah, that's something we brought up last week too. In fact the fact that prison
a big problem all across the country
We're reading more and more about this
It's it's unfortunate that uh seems to be a a profit angle to it
The prisons get a large kickback from the from the telephone
carriers
Well, there should be something some way of getting to the heads of these prisons
Because it's irresponsible of them not to care what happens to people and the people are being ripped off
I think the best way to do that is to just get the word out to as many mainstream media publications as possible
I mean, we're talking about every week here, but I think there's a lot of americans that aren't hearing it
Uh with down to our last minutes, what was the second point right?
The other thing is have you heard anything or has anybody done anything?
about this berenson, uh woman who was uh, uh sentenced to uh, uh
life imprisonment in peru
Uh, i've i've heard things about that. Uh that particular case but um, that's it's not really something that i'm up to date on
I'm sure there's other programs on the on the station though that are dealing with that quite a bit. Oh, that's great
I I would hope so because I haven't heard her mentioned at all on any of the programs that
Talk about people who are unjustly imprisoned, etc
Uh, try try talk back or try one of the late night shows. I'm sure i'm sure
It's been talked about before and will be again. Well, I hope somebody calls in to say something
I think it's really a horrible way in which he was sentenced and uh, it should it should uh,
The united states government should uh intervene in that
Okay. Well, thank you for a very good program. Okay. Thanks for calling. I know i'm at the end
Hey, they keep cutting you off. They keep they cut me off three times, you know in the space of about 15 minutes
They cut you off terribly. Yeah, the ninex does that after after a few rings, but anyway, that's we're out of time
Thanks for calling bernie very quickly now your address. Oh, yeah, it's uh, ed cummings
At bucks county prison
1730 south easton road. It's ea ston
in doylestown
Pa
one eight nine oh one
Please send me letters. I uh need something to read and feed my head
Okay, and of course you can write to bernie s
On the internet bernie s at 2600.com. You can also finger that address to get updated information if things change
We'll be posting it there bernie s at 2600.com
Uh, we'll be in repeats for the next couple of weeks, but they're kind of interesting shows
I think uh, I think you'll get a big kick out of them because it's um
It's when we were first starting out and you hear some some people that went on to be more famous than they are now
Rather than they were then and uh some other interesting things like that
So definitely tune in over the next couple of weeks and we'll be updating you as to bernie s's case and other things going on
Uh until next time this is emmanuel goldstein for off the hook. Have a good night
The telephone keeps ringing so I ripped it up
So
So
And you're tuned to listener sponsor wbaifm in new york city where the time is now