And this is Radio Station WBAI, New York.
Couldn't get much worse.
But if they could, they would.
Holdin' it down for the best, expect the worst.
I hope that's understood.
Bundle it up!
And good evening to everybody here on the radio program Off The Hook,
where we gather every week at this time
to talk about the latest developments in high technology and the hacker world.
And I guess I should warn people that this week's show is going to be not so cheerful,
not so happy, not so boisterous as we usually are,
because some things have just gotten extremely bad in the last couple of days.
Over the last year and a half, of course, we've been telling you the story of Bernie S.,
how he's been imprisoned, basically, for possessing technology
that many of us already have that you can easily get at Radio Shack,
and how the Secret Service has been pretty much merciless in their attacks on him,
in their way of trying to make him look like some sort of a terrorist,
and their success in getting him locked up in some of the worst prisons in this country
with some of the worst convicts.
We've been talking with him over the past few weeks.
We've been monitoring his progress as he gets switched from one prison to another,
from a maximum-security prison to a minimum-security camp,
which actually was a good thing.
But then they decided to punish him for receiving a fax,
which he never even asked for,
sending him back to maximum,
keeping there for 19 out of a possible 10-day sentence,
and then sending him back once again and proceeding to harass him for all kinds of things,
such as having one too many magazines or one too many bottles of shampoo,
and threatening him with extending his prison time
and sending him back to maximum and things like that.
Well, as you know, Bernie is not one to be intimidated.
He has a lot of spirit, and he's somebody that fights back in whatever way possible.
This radio show is one way of fighting back.
The magazine 2600 is another way.
A third way that he's been using to fight back is the prison procedure of appealing,
appealing things that are unjust,
and if and when those appeals are denied, filing grievances,
grievances of harassment, of being victimized by the system.
And that's the state he was in at the end of last week.
After we talked to him on the radio last week,
he was in that particular state where he was going to be filing a grievance.
Actually, he had already filed a grievance.
The grievance was dismissed, again, without any comment.
And what's been going on is that after he does these actions,
usually something happens, some sort of retribution on the prison's part.
It's if they really feel threatened by this individual.
For instance, when he first filed his appeal, right after, a few hours afterwards,
the same person that he filed the appeal with ordered his cell to be shaken down,
and that's when they found the magazine violation,
and he had an extra bit of reading material, the ultimate sin.
So after this grievance was denied,
he found himself again being handcuffed and shackled out of the minimum security prison area,
this is about the third or fourth time this has happened,
and transported to yet another prison,
this time to one he has not been in before, the Lehigh County Prison in Allentown.
And upon being transferred,
actually, I should give you the reasons that the prison gave for transferring him,
and this might be the high point of humor in this show,
when we say that the reason they gave was protective custody.
Now, protective custody usually means protective custody for the inmate,
you know, protecting them from some sort of recrimination from some sort of,
I don't know, other prisoner,
you know, where he has done something to anger somebody,
and must be protected from them.
Well, we all knew that was not the reason why he was being transferred to Lehigh.
Lehigh is a maximum security prison, it's a very dangerous place,
not the kind of place for him at all.
He was being transferred there as punishment for filing those grievances,
for being a pain in the ass.
Within 24 hours of arriving at Lehigh County,
for reasons that we still aren't really sure of,
and maybe the reasons themselves don't really matter,
but he was attacked viciously, savagely by an inmate there,
and put into the hospital, had most of his front teeth kicked out,
and basically was pretty much messed up big time this time.
And I don't really know, you know, how to tell people things like this,
but this is as bad as I think it can possibly get.
I thought we were at the limit before,
but every week we seem to push it a little further.
He was put in the hospital, operated on, had all kinds of surgery done on him,
and then, I mean, basically they were telling him,
or he was sort of conveying to us in the means that he had,
and we'll get into that in just a little bit,
that he in all likelihood will have to have his jaw wired shut for the next three months.
And three months of having your mouth sealed shut,
I imagine is something that the prison authorities are quite happy about in this particular case.
Since then, and this is only a couple of days ago, this happened over the weekend,
he was moved back into the prison.
He was not kept in the hospital where he should be.
He was moved into what can only be considered a barbaric setting
where there is no such thing as health care,
in severe pain, needing all kinds of medication and not getting it,
and if he is getting it, getting it twelve hours after he should be getting it,
and having bastards around him that are basically tormenting him even more,
and yet somehow are allowed to be around him at a time like this.
It's a really crazy situation.
It's something I'm still kind of in shock about even having to say this,
even hearing about this over the weekend,
and it's really about all we know right now.
He's locked in, of all things, the infectious diseases ward of this prison at this moment,
which basically means that he stands a high risk of getting an infectious disease.
Obviously being beaten to a pulp does not mean you're carrying an infectious disease,
but that's where they decided to throw him.
They took him out of the hospital.
While he was in the hospital, nobody was able to talk to him.
The police would answer the phone, or the prison guards actually,
and say that nobody can talk to him.
He was handcuffed throughout all this to the hospital bed
and treated like some sort of Charlie Manson figure.
This whole thing seemed like a farce when we started back in March of 1995.
Someone actually getting arrested for possession of technology
that could be used to make a free phone call on a primitive pay phone.
Little beeps, little beeps.
That's what this was all about.
It was absurd.
The Secret Service went crazy going through Ed Bernies' library,
saying that this person's a danger to society.
He has books on bomb making,
and didn't the building just blow up in Oklahoma City,
which means he must be part of that.
Just basically piling it on one level after another
and having every judge in Pennsylvania believe that this guy was actually a menace to society.
We all know him.
We've talked to him on the radio many times.
A lot of us have met him in person.
He was at the Hacker Conference in 1994 here in New York City.
We know what kind of person he is,
how he respects the law
as the law is meant to be applied,
not these bizarre rules that are meant to lock away people at will.
Basically, with these laws,
the Secret Service can go to anybody and say,
you have technology that could be used in a bad way.
You're going to prison.
That's what they did with him.
For reasons we've gone into before,
why they might be mad at him,
because he had pictures of Secret Service agents looking silly,
or something as bizarre as that.
That's what caused this whole retribution scenario to unfold,
and it's still going on.
That's where things stand right now.
We have several people here.
Pam's here.
You talked to Bernie only yesterday.
Somehow, even though his jaw is wired shut,
he was able to talk to you.
In fact, he's supposed to be calling in here in a moment or two.
We're going to try and talk with him,
and hopefully that won't cause him too much pain.
Tell us, what was it like talking to him?
It's pretty frustrating.
His jaw is wired shut,
and you can hear the anger in his voice,
and the pain and the suffering,
but he's pretty clear.
I actually spoke to him only about 15 minutes ago.
Is he going to call in?
He is going to call in.
He's in about five minutes.
That's another thing that we should point out,
is that all the phone lines that he has been calling somehow are blocked.
We had to scramble.
We had to go crazy to figure out a way for him to call in tonight,
because all the numbers that we use ordinarily, for some reason,
when he tried calling them, they would not go through.
So it seems like they've gone to a lot of trouble to shut him up one way or another.
I don't want to jump the gun, sound hysterical,
and say that they set him up to be beaten up like this,
to silence him, but come on, let's look at the facts here.
Let's look at the facts.
You take somebody out of a minimum security prison.
You call it protective custody.
You put them in a maximum security prison,
and less than 24 hours later, he's in the hospital.
I think that makes you just as guilty as if you had set up the whole thing yourself,
because under your own definition of protective custody,
that means you should be watching the guy, right?
You even are going to follow your own story of doing this for protective custody.
And if it's not for that reason,
why are you putting somebody that is a nonviolent offender, if an offender at all,
someone who the government has admitted caused no damage,
there are no victims, no plaintiffs, no monetary damage of any sort,
a person being sent to be with violent, who knows what,
murderers, rapists, killers of all sorts.
I don't know.
I don't know how these things are allowed to happen, but I do know this.
We've talked to a bunch of people in the past few days.
A lot of us have been up for several days.
And this stops here.
This does not go any further.
We're fed up.
We've had it.
We're doing something about it.
We're getting people together.
We just put this up on the web a couple of, a few hours ago, actually,
and already we're being barraged with people that are ready to do something.
And by ready to do something, I mean ready to go down there
and, if necessary, surround the prison,
if necessary, surround the homes of the people responsible for this,
because this time we are not blinking.
We're not backing down.
We're demanding his immediate release.
No, nothing less than that.
And after that, it's not over yet,
because after that there are some people that are going to be held accountable
for the things that have happened to him.
And, I mean, I understand when people lose rationality
and when they start doing things that don't seem to make any sense.
I hope we can stay away from that path,
but I understand how people can get there.
I really do, seeing things like this unfold.
We have a list of people to call, a list of phone numbers,
a list of the people we think played a big part in this.
Let me give out some addresses,
some things you can do to start getting involved,
because things are going to start happening within the next week.
And we need people. We need lots of people.
I'm saying at least 100 people to go down there in a bus,
or a couple of buses, actually,
and do what needs to be done,
because we can't let this go on anymore.
I mean, Bernie is one person,
one person of a potential number of thousands
who this could be happening to.
And who knows how many other people don't have the voice he has.
This is what happens to somebody who is able to communicate with the outside world.
Imagine what's happening to those people who have no such voice.
We're demanding investigations into what has happened at that prison,
how such a thing could have been allowed to have happened,
why he was not released when he was supposed to have been released,
why he was locked up in the first place,
why the Secret Service is allowed to get away with this kind of persecution.
There are a couple of things you can do right now.
If you have Internet access, connect to our website, www.2600.com.
We have the full story there in pretty graphic detail.
If you want to get the latest mailed to you,
we set up an email account.
It's called protest at 2600.com.
And if you mail that, you will be put on the mailing list.
You'll get updates as they occur.
You'll find out what's happening, what the latest updates are.
And the other thing we have set up is a special voicemail system
for those of you who don't have Internet access.
By registering or calling us up and just recording the fact that you're with us
and that you want to be kept apprised of what's going on
so that when we do know what we are doing exactly,
we can call you and tell you this is what we're doing,
this is when we're doing it, etc., etc.
We have voicemail accounts set up for this.
You can call our voicemail system, 516-473-2626.
Follow the instructions there to register
or just to leave your feelings on the Bernie S. situation.
If you don't have a touch-tone phone, call 516-751-2600,
and you can leave a message there without having to worry about hitting any tones.
You talked to him 15 minutes ago, Pam.
Any update on his status?
Yeah, there's a slight update.
He was moved within the infectious disease ward today
from one cell that was kind of far out on the block,
closer to the central monitoring area, so he's under constant surveillance now.
I don't know if that's for protective custody reasons
or because they think he needs a little bit more attention
than the guys who are having tuberculosis,
but he was moved in a little bit.
He's still in a lot of pain.
The only positive news, he did his lawyer's back in town,
and there's a small chance the lawyer's going to try
to petition the judge for Ed's release tomorrow,
but it's not very likely.
I know that.
Not at all.
I've seen these people.
I've seen it time after time again.
Reason just does not work.
I mean, we sat there in the courtroom.
We watched this.
We heard Tom Varney basically lying through his teeth
about what Ed had done, who he was,
nobody questioning, nobody questioning the obvious fallacy,
the obvious ridiculousness of the situation,
of saying that someone who has dental putty is equivalent
to somebody who has an explosive,
ridiculous things like that,
and if it doesn't make any sense to you,
just read some of the things that we've been putting on the website
and you'll see how the whole story fits together.
It's obscene.
It's literally obscene,
and something else that's obscene, I guess,
is really the lack of involvement on the part of other organizations,
on the part of the media.
We need to get ACLU involved in this.
There's no reason for them not to be,
and I think lots and lots of people should be contacting them right now
to let them know about this.
Let's give them the benefit of the doubt
and say that somehow they've managed not to hear about this
even though they have been contacted.
We're willing to start from scratch again
and have them take an interest right at this point
because this kind of thing, this is,
even if you take away all the hacker aspects of this,
this has got nothing to do with hacking anymore.
This is brutality, plain and simple.
FiberOptic, you were in a federal prison not too long ago,
and this could easily have been you, could it not?
Well, I think the one thing I had going in my favor at the time
was I had such a large degree of media coverage
since luckily for me the World Wide Web and the Internet
was exploding in the media.
So in my particular situation, it was sort of,
it was played up and it was almost to the point of being glamorized.
In Ed's case, unfortunately,
since his case doesn't have anything specifically to do with the Web
or the Internet, it seems like it's been largely ignored by the media
and the thing about the prison system that people should be aware of
is if you have an extremely high profile case,
you're not going to be liked very much right off the bat
in the particular institution that you're in.
But if the prison administration gets a feel for the fact
that you don't really have that much media coverage,
it's almost as if to say that the outside world doesn't really care very much
as far as what the public opinion is.
In my particular case, I had done a number of interviews from within prison
and it was obvious to me where I was
that the prison administration was concerned about their image
and I think they would not have tried a lot of the things,
well, they didn't try a lot of the things that they obviously did with Ed
simply because there isn't enough attention on his case.
You're also in a federal camp and that's much better than the places they've been putting him.
He was in a federal facility last year but then when the Secret Service
figured out a way to make him spend even more time in prison
by coming up with that parole violation from years ago,
the very minor incident and turning it into a big deal
where he had to go back to prison for it,
they sent him to state prisons, county prisons actually
and these are not nice places at all.
So he's been in the worst of the worst
and it hasn't affected his personality.
It's the most amazing thing.
He's able to keep his spirit week after week.
He was able to talk to us and update us on what was going on with him.
I think they hate that more than anything,
the fact that the spirit was not broken.
So again, I have to stress to people,
we can sit back and just listen to this week after week
or we can stand up and do something about it.
I guarantee you if we don't stand up and do something about it,
this will keep happening.
This will keep happening over and over again
and who knows who will be next.
When we took you to prison, Fiber,
it was Bernius, myself and a couple of other people
and we never guessed that so short a time afterwards
that he would be the last person I would expect this to happen to
because he never did anything.
All he did was explain to people how things worked
and he was very honest and direct.
If you saw him at the Hackers on Planet Earth conference in the city
a couple of years ago, you would have seen him
just answering any question that somebody gave to him.
He would tell you how a red box worked.
Would he ever use one? Of course not.
What would be the point? That wasn't his style.
He could afford to make his own phone calls.
He didn't have to cheat the phone company.
He didn't have to prove how cool he was by red boxing
or something silly like that.
But the knowledge is what they are most afraid of.
The fact that he will tell somebody,
this is a vulnerability in the phone system.
I think for many reasons that's why they put you away too
because of the fact that you were willing to explain things like that.
The thing that I think is somewhat of a parallel,
if you recall when we first got to the prison
and I was put in the medium high security facility.
You were put in the hole?
Yeah, the hole in the medium high security prison
that was connected to the work camp that I was supposed to be in.
And they told everybody on the outside
that I was put there for protective custody reasons.
I guess that's kind of a prison euphemism.
Yeah, it seems like a blanket excuse for needing to do something to somebody.
It's one of their many excuses.
What's amazing about this too is,
I'm sure they will come up and say,
oh, Ed must have started a fight with this guy.
Ed knows. He knows very well.
We've seen him many times in prison.
We've talked to him many times on the phone.
He knows what not to do.
He knows how to stay healthy in a place like that.
He dropped the garbage can lid on the head of a mafia boss by accident.
He managed to salvage that particular faux pas, you might call it.
I think he knows the rules to a degree of what to do and what not to do.
To say that he in any way was asking for trouble is just completely wrong.
To me, this is my opinion,
it seems like a setup of some sort.
Certainly that he was put in that situation indicates to me that they didn't care what happened to him.
In either case, even if you're willing to believe it was a totally random event,
it's not his fault that he was put into that situation by outside forces that he had no control over.
He had no business being in a maximum security prison with those type of criminals.
On the other hand, if you want to be a total cynic like I am about the whole thing,
because I know how easy it would be for a prison guard to have received a phone call,
possibly saying, you know, give this guy a hard time, he's being shipped to your prison.
And then the guard saying, you know, calling over one of their favorite disposable inmates
and saying, you know, we'll give you some extra laundry soap or something if you give this guy a hard time.
It's all too easy for something like that to have happened.
Absolutely, absolutely.
All right, we still are hoping that he'll be able to call us tonight here at the station.
And we can hear it's Pam again.
He sounds different.
I mean, his straw's wired shut, so he's talking through clenched teeth.
But his spirit's still there.
He's very much interested in really starting to hopefully fight back if he's released.
He thinks there's some clear liability involved in this attack on him.
But he sounds horrible.
I mean, his teeth are missing.
Does it hurt him to talk?
It hurts, you can tell.
He can barely, you know, breathe or take a sip of water or whatever.
He's got 26 stitches in his neck.
Two metal rods have been inserted on each side of his jaw.
And it's pretty miserable.
Not to mention the fact that his arm's also smashed and got, you know, stitches in it, too.
That was already pretty messed up from before.
Yeah.
So imagine that just got even worse.
Let me give out a couple of phone numbers of people that I think deserve to be called
and called to account for this.
The Bucks County Correctional Facility in Doylestown,
these are the people that transferred him under quote-unquote protective custody.
The director of that institution is a Mr. Nesbitt, N-E-S-B-I-T-T.
The chief is John Henderson.
He's the one who had Bernie thrown into maximum security for receiving the fax.
And at one point he also told him that he had no right to speak to the press.
When someone from the press asked him about that, he, of course, reversed what he said.
The phone number to reach those people is 215-325-3700.
And they have a fax number of 215-345-3940.
The Lehigh County Prison, which is where this attack occurred,
the warden there, his name is Ed Sweeney.
His phone number is 610-820-3133 and fax number 610-820-3450.
Going back a bit to the spring of 1995, the original arresting officer was John Morris.
He believed that Bernie was involved in a drug deal
simply because he observed him selling electronic components to a vehicle with African Americans in it.
And, of course, to him that meant it had to be a drug deal.
So he called in all his other officers.
He can be reached at 610-853-2400, fax number 610-853-1706.
He also threatened someone who was criticizing the arrest.
They didn't even criticize him by name.
They criticized the action of the Haverford Township Police Department.
And he actually tried to harass this person into not speaking about it
by saying that he was about to be sued by the Fraternal Order of the Police.
Well, once that hit the press, he kind of shut up as far as that goes.
You've got Northampton County Probation Department.
Scott Hoke is the parole officer for Ed.
As parole officer for a minor infraction years earlier,
Hoke had told Cummings that parole was a waste of time for such a trivial offense.
But after being interviewed by the Secret Service,
Hoke did an about-face and began referring to Cummings as a very dangerous criminal
who needed to be in prison for a very long time.
He can be reached at 610-559-7211, fax number 610-559-7218.
There are other numbers, other people, which will be available
for people who email us or who call us,
but there's one that we certainly can't leave out,
and that's Special Agent Tom Varney of the United States Secret Service.
His phone number, area code 215-597-0600,
and fax number 215-597-2435.
Now, Varney, of course, was the key factor
in having Ed Cummings in prison since March of 1995.
It was he who convinced Detective John Morris
that Cummings' possession of electronic components
and certain books and magazines made him a danger to society.
His testimony stands out in his incredible assessment of Cummings
as nothing short of a terrorist and his ability,
as a representative of one of the nation's most powerful agencies,
to convince others in law enforcement that Cummings belongs in prison
for the most dangerous, most violent of criminals.
Those are the people.
Those are the people that are responsible for putting him in this situation.
There is no question about that.
Those are the people, if you are angry, who deserve your wrath.
They are the people that you must talk to.
They are the people you must tell other people about
and make sure that we never forget what's going on here
because this is an incredibly screwed-up situation
and we cannot simply stand back and allow it to occur
because silence is complicity.
There's also a number of representatives and senators
and even the governor of Pennsylvania who are being contacted about this,
concerning this case, and we want answers from them.
We want to know how such a thing was allowed to happen,
why nobody listened, nobody listened to any of the objections
to the way this person was being treated,
and how someone found guilty of such an incredibly ridiculous offense
could be treated the same way as someone found guilty
of some of the most serious offenses ever perpetrated.
Again, to get involved, please, we urge you to get involved
because we need a lot of people.
And if you get busy signals on these numbers, please just keep calling
because they will pick up eventually if you don't get through.
516-473-2626. Follow the instructions to join the Bernie S. protest.
If you don't have a touch-tone phone, dial 516-751-2600
and leave your name and number there.
We will be getting back to you.
If you have email, email protest at 2600.com.
You'll get the latest information as it happens
and we'll have a way of getting in touch with you
to let you know what's going on as far as the things we are planning.
I know a lot of people who listen to WBAI have done this kind of thing before
for many other causes.
And this is the time to move it over to this cause.
It's reached that stage.
It's reached that stage where people are being violently oppressed.
Okay, I just got told that...
Are they blocking the number again?
He's not able to get through on this?
Okay, so wait, is this him calling now on this?
Okay, so hopefully it's him right here.
Hello, good evening.
There was a phone ringing there.
Let's see if they call back.
Okay, well, he's trying to reach us.
That much we know.
And as we said before, he was trying.
They blocked our lines.
They put up some sort of a barrier that he couldn't get past.
Also, as long as we're giving out addresses,
the website is also the way of getting the most updated information.
We're updating that literally every couple of hours.
www.2600.com.
I think we might have something now.
Good evening.
Hello.
Hello.
Do you think that was...
I don't know what that was.
I'm not sure if people are out there playing games,
but this is not the time to do it.
Okay, again, we'll take some phone calls here at 212-279-3400
if anyone out there wants to talk about this
and give out any kind of...
You know, it's possible, actually,
that he may have been calling on the right line
and I wasn't looking at the right time.
So I don't know if you want to...
Are you able to convey a message back through that other person he's talking to?
Have him call the original plan.
We'll try it one more time that way
and I'll just keep my eyes riveted over there
and we'll see if we can get through to him that way.
Okay, again, 212-279-3400.
We're very open to suggestion
because this is kind of a first for us,
you know, doing something like this
where we actually have to stand up and be counted.
I mean, we've been doing it in our own way,
but that's not working.
We have to do it in a different way.
We have to physically go someplace,
physically stand up and be seen,
and we've got to get as many of you involved as possible.
And we have to get the media to wake up, take notice,
because they have not done so yet.
Fiber, you were, in fact, in touch with some media people today.
Now, without giving out who they are,
because it might be embarrassing to them,
what kind of response were you getting?
Let's just see if this is him.
Good evening.
I'm not sure why I'm getting a...
You have, hello, this is the AT&T operator.
You have a call from Bernie S.
Okay, I know this isn't the AT&T operator,
but are you conferencing Bernie in?
You've got it.
Okay, conference him in, please.
Bernie?
Yeah.
Okay, okay, we got him.
Hey.
Bernie, can you hear me?
Yeah, can you hear me?
Yeah, I can't tell you how sorry we are about what happened.
Well, this phone system is very effective
in keeping me from dialing any of the numbers
that I'm normally dialing.
Yeah, I can imagine.
I mean, we've had so much trouble getting through,
having you get through to us.
Even the normal number that I call doesn't even work now.
It's not that it doesn't work at your end.
It's just somehow they're being blocked from the prison.
Anyway, the reason I sound the way I do
for people who don't know is because my jaw is now wired shut
because it's fractured in three places,
and my arm is also fractured because I was assaulted here
in a maximum security prison that I was sent to
without explanation Friday morning,
and I spent seven hours in surgery in the hospital on Saturday,
and then the day after that they sent me back
to maximum security prison.
Now I'm in the infectious disease ward of the Bucks County,
I'm sorry, of the Lehigh County prison.
They're having me in here with people that have tuberculosis
and other infectious diseases,
and I'm concerned about getting them myself
because I have all these incisions on my body now.
I have 26 stitches in my face,
and the last thing I need is to contract tuberculosis.
All the guards come and go in this cell block
wearing surgical masks so they don't get sick,
but they won't supply me with one.
Pretty crazy.
How are you feeling right now?
I'm in a lot of pain.
They were giving me morphine at the hospital,
but all they're giving me here is Tylenol 3,
and it's not, I mean it helps, but I'm still in a lot of pain.
Are they giving this to you on a regular basis?
We heard there was some trouble with you getting the painkillers in the first place.
Yeah, it took them seven hours to get around to giving me any,
and then finally they started giving it to me,
and then they said that they only had pills,
which I can't take because my jaw is wired shut.
So I said, we'll grind them up,
and they said, oh no, we can't do that.
So I had to wait until they got me some liquid form of it,
but finally I got the liquid form of Tylenol 3,
and I made enough noise about it,
and now finally they're giving me the medication,
but instead of bringing it to me,
they make me walk all the way up to the dispensary every four hours
with all these fractures just to get this pain medication,
when even for normal inmates,
they seem to just bring the medication to the cell block.
So I don't know why they're making me walk all the way up to the medical department
to get these painkillers when they know I've got multiple fractures,
but it's par for the course here, I guess.
I don't know if you're able to remember,
but at the time of the attack,
were the guards quick in getting to you to stop it?
Was anybody around at the time?
Well, it arose as a dispute over a telephone,
not surprisingly enough,
but I was on the telephone with a friend,
and another inmate who apparently had just gotten locked up a few hours before
grabbed the phone away from me because he wanted to use it,
and I told him I was almost done,
and he grabbed it from me, so I grabbed it back from him,
and we grabbed the phone back and forth.
And where the guards are in the cell block is they're not really in the cell block.
They're in a separate Lexan room that's apart from the cell block.
They can see in, but they can't really hear anything.
So they're protected from the inmates.
I caught the eye of one of the two guards on duty.
There was a white guard and a black guard.
I caught the eye of the white guard,
and he saw the altercation,
and he clearly saw that something was up,
and then he just turned away.
I mean, it was inexplicable.
You'd think he'd do something about it.
He just turned away.
And as soon as he turned away,
this other inmate slugged me in the face twice,
and then I fell to the ground,
and then he started to kick me in the head,
and I tried to block his kick with my left arm,
and he kicked my arm and my head
and ended up fracturing my jaw in three places
and my left arm as well.
So it wasn't until after I was actually down and being kicked repeatedly
that the guard finally came to the doorway,
and I somehow made it to the doorway.
And then he put me in handcuffs
like it was my fault
and took me up to the...
He put you in handcuffs after you had your teeth kicked out?
Yeah.
I guess they figured it was all my fault.
What happened to the other guy?
Well, they put him in handcuffs too.
Okay. Do you know what has happened to him since then?
I haven't seen him, fortunately.
I don't know.
One of the guards told me he was in solitary.
I'm in solitary too.
It's sort of like solitary but infectious disease solitary.
Well, are you at least free from being harassed by the prison guards
where you are now?
Yeah. It wasn't so much the guards.
It was this inmate.
But, you know, at Bucks County Prison,
the guards were harassing me, but not physically.
They were harassing me in other ways.
At this place, the guards really aren't harassing me.
Some of them are incredibly insensitive
while others are reasonable people.
I can't put them all in the same category.
But, for instance, while I was in the hospital Saturday night awaiting surgery,
well, I was taken to the hospital.
I'll go back to when I was taken to the hospital.
It took them about half an hour after I kept losing a lot of blood from my mouth.
They put me in shackles and handcuffs and put a chain around my waist
and told me to sit there while I was bleeding.
And after half an hour they finally said,
well, we should get under the hospital.
So they took me in a prison van to the hospital in Allentown on 17th Street.
And they got me there and I was chained to a gurney in the hallway for about an hour.
And then finally they x-rayed me and saw that I had multiple facial fractures
and an arm fracture.
So then they transported me by ambulance to Cedar Crest Boulevard Hospital in Allentown,
which is apparently a better facility.
And once I got there, there had just been a major automobile accident in town.
There were like 12 people who were severely injured.
And all the emergency rooms were filled up.
So I was, again, chained and shackled to a gurney for several hours.
I think it was about six hours.
I was chained and shackled to a gurney in the hallway
while I was spitting up blood into like a plastic container they gave me.
Did they give you anything for the pain?
They did hook me up to an IV drip with morphine in it,
but it still didn't kill all the pain.
It just prevented it from being so bad that I'd pass out,
but it was still pretty excruciating.
And the blood would not clot.
I must have lost about a half a gallon of blood during the whole thing.
Finally, they finally took my vital signs.
They took me up to a room,
and the guard who was guarding me the whole time kept complaining
before I was taken up to the room that he was bored
and wanted to watch the football game.
And that's all he wanted to talk about was he wanted to watch his football game.
So he kept bugging the nurses to see if they could get me up to a room
so he could watch the football game.
So finally they took him up.
They took me up to a room and turned on the TV.
So he's watching this football game and cheering on the players
and making a lot of noise and playing it loudly.
And I'm trying to get some rest,
and the guy wouldn't shut the TV off or even turn it down.
He was being a real jerk about it.
Was this the guy that was answering the phone in your room?
No, that was a guy before that.
This was an officer, White,
who insisted on watching a football game
despite the surgeon said I should rest.
I believe the other one was Officer Roberts.
And there was an officer.
The first officer was an officer.
I got all their names.
There was an officer, Harry Rodriguez.
He was the first guard on duty,
and he was kind of flippant about the whole thing too.
And then Officer White came on duty,
and he was only concerned about watching the football game.
And then after I got x-rayed,
the surgeon asked me to sign a consent form
to go under general anesthesia.
And they said I might be under general anesthesia
for seven or eight hours
because it was going to be major surgery,
and they had to get two surgeons operating on me consecutively
in the same OR.
And I said I need to contact a family member
to tell them that I'm going to be in major surgery
and under general anesthesia
because it was potentially life-threatening.
And the guards jumped in and said,
No, absolutely not.
You can't contact any family members.
It's a security risk.
And the surgeon even was saying it's a reasonable request.
And they wouldn't let me call a family member.
So I refused to sign the consent forms,
and then the guards went ballistic about that.
And they called the prison,
and some lieutenant from the prison
called the hospital room and read me over the phone
saying I had to sign this consent form.
And I kept saying I'm not going to sign it
until I can let a family member know what's going on.
And they just went ballistic about it.
They're just control freaks, Emanuel.
They're just the most incredibly
callous control freaks you could imagine.
And my uncle is not some stranger to the community.
He's the former president of Allentown City Council
and well-known in the community as a respected citizen.
It's not like he's going to come in here with an M-16
and bring me out of jail for a misdemeanor charge.
I mean, it's just ridiculous.
The guards kept insisting Lieutenant,
let's see, it was Lieutenant Oakley
that kept insisting it was a security issue,
and I kept insisting him that he was mistaken,
and he just kept going ballistic on me.
Finally, it went all the way to the warden,
and the warden finally agreed to let me...
Well, then they said, well, we'll call your uncle for you.
And I didn't trust them, so I said no dice, you know.
And then they went ballistic again,
and they just couldn't accept that an inmate
was telling them the way it was going to be.
And the guard kept telling me that you better remember
that while you're a patient, you're...
more importantly, you're an inmate.
And I said, I'm a human being.
Just start treating me like one.
And they just wouldn't.
So finally, after three hours of arguing on the phone
with a broken jaw with these morons,
I finally was able to get a call through to my uncle,
whose daughter was getting married the following morning.
And I was supposed to be at the wedding,
but obviously I couldn't be.
And so I had to make arrangements for a living will
because the side effects of this surgery,
they said I could potentially not make it through this thing.
So I had to make arrangements for a living will
because I didn't want to be a vegetable the rest of my life,
as much as I like vegetables.
And so finally I got nut take care of,
but it was just aggravation as the last thing I needed right then.
And then that whole night,
one of the other guards insisted on watching
really annoying sitcoms all night long on the TV set.
And I couldn't really talk at that point.
I was so much in pain.
So I kept writing notes to the nurse saying,
can you get the guard to turn down or turn off the television?
I really can't sleep with this thing on.
And the nurse just kept kind of ignoring it,
like humoring me, like, oh, well, you know,
he's got to do his job.
And I was starting to really lose it.
Finally I told them that I was going to have my lawyer
see the hospital unless this TV were turned down.
So the guard just said, well, just give him another shot.
Hey, I'm going to have to call you right back.
This phone is going to cut me off.
Okay, try the original plan.
It should work.
Well, that number, it was blocking me
from the original number again.
Try the second plan we gave you.
The one that just worked?
Not this one, the one that you tried beforehand,
because we might have missed the light on the phone.
Okay, I'll call you right back.
All right, good luck.
That's easily some of the most unbelievable crap
I've ever heard, what they're doing to him.
You know, I would expect things like that
in maybe other centuries,
maybe other less developed nations perhaps
is the way we've been taught to understand this.
This is happening very close to home.
Before he calls back, hopefully he'll be able to reach us.
Please get involved.
516-473-2626.
Follow the instructions there.
If you don't have a touch-tone phone,
516-751-2600.
Email address, protestat2600.com.
Website, www.2600.com.
And that will give you all the information
that we have at the moment.
Of course, we want to hear from you too.
We want your advice, your opinions.
I'm not sure if we'll be able to take phone calls today
because I really, really think we should be listening
to what Bernie is telling us,
if he, in fact, is able to get through again.
And if we're not able to take phone calls tonight,
please leave your advice, your messages, your numbers
so that you can get involved.
We are going to do something about this.
We're not just going to sit here and talk about it.
We are going to stand up and do something.
It absolutely has to be done.
I don't think there's very many good excuses
not to get involved.
Being afraid is no longer really a valid excuse.
We're all afraid.
We don't know what's going to happen,
who's going to be victimized next.
Farber, you're one of the few people
that does have a decent excuse not to go down there,
and that's because if you go down there,
they'll simply throw you back in prison
because you're still on probation.
Yeah, unfortunately.
But I can't imagine somebody
not wanting to get involved at some point.
I mean, it's really, it's no longer a hacker case.
This is just a plain and simple human rights case.
I mean, it's hard for me to just sit here
and listen to Ed talk that way.
I mean, I've known him for a number of years,
and it surprises me that he could still crack a joke
under those conditions.
Right, right.
It just amazes me that he's holding up
under those kind of conditions.
They are trying to kill him.
They really are.
It's not his spirit, then him physically.
And I think what a lot of people are realizing at this point
is that they've really dug their grave this time
because this is something that they can't just walk away from.
They basically have mistreated him to the degree
where he's probably going to be affected in some way
for the rest of his life.
Okay, let's see if that's him.
Good evening.
This is the AT&T operator with a collect call from Bernie S.
Okay, I guess the other plan didn't work.
So, okay, connect us through.
Bernie?
Hello?
Okay, you there?
Yeah, there's a number they're blocking now.
I can't call that number from this phone.
So the number they weren't blocking yesterday,
now they are blocking?
Yes.
So it seems like every number I call they put on a list.
I mean, I'm just speculating.
I have no proof of this.
Well, no, that seems quite likely to me, too,
and we'll have to figure out some other way by next week,
which we will do.
It's really insane.
They're trying to keep me from calling anybody.
But the bottom line is I spent seven hours in surgery,
and then the next day they took me back to maximum security here
and put me in the infectious disease ward
because they said they had to test me for tuberculosis,
which I don't have,
and I was tested at the other prison before I was sent here for tuberculosis,
and I've never had tuberculosis in my life.
But now they have me on this ward with people who are coughing from tuberculosis.
Even the prison guards come in here with, like, these surgical masks,
but they won't give me a mask.
I'm just concerned that I'm going to get tuberculosis
because my immune system is,
I just went through seven hours of surgery.
I just don't need that right now.
So the thing that angers me most about this is this transfer,
this surprise transfer was done without any authority,
and it was done under false pretenses.
My stay in Bucks County Prison was getting increasingly rough,
not from a physical standpoint, but just from an administrative standpoint
because of certain,
they charged me with receiving a fax,
which I didn't have anything to do with receiving,
but the bottom line was they found me guilty of Class I misconduct,
which could delay my parole nine months.
So I appealed it.
They turned that down,
and my attorney called the superintendent of the prison, a Mr. Henderson,
who said, well, I should file a grievance.
So my attorney said I should file a grievance.
So I filed a grievance,
and a week later I got the grievance back.
It was turned down,
and the following morning I was woken up by guards,
handcuffed, shackled,
and transported to Lehigh County Maximum Security Prison.
And it's very clear to me that this was a punitive measure
just to get me out of that prison,
so I was stopped trying to appeal
and get my rights vindicated there.
Apparently it's a common tactic for prison officials
when they don't want an inmate around because of liability reasons
or they just want to get rid of them,
they just transfer them to another facility.
But what Bucks County wasn't aware of apparently
or didn't go over to check
was that my sentencing judge, Piniella,
specifically said I was to serve the remainder of my sentence
in Bucks County Prison.
And they completely ignored the judge's sentencing order,
went against his court order,
and sent me to a Maximum Security Prison in Lehigh County
against the judge's orders,
using the false pretense.
Are you there?
Yeah, I think whoever's connecting us is talking on the other line,
so it's kind of hard to hear you.
They used the false pretense
that I was being transferred for protective custody reasons.
I got a glimpse of my transfer paperwork.
It said reason for transfer is protective custody.
And in prison language,
protective custody means you're either a child molester
or a known informant,
both of which are very dangerous labels that have applied to you
because then you're an immediate target for other inmates.
So both child molesters and prison snitches
are considered the lowest of the low,
and I'm neither of those.
But once you have that label applied to you,
you're done for.
So that was the pretense that was used to transfer me
up here, protective custody,
even though there were no protective custody issues whatsoever
in Bucks County at all.
I never had any problems, any of the inmates there,
as far as my physical welfare or anything like that.
I got along with everybody pretty well.
But so not only was I transferred against a court order
and under false pretenses of protective custody,
but once I was sent here,
they didn't even put me in protective custody.
If they had put me in protective custody,
like my transfer paperwork ordered,
I wouldn't have been assaulted in the first place.
Obviously, yeah.
So this whole thing has liability written all over it.
I'm not a particularly contagious person,
but at this point, to hell with it.
These people have to wake up
and realize what they're doing is wrong.
If I was to sue both of these prisons for,
I mean, I'm permanently disfigured now.
I have 26 stitches in my face
as a result of this punitive measure.
I'm here for a misdemeanor charge
that the district attorney admitted
there weren't even any victims involved in,
and it's just really gotten out of hand.
I'm extremely frustrated,
and I'm sorry if I sound like I'm venting,
but I just can't stand this anymore.
You have absolutely every right to vent,
and I think we should all do some serious venting
and aim it in the right direction.
But again, you know, I feel like there's...
I mean, I wish I could think of something to say
to tell you that this is going to be fixed,
that this is going to be okay,
that it's going to be taken care of somehow.
I keep saying to myself,
it can't get any worse,
and it keeps getting worse.
I mean, what else?
I mean, the only thing that could be worse at this point
is that I could be killed.
I mean...
What else could happen?
I cannot see people not taking an interest at this point.
The people that have been silent up until now,
we are demanding answers.
We're demanding responses, attention,
and around the clock, we're not going to let this rest.
You have my word on that.
For some reason, various organizations
are supposed to be a watchdog
over these kinds of situations,
apparently are not taking any interest.
No, they failed.
They failed miserably,
but we are not going to let that stop us
from getting them involved at this point,
because they have to be involved.
There's no question about that,
and I think everybody who is listening to this right now
should take part in that,
getting other people involved,
getting other organizations involved,
getting those people that should know about this.
We're getting media attention,
but we have to get more of it.
I know, we mentioned this a few seconds ago,
Fiber, you talked to somebody from the media before,
and they just...
It was the same old garbage, pretty much.
Yeah, it was the same old crap.
It was that...
They were interested more in the Kevin Mitnick story still,
and I told them I was sick to death of Kevin Mitnick already,
and Ed's story is so much more important
and relevant at this point in time.
It's almost like, like I said earlier,
if the story has nothing to do with computers
and the net directly,
they don't want to write about it.
Well, it's not that they're so much interested
in Kevin Mitnick,
who is going through a lot of hell himself,
but they're interested in the cyber aspects of it,
what he did, how he did it, things like that,
and they want to make it look all nice
with their web browsers and things like that,
but this is about human rights.
This is about something a lot more important
and a lot more close to home.
Ed, I'm really sorry, but we're out of time,
but I want you to stay in constant touch
however you can.
Yeah, apparently they're keeping me
from making as many phone calls as possible.
They keep blocking phone numbers.
On top of that, apparently,
I'm not allowed to have any visitors here either,
which is pretty depressing.
Well, you are not forgotten,
and we will be working around the clock to...
I don't even have the address here,
but I could really use some letters of support
from some people out there,
if anybody wants to write me.
I don't know if...
Do you have the address here?
Pam, do you have the address?
It's on the website.
Okay, the address is on the website.
We might have it here.
Actually, no, I do have it here.
Here you go.
Okay, hold on, we've got it.
You ready?
Yeah, go ahead.
It's Lehigh County Prison.
Okay.
Oh, actually, it should be made out to me,
Ed Cummings.
Right.
C-U-M-M-I-N-G-S.
My inmate number is 67770.
67770.
Lehigh.
It's L-E-H-I-G-H.
County Prison.
38 North 4th Street.
How do you spell that street?
Fourth.
F-O-U-R-T-H.
Okay, fourth.
Fourth Street, like the number four?
Yes.
And that's in Allentown, PA.
The zip code is 18103.
Okay, and we urge people to send letters,
send whatever words of support.
Apparently, reading materials cannot be sent
unless they're sent directly from the publisher,
but people might want to try anyway.
If they're going to send me a book or a magazine,
send it under a separate cover,
not with a letter.
Send a letter separately,
just in case they prevent the magazine or book
from coming in.
That way, at least I'll still get the letter.
Okay.
Now, we also want people to get involved
in what we're going to be doing on this end,
and again, please call now.
Call any time, actually,
because these numbers are constantly up.
516-473-2626.
Follow the instructions to get involved.
If you don't have a touch-tone phone,
516-751-2600.
Again, around the clock,
and also email protest at 2600.com.
Check out the website, www.2600.com,
for the latest update in this story.
Bernie, we wish you the best,
and we will stay in constant touch with you,
and we'll be back again next week,
hopefully with a lot better news.
All right?
Well, I hope it's not any worse.
Yeah. Okay. You hang in there.
If it's any worse,
you probably won't hear from me.
Yeah. Well, we will make sure that we do.
All right?
Okay.
You hang in there.
Thanks for your support.
All right. Take care.
Take care.
Good night.
And that's pretty much going to do it for us here tonight.
We'll be back again next week.
Please, please give those numbers a call,
and give us whatever help you can.
Good night.
Beep.
And you're tuned to listener-sponsored WBAI-FM in New York City,
the time is 9-o-1.
Coming up next, immediately after this,
freshly produced cart by our own Eliza Butler will be
Housing Notebook.
My name's R. Malachy McCourt, and on Thursday, September 19th, there will be a gathering
at Tramps.
It will be called Out of the Ashes.
It is to make restitution for the burning of the churches in the South by the yahoos
and the racists.
Yeah, Tramps is at 45 West 21st Street.
Mayor Dinkins will be there, Bernadette Devlin will be there, and Black 47 will be playing
for your eternal, immortal enjoyment, and Karen Casey.
And remember the date, Thursday, September 19th.