And browse through the world's largest market to do your holiday shopping. Then on to Ghana, the land W.E.B. Du Bois called home. Take an unforgettable journey to the dawn of history. See the magnificence of ancient empires. Meet the Asantehene, King of the Ashanti. Lectures and discussions designed with you in mind. For information and travel arrangements, call WBAI, 212-209-2995. That's 212-209-2995. See you in West Africa. And you're listening to radio station WBAI in New York. The time is 8 o'clock. 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. It couldn't get much worse. But if it could, it would. But Billy Bump was the best to expect the worst. I hope that's understood. But Billy Bump! Cheers! Thank you. And a very good evening to everybody. The program is Off the Hook. And for the first time in a long time, I'm back in the studio here in beautiful downtown New York City. And boy, what an adventure it's been over the past however many weeks. The show has been on the road, except for Phil, who's pretty much been here the whole time. Yeah, I actually missed your voice over the phone. Yeah, I actually missed your voice over the phone. It does sound better, doesn't it? Could you call in and maybe patch it through you? All the time we spend trying to figure out how to make a simple phone call going out, I think calling in would be even more difficult, but maybe we'll try that later. We have Phil here, and I believe that's Porkchop next to him. Hello. How are you doing? All right. Porkchop was with us for the first part of the trip out to Las Vegas, serving as sound man for the documentary that we're making on the whole Kevin Mitnick slash hacker scene that's been going on. And what an amazing story it's been so far. And, of course, it wouldn't be complete if we did not also give acknowledgement to SNC, who was with us the whole trip. How are you doing? Hello out there. SNC joined us. That's his birth name, by the way. You can look it up. I did, and it really is his name. That's true. He was with us from the very beginning. Was it five weeks ago, six weeks ago? I don't even remember. Late July is when we left. And basically what we did was we journeyed out across New Jersey, across Pennsylvania, all the way over to Kansas City. Then we went down to Oklahoma and journeyed over to Las Vegas, making sort of a wrong stop along the way. But that's something we're just going to forget about for now. And then a lot of time in California, an awful lot of time in California, because there are so many people there to talk to, so many interesting people. We spent time in San Diego, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, Berkeley area as well. And I'd say we talked to just about everybody, minus one person, that was involved in this whole takedown scenario. And, of course, the person we didn't speak to was the guy who was behind the whole takedown thing in the first place, Satomo Shimomura. We did speak to John Markov, and he gave us quite a bit of time. We'll have a lot of interesting things to divulge in the, I guess it's months ahead now, because, well, I don't know if people out there, there are very many filmmakers, people who have made things like this. But we have over 60 hours of footage right now. And for those of you who follow this kind of thing, we did it in a DV format. And DV, for those who don't know, is yet another format for people to get all confused with. It's not DVD. It's not 8mm videotape. It looks like that tape, but it won't fit no matter how hard you try to cram it into the machine. It just won't go in there. But it's digital video. And now we just have to figure out how to edit it. So we're either going to go with something like Adobe Premiere or maybe even an Avid system if we can get our hands on one of those. So if anybody has any suggestions or ideas or you just happen to have something that you don't need that will do just what we want to do, you can email us at OTH at 2600.com. OTH, of course, standing for off the hook. After California, we ventured back in this general direction, heading over the northern part of Nevada, seeing Reno, which I think we mentioned a couple weeks ago on the show, Vile Town. Then Salt Lake City, Denver, and then the longest drive of my life, Denver to Austin in one sitting, or however many times it took to stand up to get gas. Then after that, we journeyed to where we were last week, which basically took us through New Orleans. And last week's show took place from a payphone down in Alabama. And I still remember that place. I still have nightmares about it. It's kind of a swamp we were calling from. All kinds of weird noises coming from the swamp and insects all over the place. And that's when we first warned people about the hurricane. Well, actually, we warned the takedown crew because they were filming in Wilmington, North Carolina. And a lot of people thought we were joking when we said that Hurricane Bonnie was heading straight for the takedown set. We weren't joking. We don't joke. This was not a humorous anecdote here. We were actually trying to save some lives. We were trying to ensure that people were around for future film careers, however ill-conceived. And, you know, the forecast was right on track. The hurricane was heading straight for Wilmington. And, in fact, it did hit Wilmington. And so did we, actually. We, contrary to all the advice we gave, and we couldn't really say this over the air last week because we didn't want to inspire people to do the wrong thing. You know, we have to maintain some sort of maturity on the program. We didn't want to make it seem as if we were doing something irrational and immature ourselves. That's why we didn't tell you that right after we hung up the phone last week, we got into the car and started driving like crazy so we could make it in time for the hurricane, which we did. We made it to Wilmington, North Carolina in the dawn hours just as the hurricane was moving in. And I got to tell you, it was probably the most frightening experience, one of the most frightening experiences I've ever gone through because here we are in this town that's like, you know, everybody's running for cover. Literally, people running for cover. Everybody's off the streets. We're the only lunatics out there driving around trying to, you know, see what's up, you know, to drop in on the takedown crew and say hi to them. And we got there. Of course, nobody else was out. The takedown crew was not around. And all the hotel rooms were taken by all the vacationers who were abandoning the beaches. So it was a scary thing. Let's just say it all worked out for the best. We have some other adventures that took place in Wilmington. The hurricane hit. It was spectacular. We have some interesting footage of that as well. And we found the takedown people. But we'll talk about that a little bit later. SNC, you have... I do believe the worst part of the hurricane was Waffle House did not have any waffles. Yeah, you know, that was scary. But, you know, I thank God, and I have thanked God every day since this happened, that there was a Waffle House. Because we were driving around. There was nothing. Everything was closed. Everything was shuttered up. Hooters was shut up. You know, blockbuster video. It was all closed. It was scary. I've never seen anything quite like it. All civilization just had vanished. And then, like a beacon, like a star rising in the middle of a stormy sky, were the Yellow Letters Waffle House. We don't have those down here, or over here, up here. But down there, they have them. And Waffle House, it's like a house where they have waffles. You know, basically that's what they do. They, you know, it's waffles. But when we went there, they didn't have it. The place was crowded, full of people. Mostly cops. Because I guess that's where they went between telling people not to be outside. And they had no waffles. They just had, like, ham sandwiches and other things that took literally 30 seconds to make. You know, I said, okay, I think I'll have this. And, you know, before I finished with the punctuation for the sentence, it was, you know, she had come back with what I wanted, which was awful, by the way. It was terrible. Because, I don't know, I guess they weren't used to serving this kind of food. But it was sheltered for us. And through that Waffle House, we were able to find a place to stay. We found the last motel room in Wilmington, North Carolina. So that kept us going for a little while longer. Scary, though. Goes to show the kind of thing that can happen in times of crisis. And that hurricane, of course, never made it up here. So people here have no idea what it was like. It was scary. It really was. And that's the first time I think I've ever gone to a hurricane. They've always come to me. And, you know, I like them. I like exciting weather. But that's the first time I ever actually journeyed to one. Now, as far as the actual takedown set, it wasn't hard to find because we had the address. And we went over there, but nobody was there. There's a little handwritten sign on the guardhouse saying, Closed, due to Bonnie. Bonnie being the name of the hurricane. Also the name of Kevin Mitnick's ex-wife, which I thought was kind of ironic. And everybody was gone, so we just kind of wandered around. And this was with winds in excess of 75 miles per hour. So wandering was challenging, to say the least. But, you know, we wandered around places we weren't supposed to wander around in. But there was nobody to stop us. We were kind of looking around. We didn't expect to really see anybody from the crew, from the movie, at that point in time. But the next day, after they were picking up the pieces and power was slowly being restored in various parts of the town, we went to the one place that had power, only a couple of places that had power, and that was at Burger King. You know, there weren't very many places, and it wouldn't have been my choice otherwise, but it was crowded full of people, literally a half-hour line to get food there, you know, and people, you know, looting and fighting, you know, the things you expect in a hurricane. And after all that had finished, I met this person who said, Hey, you look like a film person. And I guess that's kind of a compliment. I don't know yet if that's a compliment. You know, it might not be. But she asked, Well, what film are you involved with? And, you know, it wasn't entirely a lie when I said I was involved with Takedown, because that is basically why we were there, because we wanted to, you know, talk to the people involved with Takedown. So, yeah, I said, you know, I'm involved with Takedown. You wouldn't have to know where they're staying, would you? She didn't. She didn't know where they were staying, but she had a list of possibilities, possible places where they might be staying. And we figured, you know, we'd stop by and say hi. Now, even with a list of possibilities, it's difficult to find somebody. What do you do? You know, you knock on every single room and see who's around. You know, it's not that easy. But we had something on our side. We had a tremendous advantage. Stupidity. Yeah. Not on our side. Stupidity on the other side, because assuming these people wanted to hide, they weren't doing a very good job of it. Apparently, they thought it was cool to slap free Kevin stickers on their cars. And when we went to one of the hotels, we saw cars with free Kevin stickers, and we said, aha, this is the place. We found them. So we were able to walk into the reception room of the hotel and say, yeah, we're here to see the takedown people. Where are they staying? And, you know, like magic, they told us everything we wanted to know. They told us the names. They told us the room numbers, social security numbers, you know, mother's maiden name, everything. Everything you could possibly want to know. You know, they just sort of, you know, gave it to us in a little form, and we thanked them graciously, and then proceeded to knock on some doors. And we met a couple of people, and they all said, hey, you know, we were expecting to see you. It's, you know, they were scared to death. You could tell by the looks in their faces. They turned like this ashen white, you know. And it was funny. It really was. But they were happy to see us. They seemed to be genuinely happy, and they said, look, you know, we definitely want to do something for your documentary. We want to talk to you. And talk to our publicist. So we went over, talked to the publicist, and she was frightened too, but she made arrangements, took our numbers, and said she was going to get back to us. The next day, we heard from her, said that they wouldn't be able to do anything until Sunday because Sunday was the day that they were going back to work. And, you know, I tried to call her back. She didn't give me a phone number, but I found her phone number anyway because I sort of pieced it together, and plus she was listed in the phone book. And basically what we did was we called her back and left a message saying, look, if it's possible to see somebody beforehand, you know, we'd be out of your hair all the sooner. There's nothing to do in this damn town. There's no power anyplace. There's no fun. Let's just, you know, you guys aren't working. You're not doing anything right now, so maybe this would be a good time to talk to us. Well, we didn't hear anything back. They didn't call us back, didn't get the message or whatever. I don't know. And Sunday came, and keep in mind, this was several days afterwards. You know, we had to stay in Wilmington, North Carolina. Nice place. Lovely people. I have no criticism about the place at all, but, you know, a hurricane had just hit. And, you know, the first night, which was a Thursday night, they had a curfew. You know, this wasn't during the hurricane. This was after. This was a full day after the hurricane. They just say casually, oh, yes, there's a curfew in town tonight from, what was it, 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. And I'm like, whoa, what is this? The Democratic Congo here? What was it? I'm going to be shot or something if I'm walking down a street? What's the meaning of this? I've never in my life been in a situation where by governmental order I'm not allowed to walk out outside the street. You know, and I was just incredulous. And I made it my mission to break the curfew. One way or another. The problem is I couldn't find a reason to. There was nothing open. I couldn't go out to get something because there was nothing there to get. You know, at one point we decided we need ice. You know, we need ice for our hotel room. So we're going to go out to find ice. But then we found ice at the hotel. So that didn't work. So there was nothing to do, really. We couldn't break curfew because, you know, there was nowhere to go. We walked around a little bit, walked around on the street. But it was boring. There was no place to go. And we were scared. So, yeah. So we weren't very happy being there. We wanted to leave. We didn't want to stay there much longer. The curfew only lasted one night. And I still don't know why there was a curfew. It didn't make any sense. And the casualness with which people accepted it. Oh, yeah. Curfew tonight. Stay in. He gets shot. You know, that's something I can never get used to. So Sunday comes around. We get a phone call from the publicist saying, Oh, okay. It's Sunday. Now, well, I'm sorry, but we can't talk to you at all. That's just, we're too busy because we're, we've got to make up for all this lost time. And I'm beside myself. I'm incredulous. Lost time. This lost time. Six days of not being on the set. And what were these people doing during that time when they could have been talking to us? They could have told us at the time, No, we don't want to talk to you. They could have said, you know, get out of this town. Leave now. You know, don't come into our hotel rooms. Don't say anything like that. They didn't say anything like that. They didn't, they didn't give us a clue until the very last moment. And then they said, Well, you know, sorry, we just can't do it. So we wasted all this time in Wilmington, North Carolina, just sort of wandering around. And then we figured, you know, well, let's at least say goodbye to a couple of the people, you know, because we had met up with one of the producers and we just wanted to say goodbye. So we went to the same hotel and asked them, you know, are these guys still here? The same hotel clerk that we had seen the first time who was, you know, gushing all this information to us just kind of, kind of like staggered back to the wall and like looked around and said, No, they're all gone. They're all gone. They left. They're not around here anymore. And we said, okay, well, in that case, you have a good day. And we left. And less than, less than three minutes later, my phone rang and it was the publicist saying, please don't try to track us down. You're not going to find us. So she had the hotel personnel contacting her if we even tried to find them. Now, this is incredible because all we wanted to do was talk to these people about the film, you know, and they seemed willing to talk to us. And apparently, when we found them the first time, we had put the fear of God into them for real and they had put all kinds of, like, you know, memos and notices up saying, well, you know, don't ever talk to these people and if they ever contact you, contact me immediately. It was really kind of funny. And, you know, all we were trying to do was say goodbye, you know, say goodbye to these people and see if they wanted to work something out in New York. But, you know, their first way of dealing with it is just utter suspicion and hostility and it was kind of weird. So we went all the way down there to Willington, North Carolina and we didn't get the interviews with the people involved in the film. But we did get lots of neat footage and we learned quite a bit too about the people putting out the film. and we, since we have over 60 hours of other footage, you know, I don't think we really need to hear from them but we just thought we'd give them the opportunity. I mean, you guys surprised by this? Not at all. Yeah? They're evil people. That's it. Well, a lot of people told us to expect them to be evil but, you know, I always like to give people a chance to prove it, you know, and I don't know if they're evil but they certainly aren't very image savvy. Let's put it that way because, you know, they had an opportunity to say things in their own words as far as where this film is going and, you know, we've been hearing a lot of things over the past few weeks about just where this film is going and what's been changing. There have been changes. They seem to be making an effort to, you know, to fix things but are they making enough of an effort and are those changes merely cosmetic or are they meaningful? And those are the things we wanted to tackle. Those are the things we wanted to, you know, to explore and see just what the situation was and unfortunately we won't have the chance to, you know, to explore it from their point of view, you know, to hear what they have to say about it. Do you think it was just a publicist perhaps that was getting direct orders from above? Here's the thing. They kept contradicting themselves. She said that she got her orders from Miramax, you know, directly from Miramax and then when I said, well, can you ask Miramax this? She said, well, they're not around. You know, they're not around today. They're closed. So if they were closed, then how could she have gotten the orders from them? And, you know, if they're too busy to talk to us, how could they be off for, you know, for six days? On the day that they said they couldn't talk to us, they were not filming or doing anything. Yeah, they weren't doing anything and the way we found out this was we were standing in the street and some of the crew of the film came up to us because we had free Kevin stickers on our car too and they said, hey, are you involved with the film? Of course, we said yes too. Brian, from New York is in Massachusetts right now. He also was on the set. Brian, are you there? Yes, I am here. I'm sorry, I forgot about you. We called you up at 8 o'clock and I totally forgot you were there and I didn't bring you in at all until now. Sausage over Slam. Yeah, Brian is one of the guys that was with us from Las Vegas to California so we had kind of, you know, an alternating crew here and he did a lot of the camera work in that part of the region and, well, now, any particular memories that you want to share? I remember risking my life on the Hollywood Hill. Oh, that was something, wasn't it? I have nightmares about that stuff. Yeah, now, in case people weren't listening in the last couple of shows, what we did was we, you know, it's not as easy as you might think. We found the Hollywood, you know, we found the word Hollywood but finding the actual hill and the road that goes to that sign is the really hard part and we had to drive around quite a bit. Finally, we abandoned the car and just dove off into the woods and started, you know, really, we got off the trail completely. We started climbing a mountain, you know, a sheer mountain and our goal was to simply stand in front of the Hollywood sign with the free Kevin, you know, banner that we had used at the Miramax protest in New York and we figured everybody in Hollywood would be able to see us. Of course, by the time we got there we were so small that you couldn't even see a dot from down in Hollywood. The letters are about 50 feet high. Yeah, they're pretty tall. They're scary. They really are. And one of the letters has cameras on it too so you have to be careful with that but everybody told us, you know, if you go there you're going to ho ho, you're going to get in all kinds of trouble because there's cameras and there's like people who live in the woods that come out of the woods and attack you if, you know, you go near the letters. Letters are sacred but, you know, we went there and nobody bothered us except, of course, the, you know, the bees. I do believe the police showed up three minutes after we left. Well, yeah, there was a police chopper that went by and I think they were looking for us but they didn't find us because we had just left. But, yeah, that mission was accomplished and, of course, Brian, you had quite a time because you were the camera person at that time and we left you I guess about a mile back while we went to the letters. Right. So that meant, you know, as the sun was falling because, of course, you know, with all the foresight that, you know, we had to exercise here we did this in the last waning moments of daylight so that the darkness was descending upon us really rapidly. We couldn't go back the way we came because we didn't have enough time so we had to climb the fence and, uh, you really have to make phone calls here now. Okay. Okay. There's, Claude the engineer decided to come in here and use a phone and use a speaker phone and he's getting back at you for that chaos from now before. So anyway, um, so we had to scale the fence and use the road which we probably should have used to get there in the first place and Brian had to go back on foot the way we had come down a mountain as it's getting dark and I didn't realize that, you know, you didn't have your glasses. Yeah, I didn't have my glasses. I didn't realize that. And I was trying to, you know, protect the camera and all this. Yeah, the camera comes first. It almost fell off the cliff. Yeah. Yeah. The camera comes first but you'll hit a bee with it, right? Yeah. Those killer bees. Well, we didn't find out that the killer bees were in the Hollywood Hills until after we had left. I really didn't know that. But we kept them at bay and we got the shot we needed and we were able to continue on our way and talk to many other people. And you guys laugh at me for carrying my GPS. Well, you know, GPS wouldn't really have helped us that much there. I would have gotten you out of the woods at least. Not really because we knew the way we had to go. It's just a question of could we do it? You know, it's like sheer drops and things like that. Mudslides and things. Yeah, mudslides and it was very hot. Earthquakes. It was extremely hot. And we had no water. Right. So, anyway, we have this update that I wanted to share with people. This is something that came in in the last week or so. And it's very important. It has to do with the film. It has to do with another perspective on the film. And I'd just like to share this. We posted this to the Mitnick list in the last day. And for those of you who read the whole list, if you've read the takedown book, you'll know that this is one of the major characters involved. Unfortunately, we weren't able to speak with this person, but they were nice enough to share some thoughts on the subject. Julia Menapace, who was the significant other, if you will, of Shutomo Shimomura, has been rather quiet on the whole thing. And we haven't heard her point of view up until now. So let's take a listen to this. This is a letter. I'm not sure who this letter is to. It's to somebody named Ms. Wilcox. She sent me a copy of it. I would imagine Ms. Wilcox is involved with the film in some way. I'm just not sure in what capacity. So this is the letter with permission. We're spreading it around so people know what the viewpoints here are. Three weeks ago, I received and read the screenplay for Takedown dated July 2nd. I understand that this is close to the version of the story that Miramax is currently filming. It has taken me this long to do some research and consider how I feel. I know that my opinion matters little, especially at this stage of the game, but since you asked, here are my impressions. I find it very unsettling that the screenplay takes such liberties with the facts in portraying real people and events. I understand the need to tell the story in a dynamic and compelling way, but I question that this is accomplished by stereotyping or villainizing the participants. I feel that the Julia character does not so much negatively depict me as it does generousize me to fit someone's image of a person in her role. There are many departures from the facts. I am a computer programmer, not a psychologist, and would not presume to psychoanalyze Kevin Mitnick professionally or otherwise, as does the character with my name. I also never operated Tsutomo's scanner. He did, with the volume levels set loud enough to detect modem tones but not loud enough to overhear the content of conversations. This is a point of law and does matter, which is, I suspect, why he is not shown doing it himself. Interesting. Yeah. Mr. Shimomura might have broken the law there and managed to back out of it. As a love interest, I am almost 10 years older than Tsutomo, not younger, and my ex-partner John Gilmore is just a few years older than I, not twice my age. Tsutomo and I did not live happily ever after. In fact, he dropped out of my life shortly after precipitating my final break with John. I should probably be grateful that the triangle between John, myself, and Tsutomo has been regularized in the screenplay still. If I am to be made less complicated, less mature, non-technical, and the authoritative vehicle for womanly insight into the human nature, at least let me be articulate. I do try not to rely too heavily on the word stuff. My more pressing concern about the script is for some of the others depicted, Kevin Mitnick first and foremost. Granted, Kevin is a habitual offender of a particular sort, but he is not violent and he never physically attacks Tsutomo. In fact, he was so shaken upon his apprehension that he spent five minutes vomiting before the arrest could proceed. He is credited in the film with committing crimes that we have no solid evidence to connect him with, and attribute it with skills I would be very surprised if he possesses. Although we witnessed him accessing stolen data archives at the well, there are no computer forensics proving that he broke into Tsutomo's computers, and if he did, I seriously doubt that he wrote the IP spoofing code that was used in that attack. The really interesting story would be who was assisting and perhaps using Mitnick. I know that Kevin is not in a good position to defend himself, and perhaps it even pleases him to be cast as a super hacker, but is this not libel? I can tell you, just as an aside right here, it does not please him in any sense to be cast as a super hacker, or to even have this film be made. Continuing, he is still pending trial, and to the extent that this film influences opinion, it mixes truth and falsehood in such a way that it can only harm him. Even if Takedown is not released until after Kevin's sentencing, he still has to get through the rest of his life, including any parole hearings that are to come. The screenplay inflates both his skill set and his volatility, misrepresenting the danger that he poses to the community. While Mitnick is not in good standing with the community, others unfairly portrayed in your film are. John Gilmore, while no longer my partner, is well-known and respected in his circles as an entrepreneur, philanthropist, and civil rights crusader. He is called upon by publications such as the New York Times for his quotes and opinions on digital privacy and related subjects. He only has informal connections to the well and was not present at the meeting which the screenplay has him run. There were real conflicts of interest inherent in the situation for the well management to resolve. Catching the intruder required allowing him to continue his activities unhindered with unpredictable consequences. Watching the intruder also exposed other users of the well to being watched, compromising their privacy. By allowing us to do our work there, the well was making itself vulnerable to both the intruder's potential malice and the displeasure of its other privacy-loving members. Manufacturing a personal confrontation between Gilmore and Satomo in the scenes at the well obscures these issues and misrepresents all parties involved. The staff of internet service providers are permitted by the Electronic Communications Privacy Act to view the contents of user accounts when in pursuit of fraudulent use. With the help of the EFF, I determined that Satomo, Andrew, and I were covered by the same rules since the well and netcom had requested our assistance. It is unfortunate that the screenplay chooses to manufacture a confrontation between Pi and Julia on the subject rather than illuminate that fact. The well policy that users own their own words is also misrepresented. This is not justification for receiving stolen property, but rather a strong commitment to the personal privacy of well members. The well management was concerned that as little collateral information as possible be captured and made public in the process of our investigation. We invested weeks of highly skilled labor to address that concern. While the well retains copies of every file and transaction, should there be a question of context, we sifted out only the material related to Mitnick's activities as evidence for the FBI. Such care was not taken with the information gathered at netcom, the other internet service provider that asked for our help. The well and netcom both deserve credit for putting the interest of the community at large in stopping the intruder ahead of other concerns. The usual response of an internet service provider is to close the security hole if it can be found and perhaps notify the users that there was a breach, but otherwise to ignore the incident. It is cheaper overall, but does nothing to really address the problem of insecure networks and the people who exploit them. What makes this story unusual is that enough skilled people cared enough to work together long enough to make an arrest, not that Mitnick is unusually dangerous or malicious. Perhaps there will be some disclaimer in the film stating that while it is based on true events, it has been heavily fictionalized. If the story portrays real people and events, how can it contain so many lies, damaging and otherwise? If it is a work of fiction, then why attach the names of real people to the characters? I am surprised that such a thing is even legal, much less considered ethical. This fictionalization comes at a personal cost as some of those portrayed, but I think it also costs the film, making a complex story formulaic and therefore less interesting. Again, that was from Julia Menapace, who was one of the main characters in both the takedown book and the upcoming takedown movie. And I think that just goes to show right there, the concerns that are that are, you know, even the people heavily involved with the whole chase and pursuit and capture of Kevin Mitnick realize that the story is just wrong. It's not true. And I'm really glad that they have the guts to come forward and say that. Comments? Well, this on the eve of, you know, what happened recently, for those on the list know as well, Kevin's, the motion to the Supreme Court was denied. Yes, that just happened. Yeah, and I, there's not a lot of details on the list. It's only that it's been denied. They're going to have, you know, the wordy, lawyer-filled gobbledygook that they normally put together, you know, party A says, party B, and all that stuff. Well, now, from what I understand, this happens so fast, within hours, I think, that it's doubtful that the Supreme Court even looked at it. They're saying that a clerk probably just turned it down right on the spot. The judge is, the judge's name is Sandra Day O'Connor. I've heard of her. Yeah, I've heard of her a couple times. Sandra Day O'Connor was involved in this? Yeah, that's her. Wow. Yeah. And, and she didn't say anything? Any comments? No, no. That's, that's why, you know, a lot of people are saying it was probably a clerk or someone around the lower levels that just clicked off the little box there, you know. No. Sorry. Check one. Yeah. Check one for denied. Check two for denied, or three or four, you know, denied. Right. Okay. Well, that's, that's real inspiring, but you know, it doesn't, it doesn't weaken our resolve at all. People have to know about this. So continue checking the websites, continue getting the word out. We're not backing down. We're not stopping. If anything, we're moving faster than we've ever moved before. And, you know, it's amazing when you're out there, how many people are aware of this case, how many people support you. It was funny. We were standing outside the, the, the Screen Gem studio down in Wilmington with a big freak, Kevin banner. And as soon as we stood out there, all these people started honking as they went by, you know, Hey, freak. I don't know if they even knew who Kevin was, but they, they were showing their support. I mean, some people do. They honk for anything. Sometimes people, I think you could put a blank banner up or just, that's possible. Yeah. And they'll just, they'll just honk. I mean, it's, but there are a lot of people out there that, that do know what the case is about. They've heard about it somehow and, uh, they, they're behind it. You know, they, they want to know more. So it's up to all of us to make sure that they get what they're looking for, that they get the information. So that's why we continue to, um, to get the word out and we continue to try and do more things. So I guess what we have to do now is figure out what the next step is going to be. Obviously we have to do something with the film that we're, we're putting together, but, uh, more urgently we have to do more things, uh, for Kevin's case to make sure that, uh, that he continues to get more attention and stops being treated unfairly and is released enough of this. You know, I, I don't think we found a single person who said that he should still be in prison, you know? It seems to me even the film crew, they're, they're, they're driving around with free Kevin stickers. I mean, unless it's... Well, they just want to be cool, you know? Yeah, well, I know the cool factors in there, but they, I mean, I find it surprising that, you know, they have the stickers. I'm sure the crew members even knew the deal, but, you know, it's their job. They can't say, no, we're not going to work on the film. Right, because somebody else will just do it. It's a job, you know? That's all it is to them. I see them putting the stickers on their cars as a mockery. I mean, it's, it's like, you know, they're just doing it as a joke, but it's a very serious situation. And, you know, them putting these stickers on their cars, I don't, you know, think it's funny. And they, they are, they're, they're, they're real bad people. I mean, you know, we, like, they, they try and be, you know, when we came over there, they tried to be all smiley and everything. They're like happy and like, oh yeah, we're trying to make changes and all this and stuff, but they don't care. They only care about money. They're, they're, they're pressing, they're pressing the button underneath their desk, you know, the smithers, the smithers, release the hounds. You know, it's, so, uh, yeah, that was our, our one visit to, to them in a friendly location. And then after that, they made themselves very hard to find. But you know, the funny thing is we did find them again, right, right after we, we were packing up outside the studio because we had done some shooting there. Uh, we, we saw a vehicle with a free Kevin sticker going into the studio and this was when they weren't going to the studio today. So we, we, we found them actually going there. And so what we did was we, we kind of went around the back, you know, and we, we, we started looking for them, you know, and see where they were. And we found them, we found, you know, they were like loading things into, uh, loading supplies or whatever, you know, into their, into their vehicle so they could get out of there or something. I don't know. Then they, they left and we, we, we pursued them. Uh, you know, I have no trouble doing this kind of thing. You know, it's, it's, it's part of, it's part of getting a story. We wanted to see where they were going, you know, I want to see what it was all about. You know, we weren't going to do anything. We just, we were on our way out of there anyway. You don't want to go home. So we started following them down the streets of Wilmington. And, you know, here's the thing, here's the thing that really annoys me with these rental cars. You know, we, we put 10,000 miles on, on a rental car over the past six weeks, you know, so I guess I can't complain too much, but they have these damn running lights that you can't turn off. All right. I don't know what the point of running lights is. You know, you should have some sort of option to like turn the things off. So here I am trying to follow this person. I'm the only car in the damn highway with these blazing lights. There's nothing I can do about it. I'm standing out like a sore thumb. I'm trying to, I'm trying to move back, you know, like, like, you know, 10 car lanes or whatever, just so they won't see me. But I'm afraid that, you know, they might know exactly what's going on. So I'm following them and they, you know, they're going down Market Street, which is like the main sudden, and this is with us about three cars behind them, they, they make a left turn into where there's no driveway. You know, they just make this turn and all of a sudden, you know, what are they doing? They're making a left turn into a curb. So then they make a U-turn and they pull into a gas station. So I pulled to the right to see, you know, just what they're doing if they're getting gas. And there's this whole police barricade thing going on because some idiot was, was transporting a boat down the road and it crashed into a tree or something like that. So half the road's blocked, there's cops everywhere, people staring at the boat in the middle of Market Street. And meanwhile, our, you know, our prey is across the street, you know, getting gas or something. So eventually, you know, I make my way across the street to see just what it is that's taking them so long. They're not there. They're not there. They escaped. And, and the other car, because we had two cars involved in the chase, the other car told us that, yeah, they peeled out and went down the same direction. Wow. And it was, so that, that told us that they were very aware of what was going on. It sounds like most of their actions were driven by fear, not, not anything else. It's hotel. They had the guy call you and, uh, yeah. Oh my. It was, um, I think, I think we scared them more than, than ever before. Port Shop's leaving. Say goodbye, Port. You can't just walk out the door. Goodbye, everyone. All right. Then we'll catch a train. Yeah, we'll see you at the next, uh, next film that we make. Next film. And this Friday. Uh, and this Friday at the 2600 meetings, which, uh, take place internationally as they do every first Friday of the month. So, uh, they'll be taking place here in New York at the usual place, the City Corp Center, uh, at, um, at, uh, where is it? 53rd Street. You know, I, I, I, there's so many things I've forgotten being away so long. I forgot what floor of the radio station was on, you know? I forgot what, do you know the CIA, the CIA is on the floor below us? Do you know that? Really? Yeah, I went there by accident. They're very nice. Were they happy to see you as well? Well, no, they knew, they knew exactly where to send me. They knew exactly where, in fact, they have, they have a little, like, map of the studio down there and they were able to, like, point me in the right direction. That was very nice of them. And they even showed me where certain things are in the studio that I could point out to you later. Okay. I'd like to see that. Yeah. So that's. There, like, hidden doors around here that I can go downstairs real quick? Well, there's hidden devices of various, I'll tell you later. I don't want to bore the little camera. Yeah. The meeting site is to be updated in the next few hours. If you're upset about that, the meeting site will be updated. In fact, we're working on updating everything right now. The shows that have been around, haven't been around over the past few weeks and haven't been on the website, well, they're going to start being on the website, I think, starting tomorrow morning. We're going to put one up a day until we're all caught up. So you can stop gnashing your teeth about that. Although the people that are gnashing their teeth about that probably aren't listening right now anyway. All right. Let's take some phone calls. 212-209-2900. And Brian, are you still there in Massachusetts? I am still here. Are you able to stay with us for the phone calls? Yeah. Okay, great. Have you had any sausage lovers slams lately? I haven't seen the Denny's in very long. Yeah, we had quite a few adventures at Denny's. They have all kinds of little deals there, and we took advantage of many of them. Especially the slams. The slams, yeah. If you've ever been to a Denny's, you know what we're talking about. There's no need to get into more detail than that. Yeah, but they have no Denny's in New York. No Denny's at all. Do they have them in New Jersey? Actually, no. I think there's a Denny's in Staten Island, believe it or not. I think we're going to have to go there. Staten Island? I think Staten Island has a Denny's. New Jersey, they do have a Denny's, definitely. Wicked, do you know something about this? There's one in Westchester somewhere. Westchester? Yeah. Well, we're there. Westchester, after the show. Yeah, I mean, Wicked's never had a slam. I actually spoke with him about this last night. He didn't even know what a slam was. Okay, well, we're going to have to school you on that, that's for sure. All right, 212-209-2900. We only have a few minutes for phone calls, so let's make them quick. Okay, now, unlike the last few weeks where you guys pressed the wrong buttons. I'm going to press the wrong They're all the same. How can one be possibly the wrong? Because one of them is the one we don't want to press, all right? And I'm not going to press that one this time. Okay, well, I'd like to see you. Over here, all right? That's what you do. You go over to the third tier, I'm looking at it. All right, where the purple ones are. Yeah, I see it. All right, you press those ones instead. Okay. You don't go to the red lines at all. He's got those covered, and you avoid the green ones unless all the purple ones are taken. All right. All right. Good evening. You're on the air. Speak up, please. Oh, hello? Yes, how are you? Hi. You see how it works? Yeah, yeah. Where are you calling from? California, actually. What part of California? Backerville. It's up by Sacramento. Okay, okay. We sort of were near there at one point. Yeah, you were by Berkeley, right? Yeah. Let me ask you guys something. California people, you call roads, you put the in front of the numbers, right? You call it the 40, the 101, right? No. You don't do that? No. I was there. You do that. In L.A., in L.A. You're lying. Wait, wait. It's only an L.A. thing? I don't know. I mean, the Southern California people are kind of strange. Ah. I don't know. Divisiveness in the state here. They say about the Northern California people, too. So, what's on your mind there? Actually, I was thinking about building a radio transmitter. Uh-huh. And I was wondering if you knew, like, any good kits. I heard the Berkeley kits are pretty good. Well, they are. You know, I don't know if Free Radio Berkeley is still selling the kits after being shut down by the FCC. Yeah. I would ask. I know they have a website. If you search for Free Radio Berkeley, you'll find it. Yeah. I've been to the website and, you know, it seemed like they were selling them there. Well, those are the best kits and they are the lowest priced and they do work because, as evidenced by the micro-broadcasting explosion that took place over the past couple of years, they definitely do work. Now, the question is, what do you have in mind? Do you want to start a micro-broadcasting station? Yeah. Okay. I wish you lots of luck, but, you know, there's all kinds of crackdowns on this and I think, really, the only way to, you know, to battle this is to battle it, you know, is to defy it. I mean, I'm not calling for revolution in the streets, although, you know, to a degree, I guess I am. It's time people started challenging things that were wrong and, I mean, how powerful is your station going to be? I'm running probably like 15 watts. 15 watts. So, you know, a 15-watt station is not really going to influence a 50,000-watt station in any way and that's something, you know, people need to realize. You'll be performing a valuable service. I mean, what are you going to be doing on this radio station? Do you have any idea? I don't know, probably just, you know, playing some different kinds of music that you can't really hear. Okay. You know, maybe I'll do it in like half an hour every night with me talking or something. I don't know. Uh-huh. Well, as long as it's stuff that's not available elsewhere, Yeah. then go for it. Like, I want to put like a lot of techno and reggae and stuff like that. Techno and reggae. What a mixture. Yeah. Very diverse. Well, it's something you don't really hear on the radio all that much. Well, I wish you luck. Let us know what happens, right? Yeah, all right. All right. Take care. Now, why do I hear a phone ringing? It's this stupid phone over here. What is that phone doing here? Why is there a phone there? It's like someone put their personal phone on the record player back there. You should pick it up. See who it is. Put them on the air. Yeah, who is this? What member are you calling? Can you get them on the air? Are you calling WBI? Are you calling the studio line or are you calling the office line? The main line, the lobby. Well, you know, it's 846 right now and there's not really a whole lot of people around. Yeah. All right. Do they want to send money for contributions or what do they want to do? I'm sorry, you need what? Okay, I don't know who that person is. Uh-huh. Oh. Well, he's not in the studio control room right now, I can tell you that. And things are kind of hectic right now, so I can't really help you. He might be down the hall, but, you know, uh-huh. Okay, well, you know, all right, I'll run down the hall and check for you in a few minutes. If you could call me back in about 15 minutes, how's that? All right, yeah, well, I know you had a pay phone, but actually, I can beat that because I'm on the air right now. I can't really talk any longer. Call us back and we'll try to help you. Thank you very much. Pay phone my foot. My God, and he wanted me to keep talking to him too. Hey, all right, listen, I don't know why this phone is here. I don't know why it's ringing, but I'm trying to do a radio show here and can't be taking messages for all these people calling from a pay phone. Yeah, like that's supposed to mean something to me, calling from a pay phone. All right, so let's take some more real phone calls, 212-209-2990. Hopefully they're not on pay phones. Yeah, all right. You know, I've got some interesting things about phones. I learned something over the past few weeks. I learned how much better a technology GSM is over this CDMA Sprint PCS nonsense. I mean, yeah, it's cheaper. It's a lot cheaper to use Sprint PCS, but man, does the quality ever suck. I mean, as soon as I got back to New York, no, as soon as I got back to New York, it was just one dropped call after another, whereas when I was out in the Pacific, right, I was using Pac Bell, you know, basically uninterrupted service. I was driving at all different speeds down all different roads, never got a dropped call. Bell South, Bell South, GSM, same thing. The only complaint I have, apart from the huge price, which really is, you know, what's making this technology fall apart, is the fact that they don't have competition and that there are these gaps between service areas, like this PowerTel down in the Atlanta area, then there's a gap, and then all of a sudden Bell South comes in, then there's another gap, and then you get Sprint Spectrum in D.C., and then there's another gap, and then finally you get Omnipoint in the, you know, New York, New Jersey area. It has to be covered a lot better than that, obviously, and the prices have to come down, but boy, once that happens, once that actually happens, there's, you know, it's a good technology. There's a lot more you can do with it. You can send, you know, email, you can, you know, you can do all kinds of neat things. Definitely. I hear Brian agreeing. I got my bill, and it wasn't nearly as much as I thought it would be. Well, was your bill for the calls that you made out in California? Yeah, my bill was only about $150 for the whole month. I'm really afraid what my bill's going to be like. I'm really, I'm really afraid. Because I was using two phones every day in all different cities, and, you know, there's this one company, okay, here's the example of stupidity. There's a company called Primeco, which uses the same frequency as a Sprint PCS in various parts of the South. And you see your phone light up, you know, you get a signal, and a little roam light comes on. You can't make any calls on it. You know, they say, sorry, there's no roaming allowed. What's the point of having a company using the exact same frequencies, having your phone work, except you can't make any calls on it? And, you know, I asked them, what do I have to do to make calls on this? And they say, sorry, you can't. There's just no way. Just turn your phone off. There's no point in using it. So, it was really pretty silly. GSM technology, just, you know, it's the world standard, but they're messing it up here. They're messing it up by charging so much. So, it's driving people to Sprint PCS, which has, you know, great deals, a thousand minutes for, you know, a hundred bucks per month. You know, and that's why it's happening. Now, maybe Sprint will improve, but, you know, I don't see it happening. They just, they just introduced, you know, the text messaging, which is great, but it's just text messaging. You have to be at a website to send it, or, you know, it's a numeric page that you send from the phone, but, you know, beepers have been around for a long time. It's really not a big deal. They don't have things where you can get weather from other states. You can't get stock quotes. You can't send email. You can't get email. You know, all these things. What, someday? Is that what they're saying? You get email. You get email? How do you get email? You send your message to your number at messaging.sprintpcs.com. Well, nobody ever told me about this. It says it on the website. Okay. They don't, they don't say it in the bills. So, wait a minute. You're saying that if I send my phone number at messaging.what? .sprintpcs.com. Okay. What's going to happen? Then it'll get to your phone. I'll see text. I'll see actual messages. Really? That's what the website does. Okay. All right. Well, if there's somebody out there that knows my phone number and is near a computer, send me some email. I want to see it. I want to see it. And the phone. Why don't we just broadcast your number on here right now? Just read your number out. I don't, I don't think that's a good idea. That's all right. But, okay, well, that's something. Now, how do I send email? You can't. Aha! You can't send email, can you? I never said you can. What's the point of getting email if you can't respond to it? Yeah, it's all your fault again. Yeah, what's, what are you thinking here, man? I don't think our listeners know that Wicked always does these things to us. Yeah, yeah, well, okay. We're going to have to see. We're going to have to see what comes of that. Okay, let's take another phone call. You know what I'm going to do? I'm going to go to that same line. That's how I'm going to avoid the curse. Yeah. Good evening, you're on the air. Uh, yes. Uh, the man who gets to lick Serena Herschel's vagina must be... All right. You know, I don't know. He's got, he's got agents out there working in various ways. All right. This is a G-rated program for kids and stuff like that. It's kind of spoon his phone calls. Well, not since the whole Bernie S escapade happened, but we went up to like TV NC or something like that. 13 or something. All right. Was he talking about me? I don't know what he was doing. Let's, let's go over here to this phone line, which I, see, this is a problem. I have a bad feeling about this phone line. Okay, well... But I have a worse feeling about the other one, so I'm just going to hit this one. Good evening, and you're on the air. Hi, man. You see? I think it all. Hang up, hang up, hang up. Oh, go ahead. Oh, whoops. I didn't hang up. I didn't really. No, I didn't hang up. I leaned against the phone in the wrong way. Let's go to this line. Good evening. You're on the air. Speak up, please. Hello, it's Professor Clyde Strawn in New York. Do we know you? While you were gone, hello? Yes, do we know you, Professor? From the Pirate Radio Conference in April. Ah, okay. No, you're very faint for some reason I painted a very large major dome at 2600.com. This is the guy that did this thing upstate. Ah. You know, if we had known about this, we would have been up there. Yes, Professor Clyde Strawn. It was up for about two weeks. We would have gotten the 2600 chopper and all that. We would have been up there taking pictures. Did anybody get a picture of it? Oh, I'll just do it again. That's all. You'll just do it again. I have a phone right now. I can't read it over the air, but I'll pull out your operator number. This is the kind of spirit I like to see. You're just going to do it again. Oh, yeah. And it really stuck and showed like good. It was up for over two weeks. Really? Then it got painted over, but that's just clearing it for the next message. Did you get a picture of it? No, I wasn't able to get all, you know, like a, I'll just do it again, okay? Okay. All right. Contact me via email. No, not possible. Oh, okay. Contact me via phone. Yeah, the thing is, I just got a phone, so I'll leave my phone number. Okay, so we'll just find this out. Yes. Just, you know, check your voicemails or whatever they call it at 2600. We're catching up on all that. Bye-bye. Thanks. See, that's the kind of spirit I like to see. This guy paints, what was it he painted exactly? He painted to subscribe to the mailing list. Instructions on how to subscribe to the mailing list. you send it, yeah. What did he paint it on? Probably some type of, a wooden sign. A billboard or something? Yeah, I thought it was a blank billboard that he had. That's pretty good. Yeah. Yeah, and he's going to do it again, too. And you know, I need to hear from people when they do things like this. You know, if you're going to change a traffic sign, you know, the things that say normal traffic ahead or have a nice day or whatever it is they say, first of all, you know, make sure you're not doing something that's going to cause any kind of danger and, you know, all informational purposes only and all that kind of thing. But if and when you do it, let us know so that we, you know, can take a picture of it. Yes. Can I just take one second out to say happy birthday to my mom, Ellie? No, I'm sorry. You can't do that. Who will be a year older than last year tomorrow. That's what happens with birthdays. Yeah, generally. Hey, it's Marco's birthday today too. Wow. Yeah. So it's that kind of, that kind of... August and September, lots of birthdays. Yeah, a lot of people seem to have been born then. Okay, let's hurry up and get one more call in. Good evening, you're on the air. Yes, Emmanuel. Hi, how you doing? Nice hearing you again. Good evening, you're on the air. Yes, Emmanuel. Good evening, you're on the air. Good evening, you're on the air. Okay, you're not on the air. Good evening, you're on the air. Speak up, please. Okay, good evening, good evening, you're on the air. Hello? Yes, hurry up, please. Hi, why do you just talk about crap the whole time? I don't know. You're not breaking the exception there. Good evening, you're on the air. Yes, hi, I wanted to talk a little bit about Sprint TV. Turn your radio, turn your radio down. I know you just talked about it a little bit, but I finally gave in. I thought I was going to be the last guy on earth not to have a cellular phone, and I went ahead and got, and I'm having a lot of trouble with my Sprint service, and I was wondering, is that Sprint, or is it... Yes, you have Sprint, you have the right company if you're having trouble with your service. In fact, there's two things that we've learned over the past couple of weeks, there's some new phrases going around. We call it sprinting. That's when your call starts getting hard to hear. It's called the sprinting effect, and we also came up with a present for Omnipoint or any other company out there that competes with Sprint, and that's a little slogan that you might want to use in your upcoming advertising campaigns. Drop them before they drop you. Yes, that's pretty much what's happening pretty much like 50% of the time. Yes, that's what happens all the time, and unfortunately, we're going to have to continue in that tradition because we're out of time, so do you have like a one-sentence thing you want to say? I also have a Qualcomm phone. I mean, is that equally a piece of junk? Qualcomm's are okay. Yeah, I mean, Qualcomm phones are used for Sprint PCS. Right. It's not the phone, it's the service. Yeah, you can't really... It's not the phone, it's the service. Pretty much, and they've got a lot of work to do to improve that. Anyway, thanks so much for calling. Thanks, everybody else, for calling and for supporting everything we've been doing over the past couple of weeks. We'll be back again next week in the studio with updates and more information for you. Until then, Manuel Goldstein, for everybody else, have yourselves a good night. Thank you. Thank you. For all of the above, press 4. You have selected option 4, all of the above. All of our unprincipled collaborators with Western business interests are busy right now. Please wait until the regime has had time to consolidate its power and try your call again. And this is WBAI New York. Next up, Crescent Rising, Arab Voices Crescent Rising. Crescent Rising, Arab Voices Crescent Rising.