And we're back down here on Earth, where it's 8 o'clock, and time for another edition of
Off The Hook.
And a good evening to everybody.
The program is Off The Hook.
We're here again on this Tuesday night, from 8 to 9, talking about the latest developments
in the world of high tech, and boy, this is not a good week as far as progress goes.
In fact, there's been a lot of, I'd say, backwards progress, and we'll be getting into
that.
Oh, I guess we'll be getting into that right now.
How have you been, Isaac?
Oh, just fine.
You're looking for the word retrograde?
Actually, I'm looking for another word that I can't say on the air, but never mind that.
It's really something.
You watch things develop, and you watch things, what is it, retrograde over time?
Yeah, to move backwards.
Yeah, well, that's where we're going, pretty much.
We're moving backwards, and by the time this show is over, I think our listeners will heartily
agree that we're definitely moving back to the Stone Ages.
Well, some bad news, first of all, from the Mitnick camp.
As you recall, Kevin Mitnick was sentenced last week to time served, plus some more time,
so that he'll be out sometime in January.
No halfway house, and a fine of something like $4,000, $4,125, I believe.
There is some bad news.
First I want to briefly read the story from, what is this, the Daily News, no, this is
the Post.
Yeah, okay.
See, this is a story written by David K., I think his name is Lee, L-I, but the way
they printed it made it look like it's a U, so it looks like his name is David K. U.
Well, from a distance, it looked like K. U., so.
Yeah, no, it's pretty weird, but the story's kind of funny, so I figured I'd read part
of it.
A federal, even though this is old news, we knew this last week, a federal judge, yesterday,
a week ago, Monday, actually, ordered convicted computer hacker Kevin Mitnick to pay $4,125
and sentenced him to 46 months in prison, clearing the way for his potential release
early next year.
Everyone must be careful now.
Kevin Mitnick may be walking the streets someday.
Mitnick, 36, has spent more than four and a half years in jail as prosecutors and his
defense lawyer negotiated a plea agreement in the nation's first high-profile cyber-hacking
prosecution.
Cyber-hacking prosecution.
That's news.
Okay.
I just love New York Post speak.
U.S. District Court Judge Marianna Feltzer ordered Mitnick to pay the $4,125, which was
far short of the $1.5 million federal prosecutors had demanded.
Now, a little reality check here.
The prosecutors were demanding a whole lot more than $1.5 million.
I was in the courtroom and I saw this.
They were saying $1.5 million was a low figure.
They were going for $80 million at the beginning of the case, and then when they submitted
the paperwork and when it got leaked to us and put up on our website, if you totaled
it, it was $500 million.
It's a lot of money.
It's quite a lot of money that they were claiming was cost by Kevin, and I think the vast, vast
majority of it, like 99.99% is completely fabricated, and no one has ever come up with
any evidence to the contrary.
That's the real story here, but of course, we're going to skip right over that in this
story.
Feltzer said she wanted to impose a much stiffer restitution, but explained that she was bound
by the laws of reality.
Now, she was bound by law to set a fine that Mitnick could reasonably pay in five years
after he is set free.
Yeah, it's such a horrible thing for a judge to be bound by law, you know?
Isn't it?
Isn't it?
It's amazing, though.
Judges have so much power, but the way things are these days, they have a lot of non-power
too when it comes to mandatory sentencing guidelines.
For instance, they have to send somebody to jail for a certain crime no matter what they
think, so they can only err on the side of something bad.
They can't err on the side of something good.
They can't show compassion or anything like that.
That's now illegal, but they can show malice.
They can add to your sentence, but there has to be a minimum amount served, so they have
no freedom as far as that goes.
That's the law as it's passed by our society.
Well, this could be an interesting precedent for a minimum amount to be served by somebody
in the future.
Has there been a minimum sentence for this kind of crime?
Crime?
This is something Bernie S. would actually have a lot firmer grasp on as far as sentencing
guidelines, federal sentencing guidelines and things like that.
We'll have to bug him sometime.
Yeah.
The judge said, this is a token restitution order, do you understand?
She said sternly to Mitnick.
What's he going to say?
No, I don't understand.
I don't understand why I've been in this damn prison for five years now being accused of
undermining Western civilization because you people are too stupid to realize that simply
looking at source code is not the same thing as stealing the people who made it, stealing
their homes, stealing their cars, their children, and their education, and every bit of technology
that went along with it.
It's not the same thing as simply glancing at something, you stupid federal judge, you.
No, he couldn't say that.
Well, he could, but you would expect more of him.
Maybe in his head he was saying that, but no, of course he said, yes, whatever it is
you require, I'm going to toe the line and agree to.
I think we'd all be in the same boat.
The 46-month sentence includes much of the time he has already spent in jail.
The infamous hacker appeared cheerful yesterday, smiling and waving at family members and supporters
as he entered and left the packed courtroom.
He should be cheerful.
It's a packed courtroom full of his supporters and his family.
I mean, keep in mind, this is somebody who has not seen daylight, has not been outside
since February of 1995.
Can you imagine that?
Can you imagine not being outside at all?
It's really staggering.
I mean, it's torture, it really is.
And we're talking about somebody who didn't commit violent crimes, who didn't even steal
anything, somebody who simply looked at something they weren't supposed to look at, trespassing,
walking into a haunted house or stepping onto a university campus that you don't go to,
or wandering in the tunnels of a mental hospital, whatever kind of trespassing you want to pick.
You wouldn't stick somebody in jail for five years without seeing the sun for something
so harmless.
And I do say harmless because I see no victims here.
A lot of people claim that they see victims, but it usually gets lost in the rhetoric somewhere
along the lines.
He's a criminal, he must go to prison, you know.
It's really sad, and that's what our society has become.
While the defense team won the battle over restitution, they failed to convince Feltzer
to allow Mitnick to use a computer for school.
Mitnick, who has a high school equivalency diploma, wants to attend college upon his
release, which could come in late January.
Now Mitnick is at the mercy of federal probation officers who could allow the defendant to
stray from the exact terms of his plea agreement, which prohibits contacts with computers.
We're optimistically hopeful that reasonable use of the computer will be allowed for education,
said defense lawyer Donald Randolph.
The plea agreement with prosecutors expressly prohibits Mitnick's use of a computer, modem,
cell phone, television, and other wireless communication.
How they get television in there is beyond me, but it is in there.
I've seen it myself.
I don't know what they were smoking when they came up with that one.
You can hack the internet through television.
I think they've been watching a late night Cinemax movie or something that maybe gave
them that technical expertise.
Outside of court yesterday, several of Mitnick's supporters carried fluorescent green signs
reading Free Kevin.
Fluorescent green signs reading Free Kevin.
Those are new ones on me.
I didn't know about those ones.
Family members and friends believe federal prosecutors unduly targeted Mitnick to make
an example of him to other cyber hackers.
You like that new word the Post came up with, cyber hackers?
They're very creative.
They are.
They certainly are.
Cyber hackers.
Mitnick was a recreational hacker who broke into computer systems of major companies but
never sought profit from it, his lawyers said.
The government threw everything at him.
They got $4,125 and they're calling it a big win, the hacker's dad Alan Mitnick said sarcastically.
The assistant U.S. attorney Christopher Painter said he wasn't disappointed by the small restitution
award.
The prosecution of any hacker is a deterrent, he said.
And the main district attorney, David Schindler, remember that guy?
Yeah, isn't he going to private practice now?
It was announced yesterday.
And he is now entering, this always happens after hacker cases, he's entering private
practice and they say that his current salary of $115,000 will be minuscule compared to
what he's about to earn now.
So he's really getting the benefits of that.
He had quite a few nasty things to say about Kevin in the L.A. Times article.
I don't have the quotes in front of me but he basically said that we'll be seeing Kevin
again committing more crimes and he's a really disturbed individual, things like that.
We'll be posting those quotes on the website along with a great big picture of him that
nobody thinks we have.
You've never seen a picture of this guy, have you?
Never.
I haven't, no.
They keep things like this quiet.
We have our sources.
So that's the situation as far as that goes.
That was up until last week.
Now, the bad news, the thing that happened after last week, this occurred on Wednesday,
almost a week ago.
Kevin was told that he was going to be transferred to the equivalent of a camp, something that's
not that unpleasant as far as prisons go.
And that was supposed to happen on Thursday.
Butchery and fishing and stuff like that.
No, not that kind of camp.
The kind of camp that Fiber was at when he went to prison.
Basically you don't have a fence but if you walk out of the area you go to the place that
does have the fence.
You have to do all these tedious jobs.
You are in prison.
They make it clear that you're in prison but it's kind of like a dormitory but not really.
You are in prison.
It's just for the non-violent, non-threatening criminals.
It's more of an appropriate place than where Kevin has been for the last four and a half
years.
So he was supposed to go to something like that on Thursday.
However, last Wednesday he was told with no warning whatsoever, you're leaving now.
You can't get any of your stuff.
You're going right now.
And they took him to the San Bernardino County Prison.
That's not a camp.
No, it's not a camp.
It's a jail place.
It's a place where real criminals are.
And it's also a place where if you recall, Kevin eats kosher food.
They don't do that.
Despite the fact that it's federal law that prisoners get kosher food if that's their
religious practice, they just don't do it.
They just don't do it.
He's barely eaten anything since he got there because he can't eat things that aren't kosher
and they're not providing him with anything else.
I think he can have a carrot stick or something occasionally.
I don't know.
I'm not sure exactly what happened.
But I talked to him over the weekend.
Actually, I talked to him Monday and he was actually kind of dizzy from not eating.
That's basically the situation he's in right now.
They're filing motions to get him out of that place, to put him back in MDC, which is no
picnic but a lot better than the place they put him here.
It's widely thought the reason they transferred him to this place was because the warden at
the Metropolitan Detention Center just didn't like having such a high-profile prisoner and
wanted him out of there.
So the first chance they got, as soon as, keep in mind, MDC is a pre-trial facility,
pre-sentencing facility.
As soon as he was sentenced, he got him out of there and threw him into the first hole
he could find.
Right now, the place Kevin is in, it defies description.
Imagine yourself in a big room, kind of like, I guess, a high school cafeteria with 60 other
people and triple bunk beds around the walls there.
No partitions for the toilets.
You have to go to the bathroom.
You do it in front of everybody.
No partitions for showers.
One television set for everybody.
And absolutely nothing to do.
And you stay in that room every minute of every day.
Total amount of time you get to go outside that room, three hours per week.
And that is where they have him right now.
I foolishly neglected to bring his address with me, so if someone out there has access
to either the Mitnick mailing list or the website, which hopefully has been updated,
please call us and give us that information at some point later in the show.
We can at least cheer him up by writing to him.
I'm hoping that...
The judge was supposed to rule on the motion which was filed yesterday, she was supposed
to rule on that today to get him out of that place, because they will not serve kosher
food there.
They've made that clear.
They'll serve vegetarian, but they won't serve kosher.
They seem to think that vegetarian is the same as kosher, which it is not.
And if there are any rabbis out there, maybe they could call in with a detailed explanation.
The thing is that the staff rabbi they have at that facility, who happens to be a sheriff
at the same time and doesn't really like prisoners that much, actually it's kind of funny, I
know, but it's not that funny.
But he basically admitted that it wasn't kosher, because he couldn't lie about something like
that.
So that's where it stands.
That's where it stands.
And I guess it's a fortunate thing that Kevin insists on kosher food, because if it wasn't
for that, I guess he'd have to stay there.
I guess they'd have no choice.
They could just throw him in this place and forget about him.
Well, I think that was their intent.
But doesn't it show the true colors of how they do these things?
They sentence him, thinking they're going to get it out of the spotlight, and then they
take it out on him by putting him in the worst possible place they can think of, a county
prison.
I mean, there's all kinds of evil, violent people in that place.
Right now he's segregated with the rest of the federal prisoners, which for some reason
- I guess there are so many federal prisoners now, they have to stick them in county prisons.
So they're kind of kept separate from the other people that are wandering around.
But who knows?
That could change at any time.
The point is, he should not be in prison at all.
They should have sent him to a halfway house.
This suffering has got to stop at some point.
So hopefully we'll have some more information for you as the show progresses.
Now as we continue with our decline of Western civilization, if you recall, a few months
ago we had a gentleman on the phone with us from Michigan who put out a newsletter rather
similar to 2600 in many ways, except instead of the world of computer hacking, he dealt
with the world of satellites.
It's really a fascinating world out there, obviously, all kinds of things being launched
into space, people pulling all kinds of signals down from the sky and figuring out ways of
seeing foreign signals and seeing data, hearing audio, all kinds of things like that.
And one of the most interesting things, breaking encryption.
Because a lot of the services these days encrypt their signals in various means and manners.
They don't want people to see it unless either they pay for it or unless they're authorized
to see it.
What do you think, Isaac?
I don't think it gets me in trouble.
Well, we'll try to think this time.
A signal coming into your home, either microwave or regular over-the-air transmission or by
satellite, a signal coming into your home.
Thusly broadcast.
Right.
Do you think you have the right to do something with that signal?
It's coming through my home, isn't it?
It is coming through your home.
It's not like you're climbing a telephone pole and clipping into someone's wire.
It's not like you're breaking into the NSA and walking out with a computer.
Basically, the signal is coming into your home and, you know, I never could understand
this.
The signal is coming into your home.
If you can figure out how to read that signal, how are you breaking any kind of a law anywhere?
It makes no sense to me whatsoever.
They've tried to make laws about, they've succeeded in making laws saying it's illegal
to listen to cellular phone calls or portable phones or all kinds of things.
I think it's extended to beepers, pagers, things like that.
They say it's illegal to listen.
How can it be illegal to listen, especially when it's being transmitted without any kind
of encryption?
They even make it illegal to do that.
But to say it's illegal to listen to things with encryption, I just...
It makes things a lot easier for the companies to send out these services as cheaply as possible.
That's right, because instead of having to come up with a really good encryption scheme,
they simply have to come up with something that, you know, that is illegal to...
Or none at all.
...to violate.
Or none at all.
Just, you can't do this unless you pay a certain amount of money or unless you're a certain
type of person.
Well, as it turns out, Daniel Morgan, who is the publisher of Satellite Watch News,
really fascinating journal.
In fact, we offered it as a premium last fundraiser, which we have some things to say about.
For those of you who pledged last fundraiser, please listen, because we do have some news
about that.
In this, you find all kinds of information about scheduling of programs, who's on what
particular satellite, when, what new services are being offered, things like that.
But also, information on how the technology works, something that we're all interested
in.
Oh, yeah.
And things that, in 2600, we publish all the time on all kinds of different things.
Computer systems, phone systems, you know, stores.
You name it.
It's out there.
We'll get to it at some point, if somebody actually takes the time to write about it.
Well, turns out, folks over at DirecTV, which is the nation's largest DSS satellite provider.
Oh, with the little tiny dishes?
Yeah, the 18-inch dishes.
And they keep taking over companies.
They took over Prime Star and they merged with the USSB.
And if you call them now, this is kind of funny.
If you call them now, which I think is 1-800-DIRECTV, I want people to try this.
People who don't want to call us, call them and see how long it takes you to get a person.
Odds are you will never get a person, but it's amazing.
You'll hear explanations as to why they can't answer your phone, because they're so busy
helping other incredibly happy customers with these new offers that they've got, you know,
who are just overjoyed with happiness, because they want to take advantage of these things.
But they'll never get to you.
They'll never actually answer your questions.
There's a lot of people out there with problems, you know.
Things aren't working right and they have no way of fixing it.
So that's what their situation is right now.
But DIRECTV was also very unhappy with Dan Morgan and his satellite watch news, because
they published information on their technology, on how it worked, and also advertisements
from various people in other parts of the world offering equipment that could bypass
their encryption.
You know, very simple.
And it was perfectly legal in those countries to have this technology.
But they called it an infringement on their services.
That's an infringement on their bottom line, but that's another story.
So they brought Daniel Morgan to court and sued him for, I believe, something like $300,000.
Where did they come up with that?
I don't know.
Maybe Dan can help us with that when we bring him in.
But DIRECTV is owned by General Motors.
I don't know if you knew that.
That I didn't.
They're owned by General Motors.
Yeah, everybody is owned by somebody and they're owned by General Motors.
And they won.
They won.
General Motors won.
General Motors, DIRECTV, they won.
Wow.
They won the case against Daniel Morgan.
And as a result, what I'm holding in my hand right now is the final edition of Satellite
Watch News.
It says on the front cover, final issue, DIRECTV closes down Satellite Watch News.
I'd like to read the piece that appears on the front page here.
Dear subscribers, it pains me as the attorney for Dan Morgan, Morgan Aerospace Incorporated,
and Satellite Watch News to announce that this is the last issue of the magazine.
Unfortunately, the unlimited resources and bankroll of DIRECTV and other plaintiffs have
literally forced the Satellite Watch News and Dan Morgan to shut down operations.
Dan Morgan has been forced by DIRECTV to close the Satellite Watch News, the DB1 radio show,
and has basically been banned from participating in anything to do with underground satellite
technology.
Could I break in here for a second?
He has been given a court order not to publish a magazine or appear on the radio?
You can ask him directly in a couple of moments when we bring him in.
Okay.
I'd like to do that.
Yeah.
I think a lot of us would like to do that.
And the parallels to what we do here and what we do with 2600 are frightening.
I mean, I've been scared the last few days since I talked to Dan and learned about this
last week that something like that could happen to us.
It's easy.
You piss off the wrong corporation and all of a sudden they just shut you down.
That's the world we're living in today where they can come in and do this.
This is a violation of First Amendment rights.
Plain and simple.
Well, when faced with a multi-million dollar corporation, I don't know how the First Amendment
can fare.
Let's continue here.
A permanent injunction has been ordered by the United States District Court, Eastern
District of Michigan, prohibiting Dan Morgan and Morgan Aerospace, Inc. from publishing,
selling any issues of the Satellite Watch News, publishing or accepting for publication
any advertisements for the sale or use of counterfeit access cards.
Dan is also prohibited from publishing or accepting for publication any information
intended to promote the use of counterfeit access cards or to assist persons in the
use of satellite signal theft devices.
And finally, he has been required to turn over the master copy and all other copies
of Pirate Video 9 to the plaintiffs.
It will be interesting to see if DirecTV will pick on someone its own size in the near future.
Hopefully it will be a corporation with the financial backing and resources to really
determine whether it is legal for a publisher to sell advertising space to a vendor who
deals in merchandise that is deemed illegal within the United States.
There are numerous magazines that continue to do so today.
This is frightening.
This is really scary.
And I just want to point out now for those of you who have pledged in the past, those
of you who called in and pledged, this is...
A few people have emailed me, a few people have been kind of impatient because they haven't
gotten anything yet, and this is why, because this has kind of been held up.
But I make this promise, that A, you'll get this final issue of Satellite Watch News if
you pledged, B, you'll get the videotape, which I have right here, and which copies
have already been made on our end and sent out to the people who pledged, because we
made no agreement with General Motors, Federal Court, DirecTV, whoever.
You had to have gotten permission to violate the copyright of the videotape.
Let them sue us.
Okay.
The thing is, you'll get that.
It's contraband now, though.
It's illegal.
Maybe you're not allowed to watch it, I don't know, but that's the way it is.
And we'll make up for the issues with Satellite Watch News that you're not going to get with
something else, which we'll throw in.
We now bring online with us Dan Morgan, former publisher of Satellite Watch News.
Dan, how are you doing?
Good evening, Emanuel.
Good evening, Isaac.
How are you doing, sir?
Good, sir.
Yourself?
All right.
Well, we're very sorry to hear about what happened.
I'm rather frightened by the whole thing.
Are there any more details you can give us?
Well, it's been a devastating scenario, dealing with these people in federal court.
Of course, you and I talked some time ago, and of course you had me on your show as a
guest a couple months ago.
Basically, how it all started is DirecTV originally sent us a cease and desist letter, along with
another publication that was similar to ours, based in southern Michigan.
They required us, through their cease and desist letter, if we honored it, to cease
publication, get rid of all of our advertisers, of course, and just go away.
The publication that was similar to ours decided that they would drop their advertisers
and say, we'll keep publishing until we can fulfill our subscribers' obligation.
I decided to say, hell no, I'm going to continue on, and I did.
A magazine can't run without advertising revenue.
It's almost impossible, at least in my case.
So I did.
A year had passed since we received the cease and desist letter, and finally we were served,
formally served, summoned to complaint, same allegations, and we were being sued in federal
court.
I felt, under the Constitution of the United States, that we were doing nothing wrong.
You're not alone.
At all.
I mean, I researched this.
The last thing we want to do is go out and get ourselves in trouble, as good people.
But there's also an honesty that, as American citizens, and being publishers and journalists,
that we need to report information true and factual, just the way it really is.
And I did that in my publication, and found myself fighting DirecTV, and the amount of
money required to fight them, it's incredible, it's overwhelming.
You've got a war chest a hundred thousand times bigger than mine.
And we proceeded to do this, and our first attempt was to get all this stuff to an attorney,
of course, answer the summons and complaint, we did that, followed procedure, and found
out that we had an attorney that was lying to us, and not doing what he said he was doing.
We get to the point of deposition, this attorney that we had hired, who in fact was a subscriber.
This is the most scary part of this, he was a subscriber to our magazine, and that's why
we felt so confident in hiring this guy, because he understood us, he knew what we were about,
and he was the one that ultimately was giving us the runaround for the longest darn time.
So we figured this out, comes to depositions, this guy's not going to show up, at our depositions
in Michigan.
He's holding on to several thousand dollars of our money.
I have to immediately go out and hire another attorney.
Fortunately I knew a good man in Detroit, Michigan, and he represented us at the depositions,
and basically to make a long story really short, we couldn't get through the financial
burdens of everything to get this thing to trial, and again they overwhelmed us, we produced
that video.
If you know anything about federal law, and you've studied some of this stuff, mere possession
of one of these devices is prohibited in the United States, you'll go to prison for that.
I produced that video, I showed this technology in the video, Pirate Video 9, and now they're
trying to lambaste me with possession charges and throw me in prison.
For a video.
For a video.
A documentary at that, a simple documentary.
Not really showing you how to do it, but demonstrating the technology and proving through
the video that it in fact really is part of this industry.
I should point out though that you were not prosecuted by the federal government, you
were prosecuted in a civil case.
Exactly.
By General Motors and DirecTV.
Exactly.
Do you think something like that would happen, where the federal government would come in
and say this documentary is illegal, you must get rid of it?
I think, let me point out an interesting part of this, during the deposition, the plaintiff's
attorney for DirecTV looked at me and said, Mr. Morgan, you did that video, we could in
fact walk down to the federal prosecutor tomorrow morning and show them the rules and regulations
regarding this matter, where you were in fact in possession of this device.
But he looked at me then and said, you know, you're going to publish more issues, he said
your next issue, are you going to have those advertisers in it?
And I said, sir, I don't know at this point, and I really didn't know at that point.
I said, I just don't know.
He says, well I've got a court order here that was issued against somebody else for
running advertising such as mine in another magazine.
There was a court order issued against this gentleman who in fact was selling the products.
I never sold the products, I just advertised for people that wanted to purchase advertising,
I had my publisher at.
Like publishers all over the country do.
He said, Mr. Morgan, what we're going to do in the morning, he says, if you don't agree
right now to stop publishing these ads in your next issue, tomorrow morning you are
going to be in jail because we are going to walk down to the federal prosecutor's office
again, this is the second time he's said this, and we're going to have you arrested for running
these ads in your publication.
So the whole thing here was bully tactics and they did have, you know, a court order
right there.
As an example, and I'm sure the judge not knowing anything about this at all, probably
would have signed something like that and had me picked up by a federal marshal.
Let me just break in here now for the listeners who might think this is a radio play.
This is not fiction, this is actually taking place right now in the late 20th century in
the United States of America.
You can go to prison for putting advertisements in your magazine, apparently.
I still can't understand how a video cassette is an access device, either.
It's a documentary saying, well, this exists, it's not an actual access device.
I think let me explain something really quick here.
During this deposition, this lawyer for DirecTV, his name's Scott Wilson.
Hi, Scott.
Pardon?
I'm saying hello to the lawyer who may be listening.
Oh, I don't care.
He needs to listen to something like this, learn a little bit about reality.
He compared theft of television signal as an equivalency to crack cocaine.
Aha.
What?
Okay.
You know, I said, and then he- Why doesn't he throw child pornography in
there for good measure?
Well, he did.
He did.
Of course he did.
Let me get to this point.
Let me get to this point.
And the thing is, he looked at me, he said, you know, he said, Mr. Morgan, he says, this
is illegal, just as illegal as crack cocaine or any illegal street drugs.
And I said, sir, your analogy between television and illegal street drugs is one trillion light
years separated.
They don't even equate.
Then he was getting mad.
Then he cussed at me.
He says, you know, I'm not going to get into the cussing on radio, but he cussed at me.
And my attorney right then and there was getting a little hot, he was getting upset with this
guy.
And then he turns around, he starts doing this, he goes, it's just as bad as child molestation.
Illegal child- And I said, sir, you're the sickest man I've ever met.
This guy got so, I mean, oh, ignorance.
So I guess this proves that if you have a multi-billion dollar corporation behind you,
you can pretty much say anything and it becomes gospel.
Oh, I've never met a bigger batch of uneducated, degreed people in my entire life.
Dan, could you tell us how has this affected you personally?
It has devastated me.
I am now completely out of work.
I have, I mean, I've lost my entire business.
I can't do anything with it at all.
I mean, it's dead.
I'm having to rebuild my life and it's the most devastating thing I've ever been through.
You know, everybody, you hear people say, well, that'll never happen to me.
I'll never be basically homeless.
Well, to battle this, I've had to go out and remortgage my home.
I can't make payments on it.
And I'm a person of modest means.
I live in a small mobile home on an acre of property.
I was never a millionaire.
When I found out what it would cost just to get into court with this case,
the initial retainer was $30,000 and $300,000 to get it to trial.
I mean, to a small businessman, and my company employs three people,
my secretary, myself, and a guy who basically does everything.
He's a, do it all around the office.
We employ three people, folks.
We're small America.
And it's the small people that built this country.
And big, money-wise corporate people, the large corporate people,
they're taking that away from us.
We're losing the most valuable asset we have,
and that is the small corporations, the small companies of this country.
It's the saddest thing I've ever seen.
And you can be homeless in a heartbeat.
In a heartbeat.
Well, this particularly strikes home here
because the parallels, what we do and what you have done
are very well-defined.
We talk about technology all the time.
We piss off the large corporations.
They threaten us.
We hold our ground.
So far, we've been fortunate.
But this is a sobering...
We'll see what happens next time.
Yeah, it's a sobering reminder that they have the power.
They really do.
And individuals such as yourselves are the ones to fall.
People who are willing to stand up
and stick up for their beliefs.
What good is that?
When someone can just march in with an army of lawyers
and literally put you out of business
as has been done to what I consider to be
a really fine newsletter, Satellite Watch News,
now driven out of business by General Motors and DirecTV.
I mean, it boggles my imagination
to have to say that this actually happened,
that these facts are now something
that we're going to remember as history,
that it's illegal to have a videotape.
Videotape is somehow considered to be contraband.
That a magazine is somehow considered to be illegal
in this country right now, at this particular point in time.
It's really not a good development
and it's something that I think we all have to fight.
Now, as you know,
this is part of our mini pledge night
and keeping a radio station like ours strong
is something I think that benefits everybody
because, well, first of all,
we don't have General Motors as a sponsor.
They don't buy time on this radio station
and I'd like to know if there's any other radio station
in New York City that can claim that
including the so-called public stations
There's no money in here from General Motors, DirecTV, any of that.
So we can say things with relative impunity
and not have to worry about our funds being slashed
and people being put out on the street
because we're already one step away from being out on the street.
We're pretty much used to it.
But that's why it's very important
to keep this place going and that's why I hope
people can call in with their pledges
and get that particular aspect of tonight
behind us as quickly as possible
because we do need to raise money to keep this place here.
Last time we were doing this, Dan was offering his newsletter.
Obviously, we can't do that anymore
since his newsletter has been driven out of business.
So we're offering safe things tonight
such as BAI coffee cups and T-shirts and baseball caps, things like that.
For all kinds of pledge amounts
you can be part of that.
212-209-2950 is the number to call.
We're going to be getting back to Dan in just a couple of moments
so he can tell you more about his nightmare
and ways that you can contact him
and maybe take a step to preventing this from happening to somebody else
like us, for instance. We could be next.
How does that make you feel, Isaac?
Got a nice suit for federal court?
This radio show could be contraband. Think about it.
I don't want to.
Dan, you were ordered not to do your radio show anymore?
Yes, I was.
Is your radio show contraband, too?
Apparently, anything I had to say was contraband.
One thing I'd like to interject here.
Everything that's going on in this country, folks, right now
needs to have a keen eye.
I apologize that we went down, forced by the federal government,
but you need to support them.
Their value is incredible.
I met Emanuel at a show that we were at in Dayton, Ohio.
You don't know how pleased I was to know that I wasn't alone.
Emanuel, I'm sure you felt that way.
You're the only one trying to say,
look at people and say, look at them.
You're the only one trying to say,
look at people. This is reality.
Look what these people are doing to America.
I had Emanuel on my show, and he said,
Emanuel, America's going to hell in a handbasket.
He said, Dan, America is going to hell in a bus.
And it is. It is the truth.
This country is in a lot of trouble.
I spent three and a half tours in Vietnam.
I don't know if many of you people recall that war.
I come home with three men, the three that listened, out of 35.
And to this day, I struggle for that Constitution,
that little piece of paper that says what our rights
and our freedoms as American citizens are.
And our own government, I consider them
uneducated, degreed government regulators,
are ruining the very thing that our forefathers,
the people that come from all over the world,
fought for. This can't be.
And without people like Emanuel, myself,
I'm not giving up. I have to stop doing what I was doing.
But I'll tell you something. I do have a keen eye,
and I see it every day. And believe me,
I'm becoming very rebellious. This country is going to hell.
And again, on a bus. It's awful.
I'd just like to add one thing, though.
If something like this were to happen to us,
I know that we're not the only people that will stand up.
And I know that if we go away,
we'll be replaced ten times over.
And I'm hoping the same thing will happen
with satellite watch news. I'm hoping that many people,
as a result of this, will come forward
and do what you were doing so courageously
and carry it on, not let this be a fatal blow
to freedom of information. I'm going to do whatever I can
to get this information out there, but I hope there are other people out there
that will stand up and not be bullied by these people.
We need all the help. That's why I didn't run.
That's why I didn't pull my advertisers. That's why I didn't go away.
I said to hell with DirecTV.
And if you read in one of my publications earlier,
I don't know if I gave you that issue or I sent it to you or whatever,
but I wrote in there, you know, those are people, too.
Even though their subscribers have become ignored
and become numbers, pure numbers,
they have no real feelings for their subscribers.
7 million strong, let's face it. They don't care anymore.
I mentioned this a couple of weeks ago that with every subscriber they get,
it's pure profit for them because they don't have to invest anymore
in their infrastructure. They already have it up there.
You have to buy the equipment. They can have unlimited number of people
tapping into that satellite signal.
So it's not like they even have anything to worry about.
Here's the total figures. You want to hear something that will scare you to death?
Out of 7 million known subscribers,
the actual talking to the underground people,
the people that have produced the products that are used
to intercept their signal for free,
they feel, and this is between 2 or 3 different corporations,
not corporations, companies,
they feel that there's a total of between 20 and 25,000 people
actually using an illegal device.
Out of 7 million? Out of 7 billion people.
That must be crippling them.
212-209-2950, help fight the monstrosities
of mega corporate America here
as the individual is plowed under by their bulldozers.
I don't know how many more metaphors I can come up with,
but we do need your help because
we're one of the few independent voices around who will bring you
interesting and very sad bits like this.
Again, we're offering BAI coffee cups,
t-shirts, baseball caps, whatever it is you want.
We have all kinds of different offers out there,
but mostly you're not calling in to buy these things.
You're not calling in because you want a cap or a hat.
You're buying in because you want to invest in WBAI.
You want to invest in a radio station.
We've had all kinds of tumultuous things going on at BAI with Pacifica.
It serves to simply state that free speech is fragile.
Free speech is something that can be wiped away
by outside influences or even by internal conflict.
It's something that we all need to take an interest in.
It's something we all need to actively support and keep going.
If you're getting something out of the show tonight,
if you're getting something out of the show period,
please give us a call, 212-209-2950.
A strong showing tells us that it does matter
that there are people out there who care,
who will be there when it really hits the fan
because that is going to happen at some point.
They keep encroaching. This is something I never would have considered
happening 5 or 10 years ago. Yes, Isaac?
Weeks. Weeks? You think they're going to be here in weeks?
Oh, it's going to hit the fan in weeks.
I don't know. 212-209-2950.
We have no way of telling how many phone calls are coming in here
because we don't have a little indication,
but on the tally screen here we'll start showing some large numbers.
212-209-2950. If you're outside of the country,
I know some people might be listening from outside the country, country code 1.
Do you know the signal continues going out into outer space?
Yes.
They say that they have, I think I Love Lucy
has hit the next solar system over by now.
So, if...
Okay, if you're out, here's the thing.
30 years from now, for those of you...
No, no, no. I'm going to prove something right now.
Now, if the signal is going straight out there
into outer space, it's probably going to be at some point
hitting technologies that are far more advanced than us,
even DirecTV, all those people.
Probably some really cool beings out there
are picking this up at some point in the future.
Now, do you think time travel is a possibility amongst these creatures?
If it is, then I am directing them, or asking nicely,
to come back to this period in time and pledge
whatever it is you can afford to us here at WBAI.
And if they don't, then we know that time travel is completely impossible
because no one has ever done this.
It's wonderful deductive reasoning.
Well, I think it's a shortcut to proving these things
and not wasting time watching Star Trek trying to figure it out.
Hey, do you have a problem with Star Trek?
You come on, exact change only, please.
Yeah, we're paying to go to hell.
Dan, how much have you paid to go to the hell you're in right now?
Well, right now we're just about $75,000.
Here in about another 3 weeks,
I'm probably going to be served notice that
I should appear in court.
They're going to sue me for what I owe on my home.
I'm going to probably lose my home.
It's not going to stop for a long time.
Right now I'm trying to get my life back together.
We're looking at doing several other things right now.
I just can't answer that because the hell we know
I'm going to continue to go through that.
Where it's going to end, nobody knows. I don't know.
I'd like to see it end next week.
I'm a normal, everyday, Midwestern guy.
I'm not rich. I'm not famous. I don't ever want to be famous.
I believe in me, and I believe in America,
and I believe in you people that are listening.
That's what I'm here, and that's what I'm about.
It's very important to me.
Has anybody offered help in any way?
Very, very little. We still get some contributions coming in to help.
Right now, DirecTV keeps hovering over my head
the $400,000 judgment that they have.
They're pushing on that.
I don't know where it's going to end. I don't even have a clue.
I really don't.
Right now, I'm just trying to get my life back together.
That's what I'm trying to do, and it's all I want.
To continue on with another business, you can bet it'll be helping the American people.
The people that really care about their families, their children, their grandkids.
This young gentleman, this third party that works with us at the company,
and I was telling you about him earlier,
he's a gopher, if you will, but he's a great kid. He's smart.
I looked at him, and he says,
I want to get married and have kids.
I said, why in the hell would you want to have kids today?
Look at what this country's got to offer them.
My God, if I had children today, I'd self-school them at home.
I wouldn't send them to these schools.
What does the school teach you today?
They teach you nothing.
They teach you all the crap, and they brainwash you.
I've never been so irritated with a country in my entire life as I am right now.
I'm glad, and I'm very proud that you people are there.
I do have somewhat of a family, and I'm going to stay here,
and I'm going to keep going as long as I can go,
and scrounge money, and just do what I can do.
You have our assurances at 2600 Off the Hook.
We will carry on what you're not allowed to talk about anymore.
Just as when Bernie S. was thrown into prison
for revealing so-called secret information about the Secret Service,
if you look at our webpage, you'll see that all that information is there now.
The reason we put it there is because they were so concerned
that one person had this information.
Now, because of that, millions of people are going to have access to it.
I pledge right here, this is my pledge tonight,
that millions of people will have access to this information as well
because you cannot legislate away freedom like this.
I think a lot of other people will.
If they take us down as a result of this, other people will take our place,
and we'll just keep going.
Would it be okay if I give my email address so people can write to me?
Absolutely, and give us all your information so anybody out there
who might be able to help out can do so.
If you're a DirecTV customer, please put some pressure on them.
If you're a General Motors customer, put some pressure on them as they own DirecTV.
Say that this is not cool with you,
that torturing people like this, putting magazines out of business,
saying that videotapes are contraband,
that's not the American way.
That's not what freedom of speech is all about.
So I'll go ahead and give you information.
Folks, if you'd like to contact me, the best way is email.
The email address for myself is dmorgandb,
that's d-m-o-r-g-a-n-d-b
at i-star.com
That's a little dash in between the little i
and the word star dot com.
And I would be glad to write you back
and let you know what's going on.
And again, I cannot stress enough how important it is
to support this radio program
and support what they're doing because they're one of the very few
last resources that you have.
So definitely
go out of your way to make sure
that Emanuel and Isaac
are taken care of. They're great people.
I met this guy for the first time at the Dayton Amateur Radio Convention
and I've got to tell you
he is definitely
100% here for you.
So do that. Take care of these people.
We want to thank Carol from Forest Hills, Deirdre from Maywood, New Jersey
and Alex from Saved Hill, New York.
Hey, it's Alex from Saved Hill, New York. How are you doing?
We have a total of 100 bucks, so we need a bit more than that, though.
So please, everybody call. Are there more calls coming in?
Oh, you need these back. Thank you very much.
Please give us a call, 212-209-2950
because what Dan says
is a lot more true than you may think.
This place goes under.
They'll continue to happen, but you won't know about them.
And ask yourself, where else have you heard about what happened to Dan?
First of all, do you think this is an important story? I sure do.
I think it's something that is very scary
and bodes evil for the period ahead.
But have you heard it on the news stations? Have you heard it on TV?
Seen it on Good Morning America or CNN or MSNBC or any of those places?
I haven't. I haven't seen a word about it.
Dan, has there been any media coverage whatsoever?
I've talked to a dozen people who are in the major cable news business
and basically they kind of hem-haunted off
when they heard the plaintiff was DirecTV.
Of course, because, yeah, DirecTV carries them.
They're not going to piss them off. Why would they?
And the most valuable thing is this is the news
that affects you people and affects what you do.
I dare you to go out and say,
I copied a program from somebody else's computer.
I brought it home. I installed it on my machine.
Who would be there for you? We're here for you.
You know, you looked at it. You took a look at the...
This is not theft. If that signal...
You know, granted, sure, Hughes paid big money to put that satellite in space.
I understand that. They got a right to encrypt and protect their signal.
But there are also people who want to know why.
Simply why and how it works.
That is, according to the federal laws in this country,
a crime that will put you away so far
from a person who has sold your child crack cocaine.
You will never believe it.
A person who gets charged with crack cocaine is out in 24 hours.
A person who gets charged with possession of an illegal
interception device for cable television programming, if you will,
is locked up for years and fined immensely.
I mean, magnitudes of money. It's incredible.
Well, again, I just want to reiterate here
that if anyone is out there who writes a detailed article
on how this technology works, or who wants to talk about it on the radio,
we will open up our publication, our airwaves,
to that information, because it deserves to be out there.
And we're doing that as a direct result of the action that was taken against Dan.
And we're not doing this at Dan's behest.
In fact, Dan, you can beg and plead for me not to do this,
and I'm still going to do it, because it's my decision,
and you have nothing to do with it.
You're not in any way antagonizing these people further.
You're just trying to get on with your life.
That's all I want.
What are the things that you're not allowed to talk about?
And again, our phone number is 212-209-2950.
Please, we're in the last minutes of the show.
Call in, show your support, pledge to the radio station.
They can tell you all kinds of things that you can get for whatever amount you pledge.
We take MasterCard, Visa, even American Express. We take it all.
Your support, 212-209-2950.
Now, Dan, what are you not allowed to talk about?
I am not allowed to talk about any of the workings of the DirecTV encryption system.
I cannot discuss it, explain it to anyone.
I can't talk about anything that deals with them in detail, their overall encryption.
And you know, the sad thing about this, and I'm going to say this right now,
and I don't care if they classify this as that.
Before they started in this country, my magazine was around.
There should have been a grandfather clause.
General Instruments, the original people who encrypted the big dish,
remember the big dishes that were up in the 10-footers?
They loved my publication.
As a matter of fact, their head of security said it was the best source of intelligence they had.
They open up to the back and you see all the guys who were selling the stuff that breaks their stuff,
so you write new stuff.
Exactly. They admired that technology.
In the magazine, they admired the publication.
And then DirecTV took the attitude on, well, this guy's there, he's doing this, he's doing that,
well, we're going to shut him down.
Well, I think now they're starting to realize, and I honestly believe this,
that hey, they have screwed up their own intelligence.
Now they're trying, according to my attorney, and I'm going to say this,
trying to buy the name from me or force me to give them the name Satellite Watch News in its trademark.
Well, I'm not going to do that.
That's all I have left, and this magazine may one day come out of Canada.
Who knows? I don't have a clue.
All right, well, I think you've given enough to the cause.
I think it's time for some of the rest of us out here to pick this up and show support in whatever way we can
and make sure that this kind of thing does not go unanswered.
Again, if you have any influence, any contact with DirecTV, General Motors,
please show your indignation at this.
Are there any other companies involved?
None at this time, no.
Okay, and please keep an eye on the situation because it's a very troubling one,
something that will certainly repeat itself if we don't do anything about it.
Dan, one more time, very quickly, give out your information for people who may want to help out.
Our phone number again, 212-209-2900.
We have over $300 now, but that's, you know, we really need to get a lot further than that
if we're going to keep the station going.
212-209-2950, please show your support in this mini-marathon that we have to raise funds
to keep this radio station going.
Dan, your information one more time?
All right, if they'd like to contact me, you can contact me at dmorgandb,
that's d-m-o-r-g-a-n-d-b, at i-star, s-t-a-r.com.
And I'll definitely reply to you.
I can give a phone number to the offices if that's okay.
Absolutely.
All right, if you'd like to contact me, voice, if I'm not there, my secretary will take your information
and I will do my very, very best within my financial means to get back to you.
It is 517-685-3410.
That's 517-685-3410.
And, you know, it's an incredible situation we're in here, folks.
And, again, you know, I worry about Emanuel being a publisher myself, shot down by corporate America.
I worry about Emanuel.
I happen to be, after one meeting, Emanuel is the type of gentleman that just kind of fits right into the whole realm of being.
I know what he stands for.
And I really appreciate what you folks, you and Isaac and the rest of your crew, are doing.
And I'm very proud to see that you're out there for the people of this country.
Well, thanks.
And, of course, we're very happy to have someone like you on our side and hope that you won't be hurt too badly by this.
And we hope other people will come rushing in to your defense and make sure this doesn't happen to anyone else.
Okay, we are out of time.
Dan, thank you very much for being with us and for holding up your end of the cause here.
And we wish you the best of luck in the future.
We will get those premiums out to the people that pledged for them in the past.
I believe they're already in the mail, so you can't stop us.
We'll have a lot more information on this in the future.
I understand we have a call from Alfred Centauri inside.
Oh, really?
I'm going to go in and get that.
Well, Cassini swings by tonight, or rather in two and a half hours.
Really? I thought it was yesterday.
So the whole planet could be wiped out in a couple hours.
Well, that's another story entirely.
All the more reason to give generously because you might not have to pay it at all, you know, if we're no longer here.
212-209-2950 is the phone number.
Actually, I found the thing that indicates how many calls we have, and we have no calls on the line.
So we want that to definitely go up a bit more than that.
Unfortunately, we weren't able to take phone calls on the air tonight.
We will next week.
We don't have Kevin Mitnick's address, but that should be on the website at www.freekevin.com.
If it's not there, it will be very shortly, and hopefully we'll have information on the court hearing or the judge's ruling today.
Again, 212-209-2950. We are out of time.
We'll talk to you next week. Good night.
I hope that's understood.