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For more information, call area code 718-398-1766, that's 718-398-1766.
And you're listening to radio station WBAI, the time is 8 o'clock.
And once again, throw off the hook.
Let's go!
And a good evening to everybody.
The program is off the hook.
Manuel Goldstein here with you.
What happened to Isaac?
He was sitting over there a second ago, and now he's not there at all.
Well, Bernie S., you're on the phone.
I'm here in Philadelphia.
How you doing?
Good.
Real good.
That's good.
What, are you taking a walk around the studio?
No, no.
We're on the air now.
Well, I had to take readings.
I'm sorry.
You had to take readings?
I neglected to when you came in.
Uh-huh.
All right.
Is that a thermometer reading?
Yeah, apparently.
Yeah, he's got a fever.
Among other things, yes.
What kind of thermometer are you using, Isaac?
Let's not get into that.
A remote thermometer.
Yeah.
So, Bernie, you're down there in Philadelphia, where things are calm now, but now the craziness
has transferred itself over to Los Angeles, as we knew it would.
Crazy.
And wow.
The things that I'm seeing coming out of there are just unbelievable.
I don't know if you guys were listening to the news earlier, but hopefully that clicking
noise isn't coming.
Do you hear that clicking noise in the headphones?
Okay, that's just me then.
That's you.
That's air.
Okay, good.
Good.
Yeah, if you heard the news earlier, you probably heard the news.
You probably heard the news.
People keep listening for more information.
Also, go to the indie media sites that are around the country
and hear firsthand what's going on out there.
Did the LAPD roll out the big foam generator thing they got?
No. What's that?
Oh, it's actually pretty neat.
It's a small trailer, which takes dishwasher or I think it's laundry foam,
and it just billows this enormous amount of foam into a crowd.
And what happens to the crowd?
They get kind of bogged down in four or five feet of foam.
Well, they can't accuse them of not having had a bath.
Exactly. It cleans them up.
I don't know.
What happens if somebody falls down?
Well, it's not that sticky foam stuff.
No, no, no.
It's basically like laundry suds, but a lot of them.
So they're effectively telling the protesters, take a bath.
Right.
Oh, boy.
Well, I'm sure we'll see all kinds of interesting things,
and, of course, if anything happens out there,
we may break in to tell you what's going on.
Bernie, what's the latest with Terrence?
We did a show last week.
Terrence is decompressing in an undisclosed mountain location.
Good, good.
He needs to be.
I mean, when you're in a very closed space,
I understand he was in a five-by-eight cell for about a week,
you need to counteract that right afterwards by getting into wide-open spaces
to sort of balance out your karma sort of thing.
Not your karma, but your chakras have got to be balanced out.
Where we left it last week, you were at the prison
or about to go to the prison to try and get him out.
Well, that's right.
The show just ended, and there was a happy ending right after the show.
About half an hour later, Terrence was finally released to his mother.
They don't only let one person actually into the room where he's released from,
but they came walking out, and he got a lot of long hugs,
and he really seemed kind of shell-shocked from the whole thing.
I mean, as anyone would be locked up in these conditions for a week.
Very quiet and not like Terrence.
Yeah, I talked to him on the phone that night,
and he's usually very conversational.
He just seemed very quiet, like you said.
It was frightening.
But I talked to him again a couple of days later,
and I think he's back to his old self, but he definitely needed to get away.
There was one positive thing that happened this week,
and that was there was actually a pretty accurate and positive story,
front-page story on the Philadelphia Inquirer.
That was amazing.
I saw the story on the web, but I haven't seen the actual paper version yet.
But page one, that's unbelievable.
This is a good example of how our listeners can get involved in media.
Everybody complains in the media.
They inaccurately report things.
I contacted that reporter last week after reading another story
she'd written about the protesters,
and there were some inaccuracies in her article and so forth.
I reached out to her and I said,
listen, I can get you some facts about this story, which you can verify on your own,
but give this a chance.
Don't just report what police are saying.
I worked with her.
We had several conversations.
I sent her several emails, gave her contact names.
I think she spoke with you,
some people, former employers of Terrence, that sort of thing,
visited Terrence's home, interviewed him, his mother, his father, all that.
It was a wonderful article.
Yes, she did a very good job.
People can get involved with media by acting as a source,
and that's what happened in this case.
I'm not taking credit for the article.
Anybody can do this.
It doesn't take a lot of work.
Well, you should take credit,
because I don't think it would have happened without you.
Well, it might have happened,
but it wouldn't have happened so positively, maybe.
They just would have quoted the DA's office or something,
and that would have been it.
It doesn't take a lot of work to actually contact a reporter
who has reported similar stories and give them useful information.
No problem with them checking it out.
Say, here, check out, here are some sources.
You can check this out any way you want to.
It's a whole lot better than not trying at all,
which I know a lot of people feel like not trying at all,
but you have to expend the effort.
So people, if you know anything about a story that is being reported on,
contact reporters and be a helpful source.
Those contacts will last, too.
I've done similar things,
and reporters have just come out of the woodwork and asked a question,
like, hey, have you heard about this?
What do you think?
And they pass your name around, too, like baseball cards.
Oh, well.
This guy knows about this.
Exactly.
And it works.
I get calls from reporters all the time.
Well, if you like to have low-volume email, don't do this.
Yeah.
These reporters are hungry for information.
Oh, yes.
They really are at a rift of accurate sources.
You know, I've got to tell you something, though.
I've dealt with reporters that have written good stories,
but they don't always stay good reporters.
Sometimes they start writing bad stories,
and I don't mean just stories that I disagree with.
I mean stories where they don't check the facts or they don't do their job.
And I have to wonder, you know, how could they be good one day
and then bad the next or just turn bad, period?
They are given some pretty unreasonable deadlines sometimes.
I think that has a lot to do with it.
But you've got to ride herd on these reporters.
Or they just turn all cynical and lose all their respect and don't care anymore.
That could also happen.
It could be.
Well, it's our job to social engineer them and to make them see the facts.
So, I mean, anybody listening to this show can do just what I did.
It was not an hour of my time altogether, maybe.
Right.
It's also important, though, if you do this, that you know the facts, too,
because if you start spreading false facts around, that tends to make things worse.
You don't want to destroy your credibility by saying something that's not true.
Right.
And that would be very counterproductive.
All right.
Well, good job there.
And hopefully that picture of Terrence in the front page of the Philadelphia Inquirer
will wake a lot of people up as to why locking somebody like that away for $500,000 bail
for talking on a cell phone and walking down the street is kind of wrong.
But we'll see what happens.
Of course, the trial is coming up in September.
I don't know if it ever gets to the trial stage,
but we'll be telling people what's going on with that.
In case you don't know it, it's our layout person for 2600.
In fact, this will probably make our issue a little bit late
because he's recuperating up there in the mountains somewhere.
There's always an excuse.
There's always an excuse.
Well, we had H2K as the excuse, but now this is a better excuse.
So we'll use this one.
Okay.
Another thing I wanted to tell people to do,
we were talking about the Democratic Convention out in Los Angeles.
Walter's here.
You escaped.
I just barely made it out before the convention.
Hang on.
You've got to talk into a microphone.
That's the way radio works.
I just barely escaped before the convention started.
So you escaped to get here.
Yep.
Do you hear all the things that are going on out there?
No, I haven't heard anything.
Well, it's pretty unbelievable.
We'll catch you up after the show.
But basically, one thing that I really want to be able to see
is what Jello is working on now, the free speech network,
which is broadcasting all kinds of alternative things,
kind of like the BAI of TV.
But you can't get it because it's one of these satellite networks
and your cable company has to agree to carry it.
Unless you have your own dish.
Yeah, get your own dish.
Yeah, I do have my own dish, but I get DirecTV.
I don't get Dish Network.
Nah, it's not a dish.
Well, yeah, you can get one of the 25-foot dishes, I guess.
Yeah, there you go.
But those are kind of hard to maneuver around.
But here's the thing.
If you have Dish Network, you can get it.
I don't know what channel it's on.
Free speech network.
DirecTV does not get it.
So what I want everybody to do is call DirecTV
and get them to carry the station
because that way you can start seeing interesting things.
And there's nothing wrong,
even if you don't agree with what you see,
there's nothing wrong with seeing different views.
And God knows we don't need more of the same.
And if you look at all the channels
that are being added on TV these days,
they're usually more of the same.
Another shop at home,
another commercial station of some sort.
And, of course, call your cable company too,
which probably is Time Warner.
Are there any cable companies that carry that channel?
I don't know.
I mean, I can't imagine why they would
because that channel basically does nothing
but show how corrupt the companies
that own the cable systems are.
Well, the cable systems don't have unlimited channels
to dole out either.
There could be a bandwidth limitation.
But, I mean, that doesn't mean
you shouldn't call your cable company
and demand your free speech network.
I guess something like six shop at home channels.
Now, I don't want to isolate or alienate
the shop at home contingent out there
because we all know they're a very powerful lobby.
Well, they pay the cable operators.
That's basically it.
Yeah, that must be it.
I mean, I can't imagine why somebody
would want to watch Home Shopping Network 2
as opposed to Home Shopping Network 1 or Value Vision.
One of them has the coin show.
The other one has Computer of the Day.
The third one has...
Tell me you actually watch these channels.
No, I don't even have cable.
I like the Knife Show.
That's a good...
Yeah, the Knife Show is pretty good.
I was out at someone's house
and they had six Roppiers.
I'm in over my head here.
My point is it would be really good, you know,
to, for instance, Cable Vision,
our local channel, our local cable network,
just announced they're going to be adding
another religious station,
which, you know, religion is all fun and games.
Wonderful.
But come on.
You know, we want some diversity.
You don't want the same thing
over and over and over again.
And I think there's plenty of shopping.
There's plenty of religion.
There's plenty of commercial TV.
Let's get some alternatives.
There's only one religion channel.
Oh, please.
First of all...
Which religion?
Telecare.
25.
That's just the local one.
But there's also all kinds of other religious programs
that are on all the time
and various other channels.
Mr. Variety is having a problem
with religious programming.
No, I have no trouble with religious programs.
I just have trouble with it
being forced down my throat all the time.
How is it forced down your throat?
Because it's always on.
It's always on TV.
Look, do this.
On Sunday morning, turn on the TV set, right,
and see how many anarchist or, you know,
atheistic programs you can find on the air.
You won't find any
because that's not a valid view
in the eyes of, you know, the mainstream.
Imagine that.
A mass being broadcast on Sunday morning.
Every single channel.
Every single channel.
Every single channel.
Yes, every single channel.
Not every single channel.
You can go to WABC and watch, like,
Katie Couric counts up and down or whatever.
I'm not saying take religion off TV.
I'm saying let's add something else
in addition to religion,
in addition to shopping,
in addition to commercial TV.
That's all I'm saying.
Okay.
But you're looking at co-opting other programming.
No, I'm looking at adding something else.
Okay.
Of course, you always have
50 more religious channels that want to be added,
and then you'll say that, oh,
you're preventing these 50 religious stations
from being on.
I'm sure the religious broadcaster out there
that wants the frequency
we're talking on right now,
but let's do something different instead,
and I think it'll be of more value.
That's what I'm saying as far as free speech networks.
Well, I would tend to think
the market should decide this.
Well, I think the people should decide this,
so the people out there
should be calling their cable companies,
calling their satellite companies,
and demanding, demanding free speech networks.
That's the market.
Exactly.
That is the market.
Because you do have the right to demand this.
I mean, who is Time Warner to say,
no, you will not see this program?
Well, they can do that, but guess what?
They can do that
because they're the people that bring you the cable.
But you know what the result is going to be?
You can also make demands of them
because you are the person
that basically makes them stay in business.
Exactly.
And if they don't meet those demands,
you're going to bring your business elsewhere.
Well, you can't bring it elsewhere.
There's no elsewhere to bring it.
I only have one cable company.
I only have one cable company,
though I only have one satellite company that I can use.
You have DirecTV.
Yeah, but there's a tree blocking for the satellite.
Let's talk about Verizon.
Sorry?
Let's talk about Verizon.
Yes, let's get to Verizon.
Yes, Verizon.
And speaking of freedom of choice, okay.
The strike continues.
There's all kinds of things going on out there
as far as striking people and conflicts
and contract offers and Rene promises.
But, Bernie...
I have a strike-related issue.
Yeah, you have something that I think
is even more interesting than that.
I personally was affected by this today.
You're personally affected.
Okay.
I called my carrier.
I have a CLEC,
Competitive Local Exchange Carrier here,
who resells some Bell Atlantic services to us.
So I called our CLEC to request a service change order.
Correction, Bernie.
The Bell Atlantic of which you speak.
I don't know.
Oh, Verizon.
Okay.
It didn't make any sense to me.
I don't know that name.
Wow.
Way back.
In any case, I called my CLEC
to have them put in a change order to Verizon.
And they did so and called me back and said,
Hey, they actually do this via the web now.
Verizon.com, you can actually put in service orders that way,
like to add a line or service, whatever.
Well, as a result of this work stoppage,
as they're calling it,
if you go to Verizon.com
and put in a service order request,
it always assigns a date when you can expect the service to be performed.
Like, okay, they'll show up at your house on August 16th or whatever.
Well, the date that comes up now is December 30th, 2000.
Oh, dear.
Well, at least they're being realistic now.
Either they know something about this strike that we don't,
or they are fudging their stats.
I think they know something about their performance that we do.
I was about to get to that.
With the normal phone company time dilation,
that would be somewhere in 2003.
Try getting a DSL line installed,
and you will see snow on the ground before it arrives.
You can try this out yourself.
You go to Verizon.com and add a service
or like to add a call waiting line or something.
You don't have to actually request.
You can get all the way to the end and then cancel it.
But when you get to the very last part,
it will come up with this date when you can expect your service to be turned on
or changed or whatever, December 30th, 2000.
Wow.
Would it be December 30th or December 31st tomorrow?
It's strange.
You'd think it would be the 31st or the 30th.
It's funny because first our CLEC told me it said December 7th.
So when she did it, it said December 7th, which is Pearl Harbor Day.
I don't know why.
Interesting choice.
In any case, Torah, Torah, Torah.
But I did it myself, and it came up December 30th.
So they're stretching the dates out even further.
Okay.
Well, that's something to look forward to with our brand-new phone company.
I knew it was going to be fun.
I just didn't know it would be this much fun.
On strike the first week and taking seven months, six months?
I was walking along the street here,
and there were several strikers outside of one of the buildings.
So I talked with some linemen and those sorts of guys,
and they weren't too up on the issues.
I was surprised.
I wanted to find out exactly what it was.
They said, well, talk to our shop steward.
I'm like, I want to talk to you guys.
Why are you striking?
So I don't know what that's about.
Yeah.
We finally pointed VerizonReallySucks.com to their union site.
So now people going to that site can actually read something about Verizon
instead of being pointed to us,
which actually was convenient to a lot of people.
Our site was blocked in their software.
They could look at our site by going to VerizonReallySucks.com.
But that's not what it's for.
It's for Verizon-related issues.
This person who wrote in took a clue from last week's radio show
and registered iloveverizon.com.
It's a real site.
It's now live.
It has a message board for all those people that just love Verizon.
I can't wait to get my cease and desist letter.
My grandchildren will be so proud, signed David.
That's pretty inspirational,
and a lot of people have been doing things like that.
Of course, that's in response to the lawsuit threat against us
for registering VerizonReallySucks
because all the people will be confused that it's really a Verizon site.
It's funny.
The lawyers didn't register positive-sounding domain names, did they?
No.
They skipped right over those.
Yeah.
Speaking of lawsuits, we don't have a verdict yet in the DCSS case.
We are still waiting for the verdict.
It could happen at any time.
We expect it sometime this week, yes.
So keep checking the website, www.2600.com,
and as soon as we know, you'll know,
and we don't know what's going to happen at all.
This is the lawsuit having to do with the DVD encryption software, the DCSS,
or decryption software.
Decryption.
Yes.
We're going to take some phone calls, 212-209-2900,
because we haven't taken phone calls as much as we should have in the last few weeks,
so we'll try to do that for the majority of the remaining time.
So let's fill up those phone lines, and we'll take some calls.
Let's read a couple of bits of mail.
Listener mail.
Yeah, listener mail, which is always fun.
Dear OffTheHook, I'm an electrical engineer,
and I subscribe to several trade journals when they call, like they just did,
to renew my free subscription.
Quite often they ask for a piece of information to verify that they did indeed speak to me,
such as month and date of birth, city you were born in, mother's maiden name, etc.
Each piece by itself doesn't tell much, but all put together,
it could be used to track you down when they start installing the government-mandated brain implants, Isaac.
Now, I always tell them January 1st, born in Alabama, etc.,
and so far they have not noticed I'm giving different information
because my subscriptions are still coming in, signs Steve.
Well, that's very true.
In fact, actually, I have a problem because I was trying to fix one of my phone lines
while I was driving around, and they asked for the last four digits of my social security number,
and on those rare occasions where I give them any number at all, it's always a fake number,
so I didn't know what my social security number was that I gave them.
I have it written down somewhere.
You have to write this down.
Yeah, but I have different ones for everybody.
And so here I am driving around.
My phone is broken.
I'm trying to get it fixed, and I can't.
I can't even prove that it's me, and now they think I stole the phone
because I don't know my own social security number.
Well, actually, I find that a lot more comforting than them saying,
Oh, well, don't worry about it and letting you continue to talk.
If you were talking to the person I was talking to, you would not find it comforting.
I would rather them disable my phone if I can't properly identify myself
than to allow someone to continue to use it.
They would dim as a 20-watt bulb.
I don't think they could have reported it if they were able to.
All right, 212-209-2900.
A 16-year-old accused of paralyzing major websites, including those of CNN, Yahoo, and Amazon.com,
has pleaded innocent to charges that could land him in a teen detention center for two years.
The Montreal high school student, who calls himself Mafia Boy on the Internet,
had already faced two mischief charges after CNN's website was crippled in February.
He now faces 60 new charges of hacking and mischief.
That's 60-6-0?
6-0, yes.
60 new charges?
60 new charges, yes.
And I guess they'll run these sentences consecutively?
No, actually, Canadian law is a little bit more sane.
The maximum time he can get is two years in a youth detention center.
Only because he's a juvenile. What if he were two years older?
That I'm not sure about.
But I still think their law is a little more sane as far as sentencing.
I don't think they're building prisons everywhere in Canada,
although I have heard some disturbing things about what's going on up there as well.
Police described the boy, who was too young to be identified under Canadian law,
as bright but not a computer genius.
He sat in the courtroom yesterday with a blank look on his face while his attorney entered the pleas.
Actually, this was a couple of weeks ago, August 4th.
So he's sitting there with a blank look on his face, but everyone seems to think he's bright.
But not a genius.
But not a genius.
He had a bright, blank look on his face.
Blank looks, yes. People have blank looks all the time.
The boy is accused of bombarding the sites with thousands of simultaneous messages, crippling them.
Prosecutors allege that he broke into several computers, mostly at American universities,
and used them to launch the attack against the websites.
The attacks flooded sites with so much traffic that legitimate customers were unable to get through.
Investigators said he boasted in Internet chat rooms about the attacks
and was tracked through traces he left of his computer activity.
His attorney said the boy understands the serious nature of the charges.
It's not a happy moment in his life.
He's just anxious that this whole thing be behind him.
His next scheduled court appearance is September 28th, where a trial date will be set.
What do you think is a good sentence if he is guilty?
I find that figure that they gave a little interesting.
Thousands of Internet messages.
A major web server for, like, CNN.com can't handle thousands?
Well, that's not, you know, what a denial of service attack really is.
It's not little messages. It's, you know...
Yes, yes.
Many, many thousands of...
But it gives the impression that...
Yeah. Well, it's written by people.
I'm sorry. I'm nitpicking.
I don't know what you're talking about.
But as far as a sentence, if the guy is guilty of bringing Yahoo to its knees and, you know, CNN and all these major sites...
I honestly don't know. That's for the Canadian courts to decide.
Community service, I say.
Community service?
Yeah.
What's a community service?
Well, something, maybe teaching kids how to use computers ethically or something, you know?
Just, you know, something that's more productive to society than locking somebody in a cage.
I have an idea.
I like that.
I have a better idea, though.
How about you stick him on a mule train, all right?
And you stick him in a tent for all winter and then put him on a mule train.
He picks up trash inside of a road for a year, right?
Yeah.
What do you think about that?
I think he can learn a lot more.
That's American justice.
Have we heard from that individual, by the way?
I've gotten a couple of letters from him, actually, yeah.
Is he doing all right, or...?
He's surviving. He's surviving.
He's due to be possibly off this wagon train next month, isn't he?
I hope so.
This has been all year since the beginning of the year, correct?
Uh-huh.
I think he's due to show up in court again, then they decide what they want to do with him at that point.
Does he have to ride the mule to court, or are they going to arrange other transportation?
It's not funny, you know. It's a serious matter.
Joking with people's lives here.
So you really have no suggestions?
No, I like Bernie's suggestion.
Community service?
Community service.
Okay.
You may actually find that he enjoys it.
Makes sense.
All right, 212-209-2900.
Let's go over to the phones, see what we've been missing in the last few weeks.
Good evening. You're on the air.
Hey, Emanuel.
How are you doing?
And Isaac. It's Tommy Pickles.
How are you doing, sir?
Bernie, also.
Good evening.
Howdy to you out there in Pennsylvania.
So what's on your mind?
So, first thing, I've got to say I'm disappointed because GH-Icon didn't happen this year, Isaac.
Oh, it did. Slightly after Defcon.
Oh, see, it was probably a single thing again.
Yes, I will have to post the photos for GH-Icon 2 in the near future.
And second, if any of the southern people are listening, you know, Freaknik's supposed to go on in November.
4.0.
November 3rd, yeah, Freaknik 4.0.
But for some reason, Rattle's been out on the run somewhere on vacation.
And he's the only one who has access to the website.
Well, November, you know, as we've still got some time.
So, you know, hopefully everyone keeps that on their mind so that we can all travel down and have a good 2600 party down there.
Yeah, I think it's good that there will be more, you know, smaller cons in various parts of the country.
Because, you know, I'd like to see one up in Canada, for instance.
I'd like to see one up in the, like, Boston, places like that.
Frigid con.
Well, this one might be the last year, JohnnyX told me.
So hopefully we can make a good one out of this to show him that maybe this one shouldn't die because it gets bigger and bigger every year.
Although, keep it under the medium-sized con.
Because, you know, when it gets too large, it gets a little aggravating, as we all know.
Absolutely.
Also, we're going to throw a little bash down there, and Isaac knows how good our bashes are.
Yes, yes, I swung by.
That's all that I had to say.
I just wanted to check in with you guys.
Glad that you guys are still shouting on the radio.
Well, that's what we do.
And we'll get together real soon.
Okay, take care.
Bye.
Well, we don't really shout.
Well, we do when people annoy us.
That's true.
Yeah, it reminds me.
I saw the MTV special again the other day.
No, I found the tape that it was on.
I just decided to watch it for fun.
Boy, you know, it does not age well either.
It wasn't good when it started, and it sure hasn't aged well.
MTV, it's not a fine bottle of port.
Unbelievable.
All right, let's go over here.
Good evening.
You're on the air.
Speak up, please.
Yeah, this is Drywall from Los Angeles.
How are you doing?
Oh, you're in the belly of the beast there.
Yeah, I was actually Rage Against the Machine played a free show last night.
Were you at that show?
Yeah.
That's where the trouble all started when the police started coming in,
and they were on horseback and everything.
Uh-huh.
Now, okay, here's what the mainstream media is reporting.
They're reporting that rioters started throwing concrete
and lighting fires in the crowd,
and the police moved in to maintain order.
Is that what happened?
I have a couple friends who are in the black block,
and they were over the fence.
They built, like, these big fences,
and they were actually in front of one by the Staples Center.
Who is that, the police?
What?
The police constructed the fences?
Yeah, there's, like, huge fences all around the Staples Center downtown.
And I guess people had thrown, like, water bottles and stuff over the fence at the police
and not really things that would, like, cause them harm,
and then the police started firing these, like, paintball-type guns
that shoot pepper spray in the paintballs.
And a friend of mine actually got hit by one.
Not pleasant.
Then they just started firing that,
and a couple people climbed on top of the fence,
and they had some black flags, and they were waving them.
And the police were hosing them down with pepper spray.
I mean, it was literally just pouring off their face,
and they stayed up on the fence.
And then the police said they'd shut down the concert.
And this was after Rage Against the Machine played.
A band called Loz and Motley was playing.
They shut down the concert, and they said,
you have 15 minutes to leave.
And me and my friends waited around for about 10 minutes or so,
and we didn't particularly want to get arrested then.
And we started leaving.
There was two exits.
And the police obviously did it on purpose to have the two exits
because it's perfect for them to corral everyone in this huge square.
And if they want to shut it down,
all they have to do is form, like, two police barricades,
and, I mean, everybody, there's really nowhere to go.
On one of the exits that we actually exited through,
it's almost like a long hallway about 15 feet across
because there's a fence on one side and buildings on the other.
And once the 15 minutes were up,
I guess they started coming in on horseback and bikes and stuff,
and they were firing rubber bullets.
I heard some concussion grenades go off earlier,
and pretty much the exit that we were at,
everybody just started running, like, full speed.
And if you didn't run with them, you'd probably get trampled.
And, I mean, just the way it was set up,
there was really not very many places for people to go.
How many people were there altogether?
I'm not sure.
The Indian media, they said around between 3,000 and 1,000, I think,
but I'm not positive.
Mm-hmm.
Well, it sounds like a recipe for disaster,
pushing people through two exits and firing things at them as they are retreating,
which is what I've heard as well.
Yeah.
Anything else that has not been reported?
The Indian media site has a breaking news thing,
and it's updated, seems like, every half hour or so.
Mm-hmm.
But I'm not at the protest right now.
I've talked to some people,
and tomorrow is the protest against police brutality.
So I don't know what's going to happen then.
I don't know if the police are going to start shutting down areas or what,
but I don't know how bad it's going to get.
I assume you heard what happened with free speech TV, right?
About the broadcast?
Yeah, the broadcast being canceled or having the plug pulled on it?
Yeah.
Actually, when my friends were marching,
somebody said,
should we go down there and see what's happening so they can get satellite feed up?
Mm-hmm.
But there was only like 100 people or so.
Yeah.
It's amazing.
You know, when I was in Philadelphia outside the IMC there,
it was just amazing watching what the police were doing to the media people.
And I don't mean the mainstream media,
because they're obviously in a totally different place.
They're protected.
They might as well be convention delegates.
I'm talking about independent people walking around tape recorders,
talking to the average Joe on the street.
They would surround the building with either bicycles just on foot or with horses.
People would be going in there to try and find violations of various sorts.
They'd be asking for all kinds of permits.
On the day of the actual convention,
to all of a sudden throw all this at somebody seems a bit unreasonable,
basically harassing them in every way possible.
And it's the media.
It's the real media if you want to get technical about it.
And it looks like they're doing the same thing over there.
I mean, the whole thing with free speech TV seemed like a calculated plot to shut down the broadcast.
I think some group of protesters actually filed a lawsuit against the city.
I don't have all my facts on this,
but they actually got some sort of thing like an injunction to prevent zoning enforcement
to be done on these protester headquarter locations sort of things.
So there was some victory I read about.
So police weren't allowed to, or like zoning people,
weren't allowed to do this enforcement stuff on this week.
If you want to hear the whole story, listen to the rebroadcast of the evening news.
It'll be on at 11 o'clock on WBAI.
Yeah, I guess a lot of people protesting,
the centers where they meet were lit up by police helicopters a lot in the weeks before it.
And I thought I read something about them trying to get a restraining order of some sort,
but that was just something I found on a website somewhere.
All right, well, listen, good luck out there.
Stay safe and keep us updated.
The good thing about Indy Media Center is people can file stories.
Anyone can file a story.
I filed one last week about Terrence,
and it's a really good way to get some firsthand information, pictures, audio.
What happened?
Do you have something to say?
Yeah, quick question.
Okay.
What are you protesting again?
Other than police brutality.
I wasn't really there protesting anything.
I wanted to be there in case police did get out of hand.
If somebody got hurt or needed to be guided off, like I could help somebody.
A lot of people are there, are protesting for Mumia Abu-Jamal to get a new case.
In Los Angeles?
Yeah.
Okay.
And I saw some pro-choice people there.
There's a lot of anarchists, communists, all kinds of people there.
You know, an amazing thing, though.
I've been talking about this with a lot of people from all different walks of life,
and the question that keeps coming up, and this is not the BAI audience.
This is, you know, mainstream people.
Why bother protesting?
That's the question I always get is why bother protesting?
And when you get to that stage in life where you have to ask why bother protesting,
I mean, how do you get through the day?
How do you live to see another sunset when there's like nothing to fight for
or demonstrate against or, you know, express an opinion on?
I mean, really, are you just going to sit back in your house
and watch who wants to be a millionaire five nights a week
and be happy and convince yourself that this is life?
Well, in mainstream defense, one would tend to think that you should have a concise point
that you're trying to make in a protest.
Yeah, and a lot of people do.
Not everybody does.
Not just to kind of be there and pass it to the police.
Well, there are people that are just, you know, passersby
or people that just want to be protesters,
but there are a lot of people there that have some real issues that they are expressing.
You never see that.
In Philadelphia, you did not hear anything about what the people were protesting.
You just heard they were blocking traffic.
Well, why were they blocking traffic?
They never asked the question.
Had you talked to the people there, you would have gotten some pretty interesting viewpoints
and some very, you know, very dedicated people.
Very well.
Yeah, I was actually approached by someone from, I think, CBS or NBC radio.
I don't remember.
And it was for an interview for the radio, and I mentioned the MPAA case.
It was kind of on the spot, so it may be like a little, I don't know, weird.
I think Jack Valente is there, actually.
I think he's at the Democratic Convention.
Yeah, he's one of the big Democrats.
You know, I remember he was Lyndon Johnson's right-hand man for a while.
So, yeah, keep an eye out for him.
Hand out some, you know, Stop the MPAA stickers or Jack Valente shirts or whatever.
And a note on the Secret Service.
I guess a couple friends of mine knew a person in the anarchist black bloc that was, I believe,
was on Santa Monica Pier where the delegates had a party.
And they actually got within ten feet of the president, and they made eye contact.
So the Secret Service wasn't doing their job very well.
What, you're not supposed to be able to make eye contact with the president?
Well, I don't think you're supposed to get that close.
Ah.
You might be able to, I don't know.
Were they wearing their masks?
I don't know.
I would have liked to have seen Clinton's eyes when he looked into somebody's eyes with a mask on,
staring them down.
That would have been kind of cool.
Very amusing sight.
If you wore a blue dress around your head, it might have got his attention.
Oh.
All right, we're going to move on.
Thanks for the call.
Good luck out there.
All right.
Two-point comment from Bernie.
Yeah.
All right.
Let's take another phone call.
212-209-2900.
Good evening.
You're on the air.
Speak up, please.
Emmanuel, Alex here.
How you doing?
How's it going?
Speaking of the restraining orders.
What are you speaking through?
I'm actually on a Verizon pay phone.
I pulled over on the side of the road.
It literally sounds like you're speaking through a tin can.
Really?
It really does, yeah.
I very well could be.
All right.
Well, let's hear what you have to say.
Well, speaking of temporary restraining orders, I don't know if you know or not,
but there's one issued yesterday against the Verizon workers.
Against the Verizon workers?
Yeah.
Only in New York.
Verizon went to the Supreme Court of New York,
got an injunction issued against the striking workers,
telling them that they cannot protest in front of any facilities
and block the entrance.
They have to have a 10-foot hole in between them at all times
so that cars can pass in and out.
They're not allowed to yell things at people, although they can still yell.
Hello?
He has to deposit another quarter.
I think Verizon just cut him off.
No, I think he's still there.
I think they're just asking for money.
Thank you.
You have 15 cents credit toward overtime.
I wanted like a quarter.
Yeah.
That was a quarter.
All right.
Hello again.
Hello.
How's it going?
Now, you're saying that they're not allowed to chant, to say stuff?
I don't think they're allowed to say a lot of what they're usually allowed to say.
The wording on the restraining order, as expected, is very vague.
You can view it, the whole restraining order, if you go to www.CWA1108.org
or if you go to my site, VerizonEatsPoop.com, we have a link to the CWA.
And I'm sure Verizon really sucks points to it somehow, too,
since we're pointing to the union people.
So that's pretty sobering news that they would actually restrict their speech like that.
I mean, yeah, blocking doors, blocking cars, that's generally frowned upon.
This is what you're supposed to do, though.
When you're striking, you walk in front of the place, you walk back and forth,
and you can say things to the scabs that are taking your jobs and preventing you from controlling.
Well, that's what a strike is.
That's how strikes generally work.
But, you know, I don't think anybody is advocating violence or blocking doors
or, you know, pounding on cars and rocking them to and fro.
I don't think anyone's supporting that kind of a thing.
But marching up and down, chanting, that's what a strike is.
And to say that you can't do that is unbelievable to me.
One of the things that you don't hear about on the TV,
all you hear about is maybe sabotage by Verizon striking workers or something.
But one of the things I heard about when I talked to the 1104, which is Nassau County,
was a couple of what they think is management people over at Verizon Wireless passed by a picket line.
I think it was Monday morning in a van.
They opened up the side door of the van and started spraying down the workers, the strikers, with fire extinguishers.
And then when they took off in the van, everybody was very mad at them, and rightly so.
They hit somebody.
They hit one of the striking workers, and he had to be rushed to the hospital.
This happened where?
On Post Avenue in Westbury, I think, on Monday.
If you go to VerizonEatsPoop.com, I have it.
Uh-oh. You have to deposit another quarter.
Five cents, please.
Five cents.
Twenty cents credit towards it.
It seems to me they could do that a lot quicker.
Yeah.
How long it takes for it to realize you put a quarter in.
Now, wait a minute.
Now, it should be on all the major news sites as well as just your site.
Well, that's it.
That's it.
And it was on, they have a tape, actually, that you can call up, the unions,
and they give information about the negotiations for the day.
I believe they had it on the tape.
You can get those numbers off the website as well.
Okay.
Well, we'll look into that story, but that's pretty shocking.
It is.
Anything else to tell us?
I was listening to Democracy Now! this morning on my way out to Southampton.
I heard some sound bites from what the guy who just called up before was describing,
police shooting rubber bullets at the people at the Rage Against the Machine concert,
and it was really upsetting, really upsetting.
I'm listening to it, and you would hear these people screaming,
no, don't shoot, don't shoot, and then you would hear these loud guns just continually shooting.
It was really frightening.
Yeah.
Really frightening.
You know, if you got free speech TV, you could see Democracy Now!
because they air that on a daily basis.
They're doing some good work.
Yeah.
I'd like to see some video images of just what's going on out there
because you sure won't see that on commercial TV.
C-SPAN is the closest thing you can get to it,
but they've got a pretty full schedule right now with all kinds of things going on inside.
Absolutely.
All right.
All right.
Thanks for the update.
Good night, guys.
Good night, Isaac, Bernie.
Talk to you guys later.
All right.
Okay.
Thanks for calling.
212-209-2900.
Good evening.
You're on the air.
Hey, Emanuel.
It's Shana.
How are you?
How are you doing?
Good.
Hi, Isaac.
Hello.
So let me think.
Here's my laundry list of things.
Now, firstly, Democratic Convention.
Bill Clinton, rumor has it he may be the MPA president in 2000 or 2001.
Yeah, that's actually been a rumor that's been going around for at least a year.
Right.
Yeah.
Well, he's got to do something.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's been around for a while.
At some point, Jack Valente's going to have the talk with him, the talk where he talks
about me and what a threat I am to Western civilization.
No, he doesn't even know who you are.
You make t-shirts with his picture on them.
Right.
He doesn't know who I am.
Maybe we could make, like, Big Stop, the MPA blue dresses or something.
All right.
Enough with the blue dress jokes.
Sorry.
Okay.
Well, we're not going to talk about the stain.
That's over the top.
Anyway.
Okay.
All right.
All right.
Whatever.
All right.
The Puerto Rican Studies and Latino Studies Department of CUNY, Brooklyn College, and
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