January 19th at midnight, Rock On Volume 3 presents Artist Update, only on WBAI in New York, 99.5 on your FM dial.
It's actually 99.5 on everyone's FM dial, and right now on everyone's clock it reads 8 o'clock, that means time for Off The Hook.
That's not going to happen here. People want to talk about something, our microphones are open, our phones are open, and we'll be talking about all kinds of things during this hour, so 212-209-2900 is our phone number, and it will always be open to our listeners.
We have a lot of information to give you this hour, so we're going to get started.
Off The Hook
Sometimes you read the newspaper and you just get really terrified because you realize all the things that law enforcement is doing to protect you, but you had no idea of the danger, and this is a good example of that.
A group of teen and young adult computer hackers allegedly planned an international conspiracy in which they hoped to take down the Internet, Isaac.
Yes, I had the same story here.
And why did you have the same story? You never have any stories.
I thought it was interesting.
And suddenly you had that story.
I had that story.
Yeah.
I figured I'd bring a few things up.
What do you know about this case, Isaac?
It's fairly amusing. Prior to the new year, the NIPC, the National Infrastructure Protection Center...
There's a bunch of federal agents out in the lobby, you know. Are you sure you want to be talking about this?
Oh, come on. The NIPC guys...
All right. I just happen to know a little too much about this case.
Under the direction of...
Stick around, Mike. You might need to make an arrest.
I'll be brought out of here in cuffs for some reason tonight, yeah.
Yeah. Come on.
Under the direction of Mike Vatis, issued a warning about computer zombies over the new year.
And they weren't talking about us.
They were not talking about us.
They were worried about all these distributed denial of service clients that could be running over the weekend while everyone was out on holiday.
So now, all of a sudden, they happen upon this Dalnet problem.
These kids are running around, and they were sitting on an IRC channel, as far as I know.
And they just said, you know what would be cool? Let's take down Dalnet.
Yeah, but when did this happen?
Fairly recently.
No, it happened in October.
It happened in October?
They were contacted by Dalnet.
Last October, told that several young people, I don't know how they knew they were young, using their chat rooms had disabled some of their computer systems and were discussing cyber-terrorism online.
On Dalnet?
Oh, my God, yeah. They were discussing it online.
Well, similar problems have been happening to undernetters.
Yeah.
And a couple of others.
Yeah. And, you know, these kinds of things can happen all the time on the net.
That's the nature of the net.
Anyway, a 16-year-old Linwood, Washington resident under investigation had boasted on a personal website that a plot to sabotage communications hardware on the web would take down the internet on New Year's Eve 2001.
Now, you morons, what we just went through was New Year's Eve 2000.
New Year's Day 2001.
You know how it works?
It's one year, one day, one year, the next day.
All right?
So, you know, the threat isn't for another like 300 days.
You caught that one?
Yeah, I caught that one.
Not bad.
Anyway, the teenager later told the Los Angeles Times in an interview published in Friday's edition that the case is overblown and based on his misguided efforts to impress his friends in cyberspace.
I can't believe we're talking like this, even.
FBI agents took the boy's online message seriously.
They searched his mother's house December 22nd, seized computer equipment used from California, Michigan, and Israel.
We're also found to have discussed cyberterrorism in some chat rooms.
That's a crime not to discuss it.
I wonder if it's discussing it on a 50,000-watt radio station.
That must really be a crime.
They are suspected of trying to inject a malicious computer code into the web servers that form the communications backbone of the Internet.
The web servers?
Did you know that web servers form the Internet communication backbone of the Internet?
Okay, sure.
I love just watching law enforcement people like explain things.
It's really kind of cool.
I shouldn't say that with the law enforcement guys still in the studio.
No, I mean people that profess to explain things they know nothing about, meaning computers and technology.
Anyway, that would have allowed them to shut down some chat rooms and other realms of the Internet
and possibly gain access to some people's personal computers, according to the FBI agent.
There is an ability with the proper program to take over another person's private computer and make that a robot where you can operate it remotely.
Beware the zombies.
The computer actually lifts up off the desk and starts walking around town causing mayhem.
It takes 50 bucks from your wallet.
A lot of identity theft occurs as a result of hackers going into private computers, taking the information there and doing with it what they will.
That's Matt McLaughlin saying this stuff at the L.A. field office, no?
How would you know that?
Yeah, I guess you probably memorized the story.
I did memorize the story, but he's like turning into a big ZDNet contact.
This guy is a rising star in the media circus.
We all know what that means.
For NIPC.
FBI agents said it is difficult to know whether the teens were exaggerating because agents thwarted the alleged attacks.
There's no way to know if they were telling the truth. Isn't that lovely?
Okay, here's another pearl here for the new year.
This guy had the call sign N7QVC.
You hear about this?
This ham radio guy in Oregon.
It's an amateur call sign.
Yeah, it's an amateur radio call sign.
He was shocked this week to receive a sharply worded email from an attorney representing the QVC cable TV sales folks,
accusing him of infringing on the QVC mark.
Oh, jeez.
The message was clear.
Peterson would have to give up his N7QVC.com web domain or risk a huge lawsuit.
Your unauthorized use of N7QVC.com is an infringement of the QVC marks,
wrote attorney Stanley C. Massel III.
These guys are out of their minds.
That is, your use of N7QVC.com is likely to cause the public to believe that you are sponsored or approved in some way by our client.
In addition, your use of N7QVC.com constitutes false advertising
because it misrepresents the nature, characteristics, qualities, and origin of your commercial activities.
The situation was complicated by the fact that someone hacked Peterson's web domain
and diverted it to a site containing questionable material.
I'm not quite sure what that means.
Peterson responded promptly, explaining that his callsign-related domain name was purely noncommercial and had nothing to do with QVC.
Attorney Massel quickly backtracked, although not without including some words to save his dignity, I guess.
While we find nothing objectionable about the manner of use of the QVC mark in your domain name,
nevertheless, as the owner of a highly distinctive radio callsign and domain name yourself,
I am sure you can understand the care with which we monitor QVC's brand identity
in order to resolve this matter relying upon your representation that your use of the letters QVC in your domain name
are used only for your personal use and not for commercial activities
that would create the impression that you are affiliated with or connected with QVC, Inc.
In any way, we will take no further action.
Isn't that nice of him?
It's a big way of saying, oops.
What would have gotten very much more amusing was to say, you know, the FCC issued me those letters.
That's right. He didn't even choose those letters.
He didn't choose them. They were given to him.
Got by random.
Unless he requested them.
Well, fortunately, he went to somebody with enough guts to stand up to them.
And the ham community stood up for him, too.
You couldn't bow down to that, though. What are you going to do?
Tell the FCC, oh, listen, I've got to change my name.
Well, it wasn't the call letters they were objecting to.
It was the domain name.
Oh, the domain name.
Yeah, .com, because that's what confused them.
They probably did some sort of a search for anything having QVC in it.
That's ridiculous.
I think the strangest part of all this is that QVC sent a letter saying something about quality.
This is the Shop at Home channel.
Yes, I know.
Oh, come on. For four easy payments of $29.95, you, too, can have your own amateur radio license.
Yeah, I'm sure you can.
What else here?
Okay, this is interesting. This is reassuring.
I'm sure we'll all be comforted by this bit of news that we got off the wire, off the Associated Press.
Police can more easily monitor criminals after a federal appeals court on Thursday
lifted restrictions imposed on the Chicago force two decades ago
to stop mistreatment of communists and other suspected subversives.
Among the changes under the ruling, police will be allowed to investigate people photographed near crime scenes,
keep records of suspects' gang affiliations, and keep files on known associates of organized crime figures.
The city's Red Squad, established in the 1920s, was designed to keep tabs on radical groups
then viewed as enemies of the state.
But over 50 years, it also began keeping files on critics of City Hall.
Here's the reassuring part.
The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling said the restrictions should be lifted
because police were no longer interested in harassing people who had unpopular views.
Well, that's nice.
That's great news. I had no idea the police had reached that stage
where they're no longer interested in harassing people with unpopular views.
I think we should celebrate.
Can I take a copy of that article with me to D.C. this weekend?
Yeah, why don't you celebrate in Washington, D.C. on Saturday, in fact?
Bring a bunch of people with you, and I'm sure you'll be met with open arms, with batons attached to them.
Well, on the other hand, what would prevent these people from actually maintaining those kinds of records of associations?
Well, I imagine this wouldn't...
Not interfering with anyone's...
It probably wouldn't be legal, but the fact that they would actually come out and say something like this,
well, you know, they're not interested in this anymore.
I mean, it's the height of naivety, I think.
I've got an idea here.
Yes, Alex?
I think we should keep files on who the police associate with.
You know, I'd love to do that.
I don't think there's anything preventing you from doing that.
Well, I think maybe I should devote my life to that.
Then go ahead.
I mean, just have a list of all the cops in the precinct.
All the cops, and their friends, and, you know, where they go.
That'd be kind of cool.
You know, I always wanted to have a database of all the prisons.
Like, where they are, pictures of them, you know, exactly what kinds of people are locked up in them,
and, you know, just have an idea of where the prisons are, how many of them there are,
the secret ones that they don't want you to know about.
You know, these are things that no one has.
The Freedom of Information Act will be your friend in that quest.
Trusting the people that you don't trust to give you the information through the Freedom of Information Act.
That's one thing I can never understand.
If, like, we went to the Canadian government or something and had them go get the information,
then I might believe that they're actually trying to do it.
But since you're going to the people that are going to hold it back from you in the first place,
I just don't have any faith in it.
Well, you could sue them if you know that they're withholding something,
which winds up being very embarrassing for the organization.
Yeah, but who is it that decides the case?
A crusty old judge appointed by somebody, you know, in the federal courts.
He goes into the federal courts, yes.
You never win.
You win more than you think.
I don't know. Maybe you do.
Here's another interesting story, which actually was a couple of weeks old.
You've probably heard about this.
Intel and IBM have invented and are pushing a change to the standard spec for PC hard drives
that would make each one enforce copy protection on the data stored on the hard drive.
You wouldn't be able to copy data from your own hard drive to another drive or back it up
without permission from some third party.
Every drive would have a unique ID and unique keys and would encrypt the data it stores,
not to protect you, the drive's owner, but to protect unnamed third parties against you.
And the same guy who leads the DVD Copy Control Association
is heading the organization that licenses this new technology, John Hoy.
Wonderful gentleman.
Well, the thing with that is it's an extension to some of the ATA standards,
so that if you're not using those particular extensions,
this stuff never gets turned on in the first place.
So I'm somewhat wary of the entire thing happening,
but I'm not seeing it as a big problem to those who don't use it.
I'm not seeing it as a problem to get around,
but it's something that's just another pain in the ass that you've got to deal with.
Potential.
I was playing with a DVD player on one of those new MacCubes over the weekend.
They were really cool machines.
You're not supposed to play with DVDs.
Yeah, well, that's just it.
Remember, you weren't here last week,
but I was talking about the edition of Eyes Wide Shut that I had, the European edition,
where basically it's a totally different film,
where all the cut scenes are here, you know, restored,
and no American can see it because…
It's Tom Cruise and…
Yeah, yeah, they cut things from that.
They cut lots of things from that.
But I plugged it into this Macintosh, and it played instantly, beautifully.
And I was like, wow, I have a region-free DVD player in this thing.
But then I put in the American one, and it said,
hey, you know, you set this thing up to be region two,
and now you want to play region one.
I can do it for you, but I can only do that, you know, three more times,
and then you're stuck.
And we had a bunch of people going through this,
and unfortunately it's a hardware thing.
You can't get around it.
Well, that was Apple's solution to, you know, shipping things around everywhere.
Yeah.
If I wanted to watch, you know, if I wanted to watch different films,
I'd have to buy seven different Macintoshes,
or just keep putting DVD drives in them.
Well, seven different drives, or players.
Yeah, well, you can only fit one drive in those things.
Maybe they should offer a package deal, you know, buy seven players for the price of four.
Well, the idea is they don't want you to be able to look at these things.
They really think it's harmful to the industry for you to look at foreign films
or see something that was meant for another country, and it's sick.
It really is.
Well, I honestly think it's a bad business decision on their part.
Yeah, it is.
They would open their eyes.
We don't feel it as much here because we have so much coming at us anyway,
but you feel in other countries where most of the releases come from here,
and we do feel here there's things we don't know about,
things from foreign countries that we just don't know we're missing.
Okay, moving on.
This is a very interesting story.
I'm not sure if you've seen a reference to this,
but there's this kid up in New Hampshire
who's facing quite a bit of turmoil from his local police department.
I'll read you the Associated Press story first just to give you some balance here.
Salem police have arrested a teen they say created several obscene websites
to mock the Salem Police Department.
It's the Salem Witch Hunts Part 2.
Well, that's generally not a good idea, and I don't think these guys deserve that.
It's not a good idea to mock police, but it is something that you are allowed to do.
Yes.
Period.
I don't see any problem with it at all.
If they deserve it, otherwise it's a poor case.
I think New York City police look very silly driving around with those blue cars.
There, I've said it.
They don't drive blue cars anymore.
Well, the ones that do.
The ones that drive the white cars, okay, they're macho men, but the other ones,
whoa, there'll be a bunch of them waiting outside, just watch.
There might be quite a few.
Maybe they'll be invited in too, I don't know.
But in any event, the point is, this is something that's known as speech.
This guy is, let's call him Christopher.
I don't want to give out all his information.
Christopher was arrested Thursday night after a month-long investigation.
He's charged with misuse of computer system information, a felony,
misuse of computer system information.
In his house, police say they found seven computers and how-to books on computer hacking.
One of the obscene websites took information from the Salem Police Benevolent Association site
and parodied it by changing words and downloading pictures from the site.
A second site mentioned the department and had random pornographic pictures attached to it.
Big deal, you know.
Why did the kid do that in the first place?
Well, it had something to do with, I don't know the specifics,
but it had something to do with some bad experience he had with them.
I don't think that's really relevant.
I think it is.
No, if he never had any running at all with the police, he still is allowed to make fun.
In fact, I think everybody in the country should make fun of the Salem Police Department.
Now, people you've never met, a place you're probably never going to go to,
you have the right to do this.
Pick a police department and make fun of them.
Well, there are certain bounds.
They're ripe for the picking.
There are definitely bounds of good taste.
But you don't put somebody in jail for bad taste.
You just don't do that.
Well, there are legal bounds beyond that for libel and so forth.
We continue with another story from the Eagle Tribune.
Captain Alan Gould said police obtained search and arrest warrants
and went to this guy's house, I believe it was about a week and a half ago.
Captain Gould said they found seven computers all networked together,
two laptops, a palm pilot, several hard drives,
a large quantity of CDs and a lot of literature
and how-to books on computer hacking.
He said an article from the December 6th Eagle Tribune
describing the parody website search was on top of one of the computers.
It's a fairly new type of crime, Captain Gould said.
We haven't quite figured out what it is yet.
He said Officer Ronald Peddle, who knows a lot about computers,
actually says that here, was assigned the case.
He investigated with detectives to identify the hacker.
How the guy became a hacker, I don't know.
I don't know what the hacking part of this is.
The big problem was that you could very well...
Listen to this guy.
The big problem we saw was that you could very well get onto this website,
put in Salem, New Hampshire police and read the obscenities and profanity.
Yeah, but you had to get to the website first to do this.
Oh, no.
He said all of his material was collected
and will be checked by the state police lab in Concord
and the FBI lab is now a federal issue.
Checked for what, exactly?
Now, we also got mail from various people that know the person
and they have these corrections to make.
No charges of obscenity were actually made.
That was an inaccuracy of the press.
Obscenity is not an issue
and they're trying to make this guy out to be a despicable character.
By killing his character in the press with irrelevant information and terminology,
the unwashed masses don't wholly understand.
They hope to get an easy revenge prosecution.
Local police did not like being made fun of.
Remember Bernie S.
Remember what happened when he did something that the Secret Service didn't like.
Well, local police are the same way.
When you make fun of them, they have a lot of power.
It's a scary thing.
Power is a scary thing.
I think the police department overstepped a few bounds with this one.
But in general, I mean, why are you bothering these guys?
They don't get the greatest pay.
They're putting their lives on the line every day.
Leave them alone.
All right, but that's a topic for morality class.
That's something that has nothing to do with legal issues.
You want to tell people to be good citizens, that's fine.
But it's got nothing to do with legal discussion either.
You're running around talking about how guys in blue NYPD cars aren't macho and the rest of it.
That really bothers you, doesn't it?
It bugs me because these men put their lives on the line every day.
They're out there dealing with the stuff that you're protecting you.
Hold on a second.
They're more well-armed.
Hold on a second.
They're more well-armed than anybody else in the street.
They've got a better chance of surviving any kind of ambush than any of us have.
So don't give me this that they're putting their lives on the line every day.
Careful, because you might bring me into the gun control debate.
Lots of citizens have put their lives on the line every day against police.
I respect people for doing their job, but let's not make these into superheroes here.
What is the name of the detective who knows a lot about computers?
The guy who knows a lot about computers.
Hold on, I'll put that part over here.
I think it was Officer Piddles.
Peddle.
Peddle.
I want him on the show next week.
Ronald Peddle.
Okay, well, you can go up there and bring him back.
Anyway, approximately 2 p.m. on January 11, 2000, police and FBI assistants entered this kid's house,
proceeded to search the house unannounced to him who was sleeping.
Did they have a warrant?
They allegedly refused to present the search warrant until after the search had taken place.
Oh, that's a legal issue.
And the time he was arrested and brought into a cruiser.
He came to the local jail until 8 p.m. that night when he was released on $5,000 personal reconnaissance bond.
Here's what they seized.
Seven computers, including his parents' home computer, which is on the main floor.
Two Coding is Not a Crime bumper stickers.
One Stop the MPAA sticker.
I wonder where that came from.
One Palm Pilot.
One Uniden Bearcat scanner.
One Magellan GPS 315 receiver.
One roll of exposed film.
Two green vinyl photo wallets.
One virtual private network poster.
One yellow folder containing various papers from desk.
One handwritten paper with code numbers.
And a few books, the titles like Unix Underground Guide, Maximum Linux Security,
Hacker's Guide to Maximum Security, and various things like that.
He's going to be arraigned on April 4, 2000.
I imagine the trauma will last a lot longer than that.
Something will be following over the weeks and months ahead.
This kind of thing, you have to pay close attention when this happens.
Based on that, I think the PD seriously went over the line.
I'd say that's a mild way of putting it.
But I think he crossed a different line as well.
Yeah, he crossed a different line, but it's got nothing to do with what they did to him.
It's got nothing to do with that.
I'll think about that a little.
All right, you think about that.
Let's look at some listener feedback.
Dear Off the Hook, love the show.
You played it last week.
Did I miss that?
Yeah, that was great.
It was something from the 70s.
Look it up on some online CD-purchasing thing.
I think that's the only place you'll find it, and you'll see the theme.
It's really kind of cool, and I'm surprised nobody else has remembered that.
I've been showing my age, but that was a hit back when I was a kid.
Okay, thanks for mentioning the CodeFreeDVD.com site on your show.
I was looking closer at the site and found a page, www.codefreedvd.com
slash dvd underscore dvdrom dot htm.
At the bottom, they have a utility you can download called tpzone.exe,
which allows you to change the region code on your IBM ThinkPad 7700 laptop.
It was created by some guy in Norway.
Not the same guy in Norway.
People are figuring things out, and more power to them.
But here's something that's kind of weird.
This guy here sent us mail.
He got mail from eBay.
We regret to inform you that your auction of an Apex Digital AD600A DVD player
has been ended at the request of Macrovision Corporation,
a member of eBay's Verified Rights Owner Program,
because they filed a sworn statement that it offers a product or contains material
which violates their copyright, trademark, or other rights.
That's right.
eBay won't even allow you to sell a DVD player that can be region-free.
Is that amazing?
Wow.
Yeah.
Nazi paraphernalia, that's okay.
But a DVD player that you can watch something from overseas on?
Well, they will let you do it.
They'll let you sell?
I believe so.
Maybe it's Yahoo, I don't know.
But the point is, they have all kinds of controversial things on there.
This is a piece of technology.
This is a piece of technology that allows you to view something that you've bought,
that you've bought yourself.
And they're saying, no, because these guys say that it's infringing on their rights,
well, we can't let you do that.
How about we say that they're infringing on our rights
and just ban the sale of DVDs altogether?
How fair would that be?
They've got other alternatives to eBay.
I mean, you can find other means to sell.
eBay tends to be the biggest one,
and that's one that you have to listen to when they say something like this.
Alex, you forwarded me this page last week.
This is the one on sexual offenders.
I'm not quite sure why you forwarded it to me, but it was a very interesting page.
Yes, it was.
And I read the FAQ.
It's basically one of these sites where you can click on it to find out
who all the sexual predators are in your neighborhood.
Their address, phone number, favorite color, whatever.
Whatever it is you need to know about them.
It gives their license plate number, the make and model of their car,
just about anything you really want to know.
Again, I was heartened by looking at the website,
much in the same way I was heartened by looking at the new powers that Chicago police have.
And basically one of the questions was,
what limits are imposed on a person who obtains information
about an offender from the sex offender registry?
Well, they presume that information from the registry
will be used responsibly to promote public safety.
The information may not be used to commit a crime against a person listed in the registry.
Yeah, I read that.
Okay, that makes it all...
I mean, that straightens it all out.
I think in general you shouldn't be committing a crime.
But this information may not be used to commit a crime.
I mean...
It's illegal to commit that crime.
That's right.
All you have to do is explain things to people in a straightforward manner
and you can rest much easier, you know?
Just lay it all out.
Alright.
Thank God.
Yeah.
Okay.
Now we move on to the fun stuff.
I'm sure that's what all the phones are ringing about.
Namely the...
Listener mail as well.
You've got a pile of paper there.
Yeah, we have so much.
We need more time.
We just do.
As you know, turmoil still rages here at the radio station.
And...
We are here to provide a voice for people that have things to say
or announcements to make.
So if you are calling in, I ask that we allow new callers to get in
to have their say, to say whatever is on their mind.
And I'd rather not have any lengthy sermons or speeches or things like that.
If you have an important announcement, that's fine.
But we're going to announce a bunch of things here.
So I think if we miss something, then give us a call.
I'd like to read this letter, first of all, that we just got today.
Dear OffTheHook, thank you.
He says thank you many times, actually.
I'm going to read it once.
You do an excellent job.
You do week in and week out, keeping us informed about the currents
that ebb and flow through our media universe,
not least of all the way you have thoughtfully but passionately
described the recent goings on in our little corner of it, WBAI.
The Daily News' WBAI piece you read this week was certainly apt and positive
in saying that the people, the listeners who have paid for the station
time and time again should have some say in what happens to it.
But unfortunately, it contributes to some very faulty
and very common thinking about audience.
When ratings and marketing types say WBAI has no audience
or no audience to speak of, what they really mean is that according
to the way success is measured through Arbitron ratings, WBAI is irrelevant.
But the Arbitron's part voodoo, part quadratic equation
are only predictors of commercial viability.
Success in the ARBs means holding, as if holding hostage,
a high percentage of a particular demographic group
for a sustained period of time.
And the richer that demographic, the happier the station management.
But this is, or at least should be, completely irrelevant
to a non-commercial station like WBAI.
Public broadcasters around the world use vastly different methods
for understanding and appreciating their audiences.
The REACH model of audience analysis determines success
by how many different people from different constituencies
tune into your station during the course of a week,
even if it's only for a short period of time.
In this way, REACH works with public broadcasting's mission
of providing alternatives and accessing people across society
while it respects listeners as being able to choose
what they do and don't want to listen to.
Another method is listener commitment.
WBAI has an incredibly high percentage of listeners
that actually contribute to it during fun drives,
much more than double that of WNYC.
I didn't know that. That's pretty good.
But no one's talking about reinventing them.
Simply put, Arbitron's share is only one way of thinking
about valuable radio in a way that is neither democratic.
Stations want the right listeners, not the most listeners,
nor necessarily in the public interest.
WBAI is, in many ways and for all its faults,
the most relevant radio station in New York City.
And that's signed from Professor Martin Spinelli of Brooklyn College.
Thank you very much for writing that letter.
I think you hit home a lot of points that need to be hit.
We have some very interesting developments here.
People were listening to the radio over the past couple of days.
If anything, this crisis is not dying down.
It's heating up as all kinds of controversies
and conflicts are spilling out over the airwaves.
Yesterday's morning show in particular was just unbelievable,
the things that went on as Amy Goodman pretty much...
We know Amy Goodman as a colleague here,
someone we've worked with in the past,
who more recently interviewed President Clinton
and reported from the WTO protest in Seattle
and got beaten up in Indonesia and various things like that,
things that any good reporter might expect to do in a career,
but Amy has done an incredible amount of really hard-hitting news.
To hear her being attacked like that on her own show,
a show that she's co-host on, by people that have been brought in,
I don't know why. I'm not sure what the rationale is.
It's frightening. It really is, to hear this kind of thing going on.
What makes it somehow a lot more comforting, though,
is when we go to the phones and the listeners are out there,
and the listeners get it, the listeners understand.
I have to apologize to the listeners
for the way they've been treated on some of these segments,
where they've been berated, mocked, made fun of,
all kinds of lousy things that they don't deserve.
But just to let you know, we are out here, we are in the radio station.
We do appreciate you, and we will be here for you,
and you have a voice at this radio station as long as we have a voice here.
The times I'm not listening to,
the times I'm not doing this radio show, I'm a listener.
And it's, I think, vitally important to always be listening to the station,
to hear the kinds of things that go on, to hear what other people are saying.
And I think, if anything, if there's anything positive to come out
of the whole crisis that's been going on over the past few weeks,
it's that we're paying a lot closer attention.
Where this is going to go, we don't know.
The fundraiser, which was supposed to have started yesterday,
at Martin Luther King Day, has not started.
I'm hearing vague reports that it's going to be starting in February.
Again, we don't know what's going to happen.
If things continue to deteriorate,
it's likely that listeners won't want to support the radio station.
I think that, honestly, would be a mistake,
because the radio station is the place where we can have this dialogue.
Now, if the dialogue goes away, and there's no dialogue at all,
then, yes, maybe it's not worth supporting.
If the dialogue is there, and if there's an opportunity to further this,
and keep the dialogue open,
then, yeah, it might not be exactly where you want it to be,
but you have to invest something to keep it going,
so that it might get there one day.
I have an important announcement concerning the listener lawsuit,
which is going on.
I'm going to read this, and we'll take some phone calls.
212-209-2900.
As we're sure you are aware, we are now at a critical juncture
in our determined effort to restore uncensored free speech
and community control to Pacifica radio stations nationwide.
The recent holiday massacre at WBAI,
with the summary dismissals of the station manager, program director,
and a union shop steward, and the banning of at least five other people
from the station, as well as Pacifica's continuing harassment
and attempted censorship of Democracy Now! underscores the urgency
of our legal work.
We must dismiss the illegitimately selected Pacifica National Board
and hold them accountable for the damage our beloved institution has suffered.
We're writing to you now to urge your financial support
for a key legal effort that must move forward immediately,
no matter how difficult we are to prevent further deterioration
in the already alarming condition of Pacifica.
In a few days' time, we plan to proceed with the local advisory board's
California Superior Court lawsuit against Pacifica,
seeking to undo the unilateral changes in the bylaws,
which allowed the board to become self-selecting
and self-perpetuating.
We have already begun taking deposition testimony
from former Executive Director Lynn Chadwick.
And I can tell you, depositions are a lot of fun.
In addition, we are demanding full and complete records
for the first time of Pacifica's revenue and expenditures.
But in order to conduct these depositions
and to get these important records,
we need your financial support immediately.
And I'm going to hand it over to you,
restaurant two,
Also, on the technology side, we mentioned a couple of weeks ago that the WBAI website,
which had a lot of information about what was going on here at the radio station, that's
suddenly been silenced.
It's suddenly been just turned off.
So all you see there right now is a link to the main Pacifica site, and I think a button
to listen live to WBAI, and just our call letters and big letters.
Not very informative, doesn't have a schedule, doesn't have a staff list, doesn't have really
anything on there, but you know, one thing that the people who did that forgot to do
was erase the files.
That's right.
They left the files right where they were or in a very predictable directory, and they
were all restored.
You could copy them all.
You can still do that to this day.
I'll bet if you can figure out where they are, just copy them off the site and restore
them.
There's a restored version of the WBAI.org website.
You can visit www.savedwbai.com.net.org, I think they're all taken, and on there you'll
see a link to the old wbai.org site as it existed at the end of December, and on there
you'll find all kinds of information.
You'll find all kinds of things about the radio station that are relevant, are very
relevant, including a call for volunteers.
That's right.
A call for listener volunteers currently not allowed in the station, and I hope that comes
to an end.
Here's the thing.
All right.
We have all kinds of different factions of people that are opposed to what's going on
here, and if you're on the mailing list, you'll get sick watching them go back and forth accusing
each other of being collaborators, and you know, where were you five years ago when we
were fighting this and that, and you know, how can you say that you want to bring the
old general manager back?
You know, it was worse then than under the new one.
That's not what any of this should be about.
What it's all about is process.
What it's all about is the radio station in general, accountability to the listeners,
and if you feel that there is a problem there, that's all you need to agree on.
That's all it needs to be about.
If you want the bans to be lifted, if you want people who have been banned from the
station to be allowed back in the station, not necessarily in the roles that they held
before, but just allowed in the building to do radio, which is why we're all here, then
you're part of it.
Then you agree.
If you want the security people not to be in the station, not to be deciding who comes
in and who does not come in, nice as they may be, it's got nothing to do with personalities.
We've existed for this many years without a security force.
We've been open to the community.
If you want it back the way it was, then you agree with us.
And it's as simple as that.
If you come to the rally tomorrow, you'll probably hear people say things that you might
not agree with.
People say that Mamiya should be free and you might think that he should be executed
tomorrow.
I don't know.
I don't know.
It's not the same issue.
It's a different issue.
You should come for one issue, which is the radio station.
Nothing else.
So in addition to the restoration of the website, there's another technological coup that took
place only last night.
And for that, we have to give credit to Mike from Columbia who just came down and figured
it all out.
Basically, starting at 3 a.m. this morning, we set up a script, set up a little cron job
on a couple of computer systems to record WBAI off the air, encode it into MP3 and store
it so that if ever anything were to happen over the air, such as what happened yesterday
morning, there will be a record of it.
You will hear exactly what happened over the air, whether it's at 4.18 in the morning or
12 o'clock noon, you will hear exactly what happened.
And what we're doing is, I believe Mike was what, storing it for about a week?
That's the plan.
The plan is to store it for about a week and if anything needs to be referenced, we have
access to it.
It's all automated and it's fairly simple.
You set this up in a couple of hours.
How does it work?
It just records it, I have a radio plugged into my computer and a little recording program.
Just a radio plugged into a computer, that's all it took.
All this time and nobody came up with this until now.
That's what I like about this community.
People come forward and they say, I can do this and here's how you do it.
And then we've accomplished a lot just by that one little tiny effort.
So that's kind of cool, that's kind of cool.
I actually, I listened to the morning show today just to hear what happened, what I missed
because I was sleeping and it was very interesting.
So when relevant things happen to what's going on in the radio station, they'll be posted
on various websites.
One website which I think everybody should visit is Radio for All.
That's R-A-D-I-O, the number four, A-L-L dot org.
On there you can find out all kinds of information, not only about Pacifica, but all kinds of
different radio throughout the world.
But in addition, you'll hear an amazing collection of archived material.
I listened last night to a WBAI takeover in 1977 where WBAI staffers went to the Empire
State Building and took over the transmitter room because WBAI management had ordered the
station turned off the air.
The staff members revolted and they went to the transmitter room and broadcast from there,
not knowing if they were even going out over the air.
It's really kind of interesting to hear.
Somebody captured it, somebody recorded it, put it up on MP3 format, and you can go to
that site and you can hear it.
Great collection of material up there and no doubt it will improve over the next few
weeks as we get all kinds of other bits of information and historic broadcast here at
WBAI.
Again, that site is Radio for All dot org.
Dot net.
Dot net.
Dot net as well.
Actually, dot net goes directly to, I think, the library of files.
That's where all their audio is.
Yeah, dot org has more material and dot org links to dot net.
But yeah, just explore around and you'll see that as well.
And finally, one other note.
Many of you know Mitch Cohen who is somebody that has been organizing all kinds of things.
I've known him since my days at Stony Brook for many, many years now.
And he is somebody that has popped into the Green Campaign and has popped into the Save WBAI
campaign and Mitch suffered a heart attack last week.
So our thoughts go out to him.
He is at St. Luke's Hospital and supposedly feeling better.
I hope that is true and our best wishes go out to Mitch for a speedy recovery.
And hopefully we'll see him again at a rally one day.
I don't think there's a single rally I've ever been to I didn't see Mitch somewhere.
I actually talked to him about a month ago through email.
If you order the Green Party Organizing Kit, he has an essay in there and it's all about
direct action.
And he talks about a lot of efforts in the late 70s that happened at the University at
Stony Brook.
Things that would never happen now and I emailed him and said I can't believe these things
actually happened at Stony Brook.
He was a really nice guy.
Oh, he is.
He's a great guy and he's a definite fixture at Stony Brook.
He was there for many years, in fact, as an undergraduate.
He was there by accident, I understand.
We usually do from Stony Brook.
Very upset by that.
Yeah.
Isaac, I want to ask you a question.
Shoot.
How do you feel about not being heard, you know, not having your voice listened to?
It's frustrating.
In general?
Yeah.
Well, just in general.
I'm thinking of the people out there who we really have to take calls from and I want
to do that very quickly.
Speaking of not being heard.
Yeah.
I don't want to illustrate that myself.
But those people who can't get through, who can't have their voices heard, don't you feel
how frustrating that would be?
That's very frustrating.
Now, I understand that you've been very disappointed with the last eight years with the Clinton
administration.
Yes, I have.
Yeah.
I can see you're red-faced with rage.
In fact, you've been that way for quite some time.
And the clock is ticking down.
This is the last week that Clinton will be in office.
I was wondering if, since this is the last week, if there's any kind of feedback you
might have for the president.
And here's the thing.
I'm not going to put you on the spot here.
I'm going to call in your feedback.
I'll put it under my name, in fact.
So tell me right now, just what would you like me, assuming we can get the presidential
feedback line.
Assuming we can get that on the air right now, what would you have me say to him?
So many things.
Just pick one.
Geez.
I can't.
You've really put me on the spot.
Just pick anything.
I mean, let's come up with a subject.
At every turn, he has been a disgrace to the office.
Okay, disgrace to the office.
Yeah, okay.
But you've got to be more specific than that.
How so?
Foreign policy?
Domestic policy?
Homosexual rights?
What?
Anything from moral ambiguity straight up to treason, if you ask me.
Treason.
Talk about ambiguity here.
Well, it depends what you mean by is.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Let's just get a little bit more focused here on what specifically.
We're getting Clinton on the line in a second.
We're going to have Bill on the line.
What do you want me to say?
I want you to say you could have done a better job at what?
At being a president in general.
Or something that's currently happening.
Something that's happening right now.
Who cares?
He's a little duck.
All right.
The Leonard Pelletier thing.
Okay.
Leonard Pelletier.
Should he give clemency to Leonard Pelletier?
No way in hell.
No way in hell.
Okay.
I'm going to call up right now as myself and pass that message on for you as a public service
because I believe that the people have a right to be heard.
All right?
Well, the feedback line, incidentally, is 202.
It just doesn't make a really high-pitched tone that's irritating.
Okay.
I don't know why I did that.
It's my feedback joke for the day.
202-456-1111 is the White House feedback line.
Okay.
Now we have to enter our magic code for long distance.
And here we go.
Thank you for calling the White House Comments Office.
The office will be closed during the transition to the new administration.
We appreciate your call and apologize for any inconvenience.
Thank you.
Well, that's not a beep.
That sounds like they hung up on you.
But I want to leave feedback.
You want to leave feedback?
All right.
I'm going to call the-
Put the mic up to the speaker.
Yeah.
Right.
Very funny.
The main number.
That shouldn't happen.
The feedback line.
How could a feedback line be closed?
All right.
Magic number.
We'll get to the bottom of this.
I'll pass you a message along.
I promise.
You have reached the White House.
If you would like to leave a message or comment, please press 1 now.
If you know your five-digit extension, please press 2.
Wait for the tone, then dial your extension.
If you need operator assistance, please press 3.
If you have any questions, please call the White House Comments Office.
Thank you.
mornings from 3 30 to 6 a.m. on WB feeling hello you're in the air
well there goes these car machines again you try to play something and nothing
happens and some people are saying I'm not gonna support the station anymore
right you don't support it it's not here blame no one but yourself
this is a theme music for cat radio cafe oh yeah an arts magazine live on
Wednesday nights at 10 I'm Janet Coleman the host and I'm David Dozer the
displaced playwright this program used to be called by another name now
introducing cut radio cafe cat radio cafe