In my opinion, the outgoing government has paid a lot of attention to big industries and banks.
There are no less than 12 million people out of a job, and I hope that he does something about this.
Alexandre Spatuza, Free Speech Radio News, Sao Paulo, Brazil.
Today's newscast was produced by Cutter Mesa at Pacifica Station, KPST in Houston.
I'm Dipal Fernandes.
And this is WBAI in New York.
The time is 7.01, and that means it's time for Off the Hook.
That means it's time for this button not to work. Hold on, let's find out what the problem is this week.
Ah, that's the right button.
OK. Same button I just pressed.
The telephone keeps ringing, so I ripped it off the wall.
I cut myself while shaving, now I can't make a call.
We couldn't get much worse, but if they could they would.
Bum diddly bum for the best, expect the worst.
I hope that's understood. Bum diddly bum!
This is ZQI.
Communication.
And a good evening to everybody. The program is Off the Hook. Emmanuel Goldstein here with you this Wednesday night, as we are, well, just about every Wednesday night, and I think this is the second week in a row we've been on.
Yeah, that's true.
We're going for the record here, and hopefully we'll make it every Wednesday night until the end of the year at least, and then see what happens after that.
Well, let's see. Who's not here tonight? Jim is not here. It's kind of ominous since he went for his MTA hearing last week. We wonder where he is. Maybe he's late. Maybe he got on the subway like I did tonight and almost didn't make it.
Mike's not here either, but we know that he didn't get on the subway train. He has other plans for tonight, things that are more important than being here.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah. But Jeff is here. Jeff, how are you?
Yes, yes. I made it despite the bus system from New Jersey.
Well, okay. We're going to compete in a second here between our bus versus subway stories, but also surprise guest is Claude. How are you doing? Do you know how that microphone works there?
Well...
You hold it in front of your face. Don't bat it around like a ping pong ball or whatever.
Quite. I had no particular problems on the subway. They actually are operating better than they did since that unfortunate incident at the World Trade Center.
Yeah. Well, you know, you can only use that as an excuse for so long and...
They're still tormenting you apparently.
Well, I mean, okay. I'll get into my story real quick because I don't want to spend very much time with it. But basically, I wish Jim was here to answer this question, but I cannot for the life of me understand why you're waiting for a train for like 20 minutes.
And, you know, there should be trains every five minutes, but you're waiting for 20 minutes and nothing comes. And every single other track has a train. Everyone's happy on all the other tracks, but your track has nothing.
And so finally, a train comes on your track and it skips the station. It just goes right past the station. It's not even filled with all that many people. It's got like, you know, a few people, but not that many.
And then 10 minutes later, a train that has everybody in the city on it shows up and they all look miserable and you can barely fit on the thing. And a lot of people opt not to fit on it and wait for the next one.
I'm sure the reason's got something to do with they're late and they're trying to catch up to their schedule. But, you know, what difference does it make if they're on time on the very last station where nobody is anyway?
Wouldn't it make more sense to serve the people at the stations they're passing rather than try and beat the clock? I think that enables them to say that they were on time, but when they really weren't on time.
You know, that's what I think was going on there. But eventually, eventually I managed to get on to, you know, you have to leave like a lot of time, a lot of time to get someplace. And I got to ride on a Redbird, so I'm happy about that.
So the story's not too bad. Now, what happened to you, Jeff? You came from New Jersey, right?
Right. I always come from New Jersey. I left 4.30, got on the, well, 4.35, 4.40 bus by that time. And normally what takes about 45 minutes to get in took tonight. I got into the city at 6.30.
Really? So what's going on out there?
Traffic. Stupid traffic.
Well, that's the thing with buses. You know, buses are part of the traffic, so they can't, you know, go underground and skip over the traffic. You would figure trains would be able to get this right. And they usually do. At least New York City subways do.
But they used to, in the mornings, they have bus lanes. I don't know why it doesn't count when you're still moving a mass of people.
Because you're not part of that mass of people that works 9 to 5. See, that's the people that get preferential treatment.
So we're going to discriminate for the people that work later?
Yes. We always have.
I'm sorry.
Always, yes.
Not part of the norm. You know, that's the problem.
All right, well, we've had worse stories, I'm sure. It's just too bad Jim's not here to counter them with MTA logic.
Of course, it's MTA logic that's gotten him into trouble, so we'll report on that as we learn more.
Let's see, we've got a lot of mail, we've got a lot of news, and we're going to take a lot of phone calls, so let's get to it.
First, there is an exhibit downtown, which I'd like to drop by after the show. I don't know if you guys are into this.
Sure.
It's at CBGB's, so I guess we can say we'll be appearing at CBGB's after the show, which is something I've always wanted to say.
It opens tonight, right now.
Oh, you know about this?
It's on your web page, of course.
Nobody reads the web page. I don't know.
People send me mail with news stories about something that we have on the web page three days after we put it on the web page and expect me to think it's news.
It's really funny, but I'm glad you read the web page. It's good to know.
Why don't you tell us about it, then?
All I know is that it's the illegal art show, which is basically based on all copyright objects, the art, that have been used in other areas that shouldn't be used.
Just reading through all of the information and the end user agreement that pops up when you go to their site is very entertaining.
But, of course, very poignant, as well.
They do make a very good point of trying to let you know why they're doing this.
The exhibit runs from tonight through December 6th, and it takes place at CBGB's 313 Gallery.
Coincidentally, that's located at 313 Bowery in downtown Manhattan.
Right next to the club.
Yeah.
It kind of annoys me that they decided to start at 7 o'clock p.m., which is the time our show starts, but I guess we can't control everybody.
But, yeah, right now, even as we speak, there are people who have turned off the radio and are heading to CBGB's 313 Gallery to see this show.
We should have saved it for the end.
We'll be leaving here and going there after the show, and hopefully our listeners will keep the radio on or carry something with them so they can hear it.
How many people have radio in their homes anymore? Do you listen to radio in your house?
I asked a bunch of people this.
Every day.
You do?
Every day.
Most people listen to maybe the Internet.
They listen to streaming radio at their home.
In the car, they listen to the radio if they don't have that stupid satellite thing.
But I find less people have the stereo that has a receiver in it that they actually listen to.
They listen to CDs.
They do things on the Internet.
We listen to shortwave in our cars, too.
You and I?
Well, I sort of do.
Did I ever tell you the problem I have with that?
Is it still ongoing?
Yes, still ongoing.
I have a car that for some reason interferes with the AM radio, so I can't listen to any shortwave on my shortwave radio.
And the reason is nobody can fix it.
The people that fix radios say it's a mechanical problem, take it to the mechanic.
The mechanic says it's a radio problem, take it to the radio people.
Are there any people out there that know how to fix everything?
I guess we want to hear from you.
It would be nice to be able to listen to foreign radio while I'm driving.
It makes things a lot more entertaining.
You can bring it out by me.
It was one of my high school kids put mine in.
Did a great job.
Really?
Yeah.
Do you understand things like how to stop electrical interference, which is somewhere inside the car and nobody knows where, only when the engine is running?
I would bet money they could.
They're sharp kids.
All right.
I'll bet you money on this, because I've been trying for over a year now to get this fixed.
It's amazing, the frustration.
Okay, this isn't a show we're just going to bitch about our private lives.
I really don't want to get into too much of that.
But let me just finish with the description of the illegal art presentation.
Here's a slight paragraph from it so you can get an idea.
The laws governing intellectual property have grown so expansive in recent years that artists need legal experts to sort them out.
Borrowing from another artwork as jazz musicians did in the 1930s and Looney Tunes illustrators did in the 1940s, that will now land you in court.
If the current copyright laws had been in effect back in the day, whole genres such as collage, hip-hop, and pop art might never have been created.
The irony couldn't be more stark.
Rooted in the U.S. Constitution, copyright was originally intended to facilitate the exchange of ideas, but is now being used to stifle it.
The illegal art exhibit will celebrate what is rapidly becoming the degenerate art of a corporate age, art and ideas on the legal fringes of intellectual property.
There's going to be all kinds of interesting displays.
Also, there's a film and video fest, November 14th.
That's tomorrow through 17th.
George W. Bush meets the Teletubbies.
Barbie tries a new job.
Pikachu, am I pronouncing that right?
Pikachu.
Pikachu.
I'm not up in my Pokemon culture.
Sorry.
Pikachu makes a friend and more.
Watch digitized versions of the films and videos.
I imagine that will be taking place at CBGB's as well.
There's an NYU panel discussion, November 15th at 7 p.m. featuring none other than Mark Hosler who appeared at H2K2.
Mark Hosler from Negative Land.
In addition to Howard Besser, the Associate Professor of Cinema Studies and Director of the Moving Image and Archiving Program at NYU,
Steven Feld, Natalie Jeremjanko, techno artist, design engineer.
Oh, by the way, Steven Feld is Professor of Music and Anthropology at Columbia University.
Rebecca Tushnet of NYU Law School and Meg McLaughlin, Associate Professor in Anthropology, will be the moderator.
So that's taking place at the NYU Cantor Film Center, 36 East 8th Street.
All these events are free.
And also our free compilation CD is going to be given away at exhibit events featuring illegal tracks from Public Enemy, Negative Land, John Oswald, The Beastie Boys, and more.
And if we're able to get in there and get one of those free CDs, we're going to play part of it next week on the radio.
Because that's what we do.
We play illegal things.
Okay, so that's a bit of fun right there.
Speaking of all this legal mumbo jumbo and crap like that, guess what?
I have to appear tomorrow in a deposition regarding the whole DECSS case yet again.
Now, you may say, I thought the DECSS case was over.
I did.
Well, you may say that.
As it turns out, there were two lawsuits.
If you go back in time and look at the web page and how it all developed, we were originally sued by the DVD Copy Control Association.
And then I think one month after that, we were sued by the Motion Picture Association of America.
Now, the whole lawsuit that we went through with federal court and the appeal and eventually deciding to accept the defeat and hope for a stronger case in the future, that was all the Motion Picture Association of America case, which was basically filed under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
The first case is the DVD Copy Control Association.
That was filed in a California court.
And we had always maintained that they do not have jurisdiction.
Apparently, they ruled that they do.
I'm not entirely sure of the legalities.
All I know is I have to report to someplace.
I got to find out where tomorrow and answer yet more questions about this stupid thing, which hasn't been on our website for two and a half years.
It just won't die, won't go away.
You don't have to go out there, though.
No, I don't have to go out there.
I wouldn't mind going out there, but no, I don't have to go out there.
I have to go somewhere here.
So, yeah, that's what I have to worry about.
This never ends.
So, I guess there will be a report on that next week when we know what happened at that particular thing.
What else is going on?
OK, this is important.
This is something that really rubs me the wrong way, as people may well know after all these years.
Non-commercial radio, the threat, what's happening to it, what's been going on on the FM dial lately.
There's been a lot of stations around here that have fallen, that have been taken over by either corporate interest, religious interest, NPR interest, you name it.
A lot of independent voices silenced.
A lot of frequencies turned over to more powerful interests.
And it looks like it's going to be happening all over again.
Students who run the radio station at the CW Post Campus of Long Island University say administrators are attuning them out.
This comes from a Newsday article which appeared last week.
They worry that their days of controlling WCWP, which can be received at 88.1 FM,
their days of controlling that station playing music ranging from hip-hop to Latin will be over.
Under a plan, university officials recently announced the students will gradually lose their air time to expand the Long Island University Public Radio Network.
Yes, which, I don't know what that spells.
University officials hope that expanding Long Island's first public radio network will provide a service to the community
and by relying on public donations could offset the $980,000 a year it costs to run the station.
Well, that's just bogus right there.
There's no way one station or even a handful of stations of that nature could cost that kind of money.
University stations, you can run them on a tenth of that easily.
It's not the most pleasant place.
You won't have the most updated equipment, but that's not what it's all about.
It's about broadcasting, learning radio, that kind of thing.
That's what college radio is all about, playing alternative music.
It's troublesome to me that they're referring to this as Long Island's first public radio network.
First of all, there are public radio stations everywhere.
Anytime you have a non-commercial station that serves the public, that's a public radio station.
It's not just the domain of National Public Radio.
They seem to have taken over the phrase, and that's not entirely fair.
We're a public radio station here, and we've got nothing to do with NPR.
It's really sad to see this happening yet again.
This so-called network, which is already operating out of the school's Southampton campus station, WLIU 88.3,
is run by radio professionals playing only jazz and news, including National Public Radio broadcast.
I should point out that WLIU also kicked all of its students off the air a number of years ago
when the start of this expansion was introduced.
WLIU used to be known as WPBX, and they used to be at 91.3, I think, or something like that.
And it was really sad to see all the students at the only non-commercial station that far east on the island
being kicked off the air and having it turned over to satellite dishes, which is basically what it amounts to.
Come January 1st, three of the six hours WCWP is now on the air per day
will go to programming from Southampton, a move that post-students say robs them of their broadcast training ground.
The university's intentions show no consideration for students at all,
said WCWP News Director Joe Sacco of Queens.
Now students have free reign between 7 p.m. and 1 a.m.,
which, you know, that alone is kind of offensive that they only have students on for such a short amount of time.
It's a student radio station, for God's sake.
It's run by students.
It was made for students.
And here they are turning it over to this national broadcast entity
and playing music that, you know, is not that hard to find in other parts of the dial.
You know, there's a jazz station at 88.3 in Newark, New Jersey, that you can hear jazz on.
And, you know, anybody is free on any college station to play jazz if they want to.
What better place to learn?
What better place to explore music and hear different things rather than the same thing
coming from all different stations at the same time?
Wallace Smith, WLIU's general manager, LIU being the Southampton station,
who spearheaded the change on behalf of the university,
said eventually the three remaining hours will go to the network.
We're building a professional service that will enhance the image of the university,
Smith said at a recent meeting with students and alumni,
before he was pelted with fruit and various other objects.
Smith said students will have an opportunity to intern at the network,
but it is unlikely students will host their own shows like they do now.
So basically they can go and get coffee for people and, you know,
learn how they have absolutely no power in radio at all,
rather than actually being behind the microphone starting to talk about various things and learning.
I mean, I would never be here now.
I don't know if people consider that a good thing, but I would never be here now were it not for college radio.
You know, I got my start at WUSB in Stony Brook, which I think is like the only station left now.
Actually, there's WRHU in Hofstra, but there's so few of them.
There used to be so many, and now they all are broadcasting the same thing.
It's sick.
You know, they're saying this like there's a need.
There's a need in Nassau County to have NPR.
There are already maybe three or four different signals you can get in that area of NPR programming.
So why the need to take over yet another independent voice with the same old thing?
So what do you think is the need?
Are they just trying to squelch all their competition?
It's basically a combination between the power of NPR, the way they can throw money around,
and the desire of the university to look good, to have a polished professional sound.
To enter the big leagues.
Exactly.
They don't want a bunch of students playing around on the radio, which is something that the community can hear.
They want the sound of professional people.
It defeats the whole purpose of noncommercial radio,
which was to introduce people to radio, introduce listeners to alternatives,
and there are so few alternatives anymore.
Anyway, many students are upset, predictably.
We might as well sit in a classroom and watch them do it, Sacco said.
He said he envisions fetching coffee and having no hands-on experience.
I skimmed the article.
I didn't read it.
I didn't see that line.
So it's good to know people are thinking the same way.
A college station is a place to apply classroom training and provides an artistic outlet, students said.
Yeah, imagine all the artists, all the music that would not be heard were not for college radio.
Can you imagine, you know, if you just played the computer program music that Arbitron says is popular these days?
So many people that would never have a voice, people who have nothing to do with the station, musicians.
They would never have airplay.
We'd rather have internships somewhere else, said the station's programming director, Billy Houst of East Meadow.
Seven full-time radio professionals have been hired for this undertaking,
and that's going to cost a lot of money right there.
There's your $90,000.
Yeah, yeah, that will definitely blow a lot of money right there.
The WLIU general manager, the guy who's moving in, taking over this other station,
boasts of hiring Hempstead native Jim Ascendio from KFWB in Los Angeles to be the station's news director.
Nothing like a professional to do a college radio station's job.
Smith said for the network to succeed, its programming needs to be consistent.
At the meeting, he defended the choice to play jazz, calling it America's true music form.
Well, that may or may not be, but the fact of the matter is it's how you program the station, not what you put on it.
I mean, you can say that news is important and program 24-hour news all the time,
but if you have a bunch of professionals doing it on a college frequency, it's kind of hypocritical.
He maintained that the decision was not meant to discredit students' work,
but he also said, I may not agree with some of the music you play in the evenings.
He said student voices are not being muffled because they still will have the chance to broadcast over a cable frequency,
which is heard only sporadically on campus, and they also can continue broadcasting over the Internet.
Oh, how about that? They can continue broadcasting over the Internet.
And you know what? They can continue to speak out loud and stand on boxes and yell.
He's not going to deny them that right.
Can they stop them from doing the Internet?
They can certainly try, but you're looking at the future here.
This is probably what's going to happen in years ahead.
They will probably try and take over the Internet like they've taken over the FM waves.
I just hope it doesn't cross over into so many other areas.
I know as an educator...
It's the same mentality.
Yeah, but to think that kids wouldn't be allowed to use a computer in a classroom, you know,
because the professionals need it or they can't produce work.
We're talking about WCWP, the latest station to be faced with oblivion,
thanks to corporate interests and National Public Radio and Arbitrons
and all the usual stuff that takes alternative voices off the air.
And we're going to have a URL for you to go to if you want to do something about this.
You don't have to be in the area.
People all over the world can comment on this, and I think the more people who do, the better.
Dale Traverso, 19, a computer science major, listens to the station during his drive home to Queens.
He said he wouldn't listen on the Internet
and cringed when asked if he would tune into an all-jazz and news station.
I like what they talk about, he said, of current WCWP programming,
including discussions about campus dining services.
They're very student-friendly.
Students denounced both options that Smith gave of cable broadcasting and listening on the Internet,
saying that CW Post is primarily a commuter school.
Only about 1,200 or 1,200 students live on campus,
and they reach people in their cars with the FM frequency.
At the meeting, Smith stressed that the school's responsibility is to the community,
but alumnus Ted David retorted,
But alumnus Ted David retorted,
He worked at the station when he started college in 1968,
when students were on the air almost 24 hours a day.
And he's now an anchor at CNBC.
But he hasn't lost his values.
The University of Southern California in Los Angeles made the same change about 30 years ago,
creating KUSC, a classical music public radio station.
And Smith managed KUSC from 1970 to 1997,
and he used it as a model for WLIU and now for WCWP.
And meanwhile, many of the students at WCWP said they planned to quit.
As much as I hate to leave, there's just no reason to stay.
All right, for those interested in helping the WCWP staff with their plight,
go over to this URL.
First of all, there's a CWP URL run by former staffers and current staffers.
It's not officially sanctioned by the radio station.
That's www.wcwp.net, and you'll find all kinds of information there.
But also here, www.petitionpetition.com.
That's right, petition twice.
www.cgi.cgi?id equals 3D4755.
I'll read that one more time and only one more time.
www.petitionpetition.com.cgi?id equals 3D4755.
And that's an online petition.
There were only a few hundred signatures when I checked it a couple days ago,
so I think if it gets over 1,000 by the end of the night, that will mean something.
There's no reason why it shouldn't.
It's something for community radio.
And if there's a community radio station in your area that's facing oblivion,
please let us know about it because we're still here and we can talk about it.
Unbelievable.
It's just so annoying to see this happen time after time.
Okay, let's quickly go over some news and then take some phone calls.
As Congress prepares to reconvene in a lame duck session after Tuesday's disastrous election,
one of the largest pieces of legislation on the Senate's agenda
is the controversial and deadlocked Homeland Security Act,
which the House passed on September 9th.
But get this, a little-known amendment in the Senate version of the bill
makes it much easier for ISPs to disclose e-mail communications without being served with a warrant,
which had been prohibited before the Patriot Act of 2001.
Critics such as Li Tian of the Electronic Frontier Foundation
considered the amendment a recipe for privacy abuse.
According to a press release from Senator Orrin Hatch's office,
his amendment intends to provide greater flexibility to communications providers
and law enforcement when necessary to prevent and protect against devastating cyber attacks.
Yeah, and we all know what that means.
Under the Patriot Act, ISPs were given the right to disclose to a law enforcement agency
the private communications of a customer if the company, quote,
reasonably believes that an emergency involving immediate danger of death
or serious physical injury,
let's try this again, serious physical injury,
I want to say industry for some reason, I don't know why,
to any person requires disclosure of the information without delay.
The new rules, if adopted, would modify the Patriot Act's fairly strict reasonable belief test
with a good faith provision, allow disclosure to any federal, state, or local governmental entity,
not just law enforcement agencies, and removes an immediacy requirement.
According to Li Tian's analysis, the good faith provision would probably allow providers
to rely on government assertions of an emergency even if no facts were presented
and lead to aggressive behavior on the part of law enforcement.
That's the latest theme.
Have you noticed by governments, by our government particularly,
is basically pointing to an emergency but providing no facts.
Saying, well, this is really going to happen, it's a horrible thing,
it's going to affect everybody, where's the evidence?
Well, the evidence is there, we just, let's talk about something else.
They never mention the facts and then after having this drummed into our heads
for several weeks, we kind of forget about it because we're sick of talking about it,
so we just kind of let them do whatever they want to do and we never hear the facts.
Case in point, the whole Iraq situation going on right now,
we're just aching to bomb Iraq yet again because we haven't done it in a couple of years.
Apart from the bombing we do every day, the massive type of bombing,
we really want to test out these new weapons.
I read in this month's Harper's that the last time we had an intelligence report from Iraq
was 1998, 4 years ago, and that in 1998 there was no evidence presented
of any kind of weapons of mass destruction existing.
So, how do we know that they exist if we have no information?
Well, those are just things that you don't think about.
The threat is there and you have to believe the threat is there.
That's all you need.
So, the same kind of logic being used against people here in the United States.
All right, let's read some listener mail.
Our phone number, 202-209-2900.
You do have some good news that you can report on too.
I think it bears repeating here.
Freedom Downtime is going to be on air nationwide.
That's right. Do you have the schedule?
It's on Free Speech TV, I believe, right?
I have it right here, yeah.
Okay, great.
The channel is 9415, which if you get the DISH network, I understand it's available.
I don't know why they have four-digit channel numbers.
Everything else on that network is three digits,
but when it comes up to there, they go four digits.
They don't have 1,000 channels.
They don't have 10,000 channels.
It makes it sound like they have all these channels.
But, yes, channel 9415.
And I think here in New York, maybe one of the BAI listeners can call in
and tell us when Free Speech TV is on Time Warner Cable
because I'm not sure when it's on that particular network.
Well, it started yesterday, November 12th,
and it was on, let's see, 6 a.m., 10 a.m., 2 p.m., 4 p.m., and 10 again.
It's on today at November 13th, 1 a.m. and 3 a.m.
Saturday, you can see it at 6, 10, 2 p.m., and then 4 p.m.
And let's see, Sunday, 1 and 3.
Thursday, the 21st, 6, 10, 2, 4, and 10.
And Friday, the 22nd, 1 and 3.
Those are in the a.m.s.
And Saturday, November 23rd, 6 a.m.
So that's a lot of airtime.
Yeah, it really is.
I'm kind of surprised to see it on that many times.
In the interest of confusion, I believe 9415,
isn't that WBCQ's frequency?
No, it's 7415.
Yeah, you're talking about a short-wave station.
That's right.
I do know that a lot of people are submitting Freedom Downtime
to local cable public access as well,
and you might want to try that.
College stations as well.
There's all kinds of places you can air this film,
and, of course, we welcome people doing this.
And Freedom Downtime is available through our website.
It's about 2 hours.
Actually, it's 2 hours and 1 minute.
They had to shave off, I think, a minute and a half for this broadcast.
So if you're really good, you might be able to figure out what they shaved off.
I'd like to see it just for that reason myself.
Actually, we shaved it off to give to them, but it was a while ago,
and I forget what it is exactly we shaved,
but it wasn't anything horribly major.
I hate to cut anything, but you have to eventually.
The film will be 6 hours long.
Okay, let's look at some listener mail.
Whatever the outcome of your wrangling with WBAI,
I would like to hear a longer off-the-hook program.
There should be a contention in your decisions about the program.
It's really just getting going after the first hour.
I agree. I feel like it's starting to get going now,
and by the time 8 o'clock rolls around, we're really going to be in full gear,
and then we're pulled off the road.
That's frustrating, I know.
Yeah, last week I broke a sweat.
Yeah, yeah, that was something to see.
We need this program. We need to be informed.
You are a beacon in the fog of new American fascism.
I like that line so much, I'm going to read it again.
You are a beacon in the fog of new American fascism.
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
All right, that's the kind of letter I like to see.
You know what other kind of letter I like to see are written letters.
People who write us letters have a much better chance of getting them read over the air.
To do that, you have to know how to type or write or whatever.
We won't read the letters that have 10 million words on them.
Some people send us those kind of letters, too.
But send them to 120 Wall Street, 10th Floor.
Actually, I can read the whole address.
I'll have to hook care of WBAI, 120 Wall Street, 10th Floor, New York, New York, 10005 is our zip code.
Dear Emanuel, Jim, and et cetera, thanks for again stating why you're on WBAI.
I'm not online, and I love your show.
The wit and fun plus all kinds of info, that helps me know.
And what I don't understand, well, maybe someday.
What's going on? Keep me tuned in, et cetera.
I can ask friends to get me stuff from the net, but I can't have a computer at this time.
When Max Schmid played 1984 in his show during the Troubles, the post-Christmas coup,
I was reminded that the unpresent character, the anarchist, was named Emanuel Goldstein.
That's not a coincidence.
How do you like that? What a world.
I'm still enjoying the shows in memory where you made calls,
and the co-host ran outside to test pay phones and call in.
I remember that. Those were the fun days.
Jim is really bright.
Thanks for the radio tower warning on Columbia University's campus.
There's a manufacturer's warning label on the joystick of my power wheelchair
that says avoid sources of radio waves with symbols for cell phones, radio towers, police, et cetera.
As much as possible, I warn cell phone users to stay away from power wheelchairs.
It messes up the power feed and controls of power wheelchairs,
causing them at times to shut off or go out of control.
Several deaths have been attributed to this.
I called the manufacturer of my wheelchair, Quickie, in California.
That's a great name for a wheelchair.
I asked about it. I have to stay 12 feet away from cops.
I don't know if that was just general advice.
It's a good rule of thumb.
The thing is, the person asked, what if I'm crossing the street?
How do I stop in traffic when I'm near a police car?
Unreal.
But that letter from Sanda, who says I might be as old as Kevin Mitnick's grandmother,
certainly in his mom's age range at the very least.
She sent us a picture with her head cut out.
It's just a piece of paper with a big hole in it and a head surrounding it.
But thanks so much for writing in.
Again, we encourage people to send us letters through the mail.
You're talking about the names.
Did you know there's a Canadian radio station in Montreal?
The program's called Off the Hook.
I had heard about that.
I thought we'd send some people up there to take care of that.
It's still going on.
All right, well, I'll have to send another group up there.
Yeah, I had heard about that.
I also heard that somebody snatched up the domain,
offthehook.org or whatever it was that we had at one point and forgot to renew.
Oh, well, these things happen.
Off the Hook, hi, I love the show.
This week you were wondering out loud if 2600.com was blocked in China.
Well, there's a page on Harvard's website that allows you to enter a URL
and check to see if it's blocked or not.
It's at cyber.law.harvard.edu slash filtering slash China slash test.
And 2600.com is not blocked, by the way.
So China is actually doing better than most of our schools
and certainly Easy Everything.
But Vietnam isn't.
The trial of a Vietnamese dissident accused of circulating documents critical of the government
is set to open on Friday.
Ly Chi Quang, a 32-year-old lawyer, was arrested and detained in February
after being accused of posting several essays on the Internet
which condemned the Vietnamese government for its land and sea border agreements with China.
If found guilty, he could face up to 12 years in prison.
The trial is to be held in Hanoi,
and foreign press have been banned from covering the trial.
That's according to a foreign ministry spokeswoman.
A media monitoring organization committee to protect journalists
said that Mr. Quang was to be charged under Article 88 of Vietnam's criminal code
which banned the dissemination of anti-government information.
The organization said the charge sheet also referred to Mr. Quang's
as praising a fellow well-known dissident
and as evidence of his attempts to undermine the state.
Despite Vietnam's constitutional guarantee of a free press,
in reality dissidents take considerable risks if they speak out.
It's one of those instances where they tell you you're free, but you're really not.
I've heard that before.
Vietnam has toughened restrictions on the country's media, especially the Internet.
Seems to be a theme throughout the world, doesn't it?
Last week, the government announced that all websites based in Vietnam
would need a license to prevent poisonous or harmful information
from threatening government security.
Great.
It's so nice to see the whole world moving in the same direction.
Moving on to a couple of more letters,
and then we'll take your phone calls, 212-209-2900.
We do have something to clean up from last week, too.
We took care of that.
It's going to be a lot harder to clean up this week.
We mentioned that we were going to talk about the code for the United States.
Oh, yes, yes, you're right.
The GSM code.
Thank you for reminding me of this.
We asked, and I forgot to mention it to people,
what the country code was for the United States on the GSM network.
Claude, you have an intelligent look on your face.
No, no, no, don't be fooled.
You're just staring into space, then.
I forgot to mention the code.
We said we were going to do it by the end, and we didn't.
I had a guess.
What's your guess?
You told me later.
Then you can't guess.
We just wanted to say we're sorry for forgetting.
Moving on.
Are we going to tell them?
Do we have to?
We asked people to test their GSM phones in the United States
to see if they got two networks,
or if anyone was able to switch to a different network in this country.
Not one person.
Now, here in New York, you can see,
if you go to the network section of your GSM phone,
you can see both either VoiceStream,
it's still called VoiceStream on your phone,
or what do you call it, T-Mobile,
and also AT&T, which might not be identified as AT&T.
It might be phone company number 380.
But those two companies appear on GSM phones.
If this was another country,
you'd be able to switch from one to the other.
Here, they don't do that.
They don't allow that, at least not yet.
Maybe if there's enough pressure, people can get this done.
But yes, we mentioned that every country has a code.
The country code for the United States is 310.
So that's good information to have.
I don't know what you'd use it for,
but 310 is our country code.
I like it better than 1,
which is our country code for regular telephone dialing.
The phone started here?
Yeah, Alexander Graham Bell and all those people, I guess.
But I don't know.
I still think something a little bit more democratic would be nice.
Other countries have three-digit phone numbers,
three-digit country codes,
and we have a one-digit country code.
I don't know.
Plus, it's not our country code.
We're also sharing it with Canada,
so it's not really our country code anyway.
What is that?
An army of one.
Why are you holding up a bumper sticker that says an army of one?
It's the army slogan these days.
I know what it is, but why are you holding it up in this studio?
In this studio, you could look at the country code
as being an advertisement for the United States Army.
I don't know.
Okay, it doesn't make much sense.
It doesn't make any sense at all.
Where did that come from?
It's not fixed to anything.
You brought it in.
I brought it in.
I found it in the subway.
The U.S. Army is now stationed in the subway
just a few feet away from the same position that the musicians take.
What do you mean the army is stationed in the...
Is this part of homeland defense or something?
No, no, no, no, no guns.
They were just set up, a couple of representatives,
talking, trying to recruit people in the subway.
In the subway?
In the subway.
And I had to get a souvenir.
Oh, there's proof.
What station?
Times Square.
Times Square, huh?
Well, they have a recruiting thing right upstairs.
They probably were just getting bored being above ground,
so they went below ground, which I guess is the theme.
But if people want to check that out, that's where they are.
Okay, what else do we have here?
Well, there was the whole case of the military hacker.
Did you hear about this?
Everyone's clamoring about this one.
Well, I can tell you right now,
he's not being held accountable.
A few things just spring into my mind here.
We're saying that these systems
had unclassified information,
but the whole 9-1-1 thing
keeps being brought up
as if it has some sort of an effect.
If it's an unclassified system
and you destroy it,
it shouldn't have any effect
in a bad kind of way
on the defense of the nation.
I'm not saying it's a good thing
if somebody did that.
The quote that this person
was trying to make a point.
People making a point tend not to destroy things
in order to make that point.
At least not rational people.
I'd like to hear a little bit more
about just what that point was.
I'm hearing about somebody
stealing 950 passwords,
but I've also heard that attached
to things such as looking at the password file
which contains encrypted passwords.
I'd like to know the facts in this story.
It appears that a lot of people
This is the U.S. point of view.
This was a grave intrusion
into a vital military computer system.
How is it a vital military computer system
if it's unclassified?
Does that make sense?
It seems to be contradicting.
Unless it handled their e-mail or something.
I don't know.
If it handles their e-mail,
I would consider that to be classified.
That's private information.
I'm not saying it's good
to destroy unclassified systems.
You can't really call it
a vital military computer system
if it's something that's trivial.
They're making it sound like
this person knew exactly what he was doing
and set out to do it
right after the terrorist attacks.
I don't know.
Anyway, it was a grave intrusion
into a vital military computer system
at a time when we as a nation
had to summon all of our defenses
against further attack.
Again, great words, but what really happened?
The decision to prosecute in the U.S.
illustrates American frustration
at the collapse of previous transatlantic
hacking trials in England.
The most embarrassing involved
two young British hackers
who were accused of mounting
a determined information warfare campaign
against the U.S. Air Force
and leading defense contractors in 1994.
During that investigation,
Senate hearings were initially told
that the intrusions were the work
of highly skilled foreign agents,
but they were later released
to two amateur hackers
who were 23 and 16,
and they had carried out
their haphazard campaign
on an aging PC.
The younger was fined
1,200 pounds in 1997,
but the case against the older hacker
collapsed after the judge was told
that he had posed no threat to security.
And last night,
one of them,
the elder of those two hackers,
said this case was being similarly overblown.
I know how the American propaganda works
because I've been at the sharp end of it.
If he is extradited, he is stuffed,
which is a term in England,
he is stuffed because they will want
to make an example of him.
Sounds very familiar, doesn't it?
We'll keep our eyes on that one.
All right, let's take some phone calls.
212-209-2900 is our telephone number.
We have a few minutes.
Yeah, we're just getting going.
It's almost over.
And...
Good evening, you're on the air.
Yeah.
What's up?
I don't like these guys.
What guys?
I don't like these guys in the military.
I don't care if they're stuffed or not.
Wait, the guys in the military
aren't the ones who are stuffed.
It's the guys in England.
They're all going to get stuffed.
It's the 16-year-old.
No, he's 36.
No, no, the saying is that
he will conditionally be stuffed
in the English terminology
if the Americans get their way.
Nobody's being stuffed right now,
or nobody is stuffed right now.
He was indicted.
He was indicted last night.
Did they prepare him before the stuffing?
No, no.
Let's look at this over one more time.
He isn't even in custody.
He's in England.
The only time he could possibly be
quote-unquote stuffed is if he gets
extradited to this country,
this country being the United States.
You understand that? Good.
I think he thought it was a Thanksgiving.
I would say they're all stuffed, Ben.
Is anything else on your mind, sir?
I think we've exhausted this subject.
No, thank you.
Thanks so much for the call.
All right, then. Have a good night.
What do you say after a call like that?
212-209-2900 is our telephone number.
Good evening. You're on the air.
Every week, every 10 seconds,
when I listen to BAI,
there's an interruption that sounds like a pulse
when you dial a telephone.
Wait, you're saying over our FM signal?
Yeah, it just stopped like 20 minutes ago.
Really?
It's been doing it for like the last week.
Well, I've been listening to this station
and I haven't heard it.
What kind of receiver do you have?
It's a regular Sony radio.
And how far are you from the station?
I'm in Bayshore, Long Island.
The only thing I can think of
is something's interfering with our frequency out there.
What you might try doing
if that starts up again
is going one frequency up to 99.7
then one down to 99.3,
see if anything is on those frequencies
that might be making that sound.
It was just really odd.
It was exactly every 10 seconds.
That is strange.
Did you move around a lot?
Is this a home stereo?
Yeah, it's just a little portable.
I'm on the island too
and I was listening to the station quite a bit
and I didn't hear anything like that.
If anybody else has, please call in and let us know.
It's the first I'm hearing about it.
I'd also like to recommend a book.
It's called Get Your War On.
It's a soft-skull press.
It's a book with comic strips.
It's pretty sarcastic and hilarious.
I think it infringes on Voltron's copyrights also.
How can people get this?
I got it from a regular bookstore.
I think it's out there.
Yeah. Check it out.
I will. Thanks for calling.
Good luck with the signal all the way out there.
Be sure. Good evening. You're on the air.
Yes, good evening, Emmanuel.
Can you speak up a little bit?
Yes, of course.
What's really, I think, kind of frightening
is if he gets exorcized before Thanksgiving,
he's going to be stuffed for sure.
Okay.
You know, when I read the word,
I thought I was being clever
because I was reading a British slang term
but now it seems it's backfired horribly.
Well, it's this time of year.
Yeah, it certainly is. It'll be over soon.
Thanks for your call.
Oh, boy.
We're going to get a call from England, too.
People will be angry over there, too, for some reason.
Good evening. You're on the air.
That was the call from England.
Good evening. You're on the air.
Speak up, please.
Yes. Hi. I'm calling from the New Jersey Turnpike
on a car phone.
I see.
You might have mentioned this
before on one of your shows.
I don't forget which one.
You sound particularly strange tonight.
What's going on over there?
What do you mean?
There's something about your voice.
It sounds different.
Because I have to talk loud
because I'm driving, maybe.
That's why I have to talk like this.
If you were in New York,
you wouldn't be allowed to do this.
You can't drive and talk on the phone
You know those
800
let's say
PNC Bank
If you call the
800 number for 800 PNC Bank
or whatever, it gives you this
recording. You might have heard this.
I don't have it on me, but I have it.
You know what? No, I don't have it on my phone.
Never mind, but I'll demonstrate it.
Call the talk line at
800-400-TALK for exciting people nationwide.
Call 800-400-TALK.
Every 800 number
I mean, not every, but
most of the 800 numbers
have that recording.
In other words, you know when they
advertise and they say call 877
health insurance or whatever.
But if you call the 800 number
health insurance, it gives you that recording.
Call
400-TALK, 1-800-400-TALK.
They just tell you to call a different number.
I mean, they're wasting 800 numbers.
They should set aside
800 numbers for 800 for toll-free
business, 866 for
the sex lines, so that
you can distinguish.
Well, it's a good suggestion, Rebel, and
I'm sure the people involved
in making those decisions will listen to it
and make a decision based
on what it's worth. Thanks for calling. Drive safely.
Good evening.
You're on the air.
Hello. How are you doing? Okay. Yourself?
Oh, okay. Pretty good. Good.
On the subject of government
running amok,
Bush's proposal for the Department
of Homeland Security
is going to be exempt from
procurement laws,
from Freedom of Information Act,
from labor negotiation,
etc.
Basically, any regulation
that is on
present government agencies is going to be
eliminated. Therefore,
the real proposal, the real goal
of the Homeland Security Department
is to just remove government oversight
and accountability.
It's scary. It's very scary, and that's
something that a few of us have seen coming
for quite some time, and now it's here.
It's, you know,
how do you get around something like that?
No oversight whatsoever. Basically, they can just
do what they want because they say
it's a threat and they have to do it and don't ask any questions.
Don't let them do it.
Yeah. That's great to say,
but how do we implement that?
How do we keep them from
doing this to us?
I put on my signature file now
a phrase about this,
saying that the Department of Homeland Security
just what I said on the radio now.
I posted
different news groups and
just telling people
what's going on so people know.
Most people don't know that.
Yeah.
I think if people start to realize what the proposal is,
then there's a better chance of being rejected.
I don't know.
I have to admit, after this last election,
I'm pretty pessimistic about anything logical happening.
Oh, yeah, well.
Think about it. Think what's going to happen
after January of next year.
There's not going to be any more debate on anything.
Basically, whatever Bush wants, Bush is going to get.
No debates.
Maybe a little bit of a debate,
but the vote is going to wind up always in his favor.
Well, the sad thing is,
even with a democratically controlled Senate,
he was still getting what he wanted.
Yeah, but at least you have people like Patrick Leahy
and people like that in charge of some subcommittees.
That's all going to go away.
I understand, but also do note
that it's still a very close
situation
with the Republicans only
controlling by one or two seats or something like that.
Yeah.
If a few people switch over
from one side to the other,
then if it's a pure party-blind vote,
you know.
Republicans do that a lot less
than Democrats.
It's unfortunate, but it's true.
Nonetheless,
things do change.
If you just throw up your hands
and say, oh, screw it,
it doesn't get any change.
No, I'm not saying go screw it.
I'm throwing up my hands, though,
but I'm still going to fight.
I'm just going to fight with my hands up.
I don't quite know what that means,
but we'll just have to see.
Thanks for the call.
Thanks for the warning.
I thought you might be interested
that the New York Public Library is also instituting
a new system in its research branch
called ACCESS, which requires
picture identification of library patrons
to comply with city, state,
and federal requirements,
though they protest that this
will not be used for surveillance,
even though it's a damn good tool to use for surveillance.
This information was in a recent mailing
sent out to people who contribute to the library.
Thanks very much for
sharing that with us.
Looks like we're just getting rolling,
which means our time is just about up,
so we're going to be back again
for an unprecedented third week in a row next week,
and hopefully we'll have more information
on all these topics as well.
Until then, this is Emmanuel Goldstein
for everybody else at Off the Hook.
Oh, and again, we're going to be appearing
at CBGB's immediately after the show,
as long as it takes us to get there,
at the Illegal Art, Freedom of Expression
in the Corporate Age.
That's taking place right now
at the Library Bowery,
and it'll be taking place until, I think, midnight,
so you guys at the computer show can come, too,
after your show.
And it'll be taking place until December 6th,
so feel free to stop by at any time.
We'll see you next week.
Good night.
This silence is brought to you by
machines that don't work.
Here we go.
Oh God
save us from defeat
Oh God
save us not from war
Oh God
save us on the street
Let us fight
for people's rights
Let us
fight for freedom
Let us
fight for Mickey Mouse
Let us
fight for freedom
FBI is back again with
COINTELPRO
In the post-911 climate
of the Patriot Act.
And as the lame duck Congress is about to vote
on the Homeland Security Bill,
make sure to tune in to Radio Unnameable
with Bob Fass
this Thursday at midnight into Friday.