None of the villagers affected by endosulfan have been compensated by the state government.
Most can barely afford to pay their medical bills.
Even if the village does manage to stop spraying for good, they fear a poisoned future.
For Free Speech Radio News, I'm Miranda Kennedy with Vinod Jose in Padre, Kerala.
This is Free Speech Radio News. I'm Deepa Fernandes.
Free Speech Radio News
Okay, here we are. Alright, somebody really confused me here with this board setup.
Okay, this is WBAI in New York. It's 7 o'clock on the nose. Time for Off The Hook.
Off The Hook
Off The Hook
And a very good evening to everybody. The program is Off The Hook.
How are you doing, Seraf?
I'm doing alright.
You look kind of surprised there.
Bernie S., though, he's the one who really should be surprised.
He's on the telephone with us down there.
Where are you exactly, Bernie?
I made it back to Philadelphia.
Made it back to Philadelphia, but you went on a little day trip, didn't you?
Oh boy, what an excitement. What's going on over there? It sounds crazy.
Yeah, it's a madhouse. It's always a madhouse here.
But that's neither here nor there. You had a real interesting day today.
You went someplace that we all wanted to go to but couldn't.
I went to Disneyland.
No, you did not. You went to the equivalent of Disneyland in government circles.
But what did you do?
It was sort of a bizarre Disneyland type of environment.
I went to the Homeland Security Solutions Conference and Exhibition today.
Yeah, that's a good one, isn't it, Jim?
That spells something obscene, too, if you figure out how to do it.
Okay, so now you went to this Homeland Security basically conference thing.
What kind of people go there?
A lot of rich white guys.
I see.
The panel discussion I went to this morning had a speaker from the FBI,
a panel with several prime defense contractors like Raytheon, Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics, Boeing,
and they're all very excited about Homeland Security.
Well, I mean, we all should be very excited about Homeland Security.
It depends on what kind of excitement we're feeling right now, whether that be panic or fear or whatever.
I think they're really looking forward to this whole thing.
They seem to be very excited about, well, what one gentleman from General Dynamics said, Tom Davis,
he kept referring to the Homeland Security market as a great market to be in.
Another gentleman, Harris Bellman from BAE Systems.
Be careful there, Bernie.
Be careful of your acronyms.
He characterized success in the Homeland Security market as maximum market penetration.
And he seemed disappointed that the laws are one of the biggest obstacles to maximum market penetration.
And he was referring specifically to laws about privacy and that sort of thing.
Those pesky privacy laws.
He didn't say the Constitution, but that was sort of implied.
So now what kinds of things did they actually show here?
Were there products of any sort?
Yeah.
After I went to some of the seminars in the morning, I had to sneak into some of those because they're very expensive.
Only reverse white guys can go there.
But I went out onto the trade show floor, and there wasn't really, there were probably only a couple of dozen vendors there.
But those that were there had a few interesting things to display.
For instance, one company had, well, something you'll find interesting,
the company that, you've always wondered what happens at the airport to your cuticle scissors and nail clippers and that sort of thing.
It's been keeping me up at night wondering what has become of those.
Well, I found out what happens to them.
A company called HSS Industries sells a confiscated items bin,
which is the single product that the Transportation Security Administration, TSA, uses to throw all their confiscated items in.
It's like this locked cabinet with a swing open door, like a mail chute.
And that was there.
I accidentally violated federal law by picking up another product, which was this aluminum oxide, these shaped aluminum oxide plates.
I'm like, what's this material? I was looking, it looked pretty interesting.
It seemed like a ceramic, these ceramic plates that were curved like a breastplate.
Apparently these things are designed to be flipped into Kevlar body armor.
So Kevlar body armor won't stop one of these armor-piercing bullets.
If it's got one of these aluminum oxide plates in there, it'll shatter,
but it'll prevent the bullet from penetrating the body of whoever's wearing it.
Unfortunately, I didn't know what it was when I picked it up.
Having been convicted of a federal felony, I'm prohibited of possessing any type of body armor.
It's just like possessing a firearm now, which I don't have any second amendments anymore.
So I actually violated federal law by picking up one of these aluminum oxide plates and saying, what is this here?
It's simply picking it up. Is that the same thing as possessing it?
It's considered constructive possession, according to federal law.
What if you go to a Halloween party dressed as a knight in shining armor?
I mean, that's protective plating right there.
Well, as you know, many of these laws are deliberately worded very vaguely.
So it's up to whoever wants to prosecute or persecute you.
There were some interesting thermal imaging devices I saw demonstrated
that allowed you to see people and vehicles several miles away in complete darkness.
These aren't the normal image intensifiers.
These are things that cost like $15,000 and can mount on a vehicle or you can hold it.
One guy showed me a video he took in North Africa of a small ship that was off the coastline.
He took this video, he said, from eight miles away.
I could clearly see people walking on the deck of the ship.
He said this was taken in absolute complete darkness.
Some pretty interesting virtual and augmented reality products.
Well, Bernie, who are these people that are going to Africa and using this kind of equipment?
This gentleman was quite excited that a lot of foreign governments were buying these products.
A company called Cairns, C-A-I-R-N-S.
Actually, he said that a lot of local U.S. companies and organizations buy them.
He sells a lot of these things to police and fire departments as well
because you can find people in smoky rooms with these things.
You can see right through the smoke and see the bodies.
One of the things that came out in the seminars was that the budgeting for homeland security
is completely upside down and backwards.
Several of the speakers agreed that about a 10 to 1 ratio,
where about 90% of this money is going to federal agencies
and only 10% of it is going to state and local governments.
A couple of these guys said that all these homeland security incidents are local.
They said that over the past 20 years,
95 to 99% of all terrorist attacks were not on federal targets,
but were on nightclubs, marketplaces, private sector targets, that sort of thing.
He said that a lot of this funding should really be focused on local people that would protect us,
like hospitals, ambulance-type things, firefighters, police, that sort of thing.
Most of it is going to these federal agencies.
This new budget, 2004 budget for homeland security,
is now $36 billion, which is up 7% from 2003.
What I learned is that a lot of this money is going to hiring people,
but that's going to stop pretty soon.
Once all the people are hired,
they're going to shift over to implementing a lot of these new technologies.
One of the big technologies that they were talking about are biometrics.
They said biometrics is going to be one of the biggest applications
for new technology in this homeland security market.
This thing is going on for another day, right?
Yeah.
People actually want to go down there and crash this thing or attend legitimately.
They'll be shot.
Maybe they'll be shot, but they'll get a demonstration of some of the newest in technology
as that happens to them.
But where is this taking place exactly, Bernie?
It's at the Baltimore Convention Center,
which if you take the Amtrak train down to Pennsylvania Station in Baltimore,
it's a $3 light rail ride to the convention center,
or you can take a cab.
I took a light rail because I like trains.
I took the Amtrak all the way down.
By the way, Amtrak is 20% off all their fares now.
I guess they're hurting, so bear that in mind.
I'm not advertising for Amtrak.
Well, maybe train fares are getting somewhat more affordable for Americans.
That would be nice.
That would be good.
Okay, so this thing runs one more day.
Is that right?
One more day.
Unless you can sneak into some of the seminars, it may not be all that interesting.
I found most of the interesting stuff was really what was being talked about in the panel discussions.
And what's being talked about in the hallways too, I imagine, would be pretty interesting.
Yeah, actually, I sat out in a cafe area during lunch
and overheard a lot of interesting stuff that you probably wouldn't have heard otherwise.
So that was pretty interesting.
Well, come on, Cher.
Yeah, Cher, some of the secret conversations you overheard.
Well, they were really talking about different customers they found.
One guy from BAE.
Careful, Bernie, please.
I've got to write this down.
Yeah, please.
He was bragging to his colleagues about this contract.
He'd closed with my friends at the United States Secret Service
for a system that basically keeps track of people that they want to track.
Mm-hmm.
Well, I'm glad you made it out okay.
So you won't be going back again tomorrow?
No, I don't know.
I'll be welcome after this broadcast.
Were you ushered out?
Did anything bad happen?
No, no.
I wore a badge with my name on it, and it said I was with 2600 Magazine.
But did you have the secret ring that they all have?
Wait a minute.
You said you were from 2600?
No, no.
It's interesting.
The guy sitting in front of me during the presentations was wearing a Masonic ring.
So I don't know if that has any special significance.
Yeah, yeah, I think it might.
They always seem to be involved in things like this.
Wow, that is something.
There was kind of one humorous event when a guy named Tom Davis from General Dynamics got up to speak.
He couldn't get his Windows PowerPoint presentation to work,
and they literally spent about ten minutes trying to get his files opened up.
They were messing around with XP, Windows XP, trying to get it to work, and they just couldn't.
So the guy had to wing it.
And you didn't offer to help?
You could have fixed it right there, I'll bet.
Well, I don't want to touch Windows XP.
I sat back and was amused at these guys who were selling billions of dollars in technology products at our expense.
Couldn't get a PowerPoint presentation to work.
It was pretty funny.
Yeah, yeah.
Well, glad you made it out of there okay.
One last thing I wanted to mention, one thing to look forward to.
As I mentioned, a lot of the money so far has been going to hiring people.
But the big emphasis coming up now after airline security is going to be on rail, subway, bridges, and tunnel security.
Oh, joy.
That's the next big funding priority, according to all these multi-billion dollar corporate executives.
So does this mean more soldiers with machine guns in subways, or devices that will track what it is we're wearing and carrying?
Really, they didn't go into a lot of specifics of what applications were going to be applied to rail, subways, bridges, and tunnels.
But they said that's where the next big thrust on spending is going to be on securing those types of things.
Now, throughout this whole thing, did they have a big sign saying what the current threat level was?
No, I'm surprised.
I was kind of looking, seeing big neon signs saying flashing orange or yellow or whatever.
That wasn't going on.
I was pretty surprised.
It's because these people know what nonsense it is.
Yeah, I mean, everybody knows what nonsense it is.
I mean, but they don't need to lie to themselves.
They need to lie to the public.
There seemed to be an underlying belief with these guys, and they didn't state it outright.
But I got the impression from them that they realized that this really wasn't going to cause the homeland, the United States, to be secure.
They all seemed pretty resigned to the fact that this country is just too big to lock down and secure from terrorist attacks.
But that wasn't going to bother them because they were going to make billions of dollars off of this whole thing.
And, you know, I think that a lot of people that are on this show here tend to agree with you.
All this homestead security is largely just a feel-good illusion.
It really comes down to, I think, our country's policies, especially foreign policy, that has to be changed rather than locking down everything to keep the rest of the world from wanting to attack us.
But these guys weren't talking about that because that doesn't make any money.
Sir, if you have a story about protecting our country from those nasty Canadians, right?
Oh, yes.
What's going on up there?
Border protection is taking off.
There's, according to this article in Federal Computer Week, a system of 14,000 sensors buried in the border between the United States and Canada to keep track of movements across the border.
Really?
They're buried in the earth.
And these surveillance systems can help detect a smuggling day or night.
I guess they are smuggling detectors.
They can detect when there's smuggling going on. Okay.
They smuggle around in the earth and they smuggle, smuggle.
How many of these things are there?
14,000.
14,000.
Of course, it's a big, long border, so I don't think they can cover very much of it.
I was going to say, you know, it's a 3,000-mile border.
Okay.
So for every three miles, there's 14 of these, which means that they're every quarter mile.
I guess they're really good sensors.
Yeah.
I mean, I'm sure you could sneak your pack animal, even your dog sled, you know, equidistant between two of these and hardly have it spotted.
You must know a lot about smuggling detectors, Jim.
I'm trying to figure out what the hell these things are.
I have no idea.
But in any case, when one of these things goes off, a camera can be remotely pointed in the direction of the smuggle, smuggle.
Well, you know, if there are cameras involved, then the whole hidden, you know, smuggling detector thing is kind of useless because you can see the damn camera, can't you?
I guess so.
Well, I mean, based on what Bernie just said, it looks like the camera could be a few miles away.
But in any case, the Homeland Security Department decided on Monday to add another 90 surveillance systems along the northern border as part of the integrated surveillance intelligence system.
Integrated surveillance.
Yeah.
Well, I kind of like the phrase integrated surveillance.
Now, this is equally vague.
90 surveillance systems.
These aren't 90 cameras.
These are 90 systems.
Right.
We're getting very little information from these people.
I have some information about the system.
Okay, go ahead.
Well, this is one system.
There are several competing systems.
The one I saw demonstrated today actually uses a fiber optic loop and a technology called OTDR, optical time domain reflector.
Basically, it sends pulses down a loop of fiber and light pulses.
And any disturbance of that fiber, whether it's the slightest vibration or even a complete break of that fiber, they can tell where along the length of that, based on like a Doppler effect of the signals going around the loop, where the disturbance was.
They can pinpoint, even if this is like 100 miles from the repeater to the end of the piece of fiber, they can tell within inches of where the disturbance was.
And they bury this fiber underground.
And if somebody walks on the ground, it'll pick up the vibrations and it'll send signals back.
And using digital signal processing, they can tell with certain signatures what's happening over this glass fiber.
Now, there's other technologies, too, but that's the one I saw today.
I actually heard about that technology, I guess, in the late 90s from a friend of mine who worked at the Pentagon.
And he told me that not only can they determine the location along the length of the fiber where the disturbance is occurring, but that they can also determine the size and makeup of the object which is causing the disturbance.
Fascinating.
We also have similar technological advances in the world of Hollywood.
And, of course, we all know that Hollywood is obsessed with piracy right now.
Really, they're boarding ships?
No, not in that sense, at least not that I know of.
That would be kind of exciting.
That would be maybe a more productive use of their time.
Right now, what they're doing is they're actually doing this.
This comes from the Associated Press.
They're sending people into theaters with night vision goggles.
I could not make this up.
And they're looking for people who are filming movies, who are out there pirating their movies in the audience.
They're putting metal detectors outside advanced screening rooms.
And I imagine strip searching and all that kind of thing, both on your way in and on your way out.
But it says here the industry cannot stop pirates from recording films and seeing illegal copies before their theatrical debuts.
The problem is that the pirates are adopting even more sophisticated technology using tiny camcorders in purses and digital recorders about the size of a fountain pen.
Yeah, can you imagine?
You can't bring that pen in here, sir.
You could be recording Star Wars 3 or whatever.
Some handheld computers have an attachment that can record up to 122 minutes, which is far longer than most films these days.
It's big business, too.
The Motion Picture Association of America estimates that studios lose more than $3 billion per year from piracy in various forms.
Now, of course, they don't say how they calculate this.
I guess they're assuming that everybody who watches a pirated film would immediately go out and pay full price and buy the videotape and the DVD.
In many cases, I don't think that would be the case since the quality probably isn't quite all that great.
Anyway, so the movie industry is trying to fight back with a high-tech solution of its own.
Cinea LLC, which created an encryption system for DVDs, which was famous and very successful, and Sarnoff, a technology research firm, are developing a system to modulate the light cast on a movie screen to create a flicker or other patterns that would be picked up by recording devices, making the resulting images unwatchable.
Sounds like the movie Looker. Remember that?
I don't know.
With these light pulses, and then they could control people's minds with the light pulses. It was a pretty good movie.
Yeah, well, maybe they'll delve into that next.
But, you know, I don't have a problem. Right now, most of the stuff they put out is unwatchable as far as I'm concerned.
But I guess that's not what they mean.
The disruptive flickers would be unseen by the human eye in the movie theater.
But I guess the mechanical eye would pick it up.
The forensic watermark system is designed to be used with digital projectors, which show movies stored on computer disks rather than traditional 35mm film.
Hey, I've got an idea. Why not just steal the damn computer?
What are they going to do then?
You know, if you put the thing on a computer, make it a file, files are meant to be copied.
You know, you are never going to get away from this.
I have a suggestion for all these folks that are worried about music being copied because it's digital, about movies being copied because they're digital.
You know what? Go back to analog.
Let us have digital. You guys can have analog.
Put everything out on phonograph records and 35mm film and make it as non-copyable as possible.
And everybody will be happy.
That's how we got rid of the dinosaurs.
So maybe it'll work in this case.
That's how we got rid of the dinosaurs? By converting them to analog?
Well, yeah. We pretty much kept the technology out of their hands.
I see.
And they weren't able to adapt.
Read your history, Mike.
All right.
The research is funded by a $2 million grant from the Advanced Technology Program of the National Institute of Standards and Technology.
They were there at the conference today, by the way.
Were they?
Yeah, NIST.
They weren't showing these anti-movie pirating technologies.
But NIST has a big role in Homeland Security.
Well, the National Institute of Standards and Technology.
It used to be called the National Bureau of Standards.
But they're working on a lot of projects for government technology.
Well, they say the technology takes advantage of the fact that the human eye and camcorders see the world differently.
And they use, as an example, a computer screen constantly refreshing an image, creating bars that travel across the screen that a camcorder picks up, but the naked eye does not.
Now, researchers are a bit concerned that creating too rapid a flicker could trigger seizures in some people.
As I was saying.
They also discovered that using the flicker to write words across the image, such as copy, are not disruptive enough.
It turns out the text isn't that annoying, said Robert Schumann, CINIA's chief executive.
Also, if it's just a static image, it's easier for the pirates to take it out.
So, um...
What if it says, buy popcorn and junior mints?
Those have worked for years.
Mm-hmm.
All right, Mike, you're frightened about something.
What are you frightened about?
A lot.
But in particular, I have this article last Wednesday from the Washington Post.
The Homeland Security Department has a privacy, a privacy czar.
When did people start getting called czars when they worked for an allegedly democratic government?
No, they had an energy czar in the 70s.
Right.
That was spelled T-S-A-R, though.
Oh, I never saw it.
I saw it as C-Z.
Oh, well, you know.
You were with it crowd, but that was the old school, the T-S-A-R.
That's how they spelled it then.
Whoa.
Yeah, but whose privacy are they worried about?
Theirs or ours?
The privacy czar is O'Connor Kelly, 34 years old.
His first name is O'Connor?
Yeah.
His last name is Kelly?
Her.
Her last name.
How did she get a first name O'Connor?
I don't know.
No, hang on a second.
Nancy.
I think it is Kelly O'Connor.
Sam.
Well, oh, wait.
There's another first.
The first name is Nuala.
Nuala.
Nuala.
That's a woman's name.
Yes.
Nuala O'Connor Kelly is the full name.
Okay.
See?
We did a little research into this.
Yes.
Sorry.
All right.
Nobody would have a first name O'Connor.
No.
Certainly not.
Unless they're starring in Highlander or a character on Highlander.
Anyway, the important point here is that she used to work for DoubleClick, the internet
advertising firm.
Uh-oh.
Oh.
So, okay, but why does that frighten you, Mike?
DoubleClick is not known for its wonderful privacy practices, to put it lightly.
Uh-huh.
And...
Well, they've been able to keep themselves private for quite some time.
Yeah.
A lot of people are looking for them, you know?
I don't really know anything about them.
Mm-hmm.
They are really well known for putting a pretty positive spin on everything they do in the
business.
Every time that they've been publicly attacked for their privacy practices, they always seem
to be able to put a positive spin on it.
Yeah.
So, Homeland Security will be, you know, well-trained to do that.
And nobody will know who they are, just like nobody knows who DoubleClick is.
So, uh, yeah.
So, O'Connor Kelly is well acquainted with the often bitter debate over balancing privacy
rights with other interests, says the Washington Post.
Uh-huh.
She joined DoubleClick in February 2000 after the Federal Trade Commission launched an investigation
into complaints that the company was improperly storing and sharing private user data.
Wow.
So, she came in to clean up the mess.
Uh-huh.
And that's actually going to happen.
Is that...
Did she just propose, or is she somebody that actually is taking over?
Uh, she will be, according to Homeland Security Tom Ridge.
Well, I'm glad I got to voice my opinion about it.
I feel really like it made a lot of difference.
Okay, well, this scares me even more.
DNA profiles from juvenile offenders and adults who have been arrested but not convicted
would be added to the FBI's national DNA database under a Bush administration proposal.
Under current law, only DNA from adults convicted of crimes can be placed in the national database,
which is used to compare those samples with biological evidence from the scenes of unsolved crimes.
And as of January, there were about 1.3 million DNA samples in the database, according to U.S. officials.
DNA is to the 21st century what fingerprinting was to the 20th,
said Deborah Daniels, assistant U.S. attorney general for SoundBytes.
The widespread use of DNA evidence is the future of law enforcement in this country.
But critics and sore losers say adding juvenile and arrestee profiles to the database
threatens privacy by expanding the pool of samples beyond adult criminals.
Although only digital DNA profiles would be linked to the FBI computer,
the blood or saliva samples from which the DNA was drawn would be kept by state labs, they note.
Privacy advocates are outraged, obviously.
They note that researchers are identifying genetic markers for height, hair color, and other features.
They suspect that authorities soon will want to search DNA samples for such genetic markers.
And it seems like this is something that I guess a lot of people could see coming.
When this whole thing started, you kind of knew that it was going to be expanded at some point,
abused and used in ways that they weren't initially going to be doing.
It's only a matter of time before the government gets its hands on DNA samples,
starts playing around with our genetic codes, said Barry Steinhardt,
privacy specialist for the ACLU here in New York.
They say they don't want to do that, but not too long ago they were saying
they'd only take DNA profiles from rapists and murderers, and now they want juveniles.
We're not just on a slippery slope, we're halfway down it.
This mask just has sound bites too, you know.
Yes.
Now, Bernie, what's going on down there by you in Pennsylvania?
I'm hearing some nonsense about an ordinance making it illegal for groups of people
to gather anywhere from public sidewalks to parks with the threat of jail time for laughterers.
And in the case of juvenile repeat offenders, their parents.
It's almost like they're going to outlaw 2600 meetings.
You know, that's what I thought when I first saw this.
This isn't in Philadelphia, it's a couple of small municipalities.
Suderton, they call this place.
Okay, I didn't know where it was.
Somewhere out in the boonies of Pennsylvania.
Between Pittsburgh and Philadelphia is basically boonies, so it's somewhere in there.
Well, that's the whole state of Pennsylvania there.
Pretty much.
All right.
Yeah, these ordinances basically want to make it a summary offense to gather publicly,
like people gather on a corner and just sort of chat.
They want to make that an offense where you can get fined or arrested.
And, you know, that would certainly describe a 2600 gathering or any other kind of gathering
where you're going to get a few people together and talk.
The reason behind this ostensibly is that there's been kids up to no good, you know, that sort of stuff.
So what are we supposed to do?
Just sit in our houses, asked Becca Murphy, 13 years old,
who was hanging out with a half dozen friends after school in Suderton Community Park on Main Street.
There's no problems here.
There's no gangs or anything at all.
It's totally ridiculous.
Sounds like a criminal to me.
Well, I mean, she should be saying there are no problems here, not there's no problems here.
Right.
There are no gangs.
We should collect her DNA.
I'm saying maybe if she spent a little more time in school practicing grammar
instead of speaking on subjects that she has no right to speak about to national media like this.
On top of that, it's suspicious that someone would say that there are no gangs here.
That is exactly what a gang member would say, is it not?
Yeah, denial.
That's the first sign of knowing you're in a gang.
Absolutely.
Anyway, so that's something that they're actually considering down there.
We, according to. . .
We should have a 2600 meeting in that town.
According to the soundbite guy from the Pennsylvania chapter of the ACLU,
he says we don't have a totalitarian regime in this country.
People have the right to spend time on the streets with their friends and associates.
The Supreme Court has repeatedly said that the streets belong to the people.
It's so ridiculous that this is actually something that people have to debate and think about.
And they're going to have to spend a lot of money to get their freedom of assembly rights back.
If these laws are enacted, they're going to have to take it to court,
which costs a lot of money and blah, blah, blah.
Yeah, absolutely.
Okay, we've got something fun here.
This is something actually, Mike, you found this.
Well, actually, the BBC monitoring service found this.
You want to tell us something about it?
Take a look at this?
I'll hand the paper.
We should just play it.
Well, I don't want to play this because it's really, I mean, I do want to play it,
but it's really, really bad.
It's awful, and if I just play it without some kind of disclaimer first,
I think people might, you know, think that it's something that, you know, I approve of, which I don't.
The explanation is that it was produced by the U.S. government, the CIA, apparently.
How does BBC monitoring, there are people that go around, they literally monitor.
They're based in Kaversham.
They're like the NSA, except they're the media.
Yeah.
They select and translate information from radio, television, press, news agencies, and the Internet
from 150 countries in more than 70 languages.
How about that?
So they heard this.
They found this, what is it, it's a rap song?
It's a song, yeah.
Okay, and it was, where was it being played?
It was being played on, it doesn't say, no, it does say.
Somewhere in Iraq, right?
It was being played on radio.
You're missing the second page.
I am?
No, there is no second page.
No, there's only one page.
It was being played by a radio station thought to be backed by the CIA, is what it says.
Okay, all right, and BBC monitored this?
Oh, here it is, in Kuwait.
The transmitter's in Kuwait.
Oh, the transmitter's in Kuwait.
Yes.
Okay, so.
Radio Tikrit, there it is.
All right, now let me take a look at some of these.
Oh, Radio Tikrit, I know about them.
What do you know about them, Bernie?
They are operated by the Central Intelligence Agency.
You're funded by them, and you can read all about them and other clandestine radio stations
funded by CIA and other intelligence agencies at clandestineradio.com.
It's probably one of the best websites on the web, clandestineradio.com.
It's fascinating.
Well, now, according to this, there's a Saddam impersonator wrapping out a message.
I think we should just let the people hear it.
Okay, well, I mean, I just want people to know what they're getting into here.
It's basically supposed to be a Saddam impersonator and saying words like,
if you don't like me, I kill you, I am Saddam in an English segment,
but he also says things in other languages as well.
All right, all right, we'll just play this.
The important point is that this is funded by your tax dollars.
Yes, it is funded by your tax dollars, and this is the way that they spread messages.
I'm just trying to figure out who in Iraq would hear this.
I mean, a lot of it's in English, for one thing, and I don't know.
No power.
What would they do after hearing this?
I know what I'd like to do after I hear it, but all right, let's just play this.
We're going to take phone calls, 212-209-2900.
The CIA created a rap song to convince the Iraqi people
that Saddam Hussein is evil and needs to be replaced.
Uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh.
DJ Saddam with you.
If you don't like me, I kill you.
Yeah, yeah.
Uh-huh.
I'm Saddam.
I don't have a bomb.
I'm not a soldier.
I work at a farm.
Boy, she wanna kick me.
I don't know why.
And if I call him, he tells me goodbye.
Smoking weed and getting high.
I know the devil is by my side.
My days are finished, and I will die.
All I need is chili fries.
I'm so dirty.
I'm so bad.
Stop killing Iraqis.
That makes me sad.
I'm Big Daddy.
This is my game.
I don't have feelings.
I don't have a shame.
48 hours left.
Bush said all my troops left me and fled.
Now I'm sitting by myself.
My ass is shaking.
I'm going to hell.
Where is the music?
I'm surprised that this is just a part of the music.
Look at that.
He's talking about you and Iraqis.
This is the worst.
Hello.
Hello.
Hello.
Hello.
I'm for adoption.
Anybody wanna adopt me?
Yes.
Who do you wanna adopt?
Me.
I love you.
Shake it, shake it.
He says he doesn't care.
I'm Big Daddy.
I'm going to say goodbye.
Bye-bye.
Bye-bye.
Bye-bye.
Bye-bye.
Bye-bye.
Hello.
I'm for adoption.
Who do you wanna adopt?
Me.
Sir,
do you wanna adopt him?
Ok.
Goodbye.
Goodbye.
Anybody wanna adopt, say you hate me.
Everybody in the house, we say, we say, we say, what's up, what's up, what's down, what's
going around here, sit down in the house, everybody in the house say we hate you, everybody
in the house say we hate you, everybody in the house say we hate you, what's up, what's
down, what's up, what's up, what's down.
Ok.
Democracy, whiskey, sexy.
Oh my god, well I guess, if they just played that to start with, they wouldn't have had
to send any troops in, right?
That would have been enough, right there.
That's true.
Wow.
So that was the radio rap that the CIA created and the reason it sounds so crappy, and I
I mean, quality-wise, I mean, the way, you know, the actual sound was, was because they
taped it off the radio over there in Kuwait.
Um...
There are soundbites on, uh, there may not be of this, but there are soundbites of other
CIA-sponsored radio broadcasts on clandestineradio.com.
Uh-huh.
And, you know, I'd like to know if, did they get the rights to use that music?
And I think the people who created that music should ask that very serious question there,
if this might be a violation of copyright.
Not me playing it.
I'm just saying, you know, them making it in the first place.
I don't know.
But, uh, that's, uh, that's, that's what your tax dollars are, are funding there.
Unbelievable.
Um, okay, some, uh, some listener feedback, and then, uh, some real listener feedback,
212-209-2900.
Did you see this, uh, the, uh, the death announcements that, um, CNN accidentally put on their website?
Yeah, CNN, CNN had, um...
They did this with Bob Hope two or three years ago, didn't they?
Well, they did it with Bob Hope again.
Well, he's 100, I mean...
He just turned 100, that's true.
No, no, he does at the end of May.
Uh, well, basically what happened is, uh, they, they prepare obituaries in advance,
and apparently what CNN did was they, uh, inadvertently, uh, uh, put some fake obituaries
online, and the folks over at the, uh, smokinggun.com, uh, grabbed it.
So if you go to the smokinggun.com slash archive slash CNNobit1.htm, uh, you will see, you
will see obituaries for such people as Dick Cheney, the Vice President of the United States.
They, they, they, they killed the Vice President of the United States, uh, 1941 to 2001.
Everybody died in 2001.
Uh, uh, that was a funny thing, but the great thing about this is that they didn't replace
the whole page.
They, they, they, they made part of the page having to do with Dick Cheney, and the rest,
it was kind of a mock-up of when the Queen Mother died.
Because it's the same format.
So basically what they have here is Dick Cheney, 1941 to 2001, loyal point man for
two Bush presidencies.
Here's a quote.
I've had a fairly successful career in the public and private sectors.
I am unusually blessed.
Uh, U.S. Vice President Richard Dick Cheney brought such a wealth of experience and credentials
to the job.
Uh, but some of the administration's, uh, detractors implied that he was the real power
behind the throne of the George W. Bush presidency.
And then under biography, life as Queen Consort.
And, and, uh, U.K.'s favorite grandmother.
More than I want to know.
Of course, there's also Ronald Reagan, which we know won't be, uh, true because it wasn't
July 4th.
Um, life is just one grand sweet song, so start the music.
That's the quote that Ronald Reagan will be going out with.
Fidel Castro, they have Fidel Castro, um, also saying life is just one grand sweet song,
so start the music.
Um, Bob Hope, 1903 to 2001.
He didn't make it to 100 in this particular scenario.
Thanks for the memory, Hope's signature song.
Um, Pope John Paul II.
Um, I come as a pilgrim of love, of truth, and of hope.
Uh, that's, uh, from the Pope's 1998 visit to Cuba.
And he also served life as Queen Consort.
I thought that was from his 1997 visit to Hope.
Uh, no, no.
Uh, Nelson Mandela, I will continue fighting for freedom until the end of my days.
Which obviously ended, according to CNN.
Kind of, um, kind of a weird quote.
And Gerald Ford.
Gerald Ford, remember him?
Yeah?
He's still around.
1913 to 2001.
That means, uh, that means he's 90 years old now.
Wow.
Yeah.
I didn't know he was 90 years old.
That's amazing.
Uh, I am Ford, not a Lincoln.
That's his quote.
Um, and, uh.
That's a dumb quote.
Yeah, it is a dumb quote, but you know what's interesting here?
When he became president, when Nixon resigned, he said, I'm a Ford, not a Lincoln.
And, and, you know.
It's funny.
It was funny at the time.
He was so young.
It was also funny how he kept tripping and falling and hitting people with golf balls
and things like that.
Uh, but, uh, his biography is different.
He's not the Queen Consort.
He is the maverick as Democrat, uh, and a forceful personality.
So I don't know, uh, um.
I picked up a factoid somewhere on the web.
Tiger Woods is.
And he's a Soviet leader, according to this.
Oh.
He's one of many Soviet leaders.
It's amazing.
You, you live long enough, you get more than one career, and they can be widely, widely
separated.
You know what this is?
This is Boris Yeltsin.
But Boris Yeltsin wasn't one of the people that was listed.
But these are all Boris Yeltsin, uh, um.
But he's still alive, is he not?
He is still alive, yes.
But the Queen Mother is dead, so that was a real obit.
Right.
But apparently there's another fake obit for Boris Yeltsin that we didn't see here.
But we saw part of it.
We saw part of it.
So, yeah.
That's what happens, folks, when you update your webpage.
Maybe you want to keep it on some page that doesn't, uh, uh, you know, have, uh, access
to the outside world.
Because somebody out there will find it.
There's always someone looking for these things.
Um, let's see.
We've got some, uh, oh, here's a, here's a query from one of our lists.
I'm going to read funny mail today, because, uh, I, I, I'm just in that kind of a mood.
Where can I get a virus to send to someone that will totally wipe their system out, yet
won't affect mine, and that they want, they won't know who sent it, or they won't know
who sent it?
Uh, I will keep any information you give me confidential.
This woman has caused me to loose my job and calls me at all hour of the night.
This, uh, comes from our listener, Tara.
Send them a round trip ticket to Toronto or Hong Kong.
They will get a virus that will...
That's not...
No, you, you know, you're, you're buying into this, like, uh, crazy hysteria that's going
around.
You know, we get so much mail from people that, um, that think it's, uh, it's just so
easy to, uh, you know, send them a password to a hotmail account because their girlfriend's
cheating on them or something like that, or, or send out a virus that they're not going
to misuse.
Um, you know, listen to our show, read the magazine, which, by the way, this new magazine
just came out.
Um, and we, uh, you know, we, we talk about how to learn, about how to, uh, you know,
to figure things out, but, uh, these, these, these people, they want, you know, short answers.
They have a very specific agenda, which is usually a harmful one.
Um, they're not part of this community.
They're really not, but they, you know, they buy into the media, the mass media's definition
of what hackers are.
I mean, what can I say?
They've, they've seen things like sneakers and hackers, and, and they think that's the
way it is.
Hey, those are plot devices.
If the stuff doesn't work like that, there is no plot, therefore, there is no movie.
Therefore, there's a lot of exaggeration in those movies.
Uh-huh.
Now, we've also gotten a couple other letters over the last, uh, few weeks from, from people
who aren't happy with what we've been doing, uh, and, uh, you've seen this, haven't you?
They're, they're, they're, you know, some of them are, are, are very legitimate complaints,
um, but I, I want to read the funnier ones.
Well, all the listeners, um, understand, this comes from somebody named Mike, all the listeners,
not you Mike, another Mike, um, all the listeners understand that the war is a great chance
for you to make up something to talk about.
Yeah, that's what it's all about.
We didn't have anything to talk about, so this, uh, this war came along and, yeah, it
gave us something.
Thanks, Bush.
But I mean, come on, it is really getting boring listening to the same crap every week,
as if we don't get enough of it from CNN and other news media.
Well, you know, this guy touched upon a point I always keep making, that, uh, we sound exactly
the same as CNN, you know, and all the other media.
We make the same points, we don't question them, we follow them word for word.
Yeah, that's us.
I thought that 2600 was more computer slash tech related.
I have noticed that now you have become a pro-Arab dictator party.
When did we become a party?
When did we become pro-Arab?
And when did we become dictators?
Well, that was a couple of years ago.
Yeah, that was fun for a while.
I will no longer contribute ever to 2600.
See how easy it is?
You just gotta, you just gotta, you know, piss them off a little bit, then they go away.
That's good.
I'm happy.
Wait, the sentence gets better, though.
I will no longer contribute ever to 2600, as well as all of my friends.
So he's not going to contribute to his friends either.
I don't mean to make fun of the person, because, you know, these are valid points that some
people might have.
The way some people phrase things makes me, makes me lose patience, makes me laugh.
I'm sorry.
You've got something to say?
He just needs to be in grammar classes with that woman from Pennsylvania.
Yeah, well, it's more about, you know, the generalizations, too.
Not just the grammar.
You know, the general, if you criticize, that means you're like, you know, in, in favor
of like Saddam Hussein or whatever.
And I'm just sick of that.
I'm sick of that.
You know, the ignorance that basically, you know, if you don't like America, leave America.
My country right or wrong.
This is why we do things like this.
This is why we talk about these kinds of things, because I think that's what the hacker world
is, questioning authority.
That's one major part of it.
And yet, technology is another major part of it, and I think we've developed, devoted
a lot of time to technology in previous weeks.
We certainly have tonight.
We, we, you know, had a guy on last week who was being victimized as a result of all this.
Well, not the guy himself, he's in prison.
Part of the technological world.
If you don't think it affects you in some way, you're in for a very rude awakening,
and a lot of, a lot of ignorance as well.
Anyway, let's continue with this letter, and so we can take some phone calls.
Unfortunately for you, this will be quite a loss, and you are losing more listeners
every day.
Well, that's something you forget, is that we do have the ability on the internet to
know how many people are tuning in, and the numbers have been going up recently.
Now, that's no reason to continue doing something.
You know, we're not a mass appeal outlet here, but to say that, that people are, are,
you know, running away, it's, some people might be, and that's too bad.
You know, maybe someday they'll come back when they hear something they like.
But a lot of people find it interesting, a lot of people want to participate, a lot of
people are, are, are shut out of other types of media, so I think it's very important that,
you know, we, not only Off The Hook, but the entire radio station provide that.
That's what we're here for.
Hey man, you are allowed to voice your opinion, and I support that, however, you are very
biased and sometimes stretching the facts on what agendas America has.
America is not the ultimate evil power that you think it is.
At least you are able to voice your opinion through a radio station.
You live in a country where you have many freedoms.
Maybe it is just because you are so bored with your life that you have nothing else
to do but accuse your own government of taking away your freedoms.
You have more freedoms than you even realize.
Try living under a dictator like Saddam.
I think it really too bad that you just don't support your own people and soldiers.
Of course you have the freedom to do that, however, because I disagree with your views,
I will no longer be a supporter along with others that I know.
I have to admit, though, I really did enjoy the show when it was in its younger years
and about hacking.
Now it just seems to be another news source, and if I wanted that, I can just turn on Al
Jazeera or CNN.
Anyway, I hope you find some meaning in your life, and I hope that someday you will find
satisfaction as well.
Obviously, you are not satisfied in the country that you live in, so I would recommend going
to a country that you will be more able to express yourself like Iraq or Iran.
Maybe there you will feel more at home.
What do you say, guys?
You can wear that new t-shirt or you're bought.
Yeah.
So, uh, that's, uh, that's, that's, that's one opinion, um.
We also got people expressing similar sentiments worded differently.
Worded differently, worded in ways that we can't say over the air, um, but we also, we
also got a lot of, uh, people expressing support and contributing and, uh, giving us more stories,
and, um, you know, it's, it's very selfish when, when you just want it to be about the
things that you're interested in.
I mean, um, this other letter here, uh, I'm not going to read the whole thing, but basically,
um, this person's saying the same thing in a somewhat more intelligent way, um, I've
listened and, and followed and supported the major stories and agendas of the show, such
as Free Kevin DECSS, et cetera.
Well, the funny thing is, this person says that and says he doesn't support what we're
doing right now.
Um, back then, when we were talking about Kevin and talking about DECSS, we got similar
letters from people saying, you know, will you shut up already about Kevin Mitnick, about,
uh, you know, legal problems, because I just want to hear about the latest exploits.
I want to hear about, you know, uh, all kinds of, uh, of, of hacking issues.
Not realizing that that is a hacking issue, that it's something that, uh, in, in years
to come, people are going to look back on and be very interested in and will want to
know how the story's unfolded and how exactly, uh, the hacker world played into it.
So you might not see the big picture when it's unfolding, but, uh, stick with it and
I think you'll see, you know, what we, uh, what we're talking about, what we are, are
trying to say.
Um, I don't know, that's just the way I, uh, I see it, but, uh, again, you're encouraged
to, uh, send your views to oth at 2600.com, as well as off the hook, 505, wow, I went
back in time.
That's our old address.
Uh, 120 Wall Street, New York, New York, one zero, all right, I'm lost.
One zero, zero, zero.
From the top again, it's off the hook, care of WBAI-FM, 120 Wall Street, New York, New
York, one zero, zero, zero, five.
Okay.
That's what I was going to say.
We're on the 10th floor.
On the 10th floor.
If you want to put that in there.
Yeah, you can throw that in.
Okay.
Bernie, you still with us?
I am, and I have a freebie for our listeners.
A freebie.
Make it fast, because we've got to take some phone calls.
Uh, if you want a free subscription to Homeland Security Solutions Magazine, you can, uh,
go to www.hss-subscribe.com, and you can learn all about the merging of big business
and Homeland Security.
HSS?
HSS, as in Homeland Security Solutions.
Okay.
HSS-subscribe.com.
All right, and our phone number, 209-2900, and let's open up these phone lines and see
what's out there.
Good evening, you're on the air.
Yes, hi, I'm upstate, so I don't know what you're talking about, but I'd like to mention
something.
Um, there have been posters, not posters, but little, um, things around, you know, different
parts of the city, Queens and stuff, like, um, placards, I guess, uh, that...
Make it fast, Rebel, please.
Okay.
Um, if you need an apartment, call 718, and they give a 718 number.
Uh-huh.
When you, when you call that 718 number, you hear a recording saying, thank you for calling
for the apartment listings.
For the apartment listings, call 540 or 550, whatever.
Uh-huh.
So it's, it's basically a way to get you to call a number and get you to call another
number and spend a whole lot of money.
I know, we, this kind of thing happens all the time, and you always call us and tell
us about it.
By the way, when you're upstate New York, you can listen to the show anyway, just get
on the internet like everybody else.
Thanks for calling.
Good evening, you're on the air.
Uh, hi, how are you?
Good, how are you?
I, I'm glad I got through.
I just wanted to tell you, I don't know if you know, 9 p.m. tomorrow on Channel 13, Frontline's
doing Cyber Wars.
Ooh, Cyber Wars.
9 p.m. tomorrow night.
Well, Frontline's, Frontline's a very good program, usually, so, uh, do you have an idea
who produced this, uh, documentary?
No, but I jotted it down, it says, I gotta call you guys next week, and I heard it, the
advertisement, like, last week, so.
Okay, so check your local listings for, uh, Frontline this week, uh, Cyber Wars.
I'll, I'll certainly be watching that.
All right, guys.
I hear they'll be chronicling the development of the E-bomb.
Oh, boy.
202-209-2900, and good evening, you're on the air.
Yeah, hi, thanks.
I was just listening to a very, very, uh, funny show tonight.
Uh, the Saddam, uh, rap that you played.
Uh-huh.
Uh, the music underneath there was actually a Stevie Wonder tune, uh, called Living in
Future Paradise.
I don't know, you mentioned, and you gave a reference to, uh.
In fact, in fact, Anthony Sloan came tearing into the studio to let us know that very same
fact, and, uh, and, uh, also, also Coolio, uh, Gangster's Paradise, as well.
Well, that's where he got it from.
That's the, the Stevie Wonder tune.
Uh-huh.