As the U.S. economy lurches towards freefall, and as manufacturing jobs flee south across the U.S. border,
as cities and states slash essential services,
does it seem reasonable that an American president will rush to help Africans when America faces such serious challenges?
Like a lion silently stalks its prey is how Bush stalks the African veldt.
He comes, not to give, but to get.
From Death Row, this is Mumia Abu-Jamal.
These commentaries are produced by Noel Hanrahan for Prison Radio.
Free Speech Radio News is produced at Pacifica Station's KPFA in Berkeley, California, and WBAI in New York City.
I'm Jackson Allers.
And you're listening to radio station WBAI in New York.
The program normally heard at this time that was scheduled to be preempted is going to be aired instead.
And if that confuses you, you have not been paying attention.
Yes, off the hook is on.
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.
Bondedly bond for the best, expect the worst.
I hope that's understood.
Bondedly bond.
Sometimes it's just nice to listen to the whole theme play through.
Kind of like, you know, being glad you're alive.
Yeah, I'm glad we're on.
Yes, we announced last week, because that's what we were told,
that we weren't going to be on.
And, of course, the plans got changed, I believe, yesterday.
A little more time than I thought we'd have.
But we're here, and thanks, everybody, for their support.
Off the hook for the next hour, talking about high tech and all that kind of thing.
Manuel here, Jeff, you're over there.
Mike, for some reason, decided to go out for refreshments, right?
Yeah, he'll be back.
Redhack, you're over there.
What's up?
How you doing?
Well, let's see, what do we have?
Bernie S. is on the phone, too, from Philadelphia.
Bernie, you there?
Yes, I am.
How you doing?
Hey, pretty good.
My ankle is healing nicely.
I'll be on two feet in about a week.
You'll be on two feet in a week?
Yeah.
Okay, well, that's good.
That's fine.
And we'll see you over in Germany, I assume?
I sure hope to.
The doctor gave me a thumbs up yesterday, so.
Okay.
All right.
You guys really got to get your airfare together.
We figured we'd do it like you and get tickets at the last minute.
Well, I got my tickets two weeks ago.
Yeah, but normally you get them at the last minute.
Yeah, well, there's ways of doing that.
And I imagine people who know this kind of thing might want to e-mail us
so that we can help get Jeff and Bernie S.,
and I think Laszlo, too, over to Germany for the Chaos Congress.
It takes place on August 7th, 8th, 9th, and 10th.
If you listen to our show last week,
you'll hear all kinds of information from some of the organizers of that conference.
It's going to be a lot of fun.
And I'm going to be traveling all over the place to various countries.
In fact, just yesterday I got my visa from Russia.
It didn't come from Russia.
It came from the embassy here in the States, and it's amazing.
They give you all this paperwork.
They stamp a page onto your passport.
Of course, I still have to get one from Belarus,
which is another country that used to be part of the Soviet Union.
They stapled a page to your passport as well with the sticker,
and you have to carry around two other full-page documents.
Full-page, and I have to have copies of those, too,
because they'll probably be stolen at some point.
That's what I'm told.
So, yeah, they tell you that up front.
These probably will be stolen.
Just be glad that you're not a Russian trying to visit the U.S.
Imagine the amount of papers you'd have to carry.
Well, I imagine it would be pretty difficult.
But it's kind of fun to go through all the paperwork and standing in lines.
Not that I've had to stand in any lines yet, but I know I will.
Now, how many of the actual countries you're traveling to
have required you to fill out all this paperwork?
Only two.
Russia and Belarus.
I guess all CIS countries, all former republics of the Soviet Union.
Actually, not Lithuania, not Latvia, not Estonia.
Those ones, not a problem.
I guess all the ones that have Cyrillic alphabet.
It seems like that's the case over there.
It's going to be interesting, because not only will I be going through a country
not knowing a single word of a language, like I usually do,
but I won't even know the alphabets.
It's really going to be fun.
But, no, I intend to try to learn something about it before I head over there.
And if there are any listeners in the countries of Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia,
that crazy part of Russia called Kaliningrad, Finland, Russia, of course, Belarus,
and the Czech Republic, please contact me, Emanuel at 2600.com.
Maybe we can hang out together in your city, whatever that might be, your country.
It would be interesting to see.
I know there are meetings in various parts.
I'm going to be at the Paris meeting in August and the Prague meeting in September,
which is a brand-new meeting, Prague and the Czech Republic.
Are you going to try and make this your sofa tour?
Sofa tour?
Yeah, you can meet enough people, you sleep on the sofas, and you don't have to pay for a hotel.
That's true, that's true.
Better food?
People say, you know, it's not that expensive. It really isn't.
You know, airfare is the most expensive part of this whole thing.
To travel, but once you're actually there, you have to find somewhere to crash.
Well, yeah, but that's usually not too hard.
It really isn't too hard, and even if you stay in a hotel, they're not that expensive,
especially in Eastern Europe.
But enough about that.
That's what's going to be happening.
The show is going to be kind of interesting, I guess, over the weeks.
Next week, I guess, will be a normal show, but the week after that is when things start to get a little crazy,
and I guess for the next six weeks after that, that's when I'm going to be wandering around.
Now, wait, the EU countries didn't have you file paperwork, right?
No, no, no EU country.
It's interesting because Finland is in the EU.
Lithuania is going to join the EU, I believe, next year.
Now, this makes a very strange kind of situation for the people in Kaliningrad,
which is that strange part of Russia I was talking about a few weeks ago.
It's detached from the rest of Russia.
It's next to Lithuania.
The thing is, those people obviously aren't in the EU.
Lithuania will be in the EU.
For people to go from Kaliningrad to the rest of Russia, they have to travel through Lithuania.
They're going to have to get a transit visa from the EU to visit people in their own country.
Every time?
Every time.
Actually, Lithuania wanted to give them a visa-free zone, but the EU didn't want to go for that.
They have the final say, apparently.
Imagine if you wanted to visit somebody in Chicago,
and you had to get a transit visa permission from, say, Mexico or something like that.
It would be, you know, people are naturally a bit upset.
Fewer friends in Alaska.
Fewer friends in Alaska, you need to make friends with Canadians.
Yeah, I guess you're right about that.
But, you know, I guess that's a good point.
You could take a boat.
But you don't have to get a visa to go through Canada.
You don't have to get permission.
You don't have to go through the border.
And, you know, sometimes, like we proved, you can get turned away.
All right?
But, you know, it does happen.
Yes?
Do you need a transit visa?
Hang on.
There's your mic over there.
Sorry.
Do you need a transit visa even if you're flying over?
That I don't know.
That I don't know.
I'll try to find out.
How big is this space?
Is it, like, a couple miles?
What, the country?
Yeah.
Well, Kaliningrad is, you know, it's not huge.
But it's, you know, I like to point to it on the map.
People have a map.
Look at the map just to the west of Lithuania.
And you'll see this little tiny sliver.
And the whole thing is just called Russia.
I tell people, look how tiny Russia is.
Why are we so afraid of them all these years?
And, you know, at least three people haven't questioned that, which I find to be amazing.
All right.
Moving on.
Last time we, I believe we left it where we were registering the New York Times to be on the National Do Not Call Registry.
Remember that?
And the question was raised as to whether or not, because they were a business, whether we'd be able to do that.
Well, it went through.
It went through, and they are registered.
The registration is complete.
212-556-1234 is the number for the New York Times.
And I added them into the Do Not Call Registry to kind of demonstrate what a silly system this is.
And now if the New York Times wants to get telemarketers calling them,
they're going to have a tough time because they have to prove that they're me, I guess,
because I'm the one that registered them not to get it.
So the challenge is out to anybody out there who wants to deregister them.
Go ahead.
Go to DoNotCall.gov and enter that phone number and try to deregister them and see how much luck you have.
We're going to continue trying to play little games with this system because I just don't think it's going to work.
I don't think it's a really silly kind of system.
We have this list.
It came from the Wall Street Journal.
I don't know if anybody here reads the Wall Street Journal.
Every day.
Bernie, you might get a kick out of this.
In fact, I think we'll all get a kick out of this.
They printed a list of 800 numbers and the quickest way to get to an operator from them.
Always a challenge.
Yeah.
Well, you guys want to pick a company?
They have most of the major ones here.
Anyone?
Verizon.
Verizon.
Okay.
Let's see if we have Verizon on here.
Let's see.
There's Sprint.
There's AT&T.
T-Mobile.
Yeah, Verizon Wireless.
Okay.
No, no.
Verizon Not Wireless.
Okay.
Well, they don't have that.
But Verizon Wireless, they give the number, but you know what they say after it?
No easy escape.
So you pick one that's actually very difficult.
I actually had to call a number the other day.
I don't remember which one, but I had to go through about three or four menus before I actually got an operator option, which is quite…
Yeah.
Well, that's actually typical these days.
It really is.
Let's pick another company.
WBAI.
WBAI.
No.
Seriously here.
GM.
Well, you know, they don't have all the companies in the country here.
That's a big one.
You know, major credit card, computer, phone companies, airlines maybe.
Capital One.
That's the one I had to go through.
Capital One.
Well, they have Bank of America.
You know what?
This is getting nowhere.
I'm just going to pick one.
How about Sprint?
Sprint PCS.
I think we've done this.
You hit zero twice, then say agent.
How about Visa?
Okay.
Visa is here.
Okay.
Interesting.
You call Visa.
You hit zero three times.
Ignore prompts saying that it's invalid entry.
So, okay.
That sounds good.
I can ignore some prompts.
Let's get a dial tone.
And let's call the number.
All right.
Let's see what happens.
Welcome to the Visa Assistance Center.
To continue, I'm going to press one now.
That is an invalid option.
Please try your selection again.
Please hold while your call is transferred to a customer.
Only two.
Only two.
Maybe you would...
Yeah.
Okay.
Well, obviously, we're on hold there for an agent.
Of course, we don't know how long it's going to take to get an agent.
There were some pretty arcane sequences in there, too.
Weren't there, Emmanuel?
Yeah, yeah.
There are some...
Something that wouldn't be obvious, like hitting zero, zero.
I mean, some really interesting combinations to get out.
Well, okay.
Here's Chase.
Well, we've tried that many times.
Chase is an interesting one.
You have to...
Actually, I've got to spell out the word Chase here.
And then two, four.
You hit five.
You pause.
Then you hit one, four, star, and zero.
Let's see if that works.
Welcome to Chase.
Five.
Okay, now I pause.
Welcome to Chase, where the right relationship is everything.
Now I hit one.
Please choose from the following.
Now I hit four.
To order checks.
Now I hit star.
And now I hit zero.
Please hold for customer service.
It works!
Yeah!
All right.
That's amazing.
In order for us to serve you...
No, no.
You're not going to serve me.
Okay.
That's pretty cool.
Amtrak is a good one, though.
You just hit zero or say agent.
That's always worked for me.
You know?
FedEx has worked really well.
But today I called FedEx and they annoyed me
because you used to just have to hit star
and instantly you got a person.
And now you get a recording when you hit star
and you have to star a few times.
It eventually works, but it's a lot more annoying.
Okay, so that's...
Well, maybe we'll call some more of those later
if people have suggestions.
I found with many companies,
if you say the word representative,
not just PrintPCS,
but other companies,
if you say the word representative,
it kicks you to a rep.
Uh-huh.
Well, that's a good policy,
if only it could be universally installed.
Let's look at some listener mail.
Here in Colorado, when you call a T-Mobile phone,
you can hear slightly different rings
while the call is connected.
I've noticed this.
The first ring style sounds slightly staticky
and has an uneven pace
that would suggest that it is a looped recording of a ring.
Yeah.
Then you'll be switched to the normal clearer ring
right before you're sent to voicemail.
To me, it sounds like T-Mobile plays a recording of a ring
while it tries to find the phone you're calling,
and once that times out,
you're sent to the voicemail system,
which makes an actual ring.
Does anybody else know anything about this sign, Bob?
Well, Bob, I've noticed many times
when you're about to connect to voicemail
that the ring changes.
It's a different cadence.
It's out of sequence.
But the interesting part that you brought up
was the staticky ring at first,
which, yeah, very well could be a bad recording of a ring.
It's not like the old days, you know,
where rings actually sounded different,
but, you know, it's something.
Let's see.
In the 7-9 episode of Off the Hook,
Bernie S expressed a concern about his cell phone number
becoming available to the callee
when he calls an 800 number
and that he uses a calling card to solve this.
Cell phones generally do not give true ANI
but rather give pseudo-ANI, known as P-A-N-I,
because the P-A-N-I number can be attached to a location
where the true cell phone number cannot.
The P-A-N-I number is dependent on the cell tower
you are talking to when you place the call.
As a Sprint PCS user, I can confirm that this is how it works.
Caller ID, however, is passed correctly.
Bernie, any comments on this?
Well, I didn't want to roll the dice
depending on what tower may or may not pass my info.
So I would rather spend three cents a minute
to protect my privacy
and call toll-free numbers without revealing my identity.
Speaking of three cents a minute,
I've been looking into ways to call overseas
and I found some very interesting things.
Mike, you found some interesting things too.
From prepaid calling cards that cost pennies a minute,
and we're talking calling Poland and Russia and places like that,
no surcharge, 800 numbers,
so you can program an 800 number
to go to any foreign number you want
for about 10 cents a minute.
So I'm trying to figure out ways
that people can reach me while I'm over there
and ways, obviously, the radio station can reach me
while I'm over there without having to run up
this huge bill on my cell phone,
which now charges for incoming calls
unlike the last few years when it didn't.
So any information on that,
people are welcome to send us, oth at 2600.com,
because it's a changing technology, it really is.
It used to be really expensive to call certain places
and now it's really, really cheap.
And, you know, it has you looking for, you know, the loopholes.
I was looking at the prices and saying to myself,
what's the catch?
Voice over IP, probably.
It could be, it could be, but, you know,
you have to wonder,
is voice over IP such a bad thing these days?
I don't know.
More letters.
Let's see, we have so many letters.
Okay, this person has something suspicious happen to them.
I found something odd this morning while driving to work.
I noticed a neutral blue Crown Victoria,
the model of the police cruisers in my town.
I thought this to be normal because the Crown Vic isn't all that rare.
However, when I looked closer, I noticed there was a cage in the back,
much like that of a police cruiser,
and it had Ohio state government plates on it,
the typical white background with red text,
no flash and flare at all.
Otherwise, it had no other markings to indicate its purpose or origin.
I didn't find seeing this vehicle all that strange.
After all, you see various government-owned Crown Vics
driving around all the time.
However, it got slightly stranger
when I turned the corner and looked behind me.
I noticed a Dodge Caravan behind me
of the same neutral blue color
with a similar but much larger cage behind the driver.
The only difference in style
between the Caravan and the Crown Vic
was that the Caravan had some fashion of a yellow light on top.
I know yellow means that this is a utility vehicle,
but what utility vehicle would have cages like that in the back?
I don't mean to start conspiracy theories,
but I just found this strange.
Perhaps this is some homeland security issue.
I found it interesting, though.
Isn't that just an unmarked car?
With a light on top.
Well, yeah.
With a cage in the back?
What's the cage for?
That's driver security.
Against what?
Whatever they put in the back.
What could they put in the back?
Lawn mowers?
Enemies of the state?
I mean, you know, anything's possible, I suppose.
I was thinking when I read this,
I was thinking some sort of animal control, maybe.
Maybe this is like the dog catcher.
I don't know.
The van would be for bear?
There's all kinds of possibilities.
But, you know, the best way is just to, I guess,
make a note of the license plate if you really want to,
or follow the vehicle around and see what it does.
There's nothing wrong with that.
People think that you're going to get in trouble
if you look at authority figures and see what they do,
but you're kind of obligated to find out what's going on out there.
There was a highly suspicious vehicle here in Philadelphia
about three weeks ago that Shapeshifter called me about.
Oh, yeah?
It was a Department of Homeland Security surveillance van,
and it was really decked out.
It was really one of these big panel trucks,
and it was right after I broke my ankle.
So I hobbled up there nonetheless and took a look at this thing,
and it was set up with all kinds of satellites,
uplinks and downlinks,
and a big mast with surveillance cameras on the top of it,
and they had video conferencing systems.
I actually was able to social engineer my way into this thing,
and the company who made it for the Department of Homeland Security
was there demonstrating it for some gathering of law enforcement people.
They invited me in,
and one of the things that this van does is interoperability.
So a whole bunch of, suppose some emergency happens,
and a bunch of law enforcement agencies descend on the area,
and they can't talk to each other because their radios are all incompatible,
which is very common.
Yeah.
So what this thing does is it has this big matrix switch
that converts all the protocols from the different radio systems to each other,
and supposedly everybody can talk to each other.
It also is a mobile cell site,
so they can pull into some area that doesn't have cell service
or the cell service is broken down,
and pass out a bunch of cell phones and the satellite uplink,
and everybody can talk on their cell phones.
It did a lot of stuff,
and it cost $2 million or something,
and it was pretty impressive.
That's a good deal, $2 million for all that.
Yeah.
It's a bargain.
Bernie, don't you think we could have put something together like that at Dayton
for about, what, $1.50?
Probably for about $1.10 at that price.
Yeah.
Actually, there were some vans like that for sale at the Dayton convention,
like news vans.
Yeah, there might have been some stuff left inside them as well.
On the subject of watching the authorities,
I don't know if you guys saw this story.
It's kind of interesting.
This guy named William Sheehan, you know about him?
He doesn't like the police.
He expresses his views about what he calls police corruption
in Washington state on his website,
where he posts lists of police officers' addresses,
home phone numbers, and social security numbers.
Oh!
Yeah, state officials say those postings expose officers and their families
to danger and invite identity theft,
but neither litigation nor legislation has stopped Mr. Sheehan,
who promises to expand his site
to include every police and corrections officer in the state
by the end of the year.
He says he obtains the information lawfully
from voter registration, property, motor vehicle,
and other official records,
but his provocative use of personal data raises questions
about how the law should address the dissemination
of accurate, publicly available information
that is selected and made accessible
in a way that may facilitate the invasion of privacy,
computer crime, even violence.
And I don't know.
I'm kind of torn on this one.
What do you guys think?
If they can do it to us, why can't we do it to them?
Do they post our names, social security numbers,
phone numbers, addresses on a website?
No, they give it to businesses,
which make it even more detrimental.
Well, that's true.
But, you know, if this guy was giving police officers
names and addresses to businesses,
I don't think there'd be a story about it.
You know, he's doing something a lot more, you know, advertising and...
I think what he's trying to do is let people know
what can happen, how easy this information is to be out there
and officers and...
Yeah, well, you know, I just...
In a sense, I feel that, you know,
these people could be targeted, very obviously,
but whenever you have a list of people, you know,
and an implication that these are bad people,
all kinds of things can happen.
Is there an implication that they're bad people?
Well, look, the guy says he doesn't like cops.
I haven't seen his website.
Interestingly enough, the website is not given anywhere in the story,
so I can't look at it myself.
But I just have the feeling that people go there,
get this information, they might cause mischief.
It's possible.
I mean, that's no reason to outlaw anything, obviously,
but it's just you have to wonder, you know,
where this could wind up going.
I mean, it allows people, these people,
to be targeted by possible enemies that they have through their work
who might not, under normal circumstances,
know how to find that information.
See, I think the 2600 approach to this
would be to show how easy it is to get the information
and post that and say, look, this is how you do it,
and this can be done with anybody.
And then the people that have the intelligence to go out
and do some investigation,
if they want to investigate a cop or something like that,
they can do it.
They can get that information.
But the end is still the same.
Well, no, it's not really.
It's not as easy.
You've just given them another hoop to jump through.
But people who actually have the skill to enter the right information,
know what they're looking for,
they're the ones that are going to find the information
rather than just handing out a list of people saying,
look, these are people, have fun.
Use a double standard.
Yeah.
I mean, this guy doesn't have his name and address
and Social Security number on here.
I wonder what would happen if that got posted,
which it probably has.
There's a pronounced double standard, though.
The Pentagon recently announced their
Terrorism Information Awareness Program,
which is going to use all kinds of public databases,
like the big three credit bureaus,
TransUnion, Experian, and Equifax,
to get all kinds of sales information
and magazine subscriptions and all that other sort of stuff
to compile patterns and track terrorists, supposedly.
But if you have access to Experian, TransUnion, or Equifax,
and you try to do a search for, say, a federal law enforcement agent,
say someone at the Secret Service, for instance,
and I haven't done this personally, so nobody get excited,
but I have a good authority that if you try to do this,
the information will not come up,
but it will flag some alarm at that credit bureau,
and you'll get a phone call quite quickly,
or you'll be contacted quite quickly or visited quite quickly
as to the purpose of your search.
So federal agents and probably state and local law enforcement agents,
I'm not sure about that,
have more privacy than the rest of us,
and I have a problem with that double standard.
Well, yeah, I mean, you know, I'm sure many people do.
Yes, go ahead.
I don't know if this is the first time this has happened, though.
I remember a case a few years ago where there was a listing on a website
of all the abortion doctors in a certain state.
I was trying to think.
I don't remember what happened to the website,
but I remember, I mean, that was intended to do harm to those doctors.
And they had, like, a checkmark next to the ones that had been killed.
Exactly.
Yeah, I'm saying that's the kind of mentality that is, you know, attractive.
Obviously, you can get a listing of doctors.
You can find, you know, people who perform abortions.
It's not very difficult to do,
but when you post a list like that,
especially with a checkmark next to them,
It's making them a target.
It invites some things, and I'm just a little wary of that.
That's what bothers me about this.
Okay, we've all heard about the Google thing by now.
Do we need to talk about this?
We talked about it on the other show a few weeks ago,
but basically...
Google?
Silly word.
I've never heard it before.
Well, no.
I mean, we know what Google is,
but if you type in weapons of mass destruction
and hit I feel lucky on that,
you get the funny mock error page.
Yes, we all have a copy of it.
These weapons of mass destruction cannot be displayed.
The weapons you are looking for are currently unavailable.
The country might be experiencing technical difficulties
or you may need to adjust your weapons inspector's mandate.
Yeah, it even made the front page of CNN today.
It's been out there for quite some time.
It's this guy named Anthony Cox over in England
who runs mock web pages.
He actually, according to the news story,
he also has a story or a gag about the New York Times
and their whole plagiarism scandal.
They don't give the website address,
so if anybody has that website address,
I'd like to know what it is.
Apparently you can go there and see a New York Times spoof page
also designed to look like an error message.
It contains an event story link
that leads to an article about Jason Blair,
the New York Times reporter at the center of the scandal.
You guys heard about Jason Blair, right?
I can't believe that.
The New York Times has...
It's not the first time we've seen a New York Times reporter
make up stories, that's for sure.
But in this particular case,
the guy really just went out to fool everybody
and he's not apologetic about it.
He's like, well, you know, I had problems.
I'm going to write a book about it now.
I'm going to be famous.
And completely blows off any kind of criticism.
It reminds me of that guy that...
Remember the New Republic story about hackers years ago?
Yeah, this guy in the New Republic wrote a story.
Bernie, you remember this, right?
He just made it up at a whole clause.
He made it up the National Hacker Congress.
He made up this group of lobbyists
that were there for the hackers
and how they had all this power
and corporations were trembling.
And the whole thing, you know, we read it.
Every hacker that knows what's going on
read this thing and said, that's utter crap.
Of course, the New Republic,
which has a good reputation for printing the truth,
they didn't check.
They didn't check with people who knew.
And their reputation was forever damaged by that.
And the guy, yeah,
the guy turned out to be a complete liar.
And the reason they believed him
was because they asked him,
is this true?
And he said yes,
and that was their fact-checking.
That was how they checked facts.
They asked a reporter, is this true?
They never thought for once
that this guy might be lying,
might be making things up.
This sounds like the same kind of fact-checking
that's used in our judicial system
when police are asked if something really happened.
Yeah, but that's how stories get out in the media,
you know?
There's all kinds of mistruths being printed all the time.
The fact-checking just isn't there.
And that's why, you know,
people have to ask questions all the time
and look for those sources,
look for, you know,
when they say something.
Like, for instance,
when they say that
there's weapons of mass destruction in Iraq,
ask for the evidence.
Maybe you won't get into a war, you know?
If more people had asked for evidence,
we wouldn't be in the situation we're in right now.
What was the article about,
the Times article?
The Times article?
The one that,
what was that article about?
He wrote a bunch of articles.
Yeah, there was more than one.
There was one involving Jennifer Lynch.
It was recent.
You know, the army person that was from West Virginia
that was held as a prisoner of war in Iraq.
First of all,
there's a whole big thing about
whether or not this person
was actually being held as a prisoner
or was held in the hospital.
But that's a story of mistruth
on the U.S. government's part.
This guy wrote a story about her farmhouse
and how it looked out onto, like, you know,
fields of grain and things like that.
Utter nonsense.
Things that were not true at all.
He had never even been there,
but the New York Times printed it
as if it were fact.
And just all these stories
that really there was no reason to print them
just because, I guess, he couldn't.
It was, I guess, a sense of power.
A lot of reporters have that.
Don't believe everything you read.
No, no.
Question everything.
Question us, too.
We like that.
In fact, you can question us by calling us,
212-209-2900.
Here's something interesting.
I don't know if you guys,
what do you guys got to think about this?
This person writes in
with the ultimate in conspiracy theories.
This was actually sent to Off the Wall,
but I'm going to read it here.
I listened to your shows over the Internet
last week on Off the Wall.
You mentioned that the phrase
Off the Wall is said in the theme song
for Off the Hook.
Yeah, that's true.
If you listen to the theme song of,
can we do that?
Can we bring the,
this will take a bit of technical doing
here at B.A.I.
because the CD player doesn't queue up again.
Okay.
Here's our theme.
If you listen to the lyrics,
you will hear that the second line
is Off the Wall.
Yeah, and that's the title of the other show
on the other radio station,
which was never known at the time
when we did this.
Why don't you sing it, Emanuel?
No, I don't think I'm going to do that.
But what I am going to do
is continue reading this
because it says that
you also mentioned that MTV was censoring
any references to 2600
from people who visit their message boards
or whatever.
That got me thinking about
another strange coincidence
that I've noticed.
I remember listening to Off the Hook
back in 95 or 96
and Off the Hook seemed like
a reasonable name for a show
that was mostly about phone hacking.
It makes sense in that context
a phone is said to be
Off the Hook when in use.
We all understand that, right?
Okay.
Of course.
Off the Hook was fairly common
in conversation amongst other people
who talked about hacking slash freaking,
but in the rest of the population
it was almost never used.
Any problems with that?
95, 96?
Okay.
About two years ago
when I lived at college
and watched entirely too much MTV
I noticed that there
little wannabe TV anchor type people
started using the phrase
Off the Hook obsessively.
They used it to describe things
that were zany or crazy or awesome.
You know, things that might previously
have been called Off the Wall.
Well, several of us noticed
that the phrase Off the Hook
means absolutely nothing
in that context
and it's ridiculous for them
to be using it.
Okay.
Our theory,
and this is the good part,
was that whoever runs MTV
was deciding to do a test
to see how much control
they actually do have
over our culture and society.
By introducing a meaningless phrase
and having their talking heads repeat it
as though it was actually
a cool thing to say
they could see
whether people picked it up
and started using it themselves.
I stopped watching MTV
a couple of months after that
but I am displeased to report
that usage of this ridiculous phrase
has become incredibly widespread.
Even without ever watching MTV
I hear someone say this phrase
in the wrong context
multiple times per week
either in person
or on the radio
or on TV shows.
Since I assume our theory is true
that this is all a big sheep test
on the masses by MTV
I actually cringe
when I hear people say it.
And by the way
you are listening to
Off the Hook
on WBAI New York.
Anyway,
when you reported that MTV
is blocking anyone
from saying that they're
interested in 2600 or hacking
I thought maybe they're trying
to cover up their tracks.
Maybe they don't want people
reading your site
and seeing the years of archives
of a radio show
called Off the Hook
and then actively contemplating
what the hell that phrase
actually means
and realizing that it's bull
when they say it.
Another factor that seems
to support these theories
is that they are now
shifting their test phrase
from Off the Hook
to Off the Chain.
Another stupid
completely meaningless phrase
but something that can't be
directly connected to you.
What do you think about all this?
Well, it's intriguing.
It really is.
I think we've been giving
too much time to MTV.
Yeah, you know,
I think all this can be solved
by people just not watching MTV
and not paying attention
to what they...
I mean, it's annoying to us
when they won't allow you
to say 2600
in their little chats.
But I don't know.
The phrase Off the Hook
has been around
for quite some time
but not in the context
that this person
was referring to it.
Wasn't there a film?
There was a film called
Off the Hook.
Wasn't there something?
It was about some
cell phone operation.
Check.
And I believe,
I believe the main
protagonist's name
was Goldstein.
I think.
You can check that.
I can check on the...
Yeah.
IMDb.
Well, I can't check
because I'm talking
on the radio
and I can't type the same.
Well, I'll try.
I'll try.
You want to do this?
Go ahead.
Okay, more letters.
Then check if there was
a film called
Off the Chain.
Yeah, Off the Chain.
There's one in production
for another radio show.
Yeah.
Hey, just curious.
What's up with the annoying guy?
You keep disconnecting
other than him being annoying.
I haven't heard much
he has to say.
I haven't been listening regularly.
Shame on me.
So I'm probably,
I probably missed quite a bit.
What started it?
What started it?
Well, you'd have to look
to his parents for that, I guess.
But that would be Rebel.
Rebel constantly calling us
and well, you know,
the latest thing
and I talked to him
about this at the meeting
was signing me up
for the Army Reserves
which I did not
appreciate at all.
I don't like getting calls
from the Army Reserves
wanting to know where I am
and why I'm not
at basic training
and as soon as he issues
a statement on that
maybe we'll hear
something else
he has to say.
All right.
I just don't like
when people do things
and they pretend
they didn't do them
or pretend
that it doesn't matter.
It does matter.
You sign somebody up
it's, you know,
it's our nation's defense.
I take that kind of thing
very seriously.
I sure do.
Hey, I was watching
a rerun of Everwood.
Have you ever
watched that program?
Everwood?
I can't even say it right.
On the WB
and that's probably
why you never heard of it.
Good point.
The lead character
was wearing a 2600
blue box shirt.
I thought you might
find it funny.
And this person,
Mr. Kan,
also wants to know
if I could direct him
to a place to research
receiving Canadian TV
down here in Kansas.
Well, I can tell you
you most definitely
can receive Canadian TV
down there in Kansas
with a company
called Expressview
E-X-P-R-E-S-S-V-U
dot com
or starchoice dot com.
Expressview
is a company
that produces
and that's where
you get the equipment from.
The next thing you need
is an address in Canada.
If you get a billing
address in Canada
either through a friend
or through some kind of
service that offers that,
then you're good to go.
You simply get your dish
and you can receive
programming and see
all kinds of things
you don't see here
in this country.
It's cheap, too.
It's not as expensive
as dishes here.
Yes, right ahead.
There is, in fact,
a movie called
Off the Hook.
Is there?
And it's about
two young black men
from the South Bronx
projects trying
to become rap stars.
Okay, there you go.
What year is it made?
So it's probably
using the meaningless
phrase as opposed
to the one with
the meaning.
1999.
1999, okay.
Did MTV have anything
to do with that production?
And is one of the
characters named Goldstein?
I don't think so.
Go to the other...
Why don't you come back
here and finish your job
and look up the cast
and look up where it was
produced and things like that?
IMDb is a great resource.
Mm-hmm.
Oh, yeah.
I know.
Ever since this whole
internet thing got started,
you know, the internet
database is like
something I'm constantly
going to because they
always have all the
information.
They even have our
film in there,
Freedom Down Time
is in there.
The credits?
Let's see.
What are you pointing at?
Okay, those are the credits.
I don't see any
Goldsteins in there.
Someone told me
there was a Goldstein.
I think this might be
a later...
There was another movie,
the one that you're
talking about.
I don't think this is
the one.
This is 99.
Yeah.
There's one after 99?
Before, before.
Okay.
I don't think
there's any credits,
though.
Excuse me.
MTV was involved.
Okay.
What else?
Our phone number
again, 212-209-2900.
We'll take phone calls
in just a couple of
moments.
Low Power FM Radio.
Oh, yes.
You have an update
on that, Bernie.
What's going on
with Low Power FM?
Long-time listeners
probably remember
that starting about
five or six years ago,
there was a groundswell
of movement in
Low Power FM
broadcasting,
pirate broadcasting.
Here in Philadelphia,
about five years ago,
we had this big
East Coast
micro-broadcasting
conference,
and we covered
that on the show.
All that public support
for Low Power
Community Radio
to sort of add
an alternative voice
to corporate radio
rose to a crescendo
about three years ago
when,
about three or four
years ago,
when the FCC
actually conceded
that,
FCC Chairman
Kennard
actually conceded
that this would
be a good thing
to do
and that
the FCC
actually conceded
that this would
be a good thing
for local communities
to have non-profit
Low Power FM stations,
which would be
maybe 100 watts
and not interfere
with these 50,000 watt
powerhouses
like WBAI.
And everybody
was for it
except for the
National Association
of Broadcasters
and National
Public Radio.
So,
they managed
to pay off
enough people
in Congress
to get something
called
the
something
something
fake names
for a piece
of legislation
called
like the
Broadcast
Preservation Act
or something
like that,
which would
which would
change the FCC
rules
for these
low power stations.
Now,
you probably remember
when you turn around
the dial
on your FM
digital radio
anyway,
you'll notice
that the
stations are
spaced like
90,
what is WBAI
on,
99.7
to get the
next full
power station
or up to
100.3,
is it?
99.9 also.
99.9 is in
Connecticut.
Oh.
Yeah.
But I mean,
yeah,
they do space
them,
they space
them closer.
101.1.
But as far as
in the same
city,
full power?
They're spaced
200 kilohertz
apart,
these slots
on the dial.
Now,
that would
open the door
to really thousands
of these low power
stations across
the country.
But the National
Associated Broadcasters
in NPR
got Congress
to pass this
Broadcasters
Preservation Act,
which would
change that rule
to make it,
again,
this was three years
ago,
to change that rule
so that these
low power stations
would have to be
three slots away.
Yeah,
that was ridiculous.
Now,
try going to
any town
with an
empty slot
that's three
slots away
from an
existing station.
You can't do that
in New York,
you can't do that
in 99 percent
of the cities
in the country.
Nome,
Alaska,
I believe you
can do that.
So,
effectively,
I'm not sure.
Congress put
an end to
all but a
handful of
low power
nonprofit
community
broadcast stations
in all but
the most
that got put
into this
Broadcast
Preservation Act,
which was a
good thing,
this add-on,
was that
Congress had to
fund a study
done by
an independent
organization,
government funded,
to really
study this.
Because what the
NAB said
was it would
just cause
interference
and they
released this
CD,
this audio CD
to all the
members of
Congress,
which just had
to be
a low power
station,
which was
two slots
away.
But it was
non-scientific,
it was complete
BS.
So,
anyhow,
the MITRE
Corporation,
which has done
all kinds of
secret studies
for the
government
on how
to wiretap
telephone
microwave
signals and
all that
sort of
stuff,
they did
this study
and a
group of
low power
broadcast
activists
called the
Amherst
Alliance,
they somehow
discovered that
this study
had been
done and
requested it
and the FCC
wouldn't
divulge it,
so they
filed the
Freedom of
Information
Act on
the FCC,
which the
FCC
ignored.
And,
anyhow,
a lot of
this
stuff
was
done
by
the
Amherst
Alliance,
and
the
FCC
didn't
divulge
it.
So,
this
study
was
done
by the
Amherst
Alliance,
and
the
FCC
didn't
divulge
it.
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this
study
was done
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Amherst
Alliance,
and
the
FCC
didn't
divulge
it.
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Amherst
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FCC
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FCC
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