Hey pedestrians! The New York Police Department has just made a rule that seriously violates
our basic First Amendment right to peaceably assemble. Now, everyday sidewalk and street
uses are illegal. Even if you're not in New York, know that now that this has happened
here, it may happen where you live, for the NYPD is the most highly trained and modeled
after police force in the country. Here's the finalized rule which goes into effect
February 25th. Groups of 50 or more pedestrians, vehicles, or cyclists must get a permit and
approved route from the NYPD or can be arrested for parading without a permit even if they
obey all traffic rules. But the City Council can undo this. So thanks to everybody who
called in and please, to voice your concern, here's the number. City Council Speaker Quinn
212-788-7210. That's 212-788-7210. More info is at assembleforrightsnyc.org. The police
are becoming part of the legislative branch of government. It's up to us to reverse this.
And you're listening to Radio Station WBAI. The time is 7 o'clock. Time once again for
Off The Hook.
Off The Hook.
And a good evening to everybody. The program is Off The Hook. Emmanuel Goldstein here with
you on this Wednesday evening where the usual mayhem is breaking out all around us. Let's
see who's in the studio right now. Looks like Jim over there. It is. And we have Red Bird.
Good evening. Mike joining us over on that side of the room. Hi. Bernie S. down in Philadelphia.
Greetings from a park bench by Independent Hall. And a special guest in the studio tonight,
Lynn. Hello. Wait a minute, hold on, you don't have a microphone for some reason. Oh, hey.
Hey, Collier, you should have a microphone speaking to that. It doesn't work. Could someone
check that connection please? I couldn't hear myself either. Well, I hear you just fine.
But there's something wrong with his mic for sure. Go ahead, say something else. No, that
mic is not working. You're going to have to share a mic with Jim. Hey, how's it going?
Okay, you're Lynn and you're here from, where are you from today? I just came from Philadelphia
yesterday. Okay, good for you. So Bernie and I had Vietnamese. Did you? Yes. All right,
well, I won't probe into that. And NotKevin is not with us because he's again, once again
battling New York City mass transit to get here. Today though he has a good excuse. Apparently
things were exploding in Grand Central area. Nothing serious, I don't think. Steam pipes
were exploding. But Grand Central has been evacuated and the subway line on Lexington
Avenue has been suspended. It doesn't exist. So yeah, that's why we sort of have a partial
crew tonight, but hopefully NotKevin will make it here. Tonight's also a fundraiser.
We have hopes that you'll call us and support the station, support the show. I have to say
last week we were rather disappointed. We didn't do so well. We usually do very well.
And last week, not so good. So hopefully this week, since this is the last time we're going
to be on for a couple of weeks, we can get a flurry of phone calls. If you want to get
the head start on that, the number is 212-209-2950. I see there's two calls on the line. I don't
know if those are personal calls that people down there are making, but regardless, there's
plenty of room for more calls to come in. 212-209-2950. And we're offering several pledged
levels. The $125 level gets you the full archive set of Off The Hook from 1988 to 2006. We're
going to have an excerpt from that in just a little bit. Any pledge 25 and over gets
you an exclusive Off The Hook t-shirt. I have to say, nobody's wearing it in the studio
right now, but I think we all have one, and they all look pretty cool. You have how many?
Three?
I have three.
Wow, that means you keep pledging.
Yeah.
See, we don't check to make sure that you already have one. If you have one, we send
you another one, and then you can give that away to somebody.
That's what I... Well, I mean, I've given away one.
We don't sell them. We only give them away to BAI. That's the only way you can get them.
Or if you know Lin, maybe he'll give you one if he pledges again. So 212-209-2950, that's
the pledge line.
Lin wears all his, so we couldn't really give them all away. You know, people have to call
pledge for their own.
Well, that only adds to the value if it's been worn by Lin.
Yeah, but I mean, I have the ratty one and the new one, and I gave one away to Ralph,
who you met.
Okay. Well, he's a lucky guy then. You can get your own shirt to give away or to keep
or to just add to your collection. 212-209-2950.
They come new. You don't get to choose between new and ratty.
Yeah, we don't send you the old ratty ones. In fact, we only have the old ratty ones because
we give those out and they don't get returned. So we have a couple of calls on the line,
more calls coming in. That's good to see. We do want to at least close over 1,000 tonight,
and we didn't do that last week. I realize this is the summer fundraiser. It's the one
that is the smaller of the four. Now, there's four fundraisers per year, one per season,
and summer so far is still the smallest, but that doesn't mean our numbers have to be the
smallest. Yeah. Okay. We have five calls on the line now. That's good. It's good to see.
212-209-2950.
Arsene is down in the room.
Arsene is down. Yes. He's taking calls down with the volunteers, and it's just good to
see this communal spirit as we launch into the summer. And this is going to be the last
show that it's going to even be remotely normal because a bunch of us are going to start traveling
as soon as next week, I believe, but we're not on next week, so it doesn't really matter.
In two weeks, Mike, where will you be?
I'll be away.
You're not going to tell us where?
I think I'll be in Sweden.
Sweden.
Stockholm.
Okay. Very nice country. Been there. I'm going to be, in fact, not Kevin and I,
also going to be at the same time between airplanes in Canada, if you can believe that.
That's how we're getting overseas for the Chaos Communications Congress. In fact,
I'm going to be at the London meeting, London 2600 meeting next month, so that should be fun.
I'm going to check out the Ring of Steel myself, the surveillance system they have in London.
And they will be checking you out.
Oh, they will be. They will be checking me out for certain.
Can you just go look at the surveillance tapes from the last 2600 meeting,
see who was there to make sure you want to go or not?
I probably can. You can request this. Somebody sent us information about this,
how you can actually request particular bits of surveillance data if you happen to be
caught inside it, which I think is kind of a nifty thing. So we'll be talking about that
in just a little bit.
Now, can just anyone request it?
I think you have to say that you're in it, but I don't see how they actually check that. I don't
see how they know for sure whether or not you're actually the person that is in the footage.
But as we've talked about in past weeks, this is the kind of system they want to install here
in New York City. Cameras everywhere. They want to have a congestion system similar to what they
have in London and Singapore. But that right there, London and Singapore, those two cities,
the most heavily surveilled cities in the world. I don't know if New York wants to follow in their
footsteps insofar as that kind of view of its citizens goes. I don't know.
I think the congestion thing is dead. Is that the latest news?
It's dead for now.
Dead for now?
Which is a good thing, I think.
You think that's a good thing? I know, Mike, you don't think that's a good thing.
So wait, I'm actually curious about Mike's viewpoint now, if you're anti-surveillance,
but pro-congestion charging.
It's tricky.
I've said this before on the air, but I think there are certainly steps that can be taken to
ensure that the congestion cameras are controlled by an independent agency and that the data is not
retained once the congestion fee is paid.
But can you point to any example of that actually working in the past where we trust some entity to
take care of our data and they do, instead of losing it or sharing it with somebody they're
not supposed to share it with? I'm just very nervous with this.
Because we don't, in this country, have a history of holding people accountable for our data.
This is not a legal framework that we use very much, but that's not a reason that we couldn't.
Oh, no, I agree. There's all kinds of things we could do.
We could have decent mass transit. We could have nice health care.
We could do all sorts of things, but we never seem to do it, you know?
Well, you know, people like Sheldon Silver stop all kinds of interesting things.
He has the power to stop anything.
Pretty much.
He sure does.
It's very scary.
Anyway, here's that letter I was referring to from Racine over in England.
I know you love, and from what I hear on CNN, you're jealous of our CCTV system here in London,
the Ring of Steel, as it's fondly known by the media.
I'd like to draw your attention to an interesting part of the UK Data Protection Act that allows
citizens to request any CCTV footage that features themselves.
This little-known section of the law has sprouted an independent film movement
where actors perform in front of the CCTV cameras, and the footage is then requested and edited.
Take a visit to www.ambienttv.net.
That's spelled A-M-B-I-E-N-T-T-V dot net.
Two Ts.
The subject access request letter is to state the place and time of the recording and include
a picture of the protagonist wearing the same clothes, if possible, along with a check for £10.
So maybe next time you're in the UK, you can get some fun holiday clips.
You know, I'm going to be in the UK, so maybe I'll do just that.
That sounds like a lot of fun to have.
There may be a problem here.
It does say that it's for citizens.
You might not be eligible.
That's a possibility, but I'll get some citizens.
Exactly.
There are citizens all over the place there, so I'll just find one.
Maybe you should...
Well, maybe that would be a bad idea.
You know, you could request the film of everybody going into the 2600 meeting.
Maybe that would be a bad idea.
I'm sure that's...
I'm sorry, never mind.
I'm sure that's already been requested and is in many, many corporate offices right now.
Now, another story that came out in the last day, which caused me a bit of concern.
Police are to be given live access to London's congestion charge cameras,
allowing them to track all vehicles entering and leaving the zone.
Anti-terror officers will be exempted from parts of the Data Protection Act
to allow them to see the date, time, and location of vehicles in real time.
They previously had to apply for access on a case-by-case basis.
Home Secretary Jackie Smith blamed the enduring vehicle-borne
terrorist threat to London for the change.
So you see how this works.
As soon as there's the slightest bit of a threat,
all rules are cast aside and we have real-time spying.
Just a little aside, the Home Secretary happens to be a woman,
and that's short for Jacqueline, so it's Jackie.
Okay.
I'm glad you've piped in on that important issue of this story, you know, the person's name.
The Home Office said discussions were underway on giving police greater access
to data before the discovery of the two car bombs.
Under previous rules, police had to apply for access to the cameras on a case-by-case basis
because of concerns that routine use of the information would be an invasion of privacy.
Now that's no longer a concern.
So that's what I see coming to New York if we put that kind of a system in place here.
Now, Lynn, you had an interesting experience, I believe,
coming into the building, didn't you?
Oh yeah, it was really, really fun.
Actually, wait, you're not on the list.
How did you get into the building?
Let's not talk about that.
No, I want to know.
I think our listeners have a right to know.
I think the staff has a right to know.
We have this ironclad security system downstairs where you have to be on the computer.
And if you're not on the computer, it doesn't matter if the entire building
comes down to vouch for you.
You're not on the computer.
You're not getting into the building.
You weren't on the computer, yet I'm looking straight at you and you're here in the building.
So how did you do it?
Please tell us.
Well, actually, I'm going to fess up.
Actually, there were so many people lined up to come up here for volunteering
that they actually let us in under escort.
Oh, OK.
So there are exceptions.
I'm looking at live footage on TV right now of what's going on in New York.
It looks like a war zone, actually.
They say it's a steam pipe that exploded, but I'm seeing debris on the road.
And it looks like a bus that was hit by something.
I don't think anybody was hurt, but wow, it looks pretty serious up there.
Very smoky.
Very smoky and a lot of mayhem.
So stay away from Midtown.
Stay away from Grand Central.
I say in the middle of rush hour, stay away from Grand Central.
All right, 212-209-2950 is our phone number for pledges.
Please keep those coming in.
We have a couple on the line.
We want to keep a steady flow going throughout the evening hours.
Bernie, what's your position on all this spying stuff going on?
Well, like you said, if there's a foot in the door, as there is now with this congestion
solution in New York, if there's a foot in the door that the authorities have,
they'll just keep pushing their way in to get as much use of that information as possible.
And I think the same thing that happened in K is going to happen here, where there will
inevitably be real-time access to all this congestion pricing cameras, decoded license
plate information available to law enforcement agencies at will in this country who don't
have to apply for a special permit for it.
It's inevitable, I think.
And it's not just going to cover cars and vehicles either.
I mean, pedestrian traffic will be visible, and everything that's going on on the streets
will be visible.
It'll be like a real-time version of the Google Maps Street View.
Which, by the way, we featured a little bit of that on the other show, Off the Wall.
And it's fascinating to see the things that are blurred on Google Maps.
Do you know the White Plains train station, for some reason, is blurred?
Stony Brook University is blurred.
Dick Cheney's house is blurred.
And so is William Hurt's house, for some reason.
So I don't know how you get things blurred on Google Maps.
But there's somebody going around, especially somebody in this area, 914 and 631 area codes,
and in Massachusetts, who's blurring all sorts of things.
Just innocuous places that you wouldn't think would get blurred.
College campuses and train stations.
Well, you can get yourself blurred.
We went through that, right?
Well, this is a street view you can get blurred.
But we're talking maps.
If you're zooming in from the satellite view, you'll get to maybe about two levels from the
best view.
And all of a sudden, it's going to look like crap.
And I don't know what the purpose is.
You can't see the buildings.
And my suggestion is that we find these blurred sites and take really magnificent pictures.
Panorama shots, everything.
And post those.
Have a website devoted to each and every one of them.
So we can fly over and take some nice aerial photography.
If only we had a plane, we could.
I mean, the White Plains train station is not very big.
You can just go there and take pictures of the whole thing in about like five minutes.
So you're volunteering, it sounds like.
Next time I'm in White Plains, which is not very often.
Sure.
Well, that's more than me, which is never.
All right.
We have a plane?
I have access to planes.
Oh, good.
This is certainly going to put another asterisk next to our show name in the headquarters of
various agencies.
That's wonderful news, comrade.
We have access to planes.
Oh, boy.
OK.
Speaking of access to things, this is something that happened last week that I was astounded
by.
Friend of mine, unfortunately, is in jail right now.
And it turns out that we've been through this before.
Bernie, we've been through it with you.
We've been through it with Kevin and Fiber and all kinds of other people.
Communication is always very, very difficult.
This is a case, though, where the communication is really, really good.
The communication is good with the entity that connects people together.
But it doesn't make it any less painful for the people who have to pay for this.
Now, the way it works, the way it works in this particular institution, I won't give
out too many details as to exactly where it is, because this is a nationwide system.
But basically-
You can say the name of the company.
You can say the name of the company, for sure.
And I'm going to say that.
All right.
What happens is you get a phone call from the inmate.
Actually, that transfers into a phone call from this company.
And the company says, hello, we have this person who wants to reach you.
But you need to make an account with us first.
And then you can reach the person that desperately needs to talk to you.
So then they give you a phone number to call.
And you call that number, enter your phone number.
And then after you enter your phone number, you're supposed to enter the last four
digits of your social security number.
Now, how in God's name it knows that is beyond me.
I entered fake numbers.
And I was later admonished for not matching.
But I was able to speak to a human and get a new social security number, at least in
their eyes.
So yeah, it's looking up that information somehow.
It asks you to spell out your name.
And then it reads it back.
And then it tells you your address.
It tells you your address.
So it's looking something up.
Then after all that, you're given the opportunity to put money into the account.
Minimum of $50 plus an $8 transaction fee.
So it's incredible.
You put all this information in.
You're on the phone for about 25 minutes with this computer, giving it all your personal
information and all your credit card information.
Then when it's done, you actually have an account with them.
And then the person can call you collect.
And I assume by calling you collect, it's taking money out of the actual account.
And you're not being billed twice.
I'll find out soon enough.
But what's incredible is the speed with which that money goes away.
The amount of cost is something like $0.89 a minute plus tax.
And a 15-minute call, which is the maximum you can have, will cost over $20 at that rate.
It's I got to say, the person who is in jail right now has done nothing equivalent to the
kind of ripping off that's being done here.
It's simply unbelievable that they get away with this kind of thing.
A few questions before a few comments.
What are your options for putting money on this account?
Well, you can obviously use a credit card.
You can send a check, but that will take a very long time to clear.
They make that abundantly clear.
They say, well, it can take up to 20 days or something.
And if you want to speak to somebody in prison, obviously you want to speak to them soon.
So they make it as pressure-filled as possible.
I think you can wire by phone, do various other things.
Any option for billing it to your telephone?
I didn't see that.
Well, what prevents them from just calling collect, a traditional collect call?
This system prevents them from calling collect.
The number is blocked if they try calling collect and the number is not in their system.
So this way they can keep track of who's talking to whom.
And they can make sure that the money is put in immediately.
There's no billing disputes because it's coming off your credit card
or from a check that you've already given to them.
Or one of the many especially insidious things is that you have to pay $50 minimum in advance.
Right, right.
And when it gets out, you have to pay $50 more.
So you're always paying $50 more than you've actually even used at their rip-off rates.
Absolutely.
And if the person you're talking to gets transferred to another place,
well, all of a sudden it's no good anymore.
I don't think you get a refund.
Yeah, that was what I was going to ask is that,
uh, although with those rates, it would be very easy to use all of the money very quickly.
But if you didn't and they got out or released or whatever and you've got,
well, you know, it's $50 minimum.
What if you put $300 in there?
Because that's not going to last very long.
You go away and you got $250 in there.
Are they going to put it back to your credit card?
Well, last night I talked to somebody on the phone.
Actually, I was trying to talk to somebody on the phone.
They're trying to reach me.
I heard from a third party that this person was trying to reach me and wasn't able to get through.
My number was blocked.
I called up their computer and I asked what my balance was and they said $22.16.
I said, okay, well, there's nothing wrong with the account.
I couldn't talk to a human last night because they're only in during the day.
So I called the human today and asked them, hey, what gives?
I had money in the account.
How come the number is blocked?
I said, oh, well, actually, there's a slight problem.
When it's a negative balance, it doesn't say that's a negative balance.
It just gives you the number as if it's a positive number.
So I actually had minus $22.
I don't know how I pulled that off, actually.
But I had minus $22 in the account and it was referring to it as 22.
A slight problem.
A slight problem with their system.
And they said they were getting all kinds of phone calls today about it.
But it sounds like that's always been their system.
With the margins these people are making, they can't afford like a minus sign?
Well, it wasn't on the website.
It was actually spoken.
But you'd think that they would record.
That's what I'm saying.
You know, it probably costs, you know, as much as $20 to pay someone to say minus and
then insert that into the system.
But when I was talking to the person, they were putting all kinds of pressure on me to
put in more than $50 because they were saying, you know, it's so expensive.
They were commiserating with me saying, yeah, it's really, really expensive.
It's so bad.
So you should put in more than $50.
What is the FCC has no regulation on this.
I guess it comes down to the Bureau of Prisons or wherever they are.
And they just set the rate because they can set the rate high so that very few people
use it.
Yeah, they can do whatever they want.
Oh, they want people to use it.
But this is a captive audience, most literally.
And of course, it goes without saying that the people most affected by this are the poorest
people in society who not only can't afford this, but have the least political capital
to get anything about it done.
Right.
Who's going to defend the prisoner?
Now, it's clear to me that they want the information about your social security number
to avoid you having these calls go to a pay phone.
You know, if it's a drug kingpin possibly giving advice to his minions on the outside,
they want to make sure that they know who's getting the call.
And it's actually the person who owns that phone and all that.
That's why they ask for the social security number.
And an awful lot of phone lines have a social security number linked to them because often
if you get a new phone line, you have to provide that or you have to provide a deposit
or you have to have a previous relationship with the phone company.
But oddly enough, I've never given that information to any phone company.
And somehow they still have it.
So they went out and they got it themselves.
Is your real name associated with that phone line in any way?
Maybe.
That's possible.
They probably looked it up on a credit report or something.
It's quite possible.
Let's give a call to this system because I just want to demonstrate what it sounds like
to people out there.
And we'll even enter a phone number.
Whose phone number should we enter?
We always do the White House in situations like this.
We do them again.
We should enter 212-209-2950.
Which is the number you should call if you'd like to donate to WBAI.
Two phone calls right away.
It's that easy.
Guys, you have the magic touch.
Those calls may be from prison.
Make that, okay.
I was going to say make number three light up, but that's only because somebody picked
up the wrong phone and they're about to hang that one up.
Oh no, transferred over.
Okay, make another light up.
Then we'll go to the phone.
So what's the number again, Mike, to call?
Well, the way to get another light lit up is for one of our listeners to call 212-209-2950
and pledge their support to WBAI.
Keep us on the air.
If you find yourself being entertained by what we're talking about or informed, ask
yourself if you can get that kind of information anywhere else.
Then ask yourself if you wouldn't like listening to this show since it began back in 1988.
What you will get in the mail is a whole stack of DVD audio discs that you can plug
into your computer and make copies of and do whatever you wish with and listen to the
developments of technology over the last couple of decades.
It constantly surprises people, but we haven't just become erudite and witty as of this show.
In the past, we were erudite, witty, and full of facts.
See if you can find the week where we were and the long dry period afterwards.
NotKevin is here.
Congratulations.
Thank you.
You made it from midtown.
What's going on up there?
Look at this.
It looks like a war zone.
What's happening?
Apparently, a building collapsed after a transformer blew up.
Well, they're saying it's a pipe that burst or something.
I'm not really sure.
All right.
Nobody seems to really know.
And of course, we're watching New York One here, but they don't tell us what's going on.
They can only see the video.
All we know now is breaking news, Sandra Endo.
So we have a reporter's name.
You notice that American media, they always put the reporter's name as big as the story
as if that's what you really want to see.
Wolf Blitzer.
It's like, yeah, who cares?
I want to know what's going on.
Right now, I see it looks like Beirut.
And we also see the amount of money that we've earned, and it's not very much.
No, it's 50 bucks.
I'll say it.
50 bucks.
I know we've been getting a lot of calls.
So I don't know if people are just calling and saying nasty things and hanging up.
I know we have a lot of enemies out there.
I know there are a lot of people who want to see us go down in flames.
But I know we also have some friends, two or three friends out there that will call
us at 212-209-2950.
We should mention that if you really don't like the premiums we're offering, maybe you
already have them.
There's other premiums available.
There are virtually unlimited numbers of premiums.
And we only focus on the ones that have to do with our show.
But if you were interested in, say, a BAI tote bag or a hat or a mug, you can get all
that for a pledge of 60 bucks.
You can have your choice of any of those.
Or for $125, you can get all three.
And just proudly display them to the people that you hang out with all day long.
Yeah, I listen to this radio station as well.
And it's really kind of a cool thing to have.
It's mugs and hats and tote bags and things like that.
Ask public television.
They know.
Yes, Bernice.
I just thought it was ironic that if we've only raised $50 so far, that's the bare minimum
that you would need to speak to an incarcerated friend on the system you were describing.
And as Mike was putting out, this $50 generally is not taken out of the pockets of these prisoners.
It's taken out of their friends and loved ones.
And as a further irony, these high rates, as I found personally many years ago, are
as a result of a kickback scheme that these correctional institutions, as they like to
call themselves, form with various telecom companies who outbid each other to charge
as much as possible as opposed to as little as possible so that they can kick back as
much as possible to the institution.
That seems like an easy bid to win.
It's a really ironic system that would be—I mean, it's just a strange system that would
be illegal in any other universe where the kickback schemes are grossly illegal.
In this case, it's actually legal for these kickback schemes to exist and to victimize
friends and loved ones or people who are locked up for—long before they're even incarcerated,
or even long before they're actually convicted, I mean.
So it's—these people, a lot of people locked up who have not been convicted yet are
to be presumed innocent, yet their friends and loved ones are built.
So I urge anyone who is listening to this now to pledge, call 212-209-2950 to allow
us to continue bringing these injustices to their ears.
Yeah, it's not—we're bringing you the injustice.
We're reporting the injustice, and it's out there.
And ask yourself if you've heard about this anyplace else, because this is the station
you're likely to hear about things like this, and the station where you'll actually
be able to hear things like us dialing it live on the air.
All right, let's do it.
We're going to call a 800 number, and you'll hear the name of the company.
Eventually.
Thank you for calling Correctional Billing Services.
Press 1 for English.
Marque el 2 para Español.
Please enter the telephone number you are calling about, starting with the area code.
Let's do—
Press the pound key when done.
Okay, let's do the traditional White House number.
You entered 2024561414.
If this is correct, press 1.
For your security, please enter the last four digits of your social security number.
Anyone know Bush's?
No?
I don't know, but it's for your security?
It doesn't make me feel very smart.
Your account status is clear.
Press 5 to check the last payment on your account.
Press 1 to take advantage of our prepay account, which will allow you to control your spending.
Press 2 to check available spending limit for the next 90 days.
Press 3 for other issues.
Okay, let's start with 1.
Our prepay program, Advance Connect, allows you to receive calls from friends or family members
who are trying to reach you from a facility serviced by Correctional Billing Services
by paying for your calls in advance.
They won't even say a prison, will they?
The best thing about Advance Connect is that by prepaying for your calls, you are in control.
So as long as you keep a positive balance on your Advance Connect account,
your lines will not be restricted.
You can even use this account to help budget your spending.
Press 1 to set up an account now.
Press 2 to return to the previous menu.
Press 3 to hear this information again.
Let's try and set up an account.
Oh, I don't know what happened.
Oh, I think we might be going to a human.
We don't want that.
Sign up to receive calls from a correctional facility.
Press 1.
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Can I block the White House from receiving calls?
All right, let's see what happens.
Please enter the phone number you are calling about.
Okay, we just did this, but let's do it again.
I didn't hit the pound sign.
2-0-2-4-5-6-1-4-1-4.
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I have the following information on file for you.
Name, H, White, and address.
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Washington, DC-20500.
Is that your complete name and address?
H, White.
Start Googling that.
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Advance Connect requires a minimum of $50 with an $8 transaction fee.
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Okay, well, I have no idea.
I'm not going to enter that.
Enter what?
I heard you say 5-4-1-4.
I didn't say it, I pressed it.
Press 1 for yes or 2 for no.
To pay by credit card, press 1.
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For other payment options, press 3.
Okay, let's see what 3 is.
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Okay, I think we got the idea here that it's a real pain to deal with a system like this
and wow, they have all kinds of information on file.
Now what if you use an unlisted number or cell phone?
I don't, I did use an unlisted number and it knew my name.
It knew my address.
It had all that information.
So it's not looking up to see if it's listed or not.
I mean, I'm willing to throw $10 down to provide prisoners the opportunity to call
the White House and express their opinion about, you know, the current political situation.
Are you?
You know, the thing is when they call, they still have to hit zero to accept a collect call.
So they might not know that it's already been paid for.
So it's kind of a deceptive system right there.
But yes, CBS, the other CBS, Correctional Billing Services.
We're going to find out a lot more about this, I guess.
Also, if you come across a phone number that you can't reverse directory,
you can probably get the name of it from this.
Have you noticed that?
You know, you're right.
I found out it was, what was it?
H. White?
It's interesting how they put the abbreviation on the last name,
not the first name, but I guess that's how it's listed.
Incredible.
OK, so let's see.
We have something that somebody sent us.
This is actually.
Oh, dear, it's gone.
Never mind.
I was going to play something.
We'll play it on another show.
This computer crashed.
All right.
We don't have enough time anyway.
We do have to show you something from the past, though,
because we want to get people to call in to the show.
And OK, we're up to up to 475.
That's good.
That's good.
Hopefully more calls will be coming in.
We need to break 1000, folks.
That's that's our goal for tonight.
So please call up 212-209-2950.
Pledge whatever you can afford.
We take Visa.
We take MasterCard.
We're not nearly as unreasonable as those correctional billing people.
And if you want to send us money by Western Union, you can.
Well, yeah, I don't know how.
Yeah, we deal with that exactly.
But you'll get all kinds of amazing things.
In addition to having a nice radio station remain on the air
with all kinds of alternative programming like this,
you'll get for a pledge of one hundred twenty five dollars
a whole bunch of DVDs with MP3s on them, high quality MP3s,
not like the ones we have on the Internet,
which are meant for people that don't have a whole lot of bandwidth like us.
You'll hear every single show,
assuming you want to listen to it,
every single show from 1988 to the end of 2006.
What's on those shows?
Let's take a listen to something that happened to us in February of 2000.
It's actually February 1st, 2000.
Every now and then you listen to this show, all kinds of fun things happen.
And this particular time, a bunch of us had just gotten back from California
where we had gotten we had seen Kevin Mitnick get released from prison.
But while we were out there, we also got sued by the MPAA.
So it was all kinds of action packed adventure that was nonstop
and documented here on this particular show.
212-209-2950.
Take a listen to the past.
While we were out there, while we were in California,
in fact, the very day before Kevin was was set to be released.
In fact, right after I got out of the prison visiting him,
I checked my voicemail on my phone
because I wasn't allowed to bring the phone into the prison.
And there was a message there saying that,
actually, you know, it goes back even further than that
because we haven't been on the air in three weeks.
We talked about the lawsuit that was filed against us.
Actually, against me specifically for the DVD.
I guess encryption cracking code is the best way to describe it.
There was a second lawsuit filed shortly thereafter,
right after our last show on these airwaves.
The second lawsuit was filed in the state of New York.
Now, the reason we were kind of jovial about the last one
was because it was filed in California.
Didn't really affect us that much.
And it was filed against how many people, Mackey?
Hundreds.
500 John Doe's.
Yeah, a whole lot of people.
Well, there was another lawsuit filed a couple of weeks after that
in federal court, federal court in New York.
And that was against four individuals.
Actually, I'm sorry, it was against three individuals.
And it was also filed in Connecticut against one other individual.
Now, I was one of the individuals.
It was really pretty surprising.
I learned this when I was in New York the last couple of days.
I think it was on a Friday.
Yeah, it was a Friday, a week before Kevin was to be released,
the 14th.
And that's when I found out that this lawsuit had been filed.
I found out, Mackey, you called me on the phone, in fact, while I was driving.
I was in New Jersey at the time.
Oh, yeah, yeah, I remember that.
And I, you know, you left me while you called me and said,
hey, guess what?
There's another lawsuit and you're one of three people named.
And I was pretty shocked by that.
And what was even more amazing was that, obviously,
this time they would have to serve it in person.
We were waiting for them to serve us with legal papers last time,
wondering what we had to do.
We tipped the guys when they come, you know, things like that.
But they never actually came.
They just mailed it to us.
This time, they actually, well, they tried to deliver it in person.
A story in itself.
A more bungled attempt I cannot possibly come up with,
if you gave me, you know, the best fiction writers in the country.
These two guys came to where they thought I was at the time.
Of course, I was in another state at the time.
And they said to the people there, listen, we have to serve this, you know.
And I promise you this will not be painless.
I don't know what that even means, you know.
I think the guy meant to say this will not be painful.
And in fact, one of the people there said, don't you mean to say,
I promise you this will not be painful?
And the guy got all perplexed and said, look, just take the thing.
And the people there said, no, we're not going to take it.
You know, we're not taking things for other people.
You have to serve it to the person yourself.
They pitched it through the door.
They actually took the legal documents and they threw it football style.
Through the door.
You know, the door was open because they were talking to them.
And right into the house it went.
And apparently, I am told, I am told that that is considered legally serving somebody.
If you can believe that.
That in this country is legally serving somebody.
Pitching it through the door of a house that you're not even in.
Well, maybe a volleyball style server.
Well, in any event, that was the extent of it.
And then later, right after that, apparently they went out to the,
well, they must have done this beforehand.
Because this happened at about 6.30 at night on Friday.
Before that, they apparently tried to serve the post office box that is registered to 2600.
Now, the reason I know they did that was because we received in the mail
something addressed to the PO box from the very post office that the PO box is in.
So that meant that these cement heads must have gone out there
thinking that they were going to find us at the PO box.
You know, standing, standing at attention by our PO box.
That's where we conduct business.
PO box.
Or maybe they knocked on the box.
I don't know.
They were trying to get into the box somehow to serve us with this documentation.
And the post office must have explained to them,
look, this is how post offices work.
You can't do that.
So best you can do is mail it to us from the post office.
And that's what they did.
So we got a copy there as well.
Okay, so there's this lawsuit has been filed on the 14th of January
against me and two other people in New York.
One of whom, by the way, runs the internet service provider who we may know as escape.com.
Roman Kazan, who has been on this show quite a few times.
He was actually served with a lawsuit because one of his customers
had the DECSS code on his website,
on that person's personal website that was hosted by escape.com.
Roman had no idea this was even going on.
No idea at all.
And he was brought into this whole thing.
It's insane.
So the way it worked out, we had literally a day,
literally a single day to prepare everything.
And there was just no way to do it in time where we had to come up with a whole defense
and all kinds of proclamations and documentation and things like that.
And plus, keep in mind that I was on the way to California to see Kevin get released.
So for some reason, we had to submit everything by Wednesday at 7 a.m.
That just did not happen.
We submitted it a few hours later, I think, and the court would not accept it.
And also that week was a holiday week.
Martin Luther King Day was Monday.
So that means we only had Tuesday to do this.
It's incredible.
I just cannot believe that this is how justice works.
So the hearing was actually held on Thursday.
And this was a preliminary injunction against material on the website.
So as I was getting out of prison in Lompoc, California, on that Thursday afternoon,
check my voicemail.
And there was a message for me from one of the lawyers over at the Electronic Frontier Foundation,
who very graciously have stepped in to spearhead the challenge to this whole thing,
saying that the preliminary injunction was ruled upon in New York and that we had lost.
And so then we were faced with a rather serious choice as to what we should do then.
Because technically, they could issue a warrant for my arrest at that particular moment in time
for having this on the website, even though it's the magazine's website.
And I don't even necessarily have the authority to do this.
They had my name from the Who Is documentation on the internet.
They said, well, this person is the technical contact.
That's how they got Roman's name.
Because he was the technical contact for this other site.
So therefore, they're guilty and they have to take the site down.
Now, of all the contacts, the technical, you'd think it'd be the administrator?
You'd think so.
Or the billing?
Yeah, you'd think so.
Or in my case, I am the administrator as well.
But in Roman's case, he was not.
He was the tech?
I have no idea why he was brought into this in the first place.
It's completely crazy.
So, Mackie, I guess maybe you could describe what we did at that point as far as the...
Well, and the voicemail specifically said, you know,
this judge would think nothing of sending you to jail.
And it's a federal case.
So even though we're in California, it would be the U.S. Marshals from the prison coming out.
Yeah, they just have to walk across the lawn.
What timing, what amazing timing.
And this was about 12 hours before he was going to get released.
And it was also less than 48 hours after the hearing,
which took place out in California on the previous Tuesday.
The one time in my life I decided to travel light and leave my laptop at home.
We had to quickly get this stuff off our webpage if we wanted to avoid the warrant.
So we had to drive to the nearest Kinko's,
which was about 45 minutes away in the next town, and use their public internet terminals.
So we stayed up all morning and we wrote an article to explain what had happened,
typed up a copy of the injunction ruling, and removed the software from the site.
I got to say, it's kind of cool to have a Kinko's for situations like that,
because we pretty much took over that place.
We were pacing around, yelling and screaming,
kind of debating the whole process, what we should do, what we should say, how we should say it.
And, you know, it was good because we had the material we needed to be able to write things.
But the thing that I really objected to was being forced into that position
where we had to pretty much bypass our security.
Because I don't think logging in from a Kinko's is a very safe way of doing anything.
But we had no choice, literally.
If it wasn't that Kinko's there, I don't know what would have happened
because we had no way of getting the stuff off the site,
other than dictating it to people over the phone.
And who wants to do that?
Having spoken to the lawyers on your side of this issue, Emmanuel Love,
they assured me that this judge would not hesitate to file a contempt of court
order against you personally,
in which case you would have been arrested, handcuffed,
and taken to jail if you did not remove this software forthwith.
So it would have been hard for you to fight this thing from behind bars.
So I think you, I know you felt,
I knew you had a lot of strong feelings about taking this information down off of the website,
but we need you out.
Well, yeah, I like to think I'm better off on the outside too.
But yeah, you're right, it was a horrible feeling having to submit like that.
I was comforted by the fact that we were still able to figure out ways
to get the message out anyway, namely through having links on the website.
Since then, we've gotten all kinds,
we haven't been able to keep up with the number of links that have come in.
If you go to the website now, you'll see that we have all kinds of articles,
all kinds of transcripts and things like that.
But one of the things that we have there is a way for people to submit links
to sites that still have the information up there.
Now they may go a step further, they may outlaw links as well.
They're trying to do that right now.
They're trying to file papers to make it illegal to put links up.
When they do that, we'll have to figure something else out.
But the thing is, we're not going to be silenced easily.
And I think that's the point we're making here.
And that was the point we were making back in February of 2000.
And wow, what an exciting time that was.
It was nonstop fun being sued by the MPAA and having Kevin Mitnick get out of prison.
It shows you the importance of some of the things we do here,
because you get the attention of certain authorities,
and they definitely see you as an annoyance.
Okay, but the reason we played that was to demonstrate the importance of the archives,
what we have available.
And I got to say, I'm not thrilled with the number of where it stands right now.
We're at even 500 bucks.
We're halfway to where we have to be in the next 12 minutes or so.
So please, if you thought that was something worthwhile,
if you'd like to hear the rest of the archive, which...
How many shows, Mike? Hundreds?
Many, many, many shows.
It's unbelievable how many there are from 1988 until the end of 2006, all in FM quality.
Call 212-209-2950.
And please pledge whatever you can afford.
Every pledge 25 and above will get you an off-the-hook t-shirt as well.
But we really need to see those phones light up.
This is not material you're going to hear anyplace else.
If this station were not here, when all of that was going on, all of that,
Kevin Mitnick being released, two different lawsuits being filed against us,
all sorts of things happening at the same time.
If this station had not been here for that, you never would have heard about it.
It wouldn't have been broadcast anywhere else.
Oh sure, some people on the internet might have talked to each other,
and word would have spread among a certain community.
But we want to reach people who aren't already a part of that community.
And that's the advantage of having a major radio station in the middle of New York City.
You never know who's going to tune in.
You never know who's going to be driving down in their car,
turn on the radio, and suddenly hear something that they never knew about,
such as the prison billing system,
or any one of a number of thousands of things we've talked about over the years,
that hopefully we've reached people and educated them about how certain things work.
You wouldn't have had that.
You would have had country music or something instead.
And while I don't really have anything against country music,
I still think that would have sucked to have that replace this.
Your vote for this is a phone call to 212-209-2950.
Because we don't have commercials.
Our sponsors are you.
And right now we need to know if we're doing a good enough job for you to sponsor us.
212-209-2950.
Get that number up higher so that this place will stick around,
so that we have another 20 years to talk about where technology is going.
Imagine, imagine the things that are happening now.
The laws that are being written, the changes that we're at the forefront of.
I mean, the DECSS case was the one that brought the DMCA out to the general public,
and it affected a lot of things.
Yeah, we lost the case, but I think we reached a lot of people.
In fact, Mike, that's how I met you.
It's true.
I mean, Mike would not be here now if it wasn't for the NPAA suing us, probably.
What a better world it would be.
So all the bad things kind of have positive repercussions.
So we're not afraid to dive into the fire.
But we need to know that you're there with us.
212-209-2950.
Now, Lynn, you and I were talking a bit before the show started.
You live in Atlanta, as I understand it.
Yes.
And is there any radio station in Atlanta that would give hackers an hour a week on the air?
You don't even have to finish the question.
There is no such radio station.
You have a couple of college stations.
The one for Georgia Tech, the one for Georgia State.
They're great college radio stations, but the universities that they're attached to,
I mean, even Georgia Tech, which is one of the premier, although I went to Georgia,
so I don't want to bolster them too much.
But I just want to say that, you know,
even those are controlled to some extent through the student government organization,
which is really attached to the state of Georgia.
So guess what?
No off-the-hook such programs, no such open mic type operations.
See, the way it developed here at this station,
it wasn't so much that people here said, yeah, let's have a hacker show.
It was more that the management here back in the 80s said, this is interesting.
Let's give it some airtime and see where it goes.
And that statement is repeated so many times,
has been repeated so many times at this place to so many different communities.
And as a result, not only off-the-hook is only one hour in the entire week.
I wish it were more, but right now it's only one hour.
There are so many other hours with so many other groups of people being reached.
So imagine the power of a place like this, how many different communities are served.
Then take a look at whatever commercial radio station
is on in every single damn store you go to,
playing the same music over and over again.
Ask yourself how many communities that station is serving.
And then you take a look at how much money they make,
how their studios are always in perfect condition,
and how you don't really get a choice of paying for them,
but you do anyway because you have to buy all the crap that they peddle.
And see for yourself that the people powers is what this place is all about.
And you're the people.
212-209-2950.
Yeah, I mean, you talk about the studio, which is nice.
But I mean, I'm having to lean over here and rub cheeks with Jim.
You have to share a microphone.
No, let's not let's not mince words here.
You have to share a microphone with Jim.
All right.
I mean, I...
It doesn't get much worse.
I can't, I'm gonna have to write you a formal letter of apology for that later.
There's a microphone right in front of you that does not work for some reason.
I'm talking to the microphone.
Go ahead.
See, doesn't work.
Doesn't work.
No, you can't hear you through that.
And that's Jim's mic.
You have to share it.
Your face is touching Jim's face right now because you have to lean into the same microphone.
I just want to point out that it's the Republican microphone that works.
Now, you see how smooth that transition was?
I don't know about all that action there, Jim.
I might lean a little more towards the Libertarian this year.
Where the Democrats are just posturing and making excuses for their failure.
212-209-2950.
We have three calls on the line.
That's good to see.
We need to get a bunch more if we're going to make our goal of a thousand bucks by the
end of the hour.
We're at 550 now.
I don't know if they're still trying to catch up down there.
But again, we have all kinds of pledge levels.
We have 25.
We have 60.
We have 75.
We have 125.
For 125, you get the full archive set of Off the Hook, which I think has turned into a
very historical and hysterical show over the decades.
A lot of history there.
A lot you can listen to.
212-209-2950.
And I bet you, what's it, 550 right now?
575.
I bet you if you go on eBay or you go on this company's website, Electra Voice Model RE-20
microphone, I bet you it costs more than $550.
Just to replace the one microphone that doesn't work.
Well, we're not going to replace it.
We're going to fix it somehow.
We have a team of people.
We'll open it up and figure out what's going on with it.
I want to read you a letter.
And as we say, you could always pledge any amount of money if you have.
Yes.
If you want to give us $1,000 all at once, we're certainly glad to receive it.
If you can only afford $40, if that's what you can afford, that's great too.
Every bit counts.
It all adds up.
That's how we got here.
We got here from people like you pledging every time.
We've gone on the air since 1960 asking for money.
This place has kept alive solely on that.
And that's an incredible thing in and of itself.
So become a part of that.
It's amazing.
It really is.
When you're a part of this family, it's something else.
212-209-2950.
I want to read this letter that somebody sent us, which I think is kind of interesting.
From Pierce over in Pittsburgh.
I love to listen to both of your shows.
It helped me get through high school and gave me a reason to get up on Tuesday and Wednesday.
I think Chris Carter, the creator of The X-Files, stole 2600's likeness.
The Lone Gunmen are very similar.
They too publish a magazine about things like privacy issues and future surveillance technology.
I'm not sure how long Redbird has been off the hook, but his voice resembles Langley's
on the television show.
What do you think of that?
I don't know what to say.
I guess I'll have to watch the show.
I've never seen it myself.
Actually, no, that's not true.
I did see.
If he only saw photos of us, I've seen the entire Lone Gunmen.
That's one series.
And there were places where they looked so much like just about everybody here.
And a lot of people have been here in the past.
It's astonishing.
That's truly scary.
In addition, they have a van just like the 2600 van, except it is unmarked.
They're also hackers and phone freaks.
Thanks for doing what you do.
Keep up the good work.
I got to say, though, I hope that it's not.
Because if the Lone Gunmen were actually inspired by us, then we're sort of indirectly responsible
for 9-11.
You know why?
Because the first episode of the Lone Gunmen.
You've opened up a huge can of worms.
I'm just saying, regardless of who you think is responsible, the first episode had a plane
going right to the World Trade Center, and nobody believed it then.
But Osama Bin Laden was watching TV that day, and he was inspired by that.
So it's long been thought that the Lone Gunmen might have inspired 9-11.
And if we inspire the Lone Gunmen, it's something.
No, no, because there's a counterproof.
There have been no cases of hackers shooting golf balls off of second story porches and
that leading to some sort of terrorism.
So there's the counterexample.
I mean, it's just a coincidence.
I have no idea what you just said.
Golf balls?
That's in their first episode.
OK, I saw that part.
And when I saw it, it was like, my God, this could never happen.
But I was proven wrong.
OK, 212-209-2950.
We have four calls on the line, and I think they haven't yet tabulated the rest of it.
But we hope that they do.
We hope it gets us over.
But we do need to reach over a thousand bucks.
We have another person ringing in.
212-209-2950.
Last words, folks.
We're not on next week.
This is it.
We're not going to be on next week.
There's not going to be any more requests from us for your calls.
If you don't call in the next five minutes, do you still get the premiums that are on there?
Or is that it?
You can try.
You can try.
I don't know how successful you'll be.
Generally, you don't.
And it won't get credited to us.
So we'll get chewed out by various people for not reaching the goal.
And it doesn't matter.
You can pledge $10,000 afterwards.
But do that.
If you're listening in the future, don't let that dissuade you from pledging the $10,000 pledge.
But if you can pledge it now, that would really be nice.
Right.
And if you actually don't want what we're offering, the T-shirt or the archived DVDs.
Many people don't.
There's what?
There's an umbrella?
There's a tote bag?
If you happen to be an environmentalist and have listened to this, you can get that tote
bag rather than get plastic bags every day, which could kill wildlife and look ugly in
the trees in the winter.
Absolutely.
I read that people are waiting three hours in line at Whole Foods just to buy a reusable
bag.
We'll send you one in the mail.
We certainly will.
Three hours.
Whole Foods?
I don't know.
Whole Foods is weird.
Okay, we are out of time and it's time for us to go.
212-209-2950.
Please keep those calls coming in.
We have looks like five calls on the line.
So we'd like to see that go up even more.
212-209-2950.
Manuel Goldstein for Off The Hook.
We'll see you in two weeks in one form or another.
I don't know where we'll be, but we'll be various parts of the world.
And stay tuned for The Personal Computer Show.
Have a good night.
All right.
Perfection.
Perfection.
You're listening to WBAI New York 99.5 FM in stereo.