WBAI is the ultimate premium of our fundraising drives.
No book or DVD or CD is going to speak as loudly to the problems that we face as a country
and as a city and as a state as the WBAI News does five nights a week and on Sundays.
212-209-2950.
We can't do it without you.
We need your support.
Please make that call, pledge your support, become a listener sponsor of Community Radio
in New York.
Thank you.
And good night.
It's five minutes after seven o'clock, time for Off The Hook.
And good evening to everybody.
Program is Off The Hook.
Emmanuel Goldstein here with you on this Wednesday evening.
Joined this week by Mike.
Hi.
Over there is Redbird.
Good evening.
And on the far side of the room, not Kevin.
Hello.
This room's not that big.
It's pretty big.
It's not that big.
I can barely see him.
And down in Philadelphia, definitely can't see him, Bernie S.
Greetings from Philadelphia.
And yes, you might have guessed it by our five minute late start that this is in fact
fundraising week here at WBAI.
In fact, it's a fundraising month.
We're going to be hopefully raising a lot of cash for the station so we can continue
doing the magical things we've done.
This is our 20th year.
We've been on the air.
Off The Hook has been on the air technically for 20 years.
Our first show was in October of 1988.
Of course, that was the only show we did in 1988.
But still, that's pretty cool.
It was about 20 years ago, actually.
About, almost.
Well, it was about 20 years ago that I first stumbled into the station myself looking for
direction in my life.
And the very first thing they had me do when I came to this place was answer phones for
a marathon, which they happened to be having just when I was, I think it was January of
1988.
So WBAI gave you direction in your life and look where it's gotten you.
Picked up the phone and there was somebody on the other end wanting to donate to the
radio station back in 1988.
And I just want to say to that person, thank you for calling in.
20 years later and I still remember.
So obviously, pledges mean a lot.
They count for something.
And I hope a lot of people call in today.
We have some special things to offer and we're going to be getting to that in just a moment.
But first, I want to round up what's been going on last week.
Well, not only do people donate to the station, but restaurants also donate to the station.
Really?
And I have a couple of restaurants here that I need to thank.
Okay.
Is that what all that wheeling in of food was before?
I don't know.
I wasn't here for that.
Okay.
Yeah.
But one of the restaurants that we should thank is Candle Cafe.
And Mike and I can both attest to how great this restaurant is.
And I think it's really cool that they're donating to the station.
I don't think you're allowed to use comparative statements like that because that sounds sort
of like a commercial when you do that.
But they're a really good restaurant and they donated to the station.
See, you did it again though.
I think you can say they donated.
But if you use comparative type statements like, you know, very good or great or amazing
or wow, you know, things like that, it's just tantamount to being too positive.
Emmanuel?
Yes.
Go ahead, Bernie.
Actually, you're partially correct.
Okay.
You're right in saying you cannot make comparative comments on a listener-supported radio station.
You can't say this restaurant has better food than that restaurant.
But you can say whatever you want about the restaurant itself.
Okay.
You can't compare it to another restaurant.
So don't pick that other place and say that they beat them into the ground with quality,
that they're much better than that other place.
And then it's fine.
Actually, you know, Bernie, is that really true though?
Because we're in the middle of the commercial dial.
We're 99.5.
Does that not only apply to stations below 92 that are legally forbidden from airing commercials?
Could we not air commercials tomorrow if we wanted to?
No, you couldn't.
Really?
You'd have to change some – you'd have to change some – the type of station that WBAI is.
And we don't want to change the type of station that WBAI is because we don't want to hear commercials on this station
and plug commercial corporate products, which are really just going to increase the price of those products
because those advertisers are going to have to pay money to the station.
And you just want to hear it.
We just want a pure, unadulterated station that has facts and opinions and entertainment like this show,
which I find very entertaining.
I would find it too if I ever had the chance to actually sit back and listen at home.
But, Bernie, you know, I should point out to you that we could change.
We could change the station if we wanted to because we could sell this frequency
and it would sell for a lot of money because there are people, there are corporations,
there are entities out there stumbling over themselves wanting a powerful radio station in the middle of Manhattan
that can get to four different states.
We're on top of the Empire State Building.
We're not, but the transmitter is.
And that's something that is worth.
It's a goldmine.
It's a goldmine.
Imagine another commercial radio station and how much money that would bring as far as commercials,
advertisements, and all kinds of formatted music.
It could happen.
And the only reason that it could happen in this place is if we don't get the kind of support that we need,
if we're not able to continue doing what we've been doing since 1960.
So that's why phone calls to 212-209-2950, even before we announce what it is that we're giving away tonight,
they're so important.
Now, Redbird is trying to thank this restaurant without using too many superlatives or comparative statements.
So let's just let him go ahead and do that.
Okay.
Well, everybody should definitely check out Candle Cafe.
It's on the Upper East Side located at 1307 3rd Avenue at 75th Street.
Of course, that's in Manhattan.
Actually, they were voted the best vegetarian restaurant in Zagat 2007 and Veg News Awards 2007.
So it definitely sets them apart from the rest of the vegetarian restaurants in the city.
How did they get all the food down here from all the way up there?
They have some kind of transportation system, I guess.
That's crazy.
How amazing.
Also, Mediba Restaurant serving South African cuisine.
How do you say that again?
Mediba, I'm guessing.
Spell that, please.
M-A-D-I-B-A.
Okay.
And that's located at 195 DeKalb and Carlton Avenues in Brooklyn.
You said South African cuisine?
Yes.
Wow.
I've never been there.
I've never been there either.
But if you visit medibarestaurant.com, M-A-D-I-B-A restaurant.com and leave your email address,
you will receive a food voucher valid for the month of February in celebration of Black History Month.
Okay.
And if there are any other restaurants out there that would like to donate to the food drive,
you can call 917-405-1712.
It's not really a food drive.
It's a fund drive.
We just like food to keep the volunteers going.
Fall drive food donations.
I'm sorry.
Fall drive?
No, this is the spring drive.
This is dated February 06, 2008, WBAI Fall Drive Food Donation.
I'm just reading the paper.
Well, it's the spring drive because it was 65 degrees today.
Are you sure it's not the winter drive?
It's not winter because it's not winter outside.
So next week it might be winter even though you're claiming this week it's spring.
Right now it's spring.
All right.
I'm not happy about it.
Believe me.
But it's not winter.
It's not winter enough.
Anybody else to think?
No, that's it.
Again, the number is 917-405-1712.
And you can speak to Staduzzo about that.
Is that a landline, 917, or is that somebody's beeper you're calling?
You know what?
I don't know.
I never understand.
The trucks that drive by, they have beeper numbers.
Who would want to beep a truck driver?
I mean, why would you need that information?
They have 917 numbers.
Of course, 917 numbers can be used for landlines now, but they didn't used to be when they
introduced it.
It could be a cell phone.
Yeah, it could be a cell phone.
But why would you want to call a cell phone too for a restaurant or for some other?
I don't know.
It just seems kind of weird.
Wouldn't you want to call the location?
What if they're driving about in their truck?
I guess.
All right.
Well, times have changed.
That's for sure.
That's one thing I guess that we can let people know about is that we are offering tonight
as part of the WBAI fundraising celebration.
Why don't I call it a celebration?
Because it sort of reaffirms what we are and what we stand for and what we've done, what
we've accomplished over the years.
What better way to appreciate that than to get a subscription, a lifetime subscription?
What that means is until either we go away or until you go away and your descendants
tell us to stop, we're going to send you all of the shows that we have done in full FM
or CD quality as we have recorded them over the years.
It started in 1988 and we just released the 2007 edition.
You'll get all of those DVDs.
They're DVDs.
You put them in your computer or other player that will play DVDs.
They're basically computer files and you can copy them any place you want and listen to
them in full stereo sound.
Now, these are not the audio files that you will see online.
We have all the shows online, but they're at 16 kbps.
Is that right?
Something like that, yeah.
What does that mean, 16 kbps?
It means that you can totally listen to them, but they won't sound quite so hi-fi.
Yeah, so if you're listening to us now on one of those and you realize that we don't
sound as good as we possibly could, well, they can sound a lot better if you get this
DVD set for a pledge of $125, which is actually less than what it's offered for normally.
How many hours of audio is this?
It is so many hours of audio.
I mean, think about it.
One show a week pretty much for however many years.
Not quite 20 years of one show a week, but maybe if you count the multi-hour specials
and other shows that are on there as well, it's a lot of hours.
It's a lot of hours.
One day we should do a count so we won't have to guess next time I ask you.
We could guesstimate.
Go ahead, guesstimate.
Let's say it's 50 hours a year.
How many years are we talking about?
Well, not quite 20 because, like I said, the first year we only did one show and maybe
a handful of shows a couple of years after that.
Let's say an average, just to bring it down as low as it possibly can go.
Let's say an average of 40 a year.
We're pushing 1,000 hours of stimulating audio material, which has historical value.
The more you listen to these older programs, you play a program back from 10 years ago,
and you will find so many fascinating parallels on some situation going on in the world of
technology and law and society.
You can apply those lessons to what's going on today.
As someone once said, someone who hasn't learned their history is doomed to repeat it.
This is really true, and this is why we talk about this stuff, to make people remember
what happened.
When a similar situation pops up again and they run into it, they're like,
aha, I heard about this on Off the Hook, and it sounds like the same kind of thing.
It could affect me.
I'm going to make this decision for my best interest or whatever.
You'll find that we've warned you many times about the things facing us, the dangers facing us,
insofar as surveillance and Orwellian stuff coming down in the future.
Well, the future has arrived, and a lot of what we were afraid of has happened.
But it's also interesting to see how the technology has changed over the years,
where we make phone calls to various what were then newfangled computer devices
or voicemail systems or things like that.
Anyway, all of this, all 20 years or so of existing audio and all future years that we
come up with are yours for a pledge of only 125, which really is as good a deal,
a better deal than you'll find anyplace else.
212-209-2950.
That's not the only thing we're offering.
We're going to announce a couple of other things that we're offering as well,
but I think that's a good thing to kick off with and to get those phones lit up right now.
Just to give people an idea, if you were to just start these audio files playing
and not do anything else, if you were to play them 24 hours a day,
not sleep, not pause them while you eat, none of that,
it would take you well over a month just to get through them all.
I don't want to encourage people to do that.
No, you shouldn't do it.
Yeah, well, some people might.
If you do, please don't tell us about it.
But this amount, you could spread it out and maybe only listen to it 12 hours a day for two months.
Lots of people copy us onto their iPods or various MP3 devices and they go jogging
or they play them in their cars or they get access to, say, a stadium
and broadcast it over the speakers and so it echoes.
Yeah.
There's all kinds of things you can do with the audio.
And all these opportunities can be yours with your pledge of $125.
212-209-2950.
I have to admit, with a bit of a sad expression, that there are no calls on the line.
I know it's the beginning of the show, but we're only on for an hour this week,
and we do need to raise quite a bit of funds.
So it would be nice to start off with a bunch of people calling up 212-209-2950 and saying,
yes, I would like to have all of the off-the-hook shows from the beginning until the end,
whenever that might be.
212-209-2950.
Go ahead, Bernie.
I just want to say, we get e-mails.
We get a lot of e-mails every week from our listeners.
And I'm often surprised by someone e-mailing,
hey, I was just listening to this program from 1997 where you guys said such and such,
and here it is, this new thing is happening, and it's just like that.
You should really talk about that, see how it's the same parallel.
Well, we point out these parallels all the time,
but it really is intriguing to get these e-mails from people that are listening to programs
from years ago that point out interesting stuff and how similar it is to what's going on today.
And frankly, if you just figured out how much time you would spend downloading all these programs
individually off the website, they are available at a low-quality bit stream off the 2600 website.
But you have them all on a medium where you can just put them in a computer
and dump them into your iPod in high-fidelity audio.
It's so much more convenient. It sounds so much better.
And if you were to figure out how much time is saved, it's more than well worth the premium,
not to mention all the great programming you get on the other shows on this station.
As the person who mentioned before the show started, they were talking for six minutes.
Apparently they thought they could pitch better than we could.
But what they were saying is the radio station is the premium.
And that's really true. This is just sort of a thank you gift.
But the real reason to pledge is not for this gift.
It's to pledge for the gift of WBAI, which is an amazing resource,
as you pointed out, in the middle of the FM commercial band that reaches four states.
And nothing like that really exists anywhere in the country that I'm aware of
that has such a range, such a variety of programming, and such a socially conscious material
that you're just not going to get anywhere else.
And it is a bit of a fantasy that, as you say, this place exists in the first place.
Because imagine if you wanted to get this kind of a station today.
It would be impossible. This station was donated to us back in 1960
by somebody who listened to a sister station, what was before the station existed, obviously,
out in California and said, I would like to bring that kind of radio to New York.
And everything since then has been based on that one act of generosity.
So the whole place exists because of a series of acts of generosity.
And what we're asking you to do is to join that family and be one of the people who pledges.
We're going to be playing something from the past in just a little while,
maybe at the halfway point of this show.
But I also wanted to let people know about other things that we're offering in addition
to the offer of the Lifetime Audio for off the hook, $125, 212-209-2950.
We also have a couple of new things, things that we've never offered before.
First of all, everybody who calls in and pledges $25 or above gets an off the hook T-shirt.
There is no other way you can get an off the hook T-shirt.
You can't buy it anyplace.
You could get it from somebody who already got one.
I was going to say, what if they donated it to a thrift store and then you buy it there?
You could do that, although technically I think that's a violation of the terms.
But yeah, the only way to get the T-shirt from us is to pledge $212-209-2950,
pledge $25 or above.
Now, for a pledge of $40, this is new.
Oh, yes.
Not Kevin's wearing one of the shirts.
And it's very comfortable.
It is.
It looks comfortable.
It says WBAI New York on the front.
It says off the hook also on the front and has the time and date of the show on the back.
He's also wearing a silly scarf and a stupid jacket.
Yeah, but we're not giving those away.
We couldn't give those away.
212-209-2950.
Okay, for a pledge of $40, 4-0, you can get the newest thing that we have available,
which are the 2600 coffee mugs.
These are the DMCA coffee mugs.
What that means is the Digital Millennium Coffee Act, actually.
Well, no, it's very serious circumstances here.
These mugs, all right, they are for coffee and only for coffee.
They are not for tea.
They are not for hot chocolate.
They are not for any other liquid.
To put other liquid in there, and I don't want to get too legal here, but let's just say it's a risk.
You don't want to violate the DMCA by having other liquid in that cup.
So we're offering the DMCA coffee mugs.
You get two of those for $40.
One is black and one is white.
One has white lettering on black background.
One has black lettering on a white background.
It's marvelous.
They're big coffee mugs, and they've been tested with hot coffee.
You can put cold coffee in there, too.
I think that's okay.
Did we check with the lawyers?
You know, it says on the cup.
All the regulations are on the cup.
So refer to the cup, and you'll see what you're allowed to put in and what you're not allowed to put in.
That's for a pledge of $40, 212-209-2950.
Where else can you get a DMCA coffee mug?
Two of them, two of them for that price.
Plus, you'll get the off-the-hook t-shirt.
In addition, we have one more pledge level of $75.
For that, you'll get, in addition to the off-the-hook t-shirt, you'll get the brand-new 2600 hooded sweatshirt.
Now, not Kevin, I know you have one of these.
I do have one of these.
How has it changed your life so far?
Dramatically.
Yeah?
More people talk to me than I can ever imagine now.
There's tears in your eyes.
I'm crying.
Wow.
Well, why don't you describe what it looks like for one thing.
Well, it is gray, and it is very comfortable.
Actually, more comfortable than the previous 2600 sweatshirt, which is hard to believe.
Don't diss the previous 2600 sweatshirt.
They're nice, too.
But that's not being offered tonight.
No.
Okay, so now, how else is it different?
Instead of the seal on the back of the sweatshirt, it says hacker.
Like a football player type of a thing.
Like a football player.
Okay.
It still doesn't have the right font, but.
The right font?
I know there was one font.
The correct font.
I think actually the font is called football, but we can bicker about that later.
On the front, similar writing?
On the front, split into two parts, is 2600.
Okay.
That seems to have gotten the calls walking up.
Four calls on the line.
212-209-2950.
Pledge of $75.
You get the brand new hacker hooded sweatshirt.
It says hacker on the back so that you can be marked from a distance.
And this is only for people who are proud of being hackers.
Okay?
If you're not proud of being a hacker, this is not the sweatshirt for you.
You will stand out in the distance.
People will say, look, there's a hacker, and then they'll start chasing you or whatever they have to do.
And it's also a zipper sweatshirt.
It's got a zipper and a hood, I believe.
Well, it's a hooded sweatshirt, yeah.
People might not know that a hooded sweatshirt comes with a hood.
Well, I think our listeners are bright enough to know that, but who knows.
Someone just listening for the first time who's not up to our usual brilliant class of listeners.
And for that, you should get the Off The Hook Lifetime Audio subscription so that you will get up to speed and know everything that we've been talking about.
Okay, so we have all these different pledge levels.
There's no excuse now for the phones not to be ringing.
This is what we're offering this hour, 212-209-2950.
If we can get a flurry of calls, we can go into the news and various other things that have been happening this week.
Again, pledge of $25 and above.
Everybody gets an Off The Hook t-shirt.
For $40, you get the DMCA hacker coffee mugs, one black, one white.
For $75, you'll get the hacker sweatshirt.
It says hacker in the back, nice gray hooded zip up sweatshirt.
How do you say that?
A hooded sweatshirt that zips.
Is that the right way to say it?
Yeah.
Hooded zippered sweatshirt?
Yeah, something like that.
Zip it is not a word in English.
Well, it is now.
2,600 on the front and red lettering, right?
It's red lettering?
It is red lettering.
All right.
And on the back, it says hacker.
And it's gotten rave reviews so far.
We just introduced that.
And for $125, you get every single edition of this show in high fidelity sound,
all the way back to 1988 and all the way into the future.
It never ends.
It ends when Bush finally pushes the button or when we lose interest in this
or when you beg us to stop.
212-209-2950.
Again, let's get a couple more calls on the line.
Then we can go into some more news items and maybe some listener mail as well.
We're still all staring at a big fat zero up there.
Well, that's because they're answering phones.
They haven't had a chance to add up yet.
So there's three calls on the line.
I'd like to see maybe five or six.
There are volunteers down there, right?
I hope so.
There were some when I was last there.
You would see them ringing.
We can tell when they're ringing and when you've been answering.
That's right.
The lights light up.
212-209-2950 is the number to call.
Country code 1 if you're out of the country.
Yeah, and we like people who are listening to the radio signal
and people who are listening on the internet as well.
It's just as good no matter where you're calling from.
We can ship this all over the planet and maybe other places too.
We have four calls on the line, 212-209-2950.
That's right.
You have the power to make another phone call light up
and make us proceed to the next part of the program, 212-209-2950.
We're talking to you.
We should send a message to our future listeners that if they call next week,
they'll also be able to pledge maybe for slightly different premiums.
But if you don't listen live, that's no excuse.
Yeah, there's no guarantee that the same things will be offered next week.
There's no guarantee of that.
So we do stress that if what we have said so far interests you,
it's a good time to call, plus it'll ensure that we're on next week
because if we don't do well, if we do really badly,
they might put some kind of special program in our place
thinking that it'll do better.
We have to think about ways of raising the funds that we need for this fundraiser.
That's why it's called a fundraiser because we need to raise those funds.
Makes sense, right?
212-209-2950.
So the fundraiser we raise funds?
Yeah, yeah.
That's weird.
Yeah.
If you process it in your brain, it's kind of strange.
Okay, one more call is all it's going to take.
I see there are phones ready.
The calls that came in, it goes that fast.
You make your pledge.
It takes about a minute.
You don't miss much of the program.
You really don't miss too much of it.
And you can always listen online later or listen when we send you the DVDs.
So you'll miss nothing because you'll receive it in the mail, the whole thing.
You might even hear your name mentioned on the radio program
when we thank people for calling in.
212-209-2950.
We just want one more call to come in.
That's all it takes.
There's an alternative.
What's the alternative?
That we experienced last week.
A listener recorded the show on tape.
He was listening on shortwave, and we got to hear what it sounds like.
I think it was from Ohio, right?
Yeah, I think so.
On shortwave, yeah.
I think so.
That's pretty cool.
Sounded pretty staticky, but that's shortwave.
No, it wasn't bad.
It wasn't bad.
Wait, wait, that wasn't bad?
Well, it's shortwave.
Well, we might play that sometime just to give people a sense
as to what it can sound like, but that's not what it sounds like here.
What it sounds like here is, I mean, if you're listening on shortwave right now,
the way we sound on FM, it's dramatically different, dramatically different.
So that pledge of 125 will get you everything you could possibly imagine
as far as what we've done over the years.
212-209-2950.
Again, pledge of 25 and above gets you the shirt.
75 gets you the sweatshirt.
40 gets you two coffee mugs and the 2600 off-the-hook T-shirt.
And, of course, 125 gets you everything that we've ever done
as far as the radio show.
And, of course, if you want to pledge more, then that's awesome as well.
That's true, too.
That's true, too.
Okay, shall we go into some news items?
Because there are things happening that we do need to focus on
and we would like to do that.
Let's just remind people one more time of the numbers, 212-209-2950.
And thanks to those people calling in right now.
Let's hope some more people join them, 212-209-2950.
Okay, what's the FBI up to this week?
The FBI wants palm prints, eye scans, tattoo mapping.
This is nothing new, but according to Associated Press,
the FBI is gearing up to create a massive computer database
of people's physical characteristics, all part of an effort, the Bureau says,
to better identify criminals and terrorists.
It's an issue, of course, that raises major privacy concerns,
what one civil liberties expert says should concern all Americans.
I imagine all civil liberties experts would be saying that.
The Bureau is expected to announce in the coming days
the awarding of a $1 billion, 10-year contract
to help create the database that will compile an array of biometric information
from palm prints to eye scans.
According to Kimberly Del Greco,
the FBI's biometric services section chief,
adding to the database is important to protect the borders,
to keep the terrorists out, protect our citizens, our neighbors, our children,
so they can have good jobs and have a safe country to live in.
This is what she said. This has got to be April Fool's.
This comes from the onion, right?
What a simplistic, naive statement that is.
We're going to protect our children and our jobs by requiring handprints?
Well, have good jobs.
Good jobs.
We have eye scans and palm prints and tattoo maps.
I mean, I guess for a billion dollars,
you can make a few jobs making handprint scanners.
That's unbelievable, the fear-mongering that is spreading,
and we're giving away our privacy
and succumbing to all this surveillance as a result.
It's a sick society. It really is.
Now, of course, Barry Steinhardt, director of the ACLU,
isn't sharing in this enthusiasm.
He says it's the beginning of the surveillance society
where you can be tracked anywhere, anytime,
and all your movements and eventually all your activities
will be tracked and noted and correlated.
I have to disagree with Barry Steinhardt of the ACLU.
This is not the beginning of the surveillance society.
This is one step, one very large step along the path.
FBI already has 55 million sets of fingerprints on file,
55 million sets.
How many people live in this country?
It's a good percentage, isn't it?
Wow.
In coming years, the Bureau wants to compare palm prints,
scars and tattoos, eye patterns, and facial shapes.
The idea is to combine various pieces of biometric information
to positively identify a potential suspect.
Potential suspect, that's all of us.
Everybody is a potential suspect.
A suspect is somebody who has not yet proven
to have done something wrong.
A potential suspect is one step removed from that.
Everybody. Infants.
When you go through airport security,
you are a suspect because they're searching for all your stuff.
Right.
They're scrutinizing everything about you,
and, you know, you're a suspect.
So by definition of suspect, it looks like they're going to be there.
What the FBI wants to do is really get all of our handprints
and retina scans.
And what you really need to look out for is one of the warnings
we try to give out on this program is that you will see this
sort of being soft-pedaled as a benefit
for some consumer service or product,
where how convenient it would be to just walk up to the vending machine
and put your hand on it and buy something,
or to look into the peephole and buy something that way.
And guess what?
That information is going to be shared with government databases
or sold as so often is to government databases
without any of the rules that the government has to comply with
on these privacy regulations,
because they're buying it from a third party,
from another company.
So this is going to be pervasive,
and people should be aware of it.
And this is $1 billion.
This is $1,000 million of your tax dollars
that are being spent to surveil you.
I think people should be up in arms about this.
We could be invading a whole other country with that money.
Well, we could.
We spend like twice this every week in Iraq,
but that's a whole other issue.
But these numbers are staggering.
The president just announced a $3.1 trillion budget.
We can't even wrap our minds around this.
But still, a billion here, a billion there.
It starts to add up to real money.
And all we're asking for is a measly $125
or $25 here at the radio station.
I'm sorry.
I just had to say that.
It's so little compared to what's being wasted
on things that are bad.
You can do something that's good.
I just wanted to say that.
And your donation is tax deductible,
so you can reduce the amount of money
the government has available to spend
on a lot of these silly things.
And you can ensure that voices like ours
continue to be heard,
and that maybe other people who have not yet
turned on their radio or clicked on our website
can actually be enlightened to our point of view as well
and have a chance to speak out on their point of view.
212-209-2950.
Please make those phone calls.
Continue to come in.
Here's another story that...
Actually, before we move on to this,
I just wanted to say one other thing
on the subject of privacy and surveillance.
This is an interesting thing that happened to me.
At the CCC Congress over the winter,
we were hanging out at that place afterwards,
C-Space.
C-Base.
C-Base.
Sorry.
I always get that wrong.
C-Base, where they have all kinds of parties
and hacker happenings and things like that.
And it was during one of those,
I got into a whole lot of conversations with people,
but there was this one guy from, I think, Croatia,
who just asked me a question.
He said, why does it matter?
Why should I care about my privacy?
Why is it a big deal
if people have this information about them public?
And I have to say, that question is harder to answer
than you might think.
Because if you really don't think it's an issue,
if you really don't think it's a problem,
and it doesn't concern you or bother you
that all this private information about you is getting out,
a la Facebook, a la MySpace,
and various other ways
that you voluntarily give out all this information,
then how do you confer that to somebody?
How do you say that this is something
you should be worried about?
I'm worried that our society is just moving in a direction
where privacy just doesn't have the same value
that it used to.
Well, I don't think it actually has much value at all,
especially after talks like Steve Rambam's.
And one of the very recent examples I have of that
is a conversation I had with a friend of mine
who was looking to find out someone's age.
And I was like, well, what's this person's full name
and where do they live?
And a person's age is actually
one of the free pieces of information
that the Intellis database will give you
before they charge you for a background check
that costs whatever, 20 bucks or something like that.
Really?
And she was just so surprised
that I was able to get this person's age,
because the person in question
had actually done a lot to conceal that
from people that didn't want them to know the age.
And everybody's in there, right?
You'd be surprised.
I mean, most people are in there.
All right, tell us the database.
How do you get to it?
Because we also believe in giving the information out.
Yeah, Google Intellis.
How do you spell that?
It's not even a word.
I-N-T-E-L-L-I-U-S, I think.
Is that right, Bernie?
It's either Intellis or Intellius.
Yeah.
Try them both.
Yeah, either one.
Those fake corporate words.
Google will probably correct your spelling anyway.
All right.
So, yeah.
Up to $270, according to the tally up there.
That's not nearly enough, folks.
We need to be breaking 1,000 by this stage.
It's 20 of, and we only are on for another 20 minutes.
So, please, even if you don't necessarily want the things that we're offering,
but I can't imagine why you wouldn't, think of them as presents.
Or, most importantly, think of your donation as keeping this place going.
212-209-2950.
Okay, here's another story that I want to touch upon.
And this is something that's happening over in England,
our favorite place with surveillance and cameras everywhere.
Now, this is another.
You know about the congestion zone they have,
where basically cars are restricted from entering the city of London,
and it's enforced with all sorts of surveillance cameras and tracking devices
and things like that.
Now, from the 4th of February on,
most of greater London will be ringed by 75 camera sites
automatically checking hundreds of thousands of registration numbers
entering the city's LEZ.
That stands for Low Emission Zone.
That zone is an attempt by the mayor to improve London's air quality,
which is the worst in the United Kingdom and among the poorest in Europe.
Now, basically, it doesn't affect cars and motorcycles,
but it targets trucks, vans, and other aging diesel engine vehicles.
It actually includes ambulances too, if you can believe that.
But the interesting thing about this is that you need to be registered
in order to enter the city.
And if you're caught coming into the city by one of these cameras
and your vehicle is not registered
and your vehicle has not been tested for emissions,
you get a pretty hefty fine.
Interesting, and a lot of people I think would support
the overall goal of reducing pollution.
But look at how things are being enforced,
how we're getting used to things being enforced
by being watched constantly and monitored, our movements being tracked.
Do you guys think this is a good thing or a bad thing?
I don't personally agree with the congestion charging.
I think it hurts businesses in the area.
Well, this is now the emission charging.
Well, it's a very similar concept, and it's enforced in exactly the same way.
I don't think it's economically that great,
and I don't agree with all the cameras all over the place either.
Well, that's the part that scares me, just the surveillance aspect of it,
because you know it's going to go beyond pollution and beyond congestion.
It's going to go towards all sorts of spying and monitoring of people's movements.
I mean, emissions kind of should be taken care of.
At least here it's taken care of by the Department of Motor Vehicles.
Your vehicle has to pass that inspection, right?
There's all these loopholes for older vehicles,
and I guess what London is saying, you know what,
if you want to pollute out in the country where there's plenty of air to go around,
that's one thing, but if these congested cities where people get asthma
because of all the pollution, we don't want that truck here.
I don't think that's a totally unreasonable thing to say.
How do you think deliveries get into the cities,
and how do you think all your groceries get here?
Well, they don't have to get in with a polluted vehicle.
They can get in on a cleaner vehicle.
They can, but I'm not at all opposed to that.
What I am opposed to, though, is just the constant tracking that we're becoming used to.
Aren't there other ways to ensure that vehicles aren't emitting unhealthy amounts of pollution,
instead healthy amounts of pollution,
without having to spy on everybody and have cameras and total tracking?
That's what worries me.
If you go down that road, it's very hard to get out of it.
All right, that's something else to consider.
Our email address, oth at 2600.com, if you have feedback, ideas, or other things to send to us.
Time now for us to move into the history part of the show,
where we play you a sample from the huge collection that we're offering tonight.
And literally, I just threw this together before the show,
picked a show at random, looked on the archive,
and when you pledge for this, you will get, with your DVDs, a full listing of all the shows,
including what went on, what was discussed on all of them,
and you will be able to do the same thing.
You'll be able to just zero in on a particular date
and listen to us talk about what was happening at that time.
Now, we're going to play something from pre-2000.
We're talking about Y2K and what to look forward to.
And you'll find that the people on the show are not the same people,
except for me, that are on right now.
So it's a whole different cast of characters.
So we'll hear that for a few minutes, hear some of our predictions
as far as what Y2K is going to be holding or would be holding for America, for the world.
And I believe this was in November of 1999.
While this is playing, please get those phone calls coming in
so we can do better than we're at about $400 now.
We want to reach $1,000 by the end of the hour.
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Pledge of $125 gets you every single program that we've done in High Fidelity Sound,
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You will get it forever.
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brand-new model with a gray background and zipper front.
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212-209-2950.
Let's go into the past.
♪
And with under, what is it, eight weeks to go now until...
Forty-something days.
The year 2000.
Yeah, it's really coming up fast.
I'm sick of these morons on TV that say,
oh, this is the last World Series of the century.
You know, this is not the end of the century.
No, it's not.
Next year is the end of the century.
That's, you know, the years do not begin with the year zero.
They begin with the year one.
Right.
So 2000 is part of the 20th century.
So next World Series will be the last World Series of the century.
I keep hearing, this is the last time we'll be doing this this century.
It's the last tree in Rockefeller Center this century.
Well, unless you have plans not to live next century.
Next century, yeah.
I mean, next year, rather.
Hey, well, we may not survive.
We may not survive.
That's the only way they can possibly redeem themselves.
I get much more upset with people claiming that January 1st, 2000 is the next millennium.
Well, it's the same thing.
It's the same stupidity.
I just foam at the mouth.
But it's the exact same mistake they're making.
It really is, because the millennium begins on January 1st, 2001.
So that's the situation.
Anyway, you wanted to announce that everything is okay and everything's going to be all right?
Well, no.
Actually, President Clinton did that.
Did I misunderstand?
Okay.
You're not saying everything is going to be okay.
Oh, I'm not saying everything's going to be okay by a long shot.
I think we're going to have some problems.
But President Clinton did recently decide to tell us that it's all going to be all right.
Everything's going to be safe and there's not going to be any problems.
Well, have you noticed, though, that there aren't as many stories about Y2K as there were, say, six months ago?
Yes.
Why is that?
Well, I have no idea.
Why do you think?
I think people are finally getting fed up with it and realizing that, hey, this is not going to be a big deal after all.
That's what I think.
Well, I hope.
You think there's a darker conspiracy?
I hope you're right.
What's your dark conspiracy theory here?
Well, we won't go into my dark conspiracy theory.
Why not?
But let's put it this way.
You're afraid to be proven wrong.
That's fine.
The president's own Y2K advisory council recently put out a paper talking about how 911 systems may not be fully operational,
how a lot of these different little pieces of infrastructure may or may not be completely ready.
They're estimating like 50 percent of medium-sized businesses and like 20 percent at large.
They have all these interesting little numbers, which you can go on, like look at Thomas.Locke.gov.
If you have never been to Thomas.Locke.gov, go there.
I demand it of you just for your own education and so on and so forth.
But anyway.
So there's all kinds of facts and figures up there.
Yeah, there's all kinds of facts and figures up there, but it's somewhat interesting that the president basically has this report in his hands and ignores it
and says, you know, everything's going to be okay.
Everybody's going to be safe and secure and we don't got to worry.
It's all solved.
But meanwhile, there are a lot of other things around the world that could potentially affect us.
Tell us what's wrong.
What's wrong?
Yeah, what's not working?
I don't know.
It's not after 2000 yet.
So you have no idea what's going to happen?
I have no idea what's going to happen, and anybody who claims that they know what's going to happen is probably kidding themselves.
Well, I know people are going to panic and act crazy.
Well, all right, yes.
In general, there's going to be some social unrest as there is all the time some kind of silly thing is impending doom.
There will be occasional airliners plunging into the Atlantic.
I don't think that's going to happen.
Because people want to get away from it all.
I really don't think that's going to happen.
But, I mean, you know, you can reasonably say you can outline certain problem spots.
For instance, people have been going nuts about microcontrollers and things like that, you know, embedded systems.
What are your plans?
What are my plans?
Just for the record, so we know for the archives.
Well, I was originally planning a vacation in December in the great American southwest.
And what happened?
It fell through?
No, it didn't fall through.
I decided to move it back a bit, like maybe spend New Year's out in the desert, which may or may not be the greatest idea.
But I have a feeling my mother is going to guilt trip me into spending the holidays at home.
Well, I'll be right there in Times Square where it's going to hit the fan.
Ha ha.
Well, they say that's where terrorists will strike.
But, you know, terrorists can strike anywhere.
Why would they pick the biggest place?
Why would they pick the capital of the world on the most important date when everybody in the world is watching?
I think Trenton, New Jersey would be a much better target because no one's going to be guarding anything there, you know?
The point is to incite terror, and there's really no better time to incite terror.
You see, the terror is incited by us talking about it like it's going to be terror.
You know, I'm watching this TV newscast where they're saying someone could stand up on a roof and start shooting everybody.
And, of course, it scares everybody to death, but, you know, that could happen at any time.
Yeah.
Why wait until, you know, a particular date?
Why surprise?
Because the professional terrorist is trying to make a point above and beyond killing people.
They're trying to get attention.
But you see, they're getting the attention just by making people worry about it.
Well, the more cameras that you have pointed at one thing at one time is the ultimate scenario that they could dream for.
If you have, like, 14 angles on one incident, and it can be talked about for months and years on end, all of a sudden you can't get a bill.
These people are twisted.
Look at your history of terrorism.
How many times has it happened that way?
It usually happens where you least expect it.
It doesn't happen in the place where all the cameras are focused.
You think it's going to happen there, but it doesn't actually happen there.
It's the paranoia that makes us feel the terror more.
Paranoid?
Oh, okay.
Yeah, sir, if you had something.
You have to strike a compromise between the cameras that will give you news attention and the cameras that will have your face on the FBI wanted posters.
Yeah, that could generally be bad.
So you have to choose your cameras carefully.
But what I was going to say, because Isaac brought up the topic of microcontrollers and embedded systems and things like that,
what scares me more than anything are all of the embedded chips that control little municipal functions that are handled by little towns that really just don't think much about Y2K.
Oh, yes.
Water mains, the gas mains, electricity, things like that.
It would be a lot of fun if, for instance, the Department of Water and Sewage here in the beautiful city of New York were to, oh, say, have their PDP-11s, which are controlling the sewage gates.
They have PDP-11s?
They have PDP-11s.
They're controlling the sewage gates.
Oh, cool.
You think they'll be throwing them out anytime soon?
Well, after 2000, they may very well do that, after somebody kicks them over.
That's going to be cool.
But, for instance, they're supposed to open gates in relation to lunar cycles.
So think about that for a second.
You have to release sewage into the river in regards to the tides, because if you release it while the tide is coming back in, you have this very nasty stench going up the East River.
True.
I think there must be a clock involved in that, isn't there?
Yeah, I think there would be.
What do you know?
And imagine what would happen if, for instance, the computer were to suddenly think it was the year 1900, which I have no idea where that would be in the lunar cycle compared to the January 1st of 2000, and they were to open, say, the sewage gates at the wrong time.
All right.
So you get some raw sewage dumped out onto land.
How about onto the streets?
Onto the streets.
But it only lasts a day.
We clean it up, and then we move on.
It's not the end of civilization.
It's a serious health threat.
It's just a bad day.
It's going to be a bad day.
I'm not saying it's going to be the end of civilization.
I think people are overreacting.
This already happened once in California.
See?
It's already happening.
We lived.
Yeah.
All right.
Patrice, what's going on in Europe as far as Y2K?
Panic?
Well, no.
No, no.
It's quite funny, in fact.
For a long time, the Americans were talking about Y2K.
Nobody was talking about that in Europe.
And then suddenly it came up, and then there was some kind of panic.
And there was a lot of interest, and it became kind of hype.
All kinds of Y2K experts sprang out of nothingness.
Right, because they can make so much money.
They can make so much money scaring people and selling their products.
I was one of them for some time.
I didn't make any money.
But anyway.
Okay.
We're going to cut in here.
That was an excerpt from November 1999.
In case you're turning in the radio and you're wondering what we're talking about,
we were talking about Y2K and the upcoming panic and mayhem that was going to be happening.
That is what it sounded like on Off The Hook way back then, November 1999.
And that's an example of just one of the many programs that we're offering tonight.
For a pledge of $125, you will get a whole DVD set with every single program we've done in MP3 format
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212-209-2950.
Most importantly, you'll be supporting the radio station.
What do you guys think of that discussion?
Pretty enlightening, eh?
You know, we're really paranoid on this show.
We try to be sometimes.
Sometimes.
But I think I got it pretty close to the mark.
You and President Clinton got it right.
Our other panelists, I don't know.
Well, there was a lot of paranoia back then.
A lot of people didn't know what was going to happen.
I sort of recognized the signs of people exploiting a situation to make a quick buck.
And that seems to be what happened most of the time.
Well, a lot of quirky things did happen and a lot of quirky things are still happening.
Not a lot.
I mean, I wouldn't say a lot.
Nothing that controls the electricity system or the water sewage treatment systems or whatever.
But anyway, the point is we have all sorts of stimulating conversations and controversial issues and history.
Most importantly, the history is there.
It can be yours for a pledge of $125,000.
But again, we have all different pledge levels and all different kinds of things.
212-209-2950.
The important thing in the remaining seven minutes is that we get as many phone calls as possible.
We have three on the line right now.
We could easily make that six or seven.
We only have a few minutes left.
If you can support this radio station, then we will be around to talk about the next crisis that's happening.
I want to thank the people who have called in so far.
We've got Steve from Stittsville, Ontario.
Stittsville. Awesome.
I'm sorry. Your mic is down. Go ahead.
Lee from Richmond, British Columbia.
Richmond, British Columbia.
That's two from Canada.
All right. Canadians appreciate the program.
James is from Owensboro, Kentucky.
All right. That's not quite in Canada, but it'll do.
Thank you very much.
Sorry if I mispronounce this, but Quiley from Des Moines, Washington.
Okay. Wait. A couple of questions.
How do you spell that?
It looks like K-W-I-L-E-Y.
Okay.
And I believe that's a handle.
And you said Des Moines, Washington?
That's what it says.
All right.
Well, hats off to you for living in a place like that.
You continuously question my interpretation of these pieces of paper that are sitting in front of me.
But it does say Fall Drive, and it does say Washington.
I like to think by questioning you that you'll gain confidence and get it right.
We'd also like to thank McNeil from Jefferson Valley, New York.
All right. New York.
They listen to us, too.
That's good to know.
212-209-2950. Join these people.
We have more.
And we'd also finally like to thank Justin, who's from Seattle.
Okay.
That's two from Washington.
The default Seattle.
None of this craziness.
Well, I'm a little worried that there are not enough people listening to our extremely powerful signal
across the Empire State Building blanketing all of Manhattan and Long Island and Connecticut
and part of Westchester and New Jersey and Pennsylvania and ships at sea that they're not calling.
All right.
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We have three calls on the line right now, three other calls, in fact.
And if you don't like any of these premiums, there's many more.
I do.
You can get a mug or something.
I do have this interesting announcement.
While we were listening to that excerpt from 1999, I opened up a letter that was sent to us.
And look at this.
A manual encloses a check to signify my thanks for your excellent programming.
Please submit it to the tally staff during your show in the upcoming fundraiser.
It's for $250.
Now, this is great.
It's really good to see people do this kind of thing.
But I'm a little worried because for some reason the person saw fit to clip out the name and address on the check.
Of course, the account number is still there.
I'm not sure if this is legal.
I don't know if this will work.
It's made out to WBAI for $250.
But imagine, if you will, somebody taking a scissors and just cutting the upper left of a check out.
And that's what we have here.
So I don't really know who this is from.
I don't have anybody to thank.
There's a signature.
I can't really make it out.
Was it an anonymous donation?
Well, I guess that's the point.
Well, is there a return address on the envelope?
No.
It just says off the hook.
It didn't even go through the mail.
Oh, wow.
Someone came here and did this.
So I want to thank that person.
And, of course, there's no way we can let you know if it doesn't go through because we don't know who you are.
Well, they can check their bank statement and see if it went through or not.
Yeah.
We're going to have to rely on you to tell us if it doesn't go through.
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Very serious.
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That's for a pledge of $40 plus.
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I don't think the Digital Millennium Coffee Act really affects making copies of the mugs themselves.
Well, good luck making a copy of a mug.
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Some good deals there.
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It really means a lot to us.
We thanked a lot of people.
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We want to thank them as well.
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And we have four calls coming in right now.
Please, let's make that 12.
Why not?
212-209-2950.
We started five minutes late, but we're going to try and get out of here on time.
And we don't have an outro because the CD was bad.
So I can't play an outro.
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Do I have to read this entire URL?
Does anybody know?
Michael's not in here.
Okay.
If you go to WBAI.org, you should be able to find a way you can pledge online and credit it to Off The Hook.
But if you call in the next couple of minutes, then you can credit to Off The Hook right now and get one of those premiums.
We'll be back next week.
Stay tuned for the Personal Computer Show.
Good night.
Alright, alright, alright.
Hey, Cat, how about those Giants?
They won without the point spread, Mr. Giuliani, who wanted the point spread from McCain.