And that wraps up today's program. The newscast was produced by Katherine Komp. Headlines editor was Jess Burns.
Washington DC editor was Tanya Snyder. Today's technical production team at KPFA in Berkeley is Rose Katopshy and Scott Pham.
You can visit us online at FSRN.org. You can send questions, comments, or news tips to comments at FSRN.org.
Thanks for listening. In New York, I'm Dorian Marina.
And this is radio station WBAI New York. It's seven o'clock time once again for Off The Hook.
I hope that's understood.
I hope that's understood.
And good evening to everybody. The program is Off The Hook. Emanuel Goldstein here with you, joined tonight by Mike, DotRet, Rob T. Firefly, Voltaire, yeah, I'm going to leave your mic off, and Jim, how you doing, Bernie S. down there in Philadelphia.
Greetings from Philadelphia.
Well, we did really, really well last week with the fundraiser. I want to thank everybody for calling in. Wow. The first week, we did terribly. The second week, we did astronomically well. And this week, we hope to do quite well, astronomically well.
I think we can do astronomically well.
Well, it would be nice. The only problem is whenever we do astronomically well, because we donate all of our premiums, it's a lot of work for us, but it's work we're happy to do.
It's good for the station.
It's good for the station. So what we've been offering the last couple of weeks, we're still offering, and this is the last week, this is the end of the fundraiser.
The number, if you want to just call in and pledge now is 212-209-2950.
What we're going to do is, again, feature some excerpts from the Next Hope Conference, which is actually the previous Hope Conference, the one that ended last month.
And basically, those DVDs are yours if you pledge a certain amount.
I believe we have 20 DVDs for a pledge of $75.
We have 40 DVDs for a pledge of 125, the number 212-209-2950.
But anything newsworthy that we need to go over tonight before we play some excerpts?
Silence. Okay. I guess that means absolutely nothing has happened this week.
A lot has happened.
A lot has happened.
Anything you care to share with the world?
Yes, WikiLeaks back in the headline.
WikiLeaks again, okay.
Yes, there's a false controversy where the Reporters Without Borders and Amnesty International expressed their concern that there might potentially be names that were contained in the leaked documents.
That was actually more than a week ago, but I heard about this.
But the update is that the media – not all the media, but certain establishment media, like the Atlantic, tried to turn it into a huge story of, like, oh, look at WikiLeaks being the idiots.
Well, hold on, hold on.
And it turned out –
Hold on. I heard the story.
What you're talking about is certain human rights groups were saying to WikiLeaks, there is a concern here that certain names are being revealed as Afghan collaborators and that this could actually wind up hurting people.
And you're saying that was completely fabricated?
No, it's just they kind of took it out of context.
And today, the Reporters Without Borders released a press release where they said that basically they scolded the media for – parts of the media for taking it out of context and making it look like they were against WikiLeaks.
What kind of context did they take it out of, though?
They said –
Are they concerned or are they not concerned?
No, it's that they're concerned that they wanted them to work together.
And the media reported as WikiLeaks not wanting to work with the human rights organization.
Well, I saw a response to this, kind of interesting response.
The story continues to just keep going.
It's unbelievable.
But I saw a response actually from WikiLeaks that accused Amnesty International of being funded by the U.S. government, which I thought was kind of bizarre and strange.
WikiLeaks has – especially – I don't know who does their Twitter stream, but they sometimes get a little trellish on there.
But still –
Someone has a mean temper.
That's who it is.
Amnesty International run by the U.S. government, that's news to me.
But, wow.
David, go ahead.
Yeah, I mean, some of the stories I read didn't seem like they were just taking a shred of context saying that the entire world is out to get WikiLeaks, but that they were bringing their concerns to WikiLeaks and that WikiLeaks was allegedly acting belligerent.
And from what these tweets by whoever is in charge of this Twitter account was saying things like, I saw the same thing that Emanuel saw.
Who's this Eric?
Who's Eric?
Yeah.
Barney, what's your take on this?
Well, I think it's sort of just sort of a spat between organizations that want to help other people in war zones.
And frankly, I think WikiLeaks has a point, Julian Assange has a point when he says, all right, well maybe some information in there may put some people at risk, but the greater good is that this puts a bright spotlight, I'm paraphrasing him, on all of U.S. practices in Afghanistan and Iraq.
And that's a good point.
More recently, the news is on WikiLeaks that the Swedish pirate party has announced they will be hosting servers for WikiLeaks, which I think is really wonderfully ironic because the U.S. government has just in the past week or two publicly encouraged its allies around the world to prosecute Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, for doing what he's doing with WikiLeaks.
And yet here's a U.S. ally, Sweden, who is one of its political parties, which has at least one elected representative, I believe, is going to be hosting a WikiLeaks file.
Well, okay, yeah, Barney, it's true that Sweden is a U.S. ally, but I don't think the Swedish pirate party is a U.S. ally.
No, but it's a country, and it's part of the government.
Right. It's a small part of the government, but it is a part of the government.
It's not part of the government.
They have a couple elected representatives in the European Parliament, but they are not in the Swedish Parliament and especially not in the Swedish government, yet at least.
Well, they've got more representation than any pirate party member here.
Oh, no, it's a huge accomplishment, but let's be clear about this.
I don't get it. I know, Mike, you've spoken about this, too, but basically there's been a call.
I think even Julian has requested people help with this, redacting names after the documents have already been released.
What is the point of this?
The documents are already out, and first of all, the U.S. government is even calling for documents to be taken off the site, but they're already out.
So what possible good can that do?
Wouldn't that even call attention to the sensitive material?
Well, I don't think, and maybe I misunderstand something, but I don't think Wikileaks wants to redact documents that have already been released, but there are some documents they haven't released yet.
Maybe I misunderstood, but I thought they were offering to the human rights organizations to go through these documents with us and help eliminate the names that are sensitive, but the documents have already been released.
My understanding is that that offer applies to documents which have not yet been released.
Oh, new documents. There are new documents. There's always new documents.
Well, the so-called war diaries, when they released them, they released a large fraction of the total documents in their possession, but the top-secret classified stuff, they did not release yet.
Okay. Dotret?
Yeah, the whole removing documents or redacting documents are already out. I believe that that was stuff that some people were saying after the second massive release of documents of theirs, which was silly, but their call for help anyway, if it's honest, is about, like Mike said, new documents, hopefully.
I think the most important thing to take out of this is that the U.S. military itself should have been more protective of the names of these people.
Yes.
It just goes to show how little they care about them and how little they care about the countrymen of countries that they've invaded, and when they bring up stuff like, oh, WikiLeaks violated human rights, they're going to cause death of informants, when in fact, it's the U.S. military that has kept these files not safe and hasn't blocked out their own copies of the names, which they don't need.
Well, I think it's the security issue that is always overlooked, and yes, I've seen this reported on Al Jazeera and many other enemies of the state that report news that's very worthwhile, that there are literally thousands of U.S. organizations, governmental organizations that have access to this, millions of people that have access to this.
So of all of those people, is it so surprising that one of them was able to actually leak this to somebody else, and there's material that is constantly leaked all of the time, and by and large, that's a good thing.
It's revealing information that people really deserve to know.
Obviously, there are some sensitive things, and not every bit of information should be released.
I don't think anybody would really be so naive as to think that, but shouldn't such information be well-protected then if it really is that sensitive?
I think it's a remarkable coup on the part of the U.S. military that they've managed to focus the debate in this direction and away from the actual content of the documents.
Exactly, and when Collateral Murder, when the video came out, the issue back then, way back in April, was that, wow, U.S. troops killed innocent people and journalists from Reuters.
That was a big deal.
Not so much who dared to leak this information because the issue, by and large, was, wow, we're being lied to.
We're doing bad things over there.
And now, yeah, it's totally shifted over, and now we have to find the person who released the information.
And yeah, they've managed to shift it quite a bit, and I think they've been able to use these extra documents that have been released.
I think the vast majority of which have really nonsensitive information in them, but because we don't know everything about them, we're able to make them our worst possible nightmare, and that makes whoever released these a threat.
And if we can tie that to the person who released the video, well, then it's all one and the same, and no punishment is too severe.
Rob?
Sorry.
Go ahead.
It's a classic type of misdirection that they do where they're ready to get people to shoot the messenger and draw everyone's attention away from the real culprits.
It happened when Sarah Palin's email was hacked, and people were saying, let's get the hacker without a single mention of the fact that her emails were proving that she was breaking the rules by doing government business on her personal email.
Not to mention she didn't know how to keep a good password.
Right, and nothing ever came of that.
Sarah Palin didn't suffer any consequences, but they got the hacker, and he's in jail now.
He's in jail now?
He got 14 years.
14 years?
Go check your facts.
My phone's running out of battery.
Yeah, well, then go out and use a terminal.
But 14 years, let's not spread misinformation.
He's in jail.
Bernie, do you know something about this?
It was not 14 years.
I don't know exactly what it was, but I think it was somewhere around a year or so.
But I do believe there was a prison sentence involved, which I thought was pretty silly.
Yeah, a day in prison is too much.
For guessing an obvious password that was the answer to which was publicly available in a number of sources.
But back to the WikiLeaks thing, I think students of propaganda would be well-served to follow this, what the U.S. government is saying and the Pentagon is saying about WikiLeaks.
But it's really interesting analyzing what they're saying.
And I think when they're really scraping the barrel for arguments for the Pentagon to be saying to call for existing released documents from WikiLeaks to be excised or redacted is just nonsensical.
I think the latest move is that the Pentagon has yesterday announced that they're reaching out to WikiLeaks to ask WikiLeaks to provide them with the documents ahead of time.
And they will talk to WikiLeaks about maybe the Pentagon redacting them.
Well, maybe WikiLeaks can become an arm of the government then.
That would be something.
I can't see that kind of collaboration happening, frankly.
Yeah, I think they're reaching out to them with a pointy sword.
I would not trust that offer at all.
Now, as many of us know, the head of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, was scheduled to be our keynote speaker at the Next Hope last month.
Obviously because, as Rob said, the messenger is being the one punished for the message.
Julian was not able to enter the country out of fear for his safety and freedom.
However, we did have another WikiLeaks representative who has since faced all kinds of turmoil traveling and just living his life in peace who gave the keynote address in his place.
What we're going to do is play an excerpt from that and remind folks that this DVD along with 19 others is yours for a pledge of $75 to 212-209-2950.
When we say 19 others, we mean 19 other interesting talks including the WikiLeaks panel, the panel really on informants and how it affected the whole WikiLeaks story and Bradley Manning and all that.
For a pledge of $125, you can get 40 DVDs from the Next Hope.
212-209-2950.
Let's take a listen to the keynote address at the Next Hope.
Power knows power because power is in power.
So what you need to do is empower yourself.
You need to know that it is important to take this power and give it to people that are not simply the people that make decisions.
Give it to the people that vote them in and out of office.
That's why we want to inform everyone about this.
This is why we want to make sure that the people that are in power know that they cannot issue a denial when everyone knows the truth.
They can't redact a document when everyone already has a copy of it in their heart and in their mind.
This is something that I think that all of you understand.
And so I hope that all of you will take something away from this and do something about it.
Some media has had some things to say about Wikileaks.
We'll go through that real quick.
I think that it's pretty clear that we've done some good work.
I like this one a lot.
That's a bold statement, and the Germans don't make bold statements like that unless they're pretty serious.
This right here are some awards that I would say that Julian has pretty clearly won and accepted for the project.
But it's important to remember that Wikileaks is not just Julian.
So this whole idea of hunting for him, you can cut off the head, but there will be more.
You just can't stop us.
So here's an example of Wikileaks at work.
Barclay Bank.
There's essentially this problem, especially in the United Kingdom.
Which is that people like to not only pretend that they can erase the past,
but they try to take the present and pretend that it isn't happening.
They censor publications, and they fight against what is actually happening in this exact moment
being able to be reported in any context whatsoever.
So what did we do?
We published the documents that they were trying to censor.
The internet changes everything.
They can't redact every person's computer screen.
They just don't have that kind of control.
The same is true with this.
The Minton Report shows that there was toxic waste dumping
where over 100,000 people have been hospitalized or driven to seek help in some way.
Can you imagine that?
That's every person in this room and every person you know, probably.
And this is something that when people know this,
if we refer to Moxie's quote and his question,
when people know this, they can get out of there and they can seek help
and they can seek to redress their concerns in a very serious way.
And so these corporations use major legal obstacles
in order to make sure that there are secret processes,
in order to make sure that there are things that are taking place
that you cannot know about, that you cannot talk about,
that you can't repeat, that you can't quote.
This is ridiculous.
This is not the world that we want to live in.
So Wikileaks published those documents.
And we published those documents so that people will have access to them
in and outside of that country, so that people will be able to know
and to take action, which is what they should do,
which is what you should do.
And there are other publications which are fantastic, like the BBC,
but the fact of the matter is, is they have a structure
that does not allow them to actually tell you everything that's going on.
And they have a lot to lose.
I don't have anything to lose, right?
I want to make a better world.
That's what Julian wants.
That's what Daniel wants.
That's what other people who will go unnamed want.
And it is extremely important that we don't let the buck stop
with the publications that are afraid of losing their newsroom.
If we get it out there, those gags will become irrelevant.
Everyone will know the information.
And I think there's a little bit of a full disclosure debate here.
Well, I think that it's quite clear where we stand on free leaks, I suppose.
But we believe that the most heavily guarded secrets, as it says here,
if revealed, have the most potential for reform.
There are some people that do not believe this.
They believe that it is possible that we should keep those secrets there.
But I ask you, what is it that those secrets say?
Is it the idea that if you have something that someone else would know
and that would cause some kind of harm?
Well, I wonder, what is it that you are doing that you are so afraid of?
What is the hegemony that you are promoting in the world?
That's the question, right?
So I believe that when people in a democracy know these things,
it will cause a change, and it will cause a big change.
Because when people have things done in their name,
it changes things in their hearts.
And that takes them on a pretty heavy trip to the ballot box.
Journalists sometimes do the wrong thing,
and it's a little bit disappointing.
There is a video that we're going to talk about
that a journalist had for quite some time.
And that journalist did not release it
because they feared losing their special access.
You see, the military offered a collaboration
between journalists and the military.
And they said, you can come along for a ride with us,
but we get to exercise a little editorial control.
And some of these journalists did the right thing,
and they turned that down.
And some of these journalists did the right thing,
and they talked about what they saw.
And some of these journalists did not do the right thing,
and they kept quiet so that they would keep their access.
Those journalists are not very good, in my opinion.
We believe that disclosure is the thing that is the most important.
Losing access? We have access to everything.
Because every one of you is in every single system
that has all of these documents.
We don't have to worry about it.
When you see something that's wrong, you will tell us,
and we will tell the world so that no one knows
that it was you that helped us.
And this is super important.
Absolutely, without question.
Because at the end of the day,
this transparency is what will create change.
There's a little controversial disclosure.
The Warlock system. Have any of you heard of this?
No? Okay.
The IED Detection System Manual.
This basically says that there are some IEDs,
and it blocks them. It explains how it works.
And by the time that it was disclosed,
it had mostly changed.
But it's interesting because what it did is it revealed,
essentially, that there was so much information
that people already knew,
that by telling everyone that people knew it,
it changed things.
It forced people to react in a different way.
And it just so happened that we had been spending
a majority of our expenses on these devices,
which insurgents had already figured out how to get around.
So this is something really important.
It's the idea that there's this black market for information.
And as long as only some people have it,
and not everyone, then things will be all right.
In some cases, I guess I could see why someone
would make that line of reasoning,
but it's just not true.
The people in Iraq know what's going on, right?
It's us. We are the ones that don't.
I mean, it's quite clear that they've been able
to get around a lot of these jamming devices.
So what's important is that when things don't work,
that people understand that they're not working.
The military-industrial complex is extremely large
and very convoluted.
And it means that there are a lot of players here
who benefit regardless if the thing saves our troops.
That's a really important point, right?
And I think that it's quite clear that there are people
that would just like to see this information vanish
instead of adapt, instead of changing.
And I understand that,
because they're usually the ones that profit from it.
But I say, no.
So it's important.
In this case, this transparency, I believe,
is quite obviously neutral,
because now we all know that the emperor
doesn't have any clothes.
This is not bad to know this.
This is good to know this.
You are now empowered to make a decision about that system
and about the people who might be protected by that system
or who might try to thwart that system.
Now you are as qualified as someone else
to make that decision, if not better,
because you have the original source documents on the subject.
So let's talk about some other publishing
that we've done that's important.
Iceland is a country that is very close
and near and dear to my heart.
And there's a very incredible person here from Iceland.
And we've had long discussions about that country.
And I find it to be quite a special place.
And I had a chance to go to Iceland earlier this year.
It wasn't a secret of any kind.
And we were working together on a fun project there.
And I'll talk about that in a moment.
But the important thing is that Wikileaks there
has a special place in people's hearts,
because we released loan books that showed
how people had bankrupted a nation state,
how they had essentially done a ton of unethical things.
And everybody knows who they are now.
Everybody knows what happened.
And this is extremely important for a country
that has just over 300,000 people.
That is a village by comparison.
It might even be Greenwich Village by comparison.
This document is extremely important.
The impact that this had on Icelandic society was not small.
People understood what happened.
They understood that they were robbed blind.
So how has the truth helped?
How has that changed things?
Well, I think that's quite clear for the people of Iceland
and probably for you.
So let's talk about Guantanamo Bay.
You guys probably want to see that closed, I suppose.
Yeah?
Well, let's talk about how we're going to close it.
We're going to close it by knowing what's going on there.
Right?
Lots of people tried to get the operations manual
from Guantanamo Bay,
and they quite simply couldn't get it
through the Freedom of Information Act.
It's just not possible in some cases to get information.
After the document was leaked to us,
it was leaked a number of times to us
over some period of time,
which shows that every time the U.S. military
told us about how things were going
and what the procedures were,
they were flying to us.
This is really important because, you see,
this manual was not written for us.
It was written for people that do these things,
and that's the really important point here, right?
When you have an internal document,
you have a view into the mindset of the organization
that actually takes these actions.
This is critical because when someone crafts
a piece of PR for you, it's for you.
It's to effect some change.
It's to manipulate you to do a thing, right?
So when you read this document,
when you see how the Guantanamo Bay operations manual
is laid out and you see the operating procedure,
you know that it is not something you want to support.
You understand quite clearly.
And the fact that multiple times this document was leaked
lets you know that when they said they made changes
in response to media inquiries,
you know that they were also lying.
And you know now when they move their lips
that they're probably lying again.
Wow. Okay, that was an excerpt
from the keynote address at the Next Hope
by WikiLeaks representative Jacob Applebaum
filling in for Julian Assange.
And I got to say, he really delivered
a very powerful talk for about 90 minutes there.
And this is one of the 20 talks that we're offering
for a pledge of $75 on a full DVD video
for your call now to 212-209-2950
if you would like to get 40 talks from the Next Hope.
The pledge level is $125,
but we're only offering it for another 33 minutes
and then that's it.
212-209-2950.
I got to say, there's so much in there,
so much that we can learn from.
Just the part about Guantanamo Bay
and how, yeah, we want to find out about this information.
We want to find out how this organization,
this prison is being run.
How do we get this information?
Well, it was leaked multiple times.
People want us to find out this information.
And thank God there's a group like WikiLeaks
that's out there that will publish this information
and spread the news.
I don't see how anybody could say that is a bad thing,
that the truth gets out there somehow.
And your call is one voice of support
for this kind of openness in society.
And I'm just happy that a lot of people realize
that such a thing is valuable to any democratic society.
Yeah, there's been a lot of controversy.
WikiLeaks has been in the news all summer
and it's not going to go away anytime soon
because there are more leaked documents out there.
But I think every leaked document tells us something
about what's actually going on.
And that's how we build a strong society
and we learn from mistakes
and we punish the people who are doing things
that are counter to what we supposedly stand for.
212-209-2950.
Join the three calls, four calls on the line right now
to get the DVD set.
It's really something.
Dot Red.
Yeah, I think that's a really amazing thing to point out
is in spite of how the debate might have been redirected,
as Mike said, about who are these people
that are leaking these and how dare they,
if you look at the fact that these documents
like the Guantanamo Bay manual was leaked several times,
obviously many people who come across this information
feel that it needs to be in the public domain
and that it's not simply a question
of whether this information should come out,
but apparently lots of people think it really needs to.
Absolutely, absolutely.
I mean, revealing secret information
is the cornerstone for a democratic society
because you're always being lied to.
You're always being lied to by people in charge,
whether it's your parents or the government.
It's basically there are things they don't want you to know
and it's really up to us to decide in the end
how many secrets we're willing to allow to be kept from us.
And an organization like WikiLeaks needs to be supported
and I think people are demonstrating
how valuable that organization is to them.
Rob?
Yeah, usually when it comes to issues like this,
I try and see both sides,
whether or not, you know, whichever I agree with.
But with this particular issue,
I really feel like everybody who's calling for WikiLeaks blood
and saying this should not be happening,
that's basically saying I would rather be lied to.
I would rather not know what's going on.
I would rather be mistaken in my beliefs.
Cover up my eyes.
Don't tell me what's really going on.
Just get the job done and we'll sort it all out later.
But, you know, that's really convenient
and it saves you from any difficult moral dilemmas.
But I think the truth really needs to be known
and if things are happening out there that we don't support
that are basically tearing our country apart morally,
we need to know.
We need to know now before it gets even worse.
And, yeah, it's sloppy.
It's all kinds of inconvenient questions are asked.
But the information's out there.
The information is already out there.
It's in these computer systems.
Millions of people have access to it.
And you can bet that if enemy agents,
if we want to go down this road and say,
well, what if enemy agents get lists of these people's names,
do you think they're going to advertise the fact that,
hey, we already have the information.
Somebody's leaking the information to us.
They're not going to tell the world that we've got all the collaborators
with the U.S. government in Afghanistan.
They're not going to say that.
They're just going to keep that link open
and they're going to do whatever they can to make sure
nobody else knows that they're able to get into the system as well.
Whereas if it's leaked to the public, everybody knows.
Everybody knows it's out there.
Everybody knows how insecure the system is.
And that's, I think, what the hacker world has stood for
for many, many years now.
Information needs to get out there.
People need to know what kind of security is or is not in place.
And the truth needs to be told.
212-209-2950.
We have six calls on the line.
Again, a pledge of $75 gets you this talk plus 19 others,
including the informant panel
where hacker Adrian Lamo defends his actions,
turning in Bradley Manning, the alleged leaker.
Yeah, it was one hell of a conference.
It really was.
We never thought it would be anything like this.
But you'll get that talk as well for a pledge of $75.
Maybe we'll play another excerpt from that later.
A pledge of $125, you'll get 40 talks.
Yeah, 40 talks total.
So that's something.
212-209-2950.
Mike?
You know, BAI has been bringing people the truth for decades.
And you'll get more truth on these 20 DVDs if you call us and pledge.
I think it's really quite an amazing package.
Bernie, we're down to three calls now.
Can you bring that up to maybe seven?
I'm going to try, Emanuel.
I think that Jake Applebaum did an admirable job,
probably the best job I have seen or heard of explaining to the general public
why WikiLeaks is important and what the hacker community's role is in the success of WikiLeaks.
In fact, I think it was such an inspiring talk that it probably inspired the U.S. government to detain Jake,
what, just a week or two after he gave that talk when he returned from, was it Belgium?
He was detained for several hours.
Yeah, he was coming back to the United States from Europe, and he was detained,
and I believe he had his cell phone confiscated.
They tried to go through his computer, but he was smart.
He didn't bring a hard drive with him, so they had nothing to look at.
He had the hard drive either shipped separately or he just kept data in the various countries he was traveling between
without actually bringing it from one to the other.
That's very smart to do things like that.
However, he has been harassed quite a bit since then.
And it's interesting, too, right after this talk, right after the keynote was given,
we did a little sleight of hand.
Our security team basically dressed somebody up to look just like Jake,
and they ushered him to the elevator.
All the press and hidden government agents and curious people followed,
and followed all the way down, I think, to street level.
And then when it was finally revealed it was somebody else dressed like Jake,
Jake, meanwhile, had slipped out a different exit and was on his way to the airport.
He literally gave his talk, left, and got on a plane and went to Europe.
That's literally how it happened.
And nobody was able to figure it out until it was too late.
In fact, there was a reporter waiting to talk to him,
and they got kind of left in the lurch because he gave them the slip as well.
212-209-2950.
Support this kind of free speech and subversiveness, rebelliousness, that kind of thing.
It's all essential to our society.
212-209-2950.
Bernie, we still only have three calls on the line, though.
You interrupted me.
That's why we didn't get it.
I'm sorry.
That's okay.
That's understandable.
We're all enthusiastic about this because this is really all about free speech.
That's what WPAI is about, and it's what Off the Hook is about.
And you're going to hear things on this program and on WPAI in general
that you're not going to hear from any other source,
at least from a radio station that broadcasts this type of information 24-7.
These Hope DVDs, as maybe not all of our listeners know,
that we put on this conference every two years.
It's too much work to do every year,
but thousands of people from around the world convene to hear people speak truth to power.
And the excerpt you just played from one of our keynote speakers
is an excellent example of the type of material that this show produces
and that the Hope Conference produces,
and which listeners can get a very good grasp of what the issues of the day are
from the perspective of people who are making changes in this world.
Call 212-209-2950 and get 20 of the best DVDs from the Hope Conference
for only $75 plus the great Off the Hook t-shirt designed by Rob T. Fireflock.
That works out to like $3 and change per DVD.
That's really an unbelievable value.
If you want to pledge a little bit more, $125, you will get 40.
That's 4 times 10, 40 DVDs for about $3 a DVD.
This is an unreal value.
Please, listeners, call 212-209-2950.
You will not be able to buy these DVDs anywhere near this price.
And supporting a tremendous radio station, WBAI.
That's the key right there, because yes, it's a great price,
but you're getting this outlet that broadcasts to four states from its transmitter,
and the entire world via the Internet, that brings you information like this.
And if you listen around, if you listen to all the other media outlets,
they're not bringing you this kind of information.
They're self-censoring.
They're keeping things safe.
They're not testing the system in any way.
And by supporting this place, by making sure this place is still here,
which is what your pledge will do,
you're ensuring that such things will be reported on in the future,
that such outlets will be there when the next WikiLeaks event happens,
that somebody is going to pay attention to it.
Yeah, and I was saying in an email to a listener earlier this week
that this really is the only place we could do this program
in the manner that we think we need to.
There is nowhere else in this city, in this radio dial,
that comes even close to this form of freedom of speech, this history.
I mean, the bizarre alignment of circumstances that resulted in this station even existing.
It was such a one-time event. It will never happen again.
And if this station were to go away, there would be a huge loss felt.
Go ahead, Mike.
Sometimes people ask us,
why don't you just do this radio program in your basements
without all this infrastructure?
And I think one of the main reasons is that WBAI creates such a community
that when we say something on the air,
someone outside in the studio probably knows something about it
and walks in and brings us a piece of paper.
Yeah, like Robert Knight just plowed through here before
with information about the Sarah Palin hacker, David Cornell,
who we were talking about before.
And he was able to tell us that he was, in fact, convicted in April 2010.
His sentencing isn't until September 24th, though,
and he could get a maximum of 20 years for figuring out Sarah Palin's password.
I mean, that's simply incredible.
Dalreth.
Well, yeah, the maximum might be more than 14,
but hopefully he won't get anywhere near 14.
Hopefully he won't get a day in prison.
Yes, I was joking, but he says he'll probably get between 9 to 12 months.
Rob.
I would just like to say that the fact that we were talking about a news story
and somebody literally handed us a sheet of paper with more information
and this just in, I've always wanted to be that guy.
Now, to further address what Mike was saying, though,
about why it's important to have a radio station, not just a podcast,
I'd like to direct you to something that's going on in Houston right now.
I just found out about this today, and I'm incensed by it.
Rice University has this student-run radio station.
Now, they also have an NPR station,
and what they have done is they've taken the student radio station,
known as KTRU, and agreed to sell it to the –
or basically change the format so that it's another NPR station.
In other words, they will have two stations on the same college campus.
KUHF and KTRU will both be NPR affiliates.
The students are being kicked off the air completely,
but they're being given a podcast.
So they'll be able to broadcast to the internet
just like anybody can from their basement.
But they have two, a 50,000-watt radio station right there on campus,
and they're giving it up to an entity that's just going to broadcast
the same thing you hear probably on 10 other frequencies in that city.
It's insane, but that is what's happening to alternative media.
It's being swallowed up by the same old thing.
Don't let that happen here.
212-209-2950.
And you know what?
There's a lot of protests going on at KTRU.
Maybe we can get involved in that as well and help save that station
because, wow, it's really – to think that –
I've seen college campuses give away their radio station to NPR,
but a college campus that has two radio stations,
it gives them both to NPR and locks the students out.
That's just wrong.
Unbelievable.
212-209-2950.
We're back down to three calls,
and we have other things that we want to excerpt as well,
but we do need your support at 212-209-2950.
$75, 20 DVDs, 125, 40 DVDs.
It's Voltaire.
What you're saying about the college radio stations and NPR
reminded me a year or two ago, a few of us from BAI
were at the National Organization of Broadcasters.
NAB.
NAB, yes, meeting, and there was a panel about community radio,
and it was just, like, so disturbing to hear these NPR peoples
spouting off things that were indistinguishable from the Clear Channel folks.
They're saying the same thing that Clear Channel people are saying.
Exactly.
What kinds of things were they saying?
Saying that with HD radio they'll be able to give, like,
one-fifth of the channels to community groups,
and they'll be able to keep the other four-fifths themselves
and stuff like that.
Bernan, I know you have strong feelings about this.
Yeah, HD radio, we talked about on the show before,
it requires people to buy an expensive radio to pick up a lesser-quality signal,
but more importantly, it's a way for, as Voltaire just pointed out,
to marginalize even further community radio voices,
which I think is a very bad thing.
WBAI is the beacon of community radio in Manhattan
and to the four-state surrounding area,
and to the rest of the world via the Internet.
So I really encourage listeners to call and support this station.
We're going to get to give you some great gifts
that you can't get anywhere for close to the same price,
and support WBAI by calling 212-209-2950.
Call now.
This is a really limited opportunity.
You can support WBAI any time you want,
but this is a great time to get some great thank-you gifts.
Let me also use this beacon to send out some other information too,
which is very important,
and that's something that's happening next Monday.
As you recall, a bunch of us have been involved in the fight
to save the Hotel Pennsylvania from the wrecking ball.
They want to replace the nearly 100-year-old hotel
with a big, shiny office building that there are no tenants for
and displace over 1,000 people, 1,000 travelers a day
that stay in the place from all around the world,
and of course make it very hard for us to have our Hope Conference there
if it's not there in the future.
There's going to be a final hearing on Monday,
this coming Monday at 9.30 a.m.
The address is 250 Broadway.
It's on the 16th floor.
It's basically a meeting of the Subcommittee on Zoning and Franchise,
and this could very well be the last chance
we have to speak out against Vornado's proposed demolition of Hotel Pennsylvania.
Now, once you get there, you can sign up and speak for a finite amount of time.
I'm not exactly sure how long they're going to give people,
but it's essential that if you believe the hotel should be preserved
and kept from being destroyed that you come to this meeting,
this Monday, 9.30 a.m., 250 Broadway on the 16th floor.
If you can't make it, please tell people who can.
Please spread the word around.
This really does matter, and I think it's indicative of lots of things
that are going wrong in our society where we destroy things
that don't seem convenient at the time and replace them with ugly,
I don't know, stupid things that don't make any sense.
A huge office tower on 34th Street and 7th Avenue that nobody's going to be using
doesn't really make a whole lot of sense,
and we're taking a bit of history and destroying it.
So yeah, more information on our website www.2600.com.
Yeah, so for anyone who might be trying to speak like you said,
I would suggest probably plan for no more than two minutes.
Really? That's all? I could speak for 45 minutes on this.
Yeah, I know lots of us could.
But my experience from these sorts of events is that
you're generally not given more than two minutes.
Yeah, well, just get your opinions in order and speak well, Voltaire.
If you're an out-of-towner and won't be able to make it to this,
it would still be helpful if you upload a video about your experiences at Hotel Pen
and how it relates to your experience of New York.
What is a video going to do?
You could upload it to YouTube or something and tell you about Hotel Pen
and we'd be able to do a search for Hotel Pen and see all the support.
Okay, Rob?
There's a bit of an interesting side note to this story
that I think was raised by The Observer,
where Vornado seems to have raised the ire of the Empire State Building.
Oh, really?
Because from certain directions,
this proposed new building would block the Empire State Building in the skyline
or interfere with it.
And the Empire State Building is just taking notice of this and saying,
hey, wait a minute.
Let's get the Empire State Building on our side.
Those are some good people there.
But, you know, it's basically Vornado just wants to destroy the hotel no matter what.
I don't know why.
I don't know why they hate the hotel so much.
They said even if New York City doesn't agree to all their plans
to upgrade the subway entrances and things like that,
they're still going to destroy the hotel
and just build a plain old office building that is called a no action building
that won't give anything really to the community
and will just be a few stories tall.
And that makes me wonder what is their actual angle here?
They seem to just want to get their way
and they're telling the city we're going to do it anyway
so you might as well do it our way.
And I don't trust people that talk like that.
And yet the hotel is turning a profit.
The hotel is doing well.
At the same time, if I had my own hotel and it was doing well,
I would not want to tear it down.
Think about it.
1,200 rooms.
They're full most of the year.
And most hotel rooms don't have just one person in them.
That's hundreds of thousands of people a year that come to the city, stay there,
and because they're not spending a huge amount on the hotel,
they're spending money as tourists around the city
and seeing the city for the first time.
Plus these people aren't aware the hotel is going to be torn down
because they're from out of town and nobody tells them these things.
Voltaire.
That's the whole point that the hotel is providing a huge public service,
at least compared to an office building.
It's so much more valuable to the city than an office building.
Absolutely.
Listen, we're down to one call, which means we have to play another excerpt here.
This is something from the informants panel.
Yeah, we played some of it last week, I know, but it's so much fun to listen to.
This is where Adrian Lamo, the quote-unquote hacker who turned in Bradley Manning,
the alleged leaker of the collateral murder video
and perhaps other documents as well.
He turned him in for various reasons,
and here he is at the HOPE Conference facing an angry crowd defending himself.
This video plus the WikiLeaks keynote plus a bunch more,
20 altogether are yours for a pledge of $75.
212-209-2950.
40 videos are yours for a pledge of $125.
212-209-2950.
Let's take a listen.
My quick question is, when you decided to inform the community,
why did you have to go to the media?
Why didn't you just do it and keep it a secret
and not seek any type of media exposure?
Primarily the same reason, because I support WikiLeaks,
because I believe in transparency, and I believe...
No, no, no.
Why didn't you just go to the law enforcement agencies
and just keep it quiet and not go to Wired and tell them the story?
Why did you have to go and talk to the media about this case?
Why was that important to you?
Why do people here support WikiLeaks?
Because they believe in the public's right to know.
Why do I support WikiLeaks?
Because I believe that in the majority of cases,
the public has a right to know.
I believe in this case, especially as much as it affects people in this room,
people on the street who have never even frackin' heard of it,
they would have a right to know.
So they would have the right to know about Manning's activities,
so you wanted to expose Manning through the press
rather than just go to law enforcement.
Ultimately, there would have been a press release
regarding Manning's activities from the...
Arrest?
Come again?
From the arrest?
Yes.
But that came much later.
There was so much media about this, and then later he was arrested.
So much media.
I was just curious of why you had to go to the media
and why you couldn't keep it quiet.
I was just curious.
It's a good question.
It's a very good question.
I went initially to a journalist who I knew to be ethical,
Kevin Lee Paulson, who is known to many of you here.
I gave him background on the case.
I didn't tell him, go ahead and run with this.
It was only after Manning...
But why did you call him?
Like, why?
Why didn't you just keep it a secret?
Well, I believe that I've answered that question...
Because of the public's right to know.
At least twice now.
Because the public has a right to know,
and especially because WikiLeaks is so intimately tied
to the community that we have here
and to many communities that believe in freedom of information,
that they would also have a right to know,
form their own decisions.
If they chose to do so, establish legal defense funds,
because everyone has a right to be represented
to the best of their ability.
And the same reason that I went to Kevin with my arrest,
because I felt that as a former hacker himself,
he could represent the story better
than the Washington Post or the Wall Street Journal.
No offense to anyone in the audience from there.
All right.
Guiz has very graciously allowed us a couple of minutes to go over,
so he's not going to attack us with his cooking utensils.
So I'd like to just...
The three people who are standing now,
and the fourth person, you can sit down.
Now, the three people, you get to ask questions really quickly.
No one else.
We have to end this at some point.
I know we're all having such fun here.
So one, two, and three.
Try to make it quick.
And Adrian, also.
You speak about supporting WikiLeaks and transparency,
and this is the first time that we might have had
actual transparency into what the army was doing,
and current transparency.
That might have changed the policy,
that might have ended the war,
saved lives over there in Iraq,
and brought back the lives of those people
that would be involved in those missions.
So you say you're trying to prevent them from dying.
This is the best way to do it.
So why don't you turn them in?
I have to disagree in the strongest possible terms.
I don't believe that there is anything that Mr. Manning released
that would have resulted in troops pulling out of Iraq
and going back to Iraq.
I don't believe that there is anything that Mr. Manning released
that would have resulted in troops pulling out of Iraq,
pulling out of Afghanistan,
in our intervention overseas ending in any way.
It may have caused change,
but it would not have been positive change in my estimation.
Okay, we have room for two more.
I see more than two people standing,
so if your number is higher than two, please do not stand.
Person number one, go ahead.
I was just wondering,
I saw an article that you were diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome
when you were 29,
and I know a lot of people in the community have it, including me.
I was just wondering what your experience was with that.
I know it's kind of a little unrelated.
I'll be brief because that's a little bit off topic,
but it was eye-opening for me.
I didn't really understand to some extent
why I approached the world as much as I did,
why I suffered from anxiety as much as I did,
and talking to qualified medical professionals about it
was very helpful.
I feel a lot better about my life now
than I did before I had a real proper diagnosis.
All right, next question.
And, you know, there's two people still standing after that.
I have to admire your courage.
Okay, we'll let you speak as well.
But that's it.
Nobody else.
Nobody else.
And quickly, please.
All right, first, about the cables.
I trust WikiLeaks' judgment of what to release
and what not to release.
I think they've had an excellent record so far,
and I trust WikiLeaks' judgment a lot more
than I trust the government's judgment
of what should be released and what should not be.
Secondly, I think that it's pretty clear
what's resulted from all of this so far, right?
Manning is in a brig in Kuwait somewhere
facing huge charges.
Assange is underground.
The ultimate release of these cables is in question.
Who knows what's going to happen with this?
And I think we need to be clear about
I think we need to be clear about
what's acceptable to do and what's not acceptable to do.
And I think you f***ed it up huge.
Okay, we're going to have to fade out there,
but that's just a portion of one of the talks
that we're giving away tonight for a pledge
of, well, different pledge levels.
That's one of 20 talks.
The informants panel featuring Adrian Lamo
talking about the whole WikiLeaks thing,
also including the WikiLeaks keynote.
Pledge of $75 gets you 20 talks.
A pledge of $125 gets you 40.
And for the next five minutes,
a pledge of $250 gets you all of the talks.
That's 100 plus.
212-209-2950.
I'm told that our goal right now
is to raise another $1,000 in the next six minutes.
And can we do it?
Yes, we can.
If four people want the 250 package, it's simple.
It's really simple.
212-209-2950.
Guys, what do you think of that?
Did Adrian Lamo do a good job?
Did Adrian Lamo do a good job defending his actions, Rob?
I think he did a good job of informing me
of his own thought processes behind his actions
and whether I think he did a good job
of anything else's way in question.
But I felt enlightened and much more informed.
It's riveting, though, watching this.
And, of course, you can't watch it over the radio.
And, of course, we can't play you
the four little words over the radio.
But you'll get all of that and a lot more
for your pledge at 212-209-2950.
Let's get those phone lines lit up
because this is the last five minutes for us
before we're out of here for this week
and the pledge drive ends as of this week's show.
So we won't be back asking for money next week.
This is your only chance to get this
at such a good rate.
212-209-2950.
Join the one call on the line
and get all the talks for $250.
Get 20 of the talks for $75.
Get 40 for $125.
Dot red.
Yeah, as far as him representing himself
and defending himself,
I think considering his specific situation,
Asperger's and whatnot,
that he probably did fairly well.
And that...
And defending himself.
Yeah, you know, probably as well
as he probably could have done, you know.
That is a somewhat, social-wise,
a difficult...
Anyway, but that aside,
I think a lot of the information that still got out,
you know, his thought process,
the community's take on what has been done
and just the somewhat civil discussion,
I think is actually very good.
It's a testament to the hacker community spirit
of listening to all kinds of opposing opinions
and debating it.
And you'll get no better example of that
than seeing this video.
But you don't just get this video.
You get so many videos.
We're out of time,
so we can't really talk about this anymore.
But just say it's an incredible deal.
212-209-2950.
Talk to the people on the other end of the phone.
They can explain it to you very well.
And Rob, you have something very quick to say?
Yeah, just very quickly,
I'd like to say a huge thank you
to everyone who's supported us throughout this,
who've been bearing with us the past few weeks.
And really, our listeners are amazing.
They really are.
And without you, we wouldn't be here.
Absolutely.
All right, we'll see you next week.
Stay tuned for The Personal Computer Show.
Thanks, everybody, for calling in.
212-209-2950.
See you next week.
¶
¶ There's a way to live that's right for us ¶
¶ Like Mayans in Manhattan and Los Angeles ¶
¶ I'm scaling up, I'm breaking down ¶
¶ And I'm doing much all over town ¶
¶ Network and I'm user friendly ¶
¶ Network and I install with ease ¶
¶ Data processed, truly basic ¶
¶ I will upload you, you can download me ¶
¶
¶ It's a long hard road and a full hard drive ¶
¶ And a sector there where I feel alive ¶
¶ Every bit of every bite ¶
¶ Is bitter and I'm on its own all night ¶
¶ Network and I'm user friendly ¶
¶ Network and I install with ease ¶
¶ Data processed, truly basic ¶
¶ I will upload you, you can download me ¶
¶
¶ There's a prayer each night that I always pray ¶
¶ Let the data guide me through every day ¶
¶ And every pulse and every call ¶
¶ Deliver me from the bypass mode ¶
¶ Network and I'm user friendly ¶
¶ Network and I install with ease ¶
¶ Data processed, truly basic ¶
¶ I will upload you, you can download me ¶
¶ Network and I'm user friendly ¶
¶ Network and I install with ease ¶
¶ Data processed, truly basic ¶
¶ I will upload you, you can download me ¶
¶
Whoo!
¶
Ah-ha!
Wow, these guys are great with their stuff.
All right, you know, this is WBAI New York 99.5 FM.