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A very good evening to everybody. The program is off the hook.
Emmanuel Goldstein here with you on this Wednesday evening, joined by Kyle.
Hey, how's it going?
Out in Signal Land, we have Rob T. Firefly.
Good evening.
We have Gila.
Good evening.
And we have Alex.
That's right. Good evening.
Now, Alex, I understand you've had quite an adventurous week with some kind of victory you'd like to share with us.
I have, actually.
I have had quite a week.
It has been pretty adventurous, I think, but some good stuff to report, as usual.
I have, last week I took on another habeas matter, another petition for rid of habeas corpus on behalf of an ICE detainee.
And I won this case on Tuesday, I think, really, in record time.
I mean, I filed this thing on Thursday night.
And then on Tuesday, actually, no, it was Monday night, I got an order from Judge Vargas at the Southern District of New York.
It was around 1030 at night.
So it was really about four days from filing to the immediate release of this ICE detainee.
And I'm glad you brought this up, too, Manuel, because there's a lot, I think, to unpack here in terms of what's happening with respect to ICE.
And that's not political.
It's very systematic in many ways.
So if you think about this, this is four days from filing the petition for rid of habeas corpus to release.
And let me tell you about this guy who was in ICE detention.
He was 22 years old.
He came here through a coyote from El Salvador.
He and his brother, his older brother, used a coyote to get into the United States and then turn themselves in at the Mexican border because they were recruited by a gang in El Salvador called Barrio 18.
And Barrio 18 wanted them to become gang members.
They refused.
And Barrio 18 then murdered their father.
And it was at that point that they sought to come to the United States.
And that was 10 years ago.
So they'd been in this country for 10 years.
And then on New Year's Day, this 22-year-old was picked up at the Long Island Railroad train station and held for basically what was about four months in detention, almost four months in detention.
And really, all he needed was somebody to show up and assert his rights.
Can I just ask one question, Alex?
You say he's 22 now.
That means he was 12 when he came to the border and turned himself into the authorities.
Yeah, he was just 12, maybe 13 years old.
And he and his older brother.
His older brother was a couple of years older than him.
And so it's a really it's a tragic story.
But but we got him out.
He had been sitting there, though, for four months, just about four months.
Right. And all he needed, quite literally, was somebody to show up and file a petition for a bit of habeas corpus.
Right. And but the the issue here that's a systematic problem is that the reason why he's out is because we drew a judge from the Southern District of New York that was a favorable judge.
Right. So that's why the government had conceded.
She had already ruled on this issue about whether or not ICE could use a particular statute to detain people in a mandatory way that most courts in this country, including the Southern District of New York, had said, no, ICE, you're not allowed to do that.
So this judge had already ruled in a couple of cases against ICE.
So the government conceded.
And when the government conceded, it was Monday night.
I will never forget it.
They conceded around 10, 20 p.m.
By 10, 25 p.m., Judge Vargas had already issued the memorandum, opinion and order, ordering the immediate release of this ICE detainee.
Literally, that's all it took.
It was like minutes afterwards.
It was unbelievable.
But here's the problem, though.
I have another client, another case that I've been handling now for quite a while.
Same all almost almost the exact same facts here.
Same everything. Right.
But he also comes from El Salvador, also came over as an immigrant.
I'm sorry, as a juvenile immigrant.
And he drew a different judge.
And he's been sitting in detention now for 11 weeks.
ICE actually arrested this guy at his own green card interview.
We're talking about the same courthouse.
We're talking about the same government.
We're talking about the same lawyers here.
So what we have is not a system of justice.
We've got a lottery.
That's what's happening here with these ICE detainees.
This is a literal goddamn lottery.
And whether you sleep tonight on a concrete slab or in your own bed can literally depend on something like a case assignment wheel at the Southern District of New York.
And that's because the Department of Justice is changing its position on the law depending upon the judges that they draw.
So they don't have one position on whether your detention is going to be legal.
They've got several.
And they're going to pick the one that matches the judge that they draw.
That's not law enforcement here.
That's abuse of a system that is vulnerable.
I mean, I think that we know quite well as hackers, as technologists, that when a system produces different outputs for identical inputs, when it's so non-deterministic like that, that's indicative of something, a broken system here.
And when people who maintain this particular type of system know that it's broken and try to exploit that vulnerability rather than fix it, well, we know what that is.
That's abuse.
That's abuse of this particular system.
So most people who are in this situation, Emanuel, they're never going to see a lawyer.
For every person that we get out as a pro bono lawyer, there's going to be scores in the same facility with the same rights that nobody is going to assert for them.
Alex, I just wonder, you know, we're talking about different results from different judges.
But what if it were the same result from every judge, but that was not the result we wanted?
Wouldn't that be a worse scenario?
It could be, right?
But that's the scenario we sign up for, right?
We have a – and it's always up to the judge here, right?
So it's not – that's not the issue, right?
The judges can decide the law as they see fit, but the Department of Justice is supposed to take a consistent version of what the law is.
It shouldn't be unconstitutional when it's applied to you, Emanuel, and then constitutional when supplied to you, Rob, depending upon the judge that you draw.
That's not seeking justice.
And as the Department of Justice lawyers, one of the things that I think is incredibly important to remember here, their client is the United States of America.
The United States of America doesn't have an interest in winning a case.
The United States of America has an interest in seeking justice.
That's the duty statutorily and ethically of every single lawyer that's admitted to practice in the federal courts where these cases occur.
So that, to me, that's my real beef here is about this lottery.
So I think the work that we're doing as pro bono lawyers here with the NYU Immigration Clinic and with the Immigrant Arc is incredibly important.
And I'll tell you this.
We're going to keep filing these.
We're going to keep doing them one petition at a time, one person at a time.
And I think it's so much more important now, not because the system is working, but because it isn't.
I think the only thing worse that we know than a broken system is one that runs unopposed.
So I have to say it does.
I've said this before.
It feels really good to be a grain of sand in the gears of this awful machine.
But I think that it's on all of us, every one of us, to make sure that this awful system that's very not often reported in the news anymore.
People think everything's OK with ICE now because it's just not newsworthy anymore.
But these detentions are happening every day.
And there are people languishing in these cells for extended periods of time because nobody is raising their hand to assert their rights for them.
Actually, Rob is raising his hand.
So, Rob, what do you have?
Go ahead, Rob.
So I'm really interested in the idea that the system is broken.
And if the system is to provide equal justice and equality and things of that nature, then, yes, the system is broken.
But if we come at this from a different point of view, that the system is there not to serve but to frighten, to oppress, to keep a certain segment of the population more fearful than another segment of the population, then the system is working perfectly.
Absolutely. As technologists and hackers, but also as people just very interested in this sort of thing, I think most people in the know will agree that the secret to any system depends on how it was designed, and that depends on why it was designed.
So if this is a system that was designed in such a manner that the cruelty is the point, that the fear is the point, then it's just working as smoothly as you could ask for.
Well, to that, I think there's a lot to unpack there, too.
I mean, I think that the Department of Justice lawyers that have the job of defending these particular types of action on behalf of ICE have got a tough position.
I don't think they necessarily believe it in their bones and in their minds that this is what they want to do with their lives, and this is what, when they wake up every morning, that they feel good about themselves justifying these particular detentions.
It seems to me like these are political mandates that have been put on these otherwise honorable lawyers in many respects.
I think they're generally pleasant to deal with, but I think it's beholden upon them to take these positions in these particular cases because it's what's expected of them politically, that it's come down from the top onto them in this respect.
And that's why I think this weaponization of the justice system like that may, in fact, be the point, Rob.
You might be right about that.
But ethically, legally, statutorily, the Department of Justice is supposed to be seeking justice.
We're supposed to have things like the equal application and protection of the laws.
This is the foundation on which any constitutional democracy should really rest.
I mean, and that's the floor, right?
Like, we should never go below that level here.
We should never have the unequal protection of the laws, the unequal application of the laws, depending upon justice.
Because what's happening here is essentially forum shopping for judges, but with human lives.
That's deplorable.
Winning at any cost.
I can understand that from some perspectives, but not when the cost is human lives and time in a cell for somebody that you know is being unconstitutionally deprived of their substantive due process rights.
That, to me, is unacceptable.
Well, you know, Alex, as you know, we've been doing this show for a few decades now on WBAI, and we've talked about a lot of cases in the hacker community.
And I sense a lot of people out there might be saying to themselves, there's been many cases of injustice and unequal treatment of people based on where they're from, the judge that they drew.
I'm thinking of Kevin Mitnick in particular.
But there are so many other people that I could point to in the hacker community who were treated unfairly, and it's not limited to the hacker community by any stretch.
This kind of thing has been going on for ages.
What is it, in your view, that makes this particularly egregious?
Yeah, well, and that's going to happen.
I mean, a great case in point for just that, Emanuel, is what happened with Virgil Griffith just a few years ago as well.
Virgil got a very strict judge who came down on him extremely hard in the Southern District of New York.
Very tough judge, Judge Castell.
And that resulted in a very harsh decision.
It wasn't great.
If he was in another court and before another judge, the outcome certainly would have been different.
But that's judge dependent.
That's not law dependent.
That's not the Department of Justice taking one stance with respect to the laws that applies to Virgil and another stance with respect to the laws that applies to Gila.
That, to me, is the exact unequal application of the laws that we're talking about here.
Judges are going to have their various wrinkles.
They're going to have different opinions.
They're going to have different sentences that they meet out.
We can expect that to happen.
But the uniform interpretation and the uniform application of the law by the government itself, that's what's critical.
That's what's important.
We should not allow the Department of Justice to go from one courtroom to another, sometimes quite literally right next to each other, taking different interpretations of what the law is.
That's what's wrong.
That's what's unethical here.
And also, just the, I guess, massive application that we see every day going on, that's particularly frightening to many, many people to see that.
Yeah, it is.
And what's really egregious about this particular situation, too, is that if you count up all the cases from across the entire United States that have dealt with this issue,
it's an issue of statutory authority between sections 1226 and 1225, 1225 B2A1, I think, and 1226 A1.
So it's a pretty technical issue.
And it has to deal with, when somebody is in the country, what statute can ICE use to detain them?
Can they be detained under 1225 B2A, where they can just mandatorily detain these people?
Or does it require some kind of due process?
And there's this legal fiction that ICE has espoused that says, well, we're going to just pretend that everybody who doesn't have a green card or isn't a permanent resident alien,
they're all seeking admission to the United States.
And that's what justifies this use of 1225, okay?
But that's some kind of crazy fiction, because people already in the United States, especially think about the case I just mentioned, been here for 10 years.
If you're already in the United States, how can you be seeking admission to the United States?
If you're in the theater, and you're sitting down watching a movie, you're not seeking admission to the same theater.
You're already there.
So all the judges across the country, the vast majority of them, I would say 95 to 99% of them, have come to the conclusion that this separate statute, 1226, applies.
And therefore, if 1226 applies, you have to afford these detainees' due process, an individualized hearing as to whether or not they pose a flight risk or a danger that would justify their detention.
And that's due process, that's notice that there is a potential that your liberty is going to be deprived and you have an opportunity to be heard.
You're not just taken off the streets when you show up to your immigration court hearing.
You're not, you know, swept up at the Long Island Railroad on New Year's Day and held in detention without any kind of bond hearing or any kind of due process for the last four months,
like my client that drew the wrong judge has been.
So that's the big difference here, right?
So these judges, the vast majority of them, if they've all decided that 1226 would apply,
how is it then that ICE can still maintain with a straight face that they're using this other statute, this other law to detain people?
The vast majority of these cases go against that.
They know that they're breaking the law.
And then in front of some judges, the small minority of them that have gone the other way and have ruled in favor of ICE,
the Department of Justice will take one version as to the authority of the statute in their courtrooms
and a completely different version of the authority of those statutes in another courtroom where they've been ruled against.
So that's what's wrong here.
So ICE knows that it's breaking the law, knows that it's violating the Constitution, repeatedly does it.
And then you have the Department of Justice selectively justifying certain cases and conceding others where they know that they're going to lose.
That's the unequal application of the law and systematic violation of a vulnerable population's constitutional rights.
That's a systemic problem.
That's abuse of a system here that is broken.
You know, while you were speaking, I was looking at another story that recently came in.
It speaks to what a lot of people would counter what you're saying by saying,
well, you know, if people simply would come in the legal way, this wouldn't happen.
Well, I'm looking at a bunch of people who came in in a pretty legal way.
You know how legal it was?
They actually helped the American war effort in Afghanistan.
We're talking about interpreters and people who basically kept American troops safe while they were in Afghanistan.
And now Trump is rewarding them by sending 1,100 of them to the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Yeah, apparently that's their consolation prize.
Because originally they were supposed to come to the United States and be granted citizenship.
But now it's the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Human rights activists say that country is not equipped to take in any more in the midst of their fighting with neighboring Rwanda.
But, you know, it's about hatred.
It's about anyone who is not looking like the people in charge of this country right now, sending them someplace else.
And telling yourself that you're doing them a favor, which is really, really disgusting.
Out on Long Island, East Hampton officials are advancing legislation to bar the local police from cooperating with ICE on immigration enforcement.
They've become the first East End municipality to back that proposal.
It would also require police departments to notify newly created task forces about ICE activities if their officers were called in to respond to a raid.
So, you know, with every bad news, there's some good news.
And the important thing is to pay attention and to know what's going on out there.
And not to think, as Alex mentioned before, that everything's okay, everything's normal.
It's not normal.
None of this is normal.
This is all very messed up.
And every day, more and more lives are being ruined.
And another life that, according to the mass media, is being ruined is that of Kash Patel.
Have you heard lately what's happening with him?
All kinds of stories about him being passed out drunk and having to have people bash down his door to wake him up.
Yeah, the Atlantic reported this, I believe, last week.
And now he's suing them for a quarter of a billion dollars.
A quarter of a billion dollars.
That's how sensitive this guy is.
This is the head of the FBI.
Yeah, so don't criticize him.
Or who knows what the Justice Department might do to you.
That's the country we are living in right now.
Well, a pro-Iranian hacking group claimed on Friday to have hacked an account of Kash Patel's and posted online what appears to be photographs of him, a few years old, along with a work resume and some other personal documents.
So his world is just getting more and more embarrassing.
He once saw his name displayed with pride on the agency's headquarters.
Now he will find his name among the list of successfully hacked victims.
That's a message from the hacker group Handala, the Iranian hacker group Handala.
And the message was accompanied by more than a half dozen photos of Kash Patel, including ones of him standing beside an antique sports car and another with a cigar in his mouth, which I guess isn't incriminating.
The group also said it was making available for download emails and other documents from Kash Patel's account.
Many of the records appear to relate to his personal travels and business from more than 10 years ago.
But this guy can't keep his own email account secure.
He's in charge of the FBI.
You have to wonder.
You have to wonder about the level of competency here.
So, yeah, that's what's going on in our country.
If you're listening from somewhere else, yeah, it's a never-ending carnival over here.
Oh, boy.
Anyway, you heard about that, right, Alex?
I'm here, right?
Yes.
Yeah.
Well, Emmanuel, this case is really crazy, I think.
I mean, especially the defamation angle here.
Quarter of a billion dollars.
I mean, those are always inflated at the outset anyway.
But what Kash Patel means to think...
Not like that.
Not that inflated.
I mean, these are Trump-style numbers.
You know, I'm going to sue you for a six trillion dollars because, you know, you embarrassed me.
Yes.
That being said, the funny thing about this is, okay, let's assume that this goes to trial.
Let's assume it goes through discovery, gets over there.
Yeah, they send documents back and forth, et cetera.
Well, if you're suing somebody for defamation, the defense that they have to assert to, you know, contest the case is the truth, right?
So you are basically going to have a trial about all of these images.
Do you really want them front and center?
I mean, it's totally insane to do something like this.
It's an absolute bluff.
I think he's hoping that they'll come to the table or maybe it's some kind of symbolic gesture because this is just what Trump officials do now when there's negative stories about them.
They go out and sue people.
I think I know what it is.
He's going after the Atlantic for a quarter of a billion dollars.
Well, what's that going to do to other publications, other media outlets, especially those media outlets that are big and corporate and don't want lawsuits?
They're going to tell their reporters to, you know, quell any stories they might come upon that involve Kash Patel.
Now, I can tell you, you know, a network like Pacifica, a station like WBAI would not be intimidated like that.
You know, the administration is counting on their intimidation tactics to work, but true journalists are not intimidated.
And that is why it's so important to support this place.
Yeah, I wasn't I wasn't aiming to get into a pitch here, but since we are in the middle of a fun drive, this is a great time for people to go to WBAI.org or give to WBAI.org or buddy.wbai.org and pledge whatever you can afford.
We're going to continue talking, but please support the station so that we continue to be a voice that can speak freely about these things and not be intimidated like corporate media has been.
I don't feel sorry for them. This is what we've we've always known was their weak point.
You know, you have to you have to live by whatever regulations your corporate masters allow you to live by.
And it's not a healthy situation. Journalists need to be independent and free.
Rob, you had something. Go ahead.
Yeah, I'm just fascinated by the cartoonish number of Patel's lawsuit.
And, you know, it's it's like Dr. Evil going, I'm going to sue you for a quarter of a billion dollars and just hoping something happens in his favor.
Or when, yeah, if you if you've read the Atlantic's article, it it just seems to be, you know, attributable to sources and they don't seem to be pulling things out of thin air that they can't back up.
So I would actually really love to see this end up in court with all of this stuff on the public record, as you mentioned, Alex.
Yeah, I mean, you have to you have to stand up to this intimidation tactic and call their bluff.
And if you if you wind up in court, so be it. You will have plenty of support.
But the important thing is for the truth to get out there and for for people not to be intimidated by these extremely powerful individuals and and agencies that they they happen to be running.
I mean, I very much hope that this type of puffery and bluffing by Cash Patel in the face of what appear to be legitimate documents and records relating to his inebriated states and whatnot.
I really hope that others will see this type of reporting and the bravery of the Atlantic as well as as inspirational rather than see rather than be intimidated by Cash Patel's nonsense here.
I mean, it really is. I mean, we're talking about something called the Streisand effect, right, where when you're trying to suppress something, you wind up bringing more attention to it.
This goes back to it was early 2000s lawsuit with Barbara Streisand, where she was trying to sue.
I think it was Condé Nast to prevent the publication of photos that related to her cliffside mansion somewhere in California, Malibu or something like that.
But then in suing Condé Nast for the suppression of of these photos, it wound up bringing way more attention to the photos themselves.
So I think that's what Cash Patel is unwittingly doing, because he doesn't seem to have the cognitive abilities to think through the consequences of his actions.
Maybe it's a product of alcoholism or something like that. I don't know. Some people might might believe that.
But the thing, though, is you need media outlets that are willing to do this, who are willing to engage in what to distribute the denial of secret is coined the greenhouse effect.
So instead of chilling effect, we want the greenhouse effect where there are media outlets who are willing to report on this and are willing to support each other.
And I think this takes us really back into the realm of why it's necessary to support WBII to keep us on the air to do this.
You don't support WBII for some kind of tote bag. Right.
You support it for that oxytocin hit when you realize that there's other people out there hearing the same thing as you, part of the same community as you live right now,
sitting around in their living room, listening to Off the Hook, that you're part of this thing that has been ongoing since what year, Emmanuel? I always forget.
What, the radio show, the magazine, the conference, what?
The radio station. What was it?
Oh, the radio station, 1960.
Yeah. So 1960.
Aguila is waving frantically. Go ahead, Aguila.
Yeah, we're not on air right now.
Okay, that's great.
It's been brought to our attention that our on air, we're not. Nope, we're back.
Okay, well, that's disturbing. Did we piss somebody off?
There was some music playing instead of us, but we appear to be back on the air now, I've just checked.
Okay, well, I'd like to know why we walked on the air. If anybody can figure that out, that would be nice.
We're fine on this end, as far as I'm concerned.
As far as I can see.
Yeah, I mean, and now we're back and we're fine, but sorry, I just wanted to bring to everybody's attention that we had gone offline for a bit.
But we're back.
How do you bring it to their attention if we're off the air?
I wanted to bring it to your attention.
Oh, our attention. You know, you could just let us keep blithely doing the show, and we'd never know anymore.
All right, we're going to keep an eye on our connection here, make sure there's nothing bad happening.
Kyle, you're looking at that, right? Everything looks normal?
Yeah, so far.
Okay.
Okay. Maybe somebody could have a radio handy. If they hear the radio conk out, then we know. It's kind of hard when you're not actually in the studio to know these things.
All right, so we have to repeat everything we said? Is that...
I'm not entirely sure how long we cut out.
It appears going by what I'm seeing in our Mastodon notifications. We may have cut out for a couple of minutes, and then that's it. So I think we're good.
All right. By the way, this might be a good opportunity to let people know that we have an archive that has every show that we've ever done that we haven't lost the tapes for, and when something like this happens, we have the transcript from our local studio, so there is no cut out, so you'll be able to hear what you missed.
But oftentimes, and Jens is going to love us for this because he's the guy that does it, we also put up the one that did cut out from the BAI archives so that people get to experience that as well in case they want to, because we're obsessive about these things.
Nice to have music in the middle of the show.
So other than telling us we're off the air, Gila, did you have anything else to tell us?
That was the emergent moment, but I'm fascinated by this whole idea of what's being weaponized right now and thinking about the indictment for the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Yeah, I heard about that. Okay, so I don't know the facts about this, but I know that they had pissed off Trump. Get in line.
And now this organization is being castigated by his administration as something corrupt. It's almost humorous, but when you think of the good work they do, having a monkey wrench thrown into that is really a crime.
Exactly.
What can you share?
So the Southern Poverty Law Center has been indicted on 11 counts of wire and bank fraud related charges, mainly tied to their use of paid informants, which they have stopped doing.
But they're saying they, the DOJ is suggesting that they paid members of extremist groups, you know, the ones that they're like, trying to eradicate, let's say, in the same way that, you know, the FBI paid informants in the 60s to infiltrate civil rights groups, you know, same kind of thing.
Um, it, it, it, it's crazy.
The, okay, so the new acting attorney general, um, says the group was charged with six counts of wire fraud, four counts bank fraud, and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering.
Um, this is, it is so nutty.
I don't even quite have words for this.
And the program ran between 2014 and 2023, according to the indictment.
The indictment does not allege that the funds went directly to the hate groups themselves.
Um, so, you know, there was Kash Patel standing at the unveiling of this indictment, looking completely sober, looking just the soberest anyone has ever looked.
But he wasn't blinking, was he?
No.
Yeah, so that's, that's a warning sign right there.
Neither, but.
Well, you know, it's, it's typical of any corrupt administration that, uh, the enemies are targeted, uh, what, what's perceived as enemies, and those are the people who tell the truth.
Those are people who reveal the, um, uh, inconvenient truths out there.
Uh, and there are so many of those, there are so many things to report on.
Uh, you can try and stack the White House press corps with, uh, uh, all the yes men and, and, uh, people that will, will glorify whatever it is the dear leader is up to.
Uh, but it's not going to get rid of the journalists who are out there reporting on the actual news that's happening.
By the way, um, the, um, uh, that annual White House, uh, press corps dinner is happening this Saturday.
That's going to be interesting because Trump's going to show up at this one.
And I imagine there's going to be a lot of ass kissing happening.
Uh, it's, it might not be pleasant to watch.
It might be a real embarrassment.
Or maybe somebody will actually say something directly and, uh, show some courage.
We'll see.
We'll see.
I, I, I've, I've both been, uh, not surprised and extremely disappointed in, in how organizations, corporations, individuals have acted, uh, since the second term began.
Um, you know, you, you, you would expect people to stand up for the truth and many are, but there are so many who aren't and so many who could, uh, and, and, you know, people have so much power.
I guess, you know, when you have that much power, that much money, you're afraid of losing it.
So you, you suck up as much as you possibly can, but it's disgusting.
And it's, it's not something that's going to do well in history, Alex.
I mean, we, we see this across the board.
It's not only media companies, although they, they've been pretty as well.
And people have been scared, I think, to be in the media since the, the advent of the Dick and Trump administration.
But I think where we see this most disappointingly is in the tech community as well.
And in particular with Apple, I mean, if you, on the one hand, take Apple who touts itself and markets itself as the privacy conscious, privacy protecting tech company out there.
The iPhone is difficult to breach.
Plus, you know, they have end-to-end encrypted messaging and all these things.
And they're not going to cooperate with the FBI to crack somebody's iPhone.
Remember a couple of years ago when they refused to, to bake in a back door for law enforcement purposes?
That was the old Apple.
Well, the new Apple under the second Trump administration is totally different.
The new Apple in the second Trump administration just complies with whatever they ask for.
It doesn't require legal process, doesn't require due process.
Think about the IceBlock app.
When the IceBlock app was, was available on the App Store and people were using it all around the country to alert each other about the presence of ice in their community around them.
Not necessarily to harass ice or to find them or to target them or, or to hurt ice agents in some way.
It was, it was a manner of communicating about what was happening with your neighbors in a small geographic vicinity.
We had, uh, Josh was his name.
I can't remember the developer's name, but we had him on the show and he was over at Hope as well.
Um, you know, this was an app that quite possibly could have saved lives in Minneapolis had it still been available on the App Store.
But the Trump administration manufactured some nonsense pretext.
Uh, I almost violated FCC regulation there.
I'm a little, little worked up, but, you know, came up with some nonsense, uh, about how this app could endanger law enforcement and simply ask Apple to remove it from the App Store.
They didn't go to court.
They didn't fight over this.
They didn't push back.
They just removed it.
That to me is shameful.
When you were one of the most powerful, most highly capitalized, and, and, and able to, to, to wield and, and put up a real fight against the government to, to fight for user rights and to fight for human rights in many respects, if you think about it.
Uh, and you don't, you just roll over because the only thing that matters is being on the wrong end of Trump's executive orders because that will harm shareholder value.
Well, Alex, that to me is on the matter.
Alex, let me ask you, uh, yes, uh, you, you've, you've made a good case that, that Apple has done a horrible job.
Um, as opposed to, to, to which technical company that has done a good job?
Well, I would say there's one that, that hasn't been afraid to push back, uh, anthropic.
We can point to anthropic as having pushed back against the department of defense when the department of defense said, Hey, we want to be able to use your AI technologies and discriminately to target people for weapon systems, et cetera.
Um, he pushed back and said, no, we're not going to agree to those terms.
And then the department of defense, I already made this joke in a separate show, but they basically asked anthropic, have you tried turning your morals on and off again?
Uh, you know, and you come to the same conclusion.
They still push back and they're still fighting the government on that.
So I think, I think anthropic is a good example of that.
You know, I guarantee you, uh, nobody knew the name anthropic before the beginning of this year.
How about those companies, Microsoft, Google, you know, companies like that.
Are they doing a good job?
Yeah.
No, they're, they're not doing great.
They're all falling in line.
They're all falling in line, which again is, is one of the reasons why you support WBI.
You get that, you get that oxytocin hit, as I was mentioning earlier, of being part of this community where people aren't afraid to speak their mind.
And we'll talk about these types of things because we don't fall in line.
I don't think we ever have.
We never will.
Rob, go ahead.
You know, who has been better about pushing back against these things is the not-for-profit world, open source software, Linux distributions, things like that.
Not only because of the reality of open source, the basic fact of it is you can't sneak back doors into something that's completely publicly auditable and expect that to stay there.
But it goes to show that the huge for-profit, you know, zillion-dollar business world that fuels the tech oligarchs and 900-pound gorillas that are out there right now, they are perfectly poised to just fall into line.
Because, you know, they like money and they like when the government lets them have more money.
And that's always going to be the case.
It is basic capitalism, I think.
Whereas people doing it for the love of the thing, like those in the open source world, like those in the non-profit world, like those here on WBAI, I think those are the ones that, you know, the government is going to have a lot more trouble silencing or, you know, unfairly exploiting in these manners.
Well, there's this other development that's been ongoing, and that's the whole age verification thing.
And there's been some developments in Europe.
The European Union's unveiling of a mobile app to check people's age online has quickly turned sour as cybersecurity experts found glaring privacy and security problems with the code.
Who knew?
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen presented the age verification tool in Brussels last Wednesday, saying it was technically ready and will soon be available to use as countries move to ban kids from social media.
It is fully open source.
Everyone can check the code, von der Leyen said.
Cyber and privacy experts immediately dove into the source code on the GitHub software platform and reported several issues with the app's design.
The saga is turning into a PR disaster for Brussels, but underneath the controversy over the code lie deeper divisions between privacy campaigners, child rights groups, tech firms, and politicians over how to protect minors online, as leaders promised to shield kids from social media and porn sites.
Within hours of the EU's app release, security consultant Paul Moore found it would store sensitive data on a user's phone and leave it unprotected.
He wrote this in a widely shared post on Twitter.
He claimed to have hacked the app in under two minutes.
Baptiste Robert, a prominent French white hat hacker, confirmed many of the issues and told Politico it was possible to bypass the app's biometric authentication features,
meaning someone would be able to forego entering a PIN code or using Touch ID to access the app.
Olivia Blasi, a cryptographic researcher who was part of a French task force on digital identity, said,
let's say I downloaded the app, prove that I'm over 18.
Then my nephew can take my phone, unlock my app, and use it to prove he is over 18.
Wow.
These kids are just so clever.
They figured that out, huh?
Um, I don't know, guys, I don't think this age restriction thing is going to work out.
I really don't.
I, I, you know, it's a problem.
The, the, uh, social media issue with, with kids.
Absolutely.
I just don't know if, uh, this is the way to combat it.
Any, any, any thoughts?
The, the, uh, the GitHub page for, for this app is, uh, fascinating.
It's, uh, it's there under EU digital identity wallet, uh, hyphens between each word.
And the issues page is filled with all sorts of interesting commentary from people in the
open source world.
Um, not necessarily about bits of the code, but just about the basic fact of the thing.
Um, one person points out that, you know, the, the only way you're going to be able to
get this app is by downloading from the Google play store or Apple iOS store.
And either of which you're allowed to download from anonymously, there's always ties back
to your identity with either of those stores.
Um, and, uh, all sorts of other concerns about just the reliability and wisdom of having
something like this as the official age verification thing.
Um, there's lots of colorful language in here.
I can't use on the air.
Um, and, uh, but it's, it's vehement and it's, uh, it's wholehearted.
How do listeners, how do listeners get to that address so they can read the colorful
language?
Uh, github, github.com slash EU dash digital dash identity dash wallet, all lowercase.
Go ahead, Kyle.
Well, I just want to comment.
I think like that there, that we're talking about making a policy like this, it makes is
an argument in and of itself or itself evident that really young people shouldn't be using
these things so quickly and doing so without a lot more intervention or a lot more supervision
in like structured ways.
And, um, like setting these gatekeep, like a gatekeeping policy for everyone else who isn't below that
age limit.
Um, I think is a red flag.
That's a sign that maybe these platforms really weren't meant for those people.
And that to try to like set, set up a rule or something to, um, I mean, I think the expectation
that you can eliminate people from accessing this stuff with something like this is foolish.
And that you should just consider that the real answer to, um, protecting people is to have a lot
more involvement in how we're using technology in a family environment and how it's set up in that
environment.
And what kind of, uh, supervision there is that I just think all of this is just really backwards
that like safeguarding it with tools and the sacrifice that people that are, are of age that
they have to make to accommodate a small segment that might, um, either find a way on or that will be
persistent enough, um, or that won't use their parents device.
That's already verifying an adult's age.
Like it just seems so silly that we're going to try to debate the best way to do something.
We really shouldn't be putting a lot of energy into in the first place.
And my heart goes out to everyone, you know, that they're, uh, trotting out to, um, illustrate
the need for something like this, but none of this technology was ever designed to be like a
little daycare and I just don't get the logic there.
I, I, it's sad that people are profiting off of technologies that make young people want
to kill themselves and stuff.
But I don't think any amount of this kind of stuff is going to solve that.
And it's also a problem for people who aren't kids.
Social media is a cancer that, that hurts everybody.
Uh, there is a serious problem here.
It needs to be dealt with.
Like I said, I don't think this is the way because what you are going to accomplish or
what you're going to accomplish with this, uh, is, um, uh, pretty much war on anonymity.
You know, one of the beauties of the internet is that you can be a dog, you know, you can
be whatever, uh, you are anonymous.
If you choose to be, you can, you can advertise every, uh, minor detail of your life too, if you choose to.
And I think that's part of the problem right there, but the anonymity is, is, is priceless.
And this is a real, um, uh, uh, it's a real shot against that.
And I think we need to, um, uh, figure out a way to, uh, preserve that, uh, important
part of what the net is all about while looking at the problems that social media and other,
other services cause to everybody.
Alex, you had your hand up.
Go ahead.
You know, what I find kind of funny about this, this whole thing, I mean, this whole
age verification sham together with this, this crazy app that, you know, is shipped with glaring security holes.
And then they, they point at it and say, oh, but it's open source.
Okay.
So what, like you still have an obligation to make software that isn't riddled with massive
security holes that a teenager who knows how to edit a config file can defeat.
I mean, that's, that's totally insane, right?
But on the other hand, you know, is it any shock to us that the, the same people who are
behind this, the sham invasive privacy age verification app are the same production company that brought
to you, uh, that brought you GDPR as well.
You know, it's all from Brussels, all from people who don't necessarily understand privacy at
all trying to regulate and legislate and mandate privacy enhancing technologies that are security
holes.
Go ahead, Gaila.
We have one minute.
Um, I was, I saw something amazing that I've been trying to find on Mastodon where someone
was saying the best thing that we can do with this new thing is point out that there are problems, but not help fix them.
And just let this thing sink on its own is the best thing that any tech minded people
can do is say, wow, that's really a mess and not help, not troubleshoot, not just let it sink on its own.
And I, I read that out loud to Rob and I was really excited about it and I can't find it right now.
Yeah.
But kids are already banned from using social media in Australia, you know, and, uh, is
that the right move or are we just going to let that, uh, eventually sink or are we kind
of, uh, see just how, how, how bad that gets?
I mean, you know, again, we know there's a problem.
We know it's something that we have to, uh, uh, address.
Is this the way?
No.
Well, yeah, that seems to be the, um, the consensus here.
We'd like to know what you think, our listeners, uh, OTH at 2600.com.
Is our email address, but you know what?
We're going to be continuing this conversation over on YouTube at eight o'clock.
You can join us there.
Uh, in fact, you might even be able to call us.
We do take phone calls over there occasionally.
And to get there, you simply go to channel 2600 on YouTube, or you click on the link.
That's on the 2600.com webpage.
Hey, uh, don't forget to support WBAI.
Give to WBAI.org or buddy.wbai.org.
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That's what we're for.
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See you next time.
Good night.
Charlie don't surf and we'll be sure Charlie don't surf and we'll know that it ain't nothing
Charlie don't surf for it's never gone Charlie's gonna be a napalm star
Everybody wants to roll a bird There must be something to get from birth
But to this, we'll never burn Satellites, we'll make space burn
We've been told to keep the strangers out We don't like them, we've started to hang up now
We don't like them, over down Across the world we're gonna blow them down
Charlie don't surf and we think you should Charlie don't surf and you know that it ain't gonna keep
Charlie don't surf and we'll be sure Charlie don't surf and we'll never go on
Charlie's gonna be a napalm star They know the sea powers must be yours
So many on this confidious So sing the rock and roll
The girls don't even let go, go So on the street in a one-horse town
One-as-ah-all-out-one-one-on-one-one-one-one-one-one-one-one-one-one-one
We'll see you next time.
Bye.