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Well, as many of you heard on last week's program,
at the beginning we made an announcement concerning the sentencing of Fiber Optic.
Fiber's going to be with us a little later on in the program.
We'll be talking about just what it was that happened to him
and what's going to happen to him and how it affects all of us.
And those of us that are concerned with other things going on in the world
also should take note.
We have a special guest today who actually organized quite an event last week,
something that has been unequaled, I think, in this country,
and something that my guest of last week,
Rob from Hacktick of Amsterdam and myself, attended down in Washington, D.C.
Now, we made some jokes about this.
We said that we were going down to be brainwashed by the CIA and things like that.
But, of course, that was a joke.
Robert Steele is a former CIA employee.
Correct me if I'm wrong, Robert.
You're on the line?
Yes, absolutely.
Okay.
You were a former CIA employee.
Now, what is it that you're doing now, and what was this conference last week?
What was the point behind it, and what do you think it accomplished?
Well, John Perry Barlow said it very well when he was a speaker at last year's conference.
The secrecy paradigm has lost, and the openness paradigm has won.
And what I was trying to do with last year's conference, as well as this year's conference,
was demonstrate to the U.S. government, as well as to the U.S. private sector,
that they can get much more for their money by being open,
rather than by investing in clandestine methods or industrial espionage.
So, kind of a glasnost in a domestic sense.
Well, it's a very practical glasnost.
The reality is that with the information explosion,
restriction of information and trying to focus in or looking at the battlefield through a straw
is not a very cost-effective way of getting ahead.
I see.
Now, what kind of a reaction have you gotten from this?
Well, I'd say most of the world is very, very interested.
There are a few bureaucrats who are worried about their turf, and they're not too happy.
Mm-hmm.
Is there something in particular that inspired you, made you want to do this?
Yes, wasting $10 million.
Okay.
I was the senior civilian responsible for standing up the Marine Corps Intelligence Center,
and we spent $10 million buying what we call an SCI-high system,
a sensitive compartmented information-high system that's tempested, you know, emissions control,
all this good stuff.
You get direct access to the CIA databases.
But what they didn't tell us, which we found out after we turned it on,
was that the CIA has been focusing on the Soviet Union for so long
that their third-world data fill has not been done.
Their databases on the rest of the world are empty.
And this blew my mind.
And as a result of that, I went out and I found open sources,
and I discovered that I could get more for my money and more for the Marine Corps' money
by going out to commercial databases like LexisNexis or Jane's Information Group
and actually found that that stuff was good enough to move forward.
And a lot cheaper and a lot faster, and it had the advantage that I could share it with others.
Now, what was the goal behind the open source convention or conference last week?
Well, there are two goals, really.
One is that national security is being redefined.
John Peterson of the Arlington Institute,
who's an advisor to the Director of Central Intelligence and other senior figures in government,
has talked about how national security is no longer about Soviet strategic nuclear weapons,
but rather about how each person feels, how safe they feel, both at home and abroad.
And the reality is that we're in the age of information,
and a government that cannot handle information of all kinds is a government that cannot govern.
And I think our government has a great deal to learn, Al Gore notwithstanding,
about dealing with open source information as well as classified information.
Well, there seems to be a definite resistance from the powers that be for anything that involves changing the mode of thinking.
We see this constantly in our particular field here.
Do you really think that you can overcome this?
Are there many people that are working with you, or are you kind of a lone wolf here?
Well, it is real hard to teach old dogs new tricks.
And I have to say that many of the bureaucrats, the senior bureaucrats that oppose me,
they claim 30 years' experience, but in fact,
all they have is one year's experience repeated 30 times in a row.
So my peers, inside of CIA and other agencies, are very, very supportive.
A week does not go by, but that I don't get a call from someone saying,
listen, I can't be associated with you publicly, but I really believe in what you're doing.
Congressional staffers.
That's exactly what hackers get.
At 2600, we get calls like that all the time.
Well, you know, it's a deep honor to me
to have been named, if you were, an honorary hacker for hacking the intelligence community.
I am very, very happy to be associated with the hackers.
And I do not miss any opportunity to tell my military intelligence colleagues or others
that hacking is, in fact, an elegant piece of work
and is not something that is automatically to be considered criminal.
What was your first experience with hackers?
Good question.
I'm not sure how it came about.
I think Howard Reingold, when he agreed to become a speaker for me,
insisted that John Perry Barlow also be invited.
And I think that led to an invitation from Glenn Tenney to attend Hackers 8.0.
And that, in turn, led to my going out to visit R.O.P.
and deliver a workshop on hacking the intelligence community
at R.O.P.'s recent event, Hacking at the End of the Universe.
And, of course, you know, we gave R.O.P. a Golden Candle Award at the recent Open Source Symposium
for daring to host two public events about hacking.
It's interesting how there's kind of this parallel here between what you're doing and what we're trying to do.
And it's meeting with you last week and meeting with all these intelligence,
I guess you'd call them spooks of various sorts.
I mean, there were KGB people down there.
There were all kinds of strangers.
It makes you realize that talking to these people, you can really learn a lot on both sides.
It doesn't necessarily mean you come away a changed person or they come away a changed person,
but at least you have more of an understanding of where everybody is on this.
And a lot of people that saw Rob and myself down there,
they were just so taken aback that they were actually hackers in their midst.
They had never seen anything quite like this before,
and a couple of them looked like they were committing some sort of a crime even by talking to us.
You know, they were sort of talking without moving their lips
and without looking at us straight in the eyes and things like that.
It was really kind of funny.
Well, actually, I think you guys were an attraction.
Yeah, I felt that way.
I felt like a caged animal almost at times.
Very seriously, these people all are very intelligent people, and they have open minds.
They're constrained.
Their handcuffs are bureaucratic handcuffs.
They are, in fact, good people who have been trapped by circumstance and by bureaucracy.
I believe that they come to my symposium because they realize that their minds are going to be opened.
And I have seen, we've recently received all of the evaluations
and compiled the evaluations from this last symposium.
And there was one that really touched me.
It said, essentially, God bless, I hope you outlive them all.
And what that really was about is we've got to beat the bureaucracy back,
and we've got to open things up.
You know, Norman Cousins said that governments aren't capable of understanding great truth,
that only the people can understand great truth.
And I think that's true.
I think that bureaucracies and the intelligence community bureaucracy in particular
tend to get trapped in a mental straitjacket.
And it's not until they are shaken up by outside forces that all of a sudden their true intellectual power,
which I deeply admire, can be unleashed and changed.
Fiber optics just arrived.
And I know you, Robert Steele, know about the sentence that was imposed upon him.
Do you think that's part of that same straitjacket effect that the government seems to be locked into?
Well, I wrote a letter hoping to get fiber out on a community sentence,
and certainly he could have been usefully employed in Washington.
The bottom line is that most judges do not understand the technology.
They don't understand what's happening out there.
I consult with many corporations, and I tell them that hackers are simply people who are pushing the edge of the envelope.
And that if a hacker gets into the system, that's not a crime.
That's simply bad engineering on the part of the people who build the system.
Well, you know, I wish I could hear judges talk like that
and people that are in charge of locking these people up.
Are there many of your colleagues that share such a view?
I don't think most of my colleagues really understand this.
I mean, Mitch Kapoor, Vint Cerf certainly do, Brewster Kahle.
But within the government, very, very few people understand it.
The government is generally 10 to 20 years behind the information technology.
I mean, until two years ago, people were using Zenith 248s and Wangs and IBM XTs.
I mean, we're talking about major retardation here.
Well, apart from your existence and the existence of open sources,
are there reasons for us to be optimistic?
Yes.
Truth is power.
It's the age of information.
I think that the privatization of intelligence,
I think that the capabilities that are being demonstrated in the private sector
are inevitably going to force the government to either catch up or self-destruct.
Well, it's that self-destruction that's kind of of concern, where exactly that will go,
and how many of us it will take with it.
Well, as I said, we have Fiber in studio now.
I was wondering if perhaps you had anything to say to him?
Absolutely.
Fiber, you look very, very sick.
I don't think you're medically fit to go to prison.
Are you suggesting that he gets some sort of an excuse?
No, I'm not suggesting an excuse at all.
I'm suggesting that he get medical attention.
Uh-huh.
Well, I think maybe we'll work on that, but that's always a possibility.
Any other words of advice?
No, just sorry my letter didn't do any good.
Uh-huh.
Well, I mean, maybe they would have given him 10 years.
Who knows?
Maybe he'll ever did some.
No, I mean, a year is a very, very long time in some time frames,
but on the other hand, it may be short,
and when that year is up, I hope he comes to Washington.
Okay, well, you'll be having another conference next year,
and hopefully he'll be out by then.
Well, Fiber has a standing invitation.
Okay.
Robert Steele, I want to thank you very much for joining us tonight,
and best of luck in your quest to wake up some people down there in D.C.
Oh, it's my pleasure, and don't forget to tell everyone
that you met the vice chairman of the National Intelligence Council.
That was kind of surreal.
I'm still not exactly sure who I met.
He was like a god of some sort.
Well, he was a god.
Yeah.
He was one of the top five people in the intelligence community.
And he acted like it, too.
I mean, I could tell that this guy was up there.
Yes, but he was a gentleman and an articulate person,
and the bottom line is that you both represented two different ends
of the intelligence spectrum.
And perhaps we'll save that for another show.
Well, just ask me one thing.
How does he put the echo on his voice?
Well, that's done with magic.
I was just wondering, you know, as I was talking to him.
It was just kind of interesting.
All right, Robert Steele, thank you very much for joining us,
and best of luck.
Oh, my pleasure.
And, Fiber, I look forward to seeing you again.
Thanks a lot.
Bye-bye.
Okay, and, Fiber, you are here.
I am here.
Okay.
This is actually the first time I've seen you in person
since that fateful day a week ago
where you were sentenced to a year and a day in prison
for, well, for what exactly?
For being a computer hacker?
For speaking out?
I think it was mostly for speaking out.
According to what I've read in various sources,
the harsh sentence was because you've given interviews,
you've spoken.
I guess maybe even this radio program has been responsible in some way,
which is a really sick thing to have to say,
but it could very well be.
Because you were in the public eye,
a message had to be sent to the public.
That's the way the judge kind of said it.
How does that sound to you?
That was pretty much the bottom line.
I mean, the judge started off sounding almost cool, one would think.
And then after he said his piece, as far as the cool part went,
then it was downhill from there.
What was his cool part?
The cool part was pretty much that he was very impressed
by the response that he got from people that were supporting me
and what I was doing.
And one of the remarks that he had made was that he doesn't recall ever getting
so much support on the part of a defendant that he had to review before
in any case that he can remember.
So what happened?
Did he resent that or something?
Well, he said while it sounded very nice and all,
and that he said that from the looks of things,
that as far as sending someone to prison to reform them,
it didn't seem like there was anything to be had from attempting to reform me
since there's nothing to reform.
He said that basically when he was done saying that,
he concluded that since I was more or less of a symbol through my actions,
that he would sentence me as a symbol to send a message.
Well, maybe you could send a symbol to jail in your place.
Yeah, maybe I could have a stand-in.
That's the most absurd logic I've ever heard.
Sort of a stunt fiber.
You're a real person here.
You're a real person here.
I mean, too often today, justice seems to be sending messages.
It's got nothing to do with really justice.
It's the kind of message we have to send to all those other people out there.
Well, the only message we're sending is that the people in charge
have absolutely no idea what's going on, what hackers are,
what they stand for, what they're doing, and what they're not doing.
I mean, this is really a tragic situation here,
and it's an incredible waste to send someone like you away.
I mean, you're doing so many constructive things.
You're working on Echo, the computer system in New York.
All that's going to have to come to a stop.
Who does it serve?
It serves absolutely nobody to do this kind of a thing.
The thing that kind of bothered me is that it really seemed like the prosecutors
had some sort of personal grudge.
Like I represented the guy that used to beat them up in the school lunchroom or something.
Well, yeah, you embarrass them.
You embarrass them by showing that there are wide-open holes in systems.
I mean, this is what happens to whistleblowers.
This is what happens to people that show the false,
the ease with which you can get into something.
And you're the problem.
It's not that you're uncovering a problem.
You're the problem, and you must be silenced.
I mean, what's been going through your mind in the last week?
Do you have any idea what you're going to be going through?
I think I've been trying more to block it out than anything else.
If anything, the only good thing I can consider is the fact that I'm no longer bound by the shackles of self-incrimination.
I feel like I can speak more freely now that I've been sentenced
and not have to worry about being misconstrued or have it held against me.
And also, in some sense, the doubt is over.
I mean, you don't have to worry about what could happen because now you know what's going to happen.
That's true.
So it's not much of a comfort, but it's something.
What I'd like to do is there was an article in Newsday.
I'd like to go over that.
And this article, I think we're going to have to stop it after every paragraph
because I think you'll have to clarify all the errors that are in here
and all the misconceptions and things like that.
If it's the one I read, it can't be half as bad as what went out over Associated Press and Reuters.
Well, Associated Press renamed you.
Yeah.
Your real first name is Mark, and they renamed you Paul.
Yeah.
And Paul is actually a friend of yours that had been sent to prison for virtually the same thing.
And so they created this one kind of super hacker, I guess, out of the two of you.
I don't know.
But there was also a piece in the New York Times.
I was down in Washington, D.C., and I happened to read this.
I think it came out on Monday.
And it was a piece of trash.
It really was because it started out with this incredibly Geraldo-ish kind of lead-in
where it said that this amazing data highway that is being built is being threatened by these electronic bandits
that simply refused to log in properly and things like that, you know.
And so all you had to do was read the first part of that article to say, boy, these hackers, they're really messing things up.
I mean, here we have wonderful things like TCI and Atlantic Bell merging together, and the hackers are going to ruin it for everybody.
Now, what if your judge was one of the people reading that article, you know, and the timing of that was really awful.
Two days before your sentencing, this article comes out putting scare tactics, you know, out into the media,
making everybody think that hackers are the enemy, they're messing up high technology.
And, you know, that's really not the point.
I mean, there's problems with the data superhighway, and there's always going to be problems.
And the only way we're going to fix the problems is by confronting them, not by casting blame and trying to avoid them.
Anyway, what I'd like to do is read this article.
Now, there are two different versions of this.
There was one in New York Newsday and one in Long Island Newsday.
I don't have the New York one.
But I think the Long Island one has funnier headlines.
Hacker gets logged into U.S. prison.
Now, that's kind of the way this went throughout.
And the continued, it was continued on another page, and the headline on the second page is computer gang.
And that's something we're going to get into a little bit, too.
All right, let's start this out.
This is from Newsday last Thursday, November 4th.
The Biggest Case of Computer Intrusion in U.S. History.
Okay, I guess I've got to stop right there.
I wasn't aware this was the biggest case ever in computer intrusion.
Is that really accurate?
Currently, from what I know at least, as far as the federal government is concerned, it is.
Uh-huh.
It concerned the most people together charged as a conspiracy committing these acts, and the acts included more companies' computers than, I guess, than they have on any other case.
All right, but that's because the companies network themselves together.
Isn't that the reason why there are so many computers involved?
Well, I guess in some ways.
I mean, you take a data network, and you have hundreds and thousands of nodes on it.
Right.
It's not like you're able to break into every single one of the nodes individually.
You're getting into a network, and the network contains all these nodes.
It's the same kind of logic, where they basically charge you with entering hundreds of thousands of computers if you enter one that connects to hundreds of thousands.
Yeah, that's a pretty good way to say it, yeah.
Okay, let's try to finish the first paragraph.
The biggest case of computer intrusion in U.S. history drew to a close yesterday when a young Elmhurst, Queens man was sentenced to a year and a day in jail for his part in an electronic gang that, for years, roamed the nation's largest telephone and data networks.
All right, anything you want to say about this electronic gang roving around?
Well, I'm not too sure about the sentence before that, about drawing to a close.
Actually, it was all one sentence.
Oh, sorry.
It was a run-on sentence.
Okay, it didn't draw to a close.
There's yet one person of the five indicted that hasn't been sentenced yet, and the only reason he hasn't is because he cooperated with the authorities.
Right.
Were you offered a similar type of a deal?
No.
Cooperated with authorities.
They just wanted you from the beginning.
I think so, yeah.
Yeah, that was my impression, too, that you were kind of the brains behind the whole thing, and they just wanted to make sure that even if they had to let everybody else go, that you were taught a lesson.
I guess, if that's what they were thinking.
How's the lesson so far?
Far be it for me to try to climb inside their mind and figure out what they were thinking.
Okay.
I'm going to have to say your real name here for the first time ever on the radio because everybody else has said it.
Okay.
Mark Abene, as I pronounced it correctly, right?
That's right.
Mark Abene, 21, renowned in the digital underground as fiber optic, was the last of five young New York City men to plead guilty in federal court to one felony count of conspiracy for being in a hacker group known as MOD, an acronym that stood for Masters of Deception, among other things.
Okay.
So that's anything wrong with that?
Yeah, I plead guilty of two counts.
Yeah, well, one felony count of conspiracy.
Yeah, the other felony count was...
They make it sound like the count is for being an MOD, like that in itself is a crime.
Actually, if you read the wording in the indictment, right down to the among other things, that was also words from the indictment itself.
They used among other things in the indictment?
Yeah, they did.
That sums up the understanding of what actually happened in this case pretty well.
Okay.
They were indicted in July 1992.
This has been going on for quite some time because the raids came way before that, didn't they?
They were in, I think, what, January of 92?
They were in December of 91.
Wow.
I mean, this is an incredibly long period of time.
Okay, they were indicted in July 1992 for breaking into some of the nation's most sensitive computer networks, including many of the subnetworks of TimeNet, the gigantic data network that connects hundreds of thousands of computers used by banks and the government.
They also got access to the computers that control every regional telephone company and AT&T.
Prosecutors said the group cheated the phone companies and TimeNet out of hundreds of thousands of dollars in unbillable phone calls and other services.
Any comments on those?
Well, surely.
I think we've commented on a show probably months ago about how they derived their losses from, about putting prices on account names and passwords and addresses on networks.
I mean, yeah, sure.
No doubt they lost hundreds of thousands of dollars if an address is worth $20 and a password is worth $200.
Uh-huh.
Yeah.
Now, do they charge you because you possess the password?
Do they charge you every time the password is used?
Uh, I don't know.
I think probably for each one possessed.
I don't know.
Well, I'm sure they'll do something trustworthy with that.
Okay.
Abene, this is the interesting part.
Abene apologized in Manhattan's federal district court yesterday and said his actions weren't intended to harm anyone.
I'm just sorry they were misconstrued as malicious in any way, he said.
Now, to me, that doesn't really sound like you're apologizing for your actions.
It sounds like you're apologizing that they don't understand what you did.
I was apologizing that I was misunderstood, basically.
I mean, from the get-go, it was pretty clear that there was a lot of tension going on between the probation department and the prosecutors, that I wasn't showing any remorse.
And I don't exactly know what they mean by that.
I don't know if they expected me to come crying on my hands and knees, please, please, please.
But I just don't know.
I mean, I apologize that I was just pretty much sick of the whole thing.
Maybe they should substitute the word fear for remorse so you didn't, you know, cower and cringe like they wanted you to.
Yeah.
Okay.
The courtroom was crowded with a dozen of his friends from Echo, a Manhattan-based computer conferencing service where Abene works, and where he recently connected the service to the global Internet.
Is that correct?
I sure did.
Okay, good.
Just wanted to make sure.
Okay, here we go.
This is where it gets good.
Unlike street gangs, which tend to be based on race or ethnicity, MOD was ethnically diverse, and most of its dozen working-class members were from the outer boroughs of New York.
Speaking as one of its working-class members here, that's really the only difference between MOD and street gangs.
I guess, yeah.
I mean, sure, if someone threatens you on a computer, you just pull out your trusty gun and shoot the screen.
Oh, yeah.
Just like a street gang.
Just like a street gang.
Okay.
But prosecutors claim that the young men behave like street gangs in other ways.
Instead of fighting with rivals at the schoolyard, they rumbled on computer networks, disconnecting other hackers' phone service, and posting embarrassing information culled from confidential credit networks like TRW on underground bulletin boards.
It's, yeah, confidential and TRW in the same sentence.
What do you think of that?
Well, the thing that gets me more angry is the fact that they keep billing me as this gang member.
Working-class member of a gang.
Oh, sure.
I mean, I told them, like, again and again that I never was admitting to or pleading guilty to being a member of a gang called MOD, and they just didn't – they just weren't listening.
It was like talking to a sponge.
Well, sponges at least absorb something, but –
They were just – they just had it – you know, like, they just had figured out in their mind what it is that was the truth, and then there was the real truth, but that wasn't part of their truth.
Well, you didn't play by the rules.
I mean, most people, when they're charged with something like that, even if it's something they never heard of before, they just plead guilty to get it over with.
And you were saying nonsense like, but I didn't do it.
I didn't do this.
I'm not guilty of this.
And that's irrelevant.
In the judicial system, that doesn't really enter into it.
I think they got really annoyed because it was, I'm pleading guilty, but – dot, dot, dot.
Right.
That's where the no remorse comes in.
Okay, continuing.
They also used their skills to get telephone numbers or credit reports for celebrities, including Julia Roberts, John Gotti, Geraldo Rivera – nothing's too good for him – Christina Applegate and Mad Magazine founder William Gaines, members said.
John Lee, 22, of Bedford-Stuyvesant, a co-defendant, now serving out his one-year sentence in shock incarceration boot camp – I can't believe something like that exists in this country, shock incarceration boot camp – that's in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania.
He said recently that he also liked to phone and harangue white supremacists David Duke and Tom Metzger.
Lee and Julio Fernandez, 18, of the Bronx, were the only gang members who made money from the two years of break-ins, prosecutors said.
They pocketed $800 for ripping off another hacker by selling him phony instructions for breaking into TRW.
All right.
Are there a number of factual errors there or should we just ignore it?
Well, the thing that bothers me most is how they could say they also and then rattle off a whole list of famous people whose numbers apparently were gotten and then at the end of the sentence say, said John Lee in an interview.
So first it's they as in everyone did this and then it's like, well, just quoting a single person or two people.
Well, the first sentence ended with members said and then John Lee said this.
So I'm not sure if they got two people to say the same thing or what.
You know, some evidence would be nice.
Did they ever show evidence that these people had –
No.
In fact, I don't know if John Lee said this.
That's fine.
But, you know, he said it on his own accord.
There was no – I don't remember hearing anything like that.
Well, the fact is –
Certainly nothing like that in the indictment.
Regardless, you don't seem to know about it.
No.
You obviously don't have a copy of John Gotti and Geraldo Rivera's credit report lying around someplace.
Can't say I do.
So it seems that even if this was done by somebody else in the gang, alleged gang here, should you be held accountable for the actions of everybody else, acting as individuals?
Does that make sense?
No.
It sounds ridiculous.
But apparently, according to the law or so I've been taught, is that if you plead guilty to a conspiracy, you're equally as culpable for any of the overt acts, whether they included you or not.
Since it's a conspiracy, you're equally guilty.
Well, I mean, that's what this article is doing.
It's pretty much convicting you of just about everything that it's listing here because a person reading this is going to say, well, he invaded the privacy of, you know, some of America's most outstanding citizens.
That's – you know, he should go to jail for that.
He's haranguing white supremacists.
That's not good.
You know, all kinds of things like that.
But, you know, I still see what you did in this article anywhere.
I haven't seen what you did anywhere, actually, in the court, anywhere.
Well, I read the article myself, and I didn't see anything in that article, like you say, saying anything specific that I did, that I was charged with doing.
Okay.
Let's continue.
In addition to Lee and Fernandez, Paul Stira, 23, of Cambria Heights, Queens, and Elias – okay, I can never say this name.
Lodopoulos.
Lodopoulos.
Thank you very much.
I'm glad you're here.
Lodopoulos, 24, of Jamaica, Queens – both good friends of mine, actually.
I just never said his last name before – are serving six-month sentences in federal prisons in Pennsylvania.
Actually, I just heard from Paul, and he seems to be doing fairly well.
Again, I urge people to write to us here at the station.
We'll forward letters to them.
Fernandez has been cooperating with authorities and is not expected to be jailed.
That's, I guess, usually the way it works when you cooperate with authorities.
But there are other people, other members of this alleged group or gang or what have you that were never even indicted.
That's true as well.
The thing that angers me to no end that I'm sure angers the other people is the fact that Julio Fernandez was named the most in the entire indictment.
And yet he's the one who cooperated, and he's the one who's getting off virtually scot-free.
I mean, personally, I blame him as the reason for the entire indictment in the first place.
And, I mean, without naming names, there was at least one other person that was responsible for bad things such as system crashing and things like that.
Yeah, one of the stigmas upon the case was the crashing of a computer at PBS Channel 13 called the Learning Link.
That's at WNET, and it was pretty much trashed around Thanksgiving.
And the person who did this saw fit to list everyone's handle on the screen, including mine.
And I had absolutely no knowledge of this until well after it happened.
And they tried to make me and everyone accountable for it simply because someone typed our handles up on the screen.
And the real irony, though, is that the person that actually did it was never even indicted.
No.
Because this person apparently, I'm not quite sure how this came about, but federal authorities went to this person and made a deal with him saying that if he cooperated with them and helped to get you and everybody else locked up, that nothing would happen to him.
And I find this incredible that the person that everybody knows is responsible is just, you know, not dealt with at all.
Yeah.
Well, he and Julio were the ones that were the people responsible for the more heinous of acts that were pointed out in the indictment.
Okay, continuing.
Law enforcement officials hope the case will send a message to younger hackers.
And that's, like I was saying before, what the justice system seems to be more concerned with, sending messages.
Get into the information business.
It's regretful that I think the only message that they're sending is for younger people to have more of a disregard for the government and disrespect for it.
Mm-hmm.
And also, probably, not to get caught.
Yeah.
Okay, continuing.
Computer hacking crimes continue to pose great threats to public computer networks.
Jeffrey Berman, the assistant U.S. attorney who handled the case, said in court yesterday,
that threat is only going to increase with the advent of information highways.
That sounds almost like an exact quote from that New York Times article last Monday.
Uh, Judge Louis Stanton dismissed the argument that the actions of Ebene and the other MLD members were merely youthful transgression.
To some extent, he stands as a symbol in this field because of his own efforts, Stanton said in court,
referring to Ebene's having been featured in magazine articles and national television programs.
To some extent, he must be treated as a symbol because of his own efforts.
What do you think of that?
That's pretty much what he said.
Yeah.
Verbatim.
And so, basically, you're being punished mostly because you were public.
You went out and you said exactly what was going on.
Because I'm public, because I'm open, and because it'll send a message.
Mm-hmm.
Okay.
Ebene has said that for him, hacking was merely the pursuit of knowledge.
He described himself as a kind of scientist.
He never made money from his electronic break-ins and was interested only in figuring out how things worked.
Sounds true so far.
Well, it sounds pretty noble to me to have the word merely at the beginning.
Yeah, merely the pursuit of knowledge.
Well, the prosecutor said that Ebene helped the others harass and intimidate rival hackers.
How did you do that?
I'm not exactly sure, and they never told me how I did that either.
Hmm.
This was all about power, Berman said in an interview.
Using a laptop computer from his small bedroom in his parents' home,
Ebene tapped into some of the most powerful computers in the world,
the giant machines known as switches that are the building blocks of public telephone networks.
Did I left in your room, huh?
With a laptop.
Okay.
But what Ebene didn't know was that while he hacked, he was being hacked back.
Did you know that?
I had no idea.
Did you know you're being hacked back?
Two New York telephone employees, Tom Kaiser and Fred Staples, were keeping an eye on him since 1987.
This is incredible that they would keep an eye on you for six years before doing something.
Phone company officials first became aware of him in 1987 when Ebene's name and telephone number
were among the papers seized from a Brooklyn hacker.
And that's all they say.
Leave the rest of your imagination.
I don't know.
That's the longest article I've seen about this, but again, they just don't get it.
They just don't seem to realize that we're not talking about gangs here.
I mean, if you say gangs, then it's very easy to equate that with prison sentences,
and you can sort of resolve that in your mind and not lose any sleep over it.
But when you realize that's not the situation at all, when you know the people involved,
it's very different.
All right.
We should take some phone calls because I'm sure a lot of people have things to say to you
and maybe even advice to give.
Our number is 212-279-3400.
And we're here with FiberOptik, who a week ago was sentenced to a year and a day in prison
for acts of hacking.
And I guess just being open and honest and talking about it a little bit too much here,
other places.
At least they can't tack on any more time for tonight's show, right?
I guess not.
I hope not.
All right.
Let's take our first call.
Good evening.
You're on.
Hi, Emmanuel.
This is Jayhawk.
Hi.
How are you?
Hi.
I thought you would, I mean, this is not quite so related to Fiber,
but I thought you would want to discuss the recent Internet security problems of late.
Okay.
Well, if you could summarize it quickly, because we do want to spend time on this topic.
Okay.
Well, most recently there was a major hole discovered in a program called SendMail.
And SendMail is a program which basically sits on almost every machine on the Internet
and sits there waiting for some other machine to talk to it to give it mail.
And when it receives mail, it then delivers it to the user.
So it really should be called something more like ReceiveMail, but it also sends mail in another fashion, sort of.
Okay.
And the problem with SendMail is that, well, SendMail has always had problems.
Right.
That was how Robert Morris took advantage of the Internet, wasn't it?
And it's actually part of the, sort of, the inverse problem.
The thing is that Robert Morris took advantage of a part of the bug in SendMail where you could send mail to a program on the system,
and then the program would do whatever you wanted with, you know, whatever you gave it, basically,
and you could do almost anything.
Now, the problem of the most recent hole is you could send mail from a program
and design your message to do something that's called bounce.
And when a message bounces, basically it means there's something wrong with the message,
like you've sent it to a non-existent user, or you've misspecified some sort of header or some parameter or something.
Right.
And then it sends mail back to the person who sent it.
And by sending mail from a program, then if your mail bounces, then it bounces back to the program,
and then you achieve much the same effect.
Okay.
So where's the bug?
Well, that's the bug.
The bug is that you can actually do that.
You should be able to do that, but you can do that.
Well, what happens when you do that?
What is the end result?
Arbitrary shell script.
Okay.
This case basically is UID daemon, or many user IDs on the system.
Okay.
And there was also something I heard of recently that involves a microphone on a sun system, I believe.
This is sort of strange.
There's this organization called CERT, their emergency response team,
and they put out little notices and advisories about security incidents,
and they're, well, a lot of us don't really appreciate them because they refuse to give us information on real security problems,
especially when, you know, those of us who are actually running systems kind of need to know this to figure out.
Well, now explain something to me.
Why depend on CERT?
Why not start a group of your own?
Well, you know, we don't utterly depend on CERT, but CERT is there, and CERT is useful to have.
Actually, there's a recent new mailing list called BugTrack, U-G-T-R-A-Q, at crimelab.com,
and you can send mail to bugtrack-request at crimelab.com,
and BugTrack is a list devoted to discussing the details of security bugs in an open fashion,
which is something that CERT doesn't do.
I just want to comment on BugTrack.
I think it's just a little all-too-convenient that the person who's registered as the owner of the domain crimelab.com
is a former member of ComSec and a former co-owner of FRAC magazine.
I think it's all-too-convenient that all these operating system bugs are being sent right in his lap.
Hmm.
Well, I don't know.
BugTrack is, to some extent, an outgrowth of the firewalls mailing list.
Uh, that's firewalls at greatcircle.com.
And, uh, firewalls, well, it's been sort of a place where a lot of people have discussed holes,
and, in fact, the send mail holes have been discussed there for a bit.
All right, I just got to break in here.
I know this is fascinating and all, but we've probably alienated about 99% of the audience.
And, uh, this is better talked about on the net, where it's of more concern.
But, um, right now, anything to say to FIBER?
Anything to say to FIBER?
Well, you know, FIBER, you know, sorry to hear about your sentencing, and, you know, I guess I talked to you before, so good night.
Okay, thanks for calling.
212-279-3400.
Good evening, you're on.
Yeah, let me turn the radio down.
Good idea.
Okay.
Uh, an interesting, uh, point to make about the judge's statement in sentencing FIBER optic is that he said that, uh, he's not the type who needs prison, that he knows what he did was wrong, but that he's sentencing him only to, uh, send out a message to others.
Well, that argument can be used in all cases now, and therefore everybody should be sentenced.
In other words, people who he thinks needs, uh, jail sentencing to rehabilitate will go to jail, and those who don't need jail sentencing should go to jail anyway to send a message.
Therefore, the question I would pose to that judge is, which people ultimately do not, should not go to jail?
Because, you know, you see what I'm saying?
Well, I, I sort of see the flow of logic or illogic here, yeah.
Yeah.
It's, um, it's an absurd situation.
If he doesn't need jail, jailing, to rehabilitate, to, to be rehabilitated, well, to, to, the, the, the alternate reason that it's going to send a message, well, that can always be used.
Therefore, I say that this judge will only be consistent if everybody who comes before him, who is of any, who has any, uh, public, uh, notoriety.
Uh, and, uh, as far as public, as, you know, being in the public's eye, fiber optic has to be very, you know, you know, not, not putting the AI down, but how many people listen to the station, or, you know, counting all those things.
It's very, you know, it's not that much in the public eye, in my opinion.
Well, as far as, as far as this kind of thing goes, it's probably more in the public eye than, than, than most cases.
I think what the judge was trying to say was, and the message he's trying to convey, is that, uh, if you, if you're not such a big mouth about it, you won't get in so much trouble.
And I don't think that's valid at all, because I think, uh, in this particular, uh, industry where we're experiencing these growing pains, uh, we need to hear everything.
For instance, the, the, the recent, um, uh, problems involving the computer system panics, um, they talked about it.
They were open about it, and that is helpful.
If you, if you close yourself off, like, like Surt has been accused of doing, and, you know, not give out information as to what exactly the problems are, uh, it creates, uh, an atmosphere of mistrust, and it doesn't fix the problem.
Yeah, I'll, I'll, I'll just leave by saying that, believe me, if you had, uh, uh, not even a thousand, a hundred followers rioting in the street for one day, you know, that, that would have got you off.
Oh, well, yeah, probably a few more charges would have been added, but, uh, probably they would have forgotten about the hacking part.
Oh, I'll tell you what, a hundred rioters rioting in front of the judge's house the day before sentencing, uh, who look like they mean it, and they will continue doing it.
Uh-huh.
That would get you off. I guarantee it.
All right, thanks for the suggestion.
Uh, it just goes to show what, what, what an ill-organized gang we have here.
We can't even do a riot in front of the judge's house.
Oh, well. Good evening.
Oh, my God.
Okay.
Let's have, uh, a little mini L.A. party for poor fiber optic.
I can't believe that last comment. It was very strange.
Well, I mean, there's all kinds of different approaches to this.
Sure, sure. And here, here's another one.
Fiber, I, I, I just, you know, I feel for you.
This is the pathetic justice system that we have.
But, uh, I think one, one other bright side of it, I mean, you, you, you've mentioned a couple here that you feel, uh, something you can get out of it,
is, uh, I do think the spotlight, uh, phenomena is an, an asset to this.
You should just harp on that and get a book out.
You know, if Monster can get a book out from Pelican Bay, uh, about being in L.A. gangs and, uh, hanging out at Florence and Normandy before the riots,
then you can definitely get a book out and charge the, uh, the whole, the whole works, the whole Robert Steele openness, uh, uh, phenomenon.
I mean, that, you should definitely get a book out.
You have the public's eye, more so than that last caller believes.
Uh-huh.
Do you think they would impose the Son of Sam rule or something, saying that, uh, well, he's benefiting from, uh, from...
Manuel, get real, come on.
Well, Bell South might step in and say, wait a minute, we, we want all the proceeds, you know.
Iber, you don't think so, do you?
Well, I just wish I had a nickel for every person that told me to write a book.
Well, there must be some, some agents out there that are listening.
They can contact us at this station.
I'd buy it.
Yeah.
Well, I think, I think a lot of people would, but, uh, that's something to think about.
Thanks for the call.
Let's go on to another phone call.
Good evening, you're on.
Hello?
Hello?
Yeah, you're on.
Hello?
Yes, you're on.
Hi, um, this is Zero, um, I'm, yeah, um, I'm calling about fiber, uh, the, the comment you made last week about a call waiting, um, first of all, about fiber optic, I wanted to say, uh, fiber, I'm really sorry about what happened.
Can you speak up just a little bit?
Yes, fiber, I'm really sorry about what happened.
Um, um, um, I can't believe what happened is really pathetic because, um, they didn't really have much of a case on you.
But, um, I wanted to bring, first up, a story that I read.
I'll try to make it as brief as possible.
Um, it was written in one of Don B. Parker's books.
Oh, boy.
Um, yeah.
Um, it was about Captain Crunch.
And what the FBI did to him, what happened was, uh, basically, he came up with blue boxing, supposedly.
He at least made it public.
And he got arrested for it.
And when he got let back out, what the FBI did was, they had a kid, um, who basically went up to him and asked him to fix a blue box.
And when he fixed it, the FBI said, can you please try it out, can you please try it out?
Uh-huh.
He drove out to a telephone, a public telephone somewhere, called the information, you know, called the information, and tested it out.
And information was free back then?
I'm sorry?
Information was free back then, I believe.
Yes, though, it didn't really say in the book.
And, basically, uh, the kid handed, uh, Captain Crunch the blue box, and the FBI had tapped all the phones in a four-mile radius.
And they caught him.
And, basically, he didn't do anything.
He just helped his kid fix a blue box.
Kid handed him the blue box, he got caught, and he got arrested for that.
Uh-huh.
Um.
So how does that tie into this?
I'm sorry?
How do you tie that into this?
Is that just the story?
Um, it's kind of like, I hope, fiber optic, um, when you get back out, to be careful, uh, because the feds are going to go after you again.
And you should realize that they're going to try and get in, you know, do whatever they can to get you back in jail.
Well, rest assured, I won't be socializing with any, uh, strange kids that come up to me and ask me to fix a blue box.
Ah, I just, I just heard a collective sigh of disappointment through the streets of New York just now.
Thanks for the call.
Let's go on to another call here.
Good evening.
You're on.
Hi.
Um, I, I'd like to, uh, make two brief comments.
One, uh, if you, uh, as you, if I, I heard you right, you weren't represented by a lawyer?
No.
I mean, he was, I had three lawyers, in fact.
Yeah, three lawyers?
Yeah.
Oh, oh, well, uh, the, the reason I was wondering is, uh, I don't see why you couldn't appeal this.
It sounds like they'd, they'd have a lot of grounds to appeal it.
Well, he pled guilty, you see.
Yeah, it's kind of, it makes it kind of hard to appeal when you plead guilty.
And, I mean, uh, from my standpoint, pleading guilty was to avoid the risk of going to trial and losing and facing two to five years in prison for each count of two.
So, as well as being fined, uh...
Is that what they, did they, did they recommend that to you?
That's not recommended.
That's, that, those are the, the guidelines for what the charges were.
Was it recommended that you plead guilty?
Oh, no, they can't recommend that you plead guilty.
I mean, it was ultimately my decision.
Is that what the lawyers suggested you do?
No, it was, it was my choice from the beginning.
In fact, we were intending on going to trial, and it wasn't until the eve of the trial, like, the, the week right before it would have began,
that I decided to throw in the towel.
Mm.
And I feel that I've made a very informed decision, as opposed to having pled guilty from, from the onset, from the get-go.
And instead, I got to see, basically, the way the feds operate, all the evidence that was, uh, gathered against me.
And I made an, uh, an informed decision.
What, what do you think would have happened if you, uh, if you did plead guilty on the very first day or whatever?
You've gotten the worst sentence?
I, I don't, I don't know if that's true or not.
I can, I can only assume that I would have, uh, I don't think I would have been able to live with myself, not knowing what could have happened.
Mm-hmm.
I, I think that, uh, it was too premature to make such a, such a large decision.
Well, I don't know.
I would just wondered if, uh, you asked your attorneys, or asked, uh, the Civil Liberties Union, whether or not you would have a grounds to appeal,
simply because of the kind of, the way in which he sentenced you, uh, might be very, uh, might, might, might not be okay.
Might not be okay.
And, uh, on the grounds of the way in which he sentenced you, you might have, have a, uh, have, uh, you know, have a reason, uh, to appeal there.
Well, you know, there was a case not too long ago, a few weeks ago, in fact, um, of a, of a kid that, uh, wandered into a high school.
And I think he, uh, he took an ice cream bar or something like that.
And for that, he was sentenced to, like, a year or so in jail.
Now, word of this got out around the country, and there was a lot of outrage that a kid was sentenced to, uh, a year or two in jail for, for taking an ice cream bar.
Um, and apparently the judge had imposed the maximum possible sentence he could possibly impose.
Um, this, once the publicity got out, something happened, and the kid was let go.
Uh, I'm not quite sure exactly how that works, because apparently he had pled guilty to stealing the ice cream cone or whatever.
Um, so, there are, there are vehicles for this kind of thing, even when somebody pleads guilty.
It's, it's, it's called public outrage, I think.
Well, I think there also is a legal vehicle.
I mean, if the, if the manner or, or reasons given for sentencing were improper, uh, this, this, uh, this might be reversed.
Okay.
Well, thanks for the, uh, suggestion, yeah.
Because, uh, and what else, what is, what, could I ask a question?
What is it that can be done to further our civil liberties or to protect our civil liberties vis-a-vis these, um, uh, the, the various, uh, the various things that are happening now with all the, um, machinery that exists?
I would say link up, get on the network, get to know people, and establish a presence, and don't let anybody kick you off, and, and start charging you huge amounts for something that we all have the right to.
That's the, that's the primary step.
Uh-huh.
And then once you're there, then it's, it's not easy to target them.
What is the best club to join to, if you're really not too much into it yet?
Uh, five.
Best club or group to, uh, to, uh, to.
Well, well, gee whiz, why not sign up on Echo?
Yeah.
You'll, you'll get to see Fiber online.
Tell people how they can sign up.
If, uh, if you're, you want to get more information, you can call, uh, Stacey Horn.
She's the owner.
And, uh, you can call her at 212-255-3839.
And you can inquire within.
2-1, uh, give me the number once more.
Sorry, 2-1-2-2-5-5-3-8-3-9.
Uh, 2-5-5-3-8-2-9?
3-8-3-9.
3-9.
Yeah, and that's, uh, the number for Stacey Horn.
She's the, uh, president of Echo.
Okay, and, uh, is there an online number people can register online with?
Sure.
It's, uh, again, 2-1-2-9-8-9-8-4-1-1.
Okay.
And just follow the directions.
Okay.
There's other online services in New York, too, uh, Panix, Maestro, MindVox, things like
that.
But, uh, we don't have their numbers, so you'll have to look in the phone book.
Okay.
Lots of online services popping up everywhere, in fact.
Uh, so people have to take this by storm.
Let's take one more phone call.
Good evening.
Uh, yes, hello.
Hi.
Hi, uh, I'm calling in reference, you know, to what happened, uh, to Fiber here, uh, the
past week or so.
Uh-huh.
Um, I guess you could call me a, you know, younger, uh, gang member there.
Okay, we'll do that now.
Uh, there, there's stupid terminology here.
Uh, but, um, what I don't understand is why they have to waste their time on things like,
uh, what's going on now when there's, like, you know, the garbage with people going, you
know, in murder and things like that.
And yet, you know, they're wasting their time on little things like this, which is actually
helping, helping the electronic community.
Well, you know, I'll tell you, the reason they're wasting time on this is because they're
afraid.
They don't understand.
They don't have a grip on the technology themselves.
And they see people like us who do.
And they don't know what we're doing.
They don't know what we're capable of.
And that's why people are charged with what they could have done rather than what they
actually did.
I know.
I mean, it's, it's amazing.
And like, and they say they're like sending, uh, messages to younger, to younger people.
Yeah, well, what's the message you got?
Well, what is this?
I got no message from this.
I mean, I'm not scared or anything.
You know, I mean, there's people, you know, I know there's people, you know, that I, uh,
my peers that are, I'm around, you know, people go to jail for killing
people or stealing.
They still steal and things.
I mean, that doesn't do nothing.
I mean, they have to, they have to realize that, I mean, there's, this is not really a
serious topic, you know, that's being talked about here.
Right.
And it's, it's not going to go away by sending people to jail.
It's just going to make, uh, make people act in a more secretive way.
And that's not what we want.
We want to be open and honest.
Right.
I, I, you know, I think they should realize, get the priorities straight, you know, realize
what they should, what they need to be doing because I mean, what they're doing
now is completely wrong.
Yeah.
I agree with you 100%.
Listen, we're out of time.
Thanks very much for calling though.
I feel it all.
Okay.
It's, uh, just about time for us to go.
Fiber, I want to thank you for, uh, for coming by.
Now you're not actually going away until January.
Is that correct?
I, uh, I'm, I'm allowed to voluntarily surrender on or before January 7th.
Oh, so we go, we could go down tonight then if you so choose.
If I so choose.
Yeah.
Although I haven't been told where, what, where it is that I'd be going.
So you don't know where to go, but you can voluntarily surrender it.
Yeah.
I'm sure they could find, uh, somewhere to keep me if I so chose.
Okay.
Um, and the most you can get off is, uh, two months off this, uh, 12 month sentence.
Yeah, I don't know exactly how it works, only that, uh, when the judge tacks on the extra
day like that, it makes you eligible for early release.
And I don't know exactly how they, how early that they base that on.
All right.
That means though that you'll be around for at least a couple more weeks here.
Hopefully you'll be able to stop by and, uh, be part of the program.
Uh, anybody that wants to send mail to either us or to Fiber can do so.
Uh, our address is off the hook.
Care of WBAI, 505 8th Avenue, New York, New York, 10018.
And, um, that's going to do it for us here tonight.
This is Emmanuel Goldstein with Fiber Optic.
And, um, we'll be back again next week.
Stay tuned for the news.
Good night.
The telephone keeps ringing.
So I ripped it off the wall.
I cut myself while shaving.
Now I can't make a call.
We couldn't get much worse.
But if they could, they would.
Bum, diddley, bum.
But the best, expect the worst.
I hope that's understood.
Bum, diddley, bum.
Good evening.
In the news tonight, a call for a federal investigation of New Jersey's gubernatorial race
after a Republican campaign official admits paying money to keep people from voting.
And Republicans in the House of Representatives launched an attack on the nation's welfare programs.
And in New York, labor comes out strong against the North American Free Trade Agreement.
With these and other stories, I'm José Santiago in New York with Verna Avery Brown in Washington.
And this is the news for Wednesday, November 10th, 1993.
First to these headlines, topping the news.
Haitian military leaders are continuing to pressure foreign gasoline companies in Haiti
to distribute a vital four-week supply of gasoline and diesel fuel.
As J.P. Slavin reports from Port-au-Prince,
any fuel release will further sidetrack negotiations over the return of exiled President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
The directors of Haiti's three foreign gasoline companies, Shell, Texaco, and Esso,
refused to comment today on growing pressures to release their fuel reserves.
Yesterday, a lower court in Port-au-Prince ordered Haiti's largest petroleum company, Shell,
to release its gasoline and diesel reserve.
The Shell office here is consulting with its London headquarters before they will say what Shell will do.
When the U.N. reapplied a petroleum embargo on Haiti last month,
a block was put on the release of the three fuel companies' reserves,
and gasoline was no longer delivered to gas stations.
Most Haitian gas stations are closed, and a gallon of gas can cost $25 on the black market.
The Haitian army wants the four-week fuel reserve released
so they can have more time to negotiate with the U.N. and stall Aristide's return.
But the U.S. embassy here is pressuring the fuel companies to hold on to their gasoline reserve.
If the fuel is released and carefully rationed,
the Haitian army could keep the Haitian economy alive for possibly eight more weeks.
For Pacifica Network News, this is J.P. Slavin in Port-au-Prince.
The Labor Department reported today that the number of Americans filing first-time claims
for unemployment benefits rose by 14,000 last week,
reaching their highest level in more than three months.
Labor Secretary Robert Reich said he was confident the unexpected leap
does not signal economic trouble.
In the past week, 354,000 Americans filed new applications for jobless benefits.
In a special election, voters in the Oregon towns of Kaiser and Oregon City
have passed two anti-gay initiatives sponsored by the Oregon Citizens Alliance, or OCA.
Barbara Bernstein reports.
Although the margins of victory were not as wide as the OCA had predicted,
the tactic of selling these new initiatives as a softer version of last year's ballot measure 9
seems to be paying off.
Last year, voters in Oregon City defeated Measure 9 by 500 votes.
Yesterday's amendment was approved by a margin of 200 votes.
Gay rights advocates worry that yesterday's victory will help build momentum
for OCA's statewide anti-gay campaign next year.
A state law passed last summer prevents any local gay initiatives from being enacted or enforced.
The ACLU has already announced plans to challenge these latest charter amendments,
which brings to a total now 15 Oregon communities which have approved anti-gay initiatives.
For the voters of Oregon City and Kaiser,
yesterday's election returns will result in extensive lawsuits
certain to stretch the resources of these financially strapped cities.
For Pacifica National News, this is Barbara Bernstein in Portland, Oregon.
Supporters of would-be Nigerian President Mosheud Abiola rallied in the streets of Lagos today
to celebrate a Nigerian high court ruling which said the current military-appointed government is illegal.
The case was brought to court by Abiola, the billionaire businessman
whose emergence as the winner of June's presidential election was thwarted
when Nigerian General Ibrahim Babangida disqualified the election results
and appointed an interim government for the country.
The military-backed Nigerian government is appealing the decision.
German prosecutors today demanded life jail sentences for two young neo-Nazis
accused of killing three Turkish people in an arson attack last year.
Both accused men confessed to the attack but later retracted their statements
claiming they had confessed under police pressure.
That firebombing in the northern German town of Meirn
sparked a series of candlelight vigils across the country
to protest the wave of neo-Nazi violence aimed at immigrants.
And those are the stories topping the news.
Outrageous was the word most commonly used to describe the latest campaign tactic
allegedly used in the New Jersey gubernatorial race.
Ed Rollins, a top GOP operative, claims the Republicans funneled money
to African-American ministers in New Jersey
so they would not encourage their parishioners to go to the polls
and vote for the Democratic candidate.
Pacifica's Don Rush reports on the allegations
which promised to tarnish an already controversial political race.
Last week, Christine Whitman snatched the governorship
from incumbent Democrat James Florio in a squeaker of an election.
But this week, the Democrats are taking legal action
that could ultimately overturn that result.
It all began when GOP campaign manager Ed Rollins
told reporters about a scheme to provide money
for the pet projects of a number of black ministers.
In exchange, he said, the ministers would not encourage their flock
to support the Democrat.
The amount of money spent on the operation was a half a million dollars.
The story got the attention of President Clinton
during a late afternoon session with the press.
If it is true, then it was terribly wrong
for anyone to give money to anybody else not to vote
or to depress voter turnout.
And it was terribly wrong for anyone to accept that money.
And in New Jersey, Democrats went to federal court
to get a discovery order for evidence.
State Party Chair Senator Raymond Lesniak
notes that the Republicans are already under a court order
not to interfere with the right of voters
to cast their ballots in New Jersey.
I'm horrified.
I mean, we try so hard to get people to vote.
I mean, people died for the right to vote.
And here is Ed Rollins, Republican Party,
and Christine Todd Whitman's campaign manager
paying people not to vote
or not to encourage people to vote.
In addition, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund in New York
is also looking into whether the alleged actions
are illegal under existing law.
Staff Attorney Pinda Hare declared
if the practice is not illegal, it should be.
It seems clearly an attempt to suppress
African-American participation,
which may have Voting Rights Act implications.
There are also, as you know, criminal laws
that prohibit vote buying.
And we're just now looking into the statutes
to try to ascertain where this fact pattern falls,
assuming that the facts as reported in the newspapers are true.
And those reported facts are being questioned
by a group of African-American ministers in New Jersey.
Rollins claimed that money was given to pastors
who would actually come out for Florio.
He said they were simply asked
not to encourage their parishioners
to act on that endorsement.
But Abana Aboa-Ofe,
a spokesperson for the First Baptist Church
in Somerset, New Jersey, says
neither her pastor nor others
know anything about any money.
There's no evidence, so it's our opinion
that the statements are completely false.
And we're challenging him to come up with some names.
Who are these people?
She said the three most prominent pastors
endorsed Florio.
Bob Woodson is head of the National Center
for Neighborhood Enterprise
and a black conservative
who has supported Republican causes.
He says this is just another example
of why Republicans aren't making inroads
into the black community.
It just does a disservice to the Republican Party
and it also does a disservice to those blacks.
It's demeaning to the black community
for anyone to suggest that all you've got to do
is pass out a little walk-around money
to a few so-called leaders of the community
and somehow you can influence them
either to vote or not to vote.
But this is not the first time
that Republicans have attempted
over the last 20 years
to keep blacks from the ballot box.
And longtime Democrat Roger Wilkins,
who served in the Johnson administration,
doesn't believe the Republican rhetoric
about bringing blacks into the fold.
There are a few Republicans
who really want to do that.
I think Bill Brock was surely one
when he ran the Republican Party.
But I think, by and large,
Republicans have contempt for black people.
As bad as some of these Democrats are,
these DLC types like Al Fromm,
the real racists are to be found
in the Republican Party.
But Florio, the Democratic loser,
may symbolize one of the weaknesses
of the new Democrat image.
Florio campaigned on strong anti-crime rhetoric
and put a two-year time limit
on welfare assistance.
David Besaitis is with the Joint Center
for Political and Economic Studies.
He knows that Florio got only 75% of the vote.
And for Rollins, says Besaitis,
that was one of the keys to winning the election.
Ed Rollins, who's a master of political campaigning,
knows how important black votes are.
He himself, I find it very hard to believe,
would ever engage in intimidation.
And so an alternative strategy
to at least condone
is spreading money around
to get these intermediary elites
like black ministers
and city workers
not to get out the vote.
Neither the Republican National Committee
nor the New Jersey State Committee
would comment.
Don Rush, Pacific Network News, Washington.
House Republicans today
jumped on the welfare reform bandwagon.
They've introduced a bill
supposedly designed to save federal taxpayers
$20 billion over five years.
And to no great surprise,
it puts those on welfare back to work.
Mark Beavis reports.
This bill comes out of the Republican Task Force
on Welfare Reform.
It's been co-sponsored by 160 GOP members
and is now the official policy
of House Republicans.
Rick Santorum, representative from Pennsylvania,
is one of the co-chairs
of the Welfare Reform Task Force.
It is, in fact, a hand-up.
But it is a very firm hand-up.
And what it does is gives people
the opportunity to rise in society
but is tough in the sense
that we have set expectations
and responsible behavior
as a requirement to participate in the system.
First off, the plan requires recipients work.
After two years,
single parents receiving AFDC
must work at least 35 hours a week
for their benefits.
During those two years, however,
they get training and education
to help them in their job search.
The plan also provides states
with $10 billion to help single parents
with employment services, including daycare.
If there are no private sector jobs,
the proposal does offer federal funds
for public service.
The plan also cuts off assistance
for people who are not citizens,
although it does grant some provisions
for political refugees.
And the legislation also has
some strenuous requirements
for young unmarried mothers.
All mothers applying for welfare
must identify the father of their children.
Mothers who are minors
must live with their parents.
And the states are not allowed
to increase payments to families
that have additional children.
Nancy Johnson, Republican representative
from Connecticut,
puts an interesting spin
on these new proposed requirements.
This is, I think, a giant step forward.
I mean, just look at the implications
of a woman knowing
from the moment she gets pregnant
that it is not only her right
and responsibility,
but it is her opportunity
to identify the father.
What a change.
What a change.
Fathers with children on welfare
must either pay child support
or take part in work programs.
Many of the provisions
in the Republican bill
are being tried around the country
by various states,
and President Clinton,
who has pressed for welfare reform,
is seen as sympathetic
to much of the plan.
The White House proposal
is not expected
until early next year.
For Pacifica Network News,
this is Mark Beavis
in Washington.
Many of the aspects of the bill
introduced today
by the Republicans
getting at him.