The End
I think I'm going to go as far as golf.
On Friday, October 28th, beginning at 9 p.m., there'll be a cash bar, hot food, and a contest for the best and worst costumes.
Charas is located at 360 East 10th Street between Avenues B and C.
The $10 cover will benefit Charas and WBAI.
For more information, call area code 212-279-0707, extension 121.
That's 212-279-0707, extension 121.
Be there.
And where you are now is WBAI in New York, 99.5 FM listener-supported radio.
It's time for Off the Hook.
The Telephone keeps ringing
So I ripped it off the wall
I cut myself while shaving
Now I can't make a cough
It couldn't get much worse
But if they could, they would
But I best expect the worst
I hope the thunder's good
But I'm digging it more
I hope the thunder's good
But I'm digging it more
Take care
I'm digging it on
Thank you.
Thank you.
We have all kinds of revelations, surprises, adventures, fun things like that, and of course
phone calls.
Maybe we'll be hearing from Fiber Optic later on.
Who knows?
Well, this past week, there was a rather interesting event that took place, and me and one other
person went down to Argentina.
And I believe by the familiarity of your face, Chris, over there, you were the person that
Camille.
Camille 2000.
Well, when you walk in one second before you're on the air, it's kind of hard for me to put
with another name for you.
Well, your name is Chris for now.
Okay, Chris for now.
Let's, for the folks, let's get some background information as to just what Argentina is all
about.
Are there computer hackers in Argentina, that kind of thing?
What was going through our minds as we went down there for the first time?
Well, the first thing that went through our minds was, what the hell language are these
people speaking?
It's called Spanish, Chris.
In fact, I did some research on it after I got back.
It's very popular with the people in certain countries, and apparently the country we went
to was one of those.
It's called Spanish.
In fact, you might even...
But that did not sound like Spanish.
You might even be able to hear some of it in New York City, if you are careful.
I hear it in New York City all the time.
You do?
Okay, then you're familiar with it.
Not the Spanish that they were speaking.
That was a totally different Spanish.
Different Spanish, right?
It sounded like Italian more than Spanish.
Uh-huh.
But, of course, it wasn't Italian.
It was Spanish, and it was not Portuguese either, which they speak in Brazil.
But I was told it was Castilian Spanish.
I see.
Was it Castilian?
I don't know.
Something like that.
Whatever it was, I didn't understand barely a word of it.
But that's okay, because usually wherever Americans go, there's somebody willing to
hold them by the hand and show them how to get around without uttering a word in a foreign
language.
Although, after a while, we were uttering different kinds of words for the various basics of life.
Gracias.
Yeah.
Things like that.
And it's very hard to get out of that.
It's very hard to get out of that once you get back here.
It's great, though, what's going on down there.
We went to a conference that lasted about three days and had to do with computer hackers,
virus writers, things like that.
And I was simply amazed by the enthusiasm.
It was kind of like a mini-hope conference down there in Buenos Aires.
Much more enthusiastic, though.
Oh, yeah, because I guess we were the saviors from the U.S. that had access to all this interesting
stuff that they didn't quite have access to yet.
For instance, they're not entirely on the net yet.
You can send email to them.
They can send email to you.
But they can't really have a live presence unless they're a professor at a university
or someone high up in a big company.
We're trying to get that changed.
We're trying to help them get a net presence.
And once they do, there'll be all kinds of interesting people.
And we're open to suggestions.
That's right.
That's right.
Probably the most important thing for them right now is to get on the net so that they
can trade all kinds of info.
It's incredible, though, how up-to-date they are on things.
They're all talking about the latest FRAC, the latest 2600, all the hacker events, what's
going on in the world.
This eagerness is something we've seen before.
We've seen it in New York.
We've seen it in Amsterdam.
We've seen it in England and Germany and parts of Asia.
And it's just really cool to see it with people in all different places.
And Argentina especially.
I'm not sure how many people are familiar with the history.
But only 10 years ago, things were very different there.
There was a war with England over the Falkland Islands or Malvinas.
That they won, incidentally.
Well, it depends.
It depends who you speak to.
It's still an issue of contention.
And wisely, we didn't really get involved with that.
But there's just this spirit.
There's something going on in Buenos Aires.
It's not that I was around for the 60s.
But it seems like something from the 60s.
It seems like there's a renaissance of sorts.
People are doing all kinds of neat things.
And you just get a sense that there's just something interesting in the air.
There's no real better way to put it.
And it was really nice to be a part of that.
But when you think of it, these people that are so enthusiastic, that are so into the whole computer scene and spreading information around, only 10 years ago or so, they would be on the list of people that would disappear in the middle of the night and never return.
And so it gives you something to think about.
These folks have learned something.
They've learned a very valuable lesson, which hopefully we don't need to learn.
But it was really an eye-opener.
Definitely.
Yeah.
And I was kind of surprised.
I didn't know what to expect.
You know, whenever I go into these different countries, you sort of, you don't know what's going to greet you there.
Was it my imagination, or did that conference seem very, very technical in comparison to it?
Well, it's hard to say when you can't understand barely a word of what they're saying.
Well, they did have a translator.
Yeah, they did have a translator who wasn't preoccupied most of the time.
And when he was translating, and it's kind of weird, too, when you're speaking to an audience and you have to wait for the translator to catch up to you.
I don't know if I could ever get used to that.
But it did seem a bit more technical on certain points.
But then again, the crowd also seemed to nod off during the technical aspects.
They're always technical people.
The problem is, in this particular conference, you only had one small auditorium crammed with about 200 people.
Very small auditorium.
And there really wasn't very many places to go.
No air conditioning.
No air conditioning.
Actually, air conditioning is something that is really only unique to the United States.
Really?
Well, I mean, you have it in other places, but not to the extent that you have it here.
You know, nobody has it on subways.
Nobody.
I'm sorry.
And there's all kinds of other things, too.
The food is amazing.
Of course, if you're a vegetarian, it could be a bit of a problem because they eat beef, what, three, sometimes four times a day.
We did.
Yeah.
And I was a vegetarian up until then.
Yeah.
It was not bad.
It's delicious.
They have lots of cows down there, and they're happy cows, and they produce much better tasting beef down there.
I was told it's because of the plains.
Probably is.
The ground is flat, so they're not all that muscular.
They're just...
Mm-hmm.
We even went to McDonald's, and the reason for that was to see...
You made me go to McDonald's.
Well, no, we were curious.
We were both curious as to whether or not the beef there would taste better as well because it comes from Argentinian beef.
But somehow, McDonald's has managed to keep the standard of blandness down there as well, even with good beef.
But I didn't get sick from it like I usually do.
Yeah, it wasn't the usual sickness that follows 40 minutes after you eat that, but it definitely was not good.
And do you remember that experience I had on the checkout line?
You know, Chris told me to just take the plunge and order in Spanish, and I said, okay, what could possibly go wrong?
And so I ordered...
What was it?
Super Combo Numero Uno.
Remember that.
Super Combo Numero Uno.
And they said that to me, and I nodded, and they said it again, and I nodded.
And before I knew it, I had ordered two of them, and I didn't want two of them.
And it just kept mounting up, and before long, I would have bought the entire store.
So fortunately, you stepped in, and everything turned out happily.
Um, music.
Music is incredible.
Um, there's all kinds of different...
What was that band that sound like the Rolling Stones?
What's their name?
Um, let's see.
I can tell you that right now, because I happen to have a CD by them.
Uh, no, it's not Nirvana.
That's somebody else.
Let's see.
The band that sounds just like the Rolling Stones, Ratonis Paranoikos.
The Paranoid Rats.
The Paranoid Rats, apparently.
Or mice, actually.
Paranoid mice.
Paranoid rodents of some sort.
Um, and they have the same producer as the Rolling Stones.
So, consequently...
To account for them sounding a lot like the Rolling Stones.
They sound a lot like the Rolling Stones.
But there's a band I like to play, just one song, that's got a kick-ass video, too,
by Los Fabulosos Cadillacs.
And they're kind of like a ska band.
Oh, yeah.
Picture a mix between...
That was a great video.
That was a great video.
Picture a mix between The Clash and Madness, and that's kind of what you have here.
Except, of course, they sing in Spanish.
Should we mention that MTV was good down there?
MTV is different.
It's MTV South America.
It's good.
And it seems better because they play things from around the world.
They play things in Spanish, and they play things in English.
Now, I'd like to know...
And they don't play commercials.
And they don't play commercials.
I'd like to know how to get the stuff that's in Spanish up here.
Because once you watch it a couple of times...
I know we're all, you know, xenophobic, and we don't want to hear anything outside of our native tongue.
But once you do a few times, it really sticks with you.
Totally.
Yeah.
If you listen to something a few times, it'll stay with you.
So if you're taping this, listen to this a few times.
We think you'll be surprised.
Hey, hey!
Hey, hey!
Matador, matador
¿Dónde estás, matador?
Matador, matador
No te vayas, matador
Matador...
Guarriela
Matador, matador
Outro Music
Mejor, que suena, son malas, me alcanzan, me atrapan, resisten, victor, para, no callan.
Matador, matador, matador se están muriendo, matador, matador se están matando.
Matador, matador, matador, valiente matador.
Matador, matador de los cien barrios, porque en el no tengo por qué tener miedo mis palabras, son balas, balas de paz, balas de justicia.
Son la voz de los que hicieron, callar sin razón, por un solo hecho de pensar distinto, adiós.
Santa María de los Buenos Aires, si todo estuviera mejor.
Marador, Marador, si todo estuviera mejor.
Marador, Marador, ¿a dónde vas, Marador?
Marador, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh.
Oh, yeah, Marador, Marador.
Hey, hey!
Hey, hey!
And that's one of the sounds coming out of Buenos Aires.
Los Fabulosos Cadillacs.
I imagine that translates to the fabulous Cadillacs.
So you think I'm taking a wild stab there, Chris?
I think that's right.
You think that's right?
Okay.
That sounds right.
Okay, and that's available on Colombia.
I don't know if it's available on Colombia up here, though, but there is a video for it,
and it's being played on MTV South America all the time.
Marador mentioned that he's heard that before.
You've heard this before?
Yeah, I think I heard it.
I think I saw the video or something on one of the Spanish channels in New York.
So they show videos on that?
Yeah, I remember hearing this somewhere.
Wow.
I'm looking at the photos.
You're looking at the photos over there.
Okay, well.
We just found the one of you next to the thing that we couldn't figure out what it did.
I thought that that photo was destroyed, but we'll talk about that later.
Okay, so maybe you can catch international videos on some of the Spanish stations,
but it would be nice if you found them on MTV as well.
MTV South America, by the way, can be gotten in Miami.
I know they're fed over there as well, but I don't know how to get it up here.
Very interesting.
So that's Los Fabulosos Cadillacs.
And they're kind of a ska band.
They play all kinds of weird stuff as well.
So that's what's going on in Argentina.
Computer hackers, ska music, and Rolling Stone soundalikes.
But we have other things to cover tonight, including they've come.
They have arrived.
And judging by the sound of these things, there's more than one of them.
That's right.
I'm talking about the House of Windsor collection catalogs, which we ordered on the air a few weeks ago.
This is the phone number that tells you the address of the phone that you are entering into it.
And last I checked, that phone number is still in existence.
For those of you that missed it two weeks ago, we revealed something rather interesting.
That if you call a particular 800 number and key in a phone number, whether it's listed or not, whether it's a business or not,
odds are that it will tell you the address that is listed for that phone number.
The number is 1-800-433-3210.
And it's run by the House of Windsor.
And they get their information from an AT&T service known as Infoworks.
And what we did was we entered a test number to see just what would happen, what it would be sent to, what name would show up.
Unfortunately, no name showed up.
It showed up as current resident with the address.
However, it came with some coding as well.
Actually, we received five of these things.
They're all glossy and slippery and all that.
Apparently, every time you enter a number, even if you don't confirm that the number is correct, it sends a catalog.
So, I can only imagine all the catalogs that are being sent out to various test numbers.
At the very top of the address, it's printed out on .matrix, it looks like, directly onto the magazine.
Key code equals BF192L.
It says that on every one of them.
On the very top, it also says,
All for AADC.
Don't know what that means.
All for 1 and all for AADC.
And then, this is the thing that changes.
There are a series of three digits, or three series of numbers, one on top of the other.
The first series of numbers is 01.
And then the second series of numbers is the one that changes.
And that's a six-digit number.
The ones we have are 000113, 000114, 000115, etc.
It goes up by one for each catalog we got.
And then, at the very bottom, 0001.
That appears for all of them.
So, that doesn't really tell us a whole lot, but it does tell us that the catalogs do go out if you call that number.
So, be careful if you're calling it and expecting the person that you're checking not to get something.
They will.
Maybe if you deny it and say that the number is incorrect, if you go through the extra trouble of saying that the address is not proper, the catalog won't get sent.
But that's not the important thing.
The important thing is the fact that this number exists, and it's giving out private information, and nobody said they could do that.
We'll find out more about this, and when we do, we'll certainly pass it along.
One thing that we did hear from someone through the net, I believe, is that it appears to give the billing address and not the actual address.
For instance, if you have a phone listed and it's billed to a number someplace else, the address of where it gets billed to is what will show up when you call that.
Very interesting.
Okay.
Shall we see if it's still connected?
Let's try.
We'll try this every week until the thing goes away.
Oh, it's still there.
If you would like to request a free copy of our catalog, please press 1 now.
If you would like to place an order, please enter the telephone number, including area code, of the household to which you would like your catalog sent.
Well, I think we'll try BAI again.
Although I don't think it's listed.
You have entered 2-1-2-2-7-9-3-4-0-0.
If this is correct, press 1.
Sometimes it takes a while.
It's looking something up someplace.
And you can bet when you call and enter that particular number, it does not give out their address.
However, we will when we get the address.
That's the latest on that.
Now, if you want to hear the latest rip-off that's going on, you need look no further than your TV set.
There is now a service being offered all over primetime networks called 1-800-CALL-INFO.
Has anybody seen this one?
Yeah.
They peddle this thing by, first of all, giving you misinformation.
They say that if you need to find out an area code, it can cost you money.
That's right.
You need to make three different phone calls to find out someone's phone number.
You need to, first of all, call to get the area code.
Then you have to call to get the number for information.
Then you have to call to get the number of period.
I mean, let's face it, long-distance information is a rip-off, no question about it.
But you don't have to call anybody except your operator to find out what a long-distance area code is.
So that's just false right there.
But then it gets even worse.
They give out this 800 number, 1-800-CALL-INFO, and they say only 75 cents a call.
And you're looking at this thing, and you're pinching yourself, saying,
well, how can an 800 number cost money?
And, of course, we've been through this before where there are certain rip-off organizations
that charge you when you call an 800 number.
But I don't understand how they're able to get away with this.
Now, this particular company, even though they're taking every precaution not to mention who it is,
this company is MCI.
Just like their 1-800, what is it, COLLECT service,
where they never mention the fact that it's MCI running 1-800-COLLECT.
But MCI is also running 1-800-CALL-INFO.
And they're being real sleazoids about this because they're charging people.
Let's try it now, see if they even bother to mention to us that they're going to charge us for this.
Although I have a feeling it's not going to work on these lines because BAI is smart
and does not allow certain things to be built to their phone numbers.
Let's see if this happens to go through.
Okay, we're going to call 1-800-CALL-INFO.
And we'll leave off the O.
We'll ask for the House of Windsor.
1-800-CALL-INFO, Director of Assistance, for only 75 cents.
How would you like to bill your call?
Can I bill it to this number?
No, sir.
The options that are open are we can do calling cards or credit cards and third-party billing.
I see.
Well, is it because of my line?
Our computer differentiates how we can bill out, how everything will be billed out.
Right now, the only two options that are going on the computer are third-party billing and calling cards.
You see, I'm calling from the office now, but if I were to call from my home later,
would I be able to bill it directly to my number?
Yes, sir.
You sure would.
I would.
Okay.
And what kind of things could I get for 75 cents?
Okay, sir.
Excuse me.
What we can do, we can look up two listings for you, or one listing and an international listing,
and plus we can also process the call for you at no extra charge.
So all this for 75 cents?
Yes, sir.
I see.
Now, when you say process the call, how long can I stay on for?
As long as you want.
You're just paying at your normal long-distance MCI rates.
MCI rates, I see.
Okay, and you're open 24 hours a day, I imagine?
Yes, sir.
Okay.
Well, thank you very much for your help.
Okay, sir.
Bye-bye.
Bye-bye, sir.
Wow.
An 800 number that charges you 75 cents each time you use it.
Well, they don't charge you when you call it.
No 800 number can do that, I don't think, although some have tried.
But if you don't have, I think it's collect call blocking on your line,
this thing will just bill right to you.
Now, I have not yet found a line that does this,
because all the lines that I use have collect call blocking on it.
But if you don't have collect call blocking and you call 1-800-CALL-INFO,
you may very well get charged 75 cents just for calling that.
I don't know how it's going to show up in the bill.
It's too early in the game to say that.
But, boy, these people at MCI, they're really pushing it here,
especially so quickly after the FCC moved to prevent this kind of thing
from happening in the first place.
800 numbers should not bill you.
It makes sense, doesn't it?
Well, we'll just have to keep updated on that.
All right, some good news.
We do have good news occasionally.
We find something that surprises us, that makes us happy.
Although I think this is the first time ever
that we've gotten one of these surprising nice things from, of all people, 9x.
That's right.
9x has come through with something absolutely amazing,
something that I'm raving about, something that I'm urging people to get,
and that is the service known as voice dialing
because it's just so much fun.
It really is.
Now, I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that I was trying to get this
and having all kinds of difficulty because we use a service known as IntelliDial.
IntelliDial is sort of like having a mini PBX in your home.
You can transfer calls to various places.
You can use two-digit intercom exchanges.
But the downside is that there's a lot of things that don't work,
like caller ID, call return, repeat calling.
And it apparently seemed that voice dialing was not working either,
the reason being that to activate voice dialing, you have to dial star 99.
Now, the problem is with IntelliDial, star 9 is a feature,
so there's no way for the system to know that you're trying to dial star 99 when it acts on star 9.
So that caused all kinds of confusion at 9x for weeks
until somebody was able to uncover some musty papers that said,
when IntelliDial is used, thou shalt dial star 79.
That's right.
So star 79 with IntelliDial will get you what star 99 gets for everybody else.
Amazing.
So the upshot is that we now have voice dialing,
and what we're about to hear is a demonstration of what voice dialing sounds like piece by piece.
First thing we're going to hear is the intro that you get when you first pick up your phone
and you have voice dialing on it with absolutely no numbers programmed.
You pick up your phone, you get a dial tone, and this is what you hear.
Your 9x voice dialing service is active.
To start using the service, dial 1199 or from a touchtone phone, star 99.
Okay, so if you dial star 79 or star 99 or whatever with no names in your particular directory,
you get this little congratulations message, which was very meaningful to me
because it was several weeks of trying to get this thing to work.
We will hear that, and we will hear what it's like to add a name.
And, of course, the first name that we add is this radio station.
We'll be adding the office line, which is 279-0707.
The after-hours switchboard we'll be picking up when we get through.
So let's hear what that sounds like.
By the way, I should point out that there's a little chirp on the dial tone when you have this service,
and the first time you use it, the chirp is followed by another dial tone
because you don't have any names entered.
So you're supposed to speak after you hear the chirp,
but if you don't have any names entered, you will continue to get a dial tone.
Congratulations.
Your 9X voice dialing service is active.
You have no names in your voice directory.
You may dial zero to hear brief getting started instructions
or follow the prompts to add names.
You will be asked two or more times to repeat the name you want to add.
Please say the name after the beep.
BAI.
Please repeat after the beep.
BAI.
Please dial the phone number for...
BAI.
You dialed 1-212-279-0707.
If that is correct, dial 1.
If that is not correct, dial 2.
Adding the name.
Please hold.
The name...
BAI.
...has been added to your directory.
You may hang up or...
To add another name, dial 1.
To erase a name, dial 2.
To review directory, dial 3.
Currently, you have 1 name.
Here are the names in your directory.
To quickly advance to the next name, dial 3.
BAI.
1-2-1-2-2-7-9-0-7-0-7.
End of directory.
You may hang up or...
To add a name, dial 1.
To erase a name, dial 2.
To review directory, dial 3.
Okay, you get the basic gist of it.
Now, what happens when you just pick up your phone and you don't do anything?
You know, you don't speak, you don't dial, you just pick up your phone.
This is what you hear when you have voice dialing.
Please say the name you are calling after the beep.
Thank you.
Goodbye.
Goodbye.
And you cannot speak over that dial tone.
That's a normal dial tone if you don't say anything.
Okay, so let's call up now.
Let's use this voice dialing.
And instead of saying BAI like we entered, let's call using a similar name.
That is WBAI.
Let's see if it recognizes that.
If you know your three-digit extension, enter it now.
You have reached WBAI 99.5 FM, non-commercial community radio in New York City.
And we go from one technological marvel to another.
Well, let's try saying an unfamiliar name.
In this particular case, we're going to say something that the system does not recognize.
However, in this particular case, the system gets confused and just sort of hangs.
Please say the name you are calling after the beep.
Radio station WBAI.
Please repeat after the beep.
Radio station WBAI.
Please speak.
Hello?
Well, that happens sometimes.
Let's try it one more time.
Radio station WBAI.
Please repeat after the beep.
Radio station WBAI.
We are sorry.
That name was not recognized.
You may want to review your directory to check if that exact name is there.
Thank you.
Goodbye.
And finally, we're going to add a similar sounding name.
We're going to add WBAI and the phone number here, 212-279-3400 as that particular number.
And then we're going to try saying WBAI, see if it dials BAI or WBAI, depending on which one it feels that we've said.
We're also going to try some variations on that.
Let's see what happens.
To add a name, dial 1.
You will be asked two or more times to repeat the name you want to add.
Please say the name after the beep.
WBAI.
Please repeat after the beep.
WBAI.
Please dial the phone number for WBAI.
You dialed 1-212-279-3400.
If that is correct, dial 1.
Adding the name.
Please hold.
The name WBAI.
Has been added to your directory.
You may hang up or, to add another name, dial 1.
To erase a name, dial 2.
To review directory, dial 3.
WBAI.
Dialing.
BAI.
WBAI.
Dialing.
WBAI.
Radio WBAI.
Dialing.
WBAI.
W.
Please repeat after the beep.
WBLF.
Dialing.
WBAI.
So, you see, it doesn't really differentiate very much between things.
It'll pick the most similar sounding name that you can input.
Now, what happens when you get 50 of these?
Because that's the amount that you can have.
I don't know.
I haven't put 50 in yet.
But, so far, it looks really, really impressive.
It can handle different voices, too.
Even though they say if you're dialing the same number with two different voices, you have to record it twice.
We had no trouble at all with different people dialing the same number.
It's a great system.
It really is.
And it's not expensive.
It costs about $5 a month to have 50 numbers, which is about what it costs to have call waiting.
I'm kind of surprised that 9X is offering this, and it's so well designed, too.
There are a couple other hidden features that they don't say with the menu prompt.
For instance, if you hit 1, of course, you can add a name.
If you hit 2, you can delete a name.
If you hit 3, you can hear your directory.
If you hit 4, it's not said on the menu.
If you hit 4, you can switch to Spanish from English.
And I think that's really cool.
You can have your phone pick up and start speaking Spanish at you.
Or anybody else that happens to pick up your phone and not do anything.
And all the prompts are in Spanish at that point.
That's a really, really good idea.
And if you hit 5, and this addressed something that concerned me, namely that anybody can pick up your phone, dial 3, and hear your directory of people that you call.
Well, if you dial 5, you can enter a password that will be asked for every time somebody dials star 99 or star 79, depending on if you have IntelliDial or not.
That is voice dialing.
It's brand new.
It's from 9X.
I don't think it's being offered anywhere else in the country.
And I think it's only being offered in the 516 area code right now.
But you can bet it's going to be everywhere soon.
And it's going to revolutionize the way we make phone calls.
No question about that.
You can put in commands as well, not just phone numbers.
For instance, you can say cancel call waiting and program that to be star 70.
So I can pick up my phone and say cancel call waiting and then say somebody's name and it'll dial.
You don't have to have a keypad on your phone anymore.
You can just have a phone lying there and people can only dial the numbers that you specify by speaking them.
It's not bad.
Not bad at all.
High marks for 9X on this one.
Okay, we're going to take some phone calls now.
212-279-3400.
We've heard a lot of things today.
Let's see if there's any other news out there, if anybody has comments or things to share.
By the way, the new issue of 2600 is out.
That's in the mail.
Should be on newsstands fairly soon.
Included in this particular issue, feature on Irish telephones, the $10 red box.
You know what that is, the old Hallmark thing.
Some items on Windows and net cash.
Some really interesting pictures and photos and things like that.
212-279-3400 is our phone number here.
Give us a call.
Good evening, you're on.
Yeah, Manuel, I wanted to tell you, you were talking about the 800 numbers tonight,
and one thing that's kind of interesting I thought you might enjoy is that William Sapphire,
the writer, has a column in the New York Times Sunday magazine called On Language.
Yes.
And he had an article a few weeks back about redundancies in language that are commonly used that were pet peeves of his.
And one of his was the phrase toll-free 800 number,
saying that you can just say it's a toll-free number or say it's an 800 number.
We all know that 800 number means toll-free number, but apparently he hasn't been paying much attention to the...
It doesn't sound like he has, no.
There are other toll-free numbers, not all 800 numbers, but there are other ways, like a 950, for instance, is toll-free.
Some 700 numbers are toll-free.
You can make almost any number toll-free.
If you call somebody to collect, that's toll-free.
Absolutely.
So I just thought I'd point that out to you.
Okay.
Thank you.
Thanks.
Of course, another way to be toll-free is not to call the person at all.
No tolls involved.
Good evening, you're on.
Hi, Emmanuel.
How are you?
Good.
I just don't know, did you get my article on ANI failures for the next 2600 issue?
I have not seen it myself.
It does not mean we didn't get it, though.
Okay.
I want to know, did you ever hear of a CCPAL phone?
It's a new type of call-capped phone.
What's it called?
It's called CCPAL.
It stands for Customer Coin Public Access Line.
And what does it do different?
It's a regular 9X phone, 9X housing.
It works like a 9X phone.
It has 9X operators.
It does, you know, it's 9X recordings asking you for money and everything.
But except, the people who own the phone, you see, the people who own the phone buy the phone.
The regular 9X phone.
And they get a bill.
It's like a pay phone, but it's like a regular phone, but it's not a call-capped.
I see.
There's one in Long Island City.
It's sort of hard to explain.
It's called Customer Coin Public Access Line.
They just came out with it about a year ago.
And who is it supposed to benefit?
I don't know.
I don't know.
You buy the phone, the actual phone, from a vendor.
And I found this out because I was reporting a phone, and they said it was a call-capped.
And I was trying to tell them that it was a 9X phone, but then they said something about it's a CC PAL phone.
And I asked what that was, and that's how I learned about it.
We have a question for you from Chris.
Uh-huh.
He just answered it.
Oh, okay.
Oh, okay.
Now, did you ever hear that you can spoof a an eye by, if you want to make a call, you know that, when you dial zero.
Right.
Have the local operator dial an 800 number, but you have to say you have operator privileges.
Uh-huh.
And then you can give her any number you want.
Right, even while you say operator privileges, you call an 800, like 1-800-CALL-ATT, or 1-800-CALL-INFO, and then they'll ask you the number you're calling from.
Then you can see any number you want.
But if you say the number that doesn't exist, it will not go on the bill.
I've tried this.
You've tried this, and you've checked it out, huh?
Yeah.
I see.
Number 7, like 890, if I say I'm calling from 212-890 or something, it will not go on the bill because 890 is just not a billable number.
So you're saying people can bill this 1-800-CALL-INFO to virtually any number by doing that?
Yeah, but if you go to your calling card, yeah.
And also, you can spread the billing by saying that you're...
Oh, self-serve CNA.
You can get the number of somebody's name, and the name is from a number, by calling AT&T and saying that you're a business,
and that you want to know where a number came from.
Because AT&T does not get the bill for business customers when you call 1-800-222-0400.
Could you stop whispering, please?
Can you hear me?
You're talking very, very quietly as if you're trying not to be heard.
Okay, call 1-800-222-0400.
That's AT&T's business office.
Okay.
Is this customer?
Say that you're a business, you have to know the name and the phone number,
and say that you don't recognize a call on your bill.
They do not have a record of your bill because the local phone company 9X doesn't send it to them.
So you can just say, they have to trust you that you have to give them the number, and they look it up for you.
They will not give you an address, but they'll give you the name of that.
Well, now wait a minute.
First of all, if it's a long-distance call, why wouldn't they have their own bill?
Because the local phone company does not give them the bill.
Like when you make an AT&T call, and it goes on your local phone bill?
Well, if you make an AT&T call, how can that go on your local phone bill?
When you make an AT&T call...
It goes on your AT&T bill.
Oh, but with 9X.
Yeah, it shows up on your 9X bill, but AT&T has a copy of it.
Right, but AT&T does not have a computer record.
9X doesn't...
The local phone company does not send...
Some local phone companies do not send a copy of the AT&T portion of the bill to AT&T.
Yeah, but obviously AT&T already has it, or they wouldn't have sent it to 9X.
I don't know.
How could AT&T not have a copy of their own bill?
I don't know.
Call 1-800-222-0300, which is their 24-hour residence bill office, and ask them if they
get a copy of the bill, which they do, but ask them about business.
Okay.
So what you're implying is that you can give the people at 0400 any number...
And they'll just give you a name.
Well, I'm sure a lot of us will try that, but I kind of have my doubts that it's that
easy to get it to work.
Well, I've done a lot of social engineering with that, and I found it to work pretty good.
Uh-huh.
Okay, we'll give it a shot.
Okay.
Thanks for the call.
Nothing like fresh ideas to work with.
Good evening.
Hi, Emmanuel.
Yes, go ahead.
I wanted to make a comment on the voice dialing.
One of the best features that you didn't mention is that New York Televote is giving that away
free for one month for voice dialing.
Actually, if you order before December, mid-December, I believe, they waived the installation fee.
Not just the installation fee.
See, they were actually giving it free for a month.
I just got that offer in the mail.
There's no service charge either for a month.
Okay, that's not bad.
Yeah, very good.
And also, I'm in the 718 area code, so it is outside 516.
It's in 718 as well?
Right.
Okay, great.
And one of the things that you mentioned about programming a command, if you want, you can
also program star 99, which makes the whole process automatic.
You know, you use the word directory or voice dialing, and then the whole thing becomes automatic.
That's right.
You just say whatever.
I mean, you can use any word you want.
You say, you know, program, and it'll dial star 99 for you.
Right.
You don't have to do that.
You can dial star 69, and you can just say call back, and it'll automatically dial star 69
when you say that.
Right.
And it's good that it verifies, too.
It tells you who you're calling before you actually call them.
Yep.
And it does go through very fast once it does say that.
Yes, and I agree with you.
It's a lot of fun.
It doesn't seem to be as fast as having a programmable phone.
Uh-huh.
Some pauses, but it's a hell of a lot of fun.
Look at this.
I'm looking at my pamphlet for voice dialing, and there's an address label, but this address
label is stuck.
It's got my name on it, but it's got someone else's name underneath it directly on the piece
of paper.
Look at that.
Somebody in Flushing.
How about that?
They actually stuck a label over someone else's.
That's incredible.
Maybe they didn't want it.
I guess not.
Weird.
Yeah, so I definitely recommend this service.
You get 30 numbers.
It costs $4.50 a month.
50 numbers cost $5.50 a month.
Since it was free, needless to say, I took the expensive one.
Uh-huh.
And you've been using it?
I've been using it.
It's a lot of fun.
I don't know whether I'm going to keep it after the month is up when it starts costing
money, but it is a lot of fun.
Yeah.
Well, it's more fun than call waiting, for instance.
Yes, yes.
There's only so much you can do with that.
Right.
Okay.
Well, good luck with it.
Okay.
So long.
Take care.
Well, we have not heard from Mark yet.
I'm not quite sure if he's out of money with his phone fund.
Walter, you've heard from him recently, haven't you?
Well, yeah.
I talked to him either yesterday or the day before.
He said he was out of money for that period, but he implied that he would have money to call
today, actually.
Uh-huh.
I don't know why he hasn't called.
Oh, he's got about 10 minutes to get through, and we have a line waiting for him.
He'll be out in four weeks?
November 22nd.
November 22nd.
So what's today's date?
Today's the 19th?
All right.
So it's getting there.
So about four weeks, and of course, his first show will be four weeks from today, I guess,
which will be the 23rd of November.
We're going to have a big celebration up here, and we'll give people details on that as it
gets closer.
Okay.
Let's take another phone call.
Good evening.
You're on.
Uh, yeah.
I've got a quick question for you guys.
Go ahead.
Uh, how does one get unlisted telephone numbers?
I mean, how does one find out an unlisted phone number?
Right.
Uh, well, I mean, there's different tricks.
Uh, you know, obviously, certain people have phone numbers.
What you need to do, and I'm not advising doing this, but to get that, you need to somehow
convince one of the people or organizations that have this number that you're entitled to
get it.
For instance, um, a cable TV company, a newspaper, uh, the phone company itself.
A lot of it involves that.
Uh, there are computer databases, too, that would have that information, and if you have
access to those databases, you might be able to get it that way.
Okay.
The computer databases, how does one find access to those?
Uh, well, generally, you know, you need legitimate access to such databases, um, as,
as credit files, um, a tenant database, for instance, uh, different things.
Things like that.
Uh, a lot of private investigators are able to get that information, and not all of it
is, is legal the way they get it.
Um, the fact of the matter is, an unlisted phone number is, is very hard to keep secret.
You know, it, it, it does get out somehow.
You just have to be very careful whenever you're giving out your phone number to anybody.
Uh, for instance, you go to Radio Shack, and they ask for your phone number.
Well, bingo, Radio Shack now has your phone number, and who knows who else they're going
to give it to?
Um, that's, you know, depending on how, how many pains the person has taken to keep the
number secret, it's, that's, that'll directly correlate to how hard it is for you to get
that number.
Oh, okay.
Pretty cool.
Thanks a lot.
Okay.
Although, even if you are trying to stay hidden and, uh, and not be found, there's no ways
to do it.
Good evening.
You're on.
Yes, uh, you were mentioning about the, uh, voice dialing, uh, you can get a phone
at Radio Shack, which does the same thing, and you don't have to pay rent forever to the
phone company.
Well, okay, I, I, you know, in all fairness, I haven't tested the one at Radio Shack, but
having those two words attached to it, I don't know, I, I just don't know how, how good it
could possibly be.
Uh, first of all, it's got to physically dial the numbers, so that's going to take longer.
You say a name, and then it has to punch out the numbers, right?
Something like that, I guess.
I didn't buy it.
Yeah, so right away, it's going to take longer.
I have on my phone the push buttons, which dial my, uh, numbers anyhow.
Uh-huh.
True.
In this particular case, though, you'll note you didn't hear any dialing.
You just say the name, and, and whammo, it says, if you dialed it yourself.
You see, that's what's so neat about it, is the fact that it's tied directly into the
network.
Oh.
Well, I can wait to seven seconds.
It doesn't matter.
Yeah.
Oh, that's true.
I mean, if you can wait seven seconds, and, and, you know, it doesn't excite you that much,
yeah, don't, don't get it, but, uh, but it's, it's just something different.
A positive step, I think.
Yeah, I just wanted to mention that, you know, that.
Uh-huh.
How much is that phone at Radio Shack?
That you wouldn't have to go renting it forever from the phone company.
How much does that phone cost?
I think about $130.
Uh-huh.
It'll pay for itself over two years.
Yeah, I, I, I guess, um.
Compared to what the phone company charges.
And, and how, how many numbers can it store?
I don't recall how many numbers it can store, but, uh, I saw it, that's why I called up to
mention that.
Okay.
Well, thanks for passing it along.
If anyone has used those phones, please let us know how they are.
Okay.
Thanks for calling.
Bye-bye.
Well, there's always, uh, a Radio Shack option somewhere, I guess.
Good evening, you're on.
Ah, Manuel, been trying to reach you for the longest.
Well, then.
You didn't think of, uh, putting the House of Windsor, Windsor's number through its own
system, I see.
Oh, no, we've done that.
Believe me.
And you've got Live Oak Cove, Memphis?
Uh, we, we never got an address.
Oh, I got one.
You got an address.
It came out as 6164 Live Oak Cove, Memphis, Tennessee, 38115.
That's the 901-362-3770 number.
Yeah.
Uh, I tried it just as you were, uh, we're dialing them half an hour ago.
Really?
Okay, because that did not work, uh, a couple of weeks ago when we first, uh, found this
thing.
Interesting.
So something's changing.
Something, something gets, uh, updated occasionally.
Uh, apparently so.
Uh, a few other items.
Yes.
About that payphone that, uh, I think it was Rebel that was discussing.
Uh, many years ago in my fraternity, we had to pay for a payphone that was in the
house.
Uh, it was treated like a normal phone, except that when calling out, you had to treat it
like a payphone and pump coins into it.
It's, it's what's called a semi-private payphone, I think.
Yeah, that's what it sounded like.
Mm-hmm.
Uh, I've also come across a couple of interesting, uh, hardware things.
Uh, a machine that will, uh, if you dial it up, call you back and give you a dial tone,
which should be of interest to hackers anywhere, and I will post, uh, that to all 2600.
I stole it off some other news group.
Okay.
Uh, and, uh, there have been a lot of posts about track three reader writers.
Okay, and track three reader writers, I imagine, um, can be, can be used with the Metro cards.
Uh, I imagine so, too.
I have a message for you from Red Balaclava, who's been having a lot of trouble, uh, with
his, uh, uh, account at a bulletin board that shall be nameless.
Okay.
Uh, early in September, uh, according to him, his supervisor came to him and said that
they arrested a railroad clerk for, uh, selling counterfeit Metro cards.
It seems that there's a way, using the computer that's in the booth, to make, uh, a Metro card
that, when swiped in the reader, will show it has X amounts of dollars on it, but it's
not recorded in the token booth computer, so the clerk isn't responsible for this amount
of money, nor is this, uh, sent downtown, uh, to Brooklyn, to the Transit Authority's computer
there, to say, hey, here's a valid card, and it has this much money.
So what would happen is the passenger would take the card from the clerk, swipe it just
to make sure he'd find it has X amounts of dollars, go over to the turnstile, it would
deduct one fare.
Uh, eventually, within seconds or minutes, I presume, this would, uh, be sent.
To the computer at J Street, and the computer at J Street would say, hey, wait a moment,
uh, although a buck twenty-five was just deducted from this card, I have no record of ever money
having been put on this card.
So the computer would tell all the local area computers, and the booth computers, and the
turnstile computers, if you see this card again, bring it down to zero, or treat it as
if it was zero.
Passenger would later on try to use the card, and discover there was no money on the card.
Really?
Really.
So it would work for one time?
Right, which of course shows the permanent flaw, which is just make up $1.25 cards.
Yeah, I guess, if that's cost-effective.
Uh, so far, Red Balaclava has not been able to, uh, uh, find out how this is done.
Uh-huh.
Okay, well, wish him or her the, uh, our best, and, um...
Oh, and have you seen the latest Wired with the article on the Hope Conference?
Oh, my God, what a piece of trash that was.
Yes, but luckily, he gives his email address for Flair.
Yes, he does, he does give his email address.
Uh, I guess, I guess I should, uh, I should, for the benefit of those people that don't
want to buy Wired, and I can certainly understand why, um, let's see, I'll try and sum up what
they say.
Well, he, he had a real grudge with me, apparently, apparently this guy, Charles Platt, is the
guy's name, um, you know, we gave him all these interviews and everything like that,
but he wanted, he wanted us to be with him all the time, to show him all around the
place, and, and I just didn't like the fact that, uh, you know, we were busy and had other
things to do, running a conference and running a magazine and all that kind of thing.
Um, let's see, there's, uh, he mentioned something about the actual Hope Conference.
Okay, here we go.
Uh, consequently, at the Hope Conference, almost every reporter seemed to be searching for
a hacker who would fit the classic media model of a devious, sinister, powerful figure.
This guy was no exception, either.
Uh, the journalists were asking, in effect, where's the crime, and none of them could
find any.
The conference was very bland, very laid back.
The attendees were totally non-threatening.
Even the seminars turned out to be rather lame, devoid of subversive content.
Well, I don't know what this guy expects.
I mean, we, we had seminars on, on how to defeat the MetroCard, on, on social engineering,
on all kinds of topics that, that, that take 20 minutes to list.
And, uh, it was bland.
It was lame.
Okay, fine.
If that's, if that's how you want to look at it.
But, um, you know, I don't really see reason for, for personal attacks and things like that.
And that's what this guy resorted to.
It was weird.
You know, when, when, when he contacted us, he kept saying, you know, I can get you all
this publicity, all this free publicity and wired.
And it just seems so sleazy to be, uh, to be trying to get us to talk to him so that
we'd get free publicity.
And, um, if there's a reason why people avoided it, maybe, maybe that was it.
Possible.
It might also have been the strange getup he was in most of the time.
I don't remember specifically what he was, what he was in, but.
That is the guy with the, uh, the, the, the, the, the mounted on the head screen and
the, uh, the gloves that act as keyboards.
Uh, no, no, no, no, no, no.
That was a different, that was a different plat.
That, that guy was, no, he wasn't, he wasn't the writer or, or I'm putting writer in quotes.
You can't see them on the radio, but, uh, no, that, that was, that was a participant.
That wasn't someone doing this.
Oh, I thought they were the same guy for some reason.
No, no, no.
That was, uh, I forget what his name was, but this, this is Charles Platt, the, uh, so-called
fiction writer.
Um, I don't know.
This is, uh, it's just weird when you, when you see something like that.
Um, I mean, basically, I'll give you one more example.
Then we have to go because we're, we're out of time here.
They, they talk about the name, or he talks about the name Emanuel Goldstein, right?
And apparently, um, he takes exception to the name.
Um, talking about me here, he implies that hacking is as harmless as ham radio, yet he names
himself after a character who was public enemy number one in the most famous totalitarian
scare novel of our time.
I mean, come on.
He doesn't get the joke.
He doesn't.
The, the, the Goldstein in 1984 is a fictional character created by the state, much like,
uh, hackers are, uh, put up by, by certain powers that be, uh, as, as a, a, a bogeyman
to scare people.
He doesn't.
An Aristotelian strong man for, for, uh, uh, uh, the powers that be to knock down rather
than go after, uh, real baddies.
Right.
He doesn't get it there, but he gets it later on in the article.
It's kind of weird.
I think he, he, he wrote it at different stages of his development or something.
But, uh, at, at, at the end, he, he, he, he acknowledges who Goldstein was in the novel
and, uh, I don't know.
And he, he, he, he goes crazy saying that, uh, that I use different names, you know, as
if that's some sort of a revelation, as if that's something I've, I've kept secret.
And I don't know.
Maybe he should work for Geraldo or something.
Although, I don't know.
We're out of time.
I wish we could talk about this longer.
Maybe next week we'll, we'll have a chance to.
Okay.
So, uh, thanks for calling.
Bye.
Take care.
And we are out of time.
In fact, we are late.
So, uh, we're going to get out of here and we'll be back again next week.
Too bad we didn't hear from Fiber Optic this week.
Maybe we'll hear from him next week.
Let's keep our fingers crossed.
Good night.
We'll be right back.
We'll be right back.
Good evening.
In the news tonight, has the FCC overstepped its bounds in its effort to keep offensive language off the air?
An international council finds racism alive and well in the United States, even though it violates international law.
And in New York, registered nurses picket the Health and Hospitals Corporation, while a group of women files a sex discrimination lawsuit against the Transit Authority.
With these and other stories, I'm Jose Santiago in New York with Verna Avery Brown in Washington.
And this is the news for Wednesday, October 19, 1994.
First to Washington for the Pacifica National News.
In Tel Aviv, a bomb blast aboard a bus has killed 22 people and injured dozens more.
The explosion threatens to disrupt Israeli peace talks with the Palestinians.
Peretz Kidron has the story from Jerusalem.
The blast littered at Tel Aviv Avenue with corpses and body parts.
One of the worst attacks ever, it was the work of a suicide bomber from the Islamic Hamas in response to Monday's Jordan-Israel peace agreement.
It was the third time in 10 days that Hamas struck at Israel's heartland, and it's caused shock and fury here.
The authorities immediately sealed off the West Bank and Gaza Strip, forcing tens of thousands of Palestinians from their jobs in Israel.
Yasser Arafat hastened to condemn the bombing, blaming enemies of peace and offering Palestinian assistance in finding the perpetrators.
Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin cut short a visit to Britain, returning home amidst right-wing cause to halt peace talks
and renew direct Israeli control of the Palestinian self-rule areas.
As Palestinians there and in the occupied territories braced for possible reprisals,
Israeli military and civilian officials hinted at new ways of dealing with a terrorist wave.
Just two days after the agreement with Jordan, the peace process faces its worst crisis ever.
For Pacifica Network News, this is Peretz Kidron in Jerusalem.
President Clinton has condemned the attack, calling the bombing an outrage against the conscience of the world.
State Department spokesperson Mike McCurry says because there's been greater momentum towards peace in the Middle East,
there have been more violent incidents.
These are acts of desperation by people who see that the citizens of this region want peace and desire peace and are making peace.
President Clinton still plans to attend next week's signing of the Israeli-Jordanian peace treaty.
Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide today called for reforming his nation's judicial system to stop the violence and begin reconciliation.
Today's L.A. Times reports, Aristide's first choice for prime minister, a wealthy businessman, Smart Michel, has turned down the offer.
Aristide's second choice for the prime minister, says the L.A. Times, is Claudette Verlay, a social activist.
Later this month, the U.S. plans to introduce a U.N. resolution calling for lifting the arms embargo on Bosnia within six months.
State Department spokesperson Mike McCurry.
As the contact group itself has so stated, and each and every member of the contact group has indicated,
we believe that lifting the arms embargo is a last resort that could be unavoidable.
And as you know from President Iza Biegovich's desire to delay the lift for a period of six months,
it might become unavoidable sometime next spring.
White House Press Secretary D.D. Myers today told reporters,
If U.S. efforts at the United Nations fail, then the U.S. might act on its own and unilaterally lift the Bosnian arms embargo.
The U.S. trade deficit shrunk by 12.9 percent in August.
That lowers the imbalance to $9.74 billion.
The Commerce Department reports U.S. exports were at an all-time high,
credited to jumps in selling commercial aircraft, industrial machinery, computer chips, and cigarettes.
Although the overall U.S. trade imbalance lessened, that wasn't the case for trade with Japan.
Imports from Japan reached an all-time high, mainly due to increased sales of Japanese cars.
And those are the stories topping the news.
Haitian President Jean-Betron Aristide held his first news conference today since his return to Haiti.
He refused to divulge his pick for prime minister and continued his theme of reconciliation.
Pacifica's Amy Goodman reports from Port-au-Prince.
The cameras and journalists packed the National Palace this morning after strict security checks that included bomb-sniffing dogs.
President Aristide walked in, accompanied by his ministers of Interior, Information, and Defense.
Speaking in Creole, French, Spanish, and English, he laid out the government's immediate plans for thousands more teachers,
decreasing the price of gas, and working with international monetary institutions.
On the issue of violence, he strongly suggested the main problem is not the unarmed masses.
We can see that looting is done by those that are armed, that they're able to go in and break down the doors,
and they're big trucks that take away the things that are stolen.
Third, this is trying to discredit the reconciliation and democracy that's happening moving forward.
Fourth, this week, they were trying to encourage violence against parliamentarians,
in order also to discredit the good work that's begun.
As to the big question, who will be prime minister, Aristide played with reporters.
There are many people that think it will be a woman.
It's not impossible.
Comments like these have led many to speculate it will be Claudette Worley, the Minister of Foreign Affairs.
Before her current position, she was head of ITECA, a woman's development group.
Others are suggesting it is Michelle Smart, the Minister of Commerce under the first Aristide government.
He is from the private small business sector.
When it came to the journalists' questions, Aristide paused and asked the Haitian journalists not to ask questions,
saying there would be time in the future after foreign journalists leave the country.
This caused at least one angry Haitian reporter to walk out.
It is not clear when another Aristide news conference will be held.
What is clear is that the U.S. Embassy and military hold news conferences every day
and have become the main source of information even since President Aristide's return.
At today's embassy briefing, U.S. Army spokesperson Barry Wiley said
there are currently 40 Haitian detainees in U.S. military headquarters
and revealed the existence of a database the military is using.
We check our database.
We determine whether in our information they have committed a serious crime
or a long-term threat to the U.S. for multinational forces.
If they aren't, we release them.
I do not know who's on the database, and that's not the kind of information that we would release.
If the U.S. military is arresting those who are a threat to U.S. forces,
activists are concerned about just who the military will be targeting.
If it's a list of known attachés, why haven't they been arrested, they ask.
Or is it the database gathered by U.S. immigration of the 60,000 Haitians who applied for political asylum?
Activists have long feared if there was a U.S. occupation, this would be used against them.
For Pacifica Network News, I'm Amy Goodman in Port-au-Prince.
For Pacifica Network News, I'm Amy Goodman in Port-au-Prince.
To beLab Master of Michigan, I'm Amy Goodman in Port-au-Prince.
Can the Federal Communications Commission ban indecent programming
on the nation's airwaves between 6 a.m. and midnight?
That was the question before the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C.
Today's hearing found poet Allen Ginsberg out on the steps of the courthouse.
Pacifica's Don Rush was there.
I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness,
starving, hysterical, naked, dragging themselves...
It was an odd sight, the television cameras zooming in on Allen Ginsberg
as he read his poem Howl outside the federal courthouse.
Inside, the U.S. Appellate Court was hearing arguments
of whether such literature could be heard on the air without restriction.
And the object of Ginsberg's ire was the Federal Communications Commission.
A poem like this could do a lot of good for younger people,
exactly the younger people who are being banned from hearing it.
The excuse for this censorship is to protect the ears of minors
from so-called indecent speech.
And James Coelho of the FCC has pointed out that my poetry is indecent.
The Pacifica Foundation challenged the ban
after it decided it could not accept broadcasting Ginsberg's poem
during the so-called midnight to 6 a.m. safe harbor.
The FCC is now arguing that the ban is designed to shield children from harmful speech.
Their lawyers said today that the object is to assist parents in supervising their children.
They argue that this is done by allowing indecent speech during the late-night hours
when children are not likely to be in the audience.
But attorney Eric Lieberman with the National Emergency Civil Liberties Foundation
argued this ban still impinged on the free speech of adults.
The present safe harbor period, which is midnight to 6 a.m.,
is equivalent to virtually none at all
because who is up to watch programming between 12 midnight and 6 a.m.?
A minute portion of the population, the insomniacs,
the people who have work schedules which are different from 90 percent of the people in the country, or whatever.
Even members of the appellate court found that the FCC seemed to be taking choice away from the parents
who might want their children to see such material.
The FCC lawyers countered that the state had a compelling interest to shield children from such speech
because it is harmful.
But Chief Judge Harry Edwards shot back
that there was no evidence that indecent speech was harmful.
Attorney Eric Lieberman noted that, ironically,
some of this material is hardly out of the reach of children.
Some of this material, which is so-called indecent,
is taught in the high schools of this country
and in the colleges of this country.
You're talking here about kids who are 15, 16, 17 years old
who are assigned the works of John Steinbeck and Allen Ginsberg and James Joyce,
and yet they're not supposed to hear it on radio or television.
The chilling effect of such anxiety over what is indecent and what is not
often strikes at the fundamental programming decisions.
Pacifica attorney John Kriegler remembers pouring over words used
in John Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath to be read on the air during Thanksgiving.
Can words like suckle be used?
The famous, there's a great conclusion of the novel in which a woman suckles a dying man.
And that became a real question as to words like that could actually be used.
The current battle over so-called indecent speech is a long one for the Pacifica Foundation,
but it is not confined to broadcasting.
David Salinker is former executive director of the Pacifica Foundation.
He sees it in a much larger context.
This case was the precursor of cases involving indecency prohibitions in art.
It led to the discussions in ultimately banning in local jurisdictions of indecent books in libraries,
on school shelves.
I think it's part of a broad-based movement.
It's a major cultural battle.
Holy forgiveness.
And so it was that Allen Ginsberg found himself reading his poem
before the microphones and cameras of media
who are restricted by the FCC on how it is to be aired.
Magnanimity.
Holy the supernatural, extra, brilliant, intelligent kindness of the soul.
Don Rush, Pacifica Network News, Washington.
Racism is not only alive and thriving in America,
it's institutionalized to the point where it's in violation of international human rights laws.
Those are the findings of a team of nine religious leaders
with the World Council of Churches, or the WCC,
who spent the past ten days listening to testimony in cities around the U.S.
Indigenous peoples, African Americans, Latino, and Asian people
all testified before hearings in Harlem, Oakland, San Francisco, Chicago, Birmingham, Washington, D.C.,
El Paso, Texas, and Oklahoma.
According to the WCC,
what emerged from the hearings was a pattern of racist practices
in practically every aspect of American life.
Housing, employment, education, health, criminal justice, police brutality, and immigration policies.
A South African journalist on the team, Donald Woods,
whose life was the basis for the movie Cry Freedom,
had high moral expectations for the U.S.
until he visited El Paso, Texas, and Oklahoma.
I've been coming to the United States now since 1978,
several times a year,
lecturing all over the place on apartheid.
Been in all 50 states, many of them, many times,
and I really feel I've got to know this country.
But over the past two weeks,
I saw further evidences of an underside of it
that I really did not know to that extent.
And what was particularly powerful to me
was the shock I felt at the extent of hurt
noticed particularly among elements
of people of color in this country
who testified before us.
To me, the most striking was the indigenous Americans,
the American Indians, so-called by many.
The number of witnesses who literally ended up in tears
when they told us of their experiences.
The sense of deprivation historically,
going back not only hundreds of years,
but over those years,
the sense of having been alienated from their land,
from the customs, from their traditions,
and the sense that no one's listening to them.
This is what struck me most forcibly.
People of Puerto Rico as well felt this very strongly.
Black Americans, people, Latino people,
and if I had a minute to speak to all,
you know, mainstream white Americans,
I'd say please start listening more carefully to these people.
There's a lot to be heard there,
and there's a lot to be done,
an awful lot to be done.
South African journalist Donald Woods.
Another member of the team,
a human rights lawyer from Malaysia,
Mohadeen Abdul-Kadir,
was shocked by the racist practices
against African-American youth
in the criminal justice system.
I have read about racism in this country.
We have followed the struggle
during the civil rights movement,
and I was under the impression
that the civil rights movement
would have ended in the elimination,
or at least in a great reduction
of racism in this country.
But I went to New York,
Oakland, and Washington,
and we listened to hundreds of people.
We listened to the blacks.
We listened to the Indians.
We listened to Asians.
And there was a continuous stream
of reports
showing how
they are being discriminated as a group,
not just as an individual.
I was very much struck
by the criminalization
of youth
from the colored community
in this country.
And I was astounded
to hear that
there are over a million
people
who have been imprisoned,
and many of them
did not even get
proper
legal
representation
before they were convicted
because they were poor.
we visited
one of the prisons
and I saw,
all of us saw
with our own eyes,
thousands of youth,
99% of them
black
and Hispanics,
imprisoned there,
youths
who could play
a meaningful role
in society,
youths
who probably
were
drawn to
drugs
and other forms
of
social crimes
as a result
of poverty
and other factors.
Moheddin Abdul-Kadir
of Malaysia.
The council found
police brutality
to be particularly
common among youth
of color.
But what singles