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And now it's just about 8 o'clock, 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 call.
It could be yet much worse.
But if they could, they would, but they'd be bombed for the best, it's meant for worse.
I hope that's understood, but they'd be bombed.
Keep wondering if they could, if they would, with emergency tasks.
Look at that.
You guys are wondering if you want me to win this whole room.
I'm curious.
I am asking if a copy of the commission is gonna don't win any job.
You can Shop aus atra.
No communities love expansion.
If you wanna ask them to my family should be a patron or irrisarse.
That doesn't mean anything.
Give us a couple of people to find out your family should be best for you.
and a very good evening to everybody this is off the hook manuel goldstein with you this
uh fine tuesday night let's start off with some folk music
one two three and i come with your red back staff
of course you know i'm getting paid by the mile i hate this i pay this i sing this everybody smiles
and i'm patient see i rob banks i pull pranks sometimes i eat franks and conditions
best wishes i'm vicious but here we're ever getting like cnn believe in these
sticks stick them up
it's the funnel of a criminal
stick them up
and i never let the cops get wind of me and i never never never say die i never take myself too
seriously
seriously
cause everybody knows fat birds don't fly
stick them up
it's the fun-loving criminal
things with the greens murder on your spleen
living in a dream do you know what i mean
do you know what i mean
smart like john steed i steal your girlie and i steal your way
i see you
i got sports flavor that i always leave it you and i got so many styles
you'll be thinking of from the u.s broken to the white house and if i got a card
law and i've been there all drunk if i was an astronaut
i got more friends than my man
we always fun-loving so don't start bugging if your girl it goes up
it's us kiss kiss kissing and hugging
stick them up
it's the funnel of a criminal
stick them up
it's the fun-loving criminal
stick them up
it's the fun-loving criminal
stick them up
it's the fun-loving criminal
and that's music from the fun-loving criminals
the uh i guess the title track from their cd
come find yourself
you know you don't hear that they have a video out but you don't see it on mtv
you know you see it on that other much music thing from canada because i guess they're not as corporate or something
but uh it's a really cool video if you ever managed to somehow catch it
uh for a different song actually but they're right right from new york actually some some local people
fun-loving criminals they do like the flc thing the subway
things i think that's kind of cool anyway uh the program is off the hook we're a bunch of fun-loving criminals here as uh
as i guess the the feds like to describe us uh and we have uh some special features tonight including something which came from a milwaukee paper sort of
sort of um i guess a change in in tone from our usual uh serious uh nature of the of the program this is
kind of a happy story the title of the article uh which comes from the milwaukee journal sentinel
um i guess they merged a couple of papers back then
um salesman has a code in his head
yes salesman has a code in his head it's a great title
um if you want to know the area codes for
escanaba michigan altoona pennsylvania or waxes waxahatchee texas
you could call information or you could call mike yuhas
escanaba 906 altoona 814 and waxahatchee 214
yuhas knows it's strange and admits it's not a real hobby but
all the same he can't help knowing area codes i'm on the phone a lot he said shrugging a series of
sales jobs including his current post at comeback publishing in brookfield has encouraged his kinship
with phones but that unplanned kinship has its roots in his college days in stony brook new york
which by the way is area code 516
yuhas had a radio show with a friend and for fun they used to pick up information operators in places
like rio and budapest we always looked for oscar's all-night kosher deli we never found one yuhas
said in the early 80s the call to an overseas operator was free and the opening line sometimes
led to a cultural exchange for new knowledge they discovered that asking the operator to connect them
to area code 706 would get them into mexico without dialing a country code and that you
couldn't call albania from the united states these days 706 will get you atlanta's suburbs which is
not part of mexico new house still does a radio show at wyms fm which is 88.9 for you milwaukee
listeners but it's folk music not overseas calls after college and somewhere between sales jobs all
those area codes he dialed started to stick the code trivia became a game and then finally a mania
and he can't stop talking area codes after that's after uh college and and all that kind of thing
what's what's nevada asked his stepdaughter uh 702 for the whole state he said well we happen to have
on the phone with us right now live from the milwaukee area uh mike yuhas mike is that you breathing
into the phone there yeah that would be me okay this is quite a story here yeah story yeah and um
well i i it's interesting that you have your roots here in new york as well and that you transplanted
yourself out to uh to milwaukee and i have to tell you it's quite an honor to be on wbai new york
there i said a legal id how about that's right you're you're certainly a radio person now i was
told and i'd like you to confirm this because i have no memory beyond two weeks ago that the person
that used to do this radio show back in the early 80s where you called up things like oscars all night
koshi delhi all around the world but that person was actually me is that was you it was me okay i i
had no way of verifying that i had no way of verifying because i i checked my records and my records
don't go back all that far and you know i'm always on the run somewhere trying to start a new life in
a different town that's because you're a fun-loving criminal that's what i am yes so now could you tell
us something about that radio show and and the kinds of things that uh that we would used to do
that well what do we call it we called it various things at various times but one of the titles of the
show was the the voice of long island and uh among other things you know we we played lots of reggae
music and dub style and uh we um we had the adventures of the tripod family and we had uh you know other
filler that that went over very well in australia i understand i'm happy to hear that yes that's what i
heard of course i never did get any royalties or anything out of this no we always we always get the
short end of the stick we better talk to our producers about that but we all this this was
all that blather was nothing but filler for the times when we picked up the phone and called as
that article said and we called information looking for oscars all night kosher deli now i have a tape
that um um that you've uh you've supplied me i think uh or you have a tape which i'm about to play
that's how it is okay and i believe on this tape uh contrary to the newspaper reports
you know the newspapers they always get the story wrong newspapers said that we never found oscars
all night kosher deli but this is uh this is a phone call where we actually did find it uh-oh
uh well we sort of found it anyway we were we were looking in the um the western african nation of
namibia you remember that call no when was that this was back in 1980 this runs about 10 minutes it was
back in 1982 and i believe uh we actually scored some points there and we talked to information
operators all around the world make all kinds of funny rings and uh get all kinds of people upset
at us in all different languages so uh let's take a trip back and and hear that and uh you're hearing
this this tape from the past live on off the hook wbai in new york and our tape machine doesn't work
okay i'm gonna i'm gonna reach over and hit the manual button see what happens there we go what's
the what's the name of the city in namibia we're looking for i don't know i forget offhand i feel
like a fool i asked if os was all night kosher deli in namibia i just realized how silly actually
what's that lewis vindhook isn't that switzerland or finland or something it sounds like a a norsky type name
yeah it was originally a german colony oh windhook yeah so they would have delis there if they
have if there's a german colony sure and do they have kosher delis that's a good question
that's a good question but we know when we find this oscars all night kosher deli somewhere in the
world it will have the answer okay sir what is the name of the city uh it's in the capital it's called what
it's in the capital i'm not certain of the uh vindhook i think with a w with a w
hey british rings by golly well it's because it was a german colony right
i suppose something like that
that's a nice ring good clear signal over to namibia
coming up after this call
we have part one of the amazing adventures of hollow man holo man holo man i'm sorry as in
hologram birth of a hero it's gonna be a lot of fun
looks like they're out to lunch or something and funky too i understand that yes we do have a
one of those coal sack theater productions well that's great it certainly is
i wonder what time it is over there now i don't know but why don't we just um early morning ah ah
information oh yes uh this is the united states i need information for nambia
for zambia nambia uh namibia actually yeah now that you make at the ventric exchange not the
it's a great job it's a what exchange
ventric exchange do you ask the operator for the code 11 for ventric operator well what is the
number for your call you have an operator oh she hung up
we just heard an operator hanging up on another operator something that's pretty rare
why don't you tell her that you're still there oh she knows i'm still here how does she know she
knows oh she has a little light on her console that tells her when i hang up ah also tells her when
i give the time check which is 2 30 in stony brook new york eastern coast of the united states of america
north america yes western hemisphere that's absolutely true planet earth
three stones from the sun three stones from the sun so they say mm-hmm it's really true
bum bum bum bum bum bum oh okay thank you
she definitely knows i'm still here yeah
mm-hmm i wonder what it'd be like to be a an international operator where's this one located uh
i believe florida i'm not certain though oh i think they told me that once they were in florida
they must have some pretty interesting calls come through now and then yeah places like namibia
i wonder if looking for delicate if all the if all the um circuits are temporarily suspended between
the falklands and the mainland how would people like al haig get back to his boss
hey one moment i can't get in line right now okay uh well he doesn't talk to the falkland islands he
goes to argentina
well suppose he has to do some kind of can you imagine like long island being cut off from the rest of the
world that would be interesting yeah that's about about the size of it you know i know many people
who've been uh imagining that for quite a while yeah and uh living their lives around that concept
successfully well i suppose to them in their view yeah
well this is the main programs that i can let people know about that are coming up station's so
good it sells without a slogan here's one we're sorry your international call what about it oh well
well this sunday night the usb will be presenting a special call-in program
call in not call out focusing on the state of the long island music community
this is sunday night at 10 hosted by norm frusland hello yes this is the united states um i need some
information in southwest africa could you connect me with the correct information operator
boy he's far away he did it though it sounded like it got a lot closer
that's an angry ring it seems very abrupt yes
wow that's a ring with authority
who says who says we stepped on
in big international oh yes this is the united states i need some information in southwest africa
hold it on please thank you
isn't that the capital that we just entered yeah let's just ask her watch tell the operator
hello operator
yes i believe that's the capital we're speaking to it is okay okay i need information what's the
it's nambi it's nambia namibia bibbia it's what place the place is called oscars it's a deli what
uh oscars it's a delicatessen
is it what place in namibia i beg your pardon
it's in vindhook what place in namibia the place is oscars it's a like a restaurant
but what town what town oh what
vindhook it's in the capital it's in the capital
and what is the name of the place you want in the capital oscar yeah oscars yes
it's just getting good now
must have been a rough day over there in namibia that kind of angry yeah
explain to the operator thank you very much for all her help they tend to like that very much
oh i always do well explain it to her now i have a chance she's just hanging out probably taking a
few puffs on a much needed cigarette yeah but the operator over in namibia might think i'm talking to
her so listen you can thank her too and i don't even think the operator in namibia is still connected
or she's on hold or we're on hold from her go ahead i hear voices yeah no i'll do it i know when
to do it i've dealt with operators all my life that's true since he was two years old
even before are you there oh yes oh what kind of places that they want oscar is it a motor no it's
like it's a delicatessen like a it's actually it's an all-night kosher deli actually all night
hold the belly yeah i got it out i feel a lot better now yeah now you can tell the operator thank you
stop pushing me
oh
wouldn't it be something if they found it hey yeah well let's go i mean it sounds like they think
they can find it if they find it all right thank you i know the secret to my life is in an oscar's
all night kosher deli yeah wherever it is and i have only to call that place up and say
here i am coming up what's what's coming up in my life okay i'll give you an idea coming up in 22
minutes is anthony white oh yeah right here on usb the voice of long island
this took longer than the falkland islands it did but that's only because the falkland islands
where it's out of water that's true
ib yes the name is double c double nine seven and what is that area code
six one okay thank you okay bye bye bye
but operator thank you very much for all your help all right you're welcome bye bye bye bye
mike so we're gonna call or what we found wait i can't i can't believe this we found an oscar's
all night kosher deli in namibia yeah oh i can't believe it i just can't believe it in vindhook
oh this is i can't believe it okay so now we should call it chances are they're not going to be there
anyway right well all right how about we go into the amazing adventures of uh hollow man part one
first just so i can get over this this is i wasn't expecting that i really wasn't okay um okay so
okay let's go oh here they are oh this is going to be so exciting you're going to love this okay we
don't have time for that though mike you're still on the line yeah i'm still here i'd kind of like to
hear the amazing adventures of holo man well unfortunately it doesn't really fit in with
the format of this show oh but that was uh that was from uh 14 years ago 1982 uh out at a station
w usb in stony brook long island uh and uh the the one time that you and i actually succeeded in
getting a phone number for oscars all night kosher deli a worldwide search back in the days when
information was free you could see the kind of fun uh you could have and i guess that was the reason
why they started charging for it yeah um but as it turned out we did call that uh that particular
number later on and we just we we confused some poor woman over there in namibia who i don't know
why they gave us her number but uh it definitely was not oscars all night kosher deli and well
chances are she doesn't have that number now luckily for her not after that call no right now uh we're
going to try something uh we have bernie s calling in so i'm going to try to take his call hopefully we
won't lose you in the process okay we want to quiz you on a couple of things okay so um hang on a
second let's see if uh we can we can conference here uh good evening at tnt has a collect call from
at the bus county correctional facility to receive this call hang up if you accept this call do not
need freeway or call waiting teachers or you will be disconnected to accept this call dial one now
thank you bernie yes uh let me explain to you what's what's going on uh right now we have mike
uh on the phone with us from milwaukee mike is an area code expert you can give him any area code he
will tell you where it is you can ask him any town in the country i believe and he will tell you where
it is or the area code bernie you there uh we assume so we have to rely kind of on the honor system
yeah it's the honor system and hey i gotta tell you i'm rusty at this too well if you're rusty how
can you have an article in the milwaukee sentinel journal well they thought it was newsworthy
okay so mike what's the smallest area code as far as subscribers oh i don't know
okay well honesty is certainly uh certainly high up on your list i guess uh fiber optic is here in the
studio with us and fiber i believe you have some some uh some quizzing to do oh yeah um let's see well
i i'd be willing to wager that the uh smallest area code according to population is probably 401 rhode
island i would say maybe it's even like alberta alberta canada alberta in canada 403 yes
the 40 series is is kind of you know i have to do is what kansas or something
402 is omaha yeah see i know that 404 is atlanta so that goes away i i would have to say that 401 with
with providence it would probably be a fairly well populated area code
uh-huh there's a lot of swamps in rhode island yeah but they have you know providence and they
have warwick yeah they certainly do no one's going to take that away from them um okay uh how about um
i'll throw out an area code for you and i'm going to make it kind of tricky i'm going to throw you a
curveball here 954 that's one of the new area codes in florida i think it's uh like fort lauderdale or
something yeah yeah that's right okay you got that you got that um how about uh 360 360 yeah
washington state uh the area surrounding tacoma washington uh tacoma and uh seattle this isn't
making me happy for some reason uh let's let's try um 334 um yeah that's the southern part of um
alabama um someone help me here you know like montgomery and so forth joker what do you got um hang
on your mic's not on try now oakton virginia oh gosh uh i'm gonna i'm gonna guess the new area code
there for for for that part of virginia would be 540 nope 804 nope 703 yep is that not one that's
changed recently nope it's been there for a while okay well you got me anyway you understand how the
whole area code uh uh theory works where zero if it was a middle digit it was the entire state
and if one was a middle digit it had shared different area codes sometimes well no it was all
the time when they first started the area codes oh is it yes because new york for instance all the
area codes had a one in the middle of them and uh kansas for instance and virginia had a zero in
the middle no that's not true kansas is uh kansas is what eight uh yes it is now but back then
i'll bet it wasn't but they kansas does not have any area codes with zero at the middle digit
what about 402 that's nebraska oh oh that's right okay all right this is why i am not in the milwaukee
senanel and you are so i understand letterman is interested he hasn't called yet he hasn't called
yet does he know does he know your area code i hope he knows that it's 414 but you see this this
person who wrote this story about me uh-huh she her her recent scoop here a couple weeks prior to me
was she wrote about the kid who fixes vacuum cleaners uh-huh and i believe he ended up on
letterman well then uh you're definitely going down the right path i hope so so 414 um but now
here's something you may not know that you might want to drop on letterman when you're on there
uh that's um the fact that they're planning already in the second quarter of the 21st century to expand
the number of digits uh of area codes and here to explain that better than me is fiber yeah they're uh
planning on coming out with uh new area code uh i guess you could call them area code suffixes yeah or uh
or i don't know it was unclear whether they're going to be prefixes or suffixes but they'd be they
reserved all the area codes that would potentially have a nine as the middle digit so you will find
no area code anywhere uh whether proposed or or imagined where the second digit is nine
oh can you confirm that mike no well i trust mr optic you have all the area codes in your head
check your head and see if uh they have a nine as a second digit i know that's a coded by head okay
uh so uh yeah they will be having i guess um it'll be 13 digit phone numbers is that how it's
going to work yeah that makes sense yeah with a mandatory one yeah yeah you'd have to dial one
so give them an example of what an area code would be like uh well it all depends whether they decide
to make it a prefix or a suffix i mean uh technically you could do it either way my personal opinion it
would probably be easier to make it a suffix although uh that wouldn't necessarily have to be the case
like for example if 212 got overpopulated with with uh exchanges then uh say uh what's the first one
the first one would be 290 would be the first valid one so for example they could make it 290-212 or
212-290 and that's what you have to dial from the rest of the country yeah that whole thing
plus the seven digit number plus the mandatory one at the beginning well people people in the second
quarter of the 21st century will have expanded dialing capabilities you know yeah they'll be brought
up differently i'm sure we'll evolve into having more dialing fingers or something who knows uh okay uh
mike you're welcome to stay on i don't know if uh if you're able to stay on for the hour and uh
take phone calls along with us and bernie s i'll try okay uh bernie s uh you're still there in federal
prison uh actually no i'm uh i'm in a pennsylvania county prison that's yeah i'm sorry i i meant to
say four different prisons over the past year yeah uh we get confused sometimes now there's been some
movement on your case as far as uh the calculation of the time you were supposed to have been out on may
30th by our calculations but that doesn't seem to be uh the way it's going they're they're holding
you up for some reason you want to update us well my calculations actually showed june 5th or 6th but
still obviously i'm here uh apparently uh uh when one is sentenced uh the prison that you're being
held in is responsible for calculating the remaining time you have to serve in many cases a defendant is
already in prison when they're sentenced so we're given credit for the time they've been in prison
in my case uh on march 5th of this year when i was uh sentenced by uh judge panella in north
hampton county pennsylvania near allentown uh the judge said i would be credited or entitled to credit
for time served um while i was detained on this charge but he was not sure if i had served prior time
or not in fact i had served time last year on this charge uh last year i was charged with uh
in pennsylvania charged with the possession of uh equipment that could have been used to commit
telecommunications fraud i was not charged with using any of this equipment but in any case i was
charged with that and uh held on a detainer which is a document that north hampton county sent down to
delaware county saying uh don't let this guy go under any circumstances because we uh we have uh
we have dibs on him because of a misdemeanor that occurred back in 1993 i think it was in any case
the state charges were dropped and i continued to be held for uh 35 days on this detainer order
and then i went on to then the charges were dropped and then the feds picked that up and i spent seven
months in federal prison and then i was transferred to north hampton county to face a probation violation
charge because my federal conviction was a violation of county probation so it's uh it's all very
complicated but the bottom line is that the judge said i was entitled to uh credit for time i'd served
on the original detainer and north hampton county prison's uh calculator up there is refusing to go
by that judge's order so now we're going to have to go to the judge directly and i've been trying to
do this for the past two months how in the world can they refuse to obey the judge's order well he's
just uh choosing not to uh not to follow it now he hasn't uh he's admitted that this was miscalculated
but he's refusing to send another document to the state parole board indicating that my minimum release
date should actually be uh june 5th or 6th not to july 12th as he uh incorrectly calculated um i'm certain
that i'll i'll win on this but the uh the unfortunate part about it is by the time this gets processed
through the judge's uh office it may be a good point that may take another month or so so i'll end up
spending uh several weeks in additional in prison for uh no reason other than the fact that uh
somebody incompetent has a miscalculated sentence and is refusing to correct it this is really
unbelievable that uh that they're i don't understand what it is exactly that they're they're proving by
doing this or if anyone is influencing them or pressuring them to do this but uh this is this has been
an outrage from the very beginning over a year ago and it's it's still continuing it's it's just
absolutely incredible i believe that my sentencing uh hearing yeah i remember hearing it and uh i was
there although i was quite ill at the time because of the conditions of that prison and uh my attorney
was there and uh a member of my family my uncle was there and uh everyone there interpreted uh what
the judge said is the way i interpreted and including my attorney and yourself and my uncle and
everybody else there except that this guy in the prison who's charged with calculating that
the remaining time uh has just chosen not to ignore this uh particular uh uh exception to
judge brandon well bernie are there are there any uh names you want to give us or phone numbers or
anything that could help i don't want to give things out that might actually hurt although at
this point i can't imagine it being any worse well we have to make an end run around this fellow
anyway by going to the judge so i don't think there's any harm in giving out his uh his name and
telephone number but uh if anyone calls uh please uh don't mention the name bernie s they won't
know who you're talking about my uh my real name is ed cummings um but the uh the person who's
responsible for this uh this problem and who's refusing to correct his admitted mistake his name
is uh joe tamandal t-a-m-a-n-d-l and he is at the northampton county prison
uh east of pennsylvania and i believe i have that telephone number here somewhere
here here yes area code six one zero five five nine three two two eight you want to ask for joe tamandal
and uh anyone calling would say uh why haven't you uh uh uh correctly calculated a coming sentence
and uh the judge's uh sentencing decree said i was entitled for uh credit for time previously
served he's aware of this he's admitted his mistake he's just refusing to uh to correct it and uh
forward on the information to the state for all of us it's very frustrating and you wonder why people
are bitter when they get out of prison unbelievable well uh we're still here for you we'll uh continue
to uh keep you uh in touch with the world and get get mailed to you and offer you all kinds of support
and and hopefully uh visit as well uh we have a story we're going to get into in a moment we're
also going to take some phone calls 212-279-3400 i just wanted bernie to hear the story that somebody
mailed to us from the staten island advance which i must say is a newspaper i don't think i have ever read
in my life but it has a pretty good article here um about uh prison phones in what is becoming a
familiar pattern across the united states phone companies regularly overcharge jailed customers
uh jerry friedman was flipping through the newspaper when she spotted an article about a company that
overcharge customers for collect calls from prison and i thought well that's interesting said the
gainesville woman so i went back and pulled out my phone bills and found i've been overcharged 30 bucks
30 bucks wasn't the half of it investigators found that the company had built thousands of others to
the tune of 653 thousand dollars in what is becoming a familiar pattern across the united states as i just
said because it's written twice prison phone companies regularly overcharge customers their
conduct has spawned at least one class class action lawsuit a federal criminal investigation and numerous
sanctions by state public service commissions but so far little public outcry people say it's just a
bunch of prisoners said steve nicholas an alabama lawyer involved in the class action suit but it's
not it's a bunch of prisoners mothers and fathers and girlfriends who are getting screwed prisons though
are making a bundle phone companies are paying them hefty commissions in many cases more than half the
price of a call in return for access to one of america's more lucrative phone markets convicts and
because virtually all calls from prison must be made collect they are very expensive and profitable
a local call that costs 25 cents at the corner pay phone for instance can cost a dollar 75 when dialed
from prison multiply that by the 1.5 million prison and jail inmates and you get a growing business
estimated by at&t to generate one billion dollars a year how does it feel to be part of such a such a
growing industry bernie uh not good it's actually uh 1.5 million prisoners yeah i know i'm one of
1.5 million uh inmates what's unfortunate is the families of these inmates are are being built at
exorbitant uh telephone rates to uh uh accept calls from uh from their you know family members and loved
ones uh the only way to call from prison is collect and uh as you know as this call here was collected
i think people on the air heard that and uh you know i don't know if you've uh looked at the rates
but they're often at two or time two or three times the uh normal direct dial and it's not only that but
uh the at&t has this wonderful habit of uh of charging us for calls we don't answer uh there's many
times that um that that you call and the answering machine picks up and we're not there to take it
but that shows up on the bill as a as an accepted collect call operator assisted even though there's
no operator in fact i heard of i heard kind of an interesting uh interesting plan maybe you could
verify if this actually works as far as saving some money on uh on those collect calls if you are
able to get at&t through whatever reason to give you a bigger discount on your calls for instance
let's say you switch long distance companies you got mci or something at&t knocks on your door and
says why did you leave us we're going to give you all this money to come back to us and we'll give
you maybe 25 40 off whatever since you have collect calls coming from at&t that will apply to those
numbers yeah so that's a way of saving money if uh you're getting collect calls from a prison simply
get some sort of discount in many cases the prisons do not use at&t as their long distance carrier use
some uh third rate that's true like locktel and or zero plus zero plus dialing well in your
they don't participate in such uh discount schemes in your prison term uh prison tour rather you've
been on mci at&t and and locktel i believe as well as a couple others that's right so uh i guess we're
learning quite a bit from here but now this is something you're going to love this um the uh
uh there's an outfit called cajun callers a louisiana firm it's run by a local judge when
inmates at the local jail call home the judge gets a cut of the money unbelievable now america's big
corporations want access to the phones in the big house at&t and mci for instance both make money from
prison phones so does billionaire john kluge whom forbes magazine lists as the third richest man in
america spokesman for these companies and for the departments of correction they serve say their
relationship is mutually beneficial it lightens the burden on taxpayers while providing inmates with a
rehabilitative link to friends and families i don't know somehow it doesn't uh it doesn't really seem to
be the case does it yeah there was a big uh series of expose articles uh a couple of years ago in uh
uh uh the prison newspaper coming out of um the angola state prison in louisiana uh i think the
newspaper's newsletter is called the angolan and while i was in federal prison last year somebody
mailed me copies of those articles and it went into a lot of detail about how the particular phone scam
worked at that particular prison uh inmates families are being being overcharged for the length of the
calls in other words it was a 10-minute call uh they'd be charged for say 12 minutes and in many
cases they're as you found in my calling you that people were charged for calls which weren't even
completed and that might not sound like a big deal but we added up thousands of uh inmates over a
year's time it's a lot of money i just happened today to see a copy of a a prison document that's
uh an internal document but i managed to get a look at it and that uh indicated that the prison
commissions that this prison receives from its uh telephone uh contractor last year was 177 000
dollars we have about 500 inmates at this institution but last year the prison itself
profited profited 177 thousand dollars from inmates phone calls now that money is coming out of the
pockets of the families of inmates who in many cases don't have money to burn so uh it's unfortunate
this happens but it's uh basically uh ripping off a lot of people you know and in addition to that
uh that we have uh we have prisons making lots of money from from these uh forced calls but we also
have something known as uh virtual slave labor and federal prisons uh fiber you know something about
this what's it called the unicor yeah unicor uh unicor federal prison industries is um something that
exists at every federal prison and they tend to uh look for long termers to uh i mean they do get paid
i mean it's not something that you you'd want to get paid for a living on the outside but um it might
seem like a lot considering that the average inmate makes about 12 cents an hour um and basically the
inmate builds uh supplies for both other federal prisons and the military and these supplies consists
of raw materials like chairs and tables and various furniture doors and things like that
there was a good article in a recent issue of the progressive magazine it was either the progressive or
the nation one of the two i think it was the progressive that uh kind of blew the lid off the whole uh
federal unicorn scam or it's uh inmates are being uh they're not being actually they're being forced
to uh either do work uh media work or or the factory work which earns them a little bit more money but
it's far below uh below minimum wage right two cents an hour uh here at this institution inmates are paid
uh a dollar uh a dollar uh dollar fifty roughly a dollar fifty to dollar fifty five um per day
we're working eight to ten hour days um this prison not manufacturing anything just doing menial work
but the bariton federal prison where i was last year there was a unicorn factory where they manufactured
electronic cable assemblies for the military like telephone cords and wire harness wiring harnesses for uh
uh uh for airplanes you think you think the day is going to come where they they're making the slave
labor material for consumers they're trying to get the there's legislation proposed now that is trying
to lift the restriction on uh prisoners manufacturing uh products for for sale to uh to consumers the big
problem with that is uh the unions are against it obviously because uh manufacturer um can get get labor at
uh 15 cents an hour they're going to cut the unions out and uh have things made it's uh cheaper than
they can have made in uh you know some third world country it's interesting our our federal government
seems to make a big deal about uh uh federal prison uh not federal but uh prison labor in china
trying to make goods that are sold in the u.s market but our own government is uh using its own uh
prisoners to manufacture goods albeit for its own use but i don't see much of a difference frankly
there's just some uh pretty disturbing trends and bernie i believe you have a story there that uh
indicates an even more disturbing trend which just started happening
or uh was i guess born last week what what's that that you have well um i think we touched on uh
last week the uh the story of uh you mentioned i think the week before that was
uh the justice department had mentioned that or had released a report that they'd estimated that
last year there were approximately uh 250 000 uh hacker attacks on uh on government computer
systems right two-thirds two-thirds of which were successful somehow right right i think they didn't
explain uh exactly where they got this figure but uh later came out that it was just an estimate
that they didn't have any factual uh basis and this was just something they estimated and then we had
we had senate hearings what's that we had senate hearings following that yeah and now it turns out
that there's a uh maybe i can read a couple of paragraphs from sunday's Philadelphia inquirer do you
mind sure no no problem it's interesting because we were wondering when this story came out with the
250 000 hackers that are somewhere out there doing god knows what uh no backing up no verification no
actual facts presented we were wondering why did this story come out we may now have the answer as
to why that story came up to something and this is what it's leading up to um the article is uh
again this is in the philadelphia inquiry the sunday edition and uh the title is uh internet's loose
wide mesh worries many u.s officials some fear cyber terrorists some corporate spies they want tighter
regulation others say that's no solution and here it goes uh the nation's capital is gripped by internet
fever the white house wants a national task force to fight computer terrorism on the internet some
senators think the cia should be used to fight computer crime on u.s soil federal prosecutors are poised
to prosecute online obscenity report after report is being pumped out about the threats posed to national
security by internet crime as a result the internet may be greatly altered before the year is over
more tightly regulated more carefully monitored and more expensive it goes on to saying the latest
symptom of the internet obsession is a proposal wednesday this is last wednesday to alter laws
prohibiting domestic operations by u.s intelligence agencies notably the national security agency and
the cia and uh just to break for a second i don't know how many people are aware of who the national
security agency is but they are our nation's uh uh electronic surveillance um entity they do the
code making the code breaking um the really high tech stuff and then they provide that information
to the cia who then analyzes they provide it to other agencies also their budget is approximately five
times the size of the central intelligence agency there was a very good book written by james bamford
about 15 years ago entitled the puzzle palace that uh explained the workings of the national security
agency but it's a huge agency they're located in uh fort maryland the uh the rationale here is uh
that the potential for computer crime and terrorism is so great and the internet is so decentralized and
international that police and the fbi must combine forces with spy agencies to successfully analyze the
threat and investigate criminal activity and this is domestic we're talking about now nsa and the cia
turning their attention towards u.s citizens uh senator sam nunn from georgia said uh he's quoted here
saying that if we're going to live in this kind of a world we're going to have to link the intelligence
world with the law enforcement community and uh none apparently spoke uh as the senate's permanent
investigation subcommittee um oh he spoke as the senate's permanent investigation subcommittee
released a report indicating that major banks and large corporations had lost 800 million dollars
last year because of hacker intrusions in their computer systems now that number came from a u.s
security firm that surveyed others about losses but the firm was not even identified in the report
and uh as with the similar recent reports to independently assess the validity validity of
this uh it's pretty difficult there's just been no proof that this kind of hacking is really going on
at least to this uh this extent uh since the beginning of the year every branch of the government has
become enmeshed in some potential regulation of the internet again i'm quoting from the federal
inquirer uh for one a uh a white house created interagency group uh headed by the justice department has
proposed creation of a national task force or swat team to take charge of all u.s information
security fiber that's not funny you're laughing what are you laughing that's all we need some
some other spook organization to uh patrol something or other cyber swat yeah right
well this it's really incredible it's scary it's frightening it's it's depressing but uh
something that we're going to be uh certainly keeping our eyes on uh burnett i don't know how many
people really realize the significance of of this proposal to to lift the uh domestic restrictions
domestic uh investigation restrictions off of the cia and the national security agency
basically we're turning loose the two largest spy agencies on the planet on the american public
if this uh this goes through and the the rationale to justify it is is really a a very um
um undocumented threat about uh the number of uh computer hacking attempts are going on this
hasn't even been uh been really documented it's happening it's just an estimate and here we have
a proposal to lift the uh domestic spying regulations off the two biggest uh spy organizations on the planet
and this should this should be page one news in every paper in the country but of course it isn't
because people don't uh for some reason see the significance of this i'm glad you're able to
to share this with us and uh i'd like to turn now to some bai listeners because we've we've the show
has been so interesting that we've taken up uh 50 minutes of it so far uh mike you house are you still
with us yeah i'm still here okay we still have the area code expert online too but uh uh if you want
to talk about any of that please give us a call 212-279-3400 we'll try to squeeze as many of you in as
possible so let's see what happens and hopefully i won't lose either of you too because we've never
actually uh done this before we have two guests on the phone and we're going to the call so let's
see what happens good evening you're on the air hello yes you're on the air hi how you doing all right
uh two things i'd like to mention that you you uh spoke of the secret service yes uh a couple of
months ago a couple of turn down your radio you get very confused yes uh last week you mentioned
about the uh code names for the secret service sinatra got his during the kennedy administration
in the early 60s was it that far back yes it was and also it's usually done by committee although you
could guess from the names and i have a question for fiber okay sure uh you have a bit surfer pro fiber
uh yes i do does it wink out every night at midnight uh you have a very old firmware version
is that what it is yeah what you need to do is um go to motorola's website and pull the latest
version yeah the latest you could uh find the latest version some sort of built-in time test or
something where it winks out in the middle no it's called broken you need to upgrade the firmware
they're all broken no it's flash loadable it's a very old bug it's very old so it's quite a bug
once a day i wasn't sure whether maybe the phone company hadn't quite figured out when i went from
analog to isdn that they were still like you know sending 600 volts to fry anything stuck to the phone
online no no you you're running very old code in your unit okay so go to go to the website and
update it yeah it's www.mot.com yeah okay what did somebody take motorola.com i think they have both
okay thanks for the call let's move on to another one uh-oh we lost bernie how did that happen i don't
know how we lost bernie this phone system does not work the way it's supposed to uh mike are you still
there yeah i'm still okay uh we'll we'll have to take bernie in a second good evening good evening
you're on the air speak up hello yes go ahead hi um my name is ben i was on the other week uh-huh
um i just got in because i was with my math tutor and i just heard the end of like what bernie was
saying about spy organizations and stuff yes spy organizations are turning their attention to the
united states uh citizens uh because of this tremendous hacker threat and this is something
if you watch the senate hearings you'll see indications of this beginning and it's a very
frightening it'll be on c-span and stuff uh well the senate hearing so let's let's take bernie uh
hang on one second while we take bernie okay i'll hold on hopefully uh hopefully we won't lose you
uh good evening hello uh we lost bernie somehow okay i don't know why that happened um okay continue
with what you were saying okay um can i speak to fiber uh yeah make it quick hi fiber yeah
the um masters of deception book uh what about it um i just think it's really crappy that they like
incriminated you like that oh well i've had far worse happen than than that book i mean by far the
book wasn't particularly incriminating no i don't mean the book i mean like what happened to you
mm-hmm well we well a lot of us have had some raw deals that's that's certainly true anyway thanks
for the call we're going to try and take bernie s one more time good evening wait we don't have him
yet good evening anybody there at&t has a collect call from bernie s we got cut off at the bus county
correctional facility to receive this call hang up if you accept this call do not use three-way or call
waiting features or you will be disconnected to accept this call dial one now thank you okay i
don't know why you got cut off it might have something to do with having two people on the
phone at once i think when you dropped the first caller who called about the secret service uh i got
dropped uh-huh okay um let me give you the opportunity to give out your address uh so that
in case you get cut off with the next call we uh there won't be a problem go ahead okay great uh
anyone who wants to send me anything to read uh it would be very helpful i'm going out of my mind
here out of uh this frustrating boredom uh cards letters uh magazines books uh you can send them to
me ed cummings c-u-m-m-i-n-g-s and it's at bucks county prison that's b as in boy and the address is 1730
south easton road e-a-s-t-o-n and that's in doyle's town d-o-y-l-e-s-t-o-w-n-p-a-1-8-9-0-1
anything you send please write on the outside of the uh envelope uh reading materials otherwise
it'll be rejected so anybody who tries to send me stamps they'll get rejected as well too they're
not allowed to send the postage stamps and i have to buy them in here so uh thank you to everybody who's
been sending me stuff to read and notes it's uh really keeps me going in here okay let's gonna
take we're gonna take another phone call good evening you're on the air okay hi a few uh things
real fast real fast first i got from mci a letter saying they overcharged me 18 cents so they gave me
a dollar fifty check number two what about bernie getting the aclu or amnesty international involved
saying he's a political prisoner number three emmanuel i saw you on tv at 3 a.m the other day
you look like curtis lewell with long hair nothing like i expected also in terms of prison working
and producing stuff i heard on the columbia station they make prison jeans and the prisoners like make
a profit it's like a capitalist thing at west and it's become a hip trendy thing and the last thing i
have a question for the area code guy yeah go ahead uh the area code for a lake titicaca
so where no hey i mean you know i i only specialize in the united states um how about uh wanker county
where's wanker county that's a joke anyway take care all right thanks uh thanks very much for sharing
that with us um yes mike uh i i guess you you don't specialize in country codes do you oh hey i mean
you know there's enough going on here as as you and everybody here who's listening knows with the
u.s area codes i can hardly keep up with this stuff that's true now uh bernie as far as aclu and
political prisoner status uh any any comment on that well uh other organizations like the efs
electronic freedom foundation and uh epic have really taken very little interest in this case
and uh i can only assume the aclu and amnesty international would uh would as well generally amnesty
international doesn't get involved in the domestic uh cases they generally get involved with
international uh cases and you have to be facing death too what's that you have to be facing death
for them to take that's true uh fortunately i'm i'm not although while i was in north hampton county
i wondered if i was going to be facing death that was pretty sick there but uh aclu uh i have sent
them a copy of my federal appellant brief to have them review and hopefully they'll they'll see that uh
some of the some of the concepts of my appealing this this new vague federal statute are are very
similar that they smell similar concepts to those that they use to try to combat the uh communications
decency act recently in the third federal circuit gentlemen we are out of time i want to thank you
both for uh being with us throughout the show tonight bernie uh of course can be reached also on the
internet bernie s at 2600.com and uh mike you have an internet address if people need to ask you about
area codes yeah sure it's mike at never know dot com n-e-v-e-r-k-n-o-w which is not the case with
you because you always know i try i do my best okay we'll look for you on letterman or someplace
where you'll be giving information out thanks for joining us tonight okay and uh we'll be back again
next week with another exciting edition of off the hook till then stay knowledgeable and share the
information see you later
the telephone keeps ringing so i ripped it off
i cut myself while shaving now i can't make a call
it couldn't get much worse
but if i could they would
so
so
We'll be right back.