[00:19.680 --> 00:22.560]  Join the campaign to stop police brutality.
[00:23.060 --> 00:29.960]  Wake Up Call and some of its loyal listeners have come up with an action that everyone can participate in.
[00:30.360 --> 00:37.940]  If you are against police brutality and state-sponsored murders, wear a black ribbon as an act of protest.
[00:37.940 --> 01:02.480]  Inform your families, your neighbors, your co-workers, your church, and your school that this is being done in memory of Ahmed Yala, Patrick Bailey, Eleanor Bumpers, Anthony Baez, Yvonne Smallwood, Kevin Cedeno, Elizabeth Mangum, Clifford Glover, Randy Evans,
[01:03.000 --> 01:04.500]  Nicholas Ashanti Barton.
[01:16.690 --> 01:19.710]  If you sell black ribbons these days, you're going to make a lot of money.
[01:20.150 --> 01:25.050]  It's 8 o'clock on WBAI in New York on a Tuesday night.
[01:25.310 --> 01:26.470]  Time for Off the Hook.
[01:33.430 --> 01:37.930]  The telephone keeps ringing, so I ripped it off the wall.
[01:38.930 --> 01:43.450]  I cut myself while shaving, now I can't make a call.
[01:44.210 --> 01:48.890]  It couldn't get much worse, but if they could, they would.
[01:48.890 --> 01:51.850]  I'm really bummed, but I best expect the worst.
[01:52.670 --> 01:54.410]  I hope that's understood.
[01:54.730 --> 01:55.610]  I'm really bummed.
[04:06.500 --> 04:07.840]  And a very good evening to everybody.
[04:07.960 --> 04:08.920]  The program is Off the Hook.
[04:09.000 --> 04:11.500]  Emmanuel Goldstein here with you on this Tuesday evening.
[04:11.860 --> 04:13.300]  Isaac over there on the other side of the room.
[04:13.400 --> 04:13.940]  How are you doing, sir?
[04:14.080 --> 04:14.500]  Bernie S.
[04:14.600 --> 04:15.240]  down there in Philadelphia.
[04:15.620 --> 04:16.200]  Good evening.
[04:16.820 --> 04:25.120]  And we've had an exciting week over the past seven days or so, which basically brought us all over the place to Washington, D.C.
[04:25.260 --> 04:26.720]  and up here to New York.
[04:27.140 --> 04:29.680]  I guess that's pretty much it, but it was pretty exciting anyway.
[04:30.260 --> 04:38.800]  Just going down to the Senate for the Kevin Mitnick, I guess, testimonies is the best way to...
[04:38.800 --> 04:39.960]  What is that noise, Bernie?
[04:41.300 --> 04:42.700]  Every week you make weird noises.
[04:43.140 --> 04:45.020]  Very creaky chair I happen to be sitting in.
[04:45.020 --> 04:45.800]  Oh, okay.
[04:46.220 --> 04:49.800]  Well, maybe you want to be moving to a better chair for radio.
[04:50.700 --> 04:51.480]  Creaking noises.
[04:52.200 --> 04:59.480]  But this past Friday, actually this past Thursday, Kevin Mitnick, as many of you know, testified before the Senate.
[05:00.020 --> 05:04.640]  And it really was a very interesting chain of events.
[05:05.020 --> 05:14.480]  I mean, we're talking, you know, about a month ago, maybe a little bit more than a month ago, Kevin was in prison as part of his five-year, practically five-year stint.
[05:15.020 --> 05:16.880]  And then here he is in front of the Senate.
[05:17.360 --> 05:20.120]  I mean, could you get any weirder than that, Bernie?
[05:20.780 --> 05:23.560]  I mean, when you got out of prison, it wasn't quite that weird, was it?
[05:24.100 --> 05:28.720]  No, I was sort of isolated after I got out.
[05:28.820 --> 05:33.900]  I was just going through, I think, some post-traumatic depression and so forth.
[05:33.900 --> 05:36.500]  And I don't know if I got a handle being before the Senate.
[05:37.220 --> 05:41.040]  Although I'm sure I would have been pretty candid with him and told him what for.
[05:41.240 --> 05:46.880]  But it's got to be being jerked from one extreme to the other in our society.
[05:47.920 --> 06:01.480]  It was really very bizarre, I have to say, just seeing the dramatic change in the way Kevin has been perceived over the last few years as someone who needs to be locked away from society.
[06:01.480 --> 06:12.540]  And now there he is right there on Capitol Hill advising the people who helped lock him away, the people that write the laws, the people that, you know, you could easily blame for this kind of a thing.
[06:12.540 --> 06:13.580]  And, you know, it was me.
[06:13.680 --> 06:20.020]  I don't know if I would go into that so easily, if I would say, you know, oh, yeah, sure, guys, I'll give you some advice here.
[06:20.140 --> 06:27.000]  And it's a lot of credit for Kevin to actually be willing to, you know, to be civil with these people.
[06:27.240 --> 06:35.420]  And in all fairness to them, I don't think these are the people that sat down and said we have to lock computer hackers away.
[06:35.500 --> 06:36.100]  Although, who knows?
[06:36.140 --> 06:37.460]  Who knows what they say behind closed doors?
[06:37.560 --> 06:41.920]  They seem pretty open and willing to listen to him, at least on the surface.
[06:42.660 --> 06:45.980]  And, you know, it was kind of cool hanging out in Senators' chambers.
[06:45.980 --> 06:47.640]  We were in the ante room.
[06:47.800 --> 06:48.780]  You know what the ante room is, Bernie?
[06:49.480 --> 06:50.840]  Is that where they keep the anti-matter?
[06:51.020 --> 06:51.660]  No, no.
[06:52.320 --> 06:53.820]  You learn a lot by going down there.
[06:54.020 --> 06:55.380]  M-T-E, the room before the room.
[06:55.520 --> 07:04.180]  Yeah, but if you watch C-SPAN and you see all the people coming and going in back of the Senators, you know, you watch them sitting up there and you see people coming and going inside of a door.
[07:04.260 --> 07:07.880]  Well, that door goes to the ante room, which is basically just like an office in back of the hearing room.
[07:08.120 --> 07:10.500]  And that's where people kind of prepare for the hearing.
[07:10.500 --> 07:16.280]  And, you know, we were looking out the door at the chamber in preparation for the whole thing.
[07:16.580 --> 07:17.440]  It was kind of interesting.
[07:18.360 --> 07:21.460]  What else was interesting was watching the secretaries there.
[07:21.580 --> 07:22.680]  They were very friendly people.
[07:22.800 --> 07:25.120]  They answered all our questions because we had all kinds of questions.
[07:25.220 --> 07:28.440]  You know, when hackers go down to D.C., they want to know how everything works.
[07:28.440 --> 07:36.360]  And I found out all about the, you know, the private subway system that links all the various buildings, you know, to the Capitol building.
[07:37.560 --> 07:39.280]  Well, they didn't say I couldn't tell them about that.
[07:39.420 --> 07:41.280]  I mean, you know, you can't ride on it.
[07:41.300 --> 07:42.020]  You have to be a senator.
[07:42.140 --> 07:48.540]  But basically, what happens is they have to be in the Capitol building to vote on certain things at certain times.
[07:48.540 --> 07:57.880]  So they've got to be constantly ferrying back and forth from their hearings in various buildings to the Capitol building for these important votes.
[07:58.020 --> 08:03.380]  So when they do that, they get into this little subway car that goes underneath the streets.
[08:03.660 --> 08:05.360]  Is it actually subway on tracks?
[08:05.460 --> 08:06.580]  Or I thought it was like a golf cart.
[08:06.820 --> 08:08.460]  I was told it was on tracks.
[08:08.700 --> 08:09.060]  Wow.
[08:09.180 --> 08:09.760]  I was told that.
[08:09.860 --> 08:13.100]  But there's also the several different ones for all the different buildings.
[08:13.100 --> 08:16.600]  The Russell Senate building and whatever the building was we were in.
[08:16.600 --> 08:19.140]  And so it was kind of cool.
[08:19.200 --> 08:20.200]  And then the phone rings.
[08:20.380 --> 08:22.740]  The phone rings and the secretary just picks it up.
[08:22.820 --> 08:24.160]  And this guy starts speaking.
[08:24.280 --> 08:25.100]  She doesn't say hello or anything.
[08:25.200 --> 08:26.920]  This guy just starts telling her all this stuff.
[08:27.040 --> 08:30.620]  You know, like, there's going to be a vote in about 20 minutes on this particular issue.
[08:30.720 --> 08:33.420]  A senator needs to be over in this area here.
[08:33.420 --> 08:37.120]  And then after that, they're going to be going out for a tea party in the White House lawn.
[08:37.400 --> 08:38.100]  Blah, blah, blah.
[08:38.800 --> 08:41.540]  And, you know, just she listens to him and hangs up on him.
[08:41.620 --> 08:43.380]  It's like, wow, these people are really rude to each other.
[08:43.440 --> 08:44.060]  They don't even say hello.
[08:44.060 --> 08:45.040]  They don't say thank you.
[08:45.140 --> 08:45.860]  They're efficient.
[08:45.860 --> 08:47.220]  Well, they are efficient.
[08:47.380 --> 08:47.760]  I'll say that.
[08:47.900 --> 08:50.800]  But in that particular instance, there are also recordings.
[08:51.420 --> 08:58.740]  That person apparently is part of an automated system that calls up the, I guess, every senator in the place and tells them what they have to do.
[08:58.820 --> 09:02.340]  And the secretaries work it all out and figure out where to send people.
[09:02.460 --> 09:03.660]  Then you have these clocks.
[09:03.940 --> 09:05.520]  The clocks have little lights on top of them.
[09:05.580 --> 09:12.960]  And the lights indicate if there's a vote going on or if they have, I think, seven minutes before they have to be somewhere.
[09:13.160 --> 09:14.300]  Then five lights light up.
[09:14.300 --> 09:16.900]  I don't know why seven don't light up, but five light up if they need seven minutes.
[09:16.980 --> 09:17.240]  I don't know.
[09:17.380 --> 09:19.420]  It's a crazy system they got there, but it works.
[09:19.580 --> 09:24.660]  And what's really interesting is that when we went to the place, we were in the, I think, the Dirksen building.
[09:25.340 --> 09:26.260]  We went in there.
[09:27.940 --> 09:30.300]  And as soon as you go through the metal detector, that's it.
[09:30.920 --> 09:31.300]  That's it.
[09:31.420 --> 09:34.580]  You know, in the Capitol building, you're guided every step of the way.
[09:34.660 --> 09:36.460]  But when you're in the Dirksen building, you can go anywhere you want.
[09:36.520 --> 09:37.740]  You can just wander around the building.
[09:38.160 --> 09:38.880]  And that's great.
[09:38.980 --> 09:39.860]  You know, that's the way it should be.
[09:39.980 --> 09:42.960]  But there wasn't anybody saying, oh, you have to go to this room.
[09:43.020 --> 09:44.300]  You can only spend five minutes here.
[09:45.320 --> 09:46.820]  Basically, you're able to wander all over the place.
[09:46.880 --> 09:53.160]  So, of course, the first thing that Kevin wanted to do was find the staircase because he didn't want to take the elevator because the elevator was crowded.
[09:53.160 --> 09:55.400]  So, we were trying to find the staircase to go up to the third floor.
[09:55.960 --> 09:56.780]  Well, guess what?
[09:57.300 --> 09:59.800]  There is no staircase, at least according to the security guard.
[10:00.000 --> 10:01.620]  There is no up staircase.
[10:01.620 --> 10:03.300]  There is only a down staircase.
[10:04.220 --> 10:04.860]  That's interesting.
[10:05.120 --> 10:06.500]  That's capital logic for you.
[10:06.840 --> 10:07.220]  Yeah.
[10:07.400 --> 10:09.140]  It's really something.
[10:09.360 --> 10:11.960]  So, they wouldn't tell us where the down staircase was.
[10:11.980 --> 10:13.480]  I guess they were afraid we'd misuse it.
[10:13.820 --> 10:13.960]  Yeah.
[10:14.280 --> 10:16.740]  So, we had to take the elevator up, go down the staircase.
[10:17.060 --> 10:18.620]  We had to take the crowded elevator up.
[10:18.740 --> 10:21.480]  And it was filled with all kinds of congressional people.
[10:22.100 --> 10:27.900]  But Kevin spoke for, I think, 50 minutes about various issues.
[10:28.380 --> 10:29.920]  And I think he did a very good job.
[10:30.260 --> 10:35.460]  One of the terms I heard, or rather read in the story, was starstruck senators.
[10:35.820 --> 10:38.480]  Well, they did seem kind of in awe of him.
[10:38.600 --> 10:38.900]  Okay.
[10:39.180 --> 10:41.600]  Because he presented himself very well.
[10:41.760 --> 10:46.980]  He was not at all bashful or hostile.
[10:46.980 --> 10:48.880]  And I could see why, you know, he would be.
[10:49.260 --> 10:52.080]  But he answered all their questions very forthrightless.
[10:52.340 --> 10:54.800]  You know, completely with candor.
[10:55.420 --> 10:57.120]  And I think they learned a lot, too.
[10:57.620 --> 10:59.840]  His main thing was talking about social engineering.
[10:59.840 --> 11:03.420]  How easy it is to just get somebody to tell you something when they're not supposed to tell you.
[11:03.860 --> 11:12.760]  And I think also the way that he presented that made it clear that when he did this kind of thing years ago, it wasn't to commit crimes.
[11:12.760 --> 11:13.640]  It wasn't to profit.
[11:13.760 --> 11:15.300]  It wasn't to defraud people.
[11:15.300 --> 11:19.040]  It was because he was curious, because he wanted to know things, because he wanted to learn.
[11:19.420 --> 11:22.040]  And I saw it in the faces, in the faces of the senators.
[11:22.120 --> 11:23.140]  I actually saw this.
[11:23.140 --> 11:27.560]  In fact, a couple of them even commented that what happened to him was wrong.
[11:28.540 --> 11:31.480]  And that right there made the whole trip worthwhile.
[11:31.800 --> 11:41.820]  To be able to just stand there on Capitol Hill or sit there and explain to senators what happened and have them reach the conclusion that the way he was treated was wrong.
[11:42.440 --> 11:45.280]  That's got to have an effect on the way things happen in the future.
[11:45.400 --> 11:46.320]  At least I sure hope so.
[11:46.820 --> 11:59.680]  So anyway, what really got kind of strange after that, we spent some time in D.C., but then it turned out that a TV network, Court TV, which some of us have been watching over the last few weeks...
[11:59.680 --> 12:02.160]  To go back, did you see the C-SPAN cameras?
[12:02.280 --> 12:02.640]  Oh, yes.
[12:02.720 --> 12:03.560]  No, C-SPAN was everywhere.
[12:03.940 --> 12:07.140]  They had cameras there and mixers outside.
[12:07.860 --> 12:08.720]  Those people are great.
[12:08.860 --> 12:10.520]  I mean, they go everywhere.
[12:10.980 --> 12:13.140]  All the hearings, they cover all kinds of things.
[12:13.480 --> 12:16.100]  I wish there were more C-SPAN channels, but they only have two.
[12:17.860 --> 12:18.460]  Love them both.
[12:18.460 --> 12:24.420]  Yeah, well, it's interesting because I taped the hearing, you know, back home.
[12:24.560 --> 12:33.220]  And it sort of relates to this next part of the saga where Court TV wanted Kevin to be on their program on Friday.
[12:33.420 --> 12:36.300]  But the only place they could interview him was in New York.
[12:36.900 --> 12:40.320]  So at the last minute, all of a sudden, Kevin's trip to D.C.
[12:40.520 --> 12:41.960]  turned into Kevin's trip to D.C.
[12:42.080 --> 12:45.800]  and New York because he was able to get permission to travel to the additional city.
[12:46.280 --> 12:49.420]  And because he was in New York on the first Friday of the month, well, guess what?
[12:49.540 --> 12:50.240]  How convenient.
[12:50.460 --> 12:56.240]  He was able to go to the 2600 meeting, which is something I really did not expect to happen for a long time.
[12:56.240 --> 13:00.120]  I was very surprised by this, and it was great having him go there.
[13:00.660 --> 13:06.860]  But just to sidetrack for a second, when Kevin was on Court TV, we were watching him in the studio.
[13:08.000 --> 13:11.620]  And since we hadn't seen the C-SPAN coverage yet, we didn't know quite how it looked.
[13:11.720 --> 13:26.720]  But we saw Kevin talking about how he was going to go into some detail on some quote-unquote crimes he committed back in 1992 that involved social engineering and how it's beyond the statute of limitations.
[13:27.140 --> 13:29.220]  And, of course, the crowd kind of laughed at that.
[13:29.760 --> 13:31.620]  And then we were watching the Monitor.
[13:31.900 --> 13:33.360]  They were showing this part of the hearing.
[13:33.520 --> 13:39.700]  It cuts to the senator, Senator Thompson from Tennessee, with this big glare on his face, as Kevin says that.
[13:39.780 --> 13:41.000]  The disappointing revelation.
[13:41.000 --> 13:42.140]  It was the funniest thing.
[13:42.240 --> 13:46.800]  But then when I got back home and I watched the footage on C-SPAN, that's not how it happened at all.
[13:46.820 --> 13:49.140]  He was glaring ten minutes earlier at something else.
[13:49.320 --> 13:52.740]  And when Kevin said that, there was no cutting of the camera to anything.
[13:53.320 --> 13:57.580]  So Court TV kind of made this thing up to make it seem in a certain way.
[13:57.660 --> 14:06.680]  And I wonder how much of TV, when we watch this, when we watch TV, how much of it is actually playing with the camera angles and making people seem like they're glaring at certain points.
[14:06.880 --> 14:08.100]  And how do you deny that?
[14:08.100 --> 14:11.560]  You know, you can't say, I remember I wasn't glaring at that particular moment.
[14:11.740 --> 14:13.240]  It's, you know, nobody's going to know.
[14:13.380 --> 14:14.980]  So I just figured I'd point that out for the record.
[14:15.120 --> 14:19.260]  Because we were watching it, you know, in the reception room, live, when he was on Court TV.
[14:19.380 --> 14:21.780]  And it was pretty funny at the time.
[14:23.360 --> 14:24.600]  But it didn't really happen.
[14:26.120 --> 14:28.480]  So, anyway, yeah, Kevin made it to the 2600 meeting.
[14:28.660 --> 14:31.180]  And he got to hang out in New York for the weekend.
[14:31.800 --> 14:33.580]  And he had the time of his life, I've got to say.
[14:33.860 --> 14:36.100]  He'd never been to New York in his entire life.
[14:37.120 --> 14:39.580]  And just couldn't see enough.
[14:39.720 --> 14:40.240]  Couldn't see enough.
[14:40.300 --> 14:42.300]  And was really happy at the meeting.
[14:42.480 --> 14:49.060]  Because, you know, unlike when the media crowds around Kevin, when hackers crowd around Kevin, they treat him with respect.
[14:49.340 --> 14:50.460]  And give him space.
[14:50.680 --> 14:53.260]  And just have a, you know, one-on-one conversation.
[14:53.420 --> 14:54.680]  And it's the greatest thing, it really is.
[14:54.680 --> 15:00.200]  And I think a lot of people got to finally talk to, you know, to the person behind the name.
[15:00.520 --> 15:04.200]  And I'd like to hear from those people tonight, actually, on the show.
[15:04.200 --> 15:07.880]  Well, just, you know, people were at the New York meeting who got to hang out with Kevin for a little while.
[15:08.020 --> 15:08.780]  What was it like?
[15:08.880 --> 15:10.280]  You know, what you expected?
[15:11.080 --> 15:13.780]  And hopefully we'll have more such things in the future.
[15:15.080 --> 15:16.720]  Bernie, what have you been up to this past week?
[15:17.080 --> 15:20.940]  Well, actually, I had planned to join you and Kevin and some other folks in D.C.
[15:20.940 --> 15:27.900]  But the day before, I was talking with the head of our local ACLU chapter here in Philadelphia.
[15:28.640 --> 15:33.440]  And I was told that the following day, I guess this was Thursday?
[15:33.780 --> 15:34.420]  Yeah, Thursday.
[15:34.820 --> 15:38.460]  There were hearings in Philadelphia before some state representatives.
[15:39.000 --> 15:44.100]  And our ACLU head asked me to come and speak.
[15:44.520 --> 15:45.600]  I'm like, well, what is this?
[15:45.600 --> 15:51.600]  And apparently, well, I'm glad I did that because, well, you know, I had to make a choice.
[15:51.720 --> 16:03.240]  But this seemed really important and of a lot of importance to people who are now criminals if they vote, if you can imagine.
[16:03.540 --> 16:04.860]  Well, there are so many criminals.
[16:05.340 --> 16:08.920]  Criminality apparently is a booming business of the 1990s and 2000s.
[16:09.360 --> 16:11.380]  So all these criminals can vote now.
[16:13.240 --> 16:15.360]  Now, according to – let me see.
[16:15.460 --> 16:18.020]  I know I can't – well, here's the situation.
[16:18.860 --> 16:21.600]  Many states have laws on the books.
[16:21.660 --> 16:23.100]  These are state laws, not federal laws.
[16:23.280 --> 16:34.300]  Laws on the books making it a crime for convicted felons who have served some period of incarceration from registering to vote.
[16:34.480 --> 16:36.120]  And, of course, if you're not registered, you can't vote.
[16:38.140 --> 16:45.800]  So this was – in many states, this was put on as a rider or a little amendment.
[16:46.120 --> 16:47.520]  These little amendments can be very dangerous.
[16:47.560 --> 16:48.020]  Yeah, I know.
[16:48.400 --> 16:51.740]  They just sort of tack these on at the last minute, and nobody has any say in the matter.
[16:52.540 --> 16:58.700]  You may recall President Clinton pushed – lobbied to have this motor voter bill passed.
[16:58.700 --> 17:02.540]  I think it was in 95 or 96, maybe it was later then.
[17:02.680 --> 17:03.460]  It was two or three years ago.
[17:03.580 --> 17:17.720]  Anyway, basically the federal government was going to deny states certain federal funding if they did not have automatic voter registration when people registered their motor vehicles or got a driver's license.
[17:17.940 --> 17:20.240]  Well, that's typical federal blackmail policy.
[17:20.240 --> 17:24.640]  Yeah, well, you know, I actually happen to think that the motor voter bill made sense.
[17:25.200 --> 17:26.920]  We should have – everybody should be registered.
[17:27.020 --> 17:28.140]  I don't think we should have to register.
[17:28.140 --> 17:29.840]  No, what's the point of registering?
[17:30.040 --> 17:31.560]  Yeah, you go and you vote.
[17:31.580 --> 17:32.960]  It should be a simple thing.
[17:33.280 --> 17:35.960]  In other countries it's very simple, but here we make it very difficult.
[17:36.360 --> 17:38.860]  I think there's an agenda behind that.
[17:38.940 --> 17:47.700]  But in any case, many people in many states are prohibited from registering to vote if they have been convicted of a felony.
[17:47.700 --> 17:57.060]  And in Pennsylvania, anyway, if you've served time in prison within the past five years for any felony crime, you cannot register to vote.
[17:57.240 --> 17:58.260]  So you're not allowed to vote.
[17:58.460 --> 18:03.500]  Well, I found out that I'm able to vote through a loophole.
[18:03.620 --> 18:04.600]  I have been voting.
[18:04.600 --> 18:05.500]  I can now say this.
[18:05.580 --> 18:08.180]  I have been voting since I was released from prison.
[18:08.180 --> 18:10.800]  I didn't know I was voting legally, but damn it, I was voting.
[18:11.560 --> 18:15.720]  I figured what went on behind those curtains was anybody's guess, and I was registered.
[18:15.720 --> 18:19.960]  Maybe I was just going in there to twiddle my thumbs, and nobody could prove otherwise.
[18:20.180 --> 18:21.740]  They don't have cameras in there yet.
[18:22.040 --> 18:34.040]  But in any case, I found out last week that in Pennsylvania there is a law that says you don't have to be registered to vote at the address where you physically live, as long as it's in Pennsylvania.
[18:35.540 --> 18:45.520]  I had obviously been registered to vote prior to my incarceration, and when I got out, I was still registered, because I think they give you like a two-year slack if you vote like every couple years.
[18:45.700 --> 18:45.900]  Right.
[18:45.980 --> 18:46.900]  They keep you on the voting rolls.
[18:47.180 --> 18:52.620]  So I was still on that, but I wasn't registered to vote at my address where I was arrested by the Secret Service.
[18:52.620 --> 18:57.660]  So wait a minute, you weren't allowed to register, but they didn't say anything about not being allowed to vote.
[18:57.840 --> 18:58.220]  Right.
[18:58.320 --> 18:59.600]  I thought my lawyer called me.
[18:59.700 --> 19:03.300]  My lawyer insinuated that it was illegal for me to vote at all.
[19:03.540 --> 19:12.740]  But apparently, this isn't something a lot of people spend a lot of time researching, apparently, because a lot of convicted felons feel that they have more important things to do.
[19:12.740 --> 19:20.260]  But I would think that they have more to – felons have much more at stake in changing the system than a lot of people.
[19:20.420 --> 19:25.600]  At least they have more familiarity with the problems with the system that they could have some input to.
[19:25.820 --> 19:36.980]  In any case, I've been voting right along, and I found out that because I was registered prior to my incarceration and I was just not breaking the law by voting.
[19:37.100 --> 19:39.620]  So I'm happy to know that I'm not committing a crime by voting.
[19:39.620 --> 19:51.320]  However, had I not been registered prior to my incarceration, I would not be permitted to register to vote for five years after my – until five years had been passed after my incarceration.
[19:51.600 --> 19:59.500]  So anyhow, I spoke a little bit to these state representatives and explained my situation and that I qualified through a narrow loophole to be able to vote.
[19:59.580 --> 20:04.240]  But many other people are not permitted to vote or register to vote.
[20:04.240 --> 20:10.460]  And what's interesting also is there's a loophole for people who have been convicted of a felony, even voter fraud.
[20:10.600 --> 20:18.700]  People who have been convicted of the felony crime of voter fraud are permitted to vote if there was no incarceration involved.
[20:19.540 --> 20:26.780]  So here are people who are on probation for felonies who are even convicted of some kind of voter fraud.
[20:26.780 --> 20:33.580]  And they're allowed to vote, but if you're convicted of a felony in sort of even one day of incarceration, for five whole years after that, you can't vote.
[20:33.820 --> 20:38.540]  I've got a list of a whole bunch of states here where this is the law of the land.
[20:38.740 --> 20:41.880]  What is the thought, the theory behind this?
[20:41.980 --> 20:51.840]  I mean, you know, are they worried that felons are going to form a formidable voting bloc and pass all kinds of legislation or something?
[20:51.840 --> 21:11.780]  One person who spoke said that it's a ridiculous idea because if people were fearing that there'd be, like you said, a felon's lobbying bloc, you'd have to find a state representative who'd be willing to run under the pro-felon...
[21:11.780 --> 21:29.140]  Let's say if you were a burglar and you were robbing people's homes, you'd have to find a legislator who'd be willing to run on a pro-burglar platform and get them to, you know, so these burglars could vote for them.
[21:29.340 --> 21:33.580]  I was trying to figure out what the idea was behind this stuff.
[21:33.580 --> 21:41.620]  And the only thing I could find to demonstrate this mentality is from the Fraternal Order of Police, the Pennsylvania State Lodge here in Philadelphia.
[21:42.620 --> 21:50.400]  And this was from Michael Lutz, the president of the Fraternal Order of Police in Philadelphia, this letter.
[21:50.720 --> 21:52.480]  And I'll just read a couple paragraphs here.
[21:52.520 --> 21:56.800]  He said, thank you for inviting me, I can't come, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
[21:56.800 --> 22:08.160]  Ah, convicted felons in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania lose certain rights as law-abiding citizens, i.e., the right to carry a firearm, mandatory registration of sexual predators, along with other restrictions.
[22:08.860 --> 22:15.400]  Convicted felons who serve their time in prison still have an obligation to earn back their full citizenship.
[22:16.340 --> 22:22.140]  Please remember that during the time a felon is incarcerated, he or she is in a very closely controlled and supervised environment.
[22:22.140 --> 22:26.900]  This type of controlled atmosphere would not be a good indicator of true rehabilitation.
[22:27.660 --> 22:32.900]  In addition, a convicted felon forfeited their rights to citizenship when the grievous crime was committed.
[22:33.200 --> 22:34.580]  You mean they can be deported?
[22:35.200 --> 22:40.500]  Therefore, I believe they must prove themselves to society by earning their right to vote.
[22:41.040 --> 22:48.540]  I do not believe a five-year waiting period is an inordinate amount of time to exhibit a true commitment to rehabilitation by being a productive member of society.
[22:48.540 --> 22:54.580]  Thank you for taking into consideration the concerns and views of the Fraternal Order of Police, Pennsylvania State Lodge.
[22:54.680 --> 22:56.480]  Sincerely, Michael Lutz, President.
[22:56.820 --> 23:00.480]  So, this is just... there's no logic here.
[23:00.680 --> 23:04.180]  Why should someone have to earn back their full citizenship?
[23:04.340 --> 23:08.500]  Why should your citizenship be in any way denied because you're convicted of a crime?
[23:08.500 --> 23:11.220]  How does that make you less of a citizen?
[23:12.020 --> 23:22.320]  I mean, even if it was a heinous crime, do they feel that the number of convicted felons are going to just overwhelm all the other voters with their votes?
[23:22.460 --> 23:27.660]  Well, I mean, the point I always thought of being in prison was that's when you're being punished, is when you're in prison.
[23:27.660 --> 23:31.280]  And when you're outside of prison, then that's when you're back in society.
[23:32.360 --> 23:36.740]  And the probationary period, supervised release, that is the transitional period.
[23:36.860 --> 23:49.000]  And it shouldn't be, as in Kevin's case, punitive, where you have more penalties and more punishments going on, saying you're not allowed to use a cellular phone, you're not allowed to use the Internet, you're not allowed to vote, whatever it is they throw at you.
[23:49.040 --> 23:52.080]  It turns into an even longer prison sentence then.
[23:52.080 --> 23:58.160]  It almost seems like a triple jeopardy kind of situation, because up until 1986, there was no federal parole.
[23:58.340 --> 24:01.220]  You served your... I'm sorry, up until 1986, there was federal parole.
[24:01.380 --> 24:08.160]  You could serve part of your sentence, and the balance of it, you could serve supervised, under some form of supervised release, parole.
[24:08.460 --> 24:12.840]  And then when that was over, your full maxed-out time expired.
[24:13.160 --> 24:17.100]  Then you could go back to being a full-fledged citizen.
[24:17.100 --> 24:26.620]  Well, in 1986, when this war on crime stuff started getting out of hand, they took away federal parole, so people had to serve their entire sentence.
[24:26.800 --> 24:33.780]  Sometimes they got 15% off of it, as in, like, a fiber optic case, a year and a day.
[24:33.980 --> 24:38.880]  Because it was over a year, he qualified to get 15% off, so he did, like, 10 and a half months or something.
[24:38.880 --> 24:47.200]  In any case, but they kept... to keep all these parole officers in jobs, they came up with something called supervised release.
[24:47.320 --> 24:54.440]  So even after you serve your entire sentence, on top of that, you get several more years of a second sentence of supervised release.
[24:54.860 --> 25:02.080]  And now, on top of that, you have this ban on voter registration, which can outlast the supervised release.
[25:02.080 --> 25:12.300]  So it's sort of like a triple jeopardy thing, and a real slap in the face to anybody who's trying to make things right in their life and with society.
[25:12.980 --> 25:19.480]  How can you... as I told one of these representatives, if you treat people like second-class citizens, they will act like second-class citizens.
[25:19.600 --> 25:20.000]  Yeah, exactly.
[25:20.300 --> 25:24.860]  And if someone has gotten out of prison, and the first thing they want to do is vote, I think that's a good thing.
[25:25.320 --> 25:25.940]  You know?
[25:26.360 --> 25:29.760]  That implies some kind of legitimacy there.
[25:30.240 --> 25:35.140]  Well, apparently not in the eyes of law enforcement officials, including the paternal order of a plea.
[25:35.280 --> 25:42.880]  So I was very civil to these state representatives, and they listened quite intently, and they were pretty amazed.
[25:42.880 --> 25:45.060]  One of them was kind of amazed that I was still able to vote.
[25:45.060 --> 25:47.100]  He didn't seem too happy with that loophole.
[25:48.720 --> 25:55.820]  But I had to talk to the ACLU representative to make sure that I wasn't violating or incriminating myself by saying I was voting.
[25:55.820 --> 26:01.280]  And we researched things in a couple books while we were sitting there and realized that I was not breaking the law by voting after all.
[26:01.380 --> 26:07.100]  But many other people who were sitting there who were recently released from prison could not register to vote.
[26:07.480 --> 26:08.940]  And it was very strange.
[26:09.020 --> 26:16.520]  I went over and talked to them and swapped some ideas about how to get their lives back together and that sort of thing.
[26:16.520 --> 26:27.120]  But it was very eye-opening seeing the mentality of some of these politicians who just were very dead-set against people who convicted of a crime from casting their vote.
[26:27.500 --> 26:28.200]  Very strange.
[26:28.340 --> 26:33.660]  Well, these are the same people probably that would have opposed voting by certain groups of people in the past.
[26:34.100 --> 26:35.940]  The same basic mentality there.
[26:36.500 --> 26:40.740]  In fact, the racial angle was brought up by some individuals there.
[26:41.400 --> 26:49.720]  I think somebody pointed out that in the city of Baltimore, something like 40% of African-American males cannot register to vote.
[26:50.100 --> 26:50.760]  That's correct.
[26:50.900 --> 26:55.500]  Nationwide, I think it's something like 33%, which is insane when you think about it.
[26:55.500 --> 27:15.920]  When you get to that point, you know, you're blocking out and the trend is, you know, if you extrapolate to a few more years, it will be, you know, at the current trend, at the current rate of voter disenfranchisement, it won't be long before most African-American males will be ineligible to vote,
[27:16.060 --> 27:19.820]  which is unbelievable that an entire class of people couldn't vote.
[27:19.820 --> 27:25.640]  So you're telling me that an entire class of people is incapable of voting because they're all criminals?
[27:26.320 --> 27:26.760]  No.
[27:27.080 --> 27:29.100]  Well, because they are...
[27:29.100 --> 27:39.100]  I'm following the logic here, and, you know, it seems to just be ballooning out further to try and get some kind of sentimental compassion for a particular group of individuals.
[27:39.420 --> 27:40.820]  No, I took issue with that.
[27:40.960 --> 27:49.380]  I said, you know, this shouldn't be portrayed as a racist type of thing, necessarily, because I don't fall on that particular group that I'm being discriminated against.
[27:49.380 --> 28:03.440]  Also, but just the way the numbers work out, for socioeconomic reasons, whatever, currently African-American males have a higher rate of felony convictions and therefore are ineligible to vote.
[28:03.540 --> 28:05.300]  And in the city of Baltimore...
[28:05.300 --> 28:06.120]  Well, that's not...
[28:06.120 --> 28:08.600]  But that's not because they're African-American males.
[28:08.760 --> 28:09.760]  It's because they're felons.
[28:10.060 --> 28:10.700]  I agree with you.
[28:10.700 --> 28:11.300]  Well, well, well, hold on a second.
[28:11.300 --> 28:13.440]  So can we deal with one issue at a time here?
[28:13.440 --> 28:20.000]  Do you think there is no relation to the fact that there's a high percentage of felony convictions for African-Americans?
[28:20.240 --> 28:20.960]  Well, what are we trying to do?
[28:21.060 --> 28:27.180]  Are we trying to get the blacks to vote, which I thought a certain amendment to the Constitution allowed that to happen, or are we trying to get felons to vote?
[28:27.340 --> 28:31.220]  I, for one, have very little compassion for convicted felons, with a few notable exceptions.
[28:32.120 --> 28:32.520]  Well...
[28:32.520 --> 28:42.480]  For one, I think these kind of rights should be granted to people released upon individual case, on an individual case basis.
[28:42.480 --> 28:48.960]  I think the point is that there's a much higher conviction rate for certain ethnic groups, and that, in itself, is kind of...
[28:48.960 --> 28:51.780]  We're getting beyond the race card thing here with the felons.
[28:51.920 --> 28:54.860]  We're talking about felons and rights to vote.
[28:55.140 --> 28:57.980]  Let's try and, you know, maintain a degree of segregation.
[28:58.120 --> 29:00.440]  The two are very closely related, obviously.
[29:00.760 --> 29:11.320]  I mean, when you have 40% of one ethnic group that is unable to vote because of, you know, because they're labeled as felons, something is clearly not right with that.
[29:11.320 --> 29:12.300]  Something is...
[29:12.300 --> 29:15.640]  Is that something that the right to vote is going to, you know, change?
[29:16.020 --> 29:20.600]  Is somebody going to say, you know, hold a gun to somebody's head and say, oh, you know what?
[29:20.660 --> 29:21.920]  I'm not going to pull the trigger.
[29:21.920 --> 29:23.120]  I want to be able to vote.
[29:23.640 --> 29:25.140]  No, you're missing the point.
[29:25.160 --> 29:27.900]  Is this the major incentive for people to...
[29:27.900 --> 29:29.000]  You're completely missing the point here.
[29:29.120 --> 29:29.760]  You're freeing from...
[29:29.760 --> 29:33.880]  We're talking about people being sentenced to prison because of their ethnicity.
[29:34.640 --> 29:35.340]  And that...
[29:35.340 --> 29:36.960]  Whoa, whoa, okay.
[29:36.960 --> 29:39.140]  Okay, I think finally Isaac has seen the light here.
[29:39.320 --> 29:39.720]  This is a different story here.
[29:40.420 --> 29:41.880]  Now we're not talking about voting.
[29:41.880 --> 29:44.820]  Now we're talking about people going to jail because they're black.
[29:46.320 --> 29:46.740]  Yeah.
[29:47.060 --> 29:47.340]  Okay.
[29:47.600 --> 29:48.960]  So we've just like...
[29:49.880 --> 29:50.420]  All right.
[29:50.840 --> 29:51.540]  Can we continue?
[29:51.700 --> 29:51.880]  We're getting off the subject.
[29:51.940 --> 29:53.460]  Yes, let's please get back on the subject.
[29:53.500 --> 29:54.200]  Most of the people I met in prison were black.
[29:54.880 --> 29:55.740]  Say that again, Bernie?
[29:55.880 --> 29:56.060]  I'm sorry.
[29:56.240 --> 29:57.460]  We're getting off the subject.
[29:57.600 --> 29:57.720]  Yes.
[29:57.720 --> 30:03.980]  I will say that probably 65% of the people that I was in prison with were black.
[30:03.980 --> 30:06.460]  And I'm not offering any explanations as to why.
[30:06.660 --> 30:09.980]  I'm just saying that's a very high percentage of the...
[30:10.520 --> 30:12.200]  You know, and very out of proportion...
[30:12.200 --> 30:12.880]  Well, you can only draw...
[30:12.880 --> 30:14.860]  You can only draw two conclusions from that.
[30:15.020 --> 30:20.340]  That more black people commit crimes or more black people are convicted of committing crimes.
[30:20.780 --> 30:22.080]  So, which is it?
[30:22.180 --> 30:25.360]  You know, you have to draw your own conclusions from that.
[30:25.580 --> 30:26.920]  I happen to think it's the latter.
[30:27.140 --> 30:30.760]  And I think that that's indicative of a real problem in our society.
[30:30.760 --> 30:36.720]  The fact that we target certain groups, you know, and we don't treat people equally.
[30:36.900 --> 30:37.720]  We don't treat people fairly.
[30:37.880 --> 30:40.100]  And we continue that beyond prison.
[30:40.260 --> 30:47.600]  When people get out of prison, they still have to pay the price, even though they've already paid, you know, the price for being discriminated against.
[30:47.840 --> 30:49.300]  They still have to pay in the future.
[30:49.580 --> 30:50.600]  And it's, you know, it's...
[30:50.600 --> 30:52.340]  I think it's a really sick thing.
[30:52.440 --> 30:53.900]  Well, in this case, it's only for five years.
[30:53.900 --> 31:02.480]  Either one would support certain kinds of legislation where you go up to a parole board and you're granted a right to vote.
[31:02.900 --> 31:05.120]  You're granted that when you're turn 18.
[31:05.440 --> 31:05.600]  Yeah.
[31:05.840 --> 31:06.800]  Voting is not a privilege.
[31:06.960 --> 31:07.340]  It's a right.
[31:07.840 --> 31:08.960]  It really is.
[31:09.180 --> 31:14.280]  I think once we start making it a privilege, then we're giving away something extremely important.
[31:14.280 --> 31:32.580]  One of the points I made at this hearing was that I reminded these lawmakers, what happened the last time a group of people here, maybe 200-some years ago, were faced with the prospect of taxation without representation.
[31:33.460 --> 31:39.300]  And here I am paying a lot of local, state, and federal taxes now because I earn an income.
[31:39.300 --> 31:59.460]  And yet, had I not qualified to do this little loophole, which is an exception by any explanation, I wouldn't be able to vote and have any kind of legal, not legal representation, but legislative representation.
[31:59.960 --> 32:01.180]  For another two years.
[32:01.180 --> 32:01.960]  Yet I'm paying taxes for this.
[32:02.180 --> 32:03.140]  For another two years.
[32:03.140 --> 32:08.380]  Why should I have to pay taxes if I can't have a representative in our government?
[32:10.880 --> 32:20.040]  That person, whoever, I can't vote for anyone, therefore my voice doesn't count so far as...
[32:20.040 --> 32:25.200]  Well, maybe as further penalty, we should forbid people from paying taxes when they're released from prison.
[32:25.420 --> 32:26.120]  That's my argument.
[32:26.260 --> 32:28.780]  I said, you know, if you want to take away my right to vote...
[32:28.780 --> 32:29.920]  Take away your right to pay tax.
[32:29.920 --> 32:30.900]  Yeah, I can see that.
[32:31.660 --> 32:32.260]  Fair is fair.
[32:32.280 --> 32:32.600]  They didn't like that.
[32:32.860 --> 32:33.220]  No, they didn't.
[32:33.240 --> 32:33.880]  I could imagine.
[32:35.280 --> 32:35.800]  Wow.
[32:36.260 --> 32:40.020]  Okay, so is that hearing, did it conclude in any particular way?
[32:40.020 --> 32:40.820]  What's the next step?
[32:40.980 --> 32:47.560]  Well, the next step is this is going to go before the full house in Harrisburg, the state capital.
[32:48.580 --> 33:02.040]  And there's a bill that's being sponsored by Representative Karn, who I spoke with, and he will, he's trying to push this bill through and try to get support for it.
[33:02.820 --> 33:06.980]  So I've been talking to other people down here trying to get some support for this bill.
[33:07.240 --> 33:21.160]  And it's, unfortunately, our house of representatives and our state senators is overwhelmingly Republican, and Republicans, for some reason, are against giving convicted felons the ability to register to vote.
[33:21.820 --> 33:27.860]  So it's going to be, it's a long shot that he's going to win, but I don't think that's any reason to not try.
[33:28.480 --> 33:37.400]  Well, you know, regardless of whether or not you have a realistic chance of winning right away, the point is to get the word out, to make sure people are aware that there's opposition to this kind of thing.
[33:37.480 --> 33:39.700]  Because the way things are going, it's just, it's unbelievable.
[33:39.860 --> 33:40.940]  Prisons being built everywhere.
[33:41.380 --> 33:43.900]  Two million people now in the system.
[33:44.500 --> 33:48.820]  You know, it's, it's, I don't know where we're heading, but it's not a good place.
[33:49.380 --> 33:50.220]  It really isn't.
[33:51.400 --> 33:52.520]  All right, we're going to take some phone calls.
[33:52.600 --> 33:54.520]  212-209-2900.
[33:54.520 --> 34:00.200]  Speaking of phones, I had another, another round in the battle with AT&T.
[34:00.280 --> 34:01.400]  Bernie, I don't know if you remember this.
[34:02.020 --> 34:07.380]  I'm, I've got this kind of one man fight against AT&T sending a bill for nothing.
[34:07.600 --> 34:08.460]  Oh yes, that bill.
[34:08.600 --> 34:10.560]  $19 for taxes or something?
[34:10.620 --> 34:13.900]  It was, I think it was around $8 per month.
[34:14.300 --> 34:21.440]  It got to the point, I think last week I mentioned that they actually had sicked a collection agency on me for $25.04.
[34:21.720 --> 34:22.940]  Are they still billing you?
[34:23.480 --> 34:25.080]  Did you get $8 for this month?
[34:25.080 --> 34:25.980]  That's the whole thing.
[34:26.160 --> 34:27.120]  They stopped billing.
[34:27.520 --> 34:28.000]  Oh, okay.
[34:28.000 --> 34:30.020]  They stopped at $25.04.
[34:30.480 --> 34:37.000]  So now, you know, the whole, this whole thing was started because AT&T decided not to use Bell Atlantic to bill me anymore.
[34:37.100 --> 34:38.020]  They wanted to bill me directly.
[34:38.120 --> 34:43.360]  So there's a phone line that I have where I never make any long distance calls and they were sending me a bill for nothing.
[34:43.780 --> 34:49.740]  You know, they were sending me a bill for tax and for, you know, line access charge for something I didn't want.
[34:50.040 --> 34:52.060]  So I said, look, I'm not going to pay this.
[34:52.640 --> 34:53.200]  Disconnect me.
[34:53.320 --> 34:54.280]  Well, we can't disconnect you.
[34:54.360 --> 34:55.100]  You have to be a customer.
[34:55.200 --> 34:56.540]  I don't want to be a customer, but you have to be.
[34:56.620 --> 35:00.180]  You can, you can not be a customer, but then you have to pay a fee and not be a customer.
[35:01.120 --> 35:01.960]  So what are they going to do?
[35:02.060 --> 35:02.520]  Turn you off?
[35:02.620 --> 35:02.760]  Yeah.
[35:02.800 --> 35:03.640]  What are you going to do?
[35:04.100 --> 35:05.080]  That's, that's what I said to them.
[35:05.160 --> 35:06.100]  What are you going to do about it?
[35:06.280 --> 35:07.560]  So they did something about it.
[35:07.620 --> 35:11.120]  They, they, they, they got the collection agency last week, but you know what they did this week?
[35:11.220 --> 35:12.000]  What did they do this week?
[35:12.000 --> 35:17.420]  They turned off my long distance on another line, a line that was paid up, a line that was completely paid up.
[35:17.540 --> 35:18.580]  They just turned it off.
[35:18.680 --> 35:19.440]  Now that's kind of interesting.
[35:19.680 --> 35:20.400]  I thought so.
[35:20.840 --> 35:25.960]  So I got a hold of MCI and said, look, guys, you want to be my long distance carrier?
[35:26.080 --> 35:28.580]  And they said, sure, we'll be happy to be a long distance carrier.
[35:28.700 --> 35:30.900]  So now I'm switching that line over to MCI.
[35:31.960 --> 35:36.920]  AT&T is still sending me these dark letters, you know, warning me of what's going to happen to me if I don't pay the $25.04.
[35:37.220 --> 35:41.240]  But the thing is, I already won because they're not charging me any more on that line.
[35:41.240 --> 35:45.740]  And now they just lost a customer on a line where I spent hundreds of dollars a month on long distance.
[35:45.940 --> 35:47.540]  What a bunch of idiots, you know?
[35:49.440 --> 35:50.780]  So who knows what's going to happen?
[35:50.900 --> 35:53.240]  I'm probably going to wind up in prison because of this, you know?
[35:53.360 --> 35:58.820]  Everything else I'll get away with, but this, the $25.04, that's going to follow me to, you know, the rest of my days.
[36:00.180 --> 36:01.140]  So I don't know.
[36:01.280 --> 36:08.020]  If you want to join this battle, just be prepared for, you know, all kinds of corporate tactics that are used against you.
[36:08.020 --> 36:12.060]  Did the credit agencies send out somebody with, like, a crowbar to break your legs yet?
[36:12.080 --> 36:19.520]  I don't think... you know, they're going to lose money if they keep spending money on stamps because $25.04 is just not worth it.
[36:20.160 --> 36:22.060]  But, you know, I'll sit back and I'll watch.
[36:22.140 --> 36:22.840]  You know, I don't care.
[36:23.080 --> 36:25.780]  It really doesn't matter to me what they do.
[36:25.780 --> 36:28.540]  Well, there was a case in the UK a short while ago.
[36:28.700 --> 36:34.520]  It made some paper where this woman, elderly woman, was being billed, I think it was for power or something.
[36:35.220 --> 36:38.500]  And she accidentally wrote a six instead of an eight.
[36:39.520 --> 36:45.400]  So they sent this nasty form letter stating that they're going to turn off her power and turn off this and the other thing.
[36:45.500 --> 36:49.720]  And they're going to send out, you know, creditors and all this other... for two pence.
[36:50.840 --> 36:51.240]  Wow.
[36:51.400 --> 36:52.720]  It was like, you know, .02.
[36:54.040 --> 36:55.200]  So what ended up happening?
[36:55.920 --> 36:57.340]  Oh, it was taken care of.
[36:57.640 --> 36:57.860]  Oh, okay.
[36:58.040 --> 36:58.820]  I think she paid.
[36:59.040 --> 37:00.260]  They took it out of her hide.
[37:00.540 --> 37:00.980]  You know.
[37:02.580 --> 37:05.380]  They kind of apologized and said, you know, this is kind of ridiculous.
[37:05.760 --> 37:06.940]  But made a couple of papers.
[37:07.360 --> 37:07.660]  Yes, Bernie.
[37:07.880 --> 37:15.240]  Before you take any calls, I have to share a brief, amazing experience I had on my way over to where this phone is this evening.
[37:15.480 --> 37:20.880]  I took a taxi cab over to a friend's house because they have web access at their house.
[37:21.140 --> 37:21.900]  I don't.
[37:22.880 --> 37:24.760]  But I'll explain that sometime.
[37:24.980 --> 37:27.480]  But in any case, I had to take a cab over here.
[37:27.620 --> 37:30.040]  And there's this thing sitting on this cab dashboard.
[37:30.040 --> 37:31.660]  And I asked the cabbie, what is that?
[37:31.740 --> 37:34.000]  Is that a GPS unit, a navigation thing?
[37:34.080 --> 37:35.580]  He's like, no, it's a webcam.
[37:35.980 --> 37:37.200]  I'm like, get out.
[37:37.340 --> 37:40.240]  You've got a webcam in your taxi cab?
[37:40.340 --> 37:40.820]  He's like, sure.
[37:40.820 --> 37:42.840]  And sure enough, I peered over the back seat.
[37:43.060 --> 37:44.880]  And he's got a laptop.
[37:45.080 --> 37:59.060]  He's got a CDPD, cellular data packet protocol or whatever, radio packet modem in his cab using a Bell Linux, I forget what service they call it.
[37:59.060 --> 38:04.820]  But it's like $40 a month, flat rate, wireless data access.
[38:04.980 --> 38:05.900]  You get your own IP address.
[38:06.760 --> 38:08.220]  And he has this thing set up.
[38:08.320 --> 38:10.520]  And we had a great conversation, but then I had to run.
[38:10.660 --> 38:12.280]  I was so excited, I forgot to pay him.
[38:12.360 --> 38:14.920]  But that's why I called him after I got in the house.
[38:14.920 --> 38:18.040]  He must have been pretty excited, too, if he forgot to get paid.
[38:18.240 --> 38:19.260]  I mean...
[38:19.260 --> 38:19.860]  He was laughing.
[38:20.020 --> 38:20.920]  He called the girlfriend.
[38:21.080 --> 38:22.000]  Hey, the guy got to pay.
[38:22.120 --> 38:22.560]  I don't care.
[38:22.720 --> 38:23.480]  It was a fun conversation.
[38:23.900 --> 38:26.820]  Anyhow, I've got his address, his URL here.
[38:27.000 --> 38:28.100]  Wait, wait, wait, wait, Bernie.
[38:28.220 --> 38:29.140]  Where is the camera pointed?
[38:29.260 --> 38:30.380]  At the passenger or at the street?
[38:30.540 --> 38:31.340]  I want it at the street.
[38:31.580 --> 38:31.720]  Really?
[38:31.720 --> 38:32.680]  But he's also running audio.
[38:32.900 --> 38:33.720]  He's running audio.
[38:33.720 --> 38:36.400]  He's got a cellular phone in his cab.
[38:36.400 --> 38:37.620]  And what he does is he calls...
[38:37.620 --> 38:41.240]  He has a show at 9 o'clock, which is right after Off the Hook, apparently.
[38:41.700 --> 38:44.300]  9 o'clock tonight from 9 to 10.
[38:45.340 --> 38:47.680]  He does live video feeds from his cab.
[38:47.880 --> 38:50.500]  And you can hear passengers in his cab and so forth.
[38:50.600 --> 38:52.560]  I'm like, do you tell them they're being broadcast?
[38:52.740 --> 38:55.680]  He's like, yeah, I have to tell them, because in Pennsylvania, there's wiretapping laws and all that.
[38:56.600 --> 39:05.320]  So his URL is www.weareallgoingtohelltaxicab.com.
[39:05.620 --> 39:08.120]  Now, it's not we are all going to hell in a taxi cab.
[39:08.380 --> 39:13.460]  It's weareallgoingtohelltaxicab.com.
[39:13.460 --> 39:16.060]  And there's a hyphen between each word.
[39:16.260 --> 39:17.460]  And taxicab is one word.
[39:17.640 --> 39:23.060]  So it's we hyphen, our hyphen, all hyphen, whatever.
[39:23.060 --> 39:27.660]  We are all going to helltaxicab.com with hyphens between each word.
[39:27.820 --> 39:29.040]  You've got to check this out at 9 o'clock.
[39:29.040 --> 39:40.100]  Wow, you know, it's amazing that since they expanded the amount of letters you could use in a web address, the kinds of webpages that have been showing up.
[39:41.060 --> 39:43.500]  That's the gaysburgaddress.com or something, you know?
[39:43.600 --> 39:44.940]  Makes me thankful for bookmarks.
[39:45.680 --> 39:48.040]  I wonder who has the best webpage in the world, .com.
[39:48.680 --> 39:50.080]  Hmm, that might be worth checking out.
[39:51.180 --> 39:53.240]  Anyway, 212-209-2900.
[39:53.380 --> 39:54.280]  Shall we take some phone calls?
[39:55.160 --> 39:55.840]  Good, okay.
[39:55.980 --> 39:56.480]  Let's go over here.
[39:56.680 --> 39:57.120]  Good evening.
[39:57.120 --> 39:57.700]  You're on the air.
[39:58.140 --> 39:58.660]  Hi, good evening.
[39:58.900 --> 39:59.240]  How are you?
[39:59.360 --> 40:00.400]  See, it's not always rebel.
[40:00.800 --> 40:01.200]  Yeah.
[40:01.500 --> 40:02.280]  I do have a cause.
[40:02.520 --> 40:02.780]  Thankfully.
[40:03.200 --> 40:04.080]  Or a point to it.
[40:04.080 --> 40:05.480]  We have an anti-rebel device installed.
[40:05.740 --> 40:06.000]  Right, you see?
[40:06.560 --> 40:22.820]  Anyway, I'd like to make several points apropos of the discussion you just had, namely that the same criteria for exclusion, such as in voting, also apply to several other areas, just in case you haven't realized it, perhaps you have.
[40:23.040 --> 40:26.220]  Namely, like, you cannot serve on a jury in most states.
[40:26.220 --> 40:37.900]  In most states, you cannot hold public office in most states, and in most states you cannot practice law in most states, for all those who have been convicted of felonies, or at least are still on parole.
[40:38.320 --> 40:38.640]  That's true.
[40:38.780 --> 40:45.020]  Now, this whole thing might become moot at some time in the near future if parole is abolished, but that's a whole other discussion.
[40:46.060 --> 40:52.580]  But those traditionally have been part of the same areas for excluding participation.
[40:53.680 --> 40:55.000]  You mentioned felonies.
[40:55.180 --> 40:56.760]  It's not even violent felonies.
[40:56.860 --> 40:58.860]  It could be just, you know, something really simple.
[40:59.060 --> 40:59.600]  That's correct.
[40:59.780 --> 41:00.540]  That gets labeled a felonies.
[41:00.580 --> 41:03.260]  I mean, Bernie, what are some of the simple things that are labeled felonies these days?
[41:03.260 --> 41:09.260]  Well, like possession of quartz crystals that you could buy at Radio Shack or software or something like that.
[41:09.520 --> 41:17.180]  It became crystal clear to me after my ordeal why they don't want people convicted of crimes sitting in a jury box.
[41:17.180 --> 41:32.060]  And it became crystal clear to me because I became familiar firsthand with how dishonest prosecutors and police officers can be, and they will blatantly commit perjury or misrepresent facts.
[41:32.080 --> 41:34.220]  And it just comes crystal clear.
[41:34.340 --> 41:44.080]  So if I were sitting in a jury box, I would be very circumspect about what a police officer or a prosecutor was saying, knowing that they are very capable of lying.
[41:44.080 --> 41:49.480]  Right, by the way, police officers can now be conserved on juries now in New York State.
[41:49.600 --> 41:50.480]  I don't know if you're aware of that.
[41:50.920 --> 41:52.020]  Well, what a double standard.
[41:52.480 --> 41:57.900]  And in the case of lawyers, there might be a case for, let's say, conviction of bribery, which is a felony, although non-violent.
[41:58.260 --> 42:04.840]  It might be not such a bad idea to keep lawyers from holding public office or vice versa, or at least for a limited amount of time.
[42:04.840 --> 42:06.700]  It would eliminate most of our Senate and Congress.
[42:06.860 --> 42:16.300]  Well, that's interesting because when we were there in D.C., we realized, we were told by the secretaries that everybody on that panel, save one, maybe, was a lawyer.
[42:17.300 --> 42:18.540]  And it was interesting.
[42:18.840 --> 42:19.960]  Shakespeare had the right idea.
[42:20.100 --> 42:20.240]  Okay.
[42:21.460 --> 42:22.300]  Thanks for calling you.
[42:22.380 --> 42:22.960]  Thanks for calling.
[42:23.200 --> 42:24.780]  I like the allusion to Shakespeare.
[42:25.040 --> 42:25.720]  Those two points.
[42:26.160 --> 42:26.560]  Ah, yes.
[42:27.500 --> 42:36.340]  In California, Bernie, I don't know if you're aware of this, this being election night and primary night and all that kind of thing, but there's a proposition, Proposition 21.
[42:36.680 --> 42:37.560]  You guys familiar with this?
[42:38.160 --> 42:42.880]  Because this would allow prosecutors to bypass judges.
[42:43.660 --> 42:48.220]  I think it's called the Youth Gang Act or something like that.
[42:48.260 --> 42:50.400]  They always name it something really frightening.
[42:50.940 --> 43:00.140]  But basically, it allows prosecutors to decide when people under the age of, I believe it's 18, shall be charged as adults.
[43:00.380 --> 43:05.780]  It used to be the prosecutor had to go to the judge to get that approval, but now the prosecutor can just do it themselves.
[43:06.080 --> 43:06.520]  Right, right.
[43:06.520 --> 43:07.240]  I heard about this.
[43:07.360 --> 43:08.900]  That's kind of questionable.
[43:09.640 --> 43:10.520]  So that's...
[43:10.520 --> 43:21.900]  And in this case, in this situation, the difference between being tried in juvenile court versus adult court literally can be a matter of life or death.
[43:23.360 --> 43:23.800]  Definitely.
[43:24.140 --> 43:24.260]  Definitely.
[43:24.560 --> 43:41.460]  If it's a capital crime, suppose you're 13 years old or 14 years old or something, you commit a capital, you're accused of committing a capital crime, being tried in juvenile court could mean that you would not be executed at the hands of the government,
[43:41.660 --> 43:48.660]  whereas if you're prosecuted in a regular adult criminal court, then you could be killed by...
[43:48.660 --> 43:50.540]  But those are the most extreme cases.
[43:50.800 --> 43:50.900]  Sure.
[43:50.900 --> 44:04.960]  I'm thinking more of just, you know, a felony case where somebody, you know, steals something or breaks into a place, and instead of having a chance at rehabilitation, they wind up in the system for the rest of their lives, which is, you know, what would happen to somebody who's an adult.
[44:05.240 --> 44:05.820]  Yeah, absolutely.
[44:06.100 --> 44:14.400]  Even if it's like a hacking-related crime, someone could easily serve, you know, as in Kevin's case, five years in adult court.
[44:14.480 --> 44:17.180]  Had he been a juvenile, it might have been a much...
[44:17.180 --> 44:18.760]  Although, these days, it's not so...
[44:18.760 --> 44:20.340]  You know, look to Joe Gregg.
[44:20.420 --> 44:26.940]  He got, what, a year and a half or something for something that, you know, was pretty trivial.
[44:26.940 --> 44:31.240]  And that was because he was tried in adult... that was in adult court, as opposed to juvenile.
[44:31.440 --> 44:33.980]  It was in juvenile court, you probably would have gotten probation.
[44:34.120 --> 44:40.260]  That was... he's on some ridiculous wagon train for, like, next year.
[44:40.340 --> 44:44.740]  And he's living in a teepee in northwestern Pennsylvania right now, under federal supervision.
[44:44.920 --> 44:45.200]  It's crazy.
[44:45.440 --> 44:45.720]  Oh, joy.
[44:46.180 --> 44:50.520]  Well, California also is a state where you have the three strikes and you're out deal.
[44:50.520 --> 44:52.700]  And it doesn't even have to be for a violent crime.
[44:52.960 --> 44:56.340]  It could be something really, really minor if it's the third offense.
[44:56.340 --> 44:57.640]  One guy stole a pizza.
[44:57.900 --> 44:58.840]  Stole a pizza, right.
[44:58.980 --> 45:00.380]  Stole a pizza, and it was just three strikes.
[45:00.720 --> 45:02.020]  25 to life, was it?
[45:02.220 --> 45:03.200]  Or was it just life?
[45:03.460 --> 45:05.860]  It was decades or life, I forget.
[45:06.020 --> 45:11.260]  In fact, I think there was one case where a young man did all three strikes in one night.
[45:13.880 --> 45:15.940]  He just went on a rampage one night.
[45:16.080 --> 45:17.760]  None of them were violent crimes.
[45:17.920 --> 45:23.280]  They were like, he broke into a place, he stole something, and then he did, like, he drank alcohol while he was in the place.
[45:23.360 --> 45:24.080]  Or something like that.
[45:24.240 --> 45:26.020]  And that counted as three strikes?
[45:26.020 --> 45:26.880]  That was three strikes.
[45:27.040 --> 45:28.000]  He did them all in one night.
[45:28.120 --> 45:29.680]  And then he was out.
[45:29.880 --> 45:30.500]  That was it.
[45:32.480 --> 45:33.100]  Oh, boy.
[45:33.740 --> 45:34.400]  I don't know.
[45:35.400 --> 45:36.840]  212-209-2900.
[45:37.060 --> 45:39.760]  Give us your thoughts on the world today.
[45:39.860 --> 45:40.120]  Good evening.
[45:40.180 --> 45:40.620]  You're on the air.
[45:41.060 --> 45:41.220]  Yeah.
[45:41.440 --> 45:55.340]  Did you hear about the prison where there was a scam because the prison was owned by stockholders, and they weren't making money so that they had people commit crimes in order to go to this prison?
[45:55.820 --> 45:56.840]  I forget where it was.
[45:56.920 --> 45:57.760]  I think it was in Michigan.
[45:58.720 --> 46:01.480]  What was in it for the people who committed the crime?
[46:01.600 --> 46:01.760]  Yeah.
[46:02.600 --> 46:02.840]  Huh?
[46:03.380 --> 46:04.300]  What did you say, Bernie?
[46:04.500 --> 46:06.800]  Why would you commit a crime to be sent to this prison?
[46:06.900 --> 46:07.840]  What's in it for you?
[46:08.160 --> 46:11.160]  Are you stockholders committing crimes just to boost their own stock value?
[46:11.840 --> 46:12.620]  Something like that.
[46:12.660 --> 46:13.900]  I didn't hear the full report.
[46:14.200 --> 46:15.500]  That makes no sense at all.
[46:16.100 --> 46:19.860]  I don't know, but anyway, I was just in Los Angeles, and guess what?
[46:20.140 --> 46:22.960]  The phone company, of course, in California, is Pacific Bell.
[46:23.220 --> 46:24.160]  You're slick, you know that?
[46:24.360 --> 46:29.760]  You figure out a way to completely change the subject and talk about, you know, what it is that you want to talk about.
[46:29.940 --> 46:33.960]  Meanwhile, he comes up with this cockamamie story that there's no way to verify.
[46:34.420 --> 46:35.440]  And it makes no sense either.
[46:35.660 --> 46:36.020]  Unbelievable.
[46:36.260 --> 46:40.800]  We let him ramble about some urban legend, and then we hang up on him when he starts talking about Pac Bell.
[46:40.800 --> 46:42.180]  What is the show about, man?
[46:42.640 --> 46:42.980]  Good evening.
[46:43.080 --> 46:43.520]  You're on the air.
[46:44.360 --> 46:44.580]  Hello?
[46:44.820 --> 46:45.300]  Yes, go ahead.
[46:45.520 --> 46:46.740]  Hi, Emmanuel and Bernie F.
[46:46.780 --> 46:47.240]  This is Scott.
[46:47.440 --> 46:47.800]  Hey, Scott.
[46:47.980 --> 46:48.220]  How are you?
[46:48.420 --> 46:48.440]  Scott?
[46:49.040 --> 46:51.060]  I normally try to resist calling.
[46:51.360 --> 46:53.220]  It's just that Isaac said some stuff.
[46:54.340 --> 46:58.120]  And it was so incredibly demented that I had to call.
[46:59.320 --> 47:01.460]  But I just want to add a few points.
[47:02.380 --> 47:18.880]  Just briefly, the distinction that Isaac is so fascinated with between that of a misdemeanor and that of a felony is it's a distinction that's so incredible that you could take such a broad array of crimes and then label them into two categories.
[47:19.040 --> 47:23.180]  And in fact, what's interesting is any federal crime you commit is a felony.
[47:23.760 --> 47:25.180]  Am I right on that, Bernie F.?
[47:25.180 --> 47:28.080]  There are actually federal misdemeanors, I researched it.
[47:28.180 --> 47:28.200]  Really?
[47:28.560 --> 47:36.520]  But there are a lot of crimes which in state court would be considered misdemeanors, and in federal court are considered felonies.
[47:36.640 --> 47:38.460]  So you're right in that regard.
[47:38.620 --> 47:40.420]  There are many more crimes...
[47:40.420 --> 47:50.300]  If you've looked at the trend over the past few years, you'll find that there have been thousands of federal statutes passed, which pretty much any...
[47:50.300 --> 47:59.100]  It used to be that you had a few federal statutes that covered some strange sort of offenses.
[47:59.320 --> 48:00.800]  But now there's a duplicate.
[48:01.040 --> 48:06.900]  Almost any state law, any crime you can commit in a state, there's a federal equivalent for.
[48:07.240 --> 48:10.280]  And so they can get you twice for almost anything.
[48:10.580 --> 48:16.500]  And that book with all those federal criminal felonies is about the size of the Manhattan Yellow Pages.
[48:16.500 --> 48:18.840]  Right, of course, you're familiar with the sentencing guidelines.
[48:19.180 --> 48:20.240]  And even they can't...
[48:20.240 --> 48:21.040]  Even they make...
[48:21.040 --> 48:22.120]  You want to talk about distinction.
[48:22.620 --> 48:28.600]  When you commit a felony, there's 43 offense levels that they divide a felony into.
[48:29.340 --> 48:30.220]  43 categories.
[48:31.160 --> 48:31.680]  And it's...
[48:31.680 --> 48:34.980]  Right, and then there's six criminal history categories.
[48:35.320 --> 48:39.340]  All right, where would you draw the line for acceptance of the right to vote in that 43 level?
[48:39.340 --> 48:42.440]  My feeling is, you did your time, you're out, you have the right to vote.
[48:42.780 --> 48:44.580]  I don't see the point in extending...
[48:44.580 --> 48:50.280]  It's a way of basically extending your punishment beyond the time that you were...
[48:50.280 --> 48:51.240]  You know, beyond your sentence.
[48:51.700 --> 48:52.760]  It's like double jeopardy.
[48:52.800 --> 48:53.020]  Sure.
[48:53.140 --> 48:57.780]  It's like, okay, you know, you've done your time, and now we're going to continue to punish you for another, I don't know, six years.
[48:58.760 --> 48:59.960]  And it doesn't make any sense.
[49:00.220 --> 49:03.760]  One guy made a point, and it really struck me, and I identified with it.
[49:03.860 --> 49:04.300]  It could...
[49:04.300 --> 49:13.060]  This denial of the right to vote could be the slap in the face that's actually the trigger to make that person just say, screw this.
[49:13.400 --> 49:15.960]  Why should I, you know, why should I be a good citizen?
[49:16.180 --> 49:18.840]  I'm not even being given the respect to vote.
[49:18.980 --> 49:19.960]  And that's, you know, after that person...
[49:19.960 --> 49:20.120]  For a period of time.
[49:21.420 --> 49:34.880]  But my feeling is if you've committed an offense level one, category one, criminal history category one, according to the federal sentencing table, offense, which is, say, I don't know, what could that be?
[49:35.360 --> 49:37.060]  Probably just stealing anything.
[49:38.680 --> 49:41.160]  You know, why should you use the right to vote for six years?
[49:41.300 --> 49:42.340]  It doesn't make any sense to me.
[49:43.060 --> 49:45.220]  You know, and I think in people's mind...
[49:45.220 --> 49:52.820]  Well, if your right to vote is so very important to you, have you considered losing it before you take part in the criminal act?
[49:53.040 --> 49:56.580]  That's how we fought our independence.
[49:56.580 --> 49:57.180]  Oh, come on.
[49:57.200 --> 49:57.940]  These are criminals.
[49:58.120 --> 49:59.980]  They're not fighting anyone except your neighbor.
[50:00.300 --> 50:03.960]  What if the law is so obscure, and it's not even published in the book yet?
[50:04.420 --> 50:06.760]  Actually, I'm going to retract something I said previously.
[50:07.080 --> 50:11.740]  I think it's so easy for you to take everybody who's ever done anything and throw them all together and say they're criminals.
[50:11.780 --> 50:14.640]  Yeah, I mean, that's really, like, lumping people into a category.
[50:14.680 --> 50:19.820]  It's unbelievable that you would put mass murderers and somebody who has a crystal in the same category...
[50:19.820 --> 50:21.100]  Well, where would you draw the line?
[50:21.500 --> 50:22.540]  ...and deny them franchise?
[50:23.080 --> 50:23.980]  Does that make any sense?
[50:24.180 --> 50:25.120]  For a period of time.
[50:25.200 --> 50:26.440]  But where would you draw the line?
[50:26.580 --> 50:29.120]  Hey, listen, Isaac, they did lose their right to vote for a period of time.
[50:29.280 --> 50:30.720]  They lost it when they were in jail.
[50:31.120 --> 50:32.100]  Now they're out of jail.
[50:32.100 --> 50:33.660]  Why should they lose it?
[50:33.900 --> 50:38.260]  Four states allow people who are in jail to vote.
[50:38.440 --> 50:44.720]  Maine, Massachusetts, Oregon, and Vermont are all forward-thinking states, and they actually allow inmates to cast absentee ballots.
[50:44.720 --> 50:45.580]  That's forward-thinking?
[50:45.940 --> 50:46.780]  I think so.
[50:47.540 --> 50:48.440]  I believe so.
[50:48.580 --> 50:49.640]  Why should they not...
[50:49.640 --> 50:49.940]  What?
[50:50.060 --> 50:53.020]  They're going to overturn the whole electorate of the whole country?
[50:53.980 --> 50:55.160]  I mean, give me a break.
[50:55.260 --> 51:00.900]  Well, Barney, actually, you know, the way prisoners are growing, they're the fastest-growing group in America right now.
[51:01.160 --> 51:01.440]  It's probably true.
[51:01.640 --> 51:02.380]  So that could happen.
[51:02.560 --> 51:03.520]  It really could happen.
[51:03.640 --> 51:06.900]  Prisoners have a really strong voting bloc.
[51:07.060 --> 51:13.520]  In my mind, the term felony is almost meaningless now, since it can include anything from a violent to a nonviolent.
[51:13.520 --> 51:15.780]  So where would you draw the line?
[51:16.240 --> 51:17.040]  Where would I draw the line?
[51:17.040 --> 51:18.780]  I'm actually going to retract what I said previously.
[51:19.100 --> 51:21.840]  If you're convicted of a felony, you know, I wouldn't even...
[51:21.840 --> 51:22.900]  Again, that term is meaningless.
[51:23.040 --> 51:33.340]  If you're convicted of certain crimes that I consider to be violent and serious crimes, when I say high crimes and misdemeanors, I don't mean felonies.
[51:33.380 --> 51:34.720]  I mean high crimes and misdemeanors.
[51:35.180 --> 51:36.940]  What is a high crime or a misdemeanor?
[51:37.080 --> 51:38.000]  A serious crime.
[51:38.200 --> 51:39.940]  You know, something that's violent.
[51:40.180 --> 51:41.020]  An affair with a 21-year-old.
[51:41.180 --> 51:41.320]  Right.
[51:42.380 --> 51:44.440]  If you shot somebody, if you...
[51:44.440 --> 51:45.200]  Two points for Bernie.
[51:45.640 --> 51:46.780]  If you committed any kind...
[51:46.780 --> 51:51.300]  If you, you know, kidnapping, something like that, I can understand while you're in prison...
[51:51.300 --> 51:52.580]  Ah, old-fashioned crimes.
[51:52.800 --> 51:53.720]  Right, old-fashioned crimes.
[51:53.780 --> 51:54.680]  Old-fashioned crimes.
[51:55.260 --> 51:56.340]  Those are the days...
[51:56.340 --> 51:59.740]  Back in, like, the 70s and 80s, or most of the 70s, though, people...
[51:59.740 --> 52:02.940]  When they were in prison, it used to be for something that really mattered.
[52:03.080 --> 52:04.580]  These days, anybody can get into prison.
[52:04.720 --> 52:06.060]  It's not like an elitist club anymore.
[52:06.140 --> 52:08.720]  And the worst thing is they lump them all together in prison, too.
[52:08.880 --> 52:13.140]  They'll have no problem putting somebody who stole a crystal with somebody who's a mass murderer.
[52:13.300 --> 52:14.700]  You were on death row, weren't you, Bernie?
[52:15.220 --> 52:17.600]  I was there with people who were going to be sentenced to death.
[52:18.000 --> 52:18.660]  That's insane.
[52:18.840 --> 52:21.220]  Listen, guys, I'd love to keep this conversation going for hours.
[52:21.300 --> 52:21.840]  Really, I would.
[52:21.960 --> 52:26.600]  But we do have to get to some other callers, and we do have to talk about some other issues, and we only have a limited amount of time.
[52:26.740 --> 52:27.540]  This is a great show.
[52:27.680 --> 52:27.980]  Take care.
[52:28.080 --> 52:28.320]  All right.
[52:28.380 --> 52:28.920]  Thanks for calling.
[52:29.340 --> 52:29.680]  Bye, Scott.
[52:30.100 --> 52:31.740]  We really should have, like...
[52:31.740 --> 52:34.580]  What I'm going to retract very quickly...
[52:34.580 --> 52:35.780]  You want to retract everything you've ever said?
[52:35.840 --> 52:36.640]  No, I'm just going to take...
[52:36.640 --> 52:39.460]  I'll give you one chance right now, Isaac, and this is your last chance.
[52:39.500 --> 52:49.600]  No, I'm going to take back the suggestion of a small panel that decides whether or not a crime is serious enough to warrant the disenfranchisement of the individual...
[52:49.600 --> 52:50.040]  It's our chamber.
[52:50.760 --> 52:51.860]  I'll take that back.
[52:52.020 --> 53:03.000]  Instead, I will simply say that the felony, the term felony is the dividing line between a misdemeanor and a felony, and therefore your incarceration so far as losing your right to vote.
[53:03.000 --> 53:10.000]  Yes, but the term felony has been overgeneralized to include just about anything, you know?
[53:10.560 --> 53:11.920]  Isaac, I guarantee you...
[53:11.920 --> 53:12.560]  It's an unrelated issue.
[53:13.320 --> 53:18.620]  Isaac, I challenge you to go through the entire Federal Criminal Code, Title 18.
[53:18.760 --> 53:24.820]  I challenge you to not go through there and not find at least 10 felonies that you yourself have committed.
[53:24.940 --> 53:25.400]  Oh, I'm sure I have.
[53:25.580 --> 53:26.100]  I challenge you.
[53:26.380 --> 53:27.360]  I'm sure I have.
[53:27.480 --> 53:28.300]  You've committed felonies?
[53:28.340 --> 53:29.820]  You're being hypocritical.
[53:29.900 --> 53:30.920]  I'm not being hypocritical.
[53:30.940 --> 53:31.660]  You've committed felonies.
[53:31.660 --> 53:35.240]  But I certainly have not been arrested and put on trial.
[53:35.240 --> 53:38.120]  Just because we didn't know about your life of crime until now.
[53:38.640 --> 53:40.080]  What felonies have you been committing?
[53:40.500 --> 53:42.960]  I want to know about this, and I'm sure everybody out there wants to know.
[53:43.060 --> 53:44.040]  What felonies, Isaac?
[53:44.160 --> 53:44.380]  Come on.
[53:44.880 --> 53:50.620]  I'm going to wait until after the statute of limitations, as dear wise Kevin did.
[53:50.680 --> 53:51.280]  Oh, boy.
[53:51.920 --> 53:54.820]  You think you know somebody, and it turns out they're a criminal.
[53:54.980 --> 53:55.880]  He's absolutely right.
[53:56.020 --> 54:02.300]  There are these statutes that exist on the book simply to drop people into, not their convenience.
[54:03.320 --> 54:03.400]  All right.
[54:03.500 --> 54:05.760]  Well, we're going to have to move on because we're running out of time rapidly.
[54:05.880 --> 54:06.120]  Good evening.
[54:06.240 --> 54:06.640]  You're on the air.
[54:08.680 --> 54:11.120]  You're also going to have to speak rapidly when I call on you.
[54:11.180 --> 54:11.400]  Good evening.
[54:11.540 --> 54:11.960]  You're on the air.
[54:12.800 --> 54:13.120]  Yes.
[54:13.760 --> 54:14.900]  You said that you...
[54:14.900 --> 54:15.660]  Turn your radio down.
[54:15.780 --> 54:16.480]  Turn your radio down.
[54:16.780 --> 54:19.460]  You said that you were changing over to MCI.
[54:19.620 --> 54:27.140]  I want you to know that MCI has a class action lawsuit against them because they are in cahoots with the state.
[54:27.700 --> 54:29.380]  And they're charging families.
[54:29.620 --> 54:30.000]  Oh, yes.
[54:30.080 --> 54:30.340]  You're right.
[54:30.600 --> 54:30.860]  That's true.
[54:30.860 --> 54:31.740]  And so you...
[54:31.740 --> 54:34.000]  I'm so glad I got through.
[54:34.380 --> 54:36.380]  Please do not use MCI.
[54:36.500 --> 54:36.720]  Okay.
[54:36.720 --> 54:41.000]  Because the prisoners are not allowed to make direct calls.
[54:41.160 --> 54:46.560]  And you know when you have an operator intercede, that makes the call even more.
[54:46.760 --> 54:47.040]  You're right.
[54:47.040 --> 54:48.180]  You're absolutely right.
[54:48.220 --> 54:49.300]  I didn't even think about that.
[54:49.300 --> 54:49.580]  Please.
[54:49.840 --> 54:50.160]  Thank you.
[54:50.160 --> 54:51.400]  And I'll switch to Sprint.
[54:51.540 --> 54:57.520]  And the beauty of it is that when you switch to these companies, they cover the charge for switching.
[54:57.820 --> 55:11.780]  So, okay, if they do one thing that pisses me off, and that certainly qualifies overcharging the families of prisoners for making collect phone calls, then absolutely, absolutely, I'll switch to another company then and probably get an even better rate and maybe a check or something from them.
[55:12.100 --> 55:12.740]  I mean, yeah.
[55:13.180 --> 55:18.100]  And I advise everybody to do the same thing because the customer should be driving the market.
[55:18.640 --> 55:19.380]  Simple as that.
[55:19.980 --> 55:20.100]  All right.
[55:20.160 --> 55:20.560]  Let's go over here.
[55:20.660 --> 55:20.920]  Good evening.
[55:21.020 --> 55:21.440]  You're on the air.
[55:23.180 --> 55:23.540]  Manuel.
[55:23.820 --> 55:24.040]  Yes.
[55:24.280 --> 55:25.380]  Tommy Pickles.
[55:25.580 --> 55:25.860]  How you doing?
[55:26.460 --> 55:28.500]  I hope you like that t-shirt that I gave you.
[55:28.660 --> 55:28.780]  Yeah.
[55:28.880 --> 55:29.500]  Very nice t-shirt.
[55:29.620 --> 55:30.100]  Thank you very much.
[55:30.300 --> 55:30.500]  Yeah.
[55:30.720 --> 55:35.720]  And I was just saying that I'm very happy that Kevin came down to the 2600 meeting in New York City.
[55:36.420 --> 55:36.780]  Yeah.
[55:36.780 --> 55:38.480]  He was extremely happy with it, too.
[55:38.800 --> 55:39.000]  Yeah.
[55:39.060 --> 55:42.000]  It was a good thing to present to all these young hackers and stuff like that.
[55:42.120 --> 55:46.180]  So I've been listening to your show on the net tonight because I don't have a radio with me.
[55:46.180 --> 55:47.580]  But good show tonight.
[55:47.880 --> 55:50.920]  And yes, felony should not stop you from voting.
[55:51.660 --> 55:52.220]  Okay.
[55:52.280 --> 55:53.660]  Because, you know, you should have your freedom.
[55:53.760 --> 55:56.640]  When you're free from prison, you should be free.
[55:57.160 --> 55:57.500]  Yeah.
[55:57.820 --> 55:57.960]  Yeah.
[55:58.220 --> 55:58.600]  Anyway.
[55:59.020 --> 56:06.020]  And hopefully people from 2600 join the SE 2600 people down for AtlantaCon coming up at the end of the month.
[56:06.280 --> 56:07.340]  When and where is that?
[56:07.820 --> 56:14.960]  AtlantaCon March 31st through April 2nd over at the Marriott over in Atlanta.
[56:14.960 --> 56:16.260]  Is there a website or anything?
[56:16.520 --> 56:16.740]  Yeah.
[56:16.940 --> 56:23.020]  There's a website that you go to www.atlantacon.com.
[56:23.360 --> 56:23.620]  Okay.
[56:24.000 --> 56:24.200]  All right.
[56:24.240 --> 56:25.040]  And that's the convention.
[56:25.340 --> 56:27.360]  And, you know, the Mala crew will be down there.
[56:27.720 --> 56:28.000]  Great.
[56:28.220 --> 56:29.920]  So we'll see you soon.
[56:30.040 --> 56:30.340]  Okay.
[56:30.400 --> 56:31.940]  And hope too bad the...
[56:31.940 --> 56:32.320]  Oh, wow.
[56:32.380 --> 56:33.820]  The next meeting's April 7th.
[56:33.900 --> 56:35.180]  So we should be back by then.
[56:35.480 --> 56:36.200]  We'll see you then.
[56:36.360 --> 56:36.640]  Yep.
[56:36.840 --> 56:37.160]  Take care.
[56:37.220 --> 56:37.400]  Take care.
[56:37.580 --> 56:37.680]  Bye.
[56:37.880 --> 56:39.480]  Taking a Braves game while we're down.
[56:39.720 --> 56:40.120]  Maybe.
[56:40.640 --> 56:41.200]  Good evening.
[56:41.340 --> 56:41.700]  You're on the air.
[56:42.260 --> 56:42.600]  Manuel.
[56:42.940 --> 56:43.300]  Go ahead.
[56:43.740 --> 56:44.380]  It's Valen.
[56:45.440 --> 56:47.160]  Damn, I feel stupid for missing the meeting.
[56:47.720 --> 56:49.540]  Well, I was there for part of it.
[56:49.720 --> 56:50.120]  Sorry.
[56:50.960 --> 56:59.560]  About the prisons, there was a special on the History Channel, one of those Mike Wallace, Our Century things, where they discuss the prisons and everything.
[57:00.740 --> 57:01.600]  What was I going to say?
[57:01.720 --> 57:02.020]  Oh, yeah.
[57:02.940 --> 57:12.200]  The thing is, federal felonies and state felonies and misdemeanors, see, the federal government really wants to get you.
[57:12.940 --> 57:14.600]  It's a respect issue.
[57:14.800 --> 57:18.000]  If you steal a stamp from a post office, it's 10 years just for that.
[57:18.420 --> 57:18.720]  Wow.
[57:19.040 --> 57:19.200]  Yeah.
[57:19.500 --> 57:24.400]  And it's not so much the stamp, it's the fact that you've gone against the federal government, really.
[57:24.660 --> 57:24.940]  Mm-hmm.
[57:25.400 --> 57:26.400]  And, well...
[57:26.400 --> 57:27.240]  Take it very personally.
[57:27.360 --> 57:29.860]  Yeah, Bernie knows a thing or two about going against the federal government.
[57:30.380 --> 57:31.320]  Take it very personally.
[57:31.320 --> 57:31.720]  Yeah.
[57:31.960 --> 57:46.620]  Well, I'm not a big fan of these laws, but the thing is, there are real criminals, and I think Isaac is partially right, and I know you don't agree, but there are real criminals, and they do deserve to lose their rights, but not voting, because voting is a right.
[57:47.240 --> 57:47.840]  And Bernie...
[57:47.840 --> 57:47.960]  I don't like to breathe.
[57:48.440 --> 57:49.100]  It's a right.
[57:49.240 --> 57:50.020]  It's like breathing, yeah.
[57:50.460 --> 57:56.520]  And, Bernie, I think you have a real lawsuit on your hands, because, you know, the whole taxation without representation thing.
[57:57.460 --> 58:07.380]  Well, I think one of these people wanted to propose a bill that they rescind the taxes for people who are not permitted to register to vote, but I don't think that's going to fly.
[58:08.160 --> 58:08.360]  Yeah.
[58:08.600 --> 58:11.820]  Too bad the Supreme Court doesn't stand up for this, really, because they should.
[58:12.560 --> 58:13.120]  Thank you.
[58:13.320 --> 58:13.780]  Thanks for the call.
[58:13.820 --> 58:14.540]  Actually, that's not bad.
[58:14.740 --> 58:18.660]  I, for one, would like to see the Bernie Act be closed.
[58:21.360 --> 58:22.080]  Maybe so.
[58:23.060 --> 58:24.340]  Let's take another phone call.
[58:24.600 --> 58:24.900]  Good evening.
[58:24.980 --> 58:25.400]  You're on the air.
[58:26.000 --> 58:26.760]  Oh, hi.
[58:26.880 --> 58:27.240]  How are you doing?
[58:27.600 --> 58:31.780]  Yeah, as you were saying, the law is like a spider web.
[58:32.180 --> 58:35.320]  Large objects pass through it, and small ones get caught.
[58:35.500 --> 58:38.880]  And this is a famous saying by a great author.
[58:39.080 --> 58:41.560]  I'm not sure who it was, but it says a lot.
[58:41.700 --> 58:48.440]  You know, big crooks who have a lot of money, and lawyers can get very different treatment than a poor schnook.
[58:49.100 --> 58:49.680]  O.J.
[58:49.740 --> 58:52.540]  Simpson, if he was a poor black guy, would have been hung.
[58:52.540 --> 58:56.780]  And, you know, drawn and courted.
[58:56.960 --> 59:08.240]  There was a recent study done by a very competent sociologist who did an analysis of comparable crimes, like first offenders, people with no records, exactly the same charges.
[59:08.720 --> 59:12.280]  Whites got off disproportionately higher than blacks did.
[59:12.280 --> 59:16.360]  If you don't have a good lawyer, it's a question of how much justice you can buy.
[59:17.180 --> 59:23.700]  If everyone in Congress really got prosecuted for the things they did, 95% of them would be behind bars.
[59:23.900 --> 59:26.320]  Not only couldn't vote, but they would be put away for life.
[59:26.680 --> 59:26.860]  Right.
[59:26.860 --> 59:31.520]  You know, because if you have the levers of power, you define what a crime is.
[59:31.660 --> 59:36.120]  Half the people in prison are there for drug possession, which is a...
[59:36.120 --> 59:45.020]  Nixon even said in his little secret memoirs when they taped him, he said, you know, we've got to do something to get a handle on the public, you know, so we can control them.
[59:45.080 --> 01:00:00.020]  But, you know, even worse than that, sir, it's when people are put in the system, when people do become prisoners, even the most heinous prisoners of all, all of a sudden, they are not thought of as human anymore, and that's where we really start to go into some very dangerous ground,
[01:00:00.040 --> 01:00:10.400]  where we build the supermaxes every place, and we basically torture people, and it's a frightening type of world to live in, where that kind of thing becomes common.
[01:00:10.920 --> 01:00:12.220]  Unfortunately, we are out of time.
[01:00:12.240 --> 01:00:14.380]  We are out of time, but we're moving toward a cool act today.
[01:00:14.500 --> 01:00:15.380]  I have a brief announcement, Emmanuel.
[01:00:15.520 --> 01:00:15.960]  Okay, go ahead.
[01:00:16.500 --> 01:00:17.060]  Really quick.
[01:00:17.220 --> 01:00:26.940]  This Friday, Saturday, and Sunday is the annual Winterfest gathering of pirate radio operators, enthusiasts, shortwave listeners, and other radio enthusiasts.
[01:00:27.240 --> 01:00:29.700]  If you want details about it, it's in Culp'sville, Pennsylvania.
[01:00:29.960 --> 01:00:34.360]  Just email me at bernys2600.com, because it's a really long URL.
[01:00:34.660 --> 01:00:37.000]  Just bernys2600.com, and I'll mail you the details.
[01:00:37.180 --> 01:00:37.960]  It's worth attending.
[01:00:38.060 --> 01:00:38.840]  Very interesting stuff.
[01:00:39.240 --> 01:00:39.480]  Okay.
[01:00:39.920 --> 01:00:41.720]  Well, thanks for being part of the show.
[01:00:41.800 --> 01:00:42.980]  Next week, Kevin's going to be on again.
[01:00:42.980 --> 01:00:46.700]  We'll be taking some phone calls this time, so look forward to that.
[01:00:46.880 --> 01:00:48.840]  Until next week, Emmanuel Goldstein for Isaac and Bernie.
[01:00:49.040 --> 01:00:49.520]  Have a good night.
[01:01:28.020 --> 01:01:43.220]  WBAI Women Producers, joined by hosts and guests, presents their annual commemoration of International Working Women's Day 2000, beginning at 12 midnight on March 8th and continuing through to 1.30 a.m.
[01:01:43.380 --> 01:01:44.420]  on March 9th.
[01:01:44.620 --> 01:01:52.920]  The Moorish Orthodox radio program kicks off the day, followed by Weaponry and the sister from another planet, Andrea Clark.
[01:01:53.180 --> 01:01:58.400]  At 6 a.m., producer Sharon Harper hosts the Urban Bush Women and Women in Justice.
[01:01:58.800 --> 01:02:00.400]  Following Democracy Now!
[01:02:00.540 --> 01:02:07.100]  at 10 a.m., join Karen Taylor for a look at women in jazz, blues, gospel, and Latin music.
[01:02:07.260 --> 01:02:09.380]  At high noon, Kathy...