[00:12.990 --> 00:17.650]  The voice of Pacifica Radio, WBAI, in New York City.
[00:19.410 --> 00:26.030]  And right now it's 7 o'clock time on this voice of Pacifica for another edition of Off the Hook.
[00:50.310 --> 00:55.550]  And a good
[01:21.640 --> 01:22.080]  evening to everybody.
[01:22.180 --> 01:23.220]  The program is Off the Hook.
[01:23.420 --> 01:25.700]  Emmanuel Goldstein here with you on this Wednesday evening.
[01:26.200 --> 01:27.560]  Joined over there by Jim.
[01:27.860 --> 01:29.000]  Hey, Nummy Nummy.
[01:29.200 --> 01:30.060]  And Arsene.
[01:30.360 --> 01:30.600]  Hello.
[01:31.180 --> 01:31.640]  Redbird.
[01:31.880 --> 01:32.260]  Good evening.
[01:32.480 --> 01:32.840]  Mike.
[01:33.180 --> 01:33.360]  Hi.
[01:33.600 --> 01:35.080]  On the far side, not Kevin.
[01:35.140 --> 01:35.800]  Hello.
[01:36.160 --> 01:37.720]  And down in Philadelphia, Bernie S.
[01:38.560 --> 01:39.600]  Greetings from Philadelphia.
[01:40.080 --> 01:42.960]  And this is our last program for a couple of weeks.
[01:43.100 --> 01:44.540]  Next week is July 4th.
[01:44.640 --> 01:46.580]  And I'm told we're preempted.
[01:46.660 --> 01:47.660]  So we won't be on next week.
[01:48.180 --> 01:50.700]  And in two weeks, it's the beginning of the summer fundraiser.
[01:51.640 --> 01:52.880]  Yes, the summer fundraiser.
[01:53.220 --> 01:55.980]  In fact, this actually is the last normal show.
[01:56.120 --> 01:58.160]  Quote, unquote, normal show we'll be doing for quite a while.
[01:58.800 --> 02:00.820]  Reason being, we have the preemption.
[02:00.980 --> 02:02.460]  We have a couple of fundraisers.
[02:02.480 --> 02:04.520]  I think we have another preemption after that.
[02:04.940 --> 02:07.620]  And then a bunch of us started traveling all around the world.
[02:07.860 --> 02:09.740]  So those shows are...
[02:09.740 --> 02:10.580]  Yeah, those shows are always fun.
[02:10.640 --> 02:11.440]  You don't know about that, do you?
[02:11.620 --> 02:11.980]  No, I don't.
[02:12.320 --> 02:13.540]  You'll get your itinerary outside.
[02:14.760 --> 02:15.460]  So, yeah.
[02:15.600 --> 02:21.260]  We're going to try and take phone calls tonight and make it as normal and as fun as we possibly can.
[02:22.100 --> 02:24.660]  First things first, we all got in the building obviously okay this time.
[02:25.180 --> 02:27.000]  The system is still there.
[02:27.160 --> 02:29.860]  The crazy system we talked about last week where we have to be in the computer.
[02:30.000 --> 02:31.280]  It's even crazier this week.
[02:31.320 --> 02:33.520]  What could possibly be crazier this week?
[02:33.640 --> 02:40.760]  Well, in addition to being in the computer, I also had to fulfill the requirements of the old signing in system.
[02:41.200 --> 02:41.480]  Okay.
[02:41.580 --> 02:43.540]  So you couldn't just sign in.
[02:43.600 --> 02:44.480]  You had to be in the computer.
[02:44.640 --> 02:45.640]  And you couldn't just be in the computer.
[02:45.660 --> 02:46.420]  You had to sign in.
[02:46.420 --> 02:48.340]  Yeah, you have to do both after 6 o'clock.
[02:49.840 --> 02:50.680]  After 6 o'clock.
[02:50.780 --> 02:50.980]  Okay.
[02:50.980 --> 02:58.120]  So basically both systems are in place now because during the day, you can't get into the building unless you're already known to be somebody who's coming in.
[02:58.320 --> 02:58.940]  Here's the thing.
[02:59.060 --> 03:00.000]  I don't get this.
[03:00.120 --> 03:04.020]  If you know somebody's name who works in the building, you don't have to show ID.
[03:04.120 --> 03:06.280]  All you have to do is give that name and then you just waltz right in.
[03:06.360 --> 03:07.380]  I got asked for ID again.
[03:07.440 --> 03:07.880]  You got asked for ID.
[03:07.940 --> 03:09.000]  But was it after 6 o'clock?
[03:09.160 --> 03:09.380]  Yes.
[03:09.500 --> 03:11.660]  Yeah, that's the after 6 o'clock policy kicking in.
[03:11.780 --> 03:12.320]  Oh, oh.
[03:12.400 --> 03:13.500]  See, now it's...
[03:13.500 --> 03:14.360]  This is very confusing.
[03:14.420 --> 03:16.340]  The reason we're talking about our building policy on the air.
[03:16.420 --> 03:22.340]  which might not sound very professional is because we find it to be extremely insane and kind of Orwellian.
[03:23.320 --> 03:29.160]  This is a radio station where we have all sorts of volunteers constantly coming in, especially during fundraising, fund drives.
[03:29.320 --> 03:43.340]  We have people that answer the phones for us and for the building to expect us to know everybody's names in advance and to have them all entered into a computer that God knows who's going to look at and I guess track people's movements.
[03:43.340 --> 03:44.600]  That is definitely a concern.
[03:45.060 --> 03:47.400]  It's something that I think we should be speaking out about.
[03:47.600 --> 03:55.180]  The company, the company that they're using, just in case anyone out there has information about how the system works, maybe they use it in your building.
[03:55.300 --> 03:56.680]  It's called WorkSpeed.
[03:56.860 --> 04:01.280]  Now, which basically it's a contradiction in terms for us because it's slowing things down like you would not believe.
[04:02.140 --> 04:11.420]  According to their website, WorkSpeed Management is the leading provider of web-based and wireless applications that optimize real estate enterprise performance.
[04:12.120 --> 04:15.880]  They bring significant process improvements to property owners.
[04:16.020 --> 04:20.380]  Don't you love reading these things that you just know are not true, but propaganda says it is?
[04:20.400 --> 04:27.080]  Well, you know, from the property owner's perspective, it might optimize their revenues if WBAI were out of the building, so maybe that's the goal.
[04:27.280 --> 04:29.020]  Yeah, I think that might be the goal.
[04:29.020 --> 04:35.240]  Well, combining the benefits of workflow automation, collaboration, and wireless communication.
[04:35.360 --> 04:36.180]  It rhymes.
[04:36.380 --> 04:41.300]  As a result, customers gain unprecedented visibility and control of day-to-day building operators.
[04:41.360 --> 04:43.080]  What is unprecedented visibility?
[04:43.340 --> 04:47.220]  What in God's name does that mean as far as a building management goes?
[04:47.220 --> 04:49.560]  If you buy it, it comes with a free pair of eyeglasses.
[04:50.080 --> 04:56.960]  WorkSpeed customers have experienced substantially increased revenues, decreased costs, and reduced risk across the entire enterprise.
[04:56.960 --> 04:58.880]  Not sure what they mean by risk, I guess.
[04:59.580 --> 05:01.960]  People don't go in and give someone else's...
[05:01.960 --> 05:03.640]  People like us getting inside a building, I think is what it is.
[05:03.640 --> 05:05.440]  Right, they don't go up and give someone else's name to get up.
[05:05.940 --> 05:08.040]  It's not like they provide the security guards, either.
[05:08.840 --> 05:09.420]  Yeah, I know.
[05:09.500 --> 05:10.460]  They don't provide the security guards.
[05:10.460 --> 05:11.600]  That's a whole other issue.
[05:11.800 --> 05:15.040]  It just seems to me there's something really wrong with the system.
[05:15.200 --> 05:22.940]  What I'm curious about, other people, listeners, people who, I guess, write us letters and things like that, who are probably all listeners, too.
[05:23.260 --> 05:25.520]  Do you have buildings like this where you have to...
[05:25.520 --> 05:27.140]  I imagine if you work for the government, you do.
[05:27.140 --> 05:31.380]  Do you have all sorts of forms you have to fill out or...
[05:31.380 --> 05:32.040]  I don't know.
[05:32.080 --> 05:33.180]  Bernie, you work in a building, right?
[05:33.820 --> 05:34.480]  I do.
[05:34.480 --> 05:41.420]  It's not a really highly secure building, but there is a little mini police station in the basement because it's a high-value target.
[05:41.600 --> 05:43.300]  There's a lot of valuable things in that building.
[05:43.640 --> 05:51.700]  So there's already cops hanging around in front of the building, and they change their clothes and their uniforms and their radio batteries down in the basement.
[05:51.700 --> 05:56.780]  So, you know, nobody in their right mind would try to attack a building I work in.
[05:57.680 --> 06:00.420]  Is that what it's for, just to prevent somebody from attacking your building?
[06:01.000 --> 06:02.680]  Well, like I said, it's a high-value target.
[06:03.160 --> 06:03.520]  Okay.
[06:03.640 --> 06:04.360]  Well, we know that now.
[06:04.360 --> 06:08.220]  We don't have to sign in our names or anything.
[06:08.500 --> 06:10.560]  The doorman knows everybody and just nods.
[06:10.660 --> 06:13.080]  And it's just old-school technology.
[06:13.080 --> 06:13.900]  You know the people.
[06:13.980 --> 06:14.820]  You recognize them.
[06:15.340 --> 06:16.520]  And it's not a problem.
[06:16.560 --> 06:17.000]  And you nod.
[06:17.100 --> 06:17.660]  That's what I miss.
[06:17.660 --> 06:18.760]  I miss the nods.
[06:18.760 --> 06:19.880]  You don't get those anymore.
[06:20.020 --> 06:24.060]  Even if somebody has seen you five minutes ago, you still have to sign your name again.
[06:24.060 --> 06:28.040]  It's all so impersonal and nonsensical.
[06:28.800 --> 06:30.300]  So, yeah, we'll see how that goes.
[06:30.380 --> 06:35.700]  But we're on a collision course here because you can't run a station like this and have a policy like that.
[06:35.900 --> 06:36.840]  It just doesn't work.
[06:36.920 --> 06:40.320]  In the old days at 505 8th Avenue, it was never an issue.
[06:40.360 --> 06:41.500]  Of course, it was pre-9-11.
[06:41.800 --> 06:45.220]  I don't think this does anything to make us more secure, though.
[06:46.460 --> 06:47.100]  All right.
[06:48.200 --> 06:49.040]  Hackers in the news.
[06:49.220 --> 06:49.920]  We have a bunch of them.
[06:50.740 --> 06:52.680]  A cyber attack against the Pentagon.
[06:53.060 --> 06:53.420]  Yes.
[06:53.660 --> 06:58.980]  The Defense Department took as many as 1,500 computers offline last Thursday, I believe.
[06:59.160 --> 07:00.100]  It might have been on Wednesday.
[07:00.260 --> 07:00.400]  Wait.
[07:00.480 --> 07:06.140]  So the cyber attack against the Pentagon consists of the Pentagon unplugging its own computers?
[07:06.340 --> 07:09.700]  Well, I'm not sure if that was a cyber attack or if that was a reaction to the cyber attack.
[07:09.700 --> 07:15.140]  But they say it's because of the cyber attack that they unplugged 1,500 computers or took them off the net.
[07:15.700 --> 07:17.580]  But they didn't release any details.
[07:18.000 --> 07:21.640]  Defense Secretary Robert Gates said the computer systems would be working again soon.
[07:21.840 --> 07:27.320]  And I guess those of you out there who monitor those computer systems, let us know if they are indeed working now.
[07:27.860 --> 07:29.440]  And that doesn't mean attack them.
[07:29.480 --> 07:30.380]  It means just let us know.
[07:30.520 --> 07:31.040]  We're curious.
[07:31.220 --> 07:32.020]  We're concerned.
[07:32.280 --> 07:32.540]  There...
[07:32.540 --> 07:33.320]  I mean, there are computers.
[07:33.460 --> 07:34.260]  We pay for these things.
[07:34.660 --> 07:35.940]  I'd like to know that they're working all right.
[07:36.160 --> 07:41.600]  Gates said the Pentagon sees hundreds of attacks a day, and this one had no adverse impact on department operations.
[07:42.220 --> 07:45.900]  Employees, as computers were affected, could still use their handheld BlackBerrys.
[07:46.300 --> 07:47.080]  Isn't that nice?
[07:47.620 --> 07:49.000]  That is such a non sequitur.
[07:49.300 --> 07:50.340]  It really is.
[07:50.800 --> 07:53.400]  They could still use the telephone and all sorts of other things.
[07:53.400 --> 07:55.200]  The photocopier, their slide rules.
[07:55.340 --> 07:56.300]  Well, some people are traumatized.
[07:56.320 --> 07:57.020]  Their jump ropes.
[07:57.260 --> 08:00.080]  Some people are so traumatized that they can't do anything when their computers go down.
[08:00.080 --> 08:01.000]  Here's the thing.
[08:01.100 --> 08:06.380]  The BlackBerry is a wireless device, so you unplug it and it continues working on, like, probably the computers.
[08:06.820 --> 08:08.460]  That sounds very complex to me, Mike.
[08:08.640 --> 08:08.980]  Oh, wow.
[08:09.420 --> 08:09.640]  All right.
[08:09.720 --> 08:13.680]  During a press briefing, Gates said, we obviously have redundant systems in place.
[08:13.820 --> 08:17.020]  There will be some administrative disruptions and personal inconveniences.
[08:17.240 --> 08:23.660]  He said the Pentagon shut the computers down when a penetration of the system was detected and the cause is still being investigated.
[08:23.880 --> 08:29.160]  He was asked if his own email account was affected, and Gates said, I don't do email.
[08:29.160 --> 08:31.020]  I'm a very low-tech person.
[08:31.360 --> 08:37.920]  Who is the last major administration person who said they didn't have or didn't do email?
[08:38.260 --> 08:38.840]  A lot of those...
[08:38.840 --> 08:39.820]  I remember that quote.
[08:40.060 --> 08:43.880]  A lot of those were, you know, those people that got their emails deleted.
[08:43.880 --> 08:45.700]  They apparently never sent any emails.
[08:46.180 --> 08:50.180]  What I don't understand is why he's in this report at all, if he gives a comment like that.
[08:50.180 --> 08:50.720]  He's the head.
[08:50.900 --> 08:51.940]  He's the guy in charge.
[08:52.300 --> 08:53.460]  The buck stops with him.
[08:53.800 --> 08:55.820]  He should not be speaking about things like that.
[08:55.820 --> 08:59.200]  Well, it's good to know when someone knows nothing of the subject they're speaking.
[08:59.780 --> 09:00.960]  That's why I think...
[09:00.960 --> 09:02.200]  It makes it so obvious, too.
[09:02.340 --> 09:03.800]  I mean, this doesn't even attempt to hide it.
[09:03.840 --> 09:04.660]  No, absolutely not.
[09:05.300 --> 09:09.780]  That's sort of the theme of this administration, making no attempt to hide the bad things.
[09:10.220 --> 09:11.080]  Oh, they attempt.
[09:11.800 --> 09:13.580]  They attempt to hide all kinds of things.
[09:13.580 --> 09:15.260]  Well, they don't really do a good job, do they?
[09:15.280 --> 09:16.220]  Because we still see them.
[09:16.320 --> 09:17.340]  It's just that we don't seem to care.
[09:17.620 --> 09:24.320]  Anyway, Navy Lieutenant Commander Chito Pepler, a Pentagon spokesman, said Defense Department systems are probed every day by a wide variety of attacks.
[09:24.660 --> 09:27.100]  These are the people who do this.
[09:27.260 --> 09:40.920]  The nature of the threat is large and diverse, includes recreational hackers, self-styled cyber vigilantes, various groups with nationalistic or ideological agendas, transnational actors, and nation states.
[09:41.300 --> 09:42.840]  I didn't know there were so many titles.
[09:43.140 --> 09:43.740]  Yeah, there really are.
[09:43.920 --> 09:45.540]  What is a transnational actor?
[09:45.680 --> 09:46.580]  What is a nation state?
[09:46.660 --> 09:48.620]  And how does the whole state attack a computer system?
[09:48.700 --> 09:50.640]  A nation state is a synonym for country.
[09:50.640 --> 09:55.020]  Well, I don't think the whole country gets together and says, hey, we're going to do this cyber...
[09:55.020 --> 09:56.280]  I could see North Korea doing it, actually.
[09:56.500 --> 09:57.620]  People are very unified there.
[09:57.700 --> 09:59.540]  But anywhere else, I can't see them doing that.
[09:59.880 --> 10:01.600]  Well, who do you think they're talking about?
[10:02.260 --> 10:06.800]  And the other place that got attacked, apart from the Pentagon, was, of course, Harry Potter.
[10:07.480 --> 10:08.360]  Yes, that's right.
[10:09.380 --> 10:21.760]  Potterdom found itself in a frenzy last week when a grammatically challenged internet poster calling himself Gabriel claimed to have pirated an electronic copy of the hotly anticipated seventh and final novel, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.
[10:22.120 --> 10:27.540]  Gabriel posted the supposed plot spoilers on the full disclosure email list at insecure.org.
[10:27.960 --> 10:29.240]  Among his revelations...
[10:29.240 --> 10:30.020]  Well, I'm not going to ruin it.
[10:30.140 --> 10:33.980]  I'm not going to ruin... say how the book ends in case it just... in case it does end like that.
[10:34.040 --> 10:37.980]  But anyway, the hacker said his motivation was to make reading the book useless and boring.
[10:37.980 --> 10:42.940]  So I guess that makes him, if I understand that correctly, a self-styled cyber vigilante, right?
[10:43.120 --> 10:44.520]  The point is, his...
[10:44.520 --> 10:45.480]  He's not a nation state.
[10:45.900 --> 10:46.220]  He's...
[10:46.220 --> 10:46.840]  Yes, well, okay.
[10:46.900 --> 10:47.420]  That's what he is.
[10:47.420 --> 10:47.940]  But I'm saying...
[10:47.940 --> 10:49.300]  He's a transnational actor.
[10:49.500 --> 10:50.900]  He could be a transnational actor.
[10:50.900 --> 10:51.300]  You're right.
[10:51.480 --> 10:52.500]  Look, let's define that.
[10:52.580 --> 10:54.180]  That was Milton Berle in the 50s.
[10:54.260 --> 10:57.080]  But anyway, he's so wrong.
[10:57.300 --> 11:00.160]  Knowing how the book ends does not damage a thing.
[11:00.280 --> 11:01.540]  I know what happens in Moby Dick.
[11:02.180 --> 11:02.520]  Okay?
[11:02.780 --> 11:03.840]  Please, don't ruin it.
[11:03.840 --> 11:05.300]  Oh, we read it already.
[11:05.300 --> 11:05.740]  I just started that.
[11:05.880 --> 11:09.660]  You know, I'm disappointed the whale and Captain Ahab don't appear in the first chapter.
[11:09.780 --> 11:10.480]  I don't understand that.
[11:10.600 --> 11:12.700]  There are some good interspecies sex scenes, though.
[11:13.800 --> 11:14.860]  Leave it to you to find this.
[11:15.560 --> 11:16.460]  This is interesting, though.
[11:16.540 --> 11:18.060]  This supposed hacker...
[11:18.060 --> 11:19.600]  And I don't even see what the hacking is.
[11:19.660 --> 11:22.060]  They don't explain anything as to what actually happened here.
[11:22.200 --> 11:26.440]  Some guy posts something on a mailing list about the ending of a book, and that makes him a hacker?
[11:26.760 --> 11:29.400]  I think it's all part of the publicity campaign for this book.
[11:29.440 --> 11:30.320]  I wouldn't be surprised.
[11:30.320 --> 11:36.500]  He added he was inspired by Pope Benedict XVI, you know, the Nazi pope, who objected to the...
[11:36.500 --> 11:36.900]  He is.
[11:37.220 --> 11:42.420]  Objected to the Potter novels while still a cardinal, saying they could potentially corrupt the Christian faith in young people.
[11:43.000 --> 11:45.820]  So, yeah, I think that moves him into self-styled cyber-vigilante.
[11:45.820 --> 11:47.800]  That's really what's going to take down that religion?
[11:48.180 --> 11:48.700]  Apparently.
[11:49.040 --> 11:51.100]  Harry Potter has a lot of power.
[11:51.380 --> 12:02.260]  Gabriel claimed to have hacked into the website of the servers for the publisher of the book, where the book was stored before being fed into a printer, you know, a printing machine.
[12:03.340 --> 12:06.000]  So, yeah, there is some supposed hacking going on.
[12:06.260 --> 12:08.000]  Whether it actually happened or not, we don't know.
[12:08.120 --> 12:11.740]  Now, there's also a report of a hacking incident right here at this radio station.
[12:11.960 --> 12:14.180]  Mike, you found... or actually, Jim found this.
[12:14.260 --> 12:17.060]  Mike, you got it on the computer from the Daily News.
[12:17.200 --> 12:26.360]  The Daily News says that a lot of radio stations keep quiet about their archives these days for the depressing reason that critics might try to use on-air material against the stations or their hosts.
[12:26.540 --> 12:40.020]  But WBAI 99.5 FM and its parent Pacifica have kept extensive archives for years, correctly thinking that a lot of what they put on the air is a contemporary record of history that will be valuable in the future.
[12:40.140 --> 12:40.500]  It's true.
[12:40.680 --> 12:41.640]  This is all being recorded?
[12:41.880 --> 12:42.680]  Yeah, yeah.
[12:42.800 --> 12:43.920]  All being recorded and broadcast.
[12:44.220 --> 12:46.140]  And our archives are there from the beginning.
[12:46.500 --> 12:47.800]  So, yeah, the whole station does that.
[12:47.900 --> 12:48.240]  Oh, no.
[12:48.240 --> 12:50.980]  So, now, why is this in the Daily News and what does it have to do with hacking?
[12:51.020 --> 12:55.200]  Well, the Daily News writes that it was depressing to hear yesterday, and I don't know when this was written.
[12:55.660 --> 12:56.760]  That's in today's newspaper.
[12:57.060 --> 13:05.820]  So, the real yesterday, that the recent archive of WBAI's morning wake-up call has been jeopardized by a computer hacker.
[13:06.060 --> 13:07.020]  Okay, hold on.
[13:07.100 --> 13:07.880]  I've got to stop you right there.
[13:07.900 --> 13:09.700]  What do you mean jeopardized by a computer hacker?
[13:10.440 --> 13:12.460]  How is an archive jeopardized by a computer hacker?
[13:12.460 --> 13:14.700]  I can read you the next sentence, but I don't know if it'll help.
[13:14.760 --> 13:16.120]  I hope there's an explanation in there.
[13:16.160 --> 13:16.440]  Go ahead.
[13:17.060 --> 13:20.140]  We may have lost them, said morning host Deepa Fernandez.
[13:20.500 --> 13:24.200]  Our techs are working on it, but at this point, they may not be retrievable.
[13:24.540 --> 13:26.760]  I guess the techs are not retrievable.
[13:26.880 --> 13:27.220]  I don't know.
[13:27.720 --> 13:30.920]  We're seriously devastated, but still have our fingers crossed.
[13:31.260 --> 13:31.660]  Okay.
[13:31.760 --> 13:35.980]  I'm not sure what actually happened here, because this is actually the first I'm hearing about this, and I work here.
[13:36.800 --> 13:47.640]  But to say that something has been lost and might not be retrievable, in my history, 99% of the time when that happens, it's because of a hardware failure or because of somebody making a silly mistake.
[13:47.840 --> 13:48.700]  There's all sorts of things.
[13:48.900 --> 13:55.360]  There's nothing in the story, and I'm not saying it doesn't exist, but there's nothing in the story to indicate what a computer hacker has to do with any of this.
[13:55.920 --> 13:57.600]  Someone got in and erased...
[13:57.600 --> 13:58.000]  Yes, Bernie.
[13:58.440 --> 13:59.200]  I'm sorry to interrupt.
[13:59.360 --> 14:00.660]  It does say one thing.
[14:00.860 --> 14:16.100]  If it's true that someone actually trespassed on a WBI computer and deleted these files, it would indicate that somebody at WBI is negligent for not making any backups of this information.
[14:16.300 --> 14:22.760]  Well, the thing is, if you're making an archive of something, the archive is the only copy you have until you make a backup.
[14:22.760 --> 14:27.280]  So if it never got recorded or if it got erased shortly after that, there's only so much you can do.
[14:28.220 --> 14:32.000]  Well, you would think you would back up your archives on a regular basis.
[14:32.440 --> 14:33.660]  It just stands to reason.
[14:33.840 --> 14:34.540]  I mean, I do that.
[14:34.640 --> 14:35.260]  Well, it depends.
[14:35.420 --> 14:35.580]  It depends.
[14:35.700 --> 14:39.460]  If this is something that happened last week, then no, I wouldn't expect somebody to back it up the hour it was made.
[14:39.500 --> 14:43.920]  I'd expect them to back it up maybe, you know, once a week, once a day, something like that.
[14:43.920 --> 14:46.520]  We don't have enough information to be able to judge to say...
[14:46.520 --> 14:49.740]  They're saying extensive archives for years were lost.
[14:49.800 --> 14:50.340]  Did they say that?
[14:50.500 --> 14:52.360]  No, they didn't say what was lost.
[14:52.360 --> 15:01.100]  They said the recent archive, which I thought immediately that this must be the archive.wbai.org where you can download the last three months of all kinds of programs.
[15:01.280 --> 15:04.920]  But I'm right now downloading last Friday's wake-up call, no problem.
[15:05.140 --> 15:05.820]  So it's still there.
[15:05.940 --> 15:07.400]  Go to two weeks and see if you can do that.
[15:07.480 --> 15:09.640]  Maybe they just don't know exactly how it works.
[15:09.700 --> 15:11.540]  Maybe it's random hints that have been deleted.
[15:11.860 --> 15:12.560]  And the thing...
[15:13.040 --> 15:17.600]  It's also important to mention this because maybe there's people out there who have been doing this on their own.
[15:23.440 --> 15:25.100]  And listeners very often are the backup.
[15:25.300 --> 15:28.580]  So if we can find out exactly what is missing, maybe somebody out there has it.
[15:28.720 --> 15:30.880]  And that goes for years in the past, too.
[15:30.940 --> 15:32.120]  You'd be surprised what people collect.
[15:32.880 --> 15:33.460]  I don't know.
[15:33.620 --> 15:33.920]  All right.
[15:34.320 --> 15:37.340]  Well, more information on that story as we learn about it.
[15:38.000 --> 15:39.240]  On to surveillance.
[15:39.240 --> 15:42.200]  And boy, we've got a lot of information about surveillance today.
[15:42.920 --> 15:44.280]  It just seems like the theme.
[15:44.280 --> 16:00.840]  The theme to our nation, our world, up in Canada, the country's biggest airline says it's worried about confrontations with irate travelers who could be barred from boarding aircraft under the Canadian no-fly list, which was scheduled to take effect this week.
[16:00.900 --> 16:03.100]  I don't know if anybody knows if it actually did take effect.
[16:03.580 --> 16:13.360]  The director of security for Air Canada said that his main concern in implementing the program is the safety and security of our frontline staff and the customers at the check-in counter.
[16:13.360 --> 16:18.100]  It's not that anybody fears a frustrated terrorist will launch an attack on the airport ticket line.
[16:18.500 --> 16:24.120]  They're more concerned that an unruly situation could develop if people are told they can't fly because their names are on the list.
[16:24.620 --> 16:29.380]  The situation could be very tense, they say, and we need to have an authority figure in place to defuse that situation.
[16:29.640 --> 16:31.820]  So we want to make sure that we have a police presence.
[16:31.940 --> 16:36.200]  Doesn't it seem like their concerns are very different than our concerns here?
[16:36.280 --> 16:42.700]  I mean, we have so many more people on no-fly list in this country, and yet we don't seem to be worried about them getting angry.
[16:43.360 --> 16:44.280]  That's not even an issue.
[16:44.980 --> 16:46.540]  They're much more polite in Canada.
[16:46.900 --> 16:51.100]  Yeah, that's why are they afraid that somebody is going to get irate?
[16:51.240 --> 16:54.120]  Well, there's irate people walking around New York City all the time.
[16:54.680 --> 16:59.500]  If we got upset as a society, every time there was someone irate, we'd do nothing else.
[16:59.560 --> 17:01.780]  Well, there'd have to be a police presence, and there always is around here.
[17:02.180 --> 17:07.120]  The no-fly list, which was drawn up by the federal government, is scheduled to come into force last Monday.
[17:07.680 --> 17:13.700]  It's aim is to keep anyone deemed a security threat from boarding a commercial air flight originating or stopping in Canada.
[17:14.020 --> 17:15.340]  Under a similar U.S.
[17:15.460 --> 17:23.660]  list, which stood at 70,000 names at one point, the Canadian version is expected to contain fewer than 1,000 names.
[17:24.080 --> 17:32.080]  The hope is to avoid the pitfalls of the American list, which has generated thousands of complaints from travelers wrongly included on the roster of terrorist suspects.
[17:32.080 --> 17:33.720]  So, it's just interesting.
[17:33.940 --> 17:36.140]  See, here's the thing I don't understand about no-fly list.
[17:36.520 --> 17:46.480]  I don't understand how there can be a class of people that is so dangerous that even if you search them and search them again, you can't let them on an airplane, and yet they're not dangerous enough to go and arrest them.
[17:47.580 --> 17:50.380]  Because that's what the no-fly list is about.
[17:52.540 --> 17:55.260]  Yeah, and I'd like to know how it works up there.
[17:55.380 --> 18:00.700]  I was just kind of amused that their main concern is people getting angry and causing a scene.
[18:01.760 --> 18:03.540]  Okay, now, how about this?
[18:03.680 --> 18:06.460]  Any of you ever take a class online?
[18:06.800 --> 18:07.200]  Yes.
[18:07.440 --> 18:07.760]  All right.
[18:08.040 --> 18:09.720]  Well, you have to take a test.
[18:09.920 --> 18:10.140]  Yes.
[18:10.240 --> 18:11.020]  How does that work?
[18:11.540 --> 18:12.240]  We've both done that.
[18:12.260 --> 18:26.700]  Well, our school uses a web application called WebCT, which basically allows the instructors to very easily put up web pages and add exams and grade them either manually or in an automated fashion.
[18:26.940 --> 18:28.740]  And sometimes they're multiple choice.
[18:28.880 --> 18:29.840]  Sometimes you can fill an answer.
[18:29.840 --> 18:32.680]  So, I mean, it's like taking a test on paper, and it's, you know, it's time.
[18:32.820 --> 18:33.820]  Except you're in your house.
[18:33.860 --> 18:34.480]  And you can cheat.
[18:34.500 --> 18:34.920]  You're in your house.
[18:35.140 --> 18:35.860]  You can cheat, yes.
[18:36.040 --> 18:37.140]  You can definitely cheat.
[18:37.280 --> 18:42.300]  Well, here's an interesting story as far as things progressing in that field.
[18:42.380 --> 18:48.820]  The number of college students taking courses online is, of course, surging, creating a tough dilemma for educators who want to prevent cheating.
[18:49.080 --> 18:54.680]  Do you trust students to take an exam on their own computer from home or work, even though it may be easy to sneak a peek at the textbook?
[18:54.680 --> 19:02.140]  Or can you force them to trek to a proctored test center detracting from the convenience that drew them to online classes in the first place?
[19:02.420 --> 19:14.860]  Well, there's a new device made by Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Software Secure, which basically locks down a computer while a test is being taken, preventing students from searching files or the internet.
[19:14.860 --> 19:23.320]  The latest version also includes fingerprint authentication to help ensure the person taking the test isn't a, what they call a ringer.
[19:23.480 --> 19:24.740]  It's a story from a different country.
[19:24.860 --> 19:26.640]  Is ringer a word that we use frequently?
[19:26.960 --> 19:27.080]  Yeah.
[19:27.420 --> 19:27.660]  Okay.
[19:27.680 --> 19:28.420]  I never use that word.
[19:29.240 --> 19:36.500]  The new development, though, is a small webcam and microphone that is set up where a student takes the exam.
[19:36.620 --> 19:42.560]  The camera points into a reflective ball, which allows it to capture a full 360-degree image.
[19:43.020 --> 19:43.460]  Yeah.
[19:43.620 --> 19:46.520]  When the exam begins, a device records audio and video.
[19:46.840 --> 19:50.820]  Software detects significant noises and motions and flags them in the recording.
[19:50.920 --> 20:02.020]  An instructor can go back and watch only the portions flagged by the software to see if anything untoward is going on, like a student making a phone call, leaving the room, and if there is a sudden surge in performance afterward.
[20:02.980 --> 20:13.820]  Now, there's been all sorts of reaction to this, as you might guess, but I think a lot of it is summed up by this one person, Sandra Kinney, a state employee from Stockbridge, Georgia, pursuing a master's in public administration.
[20:14.300 --> 20:19.480]  And one of the students engaging in this trial run, she said having a camera in her home was no big deal.
[20:19.700 --> 20:22.440]  It was worth it not to have to drive to an exam center.
[20:22.620 --> 20:25.840]  For me, in Atlanta, it outweighs sitting in two or three hours of traffic.
[20:27.120 --> 20:27.560]  What's...
[20:27.560 --> 20:32.800]  I mean, besides the obvious pitfalls of something like this, which will...
[20:33.300 --> 20:37.500]  The students, I'm sure, at technical universities will be able to circumvent this.
[20:38.560 --> 20:40.860]  I figured I would mention this as part...
[20:40.860 --> 20:54.180]  Our university has what's known as the Stevens Honor System, which is basically a code that the students agree to when they start attending the school that, you know, basically says they won't cheat, you know, they won't do any...
[20:54.180 --> 20:55.760]  Doesn't every school have something like that?
[20:56.020 --> 20:56.920]  I don't know.
[20:57.060 --> 20:58.100]  I don't know how many schools have.
[20:58.140 --> 21:08.780]  I mean, a lot of students that I've spoken with that don't attend Stevens are very kind of puzzled by this concept, but also what's part of that is that there aren't any proctors in the exams.
[21:09.000 --> 21:11.920]  So, very commonly, they'll leave, you know, a room full of 200 students.
[21:11.980 --> 21:13.940]  Yeah, but in those Georgia students, there's a bunch of rats.
[21:13.940 --> 21:16.080]  Somebody is going to tell if you do anything.
[21:16.360 --> 21:23.340]  Well, you'd be surprised, but I mean, it's just interesting that there aren't any proctors anyway at this specific university.
[21:24.120 --> 21:25.060]  And I don't know.
[21:25.160 --> 21:30.320]  It just seems like a system that people are going to be spending a lot of money on, and it's not going to be very effective anyway.
[21:30.320 --> 21:35.500]  As I just, like, my theory of cheating is that cheating happens because professors are lazy.
[21:35.760 --> 21:41.500]  Like, you can make a pretty good exam that would, you know, could be open book.
[21:42.660 --> 21:46.120]  You know, all the information should be in the lecture that you don't have notes for or whatever.
[21:46.800 --> 21:50.580]  And the reason that so many people cheat in class is because all the tests are identical.
[21:51.080 --> 21:57.640]  So, like, on my science final, for example, we had, like, rows and rows of people copying off each other in, like, a chain.
[21:57.940 --> 21:59.100]  I thought that was kind of funny.
[21:59.100 --> 22:09.380]  But, yeah, this whole, like, webcam thing is really, you know, you could just move the webcam over and then, like, pretend that you're taking the test while the ringer takes the test on a different spot that's off the view.
[22:09.480 --> 22:10.620]  Well, how is he going to read the test?
[22:11.000 --> 22:11.460]  Who the...
[22:11.460 --> 22:12.280]  Well, you don't...
[22:12.280 --> 22:12.720]  I mean, you don't...
[22:12.720 --> 22:14.700]  You can put the webcam on a different monitor.
[22:15.420 --> 22:18.380]  The webcam does a 360-degree view of the room, though.
[22:18.520 --> 22:19.820]  Oh, I've already got three ways to defeat this.
[22:19.820 --> 22:20.200]  You can hide.
[22:20.740 --> 22:22.220]  I mean, I'm interested in this.
[22:22.240 --> 22:24.100]  I'd like to know how to defeat the system, but...
[22:24.100 --> 22:25.760]  Well, I mean, if you have long enough wires, you can...
[22:25.760 --> 22:30.280]  I'm obviously more concerned, though, with having a camera in your house recording all your movements and microphones.
[22:30.280 --> 22:30.960]  That's kind of disturbing.
[22:30.980 --> 22:32.960]  And how do you know that that's going to be turned off?
[22:33.220 --> 22:35.160]  And who says that the feed has to be live anyway?
[22:35.320 --> 22:36.120]  You can just take...
[22:36.120 --> 22:47.800]  You can circumvent it in a way where you record yourself pretending to take a test, presuming that the resolution isn't high enough for them to actually see the screen and what's, you know, the text that's actually on your screen.
[22:47.800 --> 22:53.320]  You can have that and then just feed in the recorded view every time you wanted to take the exam.
[22:53.720 --> 22:58.100]  I mean, there are almost definitely a variety of ways that you can defeat this thing.
[22:58.220 --> 22:58.880]  It's just a matter of taking...
[22:58.880 --> 23:00.140]  It's almost harder than taking the test, though.
[23:00.500 --> 23:01.660]  Well, just sitting there for an hour.
[23:01.760 --> 23:06.840]  Well, sitting there for an hour and having it devised to send the prerecorded image and all that, and making sure it's seamless.
[23:07.460 --> 23:13.500]  The main problem with this is that it immediately assumes that an open book test is not a good thing.
[23:13.500 --> 23:18.780]  And I would just like to say that many years ago, I took physical chemistry, which is a notoriously difficult course.
[23:19.200 --> 23:22.080]  I took both halves of it over the summer at NYU.
[23:23.780 --> 23:26.160]  And all our tests were open book.
[23:26.160 --> 23:29.060]  And I was the only person with two A's in the course.
[23:29.160 --> 23:31.760]  And there were only about five or six people with two B's.
[23:31.920 --> 23:38.820]  Everybody else was one B and a C or a D out of about 40 some odd people who took this.
[23:38.960 --> 23:41.280]  It was open book every test.
[23:41.940 --> 23:46.800]  And yet, 90% of these people could not come up with an A.
[23:47.520 --> 24:00.040]  The problem comes specifically because the professors are lazy and they're taking content directly from the book and not being original in their questions, which should really test whether or not you have an understanding of the material and not whether or not you can do textbook problems.
[24:00.260 --> 24:00.380]  Right.
[24:00.500 --> 24:02.260]  It's because it's simply memorization.
[24:02.340 --> 24:11.720]  Otherwise, if you simply are getting something as a closed book test, yeah, you can remember exactly what was said, what facts are which, what dates correspond to which events.
[24:12.320 --> 24:15.260]  An open book test, you still have to do the work.
[24:15.340 --> 24:22.180]  You still have to look it up and understand it and maybe perform a calculation or whatever it is that is required in that particular course.
[24:22.180 --> 24:22.400]  Bernie?
[24:23.180 --> 24:24.700]  The whole world is an open book.
[24:24.800 --> 24:27.140]  So I think open book tests make a lot of sense anyway.
[24:27.140 --> 24:42.260]  But as a form of protest, would it make sense for some students to take the online test naked just to protest to the professor that they don't like this surveillance?
[24:42.560 --> 24:47.860]  Well, you know, I don't want to speak for all professors, but I have a feeling that might actually backfire.
[24:48.480 --> 24:48.920]  Mike?
[24:49.320 --> 24:51.560]  I don't know if there's anything I can say to follow that.
[24:51.860 --> 24:52.800]  No, I don't think so either.
[24:53.340 --> 24:54.520]  Shall we go to the next bit of surveillance?
[24:55.660 --> 24:56.320]  All right.
[24:57.060 --> 24:58.980]  This is something that we've talked about before.
[24:59.540 --> 25:03.940]  Symphony of bleeps inside Long Beach, New York, on Long Island, actually.
[25:04.460 --> 25:10.900]  A police cruiser drowned out nearby traffic on a recent morning as Sergeant Bill Dodge pulled into a public parking lot.
[25:10.900 --> 25:11.840]  This comes from Newsday.
[25:12.040 --> 25:16.040]  The pace of the bleeps quickened when he passed the first row of cars in the lot.
[25:16.320 --> 25:17.920]  There's nothing in here, Dodge said.
[25:18.060 --> 25:19.540]  Let's head out into the street.
[25:19.920 --> 25:24.500]  Turning into traffic on Beach Street, Dodge passed dozens of cars.
[25:24.520 --> 25:27.080]  Before the bleeps gave way to an alarm.
[25:27.400 --> 25:33.040]  Then a robotic voice told him about a parked van whose registered driver has a suspended license.
[25:33.620 --> 25:38.200]  It just did, in 30 seconds, what usually takes an officer an entire day, he said.
[25:38.380 --> 25:40.480]  Especially us, because we're really bad at what we do.
[25:40.480 --> 25:52.540]  The Long Beach Police Department is among a growing number of law enforcement agencies nationwide using the roof-mounted license plate reader known as the Mobile Plate Hunter.
[25:52.760 --> 26:00.040]  At least 18 police departments on Long Island, including Nassau County and Suffolk County Police, use readers, which cost about $22,000.
[26:01.620 --> 26:06.060]  And basically, more than 220 departments nationwide are using these things now.
[26:06.300 --> 26:11.480]  They can read license plates at a rate of between 15 to 25 a second.
[26:11.800 --> 26:15.760]  Images of those license plate numbers are then sent to a database in the car trunk.
[26:15.760 --> 26:25.420]  And compared to a digital list of vehicles wanted for various crimes, traffic violations, reported stolen cars, vehicles linked to Amber Alerts for kidnapped children, etc.
[26:26.320 --> 26:33.300]  Now, although the device has growing popularity in the United States, the New York Civil Liberties Union noted some potential problems.
[26:33.300 --> 26:40.440]  The group opposes a New York City proposal called the Ring of Steel that would feature a similar license plate recognition system.
[26:40.620 --> 26:46.880]  That plan calls for infrared cameras to scan plates of Manhattan's inbound traffic as part of anti-terrorism efforts.
[26:46.880 --> 26:50.680]  And maybe possibly as part of the congestion fee, if that gets passed.
[26:51.440 --> 27:00.660]  Now, basically, over in Long Beach, this guy, Dodge, parked near a busy intersection, scanning cars, whizzing by, and searched for any stolen ones.
[27:00.660 --> 27:04.140]  He equated using the device to playing the slots in Las Vegas.
[27:04.360 --> 27:07.760]  The more plates you feed it, the more of a chance you'll find something, he said.
[27:08.300 --> 27:15.920]  Now, in Arizona, Governor Janet Napolitano said the device is helping to combat human trafficking because smugglers often use stolen cars.
[27:16.300 --> 27:21.100]  Cruises equipped with readers at the Mexico-Arizona border can help break up trafficking rings.
[27:21.120 --> 27:22.760]  So it's just all good here.
[27:22.900 --> 27:24.920]  I have one question, though, before we discuss this.
[27:24.980 --> 27:25.460]  One question.
[27:30.660 --> 27:31.540]  He has a suspended license.
[27:32.020 --> 27:32.800]  It's parked.
[27:32.900 --> 27:33.820]  He's not driving.
[27:33.820 --> 27:35.860]  So what's the problem there?
[27:36.000 --> 27:37.100]  Yeah, he's got a suspended license.
[27:37.220 --> 27:38.140]  His van is parked in the street.
[27:38.240 --> 27:39.680]  What kind of ticket are you going to give this guy?
[27:39.880 --> 27:41.020]  Let's go further.
[27:41.180 --> 27:43.000]  Let's suppose that van is moving.
[27:43.500 --> 27:44.500]  They pull it over.
[27:44.700 --> 27:46.060]  The driver isn't driving.
[27:46.080 --> 27:46.980]  It's someone else.
[27:47.120 --> 27:47.180]  Right.
[27:47.260 --> 27:48.900]  It's someone else who has a valid license.
[27:49.480 --> 27:52.700]  When we first came across this, what, two, three years ago?
[27:52.880 --> 28:00.560]  It was in the Midwest, I believe Illinois, where they were actually using this to find things as small as library fines for overdue bucks.
[28:01.300 --> 28:03.020]  This is beyond belief.
[28:03.480 --> 28:04.500]  And it's the future.
[28:04.640 --> 28:05.540]  Something you better get used to.
[28:05.940 --> 28:07.120]  You'll be scammed all the time.
[28:07.200 --> 28:07.640]  Yes, Philadelphia.
[28:07.980 --> 28:26.620]  In Philadelphia, there's a local ordinance that prohibits a vehicle, prohibits parking a vehicle if the registered owner has any outstanding parking or traffic fines or whose license or registration has been suspended.
[28:27.680 --> 28:29.460]  And I think...
[28:29.460 --> 28:33.080]  How are they supposed to ever park their vehicle if they're licensed?
[28:33.240 --> 28:33.800]  What are they supposed to do?
[28:33.860 --> 28:34.480]  Destroy their car?
[28:34.840 --> 28:35.820]  Private property.
[28:36.140 --> 28:43.920]  You're only allowed to park it on private property then, which a lot of people don't have a driveway or a parking garage or something to park it on.
[28:44.100 --> 28:53.680]  But it's just one of the other methods that's used in combination with this technology to further turn the screw on people's thumbs.
[28:53.920 --> 28:54.840]  Now, here's the thing.
[28:55.000 --> 28:59.260]  Suppose you have your license suspended.
[28:59.360 --> 29:02.780]  What are you going to do with your car besides lend it to someone who has a valid license?
[29:03.300 --> 29:03.940]  Good point.
[29:04.160 --> 29:06.400]  This is another example of mission creep.
[29:06.400 --> 29:12.160]  Mission creep is where you have a good idea and you start enforcing it in ways not originally intended.
[29:12.460 --> 29:15.220]  I think the perfect example, of course, is the seatbelt.
[29:15.720 --> 29:16.360]  A seatbelt...
[29:16.360 --> 29:20.320]  Lack of wearing a seatbelt damages really no one but the person not wearing the seatbelt.
[29:20.500 --> 29:25.620]  And originally, they only would enforce the seatbelt laws if they pulled you over for something else.
[29:26.000 --> 29:27.460]  No longer, boys and girls.
[29:27.600 --> 29:28.080]  No longer.
[29:29.600 --> 29:30.280]  All right.
[29:30.760 --> 29:34.240]  Continuing along here with this theme, latest in RFID.
[29:34.700 --> 29:36.840]  Yeah, this is a big issue.
[29:37.660 --> 29:39.900]  People who fail to wash their hands.
[29:40.360 --> 29:42.020]  Yeah, RFID continues...
[29:42.020 --> 29:44.600]  This comes from the RFID Journal, so I think they know what they're talking about.
[29:45.060 --> 29:47.820]  RFID continues to make its way into a number of healthcare applications.
[29:47.820 --> 29:55.800]  Now, the technology is being employed in an automated, touchless hand-washing system to help reduce the spread of infections at healthcare institutions.
[29:55.800 --> 30:08.620]  This week, Resurgent Health and Medical is introducing its Cleantech IC line of automated hand-washing systems, which utilizes RFID tags and interrogators to...
[30:08.620 --> 30:11.240]  Not real people, but they're called interrogators.
[30:11.440 --> 30:15.520]  To identify each person using the hand-washing system and records how long.
[30:16.620 --> 30:18.120]  I could not make this up.
[30:18.280 --> 30:21.040]  The Cleantech IC will be available in three different versions.
[30:21.040 --> 30:33.740]  The IC in-counter, designed to be built into existing workplace countertops or other small areas, the portable, freestanding IC table mount, and the IC wall mount, intended to keep workplace floors clean and accessible.
[30:33.980 --> 30:41.440]  Now, when washing hands, a caregiver wearing an RFID badge is identified by the Cleantech machine's RFID interrogator.
[30:41.620 --> 30:49.060]  The reader identifies the employee by scanning that person's unique tag ID number associated with the caregiver's name in a back-end database.
[30:49.060 --> 31:05.180]  The device records the date and time, as well as the beginning and end of the wash cycle, then communicates that information to the database, which uses the interrogator's Ethernet card and MAC address to identify each Cleantech and the department where it's located.
[31:05.380 --> 31:06.280]  I kind of like that idea.
[31:06.540 --> 31:08.280]  Oh my god, this is just getting insane.
[31:08.280 --> 31:08.640]  Wait.
[31:09.380 --> 31:17.060]  Now, suppose you're working in a hospital and you want to wash your hands and you notice that the thing is not reading.
[31:17.060 --> 31:23.120]  So what you have to do is you have to manipulate your badge with your still dirty hands to get it nearer the reader.
[31:23.240 --> 31:26.380]  And now you have germs on your badge and all kinds of chaos could ensue.
[31:26.880 --> 31:28.600]  That's one way for it to backfire, I guess.
[31:29.380 --> 31:33.660]  But, wow, I mean, RFID, it's going to work its way into every aspect of our lives, really.
[31:33.800 --> 31:39.340]  How many times you go to the bathroom, when you wash your hands, when you open the refrigerator door, everything.
[31:39.880 --> 31:40.280]  Everything.
[31:40.580 --> 31:40.920]  Wow.
[31:42.080 --> 31:44.920]  Of course, the first applications will be for the public good.
[31:45.660 --> 31:46.660]  But good luck getting rid of your money.
[31:46.660 --> 31:48.680]  I'm not exactly sure how this benefits the public.
[31:48.860 --> 31:53.680]  Well, because you know that a health care giver has clean hands, which I guess you want to know that.
[31:53.820 --> 31:56.040]  Eventually, hopefully, McDonald's and Burger King employees.
[31:56.240 --> 31:56.880]  Wouldn't you want...
[31:56.880 --> 32:07.400]  When you go to McDonald's, Mike, wouldn't you want to know that the person helping you, giving you a Big Mac or whatever it is you get there, will have clean hands and has used the bathroom recently and has washed everything.
[32:07.400 --> 32:11.100]  He has washed and, you know, all sorts of things like that.
[32:11.240 --> 32:15.260]  I think both Mike and I can answer that question with the answer, no.
[32:15.540 --> 32:16.660]  You don't care about that?
[32:16.820 --> 32:17.580]  No, not really.
[32:18.340 --> 32:18.960]  That's something.
[32:19.160 --> 32:19.360]  Okay.
[32:19.540 --> 32:20.660]  And then we have this.
[32:20.820 --> 32:27.440]  Speaking of human traffickers and borders and things like that, this is a story that we saw in the Times.
[32:28.120 --> 32:35.800]  If the effort to catch people illegally crossing the border in the southern Arizona desert is a cat and mouse struggle, Homeland Security says it has a smarter cat.
[32:35.800 --> 32:51.340]  It comes in the form of nine nearly 100-foot-tall towers with radar high-definition cameras and other equipment rising from the desert around the tiny town of Sasab, somewhere in Arizona.
[32:51.520 --> 32:52.100]  Let's just leave it there.
[32:52.100 --> 33:10.900]  Known as Project 28, which is named after the 28 miles of border that the towers will scan, the so-called virtual fence forms the backbone of the Secura Border Initiative known as SBINet, a multi-billion-dollar mix of technology, manpower, and fencing intended to control illegal border crossings.
[33:11.120 --> 33:17.100]  If successful, hundreds of such towers could dot the 6,000 miles of the Mexican and Canadian borders.
[33:17.100 --> 33:30.520]  Now, the interesting part about this whole story, residents near the towers have raised concerns, questioning why most towers are miles from the border and whether they will allow unscrupulous agents to peer into their bedrooms.
[33:30.920 --> 33:40.760]  We don't live in clusters, said Roger Beale, who runs a grocery store in the isolated town of Arivaca, the site of a tower and about 10 miles from the border.
[33:40.920 --> 33:42.700]  The homes here are not 10 feet apart.
[33:42.880 --> 33:46.560]  People value their privacy here, and we are just not used to being observed.
[33:47.100 --> 33:47.880]  Do it at the border.
[33:48.100 --> 33:48.780]  This isn't it.
[33:49.700 --> 33:53.420]  The Border Patrol chief said, We are members of the community.
[33:53.420 --> 33:59.000]  We recognize their sensitivity, but we feel confident our officers are going to follow policy and common sense.
[33:59.220 --> 34:00.780]  Can I guarantee you nothing is going to happen?
[34:00.940 --> 34:01.340]  No.
[34:01.560 --> 34:02.520]  We are all human.
[34:02.820 --> 34:05.760]  I like how he contradicts himself right there.
[34:06.340 --> 34:09.300]  We are confident that our officers will use common sense.
[34:09.440 --> 34:09.820]  Oh, wait.
[34:10.240 --> 34:11.740]  At least once, they'll mess up.
[34:11.800 --> 34:12.580]  No guarantees.
[34:13.180 --> 34:16.480]  And yeah, we're all human, and we're going to want to watch the other humans in their homes.
[34:16.480 --> 34:20.580]  There is no doubt in my mind this kind of thing is going to be used to spy on other people.
[34:20.760 --> 34:21.060]  That's...
[34:21.060 --> 34:22.040]  Yeah, it's human nature.
[34:22.400 --> 34:38.620]  The Times article went on to say that the photographer and reporter went up to these things despite Homeland Security saying that there are speakers on them to yell at people getting too close, and there are guards currently near the towers to keep people from getting too close.
[34:38.780 --> 34:42.480]  And they only published one really decent photo in the Times of these.
[34:42.480 --> 34:48.080]  So I'd like to appeal to our listeners in the southern Arizona area or Mexico.
[34:48.300 --> 34:48.760]  Northern Mexico.
[34:48.920 --> 34:52.520]  Who may be in the southern Arizona area soon.
[34:52.520 --> 34:57.020]  If you have a camera and you take a picture of any of these, please send it to us.
[34:57.760 --> 34:58.260]  Absolutely.
[34:59.260 --> 35:00.140]  It's unreal, though.
[35:00.500 --> 35:01.660]  Being watched everywhere.
[35:01.880 --> 35:02.540]  Always on camera.
[35:02.740 --> 35:04.600]  Now, here's another instance of this.
[35:04.600 --> 35:06.060]  This happens in Chicago.
[35:06.060 --> 35:14.440]  Police and patrol cars will soon be able to peer inside nearby city buses by electronically tapping into onboard video cameras.
[35:14.600 --> 35:18.140]  That's according to the Chicago Transit Authority's Technology Vice President.
[35:18.380 --> 35:23.400]  Live views from inside buses will eventually be available to the city's public safety dispatchers.
[35:23.840 --> 35:32.860]  The CTA is outfitting buses with radio equipment that transmits short distances so that video signals can be picked up by Wi-Fi wireless hotspots and nearby police cars.
[35:33.440 --> 35:39.720]  They say the 75 CTA rail stations are now equipped as Wi-Fi hotspots and more hotspots are planned.
[35:39.940 --> 35:45.880]  The city is considering proposals from AT&T and Earthlink to create a municipal Wi-Fi system that will cover the entire city.
[35:46.520 --> 35:48.580]  Now, this is the justification.
[35:48.760 --> 35:53.160]  Last month, a gunman opened fire on a CTA bus killing a Julian High School student.
[35:53.420 --> 35:55.960]  Police looked at videotapes to identify a suspect.
[35:56.500 --> 36:01.860]  The technology now being installed would use the same cameras on buses to capture and transmit video images in real time.
[36:01.860 --> 36:08.840]  Anytime you want a policy to pass, you introduce a shooting victim or some act of terrorism or something like that, and people will simply agree to it.
[36:08.900 --> 36:12.420]  Yeah, the live transmission of everything going on on a bus is for our own safety.
[36:12.520 --> 36:16.740]  So they can stand in the office and watch as people are being shot and not be able to do anything about it.
[36:17.100 --> 36:17.680]  That's good.
[36:19.080 --> 36:24.060]  There are at least 4 million people out there who know the solution to this, having seen the movie Speed.
[36:24.460 --> 36:32.100]  All you have to do is have a stronger signal with an innocuous view of a bus and broadcast that, overwhelming this.
[36:32.100 --> 36:33.520]  This is the same test cheating method.
[36:33.820 --> 36:34.400]  Yeah, exactly.
[36:34.600 --> 36:35.840]  This is absurd.
[36:36.000 --> 36:39.360]  Although we're going to mess up and broadcast the test cheating method instead of the bus.
[36:39.560 --> 36:41.660]  And then good luck explaining that.
[36:41.660 --> 36:46.760]  Unless, of course, this is going to be encrypted at both ends, which makes it damn expensive.
[36:47.440 --> 36:47.820]  Emmanuel.
[36:47.980 --> 36:48.160]  Yes.
[36:48.940 --> 36:59.600]  There is a test project here in Philadelphia, a pilot, where they had a, both in one subway car and one city bus, SEPTA, where they have these cameras.
[37:00.260 --> 37:06.660]  And I don't know whether they were streaming live or whether they're going to a hard drive digital video recorder.
[37:06.840 --> 37:20.100]  But in any case, both the cameras in both cases, in both the bus and the subway car, are both easily reachable, because, you know, a subway car and a bus don't have high ceilings.
[37:20.240 --> 37:22.000]  You can easily reach anything in them.
[37:22.780 --> 37:28.780]  Somebody could just put a sticker or something over the piece of glass that has, you know, behind which is the lens of the camera.
[37:29.420 --> 37:35.320]  Paste a sticker or a piece of black gaffer's tape or something over it and just blind the camera.
[37:35.720 --> 37:37.860]  Well, Bernie, you've just made the argument for two cameras.
[37:38.440 --> 37:39.840]  Well, then you could blind them both.
[37:39.840 --> 37:51.960]  I mean, it's just ridiculously simple to defeat this lame method of security slash surveillance if you were so inclined.
[37:52.180 --> 37:54.000]  It's just a dumb idea.
[37:54.220 --> 37:54.460]  All right.
[37:54.520 --> 37:55.200]  Well, get this.
[37:55.380 --> 38:14.860]  The Assistant Director of Information Services for Chicago's 911 call center said when someone's standing at a Transit Authority train station, their equivalent of subway stations, when they call 911, the dispatcher is able to tap into the Transit Authority's video system to look at what's happening near the caller.
[38:15.180 --> 38:16.840]  This is something else to get used to.
[38:16.960 --> 38:20.060]  When you call 911, they'll be able to see you.
[38:20.960 --> 38:22.860]  Yeah, it's pretty frightening.
[38:23.060 --> 38:26.380]  It's like video phones, but not as useful.
[38:26.520 --> 38:27.700]  Except you don't know you're using one.
[38:28.160 --> 38:29.180]  I can just see...
[38:29.180 --> 38:37.100]  I just had a flash forward for a second of listeners in the future hearing what I just said about 911 being able to see you when you make a call and saying, yes, so what?
[38:37.140 --> 38:38.160]  What's the big deal about that?
[38:38.420 --> 38:41.680]  We get used to these things, and it's going to be a day-to-day occurrence.
[38:42.500 --> 38:44.120]  We won't even see the threat in the future.
[38:45.180 --> 38:49.700]  And then our final story about surveillance this week has to do with...
[38:50.420 --> 38:51.780]  Well, it goes straight up to the top.
[38:51.780 --> 39:03.160]  The Senate Judiciary Committee has subpoenaed the White House and Vice President Dick Cheney's office Wednesday, today, for documents relating to President Bush's warrant-free eavesdropping program.
[39:03.740 --> 39:14.500]  Our attempts, said Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont, our attempts to obtain information through testimony of administration witnesses have been met with a consistent pattern of evasion and misdirection.
[39:14.640 --> 39:18.820]  There is no legitimate argument for withholding the requested materials from this committee.
[39:18.820 --> 39:27.220]  Echoing its response to previous congressional subpoenas to former administration officials, the White House gave no indication that it would comply.
[39:27.540 --> 39:34.240]  We're aware of the committee's action and will respond appropriately, said White House spokesman Tony Fratto, while holding up a middle finger.
[39:34.460 --> 39:39.180]  It's unfortunate that congressional Democrats continue to choose the route of confrontation.
[39:39.180 --> 39:42.000]  You know, I wish they would start to choose the route of confrontation.
[39:42.000 --> 39:47.020]  It's unbelievable what they're getting away with, insofar as surveillance and just flouting the law.
[39:47.020 --> 39:56.960]  Well, the vice president is especially clever in which he wants to know everything about everyone else, but he really doesn't want anyone to know anything about him.
[39:57.060 --> 39:58.460]  He's not part of the executive branch, I found out.
[39:58.500 --> 39:59.240]  That's what he says.
[39:59.620 --> 40:01.120]  He's the fourth branch of government.
[40:01.240 --> 40:08.720]  There's a law that says the executive branch basically has to retain certain records and maybe make them available under certain circumstances.
[40:09.300 --> 40:14.820]  But the vice president has decreed himself exempt from this for very nebulous reasons.
[40:15.080 --> 40:21.520]  I swear, we're going to look back on this period of history and it's just going to be so unbelievable that we did so little to stop it.
[40:21.560 --> 40:21.720]  Bernie?
[40:22.120 --> 40:24.820]  It depends on when you're asking the vice president this question.
[40:24.960 --> 40:40.620]  Like, when you're asking him to turn over the transcripts from, or at least the list of the people he met with during the energy policy meetings with Enron, then he claims he's with the executive branch and therefore it's executive privilege he doesn't have to turn him over.
[40:40.760 --> 40:45.020]  But in this case, he claims he's not with the executive branch so he doesn't have to turn them over.
[40:45.020 --> 40:49.820]  So it depends on what the topic is and how he answers the question.
[40:49.960 --> 40:51.600]  Could there be two Dick Cheneys?
[40:52.600 --> 40:54.480]  Could anything be more terrifying than that?
[40:54.780 --> 40:59.460]  There's a doctor on 86th Street called Richard Cheney, but I don't think it's the same one.
[40:59.480 --> 41:01.660]  You think he might be the one saying he's not part of the executive branch?
[41:01.660 --> 41:02.780]  We should call him and find out.
[41:03.320 --> 41:09.280]  What's frightening to me is that I've talked to a lot of people about this, and all they can really say is, I have nothing to hide.
[41:09.280 --> 41:09.920]  Why would I care?
[41:10.060 --> 41:10.660]  Ah, yes.
[41:11.780 --> 41:12.700]  Who was it who said that?
[41:12.780 --> 41:13.500]  The guy with the square head?
[41:13.600 --> 41:14.660]  Edwin Meese said that, didn't he?
[41:14.660 --> 41:16.720]  If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to worry about.
[41:16.920 --> 41:18.740]  Maybe you should give your friends something to hide.
[41:19.960 --> 41:20.360]  Yeah.
[41:20.360 --> 41:21.380]  Hide this for me, will you?
[41:22.300 --> 41:22.700]  Okay.
[41:22.700 --> 41:25.860]  Yesterday was the day of silence for internet radio.
[41:26.480 --> 41:29.940]  I don't know if we took part in that particular project here at BAI.
[41:30.000 --> 41:32.160]  I know we did over at WUSB and many other stations.
[41:32.820 --> 41:33.220]  KPFA.
[41:33.460 --> 41:34.400]  KPFA did it.
[41:34.740 --> 41:52.200]  Basically, it's to call attention to mounting royalty charges, which I have a real problem with royalty charges to start with because my feeling is that if you're playing music on a radio station, you're basically advertising for record companies and bands that will go on to become very successful.
[41:52.640 --> 41:56.800]  And it just doesn't seem right that you should be paying for performing that service.
[41:57.100 --> 42:02.220]  But basically, according to SaveNetRadio.org, the future of internet radio is in immediate danger.
[42:02.460 --> 42:14.900]  Royalty rates for webcasters have been drastically increased by a recent ruling and are due to go into effect on July 15th and retroactive to January 1st, 2006, which means a huge charge for a lot of net radio stations.
[42:15.440 --> 42:30.420]  Webcasters across the country participated in a national day of silence on Tuesday to increase awareness about this looming threat and gather support for the SaveNetRadio coalition and our campaign to preserve music diversity online.
[42:30.420 --> 42:35.820]  The Internet Radio Equality Act is currently being considered by both the House and the Senate.
[42:36.220 --> 42:44.100]  This bill will set royalty rates for internet radio equal to the royalty rate paid by satellite radio and has gained over 120 co-sponsors in the House.
[42:45.040 --> 42:48.320]  So we strongly suggest that you call your senators and representatives.
[42:48.520 --> 42:54.940]  Go to the website, SaveNetRadio.org, and look up who your senator and representative is.
[42:55.020 --> 42:56.000]  Read all about this.
[42:56.380 --> 42:58.780]  Find out how this could affect you.
[42:58.860 --> 43:00.080]  Because it does affect every one of us.
[43:00.180 --> 43:01.500]  So we listen to net radio, do we not?
[43:01.720 --> 43:02.380]  Yeah, I do.
[43:02.460 --> 43:04.800]  But I just want to just underscore that.
[43:04.800 --> 43:10.120]  This website, SaveNetRadio.org, they made it really, really, really easy to call your representative.
[43:10.300 --> 43:13.860]  You just type in your zip code and they tell you who to call and they even give you talking points.
[43:14.600 --> 43:18.900]  You know, like all the names of the acts and things like that.
[43:19.380 --> 43:22.740]  So I did this a while ago and recently.
[43:23.000 --> 43:24.000]  And it was really easy.
[43:24.120 --> 43:25.460]  So I think everyone should really do it.
[43:25.900 --> 43:27.000]  Yeah, SaveNetRadio.org.
[43:27.120 --> 43:28.600]  Just click on the appropriate buttons.
[43:28.600 --> 43:39.300]  And unless your senator representative has been arrested in the last 24 hours and hauled away, it's quite likely that the name you get will be accurate and the phone number serving will be.
[43:39.300 --> 43:42.980]  You know, this whole zip code thing doesn't work for me because my zip code is split between two.
[43:43.360 --> 43:43.760]  What?
[43:43.960 --> 43:46.400]  So is mine, but you can just put your address in and it knows.
[43:46.600 --> 43:48.060]  What do you mean your zip code is split between two?
[43:48.560 --> 43:52.700]  There's more than one representative representing different parts of my zip code.
[43:52.800 --> 43:53.580]  Well, call them both.
[43:54.340 --> 43:55.840]  In fact, you can call all sorts of people.
[43:55.940 --> 43:57.280]  Call people on even your representatives.
[43:57.280 --> 43:59.100]  The important thing is to just get the word out.
[43:59.280 --> 44:03.040]  And I think the louder you speak, the more people will listen.
[44:03.480 --> 44:03.820]  Emmanuel?
[44:04.020 --> 44:04.180]  Yes?
[44:04.720 --> 44:13.040]  The reason this is important to take action now by going to that website is because there's a pending House resolution and a Senate bill.
[44:13.360 --> 44:17.080]  And both of them are still just proposed legislation.
[44:17.160 --> 44:19.040]  They haven't even gotten into committee yet.
[44:19.060 --> 44:26.840]  And they're not going to get out of committee unless there's a significant amount of constituent interest in this piece of legislation.
[44:27.600 --> 44:28.960]  being passed into law.
[44:29.460 --> 44:30.860]  So that's how politics works.
[44:31.080 --> 44:41.540]  Unless politicians and your senators and congressmen are aware that there's a significant amount of interest in this issue, it's never even going to get out of committee and it's not going to get voted on.
[44:42.340 --> 44:44.860]  So it's not going to become law unless people vote on it.
[44:44.960 --> 44:50.480]  It's not even going to get out of committee unless people speak up and tell the legislators this is important to them.
[44:50.620 --> 44:52.780]  These legislators only care about their own jobs.
[44:52.780 --> 44:58.340]  And if you let them know that their jobs are on the line because this issue is important to you, then they might listen.
[44:58.360 --> 45:01.000]  Otherwise, if you don't tell them, they're not going to care.
[45:01.160 --> 45:02.240]  It's not going to get a committee.
[45:02.400 --> 45:03.760]  This law isn't going to pass.
[45:03.880 --> 45:08.980]  And then most net radio stations are going to go off the air, so to speak.
[45:08.980 --> 45:12.540]  And this does affect us, too, because WBAI does broadcast over the net.
[45:13.000 --> 45:20.680]  And to be faced with crippling charges for continuing to do so would certainly put a crimp in our style and cut the station off.
[45:20.800 --> 45:23.180]  It's cut all sorts of stations off to people all around the world.
[45:23.400 --> 45:28.960]  My question, though, about this whole thing, how does it work if you're broadcasting from a different country?
[45:29.720 --> 45:36.440]  Could you not simply have a radio station broadcasting from, oh, I don't know, Luxembourg or Liechtenstein or someplace like that and avoid all this nonsense?
[45:37.600 --> 45:42.560]  Well, yes, but you do want to have a lot of bandwidth available to the listener.
[45:42.560 --> 45:54.540]  So it's not really strategic to locate your servers out of the country that you're broadcasting to online, you know, because then you're going... you've got high latency, you've got long, you know, small pipes, you've got...
[45:54.540 --> 46:03.080]  But the point is, though, if you're able to listen to all the same music coming from a different location, my question is, does the listener really suffer then?
[46:03.080 --> 46:06.080]  It seems like we're suffering in America because then we don't have the freedom to...
[46:06.440 --> 46:08.680]  run our own stations and be creative.
[46:09.060 --> 46:11.940]  But it seems like it's easy to get around from a listener point of view.
[46:12.120 --> 46:31.880]  Well, the United States government and the United States media industries have a very long history of trying to create sort of draconian copyright laws here in the United States and then trying to force other countries to enact the same legislation in the interest of some sort of international harmony of these laws.
[46:33.620 --> 46:43.080]  So people in other countries should be concerned that if something like this is successful in the United States, the United States will do everything in its power to bring it to their country soon.
[46:43.520 --> 46:44.160]  I see.
[46:44.320 --> 46:48.640]  And then we have to get a lot of music from North Korea or something like that because they'll be the only ones not participating.
[46:48.760 --> 46:49.800]  The North Korean music?
[46:50.040 --> 46:54.200]  No, they'd be broadcasting our music to us because nobody else would be allowed to.
[46:54.560 --> 46:56.120]  But they're not allowed to hear our music.
[46:56.240 --> 46:58.120]  Well, they'd make the sacrifice, I think.
[46:58.120 --> 46:59.920]  Like, I don't know, it's crazy times ahead.
[47:00.020 --> 47:02.380]  But again, savenetradio.org, get involved.
[47:02.620 --> 47:06.600]  And remember, we only have a couple of weeks left before this hits the fan.
[47:06.940 --> 47:10.180]  Okay, we're going to take phone calls, 212-209-2900.
[47:11.300 --> 47:14.320]  We're not on next week, so if you have something to say, this is the time to call in.
[47:15.600 --> 47:17.020]  A passing to note.
[47:17.220 --> 47:22.560]  You may not have ever heard the name of William LeMessure, but he was a structural engineer.
[47:22.560 --> 47:30.360]  And like Jim was telling me before the show, he's probably responsible for maybe saving the lives of untold numbers of hackers.
[47:31.000 --> 47:42.820]  Reason being that he's the guy who detected and repaired a potentially catastrophic flaw in the city core building, which is now known as the city group building, in Manhattan, where 2600 has its meetings every month.
[47:43.420 --> 47:45.160]  Yeah, it's kind of an interesting story.
[47:45.160 --> 47:51.640]  In 1978, after the building was completed and occupied, Mr. LeMessure discovered that it had a flaw.
[47:51.840 --> 47:59.180]  If hurricane force winds, 70 miles an hour or more, hit at a 45-degree angle, the building could weaken and possibly topple.
[47:59.840 --> 48:07.060]  Now, later, the Red Cross, and I really don't understand how they got this figure, they estimated 200,000 people would die if the structure collapsed.
[48:07.680 --> 48:10.880]  That's like, what, a tenth the population of Manhattan?
[48:10.880 --> 48:11.700]  How would that happen?
[48:11.700 --> 48:26.320]  Well, no, the problem was that a 45-degree angle, the way the building is built and constructed and the fact that it has that 90-ton weight up near the top that's designed to dampen it, hurricanes, earthquakes, rather.
[48:27.020 --> 48:34.260]  If it all toppled, it was likely to topple as one piece, unlike most other buildings, because it's designed a little bit differently.
[48:34.520 --> 48:34.680]  Right.
[48:34.880 --> 48:39.620]  And 90 tons falling from that height would have taken out another building or two.
[48:40.220 --> 48:41.180]  So, that's why.
[48:41.260 --> 48:44.380]  This would have fallen like most other buildings could not.
[48:44.540 --> 48:46.220]  So, like a domino effect, you're saying?
[48:46.220 --> 48:47.560]  Well, at least for one other building, yeah.
[48:47.740 --> 48:50.780]  But still, that's like 100,000 people per building.
[48:50.920 --> 48:52.000]  Yeah, that's way too many people.
[48:52.140 --> 48:53.720]  I mean, it gets crowded in there, but come on.
[48:53.840 --> 48:56.080]  It's a, what, 40, 50-story building?
[48:56.180 --> 48:56.860]  It's 900 feet.
[48:56.960 --> 48:58.140]  I know the building is 900 feet.
[48:58.140 --> 49:01.220]  If every building of that size had 100,000 people in it.
[49:01.260 --> 49:03.540]  The city core building is 900 feet, okay?
[49:03.540 --> 49:05.040]  That's two city blocks.
[49:05.240 --> 49:07.840]  It would definitely take out one whole other building.
[49:07.840 --> 49:11.120]  And everything around there is another 40 stories, at least, or at least 35.
[49:11.800 --> 49:13.180]  And another building beyond that.
[49:13.280 --> 49:15.220]  So, we're talking three large office buildings.
[49:15.660 --> 49:17.240]  Plus, it's a very active street.
[49:17.320 --> 49:17.500]  All right.
[49:17.600 --> 49:21.640]  Plus, it would destroy the subway station if it fell, you know, on that half to the south.
[49:21.840 --> 49:22.920]  Well, it would be bad.
[49:23.060 --> 49:24.860]  I mean, we're equivalent over 200,000 people.
[49:25.000 --> 49:25.880]  I just think that's a bit high.
[49:25.880 --> 49:30.120]  But the point is, he detected this and fixed it.
[49:31.820 --> 49:33.900]  Basically, the building's repairs, which were...
[49:33.900 --> 49:34.600]  This is the interesting part.
[49:34.720 --> 49:37.080]  The building's repairs were kept secret from the public.
[49:37.200 --> 49:38.180]  How did they manage this?
[49:38.520 --> 49:39.560]  They didn't even become...
[49:39.560 --> 49:40.240]  They didn't even become...
[49:40.240 --> 49:41.060]  No, it wasn't inadvertent.
[49:41.120 --> 49:44.280]  They didn't become fully known until an article in the New Yorker in 1995.
[49:44.740 --> 49:48.180]  Yes, when it was first reported, it was...
[49:48.180 --> 49:55.380]  A newspaper reporter tried to reach Mr. LeMessure, who had heard about the city core repairs.
[49:56.160 --> 49:58.800]  He hesitated, but returned the call late that afternoon.
[49:58.820 --> 50:00.960]  That day, the city's newspapers had gone on strike.
[50:01.360 --> 50:05.280]  And the story was never extensively covered until the New Yorker article in 1995.
[50:06.140 --> 50:09.960]  But still, I mean, the newspapers did come back from the strike.
[50:10.660 --> 50:11.740]  Nobody was for...
[50:11.740 --> 50:19.060]  I mean, this should be something that is obvious with or without a newspaper reporter that the building is being repaired to this extent.
[50:19.140 --> 50:21.060]  I don't even remember hearing about it in 1995.
[50:21.380 --> 50:22.000]  Actually, I do.
[50:22.200 --> 50:22.920]  Yeah, both times.
[50:23.200 --> 50:24.260]  And believe it or not, in 78.
[50:25.140 --> 50:25.600]  Emmanuel?
[50:25.600 --> 50:25.980]  Yes.
[50:27.220 --> 50:27.900]  It's interesting.
[50:28.060 --> 50:37.620]  The architect, he didn't even know about this problem until what he regarded as a nettlesome engineering student alerted him to it back in June of 78.
[50:38.020 --> 50:40.460]  And he blew the student off for a while.
[50:40.520 --> 50:42.540]  But the more he thought about it, the more it concerned him.
[50:43.000 --> 50:45.740]  And that's what led to these repairs done in secret.
[50:45.940 --> 50:47.180]  I don't know why they were done in secret.
[50:47.780 --> 50:50.960]  I guess to avoid people like us talking about it.
[50:50.960 --> 50:55.900]  Yeah, they probably don't want to say, hey, this great building we just built, it might fall over.
[50:56.940 --> 51:09.840]  Well, now, according to this article in the Times, CityCore Building's braces had been joined with bolted joints, which is a cheaper method, but one accepted in the industry, instead of using the far stronger welded joints.
[51:09.840 --> 51:14.140]  So if you're one of our listeners who's building a skyscraper, take note of that fact.
[51:14.300 --> 51:14.940]  Weld your joints.
[51:15.080 --> 51:16.020]  Yeah, weld your joints.
[51:16.100 --> 51:17.940]  It's common sense.
[51:18.960 --> 51:19.360]  Wow.
[51:19.540 --> 51:20.400]  So I didn't know about that.
[51:20.480 --> 51:25.660]  Anyway, so William LeMessure passed away on June 14th at the age of 81.
[51:25.820 --> 51:31.280]  So we thank him for keeping our building from falling down amongst us.
[51:31.280 --> 51:35.220]  Although there would have to be a hurricane happening at the time, I guess, but still, you know.
[51:35.340 --> 51:36.540]  We've been there in rainstorms.
[51:36.540 --> 51:39.380]  If there was a hurricane during the meeting, we'd still show up.
[51:39.920 --> 51:40.520]  All right.
[51:40.660 --> 51:42.400]  212-209-2900.
[51:42.560 --> 51:44.960]  We're going to take phone calls in a minute, so then some more come in.
[51:45.260 --> 51:48.860]  This letter, our email address, OTH at 2600.com.
[51:49.260 --> 51:52.280]  I happened to catch your show last night, meaning last week.
[51:52.540 --> 51:58.160]  In response to the last caller, there are several GPS devices designed to be used by those who are blind.
[51:58.420 --> 52:05.780]  The less expensive ones work with a Braille note-taking device, such as the Braille Note by Humanware that an individual already owns.
[52:05.780 --> 52:15.000]  There are some more expensive standalone devices, though they require use of a PC to download maps from and create routes for those who do not own a Braille note-taker.
[52:15.180 --> 52:27.400]  However, I doubt that any standard GPS device would work well for the visually impaired because most use multifunction interface buttons and or touchscreens that have no tactile features, so it would be nearly impossible for a blind person to use.
[52:27.400 --> 52:40.340]  You can listen to a podcast of someone demonstrating the use of a GPS system that integrates with a Braille note at www.genwi.com slash play slash 18859.
[52:40.340 --> 52:42.600]  Thank you, Ari, for writing in with that information.
[52:43.300 --> 52:43.480]  Okay.
[52:43.540 --> 52:43.860]  One more.
[52:43.860 --> 52:44.620]  We have another one.
[52:44.740 --> 52:45.440]  We have another one?
[52:45.540 --> 52:45.980]  Yes, from Sean.
[52:46.000 --> 52:46.900]  Make it quick so we can take a phone call.
[52:46.900 --> 52:47.740]  From Sean in Vancouver.
[52:48.000 --> 52:48.660]  He writes, Hey there.
[52:48.740 --> 52:53.640]  On your show last week, you had a caller asking if there are any GPS systems out there meant for those with vision impairments.
[52:53.780 --> 53:00.360]  A couple of friends of mine have built just such a system for cell phones with a Symbian OS.
[53:00.880 --> 53:06.140]  Information on this project can be found here, www.loadstone-gps.com.
[53:06.340 --> 53:06.740]  Okay.
[53:06.800 --> 53:08.860]  Hopefully that's of interest to the caller.
[53:09.280 --> 53:10.560]  L-O-A-D or L-O-G?
[53:10.680 --> 53:13.480]  L-O-A-D stone-gps.com.
[53:13.600 --> 53:13.660]  All right.
[53:13.700 --> 53:15.840]  Let's see if we can get one of these phone calls on the air.
[53:16.320 --> 53:17.080]  And good evening.
[53:17.120 --> 53:18.080]  You're on off the hook.
[53:19.580 --> 53:20.080]  Speak up.
[53:20.140 --> 53:20.280]  Good evening.
[53:20.480 --> 53:20.700]  Yes.
[53:20.720 --> 53:21.240]  What's on your mind?
[53:21.340 --> 53:23.080]  I'm calling about the city core building.
[53:23.360 --> 53:23.580]  Okay.
[53:24.180 --> 53:25.780]  Did you know another defect in it?
[53:27.120 --> 53:29.420]  Well, I remember the story very well.
[53:30.000 --> 53:36.700]  Both the joints are actually very strong, but they allow for a little more give, a little more flex at the joints.
[53:37.020 --> 53:38.860]  And they had to be replaced.
[53:39.080 --> 53:45.660]  Well, the building had to be strengthened with braces at a 45-degree angle, if I recall.
[53:45.900 --> 53:48.300]  And they did this floor by floor.
[53:48.640 --> 53:55.840]  You know, the contractor took it upon himself to go for bolts rather than welds, which is probably cheaper.
[53:55.840 --> 53:56.740]  You're right about that.
[53:57.980 --> 54:06.560]  And so the repair was carried out floor by floor without evacuating, which would have cost a lot of money, of course, evacuating the building.
[54:08.060 --> 54:15.560]  And it was completed just in time for a rather strong hurricane that would have fallen in the class that could have caused the building to fail.
[54:16.600 --> 54:16.920]  Wow.
[54:17.080 --> 54:20.080]  So it's fortuitous that it took place in that way.
[54:21.820 --> 54:22.140]  Exactly.
[54:22.840 --> 54:23.160]  All right.
[54:23.200 --> 54:24.120]  Thanks for the info.
[54:24.140 --> 54:24.680]  That's a good thing to be learned there.
[54:24.860 --> 54:25.100]  All right.
[54:25.120 --> 54:26.320]  Thanks for the info on that.
[54:26.700 --> 54:27.940]  Thank you for a great program.
[54:28.180 --> 54:28.520]  Take care.
[54:28.780 --> 54:28.880]  Bye.
[54:29.540 --> 54:31.480]  I guess a lot of people have knowledge of this subject.
[54:31.740 --> 54:32.420]  It's good to know.
[54:32.580 --> 54:32.980]  Good evening.
[54:33.540 --> 54:34.020]  I'm sorry.
[54:34.140 --> 54:34.460]  Good evening.
[54:34.600 --> 54:35.260]  You're on Off the Hook.
[54:36.920 --> 54:37.460]  Speak up.
[54:37.960 --> 54:38.280]  Hello.
[54:38.540 --> 54:38.720]  Yes.
[54:38.720 --> 54:39.280]  What's on your mind?
[54:39.280 --> 54:40.580]  Well, I'll tell you.
[54:41.200 --> 54:45.660]  I have been very concerned about various things that are said on BAI.
[54:45.780 --> 54:45.980]  Okay.
[54:46.160 --> 54:47.880]  You veered off topic already, Monroe.
[54:48.020 --> 54:48.780]  It didn't take you very long.
[54:48.900 --> 54:49.420]  Let's take another call.
[54:49.480 --> 54:49.780]  Good evening.
[54:49.960 --> 54:51.460]  You're on Off the Hook.
[54:51.960 --> 54:52.680]  Hi, guys.
[54:52.940 --> 54:53.460]  How are you doing?
[54:53.640 --> 54:57.700]  I live upstate, and I have central Hudson Electric and Gas.
[54:57.920 --> 55:00.020]  And this is on surveillance.
[55:00.640 --> 55:03.200]  I have a classic electric meter that spins.
[55:03.700 --> 55:21.720]  And a couple of days ago, a guy pulls into my driveway right next to where the meter is very accessible, knocks on my door and wants to replace it with a digital meter that's the same size as the one I have now with the glass face, except it's all gray,
[55:21.740 --> 55:27.240]  and it has a LCD readout, the ones that look like an Etch-A-Sketch.
[55:27.980 --> 55:29.280]  And that's all you see.
[55:29.360 --> 55:38.900]  You can't see inside it, but it's still as big, and it's a remote meter so that they can drive by in a truck and read the meter.
[55:39.420 --> 55:52.520]  And I'm thinking that anything that has that technological capability can certainly track every bit of your electric usage second by second and read it all out and have it downloaded without your permission and knowledge.
[55:52.620 --> 55:56.960]  And I'm wondering if you know anything about these remote readout by a truck.
[55:57.080 --> 56:04.120]  They're passing it off as being simple for the employees of the electric company, but I'm wondering if you've heard anything like that.
[56:04.640 --> 56:08.640]  Not very much, although, yeah, it probably is simple for the employees.
[56:08.960 --> 56:14.960]  You're right in that you would not know second to second by looking at the spinning disk how much electricity you're using.
[56:15.100 --> 56:15.220]  Right.
[56:15.280 --> 56:16.380]  It's a privacy issue.
[56:16.640 --> 56:28.580]  Well, not so much privacy, but it would be bad for you if you see that you're using a lot of electricity during peak hours where it costs more, you could urge yourself to use it.
[56:28.580 --> 56:33.860]  Well, what about somebody that shouldn't have it having access to this technology and being able to determine when you're home or not?
[56:34.000 --> 56:34.840]  That's true, too.
[56:34.840 --> 56:35.220]  Oh, that's a good point.
[56:35.280 --> 56:35.800]  Very good point.
[56:36.120 --> 56:45.040]  This kind of thing has been used in the past to find people who are growing marijuana because of the power use that they have to maintain the plants.
[56:46.020 --> 56:51.100]  And they've tried to do this on telephone lines and through Wi-Fi and various other things.
[56:51.340 --> 56:51.780]  So, yeah, electric...
[56:51.780 --> 56:53.360]  Yeah, but this is what they could even tell the...
[56:53.360 --> 56:57.620]  They could tell if it's my water pump or my computer or anything else that I have on.
[56:57.620 --> 56:58.980]  Well, generally not.
[57:02.220 --> 57:02.920]  I don't like that.
[57:03.000 --> 57:04.640]  I don't want to give up that information.
[57:04.720 --> 57:05.280]  They could tell what's circled.
[57:05.280 --> 57:07.340]  I certainly don't want to give it to somebody that's not the power pump.
[57:07.340 --> 57:09.280]  Well, you should definitely have the option of not giving it up.
[57:09.500 --> 57:16.240]  I mean, generally the way these are installed is that they know just how much electricity is flowing by the meter.
[57:16.340 --> 57:22.060]  They don't necessarily know into which room of your house or certainly what device you have plugged in there, but...
[57:22.060 --> 57:22.500]  Okay.
[57:22.600 --> 57:30.060]  Well, it's going to have to be the final word on this subject as we delve into more surveillance issues here on Off the Hook.
[57:30.640 --> 57:32.820]  That's it for us this week.
[57:33.240 --> 57:34.940]  And I don't think we'll be back next week.
[57:34.940 --> 57:38.100]  So we'll be back in two weeks for the special summer fundraiser.
[57:38.200 --> 57:41.120]  Until then, Emanuel Goldstein, have yourselves a good night.
[57:42.660 --> 57:46.780]  What's that I hear now ringing in my ears?
[57:46.960 --> 57:49.580]  I've heard that sound before.
[57:51.000 --> 57:55.020]  What's that I hear now ringing in my ears?
[57:55.470 --> 57:57.880]  I hear it more and more.
[57:59.120 --> 58:05.460]  It's the sound of freedom calling, ringing up to the skies.
[58:06.680 --> 58:09.980]  It's the sound of the old ways of falling.
[58:10.480 --> 58:12.840]  You can hear it if you try.
[58:13.960 --> 58:16.600]  You can hear it if you try.
[58:19.060 --> 58:23.320]  Oh, what's that I see now shining in my eyes?
[58:23.500 --> 58:25.900]  I've seen that light before.
[58:27.000 --> 58:31.120]  Hey, what's that I see now shining in my eyes?
[58:31.120 --> 58:33.820]  I see it more and more.
[58:35.060 --> 58:41.160]  It's the light of freedom calling, shining up to the skies.
[58:42.220 --> 58:45.500]  It's the light of the old ways of falling.
[58:46.040 --> 58:48.340]  You can see it if you try.
[58:49.300 --> 58:51.760]  You can see it if you try.
[58:54.660 --> 58:58.600]  Hey, what's that I feel now beating in my heart?
[58:58.600 --> 59:01.460]  I've felt that beat before.
[59:02.480 --> 59:06.260]  Hey, what's that I feel now beating in my heart?
[59:06.720 --> 59:09.140]  I feel it more and more.
[59:10.380 --> 59:16.620]  It's the rumble of freedom calling, climbing up to the skies.
[59:17.640 --> 59:20.920]  It's the rumble of the old ways of falling.
[59:21.540 --> 59:23.860]  You can feel it if you try.
[59:24.860 --> 59:27.220]  You can feel it if you try.
[59:32.290 --> 59:32.770]  Great.
[59:33.070 --> 59:35.310]  I love the music that Off the Hook plays.
[59:36.130 --> 59:36.890]  It's great.
[59:37.030 --> 59:37.910]  Don't you like it, Kat?
[59:38.270 --> 59:38.610]  Anyway.
[59:39.070 --> 59:40.810]  Hey, you know, we have a special...
[59:40.810 --> 59:43.370]  Oh, well, we almost had a special show today.
[59:43.610 --> 59:46.450]  Now we just have a regular fantastic show.
[59:46.930 --> 59:51.070]  Of course, I'm talking about the personal computer show coming up right after this.
[59:53.570 --> 59:56.070]  That's the Jackson of the Rainbow Push Coalition.
[59:56.330 --> 01:00:01.390]  And this is WBAI, listener-supported, non-commercial radio in New York.
[01:00:06.090 --> 01:00:25.570]  We'll be right back.