[00:00.020 --> 00:04.270] [SPEAKER_00]: Hi, I'm Brian DeShazer, director of the Pacifica Radio Archives.
[00:04.660 --> 00:17.260] [SPEAKER_00]: Ten years after the tragedy of 9-11, Pacifica Radio will present a national broadcast featuring special programming from each Pacifica radio station and the archives that examines its impact on American society.
[00:17.560 --> 00:29.980] [SPEAKER_00]: We invite you, the listener, to be part of the Pacifica Radio Archives Hour by including your voice along with those of Stephen Rohde, Howard Zinn, Maxine Waters, June Jordan, Bertrand Russell, Jermaine Greer, and many others.
[00:30.500 --> 00:37.880] [SPEAKER_00]: Tell us about how you heard about the attack, what you did, how you feel ten years later, or perhaps you heard something on Pacifica Radio that was extraordinary.
[00:38.140 --> 00:39.720] [SPEAKER_00]: The subject is wide open.
[00:39.980 --> 00:43.680] [SPEAKER_00]: Call us at 1-800-735-0230.
[00:44.080 --> 00:47.700] [SPEAKER_00]: We want to hear how 9-11 changed your life or your worldview.
[00:48.140 --> 00:52.320] [SPEAKER_00]: These will be part of the commemoration broadcast on September 11, 2011.
[00:52.780 --> 00:57.720] [SPEAKER_00]: The message number, again, is 1-800-735-0230.
[00:59.280 --> 01:05.840] [SPEAKER_04]: And you're listening to WBAI New York 99.5 FM and WBAI.org.
[01:06.090 --> 01:09.730] [SPEAKER_04]: Coming up next is Off The Hook, followed by The Personal Computer Show.
[01:09.980 --> 01:12.600] [SPEAKER_04]: If you know anyone who should be listening to this, call them up.
[01:12.670 --> 01:14.210] [SPEAKER_04]: Tell them to go to WBAI.org.
[01:14.210 --> 01:16.340] [SPEAKER_04]: They can hear all of it as it happens.
[01:20.380 --> 01:24.940] [SPEAKER_09]: The telephone keeps ringing, so I ripped it off the wall.
[01:25.820 --> 01:30.440] [SPEAKER_09]: I cut myself while shaving, now I can't make a call.
[01:30.980 --> 01:33.260] [SPEAKER_09]: We couldn't get much worse.
[02:08.260 --> 02:10.200] [SPEAKER_01]: And the program is Off The Hook.
[02:10.540 --> 02:12.080] [SPEAKER_01]: This is Mike here in the studio.
[02:12.100 --> 02:13.320] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm joined by Voltaire.
[02:13.540 --> 02:13.800] [SPEAKER_01]: Hi.
[02:14.060 --> 02:14.760] [SPEAKER_01]: And Jim.
[02:14.980 --> 02:15.240] [SPEAKER_01]: Hello.
[02:15.660 --> 02:16.680] [SPEAKER_01]: We have Bernie S. down there in Philadelphia.
[02:18.060 --> 02:19.100] [SPEAKER_08]: Greetings from Philadelphia.
[02:19.420 --> 02:20.980] [SPEAKER_01]: And Emmanuel is somewhere.
[02:21.660 --> 02:22.740] [SPEAKER_08]: Yeah, I am somewhere.
[02:23.000 --> 02:24.240] [SPEAKER_08]: I'm here with Kyle.
[02:24.240 --> 02:25.140] [SPEAKER_08]: Hi.
[02:25.380 --> 02:34.840] [SPEAKER_08]: And we are right now in Kiev, in Ukraine, celebrating the 20th anniversary of the Ukraine Republic.
[02:35.220 --> 02:41.380] [SPEAKER_08]: Which, you know, for some bizarre reason, we wound up here on this day without realizing that.
[02:41.560 --> 02:47.860] [SPEAKER_08]: And we just suddenly flipped open the book and discovered that, hey, it's Independence Day on Wednesday.
[02:47.860 --> 02:54.620] [SPEAKER_08]: And not only is it Independence Day, but it's the 20th anniversary of the independence of Ukraine from the Soviet Union.
[02:55.500 --> 03:00.360] [SPEAKER_08]: So it's been a very festive period of time that we've been here.
[03:00.560 --> 03:03.340] [SPEAKER_08]: First time for both of us in this particular country.
[03:03.540 --> 03:05.980] [SPEAKER_08]: And it's really pretty cool.
[03:06.020 --> 03:11.040] [SPEAKER_08]: I know there's a lot of Ukrainian-Americans in the East Rilogy of New York.
[03:11.140 --> 03:14.800] [SPEAKER_08]: So I think it's really kind of cool that we're making that connection.
[03:14.800 --> 03:21.700] [SPEAKER_07]: Hey, Emmanuel, is one of their political leaders still having Independence Day, or is he still locked up?
[03:22.620 --> 03:25.740] [SPEAKER_08]: You're referring to Yulia.
[03:26.020 --> 03:28.840] [SPEAKER_08]: Hard to say that from our part of the world.
[03:29.260 --> 03:29.620] [SPEAKER_08]: Yulia.
[03:29.860 --> 03:30.600] [SPEAKER_08]: I can't do it.
[03:30.880 --> 03:31.360] [SPEAKER_08]: Yulia.
[03:31.620 --> 03:33.380] [SPEAKER_08]: Yes, it's like Yulia with a Y.
[03:34.500 --> 03:35.020] [SPEAKER_08]: Timoshenko.
[03:35.200 --> 03:36.060] [SPEAKER_08]: She is in prison.
[03:36.980 --> 03:39.120] [SPEAKER_07]: It's not Independence Day for her, then?
[03:39.360 --> 03:40.840] [SPEAKER_08]: It's not Independence Day for her, no.
[03:40.840 --> 03:51.640] [SPEAKER_08]: Now, she basically was arrested for exceeding her powers as prime minister when she was in control.
[03:52.180 --> 04:07.000] [SPEAKER_08]: And the current prime minister, Viktor Yanukovych, who was one of the leaders of the Orange Revolution a number of years ago, is now, it's kind of strange, because there's a whole sort of history about all this.
[04:07.300 --> 04:09.480] [SPEAKER_08]: He was the underdog back then.
[04:09.640 --> 04:19.520] [SPEAKER_08]: He survived being poisoned and was elected in a shell of orange solidarity, the Orange Revolution, they called it.
[04:19.520 --> 04:30.800] [SPEAKER_08]: But now he's widely seen as somebody who's kind of representative of the ruling class and trying to become more of a dictator.
[04:32.100 --> 04:43.440] [SPEAKER_08]: So we basically, yes, they walked down one of the main streets, and we saw a couple of different demonstrations carrying on at the same exact moment.
[04:43.440 --> 04:52.180] [SPEAKER_08]: At first, we thought it was the same demonstration, then we realized these were two separate groups of people right smack next to each other, each with their own PA system.
[04:52.180 --> 04:54.960] [SPEAKER_08]: And if you stood across the street, it was just a cacophony of sound.
[04:55.560 --> 05:03.320] [SPEAKER_08]: But what we did was we walked around, we crossed the street, and we actually walked around within the camps of the demonstrators.
[05:03.620 --> 05:10.700] [SPEAKER_08]: I want to let Kyle describe just what it is that we experienced doing that, because it really was a very unusual and strange experience.
[05:12.420 --> 05:17.040] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, this protest was actually pretty humorous from the other side of the street.
[05:17.720 --> 05:31.720] [SPEAKER_06]: The two sides were facing each other with these megaphones and blaring music or speeches or both, or the opposite, depending on which part of their schedule of noise they had planned.
[05:32.440 --> 05:40.620] [SPEAKER_06]: And the one side was Yulia's side with Tent City, and we made our way and started there.
[05:40.720 --> 05:45.860] [SPEAKER_06]: And they were very kind of open and let us walk around, take some pictures.
[05:45.860 --> 05:47.720] [SPEAKER_06]: They had a lot of pamphlets.
[05:47.920 --> 05:59.380] [SPEAKER_06]: Each tent seemed to be sort of a booth where you could approach the protester and speak with them and kind of learn about why or where they're coming from as far as their support of her.
[05:59.580 --> 06:11.800] [SPEAKER_06]: And we walked around, milled around there for a while, and it seemed pretty peaceful, very colorful, a lot of flags and posters and interesting illustrations of their position.
[06:11.800 --> 06:22.440] [SPEAKER_06]: So we slowly started making our way to the border, which was sort of these big metal plate barriers, like thin, well, quarter-inch sheet metal barriers.
[06:22.820 --> 06:34.920] [SPEAKER_06]: And you would be able to go through a passage, and there was like about a driveway separating you from the other side, the opposition.
[06:34.920 --> 06:44.940] [SPEAKER_06]: And that driveway, actually, we learned later, is the entrance to the courthouse where the trial is actually taking place and is continuing.
[06:45.200 --> 06:47.280] [SPEAKER_06]: She's in jail, but she's also going to court.
[06:47.640 --> 06:56.380] [SPEAKER_06]: So we walked over, and we thought, you know, let's see if we can just kind of walk along the shops and scope out the other side.
[06:56.380 --> 07:05.840] [SPEAKER_06]: And they had these sheer black fabric barriers that you couldn't really see what was behind the people.
[07:06.260 --> 07:10.380] [SPEAKER_06]: The tent city was blocked off, but you could walk in and clearly see there were people.
[07:10.500 --> 07:17.220] [SPEAKER_06]: Well, the sheer black fabric had sort of text on it, but it was very hard to see in.
[07:17.340 --> 07:22.740] [SPEAKER_06]: And then you would see the flags and everything, and occasionally they would wave the flags in unison.
[07:22.740 --> 07:30.400] [SPEAKER_06]: And it was a bit like wannabe mass games participants, but not nearly the scale.
[07:30.580 --> 07:41.720] [SPEAKER_06]: So we were walking by and trying to get a peek, and what we realized is there was like a person every four feet, and they were very clearly spaced out.
[07:42.500 --> 07:43.940] [SPEAKER_06]: And there weren't any tents.
[07:44.260 --> 07:45.240] [SPEAKER_06]: There weren't any people.
[07:45.420 --> 07:49.500] [SPEAKER_06]: It was like young kids as opposed to the other side.
[07:49.500 --> 07:55.640] [SPEAKER_06]: There was a lot of the older generation, a lot of people with, you know, families, kids, that kind of thing.
[07:55.980 --> 07:59.120] [SPEAKER_06]: But a lot of the older generation, well, this side was like all young kids.
[07:59.160 --> 08:00.740] [SPEAKER_06]: They seemed like indoctrinated.
[08:01.420 --> 08:07.220] [SPEAKER_06]: And I stood up, and there were pamphlets that they would like kind of hand you under this sheet, sort of in the middle.
[08:07.240 --> 08:10.040] [SPEAKER_06]: And I had my camera, which I can shoot from the waist.
[08:10.040 --> 08:13.940] [SPEAKER_06]: And I kind of approached it, and I was kind of gearing up to take a picture.
[08:14.080 --> 08:17.740] [SPEAKER_06]: But, you know, I just basically was shooed away.
[08:17.880 --> 08:20.880] [SPEAKER_06]: And this guy came up and brusquely said, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
[08:21.020 --> 08:30.700] [SPEAKER_06]: And so we kept walking, and we made our way sort of to the other end, because there were two distinct squares for this opposition side that was so peculiar.
[08:31.800 --> 08:33.660] [SPEAKER_06]: And we just basically, we couldn't go in.
[08:33.740 --> 08:35.660] [SPEAKER_06]: We couldn't really take pictures.
[08:35.800 --> 08:37.240] [SPEAKER_06]: You couldn't really see anybody.
[08:37.240 --> 08:38.660] [SPEAKER_06]: You could make out what was going on.
[08:38.800 --> 08:43.360] [SPEAKER_06]: But they basically had a gate or a door that they were watching the entrance.
[08:43.580 --> 08:45.180] [SPEAKER_06]: So anybody going in was controlled.
[08:45.180 --> 08:46.560] [SPEAKER_06]: And it was very peculiar.
[08:46.580 --> 08:48.780] [SPEAKER_06]: And we ended up sort of being followed to the end of that.
[08:48.860 --> 08:50.060] [SPEAKER_06]: And it was really bizarre.
[08:50.460 --> 09:03.740] [SPEAKER_08]: When Carl says that it's the opposition, actually it's the opposition to the demonstrations that are taking place in support of UVA, UVA, I will say this name if it kills me, UVA Timoshenko.
[09:05.180 --> 09:11.180] [SPEAKER_08]: And basically that means that these people that are, quote-unquote, the opposition, are actually the ruling party, the government.
[09:11.500 --> 09:18.220] [SPEAKER_08]: And it was just very scary, because we were walking past those demonstrators, quote-unquote demonstrators.
[09:18.560 --> 09:27.720] [SPEAKER_08]: And any time we tried to look at them, we found ourselves being surrounded by plainclothes security people, these rather heavyset people in suits and ties.
[09:27.720 --> 09:30.240] [SPEAKER_08]: And it's just that the mood was so completely different.
[09:30.480 --> 09:38.460] [SPEAKER_08]: It was like, on one end, it was like WBAI listeners, a bunch of people just sort of sharing information and pamphlets and brochures and things like that.
[09:38.560 --> 09:42.240] [SPEAKER_08]: And then all of a sudden, you were like in some kind of military camp.
[09:42.600 --> 09:45.360] [SPEAKER_08]: And you were being viewed with hostility.
[09:45.360 --> 09:50.080] [SPEAKER_08]: And it was a very strange and somewhat scary situation to be in.
[09:50.080 --> 10:00.880] [SPEAKER_01]: Hey, Emmanuel, do you have a sense if these two camps fall into any sort of broader political ideologies, or if it's just sort of politics for the sake of politics, or anything like that?
[10:02.600 --> 10:05.360] [SPEAKER_06]: I'm not quite sure what you mean by broader ideologies.
[10:06.240 --> 10:07.740] [SPEAKER_06]: Could you clarify that a little bit?
[10:08.740 --> 10:18.500] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm just wondering if these two camps stand for anything beyond their favorite leader, or if they have more that they're interested in.
[10:19.000 --> 10:19.560] [SPEAKER_06]: Okay.
[10:19.840 --> 10:24.820] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, it was very clearly just for the release of Yulia Timoshenko.
[10:25.340 --> 10:36.380] [SPEAKER_06]: We couldn't make out a lot of the specific positions that people were representing in their lives.
[10:36.380 --> 10:43.320] [SPEAKER_06]: I think they were sort of unified around her as a symbol of the Ukraine that they envision.
[10:44.180 --> 10:45.720] [SPEAKER_06]: The other side didn't...
[10:45.720 --> 10:47.460] [SPEAKER_06]: I mean, they had one sheet of paper.
[10:48.580 --> 10:56.840] [SPEAKER_06]: It didn't seem very much bigger than just being there to be another side as a symbol.
[10:56.840 --> 11:04.580] [SPEAKER_06]: And what I wanted to clarify is that from the other side of the street, had we not gone over and investigated, from the other side of the street, you would not be able to tell.
[11:05.240 --> 11:06.960] [SPEAKER_06]: Unless you've looked very, very closely.
[11:07.180 --> 11:14.140] [SPEAKER_06]: But, again, the obscurity of how they had arranged these setups made it just look like there were two opposing sides.
[11:14.940 --> 11:22.380] [SPEAKER_06]: Of course, Yulia's side looked a little bit more homegrown and kind of a ramshackle, of course, the 10th city, which they were able to hold.
[11:22.760 --> 11:26.520] [SPEAKER_06]: But, yeah, it seems very specifically for this particular issue.
[11:26.520 --> 11:28.520] [SPEAKER_06]: And I think it speaks to a broader issue.
[11:28.800 --> 11:48.720] [SPEAKER_03]: The background of the story is that the current prime minister who put Yulia in prison comes from the party that's aligned with the Russian ethnic minority and is closer to Russia politically than Yulia's party.
[11:49.000 --> 11:52.260] [SPEAKER_03]: And, yeah, so that's one of the reasons why they put her.
[11:52.260 --> 11:54.080] [SPEAKER_03]: And they're also a lot more authoritarian.
[11:54.460 --> 11:56.600] [SPEAKER_03]: I'm not sure where they fall on the left or right spectrum.
[11:56.840 --> 11:58.520] [SPEAKER_08]: Well, it certainly seemed authoritarian.
[11:58.920 --> 12:01.580] [SPEAKER_08]: They started playing this really strident, patriotic music.
[12:01.880 --> 12:05.140] [SPEAKER_08]: But you could see the people walking by were not taking it seriously.
[12:05.640 --> 12:07.100] [SPEAKER_08]: The kids were mocking it.
[12:07.100 --> 12:09.300] [SPEAKER_08]: And people just were kind of rolling their eyes.
[12:09.940 --> 12:17.860] [SPEAKER_08]: I just didn't think it would be such a stark difference between one side and another of friendly people and hostile people.
[12:17.880 --> 12:22.380] [SPEAKER_08]: And always, when you have the hostile people, they're usually the ones that don't last very long.
[12:23.080 --> 12:25.140] [SPEAKER_08]: And, by the way, I'm going to have to say Yulia now.
[12:26.040 --> 12:29.200] [SPEAKER_08]: I just did some practicing, and I can say Yulia many times.
[12:30.360 --> 12:32.900] [SPEAKER_08]: But we really can't spend too much time on this.
[12:33.020 --> 12:36.560] [SPEAKER_08]: It is a joyous day here in Ukraine, 20th anniversary of the country.
[12:36.920 --> 12:48.120] [SPEAKER_08]: But we also, right before that, just to give a couple of moments as to where we were before Ukraine, we spent a couple of days in the Soviet Union, which you might think no longer exists.
[12:48.200 --> 12:49.520] [SPEAKER_08]: But actually, it does.
[12:49.720 --> 12:50.280] [SPEAKER_08]: We found it.
[12:51.200 --> 12:53.760] [SPEAKER_08]: It exists in the form of a country called Belarus.
[12:54.200 --> 12:54.840] [SPEAKER_01]: Hey, Manuel.
[12:55.420 --> 12:55.640] [SPEAKER_01]: Yes?
[12:55.780 --> 12:58.640] [SPEAKER_01]: You're sure you're not talking about Soviet Uterzogersdorf?
[12:59.540 --> 13:00.980] [SPEAKER_08]: What in God's name is that?
[13:01.100 --> 13:02.380] [SPEAKER_01]: That is monochrome's country.
[13:03.060 --> 13:04.560] [SPEAKER_08]: Oh, oh, oh, Yohannes's.
[13:04.720 --> 13:15.360] [SPEAKER_08]: No, this actually takes a theme of Yohannes's and expands upon it to encompass an entire nation of about 10 million people.
[13:15.800 --> 13:17.820] [SPEAKER_08]: And, oh, my God, it's just...
[13:17.820 --> 13:19.020] [SPEAKER_08]: I've been there twice before.
[13:19.020 --> 13:20.160] [SPEAKER_08]: This is Kyle's first time.
[13:20.660 --> 13:23.680] [SPEAKER_08]: And I warned him it was going to be a bit weird.
[13:24.480 --> 13:27.400] [SPEAKER_08]: It's just basically very bureaucratic.
[13:27.400 --> 13:29.240] [SPEAKER_08]: You get yelled at a lot.
[13:29.940 --> 13:37.560] [SPEAKER_08]: It started on the train when we didn't have the little tiny form filled out exactly the way we were supposed to have it filled out at precisely the right moment.
[13:37.820 --> 13:44.480] [SPEAKER_08]: It just got berated in English, too, by someone on the train, by one of the officials.
[13:44.980 --> 13:46.040] [SPEAKER_08]: But we got it filled out.
[13:46.040 --> 13:50.340] [SPEAKER_08]: We thought they led us into the country, and we spent a couple days walking around and exploring.
[13:50.340 --> 14:04.380] [SPEAKER_08]: But there were just so many silly things that constantly would be happening, lots and lots of people standing around doing absolutely nothing in various stores, hotels, you name it.
[14:04.380 --> 14:14.600] [SPEAKER_08]: And rooms that were just way too big for what they were needed for, dimly lit concrete buildings for everything from department stores to theaters.
[14:15.260 --> 14:18.940] [SPEAKER_08]: It just had this really grim overtone to it.
[14:19.480 --> 14:25.800] [SPEAKER_08]: One time we walked into a... we were looking for some medicine because I hadn't been feeling that well.
[14:26.560 --> 14:37.140] [SPEAKER_08]: And we went into a... I guess one of those what looked like drugstores without drugs, apparently, because they just had beauty supplies and shampoo and things like that.
[14:37.300 --> 14:44.140] [SPEAKER_08]: We walked in, and there must have been about eight or nine employees all standing in different positions throughout the store.
[14:44.220 --> 14:46.640] [SPEAKER_08]: Not a single customer, just these people.
[14:46.820 --> 14:53.440] [SPEAKER_08]: And you would turn around a corner, and there would be a woman just standing there staring straight ahead, waiting for you to come and buy something from her.
[14:53.500 --> 14:54.580] [SPEAKER_08]: Of course, nobody ever did.
[14:54.580 --> 14:57.220] [SPEAKER_08]: It was like some kind of episode out of the Twilight Zone.
[14:57.380 --> 14:58.020] [SPEAKER_08]: It was very strange.
[14:58.560 --> 15:08.540] [SPEAKER_08]: Ironically enough, the place where everybody came alive and seemed to be somewhat happy was one of the two McDonald's that they had in Minsk.
[15:08.780 --> 15:19.000] [SPEAKER_08]: And, boy, I didn't ever have to say that, but it did seem like that was the place where people actually were encouraged to be a bit open and free-spirited.
[15:19.780 --> 15:23.860] [SPEAKER_07]: Emmanuel, you missed an earthquake while you were away here on the east coast of the U.S.
[15:25.620 --> 15:28.620] [SPEAKER_07]: I know what you're referring to, but go ahead.
[15:29.140 --> 15:30.520] [SPEAKER_07]: You just missed the excitement.
[15:30.880 --> 15:32.780] [SPEAKER_07]: The earth moved here on the east coast of the U.S.
[15:32.820 --> 15:33.240] [SPEAKER_07]: yesterday.
[15:33.600 --> 15:44.840] [SPEAKER_07]: And we experienced mass mobile phone network outages for at least several minutes while everybody called each other to say, hey, did you feel that?
[15:45.320 --> 15:50.960] [SPEAKER_07]: So it just shows our mobile telephony infrastructure is not what it's cracked up to be.
[15:51.160 --> 15:56.140] [SPEAKER_08]: Well, you know, it's interesting because a few years ago I was also away in this part of the world.
[15:56.140 --> 15:59.080] [SPEAKER_08]: I was in Poland when the mass blackout took place.
[15:59.080 --> 15:59.880] [SPEAKER_08]: I missed that.
[16:00.380 --> 16:10.160] [SPEAKER_08]: Now I'm over here in Ukraine, and there's an earthquake that everybody from Virginia to Canada apparently felt and is using as excuses to not do anything they're supposed to be doing.
[16:12.140 --> 16:15.500] [SPEAKER_08]: It's very bizarre and strange to hear about these things happening.
[16:15.720 --> 16:26.340] [SPEAKER_08]: But I heard that the cellular phones and even landlines to a degree were affected adversely with any other technological issues that came about as a result of this.
[16:26.400 --> 16:30.080] [SPEAKER_08]: I know people on the west coast are laughing at us because they have earthquakes all the time.
[16:30.280 --> 16:31.240] [SPEAKER_08]: But you know what, guys?
[16:31.420 --> 16:32.340] [SPEAKER_08]: You try having a hurricane.
[16:32.340 --> 16:34.700] [SPEAKER_08]: We're going to have one of those later this week, okay?
[16:34.920 --> 16:37.380] [SPEAKER_08]: So, you know, we have a lot of things.
[16:37.620 --> 16:41.040] [SPEAKER_08]: Try having two inches of snow and see how you deal with that.
[16:41.920 --> 16:43.580] [SPEAKER_08]: Everybody has their strengths and weaknesses.
[16:44.680 --> 16:47.540] [SPEAKER_01]: Poor Washington, D.C., they can't deal with snow or earthquakes.
[16:48.100 --> 16:49.660] [SPEAKER_01]: They must be good at something.
[16:49.840 --> 16:50.920] [SPEAKER_01]: We'll find out what it is one day.
[16:52.120 --> 16:52.720] [SPEAKER_08]: That's true.
[16:52.880 --> 16:56.660] [SPEAKER_08]: But anything besides the cellular phones or any other allergies or weirdness?
[16:56.660 --> 17:05.460] [SPEAKER_07]: My wireless Internet connectivity through a 4G carrier called Clear worked just fine.
[17:05.580 --> 17:12.020] [SPEAKER_07]: Like, immediately after the earthquake, as soon as I realized there was an earthquake, I logged on to the U.S.
[17:12.100 --> 17:13.560] [SPEAKER_07]: Geological Survey's website.
[17:13.740 --> 17:17.620] [SPEAKER_07]: USGS is one of my favorite federal government agencies.
[17:17.620 --> 17:23.680] [SPEAKER_07]: And they have a nice website or webpage, Did You Feel It Move?
[17:24.120 --> 17:34.760] [SPEAKER_07]: And you can fill out this form, this little survey questionnaire with about 20 questions, about what you noticed, how much the vibrations were, that sort of thing.
[17:34.880 --> 17:36.180] [SPEAKER_07]: But it was really well-worded.
[17:36.180 --> 17:38.480] [SPEAKER_07]: And I filled it out and I submitted it within seconds.
[17:38.960 --> 17:45.420] [SPEAKER_07]: I saw it collated with the other information, hundreds of other submissions, form submissions that people had made.
[17:45.860 --> 17:56.880] [SPEAKER_07]: And it was really interesting seeing what people's reporting was live from the scene all up and down the East Coast and what they felt and how severe it was.
[17:57.760 --> 18:03.540] [SPEAKER_01]: Now, you're a little bit closer to the epicenter, but here in New York, I mean, I felt it.
[18:03.580 --> 18:05.340] [SPEAKER_01]: I was on the 13th floor of a building at the time.
[18:05.720 --> 18:08.200] [SPEAKER_01]: But really, there's not a whole lot to report.
[18:08.700 --> 18:09.640] [SPEAKER_01]: Not much happened.
[18:10.480 --> 18:12.540] [SPEAKER_07]: It probably was a little stronger here in Philadelphia.
[18:12.540 --> 18:17.660] [SPEAKER_07]: I think Central Virginia was the epicenter of the magnitude 5.9 quake.
[18:18.880 --> 18:24.340] [SPEAKER_07]: And I was actually still recovering from jet lag from my trip back from Europe.
[18:24.360 --> 18:26.560] [SPEAKER_07]: And so I was still in bed but awake.
[18:26.560 --> 18:27.800] [SPEAKER_07]: And the whole bed started shaking.
[18:27.800 --> 18:29.220] [SPEAKER_07]: And I thought it was my imagination.
[18:29.220 --> 18:30.380] [SPEAKER_07]: And I saw my leg was shaking.
[18:30.400 --> 18:31.320] [SPEAKER_07]: So I looked out the window.
[18:31.320 --> 18:40.800] [SPEAKER_07]: And there's a garage building next door to where I live and like a six-foot pond of water on the roof where I guess they breed mosquitoes.
[18:41.100 --> 18:51.480] [SPEAKER_07]: And I could see waves in the water, like pretty serious vertical waves in the water that were like a couple of inches, a couple of three inches peak to peak.
[18:51.660 --> 18:54.400] [SPEAKER_07]: And I thought, wow, the earth really is shaking.
[18:54.720 --> 18:57.280] [SPEAKER_07]: So that's when I jumped on the website and saw there was an earthquake.
[18:57.280 --> 18:59.000] [SPEAKER_07]: And I filled out the USGS form.
[18:59.180 --> 19:02.320] [SPEAKER_07]: So I don't know if it was a strong up your way.
[19:03.220 --> 19:09.900] [SPEAKER_08]: And apparently animals all over the place know exactly what this is all about and started acting in strange ways.
[19:10.120 --> 19:15.880] [SPEAKER_08]: I've heard all kinds of reports of cats and dogs just all of a sudden getting all spooked out knowing what an earthquake is.
[19:16.200 --> 19:17.300] [SPEAKER_08]: So I thought that was kind of interesting.
[19:17.500 --> 19:24.440] [SPEAKER_08]: I also heard reports of buildings in New York and other cities being evacuated.
[19:25.220 --> 19:30.720] [SPEAKER_08]: Isn't that exactly the wrong thing to do in an earthquake, is have everybody pouring out out of buildings?
[19:31.320 --> 19:33.920] [SPEAKER_01]: It was like a big, massive smoke break.
[19:34.180 --> 19:38.240] [SPEAKER_01]: You know, we don't really have a lot of smoking in New York anymore, so people need a break for something.
[19:38.240 --> 19:39.480] [SPEAKER_01]: They took an earthquake break.
[19:40.280 --> 19:40.840] [SPEAKER_07]: You're right.
[19:40.960 --> 19:42.220] [SPEAKER_07]: Emmanuel, you're right.
[19:42.220 --> 19:56.560] [SPEAKER_07]: The best practices are in an earthquake is to get under something substantial and duck and hold on tight, preferably like in an archway or doorway that's going to be a little more supported above you.
[19:56.680 --> 20:05.980] [SPEAKER_07]: But most people ran outside, and of course the danger with that is that falling rubble from the facade of the building or a piece of broken glass could fall on you right as you exit the building.
[20:06.720 --> 20:15.520] [SPEAKER_07]: So people here on the East Coast ought to sort of brush up on their earthquake skills and not do what most of them did.
[20:15.620 --> 20:24.640] [SPEAKER_07]: But the most important lesson I saw from this was that our mobile phone networks are not nearly up to the capacity that they should be.
[20:24.640 --> 20:38.920] [SPEAKER_07]: I think our carriers routinely oversubscribe customers onto the networks, kind of like overbooking a hotel, so that if a serious percentage of people start using the network at once, you can't make a call.
[20:39.100 --> 20:44.920] [SPEAKER_07]: I was getting repeated reorder signals for a couple of minutes until I could finally make a call through.
[20:45.480 --> 20:50.740] [SPEAKER_07]: And a lot of people were calling 911 saying, hey, my building's shaking, but there was no real emergency.
[20:50.740 --> 20:55.800] [SPEAKER_07]: So the 911 centers were needlessly clogged with stupid calls as well.
[20:57.480 --> 21:01.080] [SPEAKER_01]: So it's a denial of service on 911 service.
[21:01.440 --> 21:11.860] [SPEAKER_07]: Yes, but just intentionally denied by the carriers who don't provide enough capacity for the number of customers they are charging for access to that network.
[21:14.000 --> 21:14.520] [SPEAKER_01]: Interesting.
[21:15.320 --> 21:19.760] [SPEAKER_01]: Do you think there's a solution or just something we have to deal with?
[21:19.980 --> 21:21.580] [SPEAKER_01]: Not have another earthquake?
[21:21.800 --> 21:22.780] [SPEAKER_03]: Expand their infrastructure.
[21:23.560 --> 21:24.200] [SPEAKER_07]: Well, they should.
[21:24.320 --> 21:45.960] [SPEAKER_07]: I mean, I think that mobile phone carriers really should be required by our FCC to publicly post their system capacity and the number of customers they have in each market in their network in real time, along with historical data so that customers or new customers can actually know if they're signing up to a network that's already oversubscribed.
[21:46.660 --> 21:54.560] [SPEAKER_07]: Unfortunately, our carriers here, which don't have enough regulation, routinely sign up way more customers than they can handle because they're greedy.
[21:54.740 --> 21:56.500] [SPEAKER_07]: And frankly, I think that's unconscionable.
[21:56.840 --> 22:06.360] [SPEAKER_07]: So I would be in favor of that being public information, like the number of customers they have in any given market at any given time and what their relative system capacity is.
[22:06.480 --> 22:09.340] [SPEAKER_07]: But, of course, they can hold that all secret as trade secrets, I guess.
[22:10.180 --> 22:12.340] [SPEAKER_06]: Bernie, I totally agree with this.
[22:12.480 --> 22:22.700] [SPEAKER_06]: People don't understand how wireless companies are completely unregulated, like normal LAN telephone companies or even an ISP, I can imagine.
[22:22.700 --> 22:24.360] [SPEAKER_06]: I'm not too sure about that one.
[22:24.500 --> 22:39.060] [SPEAKER_06]: But they really need to know that these little toys that they play with and spend all their money on and then, you know, are absorbed with, it's just like the Wild West or some, you know, crazy thing where they don't really get a say.
[22:39.060 --> 22:47.440] [SPEAKER_06]: They don't have any control over the people making all of this money off this hot new information technology.
[22:47.480 --> 22:49.360] [SPEAKER_06]: I just want to say that, but I support that.
[22:50.960 --> 22:52.460] [SPEAKER_07]: Hey, Mike, do we have a guest tonight?
[22:52.700 --> 22:53.760] [SPEAKER_01]: We will in a bit.
[22:54.100 --> 22:54.720] [SPEAKER_01]: Not yet.
[22:54.840 --> 22:55.860] [SPEAKER_07]: Don't blow it, Bernie.
[22:56.120 --> 22:57.680] [SPEAKER_07]: I mean, come on, it's supposed to be a surprise.
[22:58.380 --> 22:58.860] [SPEAKER_07]: All right.
[22:59.000 --> 23:00.260] [SPEAKER_07]: Sorry for blowing a surprise.
[23:00.780 --> 23:05.400] [SPEAKER_08]: Listen, but speaking of Mike, Mike was in an unusual place last week.
[23:05.560 --> 23:08.760] [SPEAKER_08]: I don't want to spend all the time on the crazy places that Kyle and I went to.
[23:09.280 --> 23:12.580] [SPEAKER_08]: But, Mike, you were in Iceland, and unfortunately, I did technical problems.
[23:12.640 --> 23:14.620] [SPEAKER_08]: You didn't really get to say much last week.
[23:14.700 --> 23:17.700] [SPEAKER_08]: But what do you think of Iceland, the time you spent there?
[23:18.240 --> 23:19.100] [SPEAKER_01]: It's very nice.
[23:20.060 --> 23:24.660] [SPEAKER_01]: Anyways, the landscape in Iceland is quite, quite otherworldly.
[23:25.720 --> 23:33.500] [SPEAKER_01]: It's all a relatively new island, as islands go, because it's made out of volcanoes erupting, some of which still are...
[23:33.500 --> 23:34.000] [SPEAKER_01]: There are no trees there, right?
[23:34.180 --> 23:34.340] [SPEAKER_01]: What?
[23:34.620 --> 23:35.800] [SPEAKER_08]: There are no trees at all there, right?
[23:35.800 --> 23:37.580] [SPEAKER_01]: There are some trees, not a whole lot.
[23:38.280 --> 23:38.540] [SPEAKER_08]: Okay.
[23:38.860 --> 23:40.120] [SPEAKER_08]: Is it above the tree line?
[23:40.740 --> 23:42.100] [SPEAKER_01]: Is what above the tree line?
[23:42.300 --> 23:43.780] [SPEAKER_08]: The country, the island.
[23:44.040 --> 23:44.840] [SPEAKER_01]: No, it's a...
[23:44.840 --> 23:46.020] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, it starts at sea level.
[23:46.840 --> 23:47.640] [SPEAKER_01]: It's an island.
[23:47.640 --> 23:52.000] [SPEAKER_01]: But Reykjavik, the capital city, is pretty close to the water.
[23:52.680 --> 23:52.980] [SPEAKER_08]: Uh-huh.
[23:53.360 --> 23:53.660] [SPEAKER_08]: Okay.
[23:53.780 --> 23:59.060] [SPEAKER_08]: Well, I just thought maybe it was so far north that there were no trees growing, but I could be wrong.
[23:59.360 --> 24:03.320] [SPEAKER_01]: No, and I mean, the soil is not very arable.
[24:03.620 --> 24:08.420] [SPEAKER_01]: Not a lot of stuff can grow there, which is annoying for people like me who like to eat things that grow.
[24:09.840 --> 24:13.820] [SPEAKER_01]: The other interesting thing about Iceland is the openness of the society.
[24:13.820 --> 24:27.200] [SPEAKER_01]: And we've talked on this program before about the Icelandic modern media initiatives, which is basically a big program supported by all kinds of parties in the government to reduce censorship.
[24:27.200 --> 24:28.660] [SPEAKER_01]: And they already don't have a lot.
[24:28.780 --> 24:32.540] [SPEAKER_01]: But even just the society itself is quite open.
[24:32.540 --> 24:36.000] [SPEAKER_01]: And I was just sort of wandering around the city one day.
[24:36.040 --> 24:39.320] [SPEAKER_01]: And I walked into a building and looked at the...
[24:39.320 --> 24:43.820] [SPEAKER_01]: They had this, like, giant map of Iceland, three-dimensional, and other art.
[24:43.960 --> 24:45.600] [SPEAKER_01]: And I was just sort of wandering around.
[24:45.980 --> 24:49.020] [SPEAKER_01]: And then I realized that I was in City Hall.
[24:49.360 --> 24:53.500] [SPEAKER_01]: And I don't know what would happen if I started wandering around City Hall in New York.
[24:53.500 --> 24:58.460] [SPEAKER_01]: But I'm sure seeing art would not be the end of it.
[24:58.720 --> 24:59.760] [SPEAKER_01]: You'd see a mail detector.
[25:00.580 --> 25:02.280] [SPEAKER_01]: I'd see all kinds of things, I'm sure.
[25:03.760 --> 25:05.460] [SPEAKER_01]: So it was a very interesting place.
[25:06.200 --> 25:08.620] [SPEAKER_01]: I recommend anyone who can to go there.
[25:08.760 --> 25:11.260] [SPEAKER_01]: But it is a bit pricey, unfortunately.
[25:11.760 --> 25:14.440] [SPEAKER_08]: Now, did you meet any hackers over there?
[25:14.680 --> 25:18.300] [SPEAKER_08]: And are there, of course, any hacker spaces in Iceland that you know of?
[25:18.500 --> 25:19.580] [SPEAKER_01]: None that I know of.
[25:20.460 --> 25:21.860] [SPEAKER_01]: I hope that means...
[25:21.860 --> 25:27.320] [SPEAKER_01]: I hope they'll get some soon, but I hope that there aren't any, because I would be sad to have missed them if they already exist.
[25:28.640 --> 25:29.040] [SPEAKER_08]: Okay.
[25:29.660 --> 25:33.060] [SPEAKER_08]: Now, Bernie, you were speaking to us from Belgium last week.
[25:33.400 --> 25:34.880] [SPEAKER_08]: You were at a hacker space.
[25:35.060 --> 25:44.820] [SPEAKER_08]: And I know you also didn't get a chance to really go into a lot of detail on both that and your thoughts on the recently concluded chaos communication camp.
[25:44.960 --> 25:47.200] [SPEAKER_08]: So is there anything that you'd like to share with us?
[25:47.760 --> 25:51.380] [SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, I had a wonderful time at the chaos communication camp.
[25:51.500 --> 25:55.800] [SPEAKER_07]: It was several thousand hackers from, I think, over 50 countries who were represented there.
[25:56.080 --> 25:58.760] [SPEAKER_07]: I think there were something like 150 villages.
[26:00.600 --> 26:08.680] [SPEAKER_07]: And at one of the villages, I met Pieter of White Space, which is a terrific hacker space in Ghent, Belgium.
[26:09.140 --> 26:15.360] [SPEAKER_07]: A small city, a small medieval city of about 250,000, not overrun with tourists.
[26:15.840 --> 26:18.120] [SPEAKER_07]: It's really interesting historically.
[26:18.540 --> 26:22.420] [SPEAKER_07]: Pieter was kind enough to host me for a couple days, showed me around.
[26:22.420 --> 26:27.760] [SPEAKER_07]: And the hacker space there, White Space, is one of the nicest hacker spaces I've seen.
[26:28.740 --> 26:31.560] [SPEAKER_07]: They found a great location for it.
[26:31.860 --> 26:44.260] [SPEAKER_07]: They've done a really lot of interesting uses of the space as far as how they control their infrastructure there with the power stuff, everything.
[26:44.260 --> 26:48.320] [SPEAKER_07]: They have a web-based power control system.
[26:48.320 --> 26:50.820] [SPEAKER_07]: They can turn everything on and off from the web.
[26:51.160 --> 26:54.600] [SPEAKER_07]: They can enter the building.
[26:54.600 --> 26:57.640] [SPEAKER_07]: They can just dial a number on their cell phone, and it opens the door.
[26:57.900 --> 27:00.000] [SPEAKER_07]: And they're really good with remote control stuff.
[27:00.000 --> 27:02.200] [SPEAKER_07]: And they're working on a lot of other projects, too.
[27:02.320 --> 27:05.500] [SPEAKER_07]: But it was a pleasure to meet the folks of White Space.
[27:05.500 --> 27:14.940] [SPEAKER_07]: And I encourage all our listeners, when they're in other countries, to find a hacker space in that country and to visit it.
[27:15.000 --> 27:23.040] [SPEAKER_07]: Because you will learn more about the country there probably visiting the hacker space than you would just sort of wandering around on your own.
[27:23.040 --> 27:26.080] [SPEAKER_07]: Of course, the people there can give you a tour of their city as well.
[27:26.200 --> 27:27.920] [SPEAKER_07]: But it's a great experience.
[27:28.160 --> 27:33.680] [SPEAKER_07]: So I hope our listeners take up that challenge and visit more hacker spaces.
[27:36.760 --> 27:37.800] [SPEAKER_01]: I hope they do.
[27:38.560 --> 27:41.200] [SPEAKER_01]: Emmanuel, any hacker spaces in the Ukraine?
[27:42.500 --> 27:45.800] [SPEAKER_06]: We haven't found one hacker space out here.
[27:46.080 --> 27:48.720] [SPEAKER_06]: I checked a little bit, looked around.
[27:49.740 --> 27:55.820] [SPEAKER_06]: And there is no spaces officially not listed at the hackerspaces.org site.
[27:56.300 --> 28:02.040] [SPEAKER_06]: And I tried some other searches, just a little bit, and couldn't find much.
[28:02.340 --> 28:06.740] [SPEAKER_06]: There is a university, and there's a lot of high-technology companies.
[28:06.760 --> 28:17.420] [SPEAKER_06]: Here, specifically in Kiev, the other countries that we visited, like Poland and Belarus, we were able to access the Internet.
[28:17.880 --> 28:28.220] [SPEAKER_06]: Belarus actually had a fairly open Internet we accessed through a hotspot that was actually run by the national telephone company.
[28:28.300 --> 28:29.780] [SPEAKER_06]: It's actually Bell Telecom.
[28:31.980 --> 28:34.220] [SPEAKER_06]: And that was fairly free and open.
[28:34.360 --> 28:36.220] [SPEAKER_06]: I mean, it worked really, really well.
[28:36.940 --> 28:43.180] [SPEAKER_06]: And, of course, Warsaw had quite a bit of access, and it's a very modern city.
[28:43.300 --> 28:48.480] [SPEAKER_06]: But, yeah, Kiev is bustling, and we are actually right next to a university here.
[28:48.640 --> 28:52.380] [SPEAKER_06]: And, I don't know, it seems fairly progressive as far as that.
[28:52.460 --> 28:55.460] [SPEAKER_06]: It seems like it's ripe for a space or a community to grow.
[28:55.460 --> 28:59.960] [SPEAKER_08]: So, and by the way, when Kyle says Bell Telecom, he doesn't mean Bell as in Alexander Bell.
[29:00.040 --> 29:00.980] [SPEAKER_08]: He means Bell as in Belarus.
[29:01.720 --> 29:03.920] [SPEAKER_08]: That's how they named their...
[29:03.920 --> 29:09.920] [SPEAKER_08]: I don't know what the exact name of it was, but it was a play on Bell and Telecom and that kind of a thing.
[29:10.140 --> 29:21.640] [SPEAKER_08]: Another really cool thing that they have in Belarus, which I wasn't expecting to see, and this is something that you might see more of in the future technologically, and that is flat-panel traffic lights.
[29:21.800 --> 29:25.120] [SPEAKER_08]: It's like they just kind of hang them up wherever they feel like hanging them up.
[29:25.260 --> 29:35.740] [SPEAKER_08]: They're flat panels, and they're very bright, and you just can, I guess, move them pretty easily.
[29:36.260 --> 29:38.940] [SPEAKER_08]: It's not something I was expecting to see.
[29:39.100 --> 29:39.720] [SPEAKER_08]: It's certainly not there.
[29:40.080 --> 29:41.680] [SPEAKER_01]: Did you see one in motion?
[29:43.820 --> 29:52.200] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, they are thin and light enough to actually move around a little bit, but they were just hung very, I don't know, very easily.
[29:52.600 --> 30:11.480] [SPEAKER_06]: And it would be on all sides if it was a three-way or four-way, and just had a big, like, looked like one of the old parallel cables coming out of it, and it controlled these massive LED, round LED lights of the three different colors, of course, the standard ones that we have here.
[30:12.600 --> 30:20.060] [SPEAKER_06]: where, yeah, we saw them, you know, lighting up and sending traffic off and stuff like that, but not waving in the wind so much.
[30:20.160 --> 30:25.720] [SPEAKER_06]: They were affixed pretty securely to some of the older poles and infrastructure there.
[30:25.720 --> 30:40.900] [SPEAKER_08]: I just like to say, for anybody in this part of the world or any of the parts of the world we've discussed this time we've had so far, that has anything to say to us, correct us, or give us more information, write to us, oth@2600.com.
[30:40.900 --> 30:52.260] [SPEAKER_08]: Also, if you experience something interesting in a technological vein with the earthquake that took place yesterday, OTH, was it yesterday or the day before?
[30:52.740 --> 30:53.180] [SPEAKER_07]: Yesterday.
[30:53.580 --> 30:54.120] [SPEAKER_08]: It was yesterday.
[30:54.280 --> 30:54.500] [SPEAKER_08]: I'm sorry.
[30:54.900 --> 30:56.440] [SPEAKER_08]: oth@2600.com.
[30:56.560 --> 30:57.280] [SPEAKER_08]: Please write to us.
[30:57.360 --> 30:59.300] [SPEAKER_08]: We'd love to hear from our listeners.
[30:59.300 --> 31:00.000] [SPEAKER_08]: We always do.
[31:00.000 --> 31:05.160] [SPEAKER_08]: Now, I believe we have a special guest with us, and...
[31:05.160 --> 31:06.480] [SPEAKER_01]: We're still working on it.
[31:06.680 --> 31:07.700] [SPEAKER_08]: We're still working on the special guest.
[31:07.700 --> 31:08.200] [SPEAKER_01]: The people are...
[31:08.200 --> 31:12.220] [SPEAKER_01]: It's a good guest, but, you know, we'll get to her when we get to her.
[31:12.480 --> 31:12.800] Okay.
[31:13.240 --> 31:15.160] [SPEAKER_08]: Are we having more telephone problems?
[31:15.160 --> 31:20.760] [SPEAKER_08]: Because we seem to have more problems with the telephone or communications than any other radio show anywhere.
[31:21.620 --> 31:22.300] [SPEAKER_08]: Well, okay.
[31:22.500 --> 31:29.220] [SPEAKER_08]: Can we discuss the topic that we will be talking about with our special guest?
[31:30.000 --> 31:31.040] [SPEAKER_01]: Sure, you can start.
[31:31.420 --> 31:31.900] [SPEAKER_08]: Okay.
[31:32.180 --> 31:47.820] [SPEAKER_08]: Well, there have been some demonstrations in the Bay Area concerning police activity within the Bay Area rapid transit system involving a shooting of innocent people.
[31:48.360 --> 31:52.260] [SPEAKER_08]: It's happened a couple of times, and recently there have been demonstrations.
[31:52.840 --> 32:13.680] [SPEAKER_08]: And my understanding, and I have not read all the details on this, my understanding is that when these demonstrations are taking place, the authorities are switching off cell service or jamming cell service to prevent people from communicating or coordinating,
[32:13.680 --> 32:30.680] [SPEAKER_08]: maybe in the same vein as recently happened in London, where all kinds of people were able to communicate their location via various social networking and SMS services.
[32:31.330 --> 32:36.260] [SPEAKER_08]: So that's basically how I understand the situation to have been unfolding.
[32:37.100 --> 32:59.660] [SPEAKER_07]: I think the Electronic Frontier Foundation, who we'll have a guest from shortly, has been reporting that the Bay Area Rapid Transit, or BART, took it upon themselves to basically shut off the power to the cell phone, to the microcell mobile network underground in their subway system,
[32:59.660 --> 33:03.900] [SPEAKER_07]: and did so without really doing much consulting with anyone.
[33:04.840 --> 33:06.700] [SPEAKER_07]: So this seems to be...
[33:06.700 --> 33:18.680] [SPEAKER_07]: What the EFF is interesting, we're quoting this, saying this is sort of a Mubarak, like Egypt's ousted president, like a Mubarak-type movement, where you just shut off the cell phone network to keep people from talking to each other and organizing.
[33:19.100 --> 33:25.380] [SPEAKER_01]: Hey, Bernie, I don't want to interrupt you, but we have Eva from the EFF on the phone with us right now.
[33:25.880 --> 33:26.360] [SPEAKER_01]: Great.
[33:26.600 --> 33:27.060] [SPEAKER_01]: Hello, Eva.
[33:27.060 --> 33:29.700] [SPEAKER_01]: Are you there?
[33:30.280 --> 33:30.840] [SPEAKER_07]: Hello?
[33:31.900 --> 33:32.460] [SPEAKER_07]: Hi.
[33:32.880 --> 33:33.300] [SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
[33:34.020 --> 33:34.360] [SPEAKER_07]: Hello?
[33:34.740 --> 33:37.340] [SPEAKER_01]: I wonder why this isn't working.
[33:37.560 --> 33:37.760] [SPEAKER_07]: Hello?
[33:37.880 --> 33:37.960] [SPEAKER_07]: Hello?
[33:39.560 --> 33:41.880] [SPEAKER_07]: I hear a voice, but it sounds like a...
[33:43.440 --> 33:45.080] [SPEAKER_01]: All right, let's try again.
[33:45.820 --> 33:47.040] [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know why this isn't working.
[33:47.340 --> 33:47.660] [SPEAKER_01]: Sorry.
[33:52.380 --> 33:53.340] [SPEAKER_01]: What's echoing?
[33:53.560 --> 33:54.080] [SPEAKER_01]: Very strange.
[33:54.680 --> 33:54.880] [SPEAKER_01]: Hello?
[33:55.820 --> 33:56.840] I hear...
[33:56.840 --> 33:59.440] [SPEAKER_01]: I hear all kinds of strange things.
[34:01.620 --> 34:02.860] [SPEAKER_01]: Let's try this again.
[34:03.140 --> 34:05.400] [SPEAKER_01]: You can continue introducing the topic.
[34:06.460 --> 34:07.320] [SPEAKER_07]: Well, okay.
[34:08.120 --> 34:09.300] [SPEAKER_07]: That was awfully weird.
[34:09.800 --> 34:10.560] [SPEAKER_07]: That was very weird.
[34:10.640 --> 34:11.160] [SPEAKER_07]: What's going on back there?
[34:11.380 --> 34:12.520] [SPEAKER_07]: Sorry about that, listeners.
[34:13.220 --> 34:26.960] [SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, the EFF is reporting this as a BART doing a Mubarak-style, actually, Mubarak-style cell phone system shutdown, simply to prevent people from exercising their political speech.
[34:26.960 --> 34:47.300] [SPEAKER_07]: I'm really interested in asking some questions about this, because I think it's a disturbing trend when you have a governmental or quasi-governmental organization, like a rapid transit organization, just choosing on their own to shut off a cell phone service to thousands of people because they don't like what their message is.
[34:47.540 --> 34:59.640] [SPEAKER_07]: In this case, the message is critical of the area of rapid transport, in particular critical of one of their BART police officers shooting to death, apparently an innocent person.
[35:00.500 --> 35:07.380] [SPEAKER_07]: So I would not like to see this repeated anywhere else in the United States or the world, and for that matter, the U.S.
[35:07.520 --> 35:14.960] [SPEAKER_07]: has harshly criticized the Mubarak regime, the former Mubarak regime in Egypt, for doing something very similar.
[35:15.620 --> 35:23.360] [SPEAKER_07]: And I don't like to see this in San Francisco or anywhere else, so I think we should start asking some questions and try to keep this from happening anywhere else in the United States.
[35:27.370 --> 35:28.810] [SPEAKER_07]: Do we have our guest back yet?
[35:28.810 --> 35:31.130] [SPEAKER_03]: It looks like BART has shut down our telephones, too.
[35:36.340 --> 35:45.300] [SPEAKER_07]: Well, Emmanuel, did you have anything you wanted to express about your feelings about BART shutting down cell phone service in San Francisco?
[35:47.000 --> 35:49.420] [SPEAKER_08]: Well, I'm not really in favor of that.
[35:49.980 --> 35:59.580] [SPEAKER_08]: I suppose the argument could be made that it's on their property and they can do things as they wish when they're playing with their own equipment.
[36:00.740 --> 36:05.260] [SPEAKER_08]: But when you're entrusted to provide phone service to somebody,
[36:10.220 --> 36:17.860] [SPEAKER_08]: I think you carry a certain responsibility, and it seems like they've completely shirked that responsibility by doing this.
[36:18.440 --> 36:28.400] [SPEAKER_07]: Especially since people rely on the 911 service on their mobile phones, and if it's shut off, they have no access to call 911 if there's an actual emergency.
[36:28.400 --> 36:45.840] [SPEAKER_07]: So this is as serious public safety consequences that a quasi-government organization like BART just decides to really launch a denial-of-service attack on mobile phone users who are trying to express their opinions critical of BART.
[36:46.060 --> 36:54.640] [SPEAKER_07]: I think it's really a very Soviet-type action that just really smacks against the First Amendment.
[36:54.640 --> 37:10.920] [SPEAKER_03]: There's a second part to the story, which is that after the first protest, the people that affiliated with Anonymous took up the cause because this is obviously a case of infringement of...
[37:11.460 --> 37:15.660] [SPEAKER_01]: I think we have Eva with us again, or for the first time.
[37:15.860 --> 37:17.400] [SPEAKER_01]: Sorry about the telephone troubles.
[37:17.600 --> 37:19.940] [SPEAKER_01]: We seem to have a lot of them at this radio program.
[37:21.700 --> 37:22.600] [SPEAKER_01]: Are you with us?
[37:22.820 --> 37:23.420] [SPEAKER_01]: Yes, I am.
[37:23.540 --> 37:23.780] [SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
[37:24.500 --> 37:26.180] [SPEAKER_01]: So maybe you could tell us...
[37:26.180 --> 37:34.860] [SPEAKER_01]: We've talked about it a bit, but maybe you could tell us a bit, like, what prompted the BART to shut down these telephone systems and what the response has been.
[37:35.740 --> 37:47.580] [SPEAKER_05]: Well, a few weeks ago, there had been rumors of a scheduled protest at the BART stations in downtown San Francisco.
[37:47.920 --> 38:04.200] [SPEAKER_05]: And in response to those rumors, BART decided that it was going to try to break up the protests by turning off cell phone service to the stations and the platforms in order to make it more difficult for the people who are organizing to find one another.
[38:04.600 --> 38:10.260] [SPEAKER_05]: And apparently it was successful because no actual protest took place on that day.
[38:10.260 --> 38:21.600] [SPEAKER_05]: And shortly afterwards, BART posted an announcement saying that they had turned off cell phone service and very proudly announcing the reason why.
[38:22.280 --> 38:24.300] [SPEAKER_05]: And boy, was everybody very surprised.
[38:24.540 --> 38:26.980] [SPEAKER_05]: And that's really when the public outcry started.
[38:27.360 --> 38:35.660] [SPEAKER_05]: It should be noted that there had been several protests prior to the one that was scheduled and that didn't take off.
[38:35.660 --> 38:42.480] [SPEAKER_05]: And these were all in response to a series of shootings of BART passengers by BART police.
[38:42.860 --> 38:59.660] [SPEAKER_05]: And the protest prior to the one which failed to manifest had caused BART to shut down several BART stations for, I think, a couple of hours in the middle of a very heavy commute period.
[38:59.660 --> 39:07.180] [SPEAKER_05]: So, they were deeply concerned and possibly motivated by a desire not to have that happen again.
[39:07.660 --> 39:16.460] [SPEAKER_05]: It's fairly clear that that happened again several more times, especially after it became known why they had shut down cell phone service in the first place.
[39:17.080 --> 39:18.180] [SPEAKER_01]: Is this even...
[39:18.180 --> 39:24.140] [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, for our listeners who may not know, the BART is sort of like the subway, but different.
[39:24.400 --> 39:26.780] [SPEAKER_01]: The stations aren't very big.
[39:26.780 --> 39:31.080] [SPEAKER_01]: Is there even any evidence that the protesters wanted to use cell phones?
[39:32.420 --> 39:33.780] [SPEAKER_05]: None that I'm aware of.
[39:34.200 --> 39:40.160] [SPEAKER_05]: BART has made claims saying that they were aware that criminal activity was going to take place.
[39:41.160 --> 39:43.620] [SPEAKER_05]: But I certainly haven't...
[39:43.620 --> 39:48.520] [SPEAKER_05]: I have not seen any evidence of this criminal activity or what people were planning to do.
[39:48.660 --> 39:56.440] [SPEAKER_05]: BART has not made a very compelling case for why they thought that these particular protests were going to be criminal and violent.
[39:57.480 --> 40:09.500] [SPEAKER_05]: Really, the best that they've managed to do is to point to the prior protests, which were, again, not violent and not criminal, but that BART certainly felt had gotten out of hand.
[40:10.060 --> 40:11.420] [SPEAKER_07]: Hey, Eva, I had a question.
[40:11.540 --> 40:12.680] [SPEAKER_07]: This is Bernie asked, Philadelphia.
[40:13.140 --> 40:15.000] [SPEAKER_07]: I had a question for you maybe you could answer.
[40:15.760 --> 40:24.120] [SPEAKER_07]: I've read on the EFF.org website conflicting information as far as what BART has been quoted as saying.
[40:24.120 --> 40:30.960] [SPEAKER_07]: I think there's one story that they contacted the mobile carriers first and consulted them before shutting down the network.
[40:31.140 --> 40:38.340] [SPEAKER_07]: And the other story is that they just decided to shut off the power to the mobile phone repeaters in their system.
[40:38.500 --> 40:40.960] [SPEAKER_07]: Do you know which is the fact which really happened?
[40:41.260 --> 40:49.540] [SPEAKER_05]: Well, I can tell you that in the first version of the letter that BART published online, they claimed that they had contacted the carriers.
[40:50.500 --> 40:56.820] [SPEAKER_05]: And shortly afterwards, they revised the letter to say that they had unilaterally chosen to turn off power to the repeaters.
[40:57.040 --> 41:00.320] [SPEAKER_05]: And that seems to be the story that they have stuck to thus far.
[41:00.560 --> 41:06.460] [SPEAKER_05]: I cannot confirm or deny the way in which they turned off cell phone service to the stations.
[41:06.580 --> 41:10.800] [SPEAKER_05]: But I can tell you that this is the story that they have consistently stuck to ever since they came up with it.
[41:11.100 --> 41:18.720] [SPEAKER_07]: Can you say whether BART, Bay Area Rapid Transit, is that actually a government organization or a quasi-government organization?
[41:18.720 --> 41:20.220] [SPEAKER_07]: Does it receive any government funding?
[41:20.440 --> 41:21.920] [SPEAKER_05]: It does receive government funding, yes.
[41:22.660 --> 41:29.600] [SPEAKER_07]: Are there, in your opinion, and I know you're not a lawyer, but in your opinion, is this actually even legal, what they did?
[41:29.600 --> 41:37.880] [SPEAKER_07]: Are there any FCC regulatory issues with them shutting off access to really a public safety system, the 911 system?
[41:38.120 --> 41:49.920] [SPEAKER_07]: And did this also maybe constitute a first amendment violations, just shutting off phone service for apparently a restraint of, prior restraint of speech?
[41:50.180 --> 42:09.440] [SPEAKER_05]: Well, you're right to point out that I'm not a lawyer, but the situation does bring up some very troubling legal questions, including was this prior restraint on the free speech of everyone in the four stations in downtown San Francisco at the time that the cell phone service was shut off?
[42:09.440 --> 42:15.240] [SPEAKER_05]: And did BART have the right to turn the cell phone service off in the first place?
[42:15.540 --> 42:25.740] [SPEAKER_05]: And there's actually been a very excellent analysis of this very question by an attorney, I think his name is Harold Feld, at Public Knowledge.
[42:26.120 --> 42:43.660] [SPEAKER_05]: And he wrote a wonderful blog post specifically addressing the FCC issues and the possible FCC statutes that, I'm sorry, the possible FCC regulations that BART may have broken over the course of turning off cell phone access.
[42:43.900 --> 43:00.200] [SPEAKER_05]: And he has a wonderful quote in which he says, there are all kinds of people right now who are asking, you know, is there a right to cell phone services if this was some sort of novel question when in fact this is a question which has been answered over and over again in telecom law and the answer has always been yes.
[43:01.920 --> 43:13.760] [SPEAKER_07]: Okay, so is there any way BART can be held accountable to the people who made these decisions to just arbitrarily shut off power to the cell phone systems on the BART system?
[43:14.520 --> 43:20.680] [SPEAKER_07]: Can you think of any ways they could be held accountable for apparently violating FCC regulations?
[43:20.940 --> 43:26.100] [SPEAKER_05]: Well, the FCC has launched an investigation where they hope to find out just that.
[43:26.380 --> 43:30.360] [SPEAKER_01]: So the federal government is investigating the BART.
[43:31.020 --> 43:36.480] [SPEAKER_01]: There's actually a potential that they might punish the BART or is that not on the table?
[43:37.080 --> 43:37.920] [SPEAKER_05]: It's possible.
[43:38.320 --> 43:40.120] [SPEAKER_05]: It really depends on what the FCC finds.
[43:40.880 --> 43:43.360] [SPEAKER_07]: From my experience, Ava, there's a...
[43:43.360 --> 43:46.680] [SPEAKER_07]: when the FCC finds a violation, they issue what's called
[43:49.980 --> 44:03.700] [SPEAKER_07]: an NAL, I think, a notice of apparent liability, which is a letter saying, we find you in violation of this FCC regulation and what do you have to say for yourself and here's what we have.
[44:03.760 --> 44:08.200] [SPEAKER_07]: We're going to fine you if you don't provide a good argument as to what you did.
[44:08.400 --> 44:10.800] [SPEAKER_07]: So maybe that would be forthcoming.
[44:10.900 --> 44:30.680] [SPEAKER_07]: But I think what our listeners could do if they're disturbed about this development is to contact the Federal Communications Commission and in writing and tell them they're not that they're very concerned about this and the FCC should take some firm regulatory action against BART for what they did.
[44:31.480 --> 44:36.280] [SPEAKER_08]: Eva, to Emmanuel over here in Kiev, I want to thank you for being part of the show tonight.
[44:36.480 --> 44:49.940] [SPEAKER_08]: But I'm also curious, the federal government themselves, have they not expressed an interest in shutting off cell phone service and situations of large civil unrest demonstrations, things like that?
[44:50.620 --> 44:52.420] [SPEAKER_05]: The United States federal government?
[44:52.880 --> 44:53.320] [SPEAKER_05]: Yes.
[44:54.120 --> 45:10.340] [SPEAKER_05]: You may be thinking about the controversy over the Internet kill switch, which was some proposed language in a bill earlier this year that may have given the president the power to shut off the Internet in case of a quote-unquote cyber emergency.
[45:11.240 --> 45:13.480] [SPEAKER_05]: That legislation is no longer on the table.
[45:13.640 --> 45:15.360] [SPEAKER_05]: That language is no longer in the legislation.
[45:16.800 --> 45:19.640] [SPEAKER_05]: So that's not really on the table right now.
[45:20.460 --> 45:41.180] [SPEAKER_05]: But I think that earlier this year when Hosni Mubarak chose to turn off the Internet to all of Egypt for five days in the middle of what he viewed as a time of civil unrest really showed us how important it is not to give the power to turn off the Internet to any one man,
[45:41.180 --> 45:44.100] [SPEAKER_05]: whether it's Hosni Mubarak or Barack Obama.
[45:45.120 --> 45:46.560] [SPEAKER_08]: Mike, I can't point to the specifics.
[45:46.920 --> 46:04.380] [SPEAKER_08]: I just know this was a number of years ago where it might have been a rumor, it might have been some evidence that equipment was being considered for purchase of cell phone jammers that would be turned on in a particular area where there would be a demonstration to prevent people from communicating with each other.
[46:05.120 --> 46:09.340] [SPEAKER_05]: Well, jamming cell phones is absolutely a violation of FCC regulations.
[46:10.800 --> 46:11.580] [SPEAKER_05]: Yes, it is.
[46:11.840 --> 46:24.880] [SPEAKER_07]: However, the federal government and through the Defense Department has quite a bit of equipment for doing just that, ostensibly for use in foreign lands where they have used it.
[46:25.820 --> 46:31.860] [SPEAKER_07]: But, you know, there's a since this equipment actually lives in the United States when it's not being used abroad.
[46:32.700 --> 46:38.140] [SPEAKER_07]: You know, if there were if there were major civil acts civil protests in the U.S.
[46:38.200 --> 46:54.700] [SPEAKER_07]: where the government wanted to quell such disturbances, I believe our government might either just contact the carriers and say, order them to shut off power to the mobile phone system or just jam it and let the chips fall later and worry about it later.
[46:54.860 --> 46:58.100] [SPEAKER_07]: So I just think it's a disturbing trend to see BART getting away with this.
[46:58.260 --> 47:05.500] [SPEAKER_07]: And I think we need to try to make as many people aware that this could happen so that it may not happen again.
[47:05.660 --> 47:27.560] [SPEAKER_05]: Well, it is very important to recognize that this is a slippery slope and that this one action by BART could make other government organizations think that they have the right to turn off cell phone service in order to quell what they may view as civil unrest and what we see as lawful protest.
[47:27.560 --> 47:45.380] [SPEAKER_05]: but the best thing about, you know, the subsequent protests and media coverage of this event really was that BART came to understand that what they did was really profoundly unacceptable.
[47:45.760 --> 48:04.680] [SPEAKER_05]: There was a meeting of the BART board of directors in Oakland this morning at which some members of the board of directors essentially said that if they had known what the potential legal liability was that they would have raised more questions.
[48:04.880 --> 48:12.340] [SPEAKER_05]: There were members of the board of directors who said that they had not been consulted and if they had been consulted that they would have never let this go through.
[48:12.700 --> 48:27.960] [SPEAKER_05]: And admittedly there were also members of the board of directors who denied any wrongdoing and said that they continued to reserve the right to turn off cell phone service in order to prevent future So, again, I would point out that in subsequent protests,
[48:28.460 --> 48:30.760] [SPEAKER_05]: BART has chosen not to turn off cell phone service.
[48:30.860 --> 48:33.820] [SPEAKER_05]: So, I think they understand exactly what sort of a media disaster this has been for them.
[48:34.540 --> 48:37.400] [SPEAKER_01]: Eva, do you know how the members of the BART board are selected?
[48:37.600 --> 48:40.200] [SPEAKER_01]: Can people vote out the ones who think this was a good idea?
[48:41.280 --> 48:43.400] [SPEAKER_05]: As far as I know, this is not an elected position.
[48:43.960 --> 48:44.320] [SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
[48:44.620 --> 48:46.640] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, maybe there's another way to get them out.
[48:48.460 --> 48:54.920] [SPEAKER_07]: Do we know, at least, is it public, the names of the BART board members who were in favor of this action?
[48:56.040 --> 49:03.640] [SPEAKER_05]: There should be some coverage of the meeting probably this afternoon.
[49:04.220 --> 49:06.980] [SPEAKER_05]: All the articles are still kind of being written right now.
[49:08.000 --> 49:21.580] [SPEAKER_05]: I do know that, I think her name was Lynette Sweet, was really quite outspokenly opposed to BART's decision to jam cell phones, to turn off cell phone service in stations.
[49:22.860 --> 49:26.420] [SPEAKER_07]: Well, and this is a... to your knowledge, Eva, is this a precedent?
[49:26.600 --> 49:30.540] [SPEAKER_07]: Is this the first time you have any knowledge of this happening in the U.S.?
[49:30.540 --> 49:32.760] [SPEAKER_07]: I've not heard of it before, but...
[49:32.760 --> 49:35.060] [SPEAKER_05]: To my knowledge, this is the first time this has happened in the U.S.
[49:35.340 --> 49:36.580] [SPEAKER_05]: We're hoping that it will be the last.
[49:36.760 --> 49:49.100] [SPEAKER_03]: We shall discuss the ramifications for this in England, where the Prime Minister has spoken about shutting down cell phone networks during times of protests, or riots, which have happened recently.
[49:49.340 --> 49:51.400] [SPEAKER_03]: Are you familiar with this story?
[49:51.500 --> 49:51.700] [SPEAKER_03]: Yes.
[49:51.940 --> 49:54.440] [SPEAKER_05]: I wrote an article about this on the EFF website.
[49:55.980 --> 49:59.660] [SPEAKER_07]: How is that situation similar to this?
[50:00.920 --> 50:18.720] [SPEAKER_05]: Well, the exact words that the Prime Minister used were that he proposed looking into the possibility of maybe giving the government the power to shut down social media in times of social unrest.
[50:19.420 --> 50:21.800] [SPEAKER_05]: That's some fairly weak language.
[50:21.800 --> 50:31.020] [SPEAKER_05]: So, especially when you compare it to actually shutting off cell phone service in the event of... or on rumors of a protest.
[50:31.400 --> 50:34.400] [SPEAKER_05]: So, in that way, these things are very different from one another.
[50:35.740 --> 50:49.340] [SPEAKER_05]: But, on the other hand, it shows the same eagerness to trade off civil liberties in exchange for some sort of vague promise of security, which EFF finds very disturbing.
[50:50.020 --> 50:54.700] [SPEAKER_07]: Eva, if people want to learn more about this, is there more information about it on the EFF website?
[50:55.040 --> 50:55.960] [SPEAKER_05]: Indeed there is.
[50:56.500 --> 51:00.040] [SPEAKER_07]: And could you tell us a little bit more about the website and its address?
[51:00.560 --> 51:01.040] [SPEAKER_05]: Sure.
[51:01.340 --> 51:11.440] [SPEAKER_05]: The EFF website is located at www.eff.org, and all of our articles are located in the DeepLinks blog.
[51:12.540 --> 51:15.900] [SPEAKER_01]: And you've written some of the articles there as well, of course.
[51:16.140 --> 51:16.340] [SPEAKER_05]: Yes, I have.
[51:16.400 --> 51:22.240] [SPEAKER_05]: I've written extensively about BART, and I wrote a little bit about David Cameron's talk in front of Parliament.
[51:24.140 --> 51:34.340] [SPEAKER_01]: I guess my question, are there steps that our audience, be they in San Francisco or elsewhere, can take to prevent this sort of thing from happening again?
[51:35.060 --> 51:37.040] [SPEAKER_05]: Well, there are a couple of things that people can do.
[51:37.220 --> 51:45.660] [SPEAKER_05]: The first, as someone has already suggested, is to write to the FCC and let them know how deeply concerned you are and that they should take this investigation very seriously.
[51:46.080 --> 51:56.020] [SPEAKER_05]: I do recommend that people educate themselves on the potential legal issues by reading Harold Feld's analysis in the public knowledge blog.
[51:56.880 --> 52:01.340] [SPEAKER_05]: I also recommend, I think, Democracy Now!
[52:01.500 --> 52:07.680] [SPEAKER_05]: has a petition that they're sending out, and the ACLU has an action as well.
[52:07.780 --> 52:12.480] [SPEAKER_05]: So there are lots of places that you can go to express your outrage, and I highly recommend that you do so.
[52:12.700 --> 52:15.340] [SPEAKER_01]: You can also, of course, donate to the EFF.
[52:15.360 --> 52:20.480] [SPEAKER_06]: I really wanted to thank you for joining us tonight and all the work that you're doing on this.
[52:20.480 --> 52:28.960] [SPEAKER_06]: And I just wanted to add to something I said earlier in the show about mobile phones.
[52:28.960 --> 52:41.300] [SPEAKER_06]: And basically, if we can pull away from our iBerrys and our palm droids and all of this and basically realize that those people were paying for services that basically got cut off.
[52:41.360 --> 52:44.040] [SPEAKER_06]: They paid the company, and it got cut off.
[52:44.160 --> 52:56.420] [SPEAKER_06]: And I think I said a little bit about regulation and stuff, and I think it's just like any other part of our institutions here in America, where we need to be vigilant and we need to have access to our government.
[52:56.420 --> 53:14.080] [SPEAKER_06]: In the same way, we need to take ownership of our mobile phone carriers, our providers, and participate such that they aren't compelled to participate with authorities when it comes to speech and speaking to each other, because that's essentially what we're funding them to do for us.
[53:14.080 --> 53:15.580] [SPEAKER_06]: And they need to make good on that.
[53:15.660 --> 53:16.620] [SPEAKER_06]: I just wanted to add that.
[53:18.940 --> 53:20.080] [SPEAKER_01]: Okay, thanks.
[53:20.660 --> 53:22.340] [SPEAKER_07]: Eva, thanks for being on the show.
[53:22.540 --> 53:23.260] [SPEAKER_07]: Oh, it's my pleasure.
[53:24.880 --> 53:27.280] [SPEAKER_01]: We're almost out of time, but thanks again.
[53:27.700 --> 53:30.160] [SPEAKER_01]: You're an activist, is your title, at the EFF.
[53:30.740 --> 53:34.520] [SPEAKER_01]: EFF.org, for people who want more information or to donate.
[53:34.800 --> 53:36.060] [SPEAKER_01]: Any last thoughts?
[53:36.860 --> 53:47.060] [SPEAKER_05]: Oh, just that we are largely membership funded, and EFF has close to 15,000 members all over the world.
[53:47.340 --> 53:51.960] [SPEAKER_05]: So one of the ways in which you can help the work that we do is to donate to us directly.
[53:53.120 --> 53:57.880] [SPEAKER_01]: Okay, well, thank you for coming on the show and for continuing to do this work.
[53:59.620 --> 54:00.220] [SPEAKER_05]: Thank you.
[54:00.300 --> 54:00.700] [SPEAKER_05]: It's my pleasure.
[54:01.500 --> 54:04.220] [SPEAKER_01]: We have just a little bit of time left.
[54:06.800 --> 54:08.300] [SPEAKER_01]: Do you want to take any listener calls?
[54:08.460 --> 54:09.140] [SPEAKER_01]: We could try.
[54:09.140 --> 54:10.520] [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know that we'll succeed.
[54:10.720 --> 54:17.400] [SPEAKER_01]: The number's 212-209-2900, if we want to do that.
[54:19.840 --> 54:25.040] [SPEAKER_01]: Did you get a chance, Bernie, to talk about this story from Belgium about the government?
[54:26.600 --> 54:33.320] [SPEAKER_07]: Oh, about how they don't really have a real government there right now for the past year and a half?
[54:33.800 --> 54:34.200] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[54:34.900 --> 54:35.720] [SPEAKER_07]: How does that work?
[54:35.800 --> 54:42.320] [SPEAKER_07]: Well, you know, I'm not as up on Belgian politics as much as I should be.
[54:42.320 --> 54:46.340] [SPEAKER_07]: that Pieter at White Space tried to explain it to me last week when I was there.
[54:47.680 --> 54:53.360] [SPEAKER_07]: Basically, there was just a very close vote and kind of like we had back in 2000.
[54:53.740 --> 54:56.360] [SPEAKER_07]: And they just couldn't resolve it.
[54:56.480 --> 54:59.180] [SPEAKER_07]: So neither party really was able to take power.
[54:59.420 --> 55:00.720] [SPEAKER_07]: No party was able to take power.
[55:00.940 --> 55:05.720] [SPEAKER_07]: And it's basically government sort of been running on idle in Belgium for the past year or so.
[55:06.180 --> 55:13.060] [SPEAKER_07]: And basic functions are surviving, but the legislature is not able to pass any funding bills.
[55:13.220 --> 55:15.000] [SPEAKER_07]: So they're just basically running with last year's budget.
[55:15.600 --> 55:19.720] [SPEAKER_07]: And I'd kind of like to see that happen in this country, frankly.
[55:20.120 --> 55:25.460] [SPEAKER_07]: Our government was just sort of not passing any new laws and just running with last year's budget.
[55:25.640 --> 55:26.860] [SPEAKER_07]: It might be more productive.
[55:27.540 --> 55:29.220] [SPEAKER_01]: It's hard to see how it could be less productive.
[55:29.700 --> 55:29.980] [SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[55:30.900 --> 55:32.320] [SPEAKER_01]: I guess we're about out of time.
[55:32.320 --> 55:34.520] [SPEAKER_01]: Any last words from overseas, Emmanuel?
[55:35.060 --> 55:36.900] [SPEAKER_08]: It's 3 o'clock in the morning here.
[55:37.620 --> 55:38.160] [SPEAKER_01]: All right.
[55:38.400 --> 55:40.100] [SPEAKER_01]: So you want to go to bed is what you're saying.
[55:40.280 --> 55:41.220] [SPEAKER_08]: I'm just letting you know that.
[55:42.200 --> 55:44.840] [SPEAKER_08]: Yeah, we're in the Ukraine here and it's really late.
[55:45.060 --> 55:47.600] [SPEAKER_08]: And it's been fun, though.
[55:47.760 --> 55:49.020] [SPEAKER_08]: It's great talking to people back home.
[55:49.180 --> 55:51.640] [SPEAKER_08]: And we'll be back in the studio next week.
[55:51.640 --> 55:53.180] [SPEAKER_08]: I think everybody will be back by then, right?
[55:53.840 --> 55:54.480] [SPEAKER_01]: I'll be here.
[55:54.480 --> 55:54.860] [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know.
[55:55.500 --> 55:55.860] [SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
[55:55.860 --> 55:56.540] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, we'll see you then.
[55:59.980 --> 56:00.200] [SPEAKER_07]: Good night.
[56:01.220 --> 56:01.640] [SPEAKER_07]: Good night.
[56:02.060 --> 56:04.720] [SPEAKER_07]: And I want to thank Ken Gale for running the board tonight.
[56:05.020 --> 56:06.240] [SPEAKER_07]: Thank you for engineering, Ken.
[56:06.840 --> 56:07.540] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, thanks, Ken.
[56:07.640 --> 56:24.780] [SPEAKER_11]: We'll see you then.
[56:38.020 --> 56:38.720] [SPEAKER_11]: I don't give up.
[56:38.820 --> 56:40.340] [SPEAKER_11]: You're yelling at me at the top of your lungs.
[56:40.440 --> 56:42.120] [SPEAKER_11]: You knew that otherwise it isn't going to get done.
[56:42.220 --> 56:43.180] [SPEAKER_11]: I hold the brakes in my tongue.
[56:43.360 --> 56:44.700] [SPEAKER_11]: And this is how I open the holes and open the door.
[56:44.940 --> 56:45.360] [SPEAKER_11]: Mr. Point 4.
[56:45.460 --> 56:45.780] [SPEAKER_11]: Point 4.
[56:45.880 --> 56:46.400] [SPEAKER_11]: You've been warned.
[56:46.540 --> 56:48.380] [SPEAKER_11]: So before we move on, just from point 4 on.
[56:48.500 --> 56:50.440] [SPEAKER_11]: Just so you don't distort the order, make us go back and forth.
[56:50.600 --> 56:51.080] [SPEAKER_11]: Once more.
[56:51.160 --> 56:52.520] [SPEAKER_11]: Let's repeat what we recorded thus far.
[56:52.600 --> 56:53.200] [SPEAKER_11]: Now, point 1.
[56:53.320 --> 56:56.580] [SPEAKER_11]: We don't believe in other people thieving the ideas that our sereners cultivate and create.
[56:56.720 --> 56:57.260] [SPEAKER_11]: Make no mistake.
[56:57.360 --> 56:58.800] [SPEAKER_10]: We believe in unconditional control.
[56:58.920 --> 57:00.000] [SPEAKER_10]: The vote at least in our opinions.
[57:00.160 --> 57:01.560] [SPEAKER_10]: Our souls, our growth, and our dominions.
[57:01.620 --> 57:01.880] [SPEAKER_11]: Point 3.
[57:01.980 --> 57:02.900] [SPEAKER_11]: Don't believe in you controlling me.
[57:02.960 --> 57:04.080] [SPEAKER_11]: I'm not obligated to do it.
[57:04.080 --> 57:05.500] [SPEAKER_11]: Say you listen to act the damn thing.
[57:05.660 --> 57:06.100] [SPEAKER_11]: And point 4.
[57:06.200 --> 57:06.600] [SPEAKER_11]: Point 4.
[57:07.240 --> 57:07.680] [SPEAKER_11]: Point 4.
[57:07.720 --> 57:08.140] [SPEAKER_11]: Point 4.
[57:08.240 --> 57:08.700] [SPEAKER_11]: Point 4.
[57:08.840 --> 57:09.180] [SPEAKER_11]: Point 4.
[57:09.180 --> 57:09.500] [SPEAKER_11]: Point 4.
[57:09.500 --> 57:09.700] [SPEAKER_11]: Point 4.
[57:09.820 --> 57:12.040] [SPEAKER_11]: We believe in all of the above just for the reasons given.
[57:12.220 --> 57:13.840] [SPEAKER_11]: Upliving, upliving, not giving up.
[57:13.940 --> 57:15.120] [SPEAKER_11]: Saying government and living it.
[57:15.240 --> 57:16.160] [SPEAKER_11]: So we self-sufficient.
[57:16.300 --> 57:17.800] [SPEAKER_11]: Not tripping off of that subliminal stuff.
[57:17.940 --> 57:19.880] [SPEAKER_11]: We not just omitting, coming with it rough and tough.
[57:20.000 --> 57:22.180] [SPEAKER_11]: We gonna supplement your knowledge with ourselves stunts.
[57:22.220 --> 57:24.060] [SPEAKER_11]: We not gonna let an opportunity get left out.
[57:24.200 --> 57:26.200] [SPEAKER_11]: We not gonna let some indecisions out what we about.
[57:26.260 --> 57:28.180] [SPEAKER_11]: We not gonna show no mercy overflow in the drought.
[57:28.280 --> 57:28.880] [SPEAKER_11]: There's no doubt.
[57:29.240 --> 57:29.900] [SPEAKER_11]: There's no doubt.
[57:30.060 --> 57:30.380] [SPEAKER_11]: No doubt.
[57:30.500 --> 57:30.940] [SPEAKER_11]: There's no doubt.
[57:31.060 --> 57:31.400] [SPEAKER_11]: No doubt.
[57:31.400 --> 57:32.000] [SPEAKER_11]: There's no doubt.
[57:47.830 --> 57:56.390] [SPEAKER_04]: Hi, this is Donovan, and you're tuned to WBAI, listener-supported, non-commercial radio in New York.