[00:00.000 --> 00:02.680]  And that math equals $10 a month.
[00:02.860 --> 00:05.500]  And you're going to be supporting your station.
[00:06.240 --> 00:08.420]  Why don't you become one of us?
[00:08.820 --> 00:14.120]  Become that activist global citizen making a difference in the world every day.
[00:14.320 --> 00:16.160]  And just for 33 cents.
[00:16.420 --> 00:21.160]  We've been around for quite a while here at WBAI and we think this is an awesome new idea.
[00:21.500 --> 00:24.700]  So please join us and become a BAI buddy.
[00:25.080 --> 00:27.940]  Go to WBAI.org and sign up.
[00:28.200 --> 00:29.820]  And thank you.
[00:34.700 --> 00:38.400]  And you are listening to radio station WBAI New York.
[00:38.580 --> 00:42.000]  The time is just about 7 o'clock time once again for Off the Hook.
[00:47.130 --> 00:48.990]  The telephone keeps ringing.
[00:49.470 --> 00:51.510]  So I ripped it off the wall.
[00:52.570 --> 00:54.490]  I cut myself while shaving.
[00:55.090 --> 00:57.070]  Now I can't make a call.
[01:02.720 --> 01:05.300]  Diddly bump for the best, expect the worst.
[01:05.960 --> 01:07.820]  I hope that's understood.
[01:08.040 --> 01:08.780]  One diddly bump!
[02:32.990 --> 02:34.930]  And a very good evening to everybody.
[02:35.010 --> 02:36.130]  The program is Off the Hook.
[02:36.190 --> 02:37.090]  Emmanuel Goldstein here with you.
[02:37.150 --> 02:38.310]  Joined tonight by Mike.
[02:38.590 --> 02:38.970]  Hi there.
[02:39.110 --> 02:39.570]  Rob T.
[02:39.670 --> 02:40.070]  Firefly.
[02:40.270 --> 02:40.610]  Good evening.
[02:41.030 --> 02:41.650]  Bernie S.
[02:43.490 --> 02:44.750]  I thought we had Bernie S.
[02:44.850 --> 02:46.970]  I spoke to him on the phone just moments ago.
[02:47.230 --> 02:47.910]  Do you hear Bernie S?
[02:47.950 --> 02:48.350]  I don't.
[02:49.750 --> 02:50.130]  Hear that?
[02:50.210 --> 02:51.590]  That's the sound of not Bernie S.
[02:51.770 --> 02:51.970]  Wow.
[02:51.970 --> 02:52.570]  Yeah.
[02:53.330 --> 02:54.290]  So I suggest...
[02:54.290 --> 02:54.610]  Oh, can you hear me?
[02:54.630 --> 02:55.450]  What are you on?
[02:55.490 --> 02:55.950]  Super delay?
[02:56.550 --> 02:57.150]  Oh, no.
[02:57.250 --> 02:59.270]  Apparently the mute button on this phone had been pressed.
[02:59.270 --> 02:59.970]  Sorry about that.
[03:00.130 --> 03:01.450]  Well, your mute button works now.
[03:01.450 --> 03:01.950]  We know that.
[03:02.510 --> 03:03.170]  Well, greetings.
[03:03.490 --> 03:03.930]  Congratulations.
[03:04.210 --> 03:05.550]  And yeah, here we are.
[03:05.690 --> 03:10.570]  We're back after a week-long absence, which I guess we should explain.
[03:10.810 --> 03:14.250]  It's kind of an interesting situation here at WBAI, as always.
[03:14.910 --> 03:18.350]  We had a couple of weeks of fundraising early on.
[03:18.790 --> 03:34.690]  We had our new program director introduce this and talk about the new way of doing things here at WBAI, and he is no longer with us because the new way of doing things at WBAI was deemed to not be the right way to do things at WBAI, so we went back to the old way of doing things,
[03:34.770 --> 03:36.430]  which meant that we were preempted last week.
[03:37.170 --> 03:50.990]  However, the good news is that this week, because we had little notice in advance to get premiums together is we are not doing a pitching show this week, that at our general manager's instructions.
[03:50.990 --> 03:59.470]  And that means we can do a normal show and hopefully get people ready for the future premium-filled shows that we're going to be doing.
[03:59.550 --> 04:04.750]  I'm not sure if that means next week, next two weeks, what exactly, but we will be doing those.
[04:04.850 --> 04:05.970]  And doing quite well, by the way.
[04:06.090 --> 04:08.730]  I should point out, we've done really well.
[04:08.850 --> 04:22.350]  This is nothing that our listeners should feel bad about because from what I've been able to see, from the results I've been able to look at, this particular time slot has done very well with both the new format, which is now no longer the format, and the old format,
[04:22.450 --> 04:23.550]  which is now the current format.
[04:23.770 --> 04:28.990]  Our listeners have come through for us, and we're very grateful and thankful to them.
[04:29.070 --> 04:38.470]  You know, the premium that we offered, I believe it was in October, with the WikiLeaks and Edward Snowden material, that raised $8,000 for the radio station.
[04:38.630 --> 04:39.390]  $8,000.
[04:39.690 --> 04:41.410]  That's no chump change.
[04:41.570 --> 04:42.690]  That's pretty good.
[04:42.690 --> 04:49.670]  And what's amazing about it is we didn't get, like, an $8,000 check from some big corporation or even from some one rich individual.
[04:49.670 --> 04:54.530]  We got it from many, many individual listeners, which is really the way to do it.
[04:54.650 --> 05:02.590]  Now, many of those individual listeners are probably standing up right now and shouting at their radio, saying, well, where in tarnation is the premium that I pledged for back in October?
[05:02.590 --> 05:14.330]  Well, okay, we have all that data gathered together, and right now what's happening is the station is getting however many 8-gig thumb drives we need to get.
[05:14.610 --> 05:21.110]  And then, then we have the challenge of copying to a lot of 8-gig thumb drives.
[05:21.290 --> 05:23.230]  I'm not exactly sure how that's going to happen.
[05:23.390 --> 05:23.990]  It will happen.
[05:24.090 --> 05:24.790]  It will happen soon.
[05:25.370 --> 05:29.610]  But it takes a while, doesn't it, Bernie, to copy 8 gigs onto a thumb drive?
[05:29.850 --> 05:31.650]  Yeah, we've got to do about 70 of these things.
[05:31.670 --> 05:37.190]  And I did some basic math, depending on how fast these thumb drives are, and I don't know yet, these fast flash drives.
[05:37.330 --> 05:41.550]  It could take the better part of an hour to copy 8 gigs onto each one.
[05:41.790 --> 05:46.610]  So, it's going to be labor-intensive, but we've done everything from building.
[05:46.710 --> 05:48.490]  Remember when he built the trip glasses years ago?
[05:48.490 --> 05:50.050]  We actually hand-built those things.
[05:50.710 --> 05:54.710]  Yeah, I still have some scars from that, emotional and physical.
[05:55.310 --> 05:58.730]  But yeah, never let it be said that we won't continue.
[05:58.770 --> 06:01.130]  We need to pitch in and make these things possible.
[06:01.290 --> 06:08.230]  So, yeah, if you are slamming your fist against the wall in frustration, please don't, because we have not forgotten.
[06:08.330 --> 06:09.890]  They are going to be processed.
[06:10.030 --> 06:10.950]  They do exist.
[06:11.150 --> 06:13.630]  And they have been a tremendous success here at the radio station.
[06:14.250 --> 06:23.010]  And that's one of the things, one of the reasons why we're not doing pitching this week is because we're still getting everything together and organizing, making sure.
[06:23.230 --> 06:31.130]  I made it pretty clear I didn't want to go ahead with offering anything new until everything was at least on target to being covered.
[06:31.290 --> 06:33.190]  And I'm happy to say that is the case now.
[06:33.330 --> 06:36.510]  People have been working hard to get us the information we need.
[06:36.890 --> 06:38.390]  And I'm optimistic.
[06:39.970 --> 06:47.670]  I guess we might as well point out that if you're inspired to pledge by us not pitching, you can still call 212-209-2950.
[06:47.930 --> 06:51.110]  But we're not going to say that number over and over and over again.
[06:51.170 --> 06:51.170]  No.
[06:51.170 --> 06:52.550]  Well, I think we should each say it at least once.
[06:52.610 --> 06:54.430]  I'll say 212-209-2950.
[06:54.750 --> 06:56.950]  You can call that number and become a BAI buddy.
[06:57.330 --> 07:03.130]  And what that involves is pledging a certain amount per month for the next year.
[07:03.610 --> 07:08.970]  So if you pledge, say, $10 a month, that's 10 times 12, which, who's got the calculator?
[07:09.930 --> 07:12.510]  I think it's over $100 anyway.
[07:12.690 --> 07:13.090]  No way.
[07:13.790 --> 07:15.270]  $10 a month is over $100?
[07:15.550 --> 07:15.730]  Really?
[07:16.130 --> 07:16.310]  Yeah.
[07:16.470 --> 07:17.290]  Bernie, is that true?
[07:17.730 --> 07:21.450]  It is, but it's only about 30 cents a day, which is really what's nice about that.
[07:21.570 --> 07:22.490]  Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
[07:22.590 --> 07:26.270]  30 cents a day is over $100 a year?
[07:26.930 --> 07:27.330]  Yeah.
[07:27.470 --> 07:30.230]  Isn't that amazing how it just builds up?
[07:30.510 --> 07:32.390]  That is less than the price of a cup of coffee.
[07:33.070 --> 07:34.090]  Oh, yeah, a lot less.
[07:34.370 --> 07:38.550]  Well, if you drink a 30 cent cup of coffee every day, no way, you couldn't even do that, could you?
[07:39.030 --> 07:40.170]  Oh, is that a challenge?
[07:40.370 --> 07:41.030]  I don't know.
[07:41.570 --> 07:41.850]  Wow.
[07:42.050 --> 07:42.270]  Okay.
[07:42.490 --> 07:43.970]  That's, that's something.
[07:44.210 --> 07:59.970]  Well, while we're talking about this stuff, I also want to mention that you could call 212-209-2950 and pledge in support of Off the Hook, or you could go to wbai.org and follow the links there to support the station choosing Off the Hook as the show you're donating in the name of.
[08:00.090 --> 08:01.910]  And we would very much appreciate that, too.
[08:02.250 --> 08:07.610]  By the way, it has been brought to our attention that some people have been calling the number and pledging very large amounts of money, which is great.
[08:08.510 --> 08:10.730]  But we want to make sure that's real.
[08:11.070 --> 08:13.930]  Sometimes people do that and say, yeah, I've got $100,000.
[08:14.130 --> 08:14.830]  I'm just going to donate.
[08:15.110 --> 08:21.770]  And you know, in the tradition of WBAI, when this place first went on the air, well, it was obviously before the radio station existed.
[08:21.930 --> 08:25.430]  Somebody called Pacifica and said, I have a radio station to give you.
[08:25.430 --> 08:30.290]  And they weren't really believed until they actually handed over the radio station.
[08:30.510 --> 08:38.190]  So in a similar vein, we're really not going to believe people that say, yeah, here's $1.2 million credited Off the Hook.
[08:38.690 --> 08:43.690]  And we'll be very grateful and thankful when the check clears, when the credit card goes through.
[08:44.290 --> 08:48.070]  And then we'll dedicate a show or a studio or something to you.
[08:48.430 --> 08:57.790]  But again, 212-209-2950 is the number to pledge for as far as supporting the station, whatever way you can, $10 a month, $20 a month, whatever you can afford.
[08:58.190 --> 09:02.050]  And also, you can go to a website and do this online.
[09:02.150 --> 09:03.490]  Who has the website address?
[09:03.810 --> 09:07.830]  The website is give the numeral to WBAI.org.
[09:08.030 --> 09:09.570]  Obviously, don't write the numeral.
[09:10.090 --> 09:14.130]  That's G-I-V-E to WBAI.org, right?
[09:14.130 --> 09:19.070]  And if that's too confusing, you can go to WBAI.org and just follow the links there.
[09:19.430 --> 09:20.470]  Just once, WBAI.
[09:20.470 --> 09:20.990]  You said it twice.
[09:21.330 --> 09:22.030]  WBAI.org.
[09:22.050 --> 09:22.210]  Yeah.
[09:22.310 --> 09:22.550]  All right.
[09:22.590 --> 09:23.050]  I'm confused.
[09:23.050 --> 09:23.570]  I apologize.
[09:23.690 --> 09:24.130]  I misspoke.
[09:24.290 --> 09:24.510]  All right.
[09:24.570 --> 09:26.010]  Here's a letter that we got from our listeners.
[09:26.110 --> 09:26.790]  Yes, we get letters.
[09:26.950 --> 09:27.710]  Many letters, in fact.
[09:27.970 --> 09:28.610]  Most of them...
[09:29.230 --> 09:32.470]  We never get print letters anymore, just emails, which we like.
[09:32.590 --> 09:33.770]  I don't know where the mailbox is.
[09:33.930 --> 09:35.110]  We're here in Harlem now.
[09:35.270 --> 09:40.130]  We're the guest of WHCR, which I've been so kind to us over the last year.
[09:40.770 --> 09:42.750]  But I don't know where the... I think the mail's in Brooklyn.
[09:43.570 --> 09:47.230]  And it's, you know, to get whatever is there, I'm not sure it's worth a subway ride.
[09:48.330 --> 09:53.270]  But eventually, when we move to Brooklyn, which hopefully will be soon, we might get our mail.
[09:53.390 --> 09:54.750]  Maybe we should mail ourselves to Brooklyn.
[09:54.950 --> 09:56.370]  You could try that if you want.
[09:56.690 --> 09:59.270]  But here's a piece of mail that we got from email.
[09:59.410 --> 10:01.950]  O-T-H at 2600.com is our email address.
[10:02.810 --> 10:06.990]  And we get a lot of bits of email, some critical, some complimentary.
[10:07.290 --> 10:11.050]  I actually prefer reading the critical mail because, I don't know, it's entertaining.
[10:11.290 --> 10:12.150]  I can learn something from it.
[10:12.210 --> 10:15.650]  I can see if I'm annoying people for the right reasons.
[10:15.850 --> 10:16.630]  And so far, yeah.
[10:16.810 --> 10:18.430]  So far, I am annoying people for the right reasons.
[10:18.450 --> 10:19.630]  And I'm happy to do that.
[10:20.130 --> 10:20.430]  Greetings.
[10:20.550 --> 10:21.690]  You were not on the air this week.
[10:22.130 --> 10:22.730]  Thank you.
[10:23.010 --> 10:24.390]  Thank you for letting us know.
[10:25.890 --> 10:29.110]  There is no mention on 2600.com about the reason why.
[10:29.250 --> 10:30.670]  And yes, we plead guilty to that.
[10:31.490 --> 10:33.050]  We're short-staffed over there as well.
[10:33.150 --> 10:35.470]  And sometimes we don't get to do the things we want to do.
[10:35.470 --> 10:37.970]  But yeah, we were not on last week.
[10:38.170 --> 10:39.510]  We tweeted about it.
[10:39.590 --> 10:42.490]  But of course, we can't expect everybody to pay attention to that.
[10:43.330 --> 10:46.390]  I downloaded the BAI MP3 and the intro to the 7 p.m.
[10:46.450 --> 10:47.990]  hour was, we'll be back with more programming.
[10:48.270 --> 10:53.170]  Either every one of the off-the-hook hosts was struck dead by lightning or somebody didn't get the memo.
[10:54.150 --> 10:57.350]  I guess it's more the latter because nobody got struck by lightning.
[10:58.210 --> 11:01.670]  It is clear that preemptions and the hard sell are back at BAI.
[11:01.810 --> 11:02.990]  I knew it couldn't last.
[11:02.990 --> 11:04.190]  Just frowny face.
[11:04.330 --> 11:10.730]  I say this because I'm listening on February 21st at 7.30 a.m., I think.
[11:10.970 --> 11:11.790]  And it's the same old story.
[11:11.870 --> 11:12.290]  No content.
[11:12.430 --> 11:14.010]  A repeat of the pledge line every few seconds.
[11:14.490 --> 11:16.170]  Maybe not all the talent got the memo.
[11:16.170 --> 11:18.970]  Or was that a soft sell doesn't bring in as much money?
[11:20.210 --> 11:21.170]  I guess it's true.
[11:21.330 --> 11:23.490]  Soft sell doesn't bring in as much money as a hard sell.
[11:23.550 --> 11:25.650]  And sometimes the programming suffers as a result.
[11:25.910 --> 11:26.570]  It does happen.
[11:26.790 --> 11:28.450]  The 21st was a Friday.
[11:28.490 --> 11:29.410]  We're never on on Fridays.
[11:29.410 --> 11:30.870]  And we're never on at 7.30 in the morning either.
[11:30.870 --> 11:32.430]  So I think they're listening at a different time.
[11:33.210 --> 11:40.290]  And we basically make it a rule not to discuss other programs on this station because it's a common courtesy.
[11:41.570 --> 11:43.190]  We're all in this for different reasons.
[11:43.210 --> 11:45.510]  We all have different abilities and different strengths.
[11:45.990 --> 11:49.370]  And all we care about... I mean, we care about the station as a whole, obviously.
[11:49.510 --> 11:52.290]  But what we focus upon is what we do in this hour.
[11:52.830 --> 11:55.950]  And tell us if we're doing a bad job, if we're doing something wrong.
[11:56.090 --> 12:07.830]  But we have a history of always trying to provide premiums that we believe in, that we donate to the radio station and the station does not pay a penny for the premiums that we give them.
[12:08.470 --> 12:21.530]  And the programming is something that is not misleading or in any way designed to give people false hope or just something that we don't stand behind ourselves.
[12:21.690 --> 12:24.890]  That is all we can do in that one hour that we do have, 7 to 8 p.m.
[12:25.150 --> 12:25.490]  Wednesday nights.
[12:26.190 --> 12:29.010]  So if you do call the pledge, keep that in mind.
[12:29.130 --> 12:29.470]  Keep in mind.
[12:29.530 --> 12:35.410]  That's why you have to say you're pledging for off the hook so that people realize that this show means something to you.
[12:35.450 --> 12:35.790]  Yes, Bernie.
[12:37.830 --> 12:38.690]  Bernie, you were saying something.
[12:38.770 --> 12:39.230]  I heard your voice.
[12:41.170 --> 12:42.470]  I don't know what's wrong with his mute button.
[12:44.090 --> 12:47.710]  I hear you now, Bernie, but you're gonna have to get a better phone if this keeps up.
[12:48.030 --> 12:49.430]  I was talking to a nurse.
[12:49.530 --> 12:51.670]  I actually happen to be in a hospital, but not myself.
[12:52.010 --> 12:52.030]  Oh, dear.
[12:52.030 --> 12:52.270]  Okay.
[12:52.470 --> 12:52.890]  That's okay.
[12:53.010 --> 12:57.070]  I'm just here with a family member and I'm just juggling a lot of tasks here at once.
[12:57.210 --> 12:59.010]  Are you supposed to have a cell phone where you are?
[12:59.570 --> 13:00.850]  Yeah, actually, it said it was okay.
[13:01.050 --> 13:02.570]  So I'm surprised it's even working.
[13:02.730 --> 13:06.530]  I asked Mike when I called in if he could even hear me because I'm in the bowels of a hospital.
[13:06.710 --> 13:07.490]  But yeah.
[13:07.870 --> 13:08.130]  Okay.
[13:08.130 --> 13:11.690]  So you were saying about how... what were you just saying?
[13:12.110 --> 13:13.290]  Oh, I'm not gonna say it all again.
[13:13.290 --> 13:15.150]  We're just saying how we believe in what we do.
[13:15.250 --> 13:17.230]  And we're proud of what we do during this hour.
[13:17.430 --> 13:20.710]  And that's why people need to support the station.
[13:20.810 --> 13:27.150]  If they only support this one hour, they still need to support the station because the station is what gives us this one hour.
[13:27.310 --> 13:29.910]  And that allows us to do so many amazing things.
[13:30.330 --> 13:31.310]  And not just us.
[13:31.490 --> 13:34.830]  It allows a lot of people to do some broadcasting that is just not possible.
[13:35.270 --> 13:38.650]  Really, in any other Another way.
[13:39.130 --> 13:46.730]  Listener-supported broadcasting is the only way you're going to get the kind of free speech that's not heavily influenced by corporate underwriters or advertisers.
[13:47.310 --> 13:51.330]  You know, a lot of this public radio stuff is heavily sponsored by corporate underwriters.
[13:51.550 --> 13:53.130]  We don't do that at WBAA.
[13:53.250 --> 13:53.570]  Absolutely.
[13:53.870 --> 14:06.090]  And, you know, just to close this off, basically, if every other bit of the broadcast day is something you cannot stand on this station, and that's certainly not the case, I'm sure of that, because there are lots and lots and lots of good programs here.
[14:06.090 --> 14:10.550]  But if that were the case, think of the statement it would make if everybody pledged during this one hour.
[14:10.750 --> 14:13.550]  You know, that would say, okay, this is what we want more of.
[14:13.870 --> 14:16.590]  Rather than saying, oh, you know what, the whole thing is a big waste of time.
[14:16.950 --> 14:22.290]  Well, you know what, you say that, and it will be country 99.5 before you know it, or something of that ilk.
[14:22.810 --> 14:23.890]  You know, I didn't finish the letter.
[14:23.970 --> 14:25.050]  Let me read the last sentence.
[14:25.170 --> 14:27.390]  I apologize for the rant and the hard-hitting questions.
[14:27.470 --> 14:28.830]  I care about WBAA and off the hook.
[14:29.030 --> 14:33.390]  And reversals, like the one mentioned before, are bad PR signed Jay.
[14:33.390 --> 14:35.510]  Jay, thank you very much for that thoughtful letter.
[14:35.690 --> 14:36.270]  And we agree.
[14:36.330 --> 14:37.270]  It is bad.
[14:37.890 --> 14:42.870]  WBAA is always in a period of turmoil and experimentation and things like that.
[14:42.970 --> 14:44.750]  But we're still here.
[14:44.950 --> 14:45.590]  We're still here.
[14:45.630 --> 14:56.270]  And that's more than can be said for most other radio stations of commercial formats, who are constantly second-guessing themselves, firing staff, changing direction, but never really getting anywhere.
[14:56.270 --> 14:59.330]  At least here at WBAA, we talk about actual things.
[14:59.330 --> 15:03.870]  And our listeners call in as well and share some information with us.
[15:04.070 --> 15:10.590]  Okay, let's get to actual material having to do with things going on this week, of which there have been a few.
[15:11.030 --> 15:15.470]  Rob, you just emailed this story, which I found to be kind of amusing.
[15:15.550 --> 15:21.430]  It's one of those typical huge telephone bill type stories.
[15:21.430 --> 15:27.030]  Man hit with $2,000 bill for surprise 17-hour call.
[15:27.550 --> 15:29.990]  I love surprise 17-hour calls.
[15:30.370 --> 15:38.930]  Michael Pratt could not believe his eyes when he opened his Verizon bill shortly after arriving home from a two-week-long family vacation in Aruba last October.
[15:39.110 --> 15:47.410]  The monthly charges, which typically hovered around $400 for his home and business phones, which I think is outrageous, soared to more than $2,690.
[15:48.810 --> 15:57.310]  Inspecting page three of the bill, the Gloucester County, New Jersey grandfather found charges for a marathon phone call lasting 17 hours and 44 minutes.
[15:57.750 --> 16:03.530]  You can't talk on the phone for 17 hours, said the 68-year-old laundromat owner from Elk Township, New Jersey.
[16:03.650 --> 16:06.690]  Au contraire, I don't believe... I think you can talk on the phone for 17 hours.
[16:06.830 --> 16:07.750]  I've done that myself.
[16:07.750 --> 16:08.310]  You've talked on the phone.
[16:08.310 --> 16:09.450]  In the old days of teleconferencing.
[16:09.730 --> 16:10.450]  Yeah, remember that?
[16:10.770 --> 16:11.470]  Well, you know what?
[16:11.470 --> 16:12.470]  They still have teleconferences.
[16:12.710 --> 16:14.510]  I didn't get the bill for that particular one, though.
[16:15.130 --> 16:16.730]  I don't know who got the bill for that one.
[16:18.190 --> 16:19.050]  But let's move on.
[16:19.170 --> 16:20.610]  Let's not focus on that particular phone call.
[16:21.270 --> 16:26.610]  Pratt said his daughter, who along with her two kids, was on vacation with he and his wife.
[16:27.290 --> 16:27.950]  Is that right?
[16:28.070 --> 16:28.870]  Is that grammatically right?
[16:28.870 --> 16:29.690]  With he and his wife?
[16:29.970 --> 16:30.670]  It should be him.
[16:30.870 --> 16:32.030]  Yeah, I think it should be him as well.
[16:32.090 --> 16:32.150]  It should be him.
[16:32.210 --> 16:32.890]  It's his wife after all.
[16:32.910 --> 16:32.990]  You know what?
[16:33.050 --> 16:34.310]  I'm not going to... I'm not going to...
[16:34.310 --> 16:34.550]  All right.
[16:35.370 --> 16:38.230]  Had mistakenly left her credit card and cell phone back in the States.
[16:38.970 --> 16:43.950]  She used his phone to call her bank and have a replacement card shipped to the Caribbean.
[16:43.950 --> 16:45.450]  Okay, this is getting kind of complicated now.
[16:45.610 --> 16:49.630]  But anyway, he says she hung the Samsung Galaxy 4 smartphone right up.
[16:49.670 --> 16:52.870]  But when that phone call ended, the charges kept on coming.
[16:53.330 --> 16:55.450]  Apparently, it's a feature in that particular phone.
[16:55.750 --> 16:56.750]  She borrowed my phone.
[16:56.830 --> 16:57.670]  She made one phone call.
[16:57.730 --> 16:59.530]  And that's when everything started, he said.
[16:59.530 --> 17:00.650]  She finally got the cards.
[17:00.850 --> 17:03.170]  But when I got home, I got the horrendous bill.
[17:03.170 --> 17:13.390]  Now, on Pratt's bill, which he provided to NBC10, and that's kind of a mystery to me, NBC10, because this came from the WNBC here in New York, and that's Channel 4.
[17:13.490 --> 17:14.890]  So I don't know what NBC10 is all about.
[17:15.190 --> 17:20.510]  There were 36 charges tied to a toll-free number stretching from 3.38 p.m.
[17:20.610 --> 17:24.750]  on Saturday, the 26th of October, 2013, until 9.22 a.m.
[17:24.770 --> 17:25.690]  the following day.
[17:26.230 --> 17:34.750]  34 of the charges were billed in 30-minute increments, all to the same number, each time stamped at either 23 minutes or 52 minutes past every hour.
[17:34.910 --> 17:35.670]  That's odd.
[17:36.150 --> 17:42.210]  At $1.99 a minute, that one phone call totaled $2,073.58.
[17:42.970 --> 17:47.130]  Now, figuring there was a mistake, Pratt says he called Verizon to dispute the charges.
[17:47.130 --> 17:53.910]  A case was created, but after four months of back-and-forth conversations about the it, four months of back-and-forth conversation, good thing that wasn't a phone call.
[17:54.530 --> 18:00.050]  Earlier this month, a company representative said he was on the hook for the charges.
[18:00.710 --> 18:03.790]  Basically, the end comment was, well, we can't do nothing.
[18:04.450 --> 18:07.250]  Did they really say we can't do nothing, Verizon?
[18:07.570 --> 18:09.090]  Did they really talk like that?
[18:09.090 --> 18:09.810]  We can't do nothing.
[18:09.910 --> 18:10.990]  It was your problem.
[18:11.190 --> 18:11.970]  You used the phone.
[18:12.790 --> 18:16.290]  This is the grandfather guy quoting Verizon.
[18:16.390 --> 18:17.070]  So maybe they didn't say that.
[18:17.110 --> 18:17.830]  Maybe he's saying that.
[18:17.970 --> 18:19.910]  And he says, I didn't use it for 17 hours.
[18:19.910 --> 18:24.570]  And basically, what this winds up being is somehow Sprint got involved here.
[18:24.630 --> 18:26.030]  Maybe, Bernie, you can explain this to us.
[18:26.090 --> 18:32.250]  A call to the 800 number listed on the bill is met with an automated system for mobile phone carrier, Sprint.
[18:32.650 --> 18:38.150]  And what Pratt believes is that someone else handled the international call and then billed Verizon for the roaming.
[18:38.390 --> 18:40.110]  And they, in turn, billed him.
[18:40.110 --> 18:43.770]  And then something got messed up someplace with Sprint.
[18:45.410 --> 18:51.370]  And they just kept on billing, apparently, every half hour for the next bunch of hours.
[18:51.490 --> 18:56.190]  And the consumer is the one who wound up with the expectation to pay the bill.
[18:56.250 --> 19:03.310]  Now, of course, when NBC10, whoever they are, reached out to Verizon about the issue, they said they would be removing the charges.
[19:03.310 --> 19:11.050]  So if you get NBC10, if you can figure out where they are, to step up for you and dispute these charges, anything they tell you will be wiped away.
[19:11.370 --> 19:13.890]  And they just don't want bad publicity.
[19:14.110 --> 19:16.270]  But Bernie, do you understand anything about that whole Sprint connection?
[19:17.010 --> 19:19.690]  It sounds pretty dubious to me that these calls...
[19:20.230 --> 19:25.910]  Didn't you say that they mysteriously started at the same time after the hour, like every couple of hours or something?
[19:26.030 --> 19:27.370]  Yeah, every half hour, it seems.
[19:28.570 --> 19:29.490]  A new charge.
[19:29.490 --> 19:32.890]  That a human would do that sounds highly unlikely.
[19:34.690 --> 19:38.270]  So clearly, there's a technical cock-up somewhere along the line.
[19:39.010 --> 19:44.610]  But all it takes is some good media attention for a corporate corporation to say, oh, yeah, we will do the right thing after all.
[19:44.910 --> 19:46.610]  Otherwise, they don't want to do the right thing.
[19:47.830 --> 19:48.230]  Yeah.
[19:49.110 --> 19:51.730]  Of course, you can write to us, too, if you have phone problems.
[19:51.830 --> 19:54.190]  We will try and figure out what's going on.
[19:54.250 --> 20:00.910]  But we can't guarantee that the company will reverse the charges with the same success rate that NBC10 has.
[20:01.430 --> 20:11.870]  And, of course, we used to get this kind of story a bit more often back in the old days, back when you could do something like a 17-hour phone call because your landline was connected to a steady stream of electricity.
[20:11.870 --> 20:22.770]  But the fact that some customer service rep at Verizon with a straight face, I'm assuming, said that, no, you made that call for 17 hours and change with your mobile phone as if that's a thing that can happen.
[20:24.170 --> 20:25.630]  You could make a phone call...
[20:25.630 --> 20:27.150]  How many mobile phones have 17 hours of talk time, anyway?
[20:27.350 --> 20:29.870]  You could make a phone call while it's plugged into the wall.
[20:30.130 --> 20:30.790]  Yeah, I do that.
[20:30.870 --> 20:35.610]  I have a six-inch cable from the AC outlet.
[20:35.750 --> 20:42.210]  And many of the time that I'm on my phone, kneeling on the floor to save power so that the thing doesn't run out.
[20:42.310 --> 20:43.130]  But you can do it.
[20:43.270 --> 20:45.050]  It gets awfully hot, but you can definitely do it.
[20:45.190 --> 20:46.130]  Yeah, that's true.
[20:46.210 --> 20:50.430]  That is how I usually spend my time when I'm out on a cruise ship somewhere, you know, six inches from the outlet.
[20:50.570 --> 20:52.630]  It's not much better than talking to the people on it, that's for sure.
[20:52.850 --> 20:59.450]  I mean, it sounds like he knew and expected that it would be expensive to make mobile phone calls from...
[20:59.450 --> 21:01.290]  Does Aruba count as overseas?
[21:01.530 --> 21:02.770]  Whatever, it's another country.
[21:03.630 --> 21:04.890]  And was willing to pay that.
[21:05.030 --> 21:11.410]  But of course, there's no human in the world who would make the same exact phone call every half hour that precisely.
[21:12.910 --> 21:13.450]  All right.
[21:13.550 --> 21:18.030]  Well, there's another story today, which I thought was pretty amusing, involving Twitter.
[21:19.390 --> 21:36.630]  This is a Texas GOP senator decided to use Twitter to take a poll, take a poll to prove that the judge that ruled today that banning gay marriage was unconstitutional, to prove that the people were against that particular decision.
[21:36.770 --> 21:41.330]  So he tweeted, marriage equals one man and one man.
[21:41.530 --> 21:42.670]  Enough of these activist judges.
[21:42.950 --> 21:43.930]  Favorite if you agree.
[21:44.150 --> 21:45.990]  I know the silent majority out there is with us.
[21:45.990 --> 21:59.190]  Now, of course, he meant to say marriage equals one man and one woman, but by the time he corrected that and erased the quote-unquote offending tweet, I think he got a sense as to how many people agreed with that statement.
[21:59.630 --> 22:01.930]  And he is red-faced with shame right now.
[22:02.110 --> 22:11.330]  So I guess word to the wise, if you're going to use Twitter to gauge public reaction to something, choose your words carefully, and maybe think a little bit more.
[22:12.670 --> 22:13.910]  Speaking of people who...
[22:13.910 --> 22:14.330]  Yeah, go ahead, Bernie.
[22:14.790 --> 22:16.850]  Will he bind himself to the results of that poll?
[22:17.430 --> 22:24.810]  I don't know if any poll on Twitter is binding in any way, but I suspect he won't be using Twitter for a while until he takes a course.
[22:25.270 --> 22:25.750]  That's good.
[22:25.750 --> 22:44.310]  But speaking of people who should be choosing their words carefully, remember this guy, the spy chief here in the United States, James Clapper, who we call the liar, liar chief, the guy who said that the NSA was not spying on Americans, yes?
[22:44.450 --> 22:46.490]  Well, he's also really good at spying on people.
[22:46.690 --> 22:47.370]  Yeah, but...
[22:47.370 --> 22:48.290]  I mean, let's be clear.
[22:48.590 --> 22:48.690]  Lying as well.
[22:48.810 --> 22:48.950]  Yeah.
[22:49.230 --> 22:50.370]  He's multi-talented.
[22:50.370 --> 22:58.830]  What he basically is saying now, he says that he believes its collection and storage of millions of call records was kept too secret for too long.
[22:59.590 --> 23:02.010]  Exclusive interview with the Daily Beast.
[23:02.750 --> 23:05.110]  Clapper said the problems facing the U.S.
[23:05.170 --> 23:08.890]  intelligence community over its collection of phone records could have been avoided.
[23:09.250 --> 23:10.930]  I probably shouldn't say this.
[23:11.610 --> 23:13.390]  You should start every sentence that way.
[23:13.750 --> 23:14.930]  But I will.
[23:15.170 --> 23:22.910]  Had we been transparent about this from the outset, right after 9-11, which is the genesis of the 2-1-5 program.
[23:23.970 --> 23:26.370]  I'm not sure exactly what the 2-1-5 program is.
[23:26.910 --> 23:27.750]  Does anybody know?
[23:27.790 --> 23:29.870]  It's a code for one of the spying programs.
[23:30.170 --> 23:31.890]  Well, it's the one that the...
[23:31.890 --> 23:37.830]  I think it's a designation of a case for the FISA, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, the 2-1-5 thing.
[23:38.470 --> 23:40.330]  It's just like a number of the case, I think.
[23:40.530 --> 23:49.010]  And it's the one that said that millions of Americans' phone records can be collected without a warrant or probable cause.
[23:49.810 --> 23:50.910]  And that was done.
[23:51.710 --> 23:51.890]  Okay.
[23:52.010 --> 23:59.170]  Had we been transparent about this from the start and said both of the American people and their elected representatives, we need to cover this gap.
[23:59.290 --> 24:01.850]  We need to make sure this never happens to us again.
[24:02.230 --> 24:03.730]  So here is what we are going to set up.
[24:03.830 --> 24:05.850]  Here is how it's going to work and why we have to do it.
[24:05.910 --> 24:06.790]  And here are the safeguards.
[24:07.290 --> 24:12.930]  If we had said all of that, we wouldn't have had the problem we had, said Clapper.
[24:13.010 --> 24:21.310]  He goes on to say, what did us in here, what worked against us, was this shocking revelation, of course, referring to the Snowden revelations.
[24:22.910 --> 24:27.290]  I don't think it would be of any greater concern to most Americans than fingerprints.
[24:28.570 --> 24:29.690]  I don't know about that.
[24:30.050 --> 24:31.330]  Well, people... we'll talk about this.
[24:31.390 --> 24:33.970]  Well, people kind of accept that because they know about it.
[24:33.970 --> 24:48.550]  But had we been transparent about it and said, here's one more thing we have to do as citizens for the common good, just like we have to go to airports two hours early and take our shoes off, all of the other things we do for the common good, this is one more thing.
[24:48.670 --> 24:51.030]  Okay, first of all, he's a liar, so we don't know if he's telling the truth here.
[24:51.310 --> 24:53.710]  You know, once you lie, no one's ever going to believe you again.
[24:53.810 --> 24:54.990]  That's the lesson to be learned here.
[24:55.450 --> 24:58.670]  Second of all, the things that he cites are really dubious.
[24:59.390 --> 25:00.790]  Taking your shoes off, that does nothing.
[25:00.890 --> 25:01.890]  We all know that does nothing.
[25:02.010 --> 25:02.810]  Reason that does nothing?
[25:03.430 --> 25:09.690]  Well, first of all, if you travel anywhere in Europe from one country to another, they don't ask you to take your damn shoes off.
[25:09.970 --> 25:14.090]  If you happen to be going to the United States, only the Americans have to take their shoes off.
[25:14.270 --> 25:17.790]  It's really silly and absurd and does absolutely nothing.
[25:17.790 --> 25:19.190]  It's been proven over and over again.
[25:19.630 --> 25:20.030]  Fingerprints?
[25:20.310 --> 25:22.490]  We don't all have our fingerprints taken, do we?
[25:22.710 --> 25:23.930]  Have we reached that stage yet?
[25:24.250 --> 25:31.910]  So, you know, I think if all of a sudden people said, yeah, you know, everyone has to have their fingerprints registered to fight terrorism, there would have been an outcry about that.
[25:32.410 --> 25:39.450]  That's not the same thing as recording phone calls, recording metadata of all kinds of innocent people.
[25:39.610 --> 25:40.170]  Not the same.
[25:40.770 --> 25:41.250]  Emmanuel?
[25:41.490 --> 25:41.770]  Yes, Bernie?
[25:42.210 --> 26:02.490]  I think Clapper, the liar, has a point in that had he made, and I'm not agreeing with him, I'm just saying that back in 2001, right after the World Trade Center attacks, I think they may have been able to make a public case for this type of surveillance,
[26:02.590 --> 26:03.330]  but they kept it secret.
[26:03.670 --> 26:15.350]  Now that we know that this is not an effective program that has caught, like, no terrorists whatsoever in all these years, now there's no way you can sell this thing, at least to any same.
[26:15.350 --> 26:23.430]  Oh, I have a way, no, Bernie, when you say it's caught, no terrorists, it's prevented terrorism, and that's how they get away with it, because they say, look, nothing happened, that means it works.
[26:24.290 --> 26:24.770]  Clever, huh?
[26:25.010 --> 26:28.950]  Okay, well, it stopped, it also stopped the Martians from invading too, I guess.
[26:29.070 --> 26:29.930]  Oh, yeah, you're right.
[26:30.010 --> 26:30.810]  That has not happened.
[26:30.810 --> 26:32.310]  Not since the War of the Worlds.
[26:32.850 --> 26:33.370]  Right.
[26:34.010 --> 26:34.530]  So...
[26:34.530 --> 26:38.970]  I think it's pretty clear here that Clapper is once again lying, and this time he's doing something even more insane.
[26:38.970 --> 26:57.110]  He's lying about his own hopes and beliefs and opinions, because Clapper was in a position to tell us, the American people, or to tell the world, or to tell Congress, or to tell his partner, to tell whoever he wanted about this program before the Snowden revelations,
[26:57.110 --> 26:58.130]  and he did not.
[26:58.570 --> 27:05.470]  So, I don't think it's credible at all to say there should have been more openness when you're someone like Clapper.
[27:06.170 --> 27:20.470]  Also, there's just something extra hilarious about somebody who is a professional liar and a professional spy, and who, for a living, controls what information gets out where, saying to a publication that's internationally read, I probably shouldn't say this,
[27:20.590 --> 27:21.110]  but...
[27:21.110 --> 27:24.830]  Well, maybe it's the truth, and he probably shouldn't, because he's so out of practice.
[27:24.910 --> 27:26.250]  He probably shouldn't say anything.
[27:27.930 --> 27:38.650]  I like him saying things, because I happen to think that if you super disagree with somebody, you should let them talk, and give them enough rope to hang themselves with their own words, rather than try to silence them.
[27:38.710 --> 27:39.010]  Yes, Bernie?
[27:39.530 --> 27:40.530]  Here's how we do that.
[27:41.210 --> 27:46.070]  We can ask him, hopefully we can get a senator to ask him this question.
[27:46.170 --> 27:47.370]  Or just tweet to him, we can do that.
[27:48.170 --> 27:50.730]  Send a Twitter message, that's how you reach people these days.
[27:50.730 --> 28:02.870]  Ask him, alright, is there any other program right now that you think we should know about that we probably will find out about later when the other 80,000 Snowden documents get released?
[28:03.150 --> 28:09.010]  Tell us now, because you can't use the same lying excuse again.
[28:09.270 --> 28:10.890]  Yeah, it beats Snowden at his own game.
[28:11.130 --> 28:12.470]  Why don't you reveal something first?
[28:13.370 --> 28:13.690]  Exactly.
[28:14.470 --> 28:17.350]  Well, they do occasionally release documents.
[28:17.530 --> 28:20.470]  They have the IC on the record Tumblr.
[28:20.630 --> 28:22.430]  They're on Tumblr, of all places.
[28:22.690 --> 28:29.610]  And they occasionally release documents that, and they're heavily redacted, so they purport to support various government claims.
[28:29.790 --> 28:35.790]  And then maybe we get the unredacted versions from Snowden, and we can compare and contrast.
[28:36.150 --> 28:46.390]  But I don't think even, I don't think anything that Clapper says should be taken as anything other than, like, weird science fiction.
[28:47.090 --> 28:48.850]  If only it was that harmless.
[28:50.010 --> 28:56.050]  But I'm going to continue listening to what he says, because it's always entertaining, and usually exactly the opposite of what's actually going to happen.
[28:56.590 --> 29:00.830]  But there's more, there's always more about surveillance and monitoring.
[29:01.110 --> 29:10.590]  About a week ago, there was an announcement that Homeland Security was going to be implementing a national license plate tracking system.
[29:10.870 --> 29:14.430]  Well, that resulted in a story one week ago today in the Washington Post.
[29:14.670 --> 29:24.070]  And as a result of that story, and allegedly the reaction to it, Homeland Security Secretary Jed Johnson canceled the plan.
[29:24.330 --> 29:37.150]  The cancellation came in the wake of the story that reported on the Immigration and Customs Enforcement, known as ICE, solicitation for a company to compile a database of license plate information from commercial and law enforcement tag readers.
[29:38.010 --> 29:44.690]  The solicitation, which was posted without the awareness of ICE leadership, has been canceled, according to a spokeswoman.
[29:44.850 --> 29:55.350]  While we continue to support a range of technologies to help meet our law enforcement mission, this solicitation will be reviewed to ensure the path forward appropriately meets our operational needs.
[29:55.390 --> 30:07.590]  Now, the idea behind it was that it would have drawn data from readers that scanned the tags of every vehicle crossing their paths, and it was to help catch fugitive illegal immigrants, according to the DHS solicitation.
[30:07.710 --> 30:15.790]  But the plan raised concerns that the movements of ordinary citizens who are under no criminal suspicion could be scrutinized.
[30:15.950 --> 30:19.850]  I don't think there's a way to have something that does this without looking at everybody.
[30:21.690 --> 30:24.730]  So what I'm wondering, maybe Bernie, you could address this.
[30:25.550 --> 30:26.630]  Why did they cancel this?
[30:26.670 --> 30:30.650]  This is obviously something that they want to do, and probably something they're going to wind up doing.
[30:30.750 --> 30:32.030]  I kind of thought they were doing it already.
[30:32.250 --> 30:38.690]  They do things like this in New York to allegedly track down parking scoff laws, but they can use it for any purpose whatsoever.
[30:38.810 --> 30:39.870]  We would never know.
[30:40.030 --> 30:41.490]  So why cancel this?
[30:41.750 --> 30:45.710]  This is being done all over the place anyway, all over anyway now.
[30:45.850 --> 31:05.350]  But what this program was, it was actually a request for proposal for contractors to bid on a project and implement it that would allow customs and border protection agents, the border guards, to have a smartphone app that they could just point the smartphone at a license plate and then grab the,
[31:05.490 --> 31:09.570]  you know, using optical character recognition technology, grab the license plate info.
[31:09.790 --> 31:19.570]  And then the smartphone app would tap these federal databases that would be linked into all these other databases and then identify who the vehicle was registered to, maybe where it's been, that sort of thing.
[31:19.710 --> 31:21.170]  That's what this program was.
[31:21.390 --> 31:25.130]  It doesn't mean that license plate tracking isn't happening already all over the place.
[31:25.210 --> 31:39.070]  This is just outrage over this one particular request for proposal to create a smartphone app for the customer protection, customs and border protection guards, so they could just get instant license plate info by pointing their smartphone at a license plate.
[31:39.470 --> 31:50.770]  Wait, so all that's new here is the OCR, because I'm fairly certain that law enforcement already has like devices in their cars that can, you can type in a license plate number and it'll tell you if the car is stolen or something.
[31:51.370 --> 31:57.090]  The OCR really seems like the, sort of, the one at a time OCR doesn't seem very problematic to me.
[31:57.170 --> 32:00.390]  It's, it's the en masse part that, that is frightening.
[32:00.530 --> 32:05.450]  Yeah, it seems hard to believe this is just to develop a smartphone app where you have to point it at every single license plate.
[32:06.490 --> 32:16.490]  Wouldn't they be using the kind that, that scan hundreds of them if they, if you drive down a block or if you have it permanently stationed someplace, every single car that drives by at highway speeds?
[32:17.370 --> 32:18.970]  I'd be much more concerned about that.
[32:18.970 --> 32:19.910]  It's already, it's...
[32:19.910 --> 32:21.150]  They have that at the borders already.
[32:21.390 --> 32:23.430]  I don't understand what the big hue and cry is then.
[32:23.650 --> 32:37.010]  Yeah, and it's also the slippery slope kind of thing where if they first get approval for an app that one officer can have on a smartphone to point to things, then once that's in place, it's a lot easier to go, well, why don't we just have an automatic reader take everyone's license plate info and log it?
[32:37.150 --> 32:39.030]  And after that, you know, where, where from there?
[32:39.130 --> 32:45.830]  It's like a couple of weeks ago, people were shocked to find out that you could potentially use Google Glass to identify people.
[32:45.970 --> 32:49.530]  It could actually look people up based on facial recognition.
[32:49.530 --> 32:52.530]  That's exactly what I thought they were going to do when they introduced it in the first place.
[32:52.670 --> 32:54.270]  Is anyone really surprised by this?
[32:54.450 --> 32:55.870]  No, I use that all the time.
[32:55.870 --> 32:59.250]  When I see someone with Google Glass, I feel like I can identify things about that person.
[32:59.830 --> 33:01.110]  Yeah, it goes the other way too.
[33:01.570 --> 33:10.510]  But okay, well, you know, the other thing I was concerned about with this story, they mentioned commercial and law enforcement tag readers.
[33:10.690 --> 33:13.930]  Now, I know the commercial tag readers, where are those being put up?
[33:14.350 --> 33:15.010]  Any idea?
[33:15.290 --> 33:16.190]  What does that even mean?
[33:16.310 --> 33:16.710]  I don't know.
[33:16.910 --> 33:22.530]  Like a private entity is just pointing cameras at the highway and learning who goes by?
[33:22.550 --> 33:23.830]  What would stop them from doing that?
[33:24.090 --> 33:27.350]  It doesn't seem like a very good use of anyone's time.
[33:27.590 --> 33:31.470]  All they would need is the access to the database to identify who the license plates belong to.
[33:31.530 --> 33:39.850]  But what if, what if they put up a tower that recorded every single car that went by on the Long Island Expressway and just logged all that?
[33:39.990 --> 33:44.170]  And then if law enforcement wanted to gain access to that, they'd pay a certain fee.
[33:44.630 --> 33:53.710]  And without looking up the information, the commercial entity would give law enforcement that data that, yes, this particular license plate passed by in this direction at this time at this speed.
[33:54.030 --> 33:57.730]  Well, that's far from the top of the evil uses for this thing.
[33:57.830 --> 34:01.990]  I mean, you could use it to sell people groceries, be like, hey, you're spending a lot of time commuting.
[34:02.270 --> 34:04.330]  Why don't you spend less time grocery shopping?
[34:04.550 --> 34:10.550]  Or it could be like, hey, you know, this person you care about, is driving, you know, maybe they're cheating on you.
[34:10.690 --> 34:12.590]  There's all kinds of uses for this commercial database.
[34:12.830 --> 34:13.850]  Okay, let's stop giving them ideas.
[34:14.090 --> 34:15.590]  They have these ideas already.
[34:15.750 --> 34:17.010]  Yeah, but we have better ideas.
[34:17.150 --> 34:19.470]  And I think they might not be thinking of some of the things we think of.
[34:19.650 --> 34:19.850]  Rob?
[34:20.130 --> 34:21.590]  So somebody's cheating on me, Mike?
[34:21.990 --> 34:22.630]  What do you know?
[34:23.030 --> 34:26.930]  You know, I'm not going to say what I know about commercial license plate readers.
[34:27.470 --> 34:27.910]  All right.
[34:28.030 --> 34:31.050]  Well, okay, we have some other stories, too.
[34:31.110 --> 34:33.870]  And, you know, I'm going to try and take some phone calls because I would like to hear from our listeners.
[34:33.950 --> 34:35.370]  We haven't heard from them in a little while.
[34:35.570 --> 34:39.350]  But apparently, it's now okay, once again, to mock the NSA.
[34:39.350 --> 34:40.590]  I was a little worried about this.
[34:41.250 --> 34:52.210]  Basically, the NSA, Department of Homeland Security, have abandoned their efforts to shut down an internet site that sells parodies of its logos on t-shirts, coffee cups, and bumper stickers.
[34:53.510 --> 34:58.290]  One of them says, I'm reading now, the NSA, the only part of government that actually listens.
[34:58.890 --> 35:19.690]  Yeah, almost three years ago, the NSA sent a cease and desist letter to online retailer Zazzle, I believe is the way to pronounce that, claiming that some of its merchandise was illegal under Public Law 86-36, contained in the 1959 National Security Agency Act,
[35:19.910 --> 35:23.390]  which I hope we've all read, the National Security Agency Act.
[35:23.390 --> 35:28.690]  They have their own act, which prohibits misuse of the agency's logo.
[35:28.910 --> 35:36.230]  At fault were items designed by the politically-themed t-shirt company Liberty Menace, I believe.
[35:36.750 --> 35:38.350]  Or no, I'm sorry, Liberty Maniacs.
[35:38.410 --> 35:39.510]  Okay, that makes more sense.
[35:40.310 --> 35:54.970]  Maniacs founder and artist Dan McCall had a number of designs on his site for use on clothing, coffee mugs, bumper stickers that featured the NSA logo with the mottos, we're peeping when you're sleeping, spying on you since 1952, etc.
[35:55.570 --> 36:09.270]  And a few months later, the Department of Homeland Security sent a similar letter, objecting to a t-shirt reading Department of Homeland Stupidity, claiming that it was a crime to mutilate or alter the seal of any department or agency of the United States.
[36:09.270 --> 36:14.790]  Bernie, didn't we make a t-shirt that had, it's the 2600 government seal t-shirt?
[36:15.290 --> 36:17.350]  Are we, would we be guilty of the same thing?
[36:17.970 --> 36:21.670]  We've done other parodies of that, and parody is protected under the First Amendment.
[36:22.030 --> 36:25.210]  So, and I think this case worked out that way, didn't it?
[36:25.510 --> 36:38.350]  Well, yeah, what happened was, inevitably this does happen, Zazzle caved in to government pressure pretty quickly, but McCall did not, and benefited from the resulting Streisand effect.
[36:38.990 --> 36:40.430]  Anybody can't explain the Streisand effect?
[36:40.650 --> 36:42.150]  Rob, I think you're the best person for this.
[36:42.250 --> 36:50.930]  The Streisand effect is when somebody tells you you can't have something on the internet, and by virtue of doing that, makes everyone want to have it.
[36:51.010 --> 36:53.550]  So everyone's backing it up and posting it and reposting it.
[36:54.070 --> 36:58.750]  And so basically what it means is trying to get something erased from the internet is a good way to get it everywhere on the internet.
[36:58.930 --> 37:00.110]  Why is it called the Streisand effect?
[37:00.570 --> 37:02.150]  Let me ask the questions, Bernie.
[37:02.150 --> 37:04.090]  Why is it called the Streisand effect?
[37:04.330 --> 37:14.310]  To answer both of your questions, it's called the Streisand effect because there was a scientist who took pictures of the California coastline for a project on beach erosion and posted them.
[37:14.430 --> 37:32.990]  One of the photos happened to include Barbara Streisand's home, and Barbara Streisand herself decided to sue to get this picture removed from the internet that was taken from the ocean, pointed at the beach that she just happened to have a house by, because she was citing that it was her house and she should be able to control who's got a picture of it.
[37:33.370 --> 37:40.750]  And so what had been a photo that was downloaded maybe six or seven times was suddenly the internet en masse said, you don't want us to have this picture?
[37:40.870 --> 37:41.870]  Okay, everyone's got it.
[37:41.950 --> 37:48.010]  And it was downloaded thousands of times, reposted all over the place, and there's no getting the toothpaste back into the tube.
[37:48.710 --> 37:50.170]  Well, okay, that's interesting.
[37:50.330 --> 38:06.830]  Well, let me just, as long as you're giving examples of things that should not be on the internet, we do not want people to put this show on the internet and spread it around and let people hear it outside of our one particular website at 2600.com.
[38:07.390 --> 38:13.350]  If we find you doing that, we're going to come down on you with the force of whatever laws that we can scrounge together.
[38:14.150 --> 38:19.370]  And yeah, this is us making this proclamation right now in the name of Barbra Streisand.
[38:19.550 --> 38:24.450]  Why limit ourselves to the force of law when we could use like the force of Thor's hammer or something like that?
[38:24.590 --> 38:26.410]  I don't know where Thor's hammer is, but...
[38:26.410 --> 38:27.530]  It's with Thor, obviously.
[38:27.770 --> 38:28.870]  Yeah, I don't know where Thor is, obviously.
[38:29.070 --> 38:29.910]  Okay, so here we go.
[38:29.910 --> 38:43.110]  In 2013, the advocacy group Public Citizen sued both the Department of Homeland Security and the NSA, claiming that the takedown notices broke First Amendment safeguards and was an abuse of government power.
[38:43.450 --> 38:45.490]  Well, what has just recently happened?
[38:45.610 --> 38:53.930]  The two agencies decided to settle the case with no admission of guilt, but a check for $500.
[38:55.610 --> 39:01.430]  No, $500,000, $500,000 check and permission for Mr. McCall to carry on.
[39:02.450 --> 39:03.050]  I don't know.
[39:03.150 --> 39:03.990]  I'm not satisfied with that.
[39:04.150 --> 39:11.290]  I would like them to be found in court to be in violation of the First Amendment, not for them to not admit any guilt, not for them to give a paltry amount.
[39:11.810 --> 39:13.070]  They did a lot of harm here.
[39:13.410 --> 39:17.750]  Well, you know, we've done, as you guys have said, we've done shirts that parodied government seals.
[39:18.370 --> 39:21.210]  You know, we did a HOPE shirt that was the Department of Hopeland Security.
[39:22.230 --> 39:24.290]  That was a parody on the DHS seal.
[39:24.450 --> 39:26.930]  And I think we deserve a check for $500.
[39:27.910 --> 39:29.590]  Yeah, or be hauled in court.
[39:29.770 --> 39:31.490]  You know, we haven't been hauled into court in quite a while.
[39:31.890 --> 39:33.210]  I forget what courts look like.
[39:33.330 --> 39:34.250]  It's been too long.
[39:34.730 --> 39:36.470]  No, seriously, don't haul us into court.
[39:36.470 --> 39:38.330]  You can visit the court at any time.
[39:38.710 --> 39:39.390]  It's open to the public.
[39:39.530 --> 39:42.690]  You got to go through that whole thing with the take your things out of your pocket.
[39:42.810 --> 39:43.170]  What's this?
[39:43.250 --> 39:43.990]  Why are you carrying that?
[39:44.170 --> 39:45.410]  You know, where'd you get that?
[39:45.770 --> 39:46.910]  I don't want to go through that anymore.
[39:48.010 --> 39:48.450]  All right.
[39:48.450 --> 39:55.450]  Speaking of cease and desist, this is another fun Twitter story.
[39:55.690 --> 39:57.150]  There are a lot of fun Twitter stories out there.
[39:57.570 --> 40:08.230]  There's this guy, or yes, it's this guy who's basically posting a frame, one frame at a time, of the movie Top Gun.
[40:08.730 --> 40:09.710]  I am not kidding.
[40:09.730 --> 40:10.730]  You could not make this up.
[40:10.730 --> 40:27.390]  The Twitter user is 555UHZ, and Paramount Pictures is asking Twitter to be its wingman, which apparently is a reference to something in that film, which, no, I have not seen, in taking care of an individual who is tweeting Top Gun one frame at a time.
[40:27.530 --> 40:30.050]  The studio's lawyers have filed a DMCA notice.
[40:30.650 --> 40:32.130]  They really have done this.
[40:32.130 --> 40:41.770]  Over the 555UHZ account, no one is authorized to copy, reproduce, distribute, or otherwise use Top Gun without the express written permission of Paramount.
[40:42.170 --> 40:43.230]  The Prankster...
[40:43.230 --> 40:44.610]  How do they know he's a Prankster?
[40:44.990 --> 40:46.510]  It could be very serious about this.
[40:46.710 --> 40:56.410]  The Prankster took the time and effort to showcase one of the roles that made Tom Cruise a box office star, posting roughly two or three still images and quotes from the 1986 movie Every Hour.
[40:56.410 --> 41:02.110]  As of last Tuesday, the user had 5,200 followers, but was not following anyone else.
[41:02.870 --> 41:09.110]  The account was flying high, according to Torrent Freak, with 1,525 tweets.
[41:09.390 --> 41:14.270]  At this rate, the tweeter might not finish the movie by the end of the year, but the math is moot.
[41:14.330 --> 41:18.790]  The 555UHZ account was suspended Tuesday morning, approximately 9.50 a.m.
[41:20.270 --> 41:23.250]  I just cannot believe they would care about this.
[41:23.250 --> 41:28.570]  But the way these companies operate, they don't know how not to care.
[41:28.650 --> 41:29.810]  They don't know what a joke is.
[41:29.890 --> 41:31.670]  They don't know what fair use is.
[41:31.790 --> 41:32.870]  There is so much they don't know.
[41:32.930 --> 41:35.710]  We could spend the whole rest of the hour talking about that, and then some.
[41:36.890 --> 41:39.570]  I'm kind of interested in how this was being done.
[41:39.710 --> 41:46.930]  I mean, was this person manually extracting and manually uploading and posting every frame from this Tom Cruise movie, or was it on cruise control?
[41:47.890 --> 41:49.050]  You had to say that, huh?
[41:49.170 --> 41:49.350]  Okay.
[41:49.350 --> 41:56.210]  Well, obviously, it's very easy to do things like this, and I don't know how it got on their radar in the first place.
[41:56.310 --> 42:03.950]  But the way this whole thing works is just so incredibly silly and very confining, too.
[42:04.150 --> 42:20.510]  I found a lot of content control, over control, during the Olympics over the last couple of weeks, where you had to have a particular account with a particular cable company to be able to watch something that's on free television in the first place.
[42:20.630 --> 42:22.770]  And if you're outside a certain region, you couldn't see that.
[42:23.810 --> 42:33.750]  It's just insane to me how these companies take even things that are provided for free and control them in such a way that it makes it impossible for people to share things.
[42:34.130 --> 42:36.330]  Why is it they don't want people to share things?
[42:36.490 --> 42:38.190]  Why is sharing such a bad thing to them?
[42:38.750 --> 42:39.510]  That is true.
[42:39.690 --> 42:54.630]  And there's a group out there called the, I think, it's OTW, I think that stands for Office of Transformative Works, that's working to protect the rights of people who want to take something that exists that's maybe someone else's intellectual property and make things based on it,
[42:54.730 --> 42:57.270]  whether it's fan fiction or things like that, or fan art.
[42:57.490 --> 43:05.190]  But it's really indicative of what's going on on the internet, where people, culture is no longer a one direction thing.
[43:05.550 --> 43:09.610]  It's not you put out a movie and it's your thing and you get to decide who uses it and where.
[43:10.290 --> 43:20.110]  The technological reality behind it now is that anybody can capture frames off their copy of a movie or, you know, make it into weird art projects like this guy's Twitter.
[43:20.430 --> 43:26.550]  And there's really no other way that I think these entities know to deal with it rather than just suing people.
[43:26.650 --> 43:27.170]  And that's kind of sad.
[43:27.170 --> 43:36.010]  Well, you know, it's also suing people, but in addition to that, it's all this automation that improving technology is making possible.
[43:36.310 --> 43:38.350]  YouTube is the best example of that.
[43:38.470 --> 43:41.090]  And you can see just how scary and ridiculous it is.
[43:41.190 --> 43:44.890]  We had an incident with The Last Hope, and we put the videos up from The Last Hope.
[43:45.090 --> 43:57.690]  We had a speaker, someone who gave a really compelling talk, and he was so compelling that there was a feature about him on The Colbert Report, which airs on Comedy Central.
[43:58.030 --> 43:59.190]  It is Comedy Central, right?
[43:59.310 --> 44:03.030]  And he played an excerpt from that for the audience.
[44:03.470 --> 44:11.830]  And as soon as we uploaded that to YouTube, Google suspended our account because we violated the copyright by doing this.
[44:12.190 --> 44:20.650]  Somehow, even if you just put the picture up or you blank the picture and just put the audio up, they're instantly able, through some kind of algorithm to tell, this is something you're not supposed to have.
[44:20.650 --> 44:24.430]  You have to get written permission, which you can't do because these are computers saying these things.
[44:24.550 --> 44:27.470]  It's impossible to get through to a person to explain the situation.
[44:27.630 --> 44:31.290]  This was a piece about the person who was posting it.
[44:31.550 --> 44:34.370]  So obviously, he should have the right to post it.
[44:34.450 --> 44:36.530]  But in the legal world, of course, he does not.
[44:37.270 --> 44:44.970]  So something that ridiculous, that silly, strikes me as just typical of the way these companies operate.
[44:45.130 --> 44:50.670]  And the final irony to all this is that that particular piece is not available any place.
[44:51.350 --> 44:52.810]  Viacom does not make that available.
[44:53.570 --> 44:55.970]  So this was the only way you could possibly see it.
[44:56.110 --> 45:00.030]  And in their eyes, nobody should see it, even though it's about the person who posted it.
[45:00.230 --> 45:01.090]  Does that make any sense?
[45:01.270 --> 45:02.630]  It's probably even circular logic.
[45:02.770 --> 45:08.910]  Viacom probably was afraid to post it because they didn't get the permission from us to license it for the internet.
[45:08.970 --> 45:12.190]  And we can't post it because YouTube thinks Viacom has the permission.
[45:12.190 --> 45:16.850]  It's just some insane circular copyright hellhole that there's no escape from.
[45:16.930 --> 45:18.910]  Well, somehow, I don't think Viacom was afraid of us.
[45:19.030 --> 45:19.650]  I don't think they...
[45:19.650 --> 45:21.070]  I think they are.
[45:21.110 --> 45:22.370]  They are paranoid.
[45:22.630 --> 45:28.150]  These large companies hire teams of lawyers to do rights clearance because they don't want to get sued.
[45:28.410 --> 45:28.770]  That's true.
[45:28.850 --> 45:35.190]  You know, every time that 2600 appears in a movie or a TV show, we get all these lengthy forms to fill out.
[45:35.310 --> 45:41.950]  And really, we've said this on the record, if you want to use anything from us on your show, we don't care if it's a lousy show.
[45:42.090 --> 45:42.810]  You can do it.
[45:42.850 --> 45:44.190]  You have the right, no problem.
[45:44.410 --> 45:47.710]  We're part of the culture and we're not going to judge what somebody is doing.
[45:47.950 --> 45:48.910]  We don't play that game.
[45:49.010 --> 45:55.330]  But even though we say that, now that cover our asses, we have to send you all these forms and it's just really silly and ridiculous.
[45:55.610 --> 45:56.550]  And it's a really sad fact.
[45:56.670 --> 45:59.330]  Like, I posted a video to YouTube that I took with my phone.
[45:59.370 --> 46:04.570]  I was sitting in an airplane and a piece of music that was playing over the speaker on the airplane got my video flagged.
[46:04.610 --> 46:06.790]  And all of a sudden, I had to acknowledge their copyright.
[46:07.010 --> 46:09.930]  I had to let that entity advertise on my video.
[46:10.070 --> 46:13.190]  I wasn't allowed to flag my video as Creative Commons licensed.
[46:13.510 --> 46:21.630]  And they've just like the entities who control these things, the music, the films, everything, they have created this environment where this stuff is coming at us from all directions.
[46:21.690 --> 46:27.790]  If you take a picture at Times Square, you've got, you know, at least a couple of dozen other people's intellectual property on your photo.
[46:28.590 --> 46:32.470]  Should they then decide to get, you know, be able to decide what you do with that photo.
[46:32.590 --> 46:38.170]  But, you know, they go to all this trouble to put all this stuff out there and put all this stuff into the environment that surrounds us all.
[46:38.570 --> 46:41.130]  But heaven help you if you want to then make use of that somehow.
[46:41.270 --> 46:41.370]  Yeah.
[46:41.910 --> 46:43.290]  We're involved in making a film now.
[46:43.370 --> 46:48.510]  And if, if God forbid, somebody sings happy birthday in the film, we have to worry about that.
[46:48.650 --> 46:51.670]  We have to worry about anything that's playing in a car radio that passes by.
[46:51.750 --> 46:54.510]  I'll tell you right now, we're not going to because this is absurd and ridiculous.
[46:54.510 --> 46:55.770]  And we'll fight this if we have to.
[46:56.110 --> 46:58.470]  But this is this is the world that they are creating.
[46:58.630 --> 46:59.690]  This is the world that we are accepting.
[46:59.830 --> 47:01.390]  And it doesn't have to be this way.
[47:01.510 --> 47:02.530]  And it's only going to get
[47:08.150 --> 47:10.190]  It's just scary to see the way this works.
[47:10.330 --> 47:12.130]  And it's kind of interesting, too, to experiment with it.
[47:12.230 --> 47:18.550]  And I thought, you know, if we cut the sound of that particular piece, that they wouldn't be able to flag it.
[47:18.590 --> 47:19.850]  But they did, even with just the video.
[47:19.990 --> 47:25.190]  Which means someplace, there is a database of everything that Viacom has produced, even though they don't release it.
[47:25.670 --> 47:27.370]  And I just wonder how all that works.
[47:27.390 --> 47:33.090]  How do we get our material into that database so that if, say, Viacom quotes us, then they get a notice from us?
[47:34.330 --> 47:40.050]  I like to know how it works, but I really think it's a very, very stupid and harmful system that they have.
[47:40.630 --> 47:43.310]  I do want to take phone calls, 212-209-2900.
[47:43.470 --> 47:45.290]  But there's one more story I wanted to focus on.
[47:45.530 --> 47:48.490]  And that concerns the company known as Aereo.
[47:48.610 --> 47:55.890]  They're the startup that uses tiny antennas to stream free signals of television stations to customers' internet-connected devices.
[47:57.250 --> 48:01.870]  They basically have been found to be stealing from the broadcast networks on a giant scale.
[48:02.450 --> 48:06.590]  Well, actually, the broadcasters are saying this in a filing with the Supreme Court this Monday.
[48:06.790 --> 48:19.070]  The Copyright Act does not tolerate business models premised on the unauthorized exploitation of the copyrighted works of others, said the brief, which was filed by broadcasters including ABC, CBS, NBC, and Fox.
[48:19.070 --> 48:24.530]  On April 22nd, the Supreme Court is scheduled to hear American Broadcasting Companies vs.
[48:24.730 --> 48:33.370]  Aereo, a case that has significant implications for a television industry undergoing profound changes, as well as challenges from upstart competitors like Netflix and Amazon.
[48:34.150 --> 48:40.350]  Among the broadcasters' most substantial threats is Aereo, the two-year-old company that operates in 13 cities and continues to grow.
[48:40.630 --> 48:44.590]  And on Monday, it announced plans to offer its service in Austin, Texas, starting next week.
[48:44.590 --> 48:52.010]  The company argues it does not have to pay to retransmit the broadcaster's programming because it temporarily assigns each user an antenna at its storage facility.
[48:52.170 --> 48:56.210]  That means instead of copying the material outright, it allows individuals to copy on their own.
[48:56.330 --> 48:58.310]  This whole thing is so insane.
[48:58.450 --> 49:02.310]  We're talking about free, over-the-air television transmissions.
[49:02.590 --> 49:07.790]  How is it that this can go to the Supreme Court where they're saying that this company is stealing from them?
[49:07.830 --> 49:08.630]  They're helping them.
[49:08.750 --> 49:10.550]  They're getting the signal out to more people.
[49:10.690 --> 49:11.670]  It's a free broadcast.
[49:11.670 --> 49:13.950]  It's not HBO, it's TV.
[49:14.970 --> 49:15.870]  See what I did there?
[49:16.290 --> 49:19.990]  I reversed their slogan there.
[49:20.210 --> 49:21.970]  But it's nuts.
[49:22.150 --> 49:24.470]  And why do we take this seriously?
[49:24.590 --> 49:27.270]  Why is this something that can get this far?
[49:28.410 --> 49:33.570]  It goes back to what I was saying before about people who didn't have television sets who wanted to see bits of the Olympics.
[49:33.830 --> 49:37.370]  They weren't able to do this because they didn't have a cable TV account.
[49:37.470 --> 49:39.950]  But you don't need a cable TV account to watch over-the-air television.
[49:40.370 --> 49:44.410]  So if you go out and you buy a television and you hook up an antenna, you can watch it for free.
[49:44.430 --> 49:47.370]  But if you have a computer, you can't.
[49:48.250 --> 49:50.410]  I'm not entirely convinced I missed anything.
[49:51.170 --> 49:51.710]  What do you mean?
[49:51.930 --> 49:53.370]  By not being able to see the Olympics.
[49:53.410 --> 49:54.050]  Not the point.
[49:54.370 --> 49:55.470]  You know that's not the point.
[49:56.490 --> 49:57.730]  Anyway, let's take some phone calls.
[49:57.790 --> 50:00.930]  212-209-2900 is our telephone number.
[50:00.930 --> 50:02.930]  We have a couple of minutes for our phone calls.
[50:03.110 --> 50:04.790]  And again, we're not pitching this hour.
[50:04.990 --> 50:06.690]  If we're on next week, we'll pitch next week.
[50:06.690 --> 50:09.330]  And we'll have some dynamite premiums, I sure hope.
[50:10.150 --> 50:21.410]  And you can call 212-209-2950 and pledge for the BAI buddy and donate however much you can afford per month for the next year and help the station out that way.
[50:21.510 --> 50:22.690]  Or you can go to...
[50:23.270 --> 50:24.270]  What was the website again?
[50:24.310 --> 50:24.890]  I keep forgetting it.
[50:25.530 --> 50:26.390]  WBAI.org.
[50:26.570 --> 50:28.090]  No, the other one.
[50:28.370 --> 50:31.210]  Give the numeral to WBAI.org.
[50:31.350 --> 50:32.290]  It's the give I keep forgetting.
[50:32.310 --> 50:32.930]  And that's bad.
[50:33.050 --> 50:33.970]  You can't forget the give.
[50:34.110 --> 50:36.330]  Give to WBAI.org with the number two.
[50:36.690 --> 50:37.270]  All right.
[50:37.610 --> 50:40.250]  212-209-2900 is our call and number.
[50:40.370 --> 50:40.950]  And we have a caller.
[50:40.950 --> 50:41.430]  Good evening.
[50:41.610 --> 50:42.170]  You're on Off the Hook.
[50:42.870 --> 50:43.710]  Hey, Off the Hook.
[50:43.730 --> 50:44.290]  How are you doing?
[50:44.470 --> 50:44.770]  Pretty good.
[50:44.850 --> 50:45.090]  How are you doing?
[50:45.110 --> 50:48.290]  This is John from up in Westchester.
[50:49.190 --> 50:54.130]  You guys are talking about all the crap that...
[50:54.130 --> 50:56.110]  I hope you don't have to bleep that out.
[50:56.330 --> 50:57.450]  No, we'll let that one go.
[50:58.490 --> 51:06.290]  All the bleep that you have to go through when you accidentally catch some corporate logo.
[51:06.690 --> 51:14.030]  There was an animation done with an evil Ronald McDonald who had captured some...
[51:14.030 --> 51:20.770]  He was running around with bazookas and stuff and the entire city was nothing but logos.
[51:21.590 --> 51:26.430]  How many television programs have you seen where corporate logos...
[51:26.430 --> 51:27.810]  I guess you can just go to MTV for this.
[51:27.970 --> 51:29.930]  Corporate logos are all smudged out.
[51:31.030 --> 51:32.690]  And I don't know why this is.
[51:32.710 --> 51:34.290]  It's not a legal reason, I don't think.
[51:34.410 --> 51:39.790]  But companies are afraid that other companies might sue them for showing their logos, which I can imagine why.
[51:39.790 --> 51:43.830]  Or maybe they want those other companies to pay them money if they're going to show their logos.
[51:44.150 --> 51:51.510]  It's just kind of insane and, again, stupid and painting a world that we don't have to accept that's turning into reality.
[51:51.650 --> 51:56.350]  I mean, they are afraid to say anything critical of any company, even if it's a company that's not a sponsor.
[51:56.490 --> 52:00.890]  We will say right here on this airwave that Coca-Cola sucks.
[52:00.890 --> 52:01.650]  It's awful.
[52:01.770 --> 52:02.330]  It's terrible.
[52:02.510 --> 52:02.970]  It's poison.
[52:03.130 --> 52:04.490]  McDonald's is the worst food in the world.
[52:04.610 --> 52:05.590]  We can say things like that.
[52:05.590 --> 52:09.450]  True, it's only my opinion, but try saying that on a commercial radio station.
[52:09.450 --> 52:12.690]  That alone is a reason to call 212-209-2950.
[52:12.890 --> 52:13.190]  Agreed?
[52:13.590 --> 52:13.890]  Absolutely.
[52:14.130 --> 52:14.370]  All right.
[52:14.470 --> 52:15.030]  Anything else?
[52:15.450 --> 52:18.830]  You'll be put up before a firing squad if you try anything like that.
[52:19.030 --> 52:20.110]  Yeah, a corporate firing squad.
[52:20.310 --> 52:21.350]  I don't think they don't exist.
[52:21.870 --> 52:22.350]  All right.
[52:22.450 --> 52:23.110]  Anything else, caller?
[52:23.530 --> 52:29.470]  Well, they want to monetize as much as they can, whatever they put out, whatever is already out there.
[52:29.670 --> 52:33.770]  They want to get as much money as they can for whatever effort they've already expended.
[52:34.610 --> 52:35.370]  True, true.
[52:35.950 --> 52:36.330]  All right.
[52:36.390 --> 52:37.350]  Thanks for your call.
[52:37.470 --> 52:38.250]  We're going to take more.
[52:38.350 --> 52:40.350]  212-209-2900.
[52:40.550 --> 52:42.630]  And for the record, yes, I did say Coca-Cola sucks.
[52:42.750 --> 52:43.890]  I think Pepsi sucks as well.
[52:43.950 --> 52:48.750]  And I do realize there's a bit of irony in there because we distribute a soda ourselves.
[52:49.010 --> 52:51.510]  But, well, I'm not going to say anything about that.
[52:52.310 --> 52:54.390]  212-209-2900.
[52:54.910 --> 52:58.110]  The phone calls have fallen off because they time out after a few seconds.
[52:58.250 --> 53:01.230]  So, please, if you were calling in just a moment ago, call back.
[53:02.430 --> 53:04.850]  I'm familiar with the cartoon that caller was talking about.
[53:04.890 --> 53:06.570]  And I wish I could remember the name of it because it was excellent.
[53:07.410 --> 53:08.050]  Let's take another phone call.
[53:08.130 --> 53:08.390]  Good evening.
[53:08.510 --> 53:09.390]  You're on Off the Hook.
[53:10.490 --> 53:11.050]  Oh, hey.
[53:11.050 --> 53:15.210]  You guys were talking about vehicle tracking, like, kind of in mass.
[53:15.430 --> 53:16.410]  We were, yes.
[53:16.930 --> 53:17.330]  Most definitely.
[53:18.010 --> 53:33.270]  Did you guys happen to catch that presentation by Jared Boone, I think, at TourCon, I think this last year, about using tire pressure monitor sensor data with software-defined radio?
[53:33.450 --> 53:34.130]  I did not.
[53:34.230 --> 53:35.130]  Can you tell us about this?
[53:35.590 --> 53:36.330]  So, yeah.
[53:36.550 --> 53:45.630]  Apparently, back when I think it was Firestone had all these kind of sidewall blowouts or whatever, they decided that they needed to start putting these tire pressure monitors in cars.
[53:45.650 --> 53:53.490]  And so, I think it's every car since, I mean, I think it was 2008, they had to start putting these things in.
[53:54.490 --> 54:03.110]  And I guess the way that they read the pressure in the car is wireless, which kind of makes sense because the tire's got to spin and you can't have wires connected to it.
[54:04.050 --> 54:10.130]  But, apparently, they kind of put out this little beacon every once in a while to say, like, you know, this is how much pressure I have.
[54:10.430 --> 54:12.210]  And to keep track of, like, you know, tires.
[54:12.390 --> 54:15.650]  Some cars just say that, you know, one of the tires is low.
[54:15.930 --> 54:19.510]  Some of them say, like, you know, right driver's side tire is low.
[54:19.510 --> 54:25.070]  So, but the car is aware of, like, these IDs for each tire.
[54:26.170 --> 54:27.950]  And some of them give more data than others.
[54:28.450 --> 54:44.030]  But I guess your car kind of has these four unique beacons, like, kind of not really RFID, you know, because they're actually, they have batteries in the pressure sensor in the tire, like in the belt stem or something.
[54:44.030 --> 54:49.330]  And they're really low power and they only kind of, like, broadcast out every once in a while.
[54:50.090 --> 55:01.430]  But they do it with enough power that I guess, if I'm remembering his talk, like, you can actually, like, read these things at a good distance from the car.
[55:01.610 --> 55:09.390]  So, like, I think in his setup from, like, inside of his house or apartment or whatever, he was able to pick up data of, like, just cars going by.
[55:09.390 --> 55:09.990]  Interesting.
[55:10.210 --> 55:10.390]  Wow.
[55:11.090 --> 55:15.610]  Listen, we're out of time, but definitely people should check that out to talk at TourCon.
[55:15.830 --> 55:23.990]  And, you know, if somebody submits a talk like that to Hope, we'd certainly put that on as well, because that's exactly the kind of thing that we need to be looking at.
[55:25.530 --> 55:28.310]  Speaking of Hope, x.hope.net for the latest updates.
[55:28.890 --> 55:32.850]  We're accepting pre-registrations, speaker submissions, all the details are on there.
[55:33.170 --> 55:34.490]  We're even taking Bitcoins.
[55:34.650 --> 55:35.550]  Yes, we're doing that.
[55:36.370 --> 55:40.430]  And you can write to us, O-T-H at 2600.com.
[55:40.650 --> 55:42.070]  That is our email address.
[55:42.550 --> 55:50.650]  And you can send whatever comments that you wish concerning this show, concerning the station, concerning anything that's going on in technology.
[55:51.190 --> 55:52.810]  We would love to hear from you.
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[56:03.970 --> 56:06.270]  Let us know what you like and what you dislike.
[56:07.010 --> 56:11.090]  Again, 212-209-2950 or give to WBAI.org.
[56:11.110 --> 56:13.510]  That's give and the number to WBAI.org.
[56:13.850 --> 56:17.610]  We will see you next week with an action-packed fundraising show.
[56:17.730 --> 56:17.930]  Good night.
[57:46.940 --> 57:48.260]  We'll see you next week.
[57:48.260 --> 57:48.420]  We'll see you next week.
[59:00.350 --> 59:05.510]  It's so amazing that I'm swimming in the outlands, but we did the quicksand, still got the will to survive.
[59:05.750 --> 59:10.750]  It's so amazing that I'm living on a high note, dancing on a tightrope, never really breaking my stride.
[59:10.770 --> 59:15.910]  It's so amazing that I'm living out my fantasies, died, stepping casualties, blood full of African fries.
[59:15.930 --> 59:21.110]  It's so amazing that I'm reaching for the mountain top, Bronx town, Camelot, wherever to the day that I die.
[59:21.170 --> 59:22.230]  Check it out now.
[01:00:02.450 --> 01:00:03.630]  All right.
[01:00:04.050 --> 01:00:14.010]  Love the music at Off The Hook Show, which is one of the best shows here on WBAI New York 99.5 FM.