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[00:48.300 --> 00:50.520]  The time is exactly 7 o'clock.
[00:50.700 --> 00:52.680]  Time, once again, for Off the Hook.
[00:57.920 --> 01:02.380]  The telephone keeps ringing, so I ripped it off the wall.
[01:03.240 --> 01:05.320]  I cut myself while shaving.
[01:05.700 --> 01:07.840]  Now I can't make a call.
[01:08.480 --> 01:10.700]  We couldn't get much worse.
[01:13.480 --> 01:16.100]  Bumbiddley Bump, but the best is back the worst.
[01:16.640 --> 01:18.620]  I hope that's understood.
[01:18.880 --> 01:19.680]  Bumbiddley Bump!
[02:44.180 --> 02:46.560]  And a very good evening to everybody.
[02:46.560 --> 02:47.840]  The program is off the hook.
[02:47.940 --> 02:53.080]  Emmanuel Goldstein here with you on this Wednesday evening, second day of December.
[02:53.760 --> 02:55.000]  Joined tonight by Mike.
[02:55.340 --> 02:55.660]  Hi there.
[02:56.460 --> 02:56.800]  Rob T.
[02:56.900 --> 02:57.260]  Firefly.
[02:57.500 --> 02:57.880]  Good evening.
[02:58.780 --> 02:59.100]  Kyle.
[02:59.680 --> 03:00.440]  I'm here.
[03:00.600 --> 03:00.840]  Hi.
[03:01.360 --> 03:02.520]  And Bernie.
[03:03.200 --> 03:04.480]  Greetings from Philadelphia.
[03:04.480 --> 03:05.140]  Yes.
[03:05.500 --> 03:05.900]  In Philadelphia.
[03:06.760 --> 03:07.520]  Yeah, okay.
[03:07.520 --> 03:13.520]  Here we are with our new phone system that I think works this week that we'll be able to take phone calls a little bit later on.
[03:13.940 --> 03:18.860]  A lot of interesting news to update people on, so let's get right to it.
[03:20.360 --> 03:26.880]  The story I'd like to get out of the way quickly is, is this one of all the children in the world being hacked?
[03:26.960 --> 03:27.640]  Have you heard about this?
[03:28.320 --> 03:29.000]  Oh my God.
[03:29.880 --> 03:30.420]  What is it?
[03:30.500 --> 03:31.900]  Some company called VTech, Kyle?
[03:32.160 --> 03:33.820]  I think that's the name of the company.
[03:33.820 --> 03:34.320]  Uh-huh.
[03:34.620 --> 03:37.840]  And I don't know a word on whether they were good or bad children.
[03:38.400 --> 03:38.980]  Well, no.
[03:39.080 --> 03:40.440]  This isn't Santa Claus that did this.
[03:40.600 --> 03:43.320]  Although we don't seem to have a problem with Santa Claus monitoring all our kids.
[03:43.540 --> 03:43.940]  Exactly.
[03:44.220 --> 03:45.800]  But apparently what happened here...
[03:45.800 --> 03:46.860]  And here's...
[03:46.860 --> 03:47.720]  I have a problem with the story.
[03:47.840 --> 03:50.320]  The main story comes from Vice, or Motherboard.
[03:51.220 --> 03:55.480]  And the headline is, Hacker Obtained Children's Headshots and Chat Logs.
[03:55.680 --> 03:56.340]  Actually, you know what?
[03:56.340 --> 03:58.620]  This isn't the headline that they were leading with.
[03:58.640 --> 04:03.460]  It was more of a sensationalist type of headline, basically saying that hackers are the ones behind this.
[04:03.820 --> 04:09.860]  And really, I think the story is the fact that the company, VTech, was storing all this information in the first place.
[04:10.520 --> 04:20.040]  Apparently unbeknownst to children and parents, we're talking about things, not only pictures, but chat logs and voice prompts and things like that.
[04:20.040 --> 04:28.300]  We were talking about this a couple of weeks ago, where Google stores your voice commands if you let it, if you don't turn it off.
[04:28.860 --> 04:31.760]  And you can play it back, and anyone else can play it back, too, who has access.
[04:32.360 --> 04:37.860]  So you have children giving voice commands to some device, some toy, I guess.
[04:38.020 --> 04:38.620]  What is the toy?
[04:38.760 --> 04:39.180]  I don't know.
[04:39.260 --> 04:40.120]  Does anybody know what the toy is?
[04:40.140 --> 04:40.800]  Anybody have one of these?
[04:40.800 --> 04:54.340]  I don't know, but what I guess is there are these small toy computers that have various chatting functions, like the MyTalk thing and stuff like that.
[04:54.420 --> 04:54.660]  Uh-huh.
[04:55.000 --> 04:59.660]  That's always been VTech's purview, is just sort of computer-type things to give a kid.
[04:59.780 --> 05:01.960]  With maybe a slight learning edge.
[05:01.960 --> 05:02.700]  Well, okay.
[05:02.920 --> 05:16.980]  So, according to this story, the hacker, who asked to remain anonymous, told the reporter over at Motherboard that VTech left other sensitive data exposed on its servers, including kids' photos and chat logs, between children and parents.
[05:19.380 --> 05:21.240]  Now, it's interesting.
[05:21.440 --> 05:25.700]  While probing VTech's servers, the hacker found tens of thousands of pictures of parents and kids.
[05:25.860 --> 05:27.080]  Some are blank duplicates.
[05:27.140 --> 05:29.380]  Hard to establish exactly how many are legitimate pictures.
[05:29.380 --> 05:34.340]  But the hacker said he was able to download more than 190 gigs worth of photos.
[05:34.620 --> 05:44.700]  And considering there were 2.3 million users registered in the KidConnect service, it's likely there were tens of thousands or more headshots of parents and kids.
[05:45.180 --> 05:54.480]  It's kind of weird because the story originally had some pictures of the kids with little black bars covering their faces.
[05:54.480 --> 05:56.040]  And the black bars got even bigger.
[05:56.240 --> 06:00.080]  I think people freaked out that they could recognize any of the children at all.
[06:00.520 --> 06:01.880]  So now you basically don't even...
[06:01.880 --> 06:03.660]  you just see a bunch of black squares.
[06:04.060 --> 06:08.460]  Yeah, I noticed that originally they were just very small sensor strips across just their eyes.
[06:08.820 --> 06:11.440]  And now if you look at it, it's larger blocks.
[06:11.600 --> 06:13.040]  So they kind of...
[06:13.660 --> 06:15.980]  they decided at some point to up their censorship of it.
[06:16.080 --> 06:22.420]  I'm not really sure why they felt it necessary to quote some of the chats.
[06:23.100 --> 06:24.620]  You are my hero daddy 100%.
[06:25.060 --> 06:26.680]  I mean, what's the point of doing that?
[06:26.860 --> 06:27.540]  I don't...
[06:27.540 --> 06:28.880]  Yeah, we believe you.
[06:28.960 --> 06:32.160]  We believe there were chat logs and that kids were talking to their parents.
[06:32.840 --> 06:37.260]  It's just really kind of a bizarre story.
[06:38.000 --> 06:42.260]  But I think this is something that you have to share responsibility with.
[06:42.400 --> 06:51.060]  If you sign up for a service like this, you need to know that inputting all this information to this service means that information is going to be stored someplace.
[06:51.840 --> 06:53.680]  Am I far off?
[06:53.800 --> 06:55.540]  Do you think in the same...
[06:55.540 --> 07:06.600]  to the same end that they have a responsibility as corporations to announce that and be really, really upfront and persistent about the kinds of rights and privacy you're giving away?
[07:06.860 --> 07:18.280]  Well, I mean, people should know that your image, your chat logs, your voice commands are being stored on another computer system someplace that you don't have access to, but they do.
[07:18.440 --> 07:20.320]  And it's for your convenience, I suppose.
[07:20.640 --> 07:22.280]  But buried in the fine print is not good enough.
[07:23.180 --> 07:24.700]  It wasn't buried in the fine print even.
[07:24.940 --> 07:25.200]  Rob?
[07:25.420 --> 07:27.500]  But this information in this case was...
[07:27.500 --> 07:30.100]  it wasn't just uploaded to a server that you don't control.
[07:30.100 --> 07:34.260]  It was uploaded to a server on the internet, which is a big deal.
[07:34.260 --> 07:39.580]  You put something up on the internet and chances are someone who isn't the intended recipient will be able to view it at some point.
[07:40.060 --> 07:45.360]  We've seen that time and again with things like locked accounts on social media becoming public.
[07:45.600 --> 07:51.520]  You know, the iCloud pictures from last year where celebrities had their personal photos posted.
[07:52.340 --> 07:57.340]  Just if it's on the net, it's out of your hands, it's out of your control and it behooves us all to be aware of this.
[07:57.440 --> 08:01.640]  But you do have control at the beginning before you sign up for a service like this.
[08:01.700 --> 08:04.120]  Just like we've been talking about over the past couple of weeks with Google.
[08:04.440 --> 08:09.960]  You don't have to use these services or you can turn things off, but you have to actually do a little bit of work.
[08:09.960 --> 08:13.140]  You can't just hand over your information and assume it's going to be safe.
[08:13.240 --> 08:18.420]  Right, but not everyone will be automatically aware that this kind of stuff is going on when they just buy a toy off the shelf to give to their toddler.
[08:18.560 --> 08:19.140]  That's a good point.
[08:19.220 --> 08:19.760]  That's a good point.
[08:20.180 --> 08:35.460]  I mean, in particular, in the case of toys, which are often given as gifts, you know, if you're, you know, someone, the kid's aunt or uncle gives the kid a gift, is the parent going to be like, no, you can't use this gift you've received because it violates privacy?
[08:35.620 --> 08:37.220]  A smart parent would, yes.
[08:38.020 --> 08:39.420]  Have you ever met a child?
[08:39.420 --> 08:39.820]  Okay.
[08:40.000 --> 08:42.200]  I've met children and I've met parents too.
[08:42.240 --> 08:48.200]  And I think the real problem is with the parents not doing the homework that they need to do before giving something like this out.
[08:48.540 --> 09:04.840]  Okay, in that same vein, if the parent knows full well the implications of this device, but it's the best toy ever, and the kid's like going to lose it and you'll have worse, you know, like it could be an incident, really.
[09:05.900 --> 09:06.640]  A meltdown.
[09:06.720 --> 09:07.000]  Go ahead, Bernie.
[09:07.000 --> 09:07.160]  Yeah.
[09:07.840 --> 09:32.500]  You said it would be a parent's due diligence to research the vulnerabilities of their private communications between their child and themselves through these devices, but none of the stories I've read about this incident indicate that the terms of service said from VTech that they store all your chats with your child on their server,
[09:32.500 --> 09:33.940]  which is on the internet.
[09:34.280 --> 09:45.160]  So how is someone supposed to do this kind of due diligence if the company like VTech doesn't even reveal that they're storing all this private communications on a server on the internet?
[09:46.100 --> 10:04.900]  I'm curious if also it's like a two-part thing where the device has one set of terms and that's implicit in your purchase or use of it and then maybe it's attached to some service or site you create a little account on which has other terms that work in conjunction once you're sort of registered with this toy.
[10:05.140 --> 10:06.580]  And what, the five-year-old is supposed to look at that?
[10:06.580 --> 10:08.520]  Who actually is responsible?
[10:08.720 --> 10:13.360]  Well, okay, so then my other question would be, what if it's not in...
[10:13.360 --> 10:20.780]  Okay, so perhaps not in explicit terms, you know, expressly that your likeness and this will be stored here, there, and everywhere.
[10:22.360 --> 10:24.960]  But are there any sort of vague indications?
[10:24.960 --> 10:26.180]  Is there any reading of this?
[10:26.320 --> 10:27.040]  I haven't looked at it.
[10:27.240 --> 10:32.580]  Does anyone know if like there's some sort of subtle stuff that sounds a little too broad?
[10:33.780 --> 10:34.580]  Does anybody...
[10:34.580 --> 10:36.400]  Well, surprisingly, none of us have any of the toys.
[10:37.080 --> 10:38.020]  Bernie, do you?
[10:38.500 --> 10:39.980]  No, I have some VTech products.
[10:40.180 --> 10:42.140]  They were an early maker of cordless phones.
[10:42.460 --> 10:42.580]  Oh!
[10:42.700 --> 10:43.900]  Decades, decades ago.
[10:44.040 --> 10:45.620]  VTech's been around for decades, actually.
[10:45.860 --> 10:46.280]  Didn't know that.
[10:46.820 --> 10:48.560]  Yeah, cordless landline phones.
[10:48.560 --> 10:50.220]  They've been making since like the 90s.
[10:51.280 --> 10:54.740]  But anyway, I don't see...
[10:55.200 --> 10:57.580]  I haven't read the terms of service, but I've read a lot of...
[10:57.580 --> 11:13.920]  I've read several stories about this and none of the reporting indicates that the terms of service revealed to buyers or owners of these products that chats between users, parents and their kids, presumably private chats, are, one, archived, which they...
[11:13.920 --> 11:16.060]  There's no reason they needed to be archived, these chats.
[11:17.040 --> 11:21.800]  And, as Rob pointed out, put on a server that's connected to the internet.
[11:21.800 --> 11:31.340]  Both of those things seem to be kind of egregious privacy violations that no user was even aware of because it was apparently not in the terms of service.
[11:31.500 --> 11:39.940]  And according to a quote from the hacker himself or herself, he says, frankly, it makes me sick that I was able to get all this stuff.
[11:40.560 --> 11:41.980]  VTech should have the book thrown at them.
[11:42.140 --> 11:47.080]  And in this story, again, on Motherboard, he said the hacker...
[11:47.080 --> 11:49.500]  The reporter says the hacker told me in an encrypted chat.
[11:49.960 --> 11:51.240]  Why is that relevant?
[11:51.600 --> 11:57.560]  Another issue I have with this story, an encrypted chat somehow implies something nefarious and...
[11:57.560 --> 11:58.540]  It gives it credibility.
[11:58.980 --> 12:00.300]  Yeah, because it's encrypted.
[12:00.520 --> 12:01.120]  It's really silly.
[12:01.580 --> 12:02.360]  It's a real hacker.
[12:02.520 --> 12:03.840]  Encryption should be the norm.
[12:04.000 --> 12:04.980]  It should be something that...
[12:04.980 --> 12:07.380]  You know, an unencrypted chat should be what raises our eyebrows.
[12:07.380 --> 12:12.920]  But Emanuel, didn't the so-called hacker probably commit a crime by...
[12:12.920 --> 12:20.940]  I don't think it should have been a crime for finding this information on the internet and accessing it without the permission of VTech?
[12:21.080 --> 12:21.500]  Of course.
[12:21.620 --> 12:21.820]  Of course.
[12:21.820 --> 12:23.440]  It was a crime, but it's a necessary crime.
[12:23.600 --> 12:31.560]  It's the kind of crime that I think any of us should do if we have the ability to demonstrate like this hacker did to show what the vulnerabilities are.
[12:31.680 --> 12:33.900]  And to their credit, VTech has issued a statement.
[12:33.980 --> 12:35.580]  There's no mention of prosecution.
[12:35.580 --> 12:38.160]  They're pretty upfront with what was wrong with their system.
[12:38.460 --> 12:44.760]  I don't know if that's enough to get them out of the hot water they're in, but it's good to see them actually stand up and start taking responsibility.
[12:45.320 --> 12:46.400]  Too bad they didn't do that earlier.
[12:46.640 --> 12:54.800]  Yeah, I think that's in there, like to what Rob was saying, that even if it was in the contract like you did agree to it, there was serious mishandling with this stuff.
[12:54.800 --> 13:00.900]  It was not really taken as seriously as it ought to have been in so far as storage.
[13:01.140 --> 13:02.700]  Well, it's being taken seriously now.
[13:02.700 --> 13:08.760]  And kids, there are charts saying how many kids are affected in how many countries and specifically which ones.
[13:08.920 --> 13:11.840]  They have amazing specific data here.
[13:12.240 --> 13:18.260]  So if your kid is affected, maybe write to us and tell us what you notice, OTH at 2600.com.
[13:18.560 --> 13:31.160]  But just to continue on one of the points, do we know that there's no reason to keep those chat logs, obviously, but do we know if our text messages that we send on our phones, are those logged?
[13:31.380 --> 13:31.720]  Mike?
[13:31.940 --> 13:32.240]  Yes.
[13:32.500 --> 13:32.920]  They are.
[13:32.980 --> 13:33.340]  You know this.
[13:33.400 --> 13:33.940]  How do you know this?
[13:34.120 --> 13:42.840]  Because we've seen often government requests for these sorts of things delivered to phone carriers and data is produced.
[13:42.840 --> 13:46.140]  I would like not to have my chat logs logged.
[13:46.620 --> 13:47.500]  Is that possible?
[13:47.700 --> 13:48.420]  You should use Signal.
[13:48.920 --> 13:49.200]  Uh-huh.
[13:50.080 --> 13:50.600]  Tell us more.
[13:50.900 --> 13:56.780]  Signal is an encrypted text messaging app from the folks at Whisper Systems and it seems to work pretty well.
[13:57.000 --> 13:57.340]  All right.
[13:57.460 --> 13:57.780]  All right.
[13:57.920 --> 13:59.440]  But I don't have to be a terrorist to use it.
[13:59.600 --> 14:00.340]  You don't have to be.
[14:00.420 --> 14:00.660]  Okay.
[14:00.840 --> 14:01.320]  Good to know.
[14:01.480 --> 14:02.280]  I'm not a terrorist.
[14:02.300 --> 14:02.820]  I use it.
[14:03.260 --> 14:03.600]  All right.
[14:03.620 --> 14:04.580]  Well, let us decide that, Mike.
[14:04.580 --> 14:05.540]  Okay.
[14:05.660 --> 14:16.920]  The second big story that we'd like to focus on this week comes by way of The Intercept and actually it's been on many, many news outlets because it's a really important story.
[14:17.780 --> 14:22.840]  This has to do with something known as NSLs.
[14:24.040 --> 14:26.180]  Does anybody want to tell us what NSL is?
[14:26.700 --> 14:28.660]  What's exciting is I have one in my hand.
[14:29.040 --> 14:29.180]  Okay.
[14:29.300 --> 14:29.940]  What's Taz?
[14:29.940 --> 14:42.380]  Uh, it is a request from the, uh, an investigative, a police body, uh, to someone who has information to sort of get that information without going through a court.
[14:42.520 --> 14:43.640]  It's a national security letter.
[14:43.920 --> 14:44.060]  Yeah.
[14:44.160 --> 14:44.800]  That's what I was after.
[14:45.100 --> 14:45.520]  Oh, sorry.
[14:46.060 --> 14:47.960]  And they started doing this right after 9-11.
[14:48.500 --> 14:58.280]  Uh, and basically, uh, it's, it's a way of telling internet service providers, give us this information on this person that we're looking for, this, this entity we're looking at, and you can't say anything about it.
[14:58.280 --> 14:59.240]  You can't say anything to them.
[14:59.400 --> 15:01.760]  You can't say anything to, uh, uh, your lawyer.
[15:01.920 --> 15:04.120]  You can't say anything to, to your, your wife.
[15:04.540 --> 15:18.580]  Uh, you certainly can't come on the radio and talk about it, but that's all changed because in the studio with us now is Nick Merrill, who, uh, has been the target of many of the, well, not the target of the NSL, but certainly somebody who has to deal with the NSLs.
[15:19.120 --> 15:23.440]  And, uh, Nick, you won, uh, an important battle in the last week.
[15:24.080 --> 15:24.620]  It's true.
[15:25.100 --> 15:25.380]  Uh...
[15:25.380 --> 15:26.060]  First welcome, by the way.
[15:26.340 --> 15:26.680]  Thank you.
[15:26.800 --> 15:28.200]  Thank you very much for having me on the show.
[15:28.440 --> 15:28.680]  Yeah, thanks for coming.
[15:28.720 --> 15:29.380]  I'm really excited.
[15:29.820 --> 15:33.440]  Uh, yeah, the, the, I don't know, it's hard to say when the battle was won.
[15:33.620 --> 15:38.380]  I guess maybe we technically won two or three weeks ago, but then there was a bit of a delay.
[15:38.380 --> 15:43.200]  There was actually like a 90-day delay from when we won until I was able to speak.
[15:43.540 --> 15:51.600]  And part of that was, uh, in order to give the government a chance to appeal their loss, which then, uh, thankfully they decided not to do.
[15:51.840 --> 15:56.840]  Well, let's start, uh, tell us what you do that, that made you, uh, front and center in this whole thing.
[15:57.020 --> 15:57.300]  Sure.
[15:57.580 --> 16:02.540]  Uh, for many years I ran an internet service provider, uh, based here in New York City.
[16:03.340 --> 16:14.800]  And, uh, I provided people with access to the internet at first and later I kind of grew into more hosting people's websites and doing security consulting and firewalls and VPNs and stuff like that.
[16:15.740 --> 16:15.880]  Okay.
[16:16.080 --> 16:20.760]  And, um, uh, your first NSL came when?
[16:21.660 --> 16:25.900]  Uh, the one and only, I can, I can definitely say for sure.
[16:26.080 --> 16:26.660]  Oh, there's only one?
[16:26.800 --> 16:31.780]  The one and only NSL I've ever received is the one that sits before us here on the table.
[16:32.460 --> 16:34.480]  Uh, I can say that I've...
[16:34.480 --> 16:34.920]  Can I see that?
[16:35.020 --> 16:35.340]  Let me hear that.
[16:35.340 --> 16:35.800]  Yes, yes.
[16:35.960 --> 16:37.300]  That's not actually the whole thing.
[16:37.300 --> 16:40.380]  That's just actually, uh, the attachment.
[16:40.600 --> 16:42.320]  That's the third page of the NSL.
[16:42.900 --> 16:44.400]  Uh, it doesn't say who it is.
[16:44.580 --> 16:46.700]  Yeah, and what does that cover on the third page specifically?
[16:46.900 --> 16:47.040]  Right, right.
[16:47.040 --> 16:48.040]  And you won't tell us who it is.
[16:48.140 --> 16:48.740]  That's the kind of stuff?
[16:48.760 --> 16:54.680]  Yeah, I won't, I won't tell you who the target of the NSL was, but that's my choice at this point.
[16:54.800 --> 16:56.160]  See, now, now things are all different.
[16:56.160 --> 17:01.680]  For, for many years, for the past 11 years, I've, you know, the government's been dictating to me what I can say and what I can't.
[17:01.680 --> 17:01.680]  Wait, wait, I'm sorry.
[17:01.700 --> 17:03.760]  I don't want to interrupt, but you said 11 years?
[17:04.200 --> 17:05.500]  Uh, almost 12.
[17:05.500 --> 17:07.880]  11 years and, like, many months.
[17:08.020 --> 17:11.940]  It was, it was like in February, so what is it now, November, so, what is it, nine months?
[17:11.960 --> 17:13.420]  Over 10 years, we can say that.
[17:13.420 --> 17:14.560]  No, no, over 11, almost.
[17:14.620 --> 17:15.960]  Over 11, it's almost 12 years.
[17:16.340 --> 17:19.700]  That's an insane amount of time to be fighting long documents.
[17:19.700 --> 17:20.320]  It's true, it's true.
[17:20.320 --> 17:26.200]  What I find amazing, though, is that, um, uh, you're at the center of this, but yet you've only had one of these letters.
[17:26.340 --> 17:29.020]  Now, there are entities out there that have had many, many more than that.
[17:29.120 --> 17:29.460]  That's true.
[17:29.600 --> 17:32.960]  And they're not fighting it nearly as loudly as, as you have been.
[17:33.080 --> 17:33.800]  Why do you think that is?
[17:34.140 --> 17:38.500]  Um, I don't know, you know, maybe, maybe they have more common sense than me.
[17:38.760 --> 17:40.420]  I don't know, that's one reason, you know?
[17:40.560 --> 17:45.220]  Like, I mean, uh, one of the judges in the case called me, what did he call me?
[17:45.220 --> 17:49.720]  Uh, he called me a quirky, uh, the, can I curse on the air or is that it?
[17:49.800 --> 17:50.160]  No, okay.
[17:50.240 --> 17:51.080]  Not on these airways.
[17:51.240 --> 17:53.980]  He called me, I think, a quirky MF-er.
[17:54.960 --> 17:55.280]  Okay.
[17:55.440 --> 17:57.120]  And I think, I think that was the exact way he phrased it.
[17:57.120 --> 17:59.960]  Multi-frequency tone, that's a phone-free term is what that is.
[18:00.020 --> 18:00.040]  Yeah, yeah.
[18:00.040 --> 18:02.320]  This was one of the judges in the Second Circuit Court of Appeals.
[18:02.500 --> 18:08.140]  And, and he basically was saying that, you know, any reasonable person wouldn't have pursued this as far as I did.
[18:08.860 --> 18:13.440]  Uh, but you know, uh, why, why don't the big companies do it?
[18:13.440 --> 18:20.880]  I mean, there's a lot of reasons that are actually commonsensical that, that don't result in them being evil, that, that explain why they, why they may not fight as hard as they could.
[18:21.220 --> 18:32.120]  Uh, part of it is that, you know, businesses, I don't think it's, I think we would probably all agree here that it's not, it's not fair to expect Google to be like the ACLU or something.
[18:32.120 --> 18:36.240]  They're, they're, they're in business to make money and they have shareholders and whatever.
[18:36.480 --> 18:41.660]  So, you know, I, on the other hand, I, I'm not sure that I was in business to make money.
[18:41.780 --> 18:48.840]  I was in business so that I didn't have to work for somebody else, but, but I was to a large degree in business for ideological reasons.
[18:48.840 --> 18:51.700]  And I worked with tons of nonprofit organizations and activist groups.
[18:51.700 --> 18:58.180]  And I did it because, uh, I liked owning myself and not working for, working for the man, so to speak.
[18:58.840 --> 19:07.620]  The, um, the entity that was, um, um, well, you had, did you have to provide information, specific information about them to the government?
[19:07.920 --> 19:10.000]  I was commanded to, but I did not provide it.
[19:10.040 --> 19:11.120]  You didn't provide any information?
[19:11.260 --> 19:11.640]  Nothing.
[19:11.920 --> 19:12.140]  Okay.
[19:12.720 --> 19:16.360]  Uh, are they still being investigated as far as you know, or, and do they know about this?
[19:16.360 --> 19:23.200]  They do know about it as of, uh, about a year and a half ago, maybe, uh, when I told them, when I was finally able to tell them.
[19:23.380 --> 19:26.220]  Uh, but I had to wait until I could do it safely.
[19:27.240 --> 19:30.180]  Uh, and, uh, as far as I know, they're not being investigated.
[19:30.300 --> 19:36.460]  As far as I know, I, I don't really, to tell you the truth, I don't really think they were ever being investigated, per se.
[19:37.100 --> 19:39.160]  Uh, and it's a whole, it's a whole other story.
[19:39.520 --> 19:42.620]  Um, I mean, do you want me to go off onto that tangent right now?
[19:42.680 --> 19:42.940]  I mean...
[19:42.940 --> 19:43.860]  We have time for a tangent.
[19:44.020 --> 19:44.300]  Cool.
[19:44.300 --> 19:51.620]  Well, I mean, look, as far as I, as far as I understand the story, and this is somewhat hearsay, because it's stuff that I was told, and I haven't independently verified.
[19:52.480 --> 19:56.120]  Uh, but it, but it seems, it seems to all add up and make sense to me.
[19:56.340 --> 20:06.020]  As far as I understand, the person that was the target of this national security letter was, was trying, the FBI was trying to force them to become an informant.
[20:06.820 --> 20:07.180]  Wow.
[20:07.180 --> 20:17.100]  And, uh, and when they refused to, to become an informant for the FBI, the FBI agents told them, okay, then we're going to ruin your life.
[20:17.100 --> 20:21.700]  And he said, okay, and maybe not taking it as seriously as he ought to have.
[20:21.960 --> 20:22.140]  Mm-hmm.
[20:22.440 --> 20:24.380]  And then they proceeded to do their best.
[20:24.820 --> 20:29.780]  And they used a, a wide array of kind of harassment tactics against this person.
[20:29.780 --> 20:33.020]  And one of them was using national security letters.
[20:33.020 --> 20:36.900]  Another one was sending FBI agents to every place he ever applied to for a job.
[20:37.240 --> 20:39.200]  Another was putting him on the no-fly list.
[20:39.440 --> 20:42.820]  Another one was attaching, uh, tracking devices to the bottom of his car.
[20:43.140 --> 20:44.960]  Uh, it just went on and on and on.
[20:45.020 --> 20:45.400]  This is shot.
[20:45.480 --> 20:46.840]  Bernie, have you ever heard of anything like this?
[20:47.120 --> 20:47.600]  Oh yeah.
[20:47.620 --> 20:50.920]  I've had the secret service, uh, while I was incarcerated in, in 95.
[20:51.260 --> 20:54.660]  They, uh, uh, offered me a, it's called a proper letter.
[20:54.860 --> 20:57.780]  In other words, they wanted me to tell them information about other people.
[20:57.780 --> 21:01.880]  I refused and I remained in prison for quite a while.
[21:02.060 --> 21:04.780]  Um, when I could have, uh, probably gotten out early.
[21:04.920 --> 21:08.060]  And, uh, they also visited my workplace after I got out of prison.
[21:08.620 --> 21:12.960]  Um, which, uh, most employers would have, uh, uh, probably fired me.
[21:13.040 --> 21:15.580]  But fortunately I had an employer who didn't like the secret service either.
[21:15.620 --> 21:19.360]  So they, it's not just the FBI, the secret service and other federal law enforcement agencies.
[21:19.620 --> 21:20.620]  They play dirty.
[21:21.420 --> 21:22.440]  Yeah, they sure do.
[21:22.580 --> 21:24.180]  And, and Nick, that, that leads me to a question.
[21:24.280 --> 21:25.780]  Have they played dirty with you?
[21:26.380 --> 21:29.420]  Uh, you know, for many years people would ask me that question.
[21:29.420 --> 21:31.900]  And I would happily say, you know what, no, they haven't.
[21:32.260 --> 21:42.080]  Uh, but, but pretty recently, uh, in the court papers that I read, uh, it turned out that the FBI was making some really, uh, kind of awful accusations against me.
[21:42.460 --> 21:44.640]  Which I kind of resented because they were untrue.
[21:45.580 --> 21:52.200]  The nice thing was that the FBI was, was kind enough to actually say in the court papers, we have no evidence to prove any of this stuff.
[21:52.340 --> 21:53.260]  But they still...
[21:53.260 --> 21:54.560]  But they said, but this is what we believe.
[21:54.700 --> 21:55.580]  Make the allegation.
[21:55.780 --> 21:55.860]  Yes.
[21:55.860 --> 21:57.960]  And, uh, the doubt exists in people's minds then.
[21:58.220 --> 22:00.080]  Uh, who would they make these allegations to?
[22:00.540 --> 22:01.560]  Uh, to the court.
[22:01.840 --> 22:06.800]  Uh, it was in, it was in, in the court proceedings to, to release me from the gag order.
[22:06.800 --> 22:10.140]  Uh, they basically were like, you know, he's, he's a terrible guy.
[22:10.400 --> 22:13.100]  He, you know, could maybe be a member of Al Qaeda.
[22:13.300 --> 22:17.980]  Like he's very dangerous, whatever, you know, I'm making it up, but, but, you know, just all kinds of crazy accusations against me.
[22:18.600 --> 22:22.340]  Uh, which thankfully the judge didn't really take very seriously.
[22:23.300 --> 22:31.140]  So now, um, this, um, um, the way things have gone now, um, does this affect everybody else who has gotten an NSL?
[22:32.260 --> 22:34.580]  Uh, as far as me being released from the gag?
[22:34.580 --> 22:35.080]  Yeah.
[22:35.140 --> 22:36.560]  Are they released from gags as well?
[22:36.940 --> 22:58.920]  Unfortunately, no, uh, no, the, the sad thing and the, the, the, well, it's kind of an interesting thing, but it's a sad thing is that when I first started this case in the year 2004, uh, there, there, there was a, a potential scope of, of like effect on everyone that over time became more and more narrow.
[22:59.500 --> 23:05.940]  And at first, just to give you a sense of it, at first, one of the potential outcomes was that the entire Patriot Act could have been overturned.
[23:06.640 --> 23:08.580]  Uh, because there was a question of whether or not...
[23:08.580 --> 23:08.920]  Because of you.
[23:09.400 --> 23:10.480]  Because of this case.
[23:10.880 --> 23:11.800]  That would have been awesome.
[23:11.960 --> 23:12.780]  That would have been really...
[23:12.780 --> 23:13.620]  It would have.
[23:13.720 --> 23:14.120]  It would have.
[23:14.540 --> 23:27.220]  Uh, the, the national security letter provision, which is just a section of the Patriot Act, just one piece of it, was ruled unconstitutional two times in the course of this case, uh, by a judge here in the Southern District of New York.
[23:28.400 --> 23:38.140]  And, uh, the question was, could that piece of the law be struck down separately from the rest of the Patriot Act or would the entire Patriot Act have to be struck down?
[23:38.560 --> 23:44.160]  By the end of the, of the case, we were just arguing about my personal free speech rights.
[23:44.340 --> 23:53.600]  So, the, the, the potential scope of the entire case became narrower and narrower and narrower until it was like almost needle sharp and it was just on me and, and my free speech rights.
[23:53.600 --> 23:58.700]  And we weren't even talking about the government searching people's personal information without a warrant.
[23:58.980 --> 24:05.800]  And we weren't talking about the other, you know, tens or hundreds of thousands of other people who have received these letters who, who are under gag orders.
[24:06.100 --> 24:10.580]  So, that was, that was one of the very frustrating things for me, uh, in this case.
[24:10.720 --> 24:12.700]  But, but there wasn't that much I could do about it.
[24:14.280 --> 24:14.680]  Interesting.
[24:15.120 --> 24:17.720]  I mean, I mean, even that though is, is a tremendous victory.
[24:17.860 --> 24:22.880]  I know you've been looking at this, uh, document for 11 years, but the rest of us have never seen it before.
[24:22.880 --> 24:43.020]  And just the scope of the information they requested, um, without going through a court, without really, without it turning into a real criminal investigation where someone was, you know, charged, convicted of anything, is just, uh, incredibly broad.
[24:43.340 --> 24:48.500]  Um, it asks for DSL account information for the radius log, which, uh...
[24:48.500 --> 24:51.200]  Yeah, looking at that, that's all outdated, uh, technology, isn't it?
[24:51.200 --> 25:06.440]  It sounds like it is, and it is, but the strange thing is, in the, in the course of the court proceedings, we found out that what they, one of the things that they consider to fit under that category of radius log information is, uh, cell tower geolocation information.
[25:07.000 --> 25:13.900]  So, they somehow consider, even though, to, to you and me, radius logs mean something very specific and precise.
[25:14.180 --> 25:14.760]  To them, they consider that...
[25:14.760 --> 25:17.580]  I mean, to most of our audience, it means probably nothing at all, but yeah.
[25:17.660 --> 25:18.480]  Maybe, right, right.
[25:18.620 --> 25:20.760]  But, well, to me, it means something very specific.
[25:20.760 --> 25:30.920]  Uh, to them, it means a category of, of essentially, like, authentication and login data to know exactly when someone connected and disconnected and where they were and stuff like that.
[25:31.660 --> 25:47.920]  Uh, so that was one of the really interesting things that came out of this case was that, uh, one of the things they, they're asking, they say they can ask for with an NSL is your geolocation data and your, your, uh, comings and goings that they can track you with,
[25:48.240 --> 25:50.740]  uh, your cell phone, uh, using one of these NSLs.
[25:50.740 --> 25:59.920]  Um, which is crazy because, uh, a lot of courts have been ruling recently that you need a full-blown warrant, uh, with probable cause and everything to get that information.
[26:00.180 --> 26:00.640]  Imagine that.
[26:00.800 --> 26:01.020]  Yeah.
[26:01.080 --> 26:02.400]  Full-blown warrant, just like the old days.
[26:02.420 --> 26:03.440]  Yeah, I know, I know.
[26:03.580 --> 26:05.140]  I mean, that's, that's the shocking thing.
[26:05.680 --> 26:12.100]  Uh, a friend of mine teaches, uh, English as a second language classes to immigrants.
[26:12.940 --> 26:16.020]  And part of their kind of curriculum is they teach people about the Bill of Rights.
[26:16.440 --> 26:19.160]  You know, this is part of what you have to know to be able to pass a citizenship exam.
[26:19.160 --> 26:24.680]  And he was telling me that he, you know, he teaches people about the First Amendment and the Fourth Amendment and what it means.
[26:24.840 --> 26:25.700]  And then he always...
[26:25.700 --> 26:26.840]  So he's on a list for sure.
[26:27.400 --> 26:28.100]  Probably, yeah.
[26:28.520 --> 26:29.140]  I mean, wow.
[26:29.360 --> 26:31.220]  That's like terrorist-related activity for sure.
[26:31.360 --> 26:38.800]  But, uh, but he was telling me that he, he feels really badly as he teaches them, uh, these lessons about the Bill of Rights that he knows are not really true.
[26:39.120 --> 26:40.040]  You know, that they're kind of fairy tales.
[26:40.060 --> 26:42.900]  Well, maybe if enough people believe in them, they will become true.
[26:43.100 --> 26:44.340]  Kind of like Peter Pan or something.
[26:44.500 --> 26:47.360]  You know, the Bill of Rights can, can come back into our reach.
[26:47.360 --> 26:48.600]  It could be, it could be.
[26:49.040 --> 26:55.600]  Well, they say there is something like, uh, 300,000 of these NSLs that have, uh, been issued, uh, since 2001.
[26:56.000 --> 26:59.620]  That's, that's an incredible number to think of, considering that the trouble that you've had with the one.
[26:59.800 --> 27:01.680]  As I understand, it's closer to 500,000.
[27:01.700 --> 27:01.980]  Is it?
[27:02.260 --> 27:02.480]  Yeah.
[27:02.900 --> 27:08.480]  Uh, I was looking at some statistics on this earlier in the day and, you know, they put out roughly 50,000 a year.
[27:09.020 --> 27:15.740]  Uh, well, this is one interesting thing I tell people because it's easy to sort of be led astray by that number.
[27:15.940 --> 27:18.560]  That, that number sounds relatively not that bad.
[27:18.560 --> 27:22.560]  When you think of all the stuff we've learned through the Snowden revelations, like, well, 50,000.
[27:22.660 --> 27:22.860]  Okay.
[27:22.980 --> 27:24.020]  There's lots of people in the country.
[27:24.180 --> 27:24.420]  Mm-hmm.
[27:26.000 --> 27:26.800]  But, okay.
[27:26.920 --> 27:29.780]  Imagine they've put out 500,000 NSLs over 10 years.
[27:30.120 --> 27:31.420]  This seems to be the case, right?
[27:31.420 --> 27:35.440]  This, we know this because the DOJ, the Department of Justice, told us.
[27:35.580 --> 27:37.860]  So that's, it's 500,000 letters.
[27:38.080 --> 27:39.460]  There's 300 million Americans.
[27:40.160 --> 27:45.220]  Now it's a ratio of, like, one letter per 600 Americans?
[27:45.420 --> 27:46.040]  Does that sound right?
[27:46.220 --> 27:46.560]  Wow.
[27:46.560 --> 27:48.580]  Math is not my thing, but something like that, yeah.
[27:48.580 --> 27:49.680]  I think, I think so.
[27:49.840 --> 27:50.420]  I think so.
[27:50.500 --> 27:51.200]  I could be wrong.
[27:51.380 --> 27:52.000]  Someone correct me.
[27:52.160 --> 27:52.900]  Someone who's better at math.
[27:52.900 --> 27:53.920]  Anyone have a calculator on them?
[27:54.060 --> 27:54.920]  That seems about right.
[27:55.040 --> 27:55.280]  Yeah.
[27:55.580 --> 27:56.860]  Our listeners will correct us.
[27:56.920 --> 27:57.440]  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[27:57.440 --> 28:08.040]  So, the thing is, is that, NSLs are supposedly only to be used in two specific situations, by the FBI, in any case.
[28:08.280 --> 28:12.240]  One of them is counter-espionage, where you think someone's an agent of a foreign country.
[28:12.420 --> 28:12.580]  Mm-hmm.
[28:12.580 --> 28:13.960]  And the other one is counter-terrorism.
[28:14.420 --> 28:22.700]  So, to me, just the idea that one in 600 Americans could even be, like, suspected or investigated for something like that seems really preposterous.
[28:23.560 --> 28:24.420]  No, no, okay.
[28:24.560 --> 28:38.580]  Now, let's stop here, and I'll tell you a story that one thing that I learned from the Department of Justice Inspector General's audit of the FBI's use of NSLs is that they used NSLs to get massive amounts of people's data.
[28:38.800 --> 28:47.040]  Just one letter, they got everyone who had been in Las Vegas over New Year's Eve in 2003, because of some supposed terrorist threat.
[28:47.180 --> 28:48.660]  One letter can get that many people.
[28:48.660 --> 28:53.320]  Yeah, it was over a million people had gone to Vegas over New Year's in that year.
[28:53.660 --> 28:55.600]  Why not issue one letter for the entire country, then?
[28:55.700 --> 28:56.260]  Save some paper.
[28:56.580 --> 28:57.780]  Yeah, exactly, exactly.
[28:58.140 --> 29:05.780]  Now, there was another example highlighted in that Inspector General's report where they got basically 11,000 people's phone records with just one letter.
[29:06.760 --> 29:16.080]  So, the mistake you can easily make is you hear 50,000 letters, and you think, okay, 50,000 people got screwed, but what if the letter doesn't correspond to one person?
[29:16.080 --> 29:17.660]  What if it corresponds to many people?
[29:18.020 --> 29:24.040]  Then, all of a sudden, this starts to sound like a much more wide dragnet than we were originally thinking we were talking about.
[29:24.400 --> 29:28.380]  I mean, look, if there were actually that many terrorists here, we would all be dead.
[29:28.440 --> 29:30.000]  We wouldn't have to have this debate.
[29:30.220 --> 29:33.560]  Or we would all be terrorists, and there would be no one left to be the victim of the terrorists.
[29:33.560 --> 29:34.520]  Well, that would work too, yeah.
[29:34.520 --> 29:34.540]  Yeah.
[29:35.380 --> 29:52.740]  We're talking with ISP founder Nick Merrill, who has been victorious, I would say, in his fight to not be restricted by national security letters and having to keep them secret for over 10 years, over 11 years.
[29:53.440 --> 30:00.760]  Nick, did you ever have the temptation to just say, screw it, I'm going to reveal all this information and face the consequences?
[30:02.300 --> 30:12.400]  You know, there were times when I was, like, especially towards the beginning, I would be reading a thread on Slashdot or something, where people were discussing my case.
[30:13.100 --> 30:22.300]  And there'd be guys on there who'd be like, tough guys, and you'd be like, you know what, if it was me, I would just post it to Pastebin and I'd be like, screw all of you and here, you know.
[30:22.780 --> 30:37.320]  But the thing is, is that although the gains, the legal gains that we made by winning the case over and over again are relatively meager, I would say we won, like, 10 or 15% of what I would have hoped to have won, at best.
[30:38.820 --> 30:47.120]  Public awareness was raised, it was debated in Congress, the law was amended, it really did kind of open people's eyes to some degree.
[30:47.220 --> 30:52.540]  And you have to remember, it's hard to remember now, but you have to remember that this was way, way before anyone ever heard of Ed Snowden.
[30:52.540 --> 30:54.960]  I think Ed Snowden was in, like, junior high school when I started this.
[30:55.820 --> 30:56.200]  So...
[30:56.200 --> 30:57.340]  I'm trying to picture that.
[30:57.580 --> 30:58.300]  Yeah, yeah.
[30:58.600 --> 30:58.960]  Wow.
[30:59.480 --> 31:04.440]  So, you know, it was worth it, you know.
[31:04.560 --> 31:10.120]  Like, I spent a quarter of my life doing this and, you know, I didn't get everything that I hoped to get out of it.
[31:11.280 --> 31:15.100]  But it's still important and I don't regret it.
[31:15.100 --> 31:18.560]  I feel almost exactly the same way about our losing the DMCA case.
[31:18.620 --> 31:27.580]  The first DMCA case that happened in 2000, when the Motion Picture Association of America came after us for posting computer code.
[31:27.640 --> 31:29.480]  I won't get into the details, it's all there someplace.
[31:29.700 --> 31:30.480]  I remember it.
[31:30.680 --> 31:31.800]  We lost everything.
[31:32.040 --> 31:35.780]  I mean, we lost the case, but we educated so many people.
[31:35.900 --> 31:40.420]  So many people found out about the Digital Millennium Copyright Act for the first time, they realized what a threat it was.
[31:40.420 --> 31:49.540]  So even though we lost the case, we lost the appeal, I think we won as far as educating people and maybe reining it in a little bit.
[31:49.540 --> 31:51.140]  I'd like to think that was possible.
[31:51.620 --> 31:51.880]  Yeah.
[31:52.280 --> 32:11.720]  I mean, I think, from my point of view, even if you stand up publicly and you force the government to show how unjust it is in a public way, and you get smacked down and just, you know, humiliated, but you do it with dignity, that there's some huge value in that.
[32:11.920 --> 32:17.700]  There's value in being brave and public, and that you could potentially inspire other people to be brave.
[32:17.880 --> 32:21.140]  So I'm kind of hearing that, in other words, you...
[32:21.140 --> 32:39.900]  Had you kind of blurted on Pace Bin or done sort of a, like, reflexive... to just get it off your chest, you might not have had as fruitful a result for... even though it was a bit lower in your expectations, you feel like it was worth going that route,
[32:39.900 --> 32:47.120]  because had you just sort of done that, you would have just had more... they would have had more fodder to come against you for not following the process?
[32:47.120 --> 32:47.920]  Is that kind of what you're saying?
[32:47.920 --> 32:51.480]  Yeah, I guess what I mean to say, I guess you're right, I didn't close that loop.
[32:52.160 --> 33:02.080]  What I meant to say is that, yeah, if I had just gone public with it, you know, I think what would have happened would be that I would have ended up in jail, and we wouldn't have...
[33:02.080 --> 33:11.040]  the law would never have been ruled unconstitutional, and we wouldn't have these arguments to make against this type of a procedure.
[33:11.780 --> 33:18.940]  And in the end, we, you know, we would have... we as a society, and we as a culture would have gained less.
[33:19.300 --> 33:25.120]  And so, on top of it, I would have sat there and rotted in jail and for nothing.
[33:25.400 --> 33:30.060]  Yeah, we wouldn't have been able to look at that, look at the case so much as you being victimized in jail.
[33:30.060 --> 33:32.740]  Right, and nobody would have known why, and...
[33:32.740 --> 33:33.420]  For trying to speak up.
[33:33.580 --> 33:36.900]  Yeah, and I'm not sure... yeah, I'm happy I didn't do that.
[33:37.180 --> 33:51.620]  So are we, especially, you know, people who have been following this case, you know, with great interest, us and others have definitely appreciate the fact that you stuck to your guns on this, because I can imagine how, like, just reading this letter,
[33:51.880 --> 33:53.300]  it's scary stuff.
[33:53.300 --> 34:12.200]  And it comes from scary people, and it seems, you know, to somebody who maybe doesn't have activist leanings or who doesn't have the urge to rebel against something like this or fight it, you know, think of all those hundreds of thousands of people who have gotten one of these and just went with it because it's frightening.
[34:12.520 --> 34:18.660]  And maybe wouldn't have even thought of the possibility of fighting it or anything like that.
[34:19.360 --> 34:23.540]  And this is the national security letter without identifying the target of it.
[34:24.220 --> 34:26.780]  This was all extra judicial, wasn't it?
[34:26.840 --> 34:32.220]  It wasn't part of, like, any actual investigation that was subject to any due process.
[34:33.440 --> 34:33.880]  Yeah.
[34:34.920 --> 34:44.600]  One of the first things that struck me when I read it was I kind of looked all around on it for that stamp from the court, and I wanted to know exactly which court has authorized the FBI to demand this information from me.
[34:44.600 --> 34:50.760]  And, you know, it wasn't stamped by a court, and it wasn't an authorized court order.
[34:50.980 --> 34:54.420]  It was just some letter from the FBI that said, give us all this stuff or else.
[34:55.760 --> 34:56.120]  And...
[34:56.120 --> 34:59.160]  Just reading the list, it seems also that...
[34:59.160 --> 35:00.020]  Two things.
[35:00.200 --> 35:02.220]  One was that you could easily mess up.
[35:02.320 --> 35:11.220]  I mean, I could see them, if you complied with any, you know, all of that, I could see them coming back and saying, well, you know, this isn't quite the whole log, and, you know, having a problem with any of it.
[35:11.220 --> 35:22.120]  I mean, just the process itself, if you were even to participate in that, I could just see so many areas where they could easily come back and say, well, no, no, this is incomplete for whatever, you know, whatever they want, right?
[35:22.300 --> 35:22.460]  Sure, sure.
[35:22.780 --> 35:28.960]  The other thing that I was wondering, just in hearing your story is, do you think perhaps it was also sort of a test that you're an ISP, right?
[35:29.240 --> 35:37.180]  That just to see if you would participate so that maybe they come back, do you think maybe you would have got other letters had you even tried to comply?
[35:37.840 --> 35:50.020]  You know, within... I can't exactly remember the timing of it, but within weeks or months after this, I get a phone call one day, I'm sitting at my desk, and, you know, the phone rings...
[35:50.020 --> 35:50.620]  You know what?
[35:50.720 --> 35:52.600]  I remember now, I did not answer the phone.
[35:52.720 --> 35:54.700]  I get a voicemail, and I listen to the voicemail.
[35:54.920 --> 36:02.160]  And the voicemail goes something like this, like, Hi, my name's Rob Grace, and I'm with the Secret Service, and I'm calling you about blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
[36:02.160 --> 36:06.800]  And it turns out that this guy is calling me because one of the...
[36:06.800 --> 36:14.080]  one of the activist groups that I host, at least part of, not the whole thing, but I hosted part of the independent media center, IndyMedia.
[36:15.640 --> 36:21.420]  And right in 2004, in New York, the Republicans held their national convention here.
[36:21.540 --> 36:22.220]  I remember that.
[36:22.220 --> 36:25.880]  Yeah, it was, it was a big, it was a big to-do in the city.
[36:27.300 --> 36:31.580]  And somebody, because, you know, people may or may not remember IndyMedia.
[36:31.720 --> 36:33.040]  It's kind of ancient history at this point.
[36:33.220 --> 36:35.400]  It's kind of a semi-defunct organization.
[36:35.400 --> 36:36.640]  Well, they're in this building, aren't they?
[36:37.180 --> 36:37.900]  The newspaper.
[36:38.020 --> 36:38.260]  Okay.
[36:38.420 --> 36:38.920]  The newspaper.
[36:39.140 --> 36:40.340]  The newspaper's going strong.
[36:40.500 --> 36:40.780]  Right.
[36:40.900 --> 36:41.400]  But the websites...
[36:41.400 --> 36:42.940]  Which seems unusual when you think about it.
[36:43.020 --> 36:43.060]  Yes.
[36:43.060 --> 36:44.940]  An actual printed newspaper is going strong.
[36:45.040 --> 36:46.640]  A printed newspaper of a website.
[36:46.640 --> 36:48.140]  It seems very backwards, I know.
[36:48.280 --> 36:48.720]  I like it.
[36:48.920 --> 36:49.620]  Yeah, I like it.
[36:49.620 --> 36:50.200]  It's interesting.
[36:50.680 --> 36:51.900]  But somebody...
[36:51.900 --> 36:59.360]  IndyMedia, for people that don't remember, they used to have an open newswire that anybody could post information to, and they didn't log IP addresses.
[37:00.400 --> 37:08.320]  And whatever information they posted to this newswire would be syndicated among the 100 plus IndyMedia chapters that were all over the world.
[37:08.560 --> 37:16.180]  So it was like an anarchist collective that was anti-censorship and anti-government control.
[37:16.180 --> 37:21.000]  And their whole tagline was, don't hate the media, be the media, which was great.
[37:21.520 --> 37:30.560]  So somebody posted to the New York City IndyMedia chapter the list of all the Republican delegates to the Republican National Convention.
[37:30.560 --> 37:31.280]  I remember that too.
[37:32.320 --> 37:37.240]  And what the Secret Service was calling me for was they wanted to know exactly who posted that.
[37:37.980 --> 37:43.540]  And they figured that I, as the person running the ISP that hosted their site, might know.
[37:44.720 --> 37:48.220]  But the funny thing was the guy called up and he was very...
[37:48.220 --> 37:50.880]  He had this Southern drawl and he was very friendly.
[37:50.880 --> 37:51.480]  Show me.
[37:51.800 --> 37:51.920]  Yeah.
[37:52.000 --> 37:56.840]  He was like, hey, Nick, like, you wanna give me this info, which I'm sure you probably have.
[37:57.680 --> 38:05.720]  And I was shocked because I thought in my conspiratorial mind, I thought, well, the whole government must know that I'm suing the FBI right now.
[38:05.840 --> 38:11.740]  So I was in the middle of the lawsuit over the NSL and I thought like, how come this guy isn't read in on what's going on?
[38:11.820 --> 38:18.400]  Like, why is he coming to me as if I'm gonna just give him stuff without a warrant or even a piece of paper?
[38:18.400 --> 38:20.700]  Like, he was just like, just, just give me stuff, you know?
[38:20.920 --> 38:23.200]  And I was like, no, uh, go get a warrant.
[38:24.300 --> 38:25.800]  So, uh, what happened?
[38:25.920 --> 38:39.760]  The next thing was they, they came back and they actually got a grand jury subpoena and they came back with a grand jury subpoena, but this was the really weird ironic thing that it was, it was dark and ironic that they, they were accusing whoever posted this list of the Republican delegates,
[38:40.000 --> 38:54.560]  uh, to IndyMedia, they were accusing them of violating, uh, a civil rights era voter intimidation law, which was, you know, used usually for like Southern sheriffs that would stand at the polling site with billy clubs hitting their hand with the billy club.
[38:54.660 --> 39:04.100]  Like it was, it was a law that was meant to stop basically like, you know, uh, I'm going to offend someone, but like, you know, kind of like redneck-y people from the South from like stopping black people from voting.
[39:04.520 --> 39:10.580]  Um, they tried to use that law against whoever posted the list of the delegates to this, uh, website.
[39:10.780 --> 39:12.140]  And, and it was, it was really ironic.
[39:12.320 --> 39:18.500]  And, and the, the, the, the, what made it even more ironic was that this list was just, uh, scraped from public sources.
[39:18.700 --> 39:18.720]  Yeah.
[39:18.720 --> 39:20.580]  I mean, the list of delegates is not a secret list.
[39:20.880 --> 39:21.560]  No, no, it wasn't.
[39:21.580 --> 39:25.980]  It was like they, they scraped it from like every state, uh, RNC chapter or whatever.
[39:26.180 --> 39:27.420]  So organized information.
[39:27.420 --> 39:33.000]  You have to figure that other people, other entities might be asked for similar information and they wouldn't refuse.
[39:33.360 --> 39:36.380]  And, and this gives an indication as to what the government is interested in.
[39:36.500 --> 39:49.880]  If you post information, even if it's publicly available information, they're going to start looking into you and asking, uh, the various, uh, ISPs or companies out there that have information about your whereabouts, your IP, your phone number, uh, and,
[39:49.960 --> 39:52.540]  and they will willingly give that information out and you may never find out.
[39:53.020 --> 39:53.420]  Yeah.
[39:53.600 --> 39:58.360]  I mean, I think it would be safe to assume that somehow the government has looked after me a little bit here and there.
[39:58.580 --> 40:01.400]  Uh, the cool thing is I'm a pretty upstanding guy.
[40:01.400 --> 40:03.900]  So, uh, so nothing came of that.
[40:04.440 --> 40:12.100]  Um, you know, there were, there were a couple of times when I had weird problems, uh, getting on airplanes and stuff like that, but mostly that some of them were my fault.
[40:12.580 --> 40:16.840]  Uh, like I let the CCC guys buy my airplane ticket one time.
[40:16.920 --> 40:17.320]  Oh, wow.
[40:17.440 --> 40:18.360]  That was just stupid.
[40:18.960 --> 40:20.160]  Wait, wait, hold on.
[40:20.320 --> 40:21.100]  Why is that stupid?
[40:21.220 --> 40:25.140]  What, what, what happens if you get the German, uh, hackers buy you a plane ticket?
[40:25.200 --> 40:30.100]  Because like some of them are, some of them are, I think like the, the guy who bought Andy Mueller Magoon.
[40:30.280 --> 40:31.000]  I know Andy well.
[40:31.100 --> 40:32.000]  He bought my plane ticket.
[40:32.340 --> 40:32.360]  Yes.
[40:32.820 --> 40:33.800]  So, so I don't know.
[40:33.880 --> 40:38.940]  He, this was in the middle of the whole, uh, uh, Assange stuff and WikiLeaks and you know, it was just bad.
[40:39.060 --> 40:43.980]  So I almost didn't make my flight that time, but for the most part, uh, I think it's been okay.
[40:43.980 --> 40:56.980]  But you know, I look, let me tell you when I, when I filed this lawsuit against the national security letters in the first place, I figured that I was signing my own death warrant and I was, I was kind of like at peace with that in a weird way.
[40:57.540 --> 40:59.880]  Um, I'm trying to remember what's the name of that.
[41:00.000 --> 41:03.860]  There's, there's this movie called, uh, did you ever see this movie called true romance?
[41:04.120 --> 41:04.300]  Yes.
[41:04.660 --> 41:21.060]  So, you know, do you remember the scene with Christopher Walken and, uh, what's the other guy, uh, uh, Dennis Hopper, where, you know, Walken is this mob guy and, uh, Hopper has some secret that he won't tell the mob guy.
[41:21.240 --> 41:28.580]  And then at a certain point, this aria starts to play when Dennis Hopper realizes that he's screwed and he decides to just kind of go for it.
[41:29.160 --> 41:30.140]  It's a beautiful scene.
[41:30.220 --> 41:30.720]  You should watch it.
[41:30.820 --> 41:37.760]  If you've never seen true romance, just fast forward through the, the movie sucks, kinda fast forward through the whole movie till you get to the scene with Christopher Walken and Dennis Hopper.
[41:37.840 --> 41:38.540]  And that's how you felt.
[41:39.020 --> 41:40.460]  Like I was like, okay, you know what?
[41:40.540 --> 41:41.680]  I'm totally screwed here.
[41:41.860 --> 41:45.160]  I wanna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna be as brave as I possibly can.
[41:45.300 --> 41:46.340]  I'm just gonna go for it.
[41:47.400 --> 41:52.860]  I'd had a discussion with the ACLU when I filed this lawsuit and the discussion went like this.
[41:52.980 --> 41:56.380]  They said, look, you know, if we want to, we want to have full disclosure with you.
[41:56.480 --> 42:03.260]  If you file this lawsuit against the FBI, uh, you know, John Ashcroft keeps telling everyone you better watch what you say.
[42:03.460 --> 42:13.360]  And, and George Bush kept saying at that time, if I want to, I can declare any of you to be an enemy combatant and just put a bag on your head and just drag you away and you'll never be heard from again.
[42:13.900 --> 42:18.920]  So it was a very rough time, uh, with a lot of kind of threats coming from the, from the top.
[42:19.160 --> 42:24.500]  And I said to the ACLU, how do I know that they won't just put a bag on my head and drag me away?
[42:25.120 --> 42:27.720]  How do I know they won't declare me to be an enemy combatant?
[42:27.920 --> 42:33.700]  Or, or like, and they were telling me stuff like, well, maybe the IRS will audit you like from now till you die.
[42:33.700 --> 42:36.620]  Or maybe guys will follow you everywhere.
[42:36.620 --> 42:37.780]  Or maybe this will happen.
[42:37.880 --> 42:38.460]  Maybe that will happen.
[42:38.540 --> 42:40.940]  And I, I just skipped all that.
[42:40.940 --> 42:43.520]  I was like, wait, what about putting a bag on my head and dragging me away?
[42:43.800 --> 42:44.960]  That's what I'm afraid of.
[42:45.060 --> 42:46.300]  Is it the bag that you worry about?
[42:46.420 --> 42:47.420]  Or is it being dragged away?
[42:47.560 --> 42:52.120]  No, it's more like what happened afterwards where they start pulling your toenails out or I don't know what they do when they get you to that place.
[42:52.120 --> 42:52.920]  It's a variety of things.
[42:53.040 --> 42:53.200]  Yes.
[42:53.440 --> 42:53.680]  Yeah.
[42:53.800 --> 42:55.360]  But you know, so I was afraid of that.
[42:55.540 --> 42:59.720]  And, and, but you know, they said, we don't know, we don't know if that's going to happen.
[42:59.820 --> 43:03.420]  And we can't tell you that it's not, which was, you know, an honest answer.
[43:04.280 --> 43:06.160]  But I was like, okay, well, let's do this anyway.
[43:07.000 --> 43:16.200]  One characteristic of the letter that I'd really love to touch upon is how we had the redacted version and then the unredacted version, which showed exactly the sorts of things that they were redacting.
[43:16.320 --> 43:17.320]  Could you talk about that a bit?
[43:17.920 --> 43:18.280]  Sure.
[43:18.440 --> 43:18.560]  Sure.
[43:18.560 --> 43:18.600]  Sure.
[43:19.120 --> 43:22.460]  Uh, there is a really amazing blogger out there.
[43:22.560 --> 43:23.860]  Whose name is Marcy Wheeler.
[43:24.200 --> 43:28.480]  And she has a blog, uh, called empty wheel.
[43:28.620 --> 43:29.700]  It's empty wheel.net.
[43:30.240 --> 43:35.400]  Uh, she is a very, very sharp person and very detail oriented.
[43:35.400 --> 43:46.640]  And one of the things that happened just now when we released the judge's decision for my case, the final decision was that she looked at the one that had been released 90 days ago, which was completely censored and redacted.
[43:46.720 --> 43:50.320]  And then she compared it against the one we released just now, which is completely unredacted.
[43:50.440 --> 43:57.240]  And then she started to kind of analyze all the things that they had censored with that black magic marker and, and try to look at why.
[43:57.780 --> 44:01.780]  And some of the funny stuff that, uh, she has a whole blog post just on that.
[44:01.780 --> 44:22.880]  Uh, there was a footnote at the end of I think page 21 or 22 where essentially the judge really gives hell to the FBI for, uh, some of the really, I don't, I'm trying to be nicer than, than she was, but, but really specious kind of arguments.
[44:22.880 --> 44:27.500]  They made really bizarre arguments and the judge just smacked them down.
[44:27.700 --> 44:40.180]  And then what the FBI did was when they were going to release the judge's decision, they decided to redact the part of the decision where the judge kind of said, you guys are, uh, I don't want to say idiots, but that that's kind of almost like what he,
[44:40.320 --> 44:41.060]  what he called them.
[44:41.180 --> 44:58.020]  It was, it was, there was a lot of abuse of the redaction pen in this case, where the FBI seemed to be, uh, using, using their censorship ability to just cover up, uh, things that were embarrassing to them rather than things that were national security secrets.
[44:58.280 --> 45:12.240]  We're speaking with ISP founder Nick Merrill, who has been doing battle with the FBI over national security letters for over a decade and said some bit of good news in the last couple of weeks, probably the best news that we could hope for, even though it's not a resounding victory.
[45:12.400 --> 45:14.800]  If you'd like to join the conversation, give us a call.
[45:14.800 --> 45:19.740]  We can take your phone calls, 718-780-8888.
[45:19.920 --> 45:22.660]  That's 718-780-8888.
[45:22.800 --> 45:27.980]  And Bernie, uh, we're not sure yet if, uh, we'll be able to have phone callers on the same time you're on.
[45:28.160 --> 45:29.040]  Uh, we might not be able to hear them.
[45:29.080 --> 45:30.540]  If that's the case, we'll have to put you on hold again.
[45:30.720 --> 45:31.120]  I understand.
[45:31.120 --> 45:31.780]  We'll find out.
[45:31.900 --> 45:35.320]  Did you have any, uh, comments or questions for Nick, uh, before we start taking phone calls?
[45:35.500 --> 45:38.940]  Well, Rob just raised a question I wanted to about what, what did the FBI redact?
[45:39.420 --> 45:48.080]  And it looks like they just redacted stuff that, uh, the judge basically told the FBI that some of the FBI's claims were, uh, full of crap.
[45:48.080 --> 45:55.320]  And, uh, for the, for the FBI to redact that and claim that was for national security reasons.
[45:55.480 --> 46:06.160]  I'm wondering, can the FBI be held accountable for effectively lying, uh, about this being, uh, a matter of national security when it was really just a safe face?
[46:07.200 --> 46:10.400]  Bernie, this court case has been going on for 11 years of mixed life.
[46:10.580 --> 46:11.340]  You really want him to?
[46:11.440 --> 46:11.660]  Another 10 years.
[46:12.320 --> 46:12.680]  Yeah.
[46:12.800 --> 46:14.680]  Let's not go back into the courtroom that, uh, that quickly.
[46:14.860 --> 46:16.480]  Hey, let's, uh, let's take a phone call.
[46:16.700 --> 46:17.520]  Uh, good evening.
[46:17.540 --> 46:19.040]  You're on off the hook.
[46:20.360 --> 46:21.220]  Is anyone there?
[46:22.320 --> 46:22.680]  Okay.
[46:22.720 --> 46:23.820]  It's happening again, folks.
[46:23.960 --> 46:24.340]  It's happening again.
[46:24.480 --> 46:26.760]  So we're both yellow pots.
[46:26.940 --> 46:27.940]  Well, no one told me that, Max.
[46:27.940 --> 46:28.400]  Well, I didn't.
[46:28.500 --> 46:29.000]  I'm telling you.
[46:29.000 --> 46:29.460]  All right.
[46:30.360 --> 46:30.980]  Thank you.
[46:31.360 --> 46:32.980]  Uh, I can hear you.
[46:33.080 --> 46:33.680]  Can you hear me?
[46:33.780 --> 46:34.180]  We can hear you.
[46:34.260 --> 46:34.620]  Wow.
[46:34.740 --> 46:34.920]  Okay.
[46:34.920 --> 46:36.560]  We just got schooled on how to use the phone system.
[46:36.680 --> 46:36.820]  All right.
[46:37.100 --> 46:38.880]  Uh, so what's your question?
[46:39.260 --> 46:39.620]  Okay.
[46:39.620 --> 46:40.320]  Excellent.
[46:40.800 --> 46:42.080]  Um, piece.
[46:42.400 --> 46:52.680]  Um, I would like, uh, to, I don't know if I've missed something, but I would like to hear more about the chronology of the lawsuit in terms of timeframe.
[46:53.420 --> 47:06.480]  And I'd like to know if he's considering, because I think this needs to be put in a book, if he's considering, even if he uses a ghostwriter or what have you, or an associate, and I'll listen over the air.
[47:06.640 --> 47:06.980]  Thank you.
[47:06.980 --> 47:07.440]  All right.
[47:07.580 --> 47:08.100]  Thanks for your call.
[47:09.460 --> 47:10.640]  Well, thanks for that question.
[47:10.780 --> 47:13.340]  That's, that's an interesting, uh, it's an interesting idea.
[47:13.800 --> 47:16.500]  Um, the chronology, I'll try to do it as quickly as I can.
[47:16.600 --> 47:19.740]  I mean, in, in February of 2004, I get this letter.
[47:20.140 --> 47:22.420]  Uh, the letter demands this information from me.
[47:22.580 --> 47:28.840]  I take two or three days, uh, to sort of overcome my fear of the fact that the letter says I can never tell anyone.
[47:28.840 --> 47:31.200]  Instead, I call the ACLU.
[47:31.420 --> 47:32.480]  I sue the government.
[47:32.940 --> 47:35.420]  Uh, we win in the lower court.
[47:35.800 --> 47:38.440]  Uh, it goes up to the second circuit court of appeals.
[47:38.640 --> 47:39.440]  We win there.
[47:40.060 --> 47:41.980]  Well, actually, no, they, we don't win there.
[47:42.080 --> 47:45.860]  They, they kick us back to the beginning because in the meantime, the Congress amended the law.
[47:46.120 --> 47:50.940]  Uh, then we win again at the lowest court because the amended version is also unconstitutional.
[47:51.360 --> 47:53.020]  Then we go back to the second circuit.
[47:53.380 --> 47:54.920]  They kind of decide in my favor.
[47:55.480 --> 47:58.660]  Uh, by now it's already like six years or something.
[47:58.940 --> 47:59.940]  Uh, it's like 2010.
[48:00.460 --> 48:04.120]  Uh, I asked to be, I asked to make a deal with the government.
[48:04.280 --> 48:12.700]  The deal with the government that I make is that I can admit that I am the John Doe that filed this lawsuit and I can say that I got the letter.
[48:12.820 --> 48:14.320]  That's all that I can say at that point.
[48:14.480 --> 48:14.700]  Okay.
[48:14.840 --> 48:24.300]  But I think that it's valuable because I, at this point I start a nonprofit organization called the Calix Institute, which is named after the ISP that I used to run, which was Calix internet access.
[48:24.860 --> 48:35.460]  Uh, I, I start to feel at a certain point that the, the litigation by suing in the court is possibly, uh, not, not the best strategy.
[48:35.540 --> 48:41.080]  And I also start to feel that legislative, uh, reform is not really going to be happening in my lifetime.
[48:41.460 --> 48:47.860]  So, uh, I started to think maybe there's a third way, maybe the third way towards reform is a technological approach.
[48:47.860 --> 48:50.820]  So that's kind of what my nonprofit focuses on.
[48:51.260 --> 48:58.920]  Uh, once I get this agreement from the government that, that basically what I give them in return is that I will stop suing them at least for the time being.
[48:59.220 --> 49:04.560]  I, I, I retain the right to go back and sue them more later, but at that point I will stop suing them.
[49:04.720 --> 49:06.220]  They will let me say that I'm John Doe.
[49:06.300 --> 49:07.620]  Then I start this nonprofit.
[49:08.440 --> 49:14.000]  Uh, essentially I wait three years, uh, while I kind of like go back and live my life a little bit.
[49:14.320 --> 49:28.400]  And then, then after a three year breather, I come back and I start suing them again, this time without the American civil liberties union, but with a Yale law school represents me, uh, something called the media freedom and information access, uh, law clinic at Yale helps me.
[49:28.400 --> 49:37.040]  So these are like the top, you know, 300 IQ brainiac, super amazing law students and, and a bunch of, uh, law professors that, that supervise them.
[49:37.380 --> 49:42.680]  Uh, they helped me do the last two or three years of the lawsuit and they completely crushed the government.
[49:42.840 --> 49:44.720]  And that's how we got to where we are today.
[49:45.380 --> 49:45.660]  Awesome.
[49:46.340 --> 49:56.400]  I, you know, I think not only is there a book there, there's a movie, especially when you talk about, uh, intimidation tactics and things, dirty tricks that, uh, the government, uh, um, engages in.
[49:56.640 --> 49:57.000]  Possibly.
[49:57.000 --> 50:02.460]  Mike, I did want to ask you, uh, if you could talk a bit more about the work that you're doing now with the Calix Institute.
[50:02.680 --> 50:04.160]  And let me just give out the phone number one more time too.
[50:04.280 --> 50:08.420]  We have a room for a couple more calls, uh, 718-780-8888.
[50:09.300 --> 50:09.660]  Sure.
[50:10.080 --> 50:15.640]  Uh, my nonprofit, you know, one of the things that it, that it's supposed to do is to educate the public about privacy.
[50:16.080 --> 50:20.940]  Um, and, but another thing that it's supposed to do is it sort of comes from my whole experience.
[50:20.940 --> 50:28.260]  And one of the things that I wanted to do was to build, to, to help service providers, uh, not be in the position that I found myself in.
[50:28.580 --> 50:32.000]  And I started to have a thought about the telecommunication system as a whole.
[50:32.000 --> 50:35.800]  I think actually, you know, the people sitting around this table would appreciate this, this idea.
[50:35.960 --> 50:41.800]  I started to remember like in the movies, before they even had rotary dialing, you had to like click the receiver on the phone.
[50:41.940 --> 50:45.620]  The operator would pick up and you would say, hi operator, please give me Dr. Jones.
[50:45.820 --> 50:47.320]  Then she would plug in this cable.
[50:48.260 --> 50:52.980]  And, but of course in the movies anyway, the operator would always be listening in on your call.
[50:53.100 --> 50:59.020]  And she knew exactly what, you know, she knew if you were calling the doctor to say like it hurts when I pee or something, and then she would be spreading rumors.
[50:59.180 --> 51:04.220]  And, you know, that, that person was like the gossip of the town and knew everything.
[51:04.580 --> 51:17.920]  And, you know, fast forward to like, you know, after we get crossbar switching and then we get digital telephony and then we get, uh, the internet and then we get, you know, packet-based telephony and all this stuff, really the system kind of works in the same way.
[51:18.040 --> 51:23.400]  It's just as transparent at the end as it was at the beginning, except it just works a lot faster and there's a lot more of it.
[51:24.020 --> 51:29.540]  So that was this thought I had, like why, why hasn't, why has the system progressed so much in terms of speed?
[51:29.600 --> 51:35.420]  And also maybe the analog to digital shift was huge, but essentially it's not that much different than it was at the beginning.
[51:35.560 --> 51:36.280]  And why is that?
[51:36.420 --> 51:37.380]  And isn't that a huge mistake?
[51:37.520 --> 51:42.080]  So I started to think, isn't, shouldn't we be re-imagining how the telecom system is built?
[51:42.080 --> 51:45.720]  And shouldn't we look at sort of building privacy in at the lowest level?
[51:46.140 --> 51:48.440]  Like what if the telephone system is just encrypted by default?
[51:48.480 --> 51:50.380]  And what if ISPs were all encrypted by default?
[51:50.540 --> 51:51.840]  And how do we do that?
[51:52.060 --> 51:56.860]  So that a lot of that is essentially the type of like think tank stuff that my nonprofit does.
[51:57.180 --> 52:00.600]  Let's take, uh, one more phone call or maybe a couple more phone calls if we can.
[52:01.160 --> 52:01.740]  Good evening.
[52:01.900 --> 52:02.940]  You're on off the hook.
[52:04.660 --> 52:05.320]  Oh, excellent.
[52:05.480 --> 52:05.640]  Hello.
[52:06.760 --> 52:07.260]  Go ahead.
[52:07.340 --> 52:07.640]  You're on the air.
[52:08.360 --> 52:08.960]  Oh, yes.
[52:08.960 --> 52:21.780]  Um, I was just enjoying the talk with Nick, if I got it correctly, about the, um, just his concepts and timeline from the previous caller inquiry about the timeline, how ridiculous it was in resetting.
[52:21.920 --> 52:23.300]  It has some similar correlations.
[52:23.360 --> 52:29.780]  It seems like mortgages are about the same scenario on just the ridiculous legislative juggles or paperwork.
[52:29.780 --> 52:39.140]  Anyways, um, I also like the unreasonable people are the ones that are deemed just not worthwhile in the court because they seem like the ones that care the most.
[52:39.680 --> 52:43.780]  However, you know, given any concern is calls for alarm these days.
[52:45.440 --> 52:45.840]  Okay.
[52:46.060 --> 52:46.840]  Well, thank you for your call.
[52:47.460 --> 52:47.640]  Yep.
[52:47.820 --> 52:48.200]  Oh, sorry.
[52:48.280 --> 52:48.820]  Last ramble.
[52:49.020 --> 52:57.680]  And two, uh, I believe college, uh, with the Google Chromebooks, a bunch of the kids in that tier, they're also seeing their data selected off for profit and slithering out.
[52:57.680 --> 52:58.540]  Oh yeah.
[52:58.660 --> 52:58.820]  Thanks.
[52:59.000 --> 52:59.600]  All right.
[53:00.600 --> 53:01.500]  And good evening.
[53:01.700 --> 53:02.040]  Hang on.
[53:02.420 --> 53:03.300]  Uh, good evening.
[53:03.440 --> 53:03.900]  You're on the air.
[53:04.080 --> 53:04.360]  Go ahead.
[53:05.940 --> 53:06.560]  Speak up.
[53:07.380 --> 53:07.920]  All right.
[53:08.040 --> 53:08.700]  We hear you.
[53:10.080 --> 53:10.480]  Okay.
[53:10.480 --> 53:11.240]  We have to move on.
[53:11.780 --> 53:12.520]  Good evening.
[53:12.660 --> 53:13.500]  You're on the air.
[53:13.640 --> 53:14.080]  Speak up, please.
[53:14.960 --> 53:15.660]  Hi, good evening.
[53:15.920 --> 53:19.840]  Um, I just wanted to say to the, uh, is it Nick is your name?
[53:20.440 --> 53:20.840]  Yes.
[53:21.080 --> 53:21.240]  Gentlemen.
[53:21.560 --> 53:21.760]  Correct.
[53:22.020 --> 53:22.600]  Yo, my man.
[53:22.780 --> 53:23.580]  Thank you very much.
[53:23.680 --> 53:31.620]  Cause I know a lot of times with situations like that, part of why it probably took so long is that they were hoping that over those 11 years that you might've actually given up.
[53:31.820 --> 53:32.180]  Right.
[53:32.360 --> 53:33.260]  And just got, got tired.
[53:33.360 --> 53:36.180]  Maybe you, you wouldn't have had enough money to actually fight it.
[53:36.320 --> 53:36.540]  Right.
[53:36.660 --> 53:37.840]  Cause lawyers cost money.
[53:37.960 --> 53:38.120]  Right.
[53:38.320 --> 53:39.300]  And things of that nature.
[53:39.480 --> 53:39.620]  Right.
[53:39.620 --> 53:41.660]  And just to make one other point.
[53:41.840 --> 53:42.280]  Yes.
[53:42.760 --> 53:44.520]  Um, actually two other points.
[53:45.520 --> 53:55.080]  One, another thing is that it's good to know that cause you sound like you're somebody who's relatively comfortable in life, you know, not that you're, you know, a step away or two from being homeless.
[53:55.280 --> 54:00.040]  And a lot of times people in those situations, they're the ones that let us down.
[54:00.300 --> 54:00.600]  Yes.
[54:00.780 --> 54:02.440]  Because they want more of that money.
[54:02.540 --> 54:03.680]  They want more of that comfort.
[54:03.680 --> 54:06.080]  And those are the reasons why they give into things like that.
[54:06.240 --> 54:06.440]  Yes.
[54:06.840 --> 54:07.200]  And...
[54:07.200 --> 54:09.400]  I just want to say, you, you might be surprised.
[54:09.400 --> 54:11.460]  I do have a lot of ramen noodles in my cabinet.
[54:11.900 --> 54:12.000]  Actually.
[54:13.900 --> 54:15.920]  Um, just to make one more point.
[54:16.180 --> 54:20.080]  Uh, it was about, you know, one of the stories you guys dealt with in the opening.
[54:20.480 --> 54:22.040]  You were talking about that VTech stuff.
[54:22.240 --> 54:22.600]  Yes.
[54:22.680 --> 54:23.400]  It is so funny.
[54:23.520 --> 54:29.940]  Over the weekend, um, I was actually watching something on the history channel and they were talking about the Pentagon or something like that.
[54:30.040 --> 54:31.180]  Things that have happened over time.
[54:31.180 --> 54:38.800]  And there was this one particular toy that had come out, um, and had the ability in some way or another to like communicate with kids, almost like you can learn.
[54:38.920 --> 54:39.420]  It was a Furby.
[54:39.920 --> 54:40.320]  Yeah.
[54:40.480 --> 54:52.620]  And they were saying that because of, they didn't trust the way that the, the toy was interacting with people and they didn't know how it was coming up with being able to answer people that they literally banned it from the Pentagon.
[54:52.820 --> 54:59.980]  Like you weren't allowed to have one of those in the building because they were concerned that, you know, somehow or another, that information was getting out somewhere.
[54:59.980 --> 55:00.480]  Yeah.
[55:00.620 --> 55:01.980]  They could be accessed by somebody.
[55:02.220 --> 55:09.160]  And what was especially funny about the Furby thing was that, um, that whole thing was a fiction created for the characters when the actual toy itself wasn't recording anything.
[55:09.600 --> 55:15.960]  They came back out and they said that, you know, none of that ever, uh, was, it was actually possible anyway, but it's just ironic that, you know what I mean?
[55:16.220 --> 55:18.120]  That now it's possible with the, with toys.
[55:18.140 --> 55:20.500]  It actually is a threat to a degree.
[55:21.180 --> 55:21.960]  It's a new Barbie.
[55:22.020 --> 55:22.880]  The new Barbie does it.
[55:24.020 --> 55:25.820]  I guess it gave people ideas back then.
[55:25.820 --> 55:26.340]  Yeah.
[55:26.440 --> 55:29.500]  A lot of these toys are wifi enabled now, just out of the box.
[55:29.740 --> 55:30.860]  Thanks so much for that call.
[55:31.460 --> 55:32.780]  Thank you for, for the show.
[55:32.860 --> 55:34.280]  You guys did a great program today.
[55:34.400 --> 55:34.700]  Thank you.
[55:34.800 --> 55:35.040]  Thank you.
[55:35.240 --> 55:35.520]  Take care.
[55:35.760 --> 55:36.360]  Thank you for coming.
[55:36.360 --> 55:41.100]  And, uh, if you weren't able to make it through tonight, you can write to us OTH at 2600.com.
[55:41.220 --> 55:47.340]  Nick, any, uh, any words you want to give out about, um, how people can contact your organization, maybe make donations or anything?
[55:47.580 --> 55:47.920]  Sure.
[55:48.400 --> 55:52.640]  Uh, my organization is called the Calyx Institute.
[55:52.860 --> 55:55.620]  Calyx is spelled C-A-L-Y-X.
[55:55.900 --> 56:01.220]  Uh, it shouldn't be too hard to find us on, you know, Twitter or Facebook or look for our website.
[56:01.460 --> 56:03.180]  It's calyxinstitute.org.
[56:03.780 --> 56:11.940]  Uh, we're based, we're based in Manhattan and, uh, well, we're, we're a very small, uh, very underfunded organization.
[56:11.960 --> 56:12.420]  Actually.
[56:12.580 --> 56:22.780]  I wanted to say, you know, uh, I'm glad that I don't come off sounding like I'm super poor and, and broke, but I do actually have huge holes in my shoes and the organization does have debt.
[56:22.900 --> 56:25.340]  We do do a bunch of really interesting work.
[56:25.420 --> 56:30.380]  We host, uh, I would say it's a recognizable portion of the tour infrastructure.
[56:30.380 --> 56:32.000]  We host a lot of tour servers.
[56:32.000 --> 56:39.600]  Uh, we host a really interesting instant messaging server, uh, that forces people to use OTR encryption end to end.
[56:40.020 --> 56:44.520]  Uh, and we, we do a lot of, uh, work that I think is kind of cool.
[56:44.640 --> 56:45.580]  I like to think it's cool.
[56:45.740 --> 56:51.220]  Uh, but we, we have a really hard time finding funding for it and we could totally use it any donation, even if it's like a dollar.
[56:52.100 --> 57:03.920]  Well, I think we owe you a tremendous debt, a lot more than a dollar, uh, because, um, it's people like you who stand up to the injustice and, and actually aren't afraid to, um, uh, to face down incredible opponents.
[57:04.000 --> 57:12.460]  Uh, they're the ones that are responsible for salvaging what's, uh, what's left of our society and hopefully having some, some victories in the future as well.
[57:12.900 --> 57:14.580]  Uh, so Nick, thank you very much for that.
[57:14.740 --> 57:16.540]  Uh, hopefully we'll see you at the next conference.
[57:16.880 --> 57:17.960]  I would love to be there.
[57:18.080 --> 57:18.280]  All right.
[57:18.460 --> 57:21.540]  Well, the 11th hope is coming up more details on hope.net.
[57:21.580 --> 57:25.900]  In fact, the second, um, uh, ticket, uh, sale is happening next Sunday.
[57:26.040 --> 57:28.180]  I believe, uh, information on hope.net about that.
[57:28.500 --> 57:31.500]  And Rob, I believe you have something to tell us about something this Friday.
[57:31.760 --> 57:31.960]  Yes.
[57:32.220 --> 57:33.420]  2600 meetings all over the world.
[57:33.540 --> 57:36.160]  Go to 2600.com slash meetings to find your own.
[57:36.300 --> 57:37.320]  If you don't find one, start one.
[57:38.020 --> 57:38.380]  Yes.
[57:38.480 --> 57:39.040]  It's that easy.
[57:39.660 --> 57:40.160]  All right.
[57:40.280 --> 57:41.640]  Uh, that's it for us this week.
[57:41.640 --> 57:45.560]  Again, our email address, O T H at 2600.com.
[57:46.100 --> 57:47.340]  Thanks to everybody who called in.
[57:47.440 --> 57:48.500]  Thanks for those of you listening.
[57:48.780 --> 57:51.260]  And thanks to those of you who fight for what's right.
[57:51.380 --> 57:52.100]  We'll see you next week.
[57:52.180 --> 57:52.300]  Good night.
[59:59.550 --> 01:00:00.550]  We'll see you next week.
[01:00:00.770 --> 01:00:00.910]  Bye.