[00:00.000 --> 00:02.860]  ...of African-American women were common in the Jim Crow South.
[00:03.360 --> 00:10.760]  Threatened that she would be killed if she told, she spoke out anyway, and the local NAACP sent their best organizer to help her.
[00:11.000 --> 00:12.960]  Her name was Rosa Parks.
[00:13.340 --> 00:19.000]  The campaign that followed became a nationwide protest and helped to spark the civil rights movement.
[00:19.400 --> 00:26.780]  Now a film has been made of this extraordinary story, and you can see it on March 7th at the Brooklyn Commons and stay for the panel afterward.
[00:26.780 --> 00:29.240]  This is a benefit for WBAI.
[00:29.320 --> 00:31.840]  For more information, go to WBAI.org.
[00:34.880 --> 00:37.200]  And this is WBAI New York.
[00:37.660 --> 00:38.520]  Or is it?
[00:38.660 --> 00:44.180]  It's 8 o'clock, and we have an interesting show coming up, another edition of Off the Hook.
[01:56.030 --> 02:01.010]  And that's another edition of Off the Hook here on WBAI.
[02:01.210 --> 02:02.890]  This is Emmanuel Goldstein tonight.
[02:02.890 --> 02:05.030]  I'm joined by Rob T.
[02:05.150 --> 02:05.670]  Firefly.
[02:05.850 --> 02:06.470]  Good evening.
[02:06.790 --> 02:08.030]  And Alex.
[02:08.430 --> 02:09.590]  Good evening, everyone.
[02:09.590 --> 02:10.430]  Hi, Kyle.
[02:10.690 --> 02:11.270]  What's up, everybody?
[02:11.490 --> 02:16.550]  I can't see because this poster of words we technically...
[02:16.550 --> 02:22.550]  Well, we shouldn't say these words ever on the radio, but we're not on the radio, but do not say these words.
[02:23.510 --> 02:28.170]  Okay, and our special guest has just arrived, but I want to intro him in a second.
[02:29.030 --> 02:32.290]  But just to update people, update people on what's going on.
[02:32.450 --> 02:33.230]  We're not on the air.
[02:33.690 --> 02:34.770]  Yeah, we're off the air.
[02:35.170 --> 02:36.130]  And we don't know what...
[02:36.130 --> 02:38.950]  Well, we do know why, sort of, is a problem with the Empire State Building.
[02:39.150 --> 02:40.030]  We can't find it.
[02:41.030 --> 02:46.870]  So if you're listening to us, you're listening to us either through an archive or online.
[02:48.050 --> 02:49.310]  So hello to all those people.
[02:49.470 --> 02:51.510]  And, you know, you can listen to us online if you're local, too.
[02:51.590 --> 02:52.570]  You don't have to listen to the...
[02:52.570 --> 02:58.030]  Well, I don't know who I'm telling this to because, obviously, if you can't hear me over the radio, maybe you can just spread the word.
[02:58.130 --> 03:06.430]  Maybe people can go, you know, door to door and tell people, Yes, you can listen to WBAI by going to WBAI.org and clicking on that little listen icon.
[03:06.590 --> 03:10.350]  And then you'll be able to pretend you have a radio.
[03:11.110 --> 03:12.490]  You could use the TuneIn app.
[03:12.930 --> 03:14.570]  The TuneIn app is great, actually.
[03:14.570 --> 03:16.130]  I think you can find WBAI there.
[03:16.350 --> 03:20.070]  It is really difficult on Alexa for some reason.
[03:20.410 --> 03:22.090]  And maybe people can help with this.
[03:22.410 --> 03:26.930]  The way Alexa works, you basically say, Alexa...
[03:26.930 --> 03:27.590]  How do you say it?
[03:27.610 --> 03:28.470]  What's the phrase?
[03:28.470 --> 03:31.770]  Well, it depends on what your wake word is.
[03:31.930 --> 03:37.930]  But, yeah, you basically announce Echo or Alexa, and then the wording is really tricky.
[03:37.950 --> 03:40.610]  For a normal radio station, you'd say, what, play the call letters?
[03:40.850 --> 03:43.370]  Play KXOT.
[03:43.710 --> 03:44.430]  Okay, all right.
[03:44.550 --> 03:48.630]  So when you try to say play WBAI, it gives you all this guff, you know?
[03:49.990 --> 03:53.150]  WBI, WBA, it gives you weird results.
[03:53.250 --> 03:55.250]  But I think you discovered the way to do it.
[03:55.290 --> 03:57.110]  You have to give the frequency in there for some reason?
[03:57.110 --> 03:57.770]  Yeah, yeah.
[03:57.850 --> 04:03.630]  It ends up being, play WBAI 99.5 FM New York.
[04:03.790 --> 04:05.110]  You have to say the entire thing.
[04:05.310 --> 04:10.530]  Okay, so somewhere, somebody said it wrong, so that you can't just say, play WBAI to Alexa.
[04:11.310 --> 04:15.470]  If a listener can help us figure out how to fix that, where we fix that, we'd love to do that.
[04:15.530 --> 04:17.410]  Because, you know, you can do it for other stations, too.
[04:17.470 --> 04:21.450]  It's really cool to be able to, say, play KPFA, you know, our sister station in Berkeley.
[04:21.610 --> 04:23.950]  And then you can listen to them in your house as if you were in Berkeley.
[04:24.530 --> 04:26.890]  And you can listen to WBAI wherever you are in the world.
[04:27.030 --> 04:27.430]  We've done it.
[04:27.730 --> 04:29.350]  And you don't need that damn transmitter.
[04:30.030 --> 04:31.470]  But we'd like to have it back.
[04:32.270 --> 04:34.610]  And I think there's a place in Woodstock also.
[04:34.790 --> 04:39.630]  I don't know what the frequency of the call letters are, but they also, I think, broadcast from our stream.
[04:39.830 --> 04:42.690]  So we're on FM just way upstate, I believe.
[04:43.130 --> 04:43.930]  That's probably the only...
[04:43.930 --> 04:46.110]  Get in your car and drive upstate if you want to hear us on the radio.
[04:46.370 --> 04:47.810]  But shout out to everybody there, you know.
[04:53.950 --> 04:55.870]  Do I have to raise my hand like he does?
[04:55.870 --> 04:57.050]  You need to use a microphone.
[04:57.990 --> 04:58.710]  Oh, microphone.
[04:58.870 --> 05:00.290]  Yeah, that's what we do here.
[05:00.350 --> 05:00.690]  It's traditional.
[05:00.910 --> 05:02.010]  Okay, so here's my first question.
[05:02.090 --> 05:03.690]  You've got to position your mouth next to it, though.
[05:03.910 --> 05:05.370]  My mouth next to the microphone.
[05:05.370 --> 05:06.510]  Yes, that's how we do it.
[05:06.690 --> 05:08.890]  Is that tip number one?
[05:08.930 --> 05:09.230]  Yes.
[05:09.670 --> 05:10.110]  Okay, so...
[05:10.110 --> 05:11.210]  You can disinfect afterwards.
[05:12.710 --> 05:13.810]  So here's my question.
[05:13.910 --> 05:13.990]  Yes.
[05:13.990 --> 05:16.710]  Do I need to use these since we're not on the air?
[05:17.030 --> 05:19.210]  Well, you still want to hear your voice, see how you sound.
[05:19.250 --> 05:21.610]  If you were wearing them now, you'd see how off-mic you are.
[05:21.790 --> 05:23.270]  So then you'd know to move closer.
[05:23.950 --> 05:25.430]  That's a little radio secret there.
[05:25.930 --> 05:26.330]  Okay.
[05:26.770 --> 05:31.370]  Now, Reggie, our engineer, is out in the hallways chewing out somebody.
[05:31.370 --> 05:32.150]  I'm not sure who.
[05:32.330 --> 05:33.350]  He's going to update us.
[05:33.430 --> 05:33.730]  Is that the stomping I hear?
[05:34.210 --> 05:36.010]  Well, yeah, there's a little bit of that going on.
[05:36.450 --> 05:43.110]  And as soon as we go back on the air, he's presumably going to tell us, and we'll know that we have a whole lot more listeners.
[05:43.910 --> 05:46.010]  I'm sorry, Steve, because we wanted you on.
[05:46.010 --> 05:51.830]  We wanted you to be speaking to all of New York City, and look what the government does to keep you off the air.
[05:51.910 --> 05:52.470]  You know, look at that.
[05:52.470 --> 05:56.370]  There were two guys with clippers down there, and I didn't realize this was the result.
[05:56.490 --> 05:56.930]  Nail clippers?
[05:57.270 --> 05:58.890]  No, the big...
[05:58.890 --> 05:59.230]  Oh.
[05:59.490 --> 06:00.270]  The big...
[06:00.270 --> 06:00.870]  Bolt cutters.
[06:00.970 --> 06:01.330]  Bolt cutters.
[06:01.390 --> 06:03.810]  I think that's the kind of clippers that Steve talks about.
[06:03.990 --> 06:04.330]  Wow.
[06:04.510 --> 06:04.910]  I should...
[06:04.910 --> 06:05.130]  Yeah.
[06:05.410 --> 06:06.670]  I forgot who I was talking to.
[06:07.910 --> 06:09.350]  I haven't seen you since...
[06:09.350 --> 06:10.450]  Hope hasn't been that long.
[06:10.650 --> 06:11.690]  Have I seen you since then?
[06:12.070 --> 06:14.350]  I might have seen you since then, maybe last year or something.
[06:14.470 --> 06:16.230]  But we haven't seen each other in a while.
[06:17.230 --> 06:20.710]  Hope was two years ago, and Hope is coming up this year as well.
[06:20.710 --> 06:24.130]  By the way, Hotel Pennsylvania owes you big money.
[06:24.330 --> 06:24.790]  Do they?
[06:25.190 --> 06:31.770]  We just took the entire hotel for the weekend of November 8th through the 11th.
[06:31.910 --> 06:32.390]  For what?
[06:32.950 --> 06:33.410]  Oh.
[06:34.470 --> 06:34.870]  Uh-huh.
[06:34.870 --> 06:36.390]  Did you think I wasn't going to ask?
[06:36.690 --> 06:37.210]  Your...
[06:37.790 --> 06:38.310]  Your...
[06:39.230 --> 06:39.750]  Your...
[06:39.750 --> 06:40.770]  I don't know.
[06:40.770 --> 06:43.210]  I'm not going to call you an infiltrator since you're like a partner.
[06:43.610 --> 06:44.130]  But...
[06:44.130 --> 06:44.710]  Infiltrator.
[06:45.570 --> 06:47.310]  Your source didn't tell you?
[06:47.770 --> 06:48.650]  Not yet, no.
[06:48.990 --> 06:50.670]  Okay, we'll talk about it.
[06:51.070 --> 06:51.470]  Okay.
[06:51.550 --> 06:52.190]  We'll talk about it.
[06:52.230 --> 06:55.630]  But we took the entire hotel and we told them that you referred us.
[06:56.190 --> 06:57.930]  And they basically went, yeah, okay.
[06:59.530 --> 07:04.590]  Well, you know, we have a good relationship with the hotel and we refer all kinds of people.
[07:04.590 --> 07:05.650]  We're having a mass wedding.
[07:05.870 --> 07:06.770]  A mass wedding.
[07:06.970 --> 07:07.970]  Unification Church here.
[07:07.970 --> 07:09.450]  Okay, I've heard about them.
[07:09.470 --> 07:09.830]  You remember when they used to do that?
[07:09.970 --> 07:10.210]  Yeah.
[07:10.310 --> 07:10.890]  That's my joke.
[07:10.910 --> 07:14.490]  They had one of those in Northeast Pennsylvania I heard about with AR-15s and everything.
[07:14.750 --> 07:15.010]  Really?
[07:15.170 --> 07:15.850]  That was a lot of fun.
[07:15.850 --> 07:17.130]  That's my kind of wedding.
[07:18.590 --> 07:23.010]  A literal shotgun wedding, except with a semi-automatic.
[07:23.170 --> 07:26.130]  I've seen the shotguns they use and they all look like Elmer Fudd.
[07:26.230 --> 07:28.770]  The shotgun is like five feet long.
[07:28.990 --> 07:33.290]  By the time they pull that shotgun, you're in another town, so I'm not real worried.
[07:33.410 --> 07:33.690]  All right.
[07:34.270 --> 07:39.270]  But no, it's the International Conference of Fraternal Order of Investigators.
[07:39.510 --> 07:40.170]  Okay, wow.
[07:40.370 --> 07:44.050]  And it's 20 investigative associations so far and counting.
[07:44.050 --> 07:47.190]  I should point out, for people who might wonder who I'm talking to...
[07:47.190 --> 07:47.910]  You're invited for free.
[07:48.090 --> 07:48.350]  Awesome.
[07:48.470 --> 07:49.910]  You personally, VIP pass.
[07:50.110 --> 07:52.670]  I know the back doors to the hotel, so you couldn't keep me out anyway.
[07:52.910 --> 07:53.270]  Want to bet?
[07:54.630 --> 07:56.810]  There's so many labyrinths to that place, it's unbelievable.
[07:56.810 --> 08:03.470]  But for people who don't know who we're speaking to, this is Steve Rahman, private eye extraordinaire, best private eye I know.
[08:04.290 --> 08:04.710]  You can find that...
[08:04.710 --> 08:05.490]  What private eye you know?
[08:05.570 --> 08:06.690]  No, I know a lot of private eyes.
[08:06.990 --> 08:10.450]  And you run rings around them and you can find out anything about any body.
[08:12.090 --> 08:19.710]  And you've saved our asses many times for a number of different reasons and helped us seek revenge against people that do us wrong.
[08:21.070 --> 08:21.510]  So...
[08:21.510 --> 08:25.230]  Seeking revenge is my hobby.
[08:25.350 --> 08:27.130]  Yeah, it's part of our everyday lives.
[08:27.230 --> 08:27.590]  Absolutely.
[08:28.030 --> 08:33.030]  But tonight, as you've done so many times in the past, you're here to help this place out.
[08:33.150 --> 08:35.410]  Unfortunately, this place isn't on the air right now.
[08:35.510 --> 08:36.310]  Is it, Reggie?
[08:37.110 --> 08:37.550]  No?
[08:37.550 --> 08:38.170]  Checking right now.
[08:38.270 --> 08:38.850]  You're checking right now.
[08:38.930 --> 08:41.790]  Okay, Reggie is checking to see if maybe we're back on the air.
[08:42.610 --> 08:46.090]  But, Steve, I understand you're offering a special opinion.
[08:46.090 --> 08:47.330]  I am.
[08:47.610 --> 08:51.810]  And I got to say, isn't there like a low-tech thing you could do, like actually turn on a radio?
[08:52.050 --> 08:52.310]  No, no.
[08:52.950 --> 08:54.150]  The radio's in the other room.
[08:54.190 --> 08:54.690]  Oh, it is?
[08:54.770 --> 08:55.230]  Yeah, yeah.
[08:55.330 --> 08:57.330]  He's running back and forth to make sure that...
[08:57.330 --> 08:58.570]  But right now, they're...
[08:58.570 --> 09:01.730]  It's like the guys calibrating a million dollars' worth of instruments.
[09:02.150 --> 09:04.290]  If it was me, I would just like turn on a radio.
[09:04.550 --> 09:06.010]  Yeah, well, do you have a radio on you?
[09:06.190 --> 09:06.890]  Not on me.
[09:06.890 --> 09:08.510]  Nobody has radios on them anymore.
[09:08.510 --> 09:09.270]  That's the problem.
[09:09.390 --> 09:11.570]  Well, does anybody have a car parked downstairs?
[09:11.810 --> 09:13.190]  Run down and start your car.
[09:13.370 --> 09:14.810]  Well, yeah, we could do that, I suppose.
[09:14.890 --> 09:15.970]  But then we wouldn't be here.
[09:16.750 --> 09:18.610]  But, yeah, we don't have a little transistor radio.
[09:18.610 --> 09:20.790]  So, yes, I am offering packages.
[09:20.990 --> 09:26.310]  Should I hold this until we see if Reggie has brought us back to life?
[09:26.470 --> 09:26.890]  We're not on.
[09:27.590 --> 09:28.510]  We're not on terrestrial.
[09:28.710 --> 09:32.810]  Yeah, but we're on interplanetary, you know, and the internet and all that.
[09:32.930 --> 09:36.550]  And there's all kinds of people out there as well that would jump at the opportunity.
[09:36.590 --> 09:38.370]  And there are people in New York City listening right now.
[09:38.510 --> 09:39.590]  Hello, Mr. and Mrs. America.
[09:39.810 --> 09:39.910]  Yes.
[09:40.430 --> 09:41.750]  All the hackers at sea.
[09:42.210 --> 09:43.510]  Yeah, all over the world.
[09:43.850 --> 09:44.750]  All over the world.
[09:44.750 --> 09:48.410]  And by the way, I tweeted and Facebooked.
[09:48.990 --> 09:55.770]  And if you look at my various feeds, apparently, they are all a flutter and listening in.
[09:55.770 --> 09:58.030]  And so I just want to say, hello, Tweeps.
[09:58.110 --> 09:58.790]  Hello, Feeps.
[09:58.930 --> 09:59.830]  Hello, colleagues.
[10:00.350 --> 10:03.350]  What all the appropriate internet words are.
[10:03.530 --> 10:04.570]  I'm happy to have you listening.
[10:05.950 --> 10:12.770]  And I am offering a couple of packages, which I'm going to wrap these packages in a package.
[10:13.470 --> 10:15.670]  Well, it's one package, and there's two of them.
[10:15.810 --> 10:16.590]  And that's it, folks.
[10:16.710 --> 10:18.130]  That's it, because this is so valuable.
[10:18.270 --> 10:18.290]  Oh, that's correct.
[10:18.490 --> 10:22.290]  It's so valuable that, you know, we can only have two of them.
[10:22.890 --> 10:27.850]  Now, what Steve does, Steve does everything from hunting down Nazi war criminals...
[10:27.850 --> 10:29.430]  It's easy to say what I don't do.
[10:29.490 --> 10:30.690]  I don't do matrimonial.
[10:30.930 --> 10:31.290]  Okay.
[10:31.290 --> 10:32.350]  What does that mean?
[10:32.970 --> 10:35.310]  I do not care who's screwing who.
[10:35.570 --> 10:35.730]  Okay.
[10:35.930 --> 10:37.050]  So you won't have...
[10:37.050 --> 10:38.210]  I will not...
[10:38.210 --> 10:43.110]  Listen, if you come to me and say, I think my wife's cheating, you know her better than I do.
[10:44.230 --> 10:45.610]  So don't bother me.
[10:47.690 --> 10:48.530]  I do...
[10:48.530 --> 10:53.530]  I mean, Alex can tell you if he will stop with his little thumbs there.
[10:53.650 --> 10:57.230]  I mean, he's like an 11-year-old middle school girl.
[10:57.410 --> 10:57.770]  Wow.
[10:58.010 --> 10:58.830]  It's a problem.
[10:58.950 --> 10:59.970]  No, we've talked to him about this.
[10:59.970 --> 11:00.230]  It is a problem.
[11:00.350 --> 11:00.470]  Yeah.
[11:00.470 --> 11:01.470]  It is a problem.
[11:01.710 --> 11:03.530]  Alex, put it away before I take it away.
[11:04.890 --> 11:05.290]  So...
[11:05.290 --> 11:06.770]  You'll get it back after the show.
[11:06.850 --> 11:08.930]  With this FM related...
[11:08.930 --> 11:09.290]  Are you?
[11:09.490 --> 11:10.070]  Yes, actually.
[11:10.070 --> 11:10.370]  Oh, okay.
[11:10.510 --> 11:11.230]  Yeah, so...
[11:11.230 --> 11:14.970]  So, I do quite a lot of fraud investigation.
[11:16.350 --> 11:21.630]  My personal specialty is missing persons of all kinds, whether it's traditional missing persons...
[11:21.630 --> 11:22.670]  What does that mean, of all kinds?
[11:22.830 --> 11:24.030]  Well, I'm about to tell you.
[11:24.030 --> 11:24.270]  All right.
[11:24.950 --> 11:26.590]  There's traditional missing persons.
[11:26.730 --> 11:30.390]  For example, you know, the husband goes out for a pack of cigarettes.
[11:30.390 --> 11:31.510]  That's what he's never seen again.
[11:32.670 --> 11:34.050]  There's runaway kids.
[11:34.330 --> 11:35.510]  There's fugitives.
[11:35.890 --> 11:38.190]  There's hard-to-find witnesses for cases.
[11:38.470 --> 11:41.410]  There's the aforementioned Nazi war criminals.
[11:41.550 --> 11:41.690]  Right.
[11:41.870 --> 11:43.950]  And pretty much any other war criminal you've got.
[11:45.110 --> 11:47.630]  And no smart-ass left-wing remark, please.
[11:47.890 --> 11:48.970]  No, I'm all for...
[11:48.970 --> 11:52.070]  Oh, I thought you were going to, like, make a Republican joke or something.
[11:52.110 --> 11:54.350]  Well, now that I'm thinking about it, that wasn't before.
[11:54.450 --> 11:55.330]  Okay, my mistake.
[11:55.710 --> 11:59.190]  But I shouldn't have primed the pump.
[11:59.370 --> 11:59.910]  Uh-huh, uh-huh.
[12:00.190 --> 12:02.290]  But missing persons...
[12:02.290 --> 12:04.250]  So if I wanted you to find Henry Kissinger, for instance...
[12:04.250 --> 12:05.710]  See, you made me think that way.
[12:05.870 --> 12:07.690]  Henry Kissinger is in the phone book.
[12:08.290 --> 12:09.790]  He is literally in the phone book.
[12:09.890 --> 12:10.170]  Wow.
[12:10.890 --> 12:11.250]  Yeah.
[12:11.550 --> 12:13.270]  Just like the Icelandic prime minister.
[12:13.570 --> 12:15.150]  Yeah, except they list by first name there.
[12:15.250 --> 12:16.370]  You've been to Iceland, right, Steve?
[12:17.030 --> 12:18.670]  Yeah, everybody's somebody's daughter.
[12:18.750 --> 12:19.390]  Yeah, or son.
[12:19.690 --> 12:20.350]  Or son, yeah.
[12:20.510 --> 12:20.930]  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[12:21.050 --> 12:21.330]  I know.
[12:21.590 --> 12:23.150]  There's, like, three surnames.
[12:23.190 --> 12:24.510]  Uh-huh, and they listed by first name in the...
[12:24.510 --> 12:25.350]  Sort of like Alabama.
[12:25.890 --> 12:26.690]  Okay, all right.
[12:26.690 --> 12:28.110]  Well, you can deal with the Alabama listeners.
[12:28.110 --> 12:29.530]  And now we've lost Alabama, folks.
[12:29.830 --> 12:31.470]  I think we lost Alabama a while ago.
[12:31.630 --> 12:34.890]  So, you know, Family Tree just has one branch down there, but...
[12:34.890 --> 12:39.850]  So, you know, missing kids, I guess that's a huge thing right away, because, you know, that's...
[12:39.850 --> 12:41.750]  It's also an incredibly rewarding thing.
[12:41.890 --> 12:42.230]  Of course.
[12:43.090 --> 12:47.070]  We do quite a lot of litigation support.
[12:47.070 --> 12:52.790]  And in English, that means what you see on TV, on the law shows, is crap.
[12:52.990 --> 12:53.210]  Uh-huh.
[12:54.190 --> 13:03.670]  You know, you see the lawyer get the big judgment, and he hugs the client in the wheelchair, and they, you know, they fade to black, and that's it.
[13:03.670 --> 13:08.670]  But first of all, you've got to find out who's responsible for putting the woman in the wheelchair.
[13:08.850 --> 13:09.810]  That's an investigator.
[13:10.310 --> 13:13.230]  Then you've got to find the correct legal name.
[13:13.510 --> 13:14.610]  That's the investigator.
[13:14.930 --> 13:16.490]  Then you've got to serve the person.
[13:16.690 --> 13:17.810]  That's the investigator.
[13:18.190 --> 13:19.950]  Then you've got to round up the witnesses.
[13:20.250 --> 13:21.730]  Again, the investigator.
[13:22.070 --> 13:27.950]  Then, after you get the judgment, do you imagine that this guy's going to go, Oh, here's your check for $11,500,000.
[13:27.950 --> 13:32.310]  No, you've got to grab his house, grab his car, grab his bank accounts.
[13:32.510 --> 13:34.050]  Again, that's the investigator.
[13:34.710 --> 13:40.410]  Well, hold on a second here, because it sounds like you're minimizing the role of the lawyer in this entire process.
[13:40.590 --> 13:43.170]  No, I'm just telling it like it is.
[13:43.270 --> 13:49.550]  You skipped over the actual litigation where you file a complaint, figure out what the claims are, hold a trial, put in evidence, all of these things.
[13:49.550 --> 13:55.530]  Steve is out in the street, you know, he's, you know, going up and down, trying to find people, doing the actual legwork.
[13:55.650 --> 13:56.170]  Okay, for that...
[13:56.170 --> 13:57.530]  You're in an air-conditioned office.
[13:57.530 --> 14:08.450]  For those of you who don't know, that other voice chastising me is my very good friend, Alex Herbelis, who does happen to be an exceptional attorney.
[14:08.610 --> 14:12.530]  And we've done a bunch of recently hilarious cases together.
[14:12.750 --> 14:13.070]  No doubt.
[14:13.130 --> 14:14.690]  That's how you describe your cases, hilarious.
[14:14.950 --> 14:15.910]  Well, some of them are.
[14:16.190 --> 14:17.350]  Okay, let me give you an example.
[14:17.590 --> 14:19.850]  So, he's doing a fraud case.
[14:21.310 --> 14:31.210]  The typical internet fraud case, and by the way, one of the downsides to the internet, is bad people can reach you from anywhere in the world.
[14:31.410 --> 14:31.610]  Mm-hmm.
[14:32.650 --> 14:40.410]  And, you know, the famous Nigerian prince, but in this case, the famous bank document seller.
[14:41.410 --> 14:43.350]  And we were doing a case.
[14:43.610 --> 14:46.390]  I was hired only to testify as an expert witness.
[14:46.670 --> 14:49.230]  These are fake documents and why they're fake.
[14:49.230 --> 15:00.010]  And the judge admonished us, Alex and his partners and me and everyone, Mr. Rombaum, Mr. Rombaum's clients.
[15:00.910 --> 15:09.650]  Mr. Rombaum is only permitted to testify in his area of expertise unless the other side asks a question.
[15:11.070 --> 15:11.870]  Perfectly normal.
[15:12.190 --> 15:18.570]  All I was supposed to do was sit there and testify, these are fake documents, here's how I know they're fake documents.
[15:18.850 --> 15:19.870]  Thank you, goodbye.
[15:20.710 --> 15:20.930]  Okay.
[15:24.690 --> 15:29.130]  As often when God is good, the other side were morons.
[15:29.350 --> 15:29.630]  Mm-hmm.
[15:30.370 --> 15:32.050]  I think that's the technical term.
[15:32.530 --> 15:33.050]  Absolutely.
[15:33.550 --> 15:34.530]  Incompetence would be another.
[15:34.530 --> 15:35.330]  It was unbelievable.
[15:35.330 --> 15:41.070]  By the way, when you use the term criminal attorney, in this case it was really true.
[15:41.250 --> 15:45.210]  The guy got out of jail and came and defended his client.
[15:45.690 --> 15:46.170]  Interesting.
[15:46.170 --> 15:48.730]  He was a criminal stop attorney.
[15:49.130 --> 15:49.610]  Wow.
[15:49.730 --> 15:50.610]  Am I making this up?
[15:50.750 --> 15:53.070]  No, that is in fact actually the...
[15:53.070 --> 15:55.010]  Well, he knows what he's talking about.
[15:55.010 --> 16:01.310]  By the way, the defendant was an attorney and the criminal representing him was an attorney.
[16:01.630 --> 16:03.190]  I know that gets a little complicated.
[16:03.190 --> 16:04.490]  No, it's actually quite logical.
[16:04.490 --> 16:06.710]  Usually you have to switch them, but never mind.
[16:06.710 --> 16:07.090]  That's true.
[16:07.230 --> 16:10.770]  And they were all previously sanctioned as well by various...
[16:10.770 --> 16:15.290]  We won't even go there because that's like three shows worth of great stories.
[16:15.770 --> 16:21.110]  But I will tell you, in the middle of it, the guy says, well, how do you know?
[16:21.250 --> 16:23.090]  How do you know this is a fake document?
[16:23.130 --> 16:30.270]  So I tell him and I say, you know, so the guy's name is Kamala Nathan, the fraudster.
[16:30.270 --> 16:34.910]  That's the real name of the fraudster, not Prince Ofabugu, Kamala Nathan.
[16:35.330 --> 16:37.830]  I would have stuck with Kamala Nathan, but never mind.
[16:38.570 --> 16:44.390]  So they say, how do you know that who Prince Ofabugu is?
[16:44.970 --> 16:47.710]  Well, I know he's... and I couldn't believe they asked me.
[16:47.910 --> 16:50.150]  And I said, well, I know his name is Kamala Nathan.
[16:50.230 --> 16:51.070]  Well, how do you know?
[16:51.970 --> 16:53.950]  Well, ding, ding, ding.
[16:54.590 --> 16:55.590]  I interviewed him.
[16:55.810 --> 16:57.490]  I called him up and I interviewed him.
[16:57.610 --> 16:58.450]  You interviewed him.
[16:58.610 --> 16:59.950]  How do you know he's not a banker?
[17:02.770 --> 17:07.170]  Alex and his two partners looked down at the table and went like...
[17:07.170 --> 17:09.650]  I wish this was TV so you could see what I'm doing.
[17:09.770 --> 17:12.650]  But they looked down at the table and they shook their heads.
[17:12.890 --> 17:16.430]  And the three of them were like the three monkeys.
[17:16.470 --> 17:17.430]  It was unbelievable.
[17:17.430 --> 17:21.970]  They were just grinning and, you know, they couldn't believe it.
[17:22.070 --> 17:29.110]  And I said, well, because he told me he's not a banker, he is a chicken farmer in Sri Lanka.
[17:29.710 --> 17:31.390]  The entire jury broke up laughing.
[17:31.750 --> 17:32.050]  Wow.
[17:32.210 --> 17:33.710]  That's always a good sign when you can get them to laugh.
[17:33.770 --> 17:38.010]  Yeah, and I think the jury went out for about four seconds and gave us a judgment.
[17:38.210 --> 17:42.650]  So this is part of the Alex and Steve adventures, which will be out in hardcover?
[17:42.650 --> 17:45.450]  We actually just did a big fraud case.
[17:45.630 --> 17:46.150]  That's right.
[17:46.730 --> 17:47.550]  Another one.
[17:47.910 --> 18:01.510]  Basically, I get about three or four calls a week from people who say, I sent my money, my life savings to somebody I never met.
[18:02.830 --> 18:04.650]  And by the way, this is actually important.
[18:04.750 --> 18:06.170]  I'm going to stop kidding around for a second.
[18:06.170 --> 18:12.970]  Let me back up and be very, very serious for the benefit of even one person who this might help.
[18:15.190 --> 18:24.610]  Folks, for $500 in due diligence, you will most likely save yourself your entire life savings.
[18:24.610 --> 18:37.130]  In every fraud case I've done in the past 10 years, a few hundred dollars literally would have revealed that the person is not who they say they are.
[18:37.330 --> 18:39.910]  They can't produce what they say they can produce.
[18:40.170 --> 18:41.810]  They are not at the address.
[18:42.030 --> 18:48.470]  A case that Alex and I are doing right now involves a non-existent law firm named Williams & Miller.
[18:48.470 --> 18:52.370]  Or people thought they were sending money to lawyers who were escrow agents.
[18:52.670 --> 18:53.650]  No such law firm.
[18:53.730 --> 18:54.910]  No such escrow agents.
[18:55.410 --> 18:57.190]  No such people at that address.
[18:57.350 --> 19:05.390]  But yet people sent them millions, literally millions of dollars without even saying, I'm about to send this person 420,000 euros.
[19:05.910 --> 19:08.210]  Let me get on a plane and visit their office.
[19:08.690 --> 19:09.990]  2,000 bucks.
[19:10.130 --> 19:12.050]  What does say 420,000 euros?
[19:12.090 --> 19:13.190]  And gotten you a trip to the States?
[19:13.190 --> 19:26.070]  And by the way, the vast majority of the things that you need to do to determine if it's a fraud or legit, you folks out there in listener land can do without a private investigator.
[19:26.310 --> 19:28.450]  Go and see if there's a real office.
[19:28.690 --> 19:30.810]  Go and see if there's a real person.
[19:31.030 --> 19:35.450]  Go and see if there's a bank, if there's a brokerage house.
[19:35.710 --> 19:36.390]  Just go.
[19:36.690 --> 19:39.250]  Spend a few hundred dollars on a frickin' plane ticket.
[19:40.550 --> 19:53.590]  If you're too lazy or too embarrassed or too uncomfortable or if you are somebody who prefers to let a professional do it, for a few hundred bucks, hire a private investigator.
[19:53.790 --> 19:58.550]  Now, notice how I'm going to skillfully segue into these packages.
[19:58.830 --> 20:13.010]  Let me introduce the packages because what we are offering tonight, and there's only two of these available for a pledge of $500, which sounds like a lot of money, but as Steve just demonstrated to you, it's nothing compared to what you could lose if you're not careful.
[20:13.210 --> 20:14.770]  Or gain if you're owed money.
[20:14.850 --> 20:15.230]  Exactly.
[20:15.890 --> 20:18.350]  You will get five hours of Steve's time.
[20:18.490 --> 20:29.030]  Now, if you learn a lot in this one hour, imagine having him to yourself for five hours, the things he can find out, the things he can share with you, the amount of investigative work he can do.
[20:29.550 --> 20:30.510]  I've seen him work.
[20:30.650 --> 20:36.550]  He works incredibly fast, and it's just, it's a lot more valuable than what we are offering this for tonight.
[20:36.650 --> 20:38.110]  I'm actually going to enhance that package.
[20:39.790 --> 20:44.050]  I'm going to preface it, but I want to say this while we're talking about the package.
[20:47.110 --> 20:49.130]  I charge a lot more than a hundred bucks an hour.
[20:49.270 --> 20:49.610]  I'm sure.
[20:49.790 --> 20:51.250]  I'm not going to say how much I charge.
[20:51.710 --> 20:53.330]  If you hire me, you'll find out.
[20:55.070 --> 21:05.510]  Outside of these packages, I will say that anybody that buys a package, if it continues beyond the five hours, I will continue charging them at the same rate.
[21:05.670 --> 21:07.550]  Okay, that's really fair.
[21:07.770 --> 21:09.470]  Which is almost a 50% discount.
[21:11.270 --> 21:15.150]  It's 50% off what, and no, you can't buy a package, Alex.
[21:15.850 --> 21:20.570]  But it's almost, I mean, it's less than I literally charge my friend Alex.
[21:20.830 --> 21:21.490]  Put the phone down, Alex.
[21:21.650 --> 21:22.250]  Who is sitting...
[21:22.250 --> 21:23.050]  It's for the listeners.
[21:23.350 --> 21:23.610]  Exactly.
[21:23.610 --> 21:26.670]  We've got all kinds of proprietary companies for which we can buy this.
[21:26.730 --> 21:28.270]  I want to say something.
[21:28.470 --> 21:29.410]  I want to say...
[21:34.330 --> 21:36.430]  Boy, I'm struggling to figure out how to say this diplomatically.
[21:36.430 --> 21:37.050]  While you have...
[21:37.050 --> 21:40.310]  Let me give the phone number, Alex, because there's people really frustrated right now that want this package.
[21:40.450 --> 21:40.650]  Okay.
[21:40.770 --> 21:42.610]  516-620-3602.
[21:42.790 --> 21:44.430]  Ask for the private eye services.
[21:44.650 --> 21:47.470]  You get five hours of private investigation by Stephen Rambam.
[21:47.590 --> 21:55.470]  He will be able to track down missing people or tell you if something is legit or anything else, all kinds of challenges, he's open for the challenge.
[21:55.610 --> 21:56.410]  I know this for a fact.
[21:56.590 --> 22:01.290]  Well, and also let me say that we have an extraordinary amount of resources.
[22:01.290 --> 22:03.070]  We're licensed in more than one place.
[22:03.290 --> 22:04.670]  We work internationally.
[22:05.770 --> 22:10.530]  I am not so pompous as to think I can do everything.
[22:10.950 --> 22:15.370]  And as a result, I've got 35 years of networking and contacts.
[22:16.770 --> 22:20.490]  I'm involved with the National Conference of Investigative and Security Specialists.
[22:20.610 --> 22:21.250]  I'm on the board.
[22:21.410 --> 22:23.450]  That's 750 agencies.
[22:23.990 --> 22:27.250]  I'm the chairman of the Fraternal Order of Investigators.
[22:27.430 --> 22:30.970]  That is now over 1,300 professional investigators.
[22:31.430 --> 22:36.830]  I'm on the board of the New York State Association, Aldenys, and so on and so on.
[22:36.970 --> 22:40.490]  If I can't do it, I've got somebody on speed dial who can.
[22:41.150 --> 23:03.950]  Now, besides the personal benefit to you, Mr. or Mrs. Listener slash potential client, I want to kind of give WBAI and off the hook a left-handed compliment here.
[23:06.670 --> 23:15.050]  For those of you who know me or who are a Twitter follower or a Facebook follower, you know I'm a fairly conservative guy, right-wing guy.
[23:15.170 --> 23:15.450]  Fairly.
[23:16.550 --> 23:24.110]  For those of you who have listened for about four seconds to this radio show, you know that they very much are not.
[23:27.370 --> 23:31.250]  Usually, I'd be coming into this place with a taser.
[23:32.170 --> 23:40.010]  Um, why am I so supportive of WBAI and why am I supportive of Off the Hook?
[23:40.410 --> 23:45.070]  For the same reason that I value being an investigator.
[23:45.550 --> 23:52.730]  It has to do with raw, unfiltered information, free flow of information.
[23:55.750 --> 24:03.130]  Unfortunately, I don't have time to say everything I want to say about that, because I think that the hacker community is straying from that.
[24:03.290 --> 24:05.410]  And I'm not going to get into a big argument tonight.
[24:06.430 --> 24:15.150]  Um, I don't think that raw, unfiltered information is always raw and unfiltered anymore.
[24:16.090 --> 24:25.790]  Um, but I'm going to behave myself, and I am going to say that the fact that WBAI provides a home for...
[24:25.790 --> 24:26.310]  For how long?
[24:26.370 --> 24:27.250]  How long have you been on WBAI?
[24:27.270 --> 24:28.510]  1988 was our first show.
[24:28.590 --> 24:29.130]  Holy cow.
[24:29.210 --> 24:29.370]  Yeah.
[24:29.590 --> 24:31.970]  So, so, so, so, so over a quarter of a century.
[24:32.950 --> 24:33.310]  Um...
[24:33.310 --> 24:33.810]  Wow, okay.
[24:33.870 --> 24:35.170]  You say it like that, it's really...
[24:35.170 --> 24:36.710]  Do the math, you're an old dude.
[24:37.210 --> 24:40.230]  Um, well, I've known you for a quarter of a... more.
[24:40.450 --> 24:42.750]  I've known you since before the first Hope.
[24:42.950 --> 24:48.190]  I sat with you in Big Wong's and, and, and, and...
[24:48.190 --> 24:48.770]  Actual place.
[24:49.530 --> 24:50.310]  Yes, a big...
[24:50.310 --> 24:53.230]  Big, Big Wong's is not a porno movie, it's a restaurant.
[24:53.410 --> 24:54.170]  Yeah, let's make that clear.
[24:54.270 --> 25:00.530]  It is a, it is a place with ducks hanging in the window, not something that rhymes with ducks hanging in the window.
[25:01.010 --> 25:02.830]  So, hey, that was pretty good, actually.
[25:03.330 --> 25:06.490]  Um, okay, so, so, um...
[25:07.150 --> 25:08.990]  By, by the way, folks, I have an excuse.
[25:09.110 --> 25:12.130]  As I walked in here, the guy downstairs said, you going on the radio show?
[25:12.230 --> 25:12.570]  Have a beer.
[25:13.290 --> 25:13.610]  So...
[25:13.610 --> 25:13.770]  What?
[25:13.810 --> 25:14.710]  He didn't say that to us?
[25:15.090 --> 25:15.410]  Wow.
[25:15.410 --> 25:16.090]  You're a nicer guy.
[25:16.610 --> 25:17.250]  You're engineering.
[25:17.810 --> 25:18.510]  Yeah, that's...
[25:18.510 --> 25:19.510]  Okay, but he didn't know that, all right?
[25:19.510 --> 25:21.910]  No, I'm, I'm talent, your crew.
[25:22.070 --> 25:22.550]  Oh, boy.
[25:22.950 --> 25:24.290]  That's, those are TV terms.
[25:24.310 --> 25:25.830]  No, no, he's right, he's right, okay.
[25:26.130 --> 25:28.030]  So, so, so, let me, let me say this.
[25:28.110 --> 25:28.230]  Yes.
[25:36.710 --> 25:39.370]  My friends actually went in here when I was a kid and smashed this place up.
[25:39.570 --> 25:39.930]  Wow.
[25:40.290 --> 25:47.590]  Because a guy went on the radio and said, hey, you Jew boy, with that yarmulke on your head, hey, you Jew boy, I wish you were dead, on the air.
[25:47.790 --> 25:48.090]  Wow.
[25:48.310 --> 25:49.070]  And my friends...
[25:49.070 --> 25:49.650]  What year was that?
[25:49.890 --> 25:51.630]  Um, before your show.
[25:51.790 --> 25:51.970]  Uh-huh.
[25:51.970 --> 25:54.610]  Long before your show, about 10 years before.
[25:55.650 --> 25:56.130]  And, and...
[25:56.130 --> 25:57.030]  Well, then it's fighting words.
[25:57.230 --> 25:57.630]  I, I...
[25:57.630 --> 25:59.030]  Well, Julius Lester.
[25:59.190 --> 25:59.430]  Uh-huh.
[25:59.670 --> 26:08.790]  But, but, uh, and my friends being, being, being just the average Brooklyn Jewish guy came in here and, and took the show off the air for about an evening.
[26:09.890 --> 26:10.290]  Um...
[26:10.290 --> 26:10.750]  Same show.
[26:10.890 --> 26:11.750]  I hope it was the same show.
[26:11.950 --> 26:13.050]  No, not off the hook, but yes.
[26:13.050 --> 26:13.790]  No, no, not us.
[26:13.990 --> 26:17.010]  But the show that did that, I hope that was the one that he, uh, okay.
[26:17.210 --> 26:17.310]  Yes.
[26:18.090 --> 26:19.870]  WBAI has apparently evolved.
[26:20.130 --> 26:21.310]  Oh, well, you know...
[26:21.310 --> 26:23.930]  Not, not a whole lot of anti-Semitism on their shows.
[26:24.110 --> 26:26.390]  Free speech is a, is an ongoing process.
[26:26.690 --> 26:27.230]  It's messy.
[26:27.570 --> 26:29.010]  Well, there's free speech and there's hate speech.
[26:29.090 --> 26:29.450]  Of course.
[26:29.690 --> 26:31.110]  And you're not supposed to cross the line.
[26:31.250 --> 26:31.450]  Uh-huh.
[26:32.070 --> 26:38.350]  Uh, Roger Waters with a, with a big pig balloon and a Jewish star and a dollar sign, that's hate speech.
[26:38.510 --> 26:40.230]  Well, we're not going to get into Roger Waters.
[26:40.370 --> 26:41.130]  Yes, we absolutely are.
[26:41.250 --> 26:41.530]  Because...
[26:41.530 --> 26:42.850]  If you continue, we are.
[26:43.310 --> 26:49.910]  But, but, but, but, I, I, I, okay, I won't bring up that Roger Waters says boycott Israeli performers.
[26:50.250 --> 26:51.150]  I won't bring that up.
[26:51.730 --> 26:52.130]  So...
[26:52.130 --> 26:52.730]  I'm glad.
[26:52.890 --> 26:53.150]  Okay.
[26:53.490 --> 26:53.890]  Okay.
[26:53.890 --> 26:55.250]  So, okay.
[26:55.270 --> 26:58.090]  For those of you listening, I mean, people are laughing in the room here.
[26:58.170 --> 27:00.210]  Eric and I are going back and forth about this.
[27:00.390 --> 27:01.690]  We just don't have time.
[27:01.690 --> 27:03.150]  We'll discuss it after the show.
[27:03.350 --> 27:05.330]  I don't think that Eric is an anti-Semite.
[27:05.430 --> 27:06.130]  I just think he has...
[27:06.130 --> 27:08.590]  If you listen in the streets, he'll hear us.
[27:08.590 --> 27:10.330]  I think he has poor musical taste.
[27:10.530 --> 27:10.710]  Uh-huh.
[27:10.870 --> 27:19.830]  So, um, uh, let, let me say, all kidding aside, I've got to get serious here for a second.
[27:20.610 --> 27:32.850]  Um, for, for a quarter century, 2600 magazine and the Hope Conference and off the hook has been, as they say, a big tent.
[27:33.470 --> 27:34.630]  There's room for me.
[27:35.090 --> 27:42.210]  There's room for extreme lefties like Rick Dakin, uh, who's a great guy who was on stage with me in 2008.
[27:42.210 --> 27:45.790]  Um, there's room for all types of people.
[27:46.210 --> 27:46.470]  Absolutely.
[27:46.810 --> 27:57.170]  Um, I, I think, I think 2600 is straying a little bit from that and I'm going to do my best to, to drag you back kicking and screaming.
[27:57.170 --> 27:58.290]  Can I just address that point?
[27:58.430 --> 28:04.990]  I mean, uh, basically we are voices here on this, on this show, on this station, but we're only our own voices.
[28:05.170 --> 28:09.250]  We don't purport to represent, you know, more people than who we are.
[28:10.010 --> 28:12.050]  A lot of people take what you say as gospel.
[28:12.210 --> 28:15.210]  Okay, but you know, we encourage them to question every gospel they hear.
[28:15.410 --> 28:16.950]  And they should do that all the time.
[28:17.010 --> 28:17.910]  And that's the way to be.
[28:18.290 --> 28:19.510]  And that's the way to be.
[28:19.690 --> 28:24.510]  Folks, question everything, look for contrary voices of view.
[28:24.510 --> 28:28.710]  I can't tell you the number of people that say we should shut up and just talk about tech and never mention anything else.
[28:28.710 --> 28:30.790]  And you hear that in every walk of life.
[28:30.910 --> 28:32.950]  And I think we all have the right to speak.
[28:32.950 --> 28:36.950]  And that includes you, that includes people who completely disagree with us, and we are open to that.
[28:36.950 --> 28:41.670]  Let me, let me say one more thing and let me preface it by saying, folks, I support 2600.
[28:42.870 --> 28:43.350]  Ferociously.
[28:45.090 --> 28:47.770]  Although, frankly, a lot of people say I shouldn't.
[28:47.990 --> 28:49.910]  I support off the hook.
[28:50.010 --> 28:51.210]  I definitely support hope.
[28:51.410 --> 28:53.510]  I've been at every hope conference.
[28:53.910 --> 29:00.830]  I hope this next hope conference doesn't end up to be my last hope conference, which is not impossible, but I'm hoping not.
[29:01.650 --> 29:03.610]  There are so many people who come to your talks at hope.
[29:03.890 --> 29:09.490]  You know, it's got nothing to do with where you are politically or what you believe in or who you like or who you don't like.
[29:09.570 --> 29:10.170]  And that's the point.
[29:10.230 --> 29:11.130]  That is exactly the point.
[29:11.150 --> 29:11.590]  And that's the point.
[29:11.750 --> 29:12.990]  And that's why I support hope.
[29:13.710 --> 29:14.510]  People support...
[29:14.510 --> 29:17.050]  People who come to hope want information.
[29:17.050 --> 29:22.630]  And by the way, that's why when I do talks, I, as they say in grade school, I show my work.
[29:22.990 --> 29:27.630]  People go, why the heck did you have 600 slides at your talk?
[29:27.870 --> 29:28.950]  Well, I'll tell you why.
[29:28.950 --> 29:37.670]  Because I don't want there to be any question as the sources of information and that I'm giving you raw data that you can check yourself.
[29:38.130 --> 29:38.810]  That's the...
[29:38.810 --> 29:39.590]  I agree with you.
[29:39.770 --> 29:40.750]  I agree with you.
[29:40.910 --> 29:43.030]  Nobody brings politics into it.
[29:43.110 --> 29:44.370]  But I got to say this.
[29:44.950 --> 29:49.430]  I think that you guys were a little too reverential about Mr. Snowden.
[29:49.970 --> 29:54.830]  I think that there were a lot of questions that you could have asked him.
[29:54.830 --> 30:07.990]  I think that there is a giant leap from being a whistleblower and talking about monitoring people's cell phones, which, by the way, I said six years before Snowden.
[30:08.150 --> 30:12.010]  And you can go back and look at the videos of my hope talks for proof.
[30:12.010 --> 30:13.790]  All online, on channel 2600, on YouTube.
[30:14.070 --> 30:14.270]  Yeah.
[30:15.130 --> 30:17.050]  But let me tell you, Steve, you're not alone in these thoughts.
[30:17.170 --> 30:18.650]  A lot of people agree with you.
[30:18.730 --> 30:27.870]  To go from Snowden being a whistleblower to Snowden revealing how we go after narcotics traffickers, how we monitor North Korea.
[30:28.030 --> 30:30.850]  I mean, North Korea is a concentration camp with a flag.
[30:31.090 --> 30:32.970]  We should be monitoring them.
[30:33.110 --> 30:34.790]  We should be squeezing them.
[30:35.890 --> 30:47.970]  You know, all of the things that Snowden did almost immediately after he became a media icon and a hacker community icon was terrible, was detrimental.
[30:48.690 --> 30:50.190]  Snowden is not a good guy.
[30:50.810 --> 30:57.550]  Snowden took, without screening secrets, and turned it over to people that he had no control over.
[30:58.030 --> 31:01.830]  Snowden is now a guest of the successor to the KGB.
[31:01.990 --> 31:03.250]  Okay, but that was not his choice.
[31:03.250 --> 31:05.830]  He didn't go to Russia and say, I want to live here.
[31:05.930 --> 31:06.810]  He was trapped there.
[31:06.910 --> 31:11.910]  And he also gave the material to journalists for them to screen and release as they saw fit.
[31:12.410 --> 31:13.990]  And that's wrong, frankly.
[31:14.190 --> 31:15.470]  Well, it depends on the journalist.
[31:15.470 --> 31:19.190]  You know, if it's a decent journalist, he'll do a good job.
[31:19.390 --> 31:20.790]  Well, so let me ask you a question.
[31:20.910 --> 31:24.110]  Do you believe that there's a reason why there should be classified information?
[31:24.370 --> 31:26.630]  Some information should, in fact, be secret?
[31:26.930 --> 31:27.590]  Yeah, absolutely.
[31:27.750 --> 31:28.390]  But if that...
[31:28.390 --> 31:30.090]  We won't talk about what the information is.
[31:30.150 --> 31:31.470]  If that is compromised, then it's compromised.
[31:31.470 --> 31:32.570]  It's already out there.
[31:32.970 --> 31:33.410]  And...
[31:33.410 --> 31:37.830]  Yeah, it was compromised by Snowden turning over his entire archive without screening it.
[31:37.910 --> 31:41.350]  But how many other people had access to that same information?
[31:41.830 --> 31:44.670]  How many other people could have easily gotten that information?
[31:44.670 --> 31:45.370]  Not many.
[31:45.590 --> 31:46.570]  Maybe not any.
[31:47.450 --> 31:49.770]  Well, I mean, it's an ongoing discussion.
[31:50.030 --> 31:53.810]  And I'm glad you raised it because it's not something that is a fact.
[31:54.030 --> 31:54.610]  It's a...
[31:54.610 --> 32:10.610]  No, it is a fact that a lot of the stuff that he got, he got by getting other people's passwords that he had no right to and getting even higher classifications of information and taking it and giving the giant dump, the giant archive to Glenn Greenwald,
[32:10.730 --> 32:25.550]  who is no friend of America, and to Poitras, who is an equivalent enemy of America, and to other people that we don't know who the heck they are, without screening it, without protecting the interests of America.
[32:25.550 --> 32:28.650]  He said he was trying to help Americans and help America.
[32:28.810 --> 32:29.830]  It's a bunch of crap.
[32:29.830 --> 32:30.810]  Well, look...
[32:30.810 --> 32:33.230]  We're going to have to agree to disagree on that because, you know, I know Laura.
[32:33.390 --> 32:34.430]  She's a great person.
[32:34.970 --> 32:39.650]  I'm sure Glenn Greenwald annoys the hell out of me sometimes, but I think he's on the right side for the most part.
[32:39.670 --> 32:40.690]  He's a little weasel.
[32:40.830 --> 32:41.570]  He's a weasel.
[32:41.650 --> 32:42.430]  He's a ferret.
[32:43.090 --> 32:43.450]  Okay.
[32:43.690 --> 32:49.570]  Call him whatever derogatory term you want, but he's doing the job that needs to be done as far as questioning and reporting.
[32:50.250 --> 32:50.790]  And it's...
[32:50.790 --> 32:52.170]  Like I said, it's messy.
[32:52.170 --> 32:56.410]  This is not a guy you turn over America's secrets to unscreened.
[32:56.470 --> 32:57.370]  None of this...
[32:57.370 --> 33:00.650]  By the way, you don't turn over America's secrets to anyone unscreened.
[33:00.710 --> 33:03.550]  None of this affects the information that you bring to the table, though.
[33:03.750 --> 33:06.190]  And I think that's the important thing that people need to remember.
[33:06.490 --> 33:08.090]  I just want to say that...
[33:08.090 --> 33:12.670]  I can disagree vehemently with you on this, but I can also appreciate what you are able to give to us.
[33:12.670 --> 33:21.030]  I've got to say that right now in America, we are going through a pretty terrible moment.
[33:21.030 --> 33:23.010]  I can agree with that, yes.
[33:23.450 --> 33:35.770]  And I've got to say, not just the terrible moment, but a moment worse than nearly every listener to this show knows.
[33:35.930 --> 33:38.090]  They think they know, they don't know.
[33:38.790 --> 33:41.430]  I think a lot of people are nodding their heads.
[33:42.190 --> 33:44.030]  Many of the...
[33:45.490 --> 33:47.890]  And this is not a Trump comment, by the way.
[33:48.090 --> 33:49.750]  This is a generic comment.
[33:51.350 --> 33:53.250]  Many of the...
[33:55.900 --> 33:59.960]  Much of the security structure of the United States has been damaged.
[34:00.440 --> 34:04.200]  And I'm not just talking by dirtbags like Snowden.
[34:04.360 --> 34:11.160]  I'm talking there are efforts from outside the United States that have been very, very successful.
[34:12.960 --> 34:14.840]  The Russian hackers you're referring to.
[34:14.840 --> 34:31.580]  Well, let me tell you, confidence in the ability to democratically elect a representative, which is a pillar of America, confidence in that is gone.
[34:34.320 --> 34:35.080]  You have...
[34:38.220 --> 34:39.880]  And it's not a secret.
[34:39.880 --> 34:43.540]  I work pretty closely with some people in DEA.
[34:43.660 --> 34:47.740]  I speak at their undercover school, and I'm friends with a lot of agents in DEA.
[34:47.840 --> 34:53.340]  And basically, if you're in the DEA and you call me up for something, you get whatever you want, without question.
[34:53.340 --> 34:55.960]  Because they're doing God's work right now.
[34:56.220 --> 34:56.880]  They really are.
[34:58.700 --> 35:03.300]  Right now, you know, I know you're a maniac about guns.
[35:03.500 --> 35:10.880]  Let me tell you that every person that's killed by a firearm in this country, 20 are killed by drugs.
[35:12.600 --> 35:16.480]  Well, if you get rid of the firearms, then you only have the drugs to worry about as far as those...
[35:16.480 --> 35:17.300]  That's not getting...
[35:17.300 --> 35:18.480]  We don't have time for this.
[35:18.560 --> 35:18.720]  That's not how it works.
[35:18.720 --> 35:21.320]  You go after the heart attack before you go after the hangman.
[35:21.360 --> 35:21.500]  Uh-huh.
[35:24.280 --> 35:32.180]  So, there were, I think, last year, close to 60 million people died just of fentanyl overdoses.
[35:33.320 --> 35:42.420]  And fentanyl and all types of other related drugs are coming primarily from China.
[35:43.620 --> 35:46.000]  Money is going to our enemies.
[35:46.380 --> 35:51.240]  Mr. Snowden, by the way, revealed the methods that we monitor these people.
[35:51.400 --> 35:54.920]  So, I would say that makes him a major scumbag.
[35:55.780 --> 35:57.800]  Yeah, but you can't blame everything on Snowden.
[35:57.900 --> 35:59.320]  There are problems in our system.
[35:59.500 --> 36:00.440]  There are problems in...
[36:00.440 --> 36:03.000]  I blame what Snowden did on Snowden.
[36:03.120 --> 36:05.480]  I don't blame the entire problem.
[36:05.660 --> 36:19.580]  But without getting off topic, let me say that the hacker community and what the hacker community can bring to the table is more important now than it has ever been.
[36:19.920 --> 36:21.260]  And I mean ever.
[36:22.100 --> 36:24.080]  You have right now...
[36:26.110 --> 36:33.320]  I mean, whatever talk I give it hope, my last talk, not my last talk, it'll probably be my last hope.
[36:33.420 --> 36:34.400]  Why do you think it'll be your last hope?
[36:35.960 --> 36:39.240]  Because it probably will be, and I'm not going to ruin the show by going into that.
[36:39.300 --> 36:42.800]  Look, people need to be able to deal with opposing opinions.
[36:42.960 --> 36:44.840]  I'm able to deal with your opposing opinions now.
[36:44.840 --> 36:47.960]  And I could speak for hours about why I oppose them, but...
[36:47.960 --> 36:52.260]  Eric, I could go out and have a beer with you every night of the week and still not have a problem with you.
[36:54.040 --> 36:54.660]  That's a relief.
[36:54.880 --> 37:02.160]  I am uncomfortable with politicizing information and release of information.
[37:02.160 --> 37:06.080]  I am going to withhold judgment and see what happens at Hope.
[37:07.200 --> 37:07.640]  Listen...
[37:07.640 --> 37:08.980]  This is you withholding judgment?
[37:09.320 --> 37:09.760]  Yes.
[37:09.860 --> 37:10.580]  Okay, all right.
[37:10.960 --> 37:12.180]  I am withholding judgment.
[37:12.180 --> 37:12.540]  All right.
[37:12.760 --> 37:14.000]  No, honest to God, I am.
[37:14.080 --> 37:14.340]  All right.
[37:14.480 --> 37:16.660]  I will be delighted.
[37:16.920 --> 37:20.460]  I will be delighted to go to Hope and be among friends.
[37:20.460 --> 37:22.240]  And you guys, I love all you guys.
[37:22.240 --> 37:23.200]  I really do.
[37:23.680 --> 37:25.320]  I think you're wonderful people.
[37:25.380 --> 37:27.000]  I think you're unique people.
[37:28.420 --> 37:30.980]  And I don't want to see...
[37:30.980 --> 37:36.580]  And I don't want to see that infrastructure and that way of doing things change.
[37:36.640 --> 37:38.240]  It seems like it's changing.
[37:38.620 --> 37:40.960]  I'm going to go to Hope and I'm going to see if I'm wrong.
[37:41.240 --> 37:44.600]  I will be deliriously happy to be wrong.
[37:45.220 --> 37:47.460]  But right now it feels like it's changing.
[37:47.460 --> 37:49.460]  I think you'll be deliriously happy a lot in the future.
[37:49.620 --> 37:50.320]  And you know what?
[37:50.320 --> 37:54.260]  I rarely am, so I need a little delirium and happiness.
[37:54.480 --> 37:56.480]  Guys, can we promote this premium?
[37:56.480 --> 37:56.800]  Yes.
[37:56.800 --> 37:58.640]  Because I don't want to spend the whole hour talking.
[37:59.200 --> 37:59.940]  Can I give out the URL?
[38:00.180 --> 38:01.940]  Give to WBAI.org.
[38:02.240 --> 38:09.080]  And also SMS the letters WBAI to the short code 41444.
[38:09.520 --> 38:11.920]  And the premium to look out for, we only have two of them.
[38:12.000 --> 38:12.820]  Maybe we have less now.
[38:13.120 --> 38:14.120]  Private eye services.
[38:14.120 --> 38:16.840]  You get five hours of Steve where he's not going to talk politics with you.
[38:16.920 --> 38:18.280]  He's going to work for you.
[38:18.560 --> 38:20.840]  By the way, I don't talk politics with anybody.
[38:21.080 --> 38:22.700]  Well, that's probably good.
[38:22.700 --> 38:27.020]  But yeah, this is an amazing, this is an amazing offer.
[38:27.160 --> 38:29.720]  Amazing offer that Steve is donating to the radio station.
[38:30.260 --> 38:41.040]  And you know, this is, people have such issues with what's going on in the world today that if you talk to somebody that you don't see everything eye to eye with, you can't work with them.
[38:41.160 --> 38:42.140]  Steve is an exception to that.
[38:42.300 --> 38:43.780]  I'd like to think we're an exception to that.
[38:43.780 --> 38:45.620]  You guys, which is why I'm donating time.
[38:45.800 --> 38:52.980]  Listen, the truth is, from day one, you guys knew my politics, I knew your politics, and it never interfered.
[38:53.220 --> 38:54.500]  It doesn't have to.
[38:54.660 --> 38:57.660]  I will tell you, I've been able to get information out there.
[38:58.140 --> 39:27.080]  The decay of privacy and anonymity, and now the decay of, and you can blame our buddies at Facebook and Google for this, and the fact that people willingly get 60 to 70% of their news through, 60 to 70% of the people under the age of 30 get the majority of their news from Facebook or Google.
[39:27.220 --> 39:28.360]  See, now we're starting to align.
[39:28.580 --> 39:30.800]  And I see that as a huge problem.
[39:30.800 --> 39:36.140]  That is a terrifying thing for more reasons than we have time to discuss.
[39:36.680 --> 39:53.280]  And my next talk at Hope is going to focus quite a bit on the danger of that, how the last election was, in fact, influenced both by the left and by the right.
[39:53.400 --> 39:57.860]  Because at this point in time, everybody knows who you are.
[39:57.860 --> 40:08.260]  And you are spoon-fed what Facebook or Google or the people who have profiled you think you want to see.
[40:08.980 --> 40:27.840]  Like my buddy says, if Facebook thought that you wanted to see videos of puppies being murdered, you would see nothing but videos of puppies being murdered with either Trump or Clinton ads last year.
[40:28.220 --> 40:30.120]  Well, that's one way to put it.
[40:30.200 --> 40:30.540]  And wow.
[40:30.680 --> 40:32.560]  Yeah, I think you're right on that.
[40:32.840 --> 40:34.980]  Phone number 516-620-3602.
[40:35.060 --> 40:36.160]  Grab the package before they're gone.
[40:36.280 --> 40:37.320]  Just want to make sure they got the phone number out.
[40:37.500 --> 40:40.600]  $500, five hours of Steve Rambam's service.
[40:40.820 --> 40:41.560]  World-renowned.
[40:41.640 --> 40:44.860]  There's no part of the globe that you can't help somebody out in.
[40:44.860 --> 40:51.100]  And I will tell you, I will do any case in Antarctica for expenses only.
[40:51.280 --> 40:52.060]  Okay, this is the first.
[40:52.060 --> 40:54.260]  I have worked on six continents.
[40:55.660 --> 41:06.140]  Anybody who will give me a legitimate commission to work in Antarctica so I can say I've done investigations on all seven continents, I will do for expenses only.
[41:06.180 --> 41:07.140]  What about the space station?
[41:07.140 --> 41:10.780]  If there's an issue up there, will you go up there and help them out?
[41:11.080 --> 41:12.100]  How do I get there?
[41:12.240 --> 41:13.220]  Well, they'd work that out.
[41:13.320 --> 41:14.000]  Travel would be covered.
[41:14.220 --> 41:17.920]  Maybe I could be in the backseat of that Tesla that was...
[41:17.920 --> 41:18.200]  Right?
[41:18.400 --> 41:18.660]  Yeah.
[41:19.100 --> 41:21.720]  You know, and that brings up a sore point with me.
[41:21.720 --> 41:22.620]  You guys haven't been in the backseat of...
[41:22.620 --> 41:23.780]  You all saw this.
[41:23.860 --> 41:26.440]  You saw the video, right, of the Tesla up in space.
[41:26.620 --> 41:28.260]  It was really, really cool to see this.
[41:28.260 --> 41:29.520]  It was an actual video.
[41:30.020 --> 41:32.260]  And it only lasted four hours because the battery died.
[41:32.380 --> 41:36.180]  Why didn't they put solar panels on that thing so they could transmit it back to us forever?
[41:36.180 --> 41:37.880]  It would have inspired so many people.
[41:38.280 --> 41:40.660]  So, Elon Musk, next time, get it right.
[41:41.360 --> 41:41.720]  Sorry.
[41:41.740 --> 41:43.040]  He's such a wackadoodle, though.
[41:43.060 --> 41:44.940]  Well, in some ways, you know, in some ways.
[41:45.080 --> 41:46.800]  But it was really, it was a cool thing to do.
[41:47.570 --> 41:50.000]  I'd like to see you guys do a show on that Hyperloop deal.
[41:50.180 --> 41:50.440]  Uh-huh.
[41:50.880 --> 41:51.980]  That can't be real, right?
[41:51.980 --> 41:53.200]  Well, we're going to find out.
[41:53.320 --> 41:53.940]  We're going to find out.
[41:54.280 --> 41:54.660]  Go ahead.
[41:54.900 --> 41:59.020]  I want to talk for a second about Steve and some of the work that we've done together.
[41:59.120 --> 42:01.840]  Yeah, you've been sitting there in shock silence for the last 10 minutes.
[42:02.140 --> 42:09.060]  No, it's hard to get a word in edgewise today because the dialectic is so entertaining, I guess.
[42:09.760 --> 42:11.460]  Steve and I have worked together for a long time.
[42:11.700 --> 42:19.840]  To go back to this financial fraud case, one of the things that I want to mention is that Steve was talking about fake bank documents, being able to spot frauds.
[42:20.280 --> 42:24.840]  What happened in that case that Steve neglected to mention was that we were about to go to trial.
[42:25.200 --> 42:29.180]  The defendant put in a fraudulent bank document into evidence at the last minute.
[42:29.380 --> 42:30.640]  It was close to midnight.
[42:30.640 --> 42:33.940]  We were literally going to trial on this in less than 48 hours.
[42:34.300 --> 42:37.440]  We said, oh my God, what the hell are we going to do?
[42:37.640 --> 42:39.080]  I think this document is a fraud.
[42:39.220 --> 42:41.980]  I called Steve up a little after midnight, emailed him the document.
[42:41.980 --> 42:43.500]  I said, what can you tell me about it?
[42:43.760 --> 42:47.580]  He said, 115 percent sure it's a damn fraud.
[42:47.720 --> 42:51.280]  And I was looking at this document for about, I don't know, what would you say, Steve, 30 seconds?
[42:51.500 --> 42:51.980]  Not even?
[42:52.260 --> 42:53.540]  Probably just taking a glance at it.
[42:53.540 --> 42:54.700]  It was a pitiful document.
[42:54.700 --> 42:56.980]  It was a pitiful, fraudulent bank document.
[42:57.220 --> 42:58.720]  So that's one thing.
[42:58.840 --> 43:00.700]  But Steve and I have worked together.
[43:01.360 --> 43:04.480]  Our politics differ in some respects, materially.
[43:04.660 --> 43:06.620]  Not as much as you might think.
[43:06.620 --> 43:07.880]  And I'll get to that in a second.
[43:07.920 --> 43:10.400]  But we've worked together in several countries.
[43:10.800 --> 43:12.520]  Recently, Romania.
[43:12.520 --> 43:14.760]  We've worked together with issues in France.
[43:15.220 --> 43:15.760]  Ukraine.
[43:15.920 --> 43:16.460]  Ukraine.
[43:16.820 --> 43:18.560]  Hey, we were just in Romania and Ukraine.
[43:18.560 --> 43:18.860]  Wow.
[43:18.860 --> 43:21.060]  So we've done a lot of stuff together.
[43:21.140 --> 43:22.440]  Isn't Bucharest an amazing city?
[43:23.980 --> 43:25.520]  Well, let's not talk about Bucharest.
[43:25.640 --> 43:25.980]  You don't like Bucharest?
[43:26.760 --> 43:27.080]  Well...
[43:27.080 --> 43:27.700]  I love Bucharest.
[43:27.700 --> 43:29.600]  We had some interesting experiences.
[43:30.550 --> 43:31.520]  And so in any event...
[43:31.520 --> 43:33.000]  Have some wild dogs chasing you?
[43:33.280 --> 43:33.840]  Well, yeah.
[43:33.920 --> 43:34.760]  There are a lot of wild dogs.
[43:34.780 --> 43:35.680]  That is very true.
[43:36.240 --> 43:37.680]  But you can make friends with them, too.
[43:38.140 --> 43:38.760]  But in any event...
[43:38.760 --> 43:42.200]  And there is good sushi in Bucharest, just to put that one.
[43:42.320 --> 43:44.840]  And what you don't know, it's made out of the wild dogs.
[43:44.920 --> 43:45.220]  Okay.
[43:45.380 --> 43:48.620]  Well, I have no way of disproving that, but I think that's wrong.
[43:49.000 --> 43:49.280]  Go ahead.
[43:49.280 --> 43:49.500]  All right.
[43:49.980 --> 43:51.580]  You're obstructing the conversation here.
[43:52.640 --> 43:55.420]  In any event, Steve is incredibly effective.
[43:55.640 --> 44:01.520]  I've never known another private investigator to get as much done as Steve gets done in such little time.
[44:01.640 --> 44:03.160]  So five hours of Steve's time.
[44:03.340 --> 44:12.280]  If you call 516-620-3602 and pledge $500 for five hours of Steve's time, it's going to be kind of amazing what he'll be able to uncover.
[44:12.500 --> 44:16.940]  Steve and I are going to be teaching courses together on open source intelligence collection.
[44:16.940 --> 44:18.720]  That'll be happening later this year.
[44:18.860 --> 44:20.960]  That's something he was cryptically alluding to earlier.
[44:21.160 --> 44:24.740]  But I do want to correct one thing for the record that Steve was saying before.
[44:25.020 --> 44:27.980]  He threw around this phrase, you guys.
[44:28.220 --> 44:31.100]  And I want to correct this for posterity, I think.
[44:31.220 --> 44:32.820]  You guys have canonized...
[44:33.200 --> 44:34.080]  Yes, that's right.
[44:34.200 --> 44:35.540]  The Brooklyn way of saying it.
[44:36.420 --> 44:38.360]  You guys have essentially canonized Snowden.
[44:38.480 --> 44:41.940]  I've come out quite clearly on this radio station and voiced the unpopular opinion...
[44:41.940 --> 44:42.120]  That's true.
[44:42.260 --> 44:42.780]  That's true.
[44:42.840 --> 44:44.900]  ...that I do not think that we should canonize Snowden.
[44:44.980 --> 44:50.680]  And I think that the initial disclosures that he made have to be taken separately from the rest of what he disclosed.
[44:50.700 --> 44:51.680]  And we're not all guys, too.
[44:51.800 --> 44:52.500]  But that's another issue.
[44:52.520 --> 44:53.320]  That's very true.
[44:53.500 --> 44:54.480]  Well, we are in this room.
[44:54.500 --> 44:55.400]  In this room right now.
[44:55.400 --> 44:56.360]  Yes, that's true.
[44:56.620 --> 45:07.820]  I think that the disclosure of the surveillance from a single FISA warrant of a massive amount of Verizon Business Network subscribers, that was prima facie unconstitutional.
[45:07.840 --> 45:11.160]  And the whistleblowing line in the NSA wasn't necessarily effective.
[45:11.200 --> 45:12.520]  But I agree with Steve.
[45:12.760 --> 45:20.280]  I have his back on the fact that the rest of what he disclosed really has to be judged by each disclosure's merit.
[45:20.440 --> 45:22.000]  And I think it was a mixed bag.
[45:22.260 --> 45:22.940]  There was a lot.
[45:23.260 --> 45:25.060]  And the initial stuff could have been a setup, also.
[45:25.520 --> 45:26.580]  It's quite possible.
[45:26.720 --> 45:33.120]  But I think there was a lot of legitimate targets of foreign intelligence collection that were part of that bag that he brought over.
[45:33.220 --> 45:39.820]  And I think it had a very destructive effect on our ability to collect foreign intelligence overseas.
[45:40.100 --> 45:43.740]  And that, you know, look, there's a nature and a place for secrets.
[45:43.880 --> 45:44.340]  I'm an attorney.
[45:44.500 --> 45:45.560]  We keep secrets.
[45:45.800 --> 45:50.680]  I keep Steve secrets when he gives them to me because he operates as my agent on these particular cases.
[45:50.680 --> 45:53.260]  And so we're all bound by attorney-client privilege.
[45:53.260 --> 45:56.580]  So not everything, I believe, should be out there.
[45:56.600 --> 45:59.300]  And I do have suspicions about Snowden.
[45:59.440 --> 46:08.320]  And I think Snowden would have suspicions about somebody who was in the same station and place as him were he to be judging from our standpoint.
[46:08.560 --> 46:09.440]  I think he's that smart.
[46:09.440 --> 46:10.760]  I would give him much less credit than that.
[46:10.920 --> 46:12.380]  All right, Rob, I know you've been waiting to say something.
[46:12.440 --> 46:12.600]  Go ahead.
[46:13.000 --> 46:24.220]  Well, first thing I want to say really quick that although Steve is obviously a guy who knows of what he speaks and who does some damn good work, if you happen to not be in the market for PI services but you still want to support us, you can.
[46:24.640 --> 46:32.600]  You can call 516-620-3602 or go to give2wbai.org and see what other premiums the station has to give you.
[46:32.820 --> 46:35.420]  Just specify that you're donating in the name of Off the Hook.
[46:35.420 --> 46:39.500]  We hope you enjoy our program and would like to help keep us going.
[46:39.720 --> 46:46.420]  Also, Steve, when last we spoke, which was about a month ago, you were talking about your trials and tribulations with Vonage.
[46:46.520 --> 46:47.980]  I'm wondering if there's any update on that stuff.
[46:48.700 --> 46:48.980]  Oh, boy.
[46:49.640 --> 46:50.420]  Keep it clean.
[46:50.860 --> 46:53.940]  No, it's a fascinating thing.
[46:54.160 --> 47:04.960]  Vonage threw away millions and billions of voicemails and even through to today has not notified their customers.
[47:05.860 --> 47:07.760]  I, you know...
[47:08.500 --> 47:09.500]  They did this why?
[47:09.720 --> 47:10.800]  One of the...
[47:10.800 --> 47:12.280]  They screwed up.
[47:12.480 --> 47:12.740]  Uh-huh.
[47:12.840 --> 47:13.020]  Okay.
[47:13.020 --> 47:13.640]  They screwed up.
[47:14.220 --> 47:16.120]  They were taking voicemails.
[47:16.280 --> 47:22.580]  People were calling Vonage numbers, leaving voicemails, thinking that the intended recipient was getting these voicemails.
[47:22.760 --> 47:26.280]  And the voicemails went into a black hole for 12 days.
[47:26.500 --> 47:26.660]  Wow.
[47:26.660 --> 47:32.440]  And, you know, people were calling back going, why the hell aren't you returning my call?
[47:32.720 --> 47:38.940]  And I guess it's a million or two million Vonage customers were losing all their messages.
[47:39.380 --> 47:52.440]  And I have to say the one area that unquestionably you and I agree on is that big tech business has absolute contempt for its customers.
[47:53.300 --> 47:56.240]  I don't think there's any exception to that.
[47:56.460 --> 47:58.900]  I think Verizon is Satan.
[47:59.380 --> 48:03.520]  I think Google and Facebook are pretty terrible.
[48:07.380 --> 48:27.320]  Axiom, the one area where you and I dovetail as far as the firearms industry, I thought it was a posting from The Onion when they gave an award to, NRA gave an award to Ajit Paul.
[48:27.520 --> 48:28.280]  Yeah, that was funny.
[48:28.460 --> 48:29.420]  That was just hilarious.
[48:29.440 --> 48:30.440]  That was incomprehensible.
[48:31.100 --> 48:34.820]  It's like Saturday Night Live, sent them a note, please do this.
[48:34.840 --> 48:36.500]  This could be the worst thing you do this week.
[48:36.580 --> 48:37.600]  Yeah, go ahead and do it now.
[48:38.380 --> 48:39.140]  Timing was...
[48:39.140 --> 48:43.300]  I mean, can you make people hate you even more?
[48:43.480 --> 48:44.220]  Yes, you can.
[48:44.400 --> 48:45.080]  Apparently so.
[48:45.240 --> 48:45.880]  Apparently so.
[48:46.400 --> 48:49.880]  Let me go out the phone number one more time, 516-620-3602.
[48:49.980 --> 48:55.700]  If there are any packages left, $500 will get you five hours of Steve Rombon's private eye expertise.
[48:55.960 --> 48:57.640]  Private eye services is the name of the premium.
[48:57.640 --> 49:00.000]  You can go to give2wbai.org.
[49:00.080 --> 49:01.800]  If they're still available, you can get one there.
[49:02.300 --> 49:06.180]  But 516-620-3602 is the phone number to call now.
[49:07.000 --> 49:11.420]  While we are still not on the air, I don't think we're on the air, but we are online.
[49:11.620 --> 49:12.540]  And let me...
[49:12.540 --> 49:13.420]  I wish we were on the air.
[49:13.480 --> 49:28.880]  Let me repeat that not only will you get the five hours for the $500, but if we need to go beyond five hours, which is usually not likely, unless you have an extraordinarily complicated case, I will continue working at that rate.
[49:29.040 --> 49:36.700]  And as Rob was saying, basically, you can support this radio station in other ways, too, if you're not in the market for private eye services.
[49:36.960 --> 49:42.620]  Keep in mind, you know, we've had this lively discussion now for upwards of an hour, and we have not broken for a commercial once.
[49:42.760 --> 49:45.560]  And the reason for that is because we're a non-commercial radio station.
[49:45.560 --> 49:46.700]  We rely on our listeners.
[49:46.920 --> 49:54.400]  So if you want to have conversations like this or all kinds of other issues broadcast, everybody in this room supports the idea of that.
[49:54.540 --> 49:59.180]  And hopefully the listeners listening now, no matter who you agree with or disagree with, support the dialogue.
[49:59.440 --> 50:00.340]  That's what we're all about.
[50:00.480 --> 50:05.900]  And for that, we need you to call 516-620-3602, pledge whatever you can afford.
[50:06.360 --> 50:07.740]  Keep WBAI on the air.
[50:07.840 --> 50:08.880]  We've been on the air since 1960.
[50:09.400 --> 50:11.920]  You know, it's a long, long time to have a non-commercial radio station.
[50:11.920 --> 50:15.920]  I think we outlive most other stations in New York, which is something to say.
[50:16.140 --> 50:17.780]  Critical resource in New York.
[50:17.980 --> 50:19.060]  It's desperately needed.
[50:19.700 --> 50:21.800]  I mean, New York is going to hell in a handbasket.
[50:22.040 --> 50:29.460]  You need a place where people can speak freely without censorship and get raw information out there.
[50:29.600 --> 50:37.960]  I don't think there's a single other radio station within 100 miles of here that would allow Off the Hook to be on or many of the other shows they host.
[50:37.960 --> 50:38.820]  No, we've been told that.
[50:38.840 --> 50:40.040]  Yeah, they said we do not want you here.
[50:40.040 --> 50:40.780]  Yeah, we don't want you.
[50:40.780 --> 50:42.400]  We've been made very clear.
[50:43.620 --> 50:58.800]  Look, if you value Off the Hook, if you value uncensored, unedited, raw information where you can look at it and make up your own mind, this is something you've got to support.
[50:59.080 --> 51:01.800]  I am, again, I'm a pretty conservative guy.
[51:02.580 --> 51:15.260]  WBAI is not my cup of tea necessarily, but the fact that they will allow people to express their opinion without a filter, I think is extraordinary.
[51:15.260 --> 51:20.120]  It's certainly unique in New York, and it's critically important.
[51:20.120 --> 51:25.380]  See, that coming from you means so much more than coming from somebody I agree with on everything because...
[51:25.380 --> 51:26.480]  I don't agree with you on anything.
[51:26.700 --> 51:27.480]  Okay, there you go.
[51:27.640 --> 51:28.920]  But we can agree on this.
[51:28.960 --> 51:30.340]  Except free information.
[51:30.460 --> 51:30.680]  Uh-huh.
[51:30.820 --> 51:32.980]  And that is what the hacker ethic is all about.
[51:33.100 --> 51:37.380]  That's why I say when we speak our opinions here, we're not representing the hacker community.
[51:37.820 --> 51:39.040]  It's one aspect to it.
[51:39.080 --> 51:41.360]  But the hacker community comes from all walks of life.
[51:41.360 --> 51:46.800]  And I don't want anyone to feel alienated, like we only are speaking to one side or giving preferential treatment.
[51:47.240 --> 51:48.960]  We reflect what is out there.
[51:49.140 --> 51:54.180]  So if we're not reflecting your viewpoint, write to us.
[51:54.400 --> 51:54.940]  Write an article.
[51:55.240 --> 51:56.280]  Give a presentation.
[51:56.920 --> 51:59.920]  Show us the other side because we are open to that.
[52:00.140 --> 52:03.600]  The fact that I'm on this radio show shows that you actually mean that.
[52:03.740 --> 52:04.240]  Mm-hmm.
[52:04.420 --> 52:06.260]  Because, believe me...
[52:06.260 --> 52:07.100]  And I'll get help for this.
[52:07.320 --> 52:07.880]  I'm not your standard guest.
[52:07.880 --> 52:10.940]  I will get all kinds of help for having this conversation.
[52:10.940 --> 52:12.740]  But the conversations are essential.
[52:13.080 --> 52:13.280]  I doubt that.
[52:13.440 --> 52:15.840]  No, you do not know what I have to deal with.
[52:16.660 --> 52:17.100]  Well...
[52:17.100 --> 52:20.180]  But it's not worth going into right now.
[52:20.520 --> 52:23.820]  But, yeah, you know, it's important to be able to argue your case.
[52:23.960 --> 52:25.500]  That's why God created the delete key, you know?
[52:26.540 --> 52:28.540]  Yeah, he didn't really delete...
[52:28.540 --> 52:30.940]  Well, okay, but the point is that doesn't work nearly as well as...
[52:30.940 --> 52:31.660]  God created everything.
[52:31.820 --> 52:31.960]  Yeah.
[52:32.100 --> 52:32.960]  Don't you believe that?
[52:33.200 --> 52:34.540]  There's no delete key for email.
[52:34.540 --> 52:37.020]  When you go to church every morning, I mean, isn't that what you...
[52:37.820 --> 52:40.920]  We'll talk after the show about this, about the realities of...
[52:40.920 --> 52:41.400]  ...of the situation.
[52:41.540 --> 52:45.580]  But 516-620-3602, that's our phone number to keep WBAI going.
[52:45.940 --> 52:48.240]  Hopefully get that transmitter turned back on at some point.
[52:48.520 --> 52:49.840]  Actually, the transmitter is on.
[52:50.000 --> 52:53.400]  The issue is that we're not getting audio to reach the transmitter.
[52:53.560 --> 52:55.120]  It's a whole big, complicated mess.
[52:55.860 --> 52:58.680]  But that mess is made less messy by donations.
[52:59.540 --> 53:01.080]  516-620-3602.
[53:01.200 --> 53:07.440]  If you listen to this show in the future on the archive, you can still call up or you can go to give2wbai.org and donate.
[53:07.560 --> 53:11.400]  And if those private eye services are still available for a pledge of $500, go and grab one.
[53:11.480 --> 53:12.480]  They are very valuable.
[53:13.780 --> 53:14.100]  Amazing.
[53:14.940 --> 53:16.340]  Steve, we only have a couple minutes left.
[53:16.500 --> 53:18.860]  Is there anything you want to tell us as far as projects you're working on?
[53:18.980 --> 53:19.960]  I know you told us about the conference.
[53:19.960 --> 53:22.020]  I'll mention a couple of things.
[53:22.200 --> 53:31.660]  First of all, as Alex mentioned, he and I are teaching open source intelligence, OSINT seminars all around New York State.
[53:32.680 --> 53:42.140]  For reasons only known to them, the New York State Bar Association has approved us to recertify attorneys in the state of New York.
[53:42.280 --> 53:43.320]  We can give CLEs.
[53:43.420 --> 53:50.200]  We can give nationwide continuing education credits to everybody from private investigators to accountants.
[53:50.240 --> 53:55.040]  We are now considered a stellar education entity.
[53:56.500 --> 53:59.940]  The organization is called Fraternal Order of Investigators.
[54:00.120 --> 54:12.000]  If you are an investigator, a law enforcement officer, a security specialist of any kind, a federal agent, feel free to go to fraternalinvestigators.org.
[54:14.720 --> 54:19.880]  By the way, if you're an FBI agent, you should learn how to use LinkedIn to monitor people.
[54:20.040 --> 54:22.200]  So you should probably go to one of our seminars.
[54:22.200 --> 54:24.620]  I don't know if you saw my tweet last week.
[54:24.720 --> 54:31.400]  The FBI was monitoring my LinkedIn feed, and they actually checked in from the official FBI account.
[54:31.400 --> 54:38.520]  So when I got an email from LinkedIn, it said, see who looked at your site, and there was a big shield of the FBI.
[54:38.920 --> 54:42.460]  Do people realize that when they view someone's info on LinkedIn?
[54:42.840 --> 54:43.660]  Apparently not.
[54:43.780 --> 54:43.860]  Wow.
[54:43.860 --> 54:51.060]  But if they go to the FOI open source class, they won't make those embarrassing mistakes.
[54:51.620 --> 54:55.940]  I think if you upgrade on LinkedIn, you can make it so that those activities aren't known.
[54:55.940 --> 54:59.260]  You can also set your privacy settings if you're premium, right.
[54:59.360 --> 54:59.940]  Upgrade FBI.
[55:00.000 --> 55:03.700]  So you have to pay them to keep that information from getting out.
[55:03.860 --> 55:04.060]  Wow.
[55:04.220 --> 55:04.700]  I didn't know that.
[55:04.740 --> 55:06.960]  I don't use LinkedIn because they just annoy me.
[55:06.960 --> 55:07.620]  And you know what?
[55:07.760 --> 55:15.240]  LinkedIn is the worst site for personal security.
[55:15.620 --> 55:19.980]  I mean, foreign intelligence agencies and bad internet people.
[55:19.980 --> 55:21.400]  But that's because people trust it so much.
[55:22.000 --> 55:22.480]  Well...
[55:22.480 --> 55:24.300]  They give all their information there.
[55:24.300 --> 55:27.520]  You know, I say this during the HOPE seminars.
[55:27.520 --> 55:29.440]  I say this during the open source seminars.
[55:29.440 --> 55:30.580]  I'll say this now.
[55:31.540 --> 55:36.960]  By far, the best and most dangerous information is self-contributed information.
[55:37.100 --> 55:37.380]  Absolutely.
[55:37.620 --> 55:47.840]  If a genie came to me and said, you can have access to all of the federal government databases, or you can have a backdoor to Google and Facebook, take your choice.
[55:48.280 --> 55:49.680]  Backdoor to Google and Facebook.
[55:49.900 --> 55:51.240]  There's far much more there.
[55:51.240 --> 55:54.740]  Unless you're a mob guy or an ISIS member.
[55:55.180 --> 55:58.300]  And even then, there's probably more about you on Facebook.
[55:58.340 --> 56:01.020]  I'm sure there are people on LinkedIn that have listed that as affiliation.
[56:01.140 --> 56:01.420]  Absolutely.
[56:01.660 --> 56:02.700]  Hey, we're going to have to leave it there.
[56:03.000 --> 56:04.380]  Steve, I want to thank you for coming in.
[56:04.480 --> 56:04.860]  My pleasure.
[56:04.980 --> 56:08.400]  And for sharing your views and for donating these amazing premiums, which might still be available.
[56:08.400 --> 56:11.180]  Call 516-620-3602, the private eye services.
[56:11.480 --> 56:15.700]  Five hours of private eye extraordinaire Steve Rombaum's time.
[56:16.040 --> 56:17.520]  I know, Rob, you have something to tell us.
[56:17.940 --> 56:19.580]  2,600 meetings all over the country.
[56:19.720 --> 56:22.160]  This weekend, go to 2600.com slash meetings.
[56:22.500 --> 56:25.020]  Also, if you're thinking of talking at Hope, do it.
[56:25.140 --> 56:28.400]  Go to hope.net and see how you can submit your talk for our consideration.
[56:28.640 --> 56:28.960]  That's right.
[56:29.000 --> 56:32.700]  We're going through all the speaker submissions now, and we'd love to get something from everybody out there.
[56:32.920 --> 56:33.800]  Again, thanks to Steve.
[56:33.900 --> 56:34.580]  Thanks to everybody else.
[56:34.860 --> 56:35.700]  Thank you for listening.
[56:46.080 --> 56:48.780]  The world is going to hell!
[59:16.850 --> 59:17.890]  The world is
[59:30.910 --> 59:57.810]  going to hell!