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You are listening to 99.5 FM WBAI in New York, New York.
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That's correct. You are listening to WBAI New York.
It's 8 o'clock time once again for Off The Hook.
Off The Hook.
Off The Hook.
Off The Hook.
And a very good evening to everybody.
The program is Off The Hook.
Emmanuel Senior with you, joined tonight by Rob T. Firefly.
Good evening.
Alex.
Evening.
And Kyle.
Hello, hackers.
Yeah.
And we're all thrilled and enthused.
Yes, it's been an interesting week as always.
And we're going to try and take your phone calls this week because this is the last show before fundraising begins for the summer.
So that's going to be a whole lot of fun.
We are working on getting everybody's premiums to them who have pledged in the past.
If you have not gotten something from us that you pledged for, please email us, oth at 2600.com, so we can make absolutely sure that we get you what you deserve.
Yes, Rob.
If you have something outstanding that you have not received from us, one thing that helps us very much to track it down and get it to you is if you can forward us in your email, forward us your email receipt for your premium.
That makes things a lot easier to find on this end and track down and correct.
And, again, thank you for your patience.
Yes.
Believe it or not, mistakes do happen.
And sometimes people lose track of things.
And this helps us find out where things are.
And bear in mind, this is a completely volunteer-run effort.
So we're doing absolutely the best we can in the time that we have.
So you can help us find that stuff with the information in the receipt.
That really expedites the work we have to do behind the scenes.
Now, Alex, I know you had a story that you were very excited about tonight that you wanted to focus some attention on.
I know absolutely nothing about.
So do you want to tell us something about it?
Could you be more specific?
No.
I can't be.
I have no idea what it's about.
There's quite a few stories I'm excited about this evening.
But there's one in particular that comes out of the Southern District of New York.
That's the federal court, the U.S. District Federal Court for the Southern District.
And, yeah, something interesting happened there today, this morning, in fact.
And I think it relates to hacker culture in that we're talking about the freedom of information.
Ah, yes.
The public's access to data as it relates to something that was happening.
Do you remember what was going on in April of last year?
What the big news story was, by any chance?
Give me a hint.
There's a lot of potential things.
The guy's name begins with Michael.
The guy's name begins with Michael?
Yeah, the subject of the news stories, April.
He had a taxi medallion business.
Oh, Michael Cohen.
Michael Cohen.
Yeah, of course.
That's right.
So April 2018, the FBI raided Michael Cohen's office, his safety deposit boxes, the hotel room in which he was staying, all kinds of places.
We're talking about Trump's former lawyer.
Trump's former lawyer, his personal conciliary, so to speak, to use terms from the godfather intentionally.
And now known as a rat by Trump himself.
That's true.
And Michael Cohen is in federal prison at the moment as well for campaign finance violations, among other issues.
So in any event, the FBI executed this search warrant.
But in preparing for an application to a federal judge to get a search warrant, they have to submit things like affidavits, memos, and demonstrate that there's probable cause there.
All of these materials were filed under seal with the judge.
And news organizations like CNN and the Associated Press and the Daily News and a whole bunch of others had requested this federal judge, Judge Pauli in the Southern District, to unseal all of these materials because they're in the public interest.
Everybody wants to see them.
What was the probable cause that led to Michael Cohen being searched and then being arrested and eventually pleading guilty and being sentenced to federal prison?
So all of these materials were redacted and the government, because it had an ongoing investigation, continued to request that these materials continue to stay redacted.
So they were redacted by request of the government?
At the government's request.
That's exactly right.
Okay.
And so eventually the public's right to know has to trump.
Don't.
Don't.
Don't do that.
Has to.
Showtime.
The funny thing is that that was actually an unintentional pun.
Supersede.
Yes, has to supersede or will overrule a privacy right or the right to keep something secret.
And so on July 15th, the government had a status report due and they filed the status report saying, look, we'll agree to unredact portions of this, but there are still some materials that need to be redacted.
And this morning, Judge Pauly reviewed that status report and issued this opinion in which he said the following.
After reviewing the government status report and proposed redactions, this court denies the government's request.
In particular, and in contrast to the private nature of Cohen's business transactions, the weighty public ramifications of the conduct described in the campaign finance portions warrant disclosure.
Very interesting.
Tomorrow morning at 11 a.m., the government is mandated by this federal judge to file in the public in the public docket and all of this material in an unredacted manner.
There are only a few things that can continue to be redacted, you know, like personal information, contact details, et cetera.
So it's not like it's not just dirt or like gossip or like petty things that would disparage character.
Judge is basically saying that this is really in the interest of the electorate, the electorate, the populace.
Yeah.
Children want to know this, too.
You know, they don't vote.
It is part of an informed electorate.
And hopefully this will make its way into a social studies book in the near future, I guess, for the children.
What happens if the judge disappears between now and then?
I'm just throwing that out there because, you know, we're living in times now where all kinds of things we don't think are possible are happening.
His order would still remain in full force even if he disappeared.
Okay.
So whatever you're planning out there, knock it off because it's not going to help.
Yeah, that's exactly right.
But I think this is going to be really quite interesting.
And it's not a story that got a lot of traction today, but it is, I think, extraordinarily important because it has.
Why?
Why wouldn't it get traction?
That's a very good question, I think, is because, you know, it might be a minor point.
It could be totally eclipsed by Trump's racist tirades and tweets and articles of impeachment and all, you know, this mess of a news cycle that we're dealing with on a day-to-day basis.
So we're not talking about something important because the president is an idiot and did something absurd and insane, and that's actually serving him?
Perhaps, yes.
I could see that.
Let me read to you one select portion of what the judge said, too, because I think tomorrow morning at 11 a.m. when all this material is filed in an unredacted portion in the public docket of the Southern District of New York, that the hammer may come down.
And it may come down on people that are related to Trump.
It may come down on Trump.
But certainly, associates of Cohen and Trump are going to be implicated in this particular filing.
Now, the judge said this, and I think this is extraordinarily important when it comes to freedom of information and the public's right to know.
And this becomes case law.
This is how the law evolves.
When judges interpret the law, it becomes part of the law itself.
That's our common law system.
We don't just have statutes.
We have judges interpreting the law, and this particular judge, in front of whom we've been numerous times, in fact, even with Steve Rombom on a financial fraud-related case.
But Judge Pauley said this.
The campaign finance violations discussed in the materials are a matter of national importance.
Now that the government's investigation into those violations has concluded, it is time that every American has an opportunity to scrutinize the materials.
Indeed, the common law right of access, a right so enshrined in our identity that it predates even the Constitution itself, derives from the public's right to learn of, monitor, and respond to the actions of their representatives and representative institutions.
You know, I remember when I used to be that idealistic, thinking that justice would prevail and that people had the right to know and that we were going to win in the end.
I want those days back.
Well, they're back.
And maybe hearing what this judge has to say is one way to get there.
Absolutely.
This is a total win, I think, when it comes to transparency and governmental accountability.
I'm really interested in seeing what comes out tomorrow, and I think, you know, maybe perhaps if we're off the air in two weeks, we'll be talking about this in detail in two weeks.
So, of course, we're all about freedom of information, the availability and access to information like this.
But how likely is it that this will actually be filed like the judge wants tomorrow morning?
I mean, we're in a time where people can, like, get subpoenaed to speak in front of Congress and then just not show up and nothing happens.
Yeah, I have a follow up that's related in that the, you know, if he's not already deflecting and trying to distract from this, potentially, is there any recourse that they might try to exercise to prevent this?
We've seen time and time again, outright refusals, all of that.
And here it is, in the interest, appealing to a very deep philosophical root of our national experiment here.
And what can we expect?
How else might they distance themselves?
Or how could they possibly distance themselves from campaign reform?
And barring that, what else are they left with?
Well, I think your two questions are very good, but also really connected to each other.
So I could probably give one answer to them both.
I think that this filing will happen.
And the reason why I believe that is that we're not dealing with elected officials here.
We're dealing with the U.S. Attorney's Office and the Department of Justice.
And those U.S. attorneys are constantly in front of judges in the Southern District of New York.
If they disobey this judge's orders, they are not going to be in this judge's good graces or any of the other judge's good graces.
And it's going to prejudice their relationship with them on an ongoing basis.
They certainly do not want that.
And a lot of these U.S. attorneys are thinking about going into private practice at some point.
And they don't want to be known as the guy who was held in contempt for flouting a judge's order.
And so with that in mind, I think this will happen tomorrow.
The Department of Justice has met all the other deadlines.
But to Kyle's question, I think it is quite likely that there could be some deflection.
What we've seen this week is all the president has to do is issue some kind of racist tirade on Twitter.
And the entire mass media begins to focus on that.
Congress focuses on that.
We all focus on that.
Or tell people not to cooperate who are under him.
He could do that as well.
He has been known to engage in something akin to obstruction of justice in the past.
You might be right.
Which he completely gets away with time and time again.
Absolutely.
So does he have any power here tomorrow?
He shouldn't have any power to direct the Department of Justice to file or not file certain materials.
And in particular, the judge seems to know what all of the materials are already.
So if things are missing, Judge Pauli should be able to readily identify that or his clerks will be able to readily identify that.
So hopefully the president will have no influence here.
Just to respond to that or add is this idea kind of goes to my first comment that, you know, they did not discuss or the judge did not discuss this as gossip.
This is not a personal attack on Cohen's character in any way.
This is strictly about the campaign information.
And again, to my question, it's like, OK, how I would just how will they twist this in such a, you know, in so many other ways?
It's like it's it's considered attacks or whatever they claim to fit the narrative of victimhood.
But it is really integral to the very campaign he is embarking upon or in the midst of now.
So to then to go back and having credited yourself with all the success in the world over 2016 to now say, oh, well, you know, the way that money was raised, that actually wasn't me.
I mean, unbelievable. I can't wait.
I mean, in a sick, sick way.
Well, here's a here's a theory about the ability of the president to discredit the materials that will likely be released tomorrow.
Most of these are going to be affidavits and other sworn statements from FBI agents that were made in support of the application to get a search warrant.
So he's going to discredit those particular FBI agents and say, this is part of the deep state coming against me.
It'll activate his base to be able to say that.
And then, you know, all the Trump supporters and MAGA hat wearers are going to be happy about.
OK, OK, well, let's not do the work for them.
Sure.
They can they can approach it how they will.
But that gives you a hint as far as Judge Polly's history.
What's his last name, by the way?
Polly.
Polly.
Polly.
Polly.
Oh, Polly's his last name.
Yeah.
You thought I was referring to him like the Sopranos.
Little Polly.
OK.
I'm fine.
Judge Polly.
So what's his history as he had made rulings in the past concerning this, either this case or this administration?
Is he a thorn in the side of the Trump administration?
He's been pretty even keel with respect to this case up until this point.
And in fact, was siding with the government and allowing them to keep the materials redacted up to a point.
And that point was when the investigations of the FBI and the Department of Justice concluded.
As soon as they concluded and the government acknowledged that they had concluded,
that's when Judge Polly then squarely changed sides and said, all right, now the public has a right to know.
And I think this is the exact type of mentality that judges should have.
When there's an ongoing law enforcement investigation, the interest of the government may override the public's right to know about that criminal investigation.
But once that criminal investigation is over and done with, the public has a right to know how their tax dollars are being spent.
And we have a right to monitor what our elected representatives were doing when it came to things especially like campaign finance violations.
And so I think he's been very even-handed and very, I think, fair up into and including this particular ruling.
And that's all pretty characteristic of your interactions with him?
Absolutely. Yes. Yeah. We've had a couple of cases before him.
And I have to say most of the judges in the Southern District are all very much the same.
I mean, they're extraordinarily talented, smart jurists.
Loyalty is, in effect, in terms of counsel but also judges, is to the system itself and the process more so than any kind of other ulterior.
Yeah, that's exactly right.
The loyalty is to the judiciary, not to any political party or even to – or any allegiance to the party.
Or the process.
Yeah.
You know, the president that had appointed them to the federal bench.
And I really think Trump was trying to sway that by trying to pack the federal district courts with incompetent lawyers who had no – I was about to use something else.
But I didn't want you to have to hit the seven-second delay button, Emmanuel.
But, yeah, he was really trying to pack the federal courts with people who would have no business being federal judges but would be sworn to some kind of allegiance to him for having appointed them to this lifetime position.
So it's – I think it's – and I think we see this time and time again.
The judiciary and the federal judiciary in particular has been the bulwark of our republic when it came to the Trump administration whether it comes to immigration issues, census issues, freedom of information, the Mueller report, all of this.
I think we realize that these Article III judges are really so incredibly important to our democracy.
Fascinating.
It's a pretty big branch.
Yeah, no doubt.
So now my question is this happens tomorrow, 11 o'clock.
You said there's virtually no media coverage of this.
So how in the world are we going to find out what's going on?
I think the media will pay attention to this when it happens tomorrow.
It should be – I mean –
Maybe we're telling the media now about it.
So where do they go?
Well, they'd have to go on Pacer and find this particular docket.
No, they want to go to the courthouse and watch live.
Sure, they could do that.
They could go down to Pearl Street.
Pearl Street, okay.
But there's – I don't think there's going to be anything happening in the courtroom.
This will all be happening electronically.
There's going to be an electronic filing from the Southern District that goes into the public docket.
The docket number is 18CR.
That's Charlie Romeo 602 if anybody wants to pop onto Pacer and follow this themselves.
But we see –
That's the data we need to be giving out.
That's exactly right.
And I'm sure that if we access this docket and we find something interesting of note that we want to share with the listeners,
we'll always post it to our Twitter page.
Absolutely.
And write in OTH at 2600.com if you find something in this filing or any other legal or other hacking and information-related issues.
Our Twitter page is getting worn out.
We had literally millions of impressions, I think is the right word, on our concentrationcamps.us and internmentcamps.us sites.
And I don't even know how many hits.
We don't keep logs, so we don't really have a way of keeping track.
But it was really more than anything I've ever seen.
So that's – the Twitter page is the place to go, I guess, at sign 2600.
No doubt.
I mean, I'm still getting notifications from that tweet.
That was just the link to concentrationcamps.us.
I mean, it's incredible.
What's going on on that front?
Well, we keep adding new information.
The most recent thing we added was something called ICE collaborators.
And what that is, those are sheriff's departments all throughout the country and correction systems where basically the people who work in those agencies are able to act as ICE agents.
So certain sheriff's departments, they make it a point to find out if somebody is a citizen when they pull them over.
And we felt it was just important that people know, are you in a district where this could happen as opposed to the many places where it doesn't?
About 200 altogether between sheriff's departments and Department of Corrections in certain states where this kind of thing can happen, which is 200 too many as far as I'm concerned.
But it's also a fraction of the many police departments and sheriff's departments that exist.
I'll tell you, though, it was this was something that was going on in the office.
So we were just basically checking different sites to verify information.
And it's depressing looking at so many different sheriff's sites because the way they talk about people and the rules that they hand down, it's all so dismissive.
It's also depressing as far as just the way these people don't seem to really mean anything.
And I also I noticed a few things that are that are I don't have the information in front of me, unfortunately, but I notice that things have changed as far as how prisoners are treated.
We used to talk about how phone calls were a rip off.
Well, you know, there are many departments now where you cannot even visit somebody in prison anymore.
The only way to visit somebody in prison is by video.
And guess what?
You have to pay for that.
You have to pay for the video.
It's not a lot.
Something like 50 cents a minute, which is a lot compared to, you know, in person where you don't pay anything.
But most importantly, you're not actually seeing somebody.
You're not actually seeing your loved one.
You're just talking to them on a computer.
And, you know, you can have that conversation recorded.
All of it.
You know, when you talk to somebody in prison, if you ever been to a prison, I visited a number of people there.
You know, you're talking to somebody and you're having a conversation in this.
You have the understanding that it's not being recorded.
If you shout or something or do something that gets attention of the person watching over, that might be noticed.
But nobody goes there thinking that every word they say is being recorded.
Maybe maybe if you have that phone through the glass thing.
I've never done that like they have on TV where you're talking to somebody that way.
Maybe that's being recorded.
Okay, fine.
But when you're just talking to somebody at a table.
But when you're using connectivity to have a video connection with them, yes, they even say this is being recorded.
Not that it could be recorded.
It is being recorded.
But the worst thing is that they just eliminate the actual visit.
And they try to claim it's for your convenience.
You don't have to drive.
You don't have to go all the way over there.
You don't have to deal with parking.
And you can do it at your convenience.
Well, at their convenience, really, because you can't do it whenever you want.
You have to make appointments.
And also there are strict limitations as to how many of these can happen in a week.
It's just really depressing to see these things changing and to see how people are being treated and just, I don't know, thought of as almost less than human.
And there's also the fact that this is basically eliminating the actual human contact part of a visit, which can be the part that's the most meaningful to one or both people.
Yeah, that like full bandwidth.
I think I heard that somewhere on TV.
But yeah, full bandwidth, body language, all of that, that closeness and affinity that, yeah, you get this technology in between.
You feel completely removed.
And keep in mind, you know, this is all a marketplace.
This is an industry that is cropping up around these policies.
And the last thing I just want to add is that this additional list of sheriffs who've been deputizing themselves or they took the ICE agent online course or whatever.
But these are the foot soldiers.
These are the people falling into line.
And they're doing the bidding of this administration.
And they aren't questioning.
That's important.
Yeah, it really is.
And it's important to acknowledge that, to list that.
And that's why we're doing it.
That's why we're basically showing all of these places where either people are being held captive or people are basically cooperating with what's going on.
Another thing I noticed, too, looking at a lot of these websites, even mail is being eliminated, even mail to prisoners.
You may see on some of these sites that we no longer accept letters for inmates.
What we do accept are scans.
In other words, you basically go to a site, have something scanned, pay another fee, and somebody can receive those words after they've been scrutinized.
But mail, even that is being eliminated.
It's simply incredible the things that they are doing.
And when you go through that list and see how many of these sheriff sites there are, boy, there's a lot of people in prison.
Because nearly every one of those sheriff's offices has a prison attached to it or has one down the road somewhere.
And these are only the ones that are cooperating.
There are so many more that aren't part of this.
They just exist everywhere.
So, wow, it's kind of depressing.
It's kind of depressing, but it's important that we know about this.
This actually leads into a letter that we received.
We've received a lot of mail, actually, but this is a letter that I'd really like to look at for a couple of reasons.
Concerning what we've been talking about over the past couple of weeks, first of all, they say this person's name is David.
Great segment with Bruce Kushnick from last week, and it was an interesting conversation.
I've always appreciated your linguistical focus on the word hacker, what it means versus how the press uses it.
In the same way, I feel compelled to reach out on the use of the phrase concentration camps.
It's right up there with being a script kiddie and defacing a website for attention.
If you want to play childhood games and spread fake news for attention, sure, take over the PA at Kmart.
But if you want to affect real social change in the world, it requires a commitment to sharing truth and accuracy, as Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning did.
Edward and Chelsea, both at great sacrifice, violated laws to be sure only that accurate truth was shared.
To misuse the phrase concentration camps completely disrespects and dehumanizes the millions who lost their lives at Auschwitz and other concentration camps.
While I appreciate the alternative link, the alternative link should be a Spanish language version of the list.
Okay, you're welcome to put that together.
There's only so much time we can volunteer to this.
Anyway, you're all better than this, David says.
I have a couple of things to say to that particular point.
We thought long and hard about this, about whether to use the phrase concentration camps.
For the people who are very uncomfortable looking at something that says concentration camps, we have an alternative of internmentcamps.us.
Same data, same information.
But let me read you the definition of concentration camp from Merriam-Webster.
It's a place where large numbers of people, such as prisoners of war, political prisoners, refugees, or the members of an ethnic or religious minority are detained or confined under armed guard.
All right, so if you can find people that aren't being detained by armed guard in one of these places, then maybe I'll agree that's not a concentration camp.
But these are refugees being held in a camp by armed guards.
It is a concentration camp. That is the definition by Merriam-Webster.
And they know definitions.
Now, they go on to say, used especially in reference to camps created by the Nazis in World War II.
Fine. It is used especially, but that doesn't mean it's the only time you can use it.
We've had concentration camps in this country before, and they weren't run by Nazis.
Yeah, consider that that was the sort of light term that the Nazis referred to those camps.
But in practice, they were extermination camps.
That's right. Auschwitz was not a concentration camp. It was a death camp, extermination camp, whatever phrase you want to use.
They called it a concentration camp to, I guess, I would say, sanitize it.
Or, I mean, let's just look at that as a sanitized version of what it actually was.
And here we are at the precipice of something that is quite the same, save for the extermination part yet.
Yeah. Let's not get caught up in phraseology.
The important thing is the information.
And actually, David went on to give us another detention facility, Donald W. Wyatt Detention Facility, 950 High Street, Central Falls, Rhode Island.
I'm not sure if that's on our list. If it's not, it will be.
I mean, I think that's a fantastic letter.
And I really appreciate it when people write in their thoughtful comments like that.
And I've been given some thought to it as well.
I do see his point.
And I think that, you know, for a lot of people, especially those who may have family members that have perished in the Holocaust,
it does seem like it's not necessarily an equivalent, even though it may fit the definition.
So I'm on the fence about this one.
Yeah. But, you know, there are so many people whose families did perish in concentration camps who are adamantly saying,
call this a concentration camp because we're seeing it again.
We're seeing this same mentality surface.
Exactly. I think you're exactly right.
And nobody can say it with more passion and strength than people who have experienced it like this.
And we should encourage people to use emotionally charged language to deal with situations like this as well.
And I think it's just important that we make the point that we're not trying to undercut or undermine any historical notion of what a concentration camp is.
We're just trying to make a parallel with what's happening in the present day.
I would just add we are raising the alarm, though.
And I think a lot of other people are.
So if you want to if there's anything in there that, yeah, we'll cop to.
Yeah, we are trying to draw attention to this.
And that is the name we used.
And it's important.
And a lot of people think it is important right now.
Survivors of the Holocaust, ancestors, anybody across the board is welcome to react and respond to this thing.
And this is our way of doing it.
And we've we've given it as much thought as we possibly can to but to get it published and in under the in the public discourse is the most important thing.
And frankly, I'm hearing a lot of that.
I heard Mitch McConnell accusing the Democrats of calling them concentration camps.
I heard other other parts of some of the distinctions that were made in the description on our site and so on and so forth that are kind of surfacing.
And it's good.
It's good that I think the opposition to what's going on is owning it a little bit.
It's good to have the conversation.
I have to say, I'm surprised so few people have objected to the phrase.
I expected more of a pushback.
And a lot of people say, no, this needs to be said.
And that that gives me such hope and faith in in how we're going to get through all this because there are so many good people out there.
I want to thank the people who have been sending in more information.
Keep in mind, this is a volunteer effort.
We're deluged with enough work as it is what we're trying really hard to keep this going.
So information might not get up as quickly as as you want it to.
But I'm amazed at how much has already gotten up.
One thing we are working on, a lot of the temporary camps we don't have up there only because we don't have enough information on them.
We want to get the street info.
We want to get the phone line info.
We don't want to post partial information.
We want to post the entire thing.
So if you have information like that, if you know how to get it, please contact us.
And again, the email address for that is our webmaster address, webmaster at 2600 dot com.
That's for the concentration camps listing and all.
Yeah.
And like I said, it's it's it's most important that we're having this conversation, that we're having it in the open and that we're having it based on as much data as possible.
And that's what we're about here is making data available.
Yeah.
Just one one last thing of this is that there the we are owning this is as that is the accusation being made.
And I just think that the leadership accusing Democrats or opposition to this of calling it that is landing flat because people are like, yeah, that's what we're calling it.
And and anyway, to that end, the other one other thing in there that I just can't agree with is alleging that we're participating in anything fake because this is really happening.
Yeah.
And I really I'm so sick of hearing that phrase every time.
Every time that phrase is used, it legitimizes the crap that's coming out of the upper echelons.
And we can't do that.
You know, if you think something is wrong, there's other ways you can say that you have to use his words.
I just that's just the personal thing that I've got.
Hey, let's look at this story because it's it's really kind of fascinating and it's been passed around quite a bit.
Comes from The Intercept.
It's about a border surveillance firm that wants to profile drivers, passengers coming into New York City.
Yeah. I'm going to read a bit of this from The Intercept.
Just months before millions of its internal documents were stolen and dumped on the Internet, the Tennessee based surveillance company Perceptix was preparing to pitch New York's transit authority on how it could help enforce impending congestion pricing rules.
Congestion pricing is something that's long overdue.
Coming to Manhattan, you'll have to pay extra to go to a certain busy part of Manhattan.
It's going to be fascinating.
They have it in London.
It's never been done in the United States before.
Anyway, according to leaked documents reviewed by The Intercept, the pitch as outlined in the files went well beyond mere toll enforcement and into profiling New Yorkers travel patterns and companions, creating what experts describe as major privacy risks.
Congestion pricing on the face of it doesn't seem like it would present a privacy risk.
It's a traffic policy.
After all, not some new NYPD initiative.
The plan is to essentially tax the cars that clog Manhattan streets and route the proceeds to public transportation, providing both a deterrent against traffic buildups, I guess.
There's not going to be any toll booths.
The fee will simply be assessed automatically and electronically, potentially photographing the license plates of passing cars, sending the plate owner a bill in the mail or just deducting it from some account.
This requires cameras running around the clock, dutifully recording every car that comes and goes.
And this, according to Perceptix, is where the company truly shines.
According to their internal presentation, and this was released by whoever it was that hacked into their site and sent it to The Intercept, the company pitched New York's Metropolitan Transportation Authority, MTA, in February of this year on how the company could use its car scanning camera arrays, basically to help the MTA track down drivers.
And analyze all kinds of things about them, such as why their likely trip purpose, customer travel patterns, travel consistency, number of passengers in the car, associated information with a unique fingerprint of every vehicle that passes by Perceptix cameras.
Now, Ali Baum, a policy counsel with the NYCLU, New York Civil Liberties Union, described the Perceptix plan as an incredibly privacy-invasive proposal that raises all sorts of associational and First Amendment concerns.
Baum expressed particular alarm about the possibility of a congestion pricing enforcement system eventually feeding data into the NYPD's existing surveillance regime.
The NYPD has fancied itself an intelligence agency for a very long time, said Baum.
There are folks who are pioneering some really, at best, questionable, and at worst, alarming programs of surveillance and of drawing conclusions from innocuous behavior.
Can you imagine that?
I mean, you know, we don't have to imagine very much because we always imagine this kind of thing.
But yeah, here it is, delivered to our doorstep.
And thank God they got hacked.
I mean, this is why this information needs to be made public, so you know what it is they're up to.
I mean, this is problematic on so many levels.
I mean, there are very few entry and exit points into Manhattan.
I mean, you've got the 59th Street Bridge, Brooklyn, but you've got the bridges and the tunnels, right, to get in here.
Why is that insufficient to charge certain drivers a congestion charge?
Why does this need to be some kind of widespread surveillance dragnet?
And if you think about the implications of this data being held by one governmental agency, it's very likely that it's going to be accessed by other governmental agencies.
And it can certainly be accessed by other governmental agencies and even private parties if it's being held by the government through legal process.
So think about civil actions, divorce actions.
Anybody who has the right to issue a subpoena to acquire this particular information about any party can potentially get it.
That's really kind of frightening.
And the other issue that I think comes to mind when any of this happens is all of this information is incredibly valuable, incredibly important, incredibly private information about with whom we associate.
If they're collecting passenger data, that's our association data.
If we're in a car with activists, with political dissidents, with refugees, with undocumented immigrants, that's a big privacy issue.
Do we trust the government to safeguard this data properly?
And in particular, not just the government, do we trust city agencies, New York City agencies?
I mean, we saw what Landmarks did, for Christ's sake.
I mean, do we trust the same city?
Before we get into our personal issues with them, we're talking about a private company here.
We're not even talking about the city.
We're talking about a private company assuming this is what is wanted and pushing that.
Sure.
Exactly.
But it's being warehoused for the benefit of a city agency, which then, if this is the case, if it's all going to be warehoused off-site, then the private company is taking over an inherently governmental function.
They're a contractor.
They should not be performing inherently governmental functions.
In a federal government, there is an absolute prohibition on the use of independent contractors performing governmental functions because there's no accountability there.
Yeah.
And the quick and easy answer to your question, why do we need this massive surveillance infrastructure in order to collect tolls, is we don't.
But we can tell from the way this is being advertised, basically, and the way it's being hyped up, it's for a city that doesn't necessarily just want something to get rid of the toll booths with.
It's for a city that wants a massive surveillance dragnet and can justify it with a, hey, wouldn't it be great if we didn't stop at toll booths?
Yeah.
I would just point out what he was noticing is that there is a market for this.
That's why this company is pushing for it.
And that is a sign of the times.
It's a sign of what I think New York has been doing for a long time.
They're doing a lot.
They're buying the bar out.
You know?
Like, hey, who's got all the technology?
They want everything.
Open it up.
You know?
Never again.
All that.
We get it.
But, you know, planes don't have a lot to do with commuters and all this other stuff.
But it is this reflexive, unquestioning, we're going to throw every bit of money in technology we can and know everything.
And here we are talking about precognition and stuff, basically like minority report, you know, anticipating where you're going.
And the other thing that came to mind is that Google already has a lot of this stuff.
You're typing in a destination on your navigation or Garmin, whatever you're using, it's going to know where you're going.
But it sounds like that's just one feature of a very substantial system that this private entity feels there's a strong market for.
And that, I think, just speaks volume about the New York Police Department.
And I digress.
They're doing a lot.
But this seems to be very incongruous with other efforts by the city to protect and safeguard the information of its residents.
I mean, New York City even has an app that you can download on your phone that supposedly determines whether or not you're leaking data and other kinds of things like that.
I never trusted it or tested the efficacy of this because I certainly don't want an app on my phone that's developed by the city.
But, you know, they have taken these overt measures to state to New Yorkers that they value and protect your privacy.
Yet, if something like this is going to be rolled out, how do you square the two of them?
I don't think you can.
Yeah, I mean, just the experience of private companies getting hacked alone.
If their pitch gets hacked or was it the – no, it was the company that their pitch got hacked.
So how are they going to handle all of this data?
I mean, that's the other kind of ironic thing in this story.
I mean, obviously, the information is only as secure as their security system is.
And obviously, their security system is not that secure if we are reading this right now.
But, you know, they've already provided this kind of thing to Saudi Special Forces, the Jordanian Army.
That's according to Perceptix themselves.
So they are supplying entities all throughout the world.
What I want to know, what I'm really curious about, I don't think this story mentions this,
is was this something New York City was asking for or was it just something that Perceptix assumed any city would want
and it's just part of their standard pitch?
That's something that I really would like to know.
Well, there probably was some kind of RFP or request for proposal that the city put out.
And this was likely submitted in response to that particular RFP.
I want to see that document then.
In fact, if Perceptix was hacked, there should be a copy of that document somewhere as well.
They're probably doing pilot programs for all kinds of whatever, command center, communications technology, you name it.
They probably have a department and panel or whomever.
A lot of people set aside with a budget just specifically to try stuff out and entertain these kinds of proposals.
Let's look at London, too.
They have a system like this.
They've had it for years.
So if anyone knows about surveillance, it's London.
They watch everything.
I'm curious if they're already using a system like this.
Did maybe Perceptix supply them?
These are things we need to know.
Well, that's a good question.
And to answer your query from before, Manuel, you want to see the RFP?
Well, the RFP belongs to us.
It's a matter of public record.
We should be able to access it.
And if we can't access it, we can always file a freedom of information law request to get that and all associated documents.
And maybe we should do that.
All right.
After the show.
The conference room is free.
There's a sneaking thing, too.
And I really support that.
I think we should know.
We should have people filing requests and getting more actual information about what these agencies are doing within our government.
But it's just this sneaking feeling and this background thing and the whole conversation I'm getting that, you know, despite the enormity and the vastness, the amount of stuff they're throwing, I just don't feel safer.
I don't feel that much safer.
Maybe they do, but I don't.
Well, speaking of full disclosure, well, first of all, our full disclosure, our phone number, 212-209-2877.
We'll be taking phone calls.
Please call us in.
We'd like to hear your opinions.
But some people wanted to know from the North Carolina State Board of Elections.
Actually, they're the people that wanted to know.
North Carolina State Board of Elections asked suppliers of electronic voting machines a very simple question.
Who owns you?
Yeah.
It seems like very basic information.
The board should know and should be able to pass on to the general public.
And this story comes from tech dirt.
These are the makers of devices used by the public while electing their representatives.
Kind of important.
They should know who's running these companies, who their majority stakeholders are.
If something goes wrong, something always does.
They should know who's ultimately responsible for whatever it is that happened.
Now, it's not like the state was asking the manufacturer to cough up code and machine schematics.
All it wanted to know was who's the people behind the company nameplates.
The responses that the board received indicated that system manufacturers believe releasing any info about their company's compositions will somehow compromise their market advantage.
Yeah.
Hart InterCivic is a company.
They said a corporation that derives independent actual value from this information not being generally known or readily ascertainable and makes reasonable efforts to maintain the secrecy of this information requests that it be designated as a trade secret.
Election Systems and Software, ES&S, said basically the same thing, claiming this information is proprietary and confidential information.
Clear Ballot also claimed the list of its owners was a trade secret.
How do we get into this world?
You can't find out who owns a company.
It's a trade secret.
Well, I'll tell you and it's somewhat interesting and this actually has to deal with Obama to an extent.
I think it was in May of 2016.
There was an amendment to the Economic Espionage Act that then created something called the DTSA or the Defend Trade Secrets Act.
Up until that point, trade secrets were really entirely governed by state law and it was this complete mess.
New York said a trade secret was X.
New Jersey said it was Y.
There were all these different problems.
Now there's a federal law on the books that has to deal with a private right of action for any kind of misappropriation of trade secrets.
And because of that, there's this expanded notion of what a trade secret is.
It's always encompassed things like employee lists, customer lists, any kind of secretive information.
And now we're seeing it extended further into the realm of who's controlling whom.
And I think that is an entirely inappropriate extrapolation of the definition of a trade secret.
They may satisfy other requirements for trade secrets like you have to take reasonable means and reasonable measures to protect the sanctity of the information.
However, I don't think that those reasonable means and measures would involve shell companies, proprietary corporations, offshore ownership, etc.
Things that you're doing to obfuscate what are otherwise public records should not constitute a trade secret at that particular juncture.
I think what's really going on here too is they're making a last ditch effort to hide the parent corporations or whoever has a controlling interest in these particular corporations.
It's a Trump Foundation, isn't it?
I don't think necessarily.
Tell me I'm wrong, but right now I believe it's a Trump Foundation.
One thing that we've known for years is that all of these voting systems need to be independently tested and go through certain certification processes before they're put into action.
And yet somehow all of these electronic voting systems, especially voting systems that don't have anything like a voter verified paper ballot trail,
somehow make their way into active use in places like Pennsylvania and other states where there's a massive amount of people voting without any kind of paper ballot and it's totally insane.
How does that happen?
Well, these independent testing authorities, and we know this, have been funded by the very election companies that are creating the software and the hardware for electronic voting.
So there is a major conflict of interest between these independent testing authorities and the electronic voting machine companies.
And I think that they were probably trying to hide, again, more funding for these independent testing authorities because it's coming from a conjury of corporations now.
I would posit that this characterization of the ownership scheme is a form of bad trade in and of itself.
Arguing that it ought to be a secret, especially for procurement of stuff on behalf of the citizenry.
And to take it even further, the citizenry's equipment that specifically serves to function the renewal and change and natural processes of our style of government.
So, to me, this is like a dishonest trade practice that they're leaning really hard.
Oh, we lost our call.
Okay.
Sorry.
212-209-2877.
Sorry if your call timed out and went someplace else.
It's still ringing.
We don't know where you are.
So do we know who they are?
We don't know anything.
212-209-2877.
Please give us a call off the hook and tell us your feedback, your feelings, your questions, your contradictions, whatever.
Or who the owner of the election machine company is.
If you know that, yeah, that would be good, too.
Or if you have more hacked information from that company as well, that would be very useful to us.
Here's another letter that we got, and you can write us at oth at 2600.com.
I heard an interesting program on C-SPAN Book TV this Sunday.
Joseph Menn was at Politics and Prose, the bookstore in Washington, D.C., discussing his book Cult of the Dead Cow with John Lester, a.k.a. Count Zero, our old friend.
Yes, who mentioned the HOPE Conferences as one of the most inspiring and useful things in the world of hacking.
Did you see this?
Just thought you might like to know.
Jerry from Manhattan.
Well, Jerry from Manhattan, we did not see that until you told us about it, and then we found it, and we saw it, and it was awesome.
Thank you.
Thank you for sharing that with us.
Great shout-out for the HOPE Conferences.
In the middle of that talk, wasn't expecting it, but it was really cool to see and to realize that people all over the place care about this.
And it's also great to hear from Count Zero again, who's been around for a long, long time.
Yeah, it was really, really fascinating and a pleasant surprise to hear his thoughts on the stuff that we all work very hard on and just pour ourselves into.
So, thank you.
Thank you very much for that.
And we really—getting feedback from someone like that and you having passed it along to us is so crucial to all the things we do and everything we'll be doing going forward.
I think we might have made the listeners angry because—well, that's—actually, it's weird.
The calls are showing up in a different place.
I'm going to try this one.
Good evening.
You're on off the hook.
Nice.
Okay, now it's hopping over there.
Good evening.
You're on off the hook.
You see that?
It's a dial tone, but it's hopping all over the place.
I don't know.
What's going on?
212-209-2877.
If nothing else, help us figure out what's wrong with our phones.
But if we've angered you by using the wrong terminology for something, you know, maybe everyone's offended that we're talking about concentration camps.
Oh, yeah.
That'll bring the calls in.
Yeah.
Well, here's a call on the right line.
So, I think this one will work.
Good evening.
You're on off the hook.
No, it's a dial tone again.
Funny guy.
What's going on?
Or something is malfunctioning.
Yeah.
It was doing something strange, I recall, from our previous show.
There was that weird lighting pattern.
Yeah.
Last time we had four calls that were ringing the entire time.
Except they weren't calls.
It was some kind of robot or something.
Here's another one.
Good evening.
You're on off the hook.
See?
It's instantly a dial tone.
Yeah.
You know, if you're having trouble reaching us, tweet us.
Hacker Radio Show on Twitter and tell us you're trying to call us and it's not going through.
That's how we can bypass this phone network.
You want me to run to the telephone closet and unplug all the phones?
No, don't do that.
Plug them back in?
Yeah, it takes forever to get it right.
To boot up?
Yeah.
Wow.
Well, you know, it's technological challenges and we're trying to...
Rob, you're doing something.
What are you doing?
I am going to attempt to call the listener line and see if it works.
Okay.
Not too hard.
212-209-2877.
Yeah.
Be gentle.
How long does it take you to dial a phone?
I see one.
You've been at this for like a minute beforehand.
It takes a while to get to the dial pad these days.
Probably the same thing.
And now I've missed dial tone.
There's another call coming in.
It's probably a dial tone.
Dial tone.
No, it's not.
Hey, you made it.
We got through it.
This is Brad from Brentwood.
I've told you before.
I just want to remind everyone.
I don't know.
A lot of people probably don't know of an old movie called Queen's Bench 7 or QB 7 with
Anthony Hopkins.
But it is about the Holocaust.
It is about the trial.
And shows like the tables where the fluids were draining in Auschwitz type of thing.
It's an important thing that we should know.
And somebody was right to steer us in the wrong direction.
And I think it's a good thing.
Who's this?
Good evening.
You're on the air.
Hello.
Hi there.
Hi.
Hi there.
Did you mean to be on the air?
Yes.
Yes.
My question is really not related to all this, but it's excellent stuff.
And I'm calling on my entirely hacked flip phone.
Oh, wow.
Yes.
That's great.
Hacked and tampered with by Sheriff's Department.
Really?
Yes.
And I'm calling on my entirely hacked flip phone.
Oh, wow.
Yes.
That's great.
Hacked and tampered with by Sheriff's Department.
And I'm calling on my entirely hacked flip phone.
Oh, wow.
Yes.
And I'm calling on my entirely hacked flip phone.
Oh, wow.
Yes.
And we've got a whole lot of parties on the line.
And we've got a whole lot of parties on the line.
You guys, me and the sheriff who maliciously tapped and tampered my phone.
You guys, me and the sheriff who maliciously tapped and tampered my phone.
My name is Sasha, by the way, and I'm calling from upstate New York, Kingston, New York.
A lot of hackers on the ground, 2600.
Kingston is this weird town that looks kind of like a cowboy town, right?
It's got all the porches.
Let me tell you, upstate New York is a very weird town.
Mm-hmm.
Yes.
And we have audio, video, and we have all these lists.
Let me tell you, upstate New York is a very weird town.
Yes.
A lot of hackers on the ground, 2600.
Kingston is this weird town that looks kind of like a cowboy town, right?
It's got all the porches.
Let me tell you, upstate New York is a very weird town.
Yes.
Very.
And we have audio, video, our buses are, we are, when you get on the buses, every audio
and video is going 100%.
You know, everything stems right from the Patriot Act.
And I remember years and years ago, people talking about revoking that, et cetera, none
of that ever happened.
Nope.
Hey, I'm not, I'm not an expert at all.
I'll take my answer off the air.
If you want to give any information about how people can get expert corroboration regarding
something like a maliciously tap tampered with flip phone, of course, it's hooked up
to their computer.
Anyway, thank you for everything that you do.
And I'll take my answer off the air.
All right.
Thank you.
Thank you for that call.
And I've never had a call on line 11 before, but wow, that was interesting to see.
Alex, any possible advice for somebody who's facing something like that?
Yeah, I mean, absolutely.
There are any number of ways that you can forensically analyze a phone, regardless of
whether it's a flip phone or a smartphone, you know, we can, we have people that can
take a look at that.
You can email us at OTH at 2600.com and, and we'd be happy to discuss this further with
you there.
Yeah.
You've already got the, the hardware itself.
If there's anything there or anything amiss with the account, I mean, hang on to it.
You can do something with it.
I always, you know, when, when I assume somebody is, has compromised something or is listening
in, I always like to have fun with them.
Be in the upper hand, lead them on a wild goose chase, say things that make absolutely
no sense, but will waste a lot of their time.
You know, there's no reason you have to be the victim here to be somebody who, who takes
control of the situation and drive the other person crazy.
I bury it in the backyard.
Or that, or that, Hey, that's it for us tonight.
Off the hook is off the air.
And I think we're off the air next week.
That's what we're told at this moment.
So we'll be back in two weeks.
You can write to us OTH at 2600.com and continue following our update of the camps, concentration
camps.us.
Or if you don't like that word, internment camps.us gives you the same information.
And we will see you in two weeks.
In the meantime, stay tuned to WBAI New York.
Good night.
As we, in America, face the seemingly intractable effects of
persistent discrimination and bias, it is good to remember the modern day David who
faced the Goliath of discrimination and oppression and changed the world.