Thanks to you.
Thank you for thinking of me.
I thank you.
I thank you.
Let me say thank you to all you people out there.
I want to thank each and every one of you for coming by.
And while he's thanking those folks, let me take this opportunity to thank all of you,
our listeners and support staff, our contributors, our interns, the volunteers, producers,
and the entire crew that works countless hours to bring WBAI into your lives.
Thank you, people.
Thank you.
Seriously.
Thank you.
This is WBAI New York.
The time is 8 o'clock.
Time for Off the Hook.
Yes, it's time for Off the Hook where we try to figure out why certain buttons don't work.
Okay.
You know what?
That's not a problem because we have a second machine where the buttons do work.
No, I hit the right button.
I did.
I know what's going on here.
People are just playing a joke on me.
Okay, fine.
I can bring it up over here.
We just got to wait for the CD to queue up.
It's 8 o'clock, 8.01 now, and it's time for another exciting edition of Off the Hook.
That's not working either.
Hang on.
Try this.
There we go.
All right.
You know, we're going to have to reg you back in here.
You leave the buttons in the worst position.
Okay.
We're going to do this right.
Thank God we're on tape tonight.
All right.
This is WBAI New York.
It's time once again for Off the Hook.
I can't make a call.
We couldn't get much worse.
But if they could, they would.
Fundidly boom for the best, expect the worst.
I hope that's understood.
Fundidly boom!
I hope that's understood.
I hope that's understood.
All right.
This is WBAI New York.
Off the Hook.
Emmanuel Goldstein here with you on this Wednesday evening.
Joined tonight by Rob T. Firefly.
Good evening.
Gila.
Hi.
And Kyle.
Hello.
It's good to be back.
I know that didn't go so smoothly.
You know, we're still putting the place back together again.
It kind of got unplugged, and a lot of things were left in disarray.
This one's on us, though.
This one, somebody who was on before us plugged something the wrong way.
But it's okay.
No problem.
That's what live radio is all about.
That's the magic.
That's, you know, the rough around the edges type of thing that we do sometimes.
It's so good to be back here.
Kyle, we were on a bunch of trains going all across the country looking for purpose because we lost this place.
Only to find out that the place was gotten back.
We want it back.
And here we are once again in our studios.
Although I'm told, sadly, this will be the last time that we will be broadcasting from these studios.
Because we're moving to our new studios.
Yes.
Down the hallway.
I'm sorry, folks.
I couldn't resist.
Yeah.
All this time, new studios have been constructed.
Can you imagine?
Can you imagine the pig-headedness of coming in here, shutting us down when we just built a damn new studio down the hallway?
Well, we did.
It's finished.
It's great.
And starting next week, I am told, we are going to start actually using it.
So that's awesome.
Yes, indeed.
I was hanging around in that studio earlier talking to Grayson, who has been doing so much of the heavy lifting and getting that place up and running.
That's our chief engineer, by the way.
Yeah.
Our chief engineer, Grayson, who gave me sort of a crash course on the fancy new board we have.
And it's really exciting stuff.
I mean, we're going to be producing the same show that we have always produced for you, our dear listeners.
But we're going to be doing it from a less cramped area.
We're going to be doing it from a better equipped area.
We're going to be doing it from an area that is actually made to cause radio noise to happen in pleasant ways.
And I'm excited about it.
I'm very excited to start using that stuff.
Yeah.
It's going to be something else.
It's really state-of-the-art, professional, and overlooks Brooklyn, too, which is amazing.
It's soundproof.
Unlike this studio here where you can hear airplanes flying over, that one, the blood-curdling screams that you sometimes hear down the hallway, you won't hear those anymore.
Because we will be completely encasing that in some kind of lead or some kind of material that does not allow sounds to enter or leave.
I think it's uranium.
But also, we couldn't do any of that without our dear listeners, you, who are listening, who are the sole source of what has kept this station going for over six decades now.
And it's really you we have to thank.
We couldn't have done it without you.
And that raises a bit of a quandary.
Because while we're back on the air, you might have read in all the newspapers, and it was in all the newspapers.
Boy, what a publicity blitz we got out of this.
BAI was off the air.
We were finished, done, complete.
After all this time, all this history, finished, no more, not coming back.
We had the mayor.
We had the state attorney general all weighing in, saying, what a loss for New York.
And it was just amazing, really, really emotional to see all of that.
But kind of frustrating, because when we came back on the air, and apparently these people aren't familiar with BAI.
We keep rising like phoenixes.
We were back, but so many people had been turned off by what was on the air for that past month or five weeks that it was hard to reach them.
It was hard to say, hey, we're back on the air, because they weren't tuning to 99.5 anymore.
So we tried.
We did our best to get the word out to everybody that, hey, the BAI is back.
We defied the odds, and here we are back on the air.
But we didn't get anything near the same amount of publicity for coming back on the air.
And I just fear so many people out there, just like our BAI buddies.
That's where you make the monthly payments, and it's a very low amount, something like $5, maybe $10 a month.
But it adds up, and per year, its good income for the radio station keeps us on the air.
So many people canceled those BAI buddy subscriptions because they were infuriated, outraged by what was happening.
The fact that we were taken over, taken off the air, replaced with this.
Well, we'll get into that.
We have a lot more to talk about.
We're on for two hours tonight, so we have a lot to say.
But so many people were frustrated and upset, and they canceled those subscriptions.
And we're working on getting them back.
But we know we're not reaching everybody, and we need to reach more people.
Because quite honestly, we need to do better than we were doing before in order to make this place thrive.
And this place is going to thrive because we have such an amazing location here.
We have such good people working at WBAI.
We're building things constantly, putting new programs on the air.
And basically just becoming a force to be reckoned with on the FM dial and elsewhere.
That's totally true.
And as long as we have the support of our listenership, as long as people keep throwing in what they can.
And yes, we are going to ask you to support the station this evening by calling our pledge line at 516-620-3602.
Or by going give to WBAI.org.
And the reason we need you to do that is because, like I said, we don't have paid commercials on this station.
We're not selling baked goods.
At this point, we literally have no other source of income.
We could sell baked goods. That's a good idea, actually.
We could. I mean, the holidays are coming up. People like gingerbread or whatever it is people eat.
But I haven't got any right now.
All I've got is basically the things that I can contribute to the station in an easy and workable manner.
So, yeah, we're going to talk more about that in a bit.
But you really are the only thing that can keep us doing this.
And as you know, we weren't able to...
Me?
Oh, you were staring right at me when you said that. That's why I got confused.
Well, you actually keep us doing this show because you basically have the reins of it.
But you, the listener, keep us broadcasting on this station.
Right.
And as you know, we missed a bunch of our own fun drive this time around because of various things that have been going on.
Did I mention it was a pig-headed move?
Because it was. To shut down a station in the middle of a fun drive, guess what effect that has?
The fun drive stops. The funds dry up.
And then you have a real financial crisis.
So we're trying to climb out of that. That's one of the challenges.
We have a lot of lost ground to regain.
And that's why we need you to throw in what you can.
But, yeah, we find this work important that we do here on this program, at this station, on this network.
And, yes, we don't get paid for this.
We don't receive any sort of personal financial rewards for this.
But we do it because we think it's important, and we hope you do, too.
And we've been doing it since 1988.
That was when the first edition of Off the Hook went on the air.
And there are shows that have been on longer.
Of course, the station, as you mentioned, is 60 years old.
It went on the air in, I believe, 1960.
So, yeah, a lot of history here.
And, of course, there are so many new programs that have not yet aired that will because this place is here,
because it's a place for people to knock on the door and get experience and do something creative and new on the FM dial.
Not something you can do in very many places, not only in New York City, but in the world.
It's a real resource that we want to use to the max.
And I think the events of the past couple of months have really taught us that this place is so valuable.
I mean, it was a very emotional period when we didn't have BAI.
Sure, people were talking about, oh, you can use the Internet.
Yeah, I know we can use the Internet.
Everybody can use the Internet.
That's not the same thing.
It is not the same thing as radio.
Radio, well, you can't, you know, just Rob was staring into space when he was talking because he couldn't see the listener.
He was talking to the listener.
But we can't look at any kind of statistic and see that, oh, this person is listening to us right now in Queens Village or something.
And they had this kind of connection and they've been listening for this long.
No, we don't have that information.
It's very mysterious, I guess, but also really amazing because you never know who is out there.
And the flip side of that is when you're tuning on the FM dial, you never know what you're going to find.
You keep going down the dial and you'll hear something you never heard before.
You'll hear something you hate.
You'll hear something you love.
You'll hear something that will change your life.
Now, that kind of magic might happen on the Internet.
It doesn't happen in the same way because you're actively seeking out particular broadcasts or programming.
It's very different.
I'm not saying it's not valuable.
It's valuable in a different way.
We want to preserve this.
We don't want to just give this over to some commercial entity so that they can play country music.
I don't like you picking on country music because we don't have a country music station here.
It's not representative of the community that we serve.
Right.
There's probably some people in the metropolitan area that enjoy country music, but the programming here on WBAI is eclectic.
It's diverse.
It's got so much variation to it, whether it's a music show or something that's based on talk like our program.
It has that ability to span so many different parts of the community, the greater community here in New York and the tri-state area,
and around the world, of course, with that extra bit of streaming that we do alongside the radio part.
That reach and that variety is what makes it such a special form of media and conversation in the city and in this part of the world.
We've often covered things that you really would not be able to find on a station that doesn't have sustaining members that are part of a buddy program
or that we can count on, or that their whims as far as programming go could change just the same way an advertiser would change a television ad.
See, and I thought the country music thing was you doing a historical callback to that April Fool's Day show when didn't you say you were changing WBAI?
You remember that, yeah.
I wasn't even around then, but I've heard this story of lore, and I think it's just so important to help preserve the history of what WBAI has been, can be, will be.
And I think it's also important to tell people that, yes, you can call 516-620-3602.
You can become a WBAI buddy.
You can text 41444 and make a donation that way.
Or you can really take it old school and put a check in the mail and send it to us here at 388 Atlantic Avenue, Brooklyn, New York, 11217.
I didn't know the zip code.
Wow.
I've been avoiding saying the address because I don't know the zip code, and I feel like an idiot.
Thank you, Gila.
Hey, that's why I'm here.
Crack research team is normally what I do.
I'm not on mic, but tonight I get to help out.
And, yeah, to actually put a check in the mail with a cute stamp on it.
You can draw a picture on the envelope for us and whatever you like to do.
But if you want to really support WBAI in an old school kind of way, yeah, put a check in the mail.
How about the post office, too?
Yeah, and, you know, old school people come by and give us checks, real barrels of cash, whatever, you know, whatever your scene is.
Coin collector, whatever.
We're fine with it.
But the important thing is to never take this place for granted again.
I fear that we all did that.
We all thought this place would always be here.
And, yes, April 1st, a number of years ago, we did an April Fool's prank where we basically had the station go off the air and be replaced by a country station.
It's in our archives at 2600.com off the hook.
You can track it down.
But even doing that was emotional because we were saying to ourselves, what would the last moments of WBAI sound like?
And we played Redemption Song by Bob Marley, and it was just such a sad goodbye, followed by dead air and static and then country music after that when the new station came on.
But we didn't even get to say goodbye.
That was what was so horrible about what happened on October 7th.
These people just came into the station, forced people out into the street, and basically turned this over to something called Pacifica Across America, which I didn't even know we had.
Pacifica is the entity that owns WBAI and owns four other radio stations.
And this is a, I guess, a syndicated service that plays particular programs and is just meant to be a nationwide feed.
Ordinarily, you know, I wouldn't have a problem with that, although, God, some of the music they play.
But regardless, you know, everyone has their own taste or lack thereof.
OK, I'm letting the music go.
But the point is that is what replaced us.
This this homogenized, bland, and it was bland compared to what we air here on WBAI.
It was bland.
And I took great exception to it.
It bothered me a lot that this is what was replacing my beloved radio station here in New York.
Without any conversation whatsoever, just the show of force.
It was so, so offensive to everything we stand for.
So, you know, if it wasn't for that, I might actually be enthusiastically saying, yeah, Pacifica Across America sounds great.
You know, put that on.
If you don't have somebody show up for a program, you know, it'll be nice.
But now it just it just reminds me of this.
So I don't know.
Either change the name or have it come from someplace else.
It just it was one of many things that was unpleasant in that in that period of time.
But again, let me just give out some information because we we are taking phone calls for pledges 516-620-3602.
And I can't stress enough.
We need to do well.
We need to have people calling in all the time, not just between 8 and 10 tonight, but all the time to get this place back on its feet.
And the work doesn't stop there.
Then we need to make this place a lot stronger than it's been.
We need to have the best programs we can find.
We need to have more people involved.
We need to really be a thorn in the side of anybody that wants to shut us down.
And believe me, there are a lot of people who want to shut us down.
We have these things known as premiums and they're thank you gifts that we give out to people that that pledge to us that call 516-620-3602 and pledge whatever they can.
Hold on, Kyle.
You've got something there.
Is that what I think it is?
Yeah.
Wow.
You brought that into the station.
OK.
All right.
And our intentions are to give these away for people who pledge, hang on, $25 or more.
And if you ask for this, you will get this.
I'm trying to find the exact way it's phrased because you have to say it verbatim or sometimes they can't find it.
It is the hacker tote bag.
OK, good.
Yeah.
We've got NPR officially now.
We have tote bags.
OK.
But only for this show.
OK.
Can you describe the hacker tote bag to our listeners who are pledging $25 or more at 516-620-3602?
You mean this, the hacker tote bag?
Yeah, that one.
This one.
This, the hacker tote bag.
Yes, it's right here.
It is a bold new design.
Why don't you cover the microphone with it and try talking into the microphone to see how well it buffers.
OK, yeah.
It's a very good sound shield.
You'll hear it slowly muffle and I must sound a lot better.
OK.
Well, you are muffled but we're still hearing probably through the other microphones are hearing you.
All right.
So it is working.
Yeah, no, that is another feature of this black fabric reusable bag with the printed 2600 government seal logo.
This design is classic.
It's on both sides, too, I believe.
It is.
It's printed on both sides.
There it is on the other side.
OK.
And this is yours as a thank you gift for your pledge to WBAI.
So please call in and ask for the hacker tote pledge level.
Hacker tote bag.
Hacker tote bag pledge level.
Got to say the whole thing.
Say it like that.
Hacker tote bag.
516-620-3602 is the number to call to get the hacker tote bag.
What, I don't want to get too personal here, but what kinds of things have you carried in the hacker tote bag?
I've carried groceries.
From grocery stores.
Perishable items.
Yes.
And didn't a lot of people start talking to you in line wanting to know what this was all about?
Well, yeah.
When I wasn't accepting compliments, I did have a couple of conversations with people that stopped me and wanted to know more about where I got it and what exactly this government seal was all about.
And it's a great conversation.
If you haven't had one of those conversations, get the hacker tote bag.
And you can also put non-perishable items in this.
It is actually quite user-friendly in design.
You can put perishable items in it as well.
They'll perish, but you can carry them.
Right.
Right.
And it is a medium-sized bag.
It's got somewhat large straps, I believe.
It's got long enough shoulder straps that you can carry it comfortably on your shoulder and still carry stuff in it.
I just did a little test.
We're good.
Okay.
Definitely good for carrying things over the shoulder.
I'm not sure exactly.
We should have had that test done before we got the things in the first place.
No, I'm glad that you did that because I had a hunch, but I wasn't 100% sure.
I was nervous because, yeah, if we had failed that test, it would have been money down the drain.
But this is great.
So, for $25, people can get the Hacker Tote Bag, which is a pretty awesome thing to have.
But also, more importantly, it shows your support to the radio station.
That's our thank you.
We're donating these to the radio station.
And by your calling up and pledging, you're helping the station to continue to exist.
Now, that's not all we're offering.
We have other things as well.
You might have heard about the Hacker Digest.
The Hacker Digest is basically an annual compendium of 2600 Magazine.
We come out quarterly, which means four issues per year.
And what we've done is every year, we've basically made a digital copy in PDF format of the issues of that year
and refer to that as Hacker Digest volume whatever number it is.
Like right now, I think we're at volume 36, right?
Yeah.
2019.
So, when this year ends, when we put out the final issue for this year, the Hacker Digest for this year will be called volume 36.
And you'll get that.
But you'll also get all the 35 ones that came out before, starting in 1984.
That's when we first started coming out.
We were monthly then.
We were a newsletter.
It was a smaller format.
And we eventually went quarterly in 1988.
So, for a pledge of $100, you will get in email either links or attachments that have the Hacker Digest for every single year.
That's every single issue that has ever come out of the Hacker Quarterly.
If you want to know about hackers, if you want to know about computers and technology,
if you want to basically see how things have changed since the mid-'80s, this is the package for you.
You will be able to read so much.
You know, putting it together, it actually took up more time because we were reading so many of the articles that we were piecing together.
It might not sound like much, but when you're working on a project like this and you have all these fascinating little tidbits from the past,
they remain relevant and they remain interesting.
And you just spend hours and hours and hours reading when you should be putting them together into the set that you're offering for people.
We eventually got through it all and we finished.
For years, we were putting out new ones or newly restored ones, but now we have caught up.
So, all 35 of the previous Hacker Digest are now available.
If you pledge $100, 516-620-3602 or give to wbai.org, you will get this.
Just give us your email address and pay your pledge and you will have reading material that will last a lifetime.
It's amazing. I mean, we've been through this already, yet we still found it fascinating to go back and keep reading about it.
You'll hear about old phone networks, new computer systems, the latest privacy scandals, government crackdowns,
everything that we are interested in on this radio show in a printed version.
So, that's for a pledge of $100, a Hacker Digest full set and lifetime subscription.
I don't know if you have to say all those words, but if you say Hacker Digest full set, that should get you on the right path.
516-620-3602. That's for a pledge of $100.
Pledge of $25, you get the tote bag.
Here's something else.
The 2600 three-year subscription.
I don't think we've ever offered this on the air before.
For a pledge of $50, you will get a physical, that means paper, subscription to 2600.
So, you will get in the mail, in your mailbox. Remember that? Yeah.
That's where people used to communicate.
You will get four times a year the Hacker Quarterly. 2600, the Hacker Quarterly.
It's 68 pages long and it comes out, as I said, four times a year.
It's dedicated to the world of computer hackers, phone freaks, privacy, growing Orwellian landscape, you name it.
It's all in there.
And a three-year subscription, you'll get four issues per year for the next three years.
And if you're not hooked by then, I don't know what to say.
But that's a pledge of $50, 2600 three-year subscription, 516-620-3602.
So, we have three different amazing items that we're offering here.
And Rob, what are you doing over there?
It looks like you're working on something else.
I am. I'm kind of just doodling a bit.
I've got a nice sketch pad with me and some good markers.
And I've been drawing just various random things that I think might be a little on brand for this program.
Some telephone, computer-related things, a certain character I'm doodling at the moment.
And what I'm going to do, among other things, what I have offered to do is to throw one of these into each of those hacker tote bags.
And also throw one of these in with another physical premium that we are also offering tonight.
Is this the hacker portrait I'm just finding out about?
That is the hacker portrait.
Okay. Now, this is fascinating.
For a pledge of $100, hacker and artist Rob Vincent, a.k.a. Rob T. Firefly of WBAR.
That's you.
What a ridiculous name.
Oh, okay. So, you're Rob Vincent.
All right.
I am.
You've painted many different people and things for station supporters in the past.
That is true.
And now it's your turn to tell him who to paint.
So, if you pledge for this premium, the hacker portrait, Rob will contact you for a digital image file.
And what you'll do is you'll send Rob a photo of yourself or a photo of someone else that you have permission to use.
And Rob will interpret your photo in a painting on stretched 5x7-inch canvas in an artistic style of his choosing.
Okay. This sounds exciting.
That's for a pledge of $100.
Obviously, you have to have an e-mail address.
You have to be able to communicate via e-mail.
And you have to know how to send a file, an attachment with your picture or the picture of the person that you want a copy of.
And, again, it's polite to get the permission of the person that you're having a sketch made of because otherwise it might freak them out.
So, the hacker portrait.
And you're adding to this package and the tote bag package again with what?
I am.
I'm doing some live sketches here in the studio.
And, you know, these are nice sized sort of marker on paper.
I was going to wonder how big they are, but it actually says on the front of the pad here.
Yeah, 6x8.
6x8 paper sketches of just various things.
I've got one that's sort of a pay phone here so far.
I've got a nice little computer wearing tennis shoes.
I've got a character from a popular Hollywood hacker related production twirling a little floppy disk around that I'm just playing with.
And this is completely random.
Completely, you know, it's completely random which one you'll get.
But you will get one of these.
And it's a little extra piece of artwork.
And I should mention, a lot of people who do artwork online are familiar with being asked for commissions.
Do you have your commissions open?
Do they commission you to draw something, paint something, whatever?
And I generally have not had my commissions open for quite some time.
I've been spending my time doing other things.
So right now I don't have my normal commissions open.
This is the only way you can commission me is by supporting this radio station and this program by calling 516-620-3602 or by going to give2wbai.org.
And you can ask for the hacker portrait for a pledge of $100 or more.
You can ask for the hacker tote bag for a pledge of how much for the tote bag?
It's 25.
A pledge of 25 or more for the hacker tote bag.
And that will have one of these sketches in.
Or you could get me to draw yourself someone important to you.
Maybe someone you just like.
And I will contact you if you get the hacker portrait.
I will contact you via e-mail and you can send me either an image file or a link to an image online.
And I will paint that image for you.
If you've not seen my work, you can go to robvincent.net.
And right on the front page there, there are a bunch of examples of the sort of portraits I've painted in the past.
And there is also a direct link to this very premium on give2wbai.org if you're interested there.
So, right away we have four different items.
Four different things that we are asking people to support the radio station.
Things that we have donated.
And the phone number again, 516-620-3602.
The four items, the hacker portrait for a pledge of $100.
The 2600 three-year subscription for a pledge of $50.
The Hacker Digest full set and lifetime subscription for $100.
And of course, the hacker tote bag for a pledge of how much, Kyle?
Twenty-five.
Wow, okay.
And again, the phone number 516-620-3602.
You should be able to find all these items at give2wbai.org.
And remember, the most important thing is that you pledge something.
That you basically help to invest in this radio station.
Keep it strong.
Keep it going.
It's a unique voice in the New York radio scene.
It's a unique voice nationwide.
And we found this out.
We found this out when we lost it.
When we lost it on October 7th.
We found out how many people were affected by this.
Not just in New York.
I was getting emails from people in Europe.
And people were very touched by what was happening.
They felt it.
And think about what that means for a radio station to change format
or be taken over and have it affect somebody well outside their listening range.
That's something special.
That's not like your top 40 station turning to adult contemporary
and upsetting a few listeners.
No, that's the end of an institution.
Because as we've been saying, 60 years is a long time.
And if you look at every single other radio station in New York,
they've all changed in that amount of time.
They've all changed.
Name a radio station, Rob.
Z100.
There you go, Z100.
Didn't used to be Z100.
There.
That's a tough one.
Okay, no.
I think I got this.
WVNJ.
I think that's what they were.
Someone tell me if I'm wrong.
I think it was WVNJ before it was Z100.
It sounds right.
It was WHTZ back in the 80s.
You have a frown on your face.
Are you looking this up?
Okay, she is a researcher.
She really is.
I know when in my younger days I used to listen to WDRE,
which was at 92.7 and it became WLIR, and I think that's dead now too.
Well, actually you have it backwards.
It was WLIR became WDRE.
I think it became WLIR again.
Yeah, it went back to WLIR again.
And then WLIR was 98.5 out on the island for some reason,
and it got really confusing after a while.
Do you have a result on your research?
There's a whole lot going on here.
Yes, radio stations change a lot.
Okay, WHNF, WMGM, WVNJ.
There, I was right, WVNJ.
In 1961.
Wow.
Beautiful music.
It was.
It was very beautiful.
Then jazz after eight.
WVNJ went off the air in 1983 and became WHTZ,
which it has been to this very day.
So there you go.
All right.
So every station has a history, is my point.
And that involves format changes.
But WBAI has been here since 1960 as a listener-sponsored,
non-commercial alternative station.
And we want another 60 years.
We'll get there with your help because we've gotten here with your help.
And yeah, radio has changed.
Everything is different.
But the stations that are affected by everything going to the Internet
are those stations that don't provide anything local,
like what you heard over these airwaves for those five weeks.
That's what you hear on the Internet, the homogenized crap.
I'm sorry.
I still feel emotional about being taken over.
But, you know, it's not anything with local flavor.
Here in Brooklyn, we're on Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn.
All right.
We are here now, as is every live show that comes across these airwaves.
It's my hope that we have more live shows than ever
because that is what makes a radio station something unique and precious.
So let's hope we find our identity.
Let's hope we find more people to call up
and get those BAI buddy subscriptions going.
Clog up those phone lines, 516-620-3602.
Keep this from ever happening again.
And thank you for those people who have called.
Yeah, it was a really hard lesson we learned over the past couple of months
that it is so easy to lose this place.
We lost it for a while.
We very nearly didn't get it back, and it would be very easy to lose it again.
So call 516-620-3602 or go to give2wbai.org and help keep us doing what we do.
That handoff is really important between DJs,
and that community programming is representative of the listeners themselves
and all of their varied interests.
And so without that identity of a rich variety or a community that's local
that's coming in and programming different things,
you tend to have that sort of disconnected identity
where you're not exactly representing the community the way you're sort of tasked with it
as a mission for this station and community radio in general.
So that would be a huge, huge loss.
And it was, I think, too close for comfort, I think comes to mind.
Too close for comfort.
And we were about to start fundraising and wanted to make this place even stronger
and just have a strong showing for just our humble show, our program here.
It's so important that all the different programs are able to show that their listenership is there
and supportive and giving what they can during the fundraising drive
because every single program is expected to represent that community throughout.
And so here we are.
We're back, and we have these fun gifts,
but really they're just representative of the big thank you that we have for everyone that is pledging tonight.
And, you know, you mentioned that we were about to start a fund drive back in October,
and we had a show planned, and we had a special guest.
And that special guest is joining us tonight after about six weeks of delay.
We have on the phone with us Joseph Menn.
Joseph, are you there?
Yeah, I'm here. How are you doing?
Well, we're doing better now.
We had a bit of a rocky October.
Joseph, you have just, well, not just, but recently, very recently actually,
put out a book that has a lot of people talking that is of great interest to us in the hacker community.
It's called Cult of the Dead Cow, How the Original Hacking Supergroup Might Just Save the World.
And first of all, congratulations on putting out what I think is a really unique and fascinating work.
Thank you. Thank you very much.
I'm really happy about it.
How did you get involved with the Cult of the Dead Cow?
It's a strange question to ask, and I'm sure a lot of people might not know what I mean,
but Cult of the Dead Cow is a hacker group, and this book pretty much tells almost all.
It tells a lot.
Well, so I've covered, you know, I'm a mainstream journalist.
I do investigative stories on tech, especially security and privacy, have done for 20 years.
And the last book I wrote was about basically how we're all screwed,
because, you know, the Internet is essentially indefensible, and the geopolitics are borked.
And, you know, that was called Fatal System Error, and as you can imagine, it was a bit of a downer.
And since then, there have been lots of other books that talk about how, you know, security is terrible,
and cyber war is coming, and all this stuff, which is all true.
We are screwed.
But I wanted to do something that was more positive,
that called out some of the really amazing things that have been done largely by unheralded people,
many of whom from sketchy backgrounds.
And so the CDC was a great fit for that, because they go all the way back to 84,
when it was building boards and text files.
And those people, you know, evolved multiple times as the Internet evolved,
and wound up doing amazing things, working for the government, for private companies,
and for, you know, the nonprofit activist world.
And, you know, by focusing on this one group, you can sort of understand, like,
the broader landscape that really hasn't gotten enough attention.
Wow. So how long did it take you to put this together?
Well, certainly, you know, if you put it all, like, if I'd been working straight,
it would have been more than a year.
It stretched out over three years.
And then I took a leave for something like five months from the day job at Reuters to do the bulk of the work.
So it took a while. I mean, I write a book, like, every decade or so.
It takes a lot out of me.
Yeah, I'm sure it does.
Now, you might recall last, I guess it was earlier in the year,
that the surprising revelation that presidential candidate Beto O'Rourke
had once been a part of Cult of the Dead Cow, did that come from your book, that revelation?
That's right, yes. So I had, when I began working on the book,
I knew that there was a congressman who, I didn't know which one,
but there was a congressman who had never talked about his hacking roots
and probably would not talk to me.
And then while, you know, as I started reporting the book in earnest,
I got the deal to write the book.
And one of my to-do lists was see if I can figure out who that is and if he'll talk to me.
And I figured out who it was, and to my surprise, he talked to me.
And then I was going to save that for the book, but then he declared for president.
And I saw that he was going to likely declare for president,
and so I started sort of doing a highlight of just his role in CDC
and what that meant for people who maybe didn't know anything about hacking.
Somebody said it was like finding out that Bernie Sanders was in the Wu-Tang clan.
You know, it was a big deal.
And so I prepared that story, and we released it at Reuters the day after he declared for president,
and it was the most read story in the history of Reuters.com.
And just to be clear, if Bernie wanted to be in Wu-Tang, he could be.
I have that on good authority.
So just letting that out there.
Now, so you say you figured out.
I don't want to dwell on this too much, but you figured out that Beto O'Rourke was in CDC.
How did you figure that out?
Because there was a story.
Because he started running for Senate against Ted Cruz in Texas.
And so I saw a story fly by my news feed that had a guy who was a sitting congressman,
running for Senate from Texas, which is where CDC was founded.
He was 46, which is kind of the magic demographic for the kids who started CDC.
He'd been in a punk band, and he ran a software company after college.
And that was enough clues.
And I went to my friends in CDC.
I said, is it this guy?
They said, we're not going to talk about that.
And I said, well, what about if the book doesn't come out until after the Senate election?
And they said, really?
And I said, yeah, really.
And they said, well, OK.
Yeah, if we have a deal, it's Beto O'Rourke, and we're proud as hell of him.
So I thought that was going to be it.
And I wrote the book.
I interviewed Beto, told him the same thing.
He said, fine.
And then we were holding the last page of the book to see whether or not he wins Senate.
And he doesn't win Senate.
I'm like, OK, so send it off for copy editing and stuff.
And then, wait a minute, he's still driving around the country talking to people.
Maybe this isn't over.
And so we released that story.
And then one of the weird things about the book is that there was actually enough time.
Because that story ran three months before the actual book, I actually had time to get the reaction to the book in the book.
Wow, that's priceless.
So that was fun.
So we got the last, you know, what that revelation meant for the campaign and what it meant for hackers to have one of their own running for the White House.
That is really interesting.
And that's just one of the many fascinating stories in the book.
Now, you're aware there are a lot of hacker groups over the years, over the decades, legions of doom, masses of deception, so many.
What is unique about CDC, Cult of the Dead Cow?
That's an excellent question.
And so, you know, I don't want to piss off people because I've called them a super group.
I make clear in the early stages that super group in the rock and roll sense.
So, like, the Eagles were a super group, which means they took members who were previously in other groups.
That doesn't mean that they're the best of all time.
In fact, CDC would tell you that they looked up to LOD and MOD, among others.
Yes.
But CDC is interesting to me because it included, among other people, folks who were in LOD and MOD.
And they were kind of like a Switzerland, right?
You know, they didn't get involved in the turf wars and they weren't as overtly criminal.
You know, I think it's, you know, people today don't realize that basically everybody who was online before 1990 was a criminal.
Because unless you had an awesome bulletin board that you really loved in your area code or you lived at a university, you didn't have access to the Internet.
And you had to use this thing called long distance.
And maybe you used a blue box and maybe you used a credit card that wasn't exactly yours.
Or sprint codes or MCI codes or things like that.
Until you're, you know, so that's what you did if your parents rumbled you for running up a $400 phone bill.
So, but, you know, CDC was not about crime.
It wasn't a how to for crime.
It was like a social club for people from wherever.
They were like the liberal arts wing of the hacker underground.
And so they lasted longer than LOD and MOD.
And there have already been books about LOD and MOD.
But, you know, LOD and MOD didn't put people at DARPA.
CDC did.
You know, CDC had a guy, Mudge Zacco, who ran cybersecurity grant making offense and defense for DARPA, the folks who brought you the Internet.
They have a guy running for president.
They had the founders of Veracode, which is a billion-dollar company that does binary analysis.
So you know what the code you're paying for actually is doing.
And they invented hacktivism, which has morphed multiple times but is, I think, incredibly important nowadays because, you know, all the mainstream technology companies are in this like moral cauldron.
And they don't know what they're doing.
It's like we thought we were the good guys at Google or Facebook or whatever.
And suddenly everybody hates them.
Whereas like the old school hacker guys have been dealing with this stuff for a long time.
And I think I like really have like the moral authority that comes from like, you know, hard experience of deciding when it makes sense to like release a Trojan and make fun of Microsoft in public and when it makes sense to like go testify to Congress.
They've been dealing with big issues for a long time.
That's certainly true.
And you made an allusion to Backorifice, which was their dig at Microsoft.
And I imagine that that plays a major part of the book as well, because when that was released, they were getting attention from all over the world.
Which is really interesting.
I mean, like most sane hackers would run away from the media, at least if they were going to like use their real names or their faces.
And CDC is like part performance art.
You know, they could have, you know, there were four members in the loft that were also in CDC.
And the loft could have issued an advisory about, you know, basic structural insecurity with Windows 95.
But that wasn't really going to be very effective because Microsoft was a monopoly.
So instead they kick it to their hairy cousins from Texas, CDC.
And at Def Con, there's this incredible event where they're like Grandmaster Rat is pacing the stage and rabbit fur chaps and like a cowboy hat and doing this call and response hip hop thing with the crowd.
And they throw out the CDs with Backorifice on it because they know it's going to cause a freaking media circus.
And Microsoft won't answer to them.
But they do have to answer the New York Times and NBC, who sure enough call and say, wait, what are you doing?
These guys are letting any script kiddie hack a Windows box if they can get anybody to click.
What are you doing about that?
And that began the process that got Microsoft to take security seriously.
Fascinating.
So while you're, I mean, you approach the CDC about doing a book.
And a lot of us know the CDC folks by reputation, by work they've done.
But how did they react to the idea of you doing this book about them?
Well, so, you know, they knew they knew this was good material, you know, and they knew that, you know, there was a legacy issue.
And that, you know, kids, you know, they were most famous 20 years ago.
And they know that many people coming up didn't know the lessons.
And I think that's why they were willing to willing to share.
You know, I need to give a shout out to the Statute of Limitations, which made a lot of this like more feasible for them to talk about.
I expected that some of them would use their names and some wouldn't.
And in the end, I got them all, which was which was really nice.
Because one of the things that these guys did is that, you know, they were tricksters and they messed with the media and they made stuff up.
And so I couldn't get rooked, too.
So I needed to see contemporaneous emails and chat logs and so forth before I was going to buy anything and put it in the book.
And they were they were down with it. They were OK with that.
They understood that I was trying to well, I wasn't going to cover up crimes.
My point was that, you know, these people did serious critical thinking.
They were adaptable and they were driven by moral causes.
And that's something that that there needs to be more of today.
Now that cybersecurity is a nice, clean profession, you know, you can go to college and go work for a nice big company and do cybery things without having to make any of these tough moral calls.
And that's that's too bad because then you can wind up getting sleepwalked into doing stuff that's really bad for your users or for society as a whole.
So I think there's a lot of lessons to be learned from from the old guys.
And I think they they agreed. And that's why they were willing to play ball.
And what form did the early group get affiliated and communicate?
Was that mostly online? And what form does it take now?
Now that you're thinking of them having this moral authority and being sort of formalized and looked to in a lot of ways, is this just taking form as advocacy or is it still a sort of a loose affiliation of people communicating and staying up to date and sort of working on their own initiatives?
So there's it's a mix. So, I mean, first of all, the forms of communication, the forms of communication that we shifted, like from being a hidden part of a bulletin board way back when to IRC, to email.
And I guess the dominant way now is that it's Slack.
That's what they're on there. You know, there are maybe 20 active members now.
You know, there's there is a pretty limited member list. There are a lot of people that claim that they're CDC who are not.
You know, there are maybe there have been maybe 50 over the life of the group or roughly 20 at any one time.
There are plenty of people in the Ninja Strike Force, which is kind of like farm team, friends, fan club, whatever, ladies auxiliary.
That's a bunch of bigger group without as much vetting. CDC proper is like small and really cool.
Some of those guys are up to their own things and they, you know, they they're just friends and they talk, kick around ideas.
There are some group efforts, including on sort of digital self-defense type stuff that I think more will be coming out on the future.
So, you know, some some of them are real collaborations and some of them are individual projects with like Kibitzing.
I think there will be more things that will come with the CDC stamp in the future.
But, you know, one of the nice things about the book is they kind of like got the band back together again.
So we got to do you know, I did a panel at DEF CON with Def Veggie and Omega and Mudge and Dildog.
I saw you guys on C-SPAN doing doing something in a bookstore.
Yeah, me and Count Zero did something that was on C-SPAN from a bookstore in D.C., Politics and Prose.
It's been really fun to do these different sorts of things.
So I did like I did something at the Council on Foreign Relations with Katie Masuris.
I did something without Samos as they worked at At Stake and then was the chief security officer at Facebook that blew the whistle on the Russians.
At Stake was founded by a loft guy. So that's the connection.
So there's all there's this nice heritage and all these different people in government, in private sector, inside the big companies that either were in CDC or learned from people in CDC.
Like all like a lot of the top thinkers inside these big companies.
It's really cool. So it's been fun to sort of get the band back together a bit for the book.
I was speaking with Joseph Mann, who has written a book, Cult of the Dead Cow, how the original hacking super group might just save the world.
How can the Cult of the Dead Cow presumably save the world?
Well, I know there are a lot of things that they've already done.
So, I mean, they forced Microsoft to take security seriously.
It's not flawless, but it is, you know, it's a hell of a lot better than it was.
Veracode have helped tip the balance towards big software buyers as opposed to just the oligarchy that made makes the software.
But I think the activism thing is more important.
So what they they they put the biggest effort behind what would have been the first privacy protecting browser.
And it got enough traction that it convinced the guys at Tor that they ought to bundle a browser into Tor.
And that's how most people use Tor.
And then they also had a big impact in the early formative years of this outfit at the University of Toronto called the Citizen Lab.
And the Citizen Lab is, you know, this academic affiliated nonprofit thing.
And they are the world's best at sort of tracking governments using technology against their own people.
So the first big exposés of NSO's spyware were based on Citizen Lab research.
And they've done a lot of a lot of other, you know, amazing path breaking work.
And it's a real sort of it's like a clearinghouse.
Like if there's a researcher at Google who is discovering something terrible happening overseas, but he can't put it out with the Google name on it.
They kind of wander it through Citizen Lab.
So there are a lot of good work comes to light through them.
So but I think the biggest one is just kind of like the basic ideas of kind of small imperative and security work.
You know, that there's a, you know, that the object is to spread knowledge, but do so in a way that helps people.
And to be adaptable to these different circumstances.
You know, if you have to learn how to mess with the media, you do that.
If you have to learn to talk to Congress, you do that.
If you want to, you know, run for office, you do that.
And I think that torch being passed to younger folks to get them more involved in open source projects or working for nonprofits or working for friendly bits of the government or lobbying for change inside big companies.
You know, I think that's that's how they wind up doing the best good for the world.
And as someone who sort of journaled the CDC's journey from where they were to where they are now.
I mean, I personally have very strong memories of when CDC at events, at conferences and whatnot, sort of slowly morphed from being the guys who threw back orifice discs out into the audience to they started to talk about what was known as hacktivism and causes that were important and socially responsible things and ways to make the world better.
And I do. How do you how do you feel about that sort of shift as as they went from sort of kids breaking stuff and having fun to like more mature people actually using their skills for sort of responsible things like that?
Well, to me, that's the best part. I mean, that's that's what makes this like book worthy, because that whole evolution is something that, you know, can be recreated in a short span of time to kids coming up today.
If they know the history, then, you know, or the high points of the history, you know, I'm not saying that people have to go back and read 30 years with the use that you can hit the highlights.
These guys, you see, they're more development. And you say, oh, OK, I understand now. That's why we don't put it back doors.
You know, that's why we do X or Y. I agree with that. It's an it's an easy way to digest it for for a new generation.
But I think that was, you know, it's kind of like, you know, I was never very good at biology, but I understand that the you know, the fetus in utero recreates a lot of the history of evolution.
You know, you start in water and you have a tail towards near the end and all that sort of thing.
You know, I think that's kind of how that was. That's kind of how I'm thinking about this.
Like you see how the CDC guys grappled with this stuff, you know, starting with like your basic teenage boy, you know, reckless, you know, we're going to use a lot of curse words and tell people how to make bombs.
And, you know, we're going to steal and hopefully won't get caught to wait a minute.
There's a lot more at stake here because, you know, when they started, the stakes are really small.
But after everybody was online, like, oh, wait, you know, we know, you know, we have these powers.
We understand this stuff. Maybe we should try to, you know, explain to people that just using windows without, you know, without protection is not smart.
And how do we do that? I just think it's fascinating.
Like they kept they kept hitting these cases of first impression, you know, and I think they got a lot of the calls right.
And it was great to see the and I reproduced like some of the internal debate because it wasn't it wasn't obvious a lot of the time.
And I think like the 60-40 calls are the most interesting ones.
The 60-40 calls?
Yeah, you know, like, well, you know, it's not obvious that releasing a Trojan to the masses is the right thing to do, right?
Back orifice was very controversial.
I think in retrospect, that was the right call.
That's what actually worked.
There was definitely collateral damage.
More innocent people got hacked because it was out there.
But, you know, the real bad guys were already doing it.
And Microsoft wasn't doing enough about it.
So they decided to force the issue.
There's like one of my favorite turns in the book is, you know, when they were debating back orifice.
One of the people who argued against it was a woman, Carrie Campbell, who happens to have been brought in by Beto O'Rourke as he thereby gender integrated the most influential hacking group in U.S. history.
And Carrie Campbell lived in Seattle and had friends at Microsoft.
It's like, you know, back orifice is a bad idea.
You know, they're going to it's going to hurt that company and it's going to hurt a lot of innocent people.
But then after they did it and Microsoft used the opportunity to just try to upsell people to Windows 2000 or Windows NT, it was clear to her that they still didn't get it.
And she's like, yeah, like, let's do it again.
And they did back orifice 2000.
So she changed her mind and was the guy who didn't write the first one.
Well, and that's a dilemma that we faced many times at 2600.
If we release this information, then bad people will get it.
But bad people already have it and they're not going to share the information with anybody.
So it's best that people know if there's a vulnerability.
And, yeah, it might hurt a few and some information might get out that shouldn't have gotten out.
But the the alternative to that is to simply be part of a conspiracy of silence.
And many times the problem is never fixed.
Emanuel, I think history has proven you right.
I think that, you know, 2600, you know, Amtrak and and CDC and the others were right.
You put it out there because, you know, otherwise only the people with power are going to know.
And it's, you know, knowledge needs to be democratized.
Joseph Mann, thanks so much for talking with us about your book, Cult of the Dead Cow, how the original hacking super group might just save the world.
Any other books or is there maybe a movie adaptation of this?
Because the very meticulous details in this book.
Talks are underway. I'm cautiously optimistic.
Usually nothing happens in Hollywood, but we're talking.
All right. Well, I would I would go see that.
That sounded like streaming platform.
Well, we look forward to seeing you at Hope.
Hopefully the entire CDC will show up as well.
I think I think we could.
I think we could make an arrangement.
That would be that would be really cool.
Hope is hope really fits with where they've been.
Absolutely.
Thanks again, Joseph, for talking with us.
And we'll we'll see you down the road.
I'm glad you're still in the air.
Thank you very much.
And we're glad we're still here at WBAI New York.
We're here for another hour.
Yes, we we get to be on for another hour of hacker programming here.
Where else? Where else would you hear something like that?
We're going to catch our breath and be back in just a moment with another full dish.
A full hour of off the hook.
Again, you are listening to WBAI 99.5 FM in New York.
Ten dollars a month.
That's the price of a gigabyte of data for that iPad you never use.
It's two overpriced coffees you ordered when you forgot to look at the menu.
It's your overzealous attempts to meet the credit card minimum at the bodega on the corner.
But ten dollars a month could be a lot more.
Become a BAI buddy and commit to a recurring monthly donation to WBAI.
This money will help us continue to broadcast the thoughts and perspectives of the progressive public.
A BAI buddy is also not without perks.
Your monthly contribution will earn you a WBAI tote bag and a member card offering zip car sales,
discounted meals at select restaurants and a handful of other benefits.
You will also become a full voting member of WBAI and our diverse programming will reflect your voice.
Go to give to WBAI.org and become a BAI buddy to support free speech radio today.
And that's right. Give to WBAI.org is the website to go to to pledge or you can call 516-620-3602.
And Kyle, you've got you still have the hacker tote bag there.
Yes, I do. I do have it.
Has not deteriorated in an hour.
It's just as durable as when I first introduced it.
Absolutely. Absolutely.
And you've stuffed quite a few things in there in the past hour.
Yeah. And then I took them back out and still hasn't lost its shape.
No, no, no. It's enduring.
Much like we are here at ninety nine point five FM and we are taking your phone calls for pledges.
That's that's not to be on the air, but this is to make a commitment.
And it's a long term investment to be on the air because we'll be on the air if you call.
Yeah, it's twenty five. You can get this tote bag that I've been referring to so lovingly.
516-620-3602. That's 516-620-3602. Call right now.
We are accepting all pledge levels.
We've got a couple of thank you gifts.
The tote bag hacker tote bag that I just mentioned, as well as a couple other thank you gifts.
But also you get the station, you get us, you get the fantastic local programming that you can find here at WBAI.
You are also able to donate by texting WBAI to the short code 41444.
That is WBAI, the call letters for this station, sent to the short code 41444.
And if you don't know what that means, don't be afraid because you can still pledge.
It's basically donating by SMS.
It sends you a link and you're able to complete a pledge on the website directly.
But like Gila said, you can still bring a check. You can still mail a check.
You can absolutely still mail a check.
You can drop a check off a wheelbarrow full of nickels, whatever denomination.
You don't have to do that. I mean, that's nice if you do that, but that's, you know, that's challenges of a different sort.
Every bit of it counts. And this buddy program is spectacular because that's something we can count on as a station.
And it's a small amount, but it sets it up on a continuing basis so that we don't have to hassle anybody about it.
It just simply goes through on a monthly basis so that we have that contribution.
Hey, if enough people signed up as BAI buddies and there was a frequent enough stream of regular income,
then maybe we would need to do fund drives less because we just know that was coming.
We're looking for a very, very strong turnout for this program and for all the programs throughout this fund drive.
This is our welcome back to the airwaves fund drive.
This is our winter fund drive. This is our keep the transmitter warm fund drive.
And the way we do that is with money. Unfortunately, that is how it works.
But you know what? Every other radio station in New York does the same thing.
They do it in different ways. And you're paying for those.
You're paying for every other radio station through the advertising budgets of the products you buy.
Yeah, you are paying for it here. At least we're asking, you know, here, at least you feel like you've done something,
like you're voting for what you want. And if what you've heard over the past hour and or maybe ever on this radio station
is something that you think is worth preserving, then please make that call. 516-620-3602.
Again, the Hacker Tote Bags, $25 pledge. We have the Hacker Digest full set and lifetime subscription for a pledge of $100.
That's 35 years of 2600 The Hacker Quarterly coming out in PDF format and being sent directly to you.
And every single year we put out in the future. That's for a pledge of only $100.
That's an incredible deal right there. So consider that the Hacker Digest full set lifetime subscription for a pledge of $100.
516-620-3602 or give to WBAI. We also, for those of you who like paper, we have the three year 2600 subscription that you'll get for three years.
You'll get the actual issues in your mailbox. That's for a pledge of $50. Again, 516-620-3602.
We have the Hacker Portrait. And Rob is busy sketching things right now. I'm not exactly sure what he's doing, but he's working on something.
And that's going to be included with all the Hacker Portraits and as well as the Hacker Tote Bags.
A random sketch that he's making right now live on the radio, which you cannot see on the radio, obviously.
The Hacker Portrait, though, is available for a pledge of $100. And that basically is a portrait of anybody you wish.
Well, it usually is you. It's usually you send us a picture. You send Rob a picture of yourself through the Internet or somebody whose permission you have to have their picture drawn by Rob.
Am I getting it right?
And his commissions aren't open, so you would not ordinarily be able to.
Also, I should mention, if my commissions were open, it would cost more than this particular premium would cost you.
Well, you could buy and sell the radio station, probably, if your commissions ever open up.
Because, seriously, if you look at robvincent.net, look over there. We're not kidding around.
This guy didn't just learn to draw. He could be doing the Sistine Chapel before you know it.
I have one of his drawings on my refrigerator.
Wow.
I'm not even joking.
Okay. Well, there you go. That's an endorsement if I ever heard one.
Absolutely. It's hanging on my fridge.
How about that? 516-620-3602 is our phone number. Do we have the person joining us on the radio?
We do, yes.
Good. Okay. Our illustrious co-host is joining us. Alex, are you there?
I am, indeed. How are you guys?
Good, good. Wrong side of the bed? You're just not in the studio, huh?
I'm not. Greetings from D.C., everybody.
Oh, you're down there for a hearing or a trial of some sort.
Hold on a second, Alex. We were just there on the train last week, and now you're there?
Actually, I drove down here on Saturday, and I drove back on Sunday, and now I took the train back this evening.
Did you forget something? Are you trying to find a pair of glasses or something? Did you drop it?
I lost a contact somewhere straight near the Capitol.
Okay. You know, you can call somebody. You don't have to drive all the way back down or take a train.
People will look for you.
You know what it is with hackers. We go down the rabbit hole. We don't stop until we find what we're looking for.
That is true.
Yeah, so that's the issue. Coincidentally, I'm actually at an event this evening, and I don't have much time
because the former director of the NSA is about to speak any moment.
I see.
Yeah, so that'll be quite interesting. But how's everything going on the show tonight?
I mean, I'm really disappointed. I'm very sad that I'm not there with you guys in studio.
I'm sad I'm not meeting the former director of the NSA. That sounds like an amazing thing to do.
But please say hello to him for us.
Yeah, please say hello, but say it in code.
So we already had a long discussion about you and your mother's maiden name and everything about that.
It was one of the first things that came up when I spoke to him.
I'm sure it was.
Yeah, no doubt, no doubt. But speaking of things coming up, how's the show going tonight?
Well, I think it's going fine. Arbitrarians are not in yet, but we're optimistic that we'll do well with the 18-34 queue, pretty much.
Yeah, yeah. Well, let me tell you.
Do I sound like I know what I'm talking about?
Super interesting.
I'm sorry, what was super interesting?
Oh, last week's show was, I think, super interesting. The kind of radio that you only get on WPAR.
That is true. That is very true. It was somewhat revealing, somewhat dramatic, somewhat sad, and somewhat empowering.
I don't know. I don't know where to begin. Where would you have me begin, Alex?
Do we even address the elephants that are running into the room?
Well, you begin where things are, in medias res, right? In the middle of things here.
And I think the station is far from over being embattled. It's still a fight.
I think we saw that last week on the air, that there are a lot of people that have reservations about WPAI, and some of them were on our show.
And I think there are a lot of misconceptions about what's going on with the station as well.
And I think that one of the things we have to make no mistake about is that there was a coup.
A coup failed, and now we have to repair the damage here.
And, like, you think about Germany after World War II, right?
It was a massive period of reconstruction.
And now look, it's an economic powerhouse in the world.
I mean, not to compare WPAI to Nazi Germany.
Yeah, let's not do that.
We've been through a world. We've been through a war here.
And now we need to pick up the pieces, and we need to rebuild.
And I think we need to put a lot of this nonsense to the past.
And I think we need to use—this is something I've been saying over and over and over again, for God knows how long—
that the best filter against nonsense, it doesn't come from machine learning, it doesn't come from artificial intelligence.
It comes from our own brains.
And that we are able, as human beings, to determine whether or not something is true, or whether or not something is false.
And actions will always speak louder than words here.
That's why I think people need to come to the table, support WPAI, call the pledge line, text 41444, become a WPAI buddy, and support this station.
Because there are still a lot of dark forces out there that are at play, that are at work, and that are actively trying to undermine this particular station.
Their motivations, I don't know what they are.
But I think we're in very dangerous times right now.
We can't rest on our laurels.
The fact that we are on the air right now doesn't mean that we're always going to be on the air.
And the fact that we were off the air for a little over a month, if I recall correctly, is an indication that nothing is guaranteed here.
So I think that we need to take the conversation that we had last week and use it as an exemplar of what we do here at WPAI that's so much different than any other station.
We will take the difficult phone calls.
We will take all the criticism.
We will absorb it.
We will course correct when we need to course correct.
But we will never, ever shy away from the facts.
We will never shy away from a fight.
And we will always fight for the station.
Yeah, it would be terrible for us not to have that strong showing in this comeback fundraiser.
So we've been encouraging everyone to call in and support Off The Hook.
And absolutely want to have more discussions and open up really the ideas and the creativity that's going to propel the station where it needs to be long term.
But that's apart from this humble program we do.
We come to you sharing our ideas, talking about technology, and also some of the politics of running a community radio station.
It's a technical enterprise, but it's also a social enterprise that really takes good people.
And so as you said, we'll be rebuilding.
We're excited about new facilities.
But I think the spirit, that sort of emotional rebuilding is what you're getting at in referencing feeling a bit war-torn and so on.
Well, you know, the thing that we were on a train.
Kyle and I were on a train last week.
So it was rather hard for us to basically even be heard at times.
But I think a lot of us were surprised by what actually came out over the radio waves.
And first of all, I want to apologize because what we did put out, I think, was not what we should have put out.
We were basically giving out a phone number for somebody in an office by name to back up what somebody was telling us.
That's somebody being a former co-host of this very show.
That alone was surprising and dismaying to a number of our listeners.
I know that.
And unfortunately, that information was given out, shouldn't have been given out, because it wound up just basically resulting in a person being deluged with phone calls the next day who did not deserve that.
However, the point was allegedly being made that we did not have the legal authority to ask for funds over the radio.
It was a ridiculous notion.
One that had already been disproven.
One that many, many people, including the lawyer, Arthur Schwartz, who basically deserves all the credit for getting us back on the air in the first place by filing motions in court, by basically making sure that the rogue faction of Pacifica that kicked everybody into the street on October 7th was called to account.
And Alex, you being a lawyer, that's two lawyers I know that really get things done.
So that's a good thing.
Yeah.
And let me tell you this, too.
I mean, all the work that Arthur Schwartz did here.
I said last week, Kyle, we're going to reiterate it very briefly.
It was an extraordinarily heavy lift.
I mean, the man rushed to court the same day that the coup happened and wound up literally rousing a judge from his sleep who came to the door in his pajamas and was able to issue a temporary restraining order against the Pacific National Court.
Alex, is that a good, smart move, though, with a judge to roust him out of bed?
Do you generally get rulings in your favor when you do that?
Well, look, you do when you have to, but you don't want to overuse that kind of privilege, right?
I mean, there's always going to be a judge somewhere that can rule on something on an emergency basis.
And Arthur, being who he is and being a very well-connected lawyer, especially at the state court level, he was able to get this done.
I mean, that's extraordinary.
And that was just the first day.
And there was a month's worth of a battle, lots of legal filings.
Arthur Schwarz had to learn the bylaws of Pacifica in and out.
He can probably recite them in his sleep right now.
This is a tremendous amount of work that he did in getting the station back on the air.
All of this other nonsense about whether or not you can support the station, whether or not there is, you know, you can make certain statements about political candidates and not cross the line in terms of, you know, electioneering and supporting them, it's all nonsense.
It's all hypothetical conjecture, speculation about what might come down the pipeline and bring a hammer down on WBAI.
It, again, is all conjecture.
There is always going to be something like due process if there are any repercussions to the station.
Whatever procedural defect there was with respect to the filing for WBAI and its charitable status and being able and not being able to accept donations over $25,000 has been cured.
That's my complete and absolute understanding of this.
And, again, this is something that Arthur Schwarz did personally himself, as I understand it.
All of these arguments about why you shouldn't support WBAI or why it's a drain on Pacifica, they're being said with unknown motivation.
Because the station is here, the station is on the air.
We fought a very, I think, great battle over the last five weeks, and we won.
And now is the time to come together.
Now is the time to put your blinders on and ignore the noise from the outside here.
Because that noise is simply that.
It's noise.
And we have to use our own brains, going back to this again, that our brains and our ability to rationalize nonsense from truth is what distinguishes us from the bestial factions of the world here.
We're human beings.
This is what we do.
This is what we're designed to do.
We're designed to sniff out what is real and what is fake.
What is real is what you're hearing right now.
What is real is WBAI being back on the air.
What is fake are all these voices from the galley right now, saying things about WBAI, people that have been involved in the coup from the outset, and in every step of the way,
shapeshifting their arguments to whatever would undermine WBAI.
And you have to wonder about why that was being done, why that was being said.
Well, you know, there have been people that have been theorizing as to just what that's all about.
One person in particular phrased it particularly eloquently, saying we're seeing people manufacture crises in order to control the situation.
And I think that's what you're seeing with this example and with other examples as well, basically putting people in a position where they panic and doubt themselves.
Do I have the right to do this?
Am I stepping over a line?
And if you intimidate people enough, they will doubt themselves and they won't do that thing that they ordinarily were eager to do.
This charity nonsense was just one incident.
And actually, from what I've been told, from what I've been reading on various mailing lists, this situation was well under control, not just as of last week, but well before then.
There was documentation posted.
There were people saying, yes, this is standard.
And I think as you were saying, Alex, this due process, you don't just cut off an organization because some paperwork is incomplete or it still needs to be signed or something like that.
You can make somebody panic by saying, oh, my God, you didn't finish this particular form.
Therefore, you're subject to all kinds of penalties.
But it's not really the way things work.
And everybody who knows the first thing about that knows this.
But it's a good way to intimidate people.
Yeah.
And you have to think about it.
The reason why these charitable foundation regulations exist is to protect the public from fraudsters, from people impersonating charitable foundations, from people impersonating charitable endeavors, taking money and then running away with it.
None of those concerns are implicated whatsoever when it comes to WBI, which has been on the air, as we know now, for 60 years.
So there's no hint of any concern that WBI is going to take people's money and run away with it.
On the other hand, what I would like to know, and I said this last week, I'll say it again, is how much money Pacifica spent in opposing WBAI in both state court form here in New York and in federal court.
How much money was paid to the law firm that had represented the Pacifica National Board and their rogue interests?
How much money was taken from WBAI during that time?
Not just in terms of the cancellation of the fundraiser, but what are the actual percentages of the funds that were used to pay these lawyers to oppose the very interests that caused the money to be put into the coffers in the first place?
That's what's very interesting to me. And I will tell you this, if this lawsuit does proceed, if there's any further proceedings, we'll get into the discovery stage.
And if that is the case, the underlying emails and the communications between the Pacifica National Board and any third parties, those will come out.
Those will be ripe for discovery.
So if these rogue factions still want to persist in this endeavor, I would say they do so at their own peril.
And gentlemen, I should probably leave it at that and let you guys go, because I have to run back into this event.
And let me just say this, I can't wait to see everybody next week.
It'll be great to get the whole band back together.
That sounds like fun.
Well, Alex, say hi to the NSA for me and anyone else that happens to be lurking about there.
Absolutely. You'll be hearing from them soon.
I'm sure I will. Thank you. Thank you for that.
Before you go, I just wanted to let you know, Alex, that one of our supporters is going to get a doodle of you that I've sketched while I've been listening to you speak.
So, you know, thanks for that.
All right.
I can't wait to see the finished product.
Yeah, that's what you get, Alex. That's what you get.
Fantastic. Well, that is great. I feel bad for that listener.
Wonderful. Well, thanks, guys. Talk to you all soon.
All right. See you next week. And Kyle, did you have something?
I was just going to reiterate a lot of what I was hearing in the conversation.
It's been this learning experience.
We've had a crash course in how does a non-for-profit entity like the Pacifica Foundation work.
We've all become, I guess, all too well-versed in the structures that run behind the scenes.
And I know for a fact that a lot of people on the producers' lists and programmers alike were privy to some of the communications,
had been seeing a lot of the sort of indicators and signs of this behavior early on before October 7th.
There were indications of that with a lot of the fear tactics around political speech and so on at the station.
So, those were signs that there was a lot of ill will.
And it's masqueraded as this concerned troll type stuff.
It's like basically, oh, well, we're looking out for you, so don't do what you normally do.
And that's a huge red flag at any entity.
And just from a social engineering perspective, when people start telling you to turn things off and act in various ways out of fear
or out of just simply reacting to some statement that could be true or not, that is a hustle in and of itself.
And I've heard so much support and felt, I guess, heartened that we are back and that all of that hard work paid off.
And entertaining more disruption, I think, it's just making us continue to have to be experts in the management of a foundation
or the operations of a station.
That's not why we're here.
We're here to talk about technology.
We're here to do the best we can on the airwaves to provide a resource for people that want to call in and talk when we're taking calls.
And that takes a community.
That takes funds.
And that's what we're doing tonight with a fundraiser.
And in the spirit going forward, just having conversations, telling stories.
I loved hearing the history and some of that tonight.
It brings you back, right?
It conjures up all these things that we've been distracted from.
We haven't really been able to get into a lot of the fun, interesting conversations we'd like to have.
I think there's also a lot to be said, and I'm going to take the opportunity because I'm so infrequently on the air,
is to actually say thank you to Off The Hook for the tone that it takes in covering a lot of technology stuff.
I, as people may know, am a little bit less savvy in the ways of tech and hacker culture than everybody else.
And on the way here this evening, I was reading an article in the New York Times,
which was panicking because the New York Times and the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Office are trying to make the term juice jacking a thing.
And yeah.
That's a priority?
It's like stealing power from an electric vehicle or something?
No, no, no, no.
It's better than that.
Apparently, people are putting malware in the USB ports in public charging stations,
and they will put malware in your phone if you charge your phone in a public charging port,
and then they'll drain your bank account.
So thank you guys for not pushing the narrative of things like juice jacking.
I just enjoy saying juice jacking.
But having this perspective on so many things that I don't know a lot about,
I have learned so much in the time that I've been spending listening to Off The Hook and, you know,
also being in the back of the studio and looking stuff up for you guys.
But yes, I also want to reiterate one more time that, yes, you can call and pledge at 516-620-3602.
You can quick text to 41444.
You can become a BAI buddy.
And you can put a check in the old-fashioned mail and send it to us here at 388 Atlantic Avenue,
3rd floor, Brooklyn, New York, 11217.
Because the thing is that, yes, we are real people who are here.
And this might help you remember that what you're pledging for is also to help us keep the lights on
and, you know, have decent coffee in the coffee maker and cups for water and things of that nature.
We are people who have to sit in a real place to get this sort of stuff done.
And, you know, we appreciate your help helping us keep the lights on.
But 388 Atlantic Avenue, Brooklyn, New York, 11217.
And please, mark BAI on the envelope.
And if you want to illustrate the Off The Hook theme song on the envelope, that would be really cool too.
Wow, that would be cool.
Well, I feel we should also give out our email address, oth at 2600.com.
If you want to send your feedback on anything we're discussing or submit your ideas.
Maybe there are things we should be talking about that we're not talking about.
Maybe you have ideas for premiums.
Maybe you want to have something focused upon that we have not been devoting as much time to.
There's all kinds of ideas that we're open to.
And that goes for, I think, most everybody on the radio station.
It really is a fantastic group of people.
But our listeners are even more fantastic because they're so diverse and so incredibly talented in so many ways.
We learn that every time we meet them.
We have a couple of letters.
I think we should read some feedback from last week because that really was quite a show.
I first started listening to WBAI when I was 15 back in the 80s.
What I remember is that it was good radio and you could listen constantly throughout the day.
If you were less than happy with one show, another one that you would like would be along in an hour.
Then the coups started.
Okay, I'm going to step in here because all this naming of people.
I'm not going to be naming specific people because I don't think anything comes out of that.
If somebody wishes to name themselves, that's fine.
Obviously, this person does not like certain types of programming and certain people.
But I will say, it continues to say, the station became stuffed with bad racist programming which filled every time slot.
So I guess that would include us if it's every time slot.
To disguise that this racist local programming was unpopular, program directors started fundraising based on.
Okay, and then we have another program that this person doesn't like.
So I'm going to skip over that part.
Conspiracy theories and ignoring whether any of the programs were popular or not because none were allowed to fundraise for themselves.
Okay, that's nonsense right there.
Of course, we were able to fundraise for ourselves.
If you don't like a program, make another program that you do like.
That's what he just said.
He said if you didn't like a program, you could listen and you still can.
I mean, for God's sake, the program before us, Women Fight Back, is an amazing program.
If you don't like that, then stick around.
We'll come on the air and make that show look much better.
You know, there's all kinds of variety here.
Okay, again, more talking about shows that this person didn't like.
A whole paragraph about that.
Okay, so now it is 30 years later and I haven't listened to WBAI much at all.
Because every time I do, it's dumb, anti-intellectual imitations of some other person that he doesn't like.
It's not us.
Blah, blah, blah, blah.
Let's schedule this because the program directors are too timid and afraid of being racist.
This other person continues on yapping about Africans building the pyramids.
And okay, there's a whole lot of racial stuff now.
Okay, angry, passive-aggressive people I've ever heard on the air.
Not doing a bad job of it as a letter writer either, I've got to say.
Almost none of these people take listener phone calls because they don't want to hear how unpopular they really are.
Or have their wonky ideologies questioned.
Well, in honesty, sir, it's probably because the phone isn't working.
But I hear lots of call-ins on this radio station.
And I hear lots of the same people calling in.
And that doesn't do us any favors.
We need some variety.
Now, this is not to say that there aren't programs that aren't as good as they could be or that should be replaced.
Of course.
That's the job of the program director.
And she's doing an amazing job coming up with all kinds of new material and variety.
Something you'd know if you listened more than once every 30 years.
Give it a chance.
Or go to Z100.
Maybe they're doing a better job.
Anyway, continuing.
Because hopefully this letter gets relevant to us at some point.
Thing is, during the month when WBAI was under Pacifica control, meaning the coup, because we're always under Pacifica control.
They do own the license.
I actually started listening regularly again.
I wonder how he knew to listen.
Did a special hotline ring saying, hey, the evil racist BAI people are gone.
It's not on the airwaves.
It's a piped-in feed now from California.
Okay, the piped-in programming or elevator music for progressives in quotes.
Okay, that's my quote.
And it was elevator music for radicals, so get it right.
It was once again informative from an educated perspective and not so annoying and self-indulgent that I had to change the channel.
I think the translation for that is it was very, how shall I say, not edgy.
What's the word for that?
Round.
Okay, yeah.
It was the right bowl of oatmeal.
Okay, yeah.
And cream of wheat.
All right, moving on.
I had settled for the cynical progressivism of NPR, but I was once again engaged and felt educated again in a way that I used to get from WBAI.
I was starting to listen to it whenever I put on the radio.
That it was California progressives didn't really bother me because the local shows were so boring and whiny that I was getting nothing from them anyway.
And the reporting was so Afrocentric I felt excluded.
Well, imagine how these quote unquote Afrocentric hosts might feel listening to your radio all the time, everywhere.
Yeah, I'm sorry.
I'm choking over here.
It's just really, really hard to get through this.
I just wish they'd get to the point.
You're writing to us.
Talk about us.
We want to hear about what we're doing right or wrong.
But yeah, excluded?
Really?
I think people feel excluded listening to something quote unquote Afrocentric or bringing that on themselves.
Because I know of no more inclusive community.
There were Afrocentric shows on the piped in programming, but they were passionate, informative.
Unlike the marking time till I die local programming they had replaced.
I guess that's another way of saying they were some of the good ones.
Yeah.
I was getting real programs.
Okay.
Now he's going back into more people he doesn't like.
Okay.
According to Pacifica's site, the new CEO who headed the lockout, actually IED, which is a really interesting acronym there.
But it stands for interim executive director.
Or improvised explosive.
Well, not in that case.
Anyway, the new CEO headed the lockout at WBAI is in fact the former WBAI listener who grew up as I did on WBAI programming.
Okay.
Well, that's interesting.
But it's kind of not relevant either because people can listen to all kinds of things and then do something completely different.
Still be a crook.
Yeah.
Well, I mean, I'm not saying that.
And again, I'm not even doubting that this person thought they were doing the right thing.
But it wasn't the right thing.
That's the fact that needs to be emphasized.
It was wrong.
And the reason I know it was wrong was because the people here, apart from being thrown out, were basically told not to come back.
This was before the court order.
And the landlord was told to find a new tenant.
Now, the narrative we were given was that we're going to fix the radio station, make it better.
We're going to, you know, take care of all the problems.
I want to fix this place.
I believe in it.
So the new radio studio that we built down the hall, we're just going to throw that in the dumpster?
You're telling the landlord to find a new tenant because we're not coming back?
Well, then how is that fixing the radio station?
Didn't sound like fixing the radio station to me.
Yeah, that's right.
Weren't we given options about repairing WBAI?
And the director gave all kinds of options.
We had like three options or something.
Well, that was later.
That was later.
That's what that turned into, though, is what I'm saying.
Did you really read his mission statement?
He put first and foremost, good radio at the focus.
And that good radio would be the vehicle that would bring a progressive message.
I believe that he was sincere in this.
And since 2600 is good radio.
Oh, thank you.
Finally.
Whoa.
How many paragraphs is that?
Finally, the letter is about us.
I suspected your show on WBAI would have been one of the shows that was kept.
And, you know, it's funny.
It's funny because we actually were told this by the very same person that called in last week,
saying that we could actually become part of the new BAI,
as long as we didn't criticize those people that took over the radio station.
How do you think that's going to go over?
It didn't go over well.
Did not go over well.
Yeah.
There was all this submit your show for review.
I think they had their review board of cultural.
It was like the production code all over again.
We had to fit into what they, you know, not outside the lines on their coloring book, so to speak.
Well, I'm going through a lot more here in this letter because it goes on for a bit.
But, okay.
Finally, not only is it about us, it's about me.
I was extremely upset by Emmanuel's two-facedness in this episode.
Finally, we get to the good stuff.
He actually called everyone to listen to each other and stop being vengeful and petty.
And then when Bernie called in with a differing opinion, he called for him to be cut off,
calling him an enemy for repeating propaganda and generally acted like a Soviet Party member,
excommunicating someone who didn't follow the party line word for word.
Well, that's an insult.
That's a good insult.
I think he excommunicated himself.
Well, okay.
Fine.
We can talk about that.
But like I mentioned, we were on a train on a damn cell phone.
I don't think I had much power to cut anybody off or even be heard over somebody else who was on the phone
and wouldn't pause for even a second to let someone else say something.
But continuing, because this person deserves to have their opinion heard.
I thought Bernie's point was reasonable, and his point being that we weren't allowed to fundraise
because of this weird thing that he found that was found not to be true.
I'm not going to get into it again.
But I thought Bernie's point was reasonable.
If what he reported as Pacifica's big issues with WBAI not taking care of business are accurate,
very valid concerns on Pacifica's part.
First of all, let me just correct that right there,
because the forums that we were talking about were Pacifica forums, not BAI forums.
They were about BAI, but they were filled out by Pacifica.
Our radio stations tend to get blamed for things that other entities do on their behalf.
For instance, the transmitter bill, which everybody talks about.
And one of the reasons why we're in such dire financial shape
is because we were paying over $60,000 a month for a transmitter on top of the Empire State Building.
And WBAI didn't make that decision.
That was Pacifica that made that decision.
Pacifica also made the decision to have us on Wall Street,
back before Sandy, when we had offices on Wall Street.
You know what we learned?
Offices on Wall Street are very expensive.
Apparently, Pacifica didn't know that when they signed the lease that we were responsible for.
So yeah, we had a lot of debt.
We had a lot of debt because we were put in an impossible situation.
That is what happens.
So to blame us for that, to blame us for the things that other entities are responsible for,
is just a height of hypocrisy.
Anyway, continuing with this letter, and I'm sorry for all the interruptions.
The really big point in Pacifica's favor, as I see it,
is the failure of WBAI to correct its biggest problem,
bad programming that no one wants to listen to.
Okay.
So basically what this comes down to is that you don't like the programming.
All right, we get that.
But there are people who do.
And those are the people we're appealing to.
And I'm not saying this station can't get a lot better,
and that it should get a lot better.
But it's not going to get any better if you shut it down.
It's not going to get better if you kick people out into the street
and trash the studios that we're building.
How does that make it better?
You know, we need to have that conversation.
And we respect the authority of the people that have certain positions.
In other words, the program director can reschedule us.
She has rescheduled us.
And that's her call.
You know, she says you should be on at 2 in the morning.
Hey, maybe we can't do 2 in the morning.
But that is her call.
And just like Pacifica has the call to decide who serves at what station.
They can fire people.
They've done that.
And I respect that.
What I don't respect are these kinds of sneaky, strong-arm tactics
that just use force to get what they want.
And in this particular case, it wasn't even what Pacifica wanted.
It was a minority faction, meaning they did not have the votes to do this legally.
They did it on their own.
And that's why the court ruled against them.
Anyway, finishing up this letter here.
I often thought Emanuel was just playing devil's advocate on the show
to keep discussion lively.
But he was shameful in his treatment of Bernie.
In general, I found the constant mantra against the CEO of Pacifica, again IED,
calling him part of a rogue faction.
It's kind of what it is, though.
Or people who want to sell the station.
And other similar smears that I remember were hurled at other people
back in other days when other coups happened.
I found that to be offensive.
And unlike the previous coup, this guy seemed to want what was best for Pacifica.
And Emanuel seemed like the tyrant.
Thank you, Robert, for that letter, for that honest show of opinions.
Could have been a little bit more direct.
But I appreciate being called a Soviet general or something, and a tyrant.
But I don't think I'm that good a tyrant, at least not on the phone.
I would like to read another letter.
This is from Chico.
First, I'd like to thank you for all the invaluable reporting on the WBAI coup.
I'm a longtime listener, but I haven't tuned in to WBAI in the last year or so.
I was behind on Off the Hook 2, but I saw the protest edition
when it popped up on my YouTube feed.
That's right, we did a protest show downstairs in the commons.
It's an awesome place.
If you're anywhere near Brooklyn, come to the commons, 388 Atlantic Avenue.
It's an awesome hangout, a great place to organize an event.
And our landlord runs that as well.
And she's a very patient person, let me tell you.
Of course, I was appalled by the coup and the whole situation.
Your report made me research more on what had happened,
and I started spreading the word on Twitter as best as I could.
It made me really sad, more than sad.
I was heartbroken to see WBAI disappear.
And when I heard you took it back, I was ecstatic and hopeful.
You know what I like more than what this letter is saying is the fact that
it's about the situation that we're talking about
and not about everything else in the world.
That's always nice.
Then, with this week's Off the Hook, you guys proved again
to be the best resource to explain the situation,
how it had been resolved, and what we still needed to do.
But the phone call from Bernie S. at the end seemed absolutely surreal to me.
Bernie was serving as the voice of the usurpers,
validating completely absurd arguments and defending the people who did the coup.
Bernie, of all people, he always seemed more than progressive, militant,
and above all, he said several times that he owes his life to this radio station.
What that's a reference to is when he was in prison in the 1990s.
Horrible case of injustice. Actually, two cases of injustice.
It was this radio station where he had a voice
and where we started organizing protests against this.
And one day he was just released without explanation because of the pressure.
And it's an indication of the power that you can have by reaching out to people
through radio waves.
Yeah, everybody can put up a webpage,
but when you have a radio station in New York City
beaming a message to people everywhere,
believe me, it gets noticed.
It gets noticed even if nobody's listening.
But we know there are people listening.
Anyway, getting back to this letter.
Does Bernie think Pacifica Across America would have pleaded for his case like you guys did?
Would Pacifica Across America have defended him
like the local grassroots voices of New York?
I seriously doubt it.
Does he think it's okay to rob that voice
from people that might need it in the future,
like he needed it in the past?
Well, I was shocked and deeply disappointed.
I used to admire Bernie so much and look up to him.
At least I'm glad the rest of the gang is still holding things together.
Thank you all for your indispensable work.
You are real life heroes.
Sorry, Chico.
Thank you very much for that kind letter, Chico.
I don't want to say negative things about Bernie.
He's doing what he's doing for whatever reason he's doing it.
But I don't understand it.
I do think he's got integrity.
I do think he stands up for what he believes in.
I just don't get how anybody could believe in this
and say they support this radio station at the same time.
It's very difficult for me to understand it.
Again, the whole mess about charitable contributions
disproven weeks ago,
and if you hear that on a call-in show,
if you hear that being mentioned, it's fake.
It's false.
If you keep repeating it, eventually, and we've learned this
from this current administration, we have learned this,
that you keep repeating things, people start believing it,
especially if they're only listening to one thing.
Now, there was also, and if you recall this,
several weeks ago, maybe a couple of months ago,
we had a show where we protested against something
that local management was doing.
We didn't know what was going on behind the scenes.
We do now.
But local management had suspended somebody
for criticizing Trump on the radio.
And so we all went around the room and criticized Trump.
We all did that because to say that we don't have that right
is as nonsensical as to say we don't have the right to raise money.
Why would somebody push that?
Now, at the time, oddly enough, we didn't bring this up
because, again, I don't like bringing personalities into it,
and it wasn't relevant at the time.
But one of the leading voice, in fact, the leading voice,
the only voice that was on one of our mailing lists
criticizing a person for criticizing Trump
on the mistaken belief that by doing so,
they were in violation of some kind of a rule
that forbids a nonprofit radio station from endorsing candidates.
Yeah, it's a bit of a reach.
It's a bit of a big reach.
But here is what Bernie said on one of those mailing lists.
Simply put, advocating for and lobbying for political candidates
on WBAI's air endangers WBAI, Pacifica's IRS,
and New York State charity status and its FCC license.
If, as a result of this recent willful compliance violation,
Pacifica's legal counsel has to review this matter
and explain the obvious,
it will cost Pacifica an expensive legal fees.
That was on August 30th.
A month later, John Vernile,
the interim executive director at the time of Pacifica,
sent a letter to our general manager saying the following.
Advocating for and lobbying for political candidates
on WBAI's air endangers WBAI, Pacifica's IRS,
and New York State charity status and its FCC license.
Further, as a result of this recent compliance violation,
Pacifica's legal counsel has to review this matter
and has brought unnecessary expensive legal fees for the foundation.
Almost word for word the exact statement.
And that's when we started realizing,
when we got a hold of that second document,
that the involvement here in doing this,
it went straight to the top.
It wasn't just one misguided person criticizing somebody on a mailing list.
No, this was a tactic.
This was somebody aiming to shut down the radio station
using these words in order to do so.
Now, I've talked to a lot of people about this,
including many people who are radio professionals.
Here's what one radio professional said.
I may not use their name, but believe me or not,
this is what they said.
What a load of crap to claim that saying stop Trump on the air
jeopardizes the FCC license.
And that is what was said.
It was either stop Trump or dump Trump.
I'm not sure exactly.
I think it was dump.
Was it dump?
Okay, I don't think it makes any difference.
It doesn't jeopardize the FCC license.
It doesn't jeopardize Pacifica's IRS tax exempt status either.
So stupid.
If Pacifica were to use large percentages of its money or membership
to try to affect legislation,
then maybe that would be an IRS issue.
But one person saying stop Trump on the air,
no, it's a non-issue.
I have to agree with that.
Here's what Bernie wrote to us not too long ago, since last week.
If you folks want to use a radio station to protest laws
by doing illegal things on the air,
I welcome you doing that with your own radio station.
You do not own WBAI.
It's owned by Pacifica Foundation.
I'm a longtime member slash donor of that charitable organization,
and I am justifiably opposed to your carelessly putting it at risk
with your silly on-air illegal antics to make a meaningless point
on a September show and on the October 13th show.
The September show he's referring to when we criticize Trump on the air.
That's literally what he means by illegal antics.
I don't know what he means by October 13th show
because I don't think we had a show on October 13th.
That was after the coup, so I'm not sure what that means.
I'm not going to fixate on it.
I'm a strong supporter of people violating unjust laws in protest
if there's no victims, as long as they're solely responsible
for the consequences of their actions.
But when you violate laws on the air,
using the capital assets of WBAI, Pacifica,
whether it's illegal electioneering or illegal fundraising,
it's the owner of the radio station, Pacifica Foundation,
that's legally responsible, not you.
It's kind of like loaning your car to an irresponsible person
who racks up easy pass toll evasions, red light camera tickets,
parking tickets, and the like,
while you, as the car's owner, are legally responsible for paying for it all.
WBAI is not your radio station to use for protesting laws
by violating them on the air.
And there you have it.
We are being told in no uncertain terms
that it is illegal for us to criticize Trump on the air like we did.
You know what we have to do now, right?
You know what we have to do now.
Folks, it is your right,
as an oxygen-breathing human being on this planet,
to do everything you can to ensure
that Donald Trump is not re-elected to a second term.
Rob, do you have anything to say?
Well, in my capacity as someone who talks about the news often
on these very airwaves,
I watched an official government event today
where a lot of people said, in so many words,
that the president is a criminal.
Gila?
As the owner of a pair of ovaries,
I'm terrified, and I would like to keep them unregulated,
so I think we need to make a major change.
And Kyle?
Impeach Trump.
There you go. That's direct. That's nice and direct.
Impeach Trump?
Well, actually, to be accused of electioneering,
I guess you got to say that he shouldn't be re-elected next time.
I guess that's basically...
Don't vote for Trump.
I don't care who you vote for, just don't vote for Trump.
For those of you pearl-clutching right now
and getting all upset that we're daring to do this,
for God's sake, this is Pacifica Radio for one thing.
For another thing, we are expressing our opinions,
and that is something, since the early days,
the early, early days, back in the 40s,
when this network got started,
opinions were always something that was welcomed.
That's why we welcome opinions of differing sorts.
That's why we're reading as much as we're reading now
from people that say we're doing something illegal.
You know, most people would ignore that. We don't.
We give them an opportunity to air whatever it is they want to say.
But when it's nonsense, don't expect us not to call it that.
And don't expect us not to air our opinions.
For God's sake, this is WBAI New York.
Yeah, I worked a legal ID into that.
But we are going to express our opinions.
Now, if WBAI were to say,
as a radio station, we endorse this particular candidate,
that would be a problem. We all understand that.
We've always understood that.
That's not what's going on here.
These are individual people.
We are all individual people expressing our opinions.
And to simply intimidate everybody
into believing you can't make donations,
you can't express opinions against certain people,
that is, again, a way of controlling the situation
through intimidation, and we're not going to take it.
Please, call up, pledge, support this radio station,
this bastion of free speech, because you never know.
You never know when the threat is going to arrive.
You never know where it's going to come from.
And I think the last couple of months I've proven that.
And the way to protect us is to keep those funds coming in.
516-620-3602.
Go to give2wbai.org.
We have all kinds of premiums.
We have the Hacker Tote Bags.
We have the Hacker Digest subscriptions.
We've got the artist...
What's the official name of it?
The Hacker Portraits.
The Hacker Portraits.
They have all the information at 516-620-3602.
But the most important thing is that WBAI remain on the air,
remain outspoken, opinionated,
and doing what it feels is right.
And that comes from a lot of different sources.
We're going to disagree.
We're not always going to like the programs.
We're not always going to see eye to eye.
But we certainly can be civil, respectful,
and join together in making this place survive for another 60 years.
All right.
That's going to do it for a two-hour edition of Off the Hook.
I have to find the outro.
But feel free to say anything else.
I've got something really quick.
Go ahead.
One really helpful thing that you can do in addition to pledging
is to tell people that you know that you're listening.
Tell people that BAI is back because there have been questions about it.
Good point.
And shout it from the rooftops and then shout it from a higher rooftop.
I'm not hearing anybody.
Okay, this studio is notoriously unsoundproof.
But if people were shouting it from the rooftops on Atlantic Avenue,
we'd be able to hear it.
We'd be able to hear it.
And you're not doing it, people.
Come on.
Shout it from the rooftops.
WBAI is back.
All right.
Let people know.
Seriously.
That's a very important point.
You can't announce on the radio that you're back on the air
if people aren't listening to the radio.
So get the word out in whatever way you can.
Call other radio stations or scroll on the side of the building
if you're a graffiti artist or whatever you have to do.
And remember, this is your radio station.
You can control the direction it goes.
You have something to say, come and say it.
You have an idea for a show, let us hear it.
Because there is no place like this in New York
and there never will be again.
So please help us prevent what happened over the past couple of months
from ever happening again.
And we'll see you next week.
Have a good night.
Hi, this is Iggy Pop and you're listening to WBAI in New York,
the voice of truth.
Hi, this is Joe Summer and you're listening to WBAI
and it's all mixed up and it's mixed in too.
Okay.