Encourage all the listeners out at WBAI to go out to your windows and clap and
show appreciation to all essential workers out there. With that said, this is
WBAI New York 99.5 FM and WBAI.org online. Stay tuned.
And it's seven o'clock. Time for off the hook. But before we start the program,
open up your window, stick your head outside, listen to some noise, and make some noise.
The telephone keeps ringing, so I ripped it off the wall. 
I cut myself while shaving. Now I can't make a call.
We couldn't get much worse. But if they could, they would.
Fundamentally bound for the best, expect the worst. 
I hope that's understood. 
Fundamentally bound.
Fundamentally bound.
And a very good evening to everybody. The program is Off the Hook. 
Emmanuel Goldstein here with you, joined by Kyle. I'm over here. 
Yes, and that was quite a bit of noise. Everybody makes noise at seven o'clock to thank the first responders and all the people in hospitals, doctors, nurses, everybody.
It's something to just hang on. Hang on to hope. Hang on to getting through all this sometime fairly soon.
It's an easy thing to do and a great reminder of all the neighbors and everybody that's basically holding up and hanging in there just like you.
Absolutely. Absolutely. We're going to be talking about all that. We're going to try to take phone calls later on. Oh, and I almost forgot, we're being joined tonight by Alex.
Is he coming in on Skype?
I am indeed. Good evening, everyone.
How are you doing, Alex? Now, are you still holed up in Pennsylvania?
I am indeed, yeah. I am still here, still self-quarantining, still miss my family, my wife, my kids, but I'm better. I mean, before I started working from home this morning, 
I went out on the kayak. I've been going out on the kayak twice a day now.
Two weeks ago, it was hard for me to walk three houses down the road, so I consider that progress.
Is that because you were sick or are you horrendously out of shape?
It could be a mixture of both, but probably the former rather than the latter. It's difficult to say whether it was really affecting my lungs or not, but I think back to two 
weeks ago and how hard it was to do very simple things, and it's quite possible.
But again, I don't know. I could just have been fatigued from having some other virus or maybe it was the dreaded coronavirus.
Well, now, we've been talking about your saga over the last – how many weeks has it been? Four weeks? Three weeks? It's been a while.
Yeah, about three.
And you've been in a cabin in Pennsylvania, deep in the woods of Pennsylvania, apparently by water, too.
That's true.
And you still don't know to this day if what you had was coronavirus. I mean, that must be frustrating.
It is frustrating because it would be nice to know whether or not I have the antibodies and whether or not those antibodies could be relevant to or helpful to my family and  others who could get this.
So I just don't know. I'm very curious about it, but on the other hand, I don't necessarily want to go anywhere near a hospital and get a test because if I didn't have it, then I could quite possibly get it.
So it's a mixed bag about this thing, but I would like to figure out at some point whether or not I have had this.
I'm just not in any great rush to do it because at this point, if I did have it, I should not be contagious anymore anyhow.
It's simply incredible, though, because it's a relatively simple test.
In fact, we have friends of ours from different countries offering to send us tests.
That's how this country is looked upon right now as a place where you can't get basic medical care and find out if you have a deadly disease.
It's really frustrating.
I mean, you've been away from your family now for practically a month, and you still don't know if what you had was just a cold or something that could be potentially fatal.
And there are so many people in this country right now living with that same uncertainty and that same fear of doing the wrong thing, just going outside and touching the wrong thing or literally breathing in the wrong air.
It's scary, but it's also really frustrating, and I've about had enough of it because it seems like we're just being fed a line of propaganda and not actually getting the answers and the care that we need.
And I don't know.
Do you see change down the road?
Do you think next time we'll get it better?
I don't know.
That's such a very, very good question.
But with respect to this lack of certainty that we have here, it becomes very difficult for people to plan.
It becomes very difficult for people to make normal decisions about what to do with their life.
Because if you think about my situation, assuming that this wasn't a mere coincidence and I did have this thing, we need to be absolutely damn sure that I'm not contagious when I go and get my kids and my wife and we reunite because they are with my in-laws.
And my in-laws, they're not the youngest people in Pennsylvania.
They're in their 70s.
So God forbid we spread this over to my wife's parents, it could have life and death consequences.
And so we are having to plan and make assumptions about the worst case scenario without having any science, any data or any kind of test, medical test to help us along with those decisions.
It's crazy.
It's 2020 and this is the case.
It's so true.
For 2020, the most cynical and chaotic outcome is seeming to be the standard operating procedure here, which it's really, really unfortunate.
Just the testing alone and preparedness as far as getting equipment pre-staged, it took forever to get people to some sort of consensus about whether or not to build things and create stockpiles or distribute them.
And now here we are in a state of real panic and tremendous need.
You know what gets me, though, is you think a disaster like this where we're literally talking about tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people in this country dying from something that could have been stopped.
Nobody's minds seem to be changed as far as maybe we should change the way we do things.
Maybe we should change our current leadership structure or something.
I'm not seeing anything to indicate that no matter how bad this gets, people's minds are going to be altered in any way.
It's frustrating, but in a way, it's kind of liberating, too, because why waste any more energy trying to convince people that we're going down the wrong road?
I think if we know we're going down the wrong road, we have to change it and we have to not count on anybody else to be swayed to that side.
I see things and it's just incredible that other people that I think I can reason with just don't get it and are simply going to continue blaming the same people for something or just coming up with conspiracies or being nationalistic.
So many things, but never concede that your guy was wrong or incompetent or malicious.
I mean, I'm looking at this news story right now, and tell me what you think of this.
The headline is Trump says he never read or looked for memo warning of possible coronavirus pandemic.
He said this was yesterday.
He never read or considered reading a memorandum in which his top trade advisor warned of the need to implement an aggressive containment strategy to prevent the massive loss of life and economic damage from the COVID-19 pandemic.
It can't get any more specific than that.
And he brags, practically brags about the fact that he never even read it.
Now, this document was authored in January by the White House director of trade and manufacturing policy, Peter Navarro, submitted to the president via National Security Advisor Robert O'Brien.
And in it, he warned of an increasing probability of a full blown COVID-19 pandemic that could infect as many as 100 million Americans with a loss of life as many as one to two million souls.
When asked about the memorandum during a White House press briefing yesterday, Trump said he did not see it.
I heard he wrote some memos talking about a pandemic.
I didn't see them.
I didn't look for them either.
He's proud.
He's proud of his ignorance.
He's proud of his his his lack of any kind of action taken to prevent this.
And people defend him.
People literally who are dying from this are defending him.
I don't get it.
It's like I'm in some parallel universe or maybe it's a perpendicular universe.
I don't know.
I just don't feel like I have a grip on whatever reality is is masquerading as the truth these days.
I think it's just it's outright shameful, quite, quite frankly, for a leader to go on record and saying, I didn't read a memo about the loss of life in this country that could affect one to two million souls.
I mean, he he's obviously touting this as some kind of lack of responsibility.
Right. I mean, the fact that he didn't read the memo means he wasn't knowledgeable about this particular point.
And therefore, he should not have had to take precautionary measures to protect the American people because he wasn't aware of it.
Right. I mean, that's not how you disclaim responsibility.
That's called, at least in legal terms, willful neglect.
Another term for that would be negligence.
I mean, another term for that, if we're talking about employment law, would be an offense that could rise to the level of termination.
Another word for that is murder.
That's what I think.
That's I mean, that's that's how I see this.
That's what I meant by like the most cynical view that as dark as this has has looked at every vantage, it seems those that have a position of power and relative distance from the 
rest of the world want to know more about how this might work for them.
And that's truly cynical and such a high cost for the for the believers to gamble with.
It's like when you hear the denial or the rationalizations or the or the righteousness of like, how dare you question my leader, our leader?
It's like you really you really want to gamble with this.
Like, is the cost has not sunk in like that's something it's a pretty high to be wrong about it.
The cost doesn't matter.
It doesn't matter.
The guy could come in and lob off the grandmother's head or something, and they'd still defend him somehow.
They'd still find a way of blaming it on Hillary.
You know, it's it's just you can't convince people who are this dug in.
And they probably think the same thing about us.
But I'd like to think that we have science and facts on our side.
This this is a catastrophe.
This is a disaster.
I mean, look at look at how it played out in China, where it was a catastrophe.
We were we were in northern Canada.
We were following this in January.
Trump didn't know about it.
We knew about it on a train going into First Nations territory in Canada.
And they knew about it, too.
Everybody knew about this.
And in China, we were watching the death toll creeping up for the first 100 and eventually reached around 3000 people.
Well, we're well past 3000 people now.
What are we, 14,000, 13,000?
And and and predicted to go so much higher.
Why? Why is it so different here?
I mean, yeah, we have we have more freedom to travel.
But, you know, we also we're intelligent people.
We should be able to know how to take care of ourselves, how to prevent getting a deadly disease.
But our leaders are failing us.
There are governors in what, nine, ten states that refuse to tell their citizens to stay at home that say it doesn't affect us.
We're in Arkansas.
It doesn't affect people in Arkansas, just people in New York and California.
Idiocy like that. And we're seeing it all over the place.
And we're seeing it on individual levels as well, where people think that somehow they're immune from it.
You walk outside for a second and you see all these people in crowds as if it doesn't matter.
You know, I say walk outside.
I meant just look outside because walking outside is it can be very dangerous if you're not careful, if you're not protected,
if you're near other people, we have to take this seriously.
And too many of us aren't.
And I think the reason we're not is because of the messages we're getting from our leaders, which is not the right message.
And one thing I've observed is in that vacuum of leadership, even the institutions like the National Institute for Health and CDC have done their messaging.
And of course, the task force is doing their press conference as we speak, actually.
But what I've noticed in the last two or three weeks is every single ad agency and brands across the television, online, even the spammers are trying to sell people masks and thermometers and everything they can think of.
The messaging in this country has gotten very clear.
And it really is glaring how it really seems to be the leadership and Congress in some ways and some of the states that are resisting the overall guidance and taking it really seriously as far as mobilizing nationally.
It's really them that are the outliers in this.
Because even like every ad in a matter of like two weeks switched to customized speaking to the troubled times we're in, talking about getting together and helping everybody out.
Yeah, these are troubled times.
We're very uncertain.
So what you need to do is buy a car.
That's what I'm seeing constantly.
Our car ads for these uncertain times.
Who wants to buy a car now?
But that's what I'm saying.
That's how much this change that we've all had to partake in has been uniform across the board to the point where, yes, there are brands that are trying to sell stuff in the midst of this or sell you on the idea of debt in the form of buying a car or whatever other needless item along with all the stuff that is genuinely helping people like protective equipment or brands or companies retooling to help a cause or charitable organizations, et cetera, et cetera.
On down the line, everyone is on message except for the leadership and the people that really can mobilize and protect the citizenry and the workers in this country.
So it's very glaring from just that observation because, yeah, this country is more than capable of following a model like South Korea or following other countries that have recovered.
Look at what Germany has done.
They have so few cases or so few deaths from the cases they did have compared to other countries because they did testing, because they did surveillance, the medical surveillance that tells how you got something, who you might have transmitted it to.
It's intelligence.
It's science.
I'm looking right now at the TV where Dr. Fauci is speaking.
And he should be the person giving these press conferences.
Trump needs to get his ass out of there or somebody needs to get it out for him because he does not know what he's talking about.
But the scientists and the doctors do.
Those are the people we should be listening to.
Those are the only people we should be listening to.
Shouldn't be a political message, should be a scientific medical message.
And people need to respect that and follow that.
China is a dictatorship.
It's a totalitarian regime.
And when you have a situation like that, you can get people to do something that you tell them to do.
We're not like that.
But we should get people to do the intelligent thing, the right thing.
And when you have all these idiots saying that I've got the blood of Jesus on me and I can't be touched by this, that is when the whole thing starts to fall apart.
And we need to get past that.
We need to have a nationwide quarantine so that this thing can be stopped before it really spirals out of control.
The leadership in China, I was just going to say, is not as ideologically or politically desperate.
There's a lot of desperation from this leadership.
Absolutely.
And wanting to spin this in some way that benefits just them.
If you want a really good summation of all the dumbass statements that have been made by people in media, people in government, check out Trevor Noah's The Daily Show, Moment of Zen, from Monday, this Monday.
And you will be blown away by the amount of stupidity that has been peddled.
And then you'll see.
You'll see why this has gotten so bad.
Because people were saying things like this, saying that it's perfectly okay to go outside, it's not going to affect you.
And they are so dead wrong.
And we must hold them to that.
The fact that they basically didn't care about people's lives, didn't listen to the science.
And that's what we have to do, is listen to the science.
And doubling down on denying the science and so forth is just going to beget complacency and a lack of effectiveness for what we've already become somewhat conditioned to.
Speaking of the science, I'm sorry, Alex, you have something?
Yeah, I just wanted to jump in on there.
There are so many points, and great points, I think, that you both really made here.
I really wanted to jump in.
And if we were in studio, I would have been there with my hand up, right?
But it's a different time we're in these days.
But what I was hearing generally from both of you is that there's a misuse of the platform here.
There's a misuse of the airtime.
We're hearing from idiots when we should be hearing from people who are in the know.
People like Dr. Fauci, people like the doctors.
Now, I want to read to you and get your thoughts on an article that came out from Bloomberg a little over a week ago.
This is the title of the article.
Hospitals tell doctors they'll be fired if they speak out about lack of gear.
Now, let me read you the first paragraph here.
Hospitals are threatening to fire health care workers who publicize their working conditions during the coronavirus pandemic and have, in some cases, followed through.
Ming Lin, an emergency room physician in Washington state, said he was told Friday he was out of a job because he'd given an interview to a newspaper about a Facebook post detailing what he believed to be inadequate protective equipment in testing.
In Chicago, a nurse was fired after emailing colleagues that she wanted to wear a more protective mask while on duty.
In New York, the NYU Langone Health System has warned employees that they could be terminated if they talk to the media without authorization.
This is something that's very near and dear to our hearts on this program and I think to the hacker community in general.
It's about getting information out on the one hand and whistleblowing on the other hand.
So what do you guys think of that?
I think that's repulsive.
The fact that somebody is saying we don't have enough, we are in trouble.
They're disciplined for that.
It reminds me of the guy on the Navy ship being fired for saying to the Navy that we have a problem.
And Alex, you've been affiliated with military people.
How does that strike you?
Well, basically, this guy, he didn't leak it to the press.
He simply sent a memo to people in the Navy that could do something about this saying that his sailors were in trouble because 100 of them were infected.
And they were on a boat on the high seas.
And you know what happens to boats when there's a disease going around.
And he was looking out for his men.
And they certainly appreciated that.
And he had this idiot come on board and call him stupid and naive to his sailors who did not receive that very well.
And he had to resign as a result of those stupid remarks, which I think he thought weren't going to get out.
But it seems like we live in a society where telling the truth is what gets you in trouble when the truth is not what the leaders want to hear.
I mean, that's some Stalinist regime thought right there.
And it's not what I'm used to.
I expect the people who tell the truth to be the heroes.
Well, and in the cases right now, they really are, right?
I mean, the heroes are the people that are getting up every day and going to work in hospitals, knowing full well that they may not see their children, their friends,  their families, their spouses ever again.
That's an incredible amount of dedication, sacrifice, and an obligation that you feel to society and your fellow men that I think is frankly moving.
And I think it's great that we started out the program with that cheer for the hospital workers and medical professionals here.
And I really hope that their unions and their employee associations speak out and fight against this type of muzzling of their First Amendment rights.
I mean, you're going and putting your life on the line for your fellow countrymen.
And this is tantamount to going and fighting a war without signing up for it, without the basic training, just medical school or nursing school, whatever it is.
Well, or with the training and just not the equipment that you need to stay safe.
Yeah, I mean, that's that's one way of looking at it, too, quite frankly.
And but you're putting yourself in harm's way and you should not be muzzled about that.
You should be able to discuss very freely your working conditions, the health conditions, the pandemic itself.
I mean, if we cannot get information out of hospitals and out of doctors, we're in more serious trouble than we even know about because we don't know what there is to know.
So, I mean, it's just it's it's a it's another shameful aspect of all of this.
Yeah, this is this is not a healthy environment to be in.
And you may ask, what does this have to do with hacking?
Well, first of all, computer hackers have always stood up for telling the truth, for leaking information that needs to be heard.
And we have never seen a more dire need for the truth than now.
So whatever whatever we help or assistance we can lend to getting the truth out and to to helping people in need, we are going to extend all those efforts.
That is something that is that is very near and dear to the hearts of people in the high tech world and the people just who believe in the First Amendment and believe in and freedom and liberty and all that nice stuff.
This is very, very relevant, very, very urgent.
Yeah, to say nothing of how much we're relying on telecommunications, just understanding systems, both how they work normally and in in modes of crisis as we're faced with now.
And I think that the the sort of muzzling of workers or whatnot would be or chilling effect you want to have as an institution would probably be, I don't know, debatable under normal circumstances, depending on what's disclosed and how.
But especially in the midst of a crisis like this, I don't think your your crisis PR team or whatnot, you know, whomever is going to organize the statements from your hospital or institution is really going to have much control in such a chaotic and and tumultuous time.
This is probably the last time to be trying to have like a sort of squeaky image. And I think it's it's probably best to let the union speak, let the people that are on the front lines speak and share what their needs are widely, because, you know, a lot of times when they go through channels that they have, those people aren't listening or they're 
overwhelmed.
And you need side channels and back channels and and and all hands, all hands means all hands. And this is not a normal situation.
No, it's not a drill. All hands on deck. And in the hacker world, we do stand up and we do show up when it counts. And Kyle, you and I had a bit of an adventure doing just that. 
I want to play some audio from a project that we have been involved in.
All right. So here we are on a pretty empty road going to pick up some packages.
These packages have been sent to us by some volunteers at Operation Masks.
And the the goal is to get the mask to people in the hospital. So apparently it's easier to have a go between that will get them to the right people. And that's that's our job right now is to pick these up, make sure they're what they're supposed to be and get them over the Stony Brook University Hospital.
Never done this before. It's it's something it's an honor to be able to help in some way. All thanks have to go to Bobby Goodlatte and people at Operation Mask for making this possible in the first place.
And if we can take care of the last mile, that's that's the least we can do. And hopefully we can do a lot more to in the future.
But right now, what we're going to do is go up to the package delivery place.
It's insane the way we're living right now. We can't make contact with them. This is all based on our already existing fears, but new information we're getting now that the virus might be spread simply by talking or by breathing.
So increasingly, we don't even have conversations with people anymore. Even spaced out by a few feet, we communicate from inside the car and have people leave things in our trunk.
And that is just the way we have to conduct business for the for the time being. So that's that's the plan for picking up these packages.
Are you at all nervous about being near the hospital?
Hell yeah. I mean, yeah, I'm, you know, as prone to ignorance as anybody. I felt nervous when we just drove by the hospital the other day with the windows closed.
It's stupid. It's it's irrational. But that's exactly what comes out in times like this. This is, you know, if we're going to back up to the place, we're going to call somebody.
I'm not going to go inside. So if we can back up, make contact with somebody that will take them out of our trunk. I think that's that accomplishes everything. And we're not exposing ourselves and they're getting 100 percent of the delivery.
Yeah, I think it's just it's ironic that we have to get close to where we might be most exposed to this particular microbe all to help to help a system that itself is struggling.
Absolutely. But again, you know, this this this microbe is not something that's floating around in the air. It's it's person to person. It's from coughs, sneezes and maybe from talking and exhaling.
But none of that is something we're going to come in contact with inside a car with the windows closed outside. So I'm not really concerned about that. I just want to make sure that's what we do. We simply deliver the packages that way.
We're pulling up to the package place now. So what's the plan? We're going to call them. They're going to or we're going to wave at them. What do I what do I park here?
I would park here. Side doors open. So what I arrange is I'll wave at the front door and then they'll come around to the side. I'll be in the car at that point. And I think we'll clear I'll have cleared the trunk once you open it. So open it as soon as I get out and I'll clear it and get in the car before they show up. Or maybe I'll clear it before I go to 
the door.
Well, now the FedEx guys is taking stuff out right now. Actually, there's two FedEx guys or some other guy. I just don't want you getting too close to any of them. So and there's a car in front. So why don't we just wait for this car to leave so that you have a clear space?
I'll do what I originally planned on doing.
But what she moved away for the car to leave and that buys us time with the FedEx guy that is still loading.
Look at all those packages going out. So one business that is not hurting is the shipping industry. Boy, packages everywhere. People getting things or sending things. Okay, now this car is leaving.
That woman only had her mask on outside. So I guess that makes sense. And now I stay here or do I pull in front?
As I said, I think you should stay on the side where I originally told the person I'm meeting here that we could pick up at the side door. I think that's what they're expecting. 
So let me just wave as I arrange. Then we don't have to dig up phone numbers and do all that kind of thing that we really weren't prepared for.
Okay, I have to dig up the phone number of the contact at the hospital.
Okay, he's walking around the front now. I guess he's going to wave at them through the window.
You know, we got Chinese food the other day. It was like a prisoner exchange at a checkpoint. It was just so crazy. Calling them on the phone, arranging a meeting time, gesturing through the window, having them come and bring the food into a room.
And then they left a neutral area and then I came in and got the food. It was just insane. How's the operation going so far, Kyle?
Oh, good. He's aware that we're here and going to bring what we're expecting and anything else out to us.
Okay, that seems to have worked very smoothly. And he's just going to drop them in the trunk. Oh, he's doing it now.
I think these masks came from Singapore or somewhere else overseas.
All right. I can't imagine what these poor people are going through on a daily basis. So weird and bizarre.
Okay, Kyle, so a bit of time has gone by. We actually had to make an appointment to drop all of these masks off.
And since then, we've gotten another package of more items, which we actually have to tell them about before we drop it off. I'm going to actually give them a call.
You have a sheet of paper that says the other things that we have?
Yeah.
I'll dial the number.
Main menu.
Dial number.
Dial number. Please say the number.
Thank you for calling Stony Brook Medicine. A representative will be with you shortly.
Okay. Hi, how are you?
Good. I just wanted to let you know we received another package. We'd like to drop that off as well. Should I tell you what's in it?
Sure. All right. So you had three boxes of masks and possibly a van full of gowns. That was the last thing.
Yeah. The gowns are actually being held up by customs, if you can believe that.
Yeah. Okay.
I'll let you know as soon as that clears. But my friend Kyle here has the list in front of him. He's going to read that to you.
Sure.
Go ahead.
Hi, how are you?
He's got a mask on.
Okay.
All right. It's 900 hairnets.
900 hairnets. Uh-huh.
1,500 foot covers.
1,500 foot covers?
Yes.
Okay.
350 swabs.
Okay. 350 swabs.
60 goggles.
60 goggles. Uh-huh.
And 100 gloves.
So we're going to pull up and give these people all these boxes. It won't be the last time we do it.
We're not getting out, right?
I'm not sure. We shouldn't have to, but if anyone gets out, it should be you with the mask on.
I'm staying in. We'll pop the trunk. If they can figure out the geometry, I'm staying in, and then they can slam the trunk.
Yeah, I think that's fair. But let's see what they're... We're not going to the hospital. The drop-off point is away from the hospital a bit.
Hand them the paper. We have a packing list for one of the boxes.
Okay.
We just got that one today.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Be safe.
Cool.
All right.
Shall we say mission accomplished?
No.
Oh, I feel good. I feel good about doing this.
It's a good system.
Once you understand it, it's a good system, and one we can use frequently in the future.
So now that we know the ropes, we'll keep it up as much as we can.
Now let's take care of ourselves and regroup. And, of course, those other boxes may be here any time, right?
Yeah. One shipment is being held up by customs, which is the stupidest thing ever.
Still? Okay, that was from yesterday, and it's...
No, it's from last week, actually.
Oh, my gosh.
Yeah, so working on that. And there's more coming, so we'll get the van out at some point and just do as much as we possibly can.
All right. Well, that was Kyle and me doing some errands today.
I got to tell you, it felt awesome to be able to help out that way.
And, again, thanks to Bobby Goodlatte and other friends out there all over the world who are helping out, sending supplies.
And we are honored and more than happy to take these where they need to go.
And I know we're not alone in that.
There are people, we've been told this by people at the hospital, how overwhelmed they are by the shows of support that they're getting from the community.
That is so important and so inspiring.
And I feel just so indebted to people who are this generous and just an honor to be included within it.
Yeah, and it doesn't take much.
We're already pretty well suited for logistics and handling all kinds of crazy things, whether it's Club Mate or hoodies or back issues.
We're always sending things places.
Everything is ground to a halt.
It's all about getting through this.
This is the priority, yeah.
And it's weird because, you know, if I can recall a story, kind of an unusual story from the Freedom Downtime days when Bernie S. was in prison.
And he accidentally dropped a metal garbage can lid on top of a prominent mobster's head from the second floor.
It was an accident, but he had a tough time convincing people of that.
And in that moment when he thought for sure he was going to be killed by the mob, all the pressure and stress disappeared because it didn't matter anymore.
Nothing mattered anymore.
And your fate was just simply written in front of you.
And all those things that you were worried about, they weren't going to play out.
Well, it's not quite as dire.
In fact, it wasn't as dire for him either.
But it's not as dire for us because we're going to get through this.
But at the same time, we have to be single-minded.
And we have to say, this is what we have to be focusing our attention on.
And all those trivial little things that mattered so much a few weeks ago, they'll be there when we come back.
But right now, they don't matter.
What matters is getting through this, taking care of each other, staying sane, and emerging all the better.
Hey, Alex, I don't know, were you able to hear that remote?
I was.
And I'm incredibly, I guess maybe not impressed is the word, but it gave me great heart to hear what you did.
I'll put it that way.
And I think extraordinarily laudable.
And I always thought that you were very good with sort of logistics and supplies.
And maybe after this whole thing is done, you can become a long-haul trucker.
Hey, I would be honored to be a long-haul trucker.
Those are some of the biggest heroes in this country, I think.
I totally agree.
But seriously, all we did was drive packages from one place to another.
But something as simple as that matters.
And your actions matter, how you talk to other people.
You can make somebody feel better today.
You can inspire somebody tomorrow.
Everything we do counts.
And don't ever think that you don't matter, that you're insignificant.
Times like this where so many people don't have access to all the cool gizmos that they usually have access to or being able to go from one place to another, it's all kind of an equalizer.
We're all kind of having to figure it out together and go through the same things ourselves.
We are never going to forget this.
This is something people will talk about for centuries.
And we're a part of it now.
So let's make the most of it and get through it in as good a shape and make things better when it's over.
I'm looking outside and I see how clear the sky looks, how the ground fog from pollution isn't around as much, how you can hear at night without the constant sound of cars.
So I think there are things like that that we'll see the positivity of.
And maybe that will inspire us to learn something about how we can improve our environment.
And maybe this will be a good step towards fighting climate change as well.
That adaptability, I think, is the essence of the human and also the hacker spirit in so many regards.
So it's truly what we're doing and what so many other people are doing as we speak to adapt and continue to be a part of their community.
And it's becoming ever more important that local aspect is ever more important.
It's really about your proximity.
And I think that's where you can be most effective long term, especially for this next couple of weeks and months.
Can I ask you guys a question, too?
I mean, I agree with all of this, too.
I find myself just being sort of reminiscent about just very small things.
And maybe it's because I haven't seen my family in a couple of weeks.
But just the tiny small things about the human interaction and human contact that you miss and you just realize that you took so much of life for granted.
And I know for all of us that go through this, we will never, ever take all of those small things for granted ever again.
But what I wanted to ask you is I find myself watching TV at night and seeing scenes where people are hugging or shaking hands.
And I look at it and it sort of inspires this like this visceral reaction in me where I think, oh, my God, that's dangerous what they're doing.
They just shook hands together.
Those people kissed.
They barely know each other.
They met on the street.
What the hell are they doing?
So it's a weird feeling.
Are you getting that at all when you're watching TV from the past?
Yeah.
And I also think what a simpler time that was where we didn't have to worry about the things we worry about today or just didn't think about them.
But, yes, I think everyone is going through that.
Oh, my God, stay out of that crowd.
Or you're watching a baseball game or a soccer game and you see crowds, stadiums full of people, and you wonder, are we ever going to go back to that?
Are we ever going to have a situation like this?
And we will, but are we ever going to think of it in the same way?
Maybe that's a good thing.
Maybe we'll be more careful.
Maybe we'll be more hygienic or basically take care of ourselves better.
I don't know.
It's definitely going to change who we are.
I've had some little glints and small moments of that, but I've been trying or not trying, but I've been much more about the occurring, like what's in front of me and what's 
ahead and how to be as prepared for what's ahead as possible.
I find being wistful in that way, it's kind of depressing when you do snap back to what you have to face to survive in the here and now.
So I've been kind of avoiding it, to be quite honest, as far as reminiscing too much over little things.
I remember them, and I do have those things.
Things come up, right?
They surface, and you maybe get sort of wistful in that way, but I can't dwell on it and function at the same time.
We said we were going to try and take phone calls.
Let's try and do that again.
Our special phone number, 802-321-HACK.
802-321-4225 is our telephone number.
Be patient with us, because there's a lot that we have to still work out.
Also, we're using Google, so it doesn't actually work that well.
Last week, a lot of calls wound up going to voicemail, even though they didn't ring here.
They also went to the wrong place sometimes, but we're doing the best we can.
Alex, I'm not sure you'll be able to hear the calls.
You might be able to.
We might get some bizarre echo.
Let's try our first one.
Sounds good.
Good evening.
You're on the radio.
Can you hear us?
Please turn down your radio, whatever you're listening on.
Can you hear us?
Okay.
Well, you can't just call and not say anything.
Hanging up on that one.
Again, our phone number is 802-321-HACK.
802-321-4225.
At least we know the dialing in part works.
If you've been involved in any kind of technology-related project,
you've observed some technology or telecommunications-related things,
especially in the midst of this crisis, it sounds like a lot of people have.
A lot of people are calling now.
Well, I made the mistake of turning the volume up.
Okay, let's just take one phone call and see what happens.
Good evening.
You're on off the hook.
Speak up.
Can you hear me?
Wow.
I'm hitting the right thing, right?
Oh, wait, do I have – yeah, my volume is up on the computer, so there's no reason this shouldn't work.
How about now?
No, no, I think we're doing everything right, but is anyone there?
Okay, we're going to hang up on this one.
How about now?
Well, you made noise, but I don't think there was a problem.
There might be a problem now, but there wasn't a problem before.
802-321-4225.
Keep trying that number.
Yeah, the more I mess with things, it's a recipe for disaster.
Exactly.
But patching back through to your calling application may be what is hanging us up.
Alex, could you hear the echo of that other caller who didn't speak?
I could, actually, yes.
Okay, good.
So that means you'll be able to hear the caller.
Now the question is, will the caller be able to hear you?
See, folks, you're part of the experiment here.
If you call in and actually talk to us, then we might be able to see if this thing works and we could take more calls next week.
That's what I was just messing with.
I'm so nervous about this.
But, yeah, why don't we try if someone else is willing to experiment.
I think now we're having Google problems because the calls are going to the wrong place.
They should be going to the right place.
Keep trying, folks.
If you get voicemail, hang up.
Try again.
802-321-HACK-802-321-4225.
This is all new to us.
We're doing this from a remote location.
We're doing live radio from far away.
And we're learning a lot.
We're learning a lot.
And WBAI folks have been really pitching in and keeping the place running.
Never have we realized how important local radio is and we got a phone call.
Oh, good.
Good evening.
You're on the radio.
Can you hear us?
Yeah, how are you doing?
I'm glad you came through this time.
I kept calling back.
Okay.
Well, I'm glad you made it.
Alex, can you hear the caller?
I can, actually.
This is wonderful.
Caller, can you hear Alex?
I can hear Alex.
Oh, wow.
Okay.
We have no more work to do.
We're done.
Caller, what is on your mind?
Hey, what's going on?
This is Jay from Harlem.
Yeah, so my big thing is the TVs and what they did with the cameras and all that stuff that they can watch you and hack and stuff like that.
And I know there's certain brands – well, I think there's certain brands that don't do that.
In other words, when you first buy it, it's already off.
You have to turn it on to engage it.
But I think most brands, it is on and you have to know to go in and disengage it.
So, I'm really concerned about that and I just was wondering what you guys – I specifically want to know which brands is it off?
Those are the brands I want to buy.
Yeah, so it depends on exactly what you're talking about.
If it's a piece of hardware or a service, that's a good way to break it down.
And then, like you're saying, how much granularity, how much control for that service or for that piece of hardware do you have?
And oftentimes, like you said, that hardware might have the camera on by default.
And to disable it, you may or may not have that level of control and that goes for services as well.
So, it's the first thing you want to look at is not really – I mean the agreement, you have to kind of agree if it's a service.
But hardware specifically, is there a switch?
Is there a setting where you can mute it by default or have it not send telemetry or like logs back to the manufacturer?
Stuff like that is key when you're setting up something.
And do a little homework like what other people said.
Emmanuel is always talking about finding good reviews for things, which I'm terrible at.
But reviews, there's a lot in between the lines when people are reviewing things.
So, little tips like that.
It's like kind of that consumer reports research we were talking about last week.
Thank you for that call.
Our phone lines are open again, 802-321-4225.
802-321-HACK is our phone number.
Speaking of technology and rumors and craziness, you hear about 5G towers being burned down because people are convinced they cause coronavirus?
You've heard this, right?
Well, I think the conspiracy is that it's weakening our immune systems.
I guess we would say because of the physics of the phased array antennas and the amount of energy they emit, it somehow damages the immune system, and that's making us more susceptible to this particular virus because it's so contagious.
I think that's how it goes, but I haven't actually looked into the conspiracy theory.
But yes, 5G antennas are being attacked as a backlash to their sort of implied involvement insofar as the conspiracy goes.
Is that correct?
Hate crimes against inanimate objects.
It's unbelievable.
5G has nothing to do with coronavirus.
That's number one.
And what's more, the healthcare workers and the first responders are probably using a lot of those communication towers one way or another, sending information, locating vehicles for
dispatch purposes.
All kinds of things are probably transitioning to the communications technology, or the very serving the new technology are backwards compatible with all of the older technology so that even
the people keeping their older phones would be disrupted by these kinds of attacks.
So it's kind of crazy.
This is stuff where you need to be talking to your standards bodies and the FCC more so than just attacking hardware because they'll just build another one.
That is true.
You know, calls just keep bypassing us.
I don't know where they're going.
But I'm going to turn this thing off here and see if maybe that does a better job.
I see so many calls that we've missed.
So I know we're getting calls, but only one in like 50 gets to us.
So that's kind of crazy.
But let's try it again.
802-321-HACK.
802-321-4225.
If we don't get any more that actually make it to us this week, we'll try earlier next week.
But again, on the subject of 5G, I'm not saying there aren't any potential health issues with the technology itself, just like with 4G, with any kind of emission from something you hold next to your head.
But to say that it causes this is just the height of stupidity.
And it's something I expect from Trump.
I don't expect it from citizens.
Yeah, it's kind of a direct correlation.
I don't know.
I guess you could go down that maybe.
But running down that road, it just seems more like really unfortunate timing.
And it is really unfortunate timing for all kinds of new products.
So getting people to buy in at a moment like this, I don't know.
It's really ripe for that kind of accusation because everybody's looking for something to blame for this.
Okay.
We have to fix this whole phone setup here.
All the hardware here is working, but Google is just routing our calls to the wrong place.
We'll work on that some more.
Thanks, everybody, who called in.
Okay, now we're getting a call.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
It sounds so nice.
But we're out of time.
We'll be back next week, though, with another exciting program with all kinds of new information.
Hopefully, things will start getting better then.
We'll see.
Alex, I hope you continue to improve.
And you're going to see your family before next week, right?
Yeah, I very much hope so.
That'll be something new to report next week.
All right.
Well, for those of you stuck in New York, hey, make the most of it.
We're going to get through this.
The city is strong, and we're going to be stronger than ever.
See you next time.
Good night.
This city won't wash away.
This city won't ever drown.
Blood and water and hail to pay.
Sky till open and pain rain down.
Doesn't matter to come what may.
I ain't ever gonna leave this town.
This city won't wash away.
This city won't ever drown.