So brace yourself for that program as they usually deliver something that is
It is now 7 p.m. Stay tuned for Off The Hook, coming up.
Hello. I said hello. You're listening to WBAI New York. It's 7 o'clock on a Wednesday and it usually means it's time for Off The Hook.
The telephone keeps ringing, so I ripped it off the wall.
I cut myself while shaving, now I can't make a call.
It couldn't get much worse, but if they could, they would.
Bundy Lee Bumper, the best, expect the worst. I hope that's understood. Bundy Lee Boo!
And a very good evening to everybody. The program is Off The Hook. Emmanuel Goldstein here with you, joined tonight by Kyle.
Come in.
And over in Skype land, which changes my voice as soon as I turn it on, we have Alex.
Good evening.
And Rob and Gila are away on assignment, I understand, so we won't be hearing from them this week, but we will be hearing from them next week.
We have all kinds of things to talk about on this program, and of course at 8 o'clock we go to overtime over on our YouTube channel, youtube.com slash channel 2600.
But for now, we have an hour here on WBAI, which is a gift. A gift to us and to our listeners, and another reason why you should support WBAI as much as you can.
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And hopefully next hour we'll help prove that a little bit.
As I said, we have a lot to talk about. There was a major hack with the far-right site Epic, or provider Epic.
There's all kinds of things going on, but we had some late-breaking news this week.
We've talked about this in the past a few times. Our friend Virgil Griffith, who is currently in prison, I believe, in the New York City area, his trial was supposed to begin on Monday.
Virgil has been held on suspicion, and I'm not sure if I'm even going to get this right, on suspicion of helping North Korea evade sanctions.
It sounds absurd when you say it out loud, because quite honestly, I believe it is absurd.
Virgil's a friend of mine, a good friend of mine, and this is somebody who is incapable of doing something destructive or in any way negative.
He's also incapable of lying, and I'll get to that in a minute, because when you don't have that ability in your life, lots of times people don't get you.
I've spent a good amount of my life dealing with a lot of people, and maybe dealing sounds negative.
No, working with, being with people that others don't get, and it's hard.
It's hard to be able to advocate and try to explain how people can think differently and still be on your side, still be good, still be somebody that you can work with, even if they're not what you're used to.
Anyway, I mentioned the trial was supposed to begin on the 27th, which was Monday, but it's not happening.
I'm going to read you the BBC report first.
A cryptocurrency expert, that's Virgil, who gave a talk at a Pyongyang conference, Pyongyang being in North Korea, has admitted conspiring to help North Korea evade sanctions.
Virgil Griffith, a former senior researcher with the Ethereum Foundation, pleaded guilty on Monday.
The U.S. Department of Justice said he had jeopardized the national security of the United States by undermining sanctions.
His lawyer told the Wall Street Journal Griffith was sincerely remorseful.
In April of 2019, Virgil attended the Pyongyang Blockchain and Cryptocurrency Conference with about 100 other attendees.
Are you in a submarine, Alex? I'm hearing peeing noises.
I should point out that the act of going to North Korea alone is a crime, because basically Donald Trump made it a crime.
That's a fact. That's simply the way things are right now.
It wasn't a crime when I went to North Korea. It was perfectly legal as an American.
I happen to go as a European, because I'm a dual citizen, but it was legal to go as an American.
Hopefully it will be legal to go as an American again, because we're not used to being told we can't go here, we're not allowed to go to this country.
There really is no harm in going to different countries, talking to people, and sharing ideas and culture and things like that.
It was a very positive experience for me.
I feel bad, because that's one of the things I told Virgil when I went there, that it was a positive experience.
Many hackers have gone to North Korea.
It's in no way an endorsement of the horrible regime they have over there, or the terrible things they do to people.
In no way is it that.
But it is a desire, a desire to open doors and communicate and see people one-on-one.
And maybe, in our naive way of thinking, maybe even make things a little bit better.
We've been taught communication is a good thing.
That's what a lot of the hacker community is about, communication, sharing.
But again, we get into this area where he's being accused of something, which 100% of me knows he did not do or intend to do.
Simply the act of going to North Korea is enough.
And that's basically what this is all about.
So he had applied for permission to travel to North Korea.
Keep in mind, he lived in Singapore.
He had lived in Singapore for years.
And he asked the State Department, hey, can I go to North Korea?
There's this crypto conference I'd like to go to.
Can I get clearance?
And I think he was a bit surprised when that was refused.
And again, this is just me thinking out loud, but if I lived in Singapore, if I lived far away from the United States,
even though I was an American citizen, I would say, why do I have to listen to people far away telling me that I can't go to this particular place when it's right there?
It's so close to where I am.
And there's this cool conference I want to go to.
Yeah, it was wrong.
It was illegal.
And he's readily admitted to that.
And I believe that is what he's admitting to right now.
The fact that he did that, that's a violation of sanctions.
And he came back to New York at one stage sometime, I believe, in 2019.
And I remember we were hanging out and he mentioned that the FBI had contacted him and wanted to talk to him about his trip to North Korea.
And when that happens, obviously all sorts of alarm bells go off.
The FBI wants to talk to you.
You never know what could really happen.
None of us, nobody thought this was going to be a super big deal, except for the fact that, yes, he went to North Korea when he wasn't supposed to go to North Korea.
And when you say it, when you process it in your head and just realize what it was, simply going to a place you're told not to go, how bad is that?
The way the media describes it, he went to North Korea to help the North Koreans.
No, he went to a place he wasn't supposed to go to attend the conference that he wanted to be at.
Especially in the context of easing of tensions.
I mean, there was a moment of sort of international diplomacy.
Don't forget, that was when Trump was basically, and this was the one thing I was hoping he would succeed.
I was hoping he'd succeed at a lot of things, but this was the one thing I thought he had a chance at succeeding at, was opening the door to North Korea.
Trump even went to North Korea.
He stepped foot in the country.
We all saw it.
Do you remember the commemorative coins they issued?
I have one.
I got a commemorative coin, a North Korean piece, something or other, from the United States, because I knew they'd never make another one.
But from the outside looking in, you'd say, well, this is maybe a moment when you would want people to be more open to interacting and communicating, as you said.
Yeah, it's this naive thought that maybe we as individuals can make things a little bit better.
That's why we publish a magazine.
That's why we do a radio show.
That's why we have conferences.
That's why we insist on being open about everything we do, on speaking about people in the hacker community.
So he was invited to go to the FBI in New York and talk to them about what he was doing over there.
And I strongly advised him, bring a lawyer with you.
But he felt that just going over there, telling them exactly what happened, was the best way to go forward.
Never in his wildest dreams did he think this would be a problem.
Because, again, we're all taught, tell the truth.
What can go wrong?
And that's what he did.
He went there.
He told the truth.
I remember this so vividly.
He brought North Korean newspapers to the FBI.
He brought souvenirs to them as gifts.
He thought they were friends.
He thought they were on the same side, that everybody understood each other, where he was coming from.
And I remember he told me that after he left, they said, we don't think this is a big deal.
Exactly what everyone else thought.
And then seven months later, on his way to his parents' home for Thanksgiving,
he was arrested at Los Angeles International Airport.
And his life has been torn apart ever since.
Because he's being accused of helping probably the biggest enemy that we have out there.
We being the United States.
And it's a contentious relationship, no question about that.
He presented a brief talk on rudimentary blockchain technology.
Nothing that you can't find with a simple Google search.
But when you are invited to North Korea, you give something back.
And here's a talk.
Here's some information that you can easily find on your own.
But it's part of being polite.
It's part of just being a good traveler, a good representative of where it is you're coming from.
The title of his presentation was Blockchain and Peace.
Yeah, Blockchain and Peace.
Doesn't sound very dangerous, does it?
Prosecutors said that Virgil had given a presentation on blockchain technology and cryptocurrency
with topics approved by North Korean officials.
Which sounds ominous, but that's how it works.
That's how everything is over there.
If you want a hamburger, that has to be approved by North Korean officials.
Come on.
And here's a quote.
Participated in discussions regarding using cryptocurrency technologies to evade sanctions and launder money.
That is a real stretch.
That is a real stretch.
Because if somebody at a particular conference asks you a question,
and your answer is something that can theoretically help in evading some kind of sanction.
If we did this, would it have this effect?
The answer being, maybe.
That could help.
Something as innocuous as that.
It's really not hard to fall into this trap.
And let me tell you, when you go to North Korea, you want to be polite.
You want to not hand over secrets or anything stupid like that.
No, you want to be polite and answer questions.
And if somebody asks a question, you answer to the best of your ability.
When I was on a bus in North Korea, one of the tour guides, or minders as they're called by us,
wanted to look at my MP3 player.
What was I going to do?
Say, yeah, you know what?
I don't think you looking at the sex pistols is really something that I want to share.
No.
You're in their country, and in a potentially very dangerous situation,
you be as polite as you possibly can be.
And sure, he was listening to the music I was listening to.
He was curious.
No big deal.
There was really nothing bad that could have happened from that.
So you try to be as open as possible.
And when someone goes to a country like that,
the fear that you have is what might happen to them over there.
We've seen people.
We've seen what's happened to people who misbehave in even the slightest way.
That person who tried to steal a banner.
Otto Warmbier.
Stupid thing to do.
Really stupid thing to do.
I was worried about that, about people doing something stupid while over there.
Never in my wildest dreams did I think the real threat was over here when he got back.
And that is why he thought just visiting the FBI, having a conversation with them, was a good idea.
And I don't know if something happened in the chain of command
where they were telling him the truth when they said this isn't a big deal,
and then somebody said, no, let's make this a big deal.
They have successfully been able to portray him as a quite literal enemy of the state.
And, you know, I'm tempted to laugh and cry at the same time
because I know Virgil, I know Virgil very well.
And he is incapable, I don't mean this as an insult,
but he is incapable of being an enemy of the state.
The mere thought has me wondering if I'm stuck in some Kafkaesque novel that never got published.
This is somebody, as I mentioned before, who cannot tell a lie.
If you ask him a question, he will give you a lecture.
He will answer it.
He's not giving away state secrets.
First of all, he doesn't have any state secrets,
but he basically is doing what many hackers have done.
And unfortunately, when I look back on it,
I look back at some of my friends over the years,
FiberOptic being one of them, Kevin Mitnick.
These are people that were always very open,
that would explain things to people who were interested in learning.
And it was because of that that the federal government came down on them harder
because they were seen as particularly dangerous,
because they had knowledge.
And the message that that sent,
especially to our young people,
was that knowledge is dangerous,
and you should avoid that at all costs.
And I should point out, in the case of Fiber and Kevin,
once they were released,
I think society finally realized these people are assets.
We should be embracing them.
We should be listening to them.
And ever since, we have.
And I thought we had learned that lesson.
But the Virgil Griffith case tells me that we most definitely have not learned that lesson.
And viewing him as some kind of arch-villain
that is hell-bent on helping North Korea evades.
Why would he be helping North Korea of all countries?
Of course, he is not doing that.
He has no interest in helping them.
What he does have an interest in, though,
what any hacker has an interest in,
is explaining how systems work and how systems can break.
And he, you better believe,
would tell anybody who wanted to listen at the U.S. government
exactly what the problem with a particular system was
and how to make it better
if they had only listened to him
instead of trying to paint him as somebody who is evil
and up to something.
And right now,
I understand completely why a guilty plea makes sense.
Who can go up against this kind of portrayal?
And as he said to me when I was talking to him,
yes, I evaded sanctions by going to North Korea.
I mean, that is true.
When you do that, there's no denying it.
That's why he went to the FBI
and he was worried that they might take away his passport.
Maybe a fine.
Because I don't even think anybody has been prosecuted for this,
for going to North Korea after Trump said,
you're not allowed to go to North Korea.
I don't think anyone was prosecuted for that.
So nobody thought this would be a big deal.
Nobody thought that.
So now,
he sits in prison
awaiting sentencing, I believe in January.
And,
you know, I
I can't process this because
here's a good friend of mine that I know is a good person,
that I know
is incapable of doing the things that people seem to think that he did
or was planning on doing.
And,
you know, back in 2004,
when I was arrested for standing on the sidewalk
during the Republican National Convention in Manhattan,
I spent less than three days in jail
with about a thousand other people,
all
helping each other out, all supporting each other.
And I was traumatized.
I was traumatized from that,
from having all that support around me,
from that very short period of time.
And here's Virgil sitting in federal prison
in a horrible place,
a horrible place,
a place that he is not
capable of surviving.
He's not somebody that
should be in a situation like that.
And
yet
we've decided that that is appropriate.
That's the place that he should be right now.
And when sentencing comes in January, it could get a whole lot worse.
Because
if he continues to be seen in this
ridiculous light
as some kind of arch-villain,
we could be talking
years, many years.
This is not somebody who should be in prison.
This is somebody who should be lecturing at Stanford.
We should be listening
to what he says, to what he has learned.
Look at his past. Look at the things he has done.
He launched
a project,
I believe it's called Wiki Scanner,
that allowed
anyone to see
who was making changes to particular
Wikipedia pages.
In particular,
if a congressman was changing
what was said about a particular congressman,
about themselves,
that was revealed. He was on the Colbert Report.
He was celebrated for this,
because it was honesty.
It was showing the world
what the truth was.
And a lot of people don't like that, I know, but
it's kind of what we do.
And he's done many, many things like this,
always involved in some project,
always stretching his brain to figure out
how could this work.
And I know there are people who just
don't appreciate that. They don't get
the way
that people who are into technology express themselves.
There's a lot of
attention drawn to
statements. These were in the
reports,
in some of the court documents,
that he said something to the effect of
I need to be able to deposit
one
Ethereum or Bitcoin or something like that
into this account.
But
if you don't understand what a theoretical
statement is,
you would think that that's exactly what he was going to do
and he never did any such thing.
It's hard to explain.
It's hard to explain, but
that is how
theoretical
ideas work.
You say,
I need to get to Mars before Elon Musk does
by using this particular type of technology.
You're not actually going to Mars.
It's a brain challenge that you're trying to figure out.
And
it's really hard to explain this.
But it's really easy to portray somebody
as having all kinds of devious plans.
But if you just step back for a minute and look at the facts
and look at the person,
you realize how absurd that is.
And in this particular case,
knowing so much personally about the person,
about the location, about
various technologies at work,
it really,
really hits me how
absurd it is. But again, the absurdity
takes a backseat to the outrage to knowing that a friend of mine is
in this horrible place.
And I don't know if he can survive this.
I don't know if
I don't know if I could survive this.
I do know the months ahead are going to be difficult
because we need to
we need to
show support
and be there.
And the other thing that gets me in all this
is that
you may see in the news when somebody is
charged with a crime
and is awaiting sentencing, oftentimes they don't have to await sentencing
in a federal prison. They can
show up in court after
being outside.
And the only reason
he's in prison right now is because
he supposedly violated the terms of
I believe supervised release or
whatever the legal term is
by
allegedly accessing
a cryptocurrency exchange
at the request of his lawyers so that he could pay his lawyers.
And apparently
doing that was a violation. Enough of a violation
to have him immediately thrown into prison.
I mean
that is not right.
That is not. He was trying to pay his lawyers
and he's being punished for that. So that is why he's in prison now.
Not because of anything I'm going to do with North Korea because he tried to pay his lawyers
and did it the wrong way.
And
that to me is just
it's just too outrageous to even
process as well.
Anyway, so that is
that is where we are now.
The trial was supposed to happen on Monday
and
it's not happening now because of the guilty plea.
And we look back on
various cases pretty much every day.
Various cases pretty much all the cases that we've
covered in on this show over the years and
they almost always involve a guilty plea at some point.
Because that is really
the only option that's open in many cases.
It's tragic. It's sad. But
in this particular case
I think there is still hope that justice can prevail.
I really hope so because
like I said this is somebody who does not belong in prison.
This is somebody who can benefit society in so many ways.
This is somebody who has given so much.
And
we need to make that clear.
I'm sorry for hogging so much time.
I know Alex you've been involved
somewhat in this case but I want to point out that
since you are an attorney
there are certain things that
you can't say and I get that.
There's reasons we haven't been
saying things over the past few weeks because
we didn't want to
say anything that could be misconstrued and somehow
a juror could hear it over our airwaves.
It's frustrating.
But I respect it.
And
I abide by as many of these rules as I can stand.
But it's not for lack of caring.
It's not for lack of interest on our part
that we have stayed silent on this.
It's that we
want to do what's right.
We want the truth to come out.
We want justice to prevail.
And most of all we want Virgil to walk free because
he suffered enough for a mistake.
A single mistake
that any of us could have made.
I think the only thing that he's really paying for
is the fact that he's so damn smart.
And people are afraid of that.
People resent that so much.
I haven't experienced it that much personally,
but I've seen it happen so many times to people that
are just...
You ever watch the show Big Bang Theory?
Sheldon Cooper, that's who I think of
when I think of Virgil sometimes.
Because he's awkward at expressing himself
and he often does things that
aren't always the best thing to do.
But
he's not a bad bone in his body.
I mean,
he would never hurt somebody.
He would never lie about anything.
But he's obsessed with finding out
how something works.
And
that simple thing
really annoys people.
Especially people in control.
They don't like that.
And sometimes they really come down hard
on people who have those
traits.
And sometimes they're afflictions.
And you can't turn it off.
You know?
It's just who he is.
Who a lot of us are.
And if you think that
you're protected in some way,
you're only protected until
you make a mistake
that somebody takes
in a particularly bad way.
And you're not able to really
explain it to their satisfaction.
And it's just so frustrating
to be able to witness this
and see it from the sidelines
and be helpless to
do anything.
I'll let you
chime in, Alex.
Yeah, sure.
I think
you covered a lot of ground there.
And as you mentioned,
I'm somewhat restricted in what I can say
and would prefer to just stick to the facts
of what happened
and what's in the public filings.
Because
relatively recently,
helping with Virgil's defense
was not part of the
trial team that was
appearing in court.
But we were assisting the defense team
on certain discreet issues
that were going to arise in the trial.
And
I was there on Monday
when all this happened
in court.
And it was very tough.
It was very trying.
It was emotional
and more emotional
because Virgil's parents were there
sitting in the front row
of the gallery
and watching this whole thing unfold
and to see Virgil there
and to have him seem brought out
and then go back
to the place from
whence he came,
which is the Metropolitan Correction Center,
a veritable
hellhole
that is being closed down
for mismanagement.
It is the very same place
where Jeffrey Epstein was being held
and where he hanged himself.
I mean, it's not a nice place.
And that's where Virgil is right now.
And so what happened
is there was a guilty plea.
Guilty.
Virgil had pleaded guilty
to this charge.
And I think it shocked a lot of people
that were there.
There were a lot of people in the gallery
that had showed up to support Virgil.
A lot of members of the media.
There was a guilty plea to happen.
Everyone expected a trial
to happen on Monday.
And so when this plea came forth,
everyone was a bit shocked.
And the agreement with the prosecution,
this is all stuff that's in the record,
was drafted the day before.
And
the sentencing range here
that was agreed for Virgil
between the prosecution and the defense
was for between
63 and 78 months.
That's a long time.
That's a little over six years
and possibly up to seven and a half.
But the judge made very clear
that
even though that is the range
that the prosecution has
agreed to recommend,
it's up to the judge
to determine whether or not
he extends that sentence upwards.
And the maximum penalty here
is 20 years in prison.
And that's a very,
very long time for somebody
who is 38 years old.
What will happen next is
Virgil will be sentenced
on the 18th of January.
And prior to that,
there's going to be
a pre-sentencing investigation
and there'll be a memorandum
that can be submitted
in support of Virgil.
And his current trial lawyers
I'm sure will be coordinating
that effort
and hopefully members
of the community
or people who know him
will have a chance to chime in
and talk about his character
and the type of person he is
and why the court should be lenient on him
and why he's a valued member of society
that still has a lot to give,
a lot to give back to the world
and can do a lot.
This whole thing,
it really hit me in the gut.
It's very sad to me.
I visited with Virgil
first when he was in Essex County
being held
after the bail was revoked
and to go back to that Emanuel,
I'm not sure if his current lawyers
had actually asked Virgil
to access the cryptocurrency account,
but they had,
it's from where they were being paid,
I believe,
and Virgil had tried to use
the same methodology
that he was using to work
for another family member
to access that account
because he was prevented
from using a computer
as a condition of the bail.
These are very draconian
types of conditions.
I'm not sure how else you would do that.
How else would you be able
to get funds to your lawyers
other than have somebody
access the account
that you're not allowed
to touch yourself.
It doesn't make much sense to me.
Yeah, and the lawyers,
his current trial lawyers,
I was retained
after this whole thing had happened
and like I said,
very recently,
but they had even said,
well look,
this was the methodology
that was used
for Virgil to continue to work
and so it probably should,
look, they should have gone
to the court
or Virgil should have insisted
or the court should have been involved
in one way or the other at that point
and I think his lawyers
had even said look
and submitted a letter in support
saying please don't ding Virgil for this.
But this is a tough judge.
This is Judge Castell.
I've had a couple other matters
before him as well
and he's no nonsense
and I think this bail revocation
was sending a message to Virgil
and as much it was sending a message
to every other criminal defendant
so you don't play around
with these things.
No, I get that.
I respect that
but at some point
you have to realize
this is a human being
and is this right?
Is this right for this to happen
based on,
I mean think of the worst thing,
even the second worst thing
you've done in your life.
I mean I was prosecuted
back in the 80s
for computer hacking
and it could have gone
a different way.
It could have gone
a completely different way.
I was talking to the FBI
and talking to prosecutors
and talking to lawyers
and judges
and all that kind of thing
and they were telling me
yeah, you could get
55 years in jail.
At the time
it just seems so absurd.
I mean it was absurd
but the difference was
that I laughed at it then
saying this will never happen
and fortunately
I lived in a world at the time
where it didn't happen
where they agreed
yeah, that's absurd
and let's just do this
and pay for the computer time
you used
and stay on probation
for a certain amount of time
and then we'll wipe your record
after that
and you know what?
I never did anything
of that sort again
and I turned into something
that many people would say
is a benefit.
Some people might actually
think that
doing the magazine
and the radio
and the conferences
and whatever else
is positive
for the community
and has helped
so imagine if it had gone
a different way
and just think of something
I know you got in trouble
in the library once
for going to a website
you weren't supposed to go to
or something
you know, if they really
pull out all the stops
and come after you
and portray you
in the most negative way possible
that changes
who you are
it changes everything
and if you're going to do that
to somebody
you have to ask yourself
why?
Is there a reason
why this is necessary?
You know, because
everybody makes mistakes
everybody does something
that they shouldn't have done
and
I don't believe
Virgil ever
ran afoul of the law
in any way
and
at some point
you have to
let your humanity kick in
and say
okay, why
you know
why are we doing this
exactly?
What is our endgame?
and I have yet
to hear a good answer
I wish I had
an answer for it
I don't
I don't want to speculate
about it
I think, you know
right now
Virgil is in a very vulnerable
position as well
I think he's
he's yet to be sentenced
and
he has a very tough judge
Judge Castell
I think
look
Judge Castell is also
a very fair person
as well
and
I think that
Virgil
pleading guilty
to this charge
is going to make
a measurable difference
as well
and
don't forget
some of the facts
that you mentioned as well
Manuel
that he had
voluntarily gone
not only to the FBI
but he also
voluntarily went to
the State Department
in Singapore
after he returned
from Pyongyang
and
discussed his
visit
and what had happened
and
he didn't make a secret
of any of this
but
he's in a very vulnerable
state
and
I think that
he needs support
he needs encouragement
he needs people
to tell him
that
they still
believe in him
that opinions
haven't changed
and that he still
has some worth
to society
because this is a very
difficult thing right now
I think for him
to process
and so
I hope
that
there will be
the opportunity
for people to
reach out
to interact with the defense
and to
submit
some kind of
character statement
assessment
something that can
hopefully
influence
the
sentencing
memorandum
and the sentence itself
for the better
it's
incredibly
tragic
and sad
situation right now
and
you know
I think you hit it on the head
Emanuel
when you said
this is a guy
who should be
lecturing at Stanford
I would say
go even
a rung higher
than that
Virgil has a PhD
from Caltech
I mean
Cal
Tech
it doesn't get
more
subjective
or difficult
when it comes
to engineering
and computer science
than Caltech
this is where
he has a doctorate
from
I mean
this is a guy
who has
tremendous worth
to society
and I hope
that we can
all rally
around him
that our
opinions of him
aren't sullied
by this
and I know
that he is
very contrite
and he's very
concerned
and of course
his future
and his fate
especially being
in a place
like the Metropolitan
Correctional Center
it's not nice
and
hopefully
and again
this is something
that had come out
during the course
of
the guilty plea
on Monday
was that
Judge Kestel
did agree
to recommend
that Virgil
would be
sent back
to the
Essex County
Correctional Facility
which is just
outside
the city
limits of
Newark
New Jersey
as opposed
to the
Metropolitan
Detention Center
in Brooklyn
and that would be
a very good thing
because Virgil was in
the Essex County
Correctional Facility
that was where I
actually first met
with him
and
it's a much
nicer place
I think
his
psychological
well-being
would be
well-deserved
to be
back in Essex
as opposed to the
Metropolitan
Detention Center
which is just
outside
the city
limits of
Newark
New Jersey
and
that would
be
a very
good thing
because
Virgil
would be
sent back
to the
Essex County
Correctional Facility
which is just
outside
the city
limits of
Newark
New Jersey
and
that would
be
a very
good thing
because
Virgil
would be
sent back
to the
Essex County
Correctional Facility
which is just
outside
the city
limits of
Newark
New Jersey
and
that would
be
a very
good thing
because
Virgil
would be
sent back
to the
Essex County
Correctional Facility
which is just
outside
the city
limits of
Newark
New Jersey
and
that would
be
a very
good thing
because
Virgil
would be
sent back
to the
Essex County
Correctional Facility
which is just
outside
the city
limits of
Newark
New Jersey
and
that would
be
a very
good thing
because
Virgil
would be
sent back
to the
Essex County
Correctional
Facility
which is
just
outside
the city
limits of
Newark
New Jersey
and
that would
be
a very
good thing
because
Virgil
would be
sent back
to the
Essex County
Correctional
Facility
which is
just
outside
the city
limits of
Newark
New Jersey
and
that would
be
a very
good thing
because
Virgil
would be
sent back
to the
Essex County
Correctional
Facility
which is
just
outside
the city
limits of
Newark
New Jersey
and
that would
be
a very
good thing
because
Virgil
would
be
sent back
to the
Essex County
Correctional
Facility
in short
order.
It's
terrible I
know to
even
be
talking
about
this
and
speculating
about
where
he's
going to
be
sent.
It
breaks
my


heart.
I
hope
justice
prevails.
I do
believe
justice
exists.
You have
to fight
for it.
You have
to not
back down.
I know
that this
particular
case hasn't
gotten that
much in
the way of
publicity.
I think
part of
that is
because
people don't
believe
that
justice
exists.
I
don't
believe
that
justice
exists.
The
reason
I
It's helping Virgil emotionally to know you're there on his side, and I think you'll get
nuances that others would miss.
So again, thank you.
Well, I hope so.
I hope so.
And I do have to say, you know, my colleagues in my new firm that I joined in July was incredibly
supportive and really bent over backwards to help Virgil, several of my colleagues.
More than several, I would say, you know, there's at least five of us that really took
an interest in this case, and there's so much more I could say, but obviously I'm bound
by attorney-client privilege, and I have to respect that confidence forever.
I'm just really hopeful that some of the work you've done and others in our telling of his
stories will put this story and this case in perspective, because I'm asking, as we've
talked about, as he has recounted, I ask myself, you know, what has been fixed here?
You know, what is, is this, are we better off as a result, and I don't, as I'm hearing
about his evangelizing and advocacy for digital currencies, I just hear him doing what he
was really passionate about and sharing, and then sharing about it to the point of, like,
debriefing people with the government.
I mean, he was very open, very honest, and I really hope that we put in perspective that,
you know, the kinds of questions that were being asked at that conference, we don't really
know what those are, you know, going forward.
If we're not exploring, communicating, and being diplomatic in some way, so I'm asking
myself, you know, are we better off in knowing how different places in the world are using
these things, how it could help solve other crimes and answer some of the questions that
I think we're a little bit more blind to by not having his advocacy and interest and freedom.
To add onto that a little bit, the whole cryptocurrency thing, I see the same reaction towards cryptocurrency
as I'm seeing here, where people don't know how to deal with it, people in charge especially,
and there's this hostility towards it, and I understand it, I get it because it kind
of throws everything into disarray, but, you know, it wasn't Virgil's idea, basically.
He's trying to make sense of it as well and explain it to people, and especially people
here to help design things that are better, and I know when there's something new that
nobody gets, nobody quite understands, and that it potentially has the threat of upending
what you're used to.
You would react to anybody with some kind of limited knowledge about that particular
new system, you'd react with resistance or hostility.
Try telling a system administrator about a problem with their system.
You get the same basic reaction like you're the problem, not the actual problem that you're
trying to report, and I think that's what we're seeing here is that age-old hostility
towards people saying the emperor has no clothes or that something needs fixing, and
I just don't want to forget that there's a human life here, there's a valuable human
life that we need to not forget about, and I've basically spent the entire hour talking
about this.
I didn't mean to do that.
I am so sorry to everybody, but at the same time, I'm not sorry because this certainly
deserves an hour.
It deserves a lot more time.
We do have other topics, and we'll try to get to them over time, which you can join
us and call us, too, but we won't be able to say much about this case, obviously.
YouTube.com slash Channel 2600 is the address to click on, or you can go to 2600.com and
just click on the link at the top of the page.
We'll see you next week.
Good night, everybody.
Today's the day our younger son is going off to war.
Fighting in the age-old battle we sometimes won before.
Flags in line on Main Street are blowing in the wind.
He's going to win.
Looking straight ahead like they know just where they're going.
Past the flags of freedom flying.
The sister has her headphones on.
She hears the music blasting.
She sees her brother marching by.
Their bond is everlasting.
Listening to Bob Dylan singing in 1963.
Watching the flags of freedom fly.
She sees the president speaking on the black screen TV.
In the window of the old appliance store.
She turns to see her brother again.
But he's already walking past.
The flags of freedom fly.
Have you seen the flags of freedom?
What color are they now?
Do you think that you believe in yours
more than they do theirs somehow?
Do you see the flags of freedom flying?
Today's the day our younger son is going off to war.
Fighting the age-old battle we sometimes won before.
As the flag-roving streets are blowing in the wind.
These must be the flags of freedom flying.
THE FLAGS OF FREEDOM
Time passed.
Many romantic feelings were associated with radio broadcasting.
As with aviation.
With motoring across the far western United States.
Fifty years ago, a young genius made a classic that could never be retold.
Now, it must be told again.