So this is an enormously important program for African-American children.
The President's Commission on Social Security did not make any recommendations on young
survivor benefits and disability because of the loss of benefits that would be incurred.
They recommended that another commission be set up to address the issue.
For Free Speech Radio News in New York City, I'm Leanne Caldwell.
This is Free Speech Radio News, I'm Deepa Fernandes.
And this is radio station WBAI New York, the time is 7 o'clock, time for Off The Hook.
Welcome to WBAI, the time is 7 o'clock, time for Off The Hook, the time is 7 o'clock, time
is 7 o'clock, time is 7 o'clock, time is 7 o'clock, time is 7 o'clock, time is 7 o'clock,
time is 7 o'clock, time is 7 o'clock, time is 7 o'clock, time is 7 o'clock, time is 7
o'clock.
And good evening to everybody, the program is Off The Hook, Emmanuel Goldstein here with
you.
And this Wednesday evening, a couple of housekeeping notes.
Next week we will be doing a one-hour fundraiser.
For the two weeks following that, we will not be on the air, so if you want to pledge
to Off The Hook to WBAI, next week is your opportunity to do that, and we'll be on again
for one hour from 7 to 8 next week, and we won't be on for the two weeks following that,
just so everybody knows.
And a good evening, it's a snowy night in New York, and we have all kinds of things
to talk about, and letters to read, and phone calls to take for the next hour or so.
And Bernie joins us from Philadelphia, Bernie, are you there?
Snowy Philadelphia, as a matter of fact.
It's snowing down there too.
It's amazing.
Unbelievable.
Now, you know, Bernie, you were scheduled to go to Thailand right before the tsunami
hit and of course the devastation that was caused there, and then on this radio program
you talked about the Thai subway, the Bangkok subway, and how amazing it was.
I have to wonder, you know, is there some kind of curse or something here, because as
soon as you rode on the thing, it crashed.
And now there's all this talk about all the people that got injured.
Do you want to tell us what happened?
Well, I don't think it's a curse, I just think I'm very lucky that I missed the tsunami
just by a few days, and I also missed getting injured on the subway, nearly 200 people got
injured on a big subway crash.
I mean, you're lucky, but you know, we've gotten at least three pieces of email from
people in different countries asking that you please not visit their countries in the
years ahead, because apparently someone's out to get you.
It's really the wake of destruction that you leave in your past.
Yeah, they keep missing.
Maybe I should get out of this country.
You know what, now that you mention it, since you've been around in this country, things
have gone steadily downhill, so you might want to try it.
Well, I've got to go back to the subway thing.
I don't want to blame a curse or the reliability of the Bangkok subway system.
I rode several times on that system a couple of weeks ago, and it's truly amazing.
I urge anyone who's considering a trip to Southeast Asia, even if they're not, to go
there and ride this subway.
It's amazing.
For anyone who has any interest in subways or trains, this is a mind-bogglingly beautiful
and high-tech subway system.
You can't even describe it on the air.
But in any case, what happened here is apparently somebody parked one of the trains in an area
where it was supposed to be towed from, like off the track, but they forgot to put the
brakes on it, and it rolled backwards and gathers up speed and smashed into a car full
of people, a rush hour, another train with almost 200 people were injured.
So it wasn't a machine fault.
It was a simple human error, as most systems, computers, trains, whatever, almost everything
is human error.
So that's all it was.
And I guess there's no high-tech way of preventing this kind of a thing.
Well, I don't know.
You'd think they'd have some sort of system that would detect, hey, the train is rolling
backwards, but they don't.
And Siemens is the big contractor for this system.
So maybe they should have put something like that in place.
But it's only been in service since, I think, August.
So it's only been in service for about six months, and maybe the people just aren't trained
well enough.
Each station has a really amazing control room.
But I guess the people are just still kind of learning, and you can imagine right after
this there's going to be a whole lot of going back to school on the laws of physics and
gravity and things like that might be further ingrained into people's heads who operate
this thing.
Well, it's interesting, because I was in Paris at the end of last year, and the day after
I rode on the metro, it turned out that there was an incident.
In fact, no, it was the day I was riding the metro, and it was very close to where I was
actually traveling.
It turns out a train operator died on duty and basically was in the control cabin of
the train.
And the safety systems kicked in, and trains were able to stop all the way down the system
until they found out that the guy was dead and figured out how to ride around him, I
guess, or whatever they did.
It was just interesting, because on some systems that could have been a complete catastrophe,
a disaster.
But the system worked.
I saw a train operator, not on the subway, but on the Thai railroad system that I rode
for a nine-hour trip up the coast of Thailand.
I saw the engineer fell asleep at the controls.
Now, apparently there's two engineers, one on the other side of the front car.
But I had a view of the one, and I saw him doze off, and he was asleep for several minutes.
But then I noticed that there was someone else driving the train.
But anyhow, we hit a noisy thing.
There was all these bumps we were hitting on the tracks.
He woke up, and then he pulled a bottle of Red Bull, like the Thai Red Bull, which is
very apparently much more potent than the Red Bull you can buy in this country.
And he drank some of that, and he was awake for the rest of the trip.
So I was a little concerned to see him fall asleep.
I took a picture of him sleeping.
You did?
Oh, I want to see that.
Right.
Unbelievable.
All right.
Well, of course, any kinds of horror stories like that involving mass transit will be the
first to report here on Off the Hook, along with many other things, such as the growing,
I guess, surveillance of our society.
We talked about the fingerprinting machines on foreigners, that are used on foreigners
as they come into this country, which has been implemented in full pretty much over
the past few months.
It's one of the major reasons why people are so reluctant to come to the United States,
because they get fingerprinted and have their pictures taken and things like that.
It's a very nasty way to treat a visitor.
However, there is this development.
Outgoing Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge said last Wednesday the United States should
put the fingerprints of citizens traveling abroad on their passports.
That's us.
That's people like us.
We talked about the possibility of our fingerprints being taken.
Well, it's going to happen.
I mean, this is obviously going to happen, given that the U.S. is demanding that other
countries put their citizens' fingerprints on the passports.
In order to come to the U.S., it's almost automatic that some of those countries would
start demanding that the U.S. do the same.
Well, yes, but this is the U.S. demanding that it do the same.
I mean, basically, the U.S. is saying we should put the fingerprints on the passports.
But it's an inevitable result of it being demanded of other countries.
Well, Tom Ridge agrees with you.
He says if we're going to ask the rest of the world to put fingerprints on their passports,
we ought to put our fingerprints on our passports.
So yeah, that's what you have to look forward to.
And I'll bet, I still think they're going to start using those machines on American
citizens as you walk into the United States.
You'll put your thumb on the machine and they'll see who you are, in case you forget.
Here's what advice he would give to newly-nominated Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff.
Ridge added, be aggressive.
It's a lot easier to negotiate with your allies if you've already done what you're asking
them to do.
So I guess we can look forward to a whole lot of other countries being invaded and rights
being trampled upon and things like that.
Because if there's one flaw of the Bush foreign policy in the past three years, it's a lack
of aggression.
I don't know if it's right for us to be criticizing George Bush on the eve of his special day,
which is tomorrow, of course, the second inauguration.
Certainly, there's all kinds of things going on in Washington, D.C.
If you're down in Washington, D.C., we'd especially like to hear from you because, well, there's
just so much going on.
There's so much security, unprecedented security.
We thought we'd seen unprecedented security before.
But what we're seeing now is just, it's making history.
Also snow.
I don't think they counted on the snow.
I don't think they counted on that.
But according to Ralph Basham, which is a great name for a Secret Service guy, his name
is Ralph Basham, we don't want to leave anything to chance.
We want to make sure that everyone who comes to participate in these events can do so in
a safe, secure fashion.
Basically, there's an immense contingent of law enforcement personnel and high-tech equipment,
something that has never before been seen.
There have been heightened security measures in the Capitol and other Washington locations
since 9-11.
But this is unprecedented, according to Basham, when it comes to the level of security that
will be in effect for the inauguration and those events that are surrounding it.
Now authorities have received no specific threats with respect to tomorrow's inauguration,
but are prepared to deal with any eventuality.
I wonder if they sit around thinking of any possible eventuality, because I can come up
with a few.
You just told me they didn't think of snow.
Apparently, that's first on the list of what they didn't think of, because they weren't
able to do anything about that.
But things like a Klingon warship, do they have that?
Is that on the list?
It should be.
A meteor, or, you know, I don't know.
How imaginative did they get?
Any eventuality?
I want to be a fly on the wall, where they just sit around the table and think up all
the most outlandish...
Because, you know, we only hear about the ones that are plausible, but they must come
up with some really crazy things, like, well, what if this happens?
I really would like to read some of these scenarios that are just way out there, but
they must have these whole contingency plans in effect for everything.
I'd like to read some of that.
I think this is something that we can help with.
I mean, we've been looking for our place in the new society for some time now, and I think
we may have finally come up with it, concocting wild scenarios, because I think we can do
that here.
All right?
You mentioned being a fly on the wall.
That made me think about what happens if, like, Spider-Man comes and turns evil.
You know, are they prepared for that?
It could happen.
It could happen.
It could absolutely happen.
What else?
That was evident in the massive response.
Yes, they're being able to deal with any scenario.
It was evident in the massive response to an incident last Tuesday in which a man upset
over custody of his child threatened to blow up his van a block from the White House.
It prompted a four-and-a-half-hour standoff with police.
The standoff ended peacefully, but not before hundreds of officers, snipers on rooftops,
gun-drawn Secret Service agents, armored vehicle, and hazard materials personnel responded to
the Pennsylvania Avenue location.
Imagine if there were two guys, one on either side of the building.
I'm sure that guy is well on his way to Guantanamo Bay at this point.
Who knows?
Who knows?
I'm surprised they didn't shoot him.
Remember the guy who tried to hijack the Washington Monument a few years ago?
I remember that.
I remember that.
And they just shot him.
Yeah.
How do you hijack the Washington Monument?
Well, you have to be sort of crazy to try, but...
Does it have rockets underneath?
I think they want to interrogate this guy and find out who he was working with as well.
This is the proof here of the intelligence that we're dealing with.
All the federal agencies that deal with security, law enforcement, and crisis response will
be housed in a single joint field office.
Man.
Didn't that go wrong here?
Sadly, terribly, tragically wrong at Seven World Trade Center?
They will command Coast Guard cutters and helicopters, canine bomb-sniffing units.
What if there's an earthquake?
Did they plan for that?
Units?
They call dogs units now?
Canine bomb-sniffing units?
Well, no.
The dog and its handler make up a unit.
Oh, is that what they're saying?
Yeah.
Okay.
Well, the handler kind of...
The dog is not smart enough to do it on its own.
Oh, please.
Who drives the dog there?
The dog can get there on its own, but never mind.
Customs aircraft, bicycle patrols, crowd control, a host of other security and law enforcement
assets.
It's going to be a lot of fun.
It's going to be a lot of fun.
Unfortunately, no one in this room is going to be there, but...
I wonder if they'll have those neat bomb-sniffing machines that we encountered in Canada.
You want to tell the folks about that?
We went up to Toronto last weekend, and what did we encounter?
Upon entering the CN Tower, which is the tallest tower in the world, their security was basically
this machine that you walk through, and it had air jets on the side, and they just went
one...
Not one by one, but row by row, and they shot air at you, and I guess some detector looked
for explosives, and then it said, pass or fail.
We didn't see anyone fail, but...
It seemed to be a lot more fun than going through a metal detector.
Everybody was smiling.
We even took pictures, and nobody seemed to care.
The air was...
Is this...
Did the air blow up your skirt like it did Marilyn Monroe in The Seven Year Itch?
No, it wasn't quite like that.
They blew it horizontally, yeah.
It didn't go...
But I imagine there's potential for that.
Ah.
It'd be more fun that way.
Is this like the things that we keep hearing about in the rail station near Washington?
Yeah, this is exactly the same thing as a new Carrollton rail station, Amtrak station,
and also the Statue of Liberty.
This is old technology, but, well, relatively new technology.
Are they blowing air at people at these locations?
Yeah, puffers, it's called.
But of course, you try to photograph it in the States, and, well, there's some trouble
coming.
But obviously, you guys in Canada, I can't wait to see these photos.
Now, if you're ticketed by Green Bay, Wisconsin police, you'll get more than a fine.
You'll get fingerprinted, too.
It's a new way police are cracking down on crime.
If you...
By the way, I'm reading this from WBAY-TV, so it might sound a little perkier than I'm
used to.
If you're caught speeding or playing your music too loud, or other crimes for which
you might receive a citation, Green Bay police officers will ask for your driver's license
and your finger.
You'll be fingerprinted right there on the spot.
The fingerprint appears right next to the amount of the fine.
Police say it's meant to protect you in case the person they're citing isn't whom they
claim to be.
But not everyone is sold on that explanation.
What we've seen happen for the last couple of years is increasing use of false or fraudulent
identification documents, said Captain Greg Urban.
That's a good name for an officer who works in the city.
Police say they want to prevent the identity theft that Milwaukee has, where 13% of all
violators give a false name.
Wow.
But in Green Bay, where police say they only average about five cases a year, drivers we
talked with think the new policy is extreme.
That's going too far, Ken Sherer from Oconto said.
You look at the ID, that's what they're there for.
Either it's you or it's not.
I don't think that's a valid excuse.
And Carol Pilgrim of Green Bay says, I would feel uncomfortable, but I would do it.
Citizens do have the right to say no.
They could say no and not have to worry about getting arrested, defense attorney Jackson
Maine said.
On the other hand, I'm like everybody else.
When a police officer tells me to do something, I'm going to do it, whether I have the right
to say no or not.
Can you choose which finger you give them?
I don't know.
That's a good question.
Well now we know why they call them cheese heads.
Yeah.
Yes, Leo.
What's the point of the fingerprint S and do they run a check on your identity later
on?
Because there's no mention of how they might mean to use that to stop false identification.
Yeah, if you've never had your fingerprint taken, if you've never been arrested in a
situation where a fingerprint would be taken, if you've never been in the armed services,
never been bonded.
But now you are.
You see, now your fingerprint is in the system.
No, no, no, no.
But what I'm saying is, suppose you've never done that, but you're for some reason under
a different name.
You've been a very lucky criminal or you just hate invasions of privacy, whatever.
And now your fingerprint goes with, you know, John Doe.
Okay, it's you, you pay the ticket, but now that fingerprint is linked to John Doe?
I mean-
And if you try to use it in any other situation, and there will be another situation where
you get fingerprinted-
Under your real name.
If you go to another country or something like that, they're going to say, wait a minute,
there's a conflict here.
You're really John Doe.
And then you'll have to change your name.
Possibly.
And they arrest you for violating a law previously.
That's entirely possible.
You used an assumed name 10 years ago.
That's very, very likely.
I don't like this at all.
No, I don't think, I don't think really it's something to be happy about.
But it's something that is a precedent.
It just seems like a very easy way for them to compile a database that they've always
been wanting to do.
Yeah.
It's all about compiling databases.
Speaking of databases, a very interesting bit of data was posted to the net this week
on one of our favorite sites, Cryptome.org.
Basically a bunch of Department of Homeland Security, are these morning briefings I think
they're referred to?
Well, briefs, not briefings.
Okay.
This contributor listed them as morning briefings.
As opposed to boxers.
Yeah.
Basically we have a bunch of, I guess, scenarios of incidents that took place.
I'll read you a couple that are here.
French National, or actually officers use U.S. Visit, which is the fingerprinting upon
entry system in the United States.
They use U.S. Visit data to deny entry to French National previously removed from U.S.
According to BTS reporting, on 24 November at JFK International Airport, Rashid Mahaya,
date of birth 3-29-1965, and they give all kinds of other numbers too, arrived aboard
a British Airways flight and applied for admission as a visitor for pleasure under the Visa Waiver
Program.
The Interagency Border Inspection System returned several hits on Mahaya.
When the CPB officer electronically scanned Mahaya's index fingers, CPB is Customs and
Border Patrol, the U.S. Visit returned a possible watch list hit.
During secondary inspection, CPB electronically scanned a complete set of fingerprints and
the Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification Systems, IAFIS, identified Mahaya as an alien
previously ordered removed.
Mahaya has an extensive criminal record and has used multiple aliases.
CPB officials determined Mahaya to be inadmissible under VWP, refused him entry, and returned
him to France.
So, there you go, you know, this is a situation where they found somebody and they sent him
back and they have all his information out there.
They didn't really need his fingerprints to do this.
He had his passport.
It doesn't say he was using a false passport, right?
No, it does not say that at all.
He was giving his real name.
Apparently, though, he used aliases in the past.
So, the whole fingerprinting thing was completely unnecessary to stop if this person was indeed
a known criminal and had violated U.S. Visa requirements in the past.
So, the whole fingerprinting thing just seems like some sideshow where they really didn't
have any increase in effectiveness on stopping this sort of thing.
But it does have increased effectiveness as far as keeping track of people.
Oh, sure.
That's what they're trying to do.
It has nothing to do with safety of people.
It has to do with them trying to track everybody and tattoo everybody.
It's the whole whatever.
Yeah.
Here's another instance.
This is on the U.S.-Canadian border.
CPB officers initiate expedited removal proceedings against Palestinian-born Canadian citizens.
I guess each of these things has a headline.
That's the headline for that one.
According to BTS reporting on 21 December in Buffalo, New York, at the Peace Bridge
port of entry, we went over the Peace Bridge, didn't we?
Yep.
Oh, that was fun.
It doesn't look that peaceful.
Tawfiq Dabuseh, born in Palestine, C-O-B, country of birth.
Country of birth.
C-O-C, Canada.
Citizenship.
Citizenship.
Okay.
D-O-B-525-1942, alien number.
He has an alien number.
I won't read that.
Applied for admission as a B-2 visitor for pleasure.
Dabuseh, accompanied by his daughter Nesrine Dabuseh, and then her date of birth, was in
a private vehicle driven by Sui Leng Lim, his date of birth.
A search of Dabuseh's wallet revealed a valid Florida's driver's license, and they give
that number issued to him.
Dabuseh admitted to owning a Florida business, TNT Art and Frames.
Oh, what an unfortunate name for a business if you're on a watch list.
TNT Art and Frames.
CPB officers determined that Dabuseh was inadmissible to the U.S. as an immigrant, not in possession
of an immigrant visa, and initiated expedited removal proceedings.
Expedited removal proceedings.
That's get the hell out of here now.
I mean, he's only probably like a few meters into the country.
It can't be that hard to get rid of him.
Yeah.
And you may note, they didn't use any fingerprint technology for this.
Now, Jim, you have a...
We do that.
I have a warning that these documents, I'll have a warning on the bottom, that these documents
are for official use only, and contain information that may be exempt from public release under
the Freedom of Information Act, 5 U.S.C. 552.
This document is to be controlled, handled, transmitted, distributed, and disposed of
in accordance with DHS policy relating to FOUO information, and is not to be released
to the public or other personnel who do not have a valid need to know, without prior approval
of the Homeland Security Operations Center Senior Watch Officer, HSOCSWO, at, should
I read the phone number?
Sure.
202-282-8101.
Where appropriate, U.S. person identities have been removed.
Should your agency have a requirement for a particular U.S. person identity information,
contact the HSOCSWO.
And you can see all of these at http://cryptome.org, C-R-Y-P-T-O-M-E dot O-R-G slash H-S-O-M-B
slash H-S-O-M-B dot H-T-M.
Don't look unless you're authorized.
Yeah, well, I assume that's all been taken care of, mere formality.
Now, Jim, what do you have?
I have a few that sort of give you the flavor of these.
Washington, suspicious individual.
According to a concerned citizen, on 19 December in Seattle, a possible Middle Eastern male
approached the reporting individual conducting a yard sale.
The individual asked about laptop computers with high-speed capabilities and walkie-talkies,
stating he wished to purchase them for his friends overseas.
The reporting citizen also noted the individual had difficulty with driving and understanding
U.S. currency.
Here's another one.
That wasn't at a border crossing.
That was where?
That was at somebody's yard sale in the middle of the city of Seattle.
So these things don't just encompass crossing the border.
Anybody can make a little report here.
It gets better.
I'm going to read some where people call in or send email to Homeland Security.
District of Columbia.
Concerned citizen reports Middle Eastern male behaving suspiciously on train.
Let me just put an aside here.
This is the perfect example of no good deed going unpunished.
According to a concerned citizen call-in to the Homeland Security Operations Center, 19 December,
the concerned citizen witnessed a possible Middle Eastern male behaving suspiciously
on an Amtrak train during a trip from New York Penn Station to Washington, D.C. Union Station.
The concerned citizen reported the possible Middle Eastern male switched back and forth
between English and Farsi while talking on two different cell phones for three hours
the whole length of the trip.
My God, he switched back and forth from English to Farsi.
Speaking to possibly two different people and possibly different lines on different phones.
But here's the thing about no good deed going unpunished.
She further stated the man acted very discreetly covering his mouth as he spoke on the phones.
Almost as if he didn't want to be heard.
Almost as if he didn't want to bother people.
Now, we all know that that's suspicious because we Americans, of course,
don't give a crap about other people and listening into the phone.
I would just like to know what is a possible Middle Eastern male?
I think that's where they're wearing women's clothes, possibly.
No, what's happening here is they're taking the phone in call and using, I guess,
the lingo that person might have spouted.
Saying that she wasn't sure if it was a Middle Eastern man.
Might be.
It's also that it's hearsay.
She says it's a Middle Eastern man, but the guy taking the report wasn't there.
For all we know, he was speaking Spanish.
You know, you don't know.
That's true.
That's true.
And she didn't recognize it.
Here's one that illustrates why we shouldn't be reading this.
Because it teaches us things we really shouldn't know.
Hayward, California.
Police investigate Muslims of America members involved in burglaries of cell phone stores.
According to law enforcement, the Hayward Police Department is
investigating members of the Muslims of America, MOA.
Never heard of this.
Allegedly, the MOA members involved in burglaries of cell phone stores are tied to 11
burglaries throughout the Central Valley and San Francisco Bay Area,
with losses totaling approximately 800 phones.
Reportedly, they remove the weatherstripping from a window and
take the window pane out intact, along with the alarm sensors.
I've got one here.
This is an off-duty flight attendant.
Observe suspicious behavior on board commercial flight.
According to a concerned citizen, off-duty flight attendant,
call into the Homeland Security Operations Center, HSOC.
On 12 December, the off-duty flight attendant observed seven males of possible
Middle Eastern descent behaving suspiciously.
The off-duty flight attendant and the seven men were flying on board an American airline
flight from Dallas to San Juan, Puerto Rico.
The flight attendant described the suspicious behavior as follows.
The men appeared to be agitated and nervous.
After the flight was underway, some of the men began moving around the plane,
changing seats, strolling through the aisles in a very observant and deliberate manner.
Sitting in seats with two other people in the row, some which were exit row seats,
and walking back and forth to the lavatory multiple times for all men.
The flight attendant also noted that none of the men acknowledged or spoke to each other.
Reportedly, the American airline's flight from Dallas to San Juan was used by the 9-11 hijackers
for pre-operational planning due to lack of passengers and the ability to blend in with
other passengers, in parentheses, Hispanic.
This could very well be something, but it could also be very well a bunch of people
didn't know each other and that's why they weren't talking to each other.
I've been on many a flight with other white males and I've acted as if I did not know them,
did not talk to them, and walked back and forth several times to the bathroom after
imbibing large quantities of liquid.
Keep going through that, you're probably in there somewhere.
Well, no, these are kind of late.
But you know, some of these hit home.
New York, suspicious photography.
According to Ravenswood Station Operations reporting on 2 January, a Hispanic male was
taking photographs of the station.
The station is a major power supplier for Queens and Long Island.
The station is large enough that it may draw tourist attention.
Local law enforcement has been notified.
Yeah, it goes on and on.
So, I don't know.
But I don't understand, Emmanuel, aren't these, I mean, some of these really sound innocuous,
yet these were the ones that made the, like the, all the way up to the daily briefing.
There's only about 10 each day.
Here's another one.
New York, suspicious photography.
According to NICC reporting, I'm not sure what that is, 10 January, Long Island, a terminal
operator for a named U.S. electric utility company noticed a male individual in front
of the terminal taking photographs of the electric utility company terminal and the
New York Port Authority terminal.
Upon being approached by a terminal operator, the man produced identification indicating
that he was an intern with a named media corporation.
And that made it.
Well, you know, you mentioned, you mentioned the taking pictures of trains and things like
that.
And, of course, that's something that is getting more and more suspicious.
There's an article today, in fact, in the Chicago Tribune headlines, suddenly a suspicious
hobby.
Train enthusiasts say simply taking photos puts them on the wrong side of the tracks
with overzealous security officers.
A pretty good article tells how, how basically the authorities are blowing it by, by alienating
people who may very well wind up being a very good set of eyes.
You know, people who care about trains, people who appreciate trains and people who are taking
pictures and notice things instead harassing them and making them into the into the threat.
Same thing going on here in New York with the with the ban or the proposed ban for taking
pictures inside the subway.
Incidentally, the public response to that ended last week and some kind of decision
is due in March.
I imagine you can still make all the comments you want.
I don't know if they'll be taken seriously.
They'll be taken just as seriously as comments received before the deadline, no doubt.
Exactly.
Jim, you have one more?
I have one more.
The reason I want to read this will become evident at the end.
Texas individual filming aircraft.
According to a concerned citizen, 19 December near Dallas Fort Worth Airport, unnamed individual
was filming aircraft.
The reporting individual stated that the videographer claimed to be an airplane nut.
The reporting individual also submitted a description of videographer, his vehicle,
and a license plate number.
And at the end of all these, they have where the source is.
This one is concerned citizen email.
HSOC.
And it gives a number.
The point that I'd like to make is a number.
I don't know what it is.
It might be the the number of the email that came in.
OK, I'm going to see that number.
I'm just HSOC.
And there's four digits followed by a dash and some more digits.
I'm just wanting to give the email that you can send email to.
That's what I was thinking.
This is so absurd that I think that what we should do,
especially when the the ban on photography in the subway comes in,
we should we should concern ourselves and report every incident.
You know, we see Middle Eastern males riding the subway without a fixed destination.
Or, well, we can't determine it.
Write that in.
We see somebody carrying a camera.
Even if they're not using it, they might.
Write it.
Write that in.
How about seeing soldiers in the streets and having your rights taken away?
I find that suspicious.
Can I send that one in?
We see men who claim to be soldiers.
You know, they're not wearing any identification.
They wear what appear to be U.S. Army patches or National Guard.
Well, I think there's enough suspicious activity for everybody to be able to report something.
Exactly.
No matter what, it'll definitely be filed someplace.
I'm sure about that.
OK, we have letters from people.
And you can write to us, OTH at 2600 dot com.
We appreciate all the letters.
Obviously, we can't get to all of them, but we try.
Dear Off The Hook, I listen to your show every week,
and I hear many stories and experience with immigration officers at airports.
I would like to share my experience with commodity specialist at JFK airport.
I'm not quite sure what that means.
Maybe he is a commodity specialist or...
OK, no, a commodity specialist.
I get it.
I work for an import-export company, and I deal with commodity inspectors quite often.
Today, I had an experience that made me feel sad and at the same time angry
about having to deal with such government officials in this country.
I brought a set of export documents to U.S. Customs at the cargo area in JFK airport
to get a release for exporting for one of my clients.
As usual, I waited on line to wait for my turn to present the document.
When my turn came, I approached the window with a polite smile,
and the inspector asked me if I have a company ID.
I told him I don't carry that.
He told me that I must always carry company ID to present documents to customs
because I could have found the document somewhere
and tried to get a release and steal the freight,
and it didn't make any sense, but I kept quiet.
He asked me for some kind of ID to prove that I worked in my company.
I showed him my driver's license and an insurance card for my company
so that I could prove that I worked for my company.
He read something on my license and started to type that on his computer.
I tried to look at the screen, but the inspector tilted his screen away
so that I couldn't see what was on it.
He then asked me where in China I was from and if I have a green card.
I told him I'm from Japan and I do have a green card.
He told me to show him the green card.
I told him I don't carry the green card with me,
but I'd be able to get a copy of it from my office.
He said the copy is not good.
He threw back my driver's license, insurance card,
and export document from the little opening on the glass window
and said he can't release the freight for me because I don't have my green card.
I was wondering if this was part of U.S. Department of Homeland Security's
spot-checking method of illegal immigrants in this country,
or if he was just being a big jerk.
If it is the latter, it's an abuse of authority,
and I feel really sad about living in this country
and having to be treated like that just because of who I am.
I thought being able to be who I was was one of the advantages of this country.
I know many of the inspectors are very nice people,
but a person like this ruins the good reputation of the U.S. government.
I guess there's many stories like this around.
I think it's the big jerk answer,
and I think you should probably complain if possible.
To whom shall he complain?
The bigger jerks in charge?
Yeah, exactly.
Try the bigger jerks in charge.
Do we have an email for the bigger jerks in charge?
One of the things you can do is tell people about it.
Telling us at least makes you feel better,
and maybe other people will know about it too.
And who knows?
Maybe somebody listening can do something.
Write your congressman.
Yeah, it's doubtful, but anything's always possible.
Okay, we have some news on telephones, cell phones, and things like that, as we always do.
And again, you can write to us, oth at 2600.com.
Yes.
Speaking of telephones, we've been fondly talking about relay service
because we occasionally get calls from people using it.
And in our latest Verizon Bills, that little news magazine of one page that they send with it,
for those of you who want to know more about 711 relay service,
you know, where you type in and an operator acts as your voice or reverse,
uh, call the relay inquiry line 1-800-664-6349.
That's 1-800-664-6349.
Or if you're using a teletype, 1-800-835-5515.
Okay, I guess if you have time to do that.
Well, Bernie, there's your chance.
Type in and ask them to explain this to you and see what comes out.
I imagine he's run off to do just that.
I was in Anchorage a couple of weeks ago, flying back from Thailand.
And there was a TDD in this little Anchorage airport.
And I had a couple, six hours to kill because of the stowaway from Taiwan, slowing everything down.
So I turned, I dialed the 855, 800-855-1155 toll free number for TDDs at pay phones that
let you do directory assistance and set up relay calls, that sort of thing.
And so I was just social engineering the TDD operator just because I had nothing else to do.
And it turns out she was in Pennsylvania, where I'm from.
I'm in Anchorage.
So we chatted back and forth for a couple minutes and she had to go.
But I just thought it was pretty amazing that she was pretty much where I live.
And I'm, you know, thousands of miles away and call in.
And I was going to ask her where she was and she's like, from my backyard.
That's, uh, that's, that's something.
Let's see what we have here.
We had a lost cell phone last week.
And Mike, I believe you're the person who wound up
eventually with the joyful reunion with the owner.
We actually, Redbird found the cell phone in the subway.
There were many people involved in this, in this return.
Too many to thank for this, for the time we have left.
But why don't you tell us how it turned out?
It turned out well.
He got his cell phone back.
Got his cell phone back.
Okay.
It was a bit confusing there for a while because they didn't speak.
Everybody was speaking different languages.
And we were trying to work it out after the show and it just didn't happen.
I called them up and tried to speak Esperanto to them, but it just didn't help.
No, no.
But we had a listener write in with some helpful information
because this was a Motorola phone, I believe, right?
I just want to let you know an easy way to get the phone number of a Motorola phone.
Press the menu key, which is the middle button at the top of the keypad.
Then the pound sign key.
The hello Moto screen is the wake up banner and most newer Motorola phones.
It shows off the color screen.
If the phone has not found its way back home, then here are some tips that might help.
If it's a T-Mobile subscription phone,
there's no default password or pin for checking voicemail.
So they might have left a message in English.
Just press and hold the one key.
Not sure of laws around other people's voicemails.
So check the laws first.
To change the language, press the menu key, then select the tools icon looking thing.
And the next step will be tricky to find the initial setup menu item.
Try the third or fourth item from the bottom.
The next menu, we have to find language.
Try the fifth item from the bottom.
Hopefully, one of the menu items will say English.
An easy way to get to the recent calls list is press the send button.
You can also dial 611 and report it to the service provider,
and they can get in touch with that person.
I don't know how.
Hopefully, you won't have to wait too long.
Signed Nick C.
Thanks so much for those helpful tips.
If you had turned that phone into T-Mobile,
it would still be with T-Mobile at this point.
That's right.
That's right.
Okay.
I've listened to Off the Hook off and on over the past several years
and always enjoyed the shows.
I listen via MP3 downloads or live via streaming audio over the internet.
I have a question that maybe you can put out to your listeners.
I recently have connected a home PC to our home stereo,
providing us a nice listening environment for internet radio.
My wife enjoys it quite a bit and has internet radio playing most of the time during the day.
My question, what's the best way to get internet radio into my car?
I've looked at mobile satellite service,
internet over packet radio,
internet via my digital mobile phone,
which is the best option so far.
I'm very interested in making this happen in my vehicles.
I'm a network engineer.
I've been dying to put a PC in my van as a media center with all DVDs,
MP3s, etc. available on the hard drive.
I'd love to have it connected to the internet as well to provide internet radio.
Can you help?
Signed Steve.
Bernie, I imagine you have an answer to this.
Yes, we actually did this.
I met up with you in the New York area.
We were trying to track down a pirate radio station
while we were driving around.
I was following you somewhere.
I had an internet radio set up in my car.
It was just one of these Sprint PCS connection cards,
which is not a cell phone.
It's effectively a cell phone without the microphone and earphone part
in one of these PCMCIA cards.
It flies into your laptop.
It gives you about 100 to 120 kilobits per second connection.
Not terribly high speed, but fast enough for
most normal quality streaming audio over the internet.
I was listening to all kinds of internet radio stations on the way up,
and I just took the audio output from the laptop
into one of those little cassette adapter things
that you plug into your cassette deck in your car,
and the audio comes out the whole stereo system.
It was a lot of fun.
I had virtually no dropouts all the way from Philadelphia to New York.
It worked very well.
In fact, I had also taken that audio
and plugged it into my little C crane FM transmitter
and was rebroadcasting some of the internet audio
that I was picking up in my car to nearby cars.
I was transmitting the previous week's Off the Hook
that I was downstreaming from 2600.com slash Off the Hook,
so you could hear it in your car, which was a couple of cars ahead of me.
It all worked very well.
Unfortunately, you've got to pay the Sprint PCS for one of these things.
The cards are about $100,
and they have an unlimited service that's about $80 a month,
which is not cheap, but this was a couple of years ago,
so I imagine it's cheaper now,
and there's other carriers that have similar things like Verizon.
Yeah, so that's something to look into,
and it does work pretty well,
and I think that's the future.
This kind of thing will be standard pretty soon.
Far more choices, by the way,
than you would ever get with Sirius satellite radio or XM satellite radio,
because there's literally thousands of internet radio stations.
All throughout the world, not just in the United States.
Exactly.
All right, we have this letter.
Also, I want to give out the phone number, 212-209-2900.
We'll be taking phone calls in just a little bit.
I recently had to pay my bill for my cell phone,
so I logged into T-Mobile's website, and I noticed something new.
They had the caller side ringtones
that you were talking about on the show a few weeks ago.
I decided to sign up and investigate it.
The service is very quick to activate,
and it's not dependent on your phone.
Here's how it works when someone calls a cell phone
that has caller side ringtones enabled.
Instead of hearing a ring,
the caller hears a song or a noise file of your choosing.
Noise file.
The selection is rather limited on song choices,
and I speculate this technology works on call forwarding.
I think when you call a cell phone with this enabled,
it forwards your call to a central song server
where you get to listen to a few lines of a song
while the song server goes and dials the number you want.
The quality of the music is absolute crap,
but it's going over phone lines.
I would be happy to demo this for you guys using my phone.
Just give me a call.
Signed, Trey.
Well, Trey, you know what?
We might just do that in a few minutes.
So if you're listening, be prepared.
We'll try that number, and we'll see what the ring sounds like.
Let's read a couple more letters.
Give him a chance to hear this if he's listening live and prepare.
Dear OffTheHook, I feel I should point out
that the security focus article you referred to
on the January 11th show mentioned T-Mobile
should have informed their customers of the security breach.
I believe it also says in the same article,
they do not have to do this
if they're still investigating the break-in.
That seems to be what they're doing.
This makes sense as they would not want to compromise
the chances of a successful investigation.
Signed, Beowulf.
Well, you know, I'd say when the story is in the media
and everybody knows about it,
that's a good time to say, you know what?
The investigation wouldn't be harmed
by letting the customers know
that maybe they should take some kind of action themselves.
And to date, I don't think they've done any of that.
You have to figure that the attacker by now
has read the security focus article,
so there's really no additional harm
in letting the customers know about it.
No, absolutely not.
Let's see.
I'm sorry, go ahead.
One more cell phone story related to the tsunami.
I know a lot of people were concerned
about how to get SMS messages to cell phone holders
in Southeast Asia,
but cell phones are being used another way now.
Apparently, the tens of thousands,
actually now hundreds of thousands of people
who tragically died in that disaster.
According to many Thais in Thailand,
in Thailand, there's ghosts.
These people were killed suddenly
and their spirits are not getting onto the other world
because of how they left this world suddenly.
And there are a lot of ceremonies being held there
which food and money and cell phones
are being given to the spirits
to take on the other world.
Now, Mike and I discussed this by email.
We weren't really sure from the story
in the Wall Street Journal today
as to whether these were paper facsimiles of cell phones
or actual cell phones.
But as Mike pointed out, it's not.
It's a very poorly written sentence in that article.
I don't know if I like the idea of the next world,
including cell phones.
I'd like to be buried with a jammer.
Yeah, that would be something.
Okay, we have this one other story from a listener.
I live on Cape Cod.
I'm associated with WOMR, 92.1 Provincetown.
Outermost Community Radio for Cape Cod, hooray.
Recently, I've been spending Wednesday
through Saturday every week on Long Island
getting my 85-year-old mom ready to move
into an assisted living residence.
During this time, I've had the pleasure
of listening to your program on several occasions.
Here's my problem.
My mother got herself a singular AT&T cell phone
sometime last spring.
As far as I can tell, she never used the account.
In fact, I don't think she ever charged the phone
until I showed her how,
and then she still did not use it.
But she paid the bill,
and when she had surgery in August for cancer,
I continued to pay the bill for her
along with all her other bills.
At some point in the fall,
I called their customer care phone number
to attempt to negotiate an end to her unneeded service,
but they would not talk to me
unless I mailed them a copy of my power of attorney.
I gave up in frustration and stopped paying the bill.
As luck would have it, they called her last Tuesday
just after I had arrived to finish her packing for the move.
They were demanding payment
and threatening to discontinue service.
I had her put me on and attempt to discuss
an end to her contractual obligation.
Through the first rep and several layers of supervisors,
I was told flat out that she was obligated
for the full amount of the contract
and no exceptions were possible.
Their best offer was to have someone else
assume financial liability
and use the phone for the remainder of the contract.
Is there no recourse?
An elderly and firm person never used
or will use the service.
I offered to pay up to the present
if they'd write off the rest of the contract,
and the supervisor was speechless at my audacity.
Signed, Bob.
What do you think, Bernie?
I think cell phone companies show no sympathy.
I always thought there was just a kind of a late
or an early termination fee that you would have to pay.
You wouldn't have to pay the entire contract.
Well, usually it amounts to several months of service.
It's usually a couple of hundred dollars.
So that depending on which plan you have,
that could potentially be more
than the number of months basic service
you have left to pay.
In any case, unlike other companies,
even airlines have this situation
to where if you're in bad health
and you need to get to a hospital or something,
you can get a discount or whatever.
I don't think cell phone companies
have any sympathy at all for customers
who are in situations
where they're never going to need the phone.
In fact, this bill,
they could tell from looking at the account
that this person never used their cell phone once.
So they were making pure profit on this account.
They never had to switch a single call.
So the thing is, even if you lose,
it's worth it to file a complaint with the FCC
or whoever governs cell phones in your particular area.
It should be the FCC.
And at least it'll be on record
that this is how these people operate.
Maybe they can get away with it.
But I'm a little confused
that they threatened to terminate the account
if you don't pay,
which seems to me like it would be just fine.
Yeah.
But I imagine that goes on your credit report
or something.
It goes on his mother's credit report.
Doesn't sound like she's going to be
applying for a loan anytime soon.
I don't know.
I guess there's a point there.
Don't pay the bill.
Don't pay anything else.
I don't know.
That's the advice we give you right now.
The big problem is that cell phone companies
are not regulated as public utilities.
And there's no public utilities commission
you can turn to like you can
with your local exchange carrier,
like Verizon or whatever phone company
is in your own area.
Cell phone companies aren't regulated that way.
I think they should be, frankly,
because it would hold them to
a little more accountability.
But they've managed to evade that
for all these years.
OK, let's see if we can get a dial tone here.
Can we get a dial tone?
No, we can't.
Let's try now.
OK, these lights aren't working.
On top of everything else,
now the lights aren't working on the phones.
Let's try this one.
OK, there we go.
We're going to try that phone number.
I'm only going to try this once
if the BAI phone system doesn't cooperate.
For whatever reason,
we're just going to have to do this some other time.
But we're going to try and hear
this strange ring
that T-Mobile now offers.
And we should get another tone.
OK, there's the other tone.
We're calling a listener.
And let's hear what that ring sounds like.
Hello?
Is this Trey?
Yes, it is.
Hey, Trey, it's Emmanuel from Off The Hook.
Hi, nice.
Well, that was an interesting demonstration.
We called your number
and we heard a song instead of a ring.
Yes, you did.
And I guess that's going to be the future.
It didn't sound so bad.
It didn't sound that bad.
Well, some of my friends
who have called me on their cell phones
say it's pretty bad.
But I guess you guys are using a landline right now.
Yeah, yeah.
But it was very fast.
It came on immediately.
Yeah, that's what I've noticed too.
Yeah, it's very quickly,
which is, I know it's kind of boggling.
Because the phone system stuff's normally
a little bit slower, you know?
It must be very confusing to people
that don't know what's going on
when they call this number
and hear this song all of a sudden.
Yeah.
Wow.
Well, it's fascinating.
As long as we have you on the line,
anything else you'd like to tell us?
I just really appreciate what you guys are doing.
You guys are doing a great job.
Keep it up.
Well, thank you.
And that's really pretty much it.
Just wanted to let everyone know
that it's out there.
And it's actually a really cool
and fun thing to do with your phone.
What does it cost, you know?
With T-Mobile, there's a monthly fee of $1.50,
plus it's like $2 a song.
And what's really cool about it
is you can schedule certain songs
for certain times of day.
You can set it to have certain songs
for certain people
and all kinds of different things.
Interesting.
Yeah.
So could you record your own songs
or do you have to take from their...
No, you have to use the stuff
that's on their website.
It's pretty limited right now.
There's not very many good songs.
It's almost like an answering machine message,
except it comes before
an answering machine would come.
Exactly, yeah.
Interesting.
All right, Trey.
Thanks so much for your help.
No problem.
All right, take care.
Let's see if we can take some phone calls
in the brief time we have left.
And good evening.
You're on Off The Hook.
Hey, guys.
Good afternoon.
How you doing?
All right.
This is Eric from Fort Washington, Maryland.
Okay.
What's on your mind?
Haven't really heard you guys
or anybody else really talking about
what's happening over in Iraq
with the technology that they're using
to track people.
Retina scans, databasing, that sort of thing.
You guys have any information on that for us?
You mean when they imprison Iraqis?
No, no.
Folks that are registering to vote.
Oh.
People that are getting driver's licenses,
business loans, et cetera.
You know, I haven't heard very much
about that myself.
I was wondering how the elections
are possibly going to work.
Is it actually that high tech?
It is that high tech.
Retina scans, fingerprints,
you know, all of the standard biometric stuff
that we've been hearing about
for a few years is in use.
And I was just wondering
how this is being tracked,
whether or not they're using that
as a testbed for a larger rollout
over here, et cetera.
Well, I think that's pretty obvious.
That's the testbed for the future.
But I imagine we would have to ask
the people who are over there.
So we do have listeners in Iraq
serving with the U.S. military.
If they can call us or write us,
let us know what they know about this
or contractors or any of those people.
We'd like to know what technology
they're using, how it works.
It certainly is something
we should know about.
Yeah. OK, I'll stand by.
I'll keep listening.
All right. Thanks for your call.
I didn't even think about that.
That's pretty, pretty scary.
They have all kinds of ways
of holding fake elections now.
Wow. Good evening.
You're on the air.
Hey, Manuel, how are you?
How are you doing?
Great show.
Big fan of a few years already.
Thank you.
And I know Richie,
you know, your buddy, Richie.
Jeffrey.
Well, let's just never
let's skip over that part.
But what's on your mind?
I just, you know, you never touch.
I know you just want to say
I love that phone ring thing.
It's great.
And I'm going to try to get it
as soon as I'm able to download
my own music onto it, you know?
Yeah, you should have a choice.
You should have a choice
of what you want to put on there.
Exactly.
Otherwise, why pay for it?
Of course.
I just want to say you never touched
on the AIDS controversy
about the fraud of HIV,
which has never been seen
under a microscope.
And there is not one accurate test.
I don't know if you're aware.
I don't I don't think
this really has anything to do
with what we're talking about
in any sense.
But I would suggest you
listen to our Daily Health Show,
which is on at noon
on this radio station.
I'm sure that's an appropriate place
to discuss all these things.
I mean, you know, it's fascinating,
but we could spend hours
and hours and hours talking
about everything under the sun.
Let's take another phone call.
Let's go over here.
Good evening.
You're on the air.
Hello, Manuel.
How are you doing?
Pretty good.
Listen, two things.
With this new service with Dextel
is or with Sprint
that's using this talk music.
Are you getting charged
in the time you call?
Is there supervision?
Is it actually a call?
Because normally used to be
that you only got charged
when the call when a person
answer the cell phone.
I would imagine that
this is done at the switch,
so it should be treated
the same way as a normal ring.
But of course,
the only way to find this out
for sure is to
is to see if you get billed.
Well, because, you know,
when you make a phone call
these days,
the ring is generated locally,
not long distance.
That's how they get rid
of black boxing, right?
When you make a call,
you're not hearing
the far end ring.
You're hearing the ring
at your local office.
So if you're getting the music,
you actually got to be
connecting to that server.
Or they have some kind of way
of transmitting it
without returning supervision.
I don't know.
It's a very good question.
I think we need to.
I'm sorry if you're interrupting.
If you read your Sprint PCS contract,
and if you're a Sprint PCS customer,
and I unfortunately still am,
the billing starts ticking
as soon as you hear the ringing.
Now, we're not talking about
the person making a phone call
from the cell phone.
We're talking about somebody
from another phone
or from a landline
calling your cell phone.
Right.
Ah, that's a good point.
Well, when it's a supervision start
and number two,
you're talking about the problem
with that old lady I just heard.
A while back, I had a big fight
with Nextel when they went
from six second billing
to one minute billing.
And they said, well, tough luck.
We can do whatever we want.
That's pretty much what they do.
That's pretty much what they do.
Listen, we're out of time.
Have a great day, guys.
Thanks.
Thanks for your call.
And thanks, everybody, for calling.
And again, our address
for email OTH at 2600.com.
Or you can send us paper mail.
Yes, that's very exciting too.
Off the hook.
Care of WBAI.
120 Wall Street, New York.
New York.
10005.
All right.
And it's in the USA
for those of you who aren't.
Again, we will be back next week
with a special fundraising show.
Actually, it's going to be
our regular time slot, seven to eight.
And then the week after that,
we won't be on.
The week after that, we won't be on.
But we'll be back the week after that.
Until next week,
it's Emanuel Goldstein.
Have yourselves a good night.
Machines, machines, they keep right on going.
Machines, machines, they keep right on going.
But I am weak, but I want to go home.
Too tired to speak, but they won't let me alone.
Oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah.
Machines, machines, they keep right on moving.
Machines, machines, they keep right on moving.
Well, I've got to find a place to rest my head.
A machine, he smiled at me and said,
I'm gonna be all dead.
Oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah.
Machines, machines, we made them to serve us.
Machines, machines, we built them to serve us.
But till the day when I'm buried in my grave.
Yes, right until that day I know,
I'm gonna be a slave, a slave, a slave, a slave.
To the machines, machines, they keep right on grinning.
Machines, machines, they keep right on grinning.
Yeah.
You're invited to a series of talks and open discussion,
Beyond Capitalism, Marx's concept of an alternative.
What ideas can help break through the prevailing notion
that there is no alternative?
Can we conceptualize a socioeconomic system
that embodies the kind of society we are for?
This series is organized by news and letters committees
and is held at Identity House, 39 West 14th Street, room 205.
The five classes are free of charge.
All classes start promptly at 7 p.m. on Sundays,
starting January 23rd and continue at two-week intervals.
For more information and to receive copies of all readings,
call 212-663-3631.
That's 663-3631.