Caller: This is George calling from Berkeley..
Emmanuel: George from Berkeley how are you?
George: Hey Emmanuel pretty good
Emmanuel: You are George Gleeson obviously. George: Yeah that's the one. Emmanuel: You've been on this program before, and you've met Phiber a few times.
George: Yep..Mark you there?
Phiber: Yes, I'm right here.
George. I don't know what to say that I can say when it's on the air..Just that I am with you in spirit and I can't hear the program on the West Coast obviously, but if you've got an address or anything like that, if you want to keep up a correspondence I would be happy to.
Emmanuel: Well we'll be corresponding on the net George so you can just send e-mail to me and I'll make sure you get the address...if there is anyone that is on the net you can just send mail to emmanuel@well.sf.ca.us and I'll make sure I forward you the address.
George: Mark how are you?...You are going on Friday right?
Phiber: Yeah..I basically...I am going up with Eric actually..
George: How are you feeling about this whole thing?
Phiber: ah...I am very stressed about the whole thing...and..its ah, rather hard for me to talk about it quite frankly..
Emmanuel: You've never been to prison before....basically imagine this..somebody coming up to you and saying by the way...day after tomorrow you have to go to prison for 10 months...and you've never been to prison before...its kind of hard to know what to feel because you don't know yourself what to feel.
George: Well Mark the only thing I can say is that a couple of friends of mine went away..went to prison for skipping draft registration...they were in a very similar situation in that they were in minimum security prison in Danbury and what they reported was that the nastiest part of the situation was quite simply the boredom and so anything that could keep up their intellectual interests was a good thing. But that basically the minimum security facilities are, they're a drag, there's no doubt about that but they are not as bad as alot of,..who am I to say cause I have never been to prison myself but that if this is any reassurance at all; that friends of mine who have been to prison for a year, you know at the same level..its like..the worst part of it is simply the boredom. And if you can keep your spirit alive with correspondence and you know things like that then that is doesn't make time pass a whole lot faster but its...its not like being locked up in Maxi or anything like that...
Erik: George let me ask you a quick question here and then we have got to get on to some more phone calls..do you think that Phiber Optik is the closest thing that we have to a political prisoner these days?
George: Well, pretty darn close but there are a lot of political prisoners right now people like the activists for the American Indian Movement...Leonard Peltier if I am not mistaken.. and yeah there is no doubt about it we've got political prisoners and Phiber definitely qualifies as one, in this day and age...I think that the public will recognise that in the years down the road more than they do now...there's a long history of people having to suffer imprisonment for their beliefs and for the actions that support those beliefs. If nothing else you can always keep the moral high ground in your heart about it and also remember the love and the friendship of the folks on the outside and stuff like that. Yeah I feel that in the years to come this will be known as the time of a witch hunt approximately equivalent to those of McCarthyism. And that some of our best and brightest were made to suffer this kind of persecution for the fact that they dared to be creative in a way that the public didn't understand...
I don't know what else to say except that.. God I mean all I can say is that you guys are doing great things and...I don't know...dude...you know what I'm saying? It's hard to find words cause I feel sad inside that this is happening and you know the only other thing is that I will keep you posted on the work that is happening on West Coast because I am sure that you will be getting alot of opportunities and options from other people but I haven't forgotten my original commitment in terms of anything that can be worked out with us here...
Emmanuel: OK George, well thanks for...for your comments and thanks for being there for us..
George: Yeah, with you in spirit all the way my friend..
Phiber: Thanks George
Emmanuel: Take care then
George: Bye
Emmanuel: That's George Gleeson calling from Berkeley, CA...212 279 3400 this is the last program with Phiber Optik before he is sent to prison for crimes of hacking...
One day they won't be considered crimes at all..I am convinced of this...I mean people that kill, people that rape, people that rob..they may get more time..they may not get more time...but you know they don't always get much more time than this. Lots of times first offenders of violent crimes get less than what we are sending this guy away for. It's a crazy world. A crazy world...We cant forget that for a second.
Goodevening..Your on...
Caller: Hello, Hello, yes, I'd like to say goodbye to Phiber. You guys, Emmanuel, your doing a very good program, very good...don't feel bad that you are going away because its going to be an experience that you will never forget, but its all the people, innocent people and people with alot of ideas against the majority of society that are locked away wasting their brains, wasting their energy, because this is the system which we are living under. But I would like to say, do the best and hang in there, we need more people like you guys...
Emmanuel: Ok thanks for calling
Phiber: Thanks
Emmanuel: You know its interesting. There have been people in the past who have gone to prison for this kind of thing. Quite a few, way to many actually. Bit this for us here in NY, BI listeners in particular, its different, we've come to know this particular person I think in ways that we can only try to point out with other people who don't have faces attached to them. We can see that this is a human being.
This is somebody that shares our curiosity, our knowledge, shares our sense of humour, shares all that kind of thing. Now we see the effects of sending someone away like this, of totally disrupting someones life, the sadness and the whole tragedy of something like this. And it takes that contact, takes that contact, to get through a particular idea and that particular way of seeing things, so if nothing else we all have benefited from knowing Phiber here, from interacting week after week. We all feel outraged about what is happening. We can all feel sadness rather than just reading something in the newspaper about some faceless person. WE all know this person and its like its happening to us to a degree. 212 267 3400 Caller: Yeah Emmanuel, how you doing??
Emmanuel: OK, how are you?
Caller: This is Rubin from the Bronx.
Emmanuel: How are you?
Caller: Ok and I'd like to say. that I don't really know Phiber too long only from the past few meetings I've been to and I just think that he should try to use the time to his advantage, you know, maybe work out alot and come out cock-deisel, you know what I'm talking about?
Emmanuel: I think so (Phiber laughs)
Caller: Yeah I think so, so anyway that's about it, you know just try and read alot, and work out alot, and get the number for that computer so we can hack into it..and you know maybe REDUCE THE AMOUNT of DAYS.
Emmanuel: Ok, well, we'll work on that..we'll work on that (laughter) If there's any governors or people listening like that that can commute sentences I think that they have more access to that system than we do!
But its interesting what the caller mentioned in the next issue of 2600 we have something called the cool letter department. And this guy, this person that was in prison and sent us a letter, I don't know what he was in prison for. I am not sure if it was hacker related but he got a letter from the Sheriffs Dept. saying "Our office has recently received information that you or other persons of your acquaintance may attempt to gain access to the computer system of the Travis County Sheriffs Dept." Now this is a letter he received while in prison!! He received a letter from the Sheriffs Dept saying don't access our computers to a prisoner. I mean that's incredible! What did they think this guy was capable of??? So we got a copy of that letter and what fun that was. I don't think such things will happen in this particular case.
Good Evening and where are you calling from?
Caller: New York
Emmanuel: OK and what's your first name?
Caller: Lynne
Emmanuel: OK what's your first name
Lynne: Lynne
Emmanuel: And what's on your mind?
Lynne: Oh, I just wanted to say we're going to miss you Phiber on Echo.
Phiber: Thanks
Lynne: I cant hear you I'm sorry. So we're going to miss you and take care and we'll come out and visit.
Emmanuel: OK, see that you do, thanks for calling.
Phiber: Thanks
Emmanuel: How does the visitor policy work? Basically you have to give them a bunch of names?
Phiber: When I first get there I go through some sort of orientation and I need to put 4 names on a list.
Emmanuel: 4 names? I thought it was more like 12.
Phiber: No it was 4 names I was told. I don't know what the exact rules are...if I can take someone off that list and put them back on..so that I can put other people on. But basically just because they are on that list doesn't mean much. That means that I am willing to accept them as a visitor and if they want to actually show up they have to go through some whole process of filling out forms and then be approved by the prison and so on and so forth.
Emmanuel: The ultimate insult, not being approved by prison..
Phiber: I just wanted to say something interesting on that note is that I talked to my friend Paul Styra last night who called us at Echo from prison. He's in Lewisburg, and he had said a couple of interesting things. One thing that he said particularly about you was that they had labelled you as a Subversive.
Emmanuel: Oh you don't say. Really. How is it that he knows about this and I don't?
Phiber: This is what I believe he was told.
Emmanuel: He was told that I'm a subversive?
Phiber: Yeah, I don't know if it was in those exact words but they pretty much alluded to it.
Emmanuel (angry): I suppose they mean that in a negative way.
Phiber: Yeah, I think you'll probably have problems getting approved for visitation.
Emmanuel: Oh that's just great. I've been told I'm a dissident, you know, in Bruce Sterling's Book, but a subversive..boy. So because I'm a subversive I cant visit people in prison? What am I going to do am I going to lead an uprising or something? Am I going to tear down the walls show people the secret exit out?
Phiber: He was also wondering if you got mail from him recently?
Emmanuel: I got a letter from him several weeks ago.
Phiber: OK, there is a possibility that he sent something more recently, and he's afraid that they may be diverting the mail between you and him.
Emmanuel: I just sent something, so hopefully he'll get something in a few days. I think whenever you send mail to someone in prison you always have to make reference to something that you sent before so they'll know if it's missing and the same going the other way. So when you write out to people make sure to mention if you've already sent out a piece of mail that that mail existed so they'll know if its missing..I cant believe we're talking like this but that's the way it is. This is what we're dealing with...subversive huh? So I guess that means that they're not going to let me visit you, is that it?
Phiber: I don't know
Emmanuel: Make sure you put my name on the list
Phiber: Oh you'll certainly be on the list
Emmanuel: Acid Phreak and Scorpion, two other friends who are currently in jail and I guess will be getting out in either March or April, they both put my name on the list I understand or either didn't hear anything back or heard something to the negative back. Alright, lets go back to the phones. Good evening you're on the air. Caller: How you doing? I have a few things to say ..first of all..you called 0 and you still hear NY telephone, now I'm assuming that when you dial 0 it's all going to the same office cause when you dial 0 here you get the NYNEX.
Emmanuel: Yeah now what area code are you in?
Caller: 203
Emmanuel: Your in that small part of 203 that get served by NYNEX or NY telephone?
Caller: Yep. I got 3 way calling so I can conference you.. Emmanuel: Ok go ahead, I know that there are some areas that are getting it...
Caller: OK, don't hang-up.
Phone Recording: NYNEX
Phiber, Emmanuel: Wow!! Doesn't that sound nice and cheery?
Operator: Can I help you?
Emmanuel: No thanks. Go back to work. That sounds really uplifting. Something we could really use in the 90's. NYNEX, its like a sunrise...
Caller: Michigan Bell...Michigan bell also has caller ID that shows your name.
Emmanuel: Yeah, that's happening throughout the country actually. Caller: Pennsylvania Bell now has a service that if you dial your own number it will ring all the phones in the house.
Emmanuel: Isn't that clever?