Moglen, Eben — The Best Spying Ever: Internet Security and the Freedom Box

The best spy system ever created and what the internet does and how it’s controlled by national forces is the topic of this edition of Radio Curious.  We visit with Columbia Law Professor Eben Moglen, a developer of the Freedom Box, which prevents government, businesses and other intruders from obtaining your personal information and internet uses. His blog is:  http://emoglen.law.columbia.edu/blog.

For more information on the Freedom Box Foundation go here: http://freedomboxfoundation.org/.

The book that Eben Moglen recommends is, “Free Software, Free Society,” by Richard Stallman.

Click here to begin listening or on the media player below.

Click here to download and subscribe to our podcast.

Podcast: Download

Jerome Waldie — Fair Play for Frogs Part-2

As a lawyer and a student of political science, I have come to appreciate the anomalies and humor of politics. One story that fits both of those categories well is the relationship between Nestle J. Frobish, the Chair-Creature of World-Wide Fair Play for Frogs Committee and the late Jerome R. Waldie, his former nemesis a Member of Congress from Antioch, just east of San Francisco, California. Their dissension arose in 1961 when Waldie was a freshman member of the California State Assembly and chose to introduce what came to be known as the “Frog Murder Bill,” resulting in Frobish organizing what turned out to be a 45 year campaign to get Waldie to renounce, what Frobish called his “vestigial impurities” visited upon him as the “mad butcher of the swamp.” Waldie finally acceded in 2006 and in this interview originally broadcast on June 11, 2007,  tells us why.

The book that Jerome Waldie recommends is, “It Can’t Happen here,” by Sinclair Lewis.

Click here to begin listening or on the media player below.

Click here to download and subscribe to our podcast.

Podcast: Download

Frobish, Nestle J. — Fair Play For Frogs, Part 1

Frogs play an important role in the world’s ecology and are their occasional demise is sometimes noted as an impending ecological disaster. In 1961, a newly elected member of the California State Assembly, Jerome R. Waldie, introduced a bill that read in full:  “Frogs may be taken using slingshot.” Little did he know that this bill would plague him throughout his political career, in the California Legislature, United States Congress, and as a candidate for Governor of California. Our guest is Nestle J. Frobish, the Chair-Creature of the World Wide Fair Play for Frogs Committee, an organization founded in Berkeley, California soon after Waldie introduced what became to be known as the “Frog Murder Bill.”

“Fair Play for Frogs, The Waldie – Frobish Papers,” the collected correspondence between Nestle J. Frobish and Congressman Jerome R. Waldie was published as political spoof in 1977.  Around that time some misguided people, including Congressman Waldie accused me of being Nestle J. Frobish.  Let me make it clear, here and now:  I Barry Vogel am not now, nor ever have been Nestle J. Frobish. However I did speak the with Chair-Creature Frobish by phone as he lurked near a pond at Frog Central in northern Vermont on May 21, 2007, so this rather preposterous story could be told from at least his perspective. My interview with Jerome R. Waldie, humbly presents his perspective and may be found on this web-site.  The interview with Frobish was originally broadcast May 21, 2007.

The book Nestle J. Frobish recommends is “State of Denial,” by Bob Woodward.

Click here to begin listening or on the media player below.

Click here to download and subscribe to our podcast.

Podcast: Download