dalton@gladys.UUCP (David Dalton) (01/13/86)
There has been a great deal of interest in the man from Georgia who auto-dialed Jerry Falwell's 800 number hundreds of times a day for eight months. For those who have missed news reports, this is the text of a piece written for the Washington Post. All facts are current as of Jan. 7. I pass it along with no comment... ------------------------------------------------------------------------ | By the Washington Post | | ATLANTA -- For now, at least, the Rev. Jerry Falwell has exorcised the Demon Dialer. | But an angry computer commando, as a protest against TV evangelists, vows to keep right on bedeviling the $100 million fund-raising machine of the Moral Majority (or the Liberty Federation, as Falwell recently announced his group will be called) with his $200 Atari home computer. | ``I'll give you a demonstration,'' said Edward Johnson, 46, a bespectacled computer consultant, pecking away at a keyboard in his one-bedroom walk-up apartment here. | That activates his modem's auto-dailer. Bleep, bleep, bleep goes the video arcade echo on his speaker phone as his Atari rings up Falwell's world headquarters in Lynchburg, Va. | ``Old-Time Gospel Hour,'' says an operator. ``Can I help you?'' | Johnson grinned. His computer is programmed to tie up the line for 30 seconds, then it hangs up and dials again, as it has every 30 seconds, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, for the last eight months. ``Here we go again,'' he said, and the computer dials 1-800-446-5000. | ``Old-Time Gospel Hour,'' says the operator. ``Help you?'' Click. | ``You can tell by the tone of voice they're not too happy,'' he said. | Indeed, Falwell officials estimate their first high-tech protester cost them close to $1 million in lost pledges on a blessed WATS line, which fields some 1 million calls a year, before Southern Bell detectives ordered Johnson to hang up on Dec. 20 or face criminal charges -- using the telephone to harass is a federal felony. The besieged switchboard raises at least half of Falwell's $100 million budget, used to support a TV ministry, missionary work, Bible study, an anti-abortion crusade and the like. | ``He has robbed the poor and needy of many thousands of dollars,'' said Falwell in a press released that warned others who would do ``injury to the cause of Christ by similar illegal acts.'' | But Johnson accuses TV evangelists of persuading elderly viewers to part with money they can ill afford to spend, buying religious trinkets and false hope while the on-the-air preachers use their tax-free status to subsidize and promote often incendiary views. | ``They're making millions because there aren't any laws to protect the gullible from such a powerful medium,'' said Johnson, who says he nearly lost his family farm to TV evangelist Jimmy Swaggert. | After one rip-roaring TV sermon, he said, his 68-year-old mother, Mary Johnson of Sylvester, was ready to sign over the family's 150 acres in south Georgia. A virtual shut-in, she lives alone on land his father, who died 12 years ago, once planted with soybeans, peanuts and corn. But Johnston stepped in and, along with an older brother, Raymond, talked her out of it. | ``She once bought two Singer sewing machines from different salesmen in the same week,'' he said. | Johnson's crusade began one Sunday morning, April 7, when, he remembers, Jimmy Swaggert on a local affiliate accused gays of ``spreading AIDS like flies'' at bathhouses. | A political activist and card-carrying member of the American Civil Liberties Union, Johnson got angry. ``He was implying that you should treat those people like flies,'' he said. He considered it unfair and inflammatory. And, of course, he almost lost the farm. | He wrote the Federal Communications Commission to complain. He tapped a second computer to mount a letter-writing campaign to congressmen and senators. And he dispatched copies of those letters to Falwell, who had his name. But it would take Falwell eight months to unearth Atari Central. | He targeted Falwell because he's the ``most politically active'' TV evangelist, and his mother had sent him hundreds of dollars. ``If we get Falwell, Swaggart will fall of his own weight,'' said Johnson, who is single and lives alone. | Weaned on old-time religion growing up in Worth County, Ga., he joined the Air Force out of high school, worked for a large computer firm as an engineer, then settled into consulting. | He has nothing against religion, he says, but he compares his beliefs more to Spinoza and Einstein than to fundamentalist TV preachers. | But what better way to protest than slow down their collection plate, he argues. So he began dialing 1-800 ... | ``Old-Time Gospel Hour,'' said the operator. ``Tap the phone if you can hear me, honey. We'll pray for you.'' | ``At first,'' said Johnson, ``they thought I was deaf.'' | For a time, he tried debating the operators to keep them busy. ``But it was always, `God bless you,' or `God loves you.' They were so sweet, I kind of felt sorry for them. They were programmed to be nice.'' | So it was back to the computer. ``A computer is totally impersonal,'' he said. ``It can't feel sorry for you. It's relentless. It shows no mercy.'' | Toward the end, operators were answering the dead lines: ``Edward Johnson, is that you?'' | They stopped thinking the caller was deaf. | ``My computer kept the pressure on,'' he said. ``It had a great demoralizing effect.'' | On Nov. 15, Falwell officials reported trouble on the line. ``They came to us with a simple technical problem,'' recalled Wayne Jackson, an AT&T spokesman. ``They were getting hangups and lines jammed.'' | Technicians ruled out a glitch and put on a tracer. It was touchy going. Johnson's Atari was programmed to dial and hang up fast, to avoid leaving fingerprints. But AT&T got its man. | On Dec. 17 ``we figured out it was coming from 404 area code,'' said Jackson, and officials in Atlanta were alerted. Three days later, Southern Bell security took over and Johnson was identified as the high priest of the first church of Atari protest. | ``It's amazing,'' said Richard Miles, a company spokesman. ``As big as Atlanta is, within 30 minutes, we had tracked him down.'' The phone company gave him a choice: stop calling Falwell or lose his telephone. Johnson pulled his own plug. | Will Falwell take the Demon Dialer to court? ``Our attorneys are considering the options,'' said Duane Ward, his PR director. | Before his computer sniping, Johnson protested such local issues as a road for Jimmy Carter's presidential library that cut through his neighborhood -- until demonstrators stopped it. From his window, he gazed at idled earthmovers for inspiration, their cabs spray-painted, ``Long Live the Trees!'' | Suddenly Johnson, who once lived a life of quiet resignation, is, however briefly, a media star. He attributes his inspiration to rage. | He says it's not over yet. | ``I'm encouraging all hackers to reach out and touch Jerry Falwell,'' he said. ``If he's the Moral Majority, this is a good way of taking a vote.''
wmartin@brl-smoke.ARPA (Will Martin ) (01/15/86)
When I first heard/saw this story on TV news some weeks ago, my initial reaction was, "You mean that there was only ONE person doing this?" It is such an obvious tactic and so easy to do with an autodialer that I thought that hundreds of people had been doing it for years. Was it just that no one else thought of it before? After all, calling 800 numbers costs you nothing, so it seems a pretty simple and cheap way to get back at any organization with an 800 number, whether it be a TV evangelist or some business selling Slim Whitman records or Vegematics. If this guy really was the first, I would think that NOW there are hundreds of people doing it! (Might as well get some good out of your phone line when you're not home... :-) Will
dee@cca.UUCP (Donald Eastlake) (01/17/86)
Although call to 800- numbers are free to the caller, as far as I know
the usual billing information is collected, including the calling number
and the length of the call. If it were not, it is hard to see how
people with 800- numbers could be billed since their charges are based
on numbers of hours of use. In fact, I understand the phone company
sometimes looks for very long calls to 800- numbers (along with calls to
-555- numbers) as a possible sign of blue box activity. Thus is should
be extrememly trivial for the phone company to immediately pinpoint
anyone repeatedly autodialing to an 800 number from their home.
Harassing phone calls are illegal most everywhere and you could probably
sue someone doing that sort of thing and recover the costs (which should
be precisely calculatable from phone company records) if not more.
--
+1 617-492-8860 Donald E. Eastlake, III
ARPA: dee@CCA-UNIX usenet: {decvax,linus}!cca!deeroy@phri.UUCP (Roy Smith) (01/20/86)
> Harassing phone calls are illegal most everywhere and you could probably > sue someone doing that sort of thing and recover the costs To quote from the "NYNEX White Pages" for Manhattan, under "Consumer Rights and Responsibilities": Harassment by telephone. It is a crime under both state and federal laws for anyone to make obscene or harassing telephone calls. These laws have penalties of imprisonment and/or a fine. -- Roy Smith <allegra!phri!roy> System Administrator, Public Health Research Institute 455 First Avenue, New York, NY 10016
phil@osiris.UUCP (Philip Kos) (01/22/86)
> Harassing phone calls are illegal most everywhere and you could probably > sue someone doing that sort of thing and recover the costs (which should > be precisely calculatable from phone company records) if not more. > -- > +1 617-492-8860 Donald E. Eastlake, III > ARPA: dee@CCA-UNIX usenet: {decvax,linus}!cca!dee Perhaps I'm missing something (not being a net.legal reader, and having to put up with a remarkably sporadic news feed), but do these calls fit the *legal* definition of a "harassing call"? From what I seem to remember, they don't, but then I'm frequently wrong. Anybody here know? "Oh, drat these computers, Phil Kos they're so naughty and so The Johns Hopkins Hospital complex! I could pinch Baltimore, MD them." - A. Martian
ron@brl-smoke.ARPA (Ron Natalie <ron>) (01/28/86)
> > Harassing phone calls are illegal most everywhere and you could probably > > sue someone doing that sort of thing and recover the costs (which should > > be precisely calculatable from phone company records) if not more. > > -- > > +1 617-492-8860 Donald E. Eastlake, III > > ARPA: dee@CCA-UNIX usenet: {decvax,linus}!cca!dee > > Perhaps I'm missing something (not being a net.legal reader, and having to > put up with a remarkably sporadic news feed), but do these calls fit the > *legal* definition of a "harassing call"? From what I seem to remember, > they don't, but then I'm frequently wrong. Anybody here know? > I've fallen into this class. It's a grey area as to what is harassing, but it is almost certain that if someone tells you that you are harassing them, and you continue to do it, that you are harassing them. -Ron