WEBVTT 1 00:00:10.400 --> 00:00:13.555 Friends, hello, and welcome to Never Post, a 2 00:00:13.555 --> 00:00:15.875 podcast for and about the Internet. I'm your host, Mike 3 00:00:15.875 --> 00:00:22.035 Rugnetta. This intro was written on Monday, 12/15/2025 at 09:06PM 4 00:00:22.035 --> 00:00:25.850 eastern, and we have a remarkable show for you this 5 00:00:25.850 --> 00:00:29.850 week. Recently, Neverpost had the opportunity to introduce the 6 00:00:29.850 --> 00:00:34.250 folks at the tech podcast kill switch hosted by journalist 7 00:00:34.250 --> 00:00:39.785 Dexter Thomas to Jeremy Busby, a writer, journalist, and activist 8 00:00:39.785 --> 00:00:44.105 who has served over twenty five years of a seventy five year 9 00:00:44.105 --> 00:00:49.305 sentence at a maximum security facility in Beaumont, Texas. In 10 00:00:49.305 --> 00:00:53.340 this episode, we've included the entirety of Dexter's 11 00:00:53.340 --> 00:00:56.940 conversation with Jeremy about the work Jeremy's done 12 00:00:56.940 --> 00:01:01.820 advocating for both prisoners and prison guards using his 13 00:01:01.820 --> 00:01:07.485 contraband mobile phone largely from solitary confinement. 14 00:01:07.485 --> 00:01:11.805 It is an incredible conversation that we're really happy to have 15 00:01:11.805 --> 00:01:16.605 had a small part in co producing. Right now, we're 16 00:01:16.605 --> 00:01:18.925 gonna take a quick break. You're gonna listen to some ads unless 17 00:01:18.925 --> 00:01:21.640 you're on the member feed. And when we return, we're gonna talk 18 00:01:21.640 --> 00:01:23.880 about a few of the things that have happened since the last 19 00:01:23.880 --> 00:01:27.720 time you heard from us. Sweet dreams are made of this. 20 00:01:27.720 --> 00:01:31.480 Who am I to disagree? I travel the world in the seven seas. 21 00:01:31.640 --> 00:01:38.345 Everybody's looking for four stories this week. Zillow has 22 00:01:38.345 --> 00:01:42.745 removed climate risk scores from more than a million listings 23 00:01:42.745 --> 00:01:45.225 according to the New York Times. The online real estate 24 00:01:45.225 --> 00:01:48.345 aggregator previously displayed information about property's 25 00:01:48.345 --> 00:01:52.870 susceptibility to fire, flood, heat, wind, and air quality 26 00:01:52.870 --> 00:01:55.830 disaster, but no longer. 27 00:01:55.910 --> 00:01:58.550 After complaints from the California regional multiple 28 00:01:58.550 --> 00:02:02.550 listing service from which Zillow aggregates data 29 00:02:01.725 --> 00:02:05.645 properties for sale. Agents had also noted that the ratings were 30 00:02:05.645 --> 00:02:12.525 hurting sales as perhaps they should. But what do I know? 31 00:02:12.685 --> 00:02:16.445 Zillow will continue to link to sources of the data, namely 32 00:02:16.445 --> 00:02:19.800 First Street, a climate and financial risk modeling start 33 00:02:19.800 --> 00:02:23.160 up. And insurers will likely continue to use their data when 34 00:02:23.160 --> 00:02:26.680 considering coverage, but scores will no longer be displayed 35 00:02:26.680 --> 00:02:28.200 directly on listings. 36 00:02:30.105 --> 00:02:34.585 Young men hate gambling. This according to Pew Research's 37 00:02:34.585 --> 00:02:39.545 surprising findings for 2025. Quote, forty three percent of US 38 00:02:39.545 --> 00:02:43.545 adults say legal sports betting is a bad thing for society. 39 00:02:43.790 --> 00:02:47.870 Continuing, one of the biggest shifts in attitudes has occurred 40 00:02:47.870 --> 00:02:52.670 among men 30. In this group, forty seven percent say legal 41 00:02:52.670 --> 00:02:56.670 sports betting is a bad thing for society, an increase from 42 00:02:56.670 --> 00:02:59.230 22% in 2022. 43 00:03:04.485 --> 00:03:08.325 Americans aren't buying smartphones as often as they 44 00:03:08.325 --> 00:03:11.365 used to. In 2016, Americans would get a new phone every two 45 00:03:11.365 --> 00:03:14.830 years. These days, about every two and a half. The Federal 46 00:03:14.830 --> 00:03:18.750 Reserve warns that an extended timeline for upgraded technology 47 00:03:18.750 --> 00:03:22.190 could mean productivity losses. And when it comes to 48 00:03:22.190 --> 00:03:25.315 institutional upgrades at schools or businesses, shifted 49 00:03:25.315 --> 00:03:28.675 investment patterns that could harm the economy as if anyone 50 00:03:28.675 --> 00:03:31.955 looking contentedly at their iPhone 14 gives a shit. 51 00:03:31.955 --> 00:03:32.835 Oh, no. 52 00:03:35.395 --> 00:03:38.810 Disney, in our last story today, has struck a 53 00:03:38.810 --> 00:03:44.090 surprising deal with OpenAI to bring its IP into Sora, their 54 00:03:44.090 --> 00:03:46.810 video generation model. According to a press release 55 00:03:46.810 --> 00:03:50.010 quote, Sora will be able to generate short user prompted 56 00:03:50.010 --> 00:03:53.715 social videos that can be viewed and shared by fans, drawing on 57 00:03:53.715 --> 00:03:57.795 more than 200 Disney, Marvel, Pixar, and Star Wars characters. 58 00:03:58.195 --> 00:04:02.275 And a selection of these fan inspired Sora short form videos 59 00:04:02.275 --> 00:04:06.195 will be available to stream on Disney plus, end quote. Disney 60 00:04:06.195 --> 00:04:09.460 CEO Bob Iger said, bringing together Disney's iconic stories 61 00:04:09.460 --> 00:04:12.500 and characters with OpenAI's groundbreaking technology puts 62 00:04:12.500 --> 00:04:15.540 imagination and creativity directly into the hands of 63 00:04:15.540 --> 00:04:19.140 Disney fans in ways we've never seen before, giving them richer 64 00:04:19.140 --> 00:04:21.555 and more personal ways to connect with the Disney 65 00:04:21.555 --> 00:04:24.995 characters and stories they love. A surprising thing to hear 66 00:04:24.995 --> 00:04:27.635 from a company whose copyright stance up until this point could 67 00:04:27.635 --> 00:04:30.275 best be summed up as hands off the mouse punks. 68 00:04:30.275 --> 00:04:31.395 Oh, no. 69 00:04:31.475 --> 00:04:34.115 For more on this surprising partnership, Hans 70 00:04:34.230 --> 00:04:37.030 talked with Michael Weinberg, the executive director of the 71 00:04:37.030 --> 00:04:41.430 Engelberg Center on Innovation Law and Policy at NYU Law. 72 00:04:43.910 --> 00:04:47.655 Thanks, Mike. Michael, so glad to have caught 73 00:04:47.655 --> 00:04:49.015 you. Where where am I catching you? 74 00:04:49.015 --> 00:04:49.175 Where are 75 00:04:49.175 --> 00:04:49.735 you right now? 76 00:04:49.735 --> 00:04:51.815 I am currently in Berlin, Germany. 77 00:04:51.815 --> 00:04:54.855 On the road, but, like, this is critical. Let's 78 00:04:54.855 --> 00:04:56.215 figure this out together. 79 00:04:56.215 --> 00:04:57.015 Let's figure it out. 80 00:04:57.015 --> 00:05:01.415 Okay. This surprising ass three year deal 81 00:05:01.655 --> 00:05:05.470 in which, as far as I can tell, OpenAI gets 200 Disney 82 00:05:05.470 --> 00:05:10.510 characters to put into their AI video engine, and Disney gets 83 00:05:10.990 --> 00:05:15.710 the opportunity to pay OpenAI $1,000,000,000 as an investment, 84 00:05:16.605 --> 00:05:19.245 plus a promise from OpenAI that the character voices won't be 85 00:05:19.245 --> 00:05:22.685 used. And don't worry, kids are forbidden by OpenAI from using 86 00:05:22.685 --> 00:05:26.685 Sora, so no kids allowed in this Disney product. So my first 87 00:05:26.685 --> 00:05:29.565 question is, are we in the literal upside down? Like, 88 00:05:29.725 --> 00:05:33.460 understanding of copyright law is that, like, 80% of modern 89 00:05:33.460 --> 00:05:38.260 copyright law is in service of keeping Disney characters out of 90 00:05:38.260 --> 00:05:40.100 the grimy hands of a greedy public. 91 00:05:40.340 --> 00:05:43.380 The reason there is so little in the public domain is them 92 00:05:43.380 --> 00:05:46.285 wanting to control Mickey. So, like, is this a reversal? 93 00:05:46.285 --> 00:05:48.765 It certainly is a change. They are in the 94 00:05:48.765 --> 00:05:52.045 business of no when it comes to using their intellectual 95 00:05:52.045 --> 00:05:55.725 property, their characters, their shows, their anything. And 96 00:05:55.725 --> 00:06:00.205 so, yes, this was a this was a super surprise to see Disney, 97 00:06:00.205 --> 00:06:04.200 which basically defines pulling things back to be kind of 98 00:06:04.200 --> 00:06:07.240 opening things up potentially a little bit unclear. Maybe 99 00:06:07.240 --> 00:06:08.920 they're just not doing anything. We don't know. 100 00:06:08.920 --> 00:06:12.600 We know very little. We have this one press 101 00:06:12.600 --> 00:06:16.785 release and not a lot other information. So since we don't 102 00:06:16.785 --> 00:06:19.185 have a lot of answers right now, let's outline some of the 103 00:06:19.185 --> 00:06:22.145 questions that you, as a copyright expert, have when you 104 00:06:22.145 --> 00:06:24.705 read this announcement and you hear the details of it. 105 00:06:24.705 --> 00:06:26.225 I have so many I have so many questions, none 106 00:06:26.225 --> 00:06:29.110 of which are gonna be answered in the short term. Some of which 107 00:06:29.110 --> 00:06:31.270 will be answered when they roll out the terms and service, and 108 00:06:31.270 --> 00:06:33.350 some of them will be answered with them in the month 109 00:06:33.350 --> 00:06:35.990 afterwards when people do all their crazy stuff. But Yeah. 110 00:06:36.070 --> 00:06:38.470 Lots of questions. But the first one is is kind of a meta 111 00:06:38.470 --> 00:06:38.870 question. 112 00:06:38.870 --> 00:06:42.335 Right? Like, whatever Disney is doing here, they are not saying 113 00:06:42.335 --> 00:06:45.455 do whatever you want with whatever characters we're we're 114 00:06:45.455 --> 00:06:49.535 putting in here. What safeguards have they written in? Where are 115 00:06:49.535 --> 00:06:52.255 their bright lines? And where are their bright lines in the 116 00:06:52.255 --> 00:06:53.535 agreement with OpenAI? 117 00:06:53.535 --> 00:06:55.980 Right? There's some sort of contract. What are their bright 118 00:06:55.980 --> 00:06:59.020 lines gonna be in the user agreement? And then what are the 119 00:06:59.020 --> 00:07:03.020 technical systems they're putting in place to enforce 120 00:07:03.020 --> 00:07:06.780 those bright lines? We've all seen the Internet take take 121 00:07:06.780 --> 00:07:10.345 these kinds of rules and be like, thank you for these rules. 122 00:07:10.345 --> 00:07:13.545 I'm gonna go in every possible direction that no one who was 123 00:07:13.545 --> 00:07:17.305 cutting the deal anticipated. Disney knows that. Right? That's 124 00:07:17.305 --> 00:07:19.465 not a mystery. That's not a a thing that people don't 125 00:07:19.465 --> 00:07:20.185 understand. 126 00:07:20.345 --> 00:07:23.705 And so what are their contingency plans? What are they 127 00:07:23.705 --> 00:07:26.230 doing? Even if they're gonna be using this as a learning 128 00:07:26.230 --> 00:07:30.230 experience, to get better at understanding what's coming out 129 00:07:30.230 --> 00:07:33.990 of these AI models, what are they gonna do when the first 130 00:07:33.990 --> 00:07:37.270 weird things start coming out? What are they gonna because 131 00:07:37.025 --> 00:07:39.105 you're gonna get a lot of traffic if you are the first 132 00:07:39.105 --> 00:07:43.345 person who has some, un Disney approved activities happening 133 00:07:43.345 --> 00:07:44.465 with Disney characters 134 00:07:44.465 --> 00:07:45.985 That's right. Coming out There's 135 00:07:45.985 --> 00:07:47.185 a huge incentive for people to be 136 00:07:47.185 --> 00:07:47.665 working on it. 137 00:07:47.665 --> 00:07:49.745 So then what happens? Right? Are there things 138 00:07:49.745 --> 00:07:50.785 in place in this agreement? 139 00:07:51.240 --> 00:07:54.200 Yeah. If there are, who is in charge of of 140 00:07:54.200 --> 00:07:57.000 doing something about it? I mean, what can you do? Once the 141 00:07:57.000 --> 00:08:00.200 video exists, then it exists. And so if it's pulled out and 142 00:08:00.200 --> 00:08:02.920 it's floating around the Internet, well, okay, OpenAI can 143 00:08:02.920 --> 00:08:04.440 shut down that person's account. 144 00:08:05.135 --> 00:08:08.335 If they wanted to go kind of nuts, they could potentially sue 145 00:08:08.335 --> 00:08:12.175 the user for violating the terms and conditions. That seems like 146 00:08:12.175 --> 00:08:15.535 a bad idea. We have had we learned about that. Yeah. Disney 147 00:08:15.535 --> 00:08:16.415 could do the same thing. 148 00:08:16.415 --> 00:08:20.090 I assume Disney is not excited about that prospect. And so do 149 00:08:20.090 --> 00:08:24.170 they just eat the rep what they see as reputational damage when 150 00:08:24.170 --> 00:08:27.210 the first weird things come out and just say this is the cost of 151 00:08:27.210 --> 00:08:31.290 doing business? Yeah. And if that's the case, why this time? 152 00:08:31.290 --> 00:08:31.530 Right? 153 00:08:31.530 --> 00:08:34.775 There have been rounds and rounds of technologies where 154 00:08:34.775 --> 00:08:37.815 there's been sort of, you know, user generated content. Right? 155 00:08:37.815 --> 00:08:41.175 People fan fiction, all these things Right. Where there's been 156 00:08:41.175 --> 00:08:44.855 an Internet community built up around properties that they 157 00:08:44.855 --> 00:08:47.900 love, characters they love, stories they love, and Disney's 158 00:08:47.900 --> 00:08:52.620 reaction historically has been no. What is it about generative 159 00:08:52.620 --> 00:08:58.060 AI that caused someone at Disney to say, well, maybe this time, 160 00:08:58.620 --> 00:08:59.500 why not? 161 00:08:59.500 --> 00:09:00.700 What could possibly go wrong? 162 00:09:01.395 --> 00:09:04.915 What happens when we start to see the first user 163 00:09:04.915 --> 00:09:09.315 generated things to come out? What happens with outputs? Like, 164 00:09:09.315 --> 00:09:12.195 when people start making Disney things, who owns those things? 165 00:09:12.515 --> 00:09:13.875 Yeah. So here's one of the the kind of 166 00:09:13.875 --> 00:09:16.920 the crazy things about these generative AI models that that 167 00:09:16.920 --> 00:09:19.080 people I think we're just beginning to kind of wrap our 168 00:09:19.080 --> 00:09:23.880 minds around. When you use a model to create something, to to 169 00:09:23.880 --> 00:09:29.095 generate an output, in The US, no one owns the copyright in 170 00:09:29.095 --> 00:09:33.735 that output. So you as the prompter have no copyright 171 00:09:33.735 --> 00:09:36.375 interest in the output. Now, doesn't mean it's totally free 172 00:09:36.375 --> 00:09:37.015 of copyright. 173 00:09:37.015 --> 00:09:39.895 Right? If you, you know, whatever. If you if you have 174 00:09:39.895 --> 00:09:44.420 Darth Vader in your output, you don't own any copyright on 175 00:09:44.420 --> 00:09:45.540 whatever you've created. 176 00:09:45.540 --> 00:09:45.700 Okay. 177 00:09:45.700 --> 00:09:47.780 But Disney still owns the copyright of 178 00:09:47.780 --> 00:09:50.900 Darth Vader. It doesn't erase existing copyright, but there's 179 00:09:50.900 --> 00:09:56.845 no new copyright. And so this, like, new fan video exists in 180 00:09:56.845 --> 00:10:01.245 the public domain. And so there's this very weird right 181 00:10:01.245 --> 00:10:05.885 situation where if you if you wrote fanfic or you made a a 182 00:10:05.885 --> 00:10:08.690 video and uploaded it to YouTube, right, you would own 183 00:10:08.690 --> 00:10:11.490 the copyright in the video. You would own the copyright in the, 184 00:10:11.490 --> 00:10:14.610 you know, the the fanfic writing that you did, and Disney would 185 00:10:14.610 --> 00:10:16.770 own the copyright in the characters. 186 00:10:17.250 --> 00:10:20.210 And so there'd be some kind of tension between, you know, the 187 00:10:20.210 --> 00:10:23.585 two of you. In this case, at least legally, there's no real 188 00:10:23.585 --> 00:10:28.385 tension. You own nothing. Disney owns something. Now there are 189 00:10:28.385 --> 00:10:31.345 non legal reasons that Disney might want might wanna, you 190 00:10:31.345 --> 00:10:33.585 know, work something out with you before they feature it on 191 00:10:33.585 --> 00:10:35.665 Disney plus or whatever. 192 00:10:36.050 --> 00:10:39.330 But the legal posture is very weird and very different. 193 00:10:39.970 --> 00:10:40.610 Do you think this is 194 00:10:40.610 --> 00:10:42.850 gonna affect the terms of service of using Sora and 195 00:10:42.850 --> 00:10:43.650 OpenAI? 196 00:10:44.050 --> 00:10:46.690 I mean, it may. I you know, on some level, 197 00:10:46.690 --> 00:10:50.435 I assume that I I would expect that there's gonna be some kind 198 00:10:50.435 --> 00:10:55.635 of path that if you use SOAR and OpenAI and use Disney 199 00:10:55.635 --> 00:11:01.395 characters, you are explicitly giving Disney rights to do some 200 00:11:01.395 --> 00:11:04.250 number of things. Even if you don't have any rights to give 201 00:11:04.250 --> 00:11:07.370 them, Disney's lawyers are conservative. They're gonna make 202 00:11:07.370 --> 00:11:10.650 sure there's an additional layer of the agreement there. And so 203 00:11:10.650 --> 00:11:12.490 this is another thing that we don't know. 204 00:11:12.730 --> 00:11:12.970 Mhmm. 205 00:11:12.970 --> 00:11:15.925 Right? We don't know what you are giving 206 00:11:15.925 --> 00:11:19.845 to Disney in return for being able to incorporate their 207 00:11:19.845 --> 00:11:22.165 characters into whatever you generate. 208 00:11:23.525 --> 00:11:25.765 What is gonna be your first prompt that you're 209 00:11:25.765 --> 00:11:27.045 gonna put into Sora? 210 00:11:28.885 --> 00:11:31.570 I don't mean, you know, like, I just wanna you 211 00:11:32.210 --> 00:11:34.210 really gotta you, like, look down the list of the characters 212 00:11:34.210 --> 00:11:36.850 and find the deepest cut and then the weirdest thing and 213 00:11:36.850 --> 00:11:39.730 really kind of go nuts. I mean, the beauty of this, the beauty 214 00:11:39.730 --> 00:11:41.490 of the Internet, when we're still thinking about the 215 00:11:41.490 --> 00:11:44.275 positive parts of the Internet, is there's gonna be a lot of 216 00:11:44.275 --> 00:11:46.355 people who stress test us better than I would. So I can just 217 00:11:46.355 --> 00:11:48.835 kinda sit back and watch what happens for a while. I don't 218 00:11:48.835 --> 00:11:51.315 have to drive the train. I can just watch it go by. 219 00:11:51.555 --> 00:11:52.995 It's gonna be fascinating to see what happens 220 00:11:52.995 --> 00:11:57.460 when Disney shuts down with the full force that Disney comes at 221 00:11:57.460 --> 00:11:59.540 something, something the Internet has fallen in love 222 00:11:59.540 --> 00:12:00.020 with. 223 00:12:00.260 --> 00:12:01.940 Totally. I mean, this is this is going to 224 00:12:01.940 --> 00:12:05.300 be I mean, we see this we see this regularly with things on 225 00:12:05.300 --> 00:12:08.020 YouTube. Right? Where there's a community that is built up, 226 00:12:08.020 --> 00:12:13.485 people love it. You know, Disney has has no real experience with 227 00:12:13.485 --> 00:12:16.685 the fan community in this way. 228 00:12:16.925 --> 00:12:21.085 And if Disney starts changing its position, it's gonna take 229 00:12:21.085 --> 00:12:26.310 time for everyone to renormalize around it. And a thing that you 230 00:12:26.310 --> 00:12:28.550 see sometimes in these fan communities is a sense of 231 00:12:28.550 --> 00:12:29.990 exploitation. Right? 232 00:12:29.990 --> 00:12:30.230 Mhmm. 233 00:12:30.230 --> 00:12:31.830 We are generating all these things. 234 00:12:31.830 --> 00:12:34.070 We're generating the energy. We're generating the new ideas. 235 00:12:34.070 --> 00:12:37.190 We have this new stuff. Disney, you swoop in and you take what 236 00:12:37.190 --> 00:12:39.745 you want, and then you say no to other things. 237 00:12:39.745 --> 00:12:41.905 Yeah. And that could be a moment for people to really kind of 238 00:12:41.905 --> 00:12:45.425 reevaluate how they think about the fairness of that 239 00:12:45.425 --> 00:12:49.985 relationship and how Disney is as a steward of what is a shared 240 00:12:49.985 --> 00:12:51.985 cultural property in a lot of ways. 241 00:12:56.620 --> 00:12:59.660 Well, Michael Weinberg, in terms of fandoms, 242 00:12:59.660 --> 00:13:03.660 I'm a fan of yours. And I really appreciate you popping in from 243 00:13:03.660 --> 00:13:07.955 Berlin emergency style to help us understand what to look for 244 00:13:07.955 --> 00:13:10.435 as this thing develops. So thanks so much for joining us. 245 00:13:10.435 --> 00:13:12.355 Thank you. Alright, Mike. 246 00:13:12.355 --> 00:13:13.155 Back to you. 247 00:13:15.075 --> 00:13:16.675 Alright. That's the news we have for you this 248 00:13:16.675 --> 00:13:20.115 week. In this episode, Dexter Thomas from Killswitch talks 249 00:13:20.115 --> 00:13:23.620 with Jeremy Busby about his tenuous connection to the 250 00:13:23.620 --> 00:13:45.505 outside world via the internet from prison. Dexter, thank you 251 00:13:45.505 --> 00:13:49.600 so much for joining us. We're huge fans of yours and of the 252 00:13:49.600 --> 00:13:51.920 show, so it's great to have you on Neverpost. 253 00:13:52.000 --> 00:13:54.000 Oh, my gosh. Thank you so much for having me 254 00:13:54.000 --> 00:13:55.200 on here. This is amazing. 255 00:13:55.200 --> 00:13:58.240 We're gonna hear a Killswitch episode, 256 00:13:58.240 --> 00:14:02.160 essentially, as a Neverpost episode. Just so folks sort of 257 00:14:02.160 --> 00:14:04.925 like know what they're about to hear and have some context, I 258 00:14:04.925 --> 00:14:07.645 just wanna ask you a few, like, really broad questions both 259 00:14:07.645 --> 00:14:11.085 about yourself and about the story that we're about to hear. 260 00:14:11.085 --> 00:14:15.245 Sure. Because you mentioned in what we're about to hear that 261 00:14:15.245 --> 00:14:18.700 you're a journalist, you've reported on prisons in the past, 262 00:14:19.180 --> 00:14:21.980 you've reported on the Internet in the past. So I'm just curious 263 00:14:21.980 --> 00:14:25.660 like, what has that work been for you and how did it lead you 264 00:14:25.660 --> 00:14:27.260 eventually to Killswitch? 265 00:14:28.220 --> 00:14:31.725 Yeah. Killswitch, the podcast we work on now, is 266 00:14:31.725 --> 00:14:36.045 basically a podcast about living in the future and how the future 267 00:14:36.045 --> 00:14:40.685 has arrived. Nobody wants it. It sucks. But how did we get here, 268 00:14:40.685 --> 00:14:42.445 and is there anything we can do about it? 269 00:14:42.685 --> 00:14:50.100 So the back end of that is that I used to work at Vice, and a 270 00:14:50.100 --> 00:14:53.460 lot of my reporting was broadly speaking, it was like culture 271 00:14:53.460 --> 00:14:56.435 reporting. So, you know, I'd be in China hanging out with 272 00:14:56.435 --> 00:14:59.235 rappers. I'd be in South Africa talking to people about 273 00:14:59.235 --> 00:15:04.515 elections. I'd be in Ohio talking about opioid epidemics. 274 00:15:04.515 --> 00:15:07.395 So for me, all of that is culture. 275 00:15:07.795 --> 00:15:11.670 And increasingly, you know, a lot so much culture is online 276 00:15:11.670 --> 00:15:15.270 where even saying that is kind of redundant, like saying online 277 00:15:15.270 --> 00:15:17.590 culture, like, of course, everybody's online. Who doesn't 278 00:15:17.590 --> 00:15:20.630 have a phone? For me, I've always been really interested in 279 00:15:20.630 --> 00:15:24.555 technology. You know, I'm one of those people who, like, I daily 280 00:15:24.555 --> 00:15:27.995 drive Linux. If you don't know what that means, good. 281 00:15:27.995 --> 00:15:31.275 Your life is you're living a healthy, normal adjusted life. I 282 00:15:31.275 --> 00:15:33.035 don't recommend that as a life choice for anybody. 283 00:15:33.035 --> 00:15:35.275 Not a rabbit hole to fall into. Just stay away 284 00:15:35.275 --> 00:15:36.635 from the edge of that one. Yeah. 285 00:15:36.635 --> 00:15:38.635 Yeah. It's fine. You you don't you don't need to 286 00:15:38.635 --> 00:15:41.890 do that to yourself. But I'm just really interested in how 287 00:15:41.890 --> 00:15:45.810 people use technology to do unexpected things. And 288 00:15:46.050 --> 00:15:49.730 Killswitch, we were really clear that, alright, this isn't just 289 00:15:49.730 --> 00:15:51.490 gonna be like iPhone reviews. 290 00:15:51.650 --> 00:15:54.755 This is gonna be what does technology mean in every part of 291 00:15:54.755 --> 00:15:58.675 your life for everybody. And I mean, and this is actually the 292 00:15:58.675 --> 00:16:01.875 second episode we've done about what we're gonna talk about 293 00:16:01.875 --> 00:16:06.690 about prisons, and people who were incarcerated also use 294 00:16:06.690 --> 00:16:08.930 technology whether they're supposed to or not. 295 00:16:09.250 --> 00:16:11.010 Yeah. What you mentioned, you know, people 296 00:16:11.010 --> 00:16:14.290 doing strange things with technology, but you also do a 297 00:16:14.290 --> 00:16:18.050 lot of stories about technology appearing or unexpected pieces 298 00:16:18.050 --> 00:16:21.785 of technology appearing in maybe what for a lot of people are 299 00:16:21.785 --> 00:16:23.145 unexpected places. 300 00:16:23.145 --> 00:16:23.545 Yeah. 301 00:16:23.545 --> 00:16:24.905 And that's actually the next thing I wanted 302 00:16:24.905 --> 00:16:27.705 to ask was, you mentioned in the story previous reporting that 303 00:16:27.705 --> 00:16:31.385 you did about tablets in prison. And I was wondering if you could 304 00:16:31.385 --> 00:16:33.065 talk a little bit about what that was. 305 00:16:33.960 --> 00:16:37.400 Yeah. So that was actually a colleague of mine, 306 00:16:37.400 --> 00:16:41.720 Gabby Kaplan, who we interviewed about this, and basically, I 307 00:16:41.720 --> 00:16:46.520 talked to her about the fact that there have been tablets. I 308 00:16:46.520 --> 00:16:51.215 mean, just think of very, very cheap, not very well equipped 309 00:16:51.295 --> 00:16:54.255 iPads that are available for purchase 310 00:16:54.495 --> 00:16:55.055 Of course. 311 00:16:55.055 --> 00:16:57.295 In some prisons. Right? In some prisons and in 312 00:16:57.295 --> 00:17:01.455 some jails, and they cost a bunch of money, but you could 313 00:17:01.455 --> 00:17:04.990 pay money to, for example, send a message to the outside world 314 00:17:04.990 --> 00:17:07.870 and receive a message, you know, with their mom on the outside 315 00:17:07.870 --> 00:17:11.150 Yeah. Or their kids on the outside. And then all of a 316 00:17:11.150 --> 00:17:14.750 sudden that's shut down with no real explanation. 317 00:17:15.775 --> 00:17:18.815 And if you look at it, this is kind of like a consumer 318 00:17:18.815 --> 00:17:22.975 technology story, which is like, yo, you bought this product and 319 00:17:22.975 --> 00:17:26.575 then the company disabled the main feature. But then also, 320 00:17:26.575 --> 00:17:30.495 what does it mean when you've got a population of people who 321 00:17:31.400 --> 00:17:33.640 because the jails, you know, and the prisons keep going on 322 00:17:33.640 --> 00:17:35.960 lockdown, which means that you're not able to leave your 323 00:17:35.960 --> 00:17:39.560 cell. These people have to come home at some point. Yeah. They 324 00:17:39.560 --> 00:17:41.800 do ten years in a completely different society, a very 325 00:17:41.800 --> 00:17:45.665 violent and dangerous society, and they come back outside and 326 00:17:45.665 --> 00:17:49.665 they haven't spoken to anybody, do you think they're going to be 327 00:17:49.665 --> 00:17:52.465 able to reintegrate into society very well? 328 00:17:52.465 --> 00:17:55.265 It's gonna be very difficult for them. So this is a safety issue 329 00:17:55.265 --> 00:17:57.105 even for the people on the outside, really. 330 00:17:57.105 --> 00:17:59.345 Yeah. It's a consumer technology issue that 331 00:17:59.345 --> 00:18:00.865 has a lot of ripple effects. 332 00:18:01.020 --> 00:18:02.540 Yes. Yes. 333 00:18:02.780 --> 00:18:06.540 So we heard this story and we had just to provide 334 00:18:06.540 --> 00:18:10.060 some background for the audience, Neverpost has an open 335 00:18:10.060 --> 00:18:11.980 line of communication. We go back and forth with the Freedom 336 00:18:11.980 --> 00:18:15.415 of the Press Foundation. And they had actually mentioned to 337 00:18:15.415 --> 00:18:19.255 us, they were like, hey, we know this guy, Jeremy Busby. Would 338 00:18:19.255 --> 00:18:23.015 you be interested in talking to him? He's a journalist that is 339 00:18:23.015 --> 00:18:26.535 incarcerated on a seventy five year sentence. 340 00:18:26.695 --> 00:18:31.110 And we were like, we would love to hear what conversation Jeremy 341 00:18:31.110 --> 00:18:36.310 would have with Dexter, which is sort of how how we ended up 342 00:18:36.310 --> 00:18:41.590 doing like 2% of co production for this. Much more than that. 343 00:18:42.705 --> 00:18:45.425 I'm so excited for everybody to hear it. So this is what 344 00:18:45.425 --> 00:18:49.185 everybody is about to hear. It's this conversation between you 345 00:18:49.185 --> 00:18:53.185 and Jeremy who has already served is it twenty five years? 346 00:18:54.225 --> 00:18:56.065 I think in about there. Yeah. 347 00:18:56.065 --> 00:19:00.450 Yeah. And while being incarcerated during this 348 00:19:00.450 --> 00:19:04.210 time, he's become a journalist, which he's really only been able 349 00:19:04.210 --> 00:19:08.610 to do because of what is effectively an illicit Internet 350 00:19:08.610 --> 00:19:12.815 connection that he has in prison. And I was wondering if 351 00:19:12.815 --> 00:19:17.135 you could just like paint a little bit of a picture for us 352 00:19:18.335 --> 00:19:24.870 about what what internet access tends to look like in prison, 353 00:19:25.430 --> 00:19:28.950 and just maybe the smallest little teaser about how it's 354 00:19:28.950 --> 00:19:31.830 different for Jeremy or or how he fits into that. 355 00:19:33.430 --> 00:19:35.750 Yeah. Well, the funny thing is Internet access 356 00:19:35.750 --> 00:19:39.995 in prison has changed a lot. You know, one of the things that we 357 00:19:39.995 --> 00:19:44.555 don't talk about in this particular episode is what 358 00:19:44.555 --> 00:19:48.315 people call prison talk as in like TikTok and prison talk. So, 359 00:19:48.315 --> 00:19:50.715 you know, you got like book talk, which is book, you know, 360 00:19:50.715 --> 00:19:52.315 people making TikToks about books. 361 00:19:53.230 --> 00:19:55.150 The sort of subgenre marker. 362 00:19:55.150 --> 00:19:58.510 Yeah. Exactly. There's this prison talk, which 363 00:19:58.590 --> 00:20:04.030 is all over the place, but a lot of people know it as somebody 364 00:20:04.030 --> 00:20:07.195 will have a phone on the inside, which again, they're not 365 00:20:07.195 --> 00:20:10.555 supposed to do this, but they make it inside anyway. And 366 00:20:10.715 --> 00:20:14.075 people are doing all the things that you would expect somebody 367 00:20:14.075 --> 00:20:16.955 to do on TikTok normally. There's people doing dance 368 00:20:16.955 --> 00:20:17.515 challenges. 369 00:20:17.790 --> 00:20:21.390 There's people cooking is really common, people showing how they 370 00:20:21.390 --> 00:20:26.590 cook a ramen, make burritos, make anything. But then also 371 00:20:26.590 --> 00:20:32.245 talking about conditions on the inside. What is more unique 372 00:20:32.245 --> 00:20:36.405 though is what Jeremy is doing, which is actually functioning as 373 00:20:36.645 --> 00:20:40.965 he's he's just a journalist. Realistically speaking, he and I 374 00:20:40.965 --> 00:20:45.600 are colleagues. We're colleagues, and he's just doing 375 00:20:45.600 --> 00:20:49.920 it under much much more difficult conditions than I've 376 00:20:49.920 --> 00:20:51.040 ever had to deal with. 377 00:20:51.120 --> 00:20:54.800 But he also has a degree of access that I could never have. 378 00:20:54.880 --> 00:21:00.245 Listen, I've tried. I have I've gone through all of the proper 379 00:21:00.245 --> 00:21:04.885 outlets. I've done the things where you ask the warden, where 380 00:21:04.885 --> 00:21:07.925 you write an email, where you make phone calls and you say, 381 00:21:07.925 --> 00:21:10.245 hey, we would like to report on this, we'd like to interview 382 00:21:10.245 --> 00:21:13.280 this person and it's oh, hey, this isn't a good time, hey, 383 00:21:13.280 --> 00:21:17.120 we're short staffed, hey, we're busy, hey, just no. 384 00:21:17.280 --> 00:21:18.400 Yeah, I'm sure. 385 00:21:18.720 --> 00:21:20.800 What Jeremy is able to do, and I really want 386 00:21:20.800 --> 00:21:24.880 people to understand this, some of the things that Jeremy has 387 00:21:24.880 --> 00:21:27.775 exposed and some of the things that Jeremy has genuinely 388 00:21:27.775 --> 00:21:30.815 changed about the inside and for people, not only himself, but 389 00:21:30.815 --> 00:21:36.255 other people who are in the system, including the guards, 390 00:21:37.295 --> 00:21:40.660 potentially improving the lives of the guards, not just people 391 00:21:40.660 --> 00:21:45.940 who are incarcerated. These are things that I could never do. If 392 00:21:45.940 --> 00:21:49.380 you're listening to this, more than likely you could never do. 393 00:21:50.260 --> 00:21:52.980 And I mean, this comes through in the in the 394 00:21:52.980 --> 00:21:58.075 story, but like, it really seems like he's got a force of will 395 00:21:58.075 --> 00:22:03.595 that is unparalleled. Mhmm. He is doing things in just 396 00:22:03.595 --> 00:22:07.915 unthinkable conditions that like are unbelievable. It's 397 00:22:07.915 --> 00:22:09.915 unbelievable to hear what he pulls off. 398 00:22:10.370 --> 00:22:14.610 Yeah. There are a couple moments. It gets super 399 00:22:14.610 --> 00:22:18.930 real super quick because just the conditions you were made 400 00:22:18.930 --> 00:22:23.805 aware of it a couple of times. This what it's like when you 401 00:22:23.805 --> 00:22:27.085 communicate with somebody who's locked up, is you're constantly 402 00:22:27.085 --> 00:22:31.245 being interrupted and you're constantly being reminded that, 403 00:22:32.365 --> 00:22:36.790 for me, this is just a this is a phone call, But for them, this 404 00:22:36.790 --> 00:22:39.030 is much more dire than that. 405 00:22:39.190 --> 00:22:42.470 Yeah. Alright. Well, I'm excited for everybody 406 00:22:42.470 --> 00:22:43.830 to hear this conversation. 407 00:22:43.830 --> 00:22:44.630 Same. So let's 408 00:22:44.710 --> 00:22:44.950 Yeah. 409 00:22:45.030 --> 00:22:47.990 Let's let's stop keeping them from it. Yeah. 410 00:22:54.135 --> 00:22:56.615 The first time I've seen social media, I was at 411 00:22:56.615 --> 00:23:01.415 the wind unit in Huntsville, Texas. I think it's like around 412 00:23:01.415 --> 00:23:03.940 2011. 413 00:23:05.540 --> 00:23:08.340 Jeremy Busby is 48 years old. We talked back in 414 00:23:08.340 --> 00:23:11.300 October about the Internet and social media, but what's 415 00:23:11.300 --> 00:23:13.940 different about this interview is that Jeremy's calling me from 416 00:23:13.940 --> 00:23:18.115 a prison in Huntsville, Texas. Jeremy's been in prison since 417 00:23:18.115 --> 00:23:21.875 1999. Back then, the internet was a different place. 418 00:23:21.955 --> 00:23:24.355 I didn't know anything about Facebook or 419 00:23:24.355 --> 00:23:27.555 Twitter, but I knew about Myspace. Because when I was a 420 00:23:27.555 --> 00:23:31.550 free society, Myspace was just becoming a thing. So I knew 421 00:23:31.550 --> 00:23:32.430 about that. 422 00:23:32.750 --> 00:23:34.590 Jeremy didn't really have any contact with 423 00:23:34.590 --> 00:23:37.710 social media until the early twenty tens. A few years after 424 00:23:37.710 --> 00:23:39.550 Facebook was already popular. 425 00:23:39.790 --> 00:23:43.565 A friend of mine had a contraband cell phone. He 426 00:23:43.565 --> 00:23:46.765 was fresh from the free society. He had just come to prison. And 427 00:23:46.765 --> 00:23:50.285 so this was his whole entire livelihood, social media. It was 428 00:23:50.285 --> 00:23:51.725 all about social media. 429 00:23:51.805 --> 00:23:54.170 Since Jeremy's been locked up, social media has 430 00:23:54.170 --> 00:23:56.970 gone through a few different phases. It went from this weird 431 00:23:56.970 --> 00:23:59.930 hobby that college kids and computer nerds were into, to 432 00:23:59.930 --> 00:24:03.450 this new hopeful way to spread democracy, to now a more 433 00:24:03.450 --> 00:24:05.850 pessimistic view of this thing that gives us short attention 434 00:24:05.850 --> 00:24:08.935 spans, causes addictive behavior, and makes politics 435 00:24:08.935 --> 00:24:12.695 more polarized. But in prison, the situation is a little 436 00:24:12.695 --> 00:24:13.255 different. 437 00:24:14.295 --> 00:24:19.015 In 2020, when the pandemic hit, Texas prison 438 00:24:19.015 --> 00:24:23.470 system had no protocol on how to deal with the COVID nineteen 439 00:24:23.550 --> 00:24:28.670 pandemic. My cellmate had two cell phones. He was like, man, 440 00:24:28.670 --> 00:24:30.910 listen. You can use another phone. He's just sitting right 441 00:24:30.910 --> 00:24:31.390 there, man. 442 00:24:31.390 --> 00:24:34.350 I pay the bill. You can use it if you wanna use it. And so, 443 00:24:34.725 --> 00:24:37.605 finally, man, I grabbed the phone, and the first thing I did 444 00:24:37.605 --> 00:24:42.805 is I went to YouTube, and I googled how do you set up a 445 00:24:42.805 --> 00:24:47.525 Facebook page. So I learned Facebook. I learned Instagram. 446 00:24:47.845 --> 00:24:51.800 I learned Twitter. I learned how to edit videos. I learned how to 447 00:24:51.800 --> 00:24:54.680 make slides. I learned how to get the message out on 448 00:24:54.680 --> 00:24:57.640 Instagram, how to get the message out on YouTube. And 449 00:24:57.640 --> 00:25:00.040 that's how me and Trey end up on live. 450 00:25:00.200 --> 00:25:02.520 In 2020, during the peak of the COVID nineteen 451 00:25:02.520 --> 00:25:05.725 pandemic, Jeremy went live on Instagram with a rapper named 452 00:25:05.725 --> 00:25:08.685 Trey the truth to talk about the conditions inside the Texas 453 00:25:08.685 --> 00:25:11.965 state prison. That put a lot more eyes on what was happening 454 00:25:11.965 --> 00:25:12.605 in there. 455 00:25:12.925 --> 00:25:16.765 What unit is can't tell you the unit, bro, but I can 456 00:25:16.765 --> 00:25:19.970 tell you I'm in Texas. It's getting serious down here, man. 457 00:25:19.970 --> 00:25:23.890 Brother, you know, they dying from this corona, man. You said 458 00:25:23.890 --> 00:25:26.770 they cut the phones off. They're not dangling y'all car home? 459 00:25:27.330 --> 00:25:30.290 No. They got everything racked up, man. They got I think it's, 460 00:25:30.290 --> 00:25:35.655 like, 35 units on lockdown. For everybody on here, what's the 461 00:25:35.655 --> 00:25:38.615 what's the best way for us to do? We need to write Huntsville. 462 00:25:38.855 --> 00:25:39.815 We need to call Huntsville. 463 00:25:39.815 --> 00:25:42.615 Social media is giving us unfiltered access into 464 00:25:42.615 --> 00:25:46.470 prisons, something that we'd never had before. But we may not 465 00:25:46.470 --> 00:25:47.750 have it for much longer. 466 00:25:47.750 --> 00:25:50.550 You gotta look at prison like in the same context 467 00:25:50.550 --> 00:25:54.310 as you look at the slavery. Not only do these people try to 468 00:25:54.310 --> 00:25:57.430 control what goes out the prison, they try to control what 469 00:25:57.430 --> 00:25:58.710 comes into the prison. 470 00:26:29.005 --> 00:26:31.085 Before we get into Jeremy's experiences with 471 00:26:31.085 --> 00:26:34.045 social media, we should probably do some backstory. The reason 472 00:26:34.045 --> 00:26:37.245 that Jeremy's in prison starts when he was 21 years old. It was 473 00:26:37.245 --> 00:26:41.690 10/01/1998 at a motel in Dallas County. Here's how Jeremy 474 00:26:41.690 --> 00:26:42.570 explains it. 475 00:26:42.890 --> 00:26:46.410 I pulled up in a motel about four or 05:00 in the 476 00:26:46.410 --> 00:26:49.450 morning. There was a couple of guys out in the motel selling 477 00:26:49.450 --> 00:26:52.890 drugs, and so they tried to sell me some drugs. And so we got 478 00:26:52.890 --> 00:26:55.610 into an argument in the middle of the parking lot because they 479 00:26:55.610 --> 00:26:59.395 was persistent. The argument turned into threats, he took his 480 00:26:59.395 --> 00:27:01.715 shirt off like he was gonna try to assault me or whatever the 481 00:27:01.715 --> 00:27:04.675 case may be. His friend tried to hold him back. 482 00:27:04.675 --> 00:27:08.115 He wasn't able to. And so when he ran towards me, I pulled a 483 00:27:08.115 --> 00:27:13.070 gun. I shot him one time, and that was in 1998 and that 484 00:27:13.070 --> 00:27:15.950 resulted in me getting a seventy five year prison sentence for 485 00:27:15.950 --> 00:27:16.590 murder. 486 00:27:16.830 --> 00:27:19.310 Jeremy is now on his twenty seventh year of a 487 00:27:19.310 --> 00:27:20.830 seventy five year sentence. 488 00:27:21.070 --> 00:27:24.270 My mistake was I left the scene of the crime. 489 00:27:24.350 --> 00:27:28.265 When it happened, I panicked and I fled. And that was the biggest 490 00:27:28.265 --> 00:27:30.985 mistake that I could have made because when they came down to 491 00:27:30.985 --> 00:27:34.745 my trial, that's pretty much what the DA relied upon was the 492 00:27:34.745 --> 00:27:39.145 fact that, you know, if mister Busby really felt like that this 493 00:27:38.280 --> 00:27:40.760 theft defense, why he didn't just wait for the police to 494 00:27:40.760 --> 00:27:44.120 come, why did he flee and all of that, how the kid is from the 495 00:27:44.120 --> 00:27:47.320 hood. And, you know, we don't really deal with the police too 496 00:27:47.320 --> 00:27:49.640 much when something like that happen. It's just a natural 497 00:27:49.640 --> 00:27:50.520 reaction to flee. 498 00:27:51.095 --> 00:27:54.375 But nevertheless, instead of crying out with spilled milk, I 499 00:27:54.375 --> 00:27:57.175 decided to come to prison and identify the areas where I went 500 00:27:57.175 --> 00:28:00.375 wrong that possibly led me to come into prison for the 501 00:28:00.375 --> 00:28:04.135 sentence and then making all of the necessary steps that I 502 00:28:04.135 --> 00:28:07.130 needed to make to ensure that this doesn't ever happen to me 503 00:28:07.130 --> 00:28:11.290 again. Right? Which includes my problem solving skills, my 504 00:28:11.290 --> 00:28:15.370 conflict resolution skills, my coping mechanisms, all of these 505 00:28:15.370 --> 00:28:17.370 things that I wasn't taught during my youth. 506 00:28:18.925 --> 00:28:21.325 Pretty soon after Jeremy arrived in prison, he 507 00:28:21.325 --> 00:28:24.285 realized that he had something that the other incarcerated men 508 00:28:24.285 --> 00:28:25.885 around him didn't have. 509 00:28:25.885 --> 00:28:28.525 When I first got to prison, one of the things 510 00:28:28.525 --> 00:28:31.965 that I noticed despite the fact that I had dropped out of school 511 00:28:31.965 --> 00:28:36.550 in the eighth grade, I could read and write and comprehend 512 00:28:36.950 --> 00:28:40.470 better than the majority of the people that was in Texas prison. 513 00:28:40.950 --> 00:28:44.470 And so as a result of that, I became like a person that would 514 00:28:44.470 --> 00:28:47.205 help people write letters to their families. I was going down 515 00:28:47.205 --> 00:28:49.525 to the La La Berry to help people because I'm working on my 516 00:28:49.525 --> 00:28:52.325 own personal case. But as I was learning, I'm helping them 517 00:28:52.325 --> 00:28:57.365 interpret and learn the law. And then finally, I got in contact 518 00:28:57.365 --> 00:28:59.845 with an attorney named Dunya Witherspoon. 519 00:28:59.490 --> 00:29:02.930 Poon. We became real good friends. And she started writing 520 00:29:02.930 --> 00:29:05.250 me because she had heard about my case and she wanted to help 521 00:29:05.250 --> 00:29:08.690 me out. And so all of these letters that I was writing to 522 00:29:08.690 --> 00:29:13.090 her, she eventually say, Jeremy, listen. I wanna take some of 523 00:29:13.090 --> 00:29:16.065 these letters and start sending them to the newspaper because 524 00:29:16.065 --> 00:29:19.185 you're a real good writer and the stuff that you're writing me 525 00:29:19.185 --> 00:29:20.545 is about prisons. 526 00:29:20.545 --> 00:29:23.185 And a lot of people on the outside don't understand 527 00:29:23.185 --> 00:29:26.145 everything that you understand and you do such a good job 528 00:29:26.145 --> 00:29:27.265 articulating this. 529 00:29:28.110 --> 00:29:30.510 So with Danya's encouragement, Jeremy began the 530 00:29:30.510 --> 00:29:33.630 next phase of his life as a journalist, just one who's 531 00:29:33.630 --> 00:29:36.910 reporting from inside the prison. In general, even if a 532 00:29:36.910 --> 00:29:39.550 journalist like me tries to go and observe things, prison 533 00:29:39.550 --> 00:29:42.590 officials can be very restrictive of what you can do. 534 00:29:42.965 --> 00:29:46.165 So having a journalist on the inside like Jeremy means the 535 00:29:46.165 --> 00:29:49.445 people in the outside world can get a more unfiltered look at a 536 00:29:49.445 --> 00:29:52.565 world that was almost invisible to most of us before. 537 00:29:53.445 --> 00:29:59.460 They already have this tedious tedious process of 538 00:29:59.460 --> 00:30:02.580 of open records act like a person like you wanted to file 539 00:30:02.580 --> 00:30:05.860 to get something on me. They'll put you through so much stuff to 540 00:30:05.860 --> 00:30:08.660 try to get it, and then you might not even get it. And then 541 00:30:08.660 --> 00:30:12.155 they might repack whatever you get and all of that crap. And so 542 00:30:12.155 --> 00:30:15.275 it's all a universal game of censorship. 543 00:30:15.835 --> 00:30:17.915 Jeremy knew that he could provide information to 544 00:30:17.915 --> 00:30:21.195 people on the outside. He just didn't know if anyone would care 545 00:30:21.195 --> 00:30:24.555 what he was saying. It turned out, some people did. 546 00:30:24.930 --> 00:30:29.090 Back in, 2003, I wrote an article for the San 547 00:30:29.090 --> 00:30:33.170 Francisco Review about the heat in Texas prison system and how 548 00:30:33.170 --> 00:30:36.290 we don't have any air condition here. They don't give us any 549 00:30:36.290 --> 00:30:40.755 type of relief as far as, like, cold water or any type of cold 550 00:30:40.755 --> 00:30:44.755 showers or anything like that to negate the extensive heat in the 551 00:30:44.755 --> 00:30:47.875 prison system. Of course, everyone knows detectives has 552 00:30:47.875 --> 00:30:51.875 very hot summers. And most of these structures that we have 553 00:30:52.290 --> 00:30:55.490 was built in the mid eighteen hundreds, early nineteen 554 00:30:55.490 --> 00:30:59.250 hundreds. They're all out of brick and steel, and they don't 555 00:30:59.250 --> 00:31:02.770 have any type of modern ventilation or anything of that 556 00:31:02.770 --> 00:31:03.410 nature. 557 00:31:03.650 --> 00:31:07.105 And so if you don't have family members on the outside that can 558 00:31:07.105 --> 00:31:10.945 send you money to buy a t shirt or buy a pair of gym shorts or 559 00:31:10.945 --> 00:31:13.905 buy a pair of tennis shoes, then you gotta wear your state 560 00:31:13.905 --> 00:31:17.345 uniform the whole entire time. It makes you even hotter. 561 00:31:17.830 --> 00:31:21.190 There's been temperatures recorded inside of the cell 562 00:31:21.190 --> 00:31:24.630 block inside of these buildings sometimes that have exceeded 563 00:31:24.630 --> 00:31:29.750 over a 165 degrees in certain places. In order to combat the 564 00:31:29.750 --> 00:31:33.785 heat, this is what I used to have to do. I go in my cell, and 565 00:31:33.785 --> 00:31:36.665 I have to put, like, maybe a couple of gallons of water on 566 00:31:36.665 --> 00:31:37.385 the floor. 567 00:31:37.785 --> 00:31:40.905 And I had to strip all the way down to my boxer shorts, and I 568 00:31:40.905 --> 00:31:45.030 had to lay in that water. And you have to repeat that process 569 00:31:45.030 --> 00:31:50.390 over and over and over and over again just to maintain a body 570 00:31:50.390 --> 00:31:54.870 temperature that prohibits you from having a heat stroke. And 571 00:31:54.870 --> 00:31:58.070 you have some guys that are, like, put their shirts in the 572 00:31:58.070 --> 00:32:01.405 water, they and wear their shirt while it's wet because we don't 573 00:32:01.405 --> 00:32:05.325 have a shower that you can just go walk and get into the shower. 574 00:32:05.325 --> 00:32:09.645 It's like one shower per day room. I think we was averaging 575 00:32:09.645 --> 00:32:13.645 something close to, like, ten to fifteen heat related deaths 576 00:32:13.820 --> 00:32:16.060 every single summer in Texas prison. 577 00:32:16.060 --> 00:32:17.020 Oh my gosh. 578 00:32:17.100 --> 00:32:19.660 It felt like the numbers can be a lot more 579 00:32:19.660 --> 00:32:23.500 because they'll come back after the autopsy or whatever and say, 580 00:32:23.500 --> 00:32:26.940 this guy died from complications of diabetes or he died from 581 00:32:26.940 --> 00:32:30.075 complications of hypertension. But the truth of the matter is 582 00:32:30.075 --> 00:32:32.795 there was the heat that triggered all of it and it was 583 00:32:32.795 --> 00:32:36.475 the heat related illness that caused death. And so I had wrote 584 00:32:36.475 --> 00:32:40.075 this long article to the San Francisco Bayview, and I 585 00:32:40.075 --> 00:32:43.160 basically said, listen. There's nothing for these people to 586 00:32:43.160 --> 00:32:47.160 bring down coolers and fill them up with ice every morning and 587 00:32:47.160 --> 00:32:49.880 allow us to be able to drink cold water throughout the day. 588 00:32:49.880 --> 00:32:53.160 And that could possibly save one, two, maybe ten, maybe a 589 00:32:53.160 --> 00:32:54.120 hundred lives. 590 00:32:54.120 --> 00:32:58.055 Right? When I wrote that, some days later, they came with a 591 00:32:58.055 --> 00:33:01.975 whole big cart full of yellow igloo coolers that was filled up 592 00:33:01.975 --> 00:33:05.095 with ice, and they put one on every single set of block. 593 00:33:05.415 --> 00:33:07.175 Wow. That immediate. 594 00:33:07.175 --> 00:33:09.860 Yeah. That immediately. And then my editor 595 00:33:09.860 --> 00:33:13.540 at the time was Mary Ratcliffe at the San Francisco Bayview, 596 00:33:13.540 --> 00:33:16.500 and she told me that they politely sent her a letter 597 00:33:16.500 --> 00:33:19.620 asking her if she can retract my article because they had solved 598 00:33:19.620 --> 00:33:20.180 the problem. 599 00:33:21.635 --> 00:33:24.035 We reached out to the Texas Department of Criminal 600 00:33:24.035 --> 00:33:26.755 Justice about Jeremy saying that they'd asked for his article to 601 00:33:26.755 --> 00:33:30.995 be retracted. They declined to comment. After Jeremy wrote his 602 00:33:30.995 --> 00:33:34.110 article on the heat inside prisons, he's also reported on 603 00:33:34.110 --> 00:33:37.550 overdoses and suicide in prison, experiencing executions 604 00:33:37.550 --> 00:33:40.110 happening near his cell, and what happens when the prison 605 00:33:40.110 --> 00:33:42.910 goes on lockdown. His works appeared in places that 606 00:33:42.910 --> 00:33:45.390 specialize in reporting on prisons like the Marshall 607 00:33:45.390 --> 00:33:48.910 Project, but it's also been in publications that the general 608 00:33:48.585 --> 00:33:51.305 public reads, like Slate Magazine or the Columbia 609 00:33:51.305 --> 00:33:55.225 Journalism Review. But getting those articles out isn't always 610 00:33:55.225 --> 00:33:55.785 easy. 611 00:33:56.585 --> 00:34:00.425 As an incarcerated journalist, I have this hill 612 00:34:00.505 --> 00:34:05.370 that I have to climb with these legacy media outlets. I have to 613 00:34:05.370 --> 00:34:09.690 cross all of my t's. I have to dot all of my i's. I damn near 614 00:34:09.690 --> 00:34:12.650 have to put them in contact with the warden for the warden to 615 00:34:12.650 --> 00:34:16.090 say, yeah. Everything that Jeremy wrote is legit. 616 00:34:16.925 --> 00:34:20.525 And so a lot of times, some of the stuff that the people write 617 00:34:20.845 --> 00:34:23.885 being incarcerated, they write to these media outlets, that 618 00:34:23.885 --> 00:34:27.405 stuff never gets to the press because some editor somewhere 619 00:34:27.405 --> 00:34:31.800 saying, hey, man. I can't find what we can substantiate this. I 620 00:34:31.800 --> 00:34:35.160 don't know if this really is going on or whatever the case 621 00:34:35.160 --> 00:34:38.920 may be. So it ends up in somebody's shredder. Now as you 622 00:34:38.920 --> 00:34:42.840 know from being on the outside in journalism, when you got 623 00:34:42.840 --> 00:34:47.445 social media, you can skip the whole entire legacy media outlet 624 00:34:47.445 --> 00:34:48.405 process. 625 00:34:48.645 --> 00:34:53.365 You have a a unobstructed avenue to put the information out that 626 00:34:53.365 --> 00:34:54.645 you wanna put out. 627 00:34:55.605 --> 00:34:57.525 The ability to communicate directly with the 628 00:34:57.525 --> 00:35:01.610 outside world is crucial for Jeremy. But how does he do it? 629 00:35:01.770 --> 00:35:04.330 So there are two main ways that incarcerated people can 630 00:35:04.330 --> 00:35:07.370 communicate through social media. The first one is directly 631 00:35:07.370 --> 00:35:10.890 through a contraband cell phone. These are against the rules, but 632 00:35:10.890 --> 00:35:12.810 they make their way into prisons all the time. 633 00:35:13.130 --> 00:35:15.930 The other way is to call or write to someone who's on the 634 00:35:15.930 --> 00:35:19.825 outside and have them post on your behalf. Jeremy's done both. 635 00:35:19.985 --> 00:35:22.705 Either way, social media gives Jeremy a way to show his 636 00:35:22.705 --> 00:35:25.665 perspective from prison directly without being filtered through 637 00:35:25.665 --> 00:35:28.465 prison officials or waiting for a local media outlet who 638 00:35:28.465 --> 00:35:31.700 believes his reporting or hoping that some outside reporter would 639 00:35:31.700 --> 00:35:35.060 take interest and cover it for him. The best example of this is 640 00:35:35.060 --> 00:35:38.500 when COVID hit. His cellmate had a contraband cell phone, and so 641 00:35:38.500 --> 00:35:41.380 Jeremy was able to directly broadcast what was actually 642 00:35:41.380 --> 00:35:43.940 happening and get immediate responses to help the 643 00:35:43.940 --> 00:35:45.620 incarcerated people around him. 644 00:35:47.195 --> 00:35:49.835 I'm researching this COVID nineteen coronavirus 645 00:35:49.835 --> 00:35:53.595 and all of the precautions that we need in order to safeguard 646 00:35:53.595 --> 00:35:57.435 ourselves from contracting it. One of the main two things that 647 00:35:57.435 --> 00:36:00.235 they ask you to do, well, it's really three things. They ask 648 00:36:00.235 --> 00:36:05.350 you to social distance, to wear our n 95 mask, and to properly 649 00:36:05.350 --> 00:36:09.110 sanitize your hands. Right? So Texas prison system, what they 650 00:36:09.110 --> 00:36:12.790 did, they cut up a bunch of sheets and put little springs on 651 00:36:12.790 --> 00:36:15.510 the side of the sheets, and they was issuing those sheets out to 652 00:36:15.510 --> 00:36:15.670 us. 653 00:36:16.125 --> 00:36:20.045 It's like an n 95 mask. It's a cut up sheet. 654 00:36:20.125 --> 00:36:21.725 It's bed sheets. Okay. Yeah. 655 00:36:21.805 --> 00:36:24.285 Yeah. It's bed sheets. Secondly, they wasn't 656 00:36:24.285 --> 00:36:27.245 passing out any type of sanitation chemicals, like hand 657 00:36:27.245 --> 00:36:31.810 sanitizer or anything of that nature. And then thirdly, it was 658 00:36:31.810 --> 00:36:34.850 impossible for us to social distance because they got us 659 00:36:34.850 --> 00:36:38.290 locked in a cell with another person. So my reporting on all 660 00:36:38.290 --> 00:36:41.090 of that and social media got us the n 95 mask. 661 00:36:41.090 --> 00:36:44.745 They got us the bleach. They started passing us real food out 662 00:36:44.745 --> 00:36:48.265 for our nutrition like bananas and apples and grilled milk. 663 00:36:48.425 --> 00:36:50.665 Again, we asked the Texas Department of Criminal 664 00:36:50.665 --> 00:36:55.160 Justice about this and they declined to comment. Ask most 665 00:36:55.160 --> 00:36:57.400 people what they think about social media and they'll tell 666 00:36:57.400 --> 00:37:00.760 you that there's good parts, but also a lot of bad parts. Echo 667 00:37:00.760 --> 00:37:04.360 chambers, misinformation, all that. Jeremy's aware of this 668 00:37:04.360 --> 00:37:07.845 stuff, but he's also aware that social media is how a lot of 669 00:37:07.845 --> 00:37:11.685 people get their news. For him, that's an opportunity to speak, 670 00:37:12.005 --> 00:37:13.525 but also to learn. 671 00:37:13.765 --> 00:37:17.365 One of the things that social media did for me is 672 00:37:17.365 --> 00:37:22.000 that when I even had an idea of an article or if I wrote the 673 00:37:22.000 --> 00:37:25.760 article out itself, all different type of people will 674 00:37:25.760 --> 00:37:28.880 start sending me additional information to either support or 675 00:37:28.880 --> 00:37:32.640 negate or to advance the topic matters that I found 676 00:37:32.640 --> 00:37:36.295 interesting. Right? And what I realized about social media is 677 00:37:36.295 --> 00:37:39.175 that I can reach people all around the world just opposed 678 00:37:39.175 --> 00:37:42.135 to, like, if I write for a local publication, I might reach 679 00:37:42.135 --> 00:37:44.535 people right here in Texas. If I write for a national 680 00:37:44.535 --> 00:37:49.330 publication, I might get 30 to 35% of the nation. But when I 681 00:37:49.330 --> 00:37:53.490 post something on social media, I can circulate that all over 682 00:37:53.490 --> 00:37:56.370 the world and even translate it into all different type of 683 00:37:56.370 --> 00:37:57.090 languages. 684 00:37:57.250 --> 00:38:01.785 I was talking to people as far away as Switzerland about the 685 00:38:01.785 --> 00:38:05.145 situation in Texas prison. I know now that I don't 686 00:38:05.145 --> 00:38:08.585 necessarily have to put one of my articles in a publication. I 687 00:38:08.585 --> 00:38:12.345 can just drop it in the thread on egg, and it'd have the same 688 00:38:12.345 --> 00:38:16.330 value that it would have if I had dropped it in competition 689 00:38:16.330 --> 00:38:17.530 like the Imperial. 690 00:38:18.970 --> 00:38:21.370 Once Jeremy found a way to use social media, he 691 00:38:21.370 --> 00:38:25.450 suddenly had access to a whole world that he didn't before. But 692 00:38:25.450 --> 00:38:28.490 that's starting to change. Cell phones have always been 693 00:38:28.490 --> 00:38:31.845 contraband, but now prisons across the country are really 694 00:38:31.845 --> 00:38:35.765 cracking down on social media access. We'll get into how and 695 00:38:35.765 --> 00:38:37.445 why after the break. 696 00:38:45.720 --> 00:38:48.280 One of the first things that they told me when I 697 00:38:48.280 --> 00:38:51.800 became a journalist in prison, the warden called me up, and he 698 00:38:51.800 --> 00:38:55.480 talked to me about those two fence that surround the prison, 699 00:38:55.480 --> 00:38:58.995 the perimeter fence with the barbed wire. And he asked me, he 700 00:38:58.995 --> 00:39:02.035 said, Buster, why do you think we got those two fence out there 701 00:39:02.515 --> 00:39:04.915 with the barbed wire? And I said, well, that's to keep 702 00:39:04.915 --> 00:39:08.435 people from escaping. He said, no. That's the wrong answer. 703 00:39:08.675 --> 00:39:12.195 We're not worried about anybody escaping. That's to keep the 704 00:39:12.195 --> 00:39:16.890 public out of here. And when you write what you write and give 705 00:39:16.890 --> 00:39:20.570 these people entry to come into my prison, you're bringing them 706 00:39:20.570 --> 00:39:24.330 over my damn fence, and I don't like that. That's what the 707 00:39:24.330 --> 00:39:29.765 warden told me. And so the social media ban prohibits 708 00:39:29.765 --> 00:39:33.285 people from bringing the general public over the fence. 709 00:39:34.645 --> 00:39:37.285 In 2016, the state of Texas where Jeremy's 710 00:39:37.285 --> 00:39:40.485 incarcerated added a brand new rule to the state's prison 711 00:39:40.485 --> 00:39:44.340 handbook. The rule essentially banned incarcerated people from 712 00:39:44.340 --> 00:39:48.340 having any personal social media pages run-in their name, meaning 713 00:39:48.340 --> 00:39:51.700 that no one outside of prison is supposed to even run an account 714 00:39:51.700 --> 00:39:55.205 on Jeremy's behalf. Similar bans have also been put in places in 715 00:39:55.205 --> 00:39:59.045 other states like Alabama and Iowa. And last year, the US 716 00:39:59.045 --> 00:40:01.525 Federal Bureau of Prisons proposed a rule like the one in 717 00:40:01.525 --> 00:40:04.725 Texas, but that would apply across the entire federal prison 718 00:40:04.725 --> 00:40:07.365 system. If an incarcerated person was found to have a 719 00:40:07.365 --> 00:40:10.300 social media account, that violation would be treated as a 720 00:40:10.300 --> 00:40:12.060 high severity level offense. 721 00:40:12.060 --> 00:40:14.860 That's the same category that's applied to things like fighting 722 00:40:14.860 --> 00:40:15.660 in prison. 723 00:40:16.220 --> 00:40:19.740 That barrier that the prison administration had to 724 00:40:19.740 --> 00:40:23.985 continue the status quo no longer exist for them. And so 725 00:40:23.985 --> 00:40:26.225 therefore, they gotta do whatever they gotta do to put 726 00:40:26.225 --> 00:40:29.265 that back in place. So they got their social media bans. 727 00:40:29.345 --> 00:40:31.505 Back in 2016, when the Texas Department of 728 00:40:31.505 --> 00:40:34.385 Criminal Justice put their social media ban in place, they 729 00:40:34.385 --> 00:40:37.920 told Vice News that, quote, offenders have used social media 730 00:40:37.920 --> 00:40:41.440 accounts to sell items over the Internet based on the notoriety 731 00:40:41.440 --> 00:40:45.040 of their crime, harass victims or victims' families, and 732 00:40:45.040 --> 00:40:47.965 continue their criminal activity. The department went on 733 00:40:47.965 --> 00:40:51.485 to say that they would, quote, take all of the necessary steps 734 00:40:51.485 --> 00:40:54.925 to prevent that from happening. We contacted them to ask whether 735 00:40:54.925 --> 00:40:57.965 that's still the reason for the ban today. They declined to 736 00:40:57.965 --> 00:41:01.110 comment. But, again, there's another side of this. 737 00:41:01.270 --> 00:41:04.310 If we wanna talk about criminal activity, we have to acknowledge 738 00:41:04.310 --> 00:41:08.390 that social media is exposing allegedly unlawful activity that 739 00:41:08.390 --> 00:41:10.470 the outside world should know about. 740 00:41:10.790 --> 00:41:14.925 Now you can take a picture or shoot a video about 741 00:41:14.925 --> 00:41:18.205 what's going on here at the prison system and put that on 742 00:41:18.205 --> 00:41:21.325 Facebook or Instagram, and it's gonna go viral, and it's gonna 743 00:41:21.325 --> 00:41:25.245 cost people their jobs. So that scares the hell out of prison 744 00:41:25.245 --> 00:41:30.220 officials. It scares the hell out of them. Right? Because now, 745 00:41:30.220 --> 00:41:33.100 like, what happened with me, the No Way Out documentary when I 746 00:41:33.100 --> 00:41:35.820 worked with Carrie Blackinger behind the COVID You have one 747 00:41:35.820 --> 00:41:36.460 minute left. 748 00:41:36.460 --> 00:41:42.065 Okay. Damn. When I went live with Tray the Truth, I was able 749 00:41:42.065 --> 00:41:46.705 to do all of that unrestricted without having to wrestle with 750 00:41:46.705 --> 00:41:49.905 any type of mega media outlet or anything like that. We just 751 00:41:49.905 --> 00:41:53.520 dropped it. And it caused a whole bunch of backlash. 752 00:41:53.520 --> 00:41:55.040 Let me call you back one more time. 753 00:41:55.040 --> 00:41:59.760 Okay. Phone calls in Jeremy's unit are limited to 754 00:41:59.760 --> 00:42:02.560 thirty minutes, so we had to reconnect a few times during the 755 00:42:02.560 --> 00:42:05.120 interview. That's why you might hear Jeremy rush through 756 00:42:05.120 --> 00:42:07.705 sentences sometimes. He's just trying to get out as much as 757 00:42:07.705 --> 00:42:11.225 possible before he gets cut off. But what he's getting at here is 758 00:42:11.225 --> 00:42:11.865 important. 759 00:42:12.185 --> 00:42:15.065 When word gets out about conditions on the inside, it can 760 00:42:15.065 --> 00:42:18.345 make things hard for the officials who work there. Jeremy 761 00:42:18.345 --> 00:42:20.665 thinks that the bans are partially there to stop that 762 00:42:20.665 --> 00:42:24.160 from happening. But banning stuff from making rules is one 763 00:42:24.160 --> 00:42:27.280 thing. The next step is the current Trump administration 764 00:42:27.280 --> 00:42:30.080 wants to make it physically impossible to communicate 765 00:42:30.080 --> 00:42:31.520 directly with the outside. 766 00:42:31.680 --> 00:42:34.640 Brandon Carr now from the FCC, they're going 767 00:42:34.640 --> 00:42:38.445 around trying to pass this new law where they can put cell 768 00:42:38.445 --> 00:42:40.605 phone jammers up outside of privilege. 769 00:42:40.845 --> 00:42:43.005 Cell phone jammers are devices that can 770 00:42:43.005 --> 00:42:46.365 block cell phone signals within a certain range. These devices 771 00:42:46.365 --> 00:42:49.165 in general are illegal, partially because they're 772 00:42:49.165 --> 00:42:52.045 dangerous. I mean, think about it. If cell signals can't get 773 00:42:52.045 --> 00:42:55.170 through, you can't call the paramedics or they can't find 774 00:42:55.170 --> 00:42:59.170 you. So obviously, the general public can't have them. 775 00:42:59.330 --> 00:43:02.370 But for that same reason, in general, even state and local 776 00:43:02.370 --> 00:43:06.445 law enforcement can't legally use them. But recently, the FCC 777 00:43:06.445 --> 00:43:09.885 is considering letting prisons use these jammers to block 778 00:43:09.885 --> 00:43:11.565 contraband cell phone use. 779 00:43:11.645 --> 00:43:13.565 They want people to think that people utilizing 780 00:43:13.565 --> 00:43:16.445 these phones to organize criminal activity. And you might 781 00:43:16.445 --> 00:43:19.850 have a handful of people that might utilize the country band 782 00:43:19.850 --> 00:43:22.890 cell phone organized criminal activity. But from being 783 00:43:22.890 --> 00:43:25.450 incarcerated almost thirty years, I'm a tell you that the 784 00:43:25.450 --> 00:43:28.490 majority of the people that using country band cell phones 785 00:43:28.490 --> 00:43:32.810 are trying to connect with long lost family members, loved ones, 786 00:43:32.810 --> 00:43:36.325 childhood friends, and other people like myself are utilizing 787 00:43:36.325 --> 00:43:39.925 it to report on the conditions of the prison. And then you got 788 00:43:39.925 --> 00:43:43.205 third demographic of people that just wanna watch porn and movies 789 00:43:43.205 --> 00:43:46.005 and videos and things of that nature. Right? 790 00:43:46.085 --> 00:43:50.010 There's very few people that utilize the phone to organize 791 00:43:50.010 --> 00:43:54.810 criminal activity, but the prison officials, they're that 792 00:43:54.810 --> 00:43:58.250 the person that's incarcerated is gonna take the phone and 793 00:43:58.250 --> 00:44:01.450 expose them, and so that's the reason why they're pushing this. 794 00:44:02.425 --> 00:44:04.745 Despite all these attempts to block incarcerated 795 00:44:04.745 --> 00:44:08.105 people's access to social media, Jeremy's been able to report out 796 00:44:08.105 --> 00:44:12.665 what's going on in prison. But when he has, he says he's been 797 00:44:12.665 --> 00:44:13.945 retaliated against. 798 00:44:14.185 --> 00:44:17.305 The nature of my career is when I write 799 00:44:17.305 --> 00:44:20.400 something, it don't take very long for them to come down and 800 00:44:20.400 --> 00:44:24.240 talk to me or try to or intimidate or, you know, and all 801 00:44:24.240 --> 00:44:28.560 of that. I'm public enemy number one with these people. If you 802 00:44:28.560 --> 00:44:32.000 say anything that people don't like, they can go look through 803 00:44:32.000 --> 00:44:35.415 your files and possibly subject you to some type of political 804 00:44:35.415 --> 00:44:39.335 prosecution or or file a lawsuit on you or smear your name or 805 00:44:39.415 --> 00:44:42.455 come kick in your door or or lock you up and spray you with 806 00:44:42.455 --> 00:44:45.175 chemical agents and all that. I've been through all of that. 807 00:44:45.670 --> 00:44:49.430 But you don't have as many people like myself that's really 808 00:44:49.430 --> 00:44:52.230 speaking out against these people because they're come 809 00:44:52.230 --> 00:44:52.950 after you. 810 00:44:52.950 --> 00:44:55.750 Right? They're take all of your property. They're gonna transfer 811 00:44:55.750 --> 00:44:58.470 you to different units. They're gonna put you in solitary 812 00:44:58.515 --> 00:45:01.315 confinement. Last year, I've been transferred to four 813 00:45:01.315 --> 00:45:02.195 different units. 814 00:45:02.195 --> 00:45:05.395 Each time I get to the unit, I'm spending days in the cell with 815 00:45:05.395 --> 00:45:09.235 no mattress, no sheets, no blankets, no basic necessities 816 00:45:09.235 --> 00:45:12.435 like soap, toothpaste, and deodorant. This is the stuff 817 00:45:12.435 --> 00:45:15.770 that you go through. And so for the majority of the people in 818 00:45:15.770 --> 00:45:19.210 prison here, hey, man. Just put your head down and don't say 819 00:45:19.210 --> 00:45:22.490 nothing. And they don't come after you. 820 00:45:22.810 --> 00:45:26.010 I have never took that approach because I understand what that 821 00:45:26.010 --> 00:45:29.450 approach does to a person. When you put your head down for so 822 00:45:29.450 --> 00:45:33.745 many times after so many years, that becomes an intricate part 823 00:45:33.745 --> 00:45:37.105 of your character and who you are. And I don't wanna live like 824 00:45:37.105 --> 00:45:40.865 that. And so I resist. And I do it in the best of manners. 825 00:45:40.865 --> 00:45:45.025 Right? I don't never write anything ever that I don't try 826 00:45:45.025 --> 00:45:48.300 to work with administration first on and say, here's the 827 00:45:48.300 --> 00:45:51.340 problem right here. I'm thinking about writing this, but if we 828 00:45:51.340 --> 00:45:54.300 can solve this problem, will I forget about writing it? It's 829 00:45:54.300 --> 00:45:57.660 only when they're not interested in solving a problem that I know 830 00:45:57.660 --> 00:46:01.660 I can write and get the problem solved. So as a result of that, 831 00:46:02.455 --> 00:46:05.895 Jeremy Busby is public enemy number one. 832 00:46:06.455 --> 00:46:09.415 I'm the number one agitator, whatever they wanna call me, 833 00:46:09.415 --> 00:46:12.215 but, you know, I I don't really, you know, I don't really call it 834 00:46:12.215 --> 00:46:15.575 agitation. Right? I call it's like good trouble, like John 835 00:46:15.575 --> 00:46:18.490 Lewis called it good trouble. Right? This is good trouble. 836 00:46:19.930 --> 00:46:21.370 Earlier this year, when the Columbia 837 00:46:21.370 --> 00:46:24.730 Journalism Review asked Texas prison officials about Jeremy's 838 00:46:24.730 --> 00:46:27.530 claims that he's being retaliated against, they denied 839 00:46:27.530 --> 00:46:32.250 it. When we asked them, they declined a comment. Right now, 840 00:46:32.315 --> 00:46:35.755 as we record this episode, Jeremy's in solitary confinement 841 00:46:35.755 --> 00:46:40.395 for what he says is a response to his reporting. More on that 842 00:46:40.475 --> 00:46:48.740 after the break. So hold on. 843 00:46:48.740 --> 00:46:51.220 Jimmy, you're in solitary right now? 844 00:46:51.300 --> 00:46:53.780 Yeah. I'm in solitary confinement right now. 845 00:46:54.100 --> 00:46:57.860 I'm talking to you from a solitary confinement cell. My 846 00:46:57.860 --> 00:47:02.305 cell is about the size of your king-size mattress. That's the 847 00:47:02.305 --> 00:47:03.985 whole size of my cell. 848 00:47:04.225 --> 00:47:07.905 I got a toilet and a sink a steel combo right here. I got a 849 00:47:07.905 --> 00:47:11.905 desk, and I got a metal bunk that I lay on. And I'm confined 850 00:47:11.905 --> 00:47:16.440 to this cell twenty four hours a day. There are no windows. I 851 00:47:16.440 --> 00:47:18.840 can't tell you if it's nighttime or daytime. 852 00:47:19.560 --> 00:47:22.760 The only thing that I can see is directly in front of myself when 853 00:47:22.760 --> 00:47:26.280 somebody walked past. It's got a solid steel door with two 854 00:47:26.280 --> 00:47:30.085 plexiglass windows on the front of it and a solid steel door 855 00:47:30.085 --> 00:47:32.805 that goes all the way down to the bottom, so I can't even 856 00:47:32.805 --> 00:47:35.525 slide anything out of the bottom. I don't even have any 857 00:47:35.525 --> 00:47:39.445 communication with anybody except for the guard. So it's 858 00:47:39.445 --> 00:47:41.765 mentally crippling, and everybody understands that it's 859 00:47:41.765 --> 00:47:44.720 mentally crippling because it cuts you all the way off from 860 00:47:44.720 --> 00:47:46.240 human to human contact. 861 00:47:46.720 --> 00:47:48.960 If you remember our episode on tablets in 862 00:47:48.960 --> 00:47:51.680 prison, Jeremy says that they were recently given one of those 863 00:47:51.680 --> 00:47:54.880 state issued tablet devices that lets them watch religious and 864 00:47:54.880 --> 00:47:58.805 educational programming. And from 2PM to 8PM daily, he can 865 00:47:58.805 --> 00:48:02.645 pay to make phone calls if it's to a number that has registered 866 00:48:02.645 --> 00:48:06.085 to receive a call from the prison. How long you been in 867 00:48:06.085 --> 00:48:06.405 there? 868 00:48:06.405 --> 00:48:09.765 I've been in Sanitary confinement since June 869 00:48:09.765 --> 00:48:10.805 2024. 870 00:48:11.490 --> 00:48:12.770 Over a year? 871 00:48:13.250 --> 00:48:16.770 Over a year. No disciplinary cases. Nothing. The 872 00:48:16.770 --> 00:48:19.970 guards always ask me all the time, hey, man. Why they got you 873 00:48:19.970 --> 00:48:21.170 in here buzzed me? 874 00:48:21.250 --> 00:48:23.970 And I tell them just Google me. And then they come back and say, 875 00:48:23.970 --> 00:48:27.085 okay. I know why they got you in here. Right? Then I even had a 876 00:48:27.165 --> 00:48:28.685 have someone come to me say, hey, man. 877 00:48:28.685 --> 00:48:31.165 Won't you just quit being a journalist so they can let you 878 00:48:31.165 --> 00:48:35.085 out of here? And I'm like, you know, there's certain trade offs 879 00:48:35.085 --> 00:48:39.200 that I'm just not willing to make. Right? And these people, 880 00:48:39.200 --> 00:48:42.320 they they continue to try to harass me and police and, you 881 00:48:42.320 --> 00:48:45.440 know, do a lot of things that they do because of of my 882 00:48:45.440 --> 00:48:48.320 journalism then, hey. That's just to hear that I'm a down. 883 00:48:48.320 --> 00:48:51.925 Right? That's to hear that I'm down. Because I didn't have very 884 00:48:51.925 --> 00:48:54.325 much Dexter when I came to prison. You know, I grew up. My 885 00:48:54.325 --> 00:48:56.325 mom I lost my mom when I was four. 886 00:48:56.405 --> 00:48:58.885 My dad has always been a deadbeat. I dropped out of 887 00:48:58.885 --> 00:49:01.845 school when I was eight, and I was running the streets and all 888 00:49:01.845 --> 00:49:04.885 of that. And so all of the meaningful things that I was 889 00:49:04.885 --> 00:49:09.110 able to obtain for myself during my incarceration, I'll be damned 890 00:49:09.110 --> 00:49:11.190 if I'm a give that back to anybody. 891 00:49:12.070 --> 00:49:18.070 You were talking about the Was somebody knocking 892 00:49:18.070 --> 00:49:18.790 back there? 893 00:49:18.870 --> 00:49:19.910 Hey. No. I ain't got it. 894 00:49:20.185 --> 00:49:22.265 So in the middle of our interview, we were 895 00:49:22.265 --> 00:49:25.545 interrupted by a guard knocking on Jeremy Seldor. 896 00:49:25.545 --> 00:49:29.465 Hey. Hey. Look out. Hold on. Shut up, screaming 897 00:49:29.465 --> 00:49:29.945 for a minute. 898 00:49:29.945 --> 00:49:32.585 Hey, man. I wish you would quit doing that. I'm on the 899 00:49:32.585 --> 00:49:36.560 telephone. I asked you I asked you to quit doing that, but I'm 900 00:49:36.560 --> 00:49:38.080 on the telephone. You what? 901 00:49:38.080 --> 00:49:40.640 I asked you to quit beating on the door because I'm on the 902 00:49:40.640 --> 00:49:43.760 telephone. You're in the rest of my telephone call. I asked you 903 00:49:43.760 --> 00:49:46.640 that privilege. That's the fifth time you did that today, and I 904 00:49:46.640 --> 00:49:49.845 asked you to quit doing that. I I know you didn't get that the 905 00:49:49.845 --> 00:49:50.245 time. 906 00:49:50.245 --> 00:49:57.125 Okay. I'm stupid. I'm sorry about that. Now you got you got 907 00:49:57.125 --> 00:50:00.725 some officers that he's sitting here, he's shit as long as the 908 00:50:00.725 --> 00:50:03.125 phone, so he just gonna come and just beat on the door, beat on 909 00:50:03.125 --> 00:50:05.900 the door, beat on the door. But anyway, I'm sorry about that. 910 00:50:05.900 --> 00:50:08.780 It's all good. It's all good, man. Who was 911 00:50:08.780 --> 00:50:10.700 that? What happened just now? 912 00:50:10.700 --> 00:50:13.740 That's a guard. No. He's a guard. Right? What 913 00:50:13.740 --> 00:50:17.645 they do is they come by every five, ten, fifteen minutes and 914 00:50:17.645 --> 00:50:20.285 just beat on the door with the bar thing that they got. 915 00:50:20.285 --> 00:50:24.605 He done that times today. He's trying to antagonize me. He's 916 00:50:24.605 --> 00:50:27.565 trying to get the reaction that he just got to know that he's 917 00:50:27.565 --> 00:50:31.250 getting up under my skin. They do stuff like that. And so but I 918 00:50:31.250 --> 00:50:34.770 talked to him politely, you know, first couple of times. 919 00:50:34.770 --> 00:50:38.370 I say, hey, sir. If you don't mind, and you come to the door, 920 00:50:38.370 --> 00:50:41.970 you can see me in the door, my light is on. I'm moving around 921 00:50:41.970 --> 00:50:46.455 in my cell. Why do you feel like you have to beat on the door for 922 00:50:46.455 --> 00:50:49.335 five minutes? He has a language barrier. 923 00:50:49.335 --> 00:50:52.775 His English is not very good. And so he came back and did it 924 00:50:52.775 --> 00:50:55.255 again. And I said, hey, man. Do you understand you disturb 925 00:50:55.255 --> 00:50:58.530 people's peace when you're doing all of this? But, anyway, so 926 00:50:58.530 --> 00:50:59.250 here it is. 927 00:50:59.250 --> 00:51:03.650 He came to work at 07:00 this morning. It's 03:00, and this is 928 00:51:03.650 --> 00:51:06.850 the fifth time that he's been to my cell and done this crap. 929 00:51:06.850 --> 00:51:07.890 Oh my gosh. 930 00:51:07.970 --> 00:51:09.650 I'm sorry about that Dexter, Rick. 931 00:51:09.650 --> 00:51:12.130 No. You don't got to apologize to me. 932 00:51:12.130 --> 00:51:12.530 Alright. 933 00:51:13.985 --> 00:51:16.305 Hearing what Jeremy has to go through just to 934 00:51:16.305 --> 00:51:20.545 survive is a lot. I can't imagine what it's like to be 935 00:51:20.545 --> 00:51:23.585 doing journalistic reporting. And then on top of that 936 00:51:24.305 --> 00:51:27.780 We did a no kings protest real quick. So I don't 937 00:51:27.780 --> 00:51:30.100 have to deny the No Kings protest. Right? 938 00:51:30.100 --> 00:51:33.060 You know Jeremy, you organized a No Kings protest 939 00:51:33.060 --> 00:51:33.700 in there? 940 00:51:34.100 --> 00:51:40.295 Hell yeah. Hell yeah. Jeremy. Hey, man. This 941 00:51:40.295 --> 00:51:41.735 this stuff is serious, bro. 942 00:51:41.735 --> 00:51:44.455 I'm a tell you how I organize it. Okay? Because I like the 943 00:51:44.455 --> 00:51:47.415 dudes that's down the road from me, he sent me a letter and 944 00:51:47.415 --> 00:51:51.335 telling me that his niece came home and her mom and her dad had 945 00:51:51.335 --> 00:51:55.175 been picked up by ice. No. So his niece came home from school 946 00:51:55.630 --> 00:51:57.230 and her parents was gone. 947 00:51:57.470 --> 00:52:01.070 Then I got this other guy. He's telling me about how his mom 948 00:52:01.070 --> 00:52:04.590 been working for the federal government in Houston at NASA 949 00:52:04.670 --> 00:52:07.550 for all of these years and the government shutdown then 950 00:52:07.550 --> 00:52:10.905 furloughed her. Right? So she's not able to send any money for 951 00:52:10.905 --> 00:52:14.105 his commissary and put money on his phone. So when I got 952 00:52:14.105 --> 00:52:16.585 thinking about all of this, I'm telling all of these dudes over 953 00:52:16.585 --> 00:52:18.345 here where I'm at, like, hey, man. 954 00:52:18.505 --> 00:52:21.750 This thing that Trump got going on is affecting all of us. And 955 00:52:21.750 --> 00:52:25.190 we need to protest and stand in solidarity with the people on 956 00:52:25.190 --> 00:52:29.350 our side. Okay, Jeremy, what you got in mind? Okay. Listen. 957 00:52:29.350 --> 00:52:32.550 For this Saturday, we're gonna not accept our food. If anybody 958 00:52:32.550 --> 00:52:35.695 need food, let me know. I'll send you some food to eat, And 959 00:52:35.695 --> 00:52:41.535 we're put signs on our door that say no food, no talk, no keys. 960 00:52:41.535 --> 00:52:42.255 Wow. 961 00:52:42.655 --> 00:52:43.615 We did that. 962 00:52:43.695 --> 00:52:44.815 Oh my gosh. 963 00:52:45.055 --> 00:52:49.055 So it was peaceful all the way up to about 08:00 at 964 00:52:49.055 --> 00:52:53.540 night. They wanted the guys that we recruited. He's not all the 965 00:52:53.540 --> 00:52:57.620 way there. And so he started talking like, you know, man, 966 00:52:57.620 --> 00:52:59.460 damn. Just deny my food. 967 00:52:59.460 --> 00:53:02.020 I'm ready to split it off. So he said there's, like, three alarm 968 00:53:02.020 --> 00:53:05.245 fire in his cell. Right? And this other guy manipulated the 969 00:53:05.245 --> 00:53:08.365 lock on his cell, and he bust out the cell and just started 970 00:53:08.365 --> 00:53:11.085 ripping the TVs off the wall. But what I'm showing you is 971 00:53:11.085 --> 00:53:11.485 this. 972 00:53:11.485 --> 00:53:14.445 Okay. These guys the guy that ripped the TV off the wall, that 973 00:53:14.445 --> 00:53:18.570 don't hurt the prison officials. Those TVs are for us. And so now 974 00:53:18.570 --> 00:53:21.290 all the TVs that you'd have ripped off, people can't watch 975 00:53:21.290 --> 00:53:23.930 the news or whatever it is that they wanna watch. You're hurting 976 00:53:23.930 --> 00:53:24.730 the whole community. 977 00:53:24.730 --> 00:53:28.330 It it it they just tells you the mental deficiency that most 978 00:53:28.410 --> 00:53:31.605 majority of the people could have and it's not mild. 979 00:53:31.605 --> 00:53:32.085 According 980 00:53:34.165 --> 00:53:36.405 to Jeremy, the conditions of the system only 981 00:53:36.405 --> 00:53:39.765 exacerbate the problems that he sees in prison. Along with 982 00:53:39.765 --> 00:53:42.965 mental illness, he says that the prison system in Texas suffers 983 00:53:42.965 --> 00:53:46.740 from problems with violence, drugs, and suicides. And to him, 984 00:53:46.980 --> 00:53:50.020 these problems and the social media bans that they wanna put 985 00:53:50.020 --> 00:53:52.420 in place, it's all related. 986 00:53:53.060 --> 00:53:55.940 It always been my position that when you destroy 987 00:53:55.940 --> 00:53:59.935 family bonds and make it impossible for the families to 988 00:53:59.935 --> 00:54:03.855 communicate, then that puts the person in bad situation. And 989 00:54:03.855 --> 00:54:06.895 sometimes, in order to get out of that situation because of 990 00:54:06.895 --> 00:54:11.410 what's going on in prison, you have to turn the door. My whole 991 00:54:11.410 --> 00:54:14.690 thesis is, like, instead of putting money into further 992 00:54:14.690 --> 00:54:18.210 destroying family ties, as far as taking people's own 993 00:54:18.210 --> 00:54:21.090 privileges away, and putting them in a position to where they 994 00:54:21.090 --> 00:54:24.690 can become more depressed and become more mentally disturbed 995 00:54:24.875 --> 00:54:28.555 to where they have to increase their drug usage. Let's take 996 00:54:28.555 --> 00:54:32.395 that same energy, those same resources, that same money as 997 00:54:32.475 --> 00:54:35.435 let's put it towards trying to repair family bonds. Let's put 998 00:54:35.435 --> 00:54:38.830 it towards trying to help people accumulate meaningful things 999 00:54:38.830 --> 00:54:40.990 like so they can receive substance use. 1000 00:54:41.150 --> 00:54:43.150 Let's put it towards like putting people through 1001 00:54:43.150 --> 00:54:44.270 rehabilitation. 1002 00:54:45.310 --> 00:54:47.710 I'm just gonna say this as a journalist who's 1003 00:54:47.710 --> 00:54:52.190 reported on prisons. I would never be able to bring you this 1004 00:54:52.190 --> 00:54:55.335 kind of insight. Jeremy's work provides something that's really 1005 00:54:55.335 --> 00:54:59.335 rare. It's a look at what's actually happening inside this 1006 00:54:59.335 --> 00:55:03.255 prison. But also, his work isn't just on behalf of the 1007 00:55:03.255 --> 00:55:04.215 incarcerated people. 1008 00:55:05.670 --> 00:55:09.190 There's one of your pieces that I was reading earlier today, and 1009 00:55:09.510 --> 00:55:12.550 it was an article, this is for the Chronicle. I wanna quote you 1010 00:55:12.550 --> 00:55:16.550 here. You said, for nearly three decades, I've watched this 1011 00:55:16.550 --> 00:55:20.310 broken system break people, both staff and the incarcerated. 1012 00:55:20.695 --> 00:55:23.335 Instead of returning prisoners back to their communities a 1013 00:55:23.335 --> 00:55:26.455 better version of themselves, prisons return them more 1014 00:55:26.455 --> 00:55:29.895 psychologically damaged, disenfranchised, and poor than 1015 00:55:29.895 --> 00:55:32.615 when they entered. I've seen staff members lose their 1016 00:55:32.615 --> 00:55:36.170 families, their drive to succeed, and even with suicide, 1017 00:55:36.170 --> 00:55:36.970 their lives. 1018 00:55:37.450 --> 00:55:41.450 I think people might be surprised to hear that you're 1019 00:55:41.450 --> 00:55:45.610 also advocating for staff members, for the guards. 1020 00:55:45.850 --> 00:55:46.490 Yeah. 1021 00:55:46.650 --> 00:55:48.330 Like the person who just came by and beat on 1022 00:55:48.330 --> 00:55:48.730 your door. 1023 00:55:49.955 --> 00:55:52.915 Yeah. And that comes from my mentor is a 1024 00:55:52.915 --> 00:55:57.075 retired senior warden, Vernon Pitman. And one of the things 1025 00:55:57.075 --> 00:55:59.875 that Warren Pitman taught me about is that, hey, listen, 1026 00:55:59.875 --> 00:56:02.755 gentlemen, we all are human beings, whether if you made a 1027 00:56:02.755 --> 00:56:06.000 mistake and you in prison or if you made a mistake and you 1028 00:56:06.000 --> 00:56:08.400 worked for the prison, because everybody that worked for the 1029 00:56:08.400 --> 00:56:12.080 prison, they made a mistake. The people that work in prison and 1030 00:56:12.080 --> 00:56:14.800 the people that are in prison all come from the same 1031 00:56:14.800 --> 00:56:18.855 socioeconomic demographics. The majority of them either made it 1032 00:56:18.855 --> 00:56:21.495 through high school and went to the military and couldn't make 1033 00:56:21.495 --> 00:56:21.975 it. 1034 00:56:22.055 --> 00:56:24.775 Some of them dropped out of high school and got their GED and 1035 00:56:24.775 --> 00:56:27.495 started working at a low local fast food restaurant or 1036 00:56:27.495 --> 00:56:32.130 something. But it's very few people inside a prison that has 1037 00:56:32.130 --> 00:56:35.890 a college degree that works here. Very few people. 1038 00:56:35.890 --> 00:56:38.210 I mean, it it really could be people who would 1039 00:56:38.210 --> 00:56:40.610 have been neighbors otherwise, and I guess they're neighbors 1040 00:56:40.610 --> 00:56:41.170 now. 1041 00:56:41.170 --> 00:56:42.690 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Of course they're neighbors. 1042 00:56:42.690 --> 00:56:43.650 They of course they're neighbors. 1043 00:56:43.650 --> 00:56:45.810 And I'm telling y'all, let's just say this. The people that 1044 00:56:45.810 --> 00:56:48.425 work here are not the brightest people that you're find on 1045 00:56:48.425 --> 00:56:52.665 earth. So they easily manipulate it. And the same deficiencies 1046 00:56:52.665 --> 00:56:55.465 that I came to prison with, which is a lack of coping 1047 00:56:55.465 --> 00:57:00.105 skills, no conflict resolution, no constructive decision making 1048 00:57:00.105 --> 00:57:03.570 processes, or any of that. The same things that I came to 1049 00:57:03.570 --> 00:57:06.210 prison with the majority of these guards worked in the 1050 00:57:06.210 --> 00:57:08.290 prison with those same deficiencies. 1051 00:57:09.170 --> 00:57:12.290 I gotta ask you this. Are you concerned about 1052 00:57:12.290 --> 00:57:13.090 talking to me about this? 1053 00:57:13.625 --> 00:57:15.305 No. No. No. No. No. 1054 00:57:15.305 --> 00:57:18.905 Because I talk about this every chance that I get. None of this 1055 00:57:18.905 --> 00:57:22.345 is any secret. These people know what's going on. These people 1056 00:57:22.345 --> 00:57:26.185 done so much to me. There's nothing else that they can do. 1057 00:57:26.185 --> 00:57:28.985 I'm not worried about them killing me physically. Right? 1058 00:57:29.520 --> 00:57:34.320 There's nothing else that they can do to me for my journalism 1059 00:57:34.320 --> 00:57:36.640 that haven't already been done. 1060 00:57:39.040 --> 00:57:41.200 So my conversation with Jeremy had me 1061 00:57:41.200 --> 00:57:43.600 thinking about another conversation I had a few months 1062 00:57:43.600 --> 00:57:46.935 ago with Gabby Kaplan. She's the journalist who's reported on the 1063 00:57:46.935 --> 00:57:49.975 tablets that have been issued in prisons across the country and 1064 00:57:49.975 --> 00:57:52.775 the federal government's efforts to limit the communication 1065 00:57:52.775 --> 00:57:56.295 abilities on those tablets. If you haven't heard that episode 1066 00:57:56.295 --> 00:57:59.200 yet, definitely check it I'll leave a link in the show notes. 1067 00:57:59.280 --> 00:58:03.440 But if you look at the comments online about her reporting, you 1068 00:58:03.440 --> 00:58:06.160 might see people arguing that, well, if you're in prison, 1069 00:58:06.160 --> 00:58:09.520 having a tablet or social media is a luxury. You shouldn't be 1070 00:58:09.520 --> 00:58:11.360 able to have that kind of luxury period. 1071 00:58:12.000 --> 00:58:16.135 Okay. That's an opinion. But I can read you an argument that 1072 00:58:16.135 --> 00:58:19.255 Jeremy Busby himself wrote in a recent article, and I'm just 1073 00:58:19.255 --> 00:58:22.375 gonna quote him here. Regulations that rob 1074 00:58:22.375 --> 00:58:26.510 incarcerated individuals of the ability to expose cruelties and 1075 00:58:26.510 --> 00:58:29.870 human rights violations and hold prison officials accountable 1076 00:58:29.870 --> 00:58:33.790 hurt more people and cause more negative societal consequences 1077 00:58:33.790 --> 00:58:37.470 than they prevent. Just ask those whose lives were saved or 1078 00:58:37.470 --> 00:58:40.665 drastically improved by reporting only made possible 1079 00:58:40.665 --> 00:58:43.225 with the use of contraband cell phones. 1080 00:58:43.465 --> 00:58:47.945 And then he closes that article with a request. Quote, give 1081 00:58:47.945 --> 00:58:52.500 journalists meaningful access records. Give incarcerated 1082 00:58:52.500 --> 00:58:55.540 people the tools to communicate with the outside world and 1083 00:58:55.540 --> 00:58:59.380 document abuses without censorship and retaliation, and 1084 00:58:59.380 --> 00:59:03.620 I'll never use a contraband cell phone again. Or better yet, 1085 00:59:03.995 --> 00:59:12.955 don't commit those abuses at all, end quote. Special thanks 1086 00:59:12.955 --> 00:59:15.515 this week to the Freedom of the Press Foundation and to the 1087 00:59:15.515 --> 00:59:18.260 Never Post podcast who introduced us to Jeremy and 1088 00:59:18.260 --> 00:59:20.500 helped make this whole episode possible. 1089 00:59:22.740 --> 00:59:25.860 And thank you once again for listening to Kill Switch. Kill 1090 00:59:25.860 --> 00:59:29.300 Switch is hosted by me, Dexter Thomas. It's produced by Sheena 1091 00:59:29.300 --> 00:59:33.755 Ozaki, Darlauk Potts, and Julian Nutter. Our theme song is by me 1092 00:59:33.755 --> 00:59:37.115 and Kyle Murdock, and Kyle also mixed the show. From 1093 00:59:37.115 --> 00:59:40.075 Kaleidoscope, our executive producers are Osvalashin, 1094 00:59:40.075 --> 00:59:42.715 Mangesh Hadigador, and Kate Osborne. 1095 00:59:42.715 --> 00:59:45.515 From iHeart, our executive producers are Katrina Norville 1096 00:59:45.515 --> 00:59:46.715 and Nikki Itur. 1097 00:59:47.520 --> 00:59:49.840 Thank you for using Securus. Goodbye. 1098 01:00:09.915 --> 01:00:12.635 That is the show we have for you this week. We're 1099 01:00:12.635 --> 01:00:16.680 gonna be back here in the main feed once more in 2025 and when 1100 01:00:16.680 --> 01:00:21.160 we are, it will be with the return of Never Posts Post 1101 01:00:21.160 --> 01:00:25.480 Mortem. That's right folks. Post Mortem 2025, your favorite year 1102 01:00:25.480 --> 01:00:29.880 end Internet themed game show returns. So keep an eye on your 1103 01:00:29.880 --> 01:00:33.505 feed that will show up at some point before the end of the 1104 01:00:33.505 --> 01:00:33.985 year. 1105 01:00:34.865 --> 01:00:39.985 Folks, Neverpost is currently having a sale on memberships. 1106 01:00:39.985 --> 01:00:43.585 Both of our higher tiers are currently on sale for the same 1107 01:00:43.585 --> 01:00:47.690 low price as our lowest tier. That's right. All levels of 1108 01:00:47.690 --> 01:00:51.690 membership are currently available to you for $4 a month. 1109 01:00:51.930 --> 01:00:56.090 All levels of membership also get you exactly the same thing. 1110 01:00:56.090 --> 01:01:00.410 So arguably, this sale makes more sense than our normal 1111 01:01:00.410 --> 01:01:03.285 pricing structure. The sale is on through the end of the year 1112 01:01:03.285 --> 01:01:06.485 at neverpo.st, become a member and help support your favorite 1113 01:01:06.485 --> 01:01:13.925 local internet podcast. Neverpost's producers are Audrey 1114 01:01:13.925 --> 01:01:16.405 Evans, Georgia Hampton, and the mysterious, doctor first name, 1115 01:01:16.405 --> 01:01:19.420 last name. Our senior producer is Hans Buto. Our executive 1116 01:01:19.420 --> 01:01:23.100 producer is Jason Oberholzer, and the show's host, that's me, 1117 01:01:23.100 --> 01:01:24.300 is Mike McNetta. 1118 01:01:24.460 --> 01:01:26.060 Oh, hold on. I gotta go find a poem. 1119 01:01:28.875 --> 01:01:46.620 Will Tuttle. Bill Tuttle? Here we go. 1120 01:01:48.220 --> 01:01:51.900 This is too much to carry, he thought. I've ascertained how 1121 01:01:51.900 --> 01:01:56.060 far our minds made up. Drift like a crow now or a gorge or a 1122 01:01:56.060 --> 01:02:00.865 braid. So like slow water, depending on rain, depending on 1123 01:02:00.865 --> 01:02:04.225 ice declines the slope, distributing what verse gets, 1124 01:02:04.225 --> 01:02:07.105 what talk, whose motion, of whose hand, what pressure, what 1125 01:02:07.105 --> 01:02:11.080 tensile, what upholds. The center stuck out like a sick 1126 01:02:11.080 --> 01:02:15.160 thumb on what the hard map depends, the going price 1127 01:02:15.160 --> 01:02:16.440 eventualities. 1128 01:02:17.080 --> 01:02:19.880 The entry said be careful. Scattered walls of the wrecked 1129 01:02:19.880 --> 01:02:23.720 city would soon come into view. To him returned, a car rests on 1130 01:02:23.720 --> 01:02:27.625 wet sand. Read it inside many times before it actually came to 1131 01:02:27.625 --> 01:02:31.065 pass. In the very middle of resting, of approaching, just 1132 01:02:31.065 --> 01:02:31.785 being there. 1133 01:02:31.785 --> 01:02:35.385 Certainly, one of those things that would come to pass. His 1134 01:02:35.385 --> 01:02:41.780 hand bends to greet you. Excerpt of a map folded by Bill Tuttle. 1135 01:02:43.540 --> 01:02:46.020 Never Post is a production of charts and leisure and it's 1136 01:02:46.020 --> 01:02:48.020 distributed by Radiotopia.