HACK ATTACK

by Paul DeRienzo

Andrea Cisco also claims that she was the victim of a devastating hacker attack that wiped out major files on her hard drive including "design and confidential client information." Cisco says that when a firewall was placed on her computer the traces of hacking software were discovered and it was discovered that executive session minutes of the PNB had been "pulled off." Cisco admits being emotionally drained by the Pacifica conflict. The personal attacks were among the worst she says, adding that the September 11^th attacks were "foreshadowed by the terrorists who entered my life."

Unfortunately the "terrorists" were also some of Cisco’s former colleagues who were also her neighbors. She recounts how WBAI LAB member Mimi Rosenberg who lives across the street would scream invectives out her window against Cisco. Bernard White, now WBAIs Program Director lives on the same block as well. She says they prompted some of her neighbors to post signs with "disgusting things about me," Cisco claims the signs perpetrated lies about "how I sold out the neighborhood." Cisco says she eventually "just got sick and tired of it."

Former Pacifica Executive Director Bessie Wash has some of the most damning criticisms of her successors who she maintains are unqualified to lead the Pacifica Foundation. Wash says that the lawsuits brought by the various groups aligned against the PNB were "devastating to the foundation." Wash maintains that since the iPNB took full control of Pacifica there has been a "total bloodbath of managers," Wash asks, "what qualifies Dan Coughlin to be Executive Director? What did Assistant Executive Director Verna Avery Brown manage before?"

Wash says that she was most surprised by Amy Goodman’s attacks Goodman was a friend who often played with Wash’s two children when visiting in Washington. Wash adds that she’s been reluctant to discuss her charges of harassment and malfeasance by Goodman and the Pacifica Campaign. Referring to the iPNB she maintains that the "current administration has no concern at all of libeling the Foundation, I do."

Goodman’s role at WBAI is at the center of the controversy. Wash says that Goodman was part of national programming staff and was not supposed to have a management role. "In my tenure," she says, "there was no legal reason for Amy to have check writing power." But Wash asserts she had been told check writing by Goodman "had occurred" and that there was "something set up between Amy Goodman and Valerie Van Isler." Wash adds that Van Isler gave her assurances that while Goodman had written checks in the past that it was no longer happening.

But Wash complains that despite Van Isler’s assurances Goodman continued a "definite influence on what checks were written." Wash claims that Goodman would "raise money for specific things and checks were written to cover those things," she says, putting the Foundations broadcast licenses at risk. According to Wash there is ample proof of her charges "in the records," and that "investigations were made and certain things were discovered." She says, "accountants have been concerned about the fund raising practices and whether funds had been laundered through WBAI, that money was raised in the name of WBAI and used to pay people for things other than what they were supposed to be doing." Wash repeats adamantly that "the things I’ve said are a matter of record."

Wash also describes some of the personal attacks she suffered. A complaint shared by many Pacifica staffers during he past year is the gutter level racial slurs thrown around by some of the dissident groups and their supporters. Wash adds that the attacks didn’t stop at racism but included "phone calls, death threats and threatening emails." On one occasion she was followed in her car while driving with her two small children and that she was so fearful that she had to pull over shaking in fright.

Wash continues to be concerned about the future of the Pacifica Foundation. "The current Board has no plan for the Foundation," she says, "they don’t even have a fund raising goal." The Foundation by-laws require a budget but Wash asks, "where is it?" Wash says ominously that the iPNB is "not complying with fiduciary policies and procedures."

Wash is particularly worried about the iPNB’s recent decision returning the Pacifica national office to Berkeley from it’s current home in Washington DC. Wash wants to know "what happened to the 50 to 80,000 dollars in equipment and costs to move from California to DC." There was a "huge amount of money invested in the move," adds Wash. "Then they lay off people," she continues incredulously, "where are the resources going to be found" to make the move back to the California. Wash is referring to the recent lay off of the Pacifica Network News staff and others as a cost-cutting move by the iPNB.

Wash insists that the move to DC was carefully thought out and that the decision was made in the 1980s when Congress was actively trying to cut the Corporation for Public Broadcasting’s funding of Pacifica after a series of controversial programs were aired. The move to DC was an attempt to co-locate the financial office, which was in Los Angeles, with the national office, which had been in the same building as KPFA in Berkeley. Wash says that the three hour time difference between the east and west coasts was undermining the Foundation’s ability to respond quickly to events in DC, where the CPB and Congress are located.

Wash sums up her feelings with a hint of ridicule of the iPNB’s efforts, she says, "the only thing they can do is accuse the former Board, although many of the iPNB members were also members of the old Board," now she adds, "they say they knew nothing about it."

Michael Palmer was a PNB member until he resigned in May of 2001, he says he left because of the escalating personal attacks and threats that were being made against him. Palmer supports Bessie Wash’s assertion that members of the iPNB, who had also been members of the old Board, had voted to comply with the CPBs rule prohibiting Local Advisory Board members from voting on the Foundation’s national board. Palmer mentions PNB member Pete Bramson (an appointee of the KPFA LAB) as the first Board member to threaten lawsuits against the PNB, even though Bramson had originally voted to comply with the CPB rules. Bramson’s break with the PNB came in a speech several months later when he accused PNB member Acosta of trying to sell KPFA. A charge roundly denied by Acosta, Mary Francis Berry, Bessie Wash and every member of the PNB so far interviewed.

Palmer says it was soon after Bramson started speaking out against the PNB that he started getting email threats. He says he got used to deleting them but then the threats started escalating to phone calls at early morning hours, "2, 3, 4 in the morning." According to Palmer the callers’ whose numbers couldn’t be traced contained messages including, "we’ll kill you, we’ll get you, you get out of here." Palmer says he began to get one caller in particular "identifying himself only as "Pacifica Campaign" asking him repeatedly to resign. The caller would become increasingly belligerent threatening that "we’ll see you in the street and we’ll get you."

Palmer describes how the telephone and email harassment kept escalating into an "email and voicemail deal" to overwhelm the mail of the head of the company where Palmer works. Palmer says his immediate boss had actually gotten to know the Pacifica issues and promised to run interference, but when the attacks targeted the CEO word came down for Palmer to "bug out." Palmer says he hopes that the settlement agreement isn’t overturned because as an original defendant in the dissident lawsuits against the PNB he would be dragged back into the case. He says his wife would never allow him to get involved in Pacifica politics again.

Former WBAI General Manager Utrice Leid charges the dissident group with conducting "a campaign of terror." She says "they targeted people throughout the network," with "smears and death threats, pretending they had nothing to do with it." Leid asserts that the truth is "a small group of out-of-control people wanted control." Leid calls the dissidents’ seizure of power at Pacifica "a putsch" and "a bloodletting." In particular Leid points to what she calls the "public lynching of Bob Daughtry,*" who was General Manager at WBAI for several months after Leid was promoted to the national office. The firing was broadcast live on all five Pacifica stations during the January 12, 2002 iPNB meeting. John Murdock (A debate between John Murdoch and Democracy Now! co-host Juan Gonzalez) is another former Board member who says Daughtry’s on air firing was "absolutely outrageous." The motion terminating him was introduced by the "WBAI Committee," an organization within the iPNB that includes chair Leslie Cagan, other Board members and five anonymous members of WBAIs Local Advisory Board.

Daughtry, a long time Pacifica employees based at WPFA in Washington DC says Pacifica is currently being run by the same people who "got the network into trouble." He says "they have high expectations but they can’t reach people." He adds that the current programming is "insular, preaching to the choir" and based on an "inside language, that’s "not going to go very far" in winning over a mass audience.

Cagan says her goal is to establish a new system at Pacifica that gives management responsibilities to each LAB, including final say on all hiring, firing and program decisions. One of the first motions made by the shadowy WBAI Committee was to demand the decertification of WBAI staff who voted to become part of AFTRA. One point of the motion passed by the iPNB in January specifically stated the Boards intent to provide time for workers to select "a new union." This led AFTRA Assistant Executive Director Ken Greene to charge that Pacifica was "committing unfair labor practices." These firings and other actions that seemed to be targeting Pacifica’s unionized employees are in direct conflict with an order by the California judge, who worked out the settlement agreement that brought in the iPNB, that there be no "bloodbaths" aimed at Pacifica employees associated with the former regime.

Leid lays out a litany of improper dealings that she puts at the feet of Amy Goodman and Bernard White. She says, "I believe Amy Goodman routinely processed press credentials for New York press license plates. Press plates allow working reporters avoid parking tickets. Leid says White sent a letter to the Department of Motor Vehicles asking that DMV to replace Goodman’s name with his own as the official contact person at WBAI so that he could get working press plates.

White has come under repeated criticism for allegedly holding down a management position as Program Director while receiving a salary as an host on his morning show, Wake Up Call. White wasn’t a reporter in the WBAI news department and the procedures for getting a press pass from the NYPD clearly require the News Director to sign for each press credential. The WBAI News Director is Jose Santiago, neither White nor Goodman had the position or authority to sign for NYPD press credentials.

In another press credential fiasco, according to Leid, Goodman gave presidential candidate Ralph Nader her own press pass at the Republican National Convention in Philadelphia, which Leid says caused the RNC and the Democratic National Committee to cancel credentials for everyone at Pacifica. When KPFT manager Garland Gantner criticized Goodman she attacked Gantner claiming she had done nothing wrong.

The problems between Pacifica Foundation managers and Goodman may have began with an argument over the rights to broadcast excerpts from Arrianna Huffington’s Shadow Convention during the Presidential nominating conventions in the summer of 2000. Veteran programmer Marc Cooper, a major programmer at KPFK, was enraged when Goodman allegedly broadcast the excerpts on Democracy Now, because rights to the taping had been granted exclusively to KPFK. Cooper accused Goodman of stealing information. One source says, "fucking with rights can damage relationships."

An incident concerning National Public Radio producer Davis Isay illustrates how Goodman was alienating her colleagues. When Isay was putting together his Prison Diaries, which included recordings of actual executions, at US prisons, he appeared on Democracy Now. During the program Goodman asked Isay "why aren’t they running your stuff on All Things Considered?" Isay’s producer speculated that it was because NPR feared its underwriters would pull their support. The real reason was that Isay couldn’t come to terms with NPR over how to technically portray the material. A former NPR associate says Goodman could have met with the NPR ombudsmen without going public with her attacks and that although Isay has kept quiet about the incident, he was not happy or supportive of Goodman’s outburst.

According to a source Goodman’s friction with NPR goes back to an incident in the early 1990s. After Goodman had returned from reporting for Pacifica in East Timor she became enraged when NPR told her the story she wanted to file was "commentary not news." She reportedly stormed into NPR VP Bill Buzenberg’s office and in a screaming tirade directed at his staff, Goodman demanded NPR run her story. A source says that’s why "Amy Goodman will never work for NPR."

At WBAI Utrice Leid accuses Goodman of improper and possibly illegal hiring practices. Involving Deepa Fernandez. According to Leid, Fernandez was not authorized to work in the United States, but Goodman tried to get Pacifica to sponsor Fernandez to work at Democracy Now, although there were qualified US citizens available to do the job, a serious violation of immigration laws. Eventually Leid says Fernandez was hired when Goodman got Van Isler to pay Fernandez. Leid asserts that "there could have been serious trouble with the INS."

Leid also claims she was the target of intense personal attacks and harassment. She says WBAI producer Mimi Rosenberg "kicked me and called me a fucking bitch," and that she was constantly followed by two women Leid calls her "personal stalkers," one of whom always carried a video camera. She says one of them came into her office and had to be "kicked out." Leid’s home was also picketed.

But Leid saves most of her vitriol for what she calls Goodman’s attack on Pacifica program director Steve Yasko’s gay sexuality. Leid says Goodman falsely accused Yasko of "misogynistic" behavior, charges that were fully investigated and found "meritless." Adding that Goodman made the charges against Yasko to run up Pacifica’s legal bill. She also says Goodman continued to bill Pacifica for Democracy Now’s telephone and other expenses even after Goodman had removed the show from WBAI and was syndicating it on cable TV. Leid charges Goodman with trying to launch her own business, subsidized by Pacifica.

Steve Yasko says he would have sued his attackers if he’d only knew who they were Similarly other Pacifica employees also report that many of the attacks on them were either anonymous or from people they didn’t know. "The Pacifica Campaign portrayed me as something I’m not, a child pornographer," Yasko continues, "They sent out an email to hundreds of public radio professionals and colleagues saying I was a sex purveyor." He describes one email that was mysteriously blind cc’d to him that states "I need $2000 to finish the Yasko project." He says two more similar emails followed culminating in one that read, "I never hurt anyone, if you’re interested in that kind of thing ask Juan, he has those contacts." Yasko says Robert Knight eventually admitted to him that he had sent the emails, Knight justified the messages by telling Yasko, "You don’t know what a living hell my life is."

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