Art Bell hosts David Race Bannon, exposing Broadband Over Power Lines (BPL)—a tech threatening emergency HF radio, military comms, and ham radio—despite FCC’s push ahead despite warnings from FEMA and ARRL’s Jim Haney. Bannon, an Interpol veteran, reveals Archangel, a covert unit targeting child sex trafficking, linked to his fiancée’s murder by North Korean terrorists using pornography. He details Reagan-era immunity shielding operatives from prosecution, ethical dilemmas of torture/assassination, and global trafficking hubs like Thailand, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. Bannon’s work highlights systemic failures in justice, corporate data exploitation, and the moral cost of vigilante intelligence—raising urgent questions about privacy, security, and accountability. [Automatically generated summary]
In my opinion, what you're about to hear involves nothing less than a sellout of our safety and our privacy for greed.
Nothing more than corporate greed.
We'll be right back.
Suppose I were to tell you that an agency of the United States government is encouraging, cheerleading a technology that in part could do the following.
It could destroy or degrade emergency communications across the entire American landscape, all across America, so that when, not if, but when another 9-11 or something like it happens, or perhaps an earthquake or a hurricane or, you know, whatever, there's always something happening, man-made or delivery from on high is going to happen.
You and I both know, we all know what's going to happen.
Something's going to happen.
So we depend on people to save our lives, to coordinate emergency response, to get the medics to the people who are dying and maimed, to get help to those who need it.
Well, what if they couldn't talk to each other?
What if they could not coordinate their efforts?
Further, listen carefully now.
This technology has the potential to make George Orwell's Big Brother seem like nothing by comparison, I suppose.
Just imagine every single electrical outlet, every electric socket in your home or your business could serve as a conduit to log and report every move you make to some corporation or even the government.
What if I told you that this is not science fiction, not my wild imagination, and you know I have one.
No, I'm afraid this new technology is being deployed right now.
That an agency of our federal government, seemingly in league with big money corporate interests, is actually behind this nightmare that's unfolding across America.
You don't know a thing about it till now.
You don't know anything about this.
You better listen very carefully.
You probably say you don't believe it.
Well, the agency is the Federal Communications Commission.
Those corporate interests I mentioned?
None other than many of the nation's very largest power companies.
You know, the people who bring you 120 volts AC or whatever.
The technology we're about to discuss is called BPL.
That stands for Broadband Over Power Lines.
Now, very briefly, it could disrupt.
Listen to me very carefully.
See if you're affected by any of this.
It could disrupt HF as high frequency overseas aircraft communications.
ILS, if you're a pilot, you know what that is, right?
The Federal Emergency Management Agency has said it will virtually destroy their ability to communicate in an emergency.
Explosive detection systems, military communications, public safety radio systems, aircraft navigation systems?
It will destroy ham radio.
It will destroy citizens band.
Are you listening to me out there, truckers?
It will destroy CB.
It will destroy time and frequency stations like WWV.
It will destroy the ability of some emergency medical service people to talk to each other, many police and fire departments, highway patrol, radio control devices, you know, little airplanes, people fly around out there by radio control, gone.
Are you listening?
Some cordless telephones.
Television channels, two through six, in trouble.
AM broadcasting.
From the FCC side itself, maybe even HDTV.
Do you have one of those, high-definition television?
Over-the-horizon radar that our military depends on.
In a moment, well, no, now we'll talk with Jay Mahaney, who is president of the very prestigious American Amateur Radio Relay League for the entire nation and leads the world, really, in a lot of ways with regard to amateur radio, and Also, somebody you might know, Joe Walsh, who's the lead guitarist of the Eagles.
So let us begin, and let's start with Jim Haney.
Jim, welcome to the program.
unidentified
Well, thank you very much, Art.
It's a pleasure to be here, and I've got to say good morning to all your guests out there because it is morning here in Dallas, where I'm at.
Yeah, so they're talking about putting a signal on power lines.
Now, everybody probably at home who has, like, for example, cable TV, they know they've got a cable coming into their house, a shielded cable, that's the important part of this, that delivers television to your home.
Now, that has a shield on it, and that protects all these signals from escaping from the wire.
And the difference with BPL is that it's going to be on all of our nation's power lines.
You know, those things that go by your house, and they're like gigantic antennas.
So they're going to actually be transmitting from these gigantic antennas and virtually in every single American person's home.
Isn't that about what they're after?
unidentified
That's correct.
And one of the other things you need to think about is not only the transmitting, but they're able to receive, too.
So that has us concerned as ham radio operators.
But as you mentioned, a lot of the citizen band operators and some of the law enforcement, in fact, they're in California, the California Highway Patrol still uses the frequencies down in the range that would be affected.
Well, the first question, the obvious question I would have is, for example, I read the FEMA document.
FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, you know, they wrote this incredible thing about BPL.
I'll read a little bit of it here in a moment.
But they wrote this amazing thing saying, look, our agency's transmitters are not going to be able to operate if you put this BPL into service.
And they sent this to the Federal Communications Commission.
And I think most hams and most of us said, ah, boy, they're not going to be able to ignore this.
They'll kill BPL quickly.
But somehow it did.
How can they ignore this?
unidentified
I don't know.
I'll be honest with you.
There's another study out there, too, that we're all anxiously waiting to hear from, and that's the NTIA study.
But in our research and also in talking to various agencies, we don't do this just by ourselves.
I don't want people to think that just the ham radio operators are affected because we're not.
We're amongst everybody that's in that spectrum.
In fact, the NTIA said there's over 18,000 frequency assignments by the federal government, just the federal government, between 2 and 30 megahertz, the FBI being one of them.
So FEMA's concerned because if there is a disaster, and California has had certain of their share of fires and earthquakes and whatnot, what FEMA does is go into the area and set up HF, as you mentioned, high-frequency communications to aid in the disaster relief.
And if we have a large noise in the neighborhood, in this case BPL, they wouldn't be able to do that.
So I was really surprised when the FCC kind of sloughed that off from FEMA.
I got a little dramatic at the beginning of this, and I said, you know, nothing less than sort of a, I don't know, government giveaway and a corporate greed grabs kind of deal.
But that is what it feels like.
And the Federal Communications Commission would think normally would be concerned with our safety, at least, if not our privacy.
And so this is sailing through.
An obvious question is, how can this be getting approved like this?
How can it happen?
I mean, it's just beyond the pale.
How?
unidentified
It surprises us as well at the league, I'll be honest with you, because the evidence is there.
And if you've gone to our website, you can see some of the videos that we've done that shows what occurs.
And I was pretty flabbergasted when the Commission went ahead with the notes of proposed rulemaking.
And so while it's not a done deal, and everybody has a chance to make a comment on it, it looks like to me that the steamroller is going.
It's going to happen in some form or fashion.
And while amateur radio operators are not against BPL per se, we are against the interference.
And the people that asked for the proposed rulemaking, the PLCA, did not get everything they wanted.
I have to admit, there was some relief there about mitigation of interference, but the onus is on us.
I wouldn't recommend it for the general public, but for amateur radio operators, I've got a link up tonight to the ARRRL site, and there you can watch a video, which will show you exactly what it's going to be like when BPL comes to your neighborhood.
And I gave Joe Walsh an opportunity to watch it just before he came on the program tonight.
What were your impressions, Joe?
unidentified
I was absolutely shocked.
I was absolutely shocked.
It compared with and without, and we're talking about all shortwave communications as we know it, and they virtually disappeared.
All signals on shortwave radio just virtually disappeared when the BPL was fired up.
Well, you know, it does mean, now, the three of us here are all hams.
I think that it very nearly would seem to be the end of ham radio.
But, you know, that's us.
Most of the public is going to go, oh, well, ham radio, gee, wouldn't it be nice to have the Internet right there in my wall socket so I can plug my computer in and be on the Internet?
I wonder if the public has considered another aspect of having a two-way communication system in every single one of their wall sockets.
Jim, doesn't it seem to you that the manufacturers will start turning out appliances that, well, maybe on the benign side, we'll start by reporting your usage or something like that.
But gee whiz, big brother, talk about big brother.
Holy mackerel.
unidentified
It's coming.
I have to admit, some of the refrigerator manufacturers have already started putting chips in, or they'll say they will.
They'll let you know when you need a gallon of milk or some more eggs or cheese or whatnot, and this will all be done via chip, and it'll be connected to the wall socket, as you say, because the refrigerator is plugged in.
And where does it go from there?
I mean, Madison Avenue would certainly love to know what programs I listen to or watch or see and when I go to the dairy, to the grocery store, and what I buy.
And all this is certainly possible.
In fact, Ed Thomas of the Federal Communications Commission was talking about that in one of his interviews with another reporter not too long ago.
Well, the U.S. government, for example, has this echelon deal where they monitor the telephone calls, certainly international calls, even domestic calls, you know, in the name of homeland security.
And while I understand that, if it were possible to have some sort of communication device in somebody's house stealthily plugged into the wall somewhere, gee, they could monitor everything you do in your house.
unidentified
They would know when you come home, when you go watch TV, when you go to bed, when you get up in the morning, because of the electrical load and the chip and the electrical meter, be monitoring all of that.
I'm sort of tearing into the FCC here, probably unwise since I have a broadcast license and a lot of other licenses.
However, the FCC, which used to be made up primarily of engineer-type, you know, engineers, real radio or television broadcast engineers, and they are still there, but their numbers are smaller, aren't they, Jim?
And there's a lot of bureaucrats there now, huh?
unidentified
That's true.
Over the last several years, it's gone more toward political type appointees and less engineer-type people that understand the actual spectral problems.
But let me point out that, quite frankly, the FCC doesn't care whether BPL succeeds or fails.
But their argument is, well, they make it possible, and if it's economically feasible, then great.
If it's not, then it'll fail of its own accord.
And tonight, before I came on your show, I downloaded some documents from the Carnegie Mellon Institute, and it's a very prestigious university.
And they talked about the promises and false promises of power line over broadband communications.
And the article is written by Mr. Tonga.
He's a PhD and research professor.
And basically what he's saying is it's not economically viable.
But nonetheless, there's a big push behind making it available.
Well, and the FCC almost seems to be cheerleading it.
I mean, there were some statements I know made by commissioners that suggested this is going to be the best thing since sliced bread, you know, buttered bread or something.
unidentified
Yeah, that's true.
I've been kind of disappointed in the commission, but I understand, like you, I have a license as well, and the ARRL, the American Radio Relay League, still has to do business for the Commission, so I can't jump out there too hard.
But I would say this, that there should be a regulating agency and not a Chamber of Commerce.
Well, again, there's still a lot of good guys and gals in the FCC, but at the top, it would seem as though there's a sort of a steamroller kind of attitude about BPL, and they would seem to be sort of on the side of BPL.
The Commission is usually neutral, and it's like, let's examine this, let's take comments on whether or not this is a wise thing for our nation to do.
And by the way, while we're on the subject, a lot of nations have tried this and decided it was not so wise.
Isn't that right, like Japan?
unidentified
That's correct.
There's a number of countries.
Austria, Japan, both finally said they didn't want it in their country because it made so much noise, it made their communications intolerable.
And I was surprised that the Commission didn't take some of the data that they had and examine what some of these other countries had experienced.
It's like, well, we're America.
We could do it better.
We could do it different.
And that's what the industry, PLCA, is telling the Commission.
They seem to have the Commissioner's ears pretty well.
I just wanted to add that the Netherlands was kind of a test case for Europe, and the Netherlands is shutting it down.
They tried it on a limited basis, and they're completely stopping it totally in July.
And they say it's a nightmare they wish they'd never gotten into.
Yes, and also, I mean, none of this, of course, is really presented to the FCC.
They've got a presentation where this interference issue really is hardly mentioned, and there's really no published information with the pro-BPL people about the interference.
I mean, does anybody really have the answers about why the FCC's ear isn't bent toward listening to those who say this is going to be an utter disaster instead of listening to the corporate side, which I understand has money and influence, but gee Whiz, they're supposed to be in the middle.
unidentified
That's true.
The thing that concerns me, not only is the ham radio operators, but we did some research.
It's not scientific by any means, but I went back and looked at some of the manufacturers of equipment for the frequencies 50 megahertz and below.
And there's just a numerous number of small towns, small volunteer fire departments, small one and two and three police department, you know, members of the police departments out here in rural America that still uses these frequencies.
And I'm curious what happens when they fire it up.
Now, one of the things that always amazed me about the hype that the PLC has done, and that's over BPL, is, well, every American home has a wall plug.
We can do Farmer Jones out here 10 miles out of town, and he can have broadband.
Well, I have to ask the question, and this is a pretty simple question.
Why doesn't he have it now?
Why doesn't the cable companies run a cable out there?
Why doesn't the telephone companies run a DSL line out there?
Well, the answer, of course, is it's not economically viable.
Even though BPL will wipe out ham radio, will wipe out CB radio and aeronautical stuff, and the list goes on and on and on and on.
Even though it's going to wipe out my hobby, I think you all should be aware of the fact that it's also going to wipe out emergency communications in many cases.
It's going to put Big Brother right in your house, in every single electrical socket in your home.
You need to write to your congressman.
You need to write to your senator and say, stop BPL, or at least, at the very least, stop and take a good, long, hard look before you decide to do something that many other countries wisely have tossed out the window.
Listen to just a little bit of what FEMA said.
They're very, very important.
FEMA is very important to us.
Federal Emergency Management Agency, they said in summary with what they filed to the FCC, they said, The HF spectrum is a unique resource for survivable, long-distance, fixed and transportable communications that are independent of fragile infrastructure.
Other communications media cannot meet FEMA's requirements for disaster response and other mission-critical communications.
Other users of the HF spectrum are similarly affected by the proposal, and only HF radio can meet their needs as well.
Implementation of BPL under the present or relaxed emission restrictions would make HF radio unusable.
Did you hear that?
That's from FEMA.
Would make HF radio unusable, depriving our nation of an invaluable and irreplaceable public safety resource.
The purported benefits of BPL in terms of expanded service in certain communication sectors do not appear to outweigh the benefit to the overall public of HF radio capability as presently used by the government broadcasting and public safety users.
That's FEMA.
Once again, the president of the organization that represents my hobby nationally, Jim Haney, president of the Amateur Radio Relay League, along with Joe Walsh, who's the lead guitarist for the Eagles and happens to also be an amateur radio operator.
Welcome back, you two.
Is it possible, do you think, either one of you, that the engineers, and there are still good engineers in the FCC, are simply not managing to have their voice heard over that from the other side?
Or is it possible that simply they're not listening to their own people in this case?
unidentified
I think that they're not listening to their own people.
I mean, I've talked to a number of engineers at the Commission to shake their head, but they're being overwhelmed by upper-level management and other sources, I think, coming from.
You mentioned in your lead a while ago about the FEMA summary statement, and I think a little bit more could be added to that, and that is after 9-11, everybody in the emergency response teams, such as police and fire and aviation and whatnot, discovered that we have a very fragile and very complicated infrastructure for telecommunications.
That's right.
Sitting here looking a little cell phone, it's smaller than a pack of cigarettes.
And the cell phones, for the most part, in the 9-11 area, were totally useless, weren't they?
unidentified
They were, and it's a common occurrence.
The Murray building in Oklahoma City, when it was bombed, all the cell phones around there got tied up by media and the emergency services couldn't do anything.
So they've gone back to the basics, point-to-point communications.
And that's what we're talking about here in BPL interfering with, is point-to-point communications.
And I'm really concerned about that, as everybody should be.
I think it's just one small fragment of the society, how we work and how we communicate.
But it's also a very important one, like I mentioned a while ago.
It's particularly important right now, Jim and Joe, because 9-11 did just happen.
It's very fresh in our minds.
We know something awful or something else is going to happen.
We're at war.
We've so declared it a war, right?
We're at war.
So something else is going to happen.
If that doesn't, Mother Nature will deliver something.
And our people, our emergency response teams, have to be able to talk to each other.
And I just don't see in this era of Homeland Security how they can be ignoring that.
unidentified
Well, I agree.
There is a volunteer emergency infrastructure in this country that is maintained by ham radio operators.
And it's not really that much known about, but in terms of disasters, if it wasn't for the hams who established communications in the disaster areas, horrible things would happen.
Every hurricane that happens, Joe, inevitably the media is trying to report on what's going on in the area, and the first word coming out is always an AP story about a ham operator who's managing communications and getting word out about injuries and that kind of thing.
unidentified
Absolutely.
Any disasters in South America, the only way to contact down there is through ham radio operators.
The only way a ship at sea can contact the mainland, any mainland, in case of an emergency is through shortwave radio.
We have this wonderful constellation of satellites that gives us television and lets us talk on the telephone over long distances.
But in the case of a conflict or perhaps even an unhappy action from our sun, like a giant flare, we had one recently that had it been pointed toward Earth, would have fried every satellite in its path.
If we suddenly were without that fragile infrastructure, then this kind of communications is the only thing that could get through.
Am I wrong?
unidentified
No, you're absolutely correct.
And I'd like to take it a step further.
Whenever you take that next trip to Tokyo and you leave LAX and get on that big 747, and if you've been out for about an hour, he loses communications with his center and has to switch to HF, high-frequency, into report position and fuel state and stuff like that.
This is done all international flights.
And Air Rink, which handles that type of communication, has already had to shut down one of their systems there in Half Moon Bay, California because of interference.
There's about 30 cities that have trial experiments in it, and some of them as many as 100 homes, and most of them as few as four, three or four.
And they're doing the testing.
I have to admit, for your public listeners that are not up to the technical aspect of BPL, if I were the CEO of a power company, unless you use Manassas, Virginia, for example, where the power company is owned by the city, I would have to look at possible revenue sources.
And putting internet over my power lines, which I already own, is certainly something that I would want to look at.
But I would also want to look at both sides.
And the industry that's promoting it turns a very blind eye toward the interference issue.
And not only the interference that it creates, but the interference that it can receive.
And if you don't understand that, just go outside and break off the antenna off your car and see how well you hear this radio station you're listening to.
No, I've not heard a word other than the one comment made by the FCC people, and it was on the plus side.
And I have heard some talk about these smart appliances, and you already have the V-chip in your television set, so add one more chip, and now the networks will know what you're watching, and when you watch it, and when you turn your set off, and so on down the line.
I mean, representing ham radio operators, you would certainly imagine that your organization would have been a heavy lobby organization to the FCC trying to stop this or at least slow down enough so that we work something out.
unidentified
We've been doing that.
In fact, just a short while ago, last month, I was in Washington visiting with some of the congressmen, and also I was there at the initial rollout of the notice of proposed rulemaking.
I was at the commission when they announced all that.
But what I would like to see and what the league is going to push for is more awareness by the public, not just amateur radio.
We're not the one that's been damaged the most.
There's so many other services that are out there, and we're working with these people, and we've had one meeting already with what we would call an alliance of other shortwave users.
And what I would like to see is a committee formed in Congress to have hearings on it.
And I've talked to Congressman Walden from Oregon about that.
And Congressman Mike Ross from Arkansas, who's a ham radio operator.
And if we could get a hearing just going in Congress just to explain both sides, I think that would be extremely beneficial.
And that's one of the directions the league is going toward is this type of awareness and try to bring it to a higher level of information to the general public.
Let's see if we can quantify how much noise we're talking about.
This is just a little on the technical side, but I'll tell my audience right now, a lot of the AM stations that you're listening to, if you were listening on a receiver, would not be plus 30 dB in strength.
Now, they'd be a lot less than that, many of them.
And yet you're sitting listening comfortably.
This BPL noise that's going to be radiated, in a lot of cases, Jim, how strong will it be?
We're talking about the raising of noise level for the short, well, all across the short waveband from, again, from 2 to 80 megahertz, if not more.
How much noise are we talking about?
unidentified
Double.
You used the term 30 dB, and I know that's a scientific term, but some of our measurements have been as much as 57 to 60 dB, so that's virtually double.
And the way you could think about that is if you're going to a concert hall and you're by yourself and talking to your wife, rather, the conversation can happen.
But once the concert hall is filled, that's virtually impossible.
So that's what we're talking about, noise.
It's pollution.
What I refer to as spectrum pollution.
And if it was okay for me to, let's say, change the motor oil in my car and flush it down the toilet, well, who would know?
But if it happens across a million homes, everybody would know.
Sooner or later, I think somebody's got to take a look at what we call spectrum pollution.
We've got air pollution, we've got noise pollution, we've got water pollution, and now we need to take and address another aspect of our lives, and that's spectrum pollution.
Other than the fact that ham radio will be virtually wiped out along with CB, what other services, you know, I've got my own little list of things I thought would be affected.
Jim, what are the main services that you see being affected negatively?
unidentified
Well, the shortwave listeners, of course, they'll have a real problem with it.
But again, I go back to the rural America where the small volunteer fire department uses 47 megahertz, for example, to communicate from City Hall to the fire trucks, the small one- and two-man police forces, then the large infrastructure, the California Highway Patrol, for example.
There's just a myriad of services that use the spectrum that will be affected.
And I have to ask, where are these people right now?
I mean, are they waiting for the NTIA to come out, which is all the government stuff?
But I think the small municipalities should stop and take a look.
Do you have enough money in your treasury at City Hall to scrap your current communication system and buy something up in the 800 megahertz range, which would not be affected?
Well, they're going to be blindsided, many of them, aren't they?
In other words, they don't even see this coming.
Hat Jim, as badly as it's going to perhaps kill a ham radio, half the hams I talked to aren't aware of it, much less the general public and perhaps some highway patrol group somewhere.
They're going to get blindsided.
unidentified
That's true.
And I'm disappointed.
We've done everything we can as a national organization to publish it on our website, in our magazine.
But it's just like in the military, there's always the percentage that never get the word.
Wouldn't it be best for the audience, realizing the magnitude of what we're talking about tonight, to contact their senator, their congressperson, and I would say, hey, write to the FCC, except don't, because I just don't think the FCC is interested in listening to this side of it.
So what about Congress and the Senate, Jim, and both of you?
You think it's a way to go?
unidentified
I do.
I think the congressmen now are aware of it to some extent.
In any letter you might write, you need to explain what it is.
And one of the avenues I guess I would use is the spectrum is public.
It's not renewable, and they're not making any more of it.
So would you want to take and go and pollute Yellowstone or some of the other national parks?
It's a natural resource, and we need to take care of it.
I mean, why would Japan, which is a very technologically advanced society, right up there with us, if not beyond, in some areas, they tossed it out on its ear?
Surely our own government would have had to have reviewed why the Japanese threw it out, why other countries have thrown it out, but we're embracing it.
Why in the world would we take unshielded power lines, which run all across America, and intentionally introduce RF, radio frequency, that's going to radiate from them and virtually destroy the entire shortwave band?
Everything perhaps from 2 through 80 megahertz.
Any of the technicians out there know that's all there is.
I mean, that's the entire shortwave band gone in front of our eyes.
And then at the same time, they're going to come into every single American home, whether you want it or not, your electric socket is going to have two-way internet in it.
And if it doesn't, it's gonna have your neighbor radiating it.
So, with that, they can literally watch every single move we make, ultimately.
I mean, why not?
The electrical power's there, the communication capability, why, hell, they could plant a bug in your house and be watching what you do in downtown Bangkok or something.
We'll be back with Jim Haney and your phone calls.
He's president of the Avenue Radio Relay League, just one of the organizations concerned with what's, well, actually happening right now.
The Avenue Radio Relay League Coming up at the bottom of the hour, Dr. David Race Bannon, who is in Interpole.
This is going to be very interesting.
I've never talked to anybody who was an Interpole person.
They just don't talk very much.
But right now, Jim Haney, president of the ARRL.
Jim, welcome back.
And I would like, if I could, to take a few phone calls from the audience on this issue now that hopefully they understand it.
Is there anything you wanted to get on tonight, Jim?
Any fact you wanted to drive home that we haven't managed to get to?
unidentified
I think we've covered the subject pretty well.
It's something, like I said, that concerns us.
And as the American Radio Relay League, it's the number one job on our priority list right now is to make sure that all amateur radio operators and the public, as best we can inform them, are aware of BPL and the various problems it presents.
Greg was involved in the media coverage of the fires in California.
So he knows a lot about this, Greg?
unidentified
Well, I can tell you, if my means of communicating with the outside world, because my cell phone was no good during that week, and if my means of communicating with the outside world, that is ham radio, had been blocked by BPL interference, I would have been a most unhappy camper.
So I do have an axe to grind with this.
But a few questions have come up tonight.
There's been the question of why is the government turning a deaf ear towards the objections to this?
Why are we not paying attention to the problems that other countries have had?
Why would we allow spectrum pollution after all we've been through with the pollution of the air and the water?
And I'm here to point the fingers at corporate interest.
And I have some real problems with the way that the corporate world now exerts disproportionate influence on our government.
In fact, it's becoming a toss-up as to who's really in charge of our society, government or corporate interest.
And unfortunately, I think the balance is being tilted more towards the corporate.
Case in point, there really has been no mention of this in the national media.
This should be on the agenda of national discussion.
And yet, you're the only media outlet that I've heard so far that has mentioned this at all.
Now, if you think back, 10 years ago, when there was a major giveaway of a lot of the spectrum for digital television, there wasn't much discussion of that either.
And we're talking about spectrum that could have been worth, had it been auctioned off as has been done in the past with spectrum for broadcast, could have generated billions of dollars in revenue.
And the only media outlet that I ever heard bring it up was Harry Scheer on NPR, on public radio.
And you didn't hear about it on the mainstream media outlets.
Well, why?
Well, corporations pretty much own the national media.
There really isn't a lot of outlets for alternative viewpoints.
Now, I just got off the two meters with another ham here in Burbank, W6AIK, who pointed out that the real money to be made in this BPL scheme is not providing internet.
So when they say that, well, we may or may not make money on this, that's not very encouraging because the real money to be made in this scheme is the sale of information.
When the power companies can sell your information to a myriad of other entities, I mean, think of how valuable it would be for your health insurance provider to know how much mayonnaise you're consuming.
If your refrigerator can always keep your shopping list.
Now your refrigerator is snitching you out to your health insurance provider.
So there is a lot of money at stake here.
And so the corporations are going to exert as much influence as they can on the Commission and other government entities to make sure that this happens.
And I have a problem with that.
More and more, corporations are they seem to be only looking at the short-term returns and propping up their stock prices rather than in long-term sustainable growth.
Those that are members of the American Radio Relay League get our magazine and see our website.
I go to Washington fairly regularly and represent amateur radio to our elected officials.
And I feel somewhat inferior from the standpoint that we are a 501c3 organization, so we're not allowed to contribute to campaigns and re-elections.
But once I started going back in 2000 a lot, I get invitations from congressmen and senators all the time for a breakfast or a dinner or go to their hunting lodge and whatnot.
Well, so again, I'm trying to urge people at this point to contact Congress or their senator, write off a note, and say, look, please, at the very least, pause and have some hearings on the advisability of this BPL before it's pushed through and the American people are blindsided.
unidentified
That's exactly the way to do it, and do it in such a way that the representative in your district or your senator understands.
It doesn't take a long letter.
I know in the business world that I'm in and getting letters from him, don't write me a long letter.
Sometimes I don't have time to read it.
But if I've got a short one, but precise.
A professor told me one time the hardest letter to write is a short one.
And one thing I noticed, it reaffirmed something that I've been driving home during planning stages with people and organizations and government and law enforcement organizations that are planning to buy systems is don't throw away the point-to-point simplex radio systems.
And for your listeners, those are radios that are like walkie-talkie, where you can always put one radio up, even if you have to put an antenna on top of a firetruck ladder, you can talk from one radio to another without being dependent upon a lot of electronics that the trunk systems require.
And after Andrew, lots of repeaters, the old-fashioned repeaters, were knocked out, and the Navy even came in to do some help, some assistance in South Florida.
And it was only the point-to-point radios, the most basic, simple radios that worked.
And if BPL is going to threaten something like that, then we're out to lunch.
And my question is, is this, is that if there are so many agencies from FEMA to even the military, isn't the battle lines pretty well weighted to where the FCC cannot survive trying to jam this thing through, let alone the competition from the cable companies and the other people?
It seems to me that they're way outnumbered and this thing should not go through.
But on the other hand, it's an economic situation where, as I mentioned earlier, if I'm the CEO of a power company and I've got a grid in place and my stockholders say, hey, I want maximum return on my stocks, I've got to look at this.
And like I say, they haven't weighed in on this yet.
And everybody's just waiting to see what the NTIA is going to do.
People ask me, haven't you talked to the Department of Army or haven't you talked to the Navy or the Air Force or the Forestry Department?
And yes, we have.
But they have to make their comments through their representatives, which is NTIA.
FCC represents and governs the public end of it.
And I would think now that they've authorized or got a notice of proposed rulemaking out, and if this goes through, they've stepped on the NTIA, the government's toes, big time.
Great rare honor and pleasure to get in through Art Bell and Jim, of course.
Just a note from another caller that the control at the top, in my opinion, of course, is the military.
They're at the top of that ladder, the military.
Just like 1984 and the proverbial frog in the cold water that heats up and the frog finds itself dead, and that's why they're not still fighting what they were fighting before in life.
Does this come under Homeland Security, or am I just being paranoid about that?
I hope so, because the cheerleading at the Commission right now is just scaring everybody to death.
It really is.
So at this point, people should start writing their congresspeople and their senators and saying, please review BPL before we're blindsided, and it's already happened to us, as so many other things have in America.
West of the Rockies, you're on the air with Jim Haney.
Hello.
unidentified
Hi, Art.
Hello.
My problem with this is if shortwave is taken away, I don't want to sound too paranoid, but it seems to me that that's really our only source of uncensored news in this country.
Okay, Dieter, you're going to have to speak up good and loud.
You're not too loud, so yell at us.
That's good.
Yes, sir.
unidentified
Okay.
Yeah, I agree with what the previous caller just talked about in regards to you would not be able to listen to other shortwave broadcast stations.
And not only that, but what about amateur radio as well as some other radios being the last bastion of free, open, uncensored communication?
In other words, you're not forced into commercialized communications whereby you have to pay.
To me, it's one of the last open, free methods of communication.
The other thing I'd also like to point out is during 9-11, I'll never forget when that happened.
I left work and I rushed home.
I turned on my shortwave amateur rig, and I got to tell you, there were about a dozen emergency nets that covered the complete eastern coast of the United States from Maine all the way down to Florida and out to the Midwest, and communications on HF was the only way to do it, and it was excellent.
It cannot be emphasized enough that we need a wireless communications infrastructure that does not rely upon cell phone towers, repeaters, or satellites.
I was also watching television when the 9-11 occurred, and while they weren't showing the Pentagon, they were showing the Twin Towers.
And within a few minutes, I got a call from the Salvation Army, their national headquarters, wanting to know how many amateurs could I muster up and get up to the Pentagon.
That's where they were interested getting help right away.
And fortunately, we did.
Ham radio has been a passion in my life for a long time.
And many instances, I've had an opportunity to help somebody else.
And as one of our people pointed out, ham radio saves lives.
And we want to continue to be able to do that.
And it's an important part of the fabric of this nation, is to have this independent infrastructure that doesn't depend on all the high-tech type of communications.
And so to rip all this out from under us in a blindside move and just sort of wake up one day and have the end of all this is just completely unthinkable to me, Jim.
And again, when FEMA filed their comments, I thought, oh, thank God, you know, the government can't ignore that.
There's no way they can ignore FEMA saying that it can't communicate with its emergency network once this happens.
They can't ignore it.
And yet, man, they brushed that aside like yesterday's news.
unidentified
I would like to see you sometime try to get a hold of Alan Shark, who's the president of the PLCA, and see what his take or what he has to say about the interference issue.
They're going to be hearing a lot more from me and from you on this subject, Jim.
unidentified
Absolutely.
The league is, like I say, devoting a tremendous amount of its resources to educate and to make sure that our congressional people are fully aware of what's going on.
That's Jim Haney, president of the American Radio Relay League from the high desert.
We're about to take another adventure.
In the meantime, with regard to BPL, be sure and write your congressman or your senator and say, hey, hey, take a good, long, hard look at this before we do it, please.
unidentified
Riders of the storm.
Riders of the Storm.
It don't count me sad.
You know it don't count me sad.
It don't count me sad.
You know it don't count me sad.
But you may choose if you want to see the blues.
And you know it don't count me sad.
You don't have to shout or beat the vows.
You can even play them easy.
Get up out the past and all your sorrow.
The future will fly.
This is the month for presentation of Coast to Coast Again with Art Bell.
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Well, alright, in summary then, everybody, this BPL, the thing we've been talking about the past year and a half, is a threat to all of Shortwave.
All of it.
So you truckers, you guys who like CB, you hands out there, and then all of you, the general public, people who have all of this information passing technology in every single one of their electric sockets, you folks out there,
you folks who might be worried about the next attack on America and our inability to communicate with our emergency services should, you know, something happen, you might want to drop your congressperson, you really might on this one, or your senator, a little note saying, let's examine this BPL more carefully before jumping into the fire, huh?
In a moment, Dr. David Race Bannon, who holds a doctorate degree in Asian history from Seoul National University, a master's degree in computer science.
He's fluent in Korean and Japanese, has published books on political and military history of the region, as well as a martial arts encyclopedia and computer textbooks.
He has appeared on the Discovery Channel, which I dearly love.
Oh, what a great channel.
A ⁇ E, the History Channel, has also spoken on international security at world conferences from Berlin to Tokyo to Washington.
David's latest book, Race Against Evil, is an electric account of his nearly 20 years with Interpol.
From the streets of Marseille to the alleys of Seoul, he reveals how he battled terrorists and smugglers on the front lines of international crime coming right up.
You know, since America's entire communications, emergency communications infrastructure is threatened by this BPL thing, you might contact anybody you know in the media.
And I mean anybody you know in the media at the network level.
Have them contact Jim Haney, have them contact me, have them contact anybody.
Have them here this last hour and a half.
This story needs to be told nationally, and it needs to be told fast.
Wow, I have never spoken to a soul that worked for Interpol.
In fact, Interpol is kind of like another one of those sort of shadowy things that most Americans, you know, they hear about it in the movies and that's about it, really.
Interpol itself, its actual name is the International Criminal Police Organization.
It's been around since 1923, designed specifically to encourage cooperation between international law enforcement officers.
However, they also have their own officers.
As a matter of fact, in Spain, there are those recent terrorist bombings, and CNN's on the scene, and they're filming, and they see these agents wandering around.
They ask them where they're from, and they say Interpol, and disappear.
And naturally, it's very difficult for anyone to get an interview with an Interpol officer.
And when someone like myself writes a book about all of my years working for Interpol, the agency responds very negatively.
Well, at first they were veiled threats, and then ultimately they sent a number of Interpol officers to my home to encourage me to sign an affidavit that essentially denied the validity of the book.
They would then use that affidavit to get the publisher to pull the book from the shelves.
Actually, at the time, my Interpol supervisor of some 20 years, Jacques Deferre, and other colleagues came to my aid.
Over the course of two months, we ultimately ended up in Marseille, France, where we had acquired enough documentation from my Interpol supervisor, Jacques Deferre, to ensure and guarantee my safety and the safety of my family.
However, during the resulting struggle, Jacques Deferre was killed on May 10th of last year.
Oh, there were three agents who attempted to acquire the documentation, some 256 pages of material that Jacques had amassed over 30 years in the intelligence community.
They attempted to acquire this material, and during the resulting struggle, Jacques was shot and killed.
And although I was with Interpol for many years, my inside information doesn't even come close to someone like Jacques, who is a commissioner with the organization and actually helped create the sub-directorate for which I worked all these years.
He was something of a master spy, to use a melodramatic term.
Oh, well, I gave some of it to an intelligence agency here in the United States as a guarantee of my safety, and the rest of it, of course, is distributed among other intelligence officers as a guarantee of the safety of myself and my family.
However, there is some public information about Interpol that I think people might find shocking, and certainly I think they might be interested to know what the sub-directorate for which I worked was doing.
What were you doing?
Archangel was the code name of the sub-directorate because we always try to come up with really cool names, of course.
Yeah, and we were designed specifically to locate those who buy and sell children across international lines for the child sex slavery trade and also the resulting pornography that's sold.
The numbers are staggering and ghastly, and the problem has not gone away over the past 20 years, but gratefully has gotten more attention in the international media.
So you think that just for the sake of the question, the problem of trade in children and child pornography is not necessarily any worse by magnitude than it ever was, just more publicized?
For example, just last July, there was a special agent with the FBI who said that the numbers in the past 10 years have increased threefold, and perhaps that number is accurate.
I do know that because the nature of humanity is such that we often turn away from this type of atrocity, it can grow right before our eyes, and we continue to deny it.
And as a matter of fact, one of my colleagues over the many years, Henri Wolper with the French counterterrorist agency, the DSP, came forward after the publication of the book, one, validated everything that was in the book, and then said publicly that that type of vigilantism is something of which he never approved and never would.
And that public sentiment certainly exists regarding child sex slavery and regarding terrorists.
You may remember last year on February 3rd, the Time magazine cover story on the CIA's secret army clearly identified that the CIA has a list of terrorist leaders that the agency is authorized to kill.
This type of hit list mentality has existed with covert agencies for years, and Interpol has been just as guilty as others.
In my opinion, as far as Interpol is concerned, there is no doubt whatsoever that if they get their hands on members of terrorist cells, they torture them for information.
As a matter of fact, my years with Interpol, whether we were working with North Korean terrorists who use child pornography to fund their cell or with the actual producers of the child sex slavery rings, we would frequently torture them to acquire information about the network.
And when you're into that kind of situation, then torture or assassination, it just never goes down well.
But maybe there are times, I mean, if you're talking about airplanes crashing into buildings of the Pentagon or whatever might be coming our way, that's a hard world, but it's a real world, isn't it?
And because we dealt specifically with the child sex slavery rings, children as young as 18 months and on occasion even younger, infants that were kidnapped, tortured, and abused, frequently the material was photographed and sold across these international networks.
When you see that type of material, with these eyes, I've witnessed it.
Although I feel a dull horror and guilt at having taken the lives of other human beings, I also have a strong sense, especially when I was working for Archangel, that these types of individuals have crossed the line into human barbarity and have earned their punishment.
In what way, Dr. Bannon, was Archangel formed within the organization?
I mean, is this something where one agent sort of, I don't know, feels out another agent about how they feel on these kinds of subjects, assassination, torture, taking someone out, cleaning a problem off the face of the earth?
And there was other work that we did as well, but that was primarily our team's function.
Interpol itself has such a long and nefarious history, a shadowy history, even in the United States, where they were granted complete immunity from prosecution for any of their actions from President Reagan.
Because of this history, they tend to organize subdirectorates that do not communicate with other subdirectorates about their functions.
So although I do know that Commissioner Jacques DeFer began working against child sex slavery in 1979 when he founded the Archangel Subdirectorate, how he was then able to continue to acquire funding through the many years until 1991 when it was disbanded is something about which I'm ignorant.
Well, again, though, with regard to how recruiting is done, do they recognize that you seem to have particularly harsh emotions when working in this area?
And does someone come to you and say, look, we've got sort of an organization within an organization that takes care of these kinds of things.
Well, in my particular case, I had been recruited as nothing more than a snitch, just someone who would infiltrate smuggling rings in South Korea because I spoke Korean fluently at the time.
And because of that, I was connected with a smuggling ring in South Korea and other contacts in France, and I was therefore used really as nothing more than an undercover operative and a snitch.
Over the course of time, however, I was working with a French counterterrorist agency and fell in love with one of their agents, Shadet Rimbaud.
And Sid was killed during a joint operation against some North Korean terrorists in Marseille, France.
And these terrorists were using child pornography to fund their cells.
As I watched Sid die, literally in my arms on the streets of Marseille, after that, Jacques Deferre with Interpol, who had been using me previously as an undercover operative, approached me with something much more dramatic.
I had a number of skills that appealed to them, and he felt that I had been properly groomed for a different type of work within Interpol's organization.
And that's when I was made aware of the existence of Archangel.
And because of that, and this raw lust for vengeance, although at the time I was very confused, certainly, and felt deeply hurt over the loss of my fiancée, I was still fully prepared to take those negative emotions and apply them to what I was convinced at the time was a positive role.
Now, it sounds, when I'm listening between your words, it sounds like, I don't know, either you're sorry for some of what you did or you regret what you did or you have reservations now about the work you did.
Seven years of therapy later, I can talk about it.
My feelings are very complicated on this.
As I mentioned previously, there are many of the individuals that we targeted that I would come upon them as we tracked them actually in the act of abusing these children.
We would see the videos of their actions and certainly be filled with disgust and felt that our role was entirely justified.
Having said that, when you felt the dull, throbbing horror of taking another human being's life, no matter what the justification, it's difficult not to feel some remorse.
It grew for many years and grew to a point where I just couldn't stand to work with Interpol anymore and viciously worked my way out of the organization, which ultimately led to the death of my supervisor.
And the reason I published this book was for two reasons, actually.
One, that people need to be aware that these intelligence organizations and their military arms exist.
And two, I strongly believe that assassination teams and that type of work are not the answer to stop child sex slavery.
That the only way we can stop it is through awareness so that we as citizens of the world can band together to stop it.
Dr. David Race Bannon, an Interpol member for many, many years, here to tell us what Interpol is all about, more than I think you thought it might have been about.
I myself am a father, and if my daughter were a victim, as your son was, I suspect that my Feelings would be so raw and so intense that my actions would be far beyond anything that I did for Interpol.
Although my feelings were very strong and we sometimes felt very attached to these children, certainly the feeling of a parent is far beyond that.
There are a number of assignments about which I do not feel even an ounce of guilt.
However, I should say that for most of our assignments, 99% of them, we instead would leave evidence for what's known in Interpol as washer-dryers.
That is, the agents assigned to watch the subsequent investigation of the death of this individual.
Frequently, we would leave in plain sight much of the material, particularly the photographs of that individual molesting children, which frequently made for a very quick investigation by the homicide detectives in whichever country.
Often those homicide detectives were working in tandem with Interpol on the investigation anyway.
Well, I won't pretend that there isn't certainly an addictive nature to bloodlust, and that was encouraged.
As a matter of fact, there was an entire mechanism within the Interpol Subdirectorate, Archangel, that patted us on the back for a job well done.
And although I may have had a number of moral reservations for the actions that we were doing, I bought completely into the training.
Having said that, however, there were a number of occasions when, after completing an assignment, I was not only shocked at how I perhaps enjoyed eliminating this individual, but also at how we enjoyed torturing these individuals.
It is a great shame to anyone who has been involved in this type of work that they grow to enjoy it.
And that certainly wore on me, the dawning realization.
There is certainly an addictive quality to bloodlust and to the power involved when you have this entire organization behind you in performing these activities.
Although sometimes we performed alone or in teams, and if we were entirely alone in a country, we were known in the parlance of the trade as naked.
And many assassins would work in that type of situation.
Even so, you always know that there is safety as soon as you leave that country.
And as I said, a whole bunch of people are going to pat you on the back.
However, over the years, I saw so many of my colleagues killed.
As a matter of fact, I was told by Jacques Deferre shortly before he was killed that of the some 250 operatives for Archangel, all except myself and he were dead or missing.
A very high toll in human life.
And I saw also the heavy cost played on not only my colleagues, but friends and acquaintances who had nothing to do with this dirty business, but ended up either being affected by it or actually killed in the crossfire, so to speak.
They have issued only one statement about the book in which they viciously, vehemently, deny the existence of Archangel and of anyone mentioned in the book, including myself.
It's a very brief statement, but they have come forward absolutely and said they deny it categorically.
So there must have been a point, yet another point, when this caught up with you and you decided to talk to somebody at Interpol about what you were doing.
Well, my primary contact was always my friend, colleague, father figure, and enemy, all in one, my supervisor, Jacques Defer.
And over the years, we spoke frequently about the work I was doing.
And in 1989, the European Council became aware of the Archangel's existence.
And in their meeting in 1989, they said that this organization, quote, was above the laws of any land and not legally accountable for its acts.
And they insisted that Archangel be disbanded or they would curtail funding from Interpol.
And nothing is more powerful than pulling the purse strings.
And so over the course of two years, from 1989 to 1991, Archangel was slowly disbanded.
However, after that, the assignments I had were either with truly legitimate law enforcement cooperation or they continued to work in this rather shadowy type of assignment, although not under the auspices of Archangel.
Yeah, it may not be called Archangel Now in Interpol and other agencies of our government, but is there any question in your mind whatsoever that we continue the same sort of work today?
I must admit, Doctor, I have mixed feelings about it.
I'm not sure.
For example, with respect to information from Al-Qaeda, whether it requires torture or killing them, I don't think I have such a problem with that, Doctor.
I think, you know, all human beings understand what it's like to have mixed feelings on something, and I join the crowd.
There are people who have written many emails to my website saying I shouldn't feel any guilt.
And I recognize in my mind the justification for stopping these terrorist cells that use child pornography to fund their activities and for stopping this nefarious child sex trade that victimizes over 900,000 children across the world every year.
Let us, for a second, talk about pedophilia itself.
Is it your experience, doctor, that pedophilia can in any way other than being in jail or dead, be stopped from being, you know, have the recidivism stop, or is there no way to stop it?
This sounds harsh, and certainly I lack the psychiatric training to say anything other than in my experience.
Absolutely not.
These individuals will not stop.
And I say individuals because although we frequently equate this crime with males, our profiles identify that it was just straight down the middle, males and females.
And this particular dark, grotesque fetish crosses all socioeconomic, religious, and financial borders.
You never know who's going to be the type of individual that will either be, one, a consumer trader, that's the fourth grade teacher you hear about who's molesting local children and buying and selling porn on the web, child porn, and then the producers, they're the ones who actually buy and sell the children themselves across international lines.
And you just never know where they're going to come from.
But in my experience, to answer your question, Art, no, they won't stop.
Well, first and foremost, I think there just needs to be an awareness of the severity of this problem.
When aware of that problem as it exists and the huge numbers involved, parents can then be much more proactive in protecting their own children, although that's no guarantee either, which then brings us to the final payoff of awareness, which is much stiffer punishment, much more aggressive support of law officers as they track these individuals and stop them before they victimize another child.
Well, there have been some states, Doctor, I believe, that have recognized the fact that pedophilia, that it goes on and on and on.
It doesn't stop, and you can't seem to do anything to stop it.
And based on that, they go to jail once convicted and then out of jail, they go into some sort of a psychiatric facility where they don't get out.
They just don't get out.
Now, it's probably in the end going to be said to be unconstitutional or something or another, but maybe that's sort of society's last attempt within the law to be able to deal with this, recognizing that it never stops.
And there are certainly states that still have capital punishment within due process.
The nature of Archangel is that there was a total lack of due process, that we were indeed above the law.
And as Interpol President Jolly Beguerin said when he used an assassin for some of his own work, quote, in the fight against crime, we also use criminals, which completely eliminates any accountability of these organizations.
If within due process we can identify these individuals, either give them long-term psychiatric help where they're incarcerated and never get out, or if it's decided by a jury to use capital punishment.
That type of mechanism, I think, gives much more just punishment to these individuals.
Would it be your opinion, Doctor, that perhaps for this crime, for child pornography, for the trafficking in children when convicted of that crime, that perhaps the death penalty should be applied?
Very much so, because it crosses so many international borders.
And there have been a number of joint operations to stop these huge pedophile rings.
In 1998, I was involved in the sting of the Wonderland Club, which over 26 countries, they apprehended 108 individuals who were providing, as qualification for membership in this club, 10,000 images of child pornography, 1,000 of which had to be the member applicant actually involved in molesting children.
And the Wonderland Club Sting was a very positive action that worked within the law.
And in the subsequent trials afterwards, however, a number of the individuals, even though it was just in 1998, are already free and back on the streets.
Frequently, mistakes in trial, and there are some countries that have much more lax laws about this type of crime.
As a matter of fact, in Pakistan and Afghanistan until recently, and Thailand in particular, child prostitution is completely legal.
Buying and selling an infant for the sex trade is within the law in those countries.
And so you have an individual who can kidnap an American child, and it's estimated that 10% of the missing children in the United States are sold overseas for the child sex trade at about $30,000 per child.
They can then take that child to a country where it's legal, and if they remain in that country, they cannot be prosecuted.
Once again, Dr. David Raisbannen, Doctor, you, when you work for an agency of that sort, and particularly part of that agency as sensitive as Archangel, so you're leading a double life, really.
I mean, you've got a home life.
You've probably got a wife.
At some point, you begin to have a daughter on the way and then born.
So you've got a family, and surely they don't know your friends.
And as a matter of fact, years later, when it all came out, certainly when I published the book, most of my family members, particularly my parents, just had a great sense of relief because so much was explained.
And as much as I hate to say it, there's just scars all over my body from the many occasions where, as effective as I tried to be, those we were tracking were also effective.
I've spent much more time in the hospital than I care to admit.
I was involved in an assignment where we were tracking a double agent who was working for Interpol and was also a North Korean mole.
During the confrontation, I was captured, taken in South Korea, and taken across the border to North Korea, where I spent three days in a North Korean slave labor camp, where they tortured me to acquire information regarding Interpol and Interpol's knowledge of North Korean moles within South Korea.
With regard to torture, Doctor, is it a lot of people wonder, I mean, ultimately, is it possible for a human being to be tortured up to the edge of death, and of course many times over the edge, and not give up the information?
I mean, is that humanly?
Is it humanly possible?
And if it is, in what percentage of the cases?
I mean, how many people can withstand that kind of torture?
Our enemies certainly are not bothered at all by resorting to torture.
So I guess you have to ask, should we be restricted and not able to use that method to extract information on the one hand, when on the other hand, it could mean hundreds, thousands, even millions of American lives?
And from my experience, Art, I'll give you one example.
It's in the first chapter of my book, as a matter of fact.
We tracked a producer of child pornography to London.
I was assigned to track this individual and extract as much information as possible.
And this was the type of guy who would buy and sell children across international lines.
Over the course of three hours, when this individual was tortured, the information we received opened up a network that led to either the apprehension or elimination of literally hundreds of individuals all across The world.
My subsequent assignments for months after that were after the individuals that he had named within his network in New York, in Seoul, South Korea, in Thailand, and all across the globe, Berlin, Ghana, etc.
So, in that particular case, torture supplied us with the information that helped save the lives of thousands of children.
And then you enter this gray area where the world is not filled with absolutes, and you see that perhaps, on occasion, the end may indeed justify the means.
I wrestled with it for a long time, and certainly having published this book, I'm sure it will haunt me for many years in a negative way.
And in a positive way, I'm absolutely convinced I did the right thing.
There has been a dramatic increase in awareness of child trafficking because people like myself and many others have come forward to talk about the facts.
And also, on a much more personal note, Art, it's something like a confession for me.
I believe that many of the actions of which I'm guilty cannot be expunged until I am willing to tell the world the truth.
But I understand the urge to tell all, or if not all, at least as much as you were able to.
But, Doctor, then, you know, this sort of thing is still going on, and surely your book did that cause, that particular cause, some at least temporary harm.
And after the publication of the book, there were indeed attempts on my life.
Oh, there were.
And having said that, although I was very worried for my own safety and the safety of my family, I still chose to publish the book because I think that when an organization like Interpol is allowed this type of secretive power, using it against child slavers may be justified.
But what is to stop them using it against their own ex-agents like myself or any other target they deem above the law?
And that was the line that I felt that perhaps Interpol had crossed, which I could not bear.
Well, at that time in Rangoon, the president of South Korea at the time, Jung Doo Huan, was scheduled to meet with other Asian leaders for a conference.
In Rangoon, a bomb went off that killed a number of individuals.
This is in 1983.
At that conference, the president of South Korea wasn't there.
At the same time, North Korean terrorists were planning on firing off other bombs in Seoul as a joint effort, very similar to what happened in 9-11, a joint effort across the country and across various countries.
And so this was just one of the many assignments that these terrorists had been given.
Some of the bombs successfully went off, such as Rangoon.
And in this one, I was able to stop her from detonating the bomb.
Physical force was required, and ultimately, lethal force was required.
After She was eliminated.
Two other North Korean agents were able to apprehend me, who were working in tandem with her.
Well, the two other North Korean agents had intended on escaping to North Korea.
They had an escape plan all set with the third agent.
With the third agent dead, they instead used me.
They stuck me in a box, and I recall waking and feeling water, and then later waking again in a truck, and ultimately we were pulling up in that truck into the North Korean slave labor camp.
I found out later from my colleagues in the South Korean Secret Service that they had used a raft and then ultimately a boat that had been waiting specifically to assist their escape to transfer me to the slave labor camp.
And over the course of many years, I do find that I agree with you, Art.
When we uncovered terrorist cells that were using child trafficking and child pornography to fund their activities, we found that these terrorists, whether North Korean or Chinese or whatever country, they were more than willing to sacrifice their own lives.
Because of that, it has cost the lives of many counterterrorist agents all across the world, and perhaps it is the only answer to deal with that type of fanaticism.
Korea, right now, is the one great unfriendly nation that has most recently acquired atomic weapons.
We believe them to have quite some number at the moment and probably manufacturing more and playing games politically about whether they're going to disassemble what they have or not.
But when you look at the North Korean dispatches, it sounds like the North Korean government is crazy.
I mean, they're just blinking crazy.
They are.
So you're saying they are.
In other words, these are people with atomic weapons.
How much concern should the American people have that if the North Koreans get the opportunity, they're going to use them?
Oh, there is a long history in North Korea ever since they were created in 19, well, they claim 1950, we say 1953, whichever.
There's a long history there of very, very strident militaristic activity and a belief that if you have the power but refuse to use that power, you are weak.
And I'll give you a quote from Kim Il-sung, who was North Korea's self-proclaimed great leader until he died in 1994.
After the Korean War armistice in 1953, and when the hostilities finally stopped in 1954, Kim Il-sung was quoted in the Chosun Shin Moon as saying, this is quote, the United States had atomic weapons but were too cowardly to use them during the Korean War.
Someday we, that is North Korea, someday we will challenge them and they will not have the courage to face the might of our people.
That is the type of rhetoric that has been for the past 50 years rampant in North Korea.
The only way to deal with them is to combine with China and take a hard line on this issue of weapons of mass destruction.
Although it's all come out in the last year, anyone in the intelligence community can tell you they've had a weapons of mass destruction program for 50 years.
They had it 20 years ago when I was there.
And they fully intend to use them.
And the only way to stop them, and I stridently urge this, is to work with China to stop them.
We were able to negotiate with the Soviet Union before its collapse and still continue negotiations with the Russians who have a nuclear arsenal.
But we found that there are some dictatorships, and in particular, some dictators, whose actions defy any logic that we can follow, and more to the point, seem to go out of their way to aggressively defy any type of nuclear arms convention or chemical weapons convention.
North Korea right now has a Tepodong-2 missile, and to give you a sense of what that is, according to the CIA, that missile, its two-stage version, could hit any point in North America along the western seaboard.
That seems alarmist, however, people in the intelligence community have known it for quite some time.
And in the first day of any conflict, they could rain 300,000 to 500,000 artillery cells just on South Korea alone.
When we say, how could they do this?
Are they just crazy?
That was the thought right after World War II.
We thought that North Korea would certainly not invade South Korea when the pact along the 38th parallel had been struck and agreements had been reached and North, or excuse me, the United States was poised to defend its interests in South Korea.
North Korea invaded anyway.
The difference, however, is at that time they had the backing of China.
And over its long history, the Korean Peninsula has rarely jumped without asking China how high.
In this occasion, China has taken a stance against North Korea's aggressive posturing.
And it is through China that we need to reach a balanced agreement to disarm the North Koreans.
One of them by computer, a couple of good questions actually.
Please ask if U.S. organized crime are big players in child trafficking.
Now, I don't know much about the mob, Dr. Bannam, but I always heard it was kind of a loose code even within the mob in this country, you know, organized crime that they didn't do this kind of thing.
Organized crime certainly will invest in anything where there's a high return.
And that's why terrorist cells are involved in the child sex trade, because there's a high return.
Having said that, in our experience, we found that most of the networks were not directly involved with what we would call the mafia in this country.
There may have been peripheral involvement, but the primary producers tended to be working within their own network outside of traditional organized crime organizations.
and I know how bloodthirsty this sounds, but we must continue in the track we've been taking, which is to aggressively infiltrate these networks as much as possible and, if not torture, find other means to prosecute these individuals and, if necessary, eliminate them.
I recognize that's a bloodthirsty stance, and there may be many people who disagree, but in this case, we're talking about saving not just thousands, but tens of thousands of lives if we can stop these fanatics from infiltrating within the U.S. borders and taking lives.
Interpol sub-directors like Archangel choose their own recruitment methods.
They identify people that either have the language skills, the moral ambiguity, the natural inclination, et cetera, and then aggressively pursue those individuals and recruit them.
So there is really no way to just sign up.
And also, I should stress this.
On air, it may sound satisfying to eliminate these individuals, but this life of deceit and lies and violence, although perhaps walking that line protected innocence, it also carries a heavy burden on the soul of the individuals we ask to walk that line.
Oh, I think ultimately everyone must come to terms with it on their own.
And some people have come to terms with it through macho posturing.
And others come to terms with it in their own quiet way.
Because each individual has their own moral beliefs, their own religious beliefs, and their own experiences, I think that ultimately we all have to learn to live with it.
If weapons of mass destruction, Doctor, really were the motivation, the main motivation, as we stated when we attacked Iraq, did we attack the wrong country?
I have found that there's been enough requests for another book that certainly we're working on one now with the clever title Race Against Time rather than Race Against Evil.
In this case, we're going to zoom forward in time to just last year and use the framework of everything that happened last year leading to the death of my supervisor, Jacques Deferre, as he and I literally raced to acquire documentation to protect and guarantee the safety of myself and my family.
Well, within the intelligence community, it is very difficult to leave that secret world, and certainly Interpol is furious with me.
However, many intelligence officers will tell you that their loyalties ultimately are not to their organization, but are loyalties based on experience to other intelligence officers.
And so because of that, there are other intelligence officers who have this material and have made it very clear that they are willing to use it should anything happen to me.
And number two, I'd like to know if you have ever heard of a rogue intelligence agency within our own country having dealt with kidnapping and transporting children overseas.
And certainly the financial motivation is very powerful because the sums involved are in the billions of dollars.
That's billions of dollars.
And anyone who listened to President George Bush's UN address last September 23rd heard him use just that phrase, billions of dollars.
There's so much money involved that if someone is willing to swallow any moral objections, they can literally become millionaires within a very short amount of time by trafficking in these innocent children.
And I wanted to sort of make a comment and ask a question.
being from Arizona, the child pornography issue is really an outrage to me because our state voted Sandra Day O'Connor as its person of the year after she was the swing vote to lift a ban on child pornography on the Internet.
And I just didn't quite understand the mentality of while we were getting ready to go to war.
Well, what the argument was was the fact that the case was that they were arguing it was their freedom of speech that they could put these pictures on the Internet because what they were doing was they were not using the actual complete body of the child.
Okay, so you're not talking about real child pornography.
You're talking about pseudo-child pornography, where they take the face of somebody over 18 or something like that who looks very young and morphs it in with another body like that, right?
He's referring to the Child Pornography Act of 1996 that made it illegal for any visual depiction that appears to be a minor to be transferred over the Internet.
And then in 2002, that Child Pornography Act was declared unconstitutional, and virtual or digital pornography was held to have constitutional protection.
That is, images that were created or morphed using digital technology but did not represent real children.
I recognize that there are those who would say, well, it's only animation or it's digital, et cetera.
However, that technology can make things seem so real that an individual who may already be unbalanced can view that and desensitize their natural abhorrence of the act to the point where they may convince themselves to go outside and victimize a child.
Well, the laws that are in place against child pornography of real children are very stringent and not in question here.
We're talking about those laws that only deal with animation or digital make-believe.
I believe that, yes, anyone who wants to take an aggressive stance on this should contact their congressman.
If you go to my website, davidbannon.net, and it's a link right there on Coast to Coast, on our information page, there's a link where you can just type in your zip code and it will provide for you your local representatives.
I strongly encourage anyone to take a stance on this and let them know that if that one act was unconstitutional, let's find a way to stop it that is within the Constitution.
You obviously still have very strong feelings about all of this.
So no matter what water went under the bridge during the years when you worked, it really hasn't changed At all, the way you feel about all this, has it?
When it comes to the victimization of innocent children, I personally believe that those individuals have sacrificed any rights they have to be part of the human experience.
You blowed it all sky high By telling me a lie To help the shadow There's no way You'll come to me Baby, you'll see Without you, baby, baby Who's gonna help you through the night?
Without you, baby, mama Who's always there to make it?
Without you Who's gonna love you, love you?
Who's gonna love you, love you?
Who's gonna love you, love you?
Who's gonna love you?
This is an encore presentation of Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell.
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From coast to coast and worldwide on the internet, this is Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell.
My guest is Dr. David Race Bannon, and believe me when I tell you, you don't frequently get to hear an interview like this.
More in a moment.
Once again, Dr. David Race-Bannon, Doctor, your book, I take it, is generally available, is it not, in, I don't know, Amazon.com, all the usual places.
People who've read it have been very generous in not only their praise of myself, but in their growing aware, through this growing awareness of child trafficking, they've been actively involved.
I get many emails from people who have aggressively pursued means within their community to distribute brochures from the National Center for Missing Exploited Children, to write their senators, etc.
And that is perhaps the greatest reward I could have for this book, that people are aware and taking action.
At age 18 and a half and 19 years old, when I first joined Archangel, I was so sure I was doing the right thing, and I had very strong emotional reasons for pursuing that action.
When I think of the young children we were able to save, when I think of even one child in New Orleans in 1998 that we saved, I do believe very strongly that it was well worth the cost.
I was initially tuned in this evening and was shocked and very horrified about what I heard.
And I found myself judging you.
And I realized that, you know what, I cannot judge you.
I have never been where you've been.
I have never even contemplated such horror that you have seen, sir.
And that I don't think anybody has the right to judge you, sir.
And I don't think that you ever, ever, ever have to defend your actions.
And furthermore, my father and grandfather were in the war and lived through it, yet it killed them in the long run through the pain they endured.
And I understand.
I still don't agree with torture, but I understand that there are no short, easy answers in a world that we have to deal with such crimes and such things of this nature.
And that there, I used to judge the movie, it's still one of my favorites apocalypse now, but I understand now what Colonel Kurtz character was saying when he said, you know, if we can separate judgment and malice and just do the action,
the horrific action, the evil deed without The intention of evil, if our intentions are pure, of the good nature of the outcome is in our heart when we do an evil thing to an enemy, then God understands.
Along those lines, Doctor, I watch, like many in my audience, I'm sure, Law and Order.
You know, the whole series, I love the whole series, Law and Order.
And one of the variations of Law and Order is it deals with heinous sexual crimes, you know, the special victims unit part of Law and Order.
And those people who are depicted who deal frequently with crimes against children, you know, their lives are emotionally shredded, totally, emotionally shredded.
Everything else aside, the horrors they see and deal with so affect their lives that I just, I swear I don't know how they can do the job.
And an excellent point, Art, and one that deserves special and careful thought, especially when people say, well, I'd like to get into that line of work to protect innocent children.
That is a worthy and virtuous desire, but one must take into account the heavy cost to one's soul at witnessing this.
As I worked undercover on assignments, it was required of me to act as though I were also a child sex slaver, that I was also enjoying these video images and photographs, etc.
And sometimes I was filled with such disgust that I would be shaking, and those criminals whose organization I was infiltrating assumed that that shaking was some type of sexual excitement when actually it was discussed.
And those images will stay with me all of my life.
And as you said, emotionally shredded.
I myself turn to religion and have found some comfort there, but I think that ultimately anyone who is involved in this type of work will have to pay a price in emotional and spiritual terms.
Well, within Archangel, there was definitely no coming back for any of us.
We all passed that gate, usually within our first couple of assignments.
I suspect for legitimate law officers, what I've read is that there's a burnout rate of about three to five years for those who work on what is called the Innocent Images Program in the Federal Bureau or the Crimes Against Children units.
West of the Rockies, you're on there with Dr. David Rays-Bannon.
unidentified
Hi.
Yeah, hi.
Maybe we should all do a group prayer for the doctor's sake of the doctor and his family, you know, just to send some good energy his way because I really believe that he's doing the right thing.
You know, I talked to you once before, and you mentioned an FBI unit that could be reached for, if you know someone who's an offender, like in the United States.
And also, you know, would they go, you know, could they...
There's this mix of the alphabet soup of spy agencies.
And there's a lot of work together.
The Interpol structure within the United States, the United States National Central Bureau of Interpol, reports to the Department of Justice and therefore frequently works with the Innocent Images Program with the FBI.
Having said that, however, Interpol officers are not answerable to U.S. laws, and therefore there's frequently a lot of animosity between the tactics employed by Interpol versus the legal structure of the FBI.
I guess you already answered my question right after the break, but when you were talking about children being sold overseas as sex slaves for money, you're saying that some of these children are children from here in the U.S. that have disappeared and have never been found?
And I would point listeners to my website, davidbannon.net.
Click on the library section and you'll see reams of documentation on this.
Perhaps the most telling is from the University of Pennsylvania, which working with the University of Montreal and the U.S. Department of Justice, found that about 10% of the missing children in the U.S. are trafficked overseas for about $30,000 each.
And within the United States, 268,000 children are bought and sold in the sex trade.
And we're talking about very young children as well as the 12 and 13-year-olds that are recruited and used in states for prostitution.
Certainly it's easier to smuggle children out of certain countries than others.
And we do have a lot of very hardworking law officers in this country working to prevent that traffic.
Whereas in other countries, it's either legal or if it's illegal on the books, it's kind of a wink and a nod where they allow the traffic, even though it's on the books illegal.
And I want to thank you for your work and the suffering that your soul must go through because I have my oldest child, a boy, was molested between the ages of two and two and a half in daycare.
And he actually blew the whistle.
And I pursued it along with a group of 20 parents, but I was the only one to stake the course and ultimately change the law in the state of Colorado regarding children's testimony and how it could be done through professionals.
You know, Doctor, if people suspect that something's going on, would it be the FBI that they would go to if they have information on suspect child trafficking or something as horrible as that is going on?
As a matter of fact, during the course of this show, I got an email from a listener who said that he's attempted to tell local law enforcement, he's attempted to get attention, and feels that there's been no response.
Perhaps it comes down to reaching the right people.
In that case, I would strongly encourage listeners who have information first to go to cybertipline.com.
The CyberTipline is used in association with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, which is at missingkids.com.
And they have, over the past five years, seen an increase of some 750% of reports.
And I think that the problem hasn't changed.
It's that people are more aware.
When they go to CyberTip Line, that information is automatically distributed to local law enforcement from where you report it, as well as to the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Crimes Against Children's Special Units.
That is one of the most proactive ways to get response.
Say, for instance, you said that these individuals were all of different power, structure, money, financing, and all sorts of things.
Say, for instance, you went through the legal terms of it and you tried to prosecute this guy, and you knew he was guilty of hundreds and hundreds of crimes, but he was to get off.
Would Archangel still try and cleanse this guy, even if it didn't work through the legal ramifications?
That was the reason Archangel was created in the first place to identify, prosecute, and, if necessary, eliminate individuals who may be considered, to use a melodramatic term, above the law.
unidentified
Okay, so even if he went through the court system, you still knew he was guilty, you still would took him out?
But yes, even if someone went through the legal system, if there was absolute proof this individual were guilty, and we're talking about eyewitness reports and unaltered video and photographic images, the technical arm of Archangel Rosetta would assign a dossier to a cleaner and the individual would be eliminated.
unidentified
Okay, one more question.
Are you aware of CISS or CSIS, or I think they're called here in Canada, or the RCMT being involved at all with Interpol?
I mean, there have been a number of referendums that have sailed right through and had the approval of just gigantic percentages of a state, for example, sir.
And the moment that the referendum is passed, the courts overturn it.
unidentified
That's why you need to use the electronic initiative and referendum to recall the judges that would throw it out.
It's the only way to keep up and surpass the political bureaucracy.
But it has to put at the speed of light speed, not signing petitions that get torpedoed by your competition by illegal signature.
In China, they take a strong stance against it publicly, but in actuality, the traffic in children in China is booming.
Just last March, a year ago, some 23 infants, three months and younger, were found in suitcases being trafficked on a train where they were going to be sold all across southern China.
And so there's a number of countries where they say it's illegal, but it's not, and others where they just simply embrace it, such as Thailand.
And although I lack the moral authority or theological training to address that particular aspect of it, I can say this.
There are those who have apologized for Thailand and said that when parents sell their two-year-olds, they do not realize they're selling them to the brothels.
However, on assignment in Thailand, I have seen parents taking their children right to the doorstep of the brothels to sell them.